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lamarseillasie · 3 months

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Marat et Le Junius Français

I know it's been a while since I've done a post like this one, but that doesn't mean I've lost interest in writing about little-known anecdotes and adventures of Marat! One of them is the brief and chaotic existence of Le Junius Français, one of Marat's lesser-known newspapers, which he created and published during the month of June 1790.

The probable reason why hardly anyone knows that Junius Français existed (the only Marat historian I've ever seen mention it was Olivier Coquard in his Jean-Paul Marat, une lumière en Révolution : biographie d'un homme des Lumières devenu l'Ami du peuple) is that it only had 13 issues in total. Its publication was somewhat turbulent, lasting only three weeks, for obvious reasons. But it is still, in all its context, a very interesting and surprising periodical.

The creation of the short-lived newspaper comes at a complicated and somewhat hectic time for Marat, who had just returned from London in May and was keen to resume publication of L'Ami du Peuple and join the patriotic press. As usual, Marat had to remain underground, as he continued to be the target of legal proceedings and arrest warrants and the publication of L'Ami du Peuple was, unsurprisingly, banned by the authorities. In addition, there was also a constant fight against forgers - the fake Marat, plagiarists who published newspapers and pamphlets under his name, which may also confirm the influence and popularity he had gained at the time. These forgeries of L'Ami du Peuple began to appear in large numbers from 1790 onwards, and Marat made an effort to defend himself against them as soon as he returned to Paris. Not only him, but the Revolution in general was going through a turbulent situation. There had been conflicts involving bakers and grain, the question of war and federations, as well as other external crises that concerned France.

It was against this backdrop of accusations against conspirators, clandestinity and arrest warrants that Marat created Le Junius Français, a second newspaper, which was published for the first time on June 2, 1790. During its publication, Le Junius Français coexisted with L'Ami du Peuple, and both periodicals were published (almost) every day until the end of the first, in its 13th issue, on June 24.

On the structural aspects of the newspaper, Professor Coquard, already cited above as the main basis of this post, comments in Marat, L'Ami du Peuple [p.243]:

This second newspaper presents itself exactly like L'Ami du Peuple: an eight-page in-oitavo printed on poor quality paper that comes out of the workshops of "Guilhemat et Arnulphe, printers of Liberty, at 23 rue Serpent" and is distributed - door to door only - "every morning at number three rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine". Junius seems to focus more specifically on articles of denunciation, while L'Ami du Peuple is probably looking for more general political analysis. However, the two sheets are quite similar.

The name chosen by Marat for the newspaper, "Le Junius Français", also intrigued me. I found in this note apparently (?) written by G. Eljorf through Le gazetier révolutionnaire, a catalog of periodicals of the time, an explanation that seemed to me quite plausible and accurate about the title:

Lucius Junius Brutus and Marcus Junius Brutus are two figures from Roman history engaged in the struggle against tyranny, that of Tarquin and that of Caesar respectively. The pseudonym Junius had been used by an anonymous English pamphleteer around 1770 in a series of letters critical of the government of George III (Junius Letters).

We can speculate on various reasons why Marat might have created the newspaper in such a complex period. Perhaps it was one of his skillful political strategies to amplify his attacks on his enemies at a time of difficulty, but it could also have been the start of a newspaper that Marat actually planned to maintain, so that he could give L'Ami du Peuple another direction. The intentions and objectives of Junius Français, at least, are clearly explained on page 8 of the first issue:

This journal is particularly intended to follow the deaf maneuvers of the revolution's enemies, to reveal their relations with foreign cabinets, to vent the plots of traitors to the Fatherland, to serve as a cry of alarm, to disconcert their dark schemes.

The history of its sessions will be followed by reflections adapted to the subject, portraits of the authors of the most important motions, of the ministers and of the most remarkable figures in the history of the revolution. Finally, it will report on new events likely to pique public curiosity.

In fact, at least in the first issue - which I analyzed more meticulously than the others - he does what he says. He first scolds the Parisians, in the same fraternal and unmistakable style as L'Ami du Peuple, and then recounts the May 31 session of the National Assembly, where a case of conflict between the grenadiers of the Royal Navy regiment was discussed in which a group of patriots had been brutally mistreated. He speaks briefly about the decisions concerning the civil organization of the clergy and denounces the Dutch. He constantly maintains the spirit of denunciation, calling on the people to take revenge. Although his name only appears in 4th issue, it's not hard to spot Marat's pen in every word.

Marat unfortunately didn't manage to keep publishing Junius Français for long. Certainly, the newspaper ceased publication at the end of June for a number of reasons, and among them there is no doubt that Marat must have been overwhelmed with writing and managing the printing and correspondence for two revolutionary periodicals at once. Expenses, lack of time and problems involving the printers of both Junius and L'Ami du Peuple must have contributed to the sudden demise of this newspaper.

I found it interesting to bring up Junius Français because, as well as being one of Marat's most unknown and neglected works, it is also one of his writings that impresses me the most, since he managed to keep both newspapers going at the same time in a chaotic context in which he had to hide from the police, manage the publication of other of his works, solve plagiarism problems and at the same time pay attention to the political situation in France, which was becoming increasingly tense. His commitment, his incessant dedication to producing even in the most difficult and theoretically impossible times is always fascinating, to say the least, and Junius Français is an example of how Marat's revolutionary activity was frenetic and tireless even underground and under threat from the government. His attempt to maintain the two newspapers, despite failing, went beyond Marat's own limits and was, in a way, a good propaganda tool against his political enemies.

#marat #le junius français #marat anedoctes #jean paul marat #frev #french revolution #my posts #btw i swear i'm working on the next le docteur marat post!#i'm moving at the moment and i'm not as persevering as marat so it's been a bit difficult to write 😆#i'm also preparing a list of the addresses where he took refuge in his escapes from the police during the revolution!

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apazwtsn · 2 months

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I hate this cover. Who designed it? What monster designs a cover like that? If it hadn't been the only copy I found of the book I wouldn't have bought it. I don't know anything about design but please, who thought this would be good? Which one of them is supposed to be Holmes? Or Watson? Or Moriarty? What does it even has to do with the story? What does this want to tell me? Really, I don't understand. Three random men from the shoulders up, floating on a white background with some waterfalls???? What the hell does that mean???? There is not even a hint that tells me that this is a Sherlock Holmes book. If you take away the title and the author, I'll think it's a biography or something like that. I bought two other Sherlock Holmes books at 2 for 1, much cheaper than this one, one of which had pages falling out and even so they have a better cover. Really disappointing.

edit: I EVEN JUST NOTICED THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO WRITE WELL HOLMES. IT LITERALLY SAYS "SHERLOCK HOMES COLLECTION"

#acd #sherlock holmes #john watson #acd watson #acd holmes #acd books #james moriarty #book cover #disastrous book cover

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lulu2992 · 10 months

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Hey there!

After reading your great insight on what to keep in mind when, say, writing the Seed brothers in fanfiction, I was wondering if you wanted to cap things off on what to keep in mind when writing Faith?

You don’t have to do it immediately, just when you have the time.

Hi! Sure, let’s conclude this “series” with the last member of the family, Faith Seed :)

First, while she’s referred to as a/the Siren by Dutch, a couple of NPCs, and in promotional material, this isn’t her official title in the Project. And as you probably know, Faith Seed’s real name is actually Rachel. However, unlike what the Far Cry Wiki claims, I’m quite certain her full name was never Rachel Jessop. Unfortunately, the biography on her Wiki page is partly made up and based on that incorrect assumption, so I really don’t recommend trusting it. This advice goes for all Far Cry characters, and I don’t think the Far Cry 6 Season Pass is a good reference, either, since the DLCs were written with the help of the Wiki.

In Far Cry 5, in addition to the story cutscenes, she has three sermons (here, here, and here), four answering machine messages (here, here, here, and here), and can also be randomly encountered in the Henbane River region as a “specter” (term used in the files). When she appears, she either hums the song “Oh The Bliss” (here and here) or talks to the Deputy. I think what she says really is worth listening to and adds a lot to her character. @teamhawkeye has done a tremendous job recording and compiling all her appearances in 9 videos (1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9)! As for Marshal Burke’s “apology video”, in which Faith also appears, it’s here.

I wrote a summary of what other characters say about her here (masterpost here), and all the NPCs’ comments about the Seed family are available here and here.

Faith isn’t in Far Cry Arcade and doesn’t have the same “combat lines” as most other characters, but you can still listen to everything she says during the final fight against her here.

Her deleted lines are here, and she has even more here. Most of them probably aren’t relevant anymore, but they’re still interesting and make me wonder what they originally had in mind for the character!

If I’m not mistaken, there’s only one note in Far Cry 5 written by Faith: the “Note for Tracey” (Hope County Jail). The note “A Confession” (Throne of Mercy Church) was also written by “Faith”, but it seems to me the author is one of Rachel’s predecessors.

Indeed, in-game evidence indicates Rachel wasn’t the first woman who took on the role of Faith Seed. There were at least two others before her, Lana and Selena, but we barely know anything about them or why they were replaced. Two letters, written by people who knew and loved them, can be found in the game in the Horned Serpent Cave and the King’s Hot Springs Hotel, but that’s pretty much it.

There was another note written by Faith, apparently cut from the game but still available in oasisstrings. It was supposed to be in her bunker, Faith’s Gate:

To my guardians, Because we have each other, we are already strong. But when the Collapse comes, this gate will need to be the heart of our strength. Guard it with your lives, knowing that any sacrifice you make will be for the future of humanity's greatest ideals and dreams. Jacob and Joseph have chosen you to guard this gate. You should be very proud. I know you serve me with love, but never forget that this will be your home, too. If you falter from this purpose, remember the bliss is there for you. With love, Faith

It’s worth noting that, in the game’s files, Faith (or the Henbane River) is sometimes referred to as “Selena Seed”. To me, this suggests that her identity and her backstory went through many changes during the development of Far Cry 5, and that might explain at least some of the grey areas surrounding the character.

Since she isn’t the Seed brothers’ biological sister and they weren’t raised together, The Book of Joseph doesn’t give a lot of information about her life before Eden’s Gate aside from what the game already tells us: she was a broken person, addicted to drugs, and was “adopted” by Joseph as his sister and Herald. When she joined the cult, since drugs are forbidden by the rules, she first had to overcome her addiction, and the book says she succeeded with the help of scopolamine (basically Bliss). It’s also explained she then worked with a geneticist named Peter, probably on developing Bliss. That said, in the game, he’s never mentioned, cultists never use the word “scopolamine” (always “Bliss”), and nothing clearly indicates it can be or has ever been used as a substitution treatment, so I’m not sure what’s still canonical...

Faith also appears in the short film Inside Eden’s Gate (not entirely canon to me but still good) where she’s played by Mackenzie “Kenz” Lawrén Johnson. I must admit Faith is my favorite Herald in the film; I really like Kenz Lawrén’s interpretation as well as her opinion on the character, which she gave in this interview!

Weirdly, Faith has often been referred to as the “half-sister” by the game’s main writers (such as here or here) even though she isn’t related to the Seed family in the game. It’s possible that she used to be but that was changed at some point. According to the Lead Writer, “Maybe she isn’t liked by the other two brothers as she didn’t grow up with them” (which is hinted at by NPCs and John himself in Far Cry 5). In a now-deleted interview for GameCrate, he also described her as “more of an outsider” and “probably the most fervent believer in Joseph”.

Greg Bryk, who co-created and played the Father, said he believed he needed Faith because “the maternal aspect of the feminine energy is missing” in his life even though it’s something “essential for Joseph to have”. He thinks there have been several Faiths because “when [Joseph] would lose faith, [he] would find another Faith.” And according to him, “she doesn’t need to have a specific energy because there’s something of an essence that [he needs] as opposed to a person”, and she almost has a “mother earth energy”.

While she does give a bit of information about her past life as Rachel in the game, saying she was “ostracized by her community”, “bullied by friends”, “abused by her family”, and “wanted to die”, it’s not always easy to know what’s true and what’s not when it comes to Faith because she’s known for being a master manipulator; lying is canonically part of her modus operandi. In a way, because Faith Seed is a role, I would say she’s also always performing. Unlike what a few NPCs claim, I don’t think that means she never tells the truth, but she’s still undoubtedly “very skilled at twisting the facts and turning any situation to her advantage”, as the game’s Narrative Director put it.

Although the details are unclear, I believe it’s true Rachel was “lost” and “broken” before she arrived in Hope County and joined the Project. It’s also true that, as Faith Seed, she’s now powerful, dangerous, and not innocent anymore, as her former best friend Tracey Lader, who knows her very well and witnessed her transformation (but was unable to stop it), warns the Deputy. I neither mean nor think the situation Faith is in is normal, healthy, or the best thing that could have happened to her, but I do think saying she’s unhappy with it, helpless, in danger, or that she only wishes she could run away from the cult really is a misunderstanding of the character. Faith knows what she’s doing, and she’s very good at doing it. To me, she’s the most powerful Herald.

Since the lore is a bit inconsistent, we’re not entirely sure how the Bliss works and who created it, but we know it’s an almost magical, hallucinogenic and pacifying drug made from “bliss flowers” (heavily inspired by Datura stramonium) that Faith is immune to, can control, and uses to brainwash people. “The Bliss” is also a place, but once again, the details are unclear. It could be her bunker, or maybe just a distorted version of reality that individuals who are exposed to the drug “live” in. Wherever or whatever it is, most people never truly come back from it or fully break free from Faith’s influence, as seen with the Marshal in the game…

In the Project, Faith’s role is to lure (hence the nickname “Siren”) people into the cult and convince them to follow the Father, often with the help of Bliss. If they keep resisting or are “too full of fear and doubt”, high doses of the drug can be administered to them and turn them into Angels, who are comparable to zombies according to some characters. Bliss irreversibly damages people’s brains, and those who become Angels unfortunately can never be saved. Faith and her followers seem to think they’re beautiful creations because they’re faithful to the Project and unable to sin. It seems she has the power to control them (at least partly), and the cult doesn’t hesitate to use them as “shock troops” or “slave labor and beasts of burden”, as NPCs say. They’re indeed very docile and resistant... as well as hard to kill.

Again, there are some discrepancies regarding what happens to potential converts in the Henbane River region, but it seems people first have to walk along the Pilgrimage path and, at the end of it, take a literal leap of faith from the statue of Joseph, just like Faith explains she did (even though whether or not the statue already existed at the time is a bit uncertain). As unbelievable as it sounds, NPCs confirm it’s entirely possible to survive the leap. After walking the Path, some pilgrims become Angels, some simply join the Project, and others don’t survive, either because they don’t make it to the end or die when they jump (maybe because their faith isn’t strong enough, I’m not sure how that works).

In the Family, Faith can be described as “the favorite child” (and I think that makes John jealous), who saw Joseph as her savior when they met and wants others to experience the same feeling, by force if necessary. Just like her brothers, she basically weaponizes her trauma and makes people relive a sublimated version of her life story: she targets the most vulnerable individuals, gives them drugs to ease their torment, and sometimes takes their minds away from them. Even though Faith is fully capable of thinking for herself, isn’t mind-controlled, was a drug user before she joined the Project (not after), and left her old self Rachel “in the darkness” willingly to be reborn as Faith Seed, she still became a new person for the Father and expects the same from anyone she converts, even if that means she has to completely brainwash them.

In conclusion, we don’t really know much about Rachel and her backstory, simply that she was broken, saw Eden’s Gate as a chance to start anew, and happily took it. Since she was young, desperate, and therefore suggestible when she met Joseph, one can wonder if Faith is simply a manipulated, brainwashed victim; a poor, helpless soul devoured by a cult. But although that situation is far from ideal or normal, she and other characters confirm that she too has teeth, and she doesn’t hesitate to use them. Rachel should theoretically just have been a victim, but as Faith Seed, she’s transcended this status. She’s found purpose, power, and is committed to her beliefs. Not everyone in Hope County precisely knows who she is, but now, she does. She’s a multifaceted mystery whom people tend to underestimate, and it’s something she likes to cultivate because that’s how she gets them. She’s a Siren, but in my opinion, also a Phoenix, who was consumed completely and rose up from her own ashes to be born again. Rachel was broken, but Faith is strong. Rachel lost herself, but Faith was found. Rachel was nothing; Faith can be anything.

#I was expecting this hehe #that still took more than a week because life has been busy :’)#far cry 5 #faith seed #rachel not jessop #we’ve been fooled!#the wiki strikes again!#far cry 5 spoilers #I realize the phoenix comparison also works if you consider all the faiths #‘faith seed’ has already died and been born again as a new person #I mean literally a new person

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nightlyteaandpaper · 9 months

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ACOTAR Vs. Racialize Stereotypes

I am not going to speak on TOG because I have not read it and have no plans to read it; I do not care. At all. However, some things in this series kind of...turn my stomach around and I really need to let them out before I spiral.

I understand that Prythan is located in what would be the UK, so I am not mad about the number of white people displayed, especially since this is a traditionally published (1) fantasy (2) female-lead (3) young adult (4) turned to adult (5) novel written by a white woman (6) from upstate New York (7) who has never seen poverty a day in her life (8, and I read her biography, so I know that for a fact.) I'm not mad about that, because in my own story, despite it being very diverse (and I mean very diverse), the majority of people are black or half black, with there being some Indigenous people and South and Eastern Asian people (and very little white people.) However, while I am not mad at what is being portrayed, Im annoyed about how it is being portrayed.

In this series, we meet our first person of color in the form of Alis, the maidservant. At the time, we didn't know she was black or black-coded. Still, we quickly find out because, for some fucking reason, the glamor Tamlin gave his people also changed the color of Alis's skin, and this was because he didn't want Feyre to freak out... so, either Tamlin is a racist or Feyre is (this is a joke, please laugh.) However, what is not a joke is that Alis is depicted as the magical negro-troupe, where she gives sage advice and aids our disastrous main character. This being one-off , would not have been an issue, but for some reason...it is not. Within the same book, we meet the shadow twins who are still coded as people of color with tan skin despite being underground for fucking 50 years. If Rhysand, for some reason, is pale as a fucking ghost, everyone really should be pale, but the maids were people of color. In the first book, all the Help were people of color.

This, combined with the depictions of the Ilyrans, who are pretty much thought to be middle eastern men, as aggressive, backward people, is CRAZY. It is INSANE that the mostly white, NC is the progressive court of all the fucking land, but they refuse to do anything about the situation literally within their borders. They do a lot of grandstanding when it comes to feminism (which is another topic) but...do nothing to stop it. Instead, they just shit on the Ilyrans and call them backward and aggressive, and it is not lost on me that the two full-blooded Ilyrians who escape, shit on their ethnic group whenever they get a chance, and the one who is even remotely proud to be a bat-thing, is also depicted as aggressive and cocky and so very much obnoxious. It is also not lost on me that the three bat-dudes who escaped, all found their sanctuaries in the arms of white women. Of the women in the IC, none of them are people of color (I thought Amren was Asian and Morr was biracial, but that wasn't the case, in fact, she wasn't even related to Rhys on his mom's side.) And it is also not lost on me that the "objectively good" and feminist bat-boy of the trio is also half-white.

We have two POC High Lords in the series (good, I guess) and both of them get a raw deal from the author. Helion is a man who does not know he has a son (I also don't understand why Feyre is the one to figure this out when she has only been in this realm for, at most, a year and had literally just met Helion three days prior. Lucien has been alive for almost 500 years, and NO ONE, not even Helion, figured it out? They half to look a lot alike for her to put it together that easily.) Helion (also the bisexual High Lord) is a fucking hoe who has a child he does not know about in a completely different zip code. No one else has that issue, which would you think would be the case since some of these have been alive for...almost a thousand you.

And now we have my darling Tarquin. He is the youngest of the High Lords at 86. It is known that he would have given the literal shirt off his back if he could be friends with ANYONE, and he wanted to be friends with Rhysand because he saw something in that guy that he liked. And instead of asking "Hey, can we...can we see your book" and then, if Tarquin said no, they steal it, they just steal the shit. Then they had the audacity to consider sicking Amren on them because Tarquin, who was betrayed, gave them blood diamonds, but they never have this energy when it comes to their white counterparts.

Here is what gets my goat--there is something so insidious about a white-coded woman telling a black-coded man what to do in his own house. Tarquin had every right to want to kick Feyre and Rhysand in the teeth and throw them out, but instead, he calmly bitches for a few seconds and then tells Feyre to leave. Upon this, Feyre refuses to exit this man's house, while choosing to approach knowing damn well that his entire life is destroyed because of the butterfly affect her shitty (war criminal) actions in the Spring Court had on his court. And when he looks at the man who he wanted to be friends with and says, "take your mate and leave," Rhysand says "She is the High Lady of the Night Court; she can do whatever she wants..." the amount of entitlement that seeps through those pages made me sick and made me look up a few of SJM's controversial takes. The real-life implication of this entire scene is...crazy. Not to mention that it makes it seem that being the High Lady of the Night Court was more important than being the actual ruler of the current kingdom they are standing in.

What made me even more upset was that...even after all that, Tarquin steal forgave them and helped...

I don't think I need to explain why that is problematic. We are all smart here.

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anotherhumaninthisworld · 10 months

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What do we know of the rumours about Adele Duplessis being engaged to Robespierre? (Sorry for all the asks lately , your amazing answers are irresistible!)

Very little, unfortunately. The only thing we have hinting at it is the following letter, first published in Marcellin Matton’s Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins (1836):

Citoyen Robespierre, So it is not enough for you (tu) to have murdered your best friend, you still want the blood of his wife! Your monster Fouquier-Tinville has just given orders to send her to the scaffold; two hours more and she will not be in existence. Robespierre, if you are not a tiger with a human face, if the blood of Camille has not inebriated you to the point that you’ve lost your reason entirely, if you remember our evenings of intimacy, if you remember the carrasses you lavished on little Horace, that you delighted to hold him upon your knee, if you remember that you were to have been my son-in-law, spare an innocent victim. But if your fury is that of the lion, come then and take us too, me, Adèle and Horace; come and tear away all three of us with your hands still dripping with the blood of Camille, come, come, and let us be reunited by one single tomb. F Duplessis

As can be seen, the letter appears to have been written by Annette Duplessis, Adèle and Lucile’s mother. It is undated, but quite clearly meant to have been penned down on April 13 1794, right after Lucile has been sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The letter has been cited countless times in different biographies and studies. However, in 2018, Hervé Leuwers attached the following footnote to it when citing it in his Camille et Lucile Desmoulins: un rêve de république:

It is impossible for me to confirm the authenticity and the content of this second letter from Mdm. Duplessis, perplexed by the choice of tutoiement and the expression “tiger with a human face” (which recalls the post-Thermidor period); unlike the previous one, it is not kept at the BHVP.

The previous letter Leuwers is referring to is the following, likewise written by Annette Duplessis to Robespierre regarding the trial of her oldest daugther. While the other one is clearly meant to have been written after the final verdict has been pronounced, this one is from earlier that day, while the trial is still ongoing. I don’t know if this letter is somewhat of a new addition to the archive, but I’ve not seen any historian or author prior to Leuwers mention or cite it:

24 Germinal Oh Robespierre, if there is still time, save the most innocent of creatures, save Camille’s unfortunate wife from death! It’s a mother in despair that adresses herself to you (vous), my daughter is close to succomb under the feet of the most infamous of calomnies. It’s today that she will be judged, tell the judges to suspend their judgment, tell them to save the innocence, candor and all the virtues combined. Robespierre, forgive me for my importunes, but my heart is broken and prey to all sorrows and it is only you in the world to whom I can speak with confidence, because I know the greatness of your soul and I am ready to succumb under the weight of misfortune. Citoyenne Duplessis

That Annette’s tone differs between the two letters and the fact that the second can’t be found at the BHVP are two things I wouldn’t say make the letter suspect per se, in the first case because Annette can’t exactly have been counted on to be entirely consequential in her behaviour given the circumstances, in the second case because Matton is confirmed to have given away an unspecified amount of the Desmoulins papers to friends before the majority was handed over to the BHVP in 1889 by his brother. (as a consequence, quite a few of the letters found in the Correspondance… can’t be found in a public archive today). The fact that the letter makes use of an expression popularized after thermidor I consider more grave, even if it’s not impossible it’s the question of a complete coincidence.

If it is true that the letter mentioning Adèle and Robespierre is apocryphal, the obvious question is of course who forged it and why. As I stated above, the letter was first published in Correspondance inédite de Camille Desmoulins (1836). The documents contained in that work were given to Annette Duplessis after the death of her daugther and son-in-law, who then kept them her whole life before passing them on to Camille’s distant relative Marcellin Matton shortly before her death in 1834, making him promise to publish ”those that may present any historical interest.” This means the only people who would have had the opportunity to forge the letter and sneak it in with the others before it got published are Annette, Adèle (who lived with her mother, and then Matton, for her whole life) and Matton. I can’t really come up with any satisfactory explaination of why any of them would want to do it.

For Matton, we should begin by pointing out that he is not above editing the letters given to him when it suits him. Mostly it’s about censoring sections or words either deemed ”too intimate” or with the potential to compromise the ”golden legend” Matton wants go give of Camille (examples of this can be seen here, here and here). As strange at it may sound to modern ears, this was an acceptable thing to do for the time, so it can’t really be used as evidence that Matton was a forger. It can also be added that Matton barely cares about Lucile, and when he does she only exists through her husband. It would therefore be rather strange of him to forge a letter regarding only her, with Camille just being mentioned in passing.

When it comes to Annette and Adèle, it’s even harder for me to come up with a rational explanation as to why they would dream up an engagement between the latter and Robespierre. A person who wishes to make stuff up about their child’s demise to make it more dramatic, or falsibly imply they used to date someone responsible for death of their sibling sounds strange to say the least, and in Lucile’s case it’s even stranger given that we know through several sources that she and her mother were close to one another. It’s the same thing here as in the case with Charlotte Robespierre, who in her memoirs claims she was engaged to Fouché in 1793. This can hardly have been true since Fouché was already married to someone else by then, but since making up that you were close to and even ready to marry someone involved in the death of a loved one is a very illogical thing to do, most authors have instead taken on the more rational idea that there were something between them 1788-1790 when both were unmarried and lived in Arras, and that Charlotte intentionally messes up the dates so that she can portray her older brother in a more positive light (he’s so virtuous he won’t let his sister marry someone who guns people down en masse, and therefore the engagement is broken up). I think the same way here in that Adèle X Robespierre must at least contain a grain of truth.

For me, the possible scenarios are the following

1. The letter is completely authentic, written by Annette on April 13 1794. She switched from vouvoiement to tutoiement with the hope that that would help influence Robespierre and just happened to use a parable that would also be popularized after thermidor. Robespierre having courted Adèle is also completely authentic. 2. It is true there was something between Adéle and Robespierre but the letter is written after the fact. Maybe Adèle and Annette wanted history to know about the courtship in order to underline that the dantonist purge was even worse than it may first appear, not just on a judical level, but on a personal one too. They forged the letter since it is easier for people to believe things brought up in a a context wherein you would have very little reason to lie compared to things insisted on forty years after the fact. Annette might also have wanted to better her own image and throw that first letter, where she’s more or less complimenting one of her daughter’s killers, under the rug, by writing a new letter containing the things she in hindsight might wished she had told Robespierre instead.

3. Annette and/or Adèle really did make up the courtship (who knows, maybe Adèle was one of those people who wants to be remembered by history at all costs, even if it means implying she was about to marry Robespierre, although I wonder why they don’t underline the relationship a bit better if that’s the case). Alternatively, Matton forged the letter when publishing the correspondence without informing Adèle about it, or she knew but didn’t care/have time to publicly refute it.

Finally, if we assume it to be true that Robespierre courted Adèle, when exactly could it have taken place? If Charlotte Robespierre’s memoirs are to be believed her brother was engaged to modemoiselle Deshorties at the start of the revolution, and it wasn’t until October 1791 when he came home to Arras for a short stay and found out she had married someone else while he was gone that the relationship was broken up. If this is true, Robespierre and Adèle can’t have become a thing until at least late 1791. Robespierre is also said to have been married/engaged/promised to/relentlessly persued by Éléonore Duplay, whose family he lived with from July 1791 to his death. Given the fact that so many contemporaries have reported something between them it feels like their relationship must have carried on for a considerable amount of time. The most plausible to me would therefore be that Adèle and Robespierre were courting somewhere in 1792 (when Adèle would have been 18), though the idea that the engagement lasted all the way until April 1794 when it was broken up by natural reasons and that Éléonore and Robespierre didn’t become a thing until the last few months of his life is of course something that can’t be completely written off. Nor do I suppose you can entirely dismiss the idea that Robespierre was dating several people at once without telling them…

It is also not completely proven it is Adèle and not Lucile that the letter is alluding to (I’ve actually seen some author make that conclusion). If that is so, the year where it’s most likely something happened between the two is 1789, when Camille appears to have taken a break in his pursuit of Lucile.

And thank you so much for your compliment! 😊😊

#robespierre #maximilien robespierre #adèle duplessis #annette duplessis #lucile desmoulins #ask

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pub-lius · 4 months

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What in your opinion makes a good/well written history book? Can you give some examples?

i miiiight have talked about this before like 6 months ago so you might be able to find more info from me on this but idk. to answer this, im just sitting on the floor in front of my bookshelf HEJWBW

So contrary to popular belief, there are just as many factors that go into a non fiction book as a fiction book, and they all have their different styles. to make the comparisons im making, im gonna keep it between Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, Black Flags, Blue Waters by Eric Jay Dolin, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger, The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman, and John Laurens and the American Revolution by Gregory D. Massey and George Washington’s Indispensable Men by Arthur S. Lefkowitz, just referring to them by their author(s)’ last name. these are all books i have on hand that ive fully read and annotated

Most history books will be in a biographical or chronological style, where they retell events relating to a person or period in order, and others will take a more narrative style, like what Kilmeade and Yaeger have done, but this is often used to enhance understanding by not constantly referring back to previous events. neither one of this is better or worse, but they open different opportunities for how the author will broach certain subjects.

this is where we get into the author. just like in fiction, the author’s opinions, biases, and preferences alter the way the book is written, mainly because they will highlight certain information that they personally believe is important, and their historical reasoning will reflect their personal biases.

the two authors that i think are most different in this respect are Feldman and Chernow. as we all know, i really don’t like Chernow, for the primary reason that his evidence is contradictory and his theories tend to be misogynistic. the contradictions in his book make it hard to take anything he says at face value and it eliminates all chance of his book being easy to read, along with the fact that he is very wordy.

when it comes to Feldman, his biography of James Madison is a lot shorter than anything Chernow has ever touched with a pen, even though Madison lived a great deal longer than Hamilton. this is because Feldman utilizes brevity more in his writing. the thesis of his book is in the title: that Madison’s life can be broken down into three sections, and he spends the book proving that while also describing his life. this book is therefore more academically reliable, but also easier to read and more trustworthy. he also uses sources for each one of his claims and chernow just pulls things out of his ass but thats neither here nor there.

speaking of sources, when you’re buying a book, flip through the index and see if they have both primary and secondary sources listed. they almost always do, but it’s important to make sure. don’t trust a book with no primary sources. there also should be a LARGE index, like enough that when you separate it from the rest of the book you’re like “oh! i dont have as much to read as i thought i did!” not only does this give you hope that you might have a life outside of this book, it shows that the book has been thoroughly and adequately researched

another factor is how much information is in the book. this has less to do with how long it is and more about the subject matter along with the length. for example, Dolin’s book is about pirates, which are largely very obscure historical figures, so you can infer that the book will be less about the individuals and more about the time period, being the Golden Age of Priacy. and it is! and there’s nothing wrong with that, its just going to give you less information on the individuals.

now when it comes to a book like Massey’s, it seems like an adequate length for a biography of one person. however i think a larger issue with Massey’s book is that he doesn’t give you the full picture of a lot of things, and that is my biggest gripe with this book. he doesn’t give the reader a lot of wiggle room when it comes to making their own theories, because he tends to state his opinion first and give minimal evidence afterwards.

im always on here ranting and raving about how good of a job Lefkowitz did, but he doesn’t really fit the criteria ive mentioned here. his book isn’t in formal writing (which isn’t a requirement but i prefer it), he leaves out a lot of details, and his book is pretty lengthy. however i think he can really be praised for just easiness to read. the truth is, history is boring, and its hard to find authors who don’t make it worse. Lefkowiz’s book is well sourced and well written and does give a really good picture of the time period and a good starting point for further research, and that is how you become my favorite book and my most frequent recommendation

its always gonna depend on your personal preferences and biases. studying history isn’t about getting rid of your biases, and more of using them as a tool or at the very least factoring them into your research. my biggest tip: just keep reading! find what you like and what you don’t bc im still doing that. get nitpicky. get funky with it. GO TO THE LIBRARY‼️

and remember kids, Ron Chernow meets his maker when he encounters me in the Denny’s Parking lot, bare fisted and ready to throw down. you can’t outrun destiny, Ron.

(for legal reasons, that’s a joke)

#history #amrev #books #asks

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ccohanlon · 6 months

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from my bookshelf

Pytheas of Massalia was a Greek geographer, explorer and astronomer from the ancient Greek colony of Massalia — modern-day Marseille, France. In the late 4th century BC, he voyaged from there to northwestern Europe, but his detailed account of it, On The Ocean, survives only in fragments, quoted — and disputed — by later authors such as Strabo, Pliny and Diodorus of Sicily. The Extraordinary Voyage Of Pytheas the Greek by the noted British historian of ancient maritime Europe, Barry Cunliffe, attempts to draw out the reality of what was an extraordinary sea journey, from the Western Mediterranean north along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the British Isles, then even further north, to the near-mythic land of Thule. Cunliffe makes a strong case for Pytheas being “the first European explorer”, while identifying the most likely locations of Thule, sought so avidly by 19th and early 20th century adventurers and artists.

James Hamilton-Paterson’s Seven-Tenths: The Sea And Its Thresholds, published in 1992, more than two thousand years after Pytheas’s On The Ocean, is an ambitious, expressive exploration of the vast aqueous wilderness that covers three-quarters of our planet by a writer of remarkable literary accomplishment (he was one of Martin Amis’s professors at Oxford). Plumbing humanity’s complex, multi-faceted relationship with the sea, Hamilton-Paterson writes vivid, meditative passages about, well, everything — fishing, piracy, oceanography, cartography, exploration, ecology, the ritual of a burials at sea, poetry, and even his own experiences living for extended periods on a small island in the Philippines.

Tom Neale’s autobiography, An Island To Oneself: Six Years On A Desert Island, describes an altogether smaller, more solitary world: the island of Anchorage, part of the Suwarrow Atoll in the South Pacific. Born in New Zealand in 1902, Neale spent most of his life in Oceania: after leaving the Royal New Zealand Navy, he worked for decades aboard inter-island trading vessels and in various temporary jobs ashore before his first glimpse of his desert island home. He moved to Anchorage in 1952 and over three different periods, lived in hermitic solitude for 16 years, with rare visits from yachtsmen, island traders, and journalists. Among the last was Noel Barber, a close friend of my late father: he gave my father a copy of Neale’s book, in Rome, shortly after it was published in 1966 (I still have it). Neale was taken off his beloved island in 1977 and died not long after of stomach cancer.

The Starship And The Canoe by Kenneth Brower, published in 1978, is an unlikely dual biography of a father and son that draws intriguing parallels between the ambitious ideas of renowned British theoretical physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson — who, in the early 1970s explored concepts for interstellar travel, settlements on comets, and nuclear rockets that might propel mankind to the outer reaches of the universe — and his wayward son, George, who lived in a self-built tree house 30 metres up a Douglas fir overlooking the Strait Of Georgia, in British Columbia and devised large canoes based on Aleut baidarkas in which to paddle north to the wild, uninhabited littoral of southern Alaska. Brower’s descriptions of long passages with the younger Dyson in the cold, sometimes fierce tidal waters between Vancouver Island and the Canadian mainland are gripping and I have read them again and again. It is, unarguably, my favourite book.

The late, New Zealand-born doctor and sailor, David Lewis, is not as widely known as he was half a century ago, even by avid readers of sea stories, but from his earliest memoirs in the 1960s — of his participation in the first-ever singlehanded trans-Atlantic race (The Ship That would Not Sail Due West), and of incident-prone voyages to far-flung coasts with his young family (Dreamers of the Day, Daughters of the Wind, and Children Of Three Oceans) — to his practical, first-hand studies of instrument-less ocean navigation among South Pacific islanders, (We, The Navigators and The Voyaging Stars) in the 1970s, Dr. Lewis was not only the late 20th century’s most remarkable and intelligent writer on the sea and small-boat voyaging but also one of its most adventurous. My favourite of his several books: Ice Bird, published in 1972, an account of a gruelling, almost fatal voyage from Sydney, Australia, in an ill-prepared, steel, 32-foot yacht to achieve the first singlehanded circumnavigation of Antarctica.

It’s said that spending time anywhere with Lorenzo Ricciardi, late ex-husband of Italian photographer Mirella Ricciardi, was an adventure. A film-maker and former senior advertising executive, once described by a British writer as “a penniless Neapolitan count”, he gambled at roulette to raise enough money to buy an Arab dhow, which, in the 1970s, with little seafaring experience and plenty of mishaps, he sailed from Dubai to the Arabian Gulf, and from there down the Arabian to coast of Africa, where the dhow was shipwrecked among the Comoros Islands. The Voyage Of The Mir El Ah is Lorenzo’s picaresque account (illustrated by Mirella’s photographs). Astoundingly, several years later, Lorenzo and Mirella Ricciardi completed an even more dangerous, 6,000-kilometre voyage across Equatorial Africa in an open boat — and another book, African Rainbow: Across Africa By Boat.

Italian madmen aside, it used to be that you could rely on surfers for poor impulse control and reckless adventures, on the water and off. Back in the late 1990s, Allan Weisbecker sold his home, loaded his dog and a quiver of surfboards onto a truck, and drove south from the Mexican border into Central America to figure out what had happened to an old surfing buddy — in between checking out a few breaks along the way. In Search Of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond The End Of The Road is a memoir of a two-year road-trip that reads like a dope-fuelled fiction but feels more real than William Finnegan’s somewhat high-brow (and more successful) Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life.

Which brings me to Dana and Ginger Lamb. In 1933, these newly-weds would certainly have been looked at askance by most of their middle-American peers when they announced that they weren’t ready yet to settle down and instead built a 16-foot hybrid canoe-sailboat and set of on what would turn out to be a 16,000-mile, three year journey down the Pacific coasts of Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the Panama Canal. Dana’s 415-page book, Enchanted Vagabonds, published in 1938, was an unexpected New York Times best-seller and today is more exciting to read than the ungainly, yawn-inducing books produced by so many, more commercially-minded, 21st century adventurers.

First published in Sirene, No. 17, Italy, 2023.

#sea #seafaring #travel #books #adventure #biography #history

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metamatar · 4 months

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The Jain scholar Siddhicandra (ca. 1587–1666) belonged to the first generation of Sanskrit literati to enjoy the patronage of the Mughal court. His quite distinctive character emerges from an autobiography he has left us, a text that is included—this itself discloses something of the man’s sense of self—as the last chapter in the biography of Bha¯nucandra, his teacher. Although having taken Jain renunciation as a youngster, Siddhicandra likewise became, through the offices of his teacher, his own intellectual accomplishments, and—by his own admission—his arresting physical beauty, an intimate of two of the most powerful men of the early modern world [Akbar and Jahangir] for more than almost three decades

In the intellectual environment in which Siddhi came of age the ruling elites themselves were the first to challenge traditionalism. Abu-l Fazl, the leading in tellectual of the day and an intimate of Siddhicandra's teacher, wrote against restrictions on "the exercise of inquiry"; he denounced the tradition that came "as a deposit under Divine sanction" and that reproached with impiety anyone who dared contest it. For Akbar himself, man was in the first instance the disciple of his own reason. This was clearly, thus, a milieu open to the reception of new ideas. A large amount of Sanskrit learning was being translated into Per sian, and Mughal courtiers themselves occasionally learned something of San skrit literature: Khan-i-Khanan Abdur Rahim (1557-1630), Akbar's vakil and thus the highest official in the Mughal administration, experimented not only with poetry in the local vernacular but even if modestly, Sanskrit. [...]

Yet it is astonishing how narrow Siddhi's vision remained. His scholarly work-commentaries on Sanskrit literature and sastra, anthologies of Sanskrit and of Prakrit verse, a textbook on letter-writing styles-could easily have been written in the year 1100 instead of 1600. Suggestive here is his Kavyapraka-sakhandana, a critique of Mammata's eleventh century treatise. [...] Here Siddhi clearly numbers himself among the new scholars, a term he repeatedly invokes, yet in intellectual content it is a newness long familiar. His critique at the very start of the book challenges everypoint in Mammata’s understanding of poetry, but only by re-asserting old positions, not establishing new ones. [...] similar, paradoxical combination of something very new in style subserving something very old in substance is found in the one work that makes Siddhicandra worth remembering, his autobiography. Whereas the literary presentation of self here is new and striking (not least in its conflicted psychosexual character), the self is explicitly celebrated for the traditionality of the moral vision it steadfastly maintains. Nowhere does this come into sharper focus than in the dramatic core of the text, Siddhi’s debate with Jahangi¯r and Nu¯r Mahal, where the Mughal emperor and empresses dispute his commitment to sexual abstinence and try to convince him to marry. It is something rare if not unprecedented in Sanskrit literature for a writer to fashion a self so vividly pres-ment in its self-possession and self-confidence as Siddhicandra does here. The author puts himself in debate with the king and queen of Al-Hind, and on the matter of his own sexuality, of all things (which he has taken care throughout the text to render especially potent). When they repeatedly demand he renounce celibacy and marry, he remains “immovably resolute in his own dharma,” even as the courtiers bewail the “mad obstinacy” that will lead to his exile. It seems especially suggestive of the nature of Sanskrit literary culture at this moment that all the innovation—the narrative and literary and discursive novelty—should be in service of the oldest of Jain monastic ideals.

The Death of Sanskrit, Sheldon Pollock, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Apr., 2001, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Apr., 2001), pp. 392-426

#sheldon pollock #sanskrit

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houseofbrat · 7 months

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Well, well, well...

It's been approximately two months since the pr narrative about The Waleses being all about "the work" started.

And just think of all the pictures we now have of them working! The Waleses, they're just like us!

In fact, so dedicated is Kate to "her work" that she didn't even wear any dresses, except for that one time when she wore a dress to a memorial service for QEII in Wales.

Otherwise, Kate is all about business work! That's why she wore suits!

Just count em'!

Rugby podcast video: A Catherine Walker blazer in Prince of Wales check, Alexander McQueen Tailored straight-leg trousers/pants, and white shirt.

09 Sept 2023: Rugby World Cup appearance in white pantsuit; white/ivory Alexander McQueen blazer with white pants/trousers (possibly Roland Mouret).

12 Sept 2023: Alexander McQueen Amethyst suit

14 Sept 2023: Maje Vincio Blazer in Houndstooth tweed with black pants/trousers and shirt/sweater

18 Sept 2023: Holland Cooper Double-Breasted Twill Blazer in black with black pants/trousers and white shirt.

19 Sept 2023: Roland Mouret custom suit in beige

26 Sept 2023: Burberry Wool Tailored Suit in green

27 Sept 2023: Zara Textured Double-Breasted Long Blazer in red, LK Bennet Frieda Pants/Trousers in black

28 Sept 2023: Holland Cooper suit in navy chalk pin stripe

03 Oct 2023: Holland cooper suit in navy chalk pin stripe

04 Oct 2023: Cefinn Janie Sleeveless Funnel Neck sweater/jumper in mid-grey with Sezane Martin Trousers in mottled grey

05 Oct 2023: Oxen Sports ensemble

10 Oct 2023: LK Bennet Mya Blazer in yellow with black sweater and black Roland Mouret Axon Wide Leg pants/trousers

Wow.

THIRTEEN ensembles before Kate wore a skirt again.

She wore so many pantsuit ensembles that The Telegraph posted an article about it.

For eight out of the ten new appearances she’s undertaken in the past three weeks, the Princess has worn either a full trouser suit or a blazer with coordinating trousers. She’s mostly chosen muted colours and she’s largely been recycling previously seen pieces. [...] If three’s a trend, then these many tailored looks point to a very deliberate change in style direction from Catherine, who has always used her fashion choices to send messages. So what is she trying to tell us here? “It’s a look of the moment, which works well on the Princess with her long legs, and those boxy jackets suit her,” said Ingrid Seward, the editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and author of numerous royal biographies. “She wore those ‘little girl’ dresses for so long, but now she wants to look more sophisticated. It’s more of a work-day look; she doesn’t need to be in dresses anymore. A suit is snappier and smarter.” A year after assuming their Wales titles, Catherine and William are shaping their new roles for a modern era. “Catherine’s suits come at a time when the Waleses are making the way they work much more businesslike,” Seward said, adding that their increased workload and fresh approach to running their office, with the imminent appointment of a CEO, points to a polished and professional attitude from the future king and queen. If Catherine has spent the past decade being viewed as a mother and young duchess, with a wardrobe of ladylike looks to reflect that perception, then now that she is in her 40s it may feel like the right time to swing the narrative.

Wow. Ten plus years as a royal and only now does she want to be taken seriously! So much for wearing bright colors like Queen Elizabeth II so that people can see you. It's "muted colors" time now!

And it’s understandable that she might use what Seward called “the look of the moment” to craft a serious yet chic uniform that reflects her current priorities. But there are other long-time admirers of Catherine’s style who miss her softer, more classically “princessy” outfits. “I don’t mind the occasional trouser or suit, but she’s been wearing this style so much of late,” wrote Jane Barr, who comments on the Princess via her Instagram page, From Berkshire to Buckingham. “I really miss the beautiful dresses and coats. This is, very frankly, boring. She is the Princess of Wales. I’d like to see some more pizazz.” The time for pizazz may come later in the autumn, especially if Catherine attends a state banquet set to be held in honour of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in November. For now, though, “blazers are more powerful than a dress, tougher and less feminine,” according to Berkeley. “The armour plating one needs to get a job done, in my book.”

Oh, is it all about the work now? Blazers and business suits to "get a job done"? Just like Gordon Rayner wrote two months ago, "Kate is keen to do more." I see all members of the British press, who write about Kate and the royals, have received the message loud and clear that Kate is all about "the work."

Was there a risk that the press would assume Kate is not about "the work" these days? For what reason would anyone assume something like that? Is there something that the unspectacular Kensington Palace comms team hasn't told peeps about? Some "ongoing situation" that is going to become permanent?

I'm sure nothing significant will be happening regarding The Waleses in the next two weeks while their three school-age children are on half-term break. It's not as if we are currently in a period of time where shit just springs out of nowhere with no warning. Just ask Israel! They received multiple warnings that Hamas was planning shit and ignored it. See! They were warned about it. It didn't come out of nowhere even though everyone outside of the Israeli government didn't know about it.

You can't blame the messenger when people just don't want to listen.

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kaasknot · 2 years

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Hey! I have a paper on Buster Keaton coming up in my History of Film class? Would you be willing to info dump everything you know about him? I've only heard of this man through your blog and don't know where to start haha

bruh you're lucky you weren't standing next to me when i read this, my screech would have blown out your ears.

okay, buster keaton 101. he was one of the giants of the silent comedy era, alongside charlie chaplin and harold lloyd, and from the period of 1920 to 1929 he put out 19 short films and 10 feature length films under his own studio, plus two more silent films under MGM that can creditably be called his creations (i use his filmography page on wikipedia to keep it all straight). he also had the unique distinction of doing all his stunts himself, as well as doubling for many of his co-stars. most of these stunts have never been replicated, because honestly they'd probably kill people; his crew called him the "little iron man" because he was fearless and nigh indestructible. he was also a genius behind the camera, in ways that unfortunately i probably can't fully appreciate.

he was born october 4, 1895 in piqua, kansas, during a one-night stopover. his parents were working with a traveling medicine show at the time, to little acclaim, along with harry houdini before he got big. buster's first known stage appearance was as a toddler, interrupting his father's act. at first they tried to shoo him offstage, but his antics drew bigger laughs from the audience, so they decided to incorporate him into the act—leading to what would eventually be called, once they reached vaudeville, "the three keatons." buster said in interviews that his first salaried year was at 5 years of age, in 1899. that was when his family finally hit the big time—and he was almost single-handedly responsible for it.

their act is incredibly difficult to describe. the central conceit was: joe keaton threw little buster across the stage in a parody of strict parenting, while myra keaton played accompaniment on the saxophone. the best description i've found is biographer rudi blesh's, in his 1966 book, Keaton, on pp. 30–33 and 47–48. you can borrow a copy here. (be careful with this book; the author has a way with words, but he sets aside facts in favor of mythology more than once. for a rigorously researched and trustworthy biography, one with all the dates and weights, go for A Filmmaker's Life (2022) by james curtis.)

vaudeville was buster's early training ground, where he learned tumbling, comedic timing, improvisation, and how to construct a gag. most film comedians of the era got their start in vaudeville or comparable music halls, and many of the gags buster performed in his movies were adapted from vaudeville stage magic or repurposed from the family act. if there's one single book on buster keaton i'd recommend, it's Camera Man (2022) by dana stevens. it's not as dense or as thorough as the james curtis book, but it's an extremely good overview of the main events of his life AND the surrounding historical context—including vaudeville. it's also just a really fun read.

buster's vaudeville era ended in 1917, when he was forced to break up the family act over his father's worsening alcoholism. the official party line is that joe couldn't handle the fact that he was getting older, which i think is partly true, but i think a more true explanation is that he couldn't handle the fact that he was outshone by his own son (pretty much all sources agree that buster was the better comedian). he took his anger out on buster onstage during performances, and out on his wife offstage between performances, until myra finally had enough. she and buster ditched joe in los angeles when buster was 21 years old. here's an interesting paper that digs into buster's rough childhood and the impact it likely had on his films.

buster almost immediately found work as a solo act, but a chance encounter with an acquaintance introduced him to roscoe "fatty" arbuckle, then one of the highest-paid, most well-known comedians in film. it took one day on set—and one night disassembling a camera—to convince buster to abandon the stage for a film career. as a bonus, he and arbuckle became life-long friends. they spent the next three years working non-stop, making 14 short films together (plus a couple more buster wasn't involved in, during the 10-month period he was overseas for ww1). the grueling schedule wasn't without its downsides, and arbuckle, tired of making short films, decided to move to feature-length films, which had a slower, more relaxed pace. he left buster his entire studio and crew.

and that's when the real magic began. buster started (continued) with short films: 20 minute "2-reelers" that were played before a feature film, basically doing what looney tunes cartoons would do later. the best way to understand how different buster was from the dominant comedic idiom of the time is to watch a couple of arbuckle shorts ("coney island" and "the garage" are good choices), then watch a couple of buster's own ("one week" and "cops" are probably the best known). buster catered his humor to an older audience, and his gags were sophisticated, subtle, often cynical or ironic, and intricate to construct and film. "keaton made you laugh, then think" (blesh, xi).

in 1923, buster dropped short films in favor of feature-length films, starting with "three ages." he was a little behind the curve on this, but not through lack of trying; if he'd gotten his way, he'd have been the first major comedian to switch to feature-length films. unfortunately, studio contracts and his producer's cold feet held him back for a few more years, so chaplin and lloyd got there first. not that that slowed buster down; his output in the eight years he had creative control is virtually unmatched. despite getting married (in 1921, to natalie talmadge) and having two children (james, 1922, and robert, 1924), he continued filming at breakneck pace. to see what he could do with a camera, i'd recommend "sherlock jr." to see him at his cinematic best, i'd recommend "the general" "the cameraman" (i just committed cinematic heresy with that recommendation, but IN MY DEFENSE it was thee romcom training film for 20 years at MGM, well into the talkie era, so it's hardly a dud :p).

in 1928, buster's producer, joseph schenck, sold his contract to MGM. buster wasn't the owner of keaton studios, just an employee, so he didn't have much say in the matter. both chaplin and lloyd tried to talk him out of it, but in the end he signed the new contract anyway. later, he said it was the worst mistake of his career. denied the creative control he was accustomed to, he gradually descended into full-blown alcoholism, running away from his studio responsibilities and his disintegrating marriage alike. his final film for MGM, "what! no beer?", was an attempted buddy comedy with jimmy durante, and buster was visibly drunk or hungover in almost every scene. MGM fired him in 1932; his divorce, started in 1932, was finalized in 1933.

from there, buster had some dark years. he got married a second time, in 1934, to mae scriven (who mostly seems to have been a con artist), before they divorced in 1936. he was in and out of various rehabs, and nearly died at least once, before he managed to buck the odds and dry out. he spent the last years of the '30s working as a gag man and consultant for other comedians at MGM.

after that, things started to get better. he met his third wife, eleanor norris, in 1938 and they married in 1940. he had a couple high profile cameos in big movies, my favorite being the one in "sunset boulevard," where he played one of norma desmond's waxworks. then, a massively popular article by james agee, titled "comedy's greatest era," was published in LIFE magazine in 1949, kicking off a resurgence of interest in silent film as an art form and as a feature of cinematic history. agee paid special attention to buster, and that, combined with buster's own fascination with the up-and-coming technology of television, led to his comeback. he worked steadily and enthusiastically in television (and occasionally in movies) up until he died of lung cancer on february 1, 1966, living long enough to see his films receive the recognition they deserved. (also here, have this nice article i found while trying to find the one by james agee.)

i've never taken a film history class myself, so i can't begin to explain all the ways buster keaton advanced filmmaking. here's an article that analyzes the gag as a staple of film comedy; a book that analyzes buster's comic and directorial style chiefly through "the general"; and another article that explores gags, this time specifically mechanical gags, and has lots of nice things to say about buster. if this isn't enough and you decide to go whole chicken fried hog on buster like i have, hit up me, @spokir, or @busterkeatonsociety and we can connect you with all the material you could possibly want.

enjoy!!!

(colossal, chrysler building-sized thanks to spokir, who sourced most of these articles. seriously, talk to your local librarian, they WANT to find things for you.)

#buster keaton #askbox #smallfry15005

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itcameuponamidnightqueer · 4 months

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heyo! im in ‘lets circle back to that in january’ heaven rn, have you read anything recently that you’d recommend? I might finally have time to dig into it!!

hell yeah, this is a great year to ask me this question bc i actually read things, and enjoyed almost all of them! also, a plus for me and i hope it makes a difference to you—everything i read was either written by a queer author or centered the story around queer characters. yes, this was on purpose and yes i will be continuing that in 2024, i always need more queer stories in my life

fiction: siren queen, nghi vo—my favorite book i read this year. a chinese american actress trying to make it in pre-Hays Code hollywood but also there's magical realism. the queerness here is quiet but not muted. tbh i think it could have done with, like, 50 more pages; the meat of the plot seemed to really ramp up just as the book was ending. but the writing was immersive, delicate, and thoughtful.

the once and future witches, alix harrow—three sisters in 1893 work through their own loaded history as they try to bring magic back into the world. alix harrow looks at a story and says "this isn't complete until i put some generational family trauma into it," (looking at you, starling house, also recommended) and she's so right for it. she writes sisterhood wonderfully, the tenderness and trauma of it all, weaving folklore/fairy tales throughout and giving us some bonus (emotionally) tortured sapphics. can also highly highly recommend the audiobook of this; the narrator has a wonderful holly hunter-esque voice.

the teixcalaan series, arkady martine—i read both books this year but absolutely lost my shit over a desolation called peace, which is the second one. the first one, a memory called empire, is very very good and captivating but is also so full of politicking and bureaucracy that it felt slow for basically the first half. both books deal with mahit dzmare, an ambassador of a satellite station colonized by a vast, sprawling empire, and her investigation into her predecessor's death. which is a vastly simplified summary for a deliciously intricate plot; the second book has the advantage of first contact with some creepy-ass aliens and some really cool experiments with prose, from a writing perspective.

graphic novels: saga, brian k. vaughan (writer) & fiona staples (artist)—i know, i know; saga has been around for a while and i only caught up to all the TPBs this year. basic plot: two soldiers on opposite sides of a war fall in love and try to live their damn lives, despite all of the government officials, exes, and mercenaries after them. the art is impeccable, the writing is funny, sexy, heartbreaking, authentic—i can and will read this forever.

nonfiction: something that may shock and discredit you, daniel lavery—i'm not usually one for memoirs/essay collections; i prefer biographies. but i've also loved daniel's writing since the toast, and there is so much i relate to in this expression of his transition. do i always get all of the arthurian or columbo references? are there bits of it that just sail wildly over my head? absolutely. but i also burst out laughing so many times, and there were passages that i just wanted to highlight for pages and scream, "me! it's me, right here!!"

these are my top picks of my 2023 collection! i read a bunch more books but i don't want to clog up everyone's dash so just let me know if you want more recs! always happy to share

#carments #anonymous #long post #i've already added everything alix harrow and nghi vo have written to my 2024 list

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kamreadsandrecs · 9 months

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Title: The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History: From the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us Author: Steve Brusatte Genre/s: nonfiction, paleontology Content/Trigger Warning/s: none Summary (from publisher's website): We humans are the inheritors of a dynasty that has reigned over the planet for nearly 66 million years, through fiery cataclysm and ice ages: the mammals. Our lineage includes saber-toothed tigers, woolly mammoths, armadillos the size of a car, cave bears three times the weight of a grizzly, clever scurriers that outlasted Tyrannosaurus rex, and even other types of humans, like Neanderthals. Indeed humankind and many of the beloved fellow mammals we share the planet with today—lions, whales, dogs—represent only the few survivors of a sprawling and astonishing family tree that has been pruned by time and mass extinctions. How did we get here?

In his acclaimed bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs—hailed as “the ultimate dinosaur biography” by Scientific American—American paleontologist Steve Brusatte enchanted readers with his definitive history of the dinosaurs. Now, picking up the narrative in the ashes of the extinction event that doomed T-rex and its kind, Brusatte explores the remarkable story of the family of animals that inherited the Earth—mammals— and brilliantly reveals that their story is every bit as fascinating and complex as that of the dinosaurs.

Beginning with the earliest days of our lineage some 325 million years ago, Brusatte charts how mammals survived the asteroid that claimed the dinosaurs and made the world their own, becoming the astonishingly diverse range of animals that dominate today’s Earth. Brusatte also brings alive the lost worlds mammals inhabited through time, from ice ages to volcanic catastrophes. Entwined in this story is the detective work he and other scientists have done to piece together our understanding using fossil clues and cutting-edge technology.

A sterling example of scientific storytelling by one of our finest young researchers, The Rise and Reign of the Mammals illustrates how this incredible history laid the foundation for today’s world, for us, and our future.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-rise-and-reign-of-the-mammals-a-new-history-from-the-shadow-of-the-dinosaurs-to-us-steve-brusatte/18064544 Spoiler-Free Review: This is a nice parallel to Brusatte's first book, Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. I like how they followed almost similar narrative arcs, while also having similar tones of voice and writing style. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up nonfiction books by the same author that felt so naturally connected as these two do, and it was kind of pleasant to get to experience that here. The same enthusiasm that Brusatte brought to his first book, along with the same respect for his predecessors, colleagues, and students in the field. Those two aspects are the best part of this book - along, of course, with the scientific rigor that Brusatte brings to the table while simultaneously making everything remarkably readable for the layperson.

I will say though, that despite this feeling like a natural sequel to Rise and Fall, it doesn't have the same tone. Rise and Fall talks about dinosaurs and how they aren’t really dead: they’ve just evolved into birds, and so in a way, dinosaurs are still with us. This is a fantastic and wondrous line of thought, because isn’t it incredible to think that dinosaurs - which most people think of as long-dead animals (and most of them are) - to still be here with us, and moreover, to be creatures we encounter everyday, and even eat?

This book, however, doesn't have that same triumphal feel-- Actually, that's incorrect; it DOES have that feeling, especially during the first three-fourths of it, but as it progresses it becomes less triumphant and more solemn. Mammals were able to overcome the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, and they were able to survive the many climate change disasters that came after - but can they survive the current human-made climate crisis? Can we, for that matter? The title Rise and Reign of the Mammals is definitely apt, because mammals did manage to rise and reign over the Earth - us humans in particular. But every rise comes with a fall: just look at the dinosaurs. This book does a good job of reminding the reader just what’s going to cause that fall, and how it might look like based on previously-explained extinction events. It's not all gloom-and-doom, of course: Brusatte is quick to remind the reader that, unlike previous climate change-caused extinction events, humans are actually in a position to do something about the current one, not least because we're the ones responsible for it. But even if we do manage that change, there is no denying that we've destroyed many species on the way to accomplishing it, and many more will probably die off along the way before this climate change crisis is finally manageable. As I said, a rather somber ending, but an important one. Rating: five platypus eggs

#book review #book reviews #the rise and reign of the mammals #steve brusatte #nonfiction #science #paleontology #books

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46ten · 1 year

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Let’s talk about Samuel Adams, Father of the American Revolution

Stacy Schiff published an acclaimed biography last year (2022), although it’s certainly not “a revelatory biography from a Pulitzer Prize-winner about the most essential Founding Father—the one who stood behind the change in thinking that produced the American Revolution.” IOW, it’s not a work of scholarship, and I don’t recall a discussion of the “change in thinking” (what does that mean?) that Adams supposedly inspired.

This is definitely a hagiography, but with the focus on the Nation-state builders, it’s good to see some focus on the “original” fighters for liberty. Samuel Adams, at various times, gets thrown back in the bin when it’s deemed that we shouldn’t be talking about people working to overthrow the government - see popular historian take on Lincoln masterfully shifting the focus of the American founding from the resistance fighters and revolutionary firebrands (the folks the early 19th century THOUGHT of as the Founders) to the architects of the American state, a shift that has stayed with us because it was deemed not a good to champion challenging the government (though Schiff herself is a bit all over the place about respect for Adams at the end and immediately after his lifetime). But Samuel Adams is the RIGHT kind of trouble-maker, which Schiff describes from the very beginning - “moral,” “principled, “humble.” Ah, for the day when one doesn’t need to meet the definition of a moral paragon to be acclaimed in American history. I realize I’ve just written to go read this book, and then stated that books like this are of limited value, but my point is it does have valuable information, but be aware of the undercurrents in this approach.

Schiff’s prose is appealing, and she tells the real story of Paul Revere better than I’ve seen it anywhere, so the book may be worth it for that alone. But like all popular biographies of this type, beware the lack of context.

Petty point 1.

First, what’s with the makeover on these guys? This guy:

THIS GUY:

Becomes THIS GUY??!!

I complained about this with Alexander Hamilton, too.

(And I got distracted by this picture of James Watt, as he seems to be a model for some of this re-working.)

Petty point 2.

The back author blurb is a long paragraph praising the book by Ron Chernow, so I should probably have thrown this book in the trash. "A glorious book that is as entertaining as it is vitally important.” —Ron Chernow. Why is it vitally important? I still don’t know.

Real point 3.

Adams deliberately destroyed a lot of his correspondence - folks really did want to kill him and issued posters with a ransom so that the Tories could hang him, and took to the grave the stories of lots of events about the American revolution, “Dryly he noted that some individuals enjoyed every political gift except that of discretion.”

Petty point 4.

The hardcover has deckled pages, which makes it really hard to find the picture sections (it has two).

Petty point 5.

To avoid citing in-text, Schiff’s end notes reference the phrase and then provides the citation. While I understand stylists like to do this for readability of non-fiction for a general audience, it also makes it hard to determine an actual fact/reference from stuff the author just pulled out of their ass. I don’t want to flip back and forth to figure out whether you’re making something up.

Real point 6.

Not petty, but grim. I’m about to delve into women and maternity again, so these numbers recall the 17th century admonishment to women that with pregnancy, death awaits you. Elizabeth Checkley, Adams’s first wife, gave birth to six children, of whom only two survived past the age of 2. She likely died of complications from her last childbirth. She was the tenth child that predeceased her own father. Adams had 11 siblings, of whom only three survived their own father.

Petty point 7.

Every description and scene with John Hancock is petty. “The pomp and retinue of an Eastern prince,” Hancock would revel in glory as he did in frivolity,” “thin-skinned,” Hilarious.

Petty point 8.

Schiff making stuff up about the use of “esquire.”

Petty point 9.

“The portraitists arrived only after he had gone gray; Boston was, however, a fair-haired city, and the coloring suggests he had been a blond youth.” Um, what?

Real point 10.

The aversion to discussing cultural/religious matters in these communities. Schiff points out the high literacy of Boston, but makes no mention of what that can be attributed to. Adams is pious, and a Calvinist, and no discussion of what that means. “It is impossible with Adams to determine where piety ended and politics began; the watermark of Puritanism shined through everything he wrote.” Well, what does it mean, and what do you mean by that comment, Schiff? Adams’s first wife was a pastor’s daughter, but don’t look to any further explanation from Schiff about any of what that could mean. Don’t look to her to provide any explanation of the Adams quote I provide below, either.

Real point 11.

Schiff reminded me that Massachusetts only barely ratified the Constitution; Adams was one of those who in the end supported it, but was hesitant to ever again be under a national government. And yet he was a Lt. Gov, but his career was clearly in decline. Schiff treats this topic as if it’s baffling - well, maybe the shifts in national politics may explain it? Changes in Boston commercial and political interests? But we already know that popular biographies don’t have time for stuff like that.

Finally, a quote from Samuel Adams:

“The truly virtuous man and real patriot is satisfied with the approbation of the wise and discerning; he rejoices in the contemplation of the purity of his intentions, and waits in humble hope for the plaudit of his final judge.”

#Samuel Adams #American Revolution #Stacy Schiff #historiography #hagiography #Ron Chernow

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anotherhumaninthisworld · 9 months

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How were marriage ceremonies performed during the rev? Like Lucile and Camille’s or Babet and Le Bas’, for example?

Camille and Lucile got permission from the latter’s parents to marry each other on December 11 1790. In a letter to his father written already the same day, Camille reports that ”we can get married in 8 days.” However, due to said father lingering with giving his consent, the signing of the wedding contract didn’t happen until December 27. In his Desmoulins biography, Hervé Leuwers writes that sixteen people signed the contract — Pétion, Brissot, Robespierre, Mercier, Sillery Danton, Duport du Tertre, Barnave, Viefville des Essarts, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Mirabeau, Andrieu and Deviefville — and that Maître Jean Louis Bro, who presided over the event, ”in his twenty year career rarely can have hosted so many witnesses, and so many famous people.” Curiously however, when speaking about the event three years later, Camille claims that ”out of the sixty people who signed my wedding contract I only have two friends left — Danton and Robespierre.” Through the marriage contract we also learn about the couple’s dowry, with Camille bringing 8000 livres from his savings (mostly furniture), and Lucile obtaining 100 000 livres as perputal annulities from her parents and yet another 12 000 in clothing, furniture and money.

Two days later, the actual wedding ceremony was held in the couple’s parish church Église Saint-Sulpice. Writing to his father about the wedding a week later, Camille described how the witnesses this time were ”Péthion [sic] and Robespierre, the elite of the National Assembly, M. de Sillery, who wanted to be there, and my two collegues Brissot de Warville and Mercier, the elite among the journalists.”

In 1790, being married in front of a parish priest was still the only alternative for those who wanted to be wed (civil marriage became possible through a decree passed in September 1792). The priest presiding over the Desmoulins’ wedding ceremony was Denis Bérardier, who from 1778 to 1787 had been the principal of Camille and Robespierre’s college Louis-le-Grand, after which he had been elected to represent the clergy at the Estates general. In the previously cited letter, Camille reports the following:

Finally, I was married to Lucile on Wednesday, December 29. My dear Bérardier performed the celebration at St-Sulpice, assisted by the parish priest who had almost asked for the honor of performing it. I had many difficulties to get a dispensation from the bishopric. A M. Floirac, vicar-general, told me that I was the cause of his chateau being burned down; that I had caused him to lose twenty thousand livres in income, etc. Some patriots in the National Assembly were unable to obtain this dispensation which they were requesting for me; but Bérardier has done so much that he finally obtained it. I also had much praise to give the priest of St.-Sulpice who worked for me with great warmth.

Interesting here is that Bérardier was very much a conservative, opposing the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and over the following years authoring works favorable to the church (Les principes de la foi sur le gouvernement de l'église en opposition avec la constitution civile du clergé (1791) and L'Église constitutionnelle confondue par elle-même, par une Société de théologiens (1792)). Though it’s rather clear Camille wanted him to preside over the ceremony less because he agreed with him politically and more because he thought he had been an awesome principal (just like literally every single student of that school, conservative or radical alike, seems to have done) Here is what he wrote about in number 59 of Révolutions de France et de Brabant, released twelve days after the ceremony:

The fact that he comes from the aristocracy aside, I know no minister of the altars more respectable than M. Berardier, deputy of the National Assembly, under whose eyes, or rather in whose bosom, I was raised. I owe him, in the days of prosperity, this mark of memory of those days of affection. But I took strong precautions against the snares of the aristocracy, and did not go to the altar without counterpoison. Péthion [sic], Robespierre, Sillery, Mercier, Brissot (that says it all) honored me with their presence and were good enough to serve as witnesses. They will attest to you themselves that the Church could not better take its time to wrap me in the nets of St. Peter. The good Bérardier, before pronouncing the three Latin words, the only ones I asked of him, held the most touching of speeches. He asked me in favor of the same declaration that the National Assembly has just made, that I would not touch spirituality. It was a bit embarrassing for the freedom of religious opinions, and meant attacking the declaration of rights; but what could I do? I didn't come there with the intention of saying no. It is thus, my dear Abbé Rives, that I found myself caught and bound by oath to interfere in my numbers only with the political and democratic conflicts, and to cut out the theological ones.

Bérardier’s speech has survived and is today kept at the Biblioteque Nationale de la Ville de Paris, though it unfortunately hasn’t been published. It mostly revolved around getting Camille not to forget the glory of religion, and get Lucile to follow the example of her parents. In the wedding letter to his father, Camille nevertheless writes that the speech actually moved both them and all of the witnesses to tears. After the ceremony, the couple, the witnesses and Bérardier all went to have dinner at Camille’s together with Lucile’s parents and sister.

As for the Lebas couple, Élisabeth recounts in her memoirs how, once she and Philippe had professed their love for one another and gotten over the Guffroy slander incidence, they too wanted to get married as soon as possible.

[Philippe] told me that he would like to set the date of our marriage that very day. “I would like,” he said, “if it were today rather than tomorrow. What a lovely day for your friend and for my Babet!” […] After dinner [the same day], I heard my Philippe ask my parents to fix the date of our wedding, saying that he would be happiest with the earliest possible date. Robespierre supported his request and said: “He’s right; we must get this marriage over with.” My parents asked that it take place in two décades, in order to have time to prepare my trousseau and our lodging. My father, the owner at that time of several houses, had a vacant one at that moment in the Rue de l’Arcade; he gave us lodging there and everything was promptly settled for the agreed-upon date.

Here too however, the marriage was postponed, as Philippe soon thereafter was tasked with going on a mission to the army by the Committee of Public Safety. Eventually Élisabeth succeded in getting Robespierre to recall him:

He arrived, and everything being ready, we were married at the Hôtel de Ville, by Lebert (she means Hébert); it was 10 Fructidor (26 August 1793). What joy for us, and how happy I was! I believed that I would never again be separated from my husband; but alas! It had to be otherwise.

As can be seen, the Lebas couple had a civil ceremony instead of a religious one. According to the marriage certificate, the celebration was held at the Commune in the presence of Jacques-Louis David, 43, deputy, residing at the Louvre; Jacques-René Hébert, Deputy Public Prosecutor of the Commune, rue Neuve de l'Égalité. Witnesses of the spouses were Maximilien Robespierre, deputy rue Saint-Honoré, section des Piques; J-Pierre Vaugeois, 61 years old, carpenter, uncle of the wife. The document is signed: Le Bas, Élisabeth Duplay, Hébert, David, Vaugeois.

I could not find any other information regarding the marriage of this couple.

#forget all other superstitions regarding weddings #the most fool proof sign that a marriage won’t end well is having robespierre be one of your wedding witnesses #desmoulins #philippe lebas #élisabeth lebas #élisabeth duplay #camille desmoulins #lucile desmoulins #ask

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euphoniouspandemonium · 2 years

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Now I'm quite curious about Leslie, Percy, and Florence (yes I do know more about Percy than I do about Leslie and Florence, but there's no such thing as "knowing too much about Percy")

Oh yes. Ohohoho yes. Thank you for asking and you are so right, there's no such thing as knowing too much about Percy, like I still feel like I don't know enough about Percy and I'm the author who has three (3) WIPs with him in it, one of which is almost a sort of biography, and is incapable of thinking about anything else.

Okay okay so! Leslie first, because I am currently having a lot of brainrot:

Leslie is a character in Clarity Is Blood On A Murder Weapon and I want to hit them with a brick. Affectionately. They suck but it's okay because I love them and I think they're hot.

Also they are my pronouns buddy (they use they/he/she as well, though I'll be using they/them for this ramble for the sake of clarity) <3

The rest is under the cut!

You see, they were raised in a very "queer people gross only Feminine Woman In Kitchen and Manly Macho Man Dude Bro" because it was mid 20th century America so what can you expect. That was, of course, a problem, cause they're nonbinary and bisexual. So of course they left once they turned like 19. Also they have a younger sister - Roq - who got kicked out for being gay like a year later (when she was 17 oop) but that's another story. They did take her in, of course.

After they left, they met Kevin and Stephen and then a while later Roq started living with Leslie so The Friend Group was created. Stephen in the early days of their friendship was recovering from Very Bad Terrible trauma and later on a few other peeps were abducted into this friendship, but that is probably a story for another day.

Anyways! That's enough for their backstory! Tis time for... *drumroll* ... their personality! And such!

As I said, they suck (affectionate). They're a selfish dumbass honestly, and they just kinda act like they don't give a fuck about anyone's feelings but they absolutely do and they want the people they care about (*cough* their friends and their little sister and their boyfriend *cough*) to be safe and well and happy. But most importantly they always wear heart shaped sunglasses and of course in the scene where they are most vulnerable they are not in fact wearing said sunglasses. In fact they are broken. Do with that what you will.

But other than being a fool and an asshole they are an absolute darling of a person. They get so so hype every time their friends or partners get happy, ESPECIALLY if they're the one that made them happy. They are obsessed with everything heart-shaped. They know all of their friends' favourite songs. They're still a piece of shit but. A darling piece of shit <3

Also they fuck around with gender A Lot <3 because they can <3 and honestly they are really fucking gender in literally anything, ranging from dresses to shirts with giant sleeves to ridiculous pattern combos, like oh lord the gender envy. Also did I mention they're hot. And pretty. Actually I have a drawing of them, if you'd like to see.

And now! Florence!:

She's from the Earl/Edith WIP and honestly she could kill me and I'd thank her. I haven't developed her much yet, but all you need to know is that she says "Well, well, well. I have found a pretty little thief in my room" at one point. She has a really ethereal vibe and it seems like she draws moths and butterflies towards her~ and Edith is but a foolish little moth~ oh and I am implying some romantic emotions between Florence and Edith cause like. She was literally in a polycule with Edith and their husband Jonathan but then Something Happened. Don't even ask me what the something is because I don't know either. Also Florence is the antagonist's sister. Oh oh and she has two borzoi dogs, Frankie and Lola <3

And since I have talked about Percy A Lot I will make this a lil list of fun facts:

- named himself after Percy Shelley

- has watched Different From The Others - aka what is probably the first pro-gay film ever - in a cinema in Berlin in 1919. Makes me wish I was him.

- knows oh so many languages

- loves warm milk. It makes him feel very safe and comfy

- he falls asleep EVERYWHERE including but not limited to sofas, chairs, the ground, Oscar's lap, beds, tables, meadows, trains etc, and if you try to move him he just makes sad pathetic little noises and continues sleeping.

- has a birthmark near his nose

- he never lives in one place for too long but he always leaves something that will forever puzzle and haunt the person who's gonna live there next. Small boxes filled with weird old objects, like vintage pictures, teeth, children's toys. He can in fact be a bit of an odd boy sometimes. I would sell my soul to find such a box by the way.

#asks #percy #leslie #florence #this is very long. something about how i apologize for what you have unleashed.

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