#whs hungary

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 5 - The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabrielle and David M. Perry

Okay, the Harper Collins strike is over, so I can finally post this! As you might notice, the wait has meant I have ended up writing far too much of it. Turns out people really are telling the truth when they say writing negative reviews is funner and easier.

Anyway, I did not like this book! It’s an ungainly thing, torn halfway between wanting to be pop history and wanting to be an intervention in the discourse, and entirely too short to do either well. Insofar as is it history, it’s far less revolutionary than it seems to think it is, and the subjects it actually focuses on either already fit entirely into the pop understanding the book is positioning itself against, or else entirely about symbolism and architecture and generally abstracted from (being partial and small-minded) the stuff I’m actually interested in.

All that said the first and fundamental is pretty simple – it’s just altogether too short to do what it wants to. The book tries to be a history of the European Middle Ages – a thousand years of history for an entire continent (more than, given the repeated digressions about the Middle East and also the Mongols one time) – in 200 pages. Which is just, like, I mean I don’t want to say impossible, but I can’t really see any way you’d do it. Which means what we actually get is a series of snapshots, scattered across space and time – just specific, particular dynamics or situations that rarely have much to do with each other. I’m pretty sure the only specific place we ever return to after focusing on it is Ravenna, and that’s for a big, dramatic bookend starting the age with Galla Placidia and ending with Dante. Also the return is really more about Italian city states as a whole. Which is to say only Florence gets any detail at all.

A necessary causality of the snapshot approach is that there’s wide swathes of the period that just, aren’t mentioned in the slightest. Which again, fair, but also it’s a bit much for one of the lacuna to be the entire Holy Roman Empire, right? (Okay, not the entire, there’s repeated off hand mentions of Emperors, and also talk of how the Italian city-states fought the Empire. Just never any description whatsoever of what it, like, was. Except for the specific disavowal of saying it started with Charlemagne, which was never followed up on.) Which is still better than what Poland or Hungary or Lithuania or Kievan Rus got – if any of them were even mentioned, it was only off hand. Which does end up giving the impression that Medieval Europe included Jerusalem but not Krakow – to be fair, something a lot of actual Medieval people might have totally agree with. But given the amount of time spent on the Crusades to the Levant and the Albigensian Crusade, not even mentioning the bloody Christianize of the Baltic in passing feels negligent to the point of being actively misleading.

Also it’s weird, given the books whole focus on connections and commerce between Europe and the rider world – the steppe is right there! You don’t need to wait for the Mongols!

Speaking of – they give a bunch of apologia for the Mongol Empire that’s – well, basically the same stuff all empires get, brought safety to the roads and allowed free movement and trade, brought people together, spread culture and technology, enlightened and cosmopolitan, etc. Which I mostly just find funny because of how obvious it is the authors would, uh, probably not endorse the same sentiment for any more recent imperial projects.

But okay – it’s not that you can’t tell a useful history in what might seem to be way too little space – John Darwin tries to tell a literal history of the world from the 16th century in ~500 pages and I’d still say After Tamerlane is absolutely worthwhile reading. You just need, you know, discipline. Focus. A firm idea of your thesis and an obsession of what’s relevant to it (or just be entertaining and full of fun memorable trivia). So, what are Perry and Gabrielle actually trying to do here?

Honestly, it’s a little bit unclear? The thesis they present is that the Dark Ages didn’t exist – they insist on referring the whole Medieval period as ‘the Bright Ages’ through the entire book, it’s incredibly annoying – and that the Medieval period get a horribly unjustified bad wrap as uniquely cruel and provincial and barbaric and full of disease, illiteracy, superstition, etc. They explicitly position themselves as being a reaction to the vision of the past you see in Game of Thrones or Vikings (I’d say ‘or the Witcher’ but again, for the purposes of this book Eastern Europe doesn’t exist). Instead, they fill the book with hand picked examples of medieval beauty, sophistication, and connection to the wider world with the quite explicit contention that everything good about the Renaissance (and later) was really just outgrowths of the Medieval, and it was only the bad stuff that was new.

(At the same time, they also do not like white nationalists, and go out of their way at length on numerous occasions to remind you that Nazis are bad. Those digressions do always leave me wondering who they’re for – no actual Deus Vult type is going to get more than five pages into it, and they rarely get much deeper that surface level refutation of things no one else is likely to actually believe.)

Anyway – look, the central, overriding problem of the book is that it’s not nearly as revolutionary as it seems to think it is. Very problematic, when it has such a high opinion of itself for being so. The assorted trivia the book uses as shocking examples of how cosmopolitan and tolerant the period was mostly just, well, fit perfectly fine into the popular imagining of the Medieval era? Like ‘royals and elites imported foreign luxury goods and status symbols at great expense; missionaries, adventurers and religious emissaries travelled across Eurasia to preach, trade and try to find someone to help them invade Muslims ; women often wielded significant political influence by virtue of royal birth of marriage, and were active political players’ – are these statements shocking to literally anyone? Basically all of that literally happens in Game of Thrones!

Part of that is that the book keeps almost committing to a really radical thesis – not to say pure unreconstructed romanticism, but close to it – and then always has an attack of professional ethics and cringes away from it, and just awkwardly brings up how, to be sue, there were serfs and slaves and atrocities, but nonetheless when you think about it the later Crusader States really were fascinating sites of cultural exchange, or whatever.

Psychoanalyzing the authors is bad form, of course, but like – reading this book the overriding sense you get is that they’re proud progressives, and have dedicated their lives to studying the Medieval era. But in the contemporary discourse people on their side use ‘Medieval’ as an insult to mean patriarchal, or brutal, or cruel, and the people who like the Medieval era are all in the Sack of Jerusalem Fandom. The sheer angst and righteous indignation they have about this state of affairs just about oozes through every page – honestly if I’m being maximally pithy and uncharitable, you rather get the sense that the real aim of the book is to make ‘being really into Medieval history’ a less reactionary-coded interest to bring up at professional-class dinner parties.

But honestly I could have forgiven almost all of this if the anecdotes and snapshots the book did focus on were informative and interesting. And this is almost entirely pure personal preference, I fully acknowledge but – the things that the book chose to focus on just really weren’t, to me?

Which is to say that The Bright Ages is incredibly interested in architectural and monumental symbolism, especially of the religious variety – there are whole chapters overwhelmingly dedicated to exploring the layout of churches and how their architecture and lighting was meant to convey meaning, or detailing at great length a specific monumental cross in northern England. These are used as synecdoches for broader topics, of course but, like, an awful lot of word count really is dedicated to describing how Gala Placedia’s chapel in Ravenna must have wowed people. And even as far as using them as synecdoches – the way that monasteries, bishops and the royal household in Paris competed to have the most impressive church/chapel as a way to convey religious authority is genuinely interesting, but I’d honestly have rather heard a lot more of the actual politics and sociology or how sacred authority and legitimacy was gathered around the Capetians in the later middle ages and a lot less about how specifically impressive the royal chapel on the palace grounds was. There’s a massive amount of symbolic and artistic detail, a fair amount of time spent charting great thinkers and proving that there was too such a thing as a Medieval intellectual, and almost none at all on, like, political and social and (god forbid) economic history. Which are, unfortunately, the bits of it I’m actually interested in.

The book isn’t just architecture of course, but much of the rest is either very basic – yes, the vikings were traders as well as raiders and travelled shockingly long distances, yes there was intellectual interchange between Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers across the Mediterranean, yes the Church acted as a vital sponsor of learning and scholarship. I’m sure these are new information to like, someone? - or so caught up in historiographical arguments and qualifications that it loses sight of the actual subject – I swear the book spent more time saying that it’s wrong to call it a Carolingian Renaissance because that implies there were actual dark ages before and after than it does explaining why anyone actually would.

Beyond that – okay, so as mentioned this book is really consciously progressive. Which, beyond a certain antiquarian distaste for how desperately they’re trying to get across ‘see, our field of study is Relevant! And Important! Please please please give us tenure/prestige/funding’ I wholly support. (I mean, like, I do think Medieval Studies deserves tenure/prestige/funding. Just slightly unbecoming to so transparently be grasping for it, and also more than a bit self-defeating) - but, like, the book’s politics are weird? Or weirdly surface level and slightly confused, given how much of the book is focused around them.

Like – the book spends a massive amount of time and attention combating the myth that women in the middle ages were all cloistered and politically mute and totally powerless. But the sum total of what it actually says is ‘did you know: elite women in the aristocracy and church exercised political influence? And a lot of the Christianization of western Europe happened through highborn christian women marrying pagan kings and raising their children Christian?” And while I suppose ‘elite women have influence even in patriarchal societies’ is a useful fact for someone to learn, I’m not sure examples that more or less cash out to ‘queens could have power by manipulating their husbands and sons’ is a particularly novel or progressive take, you know? More broadly – it’s a weakness of the book’s framework of jumping across countries and centuries between anecdotes that we never get any sense of gender roles and how power and influence were gendered systemically, so much as single (or if you’re very lucky, two or three) particular women with a vague gesture that they’re kind of typical. Not to complain about a lack of theory, but there’s really basically zero theory.

The book’s choices of examples for women to focus on are also – okay, not to be all ‘why didn’t you talk about my faves’, but insofar as you’re talking how women were able to exercise power, it’s really very odd that you never talk about any women who, like, ruled in their own right? C’mon, you mention the Anarchy offhand to introduce Eleanor of Aquitaine but don’t even say what it was about, let alone talk about the Empress Matilda? (I’d say the same thing about Matilda of Tuscany and the investiture Controversy, but it’s not like the book actually talks about the Investiture Controversy beyond the absolute basics, so). The final result is a book that talks a lot about how elite women had influence, and then the influence they actually bring up is almost always of the most stereotypically feminine-gender variety imaginable.

All that really pales to how confused the book seems when it talks about Christianity. Which it has to, of course, fairly constantly – it’s a book about Medieval Europe. But it’s kind of horribly torn between two imperatives here – on the one hand, it desperately wants to fight back against the whole black legend of the tyrannical, book-burning, Galileo-murdering, science-suppressing hopelessly venal and corrupt, all-powering Magesterium. But on the other, they really don’t want to come off as supporting, well, the heretic murdering and antisemitism or being the sort of guy online who posts memes of the Knights Templar. So you see this somewhat exhausting two-step where they go on at length about all the beautiful architecture and scholarship preservation the church did interrupted every so often by this concession about how of course it wasn’t all good and obviously pogroms and burning heretics wasn’t great, but- (The chapter on the vikings is much the same, except with a much clearer ‘it’s important not to romanticize these people because the people who do that are white nationalists, but also see how tolerant and far-ranging and cool they are?’)

Discussing the Church is also a place where the book’s whole allergy to social structure and institutions really serves it poorly. I at a certain point stopped keeping count of the number of times where the book called out that the centralized, papal-centric Church was a creation of the high middle ages, and not at all how things worked for most of the period. But then they just never actually explain how they worked instead, or really even how things changed to so enshrine the Pope’s power. They talk about how convents could be wealthy and powerful landholders and their abbesses’ wield significant power, but never even gesture at explaining how they interfaced with the institutional church. It’s really very frustrating.

Of course Christianity still gets far better treatment than Judaism or Islam – there’s a chapter which goes into some detail on the life of Maimonides in the process of extolling Medieval scholarship and talking about how classical learning was never really lost and the Renaissance is fake news. But despite the gestures to the presence of Jewish communities throughout Europe there’s essentially zero, like, description of how they actually functioned, or were organized, or (aside from the occasionally mentioned pogroms) how they interacted with their christian neighbours. The treatment of Islam is much the same – there are some mentions of the Islamic wold and its intellectual traditions, but essentially just to rehash the same points about the Islamic Golden age and Ibn Sina and all the other bits of trivia everyone probably picked up keeping up with the culture war during the Bush Administration. But again, only the most passing mentions of, like, politics or organization or even theology. It felt gratingly cursory, given the emphasis placed on the fact that eg Al Andulas was clearly part of Medieval Europe

Underneath all this is just the fact that The Bright Ages is almost an entirely a history of the elite. Peasants, serfs and slaves only exist in the for the sake of concessions about how of course things weren’t all good. The book has almost no interest in the lives of the lower classes, and barely seems to realize this. It starts to really, really grate, especially when you’re making all these implicit judgments about how the Medieval era was compared to what came after – in which case, the lives of, like, 90% of the population are rather important! Like unironically peasant life is fascinating! What did life actually look like of the overwhelmingly majority of people? If you want to give a sketch of the entire era, it’s kind of important.

I’m almost certainly being unfair here – basically everything about the book’s sensibilities grated on me, so I can’t say I was trying to be especially charitable. But really – the book’s perfectly fine light reading, but as intentional propaganda is hamfisted and it’s unclear who it’s for, and as an actual history it’s just...bad. It’s useful as a way to get a sense of the discourse, I guess, but otherwise I couldn’t really recommend it.

[coffeebleeds]

Belgium: “One of my favorite bra’s underwire just snapped and now I’m uncomfy.”

Hungary: “Oh my god that’s the worst!”

Czech: “My neighbor’s house burned down yesterday.”

Hungary: “Wh-! Alright, maybe a snapped underwire isn’t the worst thing.”

Belgium: “I didn’t realize this was a Bad Day Competition.”

Hungary: “Are they alright?”

Czech: “Unfortunately.”

[the-very-awesome-prussia]

Aquarium Pandemonium (Part 1)

HUNGARY IS TRANS MASC IN THIS DO NOT MISGENDER HIM

also I wanted to do a part 3 to the "dream saga" and link them both together but then I got burnt out so here's what I wrote before that

"Can you guys please, tell me where we're going again?" Austria groaned as he was forced to a location he didn't know.

"Secret," Prussia simply answered, a smug smirk on his face.

"You must answer these riddles three and we'll give you a hint," Hungary leaned back from the front seat, holding up three fingers.

Austria rolled his eyes, "fine just do it. It'll be better than fearing the worst."

"Oh I didn't have any riddles I was just saying that," he turned back to face forward, "Prussia, do you have anything?"

"Hmm, give me a second…" He started to think.

"In a "second" we're going to be there, riddles are meaningless," Germany said from the driver's seat.

"Austria, close your eyes!" Prussia chuckled.

"As much as I know you love to make fun," Hungary started to explain, "this is going to be a healing exercise. We're not here to-"

"WHY THE EVERLASTING FUCK DDID YOU BRING ME TO AN AQUARIUM," Austria started panicking.

"It was Prussia's idea," Germany stated.

"No it wasn't!" He retorted, "Hungary said it'd "heal trauma" or something… I don't really care. I just haven't been to an aquarium since the first one opened!"

"Exactly, minus the I don't care stuff. To get over your fear you must first face-"

"I literally do not care GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE."

"Okay," Prussia opens his door and pushes him out.

He hits the concrete and then looks up at Prussia, "what the fuck."

"You said to get you "out of here" and "here" is the car."

Austria brushed off his knees as he stood up, "that was brash and unnecessary."

"You're brash and unnecessary!"

"Shut it you two," Germany scolded them both.

The rest of them got out of the car and Germany locked it shut.

"Would it be better if you were blindfolded?" Hungary asked, "maybe if you can't see-"

"It doesn't matter either way it's too late I'm already afraid I feel like I'm dying and nothing NOTHING is going to do anything to make me feel any better."

"If I were you I'd start with taking a deep breat-"

"I think I'm going to die! Right here right now! I think-" and then he passed out. Luckily not falling on the concrete this time as Germany caught him.

"What do I do with the body," Germany deadpanned.

Prussia chuckled as Hungary took him out of Germany's hands.

"Maybe this rest will help him stay calm?" He asked.

"Yeah for the time he's passed out," Prussia snorts, "as soon as he's awake? Boom, scared as hell."

"Can we not hope for the best?" Hungary asked as he grabbed Austria up and started holding him bridal style.

"Do we have to pay for passed out people or is it free of change," Germany quipped yet again.

And Prussia laughed at his dumb joke again.

"I'm genuinely asking."

As they walked inside they gave their money yada yada boring! They walked inside and found a bench to rest Austria for now.

"Before we start, does anyone have to use the bathroom? Any animals anyone specifically wants to see? Anyone want to go to the gift shop? Does anyone need to eat?" Hungary asked as if he was reading off a list. He was, actually.

"No I think I'm good," Prussia stated, "but while you were talking Germany disappeared."

"Wh- huh!?" He looked around but no Germany was in sight.

"Honestly I don't know what you expected. He was more excited to see this place than I was," he shrugged.

"He was? Honestly I couldn't tell. If anything he just seemed like the designated driver."

"We'll find him eventually, first we should have a plan for dealing with this idiot," he pointed to the still unconscious Austria.

"Yeah we should," he nodded, "on my list first it says-"

While he was blabbing on, Prussia ran off, not as sneaky as Germany though.

"Hey! I can see you running!" He picked up Austria and ran after him.

Before they knew it they were in the gift shop and Prussia had bought way too much aquarium memorabilia.

"Look at this guy!" He shoved it into Hungary's face, "look at him and I really mean LOOK AT HIM."

"Prussia there are more important things to be dealing with right now like maybe," he fake coughed, "the unconscious person in my arms!?"

"Hmmm, I have to disagree. What if you go find Germany while I stay here with the loser?"

"No."

"Why not?" He pouted.

"Because who knows what'll happen if I leave you with him! For all I know you could throw him in the shark tank!"

"I would never," he chuckled, telling otherwise.

Hungary shook his head, "where should we go? Honestly I think we shou-"

"AAAAAAAH." the suddenly awake Austria screamed.

"Food court."

"Okay."

They quickly ran to the food court, Austria still in Hungary's arms.

Hungary soon put Austria down when they went to grab the food they wanted.

"20 dollars for a pizza and fries!? This is seriously a rip off," Prussia complained as he looked at the price on the register.

"We're at an aquarium, I don't know what you expected," Austria suddenly seemed weirdly calm.

"I expected the pizza to NOT be 12 dollars!"

"Guys, relax. I'll pay for anything you can't afford," Hungary said before paying for his meal.

"Thank god because there are A LOT more things I wanna buy from the gift sho-"

Hungary stopped him before he was going to say any more, "I meant needs, not wants."

Prussia pouted as he walked over to their table.

They all walked over to their table.

"Ew, this pizza is NOT worth 12 dollars by the way. The fries are good though."

"If you're going to criticize food, at least post it on the internet," Austria replied, scrolling through posts with his left hand and eating with his right.

"Excuse me, I don't live on the internet, mister wise guy."

He looked up at him, "okay mister “I make videos in our basement” guy."

Prussia shook his head, "whatever, it doesn't matter," he uncharacteristically seemed to end this argument.

Austria rolled his eyes and went back to scrolling.

Hungary pondered this exchange, glancing between the two. Usually Prussia wouldn't shut up until Austria or him made him but he just shut up himself. There were different vibes than usual, he wondered what it was.

He considered asking them blindly but that seemed like a terrible idea, so he sat and watched their mannerisms.

[mechanicalinertia]

Bubblegum Black Chapter 6 is now live!

I missed my monthly deadline awhile back, but never fear, dear readers! I am back on my bullshit.

Celia and Swimming: See Anatomy of a Lovedoll - hell, see the first fifteen minutes or so of the first Bubblegum Crisis OVA - to see what I'm talking about. I'm fanon-ing that Celia is a) an excellent swimmer and b) uses it as catharsis when she's feeling disraught or disregulated. It just seems like the kind of thing she'd do.

ALMs: In this future, more robust AI exist, as envinced by the existence of Boomers, but cruder language-model AI from our time are still around. With the novelty of language model-generated content having all but worn off over the decades, most megacorps now use them in ways like this, generating metalinguistic code for automated and cyborg bureaucracy to whisper to each other over the company intranet. What? I think it's a clever idea. Paperwork often does feel like it's written in a foreign language, doesn't it? Might as well formalize that.

Sylvie and enemies: Despite Sylvie being largely a character of my own creation, extrapolated from so little screentime on her part in Moonlight Rambler, there are times when I worry that I'm writing her wrong. But I think I've figured her out. She's sweet and kind and loving, yes, but she's not passive, she left that passivity behind in Anchorpoint. She's going to make sure you know what she really thinks, barely concealed behind a flimsy veil of politeness. She'll be more straightforward with her comrades in arms, of course. Yeah. The more I play with Sylvie, the more I understand how to write her. I have an idea for a big scene involving her much later down the line and it's really exciting stuff.

Thuggee: Real-ass bandits of the Indian subcontinent, a name especially prominent during the Raj and not just in the one Indiana Jones movie. I think they should show up later in the fic - the idea of exploring how everyone outside of Roanapur but entangled in Koh Chang's business lives is fascinating to me - but for now they're not a big deal.

Bharat: Hindi name for India. Apparently the quasi-fascist BJP government there wants to change its name to double down on Hindu nationalist identity as the only valid identity in a nation of over a billion people, many of whom have alternative heritages that a secular nation would better serve. You can probably guess my politics, dear reader, from some of the stuff I post, and so you can probably guess that this element - one where a Hindu nationalist legion of psychotic gurus rules - is extremely dystopian. Honestly, I think more modern cyberpunk needs to acknowledge the rise of these governments, like in Hungary and Israel and potentially America if the '24 elections go badly. They're farces whose only selling point is internal bloodshed, eternal purges and cruelty. They can't even muster up the energy national revitalization they claim is so important to them, the way the fascist scum of the 20th century built armies for genocidal Lebensraum, because it's better to just privatize public services and fellate the divine power of free-market megacorporate tyrants. Let's call these sleazy fronts for corporate control and terror postfascist, then, shall we? I really should wave this word around a bit more often, it feels appropriate for cyberpunk. Anyhoo...

Rock and Guns: I don't remember where but I swear Revy's said something like this canonically. Here, though, it takes on an alternate turn. Instead of it being about who Rock is as a person, someone fundamentally unsuited for nasty violence as delivered by his hand, it's more Revy trying to protect Rock from Balalaika being nasty towards him. That's the idea, anyway. Balalaika is right, mind you. Rock has aided and abetted killing of all sorts constantly. He's more the gun that fires Revy's bullet than the other way around at times.

Revy getting a Hardsuit: What? Did you really think for one fucking moment that I wasn't going to do this? I've said as much! And reader, let me tell you, I am excited to do it. As for Balalaika... she might get a Saber hardsuit instead of a Russian 2050's powersuit, I'm still hashing that out. We'll see how things play out.

V.V. Vladilena: Balalaika's pseudonym for controlling Bougainvillea. A little joke on her part.

VHS-5: Further iteration of the VHS Croatian assault rifle. The newer version looks pretty cool, the older version has that FAMAS clone kinda vibe... either way, the point is that it's the kind of rifle Hotel Moscow owns a lot of that isn't explicitly Russian.

Vinfast: Yes, you heard me right, Vietnam's big fancy electric car company is still kicking in the 2060's! Sure, their cars are apparently quite shit now, but so were KIA and Hyundai's cars a few decades ago and no one would accuse the mighty chaebols of making such inferior product now. They're probably still plenty cheap in the ASEAN bloc, too!

Batwoman: Does Revy know that Batwoman's a canonical lesbian? Eh. Probably not. Are DC comics and Marvel and whatnot still around by 2069? Who knows, but I know Priss namedropped Batman in OVA 7, so maybe!

D-Company: D-Company is a real thing! Apparently its founder, Dawood Ibrahim, was on the FBI's most wanted for a hot minute! Apparently they're a pretty big deal in Muslim South Asia! Or were, anyway. Why put them in here? 'Cause I just didn't feel like having the Cosa Nostra in this fic. I'm sure the Italian mafia's reach spans the globe and as such could conceivably get its tentacles into Roanapur, but I wanted something a little different, something with more regional power. As for those other Islamic crime syndicates - Somali kinship networks I think I pulled out of a reference in Walter Jon Williams' Hardwired, and the Saudis-in-exile are, well, the Saudi royal family in exile, yeeted out of their own country following a bloody post-WW3 civil war. (The Emiratis control most of the Arab peninsula now, more on them around... chapter 8 or so. Not the next chapter I mean, the one after that.)

The Big Content Warning-y Moment: Whoo. Okay. Yeah. Blood and guts and gore and now this. Don't have your kids read this fic, folks. Revy's a very very bad role model. I did have someone say who read this a few days ago that while he could understand Revy, if she kept up her act he'd drop the fic. Which is fine, because I don't intend for Revy to get much worse. This is her low point, threatening someone with some really bad shit, someone who called her out on her other shit, and now? Well, now things are gonna change in Revy's head, hopefully. We'll see how things play out, won't we?

One last thing: I'd like to apologize for missing my self-imposed monthly update deadline by almost two months. It was annoying to me. I'm not sure if it was annoying to you, dear reader. I do have another chapter waiting in the wings that's shorter and sweeter in both senses of the word. With any luck, I'll be able to get it and another chapter out by the end of December. It's not a great place to be in - I wanted the climax of this arc to show up around the end of the year - but I need more time to make that happen.

After that arc, we'll have another arc, and another and another and then the fic will reach its conclusion. I'm excited to see where I can take this. Are you?

[ctbarb]

An Update to Dad’s Story

Dad was born in Galicia, a province sandwiched between Poland and Ukraine. In 1894 when he was born it was ruled by Austria-Hungary, but I remember him saying that its governance regularly switched from Austria-Hungary to Poland to "Ukrainia".  Dad proudly called himself Ukrainian and let no one call him anything else!  He was born the youngest of three brothers.  I do not know the Cyrillic spelling of our last name.  A letter, that Betty still has I believe, spells Segen in anglicized text as “Sygin.” And just recently I have been made aware of a man named Petro Siegin who arrived at Ellis Island in 1910 on a German ship named the Blucher. Upon the death of his parents, the farm on which Dad grew up was left to either the oldest brother or the two older brothers. Dad was 16 in 1910 when he decided to emigrate from his home to the New World. Certainly the impending Bolshevik Revolution may have influenced them and the potato famine that is famous in Irish History was also felt on the European mainland and made prospects in Eastern Europe difficult. Our recollections about a young uncle vary. Either he was already in America or he immigrated with Peter. I do not remember the young Uncle’s name or I was never told it.  As a child I was not very curious about Dad’s younger years and regret now not asking more questions. Accordingly,  Dad hitchhiked (?) or walked (?) to Hamburg, Germany.  Once there, he stowed away on a Passenger Ship headed for New York, which I now believe was the Blucher.  It did not take long for him to be discovered and he was forced to work for his passage.  Upon landing at Ellis Island, Dad went through the usual screenings and was allowed to remain in the United States because he listed an uncle in Belsano, PA, named Faranc.  He attended classes at Ellis Island and they were able to teach him enough English so that he could read at a third grade level.  He had the primer that they used; I still have it. Once he was released from Ellis Island, he took a job with a coal mining company. I remember him saying that the companies set up recruiting booths on the dock where immigrants disembarked after being in Ellis Island.  He told me and my sisters that he had friends or relatives in Johnstown Pennsylvania, but the manifest of the Blucher indicates that he was headed to Belsano, PA. We have a picture of a woman who we do not know with Dad from those early years.  Perhaps a relative but unfortunately, she remains nameless. And we never traveled to Pennsylvania to visit any relatives. Dad enjoyed Pennsylvania.  He told me a story of having a day off and walking the countryside with a friend. When they got hungry, they stopped at a farm and asked the farmer’s wife if she would hard boil eggs for them….several dozen hard boiled eggs!  That with beer and they were in 7th heaven….until their gastrointestinal tracts rebelled later! I believe he stayed in Pennsylvania until he contracted tuberculosis and was sent to the Montgomery County Sanitarium in upstate New York. I wish I had asked him more questions. The 1920 Census lists him as living there. The doctors were not positive about his prognosis and gave him less than a year to live.  He told me that it was here that he developed a stooped posture which he blamed on a spinal tap. Having found Petro Siegin on the Blucher manifest, I am skeptical now about this. The manifest lists him as 5’5” tall which is the same height listed for him much later. As fate would have it, Mom was working at the Sanitarium as a cook.  I do not remember a story about them meeting, falling in love and getting married (again, the lack of an inquiring mind on my part!). But my sister Betty tells me that they met because Dad was washing dishes to pay for his room and board.  So they were married and moved to a small house, signing an agreement with Mr. and Mrs. Mina Van Epps, the original Patroon family in the area, to purchase the parcel.   One story I remember is that Dad said that when they first moved to the “farm”, coffee would freeze on the kitchen table before it could be drunk. Dad lived a long life here in the United States.  He desired more than anything else to become a citizen of the US. But for whatever reason, he could not enroll in naturalization classes and his story was that he "had no papers" and was considered an illegal alien.  It so happened that in 1948 when Tom Dewey was campaigning for President, sister Betty was working for Marion Bennett at a prestigious restaurant in Amsterdam called the Tower Inn. The restaurant was an old imposing Victorian mansion…with a tower as its name implies and a porticoed front entrance.  It also so happened that Marion Bennett was very active in the Republican Party and was a friend of Thomas Dewey.  One day, she asked Betty whether Betty’s parents were going to vote for Mr. Dewey.  Betty said that her mother was but her father could not vote because he was not a citizen. Marion was appalled…”doesn’t he WANT to be a citizen?” she asked. Betty said “Oh, he very much would like to be a citizen but he came into the US without papers and therefore can’t go through the naturalization process.”  Marion humphed and said “I can handle this” and quickly called “Tom” and told him that there was a man who would vote for him but he was not a citizen and could not become a citizen because he had come to the US without papers.  Tom said that was no problem and wrote a letter of recommendation which opened doors previously shut and allowed my father to become a naturalized citizen, something which my father cherished. In 1965 or so, my parents' health had deteriorated and my sister offered them the opportunity to live with her in Arizona. In 1973, I got the call and immediately booked a flight for Phoenix. I got to visit him several times in the hospital. My last visit was the day before I was to fly back to Connecticut. Betty and I sat and chitchatted with him for a while and then when conversation seemed to be failing us, Dad said. “This is the last time we will see each other.” I used the usual line, “Don’t be silly, you will be well in no time.” “No” he said,” I won’t. “ I held his hand and said my goodbye. That was the last time I spoke with him. He had lived with the sequelae of tuberculosis and black lung disease (COPD). I remember Betty telling me that one day while dad was gardening (something he enjoyed greatly) a neighbor saw him keel over and lay motionless on the ground.  Horrified at the thought that Dad was having a heart attack, the neighbor ran over to him and was about to run to call the paramedics.  Dad waved his hand and caught his breath enough to say that he was fine.  This was his way of dealing with the shortness of breath….just keel over, lie down for a while and his breath would return. He seemed to make the best of this …as he did with most things in life. He died in 1973 and is buried in Arizona.

[eugeneplotkin]

Eugene Plotkin Explains Inflation in a Way Everyone Can Understand

Headlines about inflation and economic challenges are inescapable. Many Americans are digging deeply into their pockets and finding pocket lint. Voters have been clear that economic worries were a key driver for their votes in the United States midterm elections. What exactly is around the bend, wonders, well, everyone while wringing their hands. 

Eugene Plotkin, the renowned fintech CEO and investment banker, has the skills to break down key economic concepts in a way that anybody can understand. Even an audience with no background in economics or finance will find Plotkin’s explanations palatable.

“There is a lot of discourse about the economy right now,” Plotkin acknowledges. “Sadly, there is also a lot of bad information out there. I want everyone to have the skills to be able to tell good information from bad information. After reading this article, I expect they will.”

Eugene Plotkin says that many people assume that economic and financial concepts are either complicated or tedious. For this reason, some may tend to lose focus when experts discuss financial issues.

“If you took an economics class in high school or college, I’m willing to bet that all you remember is that it was boring,” Plotkin says with a smile. “And you’re probably right. The way that introductory economics classes are taught tends to be a bit on the dull side. The good news is that you don’t need to remember any of that to understand what is happening in the world right now. I’ll keep it short and simple.”

Eugene Plotkin Talks Inflation

Plotkin points out that just by understanding a few basic ideas, anyone can get a grasp on the fiscal news. More importantly, people can use that understanding to make more informed decisions about their future.

“Let’s start by talking about inflation,” Plotkin says. “That’s a big word, but don’t let it scare you. Inflation just means prices are going up. That’s it. If you’re paying more when you buy groceries or filling up your gas tank, that’s inflation. The higher the prices, the higher the inflation. When prices go up, the money that you have loses its value because you get less stuff for it. So, you’ll hear people talk about inflation in one of two ways: as higher prices or as devalued money. Both mean the same thing, because when you can get less stuff for a dollar, that means your dollar is worth less by definition.”

Plotkin adds that inflation is incredibly dangerous and can result in profound consequences. He calls it one of the “economic horsemen of the apocalypse.”

“When inflation gets out of control, we call that hyperinflation,” Plotkin notes. “What does hyperinflation look like? Imagine going to the grocery store tomorrow and discovering that a loaf of bread costs $50 and a jug of milk costs $100. Imagine driving to the gas station and finding out that it costs more than $1,000 to fill up your car. Now imagine coming back to the store a week later and discovering that bread is now $1,000 and milk is $2,000, then driving to the gas station and having to pay $10,000 to fill up your tank. That’s what hyperinflation looks like.”

History of Hyperinflation

Plotkin says that many Americans don’t believe that hyperinflation like this is possible, that it would never happen in the United States. He warns that history suggests the opposite.

“I’m going to give you just a few examples,” Plotkin says. “In Germany after World War I, prices doubled every two days. In Hungary after World War II, prices doubled every 15 hours. In Zimbabwe in 2007 and 2008, prices doubled every day. When you look at countries that have experienced periods of hyperinflation in just the last hundred years, it’s a who’s who of major economies, including Austria, Brazil, China, Poland, and Turkey.”

Plotkin goes on to say that if there’s one thing to be learned from economic history, it’s that hyperinflation can happen anywhere. He notes that the good news is that we know what causes inflation and what can be done to combat it.

“To understand what causes inflation, we just have to look at the definition,” Plotkin explains. “Inflation is prices going up and money losing value. What causes prices to go up? Lack of supply. If there are only a hundred jugs of milk in the whole town, the store can charge a lot more for each jug and just sell to those who can afford it. That’s why gas prices go up when there is less oil being produced. And what causes lack of supply? Usually, it’s disruptions to the normal flow of goods, whether they be natural disasters or man-made problems, such as wars and economic sanctions.”

‘What Else Can Cause Money To Lose Value?’

Plotkin indicates that lack of supply is just one of the reasons that inflation can take place. There’s another reason that’s particularly relevant in today’s world.

“What else can cause money to lose value?” Plotkin asks. “Well, if we print up a whole lot of money and give everyone $1 million, that would also cause money to lose value. Since the amount of goods and services has not changed but everyone has way more money, the prices of those goods and services will go up. Think about it. If every minimum wage worker now has a million dollars, they will walk off their minimum wage jobs. In order for companies to continue producing goods and services, they have to pay everyone a lot more — and that means they have to charge higher prices.”

Eugene Plotkin explains that many governments worldwide significantly increased the money supply after the 2008 economic recession and even more during the COVID-19 pandemic to buffer people from the impact of lockdowns and related losses in productivity.

“The government has various ways to increase the money supply,” Plotkin says. “They don’t have to print dollars and give them out in the street. In fact, most increases to the money supply are done as electronic credits extended by the central bank. However, the mechanics are far less important than the impact. Massive increases in the money supply have resulted in inflation and unless this inflation is controlled, it can not only destroy the economy, but unravel the very fabric of society.”

[kudosmyhero]

DC (vol. 1) #32: Batman Versus the Vampire, pt. 2

Read Date: July 05, 2022 Cover Date: October 1939 ● Writer: Gardner Fox ● Penciller: Bob Kane ◦ Sheldon Moldoff ● Inker: Bob Kane ◦ Sheldon Moldoff ● Colorist: {uncredited} ● Letterer: Sheldon Moldoff ● Editor: Vincent Sullivan ●

SYNOPSIS:

Continuing onward from Paris, the Batman pursues his enemy the Monk into Hungary. On a winding road thru the Carlathian Mountains, he hijacks a speeding carriage using choking gas and kidnaps the woman inside. Traveling in his Batgyro, he takes this woman back to his hotel. The woman introduces herself as Dala. Batman has her sleep in the same room as his other guest, Bruce Wayne's fiancee Julie Madison. In the middle of the night, Dala sleepwalks out of the room. Batman realizes that she has fresh blood on her lips. Dala snaps out of her trance and hits Batman with a statue, then escapes. Batman realizes that Dala is a vampire, and she bit Julie. Batman chases Dala and makes her talk about the Monk. Dala insists that she will only tell Batman about the Monk if he promises to kill him, as she hates the Monk too.

Batman and Dala leave to pursue the Monk. Batman tells Julie that she must stay, and resist any psychic urge to return to the Monk. As Batman approaches the villain's castle by air, the Batgyro is caught in a silver net, and dragged into the castle. The Monk hypnotically overpowers Batman, and forces him to march to his doom. Dala suggests that the Monk telepathically summon Julie, to make his revenge against Batman perfect. Some time later, Julie arrives, on foot, and the Monk threatens to turn her into a werewolf such as himself. Batman is lowered into a pit of wolves that the Monk summons from the forest. It is too deep for him to get out using his silk rope. The wolves attack and Batman is able to subdue them with choking gas. Finally he escapes by using his batarang to throw the rope onto a pillar. The castle is asleep, and Batman checks that Julie is okay. Using a candle, he melts a silver statue into two silver bullets. Batman loads the silver bullets into the gun he carries with him at all times. He finds Dala and the Monk sleeping in their coffins, and shoots them both to death. The spell on Julie is broken, and they are able to safely return to America.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_32)

Fan Art: Batman Sycrafied by Sycra

Accompanying Podcast:

[superbnature]

Egrets' Dance by Roland-F http://bit.ly/2BkTPQt

[armthearmour]

The Pavia Tapestries

This series of tapestries tells the dramatic story of the battle of Pavia, a tremendous triumph for the Habsburg dynasty over the Kingdom of France and an important event in the Italian wars which occurred on the 24th of February in 1525. These intricate and detailed tapestries showcase the skill of their weavers, who used wool, silk, and cotton in their production, accenting the scenes with the expensive use of glittering cloth of gold and silver.

Two well known Belgian artists are associated with these pieces. Bernard van Orley, court painter to Margaret of Austria, created the initial designs sometime in 1528, which survive to this day in the collection of the Louvre in Paris. One of the finished tapestries, the work called “Defeat of the French cavalry. The imperial infantry seize the enemy’s artillery”, bears the mark of the Dermoyen workshop, a weavery operated by the brothers Willem and Jan Dermoyen in Brussels. The Dermoyen mark can also be found on the “Hunts of Maximilian” tapestry series (also housed at the Louvre), a series closely associated with the Pavia tapestries. It is therefore suggested that the brothers were responsible for weaving all seven of these works. These tapestries were presented to the Emperor Charles V by the States-General of the Netherlands in 1531 upon the appointment of Mary of Hungary (Charles’ younger sister) as Governess of the Netherlands.

Traditionally the tapestries have been arranged in a sequence which follows the generally understood order of events at the battle of Pavia. The first tapestry is entitled “Advance of the Imperial troops and Attack of the French Gendarmerie led by Francis I”.

In the foreground is Francis I, King of France, followed by several of his knights. They lead a charge into the Imperial lines. A group of landsknecht on foot stand amongst the trees into which they charge, and in the background a larger mass of french knights charges into the stationary Imperial cavalry. In the bottom right foreground a small group of French arquebusiers retreat behind the lines of cavalry.

The second tapestry is called “Defeat of the French cavalry. The imperial infantry seize the enemy’s artillery”.

In the foreground a mass of Imperial landsknecht wielding guns, halberds, and swords advance from the left, engaging with French infantry on the right. A French cannon sits among the French infantry. A landsknecht mercenary drives his pike into the throat of a mounted French knight beside it. In the background a sea of lances can be seen, representing the engaged Imperial and French heavy cavalry.

The third tapestry is simply called “Capture of Francis I, King of France”.

Immediately the eye is drawn to the armored figure being pulled from a falling horse by other armored figures, discarded weapons and pieces of armor littering the ground upon them. This is the King of France, Francis I, as he is being taken captive by Imperial troops. To the right, a pair of landsknechts capture the horse of an unfortunate French knight. Imperial heavy cavalry stand calmly behind these figures, along with other French knights being forced to dismount to be taken as captives. In the background, the yellow clad Swiss mercenary infantry flee the scene.

The fourth tapestry is called “Invasion of the French camp and the taking of the Castle of Mirabello. Flight of the ladies and civilians following Francis I”.

In the background the French war camp can be seen. Tents litter the field, surrounded by earth and wood fortifications dotted with artillery. Advancing from the left, the Imperial forces, mostly composed of infantry but supported by some heavy cavalry, can be seen leading the assault on the camp. In the foreground a heavily laden caravan of French civilians flee the scene.

The fifth tapestry depicts the “Invasion of the French camp. The Swiss refuse to advance despite the interventions of their leaders”.

Here the perspective shifts to the interior of the French war camp. The same fortifications which were depicted in the previous scene can now be seen in the background, the bulk of the Imperial forces inside the makeshift walls. Once again the yellow clad Swiss mercenary infantry can be seen, massed in the background with several figures prominently featured in the foreground. A white dressed Swiss commander speaks with a mounted French knight, likely indicating to him their refusal to advance to help the French encampment.

The penultimate tapestry is entitled “Flight of the French army and retreat of the Duke of Alençon across the Ticino”.

The victorious cavalry of the Imperial army can be seen in the background, pursuing French stragglers to their doom in the river. On the right hand side, the bulk of the French army can be seen, having safely retreated across Ticino. The makeshift bridge of small boats with planks nailed to them that guided the French force to safety the French infantry now try desperately to deconstruct before the Imperial force catches them and uses the bridge themselves. The river beneath them is littered with the hats of those unfortunate enough to fall into the river and unable to swim to shore. A French infantryman clings desperately to a dead tree on the shoreline, the only thing keeping him from drowning.

The seventh and final tapestry is called “Flight of the besieged and retreat of the Swiss who drown in great numbers in the Ticino”.

The city of Pavia in the background, the foreground is in disarray. The figures of Swiss mercenaries flee from the Imperial cavalry who pursue them. Seeking asylum on the opposite side of the river, they try their hardest to swim across, even though many of them are incapable. France’s Swiss allies are decimated.

As mentioned previously, this is the traditional arrangement of the tapestries, however a 2014 study challenges this arrangement. Rather than depicting distinct scenes in a comic-book like fashion, the author of this study suggests that the tapestries were meant to be viewed as a panorama. By examining the distant background of each of the tapestries, the author suggested a new organizational method, placing the tapestries in the order of 5, 3, 1, 2, 4, 7, 6.

One of the truly remarkable things about these tapestries is the precision with which their provenance can be traced. As stated previously they were designed in 1528 and presented to the Emperor Charles V in 1531. The tapestries do not appear in his inventories upon his death in 1544, however they do appear in the Château de Binche in 1549, displayed by Mary of Hungary. It is to be assumed that Charles gifted them to her sometime before his death. Mary’s will stipulated that upon her death, which occurred in October of 1558, the Pavia tapestries should pass to Don Carlos, Son of Philip II of Spain, who bequeathed them to the Marquis of Pescara, Ferdinando d’Avalos, upon Carlos’ death in 1566. The tapestries remained in the d’Avalos family until the 18th century when they were sold to the Venetian patrician Paolo Grassi. The tapestries were then sold by Grassi’s grandsons in 1763 to a Monsieur Dublin. Dublin offered the tapestries to the Austrian court in 1774, however the purchase was declined. Instead, the tapestries were sold to another Venetian, Daniele Delfino, later that same year. “Sometimes prior to 1815” [349] Tomasso d’Avalos repurchased the tapestries and hung them in the Palazzo Davalos in Naples until they were donated to the Museo Capodimonte in 1862, where they remain until this day.

These tapestries represent the first works owned by the emperor Charles V which depict triumphs from his own life, rather than the mythical scenes typically depicted previously. This represents a marked shift in Charles’ anxieties. Rather than continuing to obsess over the legitimacy of his power as it is derived from his predecessors (predecessors which Charles traced all the way back to Romulus and the founding of Rome), Charles has begun to seek recognition for his own accomplishments.

The Imperial defeat of the French at Pavia was indeed a worthy accomplishment. A humiliating defeat of the Empire’s greatest rival was something the Emperors would certainly like to remember, and wouldn’t allow the French to forget. The capture of the French king at that very battle, and his forced capitulation only served to sweeten the deal. Indeed Mary of Hungary used the tapestries twice to remind the French of their humiliation: once at the Château de Binche upon the visit of the French Queen Eleanor and again, more poignantly, in 1556 when the tapestries were displayed in grand salle of the Royal Palace of Brussels, where French Admiral Coligny signed the Treaty of Vaucelles on behalf of King Henry II of France; a treaty which recognized the losing position of the French at that point in the Italian wars.

Thanks to the incredible documentation which survives regarding this set of tapestries, few questions remain to be answered regarding them. It is unknown whether these are indeed the same tapestries which were presented to Charles V in Brussels, however the evidence points strongly to that being the case. In all these tapestries are a testament to the extraordinary skill of their weavers, the power of the Habsburg dynasty, and the incredible battle which took place outside the walls of Pavia in 1525.

[stevenbasic]

“Wh-wh-where am I..??” I blurted, starting to sit up as I woke, on some strange bed in what looked like my office.

“Shh Shh Shh…” came Morgan’s voice, along with her hand on my chest, holding me back, “You are okay, you are the safe. Relax..."

My mind swirled in confusion. Last thing I remember I had been lap-swaddled by Melissa, in her office, and Morgan had come to take me to an exam room. Did I pass out? I hadn’t been feeling well, still, after my vitamin booster injection late yesterday afternoon, administered by Morgan and another of my APRNs, Vida, and today had been reeling from some upsetting news. It was just coming back to me, as Morgan’s strong hand laid me back down, gently but firmly: my car was gone! Taken, repossessed by my wife! And, with all the construction, the only way to get to my apartment was going to be - oh my god! - up a new little spiral staircase in Melissa’s office.

Settling back in this - what is this? Our emergency cot? - bed, apparently newly set up for me in my office, I felt the stirrings of another panic attack coming on. That’s what happened, right? That’s why I passed out? A panic attack?

“There there, good boy, lay down…” urged my new employee, nurse Morgan, her voice low, husky, “I am here.”

“B-b-but…” I began, eyes looking up at her. She was a handsome woman, big. Blonde, Slavic features, sparkling eyes, dimpled cheeks. A broad face, and broader shoulders, she radiated strength and warmth and jesus christ her tits are enormous. Sitting to my right, next to the low, fold-up cot - she had pulled a chair over - her huge Hungarian bosom hovered right near my face. She was wearing a tight, floral dress, slightly off the shoulder. Her strong arms were bare.

“No buts,” she told me, a stern, matronly sense of care solid in her voice, “You rest. I check you.” Her hand remained on my chest, holding me still. I was wrapped in the thin comforter from my bed upstairs, still, and naked underneath.  Apparently I was not going anywhere.

I was so confused, though. “How did we get here?” I asked, taking the moment to glance around the room. Again, we were in my office. She had closed the blinds to the window, and though it was still - I hoped, not knowing how long I’d been out - morning, the light in the room was low. “a-and weren’t we going to an exam room?”

“This more private,” Morgan replied, “away from the prying eyes, yes?” She smiled down at me, patiently, her right hand now slowly rubbing my chest, her left brushing messy hair from my forehead. “You do not want your girls seeing you…like this?”

Very fucking true.

I noticed the blood pressure monitor stand in the room behind her; a stethoscope hung from her corded neck.

“You are fine, one-twenty-two over eighty-four, only slightly high,” she explained, watching my face. I noticed that my arms had been taken out from under my blanket, apparently to get a reading. So she’d checked my blood pressure, what else had she done? Though I didn’t see our wheelchair, I was assuming I’d been wheeled here while I was unconscious. Right?

Her right hand went to the blanket, to peel it away from my naked chest. “H-hey..!” I exclaimed, clutching it up higher, towards my throat.

“Hush, now, quiet,” Morgan scolded, pausing, “I need to do the physical exam.” She moved again to open the blanket; I gripped it only tighter.

”sh-shouldn’t we have someone else in room?” I tried, thinking of…I dunno. “In case someon-“

“This is private time,” Morgan countered, that slight, confident smile on her lips again. She was moving my hands away, now, “Just you and me…”

Alarm bells, like a distant warning, rang. But did I heed them? Nope. “o-o-okay…” I agreed, putting my care in the hands of this big woman.

Dutifully, she peeled down the blanket a bit, exposing more of my rail-thin chest. Tucking hair behind her ears and silently putting the buds of her stethoscope in, she placed the bell of the stethoscope first on her own skin, her throat. “To warm it up,” she offered with a sympathetic smile, after a couple moments. Then she removed it from herself, covered it with a long, humid breath - hahhhhhhhhhh - to warm it some more, and laid it on my chest. I was quiet myself as she began.

“I can hear your heart,” she smiled, looking down on me, biting her lower lip. I watched her face as she listened, the moment suddenly more intimate. Longer than she needed she took, evaluating my beats, the rushing sound of my valves opening and closing, the “lub dub” of the human heart. “No murmur, no defect, no problem,” she finally spoke, moving the drum a few inches across my chest. “Heartbeat just a little fast,” she reported, her smile curling just a bit, “You are the excited?”

Unconsciously, my eyes had flitted briefly down to her enormous left breast, which was hovering just north of my face. This woman was a pediatric nurse by training, working with premature infants in the past. The things would have been smaller than her tit by threefold, I’d found myself thinking.

Excited?

My eyes were back on her face.

“Breathe deep,” she instructed me, before I could answer, listening to my lungs fill as I complied: breath in, breath out. She moved the scope drum a bit. “Again.” I repeated: breath in, breath out.

“Little lungs,” she said, with a little cluck of tsk-tsk, “weak.  Not big lungs, like me.” At that, her huge chest expanded with a big inhale, stretching the top of her dress even more tautly. My eyes goggled. “Deep breath,” she directed, and once again I obeyed, best I could. Good god! She listened, smiling at my discomfit, and moved on.

She went to pull down my blanket a bit more, and saw me tense again. “I need to listen to the intestine, to the gut,” she explained. Still reeling from watching her huge European chest nearly burst through her top, I gave no argument, and, uh…

Her stethoscope was now on my abdomen, bell-to-belly, and her free left hand still caressed my hair, for comfort. Her attentions, the slow movement of the stethoscope drum again lingered longer than necessary, drifting over my sensitive skin, caressing the lower parts of my stomach and-

Oh god, no.

I closed my eyes, clamping them shut in concentration. Don’t get hard.

“Do you want to know what I did at the Evolution?” I heard her say, as her stethoscope came to rest near my navel, the skin of her hand and wrist warm against my pallid flesh. Vida had explained, yesterday, a bit of Morgan’s history, her experience. After time in the NICU, in her home country (Hungary, if I remembered her application..?) she worked with a research team at Evolution Pharmaceuticals, the company that was soon to begin clinical trials of their new supplement here at our practice. We were being given tons of money and resources for it, from the company and various outside sources, and we needed the cash to stay financially afloat. But already I’d felt its looming shadow blanketing us and I secretly regretted ever getting into bed with them. And it was too late to back out now.

Without an answer from me, Morgan continued. “My job was the care for our littlest study subjects, holding their small bodies in my arms,” she began. Her voice sounded wistful. “They get cold so easy, they need the big woman body, keep them warm,” she said, obviously recalling tender times with her patients, “Some of them heads fit in my hand...” The bell of the stethoscope left my belly.

I was confused, a bit, suddenly. This was a supplement for women, right? Adult women? I opened my eyes and looked up at her. “I, uh, didn’t know Evolution was working with pediatrics, had children in their studies..?”

“Who say anything about children?” Morgan replied plainly,

Removing the earpieces of the stethoscope from her ears, folding the tubing with both hands, she placed the stethoscope to the side.

Before I could reply, ask another question, Morgan was speaking again. She'd turned to the side, a bit, swiveled at the waist and digging into an exam bag she’d brought with her. I took the furtive, covert moment to look at her again, appreciate the size and power of her hourglass torso, sheathed in her tight floral dress.

Stop it stop it stop it, I chastised myself, You're getting hard. The blanket covered me, now, merely from the waist down.

“I have weighed you already,” she told me, immediately bringing me more questions. How did she-?? “Now we must measure you.”

“How much did I w-weigh?” I asked, as a cloth measuring tape came from her bag. I could only picture-

“I held you, on scale,” she said, confirming my fears herself as she stretched the tape over me, head to toe, as I lay prone on the cot below her, “then myself, alone.” She took her measurement, and turned back to me, looked me in the eyes. “You are the 5’3”, 112 pounds. Me 198…”

Gulp. I’m still shrinking.

“…six feet tall.”

The image of this blonde, brute beauty holding me in her arms, weighing us, was too much for me to handle. I began to shiver and think of what her smile would have looked like when she realized-

“Eighty-six pounds,” she affirmed, in her strong Slavic accent, returning the measuring tape to her bag, “39 kilogram. I weigh that much more than you.”

My shivers became trembles as it began to set in, and she watched me as it did. I was still losing weight, height, becoming smaller and weaker, and the size difference between she and I was already terrifying. Morgan - a tall, strong woman - had more than eighty pounds on me, and eight inches. I could only think of Melissa, who was taller still. Twice my weight? More than a foot? If not now, soon? Was that possible??

“Yes,” Morgan spoke, as if answering my silent questions, “you are so thin, so small.” As she gazed down at me her hand glided over my chest, down to my belly in a gentle caress. My loins immediately seized and - good christ, no - my cock surged thick. If she saw it, though, through the thin blanket, she said nothing. “You will need the warming too, soon. Like my other babies.”

She smiled down on me and I gazed up at her with what I am sure was a maelstrom of emotions and feelings plain on my face: fear, confusion, uncertainty. She let them play out, inside me, watching me irrationally imagine myself small like a needy infant, needing to cling to her huge body for heat. My muddled panic electrified the air between us as her huge left breast was slowly coming closer to my face.

“You ask earlier, how you get here?” she enjoined, finally, as my eyes struggled to not just stare at her enormous chest, at the outline of the bra I could see through her top, the extra bulge of breast which it struggled to contain, “how you come from Melissa office, to here?” I could feel the warmth of her breast, her gentle body heat already. “Do you know?”

“I…I…”

I had assumed it was a wheelchair, though…now I remember Morgan holding her arms out to me, when Melissa had stood with me in her own embrace from her couch. I thought of our height difference, my weight. I considered Morgan’s strong, strong arms, her back and shoulders and thighs, and I began to shiver anew, picturing-

“Yes. I carried you like the child in my arms,” she declared, “through hallways, past all.” She watched my face, seemed to be drinking in my shame, savoring it. “The women see, they watch. They see their man being carried, like child, by nurse.”

“M-M-Morgan..?” I stammered, not knowing what I was asking, not knowing what I wanted to say. The massive shelf of her bosom hung over me.

“You are…so little, you must get so cold…” she said, her husky voice dropping lower. I felt her hand reach lower, open my blanket. The cooler space of the room washed over me, settling on my naked hips. I cringed in humiliation as I felt my cock spring free, bobbing hugely in the air above my belly.

“Oooo it is the true!” she suddenly sang, her voice brightening in surprise, “Down here you are not so little, you are the big!” She giggled, a strangely girlish laugh from such a big woman. “Here, I don’t mind the big,” she continued, considering me, looking at me, examining it in all its brutish glory. I grimaced in indignity. The thing had become a beast. Always large, it now seemed to dominate my frame when erect, now that I had shriveled and waned behind it. Thin hips, meager thighs, monstrous boner.

“Man is good small,” Morgan explained, abruptly taking hold of my cock, grasping it by its thickly-veined shaft in her large, strong hand. Stars flashed in my eyes, and I swooned. “But big here is good,” she said, “It take all of your blood, make you dim, like the stupid child.” She began to stroke it, slowly, up and down. “Make it easy for the woman to do this…”

“M-Morgan, no…” I protested, my voice sounding weaker than it should. What was she doing? I was married, she worked for me! Anyone could walk in! And then there was Melissa…. But my objection? I heard it myself, sounding less-than-fervent.

“Shhhh it is the okay,” she purred, the warmth of her body, the soft touch of her hand entrancing me, “Let me give you release. You need woman for that.”

I groaned, shuddered, and lay back silent. I tried to look up into her face but at this point could succeed in nothing but staring up at the undersides of her giant rack, two twin bulges which dwarfed me below them.

“I hear Melissa talk to you, hm? About becoming dependent on woman, surrounded by woman?” she asked, as slowly she took to her task, “She tell you, yes? She tell you how many men like that? How many many men now want the big mommy-woman, fleshy and soft, to be cared for, fed by them. Yes, yes they do…”

Her hand, tender but firm, slid up and down my cock at a perfect, gentle pace…but one with an obvious goal in mind. I could do nothing but lay there, paralyzed, helpless below her bulk and - ‘to be cared for, fed by them’ - picture her breasts, now, naked in maternal, monumental grandeur above me. Each would be larger than my head, and the thought stirred my arousal further. I felt my loins, my belly start to tremble.

“But do you know how many men also fantasy of being held by women in other ways, in ways not so gentle,” she continued, “hurt by women, crushed by women?”

Her huge left breast was now scant moments, centimeters away from my trembling face. I whined, quivering below it, faced by it as the hand working my shaft became more insistent. She held her breast there, letting me appreciate its sheer mass, how it dwarfed my head. “Oh my god…” I heard myself croak.

“Suffocation,” she said, finally, as she slowly lowered her boob down, pressing onto my nose, squashing onto my mouth, my eyes. It eclipsed my cheeks, my forehead, my chin. “Suffocated by woman, smothered by woman?” she breathed, her voice betraying her own deep arousal now, “Is that your fantasy too, little man? Do you fantasy about that?”

As if overcome, finally, herself, she began to jerk me off in earnest now, her hand moving faster and faster.

“Come for me, come my little man,” she ordered, as the soft weight of her huge, pillowy left breast lay now fully on my face, completely covering it, squashing me, keeping me from drawing breath. “Feel yourself tiny, under woman’s giant breast,” she said, unrelenting even as she felt my limbs go rigid, my hands grip the thin cushion below me. My climax was almost there, if I didn’t pass out first. “Feel how easy it be for her to do the smother, crush you,” she snarled, “Feel how easy for her it would be to just make…you…dead.”

With a whimpering groan I came, in a soul-draining explosion, into her hand, my face buried in her tit.

========================================

many thanks to the almighty Joshua67 for the sketch. My god the dude's good.

check out my Patreon for more GITJ goodies, including newer posts.

[pizzaapplecheese]

2p Romano

So I made a 2p Italy post a while ago and got an ask to do one for Romano so here it is! before I type anything I recommend looking at the one I did for Italy to get an idea of this ( link ) anyways back on topic, lets talk about my version of 2p Romano.

Romano’s childhood is kind of different from the canon one. most notably Spain made it his goal to avoid Romano. Belgium was usually busy helping Spain; the only person left to look after Romano was Netherlands. Netherlands usually isn’t the warmest of people, he is still blunt and sometimes harsh times. Romano liked how transparent Netherlands and how truthful he is, so naturally he just clinged on to him easier than anyone else in the entire building. Unlike the canon Romano who had at least 3 people to look up to my version only have one and being the attention starved child he was he kind of lowkey attached to him. Netherlands did find it strange how this child looked up to him since there is literally so many people in this entire building and out of all people he chooses him, but Romano did grow on him. Netherlands did feel pitiful towards Romano since no one was giving “her” any attention especially since this castle is a new environment in which it is easy to get lost from. Ned did missed having a younger sibling around. You could be asking about belgium, but keep in mind she is busy with Spain which also translated onto the fact that to Netherlands Belgium practically isn’t here anymore. They hanged out when Romano is having his break from not doing any work and their personalities did rub off on each other a bit. Spain had to leave one day saying he was visiting someone (Italy who got at that time recently amnesia). Romano found that strange, but continued with whatever he was doing. Netherlands found a box full of crochet equipment and went to Romano like “hey, look what i found, do you want to learn how to do this” and since there is nothing to do he tries it and at first he was bad at it and got frustrated, but Netherlands kept pushing him to at least try making 5 squares and if he still thinks it looks bad then he will allow him to quit. The squares did slowly became better and better and Romano in his head was like “wow i did this??????This is actually fun!” and made more even when Netherlands wasn’t there. It was his hobby and later a way for him to vent and somewhat cope to the news. Romano got a letter from Austria/Spain about Italy a few months after Spain left, Romano being a hot headed kid that he is believed that letter was a joke and decided to travel to Austria’s place alone without anyone knowing (which looking back at it as an adult Romano realized that was a stupid thing to do) and when he finally arrived Spain Austria and Hungary tried to stop Romano from entering not knowing that behind that door was someone different, he looked and sounded like Italy, but he is obviously not Italy. Romano saw a stranger. Anyway Romano blows up when Italy acts like he can’t remember the many recent things that happens and after finding that talking to Italy about it was useless he goes towards the adults who tried to not be clear on it except for Hungary who told him what happened with Italy and boy did Romano exploded. No one under any circumstances is allowed to hurt his brother other the only person who is allowed to do it is him. Sadly he was dragged home and needed to wait for a long long time until he could see his brother again.

okay so now let’s talk about Adult Romano of my universe. Where do I begin? the dude is an attention wh*re. Even if someone took a glance at him that is enough to make him feel happy. He loves creating his own clothes and designs and will not stop talking about it and will somehow shift the conversation towards his clothes. Romano is very overbearing to the people he is close to and over dramatic and annoying to everyone else. He worries and cares for Vene a lot and Seborga as well as much as they appreciate it it can be too much. His relationship with the Tomato gang as an adult is petty complicated (almost like in canon lol) He is very close to Netherlands and they would trust each other with secrets so strong that that they won’t tell anyone else with, he is neutral about Belgium (he does find her pretty though), Luxemburg seems cool, He doesn’t know how to feel about Spain considering that Spain did try to stay away from him he still wonders what their friendship could have been like if they were more open, he find Portugal strange. Then we have the Axis, we already spoke about Italy so let's go to Germany. Just like in the canon he is jealous of Germany because of how close his brother is compared to him in here he will go out of his way to make Germany like his servant and will call him to help him when the smallest inconvenience happens as his way of revenge. Their convos are usually like “hey Ger-man I have a question!”  “huh yah what is it?”   “how do I put a book on a shelf again? I seem to forget”  “please tell me you are joking”  “wow rude, I always knew you were a brat from childhood, but this a whole new low”  “fine I will come over and show you”  “thanks!”. Strange thing here is that he is pretty kind to Japan although it have to do with China, Romano would buy Japan small gifts which confuses the hell out of Japan (now typing it I feel like China is the divorce parent of Japan and Romano is trying to win Japan’s approval to marry him-). Now we have the strange 3. I will start on China to fix any confusion on the Japan part. Romano is friends with China, but they are not really that close it is more of them teasingly annoy each other just for fun, like Romano touching China’s Jewelry (China hates when people touch his stuff especially when they are “too poor” for it, but he considers everyone that so eh) and China would pay him money telling him “I am sorry that this the only thing you can live off for the month, but i hope it helps” and it is just counterfeit money. Next we have America who loves to make videos of himself doing stupidly dumb stuff and Romano likes to join in because he likes getting the attention even if it is from strangers online, everyone's surprise why there isn’t a law about leaving these 2 alone together considering the whole bank incident (you guys shall never know what happened). Last but not least we have Lithuania, Romano deeply cares for him and is usually concerned with the guy, but he have no idea what to do so he usually just tries to hang out with him and refuses to talk about anything slightly negative worrying that it will hurt his mood (Lithuania doesn’t really care at this point, but still appreciate Romano’s efforts) they are tea/coffee drinking buddies.

oh my gosh this took so long to do, I am sorry. I had a test so it took longer to make this than expected.

[sergeant-donny-donowitz]

Oceans Away (DonnyxFem!Reader)

Requested by @cass-danvers​

@owba-chan​ @war-obsessed​ @inglourious-imagines​ @tealaquinn​ @struggling-bee​

Let me know if you wanna be added to the basterds, or OUATIH taglists :)

Donny blinked. How could it be? Could it really be you? After so many years? Across all the oceans? Over all the mountains, beyond all the valleys, the battlefields? How could it be that he saw you there, in the face of death, in the hall of Emmanuelle Mimieux's cinema, on the night of Nation's Pride's premiere. How? Then he remembered... his faint smile fading as he realized you were telling the truth. All along. Hans Landa introduced you to the basterds and to the spy.

At that moment, you saw right through their plan... And you smiled. Donny looked into your gloomy, joyless eyes, where he once marveled at the radiance of light and hope. Once, not too long ago. And he understood why it was all gone and forgotten when Landa introduced you as, "La mia fidanzata," His fiancee. The world crumbled around Donny as his eyes glazed over... Landa gave Donny and Omar their tickets back, and asked if they'd be gentlemen, and escort his fiancee to her seat, while he caught up with his old friend, Bridget von Hammersmark. Donny made Omar go back to the seats alone... Donny had some things he needed to sort out. Number one...where had the light of your eyes gone? ************************** Winter, 1939 Donny was uptown, running errands for his mother. He got cold, and had enough time to get into a coffe shop. There, behind the counter was a familiar face, though the name escaped his mind. You both graduated from the same high school a year before. You appeared, as if from thin air, in the middle of your sophomore year. Every now and then, Donny heard people talking about you. Gossip, mostly, about the strange, uptight Hungarian girl. ...Most of it was negative. He never really cared too much for gossip to begin with. He figured everyone was just being mean to the new kid, as usual, though he couldn't help but notice how much of it painted you as a liar. Still, he wasn't very intrigued by it... Just the pretty face standing alone, day in, day out, seemingly unbothered. And there, a year later, was the same unbothered, smiling girl. A ray of sunshine, he'd always thought. And yet, people treated you like you were from a world beyond theirs. "Y/n?" He remembered your name at the last second, and he smiled as he said... How could he forget? It was such a pretty sound, he thought. You looked up from the register, a little stunned that Donny Donowitz, was standing there, talking to you, even though he never had before. "Y-yes?" "It's nice to see you!" You smiled at him, though you were a little confused, you didn't mind seeing a familiar face, and being greeted so kindly for once. "It's nice to see you too." And just like, Donny became a regular at that old counter, every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday afternoon, at 4 o'clock sharp, like clockwork. Every single time, it was a medium cup of black coffee, two sugar cubes, no cream or milk. Before you knew it, it was April, a drizzly afternoon. He came in as usual, greeted you with the same smile, made the same small talk, and politely asked for the usual...almost shyly, in fact. But no, you thought, each and every time. Donny Donowitz just wasn't the shy type... Or so you thought, until he finished his drink, as usual, and cleared his throat, which was most unusual. "Y-Y/n..." "Yes?" "Do you....uh....you...What time do you...get off of work?" You were a little off guard, and took a moment, but answered, with the same kind smile and warm eyes, "Six o'clock." "W...would you want to uh." He panicked...which you no doubt noticed, but woudl never admit for his sake. "Wanna get some coffee?" He immediately widened his eyes and clencehd his jaw in embarassment. You giggled, but nodded, "Sure." You leaned over the counter, "Except, tea is more of my...well cup of tea." He laughed, a little nervously, but full heartedly. And just like that, "Sundays at 6" became another one of your traditions. It wasn't quite a 'date,' and it never really felt like it... Though you wished there was more to it... And then it was summer, 1940. Donny broke tradition. He didn't kid you about getting coffee, and you didn't feel like tea. It was over 100 degres out, after all. He asked if you wanted to go out the next Friday night. He took you out to a carnival, and you got some lemonade instead. Then, it was every Friday night... Until one day, Donny was consumed by curiosity. Why didn't anyone want to be around you back then? He always asked you about Hungary, and you always told him. He never got tired of listening, and you never got tired of him....

But that night, he just needed to know. He'd imagined the blue Danube, and heroe's square, and couldn't get over the way you described Budapest. "So...why'd you leave?" You were silent for a moment, then shook your head with a sigh, "There are things in the world you don't understand yet, love." You sipped your lemonade, distracting yourself from the thought you inevitably faced: The lands you knew as a child were war torn and blood stained...and there was nothing you could do about it. Donny didn't quite understand. He chuckled,"Cause I ain't in college like you, that it?" You rolled your eyes and giggled, "No, it's because you're oceans away."

You led him to your apartment, "Won't your parents be-" "I live alone." You sighed as you unlocked the door. It was an odd, extra moment before you flipped the lights on. Donny noticed something even more odd, a brief somber shade in your eyes, just before your turned back to him, with the same familiar smile. He'd heard the news. Hungary had allied with Germany. You'd already heard... You already knew. "What's wrong?" "Nothing." Nothing Donny could understand, you thought as you slumped on your couch. "You can trust me, you know that." He crouched in front of you, and looked up at you. "Just tell me...Tel me everything." You sighed,  "You read the paper, you heard the radio. You know what's going on in the rest of the world, with the war and everything." Donny nodded slowly, "Yeah..." "Well...that's why I'm here." He didn't quite follow. "My mother's Jewish...she sent me here, where it was safe." He looked at you, and bluntly murmured, "You're not telling me everything." You nodded, with the same conviction, "You're right." Donny asked again, though this time there was a twinge in his voice, signaling his hurt, "Why won't you trust me?" There were things that boys like Donny weren't ready to hear, things people like you knew to be true. Things the rest of the world didn't quite know... Nightmares that had not yet made their way to front covers or news flashes, but were on the front lines and in homes far across the oceans. Things you'd seen, but couldn't quite explain, even if you wanted to, So you did your best. "My family is what I guess you could call nobility, back in Hungary. To keep power, with Germany and all, my father arranged a marriage for me, and an Austrian man for when I was old enough. My mother sent me away. She knows that... She knew..." Your breath hitched in your throat with a teary knot. She knew. You knew. And now Donny knew... You'd be forced to marry a monster some day. On that day, the beaming bright joy in your eyes would be gone, all for nothing. All for diplomatic bullshit. All for an abomination called Hans Landa.

But there were things you still couldn't tell Donny. Not without proof. Who would believe you? Who'd believe that you'd seen the blood, the innocence? No one ever believed you before...

You'd seen things. You'd seen shadows following you. You were being watched and you knew it. The game was over. You'd lost... It wasn't safe for you. And if it wasn't safe for you, it especially wasn't for Donny. And you told him so. "It isn't safe here, Donny. Not with me, not here...Not anymore."

"What? But I-" You shook your head. "Whatever it is, we can...we can go to the cops, ok? We can go and-" It was much bigger than the Boston police department. "Stay out of this." "What?!" "The world is bigger than Boston, Donny. Scarier too." You looked at him, and spoke bluntly, "And you know nothing of it." "Wh...what's gonna happen to you?" He knew you, and he knew you weren't a damn quitter. "I need to go." "Where?" He wanted to know you were safe, no matter where you went, and that you knew that you had him to lean on. But you were past that. It was a matter of life and death...and if your suspicions were correct (and they were) Donny's life was in danger. "Anywhere. Anywhere but here. Anywhere, where no ne knows me, where I can't be found..." You put your book down... It really was over... "Sounds lonely." Donny smiled softly, as he looked up at you, love in his eyes, hinting silently that he would go anywhere with you. To the ends of the world and back, if you only said the word... But you didn't. You pretended not to notice. "Sometimes... Sometimes it might be... But life is lovely, Donny." You rested your hand over his, "You just don't know it yet... You haven't lived. I mean, really lived." He sat on the ground, looking up at you. He looked around the tiny apartment, and all the memories it held. His world was small compared to yours... Boston didn't hold a candle to Budapest. You'd seen it all, done it all. But you were wrong. He had lived. Donny had known what life was, what it was all about from the moment he saw you that winter afternoon. He was alive every second he spent with you. He wasn't in college like you, he didn't know the world like you did, but he understood.

He wouldn't follow... He didn't know where you'd go, and frankly, you didn't either. But he knew he loved you. You both did. And that was what hurt you both that night...that last night... That last time he saw your eyes, beaming with hope and starlight. ************************************************** "So this is where you've been all along, huh? Oceans away?" He smiled softly, and your heart melted as you sighed with a broken hearted smile, "You remembered." He looked down. It was cruel and unusual. It was ironic. He found you, oceans away. And as he held your hand, he felt an engagement ring around your finger. He'd lose you to Landa, and you'd lose Donny to an inevitable fate. One you had no knowledge of yet. And for once, Donny knew something you didn't. "Y/n, listen to me. It's isn't safe for you here."

You couldn't help but smirk a little. It was all too familiar. You'd learned  to run and hide for years...but that was all over. You never really were safe. Not without Donny. And he learned that you were right. He hadn't learned to live, he hadn't seen the world the way you did until he went to war. He understood why you ran so far all those years ago... And he understood you were tired of it. But it hurt to see the gloom in your eyes, like cold charcoal, where there once was bright hope.

He smirked a little, as he rested his hand against your cheek, "I know you don't wanna marry that asshole." You rolled your eyes, as if that wasn't the most obvious thing in the world, "And I know you're up to something." Donny nodded slowly, and said, "You need to get out of here, kiddo...." You shook your head, without a word, without even a sigh. "I ran away once without you, my love. I'm not making that mistake again." He looked away for a moment, down at the ground, knowing that familiar thought that kept him awake on sleepless nights, thinking of you. His one mistake was not running and following you to hell and back. He wanted to live, really live again, and he knew he could only do that by your side. So he nodded. He gazed at  you intently, knowing whatever choice he made, whatever words he said next, he'd have to stick to, and would change the world as he knew it. He had his mind made up. It was you and Donny against the world. "Wait outside. Outside the theater...Ya might wanna wait down the block, if I'm being honest." "But-" He shook his head again, "Do you trust me?" You pursed your lips, and looked up at him with a soft smirk. The tables had turned...but goddamn if there was anyone, anyone at all in that god forsaken world that you trusted, it was Sergeant Donny Donowitz. Your Donny... Your love... So you nodded.

Donny smiled and looked down at you as he wrapped his arms around you, and did something he'd wanted to do for years. He kissed you... And naturally...when he made his way to his seat, Omar queastioned him about the mindless smile and the red lipstck stains smeared over his lips.... Omar also couldn't smirk as he heard the explanation and the slight change of plans.

  You waited across the street, and lit a cigarette as you waited, without an inkling as to what the hell was happening in that theater. You had no idea what the ungodly roar was coming from. Your hand shook slightly with nerves as you flicked at your lighter, and took a smokey breath. You looked up at the sky for a moment, for the first time in a long time, with hope. And in that brief glimpse that you looked away from the theater, all of history changed. Your life changed. Everything changed. Two figured emerged, like phoenixes, born into a free world at last, ready to take flight. Donny ran to you, taking you in his arms, spinning you around, kissing you... It was everything you'd both wanted. Donny looked to you, with that familiar smile, and felt alive the instant he saw the fire reflecting in your eyes... The same old light was back. Embers emerging from the dead coals, an ardent, aureate glow that kept him going all those years, and would keep him going for the rest of his life. As of that moment, as you and Donny gazed into each other’s eyes, you had your life, your love, and your world back...

And as you threw your ring into the hellfire, you took Donny's hand. Your heart was yours to give.

[aniamajewska]

Illusion - analyse images creative manipulated

25 January 2021

1. Brooke Shaden

Brooke Shaden is American modern self - portrait artist who explores the darkness and the light in the human beings. She creates dream like images inspired by childhood of intense imagination and fear. She follows her curiosity into the unknown to confront with the darkness and control the fear. She finished studies with B.A. in Film in 2008 on Temple University and in that time she discovered a passion to photography and storytelling and quickly became successful in photo competitions. Brooke is well known photographer and high skilled in Photoshop creator with amazing portfolio. She had many group and solo exhibitions and numerous publications of her works in the magazines. 

All her images are linked together by the foggy background setting in the field. It's a kind of visual theme that creates the images and what's beyond the image is the theme human vs nature and how they interact together and the tension in between them.

The image I want to look a little bit closer is one of her images that come from the Levitation series. The girl wears blue dress and levitate in a middle of nowhere, foggy field at the dusk or predawn. The girl is in the centre of the frame and I can notice a kind of triangles and diagonal in this image composition in position of her body and arrangement of her dress. The overall mood is quite dark and colour tones in dirty beige and grey in the foggy background doesn’t create visual contrast with the colour of her dress which is kind of navy-grey rather than blue, I would say. Those colour tones are mixed warm and cool tones as a juxtaposition of two opposites. It can indicate serenity or tranquility. Earth, nature as something strong and stable. And the human that maybe is looking for the balance and inner peace.

To create this surreal image Brook has combined multiple photos. At first, she made a photo of the model, lying on the chair in her studio in the front of clean black background. She took the background and floor shot without the chair and the model. Then combined taken images as layers in the Photoshop, removed chair and other unwanted objects, to make the model looks like she levitates. Next step was change the background and colour modification, increase highlights, shadows enhancement to add more dramatic expression. Thanks to Brook, she makes behind the scene videos and photos, so we could see how she creates such an amazing images and learn a lot from her.

Image source: https://www.creativelive.com/blog/compositing-brooke-shaden/

2. Sarolta Ban

Sarolta Ban was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1982 and she was jewellery designer before she discovered digital photo manipulation and that’s became her passion and activity. By combining ordinary elements, she gives them personalities and creates meaningful stories. 

She had a great idea to photograph shelter dogs to help them find new homes in her ‘Help Dogs Project’. Using photoshop, she created amazing images, combined a dog portraits, beautiful landscapes and eye catching objects that create surreal atmosphere. 

Patti, that’s the name of a dog in this image. Patti is a cross breed puppy with long waggly tail and black coat with biscuit beige markings on face, chest and all paws. She lies on the dry like a desert ground in the centre of the frame and keeps the moon like a ball in the front of her lying on or in between the paws. The moon shines and creates atmospherical glow around Patti and leaves the full of stars but dark sky in the background well behind. It makes me feel like the dog has a super power and cheerful personality and invites me to play. Patti will offer love to the moon and back in return for care, warm corner in the house and human attention. 

I suppose that Sarolta used at least 4 different photos to make this image, portrait of a dog, the moon, desert and the sky at night. She removed dog tag and added glow to the moon and areas around the moon and the dog, and used the dodge tool to lighten some areas on the dog’s face. I think she has used vignette to darken corners and to draw viewer’s attention to the centre of the image. This dog looks like is out of this world, magically. Who wouldn’t offer a home to the super dog like Patti?

Image source: https://www.demilked.com/surreal-photos-shelter-dogs-sarolta-ban/

Sarolta Ban: https://www.saroltaban.com/home

3. Staudinger+Franke

Staudinger+Franke awards winning commercial photography studio, specialise in motion, CGI (computer generated imagery), retouching, animation - lifestyle, conceptual, portraits, still life and landscapes. Staudinger+Franke is creative crew existing of different kinds of artists to realize visual ideas. Everything is going under supervision of 25 year experienced Vienna photographer Andreas Franke. 

They create very impressive images in Photoshop. Their portfolio is impressive. All images are very dynamic in colours and clear in the message. 

I picked one image that looks simple, but is so powerful. The background colour and the overall tones in pool green are very calming and relaxing. In the centre of the image is a glass of pure water where the dolphin lives like in the purest ocean under the sunny blue sky with very little clouds so we could find a bit of shadow of a palm tree lying on the beach in paradise island. And the composition of a hint of fresh herb, probably mint next to the glass completes this image as a whole. It makes me feel so calm and relaxed when I look at this image and I want to be there, feel the refreshing cool ocean breeze when I got too warm by the sun. I would love to see the place like in this paradise island in a glass of water in a real world, so pure, without pollution, far away from urban agglomeration. 

I think that photo of the glass of water was the key to create this image. There is no any incident light reflection in the glass. Very soft almost imperceptible shadows. I think the shot was taken at small studio set up on the white background, perfectly lighten with soft light. Then, the rest was done in Photoshop, maybe that plant was shot in the studio as well as the glass of water, but dolphin, island, sun and sky were combined as layers blended together in post production. 

This image was done for General Electrics, a company that is characterized by a culture of integrity, compliance, safety, and respect for human rights, while reducing our environmental footprint by investing in carbon free, renewable energy that will help the environment. 

The other image from Staudinger+Franke is minimal and totally uncanny. The kids slider on a sandy playground in combination with a grater. Both of these things contradict each other. One thing brings to mind a place full of carefree fun and enjoyment. The second is reminiscent of discomfort, pain, and unpleasant fear. Both things are perfectly merged together. The composition is based on a point of view and directs my gaze from the top of the slide towards the bottom of the slide at an angle towards one-third of the frame on the right. It looks as the light is falling from above towards the slider. The colour of slider and grater is the same shade of grey with metallic highlights on sides of the slider where the grater eyelets are being reflected. This creates the impression of a dimensional space. 

4. Erik Johansson

Erik Johansson was born in 1985 in Götene, Sweden. He is the master of photo manipulation. In 2005, he moved to Gothenburg for college where he studied Computer engineering at Chalmers University of Technology and got a Master degree in Interaction Design. He was nature lover from the early age and fascinated in computing games, that inspired him to create images later on when we discovered manipulation of reality in Photoshop. He got inspiration from all things around, music and other artists like Dali, Magritte, Yearka and Gonsalves. 

Currently he is a visual artist based in Prague, Czech Republic and creates surreal photographs personal and commission projects with exhibitions and clients from many countries in the world. He combines different images to make them look as much real as possible, finding a way to illustrate the impossible, to capture the idea. And he says that we are only limited by our own imagination. 

The Comfort Zone image illustrates a girl sitting in a greenhouse on the backyard like in a small cage. The light that comes from the greenhouse creates lovely golden glow around it like in the sunset and lit the nearest greenery. The sky in the background is at the same time ominous and beautiful, where the blue of the sky breaks with the warm colour of the clouds of the setting sun. It makes me feel that the girl in the greenhouse is comfortable in her small space, like in a kind of shelter, but also it may be a kind of a trap, where she can’t be free. And I think that was the idea behind this image, to illustrate the ambiguous of situation.

This image required a lot work to be done and Erik is very experienced photo editor and retoucher. This image is refined in every detail. He had everything well planned, sketched and designed to create the image. The greenhouse was built exactly as designed. At first I thought that the girl was photographed in different place and the image was combined in the Photoshop to put her inside the greenhouse, as it looks quite impossible for her to get in. To my amazement, girl was really in and Erik’s team attached top part of the greenhouse and he could capture a lot of images at the scene in different exposures. He combined plenty of images and layers in the program and used many editing tools like healing brush or patch tool to apply a similar texture in the areas that required to be covered and removed some objects and drew others. He enhanced shadows and highlight areas and create new shadows to make the image look more real, dimensional, not flat.

Image source: https://www.erikjo.com/news/comfort-zone

5. Christine Ellger

When I look at this image I can feel the positive energy that comes through it. 

The girl who popped out the book looks like she has some superpower and she flies straight to heaven and appears extremely light. As if she broke away from reality and swung carelessly in the clouds together with birds. 

I couldn't find enough information about this Christine on the google search, so I decided to ask at the source by sending a message via messenger. 

I’m more than thankful for such an exhaustive answer 😊 

Christine is true inspiration and an extremely talented person whom, as she wrote to me later, photography is a vocation. I really recommend to have a look at links below and meet fantastic body of work! 

https://www.tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com/2016/02/Christine-Ellger.html

6. Paul Fuentes

Paul and Ilse Fuentes are commercial Spanish photographers who works together as Fuentes Design and their mission is to remind people how fascinating the world is by create images of food, animals, and objects in a minimalistic mash-ups with pastel backgrounds and everyday objects that they merges into a surrealistic, humorous whole. We can see the world through a colourful lens. They take many travel photographs and creates a surreal and unexplored places by combing them with other things in photoshop. They combine two artistic movements and transform them into pastel-colored compositions. French surrealism and the culture of Pop Art form elementary the lively proposal of the young artists and define what they themselves call "The new pop art". Their goal is to see the smile on people faces. 

Thirsty Giraffe

I like the sense of humour in this image. Combination of giraffe wearing pink heart-shaped sunglasses and having a swirl pink straw wrapped around its neck and looks like it is drinking through this straw. Background is very light pastel pink and it’s working together with pink colours of the straw and sunglasses. There must be used several layers to create this image and different blending modes, so we could see patches on giraffe’s neck through the straw and her eyes through sunglasses. The light is coming the right as the highlights are visible on the straw on the right. There is a great job done on the selection and refine edges. The image as whole looks illusive and surreal.

Lemon DJ

Lipstick bullet

https://www.paulfuentesdesign.com/artworks

[kudosmyhero]

DC (vol. 1) #31: Batman Versus the Vampire, pt. 1

Read Date: July 05, 2022 Cover Date: September 1939 ● Writer: Gardner Fox ● Penciller: Bob Kane ◦ Sheldon Moldoff ● Inker: Bob Kane ◦ Sheldon Moldoff ● Colorist: {uncredited} ● Letterer: Sheldon Moldoff ● Editor: Vincent Sullivan ●

SYNOPSIS:

The Batman patrols New York City at night. He spots a beautiful woman about to kill a man, and saves the man's life. Batman realizes that this woman is Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne's fiancee. Batman takes Julie home, and tells her to explain everything to Bruce Wayne in the morning. Bruce takes her to a doctor, who explains that she was a victim of hypnosis. The doctor suggests an ocean voyage to somewhere like Paris and then later Hungary. Bruce worries that the doctor seemed like he was under hypnosis also. Despite this, he decides to let Julie go. Bruce plans to follow her as Batman in his flying Batgyro. He also takes his newest weapon, the batarang.

Batman drops out of his plane to visit Julie on the boat. They are interrupted by a hooded villain known as the Monk. The Monk tries to hypnotize Batman, but as paralysis starts to set in, Batman throws a baterang at him. It misses, but Batman jumps onto his rope ladder and escapes into the plane.

They land in Paris, and Batman scours the city for Julie. When he finds her lodgings, he is attacked by a giant gorilla. The gorilla chases him into a room with no floor where he falls into a giant net. The net pulls him up to a room where the Monk is sitting on a throne. The Monk pulls a lever, and Batman is lowered into a pit with snakes. He manages to throw his batarang at a lever and shatter some glass. This allows him to break out of the net and pursue the Monk. The Monk runs through a doorway, and drops another cage on Batman when he follows. Then the gorilla is dropped into the cage. Batman dashes up the rope that lowered the gorilla, and takes down the guard who lowered him. Then he escapes through a door which leads him to the outside. Batman climbs back into the hovering Batgyro. He spots a car speeding away, and leaps down on top of it. The car crashes into a tree, and Batman drags Julie from the wreckage. Julie is safe, but the Batman wants revenge. He travels to Hungary to pursue the Monk.

(https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Detective_Comics_Vol_1_31)

Fan Art: BATMAN by PuppeteerLee

Accompanying Podcast:

[countryshitposts]

countryhumans saying my favorite overly sarcastic productions quotes (part 3) [the headcannons i still didn’t post version]

France, pushing Hong Kong towards Vietnam: Hey not-my-kid, do you like political marriages?

Vietnam: N-

France: Trick question I don’t care

Holy Roman Empire: France! What is the meaning of this passionate pants-on hugging?

France: Oh I’m sorry we all can’t be as chaste as YOU

Roman Empire: Alright Byzantine Empire, welcome to Hell.

Byzantine Empire: Hey, why do I hear so much screaming?

Roman Empire: I said “Welcome to Hell”, idiot what part of that wasn’t clear?

America, talking about Russian Empire: Then he Hulks out and kills a lot of people, but he’s brought down by the power of boobs.

Persian Empire: Hey, kid, do you like proving yourself?

Athens: Do I!

France: Wow, sending children to fight went badly? How shocking.

China: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Earth: And that same planet was none other than our hero, Mars, who, in summation, unknowingly killed his sister, and banged our dad.

Earth: Why couldn’t Mars swear?

Venus: Wh-

Earth: Because he kisses his father with that mouth.

Germany, looking at EU: If you think this is a good idea, then you’re blinder than I am.

Europe: So our hero, for the sake of argument I’ll call ‘Portugal’, is currently in the clutches of none other than the SPANISH INQUISITION

Spain, breaking down the door: BET YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING ME!

France, looking at Japan: A social faux pas in MY party?! Unmask yourself, you crime against God taste!

United Kingdom: As your friend I have a duty to tell you that your husband is cheating on you.

China: If we weren’t such good friends I would never believe you!

China, a few days after: I killed my wife! It sucked, but I trust you!

United Kingdom: :)

Korea: Bro, what gives?

Meiji Japan: Man, you look kind of chilled. Better do what we can to keep out the draft.

United Kingdom, burying Austria-Hungary: It’s like being buried alive, but more interactive.

Austria-Hungary, going through the ‘Five Stages of My Former Friend is Murdering Me Right This Very Second’ grief: Ha, oh man bro you got me good, but we’ll have a good laugh over this over the treaty of Versailles, right?

United Kingdom: :)

America, talking about why the hell Japan Empire is locked up in a mental asylum: But then Japan starts getting twitchy when he begins to hear something rhythmic sound at the edge of his senses, and it almost sounds like a heartbeat.

~Flashback~

America: You wanna tell us another Not-Killing-Anyone story?

Japan, tense: Er, sure.

America: I trust him with my entire life!

Japan: Those cunning bastards!

America: Bro, you okay?

Japan: I CONFESS DAMN YOU, I CONFESS!

Earth: I should make a CountryHumans dating sim. Wanna date the Roman Empire? Only if you don’t mind his sadistic conquering. Wanna date Britain? Only if you don’t mind being pushed towards another war with France.

France, looking at herself in the pool: I may be used to one-sided relationships but I don’t like being on this side!

Germany, about Britain and France: So... uh, they went down together, woke up with a nasty hangover and spent the rest of the day arguing whose fault it was.

Spain: I think the moral of all our lives is that Philippines had the right idea: in this game the only way to win it is not to play.

France, hitting Cambodia: WHAT! WERE! YOU! THINKING?!