#someone get that boy some Marx and Engels

[lesbianfakir]

Canceling fakir for being abusive? Tired, old, been discussed for 20 years and there’s not much more to say. Let’s cancel him for something new. Fresh.

Let’s cancel Fakir for being pro-monarchy.

[eolewyn1010]

2, 4, 7,19, 24? Love me some historical nerdery!

That might become a long one, I'm babbly.

2. Historical figure you love to hate: Karl Marx. As someone who's flirted with socialism a couple times, I have a… complicated relationship with a book-smart guy who thought he knew so much about how working people function when he had to have himself and his family literally kept alive only by virtue of sugardaddy Engels. I hate this acting like a know-it-all on someone who’s probably never in his life spoken to a proletarian, much less worked for his livelihood! Get off your high horse, Karl! And also, every single real-life attempt on communism sucked ass, so… attitudes, man.

4. Historical figure everyone should collectively stop talking about: Lucrezia Borgia. Because up to this fucking day, even people who I thought were intelligent and actually consult sources still just go with: Oh yeah, incest with both father and brother! Which is in all likelihood a nasty rumor that somehow made it through the centuries, and yet, whenever the name is spoken, everyone around turns into gossip-y hens, and I just… I don’t care about her. She was just some noble chick, and some people didn’t like her family, but I can’t find anything interesting about her, and nothing that warrants to slander the poor woman fucking 500 years after her death. Can we get over those old tabloid newspapers?

7. Favorite primary source: Oh, okay, there’s an obscure one, but it has one particular thing about it that warms my heart. Cambridge University has this “Fragment of the Month” thing in which they publish the translations of fragments of all sorts of papers found in the Genizah of Kairo (because that’s a big-ass Genizah and translating all of it takes its sweet time), and I fucking love it. It tells so much about a Judeo-Arabic melting pot in the Middle Ages, poetry, trade routes, family interactions, looks into the law, tons of philosophy between the cultures. And my fave tidbit from this tidbit is some Rabbi’s report on two men falling in love with each other during a pilgrimage and being, like, a teensy bit too overt with their affection. No details on what they did, but considering morals of the time, I’mma assume they were holding hands or something equally offensive. Boys, keep it down, you’re gonna make people blush. (Also, because the report mentions indignation but no punishment, I'll feel free to assume they got away with it. Fight me.)

19. Which historical kingmaker / hand behind the throne kinda person would you gladly be a puppet of? Empress Theophanu. She was not the bride that Otto II (Holy Roman Empire) should have gotten as a prince, as she was not “born in the purple” – meaning, not the daughter of the ruling Byzantine emperor but basically a second-class substitute. Also, depictions and mentions in documents tend to mention her on equal terms with her husband, she was already a co-empress when her father-in-law Otto I was still alive and pushed both his son and Theophanu to become competent and accepted rulers soon, and from 985 on, when her husband died prematurely, she’d rule as empress in place of her underage son, a very capable and influential one at that, and although she and her mother-in-law Adelheid didn’t get along all that well, they worked together as empresses in their own right – successfully so. Anyway. Theophanu. She can step on me.

24. What made you fall in love with history? See previous answer here as that's not a question I can answer differently twice.

[reekierevelator]

The Time Has Come

John Maclean (1879 – 1923) reviews his life as he prepares to address the horde of a hundred thousand people which has gathered on Glasgow Green to hear him speak after his release from Peterhead Prison.

            So here I am again.  Back on the speakers’ platform; fingers twitching and mind racing.

In a few minutes I’m expected to give a rabble-rousing speech to the thousands upon thousands of people staring up at me, despite the fact that until yesterday I was languishing in the sewer called Peterhead Jail, despite the fact I’d been on hunger strike for eight months.  But I’ll manage it.  I will do it, just as I did it after prison the last time, 1916. For even now that the war is over there are still too many who don’t understand, who aren’t yet class conscious, who can’t see through the fog of capitalism. I will do it because however weak I am today, I am no longer being force-fed twice daily through rubber tubes.

I can hardly believe it’s only 1919.  The trial seems such a long time ago.  But it was really only a year ago.  I was fit and robust then.  I conducted my own defence.  I spoke from the dock for an hour and a half, logically rebutting in turn each of the trumped up charges they laid against me. Defence of the Realm Act indeed. Then as now I said I wished no harm to any human being; that all my actions were entirely humanitarian in nature.  But they insisted I was a threat to society, that I should be keen to kill my fellow workers in other countries, that I should be more patriotic. Patriotism - the last refuge of those scoundrels; Dr Johnson was right.  And maybe it’s true that I did try to undermine their war effort, their drive to slaughter millions. I tried, just as my friends Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg did in Germany.  I was convicted of sedition, of trying to bring down the state, and sentenced to five years in the Peterhead hellhole. But now that the war has ended, I’m not such a threat, and in response to public clamour they set me free.     

 Was it all worth it?  I suppose I should be grateful to have avoided the fate of my Edinburgh friend. James wanted to bring trade unionism and socialism to another part of the United Kingdom, the Ireland of his father and forefathers. Connolly was brought up among those Irish immigrants crammed into the caves under the arches of the city’s South Bridge. After fighting for workers’ rights against the Dublin lock-out he founded his Citizens’ Army. And in 1916, for his trouble, he ended up severely wounded, dragged up against a wall in Dublin Castle, and shot dead by soldiers. But I’m sure this country will find that’s not the end of the Irish story. Maybe that’s something Maybe that’s what I should tell them.

I still have my friends in Glasgow - Jimmy Maxton, Guy Aldred, and Willie Gallacher Jimmy’s the clever one.  One day someone will probably write a doctoral thesis on Maxton’s thinking and end up as Prime Minister.  And Guy, like me, he’s seen his fair share of courtrooms.  America saw its way to amend its constitution with a Bill of Rights in 1791. But poor old Britain had to wait for Guy to be repeatedly arrested on this very Glasgow Green, for making speeches and gathering crowds, before the courts eventually agreed that public free speech, public meetings, and public processions really ought to be part of everyone’s civil liberties.  And Willie, he’s seen the inside of prisons too, Willie still guides the unions, leading the Shop Stewards Movement on the Clyde. But he’s left his syndicalism behind, thrown in his lot with Lenin and Trotsky and founded the Communist Party of Great Britain.  One of these days I can see him in Parliament, a Communist MP.

Looking at this huge crowd of people eagerly waiting to hear me speak I know many campaigned relentlessly for my release from prison.  And now they expect a victorious call to arms, a vibrant, revolutionary speech, all fire and brimstone. They want to greet a Scottish Lenin at the Central Station rather than the Finland Station. But the prison regime has exhausted me and destroyed my body.  And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t known hardship before, growing up in the poverty in Pollockshaws where my Gaelic speaking parents had landed up after being forced off their Highland land.  In school they called me a lad o’ pairts, a clever wee boy. The Free Kirk arranged for me to be trained as a teacher.  And after that I went on to Glasgow University and took my MA in Economics. But it was the terrible housing, poverty, and illness I saw all around me that drove me to a proper understanding of economics from a socialist perspective. It’s seventy years since Engels, in Manchester but writing in German, found himself forced to describe the awful condition of the working class. And fifty since Marx wrote about the Highland Clearances.  Yet sometimes it’s hard to see that very much has changed.

Of course, when I started to speak in public about the need for reform, the need to redress the terrible ills of society, I was sacked from my teaching job. Then they barred me from teaching in schools altogether.  Nothing daunted, I founded the Scottish Labour College to teach people about socialist economics. I espoused the co-operative movement. I got the Renfrewshire Co-op to push local school boards into providing facilities for adult education, economics education. During the war I did what I could to support Mary Barbour and the women’s fight against the rent increases, imposed by absentee landlords while their conscripted husbands were away fighting in France.  Aye, one of these days they’ll put up a statue to that wonderful woman.

And now Willie Gallacher and the Clydeside workers have decided they have to strike again. Trying to reduce working hours to a forty hour week.  And it’s not that they want the same pay for fewer hours. They’ll take a bit less pay.  All they want is to make some room in the yards to give jobs to all the unemployed demobbed soldiers. But in Parliament they fear an uprising, a Glasgow Soviet, a Soviet Scotland. Churchill’s tanks are even now being marshalled in the Gallowgate. Thousands of English troops are arriving by train. Meanwhile, the Scottish troops are confined to barracks in Maryhill.  And if Willie speaks to them at Maryhill he knows the troops will come out for him. Revolution is in the air.  But I’ve told him, that kind of battle – workers in khaki killing other workers in khaki – that’s not for me, not what I want to see. If there are to be tanks on Sauchiehall Street they must be faced down without bloodshed. But can I convince this heaving crowd of that?

Like me, most of the people here couldn’t see what the so-called ‘war to end wars’ was all about, why everyone had to starve or die because of it.  Just one imperial power slaughtering the workers of another imperial power as they tried to gain a bigger slice of the cake, the wealth of the exploited colonies, for the benefit of their own capitalist classes.

The Russian workers couldn’t understand it either.  We all cheered when they abandoned the war in 1917 and overthrew their government.  I well remember chairing the Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets.  And then Lenin appointed me Bolshevik Consul in Scotland.  I hear they’ve even named a street after me in St Petersburg, or Leningrad as they’re calling it nowadays.  There’s even been talk of carving my name on the Kremlin’s walls. But what do those things matter – his ribbon, star, and a’ that?

I’m thirty-nine and feeling nearer ninety.  The force-feeding when I went on hunger strike in prison didn’t help. Some even say they tried to poison me. Now they tell me pneumonia is setting in – that I’ll probably be dead in a year or two.  People might remember me for a while, before I’m eclipsed by others; Scottish people better able to fight for socialism and independence, people who understand the true nature of Scotland.  If my funeral attracts as big a crowd as the one before me now it will be the biggest funeral Glasgow has ever seen.  Maybe I’ll be a footnote in some socialist history of Scotland, or someone might write a song, a poem, or a play about me.  My dear wee daughter Nan says she’ll write a book about me.  A hundred years from now will anyone read that passionate speech I made from the dock? Will that speech’s prediction – of another world war twenty years from now - prove true or false?  Will the egalitarian principles I've lived and fought for ever really be able to establish themselves in an independent Scotland?  Marx said capitalism forces companies to compete, to exploit resources and labour, and the devil take the hindmost. The losers are taken over, merged, or eliminated altogether, whatever the cost to the workers. Eventually there will be huge companies, but there won’t be many. I suspect, as Marx predicted, that companies will become global, capitalists billionaires, and the gap between rich and poor will only widen. Could an independent socialist Scotland really stand in their way?

Ach, so I lost my safe middle-class teaching career, I lost my health. I gained a prison record. Have all those things really been for nothing? - But good grief, what kind of self-serving question is that for me to be asking myself?

Oh dear, the Convener is nodding towards me now.   It’s time to get up on the old hind legs and give this multitude some eloquent words to chew over.  Maybe their reaction will provide the answer to some of the questions tickling my brain.

[gramilano]

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1 snow scene, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

Balanchine’s The Nutcracker is new to La Scala, in fact, new to Italy. And how the Scala regulars were relishing in the opportunity to grumble and mutter “humbug” during the interval. It’s certainly different from the Nureyev production which was seen in Milan for many years, and light-years away from the strange version by Nacho Duato that the theatre endured four years ago but which has already been consigned to La Scala’s extensive bin in the sky.

Balanchine’s version is danced less than Nureyev’s in the first act, and it has a less original storyline than Peter Wright’s versions for The Royal Ballet and the Birmingham Royal Ballet, but if you accept that it starts with lots of mime, and group ‘walking’ dances, and slowly moves its way toward the pas de deux finale — the dancing only kicking in with the snowflakes — it is a beautifully crafted piece of theatre. And if the acting scenes are handled as well as they were at La Scala, with charming and not vomit-inducing children, with realistic interactions among the guests, and subtle background stories being played out, it is an absolute joy to witness.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Valerio Lunadei as the Soldier, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Paola Giovenzana and Vittoria Valerio as Harlequin and Columbine, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

There are, of course, two dancing spots in the first scene when Drosselmeier – here sporting a bizarre Harpo Marx wig — brings Harlequin and Columbine, and the Soldier, out from their boxes. Tempi throughout were often slower that at the New York City Ballet, and that took the wind out of the sails of the Harlequin and Columbine number, but Valerio Lunadei was exciting as the Soldier as was Mattia Semperboni in a second cast.

Designer Margherita Palli has largely followed the spirit of the NYCB production in the first scene with some ravishing costumes for the guests, especially for the little boys in a dark palette of velvet knickerbocker suits; her snow scene is dazzlingly bright and crisp; but her land of the sweets was disappointingly flat. Where her designs in the programme show a shopfront inspired by Vienna’s Apotheke zum weissen Engel (here called “La Gourmandise”), which I imagine was to fade in transparency to reveal the shop behind as the gauze was raised, we were immediately in the shop as the curtain opened. And while her shop design was full of predominantly pink and green goodies — blancmanges, cupcakes, gateaux, bowls of fruit — all in enticing detail, there was a wall of pink. The elements were all there, and La Scala has some excellent scene painters, so I suspect the look may have been down to overenthusiastic lighting by Marco Filibeck which didn’t let the designs speak for themselves. Oddly — though maybe someone knows an historical reason for this — the ‘throne’ for Marie (not Clara in this version) and her Prince to sit on was a scallop shell decorated with a starfish a conch shell with two pearls as seats… in the land of the sweets?

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 2, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

Palli’s elegant colouring of the first act costumes was thrown to the wind in this act which sees groups of costumes for hot chocolate, tea, marzipan, candy canes and so on go from stylised (marzipan) to feebly commonplace (tea) with colours ranging from almost fluorescent to subtly shaded pastels, so that when they all shared the stage it looked a real muddle.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni as the Sugarplum Fairy, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 01

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni as the Sugarplum Fairy, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

The first night Sugarplum was Nicoletta Manni, who was as calm and assured as ever, notwithstanding the difficulty of the role. Timofej Andrijashenko, poised as her Cavalier, doesn’t get much chance to shine but was dashing and dignified. Beatrice Carbone was radiant as the mother, Frau Stahlbaum, possessing a face that easily projects to the whole house. Andrea Crescenzi as Tea was magnificent with each grand jeté à la seconde seeming ever-higher and easier, Nicola Del Freo was confident with his hoop as Candy Cane, Vittoria Valerio made Marzipan’s steps seem effortless, and Samuele Berbenni hit just the right tone as Mother Ginger in Palli’s glorious, mouth-watering costume.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Samuele Berbenni as Mother Ginger, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicola Del Freo as Sugar Cane, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 01

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Andrea Crescenzi as Tea, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Maria Celeste Losa as Coffee, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Vittoria Valerio as the Marzipan Shepherdess, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicola Del Freo as Sugar Cane, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Francesca Podini and Massimo Garon as Hot Chocolate, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

It was Martina Arduino, though, who stole the show as Dewdrop, being the only one to really capture the Balanchine style. Her off-balances were daring, her epaulement and stretched-back neck opened up her dancing to the gods, and her port de bras was ample and extreme without being excessive. She’s either been doing secret classes in New York, shrewdly studying videos of the great Balanchine ballerinas, or has stumbled on a technique she just happens to be perfect for.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Martina Arduino as Dewdrop, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

Less than 24 hours later, Arduino found herself as the Sugarplum Fairy and showed off brisk turns before a deep and pliable cambré during the final pas de deux, with little head movements keeping the upper body free and supple. She also has great charm and has become a firm audience favourite. Her Cavalier was Del Freo whose pirouette sequence was musical and exuberant.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Martina Arduino as Dewdrop, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 02

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Martina Arduino as the Sugarplum Fairy, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

This second cast found Crescenzi this time as Candy Cane and he caught the spirit of the solo perfectly with the cute wiggle when jumping through his Hula Hoop, and he was literally bent double in his leaps through the hoop for the ballet’s finale. Riccardo Massimi as Dr Stahlbaum maintained his period elegance during his good-humoured play with the children and Gaia Andreanò made a convincing debut as Dewdrop.

Company Director Frédéric Olivieri’s approach to casting seems to use the occasional reduced price performances as an opportunity to test out new talent. It worked marvellously well with Don Quixote before the summer last year, and he got it right again with the third cast which debuted in the first performance of this year.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 01

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 02

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 03

Caterina Bianchi and Mattia Semperboni took the two main roles. Both have had notable successes during 2018 — Bianchi as the Queen of the Dryads in Don Quixote and Semperboni as Alì the slave in Le Corsaire. They appeared wonderfully confident and glided through the technical difficulties without a hitch. She is a musical-box ballerina with perfect proportions and must be a joy to partner; he has grace combined with impressive pyrotechnic thrills. La Scala has a new pair of leading dancers.

Massimi and Emanuela Montanari were delicious as Hot Chocolate in their dreadful costumes — good on paper, horrendous on stage — Crescenzi repeated his crowd-pleasing Tea, Andreanò was a near-perfect marzipan shepherdess and we’ll surely see much more of her in coming seasons. Regrettably, Lunadei came into trouble with his hoop a few times and it remained trapped under his feet for the final pose, but as they say in Italian, “Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco”, literally, “Not all doughnuts come out with a hole” or rather… things don’t always turn out as planned.

As with all good meals I’ve left the coffee until last. All three casts offered supple, graceful dancers as Coffee. Maria Celeste Losa and Francesca Podini were both superb, but the first cast’s Paola Giovenzana was sensuous as well as sinuous and she’s another name to note.

The best Marie/Prince pairing — the children Chiara Ferraioli and Edoardo Russo — were whisked off into the sky in a giant gingerbread sleigh with, unfortunately, all its supporting cables clearly illuminated, as was the rope pulling up the Christmas tree transformation in the first act. Come on La Scala, nowadays the magic can seem real.

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 01

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Nicoletta Manni and Timofej Andrijashenko, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1 snowscene, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018

George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Act 1 snowscene, photo by Brescia e Amisano, Teatro alla Scala 2018 02

In Balanchine’s Nutcracker at La Scala the magic is almost real – three casts reviewed Balanchine’s The Nutcracker is new to La Scala, in fact, new to Italy. And how the Scala regulars were relishing in the opportunity to grumble and mutter “humbug” during the interval.

[usaghinanami99]

Hello, comrades! Here I am presenting you a short review of Nachtmahr, a Marx/Engels yaoi dōjinshi by the wonderful RONO (@gattungs-wesen). Before starting, though, I feel the need to drop some advices: first of all, I am by no means a professional reviewer and would never claim it; on the contrary, I haven't written a review for non-scholastic purposes since last summer, so my already scarce abilities are probably rust by now. Second, I am nothing more than a fellow Marxist like many who also happens to be a passionate fangirl of the M/E pairing; please keep in mind my young age and subsequently limited study degrees before addressing me as naive or shallow. And last, I tend to use way too many words for pretty much everything, so you're lucky that the work I'm going to write about is very short, otherwise even I don't know much far I could have gone... actually, I do know: I used to write 5 pages-long analysis of single Pokémon episodes before my spare time decreased drastically, so here's that. Without further ado, let's get started!

Before starting reading, one has to consider how the fanbook is presented, and I think its cover illustration makes for a very, very nice presentation: a cover ought to convey what the stuff you're going to read is about, and this one sets the tone perfectly. In particular, it establishes what the book is all about thanks to an efficient representation of the main couple (of course we all know this is a Marxengels fanbook, but I'm thinking of people stumbling upon it in a comiket, as opposed to us who specifically found it looking for M/E material), which, on the other hand, also serves the need to demonstrate how the art inside the book is going to be – I'll touch upon the subject later, but it's obvious just from the cover that it's going to be pretty at the very least. Finally, the illustration also perfectly establishes the mood of the whole story: not many yaoi books open with this type of picture, am I right? I mean, they usually tend to depict two hot boys in a very steamy and sexy fashion, or at least that's how the yaoi I read generally work. This, on the other hand, is going to be epic and tragic, and the characters' expressions and positions convey this feel better than I could ever explain – also because my English vocabulary is quite limited.

This is where I should review the story itself, but I think it's going to be rather short for my standards, because, to put it bluntly, nothing really happens. Okay, this is just an exageration to say that there is no traditional plot advancement, which is not inherently a bad thing, not at all. In fact, even some masterpieces have been written which don't feature any conventional plot (Beckett anyone?), and this case seems certainly akeen. The thing is, stuff doesn't happen because it's all in Engel's head, which is a clever way to enter his thoughts and twist the reader's expectations at the same time. What I mean is that, at least for me, at the first read it is not clear whether something is real or not, if it's Engels dreaming or an actual memory of his; granted, everything is crystal clear by the end and upon subsequent re-readings, I definitely don't mean to say that the storytelling is confusing – it just likes toying with what us readers would expect, and that's always nice if done in such a clever way. This is where the dōjinshi's title comes to play: "is what I'm reading a nightmare or not?", I was constantly asking myself during my first reading. In the end it turns out that the answer is "yes", but one is still left to question themselves about just how much Engel's nightmares were real or not; and, while the answer to this second question leans more towards the "no", it's left ambiguous enough that a reader is still provided with a window of hope, if they want. Engel's nightmares, which are virtually the major subject of the story, transition from the near past of Marx's death to the distant past of a tender love scene between the two philosophers, which isn't probably anything more than a mere fantasy of Engels', but, honestly speaking, it feels so real when it starts that it's shocking to see this idyllic scene brutally shatter. I'm sorry for those (including myself, alas) who expected a scene of tender love-making between the two columns of Communism, because the carefree sweetness comes to an end when Engels is bound to notice the wedding ring on his beloved's finger; now, I have to admit my personal headcanon is that Jenny was fully aware and supporting of the relationship between the two, and would also often take part in nice orgies along with both families, but it's not like we own their diaries or anything, so any guess is as good as mine. But RONO's guess in particular is very depressing, which I genuinely didn't expect given how much fun most of his fanart tends to be, but gosh, does it work? Very well indeed, there's enough angst to make you shed many tears, what with poor Fred's unrequited love (which is already the saddest thing ever, btw) and his self-guilt given by cheating? Speaking for myself, I headcanon the whole Marx-Engels big family as polyamorous, add to it the fact that free, unbound love is certainly an important part of their ideals, as we all know from the Manifesto itself – but I do not want to dismiss this more tragic view of their relations, which is indeed as valid as mine. After this heartbreaking nightmare, we cut to reality, with a devastated Engels being aided by none other than Kautsky, whom I didn't expect to find here at all! I'll keep my opinions on the man for myself, unless someone is dying to know what I think of every Marxist philosopher I've ever read, but I'll just say that my thoughts on this particularly controversial figure don't bear any importance on the overall enjoyment of the work. A work that ends in the most heartbreaking way ever possible (as if the end of the dream weren't already enough!), with Engels surrendering to despair in front of Karl and Jenny's tombstone. If you meant to call deep depression upon your readers, than you've done the best of works, RONO! I'm obviously exaggerating again for the sake of comedy, because I really love how emtional and tragic this story came out to be. I related with it on a personal level and felt genuinely hurt for how much my precious OTP had to endure, but this is no news for me, and I highly appreciate the work that I've had the honour to read.

I'm afraid I've got even less to say about the art, because I am so far from being an expert; if my opinion is of any importance, then, I'll just say that I found it perfect and worth of an official work, which I think is the best compliment one could make to a fanbook. Come on, someone go and hire the man, otherwise so much talent will go waste! Luckily enough, nowadays more and more manga artists become professionals after having started as amateurs, and in this case I definitely see all the talent and passion needed for the big jump. Official or not, this work is awesome and its status won't change it! ...Well, I did say I can't properly judge art! Want to know something else, then? RONO is the one and only artist who can make bearded men attractive for me. That's a thing. Oh, and also don't forget the closing illustration, which depicts young M/E happily dancing to what I think is a waltz (?). This particular picture was yet another reason of crying for me, because my best favourite film in the world happens to be Beauty and the Beast, so I think you can imagine just how much important romantic balls are for me. Well, I don't know whether this was intentional or not, but after all, it's a nerd's job to find references regardless of whether there are actually any or not! Unfortunately, Karl and Friedrich's story ends in a much more bitter tone than Belle and Adam's, but this unexpected bonus really did the trick for me – I am very emotive, to the point that I cry every single time I rewatch B&B, so of course I did the same thing many times upon reading and rereading this dōjinshi.

Finally, every good reviewer should find at least some flaws in the most perfect work, but I've never claimed to be a good reviewer. Do you really want something negative about this fanbook? Okay, then, I guess you won't be particularly invested in it if you don't ship M/E... but if you don't, just go and read all that Engels wrote after Marx's death (and be ready to burst out in tears)! And of course follow and support the artist if you don’t already, because he deserves all the love in the world from us commies!