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theroguequeenaniki · 3 years

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Questions 2009 -> 2021

This is from my Facebook. It popped up on my memories page thing. I originally answered this in 2009 when I was 15, it’s now 2021 & and I am 27, so I’m gonna do it again. Leaving the original answers. Original answers will be italicized. Commentary on the original answers in parentheses & crossed out? Lol. (I’m not gonna tag anyone, but, like, I guess if you want to answer these random questions from Facebook 12 years ago, go ahead lol)

Questions

Can you fill this out without lying? You've been tagged, so now you need to answer all the questions HONESTLY. At the end, choose people to tag. Don't forget to tag me so I can see your answers! To do this, copy this entire message, then go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, delete my answers, and type yours. Easy! Next, tag people that you think may enjoy this (in the right hand corner of the app). Click publish (at the bottom). Have fun! :) 1.What was the last thing you put in your mouth? My cup with my Big Red in it The straw to my Kate Spade tumbler to drink my HEB Cola Lol.

2.Where was your profile picture taken? I got it off the internet. it's a random anime girl. My bedroom. 3.Can you play Guitar Hero? Never played it. Probably wouldn't be good at it. Not to good at video games. But I am good at Mario Cart, both 64 and the Wii. plus I'm good at some Sonic games. Still never played it. Idk if I’m any good at Mario Cart or the Sonic games anymore, I haven’t played either in years lol

4.Name someone who made you laugh today? Doctor Who TikTok. My cats.

5.How late did you stay up last night and why? Umm, probably about 10:00 cause it took me forevor to get into bed. Uh..Past 4am. Lol. B/c my sleep schedule is fucked. I was in bed by 3am though, but I was playing games & watching TikToks on my phone. Lol.

6.If you could move somewhere else, would you? Yes. I'd move to either New York or Sweden. I don’t know. Part of me says yes. But part of me says no..b/c even though Texas has it’s faults (a LOT of them), I cannot imagine living anywhere else long-term..

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? HAHA. Yeah right. I've never even been kissed! Still nope. I have been kissed though. He just didn’t kiss me under the fireworks the one NYE we spent together...

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you? Um, I think R, but D might also. D is accross Stasney from me and R is a couple blocks down (I don’t talk to these people much anymore & I’m not going to share their names on Tumblr) Uh. I think Maybe Raven? B/c they’re the only one who lives in the same city still. But, Sarah might technically be closer distance wise? Hold on. Ok, yeah, Sarah’s closer, even though she doesn’t live in this city anymore.

9. Do you believe exes can be friends? It all depends on the situation.(I totally stold M's answer but it's true) (I don’t talk to this person anymore & I’m not gonna share their name on Tumblr) I mean, yeah. Two of my best friends are each others exes and they’re still friends. I haven’t stayed friend with my ex, but, uh, he ghosted me so? Lol.

10. How do you feel about Dr. Pepper? I love it. I still love it. Lol.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard? I can't remember. I don't think it was that long ago, I had a light cry on Saturday, but I don't remember the last time I cried really hard. When we got back from our trip in July. Had a full on breakdown that night. Overheated all weekend. Overwhelmed. Anxiety. It was not a very good vacation..I cry a lot though.

12. Who took your profile picture? I got it off of google. I did.

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of? Umm, either myself, or one of my family members. Aside from myself. I think my dad, on his phone, b/c there was a cicada on his shoulder and he wanted to ask the family group chat if he could keep it. Lol. I take a LOT of pictures of cats though. Lol.

14. Was yesterday better than today? Hail yes! To much drama today! And I couldn't avoid it cause I was in the middle of it! (Oof, what drama was 15 yo Linda dealing with that she couldn’t avoid? Lol. I mean, I guess, Sophomore year was a bit full of drama lol) Anyway, I mean, they were pretty much the same. One wasn’t better than the other. One wasn’t worse than the other.

15. Can you live a day without TV? yeah. Now Music there is something I can't live without! Yep, Do it almost everyday. Sentiments about music remain the same. Lol.

16. Are you upset about anything? Yes. I'm annoyed about something and it's making me upset. (I assume this has something to do with the the drama mentioned earlier lol) Always. Anxiety & depression are a bitch. My rooms a mess & I can’t get myself to clean it. My shelves are still a mess.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? yeah. though i havent really had one yet. I mean, yeah. Even though I haven’t had one last, aside from friendships, but they’re worth it.

18. Are you a bad influence? I hope not. If so, let me know.(again I took M's answer but it's true) Probably. Idk. Lol.

19. Night out or night in? Depends on what's going on and how I feel about it. Night in usually. I do like going out sometimes, but, like, to dinner. Maybe a movie or a show. But, you know, we’ve been in a panini press, the only thing I’ve been comfortable doing is going to dinner (fully vaxxed & masked). But I also prefer staying home anyway. (Like I usually just go to dinner with my family lol)

20. What items could you not go without during the day? my computer. my book. my journal and a pen. My phone. My journal (b/c I write in it every night, as a diary, 14yo Linda wrote stories). Uh. I didn’t take food or drinks into account in the og, so I won’t in those. But, yeah. My phone & journal. I can go a day without my laptop if I need to. (Went the whole trip in July without pulling it out, though maybe that’s not a good example since my anxiety on that trip was so high..) I want to say a book, but I’ve been in a massive reading slump so...I wish I read as much as 15yo Linda did..

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? I don't remember. I think it was myself.(if you want to know, ask me in person) I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember the last time I was in a hospital.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say? "Mrbobbybones: wish ted would finally meet their mother already. geez. get to it. However, I see myself in that character more and more each episode." yeah. That's what it says. It's from Twitter. (Huh? and I can’t even go check b/c my inbox doesn’t go back to 2009 on Twitter?? (I haven’t had my account that long) Wait wait wait just remembered I used to get tweets to my phone as text messages lol)

Facebook messenger: “ Cool” From our group chat. Lol.

From actual text messages on my phone: “ heeey! Just put up the Tuesday PDS just for you it’s a big one.” From Phillip Defranco’s text line Lol.

23. How do you feel about your life right now? I'm loving and hating it. but hey nobody gets out alive right? Uh..I mean. I’m alive. I have WiFi. Food. Family. I haven’t seen my friends in 2 years. (Minus Alex, b/c they were here in July to cat/house sit, but I saw them for like, one night..) There’s a lot that could be better. A lot that could be worse.

24. Do you hate anyone? yes!!! Oof. I mean, kinda.

25. If we were to look in your Facebook Inbox, what would we find? some random conversations. most of my convos on her though have been in chat or through comments. Facebook Inbox is now Facebook Messenger. So you’ll find all my Facebook Messenger convos. Mostly our group chat. And side group chats for secret planning (birthdays & stuff). Plus other chats? Lol.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass? I better! (excuse me miss 15yo Linda you absolutely could have passed a drug test you ALSO didn’t drink or smoke or take any drugs lol) Yeah. Absolutely. I don’t drink or smoke or take any drugs so, yeah? Lol.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?

Yes. But I can't remember when... Yeah. Pretty sure.

28. What song is stuck in your head? Gee by SNSD(Girls Generation) They're Korean. A few My Chemical Romance songs

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be? EDWARD CULLEN! Joke! lol. No I don't know. If it was Edward, I'd call the cops. whoever it is though better have an explaination or they are gonna get hit in the head with my Book of Shadows. (Maybe I wouldn’t mind Edward at my window though? Lol.) Uh. My friends? Lol. Idk if I want anyone knocking on my window at 2am.

30.Wanna have grandkids before you’re 50? I don't know....... Uh. No? Idk. Most likely not gonna happen.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow? I can't think of anything right now... Eat. Should probably clean my room.

32. Do you think too much or too little? Way to much! lol. Way way way too much

33. Do you smile a lot? i try to. I think I do. I get told that alot in Theater...

I think so

#questions #throwback #is this a get to know me #idk

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theyearoftheking · 3 years

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Book Eighty-One: Billy Summers

“Maybe a chilly story needs a chilly writing room, he thinks. It’s as good an explanation as any, since the whole process is a mystery to him, anyway.”

Well hello there, Constant Readers! Have you missed me and my half-assed reviews of Steve books?

Crickets.

I know I’ve promised book reviews, television recaps... all the things. But I’m kind of busy living and enjoying life at the moment, without the need to take notes or screen grabs. That being said, I really did enjoy Billy Summers, and it took me almost a hundred pages to remember how this blogging thing worked. I was supposed to take notes? Dark Tower references? DePere, Wisconsin? Should I remember that for some reason? But don’t worry, it was like riding a bike. This blog is full of all the stuff you’ve come to know and love, as well as SPOILERS!!! So, if you have not finished the book yet, stop reading and come back once you’ve turned the last page.

SPOILERS!!! Consider yourselves adequately warned.

Billy Summers doesn’t really include anything supernatural, and it’s more suspenseful and plot driven than some of Steve’s other books. In other words, it’s another great recommendation for people who don’t claim they don’t like Stephen King.

Billy is an assassin who has mastered the art of “dumb like a fox”.

He’s hired for a new assignment, but something seems off. Billy has been in the assassin game long enough to know when something is foul in the state of Denmark. He doesn’t trust the people who hired him, and he has the distinct impression he’s going to end up as the patsy in the end. But, he plays along as Dave Lockridge, single man and writer. He moves onto a charming street in Midwood (I kept reading this as Midworld... thanks, Steve), makes friends with all the neighbors, and beats all the neighborhood kids at Monopoly on the weekends. This part of the book was so tender, it reminded me a lot of Ted Brautigan and the kids from Hearts in Atlantis. Of all the things Billy later regrets, it’s letting these kids down, and having them trust him when he was obviously so untrustworthy.

During the day, Billy writes at his office in Gerald Tower. There’s always a tower, isn’t there? And this tower takes on more significance, because it’s the spot from which Billy is supposed to shoot Joel Allen. Joel is due to be transferred to Midwood, and marched up the steps of the courthouse just like in The Outsider. Constant Readers remember how well that worked out...

Billy has an assassins creed: he only shoots bad guys. On the scale of bad guys, Joel Allen isn’t quite Ted Bundy, but he’s not Mr. Rodgers either. He had something of a “me too” moment when he accidentally mistook a feminist writer for a sex worker; and there was a gun fight outside of a poker game. It’s enough for Billy to work with.

Billy is waiting for Joel to be transferred to the Midworld Midwood county lock-up; and he bides his time by actually doing some writing. He covers his tragic childhood (his mom worked in a laundry facility, just like Steve’s mom), and his time in the military. This is where Steve really shines. Billy’s book is written in a childish tone that just WORKS. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a simple-minded assassin. But still waters, friends. As the story goes on, Billy’s voice grows and improves. Well done, Steve, it’s like two books for the price of one.

In between writing, Billy assumes another fake identity (Dalton Smith), and secures a bolt hole to hide out in once his job is complete. Believe it or not, the murder of Joel Allen is such an insignificant part of the book. Billy successfully takes him out, and makes it to his bolt hole undetected. And this is really where the second part of the book starts.

One rainy night, Billy hears random noises outside his apartment. He looks out the window in time to see a van full of guys dump a female body into a gutter. Billy should have just anonymously called the police... but if he had done that, we wouldn’t have a story. Instead, Billy goes full on Captain Save A Ho, and pulls the young woman from the gutter. It’s clear she had been drugged and assaulted, and she manages to puke all over Billy’s place.

Neat.

When Alice wakes up in the morning, she recognizes Billy from the police sketches, but promises not to rat him out for the Joel Allen murder. They form an unlikely friendship that includes watering the neighbor’s plants, watching Blacklist, and Alice reading Billy’s book. Basically, they were sheltering in place before that was even a thing; something Steve jokes about. Eventually, Billy knows he needs to get the rest of his money for the Joel Allen hit, and punish the guys who raped Alice.

Y’all. I’m still having nightmares over the most creative use of a hand mixer I have ever read. I thought the can-opener in Lisey’s Story was bad... this was worse. But the kind of worse you feel good about, if that makes sense.

After finding out the name of the guy behind the Joel Allen hit, killing a few bad dudes, and pissing off a bitch named Marge (fucking Marge if you’re nasty), Billy and Alice hunker down in Colorado with Billy’s assassin booking agent, Bucky.

As soon as Billy and Alice entered Colorado and the town of Sidewinder was mentioned, I knew where we were headed. Yeah buddy, Overlook time!

Billy takes to writing in a little shack behind Bucky’s house, and inside the shack is a Polaroid picture of the topiary animals at the Overlook. Every time Billy looks at the picture, the animals seem to have shifted. It gives him a cold sense of dread.

There’s a certain parallel I picked up on in Colorado: Jack Torrance and Billy Summers are both haunted men running away from things. The Overlook was where Jack went to dry out, and work on his writing. He wanted to work on his marriage, and become a better father to Danny. We all know he failed spectacularly. Then, we’ve got Billy. Billy actually gets writing accomplished, and becomes an unlikely father-figure to Alice. Despite having just as much, if not more baggage than Jack, Billy doesn’t let it define him. He acknowledges it, and moves past it. It’s almost like Billy accomplishes what Jack couldn’t. And it took the Overlook burning to the ground for that to happen.

While we’re on the topic of Billy and Alice, one of the things I love about Steve’s characters is he never forces romance where there doesn’t need to be any. While Billy acknowledges the age gap between him and Alice, nothing untoward ever happens between them. There’s obvious love, but never the romantic kind. Steve is one of the few contemporary writers to get this right.

The story ends with Billy killing the guy behind Joel’s hit, getting shot by Marge as he leaves the crime scene (fucking Marge), Alice nursing him back to health, and getting him back to Colorado where they all live happily ever after.

I wish.

I wish I had stopped reading twenty-three pages before the book ended, because the actual end was more realistic, but heartbreaking. In reality, fucking Marge shot Billy in the stomach, and he died of an infection in the back of a Walmart parking lot. Fucking Marge indeed. But this was the way the book should have ended. Needed to end. Anything else would have been unrealistic. But damn, I hated to see Billy go out like that.

There was one Wisconsin reference: after Billy kills Joel Allen, he’s supposed to be transferred to a safe house in De Pere. You know... where Steve lived when he was in a kid.

Other than Gerald Tower, we were also graced with “the world has moved on-” just to remind us that we all follow The Beam.

Total Wisconsin Mentions: 49

Total Dark Tower References: 78

Book Grade: A+

Rebecca’s Definitive Ranking of Stephen King Books

Doctor Sleep: A+

The Talisman: A+

Wizard and Glass: A+

11/22/63: A+

Mr. Mercedes: A+

Billy Summers: A+

End of Watch: A+

Under the Dome: A+

Needful Things: A+

On Writing: A+

The Green Mile: A+

Hearts in Atlantis: A+

Full Dark, No Stars: A+

The Outsider: A+

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: A+

If It Bleeds: A+

Just After Sunset: A+

Rose Madder: A+

Misery: A+

Different Seasons: A+

It: A+

Four Past Midnight: A+

Stephen King Goes to the Movies: A+

The Shining: A-

The Stand: A-

Finders Keepers: A-

Bag of Bones: A-

Duma Key: A-

Black House: A-

The Institute: A-

The Wastelands: A-

The Drawing of the Three: A-

The Dark Tower: A-

Dolores Claiborne: A-

Blaze: B+

Hard Listening: B+

Revival: B+

Nightmares in the Sky: B+

The Dark Half: B+

Joyland: B+

Skeleton Crew: B+

The Dead Zone: B+

Nightmares & Dreamscapes: B+

Wolves of the Calla: B+

‘Salem’s Lot: B+

Song of Susannah: B+

Carrie: B+

Creepshow: B+

Later: B+

From a Buick 8: B

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: B

Sleeping Beauties: B-

The Colorado Kid: B-

Storm of the Century: B-

Everything’s Eventual: B-

Cycle of the Werewolf: B-

The Wind Through the Keyhole: B-

Danse Macabre: B-

The Running Man: C+

Cell: C+

Thinner: C+

Dark Visions: C+

The Eyes of the Dragon: C+

The Long Walk: C+

The Gunslinger: C+

Pet Sematary: C+

Firestarter: C+

Rage: C

Desperation: C-

Insomnia: C-

Cujo: C-

Nightshift: C-

Faithful: D

Gerald’s Game: D

Roadwork: D

Lisey’s Story: D

Christine: D

Dreamcatcher: D

The Regulators: D

The Tommyknockers D

I’m not going to end this with any promises of upcoming posts. That way when I do randomly stumble on here one afternoon, it will be a delight for us all.

Until next time, Long Days & Pleasant Nights,

Rebecca

#constant reader #stephen king #the dark tower #the shining #billy summers #hearts in atlantis #lisey's story #the overlook #jack torrance

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majinkura · 3 years

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Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter ( 1984)

Did You Know?👇👇👇👇🤔

The strange dance which Jimbo performs at the party was contributed by actor Crispin Glover and was based on the eccentric way he actually danced in clubs. On the set he was dancing to "Back in Black" by AC/DC as the scene was filmed. In the film however an edited version of "Love Is a Lie" by Lion was dubbed into the scene.

Last film in the series to pick up immediately where the previous film left off. At 58 years old at the time Ted White is the oldest stuntman/actor to portray Jason Voorhees. On a budget of $1,800,000 the film made $32,600,000 at the box office.

At the time, this installment of the series contained the most nudity and gore. The film was released on Friday the 13th: April 13, 1984.

In Turkey, this film, and the next sequel, Friday the 13th V: A New Beginning (1985), were released at the same time. People could watch both films back to back. Even the posters for both movies were displayed next to each other.

(at around 1h 2 mins) In one scene, Rob talks to Trish about his sister, Sandra. Sandra was one of Jason's victims in Friday the 13th - Part II (1981).

(at around 10 mins) The workout video Axel watches is Aerobicise (1982). It stars Darcy DeMoss who went on to have a role in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986).

This is the only film in the series to shoot new footage using sets and locations from a previous film. The beginning takes place on the set of Friday the 13th - Part III (1982), before moving to a new location.

Director Joseph Zito was opposed to using clips from previous installments at the beginning of the film.

(at around 9 mins) The nurse's name tag reads "R. Morgan, RN," an homage to actress Robbi Morgan, who played Annie in Friday the 13th (1980).

During filming Kimberly Beck, who plays Trish, experienced strange occurrences including a man watching her while she ran in the park and strange phone calls at all hours. This stopped when production was over.

Though he disliked being involved with the film, Ted White is considered by many fans to be one of the best Jasons.

(at around 9 mins) The moment where Jason's hand moves in the morgue was done by Ted White after Joseph Zito had called cut on the scene. However, the camera was still rolling, and caught this movement, and it was included in the film.

Writer Barney Cohen originally wrote a scene involving Jason fondling Trish's breasts but the producers vetoed it. Director Joseph Zito also disliked the scene because it made Jason seem too human and less menacing. The scene was excised.

Joseph Zito had previously directed The Prowler (1981), but they wanted him to both direct AND write Friday the 13th Part 4. He said, "But I'm not a writer," to which they said, "Here's a contract paying you double to write and direct," and then he responded, "Yeah, I'm totally a writer." Zito used the extra salary to hire Barney Cohen to somewhat secretly write the script. Their process entailed Zito taking nightly one-hour phone calls with Phil Scuderi to discuss the story and script for Final Chapter. The next day Zito would meet Cohen in an apartment in New York to relay what notes and ideas Scuderi had offered, which they would then turn into new script pages to be sent later that day to Scuderi in Boston to be discussed again over the phone that night.

Camilla More actually read for the role of Samantha, but when the producers discovered she had a twin, they offered both sisters the roles of Tina and Terri.

It is played for humor throughout Final Chapter that young Tommy Jarvis (Feldman) is suddenly surrounded by horny teenagers renting a cabin he can see into from his own house. However, the reality of the situation is that those actresses were indeed very or partially naked, and Corey Feldman was still young enough that Erich Anderson and Kimberly Beck took him trick-or-treating the first day of filming since it happened to be October 31, 1983. So, they shielded 12-year-old Feldman from most of the bad stuff, using tricky editing when necessary. What they could not control was the power of a low-cut top sans bra underneath. According to Feldman, in the scene in which Jodie Aronson's character bends over to greet Tommy's dog unbeknownst to anyone but Feldman he could see down her low-cut top.

It has been suggested that the only reasons Tom Savini worked as make-up artist on this film was in order that he could accurately age and properly kill the character he created from the first film.

Barbara Howard used a body double for her shower sex scene.

After Jason actor Ted White finished his scenes for this film, he immediately started work on Starman (1984). While on set for the night's filming, a group of reporters were waiting to interview Jeff Bridges, but he was unavailable. Therefore, director, John Carpenter, told the reporters to talk to White about the film he had recently finished. After telling the reporters he had just finished playing Jason in the latest Friday the 13th film, the next day's article was entirely about him, and that night, numerous "Friday" fans arrived at the set solely in order to see White.

Jason actor Ted White and special effects artist Tom Savini at first were confrontational with one another. But once White found out Savini had experience with stunts, the two became friends.

Rob was originally supposed to have high-tech equipment which he had used to track Jason, but the props for this looked cheap, and the idea was scrapped.

The film takes place on Sunday the 15th and beyond which makes it the second "Friday" film not to actually take place on a Friday at all. While the beginning with the coroners takes place during the night of Sunday the 15th, the rest of the film takes place on Monday the 16th, with Tuesday the 17th being the climactic night.

Even though he plays her son, Ted White (Jason Voorhees) is actually 11 months older than Betsy Palmer (Pamela Voorhees).

Rather than making masks, Tommy was originally going to have been an inventor. One of his projects was a device made from a microwave oven, which would have been what he used to kill Jason. Some of this is seen in the final product in a scene where he helps repair a car.

Amy Steel talked Peter Barton into doing the film. By the time the Final Chapter offer came around Matthew Star was off the air, and Barton wanted no part of horror films, having hated working on Hell Night in 1981. Amy Steel somehow talked him into it, selling him on the notoriety of starring in the final Friday the 13th film.

Director Joseph Zito wanted Jason's hockey mask to explode apart in the opening credits, but there was not enough time in post-production to pull off this gag.

Paramount was originally going to release the film in October, 1984. After filming wrapped in January Paramount studio head Frank Mancuso Sr. screened footage of the film to much enthusiasm. After a window opened up the release date was changed to April upon confirmation from Joseph Zito that he could complete the film faster than planned. This led to Zito, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., and a crew of editors essentially remaining locked in a house in Malibu editing around the clock in order to finish the film on time. This marked one of the only times that Paramount actively helped in the production of a Friday the 13th film, as they were generally produced independently, with the studio only handling marketing and distribution.

The house used for the Jarvis home was later used as the Anderson home in the film Ed Gein (2000) where serial killer Ed Gein is apprehended.

Bonnie Hellman's agents told her about a possible role in this film - the hitchhiker - but then told her that she would not want to do it, as there were no lines. However, she ended up taking the role anyway.

Kimberly Beck stated in the Crystal Lake Memories book that she does not like the horror genre. In addition to this, she also said that she feels this film was not even a B-movie, but rather a C-movie.

Distinguished film critic Roger Ebert called this film "an immoral and reprehensible piece of trash."

The Jarvis family's dog, Gordon, was named after a recently deceased dog which a friend of director Joseph Zito owned.

Peter Barton was talked into taking a role in this film by his The Powers of Matthew Star (1982) co-star Amy Steel who played Ginny in Friday the 13th - Part II (1981).

The female hitchhiker was called "Fat Girl" in the original draft of the script.

The poster shows the hockey mask with a knife on its left eyesocket. Jason is defeated with a machete going through his left eye.

Kimberly Beck is the only Friday the 13th actress that appeared in an Alfred Hitchcock film. She worked on Marnie (1964), exactly 20 years prior to this. She plays the little girl that Marnie's mother babysits.

The film was shot entirely in California.

Carey More's audition was to simply read one line.

Lisa Freeman, who played Nurse Morgan, and Crispin Glover, who played Jimmy Mortimer, both would go on to be in the Back To The Future movies. Crispin Glover played George McFly in Back to the Future (1985) and Lisa Freeman played Babs in Back to the Future (1985) and Back to Future, part II (1989).

(at around 20 mins) The Jarvis family sandwich hug was based on a group hug that screenwriter Barney Cohen's family did.

Jason's death won the Golden Chainsaw Award in Dead Meat's "Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter" kill count.

This is considered by many fans, to be the best and most popular Friday the 13th film.

The Jarvis family car is a 1970 Dodge Polara.

Rob's rifle is a Winchester Model 70.

Rob looks to be the main male hero of the film to work alongside Final Girl Trish. Instead he dies almost immediately after encountering Jason, with the real Final Guy of the film being Tommy

The ambulance driver played by Antony Ponzini & Axel and the coroner played by Bruce Mahler both appeared on the sitcom Seinfled. Ponzini as Jerry's barber Enzo and Mahler as the Rabbi in Elaine's building.

Was released in theaters, directly a week before Crispin Glover's (Jimmy) 20th birthday.

Tracy Jarvis' fate and death would have been more further explained in a deleted scene that had been cut from the film. An alternate ending to the film, included in the 2009 Deluxe Edition DVD, shows a dream sequence where Trish and Tommy wake up the next morning after killing Jason to the sound of police sirens. Trish sends Tommy to summon the police who have arrived next door. At that point she notices water dripping from the ceiling and goes to investigate. She enters the upstairs bathroom, and finds the body of her mother floating in a tub full of bloody water. Trish lifts her mother out of the tub, prompting Tracy's eyes to open, revealing them to be solid white and devoid of irises. Jason suddenly appears from behind the bathroom door and prepares to attack Trish. Trish then suddenly wakes up in the hospital in a scene reminiscent of the ending of the first movie.

Ted White was uncredited as Jason Voorhees by his own request.

The twins are played by real life sisters Camilla and Carey More, who both also appeared on the daytime soap opera Days of our Lives as Gillian and Grace Forrester. More stars from the soap DAYS also appear in further Friday The 13th sequels like Renee Jones in Part 6, and Kevin Spirtas and Staci Greason in Part 7. Other soap stars that appeared in Friday The 13th films include Kevin Bacon, Russell Todd, Lauren Marie Taylor, Dana Kimmell, Kimberly Beck, Peter Barton, Jennifer Cooke, Michael Swan, and Scott Reeves.

Paul's car is a 1973 Chevrolet Caprice Estate station wagon.

According to Ted White, he and director Joseph Zito did not get along very well during filming.

The actress playing Trish's mother was only 14 years and 1 day older than her.

Both Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover later appeared in different films with actor Kiefer Sutherland in the same year: Feldman in Stand by Me (1986) and Glover in At Close Range (1986).

Pamela Voorhees' first name appears on a tombstone.

#friday the 13th the final chapter #jason voorhees #pamela voorhees

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notbecauseofvictories · 4 years

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Hi Sarah! My friend and I are starting a bookclub (as much as you can with two people who aren't pressed for deadlines) and I was wondering if you have any recommendations? (That is if you have time to rec anything!) We're starting off with Deathless and have Fitzgerald next in line somewhere but I def want to try to expand the genres we read and tbh from years of following you, I trust your judgement

I don’t...like giving recommendations? At least not directly, it seems like too much opportunity for getting it wrong. Everybody has their own tastes, after all, and even the best of friends don’t necessarily vibe with what you vibe with. (I’ve experienced this with multiple friends, so I know what I’m talking about.) Truly, one of the reasons that my whole “I’m going to get back into reading for pleasure!” push has been so successful is that I only bother with books that interest me, and stop reading when they fail to catch my attention.

But I’ve now read at least 60 books in 2020, which is approximately 60 more than I’ve read in the years prior, so I’m happy to share that. Below is my list of recent reads, beginning to end, along with a very short review---I keep this list in the notes app on my phone, so they have to be. Where I’ve talked about a book in a post, I’ve tried to link to it.

Peruse, and if something catches your interest I hope you enjoy!

2020 Reading List

Crazy Rich Asians series, Kevin Kwan (here)

Blackwater, Michael McDowell (here; pulpy horror and southern gothic in one novel; come for the monster but stay for the family drama.)

Fire and Hemlock, Diane Wynne Jones (here; weird and thoughtful, in ways I’m still thinking about)

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (here; loved it! I can see why people glommed onto it)

Swamplandia!, Karen Russell (unfinished, I could not get past the first paragraph; just....no.)

Rules of Scoundrels series, Sarah MacLean (an enjoyable romp through classic romancelandia, though if you read through 4 back to back you realize that MacLean really only writes 1 type of relationship and 1 type of sexual encounter, though I do appreciate insisting that the hero go down first.)

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden (here)

Dread Nation, Justine Ireland (great, put it with Stealing Thunder in terms of fun YA fantasy that makes everything less white and Eurocentric)

The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (VERY good. haunting good.)

Tell My Horse, Zora Neale Hurston (I read an interesting critique of Hurston that said she stripped a lot of the radicalism out of black stories - these might be an example, or counterexample. I haven't decided yet.)

The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society, T. Kingfisher (fun!)

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Karen Russell (some of these short stories are wonderful; however, Swamplandia's inspiration is still unreadable, which is wild.)

17776, Jon Bois (made me cry. deeply human. A triumph of internet storytelling)

The Girl with All the Gifts, M. R. Carey (deeply enjoyable. the ending is a bittersweet kick in the teeth, and I really enjoyed the adults' relationships)

The Door in the Hedge and Other Stories, Robin McKinley (enjoyable, but never really resolved into anything.)

The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley (fun, but feels very early fantasy - or maybe I've just read too many of the subsequent knock-offs.)

Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (weird little pulp novel.)

All Systems Red, Martha Wells (enjoyable, but I don't get the hype. won't be looking into the series unless opportunity arises.)

A People's History of Chicago, Kevin Coval (made me cry. bought a copy. am still thinking about it.)

The Sol Majestic, Ferrett Steinmetz (charming, a sf novel mostly about fine dining)

House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (immensely enjoyable read, for all it feels like fic with the serial numbers filed off)

The Au Pair, Emma Rous (not bad, but felt like it wanted to be more than it is)

The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo (preferred this to Ghost Bride; I enjoy a well-crafted mystery novel and this delivered)

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin (unfinished, I cannot fucking get into Le Guin and should really stop trying)

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (enjoyable, but not nearly as fun as Ghost Bride - the romance felt very disjointed, and could have used another round of editing)

Temptation's Darling, Johanna Lindsey (pure, unadulterated id in a romance novel, complete with a girl dressing as a boy to avoid detection)

Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (a strange, dark psychological portrait; really made a mark even though I can't quite put my finger on why)

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (slow at first, but picks up halfway through and builds nicely; a whiff of Gone Girl with the staggered perspectives building together)

Stealing Thunder, Alina Boyden (fun Tortall vibes, but set in Mughal India)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant; The Monster Baru Commorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (LOVE this, so much misery, terrible, ecstatic; more here)

This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone (epistolary love poetry, vicious and lovely; more here)

The Elementals, Michael McDowell

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (didn't like this one as much as I thought I would; narrator's contemporary voice was so jarring against the stylized world and action sequences read like the novelization for a video game; more here)

Finna, Nino Cipri (a fun little romp through interdimensional Ikea, if on the lighter side)

Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (engrossing, even if I could see every plot twist coming from a mile away)

Desdemona and the Deep, C. S. E. Cooney (enjoyed the weirdness & the fae bits, but very light fare)

A Blink of the Screen, Terry Pratchett (admittedly just read this for the Discworld bits)

A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (not as good about politics and colonialism as Baru, but still a powerful book about The Empire, and EXTREMELY cool worldbuilding that manages to be wholly alien and yet never heavily expositional)

Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (see my post)

Last Werewolf, Glen Duncan (didn't finish, got to to first explicit sex scene and couldn't get any further)

Prosper's Demon, KJ Parker (didn't work for me...felt like a short story that wanted to be fleshed out into a novel)

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett

His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik (extremely fun, even for a reader who doesn't much like Napoleonic stories)

Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone (fun romp - hard to believe that this is the same author as Time War though you can see glimmers of it in the imagery here)

A Scot in the Dark, Sarah MacLean (palette cleanser, she does write a good romance novel even it's basically the same romance novel over and over)

The Resurrectionist, E. B. Hudspeth (borrowed it on a whim one night, kept feeling like there was something I was supposed to /get/ about it, but never did - though I liked the Mutter Museum parallels)

Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang (he's a better ideas guy than a writer, though Hell Is The Absence of God made my skin prickle all over)

Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (fun, very much a throwback to my YA days of fairytale retellings, though obviously less European)

Four Roads Cross, Max Gladstone (it turns out I was a LOT more fond of Tara than I initially realized - plus this book had a good Pratchett-esque pacing and reliance on characterization)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (reading this after the Chiang was instructive - Link is such a better storyteller, better at prioritizing the human over the concept)

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips

Soulless; Changeless; Blameless, all by Gail Carriger (this series is basically a romance novel with some fantasy plot thrown in for fun; extremely charming and funny)

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (got about 1/3 of the way through and had to wave the white flag; will try again because I like the plot and the worldbuilding; the tone is just so hard to get through)

Pew, Catherine Lacey (a strange book, I'm still thinking about it; a good Southern book, though)

Nuremberg Diary, GM Gilbert (it took me two months to finish, and was worth it)

River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey (I wanted to like this one a lot more than I actually did; would have made a terrific movie but ultimately was not a great novel. Preferred Magic for Liars.)

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (extremely fun, though more trippy than Gods and the plot didn't work as well for me - though it was very original)

The New Voices of Fantasy, Peter S. Beagle (collected anthology, with some favorites I've read before Ursula Vernon's "Jackalope Wives", "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" "The Husband Stitch"; others that were great new finds "Selkie Stories are for Losers" from Sofia Satamar and "A Kiss With Teeth" from Max Gladstone and "The Philosophers" from Adam Ehrlich Sachs)

#from the bookshelf #Anonymous

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paganvamp · 3 years

Text

Saving Grace: Chapter Seven

Meet Damon Salvatore!

(Holy shit this a long chapter)

2009 AD: The Other Brother

Elena was soaked, standing chest-deep in the muddy lake as Ric looked on from the woods above.

“Damon! How are you even here?”

“Thanks for the tip, brother.” Damon’s voice, disapproving and frustrated, sounded from his place behind Ric, leaning against the tree trunk next to him. Neither of them seemed too bothered that he had just launched Elena into the water, though Ric did have the decency to look a bit sheepish.

“You sold me out!” Elena accused.

“You think I'd take you to a mountain range of werewolves on a full moon without backup?”

“Get out of the water, Elena.”

“If I get out of the water, you’re gonna make me go home.” Elena protested.

“Yes, because I’m not an idiot like you.”

“Right now, you’re both acting like idiots.” Ric groused, rolling his eyes, and walking further away from the bickering pair.

“Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Probably won’t be the last.” Grace’s voice could be heard before she came into view, but it was clear from the tone she meant the jibe with affection and good humor.

“You dragged Grace all the way out here just to babysit me?” Elena frowned at Damon.

“He dragged Grace all the way out here because she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” Grace responded in Damon’s stead. A moment of silence as Damon and Elena stared accusingly at each other.

“You gave up on him, Damon.”

A klaxon-sounding bell tore Grace from her vision-dream, and she was momentarily too discombobulated to realize it was her own alarm clock. Who the fuck are Damon and Ric? Grace sighed. And why the fuck are they looking for werewolves? She’d just gotten over her strange Stefan vision, and the uneasy feeling of her hand in his. Elena liked him, seemed to trust him, and Caroline thought he was God’s gift… it was only Bonnie who seemed to share Grace’s reservations.

Pulling her phone off the charger, Grace found she had a string of new messages. Navigating to the three-way chat between herself, Bonnie, and Elena (some things needed to be Caroline-free), she noticed that the other two girls had apparently had an entire conversation while Grace was asleep.

E: Any word on the psychic front? Am I gonna win the lottery today?

B: ha-ha. I told you, Grams was drunk. No winning lottery numbers here

E: 2 bad. Aunt Jenna really wanted that new tv

B: Grace, I hope Ur not ignoring us. That’s very rude

E: She’s probably still asleep, Bon. It’s like 5 am

There were more, as well as some texts from Caroline, but all Grace could see was one word floating in front of her eyes: psychic. She’d prayed that Bonnie would show some inclination toward magic, that she would have someone to talk to and practice with. Could this be the first signs of her Tapping into her powers?

Quickly - so quickly her first draft was unrecognizable as English – she typed out a response to Elena and Bonnie.

G: I’m awake. Psychic???

While waiting for a response, she alternated between reading the rest of her notifications and beginning the arduous process of brushing and braiding her elbow-length hair. Strangely, Grace had yet to receive Caroline’s customary ‘good morning’ message, which usually consisted of a precise list of all the plans she’d made for the entire day, and maybe an actual ‘good morning,' if she remembered. She did, however, have multiple texts from Caroline dated the night before.

C: If you notice any new tall, dark & handsomes around town, know I’ve already called dibs – 8:00 PM

C: could you please tell Elena she just needs to jump S’s bones already? She listens to u – 8:30 PM

C: OK srsly, I’m asking — has Vicki always been such an attention whore – 8:45 PM

C: don’t answer that – 8:46 PM

No other texts had come in from Caroline until hours later, when she sent the last message of the night:

C: Elena may be a prude, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get some. Don’t wait up ; ) – 10:30 PM

So, clearly Caroline had run into her ‘tall, dark, and handsome’ last night and taken him home. The last part of the message, ‘don’t wait up ; )’, sent a pang through Grace. She remembered when she was the one sending her friends texts like that. Not now, Grace. It’s school time. Mostly, she was fine, didn’t think of Bryan at all… but sometimes a memory would hit her like a fuckton of bricks. She shook off the sudden melancholy and gathered up the scattered grimoires and spiral notebooks strewn across her room from the night before. No wonder she’d stopped answering messages at 8:00 – after pouring over magical tomes for hours, she had fallen asleep early.

“Grace, hurry!” Aimee’s voice urged from her room across the hall. “Don’t you have practice today?” Oh, shit. No matter how good Caroline’s mystery man had been last night, she would happily skewer Grace over a bonfire if she were late for practice again, and her practice clothes were in her duffel in the school locker room. If she was late to school, she wouldn’t be able to grab them before class, which would mean she’d have to detour before practice to get them and… well. Either way, she needed to move her ass or she’d be late to first period. She winced; It was kind of a habit of hers, unfortunately.

“Shit, Aims, I really have to go! Are y’all ready, or can you get dad to drive you?” ‘Y’all,' a phrase reminiscent of her childhood in Louisiana, usually only made an appearance around family members or when she was in a hurry.

“Neither.” Chloe called grouchily from the bathroom, down the hall from her sister’s rooms. She was not a morning person — which was lucky for her, since she’d somehow ended up with study hall (aka an hour to sleep in) first thing in the morning. “Dad left already, which you would know if you ever woke up on time.” Since she didn’t have time to argue, Grace let the snide comment go this once.

“Then get in the car, we have to leave, Chloe!” Where is my damn history book? Grace’s room was a mess of grimoires and textbooks and writings by and for witches. The history book was buried somewhere in the sea of paper and ink.

Chloe’s head popped out from the bathroom, a furiously indignant look on her pretty face. Her hair was to Grace a rat’s nest of clips and curlers and bobby pins, though she was sure it made sense to Chloe.

“Not all of us are okay with looking like Leif Erikson every day, you know.” As mothers are wont to do, Cecile somehow sensed an argument brewing and appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Grace, you go. Take Aimee if she’s ready. I don’t have anything until the afternoon – I can drive Chloe.” As Assistant Curator of the history museum in the city, Cecile worked strange hours and dealt with a fairly lengthy commute every day, but she and Joseph – manager at a bakery in town — felt it worth the sacrifice.

“I’m ready!” To prove her point, the only brunette among them sailed past her mother and sister down the stairs, bag over her shoulder and shoes already on. Shoving her feet into the first pair of tennis shoes she saw, Grace stuffed her history book — found under her bed, for some reason — into her bag and followed Aimee to the car.

Grace needn’t have worried about Caroline’s wrath; when she reached the school, Caroline was nowhere in sight. Bonnie and Elena were, though, so after saying goodbye to her sister, she headed their way, just in time for Stefan to join them.

“Good morning, Elena. Good morning, Bonnie, Grace.” Grace smiled and nodded at him, more focused on Bonnie’s reaction to him than a warm welcome. She hadn’t had any time to see if either of the two girls had responded to her inquiry about Bonnie’s supposed psychic powers, so she’d just have to observe and bring it up later.

“Hey,” the greeting was short and uncomfortable, even for Grace, as Bonnie cast her eyes around for an escape route, “Um, I gotta find Caroline. She’s not answering her phone. So, I’ll see you guys later.” Late and unreachable? Maybe mystery man was more Ted Bundy than Casanova? But before Grace could ask if Caroline really was AWOL or simply being used as an escape route, Bonnie was gone.

“She doesn’t like me very much.” How astute.

“She doesn’t know you.” Elena corrected gently, smoothing ruffled feathers as usual. “She’s my best friend. She’s just looking out for me. But when she does, she will love you.”

“Bonnie’s one of those resistant-to-change types, at least when it comes to the friend group.” Grace offered. She felt awkward, as she agreed with Bonnie but was standing with Stefan.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do.” Uh-oh. That’s her ‘I have a plan’ voice. “Are you free tonight?” Grace didn’t need any powers of divination to see where this was going.

“Yes.”

“Perfect. Dinner; My house, 8:00; You, me, and Bonnie.” Elena turned to Grace, an invitation on her lips.

“Oh, no. I’m not getting in the middle of that. This is Bonnie’s thing.” No need to mention her own reservations, especially if it meant getting out of the sure-to-be-awkward dinner.

“Fine. Stefan and Bonnie will spend some quality time and she’ll get to see what a great guy you are. Mission accomplished.” Elena had quite the self-satisfied smile on her face, as if she’d solved world hunger and not Bonnie’s bad attitude. In the silence, a familiar voice sounded in Grace’s ear.

“….Do, Ty?” It was Matt, clearly, but the words were faint. Grace could only make out a few of them,“…made…choice.”

“…One.” Tyler responded.

“Hey, I didn’t know Matt was here already.” Grace exclaimed, just to say something. Elena gave her a strange look.

“What are you talking about? How do you know Matt is here?” Elena knew Matt’s voice as well as Grace did. It should have caught her attention as well, shouldn’t it?

“You didn’t hear him and Tyler?” It was Stefan’s turn to give a strange look, but this one she couldn’t decipher. She wasn’t willing to read him again, so she was left bewildered at the searching expression on his face.

“…Ty, don’t! Ty!” That was louder, but before Grace could make a comment, Stefan was whirling around to catch the football that had been aimed directly at his head. He threw it back — a good throw, maybe better than Tyler’s. Elena laughed at Tyler’s shocked reaction, but Grace was focused on something else. They’re so far away… Grace had always had good senses — perfect vision, a sometimes-too-sensitive consciousness of smell, good hearing — but that was almost… inhuman. No wonder Elena was confused. She hadn’t heard a thing they’d said. Noticing more students arriving, they made their way inside the school, where Elena was not ready to forget Stefan’s display outside.

“That throw was insane. I didn’t know you played football.”

“I used to.” He looked nostalgic for a moment. “It was a long time ago.”

“So why don’t you try out for the team?” Grace asked. Football player and cheerleader may have been a cliché, but it was a cute one.

“Yeah, I don’t think so.” Stefan appeared to think the suggestion was ludicrous.

“So, you don’t like football?” Elena clarified. I hope the mixed signals aren’t a Thing with him.

“No, I love football. I think it’s a great sport.” Grace would beg to differ, though she would never tell Matt. “But in this case, I don’t think football likes me. You saw Tyler over there, and we both know how Matt feels.” The word ‘both’ let Grace know she was heading into third-wheel territory, so she told Elena she’d see her at lunch and made her way to her locker, where her worst nightmare had come true.

Tyler and Vicki. Kissing. She supposed the pair were always either fucking or fighting, so no option was great, but at least when they were fighting, they weren’t a unified front. They wouldn’t tag-team to make her day more difficult. In fact, one of them might even go out of their way to make her life easier, just to spite the other.

Maybe she was glad to be single after all.

“Luctor et emergo.” Grace muttered, as she elbowed her way past the writhing couple to her locker. Grace’s parents had insisted on all three of their children learning both Latin and French from an incredibly early age. Back then, Grace simply thought they were classists or wanted to set their kids apart somehow. Now she knew their true motives – Traditional Magic, and its spells, were almost entirely recited in Latin; the witches of the Quarter use Ancestral Magic – a large part of which was in French. Since childhood, Grace had a habit of slipping into another language in times of stress or hardship — similar to her use of ‘y’all’ — which seemed to be happening a lot more lately. Luctor et emergo: I struggle and emerge. A frequently used phrase when walking the halls of Mystic Fall High School. Another thing becoming more common lately was upper arm work-outs — for days, Grace had been shoving every textbook and spiral bound she could into her backpack and lugging it around all day, just so she could avoid the two forces of nature currently sucking each other’s faces off. The one bright spot was that Vicki had seemed to loosen up on her vendetta against all associated with Elena Gilbert.

Slamming her locker door shut, Grace glanced at her phone again. Bonnie was right — not a peep from Caroline. She began to type a message when the warning bell clanged, signaling two minutes to get to class. She would have to locate Caroline later.

Cheerleading practice was the highlight of Grace’s day. There was almost nothing she loved more than the rush that came from flying and tumbling, except maybe magic. Yes, she hated football — basketball was much less boring, without all that stopping and starting — but cheer was worth it. Of course, she’d made her three closest friends through the squad, and it was one of the few subjects she and Chloe seemed to agree on. Then there was the adrenaline rush, as well as the benefits of having to keep her body in such good condition. It didn’t hurt that the uniform was adorable, either; Grace was proud of the body both nature and cheer had given her, and tended to prefer silhouettes and styles that accentuated her curves, complimenting her features — which, of course, the uniform was basically designed for.

After dropping her water bottle and bag at the edge of the field, Grace began stretching near Bonnie.

“Seriously, if you could maybe make yourself look a little uglier next practice, I think we’d all appreciate it.” Bonnie japed, eyeing the cherry-red spandex shorts and black sports bra Grace had donned for practice.

“You’re one to talk.” Dana, doing the splits a few feet away, called to Bonnie. “Like, could you turn down the glow a little bit, Bonnie?” Grace herself dropped into the splits, having loosened up enough, and slowly rotated forward until she was flat on her stomach. She looked up to see Bethany, a fellow senior, inches away doing the same. Beth, who shared Grace’s weird sense of humor, grabbed Grace’s hand.

“Tell my family…” she whispered, as though she were dying. “Tell my family I died well.” She collapsed loosely on the grass as Grace wailed in feigned grief.

“No, Beth! Come back! I’ll miss you!” Before the charade could continue too far, Grace heard Bonnie’s voice from just outside her limited field of vision.

“Oh, my God! You’re here!” She sounded stunned.

“Yep.” Elena! Grace contorted herself as far as she could without spraining something and saw her two friends standing above her. “I can’t be sad girl forever. The only way to get things back to the way they were are to do things that were.” Grace wasn’t sure that made sense. She slowly pushed herself back up into a sitting position and Bonnie and Elena each grabbed a hand to help her up. “Oh, and you're coming to dinner tonight.” This could end poorly.

“I am?”

“Mm-hmm. You, me, and Stefan.” Bonnie gave The Look. “You have to give him a chance.”

“Tonight's no good. Have you seen Caroline? I texted her like a hundred times.” So, Caroline was still missing… Grace was seriously starting to worry. Missing practice was perhaps the most Un-Caroline thing that could possibly happen.

“Don't change the subject, Bonnie Bennett! You're going to be there.”

“Fine. I'll go.” No one could talk Elena out of something when she set her mind to it, not even Bonnie Bennett.

“Good.”

“Can I circle back to the Caroline thing?” This was probably an appropriate time for Grace to circle back to the psychic thing, but anxiety was gnawing at her. “Neither of you have heard from her. Like at all?” They both shook their heads, then all three girls looked around as if Caroline might pop out of a bush.

“Seriously, where is Caroline?”

“I don’t know. It’s not like her.” Grace was already reaching into her bag for her phone.

“I’ll try her again.” Before she could, however, a car pulled up to the field, containing none other than Caroline… and ‘Damon’. Dream Damon. Grace couldn’t equate Caroline’s sexy-bad-boy mystery guy to the obnoxious but lovable older-brother type she’d dreamt earlier.

“Uh…”

“Oh, my God. That must be the mystery guy from the grill.” Grace suggested. Her friends seemed dumbfounded, and some part of her found it good to know they were just as lost as Grace.

“That’s not a mystery guy.” Or not. “That’s Damon Salvatore.” Grace’s head swung toward Elena so fast she almost gave herself whiplash.

“Salvatore, as in Stefan?” So, she’d had visions of both brothers within days of each other? Each one an indication of future best-friendships? Caroline sauntered over to them, looking smug as all hell even with that ridiculous scarf around her neck. I’m all for a fashion statement, but at cheer practice?

“I got the other brother.” She said to Elena. Well, that explained some of it. Grace knew about Caroline’s deeply buried resentment of Elena, and the fact that never dealt with it or addressed it — she didn’t need to be an Empath to know that, because Caroline had told her. But even if she hadn’t, Grace could practically smell it radiating off of Caroline, she was so upset. “Hope you don’t mind.” Clearly not true. “Sorry I’m late, girls.” She addressed the whole squad this time. “I, uh, was busy.” That little smirk at the corner of her mouth let Grace know that she wasn’t completely wrong about Caroline’s activities the previous night. “All right, let’s start with the double pike herkey hurdler, what do you say?” The girls quickly formed lines, never willing to risk Caroline’s drill-sergeant-esque wrath, and Caroline began counting. Grace, who was behind Elena, could see the younger girl struggling with the maneuver and wondered if Caroline had chosen it on purpose. “Elena, sweetie, why don’t you just observe today? Okay?” It was never a good thing when Caroline used the word “sweetie," and smoke was practically coming out of Elena’s ears. “Keep going! Okay. Do it again, from the top! And 5…” as she went back to counting beats, Grace and Bonnie threw Elena as many commiserative looks as they could. But Elena’s attention had been drawn to the football field, where Stefan Salvatore himself was running plays. The girls watched as Tyler rammed into Stefan, all his weight behind it, and they went down.

“…Gonna live, Salvatore?” Coach Tanner called to the boy, still prone on the grass. Grace could fucking feel Tyler’s emotions from across the field, he was so worked up; he was pissed that some new guy was climbing the popularity ladder so fast, and though a part of him truly did hate Stefan for Matt’s sake, mostly he was jealous himself. It was moments like this when Grace remembered why she hated Tyler so much. The douchebag is using Matt as an excuse to deal with his Alpha Male Complex. Maybe next he’ll pee all over the school like a dog, just to mark his territory.

Stefan got up, and the boys huddled up again; Grace turned her focus back to Caroline’s instructions.

Grace was not looking forward to the football game. Between Caroline’s pettiness being at peak capacity, Elena’s patience at an all-time low, and Bonnie still refusing to come around and give Stefan a chance, Grace figured every moment spent not cheering would be in mediation. As soon as she arrived, she made it her mission to finally talk about the ‘Bonnie’s psychic’ text that had been hovering around her mind all day. Along the way, she ran into Elena, who had apparently quit the squad, and Stefan, who had apparently joined the football team — not quite the stereotypical couple she’d imagined earlier, but whatever.

Finally managing to locate Bonnie, Grace dove straight into what she’d been itching to ask all day.

“So, Bonnie. Psychic?” Bonnie scoffed and rolled her eyes.

“You know how my Grams will get drunk and then start telling me all these stories about magic and fairies and everything…”

“Yeah, I’ve experienced it a time or two.” Perhaps because Sheila knew Grace herself was a witch, she had even less of a filter when Grace was around.

“Well, the other day she starts going on about how I’m psychic.” As Bonnie explained Sheila Bennett’s drunken rambles, Grace realized what Bonnie had yet to put together. Her Grams was telling the truth – Bonnie was a witch. A powerful one, judging by her lineage and psychic abilities — not as strong as Grace’s, but present enough to mean Bonnie’s powers were likely almost unparalleled. “… I mean its crazy, right?” Bonnie was laughing, but there was the smallest part of her that was starting to think maybe it wasn’t so crazy after all.

“Yeah, maybe.” Grace didn’t think it was quite time to reveal herself to Bonnie, but she didn’t want to be unsupportive either. “But, I mean, I totally predicted the end of that movie the other day, so maybe Grams is on to something.”

“Guys, hello?” Caroline had found them. “Are you going to cheer, or are you going to chat?” The two girls rolled their eyes.

“Good to see you, too, Care Bear.” Caroline ignored them, instead using that freaky talent of hers to hone in on the slightest of imperfections.

“Hey, Tiki, it’s all wobbly. Can you stand straight, please? Could someone please help Tiki?”

Grace had her arms wrapped around Matt, despite his protests that he was fine.

“You’re not fine, you dumbass. You just found your teacher and coach…” She didn’t want to say it out loud. “You’re the one who found him, okay? Don’t pretend that didn’t suck.” They were standing by his stupid truck, the light from the ambulance and police cars throwing strange red and blue shadows over everything. The cab door was open, as Grace had bodily slammed into Matt’s back as he made to get inside and clung to him like a monkey.

“Yeah, Gracie, it sucked.” He sighed. “What kind of animal would do something like this?” Caroline’s mom had made the announcement not long ago – Coach Tanner was the victim of another animal attack, this time right in town. Grace shrugged.

“A starving one, I guess.” But Tanner hadn’t been eaten. Just attacked. Like the others. Matt rubbed his hand down Grace’s back as if he were the one comforting her.

“C’mon, Gracie. I’ll drive you home. You can get your car tomorrow.” He walked her around to the passenger’s side, the door of which sometimes stuck shut, and helped her climb up before finally getting in himself. The air conditioning rattled, a comforting, familiar sound in the silence. Grace toed off her white Nfinities, flexing her aching feet. She’d been an idiot in practice last week and fucked up her ankle during a particularly poorly executed scorpion stunt. She’d wrapped it in elastic wrap her mother had spelled with healing charms before the game, but it was no miracle cure. Matt must have noticed her grimace, because he glanced at her with a disapproving big brother look, despite being a year younger than her.

“How many times have I told you to keep your legs straight?”

“Well, look at you, Mr. Cheerleading Expert.” Grace mocked him, not wanting to admit that he had told her that countless times. After nearly 7 years of watching (and sometimes unwillingly participating) in backyard cheer practice, Matt was somewhat knowledgeable in the sport. Knowledgeable enough to know a stunt will fall if the flyer can’t keep her fucking legs straight, anyway. “Don’t worry, Caroline already tore me a new one.” Damn, had she ever. The moment Grace went down, she’d felt Caroline’s hawk-like gaze on her, even through the bodies of her bases. ‘Stop giving me excuses, Sinclair. It’s been four months! Get it together.’ Elena had been in Grace’s stunt group when her parents were killed, which left the foursome someone bereft of a base when she quit. Caroline had frantically rearranged but getting used to a new base was always an adjustment. Selfishly, Grace was just glad none of this had happened when she was captain.

“Yeah, well Caroline can be a nutcase but this time she’s kind of right.” Grace could feel herself getting defensive, even though he was once again correct, but didn’t want to say something that might stall the effectively distracting conversation. Matt might pretend to be blasé, but Grace was calling bullshit.

“Yeah, I get it mom, I need to be more careful.” By this time, they’d reached Matt’s house and, despite Grace living literally fifteen feet away, Matt drove past his own driveway and pulled into hers. “Seriously, dude?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m a gentleman,” Matt smirked, “sue me.” Rolling her eyes affectionately, Grace moved to unbuckle her seatbelt when she noticed Matt staring toward her house with a strange look on his face. She’d seen that look before. She waited for him to break the sudden silence, but he was lost in thought.

“Matt?” She prompted quietly. She knew what he was going to say, and if talking about it was going to keep his mind off Tanner’s mangled body a little longer, then she’d talk about it.

“It feels weird.” That’s specific. “Looking at… this.” He gestured vaguely towards her house, then back towards his. “I mean… yours is so…”

“Big?” It wasn’t really, not for a family of five — it was actually a completely average house in every way. Two floors, four bedrooms — well, three bedrooms and a converted office — two bathrooms. But next to Matt’s she supposed, it did look a bit extravagant.

“And your car is so…” Again, he trailed off, searching for a nice way to call her spoiled. She didn’t take offense.

“Fancy?” She did drive an Audi - cherry red and the love of her life — but (here comes the justification, she nearly cringed) her father had wanted an Audi for years. By the time they’d saved up enough, they had three little kids and it was impractical. So they kept the savings set aside and when Grace turned 16, her dad finally got his dream car… for her. ‘If you so much as scratch the paint, this car is mine,' her father had warned. Chloe, much to her disappointment, had gotten a Honda as her first car. It was a perfectly good car, but certainly not an Audi. Matt sighed and gave her a sheepish look.

“I’m sorry. I just look at the difference between the two… who knew one yard could feel like such a big divide?” It wasn’t like Matt lived in the “bad part of town” and Grace’s house happened to be the closest. His house should have been perfectly normal, just like hers. But his mother wasn’t the best with finances… Or upkeep… Or mothering. She hated that her family’s good fortune made Matt feel so inferior.

“Well, if anyone can bridge that divide, Donovan… it’s you.” Matt would almost certainly settle quite happily into the small town life, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be a better small town life. He smiled at her, shaking off the seriousness.

“Well, it certainly won’t be the girl who can’t even keep her legs straight.” She punched him, both of them laughing. She gathered her shoes and bag and jumped down onto the still-warm asphalt.

“Goodnight, Donovan.” She called, circling around to his side of the truck. “But seriously. If you’re ever not fine…” she paused, searching for a way to end that statement that didn’t sound too smothering. “Well, you know where I live.” He smiled at her, backing out and pulling into his own car port, before waving goodnight as the side door into the kitchen slammed behind him. Making her way inside, Grace was nearly tackled to the ground by her sister, and she suddenly knew what Matt must have felt like when she leapt on him at his truck.

“Oh my God, Gracie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Aims. I wasn’t…” I wasn’t there. But she was there, was just around the corner when a wild animal viciously attacked a man she knew. “I didn’t even…” I didn’t even see the body. But she had, just before the coroner draped a white sheet over her old history teacher and loaded him into a van headed to the morgue. “Matt found him.” Matt had it worse. That’s what she meant. She wasn’t fine, but Matt had it so much worse, so how could she admit that? Maybe that’s what Matt himself had felt, in some form.

“Oh my God, that’s awful.” Her sisters weren’t at the game, thank God, as Chloe had dance rehearsal and Aimee a date. All of their knowledge was second-hand and incomplete, which possibly made their worry worse. Or would, when rehearsal was over, and Chloe checked her phone to undoubtedly find dozens of messages ranging from factual to wild rumor. “Was it really a bear?” Grace snorted. She had no idea what kind of animal had attacked Tanner, but whatever story Aimee had heard probably involved some hulking Goliath of a grizzly storming onto the football field and biting the coach in two.

“I have no idea, Aims. No one saw anything.” So it was probably not a bear. Something stealthier, like a cougar. “Have you spoken to mom and dad?” Their parents were also out on a rare date night and Grace wasn’t sure if the news had reached them yet. If so, they were likely speeding their way home at this moment. But Grace’s younger sister shook her head.

“I don’t think they’ve heard yet. I didn’t want to spoil date night and tell them.”

“What about your date? I’m sorry it was cut short.” It was Aimee’s turn to snort, sounding just like Grace.

“I’m not. He spent the entire time bouncing between checking his phone and his reflection.”

“Yikes.” Grace knew her sister’s pain. “I guess maybe one good thing came out of this evening then, yeah?” Aimee worried her lip, something clearly on her mind. “What’s up, Aims?”

“I just… all these animal attacks… do you know of anything that could help?”

“What, like hunting the thing down?”

“No, doofus. Magically. Are there… protection spells or talismans or something, so I don’t have to constantly worry about you and Chloe and mom and dad?” As the only non-witch in the family — though their father practiced very rarely – Aimee’s knowledge of magic had limitations.

“Um, sure. Probably. But I’ve already got my jet.” To illustrate the point, Grace held her hands out her sister, the black rings sparkling on her fingers. She wasn’t technically supposed to wear much jewelry while cheering, but the thumb ring was inconspicuous and unlikely to cause problems. It was also a security blanket of sorts. The other one, the one she’d bought for herself only a few years ago, she took off right before cheering and put on again immediately after.

“Yeah, I don’t know if Chloe’s into the whole black-jewelry thing.” If Grace was into it, then Chloe likely wasn’t, more out of conscious decision than personal preference, but it didn’t matter. There were other alternatives. Grace sat at the dining room table, sliding her mother’s grimoire to her sister.

“Pick your favorite, then.”

Grace completely fucking forgot about the Founder’s Party. Like, literally, would not have remembered to go if her mom and sisters didn’t scream at her to ‘go get ready because your date is picking you up in an hour’. Actually, they walked into Matt’s house, uninvited — where she had been celebrating the news that the culprit of all the animal attacks had been killed (a cougar, like she thought) — and marched her back home.

When Jeffrey Lockwood-Hamilton had approached her and asked her to go to the Founder’s Party with him, quote ‘because it’s going to be so boring and you might actually make it bearable,' she’d been flattered, if confused. It wasn’t that she and Jeffrey were unfriendly, but they didn’t associate much, what with him being two years younger. Grace supposed that, the times they had hung out had been at other excruciatingly dull parties such as the Miss Mystic pageant, which Caroline required Grace to go to every year for ‘moral support’. They’d entertained each other while their respective ‘dates’ had been occupied, so she supposed it had become somewhat of an unspoken tradition that she and Jeff would hang out at parties.

So, here she was, digging her red party dress out from the closet and wincing as Chloe none-too-gently twisted her hair into an updo. The dress was pretty, standard, just passed the knees with a simple, straight silhouette and thin straps. She threw on some strappy sandals and grabbed a purse right as Jeff rang the bell.

“Ready to have some fun?” He asked sarcastically by way of greeting.

“Cheer up, Jeff.” Grace coaxed. “There’s always champagne.”

When they arrived, Grace immediately spotted a potential problem: Damon Salvatore, looking unfairly handsome in his dark suit, was on Caroline’s arm, and they were chatting with Elena and Stefan. Caroline was still sporting that weird-ass scarf.

“I’m about to be super fucking tacky, Jeff, and leave you alone for a few minutes.” Grace grimaced as she made her excuse. Jeff laughed.

“You’re fine, Grace. Go say hey. Bring me back a glass or two of champagne if you can sneak it past my mom.” He nodded to the corner, where his mother had one eye on the heritage display and one on her son.

“Sure thing.” As Grace approached, Caroline began dragging a wary Stefan onto the dance floor before spotting the older girl.

“Gracie, you’re here!”

“I am! And you’re with Stefan.” It was a question phrased as a statement.

“Damon won’t dance with me,” Caroline pouted, “but apparently Stefan is quite talented.” He looked like he would rather be anywhere else.

“Well, he’ll have to be to keep up with you, Miss Mystic.” Caroline beamed at the reminder of her potential title and the compliment.

“Why don’t we find out?” Stefan suggested, motioning Caroline forward. That was clearly code for “let’s get this over with,” but Care either didn’t notice or didn’t mind. Grace continued forward to Damon and Elena, who were studying the heritage displays.

“…I just… I hope you two can work it out.” Elena was saying, in her “Elena voice”.

“I hope so, too.” Damon’s tone rang of double entendre, but Grace dismissed it and made her presence known.

“Founding Families, huh?” She asked, looking over the document they were in front of. “Riveting.”

“You make fun, but you New Orleans-folks have your traditions too.” Elena poked fun right back at Grace, the age-old debate familiar and affectionate. Damon turned to her.

“You’re from New Orleans?”

“I am. I’m Grace.” Knowing he was Stefan’s brother, Grace was beyond reluctant to shake his hand and experience that same slimy emptiness, but it would be extremely rude not to.

“Damon.” He extended his arm and Grace placed her small hand in his, hoping she didn’t look as apprehensive as she felt. His hand was warm, but his soul was cold. Cold and dead, like Stefan’s, but there was something else… a warmth not from life or love, but bitterness and hate and malice all festering inside of him. There’s more than this to him. The Damon she had seen in her vision, the one she had been friends with — closer even than her and Stefan would become, judging from the emotions in her vision — was not this embittered, cancerous thing currently in front of her. So, she pushed deeper and deeper, shoving her way past all the black and bad, until finally, finally, there was something else. Something surprising. Insecurity and… longing. Love, or… something he thought was love. Something that maybe used to be love but was now merely the impression of it. Intelligence still glimmered in every corner of this part of his soul, but it wasn’t the cold cunning of before. It was hard won, a lifetime’s worth — several lifetimes worth — of mistakes and knowledge and experience. This was the Damon she would come to know, someone broken but too proud to show it, who used acerbic humor as both a defense mechanism and a show of support for those few he cared for. Suddenly becoming aware that this handshake was starting to become too long to be normal, she pulled her hand away as he looked her over, assessing. Too deep. She’d pushed her powers too far, had already reached her limit and was practically exhausted and out of breath, like she’d been running. She tried to covertly catch her breath, hoping Damon and Elena didn’t notice.

“Have you been? To New Orleans, I mean.”

“I lived there. Once.”

“Really?” Grace’s eyes widened. It wasn’t often she met other people who’d experienced the magic of New Orleans, let alone lived there. “Do you miss it? I know I do.” He smiled a touch nostalgically.

“Well, it was a long time ago.” There was something in his voice as he said "long time,” the same thing that had been in Stefan’s as he said the same words about playing football. Something that implied more. “But it was a hell of a lot fun.” Grace gave him a once-over.

“You know, Damon, I think you and I are going to get along just fine.” Damon’s eyes gleamed with something even she couldn’t quite place.

“I look forward to it, Grace.”

As Damon and Elena headed off toward the dance floor and their respective dates, Grace noticed Bonnie sitting at a table by herself. She knew that she was ignoring Jeff, but she hadn’t spoken to Bonnie all day, and she had the rest of the party to hover by his side. She made her way over, but when she was a few feet away, the breeze blew out the candle sitting as the centerpiece on the table. Bonnie turned her head, focusing her attention on the candle.

It re-ignited.

Grace stumbled, nearly fell over. Bonnie started, blowing the candle out and glancing around to make sure no one saw. From this short distance away, Grace could feel Bonnie’s budding realization that her Gram’s drunken rambles were true, her fear and confusion, her paranoia and loneliness. And Grace couldn’t let Bonnie believe she was alone in this. So, she righted herself, marched over to her friend, and grabbed her arm. Bonnie looked up at her, obviously scared she had witnessed the candle incident.

“I think we need to talk.” Grace pulled her friend out of her chair and away from bustle of the party. “There’s some things you need to hear.”

#saving grace #masterlist #oc #kol mikaelson #damon salvatore #fanfic #the vampire diaries #the originals #elena gilbert #stefan salvatore #bonnie bennett #caroline forbes #elijah mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #rebekah mikaelson

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sciencespies · 3 years

Text

How Denim Became a Political Symbol of the 1960s

https://sciencespies.com/history/how-denim-became-a-political-symbol-of-the-1960s/

How Denim Became a Political Symbol of the 1960s

In the spring of 1965, demonstrators in Camden, Alabama, took to the streets in a series of marches to demand voting rights. Among the demonstrators were “seven or eight out-of-state ministers,” United Press International reported, adding that they wore the “blue denim ‘uniform’ of the civil rights movement over their clerical collars.”

Though most people today don’t associate blue denim with the struggle for black freedom, it played a significant role in the movement. For one thing, the historian Tanisha C. Ford has observed, “The realities of activism,” which could include hours of canvassing in rural areas, made it impractical to organize in one’s “Sunday best.” But denim was also symbolic. Whether in trouser form, overalls or skirts, it not only recalled the work clothes worn by African Americans during slavery and as sharecroppers, but also suggested solidarity with contemporary blue-collar workers and even equality between the sexes, since men and women alike could wear it.

To see how civil rights activists adopted denim, consider the photograph of Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy marching to protest segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. Notably, they are wearing jeans. In America and beyond, people would embrace jeans to make defiant statements of their own.

The Rev. Drs. Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama, en route to a protest on April 12, 1963.

(Charles Moore / Getty Images)

Scholars trace denim’s roots to 16th-century Nîmes, in the South of France, and Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Many historians suspect that the word “denim” derives from serge de Nîmes, referring to the tough fabric French mills were producing, and that “jeans” comes from the French word for Genoa (Gênes). In the United States, slaveowners in the 19th century clothed enslaved fieldworkers in these hardy fabrics; in the West, miners and other laborers started wearing jeans after a Nevada tailor named Jacob Davis created pants using duck cloth—a denimlike canvas material—purchased from the San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss. Davis produced some 200 pairs over the next 18 months—some in duck cloth, some in denim—and in 1873, the government granted a patent to Davis and Levi Strauss & Co. for the copper-riveted pants, which they sold in both blue denim and brown duck cloth. By the 1890s, Levi Strauss & Co. had established its most enduring style of pants: Levi’s 501 jeans.

Real-life cowboys wore denim, as did actors who played them, and after World War II denim leapt out of the sagebrush and into the big city, as immortalized in the 1953 film The Wild One. Marlon Brando plays Johnny Strabler, the leader of a troublemaking motorcycle gang, and wears blue jeans along with a black leather jacket and black leather boots. “Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” someone asks. His reply: “Whaddaya got?”

In the 1960s, denim came to symbolize a different kind of rebelliousness. Black activists donned jeans and overalls to show that racial caste and black poverty were problems worth addressing. “It took Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington to make [jeans] popular,” writes the art historian Caroline A. Jones. “It was here that civil rights activists were photographed wearing the poor sharecropper’s blue denim overalls to dramatize how little had been accomplished since Reconstruction.” White civil rights advocates followed. As the fashion writer Zoey Washington observes: “Youth activists, specifically members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, used denim as an equalizer between the sexes and an identifier between social classes.”

But denim has never belonged to just one political persuasion. When the country music star Merle Haggard criticized hippies in his conservative anthem “Okie From Muskogee,” you bet he was often wearing denim. President Ronald Reagan was frequently photographed in denim during visits to his California ranch—the very picture of rugged individualism.

And blue jeans would have to rank high on the list of U.S. cultural exports. In November 1978, Levi Strauss & Co. began selling the first large-scale shipments of jeans behind the Iron Curtain, where the previously hard-to-obtain trousers were markers of status and liberation; East Berliners eagerly lined up to snag them. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Levis and other American jean brands became widely available in the USSR, many Soviets were gleeful. “A man hasn’t very much happy minutes in his life, but every happy moment remains in his memory for a long time,” a Moscow teacher named Larisa Popik wrote to Levi Strauss & Co. in 1991. “The buying of Levi’s 501 jeans is one of such moments in my life. I’m 24, but while wearing your jeans I feel myself like a 15-year-old schoolgirl.”

Back in the States, jeans kept pushing the limits. In the early 1990s, TLC, one of the best-selling girl groups of all time, barged into the boys’ club of hip-hop and R&B wearing oversized jeans. These “three little cute girls dressed like boys,” in the words of Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas, one of the group’s members, inspired women across the country to mimic the group’s style.

Curiously, jeans have continued to make waves in Eastern Europe. In the run-up to the 2006 presidential elections in Belarus, activists marched to protest what they characterized as a sham vote in support of an autocratic government. After police seized the opposition’s flags at a pre-election rally, one protester tied a denim shirt to a stick, creating a makeshift flag and giving rise to the movement’s eventual name: the “Jeans Revolution.”

The youth organization Zubr urged followers: “Come out in the streets of your cities and towns in jeans! Let’s show that we are many!” The movement didn’t topple the government, but it illustrated that this everyday garment can still be revolutionary.

Why the dye that would put the blue in jeans was banned when it reached the West —Ted Scheinman

Fabrics soaked with indigo dye in Dali, Yunnan Province, China. “No color has been prized so highly or for so long,” Catherine E. McKinley writes.

(Alamy)

It might seem odd to outlaw a pigment, but that’s what European monarchs did in a strangely zealous campaign against indigo. The ancient blue dye, extracted in an elaborate process from the leaves of the bushy legume Indigofera tinctoria, was first shipped to Europe from India and Java in the 16th century.

To many Europeans, using the dye seemed unpleasant. “The fermenting process yielded a putrid stench not unlike that of a decaying body,” James Sullivan notes in his book Jeans. Unlike other dyes, indigo turns cloth vivid blue only after the dyed fabric has been in contact with air for several minutes, a mysterious delay that some found unsettling.

Plus, indigo represented a threat to European textile merchants who had heavily invested in woad, a homegrown source of blue dye. They played on anxieties about the import in a “deliberate smear campaign,” Jenny Balfour-Paul writes in her history of indigo. Weavers were told it would damage their cloth. A Dutch superstition held that any man who touched the plant would become impotent.

Governments got the message. Germany banned “the devil’s dye” (Teufelsfarbe) for more than 100 years beginning in 1577, while England banned it from 1581 to 1660. In France in 1598, King Henry IV favored woad producers by banning the import of indigo, and in 1609 decreed that anyone using the dye would be executed.

Still, the dye’s resistance to running and fading couldn’t be denied, and by the 18th century it was all the rage in Europe. It would be overtaken by synthetic indigo, developed by the German chemist Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer—a discovery so far-reaching it was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905.

#History

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couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name · 5 years

Note

About your YouTuber! Percy hc, do you think he would actually know everyone subscribed to him because of the weird background shenanigans or do you think that he’s think they all just find him funny?

okay, I actually have made some more Executive Decisions since I posted that, so let’s just make it clear that:

Percy spent maybe half a day thinking ‘wow I knew I was valid in thinking my girlfriend and sister deserve to be famous’ just because he genuinely hadn’t registered the monster-sized dog or nico crawling out from the shadows behind him as ‘weird’ at first, but then he started reading the comments and was like…..ah,

Annabeth wanted him to immediately delete the videos but he was just like ‘nah it’s too late now we might as well commit’ and started planning his next video lmao. he still didn’t think it was gonna get like, Big tho

demigods and technology don’t mix this is true but by this time the Hephaestus and Athena AND Vulcan kids were all very disgruntled by this and collabed on making a line of products that are monster proof, halfblood suitable, and Hephaestus approved. Percy is using a camera in this line, and that’s why mortals watching his videos aren’t getting blocked by the mist, because….shut up, I said so lol

so again, his videos are mostly tame except for just a few small ‘wtf’ things happening in the background, but it’s enough to get people circulating his videos like ‘hey what the fuck is going on with this guy’ and he gets more and more followers impatiently waiting for updates

after about five months, and article gets posted on buzzfeed about the videos, listing a few theories like, a) it’s photoshopped and cgi-d, although they claim they sent a few clips to video analysists that can’t find any thing fake, and b) this boy is being terrorized by ghosts and demons and he just hasn’t noticed them on camera for some fucking reason, and c) Maybe Us, The Viewers Are The Crazy Ones and d) He’s In Danger And Sending Coded Messages And We Need To Rally Together To Help Him

it trends and his followers SPIKE so Percy decides he should probably do a Q&A and everyone gets hype

except

it’s Percy

He’s sitting on his bed in an orange shirt, but the writing on it is mostly obscured by a blanket. You can JUST see the tip of a spear on the wall above him. There’s a large cut on the side of his head. He’s got a clear glass of some golden liquid he’s sipping from every now and then. There’s an aquarium on the table next to him, but all the fish in the tank are huddled in the same side, staring at him??? Annabeth is sitting next to him, but she’s not looking into the camera, she’s reading a book, and you can see the cover clearly on screen but no one is able to figure out what language it’s in??? at one point during the video, you hear a horse neighing even though he’s in his fourth floor city apartment and his stepfather comes in to tell him ‘blackjack’s in the kitchen make him leave’

but other than that, everyone tuned into this video excited to get answers….but all the answers Percy gives are like ‘Oh, Estelle is 10 months old! she’s getting so big!’ and ‘Annabeth and I met when we were 12′ and ‘I’m looking at colleges in California but I haven’t committed anywhere yet’ and ‘my favorite subject in school is math’

In the middle of the video he read a question ‘please what is up with that dude that keeps crawling out of your fucking walls p l e ase’ and he responds ‘Oh! That’s my cousin Nico! :)’ and then moves back to the tame boring questions sdkjnckdvm

The very last minute of the video, he reads a question asking if he’s possessed and he’s like ‘No, not anymore’ and Annabeth fucking snorts, the first acknowledgement she’s given the whole q&a. the video immediately just ends there, he doesn’t do a sign off or anything

people FLIP

and the next day he’s just back to posting his usual content. this time features a shot of him walking in a rainstorm, to hood no umbrella, completely fucking dry

youtube drama channels are covering every single video he posts. conspiracy theorists are going fucking wild.

one of these youtube conspiracy channels is 100% run by Leo Valdez. He’s having the time of his goddamn life throwing bullshit out there

Piper McLean 100% has her own channel dedicated to debunking everything Leo says on his channel. They’ve been doing this dance since 9th grade and all of their viewers think they fucking hate each other it’s hilarious to them

so SHE points out that not only are Leo’s theories stupid, but he’s been spotted in Percy’s videos! And he was on fire in one of them! Hello???

Someone then tweets her that SHE’S been spotted in Percy’s videos, a few of them the same ones Leo was in, and she responds to the callout with a Mariah Carey gif and goes silent on twitter for three months

Leo starts insisting that’s Definitely Not Him In Percy’s Videos, Thank You, How Dare You Accuse Me Associating With Not Only The Demonic Forces That Follow Him But Also Piper McLean

Percy tweets out a picture of the 7, featuring Leo and Piper hugging and looking like best friends. Leo responds with a Joanne the Scammer gif and also goes quiet on twitter but keeps making ridiculous conspiracy videos lmao

On screen: ‘Hey, Paul, the internet thinks I’m in league with supernatural forces. What do you think about that?’ *camera slowly zooms in on Paul’s tired face as he looks up from reading a book on the Greek god Poseidon*

everyone realizes one of Percy’s mortal friends from school is also a youtuber so they BOMBARD him and he’s just like ‘Listen Percy just….fucking lives like this. he’s not planning anything. He disappears all the time and comes back covered in burns. one time I went in his apartment without calling first and he met me in the living room with a shield and a sword. Sometimes carriage horses in the city get loose and just follow him around and he holds conversations with them. I think his dad is in the mob. He just lives like this. We just got used to it’ sjkdgkjldsklsd

Percy posts a video called ‘skateboarding down my camps climbing wall!!’ and every comment is ‘WHY IS THERE L A V A?!?!?!?!?’

A video where he sees just How Much he can annoy Chiron and Mr. D before he gets threatened with dolphin-ism. It doesn’t take long, but everyone ignores the guy with glowing eyes yelling about how he’s going to change him into a sea creature in favor of focusing in on the fucking leopard head mounted on the wall that’s moving, roaring and being fed snacks???

Rachel goes into Oracle mode and gives out a prophecy in the middle of a live stream and Percy just sighs in annoyance while all the viewers are flipping out like hello isn’t she one of the richest people in the world???

the viewers start trying to decipher the prophecy like they think it’s all planned and Percy’s just slowly dropping some lemony snickett bullshit on them

his videos are ALWAYS trending and he’s one of the most popular vloggers and it’s so funny because 90% of the videos are literally just ‘taking my sister to the park!’ ‘date night with my girlfriend!’ ‘swim team awards ceremony!’ ‘I forgot to study for my history exam!’ like just. the most fucking generic but people are sucked in lmao

He does monthly q&a’s but they mostly go the same way the original one did

‘what’s with the fucking guy who’s half donkey???’ ‘Grover identifies as a goat, actually, please be respectful of that in the future’

‘who’s that fucking kid that crying on your couch that you ignored the whole video’ ‘that’s actually the Greek god Apollo, he was upset because I wanted back the Led Zeppelin shirt he stole from me’

‘am I crazy or was there a 7 foot tall guy with one eye walking around the kitchen eating peanut butter out of the jar’ ‘that’s my baby brother Tyson :)’

‘your friend said your dad’s in the mob but we’ve never seen your father on this channel where is he???’ ‘he, uh…….lives with the fishes?’ (Annabeth groaned at that one lmao)

‘you really vlogged getting struck by lightning and not going to the fucking hospital, huh’ ‘don’t worry, that was just my cousin, she was mad because I stole her nail polish earlier but she wouldn’t kill me over it’

COULD YOU IMAGINE HIM POSTING A VIDEO WITH THE PARTY PONIES AND TITLING IT ‘I ACCIDENTALLY GOT DRAGGED TO FURRY CON’

but overall: Youtuber Percy™ is, in fact, the only valid thing that exists thanks for coming to my TED Talk

#percy jackson #pjo #hoo #toa #rick riordan #asks #molly mumbles

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doyoungdelrey · 4 years

Note

all 85 pls

1. describe yourself.

a loud and annoying clown

2. if you could go anywhere for a week all expenses paid where would it be?

Nova Scotia

3. do you have siblings?

Two younger sisters.

4. what is your favorite constellation, why?

Big Dipper b/c its the only one I know.

5. favorite color.

Red, blue or green

6. what kind of music do you listen to?

K-pop, indie and classic pop/rock

7. favorite flower. (you can name as many as you want cause flowers are awesome)

Daisy, carnation, roses

8. if you could do magic, what is the first spell you would learn?

A spell where I could redo the past.

9. favorite childhood memory.

When my youngest sister was born.

10. have you ever been cheated on?

yes. Too hard to explain.

11. if you could describe your perfect room, what would it be?

Filled with plants, painted a light grey and surrounded by photography with the sun coming through the window.

12. favorite animal.

Penguin and Cat

13. what was the last photo you took of?

A ceiling at the Frick.

14. do you believe in soul mates?

Yes, I live that there’s one for everyone.

15. do you hang toilet paper over or under?

Under?

16. your go to place to eat & your favorite thing to get there.

Shake shack and cheese fries.

17. do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Ever since I was a kid, my mother has instilled that belief on us, so yes I believe this.

18. guilty pressures?

I think y’all mean guilty pleasures, so I admit I still watch Arthur (the one with the aardvark). Also, I admit I listen to Taylor swift and Camilla Cabello in occasional times of existential crises.

19. favorite mythical creature, why?

dragons. Idk why though.

20. something most people don’t know about you.

I met Andrew Garfield as I was walking home from school.

21. where did you grow up, what was it like?

I lived in a well-to-do neighborhood with a lot of rich people even though we weren’t rich ourselves.

22. do you believe aliens exist?

No, now leave me alone.

23. what was your last google search?

Nova Scotia.

24. what did your last relationship teach you?

To not rush and trying not to be vulnerable.

25. would you relocate for love?

Yes.

26. do you hold grudges or forgive easy?

I’m 20 and I STILL hold grudges; I need to stop.

27. favorite book.

Little women.

28. do you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert?

I consider myself an introverted extrovert.

29. have you ever kept a journal, do you now?

I did in like third grade. I wish I still did :(

30. top 5 favorite movies.

Jules et Jim, Amelie, CMBYN, The Social Network, Before Sunrise

31. do you believe that everything happens for a reason?

Yes!

32. what is your greatest fear?

Dying and getting rejected.

33. favorite alcoholic beverage.

I don’t drink.

34. most embarrassing thing you’ve done.

Get my build a bears stolen and my parents yelling at me in the first grade for having them stolen.

35. do you believe in ghosts?

No???

36. what is the best and worst part of your personality?

I have the memory of an elephant but that means I’m clumsy AND I am lazy whilst holding grudges on people from three years ago.

37. should you split the dinner bill?

Yes.

38. are you a good liar?

39. what keeps you up at night?

My past and the future.

40. would you rather go without your phone or music?

Phone.

41. do you believe in god?

There is something up there, a spirit but not a being.

42. how do you relax when frustrated?

Listen to music and write mediocre poetry.

43. what’s something that offends you?

44. favorite food

45. if you were on a 10 hour flight and could sit and talk to any person the entire time, who would it be?

Suho and his translator. He seems like someone who has a lot to tell..

46. when do you feel the most confident?

In theater class.

47. what do you do on your free time?

Listen to music, go on Tumblr/ig, write, read, sleep, watch TV

48. is there anyone who has completely lost your respect

For someone who tends to hold grudges, no haha.

49. have you ever broken someone’s heart?

yes, I had a friend’s older brother who had a crush on me and I rejected him because I thought he was too awkward. I regret it now.

50. did/do you play sports in school?

nope.

51. when are you happiest?

When I heat good food and listen to good music.

52. coffee or tea?

both.

53. what is one possession you own you wouldn’t want to live without?

My phone. Or my chanyeol pin.

54. what is the first thing you notice about a person?

The way they dress.

55. what is your favorite season, why?

Fall because I was born before halloween. I also love the autumn breeze.

56. what makes you laugh?

Anything and everything. I have terrible sense of humor lmao.

57. are you a clean or messy person?

both.

58. what is important for a successful relationship?

Honesty and good communication.

59. what was your upcoming like?

I was raised partially by my grandmother. Once I was 5, I was raised by y mom. I was a troubled child, so she spent most of my childhood disciplining. Sometimes I want to tell berthings, but there are moments where I can’t say anything.

60. favorite holiday?

halloween. It is after my birthday.

61. what is the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery?

Put the money in a savings account, give some to charity then the rest to my parents and other family members (sisters, cousin who I think of as a younger sister)

62. what’s the best pizza topping combination?

Broccoli and Pepperoni. Or mushroom and sausage.

63. favorite outdoor activity.

Walking.

64. how are you? honestly.

I’m feeling good because I don’t have to worry about school for a week, but once I go back, I have to worry about finals, etc. I’m also worried about my future because IDK what to do after graduation.

65. would you rather go camping in the woods or stay at a beach resort?

Stay at a resort, duh?!?!?

66. what is the most beautiful thing in nature?

The mountains, specifically the Adirondacks.

67. favorite type of candy?

Snickers.

68. if your life was a book, what would be the title?

Confused and Thirsty Clown

69. what movie quotes do you use of a regular bases?

You talking to me???

70. what was cool when you were young but not cool now?

Build a Bears. They’re over-rated and over priced.

71. what’s the craziest conversation you have ever eves dropped on?

When a woman was telling her friend about her husband (the woman’s husband) cheating her while she was in the hospital for cancer treatment.

72. what’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched?

The ted bundy one on Netflix.

73. what’s the worst hairstyle you’ve had?

The bowl cut. Or my attempt of Wendy’s zimzalabim-era hair (minus the bangs. I still have this hair style)

74. what do you like to cook?

Roasted chicken and mashed potatoes.

75. what’s the coolest animal you’ve seen in the wild?

A lion, when I went to animal kingdom.

76. what’s the funniest tv show you’ve ever seen?

The office. Stanley was and will be my favorite character.

77. do you usually follow your heart or your head?

Heart

78. what is your favorite quote?

79. what’s the weirdest crush you have ever had?

On the kid who played saxophone and picked his nose in middle school. He admitted to having a crush on me in the 10th grade. He was so sweet, yet he weirded me out. I regret notating him though.

80. what’s your love language?

Food

81. do you ever feel alone?

Not gonna lie, I do. I have friends who have their soulmates, yet I don’t have mine. I also suck at making friends.

82. ever been bullied?

Yes. Too complicated to explain.

83. are you usually early or late?

Both

84. what kind of art do you enjoy most?

Like romantic/baroque art, or any paintings made after the 1300s. Mostly impressionism or dutch realism.

85. what do you wish you knew more about?

Ways to be more organized

SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY TAMARA!!!

#sagittariustigerfish #ask #answered

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caro-oo · 5 years

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My Thoughts on Thrones (no one asked)

OkAY OKAY OKAY where do I start.

If I’m being honest, I knew from the get-go that six episodes wasn’t going to be enough to wrap up the show like I wanted. But I still had hoped the writers would do it somehow, and they halfway did.

Episodes one and two of the season were fine, and episode three was probably the best episode of the entire show. It was done SO well. I hate fight scenes and get bored with them in two seconds, and this episode was not boring in the slightest. Did I expect Arya to kill the night king? Never in my wildest dreams (kind of thought Bran would have to be the one somehow) but I’m not mad about it.

Episode four was the first time we see Dany going a little Mad Queen , I’m not mad at her character’s turn of events, but I don’t think the show executed as wel l as they could have. I mean look at how well they have done Cersei. Who doesn’t love Cersei’s character?! But we all know she deserves to die. I don’t think Dany’s character arc really got this satisfaction. I wish we could have seen more of her in the last episode rather than just have other people talking about how crazy she was going behind her back. They took her from liberator to tyrant in two episodes, and they want me to believe that her killing slave owners and her oppressors led to her burning all of Kings Landing’s civilians and should have shown she was mad all along?!? Hmmm. I think you could justify her loss of everyone she cared about in this season, led to her madness, but not that she was mad all along. Although, EMILIA CLARKE HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING SHE COULD. And I’m sure the books will do a better job of connecting the dots and I’m excited to read that. Because I actually loved Dany’s turn of events just not how the show carried it out, I mean I HATED IT and her story is so tragic, but that’s GAME OF THRONES. Idk why I thought Dany and Jon would be exempt from a bad ending, bc that’s not what this show does. And she basically talked Jon into killing her which was perfect, I mean when she says “They won’t get to choose”. Chills. And that’s when Jon knows what he has to do. (I would have liked Cersei to die at the hands of Jamie like this BUT NO ONE ASKED ME)

Drogon melting the Iron Throne was iconic and if there was one point in the last episode where I was going to cry (I was too in shock to cry) it was when he is nudging her (okay wow im going to cry now) and then he picks her up and flies away...alone :(.

I read one article that said if the show had ending there it would have been a satisfying ending and I agree! B/C everything that happens afterword minus Sansa’s story, I’m still trying to justify.

When Jon gets sent to the wall I almost laughed, what was the point of him being a Targaryen?!?! Just to be the last straw for Dany to go mad? A reach. However, I’ve had more time to think about it and Jon really never wanted to be a king, even though he would have made a great one (I guess he didn’t care what I wanted). He also loved and belonged in the North, and I loved the symmetry of the first shot and the last. Also there’s no way I’m believing he is going to join the Night’s Watch. Maybe for a little while but then Sansa can pardon him real quick and he can find a nice wilding wife with his best man Tormund and live out a nice peaceful life. I just want him to be happy and not have another lover die in his arms. 😊

Speaking of Tormund, I’M MAD ABOUT BRIENNE WRITING JAMIE’S BIOGRAPHY. Actually no, I’m mad about the sex scene between him and Brienne. If that had never happened, that scene of her writing about him would have been beautiful, but instead I’m mad at Jamie for being a fuckboy and don’t think he deserves Brienne’s forgiveness. He always loved Cersei in my mind, not that he didn’t love Brienne in his own way too, but I didn’t need them to take it further than friendship, especially just for him to go back to Cersei like that.

Okay now on to Bran……THIS BOY HAS BEEN KNOWING WHAT’S UP SINCE THE BEGINNING RIGHT?! I MEAN THERE’S NO WAY HE COULDN’T HAVE KNOWN DANY WOULD DIE, JON WOULD KILL HER, ETC. And now Mr. “I can’t be king, I’m the three-eyed raven” is the king of the SIX KINGDOMS. It’s just not doing it for me. And then at the King meeting all he does is say okay guys you got this imma bounce *rolls eyes*. I mean I don’t know who I would have wanted to be king at that point (Sansa, Arya) but I digress.

SANSA STARK MOTHER FUCKING QUEEN OF THE NORTH!!!!! CAN I GET AN AMEN. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! The best moment of the whole EPISODE!!! So satisfying.

There are a few other points I wish had more explanation. The Night King being one, I mean this dude was hyped up since episode one and just ended so quickly. I was a great episode, don’t get me wrong, but Cersei and the south didn’t even have to witness it?! I guess I wanted more talk about it in the aftermath. Or maybe a scene at the end where you find out he’s not dead oooooh. Also Bran being the three-eyed raven, what exactly does he do now with this power?? I need more information. And Dany literally brought dragons back from extinction for what reason??? Where is Drogon going? Hopefully the books can wrap up these questions for me, and I do think if they were already finished the show could have had a more complete ending.

All that being said, GAME OF THRONES IS THE BEST SHOW OF ALL TIME, YOU CAN’T TELL ME OTHERWISE. I don’t regret watching it at all and would watch it again in a heartbeat. And if you haven’t watched it, you still should.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. And thank you GRRM for not killing Tyrion or Sam.

#got #gameofthrones #got8

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lil-rosequartz-princess · 5 years

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Profile Of A Sociopath

Glibness and Superficial Charm

Manipulative and Conning They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

Grandiose Sense of Self Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

Pathological Lying Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

Shallow Emotions When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

Incapacity for Love

Need for Stimulation Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

Irresponsibility/Unreliability Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

Other Related Qualities:

Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them

Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them

Authoritarian

Secretive

Paranoid

Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired

Conventional appearance

Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)

Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life

Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)

Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim

Incapable of real human attachment to another

Unable to feel remorse or guilt

Extreme narcissism and grandiose

May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

(The above traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H. Cleckley and R. Hare.)

NOTE: In the 1830's this disorder was called "moral insanity." By 1900 it was changed to "psychopathic personality." More recently it has been termed "antisocial personality disorder" in the DSM-III and DSM-IV. Some critics have complained that, in the attempt to rely only on 'objective' criteria, the DSM has broadened the concept to include too many individuals. The APD category includes people who commit illegal, immoral or self-serving acts for a variety of reasons and are not necessarily psychopaths. DSM-IV Definition Antisocial personality disorder is characterized by a lack of regard for the moral or legal standards in the local culture. There is a marked inability to get along with others or abide by societal rules. Individuals with this disorder are sometimes called psychopaths or sociopaths. Diagnostic Criteria (DSM-IV) 1. Since the age of fifteen there has been a disregard for and violation of the right's of others, those right's considered normal by the local culture, as indicated by at least three of the following: A. Repeated acts that could lead to arrest. B. Conning for pleasure or profit, repeated lying, or the use of aliases. C. Failure to plan ahead or being impulsive. D. Repeated assaults on others. E. Reckless when it comes to their or others safety. F. Poor work behavior or failure to honor financial obligations. G. Rationalizing the pain they inflict on others. 2. At least eighteen years in age. 3. Evidence of a Conduct Disorder, with its onset before the age of fifteen. 4. Symptoms not due to another mental disorder. Antisocial Personality Disorder Overview (Written by Derek Wood, RN, BSN, PhD Candidate) Antisocial Personality Disorder results in what is commonly known as a Sociopath. The criteria for this disorder require an ongoing disregard for the rights of others, since the age of 15 years. Some examples of this disregard are reckless disregard for the safety of themselves or others, failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, deceitfulness such as repeated lying or deceit for personal profit or pleasure, and lack of remorse for actions that hurt other people in any way. Additionally, they must have evidenced a Conduct Disorder before the age of 15 years, and must be at least 18 years old to receive this diagnosis. People with this disorder appear to be charming at times, and make relationships, but to them, these are relationships in name only. They are ended whenever necessary or when it suits them, and the relationships are without depth or meaning, including marriages. They seem to have an innate ability to find the weakness in people, and are ready to use these weaknesses to their own ends through deceit, manipulation, or intimidation, and gain pleasure from doing so. They appear to be incapable of any true emotions, from love to shame to guilt. They are quick to anger, but just as quick to let it go, without holding grudges. No matter what emotion they state they have, it has no bearing on their future actions or attitudes. They rarely are able to have jobs that last for any length of time, as they become easily bored, instead needing constant change. They live for the moment, forgetting the past, and not planning the future, not thinking ahead what consequences their actions will have. They want immediate rewards and gratification. There currently is no form of psychotherapy that works with those with antisocial personality disorder, as those with this disorder have no desire to change themselves, which is a prerequisite. No medication is available either. The only treatment is the prevention of the disorder in the early stages, when a child first begins to show the symptoms of conduct disorder. THE PSYCHOPATH NEXT DOOR (Source: http://chericola57.tripod.com/infinite.html) Psychopath. We hear the word and images of Bernardo, Manson and Dahmer pop into our heads; no doubt Ted Bundy too. But they're the bottom of the barrel -- most of the two million psychopaths in North America aren't murderers. They're our friends, lovers and co-workers. They're outgoing and persuasive, dazzling you with charm and flattery. Often you aren't even aware they've taken you for a ride -- until it's too late. Psychopaths exhibit a Jekyll and Hyde personality. "They play a part so they can get what they want," says Dr. Sheila Willson, a Toronto psychologist who has helped victims of psychopaths. The guy who showers a woman with excessive attention is much more capable of getting her to lend him money, and to put up with him when he strays. The new employee who gains her co-workers' trust has more access to their chequebooks. And so on. Psychopaths have no conscience and their only goal is self-gratification. Many of us have been their victims -- at work, through friendships or relationships -- and not one of us can say, "a psychopath could never fool me." Think you can spot one? Think again. In general, psychopaths aren't the product of broken homes or the casualties of a materialistic society. Rather they come from all walks of life and there is little evidence that their upbringing affects them. Elements of a psychopath's personality first become evident at a very early age, due to biological or genetic factors. Explains Michael Seto, a psychologist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental health in Toronto, by the time that a person hits their late teens, the disorder is almost certainly permanent. Although many clinicians use the terms psychopath and sociopath interchangeably, writes psychopath expert Robert Hare on his book 'Without Conscience', a sociopath's criminal behavior is shaped by social forces and is the result of a dysfunctional environment. Psychopaths have only a shallow range of emotions and lack guilt, says Hare. They often see themselves as victims, and lack remorse or the ability to empathize with others. "Psychopaths play on the fact that most of us are trusting and forgiving people," adds Seto. The warning signs are always there; it's just difficult to see them because once we trust someone, the friendship becomes a blinder. Even lovers get taken for a ride by psychopaths. For a psychopath, a romantic relationship is just another opportunity to find a trusting partner who will buy into the lies. It's primarily why a psychopath rarely stays in a relationship for the long term, and often is involved with three or four partners at once, says Willson. To a psychopath, everything about a relationship is a game. Willson refers to the movie 'Sliding Doors' to illustrate her point. In the film, the main character comes home early after just having been fired from her job. Only moments ago, her boyfriend has let another woman out the front door. But in a matter of minutes he is the attentive and concerned boyfriend, taking her out to dinner and devoting the entire night to comforting her. All the while he's planning to leave the next day on a trip with the other woman. The boyfriend displays typical psychopathic characteristics because he falsely displays deep emotion toward the relationship, says Willson. In reality, he's less concerned with his girlfriend's depression than with making sure she's clueless about the other woman's existence. In the romance department, psychopaths have an ability to gain your affection quickly, disarming you with words, intriguing you with grandiose plans. If they cheat you'll forgive them, and one day when they've gone too far, they'll leave you with a broken heart (and an empty wallet). By then they'll have a new player for their game. The problem with their game is that we don't often play by their rules. Where we might occasionally tell a white lie, a psychopath's lying is compulsive. Most of us experience some degree of guilt about lying, preventing us from exhibiting such behavior on a regular basis. "Psychopaths don't discriminate who it is they lie to or cheat," says Seto. "There's no distinction between friend, family and sucker." No one wants to be the sucker, so how do we prevent ourselves from becoming close friends or getting into a relationship with a psychopath? It's really almost impossible, say Seto and Willson. Unfortunately, laments Seto, one way is to become more suspicious and less trusting of others. Our tendency is to forgive when we catch a loved one in a lie. "Psychopaths play on this fact," he says. "However, I'm certainly not advocating a world where if someone lies once or twice, you never speak to them again." What you can do is look at how often someone lies and how they react when caught. Psychopaths will lie over and over again, and where other people would sincerely apologize, a psychopath may apologize but won't stop. Psychopaths also tend to switch jobs as frequently as they switch partners, mainly because they don't have the qualities to maintain a job for the long haul. Their performance is generally erratic, with chronic absences, misuse of company resources and failed commitments. Often they aren't even qualified for the job and use fake credentials to get it. Seto talks of a patient who would get marketing jobs based on his image; he was a presentable and charming man who layered his conversations with educational and occupational references. But it became evident that the man hadn't a clue what he was talking about, and was unable to hold down a job. How do you make sure you don't get fooled when you're hiring someone to baby-sit your child or for any other job? Hire based on reputation and not image, says Willson. Check references thoroughly. Psychopaths tend to give vague and inconsistent replies. Of course the best way to solve this problem would be to cure psychopaths of their 'illness.' But there's no recipe for treating them, say psychiatrists. Today's traditional methods of psychotherapy (psychoanalysis, group and one-on-one therapy) and drug treatments have failed. Therapy is more likely to work when an individual admits there's a problem and wants to change. The common problem with psychopaths, says Sets, "Is they don't see a problem with their behavior." Psychopaths don't seek therapy willingly, says Seto. Rather, they're pushed into it by a desperate relative or by a court order. To a psychopath, a therapist is just one more person who must be conned, and the psychopath plays the part right until the therapist is convinced of his or her 'rehabilitation.' Even though we can't treat psychopaths effectively with therapy, it doesn't mean we can't protect ourselves, writes Hare. Willson agrees, citing the most important factor in keeping psychopaths at bay is to know your vulnerabilities. We need to "realize our own potential and maximize our strengths" so that our insecurities don't overcome us. Because, she says, a psychopath is a chameleon who becomes "an image of what you haven't done for yourself." Over time, she says, "their appearance of perfection will begin to crack," but by that time you will have been emotionally and perhaps financially scathed. There comes a time when you realize there's no point in searching for answers; the only thing is to move on. Taken in part from MW -- By Caroline Konrad -- September 1999 THE MALIGNANT PERSONALITY: These people are mentally ill and extremely dangerous! The following precautions will help to protect you from the destructive acts of which they are capable. First, to recognize them, keep the following guidelines in mind. (1) They are habitual liars. They seem incapable of either knowing or telling the truth about anything. (2) They are egotistical to the point of narcissism. They really believe they are set apart from the rest of humanity by some special grace. (3) They scapegoat; they are incapable of either having the insight or willingness to accept responsibility for anything they do. Whatever the problem, it is always someone else's fault. (4) They are remorselessly vindictive when thwarted or exposed. (5) Genuine religious, moral, or other values play no part in their lives. They have no empathy for others and are capable of violence. Under older psychological terminology, they fall into the category of psychopath or sociopath, but unlike the typical psychopath, their behavior is masked by a superficial social facade. If you have come into conflict with such a person or persons, do the following immediately! (1) Notify your friends and relatives of what has happened. Do not be vague. Name names, and specify dates and circumstances. Identify witnesses if possible and provide supporting documentation if any is available. (2) Inform the police. The police will do nothing with this information except to keep it on file, since they are powerless to act until a crime has been committed. Unfortunately, that often is usually too late for the victim. Nevertheless, place the information in their hands. Obviously, if you are assaulted or threatened before witnesses, you can get a restraining order, but those are palliative at best. (3) Local law enforcement agencies are usually under pressure if wealthy or politically powerful individuals are involved, so include state and federal agencies as well and tell the locals that you have. In my own experience, one agency that can help in a pinch is the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service or (in Canada) Victims Services at your local police unit. It is not easy to think of the IRS as a potential friend, but a Swedish study showed that malignant types (the Swedes called them bullies) usually commit some felony or other by the age of twenty. If the family is wealthy, the fact may never come to light, but many felonies involve tax evasion, and in such cases, the IRS is interested indeed. If large amounts of money are involved, the IRS may solve all your problems for you. For obvious reasons the Drug Enforcement Agency may also be an appropriate agency to approach. The FBI is an important agency to contact, because although the FBI does not have jurisdiction over murder or assault, if informed, they do have an active interest in any other law enforcement agencies that do not follow through with an honest investigation and prosecution should a murder occur. Civil rights are involved at that point. No local crooked lawyer, judge, or corrupt police official wants to be within a country mile if that comes to light! It is in such cases that wealthy psychopaths discover just how firm the "friends" they count on to cover up for them really are! Even some of the drug cartel biggies will scuttle for cover if someone picks up the brick their thugs hide under. Exposure is bad for business. (4) Make sure that several of your friends have the information in the event something happens to you. That way, an appropriate investigation will follow if you are harmed. Don't tell other people who has the information, because then something bad could happen to them as well. Instruct friends to take such an incident to the newspapers and other media. If you are dealing with someone who has considerable money, you must realize that they probably won't try to harm you themselves, they will contract with someone to make the hit. The malignant type is a coward and will not expose himself or herself to personal danger if he or she can avoid it.

#sociopath antisocialpersonalitydisorder staysafe abusiverelationships psychology

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stevenwexler · 5 years

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FRANKENSTEIN’s Five Monstrous Freedoms

Last November, my colleague invited me to participate in “Frankenweek” to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Each panelist was permitted five minutes. Here’s my contribution:

1 November 2018

Frankenstein’s Five Monstrous Freedoms

OK, so my five-minute approach to freedom in Frankenstein will be something like an accelerated TED Talk, more streamlined, anyway, than TEDs tend to be. The original plan was to return to a conference paper that I wrote on the monster as a Marcusian ideal, but instead I give you “Frankenstein’s Five Monstrous Freedoms,” one of which includes Herbert Marcuse’s. These five freedoms all begin with the premise that Mary Shelley’s monster is a progressive-regressive subject, that is, regressive in the pre-capitalist sense, and progressive in the monster’s capacity to defamiliarize alienation, repression, and one-dimensionality—that is, to reveal capitalism. Let me say upfront that the very idea of freedom demands at least ten minutes, but here we go.

So, to begin, an epigraph:

The notion of exhaustion has always been anathema for the discourse of Modernity: Romanik Sturm und Drang, the Faustian drive toward immortality, an endless thirst for economic growth, and profits.

—Franco Berardi

Number One: The Monster as Noble Savage As we know, Rousseau paves the way for revolutionary politics in the late 18th-century up to our own in the 21st. Rousseau’s method begins with an imagined past: a noble savage in a state of nature. In Discourse On the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau writes, “[B]ehold your history, such as I have thought to read it, not in books written by your fellow-creatures, who are liars, but in nature, which never lies” (79).

In Rousseau’s state of nature—contra Hobbes—man is neither brutish and war-like nor—contra Aristotle and Locke—political and property-acquiring. These dispositions are learned through ordered society. Yet, while Rousseau “animalizes” us his noble savage is free in a way that non-human animals are not. For Rousseau, “while nature alone activates everything in the operations of a beast, man participates in his own actions in his capacity as a free agent” (87). Rousseau joins the noble savage’s positive freedom to the idea of perfectibility, an unlimited openness to change, not only to exercise the will, but to alter and transform as circumstances change (Smith). Rousseau gives us Romantic individualism.

Rousseau further clarifies his genealogy with two kinds of self-love, each worth reviewing, amour de soi and amour-propre (Smith): Amour de soi is the noble savage’s primitive self-love, one of wholeness and happiness, a self-love that moves every animal toward self-preservation. Amour-propre is the unnatural self-love that appears with society. Amour-propre defines esteem through private property and the opinions of others; this self-love breeds egocentrism, vanity, and conceit (Smith). Rousseau, here, anticipates Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents and maybe Donald Trump.

Frankenstein’s monster would enjoy amour de soi, the noble savage’s self-preserving self-love, if not taught self-loathing and eventual amour-propre by Victor and his societal, “civilized” others. The monster, at this point, has fully emerged from his state of nature.

Number Two: The Monster as Pre-Exchange If the monster suggests a noble savage in a state of nature then he is also pre-capitalist and hence pre-exchange. The monster’s pre-capitalist ontology reveals the implications of the abstractions that come with commodity production, when use-value gives way to exchange-value. Alfred Sohn-Rethel theorizes that exchange is the source of society itself—what makes social synthesis possible in the first place (37)—and that commodity exchange produces our epoch’s distinct “socially necessary forms of thinking” (5). “[Value], says Sohn-Rethel, “is purely social in character, arising in the spatio-temporal sphere of human interrelations” (20). The monster is reanimated in a capitalist world as Victor’s use-value. He is neither a product nor a participant in commodity exchange. Upon his creation, that is, the monster is a being whose pre-capitalism is free from exploitation and alienation.

Number Three: The Monster as Anti-Oedipus Here, I’ll be brief and merely echo Donna Haraway: the monster is borne from Victor’s labor and hence develops above and beyond the Oedipal triangle. He says, “No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing” (143). Like Haraway’s cyborg, there is no Oedipal resolution and Freudian individuation. The monster’s would-be “bride” could very well be a groom or a partner in between or beyond. If the monster is free from Oedipus, he is free from heteronormative compulsion.

Number Four: The Monster as Pre-Risk The monster knows no risk: he is neither a subject at risk nor a subject capable of taking risks; that is, the monster is free from the financialization of daily life. Maurizio Lazzarato reasons that “debt implies subjectivation” as the governed are trained to “promise” (The Making of the Indebted Man). This subjectivation is only fully possible if the very capacity to take and avoid risk becomes rational and moral for capital. Hence, for Lazzarato, “[c]redit does not solicit and exploit labor but rather ethical action and the work of self-constitution at both an individual and collective level.” The monster is free because he is not enslaved in creditor-debtor relations or the extensions of risk society, such as our own domestic wars on drugs and terror (though he eventually initiates the latter) and fetishization of assessment. One should recall Secretary of Education William Bennett’s 1983 absurd polemic, “A Nation At Risk,” that defined low public school test scores as a threat to national security (Martin): No Monster Left Behind, except Shelley’s!

Number Five: The Monster as Swinging, Socialist Humanist Finally, our Marcusian Monster. Like Freud, Herbert Marcuse would not deny repression’s universality, the repression that comes with a universal Oedipus complex. Yet, like Lacan, Marcuse makes the repressive psychosexual phenomenon a socioeconomic apparatus. Lacan’s superego demands that the righteous and vigilant capitalist subject consume tirelessly within limits—that is, consume according to late capitalism’s ceaseless and oppressive production of subjectivity (in the West: “Be Beautiful!” “Exercise!” “Don’t drink—too much!” and so on).

Similarly, Marcuse’s historicizing of the reality principle (the ego’s restriction on the id’s primitive, instinctual desires) with the performance principle (the ego’s restriction on the id according to capitalism) not only cites capitalism as a driving behavioral force but also allows for positive transformation through post-capitalist subjectivity. If capitalism’s “distribution of scarcity” has resulted in “surplus repression,” then a “non-repressive mode of sublimation” might come about from new productive relations. Thus, Marcuse posits “an extension rather than a constraining” of libidinal energy, and imagines a utopia that abandons the performance principle for a non-repressive reality principle (170, emphasis mine).

So to conclude, in a 1967 lecture, Marcuse defines the dialectic of liberation as “the construction of a free society” that “depends [ . . . ] on [ . . . ] abolishing the established systems of servitude; and [ . . . ] on the vital commitment, the striving [ . . . ] for the qualitatively different values of a free human existence” (178). It is no wonder, then, that Victor says early on that “[t]he world was [ . . . ] a secret which I desired to divine” (Shelley 36). We, like Victor and his monster, are still in that dialectic, still trying to figure out freedom and make things right. I think.

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