#and its not all russian/soviets or even all soviet women. just specifically this kind. like i said iykyk

[usafphantom2]

Complete guide to fighters in "Top Gun: Maverick"

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 04/16/22 - 9:19 PM in Fun, Military

On May 27, the long-awaited film "Top Gun: Maverick" which had its premiere delayed three times, should finally arrive on the movie screens. Find out which fighters will appear in the movie.

In this sequel to the 1986 classic, Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell (Tom Cruise) returns to the cockpit of the U.S. Navy fighters to train a new group of young aviators in charge of what seems to be some kind of extremely dangerous mission.

The "Top Gun" franchise is obviously a work of fiction set in a universe with very different Navy regulations and even geopolitics (the conclusion of the first film should probably have started a new World War in another way).

It has been a long time since we were introduced to a high-budget action film focused on real-world tactical aircraft and the incredible men and women in charge of piloting them at the limit of human and technological capacity. "Top Gun" may not be real, but the fighters that these pilots take into the fight are, and movies like this offer us a way to take a peek into the incredible world of fighter aviation - even if it comes with some exaggerations.

The first Top Gun featured very real fighters (even if some were invented)

The original "Top Gun" was more than a highly successful film, it also ushered in a golden age of U.S. Navy aviation recruitment. The film did such a good job of selling young Americans the idea of flying on combat planes that some recruiters even set up tables outside theaters to get involved with the movie buffs when they left the movie. The fascination of the incredible performance of the F-14 Tomcat alone was enough to inspire many aspiring aviator to consider wearing a Navy uniform.

The MiG-28 from the 1986 film Top Gun.

Tomcat's competitor in the 1986 film, however, was not as real as the F-14A. The MiG-28, boasting a black painting and a seemingly Soviet red star on its tail, never existed and should also not appear in the new film, but it is good for remembering the iconic hunt.

Okay, it's not technically true: the aircraft portrayed as the MiG-28 in "Top Gun" is a real aircraft, but it's not a MiG. Damn, it's not even Russian. In fact, it is another fighter in the U.S. arsenal, the Northrop F-5 Tiger II, which still performs flights as opponents in training against U.S. Navy pilots.

Obviously, Paramount Pictures failed to get their hands on a real MiG-29, which was built specifically to face capable American fighters like the F-14, and in the days when visual effects could turn almost anything into reality, they needed something to position themselves as a capable opponent. Compared to the massive and powerful F-14, the small and agile structure of the F-5 made it an excellent response to Tomcat's brute force.

"Top Gun: Maverick" will feature the 5th generation Russian fighter, the Su-57

This time, it seems that Maverick and the rest of the Navy crew in "Top Gun: Maverick" will be facing a real foreign aircraft in the Sukhoi Su-57, NATO Felon name. Earlier, we reported that this seemed likely, based on the toy lines that hit stores before the original release date of the film in June 2020. Of course, just like in the first film, the filmmakers were unable to get their hands on a real Su-57 - after all, Russia has only about 14 of them in total - so the villainous stealth jet is a recreation in computer graphics.

It seems almost likely that "Top Gun: Maverick" will paint the Su-57 as a formidable enemy, potentially even in close combat with an F/A-18 Super Hornet from Maverick and company. This would be perfectly in accordance with the popular perceptions of this aircraft, even if not necessarily according to the mediocre reality of the Felon.

The Su-57 is easily the worst of the 5th generation fighters in the world, thanks in large part to Russia's struggles to develop the means to mass aircraft with the incredibly rigid production tolerances required by poaching jets. The aircraft was originally proposed in a joint venture between the Russian and Indian governments, but India gave up the program in 2018, when rumors arose that the new fighter (known at the time as PAK FA) was simply not stealthy enough to justify its expense. To this end, expert evaluations placed the cross-section of the Su-57 radar at approximately 0.5 square meters - about 5,000 times larger than the F-22 Raptor and almost on the same level as Maverick's new F/A-18 Super Hornet.

Stealth problems are not the only problem of the Su-57 - delays in Russia's 5th generation engine program have left its fleet of Felons operating the same AL-41F1 engines found in the 4th generation Su-35S not stealthy, but highly capable. An analysis by Rand Corporation of the aircraft's advanced set of 360-degree sensors postulates that the system itself also remains incomplete, probably hampered by international sanctions imposed on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, and these problems will certainly be exacerbated by deeper cuts, sanctions and financial penalties imposed on the nation after its recent large-scale invasion of the same nation.

However, despite the problems of the Su-57, it should be remembered that the Russian doctrine of air war does not rely as strongly on stealth as that of the United States, and the Su-57 remains extremely difficult to detect when it approaches head-on, as it could during a hunting interception. Combine this with thrust vector control, allowing fantastic once target maneuverability and a thrust-to-weight ratio comparable to the Super Hornet and it is clear that the Su-57 would not turn into scrap with virtually any 4th generation fighter.

The Su-57 is said to reach Mach 2, with the ability to transport 6 weapons internally without compromising its stealth profile.

Maverick's new jet is an F/A-18 Super Hornet

The original "Top Gun" may have left viewers longing for the F-14 cockpit, but with Tomcat's retirement in 2006, Maverick's five-decade career now puts him behind the joystick of the U.S. Navy's F/A-18E Super Hornet.

The Super Hornet is a direct successor to the successful F/A-18 Hornet, but although they look similar, the Super Hornet is practically a totally different aircraft. With a 20% larger fuselage, the Super Hornet carries 33% more fuel and burns it more efficiently, ensuring 41% more range or 50% more flight resistance in combat patrol (ability to enter combat without having to refuel). It can carry 15,000 pounds more than its predecessor Hornet, making room for a series of avionics upgrades, and its improved General Electric F414 engines (an update over Hornet's F404), provide 35% more boost in most of the aircraft's flight envelope.

In other words, Boeing took a very capable aircraft and made it significantly better. As we have already discussed, the Super Hornet is widely claimed to carry a radar cross-section of something between 0.5 and 1 square meter, which puts it not far from Russia's Su-57 in a direct comparison. However, the Super Hornet must carry its ammunition externally, which will certainly make it much easier to detect on the radar than the Felon.

The Super Hornet, or Rhino, as it is known by Navy pilots, thanks to its heavier weight and rhinoceros-like overhang coming out of the front of the fighter radome, was called an "80%" solution to the U.S. Navy's long list of problems at the end of the life of the F-14. It lacked the power, speed and range of the Tomcat, but with a maximum speed of Mach 1.5 and enough hardpoints to carry 11 weapons (five more than the Su-57 while maintaining stealth) it proved to be a very capable multimission jet. In fact, he was a U.S. Navy pilot in a Super Hornet that marked America's only air-to-air slaughter in decades when he shot down a Syrian Su-22 in 2018.

"Top Gun: Maverick" will also feature the F-35C

Another assumption that can be made thanks to the Matchbox toy line has apparently been confirmed by Paramount film crews working aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln: "Top Gun: Maverick" is likely to feature the Lockheed Martin F-35C.

The F-35C is the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier-embedded version of the stealth Joint Strike Fighter, boasting a larger wing area than its sister jets, a more robust landing gear and, of course, the hook requirement for aircraft carrier landings. This extra wing area allows slower approaches to the aircraft carrier, but also provides the additional benefit of extra internal fuel storage - granting the aircraft carrier version of the JSF more than 8% of fuel than the air force version dependent on the airstrip and a huge 35% more fuel than the short-run/vertical landing F-35B used by the Marine Corps.

The F-35C is powered by a Pratt & Whitney F135-PW-100 post-combustion turbofan engine capable of achieving an impressive 43,000 pounds of post-combustion thrust, and has a small radar cross-section (although larger than the F-22) by about 0.0015 square meters. It can carry only four weapons internally, maintaining a stealth profile, however, and due to concerns about damage to its radar absorbent coating, this jet is largely limited to subsonic speeds, except in emergency situations. If asked to do so, the F-35C could overcome the Super Hornet in a race, with a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, but would have the cost of its low observability (its radar absorbent coating begins to crack and peel under the intense heat caused by air friction at these speeds).

But what the F-35C lacks in old-fashioned combat power, it more than compensates with incredible data fusion and computing power. The F-35 offers greater situational awareness than any other tactical aircraft on the planet, collecting data from a wide variety of ground, marine, air and even space sensors and merging everything into a single and easy to navigate display directly in the pilot's field of view. In a very real way, flying the F-35 is almost like a video game, complete with red squares appearing around bandits, green squares around the good ones and a variety of real-time data displayed on a heads-up display and the aircraft's huge touchscreen console.

The F-35 is widely presented as a "quarterback in the sky" thanks to its vast computing power that allows you to build a complete view of the battle space, which the F-35 pilots use to help improve the awareness of all friendly aircraft in the area. The F-35 raises the information tide for all allied assets, making its 4th generation wings more deadly than they could otherwise be.

The Su-57 may be a little more stealthy than the Super Hornet, but compared to the F-35, the Felon can be a bright neon sign. How this aircraft will fit into the fight we will see in "Top Gun: Maverick" is not yet known, but it will probably be flying in support of Mav and his friends in their Rhinos.

The crazy jet you see in some trailers is called "DarkStar" and may be a hypersonic clone of the SR-72

In another Matchbox preview found in the toy section is the Darkstar aircraft shown only briefly at the end of some of the trailers for the film. The jet is clearly not based on anything in operation today...

Based on the shock wave visible when the jet passes through the trailer, it seems likely that this exotic-looking aircraft will introduce hypersonic platforms into the Top Gun universe. Supersonic aircraft (such as the F-14 Tomcat of the "Top Gun" and the F/A-18 Super Hornet) are able to fly faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1). Hypersonic aircraft travel much faster - above Mach 5, or about 3,838 miles per hour.

The Darkstar of "Top Gun: Maverick" bears a remarkable resemblance to the actual effort to put on the field a successor to Lockheed Martin's legendary SR-71 Blackbird, the SR-72.

The SR-72 must be a hypersonic aircraft with Mach 6 capacity that depends on dual-mode ramjet propulsion, not much different from Hermeus' latest efforts to field a Mach 5 passenger aircraft. Much like hypersonic (perhaps excessively trendy) missiles developed by nations such as China, Russia and the United States, vehicles moving at these incredible speeds would be almost impossible to intercept using existing air defense technology.

Lockheed Martin confirmed that engine tests had already taken place for the SR-72 in 2018. In fact, the U.S. Air Force announced work on a reduced technology demonstrator in 2013, but despite Lockheed Martin's very optimistic statements over the years, no real SR-72 has ever manifested itself (at least to the public's knowledge). The Darkstar certainly seems to be based on Lockheed Martin's concept art for the SR-72, suggesting that it may also be able to achieve hypersonic velocities.

There are some differences between the two - most notably the use of two vertical stabilizer fins on the back of the "Darkstar", with only one central stabilizer on the SR-72. However, since Lockheed Martin's image is nothing more than a conceptual design, the final platform (if it comes to fruition) could also be viable.

Maverick's P-51 Mustang actually belongs to Tom Cruise

"Top Gun: Maverick" not only features new fighters and advanced aircraft, but also an appearance of Tom Cruise's personal-owned P-51 Mustang.

You can actually buy these incredible fighters from the World War II era, although they tend to cost between $2.5 and $4 million each... so how exactly Captain Pete "Maverick" Mitchell managed to pay one with his salary in the Navy's active duty is a real mystery (it is probably classified). In real life, Tom was presented by his then-wife Katie Homes, so maybe Mav has a well-funded friend as well.

The American P-51 Mustang first took off in 1940 and, despite being an American aircraft, entered service with the British Royal Air Force in 1942. However, he did not enter the fight until 1943. It soon proved to be an extremely effective bomber escort, and in 1944, Maj. Gen. James Doolittle (who gained fame during the Doolittle Raid) was adjusting U.S. air doctrine to send these capable fighters far ahead of the bombers to hunt German aircraft, instead of keeping them in tight formations with the bombers they supported.

The P-51D Mustang, with its legendary 1,490-horsepower Merlin engine, was the best-known version of the aircraft, combining its acrobatic performance with exceptionally long range. This was a watershed for the Allies who had suffered significant losses in bombing missions over the European theater until that time. With a maximum speed of 437 miles per hour, six .50 caliber machine guns and the ability to carry ten 5-inch rockets (or 2,000 pounds in bombs), the P-51 gave the Allies an aircraft that could stand up and swing with the advanced German fighters of the time. At the end of the war, the P-51 Mustangs would be credited with an astonishing 5,000 shooting downs of enemy aircraft.

The P-51 Mustang presented in "Top Gun: Maverick" is not a P-51D, but a P-51K (different propeller and canopy format), but this is just a little more technical information.

The king is back in "Top Gun: Maverick": The Grumman F-14 Tomcat

While Tom Cruise obtained the highest revenue in the first film, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat was the real star. Now, it seems a lot that the F-14 is coming back in "Top Gun: Maverick", and in what may be the craziest fraction of a second of footage you can find on television today, it may be fitting against Russia's Su-57.

Despite a problematic start and problematic engines that devastated the aircraft for much of its useful life, the F-14 was a wonder of Cold War technology. With a maximum speed higher than Mach 2.3 and the ability to carry six huge long-range AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles for the fight, the Tomcat was built specifically to dominate the skies for hundreds of kilometers around aircraft carrier attack groups, engaging Soviet three-digit range bombers.

The Tomcat was such an incredible aircraft that a proposal to renovate the platform on the ASF-14 Super Tomcat could most likely have kept it at the top of the 4th generation fighter pile until the modern era. Its variable geometry wing design gave it excellent handling both at the low speeds required for aircraft carrier landings and at the high speeds required to intercept enemies before they could deploy their anti-ship missiles towards an American aircraft carrier.

When the F-14 Tomcat entered service, it was powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney TF30 engines that had been designed for the F-111B, which was more of a multifunctional bomber than fighter. Each engine could produce 14,560 pounds of thrust under military power, with the afterburner increasing the output by up to 25,100 pounds. These engines were powerful, but incredibly problematic, leading to the loss of up to 40 Tomcats over the years. Eventually, the TF30 engines were replaced by General Electric F110-GE-400s, which effectively solved all the problems of the TF30, but many F-14s continued to operate the old engines until the 2000s.

The AIM-54 Phoenix missiles of the F-14 are designed for air-to-air combat and can close their range of one hundred miles extremely quickly thanks to a maximum speed of Mach 4.3... but these weapons are designed to shoot down Soviet bombers, not highly maneuverable fighters. Russia's avionics can be dated, but the F-14 was retired 16 years ago, so this time, the Russians would probably have the technological advantage.

Source: Sandboxx

Tags: Military AviationTop Gun: MaverickUSN - United States Navy/U.S. Navy

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in a specialized aviation magazine in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation

Cavok Brasil - Digital Tchê Web Creation

[yukinojou]

I already squeed quite a bit on Twitter, but turns out my Shadow and Bone thoughts demand longform. So that was a 40+ tweet thread or using my Tumblr for an original post for once.

I was wary about the Shadow and Bone adaptation the way I'm usually wary about good books being adapted onscreen. It was amplified because my actual favourites are the Six of Crows books, and because the American-based movie complex has a bad track record of doing anything based on Eastern Europe. 8 episodes in 3 days should tell you how much I loved it - the moment I finished, I wanted more.

First, the technical praise:

Damn but the plotting is tight. It took me a while to realised it's based on heist movie bones, where every little thing (The Freaking Bullet!) is important. The story fulfills its promises and manages not to bore at the same time - it delights by the way they're fulfilled. I called out a few plot developments moments before they happened, and I was happy about it. Such a joy after so many series where "not doing what viewers expect" led to plot holes and lack of sense. It might be an upside to the streaming model after all.

From a dramatic point of view I can tell all the reasons for all the changes, especially providing additional outsider points of view on Ravka (Crows) and letting viewers see Mal for themselves the way he only comes across in later books.

Speaking of which, this is a masterclass in rewriting a story draft. SaB was Bardugo's first, and having read later books you can really see where she didn't quite dare to break the YA rules yet, especially Single POV that necessitated a tight focus on Alina's often negative feelings rather than the big picture and a triangle that felt a bit forced. The world in the series is so much bigger, the way Bardugo could finally paint it when SaB success gave her more creative freedom, and some structural choices feel familiar too. It's a combination of various choices by crew and cast, but the end result meshes together so tightly and naturally.

Visuals! Especially the war parts because Every Soviet Movie Ever, but also the clothes (I would kill for Nina's blouse in the bar), the jewelry, the interiors. The stag was so very beautiful. And a deep commitment to a coherent aesthetic for each character and setting.

Look, you can do a serious fantasy series with colours! Both skin colours and bright sets and clothing! And all scenes were well lit enough to know what's going on, even in the Fold!

Representation (aka I Am Emotion)

To start with: I was born behind the Iron Curtain, in the last years of the Cold War. The Curtain was always permeable to some extent, and we have always been aware that while we have talented artists of our own, we never had the budgets and polish of the Anglosphere Entertainment Machine. So we watched a hell of a lot of American visual storytelling especially because yeah, you can tell we don't have the budgets. 90s and 2000s especially, it's getting better now.

In American stories, the BEST case scenario for Eastern European representation is the Big Dumb Pole, the ethnic stereotype Americans don't even notice they use, where the punchline is that his English is bad or that he grew up outside Anglo culture. Other than that, it's criminals, beggars, sex trafficking victims, refugees. Sure, we may look similar (except we really really don't, not if you're raised here and see the distinct lack of all those long-jawed Anglo faces), but we are not and have never been the West, never mind America. It's probably better for younger people now, but I was raised under rationing and passport bans. Star Trek and Beverly Hills 90210 were exactly as foreign to me.

The first ever character I really identified with was Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5 (written by J. Michael Straczynski, yay behind-camera representation). This was a Russian Jewish woman very much in charge, in the way of strong women I know so well, not taking any bullshit, not repressing her feminity. I recognised her bones, she could be my cousin. The sheer relief of it. There have been few such occasions since.

The reason I picked up Shadow and Bone in the first place was recommendations from other Polish people. I've had no problems finding representation in Eastern European books because wow our scene is strong in SFF especially, but it's always a treat to find a book in English that gets it. And Leigh gets it, the bones of our culture, and I could even look past the grammar issue (dear gods and Americans, Starkova for a woman, Morozov for a guy) that really irked me because of the love for the setting and the characters, the weaving in of religion/mysticism (we never laicisized the same way as the West, natch), the understanding of how deep are the scars left in a nation at war for centuries. The books are precious to me, they and Arden's Winternight and Novik's Spinning Silver.

To sum up: Shadow and Bone the Netflix series gets it. You can tell just how much they've immersed themselves in Eastern European culture and media, it comes across so well in visuals and writing and characters. Not just the obvious bits (though the WWII propaganda posters gave me a giggle), but the palaces, the additional plotlines and characters, the costumes, the attitudes. About the only thing missing in the soldier scenes was someone singing and/or quoting poetry.

I will blame the Apparat's lack of beard on filming in a non-Orthodox country. Poland's Catholic too, but I very much imagined him as an Orthodox patriarch, possibly because I read the books shortly after a visit to Pecherska Lavra in Kiev and the labyrinthine holy catacombs there. Small quibble, not my religion, not my place to speak.

(I've seen discussion on the issues with biracial representation in the show, which is visceral and apparently based on bad experiences of one of the show writers in a way that's caused pain to other Asian and biracial people. I'm not qualified to speak on those parts, other that Eastern Europe is... yeah. Racist in subtly different ways. If anything, the treatment of the Suli as explained in Six of Crows always read so very true of the way Roma are treated, and even sanitised.)

And now for the spoiler-filled bits:

Kaz and Inej. I mean... just THEM. So many props to the actors, the writers, the bloody goat.

I adore the fact the only people who get to have sex in the show are Jesper and a very lucky stablehand.

Ben Barnes needs either an award or a kick. The man's acting choices and puppy eyes are as epic as his hair.

So Much Love for Alina initiating the kiss. Her book characterisation makes sense, she's so trapped in her own head because she has no time to process everything that's happening, but grabbing life by the lapels is a much more active choice. Still not making the relationship equal, but closer to it.

Speaking of, Kaz's constant awareness of how unequal his relationship with Inej is, and attempts to give her agency. I'm really curious how his touch issues come across to someone who doesn't know the backstory there.

Feodor and his actor. He looks exactly like the pre-war heartthrob Adolf Dymsza, a specific upper-class Polish ethnic type that's much rarer now that, well, Nazis killed millions of Polish intellectuals in their attempt to reduce us to unskilled labour only. The faces he makes are the Best.

Nina!! Nina is perfect, those cheekbones, that cheek, I was giggling myself silly half the time. I cannot wait to see Danielle Galligan take on the challenge of Nina's plotline in Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, she'll kill us dead.

I already mentioned that the writers fixed Mal's absence from the first book, but Mal in general! The haircut gives him a kind of rugby charm, and Archie Renaux is outstanding at emoting without talking. Honestly, all the casting in this series is inspired, but him in particular.

Extra bonus: Howard Charles and Luke Pasqualino playing so very much against the type of the swaggering Musketeers I saw them play last. Arken dropping the mask at the end... Howard Charles is love.

I can't believe not only was Milo's bullet a plot point, but the fact Alina was wearing a particularly sparkly hair ornament in a long series of beautiful hair ornaments was a plot point.

In conclusion: so much love, and next three season NOW please. Okay, give me a week to reread the books, and an extra day because new Murderbot drops tomorrow...

[bestofblackwidow]

The "Let me go - it's okay," she told him the last time we saw the Black Widow, it was - to say the least - emotional. "Let me go - it's okay," she said to Hawkeye, plunging to her death on the arid planet Sleeping in Avengers: Endgame for the ultimate sacrifice to save the world. While the deaths in the Marvel Cinematic Universe go on - sorry, Iron Man - there was probably no more heart-stopping moment, since the former SHIELD spy who became Avenger gave her life to recover the Soul Stone.

Still, it left the MCU in a bind. For years, a Black Widow film had been mooted, right back to 2004 at Lions Gate Entertainment before the rights reverted to Marvel. When Scarlett Johansson first appeared as Natasha Romanoff - the former KGB assassin with a very particular set of skills - in 2010's Iron Man 2, it didn't take long before questions were asked about a solo outing. Marvel Studios conductor Kevin Feige even held discussions with Johansson, who was then only 25. But there was a caveat, he said. "The Avengers comes first."

While others - Thor, Captain America, Black Panther and even Ant-Man - had their moments in the spotlight, the Black Widow was forced to wait. And wait. And wait. Not that Johansson thought that her character demanded the same treatment; if she was going to be in front of a Marvel movie, there had to be a reason. "Is there anything exciting to do creatively, as an actor?" she says. “Will we be able to do something extraordinary and strong? And something that stands on its own? "It's what makes the independent Black Widow an intriguing prospect: an inauguration of Phase 4 of the MCU promises to step back in time before her dramatic death to answer the provocative questions that still hover over her Crucially, the script transports audiences back to the events right after Captain America: Civil War, after that huge internal confrontation of the Avengers.

Without relatives or an organization that employs her, the Black Widow is alone, says Johansson. "It gave us the opportunity to really show her when she's kind of out of her game, you know? Because of that, anything was possible." The actress was there "from the start" at the script meetings, as they began to figure out how to delve into Romanoff's origins. "You are trying to map all of this ... which is extremely stressful," she laughs, "because there are no guidelines."

Fortunately, Johansson was not alone. In another inspired choice for the MCU canon, Feige recruited Australian director Cate Shortland, best known for discreet dramas like Somersault and Lore. While she was surprised, Shortland was encouraged by the creative freedom that Marvel was offering. “They allowed me to be myself and encouraged me to make a movie that I was passionate about,” she says. "We were allowed to have a lot of nuances and make a character-oriented film."

After several Skype sessions with Johansson, who also receives producer credit, Shortland worked with a Russian researcher to embody Romanoff's dark story: "the red in my ledger", as she told Loki in 2012 in Os Avengers. As she sings in the trailer, "We have to go back to where it all started" - the promising teaser clips of Romanoff as a young man (played by Ever Anderson, daughter of Paul WS Anderson and Milla Jovovich) in a childhood that seems far from idyllic. That's what makes Black Widow a family reunion of the kind that only Marvel would have the courage to conjure. Joining Romanoff is Yelena Belova, a sister-sister and fellow murderer who trained alongside her in the so-called Red Room, the punitive Soviet facility that produced 'Black Widow' spies.

"Their stories intersect," promises Shortland. "They clash." Played by Lady Macbeth's British star Florence Pugh, Belova is more than a physical match for Romanoff. Still, emotionally is where it really matters. "What Yelena does is kind of point to Natasha's pain," says Pugh. “She is part of Natasha's story. And I think that's why we have an opportunity to look at Natasha's story, because Yelena has been knocking on the door and says, 'Hey, let's deal with this pain. ”As Johansson comments, Belova is not just a carbon copy of his own character.

"She is completely alone. She is strong and different. She is so different (from) Natasha." Beside them are Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei Shostakov (David Harbor), two father figures whose own stories intertwine with Natasha and Yelena. "This is the coolest thing with this whole group of people. They all had parts of their past that they regretted," says Pugh. “They’re older. They’ve had more life experience. They know more about the system, about this world they’re all living in.” Harbor, the Emmy Stranger Things nominated star, managed to put an indelible mark on the muscular Shostakov, better known as the Red Guardian super soldier, the Russian equivalent of Captain America. "There is a gangster quality to him," the actor smiles. "And he's covered in tattoos. He's got a beard and those gold teeth. He's crazy." But after years of making bad decisions, he's also full of remorse.

"He's in a bad situation," adds Harbor. "And he needs redemption." Weisz's character, Melina, is another who experienced the rigors of the Red Room, a place that put her in contact with Natasha and Yelena. Marking his first dive at the MCU, Weisz acknowledges that the film addresses the idea of ​​discovering his favorite family. "It's definitely about finding out where you belong and where you came from, and what your background story was, and who you really are, and what matters to you - your ideology, I think." Along the way, Feige made reference to The Kids Are All Right - the 2010 Lisa Cholodenko film about a same-sex couple raising two teenagers. "Which is so weird," laughs Johansson. "You would never expect that from a Marvel movie." no it was the only strange nod to the film. Harbor speaks of Shostakov in terms of Philip Seymour Hoffman's drama teacher in the dramatic black comedy The Savages.

Or even expressing "the pathos of a small town, independent, family-run, weird movie... like Little Miss Sunshine". More understandable cinema references include "things like Logan and Aliens and The Fugitive," says Shortland. "We saw movies like that." Certainly, it's easy to see comparisons between Sigourney Weaver's determined Ripley, from James Cameron's masterpiece Aliens, and Johansson's Romanoff, an Avenger who has no superpowers. "We saw it as a force," says Shortland, "because she always has to dig really deep to get out of shit situations." According to the director, everyone in the production invested in deepening Romanoff - even Scottish composer Lorne Balfe (Pennyworth, His Dark Materials), who replaced Alexandre Desplat's original choice. Balfe looked at the character's origins, says Shortland. “He said, 'I want to put it on the ground, because it has been dug up in the movies in the past. I want to give her that flesh and blood. 'And he created this soundtrack that is really Russian."

However, perhaps the real blow here is to recruit Shortland, the first female director to face the Black Widow (and only the second, following Captain Marvel co-director Anna Boden, to enter the MCU). "This film would not be what it is without Cate Shortland," says Pugh. "I think having her eye, and having her mind with this script, has taken her to a whole different realm." Johansson agrees. "" You can feel it was made from a female perspective ... cooked there. "Although Ray Winstone's casting as Supervisor of the Red Room Dreykov (whose daughter contributed to the abundance of red in Romanoff's book, according to Loki) add more to the psychological battleground that the Black Widow will explore, it also deals with victimization, a very pertinent topic in the current climate. The Red Room itself is where trainees are brutally sterilized. "You will see that these women are hard working and strong, and they are murderers - and yet they still need to discuss how they were abused," says Pugh. "It is an incredibly powerful piece."

Judging by the 2020 Oscars, where Pugh and Johansson had their own private relationship session on the red carpet, the two actors got along very well. "She has a really beautiful career ahead of her ... she's a very special person," says Johansson, excited when Pugh's name is mentioned. More specifically, Pugh may well have more Marvel to chew on, if it is rumored that her character will take on the 'Black Widow' mantle for new adventures. By learning Parkour, kickboxing and knife fighting for role, Pugh can safely cut things physically, though she's reluctant to claim that the Black Widow is just a setup for future outings. "Even though it is obviously where everyone wants to go and want to think - think about what comes next - this film never really seemed to be what he was trying to underline." According to Johansson, however, test the audience who saw the film thinks otherwise. "Her character and her performance are so dear." Now, after more than a year of pandemic-related delays to July 2021), it will not be just a few lucky spectators who will be able to see. Black Widow will even be the first Marvel movie to debut simultaneously on the Disney+ streaming site (with a 'main hit' fee), an understandable move considering the uncertainty that still exists around the world. And in fact, after the success of the Marvel TV shows WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, it doesn't seem like such a strange home. Johansson believes that fans will respond to Black Widow, with this flashback of an earlier part of her life, bringing more poignancy to the Endgame's outcome. "Our goal was for them to be satisfied with this story; that maybe they could have some solution, I think, with the death of this character, in a way. It seemed like people wanted this." Shortland agrees. "We felt that we should honor his death," she says. And the Black Widow will surely honor him.

[pattern-recognition]

God last night I had this extremely weird, specific, and personal dream that just kind of made be bawl when I woke up. It was cool as hell though. Read more because it’s long

It started with me standing on a sunny street corner. Like usual for a lot of my dreams, most objects were flat, geometric, and grey/white, like unfinished video game textures or the minimalist home of a rich person. I was at a restaurant with a peculiar gimmick: instead of having umbrellas shading its outdoor tables from the sun, it elected to employ a dozen people in giant, 8ft bird costumes (that looked a little like an off brand brewster from ac, i have never played ac) who stood completely motionless in their forest of mascots and made a canopy above with their huge parasols. They were made of something solid and matte, not fabric like a sports mascot. There were no other people or signs of life. For whatever reason, it was my job to interview them.

To the first bird I talked to, still renaming statuesque and totally static, I asked him if he enjoyed this job. He replied in a gruff voice, “Does anyone really enjoy being a totem?” Most of the other birds responded similarly, some choosing to remain silent, none of them flinching.

Eventually I finished with the birds and moved on to another building on the property, another amalgamation of featureless polygons, too big to suit its purpose, with a glass sunlight, and two symmetrical hallways on both sides and restrooms at either end. It’s only notable feature was an ice machine in the foyer, and somehow I knew the worker who tended to it lived inside. I knocked, and asked the ice man my usual interview questions, he responded through a metallic echo with the usual answers. However, this time I had to compulsion to open his hatch and take a brief look at my interviewee, in stark violation of my orders because even in my dreamscape there was some horrible viral miasma about.

Inside the machine’s cockpit was an old man, face occulted from my view by some part of the mechanism, and surrounded by old, weathered paperbacks of Marx’s works that lay scattered around his feet. After his demands that I close the door and my apologies, I remarked that I was a Marxist too. He seemed suspicious and bemused at first, but eventually we started talking, the details too blurry to recall. During this time I started coughing, and then coughing more, eventually feeling so ill that I had to stumble away in search of a bathroom and somewhere to lay down. I shambled into the women’s restroom, only because I knew no one else was around and proceeded to puke my guts out in the toilet, the liquid an unnatural blue color. I took out a little mechanical capsule with a button on the bottom and injected its contents into the bowl, turning the water purple and making a small digital message appear in the water. “You may be at risk for contamination, please report to the CDC immediately.” It was written in the silica gel font and had a moving border of caution stripes.

Some time passed and I finally got the strength to pick myself up and make it back to the foyer where I found the old man had ditched his ice box battle station and was no kneeling in the floor, various books and other objects of his littered around him. He said, “I have been nothing but a hypocrite and an interloper.”

“Me too”

“In what?”

“Everything”

This caused us both to break into a laugh, occasionally punctuated by a pained cough and some time was spent talking about all of the absurd contradictions of life. I can’t remember the specifics, but i know i mentioned gender, him politics.  Eventually he hit a cassette player that began playing Gruppa Krovni by Kino, and his face lit up when I recognized the tune and tried mumbling the lyrics in fake phonetic Russian. Somehow his spoken words appeared as subtitles to me, and I tried to sing along better through our laughter and coughing. He crawled my way and handed me an old medal, obviously Soviet but with a nazi medallion chained to it, another contradiction that was hilarious only to two dying people. 

[kailedger]

for all the YOI fanfic author, p.2

Oh wow, let me tell you, I really didn't expect the previous post on Russian culture to blow up ahaha (Here’s the link to it, in case you’re wondering: https://kailedger.tumblr.com/post/621351027189350400/for-all-the-yoi-fanfic-authors) But since it did, I decided to make a part two, sort of? It's not gonna be about mistakes in fanfiction, but more about things English-speaking authors don't mention simply because they don't know they exist.

I’ll give you the general info and then maybe throw some thoughts about how specific YOI characters would relate to that info in my personal opinion.

HOLIDAYS. We have a lot of those TBH, but I'll mention the most important ones - the ones for which we have official days off. I mean, yeah, you can find a list of those in Wikipedia, if you want, but it doesn't actually tell you the reality of things. I've already mentioned the New Year in the previous post, so let’s skip it.

23rd of February is the Defender of the Fatherland Day. It's actually for those who served in the army, but the tradition is to congratulate everyone who's male. Must have something to do with the fact that on 8th of March we have an International Women's Day, when we congratulate everyone who's female. Doesn't really make sense to me, since, you know, there are women in the army too. And a lot of men haven't served a day in their life, what the hell do I have to thank them for? (Here's an example: my dad used to be in the navy, submarine's captain actually, and every year when I congratulate him, he says something along the lines of "Why? There was no war conflict when I served". That's him being humble, but still, the point is there).

ANYWAY! We're not very big on celebrations of these two holidays, most of the time you just give a call to your respective male/female friends and relatives, give flowers to the ladies and just... enjoy your day off?

 Next one is the May holidays. Those are usually on the 1-3 of May, the official name (as Wiki states) is "The Day of Spring and Labour". Honestly, no one uses it lol We just say "the first May holidays" (since we also have the second, that's how much we don't wanna work in May; kinda ironic the holiday is called "the day of labour").

You don't congratulate anyone on this day, usually you just have a couple of days off. If we're lucky, the weather would be nice and then people go to the countryside to have a (oh my god, this is gonna be a mouthful) SHASHLYKI. We'll get back to this thing, and you know why? Since if you want someone to embrace the real Russian culture, you would make them go to shashlyki, trust me.

 The second May holiday is the Victory Day, and it's kinda... controversial in a way. It is a big celebration for the victory in World War II. Soviet Union suffered a lot during the war with the Nazi Germany, St. Petersburg was under the siege for more than TWO YEARS. And this holiday is both somber and happy since thanks to our ancestors we survived this hell and are now able to live in peace. The celebration is pretty big on official levels - there are military parades everywhere, concerts, people thank the war veterans (there are precious few of them left by now). When I was still in school, they made us visit those parades every year. Guess what? I've never been to a single parade since I graduated. It's not that I don't value the heroism of people who fought in WWII, it's that I think our government uses this holiday to brag how great we are (or, rather, THEY are), 'cause they haven't done anything worth of praise since 1945, which is... depressing, when you think of it. The ridiculous thing is the parade was canceled this year due to coronavirus, but GUESS WHAT? They've used BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to still have it on 24th of June. While the rate of people getting sick is still abnormally high. All because on the 1st of July we're having a vote on the constitution amendments and our government needs an extra boost in patriotism from our people (should I mention some of the amendments are homophobic? Yeah, it sucks).

Well... that was a rant completely offtopic lol. But, you know, this is the opinion of the most people below the age of 35. Also a huge problem here in Russia. Anyway, as I was saying. Used to be a really great holiday where we thanked the veterans and were reminded of the price they paid. Now it's just a sad excuse for the government to waste money sigh

So, a day off. Some fireworks, a hell lot of traffic problems due to parades. Not much else, if you're from the younger generation.

 Same thing goes to the 12th of June. Officially a "Russia Day", but since up until the point I graduated from the uni I had summer holidays, I barely even acknowledged the holiday, cause I didn't have to study/work anyway. So like... I lived my whole life here in Russia, and I have no idea why we celebrate this holiday on the 12th of June. I can google it right now, but that kind of would contradict my point here lol.

The last one is on the 3-4 of November. I think it's called something like "Unity Day", but, again, no idea why. Most of the time we just call it "the November holidays" or even "fall holidays". Honestly, most of the time we just care about the days off, especially if the holiday is supposed to be "patriotic". (When I put it like this, we kinda sound like assholes. Probably cause we are lol).

Birthdays mainly depend on the specific person. I used to love my birthdays and it was a big holiday for me when I was a kid, but then I turned 18 and it kinda lost its charm. You still celebrate it, especially if the date is something like 30, 35, 40, 45 and so on. But it gets less and less exciting over the years. I gather my friends at home and just have drinks, my fiance goes to a bar on his birthday. Not very... celebratory, ya know?

So. YOI characters. ALL OF THEM would definitely celebrate New Year. They would probably send some congratulations on 23rd of February and 8th of March. It you think of the Russian rinkmates as friends, they can go the countryside together on the first May holidays, but not actually do anything on the Victory Day (Yakov may attend the parade since he’s from the older generation). Nothing specific to do on 12th of June or November holidays, most likely the rink would be closed, so, like, just a day off.

  And now to the important stuff. SHASHLYKI. Oh my god guys, I’m so excited, cause this is one of those things that is AWESOME in Russian culture. And also makes most of the foreigners really confused. But it has some similarities with the American barbeque gatherings, I think.

First of all, many of us live in big cities (like I live in St. Petersburg for example), but we still have countryside houses. Sometimes it’s where our grandparents live, sometimes we buy it specifically. The thing is – we usually go to these places we call “dacha” to have some rest from the noise of the big city and enjoy the fresh air. Usually dachas have gardens, my mom is crazy about all this greenery stuff (I personally don’t see what’s the big deal with taking care of the plants, but I was told it comes with age ;D).

And to enjoy the experience even more we have shashlyki. It’s usually grilled meat (chicken, pork, whichever you prefer) and vegetables, but the process is what makes it really fun. Most families have their own recipes for marinated meat, you prepare it beforehand. Then, on the day, you make some snacks (salted pickles and fresh vegetables come to my mind immediately; pickles are like a must-have, it’s almost an obligatory food since it goes really well with vodka lol). While some of the people sit around the table, have drinks and catch up, there’s usually one person responsible for grilling meat. And this process is very important – it’s gotta be cooked on the brazier with actual flame (or, more like, coals). You put pieces of meat on a metallic skewer and then grill it (I think there’s the word “kebab”, but we usually use it to describe an entirely different meal, so, shashlyk it is). And let me tell you – having a freshly grilled shashlyk with some vegetables and a drink like wine (or vodka if you’re into it) is the best feeling in the world.

So you’re enjoying the fresh air, really tasty meal, have some drinks with family or/and friends. A pretty common thing (not for everyone, but I personally love it) is having someone play the guitar and sing songs around the campfire. The songs we sing are usually either stupid or old, and you would never just casually listen to those on your own, but when the time comes and you sit with the guitar, somehow EVERYONE knows the lyrics. The point is to have fun, not make a concert out of it :)

I actually think that Victor and the rest of the gang would at least try to give Yuuri (and other non-Russians, who knows) this kind of experience. I also headcanon someone (Otabek or maybe Victor himself) knowing how to play the guitar. But I wouldn’t trust Victor with the grilling, honestly, it requires a lot of attention, and… well… you all know what Victor is like ;D

  And since we’re on the topic of music, let’s discuss it. Me and a dear friend of mine @clarie-foster, who also happens to be both Russian and a YOI fan, had a lot of headcanons on this.

What you need to know, is when it comes to music, here in Russia we’re pretty flexible. The popular music is the one you can here everywhere, it’s on European and American charts, like, I dunno, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Gaga etc. There’s Russian pop-music and, honestly, it sucks lol. Most of the time I listen to it cause it’s dumb and catchy. There are some good artists, of course, I can throw you a couple of name bands like “Ночные Снайперы”, “Сплин”, “Би-2”, but the songs are in Russian, and although the lyrics are pretty damn good, they’re kinda hard to understand if you don’t know the language (I mean, just reading the translation won’t give you the whole experience). And those bands are… depressing? In a way? Not that the songs are extremely dark or something, but you kind of listen to those in a melancholic mood. Me and one of my best friends used to go out on the balcony in summer, sit wrapped in a blanket and listen to those songs. Great experience, if a little sad.

BUT. There’s the old pop-music. We have some of those artists, who were really popular when my parents were young and somehow still popular these days. Their music is honestly average – the tunes might be catchy, the lyrics are mediocre at best, but… when you have a little bit to drink, you get in that mood, where you start singing those old pop-songs. And it’s not like listening to ABBA or, I don’t know, A-ha, since those are classic and still good these days. Russian pop-songs SUCK, they’re horrible, but somehow that is the best kind of music when you’re drunk.

I personally think Victor is one of those people who would totally jam to the old Russian pop. It’s funny, since most of it is from female singers (There’s literally a song from a Russian singer Irina Allegrova called “Go crazy, wild empress”, no kidding). I just can picture him so clearly being drunk and singing those old songs with abandon lol.

Mila would probably join him while laughing hysterically. Georgi too, since he’s a drama queen. And Yuri would make all kinds of disgusted faces.

 Two facts which I have never seen being mentioned in fanfiction, which is really weird. So Victor lives in St. Petersburg, as we all saw from those last scenes in the anime (in the background you can see actual places from St. P like our sports stadium). And St. Petersburg is mostly known for two things: bridges and white nights.

WHITE NIGHTS OH MY GOD. I don’t want to go to deep into the details since I don’t really understand the nature of this thing (something to do with sun not really going down? I dunno), but in summer, especially in June and July it basically doesn’t get dark in St. Petersburg. I mean, the sun does go down, you can see the sunset and everything, but the sky stays like… white-grey, almost as though it’s midday, just cloudy. Like we’re in the middle of white nights right now, and the darkest hour is around 1 am, but even then it doesn’t really get dark at all. A lot of people from other cities and countries get confused by it, like, there was this time when Stephen Colbert was a guest on a Russian talk-show and he had a hilarious convo with the host. It was something like this: “So I’ve been in St. Petersburg for one day. It has lasted for 46 hours. Please tell me if the sun will ever go down, ‘cause I’m going crazy”.

For us common people white nights can get really annoying, if your curtains are not black-out, you can have a hard time falling asleep (since, you know, it’s too freaking bright outside). But it’s actually really great for late-night walks and is considered really romantic.

And, speaking of romantic, the bridges! What’s so special about those, you’d think. So St. Petersburg is built on the river Neva – it’s like really big, has a lot of tributaries and distributaries and flows through the whole city. Hence why we have tons of bridges.

And those bridges are drawing bridges, meaning they are separated in the middle by a special mechanism and are being lifted in the air so that the trade ships can pass underneath them. The most impressive one is the Palace Bridge – it’s one of the main sightseeing spots in the city. For most tourists it’s obligatory to visit St. Petersburg and see the drawing of the Palace Bridge. It happens at night, around the time of 1 am or 2 am. It’s really pretty, cause there are lights everywhere, you can see the ships passing by and the view of this huge structure being lifted in the air is really magnificent. Combine it with the white nights and you’ll have one of the most romantic dates you can have here in Russia.

(On the more realistic and depressing note: despite the drawing of the bridges being really beautiful, it’s SUCH a pain in the ass for the regular people. Like, because of the drawing you can’t really get from one side of the city to another. For example, I live in the northern part and if for some reason I couldn’t get to it from the center of the city before the drawing of the bridges, I’m stuck till like 4 or 5 am. Subway only opens at 6 am, and although we have a couple of bridges which never draw, those are on the outskirts of the city, so taking an uber and driving there would cost you a lot of money and also would take like and extra hour or so. Thankfully, the drawing of the bridges lasts only from April to October-November, while the ship navigation on the Neva river is possible).

Last, but not least, SOCIAL MEDIA.

So, like, Instagram is pretty popular in Russia and so is Twitter. But what people rarely mention is our own social media site – Vkontakte (www.vk.com, if you’re interested). It started to become popular in like… 2008, I think? Basically it used to be and knock-off from Facebook, even the color scheme is the same. It became more and more popular over the years, since Facebook was never really a thing in Russia (like, I had a profile there, but I’ve never used it). Now it’s like… if you don’t have a VK profile, it’s super weird lol. I communicate with most of my friends through it, since it has a lot of really cool features: chats, group chats, communities, music, videos and photos. It’s gotten so big that VK even hosts its own music festival each year with a lot of popular Russian artists.

Victor is a social butterfly, so he would definitely have a VK profile. So would Mila, Yuri and Georgi, I personally think most of their communication would be through it. Maybe they would even force Yuuri to create a profile, but he’s not really into social media much, so he wouldn’t really use it.

 I think that’s it for now. Like I said, if you have any questions, feel free to ask, I would be happy to answer! ;)

[gusgrissom]

Before we get to today’s big celebrations (and the last Apollo 50 countdown post!), I just want to say a few words about the people involved in this program. Nearly every American was touched by the space program in some way, and Apollo 11 was its zenith. My posts tend to focus on the astronauts, and they certainly have these last few days. As the guts as well as the public face of the space program, I’m most fascinated by their lives and experiences. They’re my heroes.

But there are over 400,000 other people who deserve recognition today, and they’re my heroes, too. The extent to which the space program involved the entire country is massive. NASA administrators, government leaders, engineers at companies like McDonnell and other private contractors, reporters who brought the program to the public, workers who physically built the spacecraft, geologists and astronomers, doctors and nurses, the thousands of military personnel who supported each mission, nutritionists, seamstresses, those in mission control, secretaries, educators, the wives and families of the astronauts… I can only begin to scratch the surface of the responsibilities and accomplishments of these people.

The program has been labeled a boys’ club, more specifically a white boys’ club, but in truth it was more diverse, even ahead of its time, than most people know. Thankfully the world is recognizing that fact more frequently now. Women, immigrants, minorities, young and old, wealthy and poor, white- and blue-collar, religious beliefs running the gamut; these thousands of people were the backbone of our journey to the moon. The space program was made up of a diverse melting pot of people, one that could only be found in America, and this was its strength. Thank you to everyone who worked to make one of the most incredible achievements in human history possible.

I would also like to say a special thank you to a select group, who perhaps gave more than anyone else. They certainly gave more than anyone had the right to ask of them, and yet they did it gladly, bravely. The astronauts who died on our way to the moon. One of the greatest privileges of my work has been getting to know these guys, the kind of men they were, the families they left behind. Although most of them died more than 30 years before I was born, I (and many, many others) miss them terribly, and we owe so much to their service and sacrifice. Love you boys.

Theodore Cordy “Ted” Freeman (February 18, 1930 – October 31, 1964)

Elliot McKay See, Jr. (July 23, 1927 - February 28, 1966)

Charles Arthur “Charlie” Bassett II (December 30, 1931 - February 28, 1966)

Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom (April 3, 1926 - January 27, 1967)

Edward Higgins White II (November 14, 1930 - January 27, 1967)

Roger Bruce Chaffee (February 15, 1935 - January 27, 1967)

Edward Galen Givens, Jr. (January 5, 1930 - June 6, 1967)

Clifton Curtis “C.C.” Williams (September 26, 1932 - October 5, 1967)

Robert Henry “Bob” Lawrence, Jr. (October 2, 1935 - December 8, 1967)

Special thanks and condolences to three Russian cosmonauts who died in their country’s pursuit of the moon: Valentin Bondarenko (February 16, 1937 - March 23, 1961), Vladimir Komarov (March 16, 1927 - April 24, 1967), and Yuri Gagarin (March 9, 1934 - March 27, 1968), the first human being to fly in space, as well as any other cosmonauts whose deaths may have been covered up by the Soviet government. Our victory belonged to you, too, comrades.

From the drivers who transported parts across the country to the astronauts who flew across the moon, it wouldn’t have been possible without any of them. Apollo 11 is truly a testament to what can be achieved by humankind when we have big dreams, determination, and the strength to help and sacrifice for each other. Ad astra per aspera. For all mankind.

[dillydedalus]

august reading

minus my women in translation month reads, because i’m still working on the last one but want to include it... that wrap-up will come in a few days once i’m done with the last book. 

not all dead white men: classics and misogyny in the digital age, donna zuckerberg classicist donna zuckerberg (facebook dude’s sister!) talks about how the alt-right, pick-up artists, incels etc. use the classics to assert & justify their misogyny and racism & portray themselves as the inheritors/saviours of western civilisation etc. the main examples she looks at are stoicism, ovid’s ars amatoria, and ancient narratives about sexual violence, which were all really interesting, but i feel like this could have been expanded a lot. 3.5/5

magic for liars, sarah gailey fun & cool crime story about a murder at a secret magical school (school nurse cut in half in magical library!), answering the burning question of what would happen if petunia dursley became a somewhat dysfunctional PI & had to solve a magical murder at hogwarts, where lily is a teacher. 3/5

the lie tree, frances hardinge frances hardinge writes the kind of middle grade/YA books i wish i could have read between like 10-14, where the world is spooky and the girls are angry spiteful stubborn resourceful sneaky things. i loved a skinful of shadows and i loved the lie tree, where curious snake girl (not literally it’s not that kind of a book) has to investigate her scandal-hounded natural scientist father’s death by spreading lies on the miserable island he died on and literally feeding them to spooky science-defying tree - and faith is very good at lying, and very angry, and very much willing to drag the whole island down with her. read for spooky trees, fake ghosts, and victorian male natural scientists being dumb and sexist & victorian female (& thus secret) natural scientist being smart & awesome. 4.5/5

the dead ladies project: exiles, expats & ex-countries, jessa crispin i have been at turns in love & really annoyed with crispin’s 2012 essay on william james, berlin & her own mental breakdown (x) since uh..... 2012 - it says some really interesting things about berlin’s capital-i Image as the city for self-destructive broke & weird messes, it’s very quotable, while also being some of the most irritating Anglophone Expat in Berlin Bullshit ever concocted (’we have surprisingly affordable rents’ sure didn’t age well.....) and saying almost nothing about the actual city outside of the Expat Bubble (apparently every single person in berlin is here because they feel like a failure.... YALL SOME PEOPLE JUST LIVE HERE). this book, structured around crispin’s soul-searching trip around europe, with each city being discussed in connection with an artist/writer/artist’s wife/etc who lived there, opens with that essay and i’m still torn. the thing is, crispin is smart & well-read & occasionally capable of some interesting insight & good writing..... she is also at times utterly insufferable, ranting at length about how she despises women who perform learned helplessness & prioritise men over everything else only to turn around & do the same fucking thing over & over, incl. going on endlessly about her torturous affair with a married writer, performing her ‘broke but independent woman traveller’ while uh.... staying at a friend’s luxurious farmhouse in switzerland for free... at one point she says she never felt at home in kansas bc based on her looks people don’t believe she’s really from kansas & constantly ask her where she’s REALLY from because.... y’all.... while she’s a good-looking white woman she has an ANGULAR FACE. sure jan. there is so much cool stuff in here, and i wish crispin had kept some most of the personal stuff out of it. 2/5 

mansfield park, jane austen hmmmm... austen is always good but this feels like it’s maybe the one novel of hers that is most negatively affected by values dissonance in that its morality feels like it’s from an alien culture which considers a private theatre performance to be the very height of impropriety (aka regency england apparently); as a result, fanny, a passive, timid, neglected girl of strong convictions often comes across as a moralistic prig (i will make no excuses for edmund, who’s just a patronising sanctimonious prig outright). there’s a quiet sort of triumph in fanny’s integrity & conviction in the face of a literal campaign of harrassment from everyone in her life including the dude she’s in love with to marry a reforming (maybe) rake & i love her for that, but her triumph in returning to mansfield park elevated in the esteem of everyone there (except aunt norris who is delightfully vile) feels empty considering that these are the same people who previously neglected her. also edmund sucks. 3/5 #justice4marycrawford #mary/fannyOTP #alsoarewegonnatalkabouttheslavery #guessnot

fool’s quest (fitz & the fool #2), robin hobb the first one in this trilogy was pretty much slow-paced set-up and character development... this one is much better: there’s a lot going on & the character development feels much more organic & complex - fitz seems to have come down from Peak Dumbass a bit & i really liked how it developed shun (shine!!!) and lant, who felt really one-dimensionally awful last book. also there are so many moments when the farseer family really comes thru for fitz & i cried literally every single time. so yeah. this one’s great, can’t wait for the next one but i also really don’t want it to be over :/ 4/5

what matters in jane austen, john mullan fun little collection of essays looking at specific details and minutae and their meaning/importance in austen’s work - like, how old are the characters (incl. age differences), how do characters address each other, what do games do they play, what about the servants, etc. don’t expect deep litcrit but it’s fun. 2.5/5

dead mountain: the untold true story of the dyatlov pass incident, donnie eichar hello i’m fred & i am obsessed with mountaineering disasters. the dyatlov pass incident refers to a night in 1959 where 9 russian hikers died in the ural mountains after they left their tent half-dressed without shoes for ~mysterious reasons. it’s pretty creepy & theories about it run from ‘avalanche’ to ‘animal [yeti] attack’ to ‘aliens and/or soviet conspiracy theory’. eichar too is super obsessed w/ this mystery and even went to the ural mountains & the dyatlov pass to investigate, which sadly makes for the least interesting (and possibly the longest) part of this book (the other timelines are the dyatlov group hike & the investigations after their deaths). the ‘59 timelines are both interesting tho & provide a good look into how weird the whole thing is. i enjoyed this, but i wish he had cut the endless chapters of him investigating, which is mostly russians being like ‘idk man aliens/radioactivity/secret govt agents?’ and him hiking around in a lot of snow, neither of which really added to his theory or my enjoyment. 2/5

if beale street could talk, james baldwin baldwin’s prose is staggeringly brilliant as always. this is a story about a young black couple (tish, who is the narrator, and fonny) in the 70s who are planning to move together and marry when fonny is wrongly arrested for rape by a racist cop with a grudge; tish and her family try to get him out, especially once tish realises that she’s pregnant. tish is a great narrator, at the same time kind of naive and soft, and full of world-weary cynicism about white institutions and racism, and her narrative voice at times drifts in and out of other characters’ minds, which i found an interesting effect. as many baldwin’s novels this is full of rage & violence & tenderness & tiny sparks of hope. 4/5

lady susan, jane austen epistolary novella about a 35-year-old lady susan, a scheming, ruthless, not-so-grieving widow, who is trying to get her timid daughter frederica married to a buffoon. while staying with her sweetly clueless brother-in-law vernon and trying to win over his much more suspicious wife, she makes the wife’s brother reginald (lol) fall in love with her. a very different protag and story for austen & while the end can’t quite commit to either punishing susan very much or letting her triumph, it is a lot of fun. 3/5

on a sunbeam, tillie walden this is an absolutely beautiful (the colours!) graphic novel about a spaceship crew (the spaceship is a fish) who fly around & restore old space buildings. it’s also a story about a romance between two young girls at a boarding school (in space) and about found families and deep space and there’s not a single man in this, just women and elliot, who’s nonbinary. lovely, dreamy and completely gorgeous. want me a fish spaceship. 4/5

between birthday books and birthday giftcards i also acquired uh.... 12 new books??? which is INSANE. i’m not committing to a book buying ban but i should probably chill a lil in the next few months. 

[luliputu-blog]

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[treasure-mimic]

So I saw Captain Marvel last night.

It was good. It was perfectly serviceable as an action movie, as a superhero movie, and as a Marvel movie. I imagine there’s gonna be a lot of little girls and grown women who love it because Carol is a really cool character. It was good.

It has, however, gotten me to think about something specific a lot since I’ve seen it though. What’ve I been thinking about?

Nirvana.

Post will contain spoilers for the major plot twist in Captain Marvel.

I think it’s probably pretty easy to harp on Captain Marvel for leaning as hard as it does on the 90s aesthetic. A decision seemingly made out of convenience and enforced by general cultural excitement at just, naming things that existed in the 90s and don’t anymore. But, ya know, let’s give Captain Marvel a little more credit than that. Let’s try and look into Captain Marvel’s themes and see if we can’t sus out a reason behind it.

Let’s talk about Skrulls.

A common reading of all alien invasion media is the idea that the alien force preys upon what the populace fears most at the time. Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005), for example, sets itself as a direct and intentional parallel to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centers, mirroring a lot of the imagery from the attacks and a lot of the language used about the enemy and events just following. In The Avengers (2012) the evil alien horde presents itself as a tactical and well-armed warforce staging a frontal invasion on a civilian populace, coincidentally in the same city as the 9/11 attacks, and when it does get paralleled to any terrestrial army, is compared to the conquering, expanding force of the Nazi army in World War 2. The US fears an invasion, the hordes at the gate ready to rush in and slaughter us while we sit comfortable and unprotected.

In contrast, however, we have The Body Snatchers, written in 1954, published in 1955, and adapted for the screen first in 1956. A supernatural thriller wherein a race of sentient plants from outer space land in the US and consume regular humans, replacing them with replicas that walk and talk like normal people, but are actually duplicates created by these pods, disguising their presence on earth while they attempt to consume every human being on the planet without any person being any the wiser, with any attempt to expose their actions being chalked up to “hysteria”. While all writers involved deny any intentional theming along these lines, one of the most common readings in all of cinema is that the story, perhaps unintentionally, parallels the fears felt by Americans of communists and Soviet spies infiltrating the country from within, deteriorating our systems to defend ourselves until its too late. It’s very easy to read Invasion of the Body Snatchers in this light as it was coming out alongside much more explicit narratives about much more explicit Soviet spies with similar insidious plots, to the point that even by 1961 their tropes and conventions were being parodied in publications like Spy vs Spy.

A year later is when the Skrulls invaded. In 1962, The Fantastic Four #2 was released, premiering an invading alien race of shapeshifters called the Skrulls who can effortlessly implant themselves among life on earth by taking on the appearance and memories of the people they copy. Following so closely to the footsteps of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and coming out so soon afterwards, it’s not the biggest stretch to apply the same reading to the Skrulls. They are, or at least were, an extension of the fear of Soviet spies in our midst, turning us on our protectors, scoring key seats in our government, and turning us over to an uncaring invading force. The Skrulls would continue this act throughout nearly every appearance they’ve had since, even after the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

You know what else happened in 1991?

It’s likely unfair to point to one single instance as the “start” of a cultural era, but Nirvana’s Nevermind is as good a place to start the 90s as any. One of its tracks even plays during one of Captain Marvel’s key scenes. So let’s now talk about Nirvana. 

The sentiment that sits at the core of Nirvana’s work, as well as the core of all 90s alternative and grunge acts, is a potent combination of disaffection and frustration. After a couple decades of constantly fearing for their own lives and the lives of everyone around them, the mood of the youth of the generation burned out and gave way to a dull irritation. There wasn’t enough energy to keep the anger going sincerely, so instead the anger was kept alive through irony. A bitter hateful sarcasm, frustrated with every power structure that had been involved in leading to this point. Frustrated with corrupt government officials (”Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses”), with uncaring capitalistic systems (”God money’s not looking for the cure. God money’s not concerned about the sick among the pure.”), with societal systems that keep them down (”Oh, I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite, so don’t let me have any rights”), with themselves (”What drives you on can drive you mad, a million lies to sell yourself is all you’ve ever had”), and just a frustration with a world that doesn’t and doesn’t pretend to understand them (”Oh well, whatever, nevermind.”).

90s alternative and grunge as genres set themselves as opposites to the aesthetics of the decades preceding them. In terms of pop culture, the 80s were the decade of glamour and bombast, the 90s were the decade of grounding and moodiness. It refutes and refuses to partake in the systems that created and drove the half century of wars that preceded it.

So doesn’t it make sense then, that the Marvel movie set in and embroiling itself in the 90s grunge era is the one that humanized these representatives of Soviet agents. Gave them families and a backstory and a very human reason to fight.

So, that’s that then. Captain Marvel isn’t just using the 90s aesthetic as a shallow means to pander to nostalgic twenty-somethings, its a thematic connection to reinforce the need to consider the other side’s perspective, using the counterculture of grunge to boost the counterculture of good guy Skrulls, right?

Well, no!

Look, okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I pulled all that directly out of my ass. I can’t imagine this level of thought went into connecting the story of Captain Marvel to the pervading zeitgeist of the 90s, especially when the Nirvana and No Doubt songs are played against Blockbuster Videos and Two Way Pagers. Besides, while it might be a good idea to understand that the Soviet spies and plants are in fact people with families and lives, saying that the Soviet Union were actually misunderstood good guys is at best the innocent musings of someone who genuinely didn’t know how bad things got and at worst grounds to suspect someone is actually some kind of Russian psyop themselves, and it’s far from any kind of message that Disney of all corporations would ever want attached to them. But that doesn’t make the analysis wrong per say. As said before, the writers of Invasion of the Body Snatchers disagree with the reading of its parallel to Cold War paranoia.

But Captain Marvel just doesn’t have the right 90s attitude. She’s defiant, certainly, maybe even counterculture given her response to the sexism she’s faced her entire life, but she doesn’t abandon the system, she doesn’t even really learn to see all enemies as people, and she does the least grunge thing of all and chooses a side.

I’m not saying the movie would be better if Carol reasoned with the imperialistic hivemind robo-fascist that literally brainwashed her to use as a weapon, or if she had just left the Kree to commit genocide against what is, in this universe, an oppressed racial minority that’s already been driven to the brink of extinction by rampant imperialism, but the movie still puts the blame on a nation of citizenry as opposed to the systems that influence them. The Skrulls have family and just want to live their lives in peace. The Kree don’t and don’t. The Supreme Intelligence wasn’t lying to an entire nation of soldiers, telling them that the Skrulls are all terrorists and the aggressors in this conflict, it was literally just Carol. Carol was the only one who didn’t know. Those soldiers that Carol had spent six years training with, living with, trusting with her life, they can be killed without a thought cause they’re the bad guys. Cause they didn’t have families like the Skrulls did.

In all likelihood, Marvel Studios saw a female led movie as being enough of a risk and wanted to keep the rest of film entirely safe. It’ll cause less waves if instead of portraying two warring factions as shades of grey, they just swap out black and white’s positions halfway through.

Captain Marvel adopts the aesthetics of 90s rebellion without going that extra step to actually rebel. It comes close to the realization that war is made of people with lives being shunted to their end by careless systems looking for profit, but still organizes all the players into a good side and a bad side instead of acknowledging the fascist systems behind them seeking excess material wealth and control.

Oh well.

Whatever.

Nevermind.

[weironalsubt1977-blog]

Materials scientist Mark Miodownik knows that liquids are not to be trusted, even when frozen solid. His latest book, Liquid: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives, unpicks the cracks, creaks and crystals of ice. Her new book, The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate,brings to life the people who dwell in these icy landscapes, many of which are now disappearing.. I grew up listening to red hot chilli peppers and the fact that after a year and a half of getting records ive finally decided to get californication is pretty funny. The thing i was most excited about was the 2 styx records, this brings me to 4 styx records and theyve been some of my favourite albuns to put on and zone out to while playing games. And the most rare out of these has to be Tool lateralus its been sutting in the record store by my house for a month now and ive been eyeballing it and i finally decided to pick it up, its the version with picture discs and an alternate cover.. It's actually not that bad, you just have to get lucky with your positioning more than anything. I was able to get it on my first serious try. Make sure you have the Moon Selector and Raven in your party in manual mode with Rain mapped to the neutral arte button, the Crucible skill turned off and any bow but the Breaker Bow equipped as you need Rain to do the secret mission, not Rainsong. The auditioning is a really good first step. Communicating with others is all about making small connections with others 마산출장마사지 and growing that relationship over time. The first time you meet people you can ask about the role they auditioning for, why they choose that role, how long they been in acting basically all context dependent questions. I also get things I like even if I have never seen them anywhere before. There a jacket I got at Zara a year ago that I think will look good for a long time because it not any particular trend and I haven really seen anything like it. It denim, but pretty long and 마산출장마사지 kind of like a lab coat and I love it. I know, I'm fluent in Russian :) I think it's really not about the exact translation of specific word, but the idea itself. I grew up at the military base in the middle of Russia. We moved away when Soviet collapsed. However, it would not be mansplaining. Because it doesn have the same implications. Women are used to being talked down to, there is a long history of it in sexism. The other big one for me is Ed McMahon never working for PCH. The real kicker of this one isn the fact that he worked for a competitor, I could relegate it to possible memory issues if that were the case. But it the fact that he "never" surprised winners at home with the oversized check that solidifies this one for me. +1, but in coconut. (As a rule, I don't even like coconut. This is the delectable toasted coconut candy exception.) It's stiffer and denser than Aquaphor, so it sticks longer where I put it, maximizing the basic magic of petrolatum lanolin. But, in any event, they are great. I have done whole eye looks with just these trios alone, since you get a light, medium and darker shade in each set. I typically apply with my fingers, and like to use a normal eye primer if I am going to do a full look with some blending, or tacky glitter glue if I am just going to pack on my lid both primer types work with these shadows.

[impressivepress]

How the Spirit Of Morocco Seized Matisse

The rain began to fall just a few hours after Henri Matisse installed himself in the Hotel Villa de France in Tangier at the end of January, 1912. For days it poured. ''Shall we ever see the sun in Morocco?'' the artist complained in a letter to Gertrude Stein after his first week.

Matisse kept himself busy by painting a vase of irises in his room, a dark image that makes much of the irregular pattern created by flowers against an ornate dressing table. Only the pale yellow and green stripes reflected in the dressing table's mirror hint at the extraordinary colors that Matisse was to discover in Tangier when the clouds finally lifted.

''Matisse in Morocco,'' which opens today at the National Gallery of Art, has only 23 paintings and about 47 drawings, most of them casual sketches that the artist did while wandering the streets and staring out the window of his hotel during his two trips to North Africa, in 1912 and 1913.

But if the exhibition is small in number of works, it greatly illuminates this key figure in the history of 20th-century art. Matisse's Moroccan paintings are for the most part bathed in a dusty, hazy light, a light composed of pinks and yellows and soft blues and greens. If the somber, sharper tones of his still life with irises were the result of cloudy skies, the view of Tangier from the open window of his hotel room that he painted on his second trip to Morocco reflected an entirely different experience.

This is a scene parched by the sun. Like so many of Matisse's Moroccan paintings, it is covered only in the thinnest washes of pigment, as if Matisse wanted the texture of the unpainted canvas to show through so that it would add rawness to the browns and grays.

Although Matisse spent only a few months in Morocco, his experiences apparently remained vividly with him for the rest of his long life. To see, for example, the paintings he completed in Nice during the 20's, with their odalisques and their dizzying arrangements of carpets and wallpaper is to see Morocco transplanted to the Riviera. And to see the cutouts of Matisse's last years, with their brilliant floral concoctions, is to see the spirit of Morocco still alive in the artist's imagination.

Even the evolution from Matisse's depiction of a female nude in ''Back I'' of 1909 to his abstracted, treelike ''Back IV'' of 1930 can be understood more clearly after seeing the paintings from Tangier. As Pierre Schneider points out in his essay for the exhibition's catalogue, Morocco quickened in Matisse the ''process of botanization'' by which human forms and vegetal forms coalesced in the artist's imagination.

The synthesis emerges in the paintings of Moroccans by Matisse, which are rarely portraits in any traditional sense of the term, so skimpy are they on facial details. Their emphasis is on costume and color, as if the subjects were fantastical flowers, not specific people (like many Europeans, Matisse seemed to view North Africans as exotica). ''Look at a tree,'' Matisse said. ''It is like a human being.''

Once the rain cleared, Matisse saw for the first time the Moroccan landscapes, far more lush than any he had known. He went almost immediately into the gardens of the Villa Brooks, a private estate not far from the hotel, and spent weeks painting the acanthuses, palms and periwinkles that covered the grounds. The landscapes he produced describe a kind of earthly paradise, a place where Matisse's Fauvist heritage, with its palette of unnaturally shocking colors, gave way to something subtler and more seductive.

Matisse obviously did not want to paint Morocco as he had seen it in the works of the French orientalist artists who had made pilgrimages to North Africa since the early 19th century. He strove for neither the picturesque nor the pornographic. Nude women bathing or revealing themselves for the delectation of Arab men - familiar themes in the works of such artists as Jean Leon Gerome - was far from Matisse's mind.

As it did for Delacroix, North Africa liberated his imagination. Matisse looked instead at the foliage, at the designs of the buildings and the textiles, and most of all at the quality of light, and he found a repertory of forms and colors that matched his decorative impulse. Decoration in Morocco was not like decoration in France. It was not secondary to an image; it was the principal subject. By painting the patterns and flowers and costumes he saw around him, Matisse realized that he could elevate decoration to something weightier and more evocative than it had been in certain of his earlier works.

In his sketchbooks, he recorded the way buildings tumbled down to the sea in Tangier, the way minarets went cheek by jowl with boxy stucco cottages, the way city squares looked in the afternoon, when the sun drove everyone indoors. He did not pretend to be anything more than an observer of this territory, an outsider on tour, as he presents himself in a witty pen-and-ink drawing, sketching a mosque in his topcoat under the gaze of a woman in chador.

His drawings were mental notes, quick reminders of what he had observed. Yet if they are slight, they do not lack insight or consideration. It is surely no mistake that in Matisse's sketch of the English Church in Tangier he emphasized the precision of a row of cypress trees, while elsewhere he depicted the marabout dome of the Casbah overrun by foliage. Europe was orderly and predictable. Morocco meant extravagance.

The drawings have been compiled and published for the first time by Jack Cowart, curator of 20th-century art at the National Gallery, who organized the exhibition with Mr. Schneider. ''Matisse in Morocco'' brings together almost all the paintings from the artist's two trips, as well as ''The Moroccans,'' which Matisse completed in 1915-16 at his home near Paris.

This curatorial feat could not have been accomplished just a few years ago. It has required the extensive cooperation of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the Hermitage in Leningrad, which own most of the Moroccan canvases. After closing here on June 3, the show travels to the Museum of Modern Art in New York from June 20 to Sept. 4, before going to the Pushkin in later September and the Hermitage in mid-December.

The paintings ended up in Soviet museums because Matisse worked mostly for two enlightened Russian patrons during his trips to Tangier, Sergei Ivanovich Shchukin and Ivan Abramovich Morosov. Shchukin, an importer of textiles and a lover of orientalism, was collecting Matisses before anyone else in Russia - and before most people in Paris - and it was he who bought not only ''The Vase of Irises'' but also several figure studies and other Moroccan works. Morosov commissioned the landscapes that Matisse painted in the gardens of the Villa Brooks.

The artist's relationship with his Russian patrons was more than a matter of money. Matisse visited Shchukin in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 1911, shortly before his trip to Morocco, and to judge by the works he painted in Tangier, he was deeply affected by what he saw in the Russian churches.

The figure studies that Matisse sold to Shchukin - ''Amido,'' ''Fatma, the Mulatto Woman'' and ''Zorah Standing'' - are tall, narrow images resembling Byzantine paintings of saints. Zorah in particular, who squarely confronts the viewer in a costume as brilliant as almost anything in Byzantine art, brings to mind an icon.

But there is even something religious about the extreme quietude and heavenly plenitude of Matisse's Moroccan landscapes. And the seated pose of Zorah in ''On the Terrace'' suggests a woman praying.

''On the Terrace,'' it should be added, is part of a trio of works that the artist painted for Morosov. It was intended to be the centerpiece between ''Landscape Viewed From a Window'' and ''The Casbah Gate,'' although as with so many of Matisse's Moroccan paintings, the meaning of this grouping is not made clear. But it is interesting that many of Matisse's Moroccan paintings were executed in threes. Mr. Schneider may not be far off when he states, ''Where there are triptychs there is a preoccupation, be it subconscious, with the sacred.''

''The Moroccans,'' which he painted after his return to France, is a triptych, too, in that it combines three distinct memories of Tangier - a memory of the architecture, a memory of the people and a memory of nature. In the upper-left corner of this wide painting Matisse has presented a marabout dome; below is an abstracted scene of what looks like melons but can also be figures bowed in prayer. To the right is an even more ambiguous passage, which resembles an Arab in a burnoose.

The whole is bathed not in the dusky light of his earlier Moroccan canvases but in black. Matisse wrote at the time that he began to ''use pure black as a color of light and not as a color of darkness,'' and perhaps this was his way of reconfiguring the Moroccan sun. But also, by using so much black, he eulogized his experiences in Tangier. Clearly, Morocco remained for Matisse not simply a country of colorful characters and stirring landscapes but also a place of spirituality and mystery.

---

A version of this article appears in print on March 18, 1990, Section 2, Page 37 of the National edition with the headline: ART VIEW; How the Spirit Of Morocco Seized Matisse.

~ Michael Kimmelman · Mar 18, 1990.

[weddingjewelers]

Email Order Brides to be Online ᐈ Discover Your Like Abroad Right Now

Working Foreign Dating Tips From Our Pros Don’t know how to date a mail order spouse? Dating foreign brides is nothing like relationship local girls out of your city. When you happen to be talking to -mail order females from so many countries, is considered easy to get overwhelmed by the peculiarities each traditions has. The specialists will be right here to help you through the method, serving for you weave throughout the intricacies of international courting. Postal mail order brides happen to be girls so, who come on particular relationship websites with a make an effort to search out vital relations and get married.

Completely, for example , a South Korean man murdered his Vietnamese star of the event after six days of marital relationship. The husband did not disclose his schizophrenia when he accomplished his bride through a dating company. Inside the BBC’s 2019 report, that reported on a South Korean language man who bodily abused his Japanese wife.

A large number of Vietnamese wives or girlfriends in Southern region Korea sometimes find themselves susceptible to their husbands because their immigration position is determined by them. Agencies should additionally obtain the potential bride’s developed consent to launch her private get in touch with facts to the client. After getting this facts, the star of the event has the decision to accept or refuse interaction with the customer. The bonuses that drive lots of women to enroll as mail-order brides are like the situations that make trafficking victims extra prone to their traffickers. Often driven by poverty and unemployment, couples are tempted by videos photographs of Western life styles and vanish entirely their house international locations seeking a much better life.

Sandys’s tougher activity was convincing potential brides to come back to Jamestown. Fortunately, the financial obstacles to marriage in seventeenth-century Great britain labored in the favor. Securing a home and organising a domestic family have been completely expensive.

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The price of expertise is normally not an impediment, and he abruptly has its own more qualified women vying for his attention. In 1854, in a tranquility convention in Fort Laramie, a remarkable Cheyenne primary requested of the U. T. Army the gift of any hundred white girls as wedding brides, however the armed forces refused. Russian immigrants brought with them the tailor made ofkoopla, whereby marriage brokerages were paid a fee to pair males with potential spouses from Old Country. Similarly, Chinese language and Japoneses obtained “image brides” of their homelands, women of all ages whom that were there come to recognise only via grainy images. Corresponding to historian Glenda Riley, Asian gals entered this sort of relationships as a result of parental pressure, to run away poverty, as well as to hide a sullied popularity.

The girls have been completely advertised in online and offline “catalogs” to To the south Korean men. The Korea Times memories that every year, thousands of Korean language guys join matches with Filipina brides using companies and by mail order. Based on data from the Korean language government, you will find 6, 191 Filipinas in South Korea who are married to Koreans. At the show-up the Korean guy picks a prospective partner from among the group, and in a matter of times they are hitched.

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The answer is that it is actually legal so long as all incidents involved ready by way of the right channels. That is part of the answer why many worldwide matchmaking agencies shun the timeframe mail-order brides. Despite what the timeframe may suggest, nobody is certainly ordering one other human being meant for shipment with their doorsteps. Rather, many buyers of these dating businesses need to work with around the globe marriage broker agents to attach and meet their very own potential spouses. Want to search out hundreds of world-wide mail order brides whom desire meeting a person in the United States? Really want to find some reliable -mail order significant other websites with hundreds of proper profiles? Make certain that you gained’t eliminate your money or personal data?

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The answers are in this article — we feel that there are three main reasons why should you discover a foreign woman. We could proudly declare 1000’s of BridesChoice. net clients possess found take pleasure in right here. A large number of couples have been created, plenty of of relationships have been performed, and lots of Developed men and international brides to be become pleased with our aid. When you decide to hunt appreciate overseas, you`ll facial area an enormous availablility of mail order bride sites. Our objective is that will allow you to select the more effective and the fittest one. All of us verify all of them to study what providers they provide, how the help works, https://foreignbridesguru.com/australian-brides/ what background are posted there, what security procedures are used, and the approach a lot that prices. In the top, you get total evaluations on one of the best symbolizes and make a choice on which to sign up and fall in love.

They all are of various origins, age, and look, but all of the search absolutely adore overseas. Girls registered about dating sites happen to be truly beautiful beauties. It is onerous to face up to their caractère, and each man can be glad to understand their focus.

The worldwide marital relationship brokering transact thrives upon unrealistic warranties and deficiencies in knowledge given to potential brides. While the females could think of their better life, the boys just who purchase a spouse tend to find submissive, placid, and subservient ladies which they can reign over and control. The post workplace discipline quantity detailed for a great company at some time could also be finished the next, and the business that advertises itself as a matrimony broker could in fact end up being promoting porn material or prostitution. Though authorities compare these businesses to every factor from marital life mills to slave dealers, they usually are paid to provide a wife to a buyer. Instead, they will cost Their very own male clients for a report of women who the consumer can write.

In our case, all mail order brides have been labeled as the perfect women for relationship attachments. Potentially that is the initial question that comes to thoughts when one particular hears the time period mail-order brides.

They are guys like Arlie Patterson, who had been married three times earlier than he attained his Philippine wife, each and every time to ”spoiled American girls, ” or perhaps Dan Behnen, who was depressed with the ladies this individual met in Cincinnati bars. The girls, who are often poor, see marital relationship to a foreigner as a chance for a higher life.

Because the collapse for the Soviet Union, large numbers of jap European girls have sold themselves in this means, generally via Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova. Men who record themselves in such books are labeled as “mail-order husbands”, although this can be a lot less recurrent. Some on line mail-order bride-to-be websites furnish matchmaking options. When joining, you fill in some particulars about yourself, your wishes within a future partner.

You must arrange 1000’s of phrases inside the text messages just before you meet an agent who has the identical worth and purposes. Any of the ladies on very good courting sites know what your sweetheart wants, and it is marriage with the best man. A lot of people marvel as to why on-line seeing overseas ladies and marriages with mail-order wives or girlfriends have come to be so common.

Some one hundred businesses in the United States together now are experts in selling mail-order romance, relating Asian gals with males from the Usa, Canada, Down under and European Europe. Even though mail-order relationships can’t be deemed very common, they’ve turn into increasingly well-liked within the last 10 years, consultants claim.

Tens of thousands of men write to Asian girls every year, and an estimated two, 000 to three, 000 of these discover girlfriends or wives in this fashion. In a property office full with a photocopier and typesetter, she compiles a catalogue of those ladies and directs it, for a fee, to 1000’s of males in the United States and Europe who definitely are looking for Oriental brides. Hans’s experience was far from unique — in fact , the change between offline and online energy is probably one of the major aspect at play in trendy dating between foreigners and Filipinas. Before a man involves the Korea, the lady contains the benefit, as a result of solely a fraction of Filipina women have the technological capabilities and British data to satisfy men internet. But the dining tables flip when the foreigner arrives within the nation.

In our case, mail order brides had been categorized as the ideal women for marital life attachments.

Perhaps that is the key query that comes to mind the moment one hears the term mail-order brides.

In any case, it is good to know that you’ve got the possibility to discover a spouse at any time of the day.

There isn’t any have to march outside the house and select somebody to be able to any theory about.

Still, thousands of ladies see that as a calculated risk, mailing their video clip to be put in a list they could by no means discover. For them 2 weeks . gamble that the unknown long term might be much better than an depressed present. In 2001, at 23, your lady discovered her approach to a fledgling internet coffeehouse in a close-by city and registered in Cherry Flowers, the most ancient and most set up mail-order bride-to-be service in the world. Cherry Flowers began publishing brochures of throughout the world women on the lookout for husbands in 1974, recharging foreigners a charge as a swap for a girl’s handle. In 2001, this company shifted it is whole procedure on-line—and Leonor began obtaining emails from an American in his 50s moving into Thailand, known as Dan McKee. No dating for years “to know one another better. ” Dating sites with mail purchase brides contain a minimum of one significant benefit more than well-liked dating apps like Tinder. Some folks there are trying to find some fun, many are on the lookout for hookups, and a few require a serious romantic relationship with someone special.

[phillhall]

Review: Stranger Things

(TV mini-series/Netflix)

Slick, nostalgic, pitched almost perfectly and so full of holes it could have been made in 1983...

There has been a buzz recently about a new 8-part Netflix series called Stranger Things, starring Wynona Ryder and some other people. Set in a backwater US town in the mid-1980s, it has a group of pre-teen ‘misfits’, a bunch of pre-college Jocks, an outsider/loner, a confused teenage girl, rogue cop, distraught mother - all the things that made 1980s ‘blockbusters’ from Steven Spielberg to the teen angst of John Hughes. Throw in a decidedly odd mix of Stephen King and Clive Barker and then don’t bother to think things through too much or you’ll end up picking it to pieces.

If you do start picking it pieces you begin to notice that it’s all style over substance and while it either allows or expects the viewer to fill in the necessary missing pieces, it also constitutes very lazy writing when some of the characters are literally just there to facilitate a plot thread.

There have been comparisons - justifiably - to Spielberg’s 80s movies such as ET, CE3K and his co-scripted The Goonies film and the homage flies thick and fast and any film buff worth their salt will be reeling off references faster than a teenager can have a wank and around the third episode I realised this was a production trick - a way of diverting the viewer’s attention away from the glaring lack of credibility and almost total lack of reason.

Plus - bleeding eyes? Really? Hasn’t this been done to death? Plus, why do film makers insist that people would bleed out of their lacrimol caruncle? Do you know what happens if you get a bleed in that part of the eye? Blood - a liquid and the surface of the eye, also a liquid/lubricant - mix and you get red, streaky eyeballs, especially when you blink. In a series that largely used 21st century special effects, this was one of several 1980s special effects they could have done without (but it was used as a plot device...).

The main story begins with the disappearance of an 11-year-old boy, mysteriously in some local woods. This in itself was handled like a baby with a hand grenade. I know this is the 1980s, but I’m fairly sure even the most red-necked and ignorant of US town sheriff’s would a) treated a missing child case with a degree of seriousness and b) done his searching during the day when flashlights were not required. Kid goes missing and townsfolk all do a day’s work before going into the woods with halogen lamps... This wasn’t the first thing in the show that puzzled me (unless it was an X-Files reference and therefore a decade too early) to the point of annoyance.

I’m going to stop being linear here because I’m not just going to spell out the eight-episodes for you. We are also introduced to 11 (played by Millie Bobby Brown) a young girl with closely cropped hair and a hospital-styled smock who is wandering around the countryside; she is met and befriended by the three friends of the boy who has gone missing. She has mysterious powers and doesn’t talk much.  We are then introduced to what I feel is arguably the weakest and the part of the story that prevents the series from actually working...

Matthew Modine plays the head of some weird scientific project based in a building completely cordoned off not too far from the place where the boy went missing. No one, not even the sheriff seems remotely bothered or even knowledgeable about an apparently top secret facility, with armed guards, is situated so close to their town. It would appear this place and its employees might as well be in a completely different country - or dimension - because in a town that is portrayed as being small enough to know everyone else’s business, the top secret facility obviously was doing it’s job well.

Modine appears to be working for the US government and using a telekinetic child to locate and spy on Russian/Soviet officials - all very cloak and dagger and all very superficial. The problem for the girl doing these experiments - 11 - is that to be able to link with whoever her keeper’s want her to, she has to go through a place where monsters live - which she later describes as ‘the upside down’. Using your own powers of deduction, it appears that by using this incredibly powerful girl to spy on people it starts to break down the barriers between dimensions.

We’re then treated to more film and novel homage with nods to Poltergeist, Stephen King novels about dimensional barriers and at times Labyrinth. There is also a tree and this tree is obviously the portal that the creature (or creatures) on the other side of it uses to come to our world and abduct its food. This allows one of the supporting cast to do something totally totally out of character and then allows the series makers to do something almost ridiculously 1920s in its cliffhanger execution. 

It’s the fact that the characters when the series is set up in the first episode don’t really express much after that first episode. We’re introduced to a group of young friends, but we have no real back story for two of them; the general conversation is that Mike the ‘leader’ of this gang of misfits and Will - the missing child - are best of friends and telephone conversations between their mothers’ (Ryder and Cara Buono) suggest the two women are also best of friends, but that never materialised. The thing is - no one talked to each other. It was like the 1980s was this period of time when everyone was just doing their own thing and no one else was remotely aware - maybe it was, but I can’t help thinking if Stephen King has written this - because it fits in with so many of his town-themed novels - it would have been more realistic in its characterisation.

It is so wonderfully crafted, it looks and sounds like it was made in 1986, even down to crowd scenes - the hair and clothes are all spot on. The dialogue, at times, veered into the wrong era - the expression ‘sick’ for something good was a few years away and began in a different part of the USA. Even the government as secret above-the-law agency was handled well, except... it wasn’t at all. The slightly bogus secondary antagonists - Modine’s security detail - were unconvincing and inconsistent - Spielberg did ‘sinister government’ spot on and believable; this lot just looked like a cross between crooks and psychopaths.

However many plot holes and things that were just badly written, it did have some really clever things going for it, there were some really unexpected performances and it fairly rattled along once it got going. Millie Bobby Brown stole the show for me and her tone and way she drifted through the series was possibly the best thing about it. Imagine a girl that has been kept as an experiment all her life, her lack of love and parenting, no nurturing, just used as a weapon and then being released into an unsuspecting world. The mixture of rage and confusion was set very well as was her ability to kill if she felt it was necessary. 

Wynona Ryder was a revelation in the kind of role that Dee Wallace or Melinda Dillon excelled at in the 1980s, but with little or no real back story about her life, looking at her house, compared to her peers, and judging by her general hippy-ish attitude in flashback scenes, you get the impression that histrionics, drama and crisis has never been too far from her door; had this been emphasised a little more clearly, you might have understood why no one seemed that overtly concerned about her son Will’s disappearance. The fact that another town youth also disappears soon after generates about as much interest as an apple-bobbing party at the local church. Ryder plays the in-denial grieving mom very well up to the moment she starts playing with lights, carrying an axe round and smashing walls open because Will was trying to communicate with her. How he was managing to manipulate the electricity in a mobile home in the middle of nowhere from ‘the upside down’ was never explained, not even looked at, it was just thrown in there to emphasise to the viewer that Ryder wasn’t just bonkers.

There are some excellent scary bits, but once the suspense is done with and you’re given the idea that 11 and the monster are more than just linked, it might just be the creature of her id (created by the thing she was using to do the government’s bidding) it becomes a bit of a slaughter-fest with 11 and the monster dispatching large numbers of faceless agents. The’upside down’ is a mixture of creepy and Silent Hill and at times it had tremendous atmosphere, but none of the main characters are particularly likeable; even the kids are an odd mix, with the black kid being the most overtly bigoted and the fat toothless idiot as the level-headed one, despite being a (low-grade) buffoon. Spielberg gave you emotional attachment to specific kids inside 2½ hours; this series never manages to really make you care about any of the kids, because they’re all dislikeable in certain ways. Only 11 (or El as the boys called her) seemed exempt from this and not enough time was spent on her ‘re-education’ to life and too much time spent on Modine glowering over her and showering her in fake love.

So much, like a 1980s film, is left to the imagination and that, now, is a problem. Setting it in the 1980s circumvents such irritants as mobile phones, the Internet and transparency, but that doesn’t necessarily add any authenticity to it. Maybe viewed weekly this might have worked better, allowing the viewer to not remember clearly certain bits, thus allowing the imagination to fill in the blanks; but as a box set it just falls down in places.

[trendingnewsb]

Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers?

In the first of our new series, The Upside, we look at how the country went from famine to topping nearly every global social ranking

Finland

The Upside

Safe, happy and free: does Finland have all the answers?

In the first of our new series, The Upside, we look at how the country went from famine to topping nearly every global social ranking

Finlands 10 great innovations

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Jon Henley in Helsinki

@jonhenley

Mon 12 Feb 2018 09.00EST Last modified on Tue 13 Feb 2018 05.28EST

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Its about cooperating. Everyone together, equally: Helsinki, the Finnish capital. Photograph: Hemis/Alamy

Western Europes last naturally caused famine ended 150 years ago this winter. In a poor and backward part of the Russian empire called Finland, more than a quarter of a million people nearly 10% of the population starved to death.

Last year, on the centenary of its independence, Finland was ranked, by assorted international indices, the most stable, the safest and the best-governed country in the world. It was also the third wealthiest, the third least corrupt, the second most socially progressive and the third most socially just.

Finlands judicial system is the most independent in the world, its police the most trusted, its banks the soundest, its companies the second most ethical, its elections the second freest, and its citizens enjoy the highest levels of personal freedom, choice and wellbeing.

The Nordic countrys 5.5 million inhabitants are also the third most gender-equal in the world and have the fifth lowest income inequality. Their babies are the least underweight, their kids feel the most secure, and their teens perform the second best at reading (only third at science, though).

In a century and a half, they seem to have done rather well. And so, as the Guardian embarks on a new series investigating the things that are going right in the world, it feels natural to start in Helsinki.

If you look at where we were then and where we are now, I think, absolutely, you can talk about a Finnish miracle, said Bengt Holmstrm, a Helsinki-born Nobel prize-winning economist not much given to exaggeration. How and why did it happen? Now thats a question.

There are limits, of course, to the usefulness of this kind of exercise: no two countries their circumstances, their histories, their people can be the same. Learnings may not be transferable. The magic sauce that made Finland would not produce the same results in, say, France.

It is true, too, that shown the long list of social and economic measures by which their country can only be judged a success, many Finns snort: emerging slowly from a long recession, with unemployment at 8% and a populist, nationalist party garnering up to 20% of the vote, the countrys not what it was, they say. Often, the response only semi-joking is, You mean other countries are worse?

Quick guide

About this series

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What is The Upside?

News doesn’t always have to be bad indeed, the relentless focus on confrontation, disaster, antagonism and blame risks convincing the public that the world is hopeless and there is nothing we can do.

This series is an antidote, an attempt to show that there is plenty of hope, as our journalists scour the planet looking for pioneers, trailblazers, best practice, unsung heroes, ideas that work, ideas that might and innovations whose time might have come.

Readers can follow up with our Further Reading guides and can also recommend other projects, people and progress that we should report on, by filling out the form at the bottom of the article.

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But inquiring after the sauces recipe of, among others, an economist, a philosopher, a sociologist and an ex-president, intriguing ingredients emerge.

To begin with, the geography and its consequence, the climate. We live, Tarja Halonen, Finlands president from 2000 to 2012, says carefully, in a cold, harsh and remote place. Every person has to work hard for themselves. But that is not always enough. You have to help your neighbours.

Bruce Oreck, who served as Barack Obamas ambassador to Helsinki (he liked it so much he stayed), says this has been a profound, long-term influence. Its made Finns self-reliant, private, but also dependent on a highly cooperative society, where rules matter. Its cultural, but its become part of the chemistry.

Of all the Finnish words that are hard to translate into English, the one Finns cite most is sisu: a kind of dogged, courageous persistence regardless of consequence. It is what, in 1939-40, allowed an army of 350,000 men to twice fight off Soviet forces three times their number, and inflict losses five times heavier than those they sustained.

The Finnish icebreaker ship Sisu, named after the countrys term for a certain dogged stoicism. Photograph: Alamy

But there is another that is, perhaps, more revealing, says Sirpa Khknen, an award-winning historical novelist. Talkoo means working together, collectively, for a specific good, she says. Getting the harvest in, stocking wood, raising money. Its about cooperating. Everyone together, equally.

Cooperation, but also relative equality, are recurring themes. Ruled for almost 600 years by Sweden and a further century by Russia, Finland was generally and democratically poor, says Khknen. There were no serfs, but no wildly wealthy aristocrats either. Society was not hierarchical.

Since long before independence in 1917, says Riitta Jallinoja, a sociologist, gaps between the social classes in Finland have been smaller than usual. Even the industrial revolution here was modest: no Rothschilds, no Fords, not even a dynasty like Swedens Wallenbergs.

Even in todays clean, functional, visibly prosperous Helsinki, that still sort of holds. You can be walking down the street next to the richest guy in town, and you really wouldnt know, says Oreck. In Finland, insists Halonen, You dont look up at people, and you dont look down. You look level.

The countrys most successful current firm, games studio Supercell, creator of Clash of Clans, paid over 800m in tax, producing seven of Finlands top 10 income tax payers in 2016. Along with the rest of the countrys highest 10,000 or so highest earners, the amount they pay is published in an annual list, on national envy day. Finland is big on civic duty, but also on transparency.

The success of the countrys free national education system, established before independence in 1866 and regularly ranked among the worlds best, also has its roots in a more egalitarian society, says Jallinoja: Education was the key to advancement.

Not only that, says the philosopher and professor emeritus Ilkka Niiniluoto, but the whole country is actually a social construction created by university professors. The academics who led the countrys nationalist movement created Finland as a nation: its language, history, literature, music, symbols, folklore. The nationalist leader was a philosophy professor.

Since independence, nearly 30% of Finlands heads of state and government have been university professors, including half its early prime ministers. They shaped the country as we know it, says Jallinoja. But vitally, they also created confidence in social mobility, and real belief in education. That history comes with us.

If, however, Finland has been rated the worlds most literate country, it may also have something to do with a 19th-century decree that a couple could not marry in the Lutheran church before both passed a reading test. Quite an incentive, observes Halonen, to learn to read.

Ilkka Paananen, CEO of game developer Supercell, which paid over 800m in tax in 2016. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Gender equality, similarly, was baked in. In 1906, Finnish women became, if not quite the first to win the vote, the first to run for electoral office. Nearly 10% of MPs in Finlands first parliament were women (the figure is now 42%); as early as 1930, up to 30% of university students were women. Women in Finland took their rights seriously, and men accepted it, says Halonen.

Other ingredients have since added to the sauce. Finland benefited enormously from wise wartime and postwar leaders, insists Holmstrm: They thought about the good of the country; took big, sensible decisions. And the consensus backed them, because everyone knew we were fighting for our existence.

Responsible choices were made, invariably by continuity-conscious coalition governments, on big industrial and infrastructure investments, that have paid dividends many times over. More recently, todays high-tech, startup-friendly Finland was born of record investment in research and development in the 1990s, nearing 4% of GDP.

Steady growth through war, the collapse of the Soviet Union and a deep recession in the 1990s, Finlands economy has expanded over the past century at a rate equalled only by Japans has bolstered trust in the nations institutions. People criticise the government constantly, and often for very good reason, says Khknen. But fundamentally, they do trust it.

As they do, on the whole, their welfare state on which Finland spends 31% of its GDP, the second highest proportion in the OECD. (If youre going to have a welfare state, says Halonen, the only real way to it is so well that theres no point having a private alternative.)

But Finns also trust each other more than most, says Andr Chaker, a Canadian-born lawyer and public speaker who has lived in the country for 25 years. Corruption and organised crime are all but nonexistent. That feeds into the business environment, he says. Things get done here faster, more reliably.

And it is trust that breeds confidence, and a willingness to innovate: the World Economic Forum ranks Finland the most innovative country, per capita, in the world. For years dominated by monolithic mining and forestry firms, then by the once-mighty Nokia, Finland today is close behind Silicon Valley in the number of startups per head.

The magic sauce, then, seems based mainly on basic virtues: self-confidence, cooperation, equality, respect for education, trust. At bottom and in practice, says Anu Partanen, a Finnish journalist who now lives in New York, it boils down to a different quality of relationship. She calls it since it is shared to a greater or lesser extent by Sweden, Norway and Denmark the Nordic theory of love.

In the family, its realising that relationships can only really flourish between individuals parents, children, spouses who are equal and independent, Partanen says. In a society, it means policy choices aimed at ensuring the greatest possible degree of independence, freedom and opportunity for everyone.

This article is part of a series on possible solutions to the worlds biggest problems. What else should we cover?

If youre having trouble using the form, click here.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/safe-happy-and-free-does-finland-have-all-the-answers

from Viral News HQ https://ift.tt/2GG0Q2e via Viral News HQ

[daivietseo11]

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What you should be jealous about for sure – is that in their capital, Tallinn, people transportation is free to get formal residents with the capital. Reduced expenses, less private automobiles, cleaner weather, lower polluting of the environment, and more cash for metropolis due to raising number or registered dwellers of the capital who spend their taxation here, not really elsewhere. What their Estonian bride-to-be may be excited by your country’s public transportation program (if she moves to you from Tallinn) – that this wounderful woman has to pay money for to trip a coach or a subway.

It’s hard to get one different area worldwide, where non-native British music speakers can be consequently comparable with the event to make sure you English speaking most people in highly produced countries. Straight away, you can face which usually facing you is actually a well-educated and intensely clever persons. Concerning Estonian gals, they have much simpler that you discover a like-minded match up with, while not incomprehensive stories, which dwellers from further countries could explain, whilst not the many broke bears and mutilated fates. Any time these types of like you – they wanna meet most people because you are a exceptional someone to many people. They’ll actually decide to buy a good aeroplanes ticket into their cost to arrive to work out many people (and that they won’ m end up having visa on your UK or just the US).

Estonian girlfriend will do the household chores. Her hobbies, task, and friends will never get in the way with your family. Of course, if she selects you simply because her existence partner, she will under no circumstances cheat you since Estonian women are devoted. They know that there is absolutely nothing more important over a healthy family group.

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What is normally peculiar about Estonia? Just like a lot of other European countries, you can live the whole life in Estonia comfortably without ever uttering a word of Estonian. Nearly everybody understands British, to ranging degrees. This is particularly so inside the large places, although they may not be as cozy speaking British.

Estonian young women are a variety of feminist and conservative. A lot of section of these people have become woefully outdated to what is the functions males and females should use within the traditions: numerous Estonian brides feel that guys should lead the wedding and start to get in control of most decisions used by a few. This can be basically the influence of the patriarchal Eastern roots that affect that it’s guys whom really should be at the mind of every close family. Estonian gals dating men from other international locations anticipate them to resemble all their regional guys within their motivation to make the responsibility of delivering just for the household.

You must have seen a large number of Russian or perhaps Latin females on online dating services. People learn about them because of the nature and beauty. However , there are Estonian young girls also exactly who pack a lot of surprises. Delightful, good-natured, calm, and classic, these females are ideal for associations. In worldwide dating, they will will be the most wanted.

Once you travel to Estonia to fetch your Estonian bride, be mindful not to remove yourself in food. Estonian food is indeed delicious that you can easily get lost in the variety of likes and odours. That’s not junk food like in the motherland, however the food there may be far not always healthy, both. It’s hence simple to gain weight there and lose your system forms.

Whenever you already figure out, it will not take a whole lot of your time to fill this form out. And when you do it, you will see your only created account. But it should empty so you will need to complete it out with increased information about yourself and publish at least a couple of your photos. And here you will be, ready for connection with beautiful Estonian singles.

Present delivery: one of the most effective ways to show warm Estonian birdes-to-be that you good care is to get in touch with them daily and, at times, surprise these a little something. Many sites could have a selection of reveals their local divisions can easily deliver about site. Generally, these presents include flowers, candy, plush toys, scent, and jewelry.

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Chances are, you’ll never heard of Estonian brides to be for relationship before — even if you aren’t exactly new to online dating. Estonian brides have the reputation of currently being tall, brown, and Scandinavian searching. Estonians basically think of themselves as the other Scandinavian countries perform. That much is sensible since Germans, Danes, and Swedes ruled it for most of Estonia’s history.

Therefore , Estonian women of all ages dating on-line hope to find a person who’ll court docket and astound them. Finally, there might be the very best variety look we all talked about above. However , have a tendency imagine about practically all Estonian women as huge blondes with blue eyesight. While most females in Estonia indeed appear like that, in addition , you will discover a lot of pink-heads and brunettes inside the same country.

Estonian women are also very skinny, typically. Their particular standard to get beauty skews closer toward slim, really and bent. Larger girls (whether fat or just with larger frames) are less prevalent. The capital is particularly known for having close to a 0 % rate of obesity.

Reward delivery: online dating sites can be rough — due to the fact you cannot pay your beautiful women all the indications of emotions she deserves. Well, which has a reliable organization, you can! This sort of sites may deliver flowers, candy, and other small gift ideas directly to your meet.

This is exactly what the young contemporary gentleman requirements. One of many greatest different types between the a pair of these kinds of brides to be to be is that Estonian women use a European attitude. They are much nearer for you widely, as most girls in Estonia find out The english language by a fantastic stage, there’ll hardly become any language hurdle. Simultaneously, an Estonian girl will certainly gladly accessible to a person she is vitally thinking about.

High popularity goes either to exotic special gems from incredibly hot southern countries or destinations or young women from Far eastern and Western Europe. In the event the first ones are good for the purpose of unusual practices and different nationalities, the Eu girls happen to be popular because they are close to american men by their lifestyle, all their worldviews, and culture. Even though the attention that is certainly mostly paid by Slavic girls from Spain, Ukraine, and Belarus, Estonia is another region of the ex – Soviet Union that should be also considered as any to find a star of the event. Beautiful Estonian women will be well-educated, wonderful, family-oriented, and a friendly to overseas men, so, who are interested in marital life.

Once a great Estonian mail-order bride comes with thawed and she already knows a person better, your woman becomes considerably more relaxed, casual, and also unveils her warm-hearted side. However, you should be ready that a hot Estonian women will not likely https://www.interracialdatingsitesreview.com/estonian-brides/ demonstrate much of herself on the first of all date. She is going to hardly come to contact.

Northern type of appearance with white epidermis and profound blue or perhaps green or grey sight doesn’t generate Estonian ladies unique, although they do make them very attractive. The main point is within its specific and being aware of some secrets may help you to win the heart of pretty Estonian lady.

All of us cannot pressure this enough — Estonian women are exceptionally beautiful. You probably picture a typical Estonian daughter as a tall blonde with a slim number and green eyes — and you’re here quite directly to do so. However if you’re even more into brunettes or red-heads, it’s also possible to locate them in Estonia. After all, no country, no matter how far up North, can consist of blondin only. Estonia, in particular, got its publish of invasions and politics turmoil, therefore an extra ‘influx’ of family genes was unavoidable. Still, it can one of the few countries in European countries that remain pretty much mono-ethnic.

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Can Russia (or Iran) survive without China?

[this analysis was written for the Unz Review]

In a recent article entitled “China, Bolivia and Venezuela are proof that social democracy cannot thrive in the global capitalist order” my China-based friend and correspondent Jeff J. Brown asked me an exceedingly interesting and important question.  He wrote:

Russia is a social democracy, with a large, successful people owned industrial sector and many social services for the 99% from the Soviet era. But, unlike Bolivia and Ukraine, it is avoiding the West’s color revolution poison pill, because since 1999, Russia has gone from strength to strength, under the inspired leadership of patriotic President Vladimir Putin. But like all social democracies, the problem is what happens if another Western whore Boris Yeltsin succeeds Putin, and returns Russia to its dystopian Wall Street rape of the 1990s? Then what? It only took Macri four short years to bring Argentina back onto its groveling knees. Without a 100% nationalized media, Russians had better be demanding that Putin & Russian Patriots Inc. work overtime to censor all the Western overthrow garbage that is put in Cyrillic ink and on the airwaves.  I would love to hear what my good friend Andrei Raevsky thinks about this at The Saker (http://thesaker.is/), because let’s be honest: without China’s, Russia’s and Iran’s continued anti-imperial independence and socialist success into the 21st century, humanity can kiss its ass goodbye!

Let’s begin by deconstructing the assumptions and implications of Jeff’s question.China and Russia *could* be separatedThe first assumptions Jeff makes are the following ones:

Russia is a social democracy

The Russian media is not 100% state controlled

A new Eltsin might succeed Putin

The West is saturating the Russian information space with garbage

That western propaganda can still strongly impact Russia

China and Russia *could* be separated (hence the need to prevent that as the central thesis of Jeff)

And, finally, considering the above, Jeff offers the following compelling implication for the China-Russia-Iran triangle:

Considering the above, China’s independence and support for Russia and Iran are vital for the sovereignty and freedom, if not survival, of Russia and Iran

Now let’s begin by looking into Jeff’s assumptions:

Russia is a social democracy:

Yes and no.  If we define a social democracy as being a specific polity and system of laws, then Russia is a social democracy.  However, if we define social democracy as a specific polity, system of laws and social culture, then I would argue that to the extent that Russia is, indeed, a social democracy, she is a rather weird one.  What do I mean by that?

By that I mean that thanks to the nightmare of “democracy” under Eltsin and his US curators, and thanks to the recent explosion of “democracy” in the Ukraine, the Russian people have by and large come to consider the words “liberal” and “democracy” as four letter words.  For example, the word “либерал” (liberal) has now given birth to a derived word либераст which takes the first letters of the word “liberal” and adds the last letters of the word педераст (pederast – a rude word for homosexual [yes, in Russian homosexuality and pederasty are not separated!]) which results in the new word “liberast” the closest to which in English would be something like “libfag”, hardly a compliment. In some interpretations, a “liberast” is also somebody who has been “f**ked by democracy“.  Not much better…  As for the word “демократия” (democracy) for years it has already been called “дерьмократия” (using the first letters of дерьмо (der’mo or shit) and the last letter of democracy to create der’mokratia or “shitocracy”.  Finally, there is also the saying that “демократия, это власть демократов” (democracy is the rule of the democrats), which for a country which has undergone the 1990s and seen the Ukraine being comprehensively FUBARed is ominous; not funny at all.  All this is simply to show that culturally the Russian society is not at all your typical social democracy.  It is a sort of democracy in which the majority of the people do not believe in democracy.  This is very important, crucial even, and I will address this issue later.

The Russian media is not 100% state controlled:

That is absolutely true!  However, it misses an important point: the real profile of the Russian media which is much more complex than “state controlled” vs “free media”.  To make a long story short, the main TV channels, while not really “controlled” by the state at all, are mostly pro-Kremlin.  But here we need to get the cause and effect right: these channels are not pro-Kremlin only because they get state funds or because of the political power of the Kremlin, the main reason why they are pro-Kremlin is the terrible rating of those media outlets who took a strong anti-Kremlin position.

To make my point, I want to mention the rabidly anti-Kremlin TV station which is very well known in Russia (Dozhd’ – see here for the (predictably complimentary) entry in Wikipedia for this TV channel).  In fact, Dozhd’ is just the best known of a fairly extensive anti-Kremlin media but, in reality, there are many more outlets which hold an anti-Kremlin pro-Empire line.  However, as I explained in a 2016 article entitled “Counter-Propaganda, Russian Style”  and then, again, in 2017, in the article “Revisiting Russian Counter-Propaganda Methods” the Kremlin has developed a very effective counter-propaganda strategy: instead of suppressing the Empire’s propaganda (like the Soviets did, most unsuccessfully), the Kremlin now directly funds that same propaganda!  Not only does the (state-owned) Gazprom finance Dozd’ – the western and Russian liberal guests which ridicule themselves on Russian TV are also generously paid for each of their appearances.  Even hardcore Ukronazi nutcases get invited regularly (when they truly overdo it they also get into fights, or get kicked out of the studios, which is all very much fin to watch and is therefore watched by millions).  The truth is that at this point the AngloZionist propaganda in Russia has much more of a very healthy “vaccination” effect then the ability to convince anybody beyond the “traditional” 2-4% of folks in Russia who still think that the West is some kind of heaven on earth and Russia an ugly, vicious and freedom crushing “Mordor”.

This being said, there is one channel through which the worst of the western consumer-society propaganda still permeates Russia: commercials.   Russian commercials are mostly absolutely disgusting; they basically vehiculate one crude and simple message “Russians must become US Americans”.  That propaganda via commercials is, I think the single most toxic and insidious form of de-russification I can think of and it is far more dangerous than any other means of “defacing” Russia.

Finally, and to my great regret, media outlets like RT and Sputnik have decided to “go native” I suppose and they now cater to western tastes much more than to Russian ones.  The quasi constant “reporting” about MMA fights, minimally clad ladies, sex in all its shapes and forms and Hollywood gossip – all of this just goes to show that the folks in charge of these media outlets have decided that catering the the lowest possible social common denominator is the way to promote Russia abroad.  I am not so sure.  What began with “Question More” and “Telling the Untold” now seems more preoccupied with trying to copy the yellow press in the UK than to challenge the Empire.  I very much regret that state of affairs.

Unfortunately, there are also a lot of 5th columnists and russophobes in these media outlets (especially in their online, Internet-based, websites; the actual radio/TV shows are mostly better).

So all is not rosy in the Russian media scene, but its not all bad either.

A new Eltsin might succeed Putin

Here I can only completely agree, and that is very scary.  Due to the lack of space, I will present my arguments in a short, bullet-point, list:

“Russia” is still very much a “one man show” meaning that Putin himself, as a person,  is still absolutely vital to the current functioning of Russia.  Not only are most Russians still strongly supportive of him personally, but there are no credible candidates to replace him.  Yes, there are a few potential candidates out there (in no special order: Ivanov, Shoigu and Rogozin would be the best known, but there are others, of course), but what makes it all worse is that historically, Russia, unlike China, has a very bad record of successions.

The 5th column is still there and while it keeps a very low profile (current events favor the Eurasian Sovereignists), it is still there, literally in all branches of power and very much inside the Moscow elites who hate Putin for putting an end to what they saw as the “Bonanza of the 1990s”.

There *is* a patriotic Russian opposition to Putin, and it is slowly growing, but it is poorly organized, has a lot of clueless nostalgics of the Soviet era and a lot of its criticisms are, frankly, naive or plain silly (along with very valid points too!).  I don’t see this opposition capable of producing a strong and credible leader.  But that might change in the future.

Thus the cornerstone of “Putinism” is Putin himself.  With him gone, for whatever reason, Putinism could very rapidly fade too.  This might be a good or a bad thing depending on the specific circumstances, but the chances that this might be a very bad thing are higher than the opposite being true.

“Putin The Man”, urgently needs to be replaced by “Putin The System”, but that is truly a herculean task because that means reforming/purging most of the immense and powerful Russian bureaucracy and find somewhere a new generation of men and women who could be both effective and trusted.  The problem is that in most cases when one man goes against a system, the system wins.  Putin is the proverbial case of a very good man in a very bad system.  True, he has successfully reformed the two branches of government which were most needed to make it possible for both him and Russia to survive the war the Empire was waging on Russia: the armed forces and the intelligence/security forces.  Other parts of the Russian state are still in a terrible shape (the entire legal system for starters!).

I think that the risk of an Eltsin-like prostitute coming to power is real, even if the bulk of the population would not necessarily approve of it (or be divided about it).  Long-term historical stability of a huge country like Russia cannot come from a man.  It can only come from institutions.  And just as Peter I destroyed the traditional Russian monarchy, so can one man destroy the current “new Russia” (for lack of a better descriptor), especially if this “new Russia” has only one man as its cornerstone.

Finally, history teaches us that every time that Russia is weak or disunited, the western powers immediately pounce and intervene, including with military means.  The Poles are still dreaming about yet another chance to prove Churchill’s diagnosis about Poland true and pounce on both the Ukraine and Russia if given the chance.

The West is saturating the Russian information space with garbage and western propaganda can still strongly impact Russia

As we have seen above, these are both at least partially true, but they are also not that much of a big deal.  This is clearly a source of potential concern, a danger, but not a threat (a danger being vague, a threat specific).  To the extend that this is a bad thing, this is mostly due to the hyper-materialistic consumer culture which currently competes against a much more traditional, Russian culture.  It is hard to say which one will win.  The former has much, much bigger financial means, the latter one has a strong ‘home turf advantage”.  Only time will show which will prevail.  So long as many Russians will  think “western propaganda lies” (which most understand) AND are attracted to western-style commercials (which are, in so many ways, an even much more effective and insidious form of propaganda), the jury will remain out on who will prevail should instability return to Russia.

China and Russia *could* be separated

This is probably the most important assumption made by Jeff.  First, since this is completely hypothetical, and since we are not future-seeing prophets let’s first agree to never say never and not dismiss this possibility out of hand.  This being said, I would like to remind everybody that Russia and China have gradually changed the labels which they applied to the other side.  The latest (as far as I know, Chinese speakers please correct me if needed!) expression used by Xi and other Chinese officials is “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era“.  There is a lot to unpack here, but let’s just say that this does not sound like the Chinese came up with that concept lightly or that they have many misgivings about the future of the relationship with Russia.  As for the Russians, they have now openly used the term “ally” on many occasions, including Putin.  In Russian that word “ally” (союзник) is a very strong one and contrasts sharply with the cynical and disgusted way the Russians always speak about their western “partners” (which often shocks those who don’t speak Russian).

And it is not all sweet talk either.  The Russians and the Chinese have had many and major joint military maneuvers, they have practiced the Russian equivalent of the US/NATO “Combined Joint Task Force” concept (see here for details).  Thus, while not formal allies, Russia and China do all the things which close allies do.  I would even argue that the “informal symbiosis” between Russia and China is far stronger than the NATO alliance.

It is my opinion that what Putin and Xi have done is something which has no previous equivalent in history, at least as far as I know.  Even though both Russia and China have been empires in the past, I strongly believe that both of these countries have entered a “post-imperial phase” in which the trappings of empire have been replaced by an acute sense that empires are extremely bad not only for the nations which it oppresses, but also for the nation which hosts it.  Both Russia and China have paid a horrendous price for their imperial years and both Russia and China completely understand that the people of the USA are also amongst the prime victims of the (transnational) Anglo-Zionist Empire, even if that is all too often forgotten.  Not only do they not want to repeat their own mistakes, they see the USA dying in the quicksands of imperialism and the last thing they want is to jump in and join the US.

I believe that the relationship between Russia and China is a symbiosis, which is much stronger than any alliances because while the latter can be broken, the former typically cannot (at least not without extremely severe consequences).  I also believe that Putin and Xi both understand that the fact that Russia and China are so completely different is not a problem, but a tremendous asset: they fit perfectly, like Lego or puzzle pieces.  What Russia has China does not and vice-versa.  And, just to clarify for the logically challenged: both sides also understand that they will never get from the other side by war what they could get by peaceful exchange.  Yes, the silly Polish dream of having Russia invaded by China several times (an old Polish joke of sorts) is only a reflection of the ancient Polish inferiority complex, not of geostrategic realities 🙂

Of course, in theory, anything could happen.  But I personally see no chain of events which could be sufficient to threaten the Sino-Russian symbiotic relationship, not even a collapse of “New Russia Putinism” (not elegant, but functional for our purposes) or the kind of chaos which a Eltsin type of comprador regime could try to reimpose on Russia.  At the end of the day, if Russia collapses then China will hold truly immense financial and economic power over Russia and will therefore be able to impose at least a China-friendly regime.  In that extremely unlikely case, Russia would, of course, lose her sovereignty, but not to the West, but to China.  That is not quite what Jeff had in mind.

Conclusion:

Yes, Russia and China need each other.  I would argue that they need each other.  Vitally.  And yes, the “loss” of one would threaten the other.  But that is not just true for Russia, it is also very true of China (which desperately needs Russian energy, high-tech, natural resources, weapons systems but most of all, Russian experience: for most of her existence Russia was threatened, invaded, attacked, sanctioned, boycotted and disparaged by a long succession of western states, and she defeated them all.  Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but each time Russia prevailed.  The determination and ability to resist the West is something which is deeply embedded in the Russian cultural DNA (this in sharp contrast with the rest of the so-called “East European” countries).  Finally, and for all their very real recent advances, the Chinese armed forces are still far behind the Russian (or the USA for that matter) and in a one-on-one war against the USA China would definitely lose, especially if the USA goes “all out”.  Russia, on the other hand, has the means to turn the US and Europe into a post-industrial nuclear wasteland (using nuclear and, most importantly, non-nuclear munitions!).

I would also add something Jeff did not address: Iran.  I believe that both Russia and China also very much need Iran.  Okay, that is not a vital need, both Russia and China could survive without an allied Iran, but Iran offers immense advantages to both countries, if only because thanks to the truly phenomenal stupidity of the Neocons the USA’s breathtakingly stupid policies in the Middle-East (here is just the latest example) have turned Iran into a regional super-power eclipsing both Israel and the KSA.  Furthermore, if Russia has shown much more political and moral courage than China (which, lets be honest, has been pretty happy to have Russia taking the brunt of the Empire’s attacks), Iran has shown much more political and moral courage than Russia, especially concerning the slow-motion genocide perpetrated by the Zionist Entity in Palestine.

And this brings us full circle to the discussion of what kind of country Russia currently really is.  Russia is not the Soviet Union.  Neither is she pre-1917 Russia.  But what is she really?

Nobody really knows, I think.

It is a moving target, a process.  This process might lead to a new and stable “new Russia”, but that is by no means certain.  Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of Article 13 of the Russian Constitution say:

In the Russian Federation ideological diversity shall be recognized

No ideology may be established as state or obligatory one.

In the Russian Federation political diversity and multi-party system shall be recognized.

In other words, not only is there no “no official ideology” in Russia, there is an explicit recognition for a multi-party political system (itself an ideological statement, by the way).  These are all potentially very dangerous and toxic items in the Russian Constitution which already are hindering a true national, cultural, psychological and spiritual rebirth of Russia.  Iran, in contrast, has succeeded in creating an Islamic Republic which is both truly and unapologetically Islamic and truly democratic, at least in the sense that, unlike western democracies which are mostly run by minorities and for minorities (or a coalition of minorities), in Iran the majority supports the system in place.

And since the vast majority of the Russian people do not want a single-party-system or a return to Soviet times yet don’t believe in (western style) democracy, Russian intellectuals would be well advised to take a very close and careful look at what I would call the “Iranian model”, not to simply copy it, but to see what aspects of this model could be adapted to Russian realities.  Historical Russia was an Orthodox monarchy.  That time is gone and will never return.  Soviet Russia was a Marxist atheistic state.  That time is also forever gone.  Modern Russia can only find references, lessons and implications in her past, but she cannot simply resurrect Czarist or Communist Russia.  Of course, neither can she reject her entire history and declare it all “bad” (which is what Russian “liberals” always do, which explains why they are so hated).

I don’t know what the future Russia will look like.  I am not even totally sure that this new Russia will ever really happen (though my gut feeling is that it will).  I hope that it will, but whether that happens or not will not be decided in China or by China (or any other country).  To conclude on a famous quote by Karl Marx “the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves” (in Russian: “Освобождение рабочих должно быть делом самих рабочих”) which a famous Russian 1928 book turned into “the salvation of those who are drowning has to be the action of those drowning” (in Russian: “Спасение утопающих — дело рук самих утопающих”).  Whatever version you prefer (I prefer the 2nd one), the meaning is clear: you need to solve your problems by yourself or with those who share that problem with you.  In other words, Russians are the only ones who can save or destroy the Russian nation (I mean “Russian” in the traditional, Russian, multi-ethnic and multi-religious meaning of the words руссий and российский which in traditional Russian are both interchangeable or different depending on the context).

The Saker

PS: I leave you with a photo which, imho, speaks a thousand words