#great time to be british (nationality reveal)

[strxnqerthinqz]

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

click to see the pics better <3

[kamotecue]

part three: leah williamson and y/n l/n have broken the internet as they came out as a couple.

part one | part two

you looked at leah who gave you a soft smile, as you grabbed her hand caressing it with your thumb.

“this is how we will break the internet then?” you asked, as leah chuckled giving you a nod. since leah was the only one that had instagram, she would be the one to announce your relationship to the world.

as a royal, you were restricted to own any social media accounts. but you do have an account that is run by the royal’s social team. back to what leah was saying, leah with your consent planned to upload a few photos with you, with the caption welcome back, my love followed by a red heart.

the first phone was you burying your face in the crook of leah’s neck, wearing her arsenal trainer jacket. the second one was you and leah cuddled watching a movie, where it actually showed your face. the third one was your hands where you had your pinkies intertwined, it was a promise that when we fight, never go to bed angry.

the fourth one was a collage with both of you doing silly poses, the peace sign, you kissing her cheek, leah kissing your cheek, both of you in the frame making a heart, and her giving you a forehead kiss. the last one was one that you captured, you had settled up a camera, and timed it—where leah had kissed you.

“you look cute in them, especially when you wear my clothes, love.” lee said, as you laughed.

“because i’m yours, right?” you asked, to which leah nodded to.

“i’m yours, and you’re mine.” leah said, as she gave you a peck on your lips. you signaled for leah to post it, and she did.

and that is what broke the internet, many articles were released about you being part of the community, leah’s (?) retirement, how leah bagged her country’s princess.

then the next day came, you felt leah slip her hand in yours trying to calm your nerves.

“you’ll do great love, as long as i’m with you.” leah said, as you faced her and pulled her into a breathtaking kiss.

“what was that for?” leah asked as she broke the kiss, her eyes looking into your brown eyes that shined as the sun reflected.

“i love you, lee.” you said, shyly. as she gave you a soft smile and gave you a nod.

“i love you, n/n.” lee said, as you took a deep breath and entered the media conference room. leah followed behind, that’s when the cameras started flashing, the british media going wild, the ones watching the live were interested.

“i’d appreciate it, if you’d lessen the flash.” you said, after you finished taking a seat. leah grabbed your right hand, and linked it placing it on her lap. the flash has definitely lessened, and the room became quiet after scorpius’s glare.

“you have questions, we are here to answer them.” you said, as a reporter raised your hand.

“where do you fall under in the lgbtqia+ community?” he asked, as i hummed.

“i’d rather not label myself, i love who i love. if i fall for a man, then i love him. if i fall for a woman, then i love her. we can’t help who we fall for, all we can do is accept it.” you said, as leah looked at you with pride. that’s her girl.

“will leah retire from arsenal and the national team?”

“i won’t be retiring, y/n and i agreed that we won’t get married yet. i’ll continue to play for the lionesses, and arsenal.” leah said, as you smiled at her.

“will you have children?”

“i’d like to, however we are focusing on our careers right now.” you said as leah brought your hand to her lips and placed a loving kiss on it.

“how did you meet?” a female reporter asked, as you chuckled remembering the first interaction.

“we met at a football pitch. it was when i wasn’t revealed as the crown princess, i was around 6 that time when i saw leah playing with a football.” you said, your eyes glanced at leah with adoration to find her already staring at you.

“i had slipped that day, that’s when y/n rushed to me with scorpius, her bodyguard ran after her. she offered me a hand, and i was a bit mischievous and accepted it, however i pulled her to the floor with me.” leah said, as you laughed. a few had chuckled as they realized how cute the encounter was.

“didn’t you dislike me at that moment? the pitch was muddy, and i had ruined your attire love. you glared at me, and i laughed at how cute you were.” leah continued, as i shook my head.

“your mother had scolded you that day, lee. she saw that, and demanded that you apologize. you blushed feeling a bit embarrassed.” you said, as leah flushed her face was bright red. as you answered the questions professionally, leah kept looking at you.

a few of her teammates were watching the live, feeling a bit shocked that you were dating the crown princess. the live had came to an end, as the press left the room one by one.

“do you really want kids?” leah asked, as you nodded.

“i’ll be the one to carry them, i know how you feel about your condition love.” you said, as lee kissed your forehead.

“my phone has been bugging ever since the live, i’m assuming my teammates have already found out.” you chuckled as leah pulled you settling you on her lap.

“lee!” she gave you a small smirk, as she looked at your lips.

“i want to kiss you.” leah said, as you raised an eyebrow.

“you always want to kiss me.” you said, to which she laughed at.

“can you blame me? your lips are soft, and kissable.” leah said, as she swiftly took your lips against hers. you held her shoulder, as she nipped at your bottom lip.

“we are in a public setting, lee.” you said, as you pushed her away catching your breath to which she just gave you a smile.

“you weren’t complaining.” she smirked, as you shoved her getting off of her, and looked at scorpius who gave you a knowingly smile. had he seen that?

“where to, my lady?” scorpius asked, as you walked towards the door heading to the car.

“wait for me, love!” leah yelled as you laughed, you were a sucker for her.

“leah’s apartment, i don’t want to return to the house yet.” you said, as leah caught up and slipped her hand in yours.

you were settled into leah’s hoodie, her shorts while watching a movie. she had went to the kitchen for a few snacks, mainly the ham sandwiches that you made for her. the door rung, as you heard leah called out.

“baby, can you get that for me?” leah softly yelled, as you got up and headed to the door. you opened the door to be greeted by a commotion.

“leah! why didn’t you tell us you were dating the crowned prin-“ an irish accent was heard, yet it came to a stop as she realized that you weren’t leah. suddenly, her head bowed as she realized who you were.

“your highness.” she said as the group had also bowed.

“i-lee, your teammates are here!” you yelled, as you analyzed them.

“katie mccabe, a pleasure.” you said, sticking your hand out for her to shake.

“holy shit—wait can i say that?” katie said, as you laughed.

“you can, however please call me y/n. i don’t particularly like being called your highness.” you said, as you greeted the rest, georgia stanway, keira walsh, lucy bronze, and lia walti.

leah popped up beside you as she hugged her teammates.

“it’s not like i can blurt out that the princess is my girlfriend, mccabe.” leah said, giving her a pointed look as you snickered.

“would you like to come inside?” you asked, as they nodded. leah had stepped aside, as they entered you giving her a quick peck.

“surely, leah would’ve told us about you?” georgia, one of leah’s best mates asked.

“she did, did she not? leah’s first love who she met on a football pitch?” you asked, as her eyes widened in realization.

“she forgot to mention that it was the crown princess.” georgia said, as you nodded.

“in that case, i wasn’t revealed as the heiress due to my father wanting me to live a normal life.” keira nodded as she understood.

“will we be seeing you more often?” lucy asked

“perhaps, i plan on attending leah’s games.” you said, as the group fell into a quick conversation. you watched as they pulled out a board game, leah sat beside you as she taught you how to play.

[thinking if i should do another part?]

[fromthedust]

Natural History Museum - London 

The Museum first opened its doors on 18 April 1881, but its origins stretch back to 1753 and the career of Sir Hans Sloane, a doctor and collector. Sloane travelled the world as a high society physician. He collected natural history specimens and cultural artefacts along the way. After his death in 1753, Parliament  bought his extensive collection of more than 71,000  items, and then built the British Museum so these items could be displayed to the public. In 1856 Sir Richard Owen - the natural scientist who came up with the name for dinosaurs - left his role as curator of the Hunterian Museum and took charge of the British Museum’s natural history collection. Unhappy with the lack of space for its ever-growing collection of natural history specimens, Owen convinced the British Museum's board of trustees that a separate building was needed to house these national treasures. He drew-up a rough architectural plan in 1859 entitled 'Idea of a Museum of Natural History'. The plan was later referred to by architect Alfred Waterhouse in the design of the Natural History Museum. In 1864 Francis Fowke, the architect who designed the Royal Albert Hall and parts of the Victoria and Albert Museum, won a competition to design the Natural History Museum. However, when he unexpectedly died a year later, the relatively unknown Alfred Waterhouse - a Quaker architect from the north of England - took over and came up with a new plan for the Museum. Waterhouse used terracotta for the entire building as this material was more resistant to Victorian London's harsh climate. Construction began in 1873, and the result is one of Britain’s most striking examples of Romanesque architecture — considered a work of art in its own right and has become one of London's most iconic landmarks. Owen's foresight has allowed the Museum to display very large creatures such as whales, elephants and dinosaurs, including the beloved Diplodocus cast that was on display at the Museum for 100 years. He also demanded that the Museum be decorated with ornaments inspired by natural history. And he insisted that the specimens of extinct and living species kept apart at a time when Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution was revealing the links between them. Along with incorporating Owen’s ideas into his plans, Waterhouse also designed an incredible series of animal and plant ornaments, statues and relief carvings throughout the entire building – with extinct species in the east wing and living species in the west. Waterhouse sketched every one of these sculptures in great detail, even asking Museum professors to check the scientific accuracy of his drawings, before creating the fantastic decorations that complement the Museum’s exhibitions.  While the building reflects Waterhouse’s characteristic architectural style, it is also a monument to Owen’s vision of what a museum should be. In the mid-nineteenth century, museums were expensive places visited only by the wealthy few, but Owen insisted the Natural History Museum should be free and be accessible to all. The Museum took nearly eight years to build, and moving the collections from the British Museum in Bloomsbury was a huge job. Relocating the zoological specimens, which included huge whale bones and taxidermy mammals, took 394 trips by horse and cart spread over 97 days. The Natural History Museum finally opened in 1881. The building’s decorative and Romanesque style by Waterhouse is reminiscent of medieval European abbeys, but it is also a monument to Owen’s vision of what a museum should be: the world’s largest and finest institution dedicated to natural history.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/history-and-architecture.html

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/virtual-museum.html

[hero-israel]

How can you claim that Zionism was morally right, when what it was was European Jews coming to Palestine by the thousands and buying land, and when the Arabs realised what they were trying to do, i.e. steal land by making it sound reasonable to the British they should have the right to self determination, they rightfully tried to put a stop to it? If a lot of people come into a populated area and then ask for it to be given to them, since they’re so many, does it make it right for the people who were already there? And yeah, it’s true there was some Jewish presence there already but it wasn’t that much and it wasn’t them who started the Zionist movement. So how can you claim this was right?

You just said they were buying the land, and they were, so anyone thinking they were stealing it is already revealing major problems with racism, xenophobia, and conspiratorial thinking.

And by all means, let's talk about "immigrants" versus "people who were already there." From the 1850s to 1920s, the Ottoman Empire faced waves of refugee crises (the Crimean War, the Balkan Wars, the Russo-Turkish War, the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the beginning of World War 1) and decided to resettle OVER FIVE MILLION Muslim refugees all throughout its Mediterranean and Levant provinces. They sent hundreds of thousands of ex-Balkan and ex-Russian Muslims into southern Syria and what is now Jordan. These refugees founded the four largest cities in Jordan, including its capital Amman; of course, Jordan had been part of historic Palestine and the Palestine Mandate, and from the very first day they were able to govern themselves they passed laws banning any Jewish citizenship or inhabitation.

Am I supposed to see that as anything other than the most base, ladder-pulling racism? Do you really expect me to care that ex-Russian Muslims arriving in Jaffa in 1890 wanted to keep the ex-Polish Jews out in 1920? Between the Ottoman refugee resettlement and the large numbers of Arabs immigrating to benefit from new economic opportunities in a rapidly developing Palestine, the United Nations would later come to classify people as "refugees of the 1948 war" if they had been permanent inhabitants of Palestine any time before 1946. So many newcomers that just living there for two years made you a wizened, old-timer local, with a perfectly natural right to say nobody else can come in.

Where exactly are you starting history and whose immigration are you seeing as rightful, as just? In 1832, Egypt invaded Ottoman Palestine and established from nothing the new settler town of Abu Kabir; in 1948, Zionist militias depopulated it. Were the Arab settlers of Abu Kabir "indigenous" for the 116 years they were there? Because the major waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine started about 140 years ago....

There is no such thing as a legitimate history of the Levant that sees it as normal and morally / politically neutral for millions of Muslims to be resettled by various Muslim empires, but abnormal and dangerous for Jews to move in under their own initiative - usually out of desperation to save their lives - with no sponsoring empire at all.

Beyond that, if you took a few minutes to think of what your argument implies about the "Great Migration" of African-Americans to northern states in the early 20th century, or refugees crossing the Mexican border, and how white people responded to both, I think you would be less willing to make it, even anonymously.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

I don't think you've ever gone into much detail on the relationships between Alfred and Zee/Jack. Does he care about them or is it more like an an adult sibling in their 30s suddenly having siblings that are in their teens? Nothing in common and generally don't really speak to each other or feel like they're really related at all. Just some other people that his father calls his children that he couldn't care less about?

It's really not very sibling but it's kind of distantly familial. But mostly they interact as friends. Zee has been very sceptical about Alfred pretty much from the get-go. She met him probably in the early Victorian Era and Alfred interpreted her clinging to Uncle Rhys as shyness, but she was low-key cranky and not having it. It's not that she doesn't like him, because she does. Alfred's impossible not to like especially when he's being genuine. But she's not sure she trusts him. He's ambitious and cunning in that bible salesman kind of way.

But he also has had some moments where he recognizes how Europe rejects both of them for being very obviously on the edge of European hegemony. They might ride a lot of human context of whiteness but empire is a very fucked up cosmopolitan thing so "neither you nor I are entirely European. We're western states but never going to completely European and there will always be a barrier there. Don't bother with them, I've already tried and pushed our limits." made for some surprising commonality with them. He's also had his head in her lap hallucinating and begging for Matt, death or Dad when he was low-key dying of malaria or dengue in the South Pacific. She also, perhaps ironically given their power differences, has given him the biggest fuck you anyone ever has by banning his ships from her ports while not only not escaping punishment but still entirely benefiting from the American security apparatus. He saves the majority of his emotional attachment for Matt but they can have a beer and go surfing without major incident. He certainly trusts her more than she trusts him but like it's just more solid than intimate.

Jack's relationship with Alfred is both more and less fraught. Mostly because of gender. Zee has it harder in a lot of ways being afab and feminine presenting most of the time but that's also made her less concerned about masculinity. Especially the sword clashing virility-as-nationalism they came of age in. The stolid, stoic, takes-his-lashes-silently ideal of British manhood that Jack does not suit. He looks at Arthur and he looks at Matt and he doesn't want to be them. His father's rage, Matthew's senseless martyrdom. He wants that respect, the warriors right to respect as it is. But he looks across the Pacific in the late 19th century and early 20th and Alfred is bright, forward-looking friendly and progressive. He has a navy. He has respect. He has a battle scars waged in the name of glamorous things like freedom and democracy and equality. That's an example of masculinity he likes. Alfred standing on the flag ship's prow, at the head of the Great White Fleet announcing him as the next great power kind of beat Jack over the head with a 'oh I'm a baby I need to grow up and get a navy and be a man and earn respect.' And he does pursue those goals and something of Alfred's version of great power projection. But its also not long before Alfred scares the shit out of him too. The costs of his father' ambitions have always been visible but when Alfred's are revealed to Jack they're shocking and frightening. He doesn't want to be his father and he doesn't want to be Alfred. But sometimes, the blunt imperialism of his father is a little easier to handle than the way Alfred operates as an empire of militant idealism. So while he and Alfred appear to get along very well on the surface, and work together very well while they're at it, there's very fundamental differences to who they are and that keeps them friends, not family.

[everything-is-crab]

My favorite thing (/s) about Pro Israel folks and the people focusing so much on the recent Hamas attack is how great they're at spreading blatant lies.

You see them post something about what Hamas or Palestinians did to Israelis and through fact checking it's revealed it's the other way round 😂

People linking wikipedia, bbc....and other Western media links.....as their "sources"

Like wow, I didn't know you guys were this dense. Even some of the people I respected on here seem to be affected immensely by propaganda. US and other Western countries have not only supported but also funded Israel's apartheid regime and even now it's doing the same.

I was brainwashed by radfems too with their "rape is never okay". Many radfems sure do know how to manipulate you using your class consciousness as women to be blind to other oppressive systems or distort facts.

There's no proof any of the kidnapped women being raped. And yet most radfems are speaking about nothing but that. They aren't even speaking about the constant suffering and rape of Palestinian women by IDF (including many Israeli women as perpetrators).

I remember that I started reading more about this issue in 2021 when some IDF attack killed many Palestinians in a mosque. Don't remember the details well. It's been a while. And I wasn't on Tumblr then but I do remember that mainstream media did not give a shit about it. And now suddenly the anti terrorism sentiment of Pro Israel countries and even people who supposedly support Palestinians has chosen to rise again.

Very convenient timing for you.

One thing I will tell you is to remember that the conditions colonizers force on the colonized make it hard for the colonized to rely on any ideal form of resistance. Hamas is not the only group for Palestinian resistance. There are others but this is the large one today. Before there used to be better secular ones but they were all squashed cause Israel created Hamas. And there have been peaceful protests and everything. Israel killed the people who protested and the soldiers laughed when they were done. Where was this global outrage then?

Sm of relying for information on media leaning towards Israel and yet so many of you are missing this fact out. This is what colonizers always do. Read history of as many colonized countries you can. And you will find out that colonizers, while they were generally against opposition of the colonized's liberation, funded the anti-leftist, anti-communist/nationalist or religious extremists or/and the ruling class of the colonized society in their national liberation movement.

They help in squashing other more dangerous (from a colonizer's pov) national liberation movements. Nothing better than reducing your enemies to extremists. The British did that in my country too. Talked a lot about how horrible our society is but politically and economically supported the ruling class that created and perpetrated those issues. And some European women and children died in some isolated protests or riots as well during colonial era. But obviously it was nothing compared to the number of people that died on my side than the colonizers'.

So don't be surprised when people see Hamas as a necessary means or don't entirely oppose as part of Palestinian liberation. No sane person actually "supports" Hamas. But it is what is. It's Israel's own creation. Palestinians are left with no options. You're linking ngos supported or created by Israelis and other dumb shit as "an alternative". But colonization can't be won over through ngos lmao. Heck, ngos can't even actually make a lot of changes in human rights in areas that aren't war torn cause of corruption. You expect it to work for Gaza? Please

If Israel or anyone wants Hamas to stop then they should simply give up their brutal settler colonialism and not oppose any leftist org or movement formed by the Palestinians even after ending apartheid and everything. There's no other alternative except this. And if you haven't learnt your lesson yet, then don't support any "intervention" by USA or some other genocidal country.

Ik for a fact you people wouldn't support my country's decolonization if you lived back then. Cause the national liberation movement in my country was dominated by religious, anti communist and ruling class as well. And I, as a female bisexual from an oppressed caste will never ideologically support the people who led national liberation in my country. And yet ik they were necessary in the path to independence cause the British let only them have any power in the country. The two opinions can co exist.

You guys are so focused on opposing the ideology of Hamas and how they're bad for Palestinians themselves, you are forgetting Hamas is legally recognized as terrorists by many powerful Western/west-allied countries around the world and are actively funding and supporting Israel's genocide against Palestinians.

It's funny how the same people unconditionally support Ukraine in the war, including Ukraine itself. Even though US, UK, France and other countries are supporting Nazis in the Ukrainian military to fight against Russia.....

And I am not "supporting" Hamas or killing of cilivians....but I am just analyzing the history and politics behind this issue that is hugely ignored.

Radfems are reblogging that dumb addition by female-malice about an unbacked conspiracy theory about Iran,completely removing any accountability or responsibility of the states of "Israel". There's a conspiracy theory that Israel planned this attack as well. And yet I haven't see any pro Palestine leftist spread that theory presenting it as a fact rather than a speculation. Genuinely you guys are just racist and don't want to hold Israel actually accountable apart from a little side remark.

Everytime I see such false claims, misinformation, unproven conspiracy theories I check what sources the person has to provide or which sources are reporting that. And it's some damn Western news outlet every time. Every fricking time.

Ignoring what Israel PM is doing to the civilians in Gaza right now.....in favor of getting into online discourse about "so it's okay to kill/rape innocent people?" Plain evil

You do realize most of the world is revolting against that now? That powerful international forces are incentivizing this attack to commit further atrocities against civilians in Gaza? It's not a time to debate whether the attack was okay or not, it's time to speak about how the Israeli PM and rest of the world is choosing to respond to it.

I was going to write a respectfully worded post about this. But I won't. Cause I am not some extraordinary independent journalist or anything. I am not even in majoring in any social science or history subject. But it wasn't that hard for me to get around the misinformation from msm. And I am from a country that is and has been pro Israel and very great at spreading propaganda through msm.

I saw one radfem say in response to question of Palestinian women's suffering that "how are we supposed to know what's happening to them? I am not seeing any posts on my dash about it". Good to know your dumbass relies on Tumblr posts for misinformation.

I have been incredibly busy so not made any posts about this issue. But I think that's what I am going to keep reblogging and posting about for a while now. So don't hesitate to filter tags or click the unfollow button if this irritated you. Cause there's more to come.

[aroace-spec-empire]

History of the AroAce Spec Empire (So far)

(Will update as I rummage through this blog and find posts/events that are considered as important history bits-)

2024

Note: At some point Luxembourg and the AroAce Spec Empire signed an agreement. Luxembourg would help with the invasion of Europe if they got Greenland

May 1 - The AroAce Spec Empire is founded during the Great Bot War Of 2024

May 1 - Almost immediately after being created, the Empire joins the Great Bot War of 2024 on the side of Aspecs

May 2 - The Empire hosts a vote to decide which European country to invade first

May 7 - The Empire reveals a map of Europe covered in dots + Promises to give Northern Ireland to Ireland

May 7 - A vote is made to decide which type of government the Empire should have

May 7-8 - The AroAce Spec Empire decides to not invade France, due to the founder Crystals la Bubble Tea (@/crystalsandbubbletea) being intimidated by them

May 9 - Draft of the AroAce Spec Empire Constitution is created

May 9 - Voting to decide which European country to invade first ends, with Denmark taking the overwhelming majority of the vote

May 13 - Czech Republic offers an alliance to the AroAce Spec Empire

May 15 - The Alliance between the AroAce Spec Empire and the Czech Republic is made official

May 16 - Canada and the AroAce Spec Empire form an alliance

May 16 - The King's Lomatia becomes the National Flower of the AroAce Spec Empire, while Garlic bread becomes the official food

May 16 - A poll just to be silly opens. The poll is for deciding if the Empire should be renamed to Peanut AroAce Spec Empire or Peanut Spec Empire after the Empire was called a peanut twice

May 17 - The USA and the AroAce Spec Empire form an alliance

May 17 - Luxembourg has to remind the AroAce Spec Empire about the agreement

May 17 - Ikea joins the AroAce Spec Empire

May 17 - AroAce Spec Empire and France open up discussions for a possible alliance

May 17 - Crystals la Bubble Tea thinks about making May 17 a national holiday known as "National Update Day", depends on the majority vote though-

May 17 - It is revealed that Crystals la Bubble Tea isn't a government official, due to the AroAce Spec Empire being an anarchy country. Instead they are responsible for polls and writing the constitution

May 17 - Antarctica and the AroAce Spec Empire become allies

May 17 - Arby's and the AroAce Spec Empire are officially chill with each other

May 18 - The Empire made a Discord server

May 20 - A new list of proposed alliances is made. The countries on the list are Germany, Turkmenistan, and Australia

May 20 - Crystals la Bubble Tea announces that they won't be in public as much for a while (AKA finals happening)

May 20 - Alliance with Australia has been confirmed

May 20 - Crystals la Bubble Tea goes out hunting for bots on the ace tags, they find none. This isn't enough for them, as who knows when the bots will be back?

May 21 - The Denmarks know about the plans to invade Denmark, causing Crystals la Bubble Tea to contemplate their life choices

May 21 - The Empire takes a bite out of the flag of Scotland and immediately regrets it

Aug 7 - The Empire faces increasing concern due to both France's losing their memories. Crystals la Bubble Tea goes into hiding

Aug 12 - The Empire gets their memories wiped. Crystals la Bubble Tea thinks about making the empire go into lockdown to prevent further memory loss

Some time between Aug 12 and Aug 19 - The Empire gets it's memories back

Aug 19 - The Empire and Communist America form an alliance

Some point in August - India and the Empire form an alliance

Aug 30 - The British Empire and the AroAce Spec Empire form an alliance

Sept 1 - The AroAce Spec Empire starts the invasion of European Countries

[vogelfreyh]

Finally came around to create a small character sheet for Ash! My OC Hogwarts Legacy/Wizarding World OC, Auror and Sirona’s wife.

I didn’t include much text on the sheet itself, but if you’re interested in her background, keep reading under the cut!

Born: 15th of August 1861 in Edinburgh, Scotland Nationality: British Gender: Female Blood Status: Pure Blood Height: 174 cm (5'8) Eye colour: Brown Hair colour: Ashen blonde Sexuality: Lesbian Occupation: Auror (1881)                       Lead Auror (1888) Family: Allan Crowley (Father)              Ophelia Crowley (Mother)              Philomena Crowley (Great grandmother)              Sirona Ryan (Wife ⚭ 1892)              Kelly (Adopted daughter, 1898)                  Saoirse (Adopted daughter, 1898)

Early Years & Family Relationships

Aislinn Crowley, called Ash, was born in Edinburgh as the daughter of the famous aurors Allan and Ophelia Crowley. Her family was extremely toxic and strict and had high expectations of her. Like most members of her family, she was supposed to serve in the Ministry of Magic and marry into a good family. As a result of this pressure, Ash often felt caged and inferior even as a child, and her relationship with her parents was hardly of an affectionate nature. Even Ash's bubbly personality, as well as her quick temper was viewed with suspicion by her family, and they never stopped preaching to her about the way she had to behave.

Due to their work, her parents rarely had time for her and employed a witch named Mimsy to take care of their daughter and raise her. Tragically, Mimsy passed away when Ash was just thirteen years old. Also in her teens, her parents had little more than rules and set future plans for her and made her feel that all that mattered to them was the family's reputation and that no one stepped out of line. Ash had a hard time tolerating family gatherings and from an early age was labeled the black sheep of the family, especially after she revealed to her parents that she was a lesbian.

After her successful entry into the ministry and taking up work as an Auror, Ash's reputation with her family improved a little. This only lasted until her parents arranged a marriage for her with a highly respected Ministry wizard, whom Ash rigorously refused. While her parents knew of her relationship with Sirona Ryan, they did not accept it. Ash, however, made them understand that Sirona was the only one to whom she would ever take the vows of marriage. That was the moment when she ultimately broke with her family and the relation between them finally crumbled. They never spoke a word to each other ever again.

  Personality

She is a kind and life-affirming character who comes off pretty self-confident and tough most of the time. She’s also very justice-loving and protective of her friends. If she overheard people talking bad about someone she liked, she sometimes would react very emotional and has been seen punching some of her classmates because of that.

Due to the toxic and judgmental nature of her family, she has learned to mask her fears and insecurities and only dares to drop her mask with a few people. She suffered from sudden anxiety attacks. This got better after she became friends with Sirona.

 Hogwarts Years

By the age of eleven, Ash received her Hogwarts letter and soon after came to start her first school year, where she was sorted into Gryffindor. Thanks to her kind and bubbly nature Ash quickly made friends, including the fellow Gryffindor Ruth, as well as Ravenclaw Sirona Ryan, with whom she literally collided during her first broom flying lesson.

Ash proved herself to be very skilled and talented in the subjects Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms and Transfiguration but had difficulties with Herbology and Potions. Especially in the subject of potions she ran into more and more problems during the school years, mostly on account of the fact that most of the potion ingredients made her feel nauseous. On one occasion, it was so bad that she had to throw up right into the cauldron. Sirona was still laughing about it years later and affectionately teased Ash about it.

Ash was on very good terms with Dinah Hecat, her teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts, who also gave her extra assignments and helped her prepare well for her future career while she was still in school. Even as an adult and after many years, Ash still maintained a friendship with her.

Since Ash needed at least an "Exceeds Expectations" in Potions for her N.E.W.T.s to qualify for Auror training, Sirona actively supported her and  the two practiced day and night. As a result, Ash managed to get the required grade in the subject. Potions actually was the only subject in which she did not have an "Outstanding".

  Ash & Sirona

Ash and Sirona first met when they literally crashed into eachother during their first broom flying lesson. After realizing that nothing bad had happened to them, they couldn't help but burst out laughing. This moment marked the beginning of their relationship.

The two quickly became inseparable and from that moment on hardly ever spent a minute without one another. Their understanding for each other worked even without words and they shared their deepest secrets and dreams. When they were together, they didn't have to put on a mask and could be themselves without being judged for it. They studied for exams together and played pranks, often to the annoyance of their classmates and teachers. Ash helped Sirona through a very difficult period in her life and supported her in pursuing her most ardent goal, even though it was anything but easy. Sirona was deeply grateful to have her at her side and always described Ash as her kindred spirit. They were also very protective of eachother and not seldom Ash got into fights when classmates talked bad about Sirona. Since the age of 14, her and Ash jokingly referred to each other as the 'other half' of one another. Over the years, their friendship had become so profound and intimate that many classmates described it as love, even before the two realized it themselves. But soon it was a thing they knew for a fact- they loved eachother and they had become the most important person in the other one’s life.

Ash usually spent her Christmas vacations with Sirona and her family, since her own family never celebrated any holidays. She was well liked by Sirona’s parents and always welcome in their home. As the years went on she rarely went back home to her family in Edinburgh, and rather stayed in Hogwarts for her holidays. She also spent the summer vacations together with Sirona in Hogsmeade, where the two of them waited tables at the Three Broomsticks and Sirona dreamed of one day owning such place by herself.

By the time their seventh school year drew to a close, Ash had completed all of her N.E.W.T.s with an "Outstanding" thus qualifying for a career as an Auror. She was excited, but she also knew that it would mean leaving Hogsmeade and Sirona, who was in the running to succeed her as the owner of the Three Broomsticks, for at least three years.

Their naïve dream of spending their future as a couple in a small cottage near Hogsmeade was slipping further and further away, but the stakes were high.

After a tearful parting and a promise to never lose sight of each other, Ash leaves for London to face her Auror training.

Over four years, apart from Sirona's few allowed brief visits to the ministry, they communicated only through owls. But sent eachother a letter at least every two days.

Ash learned that by a stroke of luck, Sirona had become the proprietress of the Three Broomsticks and was now managing the pub single-handedly. Ash, on the other hand, had passed her Auror training with distinction and had already made a name for herself during her first years by taking on an important mission. The two couldn't be happier for each other, but they missed each other terribly.

After a few years, the Ministry of Magic allowed Ash to leave London for the first time and she immediately set off for Hogsmeade. Sirona could hardly wait for her to arrive and as she finally stood in the doorway of the Three Broomsticks, they knew their love for each other was just as strong as the day they parted. If not, even stronger. Overjoyed they celebrate their reunion, making plans for the future. However, due to a dramatic incident, Ash is called back to the Ministry only a few days later. An association of dark wizards, who until recently worked underground, have taken the offensive and are now threatening not only the world of wizards and witches, but also the Muggle world. All Aurors were called back to London for immediate action.

Throughout this mission Ash is badly wounded in an ambush after tracking down the leader and barely survives. But thanks to her taking action, the rest of the Aurors manage to confront and kill their leader, Silas Vandalore.

When Sirona heard that Ash had been seriously injured, she immediately travels to London to be with her, fearing for her beloveds life. Back in the day, she often worried for Ash and was afraid to read her name among the obituaries in the Daily Prophet. To her great relief, however, Ash is strong enough and survives her injuries. However, the curse had left a mark on her and the doctors make her understand that she would hardly become as strong as she once was and that the remaining power of the curse would slowly drain her life energy. Later, she is given a special potion brewed by her old potions professor Aesop Sharp that would help slowing down the process of the curse and and allow her to live a relatively pain-free life, if she drank the potion on a regular base.

After withdrawing a little from the ministry and succeeding Dinah Hecat as professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Ash and Sirona finally settle down together in a small cottage on the outskirts of Hogsmeade like they always dreamed to. They get married in 1892 and continue to live a happy and fulfilled life together. In 1898 the two adopt two little girls, whose families had been killed by black wizards, Kelly and Saoirse, and raise them as their daughters.

  Auror Career

In 1878, Ash began her Auror training in London. In the beginning she had a hard time adjusting to the new situation and life, but within a few months she had fully adapted and three years later completed her training with distinction. Just a few weeks later, she embarked on her first mission, where she would meet the hit wizard Aiden Langley, with whom she would remain close friends for many years to come. Working together, they uncovered a circle of notorious black wizards, escorted them to Azkaban and made a reputation for themselves within the Ministry.

In 1888 Ash takes the position as a Lead Auror within her department.

During 1889, when several cases of brutal murders involving Muggles and wizards occur all over Britain, Ash takes up the case and comes across the trail of a massive organization that has made it its goal to exterminate Muggles and all non-pureblood wizards and witches. As they have members all across the country, Ash sets out to find and turn in the leader, who, to the dismay of the wizarding world, is a former Hogwarts professor also not unknown to herself. Silas Vandalore.

She confronts him in Edinburgh, where he imprisoned and tortured a Muggle family. However, she is ambushed and gets severely injured by Silas with a curse. Langley finds her in time and takes her to St. Mungo's, where she continues to fight for her life several months. Deeply worried, Sirona travels to London and does not leave Ash's side, fearing that she might eventually lose her. Fortunately, though, Ash is strong enough and survives. However, the curse has left a mark on her and the doctors make her understand that she would hardly become as strong as she once was and that the remaining power of the curse would slowly drain her life energy. Later, she is given a special potion brewed by her old potions professor Aesop Sharp that would help slowing down the process oft he curse and and allow her to live a relatively pain-free life. She retains her position as Auror, but increasingly works in the background. When Dinah Hecat retires, she takes over as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts, where she taught students up until she hit her sixtieth birthday and passed on her position to her successor.

[belle-keys]

Vampires being Southern confederates in the American pop culture tradition makes so much sense to me logically. Not saying that I don't believe it's propaganda, because it absolutely is. But planter vampires and confederate vampires (Jasper, Damon, Lestat, Louis, Bill Compton) make a lot of sense in the American context, as much as aristocratic and “Old World” vampires make sense in the British context.

If vampires are inherently Gothic, then vampires must symbolize and personify the vestiges of a long-gone past – one which only simmers to life from far below the surface when it’s time to reveal the horrors, or the romance, of what is usually an oft-forgotten history. In 19th-century Britain, through vampire short stories and novellas, and later Dracula, vampires evoked the (misunderstood and misappropriated) time of the Goths. This, in turn, brought to readers’ minds images of towering castles, the superstition of Eastern Europe, and the so-called barbarism of the Old World, that which was made to appear antiquated in its monstrosity and secret imperialist desires. (*sarcastic voice*) The Old World was so at odds with enlightened, modern, industrializing Britain! It’s no wonder that vampires in British literature took the forms of counts, noblemen, and princes – they were the conspiring, powerful leaders of the Old World, or the medieval world, or some forgotten pre-Industrial feudal world.

And if we are to apply this concept of what vampires should represent for the United States, it only makes perfect sense that vampires would be planters and confederates. Slavers, planters, and confederate fighters also evoke the Old America, conjuring images of Southern chivalry, the great Antebellum, and the humble pioneers of this free nation of God and goodness and prosperity! And then the confederates got their ass beat really bad. And they could only hold on to these romantic images of that former “honour and glory” through propagation of the Lost Cause myth. What better vehicle to wield this romanticisation of, yunno, the defense of chattel slavery than through vampire softbois?! Immortal beings who symbolize the survival and resilience of the Antebellum South through time. Why don’t we make them hot guys who were just protecting the South in our pop culture? Sure. If the vestiges of America’s long-gone past are slavery and genocide and, uh, chivalric Southern honour, then vampires do a pretty effective job of reminding us of this horrifying/romantic (you choose here) history. Spoiler alert: it’s horrifying.

[rjzimmerman]

Good story from Yale Environment 360, without a paywall (I think), about beavers, public land, wildfires, endangered species, the largest beaver dam in the world, the degradation of that land and the large pond behind the dam due to the tar sands mining activity in the vicinity. In other words, a microcosm of all the bad stuff and good stuff intersecting in one place in Canada. Excerpt from this story:

Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada, covers an area the size of Switzerland and stretches from Northern Alberta into the Northwest Territories. Only one road enters it from Alberta, and one from the NWT. If not for people observing it from airplanes and helicopters, and satellites photographing it, little would be known about big parts of it. The park is a variety of landscapes — boreal swamps, fens, bogs, black spruce forests, salt flats, gypsum karst, permafrost islands, and prairies that extend the continent’s central plains to their northern limit. The wood buffalo in the park’s name are bison related to the Great Plains bison. In this remoteness, the buffalo descend from the original population, and the wolves that prey on them are also the wild originals. Millions of birds summer and breed here. The park holds one of the last remaining breeding grounds of the whooping crane.

Other superlatives and near-superlatives: the delta in the park’s southeast where the Peace River and the Athabasca River come together is one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world; last summer, some of Canada’s largest forest fires burned in the park and around it; and — just inside the park’s southern border — is the largest beaver dam in the world.

The dam is about a half-mile long and in the shape of an arc made of connected arcs, like a recurve bow. The media has known about it for 16 years, and in that time no bigger beaver dam has come to light, so it’s still known as the biggest, and scientists believe it almost certainly is. Animal technology created it, but human technology revealed it.

Many of the beavers that have reestablished themselves globally are descended from beavers that were planted by wildlife biologists. The thriving beaver population of Tierra del Fuego (another place Thie has studied) is descended from beavers brought to Argentina from Canada’s Saskatchewan River, who are themselves scions of beavers transplanted from upstate New York. No reintroduction of beavers was done in Wood Buffalo Park. Thie believes that the beavers who built the dam are of original stock. Like the wood buffalo and the wolves, they were too remote to be wiped out.

The park is suffering the worst drought in its history. Flows are down by half in many places, owing to climate change, water diversion, poor seasonal snowpack, and dams on the Peace River, upstream in British Columbia. A danger that seems inescapable comes from the oil sands that are being mined for crude-oil-containing bitumen, and from tailing ponds that hold trillions of liters of mine-contaminated water. The ponds are near the banks of the Athabasca River, just upstream from the park boundary. They are fatal to birds that land on them. Given the direction that water flows, conservationists and native people fear the tailings will pollute the park eventually. Toxic chemicals have already been found in McClelland Lake, just southeast of the park. Locals stopped taking their drinking water from the lake years ago.

Gillian Chow-Fraser, the boreal program manager for the Northern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, in Edmonton, travels in the park often by helicopter, canoe, and foot. She has described the park’s environment as “super degraded.” When I spoke with her by phone not long ago, she talked about a recent tailing basin leak that was not reported to the First Nations downstream of it for nine months. In places that used to flood regularly but now don’t, the land is drying out and vegetation disappearing. Though she crisscrosses the park, she has never seen the world’s largest beaver dam, but she’s grateful that it’s there and bringing the park attention.

[fatehbaz]

In the summer of 2020, [...] Black Lives Matter protesters tore a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston from its plinth in the centre of Bristol and rolled it into the harbour. [...] [C]ritics [...] argued that this type of direct action was “erasing history”. Britain’s prime minister at the time, Boris Johnson, claimed that to remove statues of figures like Colston from the public square was “to lie about our history”. Sir Trevor Phillips complained that Britain’s public history was being “erased entirely” [...]. Yet rather than lead us into an era of collective forgetting, the tearing down of Colston’s statue transported his name – and deeds – into the public consciousness.

This week, the renewed attention towards Colston bore fruit when the Guardian revealed that a historian, Brooke Newman, had unearthed a document showing that in 1689, Colston transferred £1,000 of shares in the Royal African Company (RAC) to none other than King William III. The exposure of the extent to which the monarch was financially intertwined with the slave trading company of which Colston was a director does not teach us less about history, it teaches us more.

---

The activities of colonial companies like the RAC, which enjoyed a monopoly over the English trade in slaves from the west African coast, are often presented as distinct from the internal history of the British Isles.

Yes, there may have been the odd massacre performed in the service of British imperialism, but these were the actions of rogue merchants in distant tropical lands, operating far from the watchful eye of Westminster and the living embodiment of British sovereignty, the monarch. This makes it easy to delete the actions of the RAC from the national record: the 84,500 men, women and children who, during Colston’s time with the company, were taken by its ships from their homes in west Africa to suffer a life of slavery in the New World.

A quarter of them would not even survive the journey, so horrific were the conditions aboard Colston’s ships.

---

Yet this separation between internal royal histories and external colonial histories has always been a [hidden] spot in our understanding of the past. Companies like the RAC needed to be granted a royal charter just to exist: they couldn’t be just registered and incorporated like companies today.

And furthermore, as the Guardian’s research has illustrated, there was often a cosy personal connection between the ruling kings and queens of this island and its slave-trading and colonial companies. This extended from James II acting as a governor of the Royal African Company to George II being a shareholder of the South Sea Company, which held the contract to supply enslaved Africans to the Spanish colonies in South America. [...]

---

The new revelations arrive at a difficult time for the monarchy, with the coronation of a new king seeking to shore up the disruption caused by the passing of the long-reigning Elizabeth II. [...] Leading politicians in Australia and Jamaica, countries where the British monarchy traditionally enjoyed a great deal of public support, are now campaigning to follow in the footsteps of Barbados, [...] a step towards the Caribbean island “leaving our colonial past behind”. The rising unpopularity of the British monarchy in the once-reliable British West Indies was made evident by the protests that greeted [...] William and Kate, during their tour of the region last year. [...] The relationship between the British royal family and the former colonies isn’t just a question of symbolism or constitutional law. It is an entry point into a deep and bloody history [...]. It is a history that the lid has only just started to be lifted on.

---

Text by: Kojo Koram. “Those who tore down Colston’s statue helped lead us to the truth about slavery and the monarchy.” The Guardian. 7 April 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[surrealteal-mo]

My main OC!

~ GENERAL INFO ~

Name: Layla Avalin

Nicknames: Lay’s, Lay-Lay, Provoloka

Birthday/DOB: 6th January 1991

Age: Early 20s

Nationality: British-Serbian

Gender: Non-Binary

Pronouns: Any pronouns

Sexuality: Bisexual

When the story is mainly set: 2012-2014

~ APPEARANCE + PERSONALITY ~

Height: 6"1 / 185cm

Weight: 164lbs

Hair: Shaggy brunette hair, natural blonde streaks (mostly on fringe), very thick, length is at the mid to bottom of their neck.

Eyes: Sort of teal colour? (It changes a lot but it’s basically that)

Personality: On the surface, Layla can come across as egotistical, overly extroverted, competitive, and just plain annoying. These traits act as a barrier, signalling to others that they might not want to be friends with them. However, once you get to know her better, Layla reveals his true self: passionate, observant, friendly, and especially loving. In relationships, they struggle with the fear of abandonment, leading to clinginess and insecurity. She deeply fears being neglected by her partners or friends.

MBTI: ENTP

~ FAMILY / RELATIONSHIPS ~

Father: Detective Jeremy Avalin

Mother: Dr. Milica Avalin (M.N: Ristovski)

Siblings: N/A

Grandfather (Dad’s side): Michael Avalin

Grandmother (Dad’s side): Bella Rossi

Great-Grandfather (Grandfather’s side): Charles Avalin

Great-Grandmother (Grandfather’s side): Anastasia "Anna" Avalin

Great-Grandfather (Grandmother’s side): Vincent Rossi

Grandfather (Mum’s side): Sergej Ristovski

Grandmother (Mum’s side): Ljiljana Ristovski

Cousin (Mum’s side): Demetri Ristovski

Ex Spouse (M. 2012 - D. 2013): Xavier Livingston (Bad terms)

Current Spouse (M. 2016): Issac Johnson

~ INTERESTS ~

Layla has always had an interest in mathematical things, especially physics. Excelled in that topic and they have always had an interest in it. She also has a passion for engineering, and they have a shelf of little robots they made. He also enjoys crosswords and sudoku, and listens to music while doing it.

~ BACKSTORY LEADING UP TO ADULTHOOD ~

It should be very important to note that Layla belongs to the Avalin family. The Avalin family are directly linked to Avalinthea, the Saxanian God of Stones. Layla and her family are unaware of this, but have always had connections to the stones. (Basically the power system in the universe :))

Layla grew up in an environment where they were almost always "second place" to people, especially their own parents. Their parents have a condition called "Amorisis Syndrome" which makes them obsessively in love with each other, to the point where they would manipulate, harm and even kill others for each other (basically they’re Yandere for eachother). Their condition doesn’t apply to Layla, so they cannot feel as strongly for Layla than they do eachother. Along with this, Layla was quite unpopular at school, inserting themselves into friendship groups that didn’t even really want her there, causing more thoughts of “I will never be first place to anyone.”

Layla did have a childhood best friend, Oliver, however they rarely saw each other, due to Oliver’s family being significantly more wealthy and higher class than Layla’s. The two moved to New York when they turned 20.

~ FUN TRIVIA :D ~

- Layla got all D’s on his GCSEs except for physics, chemistry and maths, to which she got A*s

- Owns a Wii, and plays on it when they have free time, ends up becoming TOO good on it.

- If they had the money, they would go to Geneva, Switzerland.

- He enjoys collecting stickers, but often forgets to actually stick them on stuff.

- Often goes to Serbia for Christmas with her parents to see her grandparents, playing in the snow with Demetri is often their highlight of the year.

- Their scarf was given to them by Demetri before he went missing.

~ MOODBOARD ~

~ PLAYLIST ~

[umlewis]

'I'll make Seb's life a misery' Lewis Hamilton discusses rivalries with Sebastian Vettel and Nico Rosberg and reveals why he will NOT join Ferrari [part 2/2]

In the second of our two-part exclusive interview, Lewis Hamilton talks with SunSport’s Formula One man Ben Hunt

While Hamilton is battling against Vettel for the title, he no longer has to fight it out with his former team-mate, Rosberg. The two had known each other since they were kids, but their relationship turned toxic at Mercedes, and when quizzed if he was happy Rosberg retired, Hamilton added: "It has not made things easier for me but it has made the environment a better place to work in. When you remove a negative and then replace it with a positive, it is like having a circuit-board and you have a bad fuse, that’s the whole frickin' unit gone. When you replace that fuse, the whole thing works again. I am still pushing myself to new limits. He could be here and I’d still be driving like this and he knows it. It’s like when you have been in an unhealthy relationship. You only stay in it because you love that person. It is not until that relationship ends and you get further down the line you realise, 'Shit, that relationship was not good for me.' We are now positive as a team. The hurricane that was built within this team is now blowing towards Ferrari." If he wins the title here in Austin, or next week in Mexico, Hamilton will equal the four titles held by Vettel and Alain Prost; however, he would become the only British driver to achieve the feat and this will cement his place as the nation’s greatest. Sometimes in his post-race interviews his sincerity is missed, but Hamilton says being a British-born four-time champion would be incredibly special. He said: “It definitely means a lot. What does it mean to me winning a fourth world title? It is difficult to say until you have got it because you don’t know how you will feel. It is a strange sport, because people complain and say that I’ve won it because I’ve got a great car, but every single world champion has a great car. It is not like tennis where it is down to the athlete. Here, it is down to the team. It is about the driver being able to exploit that complete package. But to take a step ahead of the other great drivers in Formula One, I would be very, very proud. I don’t know if you even notice but when I am on the podium and when I look back and see the British flag, I am very proud of it and I hope people see that. It is a very humbling experience."

[patientlibrarian]

Goran Thursday.

Hello everyone, everywhere, it's "Goran Thursday" and still very hot here in the UK. Lots of Goran about at the moment.

Talking of hot:

Translation:

Goran Višnjić and Zrinka Cvitešić together on stage for the first time: "We became like a small family "

The most successful Croatian actors abroad, who play the main roles in the play 'Equinocija' at the Dubrovnik Summer Games, discover what the atmosphere is like at rehearsals led by director Krešimir Dolenčić and recall their summers in Dubrovnik where their professional paths have never crossed before.

Location: Croatian National Theater in Zagreb. Weather: three in the afternoon, end of the week, heat, steam. Wardrobe no. 106, make-up artist, hairdresser, Gloria's team and two of the most outstanding actors of contemporary Croatia - Zrinka Cvitešić (44), laureate of the highest British theater award Olivier, and Goran Višnjić (52), our most successful representative in Hollywood.

The reason for the meeting: the Dubrovnik Summer Games and their collaboration on the play "Equinocija" by Ivo Vojnović, directed by Krešimir Dolenčić. Goran plays a rich returnee from America, Nika Marinović, and Zrinka plays his love from his youth, Jela. This time, Višnjić did not return from America, but from Great Britain, where he lives with his family in the southwest of the island - in Cornwall, while Cvitešić is still at two addresses, one in Zagreb and one in London with his partner, former soccer player Niko Kranjčar .

In preparation for our recording, Zrinka and Goran excitedly exchange impressions from the rehearsal they just came from. Both she and he have the text with their notes in their hands and are commenting on younger colleagues from the play's team - whose performance they are delighted with. Lovers of acting recognize each other, one might say. Director Krešimir Dolenčić , however, did not choose this "duo fantastikus" by chance.

"Nothing is a coincidence, and then again, it is. We met by chance after a performance at the &TD Theater and then he told me that he had a meeting the next day regarding the Games and that we would talk to each other when he knew exactly what it was about. I am in that moment I said that I would like to work at the Games, I just don't know when and which show. And then he called me the next day and offered to do "Equinocia", to which I immediately said - come on! Krešo and I have known each other for almost thirty years. ever since he was an assistant to our professor Neva Rošić at the Acting course. When I was a student, he gave me a scholarship at Gavella," recalls Goran Višnjić with a laugh.

Zrinka agrees with the statement and complements the answer with his memory. "An actor should be very lucky to work with directors like Krešo in his career. I've had very few of them so far - they're directors you don't ask what, how, why... When you're invited to a project, you just ask them when and where you should come. They are unreservedly guided, inspired, and loved by you. It's nice to come back to Kreša after more than ten years, but we both asked ourselves - is it really so?! Because we both feel like we've worked together before. In short, we had a great time at the rehearsals. The ensemble is not big and after a week we have become like a small family. The young actors Lara Nekić and Karlo Mrkša are wonderful and curious actors. It's best when it's created together, when there's no "this is not my scene and I'm not interested in it". The most beautiful ideas are born from togetherness, this has been confirmed to me again and again throughout my life, and so it is this time," says the actress who, together with Goran Višnjić, recalled her first associations with the Games, and they also revealed to us something about their summer plans.

PLUS: Wonderful 'presentation' for a new concept Verne car by Goran on his instagram page. Must have taken ages to do. Has priceless references to a couple of old tv series!!

Hope your day goes as you would wish it to.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

So regarding A-Town, how do the people working on it feel about it? Everyone has to make a living, but are any of them uncomfortable making a low budget show that somewhat trivializes the people who save the human race?

I think they would say that the history of comedy has always been the history of mocking the unacceptable and exposing the taboo. All in the Family responded to the Civil Rights era by creating the world's most bigoted bigot and then inviting everyone to laugh at him, even knowing a nonzero percent of viewers were going to agree with him. The Chair and Abbott Elementary are 2020s efforts to point and laugh and cry at terrible current events. There's specifically a tradition of "war is absurd" as a comedy premise: Catch-22 for World War II, Blackadder Goes Forth for World War I, Dr. Strangelove for the Cold War, so on.

So part of why Marco appears on A-Town, why Tom doesn't mind the show, why some Santa Barbara residents watch it, is that it's letting you laugh at something that would otherwise make you scream in horror. Blackadder Goes Forth has a scene where a WWI general sets a 12"x12" square of sod on a table and says "took a lot of turf today"; the conversation reveals that the square foot of grass on the table is the entirety of the ground taken that day. It's mocking a horrific reality — that the British regularly sacrificed 1000s of lives for a few yards of battlefield, and that "winners" of WWI battles often had to be determined with a yardstick — but it's making a sharp critique of the powerful, and it's a solid bit of shock comedy.

Most people watching A-Town know that Daisy A. fixing her manicure in line to be reinfested, only to be sent home due to a paperwork error, is not an accurate depiction of being a controller. But its point, about the yeerks' kidnappings being arbitrary and their leadership being incompetent, would land well with a lot of ex-hosts. And the fact that the show takes the time to distinguish that Daisy and Zeptron 420 are two completely different people — something that I suspect some other postwar movies would neglect — is at least part of the reason for Tom's tolerance for the show. It's not great that the show chooses to convey that point with the Girly = Evil; Goth = Good trope, but at least the dramatic costume changes convey that Daisy's personality is not Zeptron's.

That said, Jean and Jake and everyone else who hates the show also has a point. Jean especially finds it so upsetting because half the jokes rest on an enthymeme of "Obviously Jake Berenson's parents are the most clueless idiots ever to breathe air." A-Town aspires to, like The Americans, show the hollowness of the suburban American ideal — that's why its sets look straight out of Leave It to Beaver — but that leaves Dr. and Mr. A mostly being the butt of the joke for their negligent and incompetent parenting. For Jean, that hits a little too close to home, in a way it wouldn't for Marco watching his fake-self fight taxxon puppets by holding up a stuffed skunk, or Tom watching his fake-self swap lipstick colors every time someone new controls her body.

So if A-Town aspires to be Blackadder Goes Forth, it lands closer to being South Park: sometimes funny and pointed, sometimes lending support to the bigoted views it tries to critique. Like South Park, the conversation about it will probably acknowledge its real social contributions (exposing Scientology, excoriating nationalism) while also showing the real harms to vulnerable people from the show's brand of comedy (turning "gay" into a catchall insult, resurrecting antisemetic myths). Like South Park, A-Town tries to mock things that need mocking, but it also spends almost as much time punching down as it does punching up.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

These days, we hear numerous specious complaints of "cultural appropriation", often connected to a celebrity perceived to be in the wrong.

But when there's real cultural appropriation, such as the Palestinian Authority's recent bid to erase Jewish history in Jericho, those who are usually so vocal fall silent.

In fact, the Palestinian Authority's latest attempt to claim that Jericho is actually called Tell es-Sultan and is in 'Palestine' is worse than cultural appropriation: it's outright falsification of history and ethnic erasure of the Jews.

As Robert Williams explains in the above article, Jericho was built long before any Arab and/or Muslim ever arrived in the land. In fact, Jericho is older than the Jews too. To give an Arabic name that has no historical connection with the site is clearly a political decision, and UNESCO has fine form with putting politics ahead of historical facts.

In the past, UNESCO has falsely attributed Jewish holy sites to the Palestinians and to Islam. Consequently, the United States withdrew from UNESCO under the Trump administration. Biden has returned to it to counter Chinese influence, a statement that only reveals just how compromised UNESCO has become.

As I have said many times before, the reason for Palestinian falsification and erasure of Jewish history is simple: countless pieces of archaeological evidence prove that the Jews had a national homeland in Israel, which was only relinquished temporarily due to foreign invasion. The historical record shows consistent resettlements of Jews throughout the land ever since the last great expulsion of 70 CE.

This is why the Jews are the sole people with a national entitlement in Israel, a fact that was affirmed at the San Remo conference in 1920 and later by the League of Nations. This right never prevented Arabs from living in Mandatory Palestine (or even from having a state in some parts of it), but it did confer on the British Empire a responsibility to settle the Jews.

Despite the lies of Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations this year, the British Empire actually reneged on that obligation in favour of the Arabs. Most of Mandatory Palestine became Jordan, and Jews were restricted from purchasing housing in most of the tiny remainder. (Hence the increasing militancy of Zionist groups in the 1940s, fighting against the White Paper.)

The 1947 Partition Resolution would have granted Arabs sovereignty in the majority of the western part of the Mandate, effectively creating two states for them. But the Arabs rejected this, with the Arab Secretary General at the time threatening a monumental massacre of the Jews in response.

All of this historical background is crucial, as it demonstrates the malevolent deceit of the Palestinian Authority today. Without acknowledging the multiple opportunities it has had for a Palestinian State, the dictatorship pursues an inherently racial annihilationist goal of erasing all Jewish history from the land by seeking international validation for anti-historical lies.

And the feckless political merchants at UNESCO continue to accept this strategy, a strategy that is applied to no other ethnic and national group.

I hope that anyone with a conscience at UNESCO will reject this latest attempt at anti-Jewish ethnic erasure by the Palestinian Authority, but after their previous, hallucinatory decisions, I am not holding my breath.