#are overwhelmingly pre-roman 'people'

[himikochan]

thoughts on the costuming in rings of power?

HELLO hello I've got a lot of thoughts all over the place and they are below the cut

I wanna start with some caveats re: me and rings of power

-I am a professional costumer and I've worked with people in film/streaming/tv/etc and professionals in/out of the union but my main work is in live theater

-I am a Big Old Tolkien Nerd but have only read the Silmarillion a few times and not recently

-I am 100% on team

I am so far on Team No Hate Watching that I called up my Tolkien friends back in 2020 to debate whether we'd watch anything Amazon made for the LotR-universe and unanimously decided we wouldn't trust the universe with Amazon

so that being said, everything I've seen of Rings of Power is from the trailer and screen caps on tumblr/facebook

ALSO when I refer to the Lord of the Rings movies, I am referring to the Peter Jackson movies because I do not have the time to compare every adaption

So what I’d like to start off with is the weird trend of like... romanticized Roman/Greek and Celtic-Briton influences 

(^ Gil-galad- a Noldorin)

(^ Isildur and.... Numenoreans? idk didn’t watch)

(^ Sadoc Burrows, Harfoot Hobbit)

(^Durin IV of Durin’s Folk/Khazad-dûm)

(^Disa - didn’t watch, google just says she’s a dwarf)

A lot of these costumes are distinctly referencing what we think of as classical Greek/Roman and Celtic-Briton clothes (note: “actual” clothes for Greeks, Romans, and Celtic-Britons were different- and I think it’s important to make the distinction between historical garb and the way it’s been stylized in the last 100 years).

Greek/Roman Influences: the stylized wreath crown, the way they’ve draped most of the cloths into chiton, peplos, himation, and chlamys, the broad swaths of unadorned/untextured fabrics 

Celtic-Briton-ish-ish Influences: I’m feeling this in the dye palette they chose which yes I know isn’t super-duper location specific but these colors look very derived from woad, madder, weld, lichen, and gall nuts which have usually been available in the isles, tell me Durin’s crown doesn’t you of the Waterloo Bridge Helmet, the studded armor is kind of ahistorical but frequently dramatized for Celtic-Britons, here just pop around this article (Celtic Clothing: Bronze Age to the Sixth Century) and I think you’ll get what I mean 

I guess that’s a choice to make it seem “earlier” than the other Tolkien movies we’ve seen lately, but carries across the different groups it seems too bland/similar across it all for me. Without getting too deep, these folx are from different ethnic groups/races and it’s kind of weird their clothes don’t seem more distanced from each other (they hail from Aman, Numenor, the Shire/Eriador, and Khazad-dûm/Misty Mountains).

But maybe more importantly I think it’s pretty weird they didn’t push the design more in an art nouveau/pre-raphaelite direction: considering that both of those design philosophies fit in much more neatly with Tolkien’s work and what he emphasized in his descriptions. Both lean more towards figures that are nestled in the natural world and emphasize the beauty of organic curves and a world a little more intense (especially in color) that ours is. Gil-Galad’s cloak does have a watery drape which is nice but the lines of his cross belt, color palette, and the brooches overwhelmingly read more imperial Roman than Tolkien character.

All of this makes Galadrial’s armor so much more... dissonant with the rest of the costuming. Her cuirass/mail combo reads so much more aggressively modern than the rest of it- even more modern than the armor of Lord of the Rings (which, admittedly had similar plate/mail combos but leaned more into a faux-medieval stylization). Also, to be nit picky, I think the lack of a gorget (neck piece) in field armor looks weird :S

I tried to find a better example to illustrate my point but here’s Ingres’ Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII which is an 1854 depiction of an event that took place in 1429 and presents a very modern adaption of armor. NGL my mind keeps filling the spot on Galadrial’s plate with the sacred heart- her armor reads as such a Catholic-virginal-femme-knight vibe which is very much at odds with the overly classical costumes for the rest of the characters.

I do think her armor is cool looking but it doesn’t feel like it exists in the world of Rings of Power nor does it really fit in with the Lord of the Rings movies... The closest I could think of offhand is Aragorn/Elessar’s armor for the coronation in Return of the King and even that reads as “older” or more grounded in the film-world than Galadrial’s.

.

I’ve seen a lot of comments on the costume quality in costuming groups so I’ve linked the above post here [it’s a public post so you don’t need a facebook account to view it] which covers a lot of it but I’ll have my own rant too.

There’s for sure a decrease in the quality of costumes from the Lord of the Rings movies which is... so disappointing and TBH expected from the most expensive tv show ever in 2022 and from Amazon. I think a lot of people are aware of the aggressive shift towards using CGI for messing around with costumes: it takes TIME and MONEY and SKILL to produce the wonderful costumes we saw in Lord of the Rings and, to be frank, the work of many many costume/IATSE union members which Amazon isn’t going to pay for. The overall time frame for producing tv/movies has gotten a lot shorter which has forced a lot of costuming departments to cut corners in design and execution.

That is how rumpled costumes make it on the screen, that is how you get so many wigs that move unnaturally, that is how the most expensive tv show ever gets such a... bland and milquetoast design. The Lord of the Rings costumes were littered with so many small and very intentional details that brought more personality to the characters and made the world seem more grounded and real.

HOWEVER- I would like to make a note on Miriel’s screen printed undershirt.

I’ve been making clothes a long time, I’ve seen a fair amount of all levels of live theater, I’ve gone to fashion exhibitions, and seen a lot of movies. What I mean to say, is that I’ve seen a lot of art involving clothes/costuming with big and small budgets and many different intentions. Over the last few years, I’ve seen the expectations for local theater and bespoke clothing rise dramatically while keeping the pay low and rushing for time- I think a lot of people are so disconnected from the process of making clothes that it’s been hard to temper your expectations away from what a big budget movie house is able to do.

I 100% Absolutely Think that Rings Of Power SHOULD have done so much better!!! They literally had so much money they could have invested in costume professionals and materials and taken their time to let a nuanced and well-made wardrobe emerge. 

But! I would like to take a moment to admire Miriel’s screen printed undershirt. I’ve seen a lot of people bash it without nuance. It’s not an appropriate solution for literally the most expensive tv show ever- but can you imagine what a clever idea this is if you were putting on a dance performance and needed a full range of movement? Or if you’re staging a production of Cinderella and bought a plastic breastplate and your producer (OhFuckOhFuckOhFuck) only budgeted $100 for a character that’s supposed to be fully armored?

Costume designers and shop workers are overwhelmingly paid less than their peers in other departments (maybe it’s because many of them are from marginalized genders.....) and frequently given a smaller budget than other departments in live theater. I recently had a friend of a friend reach out to me about a musical where they budgeted $300 for 20 full costumes!!! That’s $15 a costume from a professional theater!!!

I absolutely adore the tremendous growth in cosplay we’ve seen over the past decade and the cool costumes we’ve seen from high-budget period and fantasy shows: but a lot of your “run-of-the-mill” costume designers have been run ragged trying to meet the expectations of Hollywood movies on a shoestring budget and it’s been disheartening to see a lot of these kinds of practical solutions bashed online. There was and should have remained a distinction between the quality expectations of big budget films or the passion projects of a cosplayer VERSUS what the majority of professionals do within their budget.

I’ve heard more than a few of my fellow designers and technicians cry because a costume looked GREAT with the distance from stage to audience or properly lit- but was bashed from a close up photo or because the director didn’t like that the “illusion”/solution only worked on stage. I’ve seen catty arguments online where a costumer is trying to build their own platform shoes (VERY VERY DANGEROUS unless you’re a professional cobbler) because the show was usually done with them, their director insisted on them, and they didn’t have the resources to purchase new/used. Fuck I’ve worked rentals with people from a few of these actual high budget houses- trying to stretch a budget until it screams.

There’s a whole complicated discourse on fair wages and labor practices and budgeting that I’m not ready to get into- but I’d like to ask you to think of kindness and the suspension of disbelief. It doesn’t solve the structural problems that need to change, but a lot of professional costumers love their art/craft and are proud of the solutions they come up with in their line of work! Obviously we should expect better quality in examples like these- but I’d like to celebrate some of the costumes that are less “realistic” or “immersive” but do such a good job of conveying their part of the narrative that we overlook the proverbial screen-printed undershirt.

(Hel, Metropolis- needs no comment I love her)

(Monty Python and the Holy Grail- knitted chainmail)

(Jareth, The Labyrinth- one CRUNCHY wig)

(Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz- ruby slippers made with dyed satin and organza, three different kind of glass and plastic beads/sequins, and lit exceptionally well)

.

I’m not the expert on all of this and I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts (please be kind and act in good faith)! I’m not about to say great things about the Amazon costumes for Rings of Power, but I hope that you’ll be more forgiving online for other designers making the best of their time/budget 

Love, your local costume professional

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

With regards to the body-shaming TERFs do, it's almost gender affirmation (/hj) as a trans guy to be told pre-T that my naturally broad-ass shoulders, large ribcage, and prominent roman nose means I'm actually male and thus can never be a woman. TERFs accidentally being pro-trans, I guess?

(In all seriousness, I despise how pro-white supremacy TERFs are wrt to beauty standards for women. They care about no woman who doesn't fit cishetnormative, white, abled, perisex standards)

Rugby here in England recently banned trans women from playing on women’s teams. I think there’s only like 6 total trans women in the entire country that play the sport but that’s still 6 people who now can’t play with their teams again and the vast majority of people I saw saying it was a good decision? Were men. Men that have probably never shown an interest in women’s rugby in their entire lives.

The fact recently women who were overwhelmingly black also got banned from women’s sports bc of a “too high” natural T level shows what this is rooted in. It’s not about caring for women, it’s about transphobia, racism, intersexphobia and white cisnormative gender essentialism.

And the TERFs are licking these guy’s boots going “yes, please oppress everyone else! Until it affects me directly, I don’t care!” But sure, they’re totally against the patriarchy 🥴

[dwellordream]

“…Bachofen and more recent supporters of his theory such as G. D. Thomson maintain that a matriarchal or matrilineal order prevailed in Rome's monarchic era (which, by Roman reckoning, extended from 753 to 510 B.C.). They suppose as well that this matriarchal or mat­rilineal order was first associated with Rome's Sabine component and reached its peak during the Etruscan domination of Rome in the late seventh and sixth cen­turies B.C. According to such a view, therefore, the es­teem granted and formidability attributed to so many well-born women of the republican and early imperial periods, the very opposite of what one might expect from their lack of formal civil rights, constitutes a sur­vival of early "mother right," Sabine and Etruscan in provenance.

Yet the hypothesis that matriarchal or matrilineal ele­ments in Sabine, and in particular Etruscan, culture were absorbed into Roman civilization, though a convenient means of accounting for certain seemingly incongruous features of later republican and early imperial Roman society, poses certain problems. In the first place, the identification and isolation of purely Sabine and Etruscan components in pre-republican Roman culture are not only difficult, but fraught with complications. Scholars differ strongly over when Sabine and Etruscan influence was felt in early, "Latin," Rome, and thus where a par­ticular early Roman practice originated.

One must also consider why many practices, if indeed non-Roman in origin, were adopted. For if Roman society of the mon­ archic period is to be attributed with its own, native, Latin, practices and institutions, which it gradually ­combined with those of non-Latin (Sabine) and non-Indo- European (Etruscan) peoples, it presumably incorpo­rated solely those foreign elements which fitted its existing needs and adapted those elements to conform with its own pre-existing attitudes and usages. In fact, two of the so-called Sabine and Etruscan practices which Thomson himself remarks upon as significant "matriar­chal" features of monarchic Rome as it is portrayed by classical authors such as Livy—royal succession bya son- in-law and by a daughter's son—are also said, by Livy himself, to have first obtained among the Latins.

At 1.1.9-11 Livy depicts Rome's Trojan forefather Aeneas as able to claim the throne of Latium only after wedding the daughter of its king, Latinus; Livy later represents Aeneas' descendant Romulus and his twin brother Re­mus as claiming their monarchic rights to found a new city because their mother was daughter of Numitor, rightful king of the Latin city Alba Longa. Thus it would seem likely that if the social importance and po­litical influence ascribed to Roman women of the clas­ sical period are survivals from the years of Sabine and especially Etruscan hegemony at Rome, then the Ro­mans of those early eras must have found the general Sabine and Etruscan view of women as significant in­dividuals compatible with their own. Furthermore, the fact that a practice based on widespread human familial sentiment (such as the respect for motherhood in mon­archic Rome discerned by Bachofen and his adherents) "survives" from an earlier period should imply that the sentiment still obtains to some extent in the later period.

Concern for the origins of women's social significance and political influence in classical Roman times does not, therefore, in itself suffice: the reasons why women con­tinued to be regarded as socially significant and politi­cally influential after the monarchic, and through the classical, era deserve equal attention. Although we have relatively little knowledge of ear­liest Sabine society outside our later Roman literary sources, we do have a large body of independent evi­dence on the Etruscans in the late seventh and sixth centuries B.C. and in the several centuries thereafter.

Many Etruscan works of art and inscriptions, largely from their grave goods and cemetery decorations, still exist and reveal much about the Etruscans' lifestyle and values. This evidence, moreover, also calls the theory of Bachofen and his adherents seriously into question: it does not suggest that the Etruscans ever exalted older women by ceding to them positions of political lead­ership denied to men, or that the Etruscans ever reck­oned descent solely through the female line. In other words, the terms "matriarchy," signifying rule by mothers, and "matriliny," meaning the reckoning of ancestral descent through mothers, do not accurately represent the Etruscans' political organization or kinship structure in any period.

Indeed, the term "matriarchy" has no descriptive relevance to the political or the kinship structure of any society in which women do not mo­nopolize (or significantly control) government, but have available to them opportunities for political involvement and influence also open (and in some societies only open) to males. The term "matriliny" is similarly uninformative about any society which values maternal lineage, and mothers themselves, but not to the degree that it discounts or devalues paternal lineage and fathers. Etrus­can society seems to have provided women with op­portunities for public involvement and to have assigned great value to maternal lineage. The social importance the Etruscans accorded women and the Etruscan em­phasis on maternal ancestry have even been, as we have noted, enough to earn them a reputation among certain scholars for belief in the principle of "mother right." But as this discussion has observed and will continue to demonstrate, elite Roman society of classical times dis­played these very features as well.

Admittedly, the Etruscans differed considerably from the classical Romans in their mode of identifying women and in their definition of acceptable female behavior. Unlike their Roman counterparts, well-born Etruscan women were given individuating names and often com­memorated by indications of both their fathers' and their mothers' names. Tomb paintings and objects document that affluent Etruscan women took part in dancing and athletic exercise and indulged themselves at lavish parties and with elaborate attire, behavior which contrasts with that of Roman women. Such artifacts imply, too, that Etruscan women of high birth, in contrast to aristocratic Roman matrons, were not celebrated for wool-spinning and domestic administration. These differences be­tween Etruscan and classical Roman women are not to be dismissed.

They warrant investigation and explana­tion—through study of each larger society and its values and, more specifically, of how women were integrated into each entire culture and its institutions and beliefs. But these differences should not be exaggerated, partic­ularly by those who would explain the formidable be­ havior and image of elite Roman women in the classical era as a survival of early "mother right" connected with the Etruscans. By the same token, superficial similar­ities between later Roman and earlier Etruscan beliefs and practices relating to women do not automatically establish the former as "Etruscan legacies," nor should they be used to account for other features of republican and imperial Roman civilization; rather, they must be understood in the context of their own culture and its entire social structure.

The argument that behavioral patterns associated with early Roman "mother right" survived into the classical era is most thoroughly demolished, however, by actual examination of Roman society during its earliest years, including those in which Sabine and Etruscan culture would have exerted their greatest influence; such an ex­amination reveals the thoroughly and overwhelmingly patriarchal nature of Roman society of that time. The patriarchal nature of earliest Roman society, moreover, seems to have had its roots in the organization of the Roman family. Testimony about the earliest Romans parative materials is kept to a minimum (and restricted to other ancient cultures kindred with and familiar to the Romans them­ selves). This study does, however, seek to establish the similarities between Roman upper-class family structure and family-related eco­nomic institutions, patterns of political behavior, language, and leg­ends—especially those related, by such authors as Livy, Plutarch, and their sources, with a moralistic, "ideological," purpose—in their emphasis on certain female roles, and to argue for the cultural centrality of one, primal, female familial role to explain these similarities.

- Judith P. Hallett, “The Paradox of Elite Roman Women: Patriarchal Society and Female Formidability.” in Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family

[batbetbitbotbut]

One peaty conversation with @hebrideansky later, there is deep social context that I missed.

Access - peat was cheap and available so it was overwhelmingly the fuel of the poor (aka most people):

Wood is expensive. When the Romans invaded heavily forested England (not that it was England at the time), they cut huge amounts of forest to get wood for themselves and to remove it as a resource (fuel, hunting grounds, cover) for the native population. Our forests have never come back, making wood expensive or impossible to access on the scale needed for widespread daily use.

Surface-level coal has been gathered as fuel since pre-Roman times, but it is in very limited supply, and any kind of mining is hugely difficult. Not a major source of fuel in most of the country until the industrial revolution.

In contrast, peat can be cut by a family or a single person - it is hard work but manageable on the scale needed with the tools available (including native horse breeds which were small, stocky, and sure-footed for navigating peat bogs to haul your peats home). So people could get it themselves or buy it more cheaply than wood, but because it burns less nicely anyone who could afford an alternative would do so.

Attention - how peat fires burn fitted around poor people's lives:

A hot wood or coal fire requires more frequent attention, both for the fire itself and for any food cooking on it. Someone tied to the stove tending dinner is someone not doing other work.

In contrast, a peat fire can be left all day with food gently cooking over it, freeing up every possible household member for the endless jobs like farming, spinning, etc..

So cuisine was based around foods that you can cook this way: lots of boiling, lots of steaming, lots of slowcooked meats and mushy vegetables, locally available herbs and seasonings but strong flavours would get lost over time. Baking too, but I think not with the precision needed for fancy pastries. Frying requires a much hotter fire and closer attention so it would be out of consideration for most people.

So, yeah. Peat fire: cheap, cold, easy, kinda shit, hugely influential. I'm sorry for the many inaccuracies I have undoubtedly introduced in my summary of the topic here.

England should return to Tudor cooking immediately. there should be restaurants where i can get ethnic Redwall cuisine

[metanoiyed-archive]

The Ahistorical “Burning Times”, Or: Why White People Shouldn’t Be Trusted To Record History

*cracking knuckles* If you saw this post about this post, you know what this is about. If not, read them and come back. Without further ado: The Ahistorical “Burning Times”, Or: Why White People Shouldn’t Be Trusted To Record History.

“The important backdrop for this group is the time period that modern witches and pagans refer to as The Burning Times.”

So the first thing you’ll notice about posts or books that mentioned the ‘burning times’ is that they use very purposeful wording and diction. Notice how the OP says ‘that modern witches and pagans refer to as’ and not, “what historians refer to as”? That’s because historian’s don’t refer to it as the burning times, they refer to it as the ‘Witch Craze’ or ‘Witch Hysteria’, where many people in medieval Europe and America [14th-17th century, but 16th and 17th were the most popular years] were often falsely accused of witchcraft and hung - not burned - for the crime. During the Salem Witch Trials, especially, people like to say ‘we are the granddaughters of witches you couldn’t burn’ -- but no witches were even burned at the stake in Salem (1). Accusing someone of witchcraft was very, very often a political tool used by the Roman Catholic Church or others who operated under it to execute whomever they wished, but we’ll get to that in a second.

“Europe and America were thrust into a moral panic and hysteria over alleged satanic witches. Most of those accused were midwives, healers, poor women, women suffering from mental health issues, and women who were practicing preChristian traditions.” So... Yes to: hysteria, healers and women suffering from mental health issues and practicing pre-Christian traditions. No to pretty much everything else. Men who were healers or suffering mental health issues were also accused, but that’s because anyone could call witchcraft like a boy crying wolf and it was believed. In my ‘A Deed Without A Name’ notes, I go over how in some cases it appears that a certain aspect of people who are in some way different can indicate they’re touched, but often in the past I’m inclined to think in most cases it was simply used to execute people. Also, they killed people practicing pre-Christian traditions because they were racist Europeans and colonialists, and most of the time those pre-Christian traditions were by POC. 14th Century-17th Century is by no means pre-Christian, by that point a lot of folk belief in Europe had been touched by Christian belief, not so much that it entirely changed it, but enough. ‘Alleged’ Satanic witches? Are we just purposefully looking away from Isobel Gowdie’s confession before she was executed? Confessions of people [of those who confessed and were actually witches] who made deals with the Devil/Man in Black/Witchfather in some form are overwhelmingly common. (2).

“Many witches fear a return to the Burning Times, when any old woman was burned at the stake for merely existing below the poverty level.” I really have nothing groundbreaking to say about this one, just that I hate the OP for making me look at it and I hope they stub their toe. ‘fear a return to the burning times’ my ass.

“The total number of those murdered under the guise of witch accusations varies widely by source. Many historians have argued that the number is anywhere between 40,000 and 60,000. Other sources, however, have claimed the number is closer to 100,000 with potentially hundreds of thousands more unaccounted for. It has even been suggested that there were 392,000 in Great Britain alone. The highest number, and number that has become part of popular legend, is approximately 9 million (with the fullness of the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition included). It will never be certain how many women, men, and children were killed, and truthfully the numbers game is irrelevant in the face of trauma. Any genocide, no matter how big or small, is a moral stain on our history.”

Other sources? What sources. You don’t name any of yours, I noticed. ‘Any genocide ... a moral stain on our history’ yet I am sure you turn a blind eye to the plight of those right in front of you, while my people suffer a real continued genocide, you make a fantasy crime. Statista did a chart on how many people were tried and executed between 1300 and 1850, and the number is even lower than you think. (3). 

“The Burning Times were a systematic rooting out of female power and autonomy, and non-christian practices. The midwives and healers posed a threat to the structures and systems of politics and medicine... both groups challenging the patriarchy.” This sounds... so fishy. Doesn’t this sound like a weird radical-feminist argument? I’m not implying anything about OP, but the way this whole paragraph reads while trying to include ‘men, women and children’ and then focusing on how this was a whole attack on the women against the patriarchy just... grosses me out, a lot. Because it was never about that, has never been about that, and will never be about that. I also just don’t trust people who refer to women as ‘females’ but that’s just me.

“Most of the following women were (wrongfully) believed to have had sexual intercourse with Satan, signing their names into his black book with their blood.” Again, are we just ignoring Isobel Gowdie’s straight up confession? Or any of the other confessions from Scotland, England, and surrounding areas? This stupid purity culture of wanting to be seen as better to outsiders is so annoying. “I’m not like that trope of witches you’ve seen, we don’t actually have sex with the Devil or sign his black book with blood!” Just because some of us aren’t worried to get our hands dirty and you are doesn’t mean that other witches don’t do that. “wrongfully” where the fuck are you getting your information? Many confessions that they did get included detailed accounts of joining the Man in Black for sabbats, having sex with him, and signing his black book. Not everyone continues the practice today, but some definitely do, they definitely did, and it definitely wasn’t “wrongfully believed”. They were powerful women in their own right. If anything OP, by trying to separate themselves from the legacy of these women, has disgraced them in that way. It takes courage and strength to work with infernal forces from the otherside like that, and here this asshole is just shittin’ on their name pretending they never risked their lives doing it. A source on this from Isobel Gowdie, “As I was going betuix the townes of Drumdewin and the Headis, I met with the Devil, and ther covenanted, in a maner, with him.” and from ‘A Deed Without A Name’ by Lee Morgan, “As we can see when we look over the testimonies of witches from earlier times not everyone is initially approached by an animal spirit. Isobel Gowdie seems to have initially been approached by ‘the Devil’, Bessie Dunlop by a faerie man who claims to have once lived as a human man, others were taken by faeries or by the spirit of another living human practitioner.” (4)

And obviously there are various other sources, these are not the only ones. I’m just too tired to go through my library, cite them all, attach them all - y’all gotta do your own work for once. Read actual history, please. Learn discernment. I don’t even have the energy to go through the list of people the OP put as ‘in memoriam’ because I have no idea if those are historical reasons, either, but honestly I don’t even wanna know. Anyway, it’s bullshit and ahistorical, thanks for coming to my tedtalk. If you push this narrative you owe Black, Native, Jewish people and anyone else otherwise affected by the witch-craze repatriations immediately, I don’t make the rules except I do and those are the rules.

Citations:

Andrews, Evan. “Were Witches Burned at the Stake during the Salem Witch Trials?” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Aug. 2014, www.history.com/news/were-witches-burned-at-the-stake-during-the-salem-witch-trials.

Wilby, E. (2013). The visions of Isobel Gowdie: Magic, witchcraft and dark shamanism in seventeenth-century Scotland. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.

McCarthy, Niall, and Felix Richter. “Infographic: The Death Toll Of Europe's Witch Trials.” Statista Infographics, 29 Oct. 2019, www.statista.com/chart/19801/people-tried-and-executed-in-witch-trials-in-europe/

Morgan, Lee. A Deed without a Name: Unearthing the Legacy of Traditional Witchcraft. Moon Books, 2013. 

[nanshe-of-nina]

I’m bored and felt like making a post debunking some of the myths I’ve seen about the Day of the Dead or Día de Muertos that I keep seeing on the internet.

Myth: Day of the Dead is nothing like Halloween whatsoever.

The two holidays aren't identical by any means, but they do share a common root in the Roman Catholic celebrations of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. All Saints' Day is a day of celebration of all saints, whether recognized or not, and a saint, in this context, simply refers to all people who have died and gone to heaven. All Souls' Day, on the other hand, is meant to celebrate and mourn all people who have died.

The specifically American ways of celebrating Halloween overwhelmingly originated in the British Isles. The use of pumpkins in American Halloween came about because turnips were in short supply and trick-or-treating derives primarily from the practice in medieval Scotland, England, and Ireland of souling: going door to door between October 31 and November 2 asking for ale and soul cakes in exchange for saying prayers for others’ deceased relatives, so that said relatives could spend less time in Purgatory being cleansed of their sins. Dressing in costumes to do this probably comes from the tradition of mumming.

While the practice of souling wasn’t especially widespread outside of the British Isles, the custom of visiting cemeteries to light candles and lay flowers on their graves of your relatives and eating sweets on these days was and is very widespread.

For instance, the photos below are from Poland and France:

Meanwhile, the idea that the period between October 31 and November 2 was a time when ghosts and spirits would be especially active, due to the veil between the material world and the afterlife thinning, was also very widespread. 

Myth: Sugar skulls were used by the Aztecs.

I've seen this one floating around on the internet, but none of the people who claim seem to have noticed that the rather tiny problem that making sugar skulls requires white sugar and there was no sugarcane in the pre-Colombian Americas. It was only introduced by the Portuguese and Spanish, who then used extensive slave labor in the Caribbean to cultivate it.

The truth is that the custom of making molded sugar treats instead comes from the Spanish Alfeñique, which were in turn derived from the Andalusi sweets known as al-Fānīd. The "dough" of al-Fānīd was made of a mixture of sugar, honey, water, and almonds, similar to nougat.

Like I said before, though, the practice of eating sweets and baked goods between November 1-2 is widespread. In the British Isles, it was soul cakes; in Austria and southern Germany, it’s Allerheiligenstriezel; in Catalonia, it’s Panellets; in Lombardy, it's Pan dei Morti; in Poland, it's Pańska skórka and soul bread; and so on. Indeed, though not observed at the same time, the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic equivalent of All Souls’ Day, Saturday of Souls, involves the consumption of Koliva.

The question of why specifically Mexican sweets for these celebrations, though, are shaped like skulls, skeletons, and coffins is a very good question without a definite answer.

It’s certainly true that skeletons and skulls were used in Mesoamerican and Roman Catholic sacred art, but it’s important to remember that they occurred in completely different contexts. (To put it bluntly: neither the Tzompantli nor the Memento mori were meant to be particularly funny). Instead, the historical anthropologist Stanley Brandes speculates that the most likely origin for the sugar skulls and the satirical art of José Guadalupe Posada was because of the omnipresence of death after the Spanish conquest of Mexico:

Under the circumstances, it seems reasonable to posit that the Day of the Dead became ritualistically elaborate in Mexico as a by-product of this loss of life. Not only did people die in staggering numbers, but they were also uprooted and resettled in unfamiliar territory. ...

During colonial times, sugar figurines with mortuary themes must have had a profound psychological impact. It is significant in this context that they are ephemeral. This quality is what enabled people simultaneously to confront and to deny the death that they celebrated ritually and that was a biological catastrophe of their times and those of their ancestors. The humor and whimsy of the figurines, too, must have assisted the inhabitants of New Spain in coping with dire demographic circumstances by mocking, and thereby implicitly denying, the tragic reality experienced by them and their forebears.

In the colonial era, death figures, to be sure, were the combined iconographic offspring of Mesoamerican and European civilizations. However, the images no doubt took firm hold in New Spain because of the demographic collapse, the cruel, relentless, utterly public presence of death. The figurines were and always have been particularly available during, and appropriate to, the Day of the Dead, a community holiday in which the common fate of humanity is commemorated. They have never been associated with funerals, honoring the death of particular relatives. This distinction casts serious doubt on claims, summarized earlier in this article, that Mexicans display a unique relationship with death.

Further Reading:

Sugar, Colonialism, and Death: On the Origins of Mexico's Day of the Dead

[forbidden-sorcery]

Until the advent of neopaganism, paganism had always been a derogatory term denoting any non-Christian religion. As it is derogatory, it would be accurate but insulting to call the religious practices of Hindus ‘pagan’. Because, however, our ancestors find no shelter under a multi-cultural umbrella, are protected by no legislation, will never have to be confronted face to face, and are remote enough to be gratuitously insulted, we have the freedom to call them ‘pagans’ and mentally to demean their cultures. Thus overwhelmingly ‘paganism’ refers intolerantly to the pre-Christian religious practices of Europe and that is what it was originally designed for. A paganus is a ‘villager’; why this should come to mean ‘pagan’ is not clear. Zahn suggested in 1899 that it extended the sense ‘local people, non-combatants’ in reference to the ‘soldiers’ who fight the good fight in the metaphorical army of Christ. More usually, the ‘villager’ has been seen as a backward country person, a yokel, who is still engaged in the rustic error of paganism. This would then go back to the difficulty which Christianity experienced in advancing from the towns of the Roman Empire into the countryside. The problem is that the word pagani applies as much to townspeople as to rural people. To solve this problem, Chuvin has proposed returning to an earlier interpretation that they ‘are quite simply “people of the place,” town or country, who preserved their local customs, where as the alieni, the “people from elsewhere,” were increasingly Christian’. Be that as it may, paganism did in fact last longest in the countryside and rustici (‘country-people, rustics’) becomes a term interchangeable with pagani.

Ken Dowden - European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

[rosesisupposes]

To Dust or To Gold

Part 8 of Another Goddamn Hero Story

read on ao3

Chapter Pairings: established Royality, Analogical, pre-romantic LAMP (emphasis on Moxiety and Logince)

Chapter Warnings: Hospitals, death threats, background character deaths, some gore, hallucinations, self-hatred, bipolar cycling (both depressive and manic), cliffhanger ending :D

Word Count:  9,395 [it’s a doozy]

Taglist: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice   @jemthebookworm @arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse @thelowlysatsuma @monsterinatophat @turtally-pawsome @um-yes-hi-hello @idkaurl @potestessemagishomosexualitatis @hawthornshadow

~~~~~~~~~~

“So,” Logan began.

“So,” Roman responded, reclining in an ornate ruby chair.

“Sew buttons!” Patton interrupted, draping himself across Roman’s lap.

Virgil growled in frustration. “Can you please focus for a single second?”

The heroes had relocated to the supers’ gym, still anxious to keep the untested villains away from the mayor.

“We don’t take orders, Reflex,” the Marauder replied evenly. “We’re only here because you two don’t seem as incompetent as the rest of the super assholes.”

“You don’t need to take orders,” Logan said, shooting Virgil a reassuring look even as he spoke. “We just need to know what exactly you can do, and plan how we’ll stay in contact.”

“Asking for my number already? I couldn’t possibly, not so soon,” Roman responded, fluttering his eyelashes.

“We’re not joining your ‘hatchet’ or whatever you call it,” Patton added. “We’re here to take down a murderer, not get sucked into the system.”

“We’re not asking you to join H.A.T.C.H.,” Logan said patiently. “But if we don’t know where you are or how to contact you, that just makes you a liability.”

“Actually it’s just an air ability,” Patton quipped back. His lips didn’t twitch. He didn’t grin. But the smugness was palpable from across the gym. Logan lost his train of thought at the overwhelmingly familiar feeling of a punster at work. He could practically see his dad’s irritatingly-pleased grin shining through Patton’s smooth mask.

Virgil, a true hero, came to Logan’s rescue. “So, air ability. Air manipulation, no matter where the air is, yeah? Inside or outside of a person?”

Gale Force paused, then nodded.

“And you, Shiny Red Boy, any limitations we need to know about?”

The Crimson Marauder gasped. “Shiny red boy? That’s the best you can do? I am appalled, I am disgusted, I spend my life dedicated to being chaotic neutral and this is the thanks I get??”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Okay, Drama Red Queen, shall I paint the roses for you or are you going to answer the question?”

“Joke’s on you, I like that nickname,” Roman said with a sniff. “I just need to keep focused. And my constructs can only be autonomous if they’re tiny. And I can’t do more overall mass at once than something about the size of this entire room.”

Logan looked around the echoing room, designed for whole teams of heroes to practice in at once. “That’s some power,” he said softly. “And limited only by strength of mind. Fascinating.”

“And what about you two?” Patton asked in a saccharine-sweet voice. “You wouldn’t get us to divulge details without returning the favor, would you?”

“I have, as you’ve seen, a super speed ability. I can also speed read or manipulate just a hand or limb to go at enhanced speeds. I can go from 0 to 60 in .0001 seconds, and my top recorded speed is 1,700 miles per hour, or approximately 2,700 kilometers per hour.” Logan responded matter-of-factly.

“And what about you, Tall, Dark, and Muscly?” Roman asked.

“I picked my super name as Reflex for a reason. I’ve got fight, flight, and freeze. Super strength, superflight that can rival the Doc here for speed, and the shockwave you both saw the other day. I send out a burst of energy that stuns or knocks out anyone in a given radius.”

“Can you control who it affects?” Patton asked curiously. “Or is it just anyone?”

Virgil’s mouth twisted. “I can sometimes control it, yes. If I’m focused, and I’m not too upset at the time. It’s not guaranteed.”

“How upset were you the other day then?”

“You’d just attacked my partner. I was pissed, but in control. If you’d more seriously injured L- the Doctor, you might have needed more than one day to wake up from the coma I put you both in.”

“Partners are important,” Patton said softly, running a hand through Roman’s dark, wavy hair. He turned and made eye contact with the heroes. “If you hurt him, I will end you.” It wasn’t a threat, but a statement of fact.

Virgil locked eyes with the villain, jerking his head at Logan. “And if you hurt him, you’ll wish I’d only killed you.”

Roman chuckled, flashing a smile at Logan over Patton’s curly head. “Aww, look at then, they’re bonding!”

Logan looked up at his partner and back to Gale Force. “They’re bonding over death threats. I don’t think this is how I expected a hero-villain team-up to go.”

“It’s okay, Doc, you and me are clearly the pretty faces of our respective teams next to the brawn of our boys here.”

“Excuse you, I did not get three degrees in the time it takes most people to get one to be called just a pretty face,“ Logan said with an frown.

“Doesn’t make it any less true, though,” the Marauder replied with a wink. “Your face is pretty, you gotta accept it.”

Logan stared at the villain. “Is this flirting?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“No, I’m legitimately asking, I’m apparently unable to identify it on my own.”

Virgil and Patton stopped staring one another down in time to hear the last comment. Virgil snorted. “Doc, you have understatement down to an art.”

“Shush, you,” Logan said, blushing faintly.

“Do you have, like, a crush on him?” Roman gushed.

“Please, no-”

“Oooohhhh, he totally has a crush on him!!” Patton chimed in, bouncing in Roman’s lap.

“Reflex, I take all of this back, this was a terrible idea, I’m leaving…”

Virgil gently nudged Logan with a shoulder. “No you won’t. This is too important. And you and I are good, no matter what.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Darling, I think they might be gay,” Roman stage-whispered to Patton.

“And I think you might be annoying,” Virgil shot back. “Enough fucking around. We know your powers, you know ours. What we don’t know is anything about the bastard out here killing our city.”

Logan adjusted the goggles on top of his head. “We can tell you what we know from the Mayor. It’s not much. They clearly can cause some sort of nightmare or hallucination in others. The survivor mentioned the outline of a smile in the dust clouds.”

“Like the Cheshire Cat,” Roman murmured. “How very Carollian.” Logan started, a curious expression on his face as he looked at the taller villain.

Winds gusted around Gale Force as he lifted himself up off of his partner’s lap. “A survivor? Who saw what happened?”

“Yes, a teenage girl. She’s in the hospital.”

“Could we ask her for more detail?” Virgil mused aloud. “Get a full description of events, see if there are any little details she may have missed?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

~~~~~~~~~~

To say that the hospital staff reacted oddly to seeing the until-recently most prominent villains strolling in the front door, accompanied but not restrained by some of the best-loved heroes would be putting it mildly. Reflex had to undergo a brief concussion test administered by a well-meaning emergency tech, and Doctor Vectorious had to calmly talk a doctor into putting the defibrillator back on the wall and stop brandishing it as a weapon.

Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, Virgil politely asked after their patient.

“Ah, yes. She’s conscious and stable, if still very shaken. Her family is in with her right now.”

“Can we see her?”

“Not all of you! Pick just one, and her mom stays no matter who it is.”

Virgil nodded. “We should ask who she wants in there. Who she’d be most comfortable with. She’s just a kid, after all.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ll ask. You may wait here.” She paused, looking around the waiting room with many sets of staring eyes. “On second thought, follow me.”

Patton seemed completely oblivious to their observers. Roman stared at his surroundings as they walked, sniffing the air frequently. Virgil walked closer than normal to Logan, accidentally bumping him several times as he fought the urge to shrink into the hoodie he wasn’t wearing.

The doctor showed them to a smaller, empty waiting room and left them there with a brisk nod.

“Why’s it smell so weird here?” Roman finally asked.

“Weird?”

“Like, sharp. Stinging in smell form. Kinda acrid, I guess. But also a bit like soap?”

“That’s the antiseptic,” Logan said. “Have you not been in a hospital before?”

Roman went quiet, then finally said, “I haven’t been to a doctor’s office before. Not that I remember, anyway.”

Logan pursed his lips and Virgil was about to speak when the doctor returned.

“The patient has made her request,” she began.

“Yes?”

“...she asked for him,” the woman replied, pointing at the Crimson Marauder.

The group looked to Roman, then back at the doctor as one.

“I confirmed it with her. She specifically requested ‘the red one.’”

Roman nervously adjusted his cape and mask. “Can she speak to me now?”

“Yes, follow me.”

He stepped into the indicated door to see a middle-aged woman with plenty of silver threads in her plump braid helping the young woman on the cot drink from a pink plastic cup. “Um, hi, Ms. and Miss Rodrigeuz. I’m the Crimson Marauder,” he began.

The young woman sat up without her mother’s help, leaning forward eagerly.

“Are you really, though?”

“...would anyone try to impersonate me?”

“I mean… I saw the group. You’re with the heroes again. Are you still the Marauder if you’re back?” she asked with a bruised smile. 

“Back…?”

“You don’t remember me, do you. I was probably one of many people who thanked you, back in your Prince days.”

Roman’s eyes went wide. “Sofia? That Sofia?” he asked, voice cracking. “The little princess?”

“You do remember,” her mom commented softly, brushing a gentle hand through Sofia’s hair. “She kept that crown for years. Even when she insisted that princesses were ‘only for los niños’, she would keep pulling it out when she thought we couldn’t see.”

Roman swallowed a lump in his throat. “I could never forget. You were the first person ever to thank me. The first civilian to treat me like a real hero.”

“Only the first civilian?”

“I- another hero did, too. Many years ago.”

Sofia tilted her head. Her bruises were shockingly colorful, and she spoke carefully around a tender jaw, but she seemed otherwise in one piece. “Why did you stop?”

“What?”

“You were ours. The Prince of Sycamore Heights. Why did you become a villain?”

Roman looked down. “It’s… complicated. But I thought I could do a better job for our home this way.”

“Things did get better,” her mom said. “For years, it was so much better. After you got rid of the Patrol.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Roman responded automatically.

“You and Copper Eye. I remember,” Sofia said. “I loved watching her work.”

“So did I,” Roman said quietly, swiping at the tear wriggling out of his eye. He swallowed and settled his shoulders, trying to compose himself. “Sofia, can I ask you about what you remember about this attack?”

“It’s not much,” she warned.

“Anything helps. We’re going to get whoever did this. I promise.”

Sofia looked up, meeting his eyes directly. “Don’t promise unless you mean it.”

Roman looked back steadily, and placed a hand over his heart. “I, the Crimson Marauder, formerly the Scarlet Prince, promise you, Sofia Rodriguez: we’ll get the one who hurt you and all those people, or die in the attempt.”

Sofia nodded fiercely. “Here’s what I remember.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The Crimson Marauder sat on a red swing floating from nothing as Gale Force reclined on air beside him. They faced the heroes, who were more sensibly sitting on the edge of the roof of an office building near the middle of the city. All four contemplated the details Roman had shared in their own ways. A tiny tornado ran up and down Patton’s fingers, Roman created and vanished mini constructs, Logan’s fingers tapped so quickly they left erosion trails on the concrete, and Virgil hummed tunelessly under his breath.

“You know what seems weird to me?” Reflex said at length. “I don’t know if this means anything, but your friend seems like an extremely level-headed teenager. And yet...”

“...you gonna finish that or do you just think teenagers are dumb.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’re dumb, they just scare the living shit out of me,” Virgil said with a quirk in his smile. “No, she seems really collected, really rational, and yet she didn’t think twice before leaving safety to get to her family.”

“It’s family,” Patton said curtly. “Of course she didn’t.”

“Believe me, I understand protecting family,” Virgil replied. “But not even trying to confirm? Not even when she saw others running? It seems like she was just operating off panic.”

“You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Brendon Urie Wannabe,” Roman snarked. But he had also reached out and grabbed Patton’s hand, squeezing reassurance to his partner to counteract the dark cloud spread across his face.

“Do you think that tells us something about how the villain operates?” Doctor Vectorious asked Reflex, pushing them back on track.

“Maybe it’s more than just visual hallucinations?”

“Hm, interesting theory, but-” Logan began, when their watches began to blare with a new H.A.T.C.H. alert.

“Fuck, the harbor!” Virgil said.

“Southeast,” Logan said at the same time. He looked up at both villains. “Meet us there.”

Reflex was already soaring away, a streak of black and purple stretching through the city. A second blur joined him, black and white and blue paralleling his trajectory from the ground.

Roman squeezed Patton’s hand once more, tightly. “We’re doing this, yeah?”

“We are. We have to.”

“Okay then. Time for some thrilling heroics.”

As one, they went from sitting to moving, both riding a red hang glider that sped as quickly as the ripping wind that sprang up to carry it.

They soared over the city towards the water, following the heroes. Roman nudged Patton as they approached.

“What is that?”

“Looks like a dust cloud. Someone’s being naughty.”

“Should we land?”

Patton nodded, letting go of the frame to point to roof where the heroes were braced, trying to see into the obscured area. He floated down to land softly, Roman a breath behind him. They stared at the enormous cloud of dust and debris, trying to make out what was happening underneath.

Reflex frowned. “It’s not moving.”

Doctor Vectorious nodded. “If it were a true debris cloud, it should be dissipating or growing, not just staying static. It’s obscuring something, and I can’t tell what.”

“Maybe I can help clear things up,” Gale Force offered, sending winds towards the very center of the obstruction. Dust and rocks and debris blew up and away, out of the three-block radius and into the harbor.

The Crimson Marauder gasped aloud as the cloud faded. “Whatever I was expecting, that wasn’t it.”

The dust cloud had been pushed away. But a dark mass remained. It oozed through the streets, a bulbous form that dragged on corners and sidewalks but left no residue. It was mesmerizing, in an off-putting way. Colors shifted and played over its dark surface like far-off nebulas brought to earth, now an orange veil, now pink, now a green or blue haze. It absorbed light rather than giving any off, but besides the flicker of changing colors, no movement was seen.

“...I know I’m gonna regret this, but I think we should go straight into it,” Reflex offered, stepping out into the open air. “We need to know if it’s solid, and this is where the alert said the disturbance was.”

“Are all heroes dumb enough to wander into Definitely-Murderous-Glow-Clouds or is it just you?” Gale Force asked mildly.

“All hail the Glow Cloud,” Logan and Roman said at the same time, then scowled at the other for having the same thought.

“What else do you suggest then?”

Patton huffed, and paced on the edge of the roof. “...I don’t know.”

“We’ll send the strongest two first, then,” Doctor Vectorious mused. “‘Flex, you fly in with Gale Force to blow off any more debris, and to see if you can wind-funnel your way in. We’ll back you up, ready to pull you out if needed, or Marauder here can add a construct tunnel if you’re able to open it up. Is that acceptable?”

Patton frowned at what felt like condescension, at this hero trying to tell them what to do. But, with resignation, he realized he didn’t have a better plan, and Valerie’s murderer could be getting away right now for all they knew. Stiffly, he nodded his assent.

Roman cupped his neck, fingers tangled in the curls at his nape. “Be careful, gingerpie,” he whispered. “If you die, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Don’t worry, honeygold, I’ll be your boo no matter what,” Patton murmured back with a grin. He kissed Roman firmly on the mouth, right under his mask.

“I’m too pretty to date a ghost,” Roman complained, but he was smiling all the same.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Okay, Hurricane Gay-trina, let’s not waste any more time. Can you make a wind tunnel I can fly through without getting hurt?”

Without a word, air raced past them into a clear cone that hollowed out, a tube of rushing wind that stretched from their spot towards the mass. Virgil acknowledged his villain partner with a two-fingered salute and sped down it, rocketing towards the form that continued to shift colors. He extended a clenched fist, bracing himself to collide with the edge, ready to use all his strength to bust through if possible.

Instead of hitting a hard edge, though, he just passed into it as the sun disappeared. Darkness surrounded him, the pitch black of an overcast midnight. He could suddenly hear impacts, crunching rock and shouts and screams, and froze. He couldn’t move suddenly, not without seeing around him. He might hurt those near him worse with too fast a movement or a misplaced step.

Virgil had never expected to experience relief at seeing Gale Force, but the tunnel of wind opened up the mass and brought in Patton and the setting sunlight in a joint beam. “It worked!” Virgil said. “Quick, blow away as much of this as you can. I can try to stun everyone if I need to.”

The villain didn’t pause or argue, but multiplied the cyclone until copies branched out in all directions. They punched through the dark haze in dozens of places, bringing in the scant evening light and blessedly fresh air. Some of the screams faded, and Virgil could finally see the faces of surrounding civilians as their terror faded into confusion.

Both hero and villain could see what had caused the screams. A young villain, a H.E.A.R.T.S. dropout Virgil remembered, had paused in the center of the chaos. They blinked, slowly shrinking their hands back from huge, car-sized fists to normal limbs. The villain looked around them, and down at their torn costume. It was as bloody and ripped as their hands, the bold gold and red of a ringmaster’s coat turned into something out of a horror film. The Contortionist fell heavily to their knees, still shaken.

A burst of blue fire brought attention to the other active combatant. This was a current H.E.A.R.T.S. student, not yet a full hero, and even through her mask it was clear she was terrified. Another flash of light and she popped into being closer to the newcomers.

“V- I mean, Reflex?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“It’s really me, Blynk,” he reassured her, crouching slightly to shrink the almost-foot difference in their heights.

“I- where did they go? The ones attacking me? They were… everywhere.” She balled one hand in the loose blue dress that made up her costume as the other pulled up the attached hood nervously.

“It was an illusion,” Patton explained. “This new villain, Agent Whisper. They make you see things that aren’t there.”

“I couldn’t get away,” she whispered. “No matter how many times I teleported, they were still there to catch me.”

“They’re gone,” Virgil assured her. “You’re safe.” He offered his arms, and the young hero dove into his embrace. Speaking over her head, he looked up at his villain partner. “Can you fully break this up?”

“Here comes Mister Blue Sky,” Patton said with incongruous cheer, expanding the existing funnels. Light filled more and more of their view until the full sky returned and the last of the strange substance melted into air.

A zip and a thud heralded the arrival of the missing hero-villain pair.

“Good work,” Logan told them both. “A small bit seemed to split off, but you cleared the area and appear to have fully disrupted any illusions.”

“They got away?” Patton asked sharply. “Which direction?” He was already started to drift into the air.

Virgil grabbed the loose tunic and tugged him down. “We can’t just chase after them!”

“Why the fuck not?”

The angry question was spat into Virgil’s face, but it was Logan and Roman who answered simultaneously, “We need to help the people here.”

The fading sunlight showed just how right they were. Craters littered the landscape around them. So did bodies. Every visible face was bruised or bloody, but luckily, most were moving as civilians picked themselves up out of the wreckage.

Logan was already confirming that emergency care was on the way as he zipped around the battlefield, assisting where he could. Roman took one look at the injured and started to conjure glowing splints and crutches.

Patton was still staring angrily at the direction Logan had indicated was  that of Agent Whisper’s escape, straining at Virgil’s hold. “Let me the fuck go,” he snapped. “I’m not here to be your goddamn hero, I’m here for revenge.”

“You think I don’t get that?” Virgil snapped back. “I want the bastard dead as much as you do, so don’t think for a second that you have a monopoly on rage here.”

“Then what are we waiting for? We’re the strongest and those two both know it. Let’s follow this piece of shit, grind them into dust, and be fucking done with this ‘partnership.’”

Virgil’s grip slackened for a second as he looked around them, a cloud of anger on his face. But it passed, and he pulled Gale Force all the way back to earth. “We can’t just rush in. This isn’t just for revenge: it’s to stop more people getting hurt. And it’s because we’re the strongest that we can’t risk blazing through, because we’ll be the reason more are hurt.”

Patton crossed his arms, glaring at the taller man. “What makes you think I care about a couple of casualties if it means I get revenge?”

“Because you’re still human,” Reflex responded. His gaze was level, understanding. “If all you wanted was their death at any cost, you wouldn’t have come to us. I’m not asking you to admit anything, but I have a feeling you know more about collateral damage than you ever wanted to know.” A nerve in Patton’s cheek jumped at that and Virgil nodded. “Like I said. Not asking you to admit anything. But I get it. I never wanted to be a hero. But then my partner convinced me that it’s not about getting recognition, it’s not about the fights. It’s about doing the best you can for as many people as you can. It’s about using these powers I never asked for to do what others can’t.”

Patton grumbled, but assented. “Fine. What can I do here, then?”

“Help me with the rubble? Drop it in the harbor if you need to.”

Reflex and Gale Force joined their partners in cleaning up the disaster zone. ‘Flex lifted enormous chunks of rock and concrete gently to free trapped limbs or to uncover more bodies. He tossed them into the air, where the wind-manipulator caught them and floated them safely to the water.

The Crimson Marauder flew into the air to check for more injured civilians, held aloft by his glowing hands. He was aware of Doctor Vectorious moving quickly somewhere below him, running up buildings and around the square to find civilians who’d been outside as well as in the surrounding apartments and offices. Was anyone limping? Anyone who needed a temporary bandage? Where was the emergency services van, shouldn’t they be here?

A huge crack of of rubble and rock shifting distracted him, and he whirled to see where the noise was coming from. By the time he registered that it was just Reflex working with Patton (aww, his love was working with one of his crushes!), he’d lost focus and his glow went out. He fell, stomach dropping as he tried to conjure something, anything, even just a mattress or a trampoline to break his fall.

A warm impact hit him as a blur originating from a nearby roof crashed into him and carried them both to a fire escape on the other side of the narrow street. The blur resolved back into Doctor Vectorious, and he found himself being held in the shorter man’s arms.

The speedster stared for a moment, then looked away with a slight pink tinge to his pale cheeks. “You’re, um,” he said, jerking his head towards him without looking back. “Uncovered.”

Roman started, feeling his face. The impact had knocked off his mask, and the hero was pointedly looking away to preserve his identity.

Or, perhaps, Logan was looking away because his internal monologue had been hijacked by the phrase, “Oh fuck, he’s hot.”

Roman quickly conjured a replacement mask and slid out of Logan’s hold to stand on his own again. The hero remained with his gaze averted until a siren’s blare drew close, announcing the arrival of the emergency crew.

“Thank fuck,” Roman sighed, and flew himself down to greet them. He explained quickly that his constructs needed to be replaced now so that they wouldn’t fade if they got too far away. He was already grateful that they’d be detached from him long enough that they hadn’t faded when he momentarily lost focus, and was eager to be able to draw back his energies further.

Virgil, Logan, and Patton ferried the injured from ruins of the street to the vans, including both the young hero and villain to the separate supers truck. Finally, they were able to move out. The heroes had acquired a better-functioning scanner for the villains, one that could call them specifically when they were needed, and allowed the villains to call them securely if they should so choose. About to part, Reflex paused, and offered Gale Force a handshake. Warily, the villain accepted, and the Marauder did too, in turn. Doctor Vectorious was more hesitant, but copied his partner.

Back in Logan’s apartment, the shorter man washed his face thoroughly, still shivering slightly at the remembrance of so many hurt. “How many casualties was it, all told?”

“Ten. All civilians. Both The Contortionist and Blynk are on bed rest, but they’ll recover. Total injuries are at about 25 people, but the techs said at least ten additional civilians avoided worse injuries that could have lead to critical conditions thanks to our timing as a group.”

Logan sighed. “I know I should be grateful that we were able to help so many, proportionally, but…”

“I know.”

“This villain is no joke, Virge. 35 deaths and it hasn’t yet been two days.”

“We’ll get them, Lo. I promise.”

Logan looked up. Virgil was back in civilian clothes that he left here in his partner’s apartment, one of his trusty black hoodies unzipped over a plain tee and sweatpants. Logan had changed back into his version of casual: a button-up not fully buttoned, no tie, and jeans.

“Speaking of promises…” he began. He ran a hand through already-mussed hair. “I was cut off, yesterday. I know that there are bigger, more pressing issues now but I still want to finish the thought I was trying to express.”

“Lo, it’s okay if you don’t return the sentiment, you know that, right? I’ll still love you as a friend no matter what.”

Logan sat next to Virgil on the couch. “I appreciate that, Vee, but that’s not where I was going.”

“Oh?” Virgil asked, smiling hopefully.

“I apologize for my obliviousness, Virgil, and for how long it took me to put this together, but I believe I feel the same type of romantic sentiment towards you as you’ve expressed that you feel towards me.” Logan reached out a tentative hand to take Virgil’s in his.

“You’re sounding like a textbook again, Lo,” Virgil teased, squeezing Logan’s hand.

“Sorry, I just-”

“I’m not complaining, not in the slightest. It’s part of you, ya know? It’s part of the charm.” He shifted over on the couch until their thighs were touching, and, receiving a nod of approval, draped an arm around his partner’s shoulders. “I love you, Logan.”

Logan blushed deep. “I love you as well, Virgil.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Please do.”

Lips met in tentative sweetness and softness, neither pushing or needing to. This was them, comfort and companionship that felt as natural as breathing. And at this particular moment, breathing was the more difficult option of the two.

At long last, Logan broke off and looked up into Virgil’s dark eyes. “Are we… dating? It seems like an odd term, or at the very least an odd distinction.”

“I mean. We’re already partners,” Virgil said with a shrug and a grin.

“Oh no, don’t you start on puns too, now. There’s already Dad and Gale Force, I refuse to take any more of this.”

“Okay, okay,” Virgil said, laughing. “I’ll have mercy. Because I love you.” He most definitely did not add in the phrase because it was a relief to say it out loud after so many years of thinking it. He would definitely not continue to sprinkle it in liberally after seeing Logan’s pink-cheeked reaction to hearing it.

“I must say, I was quite impressed by the Marauder today. I thought he’d entirely turned his back on heroing when he realigned, but it appears he really is a hero at heart. Or, at the very least, a super who cares about the well-being of civilians over his personal gain.”

“Almost like people can have a change of heart without a change of personality,” Virgil commented mildly.

“He’s still a villain, though,” Logan added sharply. “And don’t think I didn’t see Gale Force trying to run off before you talked him down.”

Virgil sighed, letting his arm fall off Logan’s shoulders. “He’s not all bad, Lo. He’s just an angry human with far too many scars that haven’t come close to healing yet.”

“So are you. And yet you’re still a hero.”

“But I’ve had you, for nine years. He only has whats-his-name. Roman. Princey. Who’s just as burned, if not quite so angry.” Virgil’s voice was soft.

Logan frowned. “Why make excuses for them?”

“Because it’s not hard for me to picture a different world where I went that direction instead, Lo. I… I could picture myself neutral, hiding from my powers. Or a villain, angry at the city for not finding me sooner. Gale Force understands that. The fury. And besides that… I like them. For all that they’re frustrating and have evil tendencies and all the public displays of affection.”

An eyebrow raised above glasses frames. “You like them?”

“I mean, you know I’ve been flirting with Princey during fights. It’s not just because I’m a walking stereotype of a snarky hero. And the other one, Patton, he’s not bad-looking either.”

“Ah, I see,” Logan said quietly.

"This doesn’t affect how I feel about you, Lo, not in any way,” Virgil rushed to clarify. “It could never. It’ll always be you, no matter if I pursue these other feelings or not.”

Logan relaxed slightly. “I don’t know that I feel similarly, or even could, not when I only realized how I felt about you through a strong platonic bond over literal years.”

“That’s more than okay. You mean the most to me. If you’d rather I keep quiet about these feelings, just let them fade…”

“No, that’s unnecessary. I am not opposed to you, ah, pursuing them, just keep me informed. I do understand the… attraction.” Logan blushed lightly, but coughed and continued. “And as long as you’re safe. They’re still villains, Vee. We can’t trust them, not past taking down Agent Whisper.”

“You may be right. You usually are. But, I don’t know, man. I feel like maybe we can, this time.”

Logan raised an eyebrow again. “Virgil the cynic, wanting to trust people?”

“Oh look, it’s the pot, calling the kettle black,” Virgil replied, shoving Logan lightly in the shoulder.

“Guilty as charged.”

“By the way, can I borrow your phone charger, I wanna call Mom and Mama today, and the sibs if they’re home.”

“Why do you think I bought an extra-long purple cord?”

~~~~~~~~~~

D.R.E.A.M. Index #337475 Classification: A.3.i [Tertiary Tier Hero, Legacy] Name: Blynk Status: INACTIVE /////////Reason: Injury Civilian Name: [CLEARANCE: TOP SECRET] McKenzie Bleu Affiliation: Hero /////////H.A.T.C.H. Status: Temporarily Inactive Partners/Sidekicks: N/A Primary Foes: N/A Powers: Short-Range Teleportation; Enhanced Durability; /////////Range approximately 100 yds; does not need to see destination, but does need to focus on it Costume: Black leggings with lace up ballet slippers; blue dress with white stripe on the skirt with attached hood Age: 17 Height: 5’4 Pronouns: She/Her H.E.A.R.T.S. Class: Enrolled, anticipated ‘19 Note: Daughter of DI#265353; Not yet cleared for independent hero missions - involvement in IR 18-Z-0015 unintentional and due to proximity alone

D.R.E.A.M. Index #337432 Classification: Z.3.iv [Tertiary Tier Villain, Unknown] Name: The Contortionist Status: INACTIVE /////////Reason: Incarceration, Injury Civilian Name: [CLEARANCE: CONFIDENTIAL] Tai Kim Affiliation: Villain Partners/Sidekicks: N/A Primary Foes: N/A Powers: Body Plasticity - Medium Spectrum; /////////Can alter density and length of body parts; cannot fully transform into other shapes Costume: Bodysuit in black, red, and gold; designed to look like a tailcoat with gold braiding; /////////Strongly reminiscent of a ringmaster outfit, but able to stretch with them Age: 19 Height: 5’10 Pronouns: They/Them H.E.A.R.T.S. Class: Dropout Note: Believed to have left the city until involvement in IR 18-Z-0015

~~~~~~~~~~

They were woken early the next morning by yet another H.A.T.C.H. alert. Virgil gave a single breath to regret his poor, poor sleep schedule before changing into his costume.

Mayor and S.E.A.M. Stokes weren’t sure of the exact nature of the disturbance, but they knew it involved supers. In this uncertain climate, that meant sending their best, just to be prepared. At Virgil’s urging, Logan had conceded to alert their villain partners as well.

“What’s the harm in being ready, L?”

“They’re collectively responsible for over fifteen felonies.”

“...yeah, but they’re on our side now.”

Logan fixed his partner with a look.

“I know, I know. We can’t trust them entirely. But you trust me, right?”

Logan softened. “Of course I do. I trust you with my life.”

Virgil paused, blushing slightly. “I… god, I love you, Lo.”

“I love you as well.”

Standing by the window, in full costume, seconds before rushing to whatever crime scene had alerted them today, Virgil stole a moment to pull his partner in close and kiss him softly.

They parted, both pink-faced. “I’ve just got a hunch, Lo. I think we’ll need them, or at least not regret bringing them along. And I swear, I’ll protect you if they try anything.”

And thus, as they surveyed the scene from the top of a nearby building, the villains arrived as well.

“I don’t see Agent Piss-per anywhere,” Gale Force said with a frown.

“We haven’t either,” Logan replied evenly. “But they’ve been targeting super fights so far. It’s only logical to conclude that any fight between persons with enhanced abilities will continue to be targets for them.”

“I’m not participating in your self-righteous state-sanctioned vigilantism,” the Marauder said, lounging against the wall. “Who’s even fighting?”

“They’re a recurring duo. They either partner up or are on opposite sides, it depends on which muse is controlling her,” Virgil explained, gesturing to the dark-clad figure visible from above. Many brilliant lights surrounded her, with more seeming to sprout from the galaxy print on her suit. Tiny constellations flew towards her opponent and swirled around the other’s massive, cascading skirts. With Gale Force’s help, they could all hear the conversation on the wind - a steady stream of chat and compliments, even as star constructs disrupted the princess-figure’s attempts to infiltrate the nearby museum.

“Who’s this?”

“Today? Nebula. You may also know her as Ghost. But she’s not nearly as active as some I could name,” Logan explained, glancing side-eyed at where Gale Force seemed to be taking notes.

“Yes, but what about the aesthetic one,” the Marauder asked with a tone bordering on reverence.

Virgil smirked. “She’s known as Lovely Darling. A mesmerizer with a strong affinity for princesses. So you know, pretty familiar, except more people are infatuated with her than just herself.”

Roman pouted at the tall hero and opened his mouth to object when the air suddenly shifted and four sets of eyes snapped to the scene below.

A dark dust cloud was rising, despite the complete lack of debris or destruction from the existing fight. Looking for the details, Virgil saw how the ‘dust’ cloud dragged and stuck on corners as it neared both supers.

“Heads up!” Gale Force shouted, and the air itself carried his voice, surprising them both as they noticed the impending danger. Logan was there a breath later, grabbing them both and pulling them away before rejoining the group in a blur.

“Go in all at once?” Virgil asked.

“On y va,” Roman said firmly, and they moved forward as one. The minute they passed into the cloudlike mass, Roman had the strangest sense of someone muttering, Oh, this should be fun.

And then the world went grey. His limbs went heavy and his heart turned to lead. A sluggishness settled over his entire body as he crumpled to his knees. He couldn’t muster the energy to do anything but struggle to stay upright, and he watched his constructs melt away in a blink of an eye. Of course he couldn’t create anything. He was useless. Everyone knew he was the weakest of their group. No raw power like Reflex, no elemental power like Patton, no brilliant strategy like the Doctor. He just had his little red toys. And now, he didn’t even have those.

It was fitting, wasn’t it? Let everyone see how worthless he was, whether a hero or a villain. He could die here, in this cloud, and the world would not note his passing nor feel his loss. A tear coursed down his cheek and fell onto his hands as he struggle to just barely brace himself. All he was good for was tears. How had anyone been fooled enough to believe anything else? Had they even been fooled? Or had they just been humoring him, pretending that he had something to offer. Seeing his obvious fragility and flattering him the way you compliment a child’s terrible scribbles. Who could ever truly believe in him? His arms trembled, and he collapsed fully, prone upon the ground, awash in despair and listlessness.

Logan was running as he passed into the cloud. He was surprised to see it was only a hair’s width as he passed through, coming into practically the same daylit scene on the other side. He kept running as he looked for the villain. Ro- the Marauder was flying on his right, with Virgil and Gale Force on his left. Was that Agent Whisper up there? The dark, humanoid shape was further back than he’d guessed. He pushed himself to speed up, to get there faster before the villain could escape again. He was reaching a rate of one hundred miles per hour - why weren’t they getting closer? His muscles felt odd, not the normal level of burn for this speed, but the wind was rushing through his hair and he could see the world flashing by through his goggles. Perhaps his workout routine was finally helping him reach new speeds. He pushed harder, blurring into five hundred miles per hour, fighting to reach the villain. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his villain partners had fallen behind him, but Virgil was still there on his left. But Agent Whisper was still so far away. He ran faster, nearing his top speed. He was a blur, a bullet streaking towards its target, but he could still see and feel his whole body. Finally, the dark antagonist was near, and he went to slow down to grab them, incapacitate them, bring them to justice.

But he couldn’t stop. His legs wouldn’t slow, his arms still pumping in rhythm to keep running. He was still moving, still in the nimbus of speed that almost no one could see. He looked frantically around only to see that he’d left Virgil far behind. He tried to turn, but couldn’t. He was just running, running, through the city, past the city, over hills and mountains and water and more mountains and he couldn’t stop. How would he get home? How would he live? How would he see Mom and Dad again, how would he be there for Jem and Bea? How would he be with Virgil, now that they finally were? He’d left him back there, surrounded by villains. He’d left him all alone, the one thing he’d promised would never happen back when they’d first met. How would time pass while he was stuck in this endless speed? Would he even feel it? Would he just run until his body gave out from the stress or exhaustion?

“Please!” he tried to yell. “Please, get me out!”

But his words were whipped away by the rush of air and movement all around him. He was trapped.

Virgil was prepared for his first step into the cloud, for the light to cut out and the fog to surround him. He felt slightly more of the texture this time, a weird film that clung to his skin. He strode in, scanning for the villain, trusting his hearing more than his sight, which extended only about three feet in any direction. He turned almost instinctively to look for Logan at his right, to check if the speedster had dashed in. He saw his partner but… Logan was frozen, eyes jumping and flitting around. His muscles twitched, but he seemed glued to the spot. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Past him, a red-and-black form lay curled in a fetal position, unmoving.

Virgil reached his partner and love in a single step, reaching out for his shoulder. The impact caused Logan’s eyes to snap open as he cried out in pain. Virgil immediately pulled his hand back, only to see bones protruding from Logan’s arm from how strong his touch had been.

“Fuck, Lo, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry-”

“You always are,” Logan snapped back, blood seeping down his shoulder. “Sorry will mean nothing when you kill someone. They won’t care that you didn’t mean it!”

Tears sprang from Virgil’s eyes. He looked down to see the concrete was crumbling where his foot had touched the ground. “Please, Lo, let me help-”

“Don’t touch me!” his friend screamed, terror in his eyes. “Stay back!”

Virgil swallowed hard and obeyed, stepping back, but craters formed with each step. He backed into something and whirled to see a huge wall sway and fall, crushing those who’d been unlucky enough to be sitting behind it.

“Stop it!” Logan yelled, and his terror had shifted to hatred. “You ruin everything you touch!”

“I don’t-”

“Just hide away, Virgil. Just leave this city, leave your family, hide away where you won’t hurt anyone anymore. You’re a threat to everyone around you, so just go!”

Tears coursed down Virgil’s cheeks. “Lo, please-”

“You are and always have been nothing more than a ticking time bomb, Virgil. Didn’t Sandry teach you that?”

The tall hero froze. Logan no longer sounded like himself. Virgil knew his dearest friend would never mention that, no matter his anger. No one would - except Virgil himself. Logan’s words were Virgil’s own, the ones he directed against himself on all the dark days. The world crumbling at his touch, inadvertent pain against the one he loved? This was his own private nightmare made real. He took a deep breath, in for four counts. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

“I am not a monster,” he whispered to himself. “I have enhanced abilities. I use them to do the best I can to help others. I pull my punches, I take care to not use too much force. I don’t hurt my loved ones. I am a hero because I try to be one, and I succeed at an above-average rate.”

Slowly, the craters fixed themselves, and the wall re-erected itself. The blood and bones vanished off Logan’s arm, and he was now as he had been, frozen, looking with distress off into nothing as his eyes shifted rapidly. Virgil reached out slowly, gently, to brush his shoulder with a feather-light touch. His partner didn’t respond, but neither did he bruise.

Virgil turned, hearing footsteps. He kept breathing evenly, repeating his mantras to himself, and stepped towards the sound of movement. It was Gale Force, Patton, walking evenly through the mist without hesitation.

Patton stepped through the border of light to dark as easy as breathing. It took him almost ten steps before he realized he no longer heard the heroes and his partner on his right. He turned to see them all paralyzed. Roman’s beautiful, radiant red fire had faded. Patton had been around for enough dark days to recognize the despair etched into his love’s face. He almost ran to him when he saw that the Doctor was frozen too, not on his knees but standing. Doctor Vectorious, who was intriguing and infuriating and condescending and so very pretty seemed to shiver and jerk with some internal movement. Even Reflex had paused, looking confused and distressed. His love and his... partners. Not friends. They were coworkers, if that. Nothing more. What had put them in such a state?

He felt a slight weight on his chest. An impression of tears, of bricks and water and twisted metal. He turned, and walked towards the center of the cloud, seeking Agent Whisper. He was sure he was getting closer, he could feel it. And with every step he saw flashes of the past. A dusty courtyard, the Hundredth-of-an-Acre Wood. A lanky child carrying two giggling girls on his back. Phantom hands smacked his and ran away laughing in a game of tag. Two women smiled down at him, hands linked.

Now they shifted. Bruises and blood appeared, torsos were covered in brick. Limbs became maimed and mangled beyond recognition. And voices drifted out of mouths that couldn’t possibly be producing them.

“You should have saved us.”

“Why were you the only one to survive?”

“You let me die.”

Patton lifted a hand casually to push back the clouds and give himself more visibility. Finally, a form in the mist. It seemed to eat the light around it, a human-shaped hole cut out against reality, a black pit that had no eyes to stare at him.

“How?” a voice asked, shrieking in impossibly high and low octaves at once. It was an eagle’s cry and an earthquake’s rumble, unnatural and natural at once. Patton turned to it, and smiled brightly.

“Oh, kiddo, were you trying to make us feel bad? Here’s a fun little factoid for you!” He grunted with effort as he conjured a cone of air, tightly wound and pointed away from his team. His face fell into a dark mask as he sent the tornado hurtling towards the dark form opposing them. “I’ve felt worse.”

The form dodged easily, but backed up. Reflex appeared at Patton’s side, scowling and tensed to attack. The mist started to lift, helped along by Patton’s winds.

Both hero and villain heard a sound that might have been the crack of rock and might have been a swear. Clouds suddenly rushed past them, flowing from their backs towards Agent Whisper. They swirled around them and starting to soar into the air, a column of dark clouds even as the last traces faded from the square. Reflex shot off from the ground, ready to give chase, but in a breath the clouds were gone and out of sight.

“Fuck,” he said, coming back to land. “That was rough. How were you so unaffected?”

“It’s just ghosts,” Patton replied with a shrug. “I’m always surrounded by ghosts. I’m more worried about our partners.”

Reflex nodded, and they both flew over to where Roman and the Doctor were recovering. Patton was immediately kneeling at Roman’s side, rubbing a warm, grounding hand on his lower back.

“I’m here, love,” he whispered. “The dark is gone, you’re safe, and wonderful, and deserving of all the love I could possibly give you and at least twice as much on top of that.”

Roman stirred, slowly uncurling out of the fetal position. “Sunshine?” he asked raspily. “That’s really you?”

“It’s me, my ruby. I’m here. I love you. You deserve that love.”

Roman moved slowly to sitting up, shuddering. Patton continued to rub small, comforting circles on his lower back, the other hand coming up to run through Roman’s silky, dark hair.

“How did it come on so suddenly, Pat?”

“Agent Whisper, sweetness. I guess that’s what the illusions are - a blast of bad emotions, and our brains fill in the rest.”

Roman shivered and nodded. “Makes sense. And I’m already starting to feel better. Thank you, honeybunch. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Virgil half-listened to the villains’ conversation but his main focus was on Logan. He gently touched his arm, still flinching at the idea of accidentally hurting him. But the speedster’s eyes had finally gone back to normal, focusing on Virgil’s face instead of cycling rapidly.

“Vee?” he asked, voice barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Is this real?”

“Yes, L, it’s real,” Virgil murmured back.

“Can I-” words seemed to fail him, but he lifted his arms enough for Virgil to understand him.

“Of course,” he said, smiling as he wrapped his arms around his friend and partner. Logan hugged back tightly, burying his face in Virgil’s muscled shoulders to avoid knowing if there were tears on his face or not. Virgil hugged tighter, lifting Logan fully into the air and surprising a laugh out of the shorter man.

“Hey! I’m not a child!” he complained, grinning.

“But you are my babe,” Virgil responded, teasing. “My tiny boyfriend.”

Logan blushed a deep red at that. “Oh, yes, I suppose I am.”

“That’s gay,” Roman drawled, standing with Patton’s help. “Dear, look at the heroes, they’re gay.”

“Heroes? More like queeroes!”

Logan’s blush didn’t fade as he glared over. “That was terrible.”

“Is that why you’re laughing internally?” Virgil asked blandly, to Logan’s indignation.

“Hey, don’t out me in front of them!”

“Oh horror of horrors, the nerd might actually have a sense of humor,” Roman said, draping a hand dramatically over his forehead. Color had returned to his golden cheeks, and his eyes were practically crackling with rich hazel energy.

“I’m glad you’re both feeling better,” Virgil said, putting Logan back on his feet. “Even if this Whisper fuck got away again.”

“We know what they’re capable of, now,” Logan said. “We can prepare for next time. Or at least brace ourselves for it.”

Patton nodded. “‘Flex and I are proof it can be overcome. So there’s hope for you two as well.”

“Go home and get some rest, gather your emotional strength,” Virgil advised, slipping his hands into Logan’s grip. “I’ve got a feeling we’ll be called again much sooner than we’d like.”

The villains nodded and flew off together, Roman rocketing ahead of Patton.

“Ladybug, slow down,” Patton complained. “You’re going too fast for me!”

“You’re going too slow!” Roman cried happily, looping in circles high and low. “God, I can’t believe how much better I feel now that we’re away from that creep!” He laughed and created a glowing red surfboard. He stood on it and balanced with exaggerated outspread hands, conjuring a huge red wave that crashed over Patton as he flew through the air still. He giggled, and the wave crashed into an explosion of butterflies and ruby wings sprouted from his back.

“Ro, come on, let’s go home,” Patton pleaded. “We can bring the butterflies if you want.”

“Butterflies are old news,” Roman replied, snapping his fingers. The forms around him melted into a huge dragon that carried him on its back as it blew sparkling fire.

“Roro, please!”

“No, not a dragon. A witch!” Roman cried, unhearing. “No, both!” Crackles of energy sparked as the dragon shifted and twisted into a dragon-witch complete with crystalline hat.

Patton sighed. The emotional manipulation had triggered a manic phase, and there was no reasoning with Ro when he was in mania’s throes. He turned in mid-air and flew to their home alone, trusting that his love would come find him when he’d calmed.

Roman flew, creating and destroying and creating anew until the sun started to fade. When the light in the sky began to match the red light of his constructs, he looked up at the clouds and thought of Patton. His love, his salvation, his partner in crime. Literally. Not that they’d been caught more than the one time.

He flew lower, just above the rooftops, finally traveling at normal speeds once more. Just as the forced low had been brief, his uncontrollable high was resolving faster than normal, too. He sheepishly contemplated the apologies he would need to make to his partner for worrying him and leaving him behind when he’d soared into the sky.

He floated down to earth to walk the last few blocks home. He stepped off into a dark alley to change back into civilian clothes.

If only he’d looked a bit harder at the shadows.

~~~~~~~~~~

D.R.E.A.M. Index #337403 Classification: M.1.ii [Primary Tier Neutral, Acquired Powers] Name: Ghost/Nebula Status: ACTIVE Civilian Name: [CLEARANCE: CONFIDENTIAL] Lulu Ador Affiliation: Neutral /////////H.A.T.C.H. Status: Blackout Only Partners/Sidekicks: #337471; #337402 Primary Foes: #337402 Powers: Shadow Teleportation; Psionic Construction [Star Sprites] /////////As Ghost, can travel through any shadow to any other; As Nebula, can summon star-sprites who are directed by her thoughts Costume: Tailored suit in a galaxy print and bow tie with a matching mask Age: 27 Height: 5’7 Pronouns: She/Her H.E.A.R.T.S. Class ‘10 Note: Valedictorian of her class, on similar caliber to DI#337255 - Doctor Vectorious. Ghost appears to be almost like possession, while Nebula is the 'true' form. When as Nebula, she is a hero, albeit one frustrated with the overly-physical nature of typical heroing due to her fibro. Classified as neutral because any given day she may be one or the other

D.R.E.A.M. Index #337402 Classification: Z.2.i [Secondary Tier Villain, Legacy] Name: Lovely Darling Status: ACTIVE Civilian Name: [CLEARANCE: CONFIDENTIAL] Danielle Disney Affiliation: Villain Partners/Sidekicks: #337403 Primary Foes: #337403 Powers: Mesmerizing; Power of Suggestion; Forced Infatuation /////////Anyone within a radius of approximately 10 yards is susceptible; focus on a particular person makes it more compelling and longer-lasting Costume: Purple and pink ballgown with a hoop skirt; heart-shaped mask Age: 26 Height: 5’7 Pronouns: She/Her H.E.A.R.T.S. Class ‘11 Note: Teams up with DI#337403 - Ghost/Nebula and feuds with her in equal measure, depending on how much her current scheme might affect others

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~

a/n: Spot the Steven Universe reference! There's also a Firefly quote in there. Partly an homage to one of the other possible names for this fic as a whole, ‘Big Damn Heroes’

(Fanfic writing, aka, finding ways to sneak in references to other fandoms and also inserting your friends in as background characters <3)

[zukadiary]

MESSIAH / Beautiful Garden ~ Flower Troupe 2018

Disclaimer: I’m scraping the bottom of my brain for this one. I saw this show a total of one time a week and a half ago, and when I didn’t have time to write it up immediately I didn’t really plan to review it at all... I don’t love spouting opinions based on spotty information, and Messiah, while not too complicated for me to understand, struggled to hold my attention enough that I didn’t feel super comfortable assessing it after one viewing. BUT, I’ve never not reviewed a Takarazuka performance that I’ve seen live, and I do have specific thoughts about Beautiful Garden, so here we go with an attempt.

Messiah was not a winner for me (though thanks to Wind Over Yamataikoku it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve seen recently). I actually don’t think it was a bad play, and it portrayed an interesting little slice of Japanese history that I really didn’t know anything about, but I don’t think Takarazuka was the stage on which I wanted to see it presented. I have pretty mixed feelings about Harada; he’s got Sekkashou under him which was utterly fantastic (please do more nihonmono revues, Harada-sensei), and he’s done a few killer small theaters. But I didn’t care for either of his Grand Theater shows that I saw, and between those and the less-than-killer small theaters of his that I’ve seen, I get a vibe that he cares more about his play than the women performing it. All I could think of while watching it was how un-Hanagumi it felt (his second most recent Grand Theater was Hoshigumi’s Berlin, My Love last year, and while I did not see it myself a lot of people who did seemed to think that was similarly a poor fit). Mirio did a solid job making that character look cool, but outside the surface-level pleasure of seeing Chinatsu in an evil mustache and Taso as a prominent bad guy, I can’t think of a single actress who was given a character suited to her strengths. Yuki especially can (and did) act the pants off anything, but I really can’t wait for them to give her a sexier role for a change (looking at you, Ikuta, especially if it turns out to be the last chance). 

I did find the music to be nice, and there was a POWERFUL ensemble number in the middle that genuinely knocked my socks off. Perhaps if Yamataikoku hadn’t existed, Messiah would have at least felt fresh? Since they are visually similar and both on the dull side, I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching something I didn’t want to for a second time. 

Beautiful Garden was a trip. Aside from my unconditional love for UeKumi, I don’t think any Takarazuka director has engendered definitive opinions in me quite like Noguchi has. Maybe it’s because after very swiftly graduating from Bow Hall, he’s only done revues in the Grand Theater, and I demand a base level of enjoyment from revues that forces me to hold them to a higher standard. I personally found The Entertainer to be average, and if you break it down, ALL of it’s value came from Micchan’s ability to pull it off—specifically Top Micchan ft. Nibante Beni, a combi the likes of which I don’t think will appear twice in the entire lifetime of Takarazuka past or future. While there is certainly something to be said for knowing your stars, I think if you give that show to anyone else it’s downright bad... and there’s something to be said for that too. I assessed SUPER VOYAGER to be disappointing at the time of my review, and as it’s ripened in my brain since then, “disappointing” has evolved into WILDLY OFFENSIVE... It’s my least favorite revue of all time, and the fact that it was my favorite’s ohirome was salt in the wound. 

When the pre-opening interviews with Noguchi-sensei suggested that Beautiful Garden would contain AWFULLY FAMILIAR-SOUNDING CONTENT, my expectations were pretty much rock bottom. When I re-entered the theater after intermission to find that the very CURTAIN was one of his much-beloved goddamn projections—pixellated, even!—my expectations drilled through the rock and got even more bottom. However, while the show was, in fact, a hot mess, overall I was pleasantly surprised and hopeful that maybe he’s learning.

Once that pixellated projection took us on an animated journey into a forest and the curtain rose onto an actual set, I was actually slack-jawed for a good 3-4 scenes (however many it took to get through the rainy number). The prologue has a bug/flower theme, and the little dancing bug girls who got to flit around for atmosphere before the real action started were en pointe and I LOVED that. Mirio, like every top star in a Noguchi show will probably do for all time, descends from the ceiling on that dumb swing, trying to sing without letting the fear in her eyes show. Then we have a lovely opening with a very Anna Sui aesthetic (it even! features! the top! musumeyaku!). The kickline comes in early, right after the prologue, centered on Maitii and her muscles dressed as a bee (in fact, the very best thing about this show as a whole was the overwhelmingly prolific use of Maitii and her muscles). She does a one-handed cartwheel! I thought this was a real cute number, although a friend told me it was swiped almost as-is from OSK... I cannot personally confirm or deny that. Maitii feels raindrops and the scene transitions to a lovely Rei-centered rainy Paris dance with umbrellas, just as I was complaining at intermission after Messiah that I felt like Rei hasn’t gotten to show off her dancing skills in a while (IMO her best asset). If you pair these scenes with the lovely lavender finale numbers, you have the bones of a GORGEOUS cohesive revue. Unfortunately, we need a middle... 

After the umbrella number, things start to go off the rails. I forgive the first departure because it was a GREAT SCENE despite being a total deviation from the garden theme (but lord knows every revue has at least one scene out of left field). It’s a matador thing, but Maitii is the BULL, and boy was that a good idea. For some reason whenever I mentally tally the top tier dancers in current Takarazuka I forget Maitii, but never again; I don’t think anyone else right now has her raw power. 

Next we have a series of tropical numbers leading up to the chuuzume (including a ~dramatic reveal~ of Mirio in sunglasses, get out of here Noguchi). It was upbeat and fun and there was MORE MAITII, and I guess if it were surrounded by less nonsensical scenes it would have felt a little more appropriate. However, it was followed by a truly bizarre Greek? Roman?? Golden Desert??? scene that I really wish I could just snip out crumple up and throw away.

In a lovely surprise, Yuki then leads what appears to be the kickoff of the finale, singing S’Wonderful (in a little tailcoat and hot pants, if memory serves). A+ if not for the Pavlovian anxiety that song gives me (my brain expects it to be followed by Kizuna). The otokoyaku dance is an equally lovely parade of top hats and sticks. And then... Oh wait! Gotcha!! It wasn’t the finale at all!! Did you think Noguchi wasn’t going to make you listen to a terrible lip synching boyband?? You were wrong!!

Seriously, get out. The sung solo lines don’t make the recorded chorus any less offensive. If I want to watch boy idols, I have a plethora to choose from. That is NOT WHAT I’M HERE FOR.

And now I’m all hot and angry for the actual finale, the aforementioned lovely lavender one. While the fake-out finale numbers were good in isolation, once I saw the whole picture they ruined the flow. Use one, save the other for your next show.

Upset as I still was at parts, I’ll take the progress... anything that makes the prospect of one of my troupes getting him even an iota less than totally hopeless. Even some of the projections were an improvement, but I wish he’d stick to effects (like rain and falling petals) and eliminate the others entirely. Someone tell him they’re invisible in the spotlight.

[madisgriffin]

More Like The Emperor

Summary: Based on the prompt: “you give me a different fake name every time you come into starbucks and I just want to know your real name bc ur cute but here I am scrawling “batman” onto your stupid cappuccino” but with Roman emperors because Bellamy is nerd. Obviously.

Word count: 4,022

Also on ao3

Clarke knew she would regret volunteering to work the early shifts when she started working at Starbucks, but it aligned with her class schedule and she was hoping at least the free coffee would do something to wake her up in the morning.

She wasn’t five minutes into her first shift, barely past five-thirty am, so early even the sun couldn’t be bothered to show itself yet, before she knew for certain that her hopes were misplaced.

She did her best to tame the scowl on her face on the off chance they actually had customers before six. By seven, she could very nearly manage a smile when serving the pre-coffee grumps that dragged themselves through their doors. But before six, or really, if she was honest, six-thirty, people were lucky if she didn’t glare at them like she wanted to splash the hot coffee in their faces.

Her manager would probably be more bothered by this if most of the customers seemed to care much about the look on her face. She almost didn’t mind serving those people, the ones who were clearly just as amused at being up at such an absurd hour as she was and were just trying to get themselves a halfway decent cup of caffeine to get through their day.

That, she could handle.

What really, really made her want to poison someone’s cappuccino were morning people.

Part of her already hated him the moment he walks through the door; it was her third shift and she’d only seen two people that morning, verging on five-forty-five, the slight smirk seeming plastered on his face like he existed to charm every person on the planet.

He saunters up to the register and grins at her. She’s just awake enough to register the fact that his smile could literally end wars, (or start them, she thought, that would be more historically accurate) but it still did little to brighten her mood.

She takes his order and his voice in every way matches his overwhelmingly attractive exterior. He had it all, really; the dark, curly hair, the dark eyes, the endearingly freckled skin and muscles she was sure made other girls swoon.

Other girls, that is, who were not raging monsters before six am, face to face with a man who seemed determined to radiate sunshine. She finds herself just as annoyed by his good looks as she is by his good mood.

She manages to keep herself composed while taking his order, but catches herself only after making a snide comment about The Fault in Our Stars when he says his name is Augustus.

In her moment of horror that she’d just made fun of a customer’s name, sure he’s going to get upset and tell her manager and she’s going to lose her job before she’s even finished her third shift, he has the audacity to smirk.

“More like the emperor, Clarke,” he says with a pointed glance toward her name tag.

She almost would’ve preferred if he’d gotten her fired; that, at least, would’ve likely prevented her from seeing him again.

As it happened, instead she had the joy of seeing him the next morning.

He comes in wearing a pair of glasses she didn’t remember him having the day before, (she wonders briefly whether or not they’re real. The part of her that hated him for being so cheery in the morning said he would be the type to wear fake glasses, but the rational part said he was probably wearing contacts the day before… so maybe her contemplation about the validity of his glasses wasn’t quite so brief) and he smiles the same bright smile and despite herself, she almost doesn’t mind his presence. In the absence of the sun, maybe his smile wasn’t half-bad.

All of her temporary annoyance reprieve dissipates when he gives her the name for the cup.

She had already started writing the ‘A’ for Augustus when he says it, and her head snaps up.

“Tiberius?” she repeats, incredulous, “I thought it was Augustus, like The Fault in Our Stars?”

“Or the emperor,” he reiterates, before smirking and infuriating her further. “You must have me confused with someone else, Clarke.”

And it’s that exact same pointed look at her name tag that genuinely makes her want to pull the lid off his steaming hot black coffee (seriously, who orders black coffee at Starbucks?) and pour it over his head. But in an effort to not risk losing her job twice in a row, she manages to calmly hand over his drink with only a well-intentioned glare.

If she wanted to moderately burn him the first two times they met, she was half considering stabbing him in the eye with her sharpie the third time.

“Caligula!?” she half-shouted, earning her a look from her manager.

“No, you’re pronouncing it wrong, it’s Caligula,” he responded with that horrible (beautiful, her mind betrayed her) smirk of his. “Nice girls get to call me Cal.”

“Well,” she said, grabbing his coffee, “then it’s a good thing I’m not nice.” She offered her own wink, belatedly realizing when he grinned how flirty her statement sounded, and he took his drink with a smile and walked out.

*

“I hate history,” she groaned for what was probably the tenth time that evening. “Why am I taking European history again?”

“Because it’s required to graduate and you thought it sounded more interesting than learning about American history for the seventeenth time,” Raven reminded her, not looking up from where she was reading on the couch across the room.

They’d been living in their crappy apartment since the start of sophomore year and Raven’s constant realism was still annoying at times. Even more so when Clarke was forced to read about dead people she didn’t care about.

“Well I was wrong,” she moaned, laying on the floor and dropping the textbook dramatically on her chest, to which her roommate rolled her eyes. “Why should I care about Copernicus or Galileo or fricking Caligula.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re not reading much about Caligula in your European history course,”

“No…” Clarke conceded, “but you don’t know they’re not mentioning Roman emperors.”

“Clarke, the Middle Ages didn’t start until after the Roman Empire fell,” Raven said, finally sitting up to look in her direction. “No wonder you suck at history; you suck at it.”

Clarke stuck her tongue out at her smart aleck roommate, like the mature adult she was.

“Are you sure there’s not some other reason you have Roman emperors on the brain?” Raven continued, “Like a certain aggravating customer you can’t seem to stop talking about?”

“Don’t even,” Clarke said with a glare.

Raven shrugged, starting to open her book again, when Clarke continued, “You know, I looked it up and there’s about a billion ways to pronounce Caligula, so who does he think he is correcting me? And ‘nice girls get to call him Cal’, what kind of douchebag thing to say?”

Raven rolled her eyes again, but it was in an endearing way this time. “Are you sure you’re not even a little extra fond of this guy, and that’s why he bothers you so much?”

Clarke scoffed, trying for utterly disgusted. “He bothers me, as you put it, thanks Nicholas Sparks, because he comes into Starbucks before six am and gives me a different Roman emperor���s name every morning and then corrects me when I spell it wrong, like I obviously should know how to spell Vitellius for god’s sake.”

“Whatever you say, Clarke.”

*

She absolutely does not look forward to him coming.

And she absolutely is not at all fond of him.

And she is definitely not disappointed the first morning she comes in and isn’t greeted early in her shift with his ridiculous smirk.

She’d called in sick the morning before to study for her history test, (which went fine thank you very much, Raven. She was expecting a respectable B-) so she started her morning with the names of European kings and queens instead of Roman emperors. And she preferred it that way. Really.

But when she was at work the next morning, well, she just expected him there, so it was natural to feel like something was missing.

At least, that’s what she told herself when she tried to casually bring it up to Wells, her oldest friend and the only other person crazy enough to volunteer for early shifts, because he was one of those sunny morning people Clarke hated, and just a sunny person in general, which made him impossible to dislike.

“Hey, do you get any interesting customers during your morning shifts?” She asked, not quite meeting his eyes. They were sprawled out in her apartment one day, half paying attention to the movie playing on the tv.

“What do you mean?” He asked, briefly glancing away from the tv.

“I don’t know…” Wells turns and raises an eyebrow at her and she continues, “Like I mean, there’s this guy that comes in every day and I swear he’s even more perky in the morning than you are. It’s before six am; no one in their right mind should be smiling as bright as he does.”

Wells gives her a knowing look, but doesn’t comment on her describing Mystery Guy’s smile as ‘bright’, “Some people don’t stay up until 2 am watching Brooklyn Nine Nine —“

“It’s a quality show!”

“—and,” Wells continues, ignoring her interruption, “they actually wake up with enough energy to face the day.”

“Sounds fake, but okay.”

Wells smiles endearingly at her, “So what’s perky dude’s name? Maybe I’ve seen him.”

“Uh,” Clarke stutters, “possibly Augustus? Dark curly hair, tan skin, freckles, always orders black coffee like a crazy person?”

Clarke almost cringes at the way the look on Wells’ face mirrors Raven’s earlier in the week.

“Yeah,” he says, “sounds familiar, although I can’t say he’s ever been overly perky when I’ve seen him; normally he seems about as happy to be there as you do in the morning. He actually scowled at me the last time he came in. And I’m pretty sure his name isn’t Augustus.”

“Oh, I’m sure it isn’t,” she says with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

*

Clarke can’t get her conversation with Wells out of her head that night; surely Mystery Guy wouldn’t be doing his perky morning thing to brighten her day She’s sure her agitation is written clear across her face, so in the end, she comes to the conclusion that he’s doing it just to spite her.

And that is something even she can appreciate.

Really, one has to admire his determination.

Her conclusion is what prompts her to close out of her Netflix tab and Google Roman emperors. Sure enough, her suspicions were correct and he was, in fact, choosing the names in chronological order.

What a nerd, she thought.

A cute nerd, her traitorous mind countered.

She scrolls down the list to the last name he’d used, Nerva, and writes down the one that comes next.

Smiling to herself, she closes her laptop and actually goes to sleep before midnight that night, and when she wakes up the next morning, she finds herself almost (almost) looking forward to his morning coffee run.

Six am comes and goes and she can’t help but wonder whether he’ll come in. He hadn’t been there yesterday; maybe he’d found some other barista girl to torment. And why did that bother her so much? He’d been nothing more than a minor annoyance in her life; she should be glad if he moved on somewhere else.

And yet…

Her train of thought was interrupted when she caught sight of a familiar figure through the windows, walking toward the door. She quickly turned around to start brewing his coffee, before turning back to the register to face him, right as he walked in.

He smiled when he saw her standing there, but it disappeared as soon as it had come, replaced by his usual smirk.

“You know,” he started, “the cafe down the street has way better coffee. You guys should take notes.”

“Oh, is that where you ditched us for yesterday?” She asked, ignoring the way the corners of his mouth twitched.

“I was having breakfast with my sister, but I’m glad you missed me.” He winked at her and she rolled her eyes, picking up the cup now filled with coffee and placing a lid on top.

“I have a black coffee here for Trajan; is that you or did he go to the shop down the street?”

He grinned, and she told herself she was only paying attention to the way his eyes lit up because she’d put too much effort into this whole thing, and she wanted it to pay off. Not like his smile was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Nope.

“I see you’ve been doing your research,” he said, wrapping his hand around the coffee cup. And if their hands stayed there a few second longer than necessary, their fingers brushing, she didn’t even notice.

“Maybe,” she shrugs when he pulls his hand away. “You’re a nerd, by the way.”

“Maybe,” he mimics, and he smiles again, soft, in a way she hasn’t seen before. “Thanks, Clarke.”

“You got it, Trajan.”

He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else, but instead he smiles, turns, and walks out. She thinks maybe that’s when she started thinking of them as friends.

*

She’s still not a fan of mornings (still hates them with a fiery passion), but she begins to look forward to seeing him, even at the ungodly hour which he gets his coffee.

She makes a habit of writing the name on the cup before he gets there, always looking it up again the night before her shift to make sure she gets it right, because she can’t imagine his ridicule if she were to get them out of order.

Some mornings they chat a little, make small talk until another customer walks in or he looks at his watch and rushes off to… wherever he’s going in the mornings.

It startles her sometimes, how little she knows about this man she’s started to see as her friend. She knows he likes history, knows he has a sister because every now and then he skips his morning coffee to get breakfast with her.

(“The coffee may be better down the street, but I just feel so much more at home here. I tried to tell the barista there that my name was Severus and do you know what she said? ‘Severus Snape?’, as if she didn’t know I was referring to Septimius Severus.”

“Well, obviously!”

“The nerve.” )

She also knows that he doesn’t actually like mornings, as he admitted to her only in the last few times she’d seen him.

(“I mean, I was in a good mood that first time I came in here, but after that it was just really amusing watching you get all mad at me so I kept it up. You’re like an angry kitten.”

“Oh, screw off.”)

But otherwise, she knows next to nothing about him. The small talk is just that: small. And it’s in those small moments, full of lighthearted laughter and witty banter, that she starts to realize maybe what she’s feeling for him isn’t so small.

In reality, a part of her has known it for long enough that it’s not startling when she finally accepts that she likes him as more than just a regular customer, more than just a friend she sees early in the morning a few times a week. That she wants to see him more often than that, to see the way his eyes dance in the sunlight, listen to the way he talks when his voice isn’t still gravelly from sleep, watch the way he interacts with other people. She wants to meet his little sister and go to that little coffee shop with him and force him to sit still while she paints the constellations scattered across his cheeks. She wants to know him and wants him to know her.

And she knows how ridiculous it is to be thinking like this about someone whose relationship with her amounts to him being a Starbucks regular and her going along with his emperor game.

She doesn’t even know his real name.

A fact which is especially frustrating when he stops showing up every morning.

The first time it happens, she thinks nothing of it. He’s with his sister, she thinks, no big deal. The second time, she’s confused, but unconcerned. He’ll explain tomorrow.

When he doesn’t show up the next day, she starts to get uneasy.

He’s probably just on vacation or something.

But why wouldn’t he have told me?

Why would he tell you, Clarke? You don’t need to know where he is at all times.

Days stretch into weeks and she’s officially freaking out.

“What if he’s hurt or something and I have no way of knowing?” She asks Raven, verging on frantic, after it’s been sixteen days she hasn’t seen him.

“Why don’t you just try to look him up? If he’s dead it’ll at least be on his Facebook.”

Her blood runs cold at the thought of him being dead, and she shoves the thought out of her head. “I don’t even know his first name, Raven! It’s not as though anything comes up when you Google “hot history nerd with little sister in the Seattle area””

“You tried, didn’t you?”

“… No?”

Raven gives her a look.

“Yes, okay, I did,” she admits, “but I’m concerned for his safety, that’s it!”

“Says the girl who just called him hot,” Raven says, entirely unconvinced.

“Objectively!” Clarke protests feebly. There’s really no use denying it; her friends could tell she liked him even before she could.

Her friends.

Wells.

“That’s it!” She cries, jumping up from the couch and snatching her phone from the coffee table.

“What’s it?” Raven asks, but Clarke doesn’t answer, tapping Wells’ name on her screen and waiting impatiently for him to pick up.

“Hey Clarke, what’s up?” Wells’ voice comes from the other end of the line.

“Wells! Hey, um, you know the guy we were talking about? Dark hair, freckles, black coffee?”

“Yeah,” Wells answers slowly, “what about him?”

“What’s his name?” Clarke asks, trying and failing to keep her voice level.

“Augustus won’t tell you his real name and you’re stooping to asking me?” Wells chuckles, “That’s low even for you, Clarke.”

“Shut up, Wells, he hasn’t been in for weeks and I’m starting to get worried; would you at least tell me the guy’s first name?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about; he’s been there every day I’ve worked since we talked about it. He’s fine, Clarke. It’s not really my place to tell you his name if he won’t.” And with that, there’s a click as Wells hangs up on her, and Clarke almost drops the phone in disappointment.

“So?” Raven prompts, “What’s Mystery Guy’s name?”

“I—I don’t know,” she says slowly, dropping back to her seat on the couch. “Wells won’t tell me, but he says that he’s been there every time he’s working.” She turns to look at her friend. “Do you think he’s avoiding me?”

“Is there any reason he would be avoiding you?” Raven asks, ever the logical one.

“No, I—I don’t think so. It was fine, we were fine…,” she doesn’t even notice the single, traitorous tear slip down her cheek until Raven sits all the way up to pull her against her side.

“Maybe Augustus likes you just as much as you like him, and now he’s too nervous to be around you.”

“Doubtful,” Clarke murmurs against her friend’s shoulder.

*

Another several days go by before Raven finally convinces Clarke that the best way to solve her, admittedly unorthodox, heartbreak was to drown her sorrows in alcohol.

The two of them are sitting at the bar and Clarke thinks maybe it’s working, maybe she can just have fun tonight, laugh with her friend, get drunk and make out with a stranger, and she’ll be back to normal in the morning. She almost doesn’t even think of the dark-haired stranger she wishes she could be making out with. Almost.

Once she actually thinks she sees him across the room. When the moment passes and there’s no one there, she realizes how pathetic it is, and she drinks a little bit more.

She’s barely verging on tipsy, definitely not had enough to drink to deal with this, when Raven gets up to go to the bathroom and she hears a voice behind her.

But it’s not a voice she wants to hear, not a voice she ever wanted to hear again, and she doesn’t even bother to tame her grimace when she turns around and none other than Finn Collins is smiling at her.

This is truly something that would only happen to her. Just. Her. Luck.

“Aw come on, babe,” Finn says when he takes in the look on her face. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“Not especially,” she says with a smile, and his own smile falters. “And I don’t think Raven would be thrilled to see you either; what were you doing, just watching and waiting for one of your ex-girlfriends to leave the bar so you could make a move on the other one? That’s pathetic, Finn.”

It was satisfying, to some extent, to watch the smile fall from his face little by little while she talked. And when she finished, he actually had the nerve to look sad.

“Clarke,” he started, but she’d never know what he was going to say, because this time a different voice came from over her shoulder. Just her luck indeed.

“Babe, are you okay?” Came the voice of her favorite pseudo-emperor.

She turned to smile at him, recognizing his rescue for what it was, “Hey! Yeah, I’m alright, Finn was just leaving.” She turned back to Finn, who looked none too eager to do that.

“Clarke, who is this?” He asked, either not getting the hint or just trying to be a jerk. Hard to tell with Finn.

Her smile didn’t falter, glancing behind her only briefly before answering, “This is Augustus, my boyfriend.”

“Augustus?” Finn mocked, his face twisting, “Like The Fault in Our Stars?”

“More like the emperor,” they answer in unison, and Clarke’s grin widens.

Finn turns to walk away with a disgusted look on his face, and Clarke spins around to finally face her rescuer.

“Hey,” he says, smile soft. “Listen, I’m sorry I haven’t been around. There was a family crisis and I was MIA for a few days and I knew that when I came back in you’d ask and I knew I’d tell you but I didn’t want it to be weird because I know we’re not really friends but I felt like I could trust you and I didn’t want to overstep anything and—”

“Woah, slow your roll, Caesar,” she interrupts him, and he falls silent—only for a moment, but when he speaks again, it’s quiet and slow.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and her heart aches.

“How about we start from the beginning, and we can work our way up from there,” she says, and extends a hand toward him. “Hi, I’m Clarke Griffin.”

He takes her hand and smiles in a way that lights up the night. “Bellamy Blake.”

She smiles brighter than she has in weeks, and thinks this just might be the beginning of something beautiful, something she never saw coming all those months ago, a chance meeting at an ungodly hour.

She’ll never be a morning person, but she thinks maybe she won’t mind them as long as she gets to keep spending them with him.

And she does end up making out with a (near) stranger in the bar that night, but she’s not back to normal in the morning. Not even close.

[printedinblood]

The Thing:Artbook - Who all is in this thing??

So, who all is involved with “The Thing:Artbook” you ask? Well, I am here to give you an answer. Listed below is the list of all the artists who have a piece that is included in the book. Some of them have more than one, some produced more than one, but we had to make hard decisions about inclusion.

When we started out on this project, an idea conceived last year in May, and once we had secured the approval from Universal Studios to move ahead, we had hoped to make it a book with primarily comic industry folks because that’s who we knew. Once we started to reach out to folks with information about the project the response was so positive, we decided to branch out a little and include some illustrator friends and designer folks. Again, the response was so overwhelmingly positive we decided to invite whoever we thought we could get on board. Then, people started coming to us as word of the project began to spread. We were blown away and humbled by the caliber of talent who have agreed to be a part of this book.

We hope you will be pleasantly surprised and excited as you go through the list below and see the participants listed. You will probably have heard about many of them already, but hopefully there will be some surprises as well.

The “The Thing: Artbook” will go live for pre-sales Tuesday March 7th at  7pm est at the link below.

The book is expected to ship the first week of July 2017.

Click here to purchase

Dave Acosta

Charles Adi

Emory Allen

Rafael Alvarez

Tim Anderson

Salvador Anguiano

Orlando Arocena

Vincent Aseo

Wayne Ashworth

Juan Astasio

Adam Augustyn

Dane Ault

Arden Avett

Noah Bailey

Boris Bashirov

Giuseppe Balestra

Andrew Barr

Bryan Baugh

Brett Bennett

Ian Bertram

Ben Bishop

Steven Russell Black

Barry Blankenship

Alejandro Blasi

BoardInker

Jon Bogdanove

Chris Bolton

Rich Bonk

Mark Borgions

Tim Bradstreet

Matt Brazier

Dan Brereton

Robert Bruno

Mark Buckingham

Kealan Patrick Burke

Rio Burton

Jim Calafiore

Dennis Calero

Chris Callahan

Josh Campbell

Daniel Campos

Tyrell Cannon

Jonatan Cantero

Don Cardenas

Simon Carpenter

Vincent Carrozza

Martin Carter

Simon Caruso

Justin  Castaneda

Victor Castro

Ryan Caskey

Dan Charnley

Richard P. Clark

Adam Cockerton

Alejandro Colucci

Joe Corroney

GMB   Chomichuk

Brian  Corcoran

John  Coulthart

Nic Cowan

Paul Cremin

Dave Crosland

Dennis Culver

Justin  Currie

Berkay Daglar

Steven Daily

James Daly III

Mark Dancey

Neil Davies

Rich Davies

Dawlaz

Simon Delart

Joe Dellagatta

Trevor Denham

Shannon Eric Denton

Casey Desilets

Mike Diaz

Christian DiBari

Doaly

Juan Doe

Krzysztof Domaradzki

Natalie Dombois

Guy Dorian

Dave Dorman

Sam Dunn

Zohn Dyer

Zoetica Ebb

Jimmy Edwards

Harlan Elam

Sarah Elkins

Robert Elrod

Rob Elrod

Matthew Emmons

Don England

Greg Espinoza

Jay Fabares

Nicole Falk

Tom Feister

James Fenner

Jared Fletcher

Tony Fleecs

Tom Fournier

Sam Fout

Kelly Forbes

Dan Fraga

Francesco Francavilla

Devin Francisco

Bryan Fyffe

Salvador Gaeta

Antony Galatis

Alfie Gallagher

Chris Garofalo

Enzo Garza

Paul Gates

Gary Gianni

Sam Gilbey

GodMachine

Michael Godwin

Hassan Godwin

John Gonzalez

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Andre (dres13) Greppi

Mike Groves (Poopbird)

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[leftpress]

2017: UPHEAVAL AND FIGHTBACK WILL CONTINUE WORLDWIDE

January 5, 2017 | Peter Taaffe

Everything to Play For in 2017

2016 was the year when the pent-up anger of the masses worldwide finally spilled over in a series of political earthquakes – a delayed reaction to the devastating world economic crisis of 2007-08. And tremors are still being felt, with serious aftershocks – if not new earthquakes – expected in 2017.

The changed situation was dramatically illustrated by Brexit, with repercussions not just in Europe but worldwide. At bottom, this reflected a working class revolt against the austerity programme both of the British Tory government and the predatory capitalist EU.

The Socialist Party has consistently opposed the capitalist, imperialist EU from its origins and therefore called for a Leave vote in the referendum, along with the transport workers’ union the RMT and many others.

Moreover, it was striking that those who had suffered under the iron heel of the EU – the Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian workers – hailed Brexit, which they saw as striking a decisive blow against their mortal enemies, the gang of EU robber capitalists.

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Fight the Right

We also fought against the corrosive nationalism of Ukip and other reactionary forces who attempted to seize hold of Brexit as a means of dividing workers against one another. We will stay implacably opposed to the neoliberal EU while at the same time proposing a class and socialist alternative: no to the EU, yes to a socialist confederation of Europe.

It is no exaggeration to say that the leave vote resounded throughout the world. How dare the ignorant untutored masses defy their rulers, reasoned an army of capitalist comentators!

The leave vote upended the Tory cabinet and Cameron was soon consigned to history. Absolute turmoil has ensued, which continues into 2017, plunging the Tory party under Theresa May into an endemic crisis. The capitalist media constantly harps on the split within Labour but from the medium and long-term perspectives, the divisions within the Tory party are much more serious.

A schism within the Tory party, like that over the Corn Laws in the first half of the nineteenth century, is entirely possible. This saw the Tory party out of power for generations.

In Italy, Renzi has followed Cameron, after a stunning 60% to 40% rejection of his own undemocratic referendum, which sought to consolidate his austerity regime.

But the far right in Europe is still on the march, having been given a lift by the victory of Trump in the U.S. presidential elections. Although the Austrian far right failed to win the re-run presidential election.

It is not even excluded that at a certain stage some countries – Austria, France, the Netherlands and possibly also Italy – could repeat the successes of the far right in Eastern Europe, participating in right-wing coalition governments.

Failure

It is the transparent failure of right-wing social democracy in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Britain – trapped within the framework of diseased capitalism and consequently presiding over savage cuts, eye watering poverty, mass unemployment etc – which has provided this opportunity for the right to emerge and threaten past conquests of the working class.

They believe that they have been given a huge comfort blanket by the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. elections. There are even some on the left who believe that a ‘festival of reaction’ will follow.

Nothing of the kind is likely or possible. Without in any way minimising the threat from the right – which should be fought – the relationship of class forces is still decisively in favour of the working class and its organisations, although weakened. The fascists could not successfully use today the methods of Hitler or Mussolini, the mobilisation of mass middle class forces to terrorise and atomise the working class.

Coming to power – even partially sharing power in a right-wing, conservative government – would act like a crack of thunder to awaken the working class and particularly the youth into ferocious resistance to such governments and the measures that they would undertake.

Witness the marvellous resistance of Polish women to the attempt to restrict abortion rights. Other powerful mass women’s movements have developed in Ireland against strict abortion laws, in Argentina against vile attacks on women, and in Turkey against attempts to legitimise rape.

Look also at the mass resistance that erupted against Trump’s fraudulent victory in cities in the U.S., in some cases led by our co-thinkers in Socialist Alternative. It is expected that mass demonstrations in the U.S. and worldwide will take place on January 20 at Trump’s inauguration. This is just a little payment on account for the mass working class resistance he is likely to encounter in the next years.

Moreover, such right-wing governments with far-right participation would pave the way for a massive swing towards the left among the working class, which would be reflected in the labour movement. This will act to further discredit the right-wing social democrats, who through their failure have paved the way for the right’s re-emergence.

The truth is class radicalisation overwhelmingly predominates worldwide. This was shown in the 180 million Indian workers who demonstrated their power in a mighty general strike against the right-wing Modi regime in September 2016.

Unprecedented mass movements have also a broken out in South Korea, which are likely to force the president out on corruption charges.

Middle East

Of course, this has to be balanced against the horrific intractable crisis in the Middle East with its countless victims – a monument to the endless horrors to which humankind will suffer on the basis of outmoded capitalism.

The war in Syria has lasted longer than World War One, and moreover there is an element of that situation in the present conflict with its mutual slaughter. Leon Trotsky remarked in relation to the pre-1914 Balkan war: “Our descendants… will spread their hands in horror when they learn from history books about the methods by which capitalist peoples settled their disputes.”

If nothing else, the Syrian war has demonstrated beyond all doubt that none of the capitalist powers – the U.S., Russia, the European Union – can provide a solution to the myriad national conflicts within the region.

Indeed, imperialism in all its guises – British, French, U.S. – is the author of the present divisive patchwork divide-and-rule tactics on a massive scale, undemocratically stitched together when these imperialist powers were forced to retreat from direct domination of the region in the post-1945 situation.

A representative of the British spy agency MI6 recently appeared on British television and had the effrontery to quote from the Roman historian Tacitus – “You create a desolation and call it peace” – while attacking Putin’s Russia! If so, then Putin learnt well in the school of the British ruling class and MI6. They were the first to pursue a bloody divide-and-rule policy, to carve out their empire upon which the “sun would never set.”

Only the decisive intervention of the working class and poor in the Middle East region through a program of class unity and socialism on the basis of a democratic confederation can put an end to this horror once and for all. The first step towards this would be the development of an independent political voice for the masses.

But in the meantime the catastrophic situation which has beset all countries in the Middle East will continue. The alleged coup in Turkey has led to an even bigger and more effective right-wing counter-coup led by Turkish President ErdoÄŸan himself. Over 100,000 public sector workers have been dismissed; there has been a clampdown on the media and suppression of democratic rights. Only by determined struggle, and a vision of a new humane, socialist society, will the forces of the right be pushed back.

Donald Trump

Nowhere is that more necessary than in the U.S. following the victory of the right-wing demagogic populist Donald Trump, who lied and cheated his way to power by pretending to champion the “working class.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

He lacks any real “legitimacy” for his right-wing program. While he won the Electoral College, he was decisively beaten in the “popular vote” by 2.6 million, receiving fewer votes even than the last defeated Republican presidential candidates Romney and McCain, and George W Bush when he won.

Within a matter of weeks – and without being installed yet as president – he has shredded most of his promises. His proposed government, true to form, is stuffed with billionaires, representative not of ‘Main Street’ but of Wall Street, which he denounced during the election campaign.

He is recruiting heavily from Goldman Sachs, which after the crash of 2007-08 was described by Rolling Stone magazine as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Its tentacles are poised to try and further strangle working people in the cause of Trump’s pro-big business agenda.

The trade unions face a massive challenge as he seeks to emulate Ronald Reagan in rolling out so-called “right to work” legislation to weaken them. He will seek to reward Wall Street sharks who supported him by ruthless measures like privatization and sackings, particularly of public sector workers.

Infrastructure and Jobs

He hopes to soften the blatant pro-billionaire agenda by borrowing from capitalist economist Keynes with a promise to increase government spending of at least $1 trillion on the U.S.’s collapsing infrastructure.

However, as welcome as any new jobs would be in restoring the confidence of the U.S. working class to fight back against the bosses and providing the unemployed with work, nevertheless these would not replace the high paid secure jobs which have been lost in the massive deindustrialization of the U.S.

An estimated 70,000 factories in the U.S. disappeared during this process, never to return on the basis of capitalism. Since 2010 something like 15 million new jobs were generated in the US but these have been overwhelmingly low paid and insecure, many the equivalent of the hated zero-hour contracts in Britain.

Moreover, the U.S. is already saddled with colossal debt – government, corporate and personal – which is the main reason why enfeebled U.S. and world capitalism has been able to still stagger on.

But will even a Republican congress ratify big increases in public spending, without any overall economic growth and ratcheting up even more debt? Top U.S. tax expert and Congressman Ken Brady has declared: “The greatest threat to our prosperity long term is our growing national debt.”

On the basis of capitalism, particularly the parasitic kind which Trump represents, a return to a ‘golden age’ when today appeared to be better than yesterday, and tomorrow would certainly be better, is over. The 60% of the US population who now consider themselves worse off than before signifies this.

Bernie Sanders

Hence the explosive developments in the U.S. with the rise of the Bernie Sanders movement. Sanders’ call for a political revolution drew mass support from discontented workers and young people and in turn terrified the pro-capitalist Democratic Party establishment.

When he was denied victory in the primaries by the manoeuvres of the pro-Clinton Democratic establishment, Bernie made a big mistake in not taking to the open road and establishing a new party. He had successfully appealed to the same impoverished and discontented layers of workers and young people to whom Trump was also pitching his message.

If he had stood for the presidency, then if not beating Trump, he would have at least attracted sufficient support to have allowed for the possibility of Hillary Clinton coming to power. This would have been the ideal scenario for the prospects of the further political awakening of the American working class and the youth.

A Clinton Democrat administration, which would have been tested to destruction – much as the Liberal Party in Britain was at the turn of the 20th century – could have created the base for the emergence of a new mass workers’ party. Given the economic catastrophe of US capitalism and the desperation of the masses for an alternative, a new mass movement for socialism would have taken shape.

The election of Trump – the whip of counter-revolution – will not halt but ultimately spur on this process. There are features present in the current situation reminiscent of the explosive years in the 1960s and 70s. Socialism is an idea which has already captured the imagination of the new generation of workers and young people.

Socialism in the U.S.

“Trotsky in New York 1917” – part of the avalanche of new books in preparation for the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution this year – while inaccurate about Trotsky’s real political views, nevertheless provides valuable insights about the powerful attraction for the American masses of socialism and its leading international figures then.

We are informed that “at least six New York newspapers with more than half a million readers would announce Trotsky’s arrival in the city. Three put the story on the front page.” There was a vibrant socialist movement and Eugene Debs had stood as a Socialist Party candidate in every presidential election since 1900, receiving over one million votes in 1912, the equivalent of six million today.

Those traditions will be revived, alongside those of the monumental class battles of the 1930s. American capitalism’s colossal wealth and power allowed it to soften class relations in the post-1945 situation. Its relative economic decline has now sharpened these divisions, which will be further deepened by Trump.

And this will develop with American speed and elan. The success of our U.S. co-thinkers, with the spectacular growth of Socialist Alternative and the election of the first socialist councillor in 100 years in Seattle – Kshama Sawant – is a measure of the changes wrought in the heartland of world capitalism.

As is the success of the school student union in Spain, which chalked up a big national victory against the PP government – the first in five years – when it successfully mobilised two million school students in a national strike which compelled the government to withdraw its attacks on education.

The political force behind this victory, the Spanish Marxist organisation Izquierda Revolucionaria, is in the process of linking up with the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), which represents a great strengthening of the genuine forces of Marxism internationally. This will undoubtedly act as a magnet for other Marxist forces to come together with us to confront capitalism and its agents within the workers’ movement.

Warnings

Never has this been more necessary. Even the representatives of the capitalist system, like Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, have warned the class they represent of the inherent dangers arising from the current crisis. Carney warned of the worst crisis for over 100 years with the UK “suffering its first lost decade since the 1860s”, when Karl Marx was alive.

He repeatedly referred to the sense of insecurity and frustrations with global trade and technology, which has favored “the superstar and the lucky… But what of the frustrated and frightened?” He denounced “inequality” as well as the banks who had been, according to him working in a “heads I win, tails you lose bubble.”

Its intent was to warn the bosses who Carney represents of the incendiary economic and social situation in Britain which threatens to blow the system apart. And the examples which he uses are damning indictments of British capitalism, as well as an indication of further seismic events to come.

More than a fifth of the UK’s population – almost 14 million people – is below the official yardstick for calculating poverty, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. That includes 4.8 million adults and 2.6 million children in poverty despite living in a working family. The numbers in this category grew by over a million in the last decade, symbolising the inexorable impoverishment of broad swathes of the British people.

Stories now creep into the press of how those who come from the middle class can now rapidly sink into a desperate situation. From having a job, to no job, therefore no income, then being incapable of paying the rent and ultimately ending up on the streets. The wheel of progress has gone into rapid reverse towards barbarism, with some homeless people now found to be living in caves in Wales!

Jeremy Corbyn and Labour

It was these conditions – arising from the complete failure of traditional ‘social democracy’ trapped within the framework of outmoded capitalism to provide an answer – which lit the flame of populist revolt symbolized in Britain through the mass movement gathered around Jeremy Corbyn. And yet 18 months after this – and with the crushing defeat of two right-wing Blairite coups – his campaign has now stalled. Jeremy himself seems to be missing in action. Why?

Because a policy of ‘peaceful coexistence’ during a civil war, which has existed in the Labour Party and the labour movement from the very first day that Jeremy was elected, has been adopted by his closest supporters in the leadership of Momentum. It is potentially fatal for his leadership prospects and the mass anti-austerity movement around him. This has been successfully urged on him by his closest advisers in Momentum.

There is an element of dual power in the Labour Party at the moment. The right controls the Parliamentary Labour Party – mainly the unreconstructed Labour right, who display their opposition and contempt for Corbyn and his allies on a daily basis.

These “Labour” MPs are unmistakably in the camp of the bosses. This was illustrated by Chris Evans, MP for Islwyn – one of the poorest constituencies in South Wales – seeing himself as the “voice” of the parasitic hedge funds rather than the working class, and proposing a parliamentary liaison committee with these City of London creatures.

This right-wing MP is prepared to get into bed with the financial spivs, who create nothing and who treat factories and workplaces as ‘assets’ that can be gambled away on the stock exchange. They are the sworn enemy of working people and yet this alleged representative of the workers of South Wales seeks the participation of corrupt, parasitic swindlers who are shunned by even “respectable” capitalists.

This shows just how politically corrupt large swathes of the Parliamentary Labour Party are – the sooner they are driven out the better. The Labour right have played for time, while the left has dithered and refused to conduct a real struggle, therefore playing into the hands of the right.

This is particularly the role of the leaders of Momentum. They refused to consistently support the one measure that would have mobilised hundreds of thousands of left-leaning workers and youth who joined the Labour Party in great enthusiasm to complete the Corbyn revolution: namely, subjecting right-wing MPs to reselection.

The Socialist Party has offered to further this process, to join the Labour Party on the basis of a political and organisational reconfiguration, leading to a federal form of party. Jon Lansman, the leader of Momentum, unceremoniously refused to support this, while showing touching sensitivity to the right. His tactics have blown up in his face, with Momentum torn apart over forms of organisation.

There have been no systematic protests at the arbitrary and bureaucratic denial of access to its ranks or that of the Labour Party.

Our request for readmission of 75 supporters of the Socialist Party previously expelled has met a brick wall. This while the right have ruthlessly used their position on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party to consolidate their grip.

Unresolved Civil War

The right have a clear plan to expel and marginalize all those on the left who pose a threat to their continued rule. The left under the baton of Momentum’s leadership – organizationally and politically inept – have allowed the right to make a comeback.

All of this could have been avoided if clear direction had been given from the beginning to the hundreds of thousands who rallied enthusiastically to Corbyn’s anti-austerity program and clearly demonstrated the desire to drive the Blairite right out of the Labour Party. The response of Momentum’s leadership was to rule out any such political “confrontation” with the right.

The Labour Party is still composed of two incompatible parties in one. The right from the beginning showed they were absolutely unreconciled to Corbyn’s leadership and would overthrow him at the first opportunity. That still remains their goal.

The civil war which has existed from the beginning of Corbyn’s accession to the leadership remains unresolved. The right, having failed to remove him in an open coup and afraid of leaving the Labour Party in the hands of the left, have fallen back on a “creeping coup.” The tactics consist of a war of attrition, constantly seeking to discredit Jeremy and John McDonnell, and marginalizing and excluding their supporters.

Blind Alley

There is nevertheless everything to play for in 2017. Capitalism is a blind alley, incapable of taking society substantially forward. All of those parties who accept the system will ultimately fall under the wheels of history.

The movement around Jeremy represents a determined attempt to throw off the outmoded shell of Blairite pro-market, pro-capitalist forces and take to a more radical, socialist road.

The Socialist Party, together with the CWI, will do everything in its power to assist workers and young people to attain the goal of a mass, socialist party fighting for a socialist society in Britain and the world.

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[josephkitchen0]

Hybrid vs. Heirloom Seeds

By Jean Smith – I am a diehard for plants grown from heirloom seeds, and I save most of my own seeds for our farm. I thought now would be a good time to give a lesson on the basic differences between hybrid and heirloom seeds. We’ll look at specific definitions of hybrid and heirloom seeds and then I will give my own personal feelings on the two, as well as some of my favorite varieties along with some resources!

Heirloom Seeds

The definition and use of the word “heirloom” to describe plants is fiercely debated. One school of thought places an age or date point on the cultivars. For instance, one school says that for heirloom seeds, the cultivar must be more than 100 years old, but others say 50 years, and others prefer the date of 1945, which marks the end of World War II and roughly the beginning of widespread use of hybrid seeds by growers and seed companies. Many gardeners consider 1951 to be the latest year a plant can have originated and still be called heirloom seeds, since that year marked the widespread introduction of hybrid varieties. It was in the 1970s that hybrid seeds began to proliferate in the commercial seed trade through the top seed companies. Some heirloom plants are much older, some being apparently pre-historic.

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Another way of defining heirloom seeds is to use the definition of the word “heirloom” in its truest sense. Under this interpretation, a true heirloom is a cultivar that has been nurtured, selected, and handed down from one family member to another for many generations.

Additionally, there is another category of cultivars that could be classified as “commercial heirloom seeds,” cultivars that were introduced many generations ago and were of such merit that they have been saved, maintained, and handed down — even if the seed company has gone out of business or otherwise dropped the line. Additionally, many old commercial releases have actually been family heirlooms that a seed company obtained and introduced.

Regardless of a person’s specific interpretation, most authorities agree that heirloom seeds, by definition, must be open-pollinated. They may also be open-pollinated varieties that were bred and stabilized using classic breeding practices. While there are no genetically modified tomatoes available for commercial or home use, it is generally agreed that no genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can be considered heirloom seeds. Another important point of discussion is that without the ongoing growing of heirloom plants and storage of heirloom seeds, the seed companies and the government will control all seed distribution. Most, if not all, hybrid plants, if regrown, will not be the same as the original hybrid plant, thus ensuring the dependency on seed distributors for future crops.

Hybrid Seeds

Overview: A hybrid plant is a cross between two or more unrelated inbred plants. Hybridization has brought huge improvements, including more vigorous plants, improved disease resistance, earlier maturity, more uniform growth and increased yield. There are several different types of hybrid seeds and plants to be aware of:

F1 Hybrids Seed saved from the first cross-pollination of two unrelated open-pollinated plants is called F1 hybrid seed. (F1 stands for Familial 1.) Each of the parents contributes attributes that, when combined, produce an improved type of plant.

Hybrid Vigor A frequent characteristic of F1 hybrids is much-increased vigor. This can take the form of faster growth to maturity, larger root and top growth, and increased productivity. The gains from what is called heterosis greatly exceed the sum of what the parent plants might be expected to produce. Despite recent advances in the understanding of plant genetics, there is still no agreement among scientists about what causes heterosis.

Disease Resistance Like other living things, plants are vulnerable to a range of diseases that can cause disappointment in a home garden and huge financial losses in agriculture. One trait that is constantly sought in plant hybridization is resistance—or at least tolerance—of diseases that can affect productivity. In seed catalogs, resistance is noted in an abbreviation after the plant variety name. For example, “Arbason F1 Hybrid, FW (races 0, 1), VW, TMV” means that this tomato has resistance to fusarium wilt races 0 and 1, verticillium wilt and tomato mosaic virus.

Uniform Growth While the taste and appearance of open-pollinated and heirloom plants are highly valued, the size and growth rate of fruit and leafy= parts can vary widely. Hybridization can stabilize growth factors, so the grower can harvest much more uniform produce.

Maturity and Yield In agriculture, the ability to produce a crop early in the season has considerable marketing advantages across all planting zones. The first corn, the first tomatoes, and the first strawberries always command higher prices. Hybrids can be created to achieve this, as well as higher yield, although it is often true that this extra-early produce does not have the full taste of later varieties.

Later Generations The seed of open-pollinated or heirloom plants can be saved, and when sown will produce plants that are essentially identical to the parent plant. The seed from F1 hybrid plants, called F2 hybrids, will not produce a copy of the parent. Instead, the F2 plant will exhibit “break-up” in the form of random characteristics from either parent or possibly an even earlier trait. What this means is that F1 hybrid seed has to be created from scratch every year by laboriously hand-crossing the parent plants. This helps to explain why hybrid seed can be so expensive.

Read more: Definition of Hybrid Plants: Garden Guides.

Well, that is all the “formal” stuff. Now on to the basics. Heirloom seeds, in my opinion, and I believe most who grow them, will testify to overwhelmingly better flavor. Honestly, it’s not even just better, most of you who have eaten a grocery store tomato and then a fresh tomato know the difference. What most consumers don’t know is that those perfectly shaped tomatoes in the grocery store were picked rock hard green, packed and put in the back of a semi and then gassed to ripen on “the road.” That is why they are flavorless! Think about it … why do you think they intentionally say “Vine Ripened” on the little tomatoes on “the vine?” They have to tell you because they know the others weren’t.

Hybridization has been utilized for making veggies travel-worthy. For example, Brandywine tomatoes have extremely thin skins, therefore making them terrible “travelers.” As a market grower, I do not grow Brandywines for market because they will crack and split before they get to market, thereby making them unsellable, although I love them for my home garden and canning.

Uniformity in shape and size is also a must for grocery stores, not so for market tables. I love to put several different sized and colored heirloom tomatoes in a quart container — it is simply beautiful.

What some people also don’t realize is that there is a big difference between a hybrid and a GMO seed. This is where scientists have actually inserted a gene from another species into a vegetable. For example, putting a fish gene in a tomato … yes, they really do, and they say they have really good reasons for it. GMOs are not what I am going to get into here, though, because that is a really lengthy topic in its own right. You can do your own research, but please understand; most vegetable seeds are not GMO. GMO crops are focused on crops such as corn, soy and alfalfa.

Here are some of my personal favorite heirloom seed varieties for home gardening:

Tomatoes:

Beefsteak: Pineapple, Brandywine- all colors, Paul Robeson, Dr. Whyche’s, Hillbilly

Romas: Super Italian Paste, Plum Lemon, Roman Candle, all the Icicles, Striped Roman

Salad types: Green and Red Zebra, Woodle Orange, Rose De Berne, Stupice, White Tomesol

Cherry and grapes: Reisentraube, Violet Jasper, Blondkopchen, Red & White Current, Chocolate Cherry, Sungold, Yellow Pear

Lettuces: Rein’s De Glace, Merriville de Four Seasons, Grandpa’s, Red Oak Leaf, Jericho, Forellenschulus, Rubin’s Romaine, Butter Crunch, Lolla Rossa, May Queen, Paris Island Cos, Rouge D’Hiver

Radishes: White Icicle, Purple Plum, French Breakfast, Cherry Belle, Black Spanish, Pink Beauty

Winter Squash Varieties: Walthams Butternut, acorn, Sweet Dumpling, Delicata, spaghetti, Green or Orange Buttercup

Summer Squash: Round De Nice, Fordhook Zucchini, Prolific Straightneck, Patty Pan, Starburst

Carrots: Cosmic Purple, Lunar White, Amarillo, Atomic Red, Chantenay Red Core, Danvers Long

Cucumbers: Lemon, Marketmore 76, Boston Pickling

Eggplant: Rosa Bianca, Black Beauty, Purple Long, Thai Long

Sweet Corn: For most home gardeners, it is hard to move away from the hybrids because of the Super Sweet genes that have been introduced in them, but if you want to try an heirloom, Golden Bantam is a very good one.

Peppers: Sweet: Jimmy Nardello—my personal favorite—long, sweet frying pepper, Red & Golden Marconi, Purple Beauty, Sweet Chocolate,

Hot: Early Jalapeno, Anaheim, Hungarian Hot Wax

Peas: Mammoth Melting Sugar, Sugar Snap, Lincoln

Chard: Rainbow, Fordhook, Golden

Spinach: Bloomsdale Longstanding, New Zealand, Merlo Nero

Beets: Detroit Dark Red, Early Wonder, Chioggia, Golden Detroit, Crosby’s Egyptian, Cylindra, Bulls Blood

Beans: String: Blue Lake Bush, Contender

Wax: Golden Wax

Roma: *Roma, Dragon Tongue, Purple Podded Pole

Cabbage: Late Flat Dutch, Early Jersey Wakefield, Henderson’s Charleston Wakefield, Perfection Drumhead Savoy, Mammoth Red Rock

Broccoli: Calabrese, Waltham 29, Green Sprouting

Cauliflower: Purple of Sicily, Giant of Naples, Snowball Self Blanching

RESOURCES Here are a few of my favorite seed catalogs to order from:

• Baker Creek Heirloom Seed • Fedco Seeds • Johnny’s Selected Seeds • Seed Savers Exchange

Here are a couple recipes — enjoy!

Roasted Carrot Soup

6-8 medium carrots, cleaned and scrubbed, cut into 1-inch pieces 1 cup coarsely chopped onion 1 tablespoon olive oil 2 14.5-ounce cans chicken broth 1 teaspoon smoked paprika 1 teaspoon lemon juice Salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F. Toss carrots and onion with oil to coat. Spread veggies in a single layer in a shallow baking pan. Roast for 20 minutes or until tender.

In a large saucepan combine roasted vegetables, broth, and paprika. Bring to boiling. Cool slightly.

Transfer half the vegetable mixture at a time to a blender or food processor. Blend or process until smooth. Return mixture to saucepan. Add lemon juice. Heat through. Season with salt and pepper.

Poached Beets

3/4 cup apple juice 1/2 cup water 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar 2-1/2 pounds beets, peeled and cut into bite size pieces Salt and pepper Honey 1 tablespoon snipped fresh parsley

In a large saucepan combine 1/2 cup of the apple juice, the water, and brown sugar. Bring to boiling, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add beets. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, about 45 minutes or until beets are tender and can be pierced with a fork, stirring occasionally. Drain.

2. Transfer beets to serving bowl. Sprinkle remaining juice over beets. Season to taste with salt & pepper. If desired, drizzle with honey.

Originally published in the March/April 2013 issue of Countryside & Small Stock Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.

Hybrid vs. Heirloom Seeds was originally posted by All About Chickens

[jeparlelibremente]

Part Deux

So Halo was released in the US in November 15th, 2001, and it was a phenomenal success (commercially, and critically (whatever that actually means)) Connecting XBoxes via Ethernet twisted pair (little pre wireless everything at this point), televisions in separate rooms, feuds lasting throughout high school. All nighters fueled by second rate pizza and red bull, “but the taurine means I can sleep easily” - Rationalist nerd [1]

If you’re into video games, it was a big deal, and a lot of people found the game to be immensely enjoyable. I’m not here to argue society's views on what past-time activities its members finds pleasant - I enjoy dissociatives and self-loathing, pick your poison.

My issue is that in all the post-release reporting, the journalists, the designers, hell, it seemed even Bungie themselves got it totally wrong as to why their game worked. There wasn’t some unanimous agreement from the studio (at least from the public facing perspective) until the info started dribbling out about Halo 3 - it seemed at this point they started to understand their own game; what mechanics made it fun, and what didn’t. Cliff Bleszinski of ​Epic​ fame (Unreal Tournament) got it so wrong in one statement that I dissociated and walked directly into a glass wall. Industry peeps almost unilaterally failed to understand why ​Halo​ represented the next logical step in action games.

There’s a big question here - what makes a game fun to play? Hard to touch; what’s the current start of the art of the aesthetics of video games? I’m not that smart. Instead, I’m going to go granular here, throw in some diagrams, and explain why the vehicles did almost nothing (apart from being highly marketable tech for E3 demonstrations)

Bullet point remarks: ● Action games,camera angles aside,had a hierarchy of weapons pre-​Halo.​ In​Quake​, you went for the rocket launcher, ambiguity was non-existent. It was a totally ordered (linear) set.

○ You could hold all weapons at once with zero penalty (weapons here are really the metaphor for how one interacts with the environment, this abstraction is overlooked because action games are universally “kill the other guy” I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader as how much this was driven by the proportion of males working in the industry. Bonus marks: is this an expression of the unconscious id? Roman gladiators -> deathmatch LAN’s? NB: Gabe Newell of Valve ​did​ make this distinction, but over a decade and no HL3, so, you know man, whatever.

● Halo did not have a hierarchy; weapons differentiated ​mostly ​on distance (bar certain exceptions) - there was an optimal choice ​depending on your distance​ from the target.

○ You could hold only ​two at once​. Game and decision theory has a lot to say about this, highlight it and we’ll return.

● There were two permanently available abilities to your character; the option to throw grenades, and melee attack (slam the butt stock of your rifle into your opponent's

face) - trade-offs existed as a natural consequence of a non-linear ordering of attack method.

Distance

If you asked me to enunciate this process with a higher degree of precision, I’d say it’s an algorithm, the conscious or unconscious mental heuristic being leveraged to optimise your chance of success. In ​Quake,​ it’s binary. Too easily mastered = boring. ​Halo​ had nearly a dozen weapons, with no clear winner. One of these decisions requires more inputs to optimise. If you optimize to correctly to win, surge of dopamine (similar to IQ/G-factor/Induction tests, they’re fun when you have to think ​really​ hard and then get the answer. If you simply have no idea, you give up) NB: I enjoyed doing these as a child, so take the ‘enjoyment’ part with a grain of salt. What you need is not something so overwhelmingly difficult the player gives up (here’s a textbook on quantum mechanics, gl hf) but to hit an adaptive edge where the player is forced to make complex decisions in real time - but not ​too​ complex (this is part of the reason why flight sims are not ​that ​popular - five hundred different buttons mapped to a standard western keyboard? ​No​) but not so simple it becomes a mental drudgery. Also see: flow state.

Part 3, soon.

[1] Not actually incorrect; this is why sleep after espresso/coffee is so difficult (coffee = unbuffered caffeine, tea = additional theanine (think increased GABA activity, like a whisper of a benzo) and red bull = added taurine (inhibitory neurotransmitter, cleverly added in to disguise the physical side effects of excess caffeine consumption; blood pressure, heartbeat irregularities, ​death​)

[usnewsaggregator-blog]

The Islamic World Doesn't Need a Reformation

New Post has been published on https://usnewsaggregator.com/the-islamic-world-doesnt-need-a-reformation/

The Islamic World Doesn't Need a Reformation

Various Western intellectuals, ranging from Thomas Friedman to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, have argued over the past decades that Muslims need their own Martin Luther to save themselves from intolerance and dogmatism. The Protestant Reformation that Luther triggered exactly 500 years ago, these intellectuals suggest, can serve as a model for a potential Muslim Reformation. But is there such a connection between the Reformation in Christendom and the “reform” that is arguably needed in Islam?

To start with, it’s worth recalling that Islam, in the form of the Ottoman Empire, helped Protestantism succeed and survive. In the 16th century, much of Europe was dominated by the Holy Roman Empire, which had ample means to crush the Protestant heretics. But the same Catholic empire was also constantly threatened and kept busy by “the Turks” whose own empire-building inadvertently helped the Protestants. “The Turk was the lightning rod that drew off the tempest,” noted J. A. Wylie in his classic, History of Protestantism. “Thus did Christ cover His little flock with the shield of the Moslem.”

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More importantly, some early Protestants, desperately seeking religious freedom for themselves, found inspiration for that in the Ottoman Empire, which was then more tolerant to religious plurality than were most Catholic kingdoms. Jean Bodin, himself a Catholic but a critical one, openly admired this fact. “The great empereour of the Turks,” the political philosopher wrote in the 1580s, “detesteth not the straunge religion of others; but to the contrarie permitteth every man to live according to his conscience.” That is why Luther himself had written about Protestants who “want the Turk to come and rule because they think our German people are wild and uncivilized.”

Surely those days are long gone. The great upheavals that began in the West with the Protestant Reformation ultimately led to the Enlightenment, liberalism, and the modern-day liberal democracy—along with the darker fruits of modernity such as fascism and communism. Meanwhile, the pre-modern tolerance of the Muslim world did not evolve into a system of equal rights and liberties. Quite the contrary, it got diminished by currents of militant nationalism and religious fundamentalism that began to see non-Muslims as enemies within. That is why it is the freedom-seeking Muslims today who look at the other civilization, the West, admiring that it does “permitteth every man to live according to his conscience.”

And that is also why there are people today, especially in the West, who think that “a Muslim Martin Luther” is desperately needed. Yet as good-willed as they may be, they are wrong. Because while Luther’s main legacy was the breakup of the Catholic Church’s monopoly over Western Christianity, Islam has no such monopoly that needs to be challenged. There is simply is no “Muslim Pope,” or a central organization like the Catholic hierarchy, whose suffocating authority needs to be broken. Quite the contrary, the Muslim world—at least the Sunni Muslim world, which constitutes its overwhelming majority—has no central authority at all, especially since the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 by Republican Turkey. The ensuing chaos in itself seems be a part of “the problem.”

In fact, if the Muslim world of today resembles any period in Christian history, it is not the pre-Reformation but rather the post-Reformation era. The latter was a time when not just Catholics and Protestants but also different varieties of the latter were at each other’s throats, self-righteously claiming to be the true believers while condemning others as heretics. It was a time of religious wars and the suppression of theological minorities. It would be a big exaggeration to say that the whole Muslim world is now going through such bloody sectarian strife, but some parts of it—such as Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—undoubtedly are.

Besides, various “reform” movements have already emerged in the Muslim world in the past two centuries. Just like Luther’s Reformation, these movements claimed to go back to the scriptural roots of the religion to question the existing tradition. While some of the reformists took this step with the intention of rationalization and liberalization, giving us the promising current called “Islamic modernism,” others did it with the exact opposite goal of dogmatism and puritanism. The latter trend gave us Salafism, including its Saudi version Wahhabism, which is more rigid and intolerant than the traditional mainstream. And while most Salafis have been non-violent, violent ones formed the toxic blend called “Salafi Jihadism,” which gave us the savagery of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Because there is no central religious authority, consider the only definitive authority available, which is the state.

That is why those who hope to see a more tolerant, free, and open Muslim world should seek the equivalent not of the Protestant Reformation but of the next great paradigm in Western history: the Enlightenment. The contemporary Muslim world needs not a Martin Luther but a John Locke, whose arguments for freedom of conscience and religious toleration planted the seeds of liberalism. In particular, the more religion-friendly British Enlightenment, rather than the French one, can serve as a constructive model. (And, as I argued elsewhere, special attention should also be given to the Jewish Enlightenment, also called Haskalah, and its pioneers such as Moses Mendelssohn. Islam, as a legalist religion, has more commonalities with Judaism than with Christianity.)

Luckily, efforts toward a Muslim Enlightenment have been present since the 19th century, in the form of the above-mentioned “Islamic modernism.” British historian Christopher de Bellaigue deftly demonstrated the achievements of this trend in his recent book, The Islamic Enlightenment. He also rightly noted that this promising era—also called “the liberal age” of Arabic thought by the late historian Albert Hourani—experienced a major step back in the 20th century with Western colonialism and the reactions it provoked. Then came a wave of “counter-Enlightenment,” which is the fundamentalist revival that created Islamism and jihadism.

As a result, the Muslim world of today is a very complex place, where secularists, liberal reformists, illiberal conservatives, passionate fundamentalists, and violent jihadists all enjoy varying degrees of influence from region to region, nation to nation. The pressing question is how to move this world in a positive direction.

Because there is no central religious authority to lead the way, one should consider the only definitive authority available, which is the state. Whether we like it or not, the state has been quite influential on religion throughout the history of Islam. It has become even more so in the past century, when Muslims overwhelmingly adopted the modern nation-state and its powerful tools, such as public education.

It really matters, therefore, whether the state promotes a tolerant or a bigoted interpretation of Islam. It really matters, for example, when the Saudi monarchy, which for decades has promoted Wahhabism, vows to promote “moderate Islam,” as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently did, giving some hope for the future. It is especially significant that this call for moderation implies not just fighting terrorism, but also liberalizing society by curbing the “religion police,” empowering women, and being “open to the world and all religions.”

This argument may sound counterintuitive to some Western liberals, who are prone to think that the best thing for a state is to just stay out of religion. But in a reality where the state is already deeply involved in religion, its steps toward moderation and liberalization should be welcome. It’s also worth remembering that the success of the Enlightenment in Europe was partly thanks to the era of “Enlightened despots,” the monarchs who preserved their power even as they realized crucial legal, social, and educational reforms.

When we look at the Middle East we see that countries with enlightened monarchies, such as Morocco or Jordan, promote and exemplify religious moderation, unlike the many “revolutionary” republics that end up as authoritarian one-party states or tyrannies of the illiberal majority. (Only Tunisia stands out as an exceptionally bright spot.) And in Malaysia, where I recently had the unexpected chance to become acquainted with the “religion enforcement police,” it is the sultans that try to keep such zealots, and their popular support, in check.

A full-fledged Islamic Enlightenment would require other features, such as the rise of the Muslim middle class (which would itself require market-based economies rather than rentier states) and an atmosphere of free speech in which novel ideas can be discussed without persecution. Yet even those very much depend on political decisions that states will make or not make.

If the Protestant Reformation teaches us anything, it is that the road from religious fracturing to religious tolerance is long and winding. The Muslim world is somewhere on that road at the moment, and more twists and turns probably await us in the decades to come. In the meantime, it would be a mistake to look at the darkest forces within the current crisis of Islam and to arrive at pessimistic conclusions about its supposedly immutable essence.

Original Article:

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[linleywild]

The Middle Ages are popularly supposed to be the antithesis of Modernity. The term ‘Dark Ages’, which is still invoked to describe the pre-Renaissance world, maintains this divide, albeit precariously. When Stephen Greenblatt published The Swerve: How the World Became Modern[i] in 2011, he was roundly criticised for perpetuating an outdated caricature of the Medieval period. In a damning review of Greenblatt’s prize-winning work, academic Laura Saetveit Miles complains that readers are led to believe that ‘bored monks literally [sat] in the dark when not flagellating themselves’. She declares the book ‘dangerous’ on account of its ‘importation of Malcolm Gladwell-esque yarn-spinning into the academy’.[ii]

The patent problem of maintaining that the pre-Renaissance world was literally and figuratively ‘dark’ is that we side-line cultural and political developments that were made before the sixteenth century. More fundamentally, we reveal ourselves to be ignorant of the sixteenth-century term ‘renaissance’ when we suggest this epoch erupted immaculately across Europe. Renaissance means ‘rebirth’, so it behoves us to understand what came before if we are to truly grasp and appreciate what came after.

In a more tangential, thinking-out-of-the-box, sort of way the denigration of the Middle Ages is unhelpful considering the many parallels that exist between our present and this past.

It strikes me that the rise of social media is close to making the twenty-first century an overwhelmingly visual culture. I would suggest that not since the Middle Ages have images, or infographics, played such an important role in the conveyance of complex information to so many people. In the Middle Ages, images helped an illiterate majority to perceive, however slightly, the knowledge of a literate minority. And just as then, so too are we now beginning to see that so-called experts are being signalled out, both as soothsayers and scaremongers, on account of their perceived ability to assimilate and synthesise large amounts of disparate information. The singling out of experts, whether for the purposes devotion or demonisation, brings to mind another social division that readily characterises the Middle Ages and Modernity, the rift between the wealthy and the rest. As Silicon Valley billionaires buy up rural real estate in America and New Zealand as a precaution against an upcoming apocalypse, it is apparent that the world’s income gap is staggering large, and it continues to grow.[iii] The situation for today’s Kings of Commerce is analogous to that of medieval monarchs, certainly those who ruled in England, whose annual cash income was larger than the combined yearly revenues of their entire aristocracy: during the thirteenth century, leading English nobles had access to between £1,500 and £5,000 each year. Their king received between £25,000 and £30,000 each year. England’s notorious King John – he of Magna Carta infamy – managed to raise a treasure of over £100,000.[iv]

The social consequences of these past and present parallels are also similar. Before the UK voted to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016, and in the context of a televised discussion about immigration, Nigel Farage, then leader of the anti-EU party UKIP, was condemned for suggesting that violence would likely erupt if the people’s voice were ignored by those in government.[v] He was accused of scaremongering. And yet, in a way, his observation was not far wrong, although this should not suggest that I condone of his demagoguery. Incidents of hate crimes against ‘outsiders’ and ‘aliens’ do appear to have spiked in the past six months and street protests have become increasingly prevalent as people, demoralised by the political process, take to the streets in a physical and desperate gesture to have their views heard. In the medieval period, and prior to the establishment of representative institutions, protests and street demonstrates were one of the few means by which the mass could express their dislike towards the agenda of the mighty.[vi] And as I continue research for my book, I am struck by the use of fancy dress costume to highlight social concerns in the past and in the present at these popular gatherings. Shortly after the release of the Panama Papers, a carnival protest in London called for people to wear fancy dress. Those who opposed the outcome of the United Kingdom’s EU referendum protested in fancy dress, as, more recently, did millions of people around the world, who took to the streets following the inauguration of Donald Trump.

If Stephen Greenblatt has downplayed the importance of the Middle Ages, I am conscious that I could be accused of going too far the other way and making the Middle Ages the answer to everything. Clearly, centuries separate the Middle Ages and Modernity and patent differences do exist between these periods. I merely suggest this: it is interesting – important, even – to observe that across chronology and culture very broadly similar political and social circumstances appear to engender analogous cultural forms.

  [i] In the UK, the book’s published title was The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began.

[ii] L. Saetviet Miles ‘The Ethics of Inventing Modernity: Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve’, 30 May 2016. www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2016/05/the-ethics-of-inventing-modernity.html?m=1.

[iii] Evan Osnos, ‘Survival of the Richest’, The New Yorker, 30 January 2017, 36-45.

[iv] D.A. Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066-1284 (Penguin, 2003), 271-277.

[v] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7aHFhn6Kq6g.

[vi] For example, E. Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival: A People’s Uprising at Romans 1579-1580, tr. M. Feeney (Scolar Press, 1979).

Forwards & Backwards: Parallels between the Middle Ages & Modernity The Middle Ages are popularly supposed to be the antithesis of Modernity. The term ‘Dark Ages’, which is still invoked to describe the pre-Renaissance world, maintains this divide, albeit precariously.