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witchhatproductions · 1 year

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Witch Hat News #1: Weird Stories from Space

This is an archived version of our microfiction newsletter! You can read along on our tumblr, or subscribe here.

Hi there! Do you remember signing up to some newsletter from someone you kinda know on twitter? That's me. I'm the newsletter, and I'm here to letter you some news.

For real, though, I have a lot to say about this newsletter. If you know me (I'm Samantha Calthrop, by the way, not a sentient email, hi) then you probably know that I make comics and TTRPGs, which are met with critical acclaim by my extensive audience of almost nobody. I spent my teens in fandom spaces and my early twenties making standalone games.

In other words, I make things, and I put them online, and not a lot of people see them. C'est la vie.

In recent years, I've been drifting increasingly away from social media, and towards real-world creative spaces. I'm fortunate enough to have several social outlets for my art. Between my local comics group, my university, and my small group of mutuals in Irish journo twitter, I feel accomplished enough to be proud regardless of how many Instagram followers I have. (It's 151, much like the original Pokédex.)

That's the problem with the Internet. Even in the coolest and most supportive rings of Twitter and Tumblr there is nothing to achieve but online fame, which has been famously awful for everyone who has ever obtained it. (I imagine social media to be divided into rings, much like the rings of hell in Dante's Inferno.) There are very few spaces online that feel personal and contained, because by nature the internet is large and completely impersonal.

The consequence is that being an up-and-coming creator is like shouting into the void, except the void has a handful of your confused friends and relations in it, some of whom are giving you the thumbs up.

I was thinking about the lack of digital spaces for exploring any kind of fiction that isn't short stories or published novels, and how many cool things have been made by people I know, which nobody ever sees. I thought, man, I wish somebody would start a newsletter about it or something. Then I realised that I was somebody, and I already had a creative label which I'd been using to publish things already. Then I turned to Luke Sophia and said, "Hey, we're starting a newsletter", and wrote this before I could be stopped.

So I guess this newsletter seeks to fill that missing niche; a small, personal space that celebrates obscure creative projects. We're starting out primarily with creators that we know already - friends, past collaborators, and things we're already fans of. That means right now, it's mainly webcomics, podcasts, TTRPGS, and other types of online storytelling.

To that end, here's your bimonthly dose of local talent. By coincidence, all these stories are set in space, and all of them have a wonderfully weird take on the sci-fi genre. Check it out:

Neokosmos is about the horror of being raised by people you don't understand. This series of illustrated sci-fi stories follow the last living humans, who are being raised in captivity many years after the destruction of the Earth. Neokosmos is a deeply beautiful, deeply weird, and deeply visceral story about love, cruelty, and family between completely different alien species. The first book made me realise I like speculative sci-fi. The second book made me sit on my bed, put my head in my hands, and think about how I spent my early twenties. I can't recommend it enough. Neokosmos is in open beta right now, and is available to read for free online.

Chain of Being is a delightfully strange eldritch-horror-ish audio drama by Cai Gwilym Pritchard. It's set in a mystic sci-fi universe with deep folkloric roots, and it's both written and performed unlike any other podcast I've come across. I recommend listening with headphones just for the editing. Chain of Being is also casting voice actors for Season 2 right now - more info here. They're paid roles, and actors with non-standard podcast accents are encouraged to apply.

Fetch Quest by @toonlynnk is a silly fantasy adventure in a spaceship universe. Unambitious Hugh the human is happy to settle for an NPC career and a lifetime of mediocrity, but is instead dragged into the life of an adventurer-for-hire. A webcomic set in a video game universe, and is promising to be the kind of PG comedy adventure that ends up wrenching your guts out, in the style of Owl House and Amphibia.

Your project here. Do you make art of any kind - visual, written, performed? Are you starting a project or recruiting co-creators? We want to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]. A proper submission procedure will be created if needed, but for now, it's open season - show us anything. Fire away.

That's it for now. All going well, I'll see you in a few weeks!

#newsletter #witch hat news #microfiction

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muninnhuginn · 1 year

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Lowkey fascinated by the decision to hide from the audience when Do-jun was about to die. Because if we look at all the hints* he knew it was soon and yet it's set up as a shock for the audience rather than building it in as an oncoming sense of doom about whether he could break the loop or if he was just doomed to die in the same way.

I think part of it is that if he thought too much about his upcoming death where the audience could see it then it would become increasingly difficult to talk around the fact that he (in his first life) was also involved in it. But they had the choice, I guess, to either play into his upcoming death and see if there was a way to avert it (there's not) or to make it seem that everything is going amazingly and so let the audience (who are aware there's more than an episode left) gain a slow sense of everything working out too well and then *that* is what builds the sense of doom.

The fact his previous close shave was in a car accident and he remembered at that point what had happened to the og Do-jun. That he'd made a will to deliberately leave his mum his Soonyang shares and he'd recently donated his 700m inheritance to charity definitely work in terms of closing off his affairs. The way his memory was so good about when events happened and yet he told Seo Min-young he'd see her on a load of future events he knew he wouldn't make it to. He had to have known that it was that his death would coincide with the medal winning and he knew it couldn't be avoided so he just got his affairs in order quietly. It's possible he managed to block out the exact date he saw Do-jun die the first time (if unlikely - the only reason I'm not 100% sure of it is because it seems cruel to Seo Min-young to ask for another chance when he knows he's about to die) but at the very least, his actions and his earlier thoughts showed he knew it was imminent.

#reborn rich #yes I'm trying to straighten out potential time loop inconsistencies which could legit just be plotholes #but I am curious about why they chose the focus they did #reborn rich spoilers #tbh I think they could have just as easily had dojun scrabble for life and eventually lose to fate #but at the same time that puts the focus on whether you can avert fate rather than what he brought back with him from his experience?#idk. I don't think the ending was an atrocity in the way a lot of people do but there were definitely parts that could have been better #I think though overall the hiding of his death being so close was for reasons outside of the universe to try and make stuff fit

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floatingcatacombs · 1 year

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The Dogs of War

12 Days of Aniblogging 2022, Day 7

Something is in the air, as this year I ended up reading three separate works that involved doggirls and the military. Either it’s sheer coincidence, or there’s a burgeoning microgenre afoot, so I wanted to talk through each of them here.

A Love Letter for the Marching Puppy

This one’s set in Meiji-era Japan, but an alternate history where women are allowed to serve in the army. #ImperialFeminismFTW ! What follows is a boarding-school drama that plays out similarly to a standard school yuri, but heightened with the structure and procedures of the military. A standard senpai-kouhai romance can be made more interesting if you add rigid hierarchy, making it that of a model older student and the new recruit she’s been assigned to mentor.

Of course, the language being used for this hierarchy is all setting-appropriately homoerotic, with roommates being formally referred to as “bedroom comrades”, while mentees looked upon romantically by their superiors are dubbed “maidens”. There’s a strong sense of possessiveness here which culminates in the cadet love interest referring to the protagonist as a puppy, both endearingly and mockingly.

Owing to its nature as purity-obsessed yuri, there’s a certain romanticism on display here which extends to the institution of the military itself. Our protagonist is a street urchin who enlists so she won’t starve, and her outlook on the academy is firmly rose-tinted from start to finish. The lack of a reliable social safety net is and always will be the number-one factor driving voluntary recruitment, to the point where you have to question if it’s really so voluntary if the only choices are enlisting or poverty. I can’t say I’m surprised that this manga refuses to address the horrors of war and perverse incentives surrounding military recruitment, but it’s definitely a willful blind spot.

If it sounds like I’m being overly harsh on A Love Letter for the Marching Puppy, it’s that it piqued my interest enough to poke. This is a very straightforward high school girl's love story, but the transposition into a military academy setting adds enough flavor to distinguish it from its peers.

On a Leash

Unlike A Love Letter for the Marching Puppy, On a Leash goes all in on the horrors of war. Set in the trenches of Furry World War I, this manhua follows Irene Red, a solider and scrappy butch who keeps ending up in the clutches of the medic captain assigned to her team. Who wants to tie her up and sexually torture her. Also, they can shapeshift into a wolf and a snake, retrospectively. We’re fully in the land of batshit over-the-top lesbian melodrama here, a flavor of yuri I increasingly prefer as time goes on.

There’s a lot going on here, and it’s clear that the author bit off a bit more than they could chew. The characters being able to turn into furries to become more battle-hardened honestly reminds me more of mecha anime than anything else. It frames the soldiers as subhuman, becoming literal animals on the frontline, and with the main character being a dog, the dynamic between Red and Ruce is obviously about petplay and submission. It’s not trying to be subtle in any way. The subjugation of soldiers and the sexual interpretation of military hierarchy are nothing new, between the historic prevalence of homosexuality in the military and the use of these themes in male homosexual art. But since women in the army are a comparatively recent phenomenon, there’s far less work tapping into this stuff but with lesbians. This makes me all the more glad that On a Leash exists and is so self-indulgent.

It's really funny that the author for this is so competent at writing caretaking-as-BDSM but noticeably falters when the characters have to actually talk about sex. At the least, their priorities are correct. Additionally, if you liked my article about yuri where the characters have a death wish, this one’s for you.

Coquette Dragoon

If you’re going to read one thing on this list, make it this one. Coquette Dragoon is one of the smartest, most heartfelt stories I’ve read in the past few years. As a visual novel, it’s got excellent composition and style, likely owing to its origin as a comic. Ivy is light-years ahead in the “writing interesting and fucked-up lesbians” arms race compared to her peers, and even with only the first few parts of the story out now, I know we’re in for something good. Definitely not for everyone, but if you’re not everyone, you will love it.

But that’s enough proselytizing! This is another furries-in-the-military work, but this time in space with mechas that lean real-robot. As in On a Leash, people’s individual species don’t carry wide-ranging societal implications but still matter to the plot and influence how characters see themselves.

Bell is my point of focus here, as well as something of Coquette Dragoon’s breakout character. She is our obvious puppy, thoroughly pathetic and loyal and weak. She’s just as much of an embarrassment in-universe, the bastard child of an aristocratic arms manufacturing family. In a twist, she’s the one doggirl in this article who isn’t actually enlisted in the military. Nothing is expected of her, but she’s looked down upon by all. This would do things to anyone! And on top of this, she’s been ill all of her life with some sort of medical nightmare, and though she’s well enough to leave the house and eat without an IV, it’s clearly a major part of her (looking forward to whatever is going on thematically between Bell’s GI problems and the Lilac pilots using a “GI system” to interface with their mechs).

In spite of everything, or maybe because of, Bell is one of the most self-realized characters in all of Coquette Dragoon. She knows what she wants, even if it’s embarrassing and weird, and she absolutely laps up any real companionship she can get. Her relationship with Honey in Chapter 2 is complex enough that it doesn’t fit cleanly within the lines of friendship or romance or sex. But as girls who are broken in very different ways but both seek to be understood, they’re a delight to see together.

Also, Bell has multiple layers of gender stuff going on, some of it depressing and some of it hilarious. I love and care for her, and you will too.

BONUS: Heaven Will Be Mine

What did you think Mare Crisium’s head was supposed to be.

#12 days of anime #coquette dragoon #on a leash #a love letter for the marching puppy

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cacaonnoisseur · 5 months

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Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 large eggs

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts

Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) in a bowl and set aside

Mix wet ingredients (butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla) in a large bowl until creamy

Mix in eggs, one at a time

Slowly mix in dry ingredients from bowl

Stir in chocolate chips and nuts with a spoon

Place tablespoon-sized drops of dough onto a baking sheet

Bake at 375 degrees Farenheit for 10 minutes

Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes, remove and place on cooling rack

Amidst the throes of the Great Depression, Americans were without many of life’s small pleasures. Ingredients were harder to come by because of sinking wages and work opportunities, so most of the 1930s were characterized by cheap, rationed meals of essential nutrients. In 1938, the popularization of the chocolate chip cookie was a much needed relief for many families craving an easy, inexpensive treat to satisfy children and adults alike. From a supposed happy accident to the icon of the Nestlé company, the history of the chocolate chip cookie reveals how a local favorite has the potential to explode in popularity onto a national level.

The most common tale of the creation of the chocolate chip cookie is attributed to Ruth Wakefield, the owner and operator of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. The story goes that Wakefield had run out of an ingredient (some sources claim it was nuts, others say butter) for her existing ice cream cookie recipe, and in a pinch, she chopped up a chocolate bar and added it to the dough instead. It is said that this last-minute improvisation was so successful that it became a permanent recipe in the kitchen, and soon after gained national fame.(1) However, as is common when exploring the origin of well-known innovations, there were some embellishments to the tale throughout its history. The true story of this delicious creation likely has less to do with coincidence and more to do with baking knowledge and business savvy.

Ruth Wakefield deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the popularization of the chocolate chip cookie, but evidence suggests that when she served them for the first time, similar cookies were already on the market in some places. As early as 1928, newspaper advertisements for a cookie that, for all intents and purposes, resembles the chocolate chip cookie were being circulated, meaning they were a delicacy already being sold in some bakeries and inns.(2) In that period, chocolate was more accessible than ever with cocoa powder on grocery store shelves, so naturally chocolate was slowly finding its place among common baked goods. As the culinary world increasingly embraced chocolate, innovative chefs like Wakefield added it into recipes for existing treats. Though she was not the sole inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, Wakefield’s real story is emblematic of the circumstances of the time, and the process by which the cookie was created.

The Toll House Inn, opened in 1930, was a small restaurant that Ruth Wakefield owned with her husband, Kenneth, which served travelers and locals alike. With her college education as a dietician and experience as a chef, Wakefield’s menu appealed to the masses, especially her hand-crafted desserts. The particular cookie that Wakefield first added “chipped” chocolate to was meant to accompany ice cream, a kind of drop cookie that was a crunchy side dish to compliment the smoothness of ice cream.(3) It is unlikely that the circumstances leading up to Wakefield’s famous “Chocolate Crunch Cookie,” which was published in her 1938 “Tried and True” cookbook, were anything but the result of baking skill and purposeful creation.(4) The simple yet delectable treat was a massive success, and the Toll House Inn boasted the patronage of names like Eleanor Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio stopping in to try Wakefield’s chocolate chip cookies.(5) The true popularity boom came when Betty Crocker featured the recipe for Toll House chocolate chip cookies on her radio show, giving Americans a twist on a dessert made of inexpensive and widely available goods. In 1939, the Nestlé company acquired the recipe and the Toll House name from the Wakefields in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate and, arbitrarily, one dollar.(6)

The social importance of chocolate chip cookies was concretely verified during the years after the Nestlé deal, as the beginning of World War Two sent Americans overseas by the thousands. Soldiers in other countries craved a piece of home during their time away, and chocolate chip cookies became a staple of care packages sent to Europe and the Pacific Theater. Seeing an opportunity for profit, Nestlé and other chocolate companies ran advertisements encouraging women to bake cookies with what little chocolate was available to send overseas: “for that soldier boy of yours.”(7)

As chocolate chip cookies were being sent abroad, they were cemented into the minds of Americans as something to comfort us in hard times, just as they did during the Great Depression years before. The chocolate chip cookie, with its cheap ingredients, simple baking process, and warm, spirit-lifting sweetness, has defined the tastes of Americans since its creation in the early 20th century. The story of the Toll House Inn is representative of the kind of innovations that Americans were creating in the face of a massive financial depression, and how innovation is sometimes rewarded with national acclaim.

Jon Michaud, “Sweet Morsels: A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie,” The New Yorker, December 19th, 2013, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/sweet-morsels-a-history-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie

Claudia Geib, “The Best Known Chocolate Chip Cookie Origin is a Myth,” Eater, April 21st, 2022, https://www.eater.com/23033968/toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookie-myth

Claudia Geib, “The Best Known Chocolate Chip Cookie Origin is a Myth”

The Sugar Association, “The History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie,” Sugar.org, March, 2020, https://www.sugar.org/blog/the-history-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie/#:~:text=The%20original%20recipe%20was%20created,intended%20to%20accompany%20ice%20cream.

Claudia Geib, “The Best Known Chocolate Chip Cookie Origin is a Myth”

Jon Michaud, “Sweet Morsels: A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie”

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vapehk1 · 3 days

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Exploring Crave Vape: A Leader in the Vaping Industry

The vaping landscape has evolved significantly since the early 2010s, with numerous brands emerging to meet the growing demand for alternative smoking options. Among these, Crave Vape has carved out a notable presence. Founded in 2013 in Los Angeles, Crave Vape quickly became a household name by catering to both beginners and experienced vapers with its innovative disposable vaping devices. This article explores the remarkable journey of Crave Vape, its product offerings, design simplicity, flavor innovations, and its impact on the vaping culture. The Genesis of Crave Vape Crave Vape was established at a time when vaping was just beginning to gain traction in the United States. The founders recognized a burgeoning market hungry for new and easier ways to vape. From its inception, Crave Vape aimed to simplify the vaping experience, making it accessible to everyone. Its early adoption of disposable vaping devices set the company apart, offering convenience that was previously unheard of in the market. This strategic move not only captured the interest of novice vapers but also resonated with veterans who craved simplicity in their vaping experience. The company’s timing was impeccable, coinciding with a cultural shift towards smoking alternatives. By positioning themselves at the forefront of this shift, Crave Vape managed to establish a strong foundation early on. Their commitment to quality and user-friendly design has helped sustain their popularity over the years, making them a go-to brand in an increasingly competitive industry. Design Simplicity and User Experience One of the hallmarks of Crave Vape is its commitment to design simplicity. The company believes that vaping should be a straightforward and enjoyable experience, free from the complexities that often come with refillable devices. This philosophy is evident in every product they release. Crave Vape's devices are known for their minimalist design, which not only appeals aesthetically but also makes the devices incredibly easy to use. The simplicity extends beyond just the physical design; it’s also about reducing the hassle associated with maintenance. Disposable vapes mean no cleaning, no coil changes, and no refilling—once a device is used up, it can be disposed of. This convenience is particularly appealing to those who are new to vaping or those who prefer not to deal with the maintenance involved with more complex systems. Flavor Innovation: Beyond the Ordinary Crave Vape’s success can also be attributed to its extensive range of flavors, which play a significant role in attracting and retaining customers. Unlike many other brands that stick to traditional tobacco and menthol flavors, Crave Vape has ventured into a variety of taste profiles. From exotic fruits to sweet and savory blends, they offer a palette that caters to a wide range of preferences. This diversity in flavor options not only enhances the vaping experience but also aligns with the brand’s mission to cater to all users, irrespective of their taste preferences. The inclusion of familiar flavors like tobacco and menthol ensures that traditional smokers looking to transition to vaping feel at home, while the more adventurous options attract those looking for something new and different. Impact on Vaping Culture and Market Trends Crave Vape’s influence extends beyond its product line to its impact on the vaping culture and broader market trends. By introducing innovative disposable vaping devices, Crave Vape has played a pivotal role in shaping consumer expectations and industry standards. Their products are often seen as a benchmark for quality and convenience in the disposable segment. Moreover, Crave Vape’s approach to marketing and community engagement has fostered a loyal customer base. Their active involvement in vaping communities and consistent interaction with users have not only helped in shaping product development but also in advocating for responsible vaping practices. As the industry faces regulatory challenges, Crave Vape continues to lead by example, emphasizing safety and compliance in all its operations. Conclusion Crave Vape stands out in the vaping industry as a pioneer of disposable vape technology and flavor innovation. From its humble beginnings in Los Angeles to becoming a leader in the vaping movement, Crave Vape has consistently demonstrated its commitment to quality, simplicity, and customer satisfaction. As the vaping landscape continues to evolve, Crave Vape is poised to remain at the forefront, pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the world of vaping. This article has examined the key factors contributing to the success and enduring popularity of Crave Vape, highlighting its strategic product development, innovative flavors, and significant impact on the vaping community. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned vaper, Crave Vape offers a comprehensive vaping experience designed to satisfy a wide range of preferences and needs. FAQs 1. What makes Crave Vape different from other vaping brands? Crave Vape sets itself apart through its focus on simplicity and innovation. Founded with the intention of making vaping accessible to everyone, Crave Vape introduced disposable vaping devices that are user-friendly and require no maintenance, such as refilling or coil replacement. Additionally, their wide range of unique flavors, which include both traditional tastes and more adventurous blends, caters to a broad audience, further distinguishing them in the market. 2. Are Crave Vape products suitable for beginners? Yes, Crave Vape products are particularly well-suited for beginners. The simplicity of their disposable devices makes them an excellent choice for those new to vaping. These devices eliminate the need for setup, maintenance, and technical knowledge, allowing new users to start vaping without any hassle. This ease of use, combined with a variety of flavor options, provides a comfortable introduction to the world of vaping. 3. How do I dispose of a Crave Vape device properly? Disposing of a Crave Vape device properly is crucial to minimizing environmental impact. Since these devices contain batteries and electronic components, they should not be thrown in regular trash. Users are encouraged to bring used devices to special electronic waste recycling centers where they can be safely processed. Some regions also have specific programs or drop-off points dedicated to recycling vaping devices. 4. Can I refill a Crave Vape disposable device? No, Crave Vape disposable devices are designed for one-time use and cannot be refilled. Once the e-liquid is depleted, the entire device is meant to be disposed of. This design is intended to provide maximum convenience and ensure optimal performance throughout the life of the device without the need for any maintenance. 5. Where can I buy Crave Vape products? Crave Vape products can be purchased through various channels. They are available at many vape shops, convenience stores, and specialty stores across the United States. Additionally, customers can buy directly from their official website or other online retailers that carry vaping products. Purchasing from reputable sources ensures that you receive authentic and quality-assured products. If you want to know more, please refer to this article: https://keystonevape.com/best-vape/the-best-disposable-vapes-2024-you-cant-miss/ Read the full article

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mandeepbainss · 1 year

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The 80's mind map

Unlike the 60's and 70's the 80's were known for consumerism and materialism. The 80's felt much faster and flashier than previous decades due to the rapidly developing new technologies of the time.

In the UK the tories were in power with Margret Thatcher as Priminister. Margret Thatcher is a controversial figure to this day, she's known for the closure of many Cole mines across England, the abolition of free milk for school children and her role in the Faulklands war. Thatcher implemented the right to buy scheme, helping council house tenants and those less well off to buy their homes, as well as helping to back entrepreneurial ventures. The years of which Thatcher was in power saw an increase in small businesses being set up, with upwards mobility from the working and middle classes becoming increasingly possible. She also pushed for the privatisation of industries and though many of her policies were not without repercussion she did massively impact the British economy. Her policies allowed for booming young urban proffesional culture for some however for others it also led to extreme hardship. Some people found themselves being able to move across a previously pretty impenetrable class system and this impacted peoples attitudes towards consumerism, things became within reach that previously weren't. This attitude vastly impacted the style and materialism of this decade.

In America the republicans were in power, with Ronald Reagan as president. Reagans economic policy became known as Reaganomics brought about one of the biggest economic booms in US history. Unemployment rates and inflation rates decreased massively and Reagans reign is known as one run on optimism. Following the Vietnam war, the assassination of John F Kennedy and stretches of civil unrest Reagan looked towards a stronger, happier, healthier America, by trying to create positive opportunities for US citizens. Much like in the UK people were able to grow financially with a consumerism booming there too.

This is a huge simplification of the politics of the time but overall we can see how people were able to dive into this era of excess so fully. Money, technology, big hair and big goals defined the 80's.

The 80's were the years of 'power dressing' this style was closely associated with 'young urban professianals' also known as yuppies. They had a clean cut preppy style, these were the people wearing power suits with running trainers which would then be swapped out to kitten heels. There were a lot of pastel colours and yatch club attire. The 'yuppies' wanted to exude money, wealth and success and this was evident in their clothing. The cultural climate enabled a fast life and fast money, which gave rise displays of wealth amongst the young. Jobs in banks and offices were becoming more readily available and this was shown throughout their attire, with shoulder padded suits, high waisted pleated trousers and rolexs were all the rage during work hours. The more casual attire associated with yuppies was pastel coloured trousers, shirts, sweater vests and knitwear often draped over their shoulders. Designers such as Georgio Armani and Ralph Lauren were a huge hit amongst this demographic. The goal was to look preppy and well groomed, giving off a vibe of accomplishment and wealth. Corporate culture and corporate style had a huge impact on this era.

In the 80's there was a massive excersise boom that coincided with the popularisation of athliesure wear. Jane Fonda and Cher were amongst the hoards of people making follow along at home work out videos. The women in these videos were always seen wearing unitards and leg warmers in an array of bold colours. Spandex was the material of the moment, ideal for showing off the toned bodies people had been working so hard to maintain through aerobics and jazzercise. It was used to make a range of different things but the iconic 80's leotard is what most people think of when they hear the word. Determined to make a statement these items often came in the boldest neon colours, with neon also becoming a key part of the 80's aesthetic. In addition to the extreme body con styles of work out gear we also saw the increasing popularity of the shell suit. All the big sports brands were making them in bold colours and patterns. They were made of a shiny nylon material.

Many of the biggest style icons in the 80's were musicians such as Madonna and Grace Jones who all had had a huge impact on the fashions of the time. Early on in the 80's the new romantic movement was very prevalent but eventually faded out by the mid 80's, but it left behind a distinctive legacy. This style was easily identifiable by the bold makeup and flamboyant clothing, think of the early Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Eurythmics and Boy George. The movement is now considered the 80's answer to the 70's glam rock image, frilly shirts, red lipstick, leather trousers, military jackets and pirate style clothing all being key components to this new romantic attire. Many of those who aligned with this aesthetic really leant into the androgyny of it all. The combination of rapidly developing technology, sexual freedom and the changing economy led to an over the top glamorous image that we all now associate with the 80's.

With the rise of Hip Hop culture groups such as Run DMC, beastie boys, Public enemy and NWA rose to success and assembled a cult following. Often referred to as golden age Hip Hop, America produced some of the biggest names in the genre during this era with many of the artists originating in New York. The hip hop scene merged sportswear styles with luxury and excess, which became the blueprint for many of the sportluxe and streetwear styles of the 90's. Tracksuits, bucket hats and air Jordans were frequently worn by stars such as LL cool j and Slick Rick, who helped popularise rope chains and four finger rings. Flashiness was paired with streetwear for hip hop artists and fans with no one doing this better than Dapper Dan. Dapper Dan is a designer from Harlem who ran a store from 1982 - 1992 called Dapper Dans Boutique. Dapper Dan created 'knockoffs' using bootleg fabrics introducing his clients to the world of Gucci, Fendi and Louis Vuitton. Salt and Pepper, Erik B and Rakim were amongst those who famously worked with Dapper Dan. They used his pieces in their art work and music videos his work perfectly exmplified a crossover between casual street wear silhouettes and the performativity of wealth the hip hop scene became known for. It is clear to see 80's Hip Hop fashion has had the longest lasting impact on mainstream fashion today with many big designer brands producing garments such as tracksuits and bucket hats etc.

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marilynlennon · 1 year

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"Starling's art frequently traffics in deception. It also traffics in traffic, meaning the circulation of goods, knowledge and people (usually the artist himself). Many of his works circle back on themselves, taking an idea on a journey that ends at its point of origin. Wilhelm Noack oHG (2006), for example, is an elaborate helical steel structure designed to loop a thirty-five-millimetre film of the workshop in which it was fabricated. The circuitous path that the film takes through the towering metal structure is the perfect visual metaphor for the work's own circular logic, a self-regulating system that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts.

Starling is a key figure in one of contemporary art's most significant recent developments: the linking of artistic practice and knowledge production. Although this tendency flourished with Conceptual art in the 1960s and 1970s, in recent years it has taken on a new intensity. Unlike the Conceptual artists, however, many of whom strove for a language-based dematerialized art, for Starling the object is always at the work's heart.

Economies, ecologies, coincidences and convergences are all simply means to an end - although 'simply' may be the wrong word to describe the transformation of thousands of miles of travel and hundreds of years of history into a single sculpture, film or photograph.

Starling's other predecessors are the Land artists, such as Robert Smithson, with whom he shares a fascination with entropy and other natural forces. But he is truly an artist of the current age, setting out to understand and illustrate the complex processes through which the natural and human-made realms interact. The five platinum/palladium prints that constitute One Ton(2005) show a single view of a South African platinum mine. Together the five prints contain the precise amount of platinum salts that can be derived from one ton of ore, succinctly illustrating the enormous amount of energy required in the extraction of precious metals.

Altermodern -Definition

Bourriaud is proposing the new art term 'Altermodern' to describe how artists are responding to the increasingly global context in which we all now live. Altermodern claims that the period defined as postmodernism has come to an end and a new culture for the 21st century is emerging. Increased communication, travel and migration are having a huge effect on the way we live now. Altermodern describes how artists at the forefront of their generation are responding to this globalised culture with a new spirit and energy

includes artists working in all media, from painting, to film and video, to extraordinary installations

Themes – 2009

Energy

Travel

Viatorism

Borders

Exiles

Heterochronia

Archive

Docu-Fiction

Altermodern then describes a way of making where journeys dominate, not just in space but also in time. Bourriaud’s major touchstones here include the haunted travelogues of WG Sebald: expeditions into both physical and psychic terrain, where history becomes a polymorphous, elusive chaos and our sense of cultural identity and thus selfhood falls apart. He also cites the archipelago as a key notion, a cluster of interrelated forms. Unlike historical modernism, which saw time as a straight line upon which it was the newest, highest point, to be altermodern is to conceive of time as multiple and mixed. A thing or event might be experienced any number of ways, as in Tris Vonna-Michell’s rapid-fire monologues where personal anecdote and official history mutate.

For Bourriaud, what makes this kind of modernism brand new is that for the first time it’s global in reach. Rather than drawing inspiration from a local scene, as he puts it "the artist turns cultural nomad." The African artist Marthine Pascale Tayou’s hybrid sculptures and installations sporting the detritus he collects on his journeys and emphasising the interconnectedness of everything and everyone, would be an

Simon Starling recently had a mid-career retrospective titled Simon Starling: Metamorphology, at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (Jun. 7- Nov. 2, 2014). This was the first major review of the artist in the US. His work got mixed reviews, not for the lack of ingenuity but for the magnitude of back information needed to understand each conceptual work. Starling has a deep interest in the history of Modern art and the interest tends to accumulate around the person of Henry Moore who has become iconic of modern sculpture in the UK during that era. One of the pieces featured in the exhibition is a type of play...or a meta of a play. The room in which the work exist is split by a screen. On one side is a projection of a Japanese mask maker creating the props for the play with a voice over of the actual narrative of the play. On the other side of the room the mask are placed with dramatic spot lights upon them. All of the components of a play are present without the existence of an actual play. First let me give you a little background into the conceptual ideas behind Starlings work. He is interested in the varying history of objects, how they were made, why they were made, what they were made of and turning this history back on itself in both a form of self-reflection and circular return to source. For example below is another piece from this exhibition called One Ton II, the work present is like archaeological evidence of the actual art which is the thought and process required to realize the object's existence.

"Take, for instance, the five platinum prints in 'One Ton II' (2005) in the first room. The scene in the photographs is a pit mine in South Africa. The weighty title, we are informed, refers to the amount of ore that must be disgorged from the earth to extract 28.3 ounces of the precious metal used to make these prints. In other words, what we see in a work of art is, in part, the materials that compose it, and those in turn are the residue of human muscle and ingenuity, and of economic forces and industrial processes we should be more aware of." -Richard B. Woodward, Wallstreet Journal His work is cyclical in nature- breaking things down to past history, components, and often returning the work to some point of origin or thought. A clear example of this is Shedboatshed.

Also see Irish Artist http://gkennedy.info

#circulation #journey #art practice #ecologies #art movement #decolonialism

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100talberts · 3 years

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Irene behaved quite oddly today!! As soon as Jeb came home, Irene met him at the door and began to talk with him!!! She and Jeb had hardly spoken before, so it’s definitely unusual behavior!!!

Jeb wasn’t fooled for a minute!!! He could tell Irene wanted something and was just trying to butter him up!!! That was also strange, because Irene had never been so hesitant and around-the-bush about her desires before!!! For a minute, I hoped that Irene had finally begun to embrace a shy, docile spirit!!!

Then a young man arrived!!! He introduced himself as Jin Maro and told us he was interested in courting Irene!!! Jeb remembered him from church last Sunday: he was new there, but already well educated on scripture and God’s plans for our lives!!!

Jeb agreed to the courtship, but warned that he would keep a special eye on Jin to make sure he was truly fit to one day be Irene’s headship!!!! The last thing we would ever want is to marry off our daughter to an unworthy man!!!

Irene thanked Jeb graciously and promised that Jin wouldn’t disappoint!!! It’s so strange that she talks as if she knows him well, but I’m just glad she’s finally happy with a suitor!!! Amen!!!

#100talberts #100talberts jebidiah #100talberts irene #100talberts jin maro #(I couldn't find a place to mention this in the post itself but uhhh Jin works a violin shop #the very same one Irene frequents #which of course has nothing to do with his sudden appearance at church #which wasn't caused by the fact that Irene knew boys from church almost always get Jeb's approval #it's all an............. increasingly unlikely set of coincidences

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carryonthroughtheages · 3 years

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Hello everyone!

Another year of Carry On Through The Ages is over and done! We have emotions and exhaustion, but we're so happy that this year had the hype and excitement that it did.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, to all of the AMAZING creators who spent the last several months working away at their historical content!

Thank you also to the hard-working mods: @bazzybelle, @giishu, @palimpsessed, and @xivz . This fest would not have been as successful as it has been without you!

We encourage everyone to look under the page break for all the fics and art. They're all fantastic!

Here is the link to the AO3 Collection: Carry On Through The Ages 2021!

Thank you all, and until next year! 🧡🧡🧡

MONDAY:

1) sun on the sea (T) - @trenchcoat-moth : AO3 // Tumblr

Tensions run high in England, and Malcolm decides it's for the best he sends Baz to live with Fiona, where he'll be safer.

That is, until Baz's ship is attacked.

2) The Words I Long To Say (M) - @bazzybelle : AO3 // Tumblr

Simon Snow was dead.

Baz Pitch was sure of it. Simon had gone away seven years ago to fight a war in the jungle and he hadn't come home.

So, when Simon shows up in Baz's club, investigating a string of brutal murders, all Baz wants to do is hold him close and never let him go.

But these aren't the same boys from 1960 and Baz has a lot of processing to do before he's ready to believe in Simon again.

3) we are slaves to gods, whatever gods are (M) - @wellbelesbian : AO3 // Tumblr

I don’t fully understand what plagues him, but I know it’s bad, and I know it goes deeper than guilt. He didn’t want to kill his father, not really, but we were instructed to do so by Apollo. Cleanse the house of its sins, dispose of a murderer to set things right. It was only right that I join him; he was avenging my mother as much as his. Clearly, Apollo didn’t seem to consider that such an act would make Simon a murderer in his father’s place. It seems I got off fine, but as far as Simon is concerned, the vengeful spirits that once spun and danced on the roof of the palace now hunt him down, determined not to stop until he rids the world of himself.

4) World War II Era Art - @stardustasincocaine : Tumblr

TUESDAY:

1) the art of loving you (E) - @one-more-offbeat-anthem : AO3 // Tumblr

1955. London. Young love.

Forbidden love.

A year ago, starving artist Simon Snow met Baz Pitch, son of a wealthy art patron, at a party, and their days (and nights) together have been a wonderful secret.

But Simon is tired of being a secret and knows it's time for things to end.

(Baz has other ideas.)

2) Reliquary of an Arsonist (T) - @tea-brigade : AO3 // Tumblr

Simon Snow grew up a ward of Watford Abbey, but when his magic manifested in an explosive accident as a child, he became the Abbey’s anchorite—never to leave Watford’s walls, for his own protection. That is, until Abbot David sends him on an important errand…

Basilton Pitch paints portraits for his patron, Lord Grimm. But he’s never forgotten the magic he learned from his mother—nor the men who condemned her to death as a heretic. When Simon arrives and offers Baz a commission from Watford Abbey, he sees his chance to avenge his mother once and for all...and he’s willing to burn down everything in his path to that end.

But it was no coincidence that pulled these two unlikely souls together. Something more sinister is underway at Watford Abbey, and only Simon and Baz can uncover the truth before everything goes up in flames.

3) Westward Son (E) - @aristocratic-otter : AO3 // Tumblr

Simon and Baz have found each other again, but there's nowhere in Brooklyn or Virginia where they can safely be together. So now, they venture the hazards and struggles of the Oregon trail, to perhaps find a little homestead in Oregon of their own.

4) A Way Out (T) - @lying-on-the-sofa : AO3

I frown at him..“You don’t know me.”

He offers his hand. “Simon.”

Simon. I feel the name around in my mind and assign it to his face. Simon. I don’t shake his hand. They’ve still got my arms pinned. “Basilton.”

Simon nods at me. “Now we know each other. Let him go.” Very casually, he takes his other hand from behind his back. A sword, flashing. He leans on it and smiles invitingly. “Let him go.”

This time, they listen.

Simon Snow has been trained for years to become a tribute—one of the fighters Athens sends every ninth year into the Minotaur’s labyrinth. He wants to know the way out, if only for Penny’s sake. Luckily for him, Prince Basilton of Crete also wants a way out—off the island, where no one will know he’s the half-brother of the Minotaur.

Unluckily for both of them, they don’t exactly form the most agreeable pair.

WEDNESDAY

1) long is the road the leads me home (G) - @wellbelesbian : AO3 (Version 1) (Version 2) // Tumblr

Baz has a rather unremarkable life, and he's fine with that. Running his late mother's beloved inn with his temperamental aunt, estranged from his father and step-siblings, he's successfully convinced himself that he's better off without attachments.

Then Simon barrels into his life, guns blazing and rapier drawn, and Baz is swept up in dramatic plot he never bargained for.

Worse still, he finds he quite likes the thrill.

2) New Romantics (T) - @ninemagicks : AO3 // Tumblr

Basilton Pitch, twenty-two years old and a famed poet of the Romantic era, has fled to the countryside. In Mummers House, the fabled haunt of literary greats, he sulks himself into oblivion and awaits a sad, disappointing end to his brief years of brilliance. The cause of his downfall? None other than Simon Snow, the so-called “bad boy of English poetry”, breaker of rules and eternal thorn in his side. Baz hopes that Mummers House might mean an escape from London, from Snow and his increasingly virulent popularity... but the rain that comes has other ideas.

3) thnétos (T) - @snowybank : AO3 // Tumblr

thnétos: subject to death, mortal

a retelling of Apollo and Hyacinthus

4) A Medieval AU art piece - @thewriterxj : Tumblr

THURSDAY

1) From Eden (E) - @orange-peony : AO3 // Tumblr

I wonder if his skin is warm or cold to the touch. I tell myself it’s simple curiosity, that I’m an artist and capturing things on paper or canvas is my way to make sense of the world. That drawing him feels so natural, so I should just follow my instincts. Ebb used to say it all the time. Follow your heart. It knows where you’re supposed to go.

I wish I could. I wish I had enough money and freedom to just draw what I want. To paint him in his unattainable beauty. To draw him the way I want to. Naked and vulnerable, raw. Without frills and expensive suits.

Just Baz on paper, my fingers tracing his delicate and beautiful lines with simple charcoal.

2) Slings and Eros (M) - @palimpsessed : AO3 // Tumblr

Young god of love Simonides is tasked by his father, the god of war, to bring about the ruin of a mortal prince to punish his blasphemy. However, once Simonides sees his intended victim, he begins to have misgivings. Prince Tyrannus might have offended the gods with his very existence, but all Simonides can see is how beautiful and lonely he is.

Or, a very loose interpretation of the Eros and Psyche myth.

3) I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire (M) - @knitbelove : AO3 // Tumblr

September 1940: Going back to Watford feels different this year, and not just because England is at the brink of war with Germany and Italy. Penelope seems unsettled by everything, and Agatha is distant, and Baz is … simply not here.

What if Carry On but during the Blitz?? Yeah.

4) A Fool's Oath (M) - @thewriterxj : AO3 // Tumblr

A simple soldier is invited to join the ranks of the royal guard. He and his appointed mage arrive at the royal city to find themselves at the mercy of an unmerciful court. As he struggles to find his place in this foreign environment, he also finds himself entranced by music that only he seems to hear that floats out about the city. He makes an oath to wed whoever makes such beautiful music.

Too bad that person is the crown prince.

FRIDAY

1) Stranger Tides (T) - @tea-brigade & @xivz : AO3 // Tumblr

“If some god shall wreck me in the wine-dark deep, even so I will endure…” Captain Simon Snow of the Chosen One is many things—cunning, handsome, ruthless. Greedy. It’s no surprise that Snow finds a way to piss off the God of the Sea, he always manages to get himself into some type of trouble. This time, however, he’s not the only one who will suffer the consequences. Poseidon promises to not stop his pursuit until Snow and all of his men are dead.

Enter Basilton Pitch—rich, beautiful, mysterious. Suspicious. He offers the crew of the Chosen One a hefty sum to take him back to Europe from the Caribbean. And who is Captain Snow to refuse so much coin? After all, Greek gods aren’t real.

Right?

2) The wayward heir [comic] (M) - @letraspal : AO3 // Tumblr

Like a folk song, our love will be passed on. Simon Snow wants to be an artist. He used to live in Fiesole where he worked in the wool shop of his good friend Ebeneza Petty. He has now chosen to return to his native Florence in order to participate in an art contest hosted by the Pitch family, the most important bankers in all the three continents and Simon’s last chance for an art patronage. No matter how much he hates them.

But being back in Florence also brings back the memories Simon wanted to leave behind : his days as an orphan, the mystery about his mother, and once more being under the inquisitive eyes of his godfather, the new archbishop Davy. The archbishop is very same man who would never forgive him for dropping out the priesthood and ruining his secret plans against the Pitches.

The last thing Simon needed was an unbearably handsome jerk getting him into trouble on his very first day in Florence. How can focus when this man is the most annoying person he has ever met and yet his major source of inspiration.

3) Prohibition Blues (T) - @heyyyandrea : AO3

Simon Snow is a baker and aspiring playwright in Prohibition Era New York City. When he meets a handsome man at Shepherd's speakeasy who is interested in his work, he can't help but think it feels too good to be true.

4) Earth Below & Sky Above (M) - @phoxphyre : AO3 // Tumblr

In the depth of the palace of King Minos of Crete lurks a creature known as the Minotaur.

Baz, prince of Athens and chosen of the god Poseidon, has heard the stories. And now he’s volunteered to come to Crete as one of the annual tributes—to dance with the king’s bulls and fulfill his destiny. He just wants to survive the bulls, protect his people, and go home.

But what if the Minotaur isn’t a monster—but just a boy? And what if instead of slaying him, Baz fell in love with him?

A Carry On retelling of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, set in Bronze Age Crete.

5) A 1980s AU Art piece by @stardustasincocaine : Tumblr // Instagram (Slightly NSFW)

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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McDonald's corporate wages war on ice-cream hackers

A new feature by Andy Greenberg for Wired on the bizarre fight over diagnostic/control tools for McDonald's soft-serve machines is a fantastic, fascinating look at the intersection of Right to Repair with hardware hacking, corporatism, and franchising.

https://www.wired.com/story/they-hacked-mcdonalds-ice-cream-makers-started-cold-war/

McDonald's ice-cream machines are notoriously finicky, so much so that people make bots to determine whether your local McD's machines are busted (5-16% of these machines are broken at any time)

https://mcbroken.com/

There's a reason these machines go down all the time: they are absurdly mechanically complex, designed to do overnight repastueruizations on leftover ice-cream mix, unlike less complex machines that have to be drained and cleaned every day, at high labor and wastage costs.

There's a tradeoff: the machines are *much* more complex and finicky. Not only do they fail if the reservoirs are outside of a narrow tolerance, they still have to be disassembled for weekly cleaning, and are *much* harder to reassemble.

Moreover, that maintenance is performed by McDonald's employees, and thanks to low pay and high turnover, those workers are often both very young and very new to the job. Put it all together and it's easy to see why the machines are busted so often.

But that's not the whole story: it turns out that all of this is vastly exacerbated by the repair-hostile design of the machines. When they do break down, they throw cryptic errors, necessitating an expensive service call.

This means that franchisees pay through the nose when their machines break *and* they don't get feedback on what they can do differently to prevent more service-calls in the future. The tale of this user-hostility is the crux of Greenberg's piece.

The machines are made by Taylor, a giant kitchen supply company that also supplies things like grills to McDonald's franchises. Their distributors get paid every time they do a service call, and the franchisees are pretty sure McD's is getting a cut.

That's where Kytch comes in. It's a tech startup that spun out of Frobot, a company that built automated enclosures for Taylor's froyo machines that were supposed to eliminate labor costs by creating fully self-serve systems.

Frobot machines proved to be too complex and unreliable for the field, and in the process of outfitting them with diagnostic tools, Frobot's founders created Kytch, a high-powered automation and diagnostic tool that proved to be hugely popular with McDonald's franchisees.

Kytch gave these restaurateurs the ability to monitor and diagnose their $18,000 Taylor C602 machines without having to learn technicians' secret, obscure codes ("Press the cone icon, then tap the snowflake/milkshake buttons to set the screen to 5, then 2, then 3, then 1").

It was a runaway success: franchisees bought the gadgets and paid activation and recurring fees and were glad of it, reporting major cost savings over paying Taylor's service techs and extra profits because they could sell product rather than apologizing for broken machines.

The gadget itself was superbly engineered, thanks, no doubt, to its pedigree: in commercializing the Kytch, its inventors teamed up with legendary hardware hacker and digital freedom fighter Andrew "bunnie" Huang, whose every device is a perfect marvel.

Huang describes Kytch as a huge leap in the control systems for the Taylor machines, which were mired in the "dark ages" of 50-year-old technology. Adding a Raspberry Pi-based controller took the machines from the late mechanical age to the late digital age in one step.

But this reformation met a counter-reformation. McDonald's and Taylor teamed up to crush Kytch. Taylor engaged in all kinds of skullduggery to acquire a Kytch unit and then rolled out a (less capable, more lucrative, more extractive) competitor.

(The company swears it didn't rip off the Kytch and it's all just a huge coincidence, really.)

But the real muscle came from McDonald's, which owns the land underneath each of its franchisees' restaurants and can take away their restaurants at the stroke of a pen.

McDonald's began to traffick in increasingly unhinged scare-memos, warning that Kytch might steal "confidential data" and that it "creates a potential very serious safety risk for the crew or technician attempting to clean or repair the machine."

The memos conclude that this diagnostic and monitoring device could cause "serious human injury" and "McDonald’s strongly recommends that you remove the Kytch device from all machines and discontinue use."

Kytch's founders confide that this will probably kill their business.

It's quite a tale: a clanking, breakdown-prone Rube Goldberg device that's turned into a money-spinner for a giant corporation that values the service charges more than it rues its disappointed customers.

A pair of scrappy inventors and a legendary hardware wizard who transport this gadget half a century forward in one fell swoop - and who get destroyed by the corporate behemoth through a mix of scare-stories about maimed teenage shake-jockeys and eviction threats.

Image: Gabriela Hasbun/Wired

https://www.gabrielahasbun.com/

#pluralistic

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usergreenpixel · 3 years

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Frev prompts, Part 4! 🎉

21. The protagonist is a high school student with a knack for drawing comics but they’re also the favorite target of the bullies at school.

One day the bullying gets so bad that the protagonist is unable to cope with reality anymore and, as a means of escapism, writes themselves into their new comic about their favorite topic - The French Revolution. With their favorite pen they had inherited from their writer grandfather, no less.

However, what was supposed to be a harmless little self-insert quickly becomes a reality when the protagonist is magically transported into their comic book and now has to navigate their own story and finish it in order to return to the real world, as well as figure out the mysterious powers of the magical pen.

22. Despite the fact that the days when the Bastille used to be packed with prisoners are gone, a handful were still trapped inside its gloomy walls by the time the infamous prison was taken.

The protagonist is one of the few prisoners who are sentenced to imprisonment inside the Bastille until they and the rest of the prisoners are set free by the revolutionaries.

For the first time in a long while, the protagonist is free but not all is sunshine and butterflies because the revolution is only beginning to escalate and the protagonist has long forgotten how to function in the society outside the prison.

With no other options, the protagonist decides to try and rebuild their life from square one, all while the events of the revolution are unfolding in the city of Paris.

23. Two friends, the protagonists, were raised together by a noble family as adopted wards and used to be close as children, but drifted apart when one of the two went abroad to get a good education.

Nevertheless, the childhood friends find themselves reunited by a pure coincidence during a meeting in the Jacobin Club, which both of them joined mere days ago.

All seems well, until it becomes apparent that the protagonists don’t exactly see eye to eye when it comes to politics in France nor the methods of solving the multiple issues plaguing the country.

This new rift between the protagonists only widens as the revolution progresses and the Jacobin Club gets split into groups on the basis of shared political beliefs.

Will the two protagonists be able to restore the friendship they used to have or will their new differences prove that maybe friendship isn’t always as almighty as people say?

24. The protagonist is acutely aware of the multiple injustices of the French society but they are not too eager to change things personally, hoping that maybe the government will find a way to fix things.

The protagonist, meanwhile, would rather focus on keeping their small family business (a bookshop) afloat and renting out an apartment in the house to make ends meet.

Soon, however, the protagonist ends up getting roped into the events of the revolution regardless when they accidentally overhear their new tenant discuss his plans in a hushed tone with a few other people.

The protagonist has all the evidence that they had unwittingly rented out an apartment to a revolutionary and now they have the evidence to turn that rebellious youth from Blérancourt in along with his buddies.

At first, the best course of action seems fairly obvious. Just report them to the authorities and be done with it.

However, perhaps these youths are more than just stupid kids playing at freedom fighting and maybe they can actually help the country.

When faced with the dilemma of either ratting the young rebels out or joining their cause, the protagonist makes a choice that ends up changing their entire life.

25. The year is 1811. Located near Saint-Petersburg, The Imperial Lyceum is a place where boys from noble families of The Russian Empire live and study. Perhaps the most famous Lyceum of all, it was home to plenty of those who would become prominent in Russian society of the time.

This is where the protagonist, one David de Boudry, teaches French to these boys.

Monsieur de Boudry knows that most of his students are blissfully unaware of a certain secret of his and likes it that way. It is best if they don’t know that he happens to be a younger brother to Jean-Paul Marat himself but changed his last name to avoid the associations.

Keeping this particular tidbit of his biography secret used to be fairly easy, until his older brother, Jean-Paul Marat, appeared in David’s life again on a snowy and frosty January day.

Marat is inexplicably alive, but he is also half-frozen and extremely disheveled when he shows up, not to mention the fact that he arrives with his wife and a very young child in tow. They all need a place to hide from the authorities, and fast.

Being a loving brother, David de Boudry hides his family and is now determined to keep them safe for not even a new name can sever family ties.

But, having made this difficult choice, will Monsieur de Boudry be able to reconcile his love for his family and the devotion to his adoptive home country? And will Marat be able to keep his loved ones and himself safe from the agents of police who lurk nearby and are quite hellbent on proving that the man they are pursuing is indeed the infamous Jacobin?

26. The protagonist is a sophomore who became a member of a Drama Club during their freshman year of high school and they are quite happy to finally have a friend group where they belong. Here nobody judges them for their stutter, their crossdressing and their fear of dogs.The protagonist is even allowed to play roles that would be normally reserved for the opposite gender just so they have an excuse to crossdress.

The upcoming play about the French Revolution is no exception and the protagonist is quite overjoyed but also frustrated that something just doesn’t ring true whenever they read their lines. Frustrated, they sneak into a time machine built by their parents and transport themselves to Paris of 1794.

They soon see that the city is in chaos and rumors about a traitor who had supposedly escaped the guillotine and went on the run with his family spread like wildfire. Moreover, the protagonist soon finds themselves in a bit of a pickle because of their name and physical appearance.

Even a man whom the protagonist saves from a mob advises them not to reveal their name and to lay low as soon as the protagonist introduces themselves. The protagonist is naturally confused but they do want to stay alive and free.

In order to survive, the protagonist decides to do what actors do best - improvise. It’s not easy, of course, but the protagonist tries to stay optimistic.

They hope that they will make it. They know they will. Giving up is not an option. After all, a Desmoulins never gives up. Right?

27. The French Revolution is not an easy period in history. It should be fairly obvious why.

The country is drowning in chaos and the future is uncertain, no matter how hard The Committee of Public Safety tries to maintain at least some semblance of order.

Meanwhile, in the heart of Paris, lives our protagonist whose main concern was not the revolution, but rather the fact that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep their inn’s doors open.

And then, one day, the unthinkable happens. A guest is found murdered in their room. Naturally, all the other guests are now suspects, and so is the staff. A diverse bunch of people with their own agendas, secrets and ties to the victim has gathered in the inn.

Sensing that something isn’t right, the protagonist decides to become an amateur sleuth and get to the bottom of the situation.

A “whodunnit” murder mystery is about to take place in the inn and the protagonist is determined to solve it.

28. A few years passed after the betrayal of the Thermidorians. The Revolution is destroyed and all of the enemies of the new government are dead… Except for one.

The protagonist is a patient in a mental hospital on the outskirts of Paris. Here the treatment of the patients is becoming more and more humane than it used to be before. That being said, the living conditions still leave a lot to be desired. Moreover, the protagonist feels isolated and lonely due to their personal issues and the trauma that caused them to become basically imprisoned in the facility.

Luckily, the loneliness disappears when the protagonist secretly manages to befriend another patient, a mysterious young man who is kept in isolation from the rest of the people at the facility, is forced to wear a mask to hide his face and is treated far worse than the others.

Horrified by the extent of the abuse that their new friend has to endure, the protagonist teams up with him to escape to Avignon, where the protagonist’s relatives live.

Little do they know, their new friend and partner in crime is an outlaw and a Montagnard, the last of them all, so when the two finally escape the police quickly catch wind of the situation.

Can the duo get to Avignon and avoid recapture? Will this unlikely friendship help them heal from their respective trauma? And will the revolutionary’s plan to avenge his executed friends be successful?

29. (Crossover with Greek mythology) When Adrestia, a minor Greek goddess, is banished to Earth from Mount Olympus for causing too much trouble, she assumes a human disguise and travels to France of 1789, where great changes are just around the corner.

Finally finding herself in her own element once again, Adrestia (whose human name is Adrienne) decides that she has no right to miss all the fun and joins the forces of the revolution. She is a goddess of revolt and a daughter of Ares, after all.

One would think that having a goddess on your side will make fighting easier, but things are not that simple and the other gods don’t exactly take kindly to troublemakers who go against authority.

Nevertheless, Adrestia is more than willing to try and help her new allies to win in their fight for Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

30. When the protagonists first meet up in real life, they’re ecstatic. After a few years of chatting on the Internet, the two French Revolution enthusiasts have finally met each other face to face and now they decide to set an old plan of theirs in motion.

The duo wants to perform a time travel spell invented by their witch ancestors and change the way the French Revolution ended. The spell is successfully cast, but in the process the warlocks run out of magic and are now forced to wait in the past until they are strong enough to cast the spell again to return home.

But hey, at least while they’re waiting they can do what they always wanted to do - prevent the Thermidorian Reaction, and they are going to try to do just that, even though preventing a coup d’état is far from easy, especially for two college kids from the future.

31. It’s 1815. Joseph Fouché is the Minister of Police but his days in office are numbered and he knows it.

What’s more, rumors spread about the incompetence of the police as nobody can catch the culprit behind a new string of murders. Fouché hopes that cracking the case would restore his reputation, but something isn’t right about these murders.

So far, every single victim was a participant of the Thermidorian Reaction and it simply cannot be a mere coincidence. This pattern makes Fouché fear for his life and his reputation, as in addition to the murders the sins that he and his allies had pinned on their enemies begin to resurface.

Fearing that he is next and that his own crimes are about to be exposed as well, Fouché becomes obsessed with catching this mysterious vigilante. He even has a prime suspect in mind, but he can neither track him down nor prove that it was him.

Meanwhile, the time Fouché has to rehabilitate the police force is running out. Soon he too might face the music at long last, as well as learn exactly why sparing one of your enemies while killing the rest is considered to be a classic mistake.

Will the vigilante get to Fouché? How much time does the Minister of Police actually have left before karma knocks on his door? And why does the youngest police inspector in history, who is Fouché’s beloved protégé, turn against his mentor?

32. When the protagonist decided to sneak into the Catacombs of Paris for “shits and giggles” with their buddies, the last thing they expected was a sudden time travel to a closet in an apartment of a prominent revolutionary, whose skull the protagonist was holding in their hands seconds ago.

Naturally, the protagonist gets caught by the housekeeper and promptly accused of breaking and entering at best, and an assasination attempt at worst. It doesn’t help that the protagonist has strange pills and a baseball bat on their person.

But when they’re about to get prosecuted, the inhabitant of that same apartment suddenly speaks up on their behalf and defends the protagonist, claiming that it was a mere misunderstanding. Later, that same revolutionary visits the protagonist, reveals that he knows about the existence of time travel and promises to help, as long as the protagonist goes along with his plan.

Despite suspecting that the revolutionary has an ulterior motive, the protagonist does want answers so they agree to play along...at least for a while.

33. After the Revolutionary War in America, the protagonist follows his friend and mentor, Marquis de Lafayette, to Paris as he is the only family the hero has at this point.

At first, when the French Revolution rolls around, the hero still stays by his mentor’s side, never questioning his opinions and decisions and admiring him as a hero.

But after the September Massacres reveal Lafayette’s...less heroic side the hero is utterly broken and disappointed that he trusted the wrong person yet again. This revelation prompts the hero to switch sides and become a double agent, working with the Jacobins while pretending that he is still loyal to Lafayette.

Is this the correct choice to make or will the hero’s naïveté and a simple desire to belong betray him once again?

34. Maximilien Robespierre finds himself in a difficult situation. Somehow, everyone who crosses his path keeps going missing, only to turn up brutally murdered.

Moreover, Robespierre keeps receiving notes with rather...stalkerish messages written by the culprit. The stress and the crippling paranoia are slowly taking a toll on his frail body and he collapses altogether after finding out that Camille Desmoulins and Antoine de Saint-Just got attacked as well.

Fortunately, Saint-Just and Desmoulins manage to survive the ordeal and decide that enough is enough. After a long recovery, the two men decide to set aside their differences and track down the mysterious stalker before other people close to Robespierre get hurt.

Who knows, perhaps this buddy cop-esque adventure will even help Saint-Just and Desmoulins resolve their rivalry once and for all, now that a mutual friend of theirs needs both of them.

35. An immigrant enrolls into a high school in the country where they live now, a country located on the other side of the planet, miles away from their homeland.

Isolated from the rest of the students, shunned for their Eastern European accent (feel free to pick the specific country) and their Socialist beliefs, the protagonist has very few friends and even they are imaginary - three French revolutionaries whom the protagonist admires the most.

However, things change when a classmate bonds with the protagonist over their fascination with the French Revolution and the two decide to team up and write a novel about their favorite topic, all while the three imaginary friends, who may or may not be something more than a simple product of imagination, are guiding these kids on their quest to rehabilitate the legacy of the revolution.

P. S. The Fouché tag has been graciously lent to me by @frevandrest , the tag’s inventor. This needs to become an official tag imo.

#writing #writing prompts #frev #french revolution #louis antoine de saint just #saint just #antoine saint just #maximilien robespierre #robespierre #camille desmoulins #I still refuse to make a fouche tag #marquis de lafayette

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autokratorissa · 3 years

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I've been reading and thinking a lot about class struggle and its absolute centrality recently (e.g. of relations of production over productive forces), including the pivotal point where the struggle shifts from one predominantly in/for the ideological state apparatuses to one in/for the repressive state apparatus. I've also been thinking about the kinds of organisations involved in the struggle over time, and their differing and non-differing roles during different discernable periods of struggle. Of course, communists must always have in mind the “line of march” (Marx) and therefore the relation of any given moment to the wider movement. The following, then, is a brief [sic] draft of a schematisation for the progressive development of the proletarian class struggle, based primarily on early Leninist, and structuralist theory:

First stage. The proletariat, “always-already” (Althusser) existing as a class “in itself” (an sich), that is, as a socioeconomic element of a determinate social formation, becomes conscious of its status as a class, and as such builds economic and political organisations for the purpose of class struggle, thereby elevating itself to a class “for itself” (für sich) (Marx; Bukharin). Before this point, that is, before there existed a material and formal class leadership and party, the class did not exist in the strong sense; there cannot be a class in struggle without the existence of a party to lead it (Bordiga). As such, the class struggle during this period is focused on the creation of “fighting organisations” (Althusser), including but not limited to workers’ political parties and workers’ trade unions. The proletariat is unlikely to be in a position to make substantive demands against its class enemies during this period due to its organisational disunity and immaturity.

Second stage. The proletariat, now increasingly conscious of its place in society, begins to fight a “war of position” (Gramsci) within the ideological state apparatuses, which are simultaneously the terrain and objective of class struggle (Althusser). They fight for, among other things, the legal recognition and acceptance of the class organs, chief amongst them the workers’ party, the workers’ trade unions, and the workers’ trade union federation; freedom of information, press, and assembly so that communist literature and culture can be proliferated as much as possible and with as little hindrance as possible; and legal guarantees and protections for workers, including a labour code. The proletariat works towards the unity of the working class parties—there can be only one communist party (Zinoviev)—and the unity of the working class unions—there can be only one communist trade union federation. The greatest strength of the proletariat and greatest fear of the bourgeoisie in this period consists in the unity, behind a unified line and a unified leadership, of the mass trade union activity and mass political activity of the working class (Althusser). The proletariat and its leading organs are engaged in a principally ideological struggle (that is, a struggle within the ideological state apparatuses; all ideology is embedded in material structures and so all ideological struggles are struggles in and over these structures). It is engaged in a struggle for a minimum programme of immediate reforms.

Third stage. The proletariat has made sufficient strides in the ideological struggle that the hegemonic cultural control of the bourgeoisie over society is critically weakened. The class struggle now advances to a “war of manoeuvre” (Gramsci): the class party leads a violent assault for state power. The character of the war could be of varied types, ranging from a coup d’état (as in Afghanistan), to a rapid and widespread uprising (as in Russia), to “protracted people’s war” (Mao) over an extended period (as in China), to foquismo (as in Cuba); it could pit the forces of the armed proletariat against the forces of the armed bourgeoisie, or the forces of an armed alliance of multiple oppressed classes against the forces of an armed alliance of multiple reactionary classes. The only absolutely necessary and absolutely non-negotiable element is the independent military power of the proletarian organs (Mao) and their leadership over any other class elements engaged in revolution. The overriding strategic goal is to incapacitate the bourgeois state’s ability to wage war and utilise its repressive mechanisms; it is to cripple it and then destroy it. This stage is highly likely to coincide with a broadly felt and deeply set geopolitical and military crisis for the bourgeois state internationally; if the bourgeois state is imperialist in character and engaged in great power competition, then the proletariat must have organised towards the defeat of its national bourgeois state. The proletariat and its leading organs are engaged in a principally repressive, that is, physical and violent, struggle (a struggle for state power over the repressive state apparatus). It is engaged in a struggle for a maximum programme of social revolution, centring on the possession of state power.

Fourth stage. The proletariat and its leading organs have won state power and come to occupy the dominant class position in the country. A dictatorship of the proletariat has been established. Its situation is critically insecure; the bourgeoisie has been disorganised and driven from state power by the war of manoeuvre, but will inevitably rapidly reorganise itself and launch a reaction, possibly in cooperation with the bourgeoisie of other states. The revolution is engaged in a struggle to the death (Castro). The overriding strategic goal is to physically destroy the bourgeois reaction: to execute or imprison its leading personnel both military, civil, and political; to outlaw and dismantle its leading organs; and to totally destroy its ability to exercise even the most insignificant military power. The defining policy during this period is that of the Red Terror. At this stage above all others, it is imperative that the proletariat does not exclude any means whatsoever for achieving its aims (Bordiga). The entire repressive state apparatus is organised on a military footing; absolute discipline of the party membership and workers’ and state bodies must be maintained. No concessions can be given on military matters, and only minimal concessions on non-military matters under extraordinary circumstances so as to preserve the military capacity of the state. The media (news, information, publishing, distribution, etc.) apparatus must be totally and unconditionally subordinate to the party and its central committee (Zinoviev). Victory in the military struggle is the overwhelmingly dominant concern of the new state. Only the most rudimentary efforts towards the construction of new ideological state apparatuses and the development of a new state ideology can be made as conditions allow, but there must at minimum be preparations for major developments on this issue during the next stage of struggle. The proletariat and its state are engaged in an almost exclusively repressive, that is, physical and violent, struggle (a struggle utilising state power in the form of the repressive state apparatus). It is engaged in a struggle for a maximum programme of social revolution, centring on the possession of state power.

Fifth stage. The proletariat and its state have secured their position by decisively defeating the counterrevolution. The dictatorship of the proletariat is in a more or less secure situation, and can step down from its war footing. Its concerns now turn towards the construction and proliferation of new ideological state apparatuses; the bourgeois state machinery must be “smashed” and proletarian ones erected in their place (Marx; Lenin). If ideological control is not established and secured, “survivals” from the bourgeois state ideology could facilitate the eventual defeat of the dictatorship (Althusser). The class party and state engage in rebuilding and reiterating deep links with the mass population which may have been severely damaged by the violence and military focus of the fourth stage. This includes policies to address the harms which the state did to the population in the interest of pursuing military needs, particularly those harms which affect the fundamental integrity of the proletariat’s class position. The long task of social and economic transition begins in earnest; by degree, the state wrests control of all economic and social organisations away from the remnants of the defeated bourgeoisie and from independent entities, centralising them in the hands of the state (Marx). State planning of the economy begins; the economy, whatever its state of socialist development, is orientated towards transition, with economic policy targeting both social and economic development (Nguyen). The proletarian state controls an economy in which market-based distribution, as well as forms of private ownership, exist, but exist in an ever-decreasing quantity and significance (Bordiga). The proletariat and its state are engaged in a principally ideological struggle. It is engaged in a struggle for a maximum programme of social revolution, centring on socioeconomic transformation. This stage ends once the revolution has been victorious internationally, once the planned economy has incorporated the non-planned economy and eliminated commodity production, and once the non-proletarian classes have been fully proletarianised. Hence, with the close of this stage of struggle, class struggle ceases. The initial stage of communist development begins.

#tag: philosophy #political theory #class struggle #proletarian dictatorship

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squidproquoclarice · 3 years

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What’s Arthur’s recovery treatment like in Sunrise in terms of medically, because it was really interesting to see such a realistic view on how he would recover from the drastic effects of TB. And the way you wrote that the TB although dormant is always gunna be there with him for the rest of his life was a good other aspect to his character, and added to the strength he has, considering the stigma too attached to the disease at that time, and especially once you get to the last chapter and see how far he’s come from the first chapter, I was just like good for him. It was great.

Combining this with another similar Ask: “Can you talk about Arthur’s proceduree with the cactus? Just that him living one with those scars of treatment.. it’s great for the story”. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So as I’ve remarked on his gunshot wound, I hate “Hollywood” medicine and how it gives us such an inaccurate impression of what treatment and recovery for something is like. It was important to me that I depicted the actual process of dealing with tuberculosis recovery realistically, both medically and for the period. I didn’t want to just skip ahead to three years later and go “And Arthur was well again”. I also absolutely didn’t want to go the route that I’ve seen of claiming “nonspecific magic Indian cure from Rains Fall” because holy shit, that’s exoticism-as-Other and racism. Arthur is badly off at the end of Chapter 6. His TB has run him down to the point where, combined with his fight injuries and hypothermia, it was too much for him in-game. That’s really not something you can sleep off for a few days or get rid of by popping a few DayQuil. Being as antibiotics were several decades in the future, TB was everywhere at the time of RDR2. It was one of the leading causes of death in 1900 America at 194 deaths per 100,000 people. To give you a comparison to another deadly communicable respiratory disease that kills slowly, leaves chronic impact to survivors, and has huge impacts to society, daily life, and public health? As per Johns Hopkins University stats, the current American COVID-19 death rate is 149 deaths per 100K. That’s how bad TB was. Tuberculosis wasn’t a guaranteed death sentence like people assume from the game. But yes, it was very likely. Roughly 1/2 to 2/3 of people who contract active tuberculosis die within five years without antibiotic treatment. Although interestingly, those who make it to 5 years in untreated tuberculosis then show a 60% spontaneous remission rate. So making it to 5 years was unlikely, but your odds got pretty decent at that point. Arthur's a resilient man who's beaten the odds before, so I figured it wasn't impossible for him to do so again. In terms of actually getting into the details of medical treatment, 1900 is an interesting point in TB history. It's sort of a transition point between two regimens of treatment.

The first is the post-Civil War "rest cure" (advised to Arthur by Dr. Barnes in St. Denis) of going to a climate thought to be more helpful to TB sufferers, and from there getting as much rest and fresh air as possible, and just hoping for the best. TB was actually a significant part of the Old West as plenty of people came westward for that supposed better climate. What the ideal climate was varied depending who you asked (hot, hot and dry, mountainous, forest, etc.), and spoiler alert: climate doesn't really affect TB recovery. Getting away from crowded cities was probably the more effective thing. That relied very heavily on patient initiative, though, and the ability of a family to provide any necessary care, as well as to uproot and move to another place. Obviously for those in poverty, not likely to happen. We see this with Thomas Downes, who clearly is poor enough that he wouldn't have had that option. Many didn’t. Many died because they simply couldn’t stop working, let alone move halfway across the country. There were a few sanatoriums/well-known rest places, but they were few and far between. After 1900, and increasingly after WWI, the notion turned more to TB as an issue requiring direct medical intervention rather than letting people quietly hope for the best. That led to patients often undergoing quarantine and a formal treatment regimen (which still relied a lot upon rest and fresh air) in either a private or government-run sanatorium. People went in until they recovered enough to show numerous consecutive negative TB tests and the disease had become latent, or they died. Some took years to leave, and some took years to die. This is the institutional phase of TB treatment, and it lasted until it got increasingly superseded by the antibiotic phase post-WWII. What I did with Las Hermanas was create something in that transition phase. It's a TB ward with a more structured treatment regimen, but there's not the strict bureaucratic oversight and total isolation of patients from family and the world that you see later. I did bring that notion in later in 1907 with Sadie seeing a poster in New Hanover for the new state-run Six Points TB Sanatorium advising that TB patients would be quarantined there. Las Hermanas' treatment is more the hallmark of a forward-thinking doctor. Felipe Garcia's trying different things in treatment with that mentality, and taking the unusual step of keeping families with patients (which wouldn't be the case later). It's something that worked on a micro level, but probably couldn't have happened on a macro level as a nationwide program, so Arthur and Sadie are lucky to have hit upon it. The total bed rest for a while to start to give the lungs a chance to recover is accurate to some TB treatments of the time, and also later. The treatment there at Las Hermanas does include artificial pneumothorax. Again, Felipe's a bit ahead of the curve. It was a known treatment at the time, having been reported, as he says, at an AMA conference in Denver several years before. It had been noted that spontaneous lung collapse (pneumothorax) in a patient actually had i,proved their TB, and the idea of inducing that collapse deliberately (e.g., "artificial" pneumothorax) got kicked around some. But it didn't really become commonplace as a treatment until post-1912 with Italian physician Carlo Forlanini "rediscovering" the technique and getting visibility for it--he'd actually been among its pioneers thirty years earlier. But the fascination with microbiological advancements, including Robert Koch's identification and description of the tuberculosis bacteria in 1882, meant it got sort of shelved for a while. Again, this increasing use post-1912 is also coinciding with the rise of sanatoriums, where controlled treatment regimens under a doctor’s close direction were more possible. Essentially what happens in classic artificial pneumothorax (AP from here on in) therapy is introducing gas--either air or nitrogen--into the cavity surrounding the lungs (*not* the lung itself) via needle and bellows apparatus. For video of classic AP being performed around 1925 in a patient in Chicago, watch the first 3 minutes of this video. It does a good job showing exactly what the procedure looked like, what the equipment looked like, etc. Side note: local anesthetic was definitely used in later years because being jabbed with a decent sized needle deeply enough to puncture your chest wall is not fun. It's very possible Felipe might have used it, as local anesthetic was a concept known and somewhat used at the time. It very likely would have been a localized injection of cocaine as more familiar, still-used local anesthetics like lidocaine and novocaine were years in the future. But, hey, for a cowboy game that's period accurate enough that it gives you cocaine gum, using cocaine as a local anesthetic isn't unreasonable. ;) The AP apparatus, once it was hooked up, put enough gas in there to cause enough pressure and force to induce a partial or full collapse of an infected lung. That would help rest that lung or that part of it from struggling to breathe, and also provide an oxygen-deprived environment that would help kill the TB bacteria swarming in the lesions and cavities they had chewed into the tissue of the lungs. Bonus: breathing on one or one-and-partial lung also probably generally obliged patients to rest more. For one quick set of statistics, 23 of 40 patients with lungs successfully collapsed by AP in 1913 showed dramatic improvement in their TB. So not a magic bullet, but a tool that perhaps upped your odds when done right. There were more severe AP methods also used later, including phrenectomy and thoracoplasty, but those wouldn't have been seen in 1899 in this case. The problem is that the AP gas pumped into the pleura would eventually leak out, or be absorbed by the body tissue. There's a somewhat vivid detail in Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain", a 1924 novel about a TB sanatorium, of a whistling sound issuing from the AP hole. So the AP process had to be repeated at regular intervals, often called "refills", usually cited as about two weeks from what I read. AP treatment often continued after symptoms stopped, because they wanted to be damn sure that they hadn't treated only enough to just get ahead of the TB or that this wasn’t just a temporary up-cycle, and the disease was well and truly in remission. They confirmed this in later years with actual tests for TB at regular intervals to track that progress. I kept that two week refill schedule for Arthur, and also its effect on keeping him tethered to Las Hermanas for a few more years even after he has a more normal, active life. I think (?) I wrote him as stopping treatments sometime in late 1902, so roughly three years total, and two years post-release as no longer actively symptomatic. All in all, I wrote a treatment that wasn't widespread at the time, but would have been very possible with the knowledge and equipment available. I went the AP route in the end because I wanted to give Arthur more than just bed rest both for higher survival odds, and also because I think now-obsolete medical history in fiction is interesting. The effects are some of the things I noted in Arthur throughout Sunrise. Getting jabbed with a needle every two weeks for years is going to produce some scars on the skin. It would be a tight cluster given you wanted to place your needle very carefully, but they would exist. We see something similar now with "track marks" in those addicted to intravenous drugs, and I think I noted Arthur or Sadie remembering Swanson having something like it in his arm from years of addiction to injected opiates. Working on that one or one-and-partial lung during all AP refills also means that Arthur is incapable of really hard daily physical labor, even after being released from Las Hermanas. The lung capacity, and the stamina, just isn't there. That was one factor that impacted his ability to get a regular job, which has the effects we see in 1904 of them worrying about money. That's also because even after he's got two fully-inflated and working lungs in later years, he's still not 100%. While the lesions on the lungs may heal and send the TB into remission, they don't become healthy lung tissue again. They become scars that still would be visible in later years when X-rays became more common. So there's a lack of both flexibility to contract/expand and surface area for oxygen exchange that were there with healthy tissue. In other words, Arthur's lungs are permanently running on a reduced capacity. His stamina and strength and resilience are going to be affected. He's never going to be exactly what he was before becoming sick due to permanent effects of the damage, as well as just the fact of him going from 36 to 48 and thus just getting into middle age. If Sunrise was an actual playable game using the RDR2 system, I'd depict that as Arthur's Stamina and Health cores being permanently damaged and capped at a lower level than before. Probably down 3 bars for the Wapiti chapter and his first six months at Las Hermanas (due to the near-death status initially and then massive muscle and strength loss from all that bed rest), down 2 for the next six months at Las Hermanas and all of 1901 after his release, and down 1 for 1904/1907/1911 and the rest of his life. The other thing is Arthur can't be "cured" with the medicine of the time. That was pretty much impossible in the pre-antibiotic era given the bacteria could never be entirely killed off in the lungs. The best you could do was get strong and healthy enough for your immune system to effectively keep the ones left contained and inactive. So while TB survivors could live healthy, happy lives, they knew that there was always a chance that TB could always come back. Hence Felipe chewing Arthur out more than once for pushing himself too hard and risking getting run down enough for the TB to have an easier time gaining a foothold again. So his lifestyle's permanently changed in some ways. He learns to recognize the signs of approaching exhaustion, and having to back away from it and slow down or rest. Sadie's necessarily become attuned to this as well. Arthur has to learn his own limits for the sake of self-care, and I think that's not a bad thing given he'd never had any real sense of self-preservation before. He can't just keep pushing like he used to do, telling himself he'll make up for it later. He has to commit to taking care of himself for his sake as well as Sadie's well-being, because he knows she can't lose him, just like he can't lose her. He has to do it later for their children too. Recognizing that taking care of yourself for the sake of your loved ones is actually protecting and showing them love too, rather than selfishness, is a big step forward for him. I'll do the work to take care of myself so I can better be here for you, so I don't cause you the pain of watching me suffer or die, plus the emotional and financial and logistical burdens of my not being there. As first Anon noted, he and Sadie tend to keep hush about it unless they can trust someone, given the stigma associated with TB due to fear of the disease. At some points, Arthur has to wonder if this person knew the truth about him whether he'd be more of a pariah as a notorious outlaw or as a TB survivor. It didn't necessarily matter that the disease was latent. All people had to hear was "tuberculosis". So something like the fact Drew MacFarlane as the father of a TB victim himself not only doesn't stigmatize Arthur, but is willing to work around the TB restrictions, means a lot to both Arthur and Sadie.

#arthur morgan #rdr2 #sunrise ama #may the sunrise #writing #fiction #historical medicine #Anonymous #long post

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pamphletstoinspire · 3 years

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The Hidden Threat to Catholicism

A serious, even existential, threat to Catholicism looms on the horizon, and it’s hidden all around us. It could very well decimate the ranks of the Church, and perhaps is already doing so. It is insidiously dangerous because it upends the very foundations of Catholicism.

I’m not talking about the abuse crisis, or the lack of episcopal courage, or rampant heresy, although all those threats are dire indeed. But the Church has faced those type of challenges in the past and overcome them, albeit at times with significant losses.

I’m talking about a truly new threat: world virtualization.

The world has gone virtual. Though this trend’s been developing for decades, the COVID-19-related shutdowns finalized the process. We communicate easily with each other through texts, social media, and Zoom chats. Almost any product we buy can be delivered to our doorstep. We now even “attend” Mass online! For many (most?) of us, our lives happen more online than offline.

In the eyes of many, world virtualization is considered an unmitigated good. It allows greater connection, greater leisure, and greater access to information than ever before. There’s just one problem: it’s antithetical to living a well-balanced Catholic life. I would even argue that it breaks Catholicism.

If there is one word that sums up Catholicism, it’s “incarnational.” Our faith is founded on the incarnation—God became man. By becoming part of the physical world, God lifted the physical world to Him. Just as importantly, He made the physical world the means by which we reach Him. In other words, Catholicism is a very physical religion. It requires “stuff” in order to work: bread, water, physical contact, etc. Without the Sacraments (and sacramentals), Catholicism is reduced to a completely different—and false—religion.

Now before I continue, let me address the exceptions I can already hear. What about the hermit, or the Catholic prisoner of conscience put in solitary confinement? Am I saying that they are unable to practice Catholicism because they lack the physical “stuff”?

Of course not. But the very extreme nature of their lives points to the fact that they are truly exceptions, not the rule. An underlying truth about humankind is that God created us as physical beings and that “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18): God made us to be with each other. He also made the physical world to be the ladder by which we ascend to Him.

The digital world we are creating, however, essentially rejects direct human contact and interaction with the physical world. Even pre-COVID we had the phenomenon of smartphone-zombies—countless people staring at their screens and endlessly scrolling through their feeds throughout each day. But the COVID-19 restrictions have accelerated our descent into virtual-land, and many are now so fearful of disease that they don’t even want to be in physical proximity to others. This poses a serious problem for a Church based on physicality. Offering live-streaming Masses and virtual conferences only exacerbates the problem.

How should Catholics respond to this disturbing trend? By promoting incarnational, intentional living.

First, Catholics must be incarnational. We need to rediscover the superiority of the physical over the virtual. Recently I saw an advertisement for a “virtual theology of the body conference.” Talk about irony. If that doesn’t make one pause, I don’t know what will. After all, the theology of the body is supposed to remind us of the importance of our physical bodies and how they aren’t just the soul’s extra appendage, but an essential part of who we are. So let’s discuss this at a disembodied conference!

And of course, that pales next to the live-streamed Mass. I realize that many parishes are doing the best they can to adapt to extreme circumstances. In too many cases, however, many priests—and their parishioners—have taken a bit too much to the live-streamed Mass.

At best, such a Mass is a poor substitute for one in which members of the Body of Christ can actually be present at the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross (I don’t think the Apostle John would have Zoomed into Calvary even if that were an option in his day, although Judas might have). At worst, it sends a signal that the physical world—including the physical world of the Sacraments—is secondary and “non-essential.”

Man is both like and unlike the angels and the animal kingdom. We are a body-spirit hybrid, and it’s foundational to our being that the two work together. Unlike so many heresies old and new, we do not reject the physical aspect of our nature, but we understand that the physical enhances—or diminishes—our spiritual life. To interact with other Catholics in “real” life, to actually attend Mass and eat the Host, to speak to the priest in person in the Confessional—these are all physical activities that help lead us to God.

Second, as Catholics we must live more intentionally. Whenever a critique of the digital world is brought up, accusations of “going Amish” are thrown out. Rather than fight those accusations, I’m going to lean into them. It’s a common misconception that the Amish reject technology. They don’t reject technology, they make intentional decisions as a community as to whether a new technology is, on the whole, beneficial or not. And while we as Catholics don’t have to agree with their final decisions, we should embrace this intentional attitude.

Now, I’m no luddite (another common epithet casually tossed out). I was deeply involved in the Dot-Com boom of the late 1990’s as the first employee of one of the first web hosting companies and a co-founder of one of the first domain registrars. (My continued technology appreciation can be seen in my embrace of cryptocurrencies.) I’m currently the editor of an internet-only magazine, which the majority of readers access on their smartphones. But my long relationship with technology has led me to see that it’s not an either/or decision: either we reject all modern technology or we uncritically accept each latest technology the moment it rolls out.

Instead, we should take time to reflect on whether a new technology—and how we use that technology—helps lead us closer or further away from intimate union with Christ and a building up of his body here on earth. We should also ask if the new technology leads to a more disembodied, and therefore less incarnational, existence. Yes, modern communication methods have benefited society in many ways. Yet they have come at a cost.

One of the primary prices we’ve paid is the loss of direct connection. Instead of spending time chatting on the porch—or even on the phone—with a friend, we send quick, scattershot updates to dozens of acquaintances. We’ve seen a precipitous drop in religious affiliation in this century, which directly coincides with a tremendous increase in virtual “communities”—and the two trends may be related. Blithely ignoring the costs of modern technologies may spell suicide for Catholicism.

And of course there is the obvious problem of being subject to Big Tech, which is becoming increasingly anti-Catholic.

Practically speaking, I think this should lead us to rethink two primary aspects of modern life: physical gatherings and the use of smartphones/social media. First, we must resist the urge to “go virtual” in our interactions with others. Find ways to physically meet with extended family, friends, and fellow parishioners. I was asked recently what Catholic parents can do to keep their kids Catholic, and my first thought was for them to spend time—real time, not virtual time—with other Catholic families. These relationships build an appreciation for the Real, which leads to a deeper appreciation for the Source of all Reality.

Second, we must seriously and urgently rethink our relationship with social media, particularly how we use it on smartphones, which are perpetually attached to us. How many of us can barely find time for prayer, but spend several hours a day scrolling through social media feeds on our smartphones? Even if Big Tech were supportive of Catholic values, the average time spent on their products far exceeds their value for most of us. Instead of scrolling through Facebook, we need to spend more time seeking the Face of God in His Book, the Sacred Scriptures.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we must dump all social media (although it might mean that for some). Our disordered relationship with social media could be reordered by simply removing it from our smartphones and only using it on our desktop computers. Perhaps we even consider a (gasp!) dumbphone. Steps like these help us control our usage instead of the other way around.

Incarnational, intentional living is not an easy path; in fact, most everything in our society today is set up to oppose embracing it. However, Catholics have always been called to be countercultural, and following this seldom-trodden path could be a means to living an authentically Catholic life in a culture that desperately needs that witness.

BY: ERIC SAMMONS

#hidden threat to Catholicism #virtual reality

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sunshinereversed · 4 years

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𝙙𝙮𝙡𝙖𝙣’𝙨 “𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙖𝙡𝙡”: 𝙖𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙮𝙨𝙞𝙨

I think it’s eerily prophetic how the song “Flowers on the Wall” (performed by the Statler Brothers) radiates so strongly with Dylan Klebold. The country tune has already been associated with Dylan because it appears in the background of the video where he and Nate are driving to school. But if you really listen to the lyrics and reflect on Dylan’s inner struggles, they coincide strangely well.

Let’s take the very first line of the song.

I keep hearin' you're concerned about my happiness.

The constant ‘Are you okay? Are you sure you’re okay? You seem so down lately’ from his parents, especially Sue, is reflected here. His mother sees that Dylan is ‘moody and irritable,’ often withdrawn, spending time hauled up in his room. She notices the tightness of his voice, which is unlike him, and she offers to make him French toast or an omelet. This must be about something small, she thinks. Yet his sullen demeanor stays as days turn to weeks, and she must ask again in vain, ‘Are you okay?’

But all that thought you're givin' me is conscience, I guess.

It doesn’t even cross Sue’s mind that her son may be unwell. She is simply asking out of concern for him looking unhappy, believing whatever it is will solve itself out. His mother wears her heart on her sleeve, and it pains her to see him so sad. But what can she do if he refuses to talk about it? All she can do is ask and wait for it to pass. He’s a good kid, after all. He’ll do the right thing because she’s worked hard to instill her morals into what he does.

If I were walkin' in your shoes, I wouldn't worry none.

Dylan reassures her repeatedly. ‘I’m only tired. I have a lot of homework. Nothing’s wrong. No one gives me a tough time, I’m 6’4”.’ He wishes she would leave him alone. He thinks she wouldn’t understand; she wouldn’t listen. He tells his parents not to worry. ‘You can trust me,’ he tells his mother one evening after the prom. Dylan goes out of his way to prove that he is the golden child. It works, and they worry none.

While you 'n' your friends are worried about me I'm havin' lots of fun.

Dylan’s social life serves as a mask for what is going on in his mind. He goes over to his friends’ houses, bowls on Friday nights, makes videos after school, plays catch with his dad, and even watches old movies with his mother. He has pictures of good times with friends. Outwardly, he is smiling; life is a dream. This makes his parents rethink their concerns. He’s a happy kid who does normal teenage things. What is there to worry about? He’s assuring those around him that he’s fine.

Now here comes the chorus, which is a bit tricky but makes sense when you consider these things:

Countin' flowers on the wall.

If anyone is familiar with the book The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, this might be a clue. Like the protagonist in the book, Dylan is trapped in his four-walled cell (his bedroom) which is where he does most of his thinking and spiraling downwards. This is where he writes in his journal and vents his frustrations. It’s a toxic environment for his brain. His room is where he cries himself to sleep; hugs his pillow in loneliness; gets drunk by himself. Most importantly, it’s where he blurs fantasy and reality. While not as plainly mad as the poor woman from Gilman’s novel, Dylan is mentally tortured by what he perceives to be ‘an unfair/miserable existence’ and being ‘stuck in humanity.’ He rejects both, and often retreats into his fantasy where he is with his love and away from the world. The ‘flowers on the wall’ symbolizes his own deception of life when he is alone, and might not only symbolize his bedroom, but also his brain.

That don't bother me at all.

Unlike the real world, Dylan very much prefers to live in the fictional one he’s conjured within his mind. It’s his safe place. Paradoxically, his mind is also where he tears himself down and others around him. It’s a poisonous escape. Yet he is already so far gone in that escape, he can’t see the damage he is doing to himself. And he continues to do so, unbothered, and unaware.

Playin' solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one.

‘Playing solitaire’ could be a metaphor symbolizing his isolation and loneliness, his solitude. Solitaire is a single-player game, and Dylan feels alienated most of the time, especially when he is sulking in his room. Thinking, always thinking. Sometimes, as the line implies, until dawn. He is a night owl who cannot sleep because his mind is constantly awake. Playing music, conversing in chats on the computer, formulating poems in his notebooks, doodling, or just thinking (negatively). He oversleeps often because he is up late doing these things. He is alone, in the middle of the night, consumed by his own sadness. Something is missing inside him, and that is why he plays with ‘a deck of fifty-one.’ He thinks a significant other is the thing that is missing, and if he finds her, he will finally be playing with fifty-two cards, figuratively.

Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo.

For Dylan, this is a dichotomy. An everlasting contrast. The balance between two things, lightness, and darkness, good and evil, etc. He’s doing grown-up things like holding a job, applying to colleges, driving a car, and as the lyrics say, smoking cigarettes. Marlboro, preferably. At the same time, Dylan is caught between acting his age and longing for simpler days. This is where ‘watching Captain Kangaroo’ comes in. It’s a kid’s show and is intended for such an audience. Dylan thinks back with nostalgia for his childhood, when life wasn’t full of disappointments, stress, high school bullies, responsibility. He hangs onto items that remind him of his youth: his stuffed koala, origami, classic movies, his trademark baseball cap, his love for fixing old cars with his dad. Dylan is stuck somewhere in the middle of the two, never truly satisfied with one over the other.

Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do.

Again, Dylan tells those around him that he is perfectly fine by engaging in normal teenage things. He hides how depressed he feels. Dylan becomes increasingly irritated the more people ask if he’s okay. The repetition of this line throughout the song is more like a cry for help than a reassurance.

Last night I dressed in tails, pretended I was on the town.

This could symbolize several things, but what comes to my mind is Dylan’s prom night. The fact that he even goes to prom is a pleasant surprise to his parents, confirming that there’s nothing abnormal lurking on the horizon. His father helps him get dressed in his tuxedo, struggles to figure out how the bow tie works, and he pulls his newly washed hair back into a neat ponytail. His mother thinks he looks quite handsome, comparing him to a character in a movie they are both fond of. For a moment, he is just a normal high school kid going to a dance. Nothing out of the boring ordinary.

As long as I can dream it's hard to slow this swinger down.

For one night, at the prom, Dylan pretends this is his life. He is good at blocking out what he considers evil, and Dylan allows himself to enjoy the moment. He’s had a lot of practice at ignoring his pain. If he can retreat into the fantasy he’s created in his mind, he is capable of anything, good or bad. It’s like an out-of-body experience. He’s not there when he’s there. Nothing can stop him. He has two settings at this point, 0 and 100. An unhealthy dreamer can be deadly not only to others, but to the dreamer himself.

So please don't give a thought to me, I'm really doin' fine.

As mentioned previously, Dylan flies under the radar to not be asked about his well-being. He holds out his arms to point to all these social activities he’s engaging in with his friends as if to say ‘Look what I’m doing. I’m fine. Do not worry.’ It’s a cruel deception, and he doesn’t even realize he is being deceived as much as those around him are. Dylan starts to believe what he’s telling others. He doesn’t think he is worth the worry.

You can always find me here; I'm havin' quite a time.

‘Here’ can mean one of several places: his bedroom, his mind, or perhaps his existence. Either way, ‘I’m having quite a time’ is a sarcastic remark. He’s drowning in his harmful thoughts, yet that’s where he feels the safest. It’s his protective shell that he puts up against the world. Dylan entertains the idea over and over in his mind that his love is waiting for him in another existence. No matter where he physically is, he’s ‘always there’, lost in his thoughts.

The chorus repeats. Dylan outwardly seems okay. Left to his own devices, he is not.

It's good to see you, I must go, I know I look a fright.

This is a goodbye. Even though it is a casual farewell, it has deeply painful undertones. He says he didn’t like life too much but hopes he will find peace in the next one. He offers a final goodbye to those he loved, family and friends. ‘It’s good to see you’ displays how detached he feels toward the end. These are no longer people he knows fondly; it was simply good to see them. The thoughts must end, and he must leave before they worsen. Like the lyrics suggest, he doesn’t want to stick around and knows he must go. A big part of his self-esteem had to do with his self-image. The line ‘I know I look a fright’ symbolizes how negatively he thought of his own appearance. Dylan couldn’t see his own attractiveness. He felt awkward due to his height, long facial features, shaggy hair, and the way he dressed.

Anyway, my eyes are not accustomed to this light.

This is the trademark dark sunglasses that Dylan wears almost everywhere. He hides behind them, shielding his tears from the world. The light comes from the sun, and he cannot withstand the same light that others can, a nod to him feeling isolated from humanity. Though he is called the ‘sunshine boy,’ his eyes are not meant for its light. So, he dawns the shades to (metaphorically) keep it out.

And my shoes are not accustomed to this hard concrete.

Unlike the sneakers worn by the jocks at his high school, Dylan sports black combat boots. They are unusual among the other students, but Dylan feels comfortable in them. Again, he separates himself from the rest of humanity. He is not meant for it. He knows he must go somewhere he feels free.

So I must go back to my room and make my day complete.

By the end of the song, it becomes clear that Dylan now lives inside the world he’s created in his mind. It almost becomes odd for him not to retreat there at least once a day if not all the time. But like the final lyrics, he goes to stay there forever and never to return.

The final repetition of the chorus only emphasizes the truth. He was not ‘doing fine’, despite all the work of convincing others the opposite.

The last line loops again before the song ends. The upbeat and happy tune only makes the message more haunting.

Don't tell me I've nothin' to do.

And no one did.

#analysis #flowers on the wall #dylan klebold #american tragedy

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