#John considered if the power to get drunk everywhere was a good idea for a few seconds

[nelkcats]

Scamming the scammer

John Constantine was the biggest headache Danny had managed to get, ever. After becoming King he did not think that his first task would be to solve the man's soul problems.

And it seemed quite incredible to him that the hellbazer would consider selling his soul as if it were a used car that he wants to get rid of to buy a new one. He was aware that he needed a soul, wasn't he? That it was not possible to buy a new one? Because he didn't want to be the one to inform him if that was not the case.

To top it off, beings from different domains within his kingdom came explicitly to claim the British's soul, which didn't even make sense, there were thousands of souls! Why did everyone want the same one? And why did he have to be the one to take care of it?

Completely frustrated, he placed all the paperwork for John Constantine in an empty room and locked the door. He smiled as he came up with a plan to improve the situation, it might be worth it.

That's how a drunk John Constantine found himself signing a dubious contract in exchange for the power to turn any liquid into beer, he didn't bother to read the contract, most demons just wanted his soul and this guy looked so human, with a presence so light it must be a minor demon for sure.

This turned out to be a bad decision when the next morning he found himself trapped in a room full of documents, the door locked. Taped to the door was a green note that said "Enjoy doing your own paperwork sir, I hope you're pleased with yourself", and well, maybe he should have read that contract after all.

[scuttle-buttle]

Chapter 11

WC: 2077

Rated: E

Chapter Tags: full on angst, discussions of emotional trauma, mild depictions of blood/gore, mentions of self h*rm & su*cide, mentions of child abuse, discussions of physical disabilities, institutionalization, some dialogue & plot canon to TV show, hurt/comfort

🧠

The rest of the conference went by much like the first day did. Both you and Laszlo bought a few books for your collections. An ease had settled over your conversations with the help of Sara and John's presence; you spoke more freely with each other. You tell yourself it is not because he's going soft on you or vice versa, but rather that you have found yourself in this imaginary bubble where you happen to get on well. It's inevitable that it will pop once you’re back at school and Laszlo will revert back to his usual callous state.

Laszlo. It still felt odd to think of him like that, rather than by his title. You couldn't lie, it gave you a sort of thrill. Even in your dreams you had only called him by his honorific. Thankfully you didn't have another dream after Friday. You couldn't escape the feeling that you'd said something incriminating in front of the man in question. So you chose to pretend it didn't happen.

Monday morning came and you headed to the train station. Once again he had secured a private cabin for the journey. This time you came prepared with a book since you had yet to replace your broken phone.

"Thank you again for inviting me to this, I really enjoyed myself. It was really nice of the department to foot my travel expenses, the hotel was really fancy. I may have helped myself to a mini-bottle or two," you joked.

"There is no need to worry about the department's finances; they were not involved."

You pause. He paid for you? Laszlo did say he would take care of the arrangements; but the four-star hotel, the private compartment train tickets, the admission to the conference, and every meal? Shit, that must have been a fortune, hundreds of dollars at least.

You don't know what to say, so you settle for an awkward "oh." A moment passes before you add "I appreciate that, um, I can pay you back. Might take some time but I can."

The professor is flippant in his reply. "There is no need, it was well spent for the research and knowledge acquired." He opens his book signaling the conversation is over.

You lick your lips. Fine then, I'll just consider it payment for emotional suffering and damages of the last eight weeks.

The first few hours of the journey were spent reading one of the new books you picked up at the convention. Occasionally you would peek over the pages at the professor. He was engrossed in his own selection; sometimes he would pause to write down a thought.

Around the seventh hour of your journey you had given up on reading anymore in favor of looking at the fields outside. The silence was comforting.

Laszlo had trouble concentrating on the book in his hand. He saw you as a conundrum. One minute you could be sociable and teasing with your comments, then next you were biting at his throat with your quick wit and fierce ideals. He decides that he wants to know what made you into who you are today. Now is as good a time as any.

His eyes on you cause a tingle up your spine but you ignore it. Laszlo breaks the silence; "may I ask a personal question?"

"You just did," you answer, still peering out of the large window. He huffed once, amused. At his following silence you face him. You raise your eyebrows to signal him to go on with his question. Curiosity grows at the thought of what he intends to ask.

"Twice now you have made implications of a traumatic past," he begins.

Bubble popped.

Interrupting, you snark "is this the part where you psychoanalyze me, doc? Because trust me, I've been through enough of that." You pick at the lint on your jeans.

Laszlo tries to choose his words more carefully the next time he speaks. "What I mean to say is, the first afternoon in the classroom where you defended that student you implied you had been witness to a trauma. You then displayed signs of anger and embarrassment before leaving prematurely. Yesterday you mentioned having entered a psychiatric facility. As an alienist I can't help but find myself curious about your experiences."

You slide your eyes to meet his from across the cabin. Your face is devoid of any emotion. "We all have our demons. Even you can't argue with that."

Your jaw clenches. Everyone had warned you. They all said he would try to worm his way into your head to figure you out. All the reviews, the gossip, everything. It was a big fat 'I told you so'. You give a pitiful laugh at the situation. "You know, everyone told me that you would pull this stunt."

He seems confused by your statement. "And what is that?"

"That you'd get inside my head and try to figure me all out or whatever. You already know I googled you beforehand, what everyone says about your methods. By now I assume you've done a little research yourself. I promise you there is nothing exciting here," you scoff and point to yourself.

"You would be correct in your assumption." You chew at your cheek as he starts. "I do know some of what happened in your past. Yet I also know that society likes to dilute the truth into something either more palatable, more entertaining, for people to consume greedily. What I want to know is what you have faced. How you have not allowed the experience to overcome you so much so that your humanity is erased like the characters I lecture on."

Eyes closing of their own volition you are thrown back in time to that night so many years ago. You didn't talk about it anymore. Bitsy knew of course, but that was the extent.

Laszlo waits. He knows this is likely to push you over the edge if your history with him means anything. Quite frankly, anyone would be tossed to their limit at his interrogation had they gone through what you had. John always told him that he needed to work on his bedside manner; that he had a habit of coming on too strong in his pursuit of learning the intricacies of the human mind. But your earlier comment about being sent to a so-called 'nuthouse' rubbed him the wrong way. It left a bad taste in his mouth. He needed to know. He needed to understand.

Laszlo can imagine the reprimand that he would receive from John and Sara for this. Just as he considers apologizing for his intrusion you open your eyes.

"She was fine. None of us suspected anything was wrong. I came home from having dinner with some… boy, and she had locked herself in the bathroom. She- she must have started over the sink and moved to sit on the side of the tub. She was hunched inside it when I got the door open. I pulled her out. Blood was… everywhere." Your voice is clinical as you explain.

"After, I shut down. So I checked myself into a psych ward a few days later when I couldn't get the feel of her blood off my hands. It's slippery, you know. And it smells. You wouldn't think so but it does." You clear your throat. "I did the therapy, took the meds they prescribed, all the standard treatments. Later I started watching true crime documentaries. I'd heard about exposure therapy so I figured the more I saw the gore, the less the image of my dead roommate would bother me. And it did help. The nightmares stopped after a while, I came back to school. I was better, just not the same.” You had watched the passing landscape as you explained. Turning to face him you speak again. “That's why those pictures didn't bother me. They weren't anything I hadn't seen before."

He contemplates you. The discovery and subsequent loss of your friend in this manner would no doubt cause lingering effects to your psyche. A stain that would forever remind you. "I offer my sincerest condolences. I do not presume to know what that would be like to experience, but I am glad you sought help afterwards. To make the choice to alleviate yourself of your own suffering where possible.”

As he says this he realizes that your anger towards the idea of being enslaved to unconscious impulse makes perfect sense. It explains why you focused so much energy on defending your belief in free will. That you have the power to choose how you carry your joy, your anger, your healing. It reminds him of how he held onto his own guilt and hurt, ignoring how it festered within him for so long. He feels as though he needs to share a piece of himself with you.

“I played piano as a child, quite well too. My mother hoped I would someday make a career of it. I vividly remember playing Mozart’s Concerto for Piano No. 20 in D Minor at a holiday party when I was seven years old. It was my favorite to play.... It requires two hands." You finally look at him. "My father...” He pauses to gather himself.

Now it is the doctor that cannot meet your eyes. As you listen you feel your confusion grow. How could he have been a talented pianist if he only had full use of his left hand? Unless..., the realization dawns on you just as he continues, his words slow.

“My father had two sides. One loving and the other brutal, the two often coexisting. It was something as trivial as putting me to bed, I recall... A game of tug of war. We were laughing…” He inhales a sharp breath. Already you can feel the tears begin to blur your vision. “I don't remember if he was drunk or if I said something that offended him. He must have pulled my arm behind my back.” Laszlo exhales shakily. “In small children, fractures can often affect…” he trails off, unable to finish. You can hear how he barely holds himself together.

Your heart aches for the broken man that sits in front of you. He never let on how much his arm bothered him, at least not within your presence. Suddenly you don’t see him as this rude, insufferable, obsessive man, but instead as someone that spends his life trying to protect himself. He projects his own anger and hurt so that he may, just for a minute, forget about his own demons. He wants to help others even when he feels he cannot bear to help himself.

But unlike you, he has to live with the physical reminder of his past every day of his life.

You stand and move to sit on his right side. Before allowing yourself to think too much of your actions, you place your hand atop his own, curling your fingers around his palm and squeezing delicately. You don’t bother wiping away the tears on your cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Laszlo;” the whisper is barely heard above the sound of the train. A second passes where you fear you have overstepped and offended him by touching the affected limb. When his thumb tightens against the backs of your fingers you know he is not. He holds you in place.

“You asked me how I kept my humanity. How does anyone really? We learn to take what we get and we carry it in a bag. Sometimes you have to drag the damn thing behind you. But eventually the weight gets less and less if you allow yourself to move forward, even if it’s still there with you all the time. I dealt with what happened years ago and it does still haunt me. It’s easier now than it was, but… I- I suppose I’ve learned from you too. Sitting in those lectures and hearing you talk. We can either let it haunt us for the rest of our lives… or we can accept it… and use the memory of our pain to help ourselves and others.”

“I’m not sure the choice is entirely in our hands.” His tone is mournful.

You turn to smile at him through your tears. His own eyes are bloodshot. “I disagree. If it weren’t, if we didn’t have the freedom to choose that, we’d all be murderers.”

Tag list

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[dontshootmespence]

Supernatural AU: Episode 5 - Faith

Part 1

Another greasy, backwoods, podunk hick stinking of beer and motor oil thinking he was gonna get into her pants.

Little did he know.

She was exhausted by it, but unfortunately it came with her assignment and for him she would deal with an infinite amount of these idiots.

Meg glanced in the rearview mirror, a smirk playing across her lips when he asked her where she wanted to go. It was all fun and games screwing around with one dumbass after another, but she did have a job to do and all her plans had been derailed after they left. He would want an update.

“Why don’t you pull over?” She crooned. The down-home country twang got them every time. It was too simple. Of course he would pull over; this idiot thought what they all did. ‘A pretty little blonde asking me to pull to the side of the road - I’ve hit the lottery!’

She tried to suppress a gag when she saw exactly how excited this moron was at the prospect of a little ass, but she’d do what needed to be done.

On this almost moonless night, he pulled the rickety van into a clearing with more than a few trees. He could have gone further up the road, but he underestimated the woman in the passenger seat, thinking if she decided not to go through with it, he’d have her in a corner. She banked on the stupidity of others.

The scraggly-haired redneck glanced in her direction expectantly, mind buzzing with possibilities that would never come. She wanted to laugh. She could just cut to the chase, but toying with him was so much fun. The silver goblet slipped effortlessly out of her bag, intriguing the man next to her. “I need to make a call,” she said sweetly.

A hint of confusion struck him before he offered her his cellphone. How cute.

Slipping her left hand into the pocket of her leather jacket and molding her palm to the knife’s hilt, she spoke with ice in her veins. “It’s not that kind of call.”

Before he knew what hit him, she jabbed the knife into the side of his throat, delighting in the gurgling sound that came from him. She’d revel in it more if she had the time, but she needed answers and per his orders had been keeping herself under the radar – very little fun, but necessary. Tipping the goblet toward the steady stream of blood, the scent of copper filling her nose, she gathered it and watched until it pooled into the basin.

With two fingers, she pushed the dying man in the direction of the driver’s side window and smirked before dipping the same two fingers into the pool of blood, stirring as she spoke – to him.

The blood reached out, its power eminent. He could hear her. “Why did I have to let them go?” She asked. She trusted him. Truly, she did, but her abilities were wasted. “I could have taken them, both of them.”

As the indistinct voice emerged from the goblet, she relaxed into her role. They were needed for a larger purpose and she would just have to trust that fact for now. “Yes, I trust you,” she whispered. “I trust you father.”

                                                             -----

Probably a good thing they came back. “You were toast,” Bobbie laughed. Some might balk at the idea of being chased around an orchard by a killer scarecrow for a pagan sacrifice, but alas, it was just another day in their lives.

“Seriously, you should be kissing our asses.” Sam said with a smile, pointing between himself and Bobbie as they all piled into the Impala again.

Dean claimed he had a plan all along; he would’ve been fine. But he couldn’t fool them. He and that girl had been mere moments from being on the wrong end of the scarecrow’s blade. Thankfully, the freaks that had been orchestrating the sacrifices for years were the ones to bite it this time. “What made you decide to come back?”

Bobbie came back because Sam decided to return. After her brothers ended up fighting in the car and walking away from each other despite her protestations, she decided to go with Sam. He wanted to look for John, a mix of worry and anger flowing through every muscle of his body. Dean wanted to follow John’s orders – for them to stop looking for him and do their jobs.

Honestly, Bobbie didn’t care either way. She knew there was work to be done, but she also wanted to find John if for no other reason than to punch him in the throat. After all the shit he’d been putting them through lately, she figured she was entitled to that much. But Sam had been the reason she’d left Dean. As his big sister, she was supposed to protect him – love him – that was her job, but when Jessica died she knew she’d failed, so instead of staying with Dean who could in all likelihood handle a job or two on his own (apparently she’d been wrong about that too, cue more guilt) she went after Sam and found him at the bus station on the tail end of a conversation with a pretty blonde.

“Well, you weren’t picking up your phone and we got worried about you,” he replied. “Good thing too. Otherwise you’d be a dead man.”

“No way, man. I had a plan. I was golden.” Bobbie rolled her eyes and smiled as Baby purred and began growling down the road.

“And I just figured that we know dad’s alive and finding him could wait another day. Something Meg said, even though I don’t think she meant it that way.” Sam didn’t want to admit how much he’d understood her, the desire to get away from family – forge another path, but when it all came down to it, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he found his brother and sister, they were all each other had.

Dean turned around, hand resting on Baby’s wheel. “Meg? You met a girl and you came back? Was she pretty?”

“Shut up,” Sam quipped. “It’s only been six months. Not ready for that yet.”

Bobbie’s lip twitched as she looked out the window. Jessica’s death was still so raw for him and she couldn’t do anything to help him. “I thought she was,” Bobbie said, forcing a little too much levity into her voice. “Like a southern belle with a rebel streak, but it didn’t look like she had anyone, not like us.”

Sam leaned back in the front passenger side seat and closed his eyes. “Yea, we can wait another day for Bobbie to punch dad in the face. We’ll find him together.”

“You wanna punch dad in the face?” Dean asked incredulously.

“You don’t?”

                                                            -----

A few days passed before they got a hint of anything on the radar, but the second a Rawhead showed up (a humanoid with decaying skin that lurks in basements and preys on children, seriously you can’t make this shit up) Bobbie, Dean and Sam formulated a plan to take it out.

Considering they tended to crumble under electrocution, the plan was fairly simple - take stun guns and shoot the bastard. But the best laid plains of mice and men often go awry so the saying goes.

The moment the Impala parked on cool, damp grass, the three of them jumped out of the car and grabbed their stun guns from the trunk. “Okay,” Dean said quietly as they snuck up the side of the rickety, wood-eaten house, “Once we get down there, we separate, corner it and finish this thing off so we can go back to the room and get drunk. I want this thing extra friggin crispy.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Bobbie whispered into the chill of the night.

Sam thought more along the lines of sleeping for another few days, but it didn’t matter. Whatever motivation they could find to make it through another job was about all they could really ask for.

Inside the home, they made their way down the stairs, careful not to draw any unwanted attention through clacking shoes and creaking floors. Easier said than done. When Bobbie’s boot pressed heavily into the weak wood, Sam shot her a glance, grimacing when she mouthed her ‘sorry.’

It took them forever to get to the bottom of the steps, but once Dean’s ratty shoes hit the concrete floor, they tiptoed in opposite directions to cover more ground. A chill ran up Bobbie’s spine. The never-ending silence paired with the dank, musty smell and the lack of light making her question every single move made around her. Was it Sam? Was it Dean? Was it something else entirely?

From across the basement, the sound of some kind of opening doors focused her attention again. Practiced agility brought her back to her brothers in seconds. The children had been cowering in the cabinet. “It’s okay. We aren’t going to hurt you,” Dean whispered.

Bobbie reached out and ushered the children toward Sam. “This is my brother. He’s going to help you outside okay?” The frightened youngsters nodded, eyes searching everywhere, desperate to get out of their own personal hell without any cuts and bruises. “We’ve got this,” she said, looking up at Sam, whose worry was always apparent in furrowed brows.

Close behind the children, Sam bounded up the steps and got knocked down when the Rawhead shot its hand out from between the dilapidated stairs and grabbed him by the ankle. “Sam!” Bobbie yelled.

Sam kicked his leg out of the monster’s grasp before following behind the children, leaving Dean and Bobbie to handle the barely human creature on their own. Instead of separating this time, they stood back-to-back, stun guns raised with fingers ready to pull at the triggers. “Where the hell did it go?” Bobbie whispered.

He didn’t have any clue, but before he could answer, the monster raced toward them from the sides, its inhuman speed taking them off guard and knocking Bobbie and Dean in different directions among the dust and debris. She could feel the air get knocked from her lungs as the force of the Rawhead’s push smashed her into the back wall. With her brain rattling around in her skull, she tried to refocus her vision and reach for the stun gun, but the otherworldly screeching of the monster and the sizzle of electricity brought her attention upward to where it was convulsing.

The ripples of shock ripped through the monster’s body and traveled down through the floor where it stood in a puddle of water. As the blur started to fade away, she saw Dean in the water too. “Dean!”

Not again.

She failed him again.

The electricity rolled through him, snaps, crackles and pops making him sound more machine than human.

Bobbie’s heart raced as she ran to his side, cradling Dean in her arms. “Dean! Dean, wake up!”

                                                            -----

@remember-me-forever-silent-angel @gaylemonshark  @marveldivergentouatdctvfangirl @lalirang @averagekansan @addsomesalt @stusbunker @sebba-hiddles @fanfictionrecommendations-com @hoppy519 @thatwrestlingfan91 @extremeobsessions101 @spence-imagines @bettercallsabs @whaaatthefuuuuck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @your-imagination-runs-wild @cryinglots @steggy01 @gigilame @sedulous-mind @a-unique-girls-heaven @just-antiyou @rmmalta @original-criminal-fanfics @ties-n-suits @veroinnumera @eurusholmmes @fanficienjoyedreading @astridstark13​ @ties-n-suits​ @demonlover87​ @kennybud​ @shittyafblogwnopoint​ @pleasantlyfadingpeace​ @bulldozed88 @a-gir1-has-n0-name​ @ocappreciation

[philly-osopher]

Washington’s slaves

okay, look. i thought the idea of Washington as a “good” slaveowner had been debunked so thoroughly that i would have nothing further to contribute. but the other day i saw a post cross my dash that made me realize that there are a lot of bad, poorly-supported arguments out there. i can’t replicate the post, since OP has deleted it, and i’m not interested in responding to OP in particular, but rather to all the misconceptions i saw. hopefully this will be useful in correcting those! many thanks are due to @herowndeliverance for editing help :)

here are some misconceptions re: George Washington and slavery + debunkation:

“he was actually nice to his slaves!”

completely and utterly false. first of all, the simple act of enslaving someone is NOT NICE. the notion that there can be a “benign slaveowner” is utterly absurd. slaves’ entire lives were stolen from them. their labor made Washington’s fortune and gave him his social position. the ~300 slaves at Mount Vernon did often backbreaking work six days a week under extreme coercion, were kept purposefully uneducated and illiterate, and had no legal recourse if they were treated cruelly--which they were. we have direct, textual evidence that Washington encouraged his overseers to beat and whip slaves who he deemed were misbehaving, defiant, or shirking work.

worst of all, if Washington had a slave whom he considered particularly problematic, he would sell them to the West Indies. Mount Vernon’s website is a great source of info on most of this, but here all they say is that this was a way of “ensuring that the person would never see their family or friends at Mount Vernon again.” this is an almost comical understatement. anyone who’s read the Chernow biography of Hamilton knows what a hellscape the West Indian sugar plantations were; life expectancy was about eight years once a slave started work. since Washington visited the sugar islands as a young man, he wasn’t ignorant of conditions there. but if a slave inconvenienced him too much, he sent them anyway.

was Washington an especially cruel master by the standards of his day? probably not. was he nice? the whole concept of “nice” can’t apply to this situation, but even if it could, Washington wouldn’t be it.

“freeing slaves would have been cruel... for the slaves”

slaves tried to escape Mount Vernon fairly frequently. one very famous case is that of Ona Judge, one of Martha Washington’s slaves, who escaped Philadelphia just before the end of Washington’s second term as President. even though the Washingtons contacted her and asked/ berated/ threatened in attempts to bring her back, Ona refused point blank to return. she spent her whole life as a fugitive in the woods in New Hampshire rather than go back to life as a slave. and it’s worth noting that she was Martha Washington’s favorite-- she had the relatively fortunate position of working in the house. another slave who escaped the Washingtons, Hercules, was a very skilled chef, and also had a relatively “soft” job.

A short time after the cook’s escape, a visitor to Mount Vernon asked one of Hercules’s young daughters if she was upset that she would never see her father again. Her answer surprised him: “Oh! Sir, I am very glad, because he is free now.”  (citation)

i should note that nobody was able to find out what happened to Hercules. he could have been killed on the journey north, kidnapped and sold back into slavery (more on this later) or he could have gotten away. being an escaped slave was dangerous business. yet Ona Judge and other escaped slaves preferred a lifetime of poverty and marginalization to even the least physically taxing slavery, and Ona Judge affirmed her preference for freedom in multiple newspaper interviews at the end of her life.

furthermore, southerners lived in constant fear of slave rebellions. the possibility of a slave rebellion was one of the reasons South Carolina couldn’t muster an adequate militia during the Revolution. slaves actively resisted being slaves and many risked their lives for the possibility of freedom.

so let’s put it this way: if emancipating slaves would truly have been so cruel to them... why did they have to be brutally coerced into staying slaves? why did so many try to escape or rebel in spite of that? the actions that slaves took really speak for themselves to debunk the argument that freedom would have been somehow cruel to them.

“slavery was normal at the time, so Washington didn’t know any better”

first of all, not all people who were raised when slavery was normal continued to hold those ideas throughout their lives. this included people whom Washington knew and liked. John Laurens, son of a man who made his fortune off of slavery, is one obvious example. another is Ben Franklin, who accepted slavery unquestioningly as a younger man, in fact owning slaves, but completely changed his mind later in life, directly petitioning Congress to abolish slavery. the Quakers, with a strong presence in the national capital of Philadelphia, also lobbied for an end to slavery. it was far from a universally-accepted practice in Washington’s day.

okay, so clearly SOME people realized slavery was wrong. but that didn’t mean a world without slavery was something a person of average intellectual/ moral vision could conceive of, right? (notice how little credit Washington apologists have to give him here? he was just a victim of his times! he could see a way to free America from Britain but by golly, freeing his own slaves was just too much of a stretch for his poor conventional brain to make) except the idea that slavery was normal everywhere is, again, totally wrong.

during the Washington administration the American seat of government was in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania had passed an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780-- during the Revolution, way before Washington assumed the Presidency in 1789. the law stated that any slave who stayed in Philadelphia for six continuous months would be freed. this meant that the Washingtons had to set up a rotation system, taking their slaves back to Virginia or just across the river to New Jersey (everything is legal in New Jersey) to restart the clock. the slaves were perfectly aware this was going on. we don’t have record of what they thought about it-- but let’s be real, it must have been the most agonizing, infuriating process in the world. technically Washington wasn’t breaking the law, but he was certainly using a loophole to within an inch of its life.

Philadelphia also had the nation’s largest free black community as a result of this law-- there were several thousand free blacks in the city and only a few hundred slaves. the Washingtons were the exception to the rule the whole time they were there.

furthermore, Washington probably violated the tissue-thin protections granted fugitive slaves in his own Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 when he tried to bring Ona Judge back. the law required the slaveowner or his agent to bring a fugitive slave before a court, affirm it was really them, and get the judge’s okay before bringing them back to a life of slavery. Washington twice attempted to end run around this process-- Ona refused to play ball.

citation for most of the previous two paragraphs: Never Caught, by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, and this podcast where she talks extensively about the book and the research she did for it. [note the podcast seems to be aimed at old white dudes, so they do spend time on some arguments that are pretty damn obvious to anyone who’s taken a race/ gender studies class. but it still has lots of good information.]

also, there’s a Drunk History on Ona Judge that is quite good

“he couldn’t legally emancipate his slaves”

okay, that’s partially true. about 2/3 of the Mount Vernon slaves, and Ona Judge, were Martha’s. “Martha’s” slaves were actually Custis estate “dower slaves” left over from her first marriage, and held in reserve for her grandchildren. it was all legally very tied up. but the fact remains that Martha did emancipate a lot of George’s slaves (not her own) after George’s death-- not out of the goodness of her heart, mind you, but because he’d stipulated they’d be freed after she died, and she didn’t want to give them all incentive to kill her. so, George and Martha did have the legal power to free at least George’s slaves, around 100 people. the circumstances under which Martha freed them are not to her moral credit. i want to keep this focused on George because it’s already so long, but Martha benefited just as much or more from slavery as him, and respecting her as someone with her own moral agency requires we acknowledge her failings as her own. 

all of this debate about treatment of individual slaves really misses the point, however. arguing about how Washington personally treated his own slaves ignores his political actions. Washington signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 while he was President.

what’s that?

here’s some things the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 (full original text here) did:

made it so that slaves escaping from slave states into free states were still legally considered slaves

made it legal for masters or their representatives to arrest suspected fugitive slaves in free states, take them before a judge, and, upon proving their identity “by oral testimony or affidavit,” (a.k.a. “yes, this is my slave, pinky swear”-- needless to say, this clause meant slave-staters could basically legally kidnap and enslave any free black person, even from a free state) return them to slavery

fined people who knowingly helped fugitive slaves

furthermore, slavery was inherited based on the mother’s legal status-- so, if a woman escaped slavery, went to a free state, and had children, her children were legally speaking slaves to her old master. this is what happened to Ona Judge. this is why she and her children were still in hiding in the woods in New Hampshire in the 1850s-- Martha’s granddaughter was still alive. legally, she owned them all.

as President, Washington’s power to do harm to slaves was far greater than as a private individual. he used that power to legally entrench slavery, extending the power of slave states to enforce slave laws even in free states.

some argue that Washington’s priority was preserving the Union/ keeping southern states happy, and that doing so required a soft stance on slavery. people who are better-qualified historians than i am can debate that point. however, even IF a conciliatory approach to the south on a policy level was necessary for Washington to get his political priorities accomplished, that still says something about what his priorities were (e.g. certainly not with helping slaves). AND, we also have to think about the example that Washington’s prominent use of slave labor as President set for the rest of the country. his personal conduct and decisions about his own household weren’t subject to the same considerations as his political actions. and yet, Washington’s choice to use slaves not only in Mount Vernon but also in New York and Philadelphia was a powerful (if implicit) pro-slavery signal.

Americans idolized Washington-- his personal conduct was seen as exemplary for the whole nation. what kind of message did it send to the nation that the Washingtons brought slaves to Philadelphia-- a free city-- during their administration? it sent the message that slavery was not just normal, but morally okay. it sent the message that slavers subverting the laws of free states was not just normal, but morally okay.

Washington’s life was enormously consequential for this country. he was a complicated person--like we all are!-- and he did make some choices that were really, really good for America, like trying to stay above political parties, and dealing effectively with the crises of his administration, and setting the precedent of retiring after two terms. his terrible treatment of slaves and his work to reinforce and normalize slavery don’t erase the good he did. but nor does the good he did excuse the bad. we simply cannot pretend that what Washington did-- towards his slaves personally, and regarding slavery politically-- is just an artifact of his upbringing. he chose to act the way he did, and if we’re going to understand the USA and the depth of the historical injury done to America’s black community by slavery, Washington’s moral failings are a critical part of the story.

[savetopnow]

2018-03-17 04 MUSIC now

MUSIC

Brooklyn Vegan

Wye Oak, Ted Leo, Bully, & Bodega played BrooklynVegan's SXSW showcase (pics)

Mamby On The Beach announces 2018 lineup (Spoon, Grizzly Bear, Cold War Kids)

Netflix adds more classic 'Mystery Science Theater 3000′ episodes

Sigur Ros members cleared of Icelandic tax evasion charges after investigation

Lost Weekend SXSW day 1 pics: U.S. Girls, Okkervil River, Speedy Ortiz, IDLES, more

Consquence of Sound

SXSW Film Review: Paradox Works Better as a Concert Film Than As a Sci-Fi Western

Film Review: Love, Simon Puts New Faces At the Center of the Romantic Comedy

Neil Young calls farewell tours “bullshit”

Twin Shadow details new album, Caer, shares “Brace” featuring Rainsford: Stream

SXSW Film Review: Family Has More Heart Than It Does ICP References

Fact Magazine

Inga Copeland releases new Lolina album The Smoke

Visit MJ Cole’s gin factory-turned-studio in east London

Influential South African artist DJ Spoko has died, aged 35

Behringer shares prototype of Sequential Circuits Pro-One synth clone

Google has designed a DIY controller for its AI synthesizer

Fluxblog

The Sun In Your Cold World

Took Me For A Ride

At My Leisure

What Is This Force

Hopes Or Holidays

Idolator

Troye Sivan Delivers A Chic “My My My!” Performance For ‘Jimmy Fallon’

Seinabo Sey Makes A Bold Return On “I Owe You Nothing” & “Remember”

Daya Joins Forces With RL Grime On Their Earnest “I Wanna Know”

New Music From Troye Sivan, MØ & Jack Antonoff On ‘Love, Simon’ Soundtrack

Hayley Kiyoko Unveils Her Heartrending, Effervescent “Let It Be”

Listen to This

The Beets - Killer Tofu [90s rock]

Melted -- Most Days [pop/punk] (2018)

A Himitsu - In Love [Electronic/Dance] (2017)

GO!GO! 7188 - 眠りの浅瀬/Shallows of Sleep [Surf Rock] (2007)

Ded Rabbit -- Moonlight Horror [Indie Rock] (2018)

Popjustice

Saluting the artwork for PRETTYMUCH’s Healthy

Louisa Johnson interview: “We went, ‘oh, fuck it, let’s just get drunk’”

Popjustice’s Spring Statement: Key Points

New Music Friday: Vera Blue’s Lady Powers are still strong

New Music Friday: When it’s time to put Andrew WK at the top of the playlist it’s time to put Andrew WK at the top of the playlist hard

Reddit Music

[Survey] What causes chills in music?

Brother Ali's "Uncle Sam Goddamn" was released in 2007 but reflects our current political landscape

Ever find a really good band that nobody listens to?

New Stone Temple Pilots album released...

What rock songs from after the year 2000 will stand the test of time and will one day be considered classic rock?

Rolling Stone

Mike Gordon: Five Songs That Transported Me

Hear Toni Braxton's Heartbroken New Song 'Sex & Cigarettes'

10 New Albums to Stream Now: The Decemberists, Meshell Ndegeocello and More Editors' Picks

Rich Homie Quan Reveals New LP Made With 'Hennessy, Weed, Fruit Snacks'

Watch 'Rick and Morty' Slay Aliens in Run the Jewels' 'Oh Mama' Video

Slipped Disc

What James Levine wants

Australian tenor pleads guilty to child sex offences

The next Mahler cycle will come from … Minnesota

Alberto Vilar is out of jail

How the other tenth live

Spotify Blog

Spotify Launches Self-Serve Advertising Platform in the UK and Canada

Spotify Announces Launch of Line-In

John Hancock and Spotify Give Runners Everywhere Access to Custom Playlists and Tips from Some of the World’s Fastest Marathoners

Spotify Kicks off Women’s History Month with the Launch of ‘Amplify,’ a New Hub Spotlighting Causes & Community Voices

Spotify’s Electrifying Concert Series “RapCaviar Live” Returns with a New Tour Lineup featuring Migos, 2 Chainz, Tory Lanez, DJ Mustard, Lil Pump, and more

We Are the Music Makers

Just started a Music-Based Discord for all those interested.

Is it time to give up on your music career?

getting started with synths?

Any idea of a sample pack or a plugin that offers such beautiful intricate percussion like on this track? The metals, shakes, and tins are so nice, especially from 1.50 onwards. My bet is its simply well balanced percussion from everyday packs, but there's something subtle in their timbre.

How do I ensure I get my money?

[whispersandwhiskerburn]

When She’s Gone

Summary: Dean is lost when the Reader leaves him. She never stays, and he doesn't know how to make her do so. Pairing: Dean x Reader. Reader is absent though (see the title)--most of this is in Dean’s head with Sam coming in at the end for a conversation. Word Count: 2,782 Warnings: Angsssst! Insecure Dean is trying/failing to deal with abandonment issues—and he's borderline depressed because of it. Canon style. Author's Note: This was written for @thing-you-do-with-that-thing‘s  SPN Anti-Valentine's Challenge for the song “Ain't No Sunshine” by Bill Withers. This was done in Dean's POV which I have only tried a few times, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I started with inspiration from a blurb I had previously written and went from there. There's a lot of build up till the reader comes in, canonically correct flashbacks in Dean's memory. Be patient. The Dean x Reader part will show up. Tags: My forevers are below the read more, but the following fabulous friends voted for this fic in particular in my Pick the Fic post, so here you go! @feelmyroarrrr, @beckawinchester, @wi-deangirl77, @avasmommy224, @xtina2191, @ruprecht0420, @death2thevirgin, @autopistaaningunaparte, @dancingalone21, @rissbennett, @salvachester, @lipstickandwhiskey, @paintrider13-blog, @mamaredd123, @spn-and-daddy-issues, @deanwinchesterforpromqueen, @wevegotworktodo, @angelofwinchester17,  @wildfirewinchester, and @fandommaniacx.

Dean had experience with being left behind.

He had been four years old when Mom had burned. He had been old enough to understand, sitting on the trunk of the impala, watching his home burn and Dad cry while holding Sammy. He didn't know why or how, but he knew Mom had left and wouldn't be coming back.

Dad used to leave sometimes—even before...that night. But he always came back. And mom was always there.

But that night, Dad was crying, and Mom wasn't there—and Dean, even at four years old, knew she never would be again.

His Mom had left him.

Then his voice left him. He knew what was happening, saw his Dad trying to cope, but mostly drinking, stumbling from place to place. He tried to take care of Sammy, but Dean didn't want to talk. Not to Dad, not to anyone.

Then, when he got older and started talking again, started really paying attention to his Dad, the only parent he had left, Dad started leaving more often.

He'd be gone, sometimes for a day, sometimes for a week, and he'd come back  bruised, or bloody, or drunk. He'd write in his journal, drink, check on him and Sammy, then pass out before leaving again.

Dean figured out about hunting soon enough—Dad had started to become paranoid as he learned more and more of what was out there, so he started training Dean. Sammy was getting old enough to start training too, but Dean tried to keep him out of it. He didn't want Sammy to know how to make a silver bullet, how to shoot someone in the head, or why there was always salt spread at the doors of the hotel rooms.

He just wanted Sammy to be a kid.

Sometimes he fought with Dad over it—but never for long. Dad might never have stuck around much, but even he could see that this type of darkness was changing his family, and he didn't want to do that to Sammy either.

Then Sammy found out. He was old enough now that Dean was having to fight both Dad and Sam to try and keep Sam out of training. He considered it a win when he got Sam stuck on researching duty. The kid was good at it, and he wanted to help so bad...but most importantly, it kept him safe. It kept him out. When Dean had to leave with Dad to help with a hunt, he wanted to make sure that Sam would be there when he came back.

And no matter how scared Dean got when he left to hunt some monster or ghost when he was a teenager, he always knew he had to get back. He was never going to leave Sammy.

No one deserved to get left behind.

One time, Sam ran away. It was one of the worst times in Dean's life—not knowing what had happened, how he had lost him. Dean looked everywhere, frantic, terrified of what could have happened.

When Dad got home and heard what had happened, it was...it was like he dropped the role of Dad. He was nothing but a hunter in that moment—cold, purposeful, ruthless.

It had scared Dean. But not as much as having Sam leave him.

They found him again, but Dean had a hard time trusting him to stay after that. Dad had come back that time, but not Sam. There was a distance between them after that. Dean stopped worrying about keeping Sam out of the business, and started throwing himself into the business more.

Maybe that's why he hadn't seen the Stanford acceptance coming.

He hadn't even known Sam had applied—his own brother hadn't even told him that.

The argument that night, Sam screaming that he wanted to leave, that he wanted out of this life, Dad calling him a traitor, running out on his family, telling him that if he did, he should never come back.

Dean hadn't known what to do. He didn't want Sam to go, but he didn't think Dad was right either.

Why couldn't they just stay together? Why did they always have to fight? What was wrong with his family—with him, that no one ever wanted to stay with him?

Sam left.

Dean and John hunted together for the years he was gone, and every time they had a case in California, they'd stop by and check on him. He was fine—safe, out of the life, doing well in school.

They never let on that they were there. Sam never called or looked for them.

He never seemed to miss Dean at all.

Dean tried to take comfort in the fact that Sam was out and safe, but it was just another abandonment—and this one hurt more than any other had. He had raised Sammy, and to have him walk out and never look back....

But then Dad went silent on a hunt.

No calls. No check ins. No message, no sign, no nothing.

Dean had been a hunter long enough to know that this was something different than the usual silence, to know that something was really wrong. He couldn't face this alone—he didn't want to face this alone.

He went to Sam. Dad had been in California, but there was no sign of him around Stanford. If Dad was missing, Sam should help Dean find him. He was still a Winchester, even if he wasn't a hunter anymore.

Then Jess.

And Dean was left with a broken, tortured Sam. He tried to help, tried to guide, but how do you help someone who just watched the person they love burn to death on a ceiling? He hadn't been able to heal his father of that wound in the last 22 years, and now Sam was going through the same thing, and Dad wasn't there, and Dean didn't know what to do.

Except look for Dad.

So that's what they did.

The found him. And for just one brief moment—a scary, tragic, but shining moment, Dean had both his brother and his father back in his life.

And then his Dad abandoned him again.

This time, he left for him—did a deal with a demon to bring Dean back. But how was Dean supposed to deal with that? His father had gone to Hell, left him forever with the knowledge that the only reason he was walking around on the Earth was because his father was burning down below.

He tail-spun after that.

Sammy got him back.

The two of them worked together after that. Hunt after hunt, trying to save the world, trying to make it a better place, the way Dad would have wanted.

But then Sam died in Dean's arms, stabbed in the back.

And Dean...he couldn't. He just couldn't.

It was worse than Mom...worse than Stanford...worse than Dad.

Dad had made a deal to bring Dean back. Dean did the same for Sam.

When he died bloody beneath that Hell Hound—when he left Sam for good, or so he thought, Dean didn't regret making the deal.

As he suffered in Hell, he was thankful that Sam wasn't the one beneath the blade.

When he started torturing souls, he was glad that Sam wasn't there to see it.

And then he was back. Sam was different, and the world was crazy—the apocalypse was happening and angels were real, and one of them had dragged him out of Hell.

It took Dean a while after he was back, in the midst of the craziness, to realize that Sam really was different. Colder, darker...and finally it connected. It was like John had been when Sam had run away that time.

It scared Dean.

He lashed out, blaming Sam, blaming that bitch Ruby for poisoning him.

But it was too late.

Sam had left him for a demon, for his powers, and Lucifer rose.

That was a dark time. Dean didn't know whether or not he could trust Sam, could trust the angels, even Castiel who had saved him—so many people died. Jo and Ellen, their brother Adam...he almost gave up at one point.

He just couldn't take anyone else letting him down.

And what stopped him? The idea that he would be letting Sam down. That he would be abandoning him. Dean just couldn't do it.

So they fought. And they fought. And they saved the world—at a price.

Sam leapt into Hell with Lucifer inside him. Cass rebelled from Heaven for them and saved them all, brought Bobby back, and the world kept on spinning,  just the way it was supposed to.

But Dean was empty inside. He went to Lisa, because he had promised Sam he would. He did his best, smiling where he could, trying to raise Ben and make a life that was worth the sacrifice his brother had given.

But Sam had chosen to leave.

And it was like Dad all over again.

And there were moments, brief moments when the sun would peek out from behind the clouds, when he thought he could actually have a normal life. A home.

It didn't last though.

Sam came back—most of him. The life was right there waiting, with extended family members ready to betray him because he hadn't had enough of that in his life. Dean risked a conversation with Death to get Sam his soul back and it worked great—until Cass left them for Crowley.

He was such a child—he refused to listen to Dean. Dean could see the pattern all over again; it was Sam partnering with Ruby to stop Lilith—except this time it was Castiel partnering with Crowley to stop Raphael. He wouldn't listen and the same thing happened all over again—the fallout result was worse than what they were trying to destroy.

Lisa and Ben had to have their memories wiped.

Sam's mind broke, and he remembered his time in Lucifer's cage.

Castiel was dead and Leviathans walked the earth.

The ultimate monsters, and it was his best friend who was responsible. And Dean was left to clean up the mess because Castiel had done it all.

They lost Bobby.

Everyone dies or leaves and nothing Dean could do could stop it.

Kevin. Benny. Charlie. Garth. Rufus.

Sam abandoned him in Purgatory—never even looked for him.

God showed up and then left again.

Mom came back...and only stayed for about a week.

That one had nearly killed Dean. She had been the one person Dean had needed most. He had lost so many—some by their choice and others before their time, but his mom? He had built his whole life on the fact that his mother had been stolen from him, but in the end...she chose to leave too.

Even if he understood why, Dean couldn't help feeling like there just wasn't anything inside him that made the people he loved want to stay.

And then he met you.

It had been a hunt—a surprisingly small one compared to the end-of-the-world things that had been happening regularly over the last few years. Just a vengeful spirit in an old house that needed to be salted and burned and put to rest.

But it had rocked Dean to the core.

You had been there, at the grave site before Dean could get there. Sam was at the house, ready to move in in case there was any sign of danger for the family that lived there, and Dean had been surprised as hell to find you up to your calves in the grave he was supposed to be digging up.

It surprised him even more when you looked up at him, studied him and his shovel for a moment and simply asked, “hunter?”

“Winchester.”

You had nodded, then slid over for him to jump in and dig beside you.

“I'm Y/N. We'll do the rest of the pleasantries after Casper here is crispy, deal?”

Dean had jumped in and dug his shovel in. “Fair enough.”

Afterwards, you had gone out to eat with them. After the brothers were convinced you were who you said you were, they had invited you back to the bunker to crash. It was an hour away, but better than a skeezy motel room.

You had agreed.

Dean had been fascinated with you. He hadn't smiled much since Mom had left, but he laughed with you. It was like...well, sunshine.

But you didn't stay either.

You didn't have any real ties to them. Every month or so you would call, or Dean would, about a case and you'd team up and work together. After a few times, you ended up in Dean's bed and, while the sex was fantastic, Dean found himself wanting more.

But you never gave a sign that you did. In fact, you had left again the morning after before Dean was even out of bed.

You didn't shut off communication—you and Dean had even hooked up a few more times. You still laughed together, sang along to the same songs, and fought over who was the best shot on the firing range.

But when you were gone.

Dean moped. He drank. And he missed you.

Of course, he was used to being left behind.

He was sitting at the small table in the kitchen, drinking a beer and lost in thoughts of you when Sam pulled out the chair across from him and plopped into it.

Dean looked up with a glare. Sam had been annoyingly cheerful all day, and Dean had thought that he had made it clear that he didn't want company right now.

“Unless this is about a case, Lucifer, Castiel, or Mom, beat it.”

“None of the above.” Sam's voice was matter-of-fact and almost smug. Dean took another swig of his beer, wondering if he should just switch to something stronger.

“I've been wondering what has been making you act so weird, and I think I've figured it out.”

“Really. Enlighten me, please, Dr. Phil.” Dean's voice should have been enough warning for Sam to back off, but his little brother pressed on anyway. Pain in the ass.

“I thought it was about Mom, but it's not. You're upset about Y/N walking out.”

Dean schooled his face, pulling on his many hours of hustling poker to keep from ruining his bluff.

“And what makes you think that, Obi Wan?”

Sam raised an eyebrow then smiled a bit, “search your feelings, De--”

“Dude!” Dean protested, but Sam pointed a finger at him, saying, “you started the Star Wars reference, man.”

Dean grumbled a bit and took another drink, sad to find that he was almost empty.

“Seriously man, every time she leaves, you go into this weird depressed funk for days. You don't eat right, you drink even more than usual, and you're grumpy for no reason.”

Dean didn't meet his brother's eyes, trying desperately to avoid the truth.

“C'mon. Spill.”

Damn chick flick was what this was turning into.

“Fine, I miss her, okay? I've got feelings for her, but I don't think she does...and let's face it, I don't have the track record to press my luck.”

Sam nodded at that, a frown appearing on his face.

“There ain't no sunshine when she's gone, Sam, and she's always gone too long anytime she goes away.”

“She's a hunter, Dean. She leaves. But she comes back. She keeps coming back. I think that should tell you something.”

“I know, I know, I know....” Dean couldn't help how he felt, even if it wasn't logical. He knew she cared for him, but apparently it wasn't enough to make her stay.

“I just get tired of people leaving.” Dean sighed, “I mean, either they die or they walk out. Don't you ever wonder why everyone leaves, Sam? And with Y/N, it's worse than ever. Every time I wake up, she's left again, and I wonder this time where she's gone, wonder if she's gone to stay.”

“Dean, have you ever asked her to stay? Have you ever given her any reason to think that she's more than a friend with benefits thing?”

Dean glared at his brother again. He was officially done with this conversation.

Dean stood up, threw his bottle in the trash can and walked out of the kitchen, heading for his room, even though he knew that would only make it worse. Her scent was there, her memory was strongest in his room, his bed.

As he walked down the hallway, he couldn't help but to sing slightly under his breath, “this house just ain't no home anytime that she goes away.”

But Dean had experience with getting left behind.

Thanks for reading!

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[itsbydesign]

Public speech is one of the most powerful weapons ordinary human beings have, and even the most civilly uttered sentences can disturb or terrify.  Certainly the speeches of Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., or Malcolm X made neither white people nor many blacks feel safe.  Certainly the revolutionary slogan, “liberty, equality, fraternity” did not reassure either the French aristocracy or its minions in mid-18th century Paris.  Do you think Wall St Bankers felt safe when they walked past thousands of Occupy protestors decrying the obscene wealth, destruction of democracy, and carnage of public goods for which they were being held responsible?  Do you think closeted homosexuals felt safe when the Stonewall rebellion broke out? Do you think men who have pushed, drunk or drugged women into unwanted sex feel safe as women on campuses everywhere are finally speaking out against the commonplace of sexual assault?  Or that civil servants, police and other hired guns of regimes across the Middle East felt safe when citizens amassed in public squares to denounce them during the Arab spring?  Emotional safety is not what the public sphere and political speech promise.  It’s for cultivating at home if you are lucky enough to have one.  It is what you seek among friends and intimates where you expect your vulnerability to be taken into account. A university education, too, ought to call you to think, question, doubt.   It ought to incite you to question everything you assume, think you know or care about, not because those assumptions or cares will be jettisoned.  Rather, because, as those wild-eyed radicals Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill insisted, there is no possibility of knowing what’s right, justified, valuable or true unless you question deeply and relentlessly…unless you’re willing to consider whether your attachment to an idea or principle is really just a teddy bear you cling to, a comforting familiar.  The public sphere and a university classroom are not for hanging onto your teddy bears.  Your bears have their place, back in your room where you’re safe and restored.   But when we demand—from the Right OR the Left– that universities be cleansed of what is disturbing, upsetting, enraging, “offensive” or triggering, we are complicit both with the neoliberal destruction of university as a place of being undone, transformed, awakened (rather than a place to get job training) AND with neoliberalism’s destruction of public spaces and the distinctive meaning of political rights, (rights that some in this room fought to bring onto campus 50 years ago).

Free Speech is not for Feeling Safe, by Wendy Brown – Berkeley Faculty Association

[flauntpage]

Brett Kavanaugh's Latest Defender: The Eminently Useless Chris Dudley

Yale alumnus and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh: he’s terrible! In addition to his hideous record of jurisprudence, his extremely-bizarre-Washington-Nationals-ticket-buying-habits, and his work in a former life suggesting that Ken Starr ask the president if he jerked off into a trash can, he's also been accused of sexual assault, by increasingly more women. Kavanaugh’s emerging malfeasance is showing the asses of all kinds of people: The President, Republican leadership in the Senate, the entirety of the conservative media infrastructure. They are all doubling down on this motherfucker even though there are another dozen Heritage Foundation goons who could do the exact same shit Kavanaugh would do, sitting around waiting for a call.

But no one has been exposed right now like Yale University has. Say what you will about Harvard, but at least it isn’t Yale, a school whose only real function is churning out the horseshit secret society creeps who run our country into the ground. Look no further than the professional athletes each school has produced. Harvard has managed to primarily churn out weirdo cult heroes like Ryan Fitzpatrick, currently in the midst of a yardage bender for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, NBA Asian-American trailblazer Jeremy Lin, dignified senator and all-time NBA memoirist Bill Bradley (Correction: Bradley went to Princeton, but is still a very good memoirist. We regret Dudley-ing that up.). Yale, on the other hand? The most famous sporting figure to emerge from the school, bar none, is Chris Dudley.

Dudley apparently knew Kavanaugh back in his college days, and considers him a "great friend," recently helped run interference for him, telling the Washington Post that, actually most of the other people they interviewed for this article are wrong, and Kavanaugh WASN’T a "sloppy drunk" who was routinely spotted slumped over asleep at parties. and could have NEVER done some heinous shit under the influence of alcohol that he wouldn’t remember.

“I went out with him all the time. He never blacked out. Never even close to blacked out,” said Dudley, a 2010 Republican candidate for governor of Oregon. “There was drinking, and there was alcohol. Brett drank, and I drank. Did he get inebriated sometimes? Yes. Did I? Yes. Just like every other college kid in America.”

Dudley is the grandest failure who ever lived, a 6'11" heap of fuck ups at the highest level, a dude who has spent his life tripping face first into mud puddles while everyone points and laughs at him. Dudley’s emergent association with Kavanaugh is probably the best-so-far sign that he absolutely won’t get confirmed, simply because everything Dudley touches withers and dies. Take, for instance, his free throws:

I hate to be the kind of pedant who says a shitty free throw shooter should shoot underhanded, I really do, but Dudley was special. He managed a career 45 percent rate in the NBA, and his form somehow made it worse.

Watch him gather the ball, raise up, set it over his head and… and…. and… shoot the ball, flashing a hitch that feels like it’s ten seconds long. On his second attempt, Marv Albert takes a few seconds to roast his hideous form on television, right as the ball drifts in a massive arc and still only taps front iron. After a Knicks player commits a lane violation and makes him take another one, Albert twists the knife. “You know, I get the idea that Chris would rather not have this extra free throw.”

Weirdly, after getting every ounce of dignity drained out of his body on TV, the extra shot manages to go in, a mild success that was turned into a crowning moment in Dudley’s elite-level, Yale-Constructed mind palace, fortified by gold leaf paintings that say “YOU ARE DOING GREAT, CHRIS” and “YOU DESERVE ALL THE SUCCESS YOU’VE BEEN AFFORDED!”

But hey… Dudley wasn’t just a miserable failure on the court. Off the hardwood, he was the NBA Players Association treasurer during the 1998-99 lockout, a labor action that ended with the players getting absolutely dominated and set up a president that would lead to them getting wrecked AGAIN in subsequent CBA negotiations. Of course, maybe Dudley was just dogging it, steering the union into disaster because his heart and soul were just so deeply aligned with management.

“I’m ready to lead our comeback.” After his retirement from being a crappy basketball player, someone in the Oregon Republican Party approached Dudz about running for Governor, like so many mediocre Yale men who came before him. For a while, he didn’t do that bad: his opponent, John Kitzhaber, was a machine politician who was an easy target for an outsider candidate. But, in politics as in basketball, Dudley was a stiff who got heaps of terrible ideas in his head, like, airing ads that featured comically corrupt NBPA chief Billy Hunter.

Dudley’s failed run at governor would probably be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him, if they had never legalized dunking in basketball. Because, friends, this dude LIVED to get dunked on:

Here’s Shawn Kemp rising up over Duddles, arms in the air, just waiting to take a slam, bringing shame to Portlanders everywhere who live only to see Seattle defeated in sports.

Oh hey, here’s Glenn Robinson getting some, executing the platonic ideal of driving the lane and throwing it down on a grimacing, overmatched big man. Look at Dudley’s face as he walks away from this disaster. He knows this will live forever, a totem of his shame on display for everyone.

Even Dudley’s own dunks manage to seem like Dudley getting dunked on. Here he is kind of… angling over Bill Cartwright, who absolutely couldn't care less. Two hands, looping over the body of another player, just baaaaarely making it. He doesn’t even celebrate, probably because a Yale Man never shows emotion in public, only in private, with his friends, while they all jerk off into microwaves filled with dead squirrels.

Oh, but nobody—NOBODY—has been more destroyed by any one person's single act than Dudley was when he was on the receiving end of The Shove. It is poetry in motion: Prime Shaq, in shape and looking like a fucking tank made out of nightmares, catches the ball on Dudley. He posts up, and takes Duddles DEEP in just a few short motions. He then turns around, raises up, and dunks on Dudley while thrusting his entire crotch into Chris’s midsection.

As he lands, Dudley stumbles and Shaq, who is an IMMACULATE asshole, plants two hands right in Dudley’s chest and sends him flying into the hardwood. Dudley proceeds to scramble up, soaked in his own blue blood, pick up the ball and heave it at Shaq, coming about as close to hitting the biggest dude in the league as he did on those free throws earlier. No one comes to his defense. Shaq just jogs back on D, they both get techs, and Dudley is left to stare irritably at a dude who just defined his career and life on national television.

It is, in my mind, the greatest NBA dunk of all time, just a wild tangle of peak power and bad feelings, spilling out of the screen. It works as one little piece of something, a GIF of pure domination you can play in a loop forever. It works as a short story, a tale of one man turning another into an embarrassed pile of mush. And it works as a synecdoche of the two men’s careers and lives, Shaq having paraded through anyone and everyone who stood in his way night after night, while Dudley collected fat-ass checks to be totally unnecessary, both as an NBA big man and a shitty Republican lackey, and just getting fucking owned in public over and over. Hopefully, his streak will continue in the future, both near and long term.

Brett Kavanaugh's Latest Defender: The Eminently Useless Chris Dudley published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/