#that goes on in schools is among the most fucked up parts of our culture

[ink-asunder]

I think going to school was literally the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

#and i have been assaulted on multiple occassions! #i'm writing some school-related scenes in a story and all of them are So Much to just write down and I am having Symptoms of Trauma #idk i think it was the constant disregard and downplaying of my rights as a human. the lack of bodily autonomy because i was a minor. #the relentless bullying from peers who literally called me It and That Thing and threw a fit if they touched me #being humiliated every time I Exhibited Being Human (like going to the bathroom during break or grunting while exhibiting physical Effort) #not to mention the time some kid sh-ed and said I bit him and the entire middle/high student body witnessed against me #when nothing could've physically taken place. and the principal literally told me (at least TRY to make your story believeable) #Not to mention how my family treated my grades. it was standard shit but at the same time. the fact that parents ALLOW the kind of abuse #that goes on in schools is among the most fucked up parts of our culture #parents don't give a shit. and they don't believe you. and They have it worse as adults so why are You complaining about having 6 hrs #of homework a night. and dedicating stupid amounts of time to school. and complying to a schedule that ruins your body #i literally homeschooled because i wasn't physically able to keep up with mainstream school. and homeschool was faster. 4hrs a day tops. #not to mention the teachers who were total creeps and totally assaulted several students. yeah parents believed that one too. #ugh i have ptsd from severe medical trauma (the aforementioned assaults...) but the idea that EVERYONE is going through this school shit #it hurts my soul more than my own traumatic experiences. this isn't okay. #anyway i'm 23 and dropped out of college but for any of you still going to school--please take care of yourselves. #i'm here i hear you and you need better.

[skamenglishsubs]

Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 2, Episode 1

Season 2 picks up after the Christmas break, it is now early January 2021, and Wilhelm is asleep, dreaming of Simon...

Cinematography: The show does a slow transition from Wilhelm's sex dream by changing the colours from the soft golden light of his dream, to the harsh early January daylight, and by letting the sound of a vacuum cleaner pierce the signature [dreamy electronic music] of his dream.

Subtext: We're seeing Wilhelm move like a ghost through the palace, ignoring everyone, even his mother. He's still angry with her, and they haven't really talked all break.

Blink and you miss it: It's hard to make out, but Erik's silver cigarette case is also inscribed with Sällskapet - The Society, the ultra-douche nobility club.

Cinematography: Just like last season was bookended by a fourth wall break, here comes the opening montage and a very angry Wilhelm staring into the camera.

Subtext: The August montage tells us a bunch of things. He's been spending Christmas break alone at school since he doesn't really have a family to spend it with, and his eating disorder/body dysmorphia sure isn't getting better.

Culture: Simon is playing the song Aldrig Igen by Cherrie, which is about leaving someone who has hurt you. The repeating refrain goes: "Never gonna happen again. I don't want to feel like that."

Culture: Minimum age for getting your driver's license in Sweden is 18. It's getting more and more rare for people to get their driver's license as soon as possible, because it's simply not a necessity for most. When I went to high school last century (in the 90's), about half the class got theirs at that time. These days less than a third get theirs that early.

Subtext: Although Felice didn't really have a plot of her own this season, I'm glad to see that she learned something last season and keeps ignoring her annoying, prattling, mom. That her friend Sara got into the Manor House is much more important than whatever horsey-horse blah her mom is whining about.

Subtext: Madison hands Sara a crystal, of course she's into that. But I'm not crunchy enough to figure out what the hell she means by "among other things". Help. Anyone? What is that even? Amethyst?

Subtext: "Native Americans and other indigenous peoples have burned sage for centuries as part of a spiritual ritual to cleanse a person or space, and to promote healing and wisdom." Thank you Google for that explanation. And of course it's something Madison would do.

Lost in translation: The English translation of their chanting didn't quite capture everything. A literal translation would be "Fine girls, deep pockets, worship our fine pussies!" But fina flickor is an expression that means well-mannered upper-class girls, djupa fickor is a Swedish idiom that means being rich, and these two fragments both rhymes with and alliterates with fina fittor, except the latter is extremely vulgar, which creates an interesting juxtaposition of contrasting tone. Btw, my high school Swedish teacher was the best teacher I've ever had, and I know he would be so fucking proud of me right now if he could see me writing this! Tack, Magnus.

Subtext: And here comes the first mention of this season's main theme; traditions, upholding them, breaking them, examining them... Interestingly enough it's Felice who suggests breaking it, while all the other girls insist that Sara has to continue the tradition. And boy, does she ever. At least the fire department didn't show up...

Subtext: The real reason August didn't join Vincent or Nils on their expensive Christmas vacation to the Seychelles is of course that he can't afford it. But his dismissive joke also just point to his own eating disorder problems. August, get help.

Subtext: When Simon insta-stalks Marcus we get to see a bit of his personality. Apparently, Marcus likes camping, fishing, hiking, horses, and his Volvo. The 850 is a classic 90's station wagon, and although it's pretty unusual for 18-year-olds to own a car in Sweden, something like that checks out and it's probably his car.

Subtext: Vincent is such an ass, and I love every second of it. He has zero respect for the younger students, he doesn't give a shit that Wilhelm is royal.

Subtext: Wilhelm is being an assertive bitch to August here and insists on him addressing him in third person, as if they weren't familiar...

Blink and you miss it: ...which makes Nils and Vincent laugh, and Vincent makes a mocking salute to Wilhelm.

Subtext: But in the end, August is the prefect, so they do as he says and allow the first-years to join the party, even though they have no idea why August is letting Wilhelm get away with it.

Cinematography: This season also does a lot of mirroring where scenes in this season look like scenes in the first season. This particular one mirrors the one where Simon appears at the initiation party for Wilhelm and catches his eye, except it's a lot more sad this time.

Subtext: Oh look, The Theme™ pops up again, and Simon is of course not a fan of keeping the shitty traditions that forced Sara to do something stupid, so that he had to rush to school to check up on her.

Subtext: Wilhelm is an awkward idiot around Simon. He really has no idea how to reconnect with him.

Cinematography: Again, we're mirroring the initiation party in s1 where Simon excuses himself, but this time Wilhelm doesn't chase after him.

Subtext: I'm sorry what now? Nils is not straight? That came out of fucking nowhere, but ok, let's roll with it! Also, whoever subtitled this is obviously familiar with Tinder, but not with Grindr. Nils says that he saw Marcus on Grindr, not that they matched, because that's not how Grindr works.

Subtext: The main theme of the entire show is about social class, if you haven't figured this out by now. Nils is firmly in team upper-class, and tells Wilhelm how he's supposed to handle dating: Only date or hook up with people from your own class, or with people who know how to keep everything discreet, private, and down-low.

Subtext: Wilhelm looks around in confusion, because he expected Simon to be singing in the choir. Where the hell is Simon?

Subtext: Meanwhile, Simon is late and on the bus with his friends on Team Rebound, who are giving him advice that's gonna turn out to be pretty crap.

Culture: Padel is so middle class, Vincent is right! Padel surged in popularity in Sweden in 2021 for some weird reason, and tons of padel courts popped up all over the country. However, the hype completely crashed in 2022, so most of those places are now facing bankruptcy and people actually talk about padeldöden - padel death, so the sport is kind of a joke right now.

Subtext: Wilhelm puts on the most fake smile ever and says hi to Alexander who is back at school. They were all correct when they said that Alexander really wouldn't get punished for getting caught with the drugs, his parents simply bribed the school to hush it down, but their treatment of Alexander will backfire spectacularly on Wilhelm later in the season.

Subtext: The show is doing a bit of exposition here, but it's also reminding us of who knows what about the sex tape, and why Wilhelm hasn't told Simon that he knows who did it. One more thing that will backfire spectacularly.

Subtext: And in a quick throwaway comment we learn that the late prince Erik had a thing with a porn model, and that the royal court successfully swept that whole thing under the carpet, as they do.

Subtext: The rest of the girls thoughtlessly let Sara pick up the tab for their coffee, which is nothing to them, but for Sara it's half her savings. She's treating them without protest, but doesn't buy anything for herself because she simply can't afford it.

Subtext: Don't sit next to him, don't talk to him, pretend he doesn't exist! Simon is really trying to follow the advice of his friends.

Cinematography: Oh look, a mirroring of the scary movie scene where they touch hands in season 1. Except this time Simon jerks his hand away.

Subtext: The Theme! This time it's Wilhelm who's on team fuck the traditions, although he's doing it just to undermine August.

Lost in translation: Vincent actually uses the word kladdiga - sticky, smudgy - about their hands, which in Swedish implies they're all toddlers who should sit down and shut up while the adults are talking.

Subtext: No, Wilhelm really didn't stick up for anyone last season, he threw Alexander under the bus, and he threw Simon under the bus, so we're just heaping on the guilt now.

Subtext: And we're doing some more exposition to remind everyone about who knows what about the sex tape. Here Sara finds out that August knows that Wilhelm knows it was him, and he's blaming her for telling him, even though she hasn't told anyone. Not even Simon, speaking about things that will backfire spectacularly.

Subtext: Sara's plotline is gaining steam, much like she did after touching August, if you know what I mean, eh, eh, eh? She knows he's a piece of shit, she knows he's a bad person that she can't trust, but she also thinks he's hot as fuck and this obviously causes quite a lot of conflicting emotions in her.

Subtext: No, Wilhelm truly doesn't realize this. He's been trying to get close to Simon in order to get him back, but he still hasn't got a damn clue as to why Simon is keeping his distance.

Subtext: Note that Simon going after Marcus is 100% reactive. He asked him for a ride because he needed to for Sara's sake. And now he's agreeing to karaoke night because Wilhelm just hurt him again, and because his friends have been encouraging him to go for a rebound boyfriend.

Culture: Carola Häggkvist is a very well known Swedish artist and songwriter who had her breakthrough at 17 in the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest with the song Marcus is choosing. She only came in third that time, but won the ESC in 1991 with the song Fångad av en Stormvind. Despite being wacko Christian for a while and married to Norwegian preacher Runar Søgaard, who lost his weapons license after shooting a deer from his bedroom window, she has now mended her ways and is somewhat of a gay icon in Sweden, performing at Stockholm Pride in 2013.

Culture: Främling is about meeting a stranger, falling in love, and taking a chance on this newfound love. Marcus might look like a doofus, but his song choice is pretty clever, although obvious.

Subtext: Can we just appreciate Vincent's dramatics for a second? A first-year not moving their ass off a couch he wants to sit in is apparently causing his entire world to come crashing down. The audacity! Chaos! The system is there for a reason! It provides stability! What's next? Everyone is just gonna sit around playing the bongos? Someone needs to enforce the proper order of things, because August apparently refuses to do so!

Subtext: Some nice foreshadowing here where Alexander checkmates Wilhelm.

Culture: The Swedish Royal Court is an organisation with hundreds of employees who assist the royal family in all their official duties. Here we're seeing the Queen having a late night meeting with some court officials. Although the show doesn't say, it's likely that Minou who was introduced in season 1 is the head of the press and information department, and that the new character Jan-Olof is the Marshal of the Court, which would put him in charge of planning and preparing all official events that the royal family attends.

Subtext: From the perspective of the Queen and the court, Wilhelm's outburst comes out of nowhere. He's been refusing to talk to his mother for weeks, and now he suddenly calls them up, rants about Simon being on a date with another boy, and screams that he doesn't want to become king in the future. In addition, he threatens to talk to the press himself, which makes Minou somewhat concerned to put it lightly.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 2

[yanderecandystore]

Imagine if reader is the imposter and goes yandere over a crewmate, how would they court their future mate?(this is a request)

An Among Us request on the year of our Lord, 2022?

I'm actually pretty happy you did request this cause I was worried I would never use this scenario again 😭

Like I'm not exactly the most proud of it but at the same time like- I like it 👉👈

It's kinda short, summarized af and based mostly on my other posts about Among Us (like, completely non game cannon I presume 💀)

TW/Tags: Yandere! Reader // Alien!Imposter! Reader // vague mentions of cannibalism// mentions of gore // traumatized oc // Reader has a questionable (by human standards) upbringing and culture // mentions of children/mating and also probably mentions of nsfw (not much tho, just mentions of it) // chopped off/ severed head // I had so many other things to write about but this sparked something in me that I can't even begin to describe 🗿

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

This game isn't so bad after you look at it outside of the meme filter, at least that's my opinion [Crewmate! Oc x Yandere!Imposter! Reader - Headcanon]:

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

In the previous posts we've discussed how Imposters can either be human or alien, and can be of varying alien species so I'll leave it up to you what's your flavor of little space freak~

 Though your request says "mate" so I'm assuming we're talking about an alien Reader, so let's talk about that for a second-

 Are you an alien form that lives on consuming life forms that drift aimlessly in space, lost travelers being your favorite meal? Or maybe you were a lonely bandit operating on their own (for personal reasons) and decided that the one-by-one elimination method would be the best one for being able to take this alien ship for yourself! Or maybe you were sent here as an assassin, as the small ship of "humans" was wandering too close to your contractor's ship, despite the unidentified ship posing no actual threat your contractor still gave clear instructions to wipe out any possible danger that may come their way.

 Whatever your role is I think you would be quite surprised to find something more to these people than annoying relationships forced by the circumstances or sentient food you have to "butter up" before getting to the good part.

 Oh no dearest, you would find yourself being captivated by one of your captives! It is pretty unfortunate to be a "predator" longing for a "prey", to be enamored with one of the people you swore to kill!

 But life is cruel, isn't it? What will you do, what would you do!

 Whatever your reasons and goals for being here may be, your species have a sort of a- ""Ritualistic expression of desire and an instinct-based comprehension of mating urges that are currently over taking your priorities in relation to your situation inside this alien ship"'.

 In other words you're horny and your instincts are clouding your better judgment, especially since your mating rituals may not be compatible with human mating rituals- And we didn't even mention the amount of suspicion that this ordeal has brought upon you!

 You have tried flirting before, you understand the concept, sure- But ""human flirting"" is a lot tougher than your specie's idea of flirting! Who would have thought that humans didn't like the severed heads of those who failed to court them outside their door!

 Thank the stars none of the humans found out it was you who did it, and thank FUCK that in the heat of the moment you didn't say it was YOU! When the head was found the first thing they did was call an emergency meeting to discuss it and you felt terrified because not only could your disguise be completely ripped apart you were a bit embarrassed at the love confession being now brought into everyone's attention-

 On your planet, this sort of thing is considered normal although really juvenile, it would be the equivalent of high school students writing and exchanging letters to one another- And then having one of these letters be read to everyone else out loud!

 Yeah it's a bit "cheesy", but come on, that head was a private message! Ugh, DAMNIT-

 Damn these people are starting to piss you off, at least they eliminated one of their own people instead of you, and thankfully it wasn't your-

 Y-Your crewmate! Your totally platonic crewmate!! Which you're totally NOT obsessing over despite trying very desperately to court them in any way, even going as far as trying to learn human tactics when it comes to courting and mating.

 And failing, miserably, of course. So horribly in fact that even your other "fellow humans' ' have started to comment on it, calling you out in every attempt you give to be close to your darling.

 "- I don't really get what you're talking about, [Y/n], but like if you like them just go for it like, gawd, it's so obvious and honestly who cares- We're all stuck here anyway so let's enjoy our time, right?~"

 "- Yeah no, I won't be giving you their "phone number" because you should ask THEM for it, not me. Also we're in the same spaceship…? You see them everyday, what the hell [Y/n]-"

 "- I shouldn't have to talk about it considering it's not exactly the company's policy and more of a common sense rule amongst co-workers. Though it's understandable that our current situation may lead some to… Act out on "instinct", please keep in mind that seeking romantic relationships with coworkers during work hours is very frowned upon and heavily discouraged and although technically it's not officially an police (yet), me (and others, probably) would be more comfortable if you didn't-" [Really long one-sided rant-conversation about your recent behavior towards one of your coworkers]

 It can be pretty discouraging to hear that even another species can see your blatant fascination towards that one specific individual, it almost seems foolish to keep going after them like this! If only you two were from the same planet, at least you two would have an easier time communicating.

 Oh stars, what's with you lately?! Taking people's heads and giving you someone you barely know? Who is also from a COMPLETELY different species than you?? Damn, you're kinda embarrassed at yourself for that one, but you just couldn't help it~

 You tried focusing on the task at hand SO many times yet every single time you tried to be a cruel, cold hunter there they were again! Being all- 𐌂𐌵𐌕𐌄 like that!

 You wish they could just stop being so distracting but you're not a fool, you know that technically they didn't do anything, you're probably suffering from one of those human crushes you have heard about. It's just psychological torture, you'll get over it.

 You just have to keep ignoring them and keep making the numbers of this ship go down, more and more- I mean, you WILL have to kill them, right?!

 It- It's not like this would ever work out anyway, you're too different and besides you're on a mission of your own, they're nothing but fresh flesh to you.

 Maybe if you keep your distance, act more bitter and cold, they'll just- Just-

 Just leave you alone, f-forever. I mean you can't kill them now! You're too attached to them, you just have to get tired of them and soon enough everything will be okay! You just have to kill everyone else to really revive that hunter mindset you have pushed down so aggressively.

 But then again… Sounds so convenient, to leave them as the last survivor…

 "- [Y/n], come on let's go-"

 "- Hey can you help me out, [Y/n]?"

 "- I'm feeling like we're not safe here…"

 "- Can you hold that flashlight for me? I can see a thing in this darkness!"

 "- Pfft- You're just so weird!- Hey don't be sad, I didn't mean it like that, I genuinely think you're funny!"

 "- … Can I be honest with you? I need to get something out of my chest…"

 "- I've been having nightmares about- That THING I saw that day… It was awful and I can't get the image out of my head!"

 "- Y-Yellow didn't deserve that- No one would ever deserve that! None of the others deserved that!"

 "- Just the head… Just the head…"

 Yeah … You thought you could easily ignore them and push the thoughts of them further into your mind but deep down you just couldn't resist it, it's too tempting. The sweet memories and good times you've spent together, even if they were really short, were still the best thing you could ever wish for.

 Ya know it's a little fucked that you haven't been able to treat them like any other victim, specially when you're part of the reason they're so terrified of being lost in space in the first place- But you don't feel bad about it at all, nothing will stop you from your goals, even if that means terrifying your darling with each friend and colleague deaths that they have to witness.

 But isn't it more messed up that you're enjoying this a little too much? I mean, clearly you can't look at them with platonic eyes anymore, heck you can't even imagine seeing them as just prey at this point! So really, maybe these killings haven't lost their meaning, but have completely changed directions to when you started at.

 You can't deny dear, you lost control of those feelings and have taken advantage of your previous goals to make this all about them! All these deaths, are for them, in their name and in the name of their 𐌋Ꝋᕓ𐌄!

 All because you wish to mate with them, to mate with the human who is desperately clinging at any survivors left just to feel a tiny bit safer, and you seem to be willing to provide that-

 Or are you? Are you the sadistic type? Do you enjoy the fact that their human naivety blinds them to the gruesome feelings you feel for them? That although they cling to you for comfort you're still very much aware you're the monster they wish to hide from? Are you impatiently expecting the right time to tell them the truth just to see the horror in their eyes??

 Or perhaps I'm assuming that the grotesque way your species is raised has influenced your morals to the point you wouldn't recognize the clear implications of YOU killing THEIR friends, making them a possible next target- Which would leave any creature understandably not trusting you, perhaps even your own kind!

 So what dear, would you choose to make things right by their human standards? Try to soothe their worries and hold them close as you unceremoniously claim them as your mate? As you try to comfort the person you have severely traumatized? Maybe you don't really enjoy your own predatory nature, especially when being put together with your darling's fearful and avoidant state, maybe instead of trying to bring them to your culture you could try being closer to theirs.

 Then again, the choice is up to you, the silence echoes through the whole ship, there's nothing but ghostly remains of what was once a group of space travelers who got stranded deep into space with limited communication to their home planet. You won, you got the prize.

 As the second last innocent person has been voted off and thrown into space, desperately trying to prove their innocence while also cursing out both you and your darling for being either partners in crime, or for being puppeteered by one sick individual, you can see a lot of guilt in your darling's eyes.

 That guilt being slowly transformed into a slight realization of something terrific- What if they really WERE voting the wrong person? But at this time, the only other option would be- You! But that couldn't be possible, right?!

 Oh dear, it's not like the truth would have never come out! To think this wouldn't have happened would be foolish.

 As they're shaking, crying their eyeballs out as they keep running away from you in the empty labyrinth that you created. You can choose whatever pleases you more now, however your pleasure will soon be cut short if you don't make a decision as to what your next step will be moving forward.

 If you had anyone waiting for you to come back, like an assassin's contractor, a planet with friends happily awaiting your arrival (hopefully with some leftovers), or maybe some sort of space police searching for their lonely bandit- How would you bring back this human with you? Would you just ditch all of your responsibilities and ignore all dangers for them? What if you felt hungry again? The food is now scarce…

 And what about mating!? Oh dear, you'll need to search for food for you, your new partner and the future children you'll have, correct?? Oh my- Just thinking about it makes you a bit nervous, it's good to think ahead but perhaps you're overcomplicating things, try focusing on the now, and the now requires you to make amends with your new partner.

#choco stuff #yandere #yandere reader #yandere reader x oc #yandere self insert #yandere among us #still can't get over how this sparked a RAW need to write on me wfhhwfsfh #not dissing your request btw boo sorry I just can't believe it hwthwrfhw #I have a lot of other stuff I need to write about and this one was just too powerful lol #it's been a while since I've written anything so I'm sorry if this is super corny #or worse 💀 #yandere headcanon #yandere reader headcanon #special delivery request #special delivery headcanons

[just-call-me-the-intrusive-thot]

Why Scottish Logan is the Best Human AU for Logan

(An Essay by Me, the Scottish Logan Supplier)

Okay so I decided to finally make this post so let’s jump right on in.

Logan Sanders.

We know him, we love him, we wanna write him in our human AUs.

But man! Pinning down a nationality can be hard sometimes! Do you just make him a plain ol’ Floridian? Do you just spin a globe and choose that way?

Never fear, indecisive writers! I present to you all the reasons you should try making Logan Scottish in your fics and fanworks!

So, what can we turn to in canon that works with this read for Logan already?

1) Let’s start with the basics; his name. Logan.

As a Scot myself, I cannot tell you how quintessentially Scottish the name Logan is. I can right now list over 18 Logans I’ve met / known JUST in the course of my early school life.

The name origin is also, you guessed it, Scottish!

“Logan is a Scottish name that comes from the Gaelic word “lagan” or “lag,” which means “hollow”. The name itself means “Little Hollow”.“

(Side note: OWCH, the angst potential holy shit)

[For those who like Logicality among us, this also actually applies to Patton’s name too! It’s also of Scottish Origin!]

2) Logan canonically has an appreciation for poetry. And so do us Scots!

It’s a MASSIVE part of our culture and history, so much so there’s a position called The Scots Makar. The term originated as a term for bards and poets in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and was very recently revived to describe a government appointed poet.

Considering Logan HIMSELF has described himself as a bard (”I claimed to be the better bard / and I backed it up”), this point solidly applies to Logan.

Also to further the point, Scotland has a National Poetry Slam.

Please can you just imagine a story where Logan enters and obliterates the competition like he obliterated Roman’s weak rhymes? Legendary.

3) Our national animal is the Unicorn.

Listen, this one explains itself.

I mean,

C’mon. It’s right there.

4) Logan is canonically a Ravenclaw. (also obligatory Fuck JK Rowling, all my besties hate JK Rowling)

What does this have to do with my point? Rowena Ravenclaw was canonically Scottish. I know this isn’t necessarily ‘evidence‘, but it’s a fun little coincidence and I think it’s pretty cool when added to everything else.

5) Crofter’s Jam.

This is an odd point, but bear with me: a ‘crofter’ is a term for farmers who use the technique called Crofting.

And what is Crofting? “ Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man.”

There’s a lot of history in Scotland around Crofting and honestly tell me the idea of a Scottish Farmer Logan isn’t just the cutest thing.

[Side note: the term was originated in Germany and the founders of Crofters also got their start there from what I can see, so a fun lil side idea: Germanic-Celtic Logan.]

6) Logan swears the most of all the Sides.

Not so much in the main series, (though he DOES have his share of bleeped profanity), but in the outtakes Logan is the side that swears the most by a landslide. I can’t remember who made the one I first watched but there’s been a couple videos counting every instance and Logan comes out first for the most prone to profanity.

To be clear, I know a lot of you will be like “Isn’t that just a stereotype?!“ and if not written respectfully or used to make fun of the culture, then yes, that’s just being disrespectful.

However, from first hand I can tell you; profanity is a MASSIVE part of our culture. I don’t have time to go massively into it, but there’s a fantastic documentary called Scotland: Contains Strong Language that goes into the significance and culture around it. It’s just under an hour on YouTube and I highly recommend it.

Other smaller points that also help include:

- His colour being blue which is generally a colour applied to and connotative of Scotland (see: the Ravenclaw point again for an example)

- The many famous inventors from Scotland who I think we can all agree Logan would look up to and admire.

And just cool things that you can do with Logan being Scottish:

- Logan! Speaking! Scots Gaelic! Cannot tell you how cool it’d be to see Logan - and honestly more characters in general - speaking our language. Especially considering it’s very much an endangered language.

- FAE LOGAN AUS. Just imagine it.

- Logan getting to use the colourful clapbacks like you find on Scottish Twitter.

- Logan in a kilt. That’s all I need to say. This man would own it, lest we remember how gorgeous he looked in this;

- And a last point: it’d just be really, really cool to see more of our culture explored and learned about when explored through a character like this!

---

I’ve no idea how to end this, so here’s my favourite Logan picture:

#logan sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides headcanons #tss headcanon #scottish logan sanders #logan #headcanons #when i say i love this headcanon #i mean that if say tomorrow #thomas sanders himself came to my house #knocked on my door #and told me this headcanon wasn't valid #i love that man but i would fight him in the street #for this headcanon #it means the world to me in every sense

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Do you know anything about the Harry Potter controversy surrounding Rowling's American wizarding school Ilvermony, where the school's houses and backlore supposedly havr ties to indigenous history? This probably sounds like utter gibberish if you don't know anything about it, sorry about that. I was hoping for some possible clarification, I'm not educated enough about either topic to understand the problems there.

HOO BOY, ANON, YOU HAVE STUMBLED ON SOMETHING THAT ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME.

I’m going to start this out with a disclaimer. I love Harry Potter and the HP universe; it’s even one of my oldest special interests and has been a hugely important part of my life and my development as a person.

With that being said, Rowling is absolute shit at putting decent representation in her books and she needs to stay 5,000,000 miles away from Native people.

The most obvious issue with Ilvermorny is the mascots; every single house is represented with a spirit from indigenous cultures. The Thunderbird is common in numerous Turtle Island tribes and is actually an extremely important figure in my own culture, to the point where it’s on my nation’s flag. Pukwudgies are creatures from Delaware and Wampanoag beliefs. The Wampus cat is from South Eastern Native folklore, particularly Cherokee. Horned Serpents, like Thunderbirds, are found in a lot of Native cultures, particularly those in the Southeast and by the Great Lakes.

These are all sacred spirits in their respective cultures and having a white British woman use them as mascots in her white, settler school is extremely insulting. Which brings me to my next issue.

The story of Ilvermorny starts with a Pukwudgie, a Native spirit, becoming indebted to an Irish settler:

“The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.” 

Which is fucking gross, lbr. This Pukwudgie then goes on to introduce this European woman to a whole fucking bunch of sacred spirits who just adore her for some reason. She could even understand the Horned Spirit because she’s ~special~

“William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’”

(She named the Pukwudgie William. Because of course she did.)

This Irish woman, alongside her adopted European settler sons, founded Ilvermorny and decided on the “mascots” of the house without any input from Native peoples.

Then, it gets even worse. Because the Horned Serpent that Isolt could magically communicate with gave her its own horn to turn into a wand for her son.

“The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.

When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.”

The next students of the school were from the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes, and the school continued to grow with both European and Native students. There is no mention of why these children were suddenly being sent to a European school instead of being taught by their tribes, which clearly must’ve been the practice prior to Ilvermorny’s founding.

I also need to seriously stress that there is a very horrific history around Native children being sent to European-run schools, particularly boarding schools. This is a trauma in our communities, not something for a white European woman to use as a plot point in her shitty lore.

Now. Let’s move away from Ilvermorny because it gets even worse when we take a look at Rowling’s History of Magic in North America, particularly the Fourteenth Century – Seventeenth Century article.. 

In the second paragraph, Rowling immediately makes a statement about Native communities.

“In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.” 

Now, this isn’t inherently bad, but we need to keep this statement in mind when we take a look at the next paragraph.

“The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.”

First of all, what the fuck? “[. . .] No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.” I shouldn’t have to explain why this statement is absolutely disgusting, but I’m going to anyway. Medicine Men are among the absolute most important people in any Native community. They are revered and respected spiritual leaders, vital to the running of the tribe and the main reason why we as Native people have any bits of our spirituality and religions left. And Rowling essentially called them con artists and liars.

And the idea that sk*nwalkers are just regular Animagi that those ~evil savage Medicine Men~ spread ~nasty rumors~ about is just as disgusting. It is literally rewriting Najavo folklore to make actual Native people look like liars and bigots who are just persecuting those poor misunderstood sk*nwalkers :(((

The article ends with discussions of wands, emphasizing that even though Native peoples had been doing perfectly fine without them and that wandless magic is typically seen as something incredibly powerful, Native people still needed em. In the Ilvermorny article, it’s specifically mentioned that the Native students receive wands made by the Irish woman and her family.

In the other articles about North America, Native people are mentioned exactly twice, once to mention that tribes would take in their “European brethren” and again when discussing a Choctaw woman making wands with Thunderbird feather cores.

“Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Choctaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particularly prized by Transfigurers.” 

Sorry, correction; *a woman of Choctaw descent.

So. Tldr; Rowling is fucking racist and I am going to physically fight her with my bare hands.

#long post #harry potter #ilvermorny #indigenous #ndn #representation #Anonymous

[rotationalsymmetry]

At the risk of losing all my (probably pretty limited) anarchist cred, I just gotta go off about what the American ideals are.

(There’s a certain amount of “America is the best” that goes around among Americans (especially conservatives) and I don’t really want to come across like that? An analogy: at some point we got this idea that apple pie is this really classically super American thing but it’s not like other places don’t have apple pie; when I say freedom and equality are American values I don’t mean that other places don’t have those values or for that matter that America is especially good at embodying values of equality and freedom. Just that they are values that we nominally aspire to and that they are good values to aspire to. Anyways.)

(Individual) freedom. Rights. Liberties. To say what you want, believe what you want, hang out with who you want to hang out with, and tell the government off when it’s messing up without being punished (at least by the government) for it. And the US is pretty hard core on free speech: there’s not a lot that the government is allowed to censor, including for instance Nazi stuff. Whether that’s the right call there is an open question. (And…in practice people do get in trouble for specifically their political views, it’s just the government has to break its own rules to do that and it doesn’t really have popular buy-in. For instance, when San Francisco Food Not Bombs was facing mass arrests, the police were pretty open about it being because FNB is an anarchist group, but it did make them look bad and they eventually stopped doing it. (Legally it was “not having a permit”, but uh, that wasn’t the actual reason.)

One place the US both fails to live up to that ideal, specifically on the “believe what you want” front, is that Christmas is a national holiday and US Christians and social Christians (people who aren’t Christian but do celebrate secularized versions of Christian holidays and aren’t strongly tied to a tradition with different holidays and practices) tend to be massively in denial about how that privileges Christianity over other religions. For instance, Jewish people tend to have to specifically ask for Yom Kippur off from work or school and aren’t necessarily able to travel to spend Passover with family. Whereas, apart from people who have jobs that have to be done all the time like nurses, Christians generally don’t have a problem with getting Christmas off, not even having to ask, just automatically. Sure, we don’t have an official religion, technically, but in practice there are things the government (not to mention society as a whole) does to make it easier for Christians than non-Christians.

Still, that’s better than where we started. In the decades around American independence, many states switched from having an official Protestant religion that got government funding, while other denominations had to scramble for funding from congregants who were supporting a religion they didn’t belong to with their taxes, to not having that.

Legal protections against unfair convictions and cruel punishments. Now, if you’ve been following along you know the US has a criminal justice system problem. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I strongly recommend reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Also great as an audiobook.) So, we’re not putting this one into practice well, because racism. But in theory, trial by a jury of one’s peers is a good thing, due process is a good thing, not having to testify against yourself is a good thing, legally not being allowed to torture people is a good thing (again, theory vs practice), and innocent until proven guilty if you have to have a punitive justice system is better than not having an “innocent until proven guilty” approach. All this is super corrupted and we fail to live up to this ideal hard and there should be more about giving people a fresh start after they’ve served their time. But, it’s still good stuff, we just need to live it out better.

Speaking of racism, we value equality. In theory. And some things have gotten better over time. Certainly rules about who can vote have gotten a lot more inclusive.

Maybe if we keep believing that we should treat everyone equally hard enough one day we’ll actually get there. Maybe we get there one piece at a time. One teacher who calls on girls as often as boys, one real estate agent who treats the same sex couples the same as the opposite sex couples, one college admissions person who doesn’t mark down the essays that talk about participation in race based school clubs. Maybe it’s always going to be a process.

(Representative) democracy. It’s possible to overplay this, but yeah, it’s a value we got. That decisions should ultimately be in the hands of people collectively. That legislators etc should be accountable to the people.

Federalism: so, there’s a hierarchy where the national government can overrule state and local decisions. But, this is important, it’s a limited hierarchy in that the people higher up the hierarchy don’t pick and can’t replace people farther down the hierarchy. The state governor gets elected by the people. The city mayor gets elected by the people. So do the legislative branches at all levels. If the President of the US hates the guts of the governor of California, too bad, he’s just gotta deal with it. People higher up in government don’t appoint people at a lower level of government.

Plus, see “freedom” above, there’s limitations on what the national government can actually do. (These limitations are somewhat weakened because the national government can regulate interstate trade and that covers a lot these days, but there’s still lines it’s not allowed to cross.)

Similarly the “checks and balances” concept — the President has a lot of power but he’s not a dictator, and he can’t just do anything. Most things require Congress’s approval. And the Supreme Court can rule on what’s constitutional, this is how we got nation-wide legal same sex marriage and nation-wide abortion protection. Far from a perfect system and one of the big holes is how only Congress can declare war so we just haven’t “declared war” since WWII. So clearly the US hasn’t been in a war since then. Anyways.

Anyways this is why I’m not actually that thrilled about the “but Biden can just executive order everything” approach. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. If you don’t want the President to have dictatorial power, you have to accept limitations on the President’s power even when he’s Team Blue. And the more power the president has, the more wild swings we see on things like immigration policy which is not actually a good thing.

We initially had a “no political parties” concept. That worked out abysmally. Probably if we’d actually allowed for political parties we’d have rules about them that actually made sense and might limit the amount of fuckery that goes on.

Now some ideals that I’m less happy about. These are things I don’t endorse or approve of, but I’m mentioning them because they are common American values. Meritocracy: the idea that sure there’s wealth and power inequality but that’s ok as long as the people with more earned it. Fuck that.

(Well, in theory it’s got some advantages over “powerful people pass that power on to their kids no matter how incompetent,” except in practice meritocracy is often a cover for just that.) (Anyways, in theory we like people to succeed based on merit, which is better than a belief system that some types of people are naturally superior to and more capable than other types of people. So there’s worse ideals. There’s better ones too.)

Capitalism.

Hard work. Grind culture baby. Work all the time. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps

Puritan bullshit. You don’t need contraception. Just keep your legs closed. If we don’t teach kids about sex they won’t have sex. Also, don’t do drugs. Also, religious people are better than atheists. (Also, specifically Christians are better than everyone else. Real Christians. Not like those (other denomination).)

Melting pot/assimilation: sometime multiculturalism gets into the value stew and I’m all for respecting multiple cultures and recognizing that America is made up of people from a wide variety of different backgrounds, not just people from England/northern and western Europe/Europe. And that we do in fact get our values from a wide variety of cultures (including Native American cultures) and not just Greco-Roman Whatever. (Like seriously: US democracy is as much a child of the Iroquois Confederacy as Athens.) Other times the value is “you’re here now, forget where you’re from and blend in.” And part of that is about not judging people by where they’re from and that’s good! But it shouldn’t be tied to “ew, you’re having that for lunch?”

Manifest Destiny. Yeah. Fuck that.

I’m probably leaving stuff out. Whatever. I’m tired. I’m just going to post. If I want to clean it up later I can make a new post.

#America #united states #political #American values

[mikkock]

Hey hi your murder mystery art is super totally cool and amazing and I'd like to Extra! Extra! hear all about it *rattles bells*

haha wow i cant believe ud ask me THIS! unbelievable! now im gonna have to make a long post!

all info under the cut cause im kind like that ♥

For reasons I felt like making a Fancy Ass murder mystery story, with you know, hella complex secret storylines and everyone having drama and shit, and one person died but the more the story goes the less people care about who did the murder and the more they want tHE JUICY DETAILs. X and Y had an afFAIR you say!!! well that’s thousands time more interesting than that murder that happened, who cares about the culprit its not like any of us are going anywhere anyway! tell me more about the marital issues!

The ultimate Vibes are Clue (the game, ya kno, it had a movie too, and that movie was shot with three different endings -fun fact- so that movie theatres could play one alternatively that way people wouldnt get spoiled or even if they did they would not get the ending they were spoiled or even if all three were spoiled you couldnt know which ending you were getting anyway, big dick move, cause its an old movie and film is expensive, also that movie stupid and campy, ALSO I ONLY LEARNED MAKING THIS AU THAT IN ENGLISH THE GAME’S CALLED “CLUE” wE CALL IT CLUEDO therefore my wip playlist is called cluedo. because. fuck it.)(i just have an emotional attachment to that game i even had a cd rom video game version and it was the spookiest shit for a 6 years old, trust me, i played it so much tho i didnt even understand the rULES i was just making scenarios like gathering the characters in rooms n making conversations outloud cause honestly the banter is the best part of a murder mystery) ANYWAY that sure is a whole paragraph of tangent. 

BUT YE the inspo from the Clue game. you can tell it from the Colours obviously, everyone’s colour codded.(even everyone’s name is colours as well you’ll see it’s real dang fancy! im just remaking that game but with 2932020 characters and more behind the scenes drama and also for gay people.)

So BASIC PLOT!

Sir Belyy, the dude in white, is The Rich Powerful Respected Fancy Boss, and he throws a Fancy Reception Party with his closest friends and associates to celebrate the opening of a new branch of his business. All the lads gather in his wonderful little very isolated mansion in the middle of nowhere, like ok he got a death wish or something or he’s very trusting of his business partners, but not a good move, cause in the middle of the reception, as A Phat Storm Starts (for plot convenience, we going with a campy vibe if you couldnt tell), his body is found, it’s awful, there’s a killer on the loose! All the guests gather, and attempt to maybe contact the authorities, to not avail, since The Storm ya know, phone lines are Broken my dude. Its clear that the culprit is among them, since no one could have entered the house, or left it (cuz once again, ThE sTORm). And then it’s all about interrogating each other, distrust, alliances and betrayal, revealing one’s deepest secrets when they form an alibi and revealing someone else’s deepest secret for they could be a motive! Meanwhile there’s a dead body in the mansion just chillin there. 

.

So as I mentioned, I changed everyone’s name to be colour related (or ya know, food or flowers of that colour cause sometimes a colour in a language would not work as a name given the way names work in that culture all that jazz) which is the trippiest thing cause tHATS NOT YALLS USUAL NAMES but its fun (also changed so many ages hgfhs it was a trip)(still no one’s really old i guess i got boomerphobia). The “Cast” is clearly the most important part, and if ur a True “My OCs” Connaisseur (hdfghd the most useful skill to have, knowing *MY* Charactersdshgd) you may have recognised some faces and can already read some vibes and predict who will be progressing the plot and who will be yelling at people throwing accusations ghdfgd.

(god i wish i hadnt slacked off making the portraits of everyone in that AU i only have 3 tho that’s so sad so ill just make little sketches just cause <3 only text??? i got too many hoes with no attention span for that)

.

Sir BELYY (the one who dIEs lmao)

(bust shot missing the fact that this man is the tallest beefiest lad around)

Intimidating, powerful, composed, wealthy, carries the name of a family who has generations of control to it’s reputation, he’s The Man that hoes who believe in the economy wishes they were. As in, the “self made” man who only just happened to benefit from having a wealthy background to uplift his plans. In his youth, he wanted to prove his worth, seperated himself from his father, started a business, that business became big, then got attached to the family’s business, bam back to square one but with Reputation now. There seemed to be VERY big tension between him and The Father, some speculate it had to do with his unknown mother, and some family drama there, and it never got resolved as old man Belyy died quite young (the jUICY speculations are that current sir Belyy mURDEREd old man sir Belyy, fucked up if true!). People love him though in general, as he has that reputation of “Cold Lad With a Gold Heart” aka he takes people under his wings, donates, doesnt treat his employees like the absolute worst garbage etc... you know, he’s rich and a half decent person, so obviously he’s an angel on earth. But does it matter though, he’s dead! that’s the concept of the story!  

Mr.GRAY (the grey guest)(who could have guessed from the name)

He’s one of Sir Belyy’s oldest employees, and benefits from a high rank in the company. But, sadly for him, he’s been stagnating lately, as newer, youngest employees seem to have Belyy’s favours, and are his prefered associates for important tasks and positions. Therefore he has Some Bitterness, Some Salt, Some Distaste, some unbriddled but professionally muted hatred for Specific people in the company. He can be an antagonistic figure, but the amount of time he spent in Belyy’s circle grants him an immense quantity of information about the man, but mostly, about his business. Anything about the company’s history, dealings, operations, he’s aware of, either having been told of them, or having snooped around to obtain, immune to being questioned due to his legitimacy in the company.

Mr.LIM (the green guest)

Remember when it was said that Gray had beef with some employees cause they were younger and rose to high ranks faster than him and became Belyy’s favourite over him? Yeah well here comes the one he hates the most for that (ofc he’s belyys fave cuz he’s Mine <3) Our lad caught Belyy’s attention for his Exploits in like, em fancy high school tournaments of smart people, it’s a thing its ridiculous, making kids compete on Smart stuff for the pride of their schools n shit, well homie Lim got clout when doing that, and Belyy was extremely interested cause that kid’s main thing was how “this young lad got mad strategic skills tf are u a war general or smth how fancy”, and that’s a coveted skill for ruthless business. So as soon as the kid is an adult, bam, join the company my dude. And because he’s just that Cool n Sexy ofc he met the expectations Belyy had, and old man Belyy got attached cuz it do be such a young lad, a kid, mentally i am adopting. That’s how you get a youngas employee becoming the right hand man of one the phatest CEO in a few years, and even make your way into being a Good Lad on top of a business partner. And that’s how you get Gray to hate your ass too. Now though, fine lad with mad strategic skills, rising to power that fast, and even infiltrating Belyy’s private life? If I were Gray I’d call suspicion there’s surely some shady stuff going no way we’re just dealing with a nice fella who just happens to work good and be friendly to the boss right?

Herra MUSTA (the black “guest”)

Belyy’s newest butler, assistant, house keeper, he multitasks. His family has been tied to Belyy’s for generations, fullfilling roles of help, but also of confidents. He’s been the head butler since only a short time, after his mother passed, and as such is still “in training” you could say, despite having served the family his whole life. There are rumours going around that the contract tying his family to the Belyys may end on his generation and need to be resigned. He known the manor by heart, and carries all keys to any locked room (and mostly, The Master Key, cause in an old house, some doors may be locked beyond all still existing keys). He also knows secrets of the family that no one else knows, but good luck getting em out of him, he’s under contract not to divulge em bro.

Mr. HASSEL (the brown guest)

Belyy’s childhood friend. They grew up together, pictured their dreams together, sworn to flourish together, worked together when starting the company, and then Hassel felt he should create his own thing instead of depending on his friend’s existing wealth, and while Belyy’s business went wild, his never took off. They still stayed very close, despite the massive difference in wealth. Belyy considers him his closest friend, the one person he can trust (fucked if hassel did the murder lemme tell u). So of course, he’s still always invited to the Prestigious meet ups where’s he’s free to feel uncomfortably out of place amongst all the rich and powerful people that he could have been a part of had he had a tiny bit of luck and a small loan from a wealthy relative...People LOVE saying he’s still hanging out with Belyy so much to leech off his wealth, cause of course they do! His bestie status means he has a whole different brand of information of Belyy than his butler does, the Most Intimate Stuff, the Childhood Stuff. The Juicy stuff ya kno...But Bro Code, its all secrets...

Sir RUZH (the red “guest”)

Deep dive into Belyy’s personnal history, the man has many employees working at his house keeping it working, clean, ya know the vibe. They live on the premice, one has a kid who’s just a Joy to be around, all the employees just vibe with that lad, he’s just a born socialite you know? Belyy gets to meet the kid, and also hella vibes with him. And because human are influenced by their feelings, he gives the kid’s mum a bit of a preferencial treatment, in the tasks she fullfils and all, til he gives her an important-as mission, and then there’s an accident n mama dies, and now Belyy got guilt and there’s this kid who just Vibes. So naturally the move is to take the kid in, and play on how his vibes are just so clean, and raise him to be the Perfect Entertainer for guests, bam, its soft power propaganda, if everyone loves your now son’s vibes, they associate them with you too. And also that’s kind of a clean rep, the selfless man who adopted his employee’s son to not have him fall to the streets, how heartwarming. Not at all traumatising for the kid too I bet! But anyway now the lad is just the most charming young adult, mission accomplished. He’s always present at any reception, ready to work his people-pleasing magic, and then going back to a gigantic empty manor to wait for the next and curate the perfect vibes to meet the expectations of dad. On the plus side, he knows everyone, and those who don’t know him cannot wAIT to, he’s just got that aura ya know. People skills for miles, and the insider knowledge that comes with being the son of the CEO, all this hidden behind the personna of the fresh innocent bashful party lad. 

Dr.FEN (the pink guest)

Do not get mistaken by the title, he’s no doc, he will not diagnose you with anything, he just studied long enough to get the sexy title. Study in what? Haha. Nothing shady. Just toxicology. He’s a world reknown poison expert basically, that’s his main thing. Oh but don’t worry, of course studying substances that may kill people is only for finding out how to cure them from it of course. What brings him in this circle? Simple, Belyy may or may not have started to suffer some weird illness that no doctor has been able to find the source, let alone cure, of. Him and Dr.Fen had met previously on some event, cause some rich man also love flexing how smart they are and attending sciencey shit, and he was contacted as sort of a shot in the dark. The lad does know how to treat some things, maybe he can treat The Mysterious Unwellness, since no traditional doctor was able to. He knows science, he’s trustworthy, bam, you’re hired to work on My Case Exclusively. Thanks to this, Dr.Fen has access to the whole health history of Belyy and his family, to many mANY dangerous substances, and also has The Respect of the hoes at the party. He HAS a doctorate after all. Epitome of knowledge. And he’s a kind to people and he wears pink like dang how can you nOT pour your wHOLE trust in him. 

Sir MOREVITCH (the blue guest)

Youngest son of an affluent family, who used to be close the the Belyys. The two families fell slightly appart after the death of the previous head of the family on the Belyy side, as they do nOT vibe with the current one (well current, til the first night of the story ig). But, unbeknownst to all, one strong link had been kept, between the youngest of the Morevitch, who dislikes his family and wishes to emancipate himself from them while also assuring his depart will not throw him basically in the streets, and our beloved Sir Belyy, who also dislikes the Morevitches but loves to see the rebellious energy of the young one (and ya know, my enemy’s enemy’s my friend or however you say that). So Belyy’s basically offering tips and helping Morevitch plant himself safely out of his family’s grasp, but it’s all taking quite some time isn’t it, slow and steady is fine until your parents try to arrange a wedding to secure more political power, and suddenly it is all quite urgent that you escape that situation because No Thank You Parents I Do Not Want A Wife I’m Too Young And Also Huh <3 Stuff You Won’t Like Hearing For Sure <3. The people who know they’re working together also know that it’s a big point of argument between them, the difference in vision between “you have to go slow and steady to be safe” and “I have very limited time to get to that safety anyway so I gotta risk it” “hell no you cant i can’t follow through if we’re going that quick that’ll put me at risk and you’re family’s gonna send gunmen to take me down”. A mess, it’d be much quicker to just obtain a few million bucks out of nowhere and bolt for sure...

Mr.GANG (the orange guest)

Morevitch’s trusted assistant. He hears the concerns, he helps the secret businesses, he lies to the parents about the whereabouts, and mostly, he’s basically a budget spy. The lad got that talent where people just don’t notice him popping behind them and catching all their dirty laundry as they confess it to someone they trust, and he always manages to break into places, get the intel he was looking for, and escape, putting everything back into place as if no one was ever there (wonder where he got all those skills from damn!). But what he’s even better at is being sneaky not only to benefit his boss, but himself as well <3. If he can catch all the info in the world, go any places, nothing’s stopping him from playing double agent and also going behind Morevitch’s back. After all the assistant life isn’t the most glamourous and rewarding, who can blame him from going and using his talents to build his own little exit route, right? Everybody sort of knows he cannot be trusted, but also no one managed to really incriminate or stop him, and as much as he has tea on many people, no has it on him, but bet once found that would be heeeella juicy.

M.MOUTARDE (the yellow guest)(this one is straight up the name of the yellow player in the french edition of clue too when i say its my main vibe)

Moutarde was an influential celebrity. He had a big break acting in a movie that the whole country stanned so hard they basically turned the script into their national anthem (they would have if it was a true democracy where the people really decide), he was so handsome and elegant, everyone’s dream husband. And then the fame fiddled out because it’s how fame is, one moment you’re the sexiest dish on the table and the next someone brings in dessert and baam, its all about that fresh cake, and no one pays any mind to your delightful aroma anymore, you’ve gone cold, they had a bite, their interest is somewhere else. Belyy really admires his work though, and mostly finds his image fits with the brand of his company, therefore the two are working on a collaboration to make Moutarde a representative. This WOULD boost Moutarde’s reputation, for his ads would be displayed on every imaginable surface of the country, and it would also benefit the company cause being represented by thAT sexy motherfucker? clearly that’s a deal. The freshness of the partnership means Moutarde is a newcomer in the guests, a fresh face, with no reputation, no relationships, no unfair biases against him. He’s just the new handsome charismatic lad with a squeaky clean image. Emphasis on “image”. After all, no one really knows anything of his background, right?

Kun.LAWENDER (the purple guest)

Private investigator, very useful to be around at a party it’s almost like it was expected there’d be a body to investigate, he’s a very close associate of Belyy, as there’s nothing more important to business than investigating the rivals and finding dirt on them to make them fall through infamy. He’s not exactly the PI who goes look for justice to be served, he’s just here for cash bro. He’s got intel on everyone, and will only let it out if offered the right thing in return (money, or sometimes other pieces of very secret intel, trade is good). Wouldn’t advise letting him and Gang team up tbh but they probably wouldnt, as Lawender is really more of a lone wolf player, going on his own for himself. The one thing that negates his usefulness as a PI on an accidental crime of scene is that even if he knew the whole truth of the event he would not spit it out unless he benefitted from saying it. He sure is a polarising lad, but at the same time, an untouchable one, he’s too knowledgeable to be taken down. Rather than sneaky, he’s extremely observant, noticing the tiniest details and engraving them in his memory, ready to be linked up to other details to deduct the big picture. He’s the upfront tea gathered basically (as opposed to Gang’s shadow tea gathering if you will, they are similar forces but using opposite methods)(also one of em got a licence n the other does not hAH).

~~~~

Now the secrets, all of em have them. One of em at least got the secret of having KILLED Belyy that’s that. But that’s to be kept for later (for if i ever use this story for more than daydream material gfhjgh) bet you can imagine what some of em may be just out of Knowing what i do, from having seen the characters in other contexts, or just because you’re a genius and reading the character profiles immediatly lit up the bulbs in your head forming the perfect theory, props to you, mad genius.

Honestly my thoughts are just how lit of a game that would be, you get to pick one hoe (maybe sum are locked til u find their secrets for juicy purposes) and you do your invetigation using your character’s perks and disadvantages, and maybe there could even be Multiple scenarios and outcomes, to spice it up, give replay value, i just think it’d be a game id spend hours on. tryin to get the spicy details of everyone’s life. walking around n digging through a rich man’s stuff, witnessing the drAMA of people fighting cause they’re locked in with a murderer and that’s stressful ngl. That or a long ass show @ netflix wanna give me a show maybe? give me hella budget we’re making it animated cause im too cultured for live action. 

whatever i make of it though, i hope i can make this story Flourish, just so that i can lay down all those secret backstories i’ve written. i want the satisfaction of throwing out the craziest secret drama between character n seeing peeps loose their minds, it just is a tasty experience.

also i gotta say, i plug the hell out of Clue for an inspo but when i was building the basics of the story my mind immediatly went “oH MY GOD THE VIBES,, THE BACKSTABBING AND tEAMING UP and all,,, its The Genius, that one tv show where peeps have to do the wildest games that require strategy n they’re in that fancy set that looks like a rich ppl mansion oh god the vibes” so yeah, i rewatched the whole first two seasons cause they’re my faves and that had an impact if only minimal in the aesthetic.

Anyway hope that quick presentation gave you a lil taste of the story, and maybe,,,, got you curious,,, craving to learn more like you never did before (im exaggerating the only real question we all got is just “so who’s fuckin with whom then how many of yall secretly dating” this the real deal)

#doodlin every lad's face at one rly be like 'welcome to the cheekbone festival' #they got antti AND said at once like the cheekbonage is out of this world! #that's musta n gang btw #also every single time i draw cream (blue lad) im like 'i havent drawn u in ages' n it isnt #that i dont draw him much anymore #but that ive drawn only this bitch for months back in the days #him bein in this without his lover....criminal #cuz his boo wouldnt fit a murder mystery au like #hoes would find the corpse he'd just be like 'welp on that imma go to bed aight bye' #anyway u can tell which of my ocs i simp for v easely #like fr #they the ones i spend the longest drawfigfdj cuz i draw em n then go 'not hot enough do it again' #a struggle! #anyway the secret is that i prepares a motive AND an alibi for all of em #so that i can pick who murdered belyy at the last moment <3 #its all abt the contextual clues on the scene of crime <3 #none of the drama tells u anything its all for the treat of gossip <3 #sad part of this project is how much ive planned n written yet i can barely tell anythin if i want to make it #n ive drawn nothingbhd #i hav a dari n a weiwei in their coloured clothes lookin handsome cuz ofc i do #im predictable i have faves #ask if they're in love in this one too take a fuckin guess #u rly think hoe going to his boss's house so much to see the ceo ???? HAH #the real question isnt if theyre smooshin we all kno that answer the question is if dad white suit knows thATs whats important #are yall secret lovers or is green boy climbing the ladder of the company cuz he's smashing the boss's son #who knows #i do i aint telling pay me

[rosarios-thoughts-blog]

Examining Youth Culture

A character I identify with is Janis Ian from Mean Girls because she was PETTY. We both have the ability to hold a grunge and exact our petty revenge. Although I don’t think I have the dedication Janis has, I found many similarities between her and I. 

Janis is creative and smart. She does art and came up with the brilliant plan to ruin Regina George. She’s a caring and loyal friend but a bit of a hot head. 

 I find these qualities in myself as I consider myself creative.I started learning to sew in an attempt to up-cycle my clothes. I like doing DIY’s and am currently working on my newest project, which consists of me painting a chair, and I am also attempting to interior design my bedroom. I’ve also been told on numerous occasions that I can be a hot head and stubborn.    Some people know their flaws in character traits, for me it’s my need for petty revenge. I was raised with three older siblings and one younger one. We all share similar interests and like the same things. If one of us did something we consider fun and exciting, the rest of us would want to try it. This made me develop the mentality that we all have to have the same experience in order to be even. This mentality mutated into the idea that if I was wronged, I needed to get ‘even’ in order for it to be fair. Regina George ruined Janis Ian’s life and in Janis’s eyes in order for her to return to the favor, Janis had to ruin Regina’s life. I had a similar experience to wanting to get revenge on my brother Jeffrey. About a month ago, my mother asked me to pick up her new glasses from Walmart and I obliged. I drove to Walmart, they showed me her glasses and I took them home with me. My brother hard accompanied me on this errand, but he didn’t see my mothers’ glasses. I asked Jeffrey if he wanted to see the glasses on the car ride home and he said he would see them later since he was driving. Jeffrey then asked me “Why? Are they ugly?” And although I didn’t say yes, I didn’t say no either. The next day my mom was struggling to see something, and I asked her why she wasn’t wearing her glasses. Jeffrey then approached us and told my mom “Rosario said your glasses are ugly.” In utter disbelief I literally gasped, and my jaw dropped as he EXPOSED ME. Although an opportunity hasn’t presented itself, I am still waiting pertinently for my revenge. Similar to how Janis waited for an opportunity at revenge when and found it in Regina’s desire to be friends with Cady.

I’ve recently watched films like MID-90’s, KIDS, Mean Girls, The Breakfast Club, and shows like Euphoria, along with Saved By The Bell.

One of the common themes in the stories present is sexual promiscuity among youth. Sexual promiscuity is prevalent in all of the films and shows we watched In the movie Mean Girls, Regina jumped from Aaron to Shane, Aaron jumped from Regina to Cady, Gretchen appeared to have been ghosted by two different boys, Karen Smith even made out with her first cousin.

In the film MID-90’s, Fuck-shit appeared to be a chick magnet the girl Stevie was sexually involved with told him that all her friends wanted to hook up with him. Even 12-year-old Stevie had a short lived sexual relationship. The film KIDS, it was clear that all the kids were very sexually active, especially Ruby who had been with multiple sexual partners. Telly appeared to be just as sexually active since he hunted down girls to sleep with.

In Saved By The Bell, it’s clear that Slater and Zack are good with the ladies. They are both charming and suave. Zack is seen with a new girl in many of the episodes and so is Slater until he finally gets a girlfriend.

In The Breakfast Club, although they don’t talk about sex much, the audience can tell that not having sex is a big deal when John asks if Claire if she is a pristine girl and Clair feels the need to lie. In this case, when John asks Claire if she’s pristine, he’s really asking if she is a virgin.

In Euphoria, all the characters seemed to be extremely sexually active. Rue and Jules get together, Jules and Ana sleep together in New York. Maddy and Nate sleep together and with other people when they are broken up. McKay and Cassie are sexually active almost instantly. These teens appear to be more sexually active than most and go through partners as if they were all in a race to see who could sleep with more people. In reality, teens are just as sexually active and often fall in and out of love easily. I knew girls in high school that had new boyfriends every week.

Another common theme found in these stories is teens trying to fit in.

Mean Girls character Cady does a full 180 on her appearance in order to fit in with her friends, Plastics and otherwise. When Janis tells Cady to work as a spy in Regina’s friend group Cady obliges simply because they are friends. Cady then changed her appearance in order to adapt to the Plastics.

Rue from Euphoria stopped doing drugs in order to remain friends with Jules, who put that condition on their friendship. Zack From Saved By The Bell tells a college girl he is also a college student in the hopes they might date or more.

Claire goes along with everything her friends do even though she hates it because she wants to fit in and remain a popular kid.

In MID-90’s Stevie started smoking in order to fit into his group of skater friends. In KIDS, Jennie participated in drugs when she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to but was encouraged by a friend to do so.

All these teens had some form of transformation as they struggled to fit into the groups, they desperately wanted to be a part of. The concept of teens struggling to fit in not new or far from the truth. My friend joined her school’s soccer team to fit in because everyone in her neighborhood played soccer. She continued playing for years even though she hated the sport. Her need to be friends with the kids in her neighborhood made her continue playing a sport she despised.

Lastly, a common theme found in these stories are friendship. Although all the characters in each story did fall into some form of peer pressure or struggle to fit in, they did find real friendships.

Cady, Janis, and Damian seem to have a genuine friendship as Janis made a plan to exact revenge for Regina stealing the boy that Cady liked. (plan seen in image below)

Rue and Jules are the type of friends that would do anything for each other. This was made clear when Jules peed in a bottle for Rue to pass a drug test.

The kids at detention in The Breakfast Club created a special bond as they share intimate details of their life.

In MID 90’s Stevie’s friends cared about him they way someone would for their little brother. When the kids got in a car accident, they all stayed at the hospital until they could visit him.

Zack and his friends tried to protect Kelly’s feelings when they found out her boyfriend was cheating on her because they cared about how she would react and feel.

In KIDS, Telly’s Friend let him borrow his parents’ room so that he could have sex with a girl which was something that was really important to him.

Teen' friendships are like their second family. They bond in their common struggles and passion and grow up together. People often say that you won’t remain friends with the people you go to high school with, but I disagree.  Although I did not remain friends with everyone I went to high school with, I did remain close with a few that I made my second family. Since we grew up together and share so many memories, we will always have love for each other, and that love began when we became best friends in our teenage years.

I’ve recently noticed that soundtracks can impact a film or tv series by using the music to help guide the audience on how they should feel. Shows and movies use soundtracks to let an audience know when to feel happy, sad, or scared. It can even add some drama with dramatic music. In reality tv shows, producers will often play incredibly dramatic music when two people have even the smallest fight. The music elevates the experience of the viewer, as well as enhances the effect of the emotion they are trying to convey.

In an effort to add a more comedic effect to the film Mean Girls, here are the songs I would add to the soundtrack and why: Mean Girls 1. Regina’s theme song would be the song ‘Obsessed’ by Mariah Carey because everyone in her school was obsessed with her and because she was convinced that Janis Ian was obsessed with her. 2. The plastics theme songs after they ditch Regina and temporarily name Cady the new queen bee would be the song ‘Loyal’ by Chris Brown ft Lil Wayne & Tyga. More specifically the lines “these hoes ain’t loyal” would play every time Karen Smith and Gretchen Wieners appeared on the screen. 3. Cady’s theme song when she looks at Aaron- Come And Get Your Love by Redbone

4. Cady when she gets outed as a spy in Regina’s friend group by Janis in the gym- Everybody plays the fool by The Main Ingredient 5. Cady when she is constantly reminded to join the mathletes- I Forgot that you existed 6. Cady when she saw Regina and Aaron kiss at the Halloween party- I’m Upset by Drake 7. Cady when she first saw Aaron- L-O-V-E by Nat King 8. When Karen Smith does the weather report with her boobs- Rain On Me by Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande

9. Regina five seconds after Aaron dumps her and she moved on with Shane Oman- Thank U, Next 10. After the trust fall scene, where all the gilt’s go to the gym and express their feelings and Janis’s confesses to convincing Cady to infiltrate Regina’s friend group - Look What You Made Me Do

With the playlist i made i think this would make a good “crack” youtube video. I always find those entertaining with their funny captions of scenes and updated soundtrack. 

[k8kat]

bi/pan discourse

i want to preface this by saying that i am not trying to invalidate bisexuality in any way. i condemn biphobia, harmful bi stereotypes, and pansexuals who use the label in biphobic ways. 

there has been a major resurgence of pan vs bi discourse lately, and it has been EXHAUSTING. (honestly, i’ve seriously considered leaving the lgbtq+ side of the internet before just because of the sheer amount of discourse.) initially, i was going to keep to myself and try not to let the discourse get to me. but there’s a shit ton of misinformation and people not taking pan voices seriously, so i thought fuck that. i try not to comment on individual community discourses because i believe that if it’s not your label, it’s not your place. for example, i don’t weigh in on lesbian discourse because i am not a lesbian. therefore, my opinion doesn’t really matter. anyone who identifies as a lesbian is more of an expert on the subject than i am and my voice might get in the way of other valid opinions from lesbians. same goes for trans, nonbinary, ace, etc. but this discourse does involve me, so here’s my two cents. 

first off, we need a bit of history. pansexualism was coined in the early 1900’s by freud to denote the idea that all human behavior is driven by sexual instinct. but no one listens to freud because he was wrong about a lot of things. many people, when looking at the origins of modern pansexuality, point to a horrendously biphobic and transphobic internet post from 2002. however, pansexuality as a label has been used as early as the 1960’s/1970’s (though that was partially within kink communities to mean someone who was open to any sexual experience). in the mid-90’s a more recognizable version of pansexuality came into play. pansexuality was used in some cases interchangeably with bisexuality in the 90’s. some have said that they used the pansexual label because of transphobia and nonbinary exclusionists in certain areas of the bi community. (i am not trying to say that bisexuals are transphobic, i am only saying that there were/are transphobic bisexuals, just like there were/are transphobic pansexuals, lesbians, gay men, etc.) some have said that the label was used because of the fact that more gender identities were starting to be more widely accepted, so some in the bi community felt they needed a new term. while the bi community has become much more accepting, many people today still identify as pansexual.

many people have also said that pansexuality promotes bi erasure. if people use pansexuality to describe someone who actually identifies as bi, then yes. If you use pansexuality to invalidate bi people, then yes. but someone simply identifying as pan does not automatically erase a bi person. if someone includes the pan flag in a post but not the bi flag, that is the fault of the person who made the post, not the pan community as a whole. pansexuality is a valid identity with a history that, contrary to popular belief, extends past the existence of tumblr. most labels with overlapping meanings tend to lead to some degree of erasure (e.g. i’ve heard many claim that sappho was actually bi and calling her a lesbian is bi erasure, which, if true, i agree with). bi erasure is a serious issue that does need to be addressed, and while pansexuality does sometimes contribute, someone identifying as pan is not actively hurting anyone (unless they use pansexuality to justify bigotry, but that’s true of any identity).

many people have used pansexuality to excuse biphobia and transphobia. i am not trying to excuse any biphobic or transphobic pansexuals. i want to make it clear that i do not agree with these people in any way. trans women are women and trans men are men. bisexuals are valid and are not hypersexual, dirty, or less inclusive than pansexuals. bisexuals are wonderful and i 100% support anyone who identifies as bi. 

there are many definitions of pansexuality, some of which have been problematic. however, the most widely used one today, and the one that i use, is attraction to all genders. many people use the similar if not identical definitions of bi and pan to say that pansexuality is redundant and unnecessary. i do recognize that bisexuals can also be attracted to nonbinary people (yes, i’ve read the bi manifesto, many times. in fact, the part that comes after the famously-quoted bit in the bi manifesto tends to get overlooked and reads, “We bisexuals tend to define bisexuality in ways that are unique to our own individuality. There are as many definitions of bisexuality as there are bisexuals. Many of us choose not to label ourselves anything at all, and find the word bisexual to be inadequate and too limiting.”). i am not going to tell bisexual people what their identity means. that’s not my place. i realize that some people say that pan, being on the mspec (multi-gender attraction spectrum) falls under the umbrella of bi, and i realize that some people find calling bi an umbrella term offensive. and i realize that having two words for pretty much the same thing can seem very redundant. so why don’t i identify as bi? the best way that i can describe it is that i don’t feel any connection to the term. when i use it it feels like it’s not mine. like i’m stealing or hiding. (though that could partially be because the only time i’ve called myself bi was in the presence of someone i knew would make fun of me for being pan.) simply put, i feel more comfortable identifying as pan. and yes, i realize that many people believe labels are strictly for description and not comfort, but i have to agree to disagree. labels are inherently there for your comfort. (e.g. some wlw prefer to simply be called gay instead of lesbian.) finding a label that you identify with can be an important part of being lgbtq+. and in the end, even if there is quite a bit of overlap in mspec identities, the labels that people use are ultimately their business. i am not going to force myself into a label that i don’t feel fits me just because of some online discourse (because, to be quite blunt, 99% of the lgbtq+ discourses are mostly if not completely online. I haven’t seen many be brought up in real life.). 

to be quite honest, the continued hatred of pansexuality only pushes me further into identifying as pan.  with all due respect, you can tear my pansexuality from my cold dead hands. 

ultimately, division between the bi and pan communities only leads to hurt. arguing amongst ourselves not only divides us and distracts from our common enemy, but actively gives our enemy more fuel to hurt us with. arguing amongst the lgbtq+ community gives homophobes and transphobes more examples of our “ridiculousness” to make fun of us with. as someone who goes to a school with lots of homophobes and has heard every homophobic/transphobic insult under the sun in the school hallways, i find the unification of the lgbtq+ community very important. we need to protect each other, not tear each other down. making each other feel invalidated and unwelcome only harms the lgbtq+ community. 

another issue this discourse has brought me to is the need for a new pan flag since the old one was created by someone who has been accused of being lesbophobic. so if and when a new flag comes up, i’ll be excited to see what it looks like! 

i realize that even after this, there will still be many people who disagree with me. and that’s okay! we can agree to disagree. i do it all the time. honestly, as long as people don’t try and force labels on me i’m cool. 

MORE RESOURCES ON PANSEXUALITY:

The Past and Popular Usage of the Term "Pansexual" 

 What Is Pansexuality? 

 defining pansexuality over the years

pansexuality vs bisexuality 

What is Pansexuality? | Definition, History and Pansexuals in Pop Culture 

What Does 'Pansexual' Mean? Behind the Rise of the Word | Time 

Pansexuality 101: It’s More Than ‘Just Another Letter’ 

Hiding in Plain Sight: Why We Need To Pay Attention to Bi/Pan Erasure 

The Difference Between Bisexual & Pansexual Matters Less Than Solidarity Among LGBTQ Folks, Advocates Say 

#i'm only posting this here for convenience lmao #not to be dramatic but if one more person tries to force me to identify as bi i will kick their teeth in #also it seems a bit ridiculous to be arguing about these things when there's a literal gay purge going on in chechnya #and all the problems lgbtq people are facing in poland

[back-and-totheleft]

“Americans live in a fantasy world”

Your autobiography is called "Chasing the Light." But did you find the light you were looking for?

That was the case when I was 40. At least the light of success, when “Platoon” became an absolutely unbelievable success. That was a "Cinderella" story of "Rocky" dimensions. Here we had an unknown B-movie that was shot in the Philippines for little money and then it became a monster hit all over the world. Before, the entire Hollywood community had rejected me, now suddenly the studios welcomed me again with open arms.

But the times when you moved the world with your films are long ago. Do you regret that?

No, because I’m happy and satisfied. I've made enough films and that took a lot of energy. There’s currently no topic that burns under my skin. I only did “Snowden” four years ago because I wanted to raise public awareness of the issue of the surveillance state. I thought that was my responsibility. But I wasn't as enthusiastic about that film as something like “Platoon.” Making a movie takes a year or two of your life. At 74, I have no motivation to shoot anything without great ambition, just for the sake of filmmaking. Besides that, Hollywood isn't interested in me anymore anyway. And I ask myself the question: does Hollywood even still exist?

Why wouldn't it be there anymore?

Who makes real films these days? Everyone works for television, where the average rules because all projects are trimmed down to the lowest possible denominator. There is more bureaucracy; decisions about projects are made in committee. The script development is the worst of all - it’s not called "development hell" for nothing. None of this goes with how I made films. They were outside the norm. I don't think a [company like] Netflix would understand. “Snowden” could only be made because the start-up funding came from Germany and France.

Are there really no subjects that you can warm to?

I would have liked to film the legal investigation of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. It was a great story. But that didn't happen because negotiations were going on in the years after September 11th and a story about American soldiers creating bloodbaths among civilians didn't go over well. And my Martin Luther King project didn't work out because I wanted to address his infidelities as well, and his estate administrators objected to that.

How about a Donald Trump movie?

At the moment it doesn't make that much sense because his story is always evolving. Apart from that, so much has been written about him that I don't have much new to contribute. Ultimately, he's just a con man and a narcissist.

But in view of the upheavals he created, he would be an ideal film protagonist.

Frankly, he hasn't done any permanent damage yet. Yes, he has no morals. But did George W. Bush have any? He's no-good and from my point of view, he was by far the worst president we've ever had. He was a mediocre student who dodged Vietnam and still got the red carpet rolled out. As president, he was a pushover who pretended he was strong and then led us into a devastating war in the Middle East from which we have not recovered to this day. We have not yet recovered from the anti-terrorism legislation of the Patriot Act.

How do you see Barack Obama in comparison?

He proclaimed lofty intentions, but during his presidency whistleblowers were persecuted, bombing and drone attacks escalated. The point is, we are trapped in a system that we cannot break out of.

What kind of system do you mean?

One shaped by the conservative ideology of the military establishment. When Kennedy wanted to abolish this and establish a more peaceful policy, he was pushed out of the way. We are a militaristic society that has a cult of guns and military worship. The trillions we spend on our defense budget have ruined our country. We consider ourselves the strongest in the world, which I think is a fallacy. I myself have repeatedly denounced the machinations of the military, not least in my autobiography, in which I go into all the lies of the Vietnam War. We never admitted to ourselves how many of our soldiers were accidentally killed by our own forces. We told the lie that we didn't kill civilians and we lied to our taxpayers that we could win this war. The whole concept of victory was fucked up - right from the start of the war. Unfortunately in the USA far too few people dare to challenge the military. You need guts for that.

Despite all of your anti-war films and US-critical documentaries, not much has apparently changed. Are you disaffected?

Indeed I am. I would like to believe that I’m doing something good with my work. I also know that a lot of people have responded positively to it. Only at the government level nothing changes. Perhaps this is due to the deeply rooted aggressiveness of American society. When I go to Japan, I don't see any weapons. I experience a completely different culture that is characterized by mutual respect. They don't shoot each other in the street. You, in Europe, learned your lesson from World War II, which unfortunately did not become part of the American consciousness. We live in a fantasy world made up of video games and war films. People have no realistic idea of ​​the nature of war. That's why we have no qualms about it.

Does that mean Americans should look to the rest of the world, rather than the other way around?

Yes, I would say that. Too many people in the US have no historical perspective. They live in Disneyland or on a golf course. They’re just fighting to move forward economically. That is their only thought. But we need some kind of world awareness. The people in Europe and Asia are much more educated and savvy. It's not just about making money [to them].

And how was it with you? You're an American too, and good money can be made with films.

That's why I never went into the film industry. I chose this route because I wanted to tell stories. Little did I know it was going to be a billion dollar blockbuster business. That wasn't good for cinema anyway, because films that say something about our society fell behind.

Have you never thought of emigrating? Your mother was French and your wife is a native Korean. Your last film was funded with European funds.

Of course I have. But I was shaped by America, I grew up and went to school here. And it's not as catastrophic here as it is sometimes portrayed by the media. I prefer to try to make things change. There are still many good people here. It’s worth fighting with them for a better America. And I'm also someone who believes in a happy ending.

Let's say you never developed this critical awareness. Then you could have had a much easier life. Would that be tempting to imagine?

Absolutely not. The average American lives in a world full of pain, he just doesn't understand it because he’s spiritually dead and only interested in material things. Such an existence is hell on earth. Of course, all these problems were tough to deal with. That's why there’s so much pain in my autobiography. But without that pain, I would’ve had a useless life. But as it is, my existence has a meaning - spiritual, political, social.

Do you remember the first time you volunteered for a noble cause?

It was at school. I was around ten then. There was a boy in my class - physically awkward, otherwise awkward and not particularly well educated. And he was bullied by the rest of the class. He was all alone and I felt sorry for him. So I stood up for him, which was not well received. As a result, I became an outsider too. That gave me my first good insight into how human society works.

But in the film industry, haven’t you been tough and struck some blows?

On the contrary. As a Vietnam veteran, I couldn't cope with society for a long time. I felt like a savage. That's why I consciously tried to be particularly careful and civilized with people. I should have talked to some of the experienced people. In this industry, people misbehave all the time and so, as a newcomer, I was really taken advantage of by people who had no such moral inhibitions.

You still seem relatively gentle and prudent. How did you manage to maintain that demeanor despite all the negativity that was beating down on you?

I've been studying Buddhism for almost 30 years and that helps me find inner harmony. But I’m not a person who scourges myself and walks around in a hairshirt. And I can't complain either. I had a good life.

You will never give up, even if you are no longer passionate about filmmaking?

No, there are so many other things that interest me. I keep doing my documentaries. We should each make the most of our life, to become more aware. It's a big responsibility. And we shouldn't say to ourselves: “It doesn't matter.” Otherwise we would live in a state of nihilism, and that doesn't work.

-Rudiger Sturm interviews Oliver Stone, Augsburg General, Oct 18 2020 [x] Translated.

#oliver stone #chasing the light #books #reviews #germany #snowden #buddhism #america #trump #George W. Bush

[internaljiujitsu]

Negrito: Race In The Latino Community

I had lots of nicknames growing up. Bolita (little ball) when I was a toddler because I was round. Jun (short for Junior), because I share a name with my dad. But the monikers I heard most from my mom and extended family were Negro (black), Negrito (little black) or Negrolo (black something or other). Notice a pattern?

As the darkest person in my Puerto Rican family, that’s how my loved ones would address me. It’s a common practice in Latino cultures. Identifying someone by their color, frowned upon in politically correct, modern society, has morphed into a term of endearment among racially diverse Latinos. Or so it seems.

Despite the wide range of hues within Latino culture that would suggest an evolved view of skin color, these societies are just as racist as any dusty mid western town full of red cap wearing “Americans.”

When a black South African, Zonzibini Tunzi, beat out Ms. Puerto Rico for the ridiculous Ms. Universe crown, the supervisor for the Island’s Education Department called the winner, “La prima de Shaka Zulu.” It means Shaka Zulu’s cousin. You know, the legendary African military leader.

In case you were wondering, there is no relation.

In 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo had forty thousand Hatitian migrants massacred to “whiten” the population of the Caribbean nation. Sixty years later, every Dominican in the world hailed the dark skinned Sammy Sosa as one of their own when he chased Babe Ruth’s legendary home run record.

And now — twenty years after that — Sammy Sosa is white.

In the eighties, my friends and family referred to African American people as “Morenos” (Dark Skinned) or “Cocolos” (a term originating with a dark skin group of people in The Dominican Republic.) We were all living in the same impoverished, dilapidated neighborhood together, but never felt the same. There was always an us against them attitude. We often felt as if we needed to fight for respect within our own neighborhood while buying into media perceptions of what it meant to be black and brown. And what we saw around us everyday did little to give us faith in ourselves or our darker brethren.

But I could blend in anywhere — while feeling comfortable nowhere. I belonged to a light skinned (except for me and my dad) Puerto Rican family growing up in a black neighborhood but I found myself relating more to white culture. While the Cosby Show was number one, I watched Family Ties. While kids were listening to Chuck D or KRS 1, I was head banging to Guns and Roses. I hated baggy clothes, preferring tight jeans and t-shirts. But I didn’t feel like I was rebelling - I just liked what I liked, and got plenty of shit for it.

To me, the Cosby show was bullshit. That’s not how it was for the black and brown people I knew. It was fantasy. Family Ties I had seen play out before my own eyes at white friends’ homes with cookie cutter lives that seemed perfect (spoiler alert: they weren’t). I wanted what they had so badly — peace of mind and enthusiasm for the future — and I wasn’t finding it where I lived.

I also hated my brother at the time (who I love to death) and wanted to be the opposite of him. He was a thug who always gave my parents headaches. He set a terrible example for his little brother while constantly asserting the fact that he was six years older and wiser. Once I stopped idolizing him, I detested everything he stood for. He has long since proven me and the old neighborhood wrong.

It took me years to become as secure as I am, but even now I get shit from people in my life. I’ve embraced my heritage and have ensured that my five year old daughter does the same. But when my parents hear my daughter speak proper Spanish without a Puerto Rican accent, they make fun of us. She’s been attending a Spanish speaking school since she was two. Her mother and I have attempted to be consistent with the dialect we use with her. That means she actually rolls her r’s and doesn’t sound like she’s gonna hock a loogie when she says “carro” or “perro.” My family thinks it’s fucking hilarious.

But it’s not just family. In a recent conversion with an old friend who had just retired from the police department, he called me an “Oreo.” Black on the outside and white on the inside. This guy is in his fifties. I chuckled when he said it, but haven’t returned his calls since.

The thing is, I know he was just fucking around. He himself is of mixed race and sounds like an Irish American with a Brooklyn accent, but looks Japanese. But there is something about police perception of dark skin people, how we are supposed to sound, that bugged me about what he said.

There’s too much chuckling that goes on. Too much nodding. A former close friend of mine, who is half Puerto Rican and married to a dark skinned Dominican woman, once complained that a guy he knew had “niggered up” his car ( because he added shiny rims, window tint and other bells and whistles). It wasn’t the first time I heard him use the word. Each time it turned my stomach. I didn’t get it — I was his friend. Both me and his wife would have been denied access to white bathrooms and water fountains. Just because we did not identify with black culture didn’t mean we wouldn’t be exposed to the same bigotry and hatred. What the fuck? It was too much for me to overlook. We haven’t spoken in years.

There was an ugly song I remember from the old neighborhood back in the day. There were two versions:

“A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white, the black don’t win, we all jump in.”

Or,

“A fight, a fight, a nigger and a white, the white don’t win, we all jump in.”

Which one you sang depended on who you were with. Which “us” against which “them?”

I remember, as a teenager, going to the Sunset Park pool in Brooklyn with a bunch of Latino boys. On the way home, there was a group of black kids walking ahead of us. The group I was with, only one of whom was my close friend, started taunting them. They hurled racial epitaphs and threats at the black kids for being in their neighborhood. I was silent and utterly confused.

As a kid, it was actually my one close white friend, Jesse, who was the least racist kid I knew. He might have been the most genuine friend I ever had. I stopped returning his calls because I didn’t trust his friendship. Not because of anything he did — My negative view of myself kept me from believing that he really wanted to be my friend. Why would he? He was from a great family that lived in a beautiful house and valued the things that mattered to me but weren’t for me.

When I hung out with Jesse’s friends, the chip on my shoulder was always ready to bash someone over the head. At a party in some kid’s basement, someone spilled a drink. The host, an Italian kid that I didn’t know, asked me to help clean it up. I told him to go fuck himself. Then he asked me, “What are you?”

The party ended when I dragged him down a staircase and started beating him down before being pulled off and barely escaping the awaiting mob. I am my brother’s brother, after all.

So even though I felt like a Martian in my own neighborhood and knew I wanted better, I didn’t think I belonged on the other side either. I was stuck in this bizarre place where the only role models I had were Roberto Clemente, Eric Estrada and Slater. I never knew anyone else successful that looked like me. At the same time it seemed everyone around me was determined to make sure I never forgot where I belonged.

When I was twelve years old, I refused to attend my zone school because it had a reputation for being the worst in the city. It wasn’t my parents that refused, it was me. I told my mom and dad I would not go to junior high unless they transferred me. What if I hadn’t done that?

As it turns out, the school I ended up going to (because my dad used a friend’s address) was in a good part of town and was the best public education I ever experienced. The work was so advanced that I went from being one of the smartest kids in class to struggling. I actually had to study — something I never had to do much of and found excruciatingly boring. At that new school, I felt like the bad boy. The outcast. The kid that didn’t quite belong and couldn’t keep up.

My grades suffered that year, and when I transferred to a another school, I wasn’t placed in the gifted program for the first time in my scholastic career. I petitioned the principal and pleaded my case, explaining the difficult circumstances of the previous year and promising that I would shine in his “7SP“ class, which got to skip the eight grade and go straight to “9SP” in the fall. Like when I refused to go to that war zone of a school, I once again stood up for my own education. I was thirteen years old.

The work that year was far easier than what I had learned at the other school. I breezed through. The kind of disparity that existed between the two public middle schools I attended is indicative of the subpar education that children of color receive within what is supposed to be one school system. Kids in bad schools aren’t exposed to the same world that their crosstown rivals are and are ill prepared for the reality that awaits — be it a college admissions exam or the job market. Those who do not take it upon themselves to find opportunities for advancement can’t rely on working parents with little time or education to advocate for them. They are left with shitty choices and no one to champion their cause.

The scourge of poverty and racism is further sullied by the structural hierarchy of “shade” in communities of color. In the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, the trailblazing abolitionist and former slave writes of the preferential treatment lighter slaves received, even among the others in bondage. Proximity to whiteness, then and now, is proximity to power and privilege.

In the late 1700’s, Spain instituted the process of gracias al sacar. Mixed race people could purchase a decree that converted them to white. One such royal decree granted to Cuban Manuel Baez in 1760 says that it erased “the defect that you suffer from birth and leave you able and capable as if you did not have it.” Ain’t that some shit.

Alice Walker coined the term “colorism” in her book, “In Search of Our Mother’s Garden”. She describes “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on color.” Research has shown that skin tone affects the outcome of job interviews, court cases and elections. This is not a secret among people of color. They grow up believing that the whiter they look, the easier they’ll have it.

How does that make a kid feel who wants so badly to get ahead in life but has the mirror, the media and the world outside his window saying he doesn’t stand a chance? As if even after you do all the work and get to the finish line, the tape will be pulled back another few feet each time you stretch to get across. The life you want will be just out of reach, no matter how long or how fast you run.

There has been a delusion among some that because we’ve had a black president, hip hope rules the world and the Rock is the world’s biggest movie star, racism doesn’t exist anymore. There are people of color in positions of power and prestige, but they are few and far between. There just hasn’t been enough time for all the seeds of opportunity that were only planted a generation or two or three ago to compete with those who have seemingly inherited an eternity of racial privilege. Just because so many people fought for and finally earned some basic human rights doesn’t mean the playing field has been leveled.

The destruction of the long standing racial hierarchy is a challenging ongoing project that the world must decide to address together. The perpetuation of negative stereotypes of black and brown people is not only meant to strike fear in every suburban household, but to reinforce in the mind of the oppressed their role in society. Centuries of subjugation have purposefully convinced young men and women of color that they are born with an inherent disadvantage. Then, once their will to fight was clear, the oppressors barked that those they once lorded over should be grateful to simply be out of their chains.

It is up to people of color, whether African American, Latino, West Indian, or any other subdivision of “black” that may exist, to burn down the old models. The carefully calculated lie that “whiteness” is more attractive, desirable or indicative of ability must be deleted from our main frame. We must believe we are just as capable, because we obviously are. We must know that we have the opportunities, even if we have to work harder for them. And we cannot fight among ourselves, to the delight of those that would sooner see us dead, in jail or all together erased from the annals of history.

With dog whistles long having been discarded in favor of bull horns, the paper thin veil has been lifted from our union. In a country already in pieces, further division because of infighting is not something people of color, no matter their shade, can afford.

#race #racism #latino #self esteem #stereotypes #mindset

[chiseler]

Nick Tosches’ Final Interview

On Sunday, October 20th, 2019, three days before his seventieth birthday, Nick Tosches died in his TriBeCa apartment. As of this writing, no cause of death has been specified. It represents an Immeasurable loss to the world of literature. The below, conducted this past July, was the last full interview Tosches ever gave. 

***

In Where Dead Voices Gather, his peripatetic 2001 anti-biography of minstrel singer Emmett Miller, Nick Tosches wrote: “The deeper we seek, the more we descend from knowledge to mystery, which is the only place where true wisdom abides.” It’s an apt summation of Tosches’ own life and work.

Journalist, poet, novelist, biographer and historian Nick Tosches has been called the last of our literary outlaws, thanks in part to his reputation as a hardboiled character with a history of personal excesses. But he’s far more than that—he’s one of those writers other writers wish they could be. He’s seen it all first-hand, moved in some of the most dangerous circles on earth, and is blessed with the genius to put it down with a sharp elegance that’s earned him a seat in the Pantheon.

Born in 1949, Tosches was raised in the working class neighborhoods of Newark and Jersey City, where his father ran a bar. Despite barely finishing high school, he fell into the writing game at nineteen, shortly after relocating to New York. He quickly earned a reputation as a brilliant music journalist, writing for Rolling Stone and authoring Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ’N Roll (1977), the Jerry Lee Lewis biography Hellfire (1982) and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll (1984). After that he staked out his own territory, exploring and illuminating the deeply-shadowed corners of the culture and the human spirit. He’s written biographies of sinister Italian financier Michele Sindona, Sonny Liston, Dean Martin and near-mythical crime boss Arnold Rothstein. He’s published poetry and books about opium. His debut novel, Cut Numbers (1988) focused on the numbers racket, and his most recent, Under Tiberius (2015) presented Jesus as a con artist with a good p.r. man.

While often citing Faulkner, Charles Olsen, Dante and the Greeks as his primary literary influences, over the past fifty years Tosches’ own style has evolved from the flash and swagger of his early music writing into a singular and inimitable prose which blends the two-fisted nihilism of the crime pulps with an elegant and lyrical formalism. Like Joyce, Tosches takes clear joy in the measured, poetic flow of language, and like Dostoevsky, his writing, regardless of the topic at hand, wrestles with the Big Issues: Good and Evil, Truth and Falsehood, the Sacred and the Profane, and our pathetic place in a universe gone mad.

For years now, Tosches’ official bio has stated he “lives in what used to be New York.” It only makes sense then that we would meet amid the tangled web of tiny sidestreets that make up SoHo at what remains one of the last bars in New York where we could smoke. Tosches, now sixty-nine, smoked a cigar and drank a bottle of forty-year-old tawny port as we discussed his work, publishing, religion, the Internet, this godforsaken city, fear, and how a confirmed heretic goes about obtaining Vatican credentials.

Jim Knipfel: When I initially contacted you about an interview last year, my first question was going to be about retirement. You’d been hinting for awhile, at least since Me and the Devil in 2012, that you planned to retire from writing at sixty-five. And since Under Tiberius came out, there’d been silence. But shortly after I got in touch, we had to put things on hold because you’d started working on a new project. As you put it then, “I find myself becoming lost again in the cursed woods of words and writing.”

Nick Tosches: It is unlike any other project. I am indulging myself, knowing nobody has paid me money up front. Is it a project? Yeah, I guess anything that’s not come to a recognizable fruition is a project. So yeah. I do consider the actual writing of books to be behind me.

JK: Did thinking about retirement have anything to do with what we’ll generously call the dispiriting nature of contemporary publishing?

NT: Oh, very much so. Very much.

JK: There’s a remarkable section in the middle of In The Hand of Dante, it just comes out of nowhere, in which you launch into this frontal attack on what’s become of the industry. I went back and read it again last week, and it’s so beautiful and so perfect, and as I was reading I couldn’t help but think, “Who the hell else could get away with this?” Dropping a very personal screed like that in the middle of a novel? And a novel released by a major publisher, in this case Little, Brown. Was there any kind of reaction from your editor?

NT: Okay, is this the same passage where I talk about all these people with fat asses?

JK: Yeah, that’s part of it.

NT: Okay, my agent at the time, Russ Galen, said he heard from {Michael} Pietsch, the editor who’s now the Chief Executive Officer of North America. And the moment he became so, he went from being my lifelong friend to “yeah, I heard of him.” He complained about the fat ass comment, and my agent told him, “If you go for a walk with Nick Tosches, you might get rained on.” Apart from that, no. And I have to say, he considers that one of his favorite novels, ever. When I tried to get the rights back because of a movie deal, he said “no I won’t do that.” I said “Why?” And he said because it was one of his favorite books. So no, there was no real backlash. A lot of comments like your own. A lot of people saying “Boy, that was great.”

JK: As we both know, marketing departments make all the editorial decisions at publishing houses nowadays, and over the years you must have driven them nuts. There’s no easy label to slap on you. You hear there’s a new Nick Tosches book coming out, it could be a novel, it could be poetry, it could be a biography or history or anything at all. I’m trying to imagine all these marketing people sitting around asking, “So what’s our targeted demographic for The Last Opium Den?”

NT: I just set out to do what I wanted to do. If they wanted to cling to the delusion that they could somehow control sales or predict the future of taste, fine, let them go ahead and do it. I’ve always found it’s the books that gather the attention, they just try to coordinate things. All they’re doing is covering their own jobs. If they can wrangle you an interview with Modern Farming, well, there’s something to put on a list they hand out at one of their meetings… They’re all illiterate. Thirty years ago there was still a sense of independence among publishers. Now they’re just vestigial remnants that mean nothing because they’re all owned by these huge media conglomerates.

JK: To whom publishing is irrelevant.

NT: Right. It’s all just a joke.  

JK: I guess what matters is that the people who read you will read whatever you put out. If you put out a book of cake decorating tips, I’d be the first in line to buy it. Actually I’d love to see what you could do with Nick’s Best Cakes Ever, right? It’s something to consider.

NT: Maybe not that particular instance, but what you have so kindly referred to as my current project, which is very…eccentric. It’s the herd of my obsessions that will not remain corralled as I intended.

JK: What brought you back to writing? You’ve said in the past that writing is a very tough habit to kick.

NT: Well, what brought me back? I have no idea. Maybe just actual, utter, desperate boredom. There was none of this Romantic need to express myself. Just a lot of little obsessions, that’s all. As I said…well, I didn’t say this at all. There’s nothing at stake. There’s no money, there’s not going to be any money. There’s no one I need to give a second thought of offending or pleasing. But that having been said, I’m taking as much care with it as I have with everything else. I’ve always thought of myself as the only editor. And having had the good fortune to work with good titular editors, which means their job consists of perhaps making a suggestion or stating a preference or notifying me that they do not understand certain things, and beyond that leaving it be. As I told one editor,I forget when or where or why, “Why don’t you go write you’re own fuckin’ book and leave mine be?” He had all these great ideas. The best editors are the ones that aren’t frustrated authors.

JK: I was lucky enough to work with two editors like that. One had a nervous breakdown and is out of the business, the other just vanished one day.

NT: Well, you’re fortunate. Not only do most editors, a majority of editors, which are bad editors, like the majority of anything, really. If they don’t interfere with something, and nine times out of ten make it worse, they’re not justifying their jobs. The other thing is, we’re recently at the point where the new type of writers, which are the writers who are willing to do it for free, think the editor’s the chief mark of the whole racket. But it’s not—he’s not, she’s not. Their job is to get you paid and leave you alone. That’s the thing. Now you got pseudo editors, pseudo writers. If you think of a writer such as William Faulkner. Now there’s a guy who just screamed out to be edited. Fortunately the editors were willing to publish him and leave him alone, which is why we have William Faulkner. That was the editor’s great contribution, protecting William Faulkner from that nonsense. People speak about, what’s that phrase applied to Maxwell Perkins? “Editor of Genius.” Well, the genius was you find someone who can write really well, and don’t fuck with ‘em. There’s something to be said about that. It’s to Perkins’ credit.

JK: If I can step back a ways to your early years. You were a streetwise kid who grew up in Jersey City and Newark. Your father discouraged you from reading, but you read anyway. So what was the attraction to books? Or was it simple contrariness on your part because you’d been told to avoid them?

NT: I got lost in them. It was dope before I copped dope. I used to love to drift away, in my mind, my imagination. I loved books. My father was not an anti-book person, but he was the first generation of our family to be born in this country. A working class neighborhood where okay, this guy worked in this factory, and that guy owned a bar, and that guy delivered the mail. Nobody was going any further than this. And I remember my father saying, “These books are gonna put ideas in your head.” I guess I enjoyed that they did. Terrible books, some of them. Terrible books, but it didn’t matter.

JK: You’ve also said that very early on you wanted to be a writer.

NT: Yes.

JK: Or a farmer.

NT: Or a garbage man or an archaeologist. Those were my childhood aspirations.

JK: Considering the environment you were coming out of, three of those seem counterintuitive.

NT: Garbage men got to ride on the side of the truck, and that looked great. Archaeologists, wow. I didn’t know they were spending years just coming up with little splintered shards of urns. Yeah, writer. Writing had a great attraction for me, because writing seemed a great coward’s way out. You can communicate anything while facing a corner, with no one seeing you, no one hearing you, you didn’t have to look anyone in the eye. It’s a great coward’s form of expressing yourself. That coupled with the fact that what I felt a need to express was inchoate. I didn’t even understand what it was I wanted to express. Sometimes I still don’t.

JK: You’ve also said that in your teens you started to listen to country music, which given the time and place also seems counterintuitive.

NT: Did I say my teens? Maybe I was nineteen or twenty. Yeah, I never listened to country music until the jukebox at the place on Park Avenue and West Side Avenue in Jersey City.

JK: It was right around that time, when you were nineteen, twenty, that you published your first story in the music magazine Fusion. Which means we’re right around the fiftieth anniversary of your start in this racket.

NT: Let’s see…that was 1969, so yeah, I guess so. Fifty years ago.

JK: Then for the next fifteen-plus years you wrote mainly about music. You were at Rolling Stone  and other magazines, and you put out Country, Hellfire and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n Roll. So How early on were you thinking about branching out? About writing about the mob, or the Vatican, or anything else that interested you?

NT: Before I ever wrote anything. You have to understand, these so-called rock’n’roll magazines provided two great things. First as an outlet for young writers whose phone calls to The New Yorker would not be accepted. And they all, back then before they caught the capitalist disease, offered complete freedom of speech. So yes, in the course of writing about music you could…or actually, forget about writing about music, because nobody even knew anything about music. We were just fucking around.

JK: I remember an early piece you did for Rolling Stone back in 1971. It was a review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album, but all it was was a description of a blasphemous Satanic orgy straight out of De Sade.

NT: Yeah, I remember that one.

JK: It was pretty amazing, and even that early, your writing was several steps beyond everything else that was happening at the time. But from an outsider’s perspective, your first big step away from music journalism was actually a huge fucking leap, and a potentially deadly one. So how do you go from Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll to Power on Earth, about Italian financier Michele Sindona?

NT: After Hellfire, someone wanted to pay me a lot of money to write another biography. But I realized there was absolutely no one on the face of the earth whom I found interesting enough to write about other than Jerry Lee Lewis. I’d caught sort of a glimpse of Sindona on television. My friend Judith suggested “Why don’t you write about him?” But how am I gonna get in touch with a guy like that? And she said I should write him a letter.

JK: He was in prison at that point?

NT: Yes, he was in prison the entire time I knew him, until his death. He died before the book was published. I met him in prison here in New York, then they shipped him back to Italy to be imprisoned, and I went over there.

JK: You were dealing with The Vatican, the mob, and the shadowy world of international high finance. Were there moments while you were working on the book when you found yourself thinking, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

NT: Well, yes, because the story was too immense and too complicated to be told.    

JK: Something I’ve always been curious about. Publishing house libel lawyers have been the bane of my existence. Whenever I write non-fiction, they set upon the manuscript like jackals, tearing it apart line-by-line in search of anything that anyone anywhere might conceivably consider suing over. And I wasn’t writing about the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Michele Sindona.

NT: “Conceivably” is the key word in this country, where anyone can sue anyone without punitive repercussions. That’s the key phrase. What these libel lawyers are also doing above all else is protecting their own jobs.    

JK: Were you forced to cut a lot of material for legal reasons?

NT: Yes, including proven, irrefutable facts. So yes I did. And it’s not because it was libelous, but because it was subject to being accused of being libelous. It’s a shame. Some of the things were just outrageous. I once threw a fictive element into a description that involved a black dog. “Well, how do you know there was a black dog there?” I said there probably wasn’t, that it was just creating a mood. “Well, we gotta cut that out.” So what’s offensive about a black dog? It sets a precedent. Misrepresentative facts? Morality? I don’t know. These guys.  

JK: I don’t know if this was the case with you as well, but I found out I could write exactly the same thing, and just as honestly, but if I called it a novel instead of nom-fiction. They didn’t touch a word. Didn’t even want to look at it. As it happens, your first novel, Cut Numbers, came out next. Had that been written before Power on Earth?

NT: Let me think for a moment…Well, the order in which my books were published is the order in which they were written. The only putative exception may be Where Dead Voices Gather, because that was written over a span of years with no intention of it being a book. So yeah, Cut Numbers. What year was that?

JK: I think that was 1988. I love that novel. There’s a 1948 John Garfield picture about the numbers racket, Force of Evil.

NT: Yeah, I’ve seen that.

JK: But of course they had to glamorize it, because it was Hollywood and it was John Garfield.

NT: I like John Garfield. Terrible movies, but a great actor.

JK: What I love about Cut Numbers is that it’s so un-glamorous. It’s not The Godfather. It’s very street-level. And I’ve always had the sense it was very autobiographical.

NT: I’ve never written anything that wasn’t autobiographical in some way, shape or form. The world in which Cut Numbers is set was my auto-biographical world. “Auto,” self and “bio,” life. My auto-biographical world. The world I lived in and the world I knew. It’s a world that no longer exists. Like every other aspect of the world I once knew. Except taxes. Which I found is a really great upside to having no income. I’m serious.

JK: Oh. I know all too well.

NT: I mean, but It comes with “Jeeze, I wish I could afford another case of this tawny port.”

JK: A few years later, after Dino, you released your second novel, Trinities. While Cut Numbers took place on a very small scale. Trinities was epic—the story spans the globe and pulls in the mob, the Vatican, high finance. You crammed an awful lot of material in there. It almost feels like a culmination.

NT: I wanted to capture the whole sweep of that vanishing, dying world. It was written during a dark period of my life, and I was drawn to a beautifully profound but unanswerable question, which had first been voiced by a Chinese philosopher—sounds like a joke but it’s true: “What if what man believes is good, God believes is evil?” Or vice versa. And we can go from there, the whole mythology, the concept of the need for God. To what extend is our idea of evil just a device? We don’t want anybody to fuck our wives. So God says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. We don’t want to be killed, so thou shalt not kill. It’s a bunch of “don’t do this, because I don’t want to suffer that.” I don’t want to get robbed. I dunno, what the hell. Yeah, this has something to do with Trinities, and I somehow knew as I wrote Trinities I was saying goodbye to a whole world, not because I was leaving it. It was basically half memory, as opposed to present day reality.

JK: I remember when I first read it, recognizing so many locales and situations and characters. At least from the New York scenes. That was right at the cusp, when all these things began disappearing.

NT: Yes, and now it has to such an extent that I walk past all these locales, and it’s a walk among the ghosts. That was a club, now it’s a Korean laundry. This was another place I used to go, now it’s Tibetan handicrafts.    

JK: I don’t even recognize the Village anymore. I used to work in the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston. Landmark building, right? It’s since been gutted completely and turned into some kind of high-end fashion store.

NT: Yeah, it’s all dead.

JK: Now, when Trinities was released, I was astonished to see the publisher was marketing it like a mainstream pop thriller. You even got the mass market paperback with the embossed cover treatment. I love the idea of some middle management type on his way to a convention in Scranton picking it up at the airport thinking he was getting something like Robert Ludlum,, and diving headlong into, well, you.

NT: I can explain why all that was. It was volume. It was the same publisher as Dino. They were happy with Dino. Dino was a great success. I think that was 1992, because that was when my father died. This is now, what, 2019? There has not been a single day where that book has not sold. Not that I could buy a bottle of tawny port with it. So whereas with Cut Numbers I was paid a small amount and eagerly accepted it. Eagerly. In fact it’s one of the few times I told the editor, ran into him at a bar, and said all I want is this, and he said “Nah, that’s not enough, we’ll pay you twice that.” Then Dino was double that. And look, I really want to do this book Trinities   and be paid a small fortune for it. They had to say yes. They had to believe this was going to be the next, I dunno. Yeah, mainstream. Most of these things are ancillary and coincidental to the actual writing.

JK: There were a lot of strings dangling at the end of the novel, and I remember reading rumors you were working on a sequel. You don’t seem much the sequel type. So was there any truth to that?

NT: Not that I was aware of. I’m sure that if they’d come back and said, “Well, we pulled it off,” and offered twice that, there would’ve been a sequel. Because I loved that book, so if they were going to offer me more to write more, I would have. I hated saying good bye to that world and the past.

JK: Maybe you’ve noticed this, but the people who read you often tend to make a very sharp distinction between your fiction and your non-fiction, which never made a lot of sense to me. To me they’re a continuum, and any line dividing them is a very porous, fuzzy one. Do you approach them in different ways?

NT: Oh, god. Do I approach them differently? Yes. In a way, I approach the fiction with a sense of unbounded freedom. But parallel to that, that blank page is scarier knowing that there is not a single datum you can place on it that will gain or achieve balance. With non-fiction, I am constrained by truth to a certain extent. That’s also true in fiction. They just use different forms of writing. There are poems that have more cuttingly diligent actuality than most history works. It comes down to wielding words. Tools being appointed with different weights and cutting edges and colors. Words, beautiful words. Without the words, no writing in prose is gonna be worth a damn. Used to be, I get in a cab, and back then cab drivers were from New York, and they’d ask me what I did. Now I don’t think they really know what city they’re in. They know it’s not Bangladesh. But if I told them what I did, it was always, “Oh, I could write a book.”  Yeah, you’re gonna write a book. Your life is interesting. So what’re you gonna write about? Great tippers, great fares? Become a reader first. Read the Greeks sometime. I decided next time a cab driver asks me what I do for a living. I’m gonna tell him I’m a plumber. “Oh, my brother-in-law’s a plumber!”

JK: As varied as your published works are, there are two I’ve always been curious about. Two complete anomalies. The first was the Hall and Oates book, Dangerous Dances, which always struck me—and correct me if I’m wromg—as the result of a whopping check for services rendered. And the other. From thirty years later, is Johnny’s First Cigarette. Which is, what would you call it? A children’s book? A young adult book?  

NT: Right. Of course they’re many years apart. Okay, Hall and Oates, Dangerous Dances. I knew a woman who was what you’d call a book packager. I owed money to the government. Tommy Mottola, who was at the time the manager of Hall and Oates, wanted a Hall and Oates book. She asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said yeah, but it’s gonna cost this much. And Tommy Mottola, in one of the great moments of literary judgment, was like, “How come he costs more than the other people?” She said something very nice about me. He has got on his desk a paperweight that’s a check for a million dollars in lucite. We weren’t talking nearly that much. So I came up with the title Dangerous Dances. I had never heard a Hall and Oates record. So I met them. It was over the course of a summer. So I did that and made the government happy. That’s one book I try not to espouse. But everyone knows I wrote that, it has my name on it. As I wanted, as my ex-agent says.

Now. Johnny’s Last Cigarette, which as I said was many years later. I don’t even think that was ten years ago.

JK: I think that came out in 2014, between Me and the Devil and Under Tiberius.

NT: I get so sick of all this political correctness. I mean, every man. Every woman was once a child. And there are all these good. Beautiful childhood moments and feelings. Which is the greatest step on earth that we lose. It’s not a nefarious book like Kill Your mother—which may not be a bad idea—but sweet. Why do we rob these kids of the dreaminess of the truth? So Johnny’s first Cigarette, Johnny’s First whatever. I was living in Paris at the time when I wrote that.. I knew a woman who was one of my best translators into French. We put the idea together with a publisher I knew in Marseilles and a wonderful artist-illustrator we found and were so excited about.

To tell you the truth I think the idea of legislating feeling is like…How the fuck do you legislate feeling? And forbidden words. It may have been Aristotle who said, when men fear words, times are dark. You and I have spoken about this. Sometimes we don’t even understand what it is about this or that word. It’s like that joke—a guy goes in for a Rorschach test, and the psychologist tells him. “Has anyone ever told you you have a sexually obsessed mind?” And the guy says, “Well, what about you, showing me all these dirty pictures?” What do these words mean? I don’t know. Why is it a crime to call a black man a crocodile? I have always consciously stood against performing any kind of political correctness. And I have written some long letters to people I felt deserved an explanation of my feelings.

JK: Whenever people get outraged because some comedian cracked an “inappropriate” joke, and they say, “How could he say such a thing?” I always respond, “Well, someone has to, right?”

NT: Yeah. So one book came from the government’s desire to have their share of what I’m making. We’re all government employees. The other was, why can’t I write something that’s soft and sweet with a child’s vocabulary that’s not politically correct?  

JK: If Dangerous Dances and Johnny’s First Cigarette were anomalies, I’ve always considered another two of your books companion pieces. Or at least cousins. King of the Jews an Where Dead Voices Gather are both biographies, or maybe anti-biographies, of men about whom very little—or at least very little that’s credible—is known: Arnold Rothstein and Emmett Miller. And that gives you the freedom to run in a thousand directions at once. They’re books made up of detours and parentheticals and digressions, and what we end up with are essentially compact histories of the world with these figures at the center. They strike me as your purest works, and certainly very personal works. More than any of your other books, it’s these two that allow readers to take a peek inside your head. Does that make any sense to you?

NT: Yes, it makes perfect sense. In fact I couldn’t have put it any better myself. This whole myth of what they called the Mafia in the United States—there’s no mafia outside of Sicily. Or called organized crime, was always Italians. The Italians dressed the part, but the Jews made the shirts. It was always an Italian-Jewish consortium. And this Irish mayor wants to play ball? So now it’s Irish. Total equal opportunity. It was basically…Well, Arnold Rothstein was the son of shirt makers. Not only did he control, but he invented what was organized crime in New York. He had the whole political system of New York in his pocket. Emmet Miller was this guy who made these old records that went on to be so influential without his being known. Nobody even knew where or when he was born. The appeal to me was as both an investigator and then to proceed forward with other perspicuities, musings and theories. I never thought of them before as companion works until you mentioned it, but they are.

JK: People have tended to focus on the amount of obsessive research you do. Which is on full display in these books, but what they too often overlook, which is also on full display here, is that you contain a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. It’s like you’ve fully absorbed everything you’ve ever read, and it just spills out of you. These forgotten histories and unexpected connections.

NT: I’ve always kept very strange notebooks. I still do, except now it’s on the computer. There’s no rhyme or reason to these notebooks, it’s just,”don’t want to forget this one.”

JK: Speaking of research, has your methodology changed in the Internet Age? I’m trying to imagine you working on Under Tiberius and looking up”First Century Judea” on Wikipedia.

NT: The Internet demands master navigation. There are sites which have reproduced great scholarly, as opposed to academic, works. There’s also every lie and untruth brought to you by the Such-and Such Authority of North America. This is what they call themselves. I experienced this within the past week. It was not only complete misinformation, but presented in the shoddiest fashion, such as “Historians agree…” I mean, what historians? I couldn’t find a one of them.

So my methodology. I love Ezra Pound’s phrase, “the luminous detail.” Something you find somewhere or learn somewhere…They don’t even have a card catalog at New York Public Library anymore, let alone books. You want an actual book, they have to bring it in from New Jersey. Who cares anymore? What they care about is who’s in a TV series, and they whip out their Mickey Mouse toys and, “look, there he is!”

JK: I was thinking about this on the way over. You and I both remember a time when if you were looking for a specific record or book or bit of information, you could spend months or years searching, scouring used bookstores an libraries. There was a challenge to it.

NT: It was not just a challenge. It was a whole illuminating process unto itself, because of what you come to by accident. So in looking for one fact or one insight, you would gather an untold amount. That is what it’s about.

JK: Nowadays if I’m looking for, say, a specific edition of a specific book, I take two minutes, go online, and there it is. I hit a button, and it’s mailed to me at my home. Somehow it diminishes the value, as opposed to finally finding something I’d been searching for for years. Nothing has any value anymore.

NT: No, definitely not. When I was living down in Tennessee, all those Sunday drives, guys selling stuff out of their garages. Every once in awhile you hit on something, or find something you didn’t even know existed. Now education on every level, especially on the institutional, but even on a personal level, is diminished. People are getting stupider, and that probably includes myself.

JK: And me too. Now, if I could change course here, you’re a man of many contradictions. Maybe dichotomies is a better term. A streetwise Italian kid who’s a bookworm. A misanthrope who seeks out the company of others. A libertine who is also a highly disciplined, self-educated man of letters. It’s even reflected in your prose—someone who is always swinging between the stars and the gutter. It’s led some people to say there are two Nick Tosches. Is this something you recognize in yourself?

NT: Yes. It’s never been a goal, it’s just…

JK: How you are?

NT: Yeah. I’ve noticed it, and much to my consternation and displeasure and inconvenience, yeah. But there’s no reward in seeking to explain or justify it.

JK: One of the most intriguing and complex of these is the savage heretic who keeps returning to religious themes, the secrets of the Church and the sacred texts. And of course the devil in one guise or another is lurking through much of your work. Again it’s led some people to argue that since you were raised Catholic, this may represent some kind of striving for redemption. You give any credence to that?

NT: No. Absolutely not.

JK: Yeah, it would seem Under Tiberius would’ve put the kibosh on that idea.

NT: I don’t even consider myself having been raised Catholic, in the modern made-for-TV sense of that phrase. I was told to go to church on Sundays and confession on Saturdays, and I usually went to the candy store instead. I was confirmed, I had communion. To me, it was a much deeper, much more experiential passage when I came to the conclusion that there was no Santa Clause than when I came to the conclusion there was no God. I remember emotionally expressing my suspicions about Santa Claus to my mother. Toward the end of his life, I was talking to my father one day, and I said, “By the way, do you believe in God?” And he said no. I said me neither. And that was about the only real religious conversation we ever had. I think religion, without a doubt since its invention—and God was an invention of man—is a huge indefensible evil force in this world. When people believe in a religion which calls for vengeance upon those whose beliefs are different, it’s not a good sign. Not a good sign.          

JK: This is something I’ve been curious about. Two of your novels—In the Hand of Dante and Under Tiberius—are predicated on the idea that you come into possession of manuscripts pilfered from the Vatican library. The library comes up a few other times as well. You write about it in such detail and with an insider’s knowledge. Either I was fooled by your skills as a convincing fiction writer, or you’ve spent your share of time there. And if the latter, how does a heretic like you end up with Vatican credentials?

NT: Okay. You go buy yourself a very beautiful, very important let’s say, leather portfolio with silk ribbon corner stays that keeps the documents there. Then you set about…Well, my friend Jim Merlis’ father-in-law, for instance, won the Nobel Prize in physics right around then. So I went to Jim and said, “Hey Jim, do you suppose you could get your father-in-law to write me a letter of recommendation? I know I never met the man.” Had a tough life, but won the Nobel Prize. Did a beautiful letter for me. I don’t even know that I kept it. You put together five letters that only Jesus Christ could’ve gathered. And he probably couldn’t have because he was unwashed. It was twice as difficult for me, because I had no academic affiliation, not even a college degree. But the Vatican was so nice. There are two libraries. One involves a photo I.D. and the other one doesn’t. They gave me two cards, and they made me a doctor. That’s how you get in. So what do you do once you’re in? They have the greatest retrieval library I’ve ever seen. The people that you meet. One guy was a composer. Wanted to see this exact original musical manuscript because he wanted to make sure of one note that may have changed. So this was all real—I just hallucinated the rest. If you can use a real setting, you’re one step closer to gaining credibility with the person who reads you. I still have my membership cards, though I think they must’ve expired. They were great. You go to a hotel and they ask you to show them photo ID? “Ohhh…”

JK: One of the themes that runs throughout your work is fear. Fear as maybe the most fundamental motivating human emotion.

NT: Any man who thinks he’s a tough guy is either a fool or a liar. Fear is I think one of the fundamental formative elements. And I’m just speaking of myself becoming a writer. Choosing to express yourself with great subtlety in some cases, when what you want to express is so inchoate. But that was a long time ago. I still believed in the great charade. These days I’m just living the lie. But it’s so much better than fear. To convey fear. The more universal the feeling, the easier it is to convey powerful emotions. There was a line in Cut Numbers; “He thought the worst thing a man can think.” Michael Pietsch my editor said, “What is that thing?” And I said “Michael, every person who reads that will have a different idea.” It’s an invocation of the Worst Thing. One woman might read it and think of raping her two-year-old son. Some guy might think of robbing his father. To you or I it might not be that bad a thing, but to that person it’s the Worst Thing.

JK: That’s the magic of reading.

NT: That is the magic of reading. That’s the bottom line. Writing is a two-man job. It takes someone to write it and Someone to read it who’s not yourself.

JK: Exactly. Readers bring what they have to a book, and take away from it what they need, what interpretation  has meaning for them.

NT: It’s also possible to write certain very exact phrases and have them be evocative of nothing but a thirst for an answer that the person who wrote them doesn’t know. Readers never give themselves enough credit. Now all the experiential and soulful depths of all our finite wanderings, roaming imaginations and questions thereof are relegated to a Mickey Mouse toy. That’s what I see, people who interact with these toys instead of another person. I don’t care. I was here for the good times.

JK: There’s another idea that’s come up a few times in various forms and various contexts in your work, where you say, in essence, “once you give up hope, life becomes more pleasant,” which is a wonderful twist on Dante.

NT: It’s true!

JK: I know, and I’m in full agreement with you. Hope, faith, belief, are all great destroyers. But I’m wonderinh, when did you come to that conclusion?

NT: A lot of the things I write or think I do put in that notebook I mentioned, and I usually put the date. That was one where I did not put down the date. I do believe it’s true. People say, “never give up hope.” Why the hell not? If you don’t give up hope, it leads you, at a craps table, betting you’re aunt’s car. Where did hope ever get anybody? It’s terrible.  

JK: Now, there are two quotes which have appeared and reappeared throughout your work, and I think you know which two I’m talking about. The first is from Pound’s Canto CXX: “I have tried to write Paradise// Do not move/ Let the wind speak/ that is paradise.” And the other’s from the Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” As you look at your life and work now, and look back over the last half century, do you think you’re closing in on that point where Pound and Thomas finally come together?

NT: Yes. I never thought of that phrase you choose, “come together,” but yes. They’ve become more and more deeply a part of my consciousness. Yes, every day I pause. And I still hold the 120th Canto to be the final one. It was just one person who insisted no, this is not how he would have ended. Which is why the current modern edition of the Cantos goes two cantos more. There’s this line that is so bad. It’s hilariously bad. The joke of history. The line that Pound was supposed to have written to go beyond that beautiful line was, “Courage, thy name is Olga.” The other of course, the meaning of that line, that line being the one you were referring to, if you bring forth what is within you it will save you, if you do not bring forth it will destroy you. Of a hundred translations from the Coptic, that, to me, is the perfect translation. What is that thing? That’s what everybody wants to know. That’s me. That thing is just the truth of yourself. If you do live in fear, that will destroy you. If I speak the truth, the worst it’s going to do is frighten another. That will save you. That will set you free. Those two things, yes. And there’s another element, if I can add it unsolicited. I’ve noticed this pattern with people such as Pound and people such as Samuel Beckett. The greatest depth, the most majestic wielders of language as a communication form, slowly trail off to silence. Which is what Pound refers to in what I know is the last Canto. Be still. Paradise. Ezra Pound’s own daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, translated The Cantos into Italian. Her translation had moments when it was an improvement on his phraseology. In Italian, “Non ti muovere” is much better than “be still.” Books, reading, writing, lend themselves to interpretive subtleties which are by no means pointless. What can people get out of an app?

by Jim Knipfel

#Nick Tosches' Final Interview #The Chiseler #Jim Knipfel #Nick Tosches

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

Truth [Part 1]

Master List 

Request:

What’s up sug! sorry you’re struggling right now but I’ve come to help you If you could bring this to light for me I’d absolutely love for YOU TO DO JT So basically Bucky X Enhanced reader who are fuckin enemies. Hate each other to every last fiber of their beings bc Bucky is rude and she calls him out on it. AnywHs, they get drunk, truth or dare (go crZy baby) and LOTS LF dirty talk if u wanna do smut but if u don’t then buck taking care of her while she’s drunk cause she admitted her feelings

Pairing: Bucky X Reader (Enhanced)

Summary: Since The Avengers gave you a home the only blight has been Bucky Barnes, a ghost from your past that you can’t seem to shake. It makes you hate him. The feeling, it seems, is mutual. But maybe things aren’t quite as simple as they seem. (Post Winter Soldier AU)

Warnings: Violence, guns, plotting (lol).

A/N: Well. This is a thing. At first, when I got this ask I was like... uh... hmm... this is so not me. (Honestly, the truth or dare element threw me because let’s be real, I haven’t played that since high school.) But then I thought about it and realized I could totally run with this and have some fun. Then I ended up having too much fun I guess. (And look I’m not saying it’s perfect but damn I’m enjoying it.)

I think this won’t go past a three-parter but who knows. The next bit gets smutty (I know for sure since I’m currently writing it) so stay tuned for that. Also, this makes three fics I’m actively writing (you know plus my day job) so I can’t promise part 2 will be up next week but sooooon. 

Tags are open! 

@mywinterwolf  @disagreetoagree @peachthatdrinkslemonade @breezy1415

I could do it, you thought staring down the ridge. No one would know it was me, too much chaos, just focus and BAM, the old fuck drops… Just then Steve flings Barnes the shield to fend off an attack and you remember that you can’t off the fucking Winter Soldier because Steve, who had unquestionably saved your life, would be absolutely devastated.

“Hey Y/N!” Barnes bellows over the com, “How about you pull your fucking weight?!”

No. One. Would. Know. “Hey Barnes, how about you go fuck yourself?”

“Kids,” Clint pipes up. “Play nice.”

You chose to ignore them both and plant your hands firmly on the ground. About 20 Hydra agents just ahead of you, you could feel the vibrations of their energy through the soil. Your breath stops and you begin to pull energy into your body, the air around you getting cooler with each second. This was going to be a show. Heat curls up your arms, you feel like you’re on fire, electric with this power. Admittedly this didn’t always work, focusing the energy through the ground but this time you had pettiness on your side and that was as powerful a weapon as whatever Hydra put in you.

“Fuck, on our twelve,” you hear Barnes say. Little late old man. “Goddamnit! Y/N why do-“

Now. Intentionally making the energy release a little more powerful than it needed to be you let go, concentrating hard, Just the Hydra agents, no one else, acutely aware of where each of them stood. White hot light snaked from the ground into the bodies of each unsuspecting agent, their screams loud, an uncomfortable sizzling hitting your ears as they lit up like candle flames. As gruesome as it was, in one shot you eliminated every single one.

“What was that about doing my part, Barnes?” You snipe over the com standing looking smugly over the ridge, “Your count was what, five?”

“We’re clear,” Natasha says before he can respond and you silence your earpiece, turning on your heel to head to the jet.

Back at the tower, you’re stripping out of your gear in the locker room with Natasha.

“You know you two could just fuck and get it over with.”

“What?!” You’re genuinely confused.

“Uh, you and Bucky. You go at each other like-“

You begin laughing, “Look I get your angle here but no, that’s not what this is. He’s a fucking asshole, and not in the way that gets me going,” and they didn’t know what he had been like before, not really.

“Whatever you say,” she slams her locker, dirty tac gear inside to be picked up for cleaning, “but there’s nothing like a good hate fuck to work out tension.” With that, she saunters away.

The thought of letting him touch you made your skin crawl. Though… No. Absolutely fucking not.

Tony had demanded everyone get together to celebrate a successful mission and as much as you weren’t a huge fan of social gatherings of more than two people even after almost a year of working with them all you begrudgingly agreed when it was made clear that this was a casual affair.

You stare in the mirror at yourself in black skinnies and a fitted white tee, so… normal looking. Who would suspect you were essentially a woman shaped atomic bomb? Sighing you throw your hair into a ponytail and head for the elevator. At the very least, Barnes never came to these things.

Mother. Fucker. When you got out of the elevator you had thought you were in the clear. Tony shoved a whiskey neat in your hand (spiked with his special ingredient to get the enhanced among you just as lit as the rest) the coast looked clear. Then across the room in a corner, you saw Barnes brooding, drink in hand, slouched in an oversized chair.

“What did I say earlier,” Clint says with a wink, jabbing an elbow at you.

You roll your eyes, “I always start off playing nice, thank you. It’s not my fault he’s determined to piss me off at every turn.”

“I’m on your side,” Sam pipes up from your other side and you can’t help but laugh at the exaggerated look of disdain on his face. Barnes looks at you then, eyes burning. All humor drains out of you and you turn away to head to the other side of the room.

The evening goes surprisingly well. Tony’s ‘special sauce,’ as he keeps calling it, is just enough to get you perfectly tipsy... if not bordering on drunk. Honestly, you couldn’t remember the last time you had felt this loose. Not to mention his playlist for the night was on point, unsurprising since you were technically Tony’s age (even if you looked half that) so you generally had the same taste in pop culture.

This was the first time since you had been with them that everyone was together and for the most part everyone was having an exceptional time. Everyone that was except for your resident cloud of darkness.

Unable to let sleeping dogs lie Tony finally plops down on Barnes’ lap, “You know, I made this hooch for you special, because out of all you,” Tony gestures to you, Steve, and Thor, “I think you’re the one who needs to let loose the most. So,” Tony picks up the tumbler that had been sitting on the table next to Barnes the whole night, “drink your juice, Shelby.” Between the Steel Magnolias reference and the look on Barnes’ face you nearly send your drink shooting through your nose with a laugh.

Barnes looks at you then back at Tony, not a flicker of humor in his tone, “I don’t think you care to know what me letting lose looks like Stark.” With that, he dumps Tony off his lap. The mood of the room immediately shifts, everyone afraid of just what The Winter Soldier letting lose would indeed look like.

“Wow,” you drawl, “really know how to kill a buzz don’t ya Barnes?” The look he shoots you is ice cold, Steve looks stressed, and all you can think is, Please, please give me a good reason.

He saunters over to you in, what Natasha has playfully labeled his ‘murder strut,’ and looms over you, “And you’re just the life of the party, huh?”

You sneer, “Nah, but at least I can pretend to be a normal human for a few hours.” His upper lip ticks just a bit, and you swear you can hear the metal plates in his arm shift. When he moves you’re already bracing yourself internally for a hit, instead he just plucks the drink from your hand and downs it in one shot.

“Alright, Tony, it’s not bad. Guess I’ll have another.”

“That’s more fucking like it!” Tony bellows getting up to make another drink for Barnes immediately lifting the room back almost to where it was before. As for you, you plaster a smile on your face but all you want to do is level that fucker.

Banner goes down for the night and Clint follows not far behind despite taunting from all of you. About being lightweights. Things had started to wind down but Natasha, still wide awake, isn’t quite ready to let everything go quiet just yet.

“Alright, now that the old men have left us I say we play a game,” the look on her face is filled with mischief.

“What kind of game?” Steve catches her tone and looks more than a little suspect.

She smirks, “Only the best kind of game when you’re in the company of soldiers, assassins, gods, and spies...” everyone stares, “Truth or dare.”

“I’m down,” you’re drunk enough to want in on this mess.

“What exactly is that?” Thor looks confused as if it can’t mean what it sounds like.

The rules are laid out. No truths that can get anyone killed because... well between Nat, you, and Barnes there had to be more than a few secrets that should 100% be kept. And, only minimal bloodshed would be permitted in the event of a dare. All rules everyone could easily abide.

Only ten minutes in and you realize the long con Nat’s been playing at... and that you should have definitely not agreed to this.

“Dare,” you say.

Natasha’s mouth curls into a smirk, “Good. Kiss Bucky.”

“What?!” You both spit at the same time throwing daggers at the other. Everyone is cackling.

“You can’t refuse, it causes no harm, and it’s the least the two of you owe the rest of us for making us deal with you,” shrugs of agreement from everyone. Barnes’ head drops to his hands.

“I’ll take a truth then.”

“Not how it works,” Thor chides laughing. “You have-“

“Want to make me?” The temperature around you dropping just a little as tiny streaks of energy snake up your arms. Any residual cheer drops away.

“Now who’s a buzzkill?” Barnes asks sardonically. You close your eyes and take a deep breath. He was right. And maybe you could zap him a little just to prove a point.

Without another word, you stride across the circle and pull him up by his collar, the fabric making a ripping sound. He doesn’t resist you and you kiss him hard, bordering on violent, forcing your tongue in his mouth just to be sure no one can say it wasn’t a thorough kiss. And... maybe you were curious as to what he would taste like. For good measure though you let just a touch of the energy zap his lips. He pulls back in shock at the feeling.

“Happy?!” You ask turning to the group. They’re all staring like they really didn’t expect it. “Good.” You sit down heavily next to Natasha without another word and diligently chose truth for the next hour.

Eventually, you all grow bored of the game and fall into just talking, though you mostly listen. You were so committed to ignoring his existence you don’t actually notice that Barnes had slipped away until everyone decides to disperse.

The rest of them seemed perfectly content to go to bed. You were envious. Being drunk went from being fun to making you feel anxious around the time of the kiss. The power had been too quick to come to you, too volatile, you knew that. Not being in control was something you hated and... if you were being honest wasn’t good for anyone around you.

Need to sweat this out, you think and head down to the training grounds buried beneath the tower.

You had intended to go to the shooting range. Tony had set up a special stall for you that had heating panels all around it so you could play with your energy manipulation more, refine it, make it your own. But as you walk up to the glass you see someone else emptying a clip at a bevy of moving targets, hitting each perfectly.

Lightening fast he changes the clip and you can’t help but watch as again not a single target is missed. You’re good but you can’t touch that level of precision. Not yet. But Barnes was good at what he did, no one, not even you, would question that.

It doesn’t take long for your admiration to sour though. He had this uncanny way of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suddenly the steady sound of bullets stops and he hurls the gun at the targets, roaring. His hands rest on the small counter before him for a second, back heaving. Turning halfway, not noticing you, he leans against the wall of the stall and slides to the floor his head thudding against it, forearms resting on his knees, cheeks shining with moisture from sweat or tears you couldn’t tell.

Goddamnit, your dislike for him ran along the lines of hatred... you had thought about how to kill him so many times in so many ways it was almost comical. Right now though... You didn’t have it in you to comfort this man when you could hardly tell him good morning most days but you could at least give him privacy.

You turn to leave and you feel his eyes on you, “Enjoy the show?” Most wouldn’t have been able to hear his words through the thick glass but you weren’t most.

He’d seen you, no use in pretending. “Not particularly.” You open the door and stride in, heading toward your booth, “And as usual you’re right where I don’t want you to be.”  

You’re almost in your booth when he starts laughing, and you’re pretty certain you have never, in the years you’ve known him, heard him laugh. You lean around, “Something funny?”

He keeps laughing, “Yeah, you.”

“Oh?” You walk back to him and stand looking down, arms crossed. He’s cackling. “Do tell.”

“You really don’t know why we always end up here at the same time? Why we’re always at each other?” More laughter, “You really think you hate me.” Finally, he takes a breath, wiping the tears from his eyes, “Your obliviousness is hilarious.”

“You’re such a fucking prick,” you say and turn away.

“Yeah. I am. And you’re a cunt.” You spin so fast any normal person would hardly have seen your movement, streaks of light snaking around your skin, ready to destroy him. “I’d say we’re cut from the same cloth.”

“No,” you growl.

“Really?” He stands up and shoves his hands in his pockets. “So you’re not in here because you need to work off the feeling of not being in control?” He takes a step toward you and you move back in turn. “You’re not in here because you’re scared if you don’t get that energy out you’ll hurt someone?” A few more steps. “You don’t wind up in here more nights than you’re in your bed because you can’t sleep?” You're almost against the door. “Just. Like. Me.” Your back bumps against the glass.

He’s inches from you, so close you can smell the whiskey on his breath, “If you touch me I’ll fucking kill you.”

“I know you will.” He stares at you for a moment, “That’s why I’m glad you’re on the team.”

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #avengers au #bucky #bucky barnes #the winter solider x reader #the avengers x reader #fic request

[exeggcute]

I saw dear evan hansen a week or two ago and like... it was really bad and disrespectful and frankly just in poor taste. and the songs were pretty bland and the production value was mediocre. (yet somehow it won SIX tony awards and anastasia won zero. okay.) it was literally john green but for theater kids. if you don't know the plot, you can find a synopsis on wikipedia, but the gist of it is that one high schooler (connor, who is a Loner Problem Child who Smokes Weed) kills himself, and another high schooler (evan, who is Socially Awkward and Has Anxiety) pretends to have been friends with the now-dead connor in order to ease connor's parents' grief. in doing so, evan ends up becoming popular and well-liked, starts a fundraiser in "connor's memory," and ingratiated himself into connor's family and ends up dating his sister. the whole thing gets taken way too far, as expected, but there are very few consequences for evan's lying other than the occasional self-reflection of "oops, this is bad! I'm in too deep! but I have Social Anxiety and therefore I'm not really responsible for my actions" and the eventual slap on the wrist he gets when the facade comes crashing down. the show as a whole does very little to even attempt to condemn his behavior and there's sort of a wishy-washy "the ends justify the means" air to the whole thing.

there's a lot of stuff I could get into--the toxic faux-family dynamic where connor's parents end up adopting connor as a better replacement of their deadbeat dead son (which the narrative does very little to acknowledge as a bad thing in any way), the trope-typical "shy protagonist boy who feels a vague sense of entitlement/'love' towards this girl he doesn't know, so naturally they end up together as an organic progression of events" (compounded by the fact that evan gets close to this girl by pretending to be a friend of her dead brother. they kiss on her dead brother's bed. like...), the fact that evan's whole charity in connor's memory is founded entirely on lies and is a fundraiser for a cause that has nothing to do with connor (they raise money for an orchard, because evan likes orchards and therefore pretends that connor also liked orchards). we as the audience are basically expected to sympathize with evan, even when (or if) we know what he's doing is "wrong." there's very little exploration of how or why this is "wrong" other than a general sense of "lying is bad." (I could also go on about how the stage production is set up in such a way that social media and giant digital screens form a major component of the set, but the play itself makes basically no attempt to explain how or why this matters, instead expecting the audience to do the mental heavy lifting of "social media is like, bad or something.") but my main qualm lies in the absolutely atrocious treatment of suicide, suicide prevention, and mental illness in general.

connor's suicide is reduced to a plot point. he kills himself unceremoniously within the first twenty minutes of the first act. not once throughout the entire play does anyone wonder why connor killed himself--certainly not evan, who, despite crafting an elaborate fictional account of connor's life and inner world, makes no attempt to actually sympathize with the real actual connor or even slightly question what his real motives or personality were like. his death is one hundred percent just a means of advancing the plot. both in-universe and from a textual perspective, connor is, to be blunt, better off dead than alive. this is obviously a really great message to send in an anti-suicide musical, that your death will just be a catalyst for other, more important events and your own personhood is largely irrelevant. connor is by far the most interesting character in the show, and the show kills him almost immediately. (I will say that they make no mention of the method he uses, which is actually a good thing overall, especially given the show's teen audience and the nature of copycat suicides, but I doubt that it was a deliberate choice to be "tasteful" or anything instead of just a complete lack of attention given to connor's character, so I'm not going to give them a brownie point for that.) 

for a play supposedly about suicide and mental illness, it makes very few specific references to any of these things. evan has a therapist who is mentioned, but we never see or hear anything about them--having an on-stage session with the therapist would be tremendously interesting, in my opinion, but the opportunity is missed. evan talks vaguely about some corny journaling exercises that are basically just CBT lite but there's no explanation as to why he does this thing. evan's mom makes an oblique reference to evan's vaguely-defined "pills," to which evan says that he stopped taking them because he's "doing better" now that he's finally Cool and Popular. (this is played straight as a good thing on evan's behalf. no reference to the fact that like, not only are you supposed to taper off meds when you stop taking them, but also that you're supposed to keep taking meds when you're doing well because that means they're actually working. plus the general baggage of associating "going off your meds" with "finally being cured and totally fine now," but I digress.) 

mental illness is barely discussed as a contributing factor towards connor's death (to the extent that connor's death is examined in any capacity, which is none). dear evan hansen treats suicide as a result of simply "feeling like you don't belong" and not a culmination of so many cultural, social, and biochemical factors. nor does it ever really define what it means to "belong" bedsides a vague sense of "being popular and everyone likes you." (not to mention that, while connor is portrayed as being vaguely antagonistic towards evan and making evan seem like a defenseless victim of bullying, evan's friend actively taunts connor for no reason and tells connor that he "looks like a school shooter," and we as the audience are meant to find this funny, presumably. yet after connor's death there's no sense that his social ostracization or the failure to address his negative behavior might have contributed to his suicide, just that "oh if he knew how much we all cared, he certainly would still be alive!" because obviously, everyone cared about him, from his classmates who make fun of him to his parents who make no attempt to understand why their son acts out or has behavioral issues.)

the overall tone of the musical is either nauseatingly upbeat or gratuitously twee and sad. the "sad" parts are sort of a torture porn that demand to be seen as So So Sad instead of actually making any emotional impact that could be seen as sad. it reminds me of when the fault in our stars came out and everyone bragged about how much the book made them cry, as if being Emotionally Impacted by the (mediocre) story somehow made you more virtuous than your dry-eyed peers. the whole thing is so fucking self-congratulatory and a way of acting like you care about social issues without doing anything impactful (or in this case, supporting something that is actually actively harmful). 

dear evan hansen is actually a very good social commentary on the way social circles and the media at large (both in terms of news reporting and popular culture) treat issues of mental illness and suicide, but this commentary is completely unintentional and metatextual. it's not that it's an actual good critique of these issues, it's that the play is SO BAD that it serves of an example of these harmful phenomena. ironically, several characters within the play as treated as examples of people who are over-the-top in their supposed interest in these things (one girl who has never even met connor makes a show out of mourning him to the point that she pulls a muscle in her chest from crying so hard), but this is more of a comedic element than social commentary. both the audience and the characters turn connor's death into a chance to make a spectacle of their own support and grief rather than to offer forth any sympathy or support for him. when the charity in connor's honor goes viral online and we see shots of people making signs with hashtags to show their "devotion to the cause" (a cause which, to remind you, has nothing to do with connor's actual interests), this is supposed to be immensely touching rather than something between horrifying and laughable. at one point, the letter that evan pretends is connor's suicide note (but was actually a CBT journalist exercise written by evan himself) goes viral. A TEENAGE BOY'S (FAKE) SUICIDE NOTE GOES VIRAL, AND WE AS THE AUDIENCE SEE A BUNCH OF PEOPLE HOLDING SIGNS WITH HASHTAGS ON THEM, AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE TOUCHING INSTEAD OF, LIKE, THE WORLD'S CRAPPIEST GALLOWS HUMOR. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE, ANYWHERE, COULD SEE THIS AND THINK THIS IS AT ALL ~DEEP~ OR EVEN LIKE, REMOTELY TASTEFUL.

it's bad. the songs sucked. if you want a musical about social issues among high schoolers,fucking mean girls (of all things) is a genuinely more moving and subtle social commentary, plus the soundtrack and production value are actually good.

#this is long and more than a little incoherent #also i'm sure i missed a lot of things #but like. it's bad. it's probably worse than you would initially assume from the synopsis #suicide/// #long post//

[betsynagler]

The Four (Thousand, New) Questions

When I was growing up, I didn't really have to think too much about what it meant to be a Jewish American. A large part of that was living in New Jersey, where being a member of the tribe isn’t exactly an anomaly. In Newark, pretty much all of my friends were Jewish or Black, until I spent 2nd grade in Catholic School. You’d think that might make it weird, but even then, it wasn’t. All my new friends just had Irish and Italian names, and I got to sit in the back during mass and read, which is the dream of every second grader. And when we moved to the suburbs, things became, if anything, more Jewy. We joined Temple Israel and actually tried going to services every once in a while, and I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays. At my suburban public grade school, I learned the term “Jappy” something my friends and I called other girls that we considered spoiled, regardless of whether or not they were Jewish, and in junior high, the school bus that came from the most wealthy, Jewish neighborhood in town was sometimes referred to as “The Jew Canoe.” Who did we learn these terms from? Other Jews. We were the ones trading in the laughable stereotypes, because that’s American Jewish culture all over: we joke because we can. It’s never been in doubt in my lifetime that we belong here, to the degree that we are comfortable poking fun at ourselves, enough that while we are very aware that we aren’t and will never be the majority — and if you forget that, you always have the 30 to 60 days of Christmas to remind you — we are perfectly okay with that; and enough to feel safe in the knowledge that the past is the past, because in the Tri-State Area in the 1970s and 80s, anti-Semitism was about as real to me as Star Wars: something that existed long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The same thing with Nazis. Nazis were the movie villains nobody got upset about. Nobody ever said, “Why do the Nazis always have to be the bad guys?” Why? Because they were the bad guys. 

That doesn’t mean that my Jewish identity was 100% uncomplicated, mostly because I was raised to figure stuff out for myself. Mine were the kind of parents who took us to fancy restaurants and said, “Want to order the escargot? Have at it!”, perhaps not realizing that they’d end up with a seven-year-old who liked to try every appetizer on the menu but had a stomach the size of a golfball – which led to my parents gaining weight in the 70s, which led to their joining the exercise craze in the 80s...See how history happens? Being able to make my own decisions meant I could quit Hebrew school after one year (I was already a well-practiced quitter of stuff I didn't like, such as wearing dresses and learning the violin). I felt a little guilty about it, so I was definitely Jewish in that way, but one of the reasons I couldn’t get behind religious school was the fact that Judaism was supposedly my religion, but – go figure – our family was not religious. My parents don’t agree on which type of not-religious they are, since my mother describes herself as an atheist and my father calls himself an agnostic, but that’s only if you push them, since neither of them cares enough about it either way. They still identify as Jewish, and therein lay the confusion for me: Judaism is kind of an ethnic identity as well as a religion, but in a weird way, because you can convert to it, which you can’t do with, say, Slavic, and because it’s not one where we all come from one specific place, since Jews were basically driven out of everywhere. Sure, my family were all driven out of one country, Poland, but that didn’t exactly make them feel Polish. No, we were definitely Jews, just the secular kind, which is actually a thing — although I didn’t know anyone else like that in high school, the result being that in my group of friends, a mix of Jews and non-Jews, I was in my own category of Jewish, But Doesn’t Know When Any of the Holidays Are.

When I went to college on the West Coast, where I was meeting new people all the time, it was common for people tell me I didn’t “look Jewish,” which seemed to just fit right in with every other confusing part of my Jewish identity. You might think that, as a stealth Jew, I’d finally be privy to negativity about us, but that never happened. That was around the time of the rise of the religious right, and there were a lot of born-again Christians at Stanford, my freshman dorm was full of them. But while they may have believed I was going to hell, most of them still seemed happy to hang with me while we were alive – one of them even took me out for fro yo once (that’s short for “frozen yogurt,” and eating it together at Stanford in 1987 was called “dating”). If anything, being Jewish around them was an advantage, because they never tried to rebirth me the way they did other Christians, like my poor freshman roommate – I would come back to our room to find her surrounded by a group of them, looking uncomfortable, like she was getting hit on by Jesus. Mind you, I know now that my school was a liberal bubble inside the liberal bubble that was Northern California, and that protected me from a lot of things. But while we were definitely dealing with racism and sexism on campus at the time, anti-Semitism? That just wasn’t a thing.

Neither was being a Jewish person who didn’t support Israel. I didn’t know all that much about Israel growing up. I knew that it was the Jewish state, where I had once had some relatives, and that my cousins and eventually my brother — who finished Hebrew school — went to visit because they felt like it was an important way to learn about who they were. I didn’t. But when, in college, I had my first conversation with someone who’d lived in Israel about the way that Israelis felt this constant existential threat to their existence that justified their defensive posture when it came to negotiating peace with the Palestinians, even though they clearly had vast military superiority, I didn’t necessarily agree, but I got it. I understood why Israelis felt that, in a visceral, six-million-dead-just-because-they-were-like-you way that I think most non-Jews can’t. 

That was probably as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone: that, on some level, in spite of not looking Jewish, or being able to speak Hebrew, or knowing what Sukkot was (if it wasn’t about eating or presents, it didn’t make it into the Nagler Canon of Holidays), I actually still somehow just was Jewish. And that part of my identity might never have really sunk in if I hadn’t become a New Yorker. Moving here didn’t just mean that I discovered Zabars, or that I was a bagel snob, or that I would be able to have lox at catering pretty much every day (and occasionally take some home if it was really good), although those things did indeed happen. New York was able to absorb and assimilate Jewish culture in a way that allowed it to flourish as one distinct flavor of the whole that is this city of many flavors. New York is a Jewish city – in same way that it’s also Italian, Irish, African-American, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Dominican, Pakistani, Caribbean, Mexican, and the list goes on depending on who’s arrived recently and who’s coming next. And so, from the way I relate to food, to my sense of humor, to my analytical and intellectual side, to how forthright/tactless I can be, to my overall worldview: living here enabled me to recognize that I just wouldn’t be this way if I weren’t Jewish.

Everything feels different in 2019 in so many, surreal ways, but what exactly it means to be Jewish in America is definitely a big one. I’ve felt some vulnerability and uncertainty as a woman for most of my life, as you do, but I’ve never felt that way about being a Jew until now. To the point that I can’t call myself “a Jew” any more, because suddenly, that’s an epithet. How the hell did that happen? When did we allow them to take that word away? Then there’s the realization of, Wait, we can’t make those jokes any more because there are people who actually still think that shit about us? And they’re telling other people? Fucking internet. Add to that the fault lines within the American Jewish community over Israel and the ground really starts to feel like it’s swaying under your feet. How much we should continue to support this country that seems increasingly unrecognizable to me, that is so racked by fear and sectarianism that it appears to have given up on peace and democracy, that votes for a leader who has demonstrated time and again that he is both racist and corrupt? Well, now that I’ve put it like that, okay, maybe this is something that Israel and the United States have in common right now, but that doesn’t make it any better for those of use who are trying to stay on the sane side of it all. I’m lucky that most of my family is in agreement with me on these issues, but my mother has some cousins with whom she is close that she had to ask to stop sending her political emails, because their conservative views about Israel seemed to have somehow spread to abortion and immigration, despite that fact that they live in San Francisco. Jewish Trump supporters? From the Bay Area? What the hell is the going on?! Come on, this can’t be us. When an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition cheers when Trump says “Our country’s full. You can’t come in,” don’t they hear the eerie echos of what the American government said to the boats full of Jews they sent back to be slaughtered in the holocaust? Don’t they know that we are supposed to be sharp, and educated, and fucking liberals? Oh, wait, is “liberal” now a bad word not just among conservatives but for some on the left too, as in the “liberal elite who control everything” that they’re always talking about? But, double wait, wasn’t that just another way anti-Semites used to say “the Jews” without saying “the Jews”? But triple wait, aren’t Bernie Sanders and Glenn Greenwald Jewish? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Of course, this about when all of your older Jewish relatives shake their heads at all of this and say, “See? This is exactly the shit always happens to us. Somehow, when things go bad in the world, and people start believing crazy conspiracy shit, that always turns back on the Jews.” I never believed that before, so to see it sort of happening right before my eyes is really something. But at the same time, I’m sure as hell not going to let that make me just silo up. Yeah, there are the swastikas, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and “Jews will not replace us,” but can we honestly say we have it worse than everyone else who’s under attack in this country right now? What’s the point of joining a grievance competition that just gives the people who are trying to divide the left exactly what they want? It’s how, when the new questions that confuse and divide us just keep coming — What do we say or not say about Ilhan Omar? What about the schism in the Women’s March? What about the Senate bill that would allow state and local governments to withhold contracts from those who boycott Israel that Chuck Schumer supported? — they just get us to go after each other.

Let’s not do that. Sure, maybe this is just another case of me getting older and less able to accept how the world is changing — sort of a, “Damn Nazis, get off my lawn!” type of thing – and maybe I should just go along with this new normal. But that's one thing I know is definitely not me. MoTs like to talk shit out, sometimes too much, but eh. Let’s bring that tradition of analysis and argument — and I mean the kind where you’re forthright and emotional, but you still know how to listen — to bear on the questions we’re having both on the left and in the Jewish community about how we move forward, instead of fleeing back into our fears from the past.

[lastsonlost]

Thanks goes out to @yourownpetard​for bringing this to my attention with his post HERE.

Fifteen years ago, Hollywood’s glittering superstars—among them Meryl Streep— were on their feet cheering for Roman Polanski, the convicted child rapist and fugitive from justice, when he won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Director. But famous sex criminals of the motion picture and television arts have lately fallen out of fashion, as the industry attempts not just to police itself but—where would we be without them?—to instruct all of us on how to lead our lives.

The Golden Globes ceremony had the angry, unofficial theme of  “Time’s Up,” which quickly and predictably became unmoored from its original meaning, as excited winners tried to align their entertaining movies and TV shows with the message. By the time Laura Dern—a quiver in her voice—connected the nighttime soap opera Big Little Lies to America’s need to institute “restorative justice,” it seemed we’d set a course for the moon but ended up on Jupiter: close, but still 300 million miles away. And then Oprah Winfrey climbed the stairs to the stage, and I knew she wouldn’t just bat clean-up; she’d bring home the pennant.

Winfrey began speaking to crowds at the age of 3. “Little Miss Winfrey is here to do the recitation,” the preacher would say, and the whole congregation would lean in to listen to the remarkable child. As far as sexual abuse is involved, no one speaks with greater personal authority; the first time she was raped, she was 9.  “I knew it was bad,” she said later, “because it hurt so badly.” From the second she started speaking at the Golden Globes, filling the ballroom at the Beverly Hilton with her rich, confident, and sui generis voice, she gave the night what it had so desperately wanted: emotional coherence.  

She smoothly accomplished what other speakers had struggled to do: She connected the grotesque but statistically insignificant problem of sexual harassment in Hollywood to the larger fate of women and girls. “It’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry,” she said; “it’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics, or workplace.” She said that a new day was on the horizon—this was near the end of the speech, by which point she could have marched the crowd right over to The Weinstein Company and torched the place—and that the catalyst for this important change was the number of women willing to “speak their truth.” In that moment, all us watching from home witnessed the revolution become a movement.

Less than a week later, the movement became a racket. A previously obscure website called Babe, which is operated by a group of very young women in Brooklyn, got a hot tip. Through the grapevine, the staff had heard that another young Brooklyn woman had been talking about being sexually violated by the comic Aziz Ansari. They reached out to a woman they called “Grace,” persuaded her to “speak her truth,” albeit anonymously, and rushed the piece into publication: Ansari was given less than six hours to respond to these reputation-destroying allegations. There was no need for the furious pace—this wasn’t a breaking story about a political election or a natural disaster—which seemed to have been motivated by the urgency of the “Time’s Up” motto. Almost immediately the piece became the object of intense cultural interest, with many commentators (including myself) deciding that Ansari had been unfairly treated by the website. Just as many others, particularly young women, said that the account resonated deeply with them, and concluded that Ansari had violated Grace.

Predictably, the piece drove huge traffic to Babe, and visitors who explored the site were exposed to its credo: Babe is created by and for “girls who don’t give a fuck.” Collectively, the articles address what the site suggests are universal conditions of the young female heart, or at least conditions universal to its fans. Unfortunately, many of these shared concerns boil down to an almost exact list of traits which blatantly misogynist websites like Return of Kings have enumerated for years. 

The Babe girl is 

MANIPULATIVE (“Period-Trapping Is the Only Way to Find Out if You’re in a Relationship or Not”)

INSECURE (“You Should Be Secretly Looking Through Your Partner’s Phone”)

ADDICTED TO DRAMA (“We Pranked Our Exes and Asked Them to Be Our New Year’s Kiss and It Was a Complete Disaster”)

JEALOUS (“You’re Not Paranoid: This Is How to Tell If Someone Else Is Closing In on Your Man”)

OBSESSED WITH TEARING DOWN THE SAME FEMALE SHE’S IDOLIZES & ENVIES (“Amber Rose’s Plastic Surgery Is Absolutely a Feminist Statement” and  “Sorry, but Kendall Jenner Can’t Model for Shit”). 

The Ansari piece was written by a recent college graduate named Katie Way, who shot into the popular awareness like a rocket blasting away from Cape Canaveral on Sunday night, only to plummet—flaming and disintegrating—by Wednesday. On Monday, she was excited to appear on CBS This Morning to discuss her piece, tweeting, “Catch me on @CBSThisMorning brrright and early tomorrow morning, can’t wait for America to hear my weird low voice.” But her anger toward those who would question her motives and moral rightness was soon piqued by the HLN news analysis show Crime & Justice. The host, Ashleigh Banfield, read an open letter to “Grace” in which she said, “You have chiseled away at a movement that I, along with all of my sisters in the workplace, have been dreaming of for decades.”

The producers reached out to Way, via a direct message on social media, inviting her to come on the show to discuss the essay. At this point, Way abandoned the low voice for the high-pitched screech of the angry teenager. She wrote back that she wouldn’t go on the program, principally because Banfield was too old and unattractive, called her a “burgundy lipstick, bad highlights, second-wave feminist has-been,” and said that “no woman my age would ever watch your network. I will remember this for the rest of my career—I’m 22 and so far, not too shabby!”

I happened to be sitting in a Los Angeles green room waiting to appear on Crime & Justice the night when Banfield read part of this fantastical letter on the air, at which point the entire Katie Way arc of the story seemed to have turned into an unfilmed episode of Girls: the time Hannah wrote a hit-piece on a famous celebrity but only did half the amount of work required, and when confronted about it by a respected journalist she fired off a nasty letter that might have seemed like a great idea in the moment but ended up getting read on national television. Suffice it to say, it seemed that Katie Way—beloved only child, recent graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, nongiver of fucks—had bitten off more than she could chew.  

Like many news and information websites created by young women, Babepublishes many stories on sexual assault. But unlike most other such outfits, it also runs stories about the pleasure of rape fantasies. Feminists have fought for years to keep the notion of rape fantasy as far as it could possibly get from actual reports of sexual assault. But those were feminists who gave a fuck. Babegleefully, witlessly runs angry pieces about sexual assault as part of the same cotton-candy pink, swirling galaxy as the ones that describe the pleasures of fantasizing about rape. The site has devoted many pixels to explaining to readers how enjoyable and common these fantasies are.

Babe explains to readers that rape fantasies serve lots of worthy sexual desires: “You want to know you’re wanted”

 (“A Clinical Psychologist Revealed Why Women Have Rape Fantasies and It’s Totally Fascinating”)

 “What I like about rape fantasies is the loss of control” (“These Women Revealed Why They’re Into Rape Fantasies”)

 “It’s all about ‘sexual desirability’” (“There’s a Major Rape Fantasy Sub-Culture Out There That’s Pretty Intense”)

 “I hear how rape fantasies can be exciting and fun, even for those who have been raped. It’s not an unhealthy expression of sexuality” (“A Sexologist Explains Why Women Have Rape Fantasies”)

 “I beg him to stop while he carries on fucking me harder and harder. I dig my nails into his back with tears in my eyes and whisper that I want to go home” (“Sex IRL: The Grad Student With Graphic Rape Fantasies”).  

Many of the pieces on actual sexual assault are filled with the precise, clinical detail that is the hallmark of reporting on the subject, such as the texts between two high school students after a drunken hook-up which the girl said constituted an assault, but which the boy thinks was not: “Wanna clarify that we didn’t fuck last night … I ate you out and fingered you, but that’s it.”

Obviously these two types of story are in conversation with one another. For girls who enjoy rape fantasies, the vividly reported sexual assault reports provide a world of concrete details to feed into them.

Katie Way’s college interests were journalism and creative writing. At Northwestern she wrote skillfully composed short stories in a vein of fiction she admired: magical realism. One of the reasons her Babe story has such an impact on readers—other than its naming of a very famous man—was its literary skill: It’s filled with precise details, and provides an immersive, world-building reading experience. On a “beautiful, warm September night” Ansari and Grace walked together to a romantic dinner spot, “Grand Banks, an Oyster bar onboard a historic wooden schooner on the Hudson River.” Over lobster rolls and a bottle of wine, they chatted about things that mattered to Grace: NYU, photography, and “a new, secret project” that Ansari was working on. They headed back to his apartment located in “an exclusive address on TriBeCa’s Franklin Street, where Taylor Swift has a place too.”

It was a night when a rich, successful, older man was taking a huge amount of interest in a young woman and treating her well: taking her to a fancy dinner, paying the check, listening to her stories. It’s a dream date. And then—as soon as they walk through the door of his apartment—the story turns dark and terrible. The language that Way uses to describe it is not the straight-ahead dispassionate language of crime reporting; it’s the language of pornography:  “‘Where do you want me to fuck you? Do you want me to fuck you right here?’ He rammed his penis against her ass while he said it, pantomiming intercourse.”

The piece, with its dreamy opening, its pornographic passages, and its tone of aggrieved score-keeping over petty slights—HE DID OFFER HER THE KIND OF WINE SHE LIKES—has stirred something in young women.  

But the piece is the almost inevitable consequence of a lifestyle promoted on the website, which enjoins young women to fulfill men’s sexual desires and to— literally—behave whorishly. Or, as a wrap-up of Babe’s 2017 service journalismput it: “You now know how to give life-changing blow-jobs, what it’s like to have rape fantasies, what percent hoe you are based on a scientifically accurate quiz, and how to keep your lipstick on even if your mouth is … otherwise occupied.”

Pulsing underneath all of this is the exact emotion which Katie Way lost control of Wednesday night: rage, so overpowering and so poorly understood that it can easily erupt and excoriate the wrong person.

In such swirls of high emotion and with diffuse goals, social entrepreneurship becomes lucrative. This Ansari episode, for example, has been a huge boon to the girls who don’t give a fuck, as they gleefully tell every reporter who asks them about it. As the writer Kerry Flynn wrote in an essay about the website published in Mashable, “For Babe, Grace's story was a big break—good for traffic and for the brand.”

#Katie Way #me too campaign #babe.com