#monsieur dupont

[nicklloydnow]

“The system of the motorway, the social relation of the motorway, is left untouched by any attack on its specifics - untouched or is it reinvigorated? Does it bloom like the desert in places where fire and rain have visited. Anarchism against circulation is an ethics; it doesn't hurt the motorway even though it wants to. It doesn't hurt the motorway because it is just one response among many to present conditions, and it takes its place alongside all other theories and actions as an ideology - it exists as one strand in the strand of strands of commodified consciousness.

On the motorway, everything that can happen will happen, including dissent against the motorway. But we see now that achieving the heightened condition of dissent does not bestow upon the rebel a capacity to change anything, or even to escape the conditioning of the possible exits open to her/him. Saying "no" does not transport us to a place where we might make decisions separately from the world in which we live. I have met anarchists who live like ironside puritans and others of a deliberately decadent inclination, but whether you forbid or celebrate you do not touch capitalism itself. At every point it holds you in its palm - sometimes allowing a little more movement, sometimes gripping harder. Capitalism has facilitated democracy, fascism, state socialism, theocracy, militarism, human rights, religious revivals; it processes and transforms all social organisation into its social organisation. Every political aspiration is compatible with its productive relation. You propose the counter culture? Capital will commodify it, instigate it, reproduce it, and sell it. There is no outside of the loop.

The motorway cannot be undone either by ideas or practice. It cannot be undone. You think a million people like you could do the business? Well, where are they? If you haven't got them after two hundred years of agitation what makes you think they will turn up now or at some time in the future? And do you really think it possible that a million people can believe the same thing at the same time? How would you check they were really thinking what you thought and not hoping to get something else out of it: a Phd thesis, a promotion, a ministerial promo-tion, a groovy party, radical credibility, a new girlfriend? And if they did truly believe as you believe, if they downloaded your consciousness - by what mechanism would that change the world? Proposed democratic change works like magic, it has a misdirected relation to the movement of capital: if we all think the same thing then everything will come good. In reality, we know that agreement is both false and also not decisive on the mechanisms of power, which act automatically, independently of decision-making.

Why should large numbers of people be convinced by what one person claims more than the promises of any other? The internet is full of get rich quick schemes, anarchism is just one of them.

The easy anarchist answer is that it is not thoughts that change the world but acts. The fundamental flaw in political action is this: the more militant (and therefore true) the action is, the fewer people want to participate in it. The more unreal and fluffy, the more inclined they will be to turn up. Anarchists, being mostly young men, still have not learnt that only young men like to fight back on the streets, everyone else will find excuses not to be there. In directing campaigns, the choice for activists is stark, it is between numbers or ideological purity.

But even to say that rubs some up the wrong way; all discussion subverts the glory of acts. Apparently talking and thinking gets you nowhere because "there is no point in theory without action", as if the likes of Class War or RTS have ever got anywhere. How could Monsieur Dupont demonstrate its activities on the streets? How is anarchism demonstrated on the streets? It seems after all, that all deliberate interventions made by the pro-revolutionary minority are acts but what is really important is whether the proposed interventions either achieve, or are capable of achieving, what is claimed for them.” (p. 160 - 162)

[fidjiefidjie]

Bon Matin ❤️🎙🎹 😊

Véronique Sanson 🎶 Monsieur Dupont

Live RTS

[edsmusicblog]

sandie shaw - monsieur dupont

1969

[agentellafiles]

It's Agent Ella's toughest adversary yet... or is it? Meet Monsieur Pierre Dupont, the head of the Dupont Family and crime boss of Belize.

You are Agent Ella, and you've infiltrated Dupont's home in the hopes of helping bust his drug smuggling ring! But Dupont reminds you too much of your awful ex-husband and besides, something about him doesn't seem... right.

Play Agent Ella to solve this mystery!

[111seedhillroad]

i only just started reading nihilist communism, and i have to say the critique of consciousness is so important. if you agree at all with the premises of changing society at the economic base to affect cultural changes at the superstructure (for who on the left/post-left is this not true), then "raising consciousness" as a strategy is obvious bullshit. not only is it bullshit, when it is effective it is only effective as a strategy for a faction of people to gain institutional power to again change society at the base via top-down operations a la Leninism. Supporting the notion I've brought up before that political education, pedagogy, etc. is vanguardism by a different means (not even a different means its just what they do).

I also agree with the implications of MD's critique, which is that revolution and therefore communism (and therefore something like a "communist" consciousness) can only occur when the exact people with their hands on the productive apparatus stop, which... is hard to believe will ever happen before climate catastrophe makes it happen.

I need to finish this fucking book.

[thesiltverses]

Hello! Writing first to thank you for such an extraordinary creation - as a piece of writing and even more so in performance. Every episode manages to somehow build on and outdo the last; you navigated that transition from a smaller scale story of grisly mysteries and personal crises of faith to a grand scale of war, revolution and political satire with absolute aplomb, and never lost that throughline of exceptional characterisation and sharp writing, always steering to the most interesting conflicts. You are always very humble in your public comments, but I hope you allow yourself a little pride, because this is absolutely top notch stuff.

I was struck by Paige's final words, that she hopes what they left would be found 'flawed, inadequate, yearning'. As the show went on, I was surprised - in a good way - that the show's politics gradually crystalised into a full-on nihilist anarchism, something perhaps even along the lines of Monsieur Dupont. (Muna used the 'a' word in one of the Q&As but it was pretty evident even before that). Taking these gods as a metaphor for ideologies and social systems, the scope of it becomes pretty universal - and unsparing. And, equally, hard to answer.

I wondered when the Many Below/Wound Tree was introduced what answers they would find: what political movement could truly resist cooption or becoming its own horrible self-sustaining egregore. And in the end the answer you express I suppose is a negative one: that even Paige's god of victims is a tool, one that must eventually be discarded to go into some unknown place beyond it all (to walk away from Omelas), towards something that narrative fiction - as a form of the 'endless words' that are derided so much in the third season - can no longer address. Which I respect - to pose the question is vital, even if the tools can't reach any answers if they even exist.

I think this struggle exists in many stories that address themes of making a break from the rapacious society that created them (and take it seriously) - your Baru Cormorants and Mononoke-himes. We can describe the problem vividly, but since we do not have a counterexample to hand, any story we tell about ~what is to be done~ and what it will look like when it is feels like it will be just as hollow as the spins and angles and parasitic fantasies that so many characters advance in the Silt Verses. (How could there possibly be a time where it finally works out, after we have seen all this? But then, what are we living for?)

To try to make this a question and not a ramble, I wanted to ask - what do you see as the role of fiction in addressing the horrible machinery of this world? Is it enough to pose the question particularly sharply, skewer the bad and inadequate answers, and leave the readers/listeners to figure out how to make the killing of gods concrete? How do we punch through the bounds of it all being Content, another product to be bought and sold? What does it mean to sit here and fantasise about people making that revolutionary break when there is no revolution to be had?

I don't know what answer I'm hoping for here, but given the themes of the show, I feel like this must be a kind of thing you've thought about, and probably have a far more developed line of thought than I do. And if this is a bit too much to drop in your inbox on a Saturday morning, I will say again thank you for writing this story and all the actors for making it so strikingly concrete - it truly means a lot, and I will treasure it.

Hi, and thank you for listening and for a beautifully written and thoughtful ask! ('Horrible machinery of the world' stopped me dead in my tracks.) And I am very proud, genuinely.

I don't have a good enough answer to your questions, and for me a lot of TSV is very much about trying to figure those answers out, but let me try and sum up my perspective bit by bit.

Is it enough for fiction to pose the question, without also proposing the answer?

I don't think it's enough for fiction as a collective body of work.

I'd argue there's probably a tendency towards open-endedness and irresolution in these individual narratives simply because it feels like a more honest acknowledgement that in real life, the foe has yet to take a real body blow and will not go down easy; that the foe, in fact, is the marketplace for the work itself and ironically profits from the popularity of stories with easy heroic victories over villains who represent capitalism. That these stories inevitably become a pleasant consumable that serves our complacency within the belly of the beast, a kind of daily tonic to reassure us that good always triumphs and regular people always come out on top.

I also think that the sheer scale and scope of the topic creates its own challenges; you probably can't engage thoroughly enough with both the dystopian question and your ideas for a utopian answer all in a single story, without ultimately turning the latter into that false reassurance, a quick handwave of a happy ending.

You mention Omelas, and I think we could illustrate the problem by looking at how LeGuin handles her two successive masterpieces:

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, which gives us the titular resource-rich u(dys)topia built on invisible suffering, and the dissidents who turn their backs on that world and walk out into the inhospitable wilderness in search of something better.

The Dispossessed, which as its premise gives us Anarres, an imperfect but sympathetic anarchist society whose adherents turned their backs on a neighbouring world of capitalist plenty to live out in the inhospitable wilderness in search of something better.

Anarres can very reasonably be viewed as LeGuin's direct answer to the question posed by Omelas, and she would have likely had it in her mind already as she wrote Omelas. But if the short story had ended with 'I hear that against all odds, the ones who walk away have successfully founded an anarchist utopia where hardship is everywhere but it's shared as equitably as possible. THE END', the amount of lazy shorthand and empty comfort involved in that happier ending would inevitably make it a dishonest and unserious offering.

Instead, Anarres is a starting premise to be interrogated at length over the course of a separate story, rather than a happy ending to simply reassure the reader that better things are possible - and even at the end of the novel LeGuin's unresolved questions are still very similar to the ones that we're left with in Omelas (and the same questions that I feel like we were knocking about in The Silt Verses, and which I guess you could argue are all lingering concerns at the end of Mononoke, as well): how and where can we find space to create and sustain a genuine alternative when the narrative environment of capitalism is so powerfully all-subsuming and constantly growing to fill the space? Do we need to disconnect entirely, vanishing as if dead? If we disconnect, how can we possibly survive and what inhumanities or ethical compromises will be required of us? If we do survive, is our isolationism a dereliction of human responsibility to those left behind?

All of which is to say that I think present-day fiction absolutely can make the attempt to meaningfully explore potential alternative-utopian solutions in more depth and with far more tangibility than we attempted with TSV - but that dystopian fiction like ours which concludes with the unexplored promise of a revolutionary utopia and the vague reassurance that the irrepressible human spirit will figure things out from here on out (Chewbacca gets a medal, everyone's in the streets wearing a Guy Fawkes mask) doesn't do much more than dramatically undermine its own goal of disrupting the audience's comfort.

That said, one of my big regrets this season was that we didn't succeed in more engagingly exploring and articulating the Woundtree camp's development into a flawed but functioning society in Dispossessed fashion ahead of the ending. That was my intention, but what quickly became clear was that in a dramatic format, with a limited cast, it was just endless static meeting-room scenes with Paige and Elgin discussing difficult responses to impossible challenges, while everyone else was out having dynamic and exciting adventures with lots of fun and exciting gods. Dystopias remain too entertaining for utopias' own good.

What do you see as the role of fiction in addressing the horrible machinery of this world?

I believe that absurdist horror fiction specifically, founded on the principle of 'people in a world that makes no sense, deluding themselves that it definitely does make sense' can play a very powerful role in that stated purpose.

Many horror traditions carry the baggage of inbuilt or inadvertent conservatism - the concept of a peaceable, passive, safe, middle-class Normality which is then disrupted by a terrifying outside threat (alien, ultra-foreign, ultra-low-class, underworldly, wild, etc). But absurdist horror very directly identifies Normality as the true source of our terror and very directly confronts our human response to it. It creates the right environment for us to ask all of the good questions. Isn't this an unsustainable nightmare we're living in? Why are we expending so much energy pretending it isn't? How do we get out and what do we do if we can't?

Probably the only listener reaction that's genuinely frustrated me about both of our shows is the folks who come away turning their noses up at the bluntness of that approach and acting like they've Solved The Art simply for figuring out where our broad sympathies lie. "Hm, just listened to The Silt Verses and I understood it at once; it's clearly trying to say that capitalism is bad. A little heavy-handed in its messaging for my liking, hm-hm!"

Not to go full Garth Marenghi, but for me the directness of the provocation and the obvious outrageousness of the nightmare is the point; it then allows us to go to places that other genres (or more understated critiques) generally can't.

How do we punch through the bounds of it all being Content, another product to be bought and sold? What does it mean to sit here and fantasise about people making that revolutionary break when there is no revolution to be had?

God, I don't know.

Maybe it means nothing; maybe we can't punch through; maybe there is no story unruly enough to be truly unco-optable, and therefore even the most radical fiction ultimately serves as a distraction, a placebo, a reassurance (that we are not alone, that better things are possible) which will impact the wider world more by keeping us subscribed to the Kindle app than by any action we might feel inspired to take.

Amazon is paying Boots Riley to make TV shows. Disney won much praise for delivering a revolutionary fantasy in a Star Wars shell. Apple is funding excellent, discomfiting and furious corporate satires about how we happily ignore invisible worker abuses for the sake of our own lifestyles, but they also cannot be considered accountable for the deaths of Congolese child-labourers in the global cobalt supply chain. The Dispossessed is in development as a limited series and the LeGuin estate are closely involved.

The master doesn't just own the tools, he's been buying up the guillotines as well.

What if, as with the unknowable nothingness outside of Omelas, the only art that cannot be reduced to product in net service of the status quo is the art that's so invisible and inaccessible and disconnected as to not exist at all? Does being relatively small and ramshackle really lend us any ideological purity, any genuine detachment? You can listen to The Silt Verses on Apple and Spotify and Amazon Music. Brought to you by Acast.

Chapter 36 with Dev and Seb was to a large extent intended as an articulation of that worry. To what extent can we still trust in the integrity of a sincere love story (one that we want to believe in) it if takes place in an insincere and predatory environment? Can any meaningful story be told honestly within such a space?

This stuff really worries me. I think it's probably right to worry. I don't know the answer. I do know that there are some folks for whom the show has made a tangible difference in terms of their life's direction, and that's a huge comfort to me.

There was someone who said it helped them find their faith, strangely and wonderfully. Someone else who said it contributed to their decision not to go down a more lucrative career path within what they view as an exploitative industry. (I hope they don't regret that decision; I hope it makes them happy.)

So there's something there. Maybe.

[lividstar]

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤTHE CITY OF LOVE

ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ㅤ ㅤ Masterpost

៚ wc: ✍️

៚ fluff, angst, fashion designer!hongjoong x model!reader (ft. personal assistant!seonghwa & photographer!wooyoung), slowburn, strangers to lovers, soulmates au if you squint, do french people actually say bonjour irl?

៚ playlist !

៚ To hope for a miracle while standing still and not doing anything to initiate any form of change is just about as foolish as avoiding the gaze of your phone screen while waiting for an app to download thinking such an action would make the waiting process any shorter. Upon learning this portion of the reality of life, you decide to break free from the confines of your hometown and move to Paris in hopes of a new season of your life unfolding. What’s un(fortunate) is you weren’t expecting your designated miracle to come in the form of a fashion designer named Kim Hongjoong.

started: june 30, 2024 | finished: ongoing

Chapter One: A Change (wc: 9k)

🍂 Moving to Paris in order to leave your past in Arcadia Bay had been a long-term goal for a while now, and you were more than excited to finally have this dream of yours within your grasp. Of course, things won’t always turn out well consistently, and you had to be reminded of this in the worst way possible.

Chapter Two: Unexpected Encounters (wc: 8k)

🍂 You were now on your fifth job hunt for the week, and even though you were hoping for it to, for once, actually turn out to be a success, indifference spreads through you as the search concludes on a dead end once again. Just as you were about to head home, a sudden surprise catches up to you, nearly out of breath.

Chapter Three: Inspiration (wc: 4k)

🍂 The thought of entering the world of fashion and modeling seemed daunting, but you’d rather have your suffering come from getting perceived than not having at least a sufficient amount of money to make sure your last days won’t be spent in Paris. Looking through the stolen-but-not-really sketchbook in your possession for outfit inspiration, you’re caught in a state of shock when something you thought had finally left you behind suddenly came back to bite you. One question hung heavy in your mind: Why?

Chapter Four: A Pleasant Twist (wc: 5k)

🍂 What started as a plan for a quiet walk in the park quickly turned eventful when you bumped into Madame Dupont, who was heading out for groceries. Choosing to assist her instead, two occurrences you didn’t see coming saw the light of the day: A. Running into Seonghwa, and B. Receiving an offer from Madame Dupont to help with your upcoming casting.

Chapter Five: Consequences (wc: 8k)

🍂 During the high-stakes fashion casting, you impress the judges but are later alarmed to discover that the agency’s influential creative director is the owner of the sketchbook that not only did you accidentally take home, yet also used one of its designs as inspiration for your attire, leaving you fearful about the potential consequences for your budding career. As the weight of this realization sinks in, you can't help but worry how you would entangle the knots of the predicament you’re now under.

Chapter Six: A New Companion (wc: 5k)

🍂 The tension mounts as you anxiously await a message from the directors. A call from Seonghwa bringing you the not-so-good news of you passing the first round of the casting brings mixed emotions, and a walk in the park offers a brief escape from your spiraling worries. Returning home, you find comfort in the unexpected presence of Pompidou, Monsieur Frank’s mischievous feline. As the day of the callback arrives, the pressure intensifies, culminating in a nerve-wracking evaluation before Hongjoong and the casting panel.

Chapter Seven: Resolve (wc: 12.1k)

🍂 Seonghwa invites you to the serene local park where he delivers the exciting news that you’ve secured the modeling job, marking a significant step forward in your new life in Paris. However, as you bask in the joy of this achievement, a nagging concern about Hongjoong’s sketchbook lingers in your mind. By the time you get your first modeling gig, you form a plan to return it to him on the very same day, but the uncertainty of how he will react keeps you on edge. Could things possibly get any worse than they already are?

Chapter Eight: A Great Friend (wc: 11.5k)

🍂 Your day immediately turns eventful at the very second you open your eyes, receiving a congratulatory message from Hongjoong which was apparently because of your sudden popularity that skyrocketed overnight, following your first photoshoot. As you grapple with this sudden surge of attention, Seonghwa offers a welcome distraction by suggesting you assist Hongjoong with his designs for the upcoming autumn collection, all of which are still in progress.

Chapter Nine: May I Have This Dance? (wc: 10.3k)

🍂 The initial plan was to stay the night in Hongjoong’s art studio to finish one of his designs, but as one thread tangled itself into another and kept the chain going, a series of unexpectedly charming experiences began to unfold, one of which contains running an errand to buy flowers for Madame Dupont’s vases—the very event that led to you and Hongjoong enjoying a little sophisticated dancing session while moving to the soft melody of La Vie En Rose.

Chapter Ten: Push and Pull (wc: 4.6k)

🍂 The memory of what happened—or what had almost happened last night, still remained fresh in your mind. As a result, you find yourself on edge as you head to Hongjoong’s agency per Seonghwa’s request, still processing the events that had unfurled. Upon arrival, you notice Hongjoong acting distant, leaving you uneasy. Seonghwa, sensing your discomfort, tries to lighten the mood and catch up, but the tension lingers in your mind as you try to make sense of Hongjoong's sudden change in behavior.

Chapter Eleven: You Wonder why I’m Bitter (wc: 8.2k)

🍂 Alone and aching for the connection that once felt so natural, you reluctantly turn to an unlikely companion: Pompidou, who listens to you pour out all the longing you’ve fought so hard to bury. While you grapple with the emptiness left by Hongjoong’s sudden withdrawal, he, too, finds himself lost, wrestling with the very feelings he’s tried to deny. Haunted by memories and choices he can’t quite reconcile, Hongjoong is caught between the familiarity of the past and the confusing reality of the present.

🪞 — lividstar.

[fanfic-recs-01]

Miraculous LadyBug Fics

This is a list of Miraculous Ladybug fics I like on AO3, if you have any recs for me feel free to send me some!

I have a separate list for Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Damian Wayne Fics Here: Part 1 Part 2

Updated 11/2/24

Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Felix Graham De Vanily

Hey, Little Songbird by charlietheepic7 *Finished*

~Really, Felix couldn't believe his cousin sometimes. Marinette was talented, beautiful, kind, and had a crush on Adrien bigger than the mansion, yet Adrien was blind to the treasure right in front of him. "Just a friend," indeed.

Well, if Adrien wasn't going to do anything, it wouldn't matter if Felix... snatched her up?~

Welcome To The Back by Geeeny *Finished*

~Marinette Dupain-Cheng sits alone in the back. Until she doesn't.~

birds of a feather by WithLovePoohBear *Finished*

~When Mme Bustier’s class gets a new student, Marinette might just finally find true friends who love and support her for who she is.

But more accurately, she finds her home.~

Pen Pals by That_Kwami_plagg  *Finished*

~Marinette and Felix have been Pen Pals for two years. She tells him everything. All of the abuse, lies and manipulations. He became her sanctuary, and her his. What happens when Felix moves to France? Can he help her through her struggles, or will he be another victim of Lila?~

Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Tim Drake

Tiny Tim by LeoLeonte *Finished*

~Tim leaned back on the chair. Disrespect was a common occurrence at the meetings he attended but usually people were far more subtle about it.

In which sleep deprivation makes people do, and say stupid things.~

The Contingency by AbyssalGuardian *Finished*

~After Marinette loses the support of her parents she decides that it’s time for her to enact one of her contingency plans and disappear.

Where better to disappear than Gotham?~

coup de foudre (came with a lightning bug) by newdog14 *Finished*

~“So unfortunately I’m being forced to turn in my resignation without having a replacement trained just yet,” Marinette said, looking genuinely regretful.

“Marry me!” Tim blurted out, and Marinette blinked at him in shock~.

Damsel in Distress by Izanae *Finished*

~All Marinette wanted to do was check out the competition.

Instead, she finds herself at the mercy of a Rogue - and a certain Red bird.~

Misc.

No Hesitation by orphan_account *Finished*

~Marinette could never have foreseen just how quickly Lila's plan would work - but now a new school year has begun and she has transferred to a new school that could support her fashion career far better than Dupont ever could.~

Accidentally on Purpose by LadyLiterature

~When Marinette had been chosen to intern with Monsieur Wayne’s PA, she hadn’t been expecting anything special. Sure, the Waynes were an odd breed and generally considered strange, but Marinette hadn’t actually expected to have much contact with them, if any at all.~

Multi-mouse will multi-wreck your shit by Assassinscred, Bloodhungrywolfpack *Finished*

~The whole world is watching the live stream as Multi-mouse's miraculous is ripped from her neck. They are all watching as the girl underneath is revealed. The super hero community, specifically the Bat clan, are stunned as she continues to fight, berating her foe the whole way.

With this new public knowledge, Batman once again reaches out to offer his assistance with the situation. Unlike a few years ago, this time Ladybug accepts.~

Siren Song by MelsCalamity *Unfinished*

~Or the story how Marinette Dupain-Cheng one night randomly woke up in Gotham City and suddenly got adopted by the Gotham City Sirens.~

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Some writings for you. The new kids to organizing and 'activism'.

Pretty much everything on the Counter-Surveillance Resource Center.

RIP Alfredo Bonanno.

[dandelionterminal]

Invisible String Part 2 - Prologue II - His Butler, a Shadow

link to next part

tags: not beta read, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, like demon ranking stuff, Demon Deals, demon biology, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Family Feels, Platonic Relationships, Eventual Smut, Eventual Romance, Song: invisible string (Taylor Swift), Cross-Posted on AO3, eventually part of a collection

characters: Sebastian Michaelis, Original female character

Summary:

-One single thread of gold tied me to you-

Demons, angels, and grim reapers roam the streets of London in the latter half of the 18th century. Adelaide DuPont knows that whatever killed her parents was not human. Someone, or something, killed them and left no trace. Adelaide and her brother, Luca, are left almost desolate. Their only hope is to get the Earl of Phantomhive on their side as an investor in their parents' company. Sebastian Michaelis is a leashed demon. However, that does not stop him from smelling his mate. He will not let the fate of humans in this world take her away from him. He can balance two goals at once. He can care for his master and convince his mate to return to the pits of Hell with him.

Adelaide Manon DuPont was born to her parents Elise DuPont and Alain DuPont on September 17, 1868, in France. She was a bright and cheerful child. Her hair was a vibrant red during her childhood but lightened and dulled with age. It settled into an almost pink strawberry blonde. She always loved to learn and create. Her parents fretted about her playing make-believe so much as a child. She always seemed to have imaginary friends that she would talk to and play with. She called them the most terrifying and archaic names. One she seemed to talk to the most was called Malphas and she described him as wearing feathers and having “really long nails”. She seemed to outgrow it though, as she got older. Little did Elise and Alain know that Adelaide simply stopped sharing her strange visions and visitors. Malphas stopped visiting her though in 1885. The family moved to London in 1870 in preparation for their company launch. 

In 1873, Luca Gabriel DuPont joined the family. He was much quieter and withdrawn than his elder sister and was rather apathetic growing up. Luca did not enjoy make-believe or have imaginary friends. But he did listen to his sister whisper to her in the night. When Luca was around 12, he listened to his sister whisper to the shadows through a crack in her bedroom door. 

“I’ve told you, monsieur, you cannot keep coming here. My family worries, I worry, that I am crazy,” she said to the shadows in the corner of her room. Luca squinted, trying to see what or who she was speaking to. That’s when he saw it, a faint golden glow around his sister’s ring finger. It led up to connect to something lurking in the shadows. An arm reached out of the shadows. Monstrous, long black nails on the hand tried to stroke his sister's cheek. She backed away in fear and Luca covered his mouth to stifle a gasp. “No,” she said firmly. “Do not touch me.” 

The shadows moved, as if laughter was coming from a chest. “I am trying to prove to you that I am real,” the shadow said. Luca could not believe it. The imaginary friends, the delusions, of his sister were real. They were tangible, visible, and speaking audibly. 

“No, you are not. You are in my head, you’re a part of my imagination that has gone on too long,” Adelaide said, throwing herself back in her bed and covering her head. “I will not see you anymore, Malphas.”

The shadow chuckled again and seeped back into hiding. “If you say so, Adelaide,” it said and then vanished into the night. Luca ran back to his room and pretended to have never seen anything. From that night on, however, he never heard Adelaide speak to the shadows again. 

______________________________________________________________________

One night, in 1886, the DuPont home caught on fire. The blazes were so large that the public did not believe there would be any survivors and the DuPont Confectionary Company would vanish into the night with the embers. However, once the blaze had died down, the children of the DuPonts were found unscathed, huddled together in a corner of the home. The 18-year-old heiress to the DuPont Confectionary Company and her younger brother were not burnt and barely coughed as they emerged from the still-burning coals of their home. The bodies of the former Earl DuPont and his wife were found to be burnt beyond recognition. From that moment on, the homeless DuPont heirs were shunned from society. 

______________________________________________________________________

Let me give you an example of the treatment of the DuPont heirs. After the fire, the siblings were invited to a ball with the ton. It was assumed that the heiress would find a husband during this ball. The siblings' aunt in Paris sent them nice garments to wear to the event. When the two walked into the event, the room fell hushed and ladies started whispering behind their fans. Adelaide walked up to a group of ladies she used to spend these high society events with only to overhear the whispers they were hiding behind their fans. 

“Do you think it was Addie or her brother? We know one of them had to start it, right?” one of the ladies said, her perfect curls bouncing as she spoke. 

“Oh of course. How else would they be unscathed but their parents burnt to a crisp?” another asked. 

“Do you think that the DuPonts had that much money? Enough to risk your own life and well-being for?” the first one asked. 

Adelaide pauses in her steps, head bowed to the ground. They were not there that night, she reminds herself. They did not know the screams, the horrors she had to endure that night. The sounds of tearing flesh and hellfire echoed in her and Luca’s ears every night when they closed their eyes. Even as she squeezed her eyes shut in the moment to try to blink away her tears she saw the smiles of those monsters in her vision. The obscene fangs and tongues were covered in her parents's blood. She had shielded her brother from their line of sight, protecting him. She did not know why they targeted her home or her family that night. One thing she did know for certain was that those creatures were not human. Her family was murdered, but they were not murdered by humans. And, as your narrator, I can confirm that she is correct. 

______________________________________________________________________

For the next year, the DuPont heirs struggled. It turned out that running a company on your own as a teenager was not an easy feat. The business seemed to be going down farther and farther. Part of the issue was the tainted name of DuPont. Everyone associated the candies the DuPont Company made with the fire and assumed familicide. Try as she might to clear their name, Adelaide could not convince the public that she and her brother did not kill their parents. 

As the year went on, the siblings struggled more and more to make ends meet. Food got scarcer, sacrifices had to be made, and Adelaide started eating less. On the nights when she was the hungriest, she really missed talking to Malphas. 

It was one of these nights that Adelaide started thinking. She had heard of Funtom company, and how the company was run by a child. She started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he would take a chance on DuPont Company, on her and her brother.

[nicklloydnow]

“Morning always seems too stale to justify

Lament blossoms, hours, minutes of our lives

Broken thoughts run through your empty mind

At least a beaten dog knows how to lie”

Sleepflower - Manic Street Preachers

“The world will not be changed by millions of people voting for change, or demonstrating for change, because capitalist power is not constituted with reference to human feelings: political desires and demonstrations, which are the social forms consciousness takes, cannot touch capitalist domination but are merely determined by it. We have no place for consciousness in our scheme, we see no need for a generalised formulated desire for revolution. Revolution belongs to the mute body and its resistance to, and its giving out to, the imposition of work. What is needed in the revolutionary struggle is precedence given to the needs of the body (consumer culture is a contemporary echo of this. The slogans are not inspiring or romantic: more rest, more pay, less work, no deals on productivity. However, once this demand-regime is set in motion it cannot be side-tracked except by counterfeit political demands, or formulations of radical consciousness made by those who seek to lead it. Once the body tends toward rest, it cannot rid itself of that inclination unless it is roused again to work for some political vision. In short the struggle of industrial workers against capital will be conducted entirely in selfish terms, which in the end describes itself as the struggle against work in the interest of highly paid sleep. In the present nothing has significance but the desire to extend half-hour lunch breaks into hour lunch breaks. If all pro-revolutionaries grasp this they will stop worrying about the precondition of consciousness. It is within the political-economic figure of the imposition of work and its negation (which is comfort), that pro-revolutionaries could make a contribution to their workplace struggles. The struggle is against the maximisation of productivity and for the maximisation of rest. If workers could win their struggle in these terms then they will have broken up the basic mechanism of the capitalist system.

The struggle of the body for rest is not the revolution, it is merely the crisis of capital. A crisis because it brings the massed, accumulated, fossilised acts of the past and the sedimenting/accumulating dead acts of the present, along with the possible conditions for the future, together in collision and in this standstill all value ceases to be enforced, leaving the world in a kind of zero hour/zero place where everything is contestable. (When the traffic stopped last September during the Fuel Protests, a man on a bicycle passed me and said, "I can hear the birds singing." We have heard what economic collapse sounds like.) When industry stops everything in society, otherwise absolutely determined by it, floats free from its gravity. In this particular crisis of capital all hell breaks loose; then comes the time for organisation. You can call that consciousness if you want, we don't care.” - Monsieur Dupont, ‘Nihilist Communism: A Critique of Optimism in the Far Left’ (2009) [p. 26 - 27]

[un---man]

"Nobody can stop it because nobody chose it, it is a fact, the world we live in. In the same way a television programme critical of the psycho-sociological effects of television ultimately ends by affirming the amazing versatility of the medium, it certainly cannot turn the box off and release people to do something less boring instead. Television and the motorway, unlike the Roman Emperors, tolerate, even encourage, dissent. *

-Monsieur Dupont, Anarchist must say what only anarchists can say

[tintinology]

Tintin adaptations throughout the years

The Adventures of Tintin have been adapted more than a dozen times into several different media, including radio, movie, television, theater, and video games. Most of these adaptations are based on the original 23 comics:

*Not included due to lack of information Radio Luxembourg radio play (1956-1961) - French Radio-Canada radio play (1962-1965?) - French

The most popular books to adapt have been The Secret of the Unicorn, Red Rackham’s Treasure, The Seven Crystal Balls, and Prisoners of the Sun (with ten adaptations each), while Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (with zero adaptations) and Tintin in Congo (with only two) have been the least popular. There have also been no adaptations of Tintin and Alph-Art. It’s interesting to note that the Swedish radio play also adapted Tintin and the Lake of Sharks, despite it not being one of the official books of the series.

The languages on the table indicate the original language the adaptation came out in; however in some were also made available in other languages as well. This is the case with the TV shows, movies (except the one from 1947), and video games.

.

There have also been other Tintin adaptations not based on original comics that were either approved or tolerated by Hergé and Moulinsart/Tintinimaginatio (links may lead to French sites when English is not available):

Movies

Tintin et le mystère de la Toison d’Or (1961) - French

Tintin et les oranges bleues (1964) - French

Tintin et le lac aux requins (1972) - French

Plays

Tintin aux Indes : Le Mystère du diamant bleu (1941) - French

Monsieur Boullock a disparu (1941) - French

Books and short stories

Dupont et Dupond, détectives (1943) - French

Tintin et Milou chez les Toreadors (1947) - French

Tintin in the New World: A Romance (1993) - English

All three movies have had books made, though only Tintin and the Lake of Sharks was adapted into an official comic. The 2011 movie was also adapted as a novel.

The plays and the short story  Tintin et Milou chez les Toreadors have seemingly been lost to time, so all that remains are summaries online and the occasional photo.

Interestingly, the first adaptations date back to 1941, but it isn’t until 1947 that the first adaptation of one of the comics is made. Since Hergé’s death, only one adaptation not based on the original comics has been published, and only because it received his approval before his death.

[ndfan3]

Nancy’s AI Adventure, Part 10

“Come on gentleman, in you go.” said George. She and the waitress supervised the procession of the four sullen and bound men into the manager’s office where they were seated, gagged by the two young women as a precaution against plotting, and then locked up. Meanwhile Nancy, Bess and the remaining staff apologised profusely to the diners, explaining that the police woukd soon be here and that restaurant was closing for the night. “Well, that’s that, then.” sighed Bess wearily. “We captured the whole gang!” Nancy nodded. “You call the police, Bess.” she told her friend. “I would like one last word with Monsieur Dupont.”

The girl sleuth descended the stair to the wine cellar which she entered cautiously. She need not have worried. The restauranteur was still seated, tied up where George had left him after she had hurried away to prevent the cook’s escape. “Have you returned to tell me of your triumph, Miss Drew?” The Frenchman asked the young woman ironically, moving a little uncomfortably in his bonds. “Well your chums are all tied up and locked in your office, waiting for the police to arrive if that’s what you mean.” she replied. Dupont smiled ruefully. “A remarkable young woman.” he said softly. Nancy looked hard at her prisoner. “What made you do it, monsieur?” she asked him. “Turn a local thriving business into the centre of a drugs ring in a town like River Heights?” Dupont stared back at the detective then indicated the racks and racks of high end wine that surrounded them with his head. “How much do you think it cost to set this restaurant up as an exclusive online wine merchant?” he asked her. The young woman shook her head. “Debt, Miss Drew.” Dupont continued. “Eventually you turn to less scrupulous bodies when the banks will no longer loan you the money. And that is how the cartel gets its claws into you.” Dupont bowed his head as the sound of aporoaching police sirens drifted down from upstairs.

Nancy and Bess later met with Sheriff Jane Jessop outside the restaurant after M Dupont and his accomplices had been carted away in handcuffs. “You girls did well,” the policewoman smiled, “ to have turned the tables on the gang the way you did. Luckily for you they were not gang members - just employees who got greedy.” Nancy smiled in acknowledgment. “What will happen to M Dupont?” she asked Officer Jessop. “He will receive at least ten years.” Jane replied. “His team perhaps half of that - depending on what evidence we uncover now and what they tell us. Dupont helped himself by surrendering to you when he did, Miss Drew. “And the cartel?” ventured Bess. “Gone from River Heights, Miss Marvin.” replied the woman. “Something else we have to thank you ladies for.”

Two months later, Bess, George and Nancy sat in the newly opened Pierre’s restaurant. It was the former Chez Dupont, with most of the innocent staff re-employed under new management. The girls had just enjoyed a complementary meal. “It’s nice to eat here and not be investigating!” laughed Bess as she sipped a black coffee. “What next, Nance?” asked George expectantly. “How do you two fancy a holiday on my uncle’s beach house in Florida?” the titian-haired girl detective suddenly asked. “I think we deserve it, don’t you?”

THE END.

AI images created via Microsoft Bing before its upgrade and AI Fantasy

[josefavomjaaga]

Joseph and Napoleon, again.

Still reading the correspondence between Napoleon and Joseph during the Peninsular War, and I can’t decide whom of the two correspondents I dislike more. Napoleon still boasting »I will in Spain find the Pillars of Hercules, but not the limit of my power«, while Joseph - who has warned him over and over that things are going really, really badly here - after the capitulation of Baylén is already on the road from Madrid back to the French frontier, running from an army of infuriated Spanish insurgents … that’s really hard to stomach and makes me pity Joseph, who sees much better how things really stand, but whose opinion, it seems, Napoleon never takes serious.

And yet I think I’m also starting to understand why, despite Joseph’s and Murat’s problems being so similar in nature, I have far more sympathy for Murat than for Monsieur Joseph.

This is from a letter Joseph wrote to Napoleon in 1808, when he had been driven from Madrid the first time, after Dupont’s capitulation at Baylén and literally only a couple days after he had first entered Madrid:

Joseph to Napoleon, Burgos, 9 August 1808

[…] I found here other people of my household who left Naples after it. I have been here since this morning; I have been thinking a great deal about the situation of Spanish affairs, about those of Naples, and about Your Majesty's letter of 3 August, in which she tells me of my fondness for the Spaniards. I disregard all intermediate ideas, and here is the result of my reflections:

1° Since much blood and money is needed to conquer Spain, France is entitled to find an indemnity for it, and to ensure that these peoples, who will long hold a feeling of animosity against her, cannot essentially harm her. For this, Spain must be reduced to the point of being powerless to give in to this resentment: joining the provinces beyond the Ebro to France, joining Galicia to Portugal, dividing up the Spanish possessions, would make what would remain of Spain descend to the rank of a third power; [...]

It would be possible, by returning the increased Portugal to the house of Braganza, and disposing of Spain and the Spanish possessions, to make them objects of compensation, the price of the war and the token of a general peace [...].

2° When I consider myself in this matter, it is impossible for me not to become at once a stranger to Spain. Honour, conscience, or finally that hidden instinct which is the motive of all my actions, […]

… Money? Or women? It has to be one of those two!

[…] would never allow me to remain on the throne of Spain, if that monarchy were to be reduced in the least part.

Of course. Ruling over a third degree power would be beneath one Joseph Bonaparte.

In the supposition that France would want to gratuitously lavish her blood and gold to place and maintain me on the throne of Spain, I cannot conceal from Your Majesty that I could not bear the idea that another than Your Majesty should command the French armies in Spain. Having become the conqueror of this country through the horrors of the war in which all Spanish individuals will take part, I will long be an object of terror and execration. I am too old to have the time to repair so many evils; and I would have sown too much hatred during the war for me to be able to reap in my last years the fruit of the good that I would have been able to do during peace, in the midst of preventions and calamities of all kinds.

To sum up: Joseph is not necessarily against using violence against the Spaniards – to the contrary, he is fully aware that a ruthless oppression will be necessary in order to get a hold of the country, and he even suggests that the country be split up, rendered powerless forever, and certain regions be used as barter goods with the Brits for a general peace.

He just does not want to be the one to do it.

In exchange for the priviledge to see his brother sit the throne of Spain, Napoleon please do all that ugly fighting and butchering and maiming. M’kay? Getting his hands dirty, that’s nothing for a person as delicate as Joseph. He wants to be seen as the good guy by his new subordinates, so he cannot be involved in any of the ugly stuff. But, hey, Naps, that’s precisely what you went to Brienne for, right? So just invest some fifty millions in money and some fifty thousand soldiers (Joseph keeps asking for this over and over, before he even has reached his capital), kill whoever you need to kill in order to make sure that the Spanish will not rebel again, and I’m all yours to wear that crown.

And in case Napoleon should adopt neither of Joseph’s suggestions (either split up Spain and make it powerless, or beat it into submission and then place Joseph on the throne), Joseph will do what any person in his right mind would do, call it a day and go back to his much more comfortable throne of Naples. Sorry, Naps, surely you will understand.

I can’t help but feel a lot of Schadenfreude at the thought that, when Joseph was writing this, Naples had already been given to Murat.

[baeddel]

top 5 books of all time?

Marx's Capital vol. 1, Clausewitz' On War, Monsieur Dupont's Nihilist Communism, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Stirner's the Unique and its Property