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meta-squash · 3 years

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Brick Club 1.4.2 “First Sketch of Two Equivocal Faces”

Time to meet the two least likable characters in this book, after Tholomyes. Mme Victurnien and Bamatabois try, but they can’t beat the Thenardier parents for slime factor.

The Thenardiers are animals (cats specifically) before we ever get to know them as people. Also I think this is one of the only instances where Hugo frames cats in a truly negative light? Usually cats are Liberty and Revolution and also Secret Lions. This time they’re cunning creatures taking advantage of a tiny mouse.

Hugo making quick work of some Class Opinions here. Hugo is describing this sort of in-between class, a limbo between middle and lower, made up of two types of people, of which I assume both Thenardiers are the former. When he compares them to the working class and the bourgeoisie, it’s about what they don’t have. I’m guessing that by “generous impulses” of the worker, he means solidarity? Working class people were/are more likely to help each other and engage in mutual aid, at least to a larger extent than others. Unless he’s emphasizing impulses, in which case maybe it’s more about being reckless? FMA says the bourgeois have “respectability”; Hapgood calls it “honest order.” Either way, that seems to be referencing a more “polite society,” a set of expected characteristics or behaviors and a certain level of success or money. I don’t know. It’s weird. Hugo’s class opinions are complicated and I don’t think I understand enough about French class history and culture to properly analyze all of this.

“There are souls that, crablike, crawl continually toward darkness, going backward in life rather than advancing, using their experience to increase their deformity, growing continually worse, and becoming steeped more and more thoroughly in an intensifying viciousness.”

I can’t help but think about Valjean here. Javert isn’t Valjean’s opposite, he’s Valjean’s weird parallel. Thenardier is Valjean’s opposite. Valjean is a soul that climbs towards the light despite spending so long in darkness, while Thenardier crawls towards darkness. In the moments when Valjean is actively working to become better, Thenardier is simultaneously actively becoming worse. After rescuing Cosette, Hugo mentions that Valjean had been on the brink of falling back into old habits and instincts from prison, but Cosette rehabilitated him and reminded him to work towards being good. At the same time, the Thenardiers are presumably falling into poverty and in the process of losing their inn. Later, Valjean decides to teach Cosette charity and bring her with him to help the poor. I think in general he is, at this point, doing more charity work than ever before. Thenardier kidnaps him and tries to hold him for ransom; in the process he also destroys parts of his own home. When Valjean saves Marius, after an active effort to realize that he needs to sacrifice to make Cosette happy, Thenardier is in the sewers stealing from corpses (or presumed corpses, anyway). As Valjean is dying, again sacrificing himself for what he thinks will be the good of Cosette, Thenardier is trying to trick Marius into doubting Valjean’s goodness and reputation, and trying to get money out of him. As Valjean dies loved and good, Thenardier goes to America to become a slave trader. Valjean and Javert’s entire lives run parallel to each other; Thenardier is like a perpendicular line that they both end up crossing at the same time each time. Thenardier is Valjean’s opposite in that he embodies exactly what Valjean had the potential to become.

Hugo says “We only have to look at some men to distrust them” and I wonder if that’s part of why we don’t actually see M Thenardier until now. The entire scene last chapter was full of all these bad omens and ominous imagery, so we were already suitably aware of the danger. Only, now we’re getting a real grasp and a true description of the reality of that danger for Cosette.

I really like that we get the line “he knew how to do a little of everything--all badly” because it’s yet another way in which he is Valjean’s opposite. Valjean knows how to do a little of everything as well, only he manages to do those things well and to succeed.

Hugo talks about Mme Thenardier’s love of trashy romance novels and throws in a bunch of references, conveniently in chronological order. Clelie goes with Mlle de Scuderi; Madeleine de Scudery wrote her novel Clelie (10 volumes!) in the mid 1600s. As far as I can tell, Clelie is about the siege of Rome and the romances between a bunch of different characters, and it’s very elaborate with a lot of long conversations. She used Roman/Persian/Greek characters as a thinly veiled disguise for contemporary society figures and political commentary. Lodoiska was a 1791 opera based on the novel Les Amours du Chevalier de Faublas by Jean Baptiste Louvet du Couvray. The opera (and presumably the novel) is a classic story of a nobleman rescuing his fiancee from a man who has kidnapped and wants to marry her. There isn’t much I could find on Mme Barthelemy-Hadot, except that she wrote melodramas in the early 19th century. Mme de Lafayette wrote La Princesse de Cleves, a highly realistic psychological novel, in the mid-1600s. She also wrote La Princesse de Monpensier, which was a prototype for the historical novel. There’s not much on Charlotte Bournon-Malarme, except that she was a writer in the late 1700s. Hugo is criticizing the chronological downturn of classic “romance” novels, how they’ve gone from realism and critique to dumbed-down adventure novels. It seems as though Mme Thenardier fills her time and her head with the latter.

Okay I’m not sure if I’m going to interpret the “Mégère parted company with Pamela” line right, because it might be a detail from a romance novel that I just can’t catch because I haven’t read romances from the 17th/18th century. However, I do know that Mégère was one of the Furies, the “jealous one,” and can be slang for a jealous or spiteful woman. The Pamela reference is a little bit harder, since there were two popular Pamela-based novels, but what I’m guessing at is that as Mme Thenardier aged and became less fierce and jealous all the time, she was just a woman who had been forced to marry a man 15 years older than her, who didn’t think much and was boring. I’m really not sure.

I can’t find much on Guillame Pigault-Lebrun, except that he was a fairly popular novelist during the Empire, whose quality flagged during the Restoration. He also apparently wrote some anti-Christian works, which seems to make sense for M Thenardier.

First of all, “the anarchy of baptismal names” is a fantastic band name.

So, from what I can figure out, pre-Revolution, a baby was named after a saint whose name was associated with the day of birth. For example, my birthday is April 14, so I would have been Ludivine. (I’m not sure what happens if someone’s birthday falls on a day with an opposite-gender saint associated with it. Did they just masculinize/feminize the name?) The French Revolution, as well as doing away with the old calendar, also did away with this tradition. People were now allowed to name their children (or themselves, if they did the paperwork) whatever they wanted. In 1803, this law was changed, and from what I can tell, you could either name your children the names of (Catholic) saints, or the names of people from classical/ancient history.

I’m not really sure how the Thenardiers got around this law, at least for Azelma. Epona is a Celtic goddess. Euphrasia was a saint from the 4th century. I have no idea what Azelma is. I suppose that’s the “anarchy” indicated. But maybe I’m missing something? Please someone correct me if I got stuff wrong.

Anyway, Hugo praises these changes as an aspect of equality. People aren’t restricted to the few names associated with their name day. They can branch out. Anyone can have the more “elegant” names associated with the classical/ancient history names, even workingmen. It’s also something that can’t be chiseled away like the Ns on buildings or removed like statues. People with those weird names from the decade they were allowed are living, breathing proof of the progress of the Revolution and force people around them to confront the fact that it happened, even if they’re back to celebrating the Restoration. Yet another minor but weirdly significant ripple of change.

#les miserables #les miserables meta #brickclub #lm 1.4.2 #les mis #les mis meta #maybe a little shorter than the last one?#maybe? but probably not

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oohh-honey-honey · 4 years

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All’s well that ends well- Chapter One: In which Eden has no plans, nor ever will

Summary: “Without a ruler,” Eden had once said, “The word turns to anarchy.” What he failed to mention, is what happens if the rulers are the cause.

Ao3

The story in which everyone dies, a revolution fails, and it all turns out okay.

Ships: Eventual roceit, background moxiety

Chapter warnings: Mentions of being eaten alive, mentions of murder, general fear of the king, falling off high structures, mention of shooting someone, anger at the main character, accidental misgendering, a character is picked up without consent but he’s alright with it

Word Count: 2076

@wingedsoulmatedreamer

They all die in the end- though we cant say if it was their true demise. Not by sword fights, hungry land whales, the unfortunate number of tall structures people seem to fall off of, or the tyrant king's guards. No, all in this story are united and destroyed by one factor alone, and nothing else; The idiocy of Eden Viper Anwir. This is, of course, how Eden survives it all.

Many scholars debate exactly when people began using bovine as a somewhat more polite synonym for stupid, though it's widely agreed that it was within the years of Eden Viper Anwir's life. Before that, they might have used dense, simple minded, dull, but it was when the shepherds son fell out his window that the population really began to relate those of small minds to cattle. Ironic, considering Eden did fall into a heard of cattle. Or, perhaps, where cattle had been. A truer statement would be he fell into a herd of cattle dropping. This was not recorded, though the way a passerby cackled and shouted, "Look at that idiot! Bovine and dumb, 'e must be!" was (It was one of the most reference accounts in determining the time frame of the word). To which they received a rather rude gesture from Eden. He stood, brushing off the manure and looking cruelly up to the window (that seemed to stare just as cruelly back) at which he had just fallen out of. Eden was acutely aware he could have used the door of his house, though that small thought was diminished as he remembered his father working at his desk, who would surely have seen him leaving had he not gone out the window.

Of course next time he might want a better way to get back in. Future-Eden would likely love to shoot Past-Eden for the trouble. Although guns did not exist yet, nor did Future-Eden. (Scholars often reported the invention of guns was in the 10th century in China, although it had actually been in the lost city of Atlantis roughly ten years prior. However, it was exactly then which the city sank and thus their invention was never brought to light.)

The bar was a hole-in-the wall place in every sense of the word, to the point that the only way to enter is was to quite literally climb through a hole in where the old food cellar had once been. It still would be a cellar, had the owners not been taken and murdered by the king. No one had taken the offer to buy it, so the building was covered and ignored until Patton Arrows had found it. Soon enough, it became a safe haven for anyone in need. The homeless, the cursed, fugitives of the crown. It was a nice spot, if you knew where to look. Not many did.

All the patrons glanced over warily as Eden entered. There was always a worry of the kings guard finding the bar. There was a collective sigh as they all returned to what they had been doing. Or, should I say, all but one. A person made of fire who stormed over, lighting at their feet as they faced Eden, "You bastard!" "Lovely to see you, too, Virgil," Eden dried off his coat, hanging it on the back of an unoccupied chair. He stepped over to the counter and jumped to the other side. Grabbing a bottle and leaving a few coins, he turned back to the fuming Virgil.

"You bovine, unbearable, bastard!" Perhaps a bit more than fuming, "Where were you the past four nights? We've been worried sick!"

"I see you've found a thesaurus," Eden took a sip from the bottle, savoring the bitter taste for a moment. The person across from him placed their head into their hands. There was no time to question it before arms were picking Eden up in a hug,

"Eden! We've missed you!" Patton's joyful voice boomed from behind. The hug squeezed him tighter than seemed altogether necessary, sending him into a coughing fit,

"Binder, Patton, let go" Eden sputtered out. He was quickly dropped by Patton, who stepped back meekly,

"Oop! Sorry, kiddo! Forgot about that little thing," He still smiled just as bright, helping Eden to his feet. Patton 'tsk'ed at the bottle Eden had been holding, swiping it away from him before he could grab it again. Eden hissed and grabbed for it to no avail. Patton towered over him, anyway.

Patton poured a glass for himself and Eden and got water for Virgil, who didn't drink despite spending the better part of their days in a bar. He sat back onto a stool. Eden's eyes flickered with curiosity,

"How do you both feel about murder?"

Virgil quirked an eyebrow, "As in, would we like to commit it or die from it?" they paused, "Yes to both, why?"

"No!" Patton grabbed Virgil reflexively, "If you die, I will, too."

"If?"

"Yes."

Eden coughed to bring back their attention, "I mean to kill the king,"

The group all stopped. Virgil and Patton glanced between each other. Eden's eyebrows twitched, curious to their hesitance.

"You don't think we should? He's been less a monarch and more a tyrant over this land for--"

"Yeah, yeah, save your lecture. I agree just... Do you have a plan?" Virgil questioned,"

"Well I--"

"Any means to get into the castle?"

"Maybe I-"

"Anyone else in on this?"

"That's exactly it!" Eden spoke through clenched teeth. "I need your help! Come on, Patton?"

The bartender stepped back, "Well, I- uh... Y'know, I think it's a good idea!" He curled into himself, "But I think it's just that: an idea."

The world froze for Eden. He glanced with ice in his veins to the two in front of him,

"You're kidding." There was no answer, which only helped to raise the goosebumps on his arms, "You have to be kidding! You can't- So, what, you plan to just-" Air thawed around him as Eden huffed and grabbed his jacket. He began to storm out, "Fine! If you want to live complacent with this life, be my guest!" If there was a door he would have slammed it.

A fair was going on. Something was always going on. A fair, a festival, a parade. It was a good distraction to the public, albeit an annoyance to those not as pleased with the sounds and lights. Eden found himself biting at ravens wings, leaning passive-aggressively against a withered tree,

"Do you plan to lean passive-aggressively against that tree, or socialize like a normal person?" A sultry voice asked beside him. Eden moved the hood of his cloak just enough to see a handsome stranger just at his left. He stared with amber eyes into Eden with a strange sort of purpose. The man seemed to be looking into him, opposed to the more common way of simply looking at a person. It unnerved him,

"Oh! How could I have been so foolish?" Eden faked a gasp, "Because of course I like to busy myself with the events of a normal person,"

The stranger offered a hand to shake but not a name,

"Well then, could you at least give me something to call you?"

Eden didn't shake it, "I like to keep it for myself, actually."

They laughed, "Oh, I just might like you, sir no-name,"

"But is that feeling mutual, Mr...?"

"Mx. Roman, actually,"

Eden smiled. Now the handsome stranger had a name, he turned ever so slightly to face them, "No last name?"

"I can hardly guarantee you a first," They grinned, clapping their hands together, "Now! You finally decided to look at me,"

Eden scoffed, "Trust me, Roman, I've seen you this whole time. With a face like that, you're hard to ignore."

Romans face reddened, hidden by the orange firelight, "Oh," they chuckled a bit, "You jest, of course."

Eden sighed, "If that's how you would like to take it, then sure."

"Do you ever say something without an aura of vague-ness, lies and dolls?"

(Scholars were long confused by this, before remembering the age-old fairytale of pies and dolls, popular in the 1360's.)

"That truly depends on who you ask,"

Roman sighed, "I'll assume a no."

Without much hesitation, Roman pulled Eden from the ground into his arms bridal-style (Although, scholars might say that style of carry was made much later. Humans, however, are well aware that style of carry has long existed prior to the dates given. Hence why scholars are often wrong.) much to the man's surprise. He jumped, hanging on to Roman's neck and squirming,

"Have anywhere to be, tonight?" they never let go.

"Yes, Of course I--"

Roman saw through the lie, "Like the man who decided socializing was too good for him has many plans." They hummed, all together too happy, "So unless the king has a bounty on you, I'm taking you to Thomas'."

He couldn't argue. The only place Eden would have to go is back home, and current-Eden regretfully remembered past-Eden deciding to leave the problem of getting inside up to him. He would shoot that guy, if he could. There was no choice but to let Roman do as they pleased.

No that he particularly disliked the idea.

As it turned out, "Thomas'" Was an animal sanctuary. That "take in creatures unfit for the wild and give them a home!" the brochure said in a far to happy tone.

"Thomas and I go way back- He was a castle guard when I was just a kid, y'know." Roman explained, "But later he decided to open this sanctuary."

Eden nodded, taking in the sight of the place. It wasn't in the worst of shape by any means, although it wasn't in the best, either. Eden traced his hand over the cracks in the plaster, grimacing at the dust that settle on the tips of his fingers, "Definitely seems to follow health codes,"

Roman laughed without humor, "Yeah, well, the king doesn't seem to think this place deserves funding," They held bitterness in their voice, beginning to lead Eden through, "Doesn't stop people from doing what they can to keep this place going. Gosh, don't know where they'd go. All the animals, I mean. The wolves and land whales and dragons and all--"

"Whales?" (Although it was never acknowledged by scholars, Eden's phobia of whales existed at age seven and well into adulthood. The scholars deemed this an unimportant, and this is why you do not trust scholars.)

Roman nodded, seemingly confused at the reaction. Eden, who suddenly decided he didn't particularly fancy being around such horrid creatures as land whales, pulled back. Roman looked oddly to him, stepping towards Eden. They held up his hands, "You won't even see them, fibber on the roof." Their voice assured, "And, trust me, you're going to want to come with me."

"Because you think I fancy being fed to the whales?" Eden hissed in response. He stepped back again. Roman sighed,

"Just trust me."

Ah, yeah, trust a person he just met and was abducted by. sounds great.

A door behind them opened. Someone stepped out, lighting up seeing the pair,

"Roman!" He grinned, "And who's this?"

There was a beat of silence. Roman probably expected Eden to introduce himself.

He didn't.

"A... friend! He's a friend of mine,"

"Oh!" There was a strained sort of hesitance in the mans voice, "Are you sure he... Oh, well I mean does he support...?"

He gestured vaguely. Roman nodded,

"I'm quite sure he does! And have I ever brought an untrustworthy friend before?"

"Seven times, Roman," The man deadpanned. His smile returned, opening his door wider and beckoning them both inside the room.

It was dark. No windows, the only source or light being a fair few candles set on a table. It was small. Seven people could fit, though only five stood there now, including Eden and Roman. The table held papers covered in illegible notes and scribbles and unsightly doodles at the corners. If you took more than a look at the place, it would bring a vague feeling of fear that Eden had long ago grown accustomed to.

He briefly wondered exactly what he was doing here with a crowd of strangers. The man seemed to read his mind. He stuck out a hand for Eden to shake,

"I'm Thomas Sanders!" He grinned,

"We're planning a revolution."

#deceit sanders #ts deceit #thomas sanders #virgil sanders #ts virgil #patton sanders #ts patton #roman sanders #ts roman #roceit #moxiety

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wolfhuntsmoon · 5 years

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Sarah Rogers pt 2: or, how baby!Steve imbibed a fuck-you attitude with his mother’s milk

Okay, so after looking at Sarah’s backstory, how she met Joseph and had Steve and decided to go to America, I couldn’t stop thinking about: what next? The MCU wiki is VERY thin on the ground with detail, and she’s so interesting! Plus, this is, like, one of the most criminally underdeveloped sources for Steve Rogers’ character, as I mentioned in pt 1. So, what can we reasonably source from the time to fill in the gaps?

So: I said in my previous post Sarah likely arrives in January/February of 1918. This is because in those days, travel times were long, conditions were VERY poor and you did not want to be heavily pregnant on a cheap ship to America with the conditions on board. Plus, in those days there was no guarantee a ship company would even sell you a ticket if you were visibly pregnant. It did happen, but was risky for the company, so you could never be sure. Sarah would have left asap once she made a decision.

The journey itself would have taken about 3-4 weeks. First she would have had to travel to London, because nothing would have been leaving to America from the French or Belgian coastline, as a) most of it was too close to the war and b) the bits that weren’t wouldn’t have been profitable. Travel to London from Passchendaele would have taken a few days to a week, given the mud and absolute priority troops and military materials were given on all journeys. This map here shows it took between 7-10 days to arrive in New York from London (by ship, no flights until the late 1920s/1930s) in 1914 before the outbreak of the war. I mentioned how at this point the German U-boats were basically sinking anything they found not flying a German flag, which made this journey pretty hazardous, even with the newly introduced (and very effective) protection of the convoy system. If Sarah was travelling on a fast convoy (less likely as they were primarily for troop ships) it would have taken about a week. Slower moving convoys carrying mostly cargo might have taken 2 weeks, even 2 and a half weeks if the weather was bad. Convoys, by the way, were where groups of ships were clustered together and escorted across the Atlantic by a combination of naval ships bristling with every explosive known to man, and navy ships disguised to look like harmless merchant cargo ships but ALSO bristling with every explosive known to man, to prevent U-boats sinking them. And also attack U-boats when they turned up. Not if. When. As you may be imagining, these journeys often contained lots of Things Going Boom and people Dying in Unpleasant Ways. Sarah would have been told by literally everyone she knew that this was a stupid, near-lethal decision, and that she should just NOT. But Sarah being Sarah, ignored this in the pursuit of what she felt was right and best for her and her baby... that doesn’t sound familiar at all, does it?

Okay, so she’s made it through the journey to the iconic Ellis Island. The next problem was that Immigration to the USA was incredibly curtailed by 1918, compared to the levels of immigration to the US prior to WWI beginning. In this, Sarah was lucky. Prior to WWI, on average between 1900-1914 about 1 million immigrants arrived into the US each year. In 1918, roughly 110,000 did - Sarah being one of them. I’ve said before that she would have had an easier time getting passage on a ship in the first place because she was comparatively better off on a nurse’s wage and was a middle class professional. More than that, most travel was reserved for the military - and Sarah likely had connections, being the wife of an American soldier, which made it easier for her to gain passage on a ship. (More on this later.)

Her status and profession is also very important for explaining how Sarah gained entry to the US, because by the end of WWI, the open door policy of the 19th and early 20th century had been solidly shut. The open-door policy had essentially allowed anyone who could pass a very basic medical and legal check free entry to reside in the USA, and the Ellis Island museum has a very good description of just how cursory these checks were - they were nicknamed the ‘six second physicals’. 98% of immigrants passed straight away, and a only a very small percentage of the remainder were put on a ship back to their country of origin. But by the outbreak of WWI, politicians and the public had become uneasy about this. Mostly due to racial concerns - Chinese immigration was the first to be restricted in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese immigrants were targeted in 1907 and all Asian immigrants in 1917. (I see a lot of posts on tumblr talking about how immigration restrictions in the US began by denying Jewish refugees entry in the 1930s, which... is wrong. So, so wrong. But anyway.) Here is a contemporary cartoon showing a pretty good summary of attitudes to immigration by the time Sarah would have been travelling:

(The 3% refers to immigration restrictions put in place by Congress AFTER the war, btw.)

But the US wasn’t just worried about one continent’s people! Or even ‘just’ non-whites! Oh no... they were also VERY worried about the ‘wrong sort’ of white immigrant too. Namely, anyone from southern and eastern Europe, and the Irish.

The discrimination against the Irish is an interesting one, because on the face of it, the Irish were the kind of immigrants the US wanted - north and western Europeans. But here’s where eugenics and pseudoscience come along and fuck things up for a lot of people. Part of the reason why the US was suspicious of southern and eastern Europeans was political - that they harboured a tendency towards violent revolutions, communism and anarchy. The Irish, after the violence of the 1916 Easter Rising and the fact that a not-insignificant number of violent revolutionaries tried to facilitate a German invasion of Ireland (and then unionists ran guns during the war through Kriegsmarine U-boat dropoffs on the Irish coast in... defence???? Idk either.), came to be included in this politically radical group. That’s the first strike.

The second strike came from the fact Irish had the British working against them. In those days, British media and culture really set the tone for the rest of the world. Remember, the US was not a world superpower yet - this is when Britain is at the height of its power, ruling 20% of the world’s people and 25% of its land surface by 1924. Britannia really did rule the waves, and much of the world’s culture, at this point. Hollywood, and American ‘soft power’ had yet to develop into the behemoth it is now. British culture persistently depicted the Irish as subhuman, ape-like, feckless, uncivilised and dangerous, as you can clearly see here:

The top one is from 1866, and the second one from 1849. Both were cartoons published in Punch Magazine, which was the pre-eminent social and political publication that EVERYONE read in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It also played a huge role in shaping social attitudes, and you can see more of its, and others, views on the Irish in these excellent galleries. The rest of the British media was the same - almost universally negative views of the Irish, which filtered across the Atlantic over time. And seemed to be vindicated by events like the 1916 Easter Rising, and before that a long running number of secret societies the British kept discovering, plotting revolution against their rule. The whole ‘kiss me I’m Irish’, dying the Hudson green on St Patrick’s day, ‘omg I love an Irish accent’ thing? Didn’t happen until the latter half, or really the last quarter, of the twentieth century. The Irish were pretty much persona non grata when Sarah was alive. Part of the explanation for this came from the idea that the Irish were a part of a lesser race, their Celtic origins leading to a lack of judgement, predisposition to alcoholism and hotheadedness, and passionate outbursts which meant you needed to treat them more like children. Conveniently enough for the British, this explanation meant you didn’t need to treat your subjects like equals, deserving of the vote, or indeed with anything except violence and condescension. Ha. Funny that.

But anyway, back to America.

Third strike: the Irish were Catholic, as Sarah would have been. Only the very richest in society were Protestant, because they were descended from British settlers. Both the British and the US governments of the time viewed Catholicism with deep suspicion, partly for historical reasons (Martin Luther, 1517 and all that jazz) but ALSO because the Catholic Church remained a vastly powerful institution which could and did command the loyalties of people more than the national government, and this represented a dangerous fifth column within the nation state. Most of north and western Europe was Protestant, unlike the south and east which was predominantly Catholic (with the exception of France. But hey, they’re the French. No big.) so the Irish being 99% Catholic was yet another reason they got lumped in with the other ‘undesireables’.

Not a small part of this was caused by the fact that the Irish had been immigrating to America in vast numbers ever since the Great Famine (aka the Potato Famine/Blight) to the tune of and average of c450,000 Irish per decade between 1850-1900. That is... a LOT. Like, New York’s population in 1890 had only just hit 2.5 million! Ireland’s population TODAY is 5 million! So by the end of WWI, there was already a sense that Too Many Irish were here, particularly since the Irish tended, like most immigrant communities, to move into certain areas in large numbers via family groups and connections. Sarah would have been no exception to this, which I’ll explore more in pt 3 later. It was a very common practice in this period for a man to go to America and work, then bring his family and extended family over. Or for young relations to go and live with family already in America if there was no work in Ireland - which there wasn’t, the Irish economy being subsistence agriculture and not a lot else.

All of this together means that when Sarah arrives in Jan/Feb of 1918? She’d get a pretty rough welcome at Ellis Island (still used for incoming immigrants until new legislation establishing a visa system in 1924 went through and basically made it redundant.) and beyond.

Below is a pic of an Ellis Island arrival card, just because it’s cool:

These tightened restrictions resulted in not just health checks, but intelligence tests and ‘mental fitness’ tests, which if failed, could result in the immigrant being sent back to their country of origin. However, Sarah would have made it through okay, because she had good English, her profession and likely her marriage cert and references from Joseph Rogers’ commanding officer to speed her passage. She may even have had family connections already in New York or America, but for the reasons outlined in my previous post, probably wasn’t in contact with them. Or if she did contact them, was likely to be ignored and ostracised. Because patriarchy, yay.

But ironically? Getting into America was the easy part. I know, I know, unbelievable, especially when you consider she was PREGNANT during this. I mean, can you imagine enduring morning sickness and all the other joys of pregnancy on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic in WINTER, in danger of sinking from a U-Boat torpedo at any moment? Can you? Can you??? Sarah Rogers came up against an immense set of obstacles just to get into America and just fucking ploughed through them like they were tissue paper. Which explains a LOT about Steve Rogers, that’s for sure.

Join me next time for pt 3, where I explore Sarah’s living and working situation after she arrives and we all learn to be even more in awe of how fucking metal she was.

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burnededens · 4 years

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( avan jogia, trans male, he/him, assassin’s creed: syndicate ) * &. i know it must be scary for you, jacob frye, after not surviving the takeover. to turn into someone like jacob "jake” fowles, a twenty-five year-old bartender at dragon’s breath brewery & fighter at the ring, right here in castle town. just remember that you are as charming as you are reckless, and to be wary, be safe, be true to who you are : neutral through and through. ( hylia gets assassin’s creed on main )

SO FUN FACT - I have been wanting to write this character in this group for months and it is absolutely a crime that it took me this long to pick him up but here we FINALLY are ! I’m genuinely shocked he’s the first Assassin’s Creed character here because I personally think all of the characters are phenomenal and it was either gonna be this character or the protagonist from two games before ( Edward Kenway of Black Flag ) but I have a slightly greater preference towards Jacob so !! Behold the living embodiment of chaotic good !! Obvious tws for death , violence , and murder under the cut because this is a series about assassins , but also gang stuff ( and a very small bullying mention in the post-snap portion ) too. I hope this is easy to understand !!

BEFORE THE SNAP / J A C O B F R Y E .

S’OKAY again I will always try and explain the games’ history and Syndicate’s specific plotline in the simplest of ways - and especially because AC can get very confusing very fast. Thankfully Syndicate is one of the more straightforward entries , but before I get into that , I have to give a basic rundown of the lore since... it will not make sense if you haven’t played any of the games.

A long long long time ago , there were these people called the Isu , and the Isu crafted something that the AC franchise refers to as Pieces of Eden. The Pieces of Eden ultimately has access to control other living beings , and they were extremely powerful.

Flash forward a little bit where you have two forces - the Knights’ Templar and the Assassin Order/Brotherhood - that struggled for these Pieces of Eden for two very different reasons.

The Templars valued order and wanted to use them to control others to achieve a utopia - believing that human corruption & essentially free will were what caused most evils of the world.

The Assassins valued freedom & wanted to preserve the free will of the world , believing that control would do them no good and a mutual understanding under this freedom would be what created a utopia.

So basically , Templars wanted peace via control and Assassins wanted peace via freedom.

Templars wanted the Pieces of Eden to control , and the Assassins knew this was Not Good and often sought to keep the Pieces the fuck away from the Templars ( at least , that’s always how I saw it. )

Of course , because we’re now on like ten main games and seventeen spin-off games it’s OBVIOUSLY way more complicated than that , just that’s the most nutshell way to explain everything. That being said , let’s jump more into Jacob & Syndicate.

SO JACOB. Jacob is one of the two protagonists of Syndicate , the younger twin to the other protagonist , his sister Evie. They were born in Crawley , raised by their Assassin father , but while Evie was always more . . . into the Brotherhood and assassin ideals , Jacob always was more of a rebel & a free spirit. But nevertheless , he grew up an Assassin like she.

Flash forward years later where the main plot of Syndicate starts , during the Industrial Revolution in 1868 , where the twins are set on heading to London , which is pretty much entirely under control of the Templars ( namely Crawford Starrick and his network ) & their syndicates ( ha ha hA ).

This . . . is sort of where Jacob & Evie separate in terms of goals - Evie’s well-aware of the Pieces of Eden and aims to collect them before the Templars do. However , Jacob’s more so intent on taking down Templars & liberating London from their control. He goes as far as to even starting a gang with his sister - known as the Rooks - to combat the Templar-controlled gang that has London’s boroughs in its grasp known as the Blighters.

Evie’s basically like “okay we’re going to collect the Pieces of Eden so the templars don’t have them bc Starrick will be more powerful if he has them” but Jacob says to her “fUCK YOU I’M A MAN WHO’S GONNA FREE THE PEOPLE” and. Yeah.

Throughout the game , Jacob’s the twin that exhibits a more impulsive , reckless , yet well-meaning approach to problems - and that sorta kinda . . . means that when he solves problems , he also accidentally makes other problems , and his sister has to clean them up because hey , you killed this Templar leader and angered a bunch of Blighters and we are fucked and Jacob can’t really. Grasp that because he’s too focused on freeing London NOW and taking out Templars NOW and [ Sleeping With Sirens vc ] do it NOW and remember deal with it LATER.

There’s a few cases where Jacob has even so ( both unintentionally and intentionally ) teamed up with Templars because he thought they could help him accomplish his goals in taking London back from them.

He teamed up with Pearl Attaway ( a businesswoman who controlled most of London’s transport and wanted basically a monopoly ) and didn’t find out until later that she was a Templar and had to assassinate her since she was the exact type of controller he wanted to rid London of

But also he struck a deal with Maxwell Roth ( basically a Blighter gang leader who had a shitton of power ) to work with him - but Maxwell saw this as let’s cause as much chaos as possible and fuck the consequences where Jacob saw it as more let’s fix problems by any means necessary and he had to shut down the deal when he saw Roth really just . . . didn’t give a fuck about anyone , including innocents. Jacob’s whole goal was to free and protect the innocents , he just didn’t care how as long as nobody got hurt.

AND THAT’S HONESTLY WHAT I LOVE SM ABOUT JACOB LIKE ... Jacob. Is the epitome of chaotic good like he cares so much about people and protecting the innocents & saving them from control that yeah he doesn’t really . . . consider the consequences of his actions especially when his actions are so chaotic but his primary goal is to free the people of London by taking down Templars and he doesn’t give a fuck how he’s going to do it , he just operates on his code of making sure none of the good people get hurt and the bad guys go down.

Eventually in the game he did come to realize the errors in his own work and way of thinking - he didn’t think much of the consequences , and therefore caused more of a wreckage than he aimed for. He loved the idea of freedom , but drew the line at absolute careless anarchy like Roth.

Basically be a REBEL not an ASSHOLE.

I love this kid tho like he’s so witty and rebellious and chaotic but also good-hearted and will still help even tho he might complain a lot about it ( looks at Abberline and Darwin ) and he !! He honestly acts before he thinks but I find those characters so refreshing esp bc he’s very emotional and adamant about acting on how he feels and his ideals and it’s honestly so. Idk I really like that about him.

He’s also canonically bisexual and that is something I will never shut up about but if you fucking even tHINK ABOUT ROMANTICIZING ROTH & JACOB’S RELATIONSHIP ( like it’s p much confirmed Roth had a thing 4 Jacob but it’s not. That’s not a Good Thing ) I will personally throw some hands with you.

...Jacob and Ned however-

SPARE NED?? SPARE NED MA’AM???

But honestly anyway TLDR; Jacob is a Victorian chaos-bringer who doesn’t really think much about the shit he does but has a heart of gold he’s just. He’s A Lot. He’s a lil bitch but a good kind of lil bitch.

ALSO ALSO ALSO I AM,,,, not exactly entirely sure where I’m pulling Jacob yet like I could pull him from the end of Syndicate’s main story but also there’s the Jack the Ripper DLC which makes me... feel things, but Jacob’s also significantly older than and a good bit of that DLC’s a bit triggering - long story short, we love and will protect Jacob Frye with our entire lives.

AFTER THE SNAP / J A K E F O W L E S .

So PERSONALITY WISE - Jake isn’t much different from his past self ; the only thing is he never grew up with his twin sister , raised an only child , and because Jacob & Evie are meant to balance each other out , he essentially grew up without an entire part of him he isn’t even aware of.

He was adopted - adopted by a working-class family from London that moved to Castle Town , and that was where Jake was raised.

Now , he was always a bit of a rebel. Always a problem child from the start. There were hundreds and hundreds of cases where he was reported either talking back to teachers , misbehaving in class , sometimes even getting into fights with other kids whether it be they were picking on him or someone else.

And he always liked the thrill of being that rebel - being that miscreant that earned a reputation ; never a mean person , never a bad dude , just somebody who . . . acted out. Acted out for whatever reason - mainly because he never liked the idea of obeying or because he taught the rules were stupid or because the rules meant some people were gonna get inconvenienced. Like , if you see someone getting bullied , why just tell an adult where you can solve the problem right then and there and sock the bully in the jaw ??

That was it. That was Jake’s philosophy.

His parents sent him to multiple hobby & art & educational camps & stuff to try and see if he could find some sort of hobby that would sorta get him out of this ‘problem child’ thing - but it never really worked. He always either got sent home earlier or was asked to never come back because hey , you can’t start a rebellion in the boys’ cabin because you didn’t like the way one of the counselors instructed you about knot tying.

Never worked out , his parents thought he was smart and would make a brilliant lawyer or doctor or something - but nope , he graduated high school , attempted college but dropped out after two years , and when his parents kicked him out , he crashed with a few friends and made a living on odd jobs before he scored working as a bartender at Dragon’s Breath.

And also . . . both fighting at The Ring and also underground matches for some coin.

Yeah.

It’s sorta-kinda through this he ALSO became aware of the other people who had to resort to means like this to survive - eventually starting his own gang of people who operated on sorta-kinda Robin Hood like terms - protect the less fortunate , combat the gangs who caused way more problems than he’d like , and also to basically uhhh flip the bird to the rich.

You guessed it - they’re called The Rooks and they’re not really . . . big , they’re just kind of. There. And nobody knows Jake’s the leader but it’s not like he’s really pressed if anyone finds out.

It’s overall not entirely different from his pre-CT life other than obvious modern differences and LACK OF EVIE sooo. Yeah !!

I’ll hopefully work on a WC page for him soon but as of rn I just kinda want to get some threads going - hope y’all enjoy my dumbass kid xoxoooo

#castletown.intro #death tw #violence tw #murder tw #gang tw #bullying mention #abt tag tbd #took me long enough 2 pick him up my god #also maxwell roth has no rights.

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calleo-bricriu · 4 years

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okay! so pick out something like 10 or 15 songs, start them, then just see what your weird looking deck of cards wants to talk about.

I need to stop hearing people out when they tell me to hear them out.

Fine.

Here’s your list:

Indila - Dernière Danse

Bad Religion - Infected

Sisters of Mercy - Driven Like the Snow

Live - Selling The Drama

The Damned - In Dulce Decorum

The Runaways - Cherry Bomb

Roger Alan Wade - If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough

Dan Baird - I Love You Period

The Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The U.K

Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Joan Baez ~ Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts ~

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (Live In London)

Gene Austin - Did You Ever See A Dream Walking

Billy Williams - When Father Papered The Parlour 1912

Marlene Dietrich - Sag mir, wo die Blumen sind

All right then, let’s see what we’re talking about.

Oh, good. We're talking about Mum; mine, if that wasn't clear.

Now we get some confirmation that we're going to gossip about Mum. In this case, it's just a reiteration that she's a successful, accomplished, perfectly content Witch who is satisfied with how her life and family are.

And it seems she's feeling censored, under some kind of restriction, and in a situation that's making her feel powerless despite the fact that she could just walk away from whatever it is at any point but likely won't as it may be seen as an admission of guilt or result in punishment of some kind.

The Hanged Man reinforces that and also injects uncertainty into the mix and indicates that whatever she's trying to control she really ought to just let be, take a step back, and take a more detached look at whatever it is to find the course of action necessary, which may be as easy as letting go of old beliefs that no longer serve.

None of that--particularly surprises me.

On the upside, she may be looking at retirement to follow the sort of work and research she wants to do rather than what the Committee wants to focus on.

That seems to be a light, dim as it might be, between a lot of feeling trapped and powerless but, the Devil card also is a strong indicator that all of those things are illusions created by others and coming to that realisation will take that power from whatever or whoever is causing it.

And that may very well be the case as another bit of light, as it were, comes in with the Knight of Wands. That card both describes a lot of her personality traits as well as a lot of Dad's so it's possible he'll be an influential factor in getting her to break away from whatever it is that's got her feeling as though she's trapped in a situation she doesn't want to be in. She's definitely the adventurous, fearless, kind of temperamental, rebellious sort--I don't like that variants of "revolutionary" keep coming up with this card because nobody has the time or energy for that.

Well, I don't, at any rate, but maybe she does.

Dad fits the aspects of the Knight of Wands that deal with being open minded, warm, completely shameless, seeing things through, risk taking, and confident.

Not surprising I am the way I am given that.

Anyway...

Yeah, so, whatever's going on, she's going to do what she always does: Put it in a stranglehold and choke the life out of it, especially if whatever's going on takes a swing at anyone she considers family because this card very strongly points out the protective, forceful, downright relentless and vicious defence of her territory. In Mum's case that almost always means her immediate family.

On its own, the ten of wands would be a negative sort of thing, indicating taking on too much and being overwhelmed.

With everything else, it looks more like she's going to take all ten of those 'wands' (which, in this deck, are essentially spiked clubs, and in more traditional decks, still look like ranged weapons) and reduce whatever or whoever she's determined is a threat to those she considers family to an unrecognisable bloody mess of mangled bone or just ash.

Let's see if it'll give an indication as to who she's going to turn into a Dragon Mum over.

A stubborn, conservative, greedy, possessive, controlling, toxic Earth sign or, at least, people who are taking orders from someone like that.

Good luck to whoever those people are, because they're going to need it.

But, she's also not going to get to that point so long as whoever that person or those people are leave the small circle she considers immediate family alone.

#divination #hp rp #tarot #long post #muggle music

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thewriterschair-blog · 5 years

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Little More About Me!

I haven't really introduced myself, while I have given some information about me, I figured I could be more...precise? In a way- excuse any improper punctuation, grammar, etc...

Anyways...hi! Hello, my name's Teddy, but you can call me Ted, or anything else you'd like as long as it's nothing inappropriate or anything that makes me uncomfortable. I'm a 14-y/o female (she.her pronouns, please!), and a freshman in highschool, soon to be a sophomore.

I have a very "loud" sense of humor (as I like to say) that ranges from dry, to dark, to average, either based on the mood I'm in or whether we're close or not.

However, I am friendly, so please don't be afraid to approach me! While I can be shy when it comes to meeting new people, I LOVE to make friends anywhere if possible. So if you ever want to chat, feel free to message me!

I am very much so a Potterhead- Slytherin? Gryffindor? Ravenclaw? I don't know which house I belong in...oops. I'm also a geek when it comes to Marvel, DC, Supernatural, Hamilton (The Musical), Sherlock, The Umbrella Academy, and so much more that I know I'll remember later on.

While I love to write short or long stories, I also love to role-play. It helps to inspire me when it comes to writing my own creations, and plus, writing with other people is fun! So if anyone wants to write with me, send me a message. 💓

When it comes to genres, I'm a definite lover for romance (haha), mystery, fantasy, thriller/horror, and drama. I really don't mind every genre, however. They're all great!

Some stories I'm working on right as of now, or plan on writing in the near future (some don't have official descriptions/summaries so I apologize for that, instead I'll briefly explain what it's all about in my own words):

City Blood: Set back in 2012, the time where people thought the world was going to end. In this book, the rumors are true. Hazardous waste has caused millions of deaths, and it's up to a group of strangers to keep themselves and others alive during this apocalypse.

Heaven(Sent): They were just normal teenage boys living their lives in the modern world, until God himself grants them the responsibilities of guardian angels, each assigned to a different person. When something goes wrong and God grows silent, it is up to them to find out what has happened.

The Other Side: Rebekah Patterson. Born in 1768 during the American Revolution. During those tough times, it’s up to her to keep hidden from British Troops, who wouldn’t hesitate to capture and kill her on sight. As the years pass by, Rebekah realizes that the war was already won. Who won? The British Troops. Rebekah is then found and sold to a family to work for them as a Maid. It’s now up to Rebekah to escape and help end the anarchy with her own rebellion.

Prey: Everyone knows the tale about the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But what happens when the Lion is a bloodthirsty killer who will stop at nothing to take down those who try to set things right?

The Statue's Guide To (The) Living: Former janitor Dorothea Ferrell of Capitol Building works overnight to get the job done. However, one night, as she’s working, she notices something odd about the statues...how lifelike they can be. Their eyes following her figure, strange voices being heard. It’s up until where Dorothea finds out that the statues have no idea whatsoever as to how they’re alive or what they’re doing. Now, it’s up to her to find out the mystery behind the statues.

I'm hoping to get advice and learn much more than I already know throughout this community...and I'm so excited! Thanks to those few who welcomed me, by the way. It meant a lot. 💓

#about me #writeblr #new writeblr #writeblr community #txt.post #op #ic #text post

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otnesse · 5 years

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Analysis on MGS4's ending

Hi. As I alluded to in earlier posts, I mentioned that MGS4's ending really wasn't particularly good or well-written. I've said a few times that sad endings are really overrated regarding realism. Well, I can tell you that MGS4's ending alongside The Matrix Revolution's ending, was so unrealistic that even Disney-style happy endings are a LOT more realistic than them. Might as well cover exactly what the problems with the ending were.

1. Liquid Ocelot's plan and rate of success

The first part of the problem deals largely with the reveal of Liquid Ocelot's true plan, after manipulating Snake into carrying it out for him. See, after Snake shuts down GW (and, inadvertently, the whole AI network), Liquid Ocelot reveals when Snake asked why he didn't stop him that shutting down the AI network was in fact what he planned all along (he had earlier led everyone to believe that he sought to just usurp command via GW, how that would work I don't know since it's technically locked out of the system, so even IF Liquid did indeed try to shoot out JD, he'd still have to contend with AL, TJ, and TR before he can come close to taking over the network). Then he basically gives the history lecture about the Patriots and Outer Heaven's little war between each other before basically gloating about how the world is now "Free from FOXDIE... Free from the System... Free from ID control. Our minds free from their prisons. That is the haven [Liquid Ocelot had] yearned for", and then after a fight basically infers that now with the AIs gone, people will just shoot each other for fun like in the Wild West with full-on anarchy, the complete absence of law and order. Otacon after Liquid Ocelot's death then basically reveals that such didn't come to pass because Sunny "kept the brain stem intact" when writing the code for FOXALIVE, and gives a list of all the elements of society that were preserved to prevent a holocaust that Liquid Ocelot envisioned to free the world from The Patriots.

Here's the problem, though: The stuff Otacon listed as being the vitals of society either wouldn't have been controlled into existence by the Patriots at all (or, heck, even their predecessor organization the Philosophers), or even if they did actually control them, their dismantling would have at worst been a minor inconvenience and not an apocalyptic scenario like the rest of the cast indicated. Here's the list as described by Otacon in the ending:

Otacon: She [Sunny] analyzed Naomi's black box and separated the Patriots' control system from the vital lifelines of society. Water... Air... Electricity... Food... Medicine, communication, transportation...

Let me start by covering each of them and how they would not have even remotely in danger of dying out thanks to the Patriots going away:

A. Water

Water has existed since well before even the Philosophers were founded, let alone the Patriots, so it shouldn't even need to be stated that the Patriots' destruction wouldn't impact water at all (and that's not even getting into rain-clouds). Even if we are to take that to mean water purification for drinking, that's existed since the late 18th century, not to mention made accessible to the public in a practical manner since 1910. There's definitely no way the Patriots would have negatively impacted water unless the Earth was so polluted that water itself was poison, that and maybe a weather-altering device (I guess that might explain why MGSV oddly had Diamond Dogs possessing weather altering technology). On that note, that also would prove to be a problem for citing electricity, which I'll get to in a moment.

B. Air

Like with water, air itself has existed since long before even the Philosophers, let alone the Patriots, were created, as breathable oxygen and also the weather, so their destruction would not have negatively impacted it. I'd expect something like that from Mega Man Zero, where that at least had Harupia being capable of altering the weather as well as his weather station. Probably the only way that would fly is if the Earth had inhospitable weather beforehand (think Fichina before the weather control center was installed in Star Fox Assult).

C. Electricity

One of the first methods of getting electricity involved water mills, and that's not even getting into the Incadescent Lamp (aka, the Light Bulb) that Thomas Edison invented, all of which pre-dated even the Philosophers, let alone the Patriots. And let's not get into Ben Franklin's invention of the electric rod. It's pretty obvious that the Patriots destruction would not destroy that from modern society. And even IF that was meant to imply the Patriots were only able to generate electricity a'la Dr. Weil's having control over all the energy, that only would act as a minor inconvenience, not an apocalyptic scenario. I live in the Branches of Dunwoody, which is rather infamous for being the last place to have restored power in the event of a blackout. No one ends up deciding to just loot and pillage their neighbors via mob rule whenever there was a blackout that occurs. Probably the only time something like that occurred might have been the 1977 blackout, and even THAT had other factors that were being ignored such as the mayor just letting everyone cut loose and not even bothering with enforcing the law.

D. Food

You're kidding right? Food has practically EXISTED since life first existed, which was well before the Patriots or, heck, even the Philosophers were formed. Food was hunted and even grown since time immemoriam, and there were even things known as harvests. The Patriots being destroyed obviously wouldn't hamper food. Not to mention the Food & Drug Administration was formed in 1906, well before the Philosophers were formed, so even doing preventative measures on bad food would not have been severely impacted. At worst, they might do slightly outdated aspects. Even in Weimar Germany during the 1930s, that was more the cause of a loss of money thanks to the Great Depression than an actual lack of food, not to mention in the USSR, that was due to the higher ups adhering to "to each according to his needs, to each according to his will" in a very self-serving manner despite the PR.

E. Medicine

Sure, several cures to diseases that were discovered between, say, 1921 up to 2014 probably would have been hampered if the Patriots were destroyed, but any cures to diseases made prior to that time would have very minimal effect, if any, by the Patriots shutdown. And even there, it would be a minor inconvenience at most, as humanity has managed to survive without modern medicines in the past, and find a way around it.

F. Communication

Probably the only thing I can think of that MIGHT actually be shut down are wireless phones and the internet, which were made by, if not the Patriots, then at a bare minimum the Philosophers. And even THAT would overall be a minor inconvenience at worst. Humanity has communicated by talking face to face, not to mention writing letters, and even the telephone was created during the 19th century by Alexander Graham Bell, so that wouldn't have been impacted much (in fact, I and my family often use dialup as an emergency for a power outage if it knocks out Cell phone usage). So no, communication would not be harmed by the Patriots fall, certainly not to the degree of it being an apocalyptic scenario in any case. Also, combining this with transportation, one of the earliest mail carrier delivery services was the Pony Express, back in the 19th century.

G. Transportation

Other than maybe automobiles or aerial craft, transportation would not be negatively impacted by the Patriots' shutdown. People have used roads since WELL before the Philosophers existed, let alone the Patriots. Not to mention they've used horse buggies and other means of transportation. And since the Ironclad and steamships existed in the 19th century, even the more modern warships wouldn't be negatively impacted. And even regarding cars or airplanes, that would be a minor inconvenience at worst, at least by comparison. Now, that being said, I can sort of understand how that might be bad due to Icepocalypse 2014, but even that didn't result in Armageddon or all of Dunwoody dying (I think there was only one fatality reported from that event).

Overall, the Patriots' total shutdown would not have been even remotely apocalyptic despite what the cast claimed. As such, because of that, Liquid Ocelot's plan, when you get right down to it wouldn't work at all even WITHOUT Sunny's rendition of FOXALIVE preserving everything. It has as much of a chance of happening in reality as revolutions popping up like leprachauns all over the world via what Karl Marx advocated [newsflash guys: other than the USSR, the only other revolutions that occurred were in Germany and Prussia, and even those were put down fairly easily]. It's almost as if Hideo Kojima thought society without the Patriots would have been like what that TV series Revolution depicted.

2. The outcome of Sunny's modifications

So, essentially, thanks to Sunny's modifications, it was supposed to end the Patriots, and avoid Outer Heaven being formed from the dust, leave people "free to choose." There's a small problem with that, however: The people who had those aspects probably would just choose one or the other anyway, and if anything actually makes a neo-Patriots that's arguably even WORSE than the original and/or an Outer Heaven war-torn world all the MORE likely, which could even be seen with Drebin 893's drunken rant to Otacon below:

Drebin : Yeah, well, it ain't all sunshine and rainbows. Lotta folks lost their entire sense of being the moment SOP went offline. Otacon : You mean SOPS? I heard some people are going through withdrawals... SOP Syndrome. Drebin : Yup. SOP kept more than just alcohol under control. Those poor slobs are virtually naked now. Otacon : From what I hear, over 10 percent are showing symptoms. I guess getting rid of the Patriots won't solve all our problems overnight. Drebin : You probably already suspected this, but... I'm not actually an employee of AT Security. Otacon : Huh? Drebin : The Patriots raised me to be a gun launderer. Otacon : The Patriots? Drebin : My earliest memories are of the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army)... They kidnapped me... Forced me to fight. Yup. You're staring at a former child soldier. My parents, brothers and sisters... All killed in the war. Guess that makes me what you'd call a war orphan. After that, the Patriots picked me up and brought me into the family business. I was Drebin 893. There's a whole lotta pawns like me all over the world. How you suppose I laundered guns like I did? 'Cause they let me. In fact... I was under strict orders to back you guys from the start. Otacon : You what? Drebin : Hey man, don't take it personal. I wasn't the only one under their orders. Otacon : Huh? Meryl and...? Drebin : They probably never realized it themselves, but... Rat Patrol Team 01.... Voila! Otacon : Patriot! Drebin : Played like a violin. Otacon : But... Why? Drebin : Obviously, Liquid's plot was a threat to the Patriots. So they planned to have you guys take care of it. Otacon : Didn't turn out quite how they planned, though, did it? Drebin : Yeah, well... I don't think they expected you to crash their System and wipe them out. Otacon : So does that mean you're out of a job now? Drebin : Are you kiddin'? I got the DREBINS. All the Drebins in the world are in on it. From now on, we're in business for ourselves. We are pawns no more. Otacon : Easy there. Drebin : The White House might've lost its taste for unilateralism... Started to rebuild. But there's a lot of failed states out there that went bankrupt from their PMC habits... And they owe a shit load of money. Now only question is... Who's gonna pick up the tab? I'm sure these new governments will try and keep it under control with PMC corporate reform laws... But it ain't gonna be good enough. They're all sunk up to their eyeballs in the war economy. Might not be a New World Order... But the old order under the war economy's gone for good. I'm guessin' the UN is gonna be more important than ever, what with multilateralism and all. A certain President said it best back during the Cold War... For in the development of this organization rests the only true alternative to war. Then again, the UN itself's just an old 20th-century relic. And if you think about it... When you look at its history... It ain't that different from the Patriots. Otacon : That's right... The nanomachines used to keep you sober. Drebin : Crush. Mix. Burn. Repeat.

Based on what Drebin was talking here, there are only two possible outcomes for Sunny's FOXALIVE, neither of which are actually good, in the long run or the short run. On the one hand, you've probably got a booming business for weapons dealers (since the DREBINS, as Drebin 893 pointed out, is a gun laundering group/arms dealer group, and not the legal kind either), which likewise implies that the world is even MORE likely to be at war with each other than before, probably far beyond what even Liquid Ocelot himself envisioned. The other scenario involves the entire world being more broke than Weimar Germany and the United Nations taking over the Patriots role as the NWO organization, arguably being even WORSE than before, meaning the cycle isn't just going to continue, but arguably get even worse, thanks to Sunny, Snake, and Otacon. Put that way, this isn't a bittersweet ending which would indicate at least some positives to the whole thing, it's an outright downer ending with NO ONE winning out, not even Raiden, who has a bone thrown to him for once by letting him actually reunite with his family at long last (in fact, it's about as much of a downer ending as The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson, also The Matrix Revolutions). Actually, if that were the option, letting the Patriots continue to exist and/or having Outer Heaven take over would have been far more preferable options. At least Outer Heaven has a military hierarchy that respects soldiers (and thus really can't qualify as anarchistic since anarchy doesn't allow for any hierarchy, structure, stability, or law and order, viewing such as "oppressive"), and even the Patriots at least attempt to adhere to law and order. Seems like Hideo Kojima just failed to think things through.

Anyways, that's pretty much my two cents on this. There may be more I might think up of later, but for now that covers everything.

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redcurrents · 5 years

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Social Anarchism, Individualism and Lifestyle Politics

This is a talk I gave around 2016. As such the writing style is the same as speaking rather than aiming to sound academic. Since this talk was given if I have any reflection I think I was far too fair on individualist and lifestyle politics. But that reflected my attempts to engage the broader ‘anarchist movement’ in Australia at the time, which I now think was basically a waste of time. I should have argued more directly for a platformist/especifist & syndicalist forms of organisation.

Lets start here;

It’s the symbol associated with anarchism... We see it everywhere from actual anarchist propaganda, to graffiti, to printed on t-shirts at kmart. Most here probably know this, but it’s not an A in a circle, it’s actually an A in an O. It means, 'Anarchy is Order', which is one of those wonderful juxtaposing quotes Proudhon used. What he meant is that anarchism will be a highly sophisticated, highly organised and well developed social order. A social order based on the maximum of human freedom, federalism, socialism, equality and development.

Proudhon was the first person to ever use the label anarchist, back in the 1800's France. It’s with him that the confusion between social and individualist anarchism immediately starts. See, he was certainly a type of socialist, he was totally against the exploitation of labour, and he developed an economic system called mutualism based on free contracts between producers, meaning both collectives of workers and small craftsmen would have equal freedom in the economy. This is a bit divorced from the anarchist communism that has become the main tendency since then, but it certainly laid many of foundations. He was anti-state and anti-authority, though sadly he never extended this to women. His ideas on economics and social reconstruction were so popular its said some people in the Paris Commune had little copies of 'What is Property' they used to carry around in their pocket (don’t quote me on this actually happening!), and his economic theories some influence on even Marx. Some people like to argue that he was more of a precursor to anarchism, theres some truth in this – in that his politics where not totally coherent or developed to what is specifically anarchism today. But he did, and was the first, to use the label.

Before him we had William Godwin and Max Stirner, both libertarians certainly, both anti-state, but neither used the term anarchist, and this is important, because alot of individualists certainly like to base their ideas on Stirner. I'm not going to talk about Godwin, but i'd like to point out that Stirner really was more like an early existentialist, his radical 'freedom' was entirely about the ego and the mind, and was anti-everything. There wasn't a trace of positive content in his ideas (besides affirmation of the ego, and this extremely undeveloped ‘Union of Egoists’), which were also pretty racist if you take the time to read The Ego and His Own. About the best thing he had to offer was a critique of state-socialism, and that’s not saying alot.

Anyway after these three “Anarchism” definitely had a name and existed in the world as a political ideology.

Since the birth of Anarchism people have often found it quite hard to define a coherent theory of anarchism; Chomsky always uses that quote 'Anarchism has a broad back, like paper is can endure anything.' And Rudolph Rocker believed that anarchism was something of a tendency in human nature towards egalitarian non-hierachical forms of social organisation. He also believed it was the inheritor of the best parts of both Liberalism and Socialism, the ‘descendants’ of the Enlightenment. Emile Armands Individualist manifesto entirely bases its definition of anarchism around freedom from any social constraint. While from people like Bakunin and Malatesta we see that anarchism is a very specific political philosophy based around class struggle, with the realisation of libertarian socialism as the goal. They use examples like the Paris Commune to point to future potentials, but recognise that anarchism is a modern political philosophy that started with Proudhon and the French workers movement. In modern attempts to look back at anarchism we see both these kinds of definitions in action. Authors like Peter Marshall in his 'Demanding the Impossible' takes the opposition to state as the only requirement to anarchism - and often Marxists who like to have a crack at anarchism use this weak definition too. Modern authors like Van Der Walt and Wayne Price will however often present more coherent and consistent understandings of anarchism.

So basically we kind of have two fields; Social anarchism and Individualist anarchism. Social anarchism sometimes gets referred to as organisational anarchism, and individualist anarchism kind of leads on to what often gets called lifestyle anarchism today. Within both fields we can find a whole range of ideas on both strategy and economics. Still we can somewhat represent where the ideas and who represents them sit.

Obviously we could add hundreds more authors into these fields, but it’s a basic illustration.

So, lets kind of compare the two and I think it will lead us to a better understanding of how anarchism manifests in the world today.

I realise here I am presenting these fields as something of strawmen. But this is not an academic essay and there is only so much time.

As you can well imagine by its name, individualist anarchism starts, and ends, with the demand of maximum liberty for the individual. There are to be no fetters on the development of the so called natural qualities of the individual, and while they think everyone should be free, it really begins with personal struggle and ends with the individual. The only freedom you have is what you can take. Society is also as much a crushing source of authority as the state. There are to be no programmes set for what anarchism might look like, because everyone has different wants and needs. Rebellion is emphasised over revolution – revolution will either lead to a new state or to a new social tyranny. Despite rhetoric against capitalism, market economics are permissible provided there is no boss-worker relationship (although sometimes that’s ok too!.) It is this retreat into the self that actually shares a lot of parallels with new age spirituality, with existentialism and most importantly with neo-liberal capitalism. It’s this abstract opposition to 'the state' and 'society' that allows authors like Peter Marshall to give the nod towards people like Thatcher and Friedman as being somehow libertarian.

Individualism did not have much influence during the emerging the working class, nor did it do much to shape collective politics of rebellion. Individualists often expressed their 'anarchism' and 'freedom' through forms of dress, individual acts of insurrection, and living in small communities of other radicals only. While today we use the word ‘insurrection’ to mean something like when a community/class violently attacks a regime/authority, the connection between the term insurrection and anarchism actually comes from Stirner, who believed revolution was impossible, and that individual 'insurrection' was the only tactic that would keep authority at bay, however temporarily. It was during times of severe social repression, when little other avenue for struggle existed, that individualist anarchism did come to attention - usually with assassinations and bombings - this image of the anarchist bomb thrower still exists. Terrorism became, and to a large degree remains, the peak form of struggle for this tendency. I don't want to say much on it, but I believe that the terrorist and guerilla war is a Leninist strategy, not an anarchist one, despite the flowery rhetoric.

This still happens today. Not long ago some group let off a bomb in Chile at a church, and a year or two ago some insurrectionists kneecapped the CEO of a Nuclear Power company. The targeting of the Nuclear CEO has obvious reasons - the church not so. They issued a massively irrelevant manifestos crapping on about religious feeding the people bullshit. Not exactly a material analysis of religion. The most famous example of this strategy today would be Conspiracy of Fire Cells in Greece. They’re a group known for robbing banks, having shoot outs with police, and bringing ‘left wing terrorism’ back to Europe. They’re all arrested now, and have been involved in struggles for prisoners’ rights and hunger strikes over the last few years.

If you're interested in the terror question, and the rather bold statement that terrorism is a Leninist strategy, i'd highly suggest grabbing a copy of "You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship," quite a famous essay written by an Australian libertarian socialist group.

So then, what’s social anarchism?

Taking the concept of freedom as the basis of anarchism, I want to start with a quote from Bakunin, he says;

"The individual, their freedom and reason, are the products of society, and not vice versa; society is not the product of individuals comprising it; and the greater their freedom - and the more they are the product of society, the more do they receive from society, and the greater their debt to it.

Here we find a definition of freedom based entirely on social bonds - what Bakunin is saying is that we are all products of social development – it is through relationships and education we find the ideas, motivations and influences that will make us free. Without the development of all, without equality, we will never know real freedom. The more free the person beside you is, the more free you are. Social anarchism is therefore inherently committed to collective methods of organisation - be it through things as various as unions, affinity groups, syndicates, communes, or whatever. Social anarchism also collectivist in economics. We have had Proudhon, and the Spanish economist De Santillian. But ultimately social anarchists owe a great debt to Marx for their understanding of economics - it's over questions of political organisation that we divide.

It’s this freedom through solidarity that found such fertile ground in the workers movement. The ideas of social anarchists, particularly Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta flourished in many parts of the world, namely Spain, Italy, Argentina and China, and had profound influence on the mass anarchist organisations that were to develop. We often sell ourselves short as anarchists today, because much of our history is lost, and because our movement is so small and insular we often feel like a subculture. But when it comes to history, remember we are talking about a movement that affected the lives of millions of people. These were no small propaganda groups or insurrectional cells. These were mass organisations that had obvious anarchist politics. Maybe not all 2 million members of the CNT or the FORA were anarchist – but anarchism had an influence on their lives.

So in comparison, while social anarchism first found its roots in the federalist sections of the international, in the Paris commune, and in the emerging union movements, it is fair to say that Individualism came to prominence when anarchism lost its connection with the working class, and interestingly has largely been a phenomenon tied to the USA and Europe, and Russia. While also in places like Korea, South America, and parts of Africa where anarchism has had periods of significance, individualism has been for the most part irrelevant (feel free to correct me if you’ve come across individualist literature from these parts of the world!) Perhaps the tactic of insurrection by small groups and individuals had some grounding, but its irrelevance seems to be the broader rule. This loss of social influence for anarchism in most countries has never been recovered. The withdrawl of self-styled anarchists from social movements for activities that don't require long-term commitment, thinking, responsibility or coherence is a serious problem if we ever want anarchism to be a philosophy that can change the world again.

Members of the Korean Peoples Assosciation in Manchuria. From 1929-31 Manchuria ‘was Anarchist’, a little remembered period of history.

It’s pretty clear that the irrelevance of a coherent and social anarchist philosophy is also tied to the reactionary and conservative societies we live in. Despite efforts to break out of the leftist ghetto, much like our socialist mates, today we remain largely irrelevant. The anarchist principles of federalism, direct action, anti-parliament politics, and mutual aid are barely connected to a class struggle that is largely institutionalised. With no solid, commited organisations to use our tactics, we don’t feed back into the movements, we don’t test our ideas and fresh activists are few and far between. It’s a two way street. The end result of this isolation can often be liberalism dressed in radical clothing, and the dominance of ‘lifestyle anarchism’ is basically the black flag version of the socialist politics that believes in the revolutionary potential of Bernie Sanders, SYRIZA and Jeremy Corbyn.

Anarchists today are finding our way back to relevance in struggle; in a number of places around the world anarchist organisations and movements are beginning to flourish again. Greece, Ireland, Brazil are a few examples.

I found it illuminating that in this Workers Solidarity Movement talk about the growth of anarchism in Ireland, Andrew Flood says that as anarchists have regained their social relevance over the last two decades, they went from the stereotype of 'punks and people dressed in black' to 'looking like your everyday person', and that about that time the media began to have to acknowledge that anarchism was actually a factor in Irish political life. The Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation in the USA is another wonderful example.

I want to give a historical example of anarchism finding its feet in a concrete situation. It is an example of anarchism feeding into a movement, and developing as a result. Actually, it’s the worlds first example of specifically anarchist organisations doing just such – for all its many limits, there are many lessons to be learnt; I just finished reading Makhno’s account of the revolution in the Ukraine, and during some of the most intense periods of social upheaval he expresses extreme frustration with the revolutionaries in Russia. He points out that the combination of armchair intellectualism and obsession with aspects of theory – like the proletariat over the peasantry means that they're entirely ignorant of the revolutionary and of the practical means these anarchists can take to expand the revolution. This isn't just frustration with individualists either, this is with anarcho-syndicalists, communist and whatnot. He points out the inflexibility of anarchist theory at this time can't deal with practical situations. For example when he was elected leader of his particular battalion he had to give orders right- and he recognises that most anarchists don't believe in giving orders or leaders or whatever. And he expresses that he felt quite uncomfortable with the role he was given. But they were fighting a war. An actual revolution. Not having accountable roles or rules is crap, and I think this is a frustration because of the individualist influence. Just because anarchists didn’t believe they should ever be told what to do, doesn’t mean they can’t develop structures of collective responsibility.

Nestor Mahkno, (elected) leader of the Insurrectional Army of the Ukraine

Anarchists have leaders. This is something that modern anarchism really struggles to acknowledge. Just because we refuse to put a label on power doesn't mean that it doesn't exists. Let’s consider this quote from Bakunin;

“Nothing is more dangerous for a man’s private morality than the habit of command. Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this demoralisation; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one’s own merits.”

So what makes anarchist 'leadership' special is that what we are actually wanting to achieve is to create structures that limit the concentration of power. Informality does not do this. This is a serious danger that exists in individualist and lifestyle anarchism. Rather we should look to have strict mandates given by the collective to their delegates, when assemblies are not practical. That’s why we try to rotate roles - to assure one person doesn't end up with too much power, and to assure that everyone develops skills keeping the field more even if you will. Individualism doesn’t address this. Actually egoist individualism like Stirners ends up justifying power over other people – hardly an anti-authoritarian philosophy. If you ever get a chance I recommend reading 'The Tyranny of Structurelessness'by Jo Freeman.

As I said, this delegate-mandate-rotate structure is actually infinitely more anti-authoritarian than not having any kind of accountability. Bakunin talked about this, the CNT knew this, the anarchist army in the Ukraine knew this (though it wasn’t great at it.) But it's quite lost these days. Obviously, how we structure this leadership isn't the same as socialist groups - there are practical things that differentiate us here. At any rate - that is a topic for another time.

So I want to skip back to individualism, I want to explain why I believe often the result of individualist philosophies put into practice can be damaging to social movements, how they often become anti-social rather than anti-capitalist. I think this confusion that starts from the concept of imminent rebellion against authority, meaning that things that aren't actually anti-authoritarian can end up with tacit anarchist support.

Groups like Crimethinc tend to border this line, advocating and fetishing sub-cultural practices as anti-capitalist in and of themselves with little conceptualisation of how they assist in the struggle against capital and the state, if at all. Squatting, sabotage, petty-crime, theft, arson, and assassinations all register in the arsenal of insurrectional-individualist tactics. Actually, I think this is the definitions of the vague term we throw around; ‘lifestylism.’ Precisely this fetishisation. A comrade has raised with me that it is perhaps not only that, but it’s the result of despair at the failures of long-term organising that leads to believing only immediate actions and ‘living politics’ can be revolutionary.

Crimethinc, elevating great ways to get arrested to a lifestyle.

It’s not that say social anarchists don’t use tactics like insurrection, sabotage etc too. But what is to be considered is if the action is beneficial or negative, collectively empowering or just alienating and anti-social.

For example, tactics like sabotage have often been used during union campaigns, the IWW was pretty famous for this. When used as an individual tactic, workers often risk alienation from others, punishment from the state, a waste of comrades resources who bail them out or organise legals. Individuals may get a small benefit from stealing, squatting, living on the dole as a ideological choice etc, but there are always consequences. So when sabotage is done collectively, it can be a powerful tool against the boss, especially so because everyone has each others backs, and the decision to take action has been made together. It’s the small sums of collective actions that become a movement.

Consider;

"Shoplifting, dumpster diving, quitting work are all put forward as revolutionary ways to live outside the system, but amount to nothing more than a parasitic way of life which depends on capitalism without providing any real challenge."

Obviously with this quote we don't want to conflate what it takes to ensure survival under capitalism, or to demonise people who are unemployed or anything ridiculous like that. Rather whats being said is that if you have the option to make these choices, if you can always move back in with your folks or whatever, you're not actually contributing to anti-capitalism - you're just living out some kind of radical liberalism.

The rich, politicians, anyone in a position of power surely has plenty of time for people who become 'non-participants' in the system. They do not actually challenge power, they do not help organise collectivelly, they may create small concessions and 'spaces' of existing without the yoke of capitalist burden, but the ability of this to both spread and become empowering has to be considered. The truth is, you cannot, ever, completely drop out of capitalism or get saway from the state. People in power are afraid of the Assata Shakurs, the Malcom X’s, the union organisers, the organisations that demand and fight for collective rights. Not hippie communes.

I'm not saying everyone who's doing some kind of activism has to rush out and form an anarcho communist collective, join an organisation or start towing a political line – I’m not here to say 'hey, you should join X because we have the best politics ever! Actually what’s more important as anarchists is that hopefully you go away with some ideas about organising yourself- what i'm saying that there are differences in ideas and hence organisational methods that have very real impacts on the effectiveness of our activism.

It's been pointed out plenty of times that activists who have no 'home team' will often find they've put incredible amounts of energy into a single campaign, sometimes for years, but when it ends - those lessons are lost, there is no where to keep moving, there is no collective development of knowledge that comes from critical reflection on what you've been doing. Unlike individualists would believe everyone is an island, we are all socially formed, and it’s through society we find our freedom. Anyone who thinks they can come to the perfect answers alone, that they can live outside and beyond society is a joker. Here’s an anecdote; did you know its not common for anarchists in the Uruguayan Anarchist federation to talk in first person? They're so adamant that every individual’s personality is a product of collective development that to talk in third person shows humility and acknowledgement of each’s contribution to one another. I'm not suggesting that we stop talking in first person but I think that such humility is quite an inspirational revolutionary value.

I think what individual libertarian/anarchist activists who aren't in organisations do though is help the development of libertarian values. By participating in social struggles as anarchists we hope to help build a culture that empowers from the bottom up. And developing an anarchist culture is really important. We want to have our own morals, different to those advocated by a capitalist and statist society - we want a world without patriarchy or racism, and conscious cultural reconstruction is important if we understand that there are forms of exploitation and repression that are reinforced by more than just capitalism.

I think the strength of actions by anarchist individuals is more like a reproduction of ethics, rather than any programmatic revolutionary strategy. Because we recognize that there are two levers of power in society right - the state and the point of production, you could maybe say that the third is the social reproduction of capitalist relations - and that’s where community organising is important. We can't and don’t just fetishise the workplace. We are not marxists and we don't agree that societies problems are limited strictly to the superstructure of production (not that they all do! It’s hard to avoid strawmen in such a broad piece of writing.) Anarchists know power exists in all social relations, we have talked often about the centre and the periphery of power. And knowing that centralisation creates power we acknowledge that we can't ‘take the state’ – that’s completely against anarchist strategy and understanding of how society works - what we do want to do is build counter-power to where capital and oppression are created. That’s absolutely key to overthrowing this society. And that’s not done by throwing a bomb into a bank, it’s done by organising workers and communities.

Many people today are drawn towards anarchism because it offers space to individuals who feel marginalised by predominant social constructions. When you identify as an anarchist its okay to be totally yourself. But we have to acknowledge the whole idea of the individual against society is absurd - anarchism IS the single most social political philosophy - we believe in a world of completely free and equal individuals - how can we be anti-social, unless you're you think society and the state are the same?

What I think is useful from here is to talk a little about how there are differences in tactics, politics and strategy. Now this is pretty key and will lead us onto a bit of discussion about particular things anarchists today are into. To be honest, the useful terminology for this distinction was only just brought to my attention by another comrade.

Firstly; we have politics. This is the level at which we identify the philosophy we believe in - which is anarchism. So starting from the vision of building a world without states, capitalism or authority we have to decide on the appropriate strategies for making that happen.

So, strategy. Here’s where we do maybe the most reflection - what does our society look like? What kind of changes do we need? How could we start making them happen? Are we insurrectionists, are we syndicalist, are we into community organising, should we be concentrating on propaganda? There is alot to be figured out.

Finally; tactics. The tactics we employ are the specific details of the strategy we decide upon, as in, what particular actions we undertake to implement the strategy. For example if you did believe you needed an insurrection, you might form a cell that wants to annihilate capitalists and cops or something, I dont know. If you chose syndicalism you might look at what industries are most important to organise in right now, and if you want to start a specifically anarchist union or if you want to radicalise existing ones by building shop stewards networks and advocating wildcats. Within social anarchism there are a variety of ideas about strategies, these are just two, very different and broad examples.

The problem in Australia seems to be that our movement is so confused, so unsophisiticated that we don't take the time to work our way through these considerations. We as the collective that is anarchism in Australia tend to fetishise one or the other, or completely muddle them up. Remember here i'm not just talking about individualists; most anarchist groups in Australia are completely guilty of this too. But at the same time, I think what we like to call 'lifestyle' can be traced back to the early individualism, where personal rebellion and individual, violent insurrection are considered as the total strategy against the state.

All the same, I want to look at a few places where we see the confusion at work. Firstly i'm going to talk about squatting.

So squatting is a tactic, yea? But if you believe that it’s inherently political, you're going to get stuck repeating it over and over when it's not the right strategy, or when you can't do it, where are your politics? This kind of thing happens all the time. It's a really big problem in the environmental movement. I'm not really involved in that anymore but it's kinda where I started back in Newcastle, and I saw a fair bit of this confusion.

Squatting is not really a huge thing in Australia, though I do know a number of squatters and there are a few in Melbourne - it's a much bigger thing in Europe. Many anarchists seem to consider squatting as a lifestyle choice (though there are some, i'm sure, who do it because they haven't any other option - I know at least one person who fits this category.) There’s a difference between a choice and survival here. Living in a squat would appear to give people the space to exist outside typical property relations, maximising personal freedoms and somehow 'propagate' the idea that squatting is an option to the broader community. There is an element of truth in this, but it's actually extremely limited.

Creating 'liberty' for oneself doesn't necessarily mean it creates it for others, sometimes it can even limit the freedoms of others. Squatting isn't necessarily one of those times, but it's not as helpful a tactic as other options. There is a difference between punks who want to live in a squat cause its free and they can have parties, and a squat that’s used as an accessible social center that, for example, that helps house refugees. The first is fine; it doesn't really matter to anyone except the landlord. But the second has collective and social power. I'd argue that as anarchists this is exactly our task. We don't just want revolution for ourselves, we want it for everyone.

To turn a squat into a viable social center it seems obvious that it needs resources, organisation, community outreach, and importantly the backing of other social groups willing to defend it when eviction time comes. I believe this is a task for anarchist organisations. Lets look at WSM in Ireland for a second, they're an anarchist group who doesn't operate, control or dominate any squats. What they do however, is help initiate them, have activists involved in their on going upkeep and daily activity (one squat in Ireland that has a few WSM members used the workshops to build heaters to send to refugees in Calais), and defend them and their autonomy against repression from the state. They also organise forums and do the important task of political propaganda helping legitimate squatting as a strategy against capitalism. I use WSM as an example of this because they're particularly successful - they have an anarchist publication reaches thousands of people monthly, and they have public attention for being at the forefront of several social movements. Imagine what such a powerful anarchist organisation can bring to the defence of autonomy?

On the other hand - it doesn't take an anarchist organisation to make squatting a valid social project - im just pointing out what I think tasks of anarchist are.

EDIT: Since this was written the totally super awesome squat project in Bendigo St, Collingwood has popped up! This occupation was organised by the Homeless Persons Union of Victoria, and is drawing attention to the rate of homelessness in Melbourne compared to the enormous number of empty homes. This is a fantastic example of the social value of a squatting project.

Lets look at Social Log Bologna in Italy for a moment. This was a squat that is now quite a large social center. The site itself used to be a postal facility. The people who set it up were autonomist marxists, and you know what - they didn’t just use it for themselves -now it’s entirely self-run by refugees! It had enormous social potential and outreach. A while back the cops tried to shut it down - look at how many people turned out to protect it!

This wasn't just a venue for gigs - this actually demonstrated that when we get rid of fucking capitalism - there going to be so many creative things we can do with the economy to make sure everyone has everything they need. It was also the result of serious planning and looking at the specific things the working class of a particular area needed at a particular point in time.

Some of the local community coming to defend Social Log from eviction.

So then I’d like to ask; “what is a squat compared to a rent strike?”

This I believe is where we begin to see real collective action forming. Rent strikes aren't a thing here anymore, but Australia does have some history with them. Actually, I almost never hear people talk about them! If you don't know what a rent strike is, it's basically like this; the community in a particular area organises against inflated rents and evictions, you hold some mass meetings, do some propaganda and whatever, maybe you target on the basis of community, maybe you target a particular landlord, but you get to a point where collective power is established and people stop paying rent. When the cops turn up, you picket in defense of whoever they try and evict, maybe you go hassle the state department or the rental agents or something. Not really something we're in a position to do now - but worthy of remembering this exists for when struggle around housing intensifies even more. If you want to look at historical examples, i'd suggest Scotland during the 30s' and Italy in the 70s'. There is a pretty good article on libcom.org about the Italian rent strikes - which were significantly influenced by the autonomia movement. For those that don’t know, Autonomia was/is a branch of marxism that started to question the significance of the party, started including feminism and talking about 'social reproduction' and all that. It reproduced a lot of the problems of Leninism, and some of the problems of unorganised Anarchism, but has some very valuable lessons to draw from.

What makes rent strikes so much more powerful is that, unlike squatting, they're a viable tactic to a huge portion of the population. Squatting is unavailable to so many people, for so many reasons. There are only so many places, its unsuitable for families, for people who need to keep stuff secure for work or whatever, for people with disabilities, for people who want to be guaranteed a hot shower. For those who require stability and security, things we all deserve, squatting is not a real option. Even for many of Australia’s homeless squatting wouldn't be viable - what’s deserved is secure housing. Wouldn't it be better if we could organise a mass renters and housing movement committed to direct action and direct democracy, with total autonomy from political parties and the upper classes? Social movements provide the space to lay the real foundations of a society built from the bottom up.

Let’s look really quickly at another places the anarchist movement finds itself sometimes fetishising tactics rather than politics. Sections of the anarchist left often have an idea that they can provide social services purely because it seems ideologically sound. Services that have often been won by the left are now provided by the state and far better than what we can do. Why would anyone want to go to a dodgy anarchist day care in a squat if there’s a nice clean one run by professionals and provided by the state?

I think a relevant example can be Food Not Bombs. I’m not here to have a go at people doing FNB. I’m just raising it as an example we can relate to! FNB is a sweet idea, you get the food that Woolies or Coles or whatever were going to throw away - cause you know, capitalism is extremely fucking wasteful. Or you take what you've grown at your co-op or whatever, and you turn it into a feed and put it on for free in a park or down a street in the city and give it out to whoever needs it. You produce some propaganda around it that points out that capitalism is fucked. Rad, this is actually a great idea. Practical things like this is the way we make our politics seen, the way we prove we can do things differently, the way we prove we have something to offer, and we have a way to talk to people that can be way less alienating than shoving a newspaper in someones face. (Note; Anarchists need a newspaper. I’m pointing out that there are ways of doing things that are less alienating, and that we believe in ‘propaganda of the deed.’)

But you know, taking into account the politics, strategy, tactic formula... is this the best thing to do in Australia? There are loads of charities and even state institutions that feed the homeless. Sometimes you're competing with mega churches and the state! In a society where *most* people have what they need to eat, then maybe resources are better put into something else? That’s where you go back to your politics, look at the concrete situation, start talking about a strategy to build anarchism and then figure out what tactics are going to be effective. If we were in say, Greece, where the soup-kitchen idea is really important, then fuck yes anarchist should be setting up Food Not Bombs or whatever name you wanna give it. That’s exactly our territory and the perfect place for demonstrating alternatives. There’s a Marx quote I like, "every real movement is worth a dozen programmes." Anarchism is meant to be connected to the real needs of the people - actually anarchist organisation exists to support the real struggle, not to establish socialism by decrees. The principle of mutual aid comes from was the early workers movement, not Kropotkin. It wasn't some ethic dreamed up by intellectuals. Early anarchist movements were dealing with the lack of social services, they were dealing with real social needs.

So what I’m saying is that now when we establish these mutual aid groups, filling these 'holes' in social needs isn’t a great idea if they have been filled by capitalism and the state, because until anarchism becomes a large and organised social force, we can’t really compete with capitalist or state facilities without wasting a large amount of our own time and resources. We’re far better off organising workers to struggle in those sites and to take them over.

So at the current state, I think we need to stop and reflect where anarchism needs to go. What are our politics? What strategies have we got to make anarchism relevant? Do they reflect how Australian society looks today? We can't just take the CNT model from 36 Spain and make it happen here, we're sure as fuck are not going to the hills to start a peasant Insurrectional Army.

To summarising a few points, let’s start with this contradiction between individual and social anarchism.

Anarchism is really the most completely social philosophy - we seek a world based on solidarity, mutual aid and co-operation. How these values could go hand in hand with anti-social elements is beyond me. We are anti-capitalist, because capitalism is toxic for a healthy social system, not because we're angsty teenagers.

To consider how we want to see a future influenced by anarchism, we need only take a moment to look at the past. There have been times anarchism has been a fruitful social ideal, and during those times it’s only ever been the social and well-developed anarchist organisations and movements that have made an impact; the CNT/FAI in Spain, the Insurrectional Army of the Ukraine, the FORA in Argentina, FAU in Uraguay. There has never been a 'Union of Egoists', armed terror groups like Conspiracy of Fire haven't started a revolution, assassinations by individualists have only brought down the states wrath on broader society. Individualist anarchism cannot achieve what collective organisation can. Individualism is the result of bourgeoise and liberal tendencies, it is the dreams of intellectuals trying to mix itself with workers struggles. In contrast, social anarchism comes from the real social struggles of the lower classes.

We certainly believe in building the new society in the shell of the old, and this involves individual action and development, but its always connected to the realisation of a real communal society. Small organisations that fulfill immediate needs, like Co-operatives, affinity groups, etc, have been important parts of working class culture, and their general demise has come hand in hand with repression and co-option of working class movements. Models and examples help point the way, they demonstrate that another world is possible, but again these are models of communal action - we are not led to the revolution by the image if the anarchist bombthrower, by Stirners unlimited Ego, or by this terrible 'temporary autonomous zone' idea. We're led by images of the Paris commune, the Russian Soviets, the Spanish syndicates, the Hungarian workers councils, even today glimmers of hope exist in the new communal structures in Chiapas, the grassroots councils of Syria and the TEV-DEM in Rojava, not for the political forces that defend them, but the practical institutions of counter-power that are building a new social life.

The considered undertaking of practical activity, connecting it to a broader political programme, and the building of dedicated anarchist organisations will only strengthen our ability to make a difference and increase the scope of human freedom both in the here and now, and to lay the preperation for a revolutionary situation. I'd urge any who believe anarchism is achieved by autonomous, atomised and unorganised individuals to seriously reconsider how they believe revolution is possible, and if it is, what it will take to get there. But for anarchists in dedicated organisations, it is worth a reminder that actions undertaken by the working class will not come with a perfectly worked anarchist line or program, that developing ideas takes time, that the revolution is messy and slow, that patronising or dismissing peoples genuine individual needs and concerns is not a helpful attitude. But if we stick to our guns, to our morals of solidarity, co-operation, equality, and autonomy that we will sow the seeds of freedom today, so that tomorrow we may have truly free society. I don’t know about you, but I want to take this really seriously, I want to live to see anarchy. If we refuse to acknowledge the lessons of the past, if we don’t take on the lessons of the past we will just let the state continue to exist, either in its capitalist or socialist form.

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babblingbat · 6 years

Text

Various Characters I meant to post Months ago

Various Characters of mine

I have so many I want to write (some) of them down! This is a suuuuuper long post so more under the cut! Includes a spy, a crime lord/activist, and a bargaining warlock (I have to reblog this later bc tumblr threw a hissy fit about the length)

- Kinda in a Bond-esque spy agency, but more of a contractor

- When everything goes to shit, you can count on them to fix it

- Nonbinary protege of whoever is in charge of the tech division (Mezza? Sloane? Dixon? idk, but they have a hell of a shady past and there’s like… noooothing that can keep Sloane out of computer systems)

- X isn’t formally recognized by APO (authorized personnel only, the spy agency) but they do have access to all information because of a backdoor Sloane made

- So I guess the name is Sloane

- Anyways, X goes on the black ops of black ops, typically with either mercenaries or no back-up at all

- Thus trust issues and like the opposite of dependency - they have so much trouble asking for things but are willing to help anyone or offer material assistance - if they have it

- X is nonbinary and really doesn’t have any preferences on pronouns, as long as they aren’t he/him or she/her

- They’re also autistic and shut down if there’s too much loud noise or if they’re just too tired for some reason - sometimes this means going nonverbal or just Not Functioning and their favorite way to feel better is to sit on the ground, wrap themselves in a blanket and listen to music - so in conclusion they don’t really use guns unless there’s a silencer, and they aren’t v good with them

- A huge part of their espionage function is language!

- They speak German, Spanish, Japanese, FSL, and ASL all idiomatically

- They also speak Russian, French, and Afrikaans, but not fluently

- They can swear and count to ten in Korean and Czech

- They’re pursuing a PhD in computational linguistics, though APO gets in the way

- They’re 24, and have a bizarre set of skills because both of their job, previous jobs and jobs they hold as a cover to pretend they pay their taxes, and special interests

- Sloane is only 7 years older than them, and recruited X out of high school

- At first it was small things, like ‘pick up this book from Elm Street and drop it at Main’ but it got bigger after they graduated

- When X turned 18, they went through formal training - protocol, combat, and analysis

- They’d done some martial arts before hand, but not much punching, mostly kicking, throws, and staffs (5 and 6 feet)

- X’s main job is to clean up messy situations, usually by stealing things or extractions, and their own ops are less combat oriented than the clean ones

- X is not the best at math, not by a long shot, but they can see patterns from a mile away

- “I am the fact guardian, guardian of the facts!” “Puzzles quiver before them!” “FUCK OFF”

- They do simple division when bored and solve a lot of math things by finding patterns and using them

- X is both their designation in the agency (as in ‘x factor’) and their actual name- they use an alias for college

- They live with a few people, most of whom complain at their erratic sleep schedule and ask that please, for the love of god, X gets sleep meds and just a solid 8 hours, for once

- Sloane eventually sends X on an op to extract Mel, Sloane’s girlfriend and top operative

- X doesn’t know what to tell Mel, so mostly they just tell them that things will be answered later

- Mel asks Sloane, who reluctantly explains X’s role, and this sets some things into motion of X eventually being brought into the spotlight

- They have several hearings about their activities

- Eventually, Seville (who runs things? I guess) tells them to carry on as they do, reporting directly to Sloane, but they are recognized now by the APO

- There are three other things I want to fit in:

- Goes missing for [period of time], leaving a very close friend behind, comes back after being presumed dead and no memories, apparently solved a conspiracy and now has many illegal friends who all enjoy thievery

- Magic is a thing (because it wouldn’t be my words if it wasn’t lmao) and common enough that people know it exists but rare enough that it’s kinda intimidating and sometimes people will freak out about it, despite plenty of people having it.

X has/develops magic at some point but is terrified to tell anyone and tries to hide it from their team (which is now their family, love that trope) because they don’t want to be barred from the APO, but it comes out accidentally during a mission

- X’s infodumping saves the day somehow

The Celestian

- K so this is more about an organization, but the Celestian lives in a like a 1920s fantasy setting and likes dancing

- They run a social activism group masquerading as a crime network that uses queer bars and stuff as fronts

- To get money, they dance competitively with their bodyguard and d8m8, the BFF (butch femme fatale) who identifies as a nb lesbian

- To get into any of the places where actual political dismantling and activism happens, who have to have very specific patterns on your nails - nail painting is a method of communication and is also a huge teambuilding exercise

- There are different codes for everything

- When cops try and get in (they can only find the places if they have a member of the Queer Folk), the code is “blue denim” and then the person caught tells the police they need nail polish and then laugh as they get caught, as if they were bullshitting the whole thing

- Other things are called “10:50 am” which looks like a sleepy eye

- Or “songbird rhapsody” which is also a popular song that the Celestian sings at clubs

- Or “money” which is just a green splotch on all the nails

- If you’re a member of the Queer Folk, you get a crate monthly of money and nail polish, and special things on birthdays and holidays

- The Queer Folk do everything from organize protests to take kids in and try to pay for their education through crime - as in robbery from different places

- Their crimes always have a certain flair to them - they value creativity and snazziness

- The Celestian is like 5’ 3” (which, to be fair, is 3 inches taller than I am) and the BFF picks them up a lot

- They don’t like alcohol or caffeine but drink herbal tea 24/7

- If they don’t, something is very, very wrong

- They have a prosthetic leg

Red

- Literally in high school

- A warlock! They traded their gender and all “gender identifying features” to a trans demon for magic powers

- The demon mostly asks them to get coffee and stuff because the demon isn’t very good at bargaining and just wanted Red’s gender, but it’s expected of a patron to keep using the warlock for things

- (on the demon phone) “hey so this is super duper important and if you could get it in the next half hour that’s the best thing”

“what is it”

“alright so go to the corner of Lincoln and Greenleaf, turn three times to your right, once to your left, and a door should open behind you. Don’t try to turn towards it, just fall backwards”

“if I fall onto poison ivy or concrete I’m breaking my fucking contract”

“No, no no no, you’ll appear in that good good heaven spot”

“… the coffee shop?”

- Red focuses on science in their school

- Every interaction is a deal. E V E R Y I N T E R A C T I O N

- Breakfast? “I’ll give you the salt if you hand over the pancakes”

- Entering a building? “Hold the door open and I’ll give you praise”

- School? “You want me to tell you what I do in my spare time? Give me an A on my midterm and I’ll tell you”

- The last one has left a lot of teachers confused and more than a little scared of the silly little nerd in their class

- Honestly, they have straight A’s because they make deal after deal about grades. They never cheat on tests, but they make deals, hold people to them, and know what they’re doing

- Red’s demon is getting a little worried with all the deals

- Red is most accustomed to deals rather than anything else because they think that unequal exchange (i.e., gifts) is really suspect

- That said, Red has no problems altering “equal” exchange to benefit them

- If they ever became a business owner, they would be terrifying

- They want everything to turn out the best it can for every one but… are not fans of laws

- They have many Opinions on law, its enforcement, and the government

- That cousin that will tell you constantly about how the government is corrupt and should be rebooted with the youngest people as the primary interest

- Anarchy? Not quite, but revolution? Most definitely

- No angst, just high school silliness and chaos

- Has no idea what’s going on 90% of the time - a kid on a sportsball team did something amazing, people started treating him like shit for adults liking him, and Red had no idea until like 3 months later

- Red just kinda lives in their head

- Did they hear what you just said? Nah, but they sure did hear that wristwatch every time it clicked on the second.

- Likes the sound of adventure, but mostly gets lost in Ikea and makes deals with the eldritch monsters in the mattress section

- SUCH A SHITTY SENSE OF DIRECTION, COULD GET LOST IN A GRID WITH MAPS AT EVERY INTERSECTION

- Charismatic, but mostly in the sense of lying their ass off and persuading people

- Once tried to go a day without making a deal (on a dare), ended by making a deal to not have to ever do that again

- Businesses both hate and love them - they pay for nothing but will bargain away odd things of equivalent value every time and catch shoplifters, dislikes shoplifters because it’s not a fair trade

- Bizarrely good luck with finding things in pockets, particularly to “pay” for things

#my ocs #red (oc)#X (oc)#the celestian #crime #warlock #dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #there was another dude that was supposed to be in this collection sort of thing but tumblr screamed at me when I tried to add them so ¯\_(ツ)#my writing #how am i supposed to tag again #please ask me about these kiddos #thanks

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theeurekaproject · 4 years

Text

Insanus Somnia

Space was so unforgivingly cold, cosmically beautiful, alien and strange and gorgeous. Six hundred thousand stars glimmered in the dark black backdrop that stretched into eternity, as far as Lyra could tell. They twinkled like the inferno of six hundred thousand fires, pulsed like the neon in six hundred thousand lights. If every one of those six hundred thousand lights was the tiny flame of a candle, it still wouldn’t be enough for the life lost.

T wasn’t the first death in Lyra’s life. There were dozens of people who had vanished one day, kidnapped or sold or shot. There were a dozen more who had taken so much stim all at once that their heart went into the wrong rhythm and they collapsed and died. About half of those were intentional. But T… T was different.

Lyra never really believed sudden, unexplained death was a problem for anyone but her fellow Cantatores. Upper class boys didn’t just die like that. The Imperatrix’s brother didn’t just die like that. Violent shootouts were only supposed to happen between the gangs on ground level and the Magistratum who tried to stop them, not at the very highest levels of government. Lyra had lived in anarchy for years, but the thought that Eleutheria itself was unravelling was a scary one nevertheless. Scary, but also wonderful.

Eleutheria was undoubtedly falling apart. That she could see, even from the darkest areas of the planet where sunlight didn’t reach. It was rare to find someone who had lived long enough to remember what life was like under Harmonia Cassia, Acidalia’s grandmother, but whenever it happened Lyra would sit and talk and listen to the legends they told. They always said that things used to be so much better. Lyra was a firm believer that you could tell the state of a nation by the state of its ghettos, and Eleutheria couldn’t be any different. If the Underground was better before Alestra, Alestra had to be the problem.

Not that she’d ever really had the time or education to care about politics.

When she’d followed Ace and T and talked to Cassandra, the Revolution wasn’t anywhere in her mind, not really. She didn’t like Alestra, but she didn’t know Acidalia. She’d seen the coronation, all tiny and bright on the TV above the bar, but had no reference for who the new Imperatrix was. She had just figured that if her supporters were kind enough to give a shit about a random bleeding Cantator when most people would have just kicked her in the ribs for the sake of it was enough for her to trust them. And if it meant a free ticket out of hell, she’d have been willing to go along with anything.

And now one of the people who had offered her that ticket was dead, and they were heading straight back to hell.

Lyra wasn’t sure what she should have been thinking. She was terrified of Acidalia, but also in awe—not for any particular reason other than that the living embodiment of the throne had stood before her. She felt dumb, especially compared to the Scientia girls—they were teenage astrophysicists, and Lyra had never been taught basic algebra. She was worried about Ace, who had somehow insulted the Imperatrix to her face without getting killed, who had lost his best friend in the galaxy, who was fighting a war without the person who’d been beside him for years. She was intrigued by the Martian, who was having a screaming conversation with her father in English on the other side of the ship.

But mostly, Lyra was just tired.

One of the few skills she had was her ability to fall asleep anywhere, which was almost necessary if one wanted to survive in the constant noise of ground level. If she couldn’t sleep through laser shots and sirens and drunken screaming two feet away from her head, then she wasn’t sleeping. She’d passed out on this bench right in front of one of the Revelation’s stained-glass windows and slept for the majority of the trip, long enough that Mars was long gone and Earth’s gray clouds were visible when she woke. Even after she’d rubbed the sleep out of her bleary eyes, the achy feeling and worry lingered in her bones, and she had no idea how to correct it. She wanted to distract herself, but there was absolutely nothing for her to do, so instead she just sat there, staring blankly at colorful windows inexplicably lit by nothing.

Occasionally people walked by her, but none of them spoke to her. She didn’t expect them to. A Cantator was so far below all of them that her very presence on this ship was insane and probably illegal in some way. She’d long since stopped keeping track of the things it was illegal for her to do and say and be and look at, because there were so many, but if she had to guess, being on the Imperatrix’s personal starship was likely one of them. She didn’t know what they were going to do with her once they landed, but thinking about that was exhausting too. What would the Revolution want with a Cantator, especially one with such little human capital? She could tell them she was a Labora and they’d be more willing to put her to work. Nobody treated Laborum nicely, either, but they got the bare minimum—wages and shelter—and that was more than Cantatores got. Ace wouldn’t argue that, would he? He wouldn’t. Care about such a small thing. But if he did, who would they trust—a high-ranking Eleutherian soldier, or a random illegitimate girl from the Underground who had been in off-the-books slave work since she was 6? Would they punish her for lying?

Her head throbbed. She put a hand up to it and there was blood on her fingers; whatever wound was up there had opened up again. T had bought her cheap healing gel at the spaceport, but she’d either put in on wrong or it wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. Head wounds always bled a lot, anyway. She tore off a strip of her already messy dress and held it up to the cut, helplessly watching as the grayed fabric turned red.

“Are you okay?”

A soft voice came from behind her, one she recognized all too well. Her anxiety levels shot up as she realized that the Imperatrix must have been watching her this entire time. She couldn’t think of anything to say—the Martian had called her celestida tua, a botched version of “your highness,” but Lyra knew enough to know that Imperatrices weren’t typically called that. Acidalia wasn’t supposed to have a title, but calling her her name felt strange, so Lyra just stammered, “yeah.”

“No, you aren’t.”

Lyra looked up at her. She still wore the flower tiara she’d had on before, not the Imperial crown she was supposed to have. Instead of the crown jewels, she wore a tiny blue and green marble pendant, jagged at the edges like it had been torn away from something. The Earth from the crown, Lyra realized suddenly.

“What happened to you?” the Imperatrix asked.

Lyra didn’t answer her. She couldn’t.

“I’ll have someone bring you healing fluid,” Acidalia offered. “You’re much paler than I am, but…” Her voice trailed off in a way very uncharacteristic of her TV persona.

“Thank you,” Lyra whispered.

A moment of silence passed. She expected Acidalia to get up and leave, but she didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Acidalia said suddenly. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but I’m sorry.” Lyra started. “About what?”

“About T.”

“Wasn’t your fault.” The words slipped out of Lyra’s mouth before she could contemplate whether arguing the fact was a good idea.

Acidalia looked at her silently—she didn’t appear angry or even sad, really. She was neutral and obviously trying very hard to stay that way. Her expression was incredibly difficult to read, even for someone like Lyra, who had grown so used to reading people’s emotions that she could usually peg someone’s intentions three seconds after meeting them. Somehow, though, Acidalia was different. Looking at her, Lyra got the sense that her face wasn’t really her face—maybe it was the makeup, or maybe it was the carefully curated Imperial mask.

“We’ll be landing in a few minutes,” Acidalia said, her voice still painfully neutral. She didn’t respond to Lyra’s comment, possibly because she didn’t believe it; survivor’s guilt was a horrible thing. Then, with a great movement of fabrics, she stood up to her full height—an impressive six-foot-something, but only because of her stilettos—and looked at Lyra one last time before walking away, her white skirts leaving a trail of glitter and gold dust behind her.

Lyra’s eyes lingered on the place where Acidalia’s shoes clacked against the white floors. She wore the same heels as Alicaria used to wear on the poles—less cheap-looking, but in the same style. Lyra always wondered how either of them actually walked in those overglorified ballet boots.

As she sat contemplating, a tiny metal disc nudged at her foot. On the top of it was a jar of healing gel. The lid was embossed with “A. P. C.”—Acidalia Planitia Cipher. Of course she had personalized jars for over-the-counter medication. The things rich people did for the sake of having pretty stuff were astounding. Someone had actually engraved this for the sake of making it more aesthetically pleasing, and it sure as hell wasn’t the Imperatrix herself. The sheer unencessity of it gave Lyra pause, but she wasn’t one to refuse help, so she opened it anyway.

The healing gel was the same color as Acidalia’s skin—a warm-toned orange-brown, nothing like Lyra’s own pasty whitish-cream. Experimentally, she slathered it on her skin, where it adopted her own pale tone immediately.

Of course it did. It was rich people stuff.

Curiously, she moved closer to the window and stared at her reflection in the multicolored glass. Threads from both sides of her head wound attached, as if her body was sewing itself back together. The spiderweb of fleshy strings sealed up into a scab, then settled into plain skin again, like nothing had even happened. She ran her fingers across her hair. It was perfectly clean.

Slowly, she rubbed the gel into everything else—the bruises on her legs, the lacerations on her face, even her acne. Everything sealed up beautifully, making her skin smooth and perfect like a porcelain doll’s. She looked like someone who could belong here, if it weren’t for the stained, ripped-up dress and the flats that had been worn so long they were literally falling apart at the seams. Earth’s glow twinkled before her just outside the window, and if she looked at it the right way at the right angle, she could almost pretend she had some sort of right to it—like she was one of Acidalia’s friends, someone with power and influence. Someone who held all the keys to control and knew how to use them. Someone whose opinions could mean something.

Suddenly, the thought that she was just a Cantator came careening back to her. She had no right do this. It was hardly even legal for her to be here. The planet before her was Acidalia’s to hold and Lyra’s to work for. She shook her head. It all felt dizzying.

As she stood up, the soles of her shoes flopped away from where they were supposed to be on the bottoms. She decided her next step would be to look for some tape. Or staples. Anything to look less ridiculous. She took the shoes off and walked aimlessly, searching for any supplies to MacGuyver into something functional, until she stumbled quite by accident into another sitting room.

Like the rest of the Revelation, it was embellished with the most expensive decorations known to mankind. It was a Catholic cathedral rolled into an expensive shopping mall and topped with neoclassical columns, and somehow it managed to work perfectly. There were more stained-glass windows that, by all means, shouldn’t have looked as pretty as they did—this ship was floating in the blackness of outer space; there was practically nothing to light them, and yet somehow they were glowing like their own suns. In the center of the room hung a massive, adamantine cathedral that swayed gently with the rocking motion of the ship and cast little refracted pinpricks of light onto the floor. Then there were at least a dozen plush white chairs, which looked so comfortable Lyra half wanted another nap.

But no staples.

Lyra crossed the room, leaving a trail of healing gel dripping from her forehead. Before she could do anything about it, an army of white robots with blinking LEDs appeared out of thin air, mopped it up, and vanished back into nothingness.

“Wow, they’re fast,” said a strange voice from the corner. Lyra whirled around to see one of the Scientias near at the door, sitting in a chair and playing games on her meta.

“Hey,” the Scientia said distractedly, dumping an entire drink onto the white carpet with no concern whatsoever. The robot appeared again and blinked angrily at her before vacuuming up the mess and zooming out of the room again. “Woah.”

“Hey,” Lyra said back, slightly awed by this woman and her complete lack of shame for creating a huge mess someone—or something—else had to fix. “Who are you, again?”

“Athena Stellara, Scientia. I’m an astrophysicist but I suck at it.” Athena didn’t even look up. Instead, she gazed vacantly in the direction of the robot. “How do you suppose those things work? I’m, like 87% sure that one looked at me. Actually, glared at me.”

“No idea,” Lyra said. “I’m just a Cantator.”

“Oh,” Athena said. “So, like, you do… dancing and stuff?” “Yeah. Dancing, but I suck at it. I can play songs. Mostly I just waited tables and did odd jobs.” Lyra smiled awkwardly and prayed this woman didn’t ask about anything else.

To her relief, Athena just yawned. “Sounds boring.” “It was boring. And kind of awful—I was only paid with tips. What do Scientias do all day?” Change the subject, change the subject, Lyra thought. Rich people did not like to talk about Cantatores, but they did like to talk about themselves. Athena shrugged. “Math. And like I said… I really suck at math. The numbers kind of jump around in my head. I think if I were in chem or bio it would be easier, but I’m not. So I was bored. We all were, except for the nerds who actually cared. I think being a Cantator would be more exciting than being an Astronomica.”

“I guess,” Lyra replied. “Depends on what your definition of exciting is.” She leant against the chair opposite Athena. “There are lots of scary people.”

“Cool scary people?”Athena asked. “Or, like, real scary people?”

“What do you mean?”

“Biker chicks or mafia leaders?” “Mostly mafia leaders,” Lyra said. “None of them were people you and me would have wanted to hang out with, I promise. Most of them were in a drug-induced rage half the time and they got really violent.”

“Did you ever see a fight break out?” Athena asked, reverent.

“All the time,” Lyra said. “The people picked fights with the police, the police would pick fights with the people, the people would pick fights with each other, the corrupt police would pick fights with the less corrupt police. Sometimes someone would wind up dead. You didn’t want to be in the blast zone when things got bad, but most of the time, there was just kind of yelling in the background.”

“Sounds badass.”

“Oh, it sucked.”

“Why?”

Lyra sighed. “You ever meet a Cantator before?”

Athena shook her head. “Bunch of Laborum. Not any Cantatores.”

“Well, what did those Laborum say about Cantatores?” She thought for a second. “The usual. They didn’t like them.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s kind of cool, though,” Athena said. “You’re society’s underdogs. I mean, when you watch those old movies about the cool cyborg hacker people who, like, take down society from the inside, it’s always someone from the very bottom class.”

“I’m no cyborg hacker person,” Lyra replied. “It’s a little different when you’re there yourself. The Underground is a good setting for a holo film, but in reality, it’s just… well, dirty. You want to hear something gross?”

“Yeah!”

“I knew three people who died from horrible staph infections because they walked around barefoot. All dancers. They couldn’t afford shoes but dancing cuts up your feet, you know? They’d turn bright red and ooze and then a few days later the girls would get a fever and burn up, and then they’d be dead. We had nowhere to bury them. It didn’t matter. No one missed them.” Something changed in Athena’s face. “Damn. I got anthrax three times and I just got cheap phage therapy.”

“They couldn’t afford cheap phage therapy. They couldn’t afford anything.”

“Why didn’t someone help them?” Athena asked. “I’m sure some of those drug dealers had the cash. You know, the people who have briefcases of shady money in the movies.”

“Why would they? The only people who got any medical care were girls who were owned by people and could still make a profit for the procurers, and sometimes not even then.”

“Isn’t slavery illegal?”

“Nothing’s illegal where there are no cops who care,” Lyra shrugged. “It’s not the neon-lit antihero-filled wonderland everyone thinks it is. I’d much rather be a Scientia.”

Athena looked down at her meta’s screen and put it on the end table. “Being a Scientia isn’t that great either. It’s so monotonous. You basically just work for a hundred years until you die, doing the most complicated equations known to mankind with no reward. Occasionally someone way further up than you, like, discovers that star number 65,009,181 emits slightly greener radiation than expected. You know what we did as kids, Carina and me?”

“What?” Lyra asked.

“We would sit there and watch the shadows on stars where spacecraft passed, and every time they were different we’d report it.” “Why?” “Who knows?” Athena shrugged. “They never told us. We just sat and watched the numbers change and pressed a button when they got too weird. And then we got older, and we were basically doing the same thing, with more numbers and equations. And you just keep doing that until you die. No breaks, no future, nothing to look forward to beyond sitting at some stupid desk punching numbers into spreadsheets until you give up.”

“Sounds a lot like me,” Lyra remarked. “Working, working, working, looking forward to a future where your debt is paid even though you know it’ll never happen… and that’s it.”

Athena sighed and laid back on the chair. “So I guess it all sucks, in a way. Hey, doesn’t this feel good?”

“Doesn’t what feel good?”

“We don’t have to give up anymore!” she replied, like it was obvious and Lyra was just missing something. “No more crunching pointless numbers, no more dying of staph infections, no more having nothing to look forward to! Isn’t it nice to be a part of something bigger than clearing tables or punching numbers into formulas?”

“I guess?” Lyra asked hopefully. “Do you think the Revolution really is something bigger?” “Hell yeah,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m not some Scientia anymore. I’m a Revolutionary! We’re going to change the world someday, topple the system from the inside and take everyone that squished us into those little boxes down.”

“You think that can happen?” She snorted. “I’m an astrophysicist hanging out with the Imperatrix on her personal starship and a Cantator, and we just came back from Mars. If that can happen, I think anything’s possible.”

“Maybe.”

Lyra glanced at one of the many massive windows through which she could see her home planet. It was all black water, half-obscured by gray clouds, lit up in the void by all the twinkling lights of the districts. There was something different, though—the amount of military ships that orbited was far more than they had been on her ride to Mars. Some were the size of islands, others so small they looked as if they were grains of graphite. Occasionally, swarms of them would plunge down past the polluted atmosphere and onto the planet’s surface.

“Woah,” she said, drawing Athena’s attention towards Terra. “Look at all that. Do you recognize those ships?”

“They’re part of the space force,” she shrugged, “but I’ve never seen them in action so close—holy shit, they’re fighting with each other!”

“What?” But just as she had said, there were lasers flying through the sky at top speed—they were so pretty Lyra had hardly paid any attention to them before. Each time one landed on its target, there was a small burst, followed by nothingness.

“Why is it so quiet?” she asked, figuring that Athena, the Scientia, would know.

“There’s no sound in space,” she replied, “and no oxygen to sustain a fire. So things just quietly obliterate each other.”

“It’s beautiful,” Lyra whispered. “And horrible. Oh my God.”

Lasers in a rainbow of colors spun into space with the brightness of the Sun, slamming into black beads and exploding into tiny flames before they were extinguished in the vacuum. Lyra noticed suddenly that they were approaching the Earth at a different angle than she’d expected; they were at the very edge of one of the poles, watching dogfights around the equator. And the Revelation was plummeting.

“Is this normal?” she asked.

Athena, looking elated, shrugged. “I don’t know. But isn’t it exciting?”

#on the edge of eureka #POV Lyra #Athena #Lyra

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setepenre-set · 7 years

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Love and War (chapter 2)

Strange Magic

Bog/Marianne, T rating

This is a story about two kingdoms, side by side, but worlds apart. And at war.

When the Bog King finally wins his war against the Fairy Kingdom, he decides that a political marriage with the eldest daughter of the deposed Fairy King will help to promote peace.

Obviously, he’s never met Marianne.

AO3 | FFN | chapter 1

The morning after the wedding, the Bog King tells the two goblins who seem to serve as his personal attendants that he intends to make a proclamation announcing that the laws of the former Fairy Kingdom are now void, and that the laws of the Dark Forest will now rule both.

Marianne makes a noise of derision as she picks up her teacup.

“Somethin’ you want to say, my lady?” Bog asks, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Oh, nothing much,” Marianne says, “just that your idea is terrible.”

She takes a sip of tea.

“Terrible,” he repeats.

“Terrible,” Marianne says, taking another sip of tea. and raising her eyebrows at him over the rim of the cup.

“I willna' have two sets of laws for my kingdom,” Bog says.

“Oh! By all means, then, let’s waste everyone’s time arresting and trying every single one of my people who unknowingly break a set of laws that they are unfamiliar with,” Marianne says. “That should really make the populace feel content. You’ll have an armed insurrection on your hands within a week, my lord.”

“Am I supposed t’ feel threatened by that?” Bog asks. “I did win one war against your kingdom already, my lady, don’t forget.”

“I do not forget,” Marianne says, bearing her teeth at him. “I do not forget what you have done to my people with your war.”

“My war?” Bog says, “I dinnae start the war, my lady! Your father—”

“You imprisoned one of his subjects illegally! What else was he to do when you refused even to meet to negotiate for her release?”

“By my laws she was—”

“Your laws! Yours!” Marianne says, “We went to war over this once, my lord, do not doubt that we shall do so again and again and again.”

“I won the war! I can do it again!”

“No doubt you can,” Marianne says bitterly, “but I have no wish to see my people broken down by constant civil wars and uprisings.”

She takes a sharp breath, looking at his face, a sudden, horrible thought occurring to her.

“Is that what you want?” she asks. “To destroy us so completely? Demanding to marry me—was that meant as humiliation, rather than reconciliation?”

To her horror, she realizes her voice is trembling, that her eyes are filling with tears. She pushes back her chair abruptly, rises, and turns to leave.

He does not call after her, or follow.

“Sire?” Thang says.

“Leave,” Bog says.

“Er…do you still want us to give the announcement?”

“No,” Bog growls, and both of his minions scurry out, Stuff scolding Thang all the way out the door.

When they are gone, he closes his eyes for a long moment.

Humiliation. Marrying him had been a humiliation for her.

He hadn’t thought of it like that, but of course it would have been humiliating for her. Not just being forced to marry the one who had defeated her kingdom, but—

Bog is well aware that he is hideous by both goblin and fairy standards. Too much one thing, not enough the other—the fairy blood from his father’s side has come out more strongly in him than it has for any of their family members for a hundred years, making him look all wrong to any goblin. But he’s no true fairy, that much is certain, no one could mistake him for anything but an unfortunate mix of bloodlines.

Far too ugly for love or desire.

Or to be anything other than a humiliation to his new wife.

That thought hurts more than it should.

Bog sinks down into his chair and glares down at the remains of his breakfast as though this whole mess is its fault instead of his.

She’s right, too; he’s able to admit that now that his temper has cooled. It would be foolish to expect their new subjects to immediately fall into line with his kingdom’s laws.

He should have asked Marianne’s advice, instead of antagonizing her.

Bog rubs a hand over his face and rises from the table to go in search of his queen.

Marianne walks quickly down the hall from the breakfast room, fighting against tears, blindly takes a turn, then another, then ducks into a curtained alcove.

She’d thought—

Last night, when he came to her room with their weapons to spar, she’d—she’d thought that he respected her.

And when he’d left without trying to bed her, she’d thought he was being kind. But—

But non-consummation is grounds for the annulment of a marriage, she thinks, a cold feeling settling around her heart. And since her kingdom has been conquered, she is no longer queen by her own right.

Her position as queen is dependent on her being married to the Bog King.

Does he mean to use her to lull the nobility of the Fairy Kingdom into accepting him as their monarch, and then announce that the marriage is unconsummated and cast her aside when she’s served his purpose?

The curtain of her alcove moves aside. Marianne opens her mouth to send whoever it is away, and then finds herself unable to speak for outrage as Roland steps into the alcove with her.

“Buttercup—”

Marianne slaps him. It’s only a slap because of the size of the alcove, if it had been a bit bigger, she would have had room for a full punch.

“Go. Away. You absolute—”

“Now, Marianne, don’t be so upset,” Roland says, his tone coaxing. “I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” Marianne hisses, but Roland just gives her his most charming smile.

“You don’t need the help of the man who commands the entire fairy army?” he drawls.

Marianne freezes.

“Oh, come on, Marianne, I know you,” Roland says, “You’d never take somethin’ like this wedding lyin’ down unless you had a plan. And I just wanted to let you know,” he twists his finger in the curl that falls over his brow, “that you can count on me, when the time comes.”

Marianne doesn’t know how to answer.

“Just think about it, Buttercup,” Roland says.

He winks at her, and then ducks back out of the alcove.

Marianne stares at the curtain for a long moment, thoughts disjointed and whirling.

It is some minutes later that she hears Bog’s goblin assistants calling her name.

“Your Highness?” 

“Queen Marianne?”

She takes a breath and steps out of the alcove.

“What is it?” she says.

“The King requests your presence,” says the first of the goblins.

“In the royal library,” finishes the second. “Your Highness.”

Marianne straightens her spine and looks down her nose at them.

“When you address me,” she says icily, “you will do it correctly. And the correct term of address for a queen is ‘Your Majesty’.”

She turns without another word in the direction of the library, ignoring the chattering apologies of the two imps behind her.

“You—ah—” the Bog King clicks the claws of both his hands together in a gesture that looks almost nervous. “You were right.”

Marianne blinks.

“Right?” she says slowly.

“Abou’ the laws,” he says with a grimace. “It wouldna work, what I was thinkin’.”

“…oh,” Marianne says rather blankly.

“But I do want a single law code for the kingdom,” he says, wings moving in a quick, repressed flutter. “So I was—hopin’ that maybe you had some—less terrible ideas about how to do tha’.”

“Oh,” Marianne says again, even more blankly.

He wants—he actually wants to know what she thinks? That’s—

Marianne stomps down on the pleasure that wells up at that thought.

Of course he wants to know what she thinks. If he really intends to win over her nobility, then he’ll hardly want to waste his time with little revolutions. This is practicality on his part, nothing more.

She can be practical, too. Their goals align this far at least, Marianne doesn’t want a hundred little uprisings that will just use up their resources and accomplish nothing. She wants a single, organized, successful coup.

“We should go through the laws of each kingdom,” she says, “and decide which laws from both should be kept.”

The Bog King looks at her, and Marianne almost thinks she might see admiration in his gaze.

It takes the servants three days to bring all of the legal records from the Bog King’s palace to hers. They set the books up in the library, arranged in a pile beside the pile of the books that comprise the legal records of the fairy kingdom.

Looking at the great stacks of books to be gone through, Marianne can’t suppress a groan.

“My thoughts exactly,” Bog mutters, grimacing. “It’s gonna take a year to get through it all.”

After several hours spent going through the laws, arguing over each one, Marianne is beginning to think that a single year was a conservative estimate. They’ve only just started on the laws concerning trade regulations!

She drops her head onto the parchment of the book she’s reading from.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Bog says, “Order is an overrated thing. We should abolish all laws an’ live in a state of blissful anarchy.”

Marianne gives a startled laugh and turns her head to look at him, her cheek still pressed to the parchment.

“We could sleep in caves,” she suggests.

“An’ live off the land,” Bog continues for her, gazing pensively at the ceiling, “And no one would ever have cause to use words like ‘embargo’ and ‘reimportation’ ever ever again.”

Marianne laughs again and he turns his head and grins at her.

(his eyes look even more blue when he smiles, she thinks, absolutely inconsequently.)

She sits up.

“I’m too tired to think straight,” she says.

He makes a noise of agreement.

“It’s late anyway,” he says, “we migh’ as well leave it for the night.”

Marianne swallows.

“Are you going to come to my rooms tonight?” she asks.

He hasn’t come again, after that first night, when they sparred.

Bog blinks at her.

“Do you wan’ me to?” he asks.

“Yes,” Marianne says, far too quickly.

(far too honestly)

There’s a barely discernible pause.

“Ah—I will, then,” he says.

He brings their weapons again that night.

Her marriage remains unconsummated in the morning.

The next night, after they’ve fought and he has left, Marianne lies on her bed and thinks furiously.

It’s his word against hers that the marriage hasn’t been consummated; she can lie, when they ask her.

—unless they ask her for—intimate details that she’ll be unable to provide. Birthmarks—physical appearance…

She can say it happened only once, that the room was dark.

That’s probably not going to convince people.

She’s not exactly sure if she’s a virgin; things hadn’t progressed very far, physically speaking, between her and Roland, before she broke their engagement (a fact that she is now supremely glad of), or with most of the people she’d dallied with, before Roland, but there had been Helen, the spring she was nineteen, giddy new springtime love, quick to bloom and quick to die, and there had been kisses and mouths and hands, and a little twinge of pain for Marianne, at Helen’s fingers inside her that first time, and blood on the sheets when they were finished.

Even if she’s not a virgin, though, Marianne realizes, that won’t necessarily support her assertion that the marriage was consummated. Bog can easily accuse her of having been unfaithful to him.

It’s—it’s difficult to imagine Bog doing that. Impossible to picture him publicly rejecting her, saying things like that, hurting her like—

(you trusted Roland, her mind whispers, and look where that got you.)

Marianne shuts her eyes and presses the heel of her hand to the center of her chest.

You won’t have to worry about that, Bog had said to her, when she spoke to him about Roland, and oh, she wants to believe him, wants to believe that he won’t hurt her, wants to trust him.

(you cannot trust him, her mind tells her.)

She curls up into a ball.

(you cannot trust anyone.)

...to be continued.

notes: By addressing Marianne as "Your Highness", rather than "Your Majesty", Stuff and Thang have inadvertently insulted her--and have also, unfortunately, played into her fears about Bog's intentions.

"Your Highness" is a form of address meant for a rank lower than Queen.

Stuff and Thang are unaware of this distinction; etiquette at the court of the Dark Forest is much less formal than etiquette in the Fairy Kingdom.

I hope you all are pleased with the continuation of the story!

#strange magic #love and war #fanfiction #butterfly bog #bog/marianne #arranged marriage au

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justfinishedreading · 5 years

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Part 1 – Historical Background

The most important thing to know about Felizmente há luar! is that it was a product of its time; this play was written in 1961 during the rule of Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar, and it is now studied in Portuguese secondary schools because of its themes on politics, corruption and censorship. In researching the historical background of this work I’ve… ended up writing an essay on Salazar and in the process learnt quite a bit about my country. The following is information I found interesting from Wikipedia and which I’ve copy and pasted, and reworded and condensed:

The End of the Portuguese Monarchy

After the revolution in 1910 when the Portuguese monarchy was overthrown, the country fell into chaos with continual anarchy, government corruption, arbitrary imprisonment and religious persecution. The next 18 years saw the inauguration of 8 presidents, 44 cabinet re-organisations and 21 revolutions. According to official police figures, 325 bombs burst in the streets of Lisbon between 1920 and 1925. The public began to view political parties as elements of division and become more tolerant to the idea of being governed by an authoritarian regime.

António de Oliveira Salazar

Salazar became Minister of Finance in 1928, before that others had tried to persuade him to enter politics, but he found the state of parliament so chaotic that he refused. He finally agreed when the state of Portugal become too dire to be ignored. He agreed under the condition that he would have a free hand to veto expenditure in all government departments, not only his own. Within a year Salazar balanced the budget and stabilised Portugal's currency.

In 1932 he became Prime Minster. Now Salazar is quite an interesting figure to study, he did a lot of good for Portugal, but every good sentence written about him can be countered with something bad. He brought order to a country in chaos, but he did not believe in democracy, he used censorship and a secret police to crush opposition and ensure that he continued to be Prime Minister from 1932 until 1968.

World War II

Salazar had lived through the hard times of World War I, in which Portugal participated, so when it came to World War II Salazar kept Portugal neutral. From the very beginning Salazar was convinced that Britain would suffer in the war but remain undefeated and that the United States would step in and the Allies would win. However because Portugal was neutral, the country was forced to supply materials used for military purposes to both the Allies AND the Axis. In May 1943, the USA wanted to take control of Portuguese islands for strategic military use, the British responded that forceful measures weren’t necessary, Salazar would honour the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. In August of that year when the British requested military use of those islands, Portugal allowed it.

Salazar’s upbringing was religious, he studied at a seminary for eight years and considered becoming a priest. He was a devote catholic and nationalist but argued that Portuguese nationalism did not glorify a single race because such a notion was pagan and anti-human. In 1938, he sent a telegram to the Portuguese Embassy in Berlin, ordering that it should be made clear to the German Reich that Portuguese law did not allow any distinction based on race, and that therefore, Portuguese Jewish citizens could not be discriminated against. On 26 June 1940, four days after France's surrender to Germany, Salazar authorised the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in Paris to transfer its main office to Lisbon.

In July 1940, the civilian population of Gibraltar was evacuated due to imminent attacks expected from Nazi Germany. At that time, Portuguese Madeira agreed to host about 2,500 Gibraltarian refugees, mostly women and children, who remained there until the end of the war. Portugal, particularly Lisbon, was one of the last European exit points to the USA and a few hundred thousand to one million refugees found shelter in Portugal and escaped through there.

Portuguese Colonial Rule

Portugal can be proud of its action during the Second World War, but not so much of its colonial rule (…can any country ever be proud of colonialism?). Portugal had an extensive colonial empire that included Cape Verde, São Tomé e Príncipe, Angola (including Cabinda), Portuguese Guinea, Mozambique in Africa, Portuguese India in South Asia, and Macau and Timor in the Far East.

In 1947, Captain Henrique Galvão, a Portuguese parliamentarian, submitted a report disclosing the situation of forced labour and precarious health services in the Portuguese colonies of Africa. The natives, it said, were simply regarded as beasts of burden. All African men had to pay a tax in Portuguese currency, the government created a situation in which a large percentage of men in any given year could only earn the amount needed to pay the tax by going to work for a colonial employer. In practice, this enabled settlers to use forced labour on a massive scale, frequently leading to horrific abuses. Galvão's courageous report eventually led to his downfall, and in 1952, he was arrested for subversive activities.

Following the Second World War, the colonial system was subject to growing dissatisfaction, and in the early 1950s the United Kingdom launched a process of decolonization. Belgium and France followed suit. Unlike the other European colonial powers, Salazar attempted to resist this tide and maintain the integrity of the empire. In order to justify it and Portugal's alleged civilising mission, Salazar ended up adopting Gilberto Freyre's theories of Lusotropicalism, which propose that the Portuguese were better colonizers than other European nations because they had a special talent for adapting to environments, cultures and the peoples who lived in the tropics, this talent helped them build harmonious multiracial societies and promote pro-miscegenation.

Side note, we Portuguese are very proud of our history during the 15th century, the age of discovery, when we set out to map the world, many consider it our golden age. Less talked about is our involvement in the slave trade, the first European to actually buy enslaves was Antão Gonçalves, a Portuguese explorer in 1441 AD. The Spanish were the first Europeans to use enslaved Africans in the New World. I’ve just done a little googling to try to find out how many slaves the Portuguese took from Africa, it’s not easy finding a straight answer, about 20 websites later I find three that agree that officially the total number of Africans shipped by the Portuguese is conservatively put at 4.2 million. However this excludes the millions that died crossing land to get to the Portuguese slave ships or during the horrible Atlantic passage. Just to be clear these facts are regarding Trans-Atlantic Slavery, unfortunately the concept of slavery has existed in all societies long before that.

Anyway that’s a bit of a digression from the main topic of Salazar, moving forward to 1960-1, armed revolutionaries and scattered guerrillas were starting to become active in Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. The Portuguese just about managed to keep control in some parts but the Portuguese military warned the government that this was not a long term solution, the military would not be able to keep order for long.

1961

And now finally I’ve reached 1961, the year Felizmente há luar! was written. For the western world the 60s were the decade of cultural revolution: ‘Make Love, Not War’, just like the American hippies were protesting against the Vietnam war, the Portuguese were protesting against colonial wars they could not win and which were wrong to begin with. This was an age of liberalism, of drug and sexual experimentation, of artistic creativity. And yet those liberals and free thinkers were being governed by a 72-year-old Salazar, a conservative, nationalist and catholic whose motto was "Deus, Pátria e Familia" (meaning "God, Fatherland, and Family"). There was no free speech, anyone opposing the dictatorship was imprisoned and tortured. Portuguese laws and government procedures were changed to enable those in power to stay in power. Felizmente há luar! was written by Luís de Sttau Monteiro and censored, prohibited from ever being performed. That is until 1975, the year after the government was overthrown.

Wrapping Up Part 1

Phew, I haven’t even started reviewing Felizmente há luar! yet, I could have just written “the play was written during a time of great oppression of freedom of speech and during a reign of political dictatorship” and left it at that. But, it’s curious to know how things came about, extreme political movements don’t just suddenly manifest, they are born out of circumstance, and it is important to understand what gives raise to the systems that change our lives.

In Part 2, I’ll actually review Felizmente há luar! By the way it’s actually set in 1817, when real life general Gomes Freire de Andrade was accused of leading a revolt against the Portuguese government – so... yay even more history XS

Most of this text on Salazar was taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar

Review by Book Hamster

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