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qqueenofhades · 3 months ago

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I don’t have any words right now for what’s happened. Where in the fuck do we go from here?

I don't know. I really, truly don't know. We can't sugarcoat how bad things are going to get, and we can't pre-emptively give into it anyway. This is going to be an unprecedented time in American history (if, sadly, not world history) and the forces conspiring to make you obey will gain much of their power from you doing so in advance, without a struggle. It seems fair to say that America as it has always been historically constituted is over, and may not return in our lifetimes, but we also do not know that for a fact. If nothing else, the fascists will find it very hard to cancel competitive elections, and we cannot sit back, throw up our hands, conclude that voting is clearly meaningless, and let them do that. There are a lot of other things that we need to do, but that's one.

There are various postmortems to be written and nits to pick, but Harris was thrown into an impossible situation and did the best she could in 100 days. Even her critics agree she ran a pretty much flawless campaign. But this country simply decided that a well-qualified black woman could not be preferred over the most manifestly and flagrantly unfit degenerate to ever occupy the office. They decided this for many reasons, not least because large swathes of the country now live in curated misinformation bubbles that, under Government Czar Musk, will only get much, much worse. They were helped by the cowardice and complicity of the "mainstream media" that could have ended Trump's career exactly like they did to Biden after the first debate, but chose to preserve the profits of their billionaire oligarch owners and did not do so, giving Trump the benefit of the doubt and normalization at every turn. They also hounded Biden relentlessly over the four years of his presidency, never reported on the good things he did, and drove him to the historically bad approval ratings lows for a president who was by any metric, quite successful (and will quite possibly be our last ordinary American president for a very long time). Along with the searingly ingrained racism and misogyny and misinformation, Harris could not overcome that.

Democrats clearly had a messaging problem, but it's also true that the country, quite simply, does not care about "democracy" when the economy is perceived to be at stake. Not to over-egg the Hitler parallels, but yeah. This is how Hitler returned to power in 1933 -- on the backs of widespread economic collapse of the Weimar Republic; voters decided they just didn't care about the overtly fascist stuff, which he then proceeded to you know, do with genocidal vigor. Except the American economy in this case was actually doing well, which makes it even more baffling and indefensible. Enough people simply memory-holed Trump's crimes (aided at every turn by SCOTUS, Mitch McConnell not convicting him after January 6, Merrick Garland being far too slow and timid, the corporate media), liked the racist fascist behavior or felt that it wasn't a dealbreaker, and decided that in this election, he was the "change" candidate. It's insane by any metric, but that's what happened.

The country is deeply sick. We do not know what will happen. It's going to get bad. Barring a miracle, we will not have federalized abortion rights again in my lifetime, and there will be widespread attacks on public health, women's rights, immigrants, transgender people, and other vulnerable people. Even and especially the ones who voted for Trump. Never Thought Leopard Would Eat My Face, etc. Alito and Thomas will swiftly step down and allow their seats to be replaced by 40-year old wingnuts hand-selected from the worst the Federalist Society has to offer. SCOTUS is gone for the next generation at least. There is very little prospect of it being ever fixed in the foreseeable future.

Trump will never face a scintilla of consequences for his previous crimes; all the open federal cases will be closed as soon as he takes office and fires Jack Smith. The best we can hope for is that he dies in office, but then we get Vance and the cadre of alt-right techno billionaires ruled directly from the Kremlin. Putin is celebrating this morning and with good reason; he's gotten everything he wants. Trump will egg on Netanyahu in Gaza and abandon Ukraine. Democracy across the world will remain even more fragile and badly under threat. Authoritarians will be empowered and American withdrawal from international systems will percolate in very dangerous ways that cannot and will not be fixed in the short run. I really hope all the leftists who celebrate this as the "defeat of the genocide candidate" will enjoy all the genocide and suffering that's about to come. And yes, I do think the Israel-Palestine war fucked us in a large way. Jewish voters perceived the Democrats as insufficiently pro-Israel due to the presence of far-left antisemitism, even as the far left attacked the Democrats relentlessly and never targeted the Republicans. Arab voters abandoned them, possibly deservedly. What would have happened without the war? We don't know. You get the historical period that you get. Netanyahu and Trump can now do anything they want. Hope it was worth it.

As I said, I can't sugarcoat it. We are going to be paying for this in some form for the next decade, and probably longer. I'm not as absolutely shattered as I was in 2016, but I am much, much angrier. We all thought, we all hoped, America was better than this. It isn't. That, however, is something that has also happened before. What we decide to do next will shape how the next chapter unfolds.

This would be a great time to stock up on needed medicines, renew your passport online, and anything else you need to do in preparation for next year. Many of us simply do not have the wherewithal, whether financial or otherwise, to leave the country. I don't know what will happen with me. I don't know what will happen to any of us. This was utterly avoidable and yet, America didn't want to avoid it. At some point, there's nothing else you can do. You can point to media cronyism, Russian influence, etc etc., but the fact that two of the most qualified presidential candidates who happened to be women have now lost to Trump twice makes it unavoidable. The virulent rightward shift of young men (of all races) in particular paints a grim picture as to how the reactionary misogyny of the 21st century is going to essentially undo most of the progress for social and gender equality in the 20th. The patriarchy has been a problem for most of human history. Doesn't really seem like it's going to change.

The end result of this, however grim: we're still here. We are still living within our communities. If (and this is a big if) Democrats can retake the House, they can put some checks on the process for the next two years. At this point, we are in full-out buying-time, trying-to-prevent-the worst mode. We could have continued fixing things, but we won't be doing that. We will only be trying to preserve ourselves and our friends and our smaller spheres of influence. It sounds very trite to say that we have to have courage, but we do. There's not much else.

It's going to be an awful winter. We have two and a half months to see this coming and know how bad it's going to be, and... yeah. I don't know how soon the buyer's remorse will inevitably set in, but it will. Tough luck, people. You voted for him. You get the country that you decide to have. But the rest of us are also here, and what Gandalf says is still true. We wish the Ring had never come to us, we wish none of this had happened, but we still have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us.

I don't have a lot more. I'll probably be logging off for a while. I don't need to look at the internet for.... yeah, a long time. (Will I do it anyway? Probably.) I don't know what else to leave you with, aside from again:

Do not obey in advance. Do not act as if everything is foreordained and set in stone. Fascist regimes end. They always do. We are going to have to figure out how, and it will suck shit, but the alternative is worse.

Take care of yourselves. I love you.

#silverbolt200 #ask #politics for ts #the national nightmare

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satinestales · 8 months ago

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❝self destructive tendencies❞ | qimir x fem!reader

pairing: qimir x fem!reader

● this is a 3rd pov, if you want to read 2nd pov, here●

summary: A week has passed since the battle on Khofar and the startling reveal of her former friend. Qimir, the man behind the mask and the murderer of her comrades took her to a remote island, far away from the Republic's surveillance, after she sustained severe injuries. She's been keeping her distance from him, trying to ignore her hidden feelings. Yet, when his thoughts merge with hers, the vow she made to herself becomes almost impossible to keep.

warnings: english is not my first language, sexual tension, lots of sexual tension, corruption, sexual themes/dreams, E Y E C O N T A C T, qimir, mentions of blood and injuries

author's note: I could not be a jedi I'd turn into aquaman if he asked me to join him

now playing, love in the sky by the weeknd

*:..。♡*ﾟ¨ﾟﾟ·*:..。♡౨ৎ 🍓｡˚🍰♡ ˚..。♡*ﾟ¨ﾟﾟ·*:..。♡ ︎

The moon hung low over the horizon, casting an eerie glow on the waves that lapped against the shores of the ghostly island. Qimir’s silhouette stood out against the backdrop of the night sky, his presence a constant reminder of the blood and carnage he left on Khofar. As she lay on the rough sand, the pain from her injuries pulsed faintly, and she could not shake the mixture of fear and thirst that his proximity stirred within her. The island was a planet unknown to her, and as much as she tried to examine the surface, its location remained elusive. She supposed it might have been somewhere in the Outer Rim or beyond. Somewhere where the Republic would have a difficult way of finding her. World away from the Republic’s watchful eyes, and here, with only Qimir for company, she felt both vulnerable and strangely contented.

She decided to relax on the beach, further away from Qimir’s constant presence that melted her thoughts. However, luck wasn't on her side; minutes after settling in, he walked past her to his favorite bathing spot, smirk on his face as he acknowledged her presence. It was late at night, her legs and arms sore from the repetitive training she put herself through. The island offered few diversions. Waiting for Qimir’s next move or for Sol to find her wasn’t her idea of a perfect day. The injuries covering her body were difficult to ignore, and she refused to let Qimir get close enough to her to heal them. She told herself she would rather bleed out than feel his touch on her skin. Deep down, though, she knew the real reason for keeping him at bay.

So, she lay there, absentmindedly playing with a rock she found, irritated by his presence but too weary to consider moving again. She had to admit her fault; she had set up camp right in front of his favorite spot. Over the past week, she had seen him bare many times. First unbothered but lately it had gotten under her skin. She had been friends with Qimir for some time before discovering his true identity behind the mask and his responsibility for her friends' murders. Their deaths pained her, but the betrayal and realization of his deception cut deeper. After many years, she thought she found herself a friend outside the temple. One that she could share her interests and secrets with, without the fear of being judged by the Jedi. She told him about her fears and likes. Her doubts in the order and her wish to help people as much as she could. About her hate and desire. The Sith emotions. Now he’s using them to lure her in and trap her on the other side.

She wasn’t the most perceptive, but his intentions were clear. He knew her feelings, her likes, and dislikes; she had shared them with him when she believed he was her friend and a supplier. Even a blind person could see his thoughts, and her strength in the Force allowed her to delve into his mind, revealing more than she wished to know.

She couldn’t tear her eyes away as he slowly shed his clothes to enter the water, a routine he seemed to relish. Despite her experiences in battles and missions, witnessing the horrible conditions and lack of hygiene, even her comrades didn’t bathe as frequently as Qimir did before her. She considered herself fortunate; at least he smelled good, even if the scent of sandalwood mixed with citrus fruit drove her mad. She smelled it when she woke up, during meals and training, and before sleep. She felt him everywhere. She wasn’t sure for how much longer she could endure it.

She studied the muscles of his back as he swam slowly, admiring them from her vantage point. He was undeniably strong, scars marring his skin a testament to the pain he had endured. She observed how his dark hair moved with his motions, how he ran his long thick fingers through it while washing it gently. His biceps tensed as he splashed water around his neck, and she noticed the way he caressed his chest, attempting to cleanse away the day’s dirt.

It was only when she accidentally crushed the rock in half that she realized the intensity of her stare. Clearing her throat, she sat up and leaned against the mossy bank behind her, feeling shame wash over her. She was convinced his own dreams had started to corrupt her.

One of the curses of being a Jedi was the ability to read minds, and Qimir was no exception. She saw his thoughts vividly, filled with bright colors that sent adrenaline coursing through her veins. She wondered if he wanted her to delve into his mind, to make her believe he desired her, or if he simply didn’t care. She feared he could read her thoughts too, despite her lifelong ability to block out others with ease.

She lied to herself, convincing herself that she was immune to his ideas, desires, and magnetic charm. But every time he looked at her, towered over her, or she smelled him in the air, her knees buckled, her stomach tightened, and she fought against the need to press her legs together. She felt sick, and his mind brushing against hers didn’t help.

She felt it every time he drew near. He visualized her hands in his mind, how they caressed his scars and shoulders. She saw his hair falling down as he towered over her, gently pushing her against the cold floor of his cave. She felt his breath against her neck, his fingers pulling her hair, his skin pressed against hers. In his dreams, she never resisted. He was corrupting her in his dreams, and she never once objected in them. She was embarrassed he got her mannerisms right.

She was so lost in their shared thoughts that she didn’t notice Qimir making his way out of the water, his eyes fixated on her with dangerous intensity. He carefully leaned down to grab a towel, amusement playing on his lips. He didn’t want to wake her from her thoughts, whatever they may have been.

As he gently dried himself with the soft cloth, not taking his eyes off her, he tried to read her mind, even if he failed millions of times before. He never had difficulty reading someone; one look at them and he could see their whole past. But with her, he had no idea what she was thinking or planning, or what images played in her head. She was strong, stronger than the ones he had met before, and he admired that. He praised her strength in the Force and her ability to protect herself from her nemesis. Like him.

But he could read body language. He noticed how she tensed around him when he walked past her. How her chest started rising faster whenever he stared her down. Her goosebumps when they brushed against each other. How she pressed her legs together when he towered over her. And how she was now crushing the rock in her hand, gazing in his direction.

“You can always join me, you know that.” He breathed out, letting the cloth fall to the ground, replacing it with his long blouse. She almost wanted to take the top from him just so she could continue her view, but when she finally recollected her thoughts, she wanted to slap herself. “It would help with your wounds when you don’t let me heal them.” He uttered, dressing himself, not breaking eye contact with her. He liked her stare. He liked how she fought with her emotions and how they reflected in her eyes. It pleased him.

“I’m okay,” she faked a smile, swallowing the ridiculous amount of saliva in her mouth. She forced herself to look somewhere other than his strong forearms or how he dragged the pants up his muscular legs. She found a cute shell, admiring it from afar.

She didn’t catch the grin on his face as her face turned pink and she clenched her fists. He was amused with her reactions, but her ripped bandage and the blood revealing itself underneath caught his full attention. His face froze, along with his movements while buttoning up his shirt. He would never touch her unless she wanted him to, but her leg was nowhere near being healed and with the lack of medical supplies on this island, she’d lose it long before she’d be able to leave the island.

“Let me help you.” It wasn’t a question, more of a subtle order. She didn’t miss it. A week ago, on Khofar, Qimir had stopped himself before fatally hurting her, but he still landed a strike on her leg that had trouble healing. She was stubborn enough to push him away when he offered his help, and now she started to slowly regret it.

“I don’t need anything from you,” she hissed at him, catching a glimpse of his unbuttoned blouse.

“You’re a powerful Jedi, and I don’t doubt you’d be still as fierce as you are now without your leg,” he murmured, making his way towards her, leaving his bag and shoes near the water. “If you want to risk it.” She watched him tilt his head as he slowly approached her. She could only see the images in his mind, his plans and ideas. But underneath it all, he didn’t mean it in a bad way. He wanted to help her. In his own way. He was her friend; he knew her weaknesses and strengths. He knew what she wanted, and he was willing to give it to her. But she couldn’t erase the lying and murder of her friends. She wanted her friend back. Maybe something else this time, but her trust in him had faded. Now it was just Qimir, confusing her thoughts and making her rethink her morals. She felt as disgusted with him as she felt with herself. But she understood him. Or at least tried to.

So, she didn’t oppose, letting him kneel in front of her, his hands carefully reaching out to her ripped bandage above her knee. He was so close she could smell him again. His hair fell into his face, covering his eyes that were focusing only on her wound. His fingers worked fast but tenderly as he lifted her thigh to unwrap the bandage. She swallowed hard, feeling his veiny hand below her leg. She was scared he could feel her burning skin, hoping he would mistake it as a result of the injury.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you on Khofar,” she heard him whisper, gripping the sand below her as he threw away the bandage, the cold air kissing her open wound. She almost heard pity in his voice. She was certain she imagined it.

She begged herself to look away, but her eyes betrayed her as they glared down at his hand that was almost as big as her thigh. He covered the wound, not touching it fully, concentrating on restoring her cells.

She was fascinated by how quickly the wound closed up, leaving only a small scar across her thigh. She had wanted to learn how to force heal ever since she lost her friend to a fatal injury as a kid, but the Jedi never taught her. No matter how hard she pleaded. Whenever she asked, they gave the same answer: only dark side users possess this power. She always felt it was ridiculous.

“How do you do it?” she managed to ask, ignoring Qimir’s confused stare as he picked up his head and drew his hand away from her. But he didn’t move position and kept kneeling between her feet. “How do you force heal?” she felt embarrassed asking, but he was one of her only chances to learn.

A soft smile crept to his lips as he moved his eyes from her face to her hands. She suddenly became aware of her vulnerable position.

“In order to heal someone,” he started, softness in his voice, no signs of mockery. “You need to focus on your own energy, imagine it and visualize it. Imagine its color, like you do with the Force.” He continued, his hands moving in motion with his words.

She could feel the warmth radiating off him as he sat centimeters away, his wet hair framing his sharp features. His eyes were dark, only the light of the moon reflecting in them. His lips were full, stretched as he shared his knowledge with her. She didn’t move a muscle and returned his stare. It was only the two of them.

“The Jedi teach only one way. Physical way. Taking your physical energy and giving it to someone who needs it,” he whispered, leaning his head to the side, giving her a view of his sharp jaw. His neck was thick, his collarbones defined. “But there is another way.” He stopped to look at her, examining her expression. She was listening intently, breathing fast, and her eyes bored so deeply into him he was certain she could read everything he was thinking. He let her.

“Below the surface of consciousness are powerful emotions. Anger. Fear. Loss.” He started listing, his eyes twitching between her eyes and her lips. “Desire.”

Her leg muscles twitched, her core burning up. She wanted to bury herself.

“Only Sith feel those emotions,” she whispered back, denying herself. She saw a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth before he lowered his gaze.

“You can draw energy from them, direct them in any way you want,” he purred, looking back at her, letting her feel his emotions. “However, whenever you want.” He lowered his voice as he stretched the last words, reading her face.

He knew she read his mind. He knew she saw the images that kept him awake and his wishes. He had had them since he met her months ago, and when he sensed her attraction toward him, they only intensified. He wanted her and was simply waiting for her to admit the same to herself, no matter how long it would take.

#star wars #qimir the acolyte #qimir #osha x qimir #star wars qimir #qimir smut #qimir x reader #qimir fic #acolyte ep6 #the acolyte #star wars the acolyte #starwars fic #star wars smut #starwars

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saphronethaleph · 8 months ago

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Longform Statistical Analysis

“Master Nu,” Windu said, with a smile. “It’s nice to see you in the Council Chambers once more.”

“Thank you,” the librarian replied, inclining her head. “Unfortunately, I bring dire news.”

“...you do?” Windu asked, worried now. “What kind of dire news?”

“Dire news coming out of the library is usually either trivial or an absolute disaster,” Ki-Adi-Mundi contributed. “Which is it, so we can decide how worried to be?”

“Quite possibly, both,” Nu told him. “To summarize… Masters, two years ago we discovered that the Sith were not extinct. With this in mind, I have been engaged on a long-term project – I evaluated data about the discovery, admittance, tenure and ultimate loss of every single Jedi for which we have data. Every one in our archives.”

“Now I understand why it took so long,” Even Piell said. “In fact, I credit your skills for taking so little time. That must have been… what, a thousand years… there are ten thousand knights now… hundreds of thousands of Jedi total?”

“Around that,” Nu confirmed. “But the problem is… this. This is the number of active Jedi at any one time, during the first hundred years after Ruusan.”

Her holoprojector activated, showing a kind of flow diagram made out of strands of light. Light yellow marked those newly discovered and accepted as initiates, green padawans, blue for knights and purple marked those who were masters. The tiny Order, wounded but triumphant in the years immediately after Ruusan, was reborn and swelled as it gained more members and those members it had reached greater degrees of Mastery.

“Two hundred years,” Nu went on, as the diagram swelled and zoomed out. The growth was slower now, harder to see on the same scale, but the Order pulsed in colours of green and blue and purple as the Golden Age of the Republic continued.

“...you said this was dire?” Adi Gallia asked.

“We’ll get there,” Nu said, accelerating the projection a little.

As it ran forwards, decade after decade passing by until it approached the present, Master Yaddle leaned forwards in her seat.

She wasn’t the only one. It was subtle, almost imperceptible, but the Jedi Order – which had swelled to enormous, triumphant scale during the Golden Age – had begun to contract again.

By the time it reached the present day, it still possessed deep reserves of strength, but the colouring was… just a little different. The purple of Mastery was less common, though the blues and greens of Knighthood and Padawan were still fully present, and Nu manipulated her controls a bit more.

A second strand appeared, this one much thinner and more intermittent. And, as time tracked towards the present, it went from a shading of mostly blue hundreds of years ago to shades that were a little more green.

“This is the members of our Order who left our ranks due to their death,” Nu explained. “While the differences year-to-year are so minor that I would hesitate to describe them as meaningful, when given the long view and looked at in aggregate the effect is clear.”

She folded her arms. “The Sith faced by Knight Kenobi is the anomaly – an open Sith attack which makes no pretensions as to what they are. This is what I would call a true threat, Councillors. Not a single Sith who seeks to kill individual Jedi in a duel, but a centuries-long program of gradual, subtle, pervasive damage to the Jedi Order, chiefly through the loss of Padawans before they become Knights.”

“You think the Sith are behind this?” Ki-Adi-Mundi asked.

“Behind any given casualty?” Nu asked. “...no. I have no proof I could offer, though a detailed examination of the loss of any given Padawan may conclude that there was some other factor behind their death. Behind the whole pattern? I think it’s quite possible, Master Mundi. We know the Sith can plot and plan for something for a thousand years, and there are only two targets for such a plot that make any sense – ourselves, and the Republic.”

She met the gaze of each councillor in turn. “If this is not due to the Sith, my friends, then we must ask ourselves – what is? They have been doing something for ten centuries and we know nothing about it.”

After a slightly dismayed silence, Yoda tapped his gimmer stick on the floor.

“Much to think about, we have,” he said. “Master Nu – more to say, have you?”

“Yes,” Nu replied. “My presentation, I hope, serves as a reminder that the Sith did not appear out of nowhere two years ago. They have been doing things over the last thousand years, and it is quite possible that we have run into their machinations without identifying them as such… it would be a great mistake to generalize from the Sith defeated by Knight Kenobi.”

“...hmm,” Windu said, frowning. “During the interrogations of Nute Gunray. He said that his actions were based on a shadowy figure pressing him to get a treaty signed by Queen Amidala of the Naboo. That treaty would have benefitted the Trade Federation, but nobody else.”

“The wording of the treaty, benefit the Trade Federation, it would,” Yaddle said. “The existence of the treaty – benefit someone else, perhaps?”

In his office, Sheev Palpatine paused halfway through reading a law.

He had the strange feeling that he’d just been betrayed by his greatest ally. But that was nonsense, since the closet thing he had left to a true ally was paperwork…

#star wars #mace windu #ki adi mundi #jocasta nu #yoda #another bad day for palps #palpatine

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ultimateca · 27 days ago

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probablyasocialecologist · 7 months ago

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In place of blanks on the map, we’re now able to see highly cultivated landscapes with massive infrastructure stretching back to the early centuries BCE. Road networks, terraces, ceremonial earthworks, planned residential neighbourhoods, and regional settlement systems ordered into patterns of geometrical precision can be traced across Amazonia, from Brazil to Bolivia, as far as the eastern foothills of the Andes. In certain parts of Amazonia, the forest itself turns out to be a product of past human interaction with the soil. Over time, this generated the rich ‘anthropogenic’ earths called terra preta de índio (‘black earth of the Indians’), with levels of fertility far in excess of ordinary tropical soils. Scientists now believe that between 10,000 and 20,000 large-scale sites remain to be discovered across Amazonia. Similarly startling finds are emerging from Southeast Asia, and we might reasonably expect them from the forested parts of the African continent too. Of course, the same procedures are changing our picture of tropical landscapes that did witness the rise and fall of great kingdoms, and even empires. Archaeologists now believe that in the year 500 CE, between 10 and 15 million people lived in the Maya lowlands of Yucatán and northern Guatemala. For comparison, the Atlas offers a figure of just 2 million for all of Mexico in the same era, including the Indigenous cities of the Altiplano (at least some of which, we now know, were organised not as empires or even kingdoms, but fiercely autonomous republics, long before the Spanish conquest). It is easy, encouraged by works such as the Atlas, to imagine ancient history as a chequerboard of kingdoms and empires. But it is also very misleading. Ancient polities in the Maya lowlands and Southeast Asia had porous boundaries, constantly shifting, and open to contestation. Authority waned with distance from the centre. Warfare and tribute were largely seasonal affairs, after which coercive power shrank back behind the walls of the capital. As the archaeologist Monica Smith points out, only the most naive historian would assume that the claims inscribed on imperial monuments are a simple reflection of political reality on the ground. Of course ancient rulers loved to present themselves as ‘sovereigns of the four quarters’, ‘masters of the known world’, and so on. Yet no ancient world emperor could even have imagined powers of surveillance, such as those now enjoyed by any minor dictator or oligarch. On a global scale, we are witnessing a revolution in our understanding of ancient demography. To ignore it, these days, is to indulge in a cruel sort of intellectual prank, by which the genocide of Indigenous populations – a direct consequence of the planetary revolt against freedom, in the past 500 years – is naturalised as a perennial absence of people. Nor can we just assume that if we want to understand the prospects for our modern world, the only ‘big’ stories worth telling are those of empire.

5 July 2024

#archaeology #ancient history #david wengrow #demographics

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secretmellowblog · 11 months ago

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I saw Les Mis live for the first time the other weekend, and the surprising standout performance for me was Kyle Adams as Grantaire. He is a performer who has obviously read the Brick, and uses all of his stagetime to convey as many aspects of Brick Grantaire as possible; he also reads Grantaire’s love for Enjolras as explicitly gay and romantic (there’s a moment I’ll talk about later where he blows him a kiss.) I was actually surprised by how much he managed to convey in so little time!

Some highlights:

When Enjolras is asking for a “report on the strength of the foe,” Grantaire enthusiastically raises his hand, posturing and gesturing wildly at himself to volunteer. Enjolras casts him a disdainful look like “anyone elSE?” And that’s when Javert jumps in with his “I can find out the truth.” It’s like a small silent version of the Barrier du Maine scene; Grantaire was really giving that “je suis farouche.”

In general, there was this repeated Thing where Grantaire obnoxiously acts out in order to get Enjolras’s attention, and then flails around uselessly whenever he actually has it. Very in character.

Grantaire often goes on uproariously and jokingly about love; then, whenever he’s approached by Enjolras, he doesn’t seem to understand what to do about it.

Whenever Enjolras is singing dramatically about revolution— during Red and Black, Do You Hear the People Sing, and One Day More— Grantaire gazes at up at him with a amazed, awed, and overwhelmed look on his face, sometimes with his hand on his heart.

During Red and Black, there’s a moment where Grantaire “jokingly” caresses Enjolras’s face. Then during Do You Hear the People Sing, Enjolras passes Grantaire by and casually caresses his face; Grantaire acts a bit stunned, as if surprised Enjolras would deign to touch him. Finally, there’s a dramatic “reassuring face-caress” during the gay verse of Drink with Me.

There’s a repeated thing where Grantaire keeps offering Enjolras a bottle of wine, half-jokingly, only for Enjolras to reject it. In the last verse of Drink with Me, after Grantaire finishes his verse and walks away, Enjolras finally accepts a bottle of wine (though another character gives it to him.)

Iirc Grantaire doesn’t join in the fighting initially; he just stares at Enjolras in awe, and then mainly stands by Javert to “guard” him. I mainly mention this because I think Javert and Grantaire are a very funny duo, just as a concept. I think “being forced to listen to Grantaire monologues” is an excellent punishment for Javert.

During Marius’s verse of Drink with Me, Enjolras climbs to the top of the barricade, standing in the light. Grantaire is at the bottom in the shadows, attempting to sleep. As Marius sings about his love for Cosette, Grantaire raises his bottle to Enjolras, and then blows him a kiss. It’s very “let me sleep here until I die here.”

Finally, Grantaire has his "book death." After he spends the entire musical on the fringes being skeptical, he joins Enjolras in the final battle. He climbs up the barricade and says (I was close enough to hear) "Long live the Republic! I am one of them."

I'm genuinely impressed by how much of the Brick characterization he managed to convey with so little time-- some ad-libbing and lots of silent acting moments! It really gave me a greater appreciation of what a strong performer in a musical can do, and how they infuse even 'smaller' parts with lots of nuance and personality.

#les mis #grantaire

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