#leading up to come to the conclusion that they are A) Invasive

[phantom-fleetways]

Feeling insane. Flickies are actually an invasive species within Sonic's world. Who have the ability to harness Chaos Energy. Making them basically super important to Eggman. Hence why in the modern Era we see very little to almost no animals in the majority of the games.

So birds aren't real at all in Sonic, huh? First the Aliens, now the Interdimentional birds. How is Mobius even functioning anymore???

[bet-on-me-13]

The Villains Daughter

So! Years ago, back when the Justice League was only just starting out, only a year or two after their initial team-up, they had one of their biggest battles to date. A group of Extra-Dimensional Beings had burst into their reality, hellbent on destroying a Government Facility and the nearby small town in Illinois.

They barely managed to beat the Invading Army back, although the Government Facility and a part of the nearby Town had been destroyed in the battle.

Later, they would learn about what had happened. Apparently the Government Base, called a GIW Facility, had managed to finally Crack the secret to Interdimensional Travel a few days earlier. Unfortunately, they had opened a Portal into a Dimension known as the Ghost Zone, ruled over by a Tyrant King who wanted to enslaved all world under him. Their Breaching of the GZ had alerted the Tyrant King to the existence of their Dimension, and he had launched an immediate Invasion to try and take it over.

And the evidence supported this.

Wonder Woman shared Legends of her People, telling that their Founding Ancestor had fled the rule of a Tyrant King when she passed into the Afterlife.

Zatara shared his Magic Tomes, showing them passages detailing the horrific Rule of the Tyrant King of the Infinite Realms.

They even asked Boston Brand, the Deadman and resident Ghost about it. He hadn't been the the Ghost Zone in Years, but even he told them that he had personally fled the Tyrant King.

And they also learned that when the Tyrant King set his eyes on something, he did not falter on his Warpath to acquire it. The Tyrant King, Pariah Dark, would be back for their World, again and again.

And they needed to be prepared. This Battle was what kickstarted their true Commitment to the idea of a Team. They knew they could not defeat Pariah Dark alone, so they needed to remain as a Team.

But there was another thing that came about from the Battle.

While the JLA had been helping clean up, Wonder Woman came across a strange sight. A Baby had been left in the rubble of the GIW Building.

She asked around, investigated, and did all she could to find the babies parents. At first she thought that one of the GIW Agents had brought their kid to work that day, but their records indicated that none of the Agents had children of that Age. And Neither did any of the other workers who worked on the base, like the Janitors or the Kitchen Staff. And of they did, all of their children were accounted for.

She eventually came to the conclusion that the Baby must belong to somebody in the nearby Town, but that lead led nowhere either.

She finally came to the conclusion that the Baby's parents must have died in the Invasion, a very unfortunate but very real possibility. She was going to place her into the System, but over the course of her investigation she had grown fond of the Child.

She decided to Adopt the baby herself. She didn't know the child's name, so she had to come up with a new one.

"How do you like the name, Stella?"

The baby gurgled in delight.

...

Over the next decade of their Teams Existence, the Justice League had to fend off the Legions of the Ghost King's Army many more times. It seemed that Pariah had grown wise to the fact that they were the ones defending the Human Realm, as almost all of the later attacks were directed on them personally.

It made sense, they were the First Line of Defense against his Armies, if he managed to defeat them, their World would soon fall.

But they dealt with the attacks as they came. They had made it their mission to defend their Home from the Forced of Pariah Darks Army, and they would not falter now, or ever.

In the case of Wonder Woman, he Daughter had grown to be a fine little lady. Stella had eventually developed Powers similar to her mother, in that she could fly and had super strength, and had begged to be trained as a Hero.

And who was Diana to deny her Daughter her greatest wish? Over the next 5 years, Diana trained Stella in the ways of the Amazon's. Then, when Stella was 15, she had her join the newly formed Young Justice.

She made a great group of friends on that Team, and even started going by Ellie as a Nickname. Her best friend was by far Conner, though she didn't know why she felt such a strong connection to him? It felt like she could relate to him, but her situation was completely different?

Ah well, her Mom wouldn't mind having another kid, would she? She always wanted a Brother!

...

Meanwhile in the Ghost Zone, the Ghost King was getting anxious. After 15 years, his Agents in the Human Realm had finally managed to set up the Ritual needed to Summon Him into the Human Realm.

Who knew that accepting the Ghost King's Throne would bar him from entering the Human Realm through normal Means? He couldn't even use the Portal, he needed to be summoned or he simply wouldn't be able to leave his new home dimension.

But now, it was almost time. Just another year or two, and he would finally be able to enter the Human Realm. He would finally be able to Find Her. His Daugther.

Danny would finally be able to reunite with his daughter, Ellie.

[floatyflowers]

Dark Platonic! Fathers As Zodiac Signs x Reader| Part 1

Aries

Your father believes you are better than everyone.

He greatly admires your attempts at winning even if you don't win first place...

...he will make sure you win first place next time by threatening your rivals.

Even if it was some fifth grade competition for drawing.

Being protective and invasive is a part of his personality.

In conclusion, you don't have anything called 'privacy'

Taurus

He set up a routine for you, and made sure you follow it.

Even though he is kind, he is very cautious ever since you were born, making sure your surroundings are safe.

And your future is secure.

He made you become dependent on him.

Also he is very picky when it comes to your diet or wardrobe.

Better not try to go against his wishes because he is very stubborn in getting you to do what he thinks is right.

Gemini

What is good about having a Gemini father is that they are socially intelligent.

So, having a conversation with him leads you to feel comfortable in your choices.

Except, they are not your choices, he just manipulated you into believing that those are best for you.

Makes you feel like he is a friend more than a dad, so you could tell him all your secrets.

He is unpredictable.

One minute he approves of your lover, the next, you don't have a lover.

[ganondoodle]

I probably still wouldn’t have been a big fan of the game, but I don’t think I would have been NEARLY as upset about TotK if BotW didn’t seem like it was so obviously setting up plot points for a sequel. Like, you’re very clearly MEANT to wonder what malice is, and how Ganon became the Calamity instead of just the Demon King. Fi is awake again, where are they going either that? What’s the deal with the Triforce-shaped symbol on Zelda’s hand? There were a LOT of other things like that, and many of them had to do with overarching lore for the series.

I get it if they want to reboot the series, but “BotW 2” was the single worst game you could have done that with. It could have been an amazing conclusion to the original continuity.

EXACTLY, you, you get it

botw felt like the introduction to a vast world with secrets and hints to things that were planned to become a bigger thing- a big giant game as a big giant set up, and then ... like totk likes to do alot, it lacks a pay off, and that is something it even does within itself, cosntantly, set up and no pay off, or set up and the most boring and uninspired pay off you can really not even call that, from the bigger things like the whole dragon thing being hammered into your head as irreversible and then it IS reversible.. out of nowhere without you having to do fuck all, the whole thing with the ancient hero beign a big mystery with lots of interesting ideas attached and then its some weird ass dog creature that doesnt resemble any other race with, of course, sonau armor, bc there nothing that isnt sonau in that game, even finding the old treasure maps you can find that then lead to amiibo stuff from botw id call that

botw wasnt that great with rewards either but exploring the world and wondering about those, surely intentionally, placed mysterious and intriguing designs and places did alot for making it so interesting to think about, totk fumbles it all and even the new stuff doesnt even come close to that environmental storytelling botw was so great at, sonau ruins? ha they look entirely different than in botw actually, bc those were built by hylians you see, the actual sonau stuff is in prime condition considering the time thats passed and its all the same blank blocky blocks that serve no purpose but to be a place for you to find a thing or exchange some currency- the most you can think about it is ... that the sonau hollowed out the entire underground of hyrule, every inch of the map, ... which is WEIRD and doesnt exactly make them look that good but ... thats all there is

at least with the shiekah it made somewaht more sense and it felt much less .. invasive? and you didnt have anyone from that time to talk to, other than dead monks whos only purpose is to give you their last piece of their own spirit, but in totk ... raurus ghost and mineru too are both just there to talk to but DONT tell you shit but vague hints that were already clear, the sky islands used to be on the ground? oh you dont say, you see them there in the stupid memories! and dont get to know how they got up there and theres nothing that can clue you in to that, its just sonau magic yet again i guess

dont even get me started on the whole malice/miasma thing, it made so much SENSE that there was a source of it, someone that has keep kept in a horrible place just between life and death for thousands of years trying to break free by their hate and anger manifesting to such a degree its literally spilling out and building creppy eyeballs, mouths and ribcage like structures like they are trying to rebuild themsleves outside of their awful prison no one knows about is so damn compelling, but no, actually, the guy trapped there was the msot evilest evar, was sealed bc him evil and no other motive, and the previously mentioned stuff is pretty much utterly unceonnected, and his magic beign miasma with red instead of pink and no creepy body parts was the true version of it, that pink one was its own thing heehooo SHUT UP argh

it doesnt help that really, i dont feel like the sonau were set up either, they were a tiny part in botw, really only serving to make the world seem more ancient and more full of history, having ruins from a past civilization there you know nothing about and cant find out more is so good, its compelling and sad and makes the world feel more real, just shoving them into everything, being the center of attention all of thes udden and not even the architecure fitting feels so ... forced, i really truly believe the og sonau werent meant to be more than that, but in their fear of the game being too similarly looking like botw they took the sonau to replace the shiekah with them- imo the shiekah were the ones set up to be deeper explored in botw, with their whole misstreatment by the royal family in the past, monk miz kyoshia reacting the same way a yiga commander would was deliberate and brings up even more interesting ideas, the comments about where the mysterious energy the ancient shiekah used to power everything being concentrated in certain regions?? thats a big ass set up, the fact that the center of what is signaling everything to reactivate being below hyrule castle? the fact the whole arena thing was BUILT INTO THE CASTLE or it on top of it is so??? cool??? and sso damn intriguing, we are scratching the surface of their history- but then no, actually, the sonau are the cool new shit those other ones just uh ... disappear, also the sonau did everythign the shiekah did but even better wayy before them haha

its like they didnt want to tackle the more complicated stuff with the shiekah, their relationship to the royal family and how the yiga ... have a point and a good reason- so they replaced them with entirely new purely goodest good guys that did the same stuff before them with none of the history attached :))

this is why im so insistent on it not really being a sequel, thers no follow up on anything that was set up, NOTHING, and no, a couple having a kid now or whatever isnt a follow up on an interesting set up, how hard is it to understand that-

.... listen to me rambling, you probably know all that already nhjdfkbnkd

(i know i always bring up the shiekah but ... they were so central in botw, while also not taking up every single corner- unlike some other ones >_____>, with so much interesting stuff to connect and think about, i cared about them so much i felt kicked down the stairs by their treatment in totk)

[midwestbramble]

Foraging in Witchcraft

I'm a big fan of working with the land, and one of the easiest ways to do so is by gathering your own plants. This is also free! No having to stop at an occult/metaphysical shop to pick up that random plant you forgot you needed. I will be making individual posts on different plants that can be foraged in my own bioregion, but first we should go over a few tips and housekeeping notes about foraging and witchcraft.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Contents:

Natural Isn't Always Safe

Laws and Foraging

Invasive vs. Native vs. Naturalized

Animistic Foraging

Conclusion

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Natural Isn't Always Safe

First thing I want to get out of the way is that not everything you find outside is going to be safe to put in your body or even touch. On top of that, not everything that is safe for someone else is going to be safe for you. We each have different bodies and how we react to something will not always be the same. When you first start foraging, it's important to have a guide book that will tell you of any safety measures to take when dealing with a plant. Some will interact with medications in ways that are not healthy, some have fluid that can make your skin photosensitive, and some... some people are just allergic to.

When it comes to medications, you can find contraindications (when not to ingest something) with a quick google search of "[plant name] contraindications." Generally this will give you a safe answer, however always check with your doctor if you are unsure. Better to pay for a consultation than a hospital visit.

Some risks come from the environment that the plant grew in. If you are foraging near train tracks or buildings that could leach lead into the soil, the plants will pick that up as well. Contaminated soil and pesticides sprayed onto the plants can also lead to health risks. Be very mindful of where you are foraging.

Some plants that are safe will also have toxic look-alikes. A famous look-alike is wild carrot and poison hemlock (thank you Oregon Trail video game). Unless you know what characteristics you are looking for, it's very easy to confuse the two plants. One is a delicious snack, while the other is highly toxic (the poison hemlock), to the point of causing muscle death and kidney failure. This isn't to scare you away from foraging. Only to drive home the importance of making sure you know what you are gathering.

*credit to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Laws and Foraging

I am a resident of the United States so these will be more geared towards that country. It would be to your benefit to look into the foraging laws of your own country/state anyway, as it can still differ. The majority of states in America prohibit foraging on public lands, which makes it really hard for those who don't own their own property. If you live in Alaska and Hawaii, however, congratulations your local government allows it. Even among those states that do allow it, there can be designated areas where it's not allowed such as a nature preserve. Breaking these laws tends to come with a hefty fine and possible jail time, if caught. Though these laws are hard to find with a quick google search, especially for a specific area.

The laws in the United States prohibiting foraging are generally colonial, imperial, classist, and racist (surprise, surprise). Foraging was protected by law well into the 1800s (except for Native Americans who were pushed off their ancestral hunting and gathering grounds), even when doing so on another person's private property. After the Civil War, many newly-freed African-Americans would sell their foraged and hunted goods for an income, while also using the practice to become self-sufficient. The southern plantation owners needed this system to go away so they could chain what used to be their "property" to their old line of enslaved work. Starting with criminal trespass laws. Eventually anti-foraging laws spread to the average white rural American. Outside elites began to believe that the "backwards" people of the countryside, who made a subsistence living off the practice of foraging, fishing and hunting, could not be trusted with the stewardship of the land; using "conservation" as a way to "protect" it from the people who lived there (Linnekin, "Food Law Gone Wild: The Law of Foraging" p.1008-1014).

I do believe we need to protect our resources and lands. However, foraging can be regulated, not outright outlawed as it is. Learning about the plants and animals that live around us and can help us in our lives, leads us to learn more deeply about their role in the environment and just WHY we should protect them...

All this to say, look into your local foraging laws (and how local law enforcement actually enforces them, if they do at all) and then you can decide if you want to follow them or not. At your own risk.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Invasive vs. Native vs. Naturalized

There is a lot of talk in foraging communities about invasives vs. natives. Sometimes even bringing in naturalized plants. So let's talk a little bit about what these words mean in ecology and how this may effect your foraging habits.

Invasive and naturalized plants have one thing in common; they are both transplanted outside their natural ecosystem. A plant that is invasive in one place, can be naturalized in another. What matters is the impact the plant has on the ecosystem it has been transplanted into.

Invasive =  plants or animals that harm regional ecosystems.

Naturalized = plants that have successfully established and reproduced in a new environment, integrating into their new home without inflicting ecological harm.

To make things a bit more complicated, let's introduce the 10% rule. According to the Huron River Watershed Council, "the '10% rule' postulates that of all species introduced to a region outside of their native range, only 10% will survive to reproduce in their adopted environment. This 10% of non-native survivors are often called 'naturalized' plants. Of that 10%, another 10% (or 1% of the original non-native transplants) may thrive to such an extent that they dominant their new home, out competing their native neighbors. These prolific competitors are known as invasive species."

So what makes a native plant? The US Forest Service defines a native plant as "plants [that] are indigenous terrestrial and aquatic species that have evolved and occur naturally in a particular region, ecosystem, and habitat. Species native to North America are generally recognized as those occurring on the continent prior to European settlement."

Some native species can be endangered due to habitat loss from agriculture and/or competing invasive species. It's good to have a list (many state DNR (Department of Natural Resources) will have a list available on their website) printed so you know which ones should be cultivated in your garden if you wish to work with them. Avoiding these and working with invasive species can help with conservation efforts as well. Native species can still be worked with in the wild if they are not endangered.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Animistic Foraging

You'll often see witches giving advice about asking the plants permission before harvesting. This is from the belief that the plant has a spirit, an animistic belief. Asking permission to harvest isn't the only way we can forage mindfully and with respect to the plant. The way that I do this is by following the Honorable Harvest set out by Robin Wall Kimmerer (a Potawatomi botanist, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry) in her book "Braiding Sweetgrass."

Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so you may take care of them.

Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.

Ask permission before taking and abide by the answer.

Never take the first, never take the last.

Take only what you need.

Take only what is given.

Never take more than half. Leave some for others.

Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.

Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken.

Share.

Give thanks for what you have been given.

Give a gift in reciprocity for what you have been given.

Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.

The first rule really helps you to follow the rest of them. Know the plant. Walk by it several times, offer water even if you aren't taking something, say hello. These plants are our neighbors and when we harvest we are asking for their help.

⸙༄𓆤𓆩𓆪❁𓇢𓆸🏵

Conclusion

Each plant will have it's own method of harvest to minimize the harm done to it. Some you have to pull the whole thing up, but there are ways to repopulate it. It's so individual that I couldn't add it to this post. Hopefully what's written here can help you keep a few things in mind when going out and learning about your local flora.

Foraging can be a great way to connect with your land and learn about it. Getting your hands dirty and making you feel as if you are a part of the landscape. Hopefully the first couple of sections didn't scare you off. Get a couple of good guidebooks for your region (the local library is a good place to start) and you're good to get out there and start identifying plants you want to work with!

[my-moo-moo]

ground zero alien invasion

You made a grave mistake having sex with an alien one time. 

You don’t remember much of the experience. Only flashes of memories remain, brief and disjointed. You normally weren’t someone to engage in one night stands, but the man you met told you it was his only day in town and you just couldn’t miss this opportunity. 

And so you remember stumbling home drunk from the club with the hottest man you’ve ever attracted. You shrunk away in surprise when you felt his ice cold fingers around your waist, but his dazzling smile pulled you back again. One moment you have your eyes closed, writhing with each lick of a tongue teasing at your entrance. A slobbering kiss on your neck makes your eyes peel wide open again. It then came upon you that you were in fact not being eaten out this entire time. Instead, your one night stand was replaced by a blue-skinned alien with its tentacle-like appendage part way into your pussy. 

Before you turn into full-fledged panic, he whispers foreign words into your ear and pushes deeper into you, splitting you apart with the girthy part of his cock. Thoughts of leaving go down the drain as he begins to make you feel better than any date has ever achieved, penetrate you deeper than has ever been explored. Even if you weren't hallucinating, what would be so wrong with having a sex with an alien?

The last thing you remember is screaming as he breaches through your cervix.

For the entire morning immediately following, you question your mentality— whether you had been lucid dreaming, or you were tripping balls. Your body had felt bloated and achy, like your insides had been thoroughly rearranged— something that you wrote off as a result of the rough sex last night.

You were only forced out of bed by the intense rumbling of your stomach. You fight the wave of exhaustion to make yourself a hearty lunch. Perhaps you had a little too much food because you needed to untie the drawstring of your sweatpants afterwards.

As you finish cleaning up your kitchen, you accidentally bump your abdomen against the countertop. You flinch back and your hands fly over the afflicted spot. Just then you are made aware of the fact that your belly curves underneath your palm. You rush to the bathroom to look at yourself properly in the mirror. Your eyes widen at the sight. You’ve never seen yourself get this bloated before.

You poke at the strange mass attached to your waist— it's solid and cold to the touch. You swear your breasts look bigger than when you wear your most padded pushup bra. You don’t know how long you stand there transfixed by your own reflection. You swear every time you take a breath in, your belly expands a bit more, and it doesn’t retract down when you breathe out. 

Your brain tries to sort through all the explanations of what’s happening to you, but it keeps leading to the same absurd conclusion that couldn’t possibly be real. There’s one blaring conclusion that keeps coming up, but it’s so absurd that you’d sooner believe that you were dying of an unknown disease. 

The only thing you can think of doing was going to the emergency room. It’s not surprising when the nurses don’t take your concerns seriously and put you in the back of the waiting list. As you wait in the uncomfortable plastic chair, you continue to grow without halt. You’re forced to watch your belly go from being just perfectly tucked underneath your t-shirt to spilling underneath the hem and pushing your thighs apart. Some people, who’ve been there as long as you have, begin to double take your appearance. 

When a new nurse comes in for a shift, you had to grab the opportunity. You clutch your underbelly and waddle yourself down the hall to the fastest of your capabilities to flag her attention. She looks your heavily pregnant body up and down and immediately her first question is to ask if you’re in labour. You have no idea what that would entail, but you spit out yes, and you’ve been waiting for hours already.

Things move quickly thereafter with you getting sent to get an ultrasound. Finally, you’ll get the answers you’ve been waiting for. 

“How far along are you?” the doctor asks you. 

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I woke up this morning and I just blew up… like a… like a balloon… in one day! Aren’t you the doctor here?” you stammer without making much sense. 

She looks at you incredulously and her eyes only widen when she looks back at the ultrasound screen. 

“Well… you are certainly pregnant,” she starts. 

“Oh…” Your heart falls to the ground. You knew this was a possibility but hearing it confirmed makes the dire reality set in. You’re having a baby. “Is it… healthy?” you ask. 

The doctor doesn’t answer your question, instead seems to be rendered speechless as her eyes dart around monitoring the screen. 

When she finally looks back at you, she is literally shaking from head to toe. “What the hell is in your womb?” she shoots at you with malice underlying each syllable. 

“I told you… I don’t know,” you whisper. It was then you felt a tumbling within your belly as if your baby was greeting you. Your arm wraps around your belly, a surge of protectiveness rising over you even though you’ve barely processed the news of being pregnant. 

“We need to burn that thing with fire,” she seethes, 

You promptly clammer off the hospital bed. You grab the nearest scalpel and waves in front of you like a maniac. “Don’t touch me!” You don’t know where that confidence came from because you’ve always been afraid to even run a red light.

The doctor backs away in fear, and tries to reason with you more cautiously, “Didn't you come here wanting to stop whatever was happening to you? 

You shake your head. You had forgotten why you had come here at all and all that was clear to you was that you would do anything to protect the baby in your belly. 

“We need to run more tests to see what is growing inside you,” she tries to reason, but you don’t trust her any longer. She makes the grave mistake of reaching out to grab you, prompting you to puncture her in the arm. Fresh red blood sprays onto your hand and you panic. 

Escaping the yells from behind, you clutch your now heavy overdue belly and stammer out of the hospital, barely stopping to breathe despite the baby already restricting your lungs. You speed all the way home and you don’t stop until you get home and bolted your door and all your windows. 

Finally, you catch up on your breathing and head over to your mirror again. When you left the house a mere couple of hours ago, you looked like you could possibly be sporting a beer belly or maybe in your second trimester, but now it was undeniable to any stranger that you were very pregnant. It would now be more of a question of when you were going to pop or if you were carrying two. 

Either way, you are convinced you are going into labour soon. Though you don’t feel any contractions yet, your skin is tight as a drum already and your pelvis feels like it’s going to bust under all the weight. You could not fathom possibly getting larger. There is just  no way. 

Utterly exhausted by the events of the day, you resign to lying down in your bed. You’re waiting for any sign of labour, before you lose the battle to sleep. 

Pacing around your living room, you wait for the first sign of labour. At any moment you should either feel contractions tighten around your abdomen or water leaking down your legs. Instead you continue to grow outwards, resembling more like you are carrying twins. You stripped off all your clothing at this point, annoyed by how restricting it felt against your ever growing body. 

It wasn’t too long before you were jolted awake by the intense pressure on your bladder. You groan as the baby inside you makes the situation worse by a strong kick. When you finally peel your eyes open, you can barely comprehend the sight before you. Never have you ever seen such a gravid belly on anyone let alone yourself. You made a grave mistake closing your eyes briefly and now your belly is hanging out part way off the edge of your mattress. Essentially pinned down into your soft mattress, you grunt to push your heavy torso upright. You try to leverage yourself against your bed frame, on your elbows, with the edge of the mattress— all with futile success. There was a deep-seeded fear for a while that you were going to be stuck in that spot forever. Fortunately, minutes of struggle lead to eventually succumbing to sliding your body off the bed like a beaching whale, with it your bladder losing in the battle.

Regardless, you are determined to waddle yourself to the bathroom to see the state of your soiled body. Given how insanely top and front heavy you are, you need to hold yourself against the wall to avoid toppling over. You feel your thighs tremble and your hips crack with each tiny step forward. 

A wave of accomplishment washes over you when you finally make it in front of your bathroom mirror. The remnants of your old self lie in the blood stained t-shirt that has ridden up your torso to resemble more of a sports bra. Your belly has grown outward so far that the sheer weight of it began pulling the mass down to your mid thighs. When you wrap your arms around yourself, your fingertips could barely touch your non-existent belly button. Your skin has been stretched thin like a balloon, so transparent that you could see the web of blue veins underneath.

Although the baby in your belly has grown unrestrictedly minute after minute, the rest of your body has barely kept up to sustain. Fear sets in as you contemplate how you’re going to possibly birth this massive baby out your unprepared pelvis. 

Before you are left wondering any longer, you feel a gush of water trail down your legs. It couldn’t have been your already emptied bladder. 

Just over 24 hours after your encounter with the alien, the price of your horny decisions come back to bite you in the ass in the form of a big-headed alien baby splitting your pelvis in half. 

You scream at the top of your lungs as you give one last battle push. You feel the sweet relief of pressure as the baby gushes out of you at once. Umbilical cord still attached, you drag the baby up onto your deflating stomach. The baby doesn’t resemble you at all. Its eyelids are still shut, skin is a sickly translucent blue and limbs resemble tentacles. 

There’s no time to question if the baby is healthy because it begins crawling up your body on its own until it stops at your nipple. It begins suckling without any assistance at all, as if it was completely natural for a human to mother an alien species. 

There wasn’t much time to process before your body is wracked with another wave of contractions. You had thought it might be the afterbirth, until you felt another large skull lodge into your cervix.

You smile as you cradle your baby closer to your chest and start pushing again. 

.

You hum to your babies as they suckle out of both your tits. They’ve already put on double the weight since you’ve given birth and you already feel bittersweet that they’re growing up too fast. 

You can walk without feeling pain anymore and your outrageous belly has thankfully gone down. It’s not completely flat like pre-pregnancy, but you’re grateful you got your two babies out of your strong body. 

You pass your hand over your belly reminiscing about waking up being pregnant. It wasn’t too long ago, but it feels just like it... You run your hands back over realizing you are more bloated than before. 

You refuse to believe it until an hour later, you are clearly sporting a pregnant belly like you had woken up with before. There’s no way you could be pregnant again when you haven’t had sex since that one time with the alien. 

And yet, you continue to progress in growth like deja vu. Whilst you were freaking out, you forgot about the babies you had already birthed. You look everywhere, turning the house upside down until your pregnant belly grows so enormous it prohibits you from moving. 

Your babies were gone like the wind and it was hitting you harder than expected. You hadn’t wanted to get pregnant, but now these babies are your whole life. Your grief only wanes when you are hit with contractions once again. 

You will quickly realize your role. Your babies will grow up and leave your nest, but soon enough there is going to be another litter of babies for you to take care of. 

.

You get into a routine, not knowing how many weeks have passed, nor what was happening in the world outside your little nest. 

....Until one day you open your local news channel, and you find out you haven’t been alone in your experience. 

The first official reporting happened right here in our small town, but the doctor was brushed off because of absurdity. The reports of rapid pregnancies have since risen to the thousands and the CDC is now calling it an alien invasion. 

These aliens can disguise themselves as humans and we have no way of picking them apart. They are capable of infecting all the eggs in your ovaries with a single sexual encounter. After birth, they can mature into productive adults in a weeks time. We estimate that there may be 500,000 adults hiding amongst us in the United States alone.

Currently available contraceptives on the market are not effective in prevention. As a precaution, avoid sexual intimacy with all individuals. 

Symptoms of infection include rapid pregnancy in a 24 hour framework. New pregnancies will continue in succession, and as of this moment, we do not have a cure without harming the carrier’s life. 

Infected individuals may display behaviours of violence. They will lay down their life to protect their babies. Please approach with caution. 

Realization then comes upon you that you might have been ground zero for an alien invasion.

[runabout-river]

Do you believe that JJk part 2 would be made? The author seems to make it clear with the pacing, that the story is concluding in this series.

What other plot points could be addressed thoughtfully and with adequate pacing, if the trio's comeback, antagonist death, and main heros power escalation in the final arc, did not get the pacing it deserved?

It'll mostly likely wrap up in the next two chapters, with the last one serving as an Epilogue.

Thanks for this question! I'm going to cheat a little by copy/pasting a previous post of mine about everything that's still open ended in JJK, most likely will not get a proper conclusion in the last 3 chapters, and could serve as the groundwork for a potential JJK 2.

First, though, your questions seems a little misaligned. JJK is going to end in three chapters and there is no pacing issue there. Maybe it's a bad word choice or you've seen others talk about it like that, but chapter 271 is going to be a rounded end for the story that, in my opinion (08.09.2024), will lead into a JJK Part 2 because of these:

The Culling Games have not Ended

They still go on because players like Yuji and Hakari are still alive

We didn't even come close to the Merger

We have so much setup including pregnant Sukuna who left baby Tengen (probably) with Megumi now.

When as a writer you introduce world ending stakes, you better deliver on them even if only for the good guys to win against them.

Those stakes were never even reached though

The foreign invasion of Japan was introduced but then forgotten about

There are now militaries in Japan who abduct sorcerers for resources, giving Gege vast storytelling potential for the future

But Gojo could've dealt with them off screen and Yuta might continue to protect Japan in his stead now. This plot thread can be dealt with in the last 3 chapters but you would still ask: Why was it here at all?

Remy survived

Remy was the girl who tricked Megumi and who Megumi wanted to kill afterwards. Tsumiki's soul intervened on Remy's behalf and saved her, just for Remy to be abducted later. She's one of those characters Gege could've killed but instead we have a scenario where Megumi is poised to save her now while also getting into contact with Tsumiki's soul that hasn't happened yet

Tengen, the Star Plasma Vessel and the Six Eyes are connected by Fate

Multiple SPVs can exist simultaniously but not the 6E. After Gojo's death this minor detail mentioned by Tengen became obsolete for the story.

But then Yuta took over Gojo's body and now the 6E are back for this particular fate to happen again especially with Tengen's life in the strange state it is

Gege had come up with the story of the 3 Kugisaki women at the beginning of the manga

But instead of discarding it at the end of it, becasue it had no relevance or plot attention at all, Gege decided to open that thread and let it hang there, promising things to come like the bastard that he is with regards to the Kugisaki family.

Megumi's incomplete Domain

This is basic story telling especially in battle shonen: when you show the audience an incomplete ability, then by the end that ability has to be mastered barring a tragic end to the character.

Gege could throw us a curve ball about his domain with the last chapters but with Sukuna defeated now all tension of him accomplishing it is out.

But if this is Megumi's midpoint of his character arc and development, then everything regarding him, his domain and even his relationship with Sukuna can come to a proper end in JJK2

Sukuna's and Megumi's relationship and interactions were lacking in the end

But with Gege deliberately leaving behind 1 Finger, the option of Sukuna coming back as a curse, the remains of his first body most likely being permanent parts of Megumi, and not to forget the psycological and physical scars that Megumi has from him now, the potential for deep future interactions is there.

Sukuna's story has only been told to us from the perspectives of others

Sure, that does not have to change. Gege can leave it like that and he could or could not give us a Sukuna flashback in the last 3 chapters.

But he can go further than that and delve into that villain from more angles outside of mainly the narrator's and Yuji's.

He could eg go into the difference between Sukuna's relatiosnhip with Yuji and his relationship with Megumi to dive deeper into his personality

Kenjaku/Kaori, Jin and Yuji - none of that is resolved in any way

Just like how Kenjaku's true motives for creating the perfect vessel, who was in the end the perfect cage for Sukuna, was never explained.

So, yeah, I think JJK 2 is a real possibility with everything that hasn't been done and talked about, which was why I titled my original post with all of these points: "Gege kills off unneeded characters, why didn't he kill this?".

And I can see multiple reasons for why he would go the hard cut with the middle point of the series.

It's easier to structure narratively

he can make genre, theme and protagonist changes

he can get a break that can be longer than just a few weeks

it creates hype for the ending

keeping the story going makes him and his characters a cultural icon and him and SJ rich

also we would have a JJK 0, JJK 1 and now JJK 2, which would be funny

[swallowtailed]

palisade 55 / finalisade pt. 10

this is so fucking funny

incredible. they've done it. double feature finale. i don't even want to try and guess how many episodes are left. sometime around 44 or 45 i said they should do thirty more AS A JOKE

i'm not sure i agree that motion is the loose end that needs tying up with an armor astir sortie, but i still think it'll be fun and i'm really excited to get perennial onscreen. hoping both cori and elle can make it >:)

more to the point i gotta say questlandia did not hit as a finale for me, which i think was largely due to the changes in the pc cast and the lack of rp. it felt like the conclusion to a different season. (wrt all the delegate plotlines in particular.) i'm not entirely sure that this next sortie will resolve that for me, but knowing fatt it might well.

because i'm always curious about stuff like this, i am really wondering when they decided to do another armor astir sortie

okay let's talk epilogues a bit though. with the understanding that any/all of these may cease to be endings per se. brnine:

brnine ends up fulfilling the future they envisioned for themself at the beginning of questlandia--continuing the fight outside the mirage. a millennium break admiral, leading the revolution... it really does change lives huh

character of All Time, btw. not entirely sure if this is their ending as a pc but still. All Fucking Time

sorry to hear they broke up with both jesset and gucci. dating sim fail ending. married to the job [ghost of valence]

delicious however that brnine's kingdom-level "unfortunately" ending is a rise in cults of personality and popular hero-worship. that does feel like an accurate downside outcome of a revolution story focused on a crew of heroes where the broader cause keeps getting beat down and the main character crew keeps winning. (that's one detail that really delivered on palisade, imo.)

august and levi:

i liked the twilight mirage's role in these epilogues because it was so uneven. we have the mirage getting twisted around trying to figure out whether august's justice was done well because they didn't directly experience the invasion, while also starting to join the fight in the broader galaxy per levi's epilogue. the high-minded naivety forced into practice is really compelling to me. (cf volition's conversation with thisbe.) not that we haven't seen idealists before in the divine cycle, but i'm eager to see what an attitude of radical forgiveness looks like outside the mirage.

similarly i found levi's localized approach disconnected from the goals of mbreak/other pcs in a way that is... realistic to the character, but might just get overwritten in the next in-universe push toward connection and coalition building, because i don't really see fatt moving away from that framework. (it's not a bad one necessarily, i just don't think they're leaving it.)

anyway. august. man. deciding to join wakeful and then getting stranded for a week that turns into a year, and never quite getting up to it again... brutal. (also completes a very well structured arc.) there are a lot of voids left by unfulfilled desires in these epilogues.

but not in levi's! very hopeful final beat there. both for the character and for the revolution. partizan ended with mbreak reviled as terrorists, now palisade ends (uh. "ends") with a new movement and new hope known throughout the galaxy.

ctc+eggs breakfast is so accurate

thisbe and cori:

thisbe and cori started out with a mirrored pair of goals and now they have a (differently) mirrored pair of epilogues. seizing your freedom and launching off into the galaxy and then realizing that means you're stuck wandering alone. (which does hit a little close to home. lmao.)

very reminiscent of the sangfielle epilogues, by the way, but doesn't work as well after a full season of crew bonding imo

thisbe being able to know and acknowledge and grasp her own freedom, being able to follow her own curiosity, is such a huge win for her. she's come so far.

tbh i'm disappointed that the scattered shards of divinity goal didn't come to pass, because thisbe did get some wins there! two wins and a... something! so that didn't really feel fair. but the chimeric cadent and the afflictions being out in the galaxy does actually feel kind of hopeful to me.

(man, i really wish we'd gotten more about partial palisade and the planet of palisade.)

i have to say, i really liked how cori's epilogue went despite the massive wave of misfortune. the shift into wandering felt more fitting for cori, since she's had a whole arc about losing her place with the devotees. assuming she's coming back in p3, an arc about finding/rebuilding community would be lovely.

also elle getting yanked back by arbitrage was of course inevitable and thus delicious. i'm considering fic ideas. watch this space.

clem:

clem's fortunately/unfortunately was so funny. vindictive. austin being like "there's no one around to tell clem she's done a good job" followed by jack going "and gucci doesn't even like her". and then the only future she can see is one in which she's still powerless and not ruling anything because not even being an oracle can help clementine kesh. satisfying.

so anyway

it was nice to see eclectic again. pleased he didn't fully vanish from the narrative (a ghost!), and the new look is slick. i'm curious whether he's gonna try to mount an escape while separated from wakeful. maybe that's not even an option anymore, though.

who do we think is gonna be on the next sortie? levi for sure, and eclectic (unless leap), and like, it's gotta be cori. are brnine and thisbe coming back? are jack and art playing???

sort of a philosophical question here but is questlandia arguably the holiday special

god it's so funny that they've done this. when i first heard this was happening, i was initially like, this is kind of a failure case of fatt's black box pacing for the week to week perspective. but it is also extremely funny. friends at the table.

[waspsarebetterthanbeesanyways]

Only the Dead 9

part 1

previous

next

Jason looks at the bloodstains by the computer, and Barbara’s wrapped corpse. “And who is that?” he asks warily.

Cass looks away. Damian buries his face in his hands and wonders how the hell he’s supposed to explain any of this. His heart hurts; he doesn’t want to acknowledge Barbara’s death, doesn’t want to have to put it into words.

Jason watches them quietly, soberly. His expression pinches when he looks back at the body, coming to his own conclusions.

Of course, that grim scene is the one Phantom emerges into. He comes flying through the wall at a breakneck speed, only to stop on a dime. He’s covered in several sluggishly bleeding wounds, and he’s panting, each breath fogging up in the air. His scans the room rapidly, and visibly relaxes when he sees all three of them. “There you are,” he says. “Come on, we have to go, now.”

Damian snarls, hand automatically going to the hilt of his sword. “Phantom. How did you find us?”

“I can explain later, but we’ve got a bunch of angry ghosts on our asses and we need to go right now!”

Damian draws his blade. “I don’t think we should go anywhere with you, Ghost Prince.”

Phantom rakes both hands through his hair, eyes wide open and wild. “Are we really doing this right now?!”

Damian grinds his teeth. He feels so hot, he feels like he’s burning, and rage erupts in him. “All of this is happening because of you,” he hisses. “All of this death, and for all I know you’re the one leading this invasion. I will not let you creatures win!”

Phantom’s next breath doesn’t fog, and his eyes widen. “Get down!” he shouts, lunging towards Damian. Damian slashes at him with his sword, but it harmlessly passes through Phantom, and he successfully knocks Damian to the floor. Barely a moment later, claws sweep through the air where Damian’s head had been.

Damian turns his head to look at his new assailant, and all at once, his rage drains away. Vertigo rushes through him. Even despite her orange eyes and bright green skin, he recognizes this ghost.

“Al Ghul spawn,” she says. “I’ve finally found you. Do you remember me?”

“Aadya Majumdar,” slips out of his lips without his conscious permission. All at once, he’s a child again, on one of his first solo missions with the League of Assassins. He’d been meant to kill her in her sleep, but despite his training, despite his already growing kill count, he’d hesitated. She’d woken up and fought back, screaming and scratching at him with her nails. In his mind, he’s staring down at her, covered in blood, watching the light drain from her eyes.

“And if it isn’t our dearest Prince Phantom,” she says, staring at Phantom with dark eyes. “Are you intending to get in the way of my rightful vengeance?”

Phantom floats upright, flipping midair to face her. “I’m against the murder of humans, no matter the circumstances.”

“Murder? He murdered me!” she shouts. Her voice crackles like electricity, and all of the lightbulbs in the room shatter, leaving only the dim light from the computer screen. “But then, you wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Phantom crosses his arms and stares at her with icy blue eyes. “If I were you, I’d spend less time thinking about my death and more time wondering what the hell you did to get killed by a child.”

With a screech, Aadya launches herself at Phantom, claws extended. Phantom gracefully whirls into a roundhouse kick strong enough to send her careening through the wall, and then he swiftly dives after her.

“What in the everloving fuck was that?!” Jason asks.

[frogonamelon]

!!!! I'm a couple days late but!! The Space Arc has ended!!

I haven't been here in a while so I'm going to start off with: @sodaspons It was beautiful, and it hurt me. Ouch. How dare you <3 Just... the conclusion of Honeycutt and Vee's relationship arc is so painful and bittersweet.

Since I finally have some time, I reread between the end of the Kraang invasion and through the entire space arc. I hadn't realized just how close together everything leading up to the Space Arc is. Vee is still reeling from Shen's death and all of those realizations when the Triceratons attack.

**As I'm going to be talking more about the drawing itself, I will be referring to Past!Venus as Vee and Future!Venus as Ana/ Anazao.**

Vee's design is the one that I'm used to, with the leather/ leather adjacent pauldron and the braid. Ana's space armor is inspired by Elon Musk's space suit design fused with the canon and a little bit of the IDW Nobody suit when it comes to the back of the head. All of the suits would be color coded for convenience (so the other characters can see who's who from far away) with Ana's suit being predominantly white with yellow accents.

I wanted to bring Ana's experiences into her design, so she has the space armor on, her braid is undone, she's wearing a 'V' belt buckle as a wink and nod to the 87s (and kind of Slash). Ana has a scar on her plastron from when she was stabbed (conveniently over her heart... broken guardian bond who? I don't know her) It's a little hard to see but I wanted to give her some octopus/ sucker scars running up her arm (and leg/s?) from Cthugga. The scars are being covered up by her alligator tattoo <3.

As for the content, it's kind of wild that the past kiddos left with Fugatoid. I know from a meta perspective that they needed to so there can only be one set on Earth but it's still kind of crazy that they do this. I just wanted to give a little moment between Vee and Ana where Vee is pulled in two and trusts herself/ someone else to protect Karai and the others.

The connotations of there being a separate set of turtles travelling the galaxies who have no idea what their other selves did in space is insane. Maybe they're targeted by Dregg, and they have no idea why or Vee and the others get to discover that the others (and they as a result) have a reputation or a bounty on their head. Maybe they return to Dendron and Vee gets to give them the seed she has. Idk I just had a moment with the implications.

[reddest-flower]

Lenin warned that if the communists did build the confidence of the people, then they would only weaken any popular unity against imperialist intervention. In the anti-colonial struggles, the communists had to be with the people. That was paramount. But to be with the people did not mean to adopt a populist politics – to be the ventriloquists’ dummy that says whatever social views the people hold. The communists must both hold to their values, but must not allow these values to be too far from the common sense of the people. This was a tricky business and required deftness and tact. It was why Lenin warned the Mongolian People’s Party – in November 1921 – to desist from changing their name to a communist party. The Party, he said, could not be ahead of the general consciousness of the people. When the proletariat develops its confidence and begins to shape the popular movement, only then should the People’s Party become a Communist Party. ‘A mere change of signboards is harmful and dangerous’, Lenin told a Mongolian delegation. The Mongolians had already made their revolution in July of that year. Three years later, in 1924, the newly named Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party would join the Comintern. The use of the word revolutionary substituted for the word communist.

The Mongolians wanted space to produce their own revolutionary theory and policies. But their reliance on the Soviets for material aid was entangled with their reliance upon Soviet policy for their own development – all in fear of the intervention of imperialism, which was not unfounded (as the invasion by Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg in 1921 was to show). Ulaanbaatar’s reliance upon the Kremlin seriously narrowed the ability of its revolutionary movement to build on its own history and to build its own capacity for socialist theory and practice. Narrow views of development led to a distortion of the pastoral economy, which undermined the ability of the herders to tend to their animals. Mass migration to China, as well as a revolt in 1931-32, was the obvious outcome. Another was the centralization of rule under Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who took his lead from Moscow and not from Mongolian history.

Just a handful of years after the Mongolians had come to see Lenin, Tan Malaka wrote bitterly about the Comintern’s too firm hand on the levers of revolutionary politics in China and in the Dutch East Indies,

«The Moscow leadership is good only for Russia. With examples from Germany, Italy and Bulgaria, it is demonstrated that the Moscow leadership has failed for other countries. The entire Third International [Comintern] is built up in the Russian interest, and young Eastern leaders, in particular, will be inclined to go over to blind worship or lose their independence, with the result that they will lack contact with their own masses, who have different impulses from the Russian people.»

When Tan Malaka was asked if this criticism of Moscow would bring him and the Indonesian communists towards the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky, then in the middle of a struggle against Joseph Stalin, he responded, ‘The people of the Indies have enough to do without waiting around for the conclusion of the fight between Stalin and Trotsky.’ This was the attitude in most of the anti-colonial countries.

Individuals certainly admired Trotsky for his role in the October Revolution and for his work building the Red Army, and some even agreed with his criticism of the USSR’s tendency towards bureaucracy. However, this was not enough for them to break with the USSR, which provided an important inspiration and necessary resources for their own movements. Trotskyism had very little impact on the Third World – except in Sri Lanka, in Bolivia and Argentina as well as amongst small numbers of intellectuals. Trotskyism’s denunciation of the anti-colonial national states (those who formed the Non-Aligned Movement) and then the Cuban Revolution alienated it from the communists in the Third World.

Anti-colonial nationalism could not easily be denounced. Lenin recognized that it was a ‘difficult task’ to navigate the shoals of anti-colonial nationalism. Such a problem had to be dealt with carefully. There was ‘no communist booklet’ that had the answers for the radicals in the anti-colonial movements. They would have to throw themselves into the struggle and find their answers there. Sometimes movements did. At other times, they looked for impossible formulas.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad, 2019

[darth-sonny]

i'm new here and i just want to know WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH BAD ENDING PRIME LEO

wtf wtf Kraang- Leo- kraang and leo hdusifayudsifsui WHAT????

can ya like summarize everything in like 5-6 sentences cuz GOOD GOD WTF IS GOING ONNN

i'm so confused and grossed out and also a bit intrigued but mostly confused and- wtf???

PRIME LEO AU

[in 6 sentences]

At the end of the movie, after Leo sacrifices himself, Kraang Subprime (the guy that the boys fought in the final act) is tasked by Kraang Prime (the alien eldritch horror who created the Kraang species) to break Leo to make him Their Host.

Leo gets saved from the Prison Dimension by his brothers, except there is something wrong without him, but he falls into a month-long coma due to an extraneous amount of severe injuries on his body.

Hazy Months Arc: After waking up, everyone can tell that Leo is different, but some of them (Donnie and Casey, with a touch of Raph) are in denial about it being anything serious, and chalk it up to PTSD and head trauma – this goes on for six months.

Prime Arc: It culminates into the reveal that Leo has been possessed by Kraang Prime, who takes over his body and locks Leo away in a dreamworld; this then leads to Prime fucking off to find the key to restart the invasion and the family having to stop Them

Post-Prime Arc: Leo manages to break free from Prime and lock them away, but the psychological effects are in full effect; here, Leo comes to the full and horrifying conclusion of what exactly Prime did to him, which is... not pretty.

Healing Arc: As the name suggests, this part of the story is when the healing starts; Leo starts to get better, the family learns to give Leo his space, and everyone begins the journey towards a happy ending, though there are some moments.

[mariacallous]

In 1968, the American scholar Jerome M. Gilison described Soviet elections as a “psychological curiosity”—a ritualized, performative affirmation of the regime rather than a real vote in any sense of the word. These staged elections with their nearly unanimous official results, Gilison wrote, served to isolate non-conformists and weld the people to their regime.

Last Sunday, Russia completed the circle and returned to Soviet practice. State election officials reported that 87 percent of Russians had cast their vote for Vladimir Putin in national elections, giving the Russian president a fifth term in office. Not only were many of the reported election numbers mathematically impossible, but there was also no longer much of a choice: All prominent opposition figures had been either murdered, imprisoned, or exiled. Like in Soviet times, the election also welded Russians to their regime by serving as a referendum on Putin’s war against Ukraine. All in all, last weekend’s Soviet-style election sealed Putin’s transformation of post-Communist Russia into a repressive society with many of the features of Soviet totalitarianism.

Russia’s return to Soviet practice goes far beyond elections. A recent study by exiled Russian journalists from Proekt Media used data to determine that Russia is more politically repressive today than the Soviet Union under all leaders since Joseph Stalin. During the last six years, the study reports, the Putin regime has indicted 5,613 Russians on explicitly political charges—including “discrediting the army,” “disseminating misinformation,” “justification of terrorism,” and other purported crimes, which have been widely used to punish criticism of Russia’s war on Ukraine and justification of Ukraine’s defense of its territory. This number is significantly greater than in any other six-year period of Soviet rule after 1956—all the more glaring given that Russia’s population is only half that of the Soviet Union before its collapse.

In addition to repressive criminal charges and sentences, over the last six years more than 105,000 people have been tried on administrative charges, which carry heavy fines and compulsory labor for up to 30 days without appeal. Many of these individuals were punished for taking part in unsanctioned marches or political activity, including anti-war protests. Others were charged with violations of COVID pandemic regulations. Such administrative punishments are administered and implemented rapidly, without time for an appeal.

On March 4, 2022, a little over a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Russia’s puppet parliament rapidly adopted amendments to the Russian Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code that established criminal and administrative punishments for the vague transgressions of “discrediting” the Russian military or disseminating “false information” about it. This widely expanded the repressive powers of the state to criminally prosecute political beliefs and activity. Prosecutions have surged since the new laws were passed, likely leading to a dramatic increase in the number of political prisoners in the coming years. In particular, punishments for “discrediting the army” or “justification of terrorism”—which includes voicing support for Ukraine’s right to defend itself—have resulted in hundreds of sentences meted out each year since the war began. The most recent such case: On Feb. 27, the 70-year-old co-chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, Oleg Orlov, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for “discrediting” the Russian military.

As the Proekt report ominously concludes, “[I]n terms of repression, Putin has long ago surpassed almost all Soviet general secretaries, except for one—Joseph Stalin.” While this conclusion is in itself significant, it is only the tip of the iceberg of the totalitarian state Putin has gradually and systematically rebuilt.

As in the Soviet years, there is no independent media in Russia today. The last of these news organizations were banned or fled the country after Putin’s all-out war on Ukraine, including Proekt, Meduza, Ekho Moskvy, Nobel Prize-winning Novaya Gazeta, and TV Dozhd. In their place, strictly regime-aligned newspapers, social media, and television and radio stations emit a steady drumbeat of militaristic propaganda, promote Russian imperialist grandeur, and celebrate Putin as the country’s infallible commander in chief. In another reprise of totalitarian practice, lists of banned books have been dramatically expanded and thousands of titles have been removed from the shelves of Russian libraries and bookstores. Bans have been extended to numerous Wikipedia pages, social media channels, and websites.

Human rights activists and independent civic leaders have been jailed, physically attacked, intimidated into silence, or driven into exile. Civic organizations that show independence from the state are banned as “undesirable” and subjected to fines and prosecution if they continue to operate. The most recent such organizations include the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, Memorial, the legendary Moscow Helsinki Group, and the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum. In their place, the state finances a vast array of pro-regime and pro-war groups, with significant state resources supporting youth groups that promote the cult of Putin and educate children in martial values to prepare them for military service. Then there are the numerous murders of opposition leaders, journalists, and activists at home and abroad. Through these various means, almost all critical Russian voices have been silenced.

Private and family life is also increasingly coming under the scope of government regulation and persecution. The web of repression particularly affects the LGBT community, putting large numbers of Russians in direct peril. A court ruling in 2023 declared the “international LGBT movement” extremist and banned the rainbow flag as a forbidden symbol, which was quickly followed by raids and arrests. Homosexuality has been reclassified as an illness, and Russian gay rights organizations have shut down their operations for fear of prosecution. Legislation aimed at reinforcing “traditional values”—including the right of husbands to discipline their wives—has led to the reduction in sentences and the decriminalization of some forms of domestic violence.

Many of the techniques of totalitarian control now operating throughout Russia were first incubated in territories where the Kremlin spread war and conflict. Chechnya was the first testing ground for widespread repression, including massive numbers of victims subjected to imprisonment, execution, disappearance, torture, and rape. Coupled with the merciless targeting of civilians in Russia’s two wars in Chechnya, these practices normalized wanton criminal behavior within Russian state security structures. Out of this crucible of fear and intimidation, Putin has shaped a culture and means of governing that were further elaborated in other places Russia invaded and eventually came to Russia itself.

In Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine since 2014, there has been a widespread campaign of surveillance, summary executions, arrests, torture, and intimidation—all entirely consistent with Soviet practice toward conquered populations. More recently, this includes the old practice of forced political recantations: A Telegram channel ominously called Crimean SMERSH (a portmanteau of the Russian words for “death to spies,” coined by Stalin himself) has posted dozens of videos of frightened Ukrainians recanting their Ukrainian identity or the display of Ukrainian symbols. Made in conjunction with police operations, these videos appear to be coordinated with state security services.

In the parts of Ukraine newly occupied since 2022, human rights groups have widely documented human rights abuses and potential war crimes. These include the abduction of children, imprisonment of Ukrainians in a system of filtration camps that recall the Soviet gulags, and the systematic use of rape and torture to break the will of Ukrainians. Castrations of Ukrainian men have also been employed.

As Russia’s violence in Ukraine has expanded, so, too, has the acceptance of these abominations throughout the state and in much of society. As during the Stalin era, the cult of cruelty and the culture of fear are now the legal and moral standards. The climate of fear initially employed to assert order in occupied regions is now being applied to Russia itself. In this context, the murder of Alexei Navalny ahead of the presidential election was an important message from Putin to the Russian people: There is no longer any alternative to the war and repressive political order he has imposed, of which Navalny’s elimination is a part.

All the techniques and means of repression bespeak a criminal regime that now closely resembles the totalitarian rule of Stalin, whom Putin now fully embraces. After Putin first came to power in 1999, he often praised Stalin as a great war leader while disapproving of his cruelty and brutality. But as Putin pivoted toward war and repression, Russia has systematically promoted a more positive image of Stalin. High school textbooks not only celebrate his legacy but also whitewash his terror regime. There has been a proliferation of new Stalin monuments, with more than 100 throughout the country today. On state-controlled media, Russian propagandists consistently hammer away on the theme of Stalin’s greatness and underscore similarities between his wartime leadership and Putin’s. Discussion of Stalinist terror has disappeared, as has the memorialization of his millions of victims. Whereas only one in five Russians had a positive view of Stalin in the 1990s, polls conducted over the last five years show that number has risen to between 60 percent and 70 percent. In normalizing Stalin, Putin is not glossing over the tyrant’s crimes; rather, he is deliberately normalizing Stalin as a justification for his own war-making and repression.

Putin now resembles Stalin more closely than any other Soviet or Russian leader. Unlike Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, and Yuri Andropov—not to mention Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin—Putin has unquestioned power that is not shared or limited in any way by parliament, courts, or a Politburo. State propaganda has created a Stalin-like personality cult that lionizes Putin’s absolute power, genius as a leader, and role as a brilliant wartime generalissimo. It projects him as the fearsome and all-powerful head of a militarized nation aiming, like Stalin, to defeat a “Nazi” regime in Ukraine and reassert hegemony over Eastern and Central Europe. Just as Stalin made effective use of the Russian Orthodox Church to support Russia’s effort during World War II, Putin has effectively used Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill as a critical ally and cheerleader of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine. And just like Stalin, Putin has made invading neighboring countries and annexing territory a central focus of the Kremlin’s foreign policy.

Putin’s descent into tyranny has been accompanied by his gradual isolation from the rest of society. Like the latter-day Stalin, Putin began living an isolated life as a bachelor even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like the later Stalin, Putin lacks a stable family life and is believed to have replaced it with a string of mistresses, some of whom are reported to have borne him children for whom he remains a remote figure. Like Stalin, he stays up late into the early-morning hours, and like the Soviet dictator, Putin has assembled around him a small coterie of trusted intimates, mostly men in their 60s and 70s, with whom he has maintained friendships for decades, including businessmen Yury Kovalchuk and Igor Sechin, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and security chief Nikolai Patrushev. This coterie resembles Stalin’s small network of cronies: security chief Lavrentiy Beria, military leader Kliment Voroshilov, and Communist Party official Georgy Malenkov. To others in leadership positions, Putin is a distant, absolute leader who openly humiliates seemingly powerful officials, such as spy chief Sergey Naryshkin, when the latter seemed to hesitate in his support during Putin’s declaration of war on Ukraine.

Through near-total control of domestic civic life and media, his widening campaign of repression and terror, relentless state propaganda promoting his personality cult, and his vast geopolitical ambitions, Putin is consciously mimicking the Stalin playbook, especially the parts of that playbook dealing with World War II. Even if Putin has no love for Soviet Communist ideology, he has transformed Russia and its people in ways that are no less fundamental than Stalin’s efforts to shape a new Soviet man.

Putin’s massive victory in a Soviet-style election last weekend represents the ratification by the Russian people of his brutal war, militarization of Russian society, and establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship. It is a good moment to acknowledge that Russia’s descent into tyranny, mobilization of society onto a war footing, spread of hatred for the West, and indoctrination of the population in imperialist tropes represent far more than a threat to Ukraine. Russia’s transformation into a neo-Stalinist, neo-imperialist power represents a rising threat to the United States, its European allies, and other states on Russia’s periphery. By recognizing how deeply Russia has changed and how significantly Putin is borrowing from Stalin’s playbook, we can better understand that meeting the modern-day Russian threat will require as much consistency and as deep a commitment as when the West faced down Stalin’s Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

[silent-calling]

And now time for: Echoes of History, first installment.

So I saw this tweet earlier,

- and thought "huh, that seems odd anyone might celebrate a Nazi." so, I did a little bit of digging, and found the Politico article to read for myself what the hubbub was about.

Now, I'm on principal skeptical of headlines, so I read through it, and the article details the ovation was for one Yaroslav Hunka, a 98 year old WWII veteran from modern day western Ukraine. He was heralded as a hero, not just to Ukraine, but to Canada as well, having been cited as a freedom fighter against Soviet rule.

However, at least one Jewish advocacy group took issue with this, because this man was a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier division in the Shutztaffel, 1st Galician unit (Wikipedia article, well sourced) - meaning, this man served in the Nazi party's paramilitary forces, along with a collection of men from Galicia, which can be seen below.

Pretty shocking, huh? How could we possibly honor a man who obliged to such a heinous group as the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, commonly known as the Nazis?

Well, the answer might surprise you, if you're not familiar with the history of the region.

See, Nazi Germany marched through Poland in 1939, same years as the Soviets. But what happened prior to these invasions is arguably as heinous or moreso - the Holodomor, or "terror famines," of Ukraine. Ukraine was subsumed by the USSR, and in the aftermath the farmers of fertile Ukraine would be forced to surrender nearly all their yield to the Party for redistribution, which led to the starvation of between 3.5 and 7 million Ukrainians and some of the worst famines across Europe. Those who didn't starve were often rounded up, executed or imprisoned, and their land redistributed to the comrades of the Party.

Needless to say, Ukraine and her neighbor Poland were in dire straits.

Well, here's the thing about this scenario: the terrors of the Soviet Union were largely hidden from the outside world, and would remain such until the 1960s, when we got a peek into the Iron Curtain to see what Stalin's Party was doing. And what we would learn years later was the depths of depravity the USSR had went to in order to bring forth the great revolution.

Many Ukrainians and Polish saw the Soviets are, believe it or not, worse than Nazis, because of the simple fact that the Soviets were much less discerning on who they killed and how - any opposition, no matter how small, against the Party would be a death sentence. So, they got desperate, and some would opt to side with the devil they don't know, who wasn't actively genociding them, over the devil they did. This is where the 14th Waffen Grenadier comes in.

See this unit would become disbanded and reformed before the conclusion of World War II, being renamed toward the end as the First Division, Ukrainian National Army. Further, during its formation, one of the three major concessions made by the Germans at the request of the Ukrainian-majority unit Was they would not be sent westward, but would remain in the east to fight "Bolsheviks" - the old name of the Communist Party. (citation here)

Essentially, the unit was stood up as a sort of freedom fighter against Soviet oppression.

They would then surrender to the allied forces in 1945 at the end of the war in Europe.

And that is how a man who fought under the banner of the Shutztaffel could possibly be heralded as a hero to Ukraine - because he essentially joined a group of Ukrainian men in using Nazi equipment to fight Soviet oppression.

[soylent-crocodile]

Phyrexia

(The Fourth Sphere by Dave Kendall)

What is Phyrexia?

Phyrexia is a disease. It spreads, infects, and consumes. Phyrexia is a faith. It has gods, beliefs, and practices. Phyrexia is a threat. It's coming for you.

Phyrexia is one of the oldest and most unique factions in the card game Magic the Gathering. It has a focus on machinery and body horror that blurs the line between fantasy and science fiction. It has a long history, both within the fiction and as a fiction, and style that draws inspiration from a lot (Hi HR Geiger) but is fully its own idea; all this makes it ripe to translate to Pathfinder. (Innistrad, for example, also has rich history, but is the exact same niche as Ustalav, so I have no reason to make conversions.) This page intends to serve as a guide to Phyrexia for outsiders, as well as outline the conversion I'm making.

Old Phyrexia in Magic: the Gathering

(I am not an expert on the pre-mending lore of MtG; this intends to serve as a drive-by of the important points. That era of Magic is messy and has a lot of nits and details.)

In lore, Phyrexia began as a sort of cult surrounding a man named Yawgmoth, a doctor from an ancient science-magic society called the Thran. Technically, the original plane of Phyrexia was not created by Yawgmoth, but by a powerful Planeswalker (interdimensional godline being whose power would later get massively nerfed, as a category), but Yawgmoth quickly made it his own.

From there, the humans he brought with him turned to biomechanical experimentation and built a religion aroung Yawgmoth, who became known as the Father of the Machines. They were, unfortunately, trapped on the plane- Yawgmoth (who had ascended to a godlike state) wished to bring his conquest back to Dominaria (the plane from which they came) and beyond.

(Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor by Anna Bodedworna)

There were two major incursions of Phyrexia into Dominaria- first, the Brother's War, a story that was old when Magic was new. Two brothers- Urza and Mishra- had found powerful Thran artifacts, which lead to a power struggle between them. Mishra eventually found a Phyrexian portal, became corrupted (a recurring theme of Phyrexia), and eventually lost when Urza unleashed a magical nuke on the plane, hurtling Dominaria into a supernatural ice age and turning him into one of the godlike Planeswalkers.

The second was the conclusion of the Weatherlight Saga, an arc somwhat orchestrated by the now-ancient being that Urza had become and focusing on a man named Gerard and the crew of an interplanar vessel called the Weatherlight. They first show up having corrupted and taken over Rath, as well as Gerard's adopted brother Vuel. The saga concludes with the plane of Rath being overlaid onto Dominaria in an event that ended with most of the cast dead and Phyrexia and Yawgmoth as it stood destroyed, where they would stay for about a decade.

New Phyrexia in Magic: the Gathering

In 2009 Scars of Mirrodin was released, revealing that the setting of Mirrodin (Magic's other most original and interesting setting, sigh) had in fact been corrupted by Phyrexian Oil. The war, which lasted a year in real life, saw Mirrodin being almost entirely consumed and remade into New Phyrexia, a setting with a new art direction and five new leaders.

(artist unknown)

New Phyrexia, and exploring it card-by-card on a now defunct MtG card archive, was my personal introduction to the setting, and the style of Phyrexia that I am most fond of. It now encompassed all five colors of Magic, each with their own distinct subfaction, and felt less like an 80s metal album cover and more like its own, separate thing (for better or worse, to be clear, 80s metal album covers own).

In the 2020s, New Phyrexia had an arc where they had managed to successfully travel to other planes, and used that to do a big multiverse invasion that ended with all but one of their leaders dead and the nature of planes and planeswalkers in the wider MtG setting changed in a precedented paradigm shift.

Phyrexia on Golarion

So, with all that out of the way, let's talk about how I plan to translate that into MtG.

Phyrexian Beliefs Phyrexians are supremacists of a sort; they believe that their way, darwinist philosophy surrounding the forced merging of metal and flesh, is the one true way. Fortunately, they are not here to exterminate others- simply to convert them, by force. "All will be One."

To this end they spread across the galaxy, consuming entire planets and converting their flesh to glorious Phyrexian constructs.

Yawgmoth Yawgmoth is the progenitor of Phyrexia and its god, although by New Phyrexia he's very much dead. The five praetors took his place, with him existing mostly as allusions, even as a past failure that they will not replicate! (spoiler: they fail).

Personally, I like Yawgmoth existing in past tense. He was the god of Phyrexia, but he has been killed- possibly by some great Good divinity trying to end his scourge, more likely through conflict with the nihilistic Dominion of Black. Either way, his name is spoken in Phyrexia with both reverence and shame, and the five Praetors now each carry a fraction of his divinity.

The Five Praetors Now in Magic canon 4/5 of them are dead now, and during the lead-up there was a lot of political jockeying, but I will have them as they existed in between NPH and the Invasion arc; With Elesh Norn as de facto leader, Jin-Gitaxias and Vorinclex respecting her but doing their own thing, and Sheoldred and Urabrask believing in Phyrexia but not in Norn's graces.

Planes and Planets The nature of Planes in MtG is different from planes in Pathfinder/DnD; they're their own self-contained world, each possibly with their own cosmology, rather than being the cosmology of one coherent world. As such, I am changing Phyrexia from an interplanar threat to an interstellar one.

The Praetors, while about on the level of a nascent demon lord, are divinities of the material plane; they lack a home in the outer sphere.

Phyrexia and Other Factions Because the Praetors are acting as their own divinities, Phyrexia has little to no relationship with the gods at work on Golarion, as well as with the Outer and Elder gods.

As I alluded to before, Phyrexians have a poor relationship to the Dominion of Black. The Dominion is nihilistic, seeking to destroy all life, while the Phyrexians seek to consume and convert it. If you want to take the Illithids from @thecreaturecodex's conversion, they almost certainly have a poor relationship with them too.

If your Dark Tapestry is feeling a bit crowded but you want to include Phyrexia, I would personally use them as a replacement for the Dominion. If you did so, I would moisturize Numeria so to speak, replacing much of its harsh desert with noxious swampland more palatable to Phyrexian tastes.

[usafphantom2]

As the war in Europe come to its conclusion thoughts started to turn to the Pacific and the planned invasion of Japan, codenamed Operation Downfall. The 'Tiger Force' was to be Bomber Command's contribution to this as they would provide a number of squadrons to help in the build up to the invasion.

Contents

Second Quebec Conference

Operation Mould

The 'Tiger Force'

Modifying the Lancaster

Order of Battle

The War Ends

The Force is Disbanded

Key Dates

23rd November 1944

Operation Mould unveiled.

24th February 1945

Air Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd appointed commander of the 'Tiger Force'.

April 1945

The make up of the 'Tiger Force' is changed.

4th June 1945

Churchill approves the use of bases on Okinawa.

20th June 1945

First 'Tiger Force' convoy leaves Liverpool.

23rd July 1945

Second 'Tiger Force' convoy departs.

31st October 1945

'Tiger Force' disbanded.

Second Quebec Conference (1944)

Between the 12th and 16th September a number of meetings were held between the American and British Governments involving British Prime Minster Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During these the idea of using Avro Lancaster's of Bomber Command to attack targets in Japan was raised. This lead to an offer for 40 Lancaster squadrons to be made available for use in the Pacific, only once the hostilities in Europe had ceased, to be made by Churchill to the United States.

The US Chiefs of Staff, in principle, accepted the offer of the Lancaster squadrons on the 27th October 1944. The major obstacles for this plan was the availability of airfields in range of Japan and how to get, not only the Lancasters and their crews, but all the necessary support staff and infrastructure the nearly 14,000 miles by sea to the Pacific theatre which would take around 2 ½ months by sea.

Operation Mould

The 23rd November 1944 saw Operation Mould unveiled. These plans would see three groups each comprising of 12 heavy bomber squadrons equipped with either the Lancaster, Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the Avro Lincoln when it became available. Six long-range fighter squadrons comprising a number of aircraft including the Hawker Tempest Mk II and the de Havilland Hornet, when it became available. Alongside this the Australian First Tactical Air Force, equipped with the Supermarine Spitfire and Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawk, along with the United States Far East Air Force, equipped with the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and North American P-51 Mustang, would also be used for escort. A number of B-24 Liberators and Lancasters would also be converted to tankers for air-to-air refuelling.

This would become known as the 'Tiger Force' on the 24th February 1945 with Air Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyd being appointed its commander.

The 'Tiger Force'

As planning continued during early 1945 the end of April saw the make up of the force changed. This saw the six long-range fighter squadrons dropped from the order of battle, the air-to-air refuelling plan was also shelved and the 36 heavy bomber squadrons reduced to 20. There were also some new additions with four transport and one each of an air-sea rescue, Pathfinder and photo reconnaissance/meteorological squadron.

One of the major headaches was where the new force would be based. Two of the early options, neither of which was ideal, was to be based in the Philippines at North Luzon, which at best was 1,000 miles away from the force's envisaged targets. The second option was that the Royal Air Force built its own airbases from scratch. Whichever option was chosen the major phase of construction would require at least 100,000 men, not to mention the machines and logistics to support this endeavour.

Avro Lancaster in the 'Tiger Force' camouflage scheme of white and black © ww2images.com

On the 1st April 1945 the Allies invaded the Okinawa Islands, known as Operation Iceberg, and this battle would last until the 22nd June 1945. Prior to the end of this battle negotiations between the British and Americans had seen the US Chiefs of Staff propose the use of an airfield on Okinawa for the 'Tiger Force' which Winston Churchill approved on the 4th June 1945. Whilst this airfield would only have space for half of the 20 'Tiger Force' squadrons there were two main benefits. The British and the Americans would share the engineering and logistics of building the airfields and Okinawa was just 400 miles south of Japan, well within the Lancaster's range.

Two convoys were soon on their way, the first left Liverpool on the 20th June and was known as Shield. With the second convoy leaving on the 23rd July and this was known as Vacuum.

Modifying the Lancaster

Due to the very different conditions of the Pacific compared to Europe a number of modifications were made to the Lancaster. Firstly instead of the normal seven man crew this was reduced to six and the Rolls-Royce Merlin 24 engine was installed, along with the necessary tropical engine modifications. Other changes saw the installation of the landing gear that was to be used on the Avro Lincoln and new radio & navigation equipment. All these changes lead to the aircraft used being renamed Lancaster B.I (FE) and Lancaster B.VII (FE).

Another major change to the Lancaster was its camouflage scheme. The standard Bomber Command scheme in Europe was black undersides with green and brown on top, for the Lancasters in the 'Tiger Force' the black underside was kept but the top was painted in a heat reflecting white.

One of the ways to increase the Lancaster's range, alongside air-to-air refuelling was the addition of a 'saddle tank' behind the cockpit. This could hold an extra 1,200 imperial gallons of fuel and a pair of Lancaster B.Is (HK541) and (SW244) would be modified accordingly and this was called the Very Long Range Lancaster. This idea was discarded in favour of air-to-air refuelling which was then itself unnecessary after the airbases on Okinawa became available.

Lancaster Mk. B.I (SW244) with the 'saddle tank' modification.

Order of Battle - 26th July 1945

The first of the ten 'Tiger Force' squadrons, each with 20 aircraft, which would be under Air Marshal Sir Hugh Lloyds command were chosen from No. 5 Group, Royal Air Force and No. 6 Group, Royal Canadian Air Force. With the first five squadrons to be ready by the 1st December 1945 and the next five ready by February 1946. The force would be part of the United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific commanded by General Carl Spaatz, which had been established on the 2nd July 1945, with representatives of the RAF on General Spaatz's staff.

The first ten squadrons would be organised as follows:

551 Wing No. 9 Squadron

No. 617 Squadron Lancaster B.I and B.III

Lancaster B.VII (FE)

552 Wing No. 106 Squadron

No. 467 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force Lancaster B.I and B.III

Lancaster B.I and B.III

553 Wing No. 83 Squadron

No. 97 Squadron

No. 627 Squadron Lancaster B.I and B.III

Lancaster B.I and B.III

Mosquito Mk XVI and Mk XIX

554 Wing No. 75 Squadron, Royal New Zealand Air Force Lancaster B.I and B.III

662 Wing No. 419 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force

No. 428 Squadron, RCAF Lancaster B.X

Lancaster B.X

It was intended to phase out the Lancaster from these squadrons with the Avro Lincoln, which had made its first flight on the 9th June 1944, with No. 57 Squadron, RAF East Kirkby and No. 75 Squadron, RNZAF, based at RAF Spilsby, receiving the first Lincolns to be delivered during August 1945.

A third ship was to set sail on the 25th August 1945, this was in response to a request by General Spaatz for a pair of Tallboy Squadrons, Tallboy was a 12,000lb bomb which only the Lancaster could be equipped with, by the 15th October to fly from bases on Okinawa and play a role in the build up to the expected invasion of Kyushu, known as Operation Olympic, which was to begin on the 1st November 1945. This was part of Operation Downfall which was the overall plan to invade Japan.

Lancaster Mk. B.VII (FE) (NX750) of No. 9 Squadron, RAF in its 'Tiger Force' colours during 1946.

The War Ends

Whilst the preparations for the 'Tiger Force' had been progressing the Allies Manhattan project, tasked with developing an atomic bomb, had completed and successfully tested one in New Mexico, America on the 16th July 1945. The following month saw the Allies drop the first atomic bombs in war when a Boeing B-29 Superfortress dropped one on the Japanese cites of Hiroshima on the 6th August 1945 and again three days later on the 9th August 1945 on Nagasaki.

The dropping of the second atomic bomb on the 9th had been preceded the day before by the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan which saw offensives launched in the North, East and West of Manchuria. As a result on the 10th August 1945 Japan offered to surrender and after negotiations on the 15th August 1945 the surrender of Japan was confirmed and on the 2nd September 1945 was formally signed. The Second World War (1939 – 1945) was over.

The Force is Disbanded

The two convoys Shield and Vacuum which had left the UK in June and July respectively and were to go to Okinawa were instead re-routed to Hong Kong, where they helped in the building of a new airfield. The 'Tiger Force' was officially disbanded on the 31st October 1945.

@classicwarbirds via X