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historyherstory · 1 year

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“Do you know what day it is?”

I grew up hearing this question. For years, every December 7th, my paternal grandfather would ask, “Do you know what day it is?”

He was born on December 9th, 1918. He was days away from turning 23 when Pearl Harbor was bombed. He, like countless thousands of his generation, served (many entering service immediately, others after they fulfilled other obligations to work or family). He joined the millions of Americans who served in World War II.

In many ways, he was one of the lucky ones. He ultimately became a 1st Sergeant. He told me once that they wanted to send him to OCS but he refused because he didn’t want to leave the men with whom he had trained and served for so long. When I asked him about it, it would have been around 2003. Even that many years after, he could tell me stories about the men he served with - their names, their personalities, and many, stories about their families.

He put me in his dress uniform once. I remember the weight of the wool and how hot it was. I was a preteen at that point, but already taller than he was. I could barely close the jacket, he was so slender. His draft card says he was 5′7 and 130 lbs. I remember the chevrons (but I didn’t know what they were at the time). I remember his hat.

He was, in many ways, an old man among so many teenagers who served in WWII. He passed in 2007. I wish I had more time, I wish I had the chance to ask educated questions, to retain more of the information he had to share.

But every December 7th, I think of him: “Do you know what day it is?”

December 7th, 1941, a day which will live in infamy.

My paternal grandmother’s brother is buried overseas in Manilla. He died in Luzon, on March 28th of 1945. He turned 22 just 3 weeks earlier. More and more, I think that I need to try to get my father and some of his brothers to the Philippines while they are still young and healthy enough to make the trip. I think of my great uncle with increasing frequency. Growing up, I never heard of him. There had been a rift in the family: his draft card lists no next of kin. I’m not sure what the falling out was over, or when it happened, but I’m told that he only occasionally spoke with his mother (my great grandmother). She was the one who was notified via telegram of his death (and I don’t know how, when he listed no next of kin, unless he had a change of heart later and informed someone of how to contact his mother?) If you know history, you will recognize that the battle of Luzon was largely over by mid February. It’s my understanding that he was KIA while clearing out a city, even though the battle was “through”. Some part of me feels uneasy with this fact: a member of our family that has been gone from us for far too long. I think sometimes that it might bring a sense of closure to be able to help my older relatives go to visit him. It feels like an unfinished story.

My maternal grandfather served in the Merchant Marines. He passed away in 2001. Shortly after his death I remember a call my grandmother received: it was someone? from a veteran’s association saying he was eligible for some form of honor. I can’t remember what it was (I was too young), but my grandmother hung up on him. The Merchant Marines were denied veteran’s benefits until the late 80s, despite being an essential part of the war effort (and many thousands of them losing their lives in the process, especially in the early 1940s in the Atlantic). Even into the 90s, 00s, and 2010s, history has been utterly negligent in recognizing the service and sacrifice of these men (often writing them out of the picture entirely). He passed in 2001, and my great uncle on my mother’s side, who served along with him, passed in 2016.

It seems strange, then, to sit here as December 7th closes in. It has been 16 years since since I heard my grandfather ask “Do you know what day it is?” My father is also aging. His recall isn’t so keen anymore. He used to ask this same thing, but I suspect today, he won’t. It will be my mother or I texting him “Do you know what day it is?” to jostle the memory loose.

I was only a child when I knew these men. The sense of loss, of their memories, of their stories, grows more acute the older I get. I wish that I had been old enough to really understand what they were telling me.

And so today is a day for remembrance. Remembering the stories of men and women, some cut short by acts of violence and war, some long with lives well lived, who were forever impacted by the events of that day. (And no conversation about WW2 and the memories of it are complete without acknowledging that while for so many Americans, Pearl Harbor is a catalyst for so many of our memories and our family stories, for so many people the world wide through there are memories and family histories whose wartime tragedies began far, far earlier in so many places around the world and the untold suffering they experienced should never be forgotten.)

Maybe this is my attempt to make those memories more concrete, by putting them into words and sharing them this way.

#about me #personal things

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aweecrush · 3 years

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Prologue

Tuesday, October 16th 2007

“Jesus, I can’t believe you’re actually in the fucking plane - took you long enough! If I had known it took a wedding to get your arse back home, I would have had a couple by now, for God’s sake .”

“Michelle, you promised you wouldn’t start! ” Clare’s reproachful voice rose.

“Aye, first, I didn’t promise shit, and second, I told you, she’s not chickening out so chill out - right Erin?”

Despite the culpability and shame pricking at her skin, her heart warmed at their traditional bickering she wished she’d hear more often. At their voices. And, most of all, at knowing that in a few hours, she’d get to hear them for real.

Feck, she’d missed these eejits.

“Well, I’m not actually in the plane yet, we’re waiting to board. And then I still have that stupid long flight, and then the stupid long wait at stupid London, so don’t wait up - but yes, I’m definitely on my way,” she promised, earning herself an earful of high pitched cackles and happy swears.

Her heart welled up.

“So, how is the bride doing? She wasn’t home when I called earlier, and all Mammy could talk about was how the caterer was driving her crazy and how aunt Sarah almost set her own hair on fire trying a new hairdo she’d like to nail for the ceremony.”

Michelle snorted. “ Yeah, hilarious so it was. You should have seen your dad’s face, mental. ”

“It was terrifying,” Clare corrected, apparently still shaken.

Then, perked up. “Orla’s going to look so cute though - I can’t wait for you to see the dress!” Erin tried to ignore the sting of not having been there for such an important moment.

“We’re still trying to convince her out of drawing anything on it, but I’m not sure we’ll win this one, to be honest. Also, we’ve got everything almost ready to go for the bachelorette party, although I do need you to help me stop Michelle from bringing the tons of drugs she wants to, because - ”

“For feck’s sake Clare, Orla would love it! The girl is tying the knot, she deserves to get properly shit faced.”

“She said she wanted something small!”

“She said she would have liked to have a little something with just the five of us the night before. She never said anything about the actual bachelorette party being small - or fucking boring for that matter!”

“Just the five of us?”

The words spilled out before she could stop them, stupid that she was. At the other end of the line, the girls went uncharastically silent, and Erin cursed herself.

Feck.

“I mean, that’s grand. It’s cool, I thought it was just going to be one big night for the bachelorette party before the big day, but - I mean, that’s even better! Grand - cool.”

Christ on a bike, that was pathetic. She was.

“Yeah...The thing is, Orla wanted a wee night with just us Derry girls the night before the bachelorette party, hanging at the bar and stuff you know, because - Well, just because.” Poor Clare was rambling now, in a typical panicked Clare kind of way. “And we thought - Well, then we thought about it, and it turns out it’s not going to work, just timing-wise and stuff, so - “

“So the point is we dropped it.”

“Right. Yep.”

Again, silence, only betrayed by the hammering in her chest that she hoped her friends wouldn’t hear over her cellphone.

“Oh okay, well - that’s a shame.” Her casual slash over the top fake disappointment tone did nothing to help convince anyone, of course, herself included. She winced.

She promised herself it wasn’t going to be like this, though. She wasn’t going to ruin this for anyone - not a chance.

For God’s sake, catch yourself on Erin.

Pushing all dangerous thoughts aside, Erin took a deep breath. “In any case, I’m sure it’ll all be fine - really fine.”

There were another few seconds of silence, and she could just picture the worried look they were sharing - probably very similar to the one they had that particular, fateful day. To the one they had again when she told them she was moving away. Then -

“You bet it’ll be fine - feck, it will be absolutely brilliant is what it is! Wait til you see my dress, Erin - my tits look amazing in it.”

As it turned out, running all over the city for work for the past ten days and dangerously flirting with the limits of sleep deprivation did have a perk: her whole, eight hours flight, Erin slept like a log.

(Truth was, she could have done without the look of contempt and the ‘Miss? You have drool on your face’ from that stupid flight attendant who woke her up when they landed, but still - all in all, it went well.)

The wait at Stansted airport, however, was pure hell.

Because of the jitters, mostly.

Growing up, despite how much she loved to complain about them, Erin had never actually considered living away from her family. Well, not that far, at least - she’d always known she would leave Derry after high school, which they did, and it was glorious. War or not, she had a pretty nice life as a child and then a teenager, but those college years and the first ones that had followed - they were the best of her life.

Still, it was only Belfast at the time, and Belfast was a two hours drive from home. Erin knew that at some point, she wanted to go out in the world, maybe live abroad for a while, but this - New-York, all on her own, away for so long? She hadn’t planned that. Didn’t, really - it all went so fast, in the end.

It was a good thing too, because if she had stopped and thought about it for too long, she wasn’t sure she would have gone through with it.

(Then again, what else could she have done?)

Despite her dreams, and her need for independence, and her eagerness to see the world, Erin had never thought that she’d leave her family for that far, for that long. Orla had come to see her once, thank goodness, but Jesus -

On the last picture her Ma had sent her, Anna had grown so much, she almost looked like a wee woman. She’d forgotten the exact colour of that lipstick aunt Sarah wore all the time, she couldn’t remember each wrinkle on Granda’s beautiful face like she used to, and sometimes, she was afraid she was forgetting her Da’s smell and what her Ma’s voice sounded like in real life. She’d missed them so much, it hurt (a lot, often).

She just couldn’t wait any longer to get back to that crazy bunch, and those last, endless few hours? Torture so it was.

She was half considering starting to work on her next article to pass the time when across from her, Erin spotted a young couple bickering, their luggages next to their seats. She was a beautiful thing, red hair tied in a messy bun, and his brown curls fell above his forehead, all messed up.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could make out their accents. He looked like he was trying to make her smile, leaning over so he could kiss her, and she was doing everything she could not to laugh, weakly trying to escape his arms around hers, her pretense wavering with every second.

They were probably in their early twenties, just out of uni or something. They looked happy.

Her chest tightened, and suddenly, Erin felt the urge to cry.

Well, that was quick.

Shite. Shite shite shite.

It was okay, though - it was all fine. She knew herself by now - she was emotional as heck most days of the year (crazy, her Ma would say), but the day of her returning back home, with accumulated fatigue and an Atlantic crossing flight in her feet? Of course she'd get misty eyed at the first occasion. At anything, this just happened to be what, because they were very cute and - it was a coincidence, nothing more.

It was nothing.

The girl laughed, though, giving him a small slap over the head before she let him nuzzle his face in the crook of her neck. She brushed his forehead with her lips, a soft smile on them, and kept talking.

It was difficult, then, not to think about another time, another long wait, at the Bali airport this time. It was difficult, not to think about another English fella with wild, brown curls.

It was impossible, really, not to think about him.

Memories of a perfect trip came flooding back, of burnt skin and drunken smiles, of blue waters and green eyes. The tickles of the sun, the softness of his fingers over her exposed neck, her naked arms. Sweaty bodies pressed together during hot nights, slow breathes, so many new sights discovered, fingers intertwined.

Sometimes, the memory of his face hidden against her neck was so vivid, she could almost feel it. Just like she did now.

Her breath caught.

Sweet suffering Jesus.

Experience had taught her that she had to stop now - needed to, really, before her mind wandered to anything more. To everything else, every little thing that could, and would, make her heart ache even more than it already did.

(That’s another thing she’d found out: as it happened, the expression “heartbreak” wasn’t, in fact, an overly dramatic turn of words. Quite accurately descriptive it was, actually.

She often wondered when hers would stop feeling like it had been ripped into a million little pieces, but she was starting to lose faith that it ever would.)

Of course, she should have seen it coming, she knew that. She had, in fact. True to herself, she’d tried to ignore it, but she knew full well that with her coming back home, it would come back.

This painful, sneaky way every little thing seemed to remind her of before - of a life that felt so far away now.

Over the months, the many months since she’d been gone, she’d gotten it almost under control. Everyday life brought its distractions, particularly in a city like New-York: running between brunches and dinners, partying with her cool American friends, writing for a newspaper in the Big Apple, it was easy, forgetting what you wanted to, if only for so long. She was becoming a real life city girl, a full time one, and that was exactly what her busy brain - her treacherous heart - needed.

With time, every sight, every sound, every smell no longer reminded her of home - the place, the person. With time, she’d moved on.

Yes, sometimes - often - she’d wavered, but that was normal: having been close to someone meant that they lived with you forever, she couldn’t help that. At some point, it would just die down enough that she’d just be able to call it the past without her insides hurting.

(She thought it would, with Matt. Maybe not with the others before him, they were just passing through - but with him, she thought it would. She couldn’t really explain how it all made the permanent weight on her chest even heavier instead, somehow.)

But it hadn’t died down yet, and even though it was normal and okay and to be expected, six weeks ago, Erin had booked her tickets, and six weeks ago, she had lost the grip over the carefully built barriers she’d made sure to rise in the meantime for - well, self-preservation, really.

It started small. The song that had played this one special night, resonating through Starbucks as she waited for her drink. That sweatshirt her colleague bought one day that reminded her of another one. That scarf in the store that looked so much like Doctor Who’s.

But then...Then, it was every day, every damn day, just like the beginning - even worse, if she was being honest. Up until yesterday, when she boarded that damn plane.

Up until now, in this stupid airport where she didn’t want to cry.

Arms tightened around her own chest, Erin willed herself not to, even though it was becoming evident that there was no ignoring the memories and the aching now. Even though, just like she feared, it was becoming perfectly clear that there was no escaping anymore, no pretending that she wasn’t the worst person in this Goddamn country, that the worst hadn’t happened.

Even though she could feel the fear mixed with longing and excitement and dread and a million other emotions that had painfully, permanently taken residence in her stomach now that she was home.

(That had taken roots there ever since the day she left, so it did.)

Shite.

Sitting back up, Erin shook herself. No, no, no, no - she could do this.

She’d grown, she’d prepared herself. She’d even planned what to say if...She was ready. Responsable, mature, and ready. And she won’t have to face this alone.

In a few hours, she was going to see the people who raised her. In a couple of days, wee Orla was getting married. She’d come up with excuses after excuses not to come home, even for Christmas - babbling something about being overloaded with work even though it made her heart ache to know she’ll be alone for the holidays for the first time in her life. Even though she knew full well her Ma didn’t buy a single word, very aware of the real reason she was staying away. She didn’t say a single word, though, and Erin was grateful.

No more, though.

For months and months, Erin had found reasons to stay away for the exact reasons that were chipping away at her heart more and more by the second, but now her baby cousin was getting married, and she’d see her family, and they’ll hold her close, and she’ll find a way to bury all the stuff that was so, so much more difficult to ignore now that she was coming home.

Maybe - maybe it will be difficult, but they’ll be here to help her through it. She’ll be there for her family, and they’ll be here for her.

Fighting the urge to reach out for the folded photograph in her wallet (the one that brought so much comfort and so much else she’d rather avoid at the same time, the one she clinged to but pretended she didn’t), Erin just breathed, and moved to change seats.

Everything would be fine, in the end. It will be grand.

Except her family didn’t come.

No one did.

It was eight thirty in the morning, and, her cellphone penibly stuck between her ear and shoulder as she struggled to zip her jacket to protect herself from the freezing cold, Erin tried to swallow her disappointment.

“Aye I’m sorry love, it looks like you’re going to have to get a cab,” her Ma announced before yelling something at her Granda in the distance.

Erin couldn’t help but notice the fact that she didn’t seem that sorry, not at all in fact. “Your Da was going to come get you, but there’s a problem of some kind where the reception is, and he had to take Orla.”

Erin nodded, even though her Ma couldn’t see her. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just - ”

“We’ll give you the money back for the cab when you arrive. Alright, I gotta go love, we’re checking the hair accessories for the big day - see you in a bit.” And with that, she hung up.

Well.

Here went her big welcome home, eh.

Again, it was nothing, though, she reasoned. She was a grown up now, of course she understood that something had come up, and that this all delayed their big reunion from only an hour, tops. So really, there was no reason to get upset.

None.

She wished she wasn’t getting upset.

From what she told her, Clare would be putting together gift bags now, and there was absolutely no doubt that Michelle was still snoring. Pocketing her cell as best as she could, Erin bit the inside of her cheek and started looking for the only plan B she had left, ignoring the burning in her eyes. It really was nothing - she’ll be fine.

It didn’t matter that she took forever to get a cab, for some reason, or that her luggage fell over her foot when they tried to put it in the truck, or that her handbag crashed on the floor and spilled everywhere.

Erin did know she tended to be over dramatic - and yes, maybe borderline crazy, Ma wasn't completely wrong - but she was more mature now, so instead of getting riled up, instead of being crushed by the fact that her family didn’t seem to have missed her as much as she did them, and that the land she grew up on was sending her sign after sign that she wasn’t welcomed back, Erin breathed.

Instead of being violently overwhelmed by memories at every corner of the place she’d grown up in, the place where they met and it all began, she did - she tried to breathe, slowly, carefully, squeezing her scarf in her hand a little too tight.

(That was another thing about your close ones not coming to get you at the airport after you left your country to run away: there wasn’t much to distract you from the memories you were running away from.)

She wouldn’t cry. She was just tired, and being stupid, and she wasn’t coming home with puffy red eyes - no way.

They passed the mall they all used to hang out at, and her throat tightened so much, it felt like the air had left the inside of the car. She saw the movie theater he was always so eager to bring her to in the distance, and a familiar pang of missing shot through her chest. Her heart twisted that particular way when they drove by the hiding spot of their early days, but even though she wondered how she was still holding her tears, she did.

After what felt like an eternity, the car finally pulled up her street, and Erin hadn’t shed one silly tear. She’d done it. She could do it.

By the time she pushed their small barrier and started for the couple of stairs, all Erin wanted was to collapse into bed and black out. Orla and Da wouldn’t be home, Ana would probably still be asleep, and given the day and time, Grandda would have gone for his walk. She’d give a big hug to Ma and Aunt Sarah, pretext a headache, and go lie down.

As she struggled to get her bags through the door while keeping the damn thing open, Erin shouted, cursing herself at how strangled her voice sounded. “I’m home!”

Finally managing to get everything and herself inside, she collapsed on the wall behind her, only now taking in the wallpaper, the coat hangers, the shoes by the entry.

Damn - she was home.

The emotion was so striking, she didn’t quite have the time to stop the tears from welling up in her yes, taken by surprise.

She moved before it all became too much and shrugged off her coat, feeling her insides warm at the familiar surroundings, and yet her heart ache at not having the usual voices that went with it, the faces that she wanted so much to see. She shouted again, but there was still no response.

Ma and aunt Sarah must have had something to do, then. It was fine, she thought as she pushed the living door open. It was, she’d just grab a glass of water and -

“SURPRISE!”

And just like that, Saturday Night started playing from somewhere, overcoming the shouting and the party whistles that had broken the silence so suddenly, Erin had jumped out, her back hitting doorframe behind her. There was colours and and noise and arms waving in every direction, and Erin vaguely realized that she was covered in confetti that matched the balloons and the hats.

Somehow, she noticed that they all had one: Michelle, up on the sofa, Clare, jumping in place at the other side of the room, Orla and the giant teddy bear she was holding. Anna, her pink one stuck on top of her mass of blond hair. Aunt Sarah and Grandda, both holding hands and arboring the same green one. Her Ma, her Da, tears in their eyes, huge grins on their faces, red and yellow ones falling over.

Her brain had stopped functionning, so she couldn't be sure, but Erin thought that her legs were giving out.

Before they did, though, both her parents closed the distance and hugged her close, whispering things she couldn't quite make sense of just yet. Their voices in her ear, their smell surrounding her, Erin broke her promise to herself, and finally let the tears come flooding as she held them back as close as she could.

She was home.

#erin x james #james x erin #jerin #derry girls #fanfiction #mine

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im-the-punk-who · 3 years

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@rnmmarchformeta Day 1: Tonight’s theme is: Themes

Malex and Music: Tracing a relationship through music used in the show - Part 1

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Given that both Michael and Alex have a personal connection to music, I wanted to go over some of the intricacies of what the music choices and lyrics/stories behind the songs used might tell us about Malex. The music choices in Roswell New Mexico are deliberate and often incredibly pointed. Particularly in the case of Michael and Alex there are elements of their relationship that are not so much underlined as written about only in the lyrical choices that play under their scenes. This choice for me made rewatching the series a lot of fun because as I discovered the lyrics to some of the more obscure song choices I kept discovering new intricacies and motivations for each of their decisions. Below the cut for length.

(Author’s note circa 2007: (rawr xD) I’m focusing specifically on the parts of these songs that play over or in direct correlation to scenes where Michael and Alex are both present. I would love to explore this theme in the wider context of the whole show and how their interactions with other characters might change some of these but...this is already like 6k and that’s just how the peas and carrots cooked. That said I will be referencing other characters and relationships as relevant, particularly, I will be talking at some length about Milexa and the airstream scenes in 2x06. I personally have a favorable reading of the scenes and what they mean for Michael and Alex. I also talk briefly about Milexa in a few other spots - they’ve been marked as ‘Milexa’ or ‘Miluca’ if you wish to skip them, although I don’t know if this will make sense as a whole without them. But, should you wish. Proceed accordingly. <3)

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Posted on AO3 here.

Sedona - Houndstooth (1x01)

The first song we hear in relation to Malex is ‘Sedona’ by Houndstooth. The song plays during the reunion as we see Alex confront Michael about the chemicals found around his airstream. The verse that plays underneath the scene references how, due to its scenic beauty, the town of Sedona was once a highly sought after filming location but had fallen into obscurity when cowboy movies went out of style in the late 70′s.

Similarly, Alex tells Michael that he is ‘wasting his life.’

“Does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old for you?”

“Did it get old for you?”

For me, this scene is as much an introduction to the past between these two as their present. Gone but not forgotten, their interactions are a ‘script’ that the two of them play off of. In other words, Michael and Alex don’t so much interact as play off of what the other expects from the other. This becomes especially clear when in 2x05 we learn that Alex has at least once before warned Michael about ‘wasting his life.’

When The Truth Hunts You Down - Sam Tinnesz (1x01)

The next scene is this one, in which we see Alex contemplating an old picture of himself. We then see Michael watching him.

Later, the last line is overlaid with Jesse telling Kyle about the existence of aliens.

The truth about Michael’s alienness is quiet literally hunting them, but so is something about Alex’s past. As we get to know him, we learn just how much his father is interconnected with all of the worst moments in his life and everrything he has buried and tried to run from in order to avoid it. Michael, Roswell itself - Alex ran halfway across the world to try to run away from the trauma of his youth, and yet here he is.

“Nostalgia’s a bitch, huh?”

“You know I thought when I got back from Iraq you would be long gone.”

“Is that what you want?”

“We’re not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter.”

We also find out something of the nature of his and Michael’s relationship and that there are clearly still feelings between them - no matter how much Alex is trying to deny it.

Give Me The Night - Des Rocs (1x02)

This is one of my personal faves from the Malex soundtracks. It just *slaps* okay?

Aside from the obvious nod to Michael’s alienness, this song underscores the divide still between Michael and Alex despite the passionate kiss they shared at the reunion. Michael is initially flirtatious and full of swagger - until Alex shuts him down.

The fallacy of Alex’s rebuke and his dismissal of the feelings behind the kiss are underscored by his refusal to even look Michael in the eye as they talk. Even if he tries to deny them, the truth of his feelings hunts and haunts him because he feels he can never act on his own desires. And in turn when presented with the about face, Michael turns bitter as the push-pull is reinitiated. Michael falls back to the script they’ve been rehashing to save his feelings - ‘puts on a show’ as it were, and Alex falls for it hook, line, and sinker. He is still unwilling or unable to see the truth that lies beneath the surface.

“Isn’t there some law about building on a historical site?”

“A historical - oh you mean because the UFO crashed here? Yeah, we’re not supposed to build on Santa’s workshop either.”

For Michael, who at least to me was obviously hoping things would change this time around, this must feel like a bucket of cold water, especially in the face of Liz Ortecho’s knowledge and seeming easy acceptance of the aliens’ existence. While Max might get his happy ending, Michael is left to keep hiding from the person he loves, never being seen and wondering if Alex’s feelings are even real.

Two Princes - Spin Doctors (1x02) (Miluca)

In rapid fire we have the next three songs as Michael and Alex spend some time at the Wild Pony. This verse plays under the interaction when Alex comes in the bar and spots Michael.

“Though he got kinda hot. In a ‘sex in a truck, smells like a river, never introduce him to your mama’ kind of way.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

My boy. My child. My bluntest instrument in the tool kit. Has no one ever told Alex Manes that saying you hadn’t noticed an objectively hot guy is hot is basically code for ‘I haven’t stopped staring at him since I walked in and my brain is not functioning at a high enough level to mask that fact’? Son, please, this is a drunk Wendy’s.

(Also this is huge foreshadowing for Miluca - Michael and Maria don’t have sex *in* a truck but it’s pretty close, we find out later that Michael/the aliens smell like rain, and she tells him he’s not meeting her mother at one point. The angle of this shot is also, for me at least, a hint that Michael is going to become the object of these two ‘princes’ affections, at some point.)

Anyway this is basically poking fun at Alex Manes, repressed disaster, for having no clue what love is and trying to express his affection through like, everything except anything anyone would understand as romantic love. (And we will see this in the flashbacks as well as present day - that Alex mostly uses his station or advantages as a way to show the people he loves he loves them, rather than using words. When he offers Michael the shed, brings him the guitar, uses his military connections to find out about Michel’s mom, hacks into Maria’s computer...listen I got more.) But that isn’t enough, as we’re learning. If only there were some way Alex could also learn that lesson.

And seriously, “This one said he wants to buy you rockets?”

How’s It Going To Be? - Stephen Edwards (1x02)

“Is there really nobody in this world that you wouldn’t risk everything to save? Sad.”

Oh Isobel, if only you knew.

So, aside from returning the kiss Michael initiated at the reunion, Alex has soundly rejected every advance Michael has made for a relationship. Despite that Michael seems to have been harboring some hope that things might be different not that Alex is back more permanently. But now with Isobel bringing into question what he’s willing to sacrifice, I think he might be realizing that toll has been extremely steep already.

(Also truly obsessed with how both Alex and Michael have positioned themselves so that they can casually glance over at each other without arousing suspicion. *Boys*. It’s not that complicated what is this middle school?)

We know that Michael doesn’t like having to keep secrets, and again I have to wonder if he’s regretting not telling Alex he’s an alien, or wondering how that conversation would have gone.

From the previous scenes we can tell something in their relationship is coming to a head - maybe Michael is hoping it’s that he can finally stop keeping secrets from Alex and show Alex who he really is - that Alex will stop misreading him. That Alex will change.

But there is also the expectation that if that happens, Alex will likely leave again. Not just because that’s what Alex’s trauma makes him do, but also because that is how Michael frames all of his relationships. As ‘until you leaves’. He is shown to have a habit of catastrophizing because he doesn’t believe himself to ‘belong’ anywhere(HA) and this is one of those times we’re shown that.

Come With Me - Gold Star (1x02)

“Home can be a person.”

And here we have Alex “thinking about who he was” as Maria closes up the bar. Given where this scene leads with him and Michael, I think the rest of the lyrics to the song are incredibly poignant.

Tell me what were you dreaming? Tell me who were you trying to reach? Gimme something real to believe in Or gimme a reason to leave So i left her standing under shining stars in the Silver moonlight by old Borough Hall - whoever you are

We know that after this evening Alex attempts to rekindle his relationship with Michael, still thinking about who he was, and maybe for the first time trying not to run from what he wants. He’ll be unsuccessful this time, but it’s the first clue that Alex is attempting to break a pattern that has held him in place for ten years.

While he may have been misreading Michael’s stunted growth, we’re starting to see Alex contemplate change in himself. This is the start of Alex’s two season long journey to break out of the fortress he’s built around himself. To ‘put his weapons down’ in an effort to be with Michael.

(She lets her guard down on her way back//to close her eyes and fall asleep - “It was late....I was tired.”)

God of Wine - Third Eye Blind

So clearly the writers were like ‘how can we hurt Milo specifically’ because these lyrics are *so good* as we hear malex talk about the way they view their relationship for the first time in the show.

The music starts just as Michael picks up the old photographs, first of the pod squad, then of himself and Alex playing guitars in the desert. As he packs up the airstream to move it off Foster’s Ranch, Michael is also thinking about the past.

Throughout the series, we’re given a bunch of musical lines about how Michael and Alex can’t go back to what they were, that they have to move forward. And it’s true - as we’ll see over and over again the dynamic they’ve had has been incredibly unhealthy for both of them. But they also cannot avoid the other’s orbit. And when Alex comes to talk to Michael it’s the first time we see him actually decide to initiate - to try and take what he himself wants, rather than waiting or hiding from it. But it is also very much Alex falling back into the ‘madness that holds a truth he can’t erase’ of Michael’s really, very, super, incredibly obvious feelings for him. Our boy is not subtle.

But Alex is still hunted by the past - before we know his history we assume that when Alex references ‘who he was before he went to war’ he means Iraq. But Alex’s war is his father. As much as combat can absolutely be a traumatizing experience, for Alex I never really read that as his main source. As he’ll tell Forrest later - “My PTSD triggers are a little more complicated”.

And so when he tells Michael he’s been thinking about who he was “before he went to war” for me that’s more a callback to who he was before Jesse found the two of them in the toolshed. “When this started.”

As Michael tells him “From where I stand nothing’s changed” the words “I know, I know, I know” repeat in the background because WE KNOW. We all know, except Alex.

“And that’s a problem for me, Guerin.”

And the siren’s song that is your madness

“Because every time you look at me, I’m seventeen all over again.”

holds a truth I can’t erase

“- and I forget that the last ten years even happened. And then you look away and I remember all over again. And it almost kills me every time.”

All alone on your face

“I never look away. Not really.”

For Michael this is basically confirmation of what he’s been realizing over the last few days - that Alex has been totally misreading him and that yes, Michael, you’re going to have to use your words on this one.

To which we see Alex’s brain 404-blue-screen for a minute as he realizes what Michael means. Which I personally really appreciate.

And especially since we’ve just learned that a lyric of this song was written on Rosa’s hand the night she died, I can’t believe it’s a coincidence in this being the song that plays underneath this scene - where Alex says he was thinking about who he was before. Everything changed that day for everyone - including Michael and Alex. Michael had gained a terrible secret he couldn’t share, that meant he changed his whole life and started needing to hide and lie and act out, and Alex - not knowing the truth - assumed that it was Michael’s way of trying to push him away and end the relationship. Which leads to the decades long miscommunication of Alex seeing Michael do that over and over again.

For the last ten years, Alex has been seeing Michael as the boy who looks away, then looks back. A Michael whose focus shifts to and away from him and who he sees as wasting his life; directionless and aimless. But as he realizes what Michael is saying he has to recalibrate everything he’s thought their relationship is.

This is possibly the first time Alex has realized that his view of Michael has been wrong. That he really doesn’t know Michael at all.

And we know this interaction has a profound impact on Alex in terms of how he views their relationship. I feel like this is one of those things that becomes a mantra for Alex, later down the line. He repeats it to Michael at Caulfield, and in his song as well, “You never looked away, now I won’t look away” to express his commitment to breaking down the walls he has built up for himself.

Even though we know the relationship is doomed at this point, it’s the first time a stone falls from the walls Alex has built around himself in a decade.

Here - Chance Peña - 1x03 (Alternate title: “Home”)

Okay I would like to petition to make it illegal to have unreleased songs in episodes, Chance Peña help a bitch out. I had to watch a *fish show* to hear the full lyrics because they’re edited in the show! ( I will also note the next lyric is ‘goodbye, my dear’ which. rude.)

Anyway, we’re given these lyrics as Michael wakes up to seeing Alex has stayed the night. I took the editing, with the previous song choices, to be a reaffirmation of this being something new to Alex, but not necessarily to Michael. Michael knows what he wants from a relationship with Alex - even if he’s put the hope aside from time to time the want is always clear.

For Alex though, a relationship with Michael is something that scares him because of his fear that it can be taken away. (”I just thought that I could be happy, and not be afraid that if I loved anything my dad would destroy it.”) He is trying to make it work - “drawing near” to Michael - but he knows that in order to do that he is going to need to be uncomfortable. To face the fears that have held him back and kept him in comfortable limbo for so long.

I’m also going to flail about how, while RNM has the song listed as ‘Here’, the producer of the other show(Battlefish) identified the song as ‘Home’. I hope I don’t have to yell at y’all, other Roswell New Mexico fans, about how often that word has snuck up on me and knifed me in the back regarding malex. Especially since Alex *is* currently - well, here. With his home. Kill me please it would be kinder.

But then of course we see the old insecurities pop up again as Isobel arrives. Even if he is trying - Alex is nowhere near ready to jump out of the closet yet.

Fast Aint Good Enough - Inkwell Echo (1x06)

I debated adding this one because it’s a little bit reachy, but I thought it was significant in that even when they were seventeen, the thing Alex is ‘afraid of’ is his feelings for Michael - not necessarily of being gay but of what people like Kyle and his father do with information like that.

Wish I’d found the words when we were seventeen-

Kyle asks

“What are you so afraid of?”

-just as Alex catches sight of Michael.

(“I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. It felt good.”)

Aside from Alex’s general need to protect Michael in any and all situations, I feel like the lyrics of this song - about the singer’s attempt to leave an abusive relationship - underscore that even before the toolshed, Alex was fighting. Even before the toolshed, he has been fighting to this cycle he is trapped in.

While he and Michael build their relationship he starts thinking seriously about leaving and not just surviving but he will ultimately choose to trap himself for years in order to hide his love for Michael.

Like so many gay kids, Alex is fighting a system that deems him guilty of sin - and takes his fighting back as a sign of his guilt. And in order to actually be able to love Michael, he is going to have to figure out how to put down the weapons and the hurt and break the cycle.

First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes (1x06)

Are they serious right now I swear to god.

So obviously, we’ve got the origins for everything we’re told about Michael and Alex’s lives changing based on their feelings for each other in like two and a half verses of song. Forget the entire second season we have everything we need right here.

“It was the first time I liked our hometown, though.”

“Alex made me believe there was a place for me here.”

We know that for both of them this is really a moment of self discovery as much as it is a discovery about each other.

For Michael in particular, who doesn’t know why he’s here or who he really is, and who previously had no plans besides leaving the planet, this is the moment that he realizes what he wants - to be with Alex.

And for Alex, to me, this moment is a brief glimpse into what his life could be like. We don’t have any confirmation if Michael is his first kiss with a boy or not, but we do know that this moment is significant in that it’s the first that makes Roswell feel like a place he enjoys being.

And as he is realizing that, the lyrics echo it -

But I realized that I need you // And I wondered if I could come home

(Screeching from the background: WOULD YOU COME HOME)

But of course, as the song says, these things take forever because...well....

(It’s because Alex is dumb. My poor dumb emotionally stunted child. Please go to therapy.)

In essence, this is the moment that sets Michael and Alex on their entwined path. The path that Alex will have to fight to get back to - the path Michael will lose faith in before he later starts to regain the hope that it exists. I also like to think about the link between the last lines:

Remember the time you drove all night // Just to meet me in the morning?

and the line from ‘Would You Come Home’

Would you meet me in the middle // Could we both stop keeping score?

I like to think about the parallel here, about meeting people where they’re at, and the love and care and effort it takes to be willing to drive all night to meet someone. Listen a bitch is soft and gay don’t look at me.

You Can’t Love Me - Novi & Tyler Blackburn (1x12)

(*Whispers and rocks back and forth* this is fine it’s all fine)

Once again we have a song whose lyrics give us a tailor made road map to Malex, and will pop up later in ‘Would You Come Home’. We’ve already seen the implosion of the way Michael and Alex have been orbiting each other for a decade, but now that Alex knows the truth, he actually has the ability to understand Michael in ways he hasn’t been able to before. (Something we’ll see later in Season 2 when he talks with Maria.)

And because of that, we see the true beginning of the journey of Michael and Alex back to one another in a healthier way.

But part of that journey is going to be realizing that what they’ve been doing and the way they have loved each other in the past isn’t sustainable - and maybe isn’t even the way they want to love each other.

“They’re my family, Alex!”

“Alright, maybe! But you are mine. I don’t look away, Guerin.”

“No. We’ve been holding onto this thing. And it’s gotten us nowhere. Just let it go.”

Even though the words are said in anger, there is some truth to what Michael says. Their relationship so far hasn’t been a good one. Where Alex is trying to repeat the words that Michael said to him that made such an impact on him, Michael is (well, a, trying to save his dumb boyfriend from getting flambayed) using the opportunity to reveal how little faith he has in their relationship. To say that no, this doesn’t feel like love.

But as much as the song lyrics are about loving someone who isn’t good for you, they’re also about changing and growing, and about a commitment to be better.

(Sound familiar? Brb, I’m gonna go jump off a cliff.)

Love is messy, and especially for Michael and Alex, love has always been something that hurts. “Home is where the hurt is” - and a really important part of their journey is realizing that, and realizing there is a different way of loving each other.

Additionally for Alex, this is when he starts to realize the full extent of his family’s involvement in hunting and hurting Michael’s family. It isn’t just his dad - his entire family line has been involved in this since before Alex was born. And still is. This is really where he starts realizing the roots of the guilt and shame he’s going to have to deal with in order to be anything to Michael - not even a partner but a friend.

This is the first step in that journey. Not just the commitment that yes - I want to build a home for you - but that first, I don’t know, maybe I need to put down these weapons and pick up a different set of tools?

ON TO SEASON TWO

#rnmmarchformeta2021 #roswellmarchformeta2021 #rnm meta #Alex/Michael #alex manes #michael guerin #maria deluca #sort of? shes mentioned #1x01 #1x02 #1x03 #all episodes #Day 1 Themes #meta #malex #tw ptsd #tw injury #tw queerbashing #tw flashbacks

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butterflies-dragons · 4 years

Note

Hey love your metas! I want to ask about Sansa dealing with her sexual assaults and trauma. The way she mismemorised the traumatic events, do you think she gonna misremember any other similar traumatic events in future? Do you think her family will help her remember these events n dealing with it?

Hello Anon,

Thank you ♡

I recently wrote about Sansa dealing with trauma, particularly sexual assault trauma.

Here is the post for anyone interested.

And here is another one.

Almost every meta, essay, analysis, etc, about the so-called “un-kiss”, has been written from a sexual perspective. For the majority of this fandom, either shippers or not, Sansa remembering a kiss instead of the sexual assault she suffered and later having nightmares with her assaulter being in bed with her, CLEARLY means that she is having sexual fantasies with her assaulter, that she is expressing her dark, repressed, hidden, deepest desires about her assaulter, that all this is part of her sexual awakening.

But every time GRRM has been asked about the subject, either from a sexual perspective or not, he consistently tagged Sansa misremembering things and events as “unreliable narrator.” Lets see.

In chronological order:

JUNE 26, 2001

SF, TARGARYENS, VALYRIA, SANSA, MARTELLS, AND MORE

[GRRM is asked about Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword.]

The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.

[Source]

It is very curious that the person who misremembered Joffrey’s sword name wasn’t Sansa, it was Arya:

The big man shrugged. "I was Joffrey's sworn shield. The butcher's boy attacked a prince of the blood."

"That's a lie!" Arya squirmed in Harwin's grip. "It was me. I hit Joffrey and threw Lion's Paw in the river. Mycah just ran away, like I told him."

—A Storm of Swords - Arya VI

But despite the unreliable narrator’s identity confusion, what I understand from George’s answer is that misremembering a minor detail like Joff’s sword name “it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory,” like the “un-kiss” for example, that George mentioned next.

At the same time, the “un-kiss” will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.

Take note that George’s answer is from 2001, after ASOS was published, so by that time he already knew about the existence of the shippers that want Sansa with the Hound being together in a romantic/sexual relationship. You can check this fact by reading the questions and answers from 1999 compiled in this post. But he still mentioned that the meaning of the “un-kiss” was “a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.”

So much for the so-called “evident”, “canon”, “endgame“ ship and ASOS being “their ship’s book” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

* * *

OCTOBER 05, 2002

SANSA’S MEMORY

[Note: This mail has been edited for brevity.]

… this is an inconsistency with ASoS more than an outright error. In ASoS, Sansa thinks that the Hound kissed her before leaving her room and King’s Landing. In ACoK, no kiss is mentioned in the scene, though Sansa did think that he was about to do so.

Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning...

[Source]

Here George’s answer is more succinct: the “un-kiss” is not a mistake, it was intentional, file this one under “unreliable narrator.”

* * *

NOVEMBER 27, 2007

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS

Here’s a really particular question (which I realize means it probably won’t get asked in a general interview): In A Storm of Swords, there is a chapter early on where Sansa is thinking back to the scene at the end of A Clash of Kings when The Hound came into her room during the battle. She thinks in the chapter about how he kissed her, but in the scene in A Clash of Kings, this actually didn’t happen. Was that a typo or something? —Valdora

GRRM: It’s not a typo. It is something! [Laughs] ”Unreliable narrator” is the key phrase there. The second scene is from Sansa’s thoughts. And what does that reveal about her psychologically? I try to be subtle about these things.

[Source]

Here George gave us little clues:

[The un-kiss] is from Sansa’s thoughts [an internal thought for herself, she is not telling anyone that the Hound kissed her]

What does that reveal about her psychologically?

I try to be subtle about these things

Also take note how GRRM repeatedly highlights the word “subtle” regarding the “un-kiss”:

but just now it’s a subtle touch (After ASOS but before AFFC)

I try to be subtle about these things (Shortly after AFFC)

This is a stark contrast with the majority of this fandom, either shippers or not, that interpret and believe that Sansa remembering a kiss instead of the sexual assault she suffered and later having nightmares with her assaulter being in bed with her, CLEARLY has to do with her sexual awakening, that the “un-kiss” means that she is having sexual fantasies with her assaulter, that she is expressing her dark, repressed, hidden, deepest desires about her assaulter.

And I wonder, since Sansa has similar dreams with Ilyn Payne and often feels naked around him:

As the headsman looked at her, his pale colorless eyes seemed to strip the clothes away from her, and then the skin, leaving her soul naked before him. Still silent, he turned and walked away.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

She dreamt of footsteps on the tower stair, an ominous scraping of leather on stone as a man climbed slowly toward her bedchamber, step by step. All she could do was huddle behind her door and listen, trembling, as he came closer and closer. It was Ser Ilyn Payne, she knew, coming for her with Ice in his hand, coming to take her head. There was no place to run, no place to hide, no way to bar the door. Finally the footsteps stopped and she knew he was just outside, standing there silent with his dead eyes and his long pocked face. That was when she realized she was naked. She crouched down, trying to cover herself with her hands, as her door began to swing open, creaking, the point of the greatsword poking through …

She woke murmuring, “Please, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, please don’t,” but there was no one to hear.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa VI

Once she dreamed it was still her marrying Joff, not Margaery, and on their wedding night he turned into the headsman Ilyn Payne.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa II

Does this mean that Sansa is having sexual fantasies with her father’s executioner as well? Does this mean that Sansa has dark, repressed, hidden, deepest desires about Ilyn Payne too?

I think that the “un-kiss” has to do with Sansa’s internal thoughts, how her mind works, how her mind deals with unpleasant/disturbing events. So in order to decipher its meaning we must ask ourselves about Sansa’s psychology, she is a deeply traumatized child by many events: Her direwolf’s death, her father’s death, the disillusionment of her Prince and the Queen as high moral figures, the disillusionment of the knights as fair heroes, the psychological, physical and sexual abuse she has suffered so far. The “un-kiss” is a subtlety from the author, this can’t be as easy as “Sansa has the hots for the Hound”.

Sansa: All she wanted was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs. —A Game of Thrones - Sansa I

Sansa: Almost raped by the Hound during the night of the Blackwater Battle, he invaded her bedroom, pushed her to bed, put a dagger at her throat, requested a song from her under threat of death.

There is a song called “Off to Gulltown” that says:

Off to Gulltown to see the fair maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho. I’ll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho. I’ll make her my love and we’ll rest in the shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho.

Sansa: The Hound kissed me during the night of the Blackwater Battle.

Fandom/Shippers: Sansa fancies the Hound uhhhhhhhhh

Sansa: Has unpleasant memories of the “un-kiss” feeling soiled by it.

Sansa: Has a nightmare about Tyrion and the Hound in bed with her the night after Marillion attempted to rape her.

Fandom/Shippers: Sansa fancies the Hound and have fun dreams with him uhhhhhhhhhh

It's really all that easy?

George hates to be predictable:

I spoke earlier about how predictable stories bore me. And we’ve all, you know, seen the stories where the hero, you know, he seems to get in trouble—he’s all alone, he’s surrounded by twenty foes, but he’s the hero! You know he’s going to get out of it; you’re not really engaged. I want you to be engaged. I want you to feel what the viewpoint character is feeling. If the viewpoint character is in trouble, I want you to be afraid, I want you not to know whether he’s going to get out of it. And I think the only way to do that is establish very early in the books that you’re playing for real, that anyone can die, and if the character’s in a life or death situation that he might not survive it. That these are not superheroes, these are not Indiana Jones. These are fallible human beings who are vulnerable to death and betrayal and all that. To my mind, that makes the stories much more suspenseful and gripping and emotionally involving.

(...)

I also liked the idea of the story not being predictable. Too much of fantasy is too predictable, you know? They say we write the stories that we want to read. And I was a reader long before I was a writer, and as a reader I love stories that take me to places that I don’t expect, and I hate stories where you read the first five pages and you know exactly what’s going to happen for the rest of the book. Those stories bore me very quickly, and I don’t want to bore my readers or indeed bore myself in writing, so I try to, you know, create a fairly complicated thing that’s full of twists and surprises and unexpected turns, but all of them rooted hopefully in human nature and arising out of the characters and the desires and wishes and dreams of those characters.

—A Dance With Dragons: George R. R. Martin

And he is always distracting us:

There are some mysteries in these books. There are some things that I’m gonna reveal later on that I’m planting clues for. There are some later plot twists that I’m foreshadowing. There are things that are gonna happen in Book 5 and Book 6 and Book 7 where I’ve planted a seed for it in Book 1. But I don’t necessarily want to give away my hand. So, what do I do when I plant the seed? Well, I plant the seed, but I try to do a little literary sleight of hand, and while I’m planting the seed, my other hand is up there waving and is distracting you with some flashy bit of wordplay or something that’s going on in the foreground, while the seed is being planted in the background. So hopefully the seed is there, the foreshadowing is there, but maybe you won’t notice it, because it’s surrounded by so many other things.

—The George R. R. Martin Podcast, Episode 7 (9:17)

Transcription provided by this post.

Think about it!

* * *

DECEMBER 2016 ASKING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ABOUT SAN/SAN

My question is regarding Sansa Stark. Her sexuality has evolved through every book and yet the memory that seems to stick the more with her in this regard is the night of the Blackwater. So I was wondering if you can expand on your view on what this is, since as before that night her interactions with Sandor Clegane weren’t really physical.

The night of the Blackwater, yes. Ahhh… Well, I’m not going to give you a straight answer on that hahaha… Uhmmm, but I would say that ahhh… you know a television show and a book each has its own strengths and weaknesses; there a re tools that are available to me as a novelist, that are not available to people doing a television show. And of course there are tools available to them, that are not available to a novelist, I mean they can lay in a soundtrack, they can do special effects, they can do amazing things that I can’t do, I just have words on paper. What can I do, well I can use things like the internal narrative, I can take you inside of territories… thoughts, which you can’t do in a TV show… Ahhh… You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal, and I have the device known as “unreliable narrator”… Ahhh… Which again, they don’t have. So, think about those two aspects when you consider that night of the Blackwater.

[Source]

Here George was asked directly, by a shipper, about the “un-kiss” and Sansa’s sexuality, and he stuck with his classic “unreliable narrator” answer.

George also repeated these things:

I can use things like the internal narrative

I can take you inside of territories… thoughts

Prose is internal

I have the device known as “unreliable narrator

His comparison between a TV Show and a Book is very telling:

You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal.

Also, it seems that he is done with questions about Sansa’s sexuality, as you can see from the chronology of questions and answers in this post.

So, the “un-kiss” and any other misremembering from Sansa has to do with her psychological state, not with her sexuality in particular.

Sansa did something similar with the Trident incident, where her direwolf Lady, part of her soul, was killed by her own father using his sword Ice.

She remembered the facts exactly as they happened when she told her father about it. But later she started to blame Arya and Cersei, but exculpates Joffrey, her future husband:

Sansa and Septa Mordane were given places of high honor, to the left of the raised dais where the king himself sat beside his queen. When Prince Joffrey seated himself to her right, she felt her throat tighten. He had not spoken a word to her since the awful thing had happened, and she had not dared to speak to him. At first she thought she hated him for what they'd done to Lady, but after Sansa had wept her eyes dry, she told herself that it had not been Joffrey's doing, not truly. The queen had done it; she was the one to hate, her and Arya. Nothing bad would have happened except for Arya.

—A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

She accommodates and compartmentalize a lot as a way to cope and survive every unpleasant, disturbing and traumatic event that already happened to her in her short 13 years.

So to answer your specific questions:

Do you think she gonna misremember any other similar traumatic events in future?

I think so. This is sad because it means that Sansa will experience even more traumatic events that she will have to deal with...

We need to wait to know the “un-kiss” true meaning. She romanticizes the Hound’s rape attempt against her and made it into a kiss, just like a song called “Off to Gulltown” that describes a non-con/sexual abuse situation against a maid, like her.

Inside her mind Sansa decided to remember the good things that men like Tyrion and the Hound did for her. In her first AFFC chapter (Sansa I), she thinks:

When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her.

When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety.

When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort.

Only in her nightmares the true slipped out:

And she dreamed of her wedding night too, of Tyrion's eyes devouring her as she undressed. Only then he was bigger than Tyrion had any right to be, and when he climbed into the bed his face was scarred only on one side. "I'll have a song from you," he rasped, and Sansa woke and found the old blind dog beside her once again. "I wish that you were Lady," she said.

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VI

But after Marillion’s attack, Littlefinger forced kiss and Lysas’s death she is starting to join the dots. For an instance, when she hears Littlerfinger using the same sexual innuendo than Marillion, “Let me warm you”, she realizes that Petyr Baelish is bad news:

Let me warm you, Sansa. Take off those gloves, give me your hands."

"I won't." He sounded almost like Marillion, the night he'd gotten so drunk at the wedding. Only this time Lothor Brune would not appear to save her; Ser Lothor was Petyr's man. "You shouldn't kiss me. I might have been your own daughter . . ."

—A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

The whole passage from her first AFFC chapter (Sansa I) is very revealing:

The things her aunt had said just before she fell still troubled Sansa greatly. "Ravings," Petyr called them. "My wife was mad, you saw that for yourself." And so she had. All I did was build a snow castle, and she meant to push me out the Moon Door. Petyr saved me. He loved my mother well, and . . .

And her? How could she doubt it? He had saved her.

He saved Alayne, his daughter, a voice within her whispered. But she was Sansa too . . . and sometimes it seemed to her that the Lord Protector was two people as well. He was Petyr, her protector, warm and funny and gentle . . . but he was also Littlefinger, the lord she'd known at King's Landing, smiling slyly and stroking his beard as he whispered in Queen Cersei's ear. And Littlefinger was no friend of hers. When Joff had her beaten, the Imp defended her, not Littlefinger. When the mob sought to rape her, the Hound carried her to safety, not Littlefinger. When the Lannisters wed her to Tyrion against her will, Ser Garlan the Gallant gave her comfort, not Littlefinger. Littlefinger never lifted so much as his little finger for her.

Except to get me out. He did that for me. I thought it was Ser Dontos, my poor old drunken Florian, but it was Petyr all the while. Littlefinger was only a mask he had to wear. Only sometimes Sansa found it hard to tell where the man ended and the mask began. Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go. Winterfell was burned and desolate, Bran and Rickon dead and cold. Robb had been betrayed and murdered at the Twins, along with their lady mother. Tyrion had been put to death for killing Joffrey, and if she ever returned to King's Landing the queen would have her head as well. The aunt she'd hoped would keep her safe had tried to murder her instead. Her uncle Edmure was a captive of the Freys, while her great-uncle the Blackfish was under siege at Riverrun. I have no place but here, Sansa thought miserably, and no true friend but Petyr.

—A Feast for Crows - Sansa I

As you can see Sansa is starting to realize that the persons that help her, can also hurt her and have ulterior motives to help her, that the help is not unconditional and always has a price.

So I think she will reach a point where she would be able to do the same with all her abusers, she will realize that men like Tyrion, the Hound, Dontos, etc, have helped her but at the same time have hurt her, Tyrion accepted to marry her and almost commit marital rape, the Hound attempted to rape her and repeatedly abuse her psychologically and physically, even Dontos, always requesting kisses.

Do you think her family will help her remember these events and dealing with it?

Most probably. Meeting Jeyne Poole again, for example. Knowing what Littlefinger really did to her, and all his crimes against House Stark.

I really hope for that moment of realization, when she can stop lying to herself, when she can clearly see all those men as her abusers and that she owns them nothing.

George, please! She had enough already... Give her some peace and quite! Give her true friends and her family back!

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #sansa stark #anti sandor clegane #anti tyrion lannister #anti petyr baelish #anti littlefinger #anti sansa's abusers

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meat-husband · 4 years

Note

Ello! I had found your blog and I love it! Though can I request ((might be a little too specific)) but can u do where it’s like the cult spawns Michael from (2007) into 2018 Michaels realm and they meet ((you can decide how it leads to an NSFW)) Sorry if it goes against one of ur rules just had the thought of two Michaels in one world with reader 🤗

Naughty stuff under the cut 😘

Using Mikey for RZ Mikey and Michael for H18 Mikey cause it is hard to write something when ⅔ of the characters have the same name lol.

First thing’s first - they do not get along. They both absolutely ignore anyone else’s boundaries/preferences/personal space, so of course this does not go over well when it happens to them. Despite this, they don’t just go their separate ways - for whatever reason, they’re a package deal and you’re stuck with both of them.

Fighting is common. They both seem to realize that a full on throwdown would probably kill them both at worst or turn into a draw at best, so they stick to the occasional brawl or menacing stare off. You’re frequently patching up stab wounds and neither of them are free of bruises or other marks for very long.

They don’t really compete with each other outright, but there is definitely a rivalry going on. One upping whatever the other does is constant, whether it’s getting more kills, more food, or more of your attention. RZ Mikey is more aggressive about it, whereas H18 Michael will bide his time instead of jumping at the first opportunity.

Neither of them is good at sharing, let alone sharing a person. Everything you do is closely watched by both of them, looking for any sign of favoritism. You can do your best to split everything down the middle, but they’re both still trying to get more than the other, so you’re often used as a tie breaker. There’s only one of you, but they are both trying to keep you to themselves.

NSFW things below ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

You had no idea what had started it. That was how it was most of the time, to be honest, since neither of them spoke and you were usually only clued in to what was going on once it had already happened. They played out whatever passive aggressive arguments they had while you were none the wiser, not until it came time to pick up the pieces and sew up the stab wounds.

This time was much the same, although it was one of the not so rare occasions that you were needed as more of a tie breaker than a nurse.

A rough shove is what brings your attention to them, your face pressed down into the couch by a heavy hand on your back. It knocks the breath out of you momentarily and you can feel your heartbeat jumping into your throat.

“Ow,” you huff, struggling to pull in enough air with your face buried in the cushions. “Mikey, ow!”

You aren’t sure that it’s him in particular, they both tended towards the rougher side, but you hoped it was him - he was the bigger of the two, but slightly more gentle than Michael, who wasn’t likely to let up at all even if you made your discomfort known. You soon found that it didn’t matter, though. The hand on your back was quickly joined by one on your hip, and then another in your hair, and a fourth gripping the nape of your neck. Both of them.

The hand in your hair jerks up, your head pulled back painfully until it can’t go any further. You wince, hands grasping at the cushions and trying to push yourself up to relieve the pressure, but the heavy weight on your back doesn’t let up.

It is definitely Michael in front of you pulling at your hair, the worn mask looking down at you with black eyes. The dark material of his coveralls has been unbuttoned and pushed down to his hips, the zipper undone and a hard, flushed cock only a few inches away from your face.

Behind you, Mikey pulls hurriedly at your clothes until your shorts slide down your legs, and you feel your whole body heat up as you realize they both mean to fuck you.

That seems to be the signal to proceed, because they move in unison to pull you onto all fours until you’re resting on your elbows and knees. Michael takes his spot in front of you, the hand in your hair tugging you forward to crawl over his lap until you’re resting over his thighs. It’s clear enough what he wants, so you open your mouth before he can force it open with his fingers, and he’s quick to guide you over his cock.

You get most of him fit into your mouth before Mikey makes his presence known, lifting you by the hips so that you have to scramble to support yourself at this new angle. When his cock slides into you from behind it catches you off guard, the noise of surprise you let out muffled by the flesh already in your mouth.

You pause for a moment, gasping for breath around the cock in your mouth while trying to adjust to the new one between your legs. A few wet breaths are all you get before a hand on the back of your head slams you forward, your throat suddenly full. You choke, struggling to breath through your nose, and only just manage to squeeze your hand around the base of Michael’s cock to stop yourself from gagging. A low, quiet noise of pleasure is heard from above you, hips rising to bury his cock deeper down your throat.

Mikey’s hands stay on your hips, nails digging into your sides and the violent pace he sets rocks you back and forth. Each thrust pushes you further and further down the cock in front of you, but you don’t have enough time to get used to the rhythm they set. You moan, but neither of them seem to pay any attention to the other, both of them rough and fast but pulling you in opposite directions with every thrust.

A hand on your inner thigh startles you, two of Mikey’s fingers dragging themselves through the slick that drips down your legs. You gag and whine, suffering another harsh tug on your hair in response. Both fingers trace up your leg, wiggling between the folds of your cunt until they’re pressed firmly against your clit, and you jerk against his hand. The force of his hips slamming into yours isn’t slowed at all, but the sudden attention paid to you after a quick start is almost overwhelming.

A high pitched sound, desperate and unsure, leaves your full mouth, legs beginning to shake. The pressure is too much too soon, a relentless press against your sensitive flesh that you can’t escape, even though you thrash under him. Tears prick at your eyes and you squirm uncomfortably, so focused on the overstimulation that you almost forget how hard it is to breath with Michael’s cock pumping half down your throat.

The climax almost hurts when it finally hits you, your body going stiff and tense until your muscles ache, but Mikey doesn’t let up even as you shake under him. He presses, harder and harder, against your clit but when the pressure is suddenly gone you let out a muffled sob of relief.

You’re already exhausted and the wet hand between your legs returning to grip your hip is the only thing keeping you up. Both of them keep up the hurried pace despite this and you feel a sharp pull at your hair, scalp burning and eyes watering, when your teeth press too firmly against Michael.

You force your jaw to relax, opening your mouth as wide as you can manage and letting him buck against your face. His other hand joins the first, fingers tangling into your hair on either side, holding you in place. You feel your throat spasm, breathing desperately through your nose and hoping that it would be enough to last you until he cums.

A hard pull brings you flush against his abdomen, lips parted around his cock and unable to do anything but swallow. Your eyes water, tears threatening to spill as your muscles fight to push him out, but the iron grip on your head is immovable. It was only a few moments, but it felt like forever before he finally let up and you were allowed to gasp for air.

#slashers #michael myers #slasher x reader #female reader #ok the lil drabble isnt completely done but thats all i got lol #this is probably the quickest ive written something and i MAY be a lil high so if there are mistakes ill try to correct them when im not lol #you thought one mikey was mean get ready for TWO

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olliya · 4 years

Text

Sakura’s Ships Dynamics

Next part of my Naruto statistics series!

The development of ships‘ popularity is something that has interested since forever. So, without further delay let’s start.

I thought that hiding the most interesting parts behind “Keep reading” and walls of text is contraproductive for the outreach of this post, so I’ll give you a sneak-peek. Here’s how SasuSaku developed over the years:

Ok, more details below:

Methods

All Naruto fics and Sakura’s fics

Data was collected from FF.NET (filters set on: Ratings: All, Sorted by: Published date).

For the description of process of total Naruto fics numbers collection see this post. Briefly, the archive was browsed and the first pages featuring a new year as Publish Date of the fic at the top of the page were taking note of. Knowing the number of archive pages produced per year and the number of fics per page (25 fics on FF.NET) the number of fics published in every given year was calculated. Data obtained through this method have error of +/- 24 fics per year. For detailed description of limitations of this methods see here.

To find out the numbers of Sakura’s fics, I chose Haruno Sakura as Character A in Filter Menu, and performed an analogical analysis as for total Naruto fics.

Ships – Pairing Option

Romantic pairings are more complex issue. From October 2013 a ship can be indicated by “Pairing Option”. Pairing Option makes the characters’ names appear in square brackets, and users can search for the fics tagged with a specific ship through the Filter Menu.

I searched fics tagged with Pairing Option between Haruno Sakura and following characters:

Uchiha Sasuke

Uzumaki Naruto

Hatake Kakashi

Uchiha Itachi

Gaara

Yamanaka Ino

Uchiha Madara

The choice of characters was based on this analysis. I chose Top 5 ship partners of Haruno Sakura, accompanied by Yamanaka Ino (Sakura’s 7th most popular ship and her most prominent F/F ship) and Uchiha Madara (Sakura’s 9th most popular ship and my OTP 😊 ).

For every ship, I sorted the fics by Publish Date and counted the number of fics published per year.

Ships – Ship Names

Before the introduction of Pairing Option other solutions were invented and utilized by the fandom. In order to allow the readers to search and find shipping fics, authors were putting specific phrases into the summary, and readers would use Search Menu. Such phrases involved various variants of “Ship Names”: character names mergers (example: SasuSaku), usage of letter “x” between character names (example: Sasuke x Sakura, SasukexSakura) and combination of both (example: SasuxSaku). For details see this analysis.

In this analysis the following phrases were searched, and number of ships published per year was collected (on example of ship Uchiha Sasuke x Haruno Sakura):

SasuSaku

SakuSasu

SasukexSakura

SakuraxSasuke

SasuxSaku

SakuxSasu

Sasuke x Sakura

Sakura x Sasuke

For detailed description of the process of searching various ship names see this post.

Fic number retrieved from every Ship Name search were summed up year-by-year, giving a total number of fics per a given ship per year. Of course, this procedure opens up a possibility for fics featuring several Ship Names in their summaries to be counted multiple times. For detailed elaboration on limitations of the method please see here.

Results

First off, it is interesting if the number of Sakura’s fics reflects the general changes of Naruto fandom. Fics tagged with Haruno Sakura and total Naruto fics are presented in Figure 1. (Please note that Sakura’s fics are plotted on the secondary vertical axis! I will use secondary axis a lot in this analysis. For those unfamiliar with it, a short how-to-read-it: Total Naruto Fics reached their maximum in 2008 when ca. 47000 fics per year were created. Sakura’s Fics also reached maximum that year, but in her case ca. 11000 fics were published (you need to look at right-hand axis). Such presentation allows us to see that Sakura’s fics creation follows very exactly the output of the entire fandom. If I would plot Sakura’s Fics on one axis with Total Fics, her graph would look very flat, and this observation would have been lost.)

In 2013, one year before the end of manga, all Naruto fics show stabilization of published fics numbers, while fics featuring Sakura show a small, local maximum. The end of the franchise and canonization didn’t halt the general negative trend that was present in the fandom since 2009.

Sakura’s fics represent ca. one fourth of total Naruto fics (102K fics vs 407K fics). If one breaks down the percentages year-by-year (Figure 2.), it can be seen that the 25% was pretty constant over the years, with the exception of years 2003-2005. When I was performing Ship Names searches, it turned out that during those years there were many more “shipping” fics with Sakura than the fics tagged with “Haruno Sakura” (example: in 2003 there were 34 Sakura’s fics, while in the same time 54 SasuSaku fics and 53 NaruSaku fics!). So, it is clear that during the very early years people weren’t tagging the characters too diligently. Therefore, data form the years 2003-2005 will need to be excluded from certain further parts of this analysis.

And now, finally, after all the boring intro: THE SHIPPING!!!!!

SasuSaku

Let’s start with Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura’s most prominent ship (Figure 3.). As reference, Sakura’s fics are plotted on the secondary axis (this figure and the next ones). Fics numbers retrieved from Ship Names searches and Pairing Option search are shown separately and shouldn’t be added up. It is not clear how many of the fics are both tagged with Pairing Option and a Ship Name, especially those published in the years 2013-2019. I am planning to address this issue for Sakura’s main ships in a separate analysis.

Generally, SasuSaku ship development follows pretty well the number of Sakura’s fics, with a maximum in 2008, and a steep decline afterwards. It seems that the decline of SasuSaku fics is steeper than the general decline of Sakura’s fics (and of the Naruto fandom in general) though. There is a small local maximum in 2013 that reflects an overall increase of Sakura’s fics (2013 maximum may be longer and larger if Pairing Option fics are to be included – but this needs prior deconvolution) and afterwards we have a steady decline.

NaruSaku

Uzumaki Naruto x Haruno Sakura ship shows similar trend as SasuSaku ship until 2012 (maximum in 2008 and then decline). The local maximum around 2013-2015 seems to be more pronounced though than the one of Sasuke’s ship and probably than in fandom in general (Figure 4.).

KakaSaku

The ship with Kakashi behaves differently from the two previous ones (Figure 5.) and often goes against the general trends of the Naruto fandom. Namely, it shows maximum in 2007, a local maximum in 2011 (and no maximum in 2013), and, going against the decline of entire fandom (!!!) another local maximum in 2017. Pairing Option for KakaSaku was also rather on a constant level in years 2016-2018 when for other ships it was already showing a decline. One need to take under consideration though, that KakaSaku is by far not as numerous as the two previous ships, and relatively small number of fics can produce effects that are well visible on the graph (example: maximum of year 2017 is only 173 fics).

ItaSaku

Ship with Itachi shows maximum in 2009, and a second, relatively strong maximum in 2013 (the strongest among the ships examined so far). The fics tagged with Pairing Option exhibit maximums in 2014 and in 2017, but otherwise the general shape of the curve reflects the trends in the fandom (Figure 6.).

Gaara

Ship Gaara x Haruno Sakura had its maximum in 2008. The local maximum from 2013 is the weakest out of the ships examined so far, as if the temporary rise of activity in the fandom cause little increase of Gaara x Sakura fics production (Figure 7.).

InoSaku

Ship Ino x Sakura follows general trends of the fandom, with an exception of a local maximum appearing in 2017 (Figure 8.). The Pairing Option shows stabilization in years 2015-2018, despite the general fandom decline. However, relatively small size of this ship (ca. 20-40 fics per year in the recent years) makes all relatively small variations appear as more significant than they might really be.

MadaSaku

Ship Uchiha Madara x Haruno Sakura is a bit of a special case, as Uchiha Madara appeared in the franchise on-panel in 2008 only, and in person in 2011. This is reflected through the first MadaSaku fics showing up in 2008 only. There is a maximum in 2010 – interestingly, before the Tobi/Obito reveal, when Tobi persona was still assumed to be Madara. It would be interesting to see if the fics published this year take place in original Narutoverse or are of a time-travel sort. Years 2012- 2013 show a decline followed by a steep increase (against the general trends of the fandom) with maximum in 2016 (for Ship Names) and 2017 (for Pairing Option). In 2019 another increase can be noted, after a relatively weak 2018 (Figure 9.).

So, now it’s time for some comparisons between the ships.

Ships with Sasuke, Naruto and Kakashi can be plotted together (Figure 10.). The ranking of ships remains unchanged over the entire timeline, however NaruSaku used to be ca. 4 times less popular than SasuSaku during the fandom heyday, and around the times of canonization it became only 3 times less popular (a relative increase in popularity). This is unfortunately also the time of introduction of Pairing Option, so this effect may be an artifact of parts of fandom using tagging systems in different ways. I will try to address this very question in the future.

Dynamics of ships tagged with Pairing Option (Figure 11.) show as well the 3 : 1 ratio of SasuSaku : NaruSaku ships in years2014-2015. From that relative high, the decline of Naruto’s ship seem to be more dramatic than this of Sasuke’s ship in the recent two years (in 2019 the ratio was 4,3 : 1).

But the numbers of fics created per year don’t tell the entire story, especially with the number of total fics changing so rapidly. Therefore, I examined what percentage of Sakura’s fics a ship amounted for over the years (Figure 12.) Years 2003-2005 are unsuitable for this kind of analysis, as the numbers of shipping fics exceed (and in 2003 vastly so) the number of Sakura’s fics.

The results from Ship Names searches are presented in Figure 12. For presentation purposes, SasuSaku ship is plotted on the primary vertical axis, while all the other ships – on the secondary.

SasuSaku ship used to make up to 30% of all Sakura’s fics during the fandom rise and heyday (2006-2008), only to drop to 15-17% in more recent years. The decline reached its local minimum in 2011 (for orientation: Sasuke’s and Sakura’s infamous reunion under the bridge in Iron Country was published in March 2010). During the Fourth Ninja War chapters SasuSaku stabilized on 16-17%. The canonization of ship in November 2014 didn’t seem to influence its popularity, and recent years brought a decline with all-time minimum of 14,3% in 2018.

However, it is possible that data from years 2013-2019 are influenced by existence of Pairing Option In the most optimistic scenario, the two tagging systems would be additive and we would have ca. twice as much SasuSaku fics. This question will be addressed in the future.

Data from Pairing option show only a fraction of fandom history (Figure 13.), and after a steep rise (caused by spreading of Pairing Option awareness among the writers) SasuSaku remains on a steady level of 14-18% of all Sakura’s ships.

NaruSaku ship was at 8% in 2007, and later it dropped to 4,3% in a manner similar to SasuSaku ship. During the Fourth Ninja War Arc popularity of NaruSaku rose once again to almost 7% and remained relatively high also post-manga end (up to 2015), only to drop to its minimum of 3,6% in 2019. The Pairing Option shows a similar drop in NaruSaku fics in last two years.

KakaSaku started off at 4% in 2006 and afterwards suffered a small decline, interestingly - with a minimum during Fourth Ninja War Arc in 2013 and not like those of Team 7 boys in 2011. From 2014 KakaSaku is on a relative rise as reflected by both Ship Names searches and Pairing Option.

ItaSaku had its maximum relative popularity in 2009, when 3,5% of Sakura’s fics were ItaSaku ones, and another peak in 2013. Last year brough a small, but visible rise of Itasaku fics.

GaaSaku started at 3% in 2006 and from then on it is on a steady decline according to Ship Names searches. Pairing Option shows a modest increase of published fics in two recent years.

InoSaku doesn’t show dramatic changes, though a low period can be noticed during the years 2010-2015.

MadaSaku remains on very low level throughout the entire timeline, but a rising trend can be noted in recent years (both tagging systems).

As always – all comments, tips, suggestions and questions are more than welcome! It was really a labour of love for me, and I would love to know what you think!

#fandom statistics #naruto statistics #multisaku #sasusaku #narusaku #kakasaku #itasaku #gaasaku #inosaku #madasaku #naruto stats

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landlordrecords · 3 years

Text

Bassline (& 2020 in general): Re-e-wind

What a strange year, as everyone, everywhere has said a million times… Writing-wise, I’d been doing Record Collector magazine since 2014, and uDiscover (the Universal Records online mag) for not much less, & that all just seemed to (understandably) stop dead with the onset of the pandemic. Since then, I’ve polished off my chapter on the work of Simon Morris and the Ceramic Hobs for Palgrave, & that’s about it, so you’re more likely to find me over on Twitter at Sniffy (@philblackpool) / Twitter these days, blurting out the odd sentence. I hence thought it might be time to revisit a very old piece…

Like many, I’ve been working from home for much of the year, and although I’ve occasionally wanted to pull out my own eyeballs, it has generally been very pleasant for a voracious music-lover. I started by catching up on the vast majority of my insane, years-deep second-hand vinyl buy piles, and then chomped through a load of ‘long listen’ stuff I’d had on the backburner forever (including, astonishingly, eventually getting through something like 40 hours of Pan Sonic live sets someone had dumped online). I graded hundreds of releases for sale on Discogs, and revisited umpteen musical thangs extensively, including 90s gabba, Sun Ra, music hall, Schoenberg, dancehall reggae, the acknowledged worst albums ever, happy hardcore, Italian house, bounce and makina (I’ve lost track of how much time I’ve spent checking out youtubes to try to identify a couple of most-wanted bounce and makina tunes), Britpop (!), cosmic disco, and Belgian popcorn. It’s been an extraordinary year, packed with cultural discovery and rediscovery. In amongst this, in no way ashamed of my abject love of Discogs, and already having used and edited it for many years, I read the entire guidelines and decided to go hard on sorting out stuff I care about on there. Seeing they’d finally added various more recent ‘styles’, I’ve spent the last month and a half doing a ridiculous amount of edits on a dozen or so niche genres of importance in recent times (footwork, Jersey Club, yadda yadda). My tweakings around Bassline and UK Funky eventually drew me to the attention of UK Garage legend Karl ‘Tuff Enuff’ Brown, a fellow Discogs obsessive not so keen on the editing side of the site, who wondered if I might give him a hand sorting out the mess of his own and his label’s (2Tuf 4U) discographies. His entertaining phonecalls were enough to convince me.

I dug out all my stuff related to Karl’s label to listen to along the way, and found myself noticing how much UKG has been back in the spotlight of late (key, and brilliant, article here: RA: Like A Battle: The Push For UK Garage's Future (residentadvisor.net) ). While by no means unaware of this (I’ve had some lovely promos from Kiwi and the like of late, plus some moodier bits from various El-B worshippers), my status as a confirmed middle-aged semi-retired raver had hidden much of this from me. This leads me onto one of my big philosophical points of recent years: I listened to dance music avidly before I ever went out dancing, and listen to it now in lockdown, and in semi-retirement. There is far too much an emphasis among ever-rejuvenating dance music correspondents on ‘the club’ as the only way to enjoy dance music, but we know that OG disco fans are 60+ and unlikely to be out every weekend these days – is their experience now worthless? Online fans talk up their love of dance music for exercise soundtracks, bedtime calming soundtracks, etc: this is reality. Dance music is as valid to all these people as rock is to people who haven’t been to a gig in 40 years.

The style I felt myself most drawn back to was bassline (largely via Karl’s low-key issue of some DJ Q material). My love of UK Garage and all its offshoots largely stems from how physically removed I have been from it from virtually its entire history. Only my 2000-03 stint in Essex perfectly matched the garage waveform, and that was the 2-step era, quite the opposite of bassline. Despite being largely a northern phenomenon, Blackpool is largely untouched by bassline, being all about punk and bounce to my mind. An instant love for me circa 2007, bassline feels like one of those genres with unfinished business, but remains one I’ve rarely danced to. Cut off in its prime, it is now back, enormously popular, and rightly so, but, due to the vagaries of the digital music world, some of its key material remains tough to access in any decent form.

I originally wrote the piece I have butchered for this one in March 2008, on Myspace (remember that), in reaction to the exciting waves of bassline and UK funky then reinvigorating the world of UKG. It looks a bit embarrassing now, with more writing experience, although I continue to applaud my own willingness to be open about my innocent appreciation of things I love but am not truly part of.

The most notable misstep in my original piece was the presumption that bassline would become the latest enormous chart sensation. Like happy hardcore before it, the ball was, in reality, fumbled. Instead of hoped-for freaky innovation, the producers also opted, as many in years gone by, for smoothed-out commerciality (in unholy alliance with low-grade grime crossovers), although the main adversarial issues seem to have been police crackdowns and the London-centric ‘cool police’. Although I was long aware of such problems with Niche in Sheffield (the genre’s spiritual home), it appears that the police interference had a devastating effect across the board ( Banned From Sheffield: How Jamie Duggan fought for bassline… And won (ukf.com) ). This largely explains why many of the bassline producers gravitated towards the largely wack bass house/house & bass style so beloved of teenyboppers in recent years. Thank heavens that era is now largely over.

Niche reputedly specialised in an arguably unholy mixture of dated late 90s speed garage and ‘bassline house’ (think ‘Let Me Show You’ by Camisra, and MK’s ‘organ house’), way past their sell-by date (I still only really like a handful of Shaun Banger Scott bits in this style, one single 2009 Brummie CD EP, and one Virgo remix). Ultimately, though, this experiment unexpectedly created something magical. The crucial element here is the 4/4 beat. While undoubtedly skippy, the vast majority of the material favoured had a firm 4/4 beat, always favoured across all key scenes in the north of England from northern soul onwards. When they ran out of tunes to rinse, in time-honoured fashion, they made their own. Long, rumbling walls of bass, organs, and hoppy-skippy beats, with raggafied samples and gunshots over the top. Popular in Birmingham as well (pretty much the centre of a vinyl glut at the time, and now notable in the popularity of DJs such as Chris Lorenzo and Hannah Wants), B-side titles hinted of coke overload. Disenfranchised by London’s movement away from the holy 4/4 (despite a slight revival in the early noughties), and via messenger services and the like, northern producers began to exchange a new hybrid in the mid-00s which took these speed garage and bassline house influences and updated them with current R’n’B bootlegs, with influences from grime (regional grime producers were key here) and, most notably, with rococo basslines. Its most obvious comparison point was Sticky’s garage productions, concurrent with the early grime era. Southern producers such as Agent X, Delinquent (who featured Gemma Fox on their magical 2006 ‘Boxers’), and Dexplicit (Fox again, 2005’s ‘Might Be’) ran with that, and the north lapped it up. Key early pointers also included DJ Narrows’ superb 2001 4/4 tune ‘Saved Soul’, and early 00s DND work (Artwork, later part of dubstep supergroup Magnetic Man). A notable increase in output came in 2006, and 2007-9 were the genre’s original glory years. And the bulk of producers and up-&-comings delivering serious anthems to the scene came not from London and the south-east, but from Leeds (T2, Wittyboy, Nastee Boi), Bradford (TS7), Manchester (Murkz, Burgaboy, Subzero), Nottingham (Virgo, IllMana), Leicester (JTJ, H20, FB & Zibba), and Wolverhampton (EJ, TRC, Brett Maverick). EJ’s Ejucation mix series (all up on Soundcloud) is a good place to start, beginning as the bassline house began to be overtaken by the pure bassline numbers.

Distribution for serious UK garage music has often been woeful, with only high street compilations & the chart singles (‘Heartbroken’ by T2, ‘What’s It Gonna Be’ by H20, etc) making it all over the country, and this helped stymie the true development of bassline, although vinyl prices, dreadful video promos, and the leap to digital in some ways didn’t help. Years on, as an incorrigible vinyl fanatic, I still only have handful of bassline 12”s. Yes, you can now access this stuff the world over via Youtube etc, but decent, high-quality copies of full-length tunes (they are often hacked about to great effect, but in a way which obscures the original intentions, in the mix) are not always the easiest to come by, although the classic producers are increasingly putting out digital compilations of their original work. Material that would, for previous genres, be fiended after, is lost to being just more online links. At the time, I looked high and low for 12”s, succeeding only rarely, largely on the flip of UK Funky releases. The (mixtape) audience, going by comments online, were often extremely young, are probably now still only in their mid-twenties, and are seemingly happy enough with this chaotic model. Bassline originally, as all rave genres, largely ran off mixtape boxsets, and a 2007 ‘Pure Bass – Fantasy’ box from Stoke remains my key document of that era: seven bassline CDs, with many tracks repeated, but packed to the gills, with most tracks only lasting a minute or two in the mix. As with all rave mixes, it has taken me years to suss the majority of the track IDs. In the Resident Advisor piece linked above, DJ Q (from Huddersfield) talks about thousands of lost bassline tunes, the bad side of the digital revolution. My recent Discogs ferreting suggests more bassline tunes than one might imagine did make some sort of decent release, but too many only made white labels, promo CDs for commercial releases (before being snipped from the main release), mix CDRs, or Youtube’s grainy depths. Classics such as TS7 featuring Bianca’s ‘Seems Like’ appear to never have had any decent release whatsoever, despite TS7 going on to be a big name in bass-oriented house, and Bianca Gerald having kept at the vocal turns ever since.

T2 hit biggest, with ‘Heartbroken’, a gorgeous, smashed-vocal garage dub so popular that it even inspired a Jersey Club refix. His catalogue was immediately deep, although I get the impression he has stopped adding to it. One complaint about bassline, including some of the T2 work, regards the untutored vocals, which can sometimes be rather flat, and certainly lacking in dynamics compared to the dazzling US vocalists featured on some earlier UK garage pieces (I refer here, as always, to TJ Cases’ remarkable ‘Do It Again’). I kinda like that - it shows amateur enthusiasm not far removed from punk, and most obviously links to lover’s rock, as does the production at times: it gives a feeling of melancholy entirely suited to the vocals. Other bassline heroes include TS7, who briefly brought to the fore sassy female garage MC T Dot. His productions also include ‘Smile’, one of my very favourite bassline tracks, full of that Simon Reynolds-quoted 'weird energy’ possessed by DJ Hype & co in the early nineties. Male bassline vocalists such as Ideal also remain unfairly forgotten, although some of the female vocalists have gone on to work in related genres since bassline’s peak.

Paleface, an ex-member of London garage rap crew Stonecold GX, runs Northern Line Records (FB, TRC, Wittyboy, Nastee Boi), something of a quality mark for bassline productions, while also making highly successful UK Funky tunes as part of Crazy Cousinz, and later progressing into commercial house territory. He chronicled much of bassline’s high-water mark (including being married to Kyla, since sampled by Drake). Wolverhampton-based Northern Line signing TRC proved particularly adaptable, spewing out a legion of original tunes and remixes before retreating for a while to grime. Leeds’ Nastee Boi was a favourite of mine at the time, with his pitch-black gangsta bassline tunes, but pushed on towards a mixture of underwhelming R’n’B vocal cuts and nursery grime toons. Wittyboy started similarly punishingly but also went smoother, unbalancing the classic bassline rough and smooth combination.

Now that the dubiously poisonous rep of Niche has been dispatched, the key bassline acts have returned to their key battleground, and the genre seems in full throttle again. Much of the new material seems a little one-dimensional to me: producers invariably big up Bristol’s My Nu Leng as, I suppose, a bridge from bro-step to 4/4. Everything, as acknowledged by the DJs, is huge drops and nothing much else. It still sounds pretty hot though – not the updated lover’s rock of a decade ago, but worth supporting. Bassline is NOT finished!

#bassline #bassline house #niche #organ house #brostep #speed garage #uk garage

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prorevenge · 5 years

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I end up working for the scammer who conned my parents.

So, this tale starts twelve years ago in 2007. Both my parents had retired at the same time and had received a large cash lump sum and would have a decent pension income for the rest of their lives. Dad was ex-Army, doing his national service and staying for another 8 years before travelling the world. He served with the Royal Engineers and moved into an engineering/maintenance role when he returned to the civillian life. Mum was a teacher, and with careful savings and multiple pensions they had more money coming in individually than I did in a salary.

The first thing they did was to renovate their house. They got several quotes for new windows, some minor building work, a new kitchen and a block-paved driveway. I helped them with researching the companies involved and with all the information at hand, they settled on a local company that we'll call Bad Company. Bad Company had membership of all the relevant professional bodies, had some good feedback and importantly was not the cheapest but their sales guy explained to my parents why a cheaper quote wasn't always better. They agreed on the £35k work and paid a 10% deposit. Work started, and they weren't asked for a single penny more until it had been completed. There were a couple of minor snags which were easily corrected, and it went £500 over budget due to the bad drainage of the house (something that had been mentioned before) but it looked satisfactory.

As it turned out, the windows had massive gaps in them that leaked water when it rained and you could actually hear the wind whistling through. Heating became expensive. Within a month, weeds and grass started poking through the block paved driveway and the electical work that was done in the new kitchen caused blown fuses if both ovens and the hob were turned on together. If you touched the plate around the light switch, you'd get an electric shock. After three months, water burst through the newly laid kitchen floor and the "Secured By Design" doors could simply be lifted out of their frame even when locked. We also noticed that they keys to the new doors were not the originals, and they were extremely difficult to lock especially as both parents had arthritis. The icing on the cake was that most of the windows were supposed to be argon filled, but the seals had already blown allowing air inside and condensation on the inside was apparent.

Dad asked a friend, Bob, to estimate the extra cost of fixing it. Bob said that to correct the now evident defects would cost nearly £20k as almost everything would have to be ripped out and re-done. Dad immediately contacted Bad Company, and the guy they sent round was rude, arrogant and blamed everything on the builders who had originally constructed the house doing a bad job. He wrote a report stating that none of the defects were down to the work carried out as the work had been done according to current best practices. That evening, one of the window frames fell out.

Dad spent a month after that trying to get Bad Company back to fix the issues, then he called all the regulatory bodies to find that Bad Company wasn't a member but just used the membership logos on their documentation. Around a year after the work was originally completed, Bad Company simply vanished. Phone numbers were disconnected emails bounced back and their office was now a conservatory showroom. Dad had already paid a well estabished window company £3k to fix the immediate window and door issues, and was left to pay another (much better) company £22k to fix the issues. This time we checked everything and made sure they were registered. We even got a warranty.

Cut to 2018, and I'm looking for a new job. Dad passed away quite unexpectedly in 2015 and Mum wasn't too good either (although she's a lot better now) so I needed a job closer to her house than the 2 hour commute to the next city that I currently had. As luck would have it, a local kitchen manufacturing company (lets call them Local Kitchens) was looking to expand and wanted an IT technician/developer. The pay was about £1k more a year than I was currently making, but I didn't have to spend £500 a month travelling to and from work (busses and trains are expensive). I interviewed, liked what I heard, and was accepted for the role. All the time, I thought that I somehow knew the boss of Local Kitchens.

Having worked in factory environments before, I arrived in a hi-viz vest, toecapped boots and with my own ear defenders. No-one else wore any P.P.E. - not even masks and goggles. When all the machinery ran, the factory floor hummed and buzzed along at a noise level of 105dB, well over the required minimum for wearing ear defenders or plugs. The boss, who we'll call John, also attempted to cut corners everywhere. My workstation was barely powerful enough to run the development software let alone the CAD/CAM software required. When the CPU fan died, he said that he couldn't afford to replace the fan. A new computer keyboard took 3 weeks to arrive and although we were paid on the 28th of each month, the pay was often not in the bank until 9pm, well after he had chased people who owed him money.

There were more lies that I uncovered, and bad business practices. It was like John had read a book on running a business then did the exact opposite. I spent the first six months between designing kitchens - something that I knew nothing about but suddenly fell under the remit of IT technician - maintaining the factory machines, driving the forklift (something that requires a specialist license that I don't hold) and doing IT work on his personal home computer equipment and mobile phones of him, his trophy wife, his kids and his parents. I also wrote several small computer programs, wired up the factory network, ensured that machinery could connect to the office computers and re-wrote most of the configuration for the industry specific software he used - which was not only unlicensed but also used on five separate machines despite the single (lapsed) license.

Also working at the company was Dad's friend Bob. Bob was a decade and a half older than me and had served his time "working the tools" making and fitting kitchens, bedrooms, and had spent a good fifteen years as a shopfitter on some very prestigious contracts. Bob was hired originally to do my job but he moved back to the manufacturing side when the expansion started as it was easier to employ an IT tech than it was a shopfitter. Bob had read an eulogy at Dad's funeral and was often round helping mum with bits around the house, so I knew Bob well and he looked after me at work. We got talking one day and I found out that Bob was earning less than me, even though he had a highly skilled and experienced role, and that despite being given more responsibility, John refused to pay Bob what Bob was worth.

Honestly, if Bob wasn't there, most of the knowledge was lost. Bob and I had frequently told John better ways to do key tasks, but John refused simply because there would be a small cash outlay. I should have seen the writing on the wall at that point, but no.

Running up to Christmas, John tells us all that he's giving us all a bonus, and will pay us early for the christmas to new year shutdown period. We soon discover though that the bonus was a £5 tub of sweets - which Bob can't eat because he has type 1 diabeties, and I can't eat because I have this really strange sugar allergy. I was going to mention it to John, but Bob tells me not to as it's Christmas and it will be something for my kids to enjoy. I actually ended up with three boxes of sweets because he over-ordered.

That day, despite being an IT technician, I had to chase an order with a company, order some materials from a supplier, and supervise a fitter as he attempted to install some new showroom units. John is nowhere to be found until just as we're about to leave. He asked Bob for a moment of his time and I go home.

The next day, Bob tells me that he and John talked until 7pm (an extra 3 hours) about the business. Bob was asked to invest £10k for a quick capital injection as winter is always a bad time for people buying kitchens, so income is slow but there are a number of large orders in the pipeline. Bob told him what he thought of the shady business practices and the poor management, and he said that he could walk out of this job today and be earning double before the year is out. He refused to invest. Other things were said, and Bob dropped the first bombshell, explaining that every job they did for a new client was actually making a loss. The new client had been Local Kitchens only revenue stream since mid October. Apparently John was genuinely shocked and didn't realise that it cost him £200 per hour just to run his business, jumping to £300 if the machinery is running.

The day before we're due to finish for Christmas, I get called into the nearly complete new showroom. I thought John was going to show me what needs finishing and which units need designing, but no. He's worked out the finances and states that there's only enough money to keep me on for another couple of months. He even tries to turn it around by saying that he's sorry and that I'm a good employee but the income isn't there, and he wanted to give me enough time to find something else. I felt my entire world crumble. The rest of the day was a daze, but just before I left, I overhear him ordering some materials from a supplier. His exact words were: Yes, it's John from Local Kitchens. You might have us down as Bad Company.

That's when all the pieces fell into place. It finally clicked why I knew his face. He was the one who scammed my parents.

The last day of work before Christmas arrives, and John had taken his family away over the christmas / new year period. We had to ensure that the factory was powered down, locked off and secure. No-one else wanted the responsibility so I volunteered. With only Bob and myself still left in the factory, I set about gathering evidence and investigating his finances. I already know about the losses, but digging deeper I find that the company actually has no cash flow. Everything is done on credit. His house, his wife's Range Rover, his Jaguar and several other assets are registered as company assets but they're all on finance through Local Kitchens. He owed at least £750k in credit, loans and mortgages.

Bob advised me against doing anything rash as it would only come back to me and agreed that John needed to be taught a lesson not just for the way he treated his empolyees, but for conning my parents and several others out of their life savings. Bob had found a set of files from 2005 to 2008 with customer complaints for shoddy work in the name of Bad Company. It was far too late to legally do anything about the complaints, but we could bring down John and his smug attitude. Bob suggested I read up on health and safety over christmas, and perform some observations in the new year.

January and February I spent making notes, taking photographs and researching legislation. By the time the end of February rolled around, I had a thick folder full of breaches of health and safety, environmental issues, data protection (or lack thereof) and the lack of software licensing. John was well aware of the software issue, but he said that "as long as the software keeps running, it'll be ok". I had emals from him to back this up, and requests for purchases of software and hardware that were turned down so he could dine out at fancy restaurants or stay in 4 star hotels.

My last day rolls around. I have a much better development job lined up thanks to some recruiter contacts I have, and as the current day was a Thursday and I didn't start my new job until Monday, I planned on sleeping in on Friday. John is strangely absent all day but arrives just as we're all leaving for the day. HE SAYS NOTHING as he watches me leave. I got the impression immediately that he wanted me to stay until Friday, but he said that my last day was "the end of the month" and not "Friday". Unsuprisingly, the pay is late. It's 10pm before it appears in the account.

I went to see my mum that evening and told her who my boss was, the way he simply cast me aside when he was done with me, and that I wanted to break him as revenge for the bad work and what we have always considered as a scam. Now, my mum is the sweetest lady you could ever meet, and I was completely shocked when she actually said "bury the bastard". She even let me use her garden incinerator to destroy the personal hand-written instructions that Bob and myself had created since I started. The knowledge of how to fix issues with the specialist software now only existed in our memories.

Friday rolls around, and I have no reason to get up early. My phone is ringing constantly becuase John is trying to get hold of me and it's soon evident that things are going south, rapidly. Bob sent me a text telling me that he gave John a final invoice at 8AM and walked out. Now, had this been petty revenge then the tale would have ended here with him not being able to use his business-critical unlicensed software, and hiring new people, but this is Pro revenge and my mother did tell me to "bury the bastard" so despite feeling sorry for the one other genuine employee that I had a lot of respect for, I enacted my totally legal if not a little underhanded plan.

I reported Local Kitchens and John to the Federation against Software Theft for illegal use of licensed software, giving them information regarding which software was illegally used and how. Just to be safe, I also reported them directly to those software companies too. I supplied the emails as evidence where I had explained to John that he was breaking the law by not having the correct and valid licenses.

I then called a friend at the local government Health and Safety team, reporting no fewer than thirty rule breaches, sending him the supporting images and video. One of Local Kitchens professional memberships had lapsed, but John was still using the logo on paperwork, email signatures, website and the company van, in addition to the signage on the building. I reported that to the professional body in question. I honesly considered reporting GDPR breaches, but I don't think that he had done anything that could be considered a breach.

A week later, John sent me a message stating that If I was still looking for work, he would pay me £50 per day to do "IT work" for him. It came across as if he was trying to do me a favour. I told him that I was previously on £90 per day, but as I was now a freelance contractor, the going rate was closer to £200 per day. He didn't send me another message.

Three weeks later, and the showroom saleswoman - who we'll call Jane (the one remaining staff member I respected) called me to tell me that John had closed Local Kitchens and declared bankruptcy owing nearly a million pounds. I asked about fines, and she said that Health and Safety were behind a building closure which stopped production causing the bankruptcy. In the same week, he had legal notices for illegal software.

As this unfolded, I kept Bob in the loop and Jane kept me informed. As of the start of July, the final figure for fines was levied. £932k debts to the business, £876k fines too. On that same day, purely by chance I was helping a friend deliver pizza and John placed an order My friend was driving and doing the shop work, and I was going to the door to hand the food over, so I actually got to deliver his food. He was nice enough to me when he opened the door, and stated that if I had done the extra "IT Work" for him then I wouldn't have to deliver pizza. I told him that it was what it was, and questioned the fact that there was only enough for 1 meal - didn't his wife like pizza? He told me that she'd left him and taken the kids back to her parents, and that he wasn't OK with that but he had no choice. I agreed, an then decided to twist the knife even more.

I told him that it was a good job he got rid of me when he did, because I now had a fantastic well-paid job that I'm good at, and that if I had stayed, then I would have brought myself down as well as him. That's when he realised that I had called in all the agencies that had eventually shut him down. He demanded to know why, as he had "given me everything" and "taught me how to work in the kitchen industry". I simply replied with my parents address and the year 2007. I saw the colour drain from his face as he realised that his past had caught up with him. Then I told him how much he had to pay on his pizza, and he threw £40 at me and snatched the food out of my hands, slamming the door in my face. His food was only £21.50, so I got a nice £18.50 tip from him that night.

(source) story by (/u/tac-21a)

#prorevenge #by /u/tac-21a #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

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nbatrades · 33 years

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Charlotte Hornets Acquire Eric Leckner from Sacramento for Two Second Round Picks

On January 29th, 1991, the Charlotte Hornets traded a 1993 second round draft pick (Alex Holcombe) and a 1995 second round draft pick (Dejan Bodiroga) to the Sacramento Kings for Eric Leckner.

The Sacramento Kings originally acquired center Eric Leckner along with guard Bobby Hansen and three future draft picks in a three-team trade that saw Pervis Ellison end up in Washington and Jeff Malone go to Utah.

Leckner joined a Kings team that had Ralph Sampson at center, but the position would become crowded quickly. Soon after acquiring Leckner, the Kings drafted center Duane Causwell in the first round of the 1990 draft. Next, they traded for center Bill Wennington from the Dallas Mavericks.

The pack of centers would compete for playing time and Leckner oftentimes found himself as the odd man out. Kings head coach Dick Motta preferred a center that could operate from the high post and Leckner’s paint-based style of play clashed with Motta’s vision. Leckner’s lack of playing time would cause a deep fissure in the relationship between coach and player.

In 32 games with the Kings, Leckner was averaging 2.9 PPG, 2.7 RPG and 0.6 APG in 11.8 MPG. Operating out of the high post was also hurting his efficiency, as he was shooting a career-low 40.6% from the field.

Leckner had wanted to be traded. He was in the final year of his contract, earning $475,000 for the 1990-91 season. Looking to secure a new deal, Leckner was offered by Kings director of player personnel Jerry Reynolds the chance to leave in a trade or stay on the bench the rest of the season. Leckner approved the trade and was dealt to the Charlotte Hornets. The Kings were 12-28 when they dealt Leckner.

Charlotte gave Sacramento two second rounders. One was in 1995 and the other — in 1993 — was conditional. Leckner had to be on Charlotte’s roster a year from the trade for the Hornets to convey their 1993 second rounder to Sacramento.

Charlotte was 13-27 when they acquired Leckner. Relying heavily on veteran center Mike Gminski, the Hornets were often playing smaller players at center and needed a big body to fill the position as a reserve. The team went 13-29 the rest of the way to finish fourth-worst in the NBA with a 26-56 record. Leckner was given an opportunity to play in Charlotte, and showed some signs of development. He had three double-doubles in 58 games with Charlotte after failing to record one in his first 184 games in the league. Overall, the 6-foot-11 center produced 5.8 PPG, 5.2 RPG and 0.3 APG in 18.6 MPG.

The Hornets won the 1991 draft lottery and drafted UNLV star forward Larry Johnson. with the first overall pick. Charlotte head coach Gene Littles moved to the front office and vice president Allan Bristow shifted to head coach in a organizational realignment.

Leckner did not sign a contract with the Hornets until right before training camp. He ended up with a one-year, $618,000 deal keeping him in Charlotte. Under new coach Bristow, the Hornets planned to play 6-foot-9 J.R. Reid more often at center. That meant Leckner would have to fight to receive any minutes on the court.

He suffered, playing less often as many of the center minutes went to Reid, Gminski and Kenny Gattison. Leckner appeared in 59 games (two starts), and recorded 3.3 PPG, 3.5 RPG and 0.5 APG in 12.1 MPG. Charlotte dropped 24 of their first 32 games to start the season. The team would play better behind the efforts of 1991-92 Rookie of the Year Johnson and Kendall Gill. Still, they finished out of the playoffs and in the lottery once again with a 31-51 mark.

Charlotte won the second spot in the 1992 NBA Draft and selected Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning with the second overall pick. Mourning’s addition — plus the presence of Gattison and Gminski on the roster — dropped Charlotte’s interest in retaining Leckner. He was not re-signed.

Leckner was not able to catch on with an NBA team in the 1992 offseason. He ended up heading over to Italy and playing for Panna Firenze of the Serie A2 League in Italy. Leckner ended his Hornets tenure with a stat line of 99 games played, 4.3 PPG, 4.2 RPG and 0.5 APG. He shot 49% from the field and 62% from the free-throw line.

The conditional 1993 second rounder the Kings acquired from Charlotte was conveyed since Leckner played past the 1991-92 season with the Hornets. The acquired draft pick was slotted at 44th in the 1993 draft. Sacramento selected 6-foot-9 Baylor center Alex Holcombe. Considered a raw athlete with an NBA body, Holcombe had a 7-foot-5 wingspan and 9-foot-3 standing reach. Holcombe did not play in summer camp with the Kings because he committed to playing in Europe.

During the 1993-94 season, Holcombe played in Spain (CB Breogán) before becoming homesick. He moved on to the CBA (Grand Rapids Hoops) for the rest of the season. He played with the Kings in 1994 Summer League at the Rocky Mountain Revue. Holcombe’s draft rights were renounced by the Kings in October of 1994.

The 1995 second rounder the Kings had secured in the trade from Charlotte ended up in the 51st spot of the 1995 draft. Sacramento used the pick on Serbian forward Dejan Bodiroga. A 6-foot-8 point-forward, Bodiroga was a unique player. Though he wasn’t the best shooter or quickest player, he drew comparisons to Magic Johnson due to his size and ability to pass the ball.

The Kings attempted to woo Bodiroga to come to the United States, but he passed on multiple occasions. In 1996, the Kings were interested in using their $800,000 exception on Bodiroga, but he never signed. In 2002, Bodiroga was tempted to come, but he never committed.

A star in Europe, Bodiroga played for some of the top teams in the EuroLeague including Olimpia Milano, Real Madrid, Panathinaikos and FC Barcelona. He was well decorated, winning three EuroLeague championships and 2002 All-Europe Player of the Year.

There were a few questions about whether Bodiroga could play the NBA game, but many believed he had the skill. Still, despite all of Sacramento’s overtures, Bodiroga never played in the NBA, retiring professionally in 2007. The Kings waited more than 22 years after drafting Bodiroga before renouncing their rights to the 44-year old Serbian forward.

Eric Leckner on the trade (via the Sacramento Bee):

“Being mad or bitter now isn’t going to change anything so I’m just going to look at this as a great opportunity to start over. I’m going to get to play some serious minutes in Charlotte. I get to go to work now.”

On wanting to leave (via the Sacramento Bee):

“I just want to get out of here. I could go and talk to him (Motta) about it but it wouldn’t do any good.”

On being in the doghouse in Sacramento (via the Charlotte Observer):

“I’m in the front row of that doghouse. That was not about ability It was personality or playing style. Yeah I was in that doghouse — right next to Ralph [Sampson].”

On wanting to prove himself:

“It’s time for Eric Leckner to do something.”

How he brings a different skill set compared to starting center Mike Gminski:

“I bring a contrast to Gminski. He’s a little sneaky with a lot of 10-foot jump shots I’m strictly a back-to-the-basket player. You put a guy 20 feet from the basket and not let him rebound — that's not my style. I spent more time in the paint in practice today than I did the whole time in Sacramento.”

Charlotte Hornets vice president of basketball operations Allan Bristow on acquiring Leckner (via Deseret News):

“Eric will provide us depth inside without sacrificing our immediate future. He will also spell [Mike] Gminski from playing too many minutes and since he is such a young player, we hope to help him reach his promising potential.”

Sacramento Kings head coach Dick Motta on Leckner (via the Sacramento Bee):

“He was so uptight. The high-post, low-post thing is a cop-out. If you want to score in the low post you’ll get there.”

How having four centers was an issue in Sacramento (via the Sacramento Bee):

“We should never have come out of training camp with four centers. We didn’t know that Ralph Sampson was going to be with us for the whole year. It wasn’t fair to us. It wasn’t fair to any of them. Between Bill Wennington and Eric, we felt Bill gave us more.”

On Leckner being nervous (via the Charlotte Observer):

“Every time he got in a game he seemed to be nervous. With four centers here there was no chance for any of them to relax. It wasn’t fair to them or us. I hope he looks at it as us breaking up a logjam not picking on Eric Leckner.”

On how an incident where Leckner kicked a chair out of frustration meant more than just the chair (via the Sacramento Bee):

“When I’m upset with myself I never let anyone know it. That’s my edge. When Eric kicked that chair, I told him the chair would still be there tomorrow and so would the anxiety that had built up inside of him. He had so much anxiety. He never learned to relax and play.”

On the roster glut at the center position:

“You can’t have four centers. I didn’t think Ralph would be here. I had to go with Duane [Causwell] because he needs experience. I want him to play 2,000 minutes this year. Maybe it’s a mistake because he hasn’t earned those minutes, but I’ve got to do it. That left Eric and Bill [Wennington]. I thought Bill gave us more. Any way you look at it, it wasn’t a good situation.”

On Leckner’s dissatisfaction with his role in Sacramento:

“I never try to be friends with my 10th, 11th and 12th men. “You can’t do it. I hope Eric does well. I didn’t mind working with him. We just didn’t have time to keep him around and see what developed. I hope Eric is still playing in the league 10 years from now. I don’t know if I would bet on it. But I hope he has a nice career.”

Hornets center Mike Gminski on the toll playing 36-plus minutes a night was having on him (via the Charlotte Observer):

“I can (play that long) every once in a while but a steady diet of 40-minute nights would have taken its toll on me.”

Hornets guard Kendall Gill on how acquiring Leckner could help them stop a recent losing streak (via the Charlotte Observer):

“You just don’t know how badly I want to win. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I’m glad we’re getting another low-post player [Leckner]. That’s got to help.”

Image via Getty Images/Rocky Widner

#Eric Leckner #Dejan Bodiroga #Alex Holcombe #1991 #1990*91 Season #Hornets #Kings

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medea10 · 4 years

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My Review of To Heart

How did I get into this anime? I have been curious about this anime for a straight-up decade now and the randomizer decided to bless me with something not incest. Thank you Arceus!

Since she was young, Akari Kamigishi has been best friends with Hiroyuki Fujita. Because of kind acts he did for her as a child, Akari has stayed by Hiroyuki’s side. Now that they’re both in high school, something has changed in Akari and it feels more like she’s falling for her childhood friend. Will Akari find happiness with her best friend or will she end up friend-zoned?

And because this is a harem, there are quite a few girls hanging around Hiroyuki throughout the two seasons. Just to name a few, we have the brash friend, Shiho. Then there’s the tomboy type, Aoi. The very silent type, Serika! And then there’s the robotic maid, Multi. Yes, you read right. A robot! This is Japan after all! Oh yeah, there’s also the class rep, an actual American girl, and a quiet girl with supernatural powers.

Akari, girl, you need to step up your game if you’re up against all these chicks!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: Before I discuss all that, let’s go down the ugly story about To Heart for fans in the U.S. The first season (and only the first season) was dubbed by RightStuf (at least I’m certain about that). Everything else wound up undubbed and even unlicensed. To Heart was kind of left in the dust due to what happened when the first season was supposed to release in the U.S. A lot of damaged material was the culprit and this came during the time when animation was transitioning from animating using cells to going digital. So to sum that up, the anime debuted in Japan around 1999, Rightstuf licensed To Heart in 2004 with a release in 2005, and the actual release was delayed to 2007. And in back-in-those-days times, that’s pretty fucking long. I can see why they didn’t want to bother with this series after it took all that trouble to remaster a series many were calling only “OKAY”.

Now then, on with the good stuff! I went in thinking that this was a Geneon reject, but was blown out of my ass to hear voices from New York! Lisa Ortiz, Jessica Calvello, Veronica Taylor, Wayne Grayson, and my personal favorite (not who you’re thinking), Carol Jacobanis! Yeah, surprisingly I didn’t hear Ted Lewis here. But Jacobanis is my second favorite in the NYAV group. I am in nostalgia heaven! Yes folks, these were the same people to give life to many characters from Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Berserk, His and Her Circumstances, Bakuman, Gravitation…OH, gambled and lost! Well, you get my meaning! Thankfully this dub wasn’t as horrific as Gravitation (despite Hiroyuki’s voice actor is well-known for something from that particular anime). Here’s what you might recognize these folks from!

JAPANESE CAST: *Akari is played by Ayako Kawasumi (known for Ursula on Pokemon DP, Saber on Fate/Zero, Izumi on Beyond the Boundary, Aoki on Bakuman, Laura on Index, Yoshida on Shakugan no Shana, and Nodame on Nodame Cantabile)

*Hiroyuki is played by Kazuya Ichijo (known for Hoteye on Fairy Tail and Zafila on Nanoha)

*Shiho is played by Chieko Higuchi (known for Tomo on Azumanga Daioh)

*Multi is played by Yui Horie (known for Hanekawa on Monogatari, Tohru on Fruits Basket, Hanyuu on Higurashi, Minorin on Toradora, Charla on Fairy Tail, Chie on Persona 4, Maria on Umineko, and Riki on Little Busters)

ENGLISH CAST: *Akari is played by Debora Rabbai (known for Mika from Gravitation, Rika on His and Her Circumstances, Leina on Queen’s Blade, and Boogiepop [original])

*Hiroyuki is played by Rich McNanna (known for Jack Walker on Pokemon Movie 9 and Shuuichi on Gravitation)

*Shiho is played by Jessica Calvello (known for Prima on Pokemon, Hange on Attack on Titan, Excel on Excel Saga, Kanako on Maria Holic, Tsukino on His and Her Circumstances, and Aika on Aria the Animation)

*Multi is played by Tara Sands (known for Richie on Pokemon, Soujirou on Rurouni Kenshin, Mokuba on YGO, Badiane on Sailor Moon SuperS movie, Tori on Pokemon Movie ~ Deoxys, and Filia on Slayers Try)

SHIPPING: So remind me what genre this anime is!

HAREM!

We’re watching a harem! But it’s more slice of life than anything romantic. There are a lot of love interests for Hiroyuki throughout the series. It’s just that it doesn’t develop as much as one might think (except for maybe Akari) in season one.

And it’s so easy to think that Hiroyuki is the object of every one of these ladies’ desire. Serika waits for him to come to the club room. Aoi finds him helpful, as does Tomoko and Lemmy. Multi got attached to Hiroyuki’s headpats. As for Akari, she’s got quite the teddy bear collection because of Hiroyuki. After watching all of season one where Hiroyuki is hanging with all of these ladies individually, I thought there would be a moment of jealousy from one or more of these girls. Much to my surprise, that was not the case. It didn’t go down any of those bad-end routes you’d see with things like Kanon, Clannad, or God-forbid, School Days!

But then season two happened…

Ooh boy! First of all, Hiroyuki ended up getting his first confession of love from the most unlikely person ever. Kotone wasn’t even a contender in the first season as she had other issues. In fact, didn’t she have feelings for Masashi in season one? But halfway in the season, she gets ballsy and confesses to Hiroyuki. He rejects her and thankfully it didn’t get ugly (except Akari heard it and got jealous). Lemmy, I also thought wasn’t in play, but here we are! She was apparently childhood friends with Hiroyuki and brought it up when confessing her feelings. That unfortunately came at a bad time as he’s in a quarrel with Akari so he dismisses her.

And then there’s Akari! She’s been able to put on a smile and kind of be a wall-flower whenever Hiroyuki is doing something with one of the other girls. And most of the season, we see him mostly with Aoi and Multi. Thankfully, Aoi never showed romantic interests in Hiroyuki. I much prefer Aoi x Kotone if you want to know the truth. But halfway into season two, jealousy came in like a drunkard in a bar. Akari was definitely pissed when she saw Kotone confess to Hiroyuki and would get jealous seeing Hiroyuki and Multi together so much.

Oh yeah, good old Multi! Yes Multi loves Hiroyuki. Now does Hiroyuki love Multi back? It’s complicated! Because of Multi, Hiroyuki ends up pursuing a career in robotics and as a result spends quite a bit of time with her (pissing Akari off in the process). But because Multi is kind of a malfunctioning robot, who the hell knows if she’ll even remember being with Hiroyuki.

Now are there other boys interested in any of these other girls? The only other boy that has any prominent screen time is Masashi. It’s just that after season one, he’s only seen every so often because he’s busy with soccer. But in season one, it almost felt like Kotone was admiring him from the distance. Don’t get excited because that was just a one-and-done sort of thing before Kotone set eyes on Hiroyuki. Actually, Masashi does reveal his fondness for Akari (at literally the worst possible time). But it seems like Masashi ends up with Shiho in the end. So…whatever!

Hiroyuki DOES end up with someone. Just go down to the end of season two to get that answer.

ENDING TO SEASON ONE: The last two episodes of this season consist around Shiho deciding that she wants to throw a Christmas party at an old hangout from her middle school days! But this isn’t the only nostalgic kick she feels. Shiho ends up remembering the first day she met Hiroyuki and after he took care of a wound she got, Shiho starts seeing Hiroyuki in a new light. Yeah, up until this point, Shiho and Hiroyuki’s relationship could be summed up by saying they both give each other shit every day. Then you have Akari, who is also feeling a little nostalgic with trying to see if Hiroyuki is able to remember things from their past. During the finale however, Akari does develop a cold and has to bail on the party planning.

When Shiho came to visit Akari, it kinda comes out that both girls do care for Hiroyuki. But because this isn’t one of those kinds of romance animes, it really doesn’t get ugly. It’s more of an “I acknowledge your feelings for the boy I like and good luck to you”. Shiho really didn’t do any confessing and we get a cute moment with Hiroyuki and Akari out in the snow.

Let’s see how Season Two holds up!

OMAKE: Nozomi Entertainment also released the six Omake specials that came with releases of the first season. Not dubbed! Just a couple of minute-long specials that range from cute to wildly absurd.

There were also Omake specials in season two that mostly consisted of all the girls fighting each other in almost a Street Fighter or Dragon Ball style.

REMEMBER MY MEMORIES: Five years after the first season aired, To Heart returns with a bit of a time-leap from where we left off last and some slightly improved(?) animation. And if you’re wondering why this season isn’t called “To Heart 2”, there is a series named that already. To Heart 2 is a spin-off of To Heart. It’s just that none of the characters from To Heart are in To Heart 2. ANYWAYS…

It has been a year or so from where we left off. Hiroyuki, Akari and the others are now in their senior year of high school and a lot has changed. Minor character, Kotone who mostly kept to herself in the first season, has found another role in hanging out with Aoi (the chick who’s into martial arts). Serika is still silent, but that blue hue to her hair is definitely not silent. What the hell is with this new animation? And finally, Multi apparently left a year ago and came back in the first episode of season two. Only now Multi has amnesia. A lot has changed since season one, especially when it comes to romance. Buckle up!

ENDING TO REMEMBER MY MEMORIES: Yeah, this season layed on the melodrama really thick compared to the previous season. All the ladies love Hiroyuki and at least half of them expressed those feelings to him. Akari had some conflicted feelings when it came to Hiroyuki. She loves him, but feels like he doesn’t return the feeling due to him hanging around a lot of other girls (especially Aoi and Multi).

Speaking of Multi, this girl has had such the rotunda of computer issues. My stroked-out Dell PC from 2005 had more working power than this girl! For starters, her memories are in danger of being wiped away at several points of the series. We even begin season two where Multi returns after over a year with full-blown amnesia. And since then, Multi had some sort of malfunction issue arise every other episode. This was showcased in the finale, where Multi gets so upset and runs away to the amusement park!

So, Hiroyuki and all of his friends come together to look for Multi. They thankfully found her at the amusement park (during closed hours) and broke into the main-frame to the Ferris wheel. And did I mention these people almost committed assault on police officers? Yeah, these kids are about to have a rap sheet the size of Texas by the end of the episode. Anyways, Hiroyuki, Akari, and Multi ride the ferris wheel and have a nice talk before Multi falls asleep for…

…Let’s say a long time…

Fast-forward to high school graduation! Hiroyuki and Akari seem to be doing a lot better. They’re both going to attend the same college and are pretty much on better terms than when Akari was having a jealousy, bitch-fit. At graduation, they both decided to give each other the Christmas gifts they never gave each other. Because Multi was having another malfunction, they never got to give the gifts. Hiroyuki got a hand-knit sweater. And Akari got a ring!

Hiroyuki wanted it and so he put a ring on it!

During the ED credits, we see the characters we’ve seen throughout these two seasons and what they ended up doing after high school. Lemmy is back in San Francisco. Aoi and Kotone are still doing the fighting matches. Rio is a primary school teacher. Serica is still into the occult. Tomoko is working for her father’s business. Masashi is becoming a big soccer star with Shiho working on journalism (and I think Shiho ends up romantically involved with Masashi).

And we close with Hiroyuki and Akari working with the HMX robots and surprise, surprise, Multi wakes up.

And before you ask, I did NOT watch To Heart 2. And I don’t intend to…at least not yet. I’m saving it for another day and putting it back on the randomizer list.

This anime was…just okay. Yeah, a lot of things were predictable, especially when it came to who the main male lead was going to end up with. Come on, we all know Akari was going to end up with Hiroyuki in the end. If this were the visual novel, I’m sure there were infinite numbers of routes Hiroyuki could take and there’d be a good end to all of the girls. But I’m mostly anime only here! In terms of recommendations, ehh…I feel like there were other better harems you could watch.

Only season one of To Heart got an official release in the U.S., but you might have to search around for any DVD copies as I’m pretty sure it’s currently out of print. Anything else from the series, you’ll have to do some heavy searching to watch all the way through.

Okay, next licensed limbo/unlicensed classics!

What’s that one play everyone and their mother has seen, but you haven’t?

*sighs* Hamilton.

No, the other one.

Les Miserable? Wait, this never got licensed?!

Okay! I guess I’m watching that. I hope I can do well at this review considering I never watched the play, read the book, or watched that film where Russell Crowe can’t sing.

#anime review #to heart #to heart remember my memories #hiroyuki fujita #akari kamagishi #shiho nagaoka #hmx-12 multi #kotone himekawa

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introvertguide · 4 years

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The Gold Rush (1925); AFI #58

The next film that we had for review is a classic comedy from the 1920s, The Gold Rush (1925). This movie is often considered to be Charlie Chaplin’s best work and what he considered to be the film he most wanted to be remembered for. I watched the original cut that is a little bit longer than later versions and has a simple piano score. The movie was re-released in 1942 with an orchestral score that was nominated for Best Song and Best Score at that year’s Academy Awards. We will go over the plot and it probably doesn’t need a spoiler warning since the movie is a century old and there have been so many parts of this film that other movies and TV shows have paid homage too...but it is better to be safe than sorry:

SPOILER WARNING!!! PLOT POINTS FOR A 95 YEAR OLD MOVIE COMING UP!!! THIS WARNING IS SLIGHTLY SARCASTIC BUT I DON’T WANT MAIL ABOUT IT!!!

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The movie begins with establishing shots of men hiking through the snow to represent the Alaskan gold rush. Vast uninhabitable plains are suddenly full of people trying to find gold. Amongst this group is Big Jim, a prospector that found a gold deposit on his claim when a blizzard strikes. Another is a little tramp, who is credited as The Lone Prospector (Charlie Chaplin), a simple man who is just wandering and trying to find his fortune. Both of these men run into a sudden blizzard and are driven into the cabin of Black Larsen, a man who is a wanted criminal. Larsen tries to throw them out, but he is overpowered and the three settle in for the storm.

The storm goes on so long that one of the three needs to leave to find food. They pick cards and Larsen loses, so he is sent out to go find food. Larsen runs into and kills two policemen then finds the claim of Big Jim. Larsen decides to wait out the storm then flee with the gold before Big Jim can come back. Hopefully he will die of starvation in the cabin.

Speaking of starvation, the tramp and Big Jim have run out of food and the big man is starting to hallucinate that the little tramp is a chicken. The big man chases the little tramp around the cabin going in and out of a ravenous haze with a shotgun. A bear breaks in while the two are fighting and the tramp is able to shoot it so the two men now have food. This sounds like a horror movie or something out of The Revenant, but it is done in a very comical way.

The two leave the cabin once the storm subsides to find their fortunes. Big Jim goes to his claim and runs into Larsen, who knocks out Big Jim with a shovel. Larsen attempts to leave with some gold but is killed in a sudden avalanche. Big Jim comes to eventually, but he stumbles away until he gets to a town and can’t remember how he got there. He also can’t remember how to get to his gold, so he decides he must find the little tramp and the cabin which will jog his memory about the location of his claim.

The tramp wandered until he found a boom town that apparently was built overnight. He enters a happening dance hall and sees a beautiful girl who is bored and trying to avoid the advances of the local ladies man. Her name is Georgia and she tells Jack, the ladies man, that she would rather dance with the most deplorable looking tramp and proceeds to grab the lone prospector and dances with him. The little guy is smitten and, after a few chance encounters, invites Georgia and her group of friends to have New Year’s Eve dinner with him. She accepts as a joke and completely forgets. The tramp did not forget and scrounges up enough money for a nice meal and waits for the girls to celebrate. He waits so long that he falls asleep and dreams of a successful dinner party in which he entertains the girls with a puppet dance involving forks and bread rolls.

He wakes up and walks the streets feeling depressed and lonely. Georgia, however, does remember the invitation and goes to the house at which the tramp is staying. She finds a set table with a meal and presents and suddenly feels bad for treating the tramp so badly. She mentions to her friends and Jack that she wants to find the tramp, which angers Jack and inspires him to write a note that says she wants to talk. The tramp is given the note when he returns to the dance hall, but is intercepted by Big Jim, who promises to make the tramp into a millionaire if he can help him find his claim. The tramp tells a confused Georgia that he got the note and will return to take her out of this life.

Big Jim and the prospector get to the cabin, but there is another blizzard (it’s the Klondike, it happens a lot) and they are not able to go out for the gold right away. During the night, the cabin is blown to the edge of a cliff and is teetering on the edge. There is some humor about not tipping the house until the two are able to successfully escape and they happen to have ended up right next to the claim.

A year passes according to a dialogue card, but the little tramp was not able to find Georgia. He and Big Jim take a boat back to the continental states. The press is there and a member wants to get a picture of the tramp in his old mining outfit. He puts on his old clothes and has a mishap while posing for a picture and falls down some stairs right next to Georgia. She is taking the boat and assumes he is a stowaway and tries to save him from the ship’s crew. She is made aware that he is now a millionaire and she joins him for a picture in which the two kiss.

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While writing the synopsis from my notes and comparing it to other online summaries, I realize that there are parts of this film that sound like a horror film. Two men are fighting for survival out on the Klondike during a storm with nothing to eat and start considering cannibalism like something from the Donner Party. In the midst of a fight over a shotgun in which a very large man is attempting to kill a much smaller man, a bear (and this is a real trained bear in some of the scenes) breaks into the cabin and the two must now kill it. I think I have seen this movie and it wasn’t a comedy. This film has murder, assault, bear attacks, sexual harassment, and dog kicking. I am not sure it could be made today and I am sure that many aspects would be cut. But this is why these films are so interesting, it was a creation from a previous time and it reveals what was socially acceptable in a different era. I find it fascinating.

As old as this film is, some of the more famous scenes have been copied in film and TV more recently. The quick little dance with the dinner roles has been copied by Curly from The Three Stooges in 1935, Robert Downy Jr. in 1992, Johnny Depp in 1993, Grandpa Simpson in 1994, and Amy Adams in 2011. A Walter Lantz character named Chili Willy the Penguin had a couple of adventures that very closely imitated the “starving in the cabin” scenes with Chaplin and Big Jim. I have not seen the films, but IMDB and Wikipedia claim that the hanging cabin scene has been used in a couple of Bollywood movies - Michael Madana Kama Rajan (1990) and Welcome (2007).

There are two more films on the AFI list starring Charlie Chaplin, so I don’t want to go too in depth into his life at this point. I do want to mention that he cofounded United Artists distribution with D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. This allowed him to have complete control over all aspects of his films, so everything you see is 100% his vision. He wrote, directed, produced, edited, scored, and starred in almost all of his films. We don’t see that much these days because there is some studio meddling in almost every film, so it is refreshing to see a creative work from a single source.

So does this film deserve to be on the AFI 100? Beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is a very simple movie that comes from the very infancy of the media, yet I consider it to be better than most current films. It has a good story despite having no dialogue and set pieces that are still copied a century later. This is truly the work of a genius. Would I recommend it? I am upset if you haven’t seen it yet. It is only 75 minutes, it is very entertaining, and it is an easy to digest piece of American culture. Go watch it right now. If you have already seen it, go watch it again with somebody who hasn’t seen it. This is the kind of film that the AFI Top 100 movies was created around, basically a reason to go back and review quality film from the past. Well worth the time and I can’t recommend it enough. Please give it a view.

#charlie chaplin #the gold rush #1920s #black and white #silent film #film critique #afi top 100 movies #movie spoilers #introvert #introverts #movie review

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creepingsharia · 4 years

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“Clean Our Toilets and Take Our Germs to Your Church!” Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2020

by Raymond Ibrahim

The following are some of the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of March, 2020, thematically arranged:

The Kidnap, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christians

Pakistan: A group of motorcycle-riding Muslim men kidnapped and gang raped two 12-year-old Christian boys. The children were playing video games at a local arcade when a gang of Muslims approached and lured them to check out and eventually sit on their motorcycles. Once the boys were atop the vehicles, the men rode off to a remote field where “the young boys were beaten till they submitted to the demands of the Muslim men, at which point the 12 year olds were raped,” notes the March 23 report:

After the ordeal Suneel and Harry [the two boys] were threatened not to say anything by the gang as they rode off … leaving the boys behind naked. Suneel and Harry then tearfully and in pain got dressed and walked for 3 hours till home. Suneel managed to stagger home at 3:30 am early the following morning and was received by his father Naeem (40 yrs) who had not slept all night. Naeem and other family members were praying for Suneel and were shocked when they found him crying and trembling with fear.

Last reported and according to his mother:

Suneel is not eating properly. He cries all the time and has said he does not want to go to a local school. Other boys have been teasing him and it has created a dark sorrow within him. We cannot take him to church as they are all closed [due to COVID-19] and he is slowly entering a deep depression.

Separately, on March 1, two Muslim men abducted a 13-year-old Christian girl, forcibly converted her to embrace Islam, and married her off to a Muslim. Saima Javid was kidnapped while fetching water from a pump near her home. “I was deeply depressed and thought of committing suicide when I lost my daughter,” her mother said while discussing this incident. “Young Christian girls are not safe in this country. Muslims consider them as their property or slaves and therefore humiliate them as they wish.” After confirming that “our daughters are often sexually harassed by influential Muslims,” the girl’s father added that “The police did not listen to us for five days. However, when news of the abduction went viral on social media, the police registered a First Information Report (FIR # 137/20) against the abductors on March 5.” As a result, on March 26, the 13-year-old Christian girl appeared in court where she “testified that she had been abducted and was forced to convert to Islam and forced to marry [a Muslim man].” The judge ordered her returned to her family. “This order marks a rare victory for Pakistani Christians affected by the issue of abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage,” the report correctly observes.

Nigeria: On March 12, the Hausa Christian Foundation of Nigeria announced that a young girl named Sadiya Amos had managed to escape from her Muslim kidnappers. The girl was originally abducted in early January; she was subsequently forcibly converted to Islam and married off to one of her kidnappers. Sadiya was thereafter kept in a small room under guard. One day, the guards fell asleep without locking her room. She managed to sneak out and flee back to her family’s home—only to find her father experiencing his own problems for trying to rescue her: a Sharia court was accusing him of trying to prevent his daughter from embracing Islam—and had even produced a forged certificate to that effect—in an effort to assist her abductors. The statement adds that,

The case of abducting Christian Girls and their forceful conversion to Islam as well as forcing them into marriage has become a water shed issue in Northern Nigeria…. The moment these girls are abducted, they are subjected to all manners of evil just to take control of their minds. Once they took hold of their minds, these girls will only do everything they are asked to do. While the parents fight for the release of their daughters, these abductors continue to sexually abuse these girls, hypnotized [subliminally influencing?] their food, drinks, clothes, where they sleep, perpetually evoke evil spirit upon them to the point that these girls completely lost their minds and never think of going back to their home. Usually, the moment a Christian girl is abducted they ensure that they get married to her within one or two weeks. She will be sexually abused even before the marriage to make the parents give up on her when she becomes pregnant.

Egypt: An unknown woman posing as a Coptic nun, along with an unknown man posing as her monk assistant, were exposed as frauds who were using their religious garb to target and lure young and trusting Christian girls. The issue was apparently serious enough for the Coptic pope himself to make a statement disavowing the two charlatans. On social media, the “nun,” known only as Theodora, had a photo shopped picture of herself with the pope. It is unclear what the exact scam was—whether it was for later extortion or identifying potential kidnapping victims. Elaborate schemes to target Christian girls in Egypt are not uncommon.

The Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: According to a March 8 report titled, “Nigeria: A Killing Field of Defenseless Christians,”

Available statistics have shown that between 11,500 and 12,000 Christian deaths were recorded in the past 57 months or since June 2015 when the present central [Muhammadu Buhari-led] government of Nigeria came on board. Out of this figure, Jihadist Fulani herdsmen accounted for 7,400 Christian deaths, Boko Haram 4,000 and the “Highway Bandits” 150-200.

According to numerous Christian leaders in Nigeria, the reason formerly simple Fulani herdsmen have managed to kill nearly twice as many Christians as the “professional” terrorists of Boku Haram is because one of their fellow tribesmen, the president of the nation, Muhammadu Buhari, is enabling their jihad.

Kenya: On March 11, Muslims connected with the Islamic terror group, Al Shabaab (“the Youth”) killed two more Christians and abducted a third in yet another roadside ambush. In the first instance, a passenger bus was stopped and stormed by the terrorists, who proceeded to order all the passengers out. “They abducted the only Christian on the bus, the mechanic, and allowed the others to continue with their journey,” a police officer reported. The second attack occurred an hour later in the same region. Two medical transporters—both Christians—delivering much needed medicine to Mandera, which has suffered much from ongoing Al Shabaab violence, were stopped in their truck; they were “killed by shooting and their bodies dumped on the roadside,” an official confirmed. In the previous three months, at least 13 other Christians were killed under nearly identical circumstances in Kenya—yanked out of ambushed vehicles and slaughtered on being identified as Christian.

Pakistan: More details concerning the February 28 torture and murder of Saleem Masih, a Christian farm laborer who dared use water from the same well used by Muslims emerged in a March 3 report: When his tormentors first gathered around and starting beating and kicking him, “they called him chura (filthy Christian cleaner), while making him lick their boots telling him kaffir (non-Muslim) dogs deserve such treatment.” They then dragged him by the hair and chained him in a barn where the torture began in earnest: they “rolled a thick iron rod across the whole of Saleem’s body which by now had many fractures and internal injuries. Saleem was tortured and spat at for at least 4 hours until he went unconscious.” The report concludes by quoting Juliet Chowdhry, a Pakistani human rights activist in the UK:

A senseless violent attack has ended the life of a young Christian man, left a mother and father heart-broken and community beleaguered. The men who undertook the attack are so blinded by hate they are showing no evidence of remorse. Overcoming such hate will take a miracle as it is ingrained into every aspect of culture and society in Pakistan and is reinforced via a biased national curriculum. It will take decades to remove such entrenched intolerance and I fear I will not see it in my lifetime…. Nations such as the UK naively continue to send foreign aid to Pakistan despite the existing social malaise – this naive attitude contributes to Pak-Government apathy and perpetuates the status quo.

The Jihad on Churches

Norway: A Muslim migrant set fire to two churches. According to the March 21 report, the man, aged 28, from a Middle Eastern or African nation, torched the churches in “revenge” for some unclear but supposedly “blasphemous” treatment of the Koran at the hands of a Norwegian. He was imprisoned for four weeks, which the court said was “not disproportionate,” as “it is a serious crime.”

United Kingdom: A 23-year-old man who was initially only described as a “Norwegian”—but who was later revealed as a Muslim born to Somali refugees—was arrested for plotting to bomb St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. “Based on the material we seized and reviewed, we believe that he may be suspected of having participated in the terror organization Islamic State,” police added. He is also accused of managing to destroy evidence in a still-in-progress terrorism case in Denmark. According to the March 23 report, his co-conspirator and fellow arrestee, Safiyya Amira Shaikh, a British woman born as Michelle Ramsden who converted to Islam in 2007, admitted to the planned terror attack: “the goal was to kill as many people as possible in a suicide bomb attack on St. Paul.” Earlier, in an encrypted chat with an undercover police officer, Safiyya had said that she would “rather die young and get to Jannah (paradise) the quickest way possible… I always know I wanted to do something big… killing one kafir (infidel) is not enough for me.” She had further expressed a desire to target a church on a Christmas or Easter day, when they would be packed, to kill more people.

Sudan: Unknown militants burned down two churches in the Muslim majority nation. According to a March 18 report from Dabanga, an independent Sudanese news outlet,

[V]iolence against Christian communities has continued, despite the changes that have occurred in Sudan over the last year… [T]he first attack took place … in Omdurman on Saturday February 29. A church building of the Sudanese Church of Christ was torched. It is not known who the perpetrators are. The second incident occurred on March 9, when militants set fire to the Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Bout, El Tadamon local in Blue Nile state. The church was destroyed completely, including the furniture and books within it.

Counting these latest, five churches have been torched in Sudan since the start of 2020.

Indonesia: Around mid-March, authorities closed down another church in response to ongoing protests by the Islamic Defenders Alliance, a Muslim advocacy group—even though the building had been used as a church between 2017 and 2020. Initially, local Muslims had complained that it had a visible cross, which the congregation quickly removed. However, that was not enough, and the Islamic Defenders Alliance issued a statement saying, “We, from the alliance, demand that the church be demolished as soon as possible.” Since Muslims first began protesting the existence of the church, its pastor has tried to find a new place to build a new church, but has been unsuccessful, as local residents reject having a church near them. “Many Christians across Indonesia face religious persecution that is embedded in the culture and legal system,” said another March report: “Christianity, both Protestants and Catholics, make up 10% of the population. That’s close to 26 million people that are being affected by this discrimination.”

Pakistan: A Muslim man beat “to near death” his Christian servant for threatening to quit unless permitted to attend church. Shaan Masih, 21, had never wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a household servant to the wealthy and influential Muslim but was pressured into it after his father died. Shaan “was working from 7am to 7pm every day and suffered a lot of bullying at work, was pushed and beaten,” the report explains. “He was constantly called a Chura (dirty Christian cleaner) and soon cleaning toilets became a regular part of his work despite his protestations” that his original contract stipulated that he would not clean toilets. Only he, the report adds, “was required to clean the toilets and none of the Muslim servants,” who “were also treated with more respect.” On March 13, after Shaan asked his employer’s wife if he could leave a little early so he could attend evening mass at church, she exclaimed, “You Chura are always going to those dirty churches and bringing your germs into our home! Before you go, clean our toilets and take our germs to your church so that they can suffer instead.” Shaan refused: “Being before God is a sacred thing and I want to be comfortable with God and would not feel good, if I clean your toilets before I go.” When she threatened to fire him, he said he quit and went straight to church; when he returned home, his Muslim boss called and asked him to come and collect his things and get paid. Shaan “was really pleased about this as he had waited so long for the payment and was beginning to feel pressure from a large number of growing debts.” According to the report, when he arrived,

Kashif [the boss] and other servants were waiting for Shaan with a hot iron rod and leather belt. Shaan was resoundly [sic] beaten, spat at and tortured for at least 20 minutes by the family members of Kashif and his servants… While he was beaten Kashif berated Shaan for leaving his place of work without express permission from him: ‘You are a Chura and should not leave a Muslim masters premises until told to. Your nerve to stand up to Muslims is a blasphemy and I will kill you for this!’ Kashif ran inside his home to grab a gun and shoot Shaan who was by now terrified and in fear for his life.

A servant helped Shaan to escape during the commotion; he “sped towards his home bleeding along the route.” When a relative opened the door, “he collapsed on the floor” and his mother “began screaming in a panic…. Shaan fell unconscious for several hours from the pain of his injuries.” “The attitude of both the police and medical staff was really disappointing,” Shaan later said in an interview, regarding how both had ignored his pleas for justice and help. “Despite severe burns on my body and immense pain, they treated me like an animal.” According to his mother, “He used my son like a donkey, never paid him and then enacted such violence for no reason. I fear he can kill my son anytime he wants because of his influence and power.”

Turkey: The desecration of Christian cemeteries, many of which are attached to churches, is on the rise. According to a March 14 report, 20 of 72 gravestones in the Ortaköy Christian Cemetery in Ankara were found destroyed. “These attacks against cemeteries are making the Christian community across Turkey feel incredibly sad and desperate,” an Ankara-based pastor observed: “Nobody can watch over the graves of their loved ones like a guard.” In one instance, the desecraters broke a cross off a recently deceased women’s grave in a church cemetery; days earlier, her burial service was interrupted by cries of “Allahu Akbar!” “My son lies here,” another Christian woman explained: “He died last year. He was 17-years-old. Children his age came here and destroyed his grave. What type of conscience can accept this?… If my son were alive, he would not do such a thing. They have carried out similar attacks before, and no one was caught.” An “environment of hate” for Christians is behind this upsurge, said one local journalist:

But this hateful environment did not emerge out of nowhere. The seeds of this hatred are spread, beginning at primary schools, through books printed by the Ministry of National Education portraying Christians as enemies and traitors. The indoctrination continues through newspapers and television channels in line with state policies. And of course, the sermons at mosques and talk at coffee houses further stir up this hatred.

Pakistan: A March 1 report offered more details on the February 2 shooting and axe attack on Christians for daring to build a church on their land. According to the wife of Azeem Masih (32), who was shot in the head and has lost the ability to speak and other functions:

We were all asleep at 11 pm, as Azeem is a tailor and had to work from early in the morning. Suddenly we heard an evil-sounding cacophony of shouts. Some of the local community including Azeem went out of the house to see what was happening – other[s] were dragged out by a local Muslim gang that had gathered around the Christian properties. The men seemed intent to harm all the Christians; they were threatening to rape all the Christian women and beat and kill all other Christians. I was shuddering with fear. I got on my knees and prayed and then heard gunshots. After this people could be heard running and screaming. Someone told me Azeem had been shot, I ran to him and at first I thought he was dead. I sat their weeping until the police arrived and took us to hospital. I am heartbroken. Azeem and I have only recently had a child and he has hardly got to know Tabeel. Now I do not know if he will ever be able to speak to Tabeel again. I am not used to seeing Azeem like this; he has become so dependent on others, whereas he was always the first to help them. Azeem was a healthy and committed husband and father—a man of God who wanted to strengthen the church with a new building. I cannot understand why these men have acted so violently, as they were not provoked by us—we have tried to live peaceful lives.

COVID-19 Discrimination in Pakistan

Christians and other “infidels” were discriminated against and denied the same aid given to Muslims in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a March 30 report:

A Karachi NGO has denied food aid to poor Hindus and Christians, who like Muslims are suffering from coronavirus…. The Saylani Welfare International Trust has been operating in the Korangi area since 1999, handing out aid and meals to homeless people and seasonal workers. Two days ago, the welfare organisation refused to give ration cards to non-Muslims, saying that only Muslims are entitled to them. The reason for this is that Zakat, Islamic alms giving (one of Islam’s five pillars), is reserved for Muslims. The Christian man said he begged for food to no avail. Farooq Masih, a 54-year-old Christian in Korangi, said that last Saturday, Abid Qadri, a member of Saylani Welfare, with other NGO members, handed out food cards in his area. But, when they got to Christian homes, they just moved on.

“A few days back there was an announcement made through a mosque’s loud speaker in the Sher-Shah neighborhood of Lahore inviting citizens to collect the government’s announced foodstuffs,” a pastor explained concerning another similar incident. “When Christians reached the distribution point and presented their national identity cards, they were asked by staffers to get out of the line claiming the foodstuff was only for Muslim citizens.” This same pastor received numerous phone calls from his flock, all of whom experienced the same denial. “Christians often face religious hatred and discrimination,” a Christian woman, aged 50, said of her experience. “However, we never thought of this biased behavior by the majority people at this critical time of COVID-19.”

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the recent book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Previous Reports at link below.

#Islam #Jihad #Sharia #Muslim #Legal #Immigration #Persecution #History #News #Media #Politics

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