Passionfruit 3, Papaya 19 [Divide and Rule]

[lost_spook]

Title: Freedom Fighting
Author: lost_spook
Story: Heroes of the Revolution (Divide & Rule)
Flavor(s): Passionfruit #3 (Fear that makes faith may break faith), Papaya #19 (I’ve still got a few more tricks up my sleeve)
Toppings/Extras: Brownie
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5025
Notes: Summer 1956; Julia Iveson, Edward Iveson. (Follows on from Other People’s Secrets

Comments

[lost_spook]

Thank you! Its faults are still all too obvious for me (I smushed up two versions and I couldn't quite keep everybody from inevitably repeating conversations all over the place) but i'm glad it still worked for you. :-)

Though, Edward a spy during the war? I hadn't seen that one coming (or perhaps just missed it, my memory's awful). It does make sense to make the innocuous, slightly awkward guy the spy rather than someone all brooding and dark. Much less conspicuous.

Ahaha. Sorry, it's just that the fictional portrayal of spies as compared to almost any rl accounts (and especially early/mid century British Intelligence) is completely hilarious. Hopefully I will get some of it in at some point, but we'll see. I'm not exactly an expert on the subject or anything, but I suppose I've picked up enough that I thought it should be obvious from everything so far that Edward must have done something along those lines during the war. (But not a field officer, no! And I hadn't stated it till now, don't worry; I just thought it would be an "of course!" moment when I did. *looks embarrassed*)

(I mean, I'm sure you know all this stuff, but rl national intelligence services are government departments. You have all the usual bureaucracy compounded by the fact that you officially aren't supposed to trust pretty much anyone else. The level of incompetence thus achieved by all sides sometimes is just beautiful and amazing. Also the British Joint Intelligence Committee in WWII was kept going by the power of tea and buns, frequently procured by criminal means, and I'm not even joking. Somebody needs to make a film.)

[fachefaucheux]

Heh, yes, I've never taken fictional portrayals of spies to be even remotely like the truth, but I write almost exclusively in the world of the pulpy and over-the-top that I often forget that there is a real world out there. XD So my mind immediately jumped to the mental image of him creeping about in dark hallways and knifing people. Which...uh, should have struck me as too wildly OOC to be possible, but there you have it.

I've actually never really delved much into the history/workings of intelligence agencies, outside of black ops stuff involving the Soviets/Russians. Though, considering the staggering amount of idiocy contained in the average army, I can imagine that intelligence agencies are equally mind-boggling. I'd totally watch a movie about dysfunctional bureaucratic spies.

[lost_spook]

So my mind immediately jumped to the mental image of him creeping about in dark hallways and knifing people. Which...uh, should have struck me as too wildly OOC to be possible, but there you have it.

Ha, no, LOL. He was definitely more of a desk spook. (Working in MI-5's counter-intelligence section, helping to try and turn German agents, mostly. A thing he's v glad he's officially not allowed to tell Julia. She might take it the wrong way. ;-D)

Oh, yes, indeed. I watch stuff like Spooks which, at least when it began, had some more realistic spy stuff in it, but even so the difference cracks me up every time I start looking into any of this. I was looking at some things again today and reminding myself that it was all serious and people died and things and then ran up against whole paragraphs about agent DUCK, and what can you do? (We've already had agents CELERY, SNOW & BISCUIT.)

[fachefaucheux]

Oh man, those are some awful code names. There's no one more intimidating than the lucky person to get stuck being agent BISCUIT. XD