#because Fanny has only met like 5 men ever

[bethanydelleman]

The women in Shakespeare who may have inspired/remind me of Fanny Price of Mansfield Park:

Cordelia, King Lear: Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. Fanny proves herself to be the true daughter of Sir Thomas, just as Cordelia is proved to be the faithful and true daughter of Lear. Both are sent into "exile" after displeasing their father/guardian.

Isabella, Measure for Measure: Fanny refuses to marry Henry Crawford in accordance to her moral code, just as Isabella refuses to sleep with Antonio to save her brother, saying it will cost her soul. Both face strong family pressure to break their beliefs.

Helena, All's Well that Ends Well: informally adopted child of a rich and powerful family who is in love with a true son of the family. Both persist in their love despite not being loved back. Both win their chosen husband in the end after proving themselves. Both men have the name Bertram.

[nellygwyn]

different anon, thoughts of harlots portrayal of historical sex work?

I got another anon asking for a similar thing so here it goes:

Season 1, in particular, I think, had a really nuanced approach to sex work, historical and contemporary. It says a lot that some of my friends who are full service sex workers felt it explored a lot of the complex thoughts they have about being sex workers. We had Charlotte and Emily who are both ambivalent and ambitious, practical, knowing that money is the most important thing in their world whilst also being unattainable for them in other socially acceptable careers (also, since I did my MA thesis on the rape of working class adolescent girls in Georgian London, where I basically found that working in a pub or as a servant in a house could just as unsavory, if not worse, as being a sex worker in the same time period, I like to think Charlotte in particular knows this very well and that's why she wants to control her own narrative so much). We also have Lucy, who hates it and is taken advantage of by her mother in many ways, and other characters who end up in the sex industry through ~Hogarthian~ methods i.e. tricked by a kindly older woman who turns out to be an unscrupulous brothel-keeper a la Mother Needham. This kind of thing certainly happened, though not as often as 18th century moralists might like you to think, but in the show, it plays into the overarching theme that this is a world where the people who should be looking after sex workers and making sure they aren't treated like shit literally do not care (which definitely mirrors our own times). Like, Emily likes sex work in many ways but when she experiences awful aspects of it? It's always because of powerful people letting other powerful people do whatever they want to these women....the only thing outside forces ever seem to do is moralise or take away their money, or punish them. People who have the power to actually transform the system are basically useless, except Josiah in S2 who initially starts off as useless but does later try to make amends.....he's just not powerful ENOUGH though.

I do wish they hadn't made so much of the '1 in 5 women in Georgian London sell sex' because....that's not necessarily a false statistic but it doesn't actually just include sex workers, it also includes women who lived with men they weren't married to which could've been a financial arrangement or could've been simply women living with long term partners. It also includes women who dabbled in sex work, which was extremely common in a world where other, more socially acceptable jobs for working women didn't always pay very well. We know that a lot of women who were in domestic service in Georgian London also had what we might call 'a side hustle' as sex workers, specifically strollers and bunters (sex workers who didn't work in a brothel and usually picked up clients/did work on the streets). I think Harlots did a good job of showing us like, sex workers who work in brothels but also more independent sex workers like Nancy and Violet, but it would've been nice to have a character who was a maid in a middle class home most of the time but occasionally dabbled in sex work in the late evening. It would've emphasised the theme of money being important and barely within reach, but also would've shown the reality of women's work in this period OUTSIDE OF sex work.

The diversity of the industry was also good, although it's a shame that the show kind of failed at showing us male sex workers, or queer sex workers - I mean, we did see mollies (contemporary name for gay men sex workers) but not in a particularly meaningful way imo. Plus, we could've had a trans woman sex worker, especially as there is precedent in this period! Princess Serefina, for example, was probably a transgender woman and one of the most famous sex workers of the early 18th century. But I think Harlots did show us the amount of women of colour who not only lived in Georgian London, but who worked there and not just as sex workers. We also had sex workers with disabilities, too. One of my favourite details is that Harriet Lennox is inspired by a real Georgian sex worker called Black Harriet who only employed sex workers of colour at her brothel (which Harriet Lennox also does in S2 and 3). And there is quite an admirable attempt to explore intersectionality in the series - Harriet doesn't just experience sexism but pretty awful racism (I mean, she literally used to be enslaved by the first man who made her his mistress)....and this changes the way she experiences the world.

My biggest criticism is of the way Charlotte was killed off. Well, first of all, I have an issue with the fact Season 3 put her in a relationship with a pimp, which is so fucked up on every level. Like, not even just a pimp but a pimp who tried to kill her and the women she lives with. Then, she ends up being ACTUALLY killed off by said pimp and his brother (also a pimp) in the most deranged way possible a.k.a getting in the way of a fight and being pushed down the stairs. So many stories about sex workers, historical and contemporary, employ the 'Dead Hooker' trope and I hate it and I especially hate it for this time period because dying violently or tragically as a sex worker doesn't have much basis in reality. Charlotte specifically was inspired by famous courtesans of the time like Kitty Fisher and Fanny Murray. Both of whom......met someone who was willing to keep them long term/marry them and left the industry, financially stable and contented. This series wanted to honour women like that but I don't understand how it could do that by killing Charlotte violently (and other characters violently). We know that most sex workers left the industry around their mid twenties, usually because they had found a long term keeper/husband or because they became actresses/singers in the London theatres (a job that had strong links to sex work and courtesanry at the time). There were so many options for Charlotte but the writers picked that one, as her exit. It just brings us back to the fact that for some people, sex workers don't deserve any kind of happy ending. In fact, John Cleland, the writer of the scandalous c. 1749 erotic novel 'Fanny Hill,' had his book banned and criticised not just because it was obscene but because Fanny never repents her life as a sex worker. Instead, she marries a decent man and has a decent life and explictly says she doesn't feel bad or upset about her old job. Like, that's an example from the actual time period so imagine my disappointment when history seemed to repeat itself in a period series c. 2019.

[cecilspeaks]

Live Show: A Spy in the Desert

1. A Spy in the Desert

Cecil: A tisket, a tasket. My god, what’s in that basket?! Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, it’s another beautiful day here in Night Vale, and I hope that you’re all outside staring wild-eyed into the sun, instead of cooped up in some dark room full of a bunch of people that you don’t know. The only thing that could ruin such a beautiful day as this is, well, this breaking news.

We have an outsider in our midst. A spy from a faraway land, a master of disguise who can mix imperceptibly into any crowd. Now this spy has been known throughout the world as the Sparrow Hawk, the Nightingale, the Southern Blue-Eyed Glossy Starling, and the Tough-Tit Titmouse. But recently, the spy started going by the code name the Mink. Which is much better, because minks are adorable and birds are idiots. Now the Mink has stolen secrets from the world’s most powerful governments, but unlikely most spies, the Mink works independent of any agency. They steal confidential information, but they never reveal any of that information to anyone. They are the perfect keeper of stolen knowledge. Now the Mink does possess an unparalleled range of regional and national accents, as well as a fanny pack full of fake mustaches, eyeliner and press-on nails. Right in the fanny pack. The founders of Night Vale built this town upon secrets, with a Byzanthine system of powerful and opaque city leadership, and what are we as a town without those secrets? It would make sense, then, that the City Council and the Sheriff’s Secret Police would want to stop The Mink from learning our secrets. So if you see anyone that you do not know, do not approach them. Because they could be a dangerous spy. Simply carry on as normal, as you would, and treat them like you would any stranger. Which is to stand 20 feet away, point and shout: “INTERLOPEER!!!” And thus by behaving in this completely normal way, they will not think that they’ve been spotted. And then immediately go and call the Secret Police. Make sure that you have registered for a citizen’s protection account with plans starting as low as 25 dollars a month, otherwise the police will not assist. And then once you’ve registered your account, tell the police that you saw a person you do not know. In public! And that person, thus logically could be The Mink! And they’ll catch them and we can all move on to the next terrifying news story.

2. Sports news

But first, a look at sports. Last night witnesses reported seeing a padded man carrying an inflated lump of animal skin across an open, well lit field. They could not identify him, as his face and head were fully covered by a round plastic hat. Several other unidentified men were chasing this man, panting and sweating, and hundreds of witnesses on this side of the field all began shaking their fists in the air and chanting: “Crush! Him! Crush! Him! Crush! Him!” [audience chants] And then witnesses on this side of the field were shaking their fists and shaking “Vio-lence! Vio-lence!” [audience chants] And their screams reached a crescendo, and then they stopped and they watched as this man spiked the lump of animal flesh and began to inch along a pinkish trail of viscous ooze. And the very back rows began a soft chant of “What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?” and it made its way forward, row by row, until the whole auditorium was chanting: “What have you done? What have you done? What have you done? What have you done?” And the skin split open revealing a white skeletal face with two bulbous red eyes, and the face craned up on a long neck, and it hissed and it bared its fangs and snapped into the neck of the man who had spiked it tore off a long swab of fleshhhhhh. And a woman wearing all black and white stripes took this flesh and blew into it like a balloon, and handed it to another padded man, and the process started all over again. And everyone in the crowd shouted: “Mortality!” [audience shouts it] And this has been sports. Hmm.

3. A Word from our Sponsors

And now a word from our sponsors. For that, we go to our lovably malicious spokeshaze, Deb the sentient patch of haze!

Deb: Hiya Cecil. Hiya listening audience with your squishy human minds. So easy to manipulate! Cute, so cute. Today’s show has been brought to you by Folgers brand coffee. We at Folgers believe good coffee comes from good hammers.

Cecil: Oo, that’s so true! You know, a lot of people don’t realize that good coffee is 90 percent the quality of the hammer that you use to smash up the bean, and ten percent how much you’re willing to lie to yourself that a 20-dollar bag of coffee tastes different than a 10-dollar bag of coffee.

Deb: That’s why we at Folgers hammer our coffee extra smooth, using only American made sledgehammers. We follow the hammer traditions of the finest coffee houses. From Sicilian espresso shops where they use wooden mallets, to the great institutions of Vienna, where the ornate tile walls ring with the echoes of handcrafted silver (ball-pin) [0:01:13] wielded by tuxedo-wearing waiters.

Cecil: You know, on my vacation I went to an espresso shop in Italy, and the woman behind the counter, lovingly crushed each and every ben with just the tiniest wooden mallet. And then she lit a whole pack o matches, threw it into the cup, and that is called a macchiato.

Deb: Macchiato. I’m unconvinced Italy even exists. For instance, have I ever seen it? No, there you go.

Cecil: Uh.

Deb: Yeah.

Cecil: But Deb, let me tell you, the flavor profile of that macchiato, it was – oh, it just had hints of sulfur and splinters, it was so authentic!

Deb: Gross.

Cecil: Yeah, it was kind of gross.

Deb: Why buy your own beans and pound away them in your kitchen, when Folgers has already hammered them for you? Folgers coffee. You guys wanna go see a dead body?

Cecil: Thanks, Deb. Oh hey, have you been following this news story about The Mink?

Deb: Oh, a little. It doesn’t interest me much because I already know every secret in town.

Cecil: Wait, what?

Deb: Yeah, yeah.

Cecil: How?

Deb: Oh, how doesn’t sound important, no no no. what’s important, listeners, is that I know.  [pause, laughter] So please do buy the products that I’m advertising. I’d hate to have a teensy slip of the tongue next time I’m broadcasting to the whole town, Joanne. Hey Cecil, you wanna know Joanne’s secrets?

Cecil: I mean it seems a little private – yeah, I do. [pause, Deb whispers into Cecil’s ear]  [sultry voice] Joanne!! I am simultaneously disgusted and impressed.

Deb: And that’s just one of the secrets I know. Well, it has been great talking at you Cecil. Goodbye!

Cecil: Alright, thank you Deb! Whooo! Wow.

4. Who is the Mink?

The Secret Police are hot on the trail of the Mink. In the hall of public records, they found a set of footprints left by a size 9 Adidas, but those shoes do not match any of the hall clerks, as the hall of record employees only have hooves. The police also found a person wearing a cloak and carrying a dagger inside the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. But upon investigating, it just turned out to be Steve Carlsberg. He was holding a lobster splitter and he got his lobster bib twisted around backwards. Oh, Steve. The City Council has upgraded our alert system from orange level to red. “Um, it’s really more of a lovely amaranth?” The multi-voiced council cooed in unison. “Um, excuse me, if the Mink never reveals any of the secrets that they learn, then what is the harm in them knowing?” asked one intrepid reporter. A brave and experienced radio man, who is quite smart and very handsome. But the City Council just hissed back: “All knowledge is harmful!” So I can’t argue with that. Now the Mink has carried out heists of secrets all over the globe. West Berlin 1985, the Mink disguised themself as a security guard and learned every account number in Deutsche Bank. German police noticed a person in a security guard uniform quietly mumbling numbers to themself, and they did give chase but lost the culprit in the crowd when they donned one of those glasses with a fake nose and eyebrows.

Kuala Lumpur, 1998. The Mink disguised themself as one of the Petronas towers and learned the secrets of every person inside. Witnesses reported seeing one of the towers just leeeaning over ever so slightly, as if listening in on a conversation. But when the national police arrived, the tower leapt into the Klang River and witnesses said: “Ooh, look at that kinda long but otherwise completely normal looking boat!”

2011, the Mink staged a daring escape from a military base in Nulogorsk. After discovering the intruder, the Nulogorskian got very excited, because they had never before met anyone with only two eyes. The Mink did get away, however, by disguising themself as a pirogi. [long pause] Having been eaten, they escaped two days later through the city sewer system. Weren’t expecting that, were you? You know, I hope we apprehend the Mink soon. I really, man, need to talk to somebody who has other secrets, it’s a journalist’s dream interview. And I mean, everybody has secrets so, I mean we all have something that we probably wouldn’t want the Mink to share on the air, I mean I know I do. You know what, “I value privacy above all else,” I have just now written on my Facebook page, so you know it’s super important to me.

5. Lee Marvin

Cecil: Oh wait, listeners, OK, I’ve just been given a note saying we have a very special birthday today. Wow, OK, this is a real honor. Listeners, please welcome to the studio, on the day of their 30th birthday, legendary actor and Night Vale resident, Lee Marvin!

Lee: It is a pleasure to be here. I don’t think we have ever met, even though it seems like we have both lived in this town forever.

Cecil: It actually does feel like forever, doesn’t it?

Lee: As we all know, time doesn’t work correctly in Night Vale. For instance, it has been my 30th birthday continuously for many years, and yet I never grow any older.

Cecil: I know just what you mean, I mean I was 19 for a long time like, decades probably.

Lee: And that’s the problem with millennials, you know?

Cecil: Yeah.

Lee: Instead of buying houses or shouting at barns, or researching owls, or any other number of normal and productive activities, they just age.

Cecil: Ugh!

Lee: Normally one day after the next. Why, I think there is not a millennial in this world who even tried to remain 19 for a terrifying number of years.

Cecil: I know! It’s lazy. Now let’s talk about the Mink. Mr. Marvin, as a very famous movie actor, I felt that you might be able to offer some analysis on someone so adept at disguises and false personas.

Lee: Well, sure sure I mean after all, what is acting but lying to a room full of strangers?

Cecil: Mm. Literally nothing at all.

Lee: When lying to a group of strangers, there are definitely some basic techniques to watch out for. One is speaking aloud. Anyone speaking aloud could be lying. Why, almost anything could be said out loud without research or citation .for instance, I could say aloud that uh, mountains are real…

Cecil: Oh come on! [Cecil and Lee laugh]

Lee: And it doesn’t matter that this is a ridiculous statement perpetuated by the mountain enthusiasts. It is still something I could and di say out loud. Another technique to look out for is accents. It seems that this Mink is able to deploy at will any accent at all. I myself am an expert at dialect and accents.

Cecil: Ooh! Would you care to give us a demonstration?

Lee: Well sure sure. Uh, start with something, a basic accent. This is an accent for someone from the country of Svitz. You’ll noticed that the Svitzians sort of speak from the back of the throat, it’s uh something like this um, [very deep, monotonous voice] “Hello, yes, thank you. I would like some cake.” Like that. Cecil: Yeah, oh yeah.

Lee: And um, here’s another one um, this is an accent for someone from the nation of Franchia. The Franchians have an interesting thing where they an, uh, a diphthong on every single vowel. Here goes, um. Yaa-aa, soo-am ceek, thyat would bee a boath low-ly and filing. Something like that, yeah.

Cecil: Oh wow, yeah, yeah!

Lee: And here is the ccent of someone who lived until the age of ten in  Svitz, before immigrating to Franchia. And now, at the age of 50, is learning to speak English.

Cecil: Right, OK, OK.

Lee: [deep voice] Aah piece of cay-ek for me, you’re only too kind. Something like that.

Cecil: Oh that’s, that’s amazing!

Lee: Yeah. Uh, seriously though, do you have any cake, I’m starving?

Cecil: Oh. Oh actually no I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to hae cake at the radio station because it makes  Station Mangement very restless.

Lee: That’s fine, that’s fine. Well the final technique I wanted to talk about is, is disguise, I am to understand that the Mink is able to easily adopt the look of anyone they wish to. Here’s a couple of ways of disguising yourself. One is through, of course the use of masks, make up, prosthetics, it’s very difficult, technical, very Hollywood. Let’s talk about the other method though, which is simpler and just as effective.

Cecil: Oh, wait, what is that one?  

Lee: It’s OK so you simply… so you take your hand.

Cecil: uh huh.

Lee: And you put it in front of your face. And then you say aloud who you’re supposed to be disguised as.

Cecil: Ah

Lee: For instance, I’ll demonstrate. Hello, I am Tom Hanks!

Cecil: Oh my god, oh my god! Oh my god Mr Tom Hanks, I-I loved you in Turner and Hooch, and whatever else you did after that, I..

Lee: No see, it’s just me, Lee Marvin!

Cecil: Oh man!

Lee: But with my hand in front of my face… Life is very similar to a bag of chocolates!

Cecil: Oh my god it is similar to a bag of chocolates!

Lee: There’s no way to tell!

Cecil: Oh my gosh, that’s amazing, Mr. Marvin! Thank you so much, we appreciate having you on the show.

Lee: It was no problem at all, thank you for having me, Cecil. Um, we before I go, this is Judy Garland saying goodbye.

Cecil: Oh my god, oh my, oh my gosh, no wait, wait wait, Ms. Garland, Ms. Garland, just one song before you go, Miss Judy Garland!

Lee: [sings] Ring ring ring goes the (--)..

Cecil: Ah! Judy Garland, everyone!

6. Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner

Now it’s time for the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. It’s a very special anniversary today, kids. On this day in 1872, the moon was invented. Yeah. You see, scientists had been reading a lot of paperback horror novels about werewolves and thought, wait! If the moon were a thing, then werewolves might also be a thing! So they built a moon out of limestone and hired artist (Marie Kassaut) [0:00:30] to paint it with a giant smiling wolf doing an “okay” sign with its paw and winking. But there was a problem: when they launched it up into the sky, something happened with the catapult, and it landed with the unpainted side facing the Earth. And almost a hundred years later, NASA would claim to have landed on the moon, but twinkly dot scientists or, oh sorry that’s what I call astronomers, they just proved that to be false. And you know, NASA retracted their statement saying: “Oh we were just joshing” and the American people all had a good chuckle. And ever since Alexander Fleming invented the werewolf vaccine – also known as penicillin – the moon is mostly just an ineffectual artefact, like a reminder of our once terrible taste in celestial bodies. And that is why each and every night, we all shout: “I hate you, moon!” up into the sky, and even though we can’t see it, we all think of that wolf on the dark side, quietly winking, and shedding a tear. [weeping] And this has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. It’s true. Science.

7. The Community Calendar Let’s take a look at the community calendar, shall we? Let’s see here, Monday night there is a blood drive in the Ralphs parking lot. There’s gonna be a van parked in the far corner, like just beyond the trees, and if you go inside that van, some blood will be taken from you. “Oh yeah, (she’s) gonna come out of you one way or another, man!” said a rapidly talking man in a dirty T-shirt, who I am not sure is connected to the blood drive at all. “Oh yeah, we’re just gonna do amazing things with your blood, man! Don’t worry about what, [disturbing voice] we’re just gonna do really good things with your blood!” and then he finished up by saying the national blood drive slogan: “Bloooooooooooood!!!” So I guess just, get on into the blood van!

Tuesday was lost last night by Bernadette Flynn, as she was watching the newly released remake of last year’s Spiderman movie. She thinks maybe Tuesday fell behind the seat during the film or something. So if anybody sees Tuesday, please let Bernadette Flynn know, as it was an old family heirloom, and her favorite day of the week.

Wednesday night is 80’s night at Dark Owl Records. For more on that, let’s hear from Dark Owl owner, Michelle Nguyen!

Cecil: Hey, Michelle!

Michelle: Hello, Cecil! On 80’s night, we’ll be putting on leg warmers and fingerless gloves, listening to Duran Duran, and thinking hard about what our lives will be like when we are 80 years old.

Cecil: Ahhh, that sounds like fun!

Michelle: We will consider life insurance plans and talk about several types of diseases that will affect our later years. There will also be a moonwalking demonstration, just like that famous Michael Jackson dance where he walked around shouting: “I hate you moon!”

Cecil: Yeah, yeah. Did you know it’s actually the moon’s birthday today?

Michelle: Stupid rock!

Cecil: Garbage satellite! Anyway, so Michelle, to change the subject, the Mink could peek into our private lives at any moment. Is there something that you are personally worried that they would find?

Michelle: [long pause] No.

Cecil: Oh, come on Michelle, we all have secrets! Is there any music you listen to that you would be ashamed of people knowing about?

Michelle: Please. You’re the one that starts every day with a choreographed lip sync to Robyn’s 2010 B-side “Cry When You Get Older”, and then you cry for a while, because you have gotten older.

Cecil: [sourly] Yeah.

Michelle: Each day just a little bit more and sometimes that makes you happy and other times it makes you sad and either way you feel like crying. Probably.

Cecil: [mumbles] Oh, yeah.

Michelle: That’s probably what you do, certainly I wouldn’t! I wake up listening to Leonard Cohen’s new album: “Wait Where Am I, I Thought I Died and How Is This Even Being Recorded?”

Cecil: [impressed] Oh, yeah.

Michelle: I listen to that album in full and then nod thoughtfully, and drink three cups of black coffee.

Cecil: Mmm.

Michelle: [scoffs] I don’t even know who Robyn is and I would never scream sing along to “Dancing On My Own” whenever I miss my mother.

Cecil: [scoffs] Oh wait, your mother, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned her before.

Michelle: I learned everything about music from her. She once found me listening to The Smiths and said, [different accent] “Michelle! What are you doing! Morrissey turned out to be the worst person ever! I give you shelter over your head, three meal a day and access to a working time machine. And you don’t even use it to find out which celebrity turned out to be bad? It’s almost all celebrity, Michelle! Almost all celebrity turned out to be bad!” And she was right about that, Cecil. Can you name a good celebrity?

Cecil: Um, oh there’s Lee Marvin!

Michelle: That’s right, just Robyn.

Cecil: Just Robyn, yeah that’s it.

Michelle: I can’t think of anyone else either. Then my mother would say: “Michelle! I don’t wan the world to be the way that it is, but the world is that way. And people will judge. They will judge you for what you wear and what you listen to and what you say. They will judge you especially hard for so many unfair reason. So that music you listen to, that make you happy? Don’t let go of it. Never show that weakness to the world. In public, you listen to the music that tell them who you are, and you wear the clothes that show them wo you are. Always be one step ahead of them. And then at night, when it’s just you and  you’ve played their game and you’ve won, then you put on a record that makes you happy, and you let yourself sing!” Then one day, my mother took the time machine back to prehistoric times, to try to retrieve some of their music, which would have been the coolest and most obscure sons. But she never returned. I miss her, but I’ll never forget the last thing she told me. She said, “Michelle! I cannot emphasize enough how awful Morrissey turned out to be!”

Cecil: Awwww. Wow. Gosh Michelle, I’m so sorry about your mother, but thank you for sharing that extremely personal story on the air.

Michelle: Uh.. No what no? No, I don’t think I did. We were talking about 80’s night. Come to 80’s night! There will be a Cyndi Lauper lookalike competition, and the winner will take over Cyndi’s life, becoming the fifth person to play that role. See you there! Or not, whatever.

Cecil: Thank you, Michelle!

More on the community calendar. Thursday night is the adopt a pet fair at the Last Bank of Night Vale. There’s gonna all sorts of animals, and they will come home with you. You don’t even have to go to the fair. They already know where your home is. And they’re gonna be waiting for you. When you open your door that night, there’s gonna be panting and snarling and two little blinks of light, right inside your darkened doorway. So wow, that sounds like a really fun and socially important event!

And finally, Friday is Bring Your Issues to Work Day. So really dig deep there, people! Let ‘em loose! And this has been the community calendar.

8. Tamika Flynn

Cecil: So listeners, I’m joined in my studio right now by the most vigilant defender of Night Vale and of literature. Please welcome to the air 16-year-old Tamika Flynn!

Tamika: [giggles] Hi Cecil, hi!

Cecil: Hi Tamika! Now, you must be alarmed that there’s a dangerous spy on the loose.

Tamika: Of course! It’s not safe to have an interloper learning our secrets.

Cecil: But what could they learn that would hurt us?

Tamika: Oh, lots of stuff. What if they start uncovering all the plot twists of our favorite novels, like “Murder on the Orient Express”, Agatha Christie’s brilliant whodunit. What if they read ahead and learned at the murderer turns out to be-

Cecil: Wubububububuh! Spoilers! I mean, some of us haven’t read it yet!

Tamika: Oh I’m just teasing. That book doesn’t even have an ending. It’s the only murder Agatha could never solve.

Cecil: Hmm, hm.

Tamika: But learning secrets can be harmful, like one time, I was waiting in line at midnight for the release of the sixth Harry Potter book, and some jerk drove by and shouted: “Snape and Dumbledore are both featured prominently in the new novel!” [angry noise] Ruined.

Cecil: I’ve never read the sixth book!

Tamika: Oh.

Cecil: I’ve only read the third and the seventh. So now the whole experience is ruined!

Tamika: Well, if it makes you feel any better, I chased that fool down and I punched him until his bruises spelled out: “Don’t mess with a Hufflepuff!” But I do have a plan to catch this spy. I’ll disguise myself as the Mink. And then I’ll walk around town until I find someone that’s dressed exactly like me.

Cecil: Ah.

Tamika: [giggles] And then I’ll grab them and I’ll whisper that famous, oh um and then I’ll grab them and shout at them and say: “You wanna spoil the endings of books, pal? Why don’t you try Stephen King’s ‘It’, that whole ending is terrible!”

Cecil: Oh, come on, I liked the ending of “It”!

Tamika: Really?

Cecil: Yeah, you know when It just turns out to be the friends we made along the way. You and you and you… It’s nice. OK, anyway, Tamika. Now I have a question. How are you going to disguise yourself as the Mink, when nobody knows what the Mink actually looks like?

Tamika: Well I’ll j-, but I c-..

Cecil: I know.

Tamika: Oh.

Cecil: Yeah…

Tamika: Fine. Then, oh I’ll dress up as a manila folder with a “top secret” stamp on it!

Cecil: Oh yeah.

Tamika: And then when someone tries to take me, I’ll grab them and whisper that famous movie speech: “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. I don’t have any money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.”

Cecil: Ah!

Tamika: “Skills that I’ve acquired through reading! Would you like a list of book recommendations? Here are a few I think you’d enjoy.”

Cecil: Ah, ha ha!

Tamika: Yes!

Cecil: Oh man, that is my favorite scene from “Say Anything”.

Tamika: Yeah! [giggles] When John Cusack holds that boombox above his head outside the terrorist headquarters, I mean [kiss]! [laughs]

Cecil: So good!

Tamika: Yes.

Cecil: Mm mm, now wait. The Mink is a real threat, and they are interested in learning far more than just book spoilers. I mean, you in particular might be in danger, Tamika.

Tamika: [giggles] Cecil, I’m 16 years old. I know everything there is to know about taking care of myself, OK?

Cecil: Oh yeah, OK, alright. Alright. But listen, if you catch the Mink, bring them here to the studio, because I need to have a moment…

Tamika: Wanna rough him up?

Cecil: Oh uuuuh, um..

Tamika: Yeeeah, like I’ll pin him down and then you take this copy of Hanya Yanagihara’s “Little Life” and just like, bam, bam, bam!

Cecil: Oh, oh.

Tamika: Bam!

Cecil: Oh!

Tamika: This book made me cry, now it’s making you cry, sucker!

Cecil: Uh.. Yeah sure, something like that.

Tamika: Yeah. [giggles]

Cecil: Um-

Tamika: Well, I think I’m off to get that Mink!

Cecil: All right, thank you Tamika! Be safe. Tamika Flynn, everyone!

9. Public Service Announcement

And now, a public service announcement. The Night Vale Youth Fitness Initiative recommends at least 60 minutes a day outdoors for children under the age of 18. Being outdoors encourages kids to be more active and social. Fitness Initiative spokesperson, (Jin Housong) said: “Kids spend too much time indoors, and that makes it very difficult for us to monitor their physical agility and speed! We are trying to find children to fight in the Blood Space War, and that is very difficult when all kids wanna do is spend all their time inside Snapchatting and playing Fortnite.” Some outdoor activities encouraged by the Youth Fitness Initiative include cycling, soccer, breath holding, sensory deprovation, G force resistance, and string theory. The staff of the Youth Fitness Initiative welcome any kid wanting to have fun outdoor time to come on down to the Intergalactic Military Base. They can’t tell you where it is, but they are more than happy to send a chaperone in a burlap sack, and a van. And this has been a public service announcement.

10. Telly the Barber

So listeners, several Night Vale residents have sent in reports of seeing strangers sneaking about town, possible sightings of the elusive Mink. And we have one such witness with us in the studio right now. Please welcome – Telly the barber.

Telly: Hi Cecil!

Cecil: [long pause] Have you cut any hair lately,  Telly?

Telly: Oh sure, I’m always-

Cecil: Have you cut any hair that didn’t need cutting, Telly?

Telly: I-I think we all saw the signs..

Cecil: Have you taken any innocent person, any handsome person and perfectly coiffed scientist person’s hair and then just destroyed it so completely that you had to leave town, Telly?

Telly: Not lately.

Cecil: Mm hm.

Telly: Did you wanna hear my story?

Cecil: No.

Telly: OK, I’ll just hum and cut my hair with this butterknife.

Cecil: Oh OK, alright alright alright alright, I’ve changed my mind, I do wanna hear your story.

Telly: OK. So ever since that one bad haircut and please tell Carlos I’m so sorry, see he asked me for a light trim on the sides, and I misheard it as “shave asterisk in my sideburns, then cut me some bangs.”

Cecil: Bangs? Ugh.

Telly: After that, I banished myself to the desert, rehoning my cutting skills on cacti and tarantulas. Did you know that tarantulas are venomous?

Cecil: Yeah, I- I actually knew that. Oh my god, your hand!

Telly: I learned the hard way. But, but it was a great experience, see I finally reopened my barber shop in Night Vale last year, over by the library. Some of the librarians come in from time to time, I-I have to chain their tentacles to the (--) [0:01:45] first, and then I use grooming sheers to trim the hair along their pincers, which is tough because of the foaming slime that gathers there. Did you know that librarian saliva is acidic?

Cecil: Yeah of course, everybody – oh my god, your other hand!

Telly: I’m earning so much

Cecil: Ugh.

Telly: Anyway, earlier this week, an interloper came to my shop. They were wearing a hockey mask and a turtleneck, they had long thick curly black hair and they whispered: ”I need a new look! Can you cut it short and blond?” so I did.

Cecil: That could have been the Mink!

Telly: Why don’t you just tell the story, Cecil?

Cecil: Well no I’m sorry, I’m sorry. No please, go ahead.

Telly: So the next day-

Cecil: Please tell us more about the lives that those scissors have ruined.

Telly: The next day, the same person returned and they were wearing a sleep mask, vampire teeth, and a drum major coat. An excellent disguise, but I know my own work and I recognize their haircut immediately. I said: “Hello, brand new customer whom I have never seen before! What can I do for you?”

And they whispered: “I need a new look. Can you cut it long and straight with a beard like that guy from Queer Eye?”

Cecil: Awww, I love Jonathan Van Ness! Oh hey, did you ever see that episode where they consult that stone obelisk on that uninhabited island?

Telly: Yeah yeah that's the one where Jonathan was like: “We’re gonna make those cliffs glow!”

Cecil: Yeaah!

Telly: And then he uttered an ancient prayer and was granted a bent scepter and control of the weather.

Cecil: And then they just spent the rest of the episode flying around the island, screaming in Latin and zapping Bobby with lightning.

Telly: That was a great episode!

Cecil: So good.

Telly: You know, the part about the cliffs was so empowering .

Cecil: Yeah!

Telly: Anyway, I performed a wild flurry of scissor snips around the stranger’s head, and voila, they have long straight hair and a beard. Every day this week they’ve come to me, they wanted a Pam Greer Afro, a Sid Vicious Mohawk. That famous Friends haircut, the Ross.

Cecil: You know what you should do? Next time they come in, ask them to get like a blow dry or a perm, and then while they’re waiting-

Telly: Uh, well… don’t be mad.

Cecil: Wait, what?

Telly: So they were today and I kinda messed up? I-I don’t think they’ll be back.

Cecil: Oh come on, Telly!

Telly: See they wanted a 90’s fade and I misheard, and I cut my own foot off. See?

Cecil: Oh my god! Telly, you didn’t even put a bandage on it!

Telly: I didn’t wanna be late to your show. Anyway, they looked really annoyed and left before they got any more blood on them.

Cecil: Ugh. Well you know the important thing is that you tried. I mean, you messed up in a really serious way that I did not even think was possible, but… you tried. And also, I’m sorry I yelled at you before.

Telly: Thanks, Cecil. You know, this might be the blood loss talking but that means so much to me.

Cecil: Sure. Hey listen, have you ever thought about a different career maybe?

Telly: Like knife sharpening or gun cleaning, or chainsaw repair?

Cecil: You know what, no no, just stick to the barbering, Telly. Thank you so much.

Telly: Sure thing.

Cecil: Telly the Barber, everyone! Just grind it into the carpet, no one will ever know.

12. Sightings of the Mink

We are getting reports of Mink sightings all over town. Archeology professor Joel Eisenberg saw a stranger outside of Mission Grove Park, and they were dressed all in black and they were holding copy of the Night Vale Daily Journal, just high enough to cover their face. Now, Joel Eisenberg saw this person, and pointed and shouted “Interloper”, and then being a friendly neighbor, went over and said “Hi, I’m Joel, do you like dinosaurs?” And the stranger said yes, but kept their face hidden.

“What’s your favorite dinosaur? Mine’s the ichthyosaur.”

And the stranger said, “Yeah, I guess so, sure.”

And Joel’s face reddened and his voice thickened like wet concrete.

“Ichthyosaurs aren’t dinosaurs! Mink!” [scoffs]

Imposter didn’t even know the difference between a marine lizard and a dinosaur. But they did know how to throw that newspaper in Joel’s face and run.

Jackie Fierro, owner of the local pawn shop, said her half mother Diane Crayton came to the store to ask if Jackie sold cars that fired rockets from behind their headlights and/or turn into boats, and/or had ejector seats. Now, Jackie thought this was a fairly odd request from a single mother with a fairly bland day job. “What do you need all that for, Diane?” asked Jackie.

“It’s for my son, Josh Josh, my son’s name is Josh.”

Now Jackie knew this was not the real Diane. She was nose to nose with the Mink. Jackie started to speak, but there was a quick puff of smoke and the would-be-Diane was gone, and in their place, there was a wad that looked like skin and hair. And Jackie picked it up, and it was a perfect replica of Diane’s face.

Later, at the old shipping port, Tamika Flynn trailed a suspect into a dilapidated warehouse along the waterfront, which has no water, because we live in a desert. Which is a huge reason why they had to shut down the shipping port. Anyway, it was dark inside the abandoned building save for streaks of dusty sunlight through the shaddered windows, and Tamika heard a creaking from a pile of boxes nearby, and she was frightened, unable to move. But wait, she thought. Why, I’m the predator, the Mink is the prey. And then she remembered those famous lines from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade.” “I’m here to kick butt and chew bubblegum. Why not both?”

So she threw some chicklets into her mouth and shouted: “You’re trapped, Mink!” and raced toward the sound and a figure emerged from behind a tower of boxes, and they pushed the crates down on Tamika, but she did this like, backflip-kick thing and knocked that interloper right out of the warehouse onto the deck. And as they approached, the Mink pulled out a remote control and a tiny helicopter descended from nowhere and a tiny ladder descended from the tiny helicopter, and the Mink grabbed onto it and flew away.

Man, I thought Tamika really had him that time. I really wanna take a moment to just interview this person, someone who has all these secrets, just for journalistic reasons of course.

It would make the interview of the century.

13. Sheriff Sam

But until that moment, the Sheriff’s Secret Police would like us to know that they have this Mink situation firmly in hand. And in order to show how under control it is, the Sheriff would like to speak to you themself. Listeners, Sheriff Sam!

Sam: Hello Sessil.

Cecil: Cecil.

Sam: Sessil.

Cecil: Cecil.

Sam: Do you know, I really feel like I’m saying it. Sessil.

Cecil: Yeah, it-it sounds good enough, alright.

Sam: Now before I start, I want to apologize to the people of Night Vale for what I’ve done. And let me finish. I disagree that the new seasons of “The Great British Bake Off” are better. And I’m very sad that Mary Berry is no longer there, you know I couldn’t get enough of her famous catch phrase: “I’m unable to feel anything at all. Unless I can see clear layers in a baked good.”

Cecil: Ah, such a good catch phrase!

Sam: And I don’t like that they replaced Mel and Sue with two polar bears, who toy with and eventually eat the last place finisher.

Cecil: Yeah, I think I think it will grow us on, right?

Sam: Yeah but all that being said, I really shouldn’t have done what I did last night. When I raised my voice and said: “Paul Hollywood needs a new wardrobe.” I mean, what’s with those blue jeans, right?  

Cecil: Yeah, yeah.

Sam: And then Paul started crying and wailed: “Why would you say that, powerful desert law enforcer?” And channel 4 immediately cancelled the series.

Cecil: I know, I-I didn’t get to see the technical challenge that episode.

Sam: No. And I-I know it was your favorite show and now it’s gone..

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: So I’m sorry. Television is a two-way street..

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: ..and I should have thought about that.

Cecil: That’s right, they can hear us. So I-I, listen, I accept your apology and besides, it’s actually kind of nice not to have the TV on and to get to spend more time with my husband. Yeah.

Sam: And you know I didn’t even mean what meant, what I said. I didn’t even mean what I meant. [chuckles] I didn’t even mean what I meant when I said that thing about Paul Hollywood. I should look at the script, it would be more useful.

Cecil: That’s…

Sam: [chuckles] I think Paul Hollywood does look good in jeans, I mean he’s stepfather hot.

Cecil: Oh wait, please. He’s more like divorced tax accountant dad hot. That’s, you know. Anyway, let’s change the subject. I wanted to speak to you today about the Mink. Now, they are a master of disguise and this has made it impossible for us to find them. Does the Sheriff’s Secret Police have a plan to determine who the Mink is?

Sam: Well, we’ve consulted with experts, and outside of fringe sciences like parapsychology, divination, genetics…

Cecil: Yeah, right.

Sam: Not really, no. But we do have a new law enforcement tool. It’s called the brainwave transposition ray. [long pause, apparently something visual is going on]

Cecil: OK you’re just doing like spirit fingers.

Sam: Not at all. This is the brainwave transposition ray. Sessil, simply put: you point it at a potential criminal, which is to say anybody at all. And it tells you exactly what they’re currently thinking.

Cecil: Whoa!

Sam: Here, I’ll show you how it works. Now there might be Night Vale citizens on the sidewalk outside the studio, I can try it on.

Cecil: OK.

Sam: Let me move over to the window and… weird.

Cecil: What?

Sam: There’s hundreds of people staring at us right now.

Cecil: I know, they’ve been here the whole time. It’s making me nervous, but you know, it’s fine.

Sam: Yeah, creepy.

Cecil: Yeah.

Sam: Well, you see if I point the device right at this person, we should be able to hear their exact thoughts.

Cecil: Mm.

Voice: I like many kinds of animals, but I like sea lions best.

Cecil: Huh.

Sam: I mean doesn’t sound like the Mink…

Cecil: Ah no, no.

Sam: OK, let’s try someone else.

Voice: I forgot to wash the blood off the bath tub, my wife’s gonna kill me. Oh god.

Sam: No, the Mink wouldn’t be married.

Cecil: Yeah, yeah.

Sam: Let’s try…

Voice: Sure hope the Secret Police won’t arrest me for wearing a full disguise and a mask.

Cecil: Whoa! That’s the Mink!

Voice: Cause I’m not wearing a disguise or a mask. I’m just Chris (Brothon) from Night Vale with my usual face and limbs, and my greatest fear is false arrest.

Cecil: Oh. That was very specific.

Sam: Ahem. You know, having a fear of false arrest is highly illegal, so we’ll be by soon to collect you, Chris. Let’s try one more. Do you want to try doing it?

Cecil: Well I oh, I don’t know Sheriff, I mean it’s an amazing device but it does seem rather intrusive. Are you sure it’s safe?

Sam: Yes yes of course come on, try it on me. [loud music, glass shatters]

Cecil: Oh wow. That’s, that’s great. I-I had no idea that that’s what you’re thinking right now.

Sam: Yeah sure, why what do your thoughts sound like?

Cecil: I love my husband. I love my husband. I also agree that sea lions are so cute. So cute! Soo cute!!

Sam: None of that was illegal at all, how disappointing.

Cecil: Yeah I know, I’m sorry. Um, you know but I do hope that you end up arresting Chris later on.

Sam: Well that will cheer me up. Now Sessil, you do help me look on the bright side so thank you and do give me a shout if you find out anything about the Mink.

Cecil: Alright, I will. Thank you, Sheriff Sam!

13. Ascentia Ad

Cecil: And now another word from our sponsors.

[talks very fast] Today’s show is also brought to you by Ascentia. If you’ve ever felt anything at all, there’s Ascentia. Talk to your doctor about Ascentia. Your doctor is a spider, all black eyes and long legs, clinging effortlessly to the wall. Tell your doctor how afraid you are but don’t say anything out loud unless you are (-) [ 0:00:18] paralyzed by your choice of fight or flight. Do not fight your doctor, your doctor is good. They eat a lot of bugs, they’re super helpful. Your doctor is just as afraid of you as you are of them. Do not take Ascentia if you’ve ever seen a dog. Spiritual transcendence is uncommon, but if you find yourself no longer in a physical body, please stop taking Ascentia immediately and contact a medium with a medical training and a Ouija board. Ascentia might cause night (-). Ask your doctor about Canada. Do not take Aponto which is our competitor. Aponto users report high levels of centipedes inside their necks, crawling around right before bed and on first dates. Ascentia is a solar flare, a radioactive magnetic burst that should not be taken with alcohol. Do not breathe for 30 minutes after taking Ascentia.

You’re a person. That’s why there’s…

Ascentia.

14. Deb Returns

Cecil: And now I present to you a major milestone in radio history: the first ever audio only magic shooooow! Yes, yes, yes!

Now listen, I’ve been practicing these tricks perfectly and I have every single one of them down, even the one with the-the doves and the aerial dancers. So, for my first trick, I will take a flamethrower that I have hidden under the… [long pause] OK, listeners, that may have to wait. For some reason, Deb the sentient patch of haze has returned to my studio. What’s up Deb?

Deb: Hello, Cecil! How are you? Oh, doesn’t this place just look a treat? Oh, and all the doves! I love doves! Almost as much as I love horses.

Cecil: Deb, are you OK?

Deb: Cecil, thank you, I’m doing wonderful, how are you? Oh, and isn’t this just the cutest little studio! Is that a safe? Full of secrets? How adorable! I can’t, I won’t, I absolutely will not...

Cecil: You sound a little different or something.

Deb: Well do you know what would make this studio that much more perfect, Cecil? Beautiful crystalline horse figurines. Can’t you just picture them? Oh, all of the sparkly horses! Especially, tsk tsk tsk, on that safe. I bet that safe just has the cutest combination.

Cecil: Oh yeah, it’s super cute, but I don’t see what it has to-

Deb: As a kid, I remember watching the horses drop by my house. Can you believe it, I grew up near a horse farm? “Get inside!” my mother would yell. [shrill voice] “You know you’re allergic!” But how could allergies ever stand up to my love of horses? Say, I bet the inside of that safe is even that much more adorable..

Cecil: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!

Deb: Can I ju-

Cecil: Love? Deb isn’t capable of love! Oh my god, you’re the Mink!

Deb: Nooo! No!

Cecil: Yes, the Mink has disguised themself as Deb in order to infiltrate my studio!

Deb: That’s not true.

Cecil: Yeah, certain small tells in their behavior indicated that this is not the real Deb!

Deb: No I’m definitely Bed, I mean Deb, excuse me..

Cecil: No wait wait wait, before you go, I just need to have a moment…

15. The Chase

Cecil: Tamika, this is the Mink! [long pause, suspenseful music] And the Mink has just jumped into a 1987 yellow (-) [0:00:22] and raced off, and Tamika is leaping onto her motorcycle and speeding after, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police, who had our station under surveillance, are joining the chase. The Mink has now turned the wrong way down a one way street and is weaving through oncoming traffic, and Tamika is racing up a loading ramp, jumping her bike from rooftop to rooftop, from rooftop to bus stop, and from bus stop to the street. She’s finally hit the ground and she’s only a few feet away from the Mink’s car and they’re swerving back and forth trying to get her to veer off. Watch out, Tamika!

Breaking news: I have just learned that the Mink and their ever increasing search for secrets has started to delve into forbidden and dangerous knowledge. Six security guards at the top secret facility on Oak Street have gone missing, and the entire place was ransacked. This is all according to a spokesperson from the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, who looked a lot like my neighbor Madeline, and lives in Madeline’s house but had a sign that says “I’m not Madeline”, so I have no idea where I’m getting any of this information.

Anyway, that spokesperson said that among the classified secrets taken were the truth about who killed JFK, Amelia Earhart’s continued whereabouts, several nuclear codes and what, what, what? That Night Vale resident and actor Lee Marvin died decades ago? But that’s impossible! Like, he’s alive and well, and today is his 30th birthday.

Update on the chase. Tamika has now trapped the Mink’s car at the top of a towering cliff, and the Mink is fleeing on foot, and overhead helicopters of every kind circle, and the Sheriff’s Secret Police secret police cars roar by on a nearby road, and dark clouds are gathering, and there is lightning and thunder and listen, I know it does rain sometimes in the desert but it was, like, sunny 15 seconds ago but this is a really compelling picture that I’m painting for all of you. And the wind is whipping back Tamika’s hair as she sprints after the Mink, who is rearranging their disguise even as they flee, but finally they hit a dead end. It’s a sheer drop on both sides. “There’s no way left to go, Mink!” Tamika shouts into the gusts of wind, and the Mink smiles at her ever so sadly and then – steps backward off the cliff. Now Tamika, not willing to let her (quarry) go so easily – jumps after. Let me get some information on this, this has all gone terribly wrong. But in the meantime,

Let’s check in

On the weather.

16. The Weather

[“Company Man” by Dane Terry, https://daneterry.bandcamp.com/]

17. Where is the Mink

Listeners, I do hope you found that weather report was edifying. I’ve been trying to get any word that I can on Tamika or the Mink, but they both have vanished. The helicopters lost track of them as they fell through the long curtain of rain, and so no one can say what happened next but – that fall was quite long.

This is all my fault. I knew it was dangerous, but I was blind to the dangers that I was asking Tamika to perform, because I wanted to speak with the Mink so badly. And now I fear – we have lost her.

I have never wanted to say these words but.. to the family of Tamika Flynn, I will never forget myself for what I have done, I will never be able to-

Tamika: No, I’m alive! I’m not dead!

Cecil: Tamika, oh Tamika!

Tamika: Hi hi hey hey hey, hey hey hey, I’m down here, no worries.

Cecil: What happened?!

Tamika: Oh, I-I caught the Mink.

Cecil: What?

Tamika: Yeah! They’re right hear.

Cecil: [gasps] [long pause]

Tamika: Yeah, I-I found them.

Cecil: That’s amazing, I’m so impressed!

Tamika: [chuckles] Bam, one Mink caught, I am very good at this.

Cecil: Yeah! No wait, are you positive that’s the Mink though?

Tamika: Yes. Well, I got some intel on their latest disguise, and they’re wearing sunglasses.

Cecil: Uh huh.

Tamika: You can put them over (--)  [0:01:33]. They’re wearing a hat.

Cecil: OK, yeah.

Tamika: It’s clean.

Cecil: Yeah, yeah, clean hat. Clean hat Mink, that’s what they call him.

Tamika: And they’re wearing a name tag that says: “Hello, I’m the Mink!”

Cecil: Aaaa, yes, that is some brilliant deduction!

Tamika: I am very smart.

Cecil: Yeah, well done but Tamika, bring them into my studio for just one second before the Secret Police get here, OK?

Tamika: Alright, we’re on our way!

Cecil: Alright, thank you Tamika! Oh, that’s such a relief! Whoa. (But!)  You know, it just goes to show that reckless decision making and snap decisions always pay off. And I’m so glad that I turned out to be 100 percent right about this whole situation. Versus how 100 percent wrong about this whole situation I was just a few months ago.

But you know, listen, I’ve gotta confess something to you all, and I hate to do this because I hold myself to high standards both morally and journalistically, but – I lied to you just a tiny little bit on my show, because I didn’t know who was listening. But now I will make it up to you by telling you all the truth. Not all the truth, I’m gonna withhold just a little piece of information, but I’m letting you know upfront that there’s one thing that I cannot tell you.

Listen, I was never seeking the Mink for professional reasons, not because it would make the interview of the century or because I wanted to get them to spill all their secrets on the air, no. I wanted to talk to them because they never spill their secrets, because listeners, I have this secret that I have been holding for two years, and I have to tell someone! And here comes this opportunity to talk to his person that never spills any of their secrets. They’re the perfect keeper of forbidden knowledge. And now, here they are.

Thank you so much, Tamika. Now Mink, I gotta tell you something, you know and I’ve only, I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody. Wait, hold on a sec-

18. Secret Interdlue

[music, audience reacts, no audible dialogue]

19. The Escape

Cecil: Oh no, they’re getting away! Aaaaah. Oh man, uh! Ahhhh. [strained noises] We’ll never catch them now. The Mink has escaped. Now, we as a society, we fear secrets. You know, maybe as a species, if we don’t fear them we look down upon them like secret lies or dirty little secrets, and if someone is not willing to say something out loud, then it must be shameful or evil or somehow incorrect but a secret, it’s not good or bad, it’s just not known and the universe is filled with secrets, like consider a field flush with flowers that humans have not seen in generations. If we don’t know about it, is it a secret or or, or a star in the middle of the galaxy that our telescopes do not reach. We will never know about this star, but it glitters secretly in the heart of the universe or, or something more down to earth and mundane like a, like a person who has never tasted a turnip. Doesn’t know what a turnip tastes like and just refuses to ask anybody or eat a turnip. Is that a secret? I don’t know. What is unknown and what is merely unsaid?

Officials from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, the City Council, and the Vague yet Menacing Government Agency all say that they have plans to catch the Mink and those plans are top secret. And since they’re top secret, the Mink has already learned about them, so they are highly unlikely to work. But you know what? Good luck.

Soon I imagine we will all return to a baseline normal as a town, a little less darkness, a lot less secrets but we’re still us, we’re still Night Vale. You know, there’s an energy in secrets. Who we share them with, who we don’t. And not everybody has a right to know everything about everyone, and our curiosity, it’s not a license. And we don’t have to share every part of ourselves with everyone, there’s no shame in privacy. There is, however, an energy in secrets, there’s a-a fission that happens when you share a secret with somebody. And that secret could be an aspect of love, platonic love or romantic love or the love you owe to yourself, love of every kind. And the biggest secret of all is the universe, one that we will never get to unravel.

I mean, I had a secret, and I needed the Mink to help me carry it. And I know that they’re not going to bow to peer pressure and tell aanybody what I just told them. No matter how many drinks people buy at the bar afterwards and say “Hey, what did he just say to you?” No, they’re gonna keep that secret. You know, secrets can be light. Share them with somebody, don’t share them with somebody, hold them for yourself. I mean I’m not ashamed of my secret, certainly not. Certainly not.

See? There’s an energy in secrets. Especially in secrets that all of you will never get to know.

There is an energy in secrets, and I hope that that energy lifts you.

So stay tuned next for the quiet roar of your secret thoughts, some of which you may some day share.

And for the secret heart of my secret self,

Good night, Night Vale,

Good night.

[realm-sweet-realm]

Defining Memories, chapter 5

It would seem that whatever created the void, it has a bit of an agenda.

---

“Well. I sure hope most of yours will be a little tamer,” Lacie commented. “You all seem cultish enough on a good day.”

Sammy’s eyes darted around nervously at the comment.

“Well, I guess you’re out of luck,” the black-and-white woman chirped, smiling and cradling the yellow light in her hands. “It’s my turn.”

Henry, along with several others, leaned in, curious as to how the woman had come to look the way she did. The scene changed to that of a public bathroom. A woman was there, blonde, slender, looking maybe seventeen years old and wearing a sparkly hot pink dress. She was leaning over the sink, delicately applying mascara.

“Alright, and our next contestant is Susie Campbell!”

The little girl let out a soft “Oh,” and scampered out as quickly as she could in her heels, dropping the mascara in the sink in the process.

The little girl stopped before the stairs leading up to the stage in what appeared to be a school auditorium, clearly nervous. But, she took a deep breath and took decisive steps up on stage, made her way to its center as music began to play, and sang.

The song was “My Man,” by Fanny Brice, and she sang it beautifully, hitting high notes and swinging back to more moderate tones in a way that seemed as effortless as it was pleasing to the ear. She batted her lashes at the audience at the right moments and generally seemed to be having the time of her life. She beamed at the applause when it was done. The scene shifted and showed the girl winning an award for her performance, then faded into mist.

The black and white woman- Susie Campbell, apparently- shook her head violently. “No. That’s not my defining memory! That’s not what it was supposed to be!”

Allison stroked her back, trying to comfort her.

Though he knew it was rude, Henry couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer. “I don’t understand. Was that not a memory from your life?”

Susie willed herself to calm down a little. “No, it was. It was the day I decided to try and make a living off my voice. I just thought it would be a different memory, is all. I thought it would be the first time I performed looking like this.” She motioned to herself.

Henry knew he ought to say something, but the confusion had left him dumbfounded. The horns and colours could be explained as a costume, but this woman was well over half a foot taller than Susie had been in her memory, and had very different facial features, not to mention how thin her neck and arms were. From a distance she had seemed beautiful, but now that Henry looked at her more carefully, she was rather uncanny-looking.

Joey spoke up. “Sammy, could you explain to Henry why Susie looks different now?”

Sammy went over to Henry. Meanwhile, Henry could see Joey attempting to come to Susie’s comfort only to be sent away.

“So, about Susie...” Sammy began, still walking away from the group and forcing Henry to follow, “Joey and I are working on a way of making, uh, costumes for people like Ali- I mean, Susie to wear. It’s a supernatural process, and it changes a lot pretty quickly.”

“Supernatural...?” Henry questioned, before realizing that he was literally having this conversation in the middle of a mystical void. “I suppose that makes sense...”

“Yeah. Well, it’s better to leave Susie be.” Bitterness crept into Sammy’s voice. “She’s still feeling pretty delicate about the whole thing.”

“I’m sure she’ll get over it,” Henry said. Sammy looked away, concerned and irritated. Henry knew that, unless Sammy had changed significantly over the years, it would probably be best if he let Sammy process this on his own.

Suddenly, the glowing light reappeared, blue, but unlike every time prior, it wasn’t near anyone. It was in between Sammy and Henry, and the group. Sammy walked towards it, and it drifted towards the group, keeping equal distance between him and the group. Following it, he ended up a few feet away from Susie, the glowing light between them. Susie met his eyes a moment, then looked down, resigned.

The scene changed. Sammy Lawrence, looking no different than he did in the present, entered into Susie’s apartment. He wasn't sure if they were to going to be cohabitating from now on or if he was just there to check up on her, but either way it felt right. As soon as the group entered, they noticed that the heat had been cranked way up. Sammy shrugged off his coat and tried to ignore it. Susie, looking exactly like she did in the present and wearing a blue knit sweater which was clearly cut for a man, had been sitting at the table, waiting for him and reading a book.

“Hey, Susie, I’m home. How was the dance?”

“Good. My friends took the transformation pretty well. How was your time with the other woman?”

Sammy rolled his eyes. Susie had been calling Joey “the other woman” for quite a while. The normalcy was comforting. “Good. Are you feeling sick? It's way too hot in here to be wearing this,” he said, motioning at the sweater she was wearing.

“Oh, right," she said, taking it off. "You can have it back. I can’t use it anymore.”

“Why?”

“Because it won’t warm me up anymore. I’m cold-blooded. That’s why the heat’s turned up.”

“Oh, okay,” Sammy studied her face. She didn’t seem too unhappy, but the whole situation suddenly struck him as very delicate and very awkward. “I took the picture you asked for. I should warn you, though: we shouldn’t have waited as long as we did to embalm it. And we were hiding it in the sewer, so... Are you sure you still want to see it?”

“I’ll be fine. My first performance was one of the best I've ever had. It’s like you said: I love being Alice Angel. I just need to say goodbye to who I used to be, is all.”

Sammy handed her the picture, then looked away nervously. Equally nervously, Susie looked down. The thirteen employees pushed past each other to see the picture.

"A dead body." Henry deadpanned. A blonde, slight, female dead body. Its blood had pooled at the extremities, causing swelling and discolouration that rendered the face unrecognizable. One leg had been hanging into the sewer water as the skin had partially rotted away. In that moment, Susie fully realized that her life would never be the same.

“Sammy,” Susie said gravely. Even she didn’t know what the next words out of her mouth would be. “Get out.”

“What?” Sammy replied, bewildered.

“I’m sorry. We need to take a break so that I can process what you did.”

“You’re breaking up with me?”

“No. Maybe. I’m taking a break. Maybe I come to trust you again, and maybe I can’t. We’ll see.”

“Susie, let’s talk this over,” he said, going over to put an arm around her.

Susie turned away from him and started to walk to her room. “No. I want to be alone.”

Sammy, now quite irate, followed her. “This affects us both. You can’t just leave me in the dark like this!”

Susie clenched her fists. “I’ve been sleeping with ——!” she yelled. It seemed as though the name of the person she’d been sleeping with had been muted. The group could see her lips move, but they couldn’t hear her voice.

Sammy was in stunned silence.

“I'm sorry," she snapped. "Do you feel betrayed? Well,youcan find another girl and it'll like nothing ever happened. I'm going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. You know, it was my time of month when you sacrificed me, and sure isn't anymore. Can I even have children anymore, Sammy? Can I still get old? Die? Do you even know?" As she went on, her voice became weaker.

Sammy was shamefaced. He shook his head.

"Leave." Susie said, willing what little strength she could manage into her voice.

"I did everything I could to help you through this," he said irritably.

"Everything but tell me the truth about it beforehand. Now, leave. I won't say it again."

Sammy left. As soon as he was outside the door, he sat down against it, staring miserably at the sweater.

The scene faded away. Sammy and Susie met eyes. Sammy immediately lowered his. “I feel like we have a lot to talk about,” Sammy said finally. “If you’re ready, that is.”

Susie nodded. “I think I am. Sammy, I know you didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did. I’m definitely not sorry for getting upset like that, but I am sorry for cheating on you.”

“I just don’t understand why you did that,” Sammy said. “That was before any of this had happened.”

“Neither did I,” Susie said honestly, “but I’d never do it again.”

"Maybe we can help," Allison suggested, putting an arm around Tom. "We had our relationship struggles, too, but we got through them. Seems like that ink machine has a real way of breaking couples, doesn't it?"

Susie smiled. "You'd do that for us, Allie?"

Wally was taken aback. "Since when do you two get along?"

Susie answered. "Since she taught me how to do my makeup to look a little more like a human. Plus, I hated her for taking my role from me, but now I'm more Alice Angel than she'll ever be, so I'm over it. It's not like she knew she was breaking my heart by taking the role anyhow. That's since when."

Sammy was less impressed. He could barely hold Tom's eyes for more than a second. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Susie," he said irritably. He'd never liked Tom much. He knew he had a bias against black men, and although he was trying not to feed that particular wolf, Tom being the angry, irritable, intimidating person he was... Sammy was having thoughts he wished he weren't having, and it seemed like Tom could tell as much. Although, having seen Tom's memories, he was beginning to see Tom less as just a black man who demanded respect, and more as just... a person. "I guess it's worth a try though."

Tom, who had been expecting Sammy to shut the whole thing down, looked away in annoyance and resignation.

“I’d like to apologize for my hand in this, too,” Joey added, surprising everyone. “Too often, I’m good at justifying things to myself. But Sammy, you know I care about you, and I honestly never meant to cause you this much hurt.”

Sammy tensed immediately, baring his teeth like an animal. He had grabbed Joey’s collar and was about to punch him before Thomas pulled the much smaller man off of him. “Get ahold of yourself!” Thomas yelled.

“Right. Sorry. Joey, you and I have some things to talk about, too, when we get out of this weird void.”

Joey nodded solemnly, trying to show Sammy that he took the situation seriously. Although, he was secretly relieved that Sammy’s worst memory hadn’t been more incriminating. Lord knows how the group would have reacted to Susie’s ritual. Of course, there was still his own worst memory to contend with.

[paradisobound]

Sail Away With Me: Part 5

Summary: It was a fluke. Dan shouldn’t have ever gone with Sam to a party on a yacht. He shouldn’t have trusted her to go. But in a chance encounter, he ends up in bed with Phil Lester, a billionaire CEO of a luxury clothing company. When he thinks he’s screwed up enough, he realizes he’s in way too deep. Because Phil Lester has fallen in love with him. The catch: Dan gave Phil a fake name and all Phil has to remember Dan by is the tattoo on his hip and the necklace he left behind.

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: Brief Alcohol and Drug mentions 

Pairing: Instagraminfluencer!dan and CEO!Phil

This is a chaptered work. Updates every Saturday around 1pm EST

**MASTERLIST | ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN | WATTPAD**

Phil’s POV

“Do you recognize any of these men?” 

Phil looked down at all of the pictures on Jeanna’s tablet. She was scrolling through them all as Phil looked carefully at each picture, trying to figure out if he recognized any of them…so far he hasn’t. 

“No, I don’t.” 

Jeanna bit her lip and then scrolled a bit further down the page. “This is the list of males who were named Ethan who attended a party in Amalfi the same day as yours so I was hoping maybe one would be correct.” 

“None of them are.” 

Phil let out a long sigh and then laid his head down on his arms on his desk. Phil had come into his office today just for this. Jeanna had said she’d done extensive searching and had come up with quite a few people for Phil to look at. But so far, nothing was working. 

“Maybe I can search just for people who were…” 

“It’s not going to work, Jeanna.” Phil said with a defeated sigh. “I’m never going to find Ethan. It’s just hopeless.” 

Jeanna sat back in her plastic chair, the material creaking under her and she shifted her weight from left foot to right foot, crossing the one over the other. She leaned forward and took the tablet away just as Phil lifted his head back up again to face her. 

“But what if it’s not hopeless?” Jeanna asks. “I have some ideas.” 

“Like what?” Phil asks, smoothing his hair back that had fallen onto his forehead and adjusting his now crooked glasses. 

“Just wait and see!” Jeanna said with a smile. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” 

Phil lent her a smile as he sat back in his chair and tried his best to believe that Jeanna would actually work her magic and be able to help him out. 

It’s been a while since Phil has felt like this over another guy. He actually thinks that last time he’s been so adamant to find a one night stand was well…Lukas. That was nearly 15 years ago and the thought of it being that long since he’d known Lukas was painful, squeezing his heart in all the wrong ways. He fights back the tears that begin to move forward as he thinks about blonde hair and green eyes. 

He’s still thinking about Lukas, tempted to pull out his phone and look through the locked album on his phone that holds all of his and Lukas’s memories from years past. But just as he starts to reach into his pocket, Jeanna slaps down her tablet onto the table and looks at Phil with an excited smile. 

“I have my idea!” 

“Go on?” Phil asks, laughing at how enthusiastic she’s being about this. 

“We’ll put out a search for him! Surely if he knows we’re looking for him, he’ll come forward right?” 

Phil furrows his brows. “This sounds like a really bad idea.” 

“But what if it’s not?” Jeanna asks, pinching the display on her iPad to enlarge a post she’d drafted on Phil’s Twitter. “What if we advertise that we’re looking for a male named Ethan who has a rose tattoo on their hip.” 

“But isn’t that going to make some people go out and deliberately get a tattoo just to try and fit the mould of Ethan?” Phil asks because that’s a serious thing he feels like could put a damper in their search. 

“Well, of course. But only you’ll know the correct Ethan right?” Jeanna asks. “Like if we put out a search and say 1,000 Ethan’s come forward fitting our description, that must mean you can surely pick out your Ethan from the crowd?” 

Phil taps his fingers against his chin and thinks on it. This could either go horrifically or this could go great and he can find the actual man of his dreams. He feels a bit like he’s cheating on Lukas when he says that in his mind. 

But Lukas has been gone for a while now. Lukas would want him to move on and to find someone else to share his life with. But why does he still feel like he’s betraying him when he thinks about Ethan and how much he would love to be with him? 

Maybe this is why he spent so much of the last few years throwing parties and sleeping with the first man he found attractive? Because maybe if he left himself convinced that if he was just mindlessly sleeping with men, then he wasn’t cheating on Lukas because he didn’t feel anything. 

But now that he feels something…

“Phil, are you okay?” 

Jeanna almost never addresses him as his first name. And maybe if his head was a bit more clear, he would warn her against it but this time, he doesn’t mind. He needs someone to keep him grounded and Jeanna does just that most of the time. That’s why he hired her a few years ago when he realized that he needed someone like her. 

“You want to find Ethan right?” 

Phil nods and glances back at her with a sad smile on his face. “This is the first time I’m actively tried to pursue someone since…since Lukas died.” 

Jeanna gives him a watery smile and reaches out, patting his arm with her delicate hand. “He would have wanted this, you know? He would have wanted to see you meeting someone new who you wanted to be with.” 

A brash part of Phil wants to tell her that no, she possibly couldn’t know because she never even so much as met Lukas. But he also knows that she’s completely correct and so he nods and lets his eyes cloud over a bit with unshed tears as he holds them back. 

“I want to find him.” He finally says. “I really want to find Ethan.” 

“Then we’ll find him.” She says. “One way or another, we’ll find you your Ethan.” 

Phil nods back and lets out a small laugh as he glances down at her tablet again. 

“So tell me,” Jeanna says, picking the iPad away from Phil’s view. “What did Ethan look like?” 

Phil feels his lips curl into a large smile as he begins to describe all of the features of Ethan from his memory. 

***

Dan’s POV 

Dan is out with Samantha at a party in some rich guys penthouse in London when he sees the Twitter notification scroll across his phone from a breaking news site. He’s a few drinks down and at least a half a sheet to the wind when he feels like his world is crashing down around him. 

BILLIONAIRE CEO PHIL LESTER IS SEARCHING FOR ETHAN: A MALE HE MET AT HIS PARTY A FEW WEEKS AGO. DETAILS BELOW 

Dan feels like all of his breath is sucked out of him as his fingers begin to shake and he sets down his half-full glass onto the bar and steps away from a male named Johnathan who had been trying to get into his pants for the last half an hour. Dan was close to letting him, if he was being honest. But that was way before he saw that scroll across as breaking news on his phone. 

Phil Lester, Billionaire CEO of the clothing company Le Grand Amour is looking for what he is claiming to be ‘his one true love’. Lester met with a male by the name of ‘Ethan’ at his party in Amalfi, Italy on the night of July 22nd and wants to be reunited with him. He is hoping that he can find the male that is Ethan. 

If you’re the Ethan Phil is looking for, Lester is holding a meeting at his office in Victoria on 1st August at 14:00. More details are on Phil’s detailed post linked below. 

Dan looked down at the date on his phone and realized it was July 28th and he felt his heart beat through his chest. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t show up and…fuck he was going throw up. 

Dan rushed out of the party and into the bathroom which was somehow unoccupied and lost all of the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl. As the hook in his stomach continued to pull, he heard the door behind him open and a familiar set of hands on his back, rubbing it. 

“Couldn’t hold your alcohol tonight?” Sam asked, her voice oddly soothing. 

Dan sat back and wiped his mouth with some toilet paper and then he threw that into the bowl and flushed the toilet. He struggled to gather his breath and composure. He turned his head and looked at how perfectly polished Sam still was despite the bloodshot in her eyes and the smell of vodka on her breath. 

“You didn’t see what’s breaking news on Twitter?” 

Sam shook her head and pulled out her phone from her fanny pack, looking it over. She tapped on Twitter and Dan watched her mouth drop open as she read over the post. 

“You’re…Dan! Phil fucking Lester is calling you his true love.” Sam says, hitting his arm repeatedly with her hand. He pushed her off and mumbled an ow at her excited expressions. “Phil Lester is in love with you!” 

Dan shushed her as he looked at the cocked open door where the lights and sounds were coming through. She noticed his stare at the door and she stood up, shutting it and locking it so no one could get in. “He’s not in love with me, Sam.” 

“He’s literally willing to risk everything to meet hundreds…probably thousands of people to try and find you!” Sam says. “You need to go and meet him on this day!” 

“Sam, that’s a ridiculous fucking idea.” 

“Dan, you’re acting like a fool right now!” Sam exclaims. “Phil Lester is putting out a search warrant for you and you’re sitting here saying it’s a ridiculous idea!” 

Dan looks down between them and lets out a sigh. “He doesn’t want me, Sam. He wants Ethan. I’m not Ethan.” 

“But you are Ethan!” Sam argues. “You’re Ethan…because you were too damn scared to give Phil your real name so now you’re stuck under a pseudonym.” Sam sat back on her heels. “You liked Phil, right? Like you liked your night with him?” 

Dan shrugged his shoulders. “Of course I loved my night with him. It was sex. It was sex with Phil Lester. Of course it felt incredible.” 

Sam rolled her eyes. “You’re acting completely ridiculous.” 

“And you’re not?” Dan pressed back. “I’m trying to tell you that I don’t want to meet him again and you’re pushing me to do so!” 

“I’m not pushing you to do anything, Dan. I’m telling you that you need to meet up with Phil because if you don’t, you’ll regret that for the rest of your life.” Sam lets out a sigh. “But lets not do this right now. We’re both a bit tipsy and this conversation isn’t getting anywhere. Let’s just sleep on it.” 

Dan stands up on wobbly legs and quickly agrees as he moves past Sam and walks out of the bathroom, ignoring Johnathan who was rushing towards him as a last resort. He gets to the elevator just in time for the unshed feelings to unleash as he fell into the corner and cried all 15 floors down to the bottom. 

***

Dan slept on it but in the morning, his mind was still not mad up. He texted Sam and apologized for snapping at her last night and she apologized back too and then they made up by sending each other pictures of memes they saw and everything went well. 

For most of the next day, Dan spent his time working on a new product sponsorship he agreed to do for a new detox tea that the company had given him a lot of money for. He spent a lot of his time trying to figure out what he should do for the photo. 

He decides to put on an athletic shirt and some shorts and pour some water into a cup as he masked it as tea. He used the caption they sent him in the message and he posted the photo with his unique sales code for his followers to use. He would make some money from those who used it but the payout was bigger just to post the photo than the code was. 

With that posted and approved, he chucked the tea into the garbage because he wasn’t about to actually drink a tea with laxatives in it and then he made actual real tea instead. He went onto his laptop next to go through his new emails from companies and he found a new email from Luxor. 

He opened it up and was still sipping his tea when he read the next email and spat it out all down the front of his shirt. 

Luxor x Le Grand Amour: Coming Soon 

Hello Daniel, We wanted to email you to let you know that our collaboration with Le Grand Amour is under way and we would love to have you be the model for our first products. We will get into contact with you in a few weeks time to let you know when you will be needed. You will of course be paid for your time. 

Best, 

Timothy Duvey, Luxor CEO 

Dan quickly wiped down his front and felt his heart race as he read over the email over and over again. This couldn’t be happening. He literally wasn’t going to be able to escape Phil at all. He was going to have to confront Phil at some point. 

But why is that so difficult? 

Dan can admit that he likes Phil. Of course he does. He remembers the spark. He remembers how it felt to be with Phil and when he closes his eyes, he can see Phil behind them. He can imagine his life with Phil by his side, showering him in gifts and giving him so much affection. God, Dan wants that so badly. 

He feels touch starved and its been so long since someone has actually wanted him for more than just sex. It feels overwhelming and maybe that’s why Dan is fighting this so much. He’s fighting back these feelings that he hasn’t had time to ever feel. 

Dan puts down the top of his laptop and then opens his phone, opening the calendar. He puts the date August 1st in his calendar and puts down the time and then locks the screen, sitting back in his chair as he felt tears brim his eyes and break through the dam, skittering down his cheeks. 

[nieuwsuitdejungle]

Blog Post Two

Sunday 19th November

“Just occasionally you find yourself in an odd situation. You get into it by degrees and in the most natural way but when you are right in the midst of it you are suddenly astonished and ask yourself how in the world it all came about.” – Thor Heyerdahl 

The Prologue

Let me first provide you with a little background story on the Grande Synthe Jungle (which is where our team mostly operates on the ground) and the role of the Refugee Women Centre, in the hope that my future blog posts will make a bit more sense.

In March 2016 France’s first ever refugee camp to meet international humanitarian standards opened near the northers port of Dunkirk called Linière. The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) had built around 200-375 cabins at the Grande-Synthe site to house 2,500 people based there in the hope of reaching Britain. Most of those migrants – mainly Kurds from Iraq – had been living for months in atrocious conditions in the boggy, rat-infested camp of Grande-Synthe. Damien Careme, the local Green mayor, had fought for the right to build the new camp against the wishes of the French government, which had refused to pay a centime towards it.

Three Iraqi Kurd families were the first to be bussed to the new site, whose wooden cabins boasted proper lavatories, heating, a collective kitchen, public lighting and a field hospital but no fences. The camp also had no police controls to enter or exit, with authorities hoping this would make it easier to persuade migrants to move in.  

The Refugee Women Centre has been present in Grande Synthe even before this first official camp. In 2015, in the first camp of Grande Synthe, Baroch, women would rarely – if ever – leave their tents, because they were either felt uncomfortable with the conditions in the camp or were not allowed by their husbands to go to the social spaces that weren’t female-only. This led to the creation and opening of a first Women’s Centre in two parts: one tent for the distribution of women’s clothing and hygiene products and another to serve as a social space where activities would be organised.

Based on this idea, a Women’s Centre was officially integrated in the planning of the Linière camp in the spring of 2016. The Women’s Centre was a community kitchen reserved for women, and their children if they wanted, in which volunteers would organise material distributions, activities, an generally provide a space in which women could spend time.

The overall management of the camp was initially handed to Utopia 56, a French organization that ran the day-to-day activities of the camp overall and ensured the presence of volunteers in different areas. This included the Women’s Centre. At the end of the summer 2016, the management of the camp was given to a different organization called Afeji, who only did general management, but didn’t place their employees in specific sections of the camp.

This is when independent volunteers arrived, during the Autumn and Winter of 2016, to take care of the Women’s Centre, and to ensure the continuation of the activities and distributions that were taking place until then. Those volunteers redefined the workings of the centre, boosted the activities and interactions between the women living in the camp and the volunteers, developed its support network around Dunkirk and abroad, and officially created the Refugee Women’s Centre as an independent charity.

Since the fire that destroyed the camp in April 2017, the Women’s Centre has gone mobile. Using a van, blankets and sometimes a tarp to create temporary safe spaces, the team on the ground continues to provide close support to female refugees in Dunkirk, and has more recently started to do so in Calais as well.

Week One statistics

Number of days I’ve been here: 7

Number of showers I’ve had: 2

Number of times I’ve wondered why on earth I came to this place: 0

Number of therapy sessions I’ve been to: 2

Number of cats currently in the mobile home: 4

Number of truly amazing and inspiring people I’ve met: countless

Number of bonfire-on-the-beach-sessions: 1

My first week of being in Northern France is almost over. Time to try and tell you about my experiences so far. I say try, since I clearly underestimated writing a blog, or frankly writing anything. Getting my thoughts on paper feels like a diabolic task. I’ve been struggling with this post for well over a week now. In the end I’ve decided to stop editing and rewriting. Here is the raw version, that might well leave you in the same confused state of mind I was and to some extend still am.

Let me start by telling you about what my housing situation looks like. I live with 5 truly amazing young women (and four cats) in a teeny tiny mobile home on a camping site by a slightly muddy but gorgeous beach. It’s about 11 degrees Celsius during the day and 5 degrees Celsius by night. The mobile home is our cabin, our shelter. It’s where our team catches up on the day’s events, cooks dinner and share beers. It’s a warm, cosy, chaotic space lit by candles. There is very little room with food, boxes of children’s activities and personal paraphernalia littering every surface. Moving around feels like playing real life Tetris with human beings as the tiles. The shower was broken for the first five days of my time here which means we were using bottles of hot water from the kettle to wash ourselves whilst we waited for the campsite owner to come fix it. I took my second shower of the week this morning, and let me tell you, it was amazing. Not showering for five days after being outside in the cold basically all day is a true gift.

The thing about arriving in a new place, is that you need to figure out how everything works. It’s like being in a dark cave with only a lighter to help you see. You need to find patterns, familiar faces and structures. Last year I arrived in Hamburg after the summer to study there for a year. Which was a completely new city for me and I didn’t know anybody there. However, it was still a place where I knew the language and things soon felt familiar. This new place however, is next-level-new. I went here with a very open mind. Of course I did do some research on the situation, but that didn’t prepare me.

Writing a comprehensive blog post on my first week in this state of mind, where I’m still trying to figure out everything is thus also quite a task. So forgive me if this post is very much all over the place. It feels like I’m making a really big puzzle, but I don’t have all the pieces yet.

This place feels like dystopian novel, as someone here accurately described it. And I’m now living in it. A place where the biggest supermarket I’ve ever seen is only a couple of hundred meters away from the jungle. A place where children of only two years old are sleeping outside in the cold and rain. Where the police takes any blankets or sleeping bags they find or spray them with pepper spray to render them useless. From where you can literally see the white cliffs of Dover, that are so close for some, but almost unreachable for others. Where asking the question ‘can you check if we have more sleeping bags for children’ is now the most ordinary thing. Where hotels refuse to rent out a room to a couple with a two year old because they are migrants. A place where people as young as 18 years old volunteer to try to make a difference and show some humanity. A place where trench foot has returned to the front of Dunkirk, and scabies is the order of the day. Where days off are as holy and precious as they are difficult. Where contrasts are so big, it seems as if we are living in a parallel world, like none of this is actually real. A place that I’m falling both in and out of love with more and more every day.

I’m writing this post on my second day off. We take our days off very seriously here. I slept in which felt reenergizing, had a home-cooked lunch and then headed for the beach. Our cabin is only a few hundred meters from the sea which has basically been my lifelong dream. I went for a long walk by myself hoping that this would provide me some time to get my thoughts into order. The beach here is stunning, the sun was out and the only sound I heard was the waves crushing on the shore.

I ran through this first mind-boggling week in my head. Starting on Tuesday when I first encountered the jungle in Grande-Synthe, to Thursday when I got to know so many different life saving organisations working on the ground and Saturday when we did administration and coordinated a dentist session in the jungle.

Every morning I wake up to wrap myself up in fleecy layers, pull my trusty fanny pack a little closer round my waist, get some breakfast inside of me and head of to the jungle with the team. We mostly operate in the jungle of Grande Synthe which is located close to Dunkirk. We start by preparing the orders we took the previous day in the warehouse we share with other organizations. These orders mostly consist of clothes and hygiene products. After that we take our van into the jungle to see what the situation is like, hand out orders, take new orders and do activities with the kids and the women, creating a safe space for them. There are around 200 young men living in the jungle and about seven families with little children (however, the numbers change every day).

The situation in the jungle has been changing quite a bit over the past few weeks. The police are carrying out major evictions in the jungle lately. Most, but not all the families have been bussed out to reception centres. No one knows exactly where they’ve gone.The single men mostly remain. The State wants people gone, out of the jungle, they slash tents and take possessions, but many refugees return. While some will claim asylum in France many wish to reach family or friends in the UK. The evictions mean that our team now also visits families in accommodation to provide them with the things they need.

My first encounter with the jungle was on Tuesday. After driving our van through the misty fields of Northern France, just in time to see the breath-taking sunrise we arrived at the warehouse from where we operate. With the team we walked from the warehouse to the jungle. Since it was still fairly early, not that many people were around (most people try to make it to the UK at night and then try to sleep a bit after that, which means people won’t really be around until midday). The busses were already waiting to take people into accommodation centres. We asked around whether people were getting on the bus or not and tried to make sure the ones who wanted actually got on the bus. We also took some orders and then headed back to the warehouse to prepare them. After which we returned with our van to play with the kids and distribute.

And yes, yes it is striking to see how two year olds are sleeping outside with these temperatures, how a nine year old who speaks perfect English comes to pick up his mum’s order and hands us back a bag full of warm blankets because they already have some. It’s truly heart-breaking to see people living in these conditions. Every day new people amongst which many unaccompanied minors arrive at the jungle. A seventeen year old boy came up to me and asked me for a sleeping bag. He just arrived in the jungle and  the only thing that would provide him warmth that night was his thin jacket, he looked desperate, out of place and cold. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that there are so many unaccompanied minors in the jungle. This is reality, this is happening in Europe, this is what is happening right here in Northern France.

In the afternoon we went to the warehouse of Help Refugees (one of the biggest organisations helping refugees in Northern France and other places in Europe) that is located in Calais, to pick up stuff for our afternoon distribution for women in the jungle Calais (about which I will tell you more about later). We returned to the warehouse in Calais in the evening for a training session with the amazing Dr. Lynne Jones who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, writer, researcher, and relief worker. We did a ‘personal resilience and supporting others’ training session in which we learned a lot about our work on the ground and how we as volunteers can do it better. I feel like it’s so good to reflect on our work and take some time to understand why we are doing what we are doing and how this affects the people around us, but also how we can justify ourselves and to trust our ability to help others. About working with people who have lost so much and have no certainty considering their future whatsoever.

My other therapy session of the week was on Friday, where me and other members of the team met up with ‘the refugee resilience collective’. They support volunteers in the traumatic and stressful situations in which they are operating. It’s great to experience that also as a volunteer there are places you can go when you want to talk since this is clearly not your ordinary moonlight job. The thing that has actually struck me the most this week is the warmth and resilience of everyone I’ve met here. That is the refugee women, children and men I met, but also all the volunteers. People are so caring. From other volunteers bringing you a warm lunch during therapy, to unexpected smiles, hugs and encouragements. One of the men in Grande Synthe asked me if we get paid to do this work, and when I said we didn’t, he looked at me in surprise and told me he was so happy that humanity still exists.

The team of lovely ladies I work with are also an absolute dream. Going home to our cabin in the evenings feels so safe. Having these miraculously resilient and kind-hearted bundles of joy around me fills me with warmth. We share our highs and lows of the day, eat delicious home cooked meals, read, write, drink, watch documentaries and have conversations about both world problems and spirit animals. We make bonfires on the beach, look at the stars and dream of brighter futures for this planet and the humans that inhabit it.

I’ll leave it here for now, thank you for making it this far. Even though I deeply want to share more experiences, I feels as if I lack the vocabulary to express them and I’ve already used so many words to puzzle this together. In my next post I will write on difficult distributions, my one day trip to Dover and home cooked falafel dinners.

[bellabooks]

The Case for (Imagined) Queerness in the Works of Jane Austen

As 12 years of mandatory English classes taught us, a book’s impact and importance depend on a ton more factors than just “what the author decided the plot should be.” Every story is contextualized and processed by its individual readers. And if you think you understand the power of this reader/text relationship like the bookish queer youth does, oh boy are you out of your league. There’s an entire ocean of characters out there, and so shamefully few of them are non-hetero. Fan fiction, fan art and extensive Tumblr analyses abound trying to engineer Queer Subtext for any book, movie or television show you can imagine. LGBTQ folk are experts at collecting scraps of dialogue, stray looks or ambiguous moments, pinning them to the cork board of Accidental Queer Representation and connecting them with the red yarn of, uh, Extremely Biased Interpretation? Much like the metaphor in that last sentence, these cobbled-together narratives are often flimsy at best, but we stand behind them with conviction. See? I’m a weathered professional at holding together a trembling, papier-mâché construct despite all evidence to the contrary! Plenty of heteronormative franchises and stories have been given new life by the queer reader’s re-programming, but I have felt mostly alone in my bold quest to Gay Up the works of Jane Austen. These stories all at least partially revolve around the stirrings of Heterosexual Love in the hearts of young women and naturally have been favored mostly by my exceedingly hetero, female-identifiying peers. Therefore I have taken it upon myself to do this heavy lifting on behalf of the Queer Agenda. I have labored intensely for many years, and now at long last I present my findings on a few of Jane Austen’s most notable works.   Mansfield Park for Queer Youth Ah, Mansfield Park. The story of a mousy, impoverished heterosexual young woman fending off the advances of a wealthy and charming young heterosexual man in order to ultimately commit to an austere and boring heterosexual young man. Or is it?   Exhibit A: Mary Crawford, The Original Girlcrush   When Miss Mary Crawford and her wealthy and charming heterosexual brother Henry move into the neighborhood, young Fanny Price and her better-off cousins the Bertrams find their lives turned upside-down. Perhaps not quite in the way you would think. Miss Crawford’s beauty did her no disservice with the Miss Bertrams. They were too handsome themselves to dislike any woman for being so too, and were almost as much charmed as their brothers with her lively dark eye, clear brown complexion, and general prettiness. (Chapter 5) The first half of this excerpt is a very informative piece of intel on the lives of conventionally attractive, straight women. (Finally, Taylor Swift’s #girlsquad makes sense!) The second half, however, is queer as hell if you just believe hard enough. “Almost” as much charmed? Come on, Austen. Just give it to us straight. (Uh, no pun intended.) Everyone is in love with Mary Crawford, which is beautiful and tragic. The Bertram daughters are bound by custom and convention to marry men, but in the depths of their hearts, they clearly yearn to leave it all behind and run away with Mary.   Exhibit B: Wait, Is Mary Crawford after Edmund or Fanny?   The ongoing flirtation between Mary and Edmund is explicit enough. While they turn out to be ill-suited for one another, the initial sparks between them cannot be denied. Only slightly more subtle, however, is Mary’s fascination with Fanny which leads the two women to spend the majority of their free time together. Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams’ going away—an intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford’s desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny’s feelings.”(Chapter 22) Mary, girl, we’ve all been there. Experiment away! Bless Jane Austen for this completely unintended example of much-needed bisexual representation.   Exhibit C: Fanny Just Wants a Beard I have always found protagonist Fanny Price’s rejection of rich, effusive and affable Henry Crawford in favor of her stoic and dare I say withholding cousin Edmund Bertram to be one of the most frustrating heterosexual choices in literature, which is already full to bursting with the baffling entanglements of straight people. Ostensibly, Fanny has chosen a life of quiet morality as worth more to her than indulgence and having fun and being happy. And at first glance, the moral of this story seems to be the bland and inoffensive message that it’s actually okay for straight women to love solemn contemplation and quiet alone time and reading indoors on a rainy day. Oh, and being sexually attracted to one’s first cousin too, obviously. But is there perhaps a more original and insightful takeaway from this novel? Of course there is! Arguably, a queer reading of Mansfield Park is the only thing that would explain why in the end, Fanny falls for the least threatening or exciting man she has ever met. It also explains her intense discomfort with male attention. (She’s described in Chapter 21 as “almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect.”) She’s not looking for sex appeal or chemistry, because she knows she will never find them in a man, nor does she want such a thing. The best case for Fanny is a dependable and amiable enough life partner with whom to pay the bills, share in life’s various duties and sleep in separate beds. Edmund is certainly that.   Emma, Obviously in Denial   In addition to having the most personally relatable protagonist I have ever encountered, Emma is coincidentally also the easiest of Jane Austen’s works to jam into a queer-shaped mold. You can read a good 85% of this novel as the story of a lady-loving lady in very deep denial struggling with the heterosexual inclinations of all the women she cares for. Unfortunately things go a little off the rails when Emma finally realizes her love for Mr. Knightley, which is difficult to handwave away seeing as how it is actually a rather compelling Heterosexual Romance. We’ll just ignore this minor detail that is arguably the culmination of the entire novel and focus on the rest.   Exhibit A: Feelings? For Men?   We are often reminded in this book that Emma has little to no interest in ever marrying. And why would she? She does not lack for money or status. Her only reason to marry would be True Hetero Love. “I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.” (Chapter 10) Okay but is it not your nature to be in love or to be in love with men? Maybe this requires just a bit more introspection, Emma. Indeed, let us examine Emma’s attempted quasi-relationship with Frank Churchill. Emma realizes that she feels left out of all the fun watching her friends fall in love and circle through flirtations and makes the decision to get a crush on Frank with the aim of adding a little excitement to her life. (Relatable!) She notices that there seems to be something missing in her feelings for Frank, but she boldly soldiers on through the motions of being In Love so as to better fit in. Eventually, even Emma, queen of self-delusion that she is, cannot continue to pretend to love a man as anything more than a friend. But, on the other hand, she could not admit herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him. Their affection was always to subside into friendship…When she became sensible of this, it struck her that she could not be very much in love. (Chapter 13) Because “I can like Men if only I just try hard enough” has always worked out!   Exhibit B: I Only Sabotaged My Best Friend’s Relationship For Her Own Good   Who among us hasn’t vehemently encouraged our dearest friend Harriet to turn down the advances of a perfectly lovely boy whom she likes very much ostensibly because he’s not good enough but actually because lurking in the deepest recesses of our subconscious, we could not bear to see her with someone else? This is so classic, I could rest my case right here. I probably spent my entire teenhood trying to subtly manipulate my secret lady crushes into dumping their boyfriends. “I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself, to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence you.” (Chapter 7) I would never tell you what to do! I’m just saying maybe think about it. And while you’re thinking about it, think about the fact that you’re thinking about it. If you really loved him, would you even need to think about it? Makes you think, doesn’t it?   Exhibit C: Serial Monogamy   On the topic of Harriet, let’s take a closer look at a pattern of behavior Emma seems to set up. She was exceedingly close to Mrs. Weston, her old governess-turned-best-friend before this woman had the nerve to move out and get married to a man. Emma, drowning in sorrow at the loss of this relationship, cannot handle being single and working on herself for a while, therefore she immediately turns her faculties to selecting herself a new girlfriend. When Emma decides that Harriet shall be her next life partner, she cleaves to her wholly and immediately. Harriet must accompany Emma on all her errands, must call on her nearly daily and must attend every party Emma attends as well. The poor girl doesn’t know how to exist without being in the constant company of a woman who adores her. Have I mentioned how relatable Emma is enough times yet?   Pride and Prejudice and Homosexuality Yes, Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the most Heterosexual piece of literature ever written at first glance, but please! Do not doubt my ability to make Austen’s most enduring triumph Extremely Gay. I told you I was a professional. By the time my case is finished, you will see that Pride and Prejudice is one of the queerest classic works in the canon.   Exhibit A: Uhhh, Why Do Darcy and Bingley Have to Be Together All the Time?   Darcy has Pemberley. Bingley has enough money to buy any property he pleases. There is no reason these boys need to follow each other from estate to estate, attending parties together, traveling to all the same boroughs. Darcy, if you hate the country so much, why don’t you just go live at home in your home that you own? You know, the home that everyone constantly talks about how incredible it is? The home you can just ride a horse over to right now? That home? Darcy gets a lot of guff for convincing Bingley not to propose to Jane. And yeah, that screams Jealous Secret Crush on Darcy’s end. But one must also wonder why Bingley would have been so very easy to persuade. If he truly wanted to marry Jane, I think it would have taken more than a slight nudge from his platonic best bud to ghost her the way he did. I mean, he didn’t just stop answering her texts. He moved himself and his family out of town. However, it doesn’t seem quite so inexplicable to dump one’s beard at the urging of one’s Secret Boyfriend now does it?   Exhibit B: Everyone Is Gay for Georgiana   “I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting…” (Chapter 21) I swear to God, no one in this book will ever shut up about Georgiana Darcy. We get it! She’s so very beautiful and kind and charming and talented! The Bingley sisters practically salivate over her. Lady Catherine admires her in her own grumpy old elitist way. Elizabeth finds her fully delightful. Everyone is obsessed with Georgiana. She’s like the Shane McCutcheon of Regency England.   Exhibit C: Relax, Elizabeth, People Get Married.   Elizabeth has decidedly no interest in marrying the human embodiment of Oblivious Mansplaining, Mr. Collins. Elizabeth’s best friend Charlotte Lucas, however, seems to think the constant stream of ignorant babble is worth the cash money. So she locks it down, infuriating Elizabeth. She had always felt that Charlotte’s opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen. (Chapter 22) Lizzy. We get that you weren’t into him, girl, but why are you, like… so upset about this? Could it be that your dearest partner and secret love Charlotte has accepted a Heterosexual Union. And immediately after you yourself made such a display of rejecting one? Ouch!   Sense and Sensibility   Guys, I tried with this one. I really did. But all the women in this book are related and also obsessed with dudes. I thought I could stick it to the straight people, but I must regretfully concede that this task is beyond even my expertise. If anyone has a queer angle on this one though, please contact me immediately. We queers have always been around, even when every offshoot of culture has tried to erase us from existence. Yeah, it’s super fun to retroactively barge our way back into old literature. But it’s also a much-needed assertion that we exist, we matter and we deserve to see ourselves. Even in light-hearted novels about manners and marrying rich and falling in love with one’s first cousin. Ashley Chupp is a Chicago-based writer, crossword enthusiast and frequent crier at the local Trader Joe’s.   Gif 1: fibu.tumblr.com Gif 2: teenvogue.tumblr.com Gif 3: BBC Gif 4: bringmybooks.com http://dlvr.it/PZ94CB

[readingraebow]

North & South Section One

Chapters 1-14

1. Have you ever read this book before or seen the miniseries? If not, what do you know of the story? I have not done either. And I honestly don't know anything about this book except that it's a classic??? Which is super helpful, I know, haha. I think the first time I ever even heard about this book is when Lizzy was reading it the first time. And then I was like "what is this" and looked it up and discovered the miniseries?? So honestly this book could be about anything, haha. I'm very excited to read it though!!! It sounds pretty good =))

2. How does Margaret describe her perfect wedding? What would your ideal wedding include? She says she wants it to be a fine summer morning and she'd like to walk to church through the shade of trees. She says she doesn't want to have very many bridesmaids and basically she wants it to be a very simple affair. But she says she mostly doesn't want all the things that are giving her trouble at Edith's wedding, haha. And I actually don't want a wedding??? Personally, I think weddings cost waaaay too much and they are so commercialized that we put a lot of pressure, as a society, on women to have a perfect wedding. And I have a huge family and I don't really want to invite any of them??? (That sounds mean but you should meet my family.) So if I do have a wedding, it would be super small. But I would also just rather grab a couple of friends and go to the courthouse. That sounds so much easier to me.

3. Who comes to visit the Hales in chapter two? What, do we later learn, is their true reason for visiting? Henry Lennox comes to visit. He had told Margaret that he would visit after they moved so he could see what she does with her days. Well, it's three months later and he's finally come to do that. They spend a pleasant afternoon together but as they're walking around the garden, picking pears, Henry reveals his true purpose for visiting. He had hoped that Margaret wouldn't be happy in her new life because he's in love with her and wants to marry her and take her back to London. But Margaret sees him as no more than a friend and, because this is not the answer he wants, his visit ends super awkwardly.

4. What life changing news does Mr. Hale share with his daughter in chapter four? He is going to give his resignation to the bishop and give up the vicarage. Within a fortnight they will have to be out of Helstone. So, on their own, without the living from the vicarage, the Hales make about 170 pounds per year. But Mr. Hale says that this is not enough to live on, especially since 70 of it goes to Margaret's brother. So they will be moving to Milton-Northern which has boomed with manufacturing. Mr. Hale has found a position there as a tutor. So he's made all of these plans to give up the church and move... and he hasn't told his wife. Which is why he's telling Margaret. He's to make rounds the next day saying goodbye to various people and while he's gone, he wants Margaret to break the news to her mother. So. That's cowardly.

5. Who do the Hales rent a house from and how does his first interaction with Margaret go? They rent their house from a Mr. Donkin but while Mr. Hale goes to rent the house, Mr. Thornton shows up. He's the tenant of Mr. Hale's friend, Mr. Bell. He was asked to help them in their house search and he remembers looking at the house they have decided to rent and thought it would be perfect for them. But that was before he met them. He thought Margaret was a very little girl but, now seeing her, he realizes that she's a grown woman. Which is a fun time because she honestly does not treat him well. She's pretty haughty which is weird because he's way richer than she is and she acts like it's the other way around? But, luckily, her father comes home and is super kind to Mr. Thornton and puts everything right.

6. What differing opinions about the North vs the South do Margaret and Mr. Thornton have? Thornton likes the North because they work for their livings. He says he would rather be a man toiling, suffering and even failing and successless than to live a dull, prosperous life of aristocratic society down in the South. He hates that the South is full of slow days of careless ease. Basically, he likes the industry of the North and how it creates jobs and hard work for those willing to live that life. Meanwhile, Margaret loves the South because she says there is less suffering. She says that there may be less adventure and less progress than the North but there is not less excitement. She says that the men in the North, who work in "trade," are also the picture of suffering. She says that everyone seen in the streets looks as if they were ground down by some pinching sorrow or care. She says that the South has its poor but at least they don't look like some terrible injustice has been done to them, as they do in the North. And, most of all, she hates that Milton, specifically, is the smokiest, dirtiest town she's ever seen and you'll find nothing like that in the South. But, basically, both are only angry about their perceptions of the the other and neither truly knows anything about the North or South they profess to hate. Because neither has really lived the other's life.

7. Who comes to tea in chapter twelve and how does it go? Mrs. Thornton and her daughter, Fanny, (who I 100% thought was a servant until now; oops) come to tea. It's at the insistence of John since neither really wants to be there. Mrs. Thornton has already formed her opinion of Margaret without even meeting her and John literally commands Fanny to go along. And it does not go well??? Fanny and Margaret don't get along at all and at one point they're discussing Fanny's desire to visit London and she explains that she can't because her mother loves Milton so and Mrs. Thornton hears her name and demands to know what they're talking about. Well, Fanny explains it super poorly and gives Mrs. Thornton yet another reason to not like Margaret. So when they finally go, neither Mrs. Thornton nor Fanny wish to even return and they hope they've done their duty to John and it's done with.

8. What happened to Frederick and why can’t he come back to England? So he was a sailor in the English navy and there was a Captain who he didn't really get along with because the Captain was super cruel. Well Frederick was assigned to a different ship, on down the line in his career, and that Captain was the commanding officer. And he, once again, was super cruel. Well, everything came to a head one night and the crew mutinied, led by Frederick. The Captain and all those who sided with him were turned off the ship and found floating in one of the lifeboats. Everyone who sided with Frederick and mutinied took the ship. But, even though Frederick did it to stop injustice, he can't come back to England. He was declared a traitor and even though it's been six or seven years, some of the other members of the crew came back to England and they were all hanged. So if Frederick comes back, he would be hanged as well. So now he's living in Spain.

  Section One Reading Journal

Okay, so. I’m not really sure how I’m feeling about this book right now? Because I am finding some things interesting but this is also a story that seems vaguely hard to get into? Because I wanted to read the first section today and I really had to push myself to accomplish that. It was kind of hard to read??? And now just because it’s a period book. The plot kind of seems all over the place? I don’t know if that’s just me.

I also had a real struggle keeping the setting straight since I have absolutely no point of reference for where everything is in England. So that was kind of a struggle to follow. Plus I was also struggling to figure out the relationships between everyone and who is related and how.

It didn’t help that I also kind of zoned out when chapters would bore me, haha. So it’s not that I’m not liking this book. It’s just that I’m... struggling. I guess I came into this hoping it would be like an Austen novel and, well, it’s not Austen. It’s similar but you can definitely see the differences. So I guess we’ll see how the next section goes?

[sunnysaysbookreviews]

The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Ok everybody. 

I decided to quit my live reading because I was so worked up and the entirety of my posts would have just been WTF and I didn’t want to dismiss this completely as an important piece of literature for the romance genre. 

So I am going to be as academic and professional as possible in this review. 

So without further ado. Here we go. 

Heather Simmons is an orphaned, gorgeous woman who is constantly abused by her uncles wife. One day her aunts brother comes to town and offers to take her to London to work as a teacher. 

Heather is so desperate to get away from this life that she jumps on the opportunity. So she goes, but when he tries to rape her she accidentally “murders” him.

So she flees, fearing the hangman’s noose. While she is sitting in the street, trying to figure out what to do, two men come and grab her, saying she is perfect and the captain will love her. 

She is then given to the Captain and raped. After he rapes her yet again, he finally learns that she is not truly a prostitute. 

“his frown deepened as he wondered what repercussions there would be for this deed. Perhaps she was kin to some high official. He could almost feel the cold steel of the ax biting into his neck. He rose from the bed and stood by its edge, his back turned to her.”

He does not care about what he has done to her but about the repercussions that might come down upon him.

And when he finds out she has no concerned family, he is relieved and continues to offer her a position as his mistress.

She is outraged and tries to sneak away (while he is still in the room with her?) and he yells at her, telling her she is “too unique to find a replacement for,”. 

Heather is terrified of him and is complacent (ish, she still fights a bit, and argues with him) but she bides her time. The first opportunity she truly get she escapes and goes back to the countryside. 

Her aunt and uncle are surprised but take her back her aunt being as ruthless as ever. 

SPOILERS!!! I think everything else I wrote is common knowledge of the book but the rest is less. If you don’t want to know anymore continue down to wear it says thoughts, where I will be much more vague about the book.

While home, Heather is abused more than before, and has decided to try to look for a job. A month or two (it is not specific) Heather is entering the bath and her aunt sees her and quite literally loses her shit.

“Suddenly Aunt Fanny choked on the tart she was swallowing. With a strangled cry she leapt from her chair, alarming her niece who whirled around to look at her. The woman’s eyes were wide, staring at her in horror, and her face had gone from beet red to ashen gray. Aunt Fanny charged across the room toward her and Heather cringed away, thinking her aunt had gone mad. She was seized viciously by the arms. 

‘Who are you breeding by, missy? What jackal have you hooked yourself to?’ the woman screeched.”

So yeah. Heather is now pregnant by her attacker. 

She tells her aunt and uncle the truth and it is decided she will marry him to preserve her honor.

And so begins Heather Simmons terrible story. 

Thoughts: 

Throughout the book, most of the book, Brandon, Heather’s attacker, tries to punish her, for him having to marry him. His logic LITERALLY never makes sense and he is mean and aggressive and just generally nasty, after the first three times he never sexually assaults her again, though its a constant battle of should he shouldn’t he (NO BRANDON YOU FUCKING SHOULD NOT) and he ultimately never does. 

Some good points about this book come through very clearly. Woodiwiss’ storytelling ability is AMAZING. She weaves her stories together beautifully and there are so many layers to the story (not to the characters, most of the characters are absolutely deluded, but the story). 

It really is a crazy ride beginning to end. And though I HATED Brandon, there were some admittedly cute scenes between Brandon and Heather, and truly if there had been no sexual assault and they had met on mutually consenting terms, the story would have been lovely, even with Brandon’s little bursts of anger, as he never physically hurts her after the sexual assaults. 

I really, REALLY wish it had started out differently. And had just been different. But alas it was not. Everytime I was like aww cute, later on it was short lived, because I then remembered the terms on which they married. 

Also, HEATHER. HEATHER WHAT ARE YOU DOING. She literally treats that sack of crap so amazingly. I have so many problems with Heather. One moment she is terrified of him and the next he makes her feel safe. One moment she is fuming the next she is thanking him for taking her away from her old life. Good lord girl. Also, I do not enjoy the way her physicality was written, though I am aware it was in the old skool fashion. 

Why I think, and have heard and read, that this book is important to the genre is because she allowed us to see inside the bedroom where the sex was happening. This was new and allowed a very distinct change in the genre.

For more information on the importance of the book you can check out some of the resources I looked into and read (Not many as they all said basically the same thing):

Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan

Another Look at: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’ The Flame and the Flower. Charles, John (author). :

https://www.booklistonline.com/Another-Look-at-Kathleen-E-Woodiwiss-The-Flame-and-the-Flower/pid=8413871

Avon on the air with Sarah Maclean, The Flame and the Flower Anniversary re-read (PODCAST)

https://soundcloud.com/avon-on-the-air/sarah-maclean-the-flame-and-the-flower-anniversary-re-read

Would I Recommend It?

That is a very tough question to answer. I guess it is person to person. If you want to read it for any reason (academic, fangirl, just cause, curiosity, etc) then you do you girl! I think for what it is, it is an... interesting (?) read. And while it was very hard for me to get through a lot of it, I do not regret reading it. I laid my problems with the book pretty clearly, and I think you have to make the decision for yourself.

My rating, however is probably a 2 out of 5. And it only got the two because of the storytelling itself as well as Brandon’s brother Jeff, who I did not mention in the review, but is pretty great most of the time.

So there it is.

I know I did not do well and I apologize 

But I tried. So yep!

Happy reading and much love,

~Sunny.

[tessietakesonx]

The Shift

So I met this guy and I wrote about it because I had no place else to put it. Does anybody else feel this way? He sat there, six, maybe 7 inches to my left, the morning sun beaming in on us. We passed my favorite coffee mug back and forth, the one I bought at Fanny May’s the first time I came to Chicago, taking sips as if it were the most natural thing in the world. That little moment, those 5 minutes of waking up with coffee together almost undid me. It felt old, it felt sacred. It felt like easing your foot into your favorite pair of boots, worn soft over time, and shaped to the curve of your foot.              He felt like we’d already grown old together and this is just what life with him would be. Simple and beautiful and filled with music and early morning shared coffee and his tousled bedhead and watching him blink against the sun through the steam from the coffee.  It felt like something I had always known and was just discovering for the first time.              Its July 2020. The Caronavirus is still raging in the US, and some people are still quarantined. Most of the states reopened too early and there’s a second wave that’s hit, even worse than the first one. I quarantined alone for almost 4 months, in my 400 square foot studio apartment, when the states gave the shelter-in-place order. It was my first year in Chicago. Total isolation. At one point, I really did think I was actually starting to go insane. I just started questioning the reality of everything, because after so many weeks of looking out my one window onto the alley below, it really did feel like that’s all that there was to the world. This alley, my cat, my bed and my books, and me.              But it isn’t just me. He’s here too. Josh was sitting on the edge of my bed drinking coffee with me, sharing a mug with me, and I don’t know why but I can’t get away from the idea that sharing a single mug of coffee with someone else as you wake up is maybe the most intimate thing there is.              He’d been only too clear about the fact that he didn’t want to be in a relationship yet, with anyone. He’d been broken too. More recently than I had. But he wanted something good, I could see it, he was just terrified. Looking at him felt a little bit like looking at me two years ago. I’d been so scared to trust anyone with anything deeper than a first date with me then. Because even those usually ended badly. But he connected with me. I knew I wasn’t imagining that, and he had to feel *something* too, or we wouldn’t be here now. These are all the things I’ve told myself since I haven’t actually worked up the guts to ask him how he feels about me yet.              We’d watched this eerie Jake Gyllenhaal movie called Enemy, and then gone on a walk because his place didn’t have AC and it was a Chicago July night, weighing in at 93 degrees and full humidity. It was cooler outside, like he’d said it would be, walking around the quiet park than it was in that big, creaky old house filled with stories.              By the time we got back, our sweat was sweating and I didn’t think I could go much longer before I soaked through my whole shirt.              “I have an air mattress at my air-conditioned apartment. If you want, you’re more than welcome to use it.”              I could see him start to shake his head, maybe out of habit. We were both raised that way. You refuse everything out of pure politeness at least once. I’ve never understood that. If you offer someone something, you should be expecting that they will take it. If you’re expecting that they won’t, then why offer? Refusing help, or a gracious offer of any kind out of pure habit and social etiquette feels like a Midwestern thing. He’s from Texas and I’m from KC, so it tracks that we both have that automatic, “No thank you” built in. His head stopped mid-turn and he said, “Are you sure?” Ever the gentleman.              “Yes. This is miserable.”              “Okay, let’s go.”              Within 5 minutes, we were on the road back to my apartment. He hasn’t seen it yet, I just moved in last week. I called my last place, “The Shoebox” because it wasn’t much bigger than a shoebox. This new place is still a studio apartment, but it is bigger than The Shoebox, and as such has been upgraded to, “The Hatbox”. I live on the fourth floor at the very end of two incredibly long hallways, and it feels the most like me that a space has since my big airy loft in downtown Kansas City.              I let him in, and he fits right in with the furniture, the walls, moving easily past the colors flung across every surface of the apartment, as if he’s done this hundreds of times before. Maybe I’m desperately overthinking things. Maybe it’s because I’ve been isolated from all human interaction for four months and longer from human touch. Maybe it’s because he feels solid, and like someone I’ve already known my whole life, maybe it’s because I identify with his particular type of broken-ness, our parents both fucked us up and our very few and very serious long-term relationships made sure they fucked us up even further before they ended. And maybe I’m romanticizing things because that’s what I’ve always done and maybe he’s not that great but that’s just the thing.              He is the most wonderful person I’ve met since Houston. That distinction is important, because since Houston died, I’ve loved two men, but they were both terrible men with many little wonderful things about them. He is the most wonderful person I’ve met since Houston, like warm summer nights and winter evenings when the wind howls and crisp autumn mornings, the way the air smells after the rain in spring. He’s all of those things, and I think I could Love him. I think maybe I already do. I know that’s not as true as it could be if I’d known him longer, lived enough life with him to Love him in the way that you do when someone is just sewn into the fabric of your life over time.              But I think I Love him in the way that you Love those very few people, who, when you happen to stumble across each other, you discover that they’ve been sewn into the fabric of who you are all along, the good and bad, and you’ve only just noticed them. He could be none of these things, but seeing him turn in slow circles on my brightly patterned rug and exclaiming again and again how cute the apartment is, over old pictures and red paintbrushes, lit by the candles scattered through the room, I’m pretty certain that he is all of these things, that he’s as deeply a part of me as my bones and blood, that he always has been, and that he just hasn’t been yet.              So we make tea. I make the tea, and he blows up an air mattress and we sit at opposite ends of the tiny room like perfect strangers and we laugh about things I can’t remember and talked about things that were important and drink the tea slowly. But just now, all I can remember is the way the shadows danced across his face, the way his eyes are green and gold and brown and how it all depends on where you and the light catch him.              I gave him his choice of blankets, and after carefully running his thumb and forefinger over the textures of two or three, he picked a big navy blue velour one that my mom bought for me for Christmas three years ago. She loves comfort items. He rolls over, his hair curling up from the base of his neck to rest against the lavender pillowcase. Since I shaved my head I’ve missed the feeling of running my own fingers through my hair, it was a lifelong habit that felt secure, and I wondered what it would be like to run my fingers through his, through anyone’s again.              It’s midnight and we turn off Netflix, say goodnight, and I wait for everything to go dark. It’s 3:00 AM, and I can hear him saying, “Tess?” He asked me earlier tonight if I preferred Tess or Tessie. I told him either, and the fact that he chose the shorter, more familiar of the two sends something through me as I wake up, a feeling too quick to identify.              “I’m freezing, can we turn the AC off?”              I think I mumble yes as I sleepily flip the icy-cold window unit off. Minutes pass, maybe seconds, I’m not sure. Then I hear him say my name again, and my stomach does the thing again.              “Is there room up there?”              “Yeah, come on.”              I roll over to move pillows around and feel him slide in behind me, that old, familiar feeling of sharing the bed with someone else’s body heat coming back with a vengeance. It’s a twin bed, and it wasn’t made for two adults, but my sister said once that you’d be surprised what you can fit into a twin bed if you really put your mind to it, and she was right. It’s tight quarters but it only means that his entire body presses against mine, from his breath on my neck to his feet beneath mine.              Up to this point, there’s been no touching. He’ll hug me goodbye when he leaves, and I think our hands brushed once when we were trying to open a bottle of wine. But we haven’t touched. He’s careful to maintain distance. And now he’s everywhere. His scent, his hair, his warm body and his arm around my waist, tugging me into him.              I had to remind myself to breathe slowly. It’s too much. It’s way too much and in the dark I can’t feel or take anything in besides him. “Are you okay?”              “Yeah, I’m just really cold.” He says.              I snuggle deeper into his arms and let my hand drop below the blanket and on top of his arm, tracing tiny patterns into his skin with my fingers. Unexpectedly, he pulls me around until we’re facing each other and wraps both his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. My arms encircle him, running my hands through his hair and gathering it in fistfuls. The rhythm of my breathing has changed. It’s choppier. Ragged. His is too. He has to feel this, I know this, this is the brink, this is the moment on the edge when you make a choice and you can’t breathe the deep lungful’s of air you’re pulling in but you keep trying to anyways, and you suddenly feel like your body couldn’t possibly contain you for another second. Everything feels like a pulse, you are just your heartbeat.              It’s all done with a sort of sleepy fluidity, with the unspoken understanding that what’s happening now is not binding, it’s exploratory. With the knowledge that you probably won’t talk about it when you wake up, and if you do, it certainly won’t be in detail.              I couldn’t tell you if I kept my writhing under control, I just know that I felt like I was coming out of every edge and corner I’d ever known every time I felt his breath on my chin, brushing my lower lip, in the same choppy rhythm as mine. And then, just as suddenly, he moves again and I’m moved with him, his arms sliding up my sides to encircle my back, and then my head is on his chest and our breathing slows down again.              “I’m not trying to confuse you, but it is nice to cuddle.” He murmurs above my head, bringing his hand up and down my back in a slow, careful motion.              “I know that.”              I say it before I can stop myself. It was a reflex, the need to present as perfectly fine no matter the situation. I’m not confused, I want to tell him. I know exactly what I want. It seems like every time we get a little too close to each other for comfort, anytime the potential is there, he pulls back and makes sure to reiterate that we are just friends. It feels like he’s trying to convince himself as much as me, but maybe I’m just wishing for that.              And in any case, 3AM in a twin bed with a grown man that you have a unproportionately large crush on hardly seems like the ideal time to say, “Actually, this question has been killing me. How do you feel about me? Do you also feel an ancient, deep connection? Do you also feel safe enough to think about, for the first time in years, seriously exploring this romantically and sexually?”              It’s a loaded question, and he’s looking for a reason to run away at the first sign of danger. I won’t give him one. I know that look, I’ve worn it often enough. So I keep my mouth shut and decide that I will be the safe place, that he should set the pace if he needs to take this slower than I do.              I lay there and think about the fact that within the last year, I’ve come out to myself and publicly as bi. And the thought drifts through my head that I will never know what it would be like to have a female partner, because as early as it is, I’m already so far gone. And then I think about the fact that he is demi, and then that it really doesn’t matter “what” he is or, “what” I am because that is the whole point. To Love who you Love regardless of the body they come in.              Its 6AM. We push the snooze button on the alarm repeatedly, and once I get up to make coffee. He nods, a tangled, dark gold head buried in the pillow when I ask him if he wants coffee before he goes to work. He makes room for me as I pull back the covers to climb into bed again and pulls me tight against him once more.              When he pushes snooze again, I laugh at him and realize that it takes as many alarms to get him out of bed as it does for me. He says sleepily, “Not usually, but just today.” And buries his head in my back, nuzzling into my T-shirt and squeezing my hand. I haven’t stopped smiling since 3AM when he got into bed with me. Am I crazy? Was he really just cold, and touch-starved, like me? Does this really not mean anything to him? Can he really not feel this?              The sun streams through the blinds, insisting that we leave what has become a small cocoon, a tangle of arms, legs, and blankets, and we pull ourselves upright slowly. I fill a to-go mug with coffee and set it aside to cool, pouring the remaining coffee into my Chicago mug. I blow the steam off the top and try to reconcile that feeling of being fluid, of being warm, of being held all night. It’s foreign, like tasting a dish of food from your childhood and knowing that it is an old friend, but you haven’t seen each other in years.              His dimple disappears into a cavernous yawn and I pass the coffee mug to him without speaking, as if we’ve done this every morning at 7AM our whole lives. We both drink it black. He takes it without speaking too and turns on, “Speechless” by Lady Gaga, (one of his favorites, he tells me) and there is no need to talk. We take in the sunshine and the morning and the inevitable shift that occurs when you spend the night in the same bed with someone in comfortable silence. That little moment, those 5 minutes of waking up with coffee together almost undid me. It felt old, it felt sacred. It felt like easing your foot into your favorite pair of boots, worn soft over time, and shaped to the curve of your foot.              He felt like we’d already grown old together and this is just what life with him would be. Simple and beautiful and filled with music and early morning shared coffee and his tousled bedhead and watching him blink against the sun through the steam from the coffee.  It felt like something I had always known and was just discovering for the first time.              Its July 2020. That all happened last night. I’m still half-convinced I dreamed him up, that I’ve hallucinated the whole thing, the weeks of talking and the picnic we went on for our first date, and the phone calls and the movie nights and discovering a rainbow with him after a thunderstorm, and crying to each other on my old rooftop for old wounds, high above the city where no one would see but us, and falling asleep with him, and all the things that are just everyday life but also the most spectacular.              Its been just over two months since we met, and yet I’m more certain of this than things I’ve known and studied for years. I guess the best part of this, is that the whole story is left to be told, and I get to live it, whatever it looks like.  

[kadobeclothing]

15 Ads That Prove Nostalgia Is a Powerful Marketing Tactic

Nostalgia marketing is the advertising equivalent of comfort food. In a time when most marketing focuses heavily on the future, it transports us back to a simpler place where our current problems don’t matter and the hustle and bustle of modernity just melts away. Instead of anticipating the next great thing, nostalgia marketing urges us to focus on the things we already know are great. We know at a gut level that nostalgia gives our lives a feeling of meaning and continuity, but you may be surprised to learn it can also make us looser with our wallets. A study published in the Journal of Consumer Research found that nostalgic feelings made participants more willing to spend money on consumer goods and services. It would appear that advertisers have caught on. Over the past five years, nostalgic ads have been popping up left and right — with millennials as their main target.

Although these ads are getting more common, marketers have known that millennials would be a nostalgia-fueled generation for some time now. Even in 2015, when many millennials were still young adults, nostalgia was a hot topic in publications like Digiday. “Millennials are coming of age in an age of economic turmoil — a difficult job market,” Cassandra McIntosh, a senior insights analyst at Exponential, told Digiday. “Therefore, they end up romanticizing simpler times much more — even those times they weren’t around for.” To give you inspiration for your own nostalgic campaigns, we selected 15 examples of advertisements that use nostalgia marketing. Watch them and see if you get the telltale bittersweet pangs associated with nostalgic feelings. Examples of Nostalgic Ads 1. Motorola Razr In the early 2000s, prior to smartphones, one of Motorola’s most popular cellphones was a tiny, flat flip phone called the Razr. Despite its number-based keyboard and a small screen, people loved it for it’s design and simplicity. In 2019, Motorola gained buzz when it re-introduced a new and improved Razr which featured a folding touchscreen when opened.  In the commercial announcement, you see an old-school Razr lifting off of a table and flying through the air as its old layers peel off to reveal a new design. The phone then opens to reveal the Android-like touch screen. 

2. Nintendo Many children of the ’80s and ’90s remember playing Nintendo-based video games with their siblings. But, for the children growing up with siblings, many also remember the sad feelings related to growing apart or drifting away from a relative. This commercial highlights both of those memories by telling the story of two Nintendo-loving brothers who grow apart, argue as teenagers, and then happily reunite as adults to play the new Nintendo Switch together.

This commercial not only reminds people of what it was like to grow up with siblings, but it also reminds you of the great fun you had playing video games as a child. Then, because the brothers connect and chat virtually as the play Switch games at the end, it shows how Nintendo’s technology has evolved to connect old friends and relatives all around the world. 3. Australia Tourism Board Instead of promoting a traditional ad that simply showed off Australia’s most beautiful destinations, Australia decided to disguise a tourism ad as a star-studded trailer for a fictional reboot to the ’80s film, Crocodile Dundee. 

As those who watched the original Dundee series get excited by clips from the film, starring Chris Hemsworth and Jason Sudeikis, its revealed that Hemsworth tricked Sudeikis into a tourism ad. Despite the trickery, Hemsworth and Sudeikis still both agree that their trip to Australia was still the best vacation they’d ever taken.  This was a clever way to embrace the television and movie reboot trend of 2018 and 2019, while still highlighting the best Australia has to offer for tourism. Because it features actors who are popular in the present day, it’s also hilarious for both people who followed the Dundee films or either of the main characters in the fake reboot. 4. Spotify In 2016, music-streaming service Spotify unveiled a new spokesperson — er, spokes-dragon — in a 30-second ad produced by Wieden + Kennedy New York. Falkor and his boy companion Atreyu (now a heavily bearded 44-year-old man) are both characters from the beloved 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story. W+K even got the original actors to reprise their roles (Noah Hathaway as Atreyu and Alan Oppenheimer as the voice of Falkor). The pair appear just as the film left them over 20 years ago: gliding through the clouds while the movie’s dramatic theme song plays in the background. “I can’t believe people still listen to this song!” Atreyu exclaims. His dragon agrees, they share a laugh, and the two speed off into a grainy, ’80s quality CG sky.

5. Freia The tagline of Freia, a Norweigan chocolate company, is “Et lite stykke Norge” (A little piece of Norway). This spot for the company produced by SMFB Oslo fully encapsulates the sentiment in a simple, joyful way. The plot follows a Norweigan expat in New York navigating a hectic life as a fashion stylist. When he returns home to his apartment one evening, he finds a half-eaten bar of Freia chocolate in his otherwise empty fridge. After just one bite, he’s inspired to hop on a plane back to Norway to visit his father and soak up the majestic landscape of his homeland. The ad ends with the stylist discovering a modest hair salon for sale in what is presumably his hometown.  The message is clear: A taste of Freia chocolate is inherently connected to Norway, no matter where in the world you may be. 

6. Adobe Bob Ross — the beloved ’80s painting guru who passed away in 1995 — experienced an unexpected resurgence in popularity in 2016. After Netflix added his classic TV show, The Joy of Painting, to its streaming lineup, Ross became a trending topic on Instagram. Adobe took notice, and decided to pay homage to the late painter in a series of tutorial videos promoting their new Adobe Photoshop Sketch for the iPad Pro. Authenticity was central to this nostalgic campaign. Adobe and agency Lekker Media collaborated with Bob Ross Inc. to make sure every detail was accurate, right down to the brand of clothing Ross wore on his show. Children’s book illustrator Chad Cameron, who plays Ross in the series, channels the artist’s relaxed, unpretentious demeanor perfectly. “Bob’s wish was to inspire as many people as possible to be creative and to share it with others,” Joan Kowalski, media director at Bob Ross Inc., told Adweek. “Adobe’s ‘Joy of Sketching’ series reminds us that a company as big as Adobe shares in that hope.”

7. Oikos Although it originally aired from 1987-1995, Full House has become a nostalgic childhood symbol to multiple generations thanks to syndication. But before Netflix revived the show with a 2016 reboot, Dannon reunited a few of the show’s stars in an ad for Oikos, the company’s line of Greek yogurts. John Stamos is joined by his former cast members Bob Saget and Dave Coulier in this Y&R Vinizius-produced spot. The trio doesn’t explicitly reprise their Full House roles, but the dynamic is undeniably reminiscent of their days on the sitcom.

8. Nike In 1973, Billie Jean King won a tennis match against male player Bobby Riggs, which was coined “The Battle of the Sexes.” The historic tennis game was the first time a female tennis player was matched against a male. In and before the late 1950s, men were seen as superior athletes and breadwinners in society. Prior to the tennis match with King, who was only 25, even Riggs said that he could beat a woman at his age of 55. King’s tennis match win proved Riggs wrong. It also proved that men and women could compete equally on the tennis field and in other sports. On a bigger scale, it further empowered women, who were often stereotyped as wives, homemakers, or secretaries at the time. With King’s win, it became harder to ignore that gender stereotypes were false and that women could win and even lead amongst men. During the match, King wore an iconic pair of blue Adidas tennis shoes. Years later, to celebrate the 45th anniversary of King’s win, Adidas launched a limited edition line of BJK shoes with the female tennis legend’s face and initials on each pair. To announce the shoe line, Adidas launched a series of simple commercials showing Billie Jean King spray-painting piles of shoes blue. Here’s an example of one of the ads:

To further promote the line, Adidas also had booths at the U.S. Open tennis match where fans could bring any brand of shoes and have an artist paint them blue with Adidas’ special BJK logo. According to Adidas, the overall campaign led to a 20% boost in tennis shoe sales. And, now that the campaign is over, people are auctioning off these limited edition shoes on eBay for upwards of $1,000. 9. Tesco Nothing screams nostalgia like old home movies. In this extended holiday ad from British grocery chain Tesco, we watch a family grow and age over the years through the lens of their Christmas home videos. Set to a poignant theme, the ad is intended to stir up fond holiday memories for viewers. “We wanted to show what a real Christmas is all about — not a perfect, airbrushed one — but the ones we recognize from our own lives,” David Wood, Tesco’s U.K. marketing director, told Adweek. The ad was produced by Wieden + Kennedy, London.

10. Microsoft Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is no more, this 2013 spot for the web browser earned viral recognition and a Webby Award nomination. “You might not remember us,” the ad’s narrator begins, “but we met in the ’90s.” The commercial goes on to highlight all things ’90s — fanny packs, Tamagotchi, bowl haircuts — even the Oregon Trail PC game makes an appearance. Column Five Media, the creative agency behind the ad, set out to create a nostalgia-driven viral ad that would reintroduce Internet Explorer to ’90s kids. “The idea of a brand like Internet Explorer being forward-thinking enough to make such a story-focused, Gen Y-centered commercial was pretty newsworthy,” the agency wrote in a behind-the-scenes blog post. “Focusing that story on ’90s nostalgia, which we knew was popular with Gen Y and not yet fully realized in video form, is what made [the ad] shareworthy.”

11. Chili’s Chili’s ads are usually characterized by close-up shots of glistening hamburgers, sizzling bacon, and french fries still glowing with fryer oil. So this 2016 ad produced by Boston-based agency Hill Holliday was a departure from the casual dining chain’s typical go-to formula. The commercial depicts the Chili’s origin story through a series of retro vignettes. We see the laid-back founders playing ring toss, lounging on the hood of their car, and — of course — flipping classic Chili’s burgers in their first restaurant. The ad taps into traditional Americana — a form of nostalgia for small town American life, middle class values, and neighborhood restaurants where everyone knows your name.

12. Apple Apple regularly features celebrities in their advertising, but they made a notably nostalgic casting decision for this iPhone 6s spot. Everyone’s favorite sweet-toothed Muppet, Cookie Monster, might have switched to a more balanced diet, but he appears whipping up a batch of his favorite chocolate chip cookies in this ad. TBWA/Media Arts Lab is the agency behind the ad, and they even released a series of “bloopers” featuring the beloved childhood character.

13. Target The nostalgic force is strong in this Target video promoting Star Wars: The Force Awakens merchandise. As part of a larger campaign to encourage fans to share their Star Wars memories online, Deutsch LA produced this two-minute compilation of Star Wars fans’ home movies. In the video, young fans dressed as little Princess Leias, Luke Skywalkers, and Han Solos brandish lightsabers and give their best Chewbacca impressions, all while the classic Star Wars theme plays in the background. The result is an endearing campaign that’s sure to resonate with longtime fans and new converts alike.

14. Bacardi For their 150th anniversary back in 2012, Bacardi released a series of print and television ads showcasing the brand’s party-starting heritage. The trip down memory lane was intended to give the company a shot of authenticity, reminding consumers that Bacardi has stood the test of time. The goal according to Leo Premutico, co-founder of WPP agency Johannes Leonardo, the agency behind the ad, was “to depict a moment in time that lives in history” and offer “an eye to what’s next, an exciting future.”

15. McDonald’s When McDonald’s removed antibiotics and artificial preservatives from their chicken this year, they wanted an ad campaign that not only informed consumers about these changes, but also tapped into nostalgia surrounding their famous nuggets. “There’s an undeniable level of nostalgia tied to the McDonald’s brand and its food,” Britt Nolan, Leo Burnett USA’s chief creative officer, told Adweek. “We set out to capture that relationship in a sincere, simple way that today’s parents can relate to and feel good about sharing with their own kids.”

How to Nail Nostalgia The key to nailing nostalgia is to understand what motivates your audiences, how they were raised, and where their deepest interests lie. To do this, do a little research or develop buyer persona’s that grew up in certain generations to learn what makes them think. To learn more about building and analyzing your buyer persona, check out this helpful guide. For more great advertising inspiration, here’s a roster of 2019 Clio Gold-winning ads. Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in September 2016, but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in February 2020.

Source link

source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/15-ads-that-prove-nostalgia-is-a-powerful-marketing-tactic/

[ges-sa]

Wonder Woman Give Away

New Post has been published on http://ges-sa.com/wonder-woman-give-away/

Wonder Woman Give Away

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]To celebrate the release of Wonder Woman we received some Awesome hampers to give away!

Diana is here, Princess of Themyscira, Warrior Princess of the Amazons, Daughter of Zeus but better known as Wonder Woman. So far everyone is raving about the movie and hopefully this is a turn for DC films. Diana is one of the key founders of the Justice League and having her origin movie come out just before the Justice League movie is perfect.

WONDER WOMAN in cinemas 2 June

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]But lets get down to business, how do you stand a change to win one of these 3 Amazing hampers?

Just fill in the rafflecopter box below, you can enter every day. Further down you can read some Q&A from Connie Nielsen who portrays Hippolyta in the movie and last but not least some cool info about Injustice 2 and a special event for Wonder Woman.

Hampers contain:

Beach Ball

Selfie Button Clip

Beach Towel

Sunglasses

Computer Stickers

Tank Top

Men’s T-shirt

Woman’s Jacket

Hippolyta Doll

Gold Bottle

Tattoo Set

Lapel Pin

Metallic Lace Strap

Round Fanny Pack

The value is R1700

[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”25584,25583,25582,25581,25580,25579,25578,25577,25576,25575,25574,25573,25572,25571″][/vc_column][vc_column][vc_column_text]Enter Here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Give Away is open to South African Residents only.

Get Your Wonder Woman Armor in Injustice 2:

Celebrate the release of the Wonder Woman film with special Injustice 2 events. Available now through June 5, earn Wonder Woman‘s Gear from the feature film in our Mutiverse event “To End All Wars”!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aJ9DhoBaS0&feature=youtu.be

Connie Nielsen Q&A:

QUESTION:  What drew you to Wonder Woman? 

CONNIE NIELSEN:  I had an incredible meeting with director Patty Jenkins, between Christmas and New Year’s in London.  We were scheduled to have lunch for maybe an hour, which stretched to four hours, and honestly, we could have continued talking for days.  I just absolutely connected with Patty from the get-go and really fell in love with her vision for the film.  She has this incredible energy, wisdom and acumen as a storyteller, and a wonderful way of zooming in from the bigger picture into the details, and back again to the big picture.  She is a brilliant filmmaker.

Later, we talked a lot about what we would want to do with these kinds of female superheroes, and about the nature of Hippolyta’s powers as a leader and as a mother.

While reading Adrienne Mayor’s book, Amazons, I shared insights from the book with Patty about interesting changes in historical perspectives among female anthropologists and historians, who, based on new DNA evidence are changing the prevailing notion that women have only recently come into power — and that Amazons, rather than being mythical, are actually mythologized characterizations of real warrior women who flourished across the Asian Steppes for centuries, if not millennia.

QUESTION:   Once production began, what was your experience collaborating with Patty? 

CONNIE NIELSEN:  In the past, I have found that it was sometimes difficult to share ideas with a director about character, when for example, the director was uninterested in a female experience or perspective, or, conversely, saw the character as proscribed by a narrow idea of femininity. And with Patty on Wonder Woman, it was always fun and wonderful because I felt this deep trust and that I could openly share ideas with her.

Patty has this incredible ability to get the best out of you while you’re working.  You don’t want to let Patty down.  You want to be your best because you want her to soar.  You want to be part of the toolkit that Patty will tinker with and manage and make this incredible story come alive.

QUESTION:  There’s a wonderful dynamic between Hippolyta and her daughter, Diana.  What was it like working opposite Gal Gadot, who portrays Diana?

CONNIE NIELSEN:  Our working relationship actually began before I met Gal.  Patty told me, “You know, I can’t wait for you to meet Gal.  She has this incredible energy.  It’s so positive that it’ll touch you.”  And it was. I genuinely like Gal, both as an artist and as a person.

Gal is bringing a lot of wonderful things to Wonder Woman. She has this natural grace that makes all of the stunts and action really come alive and which, of course, really suits the character.

QUESTION:  How does Hippolyta view Diana’s decision to leave the “nest” – Themyscira – and venture off to this strange world that Diana knows nothing about?

CONNIE NIELSEN:  As a mother, Hippolyta gives Diana her complete, unadulterated and unconditional love.  It comes out of every pore of any mother, from the moment she is pregnant.  Then, as her children prepare to leave the nest, the children fight to be allowed to be themselves.  A mother supports that process, even as it’s taking away probably the biggest love story of her life. That’s what Hippolyta is feeling when Diana decides to leave Themyscira.

Hippolyta is also struggling with this beautiful prophecy that she can’t share with Diana.  All good myths have a secret prophecy from which one of the characters is trying to escape.  Hippolyta keeps that knowledge to herself and cannot share it with her daughter.  She knows the world and Diana doesn’t.  Diana is not prepared for what she’s about to experience.  And that is going to hurt Diana.

QUESTION:  To convey an Amazon’s physical prowess, you underwent a rigorous physical training regimen and wore some heavy-duty armor.  What was that like? 

CONNIE NIELSEN:  It’s interesting that the Amazon characters, including Hippolyta, wear this spectacular armor. So I was fighting in what amounts to a double corset (laughs). While the armor kept me safe in certain ways, it also presented a real problem with some of the physical movements I was practicing, which meant I had to train doubly hard to sustain the effort while being really constricted, and the stunt team was just incredible ensuring our safety while helping us make the stunts look effortless.

I was always a runner, but for Hippolyta I had to pack on muscle and real strength for the stunts. A whole regimen of massive weight gain was devised for us, which entailed eating massive amounts of high caloric food and lots of protein. The changes were radical and I had to up my training to six hours a day. I can be disciplined when I need to, and that became an important part of preparing for the character.  I had to push my body to do ever more repetitions, with increasing weights, but then I did in fact start to see how my body had really changed, and I was in a very different physical shape.

To do that after passing the age “5-0” is quite something.  It has been somewhat surreal to get in the best shape of my life, while learning how to become an expert horsewoman and swordswoman.  And it has been incredible.

QUESTION:  You filmed on the Amalfi Coast, which is spectacular. What was it like to work there?

CONNIE NIELSEN:  I lived in Italy for many years, so I know it pretty well.  I loved filming there.

QUESTION:  What do you hope audiences take away from the film when they see it in the cinema?

CONNIE NIELSEN:  Well, first of all audiences are in for an incredible show and story.  Wonder Woman is really fun.  It has amazing stunts and you’ll see things you’ve never seen in a movie. They are absolutely spectacular and breathtaking.  The story is personal, and was written, directed and acted with a lot of heart.

You have 50 Amazon warriors on horseback, giant battlefields, a background of World War I and amazing visual effects.  Wonder Woman is going to be an absolute ride.

©2017 Warner Bros. Ent.  All Rights Reserved.  TM & © DC COMICS[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column]