#Also what are these little comments in the article about From women being passive or whatever?

[heraldofcrow]

The Soulsborne fandom after that Polygon article about Malenia was released…

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

The Cult Girl (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 6

Hannibal sits in on a regular conversation between y/n and her family. Y/n insists it could have gone worse.

⚠️Bigass trigger warning⚠️: Verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, blood, mention of alcohol abuse and suicide

Anna lived her life believing that she was the main character, constantly denying personhood to everyone around her. She was the romantic hero, and everyone else existed to forward her plot.

This metaphor was imperfect, however, because in all the books you'd read, the main character must overcome some kind of challenge. Nobody ever said no to Anna. Nobody ever criticized Anna. Nobody but you. So you were pigeonholed into the role of antagonist for it. You had to give her credit; growing up on the receiving end of her and Theresa's torture was a compelling villain origin story.

It was obvious that she only wanted you at her wedding to present her with an obstacle. Heaven forbid her story progress without some semblance of petty drama out of her control. She'd cornered you into a painful catch-22; you wanted vengeance, but you couldn't give her the satisfaction of having her special day ruined. What was your play? Ruin it just a little? Walk away?

These thoughts passed through your mind as you sat through the boring ceremony. You wanted to lean over and whisper everything to Hannibal, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. The vows seemed to drag on forever. Liam's English accent grated on your ears and you wished that he would just shut the hell up.

The ceremony concluded and you hoped to skip out on the reception with a purse full of mini cannolis, but fate had other plans. In a last-minute reach for some kind of scene, the blushing bride waved you over to the head table.

"[F/N]!" Anna shouted, with a big smile across her face. "Come on!"

You fought the urge to feel endeared by this. She looked too happy to be harmful. Your guard was all the way up as you and Hannibal approached the table.

Hannibal pulled a seat out for you while you studied Anna's expression. She fixed her doe eyes on Hannibal. You knew from experience that Anna had the same powerlust as grandma and Theresa. She was just better at keeping a lid on it.

"[F/N], you remember Liam?" Anna said, her voice brimming with excitement.

"Yeah." You nodded, scooting your chair up. "Nice to see you again, Liam."

"Good to see you again, too [F/N]."

"Liam is from Birmingham." She bragged, her smile somehow growing wider.

"Alabama?" You piped up before taking a drink from your water glass.

Every time you were forced to interact with Liam, she reminded you that the man with the strong and unmistakable English accent, was in fact from England. And every time, you slipped in the Alabama comment. It was never not funny.

"Liam, Anna," you said. "This is my fiance, Dr. Hannibal Lecter."

"Many congratulations to you two." Hannibal offered.

"Dr. Lecter, thank you so much for coming." Anna returned. "And thank you for taking such good care of our precious [F/N]. I hope she's not giving you too much trouble. She was quite a handful growing up, but we made it work."

"Don't flatter yourself, you're only four years older than me." You hide your passive-aggressive jab beneath a smile. "You can't take credit for a job you didn't do."

Grandma always thought Anna's protective, borderline maternal behavior towards you was adorable. Of course, it disgusted you. You were little more than an accessory to her. A baby doll she could simulate motherhood with. But, in fairness to her, that was all you were to the adult in the house too. Monkey see, monkey do.

"So have you two set a date yet?" Grandma interrupted your thoughts, just trying to keep the tension down.

"Goodness, no." Hannibal answered. "Ours is a long-term engagement."

"Yeah." You added. "Not until I finish school."

"Well, it's not my fault you aren't expected to graduate on time." Grandma said into her wine.

You tightened your grip on your water glass. "Well, changing your major halfway through will do that."

"I'm just saying," Grandma continued. Whenever she was 'just saying' anything, you knew she was raring to stir things up. "If you had just stayed the engineering track, you wouldn't have to keep Hannibal waiting."

"Well!" Anna cut in, offended that the attention was off her for more than a minute. "Liam and I waited until after college."

"Yes, Anna," Grandma said dismissively, before turning back to you. "Y'know, Dr. Lecter here could probably tell you that psychologically speaking, women are more likely to drop out of college and become strippers when they change their majors?"

Now it was Hannibal's turn to down his entire glass of wine. "Ms. [L/N], where did you get that information?"

"Oh, it was an article I found on Facebook." Grandma answered. "I'll have [F/N] send you a link."

"Ms. [L/N]," Hannibal cleared his throat. "Are you familiar with the concept of misinformation?"

"Of course." She looked offended at the implication that she could possibly not know something.

"See, social media websites like Facebook are inundated with misinformation campaigns." Hannibal explained. "Your claim is not rooted in any psychological fact."

"Yeah, also," You cut in. You scanned the area for escape routes if your attempt to change the subject went awry. "There's a wonderful documentary about how Facebook misinformation campaigns targeted rural counties in England leading up to the Brexit vote."

"Oh, we have a funny story about Brexit." Anna interrupted, taking the bait, hook line and sinker.

Before she could recount the same boring anecdote about being at some regional chain restaurant when the vote was cast, Theresa and her husband joined the table.

"Sorry we're late," Theresa sat down. "Damage control is a twenty-four hour job. What were we talking about?"

"Misinformation." Liam said.

"Perfect timing." You muttered.

"Finally, all three of my girls are together again." Grandma threw her head back and rejoiced. "When was the last time we all got together? Just us four girls, huh?"

"Remember the day before prom, we all went out go get manicures?" Anna reminisced. "And we took pictures of us all dressed up?"

"Oh I remember." You scanned the area for any alcohol to ingest.

"Oh, this is so funny." Grandma laughed hysterically. "Dr. Lecter, did you hear this story? [F/N] went to the prom with a boy who had all along been using her to get close to Theresa! They got together that night! Dated for two whole years after that."

"I've heard an iteration of it." He said, looking over his shoulder. He flagged down a waiter who was holding a bottle of champagne. "Leave the bottle, please."

"Don't drink too much, [F/N]." Anna scolded. "Save some alcohol for the rest of us."

You made sure to maintain eye contact with her as you filled your flute to capacity. "Grandma's paying, isn't she?"

"Anna, baby," Grandma said, rubbing her temples. "It's fine. Let [F/N] drink herself silly. It's a party, right?"

"Wow," Theresa sneered. You knew exactly what she was going to say next. "Like mother, like daughter."

Everyone at the table had enough decorum to recognize that Theresa went too far. You crushed the champagne flute in your grip, letting shards of glass dig into your skin. You glared at Theresa, blood oozing from your palm and dripping onto the white tablecloth.

Wordlessly, Hannibal removed the offending glass from your hand and swaddled the affected area in a napkin. He put pressure on the cut, letting the blood absorb into the cloth.

"Is this the famed '[L/N] woman telepathy'?" Liam whispered to Anna.

"No, [F/N] is just mad because her mother was a drunk who killed herself." Anna thought she was being inconspicuous.

"This has been fun." You stand up from the table. "Really. Great way to spend a Saturday."

"[F/N], sit down..." Grandma ordered, sounding exhausted. "You know Theresa didn't mean that."

"No." You said, each syllable out of her mouth pushing you a step closer to your breaking point. "Y'know what? No. I don't have to put up with this anymore. Anna, congratulations. I hope you and Liam have many long years together."

You turned around to exit as quietly as you could, Hannibal at your side. Your grandmother, who somehow hadn't hit her daily allotted dose of confrontation, wouldn't have it.

"Dr. Lecter, tell [F/N] she's being unreasonable." Grandma pleaded.

Hannibal raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. In his long-spanning career, he'd never once met a person as tone-deaf as Beatrice [L/N]. He kept his quiet composure as he slowly approached the table.

"Beatrice," he said, beckoning her to lean in. He whispered something into her ear that left her stunned and quaking.

You could hear your grandmother's hysterical sobs growing softer as Hannibal hurried you out.

"Keep pressure on that cut, love." He instructed, talking over the increasingly loud shouts of agony from the head table. "You'll need a few stitches."

Once you were far enough from the venue, you had to ask. "What on earth did you say to her?"

"Nothing that you don't already know." He answered, facing forward.

[ourplaceinthecosmosphff]

Chapter 23. Grief is just love with nowhere to go

‘These are the days that must happen to you.' Walt Whitman

One week later, Cadie was still confused about how I managed to pull it off. I was too.

But as grateful as she was to have her old job back, and as respectful as Auguste was of hierarchy, neither was happy to be working together. Auguste was still a little too liberal with his passive aggressiveness, and Cadie was not above having him do small tasks in revenge.

My father’s staff, on their end, now managed to look at me with even more judgement on their faces, and less of an effort to conceal it. Unfortunately for them, I was around more now. Unfortunately for all of us, it was due to bad news.

The first happened that first week, days after our big meeting. The Savoy Express online published an article detailing my breakup with Christopher in what they described as a 'dramatic shouting match the halls of Callois Palace hadn't seen since the days of World War II’. They seemed to know not only about the breakup, but also about the proposal that preceded it.

Because my relationship with Christopher ended before an engagement, however, there was no need to confirm or deny rumors. The Palace merely released a statement saying they ‘would not comment on the Crown Princess’ personal life’ and that was, at least on our side, the end. On the press’ side, there was no end.

They wrote and wrote about this alleged proposal, about why I would say not, about cheating rumors, about the possibility the palace hadn’t allowed me to marry him, that I thought he wasn’t good enough for me.

Cadie thought we should release a proper statement, Auguste disagreed. To appease my own selfish discomfort, I decided not to. What I did want to know was how they could possibly know so much about that night.

“They know there was a proposal, they know he used his family ring, they know I said no and that there was yelling. How do they know so much?”

“I hate to bring up this possibility,” Cadie started, “but the most logical conclusion is Christopher himself must have told someone.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t he?” She asked. “Didn’t Stella know about it before it happened?”

“Because he wanted to ask about my ring size.” I shrugged. “His family and mine have been friends for generations. He would never.”

But other than someone who had been in that room leaking it, there was no other possibility. Therefore, there was nothing to be done.

I did, however, have to deal with texts from most of my friends demanding to know why I didn’t tell them about the breakup.

“A lot happened at the same time.” I said, time and time again, shrugging it off. “It just slipped my mind. “We thought you were getting engaged!” Stella whined. “And you broke up with him! How can it have slipped your mind?!” “We actually talked the next day after it happened!” Constance complained. “And all you wanted to talk about was work!” “Guys,” I sighed, “the truth is we never even got back together officially. Eventually the issues we had were bound to come back.”

They demanded a dinner, to talk in person, which we had to do in the palace as I wasn’t allowed to leave until my new security detail took over. In person, I assured them I was very comfortable with my decision, and it was final. They asked if there was someone else, and once again, I couldn’t answer.

The truth was too complicated. The truth was I still wasn’t able to stop thinking about Harry’s soft, gentle plea for me to not marry Christopher. The truth was I wasn’t able to go to sleep without hugging one of my pillows, remembering the way I had slept in his arms, in his bed, on the floor of his living room. But the truth was that, after a text assuring him I was home safe, we hadn’t spoken again. The truth was I felt incredibly guilty for having tried to kiss him for the first time hours after burying my brother. The truth was I also felt incredibly guilty for having actually kissed him while still having a boyfriend.

But the bigger truth, the more uncomfortable truth, was that he was the first thought on my mind when I woke up, and the last one that made me smile before falling asleep. The truth was I wanted to talk to him about everything that was happening in my life -- every detail of the meeting, every horrible threat I had read on my security file, every new discovery I made while researching the work I wanted to do. I wanted to text him about the delicious spinach ricotta cannelloni the royal chef had made last tuesday. And I couldn’t. 

Not only because of the guilt. Not only because I was so busy. But because I knew that after the meeting, having gotten most of what I wanted, I had to give it my best effort. And giving it my best effort included heading the words of everyone around me who had, in the past or present, hinted that Harry was simply too complicated to work. Not only was he foreign, he represented a different throne. The intricacies were too delicate. 

So, whenever I felt like texting him, instead I grabbed the book he had sneaked into my bag. And that’s how I started reading Harry Potter for the first time at 25 years-old to try and keep sane.

The first couple of weeks after the meeting saw a lot of other meetings with the Head of Outreach Relations, Caesar Bisset. We started by fully researching the Claire Bauton Foundation, which had been started in the nineties by Claire Bauton’s daughter Emilie Bauton, to be a shelter for women and children survivors of domestic violence. So, while Mr. Bisset did what was essentially market research – even if he didn’t call it that –, I spent a few days having meetings with experts of the field of domestic abuse: researchers, activists, and lawmakers, learning as much as I could beyond the initial research I had done on the subject myself.

With their perspectives on what the best way to help would be, we were able to make plans on how to cause the biggest positive impact. Right when we were planning my first visit to one of the foundation centers, we had another issue that took priority.

It started when news broke of Lourdes being suspended due to ‘possession of illicit substances prohibited on school grounds’. Somehow, the press had gotten hold of her record and that was how school administration had registered that she was caught with the group of kids smoking.

“Cigarettes!” She complained. “They make it sound like cocaine!”

Suddenly, day time shows were having whole panels debating the ‘issue’. Think pieces were written about teenagers smoking earlier and earlier. Op-eds were released about, and I quote, the ‘fragility of the Monarchy when one of the King’s daughters leans towards a life of consequences and the other must lead from a life of no consequence.’

“Poetic.” I said, sarcastic, in the meeting where my father and I were given the details on how the press was reacting to it even days after it broke.

“I’m afraid if there aren’t consequences, this might grow bigger, sir.” Said Edwald Dupont, Head of Palace Communications.

“What consequences?” I asked, “she’s a teenager. It was cigarettes.”

“Unfortunately, ma’am, if the Palace isn’t at least seen as strongly discouraging the Princess’ behavior, the negative impact of the story could affect His Majesty, as well.”

My father sighed, heavily.

“Send the plane for the Princess.”

“So, as punishment for being suspended for cutting class and hanging out with kids who were smoking last month, you’re… keeping Lourdes home from school again? How does that help anyone?”

My father looked at Mr. Dupont, who nodded, taking notes.

“We can strongly imply the message that our intention is separating the Princess from negative influences.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I said. “Lourdes can’t be influenced. She’s too strong headed.”

“They don’t know that.” My father said. “Besides, she’s always asking to be homeschooled.”

Although the plan was ridiculous, it opened an interesting door.

After Lourdes got home from school, we got caught up while walking my dogs through the Palace Gardens. She didn’t seem to be upset about our father dragging her from school because of bad publicity. She didn’t seem to be upset that mom wasn’t even consulted, as she was now too engulfed into planning a way to memorialize our brother. In fact, my sister didn’t seem bothered about anything at all. She seemed… perfectly absent from herself.

She wasn’t even upset that I had gotten her an extra protection officer – which made her safer but, sure enough, was very invasive.

It shouldn’t have been surprising when she told me she wasn’t going to go back to ice skating.

“It’s been months… I don’t really have the energy to make up for lost time.”

“Really?” I asked, trying to mask the utter despair her words and general demeanor awakened in me. “But, you’re home for a few days so you could spend a lot of time doing it.”

“I just don’t want to do it anymore. I’m tired of it.” She shrugged.

“But… but you love it.”

“It was a hobby. I outgrew it.”

“Lourdes, you love skating. You were going to the Olympics.”

She smiled, so utterly humorless it terrified me.

“That was a dream, Maggie. I’m over it.”

I had no idea what to do.

My father just seemed so tired, all the time, about Louis, me, all of it, that discussing it with him was fruitless. I knew what the solution was.

I hadn’t had a proper conversation with my mother since my return from London. If her disapproving words after the proposal fiasco could be described as a talk, then that was the last time we spoke. After that, we exchanged a few words during meals, and nothing else. It made no sense that she didn’t berate me for running away in London, or for not seeing her when she came over. But not a lot about my mother made sense currently.

For instance, though she was out of her self-imposed exile after Louis died, she still spent all her time working on ways to memorialize him. Her lead ideas were a garden, a statue, or a new charitable organization in his memory – at times, it was all of it at the same time. All of her patronages and work had since been relegated to her Secretary, Madaleign Qadir, and on occasion, my father and me.

That day, after Lourdes went to her room after our walk, I marched to my mother’s office.

Ms. Qadir herself opened the door; it appeared she was doing some work from a table, while my mother was going over old pictures of my brother brought over by the Royal Archive.

“Maman.” I greeted. “Can we speak privately?”

“If it’s fast.” She granted. “I must finish these boxes today, Marie-Margueritte. I still have a lot to go through.”

Madaleign gathered her things and excused herself with a curtsey.

“Lourdes-Abigail is home.” I told her.

“I know, Qadir was telling me.” She replied, not looking up from the pictures. “Two weeks according to your father. Should be good for her, she likes staying home from school.”

“Yes, remember how many times she asked to be homeschooled and you said no?”

“I do.” She nodded. “Which is why I know she’ll enjoy it.”

“You wanted her to have a normal, full education.” I reminded her. “This isn’t very normal.”

“Not a lot we do is normal.”

“Maman.” I pleaded. “I don’t think she’s doing well. She’s… apathetic. Tired all the time. She’s… avoiding talking about her feelings, giving up things she enjoyed doing… that’s not normal.”

“Her grades are fine. She’s healthy, normal… she’s doing good.” “She wants to give up ice skating for good.” I told her.

“Your sister is fine.” She said, turning a page on a leather-bound album. “She’s a big girl, we can’t force her to do something she doesn’t want to do.”

“Mom.” I said, forcefully. “Lourdes is hurting. She’s loved ice skating her whole life! This is – this is just her grief–”

“We’re all grieving, Maggie.” She sighed, removing her glasses to scratch her eyes. “We all have to do what we can right now, so if quitting will help your sister, then we have to support her.”

She closed the album after turning one last page, placing it inside a box, neatly. She got up, and moved to a shelf by the wall to find another photo album, which she brought back to the table, starting to flip it. She was finding the pictures of Louis; every time she found a new one, she admired it for a few seconds before making notes on a notebook.

‘She’s hurting too’, I reminded myself, trying to make conscientious choices to have compassion on her.

Instead, what I asked was, “Do you even want to help her?!”

She was quiet for long enough that I wondered if she had heard me. “…Of course I do. I am.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing what you can, and what you can do is shut yourself off and let us figure out our own problems.”

She looked at me, harshly. “You’re an adult, Margueritte. The attitude was cute as a child, but you’re just sounding petulant now.”

“I’m sorry, attitude?!”

“Yes, attitude. You don’t need me to hold your hand every hour of every day, I think you can take care of yourself.”

“Yes, I can!” I said, louder than I was able to control. “But Lourdes is a child! She’s not even fourteen, Maman! She needs you!”

“Your sister-” She returned, interrupting just as loudly, “is fine. Believe it or not, you are not needed to save the day, Margueritte.”

“Right. Because we’re all fine?!” I laughed, humorless. “Dad is shut off in his office, you’re shut off here, Lourdes is giving up the only thing she’s ever loved to do, and–” I felt more than heard my own voice break in a cry, “and my life is up in the air-”

“My son died!” She yelled, hands shaking, staring at the photos in front of her. “I’m sorry we’re not responding to it to your liking.”

She got up again, and walked over to a tea tray someone had left for her on a chest of drawers near the windows.

“You’re a big girl, Margueritte, you need to understand that there are mature ways to handle things you disagree with. You cannot confront everything you don’t like. Some things you can just accept.”

I laughed, sarcastic, “Are you serious?”

I felt… lonely. So desperately lonely as I realized our hearts were aching for the same reason, and yet she had no idea what I was feeling.

She poured herself tea and started to stir it. I marched to the tea tray just as she held up her own teacup, grabbed the tray and threw the whole thing out the window, watching the liquid, sugar and cream splash to the ground amid the broken china.

She was silent when I looked back, staring at me, wide eyes, mouth agape, and confused. I felt tears starting to pool in my eyes, but forced myself to stand firm.

“You are not the only one who lost him.” I said, on a low, slow, angry, trembling tone. “We’re hurting, too. And Lourdes, your daughter, is a child who needs you. You can’t do anything more for Louis, but you can help her. And every day that you shut yourself in your room, with pictures of him, instead of just asking how she’s feeling and how you can help, is another day she convinces herself you care more about Louis dead than about her alive.”

She walked over, slowly. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” I shrugged. “How could we know? You’re not saying any different.”

A tear strolled down her cheek as she screamed now. “I am in pain!”

“So am I!” I yelled back, “You don’t think I wanted to stay in bed all day and open the door to no one?! You don’t think I wanted to cry for a whole week? You think I wanted to decide what fucking flowers to decorate the church with? Or what songs we sang to say goodbye to him? You think I cared which fucking priest did the readings?!”

“Language, Marg-” She sobbed.

“I was devastated! I was crushed! I was heartbroken!” I yelled over her, trying to dry the tears as they fell from my eyes, “I wanted to shut myself away in my room instead of having to force a smile and mediate Aunt Marilou and Aunt Katherine, and tell the staff how many rooms to prepare for the guests! But someone had to make the decisions, and you were not there!”

I stepped away, breathing heavily. I dried my face, sobbing slightly, and looked down the window, where the mess was still on the ground. I ran a hand over my hair, shutting my eyes forcefully.

“...Did it hit someone?”

I sighed. “I don’t think so.”

We were silent. 

“Is this you or your British boyfriend speaking, Margueritte?” I scoffed, humorless. “Really?” “Because it sounds an awful lot like him.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I agree with him. He was right, you know?”

“You think he was right to speak to me like that?” “I was there, Maman. I heard how hard he tried to be polite to you.”

“Where is this coming from, Maggie?” She asked, whispery. “You’re not like this.”

I walked over to where she stood near the sofa.

“Like this what, Maman? Honest?”

“You’re my lovely girl.” She said, shaking her head. “You don’t… pick fights, try to hurt people-”

I scoffed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just didn’t realize you were still capable of feeling anything that was unrelated to Louis-”

“Maggie-” She sighed, drying her own tears. “This isn’t your brother’s fault.”

“I’m aware.” I replied, quickly. “It’s yours. And dad’s. You’re the parents! You were supposed to know you don’t have just one child to take care of!”

She sat down; not in her usual, stiff, shoulders back way. She looked… defeated. Tired. I felt the same way.

Before my brother died, my parents had always been so loving. My mother in particular had strived to give us a normal childhood, without the cold, traditional ways of the monarchy. In her house, we weren’t sent to eat in a separate room just because we hadn’t learnt table manners yet. We weren’t put to bed or bathed by nannies. She didn’t just take those tasks at hand, as she would had she married a normal man, she made my father do them, too. She might have married a future king, she said, but he married her, too. He married a normal woman and she couldn’t be the only one to adapt. 

My parents couldn’t do it every day, but they always tried to put us to bed, read us a story, kiss us goodnight. They kissed our wounds and hugged us in celebration when we won a game. A lot of my family thought badly of my mother for these commoner traits. But she stood her ground. The way she saw it, she had to teach us etiquette, but her most important job was to teach us love. 

Now I couldn’t remember the last time she hugged me. It was in the hospital, I thought. Before she started hiding away from everything and everyone -- including us.

She sighed, longingly. “I love you and your sister more than-”

“Then why aren’t you fighting for her?!” I screamed, crying again and angry at myself for it. “She is not okay! Did you even know that she was starving herself when Louis died?! Did you know she slept in his bed every night after he went to the hospital?!”

I looked at the coffee table now, just to avoid looking at her, and my eyes fell on a picture of myself sitting on an armchair, holding baby Louis in my arms.

“And me? Well.” I laughed again, sniffing. “Let’s see, did you hear I had to sit through a Council meeting just hours after he died? Dad’s new heir, so I had to just… sit there as if my heart wasn’t being ripped from my chest! Did dad tell you he sent me to my work so I could quit my job and everyone could know, just to distract the press from the Adrien-Faye fiasco?! Did my security tell you about the condescending looks and wishes of success I had to take from everyone?! Have you heard that the press has been writing a new article almost every day about how I am not good enough to be Queen?! Apparently I’m the talk of the country! Sources close to the Prime Minister say there is a high level of apprehension among elected officials about the new Crown Princess!”

She was looking at me, finally, but now I couldn’t look at her.

“Did you hear they rearranged my security team? They took Joyce, who had been working with me for years, and gave me two guys with the training necessary to protect a member of this family that actually matters now, apparently.”

“Maggie...” She sniffed.

“Did Papa show you the threats? Apparently we have always received them, but they have increased now. They have creepy pictures of me. The unlisted numbers from inside the palace. My routine down to the minutes and where I used to park my car! And now, apparently, I need security that is actually properly trained. Fuck Lourdes, though, I guess.” “Marie-Margueritte! I--”

“And as to me not picking fights, mom, I don’t know what to tell you.” I shrugged. “I spent my whole life doing exactly what you needed me to do. I spoke softly, I wore dresses, I smiled, I said no to almost every party I was invited to thinking it was too much of a risk. Can’t risk people finding out a member of the royal family is just a normal girl inside! I–” I stuttered, stifling a sob, “I kept every opinion to myself, I studied hard, I said no to jobs and trips, I never even took a selfie in my life, all because I kept telling myself that there would be time for that later! I could be young and fun later! Just be the good, well behaved girl now, so Louis can live his life, and as soon as he is back it’ll be my turn! I’ll be able to live my life, finally! And now he’s gone and the life I spent years planning, dreaming, has been taken from me, and I have never and will never do anything! Did you know that?!”

I couldn’t see her reaction; my vision was too fuzzy with the tears. There was a knot on my throat that made breathing too hard.

“So, yeah, I’m sorry for the terrible offense of… having an opinion, Mom, but I’ve been making sure I am not a problem all my life, because I figured you had enough on your plate, so I am sorry, but it is a little upsetting that you can’t pay attention to the one child you have left that still actually needs you– what, I–”

She walked over to me, and pulled me into a hug I fought. But even in my state, even as I yelled about doing what I was taught to do, I couldn’t push her away. Not just because if felt… indelicate, but because she hadn’t held me like this since we were standing around Louis’ bed in the hospital. I missed it.

“I’m sorry, my baby.” She whispered, holding me tightly as I let myself sob. “I’m so sorry.”

She pulled me in until we sat on the sofa, but her arms only tightened more around me. I laid in her lap as she caressed my hair, whispering calming words in french until my sobs slowed and my breathing started to even out.

“I’m so tired.” I confessed. “I know.” She replied. “Me too.”

I couldn’t tell how much time passed, but my cheeks had nearly dried when I took in a long breath.

“What are we going to do about Lourdes?” I asked.

“Sh, It’s okay, my love,” she whispered, caressing my hair, “we’ll figure it out. We’re taking care of you now.”

--- ---- ---

In March, Harry announced his Invictus Games. In March, my mother hugged me -- really hugged me -- for the first time in many months.

In April, I attended my first engagement as the Crown Princess of Savoy. It was a visit to the Claire Bauton Foundation Center in Neunant, where I publicly met with the staff and some former  survivors who had now become volunteers. I wore a purple dress and shoes, the color of the Foundation’s logo, and shook from head to toe from the moment we left the Palace to the moment we were back.

Somehow, after our dramatic moment, my mother had decided it was time to become overly invested in my life again. So, she gave me a lot of suggestions on what to wear, to which my only response was trying to go to the other end of the spectrum completely and end up looking bizarrely like a punk teen version of myself. 

“I want to try to work with a stylist.” I told my team -- at this point, just Auguste and Cadie. “I don’t know if starting to wear a lot of designer brands would be a positive change, ma’am.” Auguste said.

“Stylists work with the client’s taste, don’t just make them wear something they do not want.” Cadie interjected. “I think I need help figuring out what my taste is. I’m either too traditional, or too modern. I have no idea.” “I’ll make some calls.” Cadie promised.

The engagement went well, if their recollection of it was to be believed. I was so nervous throughout the whole thing I could barely remember most of it. I had once been good at it, but now it just felt like there was too much riding in the balance. Too many people were watching. Too many people were even there.

I remember arriving, almost twisting my foot getting out of the car, having to force myself to smile through the flashes of photographers standing by, and breathing a sigh of relief once inside. I remembered the itinerary more than the actual event, which is how I knew I must have received a tour of the center, before meeting former survivors who were current volunteers. I remembered vaguely sitting down with a woman who told me her story -- a story of physical violence slow but steady, with no one believing her and the eventual kidnapping of her children by her ex-husband. I remember having to dab my eyes more than once to keep the tears from falling, looking away from where I knew we were being watched by the accompanying press. I remember the visceral reaction from hearing from the on-call lawyers about the times they had to run to a hospital in the middle of the night to assist clients who were attacked after a judge denied them restraining orders.

I remember looking down, knowing the press couldn’t see me losing it so much in my first outing.

I spent at least half an hour before leaving shaking the hands of well-wishers who came by to watch me in and out of the center. It was both terrifying and heartwarming -- seeing the faces of people who, for reasons I couldn’t understand, seemed to believe in me.

“I’m so sorry about your brother.” A lot of them said. “You’re doing a really good job.”

It didn’t feel like it.

My father agreed that the numerous pictures of me tearing up were too dramatic. My mother still thought I should have dressed more elegantly. But the results spoke for themselves: in the press, there was a lot of positive commentary of my ‘connection with the public’, my ‘sensitivity towards the delicate issue’, and even my ‘bright, modern look’, a ‘departure from more modest, boring choices of the past’.

It only made my stomach turn more. It only made me want to text Harry more. But my father was so pleasantly surprised he started talking about announcing my confirmation ceremony.

“Do I need one?” I asked, struggling against a tug of anxiety in my stomach. “That’s for heirs at 21 years-old, isn’t it?” “You weren’t the heir at 21. But you still need a confirmation if you’re the heir now.” He replied. “We’ll do it when you come home from the Olympics.”

“That should give us enough time to plan it, sir.” Montennon agreed. “And do some research on public opinion.”

My father rose from his chair behind the desk and walked around it towards us. Wordlessly, Montennon got up from his chair and stood back. My father took his seat.

“What is it?” He asked me, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees.

I sighed, smoothing the fabric of my dress with my hands. “I don’t know.” “You looked wonderful, regardless of what your mother thinks, you connected with the people, you highlighted the work… you did a great job, Margueritte.” I smiled, sheepishly. “I… I guess.” “Do you miss the law?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not--” I sighed. “It just feels… wrong.” “Helping an organization that helps people?”

“No, just…” I whispered, fidgeting with my hands, trying to stop them from shaking. “Just all of it… Him not being here. Being praised for the work he should have done. It feels wrong.”

He looked down, at his hands. He fidgeted, too.

“It’s not your fault he isn’t here to do that work, Margueritte.”

“I know.” I nodded. “I think I know… I just… I hate the way they talk about it. The press, I mean… the critics sound like they just don’t think I’m cut out for this because I’m not Louis. The praise sounds as if they’re just glad I’m not Louis... It doesn’t feel like a win.”

My father rose from his chair, slightly, and dragged it forward, nearer to me. He held my hand. “Margueritte, you will make a lot of mistakes in the road ahead.” He started. “But this is not one of them. I know you were nervous, I know it was tough, but you went there, you stood tall, you listened… you did a good job. You did better than any of us thought you would, if I’m being honest.” “That doesn’t help.” He grinned. “You’ll be fine, chérie. I am so confident about it that I want to release the statement about the confirmation next week.” “Already?” “Yes.” He sighed, letting go of my hand to lean back in his chair. “And I think we can do better than that. The V. E. Day celebration in May. Montennon?” “Yes, sir?” “Let’s have the Crown Princess make a speech.” “Me?” He smiled. “Yes, Marie-Margueritte. You. You’re doing a good job. Just keep at it.”

Keep at it. I can do that, I thought. I can be a good Crown Princess. I can keep learning, researching, working hard to highlight the good work of the people of Savoy. I can continue to look good and connect with the people. I can make a speech on V. E. Day. about the importance of the world coming together, about how much stronger we are together. I can do that. It’s a military ceremony about World War II, reasonably one of the things most of the world agrees on is that winning World War II was a good thing. I can do it. What could go wrong?

For instance, what are the odds that of all his family members, the chosen representative the British Royal Family would send to the V. E. Day celebration on Savoy would be… the one my whole family wanted me to stay as far away from as possible?

--- ---- ---

Outfit!

[A/N: Hey, all! How have you been this week? I know what you’re thinking: Natalia, literally how dare you give us 2 chapters in a row without Harry?! I know, I know, I’m just as upset as you are! But here’s my excuse: this was all important stuff i had to get out of the way. NEXT WEEK: A HARRY FEST! I promise, there’ll be so much Harry! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! I really appreciate it, and also if you could let me know your thoughts (suggestions? critics? all welcome!) it’d make me so happy! THANKS AND SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!]

[raleighliving]

Raleigh Apartment Culture

So I'm of the mind that Raleigh is a great place to live. It has my favorite things, my favorite people, and I'm too broke to move anywhere else.

Raleigh works for me, but I recognize it doesn't work for everyone. Some people had less than ideal childhoods and wanna escape the state ASAP, some just want to live closer to their dream jobs or have new opportunities. That's all fine, but what if this describes where you are now?

What if, for the sake of argument, you're outside of NC and wanna move in? Moving is expensive, time-consuming, and risky at the best of times; so you wanna make sure that wherever you're landing is at least as good as where you started 90% of the time

"But RL," I hear you say, "you make Raleigh sound like an idyllic dreamscape populated with parks and a diverse kumbayah of peoples living in harmony"

I do talk about Raleigh in a positive light but, like a life saving medicine flavored like ass, sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.

So before you spend thousands of dollars on moving vans, boxes, and grits; here's a crash course on what it's like living in a Raleigh apartment, coming from someone whose majority of Raleigh Living (heh) has been in apartments.

First off, location. Any realtor will tell you that location is 80% of the sale to sound profound, and as anyone who has lived in the middle of ass-backward nowhere can tell you: It sucks having to drive 30 minutes to go anywhere.

Good news: With the Raleigh Beltline and connecting roads, there are very few places in Raleigh where your trip will last longer than thirty minutes one-way. Bad News: where you set down still matters because cutting down on travel is important for car and mental health.

North Raleigh is different from south Raleigh is different from northwest Raleigh, and the locals aren't the only difference you'll find between locations. Each segment of Raleigh has something to offer, with easier access to some attractions than others and neighboring cities for when you need something outside the RDU area.

Using downtown as the center of our wheel, people generally divide Raleigh into North and South Raleigh (with distinction given for NW, SE, NE, etc when needed). N.Raleigh is considered generally more upscale, a slice of suburban living interspersed with plenty of shopping centers for families and the moderately wealthy; but it's boring as all hell.

Want some fun? Excitement in the evenings and a more traditional urban experience with bars, night clubs, strip clubs, and more? South Raleigh is your best bet, at the cost of being the "sketchy" side of Raleigh. That kind of place where you'll see a bunch of auto shops that look abandoned but haven't been closed in the past 5 years and there's at least one customer from time to time.

Of course, this is a lot of generalizing but you'll find that it's still mostly accurate. The main exception in this is Capital Blvd, a highway cutting across north and south Raleigh on the eastern half of the city; a high crime corridor that's undergoing some changes in the northern half that have (somewhat) reduced crime but most people will still associate that area with the majority of Raleigh's crime and debauchery.

More importantly, is the distinction Raleigh citizens put on inside the beltline versus outside the beltline. The I-440 and 540 highways that wrap around Downtown form the mythical beltline, and to a degree what you have access to. Inside the beltline is the majority of workplaces, stores, and shopping centers; while outside you'll still have these things just to a more... dispersed extent.

North Raleigh actually kinda exemplifies this perfectly. Living inside the beltline, you have access to places like North Hills, Crabtree Valley mall, and Triangle Town Center. Live outside the beltline, like I currently am, and you're looking at 10 to 15 minutes to the nearest sheetz for that late night double hot dog fix.

So for point one: How important is it that you're near things? The majority of apartments and rental properties are in or around the belt-line, but if you want to save some cash on rent checks the cheaper properties are gonna extend your trips a bit.

Next, what can you expect in terms of neighbors? Does Raleigh have a hip party scene full of teens renting cheap apartments and blasting trap music at 3AM?

Depends on where you live

I swear not every point is going to be this, but there's an important distinction this time that affects the type of people your complex will likely have surrounding you; are you in North or South Raleigh?

North Raleigh has a ton of pre-schools, k-12 public schools (Leesville, Hillburn, Lead Mine, just to name a few), and office complexes that make up the job market. As a result the majority of apartment renters in north Raleigh tend to be families with a few small kids or so.

As a result, living off of Glenwood North and Edwards Mill I never had any noise problems from neighbors, the worst being kids playing outside at 3PM sounding like they were being murdered (which apparently is a common thing and I apologize to any neighbors I frightened with ghastly shrieks).

What I did have a problem with, however, was the typical Karen's you hear people complain about online. Renting a property now, we have access to our neighborhood's NextDoor page and it's hilarious sometimes to go on and read the comments, but living at a certain property we had a sort of mini-Facebook for residents

That thing was always full of either people who were moving out looking to sell their furniture or people passive-aggressively challenging each other/the apartment managers with comments about things happening around the complex.

Once I logged in to see one man accuse another, without ever actually accusing someone specific ("I know who did it and they should be ashamed" type post) of putting glass beer bottles under the tires of his truck to try and puncture them. Everyone acts civil in public, but then online they'll stir the pot harder than a chef with a hand mixer.

South Raleigh, you have the schools like Shaw University, Meredith, and NCSU; so the people renting down there are typically college kids. You'll see more apartments that cater towards them like University Village or University Woods, but sometimes these places will cater to both college kids and working adults

Avoid these places like the plague, because despite sometimes having a lower cost to live there the neighbors and their shenanigans will drive you up the wall (unless you're the type to join in, then go wild).

I've had friends stay at places like University Village and The Proper (formerly The Vie, formerly Wolf Creek) who've shared horror stories. 3AM parties ending in property damage or vomit in inconvenient places, drug deals not even trying to be subtle, and maintenance workers doing nothing because regardless of the apartment conditions; no school's gonna pull their contract with them unless news articles start getting written.

http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_898ddf34-82f5-11e7-b3d8-07059d248619.html

https://www.wral.com/vie-at-raleigh-residents-finally-able-to-move-into-clean-units/16887833/

http://www.technicianonline.com/news/article_ea8ed7aa-a092-11e8-a2af-e70af36566d0.html

Otherwise, south Raleigh apartments are largely like north Raleigh apartments; except the crime rate tends to be a little higher and you'll run into more singles and people working full time.

Otherwise, Raleigh apartment culture is like apartment culture anywhere else in the country. You have a mix of apartments catering to those just looking to live versus more ostentatious luxury apartments with fancy pools, exercise facilities, and tech packages to draw people in.

If you're renting in Raleigh, however, do try to get a roommate or two if you can manage. Even with a decent job paying 800+ on a one bedroom one bath apartment can be exhausting at best, but with even one other person that can functionally halve your expenses

So if you're a young professional, or a student, or even if you have a small family, I can safely recommend renting in Raleigh. There's plenty of places that'll accommodate you, and cater towards your needs.

But what about everyone else? Are there people who shouldn't rent in Raleigh?

No

But there are groups who I'd seriously ask to consider their other choices before picking Raleigh as a destination for their new home.

For instance, are you a member of the LGBT community? A trans or non-binary individual? Well then, first off, I want you to know that you're loved and valid. I'm accepting of who you are and appreciate everyone's right to identify how they choose, but I'm not everyone.

Raleigh's bluer than other parts of North Carolina, as I've stated in other blog write-ups, but it's still part of North Carolina unfortunately and as a result, you'll face some challenges.

I doubt anyone's gonna burn a cross in your yard or knock over your mailbox, but Raleigh doesn't offer LGBT protections for housing, jobs, or credit/lending discriminations according to the Movement Advancement Project's website.

We have support organizations for LGBT and NB individuals, plenty of high schools and colleges have Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, and there are numerous businesses downtown that cater specifically to those individuals... but we're also the state that got into a lot of hot water because of a stupid bathroom bill, and our politicians are trying to pass anti-trans sports legislation (because they now magically care about the integrity of womens sports).

By that measure, but to a lesser extent, if you fall outside the Liberal/Conservative political spectrum then be prepared to have no one to discuss your politics with outside of a few sparse networks like the DSA.

Additionally, if you don't have someone to room with or a significant other to split costs with; you may want to try searching somewhere a little cheaper.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Raleigh housing prices aren't terrible for a major metropolitan city, but we're not the best prices in the world.

You can get prices on apartments and rentals lower than say, California or New York. However, compared to other parts of NC like Greensboro or Garner; rentals are still a bit much.

On average, a Raleigh apartment can run you about $900 for a single bedroom and a single bathroom. You can find cheaper, but often times there's some risk associated (Crime levels, quality of the room, quality of the property manager, etc.) Looking for a two bedroom? Then your average price is gonna jump up to around $1,200, and this is all before utilities and cable come into play.

It's true a lot of companies around here will pay more than the $7.25 minimum wage, but most low-skilled jobs will pay around 10-11 an hour.

I guess though, that's kind of an obvious statement. "Don't live in Raleigh if you can't afford to live in Raleigh."

I might expand on these thoughts at a later time, but hopefully for now I've given you some food for thought; or at the very least an entertaining read for a few minutes.

I love my city, and I love the friends I've made in it, but the sad truth is that nowhere is perfect for everyone; leastways Raleigh. If Raleigh sounds like the kind of place you'd like to live in, at least take a day trip to come visit and see how things go that way. Visit some stores, meet some locals, and form an opinion off of more than travel blogs and youtube videos.

[rotationalsymmetry]

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. I saw your post about UUs and I myself am one as well! I was wondering if maybe you could explain some of the issues there are in UU congregations so I can better understand what’s going on. I can’t change much, but I’d like to know what can be improved and how I can better use my privilege. Thank you :)

Hi there. Thanks for reaching out. I think. Oof. Are you sure you want to ask this? I don’t have a really straightforward “here’s precisely what Unitarian Universalism needs to do to improve (broken down into concrete, realistic steps!)” I have a whole tangle of feelings and personal biases and incredibly subjective experiences. OK? All right. With that disclaimer out of the way. Eh, actually, more disclaimer: all institutions have problems. There are things that Unitarian Universalism does better than most other religious institutions. There’s a reason I was going off about what I like about UU before what I dislike. This is not saying that Unitarian Universalism is bad. OK?

Putting in a cut because this is long:

Unitarian Universalism has an ongoing, well-known problem around being kind of fuzzy around what it is and what it wants to be. Do we draw on multiple faiths, and if so what does that look like in practice? Are we Christianity lite? Are we basically a bunch of secular humanists who like to get together and sing sometimes? How far exactly does (or should) our tolerance stretch?

Unitarian Universalism has a whiteness issue and a class issue. Now, I’m white, so the race part isn’t mainly coming from my own experience. There’s something I’ve seen that sums it up well, but I can’t find it right now. Basically: there’s a bit of a tendency for UU’s to nominally want to more diverse congregations, but when a new person of color shows up, sometimes they get treated kind of...weirdly. Like they’re not one of us and not going to be.

a bit more on UU and race here: x

And, class wise, I was raised middle class, but I’ve been broke for an awful lot of my adulthood and a lot of the people I know in my generation (Millenials) are broke/struggling financially. So when the lead minister of my congregation made some random comment about having trouble attracting young people because church and brunch with friends are competing for the same time slot. I thought of a young adult in the congregation who was active in the youth group but couldn’t make it to Sunday worship because he had to work on Sundays. And the time one of my coworkers got a promotion at my workplace, and definitely she was competent and I don’t begrudge her getting it, but also she ended up working an awful lot of Sundays and that was very likely a factor in her getting the promotion. And I’d been trying to avoid pledge drive Sunday for years because it always, every time, made me feel like I wasn’t really welcome if I couldn’t contribute much financially, even when I was contributing a great deal of my time. This is subjective and it could mostly be an issue with my then congregation. But I don’t think it is.

While Unitarian Universalism likes to think of itself as trans friendly, and it’s certainly much friendlier than some denominations, sometimes it drops the ball. Here’s an apology for an article about trans people that centered a cis person’s perspective and had some other issues: x

Anecdotally, subjectively, etc: this is an issue across the board. Unitarian Universalism’ self-image and what the organization actually is has a substantial gap. I attended a few workshops at GA this year, and: on the surface, great! So many workshops on such great anti-oppressive topics! But...when I actually went to the workshops, it was unsatisfying. It felt very introduction-ish. Maybe that was on purpose. But...I was hoping for better. 

Super anecdotally: UU’s tend to forget that disabled people exist. UU’s tend to not support disabled people and parents of disabled children.

Back to the “are we Christianity Lite?” thing. I dropped out of seminary. One part of thatwas this: x  Another was that at the time (it’s apparently since changed) the MFC requirements (uh, this is getting a bit technical: congregations ordain ministers, but in practice fellowshipping is important as well, and that’s what the MFC does, basically it’s saying other UU ministers think you should be a UU minsiter) prioritized knowledge about Christianity and the Bible over knowledge of other religions, even though nominally Unitarian Universalism is not Christian and Christianity isn’t especially prioritized in our Six Sources. As someone who is not Christian and didn’t expect my future ministry to involve a lot of Bible talk and really didn’t think prioritizing knowledge of the Bible among our religious leaders was good for the denomination as a whole, this bothered me. A lot. (For what it’s worth, most Starr King classes were actually really good at not doing this.) (The classes that did, though, made me want to tear my hair out. And made me wonder if this denomination I was studying to be a minister in, was the same as the denomination I’d participated in as a lay person for years.)

This is hard to put into words. But: sometimes people will say they believe a thing, but their follow-through is bad. Or they say one thing but act another way -- not because they’re lying, but because what they believe on the surface hasn’t been fully internalized. This is, anecdotally etc, a really common issue in Unitarian Universalism.

More super anecdotal etc: UU’s need to break the habit of seeing RE as daycare, and worship services that involve kids as being about showing off the kids to the adults. I took a quick look at you and it says you’re 18, so if you grew up UU you probably have your own opinions on this. But...sometimes the adult congregation and the kids’/youth programs are entirely separate worlds, and that’s not healthy for congregations.

YMMV: I’m not a huge fan of approaches to worship that involve sitting passively for most of the service. If the worship is going to be the same whether you’re there or not, why bother showing up? (Obviously some congregations are more like this than others, and apparently some people like the “lecture and a concert” format?? I’m not one of them.)

Basically, I think UU’s need to work on connection more and mutual support of each other more. While I approve of the social justice focus of course, social justice starts at home. You need to support the people who are actually in your congregation. I moved a year and a half ago, and haven’t joined my local congregation. Why? Because my illness makes it almost impossible to go anywhere in the mornings, and while they livestreamed each worship service, before the pandemic (presumably it’s all zoom worship now), there was zero effort to actually include anyone watching the livestream. Not so much as a PDF of the order of service. No verbal acknowledgement that some people aren’t present in the room. Nothing. (Side note: I tried one worship service at a “normal” congregation after the pandemic started, and all the mourning of not being able to be together in person was extremely frustrating to me, since I hadn’t been able to attend in person worship before the pandemic either. No one was thinking of people like me, and it was really, really obvious. I’ve since joined Church of the Larger Fellowship.) You say you want to use your privilege. That’s great! Some thoughts.

Trans people: How’s your congregation on pronouns? If your congregation uses nametags, can you push to normalize people putting their pronouns on nametags? What’s the bathroom situation: is it clear that trans women (whether you currently have any trans women in your congregation or not) can use the women’s bathroom? Is there a unisex bathroom that non-binary people and binary people who don’t feel safe using “their” bathroom can use? Also: a lot of older people weren’t raised with this and never really caught up, (and tbf some young people are ignorant too) so there’s a need for some trans 101 education.

Disability: for zoom worship, is there closed captioning for people who have hearing impairments or language processing issues? For live worship, what’s being done to make sure deaf and hard of hearing people are included? What’s being done for blind people (eg, electronic copies of the order of service being available for people who are blind but have screen readers?) For people who just have a little trouble seeing, are there large-print orders of service? What about the agendas for committee meetings and so on? This doesn’t have a quick fix, but are there places in your congregation that can’t be reached in a wheelchair? What about the chancel? (ie that area that the minister and whoever else is leading worship is speaking from?) Is there a wheelchair-accessible entrance that’s open during worship but closed during other programming?

How’s ministry to people who are sick or injured or just too old to get out much? And: is that support available to newer or prospective members, or only people who contributed to the congregation first? How available is information on how to get that kind of support: is it a thing where only some people are in the know, or is there outreach?

Are there unspoken rules about who’s the “right kind” of person to be in the congregation and who isn’t?

Sexual harassment, abuse, etc: is there a clear way to report sexual harassment? Does everyone know what it is? Does the congregation have a policy for what happens if a congregant is accused of sexual abuse? If a minister is? What's the congregation’s child abuse prevention policy? Do the people who work/volunteer with kids know what to do if a child or teen reports abuse to them? Are they screened in any way?

What accommodations does RE make for special needs children? If a child needs one on one assistance, does the RE program force the parent to provide that assistance if the child is to be part of the program?

What’s the policy on support animals? (these days: what’s the policy on emotional support animals?) How are the needs of people with allergies or other issues with dogs etc, balanced with the needs of people who benefit from support animals? (This can be tricky, I’m not saying there’s a clear right/wrong here, but it’s something that can make a congregation inaccessible.)

I don’t know the details on this, but I know sensory issues can be a problem for some people, eg flickering overhead lights. Scents can be an issue for some people, one possible solution is to have part of the sanctuary marked scent-free, dunno how well that plays out in practice.)

Representation: who’s speaking up during worship, and what are they speaking about? Something to be aware of.

Us/Them language: especially relevant if you’re speaking to the congregation during worship, but important in casual coffee hour chat too: who’s “us” and who’s “them”? Do people in your congregation tend to talk about, say, people below the poverty line as “them”? Homeless people? Black people? Immigrants?

Finding ways of making small talk that aren’t “what do you do for a living?”

I haven’t said anything about racism yet; a lot of congregations have some sort of anti-racist discussion group or something? Those things are good; there’s only so much they do by themselves, but as part of a larger whole, they’re important. Also, presence at Black Lives Matter protests, putting up a Black Lives Matter banner or sign if your congregation hasn’t done that, stuff like that.

Oh, culture and music and stuff. What kind of music gets played. Congregations that have made a specific attempt to be multiracial often find it’s necessary to do a lot of hashing out of what the music is going to be like.

And there’s a representation aspect to who gets quoted.

Small Group Ministry/Covenant groups: my former congregation liked to ask what your demographic info is and then split things up for “diversity” purposes. This is actually a really bad idea. In a congregation that’s mostly white, it means that often the non-white people end up being the only non-white person in their groups. Great for white people who want to “experience diversity”, but not so great for actual poc. My congregation had enough queer people that it wasn’t one queer person per group, but I could see that maybe happening in other places. And I think it did tend to separate out trans people into separate groups.

Cultural appropriation/cultural misappropriation: uff. I think some people go off the deep end on this. But, some things to consider. If the congregation is doing something to celebrate a Jewish holiday, is it run by someone who is Jewish or is of Jewish heritage? Stuff like that. Sometimes Unitarian Universalists’ desire to be all multicultural and interfaith and stuff, leaves out important things like “is this part of the culture that it’s ok for outsiders to share?” and “are we actually in relationship with this group of people?” And “are we cherry picking messages from sacred texts that we like, and leaving out the stuff we don’t like, when it’s not our sacred text and we don’t have enough context to do that respectfully?” x for overview and in more detail x

Also RE: is this Native American story one that it’s actually OK for us to tell? I’m not necessarily suggesting you go over what other people are doing, but if you’re teaching RE yourself, you get a say in what you teach.

If you happen to be a UU pagan or there’s a CUUPS group at your congregation that you sometimes participate in, there’s kind of a ton of work about untangling cultural appropriation in specifically pagan spaces, honestly I don’t know where to start with that. Don’t put that on yourself if you’re not part of that kind of group though, focus on groups you are part of.

Land acknowledgements.

Oftentimes if someone brings up an issue that requires work to change it, especially a younger person, the people who get stuff done are going to be, “ok, that sounds like work, we’ve already got a ton on our plate so are you going to do it?” So, if you offer to do some of the work of running the congregation, you’ll be in a better place to implement these sorts of changes. (I know a lot of times older adults don’t want to trust young adults with responsibility, so it might take some time to earn trust.) But also some are things you can just do: like you can say your pronouns every time you introduce yourself or put your pronouns on disposable nametags, if you’re comfortable with it.

General advice: you don’t have to (and shouldn’t try to) change everything at once. Be aware of a lot of things and be willing to be a “follower” on a lot of things. Signing petitions, saying “yes, that sounds like a good idea,” stuff like that. Be a leader on a small, manageable number of things. Maybe see what other people in your congregation are already doing that seems like a step in the right direction, and see how you can support that. Some of what UU’s are already doing is already really good, and most likely there’s already people around you who want Unitarian Universalism to act in closer alignment with its ideals.

[peirates]

Photo taken from [Baalbek Roman Temple]

Latin was originally spoken by an eponymous group of ancient Italians. One of these Latin cities, the Romans, spread the language by conquering all of Italy, later the Mediterranean, then much of Europe and the Middle East. Although rarely spoken now, it is the mother of all Romance languages and contributes to about a third of English vocabulary. Its influence has since spread across the world through European imperialism; there are few places left that are completely unaffected by the Romans’ language and culture.

This particular post serves as both a beginner’s guide and a taster to what Latin is, with some common vocabulary along the way. Especially since many people are currently stuck at home due to Covid-19, and may like to stay occupied by learning a new language. Hope you enjoy!

N.B. Anything beginning with an asterisk (*) means that you may hear differently elsewhere, for example on Duolingo.

General

Latin is fundamentally a very difficult language, even for academics, and even if your native tongue is Romance. But I am not saying not to try, I am saying it is normal to struggle! 

All ‘U’s were then written as ‘V’s, and all ‘J’s as ‘I’s. Modern Latin-learning tends to replace some ‘V’s with ‘U’s in order to facilitate reading. We have lost the exact pronunciations of classical Latin, not to mention differences between dialects, but the following explanations are some of the strongest estimates.

*‘V’ should be normally pronounced as /ʍ/, when between consonants as /u/. 

*A standalone ‘I’ before another vowel becomes /j/ or /dʒ/.

Iuppiter servum in exilium pepulit. 

[ Ivppiter servvm in exilivm pepvlit. ]

[ Yoo-pi-ter ser-woom in e-xi-li-oom pe-poo-lit. ]

Jupiter drove the slave into exile.

Iuppiter, Iovis (3, m.) - Jupiter, king of the gods servus, servi (2, m.) - slave  in + acc. - into, to  exilium, exilii (2, n.) - exile  pello, pellere, pepuli, pulsum (3) - drive out, push, repel 

Latin generally follows a SOV (subject, object, verb) sentence structure:

rex regnum amat.

The king loves his kingdom.

rex, regis (3, m.) - king regnum, regni (2, n.) - kingdom; power  amo, amare, amavi, amatum (1) - love, like

There are no definite or indefinite articles (a/the) - normally, you must add them to your translation yourself depending on the context. There are relative pronouns (e.g. qui/quae/quod - who, which), demonstrative pronouns (e.g. hic/haec/hoc - this; he/she/it) and many other pronouns/determiners, but they are not required for every sentence.

*Unlike English, you do not capitalise the sentence’s first letter UNLESS that first letter is part of a name.

Most meanings are conveyed via changes in word endings (i.e. it relies on conjugating and declining) rather than word order. This makes Latin an inflected language.

Nouns

While English uses word order to show how nouns and adjectives relate to a situation, Latin uses endings and cases from different declensions to do the same. Latin uses 7 cases, but 2 of them (vocative and locative) are rarer.

nominative (nom.) - subject

vocative (voc.) - addressee: often follows ‘o’

accusative (acc.) - object

genitive (gen.) - possessor (of/‘s)

dative (dat.) - recipient (to/for)

ablative (abl.) - movement away (from) / instrumental (by/with) / location (at/in)

locative (loc.) - location (at/in)

Here’s an example with all 7 in action:

pater, o Attice, donum Iovis matri cum comite Romae dedit.

Atticus, my father gave Jupiter’s gift to my mother with his comrade in Rome.

pater, patris (3, m.) - father donum, doni (2, n.) - gift, present  mater, matris (3, f.) - mother  cum + abl. (only used for people) - with  comes, comitis (3, m/f.) - companion, comrade, partner Roma, Romae (1, f.) - Rome do, dare, dedi, datum (1) - give; surrender, hand over

Noun endings change in case, gender and number. There are three genders: masculine (m.), feminine (f.), and neuter (n.). The two grammatical numbers are singular (sg.) and plural (pl.). A noun will abide by the endings of one of five possible declensions.

In dictionaries, like above, you will see a noun given as ‘nominative, genitive (declension, gender) - English meaning’. The genitive is always featured because it is the only case whose ending is specific to its own declension (other endings may be seen across declensions but have different cases each time). Therefore, if you know what a noun’s genitive is, you know what declension it is, and vice versa. 

Adjectives

An adjective agrees with its related noun in case, gender and number. However, they do not always have the same endings; all adjectives decline as either 2nd m. / 1st / 2nd n. (also seen as 2-1-2) or 3rd. 

Here, every adjective agrees with the adjacent noun in case, gender and number, but none has the same ending:

omnis puella, mulier pulchra, homo sapiens, puer stultus

every girl, the beautiful woman, the wise man, a foolish boy

omnis, omne (3) - every, all; whole puella, puellae (1, f.) - girl mulier, mulieris (3, f.) - woman pulcher, pulchra, pulchrum (2-1-2) - beautiful, handsome homo, hominis (3, m.) - man; human being sapiens, sapientis (3) - wise, knowing puer, pueri (2, m.) - boy stultus, stulta, stultum (2-1-2) - stupid, foolish

N.B. With exceptions, most Latin adjectives follow the noun.

However, that is not to say that nouns and adjectives can never have the same endings. They often do: Roman writers used this frequently as a literary device known as homoioteleuton.

equus magnus, feminae parvae, homines sapientes, dona laeta

a big horse, little women, wise men, the happy gifts

equus, equi (2, m.) - horse magnus, magna, magnum (2-1-2) - big, great, large femina, feminae (1, f.) - woman parvus, parva, parvum (2-1-2) - little, small laetus, laeta, laetum (2-1-2) - happy, cheerful, blessed

Sometimes you see an adjective without a noun. When this happens, translate the adjective as an adjective AND a noun:

fortis horrenda diu passus est.

The brave man suffered horrible things for a long time.

fortis, forte (3) - brave, strong, bold horrendus, horrenda, horrendum (2-1-2) - horrible, terrible, horrendous diu (adv.) - for a long time patior, pati, passus sum (3, deponent) - suffer, endure; allow, permit

N.B. horrenda is in the accusative neuter plural, hence ‘things’. 

Verbs

The doers of verbs are shown by verb endings, unlike English which requires personal pronouns. Nominative personal pronouns can support a verb in Latin, but they are not required. They are best used to show contrast, unity or general emphasis - as if someone were pointing a finger at you - and this is why they are not seen often. Both sentences below are grammatically correct, but the second flows better:

ego dormire amo, tu dormire amas, nos amici apti sumus.

dormire amo, dormire amas, amici apti sumus.

I like to sleep, you like to sleep, we are suitable friends.

dormio, dormire, dormivi, dormitum (4) - sleep ego, me, mei (pers. pron.) - I, me, my tu, te, tui (pers. pron.) - you, you, your nos, nos, nostri (pers. pron.) - we, we, our amicus, amici; amica, amicae (2/1, m./f.) - friend aptus, apta, aptum (2-1-2) - suitable, apt, appropriate sum, esse, fui, futurum (irreg.) - be; be alive, exist, live

Latin uses the following tenses: present, future, future perfect, perfect, imperfect and pluperfect - and each comes with its own set of endings. There are also participles, supines, infinitives, imperatives, gerunds, gerundives, actives, passives, deponents and other structures to show contemporary, previous, subordinate or hypothetical events - these also come with their own stems and endings, but they often work like adjectives and so are not entirely unrecognisable.

Dictionaries present verbs as ‘present active, present active infinitive, perfect active, supine (conjugation)’. There are 4 conjugations, which are different sets of verb endings.

All Latin verbs come as either 1. active (I kill), 2. passive (I am killed) or 3. deponent (passive in form, active in meaning). Each comes with its own set of endings.

1. hic homo me interficit!

This man is killing me!

2. hic homo interficitur!

This man is being killed!

3. hic homo me interficere conatur!

This man is trying to kill me!

hic, haec, hoc (pron.) - this; he/she/it interficio, interficere, interfeci, interfectum (3) - kill, destroy conor, conari, conatus sum (1, deponent) - try, attempt

N.B. While most verbs can be active or passive interchangeably, deponents never switch. They are never seen with active endings or passive meanings.

The indicative (1) and subjunctive (2) moods distinguish expectations from reality. The indicative presents facts, while the subjunctive anything hypothetical from questions to wishes to fears. Each mood comes with its own set of endings.

1. vir dives me cupit.

The rich man wants me.

2. vir dives me cupiat.

May the rich man want me.

vir, viri (2, m.) - man; husband dives, divitis (gen.) (3) - rich, wealthy; wealthy man cupio, cupere, cupivi, cupitum (3) - desire, want, long for

Learning ancient versus modern languages

I’ve seen language-learners new to Latin comment on the difference in tone and content, sometimes even being discouraged by it.

Learning an ancient language which is no longer spoken today, i.e. ‘dead’, is very different from learning a modern foreign language. Some basic techniques don’t change, such as how to memorise vocab. However, the overall approaches are different because the overall goals are different - unless the goal is simple pure enjoyment, which is in fairness the best reason to learn!

Modern language studies are to encourage international communication and many other reasons.

Ancient language studies are almost entirely to study the ancient world, how it led to the modern world, and this is mostly done through analysing ancient sources in their original languages.

When studying Latin, you therefore are more likely to learn heavy vocabulary such as ‘die’ or ‘sacrifice’ before you learn ‘take a bath’ - some of the examples I use in this post aren’t cheerful. Classicists learn how to translate heavier content first because it is more commonly mentioned in the ancient sources which the entire subject relies upon - death comes up much more frequently in Caesar’s Gallic Wars than greetings. 

Recommended resources

- Duolingo Latin course - if you want to learn Latin as you would a modern language.

- Memrise Latin courses - almost infinite number of vocabulary and idiom lists.

- Massolit Classics ($) - online lectures covering Greek and Roman history, culture and literature.

- Amazon page for John Taylor ($) - esteemed author of Latin textbooks from beginner level up.

- William Whitaker’s Words - reliable vocabulary translator in both directions.

- Perseus Digital Library - public archive of ancient texts in their original languages and many different English translations.

- Logeion - online dictionary for Latin and Classical Greek.

Final Word

Absolutely do not fret if anything confuses you; like all things worth doing, understanding and applying it will take time. I am making more in-depth posts on various aspects of Latin grammar and vocab, with exercises, in the very near future, so hold on tight. Thank you for reading!

[scentedpatrolsweet]

The importance of maternal and child health care and the implications for Occupational therapy (OT)

Maternal and child health care is an important public health matter as it allows intervention the opportunity to end deaths that could have been prevented among all women and children and also improve their overall well-being. The WHO reported that “Although important progress has been made in the last two decades, about 295 000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2017. This number is unacceptably high.” This highlights and stresses the principal concept that maternal and child health is/should be a priority in intervention and within society as it can be prevented. Attention to maternal nutrition through educating on the importance on adequate dietary intake in pregnancy and supplementation with iron, folic acid, and possibly other micronutrients and calcium are likely to provide value. Others may question that, adequate health care for all individuals is important, why specifically is maternal and child health care given precedence. The article “Global maternal, newborn and child health care- close yet so far” touches on one of the components that are driving the maternal and child health care movement as they express that it is important to achieve and maintain maternal and child health care as means of understanding the causes of deaths to allow for improved planning and targeting of interventions. So what does this mean to me as an occupational therapist?

It indicates the need for occupational therapy to always prioritize the educating of new mothers and expecting mothers on the importance of health care and nutrition to decrease infant and maternal mortality. “Pregnancy can provide an opportunity to identify existing health risks in women and to prevent future health problems for women and their children” (Office of disease prevention and health promotion, 2020). I have been placed in two township communities, I will refer to them as Community M and community I. Community M is a large township of Pinetown located in the district of eThekwini. It is comprised of a cluster of suburbs and townships. The clinic where we have been allocated is in the heart of the township of the community which is considered a low income socioeconomic status (SES) community with many unemployed. Many in this community are either unemployed or working low income paying jobs. Community I is also a large township roughly 24 km north west and inland of Durban. Just like community M, it is considered a low socioeconomic income community with many households having little or no income. What does this mean for health care, how does it impact health care and specifically what are its implications on maternal and child health care?

Primary and early interventions can largely prevent women from dying of pregnancy-related causes through encouraging and promoting attendance of antenatal care classes , improving the delivery in a medical setting and having skilled health workers/practitioners to improve maternal health. However, this is limited in developing countries, like South Africa due to lack of resources. What does this mean for me and the context which I am working in, such as community M and community I - it means we need to get innovative with intervention. I need to integrate cost-effective ways to ensure that treatment is therapeutic but inexpensive. Occupational therapy (OT) intervention must utilize its surroundings such as the parks for stimulation and use sustainable methods to bring about health. Sustainable meaning, educating on things or ways that will not require intensive funding that the parents can complete at home. In communities such as community M and I, the SES and health care gradient encourages OT intervention to look into methods that are feasible to ensure continuity and carry over which would initiate and propel the trajectory of therapy and ensure success. Occupational therapy services must seek to address/educate on the ways mothers can maintain their health and their baby’s well being to decrease mortality. Educate on the importance of mental well being of mothers during and after pregnancy to bring to light the disorders and symptoms experienced and rid of the stigma attached to these disorders. It must educate the mothers on these disorders that can occur and where they can receive intervention. Early intervention is better than no intervention. This is the first week in community and this blog reflects the state of mind I am in as a student. Observant yet eager. We see so much we are yearning to change but the question I sometimes ask myself sometimes is... will I be able to make the change? The first brick has been laid. In our first tutorial with our supervisors we addressed the issue of “learned hopelessness” which appears to be a predominant factor in these two communities where we witness a “passive aggressive” nonchalant approach toward health care and change. For an hour we went back and forth discussing this crippling concept, how it was formed and how we can change it. It felt as if we were running in circles because in order to bring change to individuals they need to be willing and ready FOR that change. As we engaged with each other as colleagues we reached a plateau of confusion and hope, and I sit and reflect on that tutorial and reflect on what  I have witnessed from these two communities, I then begin to converse with myself about how do we help a community that is seemingly within a state of “despair”. This evident in the destruction of things created and lack of interest to “walk forward towards change”. But we are OTs, the tree shakers, advocates for the voiceless. This week I end off with the comment that, I don’t have to do it all, I just need to do my part which hopefully will set a chain reaction for the future OTs to come. 

[obscurehistoricalinterests]

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (I)

Every time I encounter media where Carmilla is either the servant of Dracula or in love with him (very often both simultaneously), I want to flip tables. 

Carmilla not only despised men, but she was a veiled depiction of a lesbian woman. As an innocent human, she was preyed on and murdered by a male vampire who was obsessed with her and yet emerged from her grave a cunning and powerful figure who cleverly exploited the womanly tropes of her time (the helpless and delicate flower) to dupe and charm men into doing exactly as she wanted in pursuit of her goals. Her romantic interests and desires for companionship were reserved exclusively for women. Every time I see her being relegated to the role of love interest for a man, I feel like her nature and personality being denied, misused and erased.

Back in Ye Olde Days (1996), I discovered a fascinating article by Elizabeth Signorotti which put forward the theory that Dracula was written as a patriarchal response to the unleashed female power and sexuality depicted in Carmilla. This remarkable article, which I have split into parts and transcribed below, explains better than I ever could the power of Carmilla and the ways in which its themes of female empowerment and agency were perceived as a threat.

Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in “Carmilla” and “Dracula” (part I)

Of the vampire tales to date, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has unquestionably become the most popular and the most critically examined. It constitutes, however, the culmination of a series of nineteenth-century vampire tales that have been overshadowed by Stoker’s 1897 novel. To be sure, many of the earlier tales provide little more than a collective history of the vampire lore Stoker incorporated in Dracula, but Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s little known “Carmilla” (1872) is the original tale to which Stoker’s Dracula served as a response. In “Carmilla” Le Fanu chronicles the development of a vampiric relationship between two women, in which it becomes increasingly clear that Laura’s and Carmilla’s lesbian relationship defies the traditional structures of kinship by which men regulate the exchange of women to promote male bonding. On the contrary, Le Fanu allows Laura and Carmilla to usurp male authority and to bestow themselves on whom they please, completely excluding male participation in the exchange of women, normative as discussed by Claude Levi-Strauss and more recently by Gayle Rubin and Eve Sedgwick. Stoker later responded to Le Fanu’s narrative of female empowerment by reinstating male control in the exchange of women. In effect, Dracula seeks to repossess the female body for the purposes of male pleasure and exchange, and to correct the reckless unleashing of female desire in Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” 

In The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Levi-Strauss argues that women are “valuables par excellence from both the biological and the social points of view... without which life is impossible.” As “valuables,” women are seen “as the object of personal desire, thus exciting sexual and proprietorial instincts... [and also as] the subject of the desire of others, ... binding others through alliance with them.” Women, then, become the means of alliance, the ”supreme gift” that binds men together and creates social order. For Levi-Strauss, marriage most significantly reveals men’s complete control of women. He argues that traditionally “the total relationship of exchange which constitutes marriage is not established between a man and a woman, where each owes and receives something, but between two groups of men, and the woman figures only as one of the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners between whom the exchange takes place.” As an essential and valuable “sign” to be possessed and exchanged, woman’s sole purpose is to provide the passive link between men.

Levi-Strauss’ exploration of the role women play in creating male alliance is further examined in Gayle Rubin’s “The Traffic in Women” and in Eve Sedgwick’s Between Men. Whereas Levi-Strauss ultimately romanticizes the exchange of women, Rubin examines the specific implications for women resulting from his argument. She states that Levi-Strauss’ “exchange of women” is shorthand for expressing the “social relations of a kinship system... [where] men have certain rights in their female kin...[and where] women do not have the same rights either to themselves or to their male kin.” Since women are “transacted” by men, they become only “a conduit of a relationship rather than a partner to it” and are denied the “benefits of their own circulation.” Rubin further stresses that “compulsory heterosexuality is a product of male kinship” because “women... can only be properly [valued] by someone ‘with a penis’(phallus). Since the girl has no ‘phallus’, she has no ‘right’ to love her mother or another woman.” In her examination of Levi-Strauss, Rubin underscores woman’s historical subjection to male desire and her exclusion from the social order governed by male alliance.

Sedgwick broadens Rubin’s argument by investigating “compulsory heterosexuality” as a distinguishing factor in female relationships and in male relationships. She argues that men’s relationships are defined by “homosocial desire,” that homosocial relationships between men must be distinguished from socially threatening homosexual unions, and the only way to eliminate the homosexual threat between men is to include a woman in the relationship, forming a (safe) triangular configuration rather than a (threatening) linear, male-to-male union. She contends that contrary to women’s relationships “patriarchal structures [assure] that ‘obligatory heterosexuality’ is built into male-dominated kinship systems, [and] that homophobia is a necessary consequence of... patriarchal institutions [such] as heterosexual marriage.” Women function in this system as signs and tools to ensure the survival of male relationships and to deflect the threat of homosexuality by serving as a link between men.

Sedgwick sums up social perceptions of women’s and men’s relationships as “diacritical opposition between the ‘homosocial’ and the ‘homosexual,’” an opposition that ”seems to be much less thorough and dichotomous for women, in our society, than for men.” She argues that all women in our society who promote the interests of other women (by teaching, nurturing, studying, marching for, or employing) are “pursuing congruent and closely related activities. Thus the adjective ‘homosocial’ as applied to women’s bonds... need not be pointedly dichotomized as against ‘homosexual’; it can intelligibly dominate the entire continuum.” The unity of the lesbian continuum, “extending over the erotic, social, familial, economic, and political realms, would not be so striking if it were not in strong contrast to the arrangement among males.” That arrangement, as Levi-Strauss has defined it, is a system of alliance between men that requires, in some form, the exchange of women to bind men and (as Sedgwick implies) to stave off homosexual anxiety. Sedgwick makes clear that women’s relationships are not governed by homophobia; therefore, excluding men from female friendships or from access to women poses more of a threat to male kinship systems than to female. Thus, female homosocial bonds potentially carry tremendous power to subvert or demolish existing patriarchal kinship structures, which is precisely what happens in “Carmilla.”

Throughout most of the nineteenth century the central figure in vampire tales was a male whose relationships were used to depict various conflicts in contemporary society. James Twitchell observes in The Living Dead that nineteenth-century writers mainly used the vampire “to express various human relationships, relationships that the artist himself had with family, with friends, with lovers, and even with art itself.” Other critics note that the vampire, a dead body that drinks blood and preys on innocent victims to sustain its own life, acts as a complex metaphor: it could represent the economic dependence of women; the parasitic relationship between the aristocracy and the oppressed middle and lower classes: unrepressed female sexuality; eugenic contamination; enervating parent/child relationships; and, of course, sexual relationships deemed subversive or perverse in hegemonic discourse.” Perhaps most interesting is Nina Auerbach’s contention that the demonized (or vampirized) woman in nineteenth-century literature and art really depicts a “hero who was strong enough to bear the hopes and fears of a century’s worship.” Auerbach’s comment may be true in some instances, but by and large the majority of women in vampire tales, at least in the early and mid-nineteenth century, were far too marginalized and victimized to be seen as heroic; like the male protagonists of those tales, who brutalized them, women vampires were generally perceived as loathsome and diseased.

Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” - the first vampire tale whose protagonist is a woman vampire - marks the growing concern about the power of female homosocial relationships in the nineteenth century. All of Carmilla’s predecessors - Lord Ruthven, Varney, Melmoth - were men. Le Fanu’s creation of a woman vampire anticipates the shift toward the end of the century to predominantly female vampires. In both art and literature, women and specifically women’s bodies became progressively associated with the vampire. One explanation for this shift, as Carol Senf points out, is the “growing awareness of women’s power and influence... [as] feminists began to petition for additional rights for women. Concerned with women’s power and influence, writers... often responded by creating powerful women characters, the vampire being one of the most powerful negative images.” But women’s potential power alone does not fully explain the proliferation of women vampires. The female body itself was demonized. According to Sian Macfie, “the function or dysfunction of the female body was juxtaposed with notions of the perceived threat of vampirism... [and these notions] were largely based upon a sense of women’s association with blood [as a result of menstruation]. However, the idea of female vampirism also came to be understood in a more figurative sense. In addition to the idea of literal contagion of the blood, vampirism came to be associatively linked to the notion of moral contagion and especially with the ‘contamination’ of lesbianism.” Citing Havelock Ellis, who hypothesized that “homosexuality... occurs with special frequency in women of high intelligence who... influence others,” Macfie concludes that “the notion of vampirism also came to be used metaphorically to refer to a social phenomenon, the ‘psychic sponge.’ The psychic sponge was understood to be a woman who was perceived [as] a drain on the energy and [the] emotional and intellectual resources of her companions.” As a result of women’s perceived link with vampirism, by the late nineteenth century “close female bonding and lesbianism are conflated with notions of the unhealthy draining of female vitality.”

“Carmilla“ is the vampire tale that most readily defines the established patriarchal systems of kinship discussed above and that most provokingly challenges nineteenth-century notions of the “contamination of lesbianism“ and the female “psychic sponge.“ Florence Marryat’s The Blood of the Vampire (1897) depicts an equally interesting lesbian vampire relation, offering insights into fin-de-siecle stereotypes of female sexuality and gendered identity, but Le Fanu’s tale is the first to investigate disruptive lesbian desire. Although “Carmilla“’s denouement is ambiguous, Le Fanu refrains from heavy-handed moralizing, leaving open the possibility that Laura’s and Carmilla’s vampiric relationship is sexually liberating and for them highly desirable. The ontological change in Laura between the beginning of the narrative and the end is never reversed, suggesting that her shifting desires are, for her, healthy and vital.

Le Fanu originally published “Carmilla” in the short-lived Victorian periodical The Dark Blue, then added the prologue and included the tale in In a Glass Darkly, five unrelated narratives held together by the figure of Dr. Hesselius, a student of psychic phenomena whose case histories make up these stories. Not only “the greatest” of Le Fanu’s works, “Carmilla” is also the most daring. It depicts a society where men increasingly become relegated to powerless positions while women assume aggressive roles. Le Fanu pushes his male characters, who lose all control over their women, towards the edge of his narrative. Ineffectual in either understanding or treating Styria’s baffling (female) “malady,” Le Fanu’s men suffer exclusion from male kinship systems because they are unable to exchange women. Instead, women control their own exchange, prompting W. J. McCormack to observe that in “Carmilla” “feminine nature is powerful, destructively powerful, and its objects become hypnotized (or hyperstatically controlled) in its power.” Le Fanu untethers “destructively powerful” feminine nature in “Carmilla” and refuses to thether it by the end of his story.

Part II is here.

[nebris]

Hating Valerie Solanas (And Loving Violent Men)

by Chavisa Woods 

My fourth book, and first full-length work of nonfiction will be released by Seven Stories Press in June. 100 Times (A Memoir of Sexism) is a 240-page memoir, written as in-scene vignettes, telling the stories of one hundred experiences of sexist discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual violence I have personally experienced and witnessed, beginning at age five, through the present day.

I recently shared an excerpt of this book on social media, and immediately an old friend who I’d long ago lost touch with, a man from the Midwest, began arguing with me, and compared me to Valerie Solanas. I could tell from the tone of his comment, he expected me to recoil at the mention of that name — Valerie Solanas — the direst of insults; queer female hysterical violent “femi-nazi” insanity personified. This name was meant to summon shame in me, like invoking some Goetic demon to bate and restrain my crazed feminism.

He’s not the only one who sees her that way. When so many people think Valerie Solanas, they think, “bat-shit crazy, violent, murderous, ridiculous, woman.”

In a recent season of the popular television show, American Horror Story, for instance, Solanas was depicted by Lena Dunham as a demented serial killer who led a cult of murderous feminists to kill heterosexual couples — kids hooking up in cars, happy newlyweds and such — in a bloody, nationwide feminist murder spree. This, of course, is a completely fictional narrative, and for the purposes of this show, Solanas’s epitomal work, The Scum Manifesto, was interpreted as a literal, earnest text. Dunham portrayed Solanas as a frumpy, grumpy, clownish homicidal lesbian.

In the mainstream media and collective consciousness, Solonas has been written off as a worthless artist, and remembered only for her violent act against Andy Warhol.

All of this got me thinking about unconscious bias, and what it takes for us to denounce a female artist’s historical worth, versus what it does for a man.

William Burroughs shot and killed his wife while drunk and high, playing a game they called “William Tell,” wherein his wife placed an apple on her head, and he shot it off. He missed, killed her, and later wrote about it, implying it was possible he subconsciously wanted to kill her, because he was gay and resented having a wife. He served only two weeks in jail for this slaughter. Because the homicide occurred in Mexico, and through a combination of bribery and fleeing the country, he avoided serving any prison sentence.

Burroughs, of course, is still widely celebrated as a great author. I, in fact, had a poem published in a literary magazine a few years ago, the cover adorned with a photograph of him holding a rifle. This image was considered darkly humorous.

Almost every other author I’ve spoken with about the ethics of celebrating Burroughs and his art points me in the direction of compassion; he had a drug problem, he and his wife were “in it together.”

After the murder of his wife, he served as a member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters. His body of work still remains relevant, is widely taught in English and Writing curriculum in colleges, and is written about reverently in current scholarly articles and in major media outlets worldwide. He is generally thought of as good man. In his bio on Wikipedia, the slaughter of his wife doesn’t even come in until the sixth paragraph. (I am citing Wikipedia, because it represents the most current, popular, collective opinions of the general public, not as a scholarly reference.)

Valerie Solanas, on the other hand, shot Andy Warhol, not killing him, but severely injuring him. He died twenty years later from health complications possibly exacerbated by the injury, as well as a speed addiction.

Solanas and Warhol had a documented horrible working/personal relationship, rife with insult. She saw Warhol as constantly demeaning her privately and publicly, even after featuring her in one of his films.

Warhol agreed to look at a play she’d written, possibly to produce it. She gave him the only manuscript to read, and he (claimed he) lost it, though she believed he threw it away to spite her. This was the catalyst for the shooting.

Pablo Neruda raped a servant while he was visiting her country as a diplomat. He wrote about it quite matter-of-factly and unapologetically in his memoirs (I Confess that I have Lived, first published in 1974, in English in 1977):

One morning, I woke earlier than is my custom. I hid in the shadows to watch who passed by. From the back of the house, like a dark statue that walked, the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen in Ceylon entered, Tamil race, Pariah caste. She wore a red and gold sari of the cheapest cloth. On her unshod feet were heavy anklets. On each side of her nose shone two tiny red points. They were probably glass, but on her they looked like rubies.

She solemnly approached the toilet without giving me the slightest look, without acknowledging my existence, and disappeared with the sordid receptacle on her head, retreating with her goddess steps. She was so beautiful that despite her humble job, she left me disturbed. As if a wild animal had come out from the jungle, belonging to another existence, a separate world. I called to her with no result.

I then would leave some gift on her path, some silk or fruit. She would pass by without hearing or looking. Her dark beauty turned that miserable trip into the obligatory ceremony of an indifferent queen.

One morning, I decided to go for all, and grabbed her by the wrist and looked her in the face. There was no language I could speak to her. She allowed herself to be led by me smilelessly and soon was naked upon my bed. Her extremely slender waist, full hips, the overflowing cups of her breasts, made her exactly like the thousands year old sculptures in the south of India. The encounter was like that of a man and a statue. She kept her eyes open throughout, unmoved. She was right to regard me with contempt. The experience was not repeated.

No one remembers him for this.

Charles Bukowski is on video kicking and punching his girlfriend during an interview about his writing, and was said to have been physically abusive to multiple female partners. He is still celebrated worldwide as a great poet.

Louis Althusser strangled his wife to death in an act of cold-blooded murder. In his Wikipedia bio, he’s described as, “A French Marxist philosopher, whose arguments and theses were set against the threats that he saw attacking the theoretical foundations of Marxism.”

As I write this, the murder of his wife doesn’t receive mention until the last paragraph, and then it simply says, “Althusser’s life was marked by periods of intense mental illness. In 1980, he killed his wife, the sociologist Hélène Rytmann, by strangling her.”

He is widely celebrated. The murder of his wife is mentioned only in the context of his mental illness.

Valerie Solanas suffered from Schizophrenia. She was also a victim of childhood incest. Her father repeatedly raped her, and then she was sent to live with her grandparents as a teenager, and then her grandfather raped her, and then she ran away from home and became a sex worker.

The shooting of Andy Warhol is currently the first sentence of her Wikipedia bio. She is widely regarded and repeatedly portrayed as a worthless, angry, bat-shit crazy piece of human garbage. Where is this compassion that we are asked to have for male artists, for her?

She was a brilliant artist. The SCUM Manifesto is a masterwork of literary protest art, which is often completely misread. Much of it is actually a point-by-point re-write of multiple of Freud’s writings. It is a parody.

In his essay The Psychogenesis Of A Case Of Homosexuality In A Woman, Freud suggests that a good treatment for lesbians would be having their (most likely already hermaphroditic) ovaries, and genitals removed and replaced with grafted “real” female genitals.

Freud’s exact words:

The cases of male homosexuality which (have) been successful fulfilled the condition, which is not always present, of a very patent physical ‘hermaphroditism’. Any analogous treatment of female homosexuality is at present quite obscure. If it were to consist in removing what are probably hermaphroditic ovaries, and in grafting others, which are hoped to be of a single sex, there would be little prospect of its being applied in practice. A woman who has felt herself to be a man, and has loved in masculine fashion, will hardly let herself be forced into playing the part of a woman…

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas posits that a good “treatment” for straight men is to get their dicks chopped off: “When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (males as well as females think men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a drag queen) and gets his dick chopped off. He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from ‘being a woman’. Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female.”

Freud’s texts are rife with suggestions of female castration and hysterectomies as treatments for all sorts of psychological troubles suffered by women, and in response, The SCUM Manifesto is infamous for suggesting castration might improve the behavior of men.

Freud posited that heterosexual women are sexually passive, engaging in sex only because they want children. He invented the theory of “penis envy.” He claimed that because girls do not have  penises, girls come to believe they have lost their penises, and eventually, seek to have male children in an attempt “to gain a penis.” He believed women, on some deep, subconscious level, viewed themselves as castrated males. In his theory of psychosexual development he posited that for women, sex (with males) may also be a subconscious attempt to gain a penis.

In his essay, The Taboo of Virginity, Freud writes: “We have learnt from the analysis of many neurotic women that they go through an early age in which they envy their brothers, their sign of masculinity and feel at a disadvantage and humiliated because of the lack of it (actually because of its diminished size) in themselves. We include this ‘envy for the penis’ in the ‘castration complex’.”

Solanas, replaces the envy of the penis, not only with envy of the vagina, but most often, with women’s emotional openness, complexity and individuality as the focus of men’s envy. She writes of men: “The female’s individuality, which he is acutely aware of, but which he doesn’t comprehend, and isn’t capable of relating to or grasping emotionally, frightens and upsets him and fills him with envy. “

At the time of the writing of The SCUM Manifesto, Freud was a celebrated figure in psychology, and his theories were being widely touted in academic and popular spheres alike. Solanas took issue with this, and wrote The SCUM Manifesto as a parody, mocking the popular, sexist, and hetero-centric thinking on gender and sexuality at the time. But the text is a reversal. In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas directs everything Freud said with an equal amount of vigor and confidence back at men. So, instead of “female motherhood” being a primary drive, she reverses this to attack/analyze the “male sex drive” through the same line of thinking as Freud.

In his essay, Leonardo Da-Vinci and a Memory of His Childhood, Freud hypothesizes that homosexuality in men stems from their relationship with their father and mother. He proposes that homosexuality (which he assumes is a bad thing) is caused by a relationship with a mother who is too tender to her son (as in all his texts, he repeatedly states that children are naturally sexually attracted to their parents of the opposite sex), and a mother who is, at the same time, too assertive and independent in relation to her own husband (the boy’s father.) This causes the boy to see his mother figure, who’s also an object of his  sexual desire in childhood, as a man, not a woman. And this makes the boy gay. He writes:

In all our male homosexual cases the subjects had had a very intense erotic attachment to a female person, as a rule their mother, during the first period of childhood, which is afterwards forgotten; this attachment was evoked or encouraged by too much tenderness on the part of the mother herself, and further reinforced by the small part played by the father during their childhood. Sadger emphasizes the fact that the mothers on his homosexual patients were frequently masculine women, women with energetic traits of character, who were able to push the father out of his proper place. I have occasionally seen the same thing, but I was more strongly impressed by cases in which the father was absent from the beginning or left the scene at an early date, so that the boy found himself left entirely under feminine influence. Indeed it almost seems as though the presence of a strong father would ensure that thee son made the correct decision in his choice of object, namely someone of the opposite sex.

In The SCUM Manifesto, Solanas takes this analysis and flips it on its head through an extreme feminist lens, where becoming a “real (straight) man” is already assumed to be a bad thing. She writes: “The effect of fatherhood on males, specifically is to make them, ‘Men,’ that is, highly defensive of all impulses to passivity, faggotry, and of desires to be female. Every boy wants to imitate his mother, be her, fuse with her. So he tells the boy, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, not to be a sissy, to act like a ‘Man.’ The boy, scared shitless of and respecting his father, complies, and becomes just like Daddy, that model of ‘Man’-hood, the all-American ideal — the well-behaved heterosexual dullard.”

While Freud accuses the mother of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a homosexual, Solanas accuses the father of being to blame for the horrible fate of a boy becoming a straight man.

As you can see from the above, The SCUM Manifesto in many places is an almost line-by-line mockery of Freud’s writings on women and homosexuals, and was never meant to be read as a literal, earnest text throughout. This does not mean it is intended as a joke or to be taken lightly, though. As some may have noticed in the above text, it is not without serious, meaningful and resonant critiques of patriarchal institutions. There is a lot of truth in this parody. It is a political satire. It is simultaneously dead serious, yet written with a nod and a wink. In keeping with the protest art of the time, if you didn’t get it, she wasn’t going to explain it to you. She was happy to make cocky comments, like, “I mean every word of it,” knowing, and indeed, hoping that the “squares” who didn’t understand the sarcasm inherent to the foundation of the text, would be that much more shocked at her effrontery.

Valerie Solanas just said, in a modernized (now dated) vernacular, exactly what Freud had said about women, only about men, and everyone freaked out, because when we talk about men the same way men have talked about women for centuries, it reads as grotesque and insanely violent, un-compassionate, and shocking, which was exactly her point.

Her work is still misinterpreted as a literal text by many to this day.

After shooting Andy Warhol, Solanas turned herself in to the police. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a gun. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and pleaded guilty to “reckless assault with intent to harm,” serving a three-year prison sentence, including treatment in a psychiatric hospital. In a darkly ironic twist of fate she was subjected to a nonconsensual hysterectomy during her hospitalization. Shortly after her release from prison, she became homeless, and never published another work.

Michael Alig, known for being a famous party promoter and club kid in the 1980s (in the film about his life, Party Monster, he was played by Macaulay Culkin), brutally murdered his friend, Andre “Angel” Melendez, over an argument about a drug debt.

Alig cut his friend up into pieces and threw him in the Hudson River. He’s been released from prison and is currently working as a club promoter in New York City.

Since his release, he’s also appeared in an indie film with artists I know personally, called Vamp Bikers, in which Alig plays a homicidal sociopath who slowly, brutally murders his friend.

I accidentally watched this at a film screening I attended in Brooklyn years ago, having no idea what I was getting into. It made me want to throw up, seeing him happily take part in a campy fictional portrayal of a murder so similar to the one he actually committed, and being celebrated for this. Many people around me were excitedly saying they hoped that Alig might attend the screening.

His website, michaelalig.com describes him as an “artist, writer, curator.” You can hire him to produce your party, or buy one of his many pop art paintings for $500 a pop.

I think this is all abhorrent. I’ve had debates with friends over this, and have been asked, “Well, he served his time. Shouldn’t we have compassion? He was young and on a lot of drugs when he did that. Don’t you think he should get a second chance?”

Perhaps. Perhaps a chance at living as a free person again, yes, perhaps that, but definitely not a chance to be celebrated for being the famous club kid who murdered his friend. And it’s not lost on me that the person he murdered was a poor, lesser known gay man of color, and I wonder if he would have gotten out of prison so early if he’d been the one who murdered Michael.

Perhaps more shocking than this, is the life and reception of essayist and novelist Norman Mailer. When speaking about feminism and women’s liberation Norman Mailer said: “We must face the simple fact that maybe there’s a profound reservoir of cowardess in women that had them welcome this miserable, slavish life.”

In his book Advertisements for Myself, Mailer claims that a writer without “balls” is no writer at all:

I have a terrible confession to make — I have nothing to say about any of the talented women who write today. Out of what is no doubt a fault in me, I do not seem able to read them. Indeed, I doubt if there will be a really exciting woman writer until the first whore becomes a call girl and tells her tale. At the risk of making a dozen devoted enemies for life, I can only say that the sniffs I get from the ink of the women are always fey, old-hat, Quaintsy Goysy, tiny, too dykily psychotic, crippled, creepish, fashionable, frigid, outer-Baroque, maquillé in mannequin’s whimsy, or else bright and stillborn. Since I’ve never been able to read Virginia Woolf, and am sometimes willing to believe that it can conceivably be my fault, this verdict may be taken fairly as the twisted tongue of a soured taste, at least by those readers who do not share with me the ground of departure — that a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.

I would argue that Norman Mailer spoke and wrote just as violently, grotesquely and shockingly about women as Valerie Solanas did about men. But he was not saying any of these things or writing his sexist texts as a parody or protest of his own subjugation.

Norman Mailer is still widely celebrated for both his fiction and essays, including numerous works that take a stand adamantly against feminism and women in general. In 1968 and 1980 he won the Pulitzer Prize. In 2005, he won the National Book Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 1960, he attempted to murder his wife by stabbing her multiple times in the chest, barely missing her heart.

While his wife lay in the hospital in critical condition, a day after the stabbing, Mailer appeared in a scheduled interview on The Mike Wallace Show, where he spoke of the knife as a symbol of manhood. He was briefly arrested two days later, though his wife refused to press charges, saying that she feared for the safety of their children if she did so. She did, however divorce him once she recovered.

The parallels between Mailer and Solanas are as astonishing as their differences. The only reason I can find for the differences in how they are popularly viewed is that Mailer was a man, speaking and acting violently against women in a sexist society, and Solanas was a woman, doing the reverse in this same society.

I can’t help but conjure Solanas’s legacy when looking at the current questions that keep popping up on the subject of violence, art, and who we celebrate today. Do we forgive Louis C.K. for serially masturbating on countless women he worked with? What does forgiveness mean? Does it mean he continues to enjoy the same level of reverence and celebrity as before? Can we still enjoy Michael Jackson’s music knowing that he had ongoing sexual relationships with what seems to be an endless stream of young boys? Should we still be patronizing Woody Allen’s films? Is it alright to feel heartbroken over the loss of the Bill Cosby so many knew and loved? What of the beautiful works of so many beloved male authors I have spoken about above?

I do not have clear answers to these questions, nor do I think there is one rule of response that is correct for every situation, but I do know that the social hammer has come down hard on women who commit similar acts of violence, especially when those acts are directed at men. I do know that sexist bias has judged one of my artistic heroes much more harshly than her male counterparts.

I do not condone or celebrate Valerie Solanas’s shooting of Andy Warhol. But when people bring up Valerie Solanas as if she is a horrendous, murderous, bat-shit crazy, worthless, hysterical, violent criminal whose literary artwork is as valuable as the ramblings of a madwoman, suggesting that she should be written off as nothing more, I always think to myself, “Well, that’s exactly what she would have expected from this society.” Much less has changed since she first released the book in 1967, than I would have hoped. Those opening lines still remain eerily significant: “Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.”

http://www.full-stop.net/2019/05/21/features/chavisa-woods/solanas/

[buzzdixonwriter]

Stan Lee [1922 – 2018]

Stan the Man.

. . .

I tell people that after four guys with Liverpudlian accents, the greatest influencers of pop culture in America in the 1960s were four editors.

A lot of us looked on them as uncles -- and an aunt -- who served as inspirations / role models / guideposts / influencers during our lives, especially our impressionable preteen through early adult years.

Uncle Hugh was the worldly bon vivant:  Suave, sophisticated, erudite, hip.  He showed us what it meant to be a grown up even if our parents disapproved of his lifestyle.

Aunt Helen was kind of Uncle Hugh’s female opposite number, trash talked a bit because she was a female and “women just shouldn’t behave that way” but y’know what, every family needs an eccentric-bordering-crazy aunt and she was America’s.

Especially for tens of millions of young women and girls to whom she demonstrated  there wasn’t just one lifepath stretching before them but thousands.

Uncle Forry showed us it was okay to be obsessive and geeky about weird interests and, contrary to our parents’ advice, to seek community with others who shared those interests.  Okay, so maybe there was something a little odd, a little off about him, but he showed us how the magic was made, and thus steered thousands of us into creative careers.

And Uncle Stan?  Uncle Stan was the avuncular raconteur, the enthusiastic cheerleader crackling with energy, the slick yet charming salesman so good at his job it never seemed like he was selling anything even when he was most blatant about it.  He got us excited about what he was selling, and unlike our other uncles and aunt, he would drop by once a week with some new adventures to share with us.

He was our storyteller, our mythmaker, and in a very real sense, our prophet.

I’ll leave it for you to decide if he was a false one or not.

. . .

Luck matters.

Talent is tremendous, perseverance a plus, and skill a must, but it’s better to be lucky than good.

Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in 1922, the son of a working class immigrant New York couple. He grew up in a manner very typical for New Yorkers and Americans of that era, struggling through the Great Depression, catching odd jobs where he could find them, finally landing a gig as a nepotist at a company owned by the husband of a cousin.

That cousin’s husband was Martin Goodman, and the company was Marvel (nee Timely) Comics.

If it had been a dress making factory we would have never heard of him.

. . .

Decades later, The Cannon Group -- that slapdash conglomeration of ruthless ambition and genuine love of cinema held together by the thinnest threads of artistic ability -- released their version of Captain America and erroneously attributed the character as “created by Stan Lee”.

To his honor, Stan was embarrassed by this gaffe and when asked would be quick to cite Jack Kirby and Joe Simon as the actual creators.

Stan entered the then nascent Marvel Universe early in 1941 with issue three of the Captain America comic book, penning a two page text story:  Captain America Foils The Traitor's Revenge

And credit where credit is due:  From the very beginning of his creative association with Marvel, he was adding innovative ideas (in this case, the first instance of Cappy using his shield as a frisbee to attack bad guys).

But that was far from the most important thing young Stanley Lieber created in that story.

The bigger, more important, far more influential invention?

Stan Lee

. . .

Take a moment to understand how important writers were in American culture between the two world wars.

Hemingway kicked over the anthill.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis probed deep down through the upper crust into the American psyche, John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair did the same in the opposite direction with their stories of working class people.

Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler looked at the underbelly of American cities while William Faulkner dug deep in the old south.

Anita Loos and Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley and James Thurber and even irascible Alexander Woollcott brought sunshine and laughter.

These people were not just celebrities, they were looked upon as key influencers and trend setters, seeing where the culture was going and commenting on it, illuminating the way forward for the rest of us.

And that’s not counting the hundreds of other authors who wrote popular books and magazines, who filled the best seller lists with novels that became hit movies.

The American people read and they read a lot.  Every week The Saturday Evening Post would deliver a half dozen top flight stories and articles to your home.  Liberty and Collier’s and McCall’s and The Ladies’ Home Journal and Redbook would also bring dozens of well written stories to you, and that’s not counting the vast pulp market or publications like Reader’s Digest and The Saturday Review and The New Yorker which offered literary criticism not for a high brow elite coastal urban audience but for Americans all across the country.

We read more, and thanks to pre-TV radio we listened more, not sitting passively as images washed over us.

Being a writer was a big deal back in those days, even if it wasn’t the most reputable of professions.

My father wanted to be a writer, but after the Korean War he put that aside and started working in a dress factory.

You’ve never heard of him.

. . .

Like many young people between the two world wars, Stanley Martin Lieber harbored literary ambitions.

He’d written for his school newspaper, did some small scale copywriting for neighborhood advertisers, and briefly worked with the W.P.A. Theater Project as well as a couple of other entry level jobs typical then and now for teens after school or on weekends.

His initial employment at Timely Comics was pure schlub work:  Sharpen the pencils, refill the ink wells, erase the pencil lines once the inkers were done.

I can easily imagine him pestering Joe Simon, co-creator and editor of Captain America, until Simon finally said, “Sure, kid, write a two page story for me” just to get him out of his hair.

(Sidebar:  Back in the early days of comics, there was some question whether they qualified for the cheaper second class periodical mailing rates.  The formula of two text pages per comic took root as the minimum number needed for a publication to get that postal designation, so that’s why there are literally tens of thousands of crappy short-short stories in old comic books; they just had to be text, they didn’t have to be good.)

When Stanley Martin Lieber turned in Captain America Foils The Traitor's Revenge, he didn’t put his name on it.

He was saving that for his big / important / serious work.

Rather, he put his pen name on it:  “Stan Lee”

. . .

In all fairness, young Stanley Martin Lieber proved a fast study.

Within a year he was writing then creating back-up features for the various comic titles Timely published.

When the powerhouse creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left Timely towards the end of 1941, Martin Goodman installed Stanley Martin Lieber as the company’s new editor.

He was 19 at the time.

Now, while that is a laudable accomplishment, it’s also not as impressive as it sounds.

Low rent entertainment companies operate like assembly line factories:  The creative talent throws their work into the hopper at one end, the distributor hauls the finished product out at the other.

If the basic structure is sound, it doesn’t need a lot of attention to function smoothly.

Proof of this is that almost no sooner had Stanley Martin Lieber been promoted to editor than he was drafted, and from early 1942 to mid-1945, while he was in uniform, Timely Comics chugged along quite nicely in his absence.

At the end of the war and his military service, Stanley Martin Lieber made a fateful decision: He went back to work for his cousin’s husband.

. . .

To understand much of Stan’s career and later years, you have to look at his mid-1940s mind set.

Stan had never really worked for a living.

As noted, all his earlier jobs had been teenage entry level work.

While he was happy to have the income and helped with his family’s finances, he never had to support himself, much less a family of his own.  

Compare this to Simon and Kirby, who had hit the streets and hit ‘em hard during the Depression, scrambling for every odd job they could find, building their portfolio and reputation while supporting themselves.

There sat in the hearts and minds of the freelance writers and artists he employed a certain tough confidence that Stan never enjoyed.

His freelancers and co-workers who, like Simon and Kirby, would and could take principled stands were forever citizens of another country, another land that Stan could only gaze upon wistfully but never enter himself.

Draw your own Moses parallel.

. . .

If returning to Martin Goodman’s employ was a fateful decision for Stan, it was certainly a financially sound one.

Like many vets, he married soon after the war ended, in this case to Joan Clayton Boocock, a British hat model working in New York.

Of the many improbable things in Stan’s life, few are as improbable as this odd romance.  The couple enjoyed a very happy and long, long life together.

Seventy years married.

We should all be so lucky

But the blessing of this marriage was clouded by Stan’s anxiety over providing for his family.

He worked hard to support his wife and daughter.

But he never had the courage or confidence to look elsewhere.

When he married Joan, for all intents and purposes Stan married Marvel as well.

. . .

While comics publishing in general and superheroes in particular did well during World War Two, the market changed drastically afterwards.

Superheroes faded fast, replaced by true crime and horror comics.

Even super patriot Captain America went the horror root with the last two issues of his book being retitled Captain America's Weird Tales before being retired in 1949.

The true crime and horror craze was soon scuttled due to Dr. Frederic Wertham and the subsequent Comics Code.  

Timely renamed itself Atlas, and for the 1950s Stan busied himself on a variety of titles: Westerns, funny animals, teen, nurse (yes, there was a market for nurse comics), romance, teen nurse romance, and monster (a highly sanitized kid friendly version of the now banned horror comics).

He also got to know and work with an astonishing array of freelance talent:  Jack Kirby (now bouncing from project to project), Steve Ditko, John Romita Sr., Marie Severin, Gil Kane, and Wally Wood among others.

He enhanced his income with an odd assortment of side projects, including a comic strip based on a radio show and a pamphlet on how to write comic books.

Stan joked that he was just Goodman’s interim editor, that he would leave Timely-now-Atlas the moment a better gig showed up.

Stan didn’t look for a better gig.

The better gig came looking for him.

. . .

There are numerous versions of how Marvel Comics came about.

They all start with the Justice League over at DC.

As noted, after World War Two superhero comics faded and faded fast.

All the superhero titles vanished except for Action Comics (featuring Superman), Detective Comics (featuring Batman and Robin), and the occasional Wonder Woman cover story published by DC.

And the reason those three titles stayed in print was that if DC failed to publish them, they would either lose the license (in the case of Wonder Woman) or open themselves to the possibility of their creators reclaiming them.

And greedy scum that they are -- hey, these are comic books we’re talking about, a.k.a. the sleaziest industry on earth -- DC wasn’t about to let those properties go.

Despite efforts by other companies to relaunch superheroes (including a failed attempt by Stan and Atlas with Captain America in 1954), the kids just weren’t buying.

But in 1959 DC comics reintroduced Aquaman and Green Lantern, added their revamped but lackluster Flash, plucked the Martian Manhunter from the sci-fi bin, and added them to their big three (or 3.5 if you count Robin) as the Justice League of America in a one shot story.

To their delight, they captured lightning in a bottle (or at least on the pages of a badly printed comic).

Now, there are three primary variants in the Marvel rebirth story.

The first is that while Martin Goodman was golfing with Jack Liebowitz of DC, Liebowitz couldn’t help bragging on the Justice League’s success and Goodman went back to the office and told Stan to come up with something similar.

The second is that Stan had noticed the success of Justice League and suggested it to Goodman when they were brainstorming ideas for Atlas.

The third is that Goodman was on the verge of shutting Atlas down, the offices were already being packed up, Stan was in a dither, and Jack Kirby told him to relax, they’d figure out a way of staying in business before Goodman lowered the boom for good.

What really happened?

Who knows…

Kirby’s version certainly sounds more in character for the men involved, but the paper trail points somewhere between the Goodman and Stan versions.

Maybe (probably?) some combination of all three, with each participant remembering only the part that seemed most important to them.

Whatever the true impetus, a decade and a half writing, drawing, and editing romance / soap opera and goofy monster comics served Stan and Kirby well.

The unique gestalt of The Fantastic Four flew right in the face of DC’s “super friends” approach: This was a team of superheroes who had their own personal problems, who didn’t like each other all that much, and who had to spend as much time fighting their own personal discord as they did the supervillains that threatened them.

DC caught lightning in a bottle.

Marvel (formerly Atlas, and before that Timely) caught…a spark.

The popular history (and we’ll get into how that was shaped in a moment) is that The Fantastic Four and all the other Marvel titles were huge hits from the git-go, steam rolling over all opposition to dominate the industry.

Ehhh…not quite.

Insofar as they sold well and kept the doors open and attracted a good audience response and an appreciable amount of ancillary merchandising, yeah, that they did.

But DC outsold Marvel for most of the decade, including the roll out years when all their big characters / teams / franchises were introduced.

There’s a phrase I use: The jazz musician’s jazz musician.

I use it not to just specifically reference jazz but to point out the innovators who are doing highly influential cutting edge stuff that mainstream audiences just don’t get.

Those in the know -- other jazz musicians, or in the case of Marvel, other artists and writers and editors -- grasp what’s happening immediately, but it isn’t until they begin reinterpreting it and filtering it through more audience familiar styles that the innovators’ true impact is felt.

And then, if they’re lucky, the innovators finally come into their own much later as the mainstream catches up to where they once were decades earlier.

Marvel didn’t exactly struggle, but they had to work hard to remain competitive during the 1960s -- and there was a lot of competition out there.

But the pay off came in the mid-1970s, when the young fans (and we’ll get to them, too) grew up and started entering the business.

I state this without equivocation:  All American comics from 1975 to the start of the manga boom in 2000 -- every single one of ‘em -- were direct or indirect responses to what Marvel had been doing from 1961 to 1967.

What part did Stan play in all this?

. . .

There are almost as many ways to create a comic book as there are comic book creators, but the two chief styles are DC full scripts and Marvel outlines.

At DC, writers handed in scripts broken down panel by panel, dialog included; the artist followed the script as closely as possible and made no major changes without editorial permission.

At Marvel, Stan would discuss a story idea with a writer or sometimes directly with the artist.  At most this would result in a short outline (three pages max for a full length comic) that laid out the basic idea of the story, described the characters and conflict, and gave some idea how things should wrap up.  The artist then broke down and laid out the story by themselves; the editor would either add dialog themselves or send a Xerox copy to the writer for them to come up with dialog.

If you have a proficient hard working art crew, the Marvel method lets you produce a lot of comics very fast, and relatively cheaper since the editor and artist can knock out a story idea over coffee, thus sidestepping the writer for at least the first half of the process.

Stan and his artists had been working this way for a decade and a half.

They knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, how to play into the former and avoid the latter.

Any competent bullpen can produce comics this way.

The Marvel bullpen had a lot of good, talented artists.

But it also had

J*A*C*K FREAKIN’ K*I*R*B*Y

The most interesting, the most innovative work in any art form gets done around the edges where the gatekeepers are loath to visit.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, knock yourself out, just have it done by Thursday…”

Low budget filmmakers, late night TV, garage bands, cruddy comedy clubs, fanzines, these are venues where the cutting edge bleeds, where most of the stuff is crap because nobody cares but because somebody cares part of it is dynamite.

Jack Kirby cared, and cared a lot about comics.

So did Steve Ditko.

So did Jim Steranko.

Stan was smart enough to see that and get out of the way.

. . .

So what part of Marvel’s success can be attributed to Stan?

Based on what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard, and what I know, I’d say anywhere from as little as 20% to as much as 33 1/3% of any specific title reflects Stan’s input.

Stan was no dummy, Stan had talent, Stan had skill, Stan had good ideas.

But Stan also had little time and even less help.

He’d throw the idea at the artists and the artists would throw their execution back.

Stan, to varying degrees, would refine the story in the dialog stage so that it fit in consistently with the rest of the titles they were publishing.

But the success of Marvel as an entity?

That’s 80% Stan’s doing.

. . .

I said Kirby and Ditko and Steranko loved comics.

Stan did, too, but he loved Stan even more.

He’d spent half his life laboring in relative anonymity.  

His dreams of a serious literary career had come to naught.

His resume’ consisted solely of working for his cousin’s husband’s middling successful comic book company.

He lacked the courage and confidence that the artists in his bullpen possessed, courage and confidence they’d acquired by knocking on doors and chasing after jobs.

In 1961 he stood on the edge of middle age, with nothing significant to show for himself.

And while The Fantastic Four and Thor and The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man may not have equaled the successes at DC, they sure were more than anything he’d experienced before.

And by promoting them, he also promoted himself.

The Marvel method made lengthy continuities and crossovers easier to execute than DC’s formally scripted method.  His lack of time led to multi-part stories and to setting those stories not in mythical Metropolis or Gotham City in real life New York so he wouldn’t have to provide artists with references.

These lengthy continuities and crossovers, as opposed to DC’s standalone stories, got Marvel readers to pick up more and more titles, and to become more and more deeply involved in the Marvel Universe.

Stan interacted with these fans of Marvel comics (and they were enthusiastic, if not numerous).  His column, Stan’s Bullpen, came out every week, whenever a new Marvel Comic hit the stands.  He handed out No-Prizes to sharp eyed fans who spotted errors, getting those fans to read even more Marvel Comics.

“Face front, true believer! Excelsior!”

. . .

For all his delight in leading the fans in The Merry Marvel Marching Society, Stan didn’t lead his bullpen with the same enthusiasm.

Something transpired between him and Ditko.  Ditko famously came in with the finished art for Spider-Man #38, dropped the pages on the desk of Stan’s secretary, said, “That’s that!” and walked out, never to darken Marvel’s doors again.

A few years later, as Marvel characters began booming in popularity and raking in licensing deals, Kirby approached Stan and suggested they present a unified front to Marvel’s owners to demand a slice of the pie they were generating for the company.

Stan asked for some time to mull the prospect over…

…and immediately raced to Martin Goodman and signed a long term contract stating that all the work and characters he and Kirby had created for Marvel were done under a work-for-hire contract, and that the company owed no shares or royalties to either of them.

Kirby left Marvel and, ever the jazz musician’s jazz musician, went over to DC and created new comic book series for them.

Marvel’s onerous work-for-hire contract (essentially by endorsing one’s paycheck one signed away all rights to work one had done) came under legal scrutiny, and when changes in US copyright law created the potential for the Kirby estate to sue to recover the copyright on the characters he had co-created, Marvel sued the estate to prevent them from going to court.

The Kirby estate was blocked again and again in their effort to regain their right to sue, but when the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the case Marvel capitulated rather than run the risk they might win the right to sue and might prevail.

When Stan would go on vacation, Marvel employees would tremble.

Stan hated personal confrontations, and rather than fire someone face-to-face, when he would go on vacation it would befall some other member of Marvel management to discharge the employee.

(Stan would feign ignorance when he came back, and would promise to “see what I can do” to help the discharged employee, but of course that never happened.)

. . .

Stan’s hard work promoting Marvel as a brand paid off, and by the mid-1970s he and the company were dominating comics sales.

Ancillary merchandising and marketing varied from year to year as audience interest ebbed and flowed, but Stan was always quick to make sure his name got mentioned in every press release, his cameo in every live action movie and TV show.

And to be truthful, it was hard not to like Stan.

He bubbled over with energy and enthusiasm, he tirelessly promoted Marvel (and himself), and constantly engaged with fans.

For me, one of the highlights of my professional career was to pass Stan in the hallway of Marvel Productions in the early 1980s and to have him recognize me and call me by name.

I felt I had arrived.

Stan’s daily involvement with Marvel diminished over the years, first because he moved to California to make deals for Marvel movies and TV shows (not that many at that time), later because he no longer connected with the story telling style Marvel evolved into.

He formally split off from Marvel in the late 1990s (though retaining a healthy retainer from them) and got involved in a number of questionable ventures.

Our orbits intersected again during the short lived existence of Stan Lee Media (SLM), ostensibly his effort to create a new brand of superheroes for a new century, in reality a stock manipulation scheme that saw people sentenced to lengthy prison terms and the mastermind behind it fleeing to Brazil.

Stan, it should be pointed out, was as much a victim as Merrill Lynch in all this, but it also reflects a key shortcoming in his character.

I had, thanks to the intercession of Mark Evanier, been briefly employed as Stan’s vice-president of creative affairs for SLM.

From the beginning of our employment, I and most of Stan’s other staff wondered how SLM was supposed to make money, and couldn’t follow the business strategy of Peter Paul, the former lawyer turned convicted drug smuggler who had insinuated himself in Stan’s life.

Something was rotten in the state of California, and the more one questioned the wisdom of Paul’s strategy, the more likely one was to be shown the door.

When it became apparent my neck was next on the chopping block, advice from Steve Gerber and several other former Marvel employees helped me secure a nice severance deal. The advice they gave was to approach Stan first before he had to bring the matter up, point out the fit didn’t seem to be working, and allow Stan to fall over himself in his eagerness to settle the matter without any negative confrontation.  Which I did, and which he did, and we both came away happier for it.

Shortly after that, the company imploded as the stock manipulation became apparent, and Paul’s secondary scheme was revealed to use the same copyright provision Marvel and Stan fought against re the Kirby estate to lay claim to Marvel characters.

Stan moved on from there to POW! Entertainment, another effort to capitalize on Stan’s celebrity status, and while that company was legit, it did not generate the response they anticipated.

During that period, however, thousands of missing pages of Marvel artwork was discovered in a storage unit Stan rented.

The official story was that these pages had been accidentally scooped up when Stan left Marvel’s New York office, but that doesn’t pass the smell test.  Those pages were supposed to be returned to the original artists; selling them as collectibles was an ancillary form of income and one that comics publishers allowed (the art having been transferred to either print film or digital files by that point).

Another thing that didn’t pass the smell test was the “lost” original outline for the first Fantastic Four story, a one and a half page document that had been displayed under glass at SLM office.  The story of how it was “found” seems awfully suspect, and more than a few of us think it was a =ahem!= “recreation” typed up at a much later date.

POW! tried promoting him as a still viable, still vital creator, but anyone who had a meeting with him knew how much of his success rested on the talents of his co-creators. They tried promoting him as still current in pop culture, but he was too old and frail to sell that idea.

They actually tried circulating a “fake Stan Lee™”, an actor hired to go and do a Stan Lee impersonation at local conventions, but that idea quickly died an embarrassing death.

Eventually POW! and Stan dissolved their formal relationship, and POW! sold out to foreign investors, leaving Stan to his own devices. 

The man who always feared not having somebody to work for was finally on his own.

In his latter years, Stan appeared in the news again and again, this time as an elderly man abused by at least some of his caregivers.

Stan sure could pick ‘em, huh?

That’s not the sort of publicity anyone deserves to have, much less endure.  The abuse included dragging him around the country to conventions to promote…something.

Footage of him in a very disoriented state, being told how to sign his own name for autograph hounds who had just paid a hefty fee for same, outraged his fans, even those of us who recognized his complicity in his own misfortune. 

. . .

Uncle Hugh did not age well. For a man so worldly and debonair, he never recognized when it was time for him to leave the party.  After a while his hanging on became an embarrassment, like the old geezer trying to teach the young kids all the hot new dances such as the foxtrot and the twist.

Aunt Helen was more savvy in that respect, and she found that by stepping back a bit, she could wait for the occasional question to be directed at her, and for her answer to be taken seriously instead of with an eyeroll.

Uncle Forry was indeed a bit “off”, downright creepy in fact, and while much of his influence on others was for the good, a significant portion was not.  We look back and say “we shoulda known, we shoulda known” but the truth was he validated our interests when no one else would, and for that we were willing to overlook a multitude of sins.

And Uncle Stan?  He lived long enough to become a cautionary tale…

. . .

It’s impossible for me to dislike Stan.

Roz Kirby, Jack’s wife, hated him with an unholy passion, but she earned that right.

Steve Ditko clearly had an axe or three to grind, but he’s maintained his silence.

Steve Gerber had his friction points with Stan, but in the end bore him no animosity.

Another comics pro, when news broke of the discovery of the missing Marvel artwork, shook his head and said with a rueful smile, “Stan never fails to disappoint, doesn’t he?”

Stan the Man.

The man who was Marvel.

The mythmaker of modern superhero culture.

We want him to be as heroic, as noble as the heroes he wrote.

But he wasn’t.

He was all too typical of too many people.

Too anxious.

Too easily swayed.

Too eager to succeed.

Too quick to take short cuts.

He loved his wife.

He loved his daughter.

He was charming and gracious in person, and there are few meals I’ve shared that were more delightful than those SLM business lunches.

There was good in him, but not enough strength.

We want our heroes to be strong.

Stan the Man.

Stan the human.

R.I.P.

  © Buzz Dixon

[mentalcurls]

4. Il tuo ragazzo lo sa che ci scriviamo?

So, episode 4, our first glimpse of actual, real life, blood and bones Edoardo Incanti and the actual beginning of most of Eva’s troubles. For a hot minute I thought I wouldn’t actually have much to say about this episode, then Silvia happened and I wrote more than half a page about her. Keep reading for a discussion of catwalks, the first time Filippo Sava is mentioned ever and the results for the Bechdel test!

post sex cuddles for Eva and Gio is doing a staring contest

I like a woman who knows how to exploit a man’s weaknesses, like pulling the hair on his legs

wow, Gio’s subconscious must be a really weird place if that’s what he dreams about when it’s about Eva, her saying she wants to be a group of strangers’ slut, how edifying

“Oh, everyone calls her that [Osana bin Laden]” *grandma’s voice comes out of nowhere: “so if everyone went and jumped off a cliff would you follow them”?* *a wild Niccolò Fares dressed as Marty McFly teleports himself there from 3.5 Ammucchiate to make his “I’m disappointed by your generalizations” face at Gio*

I mean, Eva, maybe telling Gio Sana told you to break up with him won’t make him like her more, but that’s just my opinion

“Va bene, grazie, grazie mille, ciao, fantastico” Eva, that’s not how you pretend you’re not hiding something, that’s how you talk to the dentist’s secretary on the phone when you make an appointment

poor Gio, thrown out just in his underwear, no pants, no shoes, as if there wasn’t time to put them on at least when Eva could have simply gone to the bathroom and made a lot of noise to throw her mom off and let Gio leave with some dignity at least

I mean, that’s the guy who brings you crepes at 2 am Eva, you should treat him a bit better

“Oh God, Edoardo is here, don’t look” and all four of them look, like, C’MON!

I maintain that Edoardo/Giancarlo is cute, but nothing special, really, nothing worth having girls turn their heads for, especially when he snorts

that catwalk is nothing to turn your nose up at, tough

I was unsure about this for a bit because she doesn’t like that Gio doesn’t care that much about being widely accepted and considered cool at school, but Eva doesn’t care about being popular either, she simply wants positive female relationships with her peers, except that she was used to being one of the cool girls when she was friends with Laura, so some of that lingers

“Sometimes she reminds me of Cersei Lannister” only sometimes, Silvia?

Marti is wearing his blue jacket 😭

“Do you know a ‘Giulia Med’ on Instagram?” is this LudoBesse trying to plant some kind of Julian Dahl??? OMG

Eva laughs when Marti says that there’s a girl stalking him, but then she gets called a stalker herself and her face goes “Nope. Nope.”

poor Gio, he really has to fish for that invitation to dinner

I can’t imagine the anxiety very message from Canegallo gives her, because Giovanni is right there, and we know from his dismissive comment on Rocco Martucci to Silvia the previous episode (and Eva probably has known it far longer) that he doesn’t understand trying to get in with the cool clique, so he won’t get it, he’ll just assume the worst

not that Canegallo helps out with that. I get, you’re cool, you’re popular, you can have any girl you want and Eva is sending you mixed signals, so you’re pursuing her… except is all of that true? No! We already know almost nobody knew him at the Easter party cause Eva had look for him for ages, he has to have gotten that Eva didn’t go up to him because she’s into him, so the only “mixed signal” is the likes on Instagram, which is something a hundred girls have probably done before, Eva’s answers to hi DMs are vague… really, dude, don’t you see you’re projecting your own attraction onto her?

And anyways, why the fuck are you acting like such a creep? You’re “excited” she’s stalking you? Why has every girl who’s come before Eva let you get away with shit like that? Why doesn’t your girlfriend teach you any better? Oh wait, yeah, because that’s just boys being boys 🙄🙄🙄

Gio senses there’s something off… so why would you think Eva doesn’t sense something is off with you when you keep stuff from her?

Gio 😀 laughing 😀 at 😀 Eva’s 😀 new 😀 friends 😀 after 😀 pestering 😀 her 😀 to 😀 get 😀 new 😀 ones 😀 for 😀 ages 😀 I’m fine, really

those last few lines, when sex is treated as a bargaining chip and Eva’s mean for withholding it and Gio is considered whipped because he keeps things Eva has asked him not to say for himself… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Silvia’s absolute adoration for Eva for having managed in a day what she’s been trying to do for years (I’d bet at least since 2nd year, when Edoardo probably became cool) and get an in with the cool people. Poor child, how much did being your sister’s sister hurt you?

Sana’s “You all follow really predictable mating rules.” and Eleonora’s hesitation before saying “fregne” have the same energy. Yet neither of them backs off.

“Grigliamo la testa a Rodi”/”Let’s grill Rodi’s head” top notch group chat name (considering all the flak “Le matte” got from Gio earlier)

looking like “sfigate allucinanti”, the worst catastrophe that could possibly befall a group of outcast-ish girls who are widely considered losers already, seeing as one is a cheating whore, one is fat, one is hysterical, one is the new girl and then there’s Sana

“Everybody livin the vida loca in this group, huh?” Eva, you hate weed. You went on a crusade against your boyfriend because

Poor Silvia, panicking already. Sana, she doesn’t “talk a lot” she’s ANXIOUS, c’mon girl, you’re smarter than that

re: Silvia talking a lot and Silvia more in general, I couldn’t help but think of this post and the article it links to. Silvia is torn between being a cool girl, the one everyone adores, so the one who gets (in her idealized picture of it) all the respect, attention and love she craves, and being low-maintenance because she’s probably been taught that careful politeness of proper, refined girls, who don’t make scenes, always look perfect and never ask for too much (which has probably something to do with her sister Francesca as well). It doesn’t come naturally to her, so she ends up trying way too hard, sounding needy and talking too much and all the other things (mostly) Sana tells her to stop doing in the first few episodes.

And because she wants to get Edoardo, Silvia does her best to change herself into the low-maintenance girl: she’s fine with him just visualizing her texts, she’s fine with just sex with no date beforehand or anything, she’s fine with not going to his place even though it means have has lo lend her her family’s house, she’s fine with maybe coming and with maybe making Edoardo come, she’s fine with not using a condom even though she’s not on contraception. She’s low maintenance. Then he says those awful thing to her and she probably snaps, understands on some level that she’s not fine, but represses it as fuck and works to be even less maintenance, and ever more perfect: she curbs another kind of hunger, the hunger for food and starts going down the eating disorders road, until she has another breakdown. We see too little of her in S2 to gauge how she’s doing, but I hope the girls are helping her recover a bit, despite the fact that at the beginning they’re actually the ones who suggest toning herself down. ETA: this post is also kind of relevant to the work Silvia puts in to be attractive to Edoardo, in particular when it says “women are expected to aspire toward passivity while improving their bodies and minds for winning a sexual competition”.

Federica, on the other hand, is the exact opposite: she’s not afraid to take up space, physical or otherwise, she’s loud and unapologetic, she is hungry for food and for fun and for sex (see the spoon scene with Marti or the kiss to a stunned Chicco Rodi) and she’s not going to pretend she’s not to make people around her feel more comfortable; actually, she’s the one who most often makes people uncomfortable. It’s really good that Silvia has her and we never see Silvia complain about her like she does about Sana or Eva when they deviate from her ideal of who her friends should be.

So, after that rant, let’s go back to Fede leaving the girls speechless with her spiel about paying back the weed with sexual favors, which just proves the point I made above.

in the meantime, Eva lies unconvincingly to Gio, and I reiterate: Giovanni Garau con la U perché sei sardo, don’t you realize that if you can spot a lie in Eva’s words from the other side of Rome, she probably can spot your lies? So given how mad you get, how can you blame her for being angry and paranoid?

this is the catwalk episode, first the Villa guys outside school, everyone looking at them first, then just the girls squad minus Ele; now the girls, first down the deserted road (cause they’re not popular), then under Chicco Rodi’s and Canegallo’s watchful gaze

the disgusted look Eva gives Canegallo as soon as she gets in, good shit right there 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Sana surely draws attention to herself, which is not nice except that if she wasn’t so “unusual” she wouldn’t have caught Edoardo’s eye either and the girls wouldn’t have introduced themselves to him, so really, Silvia, shut up

ELEONORA VOLUNTARILY INTRODUCED HERSELF AND SHOOK EDOARDO’S HAND baby no (I mean, he’ll forget anyways, but for that exact reason honey, don’t)

Federico Canegallo laying it on thick from the very first moment, offering the girls salsicce and thank God Eva wasn’t alone or God knows what horrible, misogynistic pun he’d have made

WHO EVEN MAKES FRUIT PUNCH IN ITALY?

creepy Canegallo make another silent appearance cheering on Sara and Laura as they play beer pong so they can get drunker and drunker

the girls cheering on Silvia like it’s the final of the 2006 Football World Cup

aaaand creepy Canegallo being a creep

idk he just strikes me as a douche and rude and lewd so I just always find him creepy

oh, Fede, I know you’re just trying to be supportive, but girl, if your friend is uncertain about going with a boy or not, you should not push her! ffs, do they know nothing about consent? (Answering my own question: no!)

FILO! My lovely Filippo is calling! And Ele is all worried, rushing off and even leaving Eva alone, when we know she’d never do that if something wasn’t pretty seriously wrong… oh, Filo, what happened to you? I hope that Jack didn’t get hurt.

“You know, I mostly go out with my boyfriend.” a nice, natural, smooth way to throw that in, Eva.

Fede has her priorities straight: she drops the boy she was hoping to get the minute her friends need her, but she still goes and gets herself a kiss

Bechdel test: the episode passes the test. There’s the conversation outside school between Silvia and Eva then all the girls minus Eleonora get there and Sana roasts Silvia’s social media habits, but the rest of that scene is dominated by Edoardo and Federico, there’s the conversation between Eva and Eleonora as soon as they get to the party about Laura and Sara. Technically some parts of the conversation at the Baretto pass the test too, but it’s like two lines at a time (about the weed, about Silvia being talking too much), but 98% of that scene is dedicated to either the Villa guys, Edoardo or Fede’s friend who sells weed, plus there’s the phone chat between Eva and Gio.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1.   If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

[searbao]

(The Sunday Times article for those of you unable to read it)

Last Sunday, just days after being nominated for an Oscar, Timothée Chalamet bounded into a busy London bar like a man who still believes nobody knows who he is. Heads turned. Autograph hunters were in the yard outside. At one point during our interview, he shouted “Boom!” so loudly that tables of drinkers turned, stared, turned back, then turned around again. “It’s, it’s...” one said, slightly uncertain as to who he was or, more likely, how to pronounce his first name.

It’s plain old “Timothy”; and what filmgoers recognise him for is his breakthrough role in Call Me by Your Name, a gay coming-of-age story that has grown from cult hit to mainstream contender. He is smart and sensitive as Elio, who falls for his family’s American hunk of a guest, Oliver (Armie Hammer), during a picturesque Italian summer.

In person, Chalamet’s hair bounces, as does the rest of him. He is thin and wiry; as graceful as a ballerina and as energetic as the Duracell bunny; fond of light physical affection. He talks at the motormouth clip typical of Hell’s Kitchen, New York, where he grew up.

I have never met anyone as delighted to be alive as he is right now. Who can blame him? At 22, he is, for Elio, the youngest best actor nominee since 1944. He would be the youngest ever winner: not bad, considering he was previously best known for a bit part in Homeland and quit Columbia University to audition for, but not be cast in, Manchester by the Sea and the latest Spider-Man. In a fortnight, he will be at the Baftas for both lead actor and the coveted rising-star prize. But everyone knows it’s the Academy Awards that matter most. How does all that feel?

“This is how it matters to me,” he says. “Call Me by Your Name has gone beyond my wildest dreams. People came out because of that film. But I don’t want to be known for something that happened when I was young. So [the nomination] comes with tremendous gratitude and is something I’ll humblebrag about to my friends and family, yet this is hopefully just the start. There’d better be more.”

The good news, I say, is that he is unlikely to win, as voters seem unable to look past Gary Oldman’s prosthetics in Darkest Hour. So the accolade might be a millstone, but not as heavy as it could be. He laughs at my cheek.

“The truth is, you want to prepare a speech, but — I don’t know,” he says, frozen. “These ceremonies are overwhelming enough, independent of having to get up in front of legends and have your mouth move.” A fellow nominee, Daniel Kaluuya, the young British star of Get Out, is equally excited. “When we lock eyes,” he says of Kaluuya, “we give each other a look of ‘What the f*** is happening?’”

The crazy thing is that Call Me by Your Name is only the second best film starring Chalamet nominated for best picture this year. The best is Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s exquisite straight coming-of-age story, in which Saoirse Ronan’s titular teen struggles with men and her studies. It’s an astonishingly astute film, with Chalamet playing Ronan’s second boyfriend. He sits by the pool reading literature, looking brooding — which is exactly what Elio does. Chalamet claps along loudly when I bring up typecasting. He’s too hot now to sweat the small stuff.

Gerwig has been nominated for best director at the Oscars, which makes her the story of the night. Although other awards have found room for Lady Bird in several categories, they have overlooked the one that counts: best director. Some thought her film was simple compared to, say, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, with its crew of hundreds moving a boat off a beach, and that such traditionally male-made projects are simply harder to do. Size matters, it seems, to panels of predominantly male voters. Or perhaps they just don’t like women to direct.

“There’s no difference in being directed by a woman,” Chalamet says sharply. “But in the public representation, there is a huge difference, and that’s why it’s so important Greta was nominated, and so shocking she is just the fifth woman to be so.”

He looks bemused as I float the idea it might be easier to make a film that is character-driven, as is Lady Bird, than something on a grander scale. “And it’s interesting,” he adds, “that the conversation is framed in relation to production of the movie, because it’s clear that it’s way harder to get an audience for smaller films. Budgets are significantly less.” He sounds irked, clearly finding questions about the battle of the sexes dated and odd.

Yet Chalamet should be used to this by now. He has come into the industry in the era of Time’s Up, which strives for better treatment for all, especially women. It’s hard being in the middle of a storm that’s still raging. There was a late caveat to this interview, namely that I couldn’t ask Chalamet about Woody Allen. The actor recently donated his salary for the director’s forthcoming movie, A Rainy Day in New York, which he filmed last summer, to funds including Time’s Up. He had made a statement about it a couple of weeks ago, and that was that.

I pushed back. Journalists have been accused of dodging difficult questions, but if the interviewee refuses to be asked, that leaves us in limbo. I was then allowed one specific question about Allen, by email. I asked three. Chalamet answered this one: “You were the first lead to donate your salary for a Woody Allen film. What has been the reaction to your statement?”

He replied: “I’m just focusing on the work as much as possible. I mean, I literally get to have this conversation with you in relation to Lady Bird, which freshly presents a female coming-of-age story, independent of a male romance being the catalyst; and to Call Me by Your Name, which similarly presents male coming-of-age with a new lens… Thanks to these films, I’m getting new opportunities. But I’ve also learnt that, along with the opportunities, I have new responsibilities, and none of this is lost on me.”

I have sympathy for him. Allegations against Allen have been public for years, and it’s not as if established A-listers such as Cate Blanchett or Javier Bardem are quizzed about their decision to work for the director. Chalamet’s feeling, I imagine, is that his salary statement was enough, and such a move has probably helped end Allen’s career anyway. I’d be stunned if anyone sees A Rainy Day in New York, and gobsmacked if a leading actor signs up for his scripts again.

Still, although we can’t talk about Allen, we can discuss Time’s Up. Chalamet is in a business going through a great upheaval. He calls it a “really important moment in Hollywood”, and there’s a sense that, like every new generation, he looks at those above him with suspicion, at times even disdain. “I’m in a new wave of actors that doesn’t stand for stuff like this and is part of that change,” he says proudly. “It’s actually been a lesson for me to learn what the — well, prejudices isn’t the right way to put it — the old-school way of thinking was. How they used to talk about these things.”

Does he expect the change Time’s Up seeks will be organic? “It would be a little passive to say it’s going to be totally organic,” he says bluntly. “But we’ve seen in the last months that there is real momentum.”

I can’t shift from my head some theatre I saw him do online from five years ago. The monologue was from White People by JT Rogers. After a largely satirical diatribe, he ended with a furious — and heartfelt — “What right does any human being have to be hateful?” before storming off stage.

Call Me by Your Name’s fandom is now at such a pitch that it already has its own nerds. They have noticed that the opening line of Love My Way, the track Armie Hammer does an elaborate dance to, is: “There’s an army on the dancefloor.” Cute. “OK, I did not know that,” Chalamet admits. Just that morning, they were discussing a possible film in which “he plays a president and I play a KGB spy”. They are the Brangelina we need right now.

Yet leave any film in the sun for long enough and it will get burnt. First, there has been press and online comment that it’s a story about grooming, which is weird, given that Elio is 17, Oliver is 24 and the age of consent in most American states is 16; in Italy, it’s 14. Still, that criticism persists. As does one about straight actors — which Chalamet and Hammer are — playing gay men. It can’t have been for box office, given that the former was unknown, but critics have questioned why out actors couldn’t be cast instead.

Chalamet pauses, which is rare, and answers carefully, as if they teach actors how to make a statement in the age of the hashtag along with the Stanislavski method.

“Well, first, it’s important for actors of all identifications to be represented, so any propulsion to bring that movement forward is good,” he begins. “But as relates to Call Me by Your Name, this is a story that presents love, sexuality, identification and orientation in a definitionless way. That’s one of the beautiful things about the movie. Ultimately, Luca [Guadagnino] is the best person to talk to, because this is his film and he does what he wants.”

“I don’t know anything about the sexuality of Armie or Timothée,” the director said huffily when I interviewed him last year, before adding that he didn’t think Elio would necessarily be a gay man later in life. Maybe the amount you care about the sexuality of the cast in Call Me by Your Name is directly related to how binary you consider sexuality. The film’s youngest actor, like most of his millennial peers, simply doesn’t care.

What about a sequel? “F***, yeah,” Chalamet says. “It’d be a dream. And the great thing about being an actor is that the storytelling would have nothing to do with me.”

I wish him luck with “those awards” as he leaves for another ceremony. He laughs. I meant the Oscars. “Oh, those awards?” He laughs louder, as if it hasn’t sunk in, and disappears into the lift. Up, up he goes, and, hours later, is named actor of the year by the London Critics’ Circle, beating that Oldman.

[chickadee-sun]

IRA Propaganda tactics that worked on me

(Note that many posts used multiple tactics, so I'll link to them multiple times.)

Stealing real content from real activists on social media

Most often this is done by screenshotting tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Or at least, those are the easiest for me to notice. Some of these posts don't directly further the IRA's objectives. They just make the pysop blogger look more like a real person and increase their popularity and influence. Other times they add snide little comments to help alienate and demoralize their readers. Stuff along the lines of "nobody is talking about this," or "nobody cares about this," designed to make people despair and give up on improving their country.

Now, screenshotting instead of linking should be a red flag. A link would make it easier to interact with the actual activist, not the person screenshotting their words. But tumblr's coding suppresses offsite links, making screenshotting seem like a completely normal and reasonable way to reference other platforms. The snide comments often fly under the radar because that attitude is sadly common among genuine users as well.

Of course I already knew that grabbing people's tweets and posts is a lazy and effective way to "write" a clickbait article without effort or creating content. Apparently it's also a lazy and effective way to supress the progressive vote and increase division.

I am pleased to note that I grew more fed up with the nihilist comments and less likely to reblog them over time. In another recent post (which as far as I know doesn't come from the IRA) I pushed back slightly against "why isn't this in the news?" So I think I've been on the right track even before this new information. https://chickadee-sun.tumblr.com/post/171839411085/thatpettyblackgirl-urgent-if-you-are-in

This appears to be what I interacted with the most. Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic: post/146412193105/musingsofaraven-valerie-volatile post/146757386220/verolynne-open-plan-infinity-swagintherain post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152473414650/bellygangstaboo-this-is-happening-in-america post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153147035545/thetrippytrip-i-wish-the-world-would post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/153483724025/dorowot-gogomrbrown-thread-my-moms post/153538772200/bellaxiao-2-years-ago-today-on-november-22 post/153734325290/an-gremlin-the-real-eye-to-see-and-media-is post/153736403455/mousathe14-raptorific-fromchaostocosmos post/154092886970/17mul-nevaehtyler-so-um-let-me-get-it post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155697023025/nevaehtyler-this-is-important post/155719509740/fenrisesque-shepherdmoon-foxnewsfuckfest post/156425339773/snailchimera-ephitania-dukeofellington post/157571042371/gogomrbrown-exactly-what-the-whole-terrorism post/157590672069/go1ds-heartless-tony-blog-lagonegirl post/157983742239/roachpatrol-blackness-by-your-side-my-utopia post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege post/163641274771/blackness-by-your-side-people-need-knowledge-not post/164382771945/lazyscience-nevaehtyler-whats-next-take-away post/168358486495/aokayinspace-witwicky-down-to-venus-when

What I plan to do better: I'm just not going to engage with this sort of stolen content. If someone wants to screenshot *their own* twitter thread, that's fine, but if you just copy and paste someone else's content I'm not interested. Screenshots are inaccessible for people who use screenreaders anyway. This isn't foolproof, as nothing stops a propaganda blog from copypasting and pretending text is their own content, but it's a start. I also plan to push back harder against the "no one is talking about this" "nobody cares" narrative. Even when it's not from psyops on purpose it's still really harmful and counterproductive to activism. (Not foolproof; see "positivity and celebrating accomplishments" below.)

Fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda

A while ago there was a meme going around angry about how often the media allows the right wing to define terms and eumphemises the shit they pull. OK, but it claimed that "white nationalism" was a euphemism for "white supremacy," which is isn't. White nationalism is a specific type of white supremacy and the specificity matters. Likewise it claimed that "fake news" was a euphemism for propaganda. Nope. Fake news is stuff that's made up and factually untrue. Propaganda isn't defined as being untrue; it's defined by being heavily slanted and trying to prompt people into a particular course of action. Advertisements are propaganda even if they never say anything factually untrue about the product.

It's not that I'm completely gullible or without skepticism. But my skepticism and fact-checking were badly, badly miscalibrated to protect me from psyops. I was only looking for false statements from people who were misinformed or lying. I was checking to see if a reliable source backed up their basic fact claims. So when a post appeared to pass this test, I let down my guard. I was completely oblivious to the possibility of people deliberately using a pattern of basically true information presented in a misleading or inflammatory way to sway the public. And like many social media users, I had a tendency to merely skim the referenced article and not pay close attention to how closely it backed up the specific claims in the post.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic (reliability isn't binary; some are more reliable than others): links to Mother Jones links to Democracy Now and Al Jazeera links to CBS links to the Huffington Post, though the linked article appears to be about Standing Rock in general and doesn't mention Maori activists screenshots Boing Boing, links to The Guardian screenshots CNN, The New York Times, and Amnesty USA links to The Daily Beast gifset of Trevor Noah on The Daily Show screenshots The New York Times, gifset from Fusion TV screenshots Democracy Now and a scanned-in print article screenshots Al Jazeera OK, this one I'm very ashamed of reblogging, since it actually does fall into the fake news category. It embeds a video from the Youtube account 1 Soul Global, which describes itself as "an acronym for “One Source Of Universal Love.” We are a Spiritual Nexus for Global Transformation." I don't like watching videos in posts, but if I'd watched this one I would've figured out it's bullshit. It links to a, I don't know, blog? I've never heard of called Women In the World but it does some trick with the url so that when you hover over it it appears to include "nytimes.com". Oh my god, did I just hover over the link without checking it??? I guess I was too impressed the post having slightly more caution than I'm used to seeing in pseudoscientific woo??? Most of these I can see how I fell for them but this one I don't have a fucking clue. Am I really this stupid? screenshots The Atlantic Screenshots The Daily Mail--not that The Daily Mail is a reliable source for anything other that "what The Daily Mail is claiming," but that's what the post is about so good enough. Or was it? I took this post as "The Daily Fail is a trash rag, let's make fun of it," but the troll blog never really said that they were singling out one evil tabloid for ridicule. Were other people in the thread interpreting this as "news media in general is untrustworthy and unreliable"? That's actually a pretty subtle double meaning for a foreigner to pull off. I'm kind of impressed. gifset of Laverne Cox on CBS, links to Media Matters (Oh my god, Media Matters was created specifically to be a watchdog checking on media misinformation. And it was linked to by the IRA. Nothing is real anymore.) screenshots Quartz, links to The Guardian and MIT's Technology Review, as well as to some local sources I don't know the reliability of screenshots Mother Jones, links to the National Organization of Women

What I plan to do better: if someone claims an article backs up their claims, I will make sure to read the entire thing to confirm that it actually does, and does not just make sort-of related statements. If I don't have time or energy to do this, I won't reblog the post. But for the larger issue? True things arranged in misleading or manipulative patterns? I'm not sure what to do about that, though I suppose just being aware of the tactic might help a little. Suggestions?

Value added later in the reblog chain by non-IRA users

Because of how tumblr works, when I interact with a thread I'm not just interacting with the OP, but with everyone who has added to the reblog chain. Sometimes those are what attracted me to the post, rather than the psyop's post. This is one reason getting popular was so important to them! It allowed their posts to become part of the natural ecosystem of tumblr. I'm not sure how much this counts as a "tactic" because it's mostly passive, but it's significant.

This category overlaps a lot with "fake news is not a euphemism for propaganda" because often what the reblog chain added was sources with more information.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

Added a link to a Mother Jones article better explaining the issue.

Added more information and links to news sources.

Added news stories and a more positive slant. Note the IRA posters pushed their nihilist view of "why aren't we talking about this" while other users shifted the conversation a little to how the guy deserves a financial reward and how 70 lives were saved.

Added a link to a Guardian article referenced by the screenshotted boingboing article and a list of cities from said article.

Added a lot of cool true information about the history of the comics industry. Added something readers can do, a gofundme page. This would seem to run counter to the attitude of helplessness the IRA was trying to encourage. And yes, the gofundme did meet its goal. Added several paragraphs of details from the screenshotted article, including Theresa Kachindamoto's name which allowed me to easily look up the article. Added more information about Evan McMullin. Added more information about Asia Ramazan Antar, and shifted the focus a little (not fully) from how trash the Daily Fail is to how awesome Antar was. Added a lot of debunking of the psyop's anti-science attitude and a lot of information about how science works and how important it is. This one I'm proud of reblogging. Added a lot more information about Cameroon and sources. Added more information about voter suppression and link to the National Organization of Women. Added more information about comic history.

What I plan to do better: I'm... not sure I did wrong here. If I refused to reblog anything without thoroughly vetting the OP, that would be pretty bad purity shit. Some people are feeling vindicated because the threads they reblogged contain pushback against the IRA's narratives, or because they themselves added the pushback. Not so for me; only one example pushed back with any force. But several of the chains did shift the tone or focus of the conversation a little. I guess be less timid about pushing back when someone's tone or emphasis is off? Suggestions?

Positivity and celebrating accomplishments

Remember how I said above that rejecting a nihilist hopeless slant wasn't foolproof? I got exhausted with that attitude, though I didn't connect it to deliberate psyops, and instead tried to signal boost stuff that was positive and/or included a way to help. And yet.

I think some of these were just the innocuous posts used to gain popularity and influence. You can see a some "nobody is talking about this" narrative in a few of them, but not the majority.

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic:

post/147206820005/chrisevansisbeautiful-areyoucoldflash post/152657046470/gogomrbrown-maori-activists-in-new-zealand post/153133340745/godzillakiryu91-reverseracism post/153231802135/ghettablasta-this-is-a-great-story-of post/154007254270/broadlybrazen-badscienceshenanigans post/154330979730/thetrippytrip-feminine-black-men-the post/154474122260/lagonegirl-because-we-can-recognize-more-than post/154505677960/himteckerjam-bitterbitchclubpresident post/154807853475/ghettablasta-thats-so-annoying-that-no-one post/155547170460/jkl-fff-lagonegirl-green-who-lost-her post/160621066778/lagonegirl-white-people-using-their-privilege

What I plan to do better: I don't know? I think boosting positivity is a good habit, even if it's exploitable? Shut down the "no one is talking about this" narrative I guess. Suggestions?

Jokes and memes

There's a reason so many "ironic" bigots hide behind, "calm down, it's just a joke!" People often let their guard down when something has a humorous lighthearted tone. This also serves to disguise English as a second language skills, as people often use deliberately bad grammar to emphasize a joke. 

Here are some posts I reblogged that used this tactic. Gonna explain some of these in more depth:

Non-IRA people are joking about the news media's habit of allowing the right to define terms and bending over backwards to be sympathetic to bigots while scrutinizing progressives. I didn't really notice that the-real-eye-to-see went beyond that and said "And Media is Nazi too". Journalism is an important foundation of a democratic society and there's a difference between critisizing it and dismissing it. Trevor Noah's humor is being used to promote blackness-by-your-side's insinuation about deaf ears. Stealing some viral humor that snarks about bigotry. I think this was one of the posts that's just to grow the troll's popularity, as I can't find anything harmful in it. Combines positivity with sarcastic humor, a twofer. The target of the sarcasm is how rare white people using their privilege to educate is. Not really false, but kind of a demoralizing thing to emphasize in a post that could and should have been just about congratulating the white student. People dragging ICE for being evil. The psyop didn't actually add anything bad, so I guess this was more about looking natural and getting popular.

What I plan to do better: Remember that hiding toxic messages in humor isn't exclusive to the libertarian right. Allow myself to be that humorless killjoy who scrutinizes jokes for harmful implications. Be less afraid to nitpick a joke I broadly agree with. It's less that I lacked this skill and more that using it tends to be socially unacceptable. That's part of what makes these "jokes" such an effective manipulation tool.

Conclusions: wow, these people are really really good at this. I've gotten used to right-wing infiltrators who suck at pretending to be progressive, but those are amateurs. These are professionals. I've seen some bad takes going around. "Oh, of course tumblr users fell for this shit, they're horrible people with purity culture who never factcheck." But no. Some of my vulnerability in fact came specifically from not being a negative stereotype of a tumblr user. I didn't worry about purity enough to vet the OP if other people added information. I did factcheck, to the point that it distracted me from other problems with a post. I didn't micro-analyze joke posts looking for imperfections in them. I made an effort to boost positive stories about good people accomplishing things.

You guys, if I were the stereotypical toxic tumblr essjew, I wouldn't have interacted with a lot of these posts, or my interaction would've been attacking them. People who think they're immune to cons and manipulation are the most vulnerable. Maybe don't just groan in disgust at "tumblr culture" while patting yourself on the back for being better?

Anyway, the psyops didn’t try to create entirely new ideas or change people’s opinions 180 degrees. They played on pre-existing weaknesses among progressives such as infighting, defeatism, disillusion with institutions, and so on. Being careful about those lines of attack is good whether the attacker is an agent of a foreign government, an agent of your own government, or a genuine activist who’s being counterproductive. So when I talk about what I plan to do better, I’m not just talking about the Internet Research Agency.

[chasandres]

Creating a Better Magic Community

Like many of you, I was shocked and horrified on Saturday when I learned that Christine Sprankle decided to step away from the community due to repeated and targeted harassment from Jeremy of MTG Headquarters/Unsleeved Media as well as continued harassment from other toxic members of the community.

I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. Talk to enough women in the Magic community and stories about harassment inevitably crop up. It’s not so much an open secret as a low-grade headache that can turn malignant.

Regardless, I was thrilled to see the community almost entirely united in its support for Christine. On Tuesday, a large group of pros responded to the situation by writing an open letter condemning MTG Headquarters’ actions and pledging to act as allies and advocates for victims of harassment at future events. I’m proud to be part of a community where so many high profile people are taking active steps to ameliorate this situation.

There isn’t much I can add to this specific situation at this point. I’m not here to write more about why Jeremy needs to be banned from YouTube and WotC sanctioned events—other people are doing that already, and they know more about this situation than me. I suspect that this particular dragon will eventually be slain, most people will consider the matter resolved, and we’ll seek to move beyond this dark chapter in our game’s long history.

But MTG Headquarters has more than THIRTEEN THOUSAND followers on Twitter. Unsleeved Media has A HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR THOUSAND SUBSCRIBERS. Not all of them supported his overt harassment campaign, but overt harassment is only one part of a larger, systemic problem in the Magic community. Taking down an obvious villain is commendable, but if that’s all we do, than we’ve failed to properly learn from this situation. If we truly want to create a more inclusive community, we all have some work to do.

Before getting into the meat of this thing, I want to be very clear about who I am and why I’m writing this. I’m not here to tell stories of harassment or otherwise step on the voices of the community members who fight those battles on a daily basis. Those aren’t my stories to tell. I’ve already heard similar stories to Christine’s pop up on social media over the past few days, and it’s important that we magnify those voices and believe them.

As a heterosexual white man in a position of relative power, (at least in terms of being someone that the greater Magic community has more or less heard of) I’d like to use some of my power for good. We can’t place the burden of action entirely on the victims of harassment—we all have to step up and take some of it on ourselves. This is my best effort to help in any way that I can.

While the open letter pros are doing a commendable job of keeping the watch at large events, this is an issue that starts at the roots—at FNM, in our living room, on Magic Online. We can’t just leave things up to Brad Nelson and Sam Black—we all need to step up.

To that end, I’ve written a lot of this post in second person, using a lot of “you” and “we.” I feel like it’s important to say straight off that the “you” I have in mind are people who look more or less like me. I’m not trying to lecture marginalized members of the Magic community about an issue that they already understand all too well. This is a message for geeky white guys like me.

If you scroll down any Reddit thread about this issue, or you check the mentions on the right Twitter account, or you read the right Facebook page, you’re going to see more than just solidarity. You’re going to see a lot of confusion, and bitterness, and outright hostility over this situation. Some guys are a little bit ambivalent about what the heck our role is in all of this and how we can help. Others feel attacked and feel like “both sides” should be considered. Still others are unconvinced that there’s a problem at all.

I’ve been around the internet long enough to know that my message is going to fall on a whole lot of deaf ears, but I want to do my best to try and reach everybody I can. At the very least, I want to write this post to remind myself what I can do to help. When I say that we’re all somewhat complicit, I’m including myself. We all have to do better. All of us.

“I haven’t sent any harassing DMs or made any horrible comments on anybody’s videos or articles. Why are you putting me on blast?”

The harassment problem in the Magic community is systemic and multi-layered. I can count at least three different problems, and you don’t have to be actively harassing anyone to be involved with two of them:

1) Active, toxic harassers. These are the people doing the worst, most heinous stuff. These are people who troll women in comments sections, spout racist and anti-Semitic comments at tournaments, and worse. Most of recognize that we shouldn’t be these people.

2) Enablers, both active and passive. The problem is that most of us are guilty of enabling those harassers at one point or another.

Sometimes we downplay it. (“He’s harmless. He’s got a good heart. He’s just a little awkward.”)

Sometimes we justify it. (“We wouldn’t be able to get a draft going every week without him.”)

Sometimes we straight-up defend it. (“He shouldn’t have said that, but do you have to be so sensitive?”)

3) People saying or doing hurtful stuff that they didn’t think about very much. You could also call these microaggressions, but I know that some of you are put off by the language of social justice, so I want to spell out this problem as clearly as possible. The point is that there are lots of phrases, gestures, and actions that (either inadvertently or on purpose) create a barrier between the dominant voices in the community and those who feel like outsiders. You might not sense it, but they do.

These smaller offenses can be tough to pin down, but the only way to do it is by listening to the people who are affected by these actions, believing their stories, and changing our behavior accordingly.

For example, talk to almost any woman who has ever played a game of tournament Magic and she’ll tell you a dozen stories about being disrespected at Magic tournaments due to her gender. It’s usually not as simple as someone walking up to her and saying, “you’re a woman, stop playing Magic” – it’s hearing stuff like, “did your boyfriend teach you to play?” and “I thought you’d be easier to beat!” over, and over, and over again.

If you’re a white guy like me who has never experienced this, try to imagine how disheartening this must feel, especially on days when you’re running bad and your deck just isn’t behaving. A lot of us play Magic because we like to experiencing that feeling of mastery, especially when the rest of life isn’t going so hot. Now imagine a wry smirk of recognition on the face of your opponent when he beats you because of a lucky top deck. I knew I’d beat the girl. This match was never in doubt. Would Magic still feel like an escape for you? Are you sure?

“I’ve been a member of the Magic community for years, and I don’t see why I should have to hide who I am or censor myself! This is my home, and I should feel safe to communicate however I want.”

I can’t convince anyone that empathy is important. If you don’t believe that it’s worth making small sacrifices or accommodations in order to make another person feel safe or comfortable, that’s on you.

For the rest of us…well, these requests are so small, and they mean so much. Nobody’s asking you give away your Scarab Gods, stop attending FNM, or only talk on alternate Thursdays. It’s basic stuff like not using “gay” as a slur and leaving your half-naked Anime girl playmat at home. You’re not being asked to hide major parts of your identity, and you don’t have to “hide who you are.” You just have to stop acting like an abrasive jerk and maybe stop using a couple of problematic words.

In return, the payoff is massive. We’re always talking about how Magic’s player base isn’t growing like it used to. Well, I know at least a dozen women who stepped away from the community because they didn’t feel welcome. Imagine if we all tried a little bit harder to make our little corner of geekdom a little bit friendlier?

“But political correctness has run amok!”

Whenever I have a conversation about political correctness with someone who dislikes the concept, it usually devolves into some grand hypothetical conversation about freedom of speech in stand-up comedy or edgy TV shows or whatever.

I’m happy to have that discussion with any of you fine folks the next time we’re at an event together, but it’s not pertinent to our conversation today. I feel like we’re all mature enough to recognize that a Magic tournament is not the same as a comedy club or an R-rated film.

“We shouldn’t be nicer to people because of the slippery slope!” is a bad hill to die on.

“I’m sick of being called a sexist all the time. I’m not a sexist!”

Extreme binary thinking is one of the biggest obstacles to self-improvement, and it’s a paradigm that you’re going to have to break free from if you want to experience any sort of meaningful growth.

Think back to the last time someone accused you of saying something racist, sexist, or otherwise harmful. If you’re anything like me, chances are your initial reaction is to get super defensive. I’m not racist, you think, your mind instantly flashing to a hooded KKK member. I can’t be racist because of <insert justification here>, I didn’t really mean any harm by my comments, and I’m certainly no KKK member, so this person must be overreacting!

This is an understandable reaction, but it’s important to learn how to move beyond it. As a society, we are TERRIBLE with this sort of nuance. We assume that there are “good” people (non-racists), and “bad” people (racists), and nobody wants to be lumped in with all the Hitlers. Instead, we blame the people leveling the accusations at us for overreacting, or for being too politically correct, or for jumping to conclusions based on “one stupid joke.” Some of us even double down on our suspect behavior, believing that it’s important to stake out some sort of “middle ground.”

But the problem isn’t them, it’s us. There are no good guys and bad guys. We can ALL do better. It’s okay to feel that initial stab of shame and defensiveness, but then it’s important to really look inside you and realize that what you said was hurtful. In fact, it hurt them so much that they felt the need to speak up and say something to somebody THAT THEY KNEW WOULD REACT DEFENSIVELY. That’s not an easy task for most people, and it’s extra hard for a marginalized person in a community where they don’t feel safe.

Look—I’m no exception to this rule. When I go back and watch some of the videos I recorded back in high school and college, I can’t help but cringe at some of the language I used and the jokes I made. In ten years, I’ll probably feel the same way about some of what I say now. It’s not like I was a horrible sexist back in 2007 and a totally enlightened person now—it’s that I’ve made (and continue to make) an effort to learn, grow, and improve. Being a good person is about constantly seeking to improve, same as being a good Magic player.

“All of this harassment talk makes me sick to my stomach. What can I do to help?”

First, listen to the people telling their stories of harassment. Internalize them, validate them, believe them.

This is pretty easy when the harasser is someone like Jeremy, who is well-known to be a toxic member of the community. It’s harder when it’s someone beloved. It’s even harder when it’s someone who you know personally. Your initial reaction may be defensiveness—it often is for me—but there’s a time and a place for that, and it’s not now.

Remember: we are mature enough to handle these situations with poise and nuance. Some people just need to be sat down and told to stop behaving badly, while others need to be banned and ostracized. We won’t be able to call out either type of harasser without creating an environment where people feel safe coming forward.

Second, you need to get more comfortable calling out the harassers in your own life. It’s MUCH harder for victims of harassment to call it out than it is for us bystanders, which is why it’s important that we not let any of this toxicity stand even when it doesn’t directly affect us.

Don’t just say something at FNM—speak up during your kitchen table drafts, too. “We don’t say stuff like that here,” is a good turn of phrase to keep in your back pocket. It’s important to sweep away that “boy’s club” atmosphere for good, because it can permeate out from late-night hotel room games into the community at large.

A lot of these people aren’t evil, they’re just prickly, misguided, and socially awkward. Some of them will double-down on their bad behavior and are unreachable, but I have to believe that at least some of them really do mean well. The only way to find out is by changing the climate and calling out the unacceptable stuff whenever we can, wherever we can. Otherwise, they’ll keep driving people away.

Of course, there are some actions that require a harsher response. Jeremy has an entire platoon of followers who will be harder to pin down. And these guys aren’t outsiders, they’re members of the community. They’re guys that you and I both know.

If you know about someone who likes to troll marginalized members of the Magic community on social media, you need to do everything you can to get them to stop. “It’s just a joke” should not be an acceptable defense at this point. These people need to understand that their actions have consequences.

To this end, try to get more comfortable appealing to authority figures like LGS owners and judges about stuff like this. It’s easier for people like us to speak up about harassing language when we hear it, and most of it is a disqualifying offense in sanctioned play. In smaller or casual events, remember that store owners are too busy running the shop to know what’s going on in the back room. Feel free to enlighten them.

This is especially important when dealing with constant, repeatable offenders. These are the people who lower the attendance at local events because large swaths of the player base don’t feel comfortable gaming with them. We need to do a better job of weeding them out and letting them know that they need to choose between being a productive member of the community or no longer being a part of the group.

Lastly, never assume that you are above it all. I’m certainly not. Remember that making mistakes in the social arena are like misplays in Magic: each one is a chance to improve, to become more precise, to grow as an empathetic person. The important thing is to acknowledge it, apologize, and do your best not to make that mistake again.

I’m sick of hearing “Magic is awesome, but the community kind of sucks.” The community is all of us—you, me, and everyone else who has ever picked up a Magic card and felt that instant, powerful connection. We all have a right to thrive within it, to feel comfortable slinging spells in shops and tournaments around the world. I’m willing to fight for that right. Are you?

[tgallant-mppr]

Reddit: Brands beware or bust

If Tyler Durden, the deranged brain-child of author Chuck Palahniuk, was a moderator, he’d probably tell you that the first rule of Reddit is you do not talk about Reddit. Even after months of being a so-called Redditor professionally, I cringed a bit when creating a personal account. Why the visceral reaction? Because my experience on this social media platform was like dirty secret – a secret I couldn’t wait to talk about. However, I quickly found out I had no one to tell.

A Reddit revelation

As the social media manager for a chain of Montana newspapers, I was charged with training reporters to use social media, measuring our impact on the digital discourse, and investigating new ways to engage in the online community as publishers. I was always eying new measurement tools, like Parse.ly and Sprout Social, to test, and after training photojournalists to share their content on Instagram, I was on the lookout for the next social platform opportunity.

One night at home, my husband and I were lounging when he asked me if I’d read an article about a particular news event. When I hadn’t, he pulled the article up on his Reddit account for me to read. After scanning details about the event, I navigated back to the Reddit thread where I perused reader commentary. I noted the sarcastic banter, system of upvoting and downvoting both content and comments, and the structure of the subreddit, including the list of rules specific to that particular community.

Although I recognized the playful orange alien that is the Reddit logo, I was totally unfamiliar with the social media platform. After only a few minutes of exploration, I was hooked. Perhaps this was the channel I’d been looking for.

Time to spy

It didn’t take much to convince my superiors that Reddit was an avenue worth exploring. Since Reddit is the second most popular online news source worldwide, and is primarily a destination for users to share and consume news, it just made sense that a news publishing company might have a place there. Plus, at the time, The Washington Post had a well-established presence on the platform. Why not a Montana newspaper?

As the only person exploring Reddit for the company in 2017, I had a lot of freedom. I got to set my own objectives for growth, determine my own metrics for success, and engage in the discourse freely to enhance our brand. But I had to do so as a private user and not on behalf of our branded papers. At least not yet. If a brand is going to be on Reddit, it has to be there very strategically to avoid getting shut down by users and subreddit moderators for shameless self-promotion.

Armed with a spreadsheet of karma goals and click-through hopes (and possibly fewer ethics than I’d like to admit), I went to work sharing content from five newspapers to a set of relevant subreddit communities to see what captured user interest. I recall that the most successful post I made was a grizzly bear’s prediction for the 2017 super bowl win. Some historic photo galleries and an AMA I helped a reporter host on the opioid crisis also performed well. When articles did well, they topped subreddit hot charts, but for the few topics with broad appeal that caught on, there were many hyperlocal stories that received little interaction.

After a quarter-worth of data gathered, I presented my findings. My enthusiasm was met with crickets. I quickly found out that only one other team member I reported to had even heard of Reddit, and none of them were active users. After explaining the platform, my objectives and performance toward them, and my recommendations for how we might proceed with exploring a brand strategy on Reddit, the project was shut down by staff convinced that if they weren’t on Reddit, neither were our readers. My undercover data undoubtedly went to some hard drive corner to die that day.

Thread lightly

Recently, I revisited Reddit – not under the guise of publisher strategy, but as myself. I had created a new personal account after leaving my previous employer, but I rarely visited the platform to passively peruse content. It was a bit unnerving to approach the platform without the confidence behind my original mission.

As a new mom, I decided to join a few related subreddit communities, like r/mommit and r/parenting. With only 130 karma, I began to engage with other moms about topics like breastfeeding and maternity leave. I upvoted cute kid photos, shared my birth story, and read the latest news in vaccines and women’s health. After nearly two years of being virtually inactive, I’ve grown my karma by more than 2,000 in just a couple weeks.

Now that I’ve had some time to engage with this unique community, I’ve learned a lot more about it than I ever had approaching it with an ulterior motive. I am so impressed by the breath of users I encounter – from teens making hilarious memes to lawyers sharing their expertise, fellow nerds who love Harry Potter as much as I do to animal rights activists, marketers, and video game enthusiasts. They are all united under a shared love of news and niche community. And they’re all quick to shut down people who don’t belong, like those sharing their own blog posts or promoting their own businesses – there are subreddits for that sort of self-promotion, and they’ll be directed to them in a sort of “we don’t like your kind around here” repartee.

Brand or bust

Don’t get me wrong, there are some brands who’ve made a go at Reddit and been successful. But even Digiday has said it’s “one of the trickiest platforms to crack.” This is because Redditors have no time for commentary that offers them no value. If you’re in it for yourself, you’re bound to fail.

Take EA for example. In response to user criticism, the brand attempted to diffuse negative feedback with a carefully crafted message about how they appreciate the comments, will try to keep doing their best, and so on. Their message quickly went down in history as the single-most downvoted comment in Reddit history. Yikes.

On the other hand, Nordstrom, the WWE, and, as I previously mentioned, The Washington Post have all broken through the Reddit barrier successfully as brands. They’ve done so by capitalizing on their existing fan base to create a community where those fans can openly engage with the brands. Redditors respond to articles, ask questions of customer service, and share their experiences in these unique subreddits.

Other brands are looking to ad content and Ask Me Anything sessions as loopholes to get in front of Reddit’s 330 million active monthly users. Toyota promoted videos of professional drivers racing its Supra models, and even Bill Gates has hosted several AMAs about technology and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Was there a place for Montana newspapers to join the digital discussion on Reddit? Maybe, although I doubt they’ve begun to explore it even now, two years after my time there. However, like any good Reddit community before them, if there are enough fans who have enough to say about the brand, one of them is sure to create a subreddit for it in the future. I’m looking forward to joining it if they do.

[theswiftarmy]

#18  - Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime… Or So We Thought

“Between the chips and sandwich bread there’s a lot of carbs in this lunch.  Remind me to set my Fitbit to track my steps—I really need to run.”

“I’m sure you’ll be doing plenty of running, Ariana, eventually, when we’re all running… for our lives, from the Swifties.”  Scooter said back sarcastically.

“Okay, that’s fine, just as long as I remember to count my steps on my FitBit.”  She replied completely unphased.

Pop looked over at Ariana, “I recently read an article about how young women, really just put too much stress on themselves to stay fit.  Like, run a bit, but don’t let it consume your entire life, really was what I got out of reading it.”  Pop commented.

Everyone agreed, Oak piggybacked off Pop’s comment, “I think we could all be a little less hard on ourselves about our bodies—Working out is awesome, yes, but not to the point where it makes you sad every time you look in the mirror because there’s even a tiny ounce of fat that just won’t go away, it’s never going to be perfect.  But, you’re beautiful, and my friend Alessia Cara has plenty to say about how we’re all beautiful in our own way.  Remember that.  Just keep doing the best you can.  Track the steps, but don’t stress until you become a mess about it all.”

Pop raised a glass of soda.  “I’ll toast to that.”

“Do you think this is Taylor Swift’s music inside his head?”  Scott asked chewing on a last bit of sandwich, the subject of conversation returning to Justin’s earworm.  “This earworm thing is new to what we know.”  He waved his index finger back and forth between the lawyer named Carl Lyle and himself.

“No, the melody isn’t one of hers, it’s something else… wait I know this—”  Oak said leaning in to listen to Justin humming the tune,  “I definitely know this.”

Ariana jumped up, “It’s a Selena song!  That’s Selena Gomez!  That’s her new song!  It’s ‘Lose You To Love Me’!”  Ariana shouted out, also recognizing the tune.  She did a little dance to celebrate figuring it out.  After the dance, she stopped and stared at Justin.  She let her head fall slightly to one side then back to center watching Justin wobble trying to keep eye contact.  “What happened to you Justin?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”  He looked exhausted.

“It’s us Justin!”  Ariana tried to look him in the eyes, but he turned away. “Fine, but we’re here to talk, when you’re ready. You should talk about things instead of keeping them inside your head.”  Ariana sat back down at the table.

They sat around the large kitchen table eating lunch.  A clock on the wall displayed Eleven Fifty, exactly, or as it would soon come to be known as, Eleven Swifty, after what would in turn come to be known as ‘The Renaming’.  Ariana and Scooter exchanged a glance.  He pointed to his watch and tapped it.  She mouthed the words, ‘I know’.  Ariana had a show to make, and Scooter promised to go with her since he had missed the previous one.  The American Music Awards were just over five hours away from starting, Scooter was back and forth about going but given the circumstances he decided it was best not to attend.  He needed time to figure things out.  To leave Justin in this state pained him, but he had promised Ariana.  He was being pulled in a so many directions at once. Decisions… decisions—

There’s an old Elvis Presley quote, “The image is one thing and the human being is another. It's very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”

There’s a perception that we all have of other people out in the world.  It isn’t truly what is going on internally with that person because we only know what we see, or hear, or are told, or read about.  Each and every person you know of on this planet— such as Taylor Swift or Scooter Braun—is an image of that actual person and not the exact human being.  You can’t ever know anything about anyone for sure; you get an image of everyone, except yourself, but you are the only one you can ever know one hundred percent what is going on inside your head.  Every other person you know is only an assumption based on any information you receive either first hand, or through other sources.  But we all make decisions based on that information we receive as if we knew that person like we know ourselves.  We love and hate people based on this same information.

The only way you can know if someone is infected with an earworm is if they sing the song out to us since we can’t hear inside their head, it’s the same for what someone is feeling, perhaps for example, if they are upset the only way to know is if you see they are upset on the outside, of course then it’s up to us to act on what that person tells the world.  Visible signs aside, any of us could always check in on our friends, or strangers even, and ask, hey, you have earworm inside your head?  Because chances are most of us have earworms, we just don’t want to admit what song it is because it can be pretty embarrassing to talk about.

The best we can do is communicate honestly with each other and talk about how we feel.  If we don’t like something someone else is doing, we need to tell him or her, we need to make it known that we don’t agree, or approve, that we don’t consent to something.  Sure, not everyone is going to be agreeable, but the first step is conversation, despite Elvis’s song lyrics to the contrary—A little more conversation, before we action, that’s all Taylor’s askin’ for in real life right now.  And you know what?  She’s right.

—Scooter’s current situation was a ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t’ situation all around, he had to be there for Ariana at tonight’s show, he wanted to be there for Justin right now, he also wished to just go home to his family, he REALLY wanted to figure out this masters thing with Taylor Swift and be done with it… But no matter the decision, it’s just not possible for him, let alone anyone, to give everyone the true attention he wanted to give.

Unless of course you’re Taylor Swift, who could give her love and attention to everyone at once and at the same time—Obviously, because she’s The Lover, she radiates love like the sun radiates light, in all directions. Taylor is the image and human being all rolled into one.  How she does it is a mystery.  If you ask her Swifties they would most likely say something along the lines of ‘Well she’s just Tay-mazing, that’s how she does it!’  And maybe she is Tay-mazing, maybe she just is.

Upon finishing lunch, Oak went back to diagnosing the earworm.

“Sing into this.”  He instructed, holding up the earworm Breathalyzer.  Justin began to sing.  The meter lights went full—all green bars with glowing red lights at the very top of the meter.  “Wow.”

           “What?”  Justin asked, stopping.

           “It’s a full ten.  This is something this meter isn’t even made to detect.  I made this as an experiment based on some theories I had back when I was studying artificial intelligence at Georgia Tech, but what you have inside your head is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.  I doubt we’ll be able to do much more than lower the volume.  I think muting isn’t an option at this point.”

           “Well that’s just great.  It’s all I can hear!  I mean, not all I can hear, like, I can hear you guys too, but mostly.... Just this song—like the chewing chips experiment, you hear the chips crunching in your head and it makes it hard to concentrate on anything else.  I can barely think, let alone pay attention to anyone else talking to me.”

Scott looked over across the table, “So, again, what was that you were saying, Scooter, about it’s just catchy music?”

“Yeah, I get it now Scott.”

“Do you think this is from Taylor thing… The sound?”  Ariana asked Oak.

“No, The Taylor thing is a Taylor thing, this is… a sonically produced weapon.”

“What?”  Scooter replied.

“It’s interesting with the Taylor sound, when I was analyzing that source signal—When, we were analyzing it.”  He pointed to Pop Wansel.

“The one that Justin gave back to Taylor?”  Scooter pointed out.

“Yeah… That one.”  Pop confirmed.

Justin threw his arms up in the air.  “I was tricked okay!  Just let it go!  Let.  It.  Go.  People make mistakes, yo.  Move on.  I needed to get my cats!”

Oak moved to the center of the room, “I agree, it is what it is, and we can’t change the past, so let’s focus on where we are in the here and now.  Let’s go back to the blinking light on top of Capitol Records.  Remember that on the surface it looked like a blinking light, unless you really paid attention to it.  We can all agree on that, right?”

The group nodded.

“That’s kind of how this earworm works too… If you were passively listening but not directly paying attention to the song, you probably wouldn’t pick it up, at least not initially.  It would be like the blinking light in a city skyline filled with other lights.  But if you actively listen, acknowledge this is catchy, and say to yourself ‘I like it’… Then the next thing you know, it’s stuck in there,” he pointed to Justin’s head, “doing its thing—changing your thoughts and worming its way in.  Once you noticed the code secretly blinking in the Capitol Records light, you’re likely not to be able to stop seeing it.  Once you know something is there, it’s obvious.  And then that’s all you think about...  Of course an individual would need some way to make you pay direct attention to the earworm in order to infect you on this level, if they were deliberately trying to force an earworm into your mind, that is.”

He stopped.

“Justin, did they put headphones on you of some sort?”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“Did they take them out of a case that looked like a smaller version of Taylor Swift’s silver masters egg case?”

“Ummm, yeah… Why?”

“It’s a direct infection.”  Pop said to Oak.  Oak nodded back.

“But why does that matter?”  Scott asked.

“Those were earworm infection headphones.  Headphones, with noise cancelation, they block out everything but that worm sound.  It signals to your brain to pay attention to nothing but that.  TED Talk time!  You have to remember, headphones are a relatively recent invention in the history of humans, and the initial reason why we have hearing in the first place is to, first, communicate and, second, to protect us against threats in the world—to hear a wild animal approaching behind us in the dark.  We used hearing to speak to one another but also to hone in on something that we perceive as a threat, that being said, humans evolved around campfires, they told stories to pass on from generation to generation long before written word existed.  Your ears today are still longing for those nights of early humans, sitting around a campfire— your ears are looking for two things: The hunger for stories to love and cherish told by those in front of you, comfort from those you trust; and at the same time they are keeping vigil watch of the threats behind you beyond the light of the campfire, in the dark, the wild animals in the night.  If you disguise a threat as a love story, your ear will hunger for the source of the infection, you point your ear directly at it the fiery light, your ears will listen and…”

“It goes right into the brain.”  Scott said in a slow voice, his Jeff Goldblum voice returning once again.

           Everyone’s eyes went wide.

           “But what about the Easter Egg sound?”  Ariana asked.

           “The Easter Egg is a trust sound in this story.  It makes you feel good, it pulls you close to the fire.  Taylor’s music warms your heart, you want to get as close to Taylor’s fire as you possibly can—That’s why when she performs live, everyone is pulled towards her on the stage, it’s like being around a warm campfire with the night behind you, she’s the light you want to get closer to.  The earworm is a threat, it distracts you, makes you all fight or flight all the time.  It makes you think there’s someone behind you just over your shoulder, breathing at the back of your neck.  In theory any song could be made into an earworm, or an Easter egg.  It all depends on how you produce the song.  Pop and I were analyzing the logs generated from analysis of The Egg sound last night.  Though inaudible, it appears to be something along the lines of a hum, or perhaps that yoga sound, ‘ooohhhmm’ or, a didgeridoo.  It’s soothing…  If you could hear it, it would be pleasing to the ear, it’s like when NASA turns space sounds into real sounds.  There’s no sound in space because it’s a vacuum, but it’s still there.  If you want to get technical about space, there are sounds that are in the infrasounds category, or sounds below 20hz, which is the lowest frequency a human ear can hear—actually, a black hole emits a sound that is 57 octaves below middle C, it’s the lowest note scientists know about.”

“Well then why can’t we hear it?”  Ariana sat with her elbows on the table and her hands holding her face staring wide-eyed.  “We’re not in space.  Even though we’re in a studio named The Spaceship.”

Oak grinned at The Spaceship comment.  “From what I could tell, unlike space sounds which are very low frequencies, this is within the range of human hearing, it almost looked like perfect phase cancelation.  Which, in all my years working in the music industry, I’ve never seen before.”

“What’s that?” Mr. Lawyer inquired of Oak.

“Phase cancellation?  Well, it’s an acoustic phenomenon in which two or more ‘out of phase’ sound waves result in weakened or lost frequencies. When two identical frequencies are cycling 180 degrees opposite each other, complete phase cancellation occurs.”

Ariana sat up, “Wait, yeah, that happens in mixing and mastering, where you have two signals that cancel each other out because they are opposite of each other at the same time!  I had no idea that was even a thing until I sat behind the mixing desk for the first time.  There’s so much to learn!  That’s why it’s important for us women musicians, us women songwriters and singers, to get time behind the console.  We’re eager to learn things like this!  We don’t just want to be told to shut up and sing into a mic and look pretty.”  She glanced at Scooter and Scott.  “Not that I’m saying anyone specifically told me that, but I’m just saying for the future of all women.”

Oak’s face turned serious.  “I agree with you there one hundred percent Ariana.  That’s a very good point, the world needs to let women songwriters and singers do as much as they want, and not restrict them by just telling them where to stand and what to do and what to sing and how to sing it.”  He looked around the room.  They all nodded.  At first Scooter didn’t, but eventually he got it, The Carlyle Lawyer was the last to get it, but he finally did.  “As far as phase cancelation goes, it’s the worst when you’re trying to mix a song.  An individual sound recording from one microphone will sound great but when you combine tracks, or even have two microphones recording the same source, you can get a flat sound, you no longer hear certain frequencies, unless it’s done properly.”

“So, it’s like all the frequencies cancel each other out?  Like noise canceling headphones?”  One of the young Arinators asked, she was curious now to know more about recording and production techniques used in the music industry.  Oak nodded back, eager for more young potentials to know as much as possible.

“If the ‘Egg’ sound came from Bill Porter in that RCA Nashville studio… Then where did the earworm come from?”  Scooter asked.

“It’s a bit of a mystery, but have you heard the song Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney?”

Scott laughed.  “Yeah.  It’s probably one of the worst Christmas songs ever created.”

Oak held his index finger up to stress his point “—And yet it peaked on the 2018 Billboard music charts at number twenty-one on December twenty second 2018.  For a song that was released in November of 1979, it’s quite a phenomenon that the song was able to chart at number TWENTY-ONE on the top 100 chart so many years later.  Paul is probably one of the few that know the origin of all of this.  His very last album release with his band Wings wasn’t nearly as popular as Wonderful Christmastime still is—the story that we’ve pieced together is that during the final mix, Paul was going to sprinkle a little Egg into that Wings album, hence the name ‘Back to the Egg’ but there was some kind of shift in creative control, problems arose during mixing, and Paul took the sound out, we don’t know what happened, but it seems as though he added an alternative egg version to Wonderful Christmastime, maybe he lost the original source, or in the process of pulling it from Back to the Egg, it changed the sound.  But there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense.  It’s like the history of computer viruses, or flu viruses, mutations of genetic material in generations of living organisms—the earworm could be another egg entirely…”

“Well, it has to have the egg!  And if it doesn’t, there has to be other eggs, why would Paul McCartney’s song Wonderful Christmastime be so popular!  It’s a truly terrible song.  But people can’t stop listening to it!”  Scott said nearly shouting, he was really adamant about how bad the song is.

“Wait, you said that song was released right after McCartney’s band Wings released their final album... Back to the Egg.”  Scooter tried to add his insight.  “Why else did he name the album ‘Back to the Egg’?  It’s like he’s showing off.  He knows more than he’s letting on.  If he didn’t directly possess the Bill Porter egg track, then he had another track like it.  Yeah, there has to be other eggs.  There’s a whole Easter Sunday omelet out there in the world probably!”

Scott thought for a moment.  “I don’t think ‘Back to the Egg’ has the egg sound in the masters, which is why it didn’t stick around, I read in a Rolling Stone magazine article about Back to the Egg, they had issues when they were doing the final mixing and mastering—I remember it was supposed to be some genius concept album or something, but I think the engineer reordered the tracks which Paul didn’t like.  Maybe that’s when McCartney took the egg out and put it in Wonderful Christmastime?”

“But, according to the sonic footprint analysis, it’s not the Porter Pyramid Egg sound.  How we got from there, 1979, to here, 2019, is just like how that tape ended up in the bottom of the box of old recording equipment that Scott here bought in the first place.  There’s a lot of time between when Borchetta found the Bill Porter Easter Egg tape and put it in Taylor’s music and the night Are You Lonesome Tonight was recorded by Elvis in RCA Studio B.”

“Sonic footprint analysis?”  Justin asked.  “I didn’t hear anything else you said, but I heard that part.”

“Let’s go to the studio.”  Oak offered to the room.  “It’s easier to explain there.”

“I CALL BEANBAG CHAIR!”  Ariana shouted.  No one contested.

Everyone got up and moved their way from the kitchen down to the studio.  As they sat down on the various couches and chairs, and oversized beanbags, Oak powered up his studio equipment.  Digital audio engines roared to life.  The lights in the entire house dimmed as his equipment blinked on, thousands of tiny lights flashing and flickering, displays, gauges, the entire block saw their clocks reset on their microwaves.  ‘Oak Felder is recording again’, they collectively groaned.

“Let us play it, I want to analyze the audio footprint.”  He said smiling.  He loved this stuff.  He downloaded a high-resolution audio file of the song Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney and copied it into one of his audio engineering applications.  He played the song back after applying various plug-ins to the track setting his output bus to capture the output to another application for analysis in addition to the studio speakers.  While he could have just bounced the track with no audio, he decided to let the song play for everyone to hear.

“Now I can’t get that song out of my head!“  Scott shouted, annoyed.

“See, you’ve been egged.”  Oak said laughing.

Justin sat staring at the large screens, he sighed, “I still have Selena’s song in my head, it won’t Go-mez away.”

“There has to be something in the song, I have to admit, as it is in my head on repeat now, I do wonder how else a song that old could go to number 21 on the Billboard 100 charts almost 40 years after its release date.”  Carl The Lawyer stated for the record.  He began to hum the tune… Simply having… A wonderful Christmas time. “Just for my notes, would you say that’s an earworm, or an egg?  Or both? He pulled his red pen out and a small notepad.”

Oak also hummed along… Simply having… A wonderful Christmastime… He stopped, “Well, it’s not the same earworm that is in Justin’s head right now and it’s not the same egg that was on Taylor’s masters, at least according to the audio footprint.  But, what is in Justin’s head might be derived from this song, and that might have come from Porter’s egg.  Like I said, things are hazy.  Up until that egg case walked into my studio, it was all just folklore, and a few papers I’d written in college.  But—”

“It’s real.  It’s REALLY real!”  Scooter said, again.  Then he began to sing…  Simply… Having… A wonderful Christmas time.

“Wow.”  Ariana sat with her mouth agape.  “It’s in my head… Simply… having… A Wonderful Christmas Time!”  She sang out.

“Putting the egg sound in Christmas music is genius.  When you think about it.”  Scott said.  Then sang along with the others in the group… Simply…. Having… A wonderful Christmas time.

“Of course!  McCartney was a genius!  You put it in a Christmas song and it will come back around, every year, forever.  Take, Mariah Carrey for example and her song, All I Want For Christmas Is You.  We audio footprint that one next!”  Pop said, then joined in the sing along… Simply… having… a wonderful Christmastime…

Everyone rolled their eyes at the thought of having ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ in their heads.

“Do you think Taylor will do that?  Make a Christmas song?”  Scooter asked Scott, for the first time he felt the gravity of what he was up against.  Taylor wasn’t just another musician looking to make music, she wasn’t going to be a good little girl and do what she was told, and she was declaring war and fighting that war with love—and Easter Eggs… and earworms.

Simply having a wonderful Christmastime…

Scott sat quiet for a moment then replied.  “I don’t know, at this point, she has the masters now which means she has the egg sound.  She could release it in anything, give that music to her Swifties, or to the world.”

Simply having a wonderful Swiftmastime…