Open Secrets

[Valerie]

Floating Lantern

Seattle's Anarch Free Press since 1986 • floatinglantern.bloodspot

Open Secrets
11.6.2014

Local social scandal really isn’t Free Press news, but in some cases it neatly leads to some:

Fellow members of the Anarch movement may not be aware of how much of Camarilla politics revolves around the shit-talking equivalent of “courtly love”, a ritual ordeal that participants commonly refer to as “scandal”. While a more formal court was held this week, much of the gathering’s hubbub had to do with what it means to have or keep a secret. Is a secret always something that should be kept private, or are they occasionally created specifically to be revealed?

There aren’t really two kinds of secrets, of course, only two things that we commonly refer to as them. The first - secrets, actual secrets - are intensely private matters. They must be kept to oneself, or better yet, be allowed to slip into your subconscious as opposed to losing their features by rolling around in your head for a few decades. The second kind of “secret” can be anything from a family heirloom to a carefully designed social experiment. There’s no such thing as a leak. If you’ve read it on the Free Press, heard it from the Harpy or it’s pinned at the top of TMZ… it’s exactly where it was always meant to end up.

Now, I’ll admit to being unsure of exactly what sort of secret (or “secret”) that a threat to the praxis of Seattle was this past weekend, but either by design or incompetence it’s certainly no longer a secret to anyone but the completely isolated or the willfully ignorant. A long-time citizen of Seattle, highly esteemed member of the Camarilla, and pillar of the Ventrue clan who goes by Keket failed to seize leadership from Prince Orleans this past Saturday. At this point, I’m not even willing to speculate as to when this plan’s secrets ended and the “secrets” began. An outburst was made at a gathering, individuals attempted to leverage my own investments, people were conspicuously present or absent from various events… to put it gently, the plan was a lemon and drove like one despite the nice badge job.

It’s always been true that there are well-known members of the Seattle community who disagree with Prince Orleans for one reason or another. Some of these individuals may have grudges based on previous affairs or simple personality conflicts, but more still likely involve themselves out of a misplaced sense of duty in the form of defending Camarilla social norms. Less than a month ago, the Prince found himself on the receiving end of a Harpy’s decree to be viewed as lesser in the eyes of his subjects, allegedly because he didn’t treat a visiting a visiting Archon with the respect to which said Archon was accustomed. (In my view, as someone who was present for the conversation, he defended his rights against someone who decided to start a fruitless inquest by treating him like trash in his own house… but what do I know?) To hear the story told, it was like every citizen in Seattle was rattling their sword for the need of seeing Prince Orleans dressed down for treating that Archon so poorly.

However, “secret” isn’t the only word that can be interpreted in more than one way. “Citizen.” “Need.” “Poorly.” It’s a very complicated business, this English language.

Moving on: I’ve got no quarrel with the Prince, outside of being the local example of an office which is the building block of a political ideology that I find to be misguided. His willingness to let individuals of loudly differing opinion hold a respectful conversation with him, let alone remain in the city after a number of individuals claiming some of those same opinions tried to burn the place down, demands some respect. Perhaps that sort of behavior is exactly what gets some traditionalist goat?

Change can be good, but it isn’t always. Personally, I’d rather keep on keeping on in a city with a Prince who isn’t trying to erase my libertas than one that’s made a very public affair of bungling her plans to overthrow him. Twice.

Valerie