#HE FOUGHT ON THE FRONT LINES AND HAD TO FLEE TO LIKE FRANCE I THINK BECAUSE POUM WAS DECLARED ILLEGAL

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

ive been staring at the words "Add something, if you'd like" for so long trying to figure how to remotely articulate whatever emotion im feeling in response to hearing someone stating - very confidently, i might add - that george orwell did not write anything substantial about the spanish civil war and francoist spain.

my guy, my dude, my man, my bloke, my chap, he took a bullet to the neck fighting against francos forces in the spanish civil war. its literally where a lot of his political leanings were cemented. i think that might have informed his later writing.

also he wrOTE HOMAGE TO CATALONIA. WHAT DO YOU THINK THAT BOOK IS ABOUT?

[angelsndragons]

Yeah, so that harry potter x good omens crossover is eating my brain right now and as I have another story that people are interested in, I thought I would throw this masterpost out there in the hopes that the plot bunnies will just shush and let me finish Uriel’s chapter, please dear god. Okay here we go!

This is a human AU, obviously, which takes place in the school year after the Last Battle. Both Aziraphale and Crowley come from old pureblood families, the Knights and the Rooks, which tie up about four generations back through a shared matriarch (God, or in this case, Frances). The Knights tend towards Hufflepuff while the Rooks tend towards Ravenclaw. Aziraphale is a Slytherin, Crowley a Gryffindor. 

The two of them threw themselves out of their families for a variety of reasons- Aziraphale left his family because they decided to flee Great Britain rather than stay and resist Voldemort, Crowley because he refused to join up. The two now go by Fell and Crowley respectively (the Knight who Fell off his horse and the Crow in the Rookery, hehe, i love puns). Aziraphale spent his time forging family trees and any other needed documents, Crowley went more on the smuggling muggleborns out of the country/hiding resistance members route than front line fighting.

Aziraphale has his bookshop, yes, it does have magical tomes but in his defense, the muggles just think they’re nifty fiction/old timey recipe books by obscure authors, Crowley is assisting the goblins with investments in the muggle world in between little bouts of mischief and tending to his greenhouse. Of course Crowley speaks parseltongue and of course he is a snake animagus. 

So, the battle happened, all dramatic, yay Voldieshorts is dead. Only now McGonagall has been appointed Headmistress and is trying to put things in order for the first school year since the war (side note: do not envy her, how the frick do you do that? Kids were tortured for a year, kids DIED, other kids refused to fight their families and friends, what about all those muggleborns who didn’t get their letter that year? OWL and NEWT students, what do you do about them? Did seventh years like Neville actually graduate? And how do you explain to new parents that hey, we just had a war about your child’s right to an education but don’t worry, that’s totally solved now??). So, Slughorn has read the writing on the wall. Dude knows his politics and knows that if his house is to survive, they’re going to need a new Head of House, one who isn’t attached to the wrong side of war. He agrees to stay on as Potions Master for a few years, because Merlin knows they already have too many vacancies, but someone else needs to be the face of his House. His mind immediately goes to Aziraphale, with whom he’s kept in contact over the years. Bright man, kind man, gentle-looking man, that one. But underneath? Oh, there’s fire and steel, exactly what the new House Head is going to need to walk that fine line between the defeated purebloods, the student collaborators, veterans, and victims, the ascendant anti-pureblood coalition. Someone who looks non-threatening enough but who will walk through hell to protect his students, even from themselves.

McGonagall goes to the shop to recruit him and he eventually agrees, once Crowley also signs on (because he ain’t letting Aziraphale walk into that den of wolves alone, they’re on their own side, thanks, and because Crowley likes kids and knows how shit this is gonna be and well, he can help okay?). McGonagall smirks and hands him the Head of Gryffindor job along with the Transfiguration job. Crowley just gapes at her because like, he’s never seen himself as any kind of authority figure and now he’s doubly one??? Like wtf? McGonagall calmly points out she can’t be the Head because she’s Headmistress and there aren’t any Gryffindors remaining on staff. Aziraphale, bastard that he is, just laughs and laughs at the situation. Yes, dear, it’s quite unfair. Yes, dear, I’m sure you’ll be the cool professor. He will be pulling triple duty as Head of Slytherin and Arithmancy and Ancient Runes Professor.

They share quarters and an office at Hogwarts because why not? Poor Crowley just aches for all his kids, from the second years determined to protect the firsties and help their year mates catch up to Ginny, who lost a brother and fought so hard, to Neville who led the student resistance to Harry Potter and his friends themselves. They’re not saviors, they’re kids and they’re hurting and there’s no going back for them, not really. He does his best by them, teaches Neville about the more obscure plants he’s smuggled into the castle, sits with the kids who are homesick or afraid or who can’t sleep (he visits the common room nightly and distracts them with wild tales or card games with special treats), helps the older ones navigate their new world. Because it’s hard, sitting in class with kids who at best did nothing and at worst had an active hand in torturing your friends. He and Aziraphale feel like they spend half their time trying to keep their Houses from literally killing each other and it is just so sad.

Aziraphale, though, has the harder job. They both know that. How do you deescalate a situation like Slytherin House after the war? Half your students have been taught that their way is right and can’t deal with the loss, the other half just want to survive school and forget everything that’s happened, all of them have close family dead or imprisoned due to their actions in the war. How do you find compassion for kids like them? How do you protect them from the school and how do you protect the school from them? Aziraphale finds that way, that love. They’re still kids, at the end of the day, even the eldest, even the ones who participated. They need help and Aziraphale is that guide for them, a guardrail. Sure, some of the Slytherins initially think that because he’s soft and gentle and kind that somehow he is weak, a pushover. He is not and they learn that very quickly. I choose to be what I want to be every day, so do you, he tells them, in a way they can understand. Not your families, not your friends, you. 

[crinkliedfries]

for the musicals ask thing: hamilton -🐸

this is probably going to get long so i’ll put it under the cut

Funniest lyrics:

honestly. for some reason all of aaron burr, sir, gets me, but. specifically:

-“Pardon me, are you Aaron Burr, sir? / That depends, who’s asking? / Oh well sure, sir, / I’m Alexander Hamilton, I’m at your service, sir, I have been looking for you / I’m getting nervous / Sir… I heard your name at Princeton, I was seeking an accelerated course of study when i got sort of out of sorts with a buddy of yours I may have punched him, it’s a blur, sir, he handles the financials? / You punched the bursar. / Yes!”

-“He looked at me like I was stupid, I’m not stupid,”

-The whole. introductions of laurens, mulligan, and lafayette (i almost spelled it lafayeet help)

-”Then King George turns around, runs a spending spree”

-”‘Onarchy? How you say, how you say, ‘anarchy?”

-”To socially advance, instead of sewing some pants!”

-“Burr, check what we got/Mister Lafayette, hard rock like Lancelot/I think your pants look hot/Laurens, I like you a lot”

-“Burr, you disgust me./Ah, so you’ve discussed me, I’m a trust fund baby you can trust me”

-All of Farmer Refuted gets me every time

-Same for all of King George’s songs

-“Yo… let’s steal their cannons!”

-”Your excellency, sir!” “Who are you?” “Aaron Burr, Sir?/Permission to state my case?” “As you were” “Sir/I was a captain under General Montgomery/Until he caught a bullet in the neck in Quebec/And well, in summary/I think that I could be of some assistance/I admire how you keep firing on the British/From a distance” “Huh” “I have some questions, a couple of suggestions on how to fight instead of fleeing west” “Yes?” “Well—” “Your excellency, you wanted to see me?” “Hamilton, come in, have you met Burr?” “Yes, sir” “We keep meeting” “As I was saying, sir, I look forward to seeing your strategy play out” “Burr?” “Sir?” “Close the door on your way out”

-”To be their secretary? I don’t think so.” “Now why are you upset?” “I’m not.”

-”Watch this obnoxious, arrogant, loudmouth bother…”

-”Martha Washington named her feral tomcat after him!”

-”You are the worst, Burr.”

-The comparison between Hamilton and love/death/life in Wait For It (i understand that it’s not. Actually funny but,,, out of context it’s just. “ah yes, the four uncontrollable things in life: life, love, death… and hamilton.”)

-”LEE DO YOU YIELD” “YOU SHOT HIM IN THE SIDE, YES HE YIELDS”

-Non-Stop. A lot of it is funny

-What’d I Miss

-The Cabinet Battles

-Hamilton refusing to say M*cbeth and then saying it anyways in Take a Break

-All of Washington on Your Side

-All of the Adams Administration

-”John Adams shat the bed, I love the guy, but he’s in traction,”

-”And they say I’m a francophile–at least they know I know where France is!”

- “Talk less!/Burr!/Smile more!/Burr!/Don’t let ‘em know what you’re against or what you’re for!/Burr!/Shake hands with him!/Burr!/Charm her!/Burr!/It’s eighteen hundred, ladies, tell your husbands: vote for/Burr!”

-”I have never agreed with Jefferson once/We have fought on like seventy-five different fronts”

-”Here’s an itemized list of thirty years of disagreements” “Sweet Jesus”

Most relatable lyrics:

-”Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for,”

-”Oh, am I talkin’ too loud? Sometimes I get over excited, shoot off at the mouth”

-”I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory/When’s it gonna get me?In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?/If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be?/Is it like a beat without a melody?/See, I never thought I’d live past twenty/(Where I come from some get half as many)/Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we laugh, reach for a flask/We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty”

-”It’s hard to listen to you with a straight face”

-”My dog speaks more eloquently than thee” (@ my father specifically)

-”Don’t modulate the key then not debate with me!” (sometimes)

-Honestly,,, you’ll be back, kind of? it could also just be because i listened to it after an argument with my father, one of the first times i actually,,, stood up for myself. but i relate to it in the sense of “oh yeah that’s an actual thing people do and someone’s kind of been like that to me”

-”Any hope of success is fleeting”

-”Your reputation precedes you, but I have to laugh” i guess?

-”I have some friends!”

-”Watch this obnoxious, arrogant, loudmouth bother”

-“Oh shit…”

-”love doesn’t discriminate/between the sinners and the saints/it takes and it takes and it takes/and we keep loving anyway/we laugh and we cry/and we break/and we make our mistakes…there are things that the homilies and hymns won’t teach you…death doesn’t discriminate/between the sinners/and the saints/it takes and it takes and it takes/and we keep living anyway/we rise and we fall/and we break/and we make our mistakes…life doesn’t discriminate/between the sinners/and the saints/it takes and it takes and it takes/and we keep living anyway”

-”He dismisses me out of hand”

-”Indecisive from crisis to crisis”

-”What is the meaning of this?”

-can i please put guns and ships. please.

-”at least i have a friend with me”

-”we had a spy on the inside"

-”What comes next?/You’ve been freed…You’re on your own. Awesome. Wow! Do you have a clue what happens now?”

-”I’m curious, bear with me… I intend to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt”

“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?/Write day and night like you’re running out of time?”

-”Talks for six hours!”

-”I know I talk too much”

-”I’ll keep all my plans close to my chest/I’ll wait here and see which way the wind will blow…watching the tension grow”

-”I’m a polymath, a pain in the ass, a massive pain”

-”i hadn’t slept in a week”

Most profound lyrics:

-”If you stand for nothing, Burr, what’ll you fall for?”

-”I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory/When’s it gonna get me?In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?/If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be?/Is it like a beat without a melody?/See, I never thought I’d live past twenty/(Where I come from some get half as many)/Ask anybody why we livin’ fast and we laugh, reach for a flask/We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty/Scratch that/this is not a moment it’s the movement…”

-”Raise a glass to freedom/Something they can never take away/No matter what they tell you”

-”How can I keep leading when the people I’m leading keep retreating?”

-”dying is easy, young man. living is harder”

-”The gossip (in new york city) is insidious”

-all of wait for it

-”Duel before the sun is in the sky/pick a place to die where it’s high and dry/leave a note for your next of kin/tell ‘em where you been. pray that hell or heaven lets you in”

-all of history has its eyes on you

-”Why do you write like you’re running out of time?/Write day and night like you’re running out of time?/Every day you fight like you’re running out of time/Keep on fighting.”

-”What are you waiting for?/What do you stall for?/…then defend it.”

-”But the sun comes up and the world still spins”

Prettiest lyrics:

-All of Helpless!! It’s just,,, a pretty song

-”Oceans rise, empires fall” (the way it’s sung!!)

-”From your sister, who is always by your side”

-all of wait for it

-all of that would be enough

-all of dear theodosia

-certain parts in take a break

Most uplifting lyrics:

-”In (new york) you can be a new man”

-There’s just. something about my shot that feels uplifting?

-”Raise a glass to freedom/Something they can never take away/No matter what they tell you”

-All of Schuyler Sisters?

-”From your sister, who is always by your side… and the hope that you provide,”

-all of stay alive  

-all of that would be enough

-”Keep on fighting”

-”But the sun comes up and the world still spins”

Most depressing lyrics:

- “Talk… less. Smile more. Don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for,”

-”It was my parents’ dying wish before they passed.”

-”I remember that night I just might regret that night for the rest of my days”

-all of wait for it

-all of history has its eyes on you

-The Laurens Interlude

Character with the best lines:

Either Hamilton, Burr, or Jefferson

i’m stopping here because. it got long but

[uvicgirl]

Lay It All On Me

Collins/Farrier One Shot

SUMMARY "There was chatter down the cell block. “Letters,” he heard, “The Red Cross.” The shuffle of feet soon followed as men in other cells moved to their bar doors. Farrier’s eyes blinked and widened. His hand raised to his chest, slowly, as if waiting for the second memory, the one where he had moved the letter to his pack, left it in his bunk, or Collins had taken it back. He patted the front of his jacket. The edges of the envelope pushed back against his fingers"

WORD COUNT: 2500

A03 LINK: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553400

The breeze was bitter. If you could even call it a breeze. It howled off the Channel, comprised of the cries and desperation of the boys trapped across it. It was cold. Back in northern France it had started to feel like summer, the evening breeze light as it danced through the warmth left behind by the setting sun. They weren’t in France anymore though. They had pulled out weeks ago, fleeing back over the Channel as the Germans advanced through Belgium. And the reality of the imminent defeat whipped through the air demanding to be felt by every soldier who had allowed it to happen. Gone were the quite twilights perched on the low stone wall that surround the makeshift airfield north of Paris where their growing losses easily drifted away over the gentle hills and the small village on the wisp of the tobacco smoke. It had been easy then to trick himself into thinking this was a repeat of the Great War. Germany acting as the aggressor. Britain standing by France, her colonies in close succession. Troops of their nations amassed on eastern French boarder, waiting. And at last, the advance through Belgium. Everyone had waited and watched then for the great dig in, where the infamous trenches of this war would be formed. What field would be fought over for the following four years. But the tanks had rolled closer and closer. There was no time to dig. And soon, as the British Air Force evacuated ahead on the ground troops, the winds had shifted. 

“Sir.” A young man appeared before him, boots together, back stiff, chin up, right hand raised against his brow in salute. 

“Yes corporal.”    

“Command wishes to see you.” 

He dismissed the boy. “Just had to interrupt my smoke, didn’t they,” he said, holding a limp, un-lit cigarette between his teeth. Collins looked at him with an amused grin. The wind had snuffed it out each time he lit it. He had given up, hunched his shoulders in a pout and stuffed his hands under his armpits to shield them from the wind. Collins had suggested they go back in. He had agreed. And then they had both remained sitting right where they were.  

“You going to leave me all alone to freeze out here.”  

“Write your girl a letter. Keep your mind occupied.” He winked and walked off back towards the airfield where a mission was waiting for him. He was glad of that at least. It wasn’t any sort of foolish heroism where he was itching to single handily turn the war around and send Hitler cowering into exile on the heels of Kaiser Bill. It was more about keeping busy, keeping his thoughts at bay, thoughts about all the boys that had already died, about all the boys pouring onto the beaches, hundreds by the hour, with no where else to go, about the looming day when King George would board a carrier and flee across the Atlantic just as Queen Wilhelmina had fled across the Channel. He had never fancied himself a ‘for King and Country’ kind of guy. The growing storm was changing that though. It was changing a lot of things.

   “We’re going back. Dunkirk,” he said walking into the barracks. Collins looked up at him where he sat in his bunk. “Cover for the evacuation.” 

“How many of us?” 

The thoughts swooped back in as the canvas roof rattled above them. Not enough. That was the answer. They were saving them, the pilots, the planes, the ammunition, the boats, what remained of the British war arsenal, to defend the island, the last great stronghold. And in some twisted bout of irony, that decision left those they were willing to gamble with worse odds, practically guaranteeing they would be sacrificed. He was a pilot though. They made their own fighting chance, commanders of their own war.  

Collins nodded absently. His mind in some similar death spiral. He sat down across from him, on his own bunk, gave his shin a light kick. “O-five hundred.”  

“Here,” Collins said, his eyes refocusing again and reaching for an envelope on the small table between their bunks. “I took your advice,” he shrugged, eyes a little rounder, a little bluer than Farrier remembered.  

“I’ll make sure it gets there,” he answered. He watched Collins watch him take it and carefully place it in the breast pocket of his jacket. He looked so young again. In France he had aged. In good way, grown confident and skilled, and into a pilot Farrier wanted on his wing. But now it looked like they had never left Dover, like he was back running classes and drills for the new recruits and Collins was among them, looking eager and oddly alone amongst his peers. He wanted to reach out and pull Collins into him, to hold him. Instead, he folded his jacket back over the end of his bunk and lay down. He watched the canvas roof ripple in the wind and tried to find comfort in the rhythm of the storm set on a course of destruction.  

   He couldn’t stop the shake in his hand or the way his eyes darted back and forth over the grey stone walls unable to relax, desperate for stimuli. He could feel the blood pulsing through his veins, up his legs, up his arms, in the tips of his fingers and toes. They tingled and twitched and refused to give him peace, even in the dead of night. It left him exhausted and yet his mind raced turning closer and closer to delirium.  

It was weird that way. The stutter of his engine, followed by its silence, hadn’t unhinged him like this. His eyes had moved instinctively to the propeller spinning rapidly in front of him, the three blades blurred into one translucent grey whirl. And he had watched as the grey grew deeper, the individual blades forming out of mid air, like he was looking through the lens of a camera, stepping closer, bringing them into focus. He watched them slow, each blade taking seconds longer to pass in front of him than the previous. His breathing fell into their rhythm, slowing, as did his heart beat until the final blade remained in his sight. Still. Only wavering in the wind. He was no longer flying then. He was gliding. Down was the only direction he could go.

  But there were others flying. Enemy planes in the sky poised to pelt defenceless soldiers below with bullets that would tear flesh from bone, children from parents, souls from this earth. Sinking further into his seat, he had banked, losing more altitude, steering directly into the line of fire. He had had one shot, one pass at the German Wulf and then he would have been too low and yet he had never been calmer. He lined up the shot, fired, watched the Wulf spin out of the sky, and realigned himself with beach, blackened by the uniforms of the thousands of waiting troops. At first that was all he could see, the sea of black stretched up to meet the blue sky. And he looked up then, away from the boys he could no longer save, up into cyan abyss that reminded him so much of the eyes of another. Another he had failed to.

It could have been both relief and horror when the mass of troops finally gave way to sand. He felt neither though. He remained centered. It was like he was back in Dover teaching the new recruits: find a runway, keep the plane level, check the hatch, lower the landing gear, hold firm, don’t think about anything but grounding yourself. And then set it all up in flames.

That’s the image that haunts him now, the orange glow of the of the fire burning through his plane. The German soldiers had emerged over the dunes, out of the night cast in black, the fire snatching up all the light and turning it to smoke. They yelled commands that he could not hear over the roar of the flames. He couldn’t hear anything over fire. The waves crashing just beyond his feet, reaching for him, beckoning home, could have been on the other side of a desert. That was it. The new front had been drawn on the sands of Dunkirk and he had landed on the wrong side of it. He had followed orders, followed protocol, followed his instinct and conscious and he came through it in tact, body and mind, ready to accept his fate.  

That fate refused to come though and now, now that he was captured, and locked in a cell with no hope of escape, now was when his mind began its tailspin to oblivion.

There was chatter down the cell block. “Letters,” he heard, “The Red Cross.” The shuffle of feet soon followed as men in other cells moved to their bar doors. Farrier’s eyes blinked and widened. His hand raised to his chest, slowly, as if waiting for the second memory, the one where he had moved the letter to his pack, left it in his bunk, or Collins had taken it back. He patted the front of his jacket. The edges of the envelope pushed back against his fingers. He slipped his fingers into reached into the pocket and pulled it out. One of the corners was bent. He worked his thumb and forefinger over the crumpled point to flatten it, an attempt to repair what was broken. There was a chance of course, a chance Collins was still alive. The landing had been smooth and there had been hundreds of boats in the Channel. War was not the time to bet on chances though. 

A guard walked past holding open a burlap sack. Farrier remained seated. The envelope wasn’t addressed to anyone, not even a name. He smiled faintly to himself, part of him grateful for the error. It gave him the excuse to open it, read it. See his handwriting again. Maybe even hear his voice again. Maybe find some light in love Collins had expressed for the intended reader.

He slipped his forefinger under the seal and slowly pealed up he flap, carefully so that it could be resealed. He pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it. The first word made him pause.  

Farrier,

 He blinked his sore, tired eyes over his name again and again in disbelief. The letters blurred in and out of focus but always returned to the same form. Farrier. His thumb reached up to touch the long-dried, ink. The letter was meant for him. He took a breath before reading on.    

I know I’m doing this wrong. I guess I’m doing a lot of things wrong. I’ve gone and got myself killed for one. Or maybe that’s what a soldier is supposed to do. It’s hard to tell sometimes what they actually expect from us. To be heroes or bullet fodder. You would say it was both. That they use us like pawns for a greater reason but that any feat, no matter how small, could be heroic. That’s why you’re going to make it through this. It was always grey to you and you’ve long found a way to navigate it. A true Londoner, I suppose, used to the smog. I’m already beginning to feel lost in it. Sometimes I feel so lost that I think you are all I have left. Is that a second? Probably. I don’t think you would think so though. Don’t suppose it matters at this point. In a way though it should matter more than anything else. Why does this terrify me more than flying into enemy fire. Maybe because I know you’ll be at my side in the air but may not once we’re back on the ground. And that, Farrier, would be a fate worse than anything I could have possibly suffered. Maybe this is number three. Maybe I’ve gotten it all wrong. Maybe those nights in France, staring out over the little village, your eyes weren’t scanning the cottages for the one perfect for us to grow old in. The answer to that by the way was the one by the creek with the apple tree and the blue door. Where the postman’s wife lived. Do you think he’ll make it back to her? Do you think she’ll recognize him if he does? If he was like you, she would. You’ll make it back, you’ll make it home and you’ll guide the way for all those around you. Because you never did anything wrong. Even living in all that grey. And that was always a comfort weather I was in the air with you or sharing a cigarette with you outside the airfield in France, watching your gaze settle on the house by the creek. Because if it was you I loved, how lost could I really have been?  

Be with you is the skies Always Collins    

The walls of the cell disappeared as he read. The unintelligible shouts of German guards were silenced. His eyes and mind focused solely on the messy scrawl. He could picture the shake in Collins’ hand as he wrote it and that seemed to stop his own. When he finished, he read it again, and again, his thumb moving from tracing the letters of his name, to ones in loved and always, and finally to Collins’ own, getting lost in the curl of the C and the loop of the Ls. He fell into a trance of sorts. The first peace his mind had known since his boots had stepped back onto the continent.  

In another circumstance the letter may have tortured him, a profession of love too late. A young man gone from the world, his mind lost and in turmoil. And he was the answer, the answer to all of it. If only lined up quicker, shot quicker. If he had only dug a little further within himself he could have assured him that he wasn’t wrong and he wasn’t lost, he was right where he was meant to be. Those thoughts had the potential to drive a person mad.  

Instead of suffocating him though, Farrier found it easier to breathe. Collins may have died in uncertainty but he no longer had to live with it. What they had shared, however fleeting and however subtle had been real. There was something grounding about that. Something hopeful. Something peaceful. Something that made him both want to survive and make it home but also made him okay with whatever fate the dark, damp cell had for him. His dog tags still hung from his neck but with his plane in ash it was okay to leave the fight to others. It was okay to look beyond his duty as a soldier. And now there was something to reach out to in the dark, a civilian life that had existed in brief moments between shared cigarettes and could one day, maybe, be found again. It was okay to look beyond the war. It was okay to look home.  

It was okay to look towards the hundreds of boats that had been in the Channel that day. 

The orange flames that burned his eyes subsided that night and gave way to a soothing blue, the blue of the cottage door, the blue of the clear, open sky, the blue of his eyes. And he slept then. The first night in weeks.

[wolfofansbach]

Elbe nach Ebro

I’ve been writing some fanfic in which the Spanish Civil War plays a part, but in the middle of that I sort of broke off and wrote a piece of original fiction regarding that same war.

Based loosely on a real event that took place during the Battle of the Ebro. A unit of German volunteers fighting for the republic, anti-fascist exiles who’d fled the rise of Hitler and come to fight fascism in Spain, were ordered to fall back and abandon their positions as the line was collapsing and a Nationalist triumph was inevitable. They responded: “We’ve retreated before fascism too many times. We’re staying.” They stayed and fought, and shortly thereafter, their positions were overrun.

So I’ll dedicate this story to the memory of those nameless German volunteers who willingly died in a country that wasn’t their own for a cause that was everyone’s.

Rest in peace.  

The Prussian crouched in the bell-tower of an old church, perspiring beneath the Spanish noonday sun. In the square below, a dozen corpses ripened in the morning heat.  He swept his rifle in a wide arc, searching for the twitch of life or the glint of an enemy rifle. There was nothing. Only the stillness of the dead and the droning buzz of flies come to feast. A little flock of vultures gathered from the eastern skies. 

“All clear?” Cried a voice from within the church.

“Ja!” 

The fascist attack had come at dawn. Two units of Falangist militia bolstered by Legionaries attacked from the south. They had numbered some 200 men. In turn, the Prussian, his four comrades of the Thälmann Battalion and fifty-four Republican regular soldiers were tasked with defending the little town of Lora. 

The fascists did not expect the fierce resistance they received, and they paid for it in blood. Besides those fallen to the Prussian’s rifle, they had taken over fifty casualties at the hands of Lora’s determined defenders. The fascists, shaken, fell back to the hills in the south. 

The Prussian descended from the bell-tower, into the nave. 

“We’ve driven the bastards off, then?” asked a thin Rhinelander wearing heavy spectacles and a uniform two sizes too big.

“For the moment.” The Prussian replied. 

The Rhinelander smiled.The Prussian sank down into a pew, allowing his spent rifle to clatter to the floor. At the abandoned altar, the unit commander, a powerfully-build Hessian, pored over maps of the area, many of them drawn up only this morning. 

The Prussian closed his eyes. In the skies above, he could make out the voice of warplane engines. They drew closer and closer, until the gentle droning became a deafening roar. For a moment, he dared to imagine that the planes were theirs, but that was a flight of fancy. The Republican air force existed only on paper now, shot from the sky by artillery or destroyed on the ground by Nazi air raids. The heavens belonged to the fascists now.

 Soon the land and the seas would be theirs, too. 

The Prussian looked around the room. There were four here, besides himself. All Germans. All exiles. The commander had been a union organizer in Berlin in the years after the Great War. Though the stormtroopers had given him a good beating and torched his offices in the fall of ’33, he’d escaped a Nazi firing squad and fled to France. The Rhinelander had been a journalist for the Rote Fahne. After the ascendance of the Nazi party he’d found himself imprisoned by the regime. Freed by the intervention of a sympathetic guard, he’d made a home for himself in the United States, until he leapt at the chance to combat fascism in Spain. 

At a shattered stained glass window, a handsome young Bavarian fellow and a Saxon woman with short-cropped auburn hair fiddled with the unit’s radio. The Bavarian was not even a communist, merely a liberal democrat who’d protested Nazi excesses. Awakening one too many times to smashed windows and swastikas splashed across his front door, he abandoned Germany before the ’32 elections. 

The Saxon girl was a Jew. Prescient, she’d realized what the Nazi regime would mean for and abandoned Dresden in the winter of ‘34. No amount of pleading could convince her family to follow. They were Jews, assured her father, but also loyal Germans, and nothing evil would befall them. She hoped fervently for their safety as the country spiraled toward the unthinkable. Sometimes the Prussian heard her praying to the god she swore, as a good Communist, she no longer believed in. 

The Prussian himself would not share his story, because if he did he might weep, and he did not weep. So he shut those memories away and slowly suppressed his sorrow in favor of the raw hatred that guided his aim. 

They had all fled the rise of tyranny in their own land. When the rebel generals rose in Spain, they saw in the Spanish people’s fight against fascism a chance to battle the same evil that expelled them from their fatherland. They could not save Germany, but perhaps they could save Spain. So they offered their arms to a people that was not their own, and yet a people with whom they felt undying kinship, because they struggled against the same chains and fought for the same bright sun of liberty. 

He sauntered over to the Saxon and the Bavarian.

“How’s the radio?”

“A piece of garbage, as usual.” The Bavarian answered. 

“How many fascists did you kill?” The Saxon questioned.

 “Fifteen. Maybe sixteen.” He responded.

“Good.” She spat. “Fucking dogs.”

An earsplitting crackling spilled out from the radio.“We’ll need it when the fascists come back” the Prussian prophesied. 

“You think they will?” The Bavarian asked.“

Of course. We’ve bloodied their nose. They won’t let that go unanswered.”

The predicted second assault came at the seventh hour of the night. The republican colors fluttering from the tower of the town hall were deluged in the fire of a Junkers Ju-88’s bombs. Another dozen were released upon as many targets across the small town with calculated precision. From his perch in the bell tower the Prussian saw homes and shops collapse inwards in flurries of ash and fire. The church shook on its foundations with the force of the blasts. There was no artillery to answer the sortie. He took a few potshots at the bomber high overhead, making a target out of the black X’s painted onto the wingtips and the fin flash. 

Satisfied their targets were sufficiently softened up by the raid, the fascist infantry roused and launched an attack into the heart of Lora. They advanced effortlessly past the republican defenders on the town’s outskirts. Then they came to the church. A squadron of Moorish regulars charged into the square, chanting in Berber. The Prussian trained his rifle and fired. A regular’s skull exploded. His compatriots reeled. He fired again. A second man fell with a bullet in his chest. Methodically, dispassionately, he worked the bolt action again and again, making corpses from the regulars. 

The next few hours were a dizzying storm of fire and bullets. In the church nave below, his comrades primed a machine gun and sprayed the attackers. To their left a tenacious column of Anarchists held down the town’s old socialist meeting hall. Slowly, the Prussian’s ammunition ran dry. The shells piled up at his feet, one for each dead fascist. He hardly noticed the tank move up and train its turret on the church steeple. The shell whistled through the air. It smashed into the bell above him, showering him in melting iron and slivers of wood. He dropped his rifle and fell to the ground. The bell towers ruined wooden frame creaked onerously. He rolled towards the ladder connecting with the ground and leapt down into the nave as the tower collapsed in on itself. The melting bells clanged mournfully once more before the entire structure fell apart and crumbled into the street below. 

The Prussian raised his arms instinctively, and then realized his rifle was gone.

He had only his revolver, and he was little good with it. As he joined the Hessian commander at an improvised loophole, the firing unexpectedly wound down. There was an awful silence, and a loudspeaker crackled to life.

“Red pawns! The cause you fight for is lost! Lay down your arms and surrender. The officers of the national army are gentlemen! No harm will come to those who cease fighting and submit! Viva Franco! Arriba España!”

Then, their own radio hissed and a broken voice bled out: “Come in. Come in.”

The Prussian snatched up the radio. “Yes?”

“You are given permission to fall back. Join the van retreating towards the Ebro. Abandon Lora.”

Outside, a fresh wave of fascist troops poured into the square. The devastating numerical advantage became tragic.  

The Hessian crouched next to a shattered window, rifle in hand, breathing heavily. The Saxon leaned against a pew, nursing a bullet wound in her thigh. The Bavarian slid another clip into his pistol. The Rhinelander muttered something unintelligible to himself. 

The Prussian thought of the port at Königsberg, where he’d spent his youth. It was autumn now, and the ships would be pulling into the harbor under a thick Baltic fog. He would stand ad the docks in those days, listening with rapt fascination to the various tongues of the sailors. It was a crude, proletarian cosmopolitanism, but fascinating nonetheless. 

Sometimes he could convince a sailor to toss him something: a coin, or a souvenir from some foreign land.The last time he’d seen those docks was five years ago. He’d slipped through the cold streets down to the sea, mouth like cotton, hands shaking. He’d bought passage aboard a steamer and gone far from Königsberg. He’d left his home and his family, fleeing before the crooked cross. He had not spoken to his mother or siblings since then, though he tried  to convince himself that they would not suffer by dint of association with him. It had been cowardice, plain and simple. 

He looked to his comrades’ faces and saw there the same miserable pain. 

“Have you heard me? Fall back!”

The commander shook his head. Fascist bullets struck the walls of the church, chipping away at the ancient stone. No one spoke. 

He picked up the radio again.“Apologies, comandante, but we cannot.”

“There will be no reinforcements if you stay.”

“We are aware.”

“The People’s Army is re-crossing the Ebro. The battle is over. We’ve lost.” 

 “Yes.”

“If you stay you will die.”

The Saxon snatched the radio from him.“Forgive us.” She choked out, ignoring the pain in her leg. “But we’ve retreated before fascism too many times before. We’re staying.”

The radio died. 

The fascists came. 

The exiles raised their weapons.

They were consumed with fire, and so passed forever into legend. 

[ravenhowl-in-shipland]

One step at a time - Yuriyuu

Rating : K+

Pairing : Yuri Plisetsky + Yuuri Katsuki

Note : Here is my first contribution to that beautiful and underestimate ship ! Hope you’ll like it !

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Being a very clumsy, naive, shy and clueless person, always averting his eyes to be able to talk to someone he doesn't know, and too concentrate on his skating session since he had begun to follow his idol's path, to care about what was going on around him, Yuuri Katsuki didn't know anything about love or what kind of sensation you can experienced by having an important person by your side, and would never have thought that someone would confess to him one day, now that he was almost twenty seven years old. But what shocked him the most in that unexpected situation, was that the one who let his heart speak its true feelings in a bunch of unfinished sentences, cut here and there by a curse in russian, saying over and over that it was the worst stupid idea of the world, was none other than Yuri Plisetsky, the only one who, or he had thought at first, hated him for being such a loser and crying over a simple defeat at their first meeting.

However, with certainly a lot of courage and putting his pride aside, the blonde haired teen had stuttered what he liked about his eldest, praising his kind and gentle personality, mumbling something about him looking good with his hair pulled back and glasses on or the fact that his smiling face motivated him everytime he saw it, blushing madly, eyes looking everywhere to avoid the blank expression that had appeared on the other's face, and had tried to run away just after that because he had felt embarrassed and wanted to hide under his black hoodie. But, to his own surprise, the Japanese skater had grabbed his right wrist to prevent him from fleeing and had answered positively to it, explaining that he would like to give it a try to see if he could return his feelings after some time, showing a burning face to his fellow.

Not knowing if he was happy to be accepted by his crush who, he had thought, would have been grossed out by his homosexuality even though he seemed to be really close to and liked the physical contact with Viktor, or if he was angry to be pitied like this, because the other had a hard time to say no to someone, the youngster had agreed to execute Katsudon's plan.

And now, they were dating.

Well, kind of because they hadn't had the chance to go on a real date and everytime they were together, Yurio always seemed to hesitate to make a move on him or take his hand just to show him how much he really loved the adult and that he was serious about his feelings. During these moments, his little green eyes wore a mixed glow, one of excitement and another of shyness, and the ravenette didn't want to force anything on him, especially when he was also unsure about what he felt toward the boy, so he waited until the other was ready to take their relationship to the next level.

And it almost happened one month after they began to go out with each other, when the seventeen years old skater, just after their training session together, leaned forward to kiss him on the lips, eyelids closed to be able to overcome his embarrassment, but then Viktor came in, holding cheerfully a drooling Makkachin in his arms, ruining the mood and forcing them apart, their actual situation still a secret from everyone so the social media wouldn't step in, even more if Phichit was around with his phone. Yuuri could easily understand why the other wished to hide it for the moment. After all, the blonde male wasn't an adult yet and it would be hard to assume what they felt in front of the whole world, without provoking a scandal or attract the jealousy of the russian's fan. And since Russia wasn't as opened minded as Japan or France, his coming out would be even more difficult.

Unfortunately, the pork cutlet lover couldn't stop that affection growing in him like a flower in spring with each passing day, his heart beating faster when he touched that pure white skin, and the little to no contact they could rarely share, was actually driving him crazy to the point that he would initiate some of their actions. That was how they had kissed for the first time.

The brown eyed skater had grabbed him by the shoulders when they were in the locker room, to pine him against the wall behind, locking his mouth shut with his own, stifling Yurio's gasp of surprise, and Yuuri would lie if he said that he didn't liked it. On the contrary, it had turned him on in many ways. He, who believed that he would never be able to initiate anything in his life, had taken the lead for just one moment.

He hadn't wasted his time and had bitten his lower lip to ask for entrance, earning an adorable moan from his partner, his body shaking against his, hands on his upper arms for support, squeezing his muscles between his fingers. Their tongue had fought for supremacy, a battle that the smaller of the two had lost since the start, and when oxygen had become a necessity, they had parted, panting and looking at each other with a lustful glow in their eyes.

After that event, they kissed a little more often, still doing it in some discreet place or when they knew that the champion skater wasn't around to bother them, and Yurio seemed less shy about it, asking for more everytime they would make out, but not enough to go all the way. The oldest man didn't care because it was already a huge progress. Plus, he wasn't too sure about it either. Will he be strong enough when the time will come ? He didn't know.

Then, two months and twelve days after the confession, an unexpected call made their relationship take a decisive turn.

Yuuri was eating breakfast while watching the news in his apartment's living room, when his phone rang and the face of his boyfriend appeared on the screen. Putting the chopsticks down, the ravenette took it, unlocked the call and greeted the person at the end of the line with a dazzling smile, even though the other couldn't see him.

  “Hey piggy ! How are you doing ?”

The Japanese skater didn't note the nickname that was at first, an insult, and became a cute pet name after the beginning of their love story, making it sound more emotional and pleasant to hear now.

  “Goodmorning Yurio. I'm fine and you ? Still, sleeping at the hotel ?”

  “Yeah … Yakov wants me to stay there until he comes back from Russia but, well, that's not why I called for. I was thinking that we could go out together today since, you know, we are dating …” the russian tiger grumbled as if he was annoyed.

  “That would be a good idea yeah ! When and where do you want to meet ?”

And so, they decided on the place they would meet in two hours before hanging up, saying I love you in an awkward whisper. Because of their training, it had turned into an habit to wake up this early in the morning, while the birds had just begun to sing and the sun could barely be visible behind the mountains, and sometimes, Yuuri would go for a run in the streets to avoid being bored or thinking about depressing things. Hopefully, today was going to be fun and entertaining so, he enjoyed his meal before entering the bathroom to shower himself. It was the first time the youngster initiated something and it made his heart beat like crazy, resulting in him smiling like an idiot under the pouring water. One hour later, the pork cutlet lover was dressed in a dark blue shirt, a light black coat and a tight grey pants, and was now staring at himself in the mirror, trying to decide what he could do to make his hair look good, so his companion would like it. Not knowing what to choose between pulled back style and casual style, he went with his normal haircut and put his glasses on. When the time to leave came, the black haired adult left his cheap house to go to the pet shop in town and listened a peaceful song to calm the anxious beating of his heart.

The surprise struck him like a truck charging at full speed when the silhouette of the shorter male came into view, wearing a blue hoodie and white pants, sunglasses on the tip of his nose to hide his identity, tapping something furiously on his phone, and he called out to the teen so he wouldn't scare him. Still unsure about public opinion, they had to behave outside the apartment and were forced to keep some distance so they would just look like two friends. That's why, the blonde skater didn't jump on him like he would do when they were kissing.

  “You're early ! It's not like you to come before the time we decided.” Yuuri said while petting his head covered by the hood.

  “Stop treating me like a child, piggy ! And I'm never late, you are !”

  “Ahaha ! You are not completely wrong for once ! So, what do you want to do today ?”

At that, the other blushed madly, turning his face to avoid being caught in that state, and scratched his left cheek like he was hesitating to make a proposition. He was so adorable when he made that kind of expression and the ravenette had a hard time to contain himself. He had recently realized that his partner was more kind and careful with his words or actions than he wanted to admit, and it added to that cuteness of his. Suddenly, he was pulled out of his thoughts when Yurio showed him the store in front of which they stood with a trembling finger.

  “C-can we go in there ?” The russian asked slightly worried about what the passers-by might think if they knew it was them being on a date.

  “Sure ! Why not ? You want to see the kitten right ?”

An heartwarming laugh escaped his parted lips, earning a punch in the shoulder from his lover, and they entered without another word, discovering a whole new world rythmed by barking and meowing. The moment the green eyed teen saw the feline in their boxes, he forgot immediately that he was in public and went toward the right section to take a better look, followed closely by the older male who couldn't help but feel happy at the sight before him. For almost an hour, the two of them watched the little creatures beyond the glass playing with each other, a black one jumping on a grey one when he wasn't paying attention, and their eyes widened when the skinniest of them all, tried to climb out of his cage to catch a blonde wick that was falling in front of the youngster's forehead. With the permission of the owner of the pet shop, the cat lover had the chance to hug the animal and caress it, mumbling sweet things to the kitten, giggling joyfully when its tail tickled his nose, and the other stared lovingly at the happy teen, forgetting the world around them for a second. Then, after verifying that no one was minding their presence, the pigglet put his dry lips on his temple, letting little sound came out, and Yurio almost screamed in fear because of the sudden act but didn't say anything else, sulking at his boyfriend for what he did, his cheeks becoming as red as a tomato. The russian placed the feline back in its box, hiding his hands inside the pockets of the sweatshirt he was wearing, and stood up to look at something else, searching for nothing in particular.

Yuuri chuckled for himself. He was so cute. A warm feeling spread into his entire body, butterflies flying in his sensitive stomach, and a brunch of memories began to form in his brain, in the part of it where it wouldn't be lost.

  “Hey katsudon ! Look, there are piglets here ! They are just like you … round and pink” the teenager called out, standing in front of a large glass box.

  “You're right ! They are so podgy ...”

  “Hey ! This one is black and white. I want to cuddle him !”

He had muttered the last part as if he didn't want him to hear, but the Japanese skater heard it well and bent down to whisper gently into the crook of his neck.

 “You have me already or are you that impatient to take me in your arms ?”

  “W-what a-are you doing, stupid piggy ! L-let's get out of here !”

If he did not know the seventeen years old skater, Yuuri would have thought that he had upset him, playing with his nerves like this, and would have tried to apology over and over again. However, he had learnt during the last few months that the boy had difficulties to express his emotions in a positive way, and that he could be rude just to say I love you to the man he loved. So, the ravenette said goodbye to the owner and followed the shorter male through the crowd in the streets, keeping a good distance between them so no one would notice that they were a thing. Their new destination was the arcade. Even though Yurio wanted to look like an adult, proud and strong when he skated on the ice, in reality, he was still a child that hadn't had the opportunity to enjoy his childhood and could only focus on winning the competitions.

So, the older male lead him toward an easy game to play a bit together, explaining the rules quickly while they were searching for it amongst the bunch of people that filled the tiny place, and climbed on the platform which  was covered in symbols. Arrows to be precised. They were going to dance. At first, the teenager didn't seem to be pleased by that game, removing his glasses to be able to see something in the dark room, but when it started, he forgot completely that it was ridiculous and got into the game quickly without minding it. However, unlike his lover, the youngster couldn't follow the movements showing up on the large screen and anger built up inside of his chest, exploding in a bunch of curses in Russian, slamming his left foot on the wrong button at the end. The black haired man turned in his direction, panting a bit because of the effort he had provided, and sighed at the upset expression on his beloved's face.

  “Come here ! With all these wicks in front of your eyes, that's not a surprise that you can't play well” the Japanese told him, taking a rubber band out of his pocket.

  “Shut up piggy ! I can see very well even with all my hair over my face !”

  “Yeah, yeah … I hear you !”

But he didn't listen. Going behind his back, he began to braid his hair, caressing his head consciously, doing it without looking around him, seeing him shudder under his touch, and tied it in a ponytail with care. Now, he was able to see his beautiful green eyes and the other part of his figure, that was always hidden under his wicks. It wasn't his best work, some sticking out here and there, but with that, he would appreciate the game and share a good moment with the Japanese man. And in fact, he laughed, screamed in joy and grinned during the second play, beating his boyfriend during the fourth, and they burst out in giggles when they thought that it was time to give their places to other people, that were waiting for it since at least ten minutes.

Some had recognized them while they were in the arcade, asking for an autograph or to take a picture with them, and Yuuri had to excuse themselves so they could leave, followed closely by some fans that they lost after fifteen minutes of turning and running in different alleyways. The ravenette hadn't imagined someone would bother them outside of competition, the girls screaming at the top of their lungs at the sight of the cat lover, and he pouted a bit at the thought of his beloved being the target of all these people, even though most of them had no bad intentions. Jealousy grew up in the pit of his stomach and he bit his bottom lips to supress his anger against the whole world, looking at Yurio beside him in that deserted alley, wanting to take what was his. Behind them, they heard those fangirls calling the Russian in disappointed voiced and the older male grabbed the blonde's hand, forcing him in a second narrow street, shielding him with his tall body, their faces close enough to feel each other's breaths.

  “W-what are you doing ? We are still outside !” The shorter of the two grunted, trying to push the other away, cheeks flushed.

  “I don't care. No one is here and I just want to kiss you !”

  “Don't tell me you're jealous of my fans ?”

Not wanting to admit it or answer to that stupid question, the pork cutlet lover shut him up with his mouth, sealing his lips with a heated kiss, the tip of his tongue teasing him until he gave up the access to his wet cave, tearing an adorable moan from the youngster, and his fingers began to caress the skin under his jacket, earning a thrill of pleasure. Unable to escape from Yuuri's firm grip on his face and hip, the Russian melted into the exchange, putting his own hands around the black haired man's neck, standing on tiptoe to close the height gap between them, and fought fiercely for dominance, growling when he understood that he wouldn't win that battle.

Playing a bit with his hair, the cat lover wished more, ignoring the fact that they could be seen, and meowed when one of Yuuri's fingers brushed against his sensitive abdomen, tickling his navel in a sensual way. However, as they were about to go a bit further, panting to catch their breath, the ravenette sucking at the junction between his neck and shoulder to leave a mark, claiming him as his, someone came in the alley and forced them apart, so they could keep a bit of privacy.

Arranging their clothes, they looked discreetly toward the intruder, a middle-aged man that seemed to be upset by an unknown thing, and exited the place quickly to go back to the main street, smiling and blushing madly. If only that moment had lasted longer, the Japanese skater would have been the man the most happy in the entire universe, his feelings growing stronger and stronger with time, but he knew it would be too much to ask and they were walking in a big crowd now, so he could forget about it. But, to his own surprise, he felt something brushed against his wrist and took his hand tightly, intertwining their fingers in a lovely gesture. Staring at their members, the older male wore a shocked expression, thinking that everyone could see them, but Yurio didn't let him go, keeping his head up with pride, and murmured shyly.

  “In the end, I can't stand it … I don't want to be apart from you ! You're my Agape and I don't give a fuck of what they'll think of me …”

Smiling proudly at his boyfriend, the ravenette thanked him quietly and continued to walk through all the people, caressing the white knuckles with his thumb. Happiness replaced the jealousy he had experienced previously and he thought that soon, they could reach another stage in their relationship.

Maybe ?

[nedsecondline]

Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: Partners in Love and Photography

[Book image: Macmillan Publishers.]

In 1933, the photographer André Friedmann arrived in Paris with a camera and little else. A Jewish refugee fleeing the growing Nazi threat in Berlin, he hoped to make a living with his Leica. While shooting a model for an assignment, Friedmann found his attention settling instead on the model’s friend Gerta Pohorylle, a Jewish refugee herself who came to Paris after having been arrested by the Nazis for her involvement in antifascist activism.

Gerta recognized the young photographer’s vast potential, and the two became friends. After a summer jaunt to the south of France, they were in love. They began to collaborate: Gerta found a job at the Alliance Photo Agency and became André’s advisor, critiquing and helping him find buyers for his work, while André taught Gerta how to take photos. In 1935, hoping to make themselves more marketable (and less obviously Jewish), they changed their names to Robert Capa and Gerda Taro. As Taro, Gerta would sell the photographs of “Robert Capa,” an elusive American who only communicated via his assistant, the humble André. A year later, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War—the deciding factor in whether Europe would bow to the threat of fascism—the couple recognized their chance to document history and departed for the war’s front lines.

Capa and Taro’s work in Spain cemented them as war photojournalism’s reigning couple. With the development of the light, portable Leica in the 1920s and 30s, photographers could get closer to the action faster than ever before—and Capa and Taro did, taking photos of uncommon intensity and intimacy amidst rubble and noise. Their cameras were omnivorous, paying as much heed to children spooning soup as battlefield din. The couple’s good looks, charm, and ease with their subjects yielded photos unlike any ever taken in the course of war: Taro’s shot of soldiers in a rare moment of peace in a forest camp, Capa’s of a mother and child leaving their home, their lives packed into a suitcase. Their enduring work, much of which is housed in the archives of the International Center of Photography, showed war not only as it was fought, but as it was lived.

Capa and Taro traveled and worked as equals, their visions so aligned that they sometimes took the same shot. Though Taro often worked in Capa’s shadow, she cast a shadow of her own, and made a name for herself independent of her partner’s. Of the two, Capa always had the bigger name and more unmistakable eye; his maxim, “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough,” has guided many a photographer who followed him. For his iconic images—among them, The Fallen Soldier, picturing a soldier in the instant of death, his body accepting a bullet—the British magazine Picture Post anointed Capa “the greatest war photographer in the world” at the green age of twenty-five. But though his partnership with Taro was central to Capa’s work, she is often treated as little more than a footnote to his biography.

In Eyes of the World, just released from Henry Holt, authors Marina Budhos and Marc Aronson seek to right this imbalance. Their book traces the two photographers’ lives both as a couple and as individuals whose photos set a legendary standard for photographers of conflict. Both died as they lived, in action: Taro, who was caught in an collision while photographing the trenches at Brunete in 1937, became the first female photojournalist to lose her life on assignment; Capa, who went on to found the Magnum photo agency and photograph several more wars, died in 1954 in a landmine explosion in Vietnam. Only a few years had elapsed between their first meeting and Taro’s death. Yet in that scant time, Budhos and Aronson argue, the couple invented modern photojournalism while simultaneously inventing and encouraging each other’s approach to the craft.

Budhos and Aronson honor the couple’s vision by giving photographs as much space in the book as the text. Only by reading the textual narrative and studying the photographs alongside it can we grasp the full picture of Capa and Taro’s legacy. The photographers’ lives cannot be separated from their art, just as Capa’s story cannot be told without Taro’s.

Like Capa and Taro, Budhos and Aronson are partners in both love and work: Eyes of the World marks the second project they have completed together; the first is Sugar Changed the World, a history of the sugar trade. I met the authors in the unassuming café at the Rubin Museum of Art, where they reflected on their subjects’ intertwined lives and legacies, as well as the process of co-creation.

—Jennifer Gersten for Guernica

<

>

Robert Capa, [Line of refugees with their belongings on the road from Barcelona to the French border], January 25, 1939. ©International Center of Photography/Magnum Photos.

  Guernica: You describe Robert Capa and Gerda Taro as outsiders: they were Jewish refugees who powered a freelance photography economy. How did that outsider status influence their perspective?

Marina Budhos: When they started photographing the bombardments at the beginning of the refugee crisis [in 1937], they were refugees themselves. It was so clear to me that they were inventing a language, a visual vocabulary. When Capa was photographing people who made their way up to France to be in the refugee camps, he wrote about it in the captions to his photos. His own words showed the ways he identified with these refugees. Certainly in the latter part of the war, the way Capa and Taro saw things was fused with their own identity as people who had already been uprooted and who [feared] that a larger uprooting would happen.

Marc Aronson: Jews couldn’t hold full-time jobs in Paris. Think of America now, with feelings about work being taken away by “these illegals.” It was the same feeling. But this world of freelance photography was a place where Jews could survive.

Marina Budhos: Capa and Taro were stateless, and photography is a stateless occupation. You take a photograph of a march in Paris or Toulouse, and it’s sent to an agency in Germany or England—it’s a crisscrossing. Even though there was all this anti-immigrant sentiment in France, Capa and Taro weren’t afraid to plunge into these very French situations like elections and marches. So maybe the camera became a sort of protection for them. There were Nazi sympathizers all over France at this time, and a lot of anti-Semitism. The camera allowed them to maneuver with fluidity in this society that didn’t accept them.

Guernica: How did Capa and Taro intend for their photos to be used? What sort of effect did they want their work to have?

Marina Budhos: Cynthia Young [the curator of Capa and Taro’s archive at the International Center for Photography] told us that at this time, there was one kind of technology—the bombs and fighter planes and so forth—against another: the camera. Readers in those days had never seen a war of this scale. It’s very hard to take in. By honing in on the human—what a street might look like, or what it is to have a mother and her children huddled in the subways because that’s the only safe place to be—you’re making the effects of war comprehensible. Obviously we’re experiencing this now with Syria, which is why the photo of the boy from Aleppo affects us. For most of us, it’s too hard to take in the level of bombing and destruction. The photos are what’s comprehensible.

Marc Aronson: I would change it slightly: it’s not comprehensible; it’s accessible. You may or may not be able to fully comprehend a situation, but now it’s entered your world, it’s there with you. Capa and Taro’s goal was to win hearts and minds. To convince Joe sitting at his table in St. Louis that [the war in Spain] matters to him. That was their mission.

Marina Budhos: They were very willing to let their photographs be used for propaganda purposes. They would take images of, say, Madrid being bombed, and those would be used in fundraising campaigns [by activists for war relief efforts]. At a meeting in Hollywood to raise money for the Spanish Civil War, Capa and Taro’s images were played as part of a newsreel. [The actress James] Cagney saw it, walked outside, threw up, and wrote a check that paid for an ambulance. So most certainly Capa and Taro knew their images would be used for a purpose besides the general newsmagazine.

Marc Aronson: There’s a quote often attributed to Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” I think that’s the whole point of these images.

Guernica: Was Capa, as the more famous member of the couple, dominant in their relationship? How much influence did Taro really have over his style?

Marc Aronson: We’ve thought a lot about them as a couple who collaborated as pure equals, who, in effect, created each other. Taro, probably literally, invented Robert Capa. And he taught her how to photograph without any sense of territory.

Marina Budhos: When they arrived in Barcelona, they were seeing this extraordinary equality between men and women. I think they were kind of giddy. There was so much improvisation in their lives; they were just flying by the seat of their pants. They were trying to figure out how to make a living, how to make an impact. I think that atmosphere of improvisation meant that gender roles were not particularly relevant.

Guernica: It’s notable that they never married. You speculate that maybe it’s because they thought marriage would bring the two of them down.

Marc Aronson: Taro, in the midst of war, was very flirtatious. And later in his life, Capa became the essence of a ladies’ man. Was that because he was so seared by her loss? That’s one interpretation. But maybe it’s who he would have been anyway, and she knew it.

Marina Budhos: After Taro died, there were women who wanted to marry Capa, like Ingrid Bergman. He basically said, “I’m not marriageable, given the life I lead.” That life was nomadic and unpredictable, and he could have died at any moment.

I think it’s significant that he never again chose a compadre to be on the road with. He was involved with another woman who was a photographer, but she was a fashion photographer. He had these women waiting in port, but he never again went on the road with a woman in the same way. He did hold Taro in a certain place inside of him.

Guernica: The photographer Tyler Hicks has talked about “knowing when to stop,” how a photographer needs to have an instinct about when to cease. Where were the boundaries for these photographers?

Marina Budhos:: Irme Schaber, Taro’s biographer, makes the point that [the crisis in Europe] was existential for Taro. Her own family was imperiled. And so the boundary wasn’t there; she was so fused with the cause. Today, we typically see photographers who are from one place and go photograph in an embattled situation somewhere else. But Taro is part of this fight for Europe, and perhaps it led to her lack of caution. I think there was something particular about that generation of refugees—their own history is aligned with what is convulsing in Europe. [Taro and Capa’s collaborator David Seymour, known as] Chim, lost everybody in his family. Capa actually emerged the most intact: his mother and brother were able to immigrate.

Guernica: In the book, you say that Capa and Taro were almost like children. You often refer to how young they were. In a way, they’re like ingénues: as photographers, they were never completely exposed to the dangers of war because they were never the ones aiming the pistol. How do you think that naïveté influenced their work?

Marc Aronson: It seems more adolescent to me than childlike. They had a hunger to change the world, to find an ideal and a cause—to make people care. That reminds me more of the striving adolescent who detests what’s become of the world and wants to make it right. There’s certainly some of that in the cause of Spain. One thing to remember: they had no assignment. They were just in the middle of Spain with cameras, flung into the middle of a war. They are kind of like, hey, let’s go find a battle. And there is something of that innocence in their work, although there is tremendous pain all around them.

Guernica: Capa and his compatriots created the modern magazine layout and the first professional photography agency. How do you see that influence trickling down?

Marc Aronson: Again, Cynthia Young made a great point: when Capa and Taro and Chim went around Spain, they didn’t go with the famous journalists who were there, because they didn’t want their photos to be nice documentary illustrations. They wanted to create visual narration. In our book, we wanted to retain that sense of visual narration within an unfolding textual narrative. In our view, that is something that really doesn’t exist now, that sense of visual narration flowing with text.

Marina Budhos: A lot of their spreads were not factually correct. They were playing with images for the sake of impact more than accuracy.

Marc Aronson: In a word, they weren’t “documenting.” That wasn’t their goal.

Guernica: After Taro died, did any female photographers cite her as an influence?

Marina Budhos: Taro didn’t have a very large body of work, and there really wasn’t any opportunity for her to be influential. Instead, she became more of a martyr to the cause. Her photographs haven’t really been examined until fairly recently. Some of this is because some of them weren’t identified, and we didn’t know whether they were hers or not.

Marc Aronson: I think she really got occluded. She was coerced into a communist narrative. She’s buried in Père Lachaise in Paris, with other people who are communist heroes. Taro wasn’t there to argue. She had no heirs or relatives or anything. Capa died in ’54, but he was not buried there. There was a big debate about it on the left. People were saying, “She’s been defined as this communist hero, that’s not advantageous for Capa.” And so he was buried in Westchester. As their legacies developed different narratives, the less Capa’s fame brought attention to Taro.

Guernica: It seems like Capa anticipated plenty of accusations of journalistic bias, and so he distanced himself from an affiliation that might have been controversial.

Marina Budhos: They always saw themselves as aligned with antifascism. They weren’t objective, and they knew that. But even when Capa was successful, his money situation was always a mess. So I think he wanted to be able to move freely in the world, to photograph where he wanted, wherever he needed to. For him it wasn’t ideological, as much as it was a matter of survival.

Guernica: You portray Capa and Taro’s relationship as at once romantic and professional. You also describe your marriage as having these two sides. What was your own collaboration like?

Marina Budhos: We’ve learned from writing two books that one person needs to be the driver. There’s no way I could have done this book by myself. I left certain sections for Marc to do, and together we kept discussing and amplifying and thinking through things.

Marc Aronson: I think in terms of history. For me, explanation tends to come chronologically and in terms of causes and effects and themes. Marina is a novelist and she tends to find explanation in terms of scenes, events, human dramas. It’s always a question of how to blend these approaches. When should the scenes come front and center, and the explication be added to that? And when should the thematic flow come front and center, and the human interaction or drama or scene-setting enhance that? That’s something we had to work out.

Guernica: Were you reading yourselves into the relationship you were writing about?

Marina Budhos: For sure. We would talk about it. We were having conversations about what was different about their relationship and why was it different, and what could have been going on between them.

Marc Aronson: One of the fascinating moments in the book is when Capa and Taro both took the same shot. We don’t know what they were thinking. But what we can do is invest speculatively in that moment, based on what we know about their relationship and what we know as collaborators.

Marina Budhos: There’s a lot of writing about Capa because he’s this swaggery macho guy. Taro is always treated as this sidekick. As someone who works as an equal with my husband, writing this book was a moment to offer a deeper picture of two lives. I felt like that was a way to avoid making the woman the muse in the macho guy’s story.