#do i need to tag for the spanish civil war?

[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?

[honestsycrets]

querido i: a reward of 2099 | outlaw!miguel o'hara x reader

❛ pairing | outlaw!miguel o'hara x reader

❛ type | doubleshot; chapter is safe for work.

❛ summary | it's been a long time since you've been with miguel o'hara. when your daughter gabriella finds his wanted poster, life starts to unravel.

❛ tags | mention of murder and minor character death, hidden pregnancy, western au, spanish not translated, outlaw!miguel, baby-mama!reader, slight cursing, angst, threats.

❛ sy's notes | here's to listening to the civil wars' devil backbone one too many times. i needed a break from filling most requests, so i only incorporated one very lightly in this piece.

“Mamá, 2099 is a strange amount for a reward, isn’t it?”

Your daughter was a mischievous girl just like her father. She tore down the poster that was tacked up on the homely post office’s bulletin board as you gathered the weekly post. Coming into town was always a bit of a laborious task. With goods to gather and a little girl to socialize, you made it into town once every week.

"Sure is," Jackson the postman said.

“Thank you,” you plucked mail from the man’s dark hands. “I’ll see you next week.”

He wore a warm, kind smile. Working in the post office, he always seemed to be well-versed in what was going on in everyone’s life. His coal-black eyes shone warmly at you.

“Take care now, there’s wild men out there. What with Peter gone and all, you sure you girls will be okay out there? Rio’d sure put up Gabi and you at the hostel.”

Gabi scrunched up her face tight like a screw being twisted into a board.

“That’s real sweet of you to worry but I’m sure we’ll be fine. We've been out there nine years now. I’ll see you next week, sí? ” You tucked your post into a basket that dangled on your elbow, pulling long and heavy skirts to avoid trampling them with your boots as you opened the door.

“See ya then!”

Gabriella stepped out first, pulling on your lace sleeves as a cue for her delayed answer. She wouldn’t butt into a conversation, but she always seemed to hold her questions for a better time. You sighed, looking at the pale wooden buildings. Saloon, feed store, bank, and the occasional hostel. Over the last decade, the town seemed to flourish, bringing all manner of people to your once tiny Spanish town.

“I suppose they didn’t wanna give the extra coin out, Gabi.”

She looked back to the paper in her hands.

“Wanted dead or alive. Notorious badman Miguel O’Hara, 38, native of Nueva… why that’s here, mama!”

Your blood chilled. Congealed even. The sun nearly blinded you, even with the hat that kept the hot sun off of your head. You stepped off the doorway and onto the dusty ground, spinning on your heel to face your little girl with your dark blue fan in your hands, waving the heat of the day off your flushed skin.

“Wanted for--”

You swiped the paper from her fingers.

“That’s about enough of that. We best get on our way, we got goods to buy, the undertaker to see, and a new dress to fit for your papá’s funeral.”

“I was just reading it. In case we see him?”

“We won’t. It’s been a time since he’s shown himself around these parts. You have no business looking at-- that kinda man. He’s a troublemaker. Now get in the cart, let’s not dolly around.”

You would know.

“O—okay, mamá.”

“I’m sorry, Gabi, I don't mean to yell. You’re all I got, preciosa,” you wedged the paper into a new bible, right next to your wooden rosary, and flung it into the basket.

"I know."

You started ahead of her, fussing with your white veil, sparing no expense to the many questions that she had that day. You had just as many questions as she did.

You just couldn’t articulate them to a grieving little girl.

Do you think it's a boy or girl? the seamstress asks a woman in her shop. She fashions all sorts of fashions from birth to death. Her store is stuffed to the brim with frilly and lacy baptismal dresses. Your gaze fell on her belly, tracing the curve.

"Una niña," she says. Her voice triggers something old, some ancient memory you've suppressed. His voice in your ear, a soft kiss on your head. You're sitting there, next to the little girl that he always wanted, haunted by the flood of memories that comes with looking at another woman's pregnant belly.

"You're not like the others. Aren't men supposed to want sons?" you teased him. Miguel snorted, his arm underneath your neck as he gazed up at a sky of glittering stars. The air was lightly warm, a light wind fluttering through the tall grass. Post-relation bliss was warm on his skin, peaceful and quiet.

"For what? Men are jealous of sons," he muttered, shifting his head to kiss the top of your head. "Little girls are... the light in their lives. I'm going to call mine Gabriella. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"That's a real pretty name."

"Sure is. ¿por qué?"

You didn't tell him why. That you hid a secret underneath the layers of your dress. A secret that you knew Miguel would have more than an issue with if he knew.

"Mamá?" Gabi shakes your arm, "Mamá we're next."

Your mind likes to pull mean tricks on you.

Wanted for double murder.

Miguel O’Hara was always somewhere between a hangman’s knot and three mouths to feed. For you, the latter. You were under no illusion of the sort of man Miguel was.

Every look at your daughter’s soft, peaceful face at night reminded you of him. You worried that the more she looked at posters of Miguel, peered into an artist’s rendition of Miguel’s slight, sultry eyes, lush lips, and strong jaw-- she might be able to locate the similarities when she looked at herself. That was why you had to take the flyer from her. The artist sure had a fine hand at drawing him, the man who danced in your dreams by a warm fire and stayed up late counting the stars. He’s gotten thicker, you thought. You sat on the rocking chair as she slept peacefully, rocking back and forth on the chair.

A violent knocking at the front door swept you free from your thoughts. You snatched up the silver lantern, yanked a fine ivory rebozo over your shoulders, and rushed down the stairs. The booming knocking became louder, more urgent. The movement was mechanical, with no husband to answer the door for you, you checked the window first. The man who stood there was not a man you’d want to see. Not now, not back then. He had a wicked face that sat beneath a wide-brimmed hat that obscured the balding spot on top of his head.

God, not him. He was obsessed.

“Buenas noches, Doña O’Hara,” he peeped into the window.

“Bendito, don’t call me that,” you rushed out, the heavy wooden door slamming to a close behind you. “I’ve told you already, he is not here.”

“And I don’t believe you. First, your man-loving husband dies. Next, sightings of Miguel a town over. ¿Qué piensas? Hm? What comes after that?”

“My husband was trampled, Aaron. By a bull. He was a hard-working man who worked with violent cattle. These accidents happen. Why don’t you ask the undertaker?”

He wouldn’t. Although you don’t think Aaron is a complete idiot, he surely has his own motivations for which leads to follow and which leads to ignore. Your husband’s death was one of them.

“I’ll tell you what comes next. You come next. It’s only logical that he would come back to you. You have his daughter and all. Or… does he not know about that? I seem to recall him running out of here like a bat outta hell.”

“You’ve checked my property three times. Barn, basement, home. It’s been nine years, Aaron. Gloria a Dios, he’s probably remarried and forgotten me by now.”

“Not according to my reports.”

You hate the twinge of delight that comes from that admission. Your cheeks warm with blood, highlighting the rouge that sits across your cheeks. He chuckles caustically at how easily it shuts you up. Aaron takes a step forward, his deep leather boots creaking along the aged floorboards.

“What’d you want me to do with that information?”

“If he comes to see you, and I know he will,” he reached out for your chin. Your hand connects with his, shoving him back. “Tell me. You know, it’s a crime to kill another man without good cause.”

“You wanna catch Miguel for your own reasons, Aaron. Don’t bring none of that holier-than-thou bullshit to my footstep.”

“She can curse,” he laughs again. “Here I thought you were a good Christian woman.”

“Don’t try me,” He tries to corral you against the door. You flip your skirts up, his eyes following the motion. You seize the handgun strapped to your thigh, threatening to pull it on him. Aaron slides back, holding his calloused hands up. "Get off my property."

“I’m just saying. If you see him, you know where to find me. Who knows, you and I could work a lil something out.”

Even if you knew where he was, you would be hard-pressed to turn him into Aaron Delgado. You knew Miguel O’Hara would kill him. So, really, it was for his good. You watched him beat down the squeaky steps and mount his horse, fading into the distance of dark, twinkly stars. You probably shouldn’t be praying that robbers got ahold of him.

But only Diosito could judge you for that.

You dipped down to pick the lantern up, stepping off the steps to ensure that he was not just off your property, but properly gone. Then, seeing him set off toward town, you gazed up at the deep night sky. It was littered with an abundance of stars, massive and twinkling brilliantly. Miguel’s favorite constellations shone brightly in the sky. The Anglo called it-- Orion’s belt. Around here, it was named for the hunter: the deer, the pronghorn, and the sheep. You count each of the stars on your way back indoors to sleep in your empty bed.

You prayed Aaron’s hunt would be fruitless that night.

With your husband's untimely death came several complex decisions. Namely, what to do with his cattle hands and the animals under your care. You were fortunate enough to have support from the community in caring for the cattle, but you knew human affection did not last forever. You could sell his property at a scam of a price as a woman or you could keep it and work bitterly on the farm.

Or, as Aaron suggested today in the cover of concern, you could remarry yet again. It was nearly the only good option. Working wasn’t sustainable when you had a little girl to raise and a whole host of children to teach, as you always had. It would be nearly impossible to find someone like your dearly departed husband who knew your situation and couldn’t care less about it.

It’s good for a lil girl to have a father, he says. You know that-- but Aaron should be no one’s father. Not Gabriella’s. Miguel would’ve never approved. Neither did you.

You loosened beads of sweat from your hair as you returned inside, the ends of your skirt matted with dust. Gabriella would return home from school soon and you were fully intent on feeding her a slice of fresh peach pie.

You made your way into your home, your boots between your fingers. The smell of a smoky hearth piqued your attention. It didn’t arise from your great big wood stove that sat against the wall, ready to cook fresh tortillas, but the sort of hearth settled in the deep outdoors.

“Dios mío.”

Miguel sat there, plain as a field flower. His fingers tapped over the heavy wooden table, rolling in succession. He’s older than you remember-- jaw peppered with dark facial hair, his hair dark and wild, set away from his kind eyes that caught yours as quickly as you caught his. You dropped your boots at your feet, backing up once, twice.

“Don’t run, you won't get far,” his voice trilled, low and warm. Beside his sombrero on the table sat a thick rope and his gun, you don’t want to know which one he was planning to use today. His head twisted, a mused smile growing on his face. “You look so surprised, amor. You had to know I was coming.”

The nickname cut more than it used to. You had not been someone’s amor in a very long time. Married strictly by the weight of paper, you don’t exactly recall what the fleeting emotion of love felt like. Wisps of it licked a dead flame to life in your stomach.

“Miguel.”

“You look gorgeous,” Miguel hummed, turning his impossibly broad arms one over the other. You don’t remember him being this thick. He lurches onto his leather boots, taking a few practiced steps closer. Brilliant, you think, you’ve languished years thinking of this moment just to smell of sweat and cow shit. You suppose he’s smelled worse as an outlaw, a name that doesn’t quite fit the handsome man before you.

“You were always a bad liar.”

“Look, not smell.”

“My point stands,” you say.

Your normally practiced updo has gone frizzy, bits of hair escaping the clips that kept it flat against your head. Miguel’s eyes flickered over the strands, then down to your skin flush with blood and exhaustion.

“Mine too.”

You stared at him a moment longer before you found yourself laughing, just a light-- a small thing that you had failed to do over the past week. His death, and the subsequent funeral, was all too miserable. Now he was here and for a moment, just a brief thing, everything didn’t feel so earth-shatteringly dire.

He cracks a smile, drawing his hand to your flyaways, soothing it down against your head. You should be more angry at him-- settling you with a baby like he did and disappearing into the long grass with Widow and not a word more.

“I missed you,” you said quietly. His hand falls away from your head, drifting past his dark blue vest, and hooking at the fat metal belt buckle. “Pero… why are you here?”

“I heard Peter passed,” he said in a practiced tone. “I was a few towns over. Seeing how he’s taken good care of you all these years, I dropped in to say my dues to him. Came to see my girl too.”

The grief may not be readable in his eyes, but you know he’s practiced it in the same way you did for your Gabriella. Her only daddy was gone, deep in the cold earth. His words echoed in your ears, cutting through your grief bright and resonant. You wonder if he knew, but logically, you knew he couldn’t. Miguel always wanted to be a father.

“Who’d that be?”

“You,” Miguel turns your name over, making your name sound beautiful and light on his tongue. It’s sweet, like the peach pie cooling in your aged windows.

“After all these years?"

"Claro."

"You... shouldn't be here. You’re a wanted man,” you said. “Aaron is looking for you. You know that, right?”

“He's nothing to be concerned about.” Miguel shrugged off your suggestion. "I'm only wanted in these parts."

“Where else is there?” you said

“Out West. South. You take your pick,” Miguel lifted his hand, tracing your parched lower lip. “It don't matter to me. I seen all manner of places, like it here more than anywhere.”

"There's nothing here."

"Nothing but you."

You felt your stomach swoop, a delight filling it better than any meal you’d had. You parted your lips to say something else, to find a response that would fit-- to tell him the truth. But he left you then, came back when something fit better than the road. You wonder what fortune he must have made on the road that he’d come back. His hand caressed your cheek, rubbing it as if to soothe you. It didn’t.

“You think you can just go and come back like nothing happened? After what you did?”

The front door squeaked, dragging with a long hiss. Miguel peered over your shoulder as if it were instinctual, his hand snapping to the gun on his hip. You stopped him short of seizing his handgun. Gabriella bobbed in, closing the door tightly shut behind her. She wore a plain blue dress, fine ribbon braided in the updo she had on that day. She takes a few short steps forward before realizing who you were talking to.

“Mamá, I’m home!” she gasped. “That’s the man in the— in the flyer mamá--”

“Gabi go to your room.”

“I’m not--”

“Gabriella,” your voice went soft but stern. Nearly apologetic. You had been so hard on her lately. Miguel’s eyes dropped from Gabriella’s huge, doe-like eyes to her nose, then lips. His eyes sharpened, whipping back to look at you. “Por mí, okay? He won’t hurt me. Te prometo.”

She darted up the many steps to her room.

"Gabriella?" He stared at you uncomprehendingly. He quickly goes quiet, searching your eyes for something. You worry that he’s found the truth, your breath light as you walked over to your wooden stove, checking the flame and setting a pot of water that you brought from a nearby creek to bathe with. He follows you to the stove.

“My daughter is home. You should go,” you remarked, less of a command than a meek statement, floundering on your lips at the end. As delightful as it sounded, running off into some other territory, town, or world with Miguel-- it was unfeasible and irresponsible to be with a man whose name was stapled on the bulletin boards towns over.

“How old is she?”

"That's none of your business." Your outlaw hovers over you, absorbing the space, a bundle of heavy muscle and rage that plumes off his skin like the smell of sweat on your skin. It’s almost as if he can smell the regret seeping off your skin, despite knowing you couldn’t have done anything differently. No one told him and you could not reach him. Whatever the reason he stayed away, you were not the one he reached out to for updates.

“Tell me,” he growls, waves of anger causing his voice to shake. The tone is heartless, empty of the nights together, of slipping off with the old cattle hand at night and day, in the barn and the field. You’re stuck in the memory of your lovemaking with your vaquero, now your outlaw man. You missed him.

“Don’t do this. She could be listening.” You pad away from the stove to the window with the hope that he wouldn’t follow. He backs you up into the wall, his calloused hands so tight on his belt that you could draw lines of tension through his veins.

“You're not telling me because she’s mine,” he’s whispering, the words going through your chest, fizzling out into terrible pain. He reaches out, squeezing your hips to keep you put. Miguel leans into your space and buries you in his overwhelming scent.

“What do you want me to say?” you stare at his prominent muscles, the shift that is thrown open to expose his skin. He cups your jaw and throat with his large hand, forcing you to confront the truth. Your eyes blink closed, bits of tears dripping there. Miguel doesn’t have the patience for pity, or empathy, whichever the two you were looking for right then.

“I want you to tell me the truth. It's not hard.”

“Me telling you the truth changes a whole lot of nothing. You're putting her life at risk just being here. You're an outlaw,” you say, trying his rapidly evaporating patience. "You got a bounty on your head."

"It changes it all," he shoves you back into the window, a choked cry slipping from your throat. He doesn’t mean to hurt you, he meant to have the truth. Distantly, you were aware of Gabriella’s feet beating down the steps. You’re relatively certain she’d never gone all the way up to her room. In this creaky house you would have heard her door shut, the floorboards bounce. In either case, there’s no point running away from what you both know to be true.

“Sí, she’s your daughter,” you mustered the words in a bid to get it over with. Miguel always had to get his way. “Now what?”

Miguel flicked a look over his shoulder, marked by the heavy drag of his weighted firearm skidding across the wooden table. A life on the run will do that. Gabriella’s tiny hands slipped around his handgun.

“That ain't true!”

“Gabriella,” you cut her short. “Gabi, bebe, put that down.”

Miguel took a step back, pulling his head back slightly as you shifted in front of him. Her tiny head shook, over and over, tears pricking her bright brown eyes. You fooled yourself into thinking that she wouldn’t listen-- because your Gabi was a good girl. A wonderful good girl who liked nothing more but running in the field with the boys and brightly colored ribbons laced into her braids. She was also a mischievous girl who had been trying really, really hard to be good for you this week. Children had their limits.

“My papá is dead,” she said, her fingers trembling about the thing. Miguel’s head tilted in response, expecting you to take care of it. “His name was Peter and-- he liked sunsets and fluffy chocolate calves and--”

“Badly made blankets,” Miguel said lowly. Gabi lowered the gun, slowly, just an inch or two. “Shorn fabrics, uneven stitching, ugly colors.”

“He liked to make you smile-- be helpful,” he added. You snapped to look at Miguel as he rose his hand to his hips, gazing at the floor and rocking. He waits another moment, noting how Gabriella’s head nodded, rubbing away the tears that dripped off the corner of her eyes with her shoulder. She set the gun down on the table.

“You knew my papá?” she turns her arms one over another. “How?”

“He was my friend.”

“Mamá?” she looked toward you, seeking an answer from someone who wasn’t a face on a wanted paper with a reward of 2099 dollars.

“Peter was your papá but-- Miguel is your padre, mija,” you breathed hard, exhausted from years of suppression. She looks at you, not used to this level of betrayal. Her eyes are distant, somewhere in her tiny memories. She whips around and runs out the back door. Miguel turns his eye out the window, her tiny body disappearing into the deep green fields. The sun blinds your eyes as you look out to the fields full of cattle. He reaches for his rope and gun, settling them in their respective places.

“¡Déjala! She needs time alone.”

He heads out the backdoor. He never did listen well.

[syyskirjat]

Sueños de piedra (ch1)

Okay, I promised (to myself) to check out whatever media won the ultimate obscure blorbo tournament ( @who-do-i-know-this-man (I wasn't sure whether to tag you or not but in the end I figured I might as well, hope you don't mind I guess))

Turns out that it's a guy from a 2015 Spanish YA fantasy book

And turns out there's a free sample available! Which is lucky for me because I'm currently very broke

Sueños de piedra by Iria G. Parente and Selene M. Pascual

I don't speak Spanish so I'm gonna rely on the translator quite a lot lmao (well I understand some Spanish actually, but definitely not enough to read a whole book)

The title translates to something like "Dreams of Stone" I think?

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away, a prince rewarded a wizard for helping rescue a young girl in trouble. Charming. Too bad none of this is true. In reality, the prince dreams of glory and revenge; the magician, with her spells not always being a disaster and the young woman in trouble, with fleeing from a past that torments her... and from the memory of the man she has killed. Once upon a time...

(Yes this is just Google Translate, sorry)

Okay so, prince, magician and a damsel in distress? Prince wants revenge for something, who knows what, magician is having trouble doing the magic, and the damsel is in fact a killer? Ok ok

The dedication goes as follows:

To all those who embark on a direct journey towards their dreams every day. May you always reach your destination.

Okay so Marabilia is a place? That's apparently also the name of this book series. Is this like the kingdom then? So it consists of three islands, two small ones and one big? Or is it supposed to be a continent? It definitely seems too small to be a continent

I know the blorbo is called Arthmael de Silfos so I'm guessing he's from the Silfos area in the north of the big island then. I can see what's probably a city called Duan and a forest called "Merlon Forest". We also have different towers around the big island, one of which seems to be called the Tower of Black Magic. (I didn't even need to use the translator for those yay xD)

Okay the first chapter is called Arthmael so I guess we're meeting our blorbo already, which is nice

— Let me make it clear: are you going to give my crown to a bastard?

Okay..... the very first line and I already think Arthmael might be a bit of a spoiled brat (I assume he's in fact the prince)

Apparently Arthmael just found out that he has an illegitimate older brother but I guess this brother's mother is noble anyway so it's legit? I dunno yet. Arthmael thinks this guy is blackmailing his father somehow and is already considering poison as a solution

And anyway, what kind of a name is Jacques for a king?

lmao, so much shade to all the kings called Jacques

Okay so Jacques's family is very powerful and loved by the people of Silfos and the king fears a civil war if he disrespects his claim to the throne. Alright. Kinda weird since based on Arthmael's thoughts, this society has a similar attitude to bastards as in European history, but okay then. I wonder if Jacques is even actually the king's son or is this some kind of a ruse?

Arthmael is very cheeky and even references his dad's love life directly to his face, his dad is not very happy

The king tells him to just be a good boy and hopefully they'll find him some crown princess to marry so he'll get a kingdom that way

I guess these different areas on the map are kingdoms then, that makes sense. They look like very small kingdoms but this is a small place in general.

Arthmael doesn't seem to mind this idea except that there's only one possible princess like that in Marabilia and that's Ivy de Dione. Not sure what's wrong with her.

Well, who knows? Maybe, if I wait a few moons, some other bastard, in Verves or Idyll, will come out from under a rock and come offer me her hand.

Somebody's very snarky, that's cute

Arthmael is very haughty about how the people have always known him as the crown prince and accepted him as such, Jacques laughs and asks what has he even done for the people. He's like well he hasn't really done much yet because he was planning to do things once he became king, but he's been supporting the local business (taverns) and employing servants (lmao). Also apparently there are some girls he's seeing...

Apparently Jacques's family are big traders and business people (despite being noblemen) and create lots of jobs, and also big on charity, so everybody loves them

Arthmael is jealous of how proud his dad looks when Jacques says this, and how he's never looked at him like that

Well, I guess you're kind of a little shit so it makes sense, Arthmael

— If the smartest thing is to become the idol of a few starving people in order to be king, I can do it too.

Oh my god, this little brat

He declares that he's going to be a hero, to overshadow the charity of Jacques' family, because heroes are remembered by history while philanthropist aren't

So he plans to become a storybook Prince Charming, saving damsels in distress etc.

Jacques finds this understandably hilarious, the king is not amused

Once Jacques leaves, the king again offers to arrange a marriage to Arthmael, specifically with the princess of Dione

I'm almost tempted. I have never been to Dione, but they say that their ships are the lightest and fastest, and that sailors come to their shores from the other side of the sea, speaking strange languages that only they understand. Who come from lands where women wear short dresses, if they wear anything at all. Places where war is so normal that, as soon as a child is strong enough to pick up a sword, they push him to the front lines.

Alright then, I see what he fixates on

Was there anything wrong with the princess then or?

Barbarians. I remove the thought from my mind.

Oh okay. What a charming young man /s

Dione is like right next to Silfos according to the map btw, is this like one of those neighbourly feuds?

Okay he says it's because he doesn't want a foreign kingdom, he wants to keep his home, which is fair I guess

The king is like what do you want me to do, kill Jacques and his pregnant wife? And Arthmael is just like yeah great idea, because he's a dumbass. The king is like wtf

Apparently Jacques' family is from that Duan city that I noted earlier, and his mother died a few days ago and apparently "her loss is greatly felt"

The king regrets spoiling Arthmael too much, and talks about how Arthmael doesn't understand anything about suffering or anything and only cares about girls

Arthmael is already considering faking his death to make them all feel sorry, because of course he is, he's exactly that kind of guy

He says he doesn't want to go try to charm the princess, he'd rather just go off on his own (also there's a whole bit about how only a man can rule Dione or something and the king of Dione won't accept his daughter to become a ruler)

His dad tells him no, just stay here and be a good boy, don't make everybody gossip about drama in the royal family

Arthmael is like hey you managed to hide your bastard son for years, you can hide my disappearance

They fight a bit more but then Arthmael just storms out, grabs a few things from his room and leaves

a change of clothes, a bag of coins, my sword, and my favourite cloak. I do not need anything else.

Okay then, good luck I guess

To be a hero you only need a brave heart. Or so they say.

I feel like you also need to not be a selfish prick but maybe that's optional

Okay end of first chapter!

Our blorbo seems like a real brat!

But I guess the point is probably that he needs to learn some lessons along the way, or something like that, idk. I'm sure there's a reason for why whoever entered him into the tournament likes him so much

I'm guessing the damsel in distress is not the princess? Probably? She wasn't called a princess anyway. TBH she's the character I'm currently the most curious about. The next chapter is from the point of view of someone called Lynne and I hope that's her. Could be the magician too though I guess? No wait, I think the magician is a guy. Altho idk maybe Lynne could be a guy's name, I don't fucking know.

I'm guessing that Arthmael will try to rescue the damsel so he can be a hero, because that's what heroes are supposed to do, but then it'll go wrong somehow? And then the magician will get involved somehow, I have no clue.

That's all my predictions I suppose. Altho I'm guessing that Jacques might turn out to be a villain somehow, I didn't get the vibe that he was particularly great either, just not as much of a brat as Arthmael, and it would then be something for Arthmael to do when he gets back home. Then again maybe the book will surprise me, who knows. To be honest, it would feel a bit like a cop out if it turns out that the guy he hates actually is evil, but it could be handled well, and it's not like I like Jacques either so far. He seems extremely sus too

No guesses as to what the title refers to yet, it could be anything

Idk, like I said, the damsel's storyline is the one that interests me the most rn, it might actually get me to read further (good job, blurb, you got me)

I still have a surprisingly good amount of the free sample left, there's actually nine chapters here, so idk, maybe I'll keep going? We'll see

I'm pretty happy with how much I was able to follow the text even on my own, altho I definitely had to rely on the translator. I would not have had the patience to try to translate all of this myself. But I definitely understood multiple full sentences! Yaaay xD

Apologies to fans of this book series, I hope I didn't seem too rude

[nekoannie-chan]

We can learn to love again

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Reader.

Word count: 684 words.

Summary: After separating for a few years to flee the Accords, you and Steve see each other again.

Warnings: Angst, but happy ending.

A/N: This is my entry to @caplanbuckybarnes’ Cappy’s Decade Challenge with the song ‘10s:

“Just give me a reason – P!nk”

You can read it on Wattpad and Ao3 too.

@saiyanprincessswanie

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other's people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it, please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @sinceimetyou @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad @navybrat817 @angrythingstarlight @shield-agent78 @charmed-asylum @pandaxnienke @real-fbi @smokeandnailz @white-wolf1940 @tenaciousperfectionunknown @xoxonotme @bluemusickid @leyannrae @harrysthiccthighsss @marvelatthisonee @sapphire-rogerss @lizzieolseniskinda @notyourtypicalrose @hallecarey1 @nana1000night @talia-rumlow @writingshae @alexxavicry @azulatodoryuga @daemonslittlebitch @chaoticcollectivenightmare @endlesstwanted @chemtrails-club  @marigoldreamer @whiskeytangofoxtrot5555 @here4thefanfics @theestorm @patzammit @kmc1989

You left the glass on the table when you heard the doorbell ring. No one used to visit you apart from the neighbor, who was an old lady. Your eyes widened very wide at the sight of who was outside.

"Steve?!" You exclaimed in surprise.

It's been a long time. I'm sorry. "I need to get in," he said, as he quickly passed inside.

"How do you find me?" You asked, you couldn't believe it. You hoped it wasn't a dream.

"It was simple. Do you know what happened? "

"No, I haven't been here all day." You replied by shaking your head at the same time.

Does anyone know? He didn't dare finish the question. If there was anyone else in your life, he would just leave. He wasn't going to stop you from being happy.

If you mean, if I'm in a relationship, I'm not. What do you mean by "what happened ?" You answered quickly. However, you were more interested in knowing what happened; you didn't even hear the news.

"Thanos eliminated half of the living things."

"What? Is that possible? By the way who is Thanos?" you asked. Since you separated, you had not done a single mission. You spent the first few weeks escaping until you found that place.

"The only good thing is that somehow you exempted us from... well, you know, what happened."

"Are we free? Do we no longer have to hide? "

"We are free. We can go home. "

"To our house?"

"Yes, well, if you want..."

"I have to pack my bags and you will carry them. And I will also let my neighbor know; she is very kind to me and I don't want her to worry. "

The entire journey back was deafeningly quiet. It had been two years since the last time you saw each other. You had to separate because of what happened in the Civil War. You knew it was very dangerous to be together, especially as fugitives. In addition to discovering that your neighbor had been one of the victims of the Snap, you chose to also take your pets. You would never allow anything to happen to them. You would take care of them as she had taken care of you.

However, what you did not know is that Steve was always taking care of you, even if it was from afar. He was not going to allow anything bad to happen to you, coupled with the fact that he was aware of the danger you were in if someone came to see them together, and he was not willing to take you to the raft because of him.

Your farewell had not been the most romantic; you had implicitly made a promise that you would be back together when you could when conditions were favourable.

You didn't know how to ask him if he had decided to go on and rebuild his life. You didn't even know what happened to the others.

When you arrived, you stood on the sidewalk. You didn't dare enter. You didn't know what you were going to find in there... maybe Steve... maybe there was someone else.

"Are you okay?" "Steve asked you with concern."

"I don't know. Should I come in? Is there anything else you should tell me? " You inquired cautiously. Steve watched you and then understood what you meant.

Let's go in. "There's nothing else, other than to tell you that I love you and I want us to make up for all the time we've lost, all that time we couldn't be together," he replied, holding your hand to guide you to the entrance of what had been his house.

Everything was the same as you had left it when you had to flee. I didn't even know how it had been preserved in that way during all that time. Several times, you wondered what your lives would be like if the Accords had never existed. You sighed. Maybe Steve was right, and you could get back everything you lost.

"Steve, I missed you."

[brigdh]

Tagged (ages ago, whoops!) by @saiditallbefore and @coyotesuspect!

Last song: 'No Place Like London', Sweeney Todd, Original Broadway Cast. I got to see the current run of Sweeney Todd for my birthday earlier this week, and while I really liked the production generally, the lead does not have a deep enough voice for Sweeney. So obviously I had to relisten to some previous casts to correct this mistake.

Favourite colour: Always so hard to choose! Blue, maybe? Or green? Or purple? But red's also very good....

Last Book: Currently in the middle of Imperial Spain: 1469 - 1716 by J.H. Elliott. I've been slowly making my way through Don Quixote over the last five months or so with a bookclub, and I realized that I needed some more context. I've also been realizing that, while I know British and French and American history fairly well, I am pretty ignorant about Spanish history. Anyway, this is the book that everyone seems to recommend for the period I'm interested in, and it is quite good, but it was written in the 1960s and you can frequently tell.

Last Movie: Just saw Civil War this afternoon. It was very good at keeping the tension and had some gorgeous shots, but ultimately felt weirdly empty.

Last TV Show: Shogun! I've really been enjoying the new miniseries, though I'm an episode behind and need to catch up.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Usually savory, but I need all three for a complete meal.

Relationship status: Married to @lettersfromtitan!

Last thing i googled: a tax form, so I will not be putting specifics here. :D Before that, "wavewalker by suzanne heywood", which I saw someone mention. It apparently is a memoir about an awful childhood.

Current obsession(s): Nothing in particular, I think? I have been doing a deep-dive on Early Modern Spanish history – the book up above is the fifth one I've read this year, not counting Don Quixote itself, and I've also been doing some research on early textile making, though I haven't quite found the angle I want to take there.

Looking Forward To: I have tickets to see Monkey Man tomorrow, and I can't wait!

tag 9 people: @schmirius, @napneeders, @petrichorca, @thewalrus-said, @badgerette, @why-worry-do-it-later, @sixappleseeds, @peregrineroad, and @starberrywine! Only if you want to, of course. <3

[wayward-mikaelson]

Distance pt.1 (Daniel Brühl x F!Reader)

Word Count: 1242

About: After your visit with German actor and boyfriend, you have to head back to the states for work.

Warnings/Trigger Warnings: None

*This work is written for the 18 and up crowd. By clicking "keep reading" you are acknowledging and agreeing that your 18 years or older.*

Masterlist

Actor Fanfic Masterlist

Forever Tags: @hobby27 @donnaintx @myinconnelly1 @elansaidaris @magssteenkamp @440mxs-wife

Daniel/Zemo Tag: @saturdaynightzemo @dailybruhlfic

The warmth of the morning sunlight beat through the window and hit your face. It felt nice, yes, but you had to roll over and bury your face into the cool skin of the person that laid next to you. You took in a deep breath to see if you could still smell the lingering smell of the woodsy cologne he wore. You could. The corner of your lips tugged into a small smile as you exhaled and wrapped an arm around your lover's bare torso and snuggled closer to him.

“Darling,” the morning rasp of Daniel’s voice caused your ears to perk up. You loved it when his voice got like that. You’d do anything to hear his voice like that. You felt the bed shift around beside you. “Darling,” Daniel repeated again, this time you felt his hand on your face.

You opened one eye and saw that Daniel had sat up on his right arm. He brushed the hair from your face and smiled down at you once he saw you fully open your eyes. His dark brown eyes never left your face. You knew exactly what he was going to say. 

“I know,” your voice was soft as you said it first. “I gotta get up and catch my flight.” You felt like your heart was about to burst saying it out loud. 

You had spent the last two weeks in Germany with your boyfriend. It was the first time in almost three months that you and Daniel had any kind of quality time together. Daniel had taken you to his favorite places, again, and that included his restaurant, for the millionth time. It had been a blast until last night when you realized that it would be your last night with him. You had to go back home to the states for your next job. You weren’t sure when you would see him next and that made your heart ache.

Distance was cruel sometimes.

Daniel and you met in Atlanta while you were working on the set of Captain America: Civil War. You were just a crew member and your number one rule, it was a huge rule for you and you alone, was to never get involved with an actor. That was due to their busy schedules and the fact that you would most likely never see them for months at a time. 

That all changed when you weren’t paying attention to where you were walking and bumped right into Daniel. His coffee had spilled everywhere on the front of his shirt and yours. You had been horrified but, luckily, for you, he wasn’t filming yet and it was just a random shirt. He brushed the whole incident off and insisted that you didn’t need to clean it.

The two of you started out as friends, talking and getting to know each other. While working on set, he’d take you out for coffee. Evans and Mackie teased you all the time about it, but the teasing never bothered you. Out of all the people you communicated with on a daily basis, Daniel was the one you talked to the most. It never seemed weird to you. You loved talking to him and talking to him made everything about your day feel better. Daniel had become a safe place for you and it didn’t take you long to realize you had feelings for the German-Spanish actor. You began to crave his presence each and every day while working on set.

It wasn’t until about a year later, after the very last scene you worked on Civil War, you guys ran into each other again. This time in London, you were working on another film and ran into him while dining at a small restaurant. The two of you hung around the restaurant until it was super late. You didn’t want to go your separate ways so you invited him back to your hotel room for a couple more drinks. It didn’t take long for things to heat up and the clothes to come off.

That was nearly four years ago.

Four years of making a relationship work with an actor, despite the number one rule you had, had years ago.

“I’ve enjoyed our time together,” You could hear the sadness creeping into Daniel's voice. He didn’t want you to leave at all either. He loved being with you because you brought out the good in him. He won’t admit it to you, but he hated the time and distance away from you. He wished that he could wake up to you every morning and fall asleep with you in his arms.

 “It’s such a shame you have to go back.” His fingers traced around your bare shoulders, leaving goosebumps in their wake. “I had so much more planned.”

You took a deep breath and sat up into a sitting position. Daniel soon followed. “I wish there was more time, but I gotta get back to start this new project.”

Your job wasn't hard, but it was very demanding. You got to travel the world with well known actors, directors, stunt doubles, etc. and everything was paid for. It paid well so when you had breaks from traveling, you had a little apartment in the suburbs of your hometown that you would stay in for a month or two. It was nicely furnished and whenever you traveled, you let your brother stay there to take care of your two cats. 

Daniel bit his bottom lip and sighed real deep. “I know, I know,” you spoke Daniel's unspoken thoughts before he could. “One day, there won’t be time nor distance between us.” 

“I know,” Daniel whispered as he brushed hair out of your face. “Why don’t I help you pack up your things while you shower, my love.” 

The rest of the time, it was silent. It always was whenever one of you had to leave. You showered while Daniel packed up your things. You contemplated staying an extra day and calling your boss about the delay. One more day couldn’t hurt. When you stepped out of the shower and got dressed, you noticed your bags sitting by the door. Your jacket, laying on top. 

The two of you went around the corner to the small little coffee shop that you loved. Once the two of you ate and had a small cup of coffee, Daniel called you a taxi and helped you load up. Before you could get into the backseat, Daniel took hold of your upper arm and spun you around. Before you could even open your mouth to ask what was wrong, Daniel's lips were already pressing against yours. You sighed and melted right into his arms. 

“I love you,” Daniel whispered into your ear before kissing the side of your head. 

“I love you, too,” You loosened your hands and let go of the front of his shirt. When you looked up, you saw the softest smile on Daniel’s face. “I’ll call you when I land,”  you stepped back and settled yourself into the taxi. 

“I look forward to that.” 

As the taxi pulled away, you looked behind and watched as the man of your dreams grew smaller and smaller. You hated this feeling more than anything. You hated that you had to go or that he had to go. You hated everything about your situation and arrangement.

Distance was cruel.

Distance was a bitch.

[rein-ette]

So I read the tags in your engbel post and honey you KNOW what I am here for

Please share all of your engbel ;A;

I thought this would be easy but it actually turned out a lot harder than I thought. I hope this delivers on both your and @mr-nauseam's expectations.

1. Many Belgian ports were part of the Hanseatic League, thus though inland Belgium came under heavy French influence, it's great port cities were in contact with English influences as well for hundreds of years before the 16th century. Hence, like Hanover, Belgium was just a girl that Arthur would meet in his travels. Since Arthur tends to be in good moods whenever he's "escaping" from his duties at home and at sea, these interactions were amiable, but not prolonged or particularly memorable (for him).

2. At this point it wasn't entirely clear that Belgium was even a nation, though she certainly wasn't human. I haven't quite decided what she was the representation of, since the low countries were so politically fractured at the time -- perhaps it wasn't obvious to her, either. I like the idea that nations carry a bit of mystery, a seed of the future in their existence.

3. Since she may well have been one of those semi-immortal nations who drift in and out of this world rapidly like a spring breeze, she felt a certain fascination with England, who was older and seemed more sure of himself, rushing around like he always had something to do. She was particularly taken by the fight in him, the way he lived so vibrantly (she was not the first or the last). For her, England and Portugal belonged to a richer, more fast-paced world than the simple, provincial lives she and her brothers led.

4. Everything began to change with the Dutch Revolt. In many ways it and the ensueing 80 years war had the same impact on Belgium's psyche that a civil war would. It was the first time her family, her status quo, her identity were torn apart with breathtaking brutality. She could not quite understand the white-hot fury of her brother with the Spanish, nor could she forgive Spain for treating her own with such violence. Though the southern provinces of Belgica Regia would ultimately remain Spanish, the long, terrible sieges on Antwerp and other cities left her reeling. Britain, despite being offered to rule the United Provinces, remained relatively uninvolved. Still, it was the first time Belgium and her people mattered politically on the international stage, and Arthur would not forget her again.

5. But England remains closer with Netherlands than with Belgium. This would later crop up as a source of doubt between them -- Belgium was somehow too French, even though she often did not want to be, and if France was England's sworn enemy, well -- how could they ever work out? She was "other", and yet she was not. This would somewhat undermine Belgium's confidence later, but this straddling of two worlds actually prompted England's first real curiosity to know her better, though he did not (in typical Arthur fashion) act on it.

6. The next turning point was the French annexation at the end of the 18th century, leading into the Napoleonic Wars. Belgium had endured centuries of conflict, back and forth tug of war, and a bid of independence against the Austrians. She was still not a true nation, but she was no longer a little girl on the docks, either. She had learned to fight, to conceal, to want things for herself. England too was no longer the wild, fierce thing that had once visited her shores. He still had that fight in him -- but the edges had turned bitter, and his eyes held more and more doubts about life than convictions in it. They were no longer young.

7. During the Napoleonic Wars, incidentally, is when Belgium first falls in love. That brilliant red coat, that trim waist and dark eyes -- he had traded his childhood intensity for a different kind: an intensity of hatred, of ambition, of objective. It thrilled her -- perhaps because she too, had tasted the pulse-quickening thrill of war, had glimpsed the glory of empire. His power was attractive in and of itself, and she wanted to be closer it.

8. Being given to her brother she does not appreciate, but by the 1830s she is free. For the next few decades they begin their carefully choreographed romance: a summer spent at his estate as a visiting lady, a trip to the continent to listen for gossip and buy clothes. Arthur, more settled, less wary, indulges in his past curiosity while trying to come to terms with the fact that while he wasn't paying attention, the girl on the docks had acquired a smile that was razor-sharp. They talk, between the carriage rides and evening parties. They talk of their memories, of their friends, of literature and war and philosophy. She keeps up with him on every topic, something he is astonished by.

9. Their relationship crumbles when she acquires an empire of her own. Historically speaking, England begins its most notable period of splendid isolation from 1885, and relations cool when London becomes a centre for resistance against Belgian rule in Congo. Personally speaking, Portugal breaks up with Arthur and he spends the next decade moping like a little bitch, mostly around Paris so he can distract himself with inane drama. Belgium too finds increasingly that she no longer wants a one-sided relationship she isnt sure was love in the first place. The power she was so drawn to in him -- she could have that for herself.

10. The First World War ends all dreams. Despite it all Belgium fights like hell, crops her hair and binds her chest and fights on the front lines. Two years in and England too is worn through with worry, exhaustion, grief. There is no space for glory or pretense anymore. For the first time, perhaps in their entire relationship, they meet each other's eyes as equals and they talk. They ask each other the difficult questions and they do not shy away from the difficult answers. It's a trust that's taken centuries to build, but when the next war comes they don't even need to ask questions anymore. From then on their relationship turns back to idle conversation and coffee dates -- whether it's coffee dates in bombed out cities or among the skyscrapers of the 21st century matters little -- but it's not playing house. Neither wants anything from the other and their curiosity has been satisfied. They simply know each other, and it's enough to be together in that knowledge.

[franzsiska]

ao3 interview

tagged by: @cyanoscarlet thank you, dani 🥰💕

how many works do you have on ao3?

— 18.

what’s your total ao3 word count?

— 39.2k, haha. I mostly write short one shots, and quite a bit of my work has been exclusive to twt/tumblr and zines, so that's why.

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

— three.

bungou stray dogs (10)

haikyuu!! (5)

jujutsu kaisen (3)

as you can see, i am. very picky about what fandoms and what subject matters i write about sfhskdk

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

emptiness to melody (bsd; kunikidazai)

this brief tragedy of flesh (jjk; nanago)

let me tell you a story about love (haikyuu; miya atsumu character study)

you are what happens after the war (bsd; kunikidazai)

leave the ruins where they fall (bsd; soukoku)

what are your top 5 fics by comment thread count?

love me just a little longer (bsd; odazai)

you are what happens after the war (bsd; kkdz)

this brief tragedy of flesh (jjk; nng)

salt/water (haikyuu; iwaoi)

emptiness to melody (bsd; kkdz)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

— yes, absolutely, although it might take me absurdly long to get around to it lol. unless it's a comment that doesn't warrant a reply, i do make it a point to reply to all of them eventually.

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

— ahh, this one is complicated. i love angst actually, but only of a very specific brand. my fics aren't so much angsty in ending as they are just. pervaded with a sense of sadness throughout—fluff coloured with angst, as i like to call it. pick up literally any fic of mine, there's always angst interwoven throughout.

that said, i did once write a fic (without you) that ended in major character death and it disturbed me so much that i ended up orphaning it lmao

have you ever received hate on a fic?

— no, thankfully, not as of now. that might be attributed to the fact that my body of work itself is not very big, but i like to think that i attract a more civilized demographic with my fics 😉

do you write smut? If so, what kind?

— no. never have i tried and never will i ever try, i think. the most i can do is make out and fade to black. i don't actually have any interest in writing the nitty gritty details, thank you very much.

have you ever had a fic translated?

— uhhh, yes, i think. i've been asked for permission multiple times but have only got back the completed link from the translator once or twice. this here, for instance, is a tumblr askbox fic that got translated into chinese.

have you ever co-written a fic before?

— no, but i'm open to the idea! it just has to be with someone whose style and ideas i click with.

what’s your all-time favorite ship?

— ahaha, this is hard. it keeps changing but iwaoi seem to have passed the test of time <3

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

— ouch, okay. there is more than one. that one dazai-centric skk wip that's been lying in my drafts for almost an year now. it's a study into dazai's relationship with food and with the needs of his body in general (read: his very thinly-veiled eating disorder). i really fucking want to complete this, but it isn't looking likely at the moment :'(

what are your writing weaknesses?

— longform, multichapter fics, definitely. i cannot, for the life of me, plot out a proper three act structure with a subplot and a climax and all. i really wish i could, and i greatly respect the people who can :')

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

— only if it fits the situation. otherwise it just ends up looking pretentious and pedantic. i used a couple of spanish dialogues in salt/water as well as my iwaoi zine fic, for instance, bc they're both post timeskip and set in argentina

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

— bsd! that was two years ago, and i'm so grateful to my hyperfixation sdfshfk

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

— a tie between you are what happens after the war (bsd) and with your face towards the sky (haikyuu; kagehina)

tagging: @wctercress @awinterborn @my-one-true-l (only if you want, ofc)

[jhscdood]

in an effort to get myself to read something other than the same 3 longfics over and over, i am going to report on my (non-fic) readings here. these posts will be tagged with "#jhsc reads".

First up:

The Denunciation, by Ernest Hemmingway (short story in: "The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War")

Ok 2 things to note: first, i skipped the first story in this book because it was super long and i dont have that kind of patience. second, i have read one (1) short story by Hemmingway ever in my life and it was in high school 20+ years ago. So i am going into this story knowing quite literally nothing about Hemmingway.

Having read the story i now know the following things:

- Hemmingway sure loves bars. like half this story was just an ode to his favorite cantina and you know what, thats valid

- Hemmingway sure loves cute men with accents. no explanation needed.

- Hemmingway sure hates fascists! At the end of the story, the waiter calls the cops (the government? the non-fascists?) on a fascist spy hanging out in the bar. after, the narrator calls up his gov't buddy and is like, "before you shoot that guy, tell him it was me who snitched on him."

does he do this to preserve the moral sanctity of his beloved bar and its staff? does he do it just to make the fascist dude (who, im pretty sure, is an ex-boyfriend) get really pissed off before being executed? at the end of the story he cooks dinner for his new, not-a-fascist boyfriend so like. idk. Hemmingway is a weird one.

[ailec-12]

20 Questions, Writer's Edition!

I was tagged by @hklnvgl, thanks so much!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

14.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

269,196. 🤩

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four: Harry Potter, Once Upon a Time, Marvel Cinematic Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

House Potter for Children in Need (HP, 1,463 ❤)

A Hotchpotch of Feelings (HP, 431 ❤)

Pocket-Sized (MCU, 178 ❤)

And I, You (MCU, 98 ❤)

Dear Tom, Who the Bloody Hell Are You? (HP, 78 ❤)

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always! I love answering comments. Besides, if you take the time to leave a few words, I think you deserve to get something other than radio silence. And I also like it when other writers respond to mine, so that's why I make a habit of replying to every comment.

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

That would be December, 17th. I challenged myself to write a Christmas story and that was the result.

7. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

Of Forgiveness and Hope. 💚

8. Do you write crossovers? If so, what's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't written any, but I did imagine a pretty detailed Hogwarts AU with the Mills sisters once.

9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, though thankfully it's been rare and pretty mild.

10. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, but maybe I will someday.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. Someone did offer once with one of my fics, but I declined because I didn't know them and didn't feel comfortable. I wouldn't mind allowing translations from people I know somewhat so that I can trust them to translate accurately and keep me posted, though.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've got a WIP with @mariagvogel focused on Peggy Carter, but it's not posted anywhere.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

It's hard to choose just one, but mmm, let's say Outlaw Queen (Regina Mills x Robin Hood).

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

A very ambitious fix-it of Marvel's Civil War. It's likely that I will finish it eventually, but I don't think it will have a big audience by then. xD

16. What are your writing strengths?

Conveying emotions! That's also my main goal: to tell stories that stirr something in the reader. Also, I'm very patient with my writing projects, so I can keep myself motivated to finish them after a long time.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Complex plots. I struggle to find clever solutions to plot conflicts and it's something I should honestly practise more, but since it's not a priority in fanfiction... Sometimes, I also feel like I'm unable to go straight to the point and produce short fiction.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Depends on the source material, really. If for whatever reason a character usually says certain words/expression in a different language, I'd keep that in my fics. In general, I think it fits as long as there's a reason for it, like a character struggling with the language and inserting words in their native language. I'd "translate" full dialogues remarking in which language they're actually happening, though.

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

There was an early attempt based on a Spanish book, but I must agree with the person that told me it wasn't much of a fic, but rather an original story with the same setting, hahaha. My first actual fic was a one shot for OUAT —there was an unpublished attempt at writing Steggy fluff but I could swear it came later.

20. What's your favourite fic you've written?

I can't choose just one! I'm satisfied with most of my stories, so I can try to choose my top 5 (in no particular order):

OFaH

House Potter

Dear Tom

Lightning

December, 17th

Tagging @supermarketcrayons, @itslucyluna, @thatawfulsnapeboy, @mariagvogel and any other writer who sees this and wants to give it a try.

[clexa--warrior]

Major spoilers for Wonder Woman 1984 below

Two-thirds of the way through Wonder Woman 1984, Diana of Themyscira, daughter of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons and Zeus, the mightiest of the Gods of Olympus, finds herself wounded and being practically carried through the streets of Washington D.C. by regular human man Steve Trevor; then shuffled into an alleyway where he pleads with her to let him go, and she refuses, while humanity burns all around them. Her attachment to him is draining her powers. This after nearly two hours of Diana pining for Steve; indulging Steve in an ’80s fashion montage and a leisurely trip to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum while a god-honed artifact is being used by an evil businessman to take over the world; being rescued from car chases by Steve and piloted around in an invisible jet which she creates for Steve; and having the most basic plot points of the film explained to her by Steve, despite the fact that she is a world-renowned scholar of basically everything who casually reads Latin as a hobby.

Steve Trevor is the main and unconquerable problem of Patty Jenkins’ follow-up to 2017’s nearly perfect Wonder Woman origin story, but it’s not the film’s only issue. Wonder Woman 1984 is a complete mess.

The story itself is nearly incoherent. Like so many Batmans before it, Wonder Woman finds herself up against two villains who circle around and ultimately tag-team with each other. There’s Pedro Pascal’s Trumpian Maxwell Lord, a narcissistic con-man who wants — well, that’s part of the problem. What does Maxwell Lord want? More, basically. The concept of more, a narratively philosophical pursuit way too far out of bounds for a movie that spends 15 minutes letting Chris Pine try on fanny packs. And then there’s Kristin Wiig’s Barbara Minerva/Cheetah, who just wants a little bit of respect and attention and to not be sexually assaulted in the park on her way home at night. Both Maxwell and Barbara get what they want by wishing on a lump of citrine that was crafted by an evil god? Or something? It’s unclear. The point is that every civilization where the Wishing Citrine shows up ultimately vanishes from the face of the earth because of the greed of the leaders. The Mayans, for example, were wiped out by their own gluttony in using the Wishing Citrine and not, you know, brutal Spanish colonization.

Meanwhile, Diana and Steve exist inside a rom-com from the moment he is resurrected. (Reincarnated? Revivified? Zombied?) They dance, they smooch, they cuddle, they hold hands and watch fireworks and do the tourist scene in D.C. and somehow have unfettered access to the West Wing of the White House and a runway of fully fueled antique(?) planes that inexplicably travel at super speed. Their storyline, which is a retread of the first movie, is baffling, but so are all the plot points inside it. Nearly every scene is overly long; the transitions between scenes are thoroughly disjointed; nothing that needs explaining is actually ever explained (Where did Steve even come from? And how? And what happened to the guy whose body he took over while he was inhabiting it? How does the Wishing Citrine actually work? And why? And from whomst!); and everything is resolved without explanation or repercussion.

The first 15 minutes of Wonder Woman 1984 are perfect, and everything that made the first film such a narrative, symbolic, and feminist triumph. A young Diana enters a Themysciran pentathlon-like gauntlet of climbing, diving, swimming, acrobatics, horseback riding, running, and archery. She very nearly beats fully grown Amazonian warriors, cheats a little, and learns a valuable lesson about doing what’s right and telling the truth from Robin Wright’s Antiope. Then, in the present day, she descends on a full-blown 1980s mall to save some kids from some bad guys, crunching up guns with her bare fists and winking sweetly at the little girls she rescues. Things take a turn for the worse, and never recover, as soon as Steve Trevor’s memory punctures the screen.

Steve pulling Diana through the chaotic streets of the nation’s capital during a global crisis is the antithesis of the Wonder Woman William Moulton Marston and his wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and their partner, Olive Byrne, conceived as a superhero superior to every other in the Golden Age of comic books during World War II. More powerful than Superman, more ingenious than Batman, faster than The Flash, better at fighting Nazis than Captain America, and above all: wiser and more compassionate than every man to don a cape or cowl. In fact, as the main man in Wonder Woman’s life, Steve Trevor assumes the role of the damsel in distress in every Golden Age Wonder Woman story, an accomplished but deeply inept pilot in need of constant rescue. Not only does Wonder Woman refuse to marry him, or even go on a date with him; she perpetually warns every woman she knows not to lose themselves for any reason to any man — just as her mother warns her.

“These bracelets, they’re an Amazon’s greatest strength and weakness,” she says to herself once she breaks free from Nazi Baroness Paula von Gunther’s henchmen. “What a fool I was to let a man weld chains upon them! It just makes a girl realize how she has to watch herself in this Man’s World!”

In Wonder Woman 1984, Diana cannot get enough of Steve’s boring human head. She caresses it, stares at it, pulls and pokes at it, holds it close, strokes it, pets every inch of it. But her adoration of Chris Pine’s face has nothing on Jenkins, who frames Gal Gadot behind him constantly. The camera focuses on Steve’s reception to everything, while Diana reacts to his reactions. She isn’t just riding shotgun in her own iconic invisible plane; she’s in the passenger seat of her entire movie.

In the film’s climax, as Maxwell Lord manically and incessantly begs everyone on earth to utilize the power of the Wishing Citrine, my wife glared at the TV and said, “I wish this Wonder Woman movie had been about Wonder Woman.”

[pocketmouse18]

Thank you so much to @herosofmarvelanddc @cloudypaws and @mtab2260 for the tag! This was so much fun to think about :)

(fair warning, I wrote too much for many of these...)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Just 2 :)

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

450,577 if I did my math right!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Officially? Just 1 - Agents of Shield (two, I guess, if you count MCU as separate, since I use characters from both...). Off the record, many more than that! I have lots of bits and bobs from other fandoms that I tinkered with when I was younger, still getting the hang of writing, not brave enough to post things, etc. etc. Some of those include X-Men, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, the Fosters, Star Wars, the Hunger Games, the 39 Clues, and a few others I can’t remember. None of those will likely see the light of day, mostly because they’re unfinished, not very good, and just not reflective of who I am as a writer anymore, but they were fun to play around with at the time :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I just have the two, but The Important Thing is to Try wins, hands down, with 1227. Shoulder to Shoulder has 95, though, which I’m also very proud of! Important Thing has a definite advantage, being as long as it is, so I don’t know if that’s really a fair comparison between them.

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes! Or at least, I always try to! I just can’t believe someone would be kind enough to take the time to tell me what they thought of my story, so I always want to take the time to thank them and return the favor :) Plus, as I’ve learned, it’s a fantastic way to get to know some really lovely people!

6. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Well... I technically only have one story that has an ending, at least on Ao3, and it’s not an especially angsty one, since it ends in Phil and Melinda getting married :) I have some angsty chapter endings in Important Thing, if that counts? I’m not even sure if any of my unpublished fiddlings have angsty endings (most don’t have endings at all lol)... I don’t mind writing angst, but I don’t know if I’m capable of making something without a happy (or at least hopeful) ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Not really, unless you count AoS/MCU crossovers (which I guess technically count, but also I would argue it’s not a true crossover since (and I will die on this hill) AoS is a part of MCU canon). When I was younger I was a fan of playing around with crossover AUs more so than the actual characters crossing paths (so like, what if these characters from XYZ were demigods or went to Hogwarts or what have you, and not so much what would happen if the X-Men met Luke, Leia, and Han on one of their space adventures). I started writing a crossover between AoS and the Marvel Rising cartoon once (which again, not sure if that’s a true crossover, since Daisy was in Marvel Rising, but I digress), where Coulson tasks Daisy to work with Kate Bishop and Rayshaun Lucas to collect and train a team of young Inhumans, starting with Kamala Khan, but I ran out of steam pretty quickly when it got too plot heavy.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I don’t think so. I’ve had some people not understand some choices that I made, but they asked it in a way that I thought was perfectly nice, and I was happy to talk about it with them. Sometimes people get “mad” at me when I cause pain and suffering, but I know that’s all in good fun :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nope, not for me. I don’t read it or write it, personally. Writing a kiss is hard enough!

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Important Thing is probably too long and unwieldy to ever steal :P

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone once asked me on FFN if they could translate Important Thing to Russian, which was basically the coolest thing I’ve ever been asked!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

A fic, no. I’d love to try sometime! I had a friend in college who I co-wrote with A LOT, though, so I know I enjoy that process, given the right partner. We wrote several short plays together (ranging from ~15-50 minutes in length, including one that we wrote in a single afternoon!), selected scenes from a larger (unfinished) play inspired by historical letters we found in an archive that were sent between a man from Massachusetts serving in the American Civil War, his wife, and his 8-year-old son, and several scripts for TV sitcoms (2 pilots for 2 different shows, plus additional eps for those pilots, and a couple of later eps for a different show that a classmate of ours wrote the pilot for - we were trying to practice what it would be like to be on a staff with a showrunner haha). The sitcom scripts in particular I’m very proud of, and could talk somebody’s ear off about if asked (one’s about ghost hunters and one’s about a DnD party!), but maybe that’s better saved for another post ;)

13. What's your all-time favorite ship?

That’s a very hard question for me! Mostly because shipping stuff is usually one of the last things to register for me when I’m thinking about shows/books/movies I like haha... I’m always a sucker for Philinda, and younger me was rather taken with Percabeth, I suppose.

14. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hmm, several, really. The aforementioned AoS/Marvel Rising crossover I think could be really cool if I got it to work, but I don’t think that’ll ever happen. I also have a WIP that’s like an angstier version of a Hallmark Christmas movie AU where Daisy has to come home to her small town right before Christmas and figure out what she wants out of life, but I’m a little stalled out on that one, mostly because I’m waffling on who the charming love interest should be and because I don’t have enough of a plot, just lots of feelings about coming back home to a place you thought you had left behind lol.

I’d put Important Thing and it’s (as of yet) untitled sequel on here as things I want to finish, but I’m much more determined to see those through, so I don’t think they qualify for the “never will actually write” part of this question :)

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don’t know if other people agree with this, but I think I write pretty decent dialogue. My “training” (if you can call it that) is in, as you might have figured out by now, script and screenplay writing (those were the only creative writing classes I took in college). So having a sense of the rhythm a conversation needs to have and how to write dialogue that sounds mostly like how people really talk (but shined and tightened up enough so that it’s not actually like verbatim dialogue, which is far less interesting to read!) is something that I feel like comes pretty easily. I also think I do okay with similes and metaphors - my brain tends to work in that way. It’s easier for me to think of stuff (feelings, especially) in terms of comparing it to more familiar things than to just think of the thing directly, if that makes sense?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

If I was being honest, this would be a very long section, but I know it’s not fun to read a big ol’ paragraph of someone self-criticizing, so I’ll keep it to one or two items ;) A big one for me is pacing, I think. I tend to write more than I need to and to over-explain things, so my chapters get very long and sometimes don’t really go anywhere? Until all of the sudden, they DO, because things need to HAPPEN! I’m a pretty rigorous self-editor, but I do have a really hard time cutting out sections (unless they’re really just not working), so even if it would help the pacing to leave out this conversation between character A and character B, I often can’t make myself cut it. I also think I struggle sometimes with balancing my ‘showing’ and my ‘telling,’ especially in the sense of me over-explaining certain things - like when it comes to feelings/facial expressions/etc, for example. I compensate for that in Important Thing by making it a part of a few people’s POV, but it’s not really a good habit to have in general. Also spelling! I’m really bad at spelling and run my stuff through robust spellchecks and text-to-speech before I post anything to make up for it :)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do it with some regularity, although I always get nervous about doing it wrong! It’s hard to avoid in AoS, where characters are spies and should (in theory, at least) have a working knowledge of multiple languages (”We’re spies, I thought we all learned languages?!”). Even in an AU, where characters aren’t spies, I like to try and pay homage to that, plus pay homage to certain characters’ native languages or just general multilingualism. I’ve spent a fair amount of time around people who speak more than one language, so I feel like it’s a natural part of groups of people to have more than one language spoken. I have a pretty good handle on written Spanish, a patchy idea of French, plus I know some Russian phrases from my dad and some German words from my grandfather, but I do rely on internet translation a lot. I usually run stuff through google, then run it backwards to see just how far off the initial translation was, then consult some actual, like, language learning sites to see if there’s particular idioms or common phrases that use different words than what google will give me, then run those words through backwards in the place of the original words to see if I can massage the whole thing to sound reasonably competent. Languages like Russian or Mandarin (which have their own alphabets/characters) are the hardest, since I have to also try and do a transliteration. I always try to put an apology/disclaimer in the notes any time I write in a language that isn’t English, because I’m sure I make lots of mistakes.

Also, I tend not to italicize words that are in other languages, because it looks weird on the page to me to set the other language apart like that (and because I italicize mainly for internal thoughts or emphasis, and usually what’s being said in another language isn’t internal or being emphasized). I put a rough translation at the end so we don’t have to pause the story for a parenthetical translation, but because the translation’s not right there, I try to either put in enough context clues that a person can still understand what’s going on, or I make sure that what’s written in another language isn’t critical to the overall understanding of the scene.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Officially, it’s AoS, since that’s the only fandom I’ve published for. I think the first true fandom I wrote fic for was probably either Harry Potter (entirely populated with OCs lol, I just liked using the world/setting), Percy Jackson (a mix of OCs and canon characters), or X-Men (all canon characters). I was a bit of a latecomer to fanfiction, though, like, I wrote a ton as a kid, but mostly original stuff, because I didn’t know that fanfiction in its current form was even allowed until I was in high school lol.

Oh! I almost forgot one! I’m not sure if this really counts as a fandom, but it’s definitely the earliest version of fanfic I wrote haha... I was like 12 and I wrote more than one story of an OC joining Robin Hood’s band of Merry Men, and then also one of that same OC becoming a knight of the Round Table, so like... do what you will with that information haha.

19. What's you're favorite fic you've written?

I can’t choose between my two darlings :( I mean, okay, technically it’s probably Important Thing. That story’s my baby. It’s huge and I’ve been working on it for almost 2 years, and I’ve poured a lot of my heart and soul into it. I’ve fallen in love with the universe I built in it, so much so that I wrote an entire prequel and have very concrete plans for a lengthy sequel. But I can’t not crow about Shoulder to Shoulder (the aforementioned prequel!), too... I’m just really proud of that one - it has a lot of firsts for me. First completed story. First romance-focused story. First foray into expanding the Important Thing universe. But yes, if I have to choose, then Important Thing wins. That’s a story that I started writing exclusively for myself - to give myself characters I could relate to and to explore a style of AoS fic that I loved reading - and that’s a story I will always and forever be proud of.

I think most people have probably answered this tag game at this point, so I don’t want to accidentally retag anyone! If you haven’t yet, and would like to join in, please do! This is your invitation <3

[nekoannie-chan]

No option

Pairing: Steve Rogers X Mutant enhanced!Reader & Brock Rumlow X Sinthea Schmidt

Word count: 1117 words.

Summary: For two years you and your best friend were planning you revenge, now the plan was for Steve to be on your side.

Warnings: Reader is HYDRA.

A/N: This is my entry to the @fangirlovestuff‘s Birthday Challenge with prompt #19:

“Partners in crime.”

Also my entry to the @hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall‘s 500 Follower Challenge with song lyric:

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistake please let me know and I will correct it.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics be posted in other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don’t steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other’s people. The only exception is the ones I gifted ‘cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and is not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own Marvel’s characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

My other media where I publish: Wattpad, Ao3, ffnet.

If you like it please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @sinceimetyou @navybrat817 @angrythingstarlight @shield-agent78 @saiyanprincessswanie​ @charmed-asylum​ @pandaxnienke @real-fbi @smokeandnailz @adriannajackson​

You last checked the list, you already carried everything you needed, you walked the streets trying to keep your profile low, you had stayed hidden from a few months before, however as you went through a newspaper stand you stopped, and a headline had caught your eye, smiled. 

"We were trying hard when everything was easier," you thought as you bought the paper. You rushed to where you lived, you needed to tell your best friend the news, in the end, the last plan had been successful, now they would probably never look for them again. 

"Brock, I have great news!" You exclaimed when you walked into the house. 

"Unless you've found a mutant who can heal wounds or the Avengers are dead, it's not great news," Brock growled. 

"Almost," you responded by putting the paper in front of him. 

Brock opened his eyes surprised as he read the header, a crooked smile appeared on his face.

"I always thought you were the best, even before Strucker subjected you to experimentation.” 

"That only enhanced my powers, I suppose we should tell your girlfriend...” 

"Sin's too busy, rather we should think we'll do now that they're separated.” 

"Maybe it's time for my come back, Steve's probably very desperate and he'd do anything, in the end now he's one of the most wanted fugitives," you said. 

"That means they're not going to look for us anymore.” 

"No, that means you're legally dead and I'm still missing.” 

"The only thing I would worry about would be Maximoff...” 

"Maximoff is no match for me, I've been in her mind, its chaos, she thinks his twin is dead, well everyone believes that not counting that our plan worked perfectly," you interrupted him. “It would also be nice if we got the Soldier back...”

“First Rogers and then the Soldier will be easy.” 

"Then we have work to do.”

One week took you to find out Steve's new location, you already knew all the details of what happened in the Civil War, then you would figure how to get Barnes out of Wakanda without anyone else noticing or if things went well you would do it with Steve's help. 

"Y/N, are you sure about this?” Brock questioned. 

"Of course, they think they've already defeated HYDRA, but they've all done what we wanted.”

You were walking down the street, you knew that was the day Steve went to the market to buy some food and find out what was going on. Steve was watching the paper holding a person at the front table, they were still looking for him, they probably would do it all his life, he wasn't sure when he could stand running, contacting the others was complicated, if they weren't careful, they could leave some trace and find them. He wasn't sure if they'd go back to the Raft, although they'd most certainly take them to another prison more safely to prevent them from escaping again.

He turned and felt his heart beating fast, blinked several times, couldn't believe what he had just seen, you were missing for just over two years, he immediately got up, left the money to pay the food and hastened his step, all that time he thought you were dead, he didn't know if it was a hallucination or if you were there. 

“Y/N!” He called you.  

You stopped when you heard your name, you turned slowly until you face him. 

"Steve, it's been a long time.” 

"Where have you been? I thought that day...” 

"I had to run away, you may not understand, but my best friend and I have been hiding all this time," you replied. 

"That is not possible, Rumlow is dead and because of him, they created the Sokovia Accords.”

"Dead? No, I can assure you he is not.” 

Steve didn't understand what was going on, yet he agreed to go with you, when he got to the house and saw Brock practically pounced him, you managed to separate them.

"What's wrong with you, Steve?” 

"It's all his fault...” 

“What? But we've been here the last few months.” 

"How do you explain Lagos?” Steve exasperated. 

"What happened in Lagos?”

"Rumlow, don't ask stupid things...” 

"Steve, we don't know what you're talking about, Brock doesn't get out of here, and don’t you see his condition?” 

Steve showed you the videos of that incident, both you and Brock pretended to be surprised, of course, they knew what had happened, and that was the first part of his revenge plan. 

"Steve, that's not Brock, I'm pretty sure that was a trap, there are mutants who can change their shape, they can even look like people we know," you explained. 

"What you mean?” 

"Probably, maybe Ross just needed a pretext for the Accords," you replied. 

"We did belong to HYDRA, but we had a good reason," Brock said.

"I can't find any reason for that," Steve refuted. 

"Brock and I were neighbours since we were kids, we've known each other all our lives, my parents died, they'd send me to an orphanage, and I decided to escape, while Brock's father beat him, that's when we ran away.” 

"Two children alone in the world is not the safest thing, a HYDRA agent found us and that's when we found a new home," Brock continued. 

"But you were able to choose...”

"And that's what we did, after the battle at the Triskelion I escaped, but I found out Brock was in the hospital, the doctors said it was a miracle that he survived, then we hid, we knew everyone would look for us.” 

"I thought you were dead, I was looking for you too, you could have asked me for help," Steve complained.

“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.” 

"Rogers you're wrong, they weren't even going to listen to us, they'd immediately lock us up in the Raft.” 

"I can’t leave my best friend behind. Steve, you're wanted too, you're a runaway like us, you're nothing to them but a criminal," you said. 

"Accept it, we are now partners in crime," Brock said.

“Partners in crime”, it didn't sound so bad to Steve, you were right, now it didn't matter what he did in the past for his country, all they cared about now was that he hadn't signed the Accords. You put your hand on Steve's forehead and entered his mind, very easily you started manipulating everything that was there, and Captain America no longer existed and would never come back. 

“What is the next step?” Brock questioned. 

"Make the Roxxon Company explode, I hear you have... a very interesting experiment," you responded as you smiled.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Antagonistic violence; Approaches to the armed struggle in urban environments from an anarchist perspective.

Introductory text for a debate with comrade Gustavo Rodriguez, at the Center of Anarchist Information (CEDIA), Mexico City, 8th of October 2011

Violence is only justifiable when it is necessary to defend oneself and others against violence […] The slave is always in a state of legitimate self-defense and so his violence against the boss, against the oppressor, is always morally justifiable and should only be adjusted by the criterion of utility and economy of human effort and human suffering”

Enrico Malatesta, “Umanità Nova”, 25th of August 1921

Before starting – for a matter of principles -, we consider it to be necessary to take a position; some sort of “statement”, where is affirmed our compromise with the antagonist struggles, with the anti-systemical war. So it is worth it to reaffirm, that in the issue of “armed struggle” – concerning the tittle of this talking -, we are not, neither we can be, neutral because neither the “official History” neither the means of massive alienation are neutral. The so proclaimed “historical objectivity” and “journalistic objectivity” don’t exist. Are a myth of the domination. The “official History” is, invariably, the manipulation of the fact for the benefit of the winners, the manipulation of reality for the benefit of Power, not mattering who has the power.

In the particular case of the anarchist struggle, the distortion done by the massive means of alienation and the historians is a constant. It really doesn’t matter if we speak about conservative and right wing historians or leftist and “progressive” ones, the result is the same: the premeditated distortion, the manipulation of the facts and the reductionism. In one word: lies. That’s what is produced in a “neutral” and “objective” way about anarchism. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised by the anarchist action of nowadays to be approached with the same optic as it has been in the past. It is the premeditated work with clear propagandistic aims, that aspires to present anarchism as an “ideology”, in the sense of Gobel, which is to say, as false conscience, as a distortion of reality and corruption of the truth. Reducing the anarchist theory and practice to the futurist architecture and dreamed utopia, whether it is through “irrational violence” or by the hand of the banal “non-violence”, which is to say, through that unreal dichotomy (pre-fabricated by the Power) that presents the anarchist ideas and practice as “innocuous nihilism” and/or “sterile pacifism”; when in reality, none of the two tags correspond to the anarchist ethics. Which doesn’t mean that don’t exist supporters of anarchism located in both of these categories and even “supposed” anarchists that identify themselves with those postures that are totally far away from anarchism. The same ones that we have pointed out in lots of occasions as deviances, product of the constant intoxication of liberalism and Marxism. For such reason, here we will avoid the ambiguities and will takes sides for what we understand as just and necessary: the antagonistic violence. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t critical with our mistakes – historical and present ones -. Precisely, we understand critique as an indispensable weapon, as an inescapable part of the struggle. Therefore our emphasis in the urgent balance that may produce an historical “cut” and contextualizes the anarchic theory and practice. A pending subject since the defeat of anarcho-syndicalism in the Spanish state in 1939.

To us, the critique that doesn’t land in a concrete proposal is not an antagonistic critique. With this statement, we don’t frame ourselves in the positivist logic and, even less, align with the rhetoric of the “revolutionary activist” with its typical “Something must be done!”, so kindred with that “What to do?” that in practice is traduced in the very common “do what I say not what I do”. On the very contrary, we position ourselves in the context of the critique contributing with modest contributions to the libertarian armed critique. Therefore, when we affirm that the critique that doesn’t land in a concrete proposal is not an antagonistic critique, we look forward to conjugate theory and practice. We install ourselves in the praxis – using some Marxist slang now that we spoke about intoxications. Without any doubts, the critique keeps being irreplaceable at the moment of opening cracks in the anti-systemic pathway. But we not only refer to the critical evaluation of the past. The critique of our combative daily-life, to the day by day of unrest, is also indispensable. What grants a specific weight to the armed critique are the concrete teachings that it gives to us. To learn from the armed critique is the way to not repeat mistakes, it is the vehicle that feeds the antagonistic project, it is the path that will allow us the development of the refractory conscience through the transformation of apathy into antagonistic rage. Only like that, will we make concrete the self-management of the struggles and the generalized insurrection.

Now that we made our positions clear, lets start, then, with our consequent defense of the armed struggle, of the antagonistic violence, of direct action, as an effective means of struggle. As we have pointed out before, the sterile “non-violence” – that innocuous militancy of the idyllic pacifism -, not only is it alien to anarchism but also it doesn’t match with our general values. This posture comes at first from the Christian intoxication and from a certain “radical” liberalism that serves the citizenship ideology, that amorphous mass subjected to the State that reclaims a more elevated level of interlocution with papa State. We are referring to what the ideologues of liberalism denominate “civil society”. At first, this intoxication reached – mainly in the 70′s and 80′s – proportions of “tendency” in the interior of our “shops”, misunderstanding completely different concepts and identifying “pacifism” with “antiwar” and “anti-militarism”. The anarchists, by principle, are “anti-militarists” and, by consequence, we are “antiwar”. Which means, we openly and with all our strength oppose to the military institution, identifying it with all the different repressive corporations, as repressive agents of the system of domination. And, logically, we are “antiwar” because we oppose to the war. Not to the anti-systemic war but to the wars of the capital, to the wars between States, whether these are between potencies or between developed States of the center against peripheral States, or the ones between peripheral States, for border reasons, for the control of “natural resources” or just by pure chauvinism.

So, speaking again about armed struggle, we were saying that we defend the “armed struggle”. We support its effectiveness as a necessary vehicle to combat domination and we do it starting from our ethical foundations, as to say, from the ethics of liberty and the radical critic of power. Which doesn’t mean – remarking what was previously said – as the powerful of all colours use to tag us, an apology to the “irrational” violence, an expression that usually is used to qualify the “unexplainable” violent deeds using the false dichotomy “insecurity-security”, “violence-non-violence”, so in-fashion in these days of ultra imposition of the citizenship’s ideology.

At this point – with the intention of avoiding distortions -, it would be needed to underline the anarchists fight for the elimination of violence. Is to say, we fight against the present brutal force in the social relations. We fight against the systemic violence, or what is the same, we fight for the eradication of the capitalist violence and State terrorism. Logically, the only way to fight the systemic violence is to use antagonistic violence.

With this, we try to make clear that our critique is not to the guns per se, our critique is to the cult of arms that is done by certain armed groups. For such reason, our discussion is not centered in the use of guns but what is wanted to be achieved through their use. The arms are not the problem but who carries them and for what purpose is using them. In other words, it establishes the difference between the organization of vanguard party structure (by consequence authoritarian) and the informal, horizontal and autonomous configuration, therefore anti-authoritarian. Of course, the subject is not limited to an issue of forms. In this discussion arises an underlying problem. It’s a question of values, it’s an ethical dilemma: it is the question between means and goals. The contradiction that, logically, is erased by the authoritarian groups by justifying the “necessity” of any mean to achieve the goal. Even if, in general, that is the conquest of the State’s power or the imposition of an Order, whether it is an ideological or religious one (sorry for the redundancy).

For us, the issue is much more complex because it has to do with the anti-authoritarian struggle. We don’t fight to conquer the State nor to impose an ideological and/or religious order. We fight for total liberation, we fight against everything that dominates us. Our struggle is radical, which is to say, we go to the roots of the problems: domination, power. That’s why we really make a stand saying that the goal isn’t any other than the destruction of the system of domination. We pose the total destruction of all the complex net of contemporary domination. We don’t fight for “other possible capitalism”, as is shouted by the new millennium leftism, picking up the old Leninist thesis of the end of “war communism” and the implementation of NEP, with whom the State capitalism started in the former USSR. Neither we fight for the imposition of the “proletarian” State or the “proletarian dictatorship”, euphemisms to refer to the dictatorship of the unique party, generally headed by some sort of omnipresent messiah that exercises his mandate of “great leader” in an absolutist form. True authoritarian regimes that in practice have shown to be a giant retrogress for the emancipatory struggles.

Without doubts, all this ethical questioning, has always prevented “tactical” alliances and has limited our coordination with other political groups, with whom we saw ourselves being forced to “make company” in very brief trips, having them as “travel mates”. But – I insist – were very short “trips” and, in general, in different “vehicles”. Naturally, this brought up with it the regular condemnation by these political groups that accuse us of “sectarianism” due to being unable to understand this unchangeable posture of anarchism. And it’s normal that they fall in this kind of “reasoning” from their opportunistic positions. It cannot be another way when, firstly, different goals are being seek, and secondly when having ethical values that are completely opposed to each other. Let’s not forget, in the case of the urban guerrillas that proliferated in the decades of the 70′s and 80′s in western Europe, how lots of them, for example, in Germany, the Red Army Faction (RAF) and the Revolutionäre Zellen (Revolutionary Cells), operated with the support of Stassi (DDR secret services) and the Russian KGB and even happened to work as mercenaries under the orders of Saddam Husseins and Al-Fatah. Putting in evidence what we were focusing about the ethical differences and the incompatibility in the issue of means and goals. Undoubtedly for Leninist organizations there was no contradiction in collaborating and coordinate themselves with the minions of the German and Russian secret polices. From their perspective, focused to the take over of the State’s power, all these repressive agencies were “tactical” allies. With that bipolar vision of the East-West “confrontation” and the ideological confront between the “yankee’s imperialism” and the “Russian model”, everything was reduced to the simplistic scheme of “good ones” and “evil ones”, where the “good ones” were the Russian imperialism and its satellite States with their repressive corps at the service of “Communism”. That logic still persists and we corroborate it with the usual exceptions that are given to the denominated “progressive governments”, making the false distinction between “good” and “bad States and, therefore, silencing the abuses done by these “progressive governments” and justifying them with anti-imperialistic rhetoric, with the Machiavellic conceptions of “the enemy of the enemy is my friend” and with the social-democratic bet for the “lesser evil”.

Getting back to our subject. As Txema Bofill, an ex-member of the Groupes d’Action Révolutionnaire Internationalistes (Internationalist Groups of Revolutionary Action – GARI), points very well, the great merit of the armed action groups lies in not to swallow the domination system’s old fairytale that affirms that “Nothing can be done against the State, and even less if done from the part of a rebel minority”. In fact, the antagonistic action groups don’t believe in the invulnerability of the domination system. The enemy which we fight against is in front of us, in front of our noses. In this very same instant plans the conditions of domination of today, of tomorrow and of after tomorrow, that will allow it to continue to hold the power or, that in this precise moment, is sketching new repressive models that will permit to improve the domination when it takes the power, when it gets the power of the State. Undoubtedly, that is the biggest difference that we the anarchists have with the other political groups that lots of times choose the armed struggle. Our struggle is not the struggle for the State’s power but the one for the total destruction of the State, is not for the implementation of “another possible capitalism” but for the total destruction of the Capital. Therefore, we identify in the struggle against the institutional power another instituting power that generates within it the same evils that we fight against and, in consequence, we’ll have to keep fighting against once this power gets instituted, despite the fact of how much “revolutionaries” they proclaim to be and the verbiage – with libertarian pretensions – of their speech.

And well, after this intent to unlock this theoretical-practical nodes where the ethical differences about armed struggle are rooted, it would be worth it to start to get inside the “armed struggle in urban environments” subject. As a start, it would be needed to highlight that the origins of the so-called “urban guerilla” – despite the ones that took advantage of it through the years – is hundred per cent anarchist, as a concept, as organizational model and as strategy of struggle. It should be pointed out that the first manual where the subject of armed struggle was theorized, was elaborated in 1965, by the anarchist Abraham Guillén, during his exile in Uruguay, with the title “Estratégia de guerrilla urbana” (Urban guerilla strategy) – four years before Carlos Marighella had written the “Small manual of the urban guerilla”, inspired by the works of Guillén. In that same year, he would publish “Theory of violence”.

Also what would be needed to be remembered is that the most remote sparks of “urban guerilla” date back to that redundancy that’s usually called “illegal anarchism” and that we already have spoke about in other occasions. With this derogatory term, the differences between the anarchist practice and a pretended legal “anarchism” (concretely immobilizer and ideologically platonic, that would bet – and still does – in the human evolution) would be fixed. The ones who built the bases for the development of the denominated “urban guerilla”, with their tireless and consequent action against domination, were the 19th century’s “illegal” anarchists. Among these comrades’ basic principles are noticed the “direct action” and the “autonomy”, which is to say, the action without intermediaries nor hierarchies and the absolute freedom and independence of the groups and individuals. From this perspective, were developed methods of action according with such ethical values, attending in a punctual manner to the correspondence of means and goals. Among these methods we identify the “propaganda by the deed”, the “retaliations” (or attacks against representatives or ombudsmen of domination) and the “expropriation”. The majority of times, these actions would interrelate with each other and were and are – because we also exist in the 21st century – complementary to each other. Besides, these actions were almost always done (and are done) by the same affinity groups, although not all the groups necessarily incur in all the practices. Sometimes there are groups more dedicated to expropriation or to the propaganda by the deed or to attacks. However – going a bit deeper in the interaction between these methods of struggle – there are groups and/or individuals that, although are dedicated solely to the expropriation activities, they are in solidarity with the armed action groups through the donation of their expropriations’ product, destined to the acquisition of prime material needed for the fabrication of explosives or to buy ammunitions, etc.

Besides, we would have to insist, that this way of acting didn’t get circumscribed to the 19th century but that it kept on as modus operandi through out the 20th century and still keeps on as an anarchist practice in the 21st century. The profusion of anarchist armed groups had its zenith in the dawn of the 20th century in Europe, United states and all over Latin America, especially in Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Uruguay and Mexico, through the use of “retaliations”, propaganda by the deed and expropriations, in the urban environments. At the end of the 19th century the big urban zones had been converted in the natural center of the capitalist development, concentrating the industries, the banks, as well as the different power institutions. In their streets would grow the contradictions between the opulent bourgeoisie and the exploited and oppressed workers, a situation that would offer a group of conditions that would facilitate social confrontation. This allowed the development of antagonistic structures formed by small cells of action based on affinity among comrades. On the other hand, these small cells, of between five and ten comrades, would coordinate in an informal way with other affinity groups at the hour of doing joint actions, reaching a certain irregular strength without sacrificing their autonomy. Such ways of acting would give them mobility and would allow them to insure a maximum of effectiveness and a minimum of risk which turns impossible an “efficient” repression from the part of domination, as was pointed out recently by the Mexican insurrectionist and eco-anarchist groups, in a collective communiqué. This way of acting and organizing would serve as paradigm to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist Federation – FAI), a group that pushed forward the conditions that concluded in the attempts of Social Revolution during the installation of the 2nd Republic in the Spanish State.

The defeat of anarcho-syndicalism in 1939, would give space to put in practice the urban guerilla strategy against the nationalist military dictatorship. The anarchists in the Spanish State would combat Francoism, organizing the first urban guerillas in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Granada, Valencia and Zaragoza. For almost two decades, from 1939 to 1957, the cells of the anarchist urban guerilla would put in check the Francoist dictatorship. In Catalonia the cells coordinated by Quico Sabaté and José Luís Facerías would stand out. In Málaga, Córdoba and even Madrid, the battle was being done by the anarchist group of António Raya, whom had found refugee in the mountains but would operate in the cities using the most unpredictable costumes reaching the point of masking themselves as military and priests several times. In Granada the group of the Quero brothers would be noticed by the spectacularity of their actions. The end of the harassment to the Francoist dictatorship and the pronounced diminishing of the anarchist revolutionary action, not only would be the logic consequence of the Francoist repression but also would be the product of the obscene negotiations between the “anarcho”-syndicalists of Madrid’s CNT with the Vertical Syndicates, that, mixed with immobility of CNT in the exile – that, paradoxically was controlled by FAI -, would provoke a strong internal split unleashing a fractional struggle that would lead to the profound decadence of the Spanish Libertarian Movement.

At the beginnings of the 60′s decade, a new generation of anarchists residing in the Spanish State and in exile, would substitute the one fallen, continuing the strategy of urban guerilla, developing the clandestine struggle and putting a full stop to the immobility of CNT and FAI in the exile and to the coward surrender of CNT Madrid. In July 1965 the FIJL (Federacion Iberica de Juventudes Libertárias – Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth), would release one communiqué where it was stated: “We consider that the supreme objectives of the “tolerated opposition”, followed by the “classical opposition”, limited to the simple petition of “SYNDICAL FREEDOM” and “RIGHT TO STRIKE”, should be overwhelmed by a more general, more concrete, more urgent and more positive demand: FREEDOM TO ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS”. The libertarian youngsters, consistent with their principles, pronounced themselves for the “action groups’ autonomy” and stated as definitive “the rupture of contacts with the immobilistic sector represented by the CNT’s Intercontinental Office”, convinced that immobility was an “inseparable phenomenon of the legal existence of the libertarian organizations”.

April 30th 1966, the Italian media informs of the “mysterious disappearance of Monseigneur Marcos Ussía, church counsellor of the Spanish embassy in Vatican”. May the 1st, Luís A. Edo, would vindicate the kidnap of the diplomat-priest done by an anarchist group that demanded in exchange the release of the political prisoners kept in the Francoist prisons. May 3rd, would be published in the newspaper Avanti, a communiqué signed by the Grupo Primero de Mayo (Sacco y Vanzetti) (Group 1st of May (Sacco and Vanzetti)), where could be read: “We are a group of Spanish anarchists that have seen ourselves forced to use this form of action in order to make the Spanish ambassador in the “Santa Sede” to send a petition to the Pope, in order to this last one publicly demand to General Franco’s government, the freedom to all Spanish democrats (workers, intellectuals and young students) condemned to different sentences in the Francoist prisons […]”. With Grupo Primero de Mayo’s action, the anarchists would restart the antagonistic action in the Spanish state, under the flag of direct solidarity with the imprisoned comrades. According to Telesforo Tajuelo, beyond the theoretical differences, this insistence in solidarity would be, years later, the identification and connection point between the Grupo Primero de Mayo and GARI.

Since its beginning, the Grupo Primero de Mayo defended the coordination among the anti-authoritarian action groups across the world, putting the emphasis on the autonomy of the antagonistic groups. In such a way that, in the 20th of August 1967, the Movimiento de Solidaridad Revolucionária Internacional (International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement – MSRI) it would make its public presentation, having the Grupo Primero de Mayo as one of the most active components. That day, the American embassy would be strafed in London, an action claimed by MSRI. In November 12th 1967, eight embassies and two governmental offices were completely destroyed by very strong dynamite devices, in an action coordinated in different European cities. The 10 attacks with bombs were claimed by MSRI. In Bonn, Germany, were attacked the embassies of Greece, Spain and Bolivia; in Rome, Italy, the Venezuelan embassy; in The Hague, Holland, the embassies of USA, Greece and Spain; in Madrid, Spain, the North American embassy; in Milan, Italy and Geneva, Switzerland, the tourist offices of the Spanish government.

At the end of 1967, the Movimiento 22 de Marzo (22nd March Movement), releases in Paris several thoughts that will establish the theoretical bases that differentiate the anti-authoritarian action from the “focoism” that was imposed as a trend among the leftist groups, making clear that: “It’s imperative to abandon the theory of “leading vanguard” and to adopt the -much more honest- concept of active minority, that plays a function of permanent ferment, promoting the action without wanting to direct it. The strength of our movement comes, precisely, from the fact that it is sustained in an “uncontrollable” spontaneity, that impulses, without pretending to channel, without wanting to use it for its own benefit, the action that it started”. These premises would be considered by the MSRI and the posterior configurations: the Movimiento Iberico de Liberacion (Iberian Liberation Movement – MIL), GARI and, in the 80′s decade, the Comandos Autónomos Anticapitalistas (Anti-capitalist Autonomous Commandos – CCAA).

In the first days of April 1968, in vespers of the demolishing “French may”, the Grupo Primero de Mayo, sent a document to all the anarchist groups titled “For an international anarchist practice” where was pointed the existence of a “status quo” imposed by the States that pretended to be “irreconcilable” (USA, China, USSR) that counted with a wide spectrum of subjected countries conforming satellite circuits. So, given this fact, the anarchists should not only reaffirm their strong anti-statism but, more than that, to assume a rebellious attitude, of permanent conflict, taking as standard the critique to authoritarianism.

With these proposals, would flourish uncountable anti-authoritarian action groups in urban contexts, not only in Europe but also in the United States and Latin America. Highlighting in Germany, the Zentralrat der umherschweifenden Haschrebellen (Central council nomadic hash rebels), a group that year and a half after the assassination of a student at the hands of police, during the protests for the visit of the Shah in 1967, will radicalize, forming together with other anti-authoritarian groups, the Bewegung 2. Juni (2ndof June Movement -2JM), the most determined “anarchist guerilla” in Federal Germany. In Great Britain, around the same time, would appear on stage the popular Angry Brigade. This anarchist armed group would maintain the harassment against the system of domination for almost one decade, doing antagonistic actions since 1969 until 1984. It would be worldwide famously known in 1972, with the trial of 8 of its members in High Court. These fightful anarchists not only received heavy sentences from the enemy’s side but also the condemnation of the so-called wide left. The repudiation towards this anarchist structure was not only limited to the circles of the typical tolerated opposition, but also from the part of the so-called “organized anarchism”, which is to say, from the member clubs and acronyms, who were condemning them as “terrorists”, “adventurers” and “individualists”.

This populist vision that condemns a priori the action of the conscientious minorities, betting for the “revolutionary” evolution of the big herds, instead of understanding the function of the “permanent ferment” that the acting minority performs in the development of the anti-authoritarian conscience, still persists in certain anarchist sectors. The problems the Angry Brigade faced, were the same that were experienced by the active antagonistic groups in their times; without mattering so much their theoretical positions. All the groups that would deny the limits that the State imposes and would opt to overcome legality, radicalizing the struggles, were -and are- condemned by the extra-parliamentary social organizations, boxed in legalism. From the “workers movement” -still alive those years – to the legal anarchism, passing from the communist parties. Naturally, this phenomenon would repeat itself everywhere without establishing major differences between Leninists and anarchists. The ones that would opt for the armed struggle, the ones that were giving life to the antagonistic violence, would receive the unanimous condemnation from the social organizations and from the organized left in general.

In the United States, the history would be repeated, with groups such as the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Also these armed groups were isolated by the “revolutionary” social organizations and condemned as “provocative” and “individualistic terrorists” that motivated the repression and, therefore, were a threat for the growth of the “mass movement” and of the “militant organization”. The testimonies of Martin Sostre of SLA about this subject, in which he affirms that the condemnation of SLA from the side of the left media was identical to the one done by the dominant class, are recollected in the compilation done by comrade Jean Weir about the Angry Brigade. According to Sostre: “The left movement’s press wants to make us believe that in order to overthrow the dominant class, we simply have to organize mass movements, protest demonstrations and to repeat revolutionary slogans”.

The condemnation from the social organizations, from the syndicates and from the “communist” parties, was based on what they denominated of “Anarchist syndrome”. In effect, by following to the letter the suggestions of Guillén’s Manual, as it was done even by the “anti-imperialist” urban guerillas, they inscribed their action in the anarchist logic, is to say, they were focused in the constant harassment to the domination system attacking its most known representatives and their faithful keepers. They recurred to expropriation, to documents forgery, to retaliation, to the propaganda by the deed, to police executions, etc. That’s how groups like RAF, Red Brigades, the SLA, even -here in Mexico- the Liga Comunista 23 Septiembre (Communist League 23rd September) would be cataloged, by the “specialists” on the issue, as “anarchist” groups.

From this side of the puddle, around these same years, I would highlight in Uruguay the Organización Popular Revolucionaria 33 Orientales (Popular Organization 33 Orientals – OPR 33), the armed hand of the Federacion Anarquista Uruguaya (Uruguayan Anarchist Federation – FAU) that made its presence public in 1966 as counter-measure to the focoism of the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional – Tupamarus (National Liberation Movement Tupamarus – MLN-T). However, the Leninist contamination and the nationalist inclinations, not only would provoke the debacle of FAU but as time passed would lead to the formation of a vanguard party structure: the Partido de la Victoria del Pueblo (People’s Victory Party – PVP), as logical consequence of its Bolshevik deviation, to finish in our days as electoral party. Something similar would happen with the anarchist urban guerilla in Germany. The legendary 2nd of June Movement, would finish its days in 1980 with lots of its members joining RAF. If on the one hand their presence imposed a lightly libertarian stamp that would lead RAF to a prolonged process of re-thinking that would finish in its self-dissolution, on the other, the fusion with this Leninist group closed the possibilities of reproduction of anarchist armed groups in Germany.

Although being undeniable, as we have pointed out before, the anarchist etymology of the “urban guerilla”, nowadays, among the anarchist groups of antagonistic action is being put forward a deep discussion about the very concept of “guerilla” and the methodology that is inherit to it. In the last years of the 70′s and beginnings of the 80′s of the last century, there was noticed a decrease of the “classical” urban guerilla, which gave origin to a “new type” of urban guerilla that even questions the belonging to this strategy of irregular war. The year of 1976 and mainly, the Italian spring of 77 and the denominated “days of reflection” of January 1978, marked the deepening of the critique about the guerilla issue. The irruption of “Azione Revoluzionaria” (Revolutionary Action – AR) and its feminist structure: “Azione Revoluzionaria – Autonomia Femminista” (Revolutionary Action-Feminist Autonomy – AR-AF), would re-contextualize the issue of the anarchist urban guerilla in Italy. Even though, these structures admit in their “First theoretical document”, dating from January 1978, that they were born with one eye on RAF’s experience and the development of the struggles in Federal Germany and, with the other eye, centered in the particularities of the Italian anti-authoritarian movement that didn’t find any identification with the several armed vanguards that were conducting the guerilla warfare during those days. Like wise, they were deepening the critique to the leadership role that was deployed by these groups of the same style as the Red Brigades and putting forward a different organizational proposal, based on informal coordination and affinity groups where “the traditional link is substituted by relations based in sympathy, characterized by a maximum of reciprocal intimacy, conscience and trust between its members”, recommending them to remain as small nuclei in order to be able to conserve the characteristics that make able the organization based in affinity and to avoid possible infiltrations, guaranteeing a maximum of effectiveness with a minimum of risks.

In the same text, they would re-affirm (as some sort of actualization of the struggle and as a reliable proof of critique’s deepening) that “the new movement not only rejects the historical Sovietic Marxist monsters and the hybrid of the Italian Marxism” but also “rejects the myth of proletarian as a revolutionary class, a myth that has conducted the movement to a dead-end alley since 1968 until nowadays”. The really transcendent thing is that this is asserted by the AR’s comrades in a document from the 70′s! Assuring that the fact of having “got rid” of such a myth “will unleash energies from which the 77′ movement is just a foreshadow”. On the same hand, “Azione Revoluzionaria” would affirm in this “First theoretical document”, that the new movement doesn’t relegate the combat to “the classes” but “assumes it in the first person” underlying that “the direct action gets back to the individuals conscious of themselves as individuals that can transform their destiny and taking back the control of their own lives”. In this way “recognizes the inadequacy of the old socialist project in its several versions” and highlights that “all institutions and values of the hierarchical society have sold-out their functions”, insisting in the fact that doesn’t exist “any social reason” to save them. “These institutions and values, together with the city, the school, etc., have reached their historical limits. It’s all the social universe that is in the tunnel of the crisis […] But, precisely, in the way that now the crisis invests all the fields contaminated by domination, more the reactionary aspects of the socialist project are exposed, whether it is Maoist, Trostskyist, or Stalinist, that conserves the concepts of hierarchy, authority and State, as part of the post-revolutionary future and, as consequence, also conserves the values of property – “nationalized” – and class – “proletarian dictatorship”.

As if they would have written their document this morning, “Azione Revoluzionaria” correctly points: “The critical, constructive and utopian presence is a necessary condition but is not enough, such presence cannot be hegemonic nowadays, in parallel it is needed to develop a negative critical presence, destructive of the on-going processes. The destructive critique, the armed critique is, nowadays, the only force capable of turning any emancipatory project, credible and reliable […] The social and political forces are increasingly automatized in the masses and are more and more dependent of the State, they don’t have any other arm than the forced consensus, imposed by the terror to prevent by any means the increasing antagonism. The Father capital has called its faithful ones to recuperation. The defense to-the-death of the State, or in a better way, of its terrorist reinforcement, is what unites them.”

As if this categorical critique of the first days of 1978 could seem not enough, Azione Revoluzionaria would distribute a call during the III Congress of IAF (International of Anarchist Federations), celebrated from 23 to 26 of March of that same year in the city of Carrara, where it would be proposed a theoretical-practical “renovation” and an update of the anarchist “intervention methods” that it is worth it to take a look at; mainly, to those comrades that always insist in the “concrete” proposals, perceiving the propositions as “lines to follow”, for they don’t assume critique and reflection as indispensable tools to put the direct action in practice, renouncing to decide, having as starting point the reflective critique, what path to follow. In such a leaflet, AR would specify: “We make a call to all the anarchist comrades, gathered in this umpteenth congress, and that aren’t still sclerotic and old before time, due to the constant and exhausting task of frequenting the scene, some in the role of actors, others as spectators, of the Congregational assembly representation, and to the comrades that haven’t yet exhausted all their revolutionary spirit and energy in a practice that makes from waiting and defense its main prerogatives.” Comrades, I insist – just to not someone to think that this text was handled in the last Anarchist Congress in the Autonomous National University of Mexico – this leaflet was written in March 1978.

In that same text, they were exhorting the anarchists gathered in Carrara, to relocate the theoretical-practical scaffolding according to the needs of the moment: “Comrades, lets renovate ourselves once again, lets march side by side with the times or, even better, lets try to prevent the times. How can we pretend to be incisive if our methods of intervention, the already small theoretical propaganda, turned to be obsolete and exhausted reducing anarchism to a sterile and fruitless opinion movement, only capable of acting in the defensive terrain each time that power throws its repressive arrows […] Comrades, lets abandon the politics of slogans, of the schemes, of the information generated, in fact, a hundred years ago […].“

Undoubtedly, 33 years after that historical call of Azione Revoluzionaria, the abandonment of our old diagrams of organization and action and, the theoretical-practical renovation of anarchism, keeps being one of our pendent signatures. This fact shows to us, without doubts, how, since always, the anarchists have sought forms to update the theoretical-practical scaffolding that sustains us and to configure new organizational structures, overcoming the precedents – tolerated or ignored by the domination due to consider them inoffensive – with the goal of reconfiguring ourselves according to the context that we have to live, in order to give the needed weapons to the frontal struggle against the system of domination.

Despite the adverse interests of the “anarchist” officialism, those approaches of the late 70′s, would generate an intense polemic in the interior of our ambients, which would keep being shaped until starting to delineate the actual insurrectionist tendency. The debate around the destructive critique of the system of domination by means of antagonistic violence, by armed struggle, the propaganda by the deed, the expropriation and the direct attack against the power representatives, as strategy leading to the self-organization of the struggle and the spreading of insurrection, would generalize in wide sectors of the antagonistic anarchism, reaching an international dimension. “Appointments for an internal and external discussion”, would be the document that would synthesize the concerns and reflections of the first moment of the debate and would be entirely published in Anarchismo and Contrainformazione. These deep reflections, will inevitably lead to the questioning, from an anarchist perspective, of the pertinence of “guerilla” as concept and method of struggle.

The term “guerilla”, refers to the “small war” or “minor conflict” or “of low intensity”. Therefore, it is implicit in the term, the reference to “light troops” dedicated to carry out brief attacks of harassment to the regular forces. It started to be used as tactic in Spain during the Napoleonic invasion. Forming small groups of civilians trained and commanded by experienced military men, to assure the constant attack against the occupying French troops. Since then, guerilla, as a tactic and as strategy, was used to fight any asymmetrical war. Since those times, the term was used to designate those small civilian groups militarily trained, converted in irregular “troops”, dedicated to harass the army, through fast operations, having in favour the knowledge of the operational terrain, the mobility and the surprise factor. Contrary to the conventional wars, the “guerilla warfare” is flexible, less geometrical and much more mobile.

In the particular case of “urban guerilla”, this tactic, as we have mentioned at the beginning, has its beginnings in the anarchist attack to the system of domination, with the clear goal of inflicting systematic damage to the Power institutions (State-capital and clergy) and to the representatives of domination, to the persons that exercise the power and their lackeys. Its strategy is centered in the attack at the heart of State and capital: the city. The action of the urban guerilla is destined to affect “the good functioning” of the system. The whole of its attacks will be planned against repressive institutions (policemen, judiciary men, military men, etc.), combining the “armed propaganda”, the executions, the gathering of arms and ammunition, the expropriations, the sabotage of the productive apparatus, the destruction of commodities, the solidarity with the prisoners and the attack against the centers of massive alienation. This combination of attacks seek their extension and reproduction, deploying, at the surface, the combat against domination, being conceived to develop the “revolutionary conscience” among the alienated multitude. According to this strategy, the “common people” would abandon their usual passivity and would join the insurrection, once that they would realize the vulnerability of the system of domination. Nevertheless – and here’s the contemporary anarchist critic -, the practice of the classic “urban guerilla”, requires the use of “specialists”, of specialized “technicians” and that brings the acceptance of the denominated “professional revolutionary”, the cult of the arms and a series of particular “necessities” to be attended (the safe houses, the intelligence and counter-intelligence systems, the hierarchies, etc.) that at end finish to abandon completely the anarchist ideas.

In this sense, Alfredo Bonanno, reminds us in the “Armed Joy”, that for the traditional guerilla organizations is inevitable to fall into the technocratic danger, because, more sooner than later, they finish imposing their “technicians”. In this pamphlet, he points to us that the insurrectionist structure that finds the joy in the action directed to the destruction of domination “considers the means used to carry out such destruction as instruments, as means. The ones who use those instruments shouldn’t be converted into their slaves. As well as the ones that don’t know how to use them should not be transformed into slaves of those who know how to use them. The dictatorship of the means is the worst of the dictatorships […] It is needed to develop a critique of the arms. We have seen too much worshipping of the gun-machine and of military efficiency. The armed struggle is not something that only concerns the arms. The arms cannot represent, by themselves, the revolutionary dimension. It is dangerous to reduce the complex reality to only one dimension and to only one object. In fact, the game has this risk, of reducing the vital experiment to a toy, converting it into something magical and absolute. It is not by chance that the gun machine appears as a symbol of many combatant revolutionary organizations. We should go more forward in order to understand the deep meaning of struggle as pleasure, escaping from the illusions and traps of the representation of the commodified spectacle by mythical or mythified objects.” So, he suggests to us, to refuse all the roles, including the one of “professional revolutionary” with the objective of “breaking the magical siege of the commodity’s dramaturgy”, conscientious that the armed struggle has to avoid the division of tasks and the assignment of roles imposed by the ideology of production, refusing professionalism.

The “moral” that underlies this reflection, we repeat it again, doesn’t place the problems in the arms but in who uses them, how he uses them and for what; it centers it in the type of structure that is developed and in the role of the insurrectionist minorities. The obsolete about the classical “urban guerilla” is its “technical specialization”, is to say, the preponderant role that is given to the knowledge of the arms, their worship and the role of the “professional revolutionary”, together with all infra-structure that this supposes. This reflection makes clear that it’s not enough to spread the struggle everywhere but that it must be spread to each aspect of our daily life. That is where the self-organization of the struggle and the development of the antagonistic “factions”, of the active minorities, is rooted,. From the side of the anarchist reflection – based on the experience of the struggles -, we have understood the recuperative role of the old Leninist structures, and so we have reaffirmed our values of direct action to face the inflexible schemes of “professionalization” of the struggle, invalidated beforehand in the contemporary social war against the renovated domination.

We are conscientious that the antagonistic minorities run the risk of transforming themselves in the radical spectacle of the struggles if in the impulse of the permanent confrontation they are not able to articulate the spreading of the struggle through the development of the antagonistic conscience. The awareness of the anti-authoritarian conscience passes, unquestionably, by a process of secession. By a point of total rupture with the system of domination. The system has penetrated the DNA of the “citizen”. The State and the Capital are part of our body. That’s why they exist, because we reproduce them at each step. That is the reason why we so frequently find amongst us, the unconscious defense of domination, the defense of the State-capital. Each time we ask for more work instead of struggling for the destruction of work: we ask for more capitalism. In each occasion that we demand “security”, that we demand “bigger budget” for health, education, housing, etc.: we claim for more State. That path doesn’t lead to the total liberation, it is reduced to begging for some links to make the chain a little bit bigger.

The “ORGANIZATION”, like this with capital letters, that all are so much worried about and that in practice is reduced to acronyms, guilds and sects, will be fruit of the development of the antagonistic violence and of the extension of the struggles. The social war will impose the need for an organization, that is the true advance of the real movement. The permanent antagonism of the active minorities is the proposal of attack, here and now, to the structures of domination and the ones that impersonate them, to highlight, in first place, that the enemy is vulnerable and to show that the comrades kidnapped by the State, are not alone but instead that they count on all our solidarity. The specific weight of the antagonistic minorities, of the affinity groups in permanent conflict, is not shown by the number of attacks neither by the damages that each time stronger explosions give to the enemy. The gravitation of this acting minorities lies in the contagion, in the geometrical expansion of the struggle and the arise of anti-authoritarian conscience. So, behind every explosion, every bullet, every expropriation done, behind the putting into practice of any manifestation of antagonistic violence, has always to be present our ideal, making sure that our struggle is for total liberation, for the definitive destruction of the system of domination, for Anarchy.

[crimefightingspiderguy]

left hand free

Part II to the series, i want you to want me.

Summary: (Y/N) is checking in on Peter in Germany. 

Warnings: I guess swearing? Maybe spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, but like who hasn’t seen that bad boy lol?

Pairings: Peter Parker x best friend!reader

Word count: 1,632

A/N: I’ve decided that I’m going to attempt to get this series done before I start my summer semester, so on the 15th of May, if I can’t then updates will be slow during that time, at least for a month until I finish school. Updates will ideally be 1-2 times a week since that’s about how many days I have off from work. Thanks for the support on the last part!

You anxiously pace back and forth on your kitchen floor. Lost in your thoughts, only brought to reality by the familiar ding of your phone. You let go of the breath you didn’t know you were holding. You pick up your phone and look at the text from Peter, 

P: “Just landed in Germany”

Y: “Well now that the hard part is over, have a great trip! 🙄🥴”

P: “All will be fine lol. Make sure to send me a picture of us “hanging” so I can check-in with May.”

“Hey, dad!” You called to him, hoping he could hear you from his room.

“What’s up?” He popped his head out from behind the door frame. 

“I have a strange favor to ask. Can you take a picture of me working on my Spanish project? Since Peter and I couldn’t work on it together, they want us to take pictures of each of us doing our halves so they know we didn’t just have one person do all the work.” 

“What happened with Peter coming over this weekend?” 

“Oh, it turns out he had a college recruitment thing. He didn’t think he’d qualify when he applied, so he thought he’d be able to make it. He’s gonna do his half in his hotel.” 

“Oh, alright.” Your dad takes your phone from you and snaps a picture of you leaning over the poster board, pretending to write the title for the project. He hands you back your phone. “That’s an odd request from a teacher.” 

“Well, that’s what they tell us, but we all really know that they’re just lacking in volunteers for the yearbook so they want to get some extra pictures of kids working on projects if they can.” You chuckled nervously, and took the phone back, immediately sending it to Peter. He went back to his room, telling you goodnight and to not stay up too late. “love you!” you shout as he shuts his bedroom door. 

“Back at ya kid!”

You phone bings and brings your attention back to Peter.

P: “Oh look how cute you look when you pretend to do homework 🥺”

Y: “Shut up. I hope Captain America knocks you on your ass with his shield.” 

P: “Well that’s not very nice. Maybe I should ask one of the Avengers if they’re in the market for a new best friend.”

Y: “Go ahead and do that for me because if you die then at least I’ll have someone to comfort me. Does Thor happen to be on your team? If so, I’ll gladly mourn my loss in his big strong arms 😢”

P: “As a matter of fact, he is not. Guess you’re s.o.l. Nighty night.” 

Y: “Night, try not to get yourself killed dumbass.” 

You continued working on the Spanish project throughout the night. After all, you were planning on having two people doing this, and now you have to make up for that. Well, that’s what you told yourself, you knew that you wouldn’t be able to sleep well all weekend with the thought that Peter might be in danger. But, if he really has been Spider-Man this whole time, then he’s been in danger for some time. But this seems like a different kind of danger. You’ve always know Spider-Man to be the friendly neighborhood crime fighter, but now that he’s working with the Avengers, you worried what that kind of exposure to a bigger enemy might mean for him. Maybe this is why Peter never told you, he didn’t want you to hold him back or worry constantly about him. You’d understand him not telling May because of that, but you thought that your friendship was something beyond just caring about each other. You thought it was the two of you encouraging each other and helping them to be the best version of themselves, so why didn’t he trust you with something that was so important to him? Maybe he thought you’d rat him out? But if he gave you the chance he would know that you would never go behind his back like that. Maybe this was your chance to prove that to him. Well, whatever his reasoning, you hoped he would be more honest from here on out. 

The next day you hadn’t heard anything from Peter all day. You assumed he was probably just busy, plus being in a different time zone probably didn’t help, but you still had a gnawing feeling. That was until you got a text of a picture of Peter with some locals, and you realized he was probably sightseeing until it was time to “suit up”. You smiled at the picture and saved it. He looked so genuinely happy, and you didn’t get to see that often in pictures. You realized that this was something that he was excited about. His nerves and tension you sensed when he asked you to cover for him were gone, and he was fully enjoying himself and his chance to fight with Iron Man. You sighed contently and shut off your phone, figuring it’s probably best to not have it taunting you throughout the day. 

When you finally turned your phone back on, about right before you got into bed for the night, you had a video from Peter waiting for you. It was him running around a town square and showing you all the different food carts. You chuckled, not really sure why he felt the need to share all the food carts with you of everything, but you didn’t mind. Accompanying the video is a text that says,

P: “Mr. Stark says we’re gathering at the airport in the morning because that’s where Captain America is heading, trying to escape.”

Y: “Loving the video and picture, looks like fun! Hope everything goes well tomorrow, kick some ass Pete ❤️ (oh and don’t die please)” 

P: “Oh now you want me to come back. Now that you know Thor’s not here to dry your tears?” 

Y: “I’ve always wanted you to come back, I’m just saying if you don’t… I might not be so torn up if Thor was sent to break the news to me 😉”

P: “I’ll put that in my will really quick “P.S. Send Thor to break the news to (Y/N)”.” 

Y: “I appreciate your support on this bud! Oh by the way, here’s a picture of the project finished for May, tomorrow I’m baking Mantecados so when you get back you can be my taste tester and then everything should be ready to present on Monday!” 

You’d gotten up and snapped a picture of the finished poster board. Then propped your camera on your desk so it looked about Peter's height, and set a timer. You hopped in front of the board and held your arms out in a way that someone would show off a car on a game show, and out on a big grin. You sent both to Peter so he had some options for what to send to May as proof. He responded to you after he saved them and forwarded them to May.

P: “Thank you! May is really appreciating the fun shots of you acting like poster board making is your calling. Also, I’m really looking forward to knowing absolutely nothing about our project when we present lol.” 

Y: “Hey, that’s on you lol. Read the points I have on the board on your plane ride back.” 

You set your phone down and closed your eyes, a smile on your face that you couldn’t shake. You were able to sleep peacefully knowing that for now, Peter was okay. You could worry about him tomorrow, but for now, he’s okay. 

You decided to sleep in as much as you could, since today all you had to do was go out and get some baking ingredients, then bake. You woke up around noon, which is definitely longer than you thought you’d stay in, but you weren’t mad. You were facing your alarm clock on your bedside table then turned on your back to stretch. You looked up at your ceiling and fell out of bed. 

“What the actual fuck!” You yell as you fall, scared to death.

You heard the most familiar laugh echo through your room as Peter fell from your ceiling to your bed. You stood up, grabbed your pillow and smacked him across the head. 

“Hey! It’s not my fault you’re easy to scare!” 

“No, but it is your fault that you’re a total ass.” You laugh at him, but then pause as he takes off his mask and reveals his black eye. You quickly take his face into your hands and gently rub your thumb over it.

“Who did this? I’ll kick their ass.” You said, completely forgetting that he was just fighting the oldest living Avenger.

“I’ll let Mr. Stark know to warn Cap that you’re coming for his head.” 

“Right, sorry. I did just wake up, I totally forgot you were off fighting big bad guys. So what was it like? Are you an Avenger now?” 

“It was interesting and kind of cool to be doing more than just stopping random thugs from stealing old ladies’ purses, ya know? And no, well… I’m basically an Avenger, but I think I have to wait for another assignment or something for me to prove I’m ready.” 

“Well, hopefully, they’re not needing you too much.”

“Why not? I could really do this! I could be an Avenger!”

“What about school?”

“Well I could obviously do both, I would just have to only do Avenger things when I can, but I’ll manage, I’ve been managing for a while now.” 

“Well, as long as your happy, and not dead, I’ll support you.” You chuckled, hoping that Peter would continue to trust you with his Spider-Man secrets. 

Current Taglist: @popluckbih

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Thank you, xx.

[travllingbunny]

Quarantine tag game

Thanks for tagging me, @sometimesrosy!

ARE YOU STAYING HOME FROM WORK/SCHOOL? I am staying home but not from work, because I work at home. Not just now, I always work at home, so there hasn’t been any change in that respect. The volume of work was the same as always during the last few weeks, too. I haven’t had any new work since Friday, so I’m enjoying a few days of rest, but I don’t know if this has anything to do with Corona. A few days of rest and no work has happened before. It will give me more time to clean my apartment.

IF YOU’RE STAYING HOME, WHO IS THERE WITH YOU? My two dogs and two cats. They are probably happy that they get even more time with me than usual. I think that some people don’t consider pets real company - probably people who don’t have pets - which I find funny. They are amazing company and I never feel lonely or bored. It’s never boring with them. Taking the dogs out two times a day, having to feed the cats 6-7 times a day or however often they start mewing and asking for food (especially the kitten - the young one is just 9 months old), having to stand guard to make sure dogs don’t steal cat food :D and all the petting and displays of affection.

ARE YOU A HOMEBODY? Not really? But I’m also not not a homebody? LOL Normally, I enjoy going out and meeting people; I have salsa classes two times a week, which are really fun; I go clubbing on weekends; and my favorites are the Language Cafe type events, which used to be up to 3 times a week before the Coronavirus situation started (these are events for people to meet and practice languages, where you can just come, choose the table with the language you want to practice, introduce yourself and join the conversation). I go to concerts, film festivals, public lectures/debates etc. 

But at the same time, I don’t mind staying at home, and I’ve had experience in having to stay for a week or two when I had a ton of work and tight deadlines. I talk to people a lot via phone, Viber, Whatsupp and social media, exchange memes and satirical articles about the current situation, etc. I’m online a lot, and I’m trying to finally catch up/check out some of the many TV shows, movies and books I have on my watchlist/readlist and do other stuff I never had enough time for.

AN EVENT THAT YOU WERE LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT GOT CANCELLED? I don’t think it’s been officially cancelled yet (?), but I doubt that the Tindersticks concert in early May is gonna be happening. I had already bought the ticket so I hope it gets postponed. I’ve also bought a ticket for a Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds concert in early June (it’s probably too optimistic to hope that will happen?) and a Pixies concert in early September (I don’t have to worry about that one, do I?)

WHAT MOVIES HAVE YOU WATCHED RECENTLY? Since the curfew started, I’ve watched just a few movies that happened to be on TV  - which were all very different, but I wasn’t impressed by any of them (Divergent, Ironclad, and Francis Ha). 

The last time I was in cinema was for the FEST film festival, which ended on 8 March, and I watched Jojo Rabbit on the closing night. I really loved it. Before that, at the same festival, I watched Apocalypse Now: The Final Cut, Blood Quantum (pretty good Canadian horror that’s a different take on the zombie epidemic genre, as it takes place in a First Nation reserve, most characters/actors are First Nation and it deals with social issues), Spanish period drama by Alejandro Amenabar  Mientras dure la guerra (During the War) about the Spanish Civil War and Miguel de Inamuno’s role in the events, The Lighthouse (really good, really dark psychological horror drama that can have a bunch of interpretations) and Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmush’s zombie comedy with some very on-the-nose social commentary).

WHAT SHOWS ARE YOU WATCHING? The list is pretty long! Some shows I’ve been watching on TV include: Peaky Blinders (really good!), Babylon Berlin (still in season 1), Penny Dreadful (I’m almost finished - I didn’t like season 1 that much but it got much better in seasons 2 and 3), Wynonna Earp (not great but it’s just a fun show with some cool actors/characters). I'm about to finish S1 of The Witcher and I want to rewatch it immediately to figure out the timelines. I’m finishing my rewatch of The 100 and I’m going to resume my rewatch of Agents of SHIELD (hopefully I can finish it by its premiere date, 27 May). Also watching Outlander season 5, Harley Quinn, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, need to catch up on Roswell: New Mexico, Prodigal Son and Stumptown and finish The Outsider, and have recently started The Plot Against America and Mindhunter (the latter because my best friend has recommended it). I’ve even checked out the pilot of Lucifer, which I may or may not continue soon, and I’m continuing with 12 Monkeys season 1. And I intend to check out Kingdom. Quite a mix of genres there.

WHAT MUSIC ARE YOU LISTENING TO? I haven’t listened to that much music lately as I used to, but my routine for putting myself to sleep is to turn on MTV Rocks (or the Rock Alternative radio channel) on my TV, in low volume, program the sleep function for 2 hours, and go to bed. It works like a charm. I always have trouble falling asleep in silence. 

Other than that, I’ve been listening to a lot of Haelos since I first discovered them when I heard their song “Alone” in season 6 of The 100, and I’ve listened to othe songs from The 100 and Tree Adams’ soundtrack for season 3.

WHAT ARE YOU READING? Before all this, I borrowed 3 books from the American Corner library: Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Beloved and Tea Obrecht’s The Tiger’s Wife.  I’m reading The Bluest Eye at the moment, but I’m also going to finally start reading GRRM’s Fire and Blood, which I had never found time for.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR SELF-CARE? The usual stuff I do - a bit of exercise, nurturing bath once a week, regular skin care. But last week, I also had to make an effort to relax and try to lower my level of stress and blood pressure, thanks to something that happened last Sunday. 

Rant incoming....If you don’t want to read about my bad experience with the police and idiotic government measures, stop now.

Namely, the idiotic government of my country has imposed “measures” which are supposed to be against the spread of Coronavirus but mostly don’t make any sense - they are constantly extending curfew and changing the time of it, and have changed the times when dog owners are allowed to walk their dogs. At one point, it seemed like there was no allowed time for that in the evening or afternoon. You had to listen to the news all the time (and listening to news and the President’s speeches is one of the things that annoys me the most) to figure these things out. And the weekend before last was their first experiment in an extra-long 3 day curfew, which I wasn’t even aware of, when they actually had the police patrol and arrest people for just walking on their own (or, in one case, a young farmer in his tractor - two days after the minister of agriculture said on TV that farmers would be exempt from the curfew - they changed it). So I got manhandled, put in handcuffs and taken to the station for walking my dogs all on my own, with no one else around (which is endangering people and helping the spread of Corona - how exactly??!) where i had to sit for 2 hours while a cop was writing stuff down from the records, and about 60 other cops walked right by me, 10 of whom didn’t have masks, while 3 had but pulled them up/down, then in a police car with 3 other people they picked up - who can’t sit any further than half a meter from you as there’s not enough room, then about 1.5 hours more at the court, with a bunch of other people (and everyone was sitting right next to each other - I was the only one who was like “Nope” and stood a couple of meters away from the others), where they passed the judgment that I have to pay a fine of almost 450 EUR - the amount that’s prescribed for everyone. (And in Serbia, that’s about 1.5 of the minimum wage. I can pay my bills for 3 months from that amount.) Turns out, they arrested some 700-800 people that weekend, so I guess they’re gonna extort a lot of money from the people - if all of them are able to pay it within 15 days (which I doubt. I can withdraw the money from the bank, but I don’t think everyone can). My temperature, pulse and probably blood pressure went up immediately and took an entire week to come down - due to stress, a lot of anger and fear - I had my mask and gloves, but that was still the most close contact and exposure to a lot of other people, much more than I’ve had in weeks. I yelled and ranted and told them that they’re the ones putting others and themselves in danger of contracting Corona, and they probably knew I was right, but it makes no difference -  President Vučić is either an idiot who actually thinks the virus is lurking outside in the air to jump at people, but only during the hours he decides, or, more likely, he doesn’t care, but is a wannabe dictator who likes to act self-important and playact at imposing “strict but necessary measures”.

/end rant. Sorry about that. But that’s why I bought a temperature meter and blood pressure meter, because I was having high temperature, heart palpitations and pressure in my chest, which hasn’t happened to me in a long time (I was also starting to feel PMS, which added to it and didn’t help, but is normally nowhere near as bad when I’m not stressed out) so I needed a lot of self-care last week - which included tranquilizers, but mostly trying my best to relax and feel better. And I’m finally well now and close to how I was before the whole arrest idiocy.

Tagging @jeanie205 @kizo2703 @weareagentsofnothing @turtle-paced @wolfheartgirl @theatre-steph @selflessbellamy @mytly4 @katersann @linzzmorgan100 @immortalpramheda @iishallbelieve @misskittyspuffy @marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @angearia @ladyofthefrostfangs - I know some of you have already been tagged, I’m sorry if you’ve already done it but I haven’t seen it, in which case I’look for it on your blog. Sorry to everyone I didn’t tag, too.