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Attacks with Teacups!

@nikonella / nikonella.tumblr.com

Nikonella | She/Her 31 y/o | ISFP I don't post much, just rebloging things I like or find important.
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Listen.

EVERYBODY knows (or should) that you DO. NOT. STOP. in Vidor, Texas. 

It’s best to just run out of gas elsewhere. Whatever you do, black folks, DO NOT STOP IN VIDOR, TEXAS. 

There’s a good chance you’ll get lynched or just come up missing - and I’m not joking.

also do NOT stop in Harrison, Arkansas!!!! (relatively close to OK and MI) a nazi town with a BIG KKK organization.

Reblog To Save Life

Okay but like reblog to LITERALLY SAVE SOMEONE’S LIFE

Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please puHLEAAASSEEEEEEE BE SAFE

They are called sundown towns and there are a LOT of them in the US.

This website has a clickable map where you can see suspected and confirmed sundown towns by state, as well as information about whether these attitudes are historical or current.

Reblog for the link

reblog for the link

REBLOG FOR THE LINK

Please stay safe

REBLOG IT DOESNT MATTER WHAT BLOG YOU ARE THIS IS GONNA SAVE SOMEONE

I am poc too and i am scared for my LIFE when i go to the south. please stay safe.

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wofworld

I am not poc but I know this could save someone’s life. Please reblog and spread the message.

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lyrslair

My obligatory addition to this every time it crosses my dash, because I know the link is definitely missing ones in my own (northern) state and there are some in this thread not on the above link either - thread by LeVar Burton with a LOT of replies from people naming the sundown towns near them:

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inyuji

Just in case someone is traveling, please be careful

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ms-cellanies

AUTO REBLOG

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amingethia

On this weeks episode of why America is terrifying.

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godstiel

(flight intercom) this is the pilot speaking. yeah we expect todays flight to be normal. um if you look out your window you shouldnt see the skull

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evilwizard

(wizard intercom) good evening passengers. this is the wizard speaking. boy do i have a treat for you

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reblogged

I cannot fucking believe how much I'm losing my mind right now over soy sauce history. I'll tell all of you about it after I finish this essay because I need to un-distract myself enough to finish it but what the fuck? What the fuck is going on? I'm losing my fucking mind.

During World War 2 there was a push to industrialize the Japanese soy sauce industry to be better for mass-production. This innovated the chemical fermentation technique and the semichemical fermentation technique utilized by Kikkoman; rather than ferment for four years in gigantic cedar barrels, kioke, instead fermentation takes place for six months or a year in stainless steel barrels which utilize electrolysis to artificially speed up fermentation processes.

During Postwar occupation by Americans, Japan was experiencing massive shortages for the raw materials needed to make soy sauce nationwide, and was forced to rely on exported materials from America to make production. A single American woman named "Ms Appleton" was given total control of apportioning all American soy bean rations to companies, how much, and to who. She had no knowledge of soy sauce, allegedly.

She apparently had so much power over Japanese soy sauce production that she could singlehandedly shape its future by threatening to not give soy beans to any company, family, or factory which did not utilize her specific requirements of semichemical fermentation (reduced from chemical fermentation, since it was that abhorrent). These days, the term soy sauce is distinct from traditional shoyu, and requires distinguishment because of such a radical difference the two products are.

Here's the problem, folks:

I can find absolutely no evidence that Ms Appleton ever existed. There are no sources about this specific period in Japanese history that I'm able to definitively confirm. All of the sources which reference Ms Appleton are referencing in circles with each other; there is no listed source for any of them. Kikkoman's official English website is a veritable goldmine of information regarding this piece of history, with an entire 4 size 13 paragraphs. It not only gives me a first name, Blanche, but also tells me she worked for General Headquarters and that her policies and decisions shaped governmental policies heading into the future.

Except any variation of searching for Ms Appleton, Ms Blanche Appleton, and so on gives me absolutely no information about her ever existing. By appending keywords such as Ms Blanche Appleton+soy sauce, or Ms Blanche Appleton+GHQ, we can find the same couple of sources that are circling each other--or, in the case of the latter, only Kikkoman.

But there is NOTHING else. I'm getting pageantry from some minnesotan town; I'm getting world war 2 veteran records and obituaries when trying to follow that route; I'm getting k-12 teachers and a Titanic survivor named Charlotte. There is no fucking evidence of a Blanche Appleton to substantiate these claims.

And this is fucking massive. Because there should be way more information on her if this was the case; she was apparently powerful and influential enough during the occupation that she could singlehandedly enforce whatever arbitrary rules she wanted on the soy sauce industry and they had to comply or else have no product at all. That level of power is fucking insane. Imagine having so much raw influence over Japan that you could order them to completely renovate and change how they produce and make SOY SAUCE, literally one of if not THE most important thing in Japanese culinary history--and yet there's absolutely zero reference to this outside of like, three specific sites, and none of them have sources, or if they do, they source those sites.

What the fuck is happening here? There shouldn't be radio silence about this woman. There should be records of her policies, there should be legal documents in America which record how she apportioned out American exportation of soy beans to Japan, there should be sources talking about this woman's ability to transform Japan's soy sauce production so heavily that today only 1% of all soy sauce is made with pre-WW2 traditional techniques.

So if she's that big a deal then why does she not exist?

I feel like I'm losing it. I can't think about this too hard because it gives me a headache trying to comprehend any possible answer. There is so many levels to how this shouldn't be happening that I can't settle on just one. I don't understand how some foreigner American could have an iron fist over soy beans so hard that she could apparently influence national policy heading into 2022 but I can only find a first name on the Kikkoman website.

I literally just sent in a Freedom of Information Act request to the national archives asking for any records of a Ms Blanche Appleton, her reports, census information, anything. I can't believe that I'm having to use FOIA to try and ask the government to prove a woman existed because she was that big of a deal in SCAP/GHQ.

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This is a translated page of Kikkoman's .co.jp website, with an apparent picture of Ms Appleton.

But this says that she has an apparent good knowledge of soy sauce brewing--directly contradictory to the Kikkoman.com claim that she had "no experience". And it also claims she was in charge of GHQ, which I'm going to assume is a mistranslation, but still.

Major General Murcutt doesn't exist. Douglas MacArthur was appointed head of GHQ/SCAP during the occupation of Japan. This now just has more questions. How did this woman become so important to GHQ that she could directly speak with a Major General? Any level of power or public view she SHOULD have isn't here. You don't just get to be colleagues of a Major Damn General in Post World War 2 Japan. That isn't given to any random housewife.

I just emailed a shoyu brewer family, Yamaroku, about this. The Yamaroku brewery was established 400 years ago; if the company/family were affected during the 1950 import rations and under the thumb of the Supreme Command of the Allied Powers, they'd have records and memory of Blanche Appleton or what it was like during that period as a brewery.

I am at the point where I am genuinely considering the possibility of Blanche Appleton never having existed. There is the chance that Kikkoman invented an 'ambassador'-type person with high influence in the General Headquarters during the occupation to grant itself apparent influence/validity/power above the rest of the competition. "The woman who controls all soy materials coming into Japan visited our main factory and said she liked us :)".

It's incredibly fitting that my first act of serious investigative journalism is about soy sauce. Like, I'm a little annoyed at how on brand this is for me. Of course I'm overly invested in this weird little nitpick about soy sauce. Of course I'm making this the government's problem.

Of course.

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It's currently 12:14AM. I have just learned that a private individual submitted a research query to the Japanese National Diet Library in 2008 regarding any information or proof of Blanche Appleton in relation to soy sauce production.

This information was told to me by a follower of mine--who asked to be anonymous. So right now we have evidence that Japan as an entity cannot find evidence of Blanche Appleton ever existing within relation to soy sauce production. And I can't find evidence of Blanche Appleton existing in obituary records, nor any publicly available birth/deaths.

Right now there seems to be more and more evidence that Miss Blanche Appleton was a complete invention of the Kikkoman Company possibly dating back nearly a hundred years. But why?

If nothing comes back from my Freedom of Information Act request, I'm going to be contacting Kikkoman directly. I'm not going to just let this slide. People have been noticing this since at least 2008. Who is Miss Blanche Appleton? Why would she be faked by Kikkoman? What's the point of this lie, and if it's the truth, if she was real, why can't I find any proof of that?

Who is Blanche Appleton?

Why is everything starting to point towards yakuza/organized crime Kikkoman origin story and why am I researching zaibatsu breakups of the GHQ and where assets from various clans got sent to.

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awheckery

I found her

I have an active Ancestry.com account, so I made a guess at her birth year and hit paydirt basically immediately

Ms. Blanche Appleton was born Blanche Harriet Schnitzer, October 22, 1903, in Manhattan, New York City, the only child of affluent immigrant parents who were apparently very invested in her education. I found records of at least two international trips with her parents before she turned twenty. Here's her passport photo from her original application in 1922, to compare against the above photo:

(cut for record dumps and original documents ahoy)

I did NOT expect her to be real

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reblogged

“When the handle has snapped off the basket that held all your eggs…” gone girl tier monologue

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Fantastic Beasts is suspended indefinitely.

Musk is begging for cash because he made the stupidest purchase in internet history.

Zucky Wucky is hemorrhaging cash because the Metaverse goal of becoming the NFT successor of real estate speculation was met with the deserved mockery at how stupid it was.

Trump is finally being properly prosecuted for crimes he unquestionably and very inconspicuously committed.

Alex Jones owes a billion dollars to Sandy Hook victims.

The Tories are imploding in a schism that might actually result in the collapse of the British empire.

Putin has ran out of army and crawled pathetically to the corner a tiny insurgent army pushed him towards, decades of military propaganda burnt away in months.

Prime Minister Shinzō Abe died with no glory.

The GOP is so confused after the Trump era they don't even know how to run their grifts anymore.

Rings of Power was such a mediocre release Amazon could potentially drop Prime Video altogether.

Turns out 2022 was really the "find out" year. It took a while but I'm loving this season finale so far.

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hollowprose
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reblogged
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egberts

they're making the sims 4 base game free to play for everyone forever next month

it's gonna be free on every platform too, consoles and computers. October 18th

if you've never played or you've always been interested but deterred by the price NOWS YOUR CHANCE

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gunker

and mods are half the magic. here's how to install them and here's a bunch of gameplay tweaks.

this is just cosmetic stuff but i highly recommend it:

if you find a sims player that you like the style of, check their tumblr for a resources page. they'll often list most of what they use.

have fun and make sure you look for mod updates after each game update

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pansypr3p

man i love the babes of tumblr*

*people who tell me how to get free shit

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reblogged
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eelizabit

Ok girlies time for our prescription 1-2 hour walk, imagine we r all in line like Madeline

in an old website on the internet all covered in vines, lived some lovely little mutuals in two straight lines..

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reblogged

What the..?!

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idlnmclean

It’s the herbicide.

Otters secrete thick oils in their fur that help them to be more hydrodynamic and water resistant. Without some kind of cleaning regime, they would like sloths grow plant matter in their persistently moist fur. Whether it be algae, fungi, moss, or other kinds of small plants.

The tree has a circle of absence around it in part because the tree excretes an herbicidal resin; this is a common property of trees particularly conifers.

The otters are rolling around in the dirt around the tree to clean themselves of microscopic insects with the coarse silicone (like with diatomaceous earth) and to coat themselves in herbicidal resins to keep them from growing things.

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Sorry I'm just. Reeling. 14 THOUSAND????

Pardon me for having an emotional reaction but while we were distracted by the US Midterms, the Iranian government voted to execute over fourteen thousand protesters who are in custody.

Lord Jesus Christ have mercy.

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brazilspill

Not Brazil-related but too important not to share and signal boost.

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reblogged
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squenble

whenever my friend sends a picture of her dogs i always compress them in mspaint

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sajdd

since we're all talking abt newcomers and stuff, when did you guys first join tumblr

for me it was back in like 2014 (i think) when i was in my twenty one pilots phase and didnt know how tumblr worked but i saw funny memes of it on facebook

i then tried to make a #inspirational quotes from animes and cartoons account where i just yoinked stuff from google images lmfao

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