#typewriter revolution

[ironfoxtypewriters]

🦊📣 AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY ON WEBSITE 📣🦊

"The cards tell a story...but you write the ending. You pull The Four Harbingers of the Revolution: Where Does Your Story Go Next?"

2024 Welcomes new opportunities and new typewriter lifestyle merch from the Iron Fox. Ever feel like the tarot deck never holds anything that speaks to you? Write better stories and introduce the Four Harbingers of the Revolution into your deck: Books for the well read, typewriters for the well written, soup "for your family" and a Molotov cocktail for when logic and reason fail.

Of course there's no fun in wearing a design you love if the shirt is scratchy, that's why for this new run of T shirts we've chosen Thread Epic's Soft Tees, pre-washed 100% cotton printed and shipped in the USA in partnership with Happy Fox Apparel

Shirts are machine washable, unisex and are available in sizes small thru 2XL. Apparel is true to size even after washed so please keep that in mind when ordering.

Shipping: please select "Merch - TShirts/Mixed - USPS" in the continental US

Only available through www.ironfoxtypewriters.com Please select "Merch - TShirts/Mixed - USPS" in the continental US for shipping. Sales links through the linktree in bio.

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[commodorez]

Strange question, but I'm curious. Do you have a least favourite computer?

Ohhhh, good one. I'm going to make some enemies for these, I'm sure.

Least favorite vintage computer:

Apple I

Not for any technical reasons, or anything about its history. I happen to like and respect Steve Wozniak, and everything he did in the service of computing in the 1970s. His ROM monitor known as WOZMON is only 256 bytes so it can fit into a first generation 1702A EPROM, which is damned impressive. I use the newer EWOZMON regular basis on other 6502 machines.

The Apple I exemplifies a computer that no longer exists as a computer. Rather, it's become the legendary trading card for the ultrawealthy techbro types who seek to commodify the history of the home computer revolution that they didn't bother to study. It's been reduced to no more than a static display piece, and a cornerstone of revisionist history, ignoring the larger picture.

An Apple I is considered too monetarily valuable to risk applying power to or fixing, "gotta leave it original!" with failed, leaky capacitors, doing nothing. Well if you can't use it, it ceases to be a computer because it isn't computing anything. They had almost a dozen of them at VCF West XIV, most of which were under plexiglass with a hired guard to keep an eye on them because the high price they fetch. Only one was powered up at a time under the watchful gaze of experts, handling things with museum gloves. Unlike other exhibits, these were not available to be touched or interacted with (which defeats the whole reason people enjoy vintage computer festivals).

Assuming you look beyond the hype, and get your hands on a working Apple I? It turns out to be quite underpowered and limited -- which makes sense, Woz was optimizing the shit outta his part count and budget! I wish I had his skills. It was a major technical achievement to get it to do that much with so little. It's a TV Typewriter (RIP Don Lancaster) bolted to a minimal 6502. If i had one at my disposal in the 1970s, I'd probably do like the contemporary hackers did and modify it as my budget and skills allowed. But it's 2024 and an Apple I -- you aren't allowed to do that. No, if I had an Apple I, I could sell it and buy a house with that money.

If it weren't for all that, I think I'd probably just be indifferent to it, or maybe even like it for what it is.

Least favorite general computer:

eMachines eTower 600is

What a piece of shit. I had one when it was new, running Windows ME and it was hot garbage. I could not stand this underpowered excuse for a computer after a few months when the new computer sheen wore off. Floppy drive died too soon. Didn't come with the advertised 64MB of RAM (who puts 33MB of RAM in a computer?). Hard drive was only 10GB, kept filling it up. It was filled with bloatware, the keyboard was cheap garbage. I don't begrudge my parents for buying it, they didn't know any better and I was too young to have any say in the matter. That said, it endured the shortest tenure of any computer in my house to date.

Never obsolete my ass.

[letters-to-rosie]

eeeeeeeeee I'm loved and blessed fam 🩵💙🩵

so I said that the most fitting song I'd found for revolution timebomb was a kpop song... and this is the song lol the vibes couldn't be more perfect

but here instead of peach blossoms, he's looking at blue flowers! since the fic has color symbolism galore haha

this is such a lovely gift!! thank you so much!

revolution-verse Ekko x Peaches - Kai thanks to @letters-to-rosie's vision

or, Ekko longingly staring at some blue wisteria while missing his girlfriend 💙

[the-modern-typewriter]

Hi!!! I've been a super big fan of yours for ages I absolutely adore your writing and keep coming back to it regularly. I was just wondering though, there's a snippet (or prompt? It might have been old enough to be a prompt but I think it was too long for that) I remember reading and I'm almost 100% sure I read on your blog but that I can't find. (I also combined with another one of your snippets that I have been able to find and I don't know how much was from one and how much from the other and what from my own head so it's very confusing.)

What I remember of the snippet I'm looking for was that it's during a revolution and the leader of the revolution is asking the very recently widowed queen (he killed the king) to marry him to give his claim legitimacy. She agreed on the clear understanding that she would be the ruler and he would let her alone and there was a phrase about it being a devil's bargain but at least it was her bargain.

Thank you so so much in advance and thank you for your writing it's truly incredible!!!

- @fablemonger-ao3

This one maybe?

And then this is the devil's bargain on maybe?

[steampunkforever]

To be clear, and I bag on it enough that it should be, Solarpunk is a nothing-genre working as a synthesis of generational Toyota Prius stockholme syndrome and the consequences of corporate and social reduction of “punk” to mere aesthetics.

Though littered with trashy romance novels (thanks to its high percentage of bodices ready for ripping) Steampunk had antiimperialism at its core. Dieselpunk, which I’m less familiar with, provides opportunities to critique industrialization* and nationalism by its inherent interwar setting. These are ‘punk genres that, though often misused (insert debate on efficacy of cyberpunk here, or at least copy and paste it from my capstone paper) have a sort of basic ideological discussion baked into them. It might be just a dusting of commentary, but its ingrained into the genre.

Solarpunk has none of this! It’s sci-fi with a kudzu problem! There is no punk. It’s just futurism with extra trees. 

Look at you, you’ve managed to place some shrubs on top of a tower. unfortunately, that does not a genre make. It’s not even a new idea architecturally. The city of Lucca’s had that on lock for centuries.

Fixing Solarpunk and making it earn the title of genre means putting some substance in the aesthetic and filling the hollowness with some conflict, be it against social engineering/ecofascism (Logans Run, a bit of a reach), or greenwashing (Soylent Green, also a reach) Or government over-regulation (Red Barchetta, right on the money). But that’ll never happen, because the solarpunk aesthetic is inherently built on a naive ever-smiling idiocy. And you need the cynicism of counterculture to be punk.

Solarpunk has no counterculture. Its entire aesthetics point to there being no counterculture. The literal architecture of the “genre” tells us: “the establishment has accepted and is actively supporting sustainable living. You have nothing to fight for, the war on pollution is won.”

Solarpunk is to its twee fans what The Libertarian Free Market is to guys who think we should privatize healthcare MORE or what the “Revolution” is to tankies who treat it like a Government-funded-rapture-utopia. Everything will be all right, Society is on our side, and the sun comes out precisely when we tell it to.

That’s not a genre, and it certainly isn’t punk.

*By this metric, Dieselpunk would’ve been the logical wellspring for cottagecore, but funnily enough the cottagecore aesthetic actually owes more of its existence to the same cultural impulses that popularized Solarpunk stock photography. I’m gonna say the word “hopepunk” here because you can only look at the word solarpunk so many times before written language has ceased to maintain any semblance of coherence so why not embrace my role as a monkey seated at a overused typewriter?

[humansofnewyork]

“I worked as a legal assistant for 50 years. And I’ve always been lucky to work for honest, kind, brilliant attorneys. All that paperwork might seem boring to other people. But I never even took lunch, that’s how much I loved it. I loved the law. It’s very precise. My work needed to be exactly right. And there was a lot of pride there. But something seems to have changed in the culture. So many of my coworkers would rush out the door at 5 o’clock. With important, unfinished things on their desk. In law you have to get things out quickly, but it’s like they just didn’t care. Maybe it’s a generational thing. I’m older, I’m 77. So maybe there’s something I don’t get. ‘Quiet quitting,’ and all of that, I just don’t understand it. If it’s just a paycheck to you, if you’re getting by on the minimum, and not trying to be perfect, or God forbid, if you're screwing it up on purpose,  why are you even going to work? Save your pennies and quit. Find something else you can take pride in. If you’re spending eight hours a day on something you don’t take pride in, it seems to me that somewhere, deep down inside, you’re a phony. Maybe not a phony. But you’re deluding yourself. It’s going to spill over into the rest of your life. And there’s not enough money for me. Well, $20,000 a week maybe. But otherwise there’s not enough money for me to not take pride in my work. I couldn’t do it. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I can’t. You know how people text, and there’s like spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes and everything? Not me. I’ll reread everything. I’ll go back and fix it, I’ll put in the comma. That’s who I am. You either have it or you don’t, and less people have it now. I think it was the digital revolution. When I first started working there were typewriters. If you made a mistake, you had to redo it. You had to be careful, you had to get it right, until the computer came along. I remember my boss was so excited about the computer age. He said: ‘It’s going to be great! We’re going to have a paperless office!’ I knew better. I told him: ‘There’s going to be a lot more paper, actually.’ Because you can reprint everything. And nobody’s going to care anymore.’”

[elsalouisa]

"Volodia was an extraordinary being, a living instrument of rare sensitiveness which could of itself produce sounds of startling melody and purity and create a world of bright images and harmonies. In years and experience he was still a child but his spirit had penetrated into regions reached only by a few. He had genius. The first child of my father's second marriage, he confirmed the theory that exceptional children are born of a great and exceptional love. When he was still a baby there was something indefinable about him that set him apart from the others. When he was a child, in fact, I considered him a nuisance, affected, and priggish. But later I understood that he was simply a being older than his years lost in the milieu to which his age assigned him. His parents saw how different he was from the others and wisely did not try to shape him according to pattern as had been done with us. They allowed him comparative freedom to develop his unusual abilities. While still a child he wrote good verse and very fine plays, to be acted by his small sisters. He played the piano j he painted j and at a very early age astounded people by his extensive reading and his extraordinary memory. Until he was sixteen, he shared my father's banishment in France. Then he was sent to Russia, with the Emperor's permission, and entered in the Corps des Pages, a military school. According to the family tradition he was to be an officer. There was nothing military in his character, but the years spent away from an adoring family, the contact with boys of his own age, and the discipline of the school did him a lot of good. He became more natural, simpler in his ways. Having formerly spoken Russian very badly, he quickly learned his mothertongue and knew it better than many of those who had lived in Russia since childhood. The many subjects studied at the Corps did not prevent him, even there, from developing his own abilities. At eighteen he brought out a first book of verse which made something of a stir. He wrote with equal facility in three languages, but preferred to publish his first works in Russian. Throughout his stay at the Corps he continued privately to school himself in painting and music. He was more than talented; one had the feeling that mysterious forces worked within him, driving him onward to inspirations inaccessible to ordinary humans and remote from all things mundane. In his later verses, which came out during the war and the revolution, contemporary events were not in the least reflected j his work, on the contrary, was permeated by a profound sense of peace and of spiritual equilibrium...

During the last summer he wrote ceaselessly. Inspiration seemed never to forsake him. He would sit down at the typewriter and write, without pausing, verses that needed almost no correction. Yet in spite of this productivity and this purely mechanical way of writing, the quality of his verse improved continually. It seemed to me then that the speed of his work was somewhat overdone; I remember saying to him once that in pouring forth such torrents of new verse he gave himself no time to polish them. He was then sitting at his desk, one hand propping his cheek while with the other he made notes upon the margins of the poems he had just finished. Having listened to my words he turned towards me his face, always pale, and smiled sadly and somewhat enigmatically. "What I am writing now comes to me in a completely finished form J changes would only spoil the freshness of the inspiration. I must write. After I am twenty-one I shall not write any more. Everything that is in me must find its expression now; it will be too late afterwards. . . ."

Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia "Education of a princess"

[lol-jackles]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6Mj2q-yRSI/

Is it weird that Justin is making all these casting announcements before the official announcements (at least as of the time I'm sending this Justin's post has been up for 30 mins and still no official announcement)? He did it for Melissa too (https://www.instagram.com/p/C5yzmypy-8I/) but her official articles came out withing a few minutes of him posting.

Link and link,

Haha for some reason I thought Jensen was madly typing away on an antique typewriter and then it showed he was actually playing an arcade game. Typewriters are making a comeback with Gen Z and even Gen Alpha (called the "typewriter revolution").

CBS likely told Justin to make the announcements, figuring it's the least expensive way to promote the show. I'm a little surprise because CBS are anti-star makers, but that may have changed ever since Leslie Moonves was forced out.

[xtruss]

Evelyn Berezin in 1976 at the Long Island office of her company Redactron. She developed one of the earliest word processors and helped usher in a technological revolution. Evelyn Berezin said her word processor would help secretaries become more efficient at their jobs. Photo By Barton Silverman/New York Times.

Evelyn Berezin, “Godmother of the Word Processor!” The Woman That Made Bill Gates and Steve Jobs Possible

Evelyn Berezin (1925-2018) was born in the Bronx to poor Russian-Jewish immigrants. Growing up, she loved reading science fiction and wished to study physics. She excelled at school and graduated two years early. Berezin had to wear make-up and fake her age to get a job at a research lab. She ended up studying economics because it was a more “fitting” subject for women at the time. During World War II, she finally received a scholarship to study physics at New York University. Berezin studied at night, while working full time at the International Printing Company during the day. She continued doing graduate work at New York University, with a fellowship from the US Atomic Energy Commission. In 1951, she joined the Electronic Computer Corporation, designing some of the world’s very first computers. At the time, computers were massive machines that could only do several specific functions.

Evelyn Berezin, “Godmother of the Word Processor.” Born: April 12, 1925, The Bronx, New York City, NY — Died: December 8, 2018, ArchCare at Mary Manning Walsh Nursing Home & Rehabilitation Center, New York, NY

Berezin headed the Logic Design Department, and came up with a computer to manage the distribution of magazines, and to calculate firing distances for US Army artillery. In 1957, Berezin transferred to work at Teleregister, where she designed the first banking computer and the first computerized airline reservation system (linking computers in 60 cities, and never failing once in the 11 years that it ran). Her most famous feat was in 1968 when she created the world’s first personal word processor to ease the plight of secretaries (then making up 6% of the workforce).

“Without Ms. Berezin There Would Be No Bill Gates, No Steve Jobs, No Internet, No Word Processors, No Spreadsheets; Nothing That Remotely Connects Business With The 21st Century.” — The Times of Israel (12 December 2018)

The following year, she founded her own company, Redactron Corporation, and built a mini-fridge-sized word processor, the “Data Secretary”, with a keyboard and printer, cassette tapes for memory storage, and no screen. With the ability to go back and edit text, cut and paste, and print multiple copies at once, Berezin’s computer freed the world “from the shackles of the typewriter”. The machine was an in instant hit, selling thousands of units around the world. Berezin’s word processor not only set the stage for future word processing software, like Microsoft Word, but for compact personal computers in general. It is credited with being the world’s first office computer. Not surprisingly, it has been said that without Evelyn Berezin “there would have been no Bill Gates, and no Steve Jobs”.

Evelyn Berezin Pioneered Word Processors and Butted Heads With Men! A ‘loud woman,’ she studied physics and found that to get to the top she had to start her own company. Evelyn Berezin later became a mentor to entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and director of companies. Photo: Berezin Family. Wall Street Journal

“Why Is This Woman Not Famous?” British Writer Gwyn Headley Wrote In A 2010 Blog Post. — The Times of Israel

Redactron grew to a public company with over 500 employees. As president, she was the only woman heading a corporation in the US at the time, and was described as the “Most Senior Businesswoman in the United States”. Redactron was eventually bought out by Burroughs Corporation, where Berezin worked for several more years. In 1980, she moved on to head a venture capital group investing in new technologies. Berezin served on the boards of a number of organizations, including Stony Brook University and the Brookhaven National Laboratory, and was a sought-after consultant for the world’s biggest tech companies.

She was a key part of the American Women’s Economic Development Corporation for 25 years, training thousands of women in how to start businesses of their own, with a success rate of over 60%. In honour of her parents, she established the Sam and Rose Berezin Endowed Scholarship, paying tuition in full for an undergraduate science student each year. Sadly, Berezin passed away earlier this month. She left her estate to fund a new professorship or research centre at Stony Brook University. Berezin won multiple awards and honourary degrees, and was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.

[floppybun]

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Come find a penpal, swap wax seals, and make some real connections. Join the cozy letter-writing revolution! 📬🐾

[ironfoxtypewriters]

🎶🫧So FRESH and So CLEAN🫧🎶Back with ANOTHER finished client machine; this time for the supremely talented New Jersey artist Kristi Nazzaro aka @soul_positive on IG. Kristi uses her 2 typewriters as integral instruments in creating her art and her musings and contacted me a little over a month ago to give a clean and service to her aqua colored Grant 737 ultra portable typewriter. Not only was I able to restore it to its former glory I was also able to do so while preserving the bits of character that Kristi added to it herself. 3 more client machines to go until I am 100% refocused on restocking the typewriter section of IronFoxTypewriters.com (and Etsy). In the meantime if you're looking for something new-to-you send me a DM, I have a TON of unserviced stock just waiting to be chosen for reconditioning so they can find a new forever home and yours might be it! .....

[elephantlovemedleys]

(just going by the context of the movie and what i've read and have taken into account based on unused footage or bits the original screenplay drafts) i love how christian definitely came from a boujee victorian era family that definitely carried itself out with generational wealth going on but then he just goes like no fuck it the world is changing i need to be a part of it i am partaking as one of the children of the revolution whatever even if it means being broke in paris and only thing i can afford was the typewriter i carried with myself

[acemapleeh]

Alfred Home Headcanons

We see Alfred with quite a few houses throughout the series so I think it’s fair to say the man gets around and lives all across the country. It was difficult pinning down just a few for this post and even more so for the photos to go alongside it.

I’m going to be narrowing things down to regions of the United States but I think this man has at least one home in every state. We’ll be here a lifetime if I had to describe his home in Ohio vs Indiana.

We’ll start with New England.

His oldest homes are located here, the most noteworthy is his white colonial home in Massachusetts just outside of Boston overlooking the bay. This is the one he was raised in for a large part of his youth under Arthur’s care and tutorage. Think of the house that we see in the episode of America’s Storage Room Cleaning with the wrap-around porch and expansive garden. It’s an honestly massive home for just one person to be living in. During the mid to late 1800′s when people like Lovino, Tolys, and Morgan came to work in the United States, this was the main residence that Alfred lived with them in. Finally felt a little less lonely.

I think Cape Cod or Georgian is the best fit for the style of house in this region, like, to be more specific.

Traditional accents rather than it being the main focus.

Similarly to Arthur's dust-covered archive of an estate, this is where Alfred stores a lot of his things from the days of old. Unlike his father, he doesn't put much out on display. A couple pieces of memorabilia here and there but for the most part, he's got it in a box shoved in a corner of a room he hasn't opened in half a century.

What once was Sir Lord Kirkland's bedroom when staying in the colonies, has the largest upstairs balcony that looks over the garden and on clear days, out to the harbor. A telescope perched on the railing always on the lookout for father's return home.

I think something of old he does have out on display is a massive quilt he has up and framed in the living room. It's something that took him ages to finish back in the 19th century and the fabric is far too fragile for him to use it practically anymore.

For New York, he lives in a high-rise apartment in Manhattan. Big, open floor plan, and lots of large windows, and it's perfect for entertaining guests. This is his most modern and luxurious residence. Beautiful view of the city and Central Park. Think of the apartment that we see in Hetalia of the Living Dead.

Back in the 20s he 100% had one of those big Gatsby mansions out in the Hamptons and threw parties all of the time but got rid of it all towards the latter half of the decade. Think of the ridiculousness of Mansion Party by Ninja Sex Party

The last one for this area will be the brick row house in West Philadelphia. This is likely his second oldest home and where he spent a lot of his time during the Revolution. This is where he feels like where he was really born as a nation so he has a lot of deep ties here.

I want to give him an attic bedroom with a desk by the window that can see the steeple of Christ Church near the Delaware River. The same desk he's written pamphlets for the Revolution, letters to his brother, and for even a time, a typewriter when he was feeling a resurgence of literature and poetry in the early 20th century is still there.

I don't which state exactly has that beautiful blue suburban with the big pool. Somewhere there's not a lot of snow year-round and gets those hot summers where all you want to do is submerge yourself in water. Somewhere in the South, I'm thinking either one of the Carolinas or Georgia.

He feels like the type of person to have ranches all across the central US. Most of the year he has other people working on them to take care of the animals.

The one he frequents the most is the working cattle ranch in Arizona.

Time capsule midcentury house out in the Midwest. I want to say somewhere in the Chicago area. I want to put it in Southern California where this style of house first started to get popular but going to give some love to other parts of the country.

Floor-to-ceiling windows, a sunk-in living room pit, short staircases connecting rooms throughout the house, partial brick walls, fireplaces centered in rooms, and several doors and windows to access the outdoor living space.

If you've been on my blog for a while then you might have noticed I love making Alfred a California Beach Boy. I can give him so many houses in just this state alone but I'll keep it short and sweet.

His bum-out beach cottage is located in Santa Monica and he's been located there since the 1890s. The house itself has been remodeled and updated several times over the past century. The materials he uses for the house as well as the layout stay fairly consistent, with lots of natural, light wood and open space to allow in lots of sunlight and central airflow. It's also a small space; you open that front door and right away you can already see the living room, kitchen, dining room, and out to the ocean out back. The entryway is the house.

It's almost purposely made so you can see the wear on the floors and furniture. If he drops a surfboard on the floor and there's some damage left behind, he'll leave it there. You can see the wood frames have been handmade and have some flaws and mistakes if you run a hand over them.

It's also very analog with most of the tech in the house dating to maybe the mid-90s at the latest: VHS and record player, rotary phone, etc. No AC either but he does have a great internet connection.

If I cannot fulfill my lifelong dream of having a colorfully painted Victorian house in San Francisco then Alfred can have one. I think he spent a lot of time in the 80s in the Bay Area and this old house was just a constant project of fixing up and refurbishing.

Okay, the last one I'll talk about for the time being will be his house up in Washington State.

I just really love Contemporary houses and Alfred had one built for him when they first started gaining popularity in the Pacific Northwest in 1935. Large windows invite the beauty of the region into the house while complementing the natural landscape. The Pacific Northwest features steep, rugged terrain that encourages post and beam architecture.

Tucked away in cozy woods and nestled along a majestic river.

Decor often brings nature indoors using live-edge wooden furniture, stone and wooden accents, and other cozy touches.

I don't see Alfred as being a big log cabin person but incorporate the coziness of one into this house. Place that Twilight filter on and it's his most aesthetic getaway.

[oddvanilla]

i <3 the chat font hes so cute

and it makes you mad teehee

THE CHAT FONT IS A HE??? I mean today I watched a video about the russian revolution and the chat font reminds me of like that typewriter crap,, it's great to an extent but the more i see it the more I HATE it.

[horsesarecreatures]

Book review: I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

This book is grim, but I’m glad I read it. It is a very eye-opening look into Romania under the rule of it’s communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. The main character is a 17 year old boy named Cristian Florescu, who lives with his parents, sister, and grandfather in a one bedroom apartment in Bucharest. One day while he is at school, he is pulled aside by a Securitate agent. The agent somehow knows that he accepted American stamps from the son of his mother’s employer, an American diplomat, which is illegal. The agent blackmails him into becoming an informer on the diplomat family, first by threatening to arrest him, then by threatening to arrest his whole family, and finally by promising him medicine for his grandfather with “leukemia” (is is later discovered that the grandfather was actually poisoned with radiation by the government). Cristian has to decide whether he will fully comply, partially comply, or try to sabotage his missions. 

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

I knew from watching travel shows like Globe Trekker that things were pretty bad in Romania during that time, but the things I read in this book still shocked me. Ceausescu in some senses put Stalin to shame, and the fact that he was critical of other communist leaders made the West turn a blind eye to the atrocities that were happening under his rule.  Before Romania became the last country in the soviet bloc to have it’s revolution, some things that became normalized in there included:

- Extreme food restrictions that were more severe than the rations during World War II. People had to stand in lines for hours in the cold after their 12 hour work shifts just to get something like a small piece of bread, or cooking oil. If a person over purchased food, they could be imprisoned for 6 months to 5 years.

- Due to Ceausescu wanting to increase the worker population, he encouraged women to have 10 children. They had to undergo forced, unsanitary monthly gynecological exams at work. If they were pregnant, the state tracked their pregnancy. Birth control and abortions became banned.

- The majority of orphans in the state weren't parentless; they just had parents that couldn't afford them. Most orphans were indoctrinated by the state to become Securitate agents. Others were deemed "deficient” and kept in concentration camp-like conditions. 

- It is estimated that about 1 in every 10 people in Romania was an informer at the time. Everyone informed on everyone, and people’s homes were bugged and had hidden cameras in them. It wasn't enough for Ceausescu to isolate the country from the rest of the world; he also had to isolate citizens from each other by creating an atmosphere is mistrust. 

- Children of political dissenters were also at risk of being sent to prisons were they were tortured along with adults. 

- Citizens went years without ever eating fruit. All of Romania’s “good” agricultural products were exported to pay off the debt Ceausescu plunged the country into with his failed oil investments.

- People never knew when they were going to have electricity. This wasn't just due to energy shortages; it was a strategy of the regime to keep citizens powerless through the unpredictability of their lives. Babies in incubators died at hospitals all the time when the power went out without warning. It was also illegal for temperatures to be heated above 16 degrees in the winter.

- Citizens had to report all contact they had with foreigners. It was illegal to own many items, from foreign currency to sofas to unregistered typewriters. 

- Romanians could not leave the country or apply for passports without the risk of being arrested. They also could not choose their own homes, or freely change jobs.

- When Bucharest’s historic buildings were raised and replaced with cement apartment buildings, the dogs that previously lived in the destroyed homes were forced to the streets. As they were starving, they often brutally attacked and killed citizens in packs. 

[fantasyfantasygames]

The Revolution

The Revolution, Devin Roundsman, 2008

Sometimes you throw a bunch of things into a blender and come out with a gem of a game. The Revolution, despite its generic name, has a lot of really cool stuff going for it in a very focused package.

The Revolution is a modern-day game, and it leans heavily on that for its setting. You're relying a lot on "everyone knows what corporate executives act like." It's lazy but it's excusable I guess.

For the system - have you ever seen one of those systems where someone says "I like it because it gets out of your way"? Yeah, someone brewed up one of those in an afternoon. You roll a number of d6 equal to your effectiveness in a particular thing. It starts at 1d6 or 2d6 where you're specialized, and maxes out at 5d6 or 6d6. Not a dice pool, just roll and add 'em together.

Now that we got the boring stuff out of the way, the actual concept: this game is one part Exalted Modern, one part Werewolf the Apocalypse, and one part Sigmata. Your characters, everyday people, "wake up" to being able to see the spirit world overlaid on the physical world. There are massive, ethereal, sinister spirits manifested by corporations and other large orgs, which feed psychically on people. You can fight those directly if you can get to them. Your PCs are pulled together instinctively.

You get 5 levels of power: the mere-mortal level 1 (which rolls 1d6), the empowered-mortal 2 (2d6, where you generally live), and three levels (3d6/4d6/5d6) of "you can reach for it if you want it" that shift you up to Super-Sayan temporarily. Where you are power-wise at any given time is totally up to you, if you don't mind glowing. You get some low-level superpowers like wide-area blasts, enhanced movement, phasing, armor, etc. Except the 5d6 level. When you go for that, you'll die at the end of the scene, but you'll go out in a blaze of glory. It's very much a how-bad-do-you-want-it scenario, so... part wish fulfillment and part deathwish fulfillment.

The XP curve is shallow. You're expected to go through a bunch of characters in a longer game, or to have half the party die at the end during a one-shot or convention game. I do feel like the urge in a con game will be to guarantee your own death at the end because you aren't really attached to your character, but maybe that's just the people I usually play with.

The Revolution was a 46-page PDF on 1km1kt. Pour one out for the typewriters and another for the monkeys.