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blackrose-ffxiv · 6 years ago

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Non-Aggression Treaty 10/13

Idristan Agache lets out a long sigh as he walks into Wineport. He looked tired, though for once it seemed to be less exhaustion and more sleeplessness, if the circles under his eyes were any indication. From the look on his face, he was in an even more grumpy mood than usual too, something that the morning (or well, approaching afternoon) sun was doing nothing to help. He was dressed casually, and though he had his staff with him, he certainly didn't seem to be expecting trouble. Which would perhaps end up being a mistake.

Lebeaux Desrosiers arrived at Wineport and dusted a bit of dirt from his cloak immediately. The outer towns and villages were always so… dirty. Yet he could see the charm of Wineport. The rolling green fields and proud stone structures did strike a chord, they were almost reminiscent of Coerthas before the snow. The information had indeed proven correct and there was a white-clad elezen with hair to match and a staff far too pretty for his miserable talents as a conjurer. Idristan. Lebeaux followed after, though he was careful to remain out of striking distance for now. “Good afternoon.” He offered cheerfully, his smug smile already in place. “Drinking away your sorrows or have you come to find work as a field hand. Perhaps even you won’t be able to muck that up.”

Idristan starts and whirls on his heel at the familiar voice. "Oh, for the love of Halone," he mutters irritably under his breath. "Lebeaux," he says, his voice as cold as ice as his hands ball into fists at his sides. "I have no idea what sorrows you're talking about," he declares. "And perhaps you should be the one considering field work. Perhaps you would find more success in that than in duels."

“Oh? You’re not in mourning for your most recent employment endeavor? Or your convicted company mates? You are cold, aren’t you.” He teased, bringing a hand up to his mouth as though to stifle a chuckle. Though none was forthcoming. His gaze drifted briefly around the small settlement. “Oh, of course you aren’t taking field work. A monster who would use disgusting forbidden craft in a sacred trial would be better suited in the dirt rather than working it…” He noted pointedly.

Idristan glares over at the other Elezen. "Hardly," he snaps, or perhaps lies. "It was a job. Nothing more, nothing less. And they knew exactly the risks that they were taking," he adds. "Better them than all of us," he adds quietly, under his breath. His hands ball tighter, knuckles showing white at Lebeaux's next words. "Well, the same goes for you, now doesn't it? I think we both know how the Alliance treats those who have been tempered. A swift blade to the neck, or perhaps a few bullets..." He lets his voice trail off to make the point, before adding: "So how are the voices in your head this sun?"

Gloved fingers curled into fists as well before they smoothed out again with the soft creak of leather. He had come armed, just in case, yet he wasn’t eager to turn it into a brawl just yet. The medic smiled sweetly. “Your ignorance is astounding. You have a glimpse of true divinity and you would call it ‘tempering’.” He scoffed, then held up both of his hands. “For now we shall simply blame it on the veil of void taint skewing your perspective. That isn’t why I’m here. I’m here to talk. Preferably with a glass of wine since I’ve had to come all the way out to Wineport for it.”

Idristan shakes his head. "No, I'm fairly certain that it's just tempering. What did you do Lebeaux?" he asks, his tone turning light and mocking. "What did you summon? Because I've heard that that is heretical," he finishes pointedly. He then rolls his eyes, apparently not impressed by this explanation--either one of them really. "Sure you are," he remarks dryly. "I'll believe that when I actually see it."

Lebeaux rolled his eyes and exhaled a long-suffering sigh as well. “If it will shut your loathsome mouth; I have never summoned. Not a primal nor a void creature. Far more than I can say for you, Idristan.” He noted calmly. “Now if it’s proof of my intentions you want, you’ll have it.” He swept a hand aside to gesture to the local inn. “A calm discussion like gentlemen.” He paused, covering his mouth again as though he’d just made a faux pas. “Oh, excuse me. A gentleman and a slum-born-bastard with delusions of being a gentleman.”

Idristan's lips curl back, briefly revealing that set of fangs. "I am no void mage," he snaps. At least, not for a long time. He narrows his eyes as he briefly follows Lebeaux's gesture, some of that anger returning at being called a bastard. But for now he manages to keep it in check. Mostly. "Fine Lennaux," he says coldly. "After you." He pauses for a moment, as if in thought, then adds: "I wonder which is worse. Being a bastard, or being an exile. I feel like it must be the latter."

“I would recommend you not let that name pass your lips again, you sully it.” He turned on his heel with a theatrical snap of his coattails, taking a moment to ensure his smile was still in place. A little crooked but otherwise intact. He stalked over to the inn. “Present yourself to your precious Reformists as what you truly are and see if they still welcome you with open arms.” He said slowly before he pushed the door open to find a seat.

"From what I've heard, you seem to have done an excellent job of sullying it yourself. Is that why you don't use it anymore?" he needles as he follows reluctantly after Lebeaux. He takes a seat as well, carefully across the table and out of easy reach, before he glowers over at Lebeaux, his hands curling into fists once more. "At least I wouldn't be going down alone, if I did that," he hisses back. "I'm sure my Reformists would be delighted to have the name and address of an Inquisitor hiding from justice." Of course, his justice would likely not involve beheading, unless Lebeaux was too stupid to swallow his pride. An unfortunate detail that.

A hand was raised, showing his empty palm to Idristan in a gesture of truce. At least for the moment. An order was placed for two glasses of local Red and to leave the bottle behind. Once the serving girl was gone he settled his attention back onto Idristan. “Could you truly bear it, though. The look of betrayal that slowly turns to anger once they realize they’ve let a monster into their midst. You hide behind just as many, if not more, lies as I.”

Idristan eyes the other warily. He wasn't entirely sure that Lebeaux understood the meaning of the word "truce"--at least, as anything other than a temporary pause to get more leverage. However, he doesn't quite meet Lebeaux's eyes. "Yes, well," he says slowly. "I had no choice about that. You, on the other hand, very much did.

“You could have returned to Her grace by turning yourself over to the Exorcists and confessing.” He suggested, knowing full well that usually only ended in another corpse once they were finished studying the subject. A hand waved to dismiss the matter, it had only been intended to prickle at the other. “I could have remained and decried my belief and the True Faith. To roll over for the Reformists and help them to dismantle Ishgard piece by piece to sell it off to the Alliances? I will not trade the truth for a comfortable post as a clergyman proselytizing falsehoods. I will take the exile and use it to reflect and to plan. And when the time is right I will return.”

Idristan can't help but let out a soft snort at that. It seemed he had a good guess of what said Exorcists would do too. "I've done exorcisms," he points out. "The rituals differ, but the technique tends to be the same. Make being in the host so uncomfortable that the voidsent leaves." His lips curve up into a rather bitter smile. "There is no voidsent to banish, however. Which you should know already," he adds pointedly. "And anyroad, I think you're the one in far more need of the Exorcists than me. I'm not the one hearing voices," he points out. "Because that's ultimately all your faith is, isn't it? And Reformists are only dismantling the parts of Ishgard that should have been dismantled ages ago," he says fervently. He then snorts softly and adds: "And I suspect you'll be waiting a very long time, in that case." He didn't seem to be upset about this fact.

Lebeaux lifted a hand again as the glasses of wine were set down and the bottle placed between them. Once the serving girl was gone he slid his own glass closer. “I can see there’s little point reasoning with you, between your common-bred ignorance and your corruption you are incapable of understanding truths.” He took a small sip of the wine and set the glass down again. “Nonetheless I must try for the sake of the larger picture. While your claims about me may excite some of the radical Reformists and goad some action against me, I am quite confident what I know of your true nature would have far more worrying sorts breaking down your door during the night. Do you agree?”

Idristan does indeed fall silent as the serving girl comes over. He's no fool. He claims a glass for himself, taking a small sip from it before looking back towards Lebeaux once more. "My 'common-bred ignorance'," he growls warningly. "Was enough to get me into the Scholasticate, the same as you," he points out coldly. "And the... corruption." The word seems to pain him. "Does not affect my mind." Most of the time. When it was under control. He then falls silently, absently swirling the wine in his glass as he looked for any way to argue with that statement. Finally he inclines his head in a fraction of a nod. "Mayhaps."

Lebeaux smiled primly. “Finally, a glimmer of intelligence in an otherwise endless dark.” He declared theatrically before he took another sip. “I am not pointing this out simply to remind you of the difference in our positions, yet rather to show you that what I am about to suggest works rather well into your favor. I’ll spell it out for you since you seem to intentionally turn off rational thought when I’m around.” He lowered the glass from his lips. “A non-aggression treaty. Neither of us will intentionally spread sensitive information about the other.”

@roses-and-grimoires

#lebeaux #idristan #this whole scene was hilarious #it was hard to pick a segment #now let's see how long this lasts

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ladystylestores · 5 years ago

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Graphic novel on the Tiananmen Massacre shows medium’s power to capture history

As a young man in Beijing in the 1980s, Lun Zhang felt like he was taking part in a new Chinese enlightenment.

The country was undergoing paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up,” and previously sealed-off areas of knowledge, arts, and culture were becoming newly available.

People who had only years before been living in the stifling, hyper-Maoist orthodoxy of the Cultural Revolution, in which anything foreign or historical was deemed counter-revolutionary, could now listen to Wham!, hold intellectual salons in which people read Jean-Paul Sartre or Sigmund Freud, or even publish their own works, taking aim at previously sacred political targets.

“In those days, our thirst to read, learn and explore the outside world was insatiable,” Zhang writes in his new graphic novel, “Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes.”

But with this intellectual awakening came a growing frustration with the pace of reform in China, particularly how economic liberalization was taking precedence over any suggestion that the Communist Party give up its tight control on the country’s politics.

An apocryphal quote attributed to Deng captured the mood at this time, that “to get rich is glorious,” but for many people, it was increasingly apparent that only a handful were becoming wealthy, while others were suffering due to growing corruption and the destruction of the social safety net.

Small demonstrations against graft and for greater political reform ballooned into what would become the 1989 Tiananmen movement, in which hundreds of thousands of people protested across the country, with the largest demonstration in Beijing led by workers and student groups.

The pro-democracy protesters occupied Tiananmen Square for months, even holding meetings with top officials. At the time, many felt hopeful that these actions would bring about wider societal change in the one-party state.

Crackdown

Zhang was on the square that spring, when the protesters put forward seven demands, including for democratic elections and an end to state censorship. He was there as the crowds paid tribute to the late reformist leader Hu Yaobang, and he was there as the occupiers sang and danced on what had become the people’s square.

He was not there when soldiers opened fire on protesters and fought with them in the streets of the Chinese capital. He was not there when the tanks rolled in. Zhang was in the suburbs of the city with another activist, recuperating in preparation for what some thought would be a last push before the government gave into the protesters’ demands.

“When we heard the army had entered Beijing, we tried to reach the square, but our efforts were in vain,” Zhang writes of when they learned of the bloodshed.

Far from reaching the center of the city, Zhang’s attention turned to escape: the authorities were rounding up prominent protesters and leaders, and he was worried about arrest. He fled first to rural China, eventually becoming one of dozens of Tiananmen protesters smuggled into Hong Kong by activists in the then British colony.

An excerpt from “Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes.” Zhang (pictured wearing a sash on the bottom left) was a young sociology teacher in the late 1980s. During protests, he was in charge of management and safety. Credit: IDW Publishing

Graphic novel

Zhang eventually moved to France, where he has lived ever since, and is teaching at the Cergy-Pontoise University near Paris. While he writes about the Chinese economy and geopolitics, he has largely left out his own personal history prior to this month’s publication of his graphic novel.

“I worked with (French journalist) Adrien Gombeaud, who wrote the script for the format,” Zhang told CNN. “We read some graphic novels about historical events, and together came up with the plan, for example, to imagine a theater scene to link all the parts of the story.”

While the Tiananmen Square Massacre has been widely covered in the media and in documentaries, with many focusing on the iconic image of the Tank Man or utilizing archive footage from the square itself, much of the events leading up to the infamous night have been lost to history, available only through witnesses’ accounts. Zhang said that the comics format provided a key means of capturing the emotion of the demonstrations, in a way that does not necessarily come across in text.

“It is difficult to find a satisfactory way in which this kind of big event is reported, in my opinion,” he said. “In some reporting on Tiananmen, the authors didn’t reflect enough on the will of students to cooperate with the authorities in peacefully reforming China.

“When you take into account the emotion involved, we can understand why the peaceful way of demonstration was chosen, why there was the huge hunger strike.”

After the initial script was written, the authors worked with French artist Ameziane to develop the comic’s visuals, by sourcing images of the various characters, and referencing archival photos of era-appropriate objects, such as clothes, cars and teacups from 1980s China. “We spent a lot of time in discussions on how to arrange the scenes, how to convey the essential message, what limits we might have on a given page. It played to the style and skill of our painter,” Zhang said.

The shift in artistic style is most notable in the scenes depicting the massacre itself. Prior pages feature white backgrounds and muted colors, but as the crackdown begins, the pages turn to black, with a heavy use of oranges and reds. Ameziane’s illustrations become looser and full of movement, emphasizing the chaos and panic experienced by the characters.

The book is structured in several acts, with Zhang as its narrator. He said the play format was an obvious storytelling device, given “the protest movement itself felt like a drama, with its different phases akin to great acts.”

Comics journalism

Zhang, Gombeaud and Ameziane’s book joins what has quietly become a major strand of modern comics: graphic journalism or historical comics dealing with topics that were once considered out of the art form’s remit.

American cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s “Maus,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of his parents’ experiences as Holocaust survivors — with the Jews depicted as mice and the Nazis as cats — has long been considered a masterwork in the graphic novel genre.

While adult themes and history were features in comics long before “Maus” debuted in 1980, including in Spiegelman’s own work, its use of accessible, black and white art combined with a sweeping historical narrative broke into the mainstream, and set a new standard for “grown up” comics with political subject matter and potentially upsetting content.

Works like Maltese-American Joe Sacco’s ground-breaking comics journalism in “Palestine” or “Safe Area Gorazde,” and French-Iranian Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” have further driven this trend, with the latter turned into an Oscar-nominated movie in 2007.

The popularity of comics and graphic novels has only grown in recent years — with the help of blockbuster film adaptations. This has happened in conjunction with the rise of comics journalism, in everything from newspapers to dedicated publications such as The Nib, which has long recognized the medium’s ability to tackle serious issues, interweaving reporting with satirical cartoons.

Sacco has talked about how the use of comics, the presentation of the artist and writer as a figure in the story, helps remove “the illusion that a journalist is a fly on the wall, all seeing and all knowing.”

“To me, drawing myself signals to the reader that I’m a filter between the information, the people and them. They know that I’m a presence, and that they’re seeing things through my eyes,” he said in a recent interview.

This is very much apparent in Zhang’s book, as he uses his role as narrator to critique both the protest movement and himself.

“Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes” cover. Credit: IDW Publishing

Asked once about whether drawing helped him deal with being the child of Holocaust survivors, Spiegelman answered: “I’ve had therapy, and I’ve made comics. The comics are cheaper.”

Part of “Maus” deals with Spiegelman’s guilt over his difficult relationship with his father and in comparing his problems with depression and work to the experiences of his parents. Zhang too writes in “Tiananmen” of his own survivor’s guilt and of questioning his decisions made as a younger man in the midst of history.

In an interview, Zhang said he did not write about Tiananmen for so long, because his role, his involvement, seemed inconsequential compared to what some went through.

“The way I saw it, there were many people dead or wounded in the aftermath, and many people lost their jobs; their families were never the same after,” he said. “The real heroes were the ordinary students and people in (Beijing) and other cities. By comparison, what I did personally didn’t seem worth telling. The most important thing I could do was live my life in a way that wouldn’t dishonor the dead.”

He was eventually convinced by an editor to write the book last year, around the 30th anniversary of the massacre. “She convinced me that I had a duty to the memory of that time,” Zhang said. “I accepted it. ‘No justice, no peace,’ but I think also, ‘No memory, no justice.'”

“Tiananmen 1989: Our Shattered Hopes,” published by IDW Publishing, is out now.

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thesupernaturaluniversity · 5 years ago

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CIA Has Interfered With Over 81 Foreign Elections in the Past Century

This number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile (and now Bolivia). The CIA has accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 presidential election (with absolutely zero evidence) by hacking into Democratic and Republican computer networks and selectively releasing emails. But critics might point out the U.S. has done similar things. The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it’s done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number doesn’t include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn’t like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring. Levin defines intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” These acts, carried out in secret two-thirds of the time, include funding the election campaigns of specific parties, disseminating misinformation or propaganda, training locals of only one side in various campaigning or get-out-the-vote techniques, helping one side design their campaign materials, making public pronouncements or threats in favor of or against a candidate, and providing or withdrawing foreign aid. In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the average effect of “partisan electoral interventions” to be only about a 3% increase in vote share. The U.S. hasn’t been the only one trying to interfere in other countries’ elections, according to Levin’s data. Russia attempted to sway 36 foreign elections from the end of World War II to the turn of the century – meaning that, in total, at least one of the two great powers of the 20th century intervened in about 1 of every 9 competitive, national-level executive elections in that time period. Italy’s 1948 general election is an early example of a race where U.S. actions probably influenced the outcome. “We threw everything, including the kitchen sink” at helping the Christian Democrats beat the Communists in Italy, said Levin, including covertly delivering “bags of money” to cover campaign expenses, sending experts to help run the campaign, subsidizing “pork” projects like land reclamation, and threatening publicly to end U.S. aid to Italy if the Communists were elected. Levin said that U.S. intervention probably played an important role in preventing a Communist Party victory, not just in 1948, but in seven subsequent Italian elections. Throughout the Cold War, U.S. involvement in foreign elections was mainly motivated by the goal of containing communism, said Thomas Carothers, a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The U.S. didn’t want to see left-wing governments elected, and so it did engage fairly often in trying to influence elections in other countries,” Carothers said. This approach carried over into the immediate post-Soviet period. In the 1990 Nicaragua elections, the CIA leaked damaging information on alleged corruption by the Marxist Sandinistas to German newspapers, according to Levin. The opposition used those reports against the Sandinista candidate, Daniel Ortega. He lost to opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro. In Czechoslovakia that same year, the U.S. provided training and campaign funding to Vaclav Havel’s party and its Slovak affiliate as they planned for the country’s first democratic election after its transition away from communism. “The thinking was that we wanted to make sure communism was dead and buried,” said Levin. Even after that, the U.S. continued trying to influence elections in its favor. In Haiti after the 1986 overthrow of dictator and U.S. ally Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the CIA sought to support particular candidates and undermine Jean-Bertrande Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest and proponent of liberation theology. The New York Times reported in the 1990s that the CIA had on its payroll members of the military junta that would ultimately unseat Aristide after he was democratically elected in a landslide over Marc Bazin, a former World Bank official and finance minister favored by the U.S. The U.S. also attempted to sway Russian elections. In 1996, with the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the Russian economy flailing, President Clinton endorsed a $10.2-billion loan from the International Monetary Fund linked to privatization, trade liberalization and other measures that would move Russia toward a capitalist economy. Yeltsin used the loan to bolster his popular support, telling voters that only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans, according to media reports at the time. He used the money, in part, for social spending before the election, including payment of back wages and pensions. In the Middle East, the U.S. has aimed to bolster candidates who could further the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In 1996, seeking to fulfill the legacy of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the peace accords the U.S. brokered, Clinton openly supported Shimon Peres, convening a peace summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el Sheik to boost his popular support and inviting him to a meeting at the White House a month before the election. “We were persuaded that if [Likud candidate Benjamin] Netanyahu were elected, the peace process would be closed for the season,” said Aaron David Miller, who worked at the State Department at the time. In 1999, in a more subtle effort to sway the election, top Clinton strategists, including James Carville, were sent to advise Labor candidate Ehud Barak in the election against Netanyahu. In Yugoslavia, the U.S. and NATO had long sought to cut off Serbian nationalist and Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic from the international system through economic sanctions and military action. In 2000, the U.S. spent millions of dollars in aid for political parties, campaign costs and independent media. Funding and broadcast equipment provided to the media arms of the opposition were a decisive factor in electing opposition candidate Vojislav Kostunica as Yugoslav president, according to Levin. “If it wouldn’t have been for overt intervention… Milosevic would have been very likely to have won another term,” he said. By Nina Agrawal, Los Angeles Times

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