Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
The Archivaas learning about the libraries at Alexandria and Timbuktu – Anon Guest
They say that if you want to annoy a Human Librarian, you should get them started on the Library of Alexandria. It’s one of the more famous instances of knowledge destruction in Human history. It’s famous as one of the most devastating hits to human progress in all of their devastating histories of Humankind, right next to the Shattering.
Less well-known is the fact that the Library of Alexandria was burned down four times during Earth’s pre-Shattering period. Even less well-known are the book smugglers of Timbuktu. There have always been wars and other catastrophes that threaten stores of knowledge. Just as there have always been those determined to preserve whatever they could.
Should you be silly enough to bring up Alexandria to an Archivaas, they will glare at you and say, “We know, that’s why we exist,” and start telling you the exact histories of all four times Alexandria was burned and how much knowledge was lost. Then, if you are lucky, you are directed to the Timbuktu Memorial Mural. It depicts the fight, and flight, to keep thousands of books safe from the outrageous fortunes delivered by ignorant zealots who wanted nothing more than a world filled with ignorant zealotry.
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The Dutch resistance was widely believed to be a man’s effort in a man’s war. If women were involved, the thinking went, they were likely doing little more than handing out anti-German pamphlets or newspapers.
Yet Freddie Oversteegen and her sister Truus, two years her senior, were rare exceptions — a pair of teenage women who took up arms against Nazi occupiers and Dutch “traitors” on the outskirts of Amsterdam. With Hannie Schaft, a onetime law student with fiery red hair, they sabotaged bridges and rail lines with dynamite, shot Nazis while riding their bikes, and donned disguises to smuggle Jewish children across the country and sometimes out of concentration camps.
In perhaps their most daring act, they seduced their targets in taverns or bars, asked if they wanted to “go for a stroll” in the forest — and “liquidated” them, as Ms. Oversteegen put it, with a pull of the trigger.
“We had to do it,” she told one interviewer. “It was a necessary evil, killing those who betrayed the good people.” When asked how many people she had killed or helped kill, she demurred: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.” […]
There are people and things that are too good to be real. Well-behaved puppies. Ball pits filled with plushies. The really expensive salted caramel ice cream. The people are less likely to occur. This cruel existence tends to wound them. Break their heart and soul. They happen in fiction way more often: Dudley Do-Right, Wander, and other Unbreakably Good Guys.
But consider, just for a moment, Benny Goodkind. There are two ways to go when one’s religious mother has named you Benevolence and Benny chose the path less travelled. To actually live up to his name. To willingly see the good in people, things, and happenstance. And, when deemed irredeemable, to roll with the punches and carry on without malevolence.
He hasn’t filed a dime in taxes because he gives his every spare dollar to charity. Including the money that the IRS gives him for over-donating. He has a nice job on a help line, and lives frugally on the wrong side of the tracks. He helps children tie their shoes, and goes through his days unharmed by the naturally hostile or untrusting on the streets. He buys food stores in bulk to save money, and then uses those stores to make up meal boxes for the homeless in his area.
