archy!!

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

Gallipoli (1981)

directed by Peter Weir

Hiii, thank you! I'm glad people are interested in them!! Also idk if this helps, but I saw someone in my tags saying they'd got a copy of the book from the library, so might be worth having a look 🫶

But yeah, Val. So there's a few things that I think are really important context for Val:

She was raped as a teenager, and when she told her parents about it, she was told to never speak about it again. (Pam, the lead singer, unfortunately has a very similar story.)

Later in life she described herself as autistic (I don't think she was officially diagnosed, but it makes an awful lot of sense with descriptions of her in the book).

After separating from her husband she spent the rest of her life with a woman.

So when the following things happened to Val, we're talking about a young, traumatised, probably autistic, closeted queer woman.

Val displayed really erratic (and quite frankly, worrying) behaviour with men up until she met her future husband, Stephan. She only had very short flings, and often did things like randomly kiss taxi drivers as she got out the car, to try and make the other girls laugh.

Stephan was the first guy who she seemed more settled with, and for a bit of background on him, he came from a very well off family.

He passed his driving test on his birthday, called Val to tell her he'd drive to see her the next day, and she told him she wanted to see him on his birthday. So he got in his car and started driving.

Unfortunately, he had an awful accident and ended up paralysed. The way Mary and Sylvia write it, Val blamed herself for that for the rest of her life.

Then so that they could stay in Hamburg and Val could carry on playing with the band, Val agreed with his parents to become his full-time carer. In the book they make it clear that she did love him, I don't want to make it sound like she had no agency whatsoever, but also it completely took over her life, as full-time care does, and he exerted a lot of control over her.

The bit that really breaks my heart this is quote: 'Val turned up at the next rehersal looking downcast. "I can't come to Japan," she said.

Stephan wouldn't let her. The Hausners could have easily paid for a nurse, but Stephan would only let Val touch him and when the opportunity came up for the Liverbirds to play Japan he said, "No way." She was shattered.'

Stephan also got diagnosed with MS which affected his eyesight, which meant he required even more care, and Val began heavily relying on alcohol to cope. Stephan's Mother then forced them to separate and got Val sectioned in a psychiatric hospital.

Just to be clear, because it's not an entirely black and white situation, it does seem like they were able to live a very comfortable life thanks to Stephan's family, and I think Val on some level probably did need the safety and routine. I also think that ultimately, were it not for the guilt she had for the accident and perhaps internalised homophobia, I think the relationship would have fizzled out.

Val did thankfully did get sober and like I said, fell in love with a woman who she spent the rest of her life with.

A final note on Stephan is that I do believe he loved her and she loved him, and he did ensure she was financially supported after they separated and in his will.

Something else really fucking cool about Val, to end on a lighter note, is that she's the one who basically taught the other guitarists how to play, she figured out a lot of the guitar arrangements and the harmonies on the vocals. She was super talented, and music was her way of navigating how difficult she found life - "To be honest, I'm very autistic. I've got a barrier up when I'm out socially, but with the music I've learned to get through to people."

She's this angel, just to put a face to the name:

then bro...

Archy had failed at enlisting, because he was underage. If Frank hadn't suggested they travel together to Perth where he could help him pass as older and falsify a birth certificate, he would've just given up and gone home like normal.

Frank managed to get transferred to the Light Horse so he could be with Archy. So, had Frank not been there, Archy would've been forced to be the runner and thus would've been out of harm's way completely, but Frank being there meant Archy could just designate him to be the runner instead and still fight on the front (and then die).

Frank for sure feels guilty about not having run fast enough to halt the attack before it happened; if he had been there just 30 seconds before, the order that sent the troops (which Archy was apart of) to a certain death wouldn't have been given.

Also he does not know this but... For me it makes it worse that Archy also felt guilty. He felt guilty about Frank having enlisted alongside him, because he felt that it was his fault. Before meeting him, Frank never would've followed anyone into the war. It's Archy's presence that convinced him.

So Archy deciding that Frank should be the one to do the "safe" job is because he's come all this way just to fight and wouldn't want to miss out now, but also because he felt bad about dragging Frank into this. He sees how scared Frank is and feels partially responsible for it, so he decides to put him out of harm's way...