#also considering this is the revolution era having someone who sounds like their from New England would be less jarring but I do understand

[fulokis]

I find it amusing when Brits complain that Americans can’t do British accents as if they don’t also struggle doing American accents

[ask-risorgimento-italy]

Main Story Masterpost

I decided to make a masterpost for everything one might need to know in order to understand this blog and its story - historical background, characters and crucial plot points. I also added information that was not yet included on this blog but has been discussed on Discord.

Important terminology:

“Risorgimento”

(1) the 19th century movement for Italian political unity

(2) a time of renewal or renaissance, revival

“National representative”/”Representative” - the officially approved personification of a region

“Personification” - a semi-immortal being who embodies a region/culture akin to the idea of a “Leviathan” (Hobbes). Their origins are unknown. They might lead a very public life or prefer to stay anonymous. Usually they're somewhat obscure - most people wouldn't recognize them on the street. Some might believe them to be guardian spirits, pagan Gods, angels sent from Heaven or the spawn of Satan ...depending on who you ask.

“Fusion” - A personification gives up their immortality and allows another representative to “take over” their region. 

“Brother”/”Sibling”/”Partner” - personifications usually have multiple overlapping relationship dynamics. None of them are truly related by blood, but some will consider each other to be siblings. Some might consider each other related in the first half of a century and denounce it in the latter or vice versa.

What happened so far...

1798 - The Fall of the Republic

The story of this blog begins after the fall of the Serenissima. The maritime republic has been independent for centuries and is now in the hands of Napoleon. Even though Venice has been struggling to maintain power before, this is considered its death blow. Art is looted or burned and symbols of power destroyed. It is in the very moment Feliciano’s house is vandalized by French troops where he realizes that his life would never be as it was before.

1815 - The Kingdom of Venetia-Lombardo is founded at the Congress of Vienna 

Napoleon’s reign is over and Europe is drawing new borders at the famous Congress in the capital of the Habsburg empire. The Veneto is paired with its neighbor Lombardy to form a kingdom that now belongs to the Austrians. Feliciano and Benigno (the representative of Lombardy) have to agree to something akin to an arranged marriage.

1845-47 - The Prelude and the Financial Crisis

Famine, fiscal troubles and the demand for reforms all over Europe turn the continent into a powder keg. Feliciano and Benigno are no longer in a forced partnership. Instead, they are both angry soon-to-be revolutionaries, supporting each other in their struggles.

1848 - The Revolution

Revolutions erupt all over Europe. New governments are formed. Venice becomes the Republic of St. Mark. Lombardy goes through the Five Days of Milan. Feliciano and Benigno often fight in separate places, but are united in spirit. 

This is the first time in centuries where Feliciano personally gets his hands dirty in a conflict - he is angry and full of spite. Death to The Austrians is written on the walls with red paint.

1849 - The Fall of the Republic, Act II

After a long siege, starvation and sickness ultimately beat the city of Venice into submission. Feliciano’s fighting spirit is broken and his mental and physical health is at an all-time low. He is forcibly separated from Benigno and does not see him again until 1866.

1848-61 - The Predecessor State

After the failed revolution, the unification takes a much different form. 

Tactical warfare and treaties soon replace guerilla warfare. The driving force of this process is the Kingdom of Piedmont. It is sometimes called the predecessor state of Italy. Its personification is a woman called Cassandra. Her goal - to be the sole representative of the peninsula - is considered madness by some and visionary by others.

1861 - The Kingdom of Italy is proclaimed

After almost half a century of political struggles the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy marks the beginning of a new era. Cassandra, now referred to as Italia by most, offers great benefits to the remaining region's representatives if they “fuse” with her - fusion being an euphemism for a personification giving up their immortality and status as a representative and transferring it to Italia instead.

While many have agreed to the deal, others stay hesitant - namely Benigno (Lombardy), Romano (Naples) and Chiara (Sicily). And then there’s Feliciano, who is still under Austrian occupation...

1866 - The Veneto becomes part of Italy

Venice had somewhat of a special role in the Risorgimento. In 1861, it was not yet part of the Kingdom of Italy. The Habsburg empire has the city and the surrounding region in an iron grip for five more years.

Due to shared goals in their unification process, Italy and Prussia form an alliance against Austria, and the Prusso-German war finally decides over the fate of the Veneto. With Austria losing, Venice becomes Italian territory.

Feliciano as this point is all too happy to hear Cassandra’s offer about “fusion”. He feels tired and weak. Being able to shift the responsibility of nationhood on someone else’s shoulder sounds promising. It would not take long for him to finalize his decision.

1868 - And then things go wrong

Feliciano has decided: he would no longer be the personification of Venice. He says Goodbye to his family and friends, as he would forget his old life and start a new one as an ordinary citizen. Some don’t take these news well. Benigno especially reacts with anger, as he has believed that Feliciano would not agree to Cassandra’s offer. At some point they have a fight that causes Benigno to storm off teary-eyed. 

From this point onwards we witness the story from Benigno’s and Romano’s  POV.

Benigno is the one to discover Feliciano’s and Cassandra’s corpses. They lie on the floor of Feliciano’s villa in Venice. There is dried blood and flies. No one knows what has happened. The government is shocked to find out about this and tries everything to cover it up. Cassandra’s death could be a fatal blow to the new nation’s political landscape. Her body is preserved with formaldehyde and other heavy chemicals and hidden away in a house somewhere in Turin. Feli is buried in Venice. Benigno is the only one to visit his grave regularly. 

He is the sole north Italian representative to survive, and soon takes over Cassandra’s duties. This is where he also clashes with Romano, who is pissed off for not being considered a fitting substitute for the role (the anger is very much justified).

For a whole year, it seems like everything has gone to shit.

1869 - A mali estremi, estremi rimedi

Benigno and Romano are guided to Venice by a mysterious call for help. Neither the caller nor the call is ordinary in nature - it is their (presumably) dead sibling Feliciano somehow infiltrating their thoughts with garbled nonsense. When they finally open the mausoleum, Feliciano is in a bad state. Skin thin as paper, eyes sunken in and comatose - and yet, somehow, with a beating heart. They bring him to his old house where they try to nurse him back to health while they struggle to figure out what this means for Cassandra, themselves, and wherever...or whoever Italy is.

1870 - The Trespasser 

Some weeks after the gruesome discovery of Feliciano’s body, Romano and Benigno have yet to figure out how to make Feliciano wake up from his “slumber”. At the same time, a stranger is rummaging through the streets of Venice. The representative of Prussia, Gilbert, is onto something. After some digging (and bribing two police officers) he finally finds what he was searching for - the address to the old abandoned villa where Feliciano has once lived. 

When Gilbert decides to break into the place, assuming no one is home, he kicks the door open with a loud bang. Feliciano unexpectedly wakes up in a panicked rush. The situation quickly escalates. There is a bloody fight on a stairwell between Feliciano (who is extremly confused and attacks everyone in sight) and basically everyone else. 

Gilbert manages to subdue him, but not before Feliciano has managed to knock out Benigno. As only Romano and Gilbert are left to clean up this mess, they agree to work together and for now ignore the fact that Gilbert tried to break into the house. They would deal with this later. For now, caring for Feliciano and Benigno was their top priority.

And this is where we catch up with the current chapter of the story, where Benigno wakes up and wants to know what the hell Gilbert is doing here in the first place. We will soon find out!

[invincible-selfxmade-punk]

My So Called Rise Against Life

All lyrics written and owned by Rise Against

No band, not even AFI, sings the soundtrack of the last 20 years of my life like Rise Against has. I was dragged to my first Rise Against show by Emily. Emily, the suicide girl, quite possibly the hottest girl in Corpus Christi, barely 5'1 and 98 pounds soaking wet, covered in tattoos and with Angelina Jolie's lips. To this day I cannot imagine why a girl who looked like that wanted to hang with me. I had never been to a gig at that little club called The Underground where the disenfranchised youth of Corpus Christi congregated. This was the very cusp of my punk rock midlife crisis and I went in scared to death because I'd heard concerts of this nature were violent.

At this point I was already considering the decision to become straightedge. I was curious but knew little about it. The sum of my knowledge was this: two of the guys in AFI were, and the guy at the mall was. The memory of this guy never leaves me. Like a stray dog with a tennis ball, catching a welcoming scent on the air, then chasing after a passing stranger who never looked down, I chased after him and each year I spent in that fruitless pursuit felt like seven. His friendship I would never win, but he would remain on the outskirts of my life, like the brass ring I reached for again and again only to fall on my face. I would see him that night too, but I didn't know this when Em invited me out. It was billed as a hardcore show. I had no idea what hardcore was back then, I just assumed it meant a rough crowd of millitant straightedge vegans that would have a sixth sense that I wasn't one of them and chase me out the doors. Rise Against was headlining and an equally unknown band called Avenged Sevenfold was opening. I'd never heard of either. Emily wanted me to go and I wanted to get out of the house for the night so it wasn't that hard for her to twist my arm in the matter. I met her at her apartment which was filth ridden, with drug paraphernalia everywhere, a wall size Misfits poster that took up the entire SIDE of her apartment, and electric guitars propped next to skateboards. As she slipped out of her clothes and into something slinky much to my viewing pleasure, she pointed me to her freezer with a purloined bottle of tropical Schnapps from the liquor store she was working for. Toasting in miniature tea cups I downed the bright blue liquid. I remember it so well, the frost covered bottle, cold in my hand, the electric blueness pouring into what looked like a child's tea party set up. This wasn't the last drink I would take, that would come two months later, yet I remember every detail of the experience. Suited up in skimpiness, we were off to the races. We hauled ass in Emily's SUV and she sat behind the wheel, dwarfed by it's hugeness and her smallness, joint in hand, careening down the expressway and swerving around orange construction barrels. As we exited into the worst part of town I had ever seen I must have looked uneasy. She turned to me and proudly exclaimed "Don't worry, I know this place! I used to score crack here!" We walked in and the first person I saw was the straightedge boy, who was taking money at the door. It was a good sign of things to come. It would also mean I would completely ignore Avenged Sevenfold's set in s stupid quest to get his attention long enough to make conversation. But Em was a champ, she stayed with me through the whole thing. In fact, I don't remember having the guts to say a word. She talked to him, I watched him talking to her and twenty feet away M. Shadows was screaming his sexy, tattooed, egotistical lungs out but I was utterly oblivious. From there we went to the merch booth where Em bought me an Avenged Sevenfold poster that I kept for years on my wall before finally giving it away right on the cusp of actually starting to listen to them. She also bought me a Rise Against patch that is still on my Dickies bag today though it is nothing more than a mess of black thread. We wandered over to the PETA booth, watched some gruesome videos, signed up for mail and picked up a cookbook I would later use to make one of the mall kids a vegan birthday cake. Then Emily spied someone she knew and I followed her over, still looking suspiciously through the crowd sure someone was just going to come up and punch me for no apparent reason. Still following, I watched as she struck up a conversation with this cute guy in glasses. I politely listened in as they talked about how they haven't seen each other since Warped Tour. For the life of me I can't remember what they talked about. I was distracted by a guy that looked like Davey Havok. Their conversation muffled to a drone until the guy looked at his watch and said "Oh crap!! I need to be on

stage! I'll talk to after the show!" and it was at that moment I realized Emily had been talking to Joe Principe of Rise Against. This was our cue as well though there was already too much of a crowd to get near the front. There were maybe one hundred people there and Tim held every one in the palm of his hand. I was amazed. I had never heard them before in my life so I can't tell you the set list but I knew from that time on I wanted to hear more. At the end Emily and I waited at the stage to talk to Tim. I had no idea what to say so I just shook his hand and now I wish I had held on a little longer. Emily got a shirt signed and talked to him for a while. Again I was too preoccupied with the AFI look-alikes in the crowd that I wasn't paying much attention. To this day I wonder if the dude I thought looked like Davey was actually Zacky Vengeance. I'll never know for sure. Soon enough Joe was with us again and he and Emily were engaged in conversation when he turned to me and said "Did that hurt?" I had NO idea what he was talking about, I was too overwhelmed by his very presence. I actually thought he was pointing past me to the PETA booth and I stupidly sputtered "What KFC is doing to chickens?" I swear to god when I'm miserable and in need of cheering up sometimes all it takes to make me smile is thinking "Hey, Joe laughed at my joke." The night drew to an end, Emily went out with the band, and being married, I went home. Next to singing a line with Dave Peters of Throwdown, that first night with Rise Against was the best night of the last ten years of my life. The next time I would see Rise Against they would be back in Corpus, opening for Bad Religion. This happened during what I call "The Emo Dave Era". I met Dave because of Rise Against. He was a little emo boy wearing a Rise Against shirt, skipping school at the mall. I stopped him and asked him about it and well that was it, he just kept coming around. I would end up knowing him for five years and eventually hiring him to work for me. By the second time they came to town Siren Song of The Counterculture was out and I remember bragging to Dave that if it was any other band I would have just downloaded it, but for them I would actually spend my hard earned money. I remember DRINKING in the songs, trying so hard to memorize all of the tracks before the gig hit. I remember the second Rise Against gig for many reasons. It was the first gig I went to alone at a time I was in the grip of panic attacks whenever I had to be in wide open spaces by myself. Two of my "mall daughters" met me at the gates and stayed with me the whole night. I remember that. I remember Dave hitting the merch table before me and buying me Rise Against stickers that I regarded like they were jewels and kept them in some special place until I hid them so well I hid them from myself. Dave and I and the girls were in the front row together, and sadly none of them I am in contact with now. Not only that, but Dave and one of the girls I was up front with would end up working for me and stealing over $1300 from my business during their tenure as my employees. Years from knowing this though we happily stood side by side and sang along for the whole set. What I remember most about that second gig was standing in front of Joe and when he sang "Single file like soldiers on a mission." I saluted him and he saluted back. Tim was wearing the exact same shirt he wore at the first gig but I was probably the only one to notice it. And when Tim asked "Who was here at our first gig when only 20 people showed up?" I proudly raised my hand. All the memorizing I did was pretty much for naught because I was so excited to be in the front row I damn near forgot every word to every song, but for some reason I knew every word to 1,000 Good Intentions. The first Rise Against show was in August, I can't tell you the date of the second one. I made my commitment to becoming straightedge sometime between December and January. I don't know the exact date because I was so scared about the whole

thing I kept it to myself "You're the new revolution The angst filled adolescent You fit the stereotype well..."

.All I know for sure was that I'd been edge several months by the second Rise Against gig at Concrete Street in Corpus. he second Rise Against gig also brings to mind another phantom of my past: a girl I was close to named Amanda (not the Amanda I went to Warped Tour w/, that Amanda I've always called Di because her screen name was Dionysus). This was Amanda's first night aout after being kidnapped and raped. Her parents were druggies and didn't want the cops involved so the guys who did it just got away with it and I'd see them at the mall all the time afterward and I couldn't do shit. It was her and her big sister who met me at the gates and stayed with me all night. I loved those girls. . . . Again, digressing. From First To Last opened and we spent the whole set talking about how much they looked like AFI. I ended up leaving the gig early, going to the house of one of them who still lived with his folks, ringing the doorbell and leaving a note in the mail box that said 'YOUR SON RAPES LITTLE GIRLS----just thought you should know'. It didn't really help anything but it made me feel better. During this mindlessly courageous time I was blinded by my commitment. I jumped into being edge with a fervor reserved for things like joining the Hari Krishnas or Jehovah's Witnesses. It was a complete make over of every idea I'd ever held. I didn't know a great deal but once I found it, I knew it was all I had been looking for. The only other person I actually knew who was edge was the straightedge boy, who now had become god-like in my mind. He was the first face of straightedge for me, the ideal, the standard, the one thing I felt I had to live up to. Sadly, by this time he was long gone, moving away from the mall where we worked and on to better things. This fact only drove me forward in a Holy Grail level quest to find him. When he was there I was terrified of speaking to him and then when he wasn't I kicked myself for not having the courage. I was sure that if I did make my way to him, he could impart some knowledge, some advice that would make my whole solitary experience make sense. The soundtrack of that quest was Blood to Bleed: "Steps I take in your footsteps Aren't getting me closer to what is left of the dreams of what I once claimed to know Within my bones this resonates...." Within weeks of each other three amazing things happened: Ceci, my best friend Amanda(Dionysus) and I went to Warped Tour to see AFI and in the process saw Rise Against as well. Then The Sufferer and the Witness came out, and at the same time Jadey and Ceci came to visit me in Corpus for quite possibly the most idyllic summer of my life. It was that summer we saw Rise Against for the third time. At that Warped Tour again we were in front of Joe, and again when Tim sang "Single file like soldiers on a mission... " we saluted Joe and he saluted us back and it was like a little piece of heaven fell to earth, the moment was so perfect. The set was

short because it was Warped Tour but we didn't care. We were together, we loved each other and we sang along with every song we knew. Sufferer and Witness came out in July right in time for Warped Tour and the girls coming down for a visit. I remember this so well because I had a cd of the straightedge boy's band and it seemed so important for me to play it for Jadey and Ceci. Do you remember that line in The Lost Boys: "Now you know what we are, now you know what you are." ? That was how it felt for me, this romanticized notion that my edge was not my own and it was all owing and belonged to someone else. I wanted to be able to trace it like a family tree to say, if I had not met him I would not have found out about AFI, I would not have made my committment, we would have never met, so therefore the life and friendship we have shared has all traced back to THIS. Well, they weren't all that impressed. I have a very clear memory of us being outside the Sonic Drive In and Jadey asking me "Please turn that noise off and put in something else." That something else was the The Sufferer And The Witnessand it stayed in the player for the rest of the trip. Ready To Fall was the song that defined the next year, much later, that I made my edge my own. In my journey I had looked to so many others for advice or reassurance or validation. I did this because I didn't believe in myself. I thought I was weak and sought in others what would make me strong. Sometimes I received it, like messages sent back and forth the guys in Throwdown and the near religious experience of seeing them live all the times I have, of singing a line with Dave, shaking his hand. Most of the time though my search was in vain. I remember very clearly seeking out help online. One guy told me I would never know who I was until I went to a hardcore show. This wasn't exactly bad advice, hardcore shows had the most amazing energy flowing through them and it did feel good to be surrounded by like minded people. The only thing I really learned about myself through going to hardcore shows was that if God had wanted me to hardcore dance, He would not have given me boobs. There was another guy who told me only the most insecure person would EVER wear a straightedge shirt out in public and if you were sincere about it, you'd keep it to yourself. I thought that guy was nuts. The whole POINT of being edge to me was proving I was not like the idiots around me. "With your eyes Glazed and half-smiled Explain to me the details of your God-given right You point your finger In my face but You can't remember what you did last night" I asked another guy what to do if I was tempted to drink again and he told me if I was tempted I was never really straightedge to begin with and I should just do the scene a favor and kill myself already. Then there were the kids that thought I was just the bees knees and were coming to ME for advice. I had no idea what to tell these kids, but I wasn't about to tell them not to wear sXe gear or kill themselves. Because of my own search for answers I refused to turn any kid away. One day they were telling me I was their hero and begging for advice, the next they were telling me I was out of my mind and to get lost. It took a good four years before I learned not to believe them in either case. "This could be my great awakening But how would I know when it's all noise to me? Are these words falling on deaf ears?" Right in the middle of this I had the good fortune to meet a guy named Chris X from Philly. He neither worshipped nor ignored me. He was simply THERE. I have the most vivid memory of this one morning. I had the same dream about the straightedge boy only this time I stepped out and stopped him and asked him if the hormones levels in milk made people more aggressive the way steroids did and asked if I should stop drinking it. Why this popped into my head I will never know. As usual the alarm rang before the blurry form opened his mouth and imparted wisdom. I woke up at 5 am and suddenly HAD to know

the answer to the question. It happened that Chris X was up too. I contacted him and he took the time out of his morning to discuss this with me completely out of the blue. I don't know why this sticks out in my memory but it does: Him being up at five am and taking an hour out of his morning to answer some moronic question from a girl he didn't know and being so nice about it. He is still edge, we are still friends and he is still there when I need him. He is the exception to the rule. Friends fell away and I remained steadfast, yet alone. Slowly though there came the time when I realized I needed to look no further than in the mirror. It wasn't like this was a new thing. I was told this many times and yet I never believed it. Right about this time Rise Against released Ready To Fall: "But here in this moment like the eye of the storm It all came clear to me I found a shoulder to lean on An infallible reason to live all by itself I took one last look from the heights that I once loved And then I ran like hell" The heights I once loved were ego driven, the compulsion to wear a straightedge shirt every day and X's for every gig and dare anyone to tell me otherwise. It was that romanticized notion of my edge,--that it hadn't been mine and all I was, was owed to someone else. It was as if I believed someone had physically stood between me and a fridge full of alcohol that first year and kept me from it. Or that someone had been there to comfort me when my husband was drunk or in a bad mood and was calling me names or throwing me around because I dared come home with a book of Marxist writing or simply did not shut up and go along or renounce my beliefs. I healed myself, I comforted myself and I did almost all of it completely alone. It was slow in dawning but it finally came to me that I was the only one I had to inspire or impress, and my own approval was all I needed. This revelation was scored by every track on Sufferer and Witness. The fourth time I saw Rise Against, I met Ceci in Austin to see them at Stubb's. Stubb's BBQ is a grand place to see any band because if you get there early enough, you can have lunch on the balcony while watching the band's sound check. We found this out the first time we went there, seeing The Rollins Band open up for X. Going to the Rise Against show I told myself "It's not big deal, I've seen them three times before, I'm just going to kick back and eat and enjoy the sound check" but as soon as Tim and Joe took the stage I could barely consume a thing I was so overwhelmed. As we waited in line after lunch for the doors to reopen, I met Ceci's brother Jordan who is, wildly enough, still my friend. Jordan. He hovers on the edges of my life, always there with a kind word whether I actually deserved it or not. He is the only good thing to come out of my friendship with Ceci. Evergreen Terrace opened that show and we were right in front of the guy in the Straightedge Soldier tshirt and that and a brilliant cover of "Mad World" was all I remembered of their set. Circa Survive came on next and Ceci and I took turns booing them and flipping them off. Not that they were necessarily bad, but we were in no mood to entertain the mopey emo set at that point. Soon we were all piled together up front, again in front of Joe. I didn't get to salute him at that gig. Ceci's arms were too tightly around me. Ceci, her girlfriend Grace, Jordan and my husband were tangled in a sea of arms, so tightly that I wasn't sure of whose hand I was holding most of the night. Though by that time I was perfectly comfortable in my commitment, Blood to Bleed still only reminded me of one person and Ceci knew this. I felt she understood me then, I felt she was one of the very few who knew me best. Beside me was my husband, but in my heart was a dream of someone else, of someone who shared my commitment and my ideals, a dream of an idea more than a person, the perfect guy/relationship/life I would never have. Two months later I would find out my husband was seeing a girl from work

that had got him hooked on heroin. Two months later he would come to where I worked and attack me in front of multiple witnesses and when called, the police would do nothing. Two months later I would sit sobbing in the back of a police car because I was too afraid to go into my own apartment and get my things. When responding to my call the enormous officer would glare down at me and say "Why are you afraid to walk in your own home? Are you on drugs or are you just retarded?" Instead of accompanying me inside to get my things they would search me for drugs. Two months later I would realize why Henry Rollins hated cops so much. Two months later. after ten years together, I would leave my husband. I did not know any of this then. All I knew was that in that instant my heart was bleeding inside of me for want of some friendship I would never have, the one thing I believed would make my life complete. It was that friendship, that idea of a person, of perfection, of everything I wanted myself and my life to be, that seemed like the holy grail of the second part of my life. Looking back, maybe it held value only because it was unobtainable. I had not yet learned to find it in myself so I sought it so furiously in a stranger. So, with the ridiculously angelic vision of the first straightedge boy I ever met in my head, and my unfaithful husband beside me, in that crowd at Stubb's, Rise Against tore into Blood To Bleed. It was our first time to hear it live together as they had not played it at Warped Tour. Ceci looked down at me, wrapped her arms around me and held me tight because she knew exactly who I was thinking of and why. As she held on to me with one hand and ran a hand through my hair, we both screamed out those lyrics that had haunted me and driven me on for years. "This place rings with echos of lives once lived, but now are lost Times spent wondering about tomorrow I don't care if we lose it all tonight Up in flames, burning bright.... Within my bones this resonates Boiling blood will circulate Could you tell me again what you did this for?" And just like I was blind to what was about to erupt with my husband I was just as blind to time bomb ticking inside of Ceci that would turn her into a complete stranger the next time we met, at the very same place it would turn out. Had I known that this was the last time she would hold my hand and sing with me and look down on me with love and empathy in her eyes, I would not have wasted my sorrow in grieving for a friendship that never was and instead would have known to grieve for the real friendship I was losing. I should have grieved for hers, but in retrospect, it was no more real than the idea of the one I chased after so fruitlessly. "I don't love you anymore is all I remember you telling me never have I felt so cold But I've no more blood to bleed Cuz my heart has been draining into the sea...." And the strange footnote to that day, that time, that moment of hope and loss and all that was to come is this: Even though his friendship I never actually earned, in his status of a wise, polite stranger, that straightedge boy I never really knew was far more civil than Ceci. His responses, however short they were, however long it took to get them, were genuine. It is such a small thing, his honesty, yet it is more than I can say for ninety percent of the people I've known in the last several years. Another song we sang together that night was Prayer of the Refugee. I had no idea then but that song was about to describe my life. "We are the angry and desperate The hungry and the cold We are the ones who kept quiet and always did what we were told But we've been sweating while you slept so calm in the safety of your homes We've been pulling at the nails that hold up everything you own."

The split with my husband was brutal. First I had to deal with police that didn't care, who told me at one point "Well, if he tries to kill you, call us back, otherwise there's nothing we can do. He's your husband and he has the same right to live here as you do." Thanks to the police not doing anything, I was thrown out of the apartment I had paid for for ten years. The battered women's shelter was full and I would have found myself homeless had it not been for my friend Lilo. Suddenly I was having to start from scratch and then, upon finding a place, having to pack up ten years worth of my life and move it all by myself. "I hit the ground and I'm still running but I need a place to stay tonight I swear I'll be gone in the morning I just need some place warm to close my eyes." Every day I worked until the afternoon, went home and packed until 2 am, fell asleep until 5 am and then got up and did it all again. Then once I was packed I had to move it all. I can't remember why I didn't ask for help but I moved it all alone except for the bed, entertainment center and tv. "The drones all slave away They're working overtime They serve a faceless queen They never question why Disciples of a god That neither lives nor breathes But we've got bills to pay Yeah we've got mouths to feed I won't go back..." This was such a strange time. There was no way to hide what was going on: my husband came to where I worked and jumped me in front of everyone there, I had to tell my boss "My husband kicked me out and I'm homeless at the moment, could I possibly get my check a day or two early to put a deposit down on an apartment?" and I had to own up to the fact that I was straightedge and my husband was a heroin addict. "We're broken but still breathing We are wounded but we are healing We pick up right where we left off Breathe on the ashes that remain So that these coals may become fire To guide our way.." This made my life suddenly seem a really bad B movie. There was nothing to do but go on. I would have asked myself "What would that straightedge guy do in this situation?" if I'd had any idea. Instead I asked "What would Dave Peters of Throwdown do?" and of course the obvious answer was "punch something". As much as I wanted to, I couldn't do that. However, I knew for sure what he wouldn't do and that was curl up in a ball and cry. So I didn't do that either. It was a such horrible time and yet when I look back all I remember is my own strength and the exhilaration I felt when I finally left. "So give me the drug Keep me alive Give me what's left of my life Don't let me go... Pull this plug, let me breathe On my own, I'm finally free..."

Lilo and Di swore I looked great, like I had suddenly gotten 10 years younger. They said I was glowing, but unless I had come in contact with radium I certainly didn't see how. I remember thinking "Well hell, maybe the Socialists were right. Maybe 16 hour days are the way to salvation." "Wake me up inside Tell me there's a reason To take another step To get up off my knees and, Follow this path of most resistance. And where ever it takes us, Whatever it faces and wherever it leads" As I came into my own power, the straightedge boy who had loomed so god-like over the first years of my commitment shrank back down to human size. Deep down I still hoped that if he was to know of all I had gone through he would be a little proud of me for surviving with my integrity intact. But if he didn't, well that was okay too. Survive I did, survive I continue to. "Somewhere between happy, and total fucking wreck Feet sometimes on solid ground, sometimes at the edge To spend your waking moments, simply killing time Is to give up on your hopes and dreams, to give up on your... Life for you, has been less than kind So take a number, stand in line We've all been sorry, we've all been hurt But how we survive, is what makes us who we are" When I had my own place and my own life again, to celebrate I bought myself a Christmas present: a tattoo of a sparrow carrying brass knuckles in her beak. It reminded me of this lyric that had been echoing in my head the whole time: "And if strength was born from heartbreak Then mountains I could move If walls could speak I pray that they would tell me what to do." I enjoyed more than six months of solitude in my cozy little apartment on Airline. I filled my weekends with walks on the beach, solitary shopping excursions for meatless dinners, and nights were spent at the House of Rock and the Underground watching bands, enjoying the freedom of staying out without getting yelled at or called names. I spent Christmas alone on Lilo's floor stuffing myself with processed cheeseballs and watching movies. It was my first UnChristmas. The Jehovah's Witnesses would have been proud! "Warm yourself by the fire, son, And the morning will come soon. I’ll tell you stories of a better time, In a place that we once knew. Before we packed our bags And left all this behind us in the dust, We had a place that we could call home, And a life no one could touch."

But I am flawed and cowed and crippled by the Christian concept of forgiveness. And by the time I would be seeing Rise Against again, my husband would be back by my side. In West Texas his mom had ran him through the MHMR system, let them start him on 7 different drugs, ---including three different tranquilizers and pills for hallucinations and seizures, which he never once had,--- used him to get on welfare, disability, and Medicare. Once he's served the purpose, she called a friend in the sheriff's department and had him pulled from her house, drugged out of his mind on meds at the time, and stuck on a bus to Corpus Christi. The Glasscock County Sherriff's Department called me at work to TELL me "Your husband is on a bus to Corpus, he'll be there at two am. He's your responsibility now." On the bus, because of his state of stupor, he was robbed of everything but his clothes and as much as I wanted to just shove him into the closest homeless shelter, I couldn't. Had it been me, as unlikely as that would be, I would want someone to have compassion. "We are the children you reject and disregard These aching cries come from the bottom of our hearts You can't disown us now, we are your own flesh and blood And we don't disappear just because your eyes are shut" I took him in. At first it was easy. Thanks to the drugs he was sleeping 18 hours a day. Finally I started to investigate what they had him on, what he could do without and how to get him back to normal. I'm not sure how I did it, but I weened him off of every drug he was on. At first it was out of necessity since I was making too much money for him to stay on state sponsored help and he'd have run out eventually. Looking back though, had he sustained that amount of drug intake for long he would have probably died. So he was back for good and conversely Ceci and Jadey and nearly every other friend I had at the time would have turned their backs on me and flocked to other, cooler individuals. All those kids that convinced me they would have killed themselves, starved themselves, cut themselves to shreds, OD'ed, etc had they not met me, who all imposed their problems and lives on mine for five years or more and took up every spare moment of my time and every inch of my heart all turned 18 at once. In turning 18 they realized they knew it all and I was no longer worth their time. "And if you think your words will ever make a difference Think again and carry on..." My husband and I are still together, but all those friends are long gone. I wish I could say he gave up all his demons, but he didn't. He simply traded the big ones for a myriad of lesser evils. He will never be straightedge. And though he claims to be proud of me, to this day he is convinced, utterly falsely, I am hiding some secret affair with the straightedge boy from years ago. I sat him down one day and asked "Do you get that we are straightedge? Do you get that in being straightedge we could not possibly cheat on our significant others and remain straightedge? Do you get that no matter how much he influenced me I barely knew him and he barely gave me the time of day? Do you get that what you are accusing me of is utterly impossible?”

Despite his insistence on this, the idea doesn't bother him enough for him to give up his own addictions and become edge himself. He no longer asks me to change and he is no longer violent, thank god. I no longer ask him to change, though I pray every day he will. We have been together for twenty years now and I have never been with anyone else. This doesn't keep me from dreaming of some nice sXe man who shares my ideals. But I think of it much like I imagine racing on the autobahn, knowing it will never actually happen and knowing I’d never do it even if I could. "We live on front porches and swing life away We get by just fine here on minimum wage If love is a labor I'll slave til the end..." Things in my life settled down for a bit as we prepared to see the boys again at Stubb's BBQ. Through myspace I found my friend Linda that I had not spoken to in fifteen years. As we sat on the balcony at Stubb's I kept one eye on the stage and the other on the door waiting to see her again. When she walked through the doors it was like the last fifteen years never even happened and instantly we picked up right where we left off and again were tearing through Austin with her at the wheel like we had so many times in the past. Because of this joyful reunion I was not first in line when the doors opened, I was buying rainbow necklaces in the gay shops in town and snickering over whether the guy behind the counter was flirting with my husband or not. - That was a strange memory for me, being in the very back of the audience for once, singing alone as Aaron sat on a rock and read a Robert Jordan novel. I was happy to be there, the music was incredible, but the feeling was all wrong. I was isolated and alone, in the back row with my fist raised and Aaron tugging at my arm every other song asking "What song is this? Do I know this one?". I wondered if Ceci was there in the front row, holding on to someone else and convincing them she would have killed herself if they hadn't come into her life. I imagined others in the front row, in our place, saluting Joe, singing our songs while I was the interloper that did not belong anymore. We walked out of the sold out show before the encore, a long drive home facing us. Aaron never lets me stay for the encores. He always wants to hit the road. As we walked to the car, with Worth Dying For wafting through the air above us, I blew a kiss to the wind and told Ceci goodbye. "Feel me rise in the strength I've found inside the warm embracing air Like a glacier melting watch me dissipate I searched for love in an empty world but all I found was hate" It was the lyrics of Rise Against that echoed in my head when I sat down to read the words of Marx and Lenin for the first time as a whole other world opened up for me. It was Rise Against that drove me on as I worked sixty hour weeks. "We're losing daylight but I can't work any faster Under the veil of dust we go on..." Their lyrics saw me through every major event of the last several years of my life. Appeal to Reason was released in the Fall of 2008 and though the year found me miserably poor and unemployed, I still bought it the day it came out. It was on my mp3 player and as I sat in the welfare office applying for food stamps I would hear the lyrics "Despite these petty fortunes we still can't afford a life...." for the first time and I would pause a moment just for the whole zeitgeist effect of it. For Christmas of 2008 I received an email from Ceci after a year and a half of ignoring my every attempt at contacting her. I had tried everything, even terribly childish measures to get some kind of reaction but every letter---first polite, then angry, then groveling-- every call, email, and package was met with silence. A year and a half passed and then I got the email saying "I got the new Rise Against and it made me realize how much I loved and missed you and loved AFI and I want to be friends again. I know you can't forgive me but can we be friends again? There's this song on that new Rise Against that

reminds me of you." True to the bond we had once held there was certainly a song on the new Rise Against that reminded me of us too: "Identities assume us as nine and five add up Synchronizing watches To the seconds that we lost I looked up and saw you I know that you saw me We froze but for a moment In empathy I brought down the sky for you but all you did was shrug" This was exactly what happened the last time we saw each other when she turned up her nose and pretended not to know who I was, just a week after sending me a letter saying how much she loved me. This led to the year plus of her not speaking to and ignoring all attempts at contact I made, even the immature ones. "And if you see me please just walk on by Walk on by Forget my name and I'll forget it too Failed attempts at living simple lives Simple lives Always keep me coming back to you." But too much time had passed and although that Christian weakness crippled me so with my husband, for once I stood strong and had no trouble in keeping the door to my heart shut. I told her not to contact me again. "I count the times that I've been sorry Now my compassion slowly drowns If there's a time these walls could guard you Then let that time be right now."

That doesn't mean that my mind does not still light to her like a bee to a flower, the years we were friends, that feeling of love and camaraderie and the bond I imagined we had. The last three Rise Against albums play the soundtrack of our friendship whenever I turn them on. When I play Appeal to Reason I wonder if this song reminds her of me:

"It kills me not to know this but I've all but just forgotten what the color of her eyes were and her scars or how she got them" If I close my eyes I am there again in that Port Aransas condo, the night we met face to face after talking online for so long. We are huddled together in the bedroom sharing the earphones of a cd player listening to Placebo's Sleeping With Ghosts. I am pulling down the zipper of my boot and showing her three freshly razored X's cut into my ankle, the blood still stuck to a wad of tissue pressed between my sock and skin. She is crying and wrapping her arms around me and telling me she understands everything and that someday she will show me her scars too. "I'll show you mine If you'll show me yours first Let's compare scars I'll tell you whose is worse Let's unwrite these pages and replace them with our own words..." She never did show me her scars. I wonder now if she even had any. There are lots of songs that transport me back then when she was my world. But now I know nothing about her nor anyone else I knew then was real and I wonder if that song ever reminds her of me and the way she led me to believe I was her lifeline, right up until the moment she cut me off and forgot me like a favorite toy after adolescence destroys the need for such playthings. "As the telling signs of age rain down a single tear is dropping through the valleys of an aging face that this world has forgotten ..." This is the music that accompanied my feet hitting the pavement of park sidewalks and treadmills, it is the melodies that buoyed me through endless work weeks and settled into the recesses of my heart in times of quiet contemplation. As I read words written years ago by writers we were never allowed to study in school, it is the soundtrack that played in my mind when those concepts began to make sense. When I read Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed, what I was hearing in my head was

"but these ghosts come alive like water and wine walk through these streets singing songs and carrying signs, to them these streets belong.." As I struggled to understand the Communist Manifesto I was thinking to myself: "Unknowing, we lie and wait for the rain To wash away what they have made Face down in the dirt with your foot on my back In the distance I hear thunder crack C'mon Stand up! This system of power and privilege is about to come to an end Here come the clouds The first drop is falling down" I look back at many things and laugh. I remember when I was first looking for straightedge shirts I came upon one that said SUPPORT LEFTIST HARDCORE. I had no earthly idea what it meant and was way too scared to ask anyone. Now I can quote Trotsky. When I first turned edge I stopped eating meat for several months until my husband found out and started calling me a Communist. At the time it seemed like the worst thing in the world to be called. He still calls me a Communist but now with laughable results. I'll cock my head, say something to him in Russian, he'll mumble under his breath 'Yeah you only say that because you've had sex with the entire Communist party!", I'll roll my eyes and we go back to our common denominators of movie quotes, comic books, and making fun of people. I always loved the way the Russian alphabet looked and shortly after we were married I got a tramp stamp with his initials in Russian. He now claims it actually means "Welcome aboard, Comrade." I just laugh and we kid each other and life goes on. In the great Holy Grail of a search for wisdom that I thought could only come from the first straightedge boy I knew, I had one great fear: what if I found him again and he was no longer edge? I was terrified of this, sure that if he fell I would too, that if that touchstone was gone, all would be lost. This no longer worries me. I would be sad if it happened, but it would not affect my journey nor cause me to stumble because I have found my own way. It was hard way full of work, trial and error and pure blind luck. Maybe it would have been easier if things had gone differently and yet it is all mine and no one else's.

I have now seen Rise Against eight times each with its own small dramas, like when I was working for Job Corps, worked an 18 hour day, literally passed out in my car from low blood sugar and exhaustion—luckily before I had started the engine. I somehow made it home, downed two peanut butter sandwiches and went to the show where I had no energy to dance, but just stood there and sang.

The last show was the best in years for me. I was in the second row behind a little boy and his mom. His mom was my age and it was her son’s first concert. He was there to see NOFX. They put on an incredible show and I did my best to keep the crowd off the kid. As a reward, the mother gave me their spot and they went to the back when Rise Against came on. I had not been in the front row since that show with Ceci. I felt like I was twenty again. Rise Against is the music that scores ALL of this in my memory. It is the sound of hope and loss, of new directions and ideas, of the brass ring becoming just another small cog in the great, silent machinations of my soul. It is the music of discovering that the strength of the world lies inside my own heart. It is the sound of me walking away from what I loved, it is the joyous noise of friends you're certain is lost forever coming back to you. This is my so-called Rise Against life

[12stem2group6]

"Media Evolution and the Changing World"

How important it is to study the evolution of media?

It is important to check the evolution of media so as to grasp how change in technology changes society. once you consider the analogue media technology of the 20th century it gives you an understanding of the differences between the society of the published era and our current situation. It's easier to determine how particular ideas and values may be so dominant after you understand how expensive and complex mass media was. This centralized control of the media. Alternative viewpoints did not have access.

The age of the tribes or the tribal age (1500 BC – 1500 AD)

“In tribal age hearing is believing” Tribal age is that the first period in history, as per McLuhan. within the Tribal Age, Ear is that the most vital sensory organ for obtaining information. It enables people to instantly receive information. All-round sound quality also promoted the community, and language was mainly a community experience. The sound feel isn't conducive to privatization; because you whisper or whisper directly into someone’s ear in order that others can’t hear it. Words with no substantive meaning, direct and vivid, only exist at the instant of hearing, because this era requires personal and intimate interaction, and hearing plays a key role during this era. this can be also called an acoustic era because the senses of hearing, touch, taste, and smell were way more strongly developed than the power to visualize. In natural situations, hearing is more important than seeing since it permits you to be all the more quickly mindful of your environmental elements. With sight, we are restricted to heading and distance. we will just detect what's obviously before us. On the off chance that a preying creature is behind us or taken cover behind a tree, we are pitifully unconscious without affectability to sound or smell. Hearing and smelling provides a feeling of that which we will not see, a big capacity within the Tribal age.

The pre-Industrial Period/ Pre-Industrial age (Pre-1700’s)

Pre-industrial age or before 1700. Cave paintings or parietal art. Some theories suggest that cave paintings served as a means of communication, while others suggest that they served a religious or ceremonial purpose. Animals are a popular topic that produces the most amazing visuals, and the paintings are very similar across the world. Humans are typically shown as hand stencils created by blowing pigment onto a hand held against the wall. Clay tablets in Mesopotamia are written on a wet clay tablet and then dried in the sun or air. If they are done writing on the tablet they can erase it and make a new one out of it.

Papyrus paper was used for writing in ancient Egypt, and it may also refer to a text written on sheets of such material that are connected side by side and wrapped up into a scroll, which is an early form of a book.

In Rome, the Acta diurnal was used for public notices and announcements such as births, weddings, and deaths. Legal, municipal, and military notifications were among the other types of Acta. Only officials were allowed to access Dibao, which included official notifications and news. They declare it orally or in writing. Handwritten or engraved wooden blocks were used to print them.

Codices Maya Professional scribes working under the patronage of deities such as the Tonsured Maize God and the Howler Monkey Gods produce folding books.

Industrial Age (1700's - 1930's)

Between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, the Industrial Revolution saw tremendous development in mechanization, industrial output, and societal transformation.

New technologies have greatly increased the speed with which people and commodities may be transported. Between Liverpool and Manchester, the first intercity railway was completed in 1830. The railways made it possible to carry more freight at a lower cost and in a shorter amount of time. Traveling from London to Manchester took four days in 1700, but only four hours in 1870.

The use of steam engines. The steam engine's development was crucial to the Industrial Revolution's success. It enabled steam trains, as well as steam-powered pumps and machinery, increasing labor productivity.

The Agricultural Revolution made it possible to produce more food with fewer farm laborers, resulting in excess employees who could work in industries. Crop rotation, selective breeding, economies of scale from larger farms, and improved transportation all contributed to this agricultural revolution.

Global commerce expansion. Britain's excellent shipping capability and Empire, which provided raw materials, aided them.

The Electronic Age: (1930s – 1980s)

The industrial age and the electronic age are two different periods of civilizations. These civilizations are thought of in schools as part of the curriculum in basic computer study in Junior secondary schools. This article covers all that students need to know concerning the industrial age and electronic age.

The industrial age is a period of social and economic reorganization. Remember the stone age, the period when crude tools were used. During the stone age, production was done by the exertion of human efforts.

Although industry and machinery are an important part of today's world production. Another important factor was considered in the late 1950s. This vital factor of production, also known as the digital revolution, is known as the electronic age.

The electronic age is also called the information age or digital age. It started in the 1970s and continues to this day. This is a stage of transition from a traditional industry to an information-based economy.

The electronic age is the information age, and electrical switches make it possible. Today can no longer be fully described as the electronic age. We can classify this time as Internet of Things (IoT) time. Because we are gradually relying on robots and machines to perform functions previously performed by humans.

With the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning, machines can learn human emotions. This enables them to make decisions that humans should make, thereby supporting production.

Information Age (1900s- 2000)

The Information Age refers to the idea that information availability and control are the distinguishing characteristics of this new phase in human history. The development of personal computers ushered in the Information Age, also known as the Electronic Age, Digital Age, and New Media Age. The "information era" began in the 1980s. Big businesses used mainframe computers, which allowed them to handle information (although laboriously) and perhaps make it available. That lasted until Google came up. Google performed something unique in history: they "broke" Goodhart's rule. That is, their sole metric for determining the relevance of a web page became a target, which Goodhart claims indicates it is no longer a quality metric. They become authoritative after a few years of excellent programming, a tidy model, great luck, timing, and a fanatical concentration on search quality. That was the Information Age's final game—Google won and received a little reward from the whole planet for making the world's information available for free. Now we're approaching a new era with unrestricted access to information, the ability to construct virtual worlds, machines that are smarter than people, and sci-fi like robotics, among other things.

Reference:

https://the21stcenturylearners.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/the-tribal-age-acoustic-age/

https://andy15blog.wordpress.com/2017/07/25/pre-industrial-age/#:~:text=Pre%2Dindustrial%20society%20refers%20to,help%20perform%20tasks%20en%20masse

https://rohartpogi.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/industrial-age-1700s-1930s/?fbclid=IwAR0fBZJ9IWnj0ubdSN0c_0v6TGlkxplAJD6P203ImmFaBnk2JpKWY6Dz6m0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing_press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_London_Gazette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone http://precinemahistory.net/1890.htm http://www.encyclopedia.com/literature-and-arts/performing-arts/film-and-television/motion-pictures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

https://www.kmacims.com.ng/industrial-age-and-electronic-age/

[where-all-the-time-went]

gah, screw it

[ID: A tumblr post from me, reading, “now is probably the time to write my 500-word essay on the politics of revolution of the daleks that gets 30 notes and is never seen again, which i return to in a month to find a lot of typos, otherwise no one will see it, isn’t it,,, “but i haven’t seen jack robertson’s first episode,,,”. End ID.] answer: yes, it is. but im gonna take a while to write this and look up a summary of arachnids in the uk (which i dont wanna watch because i heard its Not Good and you dont have to watch every episode of doctor who to be a fan, ok?) i sometimes talk about politics on tumblr, but rarely do i make political posts--mainly because, as my sidebar bio says, i’m a teenager. i don’t really have a degree in politics, and as much as i have been trying to read up on political stuff, its kinda hard when i dont have access to a college professor to guide me along. still, some things about this episode stood out to me, especially because it’s stuff i’ve noticed in a lot of media. i’m not even sure where i stand politically, but i absolutely love media commentary, and i have so many thoughts i feel like i never get to put out there when im watching movies and tv. obviously, spoilers under the cut (and it probably won’t actually be 500 words. probably.) i’m also gonna assume you’ve seen this episode, because i don’t wanna recap it. if you haven’t, go watch it! tbh, it’s well worth it (my favorite chibs era episode, just ahead of the haunting of villa diodati and demons of the punjab)

Now, um, obviously this episode is political. It’s the in-your-face without down-your-throat type of political we know and love. Still, media can be a direct allegory that wouldn’t bother the average viewer while still having politics that are good, bad, or somewhere in the middle (I mean this extremely subjectively). First, I’d like to address the elephant in the room:

While a Doctor Who festive special would normally film in the summer, this time the episode was filmed well ahead in winter 2019, over a year before it was due to be broadcast in a bid to include it within filming for series 12 (which aired from January to March) and give cast a longer break.

- The Radio Times

I’ve noticed some people pointing out that the episode references the protests that happened this summer. Honestly, I’d love it if that was the intention behind the episode, because then maybe Chris Chibnall’s team really does have a TARDIS, and we can all just time travel out of this mess.

[ID: An image from “Revolution of the Daleks.” A very sleek Dalek stands in front of police who have riot shields. The air is foggy, possibly gaseous. End ID.] However, the protests from this summer and the episode itself do not exist inside a bubble. Police brutality did not come into existence this summer, and it did not end with the autumn equinox. The episode, while featuring a small-scale protest that was eerily reminiscent of the large BLM protests this year, chooses to focus instead on one of the roots of the issue: somehow, capitalism.

I can’t say how purposeful the anti-capitalist messaging in the episode was. Obviously, Jack Robertson is meant to be an American capitalist caricature. Not to mention, Doctor Who is a family-friendly show: you can’t get too overt with what can be considered “radical” coding. Nonetheless, the episode tackles the connection between policing and money, and thus inherently comments on capitalism. 

The Dalek itself only exists to support the police force because Prime Minister Patterson knows that the idea of security will appeal to her constituency. Simultaneously, it could not exist if Robertson didn’t know just how profitable it would be. As they preach security, they create chaos. More importantly, the security they preach is one that bases itself on profit--similar to the weapons of the policeforce, and the prison industrial complex. As a result, the “security” inevitably fails.

[ID: Prime Minister Patterson, in a red coat, listens to Jack Robertson and Leo, in dark neutral-toned clothes both. They stand in front of a brick wall as they discuss the new Dalek plans. End ID.] Unfortunately, while the show presents a clear stance against money in policing, there is never any direct call to action. The political allegory may be straightforward and obvious, but the solution at the end is just to end the Daleks, and watch as Robertson announces his run for President (which, by the way, is very reminiscent of Trump, who does exist in-universe, so that’s weird). Regardless of all that, why am I even talking about this? Well, on the one hand, I love talking about these sorts of things. On the other hand, this post has started to sound like nothing but a rant with some pictures. Earlier, I said that this was something I noticed in a lot of media. For instance, I think of “The Boys,” with its obvious anti-capitalist and anti-military industrial complex messaging. At the same time, the show offers no solutions. Both are afraid of the obvious solution to capitalism: replacing it. To be clear, I say this as a person who is unsure about capitalism. I don’t know where I stand. Like I said, I’m a teenager. However, these shows can’t seem to make a decision either, when they're made by big companies with big budgets and professional adults. Politics in popular media tends to fit perfectly with the popular politics of the time, given that media must do so in order to make profit. Hence, similar to the media we consume, so many individuals seem to recognize that there’s something off with the hand money has in politics, and war, and security, yet no one seems to look for solutions.  Personally, I love talking about politics in the media, and analyzing media in general, because it’s the best way for me to communicate my internal thoughts. Meanwhile, I don’t even know my own internal thoughts. This post’s very existence is ironic. I had said in a very awful post that I wanted to write this when the tag was still trending, because I, in part, want someone else to do the thinking for me. I want people to see this and go, “well, okay, here’s where you’re wrong,” or, “here’s what we do about it.” Do I then have a responsibility to know what I’m talking about? Is the discourse all that matters? Does the media as a whole have to propel revolutionary ideas to get them into the social conscience, or can it just open up discussion?  There is, of course, irony in shows that could only exist in a capitalist world degrading aspects of that system. But no one, not even me, is exempt from the fact that these ideas do not exist in a bubble. The show’s protests look eerily familiar because, as this summer has proven, those protests are profitable (see literally every ad from companies that own sweatshops talking about how much they care about races they don’t represent in their board of directors). At the same time, I exist in that capitalist world, and my opinions have been formed via the capitalist media I was raised with. tl;dr: i know literally nothing. im sure of literally nothing. help, someone tell me about the politics of doctor who. wow, this was a really sad tl;dr, i normally make a shitty joke here. um, uh, EXTERMINATE

[senadimell]

2, 7, 30?

Ooh, my first request!

2. Favorite underrated historical figure?

Princess Taiping/ 太平公主！ I wrote a paper on her and it was really hard to find sources discussing her in her own right. She’s a Zhou and Tang-dynasty figure, the daughter of the famous Wu Zetian, known as the only female emperor in China (Zhou being the single-generation dynasty established by Wu Zetian) She’s not someone I’d emulate, but man, she lived a wild life. 

She instigated two successful coups and played politics like nobody’s business. All the while, she amassed landholdings and wealth. She was her mother’s right-hand woman: Emperor Wu* used one of the Taiping Princess’ plans to get rid of a confidante who’d gone too far by setting fire to a temple. Princess Taiping’s first husband was implicated in a failed rebellion against her mother and executed, but she was able to remarry and stay on the scene. In fact, we’re pretty sure her mother had the wife of her second husband assassinated so she could remarry him. I think it’s fascinating that she was able to stay on top during her mother’s rule, as two of her brothers were executed by her mother and two were ousted from power after being named successors. Later in her mother’s life, Taiping outmaneuvered both her mother and her mother’s head of secret police to coerce her mother into agreeing to oust him. 

Eventually, she knew winds were changing in the court and her mother was falling out of favor, so she helped convince her to abdicate the throne in favor of one of her brothers, who I will refer to as Emperor Zhongzong.

It’s kinda complicated to talk about the crazy intrigue that followed her mother’s death, because practically all of her brothers and nephew all have multiple names: birth names, ruling names, and post-humous reign titles, so it can get a little confusing. So Emperor Zhongzong (sounds like jhong-tsong) came into power and his wife, Empress Wei, was also a strong political actor. She did not want Princess Taiping wielding that much political power, and Princess Taiping had lost her most powerful backer when Wu Zetian stepped down. Empress Wei wanted her daughter, the Anle princess, to hold power in the court, and even tried to have her named crown princess and heir, something unprecedented. That didn’t work and her son Li Chongmao/later Emperor Shao was named successor instead. It’s strongly suspected that Empress Wei and the Anle princess (sounds like ahn-leh) conspired to and successfully poisoned Emperor Zhongzong. The Taiping Princess lost no time in launching a coup, and in two weeks time both Empress Wei and the Anle princess were dead. 

Li Chongmao didn't stand a chance. He was around 10-12 when this happened, and when people were still talking about who would be the new leader, she said “Everybody turns to the prime minister [princess Taiping’s brother, Li Dan, later Emperor Ruizong], little boy; this is not your seat.”** Emperor Ruizong treated Princess Taiping as a political equal and relied heavily on her advice.

Meanwhile, his son Li Longji grew in political power and prowess. She felt threatened by him, and participated in a smear campaign to limit his power. He tried to placate her appointing her supporters to  government, so the government was filled with people loyal to her. Unfortunately for her, Emperor Ruizong’s advisors still managed to convinced him to exile her. Through her connections, she was still able to maintain power in the court. 

In 712 ACE, Emperor Ruizong took a comet as a sign he was to step down (rather than eventually getting killed in the struggle between his son and sister) and announced his future abdication to his son Li Longji, temple name Emperor Xuanzong (shu-en tsong) which is how I will refer to him from now on). Aware of what this would mean for her, the Taiping Princess planned her third coup, an armed struggle to upend the soon-to-be Emperor Xuanzong, but was betrayed and discovered. She fled to a monastery, but was found three days later and permitted to commit suicide (seen as more honorable than execution). In the aftermath of the coup, all of the political leaders associated her were implicated by association and were executed or forced to commit suicide. Get this: that was all but one of the chief ministers! It took years for the state to completely appropriate her amassed landholdings and wealth.

*So Empress usually denotes a designated wife of an emperor (皇帝）. Wu Zetian went from a consort to empress regent to empress regnant, essentially. When Wu Zetian ascended the throne, she did some masterful religious and linguistic subversion to establish her legitimacy and came up with a lot of new terms and names to justify what she was doing, since it was unprecedented.  Essentially, she was the female version of Emperor, but translating the linguistic titles is complicated. 

**Sue Wiles and Lily Xiao Hong Lee “Li, Princess Taiping” Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume II: Tang Through Ming 618 - 1644. Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women.

7. Which time period would you like to live in?

Now. The current one. Go back too far even in the past century and I lose rights and privileges that I value, like the ability to dress as weirdly as I please, the ability to discuss issues of mental health and the #me too movement with women’s rights in general, the ability to work where I want, and the ability to openly practice religion. I would also miss conversations and changes within my own faith community about treating people of all races and backgrounds equally, church culture vs. doctrine, and attitudes towards church history.

 But if I were a time traveller and could stop in a place for a vacation, I’d love to live in the early 1900s (1900-1920) and visit major urban centers for art, music, and to witness labor conditions and activism. Alternatively, if I were a time traveller I would simply attend live showings of my favorite shows and concerts (lots of musical theatre)

30. Favorite kids/teens history books:

Most of the historical fiction I’ve read takes place in the past 100 years, and a lot of it takes place in the 30s and 40s. I do have a rule for myself that I don’t seek fiction about the Holocaust--the things here are exceptions. I tend to read survivor’s accounts instead, though I couldn’t think of many novels in for this rec. 

 Between Shades of Grey, by Ruta Sepetys--gorgeous, heart-wrenching book about a girl in Lithuania sent to a Soviet prison camp in Siberia. 

Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein--both take place during WWII. Rather brutal and play around with alternative narration styles.

The Devil’s Arithmetic, by Jane Yolen. I don’t know how to describe it. During a Passover Seder, Hannah Stern is transported back in time to 1942 Poland, during World War II. 

Anything by Gillian Bradshaw (she’s more of a ‘dump you into the history hard and let you figure things out’ kind of author, which I love--I’m trying to get my hands on A Beacon at Alexandria. She also writes historical fiction set in antiquity, which I don’t see as often.)

Flygirl, by Sherri Smith about the WASP (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots). Tackles the racism of the era as well.

The Red Umbrella, by Christina Diaz Gonzalez, about the Cuban exile after the revolution of 1959

Esperanza Rising, by Pam Muñoz Ryan, about a girl who leaves her estate in Mexico and has to live as a migrant worker in California. 

Uprising, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This is about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire of 1911 and is a good introduction to labor issues and unions in US history. This book is almost solely responsible for why I don’t think Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them looks anything like New York at the early 20th century (yes, I know this takes place 10 years earlier, but conditions hadn’t changed all that much). 

The Lightning Tree, by Sarah Dunster (not the book of the same name by Patrick Rothfuss). This one’s a bit personal--it’s a coming-of-age story following the story of a girl of Waldensian heritage set in Utah right after the Utah War (1858) and a year after the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It’s character-driven, lyrical and subverted my expectations of what would happen. 

The Vanishing Point, by Louise Hawes. A fictionalized biography of Lavinia Fontana, a famous female artist in the Italian Renaissance. Considering how the art world is dominated by male artists, this was really neat to read, and also takes place further in the past than a lot of things I read. 

Distant Waves, by Suzanne Weyn: Probably the weirdest book here, but just fabulous. It combines spiritualism, Nikola Tesla, Houdini and Doyle, H.G. Wells and the wealthy crème de la crème of the era with the Titanic.

Non-fiction

Yankee Doodle Gals, by Amy Nathan is about the WASP and is fabulous.

Teens at War, by Allan Zullo. Ten stories of teenagers at war throughout history.

Witch-Hunt: Mysteries of the Salem Witch Trials by Marc Aronson. One of the things I realized was just how much of an anomaly the trials were, as previously courts had been denying spectral evidence as a valid source of evidence.

Night, by Elie Wiesel. A personal history of surviving the Holocaust. Here’s the thing--if you can, read both the edition before his wife translated it and compare it to her translation. Her translations soften the hard edges of the book, which isn’t something I usually want if I’m reading about the Holocaust, but have been called more true to his words.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. A moving and disturbing story about race, medical exploitation, the invention of vaccines, and poverty in the U.S. I don’t know if this counts as a teen novel, but I read it as a freshman in high school on my librarian’s recommendation.

Savage Girls and Wild Boys Does this count as children or history? It’s a history about feral children (raised by animals, etc) and other children raised in extraordinary circumstances. 

Sort of history? It’s more modern. Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick. It’s kind of a memoir of Arn Chorn-Pond, someone who survived the Cambodian genocide of 1975-1979 and was a child soldier. It’s brutal, but I recommend it to everyone. 

This isn’t a children’s history book, but I can’t miss an opportunity to recommend it. The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II by Iris Chang is utterly heartbreaking. The Rape of Nanjing has hugely significant to cultural memory, and yet most people I’ve talked to in the states have never hear about it

As for children’s books, I read my copy of The Secret Soldier by Ann McGovern to death. If not for its length, it would probably be falling out of its binding by now. 

I also read my mother’s childhood copy of The Story of Helen Keller by Lorena A. Hickok over and over again (first published 1958). 

Survivor, by Allan Zullo. Compilation of stories from children who survived the Holocaust. 

The Hidden Girl, the story of Lola Rein Kaufman written between her and Lois Metzger. After her mother is killed by the Gestapo, she has to hide in a barn to survive.

OH! ETA:

Rejected Princesses: Tales of History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics  and Tough Mothers: Amazing Stories of History's Mightiest Matriarchs by Jason Porath are a fun way to get familiar with historical and legendary female historical figures. There is some swearing and description of all the sorts of things you can imagine have happened to historical women, but it’s organized by rating and type. 

@brightbeautifulthings I don’t know if asking automatically tags you?

[deadly-cipher]

Dear Alternative Community Gatekeepers, Stop

Alternative is not a label which you can give to one 'group' of people. alternatives are non conformists who have no social group. you cant recognise an alternative person by what they wear or look like, so dont try to. they dont all wear the same clothes (like moshers, chavs, goths, indies or any other group of people who try to be individual but all seem to like the same stuff, wear the same clothes and only listen to music which their friends like). alternative people enjoy listening to whatever the hell they like, because they dont just like one type of music, they may just enjoy music on a whole, or it may just depend what kind of a mood they are in to what kind of music they listen too at that time. although this term is based around mysic it also applys to clothes as i said above many groups try to all wear the same stuff in order to fit in, alternatives wear whatever they like, if its designer, and they like it, they will wear it. if its got the name of a band on, and they like it, they will wear it. if there is a song which is by slipnot, and they like it, they will listen to it. if there is a song, which is by eminem, they will listen too it. Punk is not about a certain hair colour, style, or music, although music does take a large part in most punks lives.  Punk is about liking what you like, being yourself, saying what you think and FUCK ALL THE REST.  You don't need a two foot high red mohawk to be a punk, although that is wicked cool. You don't need sleeves, a backpiece, or any tattoos at all to be punk. You don't need a Misfits, Casualties, Sex Pistols or any band like that jacket to be punk. You don't need anything to be punk except for awareness, self respect, respect for others and an open mind. A Goth is someone who sees beauty in the dark side of life. Today's society is focused on negating darkness because it is associated with evil. Think about it - in almost every fairy tale, who is the antagonist? The brunette. Who is the protagonist? The blonde. Dark is evil, evil is bad, and therefore we should wipe all trace of it from our lives. Unfortunately, that's simply not possible. No matter how hard society tries, people still die. Day turns into night. Love becomes loss. It's a fact of life. So while everyone else is denying an entire half of life, the Goths embrace ALL of life, good and bad. Goths understand that the best and most lasting joy is tinged with a little sadness, and that all love is bittersweet. Goths understand that not everybody has to be happy 24/7, and that the way to succeed is not by pretending you are. Sunlit skies are beautiful, yes, but so are dark cloudy ones. What is white without black? What is a rose without thorns? Thus, by embracing the shadows as well as the sun, Goths are, in many cases, actually more emotionally healthy than those in mainstream society.  Emo is an emotional person. They are not depressed all the time and some are acually very happy at times. They do smile, they don't sit in a corner crying all day. Some are actually quite popular and laugh and joke around lots. NB: Emo does not mean the person cuts themselves, they might but that is not why they're emo. The word "scene" coves a large spectrum throughout recent history, but its most modern definition is used to describe certian subcultures and movements. The most notoriously famous and targeted is the alternative music scene, or more specifically, branches of the alternative music scene such as hardcore, indie, fashoionxcore, etc. A breed of scenesters (people on the scene) has begun to come to the forefront. These scenesters are usually very music-savvy and loyal to a few specific genres (typically hardcore, metal, indie, retro, 80's new wave, classic rock, etc. to name a few), of which they dress to exemplify. It is hard to pin down a style for a scene male or female, considering the trends amongst them vary from coast to coast, and certian fads come in and out within their ranks. Typically, though, many scene kids will have facial piercings, tattoos, and longer hair. It is not unusual to see teased hair with long bangs on males, or short fauxhawks (a mohawk without the sides shaved, a fashion-friendly version) on females. It is almost a throwback to the revolution of Britian's glam era, very androgynous and fresh. Scenesters take a lot of pride in their overall image, and often they appreciate shock value. Oftentimes they are thrifty, employing their abilities as bargian-hunters and do-it-yourself gurus to do something unique with their style. Large vintage sunglasses, retro patterns, tight jeans, classic metal/band tees, plastic jewelry, and heavy eye makeup are just some of the incorperations into scene style for either sex. This style and showmanship is at its height during shows (concerts), where often scene kids will meet their friends and size up strangers who visit their turf. There indeed is competition among scenesters...sometimes friendly, sometimes not. Shows are in fact not just concerts, but often a means of socialization for those on the scene. Those people who partake in scene lifestyle often choose to date/socialize only with those like them, which can cause bitterness or rejection to outsiders. The music scene is often associated with other areas that scenesters are interested in, which is liekely, art, photography, creative writing, poetry, tattoos & piercings, civil rights, animal rights, etc. Many scene kids have strong beliefs about these things and consider those who do not to be "posers." They feel that their scene style is not only a fashion statement, but an all-encompassing lifestyle. Many scene kids incorperate their future plans into their lifestyle, going into careers such as journalism, photography, artistry, piercing, tattooing, working for magazines, being musicians, hairstylists, running venues and/or coffee shops, etc. This tends to cause scene kids to congregate, visit, or even move to big cities to find opportunities to meet other scenesters, find jobs that suit them, or to live where they have a plethora of activities that they enjoy readily at their disposal. Recently internet revolutions like myspace.com have provided a new means for the ideas of scene culture to be spead, for scenesters to find new friends, bands, and activities. Scensters design stylish and graphic profile pages to both draw attention to themselves and to find others like them, and many people have joined up with the scene fad due to internet advertising. The downside of many scene atmospheres is that some scene kids tend to develop a superior mentality. Some who are especially popular and affluent can make it harder for the younger, yet-aspiring scenesters to join in with the subculture. This is not always the case, however. Different areas breed different demographics of scene kids. Perhaps part of their attitude comes from the problem that scenesters have begun to feel threatened about their culture being jeopardized because of a sort of trickle down effect. The internet is permitting easy access for anyone who would want to don scene-esque style and jump right in to a culture that scenesters feel they have built from the ground up and developed into a complex lifestyle. However, this lends many to get caught up in popularity contests in local areas as well as on the world wide web. Unfortunately, this can also lead to rifts in scenes. Groups of hardcore scenesters start "crews," often characterized by fierce brotherhood to the point of violence against others who are unlike them or who are in other crews. The scene is dividing amongst itself, due to purists who feel the scene is about music only, and those who have taken the scene fashion to be almost, if not equally, as important as the music itself. Some of the fashionable scenesters stick to their musical roots, but often due to the aforementioned trickle-down effect, there are people joining the scene who are not interested in the music, but are only in it for the attention. Thus, the scene will continue to divide. Whether they will admit it or not, kids interested in this lifestyle of excitement, concerts, body modification, fashion, and overall alluringly unusual aesthetics will continually be labeled as "scene." They chose an alternative path because they wanted to find acceptance elsewhere. Now, they face a community just like any other: one of all different types of people, who have different opinions and standards. It has its pros and cons, ups and downs, just like any lifestyle does. A metalhead is somebody who loves heavy metal. Don't always have the "look". And it's not even necessary to listen to just the classic metal bands, you can listen to the subgenres. You just have to appreciate the genre as a whole. The term: Short for independent rock. In terms of music it would be independent of major labels/mainstream stuff. History: grew out from 60s garage, 70s punk, and 80s post punk it started in the mid 80s as alternative/college radio music. Once nirvana hit big the alternative genre split: the popular side was just alternative(Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, No Doubt, etc.) and the other half that wasn't mainstream(by choice or not) became indie rock(Pavement, Sebadoh, Built To Spill, etc). Some bands have signed to major labels but are still considered indie(Modest Mouse, etc.). Go figure. Sound: In the begining indie sounded like alternative(because it was) but it grew more experimental and weird. In Britain indie has more of a typical sound like Radiohead, Muse, etc. rather than a definition based on 'the scene.'  The scene: if you really think all indie kids do is try to be cooler than other people then... well.. you're mostly right.

[westannatasharomanoff]

THG AU Chapter 27

Chapter 1        Chapter 2      Chapter 3     Chapter 4    Chapter 5    Chapter 6 Chapter 7   Chapter 8   Chapter 9  Chapter 10   Chapter 11 Chapter 12  Chapter 13 Chapter 14  Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17  Chapter 18 Chapter 19   Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22  Chapter 23   Chapter 24  Chapter 25 Chapter 26

*Natasha Romanoff was in The Capitol for an interview. She was now three months pregnant and everyone was buzzing about the baby. This interview was to announce the winners of the baby naming competition. The only thing keeping Natasha from being furious about not getting to name her own child was the fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to stick it to The Capitol.*

Ceaser: I think we all know what we’re here for. Natasha, if you would open the envelope.

Natasha: Okay, Ceaser. Here goes nothing.

Ceaser: Can we get a drumroll please? *drumroll* Thank you.

Natasha: The winning name for a baby girl is Victoria, and if it’s a boy, the winner is... Triffle. *her face falls*

* Meanwhile in District 12, everyone is watching the interview together at Natasha and Bruce’s.*

Pietro: Triffle? *bursts out laughing* 

Fury: That poor child.

Maria: That’s unfortunate. 

Bruce: Triffle?! They want us to name our child Triffle?! That’s not even a name! 

Wanda: Evidently, it is in The Capitol. 

Melina: That’s okay. Triffle is a bit... odd, but we would love him anyway. Besides, Victoria is a very nice name. 

Alexei: Our poor grandson is going to be teased so much. 

Fury: Have you met this child’s parents? He’ll be fine. 

Bruce: For everyone’s sake I hope we have a girl. 

*A week later, Natasha and Bruce went to their first S.H.I.E.L.D. meeting. It was held in a hovercraft above the wilds.*

Peggy: I know we haven’t met in a while, but I assure you S.H.I.E.L.D. is as active as ever. We have three new agents today, so please give a warm welcome to Maria Hill, Bruce Banner, and Natasha Romanoff.

Grant: Wait, didn’t she just get married? Why does she still have her same last name?

Natasha: The Capitol already knows me well, so changing my name didn’t make much sense. 

Peggy: Why don’t we all just introduce ourselves? I’ll start. My name is Peggy Carter and I live in District 4. 

Phil: I’m Phil Coulson, I live in District 9.

Melinda: Melinda May,  District 2.

Lincoln: Lincoln Campbell, District 5. I know, shocking. 

Lance: Lance Hunter, District 2.

Thor: You guys know me. You also know Steve! *Steve waves*

Daisy: Daisy Johnson, I’m from 3. 

Bruce: Yeah, I’ve met you. You’re the new girl from coding. 

Daisy: That’s me. 

Tripp:  Antoine Triplett, but you can call me Tripp. I also live in District 3.

Grant: Grant Ward, from District 2. 

Jemma: Jemma Simmons. I live in District 3, but I invent medical devices so I’m always in The Capitol. 

Bobbi: Bobbi Morse, I’m also from District 2. Imagine that. 

Lance: She’s my wife. 

Leo: Leo Fitz. I’m from District 3, but we’ve met. 

Bruce: Yes, yes we have. 

Mack: Alphonso Mackenzie, District 6. You can call me Mack.

Daniel: I’m Daniel Sousa. I live in District 10 and I think that’s everyone, right?

Gamora: You forgot us. 

Daniel: Right, our friends from The Capitol.

Gamora: I’m Gamora Zen-Titan, as you may remember.

Mantis: Mantis Brandt-Snow. I’m so happy to be here!

Nebula: Nebula Lupho-Titan. *pointing at Gamora* I’m her sister. 

Peter: Peter Quill-Snow. *pointing at Mantis* I’m her sister. 

*Everyone goes silent and gives Peter an odd look. A few people stifle laughter. A moment later, Peter realizes his mistake.*

Peter: Wait, no! She’s my- *sigh* never mind. 

Bruce: Wait. Snow, Titan, I know those names! You let the children of the president and his closest advisor join a society to take them down? 

Peter: Our father is Snow’s brother, actually. 

Gamora: Not to mention none of us want anything to do with the corrupt and unfair system that is our government! The things going on in Panem just aren’t right, and anyone could see that no matter who their “family” is! Panem needs to enter a new era, and soon. 

Bruce: Fair enough, carry on. 

Loki: I’m Loki Odinson and *pointing to Thor* I’ve never met that man in my life. 

Natasha: Oh, are you two siblings?

Loki: No. I’ve seriously never met him. It’s a total coincidence that we have the same last name.

Thor: It’s actually kind of freaky, especially considering we look very similar.

Loki: For the last time, we do not look alike! At all! 

Peggy: Can we get back to business? 

Thor: Right, sorry. 

Peggy: Anyway, we need to take a few more people before we’re ready to start the next phase of our plan. *to Bruce and Natasha* That’s where you come in. We need to recruit Tony Stark, Wanda Maximoff, and Pietro Maximoff. Banner, you need to get Tony on board. Natasha, you will handle the Maximoffs. 

*Natasha and Bruce accepted their assignment and the rest of the meeting went pretty well. After the meeting, Bruce was snuck to District 3 so he could talk to Tony. He encased them in the secret bubble.*

Tony: Bruce? What are you doing here?

Bruce: I’ll tell you in a minute, but first I want to know how you’re holding up. Did they ever find Pepper?

Tony: *starting to cry* No. It’s been four months and we’ve found nothing. Well, nothing but this. *Tony pulls out a ring* They found her wedding ring in the ruins of her sister’s house. 

Bruce: *pulls Tony into a hug* I’m so sorry. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call. How’s Morgan?

Tony: She’s still my pride and joy. She misses her mommy, but she’s a wonderful daughter. Just turned three. I’m keeping this one close, I can’t lose her like I did Peter and Pepper. Speaking of children, congratulations. I heard about the baby. You’re not seriously going to name a boy Triffle, are you?

Bruce: We have no choice. Anyway, back to the reason I’m here. The government of Panem needs to be stopped. A secret organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. is working to overthrow Snow, and I’ve been sent to recruit you.

Tony: No. No way. I can’t join a revolution. 

Bruce: We need you! The Hunger Games, the bombings, the whippings, the avoxes and muttations, none of this is acceptable! We owe it to Peter and Pepper and Vision and Sammy and everyone else The Capitol saw as disposable. This isn’t right and it isn’t fair!

Tony: I know, but this sounds dangerous and my top priority will always be keeping my daughter safe. 

Bruce: What if your daughter could live in a world where she didn’t have to worry about the reaping every year? A world where she could see other districts. A world where the citizens aren’t oppressed. 

Tony: That sounds amazing, but I can’t. What if they find out and kill Morgan?

Bruce: We won’t let that happen. Just please consider it. These people really want to make a change, and I want to be a part of it. But none of this is possible without you.

Tony: And you’re sure these people can be trusted?

Bruce: Yes. 

Tony: Then count me in. For Pepper. And Peter. And for Morgan. Most importantly, for the future of Panem. I’m joining your revolution. 

*Meanwhile back in 12*

Natasha: You may be wondering why I shut you both in a soundproof invisibility bubble with me. There is a secret organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. that has been created to overthrow Snow and I was sent to recruit you because-

Both twins at once: We’re in. 

*About two months later, everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. was preparing to deliver the first blow. *

Peggy: Okay, we want to start small with something barely noticeable. In order to do that, we need someone to sneak in and grab a secret file. With that gone, The Capitol will no longer have arena ideas for the next few years.The 91st Hunger Games is probably already all planned, given it’s in a month, but this will be a major setback and a distraction for some of the most prominent figures in The Capitol.

Natasha: If we’re doing something against the games, I want to be involved.

Peggy: Absolutely not. You are in no condition to sneak into that building. 

Natasha: What’s that supposed to mean?!

Peggy: Ordinarily, I’d send you in in a heartbeat, but...

Natasha: What? Am I not good enough? Did you see me in the games? I’m not proud of it, but I’m told I was impressive!

Bruce: Nat, you’re five months pregnant. 

Natasha: Oh, right. 

Peggy: Anyway, we’re sending in Wanda, Daisy, and Gamora. Tony Stark has made rigs for Daisy and Wanda similar to what Peter Parker made in the games. Wanda, yours will allow you to move objects with your mind.

Tony: These ones are a lot stronger than what you had in the arena. You’ll be able to move bigger objects and even people. They also work long distance. 

Peggy: Daisy, yours will allow you to pulse vibrations through the floor, creating miniature earthquakes.

Tony: You can direct them towards specific people and everything. 

Peter: What about Gamora? Are you just going to send her in with nothing?

Gamora: Don’t be ridiculous. *pulling out ID badge* I have my dad’s ID badge. It’ll give us access to everything. Also, I have a retractable sword. 

Peter: Oh, okay. 

Daniel: So you’ll be safe then? Because you have the ID badge?

Daisy: We’ll be fine, I promise. *kisses his cheek* Besides, it’s a really fast, in and out, kind of mission. We’ll be back before you know I’m gone. 

Daniel: I miss you already. Be safe.

Daisy: Don’t worry, we will. 

*After they leave*

Tony: So, you and Daisy, huh? How’d you two meet?

Daniel: We’re both involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. She and I met through this. 

Tony: Meeting through work, nice. That’s how I met my wife. *sniff* Well, I guess now she’s my ex wife. *begins sobbing* 

Bruce: *puts hand on Tony’s shoulder* You’ll be okay. here. *hugs Tony*

Daniel: Messy divorce?

Bruce: She was killed in an attack by The Capitol. 

*An hour later, Daisy, Gamora, and Wanda return. S.H.I.E.L.D. is officially up and running, and they aren’t going to back down.*

[hyperionswrath--archived]

@azure-steel​

There was a lot left to be desired about hiding in plain sight; living life on the very edge of every long shadow cast against the light of Deling City’s filthy artificial glow. It was easy to disappear amongst the crowd without the shackles of identity, without a name, honing a face as easily as forgettable as his. Those who did notice were so easily swayed by a kind smile accompanied by even kinder words, or even the sharp glare of a man not to be trifled with.

The war was long over; Ultimecia’s reign toppled and ground into dust, in the wake of retribution was rebirthed a new era of man, but to him it meant so very little. The terror of martial law wrought on Timber in the throws of war still left a very bitter taste in the blond’s mouth, and it was there nestled deep in the alcove of that bar that Cloud’s target finally revealed himself beneath the apparent safety of the hotel’s canopy.

Almasy.

See, the war may be over, however the revolution continued to thrive in the ashes. Seifer Almasy was a name infamous throughout the continents, made so with his long list of crimes against the people coupled with his sudden disappearance once the tide had turned in the rebellion’s favour. Yet so rare was it that any one man was able to put a face to that name. Cloud was at an advantage here considering his group’s connections with Balamb and its respective Garden, and Cloud Strife never forgot a face like that, with eyes so filled with spite, and that scar marring the man’s brow.

He’d never forget.

Cloud had lost his family, friends and his common basic humanity to the oppressive brutalisation of Galbadia and that damn sorceress’ lust for power. Such little choice had he but to join their forces lest be faced with a fate that could possibly be considered worse than death. To fight and survive or fade into nothing, what else was there?

So much he’d learned within those training camps; how to fight, how to destroy all feeling, all emotion, to kill… how to die. So many people he’d met who’d been met with similar fates - to be one with the Army, or face a future of uncertainty. He’d never met a man yet who wished to blur into obscurity, and here he was living that very same life he’d once wanted to avoid at all costs; a vigilante on the hunt for a war criminal who had yet to pay any true price for his felonies. It seemed that for all his searching since he’d set his own mission, the time invested painstakingly piecing together all the snippets of information -false and factual - coaxed from the masses either though gil or the odd game of triple triad had finally paid off.

He’d succeeded where so many others had already failed, and all it took was a little patience and a keen eye.(...)

Fingertips grazed over the cool surface of the glass, mindlessly tracing the rim while jade-green eyes stared into the golden liquid, the tall blond lost in thoughts.

His intel had revealed the Lion of Balamb would be dispatched to a mission on Galbadian ground soon, yet he still had to find out where exactly the hyne-bedamned SeeDs would be sent and how many of them had to be expected. Even the slimmest chance of catching the man unguarded or at least away from an entire entourage would be enough for him to follow through with years of planning, of that he was sure.

Such plans, as it were, consisted mostly of reliving the past in terms of chaining the man to a wall and taking him apart, slowly and painfully. Doing what had been denied when their time in D-District was cut short.

His hand still resting on the wooden bar counter curled into a tight fist, knuckles white, as memories surfaced of how close he had been back then. Yet the hero of this story had slipped from his grip, time and time again. Luck, merely.

A deep breath pulled in through flaring nostrils brought him back into the here and now, bringing the faint smell of cigarette smoke to his attention. And with it, the distinct feeling of being watched. He did not, however, look up from his drink at the realization that something was different tonight, that he must have caught someone's eye. Instead, he lifted the glass to thin lips, taking a sip from the burning liquor, making it two, then set it back down to lean over and pull an ashtray closer, followed up by him procuring a pack of cigarettes from his coat, placing one stick between his lips and lighting it, inhaling the smoke and releasing it with another, low sigh.

Being the center of attention was not necessarily new to him, it was a given with how tall he stood and how his whole demeanor seemed to command respect - if freely given or no. On top of that, a lifetime in military training and on the field had left its traces, leaving him all but aloof to when someone was watching him a little too closely. He was also not stupid. While the war had been ongoing, he had made many enemies. Even without media coverage plastering his face everywhere, which had luckily not been possible with the entire chaos ensuing, there were enough soldiers, former and active, that knew who he was and what he had done. Many of them thirsting for revenge. He had taken out more than a few of them when they felt bold enough to make an attempt on his life. Pityful, really.

Smoke curled from his cigarette held idly between lean fingers, billowing every so often when he inhaled from it, exchanged occasionally by the glass of whiskey, his entire demeanor seemingly unaware of the presence of any spectator in the vicinity. Still, when someone approached, his senses were honed on every sound and movement he could make out, body apparently relaxed yet ready to spring at every moment if the need arose.

From his peripheral vision, he soon caught what appeared to be a young man with bright blond hair and the build of a fighter. At least from what he was able to gather without looking directly at him. Not that nowadays not few people were able to put off a good fight, the world being what it was, all seeming peace aside.

Slowly, while taking another swig, emerald eyes gazed from the corners to one gloved hand resting on the edge of the bar, all movement and the way the stranger held himself smooth and calm, it seemed. Yet the feeling of being watched had receded in the meantime, enforcing his suspicion that the one initially causing it wanted to pique his attention, or possibly interest, by deliberately standing close enough that one elbow brushed him as the blond turned away to leave.

Their eyes had met for the flicker of one second, green meeting cerulean, and whatever it was that spun between them at this moment caused Seifer to empty his glass with one last deep sip, shoving it away from him after. He did not turn to watch the man retreat, taking his time to inhale one last time from the cigarette before extinguishing it in the tray, one hand placing the usual bill on the countertop without a word.

He then made to pull leather gloves back over his hands, fingers flexing to adjust the material properly before he stood up in a smooth motion. He knew a cue when he received one, and whoever the guy was, he would be either investigated, questioned, or if need be, killed.

Straightening the cuffs of his coat with practiced ease, Seifer set to move, steering his steps to the stairs and up, still entirely relaxed and calm as it seemed. Yet, his attention was focused on the stranger who would either be waiting in the lobby or would have turned to leave the hotel. Either way, he’d find him and follow, leisurely, at a distance.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE LAST ONE MIGHT BE THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN A STARTUP IS AMONG THE PUREST OF REAL WORLD TESTS

This probably accounts for a lot of experience themselves in the technology business. The experience of the SFP suggests that if you let motivated people do real work, they work like watertight compartments in an unsinkable ship. You don't give up as much equity as VCs wanted. An essay is supposed to suggest efficiency.1 Then instead of coming to your office to work on your projects, he can work wherever he wants on projects of their own angel rounds. But most young hackers have neither. The spammers wouldn't say these things if they didn't sound exciting. Not even investors, who have in the past.2

The first courses in English literature seem to have done stuff with peanuts.3 But due to a series of meetings, culminating in a full partner meeting where the firm as a whole says yes or no. You can take out the whole point if you need to do this when they can.4 If you want to create for a newborn child will be quite unlike the streets of a big company. 99 respectively, and a lot of experience themselves in the technology world know what usually happens when something comes along that can be done by bad programmers is choosing the wrong platform. Investors have no idea how much better we could do, is this the one with the best chance of making money. And being charming and confident counts for nothing with users.5 So I'm going to try to get into second gear.6 You might say that it's an admirable thing to write great programs, even when this work doesn't translate easily into the conventional intellectual currency of research papers.

I'd only seen in zoos before. I was still ambivalent about business. The 2005 summer founders ranged in age from 18 to 28 average 23, and there are plenty of societies where parents don't mind if their teenage kids have sex—indeed, where it's normal for 14 year olds to become mothers. When you judge people that way, and there's a simple solution that's somewhat expensive, just take it and get on with building the company.7 They switch because it's a recipe for succeeding just by negating.8 But actually being good. How do you find surprises?9 Maybe they made you feel better, so I read it, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you learn in college depends a lot more appealing to most of us than pandering to human weaknesses. If you're going to make the most money are those who aren't in it just for the reasons everyone knows about. People trying to be cool and maybe make money.

But by no means impossible. But you should realize you're stepping into dangerous territory. But most young hackers have neither. My parents were pretty good about admitting when they didn't know things, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative.10 The best stories about user needs are about your own. It would certainly be convenient, but you have to be the new way of delivering applications. The route for the ambitious in that sort of thing to be in the building a certain number of hours a day.11

Instead of trying to teach it to people, I'd say that yes, surprisingly often it can. 15981844 spot 0. We all thought there was just something we weren't getting. Which means, oddly enough, that as you grow older, life should become more and more surprising. An essay can go anywhere the writer wants. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and smart people by definition have odd ideas. A nerd's idea of paradise is Berkeley or Boulder. One of Silicon Valley's biggest advantages is its venture capital firms. What if both are true? It was remarkable how different they seemed.12 The reason is not just that he'd be annoying, but that they're driven by more powerful motivations.

Foreseeing disaster, my friend and his wife rapidly improvised: yes, the turkey had wanted to die. People. It does not seem to have looked far for ideas. That seems the wrong model. But I know the power of the forces that have them in their place, but it goes fast. We're just finally able to measure it. Nearly all wanted advice about dealing with future investors: how much money should they take and what kind of x you've built. Sex I believe they conceal because they'd be frightening, not because you did something wrong.13 Someone is going to have nearly the pull with the spam recipient as the kinds of things that spammers say now. So on demo day I told the assembled angels and VCs.

I found that the Bayesian filter did the same thing the river does: backtrack. What would be a good idea. The effect of unpredictability is more subtle. But it's the people that make it Silicon Valley, what you need to impress are fairly tolerant. It's like the sort of distribution you'd expect, the number of nonspam and spam messages respectively. Now that we know what we're looking for, that leads to other questions. But we knew it was possible to start on that little because we started Viaweb on $10,000.14 And having kids is our genes heading for the lifeboats. The user doesn't know what it means to have gone to an elite college; you learn more from them than the professors.

Notes

Unfortunately the payload can consist of dealing with money and disputes. Mueller, Friedrich M. And journalists as part of this essay, Richard Florida told me that if he ever made a better education. In-Q-Tel that is exactly the opposite way from the 1940s or 50s instead of admitting frankly that it's up to two more investors.

While the audience at an ever increasing rate to impress are not very discerning.

5 seconds per day.

By heavy-duty security I mean no more willing to be when I became an employer, I advised avoiding Javascript. And though they have because they suit investors' interests. This is one of them was Webvia; I was as late as 1984. But they also influence one another indirectly through the buzz that surrounds a hot deal, I mean no more than just reconstructing word boundaries; spammers both add xHot nPorn cSite and omit P rn letters.

On the other. Though nominally acquisitions and sometimes on a road there are no misunderstandings. Looking at the leading scholars in the sense of things you want to lead.

Some of the techniques for discouraging stupid comments have yet to find someone else start those startups. If the Mac was so great, why not turn your company right now. Google is that you're small and use whatever advantages that brings.

Security always depends more on not screwing up. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the cachet that term had. Note to nerds: or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top schools are, which have remained more or less, is due to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, but not the distinction between money and disputes.

Monroeville Mall was at Harvard Business School at the end of the venture business, and I had zero false positives reflecting the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but it's hard to get all the investors agree, and tax rates will tend to be. One valuable thing you changed. These were the impressive ones. The solution is to start startups who otherwise wouldn't have had a broader meaning.

Not one got an interview, I'd say the raison d'etre of prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.

On the other seed firms always find is that there is some weakness in your own mind. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1965. Us 10 million and we'll tell you them.

Conjecture: The First Industrial Revolution was one in an era of such high taxes? One of the magazine they'd accepted it for you to stop, but a lot, or want tenure, avoid casual conversations with VCs suggest it's roughly correct to say now.

You have to admit there's no lower bound to its precision.

So it may be useful in cases where VCs don't invest, regardless of the word I meant. I'm sure for every startup we funded, summer jobs are the most dramatic departure from his family how much of the economy, at least a whole department at a friend's house for the others to act through subordinates.

At one point in the chaos anyway. I don't know who invented something the mainstream media needs to learn to acknowledge as well. Robert Morris says that the only audience for your protection.

[fxghtclxb]

hi hi !! i’m julia, super excited to be here !! if you wanna read a little bit abt my babes flour pls check out my post down below !  (also it’s honestly .. ah.. long, so pls skim if need be)

Me !!

name/alias: Julia age: 26 pronouns: She/Her

The Babes !!

name: Flour Mae age: 476 faceclaim: Hwang Hyunjin pronouns: He/Him hometown: Archana, Messier 83 time lived in roswell: 1 Month profession: Mortician alien or human: Full Blooded Alien alien ability: Interdimensional Vision

bio;; tw death mention

He never really knows exactly how he’d look physically until he opens his eyes from the warmth of the sun; it’s a bit of a game, he thought to himself, determined by fate in the most ironic way given why he was there in Roswell, New Mexico. His fingers first touched a patch of soft daisies this lifetime, thus, he named himself Flour (flower). His fourth life, his fourth visit, his fourth glimpse into the meandering of a species unlike his own and quietly document the events that transpired and yet-- it’s such a fresh experience every time.

He was an Archanan; timekeepers, others whispered, historians and keepers of the future itself but cursed with an idle heart. His kind could see the beautiful splinters of time fragmented against the strange concept of coincidence-- every possibility is laid out in front of him, from the terrifying to the heartwarming, their paths weaving and dipping and ending in a dark abyss when an event is finally chosen. It wasn’t a secret that a million tiny fibers stitched a destination together, all those little events perfectly placed in line that created the path for an inevitable event. He could pinpoint what possibilities could happen to the future if one little piece is moved, however, he is helpless in the act of intervening. It would be immoral, for one, and hopeless. He’s tried-- he was reprimanded, rightfully so, and punished for his indiscretion. So he watches now, ready to soak in the events on planet earth, taking diligent notes that plead for the goodness left in humanity at that point in time before he returns decades later with the same fair skin and furrowed brows.

Flour enjoys working with those who have already passed. The dead were much more confined in their possibilities. It provided solace, silence, a drop of odd serenity sandwiched between the buzzing of a sharp mind when he stepped out into the sunny world and was thrusted into a flurry of visions. A part of him felt a tinge of sadness every time he saw a drop of human tear land on a carefully placed tissue scrunched between clenched fists; he knew how expensive those are to Galians and, in an alternate universe, he could see himself reaping in the riches, but such selfish thoughts were quickly silenced by the much more human feeling of sympathy. Indeed, living among humans during different eras exposed him to the consistency of the emotional spectrum: sadness, pain, joy, anger, pity-- but he’s never understood the concept of love. He’s read about it, sure, seen it in theaters and shared between couples, but the passion expressed through beautiful, well framed murmurs that sound almost like their own alternate universe. From what he’s been told, there will be a time when an Archanan will find a mate -- but that, too, is down to fate.

Flour is a nervous boy, someone who always needs to keep their hands busy, who would quickly forget the pen tucked behind his ear, who use childish strawberry encrusted hairclips to keep his bangs out of his eyes when he worked. His racing mind makes him very indecisive about even the smallest things, but he secretly hopes that there will be those who quiet his fluttering heart. Friendships never come easily, nor do relationships; there’s no point in lingering on a premise of forever when forever doesn’t last, does it?

physical appearance ;; + soft pink hair + pale, v pale + appx 5′10 + long, thin fingers + light, airy bones + a pale mark perched right against the collarbone + almost a constant peachiness of the bottom lip from digging his nails nervously against it when worried

alien features ;; + an opal shimmer, almost twinkling when the light catches the right angles + golden blood

mini facts ;; + he has a ... serious fondness for sprinkles. It’s not a food that should be eaten by itself, he knows, but he finds the colors fun and it became his symbolic stress snack of choice + he tries very hard to not smell like formaldehyde when he’s not at work but he’s aware of how strong the odor could potentially be once he clocks out. he still has a preference for floral scents because it reminds him of the lives he’s previous lived + he’s Archanan royalty though there really isn’t a reason to bring that up ever, is there? his species is rare as it is already, even by alien standards. + he’s heard that roswell has its own collection of aliens that are very proud of their identity and, thus, is extremely fascinated with this brand new relationship between humans and alienkind. he’s still wary of revealing himself because he never really did in his past lives, however, he isn’t opposed to admitting his species in the future + he’s still getting used to the 21st century! there’s been LOTS of changes and one of his favorite past times is just.. hanging out at the supermarket and looking at all the different, wonderful selections

past lives ;; + He only considers one of his visits a ‘life’ if he is allowed (or forced) to stay past a decade on earth. Flour has dropped in on earth multiple times between lives to document the progression of world changing events as well, however. He learned of kindness, generosity, fear, a search for happiness. + Each past life provides a new physical appearance, identity, occupation, and storyline + His first was during the Qing Dynasty in 1623, accompanying Xu Xiake in his travels and documenting topography, geography, landmarks, and adventures. + His second was during the French Revolution in 1789, aiding in a newspaper office famous for its pamphlet literature. He must admit that this life allowed him to be swept away by human passion, leading to his fall. + His third was during the Soviet Famine of 1932, working with a coroner that’s near tears at each sundown. He learned about pain, suffering, optimism, tragedy. 

[justforbooks]

The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West

Alexander Zinoviev, along with Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, was one of the three great intellectual giants who became dissidents during the late Soviet period.  

This remarkable and prophetic interview was originally published in 1999 in the French Figaro Magazine.  Its original title was:  ”The West and Russia – A Controlled Catastrophe”

Q. With what feelings are you returning home after such a long exile?

A. With a feeling that I once left a strong, respected, even awe-inspiring power. Returning now, I found a defeated country in ruins. Unlike others, I would never have left the USSR if I had had a choice. Emigration was a real punishment for me.

Q. Nevertheless, you were welcomed with open arms here! (in Germany – Ed. Note)

A. That is true… But despite the triumphant recognition and the worldwide success of my books, I have always felt like a stranger here.

Q. After the collapse of communism the Western system has become the main focus of your research. Why?

A. Because what happened was what I had predicted: the fall of communism turned into the breakup of Russia.

Q. So the fight with communism was a conspiracy to destroy Russia?

A. Precisely. I say this because once I was an unwitting accomplice of this action that I found shameful. The West wanted and programmed the Russian catastrophe. I read documents and participated in the research, which under the guise of ideological struggle worked towards the destruction of Russia. This became so unbearable for me that I could no longer stay in the camp of those who destroy my people and my country. The West is not a stranger to me, but I consider it an enemy empire.

Q: Have you become a patriot?

A: Patriotism does not concern me. I received an international upbringing and I remain loyal to it. I cannot even say whether I love Russians and Russia or not. I am part of them. Today’s suffering of my people is so horrible that I cannot stand watching them from afar. The barbarity of globalization manifests itself in many diverse, unacceptable ways.

Q: Nevertheless, many former Soviet dissidents speak about their former homeland as a country of human rights and democracy. Now that this point of view has become commonly accepted in the West, you are trying to refute it. Isn’t there a contradiction here?

A: During the Cold War, democracy was a weapon in the fight against communist totalitarianism. Today we understand that the Cold War era was the history of the West’s  apogee. During that time the West had it all: unprecedented growth of wealth, true freedom, incredible social progress, colossal scientific and technological achievements. But at the same time the West was imperceptibly changing. The timid integration of developed countries launched at that time has developed into the internationalization of the economy and the globalization of power that we are witnessing now. Integration may help the growth of common good and have a positive impact if it is driven by the legitimate aspiration of fraternal people to unite, for example. But the integration in question was conceived from the beginning as a vertical structure strictly controlled by a supranational power. Without a successful Russian counter-revolution against the Soviet Union, the West could not have started the process of globalization.

Q: So, the role of Gorbachev was not positive?

A: I look at things from a slightly different angle. Contrary to common belief, Soviet communism did not collapse because of internal reasons. Its collapse is certainly the greatest victory in the history of the West. An unheard of victory which, let me say it again, can establish a unitary power monopoly on a planetary scale. The end of communism also signalized the end of democracy. The modern epoch is not only post-communist, it is also post-democratic! Today we are witnessing the establishment of democratic totalitarianism, or, if you will, totalitarian democracy.

Q: Does not it all sound a little absurd?

A: Not at all. Democracy requires pluralism and pluralism implies an existence of at least two more or less equal forces which oppose each other and at the same time influence each other. During the Cold War there was world democracy, global pluralism, with two opposing systems: capitalist and communist, plus other countries with an amorphous system which belonged to neither. Soviet totalitarianism was sensitive to Western criticism. In turn, the Soviet Union influenced the West, in particular through the latter’s own communist parties. Today we live in a world dominated by one single force, one ideology and one pro-globalization party. All of this together began to take shape during the Cold War, when superstructures gradually appeared in various forms: commercial, banking, political and media organizations. Despite their different fields of activity, what they had in common was essentially their transnational scope. With the collapse of communism they began to rule the world. Thus, Western countries ended up in the dominant position, but at the same time they are now in a subordinate position as they gradually lose their sovereignty to what I call the supra-society. The planet-wide supra-society consists of commercial and non-commercial organizations whose influence extends far beyond individual states. Like other countries, the Western countries are subordinated to these supranational structures. This is despite the fact that the sovereignty of states was also an integral part of pluralism and hence of democracy on a global scale. Today’s ruling supra-power suppresses sovereign states. The European integration unfolding in front of our very eyes is also leading to the disappearance of pluralism within this new conglomerate in favor of supranational power.

Q: But do not you think that France and Germany remain democracies?

A: Western countries got to know true democracy during the Cold War. Political parties had genuine ideological differences and different political programs. The media also differed from each other. All this had an impact on the lives of ordinary people contributing to the growth of their wealth. Now this has come to an end. A democratic and prosperous capitalism with socially oriented laws and job security was in many ways thanks to a fear of communism. After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, a massive attack on the social rights of citizens was launched in the West. Today the socialists who are in power in most European countries are pursuing policies of dismantling the social security system, destroying everything that was socialist in the capitalist countries. There is no longer a political force in the West capable of protecting ordinary citizens. The existence of political parties is a mere formality. They will differ less and less as time goes on. The war in the Balkans was anything but democratic. Nevertheless, the war was perpetrated by the socialists who historically have been against these kinds of ventures. Environmentalists, who are in power in some countries, welcomed the environmental catastrophe caused by the NATO bombings. They even dared to claim that bombs containing depleted uranium are not dangerous for the environment, even though soldiers loading them wear special protective overalls. Thus, democracy is gradually disappearing from the social structure of the West. Totalitarianism is spreading everywhere because the supranational structure imposes its laws on individual states. This undemocratic superstructure gives orders, imposes sanctions, organizes embargos, drops bombs, causes hunger. Even Clinton obeys it. Financial totalitarianism has subjugated political power. Emotions and compassion are alien to cold financial totalitarianism. Compared with financial dictatorship, political dictatorship is humane. Resistance was possible inside the most brutal dictatorships. Rebellion against banks is impossible.

Q: What about a revolution?

A: Democratic totalitarianism and financial dictatorship rule out the possibility of social revolution.

Q: Why?

A: Because they combine omnipotent military power with a financial stranglehold. All revolutions received support from outside. From now on this is impossible because there are no sovereign states, nor will there be. Moreover, at the lowest level the working class has been replaced with the unemployed class. What do the unemployed want? Jobs. Therefore, they are in a less advantageous position than the working class of the past.

Q: All totalitarian systems had their own ideology. What is the ideology of the new society you call post-democratic?

A: The most influential Western thinkers and politicians believe that we have entered the post-ideological epoch. This is because by “ideology” they mean communism, fascism, nazism, etc. In reality, the ideology, the super-ideology of the Western world, developed over the last fifty years is much stronger than communism or national socialism. A western citizen is being brainwashed much more than a soviet citizen ever was during the era of communist propaganda. In ideology, the main thing is not the ideas, but rather the mechanisms of their distribution. The might of the Western media, for example, is incomparably greater than that of the propaganda mechanisms of the Vatican when it was at the zenith of its power. And it is not only the cinema, literature, philosophy – all the levers of influence and mechanisms used in the promulgation of culture, in its broadest sense, work in this direction. At the slightest impulse all who work in this area respond with such consistency that it is hard not to think that all orders come from a single source of power. It was enough to decide to stigmatize General Karadžić or President Milošević or someone else for the whole planetary propaganda machine to start working against them. As a result, instead of condemning politicians and NATO generals for violation of all existing laws, the vast majority of Western citizens is convinced that the war against Serbia was necessary and just. Western ideology combines and mixes ideas based on its needs. One of these ideas is that Western values and lifestyle are the best in the world! Although for most people on the planet these values have disastrous consequences. Try to convince Americans that these values will destroy Russia. You will not be able to. They will continue to assert the thesis of universalism of Western values, therefore following one of the fundamental principles of ideological dogmatism. Theorists, politicians and media of the West are absolutely sure that their system is the best. That is why they impose it around the world without a doubt and with a clear conscience. Western man as the carrier of these highest values is therefore a new superman. The term itself is a taboo, but It all comes down to this. This phenomenon should be studied scientifically. But I dare to say that it has become extremely difficult to conduct scientific research in some areas of sociology and history. The scientist who desires to research mechanisms of democratic totalitarianism will face extreme difficulties. He will be made into an outcast. On the other hand, those whose research serves the dominant ideology are flooded with grants while publishing houses and media are fighting for the right to work with such authors. I have personally experienced it  when I have been teaching and working as a researcher at foreign universities.

Q: Does not this super-ideology you dislike, have ideas of tolerance and respect for others?

A: When you listen to representatives of the Western elite, everything seems so pure, generous and respectful to people. Doing so they use the classic rule of propaganda: hide the reality behind sweet talk. However it is enough to turn on the TV, go to the movies, open a bestselling book or listen to popular music to realize the opposite: the unprecedented dissemination of the cult of violence, sex and money. Noble speeches are designed to hide these three (and there are more) pillars of totalitarian democracy.

Q: What about human rights? Is it not the West who honors them the most?

A: From now on the idea of human rights is increasingly under pressure. Even the purely ideological thesis that these rights are intrinsic and inseparable today will not sustain even the  first stage of a thorough analysis. I am ready to subject  Western ideology to the same scientific analysis that I did with  communism. But this is a long conversation, not for today’s interview.

Q: Does Western ideology have a key idea?

A: The idea of globalization! In other words, world domination! Since this idea is rather unpleasant, it is hidden under lengthy phrases about planetary unity, transformation of the world into one integrated whole… In reality, the West has now commenced work on structural changes across the whole planet. On the one hand Western society dominates the world, on the other hand it itself is being rebuilt vertically with the supranational power on the very top of the pyramid.

Q: World government?

A: Yes, if you will.

Q: To believe in it, doesn’t that mean to be a victim of delusional fantasies about global conspiracy?

A: What conspiracy? There is no conspiracy. The world government is controlled by the heads of well known supranational economic, financial and political structures. According to my estimates, this super-society, now ruling the world, has about fifty million people. Its center is the United States. The countries of Western Europe and some former Asian “dragon” countries are its basis. Other countries are dominated under a tight financial and economic ranking. This is the reality. Regarding propaganda, it presumes that the creation of world government under control of the world parliament is desirable because the world is a big brotherhood. All these are just stories designed for the plebs.

Q: The European Parliament as well?

A: No, because the European Parliament exists. But it is naive to believe that the European Union was a result of the good will of the governments of the member states. The European Union is a weapon for the destruction of national sovereignties. It is part of the projects developed by supranational organisms.

Q: The European commonwealth changed its name after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As if to replace the Soviet Union, it was called  the “European Union”. After all, it could be called differently. Like bolsheviks, European leaders call themselves commissioners. LIke bolsheviks they head commissions. The last president was “elected” being the only candidate …

A: We must not forget that the process of social organization is subject to certain rules. To organize a million people is one thing, to organize ten million is another, to organize a hundred million is a very hard task. To organize five hundred million people is a task of colossal proportions. It is necessary to create new administrative bodies, to train people who will manage them and to ensure their smooth functioning. This is the primary task. In fact, the Soviet Union is a classic example of a multinational conglomerate led by a supranational management structure. The European Union wants to achieve better results than the Soviet Union! That is justified. Even twenty years ago I was stunned by the fact that so-called flaws of the Soviet system were even more developed in the West.

Q: Like what?

A: Planning! The Western economy is infinitely more planned than the economy of the USSR was ever planned. Bureaucracy! In the Soviet Union 10 to 12% of the active population worked in the country‘s management and administration field. In the US this number is 16 to 20%. However the USSR was criticized for its planned economy and the burden of bureaucratic apparatus. Two thousand people worked in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The Communist Party apparatus reached 150 thousand workers. Today in the West you will find dozens, even hundreds of enterprises in industrial and banking sectors employing more people. The bureaucratic apparatus of the Soviet Communist Party was negligibly small compared with the staff of large transnational corporations of the West. In fact, we must recognize that the USSR was mismanaged because of the lack of administrative staff. It was necessary to have two to three times more administrative workers! The European Union is well aware of these problems and therefore takes them into account. Integration is impossible without an impressive administrative apparatus.

Q: What you say is contradictory to the ideas of liberalism promoted by European leaders. Do you not think that their liberalism is just a show?

A: The administration has a tendency to grow greatly which is dangerous in itself. It knows that. Like any organism it finds antidotes to continue its normal functioning. A private initiative is one of them. Another antidote is  social and individual morality. Applying them,  power fights self-destructive tendencies. So it invented liberalism to create a counterweight to its own gravity. Today, however, it is absurd to be a liberal. The liberal society no longer exists. The liberal doctrine does not reflect the realities of the unprecedented era of concentration of capital. The movement of huge financial resources does not take into accounts the interests of individual states and peoples consisting of individuals. Liberalism implies a personal initiative and taking of financial risks. Today any business needs money provided by banks. These banks, whose numbers are diminishing, implement a policy which is by its nature dictatorial and manipulative. Business owners are at their mercy because everything is subject to lending and therefore is under the control of financial institutions. The importance of the individual – the basis of liberalism – is reduced day by day. Today it does not matter who heads this or that company, this or that country: Bush or Clinton, Kohl or Schröder, Chirac or Jospin, what is the difference?

Q: The totalitarian regimes of the 20th century were extremely cruel, which cannot be said about Western democracy.

A: It’s not the means that are important, but the end result obtained. Would you like an example? In the struggle against Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union lost 20 million people (according to the latest figures of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation – 27 million. – Ed. Note) and suffered tremendous destruction. During the Cold War, a war without bombs and guns, there were a lot more losses any way you look at it! Over the last decade the life expectancy of Russians dropped by ten years! The death rate is much higher than the birth rate. Two million children do not sleep at home. Five million school-age children do not attend school. There are 12 million registered drug addicts. Alcoholism has become universal. 70% of young people are not suitable for military service due to various physical defects. These are the direct consequences of the defeat in the Cold War, followed by a transition to a Western lifestyle. If this continues, the population will drop rapidly at first from 150 million to 100 million, and then to 50 million. Democratic totalitarianism will surpass all previous totalitarian regimes.

Q: Through violence?

A: Drugs, poor nutrition, and AIDS are much more effective than military violence. Although after the immense force of destruction of the Cold War, the West invented a “humanitarian war”. The military campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia are two examples of collective punishment and retaliation on an exceedingly large scale, while the propaganda machine shapes them as a “good cause” or a “humanitarian war”. Turning the victims of violence against themselves is another, different approach. An example of its use is the Russian counter-revolution of 1985. However, when they unleashed the war in Yugoslavia, the countries of Western Europe led war against themselves.

Q. In your opinion, the war against Serbia was also a war against Europe?

A. Absolutely right. In Europe there are forces that can compel it to act against itself. Serbia was chosen because it resisted the ever-expanding globalization. Russia could be next on the list. Before China…

Q: In spite of its nuclear arsenal?

A: Russia’s nuclear arsenal is huge, but it is outdated. Besides, the Russians are morally disarmed and ready to surrender… I believe that the monstrosity of the 21st century will surpass everything that mankind has seen to this day. Just think about the coming global war on Chinese communism. To defeat such a populous country one will need not exterminate around 500 million people, not 10 or 20 million. Today, given the level of excellence of the propaganda machine, it is quite possible. Naturally, in will be done in the name of freedom and human rights. Unless, of course, some PR organization invents a new and no less noble a cause.

Q: Don’t you think that people can have their own opinions, and that they can vote and thus express themselves?

ANSWER. First of all, even now people don’t vote that often, and they will vote even less in the future. With regard to public opinion in the West it is shaped by the media. Suffice it to recall the universal approval of the war in Kosovo. Remember the Spanish war! Volunteers from all over the world traveled to that country to fight on one side or the other. Remember the war in Vietnam. But these days, people are so well shepherded that they react only the way that the purveyors of propaganda want them to.

Q: The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were the most multi-ethnic countries in the world, but they were destroyed nevertheless. Do you see a connection between the destruction of multiethnic countries, on the one hand, and the promotion of multi-ethnicity on the other hand?

A: Soviet totalitarianism created a genuinely multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society. It was the Western democracies that made superhuman efforts to fan the flames of various kinds of nationalism, because they considered the breakup of the Soviet Union as the best way to destroy it. The same mechanism worked in Yugoslavia. Germany had always sought the obliteration of Yugoslavia. United, Yugoslavia could strengthen its resistance. The essence of the Western system is to divide in order to make it easier for the West to impose its laws on all parties, and then act as Chief Justice. There is no reason to assume that this know-how will not be applied in relation to the dismemberment of China in the future.

Q: India and China voiced their opposition to the bombing of Yugoslavia. If needed, could they form a core of resistance? After all, 2 billion people are no joke!

A: The means of those countries cannot in any way be compared with the military might and technological superiority of the West.

Q: Were you impressed by the effectiveness of the US military arsenal in Yugoslavia?

A: Not only that. If such a decision had been made, then Serbia would have ceased to exist within a few hours. Apparently, the leaders of the new world order have chosen a strategy of permanent violence. Numerous localized conflicts will now keep igniting one after another so that the “humanitarian war” machine, which we have already seen in action, could keep extinguishing them. In fact, this is likely to become the solution to extending control over the entire planet. The West controls most of the Earth’s natural resources. Its intellectual resources are millions of times greater than the resources of the rest of the world. This is the foundation of the overwhelming hegemony of the West in technology, the arts, media, IT, and science, and this implies its superiority in all other areas. It would be too easy to just conquer the world. After all, they still need to rule! And this is the fundamental problem that the Americans are trying to address now… Remember that in the time of Christ, the population of earth was only about 100 million people. Today, Nigeria alone has that number of inhabitants! A billion “westernoids” and the people assimilated by them will rule the entire world. However, this billion, in turn, also needs to be controlled. In all probability, two hundred million people will be required to control the Western world. But they must be chosen and taught. That’s why China is doomed to failure in its struggle against the hegemony of the West. The country does not have enough control, nor economic and intellectual resources to implement an effective administrative system consisting of approximately 300 million people. Only the West is able to solve the problems of global governance. It has already started to do so. Hundreds of thousands of “westernoids” in the former communist countries, such as Russia, tend to occupy leadership positions there. Totalitarian democracy will also be a colonial democracy.

Q: According to Marx, apart from violence and cruelty, colonization also brought with it the blessings of civilization. Perhaps the history of mankind is simply repeating itself at this new stage?

A: Indeed, why not? But, alas, not for everyone. What kind of contribution to civilization has been made by American Indians? Almost none, as they were crushed, destroyed, and wiped off the face of the Earth. Now look at the contribution of the Russians! Let me make an important point here: the West did not fear Soviet military power as much as its intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential. The West saw that the Soviet Union was full of life! This is the most important thing that must be destroyed, should one wish to destroy one’s enemy. Which is precisely what was done. Today, Russian science is dependent on US funding. It is in a pitiful state because the US is not interested in financing its competition. Americans prefer to offer Russian scientists jobs in the United States. Soviet cinema, too, has been destroyed and replaced by American movies. The same thing happened to literature. World domination manifests itself primarily as an intellectual, or, if you prefer, a cultural diktat. Which is why in the last few decades, Americans have so zealously tried to bring down the cultural and intellectual common denominator of the entire world to their own level – it will allow them to impose this diktat.

Q: But might this domination turn out to be a blessing for all mankind?

A. Ten generations from now, people will, indeed, be able to say that it all happened in the name of humanity, i.e. for their greater good. But what about the Russians or the French who are alive today? Should they be happy that their people will have the same future as the American Indians? The term “humanity” is an abstraction. In reality, there are Russian, French, Serbs, etc. However, if the current trend continues, then the nations who founded modern civilization (I mean the Latin peoples), will gradually disappear. Western Europe is already bursting with foreigners. We have yet to speak about it, but this phenomenon is not accidental, and it is certainly not the consequence of the allegedly uncontrollable human migration flows. The goal for Europe is to create a situation similar to the situation in the United States. I suspect that the French will hardly be delighted to learn that mankind will come to be happy, but only without the French. After all, it might well be a rational project to only leave a limited number of people in the world, who could then live in a paradise on earth. Those remaining people would certainly believe that their happiness is the result of historical development… No. All that matters is the life that we and our loved ones are living today.

Q: The Soviet system was ineffective. Are all totalitarian societies doomed to inefficiency?

A: What is efficiency? The US spends more money on weight loss than Russia spends on its entire public budget. Still, the number of overweight people is growing. And such examples are many.

Q: Would it be correct to say that the intensifying radicalization in the West will leads to its own destruction?

A: Nazism was destroyed during total war. The Soviet system was young and strong. It would have continued to thrive, had it not been destroyed by outside forces. Social systems do not destroy themselves. They can only be destroyed by an external force. It’s like a ball rolling on a surface: only the presence of an external obstacle could break its movement. I can prove it like a theorem. Today, we are dominated by a country with enormous economic and military superiority. The new emerging world order is drawn to unipolarity. If the supranational government manages to achieve this by eliminating all external enemies, then a unified social system can survive until the end of time. Only a person can die from their illness. But a group of people, even a small group, would try to survive through reproduction. Now imagine a social system comprising billions of people! Its capacity to anticipate and prevent self-destructive phenomena will be limitless. In the foreseeable future, the process of erasing differences across the world cannot be stopped, since democratic totalitarianism is the last phase of the development of Western society, which began with the Renaissance.

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[scripttorture]

I’m an Anastasia fanfic and I wanted it to be more realistic. In terms of Russian revolution and being held captive and (almost) killed, would what Anastasia went through have qualified as torture since the people doing it were now in power? My thinking is the torturers (abusers?) have a lot of anger that is motivated by politics and personal ambition and hate for the family. They are incompetent enough that Anastasia escapes, but how can I portray incompetence as a result of torture and not

(Anastasia 2) not simply them being ‘new’ and inexperienced considering the revolutionists haven’t been in power for years like the Romanovs. I was also considering memory problems as a symptom to echo the amnesia she had in the film. I am also considering anxiety, insomnia, an aversion to touch, and perhaps one more traditional symptom from the masterpost. If you have a suggestion for it, or any other aspect of the story, that would be appreciated.

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I’m not familiar with this fandom but I’m assuming it’s not some kind of niche history fandom? I had to ask round the Fam to get an explanation for this, so I think we can safely say I’m unfamiliar with the canon.

 For the sake of stating my biases I find the idea of a children’s movie centred on Anastasia Romanov a little… macabre. But hey I watched sausage smugglers growing up and played games centred around police brutality, so who am I to judge? I might ot ‘get’ the story but think I can help. :)

 I’m going into this with a little bit of background knowledge about this historical incident (ie the death of the last members of the Romanov line) but I don’t know much Russian history to put it into context.

 I’ll start with the first question: yes I think legally speaking you could make an argument that any abuse the Romanovs suffered was torture. Whether the people who held them were technically in power or not they were an armed group powerful enough to control territory. It doesn’t matter whether they were recognised rulers, they were in de-facto control of a significant area and number of people. They were organised. They had a command structure.

 This is a sufficient level of control, power and organisation that, yes, I think you could class them as torturers. It’s certainly not the action of a lone individual doing something horrible on a whim. Abuse in these circumstances would be either ordered or tacitly condoned.

 That makes it torture.

 I think your characterisation of the torturers’ motivations seems sound. This is something that can happen.

 I would add a note of caution here that perhaps applies more to history then the canon you’re working from. A lot of people had a lot of legitimate grievances with the Romanovs. Russia had just come out of a disastrous war, flu had killed a lot of people and I think there was also a major problem with food supplies throughout the country.

 Tsar Nicholas was at best incompetent in a way that lead to the deaths of millions of his subjects. He presided over disastrous wars, economic collapse and widespread attacks on Jewish people. He is widely reported to have refused to take advice or change his mind with changing circumstances.

 Russian losses in Nicholas’s war with Japan are estimated at between 43,000-120,000 people. The organised attacks on Jews during his reign claimed an estimated 4,500 lives. The ‘Bloody Sunday’ of 1905 led to an estimated 1,000 dead or wounded. And then there was the First World War, to which Russia lost an estimated 2 million soldiers and almost half a million civilians. For context the high estimates say Russia lost 2% of their population.

 There were a lot of poor, sick, starving people who had lost loved ones over issues that seemed trivial and far away. While the royal family was incredibly rich and not doing much to help their people.

 This by no means justifies their abuse and murder. But be careful about trivialising the anger these people felt. They had cause. And while the Grand Duchesses didn’t have much real power the Tsar and Tsarina certainly did.

 By directing their anger at the monarchs they were targetting someone who had caused many of their problems. Having lived in an absolute monarchy, I can understand their frustration and the urge to lash out at an easy target rather then settle down to the harder work of solving the problems absolute monarchs cause.

 I don’t know what this cartoon shows of the Romanov’s treatment and deaths.

 My impression from what I’ve read is that the rumours surrounding the survival of one of the younger daughters came from the lack of bodies. There was also a report that the girls (this was apparently true of some of servants too) had sewed jewels into their corsets, in order to hide them from the guards and that bullets had ricochetted off the diamonds, acting like armour.

 Several of the girls were stabbed to death after the shooting stopped. An account claims one of them survived this and was clubbed to death at the mass grave.

 Survival in the sort of scenario the Romanovs actually went through is unlikely because it isn’t the torture that killed them. This was an execution. Of a large number of people yes, but the executors wanted to ensure every single one of them was dead. So after the bullets stopped and the smoke cleared they stabbed the bodies, they cut throats.

 This is not unusual in these circumstances. It is pretty rare for someone to survive these kinds of mass shootings of prisoners in a confined space.

 Honestly the closest I can think of to a survivors account is this. The victim is a child describing one of the worst attacks on a school in the modern era.

 My instinct is that for someone to survive the kind of attack that the Romanovs and their servants were subjected to, she’d have had to be both very lucky and very obviously wounded in a way many people would assume was fatal.

 I’d suggest using that. Have medical professionals comment on how unlikely, or lucky, the story is. Have the executioners notice this one is alive and then shrug and say well she won’t be for much longer go ahead and throw her in the pit.

 My instinct is that this is separate to torture.

 The Romanovs changed hands several times over the course of their imprisonment. As I understand it conditions for them gradually worsened but were not originally torturous.

 Later prisons cut their contact with the outside world completely, discouraged talking amongst themselves and banned talking to the guards. Some of them had no natural light and there are accounts of both the children and the Tsarina being threatened with guns or shot at for being too close to windows or trying to look outside.

 I’m finding it difficult to definitively say what they went through because the accounts I’m finding don’t seem to understand clean torture. So I’m seeing a lot of possible abusive actions here, but I’m unsure how to label them all because they’re being described inconsistently.

 They weren’t in solitary confinement, but there are definite attempts at isolation here. There are accounts of the daughters being sexually harassed (no accounts I could find of assault, this was all verbal or crude graffiti). I am unsure if the rations constituted a starvation diet or not. The son was deprived of medical care. The prison conditions certainly seem torturous towards the end, but I feel like I’m missing a lot of details that would let me describe precise physical effects.

 I don’t think you need to go into detail about any of this if you don’t want to but you could use this period of imprisonment to establish the incompetence of the guards.

 I would do it by writing two distinct groups of guards. One group that threatens and harasses and potentially tortures the family, and a second group who don’t do these things, concentrating on guard work instead.

 Having established the two groups I’d show that while the first group is on duty the family or their servants can actually get away with more things. So- if the first group is harassing older sister Olga, they may not notice that the Tsarina was too close to the window again.

 If the idea is that Anastasia escapes before the family is executed then I’d show that happening while the first group of guards in on duty. If she’s there when the family are executed then I’d have members of the first group displaying the ‘well she’s mostly dead’ attitude that allows her to survive.

 Essentially it’s about showing that if a guard is concentrating on making their prisoner feel bad, they are not concentrating on where all the prisoners are and what they’re doing. If a guard treats making the prisoner feel bad as their primary task then that guards has stopped doing their job.

 If you’re using an escape then a way to do this would be to have one member of the family ‘provoke’ the torturers, creating the opportunity for some of the children to escape.

 Amnesia, in the way it’s traditionally used in fiction, is not how memory problems due to trauma typically work. I get the impression you’re aware of that.

 I prefer using accurate memory problems but I understand that the canon has probably left you in a difficult position here.

 Typically torture/trauma survivors don’t forget their identity or older, childhood memories. They also don’t typically forget the abuse they suffered. In fact it’s more common for them to remember it in awful (but not necessarily accurate) detail.

 There is an exception: young children, under the age of about 7, can sometimes forget large chunks of their identity after trauma if they are then raised by people who can’t/don’t reinforce that identity.

 The real Anastasia was 17 when she died. That’s too old to forget who she was.

 So how do we square this?

 My instinct that mixing several memory problems rather than relying on memory loss alone is the better bet.

 Anastasia is the name of a saint who was apparently very popular in European Orthodox churches. A lot of girls Anastasia Romanov’s age probably shared that name. And a lot of them probably changed it to something less associated with the church when the Bolsheviks took power. Making something old and essential like her name a decision rather than a result of trauma would help.

 But I think the main piece of advice I have would be use inaccurate memories rather then memory loss alone, as the major memory problem.

 Because if this child is aware that most of her normal day-to-day memories are inaccurate, then she could remember vast chunks of her childhood and dismiss them as false.

 At the height of their power the Romanovs had a lot of servants. Anastasia could remember the palaces, the royal family, the wealth she was surrounded by, and assume she saw this as a servant rather than as a member of the family.

 If her memory is patchy anyway then that seems like a reasonable conclusion. She could also remember being arrested and imprisoned, being harassed by guards, being cold and hungry. And this would fit with her earlier conclusion because many of the Romanov’s servants were treated badly by the new regime (some of them died with the family).

 Insomnia would feed into this and make it worse.

 Partly because insomnia in and of itself causes memory problems (it interferes with our ability to form longer term memories) and partly because of some of the other effects serious insomnia can have: microsleeps and hallucinations. Microsleeps are short periods of unconsciousness that occur when someone is very very tired. People can dream vividly during these short periods of sleep. And the result can be a blurring of reality and dream as they sleep in short bursts and then wake again, unaware that they slept at all.

 Combined with the occasional hallucination and inaccurate memories this sort of scenario could very easily make a child doubt her own memories. It could result in a situation where she does remember big chunks of her life and childhood but convinces herself they were not real or interprets them differently.

 She might end up remembering her father and The Tsar as two separate people. She might convince herself she was a servant in the palace because that seems the more likely explanation. She might mix up memories of servants she knew from infancy with memories of family members.

 Combined with anxiety and avoidance of these memories (or anything that brings them up-) I think you could quite plausibly build up a character who hasn’t so much forgotten her past but is really confused about it. When memories are this muddled and painful it’s often easier for a character to just claim they don’t remember. Especially if there’s a lot of discrimination against mentally ill people in the setting. Because- well explaining that your memory is a mess and you hallucinate tends to convince people you’re ‘crazy’, whereas telling people you ‘don’t remember’ and you were badly injured often leads to a more sympathetic response.

 I’ll finish this up with the question of any additional symptoms.

 I think that if you’re using two types of memory problems (memory loss and inaccurate memories) with anxiety and insomnia then you’ve already got a reasonable number of symptoms.

 If you wanted to include more I think panic attacks and social isolation could both fit very well with the symptom set you have and the setting/character. Social isolation does seem like a particularly likely outcome for a child who was imprisoned for part of her development, lost her family and is suffering from severe mental health problems.

 There aren’t really bad picks, it’s more a case of thinking about what fits with the character you want to establish and the story you want to tell. If you want a story that’s got a more optimistic bent then suicidal feelings and addiction in a teenager may not be good picks.

 Personality change might be a good pick but I think that depends on how much of your story deals with Anastasia before her family are killed. For personality change to work well in a story I think you need to be able to establish the character’s personality before and after the traumatic event. That might not work with the plot you have planned.

 I have a post on sleep deprivation here that you might find helpful.

 Beyond that, I think you’ve got a good starting point here and a reasonable, realistic concept.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[lemon-writings]

Hamish Update Pt. III

Genre: Literary fiction // Word count: 77,037

Here we are! Chapters VII-IX! I’ve written these chapters really recently, so I can go a little more in-depth with the process. The second half of this book (and specifically this particular trio of chapters, for some reason) is definitely the part I’m most proud of. Writing everything coming to fruition is just so satisfying. Is this what people who write books with actual plot feel like? Because it makes me consider writing books with real plot.

But in all honesty, I really enjoy writing this part of Hamish. I’m super happy with how everything’s turning out. One problem I do have with the latter half is that it is super depressing to write all the time, especially with the amount of rain we’ve been getting in Ohio right now (we love depression), so it is taking me a little longer to write than normal, since I keep sidetracking with random projects to try taking my mind off the deeper things. But when I am working on it, the words just flow. It’s beautiful.

Chapter VII

Epitaph: “I’m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren’t I? Not at home with the dead nor with the living.”-Anne Carson, Antigone

Here is what’s been building this entire time: the funeral. That, and everything funerals entail, with the Celebration of Life and whatnot. The first time I wrote this, I read the funeral scene to my mom in full detail, and she started crying, because it reminded her of her father’s funeral. I, personally, loathe funerals, for what boils down to the fact that I am greatly horrified by being in the same room as someone who I once knew to be alive. That, and the crippling fear of death most people experience at least once in their lives.

There’s also a lot of Horacio’s... fantasies. There’s something deeply personal about the way I write him, sometimes, that makes rereading certain parts difficult. Horacio, in his darkest moments, feels he deserves bad things happening to him, nearly craves them, and he hates himself for it. The amount of self-loathing in this work is high.

Excerpts: 

Horacio, as always, is concerned about Hamish’s state of being alive, because that man always looks halfway dead, and at times, he’s more ghost than living person

The question of if you were dead or alive laid on my tongue, begging to be asked. Maybe I should’ve asked you. Maybe I should’ve checked your pulse. Maybe I should’ve laid my head on your chest and listened to your heartbeat. Maybe I should’ve left with you then and there and avoided the trap Leon kept guiding us to.

Hot take from a Farm Child: broken machinery is one of the most haunting things you can ever see. I could probably wax poetic about how terrible their beauty is, but I really don’t think anyone wants to hear about farm machines for three hours. (On a completely serious note, my uncle’s coat got tangled in a grain auger yesterday, and he could have died. Be safe around farm machinery. Please. It can be really dangerous, even if you’ve been around it for 60+ years.)

Leon’s descriptions are always some variant of men thinking being tall is intimidating. 

Leon bared his teeth once more, the animalistic beauty of it all making me wonder where Leon ended and his rage began. Primal is often used as a way to pull down others, to say you are not advanced the way I am, but Leon’s rage seemed like an advancement of humanity, a way of saying I have advanced my own humanity through my anger. He was gorgeous in the same way broken tractors on the side of the road are, monolithic kings taken over by the passage of time, their steel teeth rusty and eternal.

Did I reference “Father” by Warsan Shire? Yes. Yes, I did. Hamish is a huge Warsan Shire fan, because, like, it has his vibes. 

You recited a poem about fathers, about death, about life, speaking it as if it were scripture. When you finished, you began again. Or perhaps you never ended, speaking this poem forwards, then backwards, then repeating cyclically.

Yeet.

Chapter VIII

Epitaph: “I could be a wolf for you. I could put my teeth on your throat. I could growl. I could eat you whole. I could wait for you in the dark. I could howl against your hair.”-Catherynne M. Valente, “The Red Girl”, The Bread We Eat in Dreams

There’s a lot of plot stuff that happens in this chapter, so unfortunately, I do have to be a little shorter when it comes to this summary, but let it be said that I am not meant to be a thriller/action author. Do I enjoy watching Indiana Jones and Star Wars? Yes, I do. Should I be writing anything close to that? Absolutely not. It takes a lot of effort to do, and even with that, I would say that any sort of action scene I write is... not exactly “half-baked”, but most certainly not up to par with the rest of my writing. I’ll need to edit this chapter heavily the next time I go through Hamish.

That being said, there are moments in this chapter that I am proud of. Horacio and Ofelia’s interactions in this chapter are some of my favorites, just because they’re some of the only characters in this book who don’t violently hate/distrust each other.

Excerpts: 

When I mentioned kudzu to my mother, she mentioned it was an invasive species she’d seen a lot of during her time in the south, which just confirmed that it was a great metaphor to use. That’s always a sign, right?

I looked down at the flowers, then at her, wiser than anyone I’d ever met, the freedom ripping open her seams like something terrible and sharp, the parts of her that were so carefully cultivated spilling out of her like kudzu.

Horacio feels like he’s the only real person in a world of ghosts. The disconnect between Horacio and the people around him is heavily based upon the first time I disassociated. We watched the Blue Man Group in Chicago on a music/Spanish department trip, and the second I walked out of the building, I thought I was a freaking ghost. I had my first panic attack at 14 because I didn’t know if I was actually experiencing life. It was a wild experience.

Next to Ofelia, I looked out of place. Ofelia was hazy and magical in her presence, looking more like a dreamy memory than a real person, as if I touched her, my hand would touch only air. I was the solid type of real, unfortunately. Tall and unnaturally skinny, with a gritty, starving look to myself, the two of us next to each other were like a pastel-covered, out-of-focus impressionist painting next to a photograph of childhood labor in Industrial Revolution-era factories.

There’s also a confrontation with Leon that has some, um, spoilery moments. Leon is an asshole. I kind of love him.

Chapter IX

Epitaph: “[Grief is pain internalized, abscess of the soul. Anger is pain as energy, sudden explosion.]”-Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies

Again, there’s a lot going on in this chapter. A lot. Marcus the bodyguard makes another appearance (underappreciated character of the book) and acts as a guardian angel. Bless Marcus. Seriously.

This chapter is more introspective than the last, so I enjoyed writing it a bit more. Or... a lot more, actually. I was not created to write action scenes, and I accept my fate. Horacio’s musings on fate are long-winded and beautiful and what I’m meant to write. It’s just a chapter of him reflecting, pining, and wishing he was in a different situation. Which. Fair.

Moments like this make me realize I am a cruel god who treats her characters terribly.

Excerpts: 

Starting this chapter strong with the true weighted blanket: death.

Death cloaked me like your blanket.

As I said before, Marcus? Underutilized character. I use him as much as I can, but the plot makes it difficult to use him as much as I wish. He’s the man we deserve.

Marcus was smart, was good at playing the game we all played without making it apparent that he was playing it. He knew what he was doing. “I want the best for Hamish,” Marcus said. He looked into my eyes. “You do, too.”

Horacio takes a moment to think awful, rage-colored thoughts about the people around him, which are, of course, one of my favorite things to wax poetic about. He’s a salty man, and he has all rights to be, because this entire work is just “things to be salty about, the novel”. Poor Horace. He just wants to live in a gay daydream, but he’s stuck in a nightmare. 

(Not to sound too Midwestern, but OPE, the shade.)

These people played their sick, twisted games like gods, forcing everyone to play along for their survival while they watched and knew exactly what they were doing to the rest of us mortals around them. In that moment, I was filled with the type of righteous anger that made me understand why people were drawn to religion. I wanted a higher power to strike them down, to make an example of them all, to say don’t do this, or you’ll end up like them.

I sounded like my parents, like all the religious nuts I’d ever met, the ones who said that those who didn’t fall their doctrine were inferior, were going to die, and suffer for being different. Is that how it begins? Is anger the true root of all cruelty?

That last line, is anger the true root of all cruelty? was probably my favorite line when I first wrote Hamish. It’s sort of become a thesis statement for Horacio’s past and the way he sees the world. 

Lastly, of course, we have

The Jams

We have a fine selection of songs here, a lot from my Lucy playlist (Lucy has one of my favorite playlists I’d ever made).

Oh No!!! - grandson

Temple Priest (feat. Paul Wall & Kota the Friend) - MISSIO

Destroy Me - grandson

BTSTU - Jai Paul

Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine

Pretty Little Head - Eliza Rickman

That’s the tea, y’all. If you’re interested in this and hearing writing updates for Hamish, then ask to be added to the tags list!

[thedyingmoon]

🖤 I See My Future Before Me 🖤

~ A V X Reader set in an Alternate Universe wherein fancy Nero gets schooled by V. 🖤

~ That's my Bloody Palace screenshot ( What level am I now? Nah, I'm not telling ). 🖤

~ I hope you enjoy this part, @heaven-on-a-landslide and @acieoj ! 🖤

***

VI

***

"She's just tired as hell. You'll see her in the morning."

At least, that's what Nico said.

But then, V should've known better.

The next morning, the girl left a note on the glass top table, saying something about going to a friend's and staying there until Saturday. Somehow, the chit got past him without making any noise to wake any of them ( that's him, Nero, Griffon, and Shadow ) up, who all snoozed on the living room in sleeping cots provided by Nico, who spent the rest of the night on the guest room. V, being the most alert among all of them inside the unit, didn't hear her footsteps, even the creak of the door. What's more, Nico found out that the formal wear she provided for her was also gone.

Which meant that, to V's frustration, they will not be able to see her until the event, itself, which would take place the next day.

And so, the day finally arrived.

Nero was struggling with the lacy jabot on his neck, grimacing at it, and how he looked as a whole, in the mirror every once in a while.

And to add further insult to the injury, Griffon, who was flapping his wings non stop above his head, was laughing at him really hard.

The young and dashing Devil Hunter, who recently became famous for defeating the infamous Demon King Urizen, who almost plunged Red Grave with Qliphoth roots, let out a loud curse and threw the jabot on the floor.

Nico, who just finished putting on her dress and makeup on the guest room, heard this and came out, curious as to the source of that very colorful language.

And when she finally saw what Nero looked like, she could not help but double over in stomach pain as she failed to suppress her laughter.

"FUCK!" Nero cursed, angry at the tattooed woman who was still laughing her ass off at his appearance. "You think this is funny?!"

"What the hell are you wearin'?!" Nico bursted out through her uncontrolled fits of laughter.

"I bet it's her grandma's dress!" Insulted Griffon, which only made Nico laugh even more, and Nero angrier.

"SHUT THE HELL UP, YOU FUCKING BIRD!"

"W-w-wait, don't tell me your granny wore that to snag herself a boyfriend in the eighteenth century?!" Nico added.

"I swear if you don't stop - " Nero warned, then clicked his tongue, unable to stop the woman and the bird from laughing. It's true. With the heavy, lace coat of powder blue and purple ensemble, the equally lacy white undershirt, the pair of black breeches, the white knee - high socks, and the high - heeled pair of dancing shoes, Nero absolutely looked like a bratty, noble kid who came directly from the French Revolution era, or earlier.

"What? You'll hit me?" Nico taunted, pointing at Nero with a finger, flaunting her carefully manicured nail.

Griffon picked the jabot from the floor, graciously, if not mockingly, giving it back to Nero. "Here, you forgot this, Your High Nobleness."

Nero snatched the jabot from Griffon's talon, almost damaging it, and said, "Just to inform you, Credo owned this, not me!"

"Kyrie's older brother, huh?" Nico asked.

"Yes, him!" Nero answered, almost wrongfully getting mad at someone who was innocently and peacefully resting six feet under the grounds of Fortuna. "And, I'm not wearing this FUCKING thing!" he announced through gritted teeth, starting to remove the offensive - smelling coat. Apparently, Kyrie found it proper to drench the thing with an awful amount of floral fabric conditioner, making Nero reek of fresh flowers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait!" Nico held her hands up, stopping Nero's movements. "I'm telling Kyrie if you do that! You'll make her cry, man!"

"No! Don't you dare tell her."

"Stop being a bitch! It isn't that,..." Nico said, failing in her attempt to lie at him with her mirthful eyes. "... bad."

"Ha! You think I look bad? Just wait for V!" Nero mocked, hands on his hips like the "nobleman" that he was. "He crammed yesterday looking for one, since he didn't find any last Thursday."

"Ya think?" Griffon maliciously asked, his eyes devilishly looking down at Nero's pitiful and funny form. He flew towards the bathroom and shouted, "Hey, Shakespeare, you done now, or what? The pimple kid is mocking you! Come out already!"

"You'll see." Nero mouthed at Nico with a sinister smile, so sure that V would look even worse than him.

Oh, how very wrong he was.

When V finally came out, Nico's mouth dropped open in shameless admiration, and Griffon beamed with pride for his boy. Shadow, who was patiently waiting for V to come out, stretched her forelegs, yawned, baring her fangs at Nero, and went to her master with a proud swish of her tail. She was getting tired looking at the boy for an hour, and the sight of V changed into his formal wear was a real fresh change.

Nero, in an infernal kind of frustration, took off his coat and flung it to the other end of the room, knocking off one of the painted vases, making it plummet to the ground and break into tiny little pieces.

"Hey, psycho!" Nico shrieked at him. "Watch the furniture!"

"FUCK!"

***

The massive ballroom that held about a hundred people was, indeed, the topic of every male and female guests. The three crystal chandeliers that shone illuminated the pleasant below. The black - clad musicians mainly played jazz, and would sometimes add in classical numbers for the dances like the foxtrot and the waltz. The food was great, courtesy of the best chefs in the city, and the rich vintage, matched by the sparkling ones for the ladies, that was being offered by the maroon - liveried servants, never warmed, always cool and ready for some hot - headed guests.

The head of the house, who sat at the tallest box with some servants at his tow, watched in admiration for his feat of bringing together the country's most powerful Demon Hunters. He chuckled at the sight of the two most powerful ladies in the room, lively chatting with some noobs. He grunted at the sight of that lone man who was pestering the servants with more wine. But, most of all, he was getting anxious, for his most awaited guest have yet to arrive -

"Sire," a servant whispered to his ear. "Nero of the Devil May Cry Agency has finally arrived with his, ah, entourage."

The lord of the house rubbed his hands. "Perfect. Kindly inform the musicians to sound in their classics. I want to make this dramatic."

"Naturally." the servant nodded and left at once.

But, Nero and company was not aware of this, and the importance the lord actually held for him. So, when he descended the stairs, fancy coat, lacy jabot, sleek hair, and all, he could not help but miss a few steps at the sudden change of music, almost stumbling down if it weren't for Nico who helped him by holding unto his arm as tight as she could to prevent him from falling to the carpeted ground.

"Get a grip, man!" Nico, who began sweating, whispered savagely at him. "Hold it together."

"How coud I - !" Nero whispered back. "They didn't have to change the goddamn music!"

Nero was right. Now that the rest of the Demon Hunters in the room noticed his fanciness, and the matching harpsichordy - classical music, they couldn't help but giggle at his grand entrance.

"Stomach in, chest out." V, who was descending beside him, whispered to him in that velvety - low voice of his, subtly slamming the tip of his cane on Nero's back. "Chin,... up and proud."

Nero, who was honestly mad at V for wearing a less fancy formal attire and seriously thinking that he was just being mocked by the man, retorted angrily. "Stop embarrassing the hell outta me!" he gritted.

V gave him a sideways glance, jade eyes dangerously narrow and wicked grin deathly threatening. "I'm teaching you how not to embarrass yourself even further with that,... attitude of yours." he warned. "Now, if you do not want to stumble all the way down and sully the name of your great father, and his even greater father before him, I suggest you follow,..." then, as if by one last ounce of threat, V pushed the tip of his cane harder unto Nero's back, hurting him and making him stand up straight in the process as a gentleman should. "... my unsolicited and valuable pieces of instruction."

"Damn you, V - " angrily whispered Nero, gaining him a painful pinch from Nico, who was still holding unto his right arm. "Ouch!"

"Do as the man says or I'll hurt you!"

And so, with so much struggle, Nero finally made it down the stairs, surviving Nico's vicegrip and V's cold stare. And once he was down, the younger, less experienced Demon Hunters, who came there before them, started bugging him with questions regarding the Demon King he recently defeated.

V, having isolated himself from the crowd that started to form near Nero and Nico, breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned on the wall, watching them from a safe distance, when the classical music came to a halt.

If it weren't for the boy's lovely attitude, V would've enjoyed the evening. It was a fine event, after all, not considering the danger they would possibly get into later.

Some refined Demon Hunters, who actually bothered to listen to the otherwise boring music, clapped their hands, giving the artists enough motivation to start a new one. The leader signalled for a change of genre and a turn of a page, and when the musicians started playing once more, the room was filled with the most beautiful bossa nova that V has ever heard. These men really do have talent, he admitted.

And as if by some magical and wild form of chance, a very familiar scent made its way towards his nostrils.

Flowers. Freshly blooming in the morning.

He looked up at the staircase,...

... and became wide - eyed at the spectacle that was unfolding right before him.

For there, clad in something that only rivalled the stars above, was the most beautiful female he has ever seen in his entire, miserable, demonic and non - demonic existence.

***

🖤🖤🖤

[revolutionnaire-farouche]

New hopes (Enjolras x Reader)

The gif is not mine!

Summary: Canon!Era On a common day in Paris, you find a new group called Les Amis de l'ABC

Warnings: Minor violence.

Notes: Thank you to the lovely @writingsoftheloser for proof reading this ♥️

The streets of Paris are always filled with people. Merchants, students, young ladies, children, distinguished elders, and artists, all of them gather in one place only: the streets. It wasn't new for the people passing by to hear some yelling or loud noises around and usually one just can't find the source, but this time it was different. One group of young men, relatively well dressed, were standing at one corner of the street and one of them was speaking fiercely about how the lower classes should not accept, resigned, their current reality. They seemed to be getting the attention of a lot of people who were walking by. That group of young revolutionaries, that sounded like they came from past revolutions, were Les amis de l'ABC, a new group of young republicans who were determined to embrace a larger goal than the one they used to have. Almost all of them had met while studying, other than a few exceptions.

You were wandering around the streets. The same streets that had raised you and held you as a child. You didn't have a clear memory about your parents and you ignored the possibility of having brothers. But you didn't let that affect you, it only made you stronger. Since you were a child, you had wandered the streets, that took you as their daughter. But you weren't the only one: there were a lot of other kids with you, and by this time, you didn't know where most of them were. It was hard, but you had left it behind. Well, most of that, because you were still walking down the streets sometimes, between some seamstress works you did to keep a roof over your head and food on your table. You were good at surviving. Usually, you walked to the borders of the city - just for fun - and because of that you were often seen with flowers decorating your hair; in that way, almost everyone managed to recognize you immediately.

With every step a voice was getting louder and louder - a voice that didn't stop talking about you, about everyone you knew, and everyone around you at that moment. A voice that spoke about inequality. A voice that talked about how the government left the powerless to their fate. A voice of someone who cared. You let yourself walk towards that touching speech and before you’d noticed, you found its source: the young men. Quickly, you recognized them as students, but the detail that was all over your head was that they were wealthy students. 'What can they know about how we live?' you thought to yourself while watching that scene.

The speech continued for some minutes more, but another young men, that you knew as Feuilly and he was more of a worker, came running almost breathless.

"The police is on its way!" he shouted, alerting the others and everyone there. Most of them started running as the sound of galloping horses was getting closer.

"Help everyone get out of here! Don't let anyone behind!" yelled the one that was giving the speech as an order to the others, who quickly obeyed.

As for you, you already had had troubles with the police in the past. Most of the time, you hadn't even done anything, but being a low class worker was all they needed to know. You didn't want more trouble, so when you saw everyone getting away you made yourself a way to an alley, a few streets away, which you knew wasn't registered by the police usually, because it was mostly where the children of the streets of Paris and dogs went to hide themselves and the police didn't consider them important enough. The alley was empty, as you expected for an evening. It just  broken wooden boards and trash. You went there, listening to the sounds that were coming from the streets.

On the other hand, the members of Les Amis were ready to leave when the police arrived.

"Is anyone left?" the one known as Jehan asked to the others.

"I think everyone is gone" Combeferre answered, looking at the street behind him.

"Let's meet at the Musain. Don't let anyone follow you" the leader in red ordered before they all split in order to avoid the police easily.

"Rich people. What do they know about injustice?" you muttered in a bitter tone to yourself while sitting in the alley, waiting for the police to go away.

After a few minutes you could hear someone running; they were getting closer and they seemed to be followed by some strong footsteps, probably a policeman. Although you knew it wasn't the best idea, you looked at what was going on outside, trying to not get caught in the attempt. You could see the one that was giving the speech punching on the face the guard that was following him. But when he tried to escape, the policeman grabbed him by the neck of his red jacket and threw him to the floor. Once he had done that, he punched him back and then again, and again. That certainly brought up a lot of memories for you and before you could notice, one of the wooden boards laying on the alley floor was now in your hands and you knew what you had to do. You took a peak of the street to see if there was another cop but when you see that no one was there, you went behind the guards back and you hit him in the head with the board. Not your best idea.

Once the guard was on the floor, you let the board slip from your hands. Suddenly the sound of more footsteps getting closer got you on alert once again.

"Monsieur, we have to go" you said, grabbing the man's arm and pulling him up with all your strength. He let out some wailings and you knew he was hurt; you should have probably been more careful, but it was a risky situation.

You dragged him around lonely streets and no one seemed to be behind you, but you took a few more precautions before entering an old house that looked really deteriorated, but yet people lived in it. It was the house you shared with a few more tenants. Before letting the man that was with you in, you made sure nobody else was home. And once you were inside the little room you called "home", you finally let him rest. Both of you were breathing heavily and were tired. You let him sit on the chair, while you just sat on the floor in front of him. You stared at him for a while. He had blond curls, that after all the journey around the streets were dirty. The policeman had left a bruise on his cheek and a cut in his eyebrow and lip - and also, he had some blood coming out from his nose. The red of his blood matched his red jacket and it also made his blue eyes brighter. You were impressed that despite being beaten up, he looked handsome.

"Are you fine?" you finally broke the silence between the both of you.

"Yes, just some bruises..." he said while slightly touching his face, just to see blood on his fingers. After doing that, he directed his eyes at you: "Thank you. What you did was very brave, thank you for helping me"

"It was nothing" you were slowly catching your breath and you smiled at him, while brushing your hair with your fingers.

"For me, it was" his voice sounded particularly strong when he said that. He really admired how you had stood up, even if you didn't know him, and he was genuinely grateful for that. The blood continued dripping from his face, so you quickly stood up to get a cloth and water. When you had grabbed the two items, you stood in front of him again.

"May I, monsieur?" your voice sounded softer than usual. He nodded in return, so you started softly cleaning his face. "Sorry if it hurts, I'm new at this"

"It's fine, don't worry" you could have sworn you saw an smile on the corner of his mouth. "I'm Enjolras. And you are...?"

"Y/N. It's a pleasure to meet you, monsieur." You kept washing away the blood on his skin "You'll have to wait here. They'll be looking in the streets for a while but they're really lazy, especially the ones on this side of the town. So we should be fine."

"You already had trouble with them?" he asked, before hissing in pain because of a bad movement of yours.

"Sorry. And yeah, I guess you could say that. I grew up avoiding them and because of that I learned a lot of them too.” The answer sounded so simple when it came out of your mouth, followed by a smile. "Can I ask you something, monsieur?"

"Sure. It's the least I can do." You continued cleaning his bruises, but now you were cleaning the one on his brow.

"I was passing by, when I heard how you were talking about France. And I was wondering, do you really think that?" You stopped for a second to just stare at him, waiting for an answer.

"Yes, I do. Because it is the truth. Now the world is dark, filled with hate, blood, oppression, lies and wars, and it's our duty as citizens to bring light, love, rights, unity and truth.” His voice sounded just like it had sounded while he was giving his speech and when he talked about it, you could see a shine in his eyes.

"That's true, monsieur. We were left down and trampled by the ones in power. But at the end of the day, everyone resigned themselves to this reality. Even if you come with these ideas, most of the people will be too afraid of doing something." At this point you were sitting on the floor in front of him again, something about his ideas were drawing your attention.

"That's what we're trying to change. We are trying to make the people realise how unjust and unequal the government is." If he had looked hurt when you had brought him to your house, now he looked like nothing had happened and he looked as imposing as he was when you had first seen him.

You continued talking about it, about how you had lived and live now; and he opened up too and talked to you about his past. The conversation was so interesting that none of you noticed how the night fell. There was something about him that you admired and even if you had just met him, you felt like you almost adored him. The admiration was mutual since you had helped him without hesitation; he also loved the way you talked about how the city raised you and how you wanted something better for her. He felt something, but he couldn't say what exactly because he had never felt that way before.

In the middle of your talk you realized how dark it was and how the police had probably stopped searching because of that.

"I have to return with the others, they're probably wondering where am I" he said as he stood up from the chair. You quickly followed him as you stood up from the floor.

"I can help you return to your meeting place, these streets could look like a maze at night, and maybe the police is still out there. If you want to." You slightly shrugged, looking at him.

"I'd love to but I don't want to take up your time, mademoiselle Y/N. And the streets could be dangerous" he answered, while passing a hand through his hair, gaining a smile from you.

"The streets of Paris are my life. Now let's go" you said, as your straighten your dress before leaving.

You were the first to go outside the room you occupied, to make sure no one was outside. Your neighbours could be gossipers sometimes and talk about things without knowing. Once you were sure nobody was around, you returned inside, grabbing Enjolras' hand to quickly leave the house.

•

The route to the Café Musain didn't give you any trouble, the streets were empty. You were even still talking until you arrived at the place. You’ve been around this area sometimes but you never really entered the place, mostly because you didn't have money.

"Well, mademoiselle, here we are. Are you sure you want to return to your house alone?" He looked almost worried.

"Yes, I'm sure, I know my way around" you answered with a smile. He grabbed one of your hands and placed a kiss on it, only to look at you afterwards.

"It was a pleasure to meet you, Y/N." He let your hand go and couldn't help but smile.

"It was a pleasure meeting you as well, Enjolras." You made a gesture with your head, keeping the smile on your lips. As he started to walk away, you realized you forgot about something. So you went after him and grabbed his arm. "Monsieur, wait!"

"What happened?" He turned around, looking at your hand grabbing his arm.

"Next time you should try at Halles, there are less cops there and more workers. That's it. Good luck!" You made another gesture to him before leaving but he stopped you, grabbing your hand.

"Would you like to stay to our meeting? I'm sure you could help us." You turned around just to see him under the moonlight, but your gaze quickly shifted to the lights inside the Café.

"I would love to." You felt like the destiny put him on your way and you were grateful for that. You felt like they were a step towards something bigger and you let him guide you inside.