#romantia

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

05 May 1991 The Observer- Goodbye, Cruel World This jpeg is a bit smaller than intended, and I'm sure that Tumblr will mangle it further, but it's readable if you try. A fairly typical interview with the two pettes behind Romantia. Although the article seems to confuse the two, or at least is writing about them in a way that confuses me. Miss Lucinda is Miss Langridge's persona, and here Miss Martindale just appears to be "Miss Traill". In any case, it is a fairly typical interview with the two of them where they rage against the Pit. I will have to get a better version at a later date.

[claracatwhisper]

Crossover Ship:Romantia/Carromance

Character:Romance Saja (K-pop Demon Hunters)

X

Character:Carrotia the Rabbit (Sonic the Hedgehog)

@twisting-echo

@crosspunzel

@dawn64

@theflyingzinniaumbrella

They could be flirty and dangerous together

[claracatwhisper]

Romance Saja x Carrotia the Rabbit Moodboard

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

The Romantia Controversy And Their Connection To The Far-Right

Sometime in the middle of last year, some folks involved in the far-right British parties were sharing some memories of their times spent in the parlors of Romantia. Since I have been running this blog, these sorts of interactions with the far-right and those who were involved in Romantia keep popping up. At first it was just a vague rumor, then archived articles began turning up, and now we have actual accounts of the Romantia salon by someone who appeared to be well-known in the far-right sphere of influence. When I first stumbled across these particular stories, they were just entries in a blog, but it appears that they have been compiled into a printed book, a book that very quickly found its way onto the internet archive! Now, I will say that this book is a biography of a man who seemed to be incredibly prone to outright lies, so the details of the events can probably be taken with a grain of salt. However, I do not believe it was a lie that he mingled with the Aristasians, as we have so much other proof that they were quick to invite these types to hang out with them.

The following is lifted from this particular book, you may view the whole thing here and judge for yourself how much is to be believed. It's a read of a few pages, and my comments follow the screen shots.

Now, there are a few things simply incorrect about this, first of which is that, while I believe the list of Miss Martindale's alternate identities is mostly correct, I believe that the Countess Raysendyll was Miss Langridge, as there are a few references to a Countess that seem to be describing Priscilla. This chapter seems to confuse Miss Martindale with Miss Langridge, but this was something that was frequently done by those remembering these days. The little blurb about the history of Aristasia appears to be lifted straight from Against The Modern World, which is straight from the horses mouth (But the horse seems to have disagreed with what was written after it was published) and much of the other information about what they did and believed in seems to be lifted from other sources, instead of first hand accounts. And, I, of course, disagree with the statement "They divided themselves into Brunette (masculine) and Blonde (feminine)". The information about the group names is fairly jumbled, as they certainly didn't change their name to St. Bride's School in the mid 1990s. That was more of a mid 1980s thing that only lived into the 1990s via their computer game publishing.

Now that all of the wrong, confused, and lifted things are out of the way, we are left with a few interesting bits.

This chapter mentions that they were hosting Anti-Metric Society meetings, which appeared to be frequented by far-right people of interest as late as 1999! If this date is correct this puts these antics right in the thick of Aristasia-in-Telluria, when they were hosting Aristasian nights in London, burning pantyhose as a publicity stunt, and inviting girls to their embassies. They also say that these meetings were held on Iffley Road in Oxford, which is quite a different location from their infamous house in Whipps Cross in London, which is where the Weekend At Miss Martindales documentary was filmed. Other sources seem to say they operated in both Oxford and Whipps Cross post-1993. Another item of note is their system of dating, which I don't believe is something that was commonly noted. This chapter claims "a letter written in 1999 would be dated 1959", which is very similar (but off by 4 or 5 years, I could never decide which!) to something I have picked up reading their earliest forum archives. So, I do feel that this shows a genuine level of interaction with the Aristasians of the 1990s, making note of such a minor, largely unnoticed, quirk. Ultimately, there is very little new information in this chapter. No great insights into what went down behind their closed doors or no new mysterious names to cross check. Just the uncomfortable fact that the leaderesses of Aristasian were happily hosting far-right spokesmen in their parlors.

[claracatwhisper]

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

We hate to hear it, but some more links to the Aristasian endeavor of Romantia to fascism have popped up in recent days. It appears that the writings of a certain individual who spent some time around the Romantia crowd are working their way online, and Romantia gets a bit of an unusual, and unflattering, cameo. First, a story visiting the Oxford site of Perfect Publications, which is the Romantia publishing house. The following is a very unflattering description of a mysterious Miss Lucia:

Now, it should be mentioned that this article starts out by saying that this individual's writings should be taken as fiction until proven otherwise, and I do believe that this is a terribly exaggerated description of this person, to say the least.

A commenter confirms who we suspect Miss Lucina is. But more shockingly, confirms that "their political publications were influential among the UK radical right in the 1990s". We cannot pretend that this was an accident, or another case of "attracting the wrong kind of person". Evidence keeps turning up, again and again, that the proto-Aristasians were more than happy to invite these types into their parlors.

Archive of the article

As is usual with these types of findings, it is worth nothing that this aspect of Romantia was buried and whitewashed in Aristasia's later Electraspace days. It was presented to the then-current girls-in-Aristasia that it was just a Victorian social club. But more and more seems to pop up that proves that the Aristasians-in-Romantia were more than delighted to mingle with fascists because they seemed to have a lot in common.

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

Source: The Romantic 4.

The Concise Pippsie Dictionary is a little glossary of Romantia terms, I recall some of these making their way to the Elektraspace era, particularly "Striped Cusion", which I am still baffled by, although this particular glossary certainly makes it more clear that it's a bit of an absurd expression. So as not to forget how apparently influential these particular publications were among the radical right, we can see a similar, but not nearly as fun and silly, simile under "D".

[tellurian-in-aristasia]

The Evolution of the map of Aristasia

Thinking about the unveiling of Aristasia to Chelouranya had me thinking a bit about some of the terminology that had been used to describe their lands over the decades. While the name of the world changed, the districts have remained the same. So let us have a little peek at how their iconic map has changed over the decades.

From Imperial Angel issue 2, late around 1990 Perhaps this is the earliest published map of the lands of Romantia/Aristasia/Sai Herthe (although it's very possible an earlier concept was published in Artemis, which introduced the Poppitops and their kingdom of Poppitopia and the concept of Blonde and Brunette). In this era The Pit was called Babylon, or Carcanimæ, and this map was a "psychic territory", the issue of Imperial Angel goes at great lengths to discuss each of the districts and the symbolism of their placement on the map.

From The Children of the Void, published in 1996 The next known version of this map comes from the Children of the Void novel and cements a few of the ideas that would stick for a while. The "quarantine" is replaced with "Infra Quirinelle", an island that represented the very early 1960s. Other than that, Vintesse and Novaria have switched places, the capital city is now called "Ladyton" instead of "Romantiana", the hard lines between the Kadoria and Quirinelle and the rest of the map have been standardized, as I believe that Romantia had something to say about the 1940s and 1950s being only just barely acceptable, and the providence of Arcadia has been split in two: Arcadia and Amazonia. The little fancy lady in a long dress has been replaced with... a heiling Amazon soldieress. If you recall, in 1995 there was a bit of a kerfuffle beween Miss Martindale and some newspapers when they found an article she wrote about her distaste that a televised sporting event censored some roman salutes straight up Nazi salutes. This seems to have been a sticking point, and perhaps that's why Little Miss Amazonia is heiling her heart out.

An updated map from early elektraspace, late 1990s or early 2000s perhaps.

When the Aristasians moved to elektraspace, this version of the map was presented to signify their lands, and it seems to go from a "psychic territory" to a real alternate world with the addition of the lands and seas surrounding Aristasia, as well as the little "100 Miles (Arist.)" scale. A whole gaggle of new cities have sprouted up and the decade signifiers have vanished, perhaps cementing it more as a real place. Little Miss Amazonia is still doing her little Nazi salute from the Great Eastern Lands.

An even further updated map, posted on their blog in 2007

The final Aristasian map appears on their Aristasian Treasure Trove blog in 2007. It is almost the same as the previous elektraspace map, but there are a few notable differences: Vintesse and Novaria have once again swapped places and Novaria snakes into Amazonia, but Lempicka (perhaps named after Tamara de Lempicka, the Art Deco artist that the Aristasians had a penchant for) stays in more or less the same map location, so that it remains, rightfully so, in Vintesse. Perhaps because of the swap, all the other Vintesse cities have vanished from this map. Maybridge travels a little bit south, close to the lands of Novaria. If I recall correctly, Maybridge was the name of the districts, AKA the houses the Aristasians lived in. Perhaps the move from within Trent but nearby to Vintesse, to right the border of Trent and Novaria was a symbolic change in the aesthetics of said household. The final change, that I noticed right away, was our little heiling Amazonia has changed her arm to a much more friendly little wave. It was around this time that the Aristasians seemed to be in some sort of Wikipedia editing war to clean up their image and were absolutely appalled that people would dare dig up their past actions and bring them to light, so perhaps that's why Little Miss Amazonia has changed her pose.