#next up is greek infantry!!

[peronasghosts]

sappho why did you have to reference cavalry now i have to fucking draw horses

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 11: Hephaestus, God Of Fire]

A/N: Only 1 chapter left!!! 🥰💜

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.4k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here is our final interlude. Do you have the patience?

President Lyndon Baines Johnson has halted all U.S. attacks on North Vietnam: no bombs from the air, no infantry on the ground, no artillery shells launched by destroyers cruising in the South China Sea. The election will determine what happens next. If Nixon wins, military operations will resume until the South Vietnamese are in a sufficiently advantageous position to defend themselves from the communists. If Aemond is the victor, troop withdrawals will begin shortly after he is inaugurated on January 20th.

Regardless, it will not be until almost a full year from now, in October of 1969, that it becomes illegal for employers to reserve positions for men; the common practice of refusing to hire women with preschool-aged children will not be outlawed until 1971. Unmarried people will not be guaranteed access to contraception until 1972. Abortion will not be legalized across all fifty states until 1973. Women will not have a right to their own bank accounts or credit cards until 1974. It will not be illegal to exclude women from juries until 1975. The first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, will be appointed in 1981. There will be no female president of the United States, not for at least half a century after our story ends.

Each night on CBS Evening News, Walter Cronkite recaps the latest poll numbers. Nixon appears to have a slight advantage, due in large part to pulling ahead in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and his home state of California. Aemond has comfortable leads in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. George Wallace will likely sweep the Deep South: Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. From their hovels, the racists rejoice. From her grave, Lurleen Wallace rests uneasily, scratching at the lid of her coffin with the bones of her fingers, entombed in dark oblivion like all the rest of the world’s discarded wives.

~~~~~~~~~~

You go for the door, but Aemond is faster; he catches you just as your hand is twisting the handle and the hinges creak. He throws you against the wall so hard the paintings rattle: replicas of Monets and Warhols, Almond Blossoms, The Birth of Venus. You fight, clawing at him, ripping off the eyepatch that Alys must have at last convinced him was no defeat to wear. The hollow, gore-colored abyss of his left eye socket beckons you to fall in and be burned: Hestia’s eternal hearth, the volcanic forge of Hephaestus. He’s fire all the way down, hunger and fury, bones charred black and brittle. You think of the uninhabitable furnace of Jupiter’s moon Io, lethal radiation, poisoned air, lava bubbling up like blood through a bullet wound.

“You can’t hit me,” you gasp. “You need me for photos—”

His knuckles are in your belly, crosshairs made of scar tissue. The air collapses out of your lungs; your vision dims like twilight, like an eclipse. You’re on the floor and trying to crawl away from him. Aemond’s fingers hook into the fabric of your robe; it matches the silk nightgown you wear beneath, a pale anemic pink, something soft and young and desireless, something eternally at others’ mercy, something to be guarded or gutted. He’s dragging you towards him.

He’s going to hit me again, he might even kill me.

“Stop, stop,” you plead, still struggling to breathe. “What if I’m pregnant?!”

You almost certainly can’t be, but Aemond doesn’t know that. Yet his lone eye glints like metal, like coins, no weak mortal compassion. “I would have no way of being sure it was mine.” And then he tries to cover your mouth as you scream for help. You bite at his fingers; your bare feet kick the wall. Your hair, long and loose and wild, flows around you like a bride’s veil.

Too late, Aemond realizes that the door is still open a crack from when you grabbed the handle. There are footsteps and a voice that crescendos as it approaches: “What on earth is going on in here…?” Fosco appears in the threshold, yellow tweed jacket, tight olive green trousers. He stares thunderstruck down at where you and Aemond are entangled on the floor.

You beg: “Fosco, help me.”

“No, no, no,” Fosco says, jolting from his paralysis and holding a hand out towards Aemond. “No, you cannot do this, whatever has happened, you cannot touch her like—”

“She’s not your wife,” Aemond says. She’s not your property. Fosco hesitates; his large dark eyes shifting between the two of you from behind his glasses.

“Aemond, brother, listen to—”

“Get out.” Aemond’s voice is low, searing, malignant.

“Fosco, please don’t leave me,” you whimper. You try to pry Aemond’s fingers off your robe; they dig in deeper, bruising the flesh underneath. “Don’t leave me, don’t let him hurt me.”

Abruptly, Fosco turns and sprints out of the room.

“No!” you shout after him before Aemond grabs your face, his hand like a claw, fingernails leaving half-moon indents in your cheeks, crushing pressure on your jaw.

“You’re trying to sabotage this campaign.”

“I didn’t see the reporters, I swear to God.”

He knocks the back of your skull against the wall so hard that you see momentary flashes like stars, that all the words vanish from your throat, that words cease to exist at all. “You’re a traitor. Do you know the penalty for treason? The U.S. Army would have you executed by firing squad. Zeus would chain you to a rock so your liver could be carved out.”

“You betrayed me first,” you hiss through clenched teeth, your head pounding hot and maroon.

“I have been working for this since before you were born. You can’t take it away from me. I won’t let you.”

“I did everything right and you still couldn’t love me.” You swing at Aemond and he catches your wounded hand, squeezes it, digs his thumb into the spot where the doctors stitched you closed. The pain is excruciating, incapacitating. You wail as scarlet flowers bloom through the white of your bandaged palm.

Now the door flies open again and Aegon collides with Aemond, sends him sprawling, crouches over you. He’s screaming something at Aemond, gripping your shoulder to keep you under him, his too-long hair hanging in his face, black turtleneck sweater, one of Daeron’s frayed army jackets thrown over it, ripped jeans, bare feet. Aemond grabs his brother by the lapel of his army jacket and draws back his fist. His golden wedding ring flashes in the grey November sunlight that streams in through the windows. Aegon doesn’t flinch. He’s taken knuckles to the face before; you remember cleaning blood off his skin under a streetlight in Biloxi, you remember not wanting to wash him away.

“Don’t you see what it will look like?!” Fosco is saying, trying to coax Aemond to relent. “If he is photographed with a busted face after that story comes out? If she has bruises or a black eye? By harming them you are confirming what your enemies have printed, and the voters will believe it is the truth.”

“They already know it’s true!” Aemond snatches the Wall Street Journal off the table and hurls it at Fosco. Then he paces back and forth through the room, glaring at where you are still crumpled on the floor, sobbing, cradling your bleeding hand to your chest. “It’s right there, three goddamn photographs, and that’s all it will take to bring down a lifetime of work!”

Fosco studies the pictures again, shaking his head, one hand covering his mouth. At last he offers weakly: “It could be worse, Aemond.”

“How could it be worse?!”

Aegon scrambles to Fosco to rip the newspaper out of his hands, then returns to you. He hasn’t seen the front-page story yet. He skims it frantically. “This? This is what you’re losing your mind over? It’s dark, it’s blurry, they can’t even see what’s going on!”

“I have one fucking eye and I can see it!”

“So come up with another explanation, this doesn’t prove anything.”

“If she costs me the election—”

“If you lose, it won’t be because of her!” Aegon roars back. “It will be because the Democrats have held the White House for eight years and the world has gone to hell on our watch, it will be because of Kennedy, and Johnson, and Vietnam and the riots and the hippies and the drugs and the assassinations, it will be because Nixon is promising law and order in a time when nobody is safe, it will be because you just weren’t good enough. But she has given more to your cause than anyone. You hit her and you’ll lose your other eye.”

“They were in conversation,” Fosco says, meaning the photos. The four of you know that’s not true; it is a lie for the rest of the world, it is hope for Aemond’s campaign. “On the beach. They were whispering, comforting each other. Because of Mimi. That is all.”

Aemond scoffs, his remaining eye fierce and wrathful as it lands on you again. Aegon grips your shoulder, still crouching over you, still shielding you. “You bitch. I should have left you at that party in Manhattan to be the dope-smoking whore you were when I found you.”

“I shouldn’t have helped save your life in Palm Beach.”

And Aemond blinks at you, not hurt but bewildered, like he doesn’t understand your words, like what you said is impossible. He doesn’t believe you saved him. He believes it was God’s will.

Otto storms into the hotel room and takes in the scene: you and Aegon on the floor, Aemond pacing furiously, Fosco attempting to mediate. “Nobody says anything,” Otto commands, deep booming voice, black suit like he’s going to a funeral. “The Wall Street Journal hates Aemond. Everyone knows that, they’re probably the only national publication that would run the story. Our newspapers are already pushing the counternarrative, that this was a shameful, deceitful, desperate attempt to discredit Aemond right before the election. Our supporters will insist upon an innocent explanation. Nixon’s will use the photos as evidence of our degeneracy, our amorality, us immigrants with our strange faith and our progressive politics. Everyone else in the country will be warring over this headline. We will say nothing. We will conduct business as usual. The best thing we can do now is go out there and keep our schedule as planned.” He looks meaningfully at Aemond. “And your wife must be at your side. Smiling, unscathed, devoted.”

“I lost my composure,” Aemond says to you, more collected now, businesslike. He is smoothing any wrinkles out of his suit jacket. “I was wrong to put my hands on you. I apologize for that. It was beneath me.”

You reply: “Very little is beneath you, I’ve learned.”

“You have been.” A trace of a grin, crooked and cruel. “Plenty of times. And you will be again.”

Aegon is watching is brother, seething but terrified, sheltering you with power that is only illusory, never real. It is a mirage that Aemond or Otto could punch through at any moment. It is glass that would shatter into crystalline dust.

“If I win, you will beg on your knees for forgiveness,” Aemond tells you. “You will beg in private, you will be perfection in public, and I will magnanimously overlook this indiscretion in which you were taken advantage of by my notoriously dissolute brother. There was no affair. There was a fleeting moment of weakness on your part and depravity on Aegon’s. We will put it in the past. I will be the president of the United States and you will be my first lady. You will spend every second of your existence in service of my career, my country, and my legacy. You will give me children. You will obey me entirely. And you and Aegon will never be in a room alone together for the rest of your lives.”

“You can’t keep me away from her,” Aegon says.

“I just did. I make the rules here, I am the heir to this empire. If you wanted that responsibility, you should have seized it. You squandered it, you cursed it. It’s mine now.”

A whisper: “Aemond, it’ll kill me.”

“Then have the dignity to die quietly. It will be the most useful thing you’ve ever done.”

“Aegon must be seen in public too,” Fosco says, trying to sound like he isn’t defending him. “If you appear to be punishing or excluding him, it will be used as evidence of his guilt.”

Aemond nods, then turns to his brother. “As soon as the election is called, whichever way it goes, I want you gone. I don’t care where you go. I don’t care what happens to you once you’re there. You will disappear. We will say it was your choice, and if you comply you can keep your children and receive a modest amount of severance pay to get you started. And as long as you abide by my terms, my wife will not be harmed.”

Aegon doesn’t reply. His large Atlantic-blue eyes glisten, his lips tremble, his hand is still on your shoulder. You think through the throbbing pain of your bleeding palm: Is this the last time he’ll ever touch me?

Otto grabs Aegon, wrenches him away from you, drags him yowling and clawing at the carpet through the doorway.

~~~~~~~~~~

Your hand is freshly bandaged, pristine white gauze that people in the crowd jostle to touch like the relic of a saint, to pray over, to kiss. Men tell you how brave you are to bear the pain without weeping. Women give you komboskini, stained not with their husband’s blood but with only the clean, colorless ether of hope, faith, reverence, love.

Fosco and Helaena have been dispatched to accompany the children on a tour of the Franklin Institute, one of the oldest centers of science education in the nation. Aemond is giving a speech in front of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall. You and the others are arranged around him like a starving crescent moon. You are standing immediately on Aemond’s left side, Aegon placed at his right. He looks drunk, he looks drugged; you aren’t sure if anyone else can tell, but you can. His cheeks are flushed. His eyes are pools of murky, desolate indigo like the night sky between stars. A few attendees give the two of you curious glances, but no mention is made of the accusations in the Wall Street Journal. You get the sense that if someone took it upon themselves to ask a question on the subject, they would be jeered, reviled, banished like President Johnson, who is currently besieged in the White House by the ghosts of Vietnam.

When you look to Aemond, you see his scar, his prosthetic eye, fierce and stoic determination in the lines of his face. He is quoting the inscription on the bell: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…” The bronze metal has a crack in it like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts. The smile on your face is frozen, demure, humble. Aegon’s eyes accidentally catch on yours—a childlike vulnerability, a deep raw woundedness—and then swiftly dart away.

“America is the Land of Opportunity, but some have forgotten that,” Aemond says into the microphone, and vengeance creeps into his voice like a spider up a wall. “Unfortunately, for as long as new communities have arrived at our shores, vile and prejudiced lies have been used to demonize them. Greek immigrants have been crossing the Atlantic for over a century. In 1909, rioters violently expelled them from Omaha, Nebraska. In 1922, an anti-Greek initiative was launched by the Ku Klux Klan. In 1924, Congress drastically restricted my people’s entry in favor of migrants from Northwestern European nations like Britain and Germany. Greeks have been condemned as unintelligent, immoral, and unworthy of the glorious opportunities of this country. We have been barred from jobs and universities, we have been used as cannon fodder in the World Wars. Discrimination against any group is antithetical to the American Dream. I have given an eye for this nation, my wife has bled for it, my brother has—even in the midst of personal tragedy—uprooted his life and the lives of his children to fight alongside me for a better America, and I will not stand by silently as the Targaryen name is tarnished by bigoted falsehoods…”

Now you can no longer hear him over the thunder of the applause, and you remember all the other faces in all those other cities, their eyes illuminated as if by fire, as if by the sun. You imagine devotees of the Greek gods bowing low in temples of white marble and flickering torches, bringing offerings of gold and livestock, grain and blood, murmuring prayers, bargaining for miracles. Did the gods hear them? Do the gods love anyone but themselves?

Alicent and Criston are watching you and Aegon with the same eyes: large, dark, shimmering, a curious combination of horror and profound sympathy. You can feel yourself becoming a ghost, a legend, a myth. One day people will read about you in textbooks and academic journals, in plaques erected at Aemond’s alma mater, Columbia University, and your own, Manhattanville College; and they will know only the fabled version of you. Who you really were will fade into nothingness like Echo, like Icarus into the waves, like Eurydice when her lover Orpheus dared to glimpse back at her.

That night in your penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton, you get out of the bathtub—dewy with steam, donning your pink robe—and then go to your side of the king-sized bed and slide open the top drawer of the nightstand. The card Aegon gave you at Mount Sinai isn’t there. Your heartbeat quickens; your stomach lurches.

“What…?”

You get down on your knees to reach into the back of the drawer, to see if the card has snagged somewhere. You hear footsteps and whirl to see Aemond standing in the doorway between the bedroom and the living room. He is holding the card. The cartoon cow beams jubilantly at you. You recall what Aegon wrote inside after crossing out the manufacturer’s message: I thought this was blank…congrats on the new calf! As your eyes widen, Aemond rips the card down the middle.

“Don’t!” you scream, rushing for him. “Please don’t, it’s all I have from—!”

Aemond shoves you back and then, with a grin more like a wolf baring its teeth, tears through the remnants again and again until the card is nothing but shreds. He opens the sliding glass door that leads out onto the balcony and throws them into the cold night wind, where they scatter in a flurry like snowflakes, like bones turned to splinters by cluster bombs in the swamps of Vietnam.

The paper fragments spiral down thirty stories towards the zooming headlights on South Broad Street, and you think about following them. Then Aemond pulls you into his arms as frigid air blows through you and whispers: “You don’t need Aegon anymore. You just need me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Monday, November 4th, and you are walking alongside Ludwika on Broadway in Astoria, Queens, the part of New York City known as Greektown. She chats about the modelling jobs she did here before meeting Otto, her Louis Vuitton stilettos clicking on the sidewalk, her Camel cigarettes smudged with red Yardley lipstick. It is an act of kindness; she is trying to distract you. A few yards away, Fosco is telling Aegon about how he just won $500 by betting on the NASCAR Peach State 200, held at Jefco Speedway in Georgia. Aegon nods along, preoccupied, miserable. He has dark shadows around his eyes and is smoking one of his Lucky Strikes. He is wearing a green knit cap, windblown curls of his blonde hair escaping from underneath. You’re not supposed to stare at Aegon, but sometimes you can’t help it. You miss him. You’re worried about him.

The Targaryens have suites reserved at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, where the family will stay through Election Day to witness the results as they are tallied on the evening news. The children are there now, enjoying pizza from Little Italy with Helaena and the nannies. But you and the other adults are being photographed by flocks of journalists as you head for lunch at one of the oldest Greek diners in the United States, paying homage to Aemond’s ancestry. The candidate himself is locked in a fraught conversation with Otto and Criston: polls gaining here, polls slipping there, Nixon inching further ahead in Florida, the state you were supposed to help Aemond win.

“What should I order?” Ludwika asks you. “Not spinach pie, oh, horrible, worse than Hitler. Something else. Why can’t we go to a Polish restaurant for once? I will take you sometime. You will see. You will try a pierogi and never look back. We invented bagels, you know.”

“Beagles?” Fosco says. “What an accomplishment! They are so cute!”

“Bagels, stupido.”

“Do not bully me. I am suffering too. I should be back at the hotel eating a prosciutto pizza.”

As you pass an electronics shop with stacks of televisions in the windows, all turned to NBC news, the journalists begin to gasp and chatter excitedly amongst themselves. The flashbulbs strobe madly, shutters clicking and reporters shouting for Aemond to give them a comment. The youngest Targaryen brother has appeared on the screens, bruised and gaunt and missing teeth. He looks twenty years older than he is. His once-golden hair is turning white.

Otto sputters: “What…what the hell is that?!”

“Oh my God, Daeron!” Alicent howls, and then bursts into the shop so she can hear what her lost son is saying. The rest of you hurry after her, locking the front door behind you so the journalists can’t follow. Through the windows, they take photographs until Fosco and Ludwika lower the blinds.

Inside the maze of electronics, three adolescent employees gawk at the presidential candidate and his retinue. “Out,” Otto instructs them, and then, when they are too stunned to immediately vacate the premises: “I said, get out!” The teenagers scurry into the backroom and slam the door.

“Daeron,” Alicent moans in front of a Zenith color television. Tears flow torrentially from her huge, horrified eyes. Criston holds her, arms circling, his cheek pressed to hers, and you are reminded of how Aegon touched you in your hotel room in Houston, in his basement at Asteria, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

Daeron is saying: “The United States has committed war crimes in Vietnam. I am ashamed of the actions my country has taken here. We have burned children with napalm, executed innocent civilians, and interfered in matters that we have no legitimate jurisdiction over…”

“He is reading from a script,” Fosco says. “You can see his eyes following the words.”

“Shh,” Otto snaps.

Daeron continues: “The only honorable course of action now is to immediately withdrawal all American soldiers from Vietnam…”

“I think this will help us, actually,” Otto says. “People will know he’s being forced to make propaganda for the communists, and they will have sympathy for him and the family. They’ll want to rescue him and all the other servicemen too. He’s obviously…under duress.”

Aegon drops to his knees and puts his palm against the screen over Daeron’s face, just like the shadows of your fingers once fell over Ari as he fought for his life in an incubator in Mount Sinai Hospital. “Do you see what they’re doing to him?” He turns to Aemond with tears in his eyes. “What you did to him? You left him there, you abandoned him, and now he’s being tortured.”

Alicent looks to Aemond, puzzled, petrified. “You tried to get him out, didn’t you?” Aemond doesn’t answer. Otto averts his gaze, counting the tiles on the floor.

“Dear lord,” Ludwika mutters, lighting a fresh Camel cigarette and puffing on it anxiously.

“Was it worth it?” Aegon demands. “Selling your soul?”

Aemond is steely, resolved. “It’s almost over.”

“You were all right.” Aegon stands, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his green-striped sweater. “I don’t have what it takes to win the presidency. I couldn’t do something like this. Me, the perennial fuckup. Me, the godless degenerate.”

“Aegon,” Alicent whispers. “Please…please don’t…”

He turns to his mother, insurmountably sad. “Mom, I tried to stop him.” Alicent sobs and covers her face with both hands as Criston embraces her. She can’t even look at Aemond. She can’t believe what he’s become. Her long coppery hair flows like blood.

You reach for Aegon, your fingertips brushing his ruddy cheek, and immediately he folds into you, burying his face in the curve of your neck, breathing in your warmth as you inhale his smoke and rum and pain and terror. “Daeron will be home soon,” you say, not knowing if it’s true. Your bandaged hand aches; your throat burns.

“I should have gone instead. It should have been me.”

“No, Aegon. Your children need you, I need you. I wouldn’t have made it without you.”

Then Aemond yanks you away, his grip on your wrist like an anchor, like chains.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Dad, play us something,” Orion says; and it is the first time you can remember him calling Aegon that. Aegon smiles. He’s sitting on one of the couches in the penthouse suite you share with Aemond, the Gibson guitar he bought back in July lying across his lap as he strums it absentmindedly. The television is on and turned to CBS News. It’s just before midnight on Tuesday, November 5th, Election Day. The children are thrilled. It’s the one night they’re allowed to stay up as late as they’re physically able to. This allowance is not purely altruistic; Aemond wants them awake and ready for photographs as soon as the winner is announced.

“What should I play?”

“Frank Sinatra,” Fosco says. He is beside Aegon on the couch, smoking a cigar and flipping through the Sports section of the New York Times, which he’s not really reading.

“Marvin Gaye,” Ludwika suggests. They are both on your side of the room. Aemond, Otto, Sargent Shriver, and a number of campaign staffers are huddled around the television, transfixed by the ever-updating vote totals. Alicent and Criston are between your factions, murmuring back and forth to each other, flutes of golden champagne in their hands. Helaena is on the floor entertaining Violeta, Daphne, and Neaera with Crayolas and coloring books full of scenes from gardens. You recall how eerily calm Helaena had been the night Aemond was shot in Palm Beach, like she somehow already knew he’d survive. Now she is nervous, looking fretfully around the room, wringing her hands, filling outlines of butterflies with ten different shades of blue.

“The Beatles,” Orion tells Aegon, casting Fosco and Ludwika a judgmental teenage glance.

“Any particular song?”

“You can pick.”

Aegon sips at his rum, ice cubes clinking in the glass. He looks over to the coffee table, where you are embroiled in a game of Battleship with Cosmo. He’s getting better; he’s genuinely sunk your destroyer and submarine so far. Then Aegon’s eyes drop to his guitar strings and he plucks the opening notes of In My Life. His voice is soft and low, almost secretive.

“There are places I’ll remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever, not for better

Some have gone and some remain…”

Cosmo turns to watch his father. Orion, Spiro, Thaddeus, and Evangelos are gathered around Aegon’s feet, gazing up at him with admiration, with love.

“All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends, I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I’ve loved them all...”

Cheers erupt over by the television; Aemond has just won Michigan. But then tense, indistinct deliberations follow. Florida is still too close to call, a bad omen. You wonder where Alys is as she watches the results come in. There must be some part of her—however small, however smothered—that fears Aemond will win. If he captures the presidency, she could be separated from the man she loves for the better part of a decade. You drink your Pink Squirrel, wishing it was stronger. You think of sea sponge divers down in the depths and imagine what that first gulp of air tastes like when they resurface, when they shed their rubber suits and brass helmets and step back into sunlight, warmth, freedom like Persephone returning from the Underworld each spring.

“But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new…”

You wear a sapphire-colored gown that Aemond chose for you, strings of silver around your wrist and throat, diamond teardrops hanging from your ears. Your hair is up, your fingernails painted a tasteful opalescent shade, the aching of your bandaged hand dulled by booze and Vicodin.

“Though I know I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life, I love you more.”

More triumphant shouts and applause across the room by the television: Aemond has won Washington state. From his own suite at the St. Regis Hotel a few blocks south on 5th Avenue, Nixon’s people must be celebrating that he just secured Ohio’s 26 electoral votes. He needs 270 to be the next president of the United States.

Florida, you think. If Nixon can take Florida, I think he’ll win the whole thing.

As Aemond and Otto are distracted, as Fosco and Ludwika watch with pitying, knowing eyes, Aegon sets his guitar aside and walks by you with his rum in hand, taps your shoulder, disappears onto the balcony. You wait a few minutes—Cosmo wins Battleship and goes to color on the floor with Helaena—and then follow Aegon.

Outside the night sky is moonless, starless, thick with clouds. Rain is beginning to fall, soft hushed pattering. Far below taxis and limousines are still rushing and blowing their horns on West 59th Street. You can see the vast forested shadow of Central Park and streetlights like constellations. In apartments and office buildings, windows are illuminated as Americans sit numbing their fears with beer, wine, shots of liquor, smoldering hand-rolled joints.

Aegon is cross-legged at the ledge, one hand on the iron bars of the railing, staring out at the nightscape of Manhattan. His hair lashes in the cold November wind. His nose is pink, his eyes wet and faraway. He passes his Lucky Strike cigarette to you as you join him and says: “I don’t think Aemond can win without Florida.”

“No,” you agree, taking a drag.

Aegon snatches a rattling orange bottle from the pocket of his olive green army jacket, pops it open, and swallows three pills with a swig of straight rum, dark amber poison.

“Don’t do that,” you say, you plead.

“I need it, babe.”

“I want you to still be alive in ten years.”

Aegon smiles and reaches over to pat your cheek twice. “I think that ship might have sailed, little Io.” Can decades of self-destruction be undone, uninflicted, nullified like Heracles becoming immortal? Can the Underworld be escaped? “Come with me. No matter what happens tonight.”

“Aegon, I can’t.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“If I leave, he’ll hurt you. He’ll hurt me worse.”

“It’s not fair,” Aegon says, his voice breaking.

“Nothing is.”

There is an uproar inside the hotel room, screams that could be horror or triumph, realized dreams, breaking bones, bullets through flesh. You and Aegon are on your feet, hauling the balcony door open, stepping through the threshold into the rest of your lives.

Glasses are being toasted until champagne rains down onto the carpet. The telephone is ringing so Nixon can concede. On CBS News, Walter Cronkite is reporting that Aemond has won Florida and thereby accumulated 270 electoral votes. The blue text on the screen reads: Senator Targaryen will be the 37th president of the United States.

[aidenofneil]

Workbench update!

Up first, some Gallic cavalry I’ve been working on to ally with the Carthaginians, the Romans, or the Greeks. (Really anyone… there were a lot of Gaelic people at that time in A LOT of places.

Im happy with their color scheme, being quite bright but not too vibrant (except maybe the yellow)

Up next are Greek Peltasts:

I love how quickly these guys paint up! I’ve elected to use various earth tones for their clothing on accounts of light infantry being of a (typically) poorer economic class at this time, and to my mind brown and grey will help hide you better in rocky terrain than bright blue.

You can also spot some phalangite shields in working on. I’ve been sitting on em for a long time and it’s about time I finished them.

All these models I’ve been working on are from Warlord and Victrix. Overall like the warlord Macedonians better, but victrix just does plastic so well. I don’t think I’ll go back to warlord for anything other than Macedonians.

[whitesilverandmercury]

ff7 / chronology project

nzivvo timeline theories / part 1 & part 2 sleepezi comprehensive compilation deep dive

hello i am a slut for chronology projects and timelines, this is nothing compared to the comprehensive greek myth family tree project i’ve been neglecting building 

timeline key / HUGE shoutout to the editors of the ff7 fandom wiki and their timeline(s), massively helpful -- backbone of this chronology version is a cross-reference between dated events in before crisis and crisis core: reunion

dates / ff7 compilation records 12-month calendar years in the format [era] - εγλ [year number] with calendar time measured in two-millennia eras; the years of which count upwards and end at 2000, at which point the following year begins the next era at 0001 -- for example, Zack is born [ μ ] - εγλ 1984, and Angeal dies [ ν ] - εγλ 0001

eras [ μ ] and [ ν ] = loosely, [ μ ] is the 2,000-year era preceding the Wutai War -- Jenova crash lands on Gaia at the start of this era and Zack, Aerith, and Cloud are all born at the end of this era; [ ν ] is the era in which most of playable ff7 compilation takes place, beginning shortly after the Wutai War

εγλ = for whatever reason part of the dating system, preceding the era year when writing the date; some fan theories interpret it as an abbreviation meaning “that which tells of this era of Gaia,” similar to the Christian “in the year of our Lord,” by analyzing the Greek letters that are used and suggesting that: ε could stand for εποχή (epoch, age, era), γ for Γαῖα (Gaia), λ for λέγω (verb, to tell a story) 

FF7 TIMELINE / ongoing; as organized for fic (a)chronology of now

(going to eventually link little headcanon vignettes to various events along the timeline!)

canon = plain  headcanon = italics

[ μ ] - εγλ 2000 (Wutai War ongoing) 

january 

Zack promoted to Second Class 

february

Aerith turns 15

late spring

Cloud leaves Nibelheim for Shinra recruitment in Midgar, fails basic screening for early SOLDIER program enrollment and is instead enlisted into the infantry (Public Security Division)

note / it’s a real struggle to pin down exactly what time of year Cloud leaves Nibelheim for Midgar, so after cross referencing a bunch of material, entries, timelines, canon events, etc. i’ve made the tweak here to shift it back a year from canon, ex. i find it hard to believe Cloud is assigned guard duty for a scientist carrying massive classified SOLDIER intel (before crisis: June [ ν ] - γ 0001) potentially only weeks after joining Shinra

august 

Cloud turns 14

september

Zack turns 16

note / idk, this astrology feels good in the fan theories re: his birthday in September or October

Angeal, assisted by Zack, delivers a presentation on the SOLDIER program for new infantry upon completion of boot camp

fic vignette / Cloud is in awe of Zack Fair at the SOLDIER recruitment presentation 

october

Rumors spinning about First Class SOLDIER Genesis deserting in Wutai, along with large numbers of Second and Third Class SOLDIERs

Hollander absconds with classified Science Division information 

november

Zack dispatched to Wutai / Fort Tamblin with Angeal, stepping up to fill Genesis’ absence, where Angeal abandons Zack and Shinra to join Genesis

december

Zack accompanies Tseng to Banora Village to investigate Genesis’ disappearance, where they encounter both Angeal and Genesis

Banora Village is destroyed in an aerial raid by Shinra, wiping out and covering up Genesis’ base and operations

Rufus Shinra becomes Vice President, then goes on long-term business trip

[ ν ] - γ 0001

february 

Wutai War ends, and Avalanche forms in Cosmo Canyon

Aerith turns 16

Mako production does not return to prewar levels, instead intensifying in some ways

Avalanche attempts to detonate Reactor 8 and assassinate President Shinra, but they are stopped by Sephiroth and the Turks 

march

Public-facing information released saying First Class SOLDIERs Angeal and Genesis were killed in action

april

Zack promoted to First Class; Zack and Sephiroth defend Midgar from Genesis and his army, then head to find Angeal (and Hollander) at Mako Reactor 5

Zack and Aerith meet when Zack falls through the Sector 5 church roof, having been knocked down by Angeal from Mako Reactor 5; their meeting is interrupted when Zack is called back to the Shinra Building, where Genesis Copies are after Hojo

may

Shinra is getting a bit desperate with building SOLDIER ranks, and begin kidnapping to recruit 

june

fic vignette / the first time Zack calls Aerith “Sunshine”

Cloud is assigned to a squad escorting Professor Rayleigh, a scientist transporting classified data on the SOLDIER program, as are the Turks; they’re jumped by Fuhito’s Avalanche, and the data is inevitably stolen

note / because of Cloud’s involvement with this event, as well as his surprising performance therein, and Shinra’s anxieties over building SOLDIER ranks, his SOLDIER application is pulled from the pool / bumped to the top for review

july

fic vignette / Zack and Aerith at Evergreen Park

Cloud is notified his eligibility for SOLDIER has been reconsidered and 6-month preliminary evaluations will commence immediately

notes / imagined SOLDIER program: details here

august

fic vignette / Zack and Aerith’s first kiss

Cloud turns 15

beginning / september 

Zack and Cloud meet on the Modeoheim mission, overseen by Tseng; they discover Genesis Copies, Genesis, and Hollander; Angeal arrives on scene, intervening; Genesis falls into the Lifestream and Zack kills Angeal, inheriting the Buster Sword; Hollander is detained and taken to Junon

fic vignette / Zack asks Cloud if he wants to be friends 

Zack gives himself a mourning scar

Tseng tasks himself with ensuring Zack and Cloud work together as much as possible 

mid / september

Cloud and Aerith meet when Zack sends him to deliver some things to her

Zack turns 17

november

Zack mentoring Cloud during his SOLDIER preliminary evaluations

fic vignette / Zack and Cloud and marksman practice 

[ ν ] - γ 0002

january

Shinra State of the Company event

fic vignette / the trio hooks up for the first time, part two

mid / january

Zack deployed with Tseng to a protest at ammunition factory not far from Rocket Town, Cloud and Dockitt accompany

Tseng returns to Midgar for emergency meeting; Turks send an operative to Icicle Lodge to support Second Class SOLDIERs Essai and Sebastian, finding Fuhito’s Avalanche base

Zack and Cloud are sent straight from outpost to Icicle Lodge, to help locate the missing SOLDIERs; Zack and Turk discover Fuhito’s experiments, including Essai and Sebastian, who are beyond saving and die in Zack’s arms; before the base detonates, Zack fights and kills Kyneugh, one of Fuhito’s Ravens 

end / january

Cloud starts SOLDIER preconditioning phase I (weekly mako test injections) 

february

Veld (Director of the Turks) is fired and replaced by Heidegger (Director of Public Safety), who sends the military instead of Turks when Avalanche attacks Junon

Aerith turns 17

Shinra holds a philanthropic gala to save face / rally support following the Avalanche attack on Junon 

march

Cloud starts SOLDIER preconditioning phase II early (biweekly mako infusion) due to Shinra’s anxieties over SOLDIER ranks 

april

Cloud discharged from SOLDIER program after second infusion causes reactive toxicity; behind the scenes, Tseng ensures he is not cast off to the streets or Science Department

june

Lazard deserts Shinra, expecting a whistleblower on his embezzling support for Hollander’s essentially anti-Shinra research 

Zack sent on mandatory vacation, which is interrupted by Genesis copies; Zack sent to Junon from Costa del Sol, Cloud sent to Junon from Midgar, as Junon is under attack by Genesis copies helping Hollander escape; Sephiroth dismisses Zack from the fray, sends him home to protect Aerith from mounting monster attacks in Midgar

july

Lazard and Hollander are reported as killed in action

Genesis’ army begins to attack mako reactors around the world

note / this means more frequent and/or more intensive assignments for Zack and Cloud, but not always together; meanwhile, Fuhito and Elfe’s Avalanche is getting more and more pushy in their strategies 

august 

Fuhito and Elfe’s Avalanche try to kidnap Aerith before Shinra can get ahold of her again; a passing Turk protects her

Cloud turns 16

early / september

Zack and Aerith build a flower cart

mid / september

Zack turns 18

Sharp spike in monster sightings / attacks in Nibelheim area

end / september

Cloud accompanies Sephiroth and Zack to investigate the Nibel Reactor, during which Sephiroth discovers the makonoids, Jenova, etc. 

october

Nibelheim incident: Sephiroth razes Nibelheim to the ground, Tifa is mortally wounded, Zack incapacitated, Sephiroth stabs Cloud and Cloud throws him into the open Lifestream reactor channels 

Hojo takes custody of Zack and Cloud, Zangan saves Tifa

this timeline / chronology is ongoing and will be updated occasionally. 

[historynerdj2]

A Noob’s guide to Day of Infamy

This is Day of Infamy.

*ding*

This 2017 game made and published by New World Interactive using the Source engine, is a game that I am sad about. Not because it is sad, but because it is an interesting gem. It’s like finding a brownie shaped like a piece of turd, but it is made with the most exquisite of fudge and chocolate. It is a good game, even with a few flaws (we’ll get to those, don’t worry). In fact, I dare say that this had to be both one of my favorite first person shooters and my favorite World War 2 games. So here is a quick introduction and tutorial of how to survive this game.

First thing to know is that Day of Infamy is a multiplayer tactical first-person shooter, set in the European theatre of the Second World War. With different game mods, with most of them being some variant of finding a point on the map, and politely telling the enemy already there, to shod off. This gentle persuasion is achieved with the liberal application of both high explosives, and small automatic firearms. The maps range from The beaches of Normandy in 1944, the Streets Salerno in 1943, all the way to Crete in 1941. With such a breadth of time (6 calendar years), and a vast swath of maps (mostly France, Italy, and one Greek map), factions are vast, at the number of 3. The different factions play on certain maps, so don’t expect to see Americans at Dunkirk. Each faction has unique weapons, and units. These units don't affect gameplay all that much admittedly, as it is mostly cosmetic, but they are still nice. You can earn them through leveling up, or alternatively, you can just buy them.

First is the Americans, because of course there is.

With all the classic American WW2 weaponry, like M1 Garand, and Thompson, they will be familiar for many. As for units, once again, many of them will be familiar for those that dabble in WW2 history and/or media, such as the 101st Airborne, or the 1st Infantry Division (better known by the nickname “The Big Red One”). I also want to give a shout out, because I’m pretty sure that this is one of the only games that actually remembered that African Americans actually fought in WW2, in the form of including the 92nd Infantry Division, and the 761st Tank Battalion.

Next is everyone's favorite member of the second world war, the Wehrmacht (Germany).

I say Wehrmacht, because the vast majority of their units are Wehrmacht, such as the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division, or the 29th Panzergrenadier Division. The only exception is the 17th Panzer division, who while listed as Wehrmacht, were historically Waffen SS, so now you guys know which unit not to get. Again, most of the weaponry will be familiar for those who play WW2 shooters, such as the MP40, and MG42.

The last faction are the British… or should I say Commonwealth.

This is another reason why I like this game. You see, NWI remembered that the Brits in the second world war, had an empire, and they are willing to bring said empire into their scuffles. This means that while they do have British units like the famous/infamous Black Watch, they also have many units of Canada, such as the Princes’s Patricia’s Canadian Light infantry, as well as Australians (2/17th Battalion, who also happen to be my favorite) and Indians (12th Frontier Force Regiment). As for weaponry, most will be familiar… provided you are familiar with the British in WW2, such as the Bren, or the Lee-Enfield No. 4. They also have the one exception of where units do affect load out (we’ll get to that) with only the 2/17th Battalion being allowed to use the Owen Mk. 1.

Now that you have been familiarized with the factions, one must remember that as this is a team based game, it becomes like medieval Europe, where class matters. There are 9 classes, each with unique load outs, and purposes. Most of them also have limited slots.

Firstly, we have the basic class, the rifleman. The only class to not have a limit for slots, they are armed with a rifle. It should be noted that just because you are using a bolt action for the most part, you’re still deadly. With extra stamina, and access to rifle grenades, it is a very solid class.

Next is the assault class, who solves your issues at close range with the liberal application of an smg. Following that, is Support, who provides support by using a light machine gun, like a Bren or BAR. After that is the trifecta of basic shooter classes of Engineer (use explosives), Machinegunner (MOAR DAKKA!), and Sniper (one shot, one kill). Now the unique classes for the game starts now. After that, is Flamethrower, who decides that turning people into a barbeque is only a war crime the first time.

Now, here is the interesting part. You get one Officer, who has the ability to call support of any sort, from the innocent supply drop and smoke screens, to less innocent ones, such as artillery barrages, aerial strafings, and bombing runs. However, they can’t actually call these in, without a radio, which is accomplished with the last class, radioman. With a radio on their back, all they do is stand next to the officer, while they call in an artillery strike that will wipe the enemy team, and half of your team who were caught in the blast. (rule of thumb, you should always have both an officer and a radioman).

After choosing game mod, faction and units, and class, you have your loadout. Everyone has a primary weapon, secondary weapon, access of up to two different types of grenade, and a melee weapon. Furthermore, attachments to your weapon such as slings, bayonets, or scopes. Furthermore, you also have access to vests that can increase the amount of ammo you have. So what’s the catch? Well, weight is a factor, as in the more stuff you carry, the slower you are. Furthermore, your access to this is determined by supply points. You gain more supply points by playing the objective, so play. The. BLOODY. OBJECTIVE!!!

Anyway, items cost certain amounts of supply points, so this means you have to compromise about what you bring in. For example, if you play an American assault, an M3 Grease Gun with a sling, costs 5 supplies, while a Thompson M1A1 by itself costs 6 supplies. So, with this knowledge, prepare to compromise, especially with your first rounds.

After all that has been said, many of you might remember what I have said earlier about their flaws. Well, here they are. Map designs can be kind of poor, and lack of content update. They still support the game, but don’t hold your breath for new content that isn’t fan made (remember, this is the source engine. It’s super easy to mod… so I’ve been told), considering that the last update was back in December of 2017. This ties into the big elephant in the room… lack of players. Because of the lack of long term support, due to it being released just before another major NWI release, Sandstorm Insurgency (also a really good shooter), player counts can be pretty low. This is in spite of the fact that the vast majority of reviewers like the game. Many players often complain that the game is dead, but that isn’t quite the truth. A lot of the players for some reason seem to be on European servers. Of course, this is also the reason why I’m talking about this game.

So in summary, if you want to try a good team-based fps, or a good WWII game, I strongly recommend giving Day of Infamy a try. It comes cheaply too, being 15 USD for the base game, and 20 USD for the deluxe edition, and it can be cheaper during sales. Also, final note, this game also has amazing voice acting, of various types for the various American, German, and Commonwealth units, using a mixture of your typical fps voices, but also many witty, and genuinely funny lines (in that regards, shout out to the commonwealth voice actors, with my favorites being the Scottish and Australian voice) Many of these voices can be found on Youtube.

So take a dive into Day of Infamy, and this has been a Noob’s guide to Day of Infamy, which can be found on Steam. Enjoy the rest of your day.

[mst3kproject]

The Giant of Marathon

For some reason, probably because I've seen them all so many times, I thought I'd already done all four Film Crew episodes.  Evidently this is not true.  Here's one, and if you haven't seen it... wow, Mr. Honcho was not exaggerating about the thousands of sweaty men.

Philippides of Athens is the greatest athlete there is, having won the entire Olympics. With the games over, he returns to his day job as commander of the Athenian city guard.  Followers of Hippias the exiled tyrant are plotting to take control of the city with help from the invading Persians, and they try to seduce Philippides to their cause by offering him wine, women, and homoerotic wrestling (it was ancient Greece, after all).  Philippides refuses to be seduced, and sets off to secure the help of Athens' old enemy Sparta in opposing the Persians.  His mission is a success, but upon his return a spy tells him that the Persians are planning a sneak attack on the harbour of Piraeus.  Can even Philippides get there in time to deliver the warning?

I don't actually know if it were possible to win the entire Olympics in ancient Greece.  I know there were several events and at least one of them involved reciting poetry.  The Battle of Marathon was in 490 BC and a table on Wikipedia suggests that there could have been up to twelve different sports, but some of them were only for children.

The Giant of Marathon touts itself as a tale of epic battles, daring deeds, and political machinations.  I'll get back to the epic battles and daring deeds, but what stands in for the political machinations is mostly a bunch of people pining.  Unimpressive villain Theocritus is pining for the beautiful Andromeda, whose father has promised her to him but she thinks he's a dick.  She's pining for Philippides, who is also pining for her but thinks she's one of Hippias' followers, so refuses to speak to her.  Meanwhile Theocritus' concubine Charis is also pining for Philippides because he's the only man who ever refused to fuck her, I think.

These relationships are important to the plot, too.  Andromeda's love for Philippides is one of the reasons her father refuses to join the traitors, and when Theocritus realizes he cannot have her, he ties her to the prow of his ship to force Philippides to watch her die.  Charis' crush on Philippides leads her to her death, as she is executed for spying.  Yet none of it is ever developed beyond 'these two pretty people saw each other and now they want to bone'.  Philippides declares his love for Andromeda after a single five-minute interaction.  Charis has seen Philippides twice, and both times it went badly, when she decides to betray Theocritus.

Why do the writers hang such important plot points on the 'love' between people who have barely spoken to each other?  I can't decide if it's because they're lazy, or because they're hacks, and I lean towards a combination of the two.  There is absolutely no subtlety to the writing in The Giant of Marathon at all.  Everything is told, not shown.  We know that Theocritus and Creusus are traitors because they talk about it, in dialogue that's clearly written for the audience, not as anything that sounds like a natural conversation. We know that Charis and Andromeda are both in love with Philippides because they say so.  The only thing we're really shown is that Andromeda hates Theocritus, which comes through in her body language (though we are also very much told), so props to actress Mylène Demongeot for that much.

The movie doesn't care about any of this character stuff, anyway.  It just wants to get straight to those epic battle scenes, and it's very obvious how much work and time went into those as opposed to everything else.  The battles are lengthy and elaborate, full of impressive stunts and props and miniatures being destroyed all over the place.  We get to see Persian chariots run down Greek infantry, and while I'm pretty sure this would have been orchestrated so the stuntmen didn't get hurt, I'm not nearly so confident about the unfortunate horses (and neither was Bill).  There are ships in flames and injured men screaming as they fall overboard.  There are even some pretty good deaths, like the guy who was hit in the eye with an arrow.  The desperate last stand of the city guard against the entire Persian fleet, with the Spartans arriving just in time to save the day, is very tense indeed.

I get the impression that this is what somebody really wanted to put on screen, and they did a decent job of it, but pretty much the entire rest of what ought to be the story is just an accessory to the fighting stuff.  It's as if the film-makers wanted so badly for their fight sequences to be epic that they forgot what makes epic-ness – which is the characters and their stake in the events. We don't know any of these people, none of them have anything we might call a personality trait, and so we don't care.

The focus on how epic it all is makes I seem a little strange that the battle ends on a shot of dead Persian guys floating in the water. You'd think they'd want to end with something that more decisively shows the Athenian victory, maybe the men cheering as the Persian ships turn around and flee.  Or perhaps some kind of victory celebration, which could mirror the celebration of Philippides winning the Olympics in the opening and call back to the scene where Philippides asks the goddess Athena to protect her city.

Instead, we cut to a shot of Philippides and Andromeda walking across the farmland together.  This feels a little too sudden, and is also a poor fit with the rest of the movie.  The only time we've seen Philippides on his farm is when he's gotten disgusted with the politics of Athens and returned to the countryside to sulk.  If the farm is supposed to be a place where he's happy and at peace, the movie never establishes it.

So that's political machinations and epic battle sequences, let's talk about some daring deeds.

Unlike the Hercules and Maciste movies we've seen in the past, The Giant of Marathon wants to be grounded in real-life history.  This means that while the script does reference gods and mythical heroes, none of them ever appear and there is no hint of them working behind the scenes to bring events about.  Likewise, Philippides is not a demigod, so we avoid several of the tropes associated with the genre.  Nothing important ever happens (or fails to happen) because the hero was asleep, and he never bends prison bars or drinks a love potion – although a love potion is mentioned, as if to draw attention to this.

This doesn't leave Philippides a whole lot of scope for daring deeds, and when they try the results are a little lackluster.  His main feat is, of course, running all the way from Marathon to Athens (the proverbial forty-two kilometres) to let them know of the impending attack, but while this ought to be the highlight of the movie it's shot in terrible day-for-night and we have nothing to suggest how far this is... I think the writers just assumed everybody knows the length of a marathon.  If we'd seen the army tired from making the march earlier, we would have a better sense of it being a long and tiring journey even at a walk or with horses, and it would seem that much more formidable as a distance for one man to cover before sunrise.  Of course, showing us these things is apparently beyond the scope of The Giant of Marathon's writers, but you'd think they could at least have a character say something like, “it's twenty-six miles!  He'll never make it!”

His other major daring deed is when he pushes giant boulders down a hill onto the attacking Persians.  This is kind of weird because Philippides is not Hercules or Maciste.  He's good at track and field, but we haven't seen any evidence of him having godlike strength, and this is a universe where gods don't seem to do much anyway, so it comes out of nowhere.  The rocks are huge – there are similarly-sized ones at the park near my house and I know one guy couldn't move them no matter how buff he might be.  Did somebody just forget that they weren't making a Hercules movie?

Between the battles and the various plot twists, The Giant of Marathon could have been a pretty fun sword-and-sandal movie, but it's like a tower without a foundation.  The fights have nothing to hold them up, so we just can't get into it. Also, what the Underworld happened to Hippias? We see him once, chatting with the king of Persia, and then he vanishes and the movie decides weaselly little Theocritus is the big bad instead. I'm sorry, but if you've got a character with a name as cool as 'Hippias the Tyrant', you really can't just drop him like that.

The Best Brains liked to complain about the tinyness of the costumes in these movies but honestly, nothing here is as off-putting as actual ancient Greek sports would have been to the modern viewer.  When I was in university I TA'd for a course called Introduction to Greco-Roman Civilization. It was an adventure in several ways – the students were mostly dumb freshmen who spent the lectures playing Farmville, and the professor didn't give a shit because she'd just been denied tenure.  I don't know how much anybody learned in that class, but I'm sure they all recall how, after the professor told us that Greek athletes stripped naked and covered themselves in olive oil before wrestling, somebody raised a hand and asked if they removed their body hair.  The professor cheerfully told him that they did not, so next time we see a Greek vase we ought to remember that these guys were much sweatier, oilier, and hairier than terra cotta can possibly convey.

[pomegranates-and-blood]

νοσταλγία (Chapter 31)

νοσταλγία Masterlist

Pairing: Ivar/Reader

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: The usual

A/N: Hope you like this one! There’s a greek dress mentioned, and it is inspired by this one and this one

Thank you for reading lovelies, please lemme know what you think! Love ya!

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius​ @heavenly1927​ @toe-vind-ek-jou​ @xbellaxcarolinax​ @pieces-by-me​ @angelofthorr @samsationalwilson @peachyboneless @1950schick @punkrocknpearls @ietss   @itsmysticalmystery @revolution-starter @receptionistfromhell

The sun is starting to leave way for the moon when the door to the shop is opened again. Words about being closed are leaving Valdís’ lips but she catches the figure of the Prince and saves them.

Hvitserk greets her and Freydis with murmured kindness, and turns to you with questions and also an apology in his eyes. Reminded of the last time you saw him, when he left you in the training fields after angering his brother, you think he may feel guilty, so you offer a smile as you approach him.

“What is the matter?”

He offers only a half-hearted shrug around his easy smile, “I will let you guess.”

“The King calls for me.” You say in a sigh. The Prince laughs quietly, nodding his head.

“Yeah,” Hvitserk says, offering you your cloak from the hanger by the door, “You didn’t need your premonition for that, did you?”

As you walk away from the shop with Hvitserk by your side, you cannot help but asking, “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong, but…we must talk of war, and Ivar wants you to be there,” After a few moments of silence, you hear him speak again, pride shining through his tone, “My plan to avoid more losses than necessary when raiding Strepshire, it pulled through.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had contacts that had traveled to that city, some even that had been called to bring forth some of the Lord’s more…extravagant tastes.”

“Should I ask?” You ponder out loud, a small furrow of your nose. The Prince chuckles.

“No,” He sentences without hesitation. With a deep breath, he continues explaining, “Well, I discovered through these…merchants that the city has tunnels for the family, servants, and all the like.”

“Tunnels your brother can use. Tunnels Stithulf wants to use.” You breathe out, stopping dead in your tracks and facing Hvitserk with a growing smile on your face.

But he only shrugs in response, and explains, “You mentioned old stone, and it didn’t…make sense that the Saxons would depend so much on a fishing town.”

“You are brilliant.” You laugh, eyes wide.

Hvitserk shrugs, but you see him puff his chest at the praise. It is almost adorable.

With an arm going around your shoulders casually he offers,

“I had to be. Can’t have the Greek Priestess outsmarting all of us.” He teases with a smile, to which you roll your eyes. Hvitserk keeps his arm around your shoulders, and guides you all the way to the longhouse.

____

The Vikings prepare for a raid on Strepshire, with Hvitserk’s information being the last piece they were waiting for to take the city. A matter of two days, and they will set sail.

The brothers and their men are discussing war, and once again you are reminded, as the King speaks, of how brilliant Ivar is when it comes to battle and thinking like his enemy.

He discusses how to ambush them from their tunnels, how the ships should approach the city, how the brunt of the forces -the ones that will approach directly through the front gate- should ready for the attack; he talks about it all with a certainty and a glint in his eye that speaks of seeing the world differently than everyone else, and you find yourself enthralled.

Hvitserk calls out your name and you turn to him. He gestures with his hand,

“Do you have anything to say?”

You share a look with your husband, “Ivar already knows all I know of Stithulf’s army.”

Leaving the longhouse behind with certain steps, you eye the area around it for a small clearing of peace, Ivar trailing behind you. When you find it, you stop walking, turning around to meet Ivar’s eyes. After a moment of consideration, you smooth the ground underneath you with a sweep of your foot, and try imagining the formations in the earth.

“What are you doing?”

“You asked me to show you my people’s ways of war,” You reply without hesitation, not lifting your gaze of the ground, “I’m showing you.”

You feel his eyes on you, but eventually Ivar sighs and with a small sound of exertion lowers himself to a sitting position across from you.

“Narses always fought like a Byzantine, waged war like one too,” You recall the outskirts of Dublin with a small smile, and draw the first line, “But here he bent to Stithulf’s formations, he accommodated our people to fit his plans. It cost us everything.”

“You spoke of someone else, a man from the Mediterranean.”

“Acar, the mercenary. He’s commander of the Arab forces. They are going to be the first forces Stithulf will send to aid the city, I’m certain,” You start confidently, “They are the same men that have brought a large part of my homeland to heel.”

“How do you Greeks fight against them?” One of the Vikings asks, and you are forced to walk up to the map when an opening for you to do so is made, silently, between the warriors discussing.

You do not fail to notice you are made to stand on the other end of the table, across from Ivar. You meet his eyes for a moment, and he only bows his head, prompting you to go on. An encouragement, a promise you have a safe place to land, a reassurance he has your back.

You never realized how much you needed it, needed him; until the moment you had so many eyes on you, awaiting like beasts for the next move of the foreign witch, and found your heart settling its beat, your confidence strengthening, when he met your eyes and promised he trusted you, promised you he was listening, promised he was proud.

Resting one hand on the table and letting your eyes trace the letters of Strepshire’s name, you explain, “We don’t fight them in open fields. The cavalry will always push for flanking your formations, especially if you hold a shield wall, and if you hold a direct onslaught against them for too long, their infantry will make way for their cavalry to strike through no matter the cost. Avoid that, avoid…predictability.”

After a breath, you add, “There’s also warriors we called champions. They are precise and deadly; they were used in the Mediterranean to weaken an army’s morale, to disarm their plans.”

“How?”

You swallow past a dry throat before answering, “By killing the leaders, the heroes. They send their best not to thin the army’s numbers, but to cut off the army’s head.”

You find Ivar’s eyes and you realize now what the knot in the pit of your stomach that settled since you heard they were to raid Strepshire was. Fear.

Even the best fall in battle, even the best go to their Valhalla when their Gods cut off the thread of their fate. And you cannot help but fear Ivar will not return from that city, even if he survived Repton, York, and so much more.

You tell yourself you should feel shame at wanting to keep him alive, that you are believing his lies and your own by allowing yourself to care about him. You also know if he were to die, if Ivar weren’t to return, your status as a free woman -and your status as Queen, even if consort and nothing more- would be useful and you could leave Kattegat, return to the Greeks, never spend another day on this cold land. 

You know all this, and still you fear, still you know when time for battle comes both their Gods and yours will hear prayers for protection.

Returning your eyes to the map on the table, you suppress a sigh. You were never nothing other than hopelessly foolish, were you?

____

Ivar told you to go ahead and retire for bed without him, and from the room where they discuss war you two went on different directions.

While you were changing, you eyed the red dress Thora had helped you make a few days ago, while she’d not-so-subtly prodded at Hvitserk’s doings. It is a light and simple dress, certainly not made for the harsh cold of Kattegat, but confectioning it was familiar and nostalgic, and even if only as a keepsake of your home, you made it to resemble a Greek summer dress.

Instead of the night dress you usually wear, you chose the soft red fabric, and for a moment, with your feet bare and your hair loose, you felt closer to Gods you did even while standing in their temple.

You now sit on the ground by one of the larger windows of your bedroom, a collection of flowers and branches around you as you work on a wreath, not so different, even if life has proven to be so, from when you were a child in Eleusis, a healer in the Silk Roads, a Hiereia in Attica.

In your mind you go over what was discussed tonight, you go over all the certainties the Viking’s planning gives you that this will turn out in a victory.

You knew before this you trusted Ivar, his instinct, his intellect, his eyes that see beyond what others’ do. But Gods, to hear him speak of war and battle so surely, to see his eyes turn cold and calculating, the eyes of a strategist, to hear his voice imposing and certain, the voice of a leader…it is something else entirely.

He accepted your words about the Arab champions with surprising ease, and with his eyes on Hvitserk he asked about the dimensions of those tunnels under Strepshire.

In a matter of moments, Ivar turned the tide and decided to let Stithulf’s men have the tunnels, certain the Saxon would send through those tunnels the Arab champions to take out the sons of Ragnar and their higher-ranking men. With but a moment of consideration, he’d found a way to outsmart them.

You still hear his voice in your head, stating confidently that the Arabs haven’t faced enough Vikings, that the Saxons may be used to tricks but the foreigners aren’t. It still sends a thrill down your spine, remembering his voice lower when he stated the last steps of his plan, remembering his smile as he looked at the map on the table, certain of victory and hungry for it.

You don’t know how long you spend here, working on the wreath of flowers, with each intertwining of the stems a plea to the Goddess of Spring that she lets winter hold for a while longer, with each drop of blood you let the roses draw from your fingers an offering to the Queen of the Dead that she doesn’t take him from you just yet.

Ivar walks into the room, but don’t lift your gaze from your work, only greeting him with a hum.

“That dress is different, did you make it?”

“Greek peplos,” You tell him, nodding, “Or, my best attempt at it, anyways.”

“You look…”

“Cold? Yeah, I’m freezing.” You still stay there, your feet bare on the cold wood and your fingers carefully tracing over the crown of flowers.

“Beautiful,” He corrects, before taking his eyes off you with a slight twitch of what you could swear is embarrassment in his expression. Ivar acquiesces, “But…yes, also cold.”

You have to bite your lip to keep yourself from smiling like an idiot. Not even reminding yourself that you are Queen, that you are a grown woman, that you are married to him could keep the stupid flutter of your heart.

“T-Thank you,” Is what you settle for saying. “I’ve missed wearing familiar clothes, to be honest. I feel closer to my Gods in this.”

“Ah, so you’re praying.”

You lift your gaze from your work, eyes narrowed, “I was there at the sacrifice, I honored your Gods. That doesn’t mean I won’t honor my own.”

He doesn’t fight you on it, and a part of you wonders why.

Ivar chooses not to say anything, and with practiced ease starts working on the buckles and fastenings of the braces on his legs.

“What are you praying for?” He asks after a few moments.

Time.

You keep your gaze on the flowers in your hands, strikingly reminded of the last time he left you behind to chase after war and death.

Through gritted teeth, you bite out, “I hope you know that if you don’t return, if…if you leave me alone here, I’ll find a way to make you regret it. You won’t rest in your Valhalla while I have breath, Viking, so don’t…don’t die.”

Ivar only smiles, eyebrows lifted.

“Are you threatening me?”

You hold his gaze, and swallow past a tight throat. You only ask one thing, “Don’t leave me alone here.”

In this kingdom, in this world, in this life.

“You’re not…scared for me, are you?” You say nothing, only glare at him from the corner of your eye. “Are you saying you’d mourn me if I died?”

What kind of question is that? You resist the urge to let your fear become venom, you bite back accusations of how he continues to be so blind to how much he means to you.

“Ah, so you notice I care for the monster that took me captive?” You say, though there’s lightness, mirth, in your taunt, “You are either insulting me by implying I am weak enough to pray for the life of a man I supposedly hate, or…you are admitting you were wrong.”

Ivar accepts your words with a shrug, and crawls to one of the cushioned settees near the bed. After a few moments, with his hand by his mouth, he admits,

“I…realize you were right.”

“So you were wrong.”

He frowns, “I didn’t say that.”

“But you were.”

Ivar rolls his eyes, an exaggerated gesture that only manages to make your smug smile wider.

Still, when you’re close enough, he extends a hand, beckoning you to him. And it is as easy as breathing, for you to take it and sit next to him, drawing your legs up underneath you, as if to protect vulnerable feet from the cold of Kattegat.

“Gods, woman, you’re freezing.” Ivar frowns, warm fingers closing over your own.

“What happens if those ships don’t return, Ivar?” You ask, your voice wobbling. You feel your breath quicken, and you are once again a child looking over the horizon of Eleusis, waiting for a navy that was never to return. “What happens if you don’t return?”

“Then you are free. Free of me, free of-…”

“Ivar.” You interrupt him, and it is all you can say. His expression softens, and he sighs.

“Do you want me to promise you that I will survive?” He asks, an edge of incredulity, of levity in his tone. As if he is trying to make you see the madness in your request.

It is in the hands of the Gods, you know this. You know you should not fear, you know you should not worry, you know you should do and feel and be many things.

But you still offer the shrug of one shoulder, and Ivar almost smiles.

After a breath, he acquiesces, “Better men have tried to kill me and failed.”

You accept his words, his strange form of reassurance, with a smile and a sigh that trembles past your lips.

After a few beats if silence, you ask, “You will come back before winter, won’t you?”

“Yes,” He assures you, but Ivar spares you a glance out of the corner of his eye, and offers, “If I don’t…”

“You will,” You sentence, interrupting him. You don’t even hear whatever words he tried speaking, words that spoke of the possibility of a winter alone here, if not a lot longer than that. After a moment, you offer, “If you don’t, you’re easy pickings for the Saxons. Dublin cannot hold if Stithulf regains his strength.”

You know you’re right, and Ivar knows it too. Still, he offers you a smirk, and taunts you, “And you are certain of this, wife?”

“Your arrival, your support, spared Dublin of capture, you know this. We had the upper hand,” You motion towards him with your chin in a taunt, your lips pulled into a smile that dares him, “Even with your mighty army, Ivar the Boneless, us Greeks made you falter.”

“Arrogant.” He accuses, but he still smiles, dark and proud.

“We were hungry and cold, far from home,” You remind him, “But we made you change tactics a few times, didn’t we?”

“We weren’t going to lose.”

“No, I know that. It was Fated that it ended the way it did,” You shrug, “But we made you fight for it.”

You could swear Ivar’s smile turns softer, more secret. He lifts the hand he holds to his lips, and presses a soft kiss to your fingers.

“That you did.”

As he is to drop your hand back, his eyes focus on the small wounds you sport on your fingertips. A drop of blood trails slowly down your ring finger, and Ivar hesitates only for a moment before he brings your hand to his mouth again, only this time to lick off the offending drop.

Your breath catches in your throat, and in the hungry and proud smile he sends your way you see the faint stain of red. The only thought in your head for a moment is the need to taste that blood off his lips.

You quieten those thoughts, using that same hand to shove playfully at the side of his face. Ivar snorts a laugh, but you could swear his eyes are darker when he looks back at you.

Your own eyes are drawn to the slight smear of blood you leave on his pale skin and…Gods, what wouldn’t you do to be able to close the distance and lick it off.

But you force yourself to also let go of those thoughts, and you let your smile dim as silence reigns between you again. Your eyes trace the wreath of flowers that lays there near one of the windows, an evidence of your prayers, an evidence of your weakness and your fear.

An evidence that your heart isn’t yours anymore.

If it ever was.

You cannot keep yourself from remembering his words yesterday, his accusations that you were somehow playing with his head, with…

Before your thoughts get ahead of you, you ask, “Do you truly believe I’ve been playing with you?”

Ivar looks ahead as he considers his answer, leaves you to watch his profile and the way the dim lights of the room play with the angles of his face.

“If you’d been playing with me, you wouldn’t have fought the way you did.” He tells you finally, but there’s words he isn’t saying.

“And I’m not fighting anymore,” You offer, earning a half-hearted shrug from him, and nothing else. An exasperated yet fond smile curves at your lips, and you sigh, “I told you before, your own thoughts are what drives you mad most of the time.”

The smile Ivar offers is one purely for your benefit, tired and bitter and gone in an instant.

For a moment he lowers his gaze to your joined hands, distractedly brushes over a small cut on your finger. His gaze is enthralling even if his eyes still don’t meet yours, and there’s a fragile sort of vulnerability written into the way he holds himself that makes you pause.

“In all my life, nothing…nothing has come easy,” He explains quietly. After a moment, he offers another flickering smile, though this one does speak of softness, “You certainly didn’t either, but lately things are different, and I can’t help but think it a…a vision, a mirage, that once I get close enough to having will just…vanish.”

He finishes his sentence with a gesture of his hand, and your eyes follow the movement with a dull ache in your heart.

You’re suddenly a chained and wrathful Priestess again, sitting across the table from your captor and having him share very similar words, “Nothing has come easy in my life, and since I was a child I would always ask the Gods why.”

You still don’t have an answer, though you wish you did.

You do have the certainty that this isn’t a trick, that this isn’t something easily lost. Never could be.

And looking into his eyes, meeting your fear with his own, both so different from each other; you decide to let go of pretenses and masks, if only for a moment.

If only for a brief, stupid moment of courage.

It won’t vanish. I love you.

You let your hand cup the side of his face, your thumb caressing the scar you are so smitten by. Keeping your eyes on Ivar’s, you lean closer, silently begging that this is not wrong, that this is not another mistake.

His skin warms under your touch, and you watch with baited breath his lips part in innocent anticipation as you grow closer and closer. Ivar’s eyes travel to your own lips, before anxiously returning to meet your gaze again, looking more lost and vulnerable than you ever thought you would see him.

Deciding to listen to your heart, you press your lips softly against his, closing your eyes and letting the electricity and the warmth take control over your body.

Ivar’s sharp intake of breath through his nose, the way he tenses under your touch and almost freezes at the affection is not strange to you any longer, and it doesn’t deter you.

You move your mouth over his, the hand on the side of his face urging him close with as much tenderness as you can have when your heart beats like it wants to leave your chest and burrow into his.

When you pull back, his mouth chases after yours, and Ivar leans forward as if a thread tied you two together. You allow yourself a smile, tremulous and girlish as it is.

His eyes open slowly, as if awakening from a dream, and his breath leaves his parted lips quickly as he gazes back at you. A few moments go by, breaths shared and your heart beating fast and thrilled in your chest.

A challenge, really, to see who yields first, who admits to craving the touch of the other’s lips, who offers and who accepts or rejects.

The Gods may have made you arrogant but they didn’t make you stupid, and you’ve known for a while this is where you were headed, this is where you wanted to be.

Doesn’t mean you’ll admit it, at least not like this.

Surprisingly, it is Ivar who caves first.

“Kiss me.” He breathes out. A dare, a command, a plea.

And you do, with no hesitation this time.

Ivar kisses you back hungrily, deeply and desperately, demanding with teeth and tongue what you give freely.

His strong hand grabs onto your wrist tightly, keeping your caressing touch on his face, while the other finds a home in the back of your head, gripping onto the loose strands of your hair.

It feels like it is the first time you’ve kissed him -been kissed by him, been kissed at all- and yet it feels like the electrifying touch of his lips on yours is a dance as old as time itself.

There’s a tremble in your hand when you hold on to the fabric over his chest, there’s an urgency in his hands as he pulls you closer; but there’s an ease to the way you straddle him, there’s an intimacy in the way he breathes your name over your lips.

You lose track of time in the heady feeling of his lips on yours. One of his hands grabs at the side of your jaw, tilting your head to meet his kiss, the other settles roughly on your ass, bringing you down against him, drawing you closer, closer, closer.

You gasp his name against his lips, breaths labored when you rest your brow against his, heart beating wildly in your chest when you meet his eyes.

You smile, breathless and a little mad.

But Ivar looks at you like someone who just realized stands at the edge of a precipice. His eyes widen, and he pushes you off him, however shakily.

Rejection burns, it burns and scalds and your lips part but no words leave them. You can only stand there, cold and hesitant, and watch as he scrunches his face in reluctance, in hesitation, in anger.

Ivar lifts a hand to the back of his head, avoiding your eyes with a twitch of anger, of shame.

“You know I can’t…I can’t do this.”

You stare back at him, heart still beating fast and cold taking over you. However slighted you were by his abrupt rejection, however scared you are of your own feelings, however torn you are about the things you want; all of it pales when you see the expression in Ivar’s face.

When you learned Laconia was free, when Fate released you of the strings holding you by the throat and you threatened to break at the seams; you clung to Ivar like he was the one thing keeping you in this world, and past the unsteadiness of his legs that at the moment you couldn’t think of, maybe out of sheer will and strength alone, he stabbed the wooden floor and kept you upright, didn’t let you fall, didn’t let you break.

And the same certainty flows through you, the same steeled resolve, the same drive to grant safety and comfort and peace.

And so you don’t hesitate when you step closer again, one of your hands tentatively settling on his shoulder, the other, as if half of you was braver than the other, reaches for the side of his jaw, thumb going back and forth over the scar under his eye.

“This doesn’t have to be anything other than…this.”

You lean down and bring his mouth to yours, softly. It surprises you and delights you in equal measure, how easily Ivar surrenders to your kiss, how pliantly he leans to meet the touch of your mouth on his.

When you part, his eyes open slowly, and the absolutely enthralled expression on his face as he stares up at you sends a rush of heat through you.

But, after a moment the daze disappears. And he still grits his teeth, his eyes still jump from place to place, and he still insists, “I…can’t give you what you need, what you want.”

You shake your head, unwavering. You once again wonder which one of you is the bewitched one, when with but a look Ivar makes secrets spill from your lips, when with nothing but his touch he makes invisible bindings release you.

“What I need is you,” You whisper. Your hand on his shoulder lowers, presses softly over the center of his chest, and you lean your brow against his, never taking your eyes off his, “What I want is this.”

You wouldn’t have believed yourself to be brave enough to, even after the words leave your lips, and with the truth you tried ignoring is looking right at you; not falter, to not feel the instinct to pull back, to return to secrets and safety.

There’s no hiding you’ve wondered what the cost would be to give in, hoped maybe he would give in and so you would be able to have this without the guilt of having chosen it.

There’s no hiding you wished to just forget for a moment there’s a world past him and accept that maybe it was Fate after all, that maybe this borrowed time is a chance to live another life.

Your fingers digging into the wooden pillar of the home are the one thing that keeps you upright as you confess, the last breath of an already dead woman: “I wish I never returned here. I wish…I wish I had gone with you to Kattegat, like you said we could. I wish I could have lived another life, móðir.”

The life that should have been, maybe.

Maybe that is why it is so easy to accept his hands on your hips bringing you back to him with a gentleness that almost surprises you, maybe that is why it feels like home when you straddle him and put your arms over his shoulders, maybe that is why it feels like your heart beats in synch with another’s when Ivar leans his head against your chest and sighs.

Your hands trace over his back, his shoulders, you cannot help it. You find yourself almost giddy with the realization you can now touch as much as you want to, as much as he will let you.

A voice in the back of your mind reminds you that pretend as you wish, you are aware you could have had this, or something so much closer to this than the scraps you’ve been living off of, much earlier.

Ivar says something, but you do not hear it, and you ask him with a hum of question to speak again.

You feel his shoulders rise and fall with a deep breath, “You’re what I need too,” He breathes, before moving so that he presses a kiss right over your heart. Your breath catches in your throat and your hand moves to the back of his neck before you even realized you’ve moved. He smiles against the red fabric of your dress, and offers, “What I want, too.”

It is yours.

But you can’t say that. He will be taking your heart all the way to England with him, and you wish you could relent and let him know of that, if only to give him the task to bring it back to you.

You don’t make any attempt to move, and he doesn’t either. Your fingers tire of aimless wandering, and you silently take up the task of undoing his braids.

You could swear he leans more of his weight against you as you work your fingers through his hair.

You once prayed for the borrowed time you’re living on to last a lifetime, and as you sit there, his arms around your waist, his face pressed against your chest, you don’t see why it couldn’t be so. Why you couldn’t stretch time however you want it to. You have no doubt you could, as long as you can remain with him holding you like this, letting you hold him like this.

After a small lifetime, you whisper, “We should go to bed.”

Ivar hums an agreement, but it takes a few more breaths before he leans back. His hair falls loosely behind him, pliant and soft after you lost track of time running your fingers through it, and you find yourself smiling, lovesick and foolish, at the proof of your work.

That night you don’t sleep. You talk, and kiss, and touch, and discover. And you make out of the borrowed time you live on a small eternity.

____

Sooooooo...? :)

[dwellordream]

“Before the war, during most of the eighteenth century, the officers of the army had commonly come from military families, often serving together in the same regiment, with a steady but modest addition of new blood from the adventurous sons of fathers in the other gentlemanly professions. But the expansion of the army during the war exhausted these traditional sources and opened the door for an influx of such men from other parts of society. 

In 1792, the last year of peace, there were 3,107 officers in the army; by 1814 there were 10,590 on full pay, excluding those in foreign regiments and veteran battalions, and the army needed to find between five hundred and one thousand new men every year to replace those who died or quit the service, and to take up positions in newly created units. Army commissions, up to and including the rank of lieutenant-colonel, were available for sale. A young man wishing to join the army as an officer would purchase – or his father or friends would purchase on his behalf – a commission as a junior officer: an ensign in most infantry regiments, a cornet in the cavalry. 

He might subsequently purchase a higher rank and would only have to pay the difference between his old and new commission, the old one being sold to help fund the purchase of the next step. Commissions were not cheap: the official regulation price for an ensigncy in a line regiment was £400, while it cost £735 to be made a cornet in the dragoons, and in the Life Guards the price was £1,600; nor was any refund given if the officer was unfortunate enough to die (although in some cases, if he was killed in battle, the army might permit the sale of his commission for the benefit of his widow and family). 

Officers might also agree to exchange between regiments, perhaps to move into one that was about to go on active service, or out of one that was going to be sent to an unhealthy colonial posting. Some regiments were very fashionable, and a commission in them commanded an unofficial premium well above the regulation price; while it was not always easy to find a buyer for a commission in an undistinguished regiment in an undesirable location. However, the demand for new officers was so great during the war that commissions could readily be obtained without purchase, provided that the young man was not seeking to join a regiment that was in particular demand. 

…There were few formal qualifications needed to become an officer. The Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York, imposed a minimum age of 16, although even after this was established, a significant number of 15 year olds received commissions, while half of all first commissions were bestowed on youths under the age of 18. A prospective officer also needed a letter of recommendation from a person of some standing, such as an army officer of the rank of major or above, or an MP, testifying to his ‘character, education and bodily health’, along with his willingness to serve. 

Beyond this, all that was required were his name and address, although if he was wise he would ensure that the recommendation was for a specific regiment, otherwise he might be sent to one of the West India regiments or other colonial corps that always struggled to find sufficient officers. When John Orrok, a captain in the 33rd Foot then serving in India, secured a commission in the regiment for his young brother-in-law, he wrote to the young man’s father about the education he would need: 

Let me entreat of you, my good friend, not to cram Thomas’s head with Greek or Latin, they are of no use in his profession; but pray teach him to read, write and spell English gramatically, [sic] those are the most essential points and I am sorry to say they are very little attended to in Scotland. We have some Officers so very deficient in that respect that they are the ridicule of the others; so for his own Sake allow me to recommend his unremited [sic] attention to spelling in particular. And when Peter Le Mesurier joined the 9th Foot he found that one of the rules of the officers’ mess was a prohibition on using three or more words of Latin under any circumstances. 

Very few army officers had been to university, and while there were many highly intelligent men in the army, intellectuals were uncommon. A tiny minority – around 4 per cent – of new officers had attended the Royal Military College, which had room for only 100 cadets, of whom 20 were nominated by the East India Company and destined to serve in its army. Thirty of the remaining places were reserved for the sons of officers who had died or been maimed on service, and they received their education, board and clothing free; while 20 more places were kept for the sons of serving officers who paid a discounted fee of £40 a year. 

Most cadets were aged from 13 to 15 and had to pass a test intended to show that they had a grounding in grammar and arithmetic. One student, who went to the college from Eton, said that the ‘beds are good and very clean. Our food very good and plain’, and that the ‘hardships are nothing’, but that he still thought it a ‘very disagreeable place’ because ‘one has no time to oneself . . . hardly anything but study’. However, another student at the time – the young Roderick Murchison, who went on to become a famous  Victorian geologist – admitted that he was a poor student, bad at arithmetic and even worse at geometry, but delighted in boisterous mischief and practical jokes of which there was no shortage.

A much more common route into the army was through the militia. Commissions were granted by the Lord Lieutenant of the county, without purchase, and although there was a property qualification it appears to have been widely ignored, so that any gentleman whose character was not notorious might readily obtain a commission for himself or his son. Each regiment of militia had an official complement of 24 officers: a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, a major, five captains, eight lieutenants and eight ensigns, together with 480 men divided into eight companies. 

The service was not onerous: as a home defence force the militia could not be sent abroad, and in winter up to two thirds of the officers in a regiment might be away on leave at any time. The quality of regiments, and their officers, seems to have varied quite widely: some were well disciplined, given extensive training and kept close to full strength, while others were less efficient and often less happy. Once the invasion scare of 1803–05 had passed, their main function was to act as a ‘feeder’ for the army, training men and officers who would then volunteer to join the regulars. 

Such volunteers had several motives: life in the militia was safe but tedious, and offered no prospect of adventure or wealth, or even any great sense of serving the country. When peace came the militia would be disbanded and almost all the officers left without employment, and there was no half-pay for militia officers. Moreover, if a militia officer could persuade a number of his men to volunteer into the same regiment of the regular army at the same time he did so, he would receive his initial commission for free (although, as we have seen, he would not find it hard to do so anyway). By the time of Wellington’s campaigns in the Peninsula, one fifth of all the officers joining the army did so from the militia.”

- Rory Muir, “The Army.” in Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune: How Younger Sons Made Their Way in Jane Austen's England

[iberiandoctor]

Mass Effect Relationship Week 2021

DAY 1: On the beach

When the Hour Sounds, Shepard/Alenko, [Gen]

The summer afternoon was quiet; almost too peaceful, for a location with such a blood-drenched history. Centuries of climate change had eroded the coastline and swallowed most of the Normandy beach that had been here in 1944.

244 years later, in the aftermath of humanity’s last galactic war, two old soldiers stood on the expanse of light gray sand, looking out to sea. The thin June sunlight was merciless with the silver in their hair, the scars on their weathered faces.

The Reapers had taken the same route as the Allies had during World War Two’s Normandy landing, taking off from Dover and crossing the Channel. Their dreadnoughts had swept over the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc, and brought firepower down onto the neighborhoods of Caen and Saint-Martin-des-Entrées, before pushing on to Paris.

Shepard and Alenko hadn’t been there to see it. They’d been traveling between the stars, trying to rally intergalactic support, and assemble the ancient technology which would end to the Reapers for good. But the venue felt oddly familiar all the same.

It was almost as if they’d been here with the US 75th Ranger regiment and the Canadian 3rd Infantry Division on D-Day, securing the beachhead against the German attack. Those Allied forces had suffered heavy casualties from the reinforced enemy positions. Standing here, listening to the waves on the shore, Shepard and Alenko could almost hear the gunfire from the Wehrmacht 21st Panzer Regiment, the hidden emplacements on the cliffs, the sounds of men being cut down by the horrors of 20th century warfare.

“Think we’ll ever know how far back it goes?” Adam asked, after a while.

The beacon at Thessia had shown them some of their past lives, all the way back to the ancient Greeks. The Conduit had hinted at even more to Shepard during that final leap down the Crucible’s throat. Floating, falling, he’d seen a hundred different versions of Kaidan, a hundred different lives, and love in every single one.

He hadn’t expected to make it back to Kaidan after London. In truth, after he’d been left behind on the Normandy, Kaidan hadn’t expected it either. They’d just been grateful for the glimmer of hope that there might be the next life down the line somewhere, waiting for them.

But they were even more grateful to have found their way back to each other in this life.

Today had been a good day. Shepard had managed the hike from the village without the need for mobility assistance, and was only now leaning a little on Alenko’s arm. Something else to be grateful for, as humanity began to rebuild the things the war had taken away.

Adam mused, “You think they made it, Schaefer and Major Allen?”

The coastal wind rifled through his still-thick hair. Adam had grown out his Navy buzzcut over the year and a quarter of civilian life; streaked with blond, it curled messily over his forehead. Kaidan brushed it back, a habit formed in the last year and a quarter. “I dunno. I hope so. Now we’re back on Earth, we could look them up.”

Adam snorted. “Such an optimist. Old soldiers don’t usually get the white picket fence ending.”

There was a distant expression in Adam’s eyes, the one he still got when he talked about the war. That thousand-meter stare would probably stay with him all his life, like the scars crisscrossing his legs, like the tech that bolted his spine together.

Kaidan didn’t mind. He would gladly hold Adam in his arms and kiss the scars, the spine, the haunted stare, a hundred times over, and tell himself how lucky he was.

He put his arms around Adam now, and pressed his lips to Adam’s jaw.

“Hey, look at what we’ve got. This is it, right here — two old soldiers, a good ride, and a happy ending.”

Adam exhaled, long and unsteady. The years of battle were hard to set aside; harder, to accept that their time in the sun had come at last. To look at a sandy beach as just a quiet place to reflect, and watch the tide come in, and not see the strategic frontlines of war.

Kaidan half-expected some gruff demurral. But what Adam said, eventually, was, “The best,” and let Kaidan help him down the slope, towards the sand and shining sea.

[rockislandadultreads]

Not Just for Teens: Fiction Recs for Adult Readers

Lovely War by Julie Berry

It's 1917, and World War I is at its zenith when Hazel and James first catch sight of each other at a London party. She's a shy and talented pianist; he's a newly minted soldier with dreams of becoming an architect. When they fall in love, it's immediate and deep--and cut short when James is shipped off to the killing fields. Aubrey Edwards is also headed toward the trenches. A gifted musician who's played Carnegie Hall, he's a member of the 15th New York Infantry, an all-African-American regiment being sent to Europe to help end the Great War. Love is the last thing on his mind. But that's before he meets Colette Fournier, a Belgian chanteuse who's already survived unspeakable tragedy at the hands of the Germans. Thirty years after these four lovers' fates collide, the Greek goddess Aphrodite tells their stories to her husband, Hephaestus, and her lover, Ares, in a luxe Manhattan hotel room at the height of World War II. She seeks to answer the age-old question: Why are Love and War eternally drawn to one another? But her quest for a conclusion that will satisfy her jealous husband uncovers a multi-threaded tale of prejudice, trauma, and music and reveals that War is no match for the power of Love. A sweeping, multi-layered romance with a divine twist, by the Printz Honor-winning author of The Passion of Dolssa, set in the perilous days of World Wars I and II.

We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal

People lived because she killed. People died because he lived. Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya--but neither wants to be. War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the sultan on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds--and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

Tyler Johnson Was Here by Jay Coles

When Marvin Johnson's twin, Tyler, goes to a party, Marvin decides to tag along to keep an eye on his brother. But what starts as harmless fun turns into a shooting, followed by a police raid. The next day, Tyler has gone missing, and it's up to Marvin to find him. But when Tyler is found dead, a video leaked online tells an even more chilling story: Tyler has been shot and killed by a police officer. Terrified as his mother unravels and mourning a brother who is now a hashtag, Marvin must learn what justice and freedom really mean.

My So-Called Bollywood Life by Nisha Sharma

Winnie Mehta was never really convinced that Raj was her soulmate, but their love was written in the stars. Literally, a pundit predicted Winnie would find the love of her life before her 18th birthday, and Raj meets all of the qualifications. Which is why Winnie is shocked to return from her summer at film camp to find her boyfriend of three years hooking up with Jenny Dickens. Worse, Raj is crowned chair of the student film festival, a spot Winnie was counting on for her film school applications. As a self-proclaimed Bollywood expert, Winnie knows this is not how her perfect ending is scripted. Then there’s Dev, a fellow film geek, and one of the few people Winnie can count on to help her reclaim control of her story. Dev is smart, charming, and challenges Winnie to look beyond her horoscope to find someone she’d pick for herself. But does falling for Dev mean giving up on her prophecy, and her chance to live happily ever after? To get her Bollywood-like life on track, Winnie will need a little bit of help from fate, family, and of course, a Bollywood movie star.

[winchest09]

Our Virtual Lockdown - Lowdown

Hey everyone!

Our lockdown livestream was once again one fulled of fun, laughter, fic recs, games and...one unplanned round of charades! Ahaha!

6 hours we were talking...SIX and again, I loved every single second. It was so nice to see so many gorgeous faces, and I’m so happy that so many of you joined us! We had 18 in our party at one point! I just hope that all of you had a blast and enjoyed yourselves.

Me and @katehuntington​ love holding these events and we are already planning the next live stream (date to be announced) but it will be in this month (May).

This is the lowdown for the third lockdown party!

Below you will find:

Everyone who joined - their tags, what’s coming up fic wise and their masterlist.

A Challenge to join

Blogs who want to help with your writing

Fic Recs

Supernatural DnD

Announcements

Q + A’s with the writers.

So without further ado… *cracks fingers*

To everyone that joined...

You are the guys that make it the live stream what it is.  So below is a list of everyone who was on the chat last night accompanied by their masterlist and what they have coming up soon! In no particular order…

@katehuntington​​: Kate is currently working on the next instalment of Ride With Me, All I Want and a two part commission. We will see this on her blog soon!

Her masterlist can be found HERE

@flamencodiva​​​: This babe is currently working on Call of the Ocean, A revoluntionary war fiction, an ABO Greek Goddess fic AND an untitled angst filled fic including Dean, a girlfriend and secrets! She is also rewriting Underworld and Legend of Van Helsing.

She’s one busy gal and we LOVE IT. <3

Check out her masterlist HERE

@whatareyousearchingfordean​​​: Alex is currently writing the ending to her Jensen fiction Et Cetera and she already has a sequel in mind! At the moment she’s trying to decide her next move...Firefighter Dean OR Secret Service Dean? Head over there and let her know!

Her masterlist can be found HERE

@talesmaniac89​​​:  This beaut also has a lot that she’s working on at the moment. The next instalments of The Man in Apartment 43. The next chapters of Lost (which is a little darker), a fluffy Dean oneshot and a Castiel comfort fic.

Behind the scenes, she’s also working on a Heist AU, Another ‘Choose your own adventure’ fic and a Ghost Writer AU.

Check her out guys, her masterlist is HERE

@superfanficnatural​​​:  This babe is currently working on the next chapters of The Bringer of balance as well as the next chapters of The Choice! He’s posted a few oneshots in the past two weeks and is writing Male!Reader fics!

Behind the scenes he’s currently working on an RPF called Matchmaker, A reader knight of hell/demon dean fic which is a love hate relationship as WELL as a Marvel SPN crossover. OOFFT.

A new writer that is nailing it! Go and give him some love, his masterlist can be found HERE

@emoryhemsworth​​​: This beaut is currently working on a series which is based off of an album called ‘Losing Sleep’ Each song will be a chapter and we’ve already been treated to some of her plans! She also has some other goodies on her masterlist.

Check our her masterlist HERE:

@anathewierdo​​​: Is yet to create a masterlist but she is currently working on Call of the Ocean with Flamencodiva. Not only that, she’s also working on a Princess Diaries AU, a Serial Killer AU and after the livestream...a gunshow fic!

By gunshow we do mean The Winchester’s muscles.

*drools*

@girl-with-a-fandom-fettish​​: This wonderful lady joined us briefly on the live stream and although she left before we could find out what she has coming up!

Check our her masterlist HERE:

Me: I’m currently working on two series, Life for Rent and Man’s Best Friend! I also have a couple of Dean series being worked on in the background as well as a couple of oneshots…watch this space!

To the new writers...

These guys were all new to the live stream this week and were welcomed with open, loving, spn fam arms! After speaking to these babes, we know that they are fairly new to writing to the supernatural fandom. They all have AMAZING idea’s when we played our prompt game and hopefully all of them will bite that bullet and post their ideas soon.

Remember guys - we’re all here to love and support you! My inbox is always open if you want to talk fics, want me to look over one etc.

Go and follow and give them some love!

@janicho88​​ @queenbeesback​​ @imjustadrummer​​ @malfoysqueen14​​

and to the readers that joined…

@leissa1287​​​ @waywardbeanie​​​ @dawnie1988​​

We love you, we thank you for reading and we thank you for all the support and love you give us constantly. Thank you for joining the chat and we hope you had an amazing time <3

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CHALLENGE TIME

Ohhhh yes! One of our amazing writers, the darling @flamencodiva​​ is holding a celebration in regards to reaching 1700 followers!

Congrats babe!

Not only is she hosting a character take over on her blog she’s also posted a writing challenge for all us writers out there!

Check it out HERE

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Need Help with a fic?

We’ve got you covered!

Need to has out a plot with someone?

The lovely @malfoysqueen14​​ has offered herself up to be a plot buddy to anyone that needs it. Stuck on a plot point, want to talk through a story line with someone? Give her a message! She’s here to help <3

Need help writing those all important fight scenes?

Give our babe @imjustadrummer​​ a message! They are filled with knowledge and even give us a demonstration on how to punch correctly on the livestream! Definitely one to have on your contacts list! <3

Need help with research for a fiction?

The most wonderful @waywardbeanie​​​ has offered herself up to be a researcher for anyone who wants help with their fiction. She has been a die hard SPN fan forever and she’s like the Ellen of our live stream.

Need a researching buddy? Give her a message! She’s a doll <3

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Fic & blog Recs!

In our live stream, we want to highlight what we’ve been reading and the amazing authors behind the words. So below is a list of all the fics that we recommend for some good ol fic binging!

@deansdirtylittlesecretsblog​​: We were told of this lovely little gold mine by Alex and we just have to include it on here! This writer has so many fics on her masterlist...you’re gonna be there for a while!

Check them all out HERE

When You Least Expect It by @coffee-obsessed-writer​​

Summary: After a hard breakup, Jensen decides to throw himself into organizing a Music Festival in Austin that is meant to raise money for a few of his most cherished charities and organizations. As he throws himself into planning it, he stumbles upon a spirited, undiscovered performer, who he convinces to come aboard to help plan and coordinate the event with him.

What transpires after that takes both Jensen and his new friend, by surprise. But when their respective pasts come back just before the event kicks off in Austin, they will both have to decide if the unexpected feelings are worth perusing, or if they should just walk away and go on with their lives.

Dear Dean by @smol-and-grumpy​​

Summary: After taking Saint Lo, by sheer dumb luck, Lieutenant Dean Winchester from the 29th Infantry Division, Baker Company, received a truckload of replacements for his platoon that was falling apart. Little did he know, that one recruit would change his life forever.

Almost Paradise by @amanda-teaches​​

Summary: Dean finds himself looking at pictures of old loves. Will he ever be able to find that paradise again?

Turned Sideways by @crashdevlin​​​

Summary: (Rockstar AU)  When Y/n gets an opportunity to meet her favorite band backstage at their concert, she assumes they won’t even ask her name. But when she impresses the front man, Dean, with her voice and knowledge of their entire catalog of songs, it launches a chain of events that is sure to change her entire life.

Crash Into Me by @crashdevlin​​

Summary:  Dean meets and befriends a witch in NW Florida. This is their interactions over the course of season 8 through season 14.

Midwife Crisis by @ellewritesfix05​​

Summary: (Elle hasn’t written one it appears but in my words) - You were heavily pregnant with Dean’s child, hormones raging and Dean was receiving the brutal end of it. Needing a break, he fakes a case to get away. When your good friend Gabriel hears of this...he decides he needs to teach Dean a lesson with a little help from is prankster ways...

PHEW! I definitely think we have enough fics on here to last us for a few days…don’t you? ;) Please guys don’t forget to give these writers some love when reading their fics, comments, reblogs, asks. It means the world.

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Interested in roleplaying & DnD?

@imjustadrummer​​ is setting up a Dungeons and Dragons campaign set in the Supernatural (main) universe!

If you’re into role playing, fancy bringing one of your OFC’s to life or just wanna be badass yourself...why not consider joining?!

All the information you need on this is HERE

Make some new friends, live out your dreams of being a hunter, angel or demon and HAVE FUN!

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ANNOUNCEMENTS!

We have three wonderful announcements to make this time! We have THREE blogs celebrating followers!

A massive congratulations to:

@flamencodiva​​: This beautiful mama has reached 1700!

@whatareyousearchingfordean​​: This absolute babe has reached 1000!

@superfanficnatural​​: This beaut has reached 200!

WOOHOO!

*pops the party poppers*

-------------------------

Q & A With The Writers!

During this live stream, we asked everyone to join in and ask questions to the writers you want to know more about...the write up is below :)

- If you could collab with any other writer on here, who would it be? Alex ( @whatareyousearchingfordean​​) : @superfanficnatural​  because of the male reader aspect/sides of things! 

Emory (@emoryhemsworth​) : I’d like to collab with @winchest09​ (Tabby)

- Has anyone ever guessed the plot twist of one of your fics before you posted it?

@talesmaniac89​ : This did happen once and what was once a fluffy ending got turned into a bad ending because it was guessed. It happened once that they managed to get it so i changed it. 

- What was the last line you wrote?

@katehuntington​ :  “The cowgirl smirks and gently pushes him into the tack box in order for them both to be out of sight. Once they are safe from Bobby’s eyes, she kisses him, short and sweetly, but it’s enough to make Dean’s head spin”

- Have you ever cried whilst writing a fic?

@superfanficnatural​ : I cried to one last time, the angsty fic i wrote. I  was trying to get into the mood, i was mad, so went fuck it i’m gonna break peoples hearts. And then i cried haha.

- Can you tell us what writers you really admire?

@emoryhemsworth​ :   All of you are included in this live stream, that’s a given but I am going to talk about people who aren’t in here.  @impala-dreamer​, @kittenofdoomage​, @supernatural-jackles​, @ravengirl94​ are just a few. In regards to Rhi (Kittenofdoomage), everything she writes is just gold. She’s not written anything that’s bad! For Beka (impala dreamer) I just love her as a person. Oh and @bringmesomepie56​, her fics are just amazing.  

- Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

@flamencodiva​ : No, not really. My stories tend to evolve in the writing process. Underworld princess and Call of the Ocean were meant to be super different than what they are now. We realised we had changed certain plot points as we were writing but that was before we started to post it. 

- Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

@winchest09​ :  Yes and no. I’ve had stories which were originally meant to end a certain way and they changed over time. Sometimes I do wonder what the reactions would have been like if i had gone with the original ending for Shatter Me and if hadn’t have gone down the angsty road for Yesterday but then I think fics choose their own path as you write them. It felt right at the time. 

- What is your favourite genre to write for?

@malfoysqueen14​ :  Angst. Never mind the fluff, the smut, the crack, it’s all about the angst. The angst is my ultimate goal. 

- Where do you get your inspiration from?

@imjustadrummer​ : A daily situation, or films. If the kids I worked with have said something weird i’d be like…”oh yeah, hey that can be a fic!”  A lot of different places really!

- Funniest story you’ve written?

@queenbeesback​ : It was an online thing, where they met online and it took a while for them to meet up. That was quite light hearted. 

- What is everyone's favourite ships?

Everyone: Dean and Donna. Benny and Dean. Sam and Eileen. Dean and Jo. Charlie and Alex. Sam and Gabriel

- What’s your favourite trope to write?

@anathewierdo​ : Friends to lovers and enemies to lovers

- Which part of your upcoming fic was the hardest to write?

@imjustadrummer​ : Trying to work out all the clues and cleverness to it. Like codes and things, working out how to put in all the easter eggs in my upcoming fic. It’s like a treasure hunt so I need to ensure there is cleverness in there.

- If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

@superfanficnatural​ : Oh that’s...ok...most definitely...Smuuuuttttt (pretty much how he announced it)

-------------------------

I think that’s it!

Thank you so much once again to everyone who joined the chat, we had 6 hours of laughs and i cannot wait to do it again. I’d appreciate it if you could share this to spread the love of the fics and authors on here!

Keep an eye out for the next date for our next livestream! It will be in a couple of weeks, date to be announced. If you guys have any idea’s or want something included, let us know. If you want to be tagged when we announce, let us know!

@deanwanddamons​ - tagging you babe as you asked so you can catch up on what we talked about <3 

THANK YOU.

xox

[militant-holy-knight]

In light of President Obama’s recent remarks comparing the brutality of the Islamic State to the Crusades, it might be time to take a fresh look at those events. Were they really the one-sided Dark Ages barbarism we have been taught? Were they an early manifestation of Western imperialism and global conquest?

In his landmark book, “God’s Battalions” (HarperOne 2009), Baylor University social sciences professor Rodney Stark suggests otherwise. It is a well-researched chronicle, including 639 footnotes and a bibliography of about 300 other works, yet reads like an adventure story full of military strategy and political intrigue.

What Prompted the Crusades

He begins in the final years of Mohammed and describes how a newly united Arab people swept through (Zoroastrian) Persia and the (Orthodox Christian) Byzantine-  controlled areas of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and North Africa. (Byzantine refers to the Greek-speaking eastern remainder of the Roman Empire.) Eventually Arabs took over control of the Mediterranean islands, most of Spain, and the southern part of Italy, and even reached as far as 150 miles outside of Paris before being turned back by the Franks, or early French.

The Muslims were brutal in their conquered territories. They gave pagans a choice of converting to Islam or being killed or enslaved. Jews and Christians (other People of the Book) were usually but not always treated somewhat better, and allowed to retain their beliefs but under conditions of Sharia subjugation. But the Muslim-held territories were not monolithic. Stark writes:

‘Perhaps the single most remarkable feature of the Islamic territories was the almost ceaseless internal conflict; the intricate plots, assassinations, and betrayals form a lethal soap opera. North Africa was frequently torn by rebellions and intra-Islamic wars and conquests. Spain was a patchwork of constantly feuding Muslim regimes that often allied themselves with Christians against one another.’

Not surprisingly, there was intense Christian resistance and determination to take back lost territories. Especially effective were the Normans and the Franks in Spain and Italy.

The Golden Middle Ages Belonged to Europeans

Western scholars have often characterized this clash of cultures as an Islamic Golden Age versus a European Dark Age, but Stark demolishes this as a myth. He says the best of the Islamic culture was appropriated from the people Muslims conquered—the Greeks, Jews, Persians, Hindus, and even from heretical Christian sects such as the Copts and Nestorians. He quotes E.D. Hunt as writing, “the earliest scientific book in the language of Islam [was a] treatise on medicine by a Syrian Christian priest in Alexandria translated into Arabic by a Persian Jewish physician.” Stark writes that Muslim naval fleets were built by Egyptian shipwrights, manned by Christian crews, and often captained by Italians.  When Baghdad was built, the caliph “entrusted the design of the city to a Zoroastrian and a Jew.” Even the “Arabic” numbering system was Hindu in origin.

And, while it is true that the Arabs embraced the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Stark comments,

‘However, rather than treat these works as attempts by Greek scholars to answer various questions, Muslin intellectuals quickly read them in the same way they read the Qur’an – as settled truths to be understood without question or contradiction…. Attitudes such as these prevented Islam from taking up where the Greeks had left off in their pursuit of knowledge.’

Meanwhile, back in Europe was an explosion of technology that made ordinary people far richer than any people had ever been. It began with the development of collars and harnesses that allowed horses to pull plows and wagons rather than oxen, doubling the speed at which people could till fields. Plows were improved, iron horseshoes invented, wagons given brakes and swivel axels, and larger draft horses were bred. All this along with the new idea of crop rotation led to a massive improvement in agricultural productivity that in turn led to a much healthier, larger, and stronger population.

Technology was also improving warfare with the invention of the crossbow and chain mail. Crossbows were far more accurate and deadly than conventional archery, and could be fired with very little training. Chain mail was almost impervious to the kind of arrows in use throughout the world. Mounted knights were fitted with high-back saddles and stirrups that enabled them to use more force in charging an opponent, and much larger horses were bred as chargers, giving the knights a height advantage over enemies. Better military tactics made European armies much more lethal. Stark writes:

It is axiomatic in military science that cavalry cannot succeed against well-armed and well-disciplined infantry formations unless they greatly outnumber them…. When determined infantry hold their ranks, standing shoulder to shoulder to present a wall of shields from which they project a thicket of long spears butted in the ground, cavalry charges are easily turned away; the horses often rear out of control and refuse to meet the spears.

In contrast, Muslim warriors were almost exclusively light cavalry, riding faster but lighter horses bareback with little armor, few shields, and using swords and axes. Their biggest advantage was their use of camels, which made them much more mobile than foot soldiers and gave them the ability to swoop in and out of the desert areas to attack poorly defended cities.

Muslims Slaughter, Rape, and Pillage

These differences provided Crusader armies with huge advantages, but what would prompt hundreds of thousand Europeans to leave their homes and travel 2,500 miles to engage an enemy is a desert kingdom—especially after the Muslim conquest of Europe had been turned back?

In 638 Jerusalem surrendered to Muslim invaders, and mass murders of Christian pilgrims and monks became commonplace.

There had been long-festering concern about the fate of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. After his conversion to Christianity in the early 300s, the Roman Emperor Constantine built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the site of what was believed to be Jesus’ tomb, and other churches in Bethlehem and on the Mount of Olives. These sites prompted a growing number of European pilgrims to visit the Holy Land, including Saint Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem for the last 32 years of his life as he translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin. By the late fifth century, Stark reports, more than 300 hostels and monasteries offered lodging to pilgrims in Jerusalem alone.

But in 638 Jerusalem surrendered to Muslim invaders, and mass murders of Christian pilgrims and monks became commonplace. Stark includes a list of select atrocities in the eight and ninth centuries, but none worse than the some 5,000 German Christians slaughtered by Bedouin robbers in the tenth century.

Throughout this period, control of Palestine was contested by several conflicting Muslim groups. Stark writes, “In 878 a new dynasty was established in Egypt and seized control of the Holy Land from the caliph in Baghdad.” One hundred years later, Tariqu al-Hakim became the sixth caliph of Egypt and initiated an unprecedented reign of terror, not just against Christians but against his own people as well. He burned or pillaged some 30,000 churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the tomb beneath it.

Soon enough, newly converted Turkish tribes came out of the north to seize Persia and Baghdad (by 1045) and press on to Armenia, overrunning the city of Ardzen in 1048, where they murdered all the men, raped the women, and enslaved the children. Next they attacked the Egyptians, in part because the Turks were Orthodox Sunnis and the Egyptians were heretical Shiites. While the Turks did not succeed in overthrowing the Egyptians, they did conquer Palestine, entering Jerusalem in 1071. The Turks promised safety to the residents of Jerusalem if they surrendered the city, but broke this promise and slaughtered the population. They did the same in Ramla, Gaza, Tyre, and Jaffa.

Emperor Alexius Pleads for Help

Finally, they threatened Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexius Comnenus wrote to Pope Urban II in 1095, begging for help to turn back the Turks. This was remarkable given the intense hostility between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Perhaps the pope saw an opportunity to unite or at least reduce tensions between the two Christian churches, but he responded with a call to create an army that would go to the Middle East.

Without ongoing support from Europe, the Crusaders could not survive constant attacks from the Muslims.

I am not going to regurgitate all the battles of the Crusades themselves. It is a fascinating history well worth studying in part for its parallels and lessons for today. Let’s just say that the Crusaders were extremely effective militarily, often defeating far larger Muslim armies, despite having traveled some 2,500 miles into an alien desert climate. Their biggest enemies were disease, starvation, and political betrayal. Plus, the Crusades were expensive and home countries grew weary of paying the taxes needed to support them (sound familiar?)

The Crusaders ended up establishing their own kingdoms in the Holy Land, which lasted for about 200 years or, as Stark notes, almost as long as the United States has existed; but without ongoing support from Europe they could not survive constant attacks from the Muslims.

How the Crusades Were Different from Military Action of the Day

So, what to make of all this?

The Crusaders were unique in that they did not seek to plunder or enslave.

Actually, the Crusaders were unique in that they did not seek to plunder or enslave. They didn’t even try to forcibly convert anyone to Christianity. Their sole interest was to protect the pilgrims and Christian holy sites. They sometimes sacked cities that refused to provide food to a hungry army, but they didn’t take riches back to Europe. There were few riches to be found. Rather than exploiting indigenous resources to benefit Europe, Europe sent money and resources to the Middle East. Pilgrims were quite lucrative for host countries, just as tourism is today.

War was a nasty and brutal business at the time, and had been for all of recorded history. Cities fortified themselves as protection against invading armies. A siege of a city meant surrounding the area and cutting off supplies until the population surrendered, often by starving. In the Bible, II Kings 6:24-33 relates the story of the siege of Samaria, in which two starving women agree to kill and eat their sons.

The rule of war at the time was that, if a city surrendered, the population would be spared, but if it resisted and the invading army had to take it by force all the inhabitants would be killed or enslaved. But Stark notes that Muslim armies often violated even this rule—promising sanctuary, then slaughtering the population that surrendered. (Before we get too smug and condescending about the savagery of these ancients, let’s not forget the rocket bombing of London, the firebombing of Dresden, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki a mere 70 years ago.)

Muslim armies often promised sanctuary, then slaughtered the population that surrendered.

One way in which Muslim fighters today have advanced over their forebears is that during the Crusades they did not adopt new tactics to counter the technological advantage of the Europeans. They never used crossbows or shielded infantry, even after several hundred years of fighting. Today, Muslim warriors quickly evolve to make the most of Western technology, although they still never seem to develop anything of their own.

An Enduring Clash Between Inquiry and Submission

One final thought on this. As Stark indicates above, there is in too many Muslim countries a sense of obedience that precludes robust debate or new ideas, let alone technological innovation. In his classic, “The World is Flat,” Thomas Friedman quotes Osama bin Laden as saying,

‘It is enough to know that the economy of all Arab countries is weaker than the economy of one country that had been part of our (Islamic) world when we used to truly adhere to Islam. That country is the lost Andalusia. Spain is an infidel country, but its economy is stronger that our economy because the ruler there is accountable. In our countries, there is no accountability or punishment, but there is only obedience to the rulers and prayers of long life for them. (pp. 400-401)’

Friedman confirms that this is based on a 2002 report, the first Arab Human Development Report. This report, written by Arabs, found that Spain had a larger gross domestic product than all 22 Arab states combined!

I think Stark is closer to the mark than bin Laden. The problem is a cultural way of thinking that starts with the Qur’an and the Prophet and emphasizes unquestioning obedience. The very name of the religion, Islam, means “submission.” The thinking of bin Laden that emphasizes punishing poor rulers is a complete misunderstanding how progress is made. European cultures place a high value on questioning everything, even the divinity of Jesus Christ. Certainly there have been exceptions to this, but in the sweep of history it is an unmistakable trait.

So we have perhaps the starkest conflict of worldviews imaginable: on one hand, a robust and virtually unlimited spirit of inquiry, and on the other a fervent dedication to universal obedience and submission. How this plays out is the story of our times.

[corinthbayrpg]

NAME. Lykaon Ambrosios AGE & BIRTH DATE. 2,514 & August 15th, 495 BC GENDER & PRONOUNS. Male & He/Him SPECIES. Incubus OCCUPATION. Owner of Corinth Bay Library FACE CLAIM. Kit Harington

BIOGRAPHY

( tw: slavery mention, war, death, suicide ) Unlike many of the supernatural that have found themselves drawn to Corinth Bay over the years, to Lykaon, the city has always been and always will be his true home. Back in the days when it bore the name Kórinthos, Lykaon was the son of a powerful Corinthian naval captain and a hetaira. She had been given to the Temple of Aphrodite at Acrocorinth as a slave in her youth, only to win over the attention of his father, who was so entranced by her beauty and charm, he bought her freedom from the temple and took her back to his estate to reside with his lawful wife and children. It was from their union that Lykaon was born. As his father’s first and only son, he was raised alongside his legitimate half-sisters in the same household, where he received education and training well above his station as a nothos, a bastard.

Having grown up in the time of the Greco-Persian Wars, with a hunger for glory and desire to emulate his father, and his mother dead years before from childbirth gone wrong, when Lykaon was a boy of sixteen he joined his father’s ship in the Battle of Artemisium. It was his first real taste of war, three brutal days of storms and fighting, with both sides stuck in a deadlock until news came that their allies on the land had lost the front line. Forced to retreat to Salamis, all their effort seemingly wasted, Lykaon witnessed the truth of war first hand. Unlike the romanticized stories he’d been regaled with in his childhood, it wasn’t glorious; it was violent, and merciless, and severe. But even so, he found that he thrived. There was never a time he felt more comfortable than with a sword in hand, adrenaline spiking in his veins.

Though the Corinthians and their Allies won the ensuing battle at Salamis with a decisive victory, it was not without loss, one of them being Lykaon’s father. The captain had taken a blow meant for his son, and died aboard the deck of the ship he’d given most of his life to. Unable to process his grief in the midst of battle, rather than deal with his emotions, Lykaon shoved them deep beneath the surface and focused his energy on the war. Leaving his father’s warship behind, the taste of the sea offering too many connotations, he joined the fight with the land infantry instead. As long as he was fighting, he did not have to deal with the fact that he was now without both his parents. The next year he spent working with the war effort, attacking on the front lines until the Battle of Plataea. With the Greeks emerging victorious, and the threat of the Persian invasion greatly diminished, Lykaon took his leave from official soldier life. But he didn’t put down his sword.

Instead, he took up the life of a misthios, a mercenary. Rather than returning to his father’s home, or officially joining ranks with the Corinthian army, he decided to set out upon the Greek world. He still participated in the war effort here and there, as it dragged on, but only to fatten his coffers and build a reputation. It gave him new life, while still putting his skills to use, and as long as Lykaon kept moving his stunted grief could not catch up with him. For nearly a decade and a half, he made a name for himself among the Greek city-states, and made good coin too, the only times he returned to Corinth being to give worship and offerings at Aphrodite’s altar. It was during such a visit, just outside the doors of the goddess’s temple, he was beset upon by a band of hired thugs. There had been a bounty placed on his head, it seemed. He had grown too well known, had crossed the wrong person on a job, and someone wanted him dead.

Though an excellent swordsman, Lykaon found himself outnumbered ten to one, and the wounds he took were grievous. When the fight was done, his attackers laid dead on the ground around him, but he wasn’t long left in the mortal world either. Stumbling back inside, he made it to the foot of Aphrodite’s altar, and prayed to the Goddess for salvation — for his body or his soul, he couldn’t say, only that he was dying and he was afraid, like a child crying out for their mother. And she came to him. Only half alive and delirious from blood loss, he didn’t think her real at first, but then she offered him a choice; that she could take him, change him, and he would have an immortal life on earth as a servant of her bidding. She could save him now, and he would go on and live, but at the end of his normal life he would become her creature. At the time, it didn’t seem like much of a decision to make at all. When faced with his own morality, Lykaon readily signed his soul away, even if he wasn’t quite sure what he was agreeing to at the time.

So he lived. The Goddess kept her word and healed him of his wounds, and Lykaon was given a second chance at life, one he was determined not to waste. Realizing just how much of a solitary life he had subjected himself to, to have almost died alone with no one to care left him with a hollow feeling. Putting his lust for glory aside, Lykaon instead took a wife, settled down on his new bride’s family estate, and started a family of his own. He still took jobs over the years, just to keep the coin flowing and their household comfortable, but never too far from Aphrodite’s temple in case she ever had need of him. It was a good life, a happy life; but he never lost his taste for battle.

It was the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, though no one knew it at the time. Corinth had declared war on Corcyra over dominion of city of Epidamnos, and although Lykaon was past the prime of his fighting years, he still felt the call to war; a foolish decision that in the end, proved to be his undoing. For several years he fought for his city-state, until he found himself caught in the Battle of Potidaea. In a way all to similar to his father’s death, he took a hit meant for another soldier, and was struck down on the field. And that was his end, or so he thought. Much to his surprise, he found himself awoke at night, still in that field of the dead, but no longer the same man he was. His body was young again, and his soul felt… changed. Darker. And yet, he was alive, when he shouldn’t have been. All at once he remembered Aphrodite’s deal. Sneaking past the blockade that had befallen the city, he returned to his home in Corinth, stopping to pray at Aphrodite’s temple and to thank the goddess for her gift.

To say his wife was surprised would be an understatement, but after Lykaon explained what he believed to have happened, they both accepted it as a blessing from Aphrodite. Unfortunately, Lykaon did not realize the truth of his new nature until it was too late, and his poor wife had fallen victim. Unknowingly have sucked out her soul, she became depressed and lethargic, and ended up throwing herself off the cliff side that backed to their estate. It was only then that he began to understand that while having contact with others made him feel better, it would be their ruin. Uncertain about the full extent of his ability and afraid for the safety of his children, if even a single touch of the hand could bring them harm, he left them in the care of guardians he trusted and left Corinth behind, never to return in the span of their lifetimes.

The adjustment to becoming an incubus was a rocky one at first, with great experimentation as to what seemed to effect others and what didn’t. And perhaps he relished in it a bit, in a twisted, crooked way that made his broken heart feel better. But the life of an immortal is a long one, and as the years passed by with the world ever-changing but Lykaon always stuck the same, he mellowed out a bit. He did Aphrodite’s biding as she required, but was left to his own devices when she had no need of his talents; eventually feeding just became feeding, and his existence was simply that — just existing. Which is the state he lives in currently, traveling around the world, never staying in one place for too long. But he always returns to Corinth Bay, when enough time has passed that mortals no longer remember his face.

PERSONALITY

+ wise, unassuming, valorous - apathetic, cynical, restless

PLAYED BY ABBY. CDT. She/Her.

[cincinnatusvirtue]

Alexander III “The Great”, King of Macedon (356-323BC) Part 1: The lay of the land...

His name conjures up all kinds of images and associations and the details of his life which spanned just shy of 33 years are far too expansive to be condensed into one post, so we’ll divide it into a few parts with a summary focus on what brought him to historical attention, his military conquests and some of his lasting impacts on culture and history.  First a bit of personal and geopolitical background are necessary.

Alexander was born in July of 356 BC in what is the city of Pella in the ancient Kingdom of Macedon in modern northern Greece.  His father was the then reigning King of Macedon, Philip II and his mother was one of Philip’s wives Olympias, a princess from another Greek kingdom, Epirus.  Ancient Greece was divided into city-states or polis or various small petty kingdoms without a unified rule in the 4th Century BC.  In centuries prior, Greece was dominated by two cities with two different systems of government and two different military traditions.  One was Athens, a direct democracy with an advanced and powerful navy and the other was the largely land based diarchy (two co-ruling kings) of Sparta, which was famed for its infantry and harsh military indoctrination with a reputation as an almost unbeatable force in the Classical Greek world.  Both played an important role in establishing Greek culture, philosophy, art, religion, military and government, all of which would contribute to modern Western Civilization.

Athens and Sparta were at times friendly but often rivals and most especially in the 5th Century BC with the invasion of Greece by the great superpower of the day in Eurasia, the Achaemenid Empire, better known as the Persian Empire from Iran.  The Persian Empire spanned from the Indus River valley in modern Pakistan and India across Central and Western Asia, the Middle East, Northern Africa and Southern Europe, it was multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious, cosmopolitan and very influential on governance.  It was centered in Iran, by the Persians, an Iranian people of the diverse Indo-Iranian ethnolinguistic group that overtook many others and expanded to become the predominant power of its age, probably in the entire world.  The Greek or Hellenic world was on Persia’s western fringe, it was a tributary portion, subject to the Persians but with a modicum of independence.  Persia’s provinces were divided into satrapies, ruled by royal governors called satraps.  Persia invaded Greece under Xerxes I, its Shah or King of Kings in 480 BC.  This united Greece and was famed for the stand of the Greek force, namely the 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae, which though a Persian victory was costly in lives and time, delaying the Persians.  Eventually the Persians retreated due to rebellion back east and the force that remained was defeated by the Greeks, giving the Greeks breathing space to maintain their independence.  In the wake of this victory though Athens and Sparta and their various other Greek allies turned on each other forming rival camps in the Peloponnesian War which saw Sparta defeat Athens and become the most powerful faction in Greece.

Meanwhile to the north in the highlands, Macedon was remote and rustic for a Greek kingdom, it was viewed as a backwater by its southern neighbors and some did not consider it Greek at all.  Though they are believed to have spoke their own dialect of Greek, worshipped in the same polytheistic religion as Greece and shared certain other cultural traits with the southern Greeks. Nevertheless their proximity to the barbarian tribes of the Balkans, the Thracians, Dacians and Illyrians made them some what of a halfway point between “civilized” Greece and outright barbarians.  However, the ruling dynasty into which Alexander was born, the Argead claimed descent from the legendary hero Heracles or Hercules and from there Zeus, God of Thunder and supreme on the Greek Pantheon of Olympian Gods.  They were famed for their military tradition, including cavalry and their infantry.  It was really Alexander’s father Philip who introduced the innovations to Macedon’s military that Alexander would perfect in later battles.

Their reforms were a result of technology, regimented drilling and a doctrine of combined arms, something most Greek military traditions up to that point ignored.  Typical emphasis was on one branch of the military, in Athens it was naval warfare, in Sparta, a strong infantry and Thessaly a strong cavalry.  Macedon lacked naval power at the time but it sought to emphasize both strong cavalry and infantry tactics in combined usage, one supporting the other throughout the battle.  Philip adopted tactics from his enemies, including the light infantry tactics of the Thracians, the light cavalry of the nomadic horse archer Iranian Scythians including their flying wedge tactic.  Most famously, Philip helped innovate a new technological and tactical formation, the phalanx.

The phalanx was a formation of regiments of heavy infantry using long spears called the sarissa, typically 18-20 feet long in units numbering 256 men each armed with a speared pike that was light in construction but due its length could keep the enemy at bay.  Phalanxes were both defensive and offensive in nature.  Its long spears meant it could defend itself at greater range in melee, deflecting cavalry and infantry charges head on and by going on the offensive and marching in formation, the phalanx could deploy to hold or press open the enemy line by fixing it into place in such a way that a gap could open for the Macedonian cavalry to exploit with its flying wedge formation, typifying the use of combined arms.  

Macedonian troops were drilled constantly, almost as much as Spartans but in a much looser more flexible and adaptable doctrine, making them more well rounded than their Spartan counterparts.  Philip would conquer the famed city of Thebes as well as defeat several barbarian tribes and went onto conquer much of Greece and got Athens to make peace but he never took on Sparta, nor did Alexander.  Nevertheless, with Macedon now the dominant power over Greece, Philip was named Hegemon of the Hellenic League, making him in effect the ruler of a mostly unified Greece.  His goal was to next invade the Persian Empire which was on the decline but he was assassinated by his own bodyguard.

At age 20, Alexander took the throne of Macedon, becoming the king but his rule was in jeopardy,  Alexander, however was a learned young man, thanks to his father hiring the famed Aristotle to be Alexander’s childhood tutor.  This well rounded classical education combined history, geography, mathematics, biology, philosophy and literature, all things which Alexander came to appreciate and support, but his military training was all from his father and his father’s trusted generals, many of whom Alexander now inherited himself.

Alexander would have to prove himself and his kingdom worthy of his father’s legacy while at the same time forging his own name.  He defeated both Thracian tribes to the north in modern Bulgaria and other Greek states, which like his father named him Hegemon and in 334 BC when he crossed the Hellespont from Greece into Asia Minor (modern Turkey), his forces would embark on a ten year campaign that would change the world and one from which he would never return home...

[apparently-im-a-hufflepuff]

Pedro Albizu Campos

An essay I wrote in 8th grade

    I was in the lobby, I had just bought some pastéles from the hotel restaurant. It was a very sunny day and many rich tourists were leaving to go to the beach. Just as I was about to take a bite of my pastél, all the chatter around me stopped. I turned to look at the the door and in walked two very important men. One had lost the election for Puerto Rican Senate, and the other one was Colonel E. Francis Riggs, he had come when the U.S invaded. Once they had sat down, the people around me started their conversations again. I could only understand some of what they were talking about, but I could tell they were speaking English. It sounded like they were having a normal conversation. They were talking about things like the weather. Then their conversation seemed to get more serious. I could understand they were talking about the position for senate. Colonel Riggs said that he would help the other man win the senate position next time, if he stopped helping with The Sugar Cane Strike. In response Don Pedro, El Maestro, stood up and told him “Puerto Rico is not for sale, at least not by me.” and then he left.

Pedro Albizu Campos was the president of the Puerto Rican National Party from 1930 - 1965. Albizu Campos was considered a hero to Puerto Ricans because he was fighting for their independence. He was considered a terrorist to the U.S because the National Party was using violent protests. He tried to gain Puerto Rican independence by protesting and traveling around South America and the Caribbean and spreading news about Puerto Rico.

Pedro Albizu Campos was born September 12, 1891 in Tenerías de Ponce, Puerto Rico. His father, Alejandro “El Vizcaíno” Albizu Romero, never paid attention to him. His mother, Juliana Campos, was suicidal. She tried to drown both of them in Río Bucaná multiple times. Later, when he was 4 years old, she tried to walk across the river and drown. His mom had drowned and his dad wasn’t around.  Being orphaned at 4 he ran around Puerto Rico barefoot until his aunt adopted him. When he was 7 years old the U.S invaded Puerto Rico. General Miles was one of the first Americans to come to Puerto Rico after the U.S had invaded. He had just finished his speech about how Puerto Rico was part of the U.S. Then 7 year old Pedro Albizu Campos, who couldn’t understand English yet, shouted “¡Que viva Puerto Rico!” 

Pedro Albizu Campos didn’t go to school until he was 12 years old. Even though he started school late, he finished the first 8 grades in 4 ½ years. By the time he was in high school he had caught up with his original grade. He the graduated from Ponce High School in 2 years with a 96% average. He was at the top of his class. He was fluent in many languages. By the time he graduated from college he was fluent in Spanish, English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek.

In 1912, Albizu Campos was accepted into the University Of Vermont. There he studied chemistry. After a year he transferred to Harvard. While at Harvard he taught Spanish at Walpole High School and tutored many other students in chemistry, French and Spanish. He also worked as a translator and was a writer for the Christian Science Monitor. He also met Laura Menses, who was a Quechua Native American from Peru, at Harvard and proposed to her on their third date. Later they had 3 kids; Pedro, Rosa Emilia, and Laura. He was supposed to be the valedictorian of his graduating class at Harvard, but his professors delayed his exams so that he couldn’t graduate on time or give his speech. They delayed his exams because he was going to be the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard, and they didn’t want him to be valedictorian because of his background. During World War I he joined the U.S Army’s Infantry Branch. He was assigned to the 375th Infantry Regiment and became the 2nd Lieutenant. In 1918 he was honorably discharged from the military. He returned to Harvard in 1919 and studied law, literature, philosophy, chemical engineering and military science.

After graduating from Harvard a second time, he was offered many jobs; a clerkship with the U.S Supreme Court, a diplomatic post at the U.S embassy in Mexico, Judgeship in Yauco, Puerto Rico, and an executive position with a U.S corporation. Instead he moved back to Puerto Rico and bought a house in a poor barrio, so he could would know about all the problems regular people had. He joined the Union Party of Puerto Rico and then left in 1921 to join the Puerto Rican National Party. In 1924 he became the vice-president and in 1930 he became the president of the National Party. The National Party wanted all the Puerto Rican land and banks to be controlled by Puerto Rico. They also wanted Spanish to be the first language in the schools and didn’t want to make any payments to the U.S. In 1932 he tried to run for Puerto Rican Senate, but he only got 5,257 votes and lost. After he lost the election, he got many death threats, so he took his family to Peru to keep them safe. Then he traveled through South and Central America, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba. In Cuba he created “National Junta Por Independencia De Puerto Rico” (National Board For The Independence Of Puerto Rico).

By 1934, the U.S owned most of Puerto Rico’s sugar cane and coffee farms. Since the U.S owned the farm,s the workers didn’t get paid much money. Albizu Campos led the strike to get the workers more money. During the strike he helped create the Ascoiación De Trabajadores De Puerto Rico (The Workers Association Of Puerto Rico). He then caught the attention of Colonel E. Francis Riggs, who told him that he’d help him win the spot for Senate next time, if he stopped helping with the strike. Colonel Riggs also told Albizu Campos that if he didn’t take stop, he’d take his offer to Luis Muñoz Marin. In response Albizu Campos told him “Puerto Rico is not for sale, at least not by me.” Muñoz Marin ended up winning the spot for Senate. Later he created the Cadets of the Republic, which was a youth nationalist party. He also came to be called Don Pedro or El Maestro (The Teacher). 

Albizu Campos was sent to jail many times during his life. He was found guilty for “conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States.” He was sentenced for 10 years and was sent to a jail in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1950 there was a Nationalist attack on a police station and they tried to assassinate President Harry Truman. Albizu Campos was found guilty, even though he wasn’t there, for attempted murder and illegal use of arms. Many people in Puerto Rico protested in response to him getting arrested. The protests led to the Ponce Massacre where the police shot and killed 21 Puerto Ricans including a 53 year old and a 7 year old girl. The U.S also created a law called La Ley De La Mordaza. According to the law Puerto Ricans couldn’t display their flag or sing patriotic songs. Later he was arrested again because two nationalists, Elias Beauchamp and Hiram Rosado, assassinated a police chief. Later Beauchamp and Rosado were killed and it became known as the Piedras (stones) Massacre. In 1950 there were uprisings in towns around Puerto Rico. People were protesting Albizu Campos’s arrest. Blanca Canales, who was 24 years old, led an attack on the governor's mansion in San Juan. Don Pedro was sentenced for 80 years, but in 1953 Governor Luis Muñoz Marin pardoned him. Later an independence group assaulted The Blair House  in Washington D.C and he was arrested again. 

While in jail Albizu campos was tortured with radiation. He was put into Total Body Irradiation (TBI) for five years. He was getting burns, headaches, sores and was feeling sick from the radiation. The prison guards called him “El Rey De Las Toallas” (The King Of Towels) because the only way for him to lessen the pain was to be wrapped in damp towels. The guards put two prisoners in his cell with him and they were getting burns and headaches just by being close to him. Whenever the U.S was questioned about it, they told people that he was crazy. An Argentine newspaper called Verdad (true) had a headline that said “The Apostle Of Puerto Rican Liberty Is Slowly Being Murdered In Jail By Means Of Electronic Rays.” He was tortured in prison until March 27, 1956 when he had cerebral thrombosis and fell into a coma. The prison guards waited two days before taking him to the hospital. He was taken to San Juan Presbyterian Hospital. While there the President Of The Cuban Cancer Association confirmed that he had been exposed to radiation. For the last nine years of his life he couldn’t walk or talk and the right side of his body was paralyzed. He died April 21, 1965 and was buried in the Old San Juan Cemetery.

Pedro Albizu Campos came to be known by many names like Don Pedro, El Maestro and he was also sometimes called the Puerto Rican Malcolm X. He spent most of his life fighting for Puerto Rican freedom. No matter how hard he tried Puerto Rico is still part of the U.S. Even though he didn’t gain the freedom he wanted, he still made an impact on many places. In Ponce, Puerto Rico, there is a statue of him in Pedro Albizu Campos Park. In New York City, Campos Plaza was named after him. In Paseo Boricua, Chicago, in Humboldt Park there is also a statue of him.

After his death the FBI files about the radiation were declassified. People found out that the U.S was torturing not only Albizu Campos, but many other Puerto Ricans. Some Puerto Ricans still feel like they don’t have as many rights as continental Americans. The U.S says that they are waiting for the island to figure out whether the want to be part of it or not. 

Many places in Puerto Rico celebrate Albizu Campos’s birthday. The first time his birthday was celebrated was in Ponce 40 years ago. Now many places in Puerto Rico celebrate his birthday, even though most people don’t know what he did. Some famous people have also tried to spread his message. René Pérez, from the band Calle 13, is one of those people. Some other people are Andres Jimenez and El Jibaro, they wrote a song called Pedro Albizu Campos.

In conclusion Pedro Albizu Campos was a hero to many Puerto Ricans. He turned down many jobs in the U.S so that he could fight for independence. He was also arrested multiple times. Sometimes he wasn’t even there for the event that caused his arrest. He stood up for what he believed in and he was taking a stand until he died on April 24, 1965. If Albizu Campos had never took a stand the world today probably wouldn’t be much different. Puerto Rico is still part of the U.S and many people don’t know who he is. He is also still considered a terrorist to the the U.S, which means people probably won’t be learning about him in schools.

[instantjellyfishtimemachin-blog1]

Why should we seek to abolish war?

The war left many dead and many more homeless. It also turns people into killers because it arouses fear and anger high enough to push us beyond the boundaries of human dignity. "War is a teacher of violence," wrote Thucydides, the Greek historian. As we now count the deaths and atrocities in Ukraine, we should not forget that war itself leads to atrocities, no matter who started it. We can look back to the RECORD of the United States during the Vietnam War. After the My Lai massacre, the U.S. military covered it up for a long time. It took more than a year for the truth to gradually emerge. In order to expose the LIES of the US military and bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice, Us film producer Joseph Stricker and his team searched across the US for those who had taken part in the massacre, eventually finding five veterans who were willing to defy the military's "order of silence" and reconstruct the actual scene of the My Lai massacre.

On March 15, 1968, U.S. Army Captain Ernest Medina ordered Charlie Company of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade to burn down buildings and kill livestock in my Lai village, Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam, while villagers were out for market. The next day, Lieutenant William Kelly and his men opened fire on my Lai, killing all the villagers they encountered. Most of them were children, women, and the elderly. The My Lai massacre is the most famous example of American violence against Vietnamese civilians during the war, but it is not the only one. The atrocities committed by American troops in Vietnam were far worse than anything we know happened in the War in Ukraine. War and atrocities against civilians have always gone hand in hand, and that is one reason why we should work to abolish war. If we want to end the atrocities of war, we must push for the abolition of war itself. Killing civilians is not the only atrocity of war. Most military deaths in war are atrocity, and they should not happen. The young men who bore the brunt of the war did not do anything wrong with that war, so they did not deserve to die. We can't justify conscripted teenagers killing a war they don't understand. Killing morally innocent young people is terrible, and that's the second reason why war should be abolished. The third reason is that war hurts us morally when it turns us into killers. Few of us can emerge from combat experience without some degree of moral damage. A war cannot satisfy all the moral rules of justice in war. Even veterans suffer moral damage all the time, so it's not enough to just follow the traditional laws of war, we need to abolish war altogether.

Sadly, it takes war to abolish war. If the Kremlin succeeds in using war to its advantage, it could become more common globally. To abolish war, we must ensure that the Kremlin does not profit from it. America's record has been poor, sometimes atrocious. But we must not let the past keep us from making bad decisions. We must build coalitions to end war!

Somebody has learned I was keeping the paper towels on top of the fridge and then taught herself to jump on top of my cabinets so my paper towels are no longer safe