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brf-rumortrackinganon · 3 months

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I remember there had been speculations that the Yorks (either the parents or girls) had contributed to FF or Endgame. Having read the 2 books, do you think it's possible? And is there anyone from the inner circle of the BRF that did in your opinion? From the Sussex side, their staff definitely did as they seemed friendly with Scobie at the beginning and Meghan's friends as well. But it seems not even Harry's friends ever did so I can hardly see a close friend/family member of the BRF leak to him

Such an interesting question, anon - you really made me dig deep into my memory! (I haven't picked up Finding Freedom since it first came out, though I've been meaning to check out the paperback since it got a new epilogue after Philip passed away.)

Remember that Finding Freedom was written by Scobie and Carolyn Durand. Scobie gets the lion's share of criticism, recognition, and credit for Finding Freedom and Durand practically disappeared from royal commentary after the book was published so something definitely went down. I think the way they "split" the work is Scobie sourced the Sussexes, Kensington Palace, Meghan's friends, and Sunshine Sachs because his background is actually entertainment news. Durand sourced Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, and a few of Harry's friends like Guy Pelly and the van Straubenzees because she has the more "establishment" cred.

I don't actually know if that's true. The only evidence I have is how HarperCollins presented them in their biographies for Finding Freedom - they called Scobie the expert on the "young royals" (William, Kate, Harry, and Meghan) with "strong access to the Sussexes' working world" and they say Durand has contacts at BP, KP, and Clarence House and has produced interviews with many members of the royal family, including Harry. (Here's the link.)

To your question about if Harry's friends would talk to the press, yes. According to Scobie in Endgame, BP/KP/CH have lists of royal friends and associates that may be willing to speak to reporters, and whom the palace will make available to the reporters when they're writing on books or commemorative articles for birthdays/milestones. Since it sounds like Scobie and Durand did make the BRF aware that they were writing Finding Freedom, the palace probably gave them some names from Harry's list of friends and that's how they were able to talk to some of those guys, if they did.

Whether anyone in the inner circles of the BRF spoke to them for Finding Freedom, we know Jason Knauf definitely did since he was part of the lawsuit. Sara Latham probably could have given some background. (Based on some of the info from the lawsuits and some of the things Scobie said in Endgame, I think they had started doing research for something that would become Finding Freedom in 2018. The lawsuit revealed that Scobie and Durand were working with/through Knauf to get clarification from the Sussexes and Knauf would only have been involved if he was working with the Sussexes, so it had to have been before William split their offices and sent the Sussexes to work out of BP in late 2018/early 2019.)

I did always get a feeling like maybe Eugenie contributed. If she did, then she probably did it on deep background, where any info she gave couldn't be published or attributed to her, but Scobie/Durand could have used her info as lines of questioning for other people or subjects for further research. She was really the only one hanging out with Harry. Beatrice didn't seem to be around Harry much anymore in those days. (It was alleged that she was incandescant with rage, to borrow from William, that Meghan teased/leaked the pregnancy at Eugenie's wedding and that made her rethink a lot of things.)

I don't see Andrew being involved. He doesn't strike me someone who liked Harry personally. Maybe they were close when Harry was a kid but they seem to have distanced since Harry had gotten older (it's probably some spare v spare resentment) (plus there's the whole thing about the Sussexes supposedly stealing Eugenie's wedding timeline and supposedly that was very upsetting) so I can't see him doing an interview. And also, probably by the time Scobie and Durand were sitting down to actually write Finding Freedom in Summer/Fall 2019, the Epstein scandals had blown open again and made Andrew PNG'd so no way in hell someone woke like Scobie would include anything he had to say.

But Sarah, possibly. She and Durand are both affiliated with Oprah - Sarah has been on the talk show a few times, she had her own show/docuseries with Oprah, she's been in the magazine, and Durand is a contributer to Oprah's magazine and website. So they have that connection and that could've been how Durand was able to talk to Sarah, possibly even for info or background on Diana. (I don't see anyone on the Spencer side being Scobie's source, no matter how much Harry talks about his mother's family being his favorite people since some shit went down between Harry, Meghan, and Charles Spencer, my only evidence being his glaring absence from Archie's christening.)

And also, a quick aside about Sarah. I do think Sarah is one of Piers Morgan's sources for the royal family. I think Piers has a few sources in the BRF (including Camilla) but Sarah might be the most loose-lipped one.

Sorry, anon. You were probably looking for a quick and simple answer, and yet I've given you another essay to read.

#ask #brf #sussexes #omid scobie #finding freedom #yorkies

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impetuous-impulse · 6 months

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At What Point Did Ney and Soult's Relations Become So Embittered?

The more I find out how Ney and Soult are mentioned and perceived (in relation to each other) in the Napoleonic timeline, the more I am convinced that they were on decent terms up until the Empire was well-consolidated. This is mostly a response to this episode, which takes place four days before Napoleon's coronation. During that time, Soult was commandant-in-chief of the Camp of Boulogne and Ney was commandant-in-chief of the left wing of the army at the Camp of Montreuil. They mst have corresponded and cooperated well with each other on various matters, at least on a professional level. Attridge’s Ney biography has an episode about a hay bale conspiracy by the English that necessitated communication between both camps. Hayman, in his Soult biography, even hedges that they were willing to play court with each other through the unpublished correspondence of General Marchand (which he frustratingly paraphrases and does not give a date for).

[...] Marchand accompanied his own chief, Ney, to dinner with the Soults, indicating that these two rivals from the Sambre-et-Meuse were still on social terms. The dinner was followed by a magnificent ball given in honour of Louise Soult, who appeared in an elegant black dress covered with diamonds. The ball cost some six million francs to which senior officers were asked to contribute. Marchand hoped that a similar ball would not be given in honour of Madame Ney since he and his comrades just would not be able to afford it! (p. 50)

We can infer from this letter that around 1803-1805, Soult was still civil with Ney by inviting him to a dinner, and Ney still had some sense of being an equal to Soult despite being the Commander of Montreuil. I wonder if Ney himself contributed to Soult's ball (and if he was willing).

If the primary sources these biographies use are not all too reliable, at the very least, the first big rift in Ney and Soult's relationship that I found was in Saint-Chamans’ memoirs, quoted in Gotteri's Soult biography. This was after the battle of Eylau, 3 February 1807, when Napoleon held a meeting with his Marshals to discuss objectives. As I translate in approximation below:

Marshals Murat and Ney wanted to march onto Königsberg; marshal Soult held that it was necessary to retire behind the Passarge (a small river which was difficult to pass, fifteen miles behind Eylau), to fortify the points of passage, and wait in this position so that the troops can alleviate the fatigues they had accumulated, and so the reinforcements who, in our depots in France, were in route to come join us, would arrive; the discussion was lively, and the opinion of marshal Soult prevailed; marshal Ney was very offended by this [the original word is "piqué", lit. stung], and, from this moment, they were completely at odds [lit. they always made quarrels]. (p. 181)

And even then, Ney would make his remark about borrowing Soult's culottes to Soult himself just four months later, around 6 June 1807. They were evidently still able to joke around with each other after their military disagreements, which always happens on campaign, even between civil colleagues (examples I can think of include Lannes and Murat or Desaix and Saint-Cyr). Or maybe Soult did not reciprocate Ney's jokes by 1807; I have no way of knowing right now.

#jean-de-dieu soult #michel ney #memoirs #musings #emoir

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frevandrest · 8 months

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Is there a timeline for Saint-Just’s divorce opinions? I remember him early on writing that it was immoral and then he said a marriage could be separated if the couple didn’t have children in 7? years.

There are only two "phases" that we know of (against then in favour); or, rather, only one source/point when he voiced he was against divorce. This is in his 1791 book "L'esprit de la révolution". In it, SJ says that divorce ruins the social contact, but doesn't elaborate much. I mean, there is an entire chapter about it, but it's a few paragraphs long (half of which are ramblings about Rome and God/religion). I honestly must admit that I don't understand why he argues against. He says that it's against nature. That book aged badly like a week (?) after it was published, because it praised the Constitutional monarchy and then soon after Louis decided to take a trip to Varennes.

So soon after, in "De la Nature", we have SJ arguing pro divorce, and he remained very in favour of it for the rest of his life. Now, we don't know when "De la Nature" was written, but it had to be after "L'esprit" but before September 1792 (when divorce was legalized), because he talks about how divorce should be allowed (implying that it's not yet legal at the time of writing). He said some really based things in "De la Nature" about the rights of women (of which divorce is important aspect) but I need to go through that book to be able to talk about details. As I understand, he talks about how the existence of divorce would ensure independence (I guess as in, autonomy). (I think this independence when it comes to women is a theme he mentions more than once in his writings, though in different contexts). Then in "Les Fragments d'institutions républicaines" (written sometimes in late 1793-early 1794), he talks positively about divorce once again. Although here it is more in practical terms (since it was already legal), so he was writing about the regulations surrounding divorce and the rights of children after divorce.

"he said a marriage could be separated if the couple didn’t have children in 7? years."

Yes, but he does not give this as a condition under which a divorce can happen - he advocated for free divorce without a reason. This note says that a couple that has no children after 7 years is divorced by law and must separate. Like a mandatory divorce in this situation? Which may sound strange, given that he wrote a few paragraphs earlier that "man and a woman who love each other are married" so... what if those childless people love each other, Antoine? (Spoiler: he never explains). So this is really wtf and contradictory and some historians tried to explain it as SJ seeing having children as marriage's only purpose (so if no children = divorce), and idk, maybe? But I don't really see it. SJ generally writes so much about the right of women to decide on their spouse, AND he openly says that a man and a woman who love each other are married and they don't have to tell anyone (they can keep it a secret), unless she gets pregnant, when they must declare it. So he definitely argued for the existence of marriage without children. Which makes this comment about mandatory divorce after 7 years very confusing.

But! Let's not forget that this was 18c century and boy did they love to include things that were happening around them as if those are universal laws (to the point where you can glean people's personal biographies through srs political writing). In this case, we know that Thèrése Gellé left her husband on the 7th anniversary of their marriage (25 July 1793), and they did not have children.

No idea if SJ had any link to Thèrése at the time, but this was a marriage that affected him a lot in 1786 and SJ Never Forgets. And we know he knew of Thèrése's escape to Paris after she left her husband so he definitely knew of this incident (since he was believed to had kidnapped her and/or responsible that she left). So I am positive that this note in the Institutions was inspired by the event, for whatever reason.

#ask #anonymous #frev #saint-just

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befemininenow · 1 year

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Welcome to my blog, stranger.

You probably got here by accident, or by intention. Whether it was the algorithm or a shared post from this blog, it was appealing enough to get you here. Maybe it was the girls in the pics. Maybe it was the captions that persuaded you. Maybe the descriptions in the posts were relatable. Or maybe even the blog’s name caught your attention. Whatever it was that led you here, welcome to my trans girl caption blog. It’s mostly captions and post descriptions based on the fantasies and IRL experiences of trans girls on a random POV. They may even “crack your egg”. While they may not speak for all trans girls, it may be relatable to you. Once in a while, I may end up making a post about other feminine-leaning identities such as femboys if you’re also into that. However, If you’re not comfortable with this topic or expect other BDSM-related topics (i.e. sissy, dom worshipping, etc.), I suggesst you look somewhere else.

Update as of April 26, 2024: I made some edits to the post since so much has changed from last year. Also, hi. I’m Ashley Nicole. But you can call me “Nicki/Nikki”.

What is this blog about?

It is caption blog detailing the experiences of trans girl’s (or woman’s) while closeted or out. Some posts even detail my own experiences dating as back as I can remember. Imagery of girls, cis and trans, are generally used in relation to the captions. Each experience is unique, so don’t feel bad if you can’t relate to posts like “anime girls cracked my egg”. I seldom share other topics related to issues trans girls often face, as well as even share a small biography of trans girls in a few of my posts.

Who is it aimed for?

It is aimed at those who identify as transgender, questioning, fluid, and those who wish to explore their feminine side. These captions are meant to detail experiences and fantasies that trans girls have even before transitioning. However, captions are not meant for everyone, just like how not every trans girl is meant to be a programmer (sorry if I crushed your dreams).

Why did you create this blog?

Simply put, the disturbing amount of forced feminization, BDSM, and sissy blogs overflowing this site motivated me to do something different. Although few of these blogs have at least something redeeming to the point where I may reblog it and attach a description, the vast majority repels me due to its negative, humiliating energy. Unfortunately, caption blogs focused on the experiences of trans girls are either inactive or overshadowed. Lastly, I wanted to share a few personal experiences of exploring my identity through captions and post descriptions.

Where do you get your sources?

I get them through Google searches, social sites, and of course, other blogs from this site. Captions and descriptions are also based on what I learned, read, and heard through trans girls both online and IRL.

When do you usually post?

I post almost daily, or when I’m in the mood. I often reblog from other sources, but it is becoming a rare instance. Thursdays and Fridays are throwback and flashback posts recalling my own experiences or to jog the reader’s memory of seeing a familiar picture. I even point out the original pic source for trivia, or how the pic influenced me in making the captioned pic.

How will this help?

It is meant to affirm and validate any person who often deals with denial about being transgender. Although some of these captions seem a little teasing and may be seen as a fetish, everything is voluntary. However, NEVER use captions to treat gender dysphoria! Seek professional help if you are dealing with it! Also, please research the effects of HRT pills (hormone replacement therapy) as the changes may be permanent depending on the individual. They are not like Senzu Beans that will inflate you if taking more than needed. You WILL get actual and unpleasant side effects if abused.

Can you do any requests?

I’m sorry, but I rarely have the time to check back my blog or messages anymore. If I don’t read your message for some reason, don’t take it as an offense. I’m simply quite reserved and busy IRL. It could take time before I check back. Also, no, I will not take your request to “feminize” you! Fake “mistresses, doms, godesses, and daddies” are also out of the question! I had an awful intro experience online role-playing with them and I am never doing that again!

I’m a “sissy”, femboy, crossdresser (CD), etc. Am I welcome here?

I won’t place a ban on you if you are a sissy, a femboy, or a crossdresser as I have to acknowledge a good portion of my followers are of that category. However, I do not associate myself with the term “sissy” as I take it as a derogatory word used to invalidate someone’s gender identity. If you’re looking for “sissy” or “forced fem” stuff in this blog, don’t bother. You will dehydrate as fast as SpongeBob and Patrick on Sandy’s treedome.

Last: A little bit about you?

I’m a trans girl in her very early 30s who has an internal female side that I want to express. There are days I feel feminine and there are days I feel fluid with my gender. While I’m not completely out yet due to personal and social issues, I know I will finally be my own self once the chance comes. My primary interests are girls, though I may be interested in other feminine-leaning individuals in an occasion. While I won’t reveal my actual age, I am one of the older cuspers born between millennial and Gen Z. Favorite things include, but not limited to, anime, games, pop culture, and social media. You will catch some references through my caption posts.

I hope this Q&A solved most of your questions and doubts. Enjoy your stay here. You’ll probably find something you like. Thank you.

-Ashley “Nicki” Nicole

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une-sanz-pluis · 24 days

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What do you think of Anne Neville What I mean is, all the articles I read about her are about the men around her, her father, her two husbands... Anne's two biographies are mixed with the author's biases and feel more like novels. (When it comes to her novels, in all the works I know, Anne's role is to shape her "perfect" second husband... Her marriage with Edward was a disaster...)

The thing is there's very little that survives about the "real" Anne Neville. As far as contemporary chronicle accounts, the best comment about Anne is by Kavita Mudan Finn in The Last Plantagenet Consorts:

... about Anne herself there is little information. She remains an empty space at the center of these accounts, a definite and ultimately unexplored source of political and economic capital.

As an empty space, she can be anything anyone wants her to be. But like almost everything about the Wars of the Roses, she's become stereotyped into a collection of literary tropes and constructions that supposedly is her "real self" but try to trace them back and scrutinise them and the evidence will fall part apart or feeds a circular narrative.

In Tudor times, Anne's story was shaped by the narrative around Richard III. She is yet another of the monster's victims, the murdered wife casually disposed of by the cruel husband seeking a new bride - or else she and her son don't appear, their absence heightening Richard's alienation from humanity. The Ricardian movement has reshaped her into Richard's tragic and loyal wife who has loved him all her life. In this stories, Anne has been ailing since childhood and struggles through adversary and trauma - dragged hither and thither into danger by her uncaring, power-hungry father, married off to a vicious husband who abused her and maybe raped her (the debate on the marriage's consummation sure is... a thing that exists), endured the cruelties of Evil Queen Margaret, imprisoned by her own sister and brother-in-law - before Richard rescues her and she receives a brief few moments of married bliss before the recurring miscarriages and her frail health collapses ruin this bliss before she finally and tragically dies in a heartbroken Richard's arms.

Some novelists, such as Philippa Gregory and Annie Garthwaite, make a "feminist intervention" where, despite being still the tragically ailing heroine, Anne is also more ruthless or clever than Richard in the pursuit of power. Both authors depict Anne and Cecily Neville joining forces to push noble-hearted Richard into disinheriting his nephews in order to save him. The TV series based on Gregory's novels, The White Queen, depicts Anne as willing to have the Princes killed, though of course Margaret Beaufort gets there first and Anne later has a breakdown, having heard Elizabeth Woodville has cursed the murderers of her sons and rumours that Richard is having an affair with Elizabeth of York (which he pretty well is). Garthwaite, on the other hand, depicts Anne as the only woman Cecily Neville likes (and the only other woman the narrative doesn't derive as evil, stupid, selfish or hysteric - how is feminist again?) and joins forces with Cecily to advise the kindly Richard to bring the Princes back from wherever he's sent them to prove that they're not dead. Richard, however, nobly refuses - displaying what seem to be post-Diana concerns about the right of royalty to privacy - as he insists to bring them back would expose them to the public eye, a cruelty he cannot countenance but one Anne and Cecily evidently can.

Historian Anne Crawford very recently proclaimed Anne the lone perfect queen of the Wars of the Roses - because not a hint of criticism of her behaviour survives, though I suspect this is because the brevity of her life and the sheer absence of evidence for her life, and it's easy to proclaim her the ideal when you reduce Margaret of Anjou to a shrew and Elizabeth Woodville to an invasive species as Crawford does. Some Ricardians, on the other hand, declare Anne was a "bad" wife and queen due to having only one child, thus failing to secure Richard III's dynasty, and then for dying, thus leaving him open to accusations he murdered her. I know people who love the the idea of a monstrous Anne and Richard as an evil super couple.

Are any of these interpretations of Anne likely to reflect the real, historical Anne? We know so little about Anne's life that anything could is possible. We can talk about whether there's evidence that Anne had a chronic illness or recurring miscarriages, that she was raped or mistreated, that she was the brains behind Richard III - but a lack of evidence proving these things is hardly surprising given how little evidence survives about Anne in general, and an absence of evidence is not proof that these things didn't happen. I don't say that to mean, "and therefore I think these things happened" because I don't . I think these are more literary constructions or pointless point-scoring than an attempt to draw out the real Anne or at least imagine her as a flesh-and-blood woman who could have believably lived in the 15th century and did more than act as a heroine in a tragedy or a heroine in a romance.

I've not read the biographies of Anne. The biography by Michael Hicks has not reputation for being absolutely rancid and the one by Amy Licence... well, I think Licence is a pretty bad historian (I've got to rant about her Red Roses book in my head, but I will give her props for actually saying that maybe Victorian historian who famously got a lot of things wrong wasn't right about Catherine de Valois being forced into an abbey which is more than Tudor-Beaufort historian Nathen Amin is doing.) I did read and somewhat like the chapter on Anne in Late Plantagenet and the Wars of the Roses Consorts by Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs but that very much was shaped by Ricardianism.

I actually see parallels between Anne and Catherine de Valois. Both reigned as queen-consorts for such a short time that we have very little knowledge of what their queenship looked like and they can be imagined as perfect queens or useless queens (Anne Crawford labels Catherine as stupid and lacking in personality, for the record). Both are imagined today as more important not so much for their lives but for their status as romantic heroines. And when push comes to shove, they both get thrown under the Ricardian bus - Anne was a "bad" wife for suffering fertility issues and then dying and Catherine's Tudor children were all secret Beaufort bastards, which means Henry VII was a secret incest bastard who never had the right to the throne.

Both women are fascinating to us - but they remain out of reach due a lack of evidence. They must have lived very complex lives, living through the turmoil of war and civil unrest. And yet all everyone cares about is how they might shape the reputation of their second husbands and, in Catherine's case, the dynasty that ensued.

#ask #anon #anne neville #catherine de valois #since i mention her in the last couple of paragraphs #this is mainly ranting about how anne neville is depicted

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archduchessofnowhere · 8 months

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What books about Sisi do you recommend? 😄 Which ones are the best in your opinion?

Hello! I'm sorry for answering this so awfully late. I already recommended some of these books always before, but I tried to give some new recomendations this time!

BIOGRAPHIES:

Elizabeth, empress of Austria by Egon Conte Corti. The first biography of the empress based on primary sources; this work is to this day a point of reference for any historian who wants to write about Sisi. The book, first published in 1934, is however outdated and slightly biased (the children of archduchess Marie Valerie were the ones who opened up the family archives for Corti after all). Translations available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian, Slovak, Polish and Dutch.

The Reluctant Empress, by Brigitte Hamann. The most well sourced biography since Corti's. Hamann's book departed from the fairy tale princess image that had been established since the 50s and depicted Elisabeth as a complicated and far from perfect woman. The book, first published in 1982, is however slightly outdated and biased (Hamann just hated Elisabeth lol). There are translations available in English, Spanish, Hungarian, French, Italian, Czech, Polish and Romanian.

Sisis Weg: Vom Mädchen zur Frau by Martina Winkelhofer. I made a full review of this book last month but in short: a refreshing study at Elisabeth's childhood, teenhood and first years as empress that rely on newly available primary sources. I wouldn't recommend this book as your first approach to Elisabeth though, since Winkelhofer assumes the reader is already familiar with the "Sisi myth" and doesn't tend to give much historical context outside the necessary, which may be confusing if you aren't familiar with 19th century European history in general. Translations available in Italian, Polish and Czech.

PUBLISHED DIARIES, LETTERS AND MEMOIRS:

Das Tagebuch der Lieblingstochter von Kaiserin Elisabeth edited by Martha and Horst Schad. Archduchess Marie Valerie's diary from 1878 until 1899. I own a copy of this book and I've been slowly reading it, maybe one day I'll finally finish it. There are translations available in Italian, Hungarian and Czech.

Briefe Kaiser Franz Josephs an Kaiserin Elisabeth, 1859-1898 edited by Georg Nostitz-Rieneck. A compilation of the emperor's letters to his wife. Available (as far as I know) only in German.

Lieber Rudolf: Briefe von Kaiser Franz Joseph und Elisabeth an ihren Sohn edited by Friedrich Weissensteiner. A compilation of letters that the imperial couple wrote to their son Crown Prince Rudolf between 1860 and 1878. Available (as far as I know) only in German.

Das Tagebuch der Gräfin Marie Festetics: Kaiserin Elisabeths intimste Freundin edited by Gudula Walterskirchen and Beatrix Meyer. The diary of Elisabeth's lady-in-waiting Marie Festetics. Available in German and Hungarian.

Kaiserin Elisabeth ganz privat: Briefe an ihre intimste Vertraute Ida Ferency edited by Beatrix Meyer. All the surviving correspondance between Elisabeth and her reader and confident Ida Ferenczy. Available (as far as I know) only in German.

Unsere liebe Sisi: Die Wahrheit über Erzherzogin Sophie und Kaiserin Elisabeth edited by Gabriele Praschl-Bichler. A compilation of letters by archduchess Sophie regarding her daughter-in-law and also the life of the imperial family in general. Also available in Czech.

Aus den letzten Jahren der Kaiserin Elisabeth by Countess Irma Sztáray. The memoirs of Elisabeth's last lady-in-waiting, from the time she entered service in 1894 until the empress' assassination in 1898. Currently in the public domain in German so it can be read for free here; available also in Hungarian, French, Italian and Czech.

OTHERS:

Das Poetische Tagebuch edited by Brigitte Hamann. Elisabeth's edgy poetry. Historians drag her writing style through the mud while simultaneously using her poems as if they were her private diary. Waiting for a translation in English or Spanish to read them, available also in Hungarian and Italian.

Elisabeth: Stages in a life edited by Brigitte Hamann and Elisabeth Hassmann. A nice short book about the different places Elisabeth lived and traveled to, full with pictures. Available in German and English.

My Past by Countess Marie Larisch. The memoirs of Elisabeth's controversial niece. I don't actually recommend them for learning about the empress since they are very unreliable, hence why I din't put this book in the previous block. I do recommend reading them to double check which heavily accepted facts about Elisabeth and her family originated from here, since many historians repeat her claims uncritically, sometimes without even citing her as the source. In the public domain, you can read it for free in German here and in English here. Also available in Hungarian, French, Italian and Czech.

Tagebuchblätter by Constantin Christomanos. The diary of Elisabeth's Greek teacher from 1891 to 1894. Just as with Larisch' memoirs, Christomanos' book is a mix of fiction and reality, so you should take it with a grain of salt. You can read it for free in German here and in French here. Also available in Greek, Hungarian, Italian and Spanish.

I hope that I could help you!

#btw the only ones i've read from the published letters etc. block is valerie's diary and unsere liebe sisi (which i also haven't finished)#but i wanted to bring to as much primary documents published as possible #empress elisabeth of austria #asks #book recs

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idontwanttospoiltheparty · 2 months

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I'm not sure you need people to announce that they're just here for fun? it's tumblr...surely that can be assumed?

i dunno sometimes it seems like when you say this stuff it's a bit of a straw man argument because I don't really see anyone on here taking this stuff that seriously. we are not larries! no one is claiming Paul's kids are fake or anything lmao. yes people like to look at the history but again it's tumblr, it's just for fun.

maybe there is a whole other delusional side to beatles tumblr that i am not seeing, but i think maybe if people are getting mad when you argue with their dumb little posts it's just cause they think that you, in fact, DO want to spoil the party!

I have been waiting for someone to make this joke ever since I got that url. Have had to make it myself often <3

1. "we are not larries" is an incredibly low bar.

2. the specific contents of theories isn't the only thing that makes them conspiratorial. it's about the way they're argued.

3. Actually, I am thinking of One Specific Event from about a year and a half ago that was treated as people "spoiling the party" when in fact it was an example of good faith engagement with a seriously worded discussion post.* Maybe you missed that, and it's not like it's a super common occurrence. But in hindsight, I don't find it surprising given the climate here.

*I can provide more details on this specific thing in DMs if someone is curious. I don't wanna hash it out on main, especially since I was only peripherally involved.

4. This isn't about whether tumblr is your space to have fandom fun – I do assume that. It's about whether someone is making arguments in jest or if they mean them seriously. Both of these things might be fun to someone (but maybe I could have worded that point better in the original tags).

5. No, no fake kids, and this fandom isn't plagued by a central figure who's to blame for all the "bad stuff". Plus, it's "decentralized", so no singular entity is controlling some super specific narrative. This definitely keeps the space in check. That's part of it though: it's all very sociological, which makes my issue difficult to address because most single posts aren't a problem in of themselves, but there's a tangible vibe to the whole thing. That's also why I want to tread lightly here; I know a lot of it is a joke, but it's hard to tell what isn't. Like, yeah, I've been passive-aggressive lately, but I've also been watching this for a long time. And I regularly see things I perceive as a strawman against my position as well as absolutist rhetoric, which reads just as much as picking a fight as any of my recent posts do. If you talk about there only being "one explanation" for something, what is that, other than putting forward your theory as true? Is it really Not Serious? Every time? Even when the post is presented in a serious way, with sources and evidence? People on this site talk about what they expect Mark Lewisohn to include in his Definitely Trying To Be Serious And Factful biography series. Those demands are never serious? And I don't want to just ruin people's fun for no reason! But I also have a hard time dismissing every single thing that Sounds Kind Of Serious as Probably A Joke (and I do do it, pretty regularly) And I semi-often see people doing things that set off my alarm bells, even when they are not proclaiming Stella McCartney to be a lifelong actress. (reminder that several people on here freaked about the For Paul tapes story being semi-debunked last November; like actively scorned people who were trying to figure out how that story came about and where it originated. That's not normal, sorry to say! And, funnily enough, about a year ago, there was a blog on here pushing a very very very esotheric version of McLennon [and even trying to monetize it] and while most people dismissed them for the kook they were, they splashed onto the tumblr scene in an identical way [saying something that amounted to: "how dare you imply this apocryphal Paul McCartney quote might be fake?"] –––– so my question is: is it not that serious? I Don't Know You Tell Me!)

6. This is @ me mostly, I guess. I just feel like this space has become more and more of a monoculture. Shipping is the default angle with which everything is approached. If John and Paul write songs that are maybe not about each other that's not often seen as worth diving into. (See: Beautiful Boy tinhatting). I actually want to try and change this; get more diverse content on this site, but I guess I assume it's not welcome, which is on me, really. I have slides explaining my specific reading of Double Fantasy (yes, seriously) and there isn't really much stopping me from posting them, outside the fact that most people on here seem to have a very different relationship to the songs from the album than I do, so I assume they won't care. But y'know, I'll try to just Make More Content and see what that does. (For the record I know that sounds whiny. And I do seriously want to do better on that front)

#ask #anon #discourse #fiona.docx

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burningvelvet · 9 months

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so i have some random questions, maybe you could answer, and am curious if any have had any academic papers written up about them, or if you just.. know where to find the information? Bit of a meta question: How much information do we actually have of the gang on their days in Geneva around the time of digging into their ghost stories? Is it just ex. what you've posted before of their journals of the time, or do we have other later recollections akin to Mary's own in her intro of Frankenstein? Just how much remains, and how much can we pull from various sources etc? (research is fun, go off on this on, i love to read it.) The evening before mary's waking dream, do we have any further recollection by the others on their discussions on the principle of life, other than her account? Or even in general by the squad thru their lives, does anyone dig into the technological advancements and scientific theories of their time, or even those of the Enlightenment thinkers? (Newton, Hooke, Boyle, et al.) I assume since it's the Romantics with their general dislike of the prior period it's a no, and also because I'm asking about bloody poets, not academics, but..? Likewise, anything written by the gang on her waking dream and the effects after? (could've sworn I read something about Mary appearing gastly pale?) (I'd love to hear your thoughts and rants and rambles on the following, :D): Or do we have anything written by others outside the gang in reference to her dream after she gave her Intro? Something like.. (I can't articulate this well, pls bear with me; ) Has there been any sort of mysticism, or poetic acknowledgement of Mary's 'waking dream'/'hallucination' being written as something 'supernatural'? Anything written akin to that one parody/horror film you mentioned where everyone basically hallucinates that night lol. like.. Mary's Intro gives such an inherent je ne sais quoi (lol) of.. this entire fragment of history? It reads like a frozen slice of a gothic novel/poem in itself. Very 'based on a true story' but the true story holds more substance than Frankenstein itself. As if Mary herself was in a gothic novel writers could only dream of. Has nobody noted this? Tried to catch it, wax poetic on it? I feel like there's a.. gravitas here but I don't see anyone speak of it? (other than that horror film.)

This will be long!

Re: Geneva 1816 sources: We have letters, journals, records (like receipts), accounts from the other people on the lake, accounts from aristocrats Byron visited at Geneva without the Shelleys presence, and some accounts from Lord Byron's Geneva servants given to inquiring tourists later on. Lake Geneva was an insulated aristocratic vacation town and gossip abounded.

First-person documents: - Polidori’s 1816 journal, his prefaces to The Vampyre and Ernestus Berchtold. - History of a Six Weeks Tour, Mary’s first book, co-written with Shelley; travelogue containing letters and journals from their travels in 1814 and 1816. - Mary Shelley’s other journals and letters. - Mary Shelley's (voluntarily uncredited) contributions to Thomas Moore's biography series on Byron, where the time in Geneva is talked about and where most of the funny stories come from, and a handful of comments in Thomas Moore's diaries/letters regarding Mary's recollections. - Byron’s letters, found here on Peter Cochran's site (he was an editor/scholar & leading Byronist) https://petercochran.wordpress.com/byron-2/byron/

Best books about the summer of 1816: - Byron in Geneva by David Ellis, - The Poet and the Vampyre by Andrew Stott, - The Making of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" by Daisy Hay.

Books on Frankenstein or the tech & science of the time in relation to Mary & other Romantics: way too many to mention! Frankenstein is one of the most written about works of all time, and tech discourse is inherent to Romanticism — there are tons of books & articles written about all topics. Percy studied science with James Lind and was inspired by Erasmus Darwin who Mary refers to in a Frankenstein preface.

On if others at Diodati recollected specifically about Frankenstein or Mary being pale: Percy wrote a review of Frankenstein as well as the novel's introduction section (he wrote it from Mary's POV), and he mentioned the novel in his letters; Claire discusses it several times in her letters with praise, Byron mentions it once or twice with brief compliments; Polidori mentions it in the preface to Ernestus Berchtold in compliment but with possible jealousy beneath. Your "pale" reference likely refers to how she and Byron said she looked when learning of the news of Percy's missing boat; I made a post about that (https://www.tumblr.com/burningvelvet/710178692214784000/from-conversations-of-lord-byron-with-the-countess?source=share).

My Interpretation of Mary's "waking dream": This was largely metaphorical. Mary probably did have an inspirational dream (scientists have found evidence: https://m.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0928/Frankenstein-moon-Astronomers-vindicate-Mary-Shelley-s-account) but at the same time I do think she sensationalized the trip a bit. From the novel The Poet and the Vampyre: "these [visits to Diodati were] not always convivial - Mary describing the 13 August visit in a single word: 'War.'" Mary, like everyone else, mythologized the summer of 1816. The preface to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein (different from the 1818 original) sensationalizes the origins with a gothic flare because that’s what she knew her fans wanted; she was a widowed single mother in her 30s determined to make a living off her writing, and she enjoyed the immense popularity of Frankenstein, helping to proliferate it through the wildly successful stage adaptation which was spookier and showier than the philosophical novel.

Mary “said the three or four months she passed there were the happiest of her life,” (source: Thomas Moore’s journal, vol. 5, p. 178, via Internet Archive). Before, and especially after this summer of 1816, Mary experienced many traumas which left her with severe depression, and so she romanticized that time, ignoring all of the many ongoing problems surrounding it.

1816 was extraordinary fun for all of them, but it was not paradise. The summer was littered with actual storms as well as emotional storms. In the 1831 preface Mary makes no mention of Claire’s existence, though Claire was the only reason they were even there, since Claire wanted to visit Byron who she was having a horribly drawn out affair with. The two dramatically broke up that summer, made worse by Claire then revealing she was pregnant with his child. There was also a lot of drama with Polidori (writer, and Byron’s doctor) who fought with Byron and Percy, threatening Percy to duel him over a sailing race.

Mary was also in denial about Percy’s many problems. Shelley was mentally and physically ill, perpetually on the run from debtors who had imprisoned him, disowned by his family for being kicked out of Oxford due to atheism, publicly notorious, had a wife and children back in England, and more than likely had an ongoing affair with Claire, causing Byron to briefly wonder at their child’s paternity. Still, Mary was madly in love with Percy from the time she met him until her last moments on Earth when she died staring at his preserved heart which she requested to be buried with. She shared his struggles and spent much of her life defending him, and she's the reason he achieved posthumous fame thanks to her relentlessly promoting, annotating, editing, transcribing, publishing, and republishing his works.

She occasionally does hint at the drama of that time, and how hurt she felt at times, but generally Mary ignored these things, as well as their many other flaws, so that she could remain on good terms with all of them (especially Claire and Byron after their break-up). Despite the drama, she had felt the good times at Lake Geneva were the best times of her life thus far. She was in the most beautiful place in the world, she loved traveling, she felt inspired to write, her baby was healthy and had a good nanny, her own health improved, she spent fun times with her lover who was happily preoccupied with sailing, Claire (who she loved but also found annoying) was preoccupied with Byron, and she found Byron fascinating.

Not even a year after the trip, she was already painfully reminiscing about her good memories:

“that time is past, and this will also pass, when I may weep to read these words, and again moralise on the flight of time. Dear Lake! I shall ever love thee,”

“We may see [Byron] again, and again enjoy his society; but the time will also arrive when that which is now an anticipation will be only in the memory. Death will at length come, and in the last moment all will be a dream.”

“why is not life a continued moment where hours and days are not counted — but as it is a succession of events happen — the moment of enjoyment lives only in memory and when we die, where are we?”

Frankenstein was started in the summer of 1816 and first published in 1818. Then there was an 1831 edition, the most commonly read today, which is slightly different (slightly less radical for Victorian audiences) and which includes the preface which refers to the “waking dream.” Scholars have noted that Mary’s recollection is partly based on her mythologizing and romanticizing her youth. This is even more obvious considering all of the traumas she had experienced afterward. In her journals (via Project Gutenberg) she often refers to her youth as being like a dream before Percy's death. She was seeing her life through rose-tinted glasses to cope, and possibly experiencing depression-related derealization.

Condensed timeline of Mary’s traumas to show what I mean about the Frankenstein period being a relatively happier time for her: Her mother died giving birth to her. June 1814: her and her step-sister Claire run away with Shelley. Problems with her father for years after (though they eventually rekindle). Feb 1815: 1st child dies, becomes pregnant a few months later. Jan 1816: has 2nd child who is healthy. Summer 1816: Geneva summer, begins writing Frankenstein; Claire in love with and pregnant by Byron before their relationship dissolves. Oct 1816: Mary’s half-sister Fanny kills herself. Dec 1816: Shelley’s wife kills herself; Mary marries Percy to protect their kids & so he can gain custody of his first 2 kids. Mar 1817: they stay in Marlowe; Mary described this as maybe their happiest residence, and this is where she wrote much of Frankenstein. 1817 misc.: court denies them custody of Shelley's first two kids due to his unorthodoxy; Percy self-exiles from England, they move to Italy, move around continuously, & suffer illness. Sept 1817: 3rd baby is born & dies. Jan 1818: Frankenstein published. June 1819: 2nd child dies while Mary is pregnant with 4th child. Nov 1819: has 4th & only surviving baby (Percy Florence, who lives a long life). 1821: Polidori dies from suspected suicide. April 1822: Claire & Byron’s baby Allegra dies. June 1822: news of Allegra’s death. Mary almost dies from a miscarriage, Percy saves her life. July 1822: Percy dies in a boat accident. Their social circle splits up. Claire moves to Russia. After comforting her, Mary’s closest friend Jane (whose husband died with Percy; the two couples lived together) breaks up their friendship & moves abroad. Mary suffers multiple social conflicts which are largely not her fault, & becomes socially isolated. 1823: Byron & their mutual friend Trelawny join the Greek War. 1824: Byron dies. Mary writes her apocalyptic novel The Last Man as a tribute to her broken social circle & it’s members.

From her journal, Oct 2, 1822: “Father, mother, friend, husband, children—all made, as it were, the team which conducted me here, and now all, except you, my poor boy (and you are necessary to the continuance of my life), all are gone, and I am left to fulfill my task.”

Several times, she wrote that the only reason she didn’t kill herself was because of her son Percy. However, note: Her life did improve after The Last Man. It's a bit of an outdated view that she was just a stereotypical depressed widow forever after. She was a strong and determined woman, and she eventually had a full social circle, friends, married son, daughter-in-law, flirtations, a successful writing career, hobbies, and so on. She found meaning through motherhood, writing, and paying tribute to Percy. However, for all these reasons, she saw the period of Frankenstein and prior to be some of the happiest times of her life and a "calm before the storm" (literally, the storm that killed Percy), which explains all the above.

#ask #asks #mary shelley #frankenstein #lake geneva #summer of 1816 #dreams of 1816 #romanticism #my writing #essays #research #the geneva squad #geneva squad #resources

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maigeiko · 1 year

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Karyukai Book collection, 2022 edition

It’s been a while since the last book feature on this blog. The collection has grown, maybe you are also interested in Gei-/Maiko related books and find this helpful.

Category 1: Japanese only or Japanese with only little English …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Showa no Gion: b&w photos depicting life in Gion Kobu in the 1970’s and 80’s. Captions are entirely in Japanese, but easy to translate, since they are mostly dates and names. At the end of the book, there are few pictures from the 1930’s and 40’s. …Sumi Asahara - Tokyo Rokkagai: Interviews with Tokyo Geisha, history and map of the main six Tokyo Kagai, old and new photos. Books on the subject of Tokyo Geisha are fairly rare, so this is a good source of information. …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Hannari Kyo Maiko no Shiki: photos of the seasonal events and celebrations in the Kyoto Hanamachi, with Map and full Ochaya list. …Keiko Tanaka - Nihongami taizen: despite featuring Maiko Fukuno on it’s cover, only a little part of it deals with Maiko Nihongami. It has a bit of Tayu/Sumo/new Nihongami as well, the largest part however is focusing on the various historical hairstyles displayed at the Kushi Matsuri. …Kobunshi Katsura - Showa Meigiren: featuring portraits of 228 senior Geisha in the late Showa period. Some of them worked in Hanamachi that no longer exist, 31 of them are still active in 2022. …Tetsuo Ishihara - Maiko no kamigata: showing Maiko hairstyles, how to tie them, Kanzashi calendar, Pocchiri showcase, and a Maiko getting dressed …Tetsuo Ishihara - Kyo Shimabara Tayu: similar to Maiko no Kamigata, but focusing on Tayu hairstyles. Contains a little overview about the then-current Tayû and some of their activities around the year. …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Gion, the world of stylish parties: Photos by HM (mostly Gei/Maiko, but also some Hanamachi architecture and food), Maiko illustrations, old (Taisho/early Showa) photos of Gion Kobu Gei-/Maiko and interviews with selected Gei/Maiko and Karyukai workers. …Noboru Hamaoka - Gion to Maiko: mostly b/w photos, some colour photos featuring people who live in the Karyûkai: including Gei-/Maiko, dance teachers and hairdressers, Gion’s cityscape, Kanzashi and Okiya interior. More text than photos. …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Kyo Miyagawacho: Photo book, bit of history, events through the year. “History of Miyagawacho” by the then head of the Ochaya Union fully translated to English, otherwise the main content is in Japanese. Miyagawacho map and Ochaya list on the last pages. …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Kyo Pontocho: similar to Kyo Miyagawacho, but smaller format and less text …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - Gion Mai Goyomi: HM photos on abysmal tiny pages. Can’t recommend. Heard there are two editions of this, that differ, so maybe the other one is bigger?

Category 2: English or Japanese with full English translation in the same book. …Liza Dalby - Geisha: LD lived in Kyoto and worked with Pontocho Geiko in the 1970′s. In this book, you can read about her experiences …Kikuya - I, a Geisha: written by an Akasaka Geisha, has infos about her profession, some infos about the history of selected Tokyo Hanamachi. …various - Geisha: beyond the painted smile: lots of text but only little content. Few nice photos. Only worth buying if it’s really cheap. …John Paul Foster - Geisha and Maiko of Kyoto: portraits of and interviews with several Gei/Maiko, studded with anecdotes of JPF’s experiences as photographer in Kyoto. …Percival Perkins - Geisha of Pontocho: Experiences with Pontocho Geiko and Maiko in the 1950’s and short biographies of selected GeiMaiko. …Kyoko Aihara - Geisha: good and basic book from the late 1990′s focusing on Hanamachi life in Kyoto. You can spot some familiar faces of Geiko who were Maiko then, or Geiko who just retired recently. …Mineko Iwasaki - Geisha of Gion: autobiography of one of the most famous Kyoto Geiko, including anecdotes from her elders (for example, concering life in the Hanamachi during WWII) …John Paul Foster - now a Geisha: while “Geisha and Maiko of Kyoto” offers a rather broad spectre of topics, this is focused on the change from Maiko to Geiko: Sakko and Erikae. JPF portrays three Maiko, then Geiko during this time of transition. …Kazuhiko Matsumura - Subtle Beauty: originally a photo essay published in a newspaper. It’s about Maiko and Geiko from the five Kyoto Hanamachi in all stages of their carreers. …Hiroshi Mizobuchi - the Kagai in Kyoto: probably the only HM book mostly translated to English. Apart from being an updated version of books like “Kyoto Gion, Kyoto Pontocho, Kyoto Miyagawacho”, an entire chapter is dedicated to Satsukis way from Shikomi to Geiko. …Taka Kobayashi - Utsuyaka: full-page photos of Kosen (Gion Kobu) with only little text. The book itself is a pretty large format, so you can have a good look at her outfits. …Kelly Foreman - the Gei of Geisha: densely packed with information on around 250 pages, concerning arts, economy and the social aspects of being a Geisha. …Sayo Masuda - Autobiography of a Geisha: SM endured a lot of abuse from childhood on, was sold to an Okiya in Kamisuwa Onsen at the age of 12 and worked as a Geisha until she was “bought” by a patron around 1939.

Category 3: originally published in Japanese, available in lots of different languages, but not English. …Kiharu Nakamura - Memoiren einer Geisha: KH worked as Geisha in Shinbashi for around 2 years in the early 1930′s. Only around 20% of the whole book deal with her time before retirement, so the title is a bit misleading. Nevertheless, it’s a nice source of information on pre-war Shinbashi.

#MG #books #geisha #geiko #geigi #maiko #hangyoku

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submalevolentgrace · 1 year

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hi hello, sorry it's another amputee question, idk if you get tired of these. i found your blog and i like how you share your experiences, thank you for this. im abled myself but im writing a story, and i want my main girlie protag to have a prosthetic leg and here's the thing, i dont really have a reason for it. i guess it says something about me, don't know what, but i just don't know if that's considered, well, offensive, or rude, or something. i don't plan to have any focus on it in the story. the medium is a comic so it's going to be always visible as a prosthetic, but i don't want to explain it in-story either, no backstory, she would probably just have it since early childhood. it won't affect the plot. and that's where i don't know if that's even okay. it feels weird to want that, to include that, almost as if i need to somehow turn the story about it, to have some kind of statement. which i don't actually want to make or even feel able to make as never experiencing it. i want for her to have a prosthetic leg just because. and i don't have anyone to ask this, and i don't mean to offend you by this, and i apologize if i somehow did. but if it's okay with you to answer, i'd appreciate reading. if it's gonna be an angry rant i'd like to read it too. i know you're an upper body amp, but idk, i feel like this question isn't much about the use of prosthetics and more of the general amputee characters, and im scared to ask reddit, i don't even know if that ask made sense. thank you if you read that all, please don't feel pressured to answer. hopefully you'll have something good that brightens your day a little!

thank you, i actually really appreciate this ask! sorry that the response is long and wordy, i got a bit carried away…

so, i've gotten a lot of asks/dms/notes from writers asking about how to write their amputee characters/ocs after my big "writing advice" post, and i think i've ended up ignoring every single one of them, because… well, not to be rude to all those people, but they seem to have completely bounced off the whole 'know why you are writing this' thesis, too caught up in the excitement of their own fantasy to even notice the bit about understanding your own intent as an author and why that matters, let alone really engaging with it. and at that point, i don't think there's any advice or feedback i can give that would break through, especially when it seems what most people are seeking is little details and nuances to add authenticity to their token representation characters or unintentional stereotypes.

but, without any other details or nuances that shape a character's portrayal, based solely on what you've said in this ask, i feel like you're on the right track and probably gonna do fine. the thing that sticks out most clearly to me is how you phrase it, "i WANT to write a protagonist to have a prosthetic leg", you are acknowleding your role as omnipotent author, and i honestly think that's worth a lot more than many people realise when it comes to crafting fiction. you've acknowledged your desire for this character to be a certain way, and you're being introspective about the source of those desires and how it will come across - and that means you're almost certainly also thinking about how it interacts with the rest of the story, how it serves your themes, and how it will be interpreted and understood by the audience.

a lot of responses or people asking me for advice say things like "i am writing a character who HAS an amputation", implying it's an observable fact, pre-concluded before their authoring of them, and therefore something they're much less likely to examine critically. maybe it's unfair of me to draw such deep conclusions from shallow choice of language, but firstly, so many people have been far more obvious about it, saying a character "revealed" or "told" them about the amputation, or just straight up talking abot them as independent entities with their own agency, as if it's a biography and not fiction. and secondly, what are we even doing talking about improving the craft of our writing and how it will be recieved by the audience if we're not going to think about how framing affects interpretation? if someone is reaching out to me asking for writing advice, you bet i am going to assume this is a person who wants to improve the details of their own writing craft, and i'm going to critically engage with the tiny snippet of writing they've given me and analyse how it reflects on them, even if it is "just" a tumblr interaction. i don't even consider myself a writer really, the art i mainly dedicate myself to is music, but i still put careful thought into anything i write that's more than a few sentences, and think about the audience it will be seen by.

sorry, that's a whole other tangent… not at all about what you asked. but by way of example and segue back; what i see you reveal in the writing of your ask is a nervousness and anxiety to 'do well' in your writing, to create a character with an amputation in a way that holds up to scrutiny and criticism, and also a fear of what unfortunate things you might be saying and the responses it would provoke if you misstep. i can totally understand that, not just because you messaged me and i personally have a track record of going off on people lol, but also… yeah, people are very eager to judge and attack art based on a hidden metric of how 'well' it does 'representation' or handles things, and be vocal about the failings of things that make an earnest attempt. and i can see that it's very appealing to want to pull back and hide from that; a character who has a prosthetic leg opens you up to your audience critiquing how well you've handled it, most of them not amputees, many of them with the subtlety and media analysis skills of a sledgehammer… while if you write a story with no amputees in it, nobody has anything to critique.

unfortunately, no matter how well or carefully or authentically you write, there will always be someone engaging with it in bad faith yelling loudly about how awful you are; i recently made a short sharp post giving a trigger warning for medical abuse and body horror in the new zelda game that painfully evoked some of my own experiences, i still got people reblogging it telling me i'm ableist for saying disability is body horror (piss on the poor reading comprehension) and should apologise to all amputees (waves my one hand and nub around in a comical hello gesture). maybe that is on me for writing it quickly in an upset huff instead of making at least two proofreading and editing passes and oh geez, this is getting waaay too long and off topic. okay, to the point.

honestly, from what little you've told me, to be overly reductive, i'd give it a stamp of approval. sometimes people just only have one leg and that's fine, people are born like that, it's a thing that happens - and it doesn't need to shape the entirety of their lives, and reflecting that in fiction is more than just fine, i think it's what we need. sure any amputee character i write is going to be an overt commentary on ableism and medical abuse, because that's what i live, that's what affects me. but i know because i've watched their stuff on youtube, that there are so many people out there that were born limb different that just, don't care about it, and it doesn't really affect their life at all. if your protag has a prosthesis, sure she's had to get fitted for it and train for it, and it might benefit you to do an afternoon of research into that if you want to see how it might holistically flesh out her worldview (look up osseointegration vs external sockets, if you want keywords to help, look for patient experiences instead of doctors).

but also, if her other leg has finished growing and she's got a prosthesis that works, she may not have thought about it literally for years, maybe decades depending on her age. i had braces as a teen and it has zero impact on my life, i've had foot and back problems in the past, and it's irrelevant to me now other than getting new off the shelf shoe inserts every few years. i can think of at least one (australian) celebrity with a pretty long and successful comedy career who most people don't even know was born without one foot, it's just not relevant.

sometimes people just have things going on in the background that don't matter, and sometimes characters should have something just going on in the background too, no matter what "save the cat" sort of writing advice tells you. sometimes cutting literally everything out of a story unless it serves the plot or themes is bad actually, and i guarantee you, even as a hand amputee, i would absolutely LOVE to see a leg amp character who is just having a life, doing other plot relevant things. especially much more than i want to see all the characters of people leaving tags saying some version of "thanks OP, now i can write the suffering and torment of my oc much more authentically". think of the hypothetical little girl born without a leg that just wants to see someone like her.

and finally. what i think is maybe at the core of your anxiousness, at least to my read of your ask. you've thought about your role as author and self reflected about why you want to write a character with a prosthetic leg, and you can't find an answer in you, and you're not sure if that means it's something bad. well, assuming good faith from you, i think that's fine too. people who fetishise prostheses or amputations, people obsessed with the suffering or (percieved) depenedncy, or whatever else it is that makes them yearn to write their hacky awful robot arm characters; they probably don't do the introspection, and if they did, they'd find their answer right away (horniness or power fantasy usually), although i doubt they'd be honest with themselves about it, let alone others. assuming good faith and honesty, if you can't find in yourself WHY you want to write this character with a prosthetic leg….. it's probably just a harmless aesthetic preference.

if you wanted it to do cool things or make her more powerful or more special than others or be endless inconvenience and suffering or make her the chosen one because of it or something, that'd set off alarm bells for me yeah, and i'd be reading into it as a much more harmful aesthetic choice, and responding much more aggressively. but if you want to write a story about other things that features a protagonist who just so happens to have a plausibly normal boring prosthetic leg…. that seems fine to me, honestly. i tend towards having characters with certain hair and eye colour combinations that i find aesthetically pleasing, and as long as i'm thinking about how that could come across and trying to avoid any pitfalls around fetishisation and nastier implications, i think it's probably fine.

there are really only three concrete pieces of advice i would give you:

one, when you've got a cohesive first/beta draft, try to find at least one sensitivity reader who's got as similar disability experience as possible to your character (lower limb, same kinda circumstances, same general use of prosthesis), and listen to their feedback.

two, while i totally acknowledge that leg protheses can be super useful everyday kit for many people, i still have a general aversion to "this character NEEDS a prosthesis or they're helpless" readings, and many people don't want to or can't use leg prostheses… if it were me doing it, i'd make acknowledgement of that, and in a visual medium like a comic, i think that's as simple as having a single panel showing your character waking up in bed without the prosthesis, and maybe at her home there are forearm crutches leaning against the wall as background decoration. maybe if you have any scenes where she's woken up in the middle of the night, or interrupted before being fully dressed for the day, you could show them in use. but that's a personal value suggestion from me, your judgement or sensitivity readers might disagree on the importance of that.

three, you will absolutely need to establish as early and overtly as possible that the prosthesis and amputation DOES NOT MATTER to the story or her character arc. people still very much have a default normative body in mind when engaging with fiction, and anything that deviates from that will 100% be interpreted as a checkov's gun that they will be anticipating and theorising about going off, unless you squash that down. if you want to make a statement about it not mattering, unfortunately i think you're going to have to spell that out as obviously as possible without breaking the fourth wall, or else the audience trained on existing robot limb tropes will be waiting for the traumatic tragic backstory or secret rocket booster to become relevant.

but also…. i'm just some bitch on the internet, talking like i'm more important than i am, getting loudly angry about limb difference when i'm a pretty recent and unusual addition to the group myself. so like, don't take anything i say as absolute, and while it's always good to listen to others, at the end of the day you still gotta synthesise all their thoughts into your own.

i don't really have a nice concluding statement other than to say, thankyou for appreciating my post, and most importantly, thankyou for caring about the craft of writing enough to critically analyse your own authorship, and being curious about how to improve on a sensitive topic.

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nordleuchten · 8 months

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Hello! I hope you’re having a wonderful day.

I was wondering if you had any idea on where to look for informations about the Noailles family.

The only sources I could find was Adriennes biography, and Anything that had to do with Lafayette. So wondered if you knew of any other materials I could take a look at. (Maybe about Adrienne’s sisters, parents, or cosines, other relatives etc.)

Dear Anon,

I have to make a confession – the Noailles-family never has captured my interest quite *that* much and therefor my answer may be a bit limited. Then again, there has been a lot less published about the Noailles-family then about the La Fayette-family.

You mentioned that you had a look at biographies about Adrienne – I do not know which ones you consulted; maybe you already know some of the ones I am going to suggest.

La Vie de Madame de Lafayette is a book that Adrienne and her youngest daughter Virginie co-authored. Adrienne wrote the first half of the book about her mother, de Duchess d’Ayen, and Virginie wrote the second half about Adrienne and then went on to publish the book after her mother’s death. While La Fayette is mentioned in both parts, he is only a minor character in this book.

Anne-Paule-Dominique de Noailles, Marquis de Montague (the title varies sometimes a little depending on the edition and/or the translation) are the Memoirs of Adrienne’s second youngest sister. Anne survived both her sister Adrienne as well as her brother-in-law La Fayette and died in 1839. The book gives great insight into her life.

Madame de Lafayette and her family by Mary McDermont Crawford is an old book that deals in large part with the La Fayette-part of the family – but the Noailles-part is represented as well, even some of the more “minor” members of the family.

I also would suggest the Memoirs of the Comte de Ségur. Now, I do not use his Memoirs as often as I could, but since Ségur was a family friend both to the La Fayette’s as well as to the Noailles’ I believe that there should be something in his Memoirs.

I know that the Archive in Geneva has a few letters from and to the Duc d’Ayen and his second wife, Adrienne’s step-mother, but these letters are hard to access online.

Now, if you are really interested and do not mind a bit of digging, I can recommend the letters of La Fayette (especially the earlier letter that we have) and of John Adams (when he was ambassador in France). Both had a lot of contact with the Noailles and either wrote to members of the Noailles-family directly or mentioned incidents of the family live as well as, in Adams case, commenting on the family members and their behavior/opinions/etc.

It is not much but I hope that you can use this at least as a starting point. I hope you have/had a wonderful day!

#ask me anything #anon #marquis de lafayette #la fayette #french history #history #de noailles #john adams #comte de ségur #adrienne de lafayette #adrienne de noailles #resources #anne paule dominique de montague #duchess d'ayen #duc d'ayen

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darlinggeorgiedear · 6 months

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author lynn picknett wrote that george v enjoyed the services of prostitutes in his stays at bognor resort, ur opinion?

Not true. I had to google her but I think this is the same person who thinks George has an illegitimate son that resembles David, which doesn't make any sense because David looks like his mother.

Majority of biographers or Royal experts, like Lynn Pickett, do not have access to the Royal Archives (primary sources), which makes anything they write either completely imaginative or just a re write of old information already revealed. Since every official biographer that has used the Royal Archive as a source confidently claims George was a faithful husband concludes Lynn opinions outlandish.

Also, I do know that sometimes information is not put into books out of respect for the remaining Royal family, but that doesn't mean official biographies are lies that need to be debunked by third parties who have never seen an official document in their life (Lynn Pickett). Kenneth Rose upset the Queen by writing about George's involvement in the Tsar exile debacle (this was a bombshell at the time) and Jane Ridley definitely isn't scared to write negative things about George.

I guess in ways those who do write based from primary source material, sometimes get it wrong too, because they can be influenced by their own opinions BUT that doesn't mean they invent things and are untrustworthy. Kenneth Rose description of the Tsar exile debacle is a great example because we all probably know the document he is basing his information from (how the King is worried about public outcry and that maybe the Tsar should go to France), yet some like me (and the Queen) think it is wrong to blame him for Nicholas's death since it does not disprove that George wanted to rescue Nicholas, but instead just not wanting him in England. I completely understand why Kennth Rose came to his conclusion though.

I think I've written about this before but, to me, it makes no sense when people claim to have new information when their only sources are secondary. Debatably Lynn Pickett didn't even use a source and it all just came from her head.

#george v #king george v #brf #british royal family

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flowwochair · 9 months

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please do elaborate on angsty bessimu!! you are selling me on this ship very fast

also do you have sources for bessieres’ depression i’m trying to learn more about this pretty man

OMG GLADLY!!! THE MORE BESSIMU FANS THE BETTER!!! To begin with, like I've mentioned before, Murat and Bessières met by attending the same school (the exact age at which they met I am a bit confused on since according to biographies on Murat he started attending when he was 10-12 but I'm unsure when Bessi started attending, I assume around the same age but I am unsure on that due to lack of info on Bessi), I assume Murat must've been somewhat attached to Bessi given they soon afterwards went on to serve in the same guard (both of them dropped out, Murat because he wanted to, Bessi due to financial reasons), which makes their later separation in years between their early 20s and the Italian campaign even more odd to me, I'm not sure what happened, maybe Murat promised to find them better jobs after the guard they were in disbanded, maybe they had a fight, maybe Murat didn't want to leave but something happened so PRIME ANGST TERRITORY!!!!!!!!!!!! Murat managed to reunite with Bessi in Italy around 1796 after which Bessi was promoted and put under Napoleon's command, Bessi would also go on to serve in Egypt, Spain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria with Murat (those are the ones I remember for sure, so I may be missing some due to being unsure whether they were together or not). Their separation after Murat's betrayal was definitely sudden regardless of whether Bessi may have known Murat's intentions or not, we also don't know exactly how Bessi himself felt towards Murat after Murat, but I assume he presented more grief than hostility, or at least that it contributed to worsening his depression. Once again PRIME ANGST TERRITORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Regarding Bessi's depression, you can find info on it in a couple of his biographies (including his surface level wiki, although there it is mostly implied), some writings from his ADCs for 1810 onwards, and some surviving letters dated from 1810 onwards. Even before the Russian campaign in Spain Bessi was already demonstrating some signs of worsening depression due to his unwillingness to cooperate with colleagues and general apathetic attitude. Bessieres seemed miserable, and the Russian campaign would only go on to worsen this due to him having to witness so much death around him, not to mention the tremendous losses suffered by France during the campaign. To make things worse, after Murat's betrayal, Bessieres, who was already carrying Bernadotte's duties, now also had to carry Murat's, this would overwhelm anyone let alone a person already described as emotionally unstable as Bessieres. From 1811 onwards, Bessieres was consistently disgraced by frequent defeats and failures. By 1813 he seemed to have been at his worse psychologically), although I don't believe he knew he was going to die nor planned his death (the way it played out at least), it was certainly suspicious he showed less commitment and went out of his way to order a great deal of his personal correspondence to be burned.

#rhodo answers #rhodo rambles #jean baptiste bessières #joachim murat #bessimu #i am ever expanding my bessimu army

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jess-the-reckless · 7 months

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Spooky season is very much upon us, so here’s a freebie. I was planning on putting Ghosted out as a Halloween offer, but reasons, so in the meantime here’s a little spooky something I wrote back in twentysomething, maybe? Can’t remember when. I think it was one of those novels that fell into the pandemic time hole, which might account for some of its weirdness. The other thing that might account for the weirdness is that it’s about ghosts and witches and cults and things, all of which are dear to my heart for various reasons. The question I most get asked about Arcana is ‘why did you write an entire novel around Boston’s More Than a Feeling?’, and yeah – good question. I didn’t know the answer to that at the time, either. I mean, yes, I’m really into boomer dad-rock, but what of it? Don’t know.

I always wanted to write something about a cult, ever since high school, where I had a married couple of Religious Studies teachers who were obsessed with cults, particularly the Moonies. They were both Christians, she a fierce feminist who had very little time for St. Paul, while he was famous for crucifying people in class. He had a human sized crucifix, presumably sourced from a kink dungeon somewhere, and would tie students to it for limited lengths of time as a practical lesson on the effects of crucifixion. Obviously every health and safety authority in the country told him to knock this off, and he stopped, although the crucifix remained and the legend lived on. I partly took Religious Studies because we all quietly hoped that one day sir would snap and crucify someone again.

The class was fun, and dovetailed nicely with my History modules on the English Reformation, but every now and again they’d slip in something about the Moonies, mainly about how to avoid them, and how to know when you were being recruited into a cult. I never asked, but I suspect they’d been entangled in one way or another, either as members or deprogrammers. Anyway, it was something that stuck in my head, at an age where the word ‘cult’ mostly meant Ian Astbury to me.

So where did Arcana come from, exactly? Well, partly there, and partly about a dozen or more different places. George Clooney writhing dorkily to Boston in The Men Who Stare at Goats gave me the central plank of the soundtrack, and one of several aliases for cult leader Starling – Marianne. Barbara Weisberg’s superb biography Talking to the Dead made me burn to include the Fox Sisters, the Britney and LiLo of the early spiritualist movement, tipsy child stars whose health and well-being was shamefully neglected (and often sabotaged) by adults who should have known better. Aimee Semple McPherson gave me clothes left on a beach, while Marilyn Monroe gave me a séance in Westwood Cemetery, and a punchline to the dirty joke Hugh Hefner made of her when he purchased the burial plot next to hers.

Jonestown gave me a birthdate for my main character – 18th November – while Googling songs with ‘follow’ in the lyrics gave me his name, Michael, via the Fleet Foxes White Winter Hymnal. Frank Zappa gets namechecked for Kosmic Debris, a number from Apostrophe, one of those batshit albums you cannot believe even exist when you discover them as a teenage stoner, and you never stop being delighted that they do. A jigsaw of a Van Gogh painting inspired a cold reading that might not have been nearly as frosty as it appears at first glance, while Carlos Castaneda and his wild desert bullshit gave me brujos, and an idea of which cactus parts you needed to trip enough balls to put you into the stratosphere. Salem Witches, Marjorie Cameron, Elizabeth Loftus, even Isambard Kingdom Brunel gets a look in. The more I look back at it the more I realise there is a lot in this book, perhaps too much, but it is – at its heart – still a love story.

It might also be the most me book I’ve ever written. For a long time I didn’t really do introspection. I lived mostly in fight or flight mode, filling the PTSD void with stuff – books and art, information, theories, and rational explanations. I bobbed around for a couple of years on the fringes of the Sceptic movement, and that’s kind of where I think the character of hyper-rational psychology professor Gus came from. The deeper I got with the Sceptics/Skeptics the more I realised they could be inflexible, even cult-like (and don’t even get me started on the misogyny within the movement) and the lack of self-awareness was absurd.

I also wrote this book from before I went to therapy, and I think in a way Gus’s journey almost prophesied my own transformation. Gus is what happens when you stop forcing yourself to think that everything that goes on in your head is purely chemical or evolutionary. Yes, that’s a component of it, but emotions are real. That sense you have that everything in a situation is maybe not exactly as it seems? Yeah. Run with that. Dig deep, and look around. Turns out it might be more than a feeling.

#writing #original fiction #spooky season #witches #cults #paranormal romance #lgbtq romance

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