#He is very unsuited to the world of men and struggles to understand it

[opiatemasses]

Butch’, ‘dyke’, you name it… Why should female footballers face this ongoing derogatory labelling?

Women’s football is currently enjoying increased media coverage and an increase in wage for those playing in the blossoming professional Women’s Super League. But this hasn’t always been the case… Football for women was banished by the Football Association in 1921, deeming the game to be unsuitable for women. The Women’s Football Association was established in 1969 overturning the ban on women playing football. Now there being 1.2 million female football players in Europe. The question is, with this rise in popularity of women’s football and women’s sports now being described as a “safe sporting and social space for lesbians” by educators, why do results from a survey by Paddy Power and GAY TIMES suggest that 69% of participants believe that the FA should be doing more to prevent homophobia?

The image problem

Traditionally, females have been discouraged from participation in football by threats to their sense of themselves as ‘normal’ women, often protecting their identities. This idea of a normal woman was reinforced by Sepp Blatter in 2004 stating that women playing with a lighter ball creates a more “female aesthetic”. Does this signal the type of female footballer FIFA prefer? Femininity is foremost, often used as a code word for heterosexuality.

The emphasis on heterosexuality and femininity often perpetuates the myth that the LGBT community are dishonourable and that females should abide to Sepp Blatter by appearing and behaving in feminine ways. The Stonewall Chief Executive summarises the issue as “reverse homophobia” - “If a woman is unusually good at something [such as a sport] she must be a lesbian…if a man is gay, he can’t possibly be good at sport because he’s not masculine enough.”

Magdalena Eriksson, Chelsea and Sweden International describes her experience as coming out as accepting, but states “I wouldn’t have got the same reaction if I didn’t have long blonde hair”. Her fellow international teammate Nilla Fischer however had a harsh response, with attracting a large amount of abuse for being openly gay and having a more masculine presentation. Why should women have to protect and hide their lesbian image?

Commentators of women in sport have noted how various strategies are employed by female athletes to emphasize their heterosexuality and disassociate themselves from the lesbian label. Lou Englefield, director of Pride Sports and campaign director of FootballvHomophobia confirms this in her experience of coaching girls, “I saw on many occasions teenage girls being called names by teenage boys: ‘Oh you’re a man because you want to play football’. Words like manly and butch were thrown around. The policing of gender and policing of women happens from a really young age. And in reality, the reason girls gave up football was because of gender stereotypes. They didn’t want to be seen as butch or athletic or masculine because they wanted boys to fancy them.”

The Homophobia Problem

Homophobia is ultimately still thriving in society, especially on social media platforms. Andre Gray used the hashtags “burn”, “die” and “makes me sick” when addressing homosexuality. A Manchester United supporter claimed on twitter that Manchester United supporting stonewall, a charity to help tackle such issues that still exist within society and the LGBT community, “endorses immortality.”

Shockingly, at a Proud Canaries event which is an event held annually at Norwich City, when the LGBT Proud Canaries were doing a lap of honour a supporter exclaimed "don't clap them, shoot them".

Stonewall found that 43% of the LGBT community believe that public sporting events aren’t a welcoming space for themselves. New initiatives have been created to abolish this 43% figure such as the Stonewall Rainbow Laces campaign and the FootballvHomphobia Campaign. But most recently we have seen the Lesbian Visibility Week, a week targeted at LGBTQ+ women, to unite and support lesbians in all domains. The DIVA Media Group who created the national campaign, aim to “celebrate lesbians and show solidarity with all women in our community”. In April 2020, Sky Sports report on this fantastic campaign stating, “All this week, Sky Sports has been sharing stories to mark the first-ever Lesbian Visibility Week, a new awareness initiative celebrating women-loving women in the LGBT+ community.” Sounds great, finally a breakthrough to support females on their inclusion journey. But is this actually the first ever Lesbian Visibility Week?

Females in football are supposed to find their pride, but how is this possible when a British subscription television channel have missed this Lesbian Visibility day for the past 12 years?

Time for Change?

Pride in Football, an umbrella organisation that helps 46 affiliated groups focusing on improvements in areas, is helping to make a change. Aspects include Steward Training, Incident Reporting and Signage as well as generally promoting the visibility of their clubs’ LGBT fan-base via Banners displayed at grounds or club presence on Pride Parades. 

Gilly Flaherty, West Ham Women’s Captain, stated on BBC Three documentary Britain’s Youngest Football Boss; “we get quite a lot of openly gay football players, but I think we get quite a lot of openly gay female fans as well, it's just seen as like... it's just very inclusive.” This adds to the 37% of heterosexual football fans think that football is becoming a safer social space for players to come out as LGBTQ+. Are times changing? Since 2014 when England female football captain Casey Stoney came out as lesbian stating that “being gay isn’t a choice, it’s something that just happens”. It was an ultimate moment for lesbians in football. Contrary to her being “frightened of being judged, frightened of what other people might say.”, this was soon diminished through the support of her team, but also the women’s football community.

The homophobia of football reinforces this homosociable functioning of the teams, promoting the meeting of potential partners in a ‘secure’ place. Danielle van de Donk and Beth Mead are a prime example of the meeting of potential partners with the two Arsenal teammates having chemistry both on and off the pitch since 2017. Love can also end up in yellow cards when it comes down to challenges, in 2019 Danielle drove at the referee after her girlfriend Beth was tackled hard by Stringer.

Stepping into the mainstream for lesbian women footballers can be increasingly dangerous with fears of women’s football mirroring that of the men’s game. Educating fans and generally just those involved in sport is what Eric Najib, a former player and now manager of Stonewall FC, stated to enable a change in people's perceptions. A starting point could begin by pointing out the homophobic behaviour that exists within women’s football, to demonstrate that this exists on many levels of the game from grassroots right through to the Women’s Super League. The Football Association needs to shift this atmosphere in a positive direction both on and off the field to raise visibility by publicising LGBTQ+ events, forming partnerships or providing funding for teams.

As stated by Aneesha Dewshi, founding member of Romance FC, “It’s really important to listen to the LGBTQIA+ community and let them share their experiences, so you can empathise and understand. Educate yourselves on the history of Pride, the marches, the movement, and the struggle for basic human rights. If you ever hear any homophobic abuse, stand up and call it out.”

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References 

Crosset, T. W. (1995). Outsiders in the clubhouse: The world of women's professional golf. Sunday Press.

Halbert, C. (1997). Tough enough and woman enough: Stereotypes, discrimination, and impression management among women professional boxers. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 21(1), 7-36. doi: 10.1177/019372397021001002

Hargreaves, J., & Females, S. (1994). Critical issues in the history and sociology of women’s sports.

Harris, J. (2005). The image problem in women’s football. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 29(2), 184-197. doi: 10.1177/0193723504273120

Pfister, G. (2015). Assessing the sociology of sport: On women and football. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 50(4-5), 563-569. doi: 10.1177/1012690214566646

[cypher2]

There’s a lot of history on display at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, but no player represents more of that history — the heroics and the heartbreak, the progress and the barriers — than Formiga, Brazil’s 41-year-old midfielder. This is her seventh World Cup — which, as one might guess, is a record for men and women.

She is a living, breathing symbol of how far women’s football has come in the last four decades, and how far it has left to go. Because when Formiga was born in 1978, it was illegal for women to play football in Brazil.

In 1941, the National Sports Council in Brazil drafted Article 54, a decree which said that women in the country “will not be allowed to practice sports incompatible with the conditions of their nature,” such as football, boxing, rugby, polo, water polo, and multiple track and field events. These events were slated to be too “violent” for women, and there was excessive concern by the white men in charge that the sport would interfere with a woman’s sexuality and femininity.

“Football became so important, infused with national identity and ideas about virility, masculinity, modernity, Brazilian race politics, that it wasn’t surprising that in 1941, the Brazilian government banned it for 40 years,” Dr. Brenda Elsey, associate professor of history at Hofstra University and co-author of Futbulera: A History of Women and Sports in Latin America, told ThinkProgress.

Women and girls continued to play football during this time — a testament, of course, to the power of the sport and the tenacity of women in Brazil — but they had to do it in the shadows. Sissi, a Brazilian football legend, famously learned to play the sport by kicking doll heads, since she didn’t have access to soccer balls.

But the ban remained in effect until 1981, when Formiga was three years old.

“If you think about progress that way, if you think about — okay, Formiga was born and literally, it was illegal for Brazilian women to play football. She’s playing on a national team that didn’t exist when she was born, and not only did it not exist, it was against the law — if you think about it that way, it’s amazing,” said Elsey.

Formiga was 17 years old when she played for the Brazilian team in the 1995 Women’s World Cup in Sweden. She was 18 years old when women’s soccer debuted at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. There has literally never been a women’s soccer tournament in the Olympics that didn’t include Formiga. She thought about retiring before this World Cup, but decided to stay when she realized the team needed her — it still has not cultivated enough talent to replace her.

“I was frustrated,” Formiga told the New York Times. “I had fought so hard for recognition for women’s soccer, and I wanted conditions to get better for us women players, and it hadn’t happened.”

Unfortunately, women’s football in Brazil remains rife with sexism and bigotry that have stifled its growth — the men in charge of the sport in the country seem much more concerned with making sure the women look feminine and remain calm and composed than in investing in their success in the sport.

“Now the women are getting more beautiful, putting on make-up. They go in the field in an elegant manner,” Marco Aurelio Cunha, the head of co-ordination for women’s football in Brazil, said in 2015. “Women’s football used to copy men’s football. Even the jersey model, it was more masculine. We used to dress the girls as boys. So the team lacked a spirit of elegance, femininity. Now the shorts are a bit shorter, the hair styles are more done up. It’s not a woman dressed as a man.”

In 2017, a few prominent Brazilian players — including Formiga — wrote a letter to the Confederation of Brazilian Football (CBF) protesting the CBF’s decision to fire the women’s national team’s first female coach, Emily Lima, after just 12 matches, and reinstate the team’s former head coach, Oswaldo Fumeiro Alvarez, more commonly known as Vadão.

The letter didn’t do much good. Vadão is still the team’s head coach, and in May, he told reporters that women were particularly emotional and hard to calm down in the locker room, and that might be why they were struggling in the lead-up to the World Cup.

These sexist ideals fuel inequality. As Elsey wrote in SBNation this month, men’s professional soccer players in Brazil can earn as much as $125,000 a month, while women only earn about $500 a month.

Of course, none of this sexism is exclusive to Brazil — in fact, it isn’t even the only nation that has banned women from playing football. In 1921, the Football Association — the governing body of football in England — banned women’s football because it was “quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” Primarily, it took this step because it was threatened by the popularity of the women’s game, which had soared during World War I. The ban was officially in place until 1971. Germany, meanwhile, banned women from playing football in 1955, and didn’t lift that ban until 1970. And many women are excluded from the sport due to racist and religious discrimination, as well. In Iran, women are still not allowed to even attend men’s football matches, since they are banned from sports stadiums. FIFA just lifted its hijab ban for women’s footballers in 2014, while France still has its hijab ban in place. There is a long way to go until true equality is reached.

Formiga is expected to be a starter on Sunday when Brazil faces the hometown French team in the Round of 16. France is the favorite, which means there’s a significant possibility that this will be Formiga’s final World Cup appearance. But, no matter the outcome, or how many more years the still fit and healthy legend has in professional football, one thing is certain: She’ll never stop fighting for progress.

“There are more teams in the women’s league, more championships and more women who want to play,” Formiga said. “But the structures are too small. Girls need more chances, more training.”

Lindsay Gibbs | ThinkProgress

When we speak of equality in women’s football, it goes much deeper than just the money. Equality to female athletes will always mean more. It has to. And when you hear people argue that women’s football hasn’t progressed or isn’t at the same level as the men’s game as a reason why they shouldn’t receive equal treatment, it’s important to remember the history of this sport. Female footballers have literally had to fight to get where they are today. They have been banned and held back in every way, for 40 and 50 years, even today they are held back, dismissed, and treated as inferior. And yet they have still conquered the field they have been placed on, in all it’s ugliness and beauty. It’s not a matter of the women’s game catching up, it’s a matter of the world catching up to them. Female athletes are not inferior and never have been. They’ve shown us what it looks like to become elite and break barriers and break records all while having to fight for their very existence with a foot on their neck. And all the while the common message we hear emanate from these elite athletes, who are titans, legends of the game, is how the next generation and the next after them can survive and keep growing. Because they know what it feels like to have nothing, to come from nothing, and to have to go back home to nothing. This sport will always be made better because the women’s game has that much more meaning, and we should all understand and respect that. 

[lligkv]

the smartest person who doesn’t do anything

Alison Rose, the daughter of a psychiatrist and a wealthy housewife, was hired as a receptionist at the New Yorker in her 40s—her first “real” job—and ended up writing “Talk of the Town” columns in the 1990s, striking friendships with writers like Renata Adler, Harold Brodkey, and George W. S. Trow along the way. Reading her memoir, Better than Sane, it’s clear it took Rose a long time to really achieve something, to grow beyond what she calls the “ancient feelings of freakishness” that her childhood left her with.

Her father is authoritarian and volatile. He mocks his patients and his family; he’s constantly on the verge of losing his temper with his wife and daughters. He calls them all scathing names. His wife and oldest daughter, Alison’s sister, are Babs I and Babs II, and Alison herself is Babs III, or “Personality Minus,” since she’s so quiet. Alison’s mother is glamorous and removed. She seems to treat Alison’s father as a fact of the world, one she can only accept, as she goes on to do what she likes—for instance, having children with him though he doesn’t really want them. She speaks up for her daughters sometimes, but the protests are fairly mild, in the way they might be when you’ve come to accept that the world is as it is, detaching yourself from it enough to remain sanguine.

Rose, as the product of a glamorous, abusive, inscrutable sort of childhood, is a master of the weird swerves that come from idiosyncrasy. Early in the book, she’s talking about her childhood friend “Squirrel.” “Before Squirrel’s arrival,” she tells us, “I had three mops as best friends.” “My first love, though,” she adds, “had been my pencil collection,” each member of which she names and comes to treasure. She loves the pencils because they are reliable, faithful, quiet: all the things she’s missing. And when her mother sharpens them—whether it’s by mistake or on purpose, Rose doesn’t say—it’s genuinely affecting:

Their faces were obliterated and unrecognizable. Some of them were a lot shorter, too. It was as if everyone I knew had a different head and face on a now stunted body. I couldn’t look at them anymore, all distorted like that, so I abandoned them. In the years that followed, I would see one of the pencils around the house, by a telephone, vaguely recognizable, but dead.

I came to like Alison for her humility along her halting path to some sort of accomplishment, some sort of wholeness. You could look down on her for looking up to so many famous writers, like Trow and Harold Brodkey, but her childhood left her so deeply pressed into timidity that her attachments to these magnetic figures she’s somehow become so close to is touching. Even Alison’s attachment to a youthful paramour, Billy the Fish, is touching.

Billy is Burt Lancaster’s son, whom Alison dates while she’s living in West Hollywood in the 70s, trying to become an actress. He’s a cool character, with his ironic attitude, his charisma, his “certain air of separateness”—Rose calls him “the Fish” because “it was as if he lived in its own element… [a fish] who came up for other people’s air, curious, but not very often”—and his boredom with the whole world at just twenty-two. “T’s to my E’s,” he says—short for Tears to my eyes—when he’s given a gift; “Cringe,” he says, aloud, when he feels like cringing; the people who love him, he seldom treats well. It would be easy to roll your eyes at him and wonder why Alison stays with him for seven years, on tenterhooks and speed much of the while, if her love for him weren’t so clear and so honest. “My heart liked him,” she says, simply. And the closest she ever got in life to what she calls “normal pie”—“this thing men and women get married about”—was with him.

“All of us,” Rose writes—the people who knew Billy in LA—“loved him, but he couldn’t feel it, I don’t think,” and she isn’t the type to blame him for that; she knows too well what not being able to feel love feels like. She forms deep attachments to charismatic people, the way you do when you’re raised to doubt yourself—and she’s not afraid to talk admiringly about the people who shaped her, those who challenge her notion from childhood that she’s “unsuited for human connection.” And I like that a hell of a lot more than the alternative: saying nothing or being shaped by no one.

What’s more, her self-doubt is belied by the wit she so often demonstrates. For instance, her retort to Brodkey as he calls lovingly out to her in the New Yorker’s hallway:

“My Bride,” Harold calls to me in the corridor.

“My Conscience,” I answer.

Or to Trow as he teases her when Brodkey isn’t around:

“Since Harold’s gone, why not throw a little attention my way?” George asked me that same week.

“I thought you might find it repellent,” I said.

“Not as long as you keep coming up with those snappy answers.”

In still another, more sober moment, Brodkey is trying to convince Alison to find someone other than George to bring to dinner with him and his wife. A real interest. “But Harold,” she says,

“I don’t have an appropriate suitor. You know that.”

“Not a suitor. No one likes you all that much.”

“Maybe that’s true,” I said.

Shit!

He tried to be comforting. “But nobody likes anybody all that much—it’s just moments, you know that.” After a pause, he added, “I’m the one who likes you that much, but if you get to know me better your life will be considerably shorter. Hang up now or I’ll start to cry.”

Seeing moment after moment of such quick wit from Rose, and pure honesty—such willingness to say what’s true and such refusal to sugarcoat—you see why Trow, Brodkey, and Penelope Gilliatt, another writer who often stops by Alison’s desk, like her so much. And why they seem to believe she has talent even when she does not. Anytime Rose says something Trow particularly understands, he tells her: “Darling: Write that down.”

The college-degreed writers in the office call the New Yorker “the magazine”; Alison, out of place as a Californian with no college education or work experience of any kind, calls it “School.” And the name is apt for deeper reasons than the one Alison gives, which is that she gets to write “notes to boys” like Brodkey and Trow. It’s an education. And it’s a second shot at a real life, with people who take pleasure in her mind.

“For nearly four decades,” Rose writes, she struggled with “enemy thinking”:

people deciding that the way I saw things was punishable by exile. Enemy-thinking people seem to have a ceaseless, brutal, active desire to punish; perhaps it made them feel superior and powerful. The writers at this School, who in their context were superior and powerful, were a divine present to me—their ease, which created a freedom from worrying about enemy thinking. The destruction it had done to me so far, like my conviction that I just plain didn’t belong in the world, was gone, or it felt like it.

The narrative rolls on. Alison, whose job performance is always a little erratic, is let go from her receptionist position; Trow—who tells her, in a memorable moment, that she cannot keep being “the smartest person who doesn’t do anything forever”—becomes determined to get her another place at School as a “Talk of the Town” writer; she gets the position and stays there for a while, until she leaves. Better than Sane is a force-of-personality book, and most of the things that happen in it go only elliptically explained.

But there is one narrative driver. The trauma that keeps Alison adrift can’t be gone until she confronts the people who instilled enemy thinking in her in the first place.

In the final chapters, Rose describes returning to her mother’s house in Atherton for her mother’s 90th birthday. Alison’s father drops out of the narrative after its first few chapters, but her mother has recurred throughout, often as a provoking presence in Alison’s life. And at the party, so close to her again, Alison’s character regresses. She becomes very clingy with her dog Puppy Jane, clutching Jane to her so she doesn’t have to be spoken to about anything but the dog. She behaves in alienating ways because she fears being alienated, on-the-outs with her mother and sister; better to fit their perception of her as the “crazy” one.

The crisis doesn’t resolve until Alison and her sister Belinda track down their old housekeeper Nita, now living in neighboring Richmond, to ask her about their childhood. In the conversation they have, Alison’s father returns and again comes to seem like the real enemy: “He was cruel,” Nita says firmly. “Very cruel.” “There was one person,” she tells Alison, “who wasn’t nice to you. Your father. He was real mean and your mother was so nice.”

Is what Nita says true? It’s hard to be sure. It’s certainly plausible, but Alison’s mother is a little too distant and arch for you to get a clear bead on her character, and as you hear her comment on the family’s drama, it’s clear Nita herself sees the family at some distance (which is healthy, for a housekeeper). But it is true that the person who terrifies you, as Alison’s father terrified her and her mother, is a force of nature. You don’t talk about him; you certainly don’t talk to him. Instead, you treat him as a fact of the world. You might harm yourself (or your children) as a result. Or you leave, and you push the person who terrifies you into the past. And usually the damage is still done. The anger that is permitted is the anger you feel toward the ones who are nice to you, at least sometimes, who seem as though they could be convinced and reasoned with and moved to act on your behalf yet refuse to respond to reason or persuasion or pleading or need. At the same time, terror of her father, and her mother’s seeming implacability, leave Alison timid, unable to express any of that anger or feel confidence in herself. So she wanders for years, not doing anything. And it takes Nita telling Alison, “Alis’, it was a crazy house. That’s all” for Alison to realize she can let it all go.

These final chapters—in which Alison, having finally accomplished something with her life, and having been recognized and loved by the writers at School, goes home and learns the truth, that it was her family that was crazy and not her, and is redeemed—do feel a little pat. But Better than Sane was published in 2004, and maybe that was before we all became cynical about the memoir form from seeing the familiar arc (a normal or painful childhood, an experience of crisis and failure, a fall to the depths, an opening to others, a redemption, a happy ending) play out so many times. Or maybe the end feels that much more predictable because the path Alison’s taken to get there has been so unpredictable.

The book did leave me wondering where Rose is now. Better than Sane is her only book. There are quite a few literary Alison Roses out there, but none seem to be her. There really is something “regal” about Rose, as Stacy Schiff put it in her New York Times review of the book—something deeply affecting about her honesty, the plainness of her feeling beneath the elliptical prose, the humility with which she presents herself. If she never writes again that I know of, it’d be a shame.

[zacharyharber01-blog]

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Random Rant about Princess Diana, Prince Charles, and Camilla

Okay, so despite being a gauche, socially progressive American who really doesn’t get why monarchies exist anymore, I am kind of a low-key royal watcher/follower. I was a HUGE fan of/admirer of Princess Diana when I was a little girl and am still a fan of hers in many ways.

But I’m also a fan of Charles and Camilla.

“But how???? Charles and Camilla ruined Diana’s life! They are eeeevil!!!!”

First of all, NO.

Diana Spencer had intense issues way before she hooked up with Charles, for one thing. Her parents had a bitter divorce and custody battle that basically ravaged her childhood. Seriously, at one point her dad was practically holding her hostage away from her mother during Christmas. You think the Wales divorce was messy?... It was. But it was basically just a sequel to Spencer family drama.

By Diana’s own words, she struggled with bulimia from her adolescent years and had severe abandonment issues.

Ever wonder why William’s pet cause is mental health? DIANA IS WHY.

She also grew up among a very specific “set” that included the royal family. She and her sister were playmates to Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. She grew up with the same weirdo aristocratic approach to marriage as them as well which was: pop out an heir and spare, then do whatever.

While she was young and naive and apparently did have a HUGE crush on Charles that resulted in her buying into the fairy tale narrative, she wasn’t the total shrinking violet/know-nothing people sometimes make her out to be. Diana thought she’d be the exception. She was wrong. But she DID enter that marriage with a shit-ton of pre-installed baggage that CHARLES HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH.

Second of all, ALSO NO.

God... This engagement and marriage was made of such crazy fuckery. But Diana was all in, hook, line, and sinker.

Charles, less so. And the situation was just... so fucked, you guys. And, no, sorry, it wasn’t all Charles’s fault. Or Diana’s fault. Or Prince Philip’s fault. But it went like this:

Basically, Chuck was pushing 30, was heir, and had yet to further the royal line, so to speak. It had been nearly a decade since he was formally invested as Prince of Wales. And the issue of him getting hitched had always been... there, but it really got serious as he neared the big 3-0. Especially since his younger sister, Anne, was already married and had a kid. But over the years, he’d had Richard Nixon try to set him up with his daughter and had been geared towards various COUSINS by no less than his “Uncle Dickie” AKA Lord Mountbatten AKA the guy who hooked Prince Philip up with Queen Elizabeth, who was basically Charles’s second Father.

Things got serious as Charles got older, though. Rumors were getting out that he might be gay (remember, this was the late 70′s/early 80′s and Charles is HEIR TO THE THRONE. One factor is/was that Charles is/was a surprisingly progressive dude even then and didn’t bat an eye at employing men who were OPENLY GAY IN THE 70′s. But the thing was, whether or not Charles was gay, if the public believed that, it could have potentially caused a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS BECAUSE ROYALTY IS ALL OF THE EXTRA)

Charles was into aristocratic blonds... Fine. Perfect... Except for the part where the aristocratic blonds he tended to go for were non-virgins (and therefore completely unsuitable according to his beloved Uncle Dickie)... also married.

...That’s not Camilla, BTW. Camilla was already married to Andrew Parker-Bowles at this point. The lady in the picture there is Lady Dale “Kanga” Tryon, a fashion designer and Charles’s other mistress who actually lived a really interesting life culminating in a super tragic death. We’ll come back to her later.

But basically, Charles had to marry a virginal aristocrat, and fast. So he entered into a sort of courting pool of eligible ladies, at one point dating Lady Sarah Spencer, Diana’s older sister. But Lady Sarah went, “Nah, my sister is WAAAY more into you anyways. Date her.”

Now, if this sounds SUPER CREEPY, ANTIQUATED, AND MESSED UP, EVEN FOR THE 70′S AND 80′S, THAT’S BECAUSE IT IS. THIS IS THE WORLD THESE PEOPLE OPERATED IN, HOWEVER. AND THE ONLY THING MORE INSANE THAN ARISTOCRATS WERE ARISTOCRATS IN THE 70′S AND 80′S. THE ONLY THING MORE INSANE THAN ARISTOCRATS IN THE 70′S AND 80′S WERE THE ONES IN THE 60′S. JUST ASK PRINCESS MARGARET. THIS SHIT IS TAME COMPARED TO THE SHIT CHARLES UNCLE TONY GOT UP TO. POINT IS, THIS WAS WEIRD FROM THE BEGINNING.

Anyways, the two seemed to hit it off, but they were only dating a couple months when the press moved in and started making everything a hundred times crazier. Diana found herself hounded by the press, culminating in the papers slut-shaming her for LITERALLY TAKING AN OVERNIGHT TRIP ON A TRAIN.

This prompted Charles dad, Prince Philip, notorious for choosing his words poorly, basically sending a letter to his son telling him to basically shit or get off the pot before he ruined Diana’s life and reputation. Charles, emotionally stunted and basically terrified of his dad, took this to mean that he HAD to marry her, or he WOULD ruin her life. Keep in mind Diana was SUPER SUPER into him.

WHICH LED TO THIS DISASTER:

Charles went into this marriage feeling bound by duty, figuring Diana was game, that he could make her happy, that he was doing the right thing, and that she’d be along for the ride --- which included the model of marriages they were both used to.

He was VERY WRONG.

Diana went into her marriage completely in love, knowing that Charles had girlfriends, knowing adultery was the norm, believing she’d be a game-changer.

She was technically right, but NOT in the way she imagined. She fell for the fairy-tale Charles thought they were merely selling to the public. She was an emotionally unstable 19-year-old with severe family baggage, and Charles was an emotionally stunted prince with his head shoved right up his royal butt.

What a winner.

THIRD OF ALL, NO.

Remember that Kanga lady from the picture above? Lady Tryon was a business woman and fashion designer. And one of Charles’s mistresses.

She was Camilla’s rival. NOT Diana’s.

See that dress Diana is wearing at Live Aid? Designed by Kanga, Charles’s mistress. Yes, Diana knew who Kanga was and the nature of her relationship with Charles. At this point, Diana was cured of her delusions and was onto her own affairs. She and Kanga became friends and basically allied against Camilla.

At this point, Diana accepted that she and her husband would not be faithful to one another (it’s worth noting that during the early years of their marriage, both of them WERE supposedly faithful. Charles had his last run-in with Camilla the night before the wedding and kept away from both her and Kanga at least until Harry was conceived. But he also basically told Diana at that point that eventually, he’d be bed-hopping again. Basically, he knew Diana would have to be faithful until an heir and spare were produced and seemed to consider it fair play that he not indulge while she couldn’t. If that sounds completely fucked up THAT’S BECAUSE IT WAS). She gradually stopped caring about Charles cheating. She just hated that it was with Camilla. She very quickly embarked on a string of affairs of her own.

----And yes, Charles was a douche. He was also dealing with a wife he did NOT understand who had severe mental health issues.

Diana did things like call Camilla late at night to tell her that there was a man waiting outside, hired to kill her. She would also sometimes abscond with Baby Harry and William without telling Charles or anyone. Not a big deal in a normal family. But they’re royalty. So basically, she was happy to let her husband go into a panic about his sons possibly being kidnapped because he had no idea where the fuck they were. Keep in mind that Charles’s own sister was nearly abducted in 1974 by a gunman and that in 1982, THE VERY YEAR WILLIAM WAS BORN, a man had snuck into the Queen’s bed in the middle of the night carrying a shard of broken glass. So, yeah, Diana grabbing the boys and taking them to Windsor Castle without telling anyone, including her husband? SUPER SHITTY.

Charles tried to get Diana help, but she didn’t trust him whatsoever (because of course she fucking didn’t, no one would). Diana didn’t start getting proper help for her mental health issues until the separation. But she was prone to fits of extreme paranoia and rage, at one point culminating in her physically attacking Charles while he was praying.

Point is, she had a lot of troubles and instabilities. While Charles and Camilla certainly did not HELP, this was shit that went back years and years. Granted, that WAS exacerbated by royal life, but much of that was the strain of royal work --- constant travel, unending media scrutiny, a ton of fame all at once --- and the intense workload she was given when she became Princess of Wales did not help, either. Diana was young, troubled, and had a ton of issues.

BUT

Charles did not ruin her life. Nor did Camilla. Especially since Diana was kind of a badass.

(Pictured: Badass Diana badassing through her badass post-divorce life like a badass)

She wasn’t a Rhodes Scholar, but she was a freaking genius at handling the press and an unparalleled activist. And she got some terrific revenge on her cheating husband, too. She nearly bankrupted him in the divorce (Charles had to borrow money from the queen) and turned him into a villain in the eyes of the press.

Once out of royal life, she felt comfortable enough to get help. She got joint custody of the kids. She found great fulfillment in her activism and did some really fantastic things for causes like AIDS and land mines. She had a string of hot, rich boyfriends who spoiled the crap out of her and she was adored the world over by almost EVERYONE. That even included her ex-father-in-law, Prince Philip, who still signed his letters to her as “Pa.”

Charles nor Camilla could NEVER have hoped to ruin her life. She had too much of it. Diana’s life was ruined by a drunk driver, some paparazzi, and a traffic accident.

(And to those who want to claim that the royal family had her killed: kindly fuck off. Mohammed Fayed has had his case dismissed repeatedly despite numerous appeals and investigations. The only way Prince Philip would have had Diana killed would be if he REALLY REALLY wanted to end the monarchy. Somehow I don’t think an exiled prince-turned-royal-consort wants that. There was nothing the royal family wanted more than to see Diana married off to some rich guy and fade into the background. The LAST thing they would want is for Willam and Harry’s mother to die tragically young and cement herself as an eternal legend. Diana’s death was a fucking nightmare for the BRF personally as well as professionally).

Charles and Camilla, meanwhile?

Camilla kept her head down and did quiet work for osteoperosis research after her mother was afflicted with it. Since becoming Duchess of Cornwall, she’s done extensive work on behalf of rape and sexual assault survivors. Among her initiatives was developing “wash bags” consisting of soaps and towels for victims to use after undergoing their rape kits.

Charles spent years being decried as a complete kook for being all worked up over stupid non-issues you might have heard of --- things like “climate change”, “sustainable farming”, “organic foods”, “the ozone layer” and a supposed “housing crisis” in Britain. Oh, and his lifelong project, The Prince’s Trust, is only one of the most important charitable organizations in the Western World.

So yeah, if I have to hear one more comment about EEEEEEVIL Charles and Camilla ruining poor, wilting flower Diana’s life again, I’ll see red. It’s insulting to all three of them.

(Once again, for the record, I think monarchy is outdated and dumb, But if you are going to have one, your heir to the throne should be a Charles. Or a Victoria. But if you can’t have a Victoria, you should have a Charles.)

[funeral-clown]

for cassie-bird, happy birthday

here is your promised present, bro

many happy returns

He had seemed so friendly at first. Sliding into the bar stool next to him, smile open and a little shy, offering to buy him a drink, Cisco had been stunned. It had seemed almost too good to be true. And if the man’s grin got sharper as the night went on, well, Cisco didn’t believe in looking gift horses in the mouth. 

Perhaps he should have looked a little closer at this mouth.

“What’s your name?”, he gasped out, breath puffing hot against the cool lips of the man who had him pressed against the alley wall, finally letting him up to breathe. 

His eyes were slits, so he did not see the sardonic grin accompanying the offered “Hunter. Call me Hunter.”

He never got the chance later to ask if it was a joke or just a bitterly ironic twist of fate. The next thing he knew he could feel a wet pressure against his throat, suckling softly.

“Try not to leave any marks.”

Hunter laughed.

“I can’t promise that.”

There was a sharp, piercing pain. Hunter held him hard enough to bruise and gulped down greedy warm mouthfuls of salty hot blood. Cisco was still half hard and grinding weakly against him when he died.

-

He wasn’t prepared for when he woke up.

-

They were both held down in front of a crowd of others. Hunter had told him about the council, said they were blind old windbags. Cisco didn’t know what to believe, he’d only been undead a week. All he knew was that Hunter was crazy, even for a vampire, and that every strand of DNA in his body loved him.

Hunter was struggling, fighting, swearing, for all the world looking like a caged mountain lion. Cisco was docile. Quiet. He stared straight forward, cowered slightly, as he would have before a priest back when he could still enter a church.

“Hunter Zolomon,” intoned the man the stood before them, looking down in the crowded room, “You are guilty of turning a human without approval.”

“Fuck approval,” Hunter spat, “And fuck you, Thawne. He’s mine, I smelled him, I courted him, I bit him, i turned him. My childe, mine, and you can’t make me give him up.”

“We could make you stake him yourself. You’re unstable and unsuitable, Zolomon. We all remember what happened with your last childe. This is the last time you break the rules.”

Cisco flinched as the man turned to regard him.

“Look at him, Zolomon. He’s starving. You can’t even feed him properly.”

A low growl built in his mentor’s throat.

“He’s young. Stubborn. He’ll learn.”

“Maybe. But not from you.”

The sudden burning that went through him was unlike any other pain Cisco had ever experienced in his life. A howling wail built up in his throat as his sire, his maker, was reduced to smoldering ash.

Thawne signaled for him to be released.

“Your origins are not your fault. Your sire was insane. He would have destroyed you. You can’t stay in Central City. You’re not welcome here.”

“But-”

“Childe.”.

Cisco quaked in his skin.

“We will take you to Star City. What you become from there is up to you. One day you may be able to return. When your family and friends are all gone. But for now, go. Leave this place. You are banished. You will be gone by sunrise, or you will join your pathetic sire.”

Grief and rage swirled within Cisco like a storm. Throat clenched like a vice, he nodded once and was released. He fled without a glance behind.

“Sir, should we not have killed the fledgling? There’s no telling how it will turn out.”

Eobard hummed consideringly.

“No, but I would very much like to observe.”

-

Oliver Queen was not the most long tempered of men. 

For a werewolf, however, he had a pretty cool head.

“Mom,” he snapped into the phone, “For the last time, I can’t make it up to the cabin this weekend. I’m going to be busy.”

“But Ollie, dear, it’s a full m-” “I KNOW it’s a full moon, mom, I’m just telling you that between work and more work everything’s too hectic to leave right now.”

“Fine.”

Her pout was audible.

“Look, I have to call you back, ok? Ok. Yeah, love you too, mom. Okay. OK, bye.”

With a sigh he ended the call and leaned back on the roof top. His mother may not understand, but the city was his territory, and someone had to defend it. Someone had to protect his turf from hunters and monsters alike. Even if it did get lonely without having pack around sometimes.

A shrill cry split the night, and Ollie was on his feet in an instant, tracking down the scream.

“Please,” he heard, “please don’t come near me, I’m begging you,” and Oliver sped faster toward the muffled sobs.

“Please,” he was almost there now, “Please, I don’t want to hurt you.”

A strange request from a victim.

He flitted down to land softly on the fire escape in an alley in an older part of town. He peered through the gloom at the two figures below.

“Kid, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Just leave me alone!”

The smaller, distressed one was pressing himself away from the taller man in the suit.

“I just asked your hourly, y’don’t have to get all pissy-”

The smaller man snarled, baring impressive fangs. Huh. Vampire. In Star City. Something hokey was going on.

“Hey,” Oliver lets his voice reverberate through the alley in a low growl, “Fuck off.”

The man fucked off.

Ollie dropped down beside the fledge.

“What the fuck are you doing in my city?”

“What?”

Oliver blinked.

“Star City is mine. Marked and defended. Everyone knows that.”

“Dude did you, like, pee on all the buildings? Is that why the city smells like piss?”

He shoved the stranger against the wall.

“Where’s your sire, pipsqueak? They decide you’re not worth it and throw you to the wolves?”

He let his fangs lengthen as he spoke. The man didn’t even flinch.

“He’s dead. The council sent me here to starve to death.”

“Because they knew I wouldn’t let you kill on my turf.”

“No,” he said, annoyed, “Because I won’t kill, period. It’s wrong.”

Oliver’s brow furrowed. He killed when necessary. He accepted that part of himself. Everyone did. This runt was going to get himself killed.

“What’s your name, whelp?”

“Cisco. And you’d be Lon Cheney?”

Oliver grinned.

“Sometimes. Mostly I go by Oliver. Come with me.”

“What?”

“It’ll be sunrise soon, and you’re an orphan. It just so happens I’m a do-gooder. I’ve got a nice cave, perfect for a bat like you.”

“The last time I trusted a hot, mysterious stranger, I got turned into a vampire.”

“Well that can’t happen twice.”

Cisco shrugged warily. After a second he nodded.

-

To his surprise, Hot Snarly Wolf Guy had been talking about an actual literal cave. Stereotypes, much?

“You realize this isn’t Lost Boys, right?”

Oliver laughed.

“Just wanted you to feel at home. I figure you’ll be staying with me until we can figure out what to do with you.”

Cisco frowned. He lost one crazy hot guy to get taken in by another. 

“Yeah, well, don’t expect me to stay for long.”

Oliver shrugged. 

“Your choice. You don’t mind if I do my morning work out, do you?”

Cisco shook his head, eyes suddenly transfixed on Oliver’s shirt as it was tugged up, over, and off his torso.

“Cool. I usually start with the salmon ladder.”

Cisco could stand to hang around for a few days. Maybe.

[directlywithlizzie]

Director’s Notebook: Miss Bennet - Christmas at Pemberley

Our patron saint of rom-coms, Jane Austen, depicted in an 1810 portrait by her sister, Cassandra.

Pride, Prejudice, and Christmas I was approached by Craig Willis about directing Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley sometime in early 2018 with the question: “Are you interested in directing a sequel to Pride and Prejudice by Lauren Gunderson for our holiday show? Jeanette will do the costumes.” Lauren Gunderson? Jane Austen? Holiday show? Jeanette? Check! Check! Check! Check! My response was an immediate and enthusiastic: “Hell yeah!”

Miss Bennet is my third Gunderson piece at OCT, having had the good fortune to direct Silent Sky and Revolutionists! in past seasons. I have nothing but positive feelings about both experiences. I truly enjoy Gunderson’s work, which in my experience is witty and thoughtful and melds well with my own comic sensibilities. I always enjoy directing for its various challenges regardless of the piece (I said “yes” to taking on Miss Bennet while in the dystopian throes of 1984). But there is a certain pleasure I get from working on something that I know will give people warm, fuzzy feelings and laughter. This is exactly what people (audiences, the cast, the production team) need in a time of year where it gets dark by 5:00 pm and we’re all slightly on edge with the various stresses of the upcoming holidays. Thus far, rehearsals have been a pleasure . . . getting to spend my evenings with a talented group of fun and charming people? Awesome! And just imagine how lovely that will be when they’re all decked out in gorgeous Regency attire!

Jane Austen: Her Blessed Lady of the Rom Com Miss Bennet is a rom-com in every sense of the word. While generally speaking, I don’t love this genre, there are good and bad examples of it and I have certainly directed my share of rom-coms. Miss Bennet happens to be a very good example of a modern rom-com. Here, Gunderson and her collaborator Margot Melcon have created story that satisfies the mechanics of the genre while capturing Jane Austen’s wit and style and offering a sensitive and nuanced exploration of friendship, family dynamics, and forgiveness. Yes, of course the lovers smooch in the end, but there is so much more to the story.

While rom-coms in their contemporary manifestation have a long history stretching back to the days of Classical Roman Comedy (or as I describe them to my Theatre History students: “A story of a dumb young girl and a dumb young boy who are too dumb to figure out how to get together without the intervention of their smarter and more interesting servants”) we owe a debt to Jane Austen and her keen eye for observing human foibles and revealing the humor in our struggles to understand each other.

The author of six full-length novels (two published posthumously), Austen was one of the first female authors to make a living as a writer. Her works have been cherished by generations of readers. In spite of her successes, the details of her biography are clouded with mystery and by an attempt on her family’s part to control her image after her death at the age of 41. For example, Jane had written over 3,000 letters to her sister Cassandra, but for some reason most of the letters were destroyed in 1843. What was Cassandra trying to hide? What scandal could be so offensive? We may never know. And much like with Shakespeare, we are left to speculate based on the works she left behind.

Austen, the daughter of an Anglican rector, lived between the worlds of the elite society of the English gentry and the lower classes. She was educated and afforded opportunities to express herself creatively to friends an family. But, her precarious financial situation limited the choice in suitors for herself and Cassandra. Neither sister married while both suffered bad luck in love. Cassandra’s fiance, Thomas Fowle, died of Yellow Fever and little is known about Jane’s relationship with Tom LeFroy other than it ended rather abruptly, likely upon the intervention of his family.

Given the rather disappointing romantic biographies of Jane and Cassandra, it seems logical she might retreat into her imagination and create unconventionally witty protagonists who, like the Austen sisters, possess little fortune, but unlike them, the Bennet and Dashwood sisters secure happy endings with loving (and often fabulously wealthy) husbands.

The 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice directed by Joe Wright.

Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813, is likely Austen’s most enduring and beloved novel having inspired multiple film, television, and theatrical adaptations. The story centers around Lizzy Bennet, the smart and lively second eldest sister in a family with five daughters, and her rocky road towards love and marriage to the enigmatic and wealthy Mr. Darcy. The world of Longbourn and Pemberley are populated with a vivid cast of characters including the insufferably tedious Mr. Collins, the long-suffering anxious Mrs. Bennet, and the beautiful snobbish Caroline Bingley. As Lizzy and Darcy navigate the complications of love and courtship in the rigidly-structured British aristocracy, Austen exposes the challenges young women face to lead happy and fulfilling lives when so few options are available.

Miss Bennet is set two years after the end of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzy and Mr. Darcy are happily married as are elder sister Jane and her beloved Charles Bingley. Considered unsuitable misfits by Caroline Bingley and the formidable Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the original story, Jane and Lizzy have triumphed over pomposity and become wives rich and handsome men. While Lizzy and Jane didn’t come to their happy endings easily, most of the objections to them were due to perceptions of their family. Mr. Bennet raised his daughters to have their own minds and do as they pleased without caring for what reputation such an unconventional upbringing might inspire among their peers. With little money to provide dowries for his daughters and their estate to be left to their male cousin, the Bennet sisters have little to bring to a marriage other than whatever charm they might possess. In the end, this is all well and good for Jane (considered the most beautiful and kind young woman in their community) and the confident and self-possessed Lizzy. But what of the three younger Bennet sisters?

As chronicled in the novel and further explored in Miss Bennet, Lydia’s flirtatious behavior sparks a scandal that may very well have destroyed what little good reputation the Bennet family had were it not for the secret intervention of Mr. Darcy. The other two sisters, Kitty and Mary, are among the least developed in the novel.

Jane Austen provides little information about middle sister, Mary, the romantic heroine of Miss Bennet. Unlike Lizzy and Jane who are both attractive in looks and personality, she is awkward and coarse. She is portrayed as bookish and dour, lacking in the social graces her older sisters possess. Younger sisters Lydia and Kitty are pretty and confident while Mary flounders in the middle, seemingly destined for the life of a spinster.

Gunderson and Melcon devise the plot for Miss Bennet based on a single line from Pride and Prejudice in which Lizzy writes home to her family: “Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas.” The stage is set, as it were, revisiting seven characters from the original novel including the happily wed Lizzy and Darcy, the soon-to-be parents Charles and Jane, Lydia, Mary, and Lady Catherine’s sickly and awkward daughter Anne de Bourgh. A new character, Arthur de Bourgh, distant cousin to Darcy, joins the family for Christmas after recently inheriting the de Bourgh estate of Rosings. Will this newcomer and Mary find love and happiness or will their romance be thwarted before it has a chance to bloom? I think we all know the answer to that question. What makes Miss Bennet such a delightful piece of theatre is not the inevitable rom-com happy ending, but the further development of the quirky characters and nuanced relationships we are familiar with and the more contemporary lens through which they are viewed.

I will explore the themes and characterizations in the next post! For now . . . I need to get ready for rehearsal!

[rhetoricandlogic]

THE MANUAL OF DETECTION BY JEDEDIAH BERRY

KAREN MEISNER / ISSUE: 9 MARCH 2009

Borges wrote in praise of the detective story that "it is safeguarding order in an era of disorder" ("The Detective Story," 1978). This notion is given a playful surrealist treatment in The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry. Berry is no stranger to strange fiction; he's been up to his neck in it for years as the assistant editor of Small Beer Press, and his own short stories have been widely published to critical acclaim. Now he's written his first novel, and it is a stylish, exciting debut. In this story, sleuthing is more than a trade; it embodies an orderly approach to life. Mysteries must be solved to separate truth from illusion. Even the criminals seem mainly interested in crime as a mission, an artform, a way of affecting the world. Their leaders are magicians, masters of disguise, illusionists. The conflict between detectives and criminals is a clash of philosophical positions, a metaphysical struggle for dominance.

Our hero is Charles Unwin, mild-mannered file clerk for Detective Travis Sivart. They work at The Agency, a monolith of respectability which protects its city by standing firm against the criminal element. Unwin is a mild, unassuming fellow, never without his umbrella (it is always raining in the city). He excels at organizing and cataloguing files, comfortably contented within his appointed role. But when Detective Sivart goes missing, Unwin is unexpectedly promoted to detective and thrown into the field as an operative. Being thoroughly unsuited to the job, he protests his promotion, but when he comes under suspicion for murder, he must follow the clues in order to figure out what's going on. As he reluctantly begins to ask questions, he discovers that many facts in Detective Sivart's files are false. Soon he is swimming out of his depth, floundering in mysteries. In the thickening plot he finds evidence relating not only to the case at hand, but to secrets that may undermine all he's held true.

Unwin's initial approach to detection is clerklike: mechanically attempting to do what he thinks is expected of him, sorting the facts, bluffing his way through an assortment of odd discoveries. His transformation into an agent begins when he opens a copy of The Manual of Detection—the Agency's bible of the theory and practice of detective work—and reads his first bit of advice (under the header "Mystery, First Tidings of"):

The inexperienced agent, when presented with a few promising leads, will likely feel the urge to follow them as directly as possible. But a mystery is a dark room, and anything could be waiting inside. At this stage of the case, your enemies know more than you know—that is what makes them your enemies. Therefore it is paramount that you proceed slantwise, especially when beginning your work. To do anything else is to turn your pockets inside out, light a lamp over your head, and paste a target on your shirtfront. (p. 52)

Proceeding slantwise is also good advice for readers of this novel. The narrative does not propel us forward, guns blazing, so much as slowly draw us deeper into a mysterious world. Boundaries are blurred between realism and dream-states. The time in which events take place is never specified, though the story sustains a vaguely early-twentieth-century atmosphere throughout, as though tipping its bowler hat to the great mystery novels of that era. And yet the book feels fresh and new, even experimental. It's a book that provokes comparisons to other works of fiction, because it is so difficult to classify without reference points. However, I promised myself I would get through this review without quoting Chesterton, and I will not backslide now. The fact is that The Manual of Detection is a singular creation, confidently constructed in its genre-synthesizing originality.

Despite the book's many charms, I did not warm to the story immediately. The plot quickly becomes complicated, hallucinatory; I found it difficult to follow. (There's now a helpful websitethat makes it easier to keep track of personnel and other pertinent information.) The mannered, faintly Edwardian prose struck me at first as overly refined; corpses pile up and yet much of the action feels curiously bloodless, more dreamlike than visceral. Like Unwin himself, who "felt he had stumbled into the mystery he was supposed to be solving," I was thrown when the ground started shifting before I'd become quite anchored in the story. It was all a bit dizzying.

In 1924, André Breton wrote in the first Surrealist Manifesto that he sought to expand awareness and find a superior reality by exploring the associations of the unconscious mind. In Berry's novel, a similar notion is employed to practical ends by operatives of the Agency, who are able to spy on suspects within dreams, and see clues the unconscious may reveal about their crimes. As Unwin uses this surveillance method to track clues, the story drifts into the surreal. Curiously, the further Unwin submerges into the dreaming world, the more vivid and solid and awake a person he becomes, the more known to himself. When we first meet him, Unwin is a far cry from the hardboiled model of sleuth; he is a bit of a cipher, meekly shrinking from action, so buttoned-up and cautious that is difficult to get a grip on him. As he struggles toward understanding and his adversary, however, he begins to develop his own instincts, and life floods into the story.

Similarly, as the novel develops, the juxtaposition of precise, dapper prose in a bizarre context becomes hypnotic. The precision of Unwin's perspective gives every scene a realism that is constantly being subverted. The story never veers off into mere weirdness, but stays grounded in the inexorable dream-logic of its world. It reaches and unsettles the reader at an unconscious level. Science-fiction fans like to talk about the "sense of wonder" that results from encountering new concepts and creations, but what I got from this was the delicate sensation that arises when the familiar is made strange: a sense of mystery. Witness this scene when Unwin realizes he's being spied upon:

"He is trying to focus," said the man at the telephone.

Unwin set down the Manual and rose from his seat. He had not misheard: somehow the man with the blond beard was speaking Unwin's thoughts aloud. His hands shook at the thought; he had begun to sweat. The three men at the lunch counter swiveled again to watch Unwin walk to the back of the room and tap the man on the shoulder.

The man with the blond beard looked up, his eyes bulging with violence. "Find another phone," he hissed. "I was here first."

"Were you speaking about me just then?" Unwin asked.

The man said into the receiver, "He wants to know if I was speaking about him just then. He listened and nodded some more, then said to Unwin, "No, I wasn't speaking about you."

Unwin was seized by a terrible panic. (p. 54)

In short, Berry has put together a novel with the perception-challenging impact of a Magritte painting, and every element of the story works together to create that effect. It is Unwin's receptive, uncarved-block quality that allows him to traverse the landscape as a kind of lucid dreamer, sifting through information as it comes to him, without getting too bogged down in what he knows, perhaps falsely, to be true. He continues in his clear-headed, methodical approach even as reality is deconstructed around him. It is entirely right that the story should proceed at the pace it does, because the nature of this book is that it does not bombard the reader with emotion, action, or florid images. The storytelling is the opposite of bombastic; it invites you in to its stylish world, and parcels out its clues sparingly. It's an ambient kind of book. You sink into its atmosphere and let it wash over you, and it does things to your mind.

The surrealist painter Ian Hornak once wrote,

My idea of a perfect surrealist painting is one in which every detail is perfectly realistic, yet filled with a surrealistic, dreamlike mood. And the viewer himself can't understand why that mood exists, because there are no dripping watches or grotesque shapes as reference points. That is what I'm after: that mood which is apart from everyday life, the type of mood that one experiences at very special moments. (Ian Hornak, The 57th Street Review, January 1976)

By this definition, The Manual of Detection succeeds brilliantly as surrealist art. It is also, without doubt, a sincere piece of good old-fashioned detective fiction, in which everything is connected, and readers are offered the satisfaction of a riddle that can be deciphered, of fitting interlocking pieces together into a logical whole. But something larger lingers in the wake of the individual mysteries Unwin investigates: mystery itself, strange and unknowable. Long after I finished reading The Manual of Detection I kept returning to it for the sheer pleasure of resting my eyes on the sentences, and falling back into that transcendent, mysterious mood. Unwin is described at one point as a "meticulous dreamer", and this elegant, intricate, ambitious book leaves me feeling that is a most wonderful thing to be.

Karen Meisner lives in the small city of Madison, Wisconsin, where it rains just the right amount. She edits fiction for Strange Horizons.

[adiabolikpastelrp]

Loving You

This is a role play between @the-sloth-woman and myself. It features her OC Alrick with my OC Skye.

Status: Complete

Word Count: 2472

ღ  Warning: that this does contain content that is unsuitable for some readers such as mature themes, strong language, adult situations, and sexual content. 

Quick Note: this is an AU from the events of Losing You ღ

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“You want the approval of some... ass hole? You think there wasn’t a part of me that wanted my dad’s approval? Sure, but he’s a prick. And I’m much happier being gay. Dressing the way I do.”

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“It’s not just about his approval, it’s what I want too. And this isn’t something I can  just- just run away from. I can’t just reinvent myself like you can, this would affect everyone.”

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“Yeah and no matter what if affects you. You want to spend the rest of her life with some human? What will you do if you end up actually falling for her? She’s bound to die. You’d be left alone with half breed children to raise on your own. That is if she even makes it to be old, humans are so fragile.”

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“Of course I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with some human! You know how I feel about them, you know this isn’t what I want. But it’s not about what I want, it’s about me doing what’s best for our people.”

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“They’ll get a new king and they can do ‘what’s best’. You can always make a choice to be happy for you...” Skye would sigh a bit. “Why does it have to be you?”

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“Skye, darling, they can’t just get a new king. It’s only me and my father... and I am not going to let Jose damn Sakamakis anywhere near my throne.” He sighs. “It’s not fair.... it’s not fair to either of us.”

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“No it’s not.” Skye throws a pillow at the wall. “This is fucking stupid! I knew better then to... from the beginning I knew being with you wasn’t smart but...! I thought just maybe you’d never mate. Or that... I’d be enough...” He’d start tearing up. “... why is it so wrong... why am I... so wrong...”

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“No, no!” Alrick puts his hand on Skye’s back. “This isn’t your fault. There’s nothing wrong about you....”

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“There’s everything wrong with me!” Skye says loudly. “I... I don’t want to be like this... “ he says grabbing at his hair, a little too tight. “I can’t...! Fuck...” Skye grabs his own arms, trying to stop himself.

It was something he used to do when he was younger. Stress and depression would take it’s toll and he would pull his hair out. 

“Sorry... I... didn’t want you to see me like this...!” He tries to move back.

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“Stop, stop.” Alrick wrapped his arms around Skye like a cage, pulling him against his chest. “Don’t run away from me with this. I’m here, I’ve got you...”

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Skye struggles for a bit, the tears from his eyes caused the scales on his face to harden. “... you’re not... your gonna leave me...” he grabs onto Alrick’s arms tightly. “... I don’t want you to leave... I love you... I feel... normal with you. Accepted. You don’t turn me away... or call me disgusting...”

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“Darling......” Alrick ran his hand through his short hair. He couldn’t promise that he wasn’t going to leave. He had to leave. 

He pressed a kiss to Skye’s lips, cradling one side of his cheek. “I.... I love you too...”

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Skye couldn’t hold it back. His heart burst at Alrick’s words. Holding him tight, wrapping his arms around him, Skye kissed Alrick again. 

Not like he had before. Not with the undertone of sex to come. But of passion.  A fire. Something Skye had never felt before. It felt like fireworks. Like the world didn’t matter. Like nothing else did. 

He wanted to stay here. Feel this way forever. “Alrick... I love you... I love you... I love you...” he couldn’t stop saying it between the kisses. It was like a mantra. As if said enough it could change everything.

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Alrick’s heart felt like it was being cleaved in two. Every kiss Skye gave him Felt like another blow to his chest. “I’m sorry,” he panted, pulling away long enough to catch his breath. “I’m so, so sorry....”

Fuck. why did everything have to hurt this bad?!

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Skye looked at him. Defeated. “... but... it’s not enough... is it...?” He whips his eyes. “... you won’t abandon them for me... or speak out against the council for me... make someone else take that... vile thing which caused us ruin...” 

His heart felt worse than before. Wasn’t speaking your feelings supposed to make you feel better. Hearing him say it back was... amazing but... it didn’t change the situation. 

“... take me... I’ll do whatever it takes. I’d do anything... I’ll endure any kind of spell or treatment... Just... don’t leave me for something like... reproduction...”

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“I-“ Alrick was at a loss. “I could.... fuck, I could try to give her to someone else. Or something,” he ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. He couldn’t take Skye with him after he was tied to the human. Not that he didn’t want to, but he wouldn’t be able to feel the same way about Skye that he did now. He couldn’t control it. 

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to hurt you- I can’t hurt you. I can’t leave you alone like this..” He clutched Skye like his life depended on it.

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Skye clung to Alrick with the same desperation. “Keep her for children I don’t care just...” he moved to bury his face into Alrick’s shoulder. 

“This... what we have is so real... Alrick I can’t loose this... the happiness I have with you... I’ve never had before...” 

Skye moves a bit to touch his forehead to Alrick’s. “... we can work through this together... we’ll think of something... a way for us to be together... and still do what’s best for your people... just... try... please...”

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His voice was barely above a whisper. “Okay.... I’ll try for you...”

He buried his face in Skye’s shoulder. Maybe the rumors around mating ceremonies were wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t lose himself to the human girl after it was over. Alrick was strong and notoriously stubborn, he would keep fighting for what was his. Besides, demons had affairs all the time. It wouldn’t be that hard to be with Skye, would it?

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Skye held onto Alrick tightly. Both of them just staying like that for a long time. No words. Just feeling one another. The closeness. The pain. The love. 

“... is there anyway to do this without mating? Perhaps you could purpose a simple human marriage?” Skye final asked, since they didn’t have much time to think of a plan. “... then you wouldn’t have to mate with her, but in the public eye you’d still be ‘married’ at least...”

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The thought had never occurred to him. “I would have to bring it up to the council. I’m not entirely sure it would work; you know how some of them are stuck in their ways. But it’s worth a shot.” 

He ran his hand up and down Skye’s back in soothing motions. “We could still have children that way. Maybe you could even help us raise them,” he chuckled quietly.

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Skye shivered a bit at the soothing feeling. “I could...?” He blushes slightly. 

“You could present it to the council as a way of... necessity.” He started to explain. “We are not mixing genetics for love. It’s purely for lineage. So... if all you need is a human to mate with, why ruin your chance as finding a true mate? Someone to actually spend the rest of your life with?” 

Skye nuzzled against Alrick, his scales starting to soften. “Keep that human as  a partner, treat them fair enough, use them for their only purpose... then when they die it’s not loss to the demon. If mating is as intense as they say... loosing a mate can make you go crazy. What’s going to happen when the human dies?”

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Alrick hummed thoughtfully. “You’re making a lot of sense. It’s not logical to get so attached to a human, right? They’re such fragile creatures. Just falling down the stairs can be fatal for them. I hope that wouldn’t pass over to half-breeds.” 

He felt much better holding Skye this tight against him. “We can do this together, okay? And who knows, maybe after the children come she’ll get tired and want a divorce. That happens all the time with humans. Or it did.”

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Skye lite up at his words. Doing it together! Meaning... they’d be public! The two of them had kept the relationship hidden before. It was a scandal. The Royal sleeping with a low born man. 

“Right! And if she doesn’t... that’s okay. Cause you’ll still be mine...” Skye blushes and kisses Alrick’s cheek. “Don’t... take that too serious though... I’m not some crazy person.” 

Skye didn’t want Alrick to think that just because they had both said they loved one another, and they were planning to speak with the council that Skye was getting ahead of himself. This was all nice and what he wanted. However, the future was always changing. 

He was not about to suggest the two of them mate, that would be crazy right? Could it even be done between two men? Skye had seen gay couples sure, but none mated. Perhaps it was something only a straight couple could do. 

“So... how do we do this. The sooner the better. You’re supposed to be mated tomorrow right?”

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Alrick closed his eyes against Skye’s kisses. “Right, yes,” he sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to meet with the council the first thing tomorrow to get their approval. And bypassing that I might have to meet with my father.....” 

He sagged in Skye’s arms. “I hope it won’t have to come to that. But if I can convince him of this then his word is as good at law.”

He absentmindedly ran his thumb along the soft scales of Skye’s cheek. His mind was moving at a mile a minute. He would have to make new preparations for a human wedding, although that wouldn’t be that difficult in comparison to a mating ceremony. And he would have to spend the night with his new bride regardless of what the council said. This was going to be very difficult.

“And you’re sure that you won’t be angry seeing me with her? Knowing that I have to be with her?”

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Skye moves his hands to lace with Alricks. "You have to use her. I understand that." He smiles a bit, "I just... cannot stand the idea of you... mating with her. Leaving me for her. That's... what's wrong."

Skye sighs happily, this little plan of theirs was amazing. Hopefully they could actually pull it off. Alrick trying. Actually fighting for them. He looks to the clock the hotel has. It was getting late. 

"Will you stay with me tonight? Or do you have some work to do...?" He really wanted to spend the night with Alrick, however, with everything going on. Perhaps they should part ways for now. "I'll... if you... would have me... I'll be by your side for all of this. I mean it. I know I'm not much but... I'll fight for us if you will."

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Alrick shook his head. “Don’t say you’re not much. I wouldn’t love you as much as I do if you weren’t important to me.”

He was getting a headache between his eyes. There were so many things that could go wrong with their plan. What if the council refused? What if his father refused? He rubbed his forehead quietly, trying not to lose himself in a stress spiral. 

He glanced at the clock. He should be getting back home, but he didn’t want to. Without Skye there would be nothing preventing him from staying awake all night, tossing and turning with worry. “I’ll stay. I have to leave early to prepare for speaking with the council.”

He fell back against the bed, his head pounding. He needed a drink, he needed an excuse not to worry. “Come here...” he tugged Skye impatiently.

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Skye could read him like a book. He was starting to get stressed out. Worrying about everything that could go wrong. To be honest, Skye was completely terrified. However, Alrick was worth the stress. Now that he had admitted to loving him, he wasn't about to let him go. 

Smiling softly, Skye would run his hand over Alrick's chest. "Want me to rub you? Give you a nice message, might help you sleep." He moves over Alrick, letting his discarded wig fall to the ground.

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“Fuck, yes. That sounds incredible right now.... “ he trailed off. Alrick let his eyes flutter shut, shielding them with his hand. Tomorrow was going to be Hell. All he wanted, all he needed was to fall away into the comfort of Skye’s hands.

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Skye laughs a bit and let’s Alrick get comfortable. Then he climbs on top of him, and slowly works his back. There was a lot of tension there. 

“My gosh Pet Name~ you’re so tense...” he smiles kissing his back softly. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it all better~” he muses.

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Alrick smiled inspire of his worries. “You know I love it when you call me that, right?” He peeled at Skye through one half-lidded eye. “It’s clever. And cute. Like you, Parakeet.”

He sighed and buried himself deeper into the pillows. “You can make anything better,” he mumbled. “It’s one of your many talents....”

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Skye blushes deeply, “I guess... yours is better though.” He says working on his shoulders. 

“... thank you Alrick...” he says kind of softly. “I mean it... you’re amazing, and so smart. I’m... really happy to have found you, and even more so to be in love with you.”

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Alrick groaned softly as the tension between his shoulders melted away under Skye’s hands. “I’m happy to have found you... you’re funny, and charming. And stubborn,” he winked at Skye from his pillow. “I love all of it....”

Skye’s hands were lulling him into deep relaxation. He struggled to stay awake, but he was fighting a losing battle. “My Parakeet,” he mumbled.  “Always treating me well... makes me so happy... I’m so lucky.....”

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Skye would continue rubbing Alrick’s back until his breathing became even. Satisfied that he was finally asleep, Skye moves next to him and covers them up. Softly he would kids Alrick’s head, and pull him close. 

They never did get to snuggle a lot. Alrick had work, or it was too risky. But now, they’re relationship was about to be public. Skye couldn’t wait.

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It was too easy for Alrick to drift off in the comfort of Skye’s arms. Here he was safe, here he was loved. 

Alrick clung to him all throughout the night. Tomorrow there would be battles to be fought, arguments to win. But for now he finally found some peace in the comfort of his love’s arms.

The End.

[glitterycrownphantom]

Background

Toby grew up with several mental disorders during his childhood, making it difficult for him to fit in with "normal people". He was constantly bullied by his classmates for his tics and was ultimately deemed unsuited for a public school surrounding, so he switched to homeschooling. While he received plenty of support from his mother and older sister Lyra, his father was nothing but a negative influence on his son. Having lost himself to alcohol, drugs and gambling, Toby's father became increasingly abusive towards his family, especially Toby.

When Toby was seventeen, he and his sister were involved in a tragic car accident that resulted in Lyra's death. Toby's symptoms worsened greatly because of this; he lost his appetite for food, became even less social than before, and slowly began to lose his memories. On the night he returned from the hospital, Toby saw the Slender Man watching him from the street. Slender Man repeatedly stalked Toby wherever he went throughout the following weeks, causing Toby to have several visual and auditory hallucinations. Concerned for her own son's safety, Toby's mother brings him to a psychiatrist to help him cope with his post-traumatic stress disorder.

The next day Toby dreams of his sister's corpse followed by an attack by the Slender Man. As Toby walked down the stairs, he began hearing voices telling him to kill his father. He eventually couldn't ignore the voices anymore and has a complete mental breakdown. After a brief struggle with his father, Toby gained the upper hand violently stabbed his father in front of his mother. In a desperate attempt to escape the police, he set the neighborhood on fire as a distraction, but was quickly surrounded by the flames. Just as he was about give into his inevitable death, the Slender Man teleports in front of him and saves him. Two weeks later, Toby's mother listened to a news story about the murders of several teenagers. The main suspect is Toby due to one of his hatchet's being found at the crime scene. This marked the moment Toby officially became a Proxy of Slender Man.

Personality

Though Toby usually has an up-beat and hyper personality, he can be very sarcastic at times and he will sometimes lose control of his emotions due to his bipolar disorder. He can change from being very emotional to being angry or happy in an instant, making it very difficult to talk to him at times. Despite this, he can be friendly to certain people and he is a natural born trouble-maker.

Problems with the community

Masky, Hoodie, and Toby

Brian Thomas (Actor Brian Haight)

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Be aware this section contains spoilers:

This is a point of confusion in the mythos that often is question without truly understand who Masky and Hoodie are. Ticci-Toby is, in his own story, a proxy. Masky and Hoodie, however, are not proxies, and have never come into contact with Slender Man. The main antagonist of MarbleHornets is The Operator, a similar character to Slender Man with several fundamental aspects altered. The Operator does not use proxies, and neither Masky nor Hoodie are ever seen trying to help it. The opposite is true, actually, as they are constantly trying to impede Alex, who is also trying to destroy The Operator, but through a different method than they are.

Additionally, Hoodie and Masky are the alternate personas of Brian Thomas and Tim Wright. By the end of MarbleHornets, Brian is dead, and Tim has cast off his personality shifts. Neither have had control of their shifts, do not show any ability to remember what has happened, and Tim specifically does everything both as Masky and as himself to stop The Operator the best he can. By the end of the series, Tim and Hoodie were enemies, and Hoodie was ultimately killed by Tim and then revealed to be Brian.

Ticci-Toby has never existed in the MarbleHornets universe, and therefore would never interact with either Tim Wright nor Brian Thomas. Furthermore, Masky and Hoodie are typically depicted as individuals with a similar build to Toby, which is false as both are bulkier men with a heavier set. Finally, MarbleHornets states it exists in its own continuity, meaning it would be impossible for Ticci-Toby to meet either Brian or Tim, let alone the fact that Brian is dead and Tim is missing.

One other piece of confusion is part of the Creepypasta World theory, which stipulates all creepypasta characters actually exist in one singular universe. While most creepypasta authors do not accept this, Brian and Tim still wouldn't be part of it even if it were true. This is because Hoody and Masky are not creepypasta. By definition, a creepypasta is essentially an internet horror story, whereas Hoody and Masky were characters created for a YouTube show. They were never written in a story prior to this, and are copyrighted characters just like Toby, so they cannot be written without permission from Troy Wagner, Joseph DeLage, and Tim Sutton. Any creepypasta stories involving Brian and Hoody are not only non-canon, but totally fake, just like any spinoff creepypasta of Ticci-Toby.

Is Toby Canon?

This is a point of confusion for most people in the Toby fandom, which mainly stems from confusion as to how Slender Man canon works.

A Slender Man story is typically regarded as canon or not on an individual basis, but as a mythos overall, stories that are canon are typically only accepted as canon once the mythos has come to accept it as either a fundamental aspect of the Slender Man, or the world Slender Man embodies. Furthermore, most works involving characters interacting with Slender Man often have very limited storytelling, and quickly die out. From a surgist point of view, Toby would be an unacceptable part of the mythos, as Surgists do not tend to believe in the concept of proxies as a canon aspect.

One major problem is that Slender Man is attributed under a creative commons, allowing for use of him in everything save for commercial products that are released without the permission of Eric "Victor Surge" Knudsen. Ticci-Toby, however is a copyrighted character belonging to Kastoway, who used Toby in only one story and has distanced himself from his creation altogether. As such, Toby is a dropped concept, and is non-canon. He exists in only one story and will not be used in any further stories.

Kastoway and his creation

On the Ticci-Toby Deviantart page created by author Kastoway, comments have been disabled.

On Friday, December 14th, 2014, Kastoway wrote the following after a series of arguments regarding Toby being shipped with other Creepypasta characters. The post was titled "Creepypasta Fandom, Please Read"

Hello guys,Due to recent events I feel the need to clarify a few things.A lot of people really have been white knighting for me, which I understand is in attempt to help me out and defend me in a situation in which I wouldn't defend myself but you really don't need to do that.I know in the past I have asked people not to draw or write anything involving Toby which featured him being shipped with anyone other than Clockwork but I know now that it's really pointless to ask something like that.A lot of people have respected what I am and am not comfortable with and some people haven't. That's fine, I don't really find it to be important anymore, it's really just not worth the effort in trying to fight back against stuff like that and I guess I really just don't care much anymore.I'm done with the Creepypasta fandom. I've been done with it for a while and with Toby's copyrights in place I plan on not looking back on it or bothering with it unless it involves legal violation of copyright.Please don't feel inclined to defend me against people shipping Toby with other characters or OCs or anything like that, it's fine. And not to mention people are getting hurt because some others tend to take it too far.Bashing on someone's OC is a big nono. Please do not do that it's very hurtful towards the creator.Bashing and Constructive criticism are two very different things and have two very different outcomes.I never wanted to ultimately hurt anyone, I just thought that in the past that by putting up boundaries with my character I'd feel more comfortable with my place in the fandom but I was wrong and I am 100% not afraid to admit that.This is my fault. It is and I am truly sorry that I caused so much trouble, please know that it wasn't intended.From this point on please don't attack anyone about shipping with Toby or anything like that.Just leave it be, okay?And to anyone who has been hurt in the process please know that I truly am sorry. The fact that one little thing went against something I didn't like doesn't mean that it's right for you to be hurt, and I truly hope that everything gets better for you.I wasn't prepared for my character to become popular on the internet. I really wasn't.I never thought it would happen and I'm still not good at dealing with it. In fact I suck at it, it's true.Anyone who dislikes me has one reason or another to feel that way about me and that's fine. As I've said before I don't ask anyone to think of me any certain way so hate me if that's what you feel, just know that I'm sorry for what I've done and if I've ever done anything to personally offend you or anything like that and you'd like to confront me about it please do so so that I can apologize to you directly, because I want you all to understand that I'm not just playing nice, I mean it when I say I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused.I don't want to come on Deviantart and worry about people hating me. I don't want to start or continue conflicts, I just want it all to be water under the bridge.So all and all--Thank you and I'm sorry. I really am.

Kastoway has tended to refuse to answer questions regarding Ticci-Toby, with reasoning not being directly cited, but possibly being due to receiving the same questions over and over, and possibly in response to any flame wars that happened due to the above post.

The Slender Man Connection (SMC) wiki has hosted an article regarding Toby since May 2014, and has repeatedly had to delete or redact comments worshiping Toby. These include worshiping Toby's aspects, wanting to be in a relationship with Toby, believing Toby to be real or, at the very least, based on a real person, wishing to be in a romantic relationship with Toby, idolizing his murderous behavior, and a myriad of other problems. On April 29th, 2016, Kastoway wrote the following on a blog post on Deviantart titled "What the F---". The beginning portion of the blog was added after Kastoway had posted a comment on this wiki which will be posted after this blog.

EDIT:// Hey guys, sorry again for how hostile I sounded in this journal, I usually try not to use such a large amount of cursing and stuff like that, I was in a really infuriated state so I let all of that slip. ANYWAY the mods on the wiki have featured my comment as a discussion and edited to wiki in order to give the issue some recognition, which I am incredibly thankful for! Hopefully that helps cut this crap down, although I know there will always be those hard-headed people who will refuse to accept the fact that he's not real. Anyways, sorry about that. I'd like to go back to avoiding the subject of Ticci-Toby from here on out.Thanks guysI know I said I'd like to avoid this topic to the best of my ability but I feel like straight up pointing this out because I have no tolerance for this asinine bulls---. Sure it's all fun and games until another person gets hurt because some crazy f---ed up kid thinks they're gonna please some made up f---ing character by harming someone else again.The comments on this are absolutely ridiculous.I'm saying this here and now, and I'm going to make a comment there linking back to this journal so people know that I'm the actual person who wrote the god damn story: Ticci-Toby is 100% fictional, he is made up, I am f---ing positive because I made him up. His sole purpose was for my entertainment because I like horror and I wanted to create a scary story that ended up actually getting unexpected amounts of attention. He is not real, he not based off of a real person or an urban legend, you have not seen him with your own eyes because he is FAKE. Do NOT take this and make another f---ing sick move like those girls who stabbed their friend over Slenderman, do not do this to me, do not do this to anyone. Claiming that he's real is taking an imaginary thing meant to do nothing but take the form of a scary story for entertainment purposes and making it a real life issue that actually affects real life people. I'm horrified to see people say this, I don't know what I'd do if this were the cause of something awful because of some f---ed up prepubescent s---head hurting someone over something I made.I know I sound aggressive and rude but that's because I am furious. I am not going to take lightly to this subject, I'm not playing games, this is an issue and I'm not going to sit back and let people take something made up to a harmful realistic magnitude.To the people who think that Ticci-Toby or any horror character, creepy pasta or not is real; get your f---ing head on straight, don't be a god damn idiot.

(Minimally edited to censor curses, Original blog link above, can be read uncensored on Deviantart)

In response, Kastoway also posted the following under the username "Bonejags" on the comment section of this article (Link to uncensored comment):

I cannot believe the bulls--- that I am seeing in these comments. I cannot believe that there is an actual debate over whether or not Ticci-Toby is real. I made this account to announce that no, he is not real. How do I know? Because I'm the one who made him the hell up. I'm Kastoway from deviantart, the one that's credited in the wiki for writing the story. If you don't believe me here's a link to a journal about this subject that's on my account

http://kastoway.deviantart.com/journal/What-the-f----599845215

So, once again, I'm going to say it. Ticci-Toby is 100% FICTIONAL. As in he is NOT REAL. So no, to those saying that they've seen him with their own eyes, you haven't, there's nothing to see because he doesn't exist. He's not based on a real person nor an urban legend, he is a character I made up because I wanted to write a scary story for my own entertainment. I had no clue that it would get this amount of attention, and that's why handling the subject has been so rough for me.I apologize if I sound harsh but I have no tolerance for this bulls---. The amount of people who think that he's real is absolutely obscene, and I can't bare to think that another incident similar to the Slenderman Stabbings is possible because of something I created for fun. Please do not let that happen and take this seriously. It's one thing to enjoy a horror story, it's another thing to get joy from thinking that fictional psychopaths are real and that you're able to interact with them. They're fake and quite frankly I don't care how hearing that affects you, if you're heartbroken to hear that a crazy f---ing murderer isn't real then there is something wrong with and what you need is help and a taste of reality.

(Edited minimally to censor curses. Original unedited comment link above, and will remain unedited for record).

Since then, all comments regarding worshiping Toby or trying to imply he is real have been either heavily edited or deleted entirely. Kastoway himself does not wish to speak about Ticci-Toby further.

UPDATE: For some time, Kastoway's Deviangtart Blogs have been 404ed, possibly indicating they were deleted by Kastoway, but for unknown reasons. Unfortunately, the only current evidence of their existence is the above transcripts of the blogs.

[beardcore-blog]

That Was the Year That Was – 1936

Monarch – George V (until 20 January), Edward VIII (starting 20 January, until 11 December), George VI (starting 11 December)

Prime Minister – Stanley Baldwin (Coalition)

The abdication crisis

In 1936, a constitutional crisis in the British Empire arose when King-Emperor Edward VIII proposed to marry Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who was divorced from her first husband and was pursuing the divorce of her second.

The marriage was opposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth. Religious, legal, political and moral objections were raised. As British monarch, Edward was the nominal head of the Church of England, which did not then allow divorced people to remarry in church if their ex-spouses were still alive. For this reason, it was widely believed that Edward could not marry Simpson and remain on the throne. Simpson was perceived to be politically and socially unsuitable as a prospective queen consort because of her two failed marriages. It was widely assumed by the Establishment that she was driven by love of money or position rather than love for the King. Despite the opposition, Edward declared that he loved Simpson and intended to marry her as soon as her second divorce was finalised.

The widespread unwillingness to accept Simpson as the King’s consort and Edward’s refusal to give her up led to his abdication in December 1936. He was succeeded by his brother George VI. Edward was given the title His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor following his abdication, and he married Simpson the following year. They remained married until his death 35 years later.

Edward VIII – playboy, Nazi sympathiser, the king who abandoned his throne to marry Wallis Simpson: is that all there is left to say about the man who once reigned over the 400 million inhabitants of the British Empire? The truth, I would argue, is more complicated and far more intriguing.

Named Prince of Wales in 1911 on his 16th birthday, shortly after his father George V’s accession to the throne, Edward was an insecure and vulnerable man, caught up in a constant struggle to come to terms with his royal status. In his youth, two formative experiences had deeply influenced his world view. As a junior officer in the First World War he mixed with ordinary men and women and served on the western front, although he was not allowed to fight. The trauma of those years left him with the profound conviction that Britain should never go to war with Germany again, and it was this belief which underlay his support for the appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s.

Billy Butlin opens his first Butlins holiday camp

Billy Butlin paid just £1.50 in Lock’s Yard, in Bedminster, Bristol for a hoop-la stall in a travelling fair. . . and a multi-million pound fortune was launched.

Born in South Africa in 1899, he came to live in Bristol as a little boy when his mum married a Bristol gas worker. He went to St Mary Redcliffe School for a while before emigrating to Canada.

After World War I service with the Canadian army, he worked his passage across the Atlantic to Liverpool, was paid £5 and walked 160 miles back to Bristol to join the Marshall Hill fair at its Bedminster winter base.

Billy made his hoop-la pedestals the easiest to ‘hoop’, gave out prizes more quickly than anyone . . . and took 10 times the profits of his stunned rivals with their penny-pinching attractions as he triumphantly toured the West Country on the travelling fair circuit.

He went from hoop-la stalls to amusement parks to zoos and, in 1935, to his first holiday camp in Skegness, an idea he’d long since dreamed about after remembering a rotten holiday on the Bristol Channel when he’d been thrown out of his lodgings by a seaside landlady who wouldn’t allow ‘guests’ to stay during the day.

Give the punters a fair deal, a roof over their heads and amusements, and they would flock in just as they had to his Bedminster hoop-la stall. And, of course, it worked.

the speaking clock

Golden girl: Jane Cain was the first voice of the Speaking Clock.

TIM, the original Speaking Clock, was launched 80 years ago on 24 July 1936. Thanks to the fact that in the 1930s you could dial letters as well as numbers, when you dialled T-I-M, the “girl with the golden voice” gave a 24-hour time announcement service every 10 seconds – speaking in clipped received pronunciation, of course.

For example: “At the third stroke, it will be four twenty-four and thirty seconds, precisely” would be followed by three pips. The announcements were automatically co-ordinated with Greenwich Mean Time, and calls cost one penny or two pence from a phone box.

As launch hysteria gripped a nation craving punctuality, the press reported on the big day that “people went to public boxes and paid two pence to listen in. Small crowds pattered round some boxes and the receiver was passed from one hand to another.”

Before the Speaking Clock, people rang the operator and asked her the time by the exchange clock on the wall, but this was imprecise, because the clocks were not synchronised.

The Speaking Clock is the last of several recorded information lines run by BT, now all superseded by the internet. They included a recipe line, a weather line, a financial results line, a bedtime story line, a cricket line, and a football results line.

BT’s Speaking Clock is one of very few left in the world; AT&T switched its one off in 2007. BT’s version still receives 12 million calls a year, almost as many as it did in its first year (13 million) – although these days you dial 1-2-3 rather than TIM.

However, that may not be a completely accurate figure. An office worker, interviewed for a newspaper article in Bristol, confessed that she “phoned the clock several times an hour – not to find out the time, just to look as though I’m working”.

Battle of Cable Street

Cable Street, in the east end of London, has long reflected the city’s diversity. Today it’s home to a large South Asian community, a cycle route to the City for London’s businessmen, and an up-and-coming residential area for young hipsters. In the early 20th century, however, it was home to a large, mainly Jewish community whose stand against prejudice has become famous. Across the street from the train station that connects the East End to the city, a huge painting on the side of the town hall shows a confrontation between local residents and the forces of fascism that happened eighty years ago on Oct.4.

The successful defeat of Nazi sympathizer Oswald Mosley’s march through the East End, known as the Battle of Cable Street, is being commemorated this year by marches, talks and other events in this corner of London. The anniversary is being recognized at a timely moment, after Britain has endured a summer of increased hate crime reports following the EU referendum in Britain, and charges of an anti-Semitism problem in the opposition Labour Party. Coming also as far-right parties are gaining in electoral successes across Europe, it’s a good time to re-examine the forces behind the Battle of Cable Street

“Among the impoverished workers of the East End, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) built their movement in a horseshoe shape around the Jewish community,” says author and historian David Rosenberg, whose relatives owned a stationery shop on Cable Street at the time. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that “fascism can and will win Britain”. The British fascists also took on a more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin from the gutter of Whitechapel”.

On Sunday Oct. 4, 1936, Mosley led his Blackshirt supporters on a march through the East End, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East End’s community solidarity. Despite a petition signed by 100,000 people, the British government permitted the march to go ahead and designated 7,000 members of the police force to accompany it. The counter-protest from the Cable Street community involved members from the Jewish and Irish communities, local workers and local Labor and Communist parties, who succeeded in disbanding the BUF march.

Jarrow March

In October 1936, a group 200 men from the north-eastern town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London. They wanted Parliament, and the people in the south, to understand that they were orderly, responsible citizens, but were living in a region where there were many difficulties, and where there was 70 per cent unemployment – leading one of the marchers to describe his home town in those days as ‘…a filthy, dirty, falling down, consumptive area.’

The men were demanding that a steel works be built to bring back jobs to their town, as Palmer’s shipyard in Jarrow had been closed down in the previous year. The yard had been Jarrow’s major source of employment, and the closure compounded the problems of poverty, overcrowding, poor housing and high mortality rates that already beset the town. Ellen Wilkinson, the local MP, later wrote that Jarrow at that time was: ‘… utterly stagnant. There was no work. No one had a job except a few railwaymen, officials, the workers in the co-operative stores, and a few workmen who went out of the town… the plain fact [is] that if people have to live and bear and bring up their children in bad houses on too little food, their resistance to disease is lowered and they die before they should.’

the Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire

On November 30, 1936, the Crystal Palace, an iconic structure which had come to epitomise the pomp of the Victorian era, was destroyed by one of the greatest fires ever seen in London.

The 990,000 square foot cast iron and plate glass building was constructed in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition in 1851, at the behest of the Queen’s husband Prince Albert. In 1854 it was redesigned and reconstructed on Penge Common, by Sydenham Hill in South East London.

At just after 7pm on the evening of November 30 the Palace’s manager, Sir Henry Buckland, was walking in the grounds of the building when he saw a red glow emanating from it. He found two nightwatchmen trying to douse a fire that had begun in the women’s cloakroom and spread to the central transept.

The blaze took hold with alarming speed as the flames, helped by a strong wind, swept across the Palace’s acres of timber flooring, up into galleries and along glazing bars. The Penge Fire Brigade was not called until nearly 8pm; by that time, the building was an inferno.

Its glow, which was said could be seen across eight counties, proved an attraction for Londoners; an estimated 100,000 made their way to Sydenham Hill to watch the conflagration.

Despite the best efforts of 88 fire appliances and 438 men from four brigades, the building could not be saved, its central transept collapsing with a deafening roar. Buckland told reporters that the magnificent structure would “live in the memories not only of Englishmen, but the whole world”.

K6 red telephone box introduced

The K6 kiosk is identified as Britain’s red Telephone Box; in fact eight kiosk types were introduced by the General Post Office between 1926 and 1983. The K6 was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V in 1935. Some 60,000 examples were installed across Britain, which is why the K6 has come to represent the red Telephone Box. Over 11,000 K6s remain and they are the most visible examples of the eight kiosk types.

The K6 kiosk was commissioned by the General Post Office in 1935 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. The design needed to be suitable for universal use, not repeating the mistakes of earlier kiosks. The K2 and K3 were attractive designs but had proved problematic. The K2 was too large and too expensive; the K3 too brittle. The General Post Office turned again to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, with his triumphant new kiosk appearing in 1936. Some 8,000 kiosks were installed as part of the ‘Jubilee Concession’, allowing towns and villages with a Post Office to apply for a kiosk. A year later under the ‘Tercentenary Concession’ celebrating the Post Office’s 300th anniversary, a further 1,000 kiosks were installed over 12 years for local authorities paying a five year subscription of £4. In 1939 a more vandal-proof Mk II version was introduced. In 1949 the Royal Fine Arts Commission intervened again, and bowing to pressure allowed rural examples to be painted in different colours.

Subsequently kiosks have emerged painted in colours such as green and battleship grey. By 1960 some 60,000 examples existed, but the design was beginning to look old-fashioned. The General Post Office was looking at a modern replacement: the K7.

1936 UK news and events

13 January – GPO Film Unit documentary Night Mail, incorporating poetry by W. H. Auden and music by Benjamin Britten, is premiered at the Cambridge Arts Theatre.

20 January – King George V dies at Sandringham House, Norfolk, aged 70. His eldest son, The Prince Edward, Prince of Wales succeeds as King Edward VIII.

21 January – King Edward VIII breaks royal protocol by watching the proclamation of his own accession to the throne from a window of St. James’s Palace, in the company of the still-married Wallis Simpson.

6–16 February – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and win 1 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medals.

5 March – first test flight of the Supermarine Spitfire.

11 April – Billy Butlin opens his first Butlins holiday camp, Butlins Skegness in Skegness (Ingoldmells), Lincolnshire. It is officially opened by Amy Johnson.

18 April – Ordnance Survey begins the retriangulation of Great Britain with its first triangulation station near Cold Ashby, Northamptonshire.

17 May – barquentine Waterwitch is laid up at Par, Cornwall, the last square rigged ship to trade under sail alone in British ownership.

22 May – J. H. Thomas resigns from politics for leaking Budget proposals.

27 May – the RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York.

3 July – Short Empire flying boat makes first flight, from Rochester, Kent.

Fred Perry wins his third successive men’s singles tennis title at The Championships, Wimbledon, the last British player to win this title until 2013. This year he also wins his third U.S. National Championship, the last Grand Slam victory for a British player until 2012, and turns professional.

16 July – George McMahon tries to shoot King Edward VIII during the Trooping the Colour ceremony.

24 July – the General Post Office introduces the speaking clock.

27 July – opening of new swimming pool at Morecambe, claimed to be the largest open-air example in Europe.

28 July – Great Britain wins the 1936 International Lawn Tennis Challenge at Wimbledon, the last British victory in what becomes the Davis Cup until 2015.

31 July – Public Health Act empowers local authorities to make byelaws regulating building construction.

1–16 August – Great Britain and Northern Ireland compete at the Olympics in Berlin and win 4 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze medals.

6 August – an underground explosion at Wharncliffe Woodmoor Colliery in South Yorkshire kills 58.

26 August – signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty which requires the withdrawal of British troops and recognises Egypt as a sovereign state.

8 September – arson attack on a bombing school building at Penyberth on the Llyn Peninsula as part of the Tân yn Llyn campaign led by Saunders Lewis, Lewis Valentine and D.J. Williams of the Welsh nationalist group Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru.

30 September – official opening of Pinewood Studios.

4 October – Battle of Cable Street between Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists and anti-fascist demonstrators.

5–31 October – Jarrow March: 207 miners march from Jarrow to London in a protest against unemployment and poverty.

20 October – Prime minister Stanley Baldwin confronts King Edward VIII about his relationship with Wallis Simpson.

27 October – Wallis Simpson divorces Ernest Aldrich Simpson, removing the legal barrier to her marrying Edward VIII.

31 October – Elizabeth Cowell becomes the first female British television presenter making a broadcast from Alexandra Palace.

2 November – BBC launch world’s first regular television service, initially alternating between the 240-line Baird electromechanical and the Marconi-EMI all-electronic 405-line television systems.

6 November – Terence Rattigan’s comedy French Without Tears premieres in London.

12 November – Alan Turing’s paper "On Computable Numbers" is formally presented to the London Mathematical Society, introducing the concept of the "Turing machine".

16 November – King Edward VIII informs Stanley Baldwin of his intention to marry Wallis Simpson. Baldwin responds by informing the King that any woman he married would have to become Queen, and the British public would not accept Wallis Simpson as Queen. The King tells Mr Baldwin that he is prepared to abdicate if the government opposes his marriage.

25 November – the King tells Stanley Baldwin that he would be prepared to conduct a morganatic marriage with Mrs Simpson, which would allow him to carry on as King but not install Mrs Simpson as Queen. Stanley Baldwin informs him that this would not be accepted either (such a thing has never been known in British laws).

27 November – Stanley Baldwin raises the issue of a morganatic marriage in the Cabinet, where it is rejected outright.

30 November – the Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire.

December – Henry Hallett Dale wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Otto Loewi "for their discoveries relating to chemical transmission of nerve impulses".

1 December – Alfred Blunt, Bishop of Bradford, makes a speech which inadvertently leads to the abdication crisis becoming public in the British media.

2 December – Stanley Baldwin confirms in a meeting with the King that a morganatic marriage would not be accepted, and in order to marry Mrs Simpson the King would have to abdicate.

9 December – a KLM (Netherlands airline) Douglas DC-2 airliner crashes in Purley shortly after takeoff from Croydon Airport, killing 14 (including Juan de la Cierva and Admiral Arvid Lindman) with just two survivors.

10 December – abdication crisis: the King signs an instrument of abdication at Fort Belvedere in the presence of his three brothers, The Duke of York, The Duke of Gloucester and The Duke of Kent.

11 December – Parliament passes His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act 1936, providing the legislative authority for the King to abdicate.

The King performs his last act as sovereign by giving royal assent to the Act.

Prince Albert, Duke of York, becomes King, ruling as King George VI.

The abdicated King Edward VIII, now HRH The Prince Edward, makes a broadcast to the nation explaining his decision to abdicate. He leaves the country for Austria.

The Oireachtas of the Irish Free State passes the Constitution (Amendment No. 27) Act 1936, removing most powers from the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State, and the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act 1936 assenting to the abdication and restricting the power of the monarch in relation to Ireland to international affairs.

25 December – Princess Alexandra of Kent, daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Kent, is born in London. This will be the last royal birth attended by the Home Secretary.

K6 red telephone box introduced, together with GPO ‘Jubilee concession’ to provide one in every village with a post office.

Peter Jones (department store) in London, designed by William Crabtree, is completed as a pioneering example in the UK of glass curtain wall architecture.

Grant v The Australian Knitting Mills – a landmark case in consumer law.

Sport

1936 was the 43rd season of County Championship cricket in England. Derbyshire won the championship for the first time. India were on tour and England won the Test series 2–0.

The 1935–36 season was the 61st season of competitive football in England. Sunderland AFC won the league, and in doing so they remain the last team to win the English League while wearing striped jerseys. They also equalled the record of six titles won by Aston Villa. It remains the last season that Sunderland would win the title.

Aston Villa and Blackburn Rovers were relegated from the 1st Division and therefore became the last two of the founder members of the Football League to lose top flight status for the first time.

Posted by brizzle born and bred on 2019-01-28 08:42:44

Tagged: , That Was the Year That Was – 1936 , UK , United Kingdom , British , Britain , 1936 , 1936 UK news headlines

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