#it might gave been south africa

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

so my brother just asked me how many millimetres are in a centimetres, and yesterday he asked me what 5½ inches is in centimetres, and i just want to know what about me made him think id know conversions.

yes, i have a lot of eclectic information in my brain, but its never useful stuff like conversions. theres a reason my friends labelled me the resident mormon expert, and not the one you go to for useful stuff.

[beatrixstonehill2]

"This is..... so much more thrilling than I ever could've imagined! I think I'm beginning to sympathize with women who drop everything to become trad wives or porn stars. Kidding...... maybe. As you all know my team were tasked with moving to South Africa for a five-year archaeological expedition, I guess you could say. My team are all women, and we were warned that the customs in this region of South Africa are very relaxed toward women. Almost like the deep south in the US right now. I told them we'd be pretty far from major population centers and it shouldn't be an issue but..... that was apparently wrong information.

We arrived and saw our lodging was right in the middle of a charming small town near the quarry my team intended to study. Immediately we were met by local guides who gave us the rundown. We'd be driven into the city twice a week for major shopping, otherwise we'd stay in this town. We were checked out by a local doctor, who had us strip naked, asking us about our sex lives, history of partners. The man laughed when we all said we slept with under ten men each, handing us our own vial of fertility drugs, assuring us that number would get higher very quickly.

Our guide told us to be respectful and not spurn the curiosity of locals, especially the men, in both the city and the town we'd be calling home for five years. Immediately, upon waking up the next day, a group of fishermen, all in their twenties and thirties came upon us. They were some of the most fit, chiseled men I'd ever laid eyes on. All of them wearing only shorts, their heavy erections visibly pressing against the fabric. We said hello, and before we knew it we were being passed around like mere toys. I guess the rumors of a certain group of men having large endowments is..... very much true. I'd never been fucked so hard in my life. Most men I've slept with were so clumsy and afraid to do anything I might deem offensive. These men did not care one bit about my pleasure, or even my safety. They were studs in the truest sense! We were fragile mares, helpless like maidens as we were held down and brutally fucked for hours.

When they finished, our holes flooded with what had to be a liter or more of semen, we looked at each other, and despite having been essentially gang raped, we all agreed it was the most thrilling, glorious sexual experience of our lives. So, spurn we did not! All of us made sure to wear skirts and dresses so our holes were readily accessible for the locals. Needless to say the constant sexual intervention has delayed our expedition quite a bit. We've all lost tally of how many men have fucked us. Thousands, by my estimation, and it's wonderful to know I'm so sexually experienced now! I very quickly stopped seeing it as rape, more so I was fulfilling my womanly duties to the local men. I daresay this is how humanity fared for thousands of years before puritanical religions ruined everything.

We've been here a year and four months. We're all five months along with our second batch of children. These pregnancies are looking markedly larger than our first. It's so exciting to see our wombs expand so quickly. To our surprise the men did not simmer down whatsoever as we became immensely pregnant with at least triplets. On the contrary, the larger our uteruses stuck out, the more men would rush over to ram their shockingly large cocks into us. It's incredible to realize what my body was always capable of! I always treated sex so daintily, soft and erotic, come to find out my body was capable of being forty weeks pregnant, my womb filled to the bursting point with four kicking, ten-pound children, as dozens of men pound away at my swollen, dilated sex. My body has taken so well to this I feel like I'm finally achieving its true purpose. Seeing my body endure so much sex, cocks forcing their way into my holes so large they're less fit to impregnate a girl than scramble her innards.

It's naturally grinded our professional affairs to a halt. But I don't see any of us complaining, in fact I'm looking forward to getting so pregnant I might lose the ability to get up and walk, like many local girls. It's positively thrilling to consider I might be little more than a bed-bound, fuckable womb in a few short moths, my sex wettens are the mere thought. The quarry has been there for hundreds of thousands of years, I'm sure it can wait. Until then, I think I'll ask that local doctor to increase our fertility drugs, on a scientific level I'm morbidly curious to see just how many kids can fit in my womb. It's so exciting! I'm hoping I be filled with over twenty, imagine, all those men pounding away at my poor body, as I stare at my towering belly, pinning me down, an entire classroom of children writhing away inside me. Such a thing..... would necessitate repeat testing for many years to come. Not sure we'll be making the five-year deadline. But that's fine, I don't mind calling this place home far longer."

[rationalisms]

could you recommend an indie game that does disco elysium or its kind of game better? (/genuine)

i'd be happy to recommend some games to you for sure!

but i would like to preface this by saying that my point (which is hard to explain in a pithy tag aside to be fair lol) isn't necessarily that these will be "better" than disco elysium. that's incredibly hard to quantify anyway since so much of this is based on taste. e.g. i disliked some things about DE other people loved (like the pacing) even though i overall had a good time with the game.

it's more that the way people were talking about disco elysium, especially in terms of like... "professional video game journalism" but also definitely on this site and the other formerly blue side, was tinged with this tone that DE is somehow unique or groundbreaking in its attempt to treat a video game like an artform or a serious vehicle for storytelling. which is insulting especially to the games DE clearly draws from.

a lot of people who don't usually play video games played DE based on recommendations, which is great! but a huge part of the response from those people didn't seem to be "wow, clearly i can have a good time with video games if they're like this, i should seek out more". it instead seemed to be "well folks, pack it up, this is the one video game i will enjoy because it's Deep unlike everything else out there". which is incredibly disappointing.

anyway. whether these recommendations will hit for you will primarily depend on what you're looking for when you say "its kind of game", but here's some games that gave me the same general feeling.

planescape: torment is the game that heavily inspired disco elysium. it's a similarly combat-light crpg with a focus on exploration and story and set in a weird, technologically discongruent setting. i would also recommend its sequel, torment: tides of numenera. i didn't enjoy that one as much but it was still pretty good.

kentucky road zero is a game about a truck driver who has to cross the titular road zero and the many people he meets on the way. it's also magical realism so if you enjoyed the genre of disco elysium this might be up your alley.

beautiful desolation is another game which is based on real world culture/history with sci-fi world building on top. in this case south africa. it's really beautiful and rewards exploration in a similar way.

return of the obra dinn is also an atmospheric detective game set on a ship lost in 1803. it's by the same creator who made papers, please (which is also excellent by the way).

hypnospace outlaw has a similar half absurd, half earnest tone. it also felt similarly nostalgic to me. it's incredibly easy to sink a lot of time into this one though so watch out lol.

orwell, and its sequel, orwell: ignorance is strength, are similar "internet" simulators like HO with a much more overt political tone (if you couldn't tell by the name lol). you play as an employee for a government surveillance program.

stasis if you're looking for more isometric point and click games with a strong atmosphere and great voice acting.

sunless sea, and its sequel, sunless skies, are exploration/roguelike games about a weird, fantastical world. if you've ever played fallen london, they're set in the same universe.

what remains of edith finch is also magical realism and dark comedy, so if you enjoyed the tone of DE you might enjoy that.

some say it has always been here also has a surreal and sometimes oppressive atmosphere. i wish this game was longer, i loved it so much.

i miss the sea of japan is another wonderful bitsy game i got reminded of when i thought about SSIHABH. it's wistful and sweet.

i have no mouth and i must scream is a psychological thriller about five people and their dark pasts trying to outwit an AI. it's very atmospheric and also has variously fucked up (by life) protagonists.

whispers of a machine is another detective game with more of a sci-fi slant, though it's set in a world inspired by sweden and other nordic countries. it's also very atmospheric and has some great voice acting.

buddy simulator 1984 gave me a lot of the same feelings disco elysium did (wistfulness, nostalgia, anxiety, etc lol). i really loved the first half of the game but wasn't as into the second half, would absolutely still recommend it though.

and if we're talking just straight up great crpgs with a heavily political tone, i will always always always recommend harebrained schemes shadowrun trilogy (especially dragonfall and hong kong, both incredible games. returns is... fine lol but definitely not on the level of the sequels) and fallout 1 and 2.

plus, no rec list about magical realism would be complete without life is strange. :') i haven't played any of the sequels and it's been a long time since i played it, but i remember loving it at the time.

games i haven't played yet but that are on my to play list and which look like they could scratch the same itch:

citizen sleeper, also a dice based game which is very narrative and exploration based.

norco, which several of my friends love a lot.

where the water tastes like wine, which is set in the great depression era of the US and about collecting stories and sharing them.

pentiment, another detective game set in a real world approximation. i love everything obsidian touches so i'm sure it's great, but i haven't gotten round to it yet.

night in the woods seems to be popular with people who like DE so it might be up your alley. i'm pretty sure it's also magical realism?

roadwarden is another isometric point and click game about exploration and friends have said it has a great atmosphere.

i hope those are a good starting point for you! i would also genuinely recommend just hopping on itch.io and typing in a random prompt and seeing what you get. i've discovered sooo many wonderful games (many of them completely free, though i will always advocate for tipping the creators) by just noodling around on there. tons and tons of incredible indie games who don't have the luxury of publisher funding made by people who could really use the support.

enjoy and have a lovely day ^__^

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

New Rule: Gender Apartheid | Real Time with Bill Maher

And finally, New Rule: if you're out protesting for a couple of hours wearing this...

... you have to go all the way and spend an afternoon running errands wearing one of these.

You can't side with the people who ruthlessly oppress women without at least getting a taste of what you're supporting.

Well, now that summer is here and the Hamas-backing college protesters have dispersed back to their summer internships at Goldman Sachs, I thought it might be a good time to say this: I actually admire your youthful idealism, and our world would be poorer without it. Much like your parents who just wasted 300 grand on that ignorance factory you call a college.

Not that I think it's your fault, being this poorly educated and morally confused. That takes a village. Shitty schools, overindulgent parents, social media, that priest who rubbed lotion on you.

But three cheers to you for at least having the impulse to seek a cause in something bigger than yourself. It's just that the one you picked, you missed the boat by a fucking mile.

But here's the good news. You want a cause? Cuz I totally got one for you. Apartheid. Yeah, apartheid, the thing you've been shouting about with Israel for months. Never mind that Israeli Arabs are actually full citizens. You learned that word from a 2 Chainz song and discovered that protesting South Africa's apartheid in the 80s was a righteous cause, and so it was. To this day, when celebrities are asked, who is the person they most admire, one name is always the safest choice.

So, naturally, when you heard that Israel was an apartheid state it gave you such a boner you literally pitched a tent.

You knew how wrong it was when tens of millions of South Africans had been treated like second class citizens just because of their race.

But here's the thing. Today, right now, hundreds of millions of women are treated worse than second class citizens. When you mandate that one category of human beings don't even have the right to show their face, that's apartheid. And it goes on in a lot of countries.

For the last couple years, women in Iran have been saying, "take this hijab and shove it." Because in 2022, a young woman named Mahsa Amini was arrested for wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly and then died in police custody. And now security forces have killed over 500 people protesting her death and this obvious human rights violation. How about defunding those police?

Amnesty International says that, "Iranian authorities are waging a war on women that subjects them to constant surveillance beatings sexual violence and detention." What P. Diddy calls a hotel stay.

In Iran, MeToo isn't a movement, it's what a woman says when another woman says, my life sucks.

Yasmine Muhammad is a human rights activist who got married off to a Muslim man with fundamentalist views about women not exactly uncommon in the Muslim world. He forced her to wear the niqab all the time, including once beating her because she took her hijab off at home, because the apartment had a window through which people might see in. And this was in Vancouver.

Here's what Yasmine said about veiling.

"It just suppresses your humanity entirely. It's like a portable sensory deprivation chamber and you are no longer connected to humanity. You can't see properly. You can't hear properly. You can't speak properly. People can't see you. You can only see them. Just little things. Passing people on the street and just making eye contact and smiling, that's gone. You're no longer part of this world, and so you very quickly just shrivel up into nothing under there."

And that's my answer when someone says "Islamophobe."

Really, feminists? Come on, there's got to be a happy medium between a husband making his wife wear this, and a husband making his wife wear this.

I know 1619 was bad, but this is happening right now, right under your nose rings. And it's not just the clothes. 15 countries in the Middle East, including Gaza, have laws that require women to obey their husbands. Laws. Not just Harrison Butker's opinion.

And those societies also have guardianship laws, which means a woman needs permission from her husband to work, to travel, to leave the house, to go to school, to get medical attention. Nothing?

Honor killings, where women are murdered by their own fathers and-or brothers happen so frequently they can't even have an accurate account of how many.

In 59 countries, there are no laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, and many have no laws against domestic violence or spousal rape. 20 countries have marry-your-rapist laws. Multiple societies have laws about what jobs women can and can't do. Make a Barbie movie about that. 30 countries practice female genital mutilation, and 650 million women alive today were married as children.

Kids, if you really want to change the world and not just tie up Monday morning traffic, this is the apartheid that desperately needs your attention. Gender apartheid. This is what should be the social justice issue of your time. How about, from the river to the sea, every woman shall be free?

But in reality, it's not an issue at all. For one reason: the people who are doing it aren't white. I hate to have to be the one to break it to you kids, but non-white people can do bad things too. Now, white on black racism certainly has been of one of history's most horrific scourges. But also, it's true that in today's world being non-white means you can get away with murder.

So good on you kids for following your instinct to protest social injustice. Just remember, when it comes to finding a cause, pulling your head out of your ass is an important rite of passage.

==

They won't do it not just because it's Intersectionally inconvenient, but also because it would require admitting that, as citizens of first world countries and students of Ivy League universities, not only do they not live in a "patriarchy," but they're some of the freest, most privileged, most self-determining people who have ever lived in the world at any time, ever.

And, having spent decades crafting a narrative of being long-suffering and "oppressed," they'd have to surrender the significant social, political and economic capital that narrative affords, by fighting for women in Iran, Gaza, Afghanistan and other countries to have the same rights and privileges they take for granted. And regularly spit on.

[marimayscarlett]

I hope the guys and families are flying to some very nice holiday destinations today. They more than deserve it!

P.S. still not over them crying. Paul? Out of all of them?? And it looked like even Till was trying to control himself. Must've been insanely overwhelming. After 30 years, so many struggles..last year.. to still see a packed stadium. Night 5 in the same packed stadium, no less 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 you can tell they are so grateful for everything they've achieved and for all the love, and support 🖤♥️

Hi 👋🏻

I also thought about their plans for their free time now - Paul and Olli love to spend time in South Africa, Schneider and his family seem to visit Austria a lot.. I just hope everyone finds a way to unwind (no Richard, this doesn't mean hiding away in your recording studio in the basement), to find back to their off tour-selves and also...find a way back into the 'normal' everyday life back home. I can imagine that this transition might be hard, being almost 3 months on the road and then coming back home to their families, where life just continued in the meantime. But I'm sure they will now have a wonderful time, whatever they decide to do 🤍

Yes, Paul being the most emotional and the most open about was indeed a bit surprising, but then again, it is only natural to be emotional after such a tour, this whole stadium era, the hell of a summer™ last year, after playing the set list for one last time before the break in front of an audience full of fans, who cherished them quite a lot ❤️

Everyone had a different way to show it, Paul and Schneider openly expressed their emotions through a little bit of crying, Richard seemed to be very thankful/kind of overwhelmed and was barely holding onto his emotions in the elevator, Till seemed emotional as well, Olli danced a bit in the elevator, Flake was smiling (if I remember correctly).

And Till's words really expressed their gratitude and how much they cherish their fans, and gave hope that they will continue as our beloved six men marriage:

"We want to thank you, especially those who believed us, believed in us, who trusted us. Thank you very, very, very much [...]. One does not spoil our enjoyment so easily. The envious one had it wrong (-> from Links234: "Der Neider hat es schlecht gewusst."). Have a good night and thank you."

[gremlinmodetweeker]

A Quick Warm Up for A Long Marathon

This is literally just being silly. I know it's super short, but honestly for this part of the story? I think it's just hilarious. I love how this story turned out! Anyways, enjoy some hybrid!CoD

TWs: None, except König being an ass

Wordcount: 800

Art from This Post

Story Below the Cut

A Quick Warm Up for A Long Marathon

So the cafe was a disaster. Well, not every idea can be brilliant. You'd hoped to break the ice between you, but so be it. You’d still keep trying with König, even if it killed you. Of course with how determined König seemed to shut you out, it started to look like you’d be taking yourself out pretty soon.

You’d dealt with difficult hybrids before. You’d dealt with a tokoloshe shifter that had been determined to undermine any and every attempt to get through to her. You’d eventually won her over by providing her a plethora of fruits from South Africa and two weeks of vacation to visit her aunt during the summers over the holidays, and after that, it was smooth sailing. Maybe König needed something similar? He seemed so closed off all the time. Maybe it was because he was just overworked?

The thought helped calm you. It was a light at the end of the tunnel to look forward to. The knot that had worked itself twixt your shoulder blades started to unwind as you walked down to the gym. You wondered if maybe König would actually be a bit more relaxed once in the gym. Usually, a bit of light jogging was enough to clear your head, so maybe your hybrid might be more friendly when he’d unwound a bit. That, or he’d be particularly bristly. It was a coin flip, really. Not one that you really wanted to hedge your bets on either. You’d really rather not have to put your fate in somebody else's hands, but König had a firm grip on you and he was happily dragging you down to the bottom of the crab bucket.

The walk to the gym led you winding round the base until you came to a wide door, which in turn led to what seemed more like a stadium than a gymnasium. Inside, you turned around as you walked to get a full lay of the land. Around you was a giant track while the ceiling was lined with hoops for hybrids to duck through or swing off of. Hurdles lined one end of the track while a great obstacle course took up the center of the room. Finally, you spotted the equipment lining the far wall. There, you made your way to the back corner, where a small group of hybrids were training using punching bags and kicking pillars. At the end of a line of ten sandbags, König was practising his hooks.

“Hey!” you held up a hand as you walked over to where your colonel stood, “sorry about being late. I got a bit busy.”

König glanced over towards you before focusing back on the red punching bag.

You looked at the bag and then back at him, “So, do you need me to hold some pads for you?”

König stilled, then slowly turned his head towards you. He didn't bother hiding how his eyes squinted as he looked you up and down, “You think you can do that for me?”

You scoffed, “Of course I can! I’m your handler. It's my job.”

König gave you another once-over before dropping his stance. He shrugged and said, “Try your best.”

You turned away to hide your eye roll, but you figured it was time to finally prove your worth as a handler. If you couldn’t get to him on a personal level, he could respect you as a trainer. You’d dealt with plenty of hybrids before König, how could he be any different?

You sauntered back to him with a hefty body bag over one shoulder, your other hand swinging easily by your side. König tilted his head back, crossing his arms and shifting his weight to one foot in a perfect show of bemusement. You snorted to yourself as you held up the pad to your side, shifting to a proper front stance as you readied yourself for the blow.

“Ten roundhouses on the right, ten on the left,” you declared, “sound good to you?”

“What about stretching?” König countered.

The tips of your ears were flushed as you scrambled and sputtered, “I mean, you were doing some exercise earlier, so didn’t you already do some?”

König shook his head, “I did, but did you?”

You paused. He had a fair point.

“Okay, um, can you give me fifteen and I’ll come back to you?” you asked.

König shrugged, “I’ll be here.”

Good enough.

A good fifteen minutes later, you were fully stretched and ready for whatever König was about to throw at you. You picked up your body bag and returned back to your place by König’s side.

“Alright big guy,” you gave him a wicked grin, “I’m not letting you put off leg day anymore!”

König glanced down at his legs, then back at you. The fact that his thighs were thicker than your head was left unsaid.

“So, remember, ten on one leg, ten on the other, alright?” you hoisted the pad up, “starting on the right. Ready?”

König nodded and fell into a comfortable front stance.

“Alright, one!”

Boom.

With one swing, you were sent clean across the gym. You fell into a jumbled mess of limbs, scrambling for traction on the floor mats as you sprawled out. When you managed to find your footing, you stumbled to your feet and turned to face König.

“Maybe you should use the pillars,” you mumbled.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out that König was grinning behind his mask.

Konig Dump

Alternate Universe Stories

[fatehbaz]

hi! SUPER interesting excerpt on ants and empire; adding it to my reading list. have you ever read "mosquito empires," by john mcneill?

Yea, I've read it. (Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914, basically about influence of environment and specifically insect-borne disease on colonial/imperial projects. Kinda brings to mind Centering Animals in Latin American History [Few and Tortorici, 2013] and the exploration of the centrality of ecology/plants to colonialism in Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World [Schiebinger, 2007].)

If you're interested: So, in the article we're discussing, Rohan Deb Roy shows how Victorian/Edwardian British scientists, naturalists, academics, administrators, etc., used language/rhetoric to reinforce colonialism while characterizing insects, especially termites in India and elsewhere in the tropics, as "Goths"; "arch scourge of humanity"; "blight of learning"; "destroying hordes"; and "the foe of civilization". [Rohan Deb Roy. “White ants, empire, and entomo-politics in South Asia.” The Historical Journal. October 2019.] He explores how academic and pop-sci literature in the US and Britain participated in racist dehumanization of non-European people by characterizing them as "uncivilized", as insects/animals. (This sort of stuff is summarized by Neel Ahuja, describing interplay of race, gender, class, imperialism, disease/health, anthropomorphism. See Ahuja's “Postcolonial Critique in a Multispecies World.”)

In a different 2018 article on "decolonizing science," Deb Roy also moves closer to the issue of mosquitoes, disease, hygiene, etc. explored in Mosquito Empires. Deb Roy writes: 'Sir Ronald Ross had just returned from an expedition to Sierra Leone. The British doctor had been leading efforts to tackle the malaria that so often killed English colonists in the country, and in December 1899 he gave a lecture to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce [...]. [H]e argued that "in the coming century, the success of imperialism will depend largely upon success with the microscope."''

Deb Roy also writes elsewhere about "nonhuman empire" and how Empire/colonialism brutalizes, conscripts, employs, narrates other-than-human creatures. See his book Malarial Subjects: Empire, Medicine and Nonhumans in British India, 1820-1909 (published 2017).

---

Like Rohan Deb Roy, Jonathan Saha is another scholar with a similar focus (relationship of other-than-human creatures with British Empire's projects in Asia). Among his articles: "Accumulations and Cascades: Burmese Elephants and the Ecological Impact of British Imperialism." Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 2022. /// “Colonizing elephants: animal agency, undead capital and imperial science in British Burma.” BJHS Themes. British Society for the History of Science. 2017. /// "Among the Beasts of Burma: Animals and the Politics of Colonial Sensibilities, c. 1840-1940." Journal of Social History. 2015. /// And his book Colonizing Animals: Interspecies Empire in Myanmar (published 2021).

---

Related spirit/focus. If you liked the termite/India excerpt, you might enjoy checking out this similar exploration of political/imperial imagery of bugs a bit later in the twentieth century: Fahim Amir. “Cloudy Swords” e-flux Journal Issue #115. February 2021.

Amir explores not only insect imagery, specifically caricatures of termites in discourse about civilization (like the Deb Roy article about termites in India), but Amir also explores the mosquito/disease aspect invoked by your message (Mosquito Empires) by discussing racially segregated city planning and anti-mosquito architecture in British West Africa and Belgian Congo, as well as anti-mosquito campaigns of fascist Italy and the ascendant US empire. German cities began experiencing a non-native termite infestation problem shortly after German forces participated in violent suppression of resistance in colonial Africa. Meanwhile, during anti-mosquito campaigns in the Panama Canal zone, US authorities imposed forced medical testing of women suspected of carrying disease. Article features interesting statements like: 'The history of the struggle against the [...] mosquito reads like the history of capitalism in the twentieth century: after imperial, colonial, and nationalistic periods of combatting mosquitoes, we are now in the NGO phase, characterized by shrinking [...] health care budgets, privatization [...].' I've shared/posted excerpts before, which I introduce with my added summary of some of the insect-related imagery: “Thousands of tiny Bakunins”. Insects "colonize the colonizers". The German Empire fights bugs. Fascist ants, communist termites, and the “collectivism of shit-eating”. Insects speak, scream, and “go on rampage”.

---

In that Deb Roy article, there is a section where we see that some Victorian writers pontificated on how "ants have colonies and they're quite hard workers, just like us!" or "bugs have their own imperium/domain, like us!" So that bugs can be both reviled and also admired. On a similar note, in the popular imagination, about anthropomorphism of Victorian bugs, and the "celebrated" "industriousness" and "cleverness" of spiders, there is: Claire Charlotte McKechnie. “Spiders, Horror, and Animal Others in Late Victorian Empire Fiction.” Journal of Victorian Culture. December 2012. She also addresses how Victorian literature uses natural science and science fiction to process anxiety about imperialism. This British/Victorian excitement at encountering "exotic" creatures of Empire, and popular discourse which engaged in anthropormorphism, is explored by Eileen Crist's Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind and O'Connor's The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856.

Related anthologies include a look at other-than-humans in literature and popular discourse: Gothic Animals: Uncanny Otherness and the Animal With-Out (Heholt and Edmunson, 2020). There are a few studies/scholars which look specifically at "monstrous plants" in the Victorian imagination. Anxiety about gender and imperialism produced caricatures of woman as exotic anthropomorphic plants, as in: “Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory" (Chase et al., Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009). Special mention for the work of Anna Boswell, which explores the British anxiety about imperialism reflected in their relationships with and perceptions of "strange" creatures and "alien" ecosystems, especially in Aotearoa. (Check out her “Anamorphic Ecology, or the Return of the Possum.” Transformations. 2018.)

And then bridging the Victorian anthropomorphism of bugs with twentieth-century hygiene campaigns, exploring "domestic sanitation" there is: David Hollingshead. “Women, insects, modernity: American domestic ecologies in the late nineteenth century.” Feminist Modernist Studies. August 2020. (About the cultural/social pressure to protect "the home" from bugs, disease, and "invasion".)

---

In fields like geography, history of science, etc., much has been said/written about how botany was the key imperial science/field, and there is the classic quintessential tale of the British pursuit of cinchona from Latin America, to treat mosquito-borne disease among its colonial administrators in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. In other words: Colonialism, insects, plants in the West Indies shaped and influenced Empire and ecosystems in the East Indies, and vice versa. One overview of this issue from Early Modern era through the Edwardian era, focused on Britain and cinchona: Zaheer Baber. "The Plants of Empire: Botanic Gardens, Colonial Power and Botanical Knowledge." May 2016. Elizabeth DeLoughrey and other scholars of the Caribbean, "the postcolonial," revolutionary Black Atlantic, etc. have written about how plantation slavery in the Caribbean provided a sort of bounded laboratory space. (See Britt Rusert's "Plantation Ecologies: The Experiential Plantation [...].") The argument is that plantations were already of course a sort of botanical laboratory for naturalizing and cultivating valuable commodity plants, but they were also laboratories to observe disease spread and to practice containment/surveillance of slaves and laborers. See also Chakrabarti's Bacteriology in British India: laboratory medicine and the tropics (2012). Sharae Deckard looks at natural history in imperial/colonial imagination and discourse (especially involving the Caribbean, plantations, the sea, and the tropics) looking at "the ecogothic/eco-Gothic", Edenic "nature", monstrous creatures, exoticism, etc. Kinda like Grove's discussion of "tropical Edens" in the colonial imagination of Green Imperialism.

Dante Furioso's article "Sanitary Imperialism" (from e-flux's Sick Architecture series) provides a summary of US entomology and anti-mosquito campaigns in the Caribbean, and how "US imperial concepts about the tropics" and racist pathologization helped influence anti-mosquito campaigns that imposed racial segregation in the midst of hard labor, gendered violence, and surveillance in the Panama Canal zone. A similar look at manipulation of mosquito-borne disease in building empire: Gregg Mitman. “Forgotten Paths of Empire: Ecology, Disease, and Commerce in the Making of Liberia’s Plantation Economy.” Environmental History. 2017. (Basically, some prominent medical schools/departments evolved directly out of US military occupation and industrial plantations of fruit/rubber/sugar corporations; faculty were employed sometimes simultaneously by fruit companies, the military, and academic institutions.) This issue is also addressed by Pratik Chakrabarti in Medicine and Empire, 1600-1960 (2014).

---

Meanwhile, there are some other studies that use non-human creatures (like a mosquito) to frame imperialism. Some other stuff that comes to mind about multispecies relationships to empire:

Lawrence H. Kessler. “Entomology and Empire: Settler Colonial Science and the Campaign for Hawaiian Annexation.” Arcadia (Spring 2017)

No Wood, No Kingdom: Political Ecology in the English Atlantic (Keith Pluymers)

Archie Davies. "The racial division of nature: Making land in Recife". Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Volume 46, Issue 2, pp. 270-283. November 2020.

Yellow Fever, Race, and Ecology in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans (Urmi Engineer Willoughby, 2017)

Pasteur’s Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Aro Velmet, 2022)

Tom Brooking and Eric Pawson. “Silences of Grass: Retrieving the Role of Pasture Plants in the Development of New Zealand and the British Empire.” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. August 2007.

Under Osman's Tree: The Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Environmental History (Alan Mikhail)

The Herds Shot Round the World: Native Breeds and the British Empire, 1800-1900 (Rebecca J.H. Woods, 2017)

Imperial Bodies in London: Empire, Mobility, and the Making of British Medicine, 1880-1914 (Kristen Hussey, 2021)

Red Coats and Wild Birds: How Military Ornithologists and Migrant Birds Shaped Empire (Kirsten Greer, 2020)

Animality and Colonial Subjecthood in Africa: The Human and Nonhuman Creatures of Nigeria (Saheed Aderinto, 2022)

Imperial Creatures: Humans and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore, 1819-1942 (Timothy P. Barnard, 2019)

Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950 (Jeannie N. Shinozuka)

[redesigningxmen]

REDESIGNING MAGGOTT

We bugged out for this round with the marvelous MAGGOTT! Born as Japheth in South Africa, the young boy's digestive system mutated into two large slug-like creatures, which can crawl out of his body, eat anything, and provide him with enhanced strength. The D-lister to end all D-listers, often appearing on lists of "Worst X-Men" or "Most Forgotten X-Men," we thought it was finally time to give Maggott his due. He appeared briefly in Children of the Atom and more recently in his own X-Men Unlimited story!

Our team embraced their inner digestion slugs and had fun updating Maggott for the modern day. He's only really had one notable costume to date, but is easily identifiable for his blue skin and, well, his maggots. See what everyone did, and make sure to follow them all on social media!

Calvin Lin | @/calvinloveinternet

"I love Maggott so much so wanted to give him a cool and radical new look!"

Joshua Bruckner | @joshingtonbear

"Maggott is my absolute favorite D-Lister X-Man who I've wanted to redesign for a long time! I wanted to give him a more streamlined and grown-up look. It seems essential for him to have a bare torso so Eenie and Meenie can crawl in and out of his body, so I gave him a cute cutaway that Emma Frost might be jealous of. He has some chitinous armor and details, and his sunglasses mimic the worm eyes. Costume colors are fairly simple to let his bugs and skin tones take center stage!"

Dale Yaddow | @/daleYaddow

"This redesign takes it's inspiration from Maggott's recent storyline in Dark X-Men. Having joined the Morlocks, Japheth doesn't have access to all the luxuries that some higher profile heroes have, so he's had to build a uniform from scratch. As his slugs, Eanie and Meanie shed their highly durable armor plating, Maggott has been attaching it to his outfit to give his body extra protection. Designed more for function than style, his outfit includes an undershirt that can easily open and be snapped closed for when the slugs emerge from his stomach. it also incorporates a hooded sleeveless duster jacket, and shades that are inspired by his slugs' eyes."

Léa Dupic | @/kimodraw

"I wanted to give him some buds for Eany and Meany and I kinda freaked myself out looking for some centipedes references lol. Went ham on the saturation and the complimentary colours."

SSTArtwork | @/sstartwork

"Maggott was a fun one to redesign, as I feel like you can put lots of personality into his look. I don't see Maggott as being a "uniformed" X-Man, he marches to the beat of his own drum. I grew his wee forehead tuft out a bit, into an undercut loc ponytail situation, added in some shoulder pieces that resemble insect mounds, a tiger striped tee with Miny Moe on it (in reference to Eanie and Meany) that's been chewed away at the mid section due to the boys jumping in and out of his stomach and some worker jeans and boots, also had to feature the red glasses!"

[nishnormp]

thinking way too hard about things that probably do not need this much thought

In lieu of tfc merc brainrot, I have decided to do some historical research and character workshopping to shape out the details of everything needed in ficwriting. I have nothing else to post (my art is not going well) so I might as well scream about this

P1: TF2 alternate history bullshit

Abraham Lincoln inventing rocket jumping before the existence of stairs, the entire thing with Australium, so on. Despite TFC having modern kevlar (as opposed to looney toons weapons, but a bit about that later) and a more serious/gritty tone, the setting is still within the TF2 universe; which means having a weird fusion of irl history and vaguely reasonable fantasy absurdities.

To clarify, I am not a bona fide history nut who knows absolutely everything (ffs my own country's history doesn't even play much in western incidents). I've just been doing research thru online articles, videos, and talking to other ppl who know more than me, so my brain can lack a bit for certain things; do correct me if I get anything wrong.

By the 1850s (estimation) Australia became a tech giant due to discovering Australium, making insane progress in basically every field (and also making their population very jacked). Newfound inventions also require raw resources, and this page confirms that australians pick their leader mostly based on pure strength, which begs the question; are they still connected to Britain? Would there still be a benefit for them to be linked to Britian the way they are?

There are many cases where nations plunder other nations just for natural resources; Britian is one particularly infamous force with many colonies, which makes me wonder if Australia ever resorted to snatching them just to afford all the material components that their tech requires. Australia was part of the British Empire up until 1901 irl (not too far from 1890), but the question about resources and sovereignty(even if symbolic) still remain (Britain likely wouldn't like a territory growing at terrifying and eventually unmanageable rates, and at that rate I doubt Australia would settle for middling trade margins)

(Well, apparently Saxton owns England. But that was when he discovered the internet)

There's also the ensemble of first gen mercs. RED and BLU recruit progressively less important mercs as time goes on, starting from important historical/media figures, to modern militant professional-lookin dudes, and finally to the current crop of crackheaded TF2 mercs we know and love. The Original mercs I mostly want to focus on are Abraham Lincoln and John Henry.

I'm not exactly sure if John Henry is even a real person, but he was a symbol for labor movements and the civil rights movement; the fact that he IS a real person in TF2 lore is p vital methinks, especially since him and Lincoln seem to be on the same team. Mercs are paid a lot, even the "bottom of the barrel" tf2 ones: scout has his merch collection to show for it, medic has his exotic animal parts, heavy has his gun ammo (and also casually gave a child 7k dollars), etc; could John Henry have spearheaded civil rights movements not just in America but also other territories (like africa) with the bread and merits he got for the job? Does he have a legacy with rouge merc groups (armed unions?) that fight against imperialism? Maybe even effect/radicalize Lincoln about some things??? Unethical business practices still persist even in Saxton's era (hell, he's an example) but maybe the (hypothetical) challenges to Britain's grasp on its colonies and evolution of munitions would give the people an edge.

I have no idea how a drastically colony-less Britain would affect the timeline of WW1 (esp in less popular side-wars like in South Africa where Britain was very much involved, which may be problematic since my interp of cmedic is FROM there but anyways) (btw they only won that bc they out-attritioned Germany, but by that point maybe the dutch or the americans would take over), but surprisingly enough WW2 ends at around the same time it does irl, despite my initial thought that a roided-out Allied Australia would be more than capable of turning the Axis Powers into a skidmark. The likely explanation for that is that the finer details were just not important for the tf2 comics that took place AFTER (fair enough), but as someone planning to write the 1930s mercs . Pain . My working explanation is that seemingly unaligned private contractors can get ahold of weapons easier than Certain governments, which makes mercs more popular than national soldiers for carrying out certain missions (plausible employer deniability baybeeee).

P2: Conflicting class meta - CHeavy edition

Onto something less heavy, another part of ficwriting is figuring out how characters are...characterized. The TFC mercs dont have much canonical info (I've already turned two of them into straight up ocs because I am NOT going to write p3dos from start to finish of a longfic) so I settle for looking at other things, like gameplay and ingame roles.

The first I focused on was cheavy, the leader of the group. Grouchy, but a surprisingly tolerant team player.

This IS reused from a previous post (im lazy) but the first bullet basically says "otherwise, offensive heavies are frequently looked down on and the power of the other team's defense will have you dead in no time". Gameplay-wise, CHeavy is considered the simplest class and the easiest one to master; most tfc gamers think its a common noob pick. His total health is pretty good, he occupies a big space so he can block narrow paths, and the way he attacks is simple; but he's slow even when b-hopping (grenades cant boost him either) so he can be outrun/picked apart by other classes, which really shows in tfc's most popular game format: capture the flag.

I've seen about a handful video of tfc gameplay that WASN'T ctf (or the slightly diff gamemode with a defense system), and even if the 4th bullet point is right, those two classes are usually doing more important things during ctf. My main point is that despite being the leader, he isn't the type of class to lead the charge.

The most reasonable thing I can think of is that he's just . Really good at strategy and can keep track of his team while reliably holding down a position. That, and his superior bulk makes him shine more outside of the gravel pits. Whatever it is, it does make more sense to me now that I revisit the comic panels where he is VERY spiteful that his teammates got killed (rather than calling them weak, they fr matter to him bc otherwise, he isn't getting shit done)

(Ik the reason hes the boss is bc big scary dude and karmic ass-handing via other heavy who actually respects his doctor but shh the fic demands reasons)

P3: Conflicting class meta - Cmedic edition

The contradiction I can immediately clock is the fact that cmedic never gets mentioned despite his omnipresence in his original game. Most hc's I've seen interpret him as the exact opposite of the current medic, which is a dedicated doctor who also happens to be a sweetheart (with very rare exceptions), but may I propose the theory that all mannco medic mercs are bastards? I'm 99% sure that the original medic was sigmund freud. TF2 medic is just a menace. Post WW1 most moral and noble medics would bust their asses at hospitals rather than sign up to a contract tying them down to just healing 8 other people and killing other people over and over, but that's just my hc (we're all making shit up, might as well have fun with it).

The most common citing for cmed's hidden menace energy is his virus weaponry, but I think his ingame role also shows it pretty well. Practically taking the scout's niche and making it less punishing by having straight upgrades of his two weapons, giving healing utility AND also being able to sniff out spies like a cscout (he can't diffuse bombs or trail caltrops, but he's already powerful as is). Imagine being cscout, having to compete for flag capture points with this guy who practically has everything you have but better (instead of leaving behind super visible spikes he has a college degree). This isn't even like the modern sniper vs spy debate where it can still be debated that spy has a unique niche with his mindgames, cmedic just straight up took copied his homework, 98% percent matching on the plagiarism bot.

Cscout and cmedic beef is very likely, but if cscout is a literal god at what he does then there won't be much issue, since the best cscout is ultimately better at flagrunning than cmedic. Its likely that cscout is simply human tho, so that's some drama that can happen.

Funnily enough the tfc class that gets the most weight and hate on its shoulders is sniper. This is because servers have a limit on how many snipers can join, and if a shitty sniper took up the slots, the rest of the team would be pretty pissed. Meanwhile, a competent sniper is the bane of every player's existence; a missed shot can still slow someone down until a medic cures them.

P4: cmedic backstory building hell - barely organized nonsense

Last one I swear. My drawings of cmedic explicitly portray him as a person of color- more specifically a cape malay, from the cape territory in South Africa; he even curses in malay in one of the posts. Ig I wanted the cast to be more diverse, but it did make his backstory somewhat harder to write.

Mann co is situated in New Mexico, far from SA. How and why did he get all the way there? With the fanon worldbuilding I set, what is stopping him from simply joining a nearer merc group? Probably heard of it through the grapevine, and travelled for fat stacks; wouldn't be uncommon for doctors (or mercs) to be highly motivated due to money. I wondered of what would set him apart from all the other hypothetical medic applicants that probably graduated from upstanding colleges like harvard, then I recall all those common hcs.

1)Most applicants assumed that the job would consist of primarily healing, without considering how bloodthirsty their company would be, and/or 2)the BLU team has been getting genuine medics and chewing them up like gum (and spitting them out utterly mangled, I suppose). There's also the possibility that some margin of these medics actually had some weapon training, but at that point a lot of time has been spent (also some conflicting motives there, I can't imagine the perks that a deadly merc job has over a hospital job unless the guy got a kick out of it).

My next idea was to make him a ww1 vet on the side of the British (australian? american?) colonies of SA, having joined midway after finishing his education. However this would clock his age during the current 1970s timeline to be around 81, pretty old; most of the tfc mercs would be 70s max around that time. Cmedic is visually the youngest of the mercs too, you can compare his smooth eyes to the more sunken cspy's eyes and there is a notable difference. This is really just an issue of me being on the fence about fully oc-fying him (a friend of him suggested making him a vampire, I am almost tempted to make it so).

In the case that particular hurdle is overcome, there are more details I have to iron out. I figured that his motives either come from wanting to financially help out his family after the war's sheer devastation, or just . a general resentment for the way things unfolded, and he swapped to merc work in the states to get properly paid for his work and (attempt to) fill the void in his soul. Maybe a mix of the two. An outlier in his community for being a godless man and having very material and tangible masters (science and money), he abandons the lofty ideals of nationalism and sides himself with the highest bidder in the private market. Also developed an insane immune system (trenches and exposure are no joke).

(Certain classes have shared characteristics across gens, like the demos' deranged smiles and engies' wholesome vibes. With sigmund freud, tf2 medic as the archetypal mad doctor, and tfc medic as the archetypal capitalist doctor, there are now three gens of doctors with dubious machinations.)

He'd probably be a great medic, respecting merc code and all (funfact tf2 medic mentions tfc demo by name, implying that he knows his real name and putting a dent in my theory that being on a first-name basis is a big deal actually , my countertheory to that is that grey mann gave him the team's files and tf2 medic wants to spite them). Cmedic also reverse-engineered the medkit and made a new version for non-gravel war missions, since the usual has several hard drugs (heals to full instantly and gives adrenaline boost, sounds sus especially if you read jarate's side effects) since he ended up somewhat caring about his pack of rabid animals

[eretzyisrael]

by Brendan O'Neill

Now, not even Israel’s most fervent defenders would describe it as ‘spotless’. Like every state, it makes mistakes, it does wrong. But the showtrial of the Jewish State eerily echoes the showtrial of the Jew Dreyfus. Again we see the deployment of ‘lurid imagination’, where every single thing Israel does is pored over and judged nefarious. Again we see men – or in this case, nations – that are ‘lost in debts and crime’ projecting their own sense of guilt on to a Jewish scapegoat. And again we see not one nation this time, but many nations seeking to distract attention from their own inner turmoil through the creation of a spectacle of accusation – only now it’s not a Jew in the dock; it’s the entire Jewish nation.

We have heard quite enough of your lurid accusations against Israel. Now it’s time you heard ours against you. I accuse South Africa of joining the holy war against Israel in order to cynically curry favour with the woke elites of the West. In order to try to repair its global image as a just, radical nation despite its cataclysmic failing of its own population who still await the enrichment and equality they were promised following the fall of Apartheid 30 years ago. I accuse Iran of backing the legal crusade against Israel as a furtherance of its violent anti-Semitism. As yet another opportunity to defame and isolate the Jewish State in order that the Jews there might feel compelled to leave.

I accuse Turkey of backing the showtrial in order to disguise its own past genocidal crimes. In order to pool its genocidal guilt, and project it on to others, in particular the supposedly evil ‘Zionist entity’. I accuse Turkey of spying in these kangaroo proceedings an opportunity to rearrange power relations in the Middle East to its own tyrannical advantage. To strengthen the Turkey-Iran alliance on the back of what they hope will be the international court’s reprimand of the Jewish State. I accuse Turkey of sacrificing the safety of Jews in Israel at the altar of its own demented regional ambitions.

And I accuse the Western left of being the running dogs of all this global Israelophobia. Of forfeiting their right to be treated as serious moral actors by aligning with the demagogues, Islamists and outright racists who have dragged the world’s only Jewish nation to court on the most trumped-up charge imaginable. Of flagrantly abandoning their supposed commitment to anti-racism by whitewashing Hamas’s orgy of racist violence that gave rise to the current war. And of emboldening the fascists of Hamas by promoting the libel that says Israel is a genocidal state. After all, if Israel is guilty of the worst crime known to man, why should Hamas not attack it again, and again, and again, until the Nazi-like threat it poses to the Palestinian people has been eradicated? I accuse you of giving moral succour to fascists.israe

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Lula’s Confused About Who Attacked Whom in Ukraine

Having defended democracy at home, Brazil inspired hope that it might sympathize with the struggle for freedom elsewhere too. Apparently not.

With democrats like Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who needs autocrats? Shame on Lula for pretending that Kyiv, NATO and the European Union are as much to blame for Russia’s genocidal war against Ukraine as the wannabe Tsar in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin. Shame on Lula for doing nothing to help Ukraine. 

Lula was sworn into his old job — he was already president between 2003 and 2010 — only one month ago. That followed the four-year stint of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro — “the Trump of the Tropics.” A week after Lula took over, pro-Bolsonaro mobs even ransacked federal buildings in Brasilia, in a farcical reprise of the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. When Brazil’s institutions — and Lula — withstood that assault, much of the democratic world exhaled in relief. 

“We’re all delighted that Brazil is back on the global stage,” Scholz beamed at Lula during his visit to Brasilia this week. “You guys have been sorely missed.” Lula spontaneously gave the chancellor a hug.

In particular, Scholz wants to broaden the alliance to support Ukraine and oppose Putin by including as many countries as possible in the “Global South.” Last year, for example, when he hosted the Group of Seven, a club of liberal democracies with large economies, he also invited India, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal. 

But it was Lula who not only rebuffed Scholz’s entreaties wholesale but also lost the plot entirely. “Brazil has no interest in passing on ammunition so that it will be used in the war,” Lula said at their joint press conference. “Brazil does not want to have any participation, even indirect.”

For a glimpse into Lula’s reasoning, it helps to read his comments in an interview with Time Magazine last year. “It’s not just Putin who is guilty,” Lula insisted. “The US and the EU are also guilty” — apparently for not being more categorical in ruling out Ukraine’s membership in NATO (which hasn’t even been up for discussion since 2008). 

But Lula had more to say. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy may strike most people as an inspirational leader defying a brutal invasion. Not Lula. The Brazilian president believes Zelenskiy is “weird” and behaves like a publicity hound flitting from one TV camera to the next, when he should instead be “negotiating” — presumably about Ukraine’s capitulation. “This guy is as responsible as Putin for the war,” he said.

Come again?

Continue reading.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

We might know how it ends, but like all good stories it bears repetition. So here it is again, the story of a battle.

Bernard Cornwell, Waterloo: The True Story of Four Days, Three Armies and Three Battles

So I've been getting lots of questions about the significance of the Battle of Waterloo for Britain, France, and indeed Europe.

Great claims have been made as to the legacy of the Battle of Waterloo; but it is not as clear cut as many may claim; for it certainly did not crush all French opposition in a single blow; it did not augur in a century of enduring peace and prosperity across Europe; nor can it claim to have permanently re-established the monarchical system in Europe. Therefore after all the glory, the death and suffering caused on that battlefield, what were its real long term legacies?

For the people living in the vicinity of Waterloo, the utter destruction of the land and of their homes was devastating to their lives, but time soon healed the wounds on the landscape and the abandoned equipment scattered across the battlefields became a virtual treasure trove for the locals as the field of Waterloo was soon at the top of every travellers ‘must see’ list during a sojourn in Belgium. Numbers lived for years selling relics of the battle or became guides to the battlefield as the bloody fields instantly became a top tourist attraction. Every poet and writer in Europe had to visit to witness the scenes of devastation before penning their impressions and publishing to an eager audience, hungry for every new edition.

When they are examined with the benefit of hindsight, battles are rarely accorded the significance given to them. Few become venerated among a nation’s lieux de mémoire, or contribute to the foundation myths of modern nations. Of the battles of the Napoleonic Wars, it is arguable that Leipzig [the 1813 battle lost to the Allies by French troops under Napoleon] has its place in the rise of German nationalism, even if its real importance was greatly exaggerated and mythologized by 19th-century cultural nationalists. In Pierre Nora’s magisterial study of France, only Bouvines, in 1214 [which ended the 1202–14 Anglo-French War], makes the cut. Waterloo, unsurprisingly, does not figure.

Yet at the time Waterloo was hailed in Britain as a battle different in scale and import from any other of the modern era. It had, it was claimed, ushered in a century of peace in continental Europe. It had brought to a close, in Britain’s favour, the centuries-old military rivalry with France. And it had ended France’s dream of building a great continental empire in Europe, while leaving Britain’s global ambitions intact. If the Victorian age could be claimed as ‘Britain’s century’, it was her victory over Napoleon that had ushered it in. Britain, it seemed, had every reason to celebrate, every reason to claim Waterloo as its own.

To some extent Britain’s response was justified; it was a victory that positioned the country favourably, bolstering its global ambitions and helping to create the conditions for the economic success that lay ahead in the Victorian era. Having laid the final, decisive blow on Napoleon, Britain could command a leading role in the peace negotiations that followed and thus shape a settlement that suited its interests. While other coalition states claimed back sections of Europe, the Vienna Treaty gave Britain control over a number of global territories, including South Africa, Tobago, Sri Lanka, Martinique and the Dutch East Indies, something that would become instrumental in the development of the British Empire’s vast colonial command. It is not surprising then that in other parts of Europe, Waterloo - though still widely acknowledged as decisive - is generally accorded less significance than the Battle of Leipzig.

If Waterloo was Britain’s greatest military triumph, as it is often feted, it surely does not owe that status to the battle itself. Military historians generally agree that the battle was not a great showcase of either Napoleon’s or Wellington’s strategic prowess. Indeed, Napoleon is commonly believed to have made several important blunders at Waterloo, ensuring that Wellington’s task of holding firm was less challenging than it might have been. The battle was a bloodbath on an epic scale but, as an example of two great military leaders locking horns, it leaves a lot to be desired.

The short term significance in the aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s storied military career. He reportedly rode away from the battle in tears. Though he emerged victorious, the Duke of Wellington later reflected on the the horrific costs of that victory: “My heart is broken by the terrible loss I have sustained in my old friends and companions and my poor soldiers. Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.” Wellington went on to serve as British prime minister, while Blucher, in his 70s at the time of the Waterloo battle, died a few years later.

Waterloo’s long term significance must surely be the role it played in achieving lasting peace in Europe. Wellington, who did not share Napoleon’s relish for battle, is said to have told his men, “If you survive, if you just stand there and repel the French, I’ll guarantee you a generation of peace”. Perhaps the lesson of this historic battle the nations of Europe which fought as foes that day need to forget these old sores and celebrate together; recognising that it did force Europe to acknowledge that it must find a new path of reconciliation and accord. This road has been far from smooth, but each time it has failed, a greater understanding of the need for the European states to work more closely together has emerged from the ashes.

Ultimately this is the truly significant importance of Waterloo.

[alakeeffectgirl]

cruisequarries PART TWO

PART ONE What did we get up to yesterday? 2018? Okay. I will put everything behind a spoiler cut again (there are more pictures/a video today).

Actually, let's rewind just a little, for some Fallout premiere pictures just because.

Paris, July 12th:

London, July 13th:

Seoul, July 16th (according to the designer's website, the hanbok Heather is wearing was designed as a wedding dress, mmhmm)...

I love this picture because they're making those faces at Chris. Here's the bit of Tom making Heather cry in Tokyo:

I highly recommend listening to Tom & Chris commentary track on Fallout, which starts with McQ introducing himself as the writer/director and then Tom introducing himself - as McQ's friend. After the Fallout press tour wraps up, work starts in earnest on Top Gun: Maverick, which Tom and McQ have been discussing - idly, on McQ's part - for years now. "Our relationship is one long conversation about movies," indeed.

While TGM is filming, pre-production is also happening on MI:DR, which McQ has signed on to direct. (These two are usually juggling at least two projects at a time, and really it's probably more like five projects at a time.)

In January of 2019, they're all back in LA so Tom and McQ can pick up some awards.

The McQuarries also go to a premiere and look fantastic (I love McQ's suit):

Tom and McQ go to Ukraine to scout Dead Reckoning locations later in 2019, meet President Zelenskyy, and McQ gets to put his arm around Tom for once instead of their usual other way around.

OH NO I ALMOST FORGOT - at the end of 2019, Tom took the whole McQ clan with him to Las Vegas to see Lady Gaga and ask her to write the TGM song. [cries in 'that's his family']

Production ramps up on DR - and then unfortunately, as we all know, COVID. Most of the cast and crew were in Venice when everything shut down, but Tom hadn't arrived yet.

Production resumes in Rome in October (their production struggles/trying to keep everyone employed/Tom rightfully yelling at people to follow protocols because a lot of jobs depend on them is all well documented), and then moves to Venice. Heather and the dogs are also part of this traveling band.

This isn't six feet apart, dudes...

Production breaks for the holidays, and resumes in Abi Dhabi for the airport/desert sequences, and also one of my favorite pictures of Tom and Heather, just for her expression.

Train sequence filming in Yorkshire in April of 2021, that's Heather in the blue coat:

DR production then breaks for a bit over the summer so Tom can take all his friends to Wimbledon, go to several car things, and make McQ watch football (the soccer version).

DR filming resumes in the fall/winter. Heather goes with to South Africa and they rent out what is basically an adults-only hotel (and save it from having to close!), for part of their stay. I love this picture because Gypsy looks so long-suffering:

OKAY IT'S 2022 NOW, time for the Top Gun: Maverick premiere tour to start - finally! (Do any of these people SLEEP? No. I think it's well-documented that Tom Cruise does not sleep, which is part of what makes him Tom Cruise, but also this means he calls McQ at two in the morning to talk about movies. There's a podcast somewhere where McQ says he thinks Tom might sleep "between the 2:05 email and the 2:40 email", or something along those lines.) (After getting back from South Africa, there was a bunch of test screening stuff for TGM, which is why there are those parking garage pictures. Wouldn't the movie be done, you'd think, since it was supposed to be out in 2020? COVID gave them a reason to tinker with it even more.) The San Diego premiere on the USS MIdway (all the McQs were there, but there aren't any good pictures):

Then Tom went to Mexico, and McQ went home to London for a few days before Tom returned, and they went to the Royal Windsor horse show together.

THEN EVERYONE WENT TO CANNES. Sorry I have just a shitty screencap with a watermark here but alas tumblr only lets you put one video per post. Tom and McQ stopped to get their picture taken en route to the actual photocall and Tom made Heather come back and be in the pictures with them. There is video here.

Cannes, of course, was amazing. I have garbage homemade gifs but they're too big for tumblr (also they're garbage) but all the Cannes red carpet footage is available on YouTube, here and here. (Worth it for Heather, tbh.)

They went straight from Cannes - on Tom's helicopter - back to London for the Royal premiere. Where the McQuarries looked amazing and McQ wore his McQ shoes.

And the after party, because heaven forbid they not all ride in the same car:

And then the McQuarries got a slight break, while Tom went to do more TGM press. But he was back in London by the end of June, and they went on what can only be described as a string of dates. First, they went to the Rolling Stones concert at Hyde Park.

McQ was on Tom's other side, but he's only visible in video (the Daily Mail might be garbage but they do come through with the media).

Then Tom and Heather went to The Eagles show at Hyde Park:

And they all went to see Adele - also at Hyde Park. (The woman in the pink sweater is Tom's CAA agent Maha Dakhil Jackson - I found the picture where you can see Heather over Tom's shoulder.)

Then for Tom's birthday, they went to the F1 British Grand Prix (with some other TGM folks, but they aren't three steps behind Tom like the McQuarries are).

Oh no, we're not done. Tom takes Heather to Wimbledon, where she holds his sunglasses (not visible in this picture).

McQ did not go with, as he was recording a Light the Fuse podcast - which he surprise-dialled in a bunch of DR folks - and his final surprise was Tom. Who was still at Wimbledon with Heather. McQ calls Heather to get Tom, and Heather plays dumb and is like, "oh I don't know where he is, did you try calling him?" and Chris says he already told the podcast guys that they were together. So Tom does his segment from the car he's in with Heather, and his part is only supposed to be like ten minutes but he talks for about forty-five and this includes telling the world they basically all live together. Then they went out to dinner!

And the next day they all went to Wimbledon with Maha and her husband.

I'm stopping here because this is already SO LONG and 2023 is going to be wild just by itself! PART THREE

[girlreviews]

Review #263: Tracy Chapman, Tracy Chapman

You don’t get artists like Tracy Chapman come along too often, and it’s infuriating when they do, because you see the same old shit play out. People are threatened by their mere presence and the idea that they can make something so incredible, but especially that it might give marginalized people a voice. This record came out the year I was born, so it’s approaching its 36th birthday. It’s both unsurprising and also a little devastating at how relevant it remains in 2024. I’ll start by saying: I love it, her, I always have, and I have so many memories attached to this record. Some so sad and some really sweet, all really tender.

But I have something to say about both music critics and general white fragility when it comes to Tracy. Here’s a 1988 review from renowned critic Robert Christgau, self proclaimed “Dean of American Rock Critics” (are American rock critics some kind of authority too? Why’s that? Interesting.):

"Fast Car" is so far-seeing, "Mountains o' Things" so necessary, that it's doubly annoying when she puts her name on begged questions like "Why" and "Talkin' Bout a Revolution." Maybe I should be heartened and so forth that Intelligent Young People are once again pushing naive left-folkie truisms, but she's too good for such condescension--even sings like a natural. Get real, girl. B MINUS”

Where to begin? Firstly, that is the entire review. So you want to talk about condescension, Robert? You can start by referring to Tracy Chapman as a grown woman, which she is, and was, in 1988. And critic you may be, but you’ve never written a review that’s even half as good as Talkin’ Bout A Revolution, which is more relevant today than any of your writing. Why was about apartheid. Maybe you had the luxury of not giving a fuck. Assigning grades? B minus? Get real, boy.

Curious what grade you gave Paul Simon’s Graceland, an album recorded during apartheid, some in South Africa with an array of African musicians who he then toured with. This was both criticized and praised. The point is, it was very political, not in content so much, but in creation. So, when it’s done by an egotistical white man? Listen, I love Graceland but don’t think I won’t be looking into that with some serious side-eye. OH WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE, PAUL SIMON’S 1986 GRACELAND RECEIVED AN A. Fuck all the way off, and then fuck off some more.

This album isn’t for you. Has it ever occurred to you that not every piece of music was made to be consumed by you? And to be declared worthy by you? Jesus fucking Christ, the audacity. She’s singing about poverty, the kind most people will never truly know. The traumatic kind. She’s singing about domestic violence, you know, the kind typically perpetrated by men against women and that too often takes their lives. She’s singing about a tense relationship with the police. She’s singing about escaping dire situations with a glimmer of hope that she might finally belong, that she might finally “be someone”… Only to find herself in seemingly just as dire ones. Do you relate, Robert? Let’s go back to 1988 and you just sit this one out. To be clear, it’s not entirely for me either! But when you have that awareness, you can hear something and still appreciate it. It’s not that hard.

Fast Car was still on the radio a good bit when I was growing up, and again, I think my Mom played this record from time to time. But my real connection to Tracy Chapman came to me in two different ways: VH1’s Pop Up Video, which I watched every single day before I went to school. Over and over, the same episodes. There was an episode that featured Fast Car, and I remember just being floored by the little facts that popped up. Her life had been so unbelievably difficult, with challenge after challenge — which is pretty damn clear in the song. The thing I always remember is that as a young girl, she had saved up her money to buy a guitar, and then her best friend stole it. As stupid as it sounds I think about that all the time. Anyway, this song is special, and everyone knows it, it’s massive, but it’s something different to everyone. Can anyone relate specifically to what she’s describing? Probably somebody, somewhere. Maybe lots of people. But I can tell you that I listened to this song curled up in my bed pretending to be asleep with tears streaming down my face. Wishing that some parts of it weren’t true for me, and wishing that some parts of it were. It’s both a gut punch and a cup of tea between my cold hands.

The second way was Baby Can I Hold You, which, and this kind of cracks me up, was covered by Irish boyband Boyzone in the 90s. Little baby me was pretty into Boyzone, but eventually learned that the original artist was Tracy Chapman. Obviously, her version is better. It hurts my feelings. Is it someone declaring their feelings? Or is it someone communicating the experience of an emotionally unavailable partner, and the words they long to hear? Either way, there’s an ache in it, and it’s beautiful.

Tracy Chapman has been having a major resurgence, because a white male country artist covered Fast Car and as a result an entire new generation of young people are being moved by it. While I kind of wish there wasn’t a cover like this at all, it’s been nice to see Luke Combs give Tracy Chapman the spotlight she deserves and make it her moment. They seem to have a sweet and thoughtful relationship, and he truly loved the record when it came out. He had it on cassette. It was really something to see Tracy on stage at the Grammys smiling, thriving, looking beautiful as ever and singing with that voice just shutting everybody the hell up. I also appreciate that he kept the genders the same in his cover. I’d love to know whether he chose that or whether she insisted upon it. Either way, it was the right call.

Chances are you’ve heard Fast Car, and maybe even Baby Can I Hold You. Don’t be a dweeb, this record is significant and I really believe you’re missing out if you go through your life without listening to it, but it’s your call. I’d like to personally thank Tracy Chapman and VH1’s Pop Up Video for their contributions to my life and the content of my brain. I love you both so very much.

[sl-newsie]

Query: Q x 00 Agent- Ch. 11: Somewhat Normal

“This is us.”

Q gestures to the next door and opens it to let me in. The room is simple, somewhere one might picture a family taking their kids on holiday. 2 beds and a small bathroom. In the back there’s a giant window displaying a gorgeous view of the mountains.

“Nice choice, Q. Your selection in hotel bookings is just as tasteful as your interior design choices.”

“Um, thanks?” Q drops his bag down on one of the beds and sets his laptop up on the desk. “Do you know what this is?” He holds out the ring Bond gave to him and I see a strange symbol on it.

“An ugly octopus?”

He chuckles dryly. “Charming. No, it's a symbol.”

“No doubt for whoever’s behind this mess,” I wonder out loud. “Maybe it’s like the Hydra.”

Q frowns. “How could you connect it to something like that?”

I sit up on the table and cross my legs. “As Einstein said, ‘intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.’ The Hydra’s always been a symbol for perseverance, with the whole ‘cut off one head, two more grow back’ meaning. Maybe this octopus is a symbol for different members of this plot?”

I’m cut off when Q points to me with a look of eureka. He clicks another link and another image pops up.

“You’re absolutely right. This is-”

Knock knock.

We both turn towards the door.

“I’ll check it out,” I say softly as I get up. “You grab my grappling equipment and get ready to run. If it’s not Bond, we make a quick exit out the back window.”

I carefully step to the door and pull my pistol out. One, two, three-

“Hello, Levie.”

I roll my eyes at Bond’s laid-back tone, returning my pistol to its holster and walking back to the table. Bond walks in, along with who I think is the Dr. Swann he was talking about earlier. I can already tell she’s Bond’s type. Stubborn, pretty, and full of attitude.

Q goes to close the door and Bond nods in greeting. “Dr. Swann, Q. Q, Dr. Swann.”

Dr. Swann eyes him cautiously. “Hello.”

“Enchanted,” Q returns with the same tone.

“Dr. Swann, meet 0011.”

I hold out a hand for us to shake but she doesn’t budge. “Pleased to meet you. I hope Bond’s been treating you well?” She gives me a look of deep annoyance. “I’ll take that as a temporary no.”

“Bond, we need to talk. Alone.” Q emphasizes

“She knows,” he responds.

“But Bond-”

“She knows,” Bond repeats. “What have you got?” Here it goes.

Q lowers his head. “I owe you an apology, 007. You were right. Oberhauser is still alive, the ring proves it.” He pulls out his laptop and brings up a chart shaped with the same symbol on the ring. “And it seems they were all part of one organization. Silva, Sciarra, White, Patrice, Greene, and Le Chiffre. And do you know who links them all?”

“Him.” Bond points to the screen.

“Exactly.”

“The organization. Do you know what it’s called?”

“SPECTRE,” Dr. Swann says from across the room. “Its name is SPECTRE.”

Q looks between us with confused eyes. “How does she know?”

“Because my father was part of it,” Swann explains.

“Well then you ought to see this.”

Q clicks a TV remote and a news report shows the headline: Cape Town In Chaos. He must have just gotten an alert from M. The story goes on to report a massive terrorist strike in South Africa; something that will no doubt stress for the Nine Eyes program to be pushed through.

“Q, go back to London,” Bond says while still watching the TV. “M’s going to need your help. And keep tracking me.”

Q nods. “I will. And Bond, you have to find L'Américain. He’s our only link to Oberhauser.”

“It’s not a person,” Dr. Swann speaks up. “It’s a place. In Tangier.”

“Then that’s where we need to go next.” Bond heads for the door and checks to see if it’s clear. 

“I can help-” I start to follow.

Bond holds up a hand to stop me. “You go with him, Levie. You’ve already risked your 00 status by being here. You need to go back. I can handle this.”

It’s best not to argue. Bond’s far more experienced and he’s right. M needs anyone he can trust.

“Best of luck, Bond. Don’t hesitate to call.”

We shake hands and Bond escorts Dr. Swann out, leaving me with Q again. He’s still typing away on his laptop so the only helpful thing I can do is continue to survey the outside premises.

“Are you upset?” Q asks from behind.

I shake my head as I stare out the giant window. “Just disappointed that I’m going to be stuck in London again. It doesn’t help that C keeps trying to pry into everything- Wait a minute, why aren’t you packing?”

Instead of gathering his belongings, Q is instead setting out the contents of his travel bag.

“It would be a shame to waste my savings on a room and not use it. Besides, I’m due for a small holiday even if it is one night.”

Did I hear that right?

“Are you, the workaholic Quartermaster, taking a break? Do you feel light-headed?”

“Very funny,” Q replies dryly. “Between C’s interference and the headache Bond’s giving me I want to try and feel like a normal human being.”

I can’t say I blame him. He deserves a break from everyone, including me. It’s too late and too expensive for me to book my own room so I should go report back to M-

“Where are you going?” Q asks as I start to walk towards the door.

I frown. “You’re taking a night off. I thought I’d go back early and not be a bother.”

Q gets a disagreeing look and he gestures to the other bed. “This is why I booked a double-bed, 0011. This room is for you too.”

He’s not joking? How has Q become my new favorite co-worker?

“You’re serious? First you send me on a solo mission, then you build me my own motorcycle. Now this!” I smile and shake my head. “How am I supposed to pay the tab?”

“Nothing to worry about.” Q waves it off. “You’ll probably repay me later by saving me from another assassin.”

“It would be my honor.” I do a dramatic bow. “So what now? What do you do for a holiday? You don’t take me as someone who skis.”

Q laughs nervously and scratches his neck. “No, I’d rather not do that. I’m not so adaptable when it comes to physical activity.”

“Then how do you meet the requirements?”

“By hard perseverance. Meaning I work myself until my body nearly collapses.”

I smirk. “Sounds like me. So if outdoor recreation is not an option…” I walk over to the TV and check the channel guide, coming up empty. “No good channels. And none of us are into drinking so the bar’s out of the question.”

Q picks up a hotel brochure and flips through it. “There’s a whirlpool outside.”

I snort. “You said to pack warm clothes. Swim attire didn’t exactly make it onto my list of warm clothing.”

“Are you wearing proper undergarments?”

This catches me off guard. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that.

“Obviously,” I scoff.

Q shrugs. “They’re basically the same thing as a bathing costume. If you’re against it then you can rest here.” He stands up and grabs a towel from the bathroom. “You know where to find me.”

I arch a brow. “I’m not hiding in a hotel room. Fine, I’ll go too.”

I triple-check the room to make sure it’s secure. After grabbing my own towel Q opens the door to let me pass and we both head down the dark hallway. By now it’s too late for much activity. No families with screaming kids, no lost elders looking for a map. The second I open the door to the outside deck a stiff breeze slaps me in the face.

“Alright, let’s find this whirlpool before I change my mind and book the next flight to Italy.”

I make a beeline to the tub and strip my boots, jacket, bulletproof vest, knickers, and jumper. All that’s left is my less-than-traditional ladies boxers, sports bra, and the knife holster around my thigh. It does feel strange to be more- revealing during a time like this. Yet this small scenario is nothing compared to all of Bond’s escapades. 

“Why Italy?” Q asks, avoiding looking at me directly.

I hustle over to sink below the soothing water, allowing my stress to melt. “Of all places I’ve been stationed to, I’ve never been sent to Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going. Not for a mission, but as a civilian.” I open my eyes and stare off, remembering my old dream. “Bond says the views there are stunning.”

Q’s been out of my sight for the past minute. When he sits down in the water across from me he reminds me of an icicle. Skinny, white, and shivering. He’s wearing boxers as well. What surprises me most is his physique. Not buff by any means but not a complete broomstick. 

“You look like an athletic sprinter,” I wonder out loud as I unpin my hair.

Q’s eyes seem to be searching for somewhere to focus. “Like I said, I work myself until my body nearly collapses. Um- I think that's the first time I’ve seen you with your hair down.”

I chuckle. “It’s a rare thing, Q. The only times I let it down is when I sleep or I have to do undercover work.” I scrunch my nose. “I’ve always hated having hair in my face.”

“Then why keep it long?”

I think for a minute, twirling a lock on my finger. “You know, I'm not sure. I suppose it’s because it adds to my femininity.” This makes me huff. “Which doesn’t help when my femininity is exploited for lying. Every time I need to show a pretty face I have to lie to somebody.” We sit in silence while the jets lull my thoughts numb. Q was right, this holiday was very well-needed.

“You should be grateful,” Q says after a while. “You are a high-ranking 00 field agent who can use her features to her advantage.”

Is he saying I should-!?

“I’m not just talking about a pretty face,” Q cuts off my thinking. “You’re quite clever and witty, which are some qualities that most everyday pretty faces don’t have.”

My eyes stare into him so hard I feel I’m about to burn a hole in his face. Never before has my Quartermaster said something so… uplifting.

“Did you just compliment me?” I get a cheeky smile.

He rolls his eyes and the moment’s gone. “Don’t get used to it, 0011. I’m only speaking as an impressed co-worker.”

So he did, but just doesn’t want to take credit. I’ll buy that. 

“On a lighter matter, where did you learn how to invent?” I ask. This should be interesting.

The geek’s eyes light up and his tense body language shifts. “I started out at Cambridge University-”

“Jeez Louise!” My jaw drops. 

Q simply holds up a hand. “Please hold all applause for after the lecture. Anyways, after I graduated I wanted to work with electronics. I was supposed to be sent to Scotland to work for a private company, but a few MI6 agents stepped in and offered me twice the salary. Granted I’d never been asked to merge mechanics with my expertise but I was willing to learn.”

This makes sense. Any level-headed chap wouldn’t overlook Q’s genius. It’s no wonder the government wanted him on their payroll.

Now I try a deeper subject. “Do you have family?”

Q nods. “For confidential and safety reasons I’m not allowed to visit them. They still send letters through the mail.”

“Sounds old-fashioned.”

He shrugs. “Sometimes old-fashioned is the most reliable.”

I snicker. “Says the man who said we should trust the future.”

“Haha. Since we’re on the subject of family, do you-?”

Beep! Beep!

The alert jerks my senses awake and my hand flies to my phone tucked under my jumper.

“Hold up. It’s M.” I answer the phone while Q gives me a jittered look. “What’s the news?”

“There’s been an emergency meeting of the security heads of state. The Nine Eyes program has been sanctioned unanimously.” I hear M sigh. “It goes online tomorrow night. He also informed me of you and Bond’s little trip to Austria.”

My eyes narrow. That little rat.

“Sir, Q is taking a small holiday to clear his thoughts,” I speak evenly. “I myself witnessed him having a terrible mental breakdown and chose to escort him to his resort personally. He has been gathering more information regarding a lead from Bond.”

A few seconds go by (while Q gives me a befuddled look) and then M answers:

“Just get back here. I expect you both at noon tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.”

His tone lightens. “And do tell Q to relax.”

The call ends and I replace the phone underneath my clothes. 

“I wouldn't call my small conflict with Bond a 'mental breakdown.' Let me guess, we’re fired?” Q asks anxiously. “No, wait! Don’t tell me!” He scrunches his eyes closed. 

“Hey, Nervous Nate.” I pat his shoulder. “We are not fired. In fact, M specifically said for you to relax. So relax!”

He slowly opens his eyes and leans back in relief. For a brief moment I swear Q actually becomes a normal person. No talk of missions or gadgets, just 2 chums hanging out. I hope Bond’s keeping his mental health intact too-

“Should we head up?”

Q’s voice stirs me from my thoughts. “Hm? Why’s that?”

“Because my brain feels like it’s melting and you look like you’re about to fall asleep, and I do not feel like dragging your unconscious self up 5 flights of stairs.”

I give an annoyed grunt. “Very well. All pleasure must come to an end anyways.”

The whirlpool did work wonders, both mentally and physically. My whole body feels soft and fatigued, while my mind is steady and relaxed. It all comes to a halt the instant we step out of the water and the freezing air speeds up my heart rate. After scrambling to redress and get back inside, Q and I head to our room.

“You can shower first,” Q offers. 

“Thank you, sir.” 

Once I’ve checked the room to be sure it’s clear I shut all the curtains, then retrieve my bag and enter the bathroom. It’s fairly sized with a decent tub, but I won’t waste any hot water for a bath. Instead I take a quick shower, scrubbing off any dirt that wasn’t washed away by the whirlpool. It must be the hotel that’s making me feel this relaxed; considering I’ve never taken a normal holiday it’s hard to adapt to it. When I finish up I open the door to find Q (no surprise) typing away on his laptop.

“Your turn,” I say. “I’ll check the news for any updates.”

Q seems to have gotten over his awkwardness. His body language makes him appear like we are two old friends rather than distant colleagues. He grabs a change of clothes and heads to the bathroom. I pull out a granola bar, hoping to satisfy my growing hunger, and turn on the TV. All I can put together is that all the news channels keep advertising the Nine Eyes initiative. Swell. C’s corrupted the media to work his will too.

“Alright?” Q asks when he returns.

I’m holding my head in my hands, rubbing my temples in hopes to block out the disturbing reports. 

“You can mute the television, you know.” I hear the TV noise die.

I sigh. “It doesn’t make a difference. No matter how far I bury my head in the sand there will always be bad news. That’s how my job works.” I lift my head and see Q settling down in his bed; wearing the usual sleep shirt and flannel pants with messy wet hair. It’s unclear why but the simple sight makes me smile.

Q catches me looking. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just nonsense. Probably going mad from all this mess.”

He nods respectfully and waits for me to sit down in my own bed before turning off the light. We lay in eerie silence. This is completely different than the noise from home, leaving me to wonder if I’ll be able to sleep.

“Q, do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you hadn’t joined MI6?”

A few seconds go by before he answers. “More often than I’d like to. But most of the time the benefits outweigh the setbacks.”

“Agreed. I love serving my country, and can’t think of anything else that could have outdone this.”

My life was a trainwreck until MI6 gave me something to fight for. After meeting M, Bond, and everyone else, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“Do you regret it?” Q asks after a while.

Staring off into the dark I shake my head. “Not a damn thing.”

And that includes working with Q.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Eyewreck [FICTOID]

The SMS Novara slid along the solid surface of the Lakes of Glass. 

Centuries earlier two mighty empires hurled their armies at one another across the trackless Sahara.

Human nature being what it is, things soon escalated.

What once had been sandy impassable desert now became interlinked craters filled with glass.

The ///SMS Novara/// did not look like a conventional ship.  It looked like a giant water-strider bug, only each of its legs ended in thick furry pads of satin.

The satin let the SMS Novara slide across the Lakes of Glass to sub-Sahara Africa, propelled by giant sails spread like wings out the wide.

The crew remained cooped up in the small cabin of the ship, a thick lead floor beneath them to absorb radiation still emitting from the Lakes of Glass.

It took two and twenty days to cross the Lakes of Glass, but at last they reached the fringe of vegetation that marked the beginning of Africa proper.

Once they reached the southernmost portion of the Lakes of Glass, the captain and crew furled their sails then started the mechanism that let the SMS Novara walk further inland.

They came looking for any signs of human life.

Instead, all they found were twisted, burned out cities; skeletal fingers reaching for the sky, unable to escape the grave.

They looked so terrible and tormented and ugly that the crew dubbed them “eyewrecks” and made mystical gestures to ward off any bad luck associated with them.

“Should we turn back?” the crew asked.

“No,” said the captain.  “South.  We must go south.”

Five more days they traveled south.  They came to a point where they knew they could travel no further, that they most conserve what little fuel remained so they could go north, back to the lakes of Glass, and use their sails to take them to the now dead and putrid Mediterranean Sea.

They parked the SMS Novara near one wrecked city. 

“We have two months of food left,” said the captain.  “We’ll wait here a month to see if anyone comes to greet us, then we’ll go back.”

At the next full moon, a guard on deck saw something moving among the nearby trees.

A pride of lions emerged, but not like any specimens the crew of the ///SMS Novara/// knew from their books.  There seemed bigger, darker, more majestic. 

They approached the SMS Novara and sat in a semi-circle facing it.

“They want to speak to you,” the crew told the captain.  He felt frightened but knew he must go down to them.

“Greetings,” he said when he stood face to face with the leader, a magnificent female.

“Greetings in return,” said the leader.

“You speak our language,” said the captain.

“We do many things,” said the leader.

“We come looking for survivors.”

“We survived.”

“So did we,” said the captain.  He quickly recounted how through a fluke his native country of Austria was spared the worst ravages of the great war, how they gradually rebuilt themselves, and how they now came looking for any place on Earth where more humans might dwell.

“There are no humans here,” said the lioness.

“Forgive me, but if there are no humans, how did you learn to speak?”

“There were humans,” said the lioness.

“Once,” her mate commented ironically.

“They’re gone now.”

“Where?”

“Absorbed,” said the lioness, stretching.  “Unlike your country with its protected valleys, all of Africa became tainted by radiation.  The last humans on the continent saw to it that as many native species as they could save received genetic treatment to make them immune to radiation, then they spliced their genes into our ancestors’ to create…us.”

“That…explains the language,” said the captain.  He stood erect, remembering his mission.  “We want to establish relations with you.  Trade, diplomatic, literary.  We want to help you rebuild this world.”

“Thank you, but no,” said the lioness.  “We are content with this world the way it is.  Leave us in peace, but leave us.

“What do you expect us to do?” said the captain.  “We’ve found no intelligent life elsewhere.”

“Not our problem,” yawned the mate.

The lioness gave him a wry look then said to the captain.  “Do whatever you wish, just don’t do it here.  We come to you in peace because you came to us in peace, but now that you know our mind on this matter, you know any return visit will be viewed as aggression.

“We will not have that.”

The captain bowed his head, knowing what the lioness said to be true,

With what it took for the remnant of Austria to build the SMS Novara, he knew they would be no more ships like her.

The sentient lions of Africa would remain safe and secure.

“What did they say?” the crew asked as he reboarded the SMS Novara.

“She bid us good-bye and wished us a pleasant journey back.”

“Back where?” the crew asked.  “Home?  Or hell?”

“Makes no difference,” said the captain, “they’re one and the same.”

 © Buzz Dixon