#jack is at the junction of time/space/life/death

[mysticstarlightduck]

24. What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions?

Thank you for the ask, @saturnine-saturneight!!! I'm going to go with some of the cast of Supernova Initiative!

None of the AU's below are remotely canon, but they are indeed a fun exercise in creativity!

Ask Game Here

24. What is an alternative life path your OC might have gone down? How different would their life be if they'd made those decisions?

I'll go with three alternative universes: an evil/worst-case scenario one and a best-case scenario/perfect world (utopian version) one.

SUPERNOVA INITIATIVE

Jack Tithus -

(Canon/Current Jack Tithus - A charming intergalactic thief who steals from the government as a form of rebellion, and who will do anything to keep his sister and his friends safe.)

Evil AU -

What would cause it: Firstly, Jack is such a good person that it is very difficult to take him into a villain arc, but not impossible. For this Dark Version of their universe to take place, their story started out pretty similar but had a much more tragic end - for Jack to turn evil, something terrible would have to have happened to his siblings. So, in this Villain AU, before the siblings could leave Cethea III, during a harsh winter, Cassie and Deimos ended up killed by Junction Sentries, and Jack narrowly survived. In this Dark AU, Jack - broken by the deaths of his siblings - becomes a rebel extremist, who rouses a revolution against the Junction, targeting the regime's big cities with lethal chemicals as a way to punish those who ally themselves with the government. His grief would lead him to have "an eye for an eye, blood for blood" outlook, probably becoming precisely the type of person he swore to defeat.

Perfect/Utopian AU -

What would cause it: In this AU, their galaxy was never under the dictatorial dystopian regime of the Junction, and thus their moon was a thriving merchant settlement rather than an oppressed mining colony. Jack's parents were never killed, and so the siblings - Jack and Cassie - had a comfortable life and never had to struggle to survive. Jack becomes a pilot, trained by their mother, and Cassie gets an internship at a prestigious academy, where her inventor talents thrive and she becomes one of the best robot engineers in the galaxy. The main difference is that, in this version of their world, the siblings would probably never meet Deimos, as without the Junction's crooked influence over their planetary system Deimos would not have been kidnapped by slavers and brought to Cethea III in the first place. The first difference would probably be his personality. In this Utopian AU, Jack wouldn't have to have become so confrontational and rebellious, and likely wouldn't have been so blatantly defiant of authority and overprotective of his sister, while he probably would still be an outgoing and doting older brother. He also wouldn't have become an intergalactic thief, as he would not have had the need to be one in the absence of the Junction's oppression.

Deimos Soll

(Canon/Current Deimos: Deimos is the best sniper in the galaxies and the first member of Jack and Cassiopeia's space thieves' crew. He is cold and ruthless, but above all, a loyal friend, despite their differences at times.)

Evil AU -

What would cause it: What if Deimos hadn't escaped from General Laylah in time? What if she managed to break him into the perfect living weapon during the five years he spent away from his friends? I think that Deimos' 'Dark AU' would be centered around that premise. He did some fucked up things in his time away from the crew and became a lethal sniper, yes, but he was never needlessly cruel, never hurt innocents, and always hunted down evil people who oppressed others. But, when he was captured by General Laylah, if her torturous experiments had worked she would have been able to strip that humanity away from him, and all that would be left would be a dangerous husk, with the skill and capabilities to cause massive damage, now unbound - and without his kindness and morality to hold him back, few people would ever be able to stop him. The most dangerous killer known to the galaxies would have been created, and one under the complete control of an unhinged warlord set on spreading her empire - that is a disaster for anyone standing in his way. Honestly, the galaxies are lucky this isn't the Canon Route, lol.

Perfect/Utopian AU -

What would cause it: I think it would be pretty much like Jack's Utopian AU. No Junction, no civil war, no slavers. Deimos' people wouldn't have been forced to become ruthless to survive, he wouldn't have been seen as a weak link, his Nestmates would still be alive and he would never have been kidnapped and taken by raiders to Cethea III by force. Overall, I like to think he would have become a Paladyn - a knight of his people - and used to talented aim to watch over his people. I also like to think he, Jack, and Cassie would have eventually met - like they do in the canon story - at some point, under less dire circumstances, and become best friends either way.

Gabi Ophyria

(Canon/Current Gabi: The adoptive daughter of the galaxy's most famous assassin, Gabi is a rebellious girl with a heart of fire who joined an underground rebel group to undermine the Junction.)

Disclaimer: Since her current situation in the story is actually the best-case scenario that could've happened in her situation (which was pretty screwed up because of the villains), I'll go with two different "Evil AUs" instead!

Evil AU 1:

If, all those years ago in the past, after completing his mission Pyerce hadn't connected the dots and run away from the Junction with young (then orphaned) Gabi under his wing, things could've turned out a whole lot different. If the Junction had acquired her through some means, she would have been trained as a super soldier, much like Noctus was, no doubt to break the spirit of the rebels still loyal to her family name. With her memories wiped and no one to dotingly watch over her, Gabi would have been turned into a fierce soldier, like a 'war hound' ready to follow every command of the Junction. With her strength and perseverance, she would have been a tough enemy to contend with, and would likely be turned against those who were loyal to her family in the past as a way for the regime to mock them, and she would have no idea of it.

Evil AU 2:

This AU starts out very similar to the Canon. Pyerce deserts the Junction after finding out the truth about his 'mission', and flees the galaxy with a young Gabi, whom he adopted as his own as a way to atone for what he'd misguidedly done. Where the story takes a dark turn in this Evil AU, is that - some years later - instead of being able to settle down peacefully on a flourishing planet in the Khosmonian galaxies, the duo ends up found by mercenaries sent by the Junctions - Pyerce's former colleagues - and Gabi is forced to watch someone she considers as family (Pyerce) be killed, like her biological family was. This makes Gabi's already fiery nature turn wrathful and filled with a thirst for revenge, and after she escapes, the girl would likely train and become an assassin deadlier than Pyerce ever was, on the road to brutally kill one by one of his former associates, those responsible for his death. However, on this search for revenge, Gabi would probably blur the lines between wrong and right far too much and go past a point of no return, and become her own worst enemy without even realizing it.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.4

362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. 414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and proclaimed herself empress (Augusta) of the Eastern Roman Empire. 836 – Pactum Sicardi, a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples, is signed. 993 – Ulrich of Augsburg is canonized as a saint. 1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula. 1120 – Jordan II of Capua is anointed as prince after his infant nephew's death. 1187 – The Crusades: Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. 1253 – Battle of West-Capelle: John I of Avesnes defeats Guy of Dampierre. 1359 – Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz. 1456 – Ottoman–Hungarian wars: The Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) begins. 1534 – Christian III is elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye. 1584 – Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrive at Roanoke Island 1610 – The Battle of Klushino is fought between forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia during the Polish–Muscovite War. 1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France (now Quebec, Canada). 1744 – The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British colonies, was signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 1774 – Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts. 1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. 1778 – American Revolutionary War: U.S. forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign. 1802 – At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy opens. 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people. 1817 – In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins. 1826 – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively the second and third presidents of the United States, die the same day, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." 1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York. 1831 – Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities. 1832 – John Neal delivers the first public lecture in the US to advocate the rights of women. 1837 – Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool. 1838 – The Iowa Territory is organized. 1845 – Henry David Thoreau moves into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's account of his two years there, Walden, will become a touchstone of the environmental movement. 1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published in Brooklyn. 1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels. 1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to U.S. forces under Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. 1863 – American Civil War: Union forces repulse a Confederate army at the Battle of Helena in Arkansas. The Confederate loss fails to relieve pressure on the besieged city of Vicksburg, and paves the way for the Union to capture Little Rock. 1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Confederate invasion of U.S. territory. 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zululand capital of Ulundi is captured by British troops and burned to the ground, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee. 1881 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens. 1886 – The Canadian Pacific Railway's first scheduled train from Montreal arrives in Port Moody on the Pacific coast, after six days of travel. 1887 – The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joins Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi. 1892 – Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, causing Monday (July 4) to occur twice, resulting in a year with 367 days. 1894 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole. 1898 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives. 1901 – William Howard Taft becomes American governor of the Philippines. 1903 – The Philippine–American War is officially concluded. 1910 – The Johnson–Jeffries riots occur after African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 15th round. Between 11 and 26 people are killed and hundreds more injured. 1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities. 1913 – President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913. 1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo. 1918 – Mehmed V died at the age of 73 and Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne. 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Hamel, a successful attack by the Australian Corps against German positions near the town of Le Hamel on the Western Front. 1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date). 1927 – First flight of the Lockheed Vega. 1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball. 1941 – Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. 1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German-occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. 1942 – World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka. 1943 – World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives. 1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland. 1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States. 1947 – The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan. 1950 – Cold War: Radio Free Europe first broadcasts. 1951 – Cold War: A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage. 1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor. 1954 – Rationing ends in the United Kingdom. 1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Acts (United States)). 1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years. 1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year. 1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists. 1976 – The U.S. celebrates its Bicentennial. 1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit. 1982 – Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces, and their fate remains unknown. 1987 – In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (a.k.a. the "Butcher of Lyon") is convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city. 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars. 1998 – Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation. 2001 – Vladivostock Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport killing all 145 people on board. 2002 – A Boeing 707 crashes near Bangui M'Poko International Airport in Bangui, Central African Republic, killing 28. 2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City. 2004 – Greece beats Portugal in the UEFA Euro 2004 Final and becomes European Champion for first time in its history. 2005 – The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1. 2006 – Space Shuttle program: Discovery launches STS-121 to the International Space Station. The event gained wide media attention as it was the only shuttle launch in the program's history to occur on the United States' Independence Day. 2009 – The Statue of Liberty's crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure due to security concerns following the September 11 attacks. 2009 – The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao. 2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN. 2015 – Chile claims its first title in international football by defeating Argentina in the 2015 Copa América Final.

[shirtlesssammy]

13x05: Advanced Thanatology

Then:

Nothing comes back from The Empty.

Now:

Two teens in Grand Junction, Colorado fancy themselves mini-Ghostfacers, as they investigate an old, abandoned asylum. Evan leads the charge, with Shawn, slightly apprehensive, following along. The boys explore the house, finding disturbing plague masks of the lobotomizing doctor (and take one for good luck). A+ set design tonight. A lot of love was put into the creep factor. Things escalate quickly, and as the boys run for their lives to escape, they’re attacked by our new favorite TRULY CREEPY MOTW! 

Shawn escapes with a minor head wound and the screams of his friend echoing through the trees.    

At the bunker, Dean is coping by making himself a PB&J. Sam comes in and offers him a beer for breakfast. He also (check this out!) has a case, where a kid was wandering on a road alone, best friend missing, and (get this) only word he said: Monster. Sam wants to go on an old fashioned monster hunt with his big bro! Jack’s packed away in the bunker watching old fantasy videos (I do like this insight into Sam), time to bro it up!

They head to the teen’s house and talk to his mother. Within 30 seconds of meeting this woman, my heart already aches for her. Shawn won’t talk. There’s nothing physically wrong, he’s just mute from the trauma he’s experienced. Raise your hand if you just knew the next scene was going to be Dean talking to Shawn? (The added bonus of Shawn drawing really drove how the parallels to 1x03.) Sam talks further with Penny and discovers there’s a third friend, Mike.

Later, the boys pull into the Royal Towers Hotel for the night. Sam suggests an evening’s entertainment at The Clam Diver, a local establishment of reputable enjoyment (It got 4 ½ stars? stripper poles? catcalls? -how are strip joint’s merit points measured?) Dean calls Sam out on being nice to him. Sam’s just trying to help (oh, Sam). This is beautiful though –all of Dean’s coping mechanisms are brought to light and made very clear that this isn’t the best way to handle grief. And any time in the future, it’ll be explicit what he’s doing.

Later that night, Shawn wakes screaming. His mother rushes into comfort him, telling him it’ll be ok. Everything is not ok though, as Dr. Drill McPlagueface makes an appearance!

Sam wakes the next morning to find Dean’s bed pristine and not slept in. A moment of panic transitions to stunned acceptance when he finds a snoring Dean passed out on the floor of their hotel room. He heads out to interview the friend, Mike, alone. This is all played for humor, but also kinda not? –I wasn’t laughing. Dean’s trying to indulge in booze, bacon (that’s later), and bullets, and it’s not a good look.

Interviewing Mike (who clearly doesn’t work much on a farm since he’s not using hay bail hooks –I digress), Sam discovers the location where Shawn and Even were when Even disappeared.

Back at the hotel, Dean indulges in the free breakfast (with bacon), I like the tiny piece of cantaloupe on his plate next to the heaping pile of bacon. Heart healthy!

Sam info dumps on Dr. Avery Meadows –lobotomizer extraordinaire. In the 1960’s, he tortured his patients before finally getting caught and executed. He then gets a call from Penny, Shawn’s mom. He’s disappeared. The brothers ponder the case –ghost for sure, and since the good doctor was cremated, clearly he’s tied to an object.

They head into the Meadow’s old house and Sam switches on the EMF meter. It immediately starts to wail. There’s ghost activity there, alright. Suddenly, the ghost of the old doctor appears behind Sam. He’s wearing a plague mask and holding a powered up drill. So…that’s great. Not creepy at all. Dean and Sam try to fight it off and in doing so, the ghost corners Dean. The drill gets closer and closer….and Dean watches it come, frozen. Sam swipes iron through the ghost just before Dean gets a few new holes and they head upstairs. 

Upstairs they find the old surgical suite. It’s got an operating table, old medical equipment, and four masks lined up in a row. The set design is just…A+ creepy work. The mask that Shawn took is back in its place. Dean surmises that the ghost is tied to the mask since the police had to rip the mask off of Meadows when he was captured. So, hello skin remnants. (EW.) Dean burns the mask and the doctor disappears in flames.

They head out to find Shawn when Sam notices that it’s still ghost-level cold. Voices start asking for a doctor and they realize that ghosts of patients are stuck in the house too and they’ve gone casually homicidal over the course of time (as ghosts do). They need to find the bodies before the ghosts kill them…so Dean decides to take a little shortcut. He digs in his bag and pulls out a kit with a syringe. (Boris interjects: Fun Fact, Dr. Robert gave Dean this injectable. It’s 7+ years old! No wonder it didn’t revive him —it’s majorly expired by now.) One shot kills him, the other shot brings him back. Dean’s gonna head into the veil to talk to the ghosts. While Sam tries to talk Dean out of this horrifying plan Dean kills himself and his soul slips into the Veil.

Okay. So I wrote a whole thing about Dean’s suicide this weekend when I was fretting over the episode. This is a horrible moment that has stuck with me as I’ve rewatched the whole episode. You know, when someone is drowning they never look like they’re drowning. They just reach up to the sky and slip into the water. That’s Dean in this episode. No fuss. No shouting. Down he goes. It HURTS.

Anyway. While Sam curses over Dean’s body, Dean’s soul walks through the house. He tries to talk to one bloodied spirit, blows off a reaper who tries to escort him to Heaven, and runs off to try to find a ghost who will talk to him.

The reaper appears in a long gray room full of shelves. She stalks past rows labeled “W” and announces, “Dean Winchester is in the Veil.”

Dean tracks the quiet bloodied spirit to where he disappears and then Shawn’s ghost shows up. Dean’s face falls. They were too late to save him. Shawn recounts how the doctor’s ghost appeared in his room, possessed Shawn, and made him put on the mask and head back to the house. Shawn replaced the mask on the shelf and then drilled out his own head. This is…so horrible. It really puts the soul-crushing sorrow into horror. We all feel Shawn’s loss along with Dean. “I know you’re scared but I’m gonna help you get out of here,” Dean tells him. He gets the location of the bodies.

Sam’s timer goes off and he injects Dean with the reversal drug. It…doesn’t work.

“Hey, Dean,” a voice says from the stairs. It’s Billie looking…GLORIOUS…and holding a tall black scythe. She freezes the scene of Sam freaking out behind them and tells Dean that they need to talk. She swiftly explains her resurrection. “Kill one incarnation of Death, like you did, and the next reaper to die takes his place.” (At this point in the show I was crowing I TOLD YOU SO BILLIE IS DEATH I AM GOD)

Billie zaps Dean to the mysterious gray corridor full of shelves. “Welcome to my reading room,” she says. It’s Death’s own library. (Boris interjects: As a librarian suffering from severe downsizing and space constrictions, I am hella jealous of the ridiculous amount of space allotted to a single human. Where can I apply for Librarian II?)  Dean asks if she’s keeping him dead and she tells him that it depends. She wants to know how they’ve been slipping between worlds. Dean lays out his terms. He’ll tell her everything as long as she frees the ghosts in the Meadows house. Slightly surprised, she takes the deal.

We cut to the house where the reaper from before has gathered the ghosts to her. She releases them into the light.

Dean fills her in on Jack and the interdimensional rip and grouchily asks her why she cares. “Because I do. This whole multiversal quantum construct we live in…it’s like a house of cards. And the last thing I need is some big, dumb Winchester knocking it all down.”

“That does sound like us,” he says. She hears this rejoinder and narrows her eyes at him. She tells him that he’s changed. He’s not the rogue fighter he had been. And here we learn what’s been festering at the core of Dean.

Billie, with Death’s insight (or maybe just because she’s always had a good beat on the Winchesters) says, “You have changed. And you tell people it’s not a big deal. You tell people you’ll work through it. But you know you won’t. You can’t. And that scares the hell out of you.” Dean doesn’t deny a DAMN thing. It’s a relief to me as a viewer to have this sorrow articulated, but it really, really hurts as well.

“I don’t matter,” Dean tells her. He can’t save anyone or fix anything.

Billie cuts to the heart yet again. “You wanna die.”

Billie gives him a tour of the shelf. It’s a stack of deaths that Dean Winchester has endured. How he dies depends on his choices. He tells her that he’s made his choice and he’s ready to go now thank you very much (OW DEAN OW). Billie…isn’t going to accept that. Now that she’s Death she sees the big picture and that means that she sees “You and your brother. You’re important. You have work to do.”

So, sorry Dean Bean. You don’t get to die today. “Keep living,” she orders. Dean tries to process this and at the last minute asks about Mary. He gets cut off as his soul reenters his body and he wakes up.

Outside the house paramedics retrieve the bodies as the Winchesters and Shawn’s mother look on. Sam asks Dean about his miraculous resurrection. Dean tries to play it off as luck but Sam pushes (thank you, Sam). Dean tells her about Billie’s promotion and her message to them. Dean watches Shawn’s mother grieving and Sam asks him if he’s okay.

“I’m pretty far from okay,” Dean tells him. “My whole life I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost. No matter who we lost.” He kept fighting because he believed the world was a better place with them in it. Now that belief has left him he needs a win to keep going. They drive off back into the world.

The soulful strains of Steppenwolf’s “It’s Never Too Late” play over the final scene. Although the Winchesters have left the scene Shawn’s mother approaches her son’s body to identify it and cradles his face as the song sings “It’s never too late to start all over again.” It’s… HEARTBREAKING.

Dean drives off down the road, his dead mask in place. His phone rings and shock steals over his expression. They drive into an alley at night lit by a cross and a neon buffalo (bison!) sign. There’s a payphone in the alley and beside the payphone…Castiel.

Natasha: God, I loved this episode. It was so good and had so much dimension! But it TORE ME UP.

The Long Dark Quote-Time of the Soul:

I know what it’s like to see monsters. And I know when they’re gone they never really go away.

It’s funny to hear a Winchester talk about the finality of dying.

This universe can be so many things and sometimes it is poetic.

Me and my brother, we’re the guys that stop the monsters.

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[clonerightsagenda]

TLC DVD commentary: Finishing up

Oh boy, the Dave dysfunction junction. I reread this so many times while doing revisions that trying to read it now gives me a headache, but there’s plenty of general comments to make here.

This is another one Skiba helped me with, bc I was new at this and struggling. These days I'm much more confident - I'll probably touch it up when I do the DC, since I was never entirely happy with it, or maybe that was my soul protesting devoting 16 pages to Strider drama. I’d have to go through carefully to remember which bits are mine and which are his, but the ‘pasted together with mansweat’ is definitely his. I don’t think I’ve ever used ‘mansweat’ in my life. Good word tho.

This conversation was inevitable - in Homestuck if there are two versions of someone they'll get into a fight, because why wouldn't they? We all have things we dislike about ourselves. We don't want those rubbed in our face. Dave's denial of time travel is a perfect catalyst, because Davesprite has internalized his "role" so hard he can't imagine someone denying it. Neither can full conceive of a use of time powers beyond the 'generating doomed doubles' thing because they were raised by a Prince of Heart and learned self-destruction. 

This is also a big culmination of the depersonalization Dave learned as a self-defense mechanism. He tries to act like his dead doomed selves mean nothing to him, because if he didn't, that would psychologically destroy you very quickly. And that works for a while, but once you *become* one of those selves, then that's turned on you. He's also developed some survivor's guilt that he diverts into paranoia (if he feels guilty that they died and he didn't, then they must hate him for it, therefore they are an Enemy) which fuels this argument even more. 

The real villain here, naturally, is the alpha timeline. Dave sees it as a trap. Davesprite sees it as validation. What it really is is a system set up by Lord English to profit himself and no one else. In canon, Dave complains that LE isn't a good villain because it's ambiguous how he ever hurt them. The story never does a great job of emphasizing how he has really hurt them at every turn, forcing them into situations and punishing harmless choices that simply didn't serve his agenda. That’s why he’s the bad guy, even more than a few explosions out in space.

I like to think I write Dave and Davesprite differently enough that it's clear who's talking even without the appellation. I can certainly tell the difference (I have on occasion deleted a section of dialog I wrote for one of them because 'it sounds like the other one') but then I’m the writer. Mostly those differences stem from different attitudes, but this conversation is a good example of a more surface-level difference I implemented. If I come up with a good piece of figurative language I'm going to use it no matter what, but in general, I key the similes and metaphors they use after the people they've been spending time with. Dave is more likely to use literary allusions (Rose) or crude bodily comments (Karkat), while Davesprite is more likely to use science (Jade) or tv/film references (John). (As a side note, I observed that in canon Dave is more likely to use film references when talking to John, so both are more likely to use them when talking to or about him in TLC.) Dave also occasionally uses a bit of legalese (Terezi), and Davesprite does it once or twice after BAA, although he gets real pissed when he notices.

God these early pages are just littered with errors from that old gif-making method. Plenty to fix in the DC. That being said, Dave getting punched so hard his shirt freaks out is p funny and may need to be preserved just because. I actually had them both scuffling a little, but the beta reader switched it up to just be Ds decking Dave, which I think worked out. They're both so surprised that he actually did it that things settle down pretty quickly rather than escalating.

Page 94 is a reference to the 'Karkat is too upset to be rendered in a less shitty manner’ panel.

I actually think it's interesting to explore Davesprite as the aftermath of the heroic sacrifice trope. Because you're supposed to die, but you died doing something useful, so you get lauded for it afterward. But when you make that sacrifice and you *don't* die... there's no room for you in the story anymore. You can only ride on those laurels for so long, and then you start wondering what the point of you is. I tend to think the heroic sacrifice trope is kinda fucked, especially with children, which I’ve talked about before so this lets me explore how toxic that mentality can be.

I sort of touched on this in a recent post - a tuesjade I think - but you can look at that with a lot of the kids. John is the archetypal pure hearted hero... who only manages to maintain that genre-typical innocence and optimism because he’s repressed everything else. Dave is the reluctant hero who ends up finding far more happiness in being part of a team rather than being the solo figure saving the day. Jade starts out as the ‘wise sage’ figure but is repeatedly cut down to size and has her dreams ruthlessly crushed by the canon narrative anyway, and Skaia was only showing her what it wanted to in order to guide her choices. She didn’t have a “special connection” as much as she was a pawn. And Rose is the one who looks at the fairy kingdom and the animals who want to crown her queen and instead joins up with the white witch, without even being offered candy as a bribe. And you know what? I think she was right.

p 96 Gill was in a print making class doing engravings that semester lmao

I was going to just cover this bit for this post, but there are only a few more pages before I get to the bucket death, so we might as well keep going. 

JOHN: kissing a dead person was weird, but it wasn't that bad. JOHN: i think kissing an alive person might be weirder. ROSE: Really, now? JOHN: wait, was that a weird thing to say? JOHN: i meant because then they'd be awake and expecting stuff and... JOHN: forget it, let's go back to talking about jack.

Technically aro/ace John would be indirectly violating our neither promote nor prevent shipping policy. I at least attempt to maintain this policy, as this is management 101. If you follow policy, you can point to it as justification when some angry person shows up in your inbox. Of course I am only half the team and can only sigh meaningfully when Gill over there is like ‘so Dirk and Jake are gonna hold hands for an entire scene’. I sigh meaningfully so often that she probably thinks we have a gas leak. Anyway because of policy it's not explicit but it does impact how I interpret and write him, so it's kinda there. Nothing binding though.

It wasn't intentional, but it's fitting that John (Breath player, aspect of freedom) ends up freeing both mind-controlled girls, even if it was done unintentionally. Breath doesn't like to be constrained.

And we're done with the requested segment!

[zaptnews]

Talk with live music at Iklectik on 12 June 2019                  7h30pm

Irrational Music meets Nightingales in Berlin 

Elliott Sharp and David Rothenberg meet in words and music concerning their two recent books, Irrational Music and Nightingales in Berlin. 

The event will be moderated by Jem Finer.

Elliott Sharp is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City for over 30 years, released over eighty-five recordings ranging from orchestral music to blues, jazz, noise, no wave rock, and techno music. He has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition and interaction. His collaborators have included Radio-Sinfonie Frankfurt; Manuel Göttsching, Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Kronos String Quartet; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; pipa virtuoso Min-Xiao Feng; jazz greats Jack DeJohnette, Oliver Lake, and Sonny Sharrock; and Bachir Attar, leader of the Master Musicians Of Jajouka. Sharp is a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 2014 Fellow at Parson's Center for Transformative Media. He received the 2015 Berlin Prize in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Berlin.

Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, Survival of the Beautiful and many other books, published in at least eleven languages. He has more than twenty CDs out, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent House which came out on ECM, and most recently Berlin Bülbul and Cool Spring. He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, Suzanne Vega, Scanner, Elliot Sharp, Iva Bittová, and the Karnataka College of Percussion.  Nightingales in Berlin is his latest book, CD, and film. Rothenberg is Distinguished Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. 

Jem Finer is an artist, musician and composer. Since studying computer science in the 1970s, he has worked in a variety of fields, including photography, film, experimental and popular music and installation.  His 1000 year long musical composition Longplayer represents a convergence of many of his concerns, particularly those relating to systems, long-durational processes and extremes of scale in both time and space. Recent work, focusing on his interest in long-term sustainability and the reconfiguring of older technologies, includes Spiegelei, a 360-degree spherical camera obscura and Supercomputer, a sculptural machine composing micro-minimal musical scores which opened in Cambridge in June 2014 and is now sited in London.  

£ 6 advance    £ 8 door

Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound

A celebrated figure in myth, song, and story, the nightingale has captivated the imagination for millennia, its complex song evoking a prism of human emotions—from melancholy to joy, from the fear of death to the immortality of art.

But have you ever listened closely to a nightingale’s song? It’s a strange and unsettling sort of composition—an eclectic assortment of chirps, whirs, trills, clicks, whistles, twitters, and gurgles. At times it is mellifluous, at others downright guttural. It is a rhythmic assault, always eluding capture. What happens if you decide to join in?

David Rothenberg shows in this searching and personal new book, the nightingale’s song is so exceptional in part because it reflects our own cacophony back at us. As vocal learners, nightingales acquire their music through the world around them, singing amid the sounds of humanity in all its paradoxes of noise and beauty, hard machinery and soft melody. Rather than try to capture a sound not made for us to understand, Rothenberg seeks these musical creatures out, clarinet in tow, and makes a new music with them. He takes us to the urban landscape of Berlin—longtime home to nightingale colonies where the birds sing ever louder in order to be heard—and invites us to listen in on their remarkable collaboration as birds and instruments riff off of each other’s sounds. Through dialogue, travel records, sonograms, tours of Berlin’s city parks, and musings on the place animal music occupies in our collective imagination, Rothenberg takes us on a quest for a new sonic alchemy, a music impossible for any one species to make alone. In the tradition of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Invention of Nature, Rothenberg has written a provocative and accessible book to attune us ever closer to the natural world around us.

UK publication by University of Chicago Press  on 4 June  2019   £20

IrRational Music

For over five decades, Elliott Sharp has been engaged in a quest at once quixotic and down to earth: to take the music he hears in his inner ear and bring it to life in the real world. In this vivid memoir and manifesto, Sharp takes us along on that quest, through some of the most rugged, anarchically fertile cultural terrain of our time. Sharp, a mainstay of the New York Downtown scene beginning in the 1980s, has been a pivotal gure at the junction of rock, experimental music, and an ever-widening spiral of art, theater, lm, and dance. Rooted in blues, rock, jazz, and the twentieth-century avant-garde, Sharp’s innovative music has encom- passed fractal geometry, chaos theory, algorithms, genetic metaphors, and new strategies for graphic notation.

In IrRational Music, Sharp dodges fake cowboys’ real bullets by the side of a highway near Colby, Kansas; is called on the carpet (“Improvisation. . . I don’t buy it”) by a prickly, pompadoured Morton Feldman; segues from Zen tea to single malt with an elfin John Cage; conjures an extraterrestrial opera from a group of high-school students in Munich; and—back in his own high-school days—looks up from strumming Van Morrison’s “Gloria” in Manny’s Music on 48th Street to see Jimi Hendrix smiling benignly upon him. A mix of tales from the road with thoughts on music, art, politics, technology, and the process of thinking itself, IrRational Music is a glimpse inside the mind of one of our most exacting, exciting creative artists.

Terra Nova Press / MIT Press    £ 20

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.4

362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. 414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and proclaimed herself empress (Augusta) of the Eastern Roman Empire. 836 – Pactum Sicardi, a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples, is signed. 993 – Ulrich of Augsburg is canonized as a saint. 1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula. 1120 – Jordan II of Capua is anointed as prince after his infant nephew's death. 1187 – The Crusades: Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. 1253 – Battle of West-Capelle: John I of Avesnes defeats Guy of Dampierre. 1359 – Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz. 1456 – Ottoman–Hungarian wars: The Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) begins. 1534 – Christian III is elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye. 1584 – Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrive at Roanoke Island 1610 – The Battle of Klushino is fought between forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia during the Polish–Muscovite War. 1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France (now Quebec, Canada). 1744 – The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British colonies, was signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 1774 – Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts. 1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. 1778 – American Revolutionary War: U.S. forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign. 1802 – At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy opens. 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the U.S. people. 1817 – In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins. 1826 – John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively the second and third presidents of the United States, die the same day, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." 1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York. 1831 – Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities. 1837 – Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool. 1838 – The Iowa Territory is organized. 1845 – Henry David Thoreau moves into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's account of his two years there, Walden, will become a touchstone of the environmental movement. 1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published In Brooklyn. 1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels. 1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to U.S. forces under Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. One hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas. 1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Confederate invasion of U.S. territory. 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zululand capital of Ulundi is captured by British troops and burned to the ground, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee. 1881 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens. 1886 – The Canadian Pacific Railway's first scheduled train from Montreal arrives in Port Moody on the Pacific coast, after six days of travel. 1887 – The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joins Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi. 1892 – Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, causing Monday (July 4) to occur twice, resulting in a year with 367 days. 1894 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole. 1898 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives. 1901 – William Howard Taft becomes American governor of the Philippines. 1903 – The Philippine–American War is officially concluded. 1910 – The Johnson–Jeffries riots occur after African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in the 15th round. Between 11 and 26 people are killed and hundreds more injured. 1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities. 1913 – President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913. 1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo. 1918 – Mehmed V died at the age of 73 and Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne. 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Hamel, a successful attack by the Australian Corps against German positions near the town of Le Hamel on the Western Front. 1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date). 1927 – First flight of the Lockheed Vega. 1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design that would later be used in the atomic bomb. 1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball. 1941 – Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. 1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. 1942 – World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka. 1943 – World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives. 1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland. 1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States. 1947 – The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan. 1950 – Cold War: Radio Free Europe first broadcasts. 1951 – Cold War: A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage. 1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor. 1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Acts (United States)). 1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years. 1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year. 1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists. 1976 – The U.S. celebrates its Bicentennial. 1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit. 1982 – Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces, and their fate remains unknown. 1987 – In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (a.k.a. the "Butcher of Lyon") is convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city. 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars. 1998 – Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation. 2001 – Vladivostock Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport killing all 145 people on board. 2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City. 2004 – Greece beats Portugal in the UEFA Euro 2004 Final and becomes European Champion for first time in its history. 2005 – The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1. 2006 – Space Shuttle program: Discovery launches STS-121 to the International Space Station. The event gained wide media attention as it was the only shuttle launch in the program's history to occur on the United States' Independence Day. 2009 – The Statue of Liberty's crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure due to security concerns following the September 11 attacks. 2009 – The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao. 2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN. 2015 – Chile claims its first title in international soccer by defeating Argentina in the 2015 Copa América Final.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 7.4

362 BC – Battle of Mantinea: The Thebans, led by Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. 414 – Emperor Theodosius II, age 13, yields power to his older sister Aelia Pulcheria, who reigned as regent and proclaimed herself empress (Augusta) of the Eastern Roman Empire. 836 – Pactum Sicardi, a peace treaty between the Principality of Benevento and the Duchy of Naples, is signed. 993 – Ulrich of Augsburg is canonized as a saint. 1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, and possibly Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula. 1120 – Jordan II of Capua is anointed as prince after his infant nephew's death. 1187 – The Crusades: Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem. 1253 – Battle of West-Capelle: John I of Avesnes defeats Guy of Dampierre. 1359 – Francesco II Ordelaffi of Forlì surrenders to the Papal commander Gil de Albornoz. 1456 – Ottoman–Hungarian wars: The Siege of Nándorfehérvár (Belgrade) begins. 1534 – Christian III is elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye. 1584 – Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe arrive at Roanoke Island 1610 – The Battle of Klushino is fought between forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russia during the Polish–Muscovite War. 1634 – The city of Trois-Rivières is founded in New France (now Quebec, Canada). 1744 – The Treaty of Lancaster, in which the Iroquois cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River to the British colonies, was signed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 1774 – Orangetown Resolutions are adopted in the Province of New York, one of many protests against the British Parliament's Coercive Acts. 1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. 1778 – American Revolutionary War: U.S. forces under George Clark capture Kaskaskia during the Illinois campaign. 1802 – At West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy opens. 1803 – The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the U.S. people. 1817 – In Rome, New York, construction on the Erie Canal begins. 1826 – Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence. 1827 – Slavery is abolished in the State of New York. 1831 – Samuel Francis Smith writes "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" for the Boston, Massachusetts July 4 festivities. 1837 – Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opens between Birmingham and Liverpool. 1838 – The Iowa Territory is organized. 1845 – Henry David Thoreau moves into a small cabin on Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau's account of his two years there, Walden, will become a touchstone of the environmental movement. 1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published In Brooklyn. 1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels. 1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Vicksburg, Mississippi surrenders to U.S. forces under Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege. One hundred fifty miles up the Mississippi River, a Confederate army is repulsed at the Battle of Helena, Arkansas. 1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signalling an end to the Confederate invasion of U.S. territory. 1879 – Anglo-Zulu War: The Zululand capital of Ulundi is captured by British troops and burned to the ground, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee. 1881 – In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens. 1886 – The first scheduled Canadian transcontinental train arrives in Port Moody, British Columbia. 1887 – The founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, joins Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam, Karachi. 1892 – Western Samoa changes the International Date Line, causing Monday (July 4) to occur twice, resulting in a year with 367 days. 1892 – The first double-decked street car service was inaugurated in San Diego, California. 1894 – The short-lived Republic of Hawaii is proclaimed by Sanford B. Dole. 1898 – En route from New York to Le Havre, the SS La Bourgogne collides with another ship and sinks off the coast of Sable Island, with the loss of 549 lives. 1901 – William Howard Taft becomes American governor of the Philippines. 1903 – The Philippine–American War is officially concluded. 1910 – African-American boxer Jack Johnson knocks out white boxer Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match, sparking race riots across the United States. 1911 – A massive heat wave strikes the northeastern United States, killing 380 people in eleven days and breaking temperature records in several cities. 1913 – President Woodrow Wilson addresses American Civil War veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913. 1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo. 1918 – Mehmed V died at the age of 73 and Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne. 1918 – World War I: The Battle of Hamel, a successful attack by the Australian Corps against German positions near the town of Le Hamel on the Western Front. 1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family (Julian calendar date). 1927 – First flight of the Lockheed Vega. 1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design that would later be used in the atomic bomb. 1939 – Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, informs a crowd at Yankee Stadium that he considers himself "The luckiest man on the face of the earth", then announces his retirement from major league baseball. 1941 – Nazi crimes against the Polish nation: Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists and writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv. 1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues: The Great Choral Synagogue in German occupied Riga is burnt with 300 Jews locked in the basement. 1942 – World War II: The 250-day Siege of Sevastopol in the Crimea ends when the city falls to Axis forces. 1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history and the world's largest tank battle, begins in the village of Prokhorovka. 1943 – World War II: In Gibraltar, a Royal Air Force B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into the sea in an apparent accident moments after takeoff, killing sixteen passengers on board, including general Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile; only the pilot survives. 1946 – The Kielce pogrom against Jewish Holocaust survivors in Poland. 1946 – After 381 years of near-continuous colonial rule by various powers, the Philippines attains full independence from the United States. 1947 – The "Indian Independence Bill" is presented before the British House of Commons, proposing the independence of the Provinces of British India into two sovereign countries: India and Pakistan. 1950 – Cold War: Radio Free Europe first broadcasts. 1951 – Cold War: A court in Czechoslovakia sentences American journalist William N. Oatis to ten years in prison on charges of espionage. 1951 – William Shockley announces the invention of the junction transistor. 1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Rivers and Harbors Flood Control Bill. 1960 – Due to the post-Independence Day admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state on August 21, 1959, the 50-star flag of the United States debuts in Philadelphia, almost ten and a half months later (see Flag Acts (United States)). 1961 – On its maiden voyage, the Soviet nuclear-powered submarine K-19 suffers a complete loss of coolant to its reactor. The crew are able to effect repairs, but 22 of them die of radiation poisoning over the following two years. 1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act into United States law. The act went into effect the next year. 1976 – Israeli commandos raid Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists. 1976 – The U.S. celebrates its Bicentennial. 1977 – The George Jackson Brigade plants a bomb at the main power substation for the Washington state capitol in Olympia, in solidarity with a prison strike at the Walla Walla State Penitentiary Intensive Security Unit. 1982 – Three Iranian diplomats and a journalist are kidnapped in Lebanon by Phalange forces, and their fate remains unknown. 1987 – In France, former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (a.k.a. the "Butcher of Lyon") is convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. 1994 – Rwandan genocide: Kigali, the Rwandan capital, is captured by the Rwandan Patriotic Front, ending the genocide in the city. 1997 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars. 1998 – Japan launches the Nozomi probe to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as a space exploring nation. 2001 – Vladivostock Air Flight 352 crashes on approach to Irkutsk Airport killing all 145 people on board.[1] 2004 – The cornerstone of the Freedom Tower is laid on the World Trade Center site in New York City. 2004 – Greece beats Portugal in the UEFA Euro 2004 Final and becomes European Champion for first time in its history. 2005 – The Deep Impact collider hits the comet Tempel 1. 2009 – The Statue of Liberty's crown reopens to the public after eight years of closure due to security concerns following the September 11 attacks. 2009 – The first of four days of bombings begins on the southern Philippine island group of Mindanao. 2012 – The discovery of particles consistent with the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider is announced at CERN. 2015 – Chile claims its first title in international soccer by defeating Argentina in the 2015 Copa América Final.