#but now regrettably: wwii

[wrishwrosh]

just finished coming out under fire by allan bérubé, a major entry in the field of monographs where each successive passage makes you go ‘fuck me that’s the saddest paragraph ive ever read in my life’ and then the next paragraph is somehow even sadder

[dancingtothesurfacenoise]

Thoughts On Denial In The Post Truth Age

Denialism offers a dystopian vision of a world unmoored, in which nothing can be taken for granted and no one can be trusted. If you believe that you are being constantly lied to, paradoxically you may be in danger of accepting the untruths of others. Denialism is a mixture of corrosive doubt and corrosive credulity.

for now, every day that denialism persists is a good day in their view. In fact, for the denialist, every day barrels of oil continue to be burned is a good day, every day a parent doesn’t vaccinate their child is a good day, every day a teenager Googles planet Earth and sees a pancake. Or Googles WWII & finds out that some people think it never happened is a good day.

We, denialism’s opponents do not have time on our side.  As climate change rushes towards a point of no return, as Holocaust survivors die and can no longer give testimony, as once-vanquished diseases threaten pandemics,  as the notion that there is “doubt” on settled scholarship becomes unremarkable, The task facing refuters of nonsense becomes both more urgent and more difficult.

It is a modern predicament. Denialism is a post‑enlightenment phenomenon, a reaction to the "annoyance” of the findings of modern scholarship. The discovery of evolution, for example, is regrettable to those committed to a literalist biblical account of creation. Denialism is also a reaction to the nuisance of the moral consensus that emerged in the post-enlightenment world.

In the ancient world, one could erect a monument proudly proclaiming some genocide committed to the world. In the modern world, mass killing, mass starvation, etc, should no longer be publicly celebrated.

Yet many humans still want to do the same things humans always did. Many are still desiring beings. Wanting to murder, to steal, to destroy and to despoil. They want to preserve ignorance and unquestioned faith. So when these desires are rendered unspeakable in the modern world,  Denialists are forced to pretend that they do not yearn for those things. 

So denial  acts as an attempt to draw awareness and attention away from something unpalatable. Denialism is, in part, a response to the vulnerability of denial. To be in denial is to know on some level. To be a denialist is to never have to know at all. Denialism is a systematic attempt to prevent challenge and acknowledgment; to suggest that there is nothing to acknowledge. Whereas denial is at least subject to the possibility of confrontation with reality, denialism can rarely be undermined by appeals to face the truth. It involves suppressing the expression of one’s hidden primitive desires. Denialists are “trapped” into byzantine modes of argument because they have no better options. 

The bottom line is Denialism and other forms of pseudo-scholarship are the part of the iceberg that is visible. What lies underneath is outrage at being inconvenienced by the modern world and it's scholarship.  

It's hard to find the will to be charitable to folks like this.  Knowing the denialist is unhappy about not being able to run amok like the old days with Mongol Hordes and such, hardly elicits empathy. But that is where we are, Isn't it?

"The entire human race must suffer because of my mild vexation regarding modern scholarship"  "I hate science because it's discoveries are irritating to my beliefs" .

It's what lies beneath. That's the key to stopping this institutional denialism.  It's the magic theater if you will, the stuff of the Id that must be hidden. It's all an exercise in hiding uncomfortable desires. Denialism, and the multitude of other ways that modern humans have obfuscated their desires, prevent a true reckoning with the unsettling fact that some of us might desire things that most of us regard as morally reprehensible. I say “might” because while denialism is an attempt to covertly legitimize an unspeakable desire, the nature of the denialist’s understanding of the consequences of enacting that desire is usually unknowable.

Can you tell whether global warming denialists are secretly longing for the chaos and pain that global warming will bring, or are they simply indifferent to it? Or maybe they would desperately like it not to be the case but are overwhelmed with the desire to keep things as they are. It is hard to tell. It's hard to tell whether Holocaust deniers are preparing the ground for another genocide, or want to keep a sick pristine image of the Nazis as good guys.    It is hard to tell whether an Aids denialist who works to prevent Africans from having access to anti-retroviral drugs is getting a kick out of their power over life and death, or is on a mission to save them from the evils of the west?

So here we are. Where indeed do we go from here my friends? Where do we go?

#Strange Days

[head-post]

King Charles joins veterans at D-Day 80th anniversary commemorations

Rishi Sunak’s election campaigning and King Charles’s convalescence from cancer will be put on hold for 48 hours, as the two men join veterans to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day on the south coast of England and in Normandy.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who has pledged to ensure D-Day lessons are taught if he becomes Prime Minister, also attends the event.

The King greeted the crowd gathered in Portsmouth with a wave of his hand as he and the Queen took to the stage. He told the audience:

“The stories of courage, resilience and solidarity which you have heard today and throughout our lives cannot fail to move us, to inspire us and to remind us of what we owe to that great wartime generation, now tragically dwindling to so few. It is our privilege to hear that testimony, but our role is not purely passive. It is our duty to ensure that we and future generations do not forget their service and their sacrifice in replacing tyranny with freedom.”

Prince William said he was “honoured” when he spoke on stage at the Remembrance Day event.

Wednesday’s UK commemorations, which included readings, music and reenactments from the period, also featured recollections from D-Day veterans, mainly in pre-recorded videos.

However, Roy Hayward — who was aged 19 at the time — took to the stage to speak of his emotions eight decades on. The veteran, who later in WWII lost both his legs below the knees to amputation, said:

“I always considered myself one of the lucky ones that survived, because so many of us didn’t. I represent the men and women who put their lives on hold to go and fight for democracy and this country.”

Rishi Sunak also turned to the words of a soldier to make his contribution. He read out Field Marshal Montgomery’s address to the troops before the D-Day landings.

First Minister John Swinney represents Scotland at the ceremony. Mr. Swinney paid tribute to the “brave men and women” who took part in the military operation during the World War II before attending the commemoration.

The event was hosted by Dame Helen Mirren, with military musicians and special guests leading the opening ceremony.

In Normandy, the Princess Royal will join British and Canadian military veterans for the commemoration. Princess Anne is taking part in a series of events to honour the sacrifices of Allied troops on the anniversary on the eve of the decisive invasion of Europe.

Earlier, US President Joe Biden landed in France to take part in commemorative events to mark D-Day. Mr. Biden will spend five days in the country. He is due to give a high-profile speech and hold an official state visit with President Emmanuel Macron.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky is set to deliver a speech to the National Assembly on June 7, the last day of the European election campaign. This manoeuvre makes the opposition shudder.

Olivier Marleix, chairman of the Republicans (LR) group, denounced the visit as “regrettable 48 hours before the European elections” in the National Assembly on June 4. Visiting Paris as part of D-Day commemorations to which Russia was not invited, Zelensky will appear before the Assembly for the first time in two years.

Troops from Britain, the US, Canada and France attacked German forces on the beaches of Normandy in northern France on June 6 1944. The Normandy landings were the largest naval invasion in history, and the World War II battle laid the groundwork for the Allied victory in Europe.

Read more HERE

[sholiofic]

hello! i've been lurking in the biggles ao3 tag for a few months now (because of your glacier rescue fic actually!). and after some time i decided to check out the canon material. so by now i've read probably half? of the books containing evs (most of the ones where he is prominently featured, though none from the WWII time and i won't ever read those if i can help it) and also the short story where marie gets introduced.

but!! now that i've given in to fate and have started writing some biggles fic myself, i've noticed a glaring lack in my bigglesducation when it comes to the other characters (even biggles himself sometimes)! especially bertie is hard for me to get a grip on (also bc i'm not english, so his way of talking is often a big ??? for me lmao). could you maybe recommend some of the books where you feel like the others get their time to shine and their personality comes out noticably? (redirecting me to others' lists on forums or sth is also okay ofc!!)

(also as a bonus some of the more fantastical/horror-ish ones? i seem to remember someone mentioning a giant squid??)

(also also please do not get too excited at the prospect of new biggles fic, i tend to go overboard with my ideas and so most of them never get to see the light of day or even leave their status of wip)

thank you and no worries if you don't want to answer this! (and sorry for the long ask!)

Hello hello! Welcome to the Biggles fandom! ❤��� Whether or not you post anything, I hope you have fun!

@philomytha has some great introductory resources with recommended Biggles books, including a bunch of von Stalhein books and also plenty of ones without him; you can find those posts here:

Biggles for Beginners

More good Biggles books

So I highly recommend checking out those posts, which contain a mix of the EvS books (mostly in the first post) and a variety of other recommended books from the rest of the series, with capsule descriptions - it's a great resource and has guided most of my reading in the series so far; I'm only now starting to branch out into books not mentioned there!

Bertie is hard to write; he's the hardest for me out of the main set (including EvS), and it doesn't help that he's only in about half the series since he first shows up in WWII. Actually, the first story in the collection Spitfire Parade introduces him and is worth reading just for that! (I think you get a really good sense of his personality there.)

As for the introductions of the other main characters, Algy is introduced along with Biggles's early (and uncomplimentary!) impressions of him in a couple of the shorts in The Camels Are Coming, and then Ginger first appears in Biggles and the Black Peril (fortunately not at all ... what it sounds like), which is also just a really fun book on its own with lots of fun action and some nice Biggles-and-Algy interaction as well.

A few of the books that I particularly liked that don't have EvS in them:

Biggles and the Black Peril, mentioned above

Biggles Fails to Return, which is largely focused on Biggles's team trying to rescue him, so you get a good look at their individual personalities and team dynamic without Biggles around. (Although Biggles gets some good bits as well!)

Biggles Takes it Rough (also not what it sounds like), which has some good Bertie moments and is generally a fun book.

Biggles in the Terai is another one that might be good for writing Bertie; it involves Biggles and Bertie working together to look for a missing Algy.

Biggles Sweeps the Desert (WWII era, but no EvS) has good team interactions and a lot of action.

Biggles in the Baltic is, regrettably, one of the WWII books with an evil EvS, so that's a caveat, but otherwise I love it a lot; there's an exciting adventure plot, a secret island base, and a lot of team dynamics.

As for the more over-the-top books with giant squid and so forth, you can find recs for those at Philomytha's posts as well! So far I don't think any of those have turned out to be ones I really loved, which doesn't mean I might not hit one later on that's a favorite, but she's got a few of those listed, and some of the more real-world-based books can also have occasional appearances by Menacing Batshittery as well. (Just FYI, there's also a general tendency for the more batshit books to have more racism as well, since they tend to take place in out-of-the-way corners of the world that Johns doesn't write as well as places closer to home. So that's a caveat!)

That being said, one thing I do genuinely, unironically love about these books is that they lean into their respective premises as hard as they possibly can. If there's a castle, it WILL have secret passages and ancient suits of armor and everything else you'd want a castle to have. If pirates are mentioned, there will be a wrecked ship full of treasure. If they're going to be around Antarctica, someone will, at some point, have to land an airplane on an iceberg. (That's in Biggles's Second Case, btw - which also is a really enjoyable read!)

So basically I hope you have fun, and feel free to drop back into my askbox if you have more questions or just want to report back on some of the books!

[steampunkforever]

After having only watched passable-to-mediocre movies (or worse, if you read my last filmposting) for the past month, The Thin Red Line was like drinking deep cool water poured from a stoneware decanter left to chill in a cellar on a dusty, hot day. A healthy diet of good artistic media is paramount to my happiness, and I’m miserable without at least one AFI or Criterion collection film a week.

Though I do shill for Terrence Malick (he’s only one or two degrees of separation away from me, after all) you cannot dispute that the man is a cinematic genius. He makes groundbreaking films in the 70s, disappears from the public eye and general hollywood for 20 years, then pops up to make this movie.

The film itself is legitimately incredible, and between the direction, the writing, editing, and frankly mindblowing performances from one of the most star studded casts I’ve ever seen get no screentime whatsoever, I can’t pick what shines brighter. George Clooney is in it for something like a minute. Billy Bob Thornton recorded voice-over for the entire movie that was completely cut from the film. It’s incredible. I love it. I can’t stop gushing.

As far as movies go, we tend to throw around the word “elevated” a lot for anything artsy. Any horror film A24 has put out, for example. Any attempt at taking media with a low-culture inception and tradition boosted to more artistic ambition counts as elevated, hence all the attempts at elevated horror. To make a WWE program an emmy contender measured against breaking bad would be to elevate it.

Of course you should not attempt to make pro wrestling a sort of prestige product. Its viewers are more likely to hold a knowledge of Coors Light than Carménère, and if we are to use the Roger Ebert scale of “knows what it’s about and achieves it,” then WWE doesn’t need help from anyone credited as a producer on HBO’s Euphoria. Likewise, the Evil Dead films may not be very good but they don’t need the help of anyone who knows what Ari Astor looks like or thinks that horror is really about love.

War movies, for as much as I love them (and know that I love them deeply), have never been shy of blatant propaganda, and therefore are ripe for elevation. Now I know the kneejerk reaction is to point at Jarhead or Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now! and say “well those were artistic!” and to that I will concede that the military propaganda we consume these days is less blatantly pushed out through the war film genre than it was in the day of John Wayne’s Longest Day or Green Beret. We have MARVEL movies for that now. Yet as any number of state-subsidized GoArmy or USAF propaganda films will show, just because Tom Cruise rides his motorbike, it doesn’t make the writing and artistic integrity any less flimsy.

Of course the works of Kubrick, Coppola, and Mendes are all artistic and elevated, but The Thin Red Line tops them all. Kubrick and Coppola both made gorgeous antiwar films that inspired countless young men to join the military and fight for their country in foreign wars. Kubrick’s drill sergeant inspired a generation of men to become marines for some reason, and Coppola’s Valkyries helicopter sequence cemented in the minds of those same soldiers the idea that whatever we were doing over there (in the war that crippled the Army’s domestic reputation for decades after) was regrettable but cool. Mendes’ Jarhead is the closest to The Thin Red Line in regards to the pure lack of wartime glorification, but Malick supersedes all of them in his elevation of the war movie.

For the first two hours or so (rough estimate) of the film, we do not clearly see the enemy. This is a WWII movie, and should we follow the logic of Saving Private Ryan (filmed in the same year!) it would only be logical to intercut shots of Japanese machinegunners firing their iconic banana-clipped pieces down the hill at the approaching Americans. This is our blameless war, and the nuclear blasts aren’t really that bright as long as you squint. The cloth mullet things (which I’m sure have a real name) hanging from the rear of the Japanese headgear even mimic the Stahlhelm flare of Nazi stormtroopers the GIs were fighting in the other WWII theater. The imagery is rich, it’s there, and it’s been done before. Yet for a long time the enemy appears as no more than vague figures and muzzleflashes over the ridgeline. 

Instead, The Thin Red Line first treats us to a few hours of infantrymen being turned into hamburger in various graphic manners as camera pans to lingering shots of the treeline or some exotic bird. Haunting philosophical narration rambles over this, posing existential questions and pondering the nature of mankind. Sometimes there’s a flashback to what appears to be a Texas farmhouse or to a small fishing hamlet in the Solomon islands. There are also lingering shots of trees and sunlight in the flashbacks, don’t worry. #STATUS: ARBOREAL. Brother, I am drinking deep.

When we finally do see direct combat with the enemy, none of it plays to much glory. The chimps killing each other in the opening of Kubrick’s Space Odyssey did so with more splendor and glory than Malick’s infantrymen. Despite all the Japanese atrocities and the war crimes and the vengeance owed to the american side for their fallen comrades, the route and defeat feels neutral. It feels dirty, inhuman. For every slur and murdered Vietnamese civilian in Kubrick and Coppola’s messaging, this is the movie that made war feel much dirtier, much baser than the charge of the light brigade-sort of wartime narrative we are so often fed about the world wars in general.

This is a World War Two film! This was the good one, the war we won, not a Tie like Korea was or the anti-war darling like Vietnam. We can feel good about this one. Yet The Thin Red Line doesn’t let us. It won’t let us look away from the ugliness even during a supposedly heroic bayonet charge. When it does let us look away, the lingering peace of the trees and the birds and the tossing waves only condemn mankind’s savagery all the more.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

where's the essay op

Okay so bayonets.  I don't know why I ever pretend that I want to talk about anything but military history and battlefield medicine.  I checked all my sources in the waiting room of a doctor's office so you're just going to have to trust me because they are Gone.  I’m pretty sure this can all be found on a few Wiki dives, though.

First of all, to recap, let me clarify a common misconception.  The triangular bayonet was NOT outlawed in the 1949 Geneva Convention, nor any future revisions—as it was originally a musket weapon, it was fading out of use by World War II and the subsequent Convention.  However, you'll notice that I opted to use to word "violates" rather than "were banned by," which is a fine semantical hair to split and, I suppose, debatable.  Most bayonets were not explicitly banned in the GC, in that there is not an article in the GC saying you can't use them.  However there IS an article in the GC, adopted from the earlier 1899 Hague Regulations, stating that it is prohibited to "employ weapons...of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" (originally part of Article 23 of the HR, now Article 35 of the GC, expanded in 1977).  Personally, as someone who knows a lot about how a lot of weapons impact the human body, I think that is a more expansive statement than most people would expect, and should be treated accordingly.  Regrettably I do not work for the UN.

Point is, triangular blades specifically are known to cause wounds that are difficult to heal, highly prone to infection, and extremely likely to never fully recover, while also having a relatively low mortality rate.  This is because the axes of a triangular wound, which is shaped sort of like a Y, make it very hard to stitch closed, and very easy for any "twisting" of the blade to create a large hole with ragged edges that's functionally impossible to stitch closed.  As an added bonus, because of the way scar tissue forms, it's possible for one "line" of a triangular wound to pull open other parts of the puncture while the scar tissue forms and pulls on the skin.  Even by standards in the 1700s, triangular bayonet wounds were phenomenally likely to infect and consistently difficult to repair, and modern medicine has made only limited improvements on that situation.  As such, cases have been made that certain types of bayonet/triangular blades in general are therefore in violation of this article, despite not being explicitly banned.

(Side note: yes, the American military violates the GC on the regular.  The American police violate the GC.  I am excruciatingly aware.  The GC is interesting reading generally, but especially if you're an American and you ever feel like being appalled for a few hours.)

Anyway, with that covered again, let's actually talk about the development of triangular bayonets, which might've been out of use by the time of the GC but DEFINITELY violated that article in a big way for a good two centuries prior and are also a fascinating insight into the fact that humanity, as a whole, is really determined to do things in the dumbest way possible.

The first thing you have to understand about bayonets is that they were originally invented as a way to integrate pikes with guns, not knives or even swords.  When arquebuses and muskets were first invented, you were lucky to get a rate of fire around one round per minute, and you still had to protect your army while they were reloading their clunky black powder guns.  Therefore, most infantries between like...the invention of the gun and the late 1600s were comprised of soldiers equipped with muskets, and also soldiers equipped with pikes (a type of spear).  The idea of a bayonet was "what if we put a pike and a musket TOGETHER and then we could give everyone THAT and have way more guns in our army because we don't need pikemen anymore." Which makes sense when you think about it.

What makes less sense is that the initial effort at bayonets was something called a plug bayonet.  You'll never fucking guess what these geniuses (first record is Chinese infantry around-abouts 1600, popular use of plug bayonets recorded in Europe around the 1630s) figured out for their first try at a bayonet.  Here's a hint!  There's not a lot of places on a gun where you can "plug in" a sword. 

Obviously plug bayonets did not exactly catch on as a fantastic solution, because these guns were either a gun OR a short spear and neither was especially good at their jobs.  A bunch of battles hinged on this problem. Which brings us to the end of the 1600s, when English forces in Scotland got absolutely obliterated by a bunch of Highlanders in 1689 because the English were so busy trying to fix their bayonets that the Highlanders literally just charged them, fired one volley, and cut them down with swords and axes. The English took that one very personally (which, you know what, fair, it was a humiliating defeat, especially since the Highlanders had been using that tactic very successfully for a while) and started developing better bayonets.

This is where we get to socket bayonets, AKA what you would probably recognize as a bayonet from a period TV series or a museum.  Socket bayonets have a metal sleeve that gets attached around the barrel of a gun (in this case a musket), so that you can still theoretically use the damn gun while it's attached.  There were problems with the development of socket bayonets (notably, it took a while to figure out how to keep them from falling off the gun during battle), but overall they worked much better and armies started getting rid of pikemen. This was also when bayonets were shortened to a little over a foot, which isn't really important but made them much easier to maneuver.  Socket bayonets were the European order of the day by the early 1700s, and mostly came in three flavors: single edge (like a knife), double edge (like a sword), and spike (like a...spike).  There were pros and cons to all of these (single edge wasn't great for stabbing, spike was ONLY good for stabbing, and double edge was kind of okay at stabbing and kind of okay at slashing), but most importantly, both single and double edged bayonets were fragile.  The heads of polearms were shaped on patterns other than "sword on a stick" for a reason, and it's because "sword on a stick" is not very sturdy.

Triangular bayonets were the solution to this problem.  Triangular bayonets are basically a single piece of metal creased long-ways, with both edges sharpened and the top fluted to form a third edge at the crease.  This makes a much more resilient weapon than a flat blade, because a twisting motion doesn’t risk snapping the blade in the middle.  It also means that now you have three edges, and human nature is to figure “more knife better.”

And don’t get me wrong, as a weapon of war, the triangular bayonet was a great one.  It was introduced in the 1710s and then got used regularly to maim and terrify through the start of the 1900s.  In fact, the triangular bayonet worked so well that it only began to get phased out of use when the style of war itself started to change dramatically during the World Wars.  When warfare was focused on pitched battle (your old school “two armies enter, one army leaves” kind of warfare), the emphasis of a bayonet was on extending the reach of a gun.  A bayonet lets a soldier have a weapon for closer range combat, where a gun—especially a long gun like a musket—is not as effective.  So when you had two armies on the field and a bayonet was first and foremost a way to keep the enemy at least gun-length away, longer bayonets were better.  

But World War I was the advent of trench warfare, which was a terrible idea and also meant that a long weapon, like a gun with an extra foot and a half of sword on top, was much, MUCH harder to work with.  Either fighting took place in no man’s land, where you probably weren’t going to get close enough to use a bayonet anyway, or in a trench, where a weapon as long as you were tall was just impossible to work with.  

(If you know anything about WWI, you’re probably asking me about bayonet charges right now, specifically the concept of “going over the top.”  Contrary to every media representation of WWI ever, “going over the top” of a trench faded out of use pretty quickly.  It was a type of bayonet charge where the soldiers in ONE trench fixed their bayonets and tried to charge no man’s land in an effort to reach the OTHER trench, but it was basically never effective because no man’s land was often heavily trapped and strafed with gunfire and mortar shells.  Also, it was the kind of battle tactic that military history books talk about with phrases like “total annihilation of whole attacking battalions,” so that’s the kind of mortality rate we’re talking about here.  The Battle of the Somme featured a good number of bayonet charges by the British, for context, so people learned and started using other tactics.)

So, since bayonets were only useful in trenches, suddenly everyone was scrambling to shorten bayonets and guns so that their soldiers could get ANYTHING DONE.  And THEN soldiers started admitting that they were literally taking their bayonets off their guns and using them as knives instead, because for trench fighting that was way more useful, and so everyone just decided fuck it, let’s just make bayonet-knives, which is why WWI weapons with bayonets usually look, very literally, like someone duct taped a short knife to the front of a gun.  This was the start of the decline of the triangular bayonet, a full two hundred years after it hit the battlefield, which is a frankly spectacular run for any weapon since the invention of the gun.  Triangular bayonets held on, here and there, through part of WWII, but they were almost entirely gone by the time of the Geneva Convention being ratified in 1949.  However, spike or knife bayonets are still issued to many armies as a weapon of last resort to this day, although they aren’t often used in actual attacks.  Now we have bigger, worse weapons for actual attacks.

 TL;DR, the development of bayonets went like this:

“What if we put a pike ON a gun?  …oh wait, you still want to use the gun?  Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“What if we put a sword on the gun instead?  Then we could put it somewhere where we can still use the gun!  Good luck keeping it on there, though.”

“What if we actually made something designed to get put on a gun and stab people effectively?  Like, what if we designed something with that purpose in mind?  Perhaps?” SMASH CUT TWO CENTURIES

“Well if you’re just gonna take your bayonet off and stab someone with it anyway, can we just go back to giving you knives, then?”

And now you’re caught up on all the dubiously successful ways we’ve tried to mutilate people with a knife-gun.

[marzipanandminutiae]

top 5 fun facts/piece of trivia

1. The concept of dental floss was invented in 1819 by New Orleans dentist Levi Spear Parmly, but it didn't catch on until after WWII. Which, regrettably, means there's still hope for Google Glass.

2. The word "okay" started as a slang trend among young people in Boston in the 1830s. They would intentionally misspell words and then invent acronyms from the incorrect spellings- "O.K." stood for "Orl Korrekt [All Correct]." A national newspaper picked up on the trend, and though there were other popular examples at the time- K.Y for "know yuse [no use];" O.W. for "orl wright [all right]" -O.K. was the one that stuck. And now we all use a 19th-century meme in our everyday speech without even realizing it.

3. Not only did people not relieve themselves in the hallways at 18th-century Versailles, as many pop history listicles like to claim, but some high-ranking nobles living there at various points during that period actually had flush toilets. Marie Antoinette and Madame de Pompadour come immediately to mind.

4. Conversation hearts- like modern SweetHearts candies that are popular around Valentine's Day -date back to at least the 1880s.

5. Every time you see a movie shot in a historical house museum, there had to be at least one museum employee on-set to sort of run interference. That includes okaying or vetoing anything the crew wants to do in the space, moving objects for them if necessary/possible, and generally making sure everyone follows the rules.

I have been on Team House for a filming before. The crew was amazing. Some of them...are not, based on the horror stories I've heard.

[tcm]

THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE: Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder By Kim Luperi

Released near the end of WWII, THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE (’45) thoughtfully presented a timeless tale of love and the true nature of beauty to a war-weary nation. But it also dives below the surface, imparting sensitive commentary on society’s standards of attractiveness and belonging, matters of which always seem to remain relevant even as the world changes. 

In THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE, "homely" Laura (Dorothy McGuire) works as a housemaid at the cottage where handsome Oliver (Robert Young) and Beatrice (Hillary Brooke) plan to spend their honeymoon. However, WWII interrupts those nuptials, and a year later, Oliver gets discharged from service with visible battle scars. Bitter and almost driven to suicide, he shuts himself out from the world in that same cottage, where he befriends Laura and blind WWI veteran John (Herbert Marshall). Out of loneliness and convenience, Oliver and Laura marry, but something magical happens once they do: their physical imperfections melt away, but only to them, as love grants them the gift to see each other as they want to be seen.  

Sir Arthur Wing Pinero penned the source material in 1922 in part to provide a confidence boost for injured WWI veterans. His play first hit the screen in 1924, and two decades later, WWII offered a timely background to update the story with similar effect; in fact, Variety predicted the picture would inspire tolerance and “make rehabilitation of the boys easier.” Almost a century after the story’s debut, The Enchanted Cottage’s themes continue to endure. 

WWII expanded women’s roles, making it more acceptable for them to trade, to an extent, elegance for practicability and comfort, especially those who worked in factory jobs vacated by men. Even so, media and pinup photography highlighted beauty and desirability, confirming both genders “assigned great importance to female attractiveness,” as Susan M. Hartmann wrote in The Home Front and Beyond. Indeed, women’s magazines continually emphasized traditional femininity and glamour, while publications that men flipped through accentuated the same – and more overt sexual appeal, too. 

As evidenced by her perceptive reaction to the shattering rebuffs she receives from servicemen at a dance, Laura does not fit the traditional modes of rouged-up style. Growing up in the internet age with similar pressures of glamour and perfect bodies everywhere I clicked, I identified with the humble and thoughtful Laura. Sure, society at large may not label her as physically attractive, but her appeal lies in the way she defends her worth and lives life on her own terms. The film presents her as more of a plain Jane, and viewers are privy to her compassionate character, which makes us root for her. That said, there has always existed a stark difference between the fantasy served up in media and women’s experience in the real world. Just like WWII opened up opportunities, modern women have access to a breadth of possibilities that have also altered how we live and look. Even though more diverse images of beauty are disseminated today, we still constantly consume meticulously crafted physical representations few can actually attain. The weight of 1940s societal pressures obviously left Laura with emotional scars, as such unreasonable demands still have the ability to do today. 

Many soldiers returning from WWII also faced unrealistic expectations. As Mark D. Van Ells reported in To Hear Only Thunder Again, self-help books counseled veterans’ families to show patience, support and encouragement in difficult situations, which Oliver’s support system obviously didn’t do as he seeks to come to terms with his injuries. “Sensitivity seemed in short supply,” Thomas Childers remarked in Soldier from the War Returning when commenting on the stares and whispers disabled veterans regrettably encountered in public, which made many reluctant to venture out. That same social stigma and lack of empathy and kindness for one another, especially those who look different, sadly continue for too many today through bullying. In fact, internet anonymity seemingly gives people carte blanche to act much more cruelly online. 

As Oliver despondently admits to John, he just wants his old life back. John W. Jeffries observed in Wartime America that post-war magazines and newspapers focused on getting back to normal, like going on trips and picnics. For disabled veterans, though, their new normal necessitated a completely different existence. Today, people feel similarly as we’ve lived with the COVID-19 pandemic for over a year. Many grapple with re-entering a society that looks unlike the one we left, and many more deal with tremendous loss and life-changing repercussions from the virus.

The outsider status imposed on Laura and Oliver draws them together in their own secluded world where they fit in. In the modern day, those who feel ostracized from society can find a sense of belonging with like-minded friends and companions around the world through online groups, social media and, of course, dating apps. Then as now, we just want to connect with others – and sometimes, as THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE reminds me, we have to look past the surface and embrace the true self that lies just beneath.

[guiltyidealist]

Where’s that post about how capitalism and dirty rich pigs essentially made us love American lawns and hate dandelions because their plant-killer killed those instead of bluegrass and they wanted to make sales, so they launched an entire fucking anti-dandelion propaganda campaign to make us want them gone and buy their product?

Edit: okay, I found it. But it was clover, not dandelions. The post reads:

TIL lawns before WWII were usually a mix of grass and clover. Herbicide companies in the 50s mounted a major advertising campaign to convince homeowners clover was a weed, because their new herbicides killed clover but not grass

I went to the source and found that it has been marked non-verifiable. Given what else is in that marker, it doesn’t seem to be credible and shouldn’t be taken as fact. 

I looked up the history of lawns, lawn culture, bluegrass, herbicides, pesticides, and clover itself and found one source for it (credibility questionable). It cites a magazine article from 2008, which does say what the TIL post said:  

Regrettably, 2,4-D [one of the first pesticides developed in the 40s] killed not only dandelions but also plants that were beneficial to lawns, like nitrogen-fixing clover. To cover up this loss, any plant that the chemical eradicated was redefined [and marketed] as an enemy. “Once considered the ultimate in fine turf, a clover lawn is looked upon today by most authorities as not much better than a weed patch” is how one guidebook explained the change.

It cites no source for this information. I looked up the origins of 2,4-D and couldn’t find anything that supported this claim beyond what it kills and the fact that it took off in the market. 

Now all this does NOT necessarily mean that it isn’t true. You know how capitalists like to cover up what they’ve done so they can’t be held accountable. 

While I’m honestly inclined to believe it, you can’t go around claiming fact without substantial backup, and this just doesn’t have that substance behind it. 

But! If you have a source that can substantially back up the claim “Capitalists in the 40s/50s branded broadleaves as undesirable simply because their product happened to kill those and they wanted to profit”, I would love to see it. 

[deja-you]

 MASTERLIST

as of June 22, 2021

Hamilton

drabble masterlist

m. de lafayette

apollo & daphne 

after making a regrettable bet, lafayette finds himself falling head over heels for the girl across the room. (fluff)

dress

y/n may have had ulterior motives to buying that dress. (fluff)

twelve

a tragedy in twelve parts. (angst)

monsieur french fry

lafayette can’t stop thinking about the mysterious woman he met at the wedding. (fluff)

âmes soeurs

lafayette and y/n howe were childhood best friends. it’s been years, but somehow they’ve both ended up in revolutionary america. on different sides of the war. (fluff? slight angst?)

part one

part two

foreign affairs [completed]

in 2020, representative y/n l/n is up for reelection. lafayette, y/n’s former best friend and current french socialite and playboy, decides this is the time to walk back into her life. (fluff + a lot of angst)

trailer

part one | paris

part two | new york

part three | d.c.

sequel | domestic tranquility

angel wings + wedding rings

you’ve made plenty of bad decisions in your lifetime, and now you could add marrying your best friend to that list. (90% fluff with a pinch of angst)

trailer

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

chapter five

chapter six

starlight 

it was never your intent to be anything more than a common thief, but fate -- and a rather attractive general -- has other plans for you. (sci-fi au, enemies to lovers kind of, fake marriage at one point, one bed trope, slow burn, and a lot of sexual tension)

chapter one

chapter two

chapter three

chapter four

tbd...

t. jefferson

narcissus & echo

y/n is afraid she’ll become a mere reflection of herself if she stays. (angst)

taxi cab

there’s an urban legend thats been circulating about a taxi cab that doesn’t take you where you want to go, but where you need to go. (fluff)

ten ways to say (i love you)

thomas has never liked the conventional way of saying ‘I love you.’ (fluff)

crochet king (headcanon)

the lies we tell ourselves

you tell yourself lies because you know the truth would crush you. (angst)

queen midas

thomas thinks you’re golden, and sometimes he wishes he wasn’t right. (angst)

times new roman (social media au) [completed]

y/n needs a date. Thomas would be more than happy to oblige. (fluff)

trailer

teaser

profiles

episode one

episode two

episode three

episode four

episode five

episode six

episode seven

episode eight

episode nine (smut)

episode ten

headcanons

the rms titanic (and other ships that pass in the night) [completed series]

you know your relationship with Thomas will only be a fleeting memory, but you allow your lives to collide nonetheless. (fluff + angst)

you will, won't you?

you're not always happy with the choices Thomas makes, but he's going to be worth the wait. (WWII era oneshot)

a. hamilton

baby

alexander comes home early. (fluff)

bitterness

alexander knows he has no right to be bitter. (angst)

p. hamilton

king of hearts

a. schuyler

it’s you

a simple misunderstanding. (fluff)

h. mulligan

fashion week

working for hercules mulligan’s line, the revolution, is a dream come true, especially when you get to walk the runway at paris fashion week. (fluff)

[titleleaf]

i want to know why midcentury america was so whack!!

This is an excellent question and I’m glad somebody asked it because I’m constantly thinking about it! A big part of it was the Cold War, though necessarily in the obvious sense of overt anti-Communist sentiment but at least as far as the United States goes, there’s not a single area however seemingly-trivial (fashion, cosmetics, car culture, film, popular literature) that wasn’t touched by the cultural shakeup of the Second World War and the sense that a return to postwar normalcy at home (and an avoidance of further Nazi-style atrocities whether from outside or perpetrated by Americans themselves) required aggressive commitment to forging that normalcy through participation. That anxious sense of the importance of individual participation in uniquely-American capitalist enterprise, yoked to runaway technological advancements, rapidly amping-up consumer culture, and the real coming-of-age for media as a tool for political and social messaging (for good and ill), resulted in a lot of weird shit that’s also pretty well-documented relative to earlier periods of cultural shakeup. The upheaval might have been relatively subtle compared to how we conceptualize the late 1960s/1980s/uh, right nows but some weird shit was going on. 

Racism, sexism, and homophobia (among many other shitty things) continued apace during this period, in many ways intensifying and taking new shapes in response to any whiff of advancement or social mobility by marginalized people, but all the ways the era’s unique damage manifested that seem so bonkers to us now (”refrigerator mothers”, jello salads, CONELRAD radio bands, rapid advances in psych drug availability with few corresponding developments in professional ethics, menstrual pads worn on a little garter belt thing) almost all make more sense in the context of people desperately trying to project an air of understanding and confidence regarding technologies and understandings of the world that were still really new to them. Even the fucking jello salad. I wish I had a more cohesive outline of why shit was so inexplicably bonkers but Cold War + post-WWII hangover is at least a big chunk of it. 

Some of my favorite books on various ways mid-20th century America was heinous, definitely not comprehensive:

From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, Beth Bailey (I especially appreciate the chapter about sexual liberation dovetailing with fucked-up misogyny in dating guides for men/boys)

Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate, Ginger Strand

Relative Intimacy: Fathers, Adolescent Daughters, And Postwar American Culture, Rachel Devlin

Fall-Out Shelters For The Human Spirit: American Art And The Cold War, Michael L. Krenn

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!: Pageantry And Patriotism In Cold War America, Richard M. Fried 

If you (like me) are interested in the long shadow of nuclear science and nuclear warfare over the second half (and some change) of the 20th century, you might like Alex Wellerstein’s blog Restricted Data, in particular his writing on civil defense. He does some writing about modern events in the field, if that’s something you’d like to avoid. 

If you just want to look at weird fucking food... it’s hard to beat Jane and Michael Stern’s food writing, particularly Square Meals and American Gourmet, or John Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food. 

Other stuff:

‘"Politics in an Age of Anxiety": Cold War Political Culture and the Crisis in American Masculinity; 1949-1960′, K. A. Cuordileone

Many episodes of Sexing History, especially Bandstand And The Closet and I Must Increase My Bust!

Invasion Of The Minnesota Normals, Annie Murphy Paul

[funkymbtifiction]

How I Write, How I Dream: ESTP Edition

Mod: An ESTP asked permission to submit this, since she noticed I do not have an ESTP ‘How I write stories’ description in the archive to match this series. What follows is in her own words.

ESTP: How I Write, How I Dream

So this submission is like 6+ years late topically, I think, but it’s an understatement to say I get side-tracked easily. First I had to be self-aware enough to actually determine my type with confidence, and then I had to remember to write this up. Hopefully it’s an edition that’s better late than never – in any case, I thought it might be fun to contribute, given the frequent lack of Se-dom voices in things like this.

I’m aware that I might be in a comparatively small group as a regular ESTP writer, let alone one familiar with personality typology, but I wrote my first short story at nine for a 4th grade assignment, and then my first full story/intended book when I was eleven, (both of which I immediately proceeded to act out on the playground), so it’s sort of always been a part of my normal retinue of hobbies/coping mechanisms/diversions/distractions. Usually I find that I write the most when I’m bored or otherwise dissatisfied with my real life – sort of using it to spice things up with more exciting events, even if they’re regrettably fictional. I also suspect that I use writing to experience all the interesting things I find myself unable to physically do, at least for the moment – not unlike what your ISTP contributor described. I think sometimes that I use it to subconsciously work through certain concepts, too, until I understand them holistically. It’s like it gives me a way to actually engage and interact with a philosophical concept through tangible expression – through embedding it into [fictional] human behavior. Like how I understand the nuances of the concept of apostasy better for having walked through the plot of Silence (2016) with Scorsese than I would have if it was still just a definition in a theology textbook. Application helps me. (I also had a counselor a while back who told me that I used my writing to work through the emotions I hate to process in real life, but I was never wholly convinced of that or the connection of my plots to my real life events, so jury’s out, I guess.)

When I was a kid, I liked to read a fair-ish amount. Spies were oftentimes my favorite topic, but I also wanted eagerly to be one and owned probably every kid spy gadget ever manufactured for sale at the Spy Museum in D.C., to which I dragged my parents practically every weekend so I could crawl through air vents, etc. However, my favorite children’s series of all was actually the Ingo series by the late Helen Dunmore, which provided me with exciting, nature-based, and [mostly] emotionally satisfying adventures in my lifelong favorite unpredictable environment – underwater. (I also dragged my parents constantly to our local aquarium.) As I got older, the frequency of my reading dropped, and I now find myself usually pulled more towards nonfiction.

[Note – I just realized a lifelong quirk with me and books. I’m sort of ridiculously set on *seeing* the books I own. I mean, I know what I own, but I still constantly get out every book I own on a particular topic just to see them all at once. It makes the knowledge more cohesive for me to concentrate it visually, I guess. Even just the covers. Anyway.]

My writing habits are kind of awful – in that, like alluded to above, I pretty much only write when I either a) am seized by a great idea, or else b) have nothing better to do. I have little ambition to actually publish or anything like that, regardless of encouragement, and I prefer to think of my writing as just a diversion, an amusement for myself alone (though I do crave minimal approval, as I do in anything). In any case, as soon as the pressure of a schedule is attached to my writing, it drains of all joy for me. Much like your ISTP contributor described, I think I hover somewhere between plotter and pantser, depending on the story. Too much planning leads to my feeling like I have no incentive to actually write it, as I’ve already experienced it, and too little leaves me spinning aimlessly with no real direction. I write both prose and screenplays, and the rule seems to hold true for both, overall. Also, whenever I have a problem in my plotting or characters or whatever, I find that I have to step away, go be busy with something else, sometimes for a long while, and when I come back everything just falls into place. I guess unconscious Ti and/or Ni finding solutions? I’m not totally sure how/why that happens.

As my inclusion of screenplay format may suggest, I experience my stories in an incredibly visual way. I think sometimes that my narratives come across very much like movies, with all the requisite limitations and usual lack of character introspection. I feel like I pretty much focus on the observable actions of my characters – I find describing any kind of extended rumination highly unnatural, at least most of the time. Even my planning is highly visual. I have a tendency to graph, chart, draw, and plaster my options all over the walls. It’s ridiculous sometimes, but in many cases I just have to be able to see them all next to each other, even if there’s no other information provided. Like my books, mentioned earlier. It helps clarify my plot choices in my mind. It’s also a quirk/weakness of mine that I am often entirely dependent on outside images for descriptions. I need to find a real person, place, or thing to base my fictional ones on physically if I hope to have any kind of concrete knowledge to allow description. Again, it helps solidify them/it in my mind.

I have another weakness in my writing that often results in much incredulous laughter – I’m often entirely blind to any hidden meaning or symbolism in my own writing. I might get the vaguest sense of something being a good line, but be unsure why until my ISFJ friend starts praising my deep, archetypal references and crafting – and then staring at me when I clearly have no idea what she means. It’s happened several times by this point, and though it makes me laugh, I’ll just blame it on the subconscious inferior Ni. I pretty much never have any kind of goal of being symbolic or laden with deep meaning. If I were ever to try that, I think it would massively stress me out.

In terms of editors, beta readers, or whatever else we want to call those who give solicited criticism – that’s just what I need/want. Criticism. For the most part, I’m incredibly thick-skinned about my writing and would be absolutely fine if someone told me that it was utterly terrible and the whole thing needed revising down to the very concept. That may be because I think many of my concepts are lackluster to start with. But nothing frustrates me so quickly as readers unwilling to actually [and harshly] criticize. I always tell them that I want him/her to rip it to shreds. I mean, that’s the only way it’ll get better. (I’ve made mistakes before by assuming that other writers feel this way, too – my sister did not appreciate my input.)

I write almost exclusively dramas these days, I guess, though of varying subtypes. (I also maintain the availability/ready accessibility of about 10+ stories at any given time of active writing. I bounce between them sometimes based on what I’m feeling like at the moment or what I have a new thought about.) I have a sort of historical drama thing that takes place in the 1680s, a modern drama prompted by a premise of genetic engineering, a Most Dangerous Game kind of hunting/weapons thing, a detective story in the immediate aftermath of WWII, a classic deserted island story, a thing involving the phenomenon of stigmata… the list goes on and shifts constantly.

However, while I’ve typically enjoyed writing, here’s the omnipresent rub – engaging with it for any great amount of time makes me really unhealthy emotionally. I’m pretty sure that after like two or three days primarily working on a story without other overriding priorities, or like six or seven with those scattered distractions, (at best), I’m plummeting straight down to my inferior functions. My historical stories do this even more quickly, because they oftentimes seem to require more mental effort. I get super irritable, drown in self-loathing, start to think that everything real that I want is never going to happen – it’s really not good. The fact of the matter is that while writing is a fun diversion oftentimes, I go insane doing it for too long, because I need to get out and engage. (Thanks to my pesky Se-dom, daring to ask for more than just incessant fidgeting.)

When I do write, however, I’m known for my in-depth research, my character-driven plots, lines some people in my life seem to think are witty or something, and emotional depth, believe it or not. I’ve been complimented on it, as well as my tendency to accurately portray mental/emotional illness. I don’t know. I’ve never thought I was overly talented at such things, but then again, I never paid much attention. Even this write-up has been hard – analyzing my writing like this. It’s not a strength of mine to scrutinize my own habits.

After all, I’m busy – I have to go blast Maroon 5 as I jump off a 20-foot wall yelling, “Parkour!”

I am an ESTP, remember? ;-)

[thatcartoonnetworkblog]

Cartoon Network Friday Spotlight- ToonHeads- “The Wartime Cartoons”

Oh man, we do not give CN enough credit for showing ToonHeads back in the day. This was the best, a programming of some of the best classic cartoons from the Turner library, themed with historical context and trivia added. Animation historian Jerry Beck was behind most of these, and added a lot of his know-how into the show. This series was great for fans of animation who wanted to learn more about their favorite cartoons, back when it was slightly harder to find all of this information online. Not to mention that these were great for children who loved these classic characters, and now had the chance to learn more about them.

This is one of the show’s four hour-long specials, focusing on content from WWII. It featured Tex Avery’s first short for MGM, “Blitz Wolf”, and three Looney Tunes, “Scrap Happy Daffy”, “Herr Meets Hare”, and “Russian Rhapsody”, all of which were seldom seen over the years. 

The cartoons speak for themselves, still being entertaining pieces of propaganda, but what really stands out are the supplemental features in between. These discuss and even show clips of different kinds of wartime cartoons, some of which were even rarer at the time. Warner’s Private Snafu, their short-lived series of shorts shown exclusively to soldiers, had a couple of clips shown, well before they’d be released on DVD, and they even show bits of some unfortunate examples of racist towards Japanese people during this time, featuring clips from regrettable shorts like “Tokio Jokyo” and “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips”. The rarest thing for Cartoon Network, however, would be the couple of still photographs borrowed from the Walt Disney Studio, featuring Goofy’s original voice Pinto Colvig, and Walt himself, which were added for additional context and credited to the Studio at the end.

It’s all really cool to see, back when CN was really more of an all-ages channel. ToonHeads was a show for everyone, as its mixture of some of the greatest cartoons ever made and the history behind them could enlighten and entertain simultaneously. You can see many episodes on the Internet Archive, but the only legal release of any episodes that I know of comes from the first Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD and the third Platinum Collection Blu-Ray, which feature another hour-long special, “The Lost Cartoons”. That’s also highly recommended, and could easily be another Spotlight.

[colourblindhedgehog]

Greetings Sister (tagged by @thegirlbehindthegasmask​)

Tag some people you’d like to get to know better!

Favorite colors: Anything jewel tone! Not into orange or pink in general. I wear a lot of blue and white I guess.

Last song I listened to: I literally always have music on it’s super obnoxious. My playlist is 98 hours long and it’s one of like a dozen. Song of the moment is Jabberwocky by Erutan.

Favorite musician: Like just pick one? that’s mean. When it comes to liking their whole body of work maybe Queen or Hozier? I also have a possibly regrettable weakness for Meat Loaf.

Last film I watched: Um. I never watch anything, i just happen to be in the same room while things are playing. Probably The Secret War of Harry Frigg, which is an obscure WWII comedy starring Paul Newman and is very silly. Like if the Great Escape happened in.... the Hogan’s Heroes universe.

Last TV show I watched: Some episode of Columbo. 

Favorite Character: oh god. I have been riding out Star Wars Feelings for like eight months now, complicated by Pedro Pascal being a delight, so possibly the Mandalorian? This is subject to change frequently and without notice, as it does. Constantly.

Sweet, Spicy, or Savory: Sweet every time I am a pile of cake carved in the shape of a person

Sparking water, Tea or Coffee: Tea, hard same that sparkling water is the devil incarnate. I only like coffee if it’s like a flavoured frappe where I can’t actually taste the coffee which seems kind of against the point.

Pets: none atm :( ONE DAY.

Tagging: @demenior​ @fantastic-artemis​ @koosei​ @wrennette​

[wolfiefics]

To all the fans of Steve Rogers who persist that Steve was in the right during Civil War, consider this:

Your argument that after the events of Winter Soldier he lost faith in the US government, why did he stay? Why did he not renounce his US citizenship and try elsewhere? He likely had enough ties with another country, either of familial origin or one he helped liberate during WWII, to do so. Why did he stay? Why did he continue being an Avenger? Living by US society rules put in place and maintained by the government he no longer believed in? If you can answer that in a logical way that isn't knee-jerk high-mindedness, I'll concede it.

If he was right to go against the Accords because "they stifled his freedom" then you are advocating the same mindset of the people taking guns into government buildings in an attempt to terrorize officials into not wearing protective gear designed to save the lives of themselves, their family and their fellow citizens AS IS IN THE US CONSTITUTION CHARTER. Or you are the one calling the police on someone for doing something you don't like, lying about it to make it wrong when that person was doing nothing wrong to begin with? You just didn't like them for some reason, they have to go away. FREEDOM is not a gift. It's not a thing that everyone has. EVER. Not even in the US at the time of the American Revolution. Freedom is a CONCEPT, an ideal to reach for. A utopian dream. The very nature of human civilization NEGATES freedom by its very existence. You want "freedom"? I can rob, rape, murder, enslave, and destroy everything I want to because I'm FREE to do so! No one can tell me what to do! You're the victim? Not my problem! Maybe you should be bigger, meaner, carry a bigger weapon or have more people in your side. FREEDOM is ANARCHY, lawlessness, and disrespecting others wants and needs for whatever you want to have withoutrestrictionsof moral conscience instilled by society (i.e. laws and government).

Society, civilization, has rules for a reason. So that shit DOESN'T happen. You don't follow the rules? You're a criminal. Since the Law Codes of Hammurabi its been this way (before that, those are just the first known written laws). Rules can be amended, recodified, or completely rewritten as your society and culture expands intellectually, technologically or in accordance of getting along with another culture different from yours. They aren't concrete (I was going to say "written in stone but some actually were...aforementioned Hammurabi law codes for example).

But to argue that Steve Rogers was right to IGNORE the rules and laws and do whatever he wanted because he was "betrayed" by the government is ignorant, elitist bullshit. He had NO RIGHT to do that. Attempt to dissuade, argue down or compromise, yes, definitely. But give it the middle finger and stomp off in a snit and do whatever HE thinks is right? He's no longer a law-abiding citizen who has EARNED the rights of his society. He has turned his back on them. I'm not saying the Accords were right (though they had a strong argument for it) but everyone tried to tell him "do this now, we'll wiggle it around til it's more acceptable. If not, they are going to ram it down our throats or throw us in a dark dank corner and forget we're there". But noooo! Steve was too good for that! The petty concerns of almost the entire world is not his problem! HE knows better than ANYONE what's right and what's wrong! Fuck them! He was not interested in compromise, trying to work a deal, nothing. He saw it as oppression and done! And that's how all of you who say he's in the right feel too. 112 out of 128 countries have no RIGHT to feel threatened! What's their problem anyway? It’s not like the Avengers destroyed an entire country! Oh wait.. well it's just some backwater Eastern bloc country, no big loss. And part of South Africa. And an entire floor of visiting humanitarian and diplomat workers. No big deal. The UN should just suck it up. Steve knows what he's doing.

All governments have laws a person doesn't like. Nature of the beast. You might get away with bending it on occasion, depending what it is. But if your actions breaking it means ending the lives of others or compromising/destroying their property or culture because "I'm right, you're wrong"? Bigotry. Elitism. Holier than thou. Entire civilizations have vanished for that and we know little to nothing about them because that attitude meant no one cared to note it. Those civilizations could have cures for, I don't know, CANCER!!? (Medicine Man with Sean Connery is awesome. You should watch it).

The first rule EVERY writer learns when writing about sentient beings is there are good things and there are FLAWS. There is no such thing as perfect. If you have a perfect person who can do no wrong, makes no mistakes, just rolls through life getting everything they want without effort...why would you want that? It's boring. It's unrealistic. Why is this persistent idea that everything Steve does is right and just and morally incorruptible? Sounds like some asshole that needs a bullet in the brain before he decides to kill ME for getting in his way. Most of you don't write him in your own fics that way. Why on EARTH do you think he's perfect in the movie verse? Is he not fictional? Is he not a character in a story? Is he somehow exempt in the movies of all writing conventions?

Civil War is easily the worst of the MCU movies. The potholes are so large you can hyper drive the Deathstar through them. Too many to go into here. That's a whole nother rant. But this movie is the basis of this fan idea that Steve can do no wrong and anyone who opposed or argued with him are immoral, arrogant and oppressive...or government doormats. REALLY?! It's obvious Steve trusts NO ONE. Not Sam, whose life he continually puts in danger with very little remorse. Nat, who has been at his side since two weeks after he woke in the 21st century, fought aliens, was on an elite task force with (two in fact), etc ad nauseum but since she DARED to disagree with him, she's obviously not to be trusted. And he was hyper focused on two things:Bucky and Peggy. Peggy, he moped and brooded over, punishing himself for a trick of Fate. FOR YEARS. And Bucky, who was such an obvious distraction that Hydra knew it was a HUGE weak spot and CONTINUALLY used it against him at the expense of other people's lives that Steve apparently didn't give two shits about or even attempted to modify that weakness. How many legitimate, under cover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were exposed world-wide when Nat laid bare every record of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Not even a flicker of remorse from Steve. Made this big patriotic speech to the Triskellian but not one single mention at all in the planning of those people. None. Cannon fodder. So sad, too bad, ah well! Gotta save Bucky!! Same in Civil War. Steve headed that op in Africa. He ordered and helped gather the Intel on Crossbones and his gang. He made the plan, placed an unstable high-powered individual ALONE in the field with Nat telling her what to do over an ear piece (and Wanda blew her off), as soon as Crossbones blew Steve's strategy, he went gung-ho through a major, heavily populated marketplace, confronted the enemy, IMMEDIATELY got compromised by the word "Bucky" and allowed Crossbones to set off a suicide vest. If Wanda hadn't been there, Steve and that entire block would have been decimated. Wanda did her best, but she was not up to snuff and lives were lost anyway. Did Steve show remorse? No. He brooded that Rumlow said "Bucky and I was 16 again". He told Wanda essentially that it's regrettable but not to worry about it. Those dead people due to his hard-on to get Rumlow? All those lives of diplomats and humanitarian workers gone? No big whoop. Sad but you know, Steve's perfect so they just had to die. He willingly and uncaringly put people in harm's way that got them killed that with a cool head and better planning (or compromise with others ideas) could have been avoided. That's the making of a sociopath. A monster. NOT someone who should be in charge of an elite team that defeated an ALIEN INVASION HEADED BY A GOD.

Think about this. I loved the Winter Soldier. I think it's in my top 5 MCU movies. Other than the exposure of who knows how many legitimate S.HI.E.L.D agents who may have been in the middle of stopping child slavery rings or something, it's an excellent film. Civil War? Garbage. Utter garbage. Trash. They had a good plot, the Hydra super soldiers, that could have been action packed, exposed Bucky's whereabouts, had a big fight scene, had Tony learning Steve had been omitting how his parents died and still had Zemo taken down and the Avengers break up. Set it up even. Those soldiers were shot off screen as this confusing red herring. Why even mention them if you're just going to shoot them off-screen like an afterthought? Hmm. I should write that. I may have too, if someone hasn't done it already. If so, DM me the link?

But get away from this "Steve Rogers can't be wrong cuz he's Captain America" schtick. Bad enough Civil War turned him into a callous, selfish tool. Don't make the situation worse for him.

I love my Stucky, don't get me wrong. I'll die on this ship. But Civil War is NOT the Steve Rogers characterization you need to be advocating as the ideal. In that movie, he's an asshole and if Peggy or 1930s Bucky knew what he'd done, they'd have BOTH punched him. Maybe more than once. And withheld his dessert at dinner.

I'm just saying.

[i-llbedammned]

Recovery

Inspired by the numerous fanarts of Crowley being taken care of by Aziraphale after the incident in the church, I decided to write a fic of it.  I will eventually also do a chapter where it is from Aziraphale’s perspective

Title:Recovery Word Count:2111 Summary: After the church scene in WWII, Aziraphale stops by to help Crowley recover from his wounds.

Read on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/20273104) or below the cut

It was a stupid thing to do, Crowley ruminated as he limped his way back to his apartment. It was a very stupid thing to do for someone who didn’t even deserve it. For an angel who told him he didn’t want to see him again because he wanted some holy water in case the forces of Hell came knocking at his door. For a stupid angel who looked at him like he was the second coming and whose face when he smiled lit up like the sun. The only angel to look at him with kindness since The Fall. That sweet angel…

Damn it.

It was still a stupid decision, even if he couldn’t convince himself that it was a regrettable one.

His feet ached worse than they had in ages, like he was still walking on broken glass even though he was long since out of the church. As he drove down the streets in his Bentley he was quite sure that he would be feeling the effects of this little bit of heroism for weeks to come. Wounds made by consecrated items and places didn’t heal the way that the typical damages did, a final spiteful spit in the face by the Heavens he supposed. As if they didn’t suffer enough when they fell.

By the time he reached his apartment, he was quite sure that there was blood pooling at the bottom of his shoes. He clambered out of the car practically dragging his feet along the pavement and feeling his socks squish unpleasantly. He wished there was a working lift but with the way power worked thanks to the war it rarely worked. With a snap of his fingers he used a bit of a demonic miracle to send power to it and take him up to his flat. Now was not the time he was going to trifle with stairs, not with how tired he felt after the church incident.

The hallway to his apartment never felt so long. The green wallpaper seemed to be mocking him as he passed it. As he struggled with the key in the door he mumbled under his breath that all of God’s creations seemed to be mocking him. Though he was damn sure that Hell was not watching him at this moment, but sometimes he still cursed existence simply out of gut reflex. What was taking this door so long? Was the lock jammed again? Was he the one responsible for doors jamming when you needed them to open the fastest or was that another minor demon?

The demon practically melted into the soft black carpet on his floor as the door swung open. With flair he flung himself onto the couch and lay for a few moments on his chest, burying his face in the pillows. It was so good to be home. Rolling over onto his back, he pulled his long legs to his chest and pried off his shoes.

Satan’s balls, that was even worse than he expected. There were thick layers of blisters, many of which had popped and spilled dark black blood all over his feet. Oh this was going to take a damned eternity to heal up. The stupid angel better appreciate the books that were saved.

“Oh dear, that looks even worse than I thought it would.” Came a soft voice from his doorway and a thrill of fear went through Crowley as he froze with one leg curled to his chest and the other dangling with a shoe still on at the end of the couch.

“Aziraphale!” the demon cried sitting up and trying to sling one arm casually over the back of his couch, as if the angel could not see his wounded foot from the front door, “What are you doing here?”

“I, well,” Aziraphale looked away, with the pretense of looking at Crowley’s unique décor, “I happened to be in the area and I wanted to check in on you after the whole ruckus at the church. “ He moved and sat down on the large black leather chair, next to the couch, not quite touching the demon, but letting his eyes drift down to rest on the exposed foot. His eyes welled up with tears and for a moment Crowley wanted to kick him out. He was a demon who chose to walk in a church, he didn’t need anybody’s sympathy for that. He knew what he was doing when he made that choice and now he had to suffer for it.

“Well no need to check up on me, I’m fine.” With a flick of his wrist he tugged a blanket down over his foot, sitting up with his legs splayed. His foot screamed in protest of anything touching it, making him hiss loudly despite his best efforts. A grimace was on his face afterwards.

“You most certainly are not fine.” Aziraphale got to his feet, sounding indignant and pointing at the stain on his grey shirt. Honestly, Crowley had no idea why he was suddenly so irritated. It wasn’t like they ever exactly were honest with how they were feeling or their wounds, “I can see the blood!”

“Oh that,” Crowley gave a shrug, “Blood’s in fashion now. War and all that.” He flicked his fingers and a glass of red wine appeared in his hands. Wine wasn’t the best, but a little alcohol helped with pain. At least if he was drunk he would forget about it. He took a long sip, looking over Aziraphale’s head to avoid meeting those tender eyes. “Let me see the wounds, I can help.” The angel’s voice softened.

“No, you don’t need to. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” Crowley growled. Between The Fall and living in actual Hell for quite a while before he convinced the others to let him play around the Garden of Eden and Earth, it wasn’t an exaggeration. If he thought about it like that, then the pain was easier to deal with.

“You are exasperating. Listen,” The angel knelt down by Crowley’s feet and gently tugged the blanket off, making him hiss. All the same, he didn’t move his feet away. Part of him wanted his friend to see the wounds he had gotten, wanted sympathy and understanding that he knew he would never get in Hell. “You got these wounds helping me. At least I can help make them better as payment.” “Payment?” You don’t owe me payment for anything!” Anger tinged the demon’s voice. Just like an angel to assume that everything a demon did always came with a price tag. Maybe he was just trying to do a nice thing for once!

“Then as a favor to you then.” Aziraphale had the remaining shoe in his hand, but his silvery eyes looked at Crowley waiting for a nod or something before he continued. How polite of him. Despite the pain a smirk crossed Crowley’s face, “Oh? An angel would owe a demon a favor?”

“One angel, specifically me, would owe one demon, specifically you, a favor. Yes.” The angel looked like he was going to be sick to his stomach which made the other laugh a low, deep chortle. Oh the things he could ask for were he a bit more inclined to be devious.

“Right. Get on with it then.” The expression on the demon’s face was sour, but he nodded and kept his eyes right on the angel as he undid the laces on his black leather shoes and gently removed it. “Oh dear.” Soft fingers brushed against his wounds and it stung, despite all the efforts to be gentle. Socks were peeled off and thrown in a bloody heap on the ground. “You really burned yourself badly.” Tears welled up in the angel’s eyes, “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve these. Not for-“ With a watery grin, Aziraphale broke off.

A non-committal grunt was all Crowley could manage. He was glad for the glasses covering his eyes. Despite his desire for sympathy there was almost something heartbreaking in getting it. It was like all the raw wounds in his heart were being exposed. Yes it was worth it, for him and all of his silly books. He’d do it again and again until his feet poured blood if given the chance.

“Be back in a tick.” A whirl of white and Aziraphale was gone. In the kitchen, Crowley heard the running of water and several drawers being opened. Closing his eyes Crowley drained the rest of his glass of wine, taking strength from the mild burn of the alcohol. With another flick of his fingers he refilled the glass and began drinking once more.

Humming, Aziraphale came back with some herbal smelling soap and clean bandages. Getting down to business, he took off his jacket and hat, laying them across the leather chair he had formerly been sitting on. Knowing exactly how painful this was going to be, he rolled up his sleeves and buttoned them into place. Damn, the angel looked so good when he was in business mode.

Once more Aziraphale knelt down on one knee. Taking one foot, he began to clean it with reverence, slowly and gently. Black blood poured into the tub of water and Crowley bit his lips to keep from crying out. Casting a glance up at him, never breaking his pattern of cleaning, Aziraphale said tenderly, “It’s alright if you need to cry out, my dear. I won’t judge you. What you are going through is tremendous. I can’t imagine how much it must hurt.”

With a grin Crowley shoved aside his pain and bluffed through gritted teeth, “No. This is fine. Feels like puppies.”

A soft murmured laugh came from Aziraphale, but he didn’t argue with Crowley’s perceptions of the world. Bless him, erm curse him? Whichever was the good one that wouldn’t burn him. He just continued cleaning.

Once the blood was clean, a cool salve was put on the wounds. Somehow it took the pain away and it smelled heavenly. “What’s that, angel?” Crowley picked up his head and put down his wine glass on the ground next to him, finishing up the second glass with a long draught.

“Family recipe,” Aziraphale responded, not bothering to elaborate. Heaven blessed medicine? My, he sure was taking a chance bringing that in here. There’d be Hell to pay if he got caught. There was a soft degree of honor, something soft and warm that was poured into his chest when Crowley realized that. This was far more than a misguided sense of pity and it wasn’t just anyone you brought out the heaven-blessed medicine for.

Resting an elbow on his knee, Crowley watched and let a genuine smile inch across his face as the angel worked without looking up. Aziraphale was focused upon the work he was doing, the soft lines of his face made more dream-like in the shadows of the apartment. His soft hands spread the pale blue unguent and wrapped the clean bandages around the wounds. The silvery-blonde hair of his hair made him positively luminous. Crowley watched the way his arms worked, the way that the muscles seemed to effortlessly work beneath the skin and noting how the layers of softness didn’t make the grip any less strong. He sat there admiring the way that the sweat gently beaded on the angel’s forehead and made some stray locks of hair stick in place when Aziraphale looked up.

Rather than looking away, Crowley sat there for a few moments and let their eyes linger upon each other. Electric sparks raced between them and for a moment Crowley wanted to cross the line that the Heavenly Forces had drawn in the sand ages before either of them were born. To let their lips meet and see where that led them. Understanding passed between them and Aziraphale’s smile lit up the whole room before a small, sad look entered into his gaze.

“Good night, my dear.” The angel knelt low and placed a soft kiss above each ankle before rising. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you some time soon.”

On impulse Crowley blurted, “You don’t have to leave, you know. I could get wine and-“

Aziraphale shook his head, responding with the utmost patience “Another time. There’s a war and I have to go put away my books. But I will see you again. I assure you.”

As he left, the ghost of his lips and of the way his hands held his poor wounded feet danced across Crowley’s memory. The grin never left his lips. It was good to have his dear friend back.