#historian's preamble

[armoricaroyalty]

When historians wrote about the sixteen short years he spent on the throne, they would characterize it as a short preamble to Rosalind's reign. He would be remembered primarily as her father, his name a mere footnote in her biography. He could accept that.

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Transcription under the cut.

ELISE | You have to speak with her. ANDRE | :/ ELISE | She’s your heir, she needs to know. ANDRE | Now? What about the boys? ELISE | Now, Andre. ANDRE | [ sighs ] You’re right… ANDRE | Do you remember the time we came here when you were little? ANDRE | You must have been…six or seven? ANDRE | We went for a walk, just the two of us, and ended up right here. ANDRE | It was the first time I told you that you would be queen someday. Do you remember what you said? He looks at her for a moment. Flash back to Rosalind, Age 7 or 8. ROSALIND | Yeah, Daddy. I already know. The present. ANDRE | And then you started telling me all about your big ideas. You were so excited. You said that when you were Queen, you were going to end world hunger and close the hole in the ozone layer. You were going to save the world. ANDRE | [ heavily ] Rosalind…what I’m trying to tel you is…it’s…I’m.. ROSALIND | Dad? Is something wrong? ANDRE | I’m not mad at you. ROSALIND | What? ANDRE | [ exasperated ] Life is too short, Roz. I’m not going to waste time being angry about your girlfriend or what some stupid reporter said in some stupid magazine. ANDRE | [ exhales ] ANDRE | Look…I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my time. ROSALIND | Dad— ANDRE | Let me finish! ANDRE | When you’re queen, you’re going to have to do things your own way. You have to be a leader. You can’t dither, you can’t sit on the fence…you have to be decisive. ANDRE | You can’t let fear hold you back. [ beat ] ROSALIND | I love her, Dad. I’m going to marry her. ANDRE | You feel that strongly about her? Despite everything? ROSALIND | She’s everything to me. ANDRE | [ he looks at her intently, searching her expression. She’s serious. ] Well…I’d say that you and Mary have waited long enough, haven’t you? ANDRE | You tell her to pick out a ring. And tell her to pick a good one. ROSALIND | Dad! ANDRE | It has to be good. Good enough for a queen…

[frevandrest]

There had been a number of questionable takes recently regarding the Frev in the past few days that came in succession . Do you reckon if works in the past decades or so that were published in France and were made available to English readers would it may have at least mitigated such thing to ever happen or is the black legend so ingrained that even with the idea of an era where works by Belissa et Al were in circulation in English to people outside France, the result would be the same?

Before I reply, I need to make a disclaimer that I am not the best person to answer this question. I arrive from a very different educational tradition (neither Anglo nor French), and I actually discovered embarrassingly late about the whole black legend and the fact that, among some, the French Revolution was considered a horrible event (that failed). I was taught it was an event that changed the world forever (and helped shape the world today, mostly in a positive sense) and that it has to be studied to understand our world. So I am not the best person to judge the effect of the black legend vs new historiography. If others have more informed takes, please tell us; I am super interested. Now, the bad (as in, incorrect) takes we get here. They happen periodically, and they tend to be very similar, often by people claiming (and I have no reason to doubt them) that they are taking history courses on frev, typically in the USA. So these takes tell me about the state of teaching frev in the USA (Anglo?) sphere. Which is not necessarily the same as "what experts publish in academic articles", because - not sure if people are aware of it, so I need to emphasize - you do not have to be an expert on a topic to teach it at the university level. You typically need a PhD in the discipline, but not necessarily on the topic of the course you teach. I can imagine that they won't give a frev course to someone with a PhD in, say, antiquity, but "early modern period" is good enough, even if you are not an expert on France or the revolution.

Sorry for this preamble; I swear it is related to your question. What I mean is that these specific takes we saw here seem to me (though I could be wrong) not necessarily a product of current English-language academia on frev, but what students are taught. So yes, it is a good question on what kind of books students are given on the mandatory readings list, and if those teaching are even aware of the most current English-language books on the topic (let alone French). I swear most of this stuff is so dated and proven to be incorrect over and over again. We had someone a few months ago saying they read Carlyle for their frev class. ?? This is really strange to me, especially in the North American academia, where even books that are considered new-ish elsewhere, are seen as old, so why teach something published in early 19c? Unless you want to demonstrate changed attitudes about frev and discuss historiography, propaganda, etc. which doesn't seem to be the case. Those assigning such readings are teaching what they feel is true. So I can only guess that they never bothered to read newer stuff. Look. I am all for authors not liking the French Revolution or specific things in it (I am critical of many frev stuff myself), but you have to use current sources that go through earlier misconceptions. We can't still be stuck at "dictator Robespierre who ruled France", a thing that was disproven so long ago and no credible historian believes in (even if they hate Robespierre).

Now, this is about teaching history at the university level and not about experts in academia, because I do think most incorrect takes we get here on tumblr are from students. Experts sticking to the black legend and "horrible horror of the revolution that failed anyway and didn't achieve anything" are a different group. Though I am not an expert on the current historiography to judge it in detail. So, if someone reading this knows more and can explain, please share!

[betweenlands]

[clears throat]

If you’ve recently watched one or more of Legundo’s 100 Days videos, you might have some questions – questions like what’s with all the eyes, who the heck is Decem, what’s an Alteran, how do I get involved in the ARG, why is there chess happening, can I get off Legundo’s wild ride yet, et cetera. This post seeks to answer most of those questions in as straightforward a manner as possible (can’t help with the last one, though – you’re stuck here now!), while also sticking as close as possible to only canon information in order for people to form their own theories. Basically, consider it a brief lore primer for everything 100 Days Multiverse!

But first, a few disclaimers:

This is gonna be a long post. It's going under a readmore. If readmores don't work for you I'm sorry.

This is copied from a WIP document of ours that attempts to record pretty much everything going on in the series, which necessarily means it will at some point become outdated. (Time check: this post was made on 10/14/2023. There are still at least 2 puzzles that haven't been solved yet.) If anything significant comes up I'll try to add it to the summary and therefore that document, but there isn't anything yet.

There will be a lot of “might”, “possibly”, “may or may not have”, “somewhat implied to”, and other various caveats throughout this post. We don’t have a lot of information explicitly stated to be canon at the moment, and while a lot of things seem like sure bets, there’s no telling how unreliable these narrators might be. We don’t like claiming things are canon unless we’re 100% sure that’s the truth, so there’s a lot of weasel words in this summary. You’ll have to forgive us for this one – we prefer to be precise over definitive whenever possible. (And we apologize for not having cited sources here -- if something's incorrect, please call us on it!)

Finally: there is a more official lore document! It contains more details on pretty much everything here, focuses more on puzzle-solving, and also contains a great theorycrafting section -- you can read that here (and thank you to Lucid for creating it!)

Okay. Enough preamble. Let's get into the thick of it.

Legundo has been traveling the multiverse for a while, hopping from modded world to modded world from where he left his S2 Hardcore world behind. He seems to have at least some amount of partial amnesia, as he starts to remember things about his past over time, but to begin with he doesn’t remember (or at least doesn’t seem to remember) where he came from.

Legundo is also not alone – he’s being followed. Strange monoliths appear in certain worlds, made of blackstone/gilded blackstone when “dormant” and obsidian/crying obsidian when “active”. He speaks to these at first as though they can help him, but gradually becomes more and more suspicious of them, and eventually comes to realize they are harbingers of a group of entities/entity called Decem.

Decem has a history with Legundo that unravels throughout the course of the series. They have several associated motifs in addition to the monoliths/crying obsidian – most notably among them are eyes (especially Dimensional Doors) and usage of chess terminology/general references to chess. They also have a custom musical leitmotif -- current link to it here. (You'll usually be able to hear this one or something similar playing around when he stumbles across a monolith, I'm pretty sure.)

Despite “Decem” meaning “ten”, there are actually nine entities in the group, called Aspects. Each Aspect is associated with a different color and has a different title:

the Warrior, red

the Seer, orange

the Historian, yellow

the Merchant, green

the Senator, cyan

the Philosopher, purple

the Noble, pink

the Scientist, grey

the Wizard, black

Members of Decem are prone to infighting and general disagreements on how to solve their problems, especially the problem of Legundo; apparently, at some point Legundo was a member of the group himself, called the Architect and by process of elimination associated with the color blue. Decem seem to want Legundo back, but also don’t seem to fully agree on what method of doing this will be best. Legundo is also not particularly happy about this, referring to his cycle of modded worldhopping as a sort of prison, but he doesn’t seem to remember much (if any) of his past as the Architect.

When the world download for Hardcore S2 was released, viewers were made aware of a new faction, called the Alterans, who appear to be in direct conflict with Decem. While Decem claim that the Alterans are trying to “hide the truth” from us, the Alterans imply that they view their conflict with Decem as a desperate bid for survival (though they do also refer to it as a game of chess). At some point, they did something “ridiculous” as of yet unclear; they also apparently hosted the amnesiac Legundo at some point. Apparently, they were largely against telling him anything about where he came from, although they did “leave him his name” despite it being supposedly risky. It’s unclear if they are the cause of Legundo’s amnesia and/or his leaving Decem, but they certainly don’t want him to remember anything more than he already has. (As of Undercover, it seems extremely likely they are at the very least the cause of the Architect’s fall.)

Decem has a tendency to speak directly to viewers of 100 Days Multiverse videos, especially when Legundo dies or when other glitches occur. When this happens, they tend to leave links to hidden videos/audio clips and/or puzzles that lead to these things. As of right now, they appear to be offering the viewers who have solved their puzzles some sort of job, and may also be showing up on the viewer SMP during its fifth season (the chronology of this is very unclear – see Undercover). It’s unclear what this position within Decem entails, although given their chess motif it’s probably not an unreasonable assumption to say that they are recruiting new pawns.

[richmond-rex]

Charles the Bold was an ardent propagandist, sending out letters to local authorities justifying his policies, circulating inspiring accounts of great court festivities, expounding his view of princely powers and duties in the preambles to his ordinances and continuing the Burgundian tradition of a workshop of court historians fashioning favourable versions of the past and present. Edward IV began to commission similar official chronicles after his return from exile in the Netherlands, and made a practice of issuing royal proclamations in full and sometimes self-justificatory English texts, rather than bald Latin instructions to announce certain information.

Steven Gunn, State Development in England and the Burgundian Dominions, c.1460-c.1560

But it was Henry VII, perhaps inspired by Maximilian’s enthusiastic perpetuation of the Burgundian penchant for propaganda, who first appointed a court historian, first circulated accounts of diplomatics festivities (and did so in print), used fuller proclamations and the preambles to parliamentary statues — likewise printed by the king’s printer from 1504 — to explain himself to his people, and wrote to local authorities ordering celebrations of such successes as the Anglo-Burgundian marriage treaty of 1507 and expounding on their significance.

[udo0stories]

Sana Shayin, a third-year student studying international relations at King's College London, has been exposed to a lively and thought-provoking atmosphere on a regular basis. Her passions for human rights advocacy and diplomacy have grown throughout this degree. Given the current and rapidly changing political landscape of the region, she is thrilled to be a part of International Relations Today as the Editor for South and Central Asia and contribute to the academic discourse in the field. India is home to about 200 million Muslims, making it one of the world's largest Muslim populations, despite being a minority in the nation that is predominantly Hindi. Despite constitutional protections, Indian Muslims frequently experience violence, intolerance and discrimination since the country’s independence in 1947. Experts claim that anti-Muslim sentiment has surged since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014 and began promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda. The government has enacted divisive policies that opponents claim will disenfranchise millions of Muslims and blatantly disregard their rights since Modi was reelected in 2019. Since Modi assumed office, there has been a rise in violence against Muslims. The acts have sparked protests in India and drawn criticism from all around the world. According to several analysts covering India, Modi’s reelection in 2024 would probably increase religious conflict in the nation. The Demographics India is a diverse nation in terms of religion, ethnicity, and language. The majority of its Muslims, who identify as Sunnis, make up roughly 15% of the population, making them by far the largest minority group. Hindus make up about 80% of the population. Similar to the Hindu population, the Muslim population in the country is diverse, with differences in caste, ethnicity, language, and access to political and economic power. Partition's Impact on Hindu-Muslim Relations Scholars claim that the animosity between Muslims and Hindus in India stems in part from the 1947 partition of British India and the schisms that happened during the British colonial era. The British decided to abandon the subcontinent after World War II because their economy was destroyed and they could no longer maintain their empire. Before the country was divided, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi led the Indian National Congress in organizing massive protests and acts of civil disobedience against the British government in an effort to gain independence. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s political organisation, the All India Muslims League, demanded a separate state for Muslims. In 1947, a British judge arbitrarily drew the boundaries between a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, which included what is now Bangladesh. The Partition resulted in widespread migrations of Muslims to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs to India, as well as deadly riots and horrifying intercommunal violence. Survivors remember villages burning to the rubble, dead tossed in the streets, and blood-soaked trains transporting refugees from one nation to another. Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 500,000 people died. It is unclear why groups of people who had lived together for hundreds of years fought one another. The British "divide-and-rule" policy, which gave the Muslim minority—roughly 25% of the population—some electoral advantages, has drawn criticism from some analysts. Others highlight disputes between political movements that organized followers of the Muslim and Hindu faiths. Nearly 35 million Muslims still lived in India after Partition. The Religion Factor  The nation’s 75-year-old constitution upholds egalitarian values such as nondiscrimination and socioeconomic equality. The Constitution does not specifically require the separation of church and state, despite the word "secular" being added to the preamble in 1976. Congress party leaders who fought for

India’s independence promoted a country that treated all its people equally, regardless of their religious beliefs. Gandhi, who championed a unified India free from discrimination, was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindi nationalist, in 1948. The first prime minister of India, Nehru, considered the greatest threat to the country as those seeking to split the country along religious lines, particularly among Hindu factions. He felt that secularism was necessary to create a harmonious society and prevent another tragedy similar to what happened after Partition. Hindu nationalists contend that since Hindus’ sacred territories are inside India, whereas Christian and Muslim holy territories are outside, Hindus are the “true sons of the soil.” Generally speaking, they support laws meant to convert India into a Hindu state. Even though the majority of Indian Muslims are sprung from Hindus who converted to Islam, many regard them as foreigners. Founded in 1980, the BJP traces its origins to the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer group. The BJP secured a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha—India’s lower house of parliament and most powerful political body—for the first time in 2014, electing party leader Narendra Modi as Prime Minister. In 2019, the party won a majority once more following a contentious campaign packed with anti-Muslim rhetoric. What type of discrimination do Indian Muslims face?  Muslims have faced prejudice in the workplace, in the classroom, and in housing. Many face obstacles in their pursuit of riches, political influence, and limited access to essential services, including healthcare. Furthermore, even with constitutional protections, people frequently have difficulty obtaining justice after being the target of prejudice. Muslims’ presence in parliament has stagnated over the past 20 years; following the 2019 elections, they controlled only 5% of the seats. This is partially because of the BJP’s ascent; by the middle of 2022, the party had zero Muslim Members of Parliament. In the meantime, a 2019 report by the NGO Common Cause, situated in India, discovered that half of the police polled exhibited anti-Muslim prejudice, which decreased their likelihood of stepping in to prevent crimes against Muslims. Analysts have also noted widespread impunity for those who attack Muslims. Recently, state and national courts and government bodies have often reversed convictions or dropped prosecutions against Hindus accused of participating in violence against Muslims. States are passing more and more legislation that limits the religious freedoms of Muslims, such as laws that forbid wearing headscarves in public places and prohibit conversion. Additionally, in a move critics refer to as “bulldozer justice,” authorities have punished Muslims extrajudicially. Authorities in multiple states demolished people’s homes in 2022, claiming the buildings didn’t have the necessary permits. Critics countered that they mainly targeted Muslims, some of whom had recently taken part in demonstrations. Although the practice has persisted, India’s Supreme Court responded by ruling that demolitions “cannot be retaliatory.” What controversial policies has the Modi government imposed on Muslims? The Citizenship Amendment Act was passed by the parliament in December 2019 and signed by Modi. It permits Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan to obtain citizenship more quickly. Critics claim that because the law excludes Muslims and applies a religious standard to citizenship for the first time, it is discriminatory. The Modi government claims that the law was made to protect these three countries' mostly Muslim vulnerable religious minorities from persecution. Simultaneously, the BJP pledged to finish the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in its 2019 election manifesto. The NRC was created in the 1950s

specifically for the state of Assam in order to determine whether the residents of that state were immigrants from what is now Bangladesh's neighbor or Indian citizens. The Assam government revised its registry in 2019, leaving out about two million Bengali Hindus and Muslims. Assume that this process is implemented across the nation. Critics contend that in that scenario, a sizable Muslim population might become stateless because they lack the necessary documentation and are not qualified for the Citizenship Amendment Act's expedited citizenship process. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in India, has seen its political stature eroded under Modi. The state, located in the mountainous border region under dispute with Pakistan, was divided into two parts and its special constitutional authority was taken away by the government in August 2019. Since then, Indian authorities have repressed the people’s rights in the area, frequently in the name of preserving security. In 2021, they detained well-known political figures and activists, harassed and arrested journalists, and shut down the internet 85 times. The government maintains that security has improved, yet since the division, armed groups have killed dozens of civilians.  In December 2023, the Supreme Court, upholding the government’s decision,  ruled that the territory should regain statehood in time for local elections the following year. "Muslims' status will change more the longer Hindu nationalists are in power, and it will be harder to reverse such changes," says Ashutosh Varshney, a Brown University expert on Indian intercommunal conflict. Maintaining India's Secularism Although there is an increase in anti-Muslim sentiment among Hindus, experts say it is wrong to assume that all Hindus and BJP supporters are against Muslims. Muslims and Hindus have resisted the BJP's attempts to weaken secularism in India in the form of activists, law scholars, and students. For instance, following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act, some state chief ministers declared they would not carry out the law, and about 2,000 academics and professionals signed a declaration condemning it for violating the spirit of the Constitution. Global Reactions Numerous foreign governments and international organizations have denounced the BJP's discriminatory policies towards Muslims, highlighting specific concerns with the Citizenship Amendment Act, the BJP's actions in Kashmir, and anti-Muslim rhetoric. The UN human rights office described the Citizenship Amendment Act as “fundamentally discriminatory.” Iran, Kuwait, and Qatar were among the Muslim-majority countries to file formal complaints against India in 2022 over public officials’ Islamophobic remarks. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), comprising fifty-seven member states, has demanded that India cease the “systematic practices against Indian Muslims” and the “growing spate of hatred and defamation of Islam.” Nevertheless, Modi has succeeded in deepening India’s relations with the Gulf countries dominated by Muslims, including the United Arab Emirates, where he presided over an event for Indian expats and dedicated a brand-new Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi. Since they have strengthened ties with India, successive U.S. administrations have been hesitant to denounce the country’s atrocities openly. For instance, in February 2020, President Donald Trump visited India and complimented Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his support for religious liberty while remaining silent on the violence that had broken out in Delhi. Instead of openly criticizing the BJP government or Modi, the Joe Biden administration has opted to strengthen the strategic partnership between India and the United States. It is believed that Biden has privately voiced concerns about human rights. India, however, received its lowest ranking of “country of particular concern” in the 2020 report from the independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom—a designation it has held since 2004.

The most recent reports have upheld that classification and pushed for the US government to impose sanctions on Indian officials who are accountable for mistreatment. Some members of Congress have also expressed concerns.

[the-good-spartan]

Becoming a Spartan Citizen, Part Two: The Phiditia & Contributions to the Mess

To carry on without preamble.... Assuming you managed to survive the agoge until the age of (somewhere around) nineteen, the final threshold to manhood and full citizenship was being voted into a phiditia, mess group. 

Famously, Spartan men, up to and including the kings, were required to dine at the syssition (mess hall) every night when they were in Sparta. There were three exceptions: if they’d just returned from campaign, they were permitted to dine with their family on their first night home. Likewise, if they were returning from making an offering to the gods or hunting. At all other times, they ate with their phiditia.

The young Spartiate was introduced to the mess in the course of his education, and most likely to the specific mess group of his older mentor/lover. I personally believe this would occur once he’d become a paidiskoi - though perhaps it was earlier, or depended on the individual boy's performance or maturity level - we can’t be sure.

As Plutarch tells us:

‘The boys, too, used to frequent the messes: for them it was like being brought to a school for self-discipline, where they both heard political discussion and witnessed the kind of entertainments appropriate for free men. For their own part, they would grow used to making fun and joking without becoming indecent, as well as not taking offence when they were the butt of the joke.’ 

Being Voted to a Phiditia.

This was *the* big moment, and I imagine, if you were a boy who hadn’t excelled in your education, or who hadn’t the wealth and connections of others, it must’ve been incredibly nerve-wracking. 

Plutarch again explains:

‘Anyone desiring to join a phiditia was vetted in the following way: Each member would take a piece of soft bread and in silence would throw it, like a ballot, into the bowl a servant carried on his head. Those in favour threw the bread in as it was, while those against squeezed it hard with their hand… And should they find even one of these, they do not admit the would-be entrant because it is their wish that all should be happy in each other’s company. They refer to somebody rejected in this way as kaddished, since the bowl into which they throw their pieces of bread is called a kaddichos.’ 

Any boy who failed the agoge, or was kaddished at this point, would, we think, become a part of the large social grouping refered to as the hupomeiones, the Inferiors... And as you have probably guessed, this is part of a larger topic that deserves its own space. It’s enough to know for now that we believe they were a mixture of people who had either never earnt citizenship or had lost it later.

Mess Contributions

Perhaps the most important part of maintaining Spartan citizenship was being able to meet your required mess contributions, and we know fairly specifically what they were. 

Taken from Plutarch again:

‘Each member of the mess would contribute every month a medimnus of barley-meal, eight choes of wine, five minas of [goat or sheep] cheese, five half-minas of figs, and in addition a small sum of money for fish or meat. Besides, anyone who had made an offering of first fruits or had been hunting sent a share to the mess.’

I break this down further in my next post, which is more broadly about food in Lakedaimon. [Food for Warriors.]

So how might those contributions go unmet? They were Equals, weren’t they?

It’s said that each Spartan family had a kleros, (allotment of land), which was worked by Helots, and it was from this land that the contributions came. 

Ancient historians propagated the myth that the land had been redistributed equally between all Spartan citizens during Lykourgos’ reforms - and from there, being homoioi (Equals, Peers) was taken to mean that the land and wealth they possessed was also equal - but this wasn’t true. 

It absolutely happened that the wealthy hoarded land - via purchasing it, of course, but it could also be concentrated in one family via intermarriage - basically, you were only considered siblings if you shared a father. A shared mother didn’t count. So (what we’d call) brother and sister could, and no doubt sometimes did, marry, thus keeping land in the family. 

We can safely assume that some Spartans’ kleros was significantly smaller, or less fecund, than their brothers’, making their ability to maintain their contributions less certain.

A few examples of ways that the land might be lost, or fail to provide what was needed:

Multiple sons drawing on a relatively small holding. It must’ve happened sometimes that a family would have to decide which son to send through the agoge if they could foresee that their land holdings wouldn’t be able to maintain the contributions in the end. It’s generally accepted that men with four sons were exempt from tax - and I’d suggest this is why, so he could afford to send those sons through the raising and maintain them as citizens when they graduated.

Inheritance. Land might be left to one son (or daughter) and not another.

Fines. A Spartan who acted against the Laws might be fined heavily. If they had limited portable wealth, they would have to sell their land. 

Bad years. I grew up in a farming family, and I can tell you that being at the whims of the environment is never easy. Sparta in this period is attested suffering earthquakes, occasional rebellions, wet summers and dry winters; and as any farmer can tell you, there’s *always* something: too many caterpillars or grasshoppers; rust in the barley or disease in the goats etc etc etc.

The topic of land ownership and inheritance is actually pretty extensive and less clear cut than it appears here - this is a very brief overview which I hope is useful. 

It also touches on a few topics I hope to explore in more depth later - the Spartan social structure, family (if we can really call it that), the prerogatives of the kings, and the humour and speech of the men - may the Muses give me strength :)

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #607

Top Ten Cameos from Once Upon a Studio

This week was the 100th anniversary of Walt Disney. Not the dude – as well as being dead for a little bit, he was actually born in 1901 so we missed his centenary around about the time we were all watching The Fellowship of the Ring – no, I’m talking about the company he founded with his brother all the way back on October 16th 1923 (sidebar: I always thought it was a bit weird that him and his brother founded the company, but they decided only to name it after Walt; turns out it was originally called “Disney Brothers”, which I guess makes more sense). Anyway, all that’s unnecessary preamble to say that this is as good a week as any to do a big old Disney animation-themed Top Ten.

I was going to do something about Fantasia, but then in one of those last-minute Abby-cuts-Jed’s-tie moments that I’m so fond of – and with a bit of a Homer-esque face slap at missing the obvious connection – it occurred to me that Disney themselves had already handed me the perfect vehicle to celebrate their milestone in the rather charming little short, Once Upon a Studio. The plot of this film sees the various Disney animated characters gather together for a group photo, and as such is a veritable who’s who of Disney history for film nerds such as me. That’s why I’ve decided to pick out my favourite – and perhaps most surprising – cameos.

There’s a lot going on in this little film, which barely runs to thirteen minutes even with acres of credits; the various gags they work in starring different characters, and how those characters interact, is rather joyous and often pretty funny, even if the film itself is incredibly slight and more than a touch hagiographic. But little things, from Encanto’s Luisa carrying the cows from Home on the Range, to Rapunzel smacking Kaa around the head with a frying pan, to Wish’s Asha holding hands with Snow White – Disney’s most recent Princess holding hands with its first ever – add up to a really lovely little watch if you’ve been watching Disney all your life.

And so here we have a very personal list of surprising pop-ups, nostalgic hat-tips, and really just some pretty cool slices of Disney history. See you in 2123.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: the original Disney mascot, Oswald languished in obscurity for years, a pub quiz trivia fact for animation historians. He had a minor resurgence in the Epic Mickey videogames, but has been welcomed back into the fold for the centenary with his own brand-new short. Seeing him stood alongside Mickey Mouse in the closing moments might not be revelatory, but it is a wonderful encapsulation of Disney’s long history.

Pete’s Dragon: this is a personal one, which is why it ranks so high, but Pete’s Dragon was one of the films I kept asking to be rented from the video store when I was a little kid. The moment early on when Pete and the Dragon soar overhead as the camera runs through the studio is therefore delightful, but also sets up the fact that this film is definitely going to have some Disney deep cuts.

Dodger: watching Venelope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph careen around corners in her candy car with Dodger from Oliver and Company howling along in the seat beside her, string of sausages around his neck, is another one of those “oh, they’re really going to be picking the obscure characters” moments; whilst Oliver and Dodger are both pretty cool, I do wonder how many kids just flat-out won’t recognise Billy Joel’s crowning cinematic achievement.

Ichabod: y’know, from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – or, rather, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the two-hander “package” film Disney released in 1949 that featured adaptations of both Sleepy Hollow and The Wind in the Willows. Or maybe you don’t as it’s largely forgotten. Toad himself riding on Aladdin’s Carpet is one thing, but the nice bit of business with Ichabod nearly getting his head knocked off by Goofy’s stepladder is much funnier. IYKYK.

Chernabog: this is the demonic, er, demon who leads an army of ghouls and various other nasties in the none-more-metal conclusion to Fantasia, “Night on Bald Mountain”. And here he is again, the supreme edgelord of the underworld, absolutely terrifying all the pups from One Hundred and One Dalmatans.

Cri-Kee: the little cricket from Mulan is probably both rather obscure and also relatively popular – it’s not like Mulan is some little-know flick from the fifties. But it’s nice to see him represented; his cameo here is a bit blink-and-you’ll-miss-him – he’s very small, after all – and also nicely integrated into Disney’s lore, as he’s having a conversation with Encanto’s Antonio, who, of course, can speak to animals.

Aladar: I think this one’s quite surprising if only because no one ever talks about Disney’s Dinosaur. I mean, there is perhaps a good reason for that; it’s definitely one of the weaker films, although it was incredibly ambitious and experimental (also it’s not as bad as, say, Chicken Little and that annoying little bugger is here too). Anyway, there he is: right at the end – and I’ve tried in general to steer clear of people who only pop up in the final group shot – but the sheer fact that he’s made it into this film at all is something of a triumph.

Wayne and Lanny: who, you might reasonably ask, are Wayne and Lanny? I confess I did have to look up their names, but they are the elves from Disney’s Christmas shorts, Prep & Landing. I mean, they’re not exactly household names (at least in this house), but come on – Disney genuinely stuck two characters from a couple of Christmas-themed TV specials in this thing! How much deeper do you want them to cut?!

George: okay, this one’s at the bottom because again it’s just a bloke stood at the back in the final group shot, and also because I’m not 100% certain it’s the right dude. But I’m pretty sure that we can see George, the main character from the absolutely majestic 2012 short film Paperman – right there, at the back. He’s distinctive because of his thin frame, pointy nose, and the fact that he’s in black and white. It’s a shame his girlfriend Meg isn’t there with him, mind. But again – this is just one of their shorts, albeit a phenomenally good one! Even though it won the Oscar, how many people really, truly think about Paperman on a regular basis? Well, apart from me.

Robin Williams: this one’s special – and, yes, it’s not a character. I think we could all assume the Genie would be here somehow. Other characters have used archive voices when it’s not possible to record new lines from their original artist (pretty sure that’s actually Cliff Edwards’ recording from Pinocchio when we hear Jiminy Cricket singing When You Wish Upon a Star); others have had their voice performers replaced over the years (Jim Cummings might be iconic now as Winnie the Pooh, but even he wasn’t the original voice of the character). With the Genie, there’s even precedent as Dan Castellaneta played the character in both The Return of Jafar and subsequent TV series. But that’s not what Disney did here. No, it appears that they’ve gone back to the vault and found some unused and – as far as I’m aware – previously unheard outtakes or alternate lines that Williams recorded back in 1991 or 1992 for the role, and therefore given us a short snippet of a brand-new Robin Williams performance. What more could you wish for?

So, yes, quite the star-studded ensemble and a fantastic slice of Disney history. And I didn’t even get round to those weird living planes, cars, and trees.

EDITED TO ADD: so it's come to my attention that obviously that's not Pete on the Dragon's back (the Dragon who of course is called Elliot). It's Cody from The Rescuers Down Under. See, this is what happens when you recognise a character but haven't seen a film for over thirty years. I just assumed there must be a bit in the film where live-action Pete got animated, or something. Anyway, I'm leaving it in the paragraph above for integrity's sake, because I don't like re-editing these things after the fact.

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My 2022 Media Binge Reviews

I find myself somewhat circling the drain during the year of 2022, I don’t want to say I was repeating the same year as 2021, but I also can’t exactly say I was doing much differently. I think both years were hard on me but in some different yet similar ways. I still work the same job I hate and my anxiety has still gotten the better of me in a lot of the same old ways, but also new exciting ways! The older I get the more it feels like essays like these always say “well blank year was a hard year” so I don’t want to say that anymore but it’s hard not to want to complain about a year’s worth of troubles all the same. 

Last year I was really able to overcome some grief in my personal life by finally taking the plunge and getting through Twin Peaks, a series that for years I wanted to finish but never got past the first season. It was incredible, and made a lasting profound impact on me. And this year honestly just saw me chasing that high in a lot of ways. I think the general theme of a lot of media I consumed was “Twin Peaks-like”. Sadly nothing seems like it will ever scratch that itch for me. I guess that just goes to show how unique and incredible Twin Peaks was—but at the very least I think some of the most fun I had this year was chasing that high all the same. 

American Psycho

This year finally saw me getting around to watching American Psycho in its entirety. Now I've seen it plenty of times on TV in bits and pieces. I’ve caught parts of it, and generally knew the whole gist of the movie, but honestly I don’t think I ever watched it from start to finish before. The internet is obsessed with this movie, the memes alone it spawned are everywhere, which honestly kind of finally got me to get around to it. 

It’s easy to see why the internet would become so enamored with a movie like this, Christian Bale gives such an incredible performance as the lead, putting so much energy and life into Patrick Bateman that almost every frame of the movie he is in feels like it should be hung up in some meme museum. I’m old enough to still remember when he was cast as Batman in the Nolan trilogy and the consensus was “how the heck can the murderer from American Psycho be one of the best superheroes ever?” It’s funny to me to see the argument flipped to “wow I can’t believe Batman was such a good murderer in this movie.”

But beyond the incredible cathartic violence, and over-the-top performances there is definitely a very scathing view of the American lifestyle and capitalist hellscape we are all trapped in nowadays that much like I mentioned in my anime list with Kaiji seems far more relevant today than ever before. 

Dune x3

This year for me was the year of the Dune. With the new movie coming out near the end of 2021 I finally got around to grabbing it on blu-ray, and while I was at it I just couldn’t resist grabbing everything else too. I got Dune opinions, and they are about as crazy as you would expect from a hipster like me. So let’s talk about the three Dunes.

Jodorowsky's Dune, this 2013 documentary is all about the failed Dune movie that never was by visionary and art film auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky. Jodorowsky may not be a household name so just to get a little preamble out of the way, the man has made some of the damn craziest films around—and his breakout 1970 ‘acid westerner’ El Topo is considered by many film historians to be one of the first Midnight Movies, starting a much believed trend for cinephiles the world over. 

Towards the end of 1974 the man attempted what was at the time thought impossible by adapting Dune into a movie and he developed a variable dream team of auteurs and creative talent to do it, which he called his ‘warriors’; many of said warriors would go on to become absolute legends of the industry while many were already legends. Jodorowsky’s Dune was the very first film that ever saw acclaimed legend H. R. Giger worked on a film for example, and beloved French artist Moebius did a ton of art designs for the project. It was truly a melting pot, almost like a mini ‘scene’ of its own that brought together an unbelievable amount of extremely talented people. It’s honestly not a stretch to say that without Jodorowsky’s failed attempt at Dune that there would be no Alien, there’d be no Star Wars, there’d be no science fiction as we know it today in American cinema. 

Jodorowsky’s vision really only ever saw the original novel as a jumping off point of inspiration, the man himself never even reading the book. What he sought to create was both incredibly dense science fiction and incredibly philosophical spiritualism. The end of his proposed Dune movie honestly gives me chills, and hell if I don’t want to steal that idea for myself. 

It’s hard to say what the finished project would have been like, Jodorowsky’s own ambitions and artistic vision is what killed the project, trying to turn it into a 10 hour epic of a movie! I often wonder why they just couldn’t make it into an animated series when that failed. I mean they had Moebius right there! But perhaps it was for the best. The failure of the movie saw incredible talent shift to the four corners of the wind and go on to create incredible work of their own in cinema. When it comes to lost or unmade media there’s a mysticism about it; “if only we could have experienced it”, and I think that’s half of what makes it so good. If it was real, who knows how good it might have been, in a way I am glad I got to be fascinated by this best movie never made.

Now let’s get to my hot take and just say it, David Lynch’s 1984 Dune is so much better than Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 Dune. There I said it! 

Okay, please give me a minute to explain. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is by far a much better made movie that has a better reverence for the source material and overall makes for a grander and more easily digestible sci-fi film that finally accomplices the dream started in 1974 by Jodorowsky to create something great out of Dune. It’s just that it’s just another good movie. Honestly a lot of good movies already exist. So yes I think for the normal person this is the one, watch this Dune and enjoy, but for hipster’s David Lynch’s Dune is where it is at!

Lynch himself hates the movie, it crushed his spirit and the man calls it the biggest sell out of his career. Yet I think it somehow is something special. The film is easily gorgeous and out-there levels of weird which I think is important for Dune, and is something Villeneuve’s film lacks in a lot of ways. The fight scenes are satisfying and action packed in Villeneuve’s film, making for a great Hollywood movie experience … but is that Dune? Honestly I think I like Lynch's extremely awkward and poorly executed bumbling drunk sad sack fights more. Those honestly feel way more like Dune. People flying around and spin kicking hundreds of dudes in the face is great, but I’ll take two dudes awkwardly dancing around each other while big blocky Minecraft shields glow over their bodies. Now this is my Dune, baby. 

There’s something surreal in both the execution and visuals in Lynch’s take on the material that simply vibes with me more. Had the movie been cut properly by Lynch and not butchered by executives to sell the maximum amount of tickets, had it got the chance to be the longer length or two movies that Lynch wanted, I think it would be a much more beloved cult sci-fi film today. 

In conclusion, I think Dune is an awesome story and great material to really get weird with, and honestly it’s pretty cool that there’s a lot of out-there interpretations to be enjoyed today. 

One Piece

2022 saw me return to One Piece once again and picking up right where I left off after binging through Thriller Bark to Punkhazard in 2021. While I didn’t watch nearly as much as last year it almost feels like I did, as I was able to finish both Dressrosa and Zou before the year’s end. Now Dressrosa is such a dense and huge story arc that took up many months of my year. This arc being a whopping 118 episodes long is honestly just flat out ridiculous, this one story arc is longer than most anime! For those who might need a reminder, the entirety of Yu Yu Hakusho is 112 episodes long, Dressrossa is 118 and in-story the vast majority of it all takes place over a single day! 

This is by and large the most ambitious writing Oda has ever attempted by this point in One Piece and it pays off in dividends as so much truly happens and the entire series as a whole really starts to show a lot of its hand. This is what the entire post time-skip One Piece since Fishman Island has really been leading into. Luffy’s little journey from a boy with a dream is truly maturing into a fearless and brave leader able to sway incredibly powerful cohorts to stand up alongside him against an all powerful and corrupt uncaring world government that is far more preoccupied with keeping its status quo and image than the lives of those they govern. Oda is able to create a venerable army for which Luffy to one day lead on his quest to become King of the Pirates, so many interesting and just plain fun characters are able to stand up not just as new game pieces on the board to lose to show how strong the enemy is but as honest to god equals to our protagonists and are able to hold their own against the villains alongside Luffy and his crew. 

We learn more about the world and see Luffy take on easily his biggest fight yet against DoFlamingo, a character that has easily been hyped up for what, like 500 or something episodes? And just wow, what a villain, DoFlamingo is easily one of the most interesting and compelling characters in the series and just a straight up horrifying monster of a human being, if you can even call him that. Which is great because Luffy has another trick up his sleeve, Fourth Gear. I had seen it before online, being an anime fan means it’s impossible not to get One Piece spoilers but I don’t think I ever appreciated Fourth Gear until now that I’ve seen it in action. This new form is just incredible and so well made. It shows so much creativity from Oda and I love how BIG it is! Anime protagonists nowadays just keep getting hotter when they power up, even the new Dragon Ball series see Goku becoming increasingly prettier, I really missed this. Luffy gets thicc in Fourth Gear, this is what I want, go all out, just have fun being a cartoon again, let dudes have muscles on top of muscles–and no neck while you’re at it. Give these boys just ridiculous proportions, let’s make even Liefeld shiver. Bring back the beefcake.  

Luffy didn’t have all the fun either, I think Franky had one of the best fights in the whole series when he went up against Senior Pink, a bare knuckles, no hold barred, man to man slug fest that easily goes on for something like 30 episodes straight of just two manly son of bitches beating the ever loving fuck out of each other. Zoro fighting Picca sees our greatest swordsman to be taking on perhaps one of the most insane action set pieces One Piece ever had. And then there’s great moments with the new characters like Bartolomeo and Cavendish and oh yeah, did I mention Luffy’s thought to be dead brother Sabo shows up and utterly steals the show for a good portion of the arc? The appearance of Sabo in the story utterly wrecked me. I cried when Luffy was able to see him again, it was such a beautiful reunion.

Dressrosa is truly an epic as far as anime storytelling goes but Zou also somehow delivers so much too and in general that later half of Dressrosa and almost all of Zou really proves that One Piece is able to carry so much forward momentum and still be able to go places even 700 episodes in. The plot has never been more interesting, the goal has never felt more obtainable, and the fun is still there. Right now I am about a quarter of the way through Whole Cake Island and trying to finish it too before my Funimation subscription runs out. I have a month to go but I think I can make it. Wish me luck/

Orpheus (1950)

In my quest to relive the emotions Twin Peaks gave me I watched Jean Cocteau’s 1950 French film Orpheus. Now the film is a (then contemporary) modern reinterpretation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in modern day Paris. I’ll be real with you guys, I knew jack shit about Orpheus when I watched this, to me Orpheus was just “the master of strings” in Persona 3 so even now I can’t tell you if they did a great job transposing the story to modern day, but I can say what Jean Cocteau accomplishes in this film is nothing short of stunning. The surreal atmosphere and cinematography is easily breathtaking while the plot balances both being playful and light while also dealing with dense topics like love and suicide. 

It’s easy to see why Jean Cocteau is a legendary film creator and why David Lynch considers this film such an inspiration to him. A lot of visuals very much so look like prototypes of what he would later go on to do in Twin Peaks specifically, even down to the iconic Black Lodge. But this isn’t just some Twin Peaks prototype, it’s definitely a damn fine masterclass piece of cinema, definitely worth a watch for its own merits. I would say the shot of the film that stayed with me truly throughout all year was when Orpheus and Heurtebise walk through the world of death, it is something I think about often.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

I’ve seen the original Planet of the Apes when I was a lot younger, and pretty much that was about it. Growing up the movie was parodied and paid homage to in everything from other movies and TV shows to the cartoons I saw as a kid. It’s easy to think of all those parodies and see the remake and the modern reimagined trilogy and think the original is just plain bad but no! It holds up insanely well. I was surprised to see just how good it still is. This is such an iconic science fiction classic and so much has to do with how sharp the writing is, the incredible acting of Charleston Heston, and yes, that legendary twist ending. I implore you, rewatch the first Apes film, you won’t regret it.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

I thought the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie in 2020 was a cute well made kid’s movie with just enough material for adults to enjoy thanks to Jim Carrey’s performance as Eggman elevating the material. But the sequel oh boy, this is legit the best video game movie I ever seen. This film captures the spirit and tone of the Sonic franchise perfectly. It’s a love letter to the entirety of Sonic the Hedgehog and just a damn fun action adventure. All the characters feel much better utilized and written, with even the human sidekicks like James Marsden’s character having a lot more to do and better material to work with. I had never seen so much reverence for classic Sega video games on the screen before outside of other video games than this movie, and it truly felt like my childhood was coming to life in ways I never imagined before. 

Sonny Boy

This year saw me finally getting around to watching Shingo Natsume’s original 2021 anime Sonny Boy. This was a critical darling of the Fall 2021 anime season when it aired but having been burned on so many “deep” anime that weren’t I was weary of it during that time—and not to mention busy and never got around to it. I heard so much praise for almost a solid year though and it seemed utterly visually and narratively interesting so I finally cracked and watched it. Glad I did, it was a rare example of something living up to its praise. 

Actually I got to be straight with you, here’s another piece of media that I honestly only watched because I desperately was begging to feel what I felt when I watched Twin Peaks last year. Sonny Boy is nowhere near that though but somehow is. It’s completely different but delivers a similarly dense and visually fascinating world. The music being done entirely by indie groups gives the entire atmosphere of the show a homemade feeling to it—the emotional core is often tinged with this sense of raw emotions that feel free from the corporate mainstream often overly produced music in most anime. Together with insanely complex visuals and free moving animation that isn’t stiff or obsessed with staying on model and we got something that just stimulates all the right sectors of my brain. And damn if I can’t stop listening to the tracks even now. 

I guess what I want to say is I came for the Twin Peaks comparisons, I stayed for the depression and how beautifully the show paints the futility of life and what death means in a meaningless world. Watch Sonny Boy, while praised during its airing the show almost seems totally forgotten about. You’ll probably have a good cry while doing so, but it will make you feel truly alive.

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2

Okay, this is another example of me knowing all about this movie because of the internet. There are so many clips and memes about this movie that I have obtained endless enjoyment out of but I never actually watched the movie properly. This year I decided it was finally time and on Christmas Eve, I watched the legend, and my God: Best. Christmas. Movie. Ever. I think I found a new Christmas tradition that I am going to do every year. This movie is downright hilarious, the memes don’t even do it justice, you have to experience the whole thing in context, it’s even somehow funnier that way. In all the best ways. 

Eric Freeman’s acting is legit something I wish I could emulate. I want a whole movie or video game of just people going as hard as Eric Freeman in full earnest and not trying to ham it up. His screen presence is so funny, so magnanimous, so scene stealing, I can’t even breathe every time the camera focuses on him, I am utterly out of breath laughing every millisecond, on the floor gasping for air on the verge of death, but I can’t stop laughing. I just can’t help but love the movie even more as every minute passes. 

And the story behind how the movie was made is even fascinating. If you get the blu-ray like I had to of course go out and find a way to buy it after watching it, there’s a great documentary on how the whole thing came to be. What started as a way to just re-edit the movie Silent Night Deadly Night so they could release it again and make more money turned into a passion project by the editor now turned director Lee Harry which is why he’s credited as both the director and editor of the movie. Harry took the old footage from the movie, turned it into flashbacks and made it into a sequel by shooting new footage. They honestly took a legit and serious slasher movie and turned it into the best comedy ever made. As far as I am concerned you don’t even need to watch the original Silent Night Deadly Night, just see all of it in Part 2’s flashbacks and bask in Eric Freeman’s life changing performance. 

Stalker (1979)

Andrei Tarkovsky probably needs no introduction for film buffs but let’s just say for the uninitiated much like what I said about Alejandro Jodorowsky above this Soviet filmmaker is another auteur artist that is beloved in the world of cinema and leave it at that now because this list is already much too long as it is. Stalker is the first film of his I watched and one I wanted to see for many, many years—and one I only finally saw now because of my damn insistent pursuit of relieving the emotions Twin Peaks gave me. 

Stalker a 1979 Soviet made science fiction film based on a 1971 novel Roadside Picnic which depicts a guide or Stalker taking two individuals through an incredibly dangerous location that is closed off to the public where extraterrestrials had once landed one night and left the next known as the Zone. The story fascinates me on so many levels because of my love of sci-fi, this thought that strange alien life interacted with a place on earth and left it so tangled up, so hard to navigate that common sense need not apply, that you have to go up to go down, you have to walk backwards to get forward, that at any moment some terrible curse could afflict you, that something you did upset the order of this strange land, that expert guides exist in this shady black market underground to take people on tours through it, and many traverse this illegal Zone because of the rumors of a room within it that can grant any wish your heart desires. How can I not want to see it? This is my kind of sci-fi. What I got … was something much different.

I was expecting this sci-fi epic, instead it’s very much almost not present. It’s more about the passage of time, what it means to be alive, the place of religion in the world, the meaning of living in a meaningless world, if there is any magic left to be had in a world where we understand so much thanks to science. The Stalker and the outlawed area of the Zone almost seems like reverence for magic that used to exist, an old world point of view that can still look to the stars and see Gods instead of just clusters of hot space gas. Stalkers with their silly rules; their going backwards to go forward seem like nothing more than that silliness, something modern people don’t need to do anymore. The Stalker in the film is often undermined by his two clients who constantly push their luck and break tons of rules he tells them not to. At its core it seems like a struggle between wanting to believe there’s something special in this life, and being a skeptic. 

I wanted a sci-fi epic instead I got an artsy fartsy film that drinks way too much depresso espresso. Yet the magic of Tarkovsky’s film stays in my mind. The emotions I felt, the long shots that border on almost trolling you with boredom, they stay in your very soul. I still see the beauty of the undisturbed Zone when I close my eyes, the clearness of that water, and the magic of the bird disappearing into the dunes. The ending speech about time and what it means to all of us living from the Stalker’s wife, I hear it play back in my mind from time to time. 

This isn’t really great sci-fi, I wanted to hammer that home to anyone listening, so your expectations aren’t all wrong like mine. But this is an incredible film that uses some very light sci-fi window dressing to convey incredibly complex emotions behind living in modernity. I recommend it a lot to anyone who can handle that fact. 

El Topo, Holy Mountain, and Santa Sangre—or how I fell in love with that weird Chilean Movie Guy

Let’s get back to Alejandro Jodorowsky as he was a big figure in my 2022 media. It started with the documentary about his attempt at making a Dune movie in the 70’s but after that I had to know more about the man. This visionary auteur who took Dune and made this insanely almost religious spiritual epic in space, now this dude sounds incredible. Also holy crap it turns out David Lynch was a fan of his work too and you can easily find a lot of his work being repeated in Twin Peaks. Uh-oh, you know what that means, right? Yup, let’s keep this pursuit up, boys. 

We’re starting with the 1970 ‘acid western’ El Topo, since I still have yet to see his first film 1968’s Fando y Lis (although I do have it, I just have yet to work up the courage to play it thanks to its infamy). El Topo is easily what truly started his career on the world wide scene and not just in Mexico where he started out, it was a movie that would become insanely influential to many creative talents from the Beetles to Suda51; in fact No More Heroes is almost a complete remake/reimagining of it but anime. 

This western is no simple cowboy movie, it’s spiritual and just all out bonkers. It almost feels like two movies stitched together too. The first half sees El Topo, or “The Mole”, as this badass gunslinger taking down the four greatest gunslingers in the desert who are almost guru-like, in order to claim the title of the best gunslinger and spiritual enlightenment all so he can lay with some bodacious babe. He however fails at this and dies, only to be resurrected as some religious savior to a village of deformed people that live underground, and as a new man he tries to rescue the village and lead them to prosperity. 

This film is weird, and like yeah, bonkers. The two halves are almost completely different movies yet somehow they work really well together. I think the first half is easily the part most people really will enjoy while the second can easily lose you. All that said though this is the film that easily got me excited for more from Jodorowsky.

1973’s The Holy Mountain seemed like a slam dunk, the movie about an alchemist training a thief that broke into his Tower to be his protégé then taking on seven wisemen with him to ascend a legendary mountain to find the secret of immortality is the insane kind of bullshit I want in my veins. It’s a … that is to say it’s … the thing about The Holy Mountain is … well I hope you like drugs. So yeah, hard to believe but El Topo, the acid western, was made sober, while Jodorowsky decided to really, how do you say, “expand his mind” , on his next film and it shows because I think you need to be on drugs to fully enjoy this one.

The film has an incredible beginning and an absolutely incredible ending with an insanely good and thought provoking twist at the very end but the middle is very meandering. The scene where the Alchemist introduces his seven wisemen just goes on for like ever. They pretty much stop the plot for a solid 50 minutes just to show vignettes about each of these characters and they are all very good, and interesting, and some insanely funny, but like bruh, the movie is just dead in its tracks for at least half its runtime to introduce characters that essentially just stand in the background after their introduction and that’s it. 

As I said the ending is truly something special and that I cannot elaborate on because if it’s spoiled for you I can confirm it kind of ruins the whole movie. Yeah I knew the ending spoiler before I watched it and that just really took the wind out of my sails. I loved the beginning of the film to bits, the middle just would never end its nonstop barrage of introductions for what turn out to be NPCs, then the ending I spoiled, it was a boring experience for me. 

Don’t spoil the ending, and I promise the dragging middle will be worth it. Probably.

1989’s Santa Sangre or Holy Blood, is probably Jodorowsky’s most mainstream and easily digestible film. I’d also say maybe because it was his at the time most recent work, the film that David Lynch took the most inspiration from when he made Twin Peaks. If you watch some scenes in this one back-to-back with certain Twin Peaks scene, it’s definitely obvious what Lynch was watching at the time. Because of this I say it’s the movie of Jodorowsky I can recommend the most, it’s definitely the favorite of his I have seen so far. Hell I’d go as far as to say one of my favorite movies I ever seen.

Santa Sangre follows Fenix, a young man in a mental ward, and shows the story of his life and how he came to be in such a place. Fenix grew up in the circus, his father a womanizing drunk knife thrower and his mother a trapeze artist and also a devout Christian that runs her own crazy offshoot cult of Christ. It’s a fascinating childhood and the imagery is striking. It’s visceral and a wild ride but also something I have to tiptoe around and not explain a lot about. The movie is best experienced knowing very little about it. There’s a very apt comparison that can be made to a certain famous movie, film critics often call it “The Mexican version of [said famous movie]” and I wholly agree, but my God if you know said famous movie’s name that spoils way too much! Classic, film critics ruining film again. 

I highly recommend this one despite almost bending over backwards to deny you too many of my thoughts on it. There are so many scenes that if I close my eyes I still see. The music is fantastic, the scene where Fenix plays piano is easily a stand out moment of cinema. This is the life story of one man I think you simply must experience. 

Vinland Saga

The 2019 first season of Vinland Saga finally came out this year on special edition blu-ray and after waiting what felt like a lifetime I couldn’t be happier to begin my rewatch of the show. I know Sentai released their dubbed version of it back a year prior but I adored Vinland so much I wanted to wait for the special edition and I definitely felt it was worth the wait, as the poster proudly still is on my wall and I am never taking it down. When it comes to Vinland itself I will be brief and say it’s a fantastic anime, and one of the best the year it came out. I mainly just want to talk about this Sentai release which I found to be stellar, the special edition was of very high quality, like I said I love the cloth poster, and I very much enjoyed their dub. I thought the writing was much more naturalistic than the Netflix produced dub with better dialogue flow as well as being just dirty enough in the way Sentai usually is by sprinkling in some tasty F-bombs that most other dubbing studios would shy away from. I enjoyed how accurate it was, as an actual historian with a degree in this stuff it always drives me mad to see so much mainstream entertainment go for the bottom of the barrel easiest to understand AD over using Common Era, so I was glad Sentai used it. Also actually pronouncing the Nordic names correctly where the Netflix dub hilariously butchers all of them is a nice touch too. 

Wild Palms

Wild Palms in a 1993 mini series that followed in the wake Twin Peaks mania. It’s very obvious how much the series wants to be Twin Peaks and often shows up in a lot of comparisons to it. It never quite reaches those heights however. Twin Peaks’ own mastery of mystery and otherworldly feeling just evades this production at every step but where it succeeds is capturing the other more humble aspect that made Twin Peaks great, the soap opera-like cast. It feels very much at home with the out-there and over-the-top quirky characters and I think is one of the best productions to capture that tone of the original first two seasons of the series. It probably helps that it was a Twin Peaks inspired production that was actually made during that 90’s era where soaps were still king on TV. 

Where Wild Palms differs however is how the plot is far more science fiction based and often attempts to juggle complex conspiracies about religious and political leaders and it stumbles at times but by the end is able to actually pull off a fairly interesting story. Sadly the biggest hurdle is maybe the funniest thing. The series stars Jim Belushi and I’m sorry, he gives a great performance in a dramatic role of a father and businessman trapped in some crazy far right religious cult taking over corporate America through the mass media. 

But it’s Jim Belushi, he has such an iconic and recognizable comedic voice and presence that it can be downright hilarious in really unintentional ways. Jim Belushi’s son in the series, an evil genius child, also suffers a lot from this because … it’s a very young Ben Savage. Yes, Cory Mathews is in some Shin Megami Tensei like end of days cult in this. And you know Ben Savage does an excellent job, you can see why he would become a lead in Boy Meets World after this, even as a child he’s a great actor, but it’s Cory Mathews, in a seat of power, in a cult that is trying to take over the world. 

So yeah, the casting is kind of ironically funny today in 2023, especially for millennials, but the series does run a lot of great ideas and by the end of this short 5 episode mini series I was hooked. Some of the dream sequences are downright incredible and almost feel like they could have occurred in the Black Lodge, it’s definitely where the series cribs a lot of its ideas from Twin Peaks.

The Wind-up Bird Chronicles

If you know me personally you know I have an absolute obsession with the hit indie RPG called YIIK: A Postmodern RPG. Yes, truly a masterpiece that is beyond the understanding of a normal human being. Okay, enough snide, YIIK is a downright meme but it fascinates me endlessly. I spent so many years of my life reading about it and watching videos on it, and seeing playthroughs of it. Maybe one day I’ll actually play it … although I don’t think I’m that crazy. It’s a bad game but there’s a lot of creative ideas behind it and I want to say the creators’ commitment to their art is praise worthy, I have nothing but respect for Brain and Andrew Allanson and I mean this sincerely. They messed up, big time, but they created something with all their heart, they shouldn’t be made fun of for that. 

Andrew Allanson the writer of YIIK is a huge book nerd, and often cites Haruki Murakami novels as his big inspiration with his 1994 novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicles as the biggest. And it shows, having read it now because of my YIIK obsession yeah, so many of the best and most creative ideas I thought were in YIIK are definitely just from this novel. That isn’t meant as a insult though, if anything like me questing to see all of David Lynch’s inspirations for Twin Peaks it just shows the creative process, we are the media we consume, and in turn we take that and turn it into our own thing. 

[wozziebear]

The state officials first asked whether the Black Panther Party was taught as a historical topic, or whether the course was “trying to advance Black Panther thinking,” Dr. Manoharan recalled. He said he explained that the Black Panthers were a common part of introductory courses, and “that is not something that we can change or compromise.”

Another official, he recalled, asked, “I see this term intersectionality. What do you mean?”

The fall 2022 pilot curriculum required a weeklong set of lessons on “Black Feminism, Womanism and Intersectionality.” Required reading included a text by Kimberlé Crenshaw, the law professor who coined the term.

As Dr. Manoharan explained the concept, the state officials were “stone faced,” he said, and he was not sure they understood him.

“I have interacted with many DOEs — this DOE acts as a political apparatus,” he said of Florida’s Department of Education, adding, “It’s not an effort to improve education.”

He said that overall, Florida had not given useful feedback about what was wrong with the course, and he had been baffled and frustrated about how to respond.

“If they had substantive issues, I would have listened to them,” he said. “I welcomed their feedback. Not because I wanted to collude with them, but because I’m a responsible person who wanted to understand if there was something legitimate that they had to say.”

Florida officials declined to comment.

Following those discussions, intersectionality gradually faded from the course.

By the final document, the term was mentioned only as an optional project topic, and there was no mention of Professor Crenshaw.

“The word intersectionality does not appear in the framework, that is true,” Dr. Manoharan said. “But the concept, the essential concept,” is there.

Calling himself the primary decision maker, Dr. Manoharan said the word had been removed because it had been co-opted.

“I don’t think it’s effective to use a word that is basically drained of its meaning and filled up with political rhetoric,” he said. “I think kids need to know the concept. And they need to understand the importance. But I don’t think we need to create a needless battle over a term that has been compromised by disingenuous voices.”

As the College Board prepared to unveil the final curriculum, leading Black studies scholars heard rumors that politics had influenced the revision process.

“We all suspected that the changes to the curriculum were prompted by political pressure,” wrote Robin D.G. Kelley, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles, in an email.

On Jan. 31, one day before the final course was unveiled, Dr. Kelley and several scholars — including Professor Crenshaw and the legal theorist Cheryl Harris — met by Zoom with College Board executives, to ask if they had engaged in negotiations with the DeSantis administration.

“We were told by Trevor Packer that there was absolutely no communication with them,” Dr. Kelley said, referring to the head of the A.P. program.

The College Board wrote in an email that Mr. Packer had told the scholars, “There was no academic input from Florida on this curriculum.”

When the final course was released, a new set of concepts was now mentioned only in passing, as optional topics for a final project: reparations, incarceration and Black Lives Matter.

The term “police brutality” disappeared. But Black Republicans, such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, were added.

And there was a preamble that the College Board said will now accompany other A.P. courses as well: “A.P. opposes indoctrination. A.P. students are expected to analyze different perspectives from their own, and no points on an A.P. exam are awarded for agreement with any specific viewpoint. A.P. students are not required to feel certain ways about themselves or the course content.”

Professor Harris, the U.C.L.A. legal scholar, said the course’s legitimacy had been called into question.

“There is no way you can properly teach this material under the rubric of what DeSantis et al. are demanding,” she said. “This is a train wreck.”

Darius J. Young, a history professor at Florida A&M University who served on the development committee, said he was also surprised by the final curriculum, which he saw the week the course was going to be released.

“There were some things that we expected to be in the final product that, for a variety of reasons, may have been edited out,” Dr. Young said.

He was particularly taken aback that intersectionality had been removed, he said, adding that he did not know the back story.

“I understand the pushback from the academy,” he said. “We all want to be great stewards of Black studies.”

[dragoneyes618]

Many repeated statements about Tudor life, quoted in very respectable works, turned out to be pure fantasy. Take for example the assertion that Tudor food was all highly spiced in order to disguise the taste of bad meat. It has thankfully now faded from view as a commonly repeated 'fact,' but for many years appeared in materials for school use and even within the preambles of some of our most respected historians' works. A little practical thought quickly points out that nothing disguises the taste of bad meat, that spices were considerably more expensive than a new fresh piece of meat, and that rotten meat makes you sick regardless of its taste. If received wisdom was wrong and food was not highly spiced for disguising taste, was it highly spiced at all? Such thoughts sent me back to look at the import records to see how much spice was entering the country, and at the few surviving household accounts to see how much was bought; and to look again at prices and wages, and to begin to treat the recipe books as well as oft-repeated 'truths' with a pinch of salt. These were clearly not records of diet but rather aspirational documents, concentrating upon all that was most luxurious, desirable and fashionable. If I wanted to know about what people ate, how they cooked it and what it tasted like, I was going to have to look a lot further than the recipes.

- How to be a Tudor, Ruth Goodman, pages xiii-xiv

[hillbowman]

ggggg

v“ IN THE SERVICE OF… “

BY

Hill Bowman

…

Born :

2472 BCE

First Transition, Past

.

2472 BCE

April / May

............................................

Copyright © September - 15th, 2018

..............................................

Table of contents:

..............................................

Table of contents:

forward:

Prologue:

Historic review:

Preamble:

Preface:

Article publication preface:

Chapter 1,

Chapter 2,

Chapter 3,

Chapter 4,

Chapter 5,

Chapter 6,

Chapter 7,

Chapter 8,

Chapter 9,

Chapter 10,

Chapter 11,

Final Note

.............................................

Forward

" In The Service Of…":

.

Long before the advent of organized astronomy ancient man had the capacity to perceive his natural and created environment.

The presumption that ancient man is less intelligent or analytical than technological Modern Man is a fallacy.

.

After all, how do you think we got here.

.

Further, the hypothesis that Humanity will be ( in the far flung future ) somehow morally better as a biological organism or individual then the man of today is also a fallacy.

The fundamentals psychological objectives of humanity as a species and man as an individual has been exactly the same since the dawn of time. Man will continue to operate on the fundamental psychological frame work we now have through out the continuum of humanity as a species.

The bulwark of human psychology is in individual and as a species is as follows…

Curiosity:

To explore:

To claim:

To occupy:

To conquer:

To discriminate:

To wage war:

Rinse & Repeat:

.

This is been the Hallmark of humanity sense the dawn of time. To expect the human psychology to alter in any significant way is rubbish.

Anyone who professes that the human psychology will ultimately grow morally lives in delusion and has forgotten the fact that singular man is the apex predator on this planet.

Period.

...

Prolog:

.

Location:

~~Somewhere along the~~ northwestern Fringe of what would become the Persian empire within the geography of what was still considered the Sumerian city-state.

...

2472 BCE

Second Transition

2472 BCE

September / October

.............................................

Chapter 1

First breath

.

Location:

~~At a local trade market~~ somewhere along the borderlands of the Persian & Assyrian empires.

...

History, Environment:

2450 BCE

.

In the land that would soon be the ruins of the Sumerian (first dynasty) which was crumbling due to constant warfare with neighboring societies. Further, overgrowth of population and reduction of raw resources due to a changing natural environment sealed the coffin on Sumer as well as Arcadia and open the door for the Assyrian and Persian Empire’s.

.

All the while... The first dynasty of upper Egypt was steadily cruising right along.

...

2334 BCE: "

Sargon the Great":

2334 BCE:

Sargon began conquering weaker city-states. Although the civilization of Ur existed as direct predecessors and Arcadia as a contemporary of The Sumerian Empire. The Arcadian Empire is considered by many modern historians to be the first Empire in human history

...

Story line Date:

2451 BCE

First Transition, Past

2451 BCE

April / May

.............................................

Chapter 2

Some is choice, Some is fate…

.

Location:

~~At a local market~~ somewhere along the borderlands of the Persian & Assyrian empire...

…

History, Environment:

2450 BCE

...

In the land that would soon be the ruins of the Sumerian civilization (first dynasty) which was crumbling due to constant warfare with neighboring societies, overgrowth of population, reduction of raw resources due to a changing natural environment.

.

2334 BCE: "

Sargon the Great":

Sargon began conquering weaker city-states. Although the civilizations of Ur and Sumer existed as direct predecessors of The Arcadian Empire. Considered by many modern historians to be the first Empire in human history

...

Story line Date:

.

2450 BCE.

Second Transition, prior

.

2450 BCE.

August / September

.............................................

Chapter 3.

Some things never change...

And some things change forever.

.

Location:

~~ Sol 4 ~~

Mars

agricultural settlement

:plot 10,184

34 longitude, 18 latitude

.

Historic Environment:

2086 AD.

Many people consider the date May, 5 - 2086 AD. as the inauguration of the first real, population propelled expansion of the human species in to space as in enter planetary / enter galactic space fairing species…

… Upon receiving transmission confirmation that the first Stepping Stone’ enter-planetary space vessel had achieved stable orbit and was beginning to harvest resources around the planetoid of Pluto

.

2086 AD.:

The end of Nations:

With the idea long in the minds of world leadership from decades back 132 countries around the face of the planet capitulate to establish the UN as international singular world government.

...

Storyline date:

2148 AD.

January, 22

2148 AD.

Deep Cold

............................................

Chapter 4

Man Perpetual

Location:

~~Along the southern Coast ~~ of Venice Italy.

Historic Environment:

The Era of Papal Supremacy

…

1492 AD.

July, 23

1492 AD.

Deep Heat,

............................................

Chapter 5

On A Tour Of Every Ghetto In America

Location:

~~Some where in the desert~~

of Central New Mexico

…

Historic Environment:

The era of Corpratocracy in the guise of

‘free and elected government’.

…

2024 AD.

June, 1

2024 AD.

Deep Heat, Prior

.............................................

Chapter 6.

Title ??

...

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

Date.

Date.

.............................................

Chapter 7.

Title ??

.

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

…

Date.

Date.

…

Chapter 8.

Title ??

...

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

Date.

Date.

.............................................

Chapter 9.

Title ??

.

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

…

Date.

Date.

Chapter .

Title ??

...

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

Date.

Date.

.............................................

Chapter 10.

Title ??

.

~~Location~~

Historic Environment:

…

Date.

Date.

………………………………………..

This page for your notes and thoughts:

ISO... Historic review and prologue

~~~

History Review:

…

Ducksters

History Biography Geography Science Games.

" " "

Search Ducksters

Search Ducksters

Ancient Mesopotamia

Timeline

History >> Ancient Mesopotamia

...

" " "

Ancient Mesopotamia is called the cradle of civilization. The first cities and empires formed here.

Power changed hands many times throughout the ancient history of this area. It went from the Sumer to the Akkadians to the Babylonians to the Assyrians back to the Babylonians back to the Assyrians and finally to the Persians.

5000 BC - Sumer form the first towns and cities. They use irrigation to farm large areas of land.

4000 BC - Sumer establish powerful city-states building large ziggurats at the center of their cities as temples to their gods.

3500 BC - Much of lower Mesopotamia is inhabited by numerous Sumer city-states such as Ur, Uruk, Eridu, Kish, Lagash, and Nippur.

3300 BC - The Sumerians invent the first writing. They use pictures for words and inscribe them on clay tablets (Cuniform).

3200 BC - The Sumerians begin to use the wheel on vehicles.

3000 BC - The Sumerians start to implement mathematics using a number system with the base 60.

2700 BC - The famous Sumerian King Gilgamesh rules the city-state of Ur.

2400 BC - The Sumerian language is replaced by the Akkadian language as the primary spoken language in Mesopotamia.

2330 BC - Sargon I of the Akkadians conquers most of the Sumerian city states and creates the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire.

2250 BC - King Naram-Sin of the Akkadians expands the empire to its largest state. He will rule for 50 years.

2100 BC - After the Akkadian Empire crumbles, the Sumerians once again gain power. The city of Ur is rebuilt.

2000 BC - The Elamites capture Ur.

1900 BC - The Assyrians rise to power in northern Mesopotamia.

1792 BC - Hammurabi becomes king of Babylon. He establishes the Code of Hammurabi and Babylon soon takes over much of Mesopotamia.

1781 BC - King Shamshi-Adad of the Assyrians dies. The First Assyrian Empire is soon taken over by the Babylonians.

1750 BC - Hammurabi dies and the First Babylonian Empire begins to fall apart.

1595 BC - The Kassites take the city of Babylon.

1360 BC - The Assyrians once again rise in power.

1250 BC - The Assyrians begin to use iron weapons and chariots.

1225 BC - The Assyrians capture Babylon.

1115 BC - The Second Assyrian Empire reaches its peak under the rule of King Tiglath-Piliser I.

1077 BC - Tiglath-Piliser dies and the Assyrian Empire becomes weaker for a time.

744 BC - The Assyrian Empire becomes strong once again under the rule of Tiglath-Piliser III.

721 BC - King Sargon II takes control of Assyria. The empire grows stronger.

709 BC - Sargon II takes control of the city of Babylon.

705 BC - Sargon II dies and Sennacherib becomes king. He moves the capital to Nineveh.

668 BC - Ashurbanipal becomes the last great King of Assyria. He establishes a great library in the city of Nineveh.

626 BC - Ashurbanipal dies and Assyria begins to crumble.

616 BC - Nabopolassar takes control of Babylon back from the Assyrians and crowns himself king. The neo-Babylonian empire begins.

604 BC - Nabopolassar dies and Nebuchadnezzar II becomes King of Babylon. He will rule for 43 years and bring the Babylonian Empire to its peak.

550 BC - Cyrus the Great rises to power and the Persian Empire begins.

539 BC - Cyrus the Great takes the city of Babylon and lets the Jewish people return to Israel.

522 BC - Darius I becomes King of Persia. He expands the empire and divides it up into states each ruled by a governor called a satrap.

518 BC - Darius I establishes the capital of the Persian Empire at Persepolis.

490 BC - Darius I attacks the Greeks. He is defeated at the Battle of Marathon.

480 BC - Xerxes I tries to conquer the Greeks with a huge army. He is eventually turned back in defeat.

333 BC - Alexander the Great invades the land and conquers the Persian Empire.

Learn More about Ancient Mesopotamia:

Overview

Timeline of Mesopotamia

Great Cities of Mesopotamia

The Ziggurat

Science, Inventions, and Technology

Assyrian Army

Persian Wars

Glossary and Terms

Civilizations

Sumerians

Akkadian Empire

Babylonian Empire

Assyrian Empire

Persian Empire Culture

Daily Life of Mesopotamia

Art and Artisans

Religion and Gods

Code of Hammurabi

Sumerian Writing and Cuneiform

Epic of Gilgamesh

People

Famous Kings of Mesopotamia

Cyrus the Great

Darius I

Hammurabi

Nebuchadnezzar II

...

Works Cited

...

History >> Ancient Mesopotamia

.

Historic timeline courtesy of

Ducksters.com

.

History, biography, geography, science, and games

" " "

...

...

“ “ “

Mesopotamia:

Mesopotamia was an ancient land. It lay between and around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Most of it was in what is now the country of Iraq. There are some river valleys like the Nile where yearly flooding is predictable. This was not the case for Mesopotamian rivers. The currents were more violent. That meant people living there had to work harder to produce food. Also, resources like wood were rare. This meant that societies in Mesopotamia had to trade or fight with each other to get the resources they needed. Five thousand years ago, Mesopotamia was a land of city-states.

“ “ “

Historic foot notes from:

Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

.

Google search: free PDF download.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

" " "

...

…

“ “ “

Most people lived in walled cities. There were dozens of city-states. Each was ruled by its own king. The city-states were often at war with each other. Over time, the city of Akkad grew stronger than the others. Around 2334 BCE, it began conquering the other cities.

“ “ “

Historic foot notes from: Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

Google search: free PDF download.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

" " "

…

…

“ “ “

Before

3000 BCE, the cities of Mesopotamia were mostly Sumerian. Sumerian was the major language of Mesopotamia until this time. It was also the world’s first written language. The Sumerians invented a writing system. It is called cuneiform. city-state is a political system. It consists of a city and the surrounding land under its control. City-states can be ruled by a government. Or, they can beruled by a king.

Bennett Sherry

“ “ “

Historic foot notes from: Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

Google search: free PDF download.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

“ “ “

…

…

“ “ “

Around 3000 BCE, a new people arrived in northern Mesopotamia. They spoke a Semitic language. We call them Akkadians. The name comes from the city they built, Akkad. The Akkadians ruled history’s first empire. An empire is a political system. A strong state is at its center. That state controls weaker states around it. A bunch of different ancient empires rose in Mesopotamia because it was pretty easy to get to. By contrast, the Nile river valley was surrounded by desert and hard to reach. This is why Mesopotamia was home to the first empires. It was a bunch of separate city-states on fertile land that was easy to march an army across.…

“ “ “

Historic foot notes from:

Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians

“. “ “

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

Google search: free PDF download.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

" " "

…

…

“ “ “

The Akkadians:

One of Akkad’s kings was a man named Sargon. He was the founder of the Akkadian Empire. In 2334 BCE,

Sargon began conquering weaker city-states. Sargon had the world’s first full-time army with 5,400 soldiers. With it, he built the world’s first empire. It ran from the Persian Gulf to Turkey. The Akkadian Empire did not last long. It fell apart soon after Sargon died. Mesopotamia then returned to being a group of warring city-states. But before long, another empire arose.

“ “ “

Historic foot notes from:

Rise ofEmpires: Akkadians and Assyrians

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

Google search: free PDF download.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

" " '

…

…

“ “ “

The Assyrians:

The Assyrian Empire followed the Akkadian Empire. It was much longer-lived. It lasted from 2025 to 609 BCE. The Assyrian empire had three stages: the Old Kingdom, the Middle Empire, and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. For 1,400 years, the Assyrian Empire controlled Mesopotamia. The Assyrian Empire began with the city of Asur. This city had been ruled by Akkad. After the Akkadian empire fell, Asur conquered several nearby cities. Nineveh was one of them. It later became the Assyrian capital. By the seventh century BCE, the Assyrians ruled a huge empire. It stretched from Egypt to Iran.…

…

Historic foot notes from:

Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians

~~By Bennett Sherry~~

Google search: free PDF download.

.

‘pdf’+’Rise of Empires: Akkadians and Assyrians’

" " "

...

~~~

Preface:

…...........................................

Definitions

…

Weights, Measures, Currencies and Time increments

:::::::::::::::::::::;:::::::::::::::::::

Currency:::

...

Shell:

One 'Shell’, literally a seashell during the time of it's use, held currency value (spending power) roughly equivalent to a modern U.S. dollar throughout the duration of its use as a coin currency. Though just a humble object.

the Sea Shell was used as currency by humanity from the Dawn of man through out antiquity.

Discoveries of modern archaeology suggest that standardized currency such as the seashell have existed in almost every Society of humanity for as long as we have been able to count 10 fingers on our hands and 10 toe's on our feet.

There is some archaeological evidence suggesting standardized currency possibly predating even metallurgic smelting capabilities...

Not just barter and trade but also a standardized currency and banking structure are apparent innate necessities of the human socio-mechanistic structure. Possibly preceding the city-state of Ur, Sumer and Arcadia

At any rate; the humble seashell remained a critical component of organized trade for multiple societies beginning possibly as far back as 9000 BCE all the way through the birth of recorded civilization and written history. Only falling out of favor towards the end of the 4th century BCE.

Thus making the humble seashell the longest running coinage in continuous circulation in all of human history.

No Wonder as its inflation rate was 1/1000 of 1% per century…

...

" " "

Shells have been used for at leastfour millennia as a bargaining chip in China and Europe, and when metal coins became popular, they were often re-produced on them. The profile of a cowry, a shell always linked to the concept of money, appeared on the first coins of the Western world around the 5th -4th century BC.

" " "

https://benthamscience.com › chapter

Chapter - Shells as Currency - Bentham Science Publisher

" " "

...

" " "

Wikipedia -

Shell money

Shell money is a medium of exchange similar to coin money and other forms of commodity money, and was once commonly used in many parts of the world.

...

Wikipedia

" " "

Commerce, trade, and early forms of currency can be documented for thousands of years before the first coins were minted in southwestern Turkey in the 7th century BC. Exchanges of goods and services before that time were tracked by detailed receipts and notations that took many forms. Among the earliest are represented in the show by clay balls that contain small tokens that represented numbers

" " "

…

Talon:

The 'Talon' when first minted is bileaved to be by many historian is believed to represent the economic value of a healthy fertile Bull.

Talon :

One ‘Talon’. the ‘Talon’ was a printed gold coin of standardized weight.

equivalent to the largest coin currency value in the Roman Empire.

For example 100 gold Tallens would purchase a hundred head of prime cattle or secure you a very nice Roman Villa, with surrounding yard and Gardens...

Then next two highest exchange

of currency would be contract exchange

of materials or agreements of Allegiance...

And then of course the sword

and poison...

...

Pence:

…

Pound:

…

Time :::

Sundial:

in ancient instrument of telling time consisting essentially of a stick at the center of a circle with the shadow of the stick indicating the chronology of the transit of the Sun.

...

Lengths and Distance:::

...

Finger:

...

Palm:

…

Cubit:

…

League:

…

Historic preface concluded:

[pastedpast]

I listened to Times Radio every day without fail, morning, noon, and night, for over two years (I even bought a portable DAB so I could listen while gardening, and I took it with me on holidays). My interest began around the start of national lockdown in 2020, then stopped abruptly when the coverage became all about the Tory leadership contest between Truss and Sunak. I switched to 'The Rest Is Politics' podcast with Campbell and Stewart instead, which I still listen to quite regularly even though I can't stand either of them, and I didn't bother with Times Radio again until the recent announcement of the forthcoming general election.

I've started tuning in to the radio station over the past few days, and this long-winded preamble leads me to explain my posting (above) of the front cover of the book, 'The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler' by Kathryn S. Olmsted. It's because a guest on Matt Chorley's show today, historian and journalist Dominic Sandbrook (of 'The Rest Is History' podcast co-hosted with fellow historian and writer Tom Holland - I used be subscribed to that, too, but I couldn't keep up!) was talking about a politician from the past whom he admired, the three-time British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. And during the discourse he mentioned an accusation made by Baldwin of Britain's most powerful "press barons", which is what inspired me to investigate the topic further.

Ah! Stanley Baldwin. I remember his name, along with William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Salisbury, Lord Arthur Balfour, Ramsey Mcdonald, Andrew Bonar Law, Joseph Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, etc., etc., from my A Level British History (1870-1945) days. Yeh, I remember their names, but aside from Winston Churchill, my knowledge of politicians from that era merges into one big blur, as I found the history of British domestic policy from that period really, really dull. I was far more interested in the European history side of the course, beginning with Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian War. Anyway, what Sandbrook was saying about Baldwin did interest me, so I listened back later, transcribed some notes in my new notebook, and then automatically headed towards Google (or in my case, the search engine with the duck). My tap-tap-tapping led me to a book review (I love book reviews, I can glean sufficient information without going anywhere near the book itself), the subject of which was six press barons from Britain and the US who, according to the book's author, Olmsted, “worked together to pressure their respective governments to dismiss and ignore the fascist threat” in the run up to the Second World War. Naturally, I was intrigued.

Throughout his political career, Baldwin was involved in what Sandbrook described as a "terrible feud" with the owners of two British newspapers, Lord Rothermere and Lord Beaverbrook, ('The Daily Mail' and 'The Daily Express' respectively) who criticised his leadership extensively in their popular publications. His put-down of them is famous, essentially equating them with prostitutes of no morals in their exercise of: "power without responsibility - the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages". And it was these two British lords who conspired with US newspaper proprietors, aiming to prevent their countries becoming entangled in European affairs (and consequently, as the book title dramatically suggests, enable Adolf Hitler in his quest to redraw the map of Europe into an empire of German domination).

The US press barons were as follows: William Randolph Hearst, Robert McCormack, Joseph Medill Patterson and Eleanor Medill Patterson. McCormack and the two Pattersons were all grandchildren of Joseph Medill, an early proprietor of 'The Chicago Tribune'. Olmsted asserts that this formidable and hugely influential cabal opposed their countries' involvement in Europe for several reasons, the foremost being to protect their formal (British) and informal (US) empires. Even after the surprise attack on the American naval base, Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1941, in which over 2,400 Americans died, they argued that defeating Japan should be America's priority and to desist from tackling the other "Axis powers", namely Japan's allies, Germany and Italy. Reluctance to oppose fascism sweeping across the continent also stemmed from their political standpoints of antisemitism and/or anti-communism. A group of just six people, yet they held considerable political clout, easily disseminating their views on a grand scale to a national readership. The governments on both sides of the Atlantic struggled to counteract what Olmsted calls the "divisive politics and sometimes hateful messages" the newspapers espoused.

The Wikipedia page about Baldwin says he has been criticised for his part in the policy of appeasement towards Hitler and the failure to rearm sufficiently after the First World War to prepare for the Second. It also says, however, that he has received praise for his role in forcing and expediting the abdication of the British king, Edward VIII, as rumours circulated about Edward's Nazi sympathies and potential compromises to British national security. Sandbrook also praised Baldwin for his "consensual" style of politics which he believes enabled Britain to enter the war as united as it did, while under another leader, indeed, Churchill, Britain could well have gone in much more conflicted and divided. Sandbrook also mentions the fact that Baldwin gave 10% of his own fortune anonymously towards paying off the National Debt at the end of World War One, because he felt guilty that his family firm, EP&W Baldwin Ltd., an ironmakers, had made so much money out of the war.

Photograph from the aforementioned 'Chicago Tribune' of Stanley Baldwin (on the right of the picture), in his second term of office as British Prime Minister, with Edward, Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) in October 1926. Edward came to power a decade later and abdicated the same year, on 10 December 1936. The abdication took place during Baldwin's third term as PM.

POSTSCRIPT: I've been genning up a bit on Sandbrook. Apparently, he has been a vocal critic of the Iraq War (2003 to 2011) and I would like to hear his opinion about his podcasting neighbour, Alastair Campbell - both podcasts are produced by Gary Linekar's 'Goalhanger' production company - and Campbell's role as British PM Tony Blair's 'comms man' during the war in Iraq. I'd also like to know what he thinks about 'The Daily Mail', for whom he is/has been a columnist, and how he squares working for a right-wing newspaper, as I think I once heard him describing himself as a Marxist ???

[EDIT: I must've misheard him as, although admittedly I haven't dug very deep, I found this online: "Sandbrook is an unashamed apologist for Margaret Thatcher who’s made no secret of his disdain for the policies of ‘Red Ed Miliband’ and his Marxist father, Ralph". Ah well, I knew there was something about him I didn't like!]

Also, been reading articles about Rory Stewart. One is about how his hatred of Boris Johnson became so obsessive that he went into therapy to try to deal with it and even his own mother told him to stop talking about him. There's a critical one in the New Statesman that I must read again called: "Rory Stewart still doesn’t know who he is", in which Stewart describes himself as "tortured" and "complicated". He's certainly had a fascinating and, to use one of his favourite words, "distinguished" career, although he seems to flit about a lot, and on a personal level it's mad to think he's younger than me. His beautiful, clever, capable wife is even younger !! The couple have achieved so much in their lives already, changing things for the better with their charity work and what-have-you, whereas me... zilch! (I don't mind that I'm useless, though. I'm happy with my lot nowadays, and am not complaining.)

A final note, as this post about ultra-powerful media moguls leads me to Rupert Murdoch, the owner of, amongst other news dispensaries, the radio station I mentioned at the beginning of this post. I re-watched some of the three-part documentary series about him and his family on BBC iPlayer the other day, and this seems like an appropriate time to add the link.

ADD MUSSOLINI QUOTE RE WHY GMNY, ITALY AND JAPAN WERE CALLED THE AXIS POWERS

ALSO THE REASON WHY JAPAN JOINED THEM

[pizza-ra-bizza]

The new human sciences - and linguistics - have introduced notions of diachrony and synchrony into use which perhaps will help us. Like many "long-lasting" mentalities, the attitude in the face of death can seem almost immobile over very long periods of time. It seems achronic. And yet, at certain moments, changes occur, almost always slow, and sometimes unnoticed, today more rapid and more conscious. The difficulty for the historian is to be sensitive to changes and also not to be obsessed with them and not to forget the great inertia that reduce the real scope of innovations. (1) This preamble serves to explain in what spirit I have chosen the themes of these four reports. The first is rather in synchrony. It covers a long series of centuries, in the order of the millennium. We will call it tame death. With the second report, we will enter the diachrony: what changes in the Middle Ages, starting around the 12th century, began to modify the achronic attitude towards death, and what meaning can we give to these changes. Finally, the last two reports will be devoted to contemporary attitudes, to the cult of cemeteries and tombs, and to the interdict launched against death in industrial societies.

[lboogie1906]

David Walker (September 28, 1796 – August 6, 1830) was an abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well. In 1829, while living in Boston with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge, he published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a call for African American unity and self-help in the fight against oppressive and unjust slavery. The appeal brought attention to the abuses and inequities of slavery and the responsibility of individuals to act according to religious and political principles. At the time, some people were aghast and fearful of the reaction that the pamphlet would provoke. Many abolitionists thought his views were extreme. Historians and liberation theologians cite the Appeal as an influential political and social document of the 19th century. He exerted a radicalizing influence on the abolitionist movements of his day and inspired future African American leaders and activists. His son, Edward G. Walker, was an attorney and one of the first two African American men elected into the Massachusetts State Legislature, in 1866. In September 1829, he published his appeal to African Americans entitled Walker's Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829. The purpose of the document was to encourage readers to take an active role in fighting their oppression, regardless of the risk, and to press white Americans to realize the moral and religious failure of slavery. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CjDAdtMLN7Y/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“These documents are extraordinarily profound historical reservoirs of data. But they are also creations of authorities who harbored their own agendae, professional privileges, and ideological understandings of the people and society around them. ... "[clase histories are narratives and stories of experience taken by medical personnel. They are summaries-a distilling of a life, or part of a life-and can never be assumed to represent fully that life." In recruiting case records as biographical material, the psychiatric historian must sensitize herself to the (re)constructed properties of these files, along with the interests that they signify and the professional discourses in which they are couched. As such their contents must be eternally subject to skeptical reading, analytic decoding, and deconstruction.

But because they are also sites of contention and contestation, these historical psychiatric files are simultaneously bursting with the thoughts, words, and deeds of patients, their families, and numerous other allies and acquaintances dwelling outside the institutional walls. The power of human expression is such that it transcends even the most concentrated professional efforts to pathologize and pacify. It is precisely at this interpretive juncture at the reflexive meeting point between regulation and resistance, compliance and resistance-that the psychiatric case file resides as a potent if ultimately imperfect source of historical knowledge about segregative institutions for the mental disordered. 

...I chronicle the experiences of patients at the Provincial Mental Home, Colquitz, a segregative institution for "criminally insane" and other "recalcitrant" patients operating in British Columbia between 1919 and 1964. As a special security institution housing both civil and criminal patients, Colquitz was a hybrid facility, representing both therapeutic and carceral ideas and practices. On the one hand, Colquitz fell squarely within the jurisdiction of the provincial mental health establishment; its clientele were primarily drawn from other psychiatric settings; and its organizational and cultural life, as recounted throughout this paper, in many respects resembled the institutional milieus of "general" asylums and hospitals depicted in other historical research. On the other hand, the prison-like built environment, the relentless preoccupation with security, the all-male population, and the presence of disproportionate concentrations of "criminally insane," penitentiary inmates, and assorted "unmanageable" patients combined to confer specific properties that were unique to this medico-legal context.

By mobilizing the medical records of 100 patients admitted within the first 14 years of the facility's opening, and integrating them with a variety of other primary and secondary sources, I attempt to reconstruct the organizational and human environment of Colquitz. I chronicle the stultifying tedium of daily existence, the routine patterns of labor and leisure, and the periodic explosions of conflict and violence that transpired inside Colquitz during these first few years of the establishment's existence. In so doing I chart the diverse modes of discipline through which officials sought to maintain the institutional regimen, and I document the efforts undertaken by patients to resist authority, transcend their surroundings, and seek redemption and hope both inside and beyond the Colquitz walls.

This article is primarily about power, and its myriad operations, limitations, and oppositions, as it is actuated in facilities like Colquitz. My main thesis, paralleling other such historical work on the internal regimes of mental hospitals,' is that the reflexive interplay of regulation and resistance permeates every aspect of Colquitz and comparable institutions elsewhere. Only by revisiting these worlds, and undertaking grounded ethnographic social histories of daily life as it was experienced by the human inhabitants themselves, can we begin to comprehend the dynamics and meanings of the social forces that infused institutional existence in all its facets and forms. However refracted and incomplete the ultimate historical portrayals may be, these methods and approaches are absolutely integral to an understanding of how people's lives were ordered in places like Colquitz, and how that order was contested.”

- Robert Menzies, “"I Do Not Care for a Lunatic's Role": Modes of Regulation and Resistance Inside the Colquitz Mental Home, British Columbia, 1919-33.”  Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Volume 16: 1999. pp. 183-184   

[moonsdancer]

#MelJay AU Week | day four: movie au - the mummy (1999)

Art historian, Mel Medarda is slowly but surely building a career for herself as the assistant curator of the Nashmarae Museum of History in Shurima. Ever since she was a little girl, reading about the histories of her dead father's people, she's dreamed of exploring the mysteries of Shurima first hand. Of course, cataloguing an endless pile of precious objects and translating ancient texts isn't always so thrilling. But she's content, albeit ever searching for something truly special, revolutionary even.

Then, her brother Kino shows up toting a strange ancient box covered in hieroglyphs she has the wherewithal to translate. What the glyphs and the box's contents promise is world-changing, a fragment of a map to the Lost City of Gardens, a mystical place thought long buried beneath the sands of history and time. 

Before she knows it, an obnoxious disgraced inventor and ex-mercenary, Captain—no, Mister Jayce Talis, the only creature alive who claims to have seen the Lost City in person, joins their motley crew on the hunt for treasure and glory. But, they aren't the only ones on the trail, with greedy competitors and explorers pouring in from all over Runeterra to plunder a new discovery.

Even worse, something terrifying and ancient, awakened from beneath the dunes, arises to hunt them all.

Read a snippet from the story, tentatively titled, dawn of the chalicar, below + twitter here

(If you are familiar with The Mummy, then this scene's inspiration should be obvious. I had a lot of fun writing it, hope it's vaguely fun to read. Sorry for any mistakes in it, nothing is beta'd yet. The story will also ft. Akshan {the hottest bae in Shurima - Kino AND Jayce know}, Ezreal and others, currently trying to include as many P&Z faves as possible lol.)

dawn of the chalicar

Bel’Zhun Prison, Shurima

“Are you quite certain this ‘associate’ of yours is on the up-and-up, Kino? I’d like to escape this adventure with my head still firmly attached to the rest of my body.”

Mel looked askance at the prison yard in which she now stood, very much against her will, ignoring the salacious jeers and disturbing invitations being thrown her way from a motley crew of inmates. The absurd warden had trundled off with a pair of lackeys to locate a Captain Talis—the individual she was using a good chunk of her savings to bail out from his sentencing. All on the assurances of her brother who claimed he would prove somehow useful in reaching the location of the very first clue that had been embedded in the glyphs she’d deciphered a few nights ago. 

Kino was a poor judge of character at the best of times so Mel held little hope that this nefarious individual would be of much help. But Kino had insisted. 

“How are you acquainted with this Captain Talis, anyway?”

“Oh, we’ve done some business in the past, you know, a bit of this and a little of that.”

There was a shiftiness to Kino’s eyes, and he was fidgeting with his shoulder-length locs a little, his usual tell. Mel’s gaze narrowed. Either this Talis person was a criminal associate or Kino had conned the man, both possibilities boded ill.

Before she could interrogate him further, the warden of Bel’Zhun Prison, a portly gentleman draped in blindingly colourful robes, returned. He dragged a dusty, scraggly-haired giant behind him. Without preamble, he kicked the chained prisoner to the ground in front of them and said, “So, how much for the criminal?”

Frowning, Mel opened her mouth to remind the man of the five hundred crowns they’d already agreed on but Kino beat her to the punch with an offer of one hundred-and-fifty. Really? Was now the time to haggle?

The warden grinned, revealing a sizeable snaggle tooth that was a fascinating shade of orange. “Ah, my friend, you must be joking. I guess you don’t need our dear, disgraced captain that much after all.” He pulled on the prisoner, who’d stayed hunched over as if in pain, clutching the locks of his scraggly hair. “I feel the need for an execution today, maybe I can start with him. He’s something of a troublemaker anyway, always starting fights with the others, and pestering me for toothpaste, it’d be good to see him die.”

Mel gasped in horror. “You can’t—we need him to find the treasure—!”

“…Treasure, you say?”

Oh, blast it. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

Kino, always swift to act when something threatened his potential money-making schemes, piped up in denial, “Don’t pay attention to my sister. She’s mad, barely literate, and recently released from an asylum! This time yesterday, she was plucking her own underarm hair out and eating it.”

Mel looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Surely that was a bit over the top. But now that he’d set up such lofty expectations, oughtn’t she do something to play the part? Perhaps start scratching at her armpits? Oh, the indignity of it all. She was going to kill Kino. 

“Listen,” the warden half-whispered. “I know you’re probably telling the truth about the treasures—I will keep it quiet, and release the prisoner into your hands, in exchange for maybe a special gift.” He smiled at her, his tangerine tooth fairly glowing in the midday sun as he leaned in close to rub his finger along her elbow. “And sixty percent of your treasure.”

Mel shoved him away in disgust and fury. Mostly disgust. “Excuse me, you foul-breathed miscreant. You are not—."

“Twelve percent!” 

Mel cut herself off and faced her brother who had apparently rediscovered his desire to barter. Over her!

“Fifty-five.”

“Fifteen!”

Affronted beyond belief, Mel stepped aside while the two men went at it, both of them becoming increasingly shrill as they got thoroughly invested in their negotiation. 

The prisoner, this Captain Talis, was sitting up on his haunches. No longer hunched over as if in pain, instead he was looking straight at her, his whiskey-coloured eyes only barely visible between locks of dank, near-black hair. An unkempt beard covered his chin, and what she could see of his face beneath smears of filth and gods knew what else, wasn’t particularly remarkable. And yet still, for some inexplicable reason, she found herself arrested by his steady gaze.

This man couldn’t be worth all the trouble they were going to to get him out of jail. She had to double check.

Stepping closer to him—but not too close for he stank like someone who’d spent the better part of a year in a Shuriman port prison. 

“Captain Talis, I must implore you to tell me the truth, can you truly tell us how to find the Lost City of Gardens?”

When she spoke, the captain tilted his head, watching her with the wariness of a very large and very dangerous, and likely rabid animal. She noted, with an artist’s eye, that even though he’d probably lived through all manner of harsh deprivations, there was still a rangy power to his frame, his shoulders were broad—almost absurdly so—beneath the tatters of a faded doublet and shirt. The threadbare trousers he wore did little to hide the sturdy trunk-like thighs beneath, hugging him to an almost improper degree. Mel jerked her eyes upward away from inappropriate territory only to find him scrutinising her with a crooked smirk.

“Mister Talis, actually,” he drawled, his voice rusty. “Why do you want to find the Lost City? Fancy lady like you wouldn’t survive more than five minutes on the journey.”

Stomping her foot in frustration, Mel informed him in no uncertain terms that she was more than capable of an expedition across the Great Sai. She was much hardier than she looked.

He didn’t seem to believe her but he still asked, “Why take the risk?”

“Because—anything worthwhile involves risk, Mr Talis. I was told you are the sort to understand that.”

He snorted. “All right, I might be willing to consider telling you how to get there but it’s a tricky thing.”

Sensing an opening, however minute, Mel shuffled closer. “What… would convince you further?”

He lifted his filthy chained hands, and gestured at her to come nearer, as if to tell her a secret, a conspiratorial slant to his head. An excellent idea given the sensitivity of their subject. Mel moved forward until she was less than a foot away, intrigue percolating in her breast. If the man told them how here and now, then maybe they could just depart from this foul place and be on their way.

“Come a little closer, I can’t holler this kind of thing out in the middle of a jail, or your little expedition’ll be over before it even starts.”

He was right, so Mel sidled in almost scandalously close. So close she could see the glints of gold and flecks of green in his surprisingly fetching eyes.

“All right, thank you ever so much for telling m—hmph!”

Whatever she was about to say was muzzled by a pair of chapped lips pressing against her own in a rough kiss. It wasn’t like any kiss she’d had before. None of the too-soft chivalry of warm candlelit evenings in the teak-panelled gallerias and posh soirees during her university days in Piltover. No, there wasn’t a trace of gentility or sweet questioning here. It was demanding, and a little bit mean, a bite of teeth that made her whimper. In protest. Mostly.

But then, almost in a flash, the contact shifted. The sly swipe of a warm, wet tongue that tasted a little sour and yet had her opening her mouth to grant it entry, a curious lap of her own as she moved to meet it. 

He reared back and growled in her face, “If you want to know how to get there, lady, get me the hell out of here!”

Before she could respond, one of the guards clubbed the captain over the head and he dropped onto the sand with a thump. 

Shaken, as much by the easy violence as she was the kiss, Mel reached up to touch her stinging mouth watching as Captain-Mister-whatever-he-called-himself Talis was tugged away. More like Captain Cretin! Or Monsieur Libertine! Or—

“You know, if I’d known you were willing to dole out kisses to sweeten negotiations, we could’ve gotten a deal much quicker, little fox.”

The warden loudly agreed.

“Oh, do shut up, both of you.”

Hope someone enjoyed. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.