“It shouldn’t be,” I said. “I prefer the good old days, when cape against cape fights wouldn’t dig any deeper than the surface level. Costume against costume, no wounds that went beyond cuts, scrapes and bruises, unless they upped the ante first.”
“That’s stupid,” Tattletale said. “Nothing’s surface level. Our powers are intertwined with us, and we’re bringing all of our shit to the table when we go toe to toe with someone. Pit your powers against their powers, and you’re digging into your own shit while they’re doing the same, going back to what used to be the worst day of your life, you’re flinging that shit. To win your fights you need to know your enemy, but to do that you can’t stop at the surface.”
“We used to be able to.”
“We used to keep up a charade.”
“And while we were doing that no kids were getting chopped up into wriggling pieces!”
That seemed to give Tattletale pause.
“Point,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“But I think your take is a romantic, fragile one. We can’t go back there.”
“Believe me, I’m coming to terms with that. All I’m saying is I miss those days, and I’m going to respect anyone who holds themselves to those standards. Holding back while doing what needs to be done.”
whatever
This is so weird. Did Tattletale just forget about that time Brian got his nervous system spread out in a walk in closet and like, all the other shit the Slaughterhouse 9 did?
yeah, lisa feels ooc here to give victoria the “win”. i’m sure the redditors loved it though
the good old days
I can’t help but feel this is unfair to Victoria, she’s been alive for less than 15 years, but being a cape has been all of her life since she was breathing, and for the brief stint she was a cape, she was in the shallow pool. I think Lisa is acknowledging that so long as they played with the kids gloves on, ‘kids werent getting chopped up.’ effectively, they’re mourning their childhood, but what’s really fucked is that they really didn’t have one.
But honestly, it depends on what you’re interested in?
So, like, historical lectures (in increasing order of my impression of obscurity)-
Mike Duncan’s Revolutions. Decent chance you’ve already heard of/listened to it, he’s one of the more commonly interviewed semi-intellectual pop historians at the moment (..that might come off as derogatory. Not intended. Just in terms of where he gets interviewed). A series on the great political revolutions of modernity, starting with England, though America, France, Haiti, Spanish America (told as an extended biography of Simon Bolivar), the July Revolution in France, 1848, the Paris Commune, Mexico, and Russia (currently ongoing, to be the last). The first two aren’t…bad, but no great either. Haiti is amazing and a topic that’s basically never covered in mainstream historical surveys. Honestly a better historical survey of the long 19th century in Europe and Latin America period than you’re likely to have gotten in school. The first dozen episodes of the Russia series are also a generally decent explanation of the development of marxist and anarchist thought in the 19th century.
Partick Wyman’s Fall of Rome and Tides of History. Fall of Rome is what you would expect from the name, though rather than trying to do any sort of general survey after the introduction he focuses episodes on specific regions or themes rather than just a slice of time, generally. Tides of History is the same for the period from 1250-1550 (I think? might be a century off there), which he considers Europe to have developed the necessary conditions for the creation of the modern world. More recently, still under the Tides of History title, he’s moved on to early humanity, with the most recent episode being on predynastic Egypt. Found of, like, hypothetical case studies/explaining events and situations by describing what the biography of someone unexceptional living through it would have looked like. Spices things up with interviews with other academics and book club discussions with his producer on occasion
Sharyn Eastaugh’s History of the Crusades and Reconquista. On the opposite end, these very much are chronological narrative histories of the periods and subjects (including the Albigensian and Baltic crusades). If you’re the sort of person whose eyes glaze over at lots of names and places or zones out after fifteen minutes spent on one battle, you’ll bounce off of this, but she does an excellent job of getting into/trying to describe the personalities involved, and digs up plenty of interesting anecdotes to spice things up. First part of HotC excellent to listen to as you read Foucault’s Pendulum.
Robert Evans’ Behind The Bastards. Which, again, decent chance you’ve heard of. Biographies of the worst people in history interspersed with comedic banter with a rotating cast of guests. Early episodes are more comedic and obvious, stuff about Hitler’s attempts at painting or Saddam Huessein’s poetry and such. After that focuses on digging into terrible people and horrifying things that you probably wouldn’t have heard of, though! (also gets significantly more openly political).
Isaac Meyer and Demetria Spinrad’s Criminal Records. A true crime podcast but instead of serial killers its about digging up really weird of interesting crimes or court cases - ‘the oldest court case in ancient mesopotamia for which any record still exists’ is probably my favorite example. The hosts are a couple with a solid rhythm to their banter, and in between episodes on like the Stonewall riots or Jack Johnson or William Calley, they really do dig up some wonderfully obscure and bizarre bits of history.
Anthony Kaldellis’ Byzantium and Friends, an interview series with various experts in the study of byzantine/eastern roman history and related fields. Far more than any of the others listed, this is academics talking to academics for a presumed audience of academics, so neither a great introduction if you don’t know the field at all nor very snappy or highly produced or polished and often more than a bit dry. Still, really interesting and extremely current in terms of the state of the field.
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Pale Reflections is the unofficial-official Pale read-along podcast, analyzing a week’s updates at a time as they release. Useful substitute for having any friends irl you can actually talk to about new updates! Also good for pointing out the obvious things you missed and letting you feel smart for noticing things the hosts didn’t.
Pale in Comparison is a recently started Pact live read podcast where one of the hosts has read Pact and the other hasn’t but has read Pale, trying to figure out what Blake’s in for and understand the setting with that accurate-but-incomplete grounding. Doing an excellent job so far of making me want to reread Pact!
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Beyond that mostly scripted fiction which you don’t want, various politics/current events/opinion shows whose value basically depends on if there’s an ideological niche you wanted to fill in your news diet, and a couple Canadian investigative journalism shows which are probably a bit parochial. So hopefully one of those appeals!
ooh i tried getting into revolutions but couldn’t figure out here to start, might try again with haiti. Also pre dynastic egypt sounds interesting,
couple of my own recommendations (hope they’re not unwelcome):
hardcore history which i’m surprised you didn’t mention, although maybe you didn’t like it. it’s pprobably less rigorous than the others with more speculation. king of kings is very good if long, painfotainment is a one off and ‘short’ for a hardcore history one.
The pale reflections guys have also done read along/ analysis podcasts on the other wildbow stuff too btw, in case you’ve read those but not pale/ pact. we’ve got worm i think was their first which had someone who was rereading and someone reading for the first time.
also a podcast called ‘you’re wrong about’ where they do a deep dive into an old news story or event and go over it in depth, mostly focused on stuff that had a lot of misconceptions or misreporting. first got into it from their series on princess diana (the interesting stuff is more general craziness about how detached and weird the royal family are) but i also enjoyed their podcasts on “the ‘ebonics’ controversy”, “the duke lacrosse rape case”, “monica lewinsky”, and “the satanic panic”.
So Haiti is probably the strongest single series, but if you’re willing to make the (significant) time investment I’d probably actually start with France? Not necessary, Duncan does go over changes in the politics of the metropole that are directly relevant, but it adds some context to the conditions the Haitian Revolution occurred in.
(Honestly from France onwards the whole thing is best taken as a collective work on European history and the fallout of the Enlightenment and idk what’s that Octavio Paz quote…”The modern tradition is the tradition of revolt. The French Revolution is still our model today: history is violent change, and this change goes by the name of progress” - that. Spanish America and Mexico, and to a lesser extent Haiti, are a bit more stand alone, if only because there aren’t many reoccurring faces.
Hardcore History I don’t particularly care for, honestly. Being very shallow, Carlin’s voice grates, and I find his manner of presentation over dramatic and repetitive and meandering. Also each episode is just way too long.
You’re Wrong About actually sounds really interesting! Will have to give it a listen sometime.
