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anotherhumaninthisworld · 2 months ago

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Me again. Your (amazing) post on Camille and Robespierre got me thinking about the ins and outs of the Vieux Cordelier story. There are so many interesting details there , and moments where it could almost have gone a different way. I wondered what your assessment is of Camille’s mindset over this period? Obviously he must have been aware that he was taking a massive risk, but what was the ratio of kamikaze to (possibly deluded) belief he could actually change Robespierre’s mind and thus policy?

If the latter, I feel like that in itself is evidence that they were quite personally close, given “clemency” obviously not the way Robespierre was naturally leaning politically ?

Secondly, to what extent would you say Camille was attempting to back down in numbers 6 and 7, and could it have saved him if he had been willing to so that more fully, or was it just too late at that point?

Finally, somewhat separately, what do we actually know about Danton’s role in the indulgents campaign , and to what extent was Camille his “mouthpiece” ? It often gets phrased that way , but Danton actually comes across as marginal to the stand-off in the textual evidence from Vieux Cordelier itself and the debates in the jacobins around this time. Camille certainly seems to be the main one on the front line. What evidence do we have that Danton wanted him to go through with the riskier numbers of Vieux Cordelier?

Sorry, three to four very wordy questions there…and I’m aware you can’t answer them without a *lot* of guesswork . The whole tale is so fascinating.

In a letter to his father dated August 1 1793 (the last one conserved written by him as a free man) Camille expresses regret over a revolution that has not turned out the way he wanted it, as well as a wish to spend more time with his family:

Where is the asylum, the underground where I could hide from all eyes with my wife, my child and my books? I cannot help but constantly think about the fact that these men who are killed by the thousands have children, also have their fathers who accuse us of their grief, which it would have been so easy to spare them of. At least I have no reason to reproach myself for any of these wars which I have always opposed, nor for this multitude of evils, the fruit of ignorance and blind ambition sitting together at the helm. Farewell. I embrace you. Take care of your health, so that I can hold you against my chest if I am to survive this revolution; although there are times when I am tempted to cry out like Lord Falkland, and go and get myself killed in the Vendée or at the borders to free myself from the spectacle of so many evils and a revolution that to me does not seem to have brought common sense into the council of those who govern the republic and in which I see little else than ambition in place of ambition and greed in place of greed. It is true that freedom of the press is a great remedy whose benefit we owe to the revolution, and there is this advantage in the new regime over knaves, that we can have hanged, and over the ignorant and the intriguers, who we can deliver to ridicule. The state of things, such as it is, is incomparably better than four years ago, because there is hope of improving it, a hope which does not exist under the despotism of which the slaves are condemned like spem bon habent, but it is to the prize of so much bloodshed, that I feel such a sacrifice from the nation’s men should offer it a bigger happiness.

On December 14 1793, he also admitted that, on October 30, the day the Girondins were condemned to death, he had exclaimed: ”they die as republicans, but federalist republicans.” Camille’s accusers the same day did on the other hand declare that the correct quote had been ”they die as republicans, as Brutus,” and in his Les mysterès de la mère de Dieu dévoil��s, released a few months after Camille’s death, Joachim Vilate described an even more dramatic reaction from his part:

This led to the account that I gave them of the particularities of the judgment of this case. I observed that I was sitting, with Camille Desmoulins, on the bench placed in front of the jury table. When these returned from deliberation, Camille comes forward to speak to Antonelle, who was one of the last to return. Surprised by the change in his face, he said to him, quite loudly: ”ah my god, I pity you, these are very terrible functions.” Then, hearing the juror's declaration, he suddenly threw himself into my arms, agitated, tormenting himself: ”ah my god, my god, it's me who kills them: my Brissot dévoilé [sic], ah my god, it’s that which kills them.” As the accused returned to hear their judgment, eyes turned towards them. The deepest silence reigned throughout the room, the public prosecutor announced the death penalty, the unfortunate Camille, defeated, losing the use of his senses, let out these words: ”I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I want to leave.” He couldn't exit. […] The late hour of the night, the torches were lit, the judges and the public were tired from a long session, it was midnight, everything gave this scene a dark, imposing and terrible character, nature was suffering in all its ailments. Camille Desmoulins felt worse.

In his 2018 biography, Hervé Leuwers also underlines how Camille throughout the fall of 1793 started to absence himself from both the Convention and the Jacobins, and when in rare instances did take to the floor it was with moderation in mind — on October 16 he and Philippeaux demanded some adjustment to a decree ordering the arrest of all foreigners belonging to countries currently at war with France at the Convention, and on November 26 he warned the Jacobins that "when a man is proscribed by public opinion, he is halfway to the guillotine." (Leuwers does however note a similar absence during the spring of the same year, AKA, the same period Camille was working on the fatal l’Histoire des Brissotins, so this is perhaps a weaker point). All these pieces could hint at the idea Camille’s mindset at the time was that of a a man who had grown disillusioned with the revolution and was willing to try to moderate it (and perhaps atone for some of the bloodshed he had himself contributed to causing?)

The first number of Le Vieux Cordelier was released on December 5, just two days after a jacobin session where Danton had opposed the idea of sending a group with a guillotine to Seine-Inférieure in order to deal with rebels fleeing the Vendée — ”The Constitution must be asleep, while the people are busy striking their enemies and terrifying them with their revolutionary operations: this is my thought, which will undoubtedly not be slandered; but I ask that we distrust those who want to take the people beyond the limits of the revolution, and who propose ultra-revolutionary measures.” Coupé d’Oise protests against this, arguing that the club must not listen to ”proposals tending to diminish the vigor of the revolutionary movement.” As a consequence, Danton defends his patriotism and asks that a commission be set up to look over his conduct, after which Robespierre stands up as well to take his defence — ”In political matters, I observed him: a difference of opinion between him and me made me observe him carefully, sometimes with anger; and, if he was not always of my opinion, would I conclude that he betrayed his homeland? No, I have seen him always serve it with zeal. Danton wants us to judge him. He's right, let me be judged too. Let them come forward, these men who are more patriotic than us! I bet they are noble, privileged people!”, ending by asking that everyone says what he sincerely thinks about Danton. Aside from Merlin de Thionville, who hails Danton as the saviour of the republic, no one says anything, and Momoro therefore concludes this means no one has anything to accuse Danton of. The discussion therefore ends with the latter embracing the president of the club amidst loud applause. Camille references the session in the number, describing it as the event that caused him to return to the journalistic pen:

Victory is with us because, amid the ruins of so many colossal civic reputations, Robespierre’s in unassailed; because he lent a hand to his competitor in patriotism, our perpetual President of the “Old Cordeliers,” our Horatius Cocles, who alone held the bridge against Lafayette and his four thousand Parisians besieging Marat, who now seemed overwhelmed by the foreign party. Already having gained stronger ground during the illness and absence of Danton, this party, domineering insolent in society, in the midst of the most sensitive places, the most compelling justification, in the tribunes, jeering, and in the middle of the meeting, shaking its head and smiling with pity, as in the speech of a man condemned by every vote. We have won, however, because after the crushing speeches of Robespierre, in which it seems that talent grows in pace with the dangers of the Republic, and the profound impression he has left in souls, it was impossible to venture to raise a voice against Danton without giving, so to speak, a public quittance of guineas of Pitt. […] I learned some things yesterday. I saw how many enemies we have. Their multitude tears me from the Hotel des Invalides and returns me to combat. I must write. I have to leave behind the slow pen of the history of the Revolution I was tracing by the fire side in order to again take up the rapid and breathless pen of the journalist and follow, at full gallop, the revolutionary torrent. A consulting deputy who no one has consulted since June 3, I leave my office and armchair, where I had all the time in the world to follow in detail our enemies’ new system, an overview of which Robespierre laid out to you and which his occupations at the Committee of Public Safety have prevented him, like me, from seizing in its entirety. I feel again what I said a year ago, how wrong I was to put aside the journalistic pen and grant intrigue the time to adulterate the opinions of the departments and corrupt that immense sea by means of a mass of journals, like many rivers that ceaselessly bringing poisoned water. We no longer have any journals that tell the truth, or at least the whole truth. I return to the arena with all of my well-known honesty and courage.

To say something about Camille’s mindset based off of this first number, it can in other words be concluded that he by this point is on the side of both Danton and Robespierre, wanting to aid them in a fight against ”a foreign party,” that he doesn’t specify much about, but that, through the jacobin session that he claims inspired him so much, can be deciphed as ”ultra-revolutionaries.” Camille also, like in the letter to his father four months earlier, takes a stand in favor of freedom of the press — ”Let no one tell me that we are in a revolution and that the freedom of the press must be suspended during a revolution.”

In the second number of Vieux Cordelier, released five days later on December 10, Camille praises three speeches Robespierre has held in the meantime. Two of them were smaller interventions on December 5 and December 6 that were both about, and in favour of, liberty of cults. The third speech was the ”Response of the National Convention to the manifesto of the united kings against the republic,” read, in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, by Robespierre on December 5 as well. In it, he defended the French people, accused of ”rebellion, immorality and irreligion” by said united kings. Robespierre argued that it was in fact they themselves that were guilty of these vices and insisted on the French people’s wish for freedom of religion:

Your masters tell you that the French nation has proscribed all religions, that it has substituted the worship of a few men for that of the Divinity; they paint us in your eyes as an idolatrous or foolish people. They are lying: the French people and their representatives respect the freedom of all religions, and do not proscribe any of them.

Camille joins Robespierre’s side, openly taking a stand against those pushing for extreme dechristianization:

Finally, Robespierre, in his first speech which the Convention has decreed to dispatch to all of Europe, has lifted the veil. It suited his courage and his popularity to adroitly slip in, as he did, the great and salutary statement that Pitt had changed his batteries; that he undertook to do by exaggeration what he could not do by moderation, and that there are men, patriotically counter-revolutionary, who worked to form, like Roland, public spirit and push public opinion in the opposition direction - but to a different extreme, equally fatal to liberty. Since then, in two speeches no less eloquent to the Jacobins, he has expressed himself with still greater vehemence against the intruders who, through perfidious and exclusive praises, flattered themselves by detaching him from all of his old comrades-in-arms and the sacred battalion of the Cordeliers, with whom he had so often defeated the royal army. To the shame of priests, he defended the God that they abandoned so cowardly. By rendering justice to those who, like the priest Meslier, renounced their profession because of philosophy, he put in their place those hypocrites of religion, who, having become priests for the sake of rich meals, were not ashamed to publish their own ignominy, in accusing themselves of having for a long time been vile charlatans, and coming to tell us at the bar: ”Citizens, I lied for sixty years for the sake of my stomach.”

He nevertheless also underlines that he is against this not because he himself is religious, but because he sees it as a counterproductive method for fighting superstition:

Certainly I am not a sanctimonious hypocrite or a champion of priests. […] I have always thought that at least the clergy should be cut off from the body politic; but for that it was enough to abandon Catholicism to its decrepitude and to let it end with its beautiful death, which was soon approaching. It was enough to let reason and ridicule act on the understanding of peoples and, with Montaigne, to look at churches as houses of fools which had been allowed to subsist until reason had made enough progress, lest the madmen become angry.

For the first time ever the journal also denounces someone by name, in this instance Jean-Baptiste ”Anacharsis” Cloots and Pierre-Gaspard ”Anaxagoras” Chaumette, attacked for their push for dechristianization:

Anacharsis and Anaxagoras believe they are pushing the wheel of reason when in fact it is that of counter-revolution; and soon, instead of letting papism in France die of old age and starvation, ready to breathe its last breath without giving our enemies any advantage, since the treasure of the sacristies could not escape Cambon by persecution and intolerance against those who wish to liturgy and be liturgied, I urge to you to send a force of constitutional recruits to Lescure and Roche-Jacquelin.

This is also the number of Vieux Cordelier we know with almost certainty Robespierre had gotten to proofread before it got sent to the printer. On December 12, Robespierre also continued the attack Camille had started two days earlier as he got Cloots expelled from the Jacobins when the latter passed through its scrutiny test — ”Cloots, you spend your life with our enemies, with the agents and spies of foreign powers; like them, you are a traitor who must be watched.” When, two days later, the turn had come to Camille to go through the very same examination, Robespierre also helped him pass it and encouraged him to keep writing his journal — ”[Camille’s] energetic and easy pen can still serve [the revolution] usefully, but, more circumspect in the choice of his friends, he must break all pacts with impiety, that is to say, with the aristocracy; under these conditions, I request the admission of Camille Desmoulins.” With all this added together, I would say number 2 of the Vieux Cordelier is the biggest example of ”journalism on the terms of the governance” there is throughout Camille’s entire career.

In number 3, released December 18, Camille begins by bringing the reader back to the Roman Empire, in particular, the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Nero, a time during which, according to the historian Tacitus, there existed ”a law which specified crimes of the state and lèse-majesté and imposed upon them capital punishment. […] As soon as remarks became crimes of the State, it was only a small step to transform into crimes simple glances, sadness, compassion, sighs, even silence.” Camille then goes on to describe how, under this law, people could be rendered ”suspect” for just about anything — from being rich to being poor, from being melancoly to being happy, from being introverted to being extroverted, from being a poet to being a military man, from holding a high post to resigning from said post. Even positive attributes, such as being virtuous, incorruptible or an ally of Augustus could result in being rendered guilty of ”counter-revolution,” resulting in a visit from the doctor who then got ”to choose, within twenty-four hours, the sort of death they liked best.”

But, and this is something both contemporaries and modern historians often have missed, Camille then makes sure to underline this lengthty description of a tyrannical reign is not at all meant as an allusion to France’s current state — ”let no one say, for instance, that in this third number and in my translation of Tacitus malignity will find similarities between those deplorable times and our own. I know this well, and it is to put an end to these rapprochements, it is so that liberty does not resemble despotism, that I have armed myself with my pen” — but to France under the ancien régime: ”Do not let the royalists tell me that this description tells us nothing, and that the reign of Louis XVI did not resemble that of the Caesars.” As examples, he cites the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars, the Nancy affair, the war in the Vendée, the ”horrors” committed in France by the English and Austrian armies. In this ”fight to the death between the Republic and the monarchy” Camille defends the revolutionary government and its institutions, objecting against British prime minister William Pitt who ”has made every effort to give our liberty the attitude of tyranny and thus turn against us the reason and humanity of the eighteenth century.” The revolutionary tribunal, he argues, has not sentenced any innocent people to death:

Despite so many guineas, can one cite to me, asked Danton, a single man, strongly pronounced in the Revolution and in favor of the Republic, who has been condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal? The revolutionary tribunal, of Paris at least, when it saw false witnesses slipping into its bosom and putting the innocent in danger hastened to subject them to the penalty of retribution. It is true that it has condemned persons for words and writings. But, to begin with, can one regard as mere words the cry of Vive le Roi, that provocative cry of sedition that even the ancient law of the Roman republic that I have quoted would have punished with death? Second, it is in the melee of a revolution that the tribunal has to judge political crimes; and even those who believe that it is not exempt from errors owe it this justice, that in matters of writing it is more attached to the intention than to the corpus delicti; and when it was not convinced that the intention was counter-revolutionary, it has never failed to set free not only one who had spoken words or published writings, but even one who had emigrated.

The Committee of Public Safety in its turn excused for its more drastic measures, such as the suspension of the Constitution, on the grounds that the times demand it:

The Committee of Public Safety believed that to establish the Republic it needed for a time the jurisprudence of despots. It thought, with Machiavelli, that in cases of political conscience the greater good erased the lesser evil; it therefore veiled liberty’s statue for some time. But will this transparent veil of gauze be confused with the thick vellum of the Cloots, the Coupes, the Montauts, that funerary pall under which it is impossible recognize the principles in their casket? Will we confuse the Constitution, daughter of the Montagne, with the superfluities of Pitt; the errors of patriotism with the crimes of the foreign party; the public prosecutor's indictments on certificates of citizenship, on the closing of churches, and the definition of “suspect persons,” with the protective decrees of the Convention, which have maintained freedom of worship and principles?

Before putting forward that the biggest threat of them all is ”what Marat would have called the conspiracy of dopes: I speak of those men who, with the best intentions in the world, are strangers to all political ideas, and, if I may express myself thus, are scoundrels of stupidity and pride, and, because they belong to such and such a committee or they occupy this or that eminent place, hardly suffer that one speaks to them,” Camille also argued that, in the state of things, both moderation and exaggeration had to be avoided, but, if forced to choose, the latter would be the better alternative:

Those who judge the founders of the Republic so harshly do not put themselves in their place. See between what precipices we walk. On one side is the exaggeration of the moustaches, which does not care if, through its ultra-revolutionary measures, we should become the horror and the laughingstock of Europe; on the other side is moderation in mourning, which, seeing the old Cordeliers rowing towards common sense and trying to avoid the current of exaggeration, yesterday with an army of women laid siege to the Committee of General Security, and, taking me by the collar as I happened upon them by chance, claimed that, during the day, the Convention would open all the prisons, letting us loose under our feet – along with a certain number, it is true, of good citizens – a multitude of counter-revolutionaries, enraged by their detention. […] In this dual between liberty and servitude, and in the cruel alternative of a defeat a thousand times bloodier than our victory, “exaggerating the Revolution had less peril and greater value than falling short,” as Danton said, and the most critical necessity has been that the Republic secure victory on the battlefield.

Camille also once again makes a case for unlimited liberty of the press:

I hope the freedom of the press will be reborn in entirety. The best minds of the Convention were strangely deceived on the pretended danger of such freedom. It is intended that terror be the order of the day, that is to say the terror of bad citizens: so there we apply the freedom of the press, as it is the terror of scoundrels and counter-revolutionaries. […] I will die of the opinion that, to make France republican, happy, and flourishing, a little ink and a single guillotine would have sufficed. […] As long as unlimited freedom of the press has existed, it has been easy for us to foresee everything, to prevent everything. Freedom, truth, common sense have defeated slavery, stupidity, and lies, wherever they have found them.

As for people brought up by Camille in the number, Philippeaux is praised for his most recent publication Philippeaux, représentant du peuple, au Comité de salut public, released two weeks earlier, in which he critiques the war in the Vendée, claiming all the good generals have been dismissed while the ”traitor” Beysser, the ”imbecile” Rossignol and ”intriguer,” ”thief” and ”liar” Ronsin are encouraged and showered with honors. Unlike Desmoulins, Philippeaux also critiqued the revolutionary government, even reproaching CPS member Barère for having countermanded his request to put together a commission to investigate the situation a few weeks earlier. This pamphlet, Camille writes, is a ”truly salvatory writing” filled with ”dreadful truths,” even if one also can reproach the author ”for having misunderstood the great services of the Committee of Public Safety.” Minister of war George Bouchotte and Secretary General of the war ministry François-Nicolas Vincent are on the other hand denounced, Vincent getting called ”the Pitt of George Bouchotte,” and Camille writes that men like them should ”hasten to correct their conduct, [those] who, on reading these vivid depictions of tyranny, find in them some unfortunate resemblance to themselves.” Early in the number he also mentions Hébert, but not in the negative terms one might expect. Camille instead writes ”This, that the reign of Astraea may return, is why I take up my pen again; I wish to help Le Père Duchesne enlighten my fellow citizens and spread the seeds of public happiness.”

So taken that Camille is being sincere here, his mindset is still that of someone willing to support and defend the Committee of Public Safety, albeit while very moderately warning of people who wish to go even further.

Following the publication of number 3, Camille did however end up under open attack, the first time on December 21, when the printer Léopold Nicolas told the jacobins that ”I accuse him of having made a libel with criminal and counter-revolutionary intentions. I appeal to those who have read it. Camille Desmoulins has for a long time been on the verge of the guillotine.” Nicolas then also denounced Desmoulins for having come to the Surveillance committee of Paris where he worked to demand the release of one Vaillant, held suspect for his ties to aristocrats and hiding counterrevolutionaries, going so far as to threatening with denouncing the committee to the Committee of General Security if Vaillant was not set free. On these grounds, Nicolas asked that Camille be expelled from the club. Later the same session Hébert too took to the floor and denounced both Camille, his few months old Lettre de Camille Desmoulins, député de Paris à la Convention, au général Dillon en prison aux Madelonettes as well as number 3 of the Vieux Cordelier:

Ever since [Desmoulins] married a rich woman, he only lives with arisocrats, of which he is often the protector. He has written in favor of Dillon, whom he compared to Turenne, and he did not hold it against him that the Convention entrust him with command of all the armies of the Republic. Camille Desmoulins has picked up his pen again, and in a journal he occupies himself with ridiculing the patriots. In his third number, he has the infamy to say that Georges Bouchotte is governed by Pitt-Vincent: Bouchotte, who has never breathed except for the happiness of his fellow citizens, Bouchotte, to whom we cannot reproach for the slightest fault, Bouchotte, to whom we owe the appointment of the sans-culottes generals who will finally deliver us from the rebels of Vendée, seeing himself compared to an imbecile, to King George!

Hébert also denounced Philippeaux for his pamphlet and Fabre d’Églantine for being ”the kingpin of all these complots” (it was Fabre who on December 17 had obtained the arrest of the Vincent Camille denounced in number 2, along with Maillard and Ronsin, two other ”hébertist”) asking that the three plus Bourdon d’Oise be expelled from the club. The club ended up declaring that they be invited to explain themselves for the next session.

The second attack took place on December 23 and was launched by the recently returned from Lyon Collot d’Herbois, who seems to have read Camille’s allusion to the terror under the Roman emperors as a critique of the Committee of Public Safety: ”What! people attack the Committee of Public Safety with libels! It is accused of having shed the blood of patriots! It gets blamed for the death of fifty thousand men! And you believe that the authors of these writings did them in good faith? Do you believe that men who translate ancient historians for you, who go back five hundred years to give you a picture of the times in which you live, are patriotic? No, the man who is forced to go back so far will never be at the level of the Revolution.” Right after him, an unknown citizen declared that ”the system of moderation one wants to establish will lead to disastrous results,” and regretted the fact Camille — ”this man who dated to say that he had felt pity over the fate of the girondins” — had passed the jacobins’ scrutiny test a week earlier. He ended by proposing ”that we demand the judgment of any man who is moved by the fate of the conspirators.”

Camille had no time to respond to these three attacks before number 4 of the Vieux Cordelier was released on December 24. He starts by regretting the fact that ”some people have disapproved of my third number, where, they allege, I have been pleased to make comparisons which tend to throw the Republic and patriots into disfavour; they should, however, say the excesses of the Revolution and the patriots of industry,” as well as the idea that ”the present state is not that of liberty; but that of patience, you will be free later.” Camille disagrees with this, arguing that liberty isn’t something that needs to mature, but something concreate that you either have or do not have. He then rather quickly puts forth this radical proposal:

Open the prisons of those two hundred thousand citizens whom you call “suspects,” for in the Declaration of Rights there was no prison for suspected persons, but only for felons. Suspicion has no prison, it has the public prosecutor; there are no suspected persons but those who are accused of crime by the law. Do not believe that this measure would be fatal to the Republic; it would be the most revolutionary step you have ever taken. […] I am of a very different opinion from those who claim that it is necessary to leave terror as the order of the day. I am confident, on the contrary, that liberty will be assured and Europe conquered as soon as you have a Committee of Clemency. This committee will complete the Revolution, for clemency is itself a revolutionary measure, the most effective of all when it is wisely dealt out. Let imbeciles and rascals call me moderate, if they want to. I am certainly not ashamed to be no more of an enragé than M. Brutus; yet this is what Brutus wrote: You would do better, my dear Cicero, to put more effort into cutting short the civil wars than in losing your temper and pursuing your personal resentments against the vanquished. […] the establishment of a Committee of Clemency seems to me a grand idea and worthy of the French people, erasing from its memory many faults, since it has erased the very time they were committed and created a new era from which it alone dates its birth and memories. At this expression of a Committee of Clemency, what patriot does not feel his heart moved? For patriotism consists in the plentitude of every virtue, and therefore cannot exist where there is neither humanity nor philanthropy but a soul parched and dried by selfishness.

While Desmoulins is quick to point out that he is by no means asking for a general amnesty — ”To the back of the line with the motion of amnesty! A blind and general indulgence would be counter-revolutionary, or at least it would present the greatest danger and be obviously impolitic” — it can nevertheless be asked how he could suddenly produce such a drastic call for clemency in a journal that up until this point has been quite meek when it comes to questioning the current state of things. To understand this, it is important to note an event that took place four days before the number was released. On December 20, Robespierre had laid out the idea of so called ”committees of justice” to the Convention, after a group of women had arrived there to beg for clemency for their imprisoned relatives. While it should be noted that he did this with much less enthusiasm compared to Camille, making sure to state that the majority of prisoners were indeed locked up for a reason and throwing suspicion on the forceful attitude of the women, underlining that ”virtuous and republican wives […] address themselves in particular and with modesty to those who are responsible for the interests of the homeland,” the decree he then went on to propose sounds a bit too coherent to just have been pulled out of thin air due to the pressure:

The National Convention decrees, 1. that the Committees of Public Safety and General Security will appoint commissioners to seek means of releasing patriots who could have been incarcerated; 2. the commissioners will bring, in the exercise of their functions, the necessary severity so as not to hinder the energy of the revolutionary measures ordered by the salvation of the homeland; 3. the names of these commissioners will remain unknown to the public to avoid the dangers of solicitations; 4. they will not be able to release anyone on their own authority: they will only propose the results of their research to the two Committees, which will decide definitively on the release of people who appear to them to have been unjustly arrested...

Camille mentions this proposal in number 4, arguing that it’s possible to go further: ”Already you (Robespierre) have closely approached this idea, in the measure you caused to be decreed yesterday in the meeting of the week of 30 Frimaire. It is true that it was rather a Committee of Justice which was proposed. But why should clemency be a crime in the Republic?” That Camille had been influenced by Robespierre’s justice committee also goes along well with what he had to say about the committees of clemency during his trial:

The president: And these committees of clemency that you asked for, what was your motive for showing that much humanity? Desmoulins: I did nothing more than what the warmest patriots had already showed me the example of. I asked for three windows for the incarcerated patriots, and others before me had asked for six. In regards to Dillon, of whom I am accused of having been the defender, I answer that I asked for nothing other than to judge him promptly. I said: judge him; if he is guilty, then punish him; but if he is innocent, hasten to restore his rights as a citizen.

With the committees of justice in mind, I don’t think you can use Camille appealing to Robespierre in particular when talking about a clemency committee as evidence of their strong bond. That said, the fact alone that Camille openly implored Robespierre in person when laying out his proposal I think still proves a certain closeness between the two, considering these words would not have come off as particularly genuine had the two only been superficial acquaintances:

O! my dear Robespierre! It is to you I address these words, for I have seen the moment when Pitt had only you to conquer, where without you the ship Argo would have perished, the Republic would have entered into chaos, and the society of Jacobins and the Mountain would have become a tower of Babel. O my old college comrade! You whose eloquent words posterity will reread! Remember the lessons of history and philosophy: that love is stronger, more enduring than fear; that admiration and religion were born of generosity; that acts of clemency are the ladder of myth, as was said by Tertullian, by which members of the Committee of Public Safety are raised to the skies, and that men never climb thither on stairs of blood.

Like number 3, number 4 earned Camille open attacks from other prominent revolutionaries on two seperate occasions. The first took place on December 26, two days after the release. Barère then denounced Desmoulins (without mentioning him by name) when he, in a report held in the name of the CPS, warned of ”periodical writers who […] revive the counter-revolutionaries, and warm the ashes of the aristocracy.” Like Collot earlier, Barère had him too read the part about tyrannical reigns under Roman emperors in number 3 as a critique of the revolutionary government, underlining that it is actually correct to label both priest, noble, banker, stranger etc, etc as ”suspect.” Barère did however wish to absolve Desmoulins somewhat, adding that he was doing what he was doing ”unknowingly and perhaps unintentionally.” Later in the same report Barère also followed up Robespierre’s proposal of a committee of justice with suggesting even bigger measures, both Robespierre and Billaud-Varennes objected to it, and proposed they stick to the original proposal. Then on December 31, right after an anonymous jacobin had demanded ”journalist Camille Desmoulins” be struck from the jacobins’ list of members, Hébert cried out that ”all the things that can be used against Brissot aren’t even close to what you can reproach Camille for” and repeated his wish that ”Bourdon de l’Oise, Fabre d’Eglantine and Camille Desmoulins must be chased out from this society.” Hébert also attacked Desmoulins for his call for clemency in number 328 of his journal Père Dushesne, accusing him of being in the pay of Pitt.

Number 5 of the Vieux Cordelier, the longest of them all, released on January 5 1794 and entitled Camille Desmoulins’ great speech in defense to the Jacobins, Desmoulins spent almost only on responding to the different attacks made against him over the past two weeks. He begins by once again underlining that ”the ship of the republic drifts between two reefs, moderation and extremism,”and reminding the reader of what he wrote in number 3 — ”I have said, with Danton, that to exaggerate the revolution had fewer dangers and was better than to fall short; on the course set by the ship of state it was more often necessary to come close to the rocks of extremism than the sandbank of moderation.” However, with the recent attacks from, as he calls them, ”ungrateful sons,” for the first time, Camille openly states he wants to fight extremism:

But see how Père Duchesne and nearly all the patriot sentinels stand on the deck with their telescope only concerned with crying: Watch out! You are touching moderation! It has been necessary for me, old Cordelier and senior Jacobin, to take charge of the difficult duty which none of the younger people wanted, fearing loss of popularity, that of crying: Beware! You are going to touch extremism! And there is the duty which my colleagues in Convention gave me, that of sacrificing my own popularity to save the ship in which my cargo was no stronger than theirs.

Desmoulins first takes on Nicolas, defending his defence of his cousin Vaillant who, he claims, was denounced only for having giving dinner to a citizen and letting him pass the night at his house. He points out that Andre Dumont, the man who granted the requests that Vaillant be set free ”is not yet suspected of moderatism.” […] ”If I come close to the guillotine for having requested my relative’s freedom for such a minor peccadillo, what will you do to Andre Dumont, who granted the request? Is it fitting that a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal should be so lightly sent to the guillotine?” He also accuses Nicolas of in the recent month having obtained more than 150 000 francs by the revolutionary tribunal for his printing, ”while I, whom he accuses have not increased my savings by a denier,” as well as of having become corrupted by ”having the power of life and death in his own hands” after having been elected juror on the Revolutionary Tribunal.

Turning to Collot d’Herbois, Camille brings up the fact he has already turned out to be in the wrong in several instances before, and that he could prove him so once more — ”if I wanted to retaliate against Collot I would only have to let my pen fly, armed with facts more powerful than his denunciation.” He does however choose to ”bury my resentment of Collot’s attack,” confining himself to warning his ”colleague” to not be misled by the flatteries of Hébert (who in Père Duchesne had been very positive towards Collot and his activities in Lyon). Camille cites ”the interests of the homeland” as the official reason for why he’s going easy on Collot, reminding the reader of the things he has done for the revolution, but it might be suspected the risk of outright attacking a member of the Committee of Public Safety it too has played a considerable role here…

Camille goes harder on Barère, accusing him of having ”darkened my ideas,” by telling the Convention that he doesn’t recognize that there exists suspect people. ”If Barère had quoted me, if at least he had said that I shared his opinion, even the most suspicious republicans would have seen that I too wanted houses of suspicion, and that I only differed in opinion on the reporting of suspects.” He also reminds Barère of some things he himself can be reproached for:

Had it been an old Cordelier like myself, a straight-lined patriot, Billaud-Varennes for example, who had punished me so harshly, I would have said: It is the blow of the fiery Saint Paul to the good Saint Peter who had sinned! But you, my dear Barère! You, happy guardian of Paméla! You, the presidents of the Feuillants! You who proposed the committee of 12, you who, on June 2, put into deliberation in the Committee of Public Safety whether Danton should be arrested! you, of whom I could point out many other faults, […] it’s you who accuses me of moderation!

He nevertheless writes that he is ready to forget this as well — ”I also do you justice, Barère; I love your talent, your services, and I also proclaim your patriotism” — and claims the recent controversies with the two CPS members is simply ”a domestic quarrel with my friends the patriots Collot and Barère.”

The biggest amount of time is spent dealing with Hébert, and here there are on the other hand no kind words spared, instead Camille warns him that he’s going to ”unmask you like I unmasked Brissot.” He reproaches Hébert both for speaking ill of Barras, Fréron and La Poype, all currently on mission in Toulon, praising the by now imprisoned general Carteaux, as well as for the coarse language used by him in Père Duchesne, and accuses him of writing for the aristocrats and persecuring Marat in 1790 and 1791, of having been fired from his job at the theater for theft, and even of having opposed the Insurrection of August 10. He turns Hébert’s claim that he would be in Pitt’s pay back against him, no, it is Hébert himself who ”has been made Brissot’s successor by the agents of Pitt.” He is also ”a scoundrel degrading the French people and the Convention,” and a ”politician without opinions and the most foolish of the patriots if he is not the most cunning of the aristocrats.” To return Hébert’s charge about keeping company with aristocrats, Camille writes that ”the cockroach’s” own social circle includes one femme Rochechouart, ”an agent of the émigrés,” as well as the Dutch banker Kocke — ”an intimate of Dumouriez.” To return his charge about having married a rich woman, Camille writes he only obtained 4000 livres de rentes from her (which btw is a massive understatement), and ends the number by opposing this with an extract from the National Treasury detailing the sums received by Hébert since the summer — 135 000 livres on June 2, 10 000 livres in August and 60 000 livres in October.

Camille also firmly defends himself against those doubting his patriotism and even calling him a conspirator — ”It is true citizens; for five years I have conspired to make republican France happy and flourishing.” He reminds the reader of the fact he wrote verses ridiculing the monarchy already before the revolution. After giving a detailed description of his Great Table Standing Moment of July 12 1789, Camille writes he defies anyone to find a single phrase in the writings he has since produced ”where I depart from republican principles, or deviate from a single line of The Declaration of Rights.” He furthermore adds that no one will be able to ”cite a single conspirator whose mask I did not rip away well before he fell. I have always been six or even eighteen months ahead of public opinion,” something which becomes even more impressive given the fact most of these men had been his personal friends. He ends by imploring the reader ”to recognise your old friends and ask your new ones who accuse me if they find a single one amongst them who could merit such a right to your confidence.”

Camille also once again both defends and takes cover behind Robespierre by tying the two together as much as possible. He underlines that the dangers of touching extremism ”have already been recognized by Robespierre and even Billaud-Varennes.” When defending his works over the past five years he writes that he has never stopped conspiring against the tyrants ”with Danton and Robespierre.” He points out that, if it is a crime to have defended Dillon like he has, ”there is no reason why Robespierre is not a criminal too, for having defended Camille Desmoulins who defended Dillon.” When responding to Nicolas, Desmoulins underlines that the latter is still a good patriot, given his status as friend, companion and bodyguard of Robespierre. But he also asks why then Nicolas has chosen to listen more to ”what is said [about me] in certain bureaus” rather than the defence given of him on December 14 by Robespierre, ”who has followed me almost since childhood. […] Tell me of anyone who could make a better recommendation?”

The very same day the number was released, Collot d’Herbois went to the Jacobins to speak about the recent writings of Philippeaux and Desmoulins. Similar to the way Camille wrote about Collot in the most recent number, Collot regrets the Vieux Cordelier, saying it has ”lent weapons to the aristocrats,” but seperates the author from his works, reminding the Jacobins of all his past great services to the revolution. He opposes Hébert’s recent demands of expelling Desmoulins from the Jacobins, contenting himself with asking that the numbers be censored, and even appears to give in to his appeals for a committee to look over the suspects — ”I wrap up by demanding that Philippeaux be expelled from the Jacobins, the numbers of Camille Desmoulins censored, and that the Committee of General Security report as quickly as possible on incarcerated patriots.” When the president reads aloud a letter from Desmoulins announcing the release of number 5 of the Vieux Cordelier, Collot quickly responds that he’s not there to talk about it. A bit later into the session, Hébert does however disagree, exclaiming: ”I have been accused, in a libel that was released today, of being a daring brigand, a despoiler of the public fortune.” Camille responds that he has in his hand the extracts from the National Treasury published at the the end of the number, proving this charge true. But just as Hébert is about to counterattack, Augustin Robespierre interrupts, regretting the quarrels infecting the club that were not there when he left on a mission five months earlier, asking that Hébert respond to Camille in his journal instead of here. His brother does however disagree, declaring that Camille interrupted the session as much as Hébert ”claiming to have proof, when maybe that’s not the case.” He then invites the club to ”leave the intrigues and focus only on the interests of the homeland.”

At the next session, held January 7, Camille invited those that held anything against him to search in the numbers of his journal the answers to all their denounciations. When an unspecified person asked that he explain himself regarding the praise he had given Philippeaux in number 3, Camille responded that he had been mistaken and no longer believed what the latter — ”the most insolent of liars” — had written in the pamphlet. Immediately after this, Robespierre attacks Desmoulins, calling his writings ”the pain of patriots and the joy of aristocrats.” Robespierre mainly reproaches Camille for his number 3, asking, like Collot and Barère before him, if its ”translation of Tacitus isn’t in fact piquant satyrs of the present government and of the Convention,” and mocking the praise given to Philippeaux in it — ”What is the charm that excited him about this man? What is this blind confidence which may have induced Desmoulins to make a pernicious alliance of his newspaper with the libels of Philippeaux against the revolutionary government and against the patriots?” He also breifly condemns number 5 for the ”indecent diatribes lavished on several members of the Convention,” before, again like Barère and Collot, seperating author from work and asking that the numbers of the Vieux Cordelier ”just” be burned in the middle of the room. When Desmoulins refuses this ultimatum, Robespierre asks that the numbers be answered instead, and the club reads aloud number 4 and schedules for number 3 and 5 the next session, where Camille will also justify himself. But he is not confirmed to have shown up at the club for the occasion, or ever again at all following this moment.

The short number 6 of the Vieux Cordelier is not released until three weeks later, January 30. Desmoulins opens with the following citation: ”Camille-Desmoulins has indulged in a riot of wit with the aristocrats, but he is still a good republican, and it is impossible for him to be anything else” words he describes as an ”attestation of Collot d'Herbois and Robespierre, session of the Jacobins.” A clear indication Camille is trying to get on the Committee of Public Safety’s good side again, or at least remind its members of what they’ve thought about him in the very recent past. Camille then declares that he now wants to publish his ”political profession of faith,” in order to once and for all shut the mouths of all his caluminators. He reminds the reader that he’s always the same patriot and that the Vieux Cordelier breaths the same ideas as all his previous works:

We see that what one today calls moderantism in my journal, is my old system of utopia. We see that all my fault is to have remained at my death of July 12, 1789, and not to have grown an inch any more than Adam; all my fault is in having preserved the old errors of La France Libre, of La Lanterne, of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, of La Tribune des Patriotes, and of not being able to renounce the charms of my Republic of Cocagne.

Throughout the number he quotes passages from his earlier works, starting with a citation found in his La France Libre, released in July 1789 — “popular government and democracy is the only constitution that suits France and all those who are not unworthy of the name of man.” Four and a half years later, Camille writes, he still believes the same thing to be the case. He adds that he thinks two people can be divided in regards to which measures are the best for saving the republic, like Brutus and Cicero, or more recently like him and Marat. But while safeguarding this right to opinion, he appears to take a step back from his fervent defence of liberty of the press that, as can be seen, has been a theme of his convictions since the August letter to his father:

I believe that a representative is no more infallible than inviolable. Even if the salvation of the people should, in a moment of revolution, restrict freedom of the press to citizens, I believe that we can never take away from a deputy the right to express his opinion; I believe he must be allowed to be wrong; that it is in consideration of its errors that the French people have such a large number of representatives, so that those of some can be corrected by others.

Immediately after this, Desmoulins also takes a step back in regards to the committee of clemency asked for in number 4. He insists that it was actually a committee of justice he meant, and that the notes and the opening parenthesis included in the number make that clear. He reveals that he’s been reprimanded for the idea by Fréron, who in a recent letter from Toulon had told Lucile to ”tell [Camille] to keep his imagination in check a little with respect to a committee of clemency. It would be a triumph for the counter-revolutionaries.” Camille responds to Fréron in the journal, underlining that he’s not talking about Toulon, where clemency is clearly ”out of season,” when asking for such a committee, but that it’s Paris that could use ”the bridle of the Vieux Cordelier.” To give an example of what he means, he mentions the recent arrest of his father-in-law, held suspect for a few discarded objects imprinted with fleur-de-lis found in his house. This, says Camille, is quite ironic considering his father-in-law is ”the most ultra sixty-year-old I have yet seen,” ”the Père Duchesne of the house,” who would always go on about how only conspirators and aristocrats were arrested and the guillotine too idle.

Camille fully refutes those who think the content of number 3 and 4 is due to the ”influence” of someone else, in particular Fabre and Philippeaux. People who say that, writes Camille, ”do not know the untamed independence of my pen, which only belongs to the republic, and perhaps a little to my imagination and its deviations, if you like, but not to the ascendancy and influence of anyone.” But early in the number he also appears to show his disapproval of the fact Fabre since a month back has been imprisoned, remarking that ”the immortal author of Philinth” has been accused of counterfeiting and that ”today 24 nivôse, […] Fabre d'Églantine, the inventor of the new calendar, has just been sent to Luxembourg, before having seen the fourth month of his republican year.”

Desmoulins quite quickly wraps up, saying that ”I am obliged to postpone the rest of my political credo until another day,” as he wishes for his future numbers to be shorter in order to lower the prize of the journal. The fact that the long number 5 cost as much as twenty sous is what caused no sans-culotte to read it, which in it’s turn caused Hébert to reign supreme. He does however also leave a PS note, where he corrects some errors Hébert wrote about him in Père Dushesne in the wake of the last number of the Vieux Cordelier, before declaring that he’s happy Robespierre’s call on January 8 to focus on the crimes of the English government instead of the two journalists appears to have put an end to their struggles.

Why is there such a big gap between numbers 5 and 6 and why is the latter suddenly much meeker? The simple answer is course that we will never know for sure, Camille’s lack of personal correspondence during this period certainly not helping. The only thing I know of hinting at a motivation is the letter Lucile wrote to Robespierre after her husband’s arrest, where she claims that ”this hand which has pressed yours has left the pen before its time, once it could no longer hold it to trace your praise.” Lucile’s words should of course be taken with a grain of salt given that her goal with the letter is to save Camille’s life, but the idea that he got sick of the Vieux Cordelier once he realized Robespierre no longer had his back is still one I don’t think should be completely tossed aside. After all, checking his track record, whose errands did he most often run? His first journal Révolutions de France et de Brabant (1789-1791) hailed Robespierre as its number 1 champion, even more than for example Pétion and Buzot whose fame and influence at the time were pretty equal to his. When all of Paris gets caught in a war frenzie in December 1791 and forward, it is Desmoulins who sticks by Robespierre’s side in his fight against it and the soon to be ”girondins,” attacking Brissot in Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué (February 1792) and then starting a whole journal, La Tribune des Patriotes (April 1792) to act as a defence of him (”Fréron and I will not abandon you in the breach, in the midst of a cloud of enemies.”) When he the next year delivers the final blow to the ”faction” with l’Histoire des Brissotins, it is Robespierre who gets to proofread it, and finally, when we get to the Vieux Cordelier a few months later, it is again Robespierre (and not Danton) whose involvement we have the best evidence of. Suffice to say, Robespierre’s opinion obviously matterad a lot to Camille, and so for him to lose enthusiasm after Robespierre openly humiliates his journal (that he had originally supported) doesn’t sound like that impossible of an explanatory model. Not only that, but Robespierre’s support also served as a protection from critique, a support that was obviously quite important did you wish to keep your reputation and even head. Like you say, Camille must have known he was taking a risk by expressing himself the way he did. Now that his ideas are not getting through and he’s losing the support so vital for his safety, he might have fallen back on the fact that he had a young family to take care of and decided to back down a bit for that reason.

Uncertainty also seems to have reigned over the seventh and final number of the Vieux Cordelier, the one that Camille would never see the release of. According to Hervé Leuwers’ biography (and I’m going off completely on what he writes for this number so that we can finally get this thing over with), three drafts exists of this number. The first one is a severe critique of the revolutionary government that Camille nevertheless persists in claiming he still accepts. He is indignant over the conditions of the detained suspects, denounces the impolitic “annihilation” of Lyon, considers the closure of “bawdy houses at the same time as those of religion” as an entourage to the counter-revolution, expresses worry over the broad powers of the Committee of Public Safety and criticizes Barère and Collot d’Herbois. This draft does however gets scrapped for a second one (Leuwers speculates this might be due to Robespierre on February 5 1794 providing a logic and a moral framework for the revolutionary government in his famous ”On Political Morality” speech, and Desmoulins not wanting to rock the boat) which takes the form of a dialogue between an ”old cordelier” and ”Camille Desmoulins,” officially two different persons, but in practise both alter-egos of the author. This time the journalist launches an offensive against the Committee of General Security and its politics, openly attacking several of its members — Vadier, Voulland, Amar, David and Lavicomterie, and even reproaching Robespierre for having forgotten his anti-warmongering from three years earlier.

The third draft of the journal, the one Camille in the end wanted printed, no longer contains any of these reproaches towards the government committees, but still takes the form of a conversation between ”the old cordelier” and Camille Desmoulins.” The ”old cordelier” is loyal to principles and advocates for unlimited freedom of the press, proclaiming it’s stupid to think it dangerous, and that before shooting the ”rascals” they must be denounced. He openly asks ”Camille Desmoulins” if he would dare to use freedom of the press to it’s full extent: ”Would you dare to ridicule the political blunders of this or that member of the Public Safety Committee? […] Would you dare today to address a particular deputy of the Minister of War, the great character Vincent, for example, as courageously as you did, four years ago, Necker and Bailly, Mirabeau, the Lameths and Lafayette?” He also expresses despair over the current state of affairs: ”I no longer see in the republic anything but the flat calm of despotism, and the smooth surface of the stagnant waters of a marsh; I see only an equality of fear […]Where is liberty? frankness? audacity?” The ”old cordelier” even aims a rebuke against Barère and Saint-Just for reports held December 26 and February 26 respectively: ”Saint-Just and Barère put you in their reports from the committee of public safety, because you put them in your journal.”

”Camille Desmoulins” is however more cautious than the ”old cordelier.” He doesn’t want to renounce his faith in freedom of expression either: ”republics have as their basis and foundation the freedom of the press, not this other basis that Montesquieu gave them” (virtue, so here Desmoulins appears to be distancing himself from Robespierre who claimed that it is indeed virtue that is ”the fundamental principle of popular or democratic government” in the speech on February 5). But then he also adds that freedom the press is subordinate to the “salvation of the people” and that the revolutionary government should also have the right to restrict property and freedom of movement. ”Camille Desmoulins” nevertheless continues advocating for indulgence, but this time without debating suspects. Towards the end, he also rekindles his attack on the ultra-revolutionaries: ”would you like this goddess thirsty for blood whose high priest Hébert, Momoro and their like, dare to demand that the Temple be built like that of Mexico, on the bones of three million citizens, and tell incessantly to the Jacobins, to the Commune , to the Cordeliers what the Spanish priests said to Montézume [sic]: The Gods are athirst.”

So going off this final number, I’d say Camille’s mindset was that of someone deeply unsatisfied with the politics of the day. He is however aware that fully voicing this dissatisfaction would be dangerous and/or counter-productive, which is why he scraps the first number entirely, and edits out the attacks on Robespierre and the CGS in the second draft (so in sum, I would say he was indeed attempting to back down a bit in number 6 and 7). Camille also comes off as conflicted about what to believe anymore, the collusion between his ideals and the lived reality evidently very strong.

I don’t know if Desmoulins would have been able to save himself had he chosen to put his guns down even more in the two final numbers. After all, at the time of Camille’s arrest, it’s been more than two months since number six — the meekest one of them all — has been released, so I don’t think the authorities saw him as a threat for what he was visibly doing in the moment as much as for what he had done/said in the past. I think a safer bet would be that Camille might have been able to save himself had he said he regretted his actions and accepted getting his numbers destroyed when denounced at the jacobins by Robespierre on January 7, because then he would still have had this crucial protection left.

As for the question of Danton and his role in the ”indulgent campaign,” like I wrote in this post, the idea that he was some kind of mastermind pulling the threads behind the scenes (like he’s portrayed in for example La Terreur et la Vertu) appears to be entirely based on the testimonies of contemporaries. There’s Robespierre claiming in his notes against the dantonists (March 1794) that Danton had been the ”president” of the Vieux Cordelier, whose prints he had corrected, and also that he had had ”influence” over the writings of Philippeaux. There’s Danton’s friend Garat writing in 1795 that Danton, while recovering from illness in Arcis-sur-Aube, came up with a ”conspiracy” with the goal ”to restore for the benefit of all the reign of justice and of the laws, and to extend clemency to his enemies,” that all his friends became part of upon his return to Paris. There’s Camille’s friend Louis Marie Prudhomme claiming in 1797 that ”Danton, Lacroix, Camille-Desmoulins, Fabre-d'Églantine, put themselves at the head of a secret party against the emerging authority of the Committee which was their work” at that Camille for this purpose had been charged with a ”moral attack” to ensure the triumph of the ”system of clemency.” There’s Courtois who in his old age wrote that Danton softened the Vieux Cordelier’s ”acrimony” in many places, and finally, there’s Jules Claretie who in Camille Desmoulins And His Wife: Passages From The History Of The Dantonists (1876) claimed to have heard an anecdote about Danton telling Camille to write and ask for clemency already in the summer of 1793. But again, determining the veracity in any of these statements is harder than it seems, especially as it’s impossible to say if these testimonies were independent from one another or not. Furthermore, there’s also other testimonies that go against those above. The deputy Levasseur de la Sarthe did for example claim in his memoirs that ”Fabre d’Églantine was at the head of this [indulgent] faction” and had managed to drag Desmoulins and Philippeaux along, but that ”Danton, loyal to the oath that he would not associate himself with any faction, did for a long time remain outside of cette new and imprudent outcry: later forced to speak out, he allied himself with the faction against the committee,” while Hébert, when attacking Desmoulins, Philippeaux, Bourdon de l’Oise and Fabre at the jacobins on December 21 1793, at the same time praised Danton — ”there are two men who have all my estime and all my confidence: Danton and Robespierre.”

I’ve found two seperate anecdotes painting Danton as someone who, similar to Vilate’s claim about Desmoulins, was deeply moved by the fate of the girondins. The first one comes from Memoirs of the revolution; or, an apology for my conduct, in the public employments which I have held (1795) by Dominique-Joseph Garat:

I could not convince myself that among all those who, since May 31, had retained great popularity, there was not one who did not still retain a little humanity, and I went to Danton. He was ill, it only took me two minutes to see that his illness was above all a deep pain and a great dismay at everything that was coming. ”I won't be able to save them (the girondins)”, were the first words out of his mouth, and, as he uttered them, all the strength of this man, who has been compared to an athlete, was defeated, big tears strolled down his face, whose shapes could have been used to represent that of Tartarus. […] When the fate reserved for the twenty-two [girondins] seemed inevitable, Danton already heard, so to speak, his death sentence in theirs. All the strength of this triumphant athlete of democracy succumbed under the feeling of the crimes of democracy and its disorders. He could only talk about the countryside, he was suffocating, he needed to escape from men in order to be able to breathe.

The other one comes from a memoir that Danton’s sons wrote over their father in 1846. They claimed to have obtained the anecdote from the son of the M. Doulet mentioned in it:

Danton was in Arcis in the month of November 1793. One day, when he was walking in his garden with M. Doulet, a third person came towards them, walking with great steps and holding a paper in his hand (it was a journal). As soon as he could make himself heard he cried out: ”Good news! Good news!” and approached them. ”What news?” said Danton. ”Here, read! The girondins have been condemned and executed,” responded the person that had just arrived. ”And you call this good news, you wretch?” cried Danton in his turn, Danton whose eyes immediately got filled with tears. ”The death of the girondins good news? Wretch!” ”Without a doubt,” responded his interlocuteur, ”weren’t they factious? ”Factious,” said Danton. Aren’t we factious? We all deserve death just as much as the girondins, we will all suffer, one after the other, the same fate as them.”

This could invite to the idea that Danton, like Camille, was horrified by the fact revolutionary justice had gone as far as it had (or at least that he got alarmed once he realized said justice could also reach politicians like himself) and wanted to put an end to it. But also like with Camille, this idea cracks a little once you start looking over the things he’s actually fully confirmed to have said himself following his return to Paris in November 1793 and his death five months later. This can be observed in Discours de Danton (1910) by André Fribourg. Below can be seen all recorded interventions made by Danton during this period, as well as which ones had anything to do with the ”indulgent campaign.”

On November 22, the first day of his public apperances since his return from Arcis-sur-Aube, Danton speaks about a decree granting help to priests who have abdicated, that the committee of legislation and finances has been charged with preparing. Danton supports the decree, pointing at ”the consequences the rejection of [it] would have” — if a priest cannot support himself, he will turn against them, travel to the Vendée and declare himself their enemy. He therefore suggests that it be kept track over which priests have obtained the relief, and that as soon as it is demonstrated to a commune that one has acquired the means to subsist, it will be authorized to remove all priest salary from him. And he ends with these words:

I ask that the blood of men be spared; I ask that you do not lose the means of going home to your enemies, and conciliating them. Be fair to all who are not your enemies; you owe them enough to live on until they can afford it. You can give it to them with economy: here there is no expense. Those who calculate know that a large number will hasten to search, and will find ways to cost the Nation nothing. But show yourselves just, show yourselves great like the people you represent; it wants justice, it wants it to be imperturbable; proclaim it in its name, you will receive its applause and blessings.

Danton’s intervention was met by applause, and the discussion ends with the committee’s decree about help to the priests getting sent to the printer.

Four days later, November 26, Danton spoke in similar terms, regretting the numerous deputations and former priests coming to the Convention that day to show off remains of their churches and renounce their estate respectively. Danton proposes that ”we should no longer admit these anti-religious masquerades,” pointing out that ”there exists a law that charges a committee to receive the renunciations of priests. I demand the execution of it.” After asking for there to quickly be made a report on the ”foreign plot” recently revealed to the authorities by Fabre d’Églantine, Danton once again makes a case for not multiplying the guilty:

The perpetrators and accomplices must be carefully sought after, even within the Assembly. We must pursue traitors everywhere in whatever forms they disguise themselves. But let us be careful to distinguish what is due to error from what is due to crime. The people want terror to be the order of the day; but it wants it to be carried out against the real enemies of the Republic, and against them alone; I read that the people do not want the individual who was not born with revolutionary vigor to be, for that reason alone, treated as a culprit; if they do not deviate from their duties, the people want to encourage even the weak, when they have no idea of crime.

This earned him a reprimand from Fayau, who said that Danton had just ”let escape, without a doubt unintentionally, expressions that do not please me, he has not misunderstood this great truth that the people are sovereign, but while they need to be terrible he invites them to clemency.” Danton responded that he hadn’t even pronounced the word ”clemency,” doesn’t want any indulgence for the guilty, and asks for ”an energetic and revolutionary government.” Fayau retorted, saying that the way Danton just expressed himself of the current government made it seem like he thinks it could easily be substituted for another. But Danton shut him down with the words ”The Republican Constitution is decreed, and I am an imperishable Republican.” Once again he carried the day, the Convention decreeing his propositions amid applause.

On December 1 Danton warned that ”any man who makes himself ultra-revolutionary will render results as dangerous as determined counter-revolution,” and urged the Convention to declare that ”no one has the right to arbitrarily lay down the law on a citizen.” He calls for centralisation and tighter control of representatives on mission:

Let us recall those of our commissioners who, no doubt with good intentions, have taken measures that have been reported to us, and that no representative of the people henceforth issues decrees except in accordance with our revolutionary decrees, with the principles of freedom, and according to the instructions which will be transmitted to him by the Committee of Public Safety. Let us remember that, if it is with the pike that we overthrow, it is with the compass of reason and genius that we can raise and consolidate the edifice of society.

Two days after that, December 3, the jacobin session reported about at the beginning of this post, the one where Danton once again speaks against what he calls ”ultra-revolutionary measures,” is critiqued by Coupé d’Oise but saved by Robespierre. After this however, Danton’s frequent warnings about ultra-revolution come to a sudden stop, and he instead occupies himself with speaking on other subjects. Did he at this point feel that he could leave over the task to Desmoulins and Robespierre?

On the Convention session December 22, upon the news that a wine merchant suspected of hoarding has been convicted but his innocence has been recognized, Danton cried out for a reprieve, and the Convention repeated it after him. Danton then supported a proposal made by Collot d’Herbois to first make a report regarding the case and send it to the Convention.

The day after that, December 23, Danton called for calm in the Jacobins’ tumultuous discussion about Philippeaux. He does however not defend the accused or his works, underlining instead that ”I don’t have any opinion on Philippeaux or others; I’ve told him myself: ”you must either prove your accusation, or get sent to the scaffold,” but asking that everyone that wishes to speak be heard: ”There is only one misfortune to fear, and that is that our enemies will take advantage of our discussions. Let them profit as little as neccesary, and all keep our heads that are neccesary to us.” Right after Danton, Robespierre makes a similar intervention, underlining that he himself hasn’t read Philippeaux’ pamphlet but hopes he had good intentions with it, before asking for everyone to be heard and the session to be kept ”calm and quiet,” warning of ”the foreign powers [that] surround you here.” When a while later, their advice still hasn’t borne any fruit, Danton irritatingly intervenes again: ”the enemy is at our gates, and we are tearing each other apart! Do all our altercations kill a Prussian?” (vivid applause). Danton ends by asking for ”a commission composed of five members, that will hear the accused and the accusers.” With the support of Couthon, this proposal is decreed and met with applause.

The next time Philippeaux is discussed by the jacobins, on January 5, Danton again observes that the discussion revolves around facts denied on one side and affirmed on the other. In order to find out what of Philippeaux’s writings actually correspond with reality, he asks that the correspondence from Vendée be analyzed and that the representatives and soldiers interrogated on what they have seen, so that then the Convention and the CPS can clarify the substance of the question. ”Before having reached the goal, let us not prejudge any individual; let's leave it a misunderstood predipitation. We will soon know what to think of Philippeaux when the facts are clearly known.” Danton also expresses doubt over the arrested Ronsin’s presumed guilt — ”I have a hard time believing Ronsin has changed in the way of thinking, he in whom I have always following the trail of liberty, he who during my ministery was pointed out to me as an ardent back up of republican government, and whom I chose, to the great satisfaction of patriots, to after the great insurrection of August 1 go and share the love of the republic in the departments” — something which makes it hard to believe he would have been the one who, through Fabre, masterminded said arrest. It may also be added that Desmoulins was also denounced during the session of both December 23 and January 5, without Danton speaking up for him.

On January 7, after Desmoulins has been attacked by Robespierre, Danton again steps in not to defend the journalist and his numbers, but rather to bring both friends back to order and call for quiet — ”Camille mustn’t be frightened by the rather severe lessons Robespierre’s friendship has just given him. Citizens, let justice and cold-headedness always preside over our decisions. In judging Camille, be careful to not strike a deadly blow against liberty of the press.”

The same day at the Convention, Bourdon d’Oise attacks two men Desmoulins has previously taken on in the Vieux Cordelier, Hébert and Bouchotte, the former of which has attacked ”the most pure patriots” in his journal while being in the pay of the latter, who, as Minister of War, ”draws immense sums from the public fund.” This money, Bourdon claims, is better used paying off the nation’s debt to the families of volunteers. Danton, while declaring that ”I think like the pre-opinionists that the organization of the Ministry of War is bad,” also makes sure to state that ”we must ensure that our decrees do not harm the action of the operations of this same ministry,” before again asking that everything be looked over by the CPS and the Committee of Finances instead, ”so that they present to us a method such that our enemies know that we will never slow down the efforts that public safety and the unshakeable establishment of freedom require of us.” He never mentions any names. If Danton is the leader of the ”indulgents,” he does in other words not do much to continue an offensive launched against the ”rival faction” by one of his presumed ”allies.”

The next intervention takes place on January 13, when Danton spoke about the recent arrest of Fabre d’Églantine, agreeing with Charlier who asked for an act of accusation against him and the three other deputies entangled in the East India Company Scandal, and proclaiming that the Committee of General Security has done a good job by putting a ”man presumed guilty” under the hand of the law, but that it at the same time wouldn’t hurt to let the accused come and explain themselves before the Convention — ”I ask that the Convention confirm the arrest of Fabre d'Églantine, that the Committee of General Security take all necessary measures, and that the defendants then be brought to the bar so that they can be judged before all the people so that it recignizes those who still deserve its esteem.” — underlining that his proposal isn’t contrary to that of the committee. His proposal did however receive a frosty response from both Vadier and Billaud-Varennes, the latter exclaiming: ”Woe to whoever sat next to Fabre d'Églantine, and who is still his dupe.” Right after him, Amar insinuated Danton was accusing the committee of negligence, to which he immediately responded that he wasn’t, ”I do justice to it.”

On January 16, Bourdon de l’Oise asks for the arrest and transfer before the are Revolutionary Tribunal of the deputy Dentzel, who, during a mission in the Bas-Rhin department ”focused on persecuting patriots and incarcerating them,” even having the colonel of the Corrèze battalion, a ”frank republican and known as such,” put in an iron cage. Here Danton wholeheartedly agrees, calling the charges against Dentzel ”grave” and calling for the CPS and CGS to take care of the accusation while nevertheless again repeating that ”we must follow a wise path that puts us aside from errors.”

On January 24 Camille protested against the recent arrest of his father-in-law at the Jacobins, again gaining the support of Bourdon d’Oise who asked that the Committee of General Security make a report about the case in three days. Danton did however object to this, stating that he didn’t want a certain prisoner to be given privilieges just because of his relations. He also underlined that ”no one wants the continuation of revolutionary action more than me,” and that ”it is impossible for revolutionary means not to be momentarily fatal to good citizens” before nevertheless reminding the deputies of Robespierre’s committee of justice (which ended up never happening in practice) and suggesting that ”the Convention consider ways to do justice to all the victims of arbitrary measures and arrests, without harming the action of the revolutionary government”:

I oppose the kind of distinction of privilege which would seem to be granted to Desmoulins' father-in-law. I want the Convention to deal only with general affairs. If we want a report for this citizen, we also need one for all the others. […] My colleague's complaint is fair in itself, but it would give rise to a decree unworthy of us. If we were to give priority, it would belong to citizens who do not find in their fortune and in their acquaintance with members of the Convention hopes and resources in the midst of their misfortune: it must be to the unfortunate, to the needy, that you should first hold out your hands. I ask that the Convention consider ways to do justice to all the victims of arbitrary measures and arrests, without harming the action of the revolutionary government. I would be careful not to prescribe the means here. I request the referral of this question to the consideration of the Committee of General Safety, which will consult with the Committee of Public Safety; that a report be made to the Convention, and that it be followed by a broad and in-depth discussion; because all the discussions of the Convention have resulted in the triumph of reason and liberty.

On January 29, Danton opposed an immediate act of accusation being issued against Dalbarade, minister of navy, accused of rebellion against the Convention — ”I know that we above all must guard ourselves from our passions. If it is vigour that founds republics, I know that wisdom and concilation are what give them a unalterable solidity; and I foresee that if we exaggerate each other we would end up forming parties, and there can only be one, that of reason” — asking (again) that the CPS make a report on the matter first.

Three days later, February 2, Danton applauded the proposal put forward by the CGS:s Voulland to release the imprisoned Vincent and Ronsin, as no charge against them has appeared. He claims to have been sceptical about the decision to arrest them since day one — ”I said to Fabre himself, when he wrested from the Convention the decree of arrest against Vincent and Ronsin: You act like the Convention was great when it went through with this decree, as for me, I maintain that it had only a good intention, and it needed to be clarified.” — and calls it ”an incontestable principle” to not treat as suspects ”revolutionary veterans who, by public admission, have rendered constant services to liberty.” But he also claims to have been motivated by the same principles when asking that Fabre be allowed to come and defend himself before the Convention a month earlier — ”I defend Ronsin and Vincent against prejudice, just as I will defend Fabre and my other colleagues, as long as no one has carried into my soul a conviction contrary to the opinion I have of them.” He also repeats that he believes the intentions of Philippeaux (whose pamphlet is course what landed Ronsin and Vincent in prison to really begin with) were good (even while again underlining he doesn’t agree with his opinions) and that he will surely not object to setting the two free. And he ends by once again calling for unity: ”stop this germ of division that our enemies, undoubtedly, seek to cast among us.”

On February 22, Danton asked for the postponement of a decree put forward by Élie Lacoste, in the name of the CGS, putting under arrest the judges and public pursecotor of the military tribunal of the first district of the Ardennes department. Danton proclaims that ”it is time for the Convention to return to its rightful place, and to pronounce only with full knowledge of the facts,” and that this is ”only the preface to my political opinion; I will say it in time.” He’s proposal was again adopted.

Finally, on March 19, Danton celebrated the arrest of the hébertists, exclaiming that ”the people and the National Convention want the authors of this conspiracy to be punished with death” and that ”never has national representation appeared as great to me as it does today.” He praises the revolutionary government and its two committees. Nowhere, however, does the leader of the ”indulgents” take advantage of the elimination of the so called ”extremists” to ask for more moderation/clemency.

During the trial of the indulgents, I can’t find Danton’s activities and interventions over the past five months get discussed even once, focus lies instead on his revolutionary career prior to that point, with the intention of proving he’s been a closet royalist and an accomplice of both Dumouriez, the duke of Orléans, Mirabeau and the girondins. At one point, Danton does however proclaim that he still believes Fabre to be a good citizen…

So I would conclude by saying Danton’s part in the ”indulgent campaign” consists of him first warning about the dangers of ultra-revolution, and then asking that revolutionary justice be slowed down a bit in three seperate cases, calling for unity within the jacobin club and Convention, and at one point asking that measures be taken to help those under arbitrary arrest. In these two last points, he’s actually quite similar to Robespierre during this same period… Danton never shows himself hostile towards any of the ”ultras” until they have been put on trial, even expressing doubt over the first arrest of Ronsin and Vincent and joy over their release. This while simultaneously not showing the strongest ties to his fellow ”indulgents” — he claims that Philippeaux had good intentions but nevertheless underlines that he doesn’t share his opinions/hasn’t made up his mind on him, he proposes that the imprisoned Fabre be allowed to come and explain himself before the Convention but also applauds his arrest, he goes against Bourdon de l’Oise on both January 7 and 24, and he steps in to act as mediator when Desmoulins gets denounced by Robespierre, but does nothing to really defend him and his actions neither then nor when he’s openly attacked on December 23 and January 5. Danton, like Desmoulins, also never openly questions the authority of the government committees, appearing instead to hugely respect them and finding them important for the salvation of France, given how often he asks that matters be handed over to them.

As for what evidence we have regarding Danton’s view on the later numbers of the Vieux Cordelier, I would say there’s none, in both directions.

#camille desmoulins #desmoulins #georges danton #at least it didn’t take a whole year to get this posted…#just almost #hopefully not too late #but thank you for this ask anyway!#truly gave me a chance to truly deepdive into DnD’s role in the ”indulgent campaign”#after this i definitely get the newer interpretation #that camille really wasn’t some PG revolutionary who boldly demanded clemency and violently attacked the CPS #but rather a fierce revolutionary who very moderately critiqued the government towards the very end #though that of course makes the fact he got freaking executed for his writings even more f:ed up #robespierre calling danton a bad friend for badmouthing camille after originally supporting the vieux cordelier #when he had done the exact same thing sure is a bit…. unhinged

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angelofverdum · 4 months ago

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Desperate Housewives

I wish I would have written about each season while watching. I have so many feelings.

I have so much to say about this show. I just love it when a show has a perfect mix of drama and comedy. The kind of show that made me cry and laugh so much that I had to pause the episode.

They don't make shows like this one, where they introduce a story in one episode and wrap it up in the next one, and it's not relevant again. That is television. 6 to 8 episodes are the worst thing that ever happened.

I have a tiny complaint and it's that they should have spent more time together as friends. They did poker night but besides that they don't discuss personal stuff. That's why one of my favorite scenes is when Gaby and Bree are having an "affair", because they want to hangout just because.

The wives

Bree Van De Kamp.

In my eyes Bree can’t do wrong, I’m sorry. On paper why would you like someone like Bree? She is a Republican, she has guns, and she was judgmental. I’ll give credit to Marcia Cross for making Bree this beautiful amazing character.

Bree was the best-written character. I think it was the only character who didn’t regress, she actually had a character development through the seasons and learned from her mistake.

She was homophobic when she learned that her son was gay, but she got over it, her relationship with Andrew was one of the most beautiful things on the show.

She was so perfect that every man she met asked her to marry him. If I were Rex and my wife was Bree I wouldn’t have cheated or died.

Imagine coming home, and you have a wife that looks like that, cooks, cleans, and I get that Rex's problem was that Bree was too uptight but when you watch the flashback where she tries to open up about him flirting with Gaby and he dismisses her, you understand why she never opens up to him completely. She couldn’t match his freak.

And It makes me so happy that in the end, she found someone and she can be her authentic self.

And that badass name? I was mad when Rex died and she married Orson and she became Bree Hodge. The writer fumbled that one really bad. I’m glad she realized that when she wrote the book.

Also, she had an incredible queer vibe. She has the best lines and those episodes where she was absent because Marcia Cross was pregnant were like a personal attack. I missed her so much.

Gabrielle Solis.

When I was a kid and I watched random episodes Gaby was my favorite. She was young, pretty, had money without working, and a handsome husband, that was a dream to me.

When I started the show I still liked Gaby, even though she was selfish. They knew what they were doing when they cast Eva Longoria as Gaby because her charm definitely helped Gaby’s selfishness.

My problem with Gaby was that she went back and forth with her selfishness, she did something awful then she realized her mistake and apologized, next episode she did the same thing.

But she was so funny, she said the most out-of-pocket things that I had no other option but to love her.

Lynette Scavo.

My problem with Lynette was her relationship with Tom. It was awful and boring. But I really liked Lynette, she was smart, sarcastic and funny.

Felicity Huffman is a hell of an actress. Think about the most heart-wrenching scene on the show and it’s probably carried by Felicity. The way she moves, her voice, her eyes. She is a brilliant actress.

There is the hurricane episode or the shooting episode in which you can see her talent but also the scene when Tom tells her he is ready to come back to work at the restaurant and she starts to cry in the bathroom, that scene stayed with me. Like, omg give her another Emmy.

Susan Delfino

S01 Susan was a bit annoying but mostly funny but as the series progressed she became almost unbearable to me. Her attitude was awful and she made everything about her. But at least Teri Hatcher was a capable actress and could handle the comedy and drama perfectly. She made me laugh a lot, I'm not gonna lie, but also made me so mad, the Julie pregnancy storyline.

She deserved that Golden Globe, I guess.

Katherine.

It’s crazy how they ruined Katherine’s character when Mike left her. I love her character so much. Also, she has a lot of chemistry with Bree. They should have explored that a bit.

Renee.

She entered the show too late. I wanted more of Renne, she was clearly there to replace Edie but it was Vanesa Williams how can you not love her? I don’t understand how she didn’t become immediately friends with Gaby.

Edie.

I loved Edie the moment she showed up. I love a female character who is full of herself and doesn’t care what other people think about her. However, for me, she was the most inconsistently written character on the show. In season 1 she was a “bitch” but tried to be friends with the girls, they become friends but then they needed a villain so she went maniac, just to come back and tried to be friends again. She was whatever the writers needed at the moment. Her death was totally unfair.

Karen McCluskey. The MVP

The Husbands

They were all awful. All of them were terrible. They had fragile egos, toxic masculinity, totally disregard for their wives’ feelings.

Carlos.

He had a big macho man problem and didn’t know what he wanted to do in life. Tell me what father will leave a job that has so many benefits to work in a place where the pay is almost nothing? But I like him because when it came to Gaby he didn’t play about her. He had a character development, and that season when he became blind? Uff A MAN.

Orson.

I’m going to take Orson as Bree's husband because I think it was her longest relationship, that we saw of course. I think they were onto something when they were introducing him as the villain. Then they made him this silly guy who was perfect for Bree, I loved their marriage. Then they ruined his character, he mistreated her, manipulated her, etc. So he became my personal enemy.

His ego was so fragile that he asked his wife to sell her company because she was more successful than him.

Mike.

Boring, just boring. Terrible actor too, Teri was running circles around him. Mike made his family go bankrupt because he couldn’t take his wife’s money.

Tom.

The worst husband to ever exist on television. The worst character on the show. An ungrateful man-child. His wife got cancer and he made the situation about his pain. The worst part is that the show tried to tell us that he is a great husband when we can see he clearly is not. He took all the money they had to open a pizza place, then asked Lynette to quit his job and work with him, then got mad when Lynette was better than him.

Maybe Marc Cherry was in love with Doug Savant because I don’t get it. Even when they fucking finally separated and Lynette said she was relieved, she was the one who had to win him back. He got a new girlfriend while Lynette was scamming a way back into his life.

Ranking the seasons

Season 1

The best mystery in the whole show. So well written, you get enough clues to get you through the season but until the very end you don’t get the whole picture. It was classy and shocking and twisted

Season 3

Not as good as the first one, but it allows you to piece the story together into a bigger mystery. Orson’s mom was a great villain and anything that involved Bree signed me in. Orson’s ex was annoying tho.

I want to talk about the pedophile’s storyline which I think was one of the darkest plots they did. They resolved this in three episodes, and I think they couldn’t handle it, the final revelation and the character were so eerie and jaw-dropping. I think they never come close to this kind of plot again. It was incredibly upsetting.

Season 5

David was evil and I liked that. I figured it out too fast and I get It wasn’t so mysterious, they revealed too much at the beginning of the season but he was a great villain and a wonderful actor.

Season 6

I liked the Bolen family but the resolution of the mystery was kinda underwhelming. I did like that Lynette was more in the spotlight. I think Angie should have stayed on the show, she was fun.

Season 4

Uninteresting. The mystery didn’t make any sense. How Fake Dylan didn’t remember her time at the orphanage? But it gave me Katherine so I’m not complaining so much. It’s insane to me that Katherine did all of that and kept living like a normal person just to lose her shit when Mike left her in the next season.

Season 8

I have an enormous problem with this season, keep in mind that it’s the highest-rated season of the show on Rotten Tomatoes. The season started so amazing, loved the mystery about the letters and how this time the girls were the ones committing the crime. Which I have expected since the first season.

But then, when all the focus was on Bree it went downhill. And don’t get me wrong I loved that Bree had that much screen time but it didn’t make sense at all.

First Susan’s guilt was crazy to me. She killed a mother and a kid a few seasons ago, and here she just helped to cover the murder of an awful man, but even if we understand her guilt how come when Bree was in trouble, about to get thrown in jail, she never took the initiative to say hey “I did it too”. Same thing with Carlos, he didn’t try very hard Gaby told him "No" and he obeyed.

Besides, the fact that all of them where very shitty friends and I don’t understand why they got so mad at Bree, and not Susan who painted the whole crime scene. The trial in general was so stupid.

Bree wasn’t connected to Alejandro in the first place, she didn’t have a motive. Then their argument was that she slept with him, but Bree started to sleep with those men after Carlos killed him, so she couldn’t pick a random man at a bar because she didn’t even drink and she was with her boyfriend ( don’t remember that asshole's name)

Then, the police knew exactly when he was killed even tho it had been months before they found him, like they knew it was that night specifically AND even if Bree killed him as a random guy in a bar, how come he had her address in a map? it means he knew her. What is the motive for her to kill him? they weren’t even saying she was a serial killer. They were calling her every name but that.

And again if he knew her how come they didn’t call his wife to testify? How they didn’t know his real name. How they didn't connect him to Gaby before?

And Orson had pictures of that night but didn’t send them. Lazy writing.

Season 7.

Paul Young was a great character a ride-or-die husband who lost his mind when he found out why his wife killed herself. But this mystery was so dumb like that was it? mind you, it was such a bad plot that they dropped it and never addressed it again.

Season 2.

Terrible and boring. Borderline racist. Dragged.

When I finished the show I looked up what was the drama behind the scenes, I knew that Teri Hatcher was awful to the rest of the cast. Imagine my surprise when I found out this has been happening since s01 and that infamous photoshoot, if you know you know.

They had such good chemistry, you could feel they were really close. That’s an impressive thing to me, it was like Alissa Milano and Shannen Doherty hating each other, I was gagged because you don’t see that on screen.

I think it was around s07-08, perhaps 6, when it started to feel like they were trying to keep Susan away from the rest of the cast. Some scenes were almost awkward to watch.

I liked the ending because somehow it makes sense that they moved on with their life. I loved the show so much. It’s full of plotholes, and awful husbands, it was racist, and so conservative, and not even once the option of abortion was brought up, Julie's last storyline was awful.

But at the end of the day, it was a show about female friendship, and they were amazing characters. I’d love to experience this live and I wish I could see them again but at the same time, I don’t. Maybe a reunion like Eva said, but not a reboot.

I'm in that state of sadness that only comes when you finish a good show, and you have to let go but you can't.

#desperate housewives #bree van de kamp #gabrielle solis #lynette scavo #Susan Delfino #Tv shows #long post #opinions #reviews

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sasquatchsightings · 21 days ago

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Or maybe we all could have voted 3rd party and not let either of those looney toons in. But you know what? Enjoy that high horse, whatever makes you feel comfortable at night sweety. Grow up. Both parties are so fucked up and people like you believe anything said long as it's a blue candidate saying it. Same said about those voting only red candidates. You're all just sheep that are afraid of "the orange man" and "the woman who wants to kill babies" and then when your party loses you blame everything on those who can see the corrupt parties as they are. It's amazing to see all the videos of people agreeing with things being told to them are the policies of Harris's, but it was actually Trump's policies and people agreeing with things being read to them being told to them are policies of Trump's, but they're actually Harris's. Blame your damn uneducated sheep yourselves. (Also blaming those who don't/can't vote is also very childish. They have the right to not pick a side either. If you need your diaper changed, cry to your mom not strangers online.)

#ChildishPostsDeserveChildishResponses

And

#NeverVoteRedOrBlue

✊🏿

I am absolutely well aware of how shit Dems and Liberals are. I’m also aware that allowing a Republican fascist win gets people fucking killed.

It’s literally impossible for a third party to win because they can’t get on all state ballots. It’s literally a pointless vote unless the entire voting system changes, which both parties have no interest in doing, because they are both the players of the game and the ones writing the rules.

And trotting out disabled people for the sake of a gotcha is some gross ableism, go fuck off.

Also, why are you using hashtags in a DM?

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p-artsypants · 2 years ago

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I posted 921 times in 2022

168 posts created (18%)

753 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@a-republican-mind

@p-artsypants

@j-liz

@ampervadasz

@carpisuns

I tagged 290 of my posts in 2022

#fanfiction - 42 posts

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Longest Tag: 119 characters

#they’ve gutted two apartments and remodeled them beautifully and only raised the price because they hadn’t in ten years

My Top Posts in 2022:

During a winter hiatus from the Edge, Hiccup goes off exploring the icy wastes. He finds more than he bargained for when a witch attempts to steal his soul. Now an emotionless husk, Hiccup must depend on Astrid and Gothi to delve deep within him and unlock the aspects of his personality he’d rather keep hidden.

Meanwhile, the rest of the riders test Hiccup on how emotionless he really is.

I guess I was really excited about this fic, considering I did a cover for it! It’s good to dip back into the How to Train Your Dragon fandom!

You can read Down to the Soul here!

25 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

You know what? Can we all just agree to stop pointing out spelling and grammar mistakes in fanfics unless the author asks for it? It’s so heartbreaking to see on the top of every fic “not beta read so please excuse the errors!” Like of course sis. Not everyone has time or resources to get a beta. Reading FanFiction is not going to the library, it’s opening the files on someone’s computer.

Keep your comments about the story and not the writing technique.

37 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

Can we talk about Return to Neverland, the Peter Pan sequel made in the early 2000’s?

I love this movie, and I feel like it’s slept on. I don’t remember if it was in theaters, but it should have been. It’s got amazing animation, some good songs, and the story and story boarding are incredible.

It’s the story of Jane, Wendy’s daughter (yeah yeah sequel trope but hang with me it’s a really good reason). Remember what Time Period Wendy was growing up? Turn of the century? When do you think her children would be growing up? If you said World War II, good job!

The movie starts with Jane’s father being drafted into the war. He tells Jane she has to be a big girl and take care of her mother and little brother. It’s also established that Wendy tells her kids all about Peter Pan and they love it.

Two years later, dad’s still gone. Jane has put childhood behind her and is listening to the radio to find any way to help the soldiers. There’s a scene where she goes out to buy her little brother a birthday present, a pair of socks, and London is being bombed while she’s out. She’s wearing a helmet while she crawls through rumble and debris while sirens and bombs shake the landscape.

She gets in an argument with Wendy when she returns to the bomb shelter. Wendy is telling the little brother, Daniel, Peter Pan stories and Jane tells her to stop filling his head with nonsense. Wendy then drops her own bomb and tells Jane that her and her brother are being sent to the countryside in the morning, and she asks Jane to tell Daniel stories, because he needs it. Jane is upset because she promised she would help take care of her family.

That night, she falls asleep on her window seat. The same window to the same nursery as all those years ago.

Suddenly, there’s a ship on the roof, a pirate ship, that a certain fairy made fly in a previous film. Jane is kidnapped by Captain Hook and taken to Neverland as bait for Peter Pan. But this is no fun adventure for Jane. It’s a nuisance, a distraction, and nonsense. She needs to get home, by any way possible.

I’ll stop describing the plot there because I don’t want to spoil it. It’s genuinely a great movie and makes me cry every time I watch it. Disney went hard on it and I don’t think it gets the notoriety it deserves.

See the full post

80 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

I can’t sleep so I’m going to rant.

The ending of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 makes me so mad. Yeah, someone had to take the place of Davy Jones and since Will dies, it makes sense that it’s him. I have no complaints there.

What pisses me off is how Will and Elizabeth follow the rules literally and are separated for ten years. So Will can only come on land one day every ten years…ELIZABETH CAN GO ON THE SHIP WHENEVER! Why stay away for ten years?? Why doesn’t she join the crew!? Will joined earlier in the movie and he was fine! Or, if he wanted her to have a normal life and intermingle with people, he could come to visit on the weekends, and she could row out to be with him on the ship. Or she could just go on short journeys with the Flying Dutchmen. The organ room on the boat looks like they’d have a nice captain’s quarters to sleep in so they don’t have to do it on the beach every time!!

Look for loopholes, people!!

If you can’t tell, I’ve thought about this a lot since that movie came out however long ago.

90 notes - Posted October 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Just dying over the httyd comic where Toothless wears giant earmuffs

He deserves it really

960 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #for the amount of time I spent on Tumblr #I don't have a lot to show for it #Still fun to see though

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chaoskirin · 28 days ago

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I saved this in my drafts and I wasn't going to post it because it's so angry, but I still hear people talking about how amazing they are for not voting because there's "no good candidate," so fuck it. Here comes my rant.

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EVERY TIME we pass a major election, I personally start pushing for change. I email my representatives. I educate people about ranked choice voting. I DO SOMETHING. You know what other people do?

Jack shit. And then when the election comes around, they either aren't voting, or they're voting "their conscience." After they spread the "voting doesn't matter" message for a few months, they go back to doing nothing, self-importantly believing they really made a change in the world.

Fuck them. Fuck everyone here who reads this post and thinks your armchair politics did anything for this world.

I want to be fucking clear. 'Cuz I'm pissed. The election is currently 47% to 47%. That last 6% is your third party.

You think that 6% is going to turn into 50% before next Tuesday? That's not how federal elections in the United States work, and you know it. The US is a two-party system paid for by rich PACs and Super PACs that E N S U R E the democrats or the republicans will win because money. That security is money.

"But I don't like Kamala Harris because--"

Shut up. You know what's worse that anything you hate her for? Fascism. All the analysts who were poo-pooing the use of the word 8 years ago are walking back their statements and saying "you know, maybe..." NO SHIT. The caution of these pundits RUINED EVERYTHING. "No, don't worry," they said. "Fascism isn't real! It's a dream! That orange guy is KIDDING." And detractors used that to shut down everyone who was warning people about what was happening.

Vote for Kamala Harris. I don't want to hear your excuses. Shut the fuck up. Block me. I don't care. If you're not willing to run the basic least-you-can-do damage control, get out.

And moreover, get over yourselves. You are not smarter; you are not more sophisticated or above the unwashed masses because YOU think you're the first person ever to think voting for a third party will teach the democrats a lesson. The democrats will be fine if they lose. They're all rich as fuck. They'll fall in line.

You know who won't be fine? Your neighbors of color. Immigrants (ALL immigrants, not just the kind white people hate.) Queer people. Children, the elderly, the sick. People who live in hurricane zones. Schools. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and all other high-profile democrats won't see any difference in their lives. That's some lesson you taught them, huh?

If Kamala Harris loses this election, there will NEVER be another one. You think I'm trying to scare you? Good. I am. Look at the histories of other authoritarian governments. You think their dictator leaders were just so popular that they kept getting elected? Well fuck you if you do.

And when she wins? That's when you PUSH FOR RANKED CHOICE VOTING. If you want someone better, THE ELECTION RULES HAVE TO CHANGE. If you vote and then fuck off politics for four years, NOTHING gets done! If you want any chance for change, then WORK FOR IT.

Even if nothing happens from a Harris presidency, I am going to guarantee a status quo is better than what will happen if she loses. And if you're going to call me a "genocide apologist" because I said that, then pull your head out of your ass. You're an idiot. Because ONE PERSON is going to win, and one of them will start a whole lot more genocide. If you want to stop it, you HAVE to make progress forward. Even if it's tiny steps.

And on that note, if you're still in your own little soundproof bubble about this: if he wins, people will absolutely start disappearing. Activists will be killed. People will "commit suicide." And all you assholes who refused to vote for damage control will be crying for justice. You know what you'll get? A bullet to the head.

For anyone who still disagrees, here's a special message: don't bother typing up a long-winded response to this. I guarantee anything you have to say is a waste of anyone's time to read. You're a complete tool, and all you're doing is enabling further genocide. You don't vote? Great. You're the one enabling more death in this already fucked up world. You're the "genocide apologist" phrase that you casually throw around without understanding what it means. You're ensuring an entire people is wiped out. You. Not people who vote for Kamala Harris. You. Sit with that.

We are 8 seconds away from fascism.

If you (like me) want 3rd party candidates to be an actual viable option in USA elections so you no longer have to vote for Democrats OR Republicans as your first and only choice, then what we need is Ranked Choice Voting. In order for that to happen, we as voters have to do two things:

Vote Democrat this fall, because Republicans fucking hate Ranked Choice Voting, and in several Republican-run states they have outlawed it. So if you want it, you have to keep Democrats in power in your state.

Lobby for and then vote for Ranked-choice voting in your state!Many American states have already adopted Ranked Choice voting and several more are set to do so in 2024. The ball is literally already rolling on this, we just need YOU to help it along.

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smokeybrandcompositions · 9 months ago

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Time After Time

It’s wild the editorials you come across on the internet. I just read an entire piece, claiming that Trump supporters see him more as a Democrat than a republican, a throwback to those Clinton-era “Liberals”. This article went on to quote a bunch of numbers about how the slide toward liberalism has been a steep one. For instance, back in 1994, nearly two-thirds of Dems agreed with the statement that 'immigrants are a burden on our country because they take jobs, housing, and health care'. By 2019, only eleven percent of Democrats agreed with it. Another gem counted the seismic shift toward pro-choice. Way back in the year 1998, forty-two percent of Democrats counted themselves as Pro-life. Not-so-way back in the year of our lord, 2023, that number had emaciated to a paltry fifteen percent. My sarcastic tone aside, I find these numbers to be amazing. It shows progress. It shows growth. It shows a cultural shift toward compassion and dignity, rather than fear-mongering and bigotry. Not lost on me is the fact that, when these numbers were taken, it was mostly Boomers and older Gen Xers who were the primary recipients. Like, my mom was in her thirties and early forties during the Nineties. By the time that first poll as cited as taken, the immigrants one, she was well into her fifties but there had been a change in the overall makeup of pollsters. You see, in 2018, MY generation had entered the race! We, Millennials, were finally on the board and it changed absolutely f*cking everything!

I was born in 1984. Became a legal adult in 2002. In 2018, I was a healthy thirty-four years old. I was roughly the same age as my mom, back in the Nineties. I am old enough to have teenage kids, if I had any to begin with. I am old enough to be shaping the next generation of voters and idealists, which is an absolute nightmare for everyone who came before, because Millennials are basically the antithesis of “Traditional American Values.” Think about it, us older ones, the group born in the Eighties whom I like to call “The Oregon Trail Generation”, were all latchkey kids from single parent homes. We grew up with the internet, using AOL Messenger and random chatrooms at, like, f*cking six years old, to talk to people on the other side of the world. Our generation is intrinsically tied to the internet boom, rise of Youtube, and the death of almost every “traditional” form a of anything to date. We put LBGT+ rights at the forefront of our generational concerns, sowing the seeds of the Zoomer Trans revolt, and forced a reckoning about mental health, late stage capitalism, and general human rights. Hell, to take it further, religion started it’s great exodus with us, the birth rate fell off a cliff because none of us are having kids, and the advocacy for a four day work week has built into a full-throated demand, all on our watch. Millennials have basically ruined everything Middle America stands for, and I stand for that. Especially seeing where the kids coming after us are taking it.

Like, Millennials sparked the revolution, but these Zoomers and Alphas are going to stoke that sh*t into an inferno. Watching these brave ass f*cking kids, standing up to injustice, is outstanding. They all hate capitalism, absolutely know that the US government is full of sh*t, and they refuse to buy into the propaganda. I mean, obviously, there are concerning aspects of sh*t out there like this ridiculous Tradwife nonsense and the entire Manosphere, but even those are in decline. Each successive generation after mine has just gotten more Socialist and gay, and I am here for all of it. Less than three decades, man, and we went from most of the adults in the room, crying about fetus rights, to the VAST majority of us trying our goddamndest to enshrine a woman’s right to choose in every goddamn State constitution possible. But guess who’s standing in our way? That’s right, those Boomers! Even though they have lost so much of their presence in the adult electorate, they’re literally dying off, these assholes are packed to the gills in very level of government and won’t f*cking leave. Mitch McConnell personally knew Fred Flintstone and just no decided to step down from his GOP leadership role. Biden and Trump are Octogenarians, trying to run a country where they’re values haven’t been in the majority for at least a two decades. We have been trying to wrench the reins of power from these assholes born way back in the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties for the better part of two decades, and they just f*cking refuse!

A perfect example of this gap in perception is Israel. Personally, f*ck Israel and very Zionist who lives there. That’s been my sentiment since I learned about how that country came to be. But guess what? Through the power of the internet, and Tik Tok (why do you think the Feds are so hard-pressed to get rid of it), WAY more people feel the way I do than before. And guess how old those people are? Guess how old the people who blindly support an Israeli state, genocide and crimes against humanity be damned, are? The Democratic party hasn’t “shifted” left, we, as a society has. What the f*ck did you expect? We were rabid, feral, multi-cultural kids, from broken homes, unlocking doors and making grilled cheese for ourselves at six. By ten, we were raising our younger, Nineties Babies, siblings, because our one parent had to work stupid hours to pay for a mortgage trap. We took our objectively woke sensibilities, hone from years of public school integration, to the goddamn internet where we were exposed to the entire world of perspectives differing from ours. We are the last generation to play outside, and the first to Google facts for school reports. There hasn’t been a shift to the left, there has been a shift in understanding, intelligence, and knowledge. The shift is cultural, not political, and it’s just going to keep grow as we get older. No one wants to be Conservative anymore. We have to redefine those lines. The world is so much bigger, now, than it was back in the later 1900s. What a time to be alive!

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smokeybrand · 9 months ago

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Time After Time

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treadmilltreats · 1 year ago

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My united nations of friends

With all of this racial unrest going on in this country and the world, I still can't grasp why people are like this.

I can't understand racism because I have a rainbow of color in my life. I can't understand war because no one wins, just so many innocent people are killed.

I looked back at the times of my life, and I saw the United Nations of my friends. I have friends from Cuba, from Puerto Rico, I have friends from Nicaragua, Black friends, Chinese friends, who are all from different backgrounds, different religions, different sexual orientations and yea, even from different political parties yet we are all friends.

This mixed group is here for one another. We all love each other. They are there for one another through thick and thin, and we always help each other out.

These are the friends I choose for my family, and I know that they are with me through thick and thin, through good times and bad times. They are there for me when I need a shoulder to cry on, when I needed groceries for my kids, when times are hard, these are the people that I know will be there for me, and they know I will be there for them.

I have Caribbean friends and friends from Antigua, St. Thomas, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Haiti, and Columbian friends. I have black, brown, yellow and white friends. I have friends who are gay or straight. I have LGBT friends and drag queen friends. I have Christian, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, and even Atheist friends.

I have friends who are democrats, republican, independent, and people from the we don't give a shit party. It does not matter to me. They are all the people I choose to invite into my life. The ones who love me for me and that I love for their heart and soul.

So what I don't get is why it is so hard for others to get this? There are good and bad in all, in police, in blacks, in whites, in Christians, in Muslims, in all, there are good and bad but to hate one race, one culture, or one religion on what a few bad apples have done, well that is just horrible.

I say in my blogs all the time, to be compassionate towards others, to love one another, to step out of your box and meet new people who aren't like you.

So many people don't even know another person of another race or they may have the one "token" black friend but know nothing about others.

I am here to tell you that you are missing out, as I have learned such culture from these different groups. I learned to enjoy different foods, music, and religions, but most of all, I have learned to be open enough to learn from them and their ideas and their heritage.

Did you get that message? Let me repeat it for those in the back!

I am open enough to learn from people who are different from me.

Because when you are open enough to learn, you will learn that we are all not so different after all. We all love our children and our families. We want a better life for them than we had. We all want to be loved and respected. We all want to have equal rights. We all want to be seen for what we have on the inside.

Common HUMAN rights. Not religious or race or political goals, just common human decency.

So today my friends, I invite you to open up your mind, to step out of your box, to embrace others different from you, because it will be amazing what you will learn if you do.

And to my incredible bunch of United Nations of friends, thank you for being my friend, for allowing me into your world and your hearts, and I am truly humbled to know and love you all.

"Be the change you want to see,"

@TreadmillTreats"Be the change you want to see"

@Treadmilltreats

"And just when the caterpillar thought his life over...he turned into a beautiful butterfly"

**Now released my latest book**

The Blessing in Disguise.... revealed

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***Now available***

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qingtian-studies · 2 years ago

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hey i see that you mentioned cdramas in your description :0 do you mind sharing what dramas you've watched/your faves? always on the lookout for more recs

hello!! omg yes I CAN share some dramas, thank u so much for asking! my preferred genres rn include contemporary crime/detective stuff and wuxia but I've watched all sorts. here is a list of my faves!

period/xianxia/wuxia dramas: First an obligatory shoutout to the brainrot dramas dearly loved by our discord server: the untamed (2019) and word of honor (2021), truly gods gift. xianxia and wuxia respectively. dont think you can be on tumblr cdrama space and escape knowing them Nirvana in Fire 琅琊榜 — 2015, wuxia, court politics, 54 eps, Viki+YouTube. One of the best and highest rated c-dramas, amazing plot, great characters. A classic. Amazing. Jingyan I'd die for you Nirvana in Fire 2 风起长林 — 2017, wuxia, 50 eps, I haven't finished this but it is also very very good! don't let the amazingness of NIF1 put you off. The Imperial Coroner 御赐小仵作 — 2021, Period drama, detective work, coroner work, fun, mystery, romance, 36 eps. Wholesome and interesting case-detective drama with likeable characters and good script!

crime/detective/thriller dramas: The Bad Kids 隐秘的角落 — 2020, contemporary, suspense, crime, 12 eps, iQiyi. One of the best for quality, script, acting, emotion, has a cinematic quality. genuinely such an incredible piece of cinema The Long Night 沉默的真相 — 2020, contemporary, suspense, crime, 12 eps, iQiyi. Same series as The Bad Kids, equally incredible, gut-wrenching, amazing script, great acting, will make you cry. Be Reborn 重生之门 — 2022, Contemporary, crime, police, art theft, 26 eps. Extremely clever, fun, has art heists, and crime. loved this one! very quick paced and sooo clever Under the Skin 猎罪图鉴 — 2022, Contemporary, sketch artists, detective case work, mystery, 20 eps. Interesting script, cool art, very moving cases. Surprised by how much I liked this one! the drawing shots were really cool, a very cool profession to make a drama about. I am a certified tan jianci simp

other ones I love: Tientsin Mystic — 2017, Republican era, mystery, supernatural-ish, 24 eps, Netflix. Beautiful production, good and interesting plot, investigations, lots of swimming in rivers! did I mention it's beautiful Reset 开端 — 2022, contemporary, time loop, thriller, 15 eps, Viki+YouTube. Trapped in a time loop on an exploding bus, mystery, fast-paced, good plot and acting. Link Click 时光代理人 — 2021, donghua, contemporary, sci-fi/time travel, 11+1 eps, Bilibili. Beautiful art, touching episodes, great premise and plot, lots of fun. (where my dp comes from lmao, ily xiaoshi). season 2 coming soon!!

I've watched a lot more but for a rec list I think this is enough! for other chinese-learning resources or drama recs u can check out my server's masterlist, it has heaps of cool stuff on there~

#cdrama #cdramas #rec list #word of honor #the untamed #nirvana in fire #i will not shut up about cdramas so ive already culled this list down ahahah #if yall want audiodrama recs....... i cna also do that

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presidential--suite · 2 years ago

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✨ Top Five Treys ✨

#1: South Park: 25th Anniversary Concert (2022)

(Series with @a-magical-evening 💖)

First, I loved this concert so damn much I had too many GIFS to include in one set so here’s the bonus: 💖💖

The concert is too long to rewatch completely, and I do have a lot of emotion connected to it, so this might get pretty rambling/stream of consciousness. I’ll preface that this is gonna be personal lol like an actual blog post

(Preface #2: I’m mostly going to comment on Trey (as with all the others in this series), since I’m a Trey bitch through and through, but Matt was a fucking superstar, and I was blown away by his performances!! He looked amazing and I was so fucking impressed by him 😊 I’m not purposefully leaving him out in my comments, I love him too 💖)

So, I was watching the last SP episode of the season with my boyfriend and saw that they were doing a South Park concert and remember my stomach like exploding in excitement. I knew I wasn’t going; I’ve never been to a real concert or anything, plus it was states away, but I entered the raffle anyway for fun. The more I waited that week, the more excited I got thinking about it. My rationale was: there was probably never going to be anything again that I could guarantee actually witnessing Trey Parker in real life, so it would be my only chance. Plus, I hadn’t gone on a vacation since I was like 14, so maybe I could go. But the raffle came and went, and I didn’t get in. I didn’t realize how truly hyped I was until I was walking down the street to my boyfriend’s house and holding that rejection email. When I told him he was like “what South Park concert” and I was super pissed lmao. (Side note, he has no fucking clue how gone I am for Trey XD at least not to the extent that I am. I feel like it’s rude to talk about my infatuation with another man to my significant other. So he didn’t understand my disappointment haha)

Then tickets went on sale, at the time only having one night, and I didn’t get in. Then those fucking premium, expensive tickets went on sale, my whole fucking salary for the summer honestly, and I was just staring at them as the clock ticked. I’ll never forget buying those in my bedroom and the reality setting in that I was actually going to go see Trey fucking Parker with my own damn eyes lol. I’ve been a fan of things before, had phases, had celebrity crushes, but never have I acted on one this way. So for months there was just this shining light of “I’m going to see Trey” or “it’s okay that this sucks, I’m going to Colorado in August.” XD

It was surreal being there, driving around actual mountains; it was like that SpongeBob joke “I’m washing dishes at night” but “I’m getting Starbucks in Morrison”. Seeing so many people that were more in my demographic there was so fucking cool. I was scared it was going to be these bro-y middle aged men, a lot of lame republicans lol, but it was a good mix! I met a lot of cool people! Then I was sitting in the second row, and I’d looked at spoilers from the first night, so when I saw my seats were in front of Trey’s piano I was just :O :O Ecstatic.

So it starts, and it’s cool, but then he fucking walks out and I don’t even have words :”). Like he was only a couple yards away. It was so amazing. I was yelling and singing and like holding my hands out to him the whole time. It was hard to even take my eyes away from him. Rewatching the concert on TV I was asking my boyfriend “were these visuals part of the live show? Did they add them in post?”, but it turns out I just never looked at the damn screen lol! Trey performed so wonderfully. Just...It was phenomenal. It was probably my peak XD Afterward I didn’t want to leave but security was like GTFO, and I just walked back down the hill in a daze. (The next day I had some pretty bad PCD (post concert depression haha) and I kept crying at random moments D:)

Anyway, my favorite moments from this had to be when he first came out, hat over his heart. I kept saying before I went that I better see his beautiful bald head, and he delivered immediately lmao XD 💖

💖My favorite performance was Yelper Special because I loved watching him do his little dance. I probably had my hands clasped over my chest embarrassingly, like ‘aww :’)’

I was worried about the voices, but tbh they pulled them off so well in my opinion. I think the mics really worked and they both did an amazing job being the boys. Robot Friend and the Theme Song where he and Matt are side by side doing their boys was so cute

I’m now officially a Primus fan too, they’ve actually become one of my top artists on Spotify, because damn, Les ate that shit up!!! Everyone was perfect!!

All the hat changing, and when Trey would turn to make faces, and when he’d be like “let’s fucking try that again”.

When Matt and Trey had their little asides, and when they would smile at each other, and the surprise, and their I love yous!! When they would reminisce about where they grew up, and when they met, and how far they’ve come?? I love them and their friendship 💖💖💖

((My poor boyfriend, I was really fangirling hard. I won’t repeat the joke he’d made, but it involved ruining some articles of clothing...TMIIII XD XD)) I’ll use this part to make my saucy comments, which is that he looked fucking hot!! Haha I was mesmerized by him. Most of the time I was alternating between gaping at him and taking blurry pics. My lust for this man, for real...He looked so good, I think the outfit was very flattering. Beautiful 💕

Obviously, I loved that appearance. You’ve seen my recreation of his outfit. I have I think 600 pictures from that trip... I made a photo album. I love Trey. I love his singing (that’s actually the first thing I liked about him, before I even watched South Park). He’s so wildly talented and skilled. It was truly a magical evening 😉

This had to be number 1.

#Top 5 Treys #trey parker #is anyone surprised??#I actually had this lower but then I was writing and making these and I knew that nothing else made me feel this way #💖💖💖 omg #trey #this one is big sowwy

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sometimesoliloquy · 2 years ago

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The Handmaid’s Tale 5x08 “Motherland” (or “This is Not the Beach you’re Looking for”) 👀

Whoo boy, sorry this one’s so late, life and stuff has got my brain feeling broken this past week. Let’s see if I can string some coherent sentences together about this episode, where in addition to heavy parallels on motherhood (and Serena and June again, of course), some big/dramatic events also seem to finally be put into motion, and it only took 4/5 of the season to do (yay I can do fractions, my brain isn’t fully broken!). I have to say, though, taking everything into consideration I am nervous as hell for episode 9...

So we open 5x08 with June daydreaming: a flashback of June making pancakes with Hannah, but jarred to reality by blaring car horns, as asshole protestors yell in the background. Apparently now they have to deal not only with the wannabe Gilead cult member nutjobs, but also a suddenly Canadian nationalistic fervor bringing mobs who look and sound like they just came from a Trump rally, but carrying beaver signs and saying “eh” a lot more. June’s phone rings and we learn it’s Serena (again), apparently she’s been telemarketing the shit out of June for a month while in detention. Moira expresses surprise that Serena even thinks they would help her, meanwhile honestly I’m wondering how she even got June’s digits. Luke can tune out the protestors and doesn’t seem to give a shit about newborns dying in the woods (does anything bother this guy? (spoiler: we find out later).

Dramatically ominous music plays over a cut of crashing waves and cawing seagulls and I’m thinking someone on THT is definitely a Hitchcock fan (first the Vertigo inspired Wheeler household and now an ode to The Birds). We narrow in to our favorite pithy commander Lawrence giving several other commanders a tour of the shiny new location for The Real Housewives of Gilead New Bethlehem. The only one I recognize aside from Jlaw and his sidekick puppy Nick is that smug bastard Calhoun (who really reminds me soo much of a youngish Republican senator), so ostensibly they’ve done a good job of whittling down the competition. Calhoun seems fully on board with what Jlaw touts as the more modernized, liberal Gilead, where they can welcome back prodigal sons and daughters to get away from those nasty Canadians and reunite with family (more on that in a second). New Commander McBeardy expresses skepticism and wants to know how they’ll keep this from their “people” in “Gilead Proper” because after all if the people who Gilead proper isn’t super amazing for start trying to defect to diet Gilead, who will they have left to oppress and torture? Jlaw however reminds him that Gilead isn’t exactly free press friendly (RIP Globe reporters). I mean not to mention half their population gets body parts cut off for reading. And here I am skeptical, because while Jlaw certainly has a point about the press, if one of the intents was to reunite the new New Bethlehemites with family in Gilead… wouldn’t… people in Gilead proper come to know about it? Would they just be secretly kidnapping these people from Gilead and forcibly relocating them in NB? McBeardy is likewise still not convinced but Nick reminds him of the bullet he put in Putnam’s head lack of moral fortitude and the Commander changes his tune reeeal quick. He concedes, admitting he was hearing the “deceased Putnam” in his ears (I thought I heard “diseased” at first but my subtitles say deceased and honestly I guess either works), as our Gilead mafia duo walk smugly away.

Speaking of smug, for once Serena is not: sadly pumping in a not so private corner of the detention center visitors area (hm why does this look familiar?).

For, as we soon see, Mrs Alanis Wheeler arrives to (very reluctantly) pick up, because OF COURSE she’s stealing the baby fostering Noah while Serena's detained. Alanis talks about pregnancy hormones like they are something she knows about, while being the utmost amount of condescending and complaining about the baby she’s stolen (hi, Naomi!). She's doing the "crying it out" method on a one month old and I really don't know shit about babies but even I can tell that's not right. Such a warm woman, it's a wonder why little Noah cries so much! Serena is clearly too emotional and sentimental and weak minded to be a mother, though, because if there's anything newborn babies need it's discipline. Serena reminds Alanis (and us) that she's a big baddie who overthrew a country... but unfortunately she gave all that up to chase after June's baby, who she was trying to steal, who she's also completely forgotten about now that Noah has filled the baby sized hole in her womb. Back at the Bankhole/Osborne/Strand household, the three are scrubbing anti immigration graffiti off their sidewalk while the aforementioned mob of protesters obnoxiously parades by. I guess it only took a few years of US refugees streaming into their country, and for some reason being able to afford really nice houses in their crowded city, for Canadians to stop being polite, and start getting real. June very casually relates the task to scrubbing blood off the wall in Gilead (ya know, from the hanging dead bodies. Same same). Luke pretends like she didn't say that, and asks if they should just say fuck it and move to one of the 2 far away remaining US states or Europe as if the entire show hasn’t been about trying to get back their daughter who’s trapped just right over the border in a hellish regime, which June reminds him of (oh, right). But before this can go any further, she gets a surprise call from Mr. Commander Lawrence of all people (I wonder what he wants).

June meets JLaw for a lovely stroll along the waterfront while he rambles esoterically about his esoteric vision for Gilead and how it all went wrong because he underestimated the depravity of religious nutjobs (really, my guy? I thought you were supposed to be a mental giant or something but ok, maybe my bar is just skewed from having grown up Catholic). He gives her the New Bethlehem sales pitch, which she extremely side eyes until he claims she will be able to reunite with Hannah once she's "grown" (so like 14 I guess) and running her own household. At this point I have to be super skeptical, because for Jlaw to "bring Hannah to New Bethlehem" I assume her new husband, whoever he might be, would have to be OK with it (not to mention I can't imagine Cmdr. MacKenzie would just be super cool with it), so I' not sure if he just has that much confidence in his far-reaching power or he's bullshitting her to win her over, but I'm kind of leaning towards the latter. But he does know June's achilles heel. Seeming to miss the fact that Hannah would already be married off in this case, which is her #1 goal in trying to stop, she's just emotionally overwhelmed with the possibility of being able to be near Hannah. Lawrence reassures her of her safety by saying Nick has been helping with this pet project, he's been grooming Nick, not sexually (I mean clearly Nick is so attractive that it bears clarification). Luke is shockingly not so excited by this proposal. New Gilead Bethlehem is one place he does not want to move to (not that I blame him in this case). June argues that she would risk anything to be with Hannah again, "wouldn't you?" and Luke says "of course" but I mean he is also literally saying that he wouldn't, here, so it seems like a bit of a contradiction. He insists they focus on getting Hannah out, because that's worked so well so far, and June reminds him of what a fucking disappointment Tuello is (sorry, Mark!) and the uselessness of the entire remaining US government in general ("they're politicians, they don't give a shit about us"/"what has the American government done for us?"). He proceeds to call Jlaw a nazi and I was half expecting him to bring up June's "nazi" boyfriend as well but of course they dance silently around the topic of Nick as usual. The only thing I agree with Luke on here is that they should NOT take Nichole anywhere near those motherfuckers (or child fuckers, I guess). When Luke tries to egregiously mansplain June’s trauma and womanly emotions to her, it surprisingly doesn’t go over well. I'm also calling BS on his "I did that (turned Serena in) for you!", nah, my dude, you clearly did that for you. What also doesn't go over well is him saying "just let me protect you sometimes", but I very much appreciate that June and I seem to be on the same damn page here, because a second after I yelled "she doesn't fucking NEED your protection!!" at the tv (what, you don't do that??) she says basically the same thing to him. Amen, June. She doesn't need his protection, but Hannah does. Lawrence visits Serena in detention, and tells her he's generously "helped her" by convincing the Wheelers to let her return to her handmaid room in their house to nurse Noah. Lawrence talks about her breasts and then is done talking about her breasts. He reminds her the Wheelers have legal status to care for the baby, which I guess finally answers my question of their citizenship because they must (technically) be Canadian citizens then, not Gileadean, right? She still insists she will not "live in the same house as her child's kidnappers" which makes Lawrence correctly ask if she has an "irony deficiency" (I mean). At this point I think Serena does actually see what a flaming hypocrite she is but doesn’t give a fuck because she still thinks she's better than the hundreds of women she helped enslave as handmaids.

It’s nighttime and June is comforting an adorable little baby Nichole who is disturbed by the asshole protesters again. She sings her to sleep with a song she used to sing Hannah "let me be your mirror" and it's a very sweet moment (I didn't even notice the doll from Nick until others pointed it out but I love that attention to detail here). June softly tells a now peacefully sleeping Nichole that she wants her to know her big sister, that she would love her, and at this point I'm very much thinking about The Testaments, and I'm both sad about it and also kind of excited for it? I’m also kind of hoping they incorporate the song into the Testaments, as maybe a kind of vague hazy memory they both have. June wakes up the next morning still in Nichole's bed, hearing Luke and Tuello talking downstairs. She interrupts and Tuello tries to appeal to June's patriotism and sense of civic duty but she "not without my daughter”'s him. She continues to bully classified military information out of him but she's not happy with it. June has a heart-to-heart on the porch with Rita, who apparently has not actually dissipated into thin air after all. Rita tells her it would be crazy to consider going back but also that if her son was still alive, she would do anything and go to the ends of the earth to see him again. They have a touching moment of bonding and given how little we’ve seen of Rita this season I hope it’s not actually the last time we’ll see her.

June visits Serena (for a person with no friends she sure does seem to get a lot of visitors) to try and get more information on New Bethlehem. Interestingly, Serena knows that Lawrence has been pitching it "since the beginning" and it's been in the works for years, but she doesn't know much more. She says it seems he has more power than ever implying that maybe because of that he can actually make it work now, which is also interesting because he seemed very powerful, or at least revered, when we first met him, but I think back then he was probably trying to fly under the radar to protect Eleanor, now he's much more cavalier with blatant power moves since he has nothing left to lose except for his life (which he already thought was a goner after Angel's Flight) and his legacy (which ostensibly he is trying to save with this plan). Serena has her own agenda, though, she wants June to help her get out of detention and get her baby back. Really I'd think she'd have better luck trying her boyfriend Tuello, because June finally says what I think we were all hoping she would ever since last episode: "Serena, we are not FRIENDS". Serena, ever the narcissist, assumes June forgave her because she helped her and Noah, but June's like "actually I'm just a good person and a better Christian than you, bitch". June tells her to march her Viking ass back to the Wheelers scary mansion and gives her the 101 on how to be a vengeful, scheming handmaid, and it's pretty fucking delicious. She tells her "you can't help your child if you're not with them", clearly mirroring her own thoughts about Hannah and New Bethlehem. I like that there was kind of a mirroring and chain reaction of women and motherhood here: June asking Rita what she would do and then Serena asking what June would do, and it's different situations but basically the same answer. June walks away with new resolve and clarity, and pays a surprise visit to Lawrence, who appears to be at the Gilead embassy propaganda hub" information center" even though I thought it was supposed to be shut down, but maybe in the month that's passed they got the proper permits or whatever? She asks Lawrence to stop Hannah from getting married but hey, "Gilead's gonna Gilead". Not an acceptable answer, June does not want to stand by while her daughter is raped by someone twice her age, although honestly from what we've seen it's more likely to be 3 or 4 times her age (gag). She calls him out for being a sick fuck who created a world where women are abused and tortured, and in a rare moment of seriousness, he shows a glimpse of the full burden of guilt on his shoulders. If he'd known what would have happened he'd have just let the human race die out. He desperately tries to convince her of his plan working, not just to form the "utopia" of New Bethlehem, but for its more modern, liberal values to spread further into Gilead, making it a better, kinder, less murder-y, torture-y Gilead (in like 10-15 years). That's the thing, though. He seems desperate: for this to work, for it to not all have been for nothing, for Eleanor not to have died for nothing. I wonder if that will end up leading to his downfall.

Speaking of Eleanor, the next scene we see June out in her garden at night (her baby seedlings have graduated), and it reminded me of the scene in season 3 where June has to bury the killed Martha at night and sees Eleanor "gardening" in that spot the next day to help cover it up. She's looking up at the moon and thinking about Hannah, but then Luke interrupts her daydream to tell her she got a "package". Inside, they take a disc out of the mysterious envelope and I'm thinking 1) do people really still have disc drives on their laptops anymore?? and 2) I really wish we could tell whose handwriting that is on the envelope... It's a video of a line of girls at the wives school, and we see it zoom in on Hannah as she seems to notice someone filming, and stops for a second until her peers prompt her forward. I have to wonder who or what she’s seeing, as well as who sent the video. I at first assumed Lawrence as most logical(?) but if so he definitely shot his plan in the foot there (unless it’s part of a larger more devious scheme). Nick?? Will we ever know or is it just another mysterious plot device that will never be properly explained? Sigh.

June and Luke fight about New Bethlehem (again) and she lets out some resentment she must have held deep inside for a loong time:"What are you going to do? Same thing you've done for the last 7 years? Fucking NOTHING?" She immediately regrets it but while I think she was definitely sorry it came out in the way it did, I also think she still means it. And not even that she thinks Luke just happily sat on his hands; she knows that he did what he could, within his skills set and imagination. But she also knows from experience how useless, how in vain, that kind of action can be. And it was actually very refreshing to see her pissed at Luke for once, not deferential, or so careful of his feelings. While he is right that they could certainly be walking into danger with Jlaw’s proposal, that the minute they cross Gilead could put her on the wall, she's also right that his "I don't know, we'll figure it out" just isn't good enough any more. Luke's resentment comes out, too: "you stayed, you stayed for so many years!" , echoing him asking Moira in season 4: "did she choose this? She knew she'd probably never see us again". Which I feel like still comes from a place of ignorance and insecurity (and selfishness?) on his part. I mean, June literally passed up ONE opportunity to escape (end of s2 when she handed Nichole to Emily) and Nichole was born by then so "by choice" she "stayed" like 1 year max., but ok. I mean she tried to escape before while pregnant but got caught, and then she sacrificed herself to make Angel's flight even happen, if she didn't stay back as a distraction, none of them would have gotten away. June and Luke embrace at the end, after she breaks down, and they obviously have love for each other and always will for Hannah, but their relationship is clearly broken. Back at the NB gated community, Lawrence is now laying the sales pitch on Nick. Nick plays it close to the vest as always but he seems very skeptical. I don't think he wants June or Nichole anywhere near Gilead considering he's risked his life to get both of them out, and his number one priority is to keep them safe. He does not seem tempted by Jlaw's "sister wife" proposal. He wanted the beach in Maui with June and Nichole, not polygamy on this cold-ass beach in Gilead, damnit.

June and Luke have called Tuello about the Hannah video, and they're talking about metadata, and I'm thinking I really liking Tuello's contrasting clothing patterns here, when did he become such a fashionista, and then I'm thinking that I feel either really old or like an idiot or both because I have no fucking clue what metadata is. Data about itself? What does that even mean? How does one obtain a location from that? Was it included in the video on purpose so they could find the location? Or was it an unintended side effect? I still can't help but like Tuello even if he does have terrible taste in women and is kind of useless. Serena arrives back at her other prison the Wheelers, and is forced to suck up, much like June was in 2x04, except she’s not just been fully broken into a hopeless shell of herself, and she's still getting the extremely cushy version of being a handmaid.She’s putting on a contrite face to her wife and commander, but we can see how pissed she is by how tightly she’s clenching her hands behind her back.

Finally, after a quick and insincere "praise be!" (I think one of my favorite things in this show is actually when people say “praise be” as a “fuck you”), she hears her baby crying and runs up (all those) stairs, somehow not gasping for air, to find him being looked after by a sweet and lovely nanny, (so at least it's not just "cry-it-out" Alanis) who leaves him in her care. Serena has a beautiful, emotional reunion with Noah, who finally stops crying as she holds and breastfeeds him, certainly different from the scene where she tries to do that with Holly/Nichole back in the day (yikes, awkward, right?). Part of me wants to see what schemes Serena gets into as a handmaid-by-any-other-name but the bigger part of me would be extremely fine with her story line being at least much reduced, because as amazing of an actor Yvonne is, I really don’t think we need “The Handmaid Lite's Tale”. We get it, Serena is getting a taste of her own medicine, can she now just fade into obscurity?

June is super on edge waiting for Tuello to get back to them about the metadata (still don’t know what that means), and she excuses herself in the middle of dinner to go get apples for Nichole, because Nichole needs apples and they're out of apples, we don't have any apples, Moira! but she doesn't need help getting the apples. She's spacing out at the market, getting apples, when her phone rings and finally Tuello is on the line, miraculously telling her the news she's been dreaming of: the metadata(??) pulled through and they have the location of Hannah's school, and they're going to do a raid, they're going to get her out (you really can't actually hear that last part but I cheat and use the subtitles, so). June is overwhelmed, she is overjoyed, she is over these apples. She makes a mess and hugs the kindly grocer, before running giddily back down the street, full of hope and joy. And listen, I obviously know it was just a random excuse to get out of the house and keep busy but I also can't help thinking, "WAIT BUT NICHOLE NEEDS THOSE APPLES!" and honestly I have no idea why a toddler would need apples anyway (do they?? Do they even have strong enough teeth to eat apples? Apples are pretty hard. I told you I don't know shit about babies) and I don't know why I'm overthinking the apples this much, but still it kind of bothers me that she just completely abandons the apples the second she gets the news about Hannah and oh my god are the APPLES A METAPHOR??

Anyway, June arrives back at the house, much less breathless than I would be, having sprinted all that way (seriously, what is these women’s workout routine?) and tells Luke and Moira the amazing news. They're of course incredulous and overjoyed as well, jumping up and down in glee, and poor Mark FINALLY gets some love (geez, the poor guy's bound to have self esteem issues by now, right?).

The hopeful music swells as we cut to a beautiful preteen Hannah in another garden. It's not nighttime and the moon isn’t out but she is peacefully planting, looking up at the sky, and that still seems very a much a mirror to June earlier. The sound of jet engines roars in the background as we pan out to the birds eye view of the wives school yard, laid out in interlocking "U"'s. ** OK, I'll say it: god, could Luke have been any more condescending this episode? As much as he pissed me off, though, I was actually glad for their fighting, because at least it means they’re not skirting around the real issues anymore (well, except for Nick, I guess). It's so clear to me that the divide between them has been growing again ever since 5x06, with a distinct turning point coming at the end of 5x07, leading directly to their arguments here. He has tried to get on the same page as June, tried to understand her (and she's maybe tried...like, a little bit(?)... to see his perspective). But the fact is that despite their shared bond of their daughter, and as much as Luke hates what has and what could happen to Hannah, and that she's not there with them... I think at least a part of him has given up that they'll ever get her back. He never thought June would escape, probably never thought he'd have her back and be raising another child together. And even if he'll always mourn the loss of Hannah and feel guilty for not being able to protect her, it could be enough for him: to live a life with June and Nichole, move away, move on. But June will never be able to move on; not with Hannah in Gilead, her fate uncertain, married to god knows who. Nothing will ever be "enough" for her as long as Hannah isn't with her, or at least safe. Their arguments in this episode also speak greatly to their different experiences over these past years, which have informed how they now think and operate. Luke has been safe in Canada, though for the most part he's felt helpless here. Maybe at first hopeful that the Canadian government, or what's left of the US government, can do something, but growing more and more jaded of potential progress as time goes by. He's barely had any news or visibility on Hannah since she was taken at the age of 5, just a few photographs and what June relays to him. So I also think maybe Hannah, and the chance of getting her back, has become less and less concrete over the years, less and less of a possibility to him. June on the other hand, has actually seen Hannah multiple times, talked to her, even if the last time was traumatizing. She's been so close for years, which both makes Hannah, especially the current version, more real to June, and also makes June's guilt, and desperation, to save her even greater. But while Luke's sense of impotency probably grew as the bureaucratic avenue continued to fail, June actually found a greater strength she never knew she had in Gilead. Her will to survive, her burning anger and love for her child and then children formed her into a bolder, more empowered version of herself. She's achieved impossible things, or things that should have been impossible in Gilead: falling in love, having a healthy baby and getting her away to safety, getting 86 other children and 9 Martha's out, killing multiple commanders, getting out herself. So why shouldn't she keep believing, that no matter how crazy and impossible it may seem, that she can get Hannah out as well, and save her from the certain fate that awaits her in Gilead. More than that, she has to believe it, much like Lawrence has to believe he can make New Bethlehem a success and eventually reform all of Gilead. Also similar to Lawrence, she is desperate, and that can be dangerous, can cause a person to take serious chances despite the obvious risks. But I think that as long as she can be confident in Nichole's safety, she will risk her life and anything else for the chance of seeing Hannah safe as well. Like Lawrence, she feels like she will either see her mission to fruition, or die trying. And if this raid does not go as planned (which I don't think it will because you know why), even if June doesn't end up going to NB, I can't imagine that she and Luke can keep on like this. So we come full circle with the episode title, "Motherland". Lawrence of course refers to Gilead and New Bethlehem, specifically, as the "Motherland", which is interesting because considering the misogynist patriarchal bullshit that built it, you'd think he'd say "Fatherland". Whether it' Jlaw's nod to the fact that it's the mothers who are really doing the work in perpetuating the human race, or just PR lip service to June, the title also certainly speaks to the very specific and far-reaching territory of motherhood itself: as we see from June, and Rita, and even eventually Serena: a mother will never give up on her child, will risk her own freedom and safety to be with them (no matter who tells them they're being too emotional), and to protect them. It's perhaps the most powerful bond that can exist.

#the handmaid's tale #the handmaids tale season 5 #june osborne #nick blaine #osblaine #tht #tht s5 #Motherland #review #recap

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eclipshift · 2 years ago

Text

Thoughts about Hamilton Hamburg (in no specific order)

Alright bitches, bros, and non-binary hoes

I saw Hamilton in Hamburg and I have SO MANY THOUGHTS

First of all if you aren’t aware, The Hamburg performance is in German, and the show opened this Thursday (the first week of October)

my German level is very low… so if you’ve seen it or have thoughts about the lyrics I want to HEAR

But there were some things that I noticed with this cast that have me vibrating at a frequency that could shatter glass:

First off the cast was incredible and now I need a cast recording or I will explode I need it NOW they are my new favorite cast I’m screaming and crying and throwing up

Hamiltons actor (Benet) is very goofy and young and makes for a GREAT act 1 Hamilton. (Act 2 as well, but his personality, look, and voice were particularly amazing for younger Alex)

He was also very sweet, I told him I was from the US and he got super excited, even asked ME for a picture on HIS phone before proceeding to introduce me to Lafayette/Jefferson’s actor and telling him I’m American

Laf/Jefferson's actor was also very enthusiastic and wanted to give me a hug :3

Lyrical stuff

Put a pencil to his brain, connected it to his heart

fucking lyrical genius

"Talk less, smile more" stayed in english :3

Instead of "you can't be serious" when Burr says "talk less, smile more", Ham say "in german please?" because it was in english

heehee fnunny

"And if you don't know, now you know, Mr. President"

"George Washington's going home" was kept in English. very special.

SOUTHERN MOTHERFUCKING DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICANS was kept in enlgihs

Literally just Hercules Mulligan

HERCULES MULLIGAN’S ACTOR WAS FUCKING BATSHIT AND NOW I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT HIM 24/7 AHHH

Farmer refuted???? My dog speaks more eloquently than thee??? THE MAN FUCJIGN BARKED

like full on bark bark grrr

Mans was off the shits

Also he had a tendency to stare wide-eyed at others and at the audience and it was very unsettling and very in-character and now that is just how I expect Hercules Mulligan to be

the switch to Madison was silly goofy because He went from crazy tailor to Quiet Sick Man and my brain could not comprehend why he was suddenly Normal™ and not barking at me

Hamilsquad

Just generally the Alex/John/Laf/Herc group had GREAT chemistry and it was very evident in their performance

Laurens did a lil "got your nose" thing with Ham in story of tonight

Story of tonight reprise I DIDNT NOTICE THAT HERC HAD A FLASK INSTEAD OF A CHAMPAGNE FLUTE LIKE THE REST OF THEM

Laf/Jefferson

I can't pick up on accents in german but my expert sources (german friend) told me that Laf indeed spoke with a french accent

"UH, FRANCE"

he was so bouncy and sassy he could have done a bend and snap and I would agree

The girls <3

ANGELICA

FUCKING POWERHOUSE

Opted up at the end of satisfied, I nearly fell out of my seat and died

Eliza has a very gentle voice and it goes very well with the Angelica.

Peggyyyyy was so prettyyyyyyyyy

she had pigtailsssss

very sassy gurl

also her wig for Maria? I need it in the Louvre it was so nice

BURR

Mamma mia

He had a voice

so good so nice

OPTED UP AT THE END OF WAIT FOR IT, I nearly fell out of my seat Pt. 2

Dear theodosia orz

My mother cried

so good, very genuine

Washingturnt

my father had very high expectations because he loves Tamar Greene with a burning passion

his expectations were exceeded

holy butts

One last time?? Again the fact that they kept the "George Washigton's going home" lyric in english??? It made it very emotional as an anglophone

I cried a little

All in all 11/10 I will fight god to see it again

OK THIS GOT VERY LONG I will probably think of more thoughts bout Blease i am Begging if you have thoughts please tell them to me my life will never be the same

#PLEASE #I need thoughts NOW #hamilton musical #alexander hamilton #hamilton #thoughts #hamilton germany #hamilton deutschland #hamilton hamburg #hercules mulligan #aaron burr #lafayette #thomas jefferson #john laurens #Please talk to me

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sineala · 4 years ago

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Is 616 Tony a Democrat or Republican or neither? I’ve seen posts comparing him to Trump (barf!)

Wow. Geez. You don't ask easy questions, do you, anon?

First off, I am going to assume that whoever was comparing 616 Tony to Trump was trying to slander Tony. And I will tell you that we do in fact have 616 Tony's canonical opinion of Trump -- yes, Donald Trump exists on Earth-616 and has been referenced in several comics -- and he doesn't seem to like him much. I mean, this is back when Trump was primarily being known for being a New York businessman. They canonically ran in the same circles and Tony canonically knows him. He doesn't like him.

Here's Tony in Iron Man v1 #227 complaining that Trump bought him out of a building:

And here's Tony again in Iron Man v3 #37 being not especially thrilled when he thinks that the person he is about to meet is Trump:

(The person he is actually meeting is Tiberius Stone, which is also a very bad idea.)

I am also going to point out that due to the way Marvel likes to handle politics in its comics, I don't think we can say anything about the canonical political affiliation of most characters, because Marvel deliberately leaves that undefined. So to the best of my knowledge, we don't have a canonical statement about Tony's political affiliation and we probably won't ever get one.

But we can speculate based on canonical evidence, can't we?

My very long answer is under the Read More.

Your question is sort of framed as "tell me if Tony is a good or a bad person," and I would like to suggest that this is not really a useful framing for several reasons: (1) what the political parties currently stand for is pretty recent, actually, and Tony as a character predates a lot of the modern conceptions of the two parties; (2) the history of the Democratic Party specifically in New York, where Tony is from, is, let's just say, not 100% pure and unproblematic; and (3), when we're talking about someone with the amount of money, connections, and influence that Tony has, party affiliation generally doesn't mean the same thing it would mean for us ordinary mortals. What I mean by that last point is that there is a big, big difference between every one of the following list of statements: "I would vote for Republicans," "I am a registered Republican," "I would give very large amounts of money to Republicans," and "I would accept a political appointment in a Republican administration." For most of us, the last two of those points aren't ever going to be something that comes up in our lives, but they are going to be things that matter very much for someone like Tony Stark. And we have a canonical answer for at least one of those things. We can theorize about at least some of the rest of them.

I'm saying all that because I suspect you're really not going to like my answer.

I think that there is a very, very high chance that 616 Tony is a Republican.

I mean, I don't think he'd be a Republican right now at this exact moment in time, are you kidding me, but I feel like he has definitely been a Republican at some point in the past. Say, before Trump. One of those socially-liberal fiscally-conservative types. With a conscience. Sort of like Mitt Romney. Picture the kind of Republican Massachusetts likes to keep electing as their governor.

Yes, is possible that, since Tony is from New York, he's a lifelong Democrat. It is definitely possible. New York is heavily Democratic in our world, and barring contradictory evidence, that is probably also the case on Earth-616. But I think that, specifically because of the rest of Tony's background and the ways that Tony has interacted with the world of politics in 616, he is most likely to be a Republican. It doesn't mean he couldn't be a Democrat! I have no proof either way! In terms of several elements of his characterization -- say, his commitment to social justice and fighting inequity -- I would say he definitely leans Democrat, because these days that sort of thing is mostly the province of the Democrats, although I suspect that back when Tony was created it wouldn't have been out of character for a lot of Republicans. I'm just saying that Republican seems more likely. If you gotta pick one. I think you could definitely argue for either. He doesn't fit completely into either but his canon interactions with politics push me toward thinking he's a Republican, because he does several specific things that I think it would be unlikely that anyone other than a Republican would be given the opportunity to do at the specific time that he does them.

Yeah. I know.

Right. Okay. Tony is extremely, extremely rich, and even though I know that he is basically the fantasy of The One Good Ethical Billionaire (more on this in a sec), it's probably worth thinking about what actual real-life rich people do with their money in ways that intersect with politics. And the answer to that is, well, generally they give money to politicians who are favorable to, say, helping them continue to have money. Now, yes, as far as I know there is no evidence of Tony doing this in canon -- this is where all the conjecture comes in. So we ask ourselves, okay, if Tony were to endorse particular politicians because of this, what party would he give money to? Who would he want to get in good with? In most parts of the country, that would probably be the Republican party. But, specifically in New York, it's the Democrats.

So, yeah, one of the big points in favor of him being a Democrat is that, well, Democrats traditionally run New York. The class of old-money New York elites are pretty stereotypically Democrats. And that would include Tony. Which is not to say that he couldn't be a Republican, but if he wants to get anywhere with New York politicians, and I suspect he probably does because he is trying to run a series of very large businesses and he owns a fair amount of real estate including several buildings whose permitting processes I can only imagine fall into the category of “probably highly irregular" -- I mean, he has multiple jets that he regularly lands on his house and secret underwater tunnels for a submarine -- he has to cozy up to Democrats. If he gives money to anyone involved in politics, that's who he gives money to. Making superhero bases probably took a lot of money. A massive amount of money. The city planners probably cry when they see him coming.

(At one point I believe they did ban him from keeping the Quinjets in his house. That was when the Avengers had the Hydrobase.)

I tend to assume most people know something about the history of the Democrats in New York, or at least the history of US political parties in general, but the tl;dr version is that the parties haven't always stood for the same things that they do now. They also weren't always the same parties. And historically, in New York, the political machine gives you Democrats. That's just the way it is. The Democratic Party of the past was not really, um, devoted to all the same causes as the current Democratic Party. And it was very hard to get anywhere in New York and not be a Democrat. It still is. If you haven't read up on Tammany Hall, maybe you should. There was a lot of corruption. I mean, yeah, it's not currently a thing, but the Democrats remained in power in New York; it dissolved probably around about the time the Republican Party explicitly decided that the way to win the South was to appeal to the racism of white voters ("the Southern strategy"). Because, yes, before that a lot of white, conservative Southerners were traditionally Democrats. And then the Democrats split about civil rights, and, uh, the Republicans took in the racists.

Anyway! US political history is sure a land of contrasts! Rich New Yorkers are traditionally Democrats! That is a point for Tony possibly being a Democrat, yes. Moving on!

But Tony is not just a random old-money New Yorker. He inherited Howard Stark's money and Howard Stark's company. And Howard was, well, a defense contractor. And so was Tony, until he stopped making weapons. And, uh, being a defense contractor is, um, one of those things that is extremely, extremely Republican. No, I don't have stats to back this up. Just trust me. So, yeah, he's a rich New Yorker -- but he's also a defense contractor from a family of defense contractors. I would be amazed if Howard Stark were anything other than a Republican. Which is not to say that Tony could not be a Democrat anyway, but the job does come with a certain predisposition.

(Incidentally, one of the other things Tony inherited from Howard was his membership in the Hellfire Club, which is one of those things I keep forgetting about until canon smacks me in the face with it every few years.)

We all know that the conception of Tony, as a character, is basically the fantasy of the Ethical Billionaire. He is The Best At Capitalism. He has money and he is not corrupted by it. He has money and he uses it to do the maximum amount of good in the world because that is what he really, deeply wants to do. He supports a large number of philanthropic causes! He has a foundation named after his mother! He funds programs for low-income youth! He runs a homeless shelter for women! Throughout his history, he has been consistently portrayed as a deeply, deeply kind human being, who wants to help people. A lot of people! People who aren't like him! People who might not even like him! That is just... who he is, as a person.

And these days we tend to associate that kind of push for systemic change and caring about social issues and remedying inequity with Democrats, but that wasn't always the case. I think it still would have been believable coming from a Republican, oh, around about the time Tony came into existence. He was created back when you could be an elected Republican and, uh, push social policies that I think these days we would consider progressive. I mean, Eisenhower was the one who started integrating schools, right? The Republicans are the party of Lincoln! It's not like Republicans are prevented from doing good things. And I think we need to keep in mind that Tony dates from the early 60s when socially-progressive was still a thing Republicans could conceivably be.

So, yes, Tony is very kind. It's nice. We all like that about him. But also many of the ways in which he is kind to people are very much Republican fantasies. Like, yes, he's a great boss. He's close to his employees. They're like family. If any of his employees have problems, he helps them out on a personal, individual level -- and that, as an ideal, seems very Republican to me. I mean, he's a CEO, right? He's owned a lot of companies. Are any of them unionized? Combing through Wiki, I find one reference to a union in ToS 63, which is really, really early -- you know, back when unions were more popular. I can't find anything after that. And nothing is coming to mind. So, I mean, yes, we have now established his employees were at one point unionized, but he's certainly not known for, say, running a union shop. Part of the fantasy of the Ethical Billionaire is the idea that Tony's employees don't need unions because Tony is so kind and so generous and so personally selflessly good that he takes care of everyone who works for him. And the thing is, Tony actually does do this. He is fictional and therefore capable of achieving perfection.

Okay. He's a fictional character. Let's step back a little and think about fictional characters, and specifically the way Marvel Comics depicts fictional characters interacting with well-known real people. Many real people from our Earth do seem to exist in 616. Earth-616 is not our Earth in a vast number of ways, but one thing it shares with our Earth is presidents. Whoever is the real-life president when a comic comes out is pretty much generally president on Earth-616 at the time. Yes, I'm going somewhere with this.

Now, for whatever reason, Marvel often does not canonically refer to presidents by their names in dialogue, but the artists pretty much draw whoever is president at the time when someone in canon needs to meet the president. (Captain America seems to get to meet the president a lot. I'm sure you're shocked.)

There are a couple exceptions to "everyone who looks like the president is the president,” namely that Marvel says that the villain who was Number One of the Secret Empire in Captain America v1 #175, who attempted to conspire with aliens to take over the Earth, whom Steve watched commit suicide -- anyway, the official Marvel word is, I believe, that this guy is not Richard Nixon, but Steve Englehart, who wrote the comic, says it absolutely was:

And, yes, this is the incident that causes Steve to lose faith in America and become Nomad. You can kind of see why that would be traumatic. Marvel clearly had some feelings about Watergate they needed to process.

Anyway, I just wanted to put in a picture of that time Ronald Reagan was turned into a snake person. It's Captain America v1 #344:

I love comics.

More recent presidents still make appearances in the comics, and they are the president who was the real-life president at the time. For example, the president who pardons Steve for all his SHRA-related crimes in Who Will Wield The Shield is definitely Obama:

And that means that I must also unfortunately inform you that Hydra Steve also received a presidential pardon:

Though the issue in question (Captain America v9 #8) does not specifically name the president, following the "whoever is the actual president is the 616 president" rule, the president who canonically pardoned Hydra Steve is... Donald Trump.

Let's just pause here to contemplate this. Take as long as you need.

(I was today years old when I learned that Hydra Steve has been dead in comics for over a year. Since the issue in which he was pardoned, actually. Which is an issue I am sure I read the day it came out, but somehow I missed the four entire pages where Hydra Steve is set on fire and burns to death while hailing Hydra with his last breath. I guess it wasn't memorable! I mention because I am pretty sure I am not the only one who missed this.)

Anyway. I do have a point to make here, and my point is this: Tony has received political appointments. Two of them, in fact. In the 2003-2004 Iron Man arc "The Best Defense," Tony becomes Secretary of Defense. He does get Senate confirmation; it's not a deputy appointment. He actually gets unanimous confirmation. And I know that Tony had this job is a fact that everyone knows about Tony, but I feel like a lot of people may not be totally conscious of the timeframe involved here, and by that I mean that he is absolutely, positively, the Secretary of Defense for Earth-616's George W. Bush. Yes, I am sure of this.

Here is Tony with the president in Iron Man v3 #78, being told he got the job:

Yeah. That’s George W. Bush.

Can a Cabinet appointment cross party lines? I mean, sure, it's possible. I am not the kind of giant politics nerd who has this memorized, but there is in fact, a Wikipedia page for US political appointments across party lines. And it looks like there have been five cross-party Secretaries of Defense and five Secretaries of War. So, I mean, yes, it's happened, but it's fairly rare. None of the cross-party Secretaries of Defense (deputy secretaries excluded, since they weren't confirmed, obviously) were ever Democrats appointed by Republicans. And since we're looking at Dubya's administration specifically, it looks like only one of his Cabinet appointees (Transportation) was cross-party. So it looks like he in particular would not have been especially likely to appoint a Democrat to his Cabinet, since in real life he only had the one.

So to me it seems that the most likely party affiliation for Tony has to be Republican, because of this. Sure, the appointment could have crossed party lines. But I feel like it's just... not likely. Being a Republican Secretary of Defense in a Republican administration just seems way, way more possible.

(Also I'd like everyone to remember that Tony is replacing the previous Secretary of Defense because the previous Secretary of Defense was secretly the Red Skull and released an engineered flesh-eating virus at Mount Rushmore. Just, y'know, to set the mood.)

What's more, Tony gets a second political appointment from the Bush administration. It's not a Cabinet position, but he does become the Director of SHIELD in 2007. Here Tony is with the president, slightly earlier, in Civil War #1:

This is not really as good a likeness of Bush as the previous and I guess you could argue that the artist was drawing A Generic Politician but I feel like, y'know, it's probably still meant to be Bush. And Tony may not have wanted this particular job -- we know he definitely didn't -- but he absolutely wanted to be Secretary of Defense. So we know that he is definitely fine with serving in a Republican administration.

So, yeah, that's my argument: odds are pretty good that Tony has, at some point in his life, been a Republican. Maybe not right now. But probably in the past.

Having said that, given the way Marvel handles politics, I don't think it's likely to ever be much of an issue in canon; the Avengers mostly just tend to get to get along with whoever the president is at the time and I can't recall really anything about partisan issues. However, you're never going to convince me 616 Steve was anything other than a New Deal Democrat -- even though I know that in Cap #250 he turns down both the Democrats and the Republicans when they ask him to run for president -- because, I mean, come on. I assume that he and Tony probably try not to discuss politics ever anymore, because we all know how the SHRA went. They probably mostly agree, but when they disagree, people have a tendency to end up dead.

That was probably more than you ever wanted to know about my thoughts on this topic.

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