#Survival Lessons (2016)

[vaspider]

Hey spider, I’ve been by your tumblr several times in the last day to help keep myself grounded. I wanted to say thanks and pass along my own thoughts to others checking in.

This fucking sucks and I hate it. But this moment feels very different to me than 2016. Not that I feel *great* about weathering the next four+ years, but, I’m not collapsing in despair either.

Fact is we survived four years of this, we had four years of relative “peace,” and it’s back into the shitstorm. The situation is different, more dire, yes, but we’re also different, too. We survived and we have lessons to glean from that to apply to our future.

Your job, if that frame is helpful for you, is to look at what you can offer your community and start cultivating opportunities to help other people. 

Are you strong? I helped an older gentleman recycle heavy boxes of papers (by heaving them into a dumpster for him) and that lit up my MONTH.

Can you do dishes? There is an elder in your community who could use the help (and the company!).

Do you not go to church, on Sundays or otherwise? There may be a hospice center that needs volunteers to stay with patients while their people are at Sunday services.

Do you have a car and some time? Maybe you can do pickups for food banks or other types of food rescue work.

Do you know spreadsheets? Hoo boy. Everybody needs somebody who can do spreadsheets.

These are ideas of where you might start. But the real work is to cultivate relationships of goodwill and good faith with others in your community. Start talking to organizations, look for people who are already embedded, doing good work. Look for role models, people who connect: people to other people, people to resources. Don’t be afraid to speak up when you need help, yourself – strong relationships are reciprocal. People need each other *so badly,* and in ways our culture does not equip us to understand.

Show up where and when you can and be ready to hold the hands of others. It’s going to be hard, but you can develop the skills and the relationships to make it through.

thanks again, spider.

This is good advice.

One thing I heard today that cracked me up - I was listening to Gianmarco Soresi's podcast today, and he has Brennan Lee Mulligan on this episode. Brennan was talking about how he ran a load of diapers over to Rekha at one point bc she was collecting stuff for LA wildfires aid, and when he got home, his wife, Izzy, was sitting at her computer and going through Zillow and researching rental listings and reporting listings to the authorities who are breaking CA rent control laws. (In CA, there are limits to how much you can raise the rent on a unit at one time/within a certain period of time.)

Like... that's a thing that she could do while she was sitting at her computer being at home with the baby while Brennan ran an errand that did measurable good in the world. Reporting predatory landlords does real, measurable good.

What's important is not that you're doing the most good or the most important good. What's important is that you Find Something To Do That Helps and you Do That Thing.

[cityofmeliora]

sad, sad Terzo + 'If You Have Ghosts' 🌙

a few nights ago, i realized this anecdote about Nihil teaching Terzo and Secondo was the first time Terzo ever talked about the meaning of 'If You Have Ghosts' and his connection to this song, which absolutely killed me because i then also realized that every time he talked about this song after that, it's like... aw. he learned that from his dad. he really took his stupid dad's music lesson to heart :(

PAPA EMERITUS III: […] But this is something me and my brother were taught by our father. Believe me, there are worse fish in the sea. Yes– Papa’s papa. The grandpapa. You will meet him one day, I promise. And he told us, “As long as you have one thing, it’s okay, y'all. The whispering walls. The spirits around you. The darkness inside.” So he looked at us and said… You know what he said? “If you have ghosts…” Unholy / Unplugged - Baltimore, Maryland, USA (August 22, 2015)

and it's clear that this song is very meaningful to Terzo. like. of course the depressed recluse who spends so much time alone would connect to the song about embracing loneliness and finding comfort in solitude. and this song has an additional personal meaning to Terzo. for him, it is also a song that comforts him when he must accept disappointment and not having the things he wants in life.

PAPA EMERITUS III: We can't always get what we want. You know that, huh? But one thing that can keep you company in a lonely hour… are the ghosts inside. Let them be your friend rather than your enemy. It's that darkness that sometimes makes the person, eh? Lawrence, Kansas, USA (October 5, 2015)

PAPA EMERITUS III: There are so many things that I want in my life. I'm sure there are a few things that you think you are missing, too. I can't have everything. I can have some things– some people. But this is a song that you can find company in yourself. If you have the spirits to communicate with inside, that can keep you warm on a lonely night. It's hard. There are always moments when we are all alone. Don't you forget about that when you are alone. But then maybe this can keep you company. Denver, Colorado, USA (October 17, 2015)

PAPA EMERITUS III: You have a lot of things in your life, huh? We all crave so many things. If we list… in order to feel as if… we all get all these things and then everything will feel better. Ain't that right? I am exactly the same. But I do know one thing… is that if you have the spirits and the demons inside you that causes a little… wreckage. That can be to your favor. Believe me. An empty shell is nothing, so... Chicago, Illinois, USA (October 3, 2015)

PAPA EMERITUS III: This is a song about loneliness. Unfortunately, I think that some of us might know how that feels. Not everybody has a friend who you can share your day and your night together with. Sometimes, there are other things that can keep you company. Those lonely nights. Spirits. The voices in your soul. The whispers in the walls. And that can be good, too–sometimes. Nimes, France (February 10, 2016)

thinking about these quotes is driving me fucking crazy. UGH. Terzo is just a really sad person. it's so obvious from these quotes that Terzo's mental health has been in some very dark places. to me, these are the words of a man who has spent a lot of time alone with some very scary thoughts and survived. and in surviving, he accepted and embraced that darkness as a part of himself. as he says, it's not always a good thing. but he's made peace with it.

[bylerfanfics]

FIC DAILY: DAY 8

MAY 15, 2025: 4 NEW BYLER FICS!!

Yesterday's Fic Count: 12,735

Today's Fic Count: 12,739

I apologize if I miss some new fics. If you want your fic to be shared on this blog, please go to my asks: fic shout-out! And send me a link to your byler fanfic on ao3.

Show some LOVE to byler authors by leaving kudos and kind comments on their fics!!💙💛

LOOK AT THE RATING, WARNINGS AND ALL TAGS BEFORE READING!

Fics are not mine. Please support these talented authors. Happy Reading! — bylerfanfics

KEEP READING TO VIEW NEW BYLER FICS!!

______________________________________________

If I Fell (979 words) by DannyPhantom09 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler Characters: Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper

Summary:

Will Byers is an anxious wreck after the events of Season 4. His best friend/ one and only crush ever hasn't spoken to him in a week, said best friend is in a complicated relationship with his adopted sister, the world may or may not be ending, and most importantly, Will has to move in with Mike. Naturally, chaos ensues.

Or: Byler slow burn because why not. (There is no plan for this, I'm making it up as I go.)

______________________________________________

i’m gonna stay with you (491 words) by canonicallyhomosexuality Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler Characters: Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Slow Burn, and when i say slow i mean slooowww, mike starts out dating el but they break up eventually, Romantic Tension, Mutual Pining, LGBTQ Characters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down (Stranger Things), high school au (freshmen), Eventual Romance

Summary:

Mike Wheeler and Will Byers meet for the first time in math class freshman year and both feel something—but Mike is already dating El Hopper. What will come of this? How can Mike survive pining whilst having a girlfriend, and how can Will survive pining for a taken boy?

______________________________________________

you're a lesson that I wish I'd never learned so well (1296 words) by godmademewithoutarms Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler Characters: Will Byers, Mike Wheeler Additional Tags: Unreliable Narrator Will Byers, Unreliable Narrator, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Will just doesn't know it yet, Will Byers Needs a Hug, Will Byers-centric, he's probably a bit ooc guys ngl, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Season/Series 04

Summary:

Will tries not to think about his feelings for Mike as they're sat in the back of Argyles van together and fails miserably.

______________________________________________

“Kiss the prettiest person in the room” (2428 words) by Thesamples18 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler Characters: Mike Wheeler, Will Byers, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Jonathan Byers, Lucas Sinclair, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Dustin Henderson, Robin Buckley, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler Additional Tags: The Party Friendship (Stranger Things), Good Sibling Nancy Wheeler, Good Sibling Jonathan Byers, Gay Mike Wheeler, Gay Will Byers, Post-Vecna (Stranger Things), Mike Wheeler Loves Will Byers, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Mike Wheeler Being an Idiot, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield & Mike Wheeler Friendship, Sad Mike Wheeler, Sad Will Byers, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Happy Ending, Confused Mike Wheeler

Summary:

Based off the scene in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower “kiss the prettiest girl in the room.” But it’s Byler.

______________________________________________

4 NEW BYLER FICS!! LET'S GOOO!!! See you tomorrow, byler authors and readers.

[we-are-inevitable]

it is not lost on me that a lot of my followers are young, and american, and i just wanted to hop on and say: we are going to be okay. i know this is a really scary time right now, but we’re going to make it. we have to. staying alive and thriving is the best way to shove it in their faces until direct action can be taken. there’s a reason we’ve all been drawn to newsies, right? the biggest lessons we can learn from the show are that community is vital and necessary for resistance, resilience is difficult but worth it, and even small actions can make a difference.

when trump was elected the first time in 2016, i was 14. i was 14, had just figured out i was queer, wasn’t touching my gender identity with a ten foot pole, and lived in a small town in deep-red Oklahoma. i was terrified for my future- and rightfully so. so many people were hurt and harmed, so many lives were ruined, and there was so much bad that it was hard to see the good— but the good was there. i saw it in mutual aid from all ages, whether it was kids sharing food in the cafeteria so everyone could eat or community organizers in my tiny town banding together to save the animal shelter. i saw good in neighbors helping neighbors, mowing each other’s lawns and bringing home-cooked meals to mourners in the wake of a loved one’s death. i saw good in activism all over the country, people marching for what’s right and sharing information and resources for people like me: young people trapped in places that made direct action difficult.

if you can only do one thing over the next few years, focus on your community. build each other up. support your queer and trans friends. support the people of color around you. listen and learn from disabled folk, from indigenous folk, from elders who have fought for our rights before and will do it again. it’s scary and overwhelming, but you don’t have to be the perfect activist when you’re focusing on surviving. just be there for your people, and your people will be there for you. it’s easy to feel helpless when you’re young and can’t do much, but you can do so much more than you think by being a community-minded person. i love you, i’m thinking about you, and i am wishing you all safety and comfort over the next few years.

[en-eunhee]

🧾 ⸻ GET TO KNOW EUNHEE

📓 STORYLINE & BACKSTORY !

eunhee was born in south korea on may 17, 2004. after her second birthday, she moved to california in the US, where she spent most of her childhood. she lived in los angeles, attending primary school, also known as elementary school. eunhee had a passion for singing from a young age; her father, being an artist himself, would often join her in singing songs and lullabies. at the age of 6, eunhee received her first guitar as a gift from her parents, sparking an obsession with the instrument. she spent years learning new chords and techniques. by the age of 8, she had started piano lessons, further fueling her love for music. eunhee frequently participated in talent shows at her local school. in addition to her musical talents, she was known for her bubbly personality, always brightening the room. her friends even likened her to "bubbles" from the powerpuff girls. when eunhee was around 11 years old, her parents informed her that they would be moving back to south korea, as she entered her middle school years.

🎬 TRAINEE PERIOD & LIFE IN KOREA !

around 2016, at the age of 12, eunhee was scouted by SM Entertainment while attending middle school. following this, she auditioned and was selected to join as an SM trainee. by 2018, nearing the age of 14, eunhee was on the verge of quitting. she spent months pleading with the company about her debut, feeling desperate for the opportunity. however, upon learning that her debut was scheduled for 2020, she left SM due to concerns about her mental health and impatience regarding her debut. approximately 4-5 months later, eunhee negotiated a return to the idol entertainment industry, seeking a company better suited to her needs. within two weeks, she was scouted by BE-LIFT Entertainment, who promised her a debut within a year and a few months. upon accepting their offer, she embarked on her idol journey under her new company. as one of the top trainees in the company, she quickly rose to the first position. however, she was later informed that her debut would be through a survival show, causing her to question whether to participate or pursue a different path, even considering becoming a producer instead. after much deliberation, she ultimately chose to embrace the opportunity and began her journey on I-LAND.

[pod-together]

Pod-Together Day 3 Reveals 2024

hiraeth and hwyl (Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types, Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Piranesi - Susanna Clarke, Betrayal at House on the Hill) created and performed by AirgiodSLV, CompassRose, ellejabell, epaulettes, kitkat50311, mahons_ondine, minnabird, and sisi_rambles Summary: You find yourself looking at a door. It looks like an ordinary door, but you’re somehow certain that it isn’t. In theory, you could open the door…but something warns you off. You might not survive, if you pass through that door. You might no longer be you.

I Could Eat A Peach for Hours [text, audio] (Stranger Things (TV 2016)) written by ArtaxLivs, performed by rufusbear Summary: “Robin, it’s fucking obscene.” “You’re obscene,” she squawks. “I am but he’s so much worse,” Eddie insists. “He just, oh my god, all week Robin. All. Fucking. Week.” “I do not need to know about your weird food kinks,” Robin makes a face and then pretends to gag. “It’s not a fucking food kink, it’s a Steve’s mouth kink,” Eddie growls.

Lost and Found (Firefly (TV 2002)) written by Ballad_of_Firefly, performed by InterstellarBlue Summary: Looking up, the apology died in his throat. Familiar brown eyes stared down at him and for a moment, he forgot how to breathe. They looked exactly like River's. Gabriel Tam's eyes narrowed. "Simon."

born to go through trouble (The Odyssey - Homer, EPIC - Jorge Rivera-Herrans (Albums), Ancient Greek Religion & Lore) written by BubblesKat, performed by ShakespeareStoleMyURL Summary: Something is wrong. I don’t understand what happened. I swore I was dreaming when I awoke inside the horse in Troy, but I was immediately discovered and killed. Then, I woke up again in the exact same circumstances. -- or, Odysseus finds himself in a time loop, waking up inside the Trojan horse over and over and over

The shadow of our Light (Shadowhunters (TV)) written by HadrianPeverellBlack, performed by Hagar Summary: Alec's and Jace's relationship. 5 times they thought they weren't enough for the other, and the one time they realized they were enough

Who is the Maestro? (SEVENTEEN (Band)) written by halotolerant, performed by pezzax Summary: Warning. Critical power failure. Metronome is offline. Do you wish to try again? - Wonwoo versus the AI

Meditations II: A Simple Method for Reducing Mental Distractions and Courting the Elusive Muse, by Professor Pankratz (Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types) written by LenaLawlipop, performed by Chantress and Luninarie Summary: The rustling of wind and chirping of birds can be heard, it’s warm… Not obscenely so, only just enough to make your eyes very, very heavy. Distantly, you can hear the professor writing, chalk on blackboard marking the steady passing of time until your next break. Soon, however, the rhythmic tap of the chalk comes to a halt. Too soon, in fact. It’s not time for that break yet. "Alright, everyone, close your books. Unfortunately, the time has come again. Once more, I find myself wondering, why is everyone so quiet? Am I perchance teaching something useful, against my better judgement?"

Or, a guided meditation for focus, based on mantras.

have you worked out what we’re looking for (Men's Hockey RPF) written by polyabathtub, performed by cosmicanon Summary: Things high school biology teacher Leon Draisaitl does not appreciate: - Being pulled out of one of his sections of freshman biology for three weeks - So that he can co-teach a junior year health class with PE teacher Matthew Tkachuk - Who is always encouraging his students to do things other than their homework, and has an easy job that doesn’t require him to spend his entire life lesson planning and grading - He’s also so unfairly hot that it makes it hard for Leon to remember that he’s in the closet at work

Dispatch [text, audio] (The Goblin Emperor Series - Katherine Addison) written by sophiegaladheon, performed by dontneedaclassroom Summary: Emperor Varenechibel IV has been killed and Csevet has been tasked with delivering the most important letter of his career as a courier.

Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game: Episode 23 - Palmetto State Foxes (All For The Game - Nora Sakavic) created by Syr and Opalsong Summary: The sports podcast for people who don't like sports! Episode 23 focuses on Exy and the Palmetto State Foxes and the massive amounts of drama that happened this season. We didn't have to dig deep for this one folks; there was so much drama we didn't even get to it all.

So We Can Begin [text, audio] (Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy) written by wanderingjedihistorian, performed by kbirb, flowerparrish, and wanderingjedihistorian Summary: Bail and Breha are soulmates, but they each have two soulmarks meaning they have a third soulmate. When Bail meets Fox, he knows he's found their third. The war makes Fox and Breha getting to know each other difficult, but messages and holo recordings are easy enough to send.

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Tumblr Fic List Part 1

Hi everyone! With AO3 currently down, I thought I'd remind you all that almost all of my fics are also available to read right here on Tumblr! For years I've had the habit of cross posting just about everything so if you're looking for a particular fic, you should be able to find it on good old Tumblr.

I tag all my fics with: Precious Posts so you can also use that to find anything newer I haven't added here yet.

This is all my older fics, from my Masterlist. When I get a little more time I'll do a part 2 with my newer stuff.

To Teach a Robin to Cook: Jason teaches Damian how to cook

Baby Bat Vs the Evil Librarian : Steph and Damian take a trip to the library

Grayson’s Guide to Robin Boys Movie Night (IMG): The list of rules Dick wrote for movie night

Guide to Robin Boys Movie Night (FIC): Dick decides to write some rules for movie night, the other Robins have opinions

Movie Night: The Mummy: Jason does not like bugs

Movie Night: Cheeto Bomb: Dick thinks Jason planted a Cheeto bomb in the DVD player. Jason insists otherwise.

Lost Boy: Tim’s mad at Damian (again) and takes a walk to cool off

Fireworks: The Batboys attend a fireworks show for the 4th of July and Jason has flashbacks. Angsty

Baby Teeth: Bruce notices that Damian has lost a tooth, and decides to play Tooth Fairy. Fluff pure and simple.

Talk Yourself Out of This One: Dick get’s kidnapped and is forced to wait for help to arrive.

Kidnapped With You: It’s all Jason’s fault. Or is it Damian’s? Either way both managed to get kidnapped and now have to get along until Batman arrives

Misplaced Mail: Tim decides to go to college and doesn’t tell the other Robin boys.

De-Aged Tim: Timmy gets shrunk down to a six year old and Damian has to help him get back to normal.

Magical Mix Up: Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian all get body swapped. Will they fight or get along long enough to fix things?

Lights Out: Jason finds himself in a situation when Tim passes out on him while his chest taser is still on

The Hunt: Bruce and Damian go on the search for a missing remote

Prank War: It’s Batboys vs Batgirls

Something in the Tea: Damian drinks hallucinogenic tea and can’t escape the visions of what he wishes his family would be like.

Party Chaos: Duke just wants to survive this party, unfortunately for him the rest of the Batboys are at the party and intent on causing trouble.

Trust: DickBat era fic where Damian gets into some trouble after a fight with Dick.

Karma: Damian’s got the hiccups so Dick tries to help him out on patrol.

Comfort Sweater: Damian get’s caught stealing one of Dick’s sweaters.

Play Lessons: Mindless Fluff as Dick and Dami play Cheese Viking together

Burdens: Written for Dynamic Duo Week 2016 day 6: Leave Me Alone

Discovery: Dick and Damian do a science experiment with Geodes

It’s Called a Hug: DickBat era. Damian doesn’t understand that hugs aren’t just a reward for good work.

Like Any Other Kid: Damian can’t stop having nightmares, finally he decides to go to his father for comfort.

Nightmares and Dreams: Bruce has a nightmare that Damian’s still dead and decides to check up on his son.

Cuffed: Dick and Tim end up handcuffed together and have to rescue Jason

Chosen: Based on a HC where Damian has trouble believing Bruce really wants him.

Album: Tim’s looking through one of his old photo album’s when Dick and JAson find him.

Father Time: Tired from the night before Bruce decides to stay in bed all day. His children decide he needs company.

Favorite Colors: While Dick and Damian are shopping for a new hoodie for Tim Damian makes an interesting purchase.

Lost Not Gone: My version of Damian’s reaction to Tim’s ‘death’

Super Sleepover: Jon sleeps over at the manor

Father Daughter Dance: Bruce and Cass go to the Ballet

Learning to Ride: Bruce teaches Jason how to ride a bike

Adoption: Alfred pushes Bruce to adopt Tim

If I Live to See the Dawn: Jason’s hurt and Damian’s got to get him home

Learning to Ask: Dick takes care of an injured Bruce

Heartbeats: Takes place between Batman Rebirth issues 16-17 and follows Bruce taking care of his kids

Target Practice: Damian and Steph play laser tag

Anxious Heart: Damian deals with some latent fear toxin, Bruce helps him out

Art Show: Tim runs into Damian while going to see one of his photos on display

Family Attire: Dick and Damian go clothes shopping. DickBats era

Unintended Consequences: In trying to hide his own illness Damian ends up getting Tim sick

Always Interesting: Cass buys a waxing kit and all the boys want to try it

Not a Burden: Tim gets hurt on patrol and doesn’t want to bother the family

With Love and Patience: Dick muses over taking care of Damian, there may also be suspenders involved. DickBats era.

Long Overdue: Jason offers to take Damian on patrol with him

Some Kind of Normal: Sometimes Bruce forgets just how young Damian is

Trapeze Training: Dick takes Damian out on the trapeze

Sick Day: Bruce is sick and Damian wants to make sure his father gets proper rest

Haunted Manor: Damian and Jon explore a haunting in the manor

Checking In: The batboys start to worry when Bruce is out of town and hasn’t contacted anyone in a while

Preserved Heartache: Damian sees a video of his own death

Hugs and Cookies: Dick brings a ‘get-along’ rug for the holidays

Like Old Times: Bruce and Dick on a stakeout

Safety Net: Snapshots of Damian learning to trust Dick

Irritating: Damian picks on Dick

This Stupid Family: First person pov. Jason’s little brother’s realize he too is a little brother and act accordingly.

Then and Now: Bruce dealing with Jason’s death juxtaposed with the family now

In Charge: Jason and Bruce make lunch while Alfred is out. Robin!Jason

A Little Craft Project: Damian asks Babs for help cheering Dick up

A Bad Night and Good Tea: Bruce can’t sleep, thankfully Alfred’s there to help

To Pass Through this Night: Dick died during Forever Evil. His brother’s find out and help him deal with it.

Faking It: Damian fakes being sick, Dick reacts to it. DickBats Era

Dreams of Wires: Damian’s feelings on the chip his mother put in his spine

Don’t Get Sentimental: Tiger takes care of Dick

Robin in the Batcave with the Rope: Damian get’s kidnapped by the Riddler and Scarecrow and forced to play clue

Breathe In Breathe Out: Damian gets buried, Dick worries Part 1 2 3

This Weight Off Of Your Shoulders: Damian gets sick, Alfred takes care of him

After Everything We’ve Seen: Dick finds Damian curled in the corner of the couch

Bone Tired: Dick is tired, Bruce is there to help him out

Just to See You: Temporary blind Damian, Big brother Dick

You Won’t Wake Up Alone: Dick knows he’s about to die, he just doesn’t want to do it in front of his little brothers Part 1 Part 2

First Breath After A Coma: Dick ruminates on his death, Damian’s, and all the terrible things that have been happening lately. Angst, no fluff

Your Job or Mine: Bruce gets hurt, Dick takes care of him

New to This: Dick’s getting used to his new busy life, and learning to take time for Damian

Accustomed to Standing Alone: The first time Damian’s kidnapped as a civilian

Bleeding Heart: Damian finds a dying doe and sits with her, Dick helps take care of the rest

Sun Spot: A lazy day with Dick and Damian

Of Baskets and Braids: Dick can’t sleep so he goes to find Bruce, and they get lost watching Youtube videos

As the Years Go By: Dick is growing up, and Bruce isn’t really sure how to deal with it.

A Bird in the Hand: Damian gets turned into a robin…for real. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Those Days We Miss: After Damian picks a fight with Dick, he ends up kidnapped and pretty sure no one is going to come for him.

Stay Here, With Me: Damian gets soaked on patrol, and as a result he ends up sick. Rest and medicine should help, but Damian finds himself getting worse and worse. Thankfully he’s got Bruce (and later Dick) to help sort things out.

You Always Bring Me Home: When Batman is caught by an explosion he calls the person who can always find him, Alfred.

The Care and Yeeting of Robins: Bruce comes home to find Jason in his bed. Jason refuses to move, so Bruce does what he has to in order to stand his ground and decides sleeping on the floor is the only option.

Flash/Prompt Fics:

Damian and Tim: That’s Not a Dog

Dick, Damian, and Cass: No, no, it’s okay, I’ll be your bridge. You can walk all over me

Damian and Dick: I stabbed my last twelve brothers. Why should you be different?

Jason and Steph: Not only am I a late bloomer, I’m late for everything

Young Dick: Not only am I a late bloomer, I’m late for everything

Steph and Damian: I stabbed my last twelve brothers; why should you be any different?

Tim and Damian: Would you mind not setting my stuff on fire every time you get angry

Older!Damian: I find this to be highly illogical, incredibly ridiculous, and absolutely irresistible. Let’s play

Damian and Alfred the Cat

Tim and Damian: Damian attempts to irritate Tim

Tim and Jason: Tim’s tired and saying weird things

Batman Voice: Damian’s got a ‘Batman voice’ and it comes out at the best of times

Shrunken Sweater: Bruce’s sweater has shrunk to the perfect size

Being Sick is Stupid: Robin Dick and Bruce fluff and minor sick fic

Damian gets tricked into sleeping

Dick and Damian angst-fluff

Long Fics:

Super City: Damian and Jon on an adventure in Metropolis

Losing You: Dick loses his memories of Damian and the two try to deal with it while going after the villain responsible (plus Tim and Jason get to help)

Finding Us: The sequel to Losing You. Explores Jason and Tim’s relationship to the Batfam

[eugenedebs1920]

Pennsylvania Lt. Governor, Austin Adam’s, “The election was free and fair in 2016 when he (Trump) won, it was free and fair in 2020 when he lost, and it will be free and fair in 2024.”

As a previous sports player I can tell you. You can’t just love the game when you win. You are not going to always win. Losses are part of the experience. They’re part of life. Sportsmanship is a life lesson. You win some, you lose some. Either way, you’ll be out on the field ready to go next chance you get.

That is where Trump fails as an adult, as a role model, a politician and a leader. Being gracious in defeat. Defeat is inevitable, doesn’t mean it has to be often, but it is inevitable. To do that takes humility. A trait Trump lacks.

You can’t just love your country when you win. You can’t just be the president of the people who voted for you. You can’t say you’re American, then do all you can to tear down the core of our nation.

This is why anyone with moderate knowledge of history and/or political science would call Donald Trump a fascist. He claims every news organization is “fake news”, except which ones? OAN, NewsMax, and a branch of his campaign, Fox News. That gives away the game right there! So the press is fine as long as they aren’t critical of you? Your policies and actions are fine to be covered, as long as they’re not controversial. That’s part of a fascist political stance. Ask any of those reporters Putin had thrown out a window!

If you have any background studying nineteenth century through twentieth century Europe and Asia it’s clear to see the similarities in the rhetoric, the perceived problems, and the way to fix them. For too long, centuries, fear has been used as a tool to subdue the masses. Whether that’s fear of a military or police state, fear of invasion from a foreign enemy, fear of higher taxes, fear of immigrants. Fear is a powerful emotion. It grips your chest to where it’s hard to breathe but you could jump over a small building at the same time. It’s a natural instinct. All things feel fear at one point or another. It’s a survival tactic. Fascists, and many politicians, use fear as a tool to sway their population or voters towards them. Using such a raw and visceral human instinct.

That fear is often about a thing, a movement or a group. Far too often in modern society this fear, which transmutes into anger, is directed at those different than the majority of the population. Mostly directed at immigrants. From WWII to the genocides in Africa. An enemy is created for the people to extrapolate their anger upon. Donald Trump is a master at this. This is fascism

Before a single vote was cast in 2016, Trump was telling his supporters at rallies that, “The only way we’re going to lose, is if they cheat”. Coincidently he did win, and no fuss was made, no recounts ordered, no lawsuits filed. In 2020, when he botched the pandemic response, made an ass of himself, and us, on the  world stage, when he wouldn’t condemn racism or white supremacist groups and told them to “stand back and stand by”, when he had added nearly $8 trillion to the deficit, when he had broken every rule, every norm, all etiquette and ethics, there was no way he would “win in a landslide”, as it was said.

The American people were sick, broke, couldn’t work, dying by the thousands, stuck at home, frustrated. For him and his supporters to have the slightest doubt that he had the chance of losing is preposterous! Of course he had a chance! He dropped the damn ball numerous times!

His continued lies about the election system is the most damaging thing a “leader” has ever done to our democracy. He has sown seeds of doubt, that, just like weeds, will take a long time to eradicate. For over 200 years we have been the symbol for free and fair elections, the model for the peaceful transfer of power. Now, because Trump lost, we’re all the sudden not!? We’re a 3rd world country!? Or as Trump puts it, we’re the world’s garbage can!? That’s fascism too!

Na tho! It’s him that is garbage. It’s him who can’t be trusted. It’s him that is poisoning the blood of our nation. It’s him who is thin skinned, yet always putting others down. And it’s us.

It’s us who are going to show the world that we still are the America we portray ourselves to be. Leaders! Thinkers! Good, honest people! Kind! Compassionate! Empathetic! Strong.

Let’s show this wanna be dictator and the rest of the world who we are! Let’s show our dignity and self determination. Let’s vote Kamala Harris as the President of the United States of America!🇺🇸



[simverses]

I miss Windlebridge so much it was an amazing blog and project. Do you intend to blog something similar someday ?

Oooh, Windlebridge! My medieval Sims2 world. So good memories. Unfortunately most of the files died in a PC crash around 2016. One day I will build a new Windlebridge, absolutely! Much of my CC making aims at that..

Not many pictures survived either, sadly - PC-crash was followed by a disaster at the old web site a couple of years later. Lesson to learn: backup everything in a safe place.

[jup1ter-moon]

just saw someone on reddit talking about how mischa said his favourite story was saw v (in ride the cyclone 2016) and how fatal five trial from saw v actually has some super interesting comparisons to ride the cyclone (in the actual show he recites the plot of saw vi, the movie after. and some shit about a rusty axe idk. but here i'm talking about the actual saw v. ALSO - warning for spoilers for the saw franchise (and ride the cyclone))

there's two (probably more, but i'm only covering two) ways of looking at this but i'm gonna start with the "jane is a test" version: the fatal five wake up after being abducted and have to go through a series of rooms with different tests and a different person dies in each one (because of the nature of the traps it appears as if this is intentional - in the first room, they are all chained together and have to get keys, but if they all run to get the keys one person is decapitated because of the limited length of chain, and in another room there are only three holes in the wall to hide from an explosion.) in the final room, the two survivors (britt and mallick) have to shed a certain amount of blood to get out of the trap. they discover that this final trap was designed for five people, so they would all have been able to give a small amount of blood to contribute to the total. and it turns out that all the previous tests didn't require a death each - in the first room, only one person needed to get a key and then could unlock everyone, and in the explosion room multiple people could fit in the same hiding place. they do eventually survive this trap but it's like a lesson about teamwork and such. anyway. have we ever seen anything about a morally corrupt girl learning a lesson about life & teamwork & other people....

also yeah something about how they all start competing but by the end (at least the ones that r still alive, in terms of saw) realise they needed to work together to survive (this either works in term of reincarnation theory for rtc, or you could see it in a more symbolic way as them being able to pass on peacefully after voting for jane) in this version, jane isn't a real person that died with them, but is a concept created by karnak to test the choir. these damn puppets and their tests, right?

(also yes, i know the tests are john's not billy's, but you get the idea.) the other option isn't a full theory but it's super silly to me that the first girl from the fatal five to die (ashley), who never really gets to interact with the rest of them or figure out what's going on, is a blonde girl who gets decapitated.

anyway i don't think this was intentional but it was just. super interesting to me and i wanted to yap about it.

[thececeverse]

OH , WHO'S THAT ?! OH , IT'S KRYSTAL ... !

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ... KRYSTAL TSU, also known as KRYSOO or KRYS, is a fictional soloist under YG Entertainment. Originally starting out as a YouTuber, model, actress, and the internet's resident cool girl, Krystal quickly turned her online persona into a booming business, and she eventually found her way into the music industry. Debuting in 2017 as a Mandopop artist, she branched into K-pop shortly after with the track "Got Ya," and instantly found success. She has since gone down as an iconic soloist within the industry, known for her upbeat sound and second generation feel.

... BASICS

STAGE NAME // Krys (크리스)

BIRTH NAME // Krystal Karlie Tsu

CHINESE NAME // Xu Changchang (徐昌昌)

KOREAN NAME // Soo Kyung-ah (수경아)

BIRTHDAY // January 25th, 1996

BIRTHPLACE // Shanghai, China

HOMETOWN // Beverly Hills, California

ETHNICITY // Chinese

NATIONALITY // Chinese-American

... PHYSICAL

FACE CLAIM // Shen Xiaoting

HEIGHT // 5'9" 1/2 (177 cm)

BLOOD TYPE // B

... CAREER

OCCUPATION // Idol, songwriter, dancer, actress, model, YouTuber, businesswoman

YEARS ACTIVE // 2017–present

COMPANY // YG Entertainment, Interscope Records, Gold Typhoon

SURVIVAL SHOWS // Girls Planet 999 (2021)

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗ ... Krystal Tsu was born in Shanghai, China into a relatively wealthy family. Her father is the chairman of a large scale real estate company, while her mother is a former model. She's the eldest of two daughters, with her younger sister—Stephanie—being an actress herself. Krystal and her family didn't spend much time in China, as two years after she was born, they moved to Beverly Hills. Her father was looking to expand his business, and California seemed like the perfect place to do so.

Krystal would thus spend the rest of her life on the West Coast, and her desire to start a career in the entertainment industry would start early. At six, she was entered into jazz dance lessons by her mother to help with her balance and to help her develop a hobby, and she would remain in those lessons for the next eleven years. However, two years later, Krystal would look to become an actress after falling in love with actresses such as Angelina Jolie and Lindsay Lohan. She couldn't juggle both acting and dance lessons, though, so her mother—with the help of a family friend who happened to be a photographer—had her begin modeling in hopes that it would lead to an acting career.

She wouldn't take modeling too seriously until 2013, when she would unexpectedly go viral. After a photo of her with Rihanna surfaced, the internet was scrambling to find out who she was. That led to the discovery of her Instagram account, and all of that prompted Krystal to revitalize her previously dead YouTube account, which had already been in existence since 2009. She used it to indulge in another hobby of hers, which was makeup, and she quickly became an internet celebrity overnight.

By 2014, Krystal had reached mainstream fame in the States. With nearly 2 million subscribers, she was an idol for young girls across the country, and was labeled as the internet's "cool girl." She was specifically noted for her head of blue hair, which would cycle through a few other bold colors over the next few years. Within the next year, Krystal would capitalize on her fame by turning her online persona into a fashion empire, founding the pop culture phenomenon of a brand I-Kon. 2016 saw the founding of Kosmetics, Krystal's very own beauty brand. It was just as successful as its predecessor, seeing significant success in Asia. Krystal would continue to be successful as a businesswoman, and would establish a parent company—KRYSTAL TSU—three years later.

Aside from her booming social media, fashion, acting, and modeling careers, Krystal had always loved singing. She spent her life before fame and her earlier career posting song covers to her Instagram, after all. She decided to give a music career a go in 2017, when she unexpectedly signed with Gold Typhoon early in the year. She would make her debut shortly after with the track "Medusa." The album which spawned the single—XI—was a smash hit in China, topping multiple charts and selling over four million copies to date.

Due to her interest in K-pop, Krystal decided that a debut in Korea wouldn't hurt, either. After signing with YG, she would make her debut on November 17th, 2017 with the album Khrysalis. Her debut single was lauded for its unique pop rock sound, which "came out of nowhere." It got Krystal her first and only win that era, and also made quite the splash on the charts. However, the album's second single saw a bit more popularity. "Change" became the dance track of the year, and its complex choreography spawned multiple covers across the internet. Eventually, Krystal also made her debut in the States in 2019 with the single "Like This," which would be a modest success. She released an album the following year, but she hasn't returned to the Western market since.

With successful careers in multiple industries and a concept that's known for its refreshing vibe throughout the K-pop industry, Krystal has cemented herself as an It girl and iconic artist, and as one who isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

[viviskz]

✦ ִ 🐳 ⁔⁔ ۪ ⊹ ֗ ꫂ relationships in skz

▶ ₊˚.༄ BANG CHAN (choichan)

16 year old Chan met a 14 year old Vivian in a small practice room in 2013

He took her under his wing, walking to school together, helping with homework, making sure she was well fed

Chan taught Vivian how to write songs, and helped her get better at production

When Chan was told about creating a group, he wanted to add Vivian, but JYP tried to turn him down

Chan fought for Vivian to debut, and she is forever grateful to him for that

▶ ₊˚.༄ LEE MINHO (livi)

Minho and Vivian met in 2017

They were both highly trained dancers, and got along well during practice

Being close in age, the two bonded over similar life experiences and became an amazing duo

Vivian advocated for Minho to be on the roster for Stray Kids, and was devistated by his elimination

The two have supported eachother through the years, and are overall amazing friends

▶ ₊˚.༄ SEO CHANGBIN (changvivi)

Changbin met Vivian through Chan in 2016

The two were immedietly insperable, working on tons of songs together

They have said they are eachothers motivation

Changbin helped teach Vivian more about flow and rythm in rap, and helped her improve her skills

The two are gym buddies, and are often called the Buff duo

▶ ₊˚.༄ HWANG HYUNJIN (hyunvi)

Hyunjin met Vivian in 2015

The two never really became friends until they went on the survival show, where they both became very close

Hyunjin learned a lot about dance from Vivian, and has also started writing and producing with the help of Vivian and 3Racha

Hyunjin and Vivian are some of the closest among the members, often flirting with eachother and going on trips together

▶ ₊˚.༄ HAN JISUNG (choisung)

Han met Vivian in 2015

The two became fast friends because of their similar senses of humor

Vivian, knowing about Hans anxiety, made sure to check on him often during pre-debut; making sure he wasn't overwhelmed or too stressed

Han and Vivian were well known for the chaos they caused during pre-debut, pranks, skipping lessons in school, sneaking out of the dorms, all of the above

Han and Vivian are called the Chaos duo

▶ ₊˚.༄ LEE FELIX (vivlix)

Felix met Vivian in 2017

Vivian helped Felix with his Korean, and was one of his tutors

Vivian would often pack Felix's lunches for school and make sure he got there alright

She says she felt like he was ‘too innocent’, and wanted to protect him

He reminds her of her younger brother, Sohee

The two are known for their 'black cat, golden retreiver' dynamic

▶ ₊˚.༄ KIM SEUNGMIN (minviv)

Seungmin met Vivian in 2017

Seungmin and Vivian weren't as close during pre-debut, only getting close during and after the survival show

Seungmin and Vivian are known for their ability to roast other members, and like building off eachothers insults

The two have become known as the Savage duo, or partners in crime

▶ ₊˚.༄ YANG JEONGIN (yangchoi)

Jeongin met Vivian in 2015

Vivian has stated multiple times that her first impression of Jeongin was that ‘he was adorable’

Jeongin on the other hand, said that at first he was scared of Vivian, as she was ‘older and wore all black’

The two bonded quickly, and Vivian helped Jeongin with any homesickness he experienced

The two have become closer as they've gotten older, and are known as the 'cat and mouse' duo

[dailyanarchistposts]

Part 1: Social Alienation, Homogenization, and the Suppression of Cognitive Development

While cognitive development is often considered a realm of study for children, understanding the immense and rapid brain growth that occurs from infancy to adolescence to early adulthood, what is not widely known or accepted is that cognitive development is something that continues, or has potential to continue, into adulthood and even throughout the lifetime.

The cultural fetishization of youth, the simultaneous worship and stripping of personhood of young people, is rooted in domination and the allure of exerting of power and influence over a young mind that has not yet clearly defined it’s own sense of self, it’s own sense of value nor fully understands it’s place in the world. This vulnerability is an obvious site of exploitation, and while the passing of time and awareness may make this more obvious to the exploited youth in retrospect as they age and move more firmly into adulthood, we also live in a society that does not encourage the actualization of self quite intentionally. This vulnerability continues to be a site of exploitation, potentially throughout the lifetime.

Western colonial imperialist culture has largely sought to wipe inherent understandings of development and maturation from societies that hold and held such concepts as self-evident. Many cultures have rites of passage to mark developmental stages, and have conceptions of humanity throughout the lifespan that create space for the youngest babies to the oldest elders to have a place of belonging that is largely absent from the modern Western paradigm, absent from an iteration of capitalism that relies on isolation to strengthen it’s hold on our sense of self, place, and community. Community is now a hodge podge of social connections spanning our digital social media space to the people we meet at work, the bar, or the gym. Belonging and self now defined by numbers and algorithms, deepening the psychic sway that propaganda holds over us as we seek to prove our worthiness of existence.

One personal experience that has driven this lesson home again and again was my own process of matrescence- my emergence into motherhood. The palpable loss of something I could not quite place- the sense of disorientation taking on such a monumental task as full responsibility for the life and thriving of a helpless human being- having had no models but only scraps of lore and popular sentiments about lack of sleep and loss of subjecthood and individuality to grant me any semblence of an idea of what to expect, how to emerge and move with the shifting focus of my energy, time, and self. We are creatures born and socialized via observation and modeling, and I did not grow up with models for how to care for a baby, how to breastfeed, nor how to manage the development of a child in a manner that respects their personhood. I did not have people around me to support the smooth functioning of a household with survival needs, no one to support me in getting proper sleep, reassure me that the baby was safe and okay and looked out for and that I was not alone in overseeing this task.

The more my child grew, and the more I grew in my role as mother, the more I saw and the more deeply I felt how a lack of interdepenent community affected my sense of self and place, and the ability for myself and my family to thrive.

In 2016 I read the book The Roots of Empathy which explains in detail a pedagogy developed to teach school children basic empathy (what I personally call compassion as I see empathy as distinct, that is for another article). One of the core tools they use is bringing a mother with a new baby into a classroom throughout the program- using the baby and it’s attachment to it’s parent as a way to illustrate crucial concepts like diversity of inherent personality, putting oneself in the shoes of another, etc. For instance, observing a baby one can learn about core personality features such as activity level, openness to novel experiences, reaction to stimuli and more. Every baby is different, and children can relate to themselves where they fall on any given trait, and look upon others in a light of acceptance of diversity- understanding that we are each imbued with traits that differ and are no better or worse than any other, and that we all have our place.

In a society that is built upon homogenization, in which certain traits and capacities are valued above others as useful and worthy, appreciating the natural diversity of our fellow humans is hardly an afterthought; it is actively fought against. All around us is messaging on how to be a productive person worthy of climbing the social and economic ladder, showing us that who we are is not enough and that our energy and focus should be spent thriving to be something different and that something different is defined in terms of who upholds existing hierarchies.

In my own explorations of alternative schooling options for my child, a friend shared their observation of their own unschooled children- that homeschooled and unschooled children tend not to develop as strict of hierarchies based on age or grade. They typically spend their time in age-diverse settings, watching parents tend to children of all ages, and understand that different ages come with varied developmental stages and adapt accordingly. Rather than a 6th grader looking down upon a 3rd grader, the 6th grader inherently understands through regular observation and interaction that they are at different stages of development and therefor have different dispositions, needs, and motivations. A sense of diversity and development as a part of the natural order of life is instilled in such an environment. The Roots of Empathy Program seeks to bring this understanding into classrooms by bringing the same babies back for students to observe the natural process of growth and development, and to base one’s understanding of others in context of who they are as well as where they are in their process of personal development.

This shifting framework in how I saw how diversity, inclusion, and mutual understanding in the realm of childhood has altered my understanding of the same in adulthood. My first introduction to the idea that cognitive development is something that continues beyond adulthood was through David Schnarch’s book Passionate Marriage. Schnarch frames adult cognitive development through the lens of differentiation which he further extrapolates on via his framework of the Crucible Four Points of Balance (solid flexible self, quiet mind and calm heart, grounded responding, and meaningful endurance). In his book Intimacy and Desire, he extrapolates on the scientific underpinning and an evolutionary model for human cognitive development, positing that the growth of the human prefrontal cortex gave us abiilties to make meaning of our experiences. He hypothesizes that relational dysfunctions that naturally arise in all intimate human relationships serve as a grounds of struggle for the purpose of cognitive growth. He makes an unusual and groundbreaking assertion that the most satisfying and meaningful intimacy happens as we age, because as we age we come to know ourselves better, have more of a self to reveal, and are challenged to show ourselves in vulnerable ways while maintaining solidity.

As an individual who is socially coded as and was socialized as a woman, the process of becoming a mother, aging, and having a changing body in many ways has forced me to confront the ways that a lack of an interdependent intergenerational community impacts our sense of self, and robs us of the knowledge that we would otherwise have access to about aging bodies and developing minds and selves throughout the stages of life. We feel guilty for gaining weight and developing wrinkles, for not purchasing or using diligently enough the many products and labors we are offered to stave off these inevitabilities. We do not have the role models of mothers who’s children have moved on to adulthood leaving us to grapple with a shifting role in our families and society all alone.

Instead parents hold on to their children for dear life for a sense of purpose, demeaning and degrading, engaging in emotional abuse and domination tactics (including neglect) to suppress the autonomous functioning of their children to instill a sense of dependence or obligation to them, or to emotionally distance themselves to pre-empt their inevitable growing independence.

The proliferation of familial dysfunction, the suppression of children’s autonomy, the prevalence of domestic abuse, all circle back to one missing piece: the suppression of differentiation and adult cognitive growth, and this suppression is the underpinning of a society of imbalanced distributions of power.

[marxalittle]

The rule about reading lists is: I have to have read all the books and think they communicate things of value well.

Here's a current version of a reading list, notionally attached in my mind to a broader queer history and social history syllabus. I'm working my way through a couple texts on Latin American queer experience/history in N and S America currently, and also trying to work out if Outlaw Culture or Black Looks is a better fit, and if both, what to pair them with (I find author centered texts work well as paired readings as they tend to feature the author's thinking about/perspective on some immediate events or phenomena; and contrasting that with another author speaking about similar things can be illuminating).

The list is in no specific order (other than the pairings) and well never be complete.

The Straight State: sexuality and citizenship in twentieth-century America (Canaday, 2009)

The Women's House of Detention (Ryan, 2022)

Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (Delaney, 1999) : paired with/read against Gentrification of the Mind: witness to a lost imagination (Schulman, 2012)

Foundlings: lesbian and gay historical emotion before Stonewall (Nealon, 2001)

How to Survive a Plague (France, 2016) : paired with Let the Record Show (Schulman, 2022) : read against And the Band Played On (Shilts, 1988) [read France, Schulman FIRST]

There's a Disco Ball Between Us: a theory of Black gay life (Allen, 2021)

Common Women, Uncommon Practices: the queer feminisms of Greenham (Roseneil, 2000)

Beyond Shame: reclaiming the abandoned history of radical gay sexuality (Moore, 2004)

Territories of Desire in Queer Culture (Alderson and Anderson, 2000)

Lessons From the Damned (Stoller, 1998) : paired with Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and its Metaphors (double bound) (Sontag, 1990)

Queer Street: rise and fall of an American culture 1947-1985; excursions in the mind of the life (McCourt, 2004)

Forging Gay Identities: organizing sexulaity in San Francisco 1950-1994 (Armstrong, 2002)

[tilbageidanmark]

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK # 221:

JANET PLANET is the first meditative movie directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Baker, who must be a very fine author and playwright, and whose plays I wish I could experience. It's a gentle relationship story between a lonely girl and her single mother Julianne Nicholson who live in rural western Massachusetts in 1991. The mother is irresponsible, getting in and out of relationships without control, and the daughter watches her silently. It's subtle, and tender, and prone to long silences and pauses. The 10 yo actress is a revelation, and it's like getting inside her head. 9/10.

The trailer actually is way too loud: the story itself is much softer. [*Female Director*]

🍿

TO BE AND TO HAVE (2002) is an award-winning, empathetic, small documentary about a one-room school in rural France, where the students (ranging in age from 4 to 11) are educated by a single dedicated teacher. Reminiscent of François Truffaut's 'Small Change' in spirit and approach. Simple and heart-warming. The trailer. 8/10.

🍿

"Ramen burritos? Maybe not just now..."

I'm a rabid Mike Judge fan. After Office Space, Idiocracy and Silicon Valley, now comes his new COMMON SIDE EFFECTS, a fantastic adult animated thriller series about magic mushrooms that can heal the whole world. It's a Late-Stage-Capitalism "Deep State Conspiracy" story, and it literally opens with a line from 'In the loop' about Diarrhea.

Top notch style and dialogue, funny and nuanced. 8.7 score on IMDb. Well deserved 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes. 9/10.

The director/creator of the show did the earlier SCAVENGERS (2016), a science-fiction short in a similar style and feel. 8/10.

🍿

I only saw 'Promotion' and 'The Oner', the first two available episodes of Seth Rogan's new parody THE STUDIO, and I loved them! It's the best Hollywood satire since Altman's 'The player', with Bryan Cranston playing "Griffin Mill" himself. Episode 1 with Martin Scorsese’s script about the Jonestown cult Vs. Kool-Aid the IP franchise. And Episode 2 filming a one-shot scene with Greta Lee - in one shot - were both wonderful.

Smart and hilarious. 10/10 for E1 and E2.

🍿

PALE FLOWER (1964), my first by Masahiro Shinoda, a little-known Japanese masterpiece of dark, stylish Noir. How come I never heard of it before? "Two self destructive souls who find each other in underground gambling dens." As existentially solid as J-P Melville, with a tragic and laconic anti-hero gangster as cool as Belmondo or Delon, and a mysterious Femme fatale, who flirts with danger, and won't stop until she's all spent. She's addicted to the rush of gambling with larger sums of money, speeding at night, shooting heroin and playing with death.

EDIT: Masahiro Shinoda died on March 25, 2025, at the age of 94.

🍿

One of my last missing Buñuel's, the ambiguous DIARY OF A CHAMBERMAID (1964) with Jeanne Moreau (I had only seen the Léa Seydoux version). A timeless, pessimistic, masterly lesson in film-making, it is the first in his French period, and his first collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière (who also plays the priest). A powerful, self-assured woman who must encounter perversion, corruption, and cruelty in the petit-bourgeois manor in the 1930's, selling herself and her body to survive. Servitude, fascism, victimhood, fetishism and abuse of power. 8/10.

🍿

SANTA SANGRE (1989), my 7th surrealist psycho film by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I'm a fan, obviously [See Quote Above], but this one I just couldn't finish. The fact that it was played in English was a huge first turn-off. It had the usual mystical stock characters populating his bizarro world: The boy with the mustache, the elephant funeral, the obese streetwalker, the armless lover, naked mental hospital patient devouring raw fish, sacrilegious orgies, the dwarfs and the giants. But when the down syndrome inmates replaced the tattooed circus freaks, and the bloody murders started, I had to quit. All the Mambo and Mariachi music in the world couldn't get me to go through the second half. ⬇️Could Not Finish⬇️

🍿

"Mac, you ever been in love?" "No, I've been a bartender all me life."

MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) - First watch and only my 5th myth-making film by John Ford. One of cinema's first retelling of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Tombstone Arizona and the Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday friendship. Good Guy Henry Fonda on the porch leaning back in his chair... 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes.

🍿

"How charming: an aphorist!"

My 4th re-watch in 5 years of INTOLERABLE CRUELTY ♻️. From its delightful 'Suspicious Minds' main title sequence (which is as good as 'The big Lebowski' opening) to the slick editing by "Roderick Jaynes", it's as smooth a story as any screwball comedy. I can't understand why many rate it on the low-end in the Coen Brothers body of work. Some claim that it's not funny, but I disagree: it's consistently hilarious, and I'm going to start re-watching it often. 10/10.

"Forget about Kirshner for a second!"

🍿

MY FIRST THREE BY MARCO BELLOCCHIO:

🍿 SLAP THE MONSTER ON PAGE ONE, an uncompromising political thriller, made in 1972, during the violent Italian "Years of Lead". A young woman is raped and murdered outside Milan, and ruthless editor of a right-wing newspaper Gian Maria Volonté manipulates the reporting of the news to fit the needs of his reactionary backers. Bellocchio was unabashedly Marxist-Leninist, and was not interested in pretending to appear "Fair and balanced". He knew who was right and who was wrong. "Everyone knows their place, it's only the workers that don't do what they're told." The trailer.

🍿 In THE FIGHT (2018), a young man wakes up from a nap by the river, to find himself hunted down by a group of Nazi soldiers. But as he dives underwater to escape, he returns to the peaceful present, where there are no worthy causes to fight for. 2/10.

🍿 In CLOWNS (2016), an opera singer asks his wealthy mother to fund a staging based on the opera I Pagliacci. There's also hypnotism, and familial conflict, and good singing. 2/10.

🍿

First re-watch in many decades: THE GRADUATE (1967), a love triangle between clueless 21 yo Dustin Hoffman and the seductive Mrs. Robinson (and her daughter). He's naive and immature, whiny and unpleasant. And then at the end he turns into an obsessive stalker full of male entitlements. But he gets the girl at the end. A story about Mrs. Robinson would be so much more interesting today. Also, I will not be going to Scarborough Fair... 6/10. ♻️

🍿

Gérard Depardieu [on trial for rape charges in France at the moment] is a bank robber released from prison after 5 years, in the silly comedy THE FUGITIVES (1986). Pierre Richard and his cute little daughter get involved. 2/10.

🍿

"Tomorrow I go back to Athens!"

NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950), only my 2nd dark Noir by Jules Dassin, his first movie after being exiled from Hollywood for being a communist. An angry, relentless story of flailing conman Richard Widmark burning to score one big hustle in London wrestling underworld. No hope, no redemption, no positive role models, only failures and disappointments. I didn't see the De Nero remake, but this story could make a great modern version (in the hands of the right director).

I need to see more of Gene Tierney.

🍿

In COUNTERPART (2017), the terrific Jonathan Kimble Simmons ("J.K.") plays a double role very well. He quietly works at a secretive UN office in Berlin, but then he meets a doppelganger of himself, an action hero operative / contract assassin who arrives via a "Gateway" from a "parallel" dimension. It has mirror elements of 'Severance' and Nolan's time-bending fantasies, and it's headed by the Norwegian Morten Tyldum (who did 'Headhunters').

It also has 💯 score on Rotten Tomatoes, but I could only stay for the first two of twenty episodes. The convoluted science-fiction logic, the improbable plot, with metaphysical spy intrigues and a copy of the 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' killer, made it impossible for me to continue. ⬇️Could Not Finish⬇️

🍿

First watch: The highly successful Cinderella romance NOTTING HILL, "the highest-grossing British film of all time". I watched it because Dylan Moran had a small role in it (as well as Gina McKee), but obviously it was a Julia Roberts vehicle. At the height of her popularity, she played herself as a major superstar, hounded by paparazzi. Then she falls for this lame, bland, milquetoast guy who owns a quaint bookstore. Why? It's not spelt out. Lowbrow 2/10.

🍿

“Doctor, I can’t piss anymore.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 82 years old.”

“You’ve pissed enough.”

YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE, Gerry Marshall's first film was a parody/spoof, like what if 'Airplane!' but in a hospital, and not as great. Lots of throwaway funny lines like"Your attention, please. Due to a mix-up in urology no apple juice will be served this morning.", "Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper. Please report to the diabetes ward at once." and "Nice, doctor. While I'm down here trying to save this man's life, you're up there making fart jokes." It's hard to think of pecker-head Michael McKean as a sexy lead role, but not young Sean Young. CW: a dwarf surgeon, Héctor Elizondo cross-dressing, gay stuff, unfunny cursing, oral sex jokes, and more dated 1982 stuff. 3/10.

🍿

THE SHORTS:

🍿 "For your information, your uncle died by falling from the sky on a cold day in Africa."

DAYIM ("MY UNCLE"), my first film by Turkish Tayfun Pirselimoğlu (1999), a wonderful, too-short fairy tale about an eccentric bachelor who dreams about flying. 7/10.

🍿 SLICK HARE, a Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd cartoon taking place at a 1947 Los Angeles restaurant-club and including parodies of Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, The Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Carmen Miranda and Sydney Greenstreet.

🍿

READY FOR DUTY: NAZIS AND FASCISTS ON BEHALF OF THE CIA is a terrible 2013 German documentary about the Cold War connections between the CIA war machine and high-ranking Nazi survivors. It brings together Paul Dickopf and Klaus Barbie, Operation Paperclip, Henry Kissinger, Italian Fascists, Augusto Pinochet, Carlos the Jackel, the Chilean Colonia Dignidad, Etc., Etc. All in the name of anti-communism. But it's done badly, and offer no compelling new information. 1/10.

🍿

[NOT A "MOVIE":].

"There's a reason they only let us see him speaking German."

I lost all tolerance to listening to online people talking in front of their cameras, and it's been awhile since I stopped watching most internet videos of young people explaining things and expressing their opinions about stuff, any topic, but especially about conspiracies. CONSPIRACY, however, by YouTube video essayist Natalie Wynn (a.k.a ContraPoints) won my heart. I was riveted by her funny monologue performance for 2 hrs and 40 min.(!) non-stop. And I'm going to deep dive into the rest of her channel. 8/10. Recommended. [*Female Director*] (Screenshot Above).

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Investigation

Eco-Radical, Singer, Criminal, Cult Leader: Inside Carbon Nation

Eligio Bishop declared himself a God to a group of dedicated followers he led through Central America, Mexico, and the US before landing in the Atlanta area. Now he's serving life in prison

February 23, 2025

I t’s July Fourth, and Eligio Bishop is pacing his cell at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison, with a phone pressed to his ear, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. The 42- year-old is locked in his cell nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week. His only company, he says, are rats and roaches that sometimes bite him while he sleeps. “If there was hell on Earth,” Bishop says, “this is it.” 

Bishop’s cell is small and austere. The one indulgence he’s permitted are phone calls, in 20-minute increments, every few days. For someone who loves talking as much as Bishop, it’s a lifeline. A guard rolls the phone cart into his cell, and if nobody else wants it, Bishop can string together these 20-minute calls for hours, which is how I end up spending nearly four hours across two days talking to him.

Bishop is serving life without the possibility of parole after being found guilty in March of rape, false imprisonment, and revenge porn. He claims he’s innocent. In fact, it’s one of the first things he tells me on the phone: “I’m a controversial figure because what I stand for goes against the power structure.”

Since 2016, Bishop has led an itinerant eco-cult known for most of those years as Carbon Nation. Calling himself “Natureboy,” he’s promoted a grab bag of beliefs including veganism, polygamy, nudity, astrology, and sleeping and shitting outside. “What I stand for is very simple,” he says. “The human race needs to stop living the way we’re living — for our own survival. I promote living in tune with nature.” 

Bishop contends that melanin, which produces skin, hair, and eye pigmentation, has almost supernatural powers enhanced by the sun. As such, he preaches the benefits of leaving the U.S. to live in the tropics, particularly for Black people. He traces issues plaguing Black Americans — racism, poverty, illness — to the fact that, as he puts it, “this isn’t our natural environment, but we’re still fighting for our rights within it.”

Between 2016 and 2022, Bishop and a rotating core of about 10 to 20 followers hopscotched through Central America, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, California, Nevada, and Texas, before landing in the Atlanta area. His role evolved from master teacher to tribal chieftain to God himself.

“I’m going to tell you this right on the phone,” he says during our July Fourth call. “I am the king of the Earth. I’m the Messiah. I’m God returning. I’m Christ.”

Bishop says things like this a lot. It’s part of what makes talking to him so disorienting. It’s less a conversation than a long, winding monologue. My efforts to steer it with questions aren’t ignored but rather incorporated into Bishop’s stream of consciousness. A didactic lesson about the biblical creation story (“In the beginning, God said what? Let there be light, yes. So, God thinks us into existence.”) incorporates references to Kanye West and the Christopher Nolan film Inception. There are cogent points about white supremacy and environmental destruction cheek by jowl with tangents on R. Kelly, ChatGPT, and the hair-root plexus. He tells me white people are “a virus on the planet” and Black men are “the immune system,” which is why “you throw us in cages.” When I ask where this particular theory will lead, he begins to rap the chorus of Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” then launches into an antisemitic tirade against Drake. 

Even when you can’t follow the internal logic or don’t agree with it, the sense that there is a logic can be enticing. It feels like a puzzle you might be able to solve with a little more time, a little more insight, a little more something, that an important truth is just around the next rhetorical corner. At times, Bishop talks like he’s bludgeoning you into submission, but at other times, it’s a delicate dance. He flatters (“You smart, bro.”), he threatens to hang up (“Why would I talk to you if you don’t feel I’m innocent?”), then insists I’m fated to help exonerate him (“Dave, that’s why we’re on the phone! You’re gonna help me. I already seen it!”). 

Bishop’s message has resonated more widely than you might guess. Carbon Nation is part of an ecosystem of Black spiritualists, natural-living advocates, herbalists, alternative historians, motivational speakers, and backpack rappers known as the conscious community. Bishop amassed 94,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, NatureboyTV, and more than 50,000 on Facebook and Instagram. At times, the cameras were running nearly round-the-clock, turning Carbon Nation into a sort of immersive, nonstop reality show. 

All this attracted a steady churn of new members, most of them Black, creative, and relatively young. Several, including Bishop, fancied themselves rappers or singers; a few had worked on the fringes of the music business. As such, Carbon Nation produced lots of music — mostly hip-hop, some of it surprisingly listenable. Many members, christened with catchy names like Musa, Zoca, and Soular, became micro-celebrities. Dozens of YouTube channels and TikTok and Instagram accounts comment on the group.

They’ve rarely been starved for content. Since 2016, members of the self-described cult have coupled, uncoupled, argued, fought, been exiled, returned. Bishop has juggled a rotating cast of “wives,” encouraging them to battle — at times, literally — for his affections. There’s been lots of sex — in pairs, in groups — but make no mistake, this isn’t free love. Particularly in recent years, Bishop controlled the group with an iron fist, laying down rules about everything from when people can eat to who they can sleep with.

“Wherever Eligio went, chaos ensued,” says Chantelle Coleman, who runs the Tea, a YouTube channel that bills itself as “the TMZ of the Conscious Community.” One member died under murky circumstances in Mexico. Another was murdered in Canada. A woman who’d spent a few weeks with Carbon Nation in 2020 was arrested months later for killing her mother. Multiple followers have accused Bishop of rape and domestic violence.

Bishop maintains that the incident that landed him in prison was consensual and sees his prosecution as part of a larger story. In 2023, two other prominent figures in the conscious community, Rashad Jamal of the University of Cosmic Intelligence and Michael Noak, an author known as Brother Polight, were sentenced to long prison terms on sex charges. Dwight “Malachi” York, leader of the Nuwaubian Nation, a Black Muslim cult based in Georgia, was in 2004 sentenced to 135 years in prison for a variety of charges, including child sexual abuse and rape. Bishop contends the government is “targeting Black men that are teaching spirituality.”

“Anybody saying ‘I’m God’ or any kind of Black male that has been in tune is getting locked away,” he tells me. But this has only strengthened his self-belief. “I can’t regret anything because this is happening the way it’s supposed to happen. It has to be this way.”

Carbon Nation’s story begins in another small room nearly a decade earlier. In mid-December 2015, Bishop made a 14-minute YouTube video in his bedroom titled “Natureboy How I Live & why.”

The room isn’t much to look at. The walls are bare, save for a small corkboard where he’s tacked up a map of the United States and a menu from Tassili’s, his favorite raw vegan restaurant in Atlanta. There is no bed, just some blankets and pillows lying directly on the beige carpet.

If the overall aesthetic exudes the sad desperation of life on the margins, Bishop himself seems gleeful as he shows viewers his space. Five minutes in, he turns the camera on himself. He’s tall, handsome, with patches of wispy stubble framing his face.

“People talk about the injustices, white supremacy, and what are we doing about it,” he says. “I’ve decided to be the change that the planet needs.… This is my transition before I go into nature and move out of the country. This is the most efficient way to shut the system down. We don’t need to be violent.… All we need to do is go into nature.”  

That video garnered about 40,000 views, but in the Carbon Nation universe, it’s the Big Bang. Bishop continued making videos, expanding on his ideas, and laying out plans. In July 2016, he posted a video responding to the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old Black man, by police. He urged viewers to “leave America this year before you’re not even able to fucking leave at all.”

Erikka Carroll remembers that video. “There was a lot of anger in the Black community, and he was the first person I heard that was like, ‘We ain’t got to be angry. Just move away.’” Carroll, 38, had been working as an engineer and studio manager for rapper T.I. in Atlanta, but felt disenchanted: “I had everything I wanted, but I felt empty.” She’d just quit her job when Bishop’s video appeared in her Facebook feed. She reached out. He hadn’t yet left the U.S. but told her to stay in touch. 

In late July, Bishop took the plunge, and traveled to Honduras. Among the small crew that joined him, one had access to a house there. “We get there, and his house is like a hole in the wall,” Bishop said on a podcast in 2017. “One thing about Natureboy, I don’t like bugs and nasty, creepy shit. I was like, ‘I’m not staying here.’” They settled instead at a rental property near Trujillo. Carroll arrived in September, by which time the group had grown to 10 people and was alternately calling itself Melanation or the Etherians.

“It was beautiful,” Carroll says. Behind the house, a trail led to a waterfall. “We’d get up, watch videos on certain things like melanin. Then we’d go for lunch, go to the waterfall.”

Bishop didn’t invent the idea of Black people quitting America. In fact, the urge is as old as the country itself. In the first half of the 19th century, the American Colonization Society worked to establish Liberia, a colony (and later a country) in West Africa populated by freed Black people from the United States. In the early 20th century, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Harlem, essentially birthing modern Black nationalism and the Back-to-Africa movement. 

“There is a long tradition of interest in leaving,” says Ousmane Power-Greene, a history professor at Clark University and the author of books on Black emigration. “It’s been rooted in the idea that outside the U.S., Black Americans can establish a place that will demonstrate Black capability to Black people in the diaspora and perhaps even to a European or American world.”

Bishop’s main innovation, if you can call it that, was pitching a divorce from America as both a wellness journey and the ultimate social media power play. An early video from Honduras feels like a tourist-board commercial, with Bishop and followers frolicking in the river. “This isn’t a vacation,” Bishop says. “This is where we live. You’re more than welcome to stay. You can camp out with us.”

Rah Xi, now a 32-year-old poet, dancer, singer, and songwriter, heard that message right when she needed it. She’d quit her day job as a bank teller and “really wanted to get out of America,” she says. “I just had so much anger towards America. They said all you gotta do is get a flight and we’ll provide housing and food. I saw that video on Facebook, and two weeks later, I was on a plane.”

Bishop was magnetic. But he chose his flock carefully. The group ate one meal a day, all together, at lunchtime. Xi recalls someone who resisted. “This person was like, ‘I want to eat at night.’ He’d make his own meal. He ended up getting kicked out.” When another member disagreed, they got booted, too. “That was the beginning of his ego taking control.”

Bishop soured on Honduras after he and several others were robbed at gunpoint. The group piled into a van and drove to Costa Rica, where they moved into a stunning hilltop rental house. In a video from February 2017, Bishop shows off the compound, pointing out fruit trees and a cluster of tents pitched on a knoll overlooking a green valley.

“We live away from everything,” he says. “We are a cult. I am a cult leader.”

Despite a supposed disdain for fossil fuels and modern society, Bishop bought cars, motorcycles, and computer equipment. “We were out there balling,” says Carroll. 

Although Bishop claimed he brought some of his own money, the majority of the early funding seems to have come from Philip Goss, who was one of the original three who joined Bishop in Honduras. Several people I interviewed say Goss donated $300,000 to Bishop, and Bishop and Goss talked about it in a video from that time. (Goss didn’t respond to interview requests.)

Goss began to handle the group’s finances. When Alex Raposo arrived in Costa Rica in 2017, he handed over his debit card to Goss. “I should’ve thought that was a red flag,” says Raposo, a white Canadian bodybuilder who’d discovered Bishop’s videos on YouTube. “They used my card and bought a ping-pong table for $800.”

Among the major purchases in Costa Rica was a bevy of musical instruments and recording equipment. “I told him everything he needed for the studio,” says Carroll, the former studio manager. She spent time crafting beats under her cult name, Blueprint, with  tracks leaning into the bright, soulful, earnest vibe of early-2000s conscious hip-hop.

One night, Carroll says, Bishop was recording, and it wasn’t going well. “He wanted to rap and was thinking he can do everything perfect. It wasn’t coming out like that.” Carroll told him she was going to sleep. “He was like, ‘If T.I. said he wanted to record, you would’ve!’ I’m like, ‘Bro, I don’t work for you!’” The argument escalated. “He stepped to me, and I was on my tippy-toes, like, ‘I ain’t scared of you!’” Bishop backed down. Carroll left the group not long after. 

Bishop was born in Harlem in 1982 and has said he was a “crack baby.” The story of his upbringing he lays out in his social media videos is troubled. Efforts to get in touch with family members were unsuccessful. 

The childhood he describes begins with a void: He has no memory of his parents, who died when he was young. He and his younger brother bounced between foster homes, where, he has said, he experienced sexual abuse. When he was about 11, both brothers were adopted by a couple in New Jersey. 

Initially, the new home, in a bucolic suburb, felt like a dream. “It was beautiful nature out there,” Bishop said. 

But after the adoption was finalized, life there changed.  In his videos, he describes one adult in his life telling him “because I was dark-skinned, I was dirty,” being scared of his reflection because he was told he was a demon, as well as physical abuse.

As a teenager, Bishop repeatedly ran away from home. “I was in the streets, smoking weed.” Soon, he “had a rap sheet for doing a lot of crimes.” He says he was sent to a series of juvenile detention facilities, and at 16, was transferred to East Jersey State Prison, where he attempted suicide. After an evaluation, he spent time in the prison’s psych ward.

After his release, he enrolled in the military. He has said he completed basic training but was discharged when the Army learned of his psychiatric treatment. He found work as a model, then a stripper, which led to about 10 years in the sex industry. When a gay-porn video featuring him surfaced, he addressed it on a livestream: “I was young and did that for money, so I could survive in the world.” 

Around this period, Bishop worked as a barber with his own shop in an Atlanta suburb. He had the gift of gab and would hold court there for hours. He kept a chessboard handy and promised that anyone who could beat him would get a free cut. “Nobody beat me,” he said.

In 2011, police were called to a house east of Atlanta and found Bishop on the front porch attacking Maisha Evans, who he lived with. “When I was hitting her, a cop came out of nowhere,” Bishop said years later in a video. “A cop pulls me off her because I’m trying to fucking murder her.” The police report notes Evans had “severe swelling over her left eye the size of a fist that appeared to possibly be a broken bone; a laceration behind her left ear, several marks on her upper body, and her pajama pants were torn.” (Evans did not respond to requests for comment by press time.)

Bishop was charged with aggravated battery. He faced 20 years in prison, but by the time the case was about to come to trial the following year, Evans and Bishop had reconciled. She wrote the judge a letter in his favor. Bishop took a plea deal that included probation and a $1,000 fine, but no prison time.

“After Maisha, I promised the universe that if you got me out of that time I was supposed to do for putting my hands on [her], that I would never hit another woman,” Bishop said on a livestream. “I lied.”

In mid-October 2017, Bishop led his dozen or so followers on a road trip across Costa Rica. At a routine checkpoint, police detained the group when they discovered most didn’t have passports or had overstayed their visas. They were driven to the police station in the nearby city of Limon. 

On the bus outside of the police barracks, most of the group seemed calm, resigned to their fate. Except for Bishop. He livestreamed on his phone, getting increasingly worked up. 

“We live on Facebook right now!” he shouted. “Everybody bring their cameras out, make sure they record this, yo! Because if we gonna die, we’re gonna die just like this is going down!”  

An immigration officer boarded the bus and offered to let everyone go once they signed some paperwork. 

“We not signing nothing!” Bishop yelled. “We’re standing up for humanity! If you don’t stand for something, you’re going to fall for anything.” Bishop insisted they wouldn’t get off the bus. “You’re going to have to use violence.”

Moments later, police did. Although video of the incident is dark, loud, and hard to follow, Raposo says some members “decided to fight back. They all got beat up. I got released the next day because I didn’t fight back. I had my passport. They stayed for two weeks in a hotel prison.” Most of the group was subsequently deported, but the live­streamed melee generated views.

“People were like, ‘Oh, my God! They arrested Natureboy!’” says Raposo. “That’s what got him a lot of attention.” At times, that’s what Bishop seemed to want most — views, clicks, likes, followers, engagement — even though attention often brought problems. 

Before the group left Costa Rica, Bishop had posted a shocking video. “I wanted my son to be so pure that he’d never know he was naked,” says Bishop, who has four children. “I take baths with my kids. I’m naked with my kids. I have sex in front of my kids! My son be breastfeeding, I be making love to his mom! That’s how I get down around kids!” He goes on like this for a minute or so. “My son … I have sex with his mom. After I’m done, I’m laying there, chilling. He grabs my penis. He’s playing with my penis. I let that happen!”

Bishop later tried to walk back some of these comments, claiming that when he said he had sex around his children, he meant when they slept. By then, though, the video had taken on a life of its own. In late 2017, after being deported from Costa Rica, Bishop was in Texas and got a visit from the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services, who, he says, “did an all-out investigation” and found him “not a threat or a pedophile.” (In response to an open-records request, a representative with the Texas DFPS said it cannot provide case records.)  

Early the following year, the cult had relocated to a property in the lush jungle near San Ignacio, Belize. On a visit to a nearby internet café, the proprietor recognized Bishop from the video and insisted he leave. Later that day, neighbors accused him of being a pedophile. The following day, the cult fled Belize.

“The video is haunting me and can be used to target me in the wrong way,” he said on a recording posted that February. “That’s OK because they do this to Black leaders, to anybody trying to organize anything.” He mentions Martin Luther King Jr. getting stabbed by a mentally-ill woman in 1958. “Anytime you’re a leader and you’re making an impact, there will be people that hate you.”

By this time, there’d been considerable turnover within the group, which now went by Carbon Nation. Most of the new members were in their twenties and thirties, and many felt disillusioned with American society. Several had struggled with depression. But one didn’t fit this profile. Magdalena Sevilla was a 59-year-old mother of adult children who’d been managing a men’s clothing store before she joined Carbon Nation in April 2018. In one video from June of that year, she describes her life as a “spiritual quest” and mentions having been involved with B’nai Zaken, a Black Hebrew Israelite congregation in Chicago, for a time. She’s a gentle presence, a heavyset woman with a soft voice and short, graying black hair. Her daughter, Iset Sevilla-Bazan, says her mother had always had a spiritual curiosity but only discovered she’d joined Carbon Nation when she saw her mom in one of the group’s videos. “It was definitely a shock,” Sevilla-Bazan says.

After an interlude in southern Mexico, Carbon Nation returned to Belize. Sevilla-Bazan struggled to keep in touch with her mother, who went by Mama Dia in the cult. She says that over texts, her mother claimed cell reception was spotty or that her phone battery was dead.

“We’re not sure it was even her responding,” Sevilla-Bazan says. She watched Carbon Nation’s livestreams hoping to spot her mom. When she did, “the rhythm of her speaking was changing. She looked not very healthy.”

By late June, the group had migrated to Palenque, Mexico, where they rented a gorgeous, modern stone house with a plunge pool and patios in the jungle outside of the city. 

Most members pitched their tents on a soft, green lawn near the foot of a long stone staircase. In the mornings, they’d typically wake up then make their way inside the house. Sevilla was an early riser, but one morning, as everyone gathered, she was missing. Goss found her in her tent, unresponsive. Another member of the group joined him and noticed “her color had changed.” Sevilla was dead. The medical examiner in Palenque determined the cause as heart failure.

Sevilla had preexisting heart issues, but they’d been successfully managed for years with medication. In videos filmed before her death, Sevilla says she’d stopped taking her medicine. Many online blamed Bishop, who’d long preached that nearly any malady could be healed naturally, without pharmaceuticals. He has repeatedly denied counseling Sevilla against taking medication.

Velvet Marquez, an ex-member, has said Sevilla complained about leg pain in the days before her passing, which can be a symptom of heart issues. Marquez recommended she tell Bishop she needed to go to the hospital. She isn’t sure Sevilla ever did, but blames Bishop regardless. “He does not allow people to have medical attention,” Marquez said in 2020. “This is why Mama Dia passed away.”

Sevilla-Bazan believes her mother would still be alive if she never joined Carbon Nation. After her mother’s death, Sevilla-Bazan struggled to get an accurate sense from Bishop or his followers of what exactly happened. 

“I just want to get answers,” she says.

At the end of 2017, Daylin Armstead, who goes by Musa, was 22 and in his final semester of college near Baltimore, about to graduate with a psychology degree. His passion, though, was music. He’d played instruments growing up, had done some rapping, and the previous year, he’d gone in with friends to buy a small studio, where he taught himself to engineer. Despite all of this, Musa felt a gnawing emptiness in his life. He found videos of Bishop on YouTube talking about living more sustainably, and it filled some of that void. 

“I wasn’t as big on all the spiritual concepts,” Musa says. “I was more so on the system collapsing and really wanting to be self-sustainable.”

At the time, Musa was helping raise two kids. The more he watched Carbon Nation’s content, though, the more he was drawn in. He reached out, letting them know he made music. “I was trying to show I could contribute,” he says. 

Musa had seen a video laying out the protocol for prospective new members to join. “He’d teach you to reprogram your subconscious mind,” he says.  

This meant aligning your social media accounts with the group’s accounts, reposting what they post, and following the group’s core principles wherever you were. “So, I stopped taking showers,” Musa says. “I was pooping in the woods. At the time, I was in Maryland, and it was winter.”

As Musa recounts all this to me, I get the feeling he knows it sounds crazy but isn’t willing to dismiss it as a joke. At the time, he felt like, “If I didn’t change the way I was living, I was going to suffer some type of consequence from the universe. So, I left in the middle of the night and didn’t tell anybody.”

This was just after Bishop and his followers had been deported from Costa Rica. Musa got in his car, left his life behind, and drove to meet the group in Texas. Musa slid into Carroll’s former role as engineer and producer of the group’s music. Working frequently with two other recent initiates, Armon Palmer, who went by Pisce, and Ishmael Goodwine, a.k.a. Caliber, the group’s musical output accelerated. 

“Loving the money and hating the system/Is loving the warden and hating the prison,” Palmer raps with an eerie synth hook looping behind him on one song called “Negropean.” The song’s music video features Musa and Palmer shirtless, decked out in feathered headdresses, tribal jewelry, and face paint, stalking around vivid jungle landscapes.

“The message was a product, like cocaine,” Musa says. “We were there to package it and get it out.” 

Bishop often wasn’t directly involved in writing and recording, but his presence always loomed. Songs that weren’t on message didn’t see the light of day.

Carbon Nation flooded the internet with content — music, lectures, cooking shows, livestreams. By this time, the group’s YouTube videos had a more professional sheen. Many feel like TV shows, complete with opening theme music and a recurring cast of young, beautiful characters. Behind the scenes, though, things were shifting. 

“In Palenque, shit started getting more militant,” Musa says.

“We’d eat at the same time, get up at the same time, go to sleep at the same time,” says Aaron Dixon, who went by Tru. “Now, I know those are cult tactics, but at the time, I felt like, ‘This is a community.’”  

Dixon had first discovered Carbon Nation during his final year in the Army, in South Korea. His job was administrative, which left him with hours to fill. “I was on Facebook and YouTube a lot,” he says. “The YouTube algorithm was suggesting a lot of conspiracy videos, and those videos progressively got more intriguing and extreme.” (Bishop’s channel has since been taken down, “following off-platform behavior that is harmful to YouTube’s community,” a spokesperson says.)

Dixon grew up biracial in rural Georgia, estranged from his father, in a community where he “wasn’t white enough for the white kids and wasn’t Black enough for the Black kids.” His mother died when he was 15. After that, he bounced between living with relatives, couch surfing, and occasionally sleeping in his car. The military had given him stability, but he was discharged after being diagnosed with a “major depression disorder.” Dixon searched for something or someone to connect to, and he found Bishop online. 

When he arrived in Belize, though, he was taken aback by what he saw. “Something happened between Eligio and Velvet Marquez, and he slapped her. Nobody reacted. It was almost as if it was normal.”

Marquez was in Carbon Nation for nearly four years and has a daughter with Bishop. She’s said she endured years of his abuse. During his rape trial, she testified about an incident on July 4, 2020. “He ordered everybody in the group to make a circle around me so he could beat me inside the circle,” Marquez said on the stand. “He picked me up and kept slamming me on the ground.” (Marquez declined to comment for this story.) 

One member who witnessed it was shocked. “The man literally picked her up by the neck, strangled her, and dangled her until she dropped to the ground,” she says. “When she passes out, he starts kicking her in the stomach. Then he puts his knees on her shoulders and starts punching her all over her chest and face. She’s crawling, trying to get herself up. He beat her to a pulp. Then he buys Chinese food afterwards, and everyone eats like nothing happened.” The following month, at Bishop’s insistence, he and Marquez were legally married in Las Vegas alongside three other couples from Carbon Nation. 

Other women also allege they suffered violent treatment from Bishop. As Musa recalls, “If you were his wife, you pretty much had an agreement: ‘If you disrespect me, I’m going to put my hands on you.’”

Courtney Townsend, who goes by Soular and joined up in Palenque, says Bishop constantly abused the women. “We’d end up having these meetings that would last six, eight hours, where he’s explaining why he’s locking Velvet in a room, why he had to slap her,” he says. “His explanation was that we’ve been programmed by European men to be weak little men, so our women will never respect us. The women will respect him, and he’s the guy slapping these girls, locking them in rooms.”

In a livestreamed conversation between Bishop and Marquez’s father in May 2019, her father asks why he hit her. “Because I was upset with her,” Bishop says.

“She made you bust her in her face, her nose bleeding profusely everywhere?”

“I’m going to tell you this, Pops,” Bishop responds. “When it comes to me, I’m a man.”

The group’s online viewers have consistently reported suspected abuse within the cult to local authorities. In March 2019, Mexican police visited the property in Palenque. Video of the encounter shows an investigator asking the group questions as they line up on the steps outside of the house. As Musa recalls, “The next day, we literally left and drove to Nicaragua.” 

Not much changed in Nicaragua. In late June, police raided their house there and arrested Bishop. He was held for three weeks, then deported. He returned to Central America, this time to Panama, where the pattern repeated: Arrested. Jailed. Deported. 

When Covid hit in the spring of 2020, the group relocated to the Big Island of Hawaii. It seemed perfect — tropical but without the threat of deportation. But soon after arriving, Bishop and 20 followers were arrested for violating the state’s quarantine rules. After a stint in jail, Bishop pleaded no contest and was sentenced to 90 days. The sentence was suspended as long as he and his followers agreed to leave Hawaii.

“So, we basically got deported from Hawaii,” Dixon says, “which is hard to do.”

In many ways, Carbon Nation turns the traditional image of a cult — shadowy, operating outside of modern society — on its head. The group was all over the internet, battling it out with its critics on social media. But according to Steve Hassan, a psychotherapist and cult expert, they’re part of a new wave. “Cults have gone online,” he says. “That’s where they’re principally recruiting and indoctrinating.

Janja Lalich, a sociologist who specializes in cults and extremism, has seen the same trend. “Internet-based cults got a big boost during the pandemic,” she says. People can initially get indoctrinated quietly, staring at their phone or laptop, safe from others’ judgment. Many go no further, content to remain on the outer ring of followers, as so-called fringe members. At its height, Carbon Nation likely had hundreds if not thousands who fell into this category.

According to Lalich, there’s one consistent trait among those who join cults, online or otherwise: idealism. 

“It’s people who want to make a better world, have a better family, find a better religion, make more money,” she says. In Bishop’s case, he packaged a lot of contemporary concerns and targeted a population uniquely poised to hear his message. 

“He’s capturing an audience starving for this type of spirituality,” says Coleman, who runs the YouTube channel following the group. Over the past decade, she says, “within the Black community, a lot of us were going through a spiritual awakening. New Age spirituality was on the rise.” The broad sweep of Black history — marked by grave injustices and systematic discrimination — can make someone offering a way to explain and overcome that history appealing. 

“There’s things he’s saying that appeal to a broad group of Black people, and some white people, people vulnerable to poverty and the ways in which capitalism has made it impossible to eat healthy,” says Clark University’s Power-Greene. Carbon Nation’s message was a huge draw online. Coleman began following their exploits in 2018. Her channel, which now has nearly 40,000 subscribers, is part of a constellation of YouTube channels and social media hubs that track the conscious community. Many of the community’s prominent figures have built sizable platforms. Sa Neter, who frequently interviews conscious-­community leaders, has more than 200,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, House of Konsciousness. Umar Johnson, an outspoken Pan-Africanist and psychologist, has more than a million Instagram followers. Rappers like Arcaze, Daylyt, and Fr33Sol have amassed hundreds of thousands of social media followers. 

Of course, the vast majority of these conscious-community figures aren’t leading cults, breaking laws, or condoning anyone who is, but there’s an openness to unconventional beliefs and conspiracy theories that the more predatory characters take advantage of. Rashad Jamal, the former rapper who leads the University of Cosmic Intelligence and is now serving 18 years on child-molestation charges, has repeatedly cast his prosecution as persecution.

“The only law I’ve broken is speaking out against oppression,” Jamal said on the UCI’s YouTube channel last January. “They don’t like niggas that do that.… The only thing I’m guilty of is freeing the minds of my people and speaking out against this system.”

During my first call with Bishop, he lights up at the mention of Jamal. “You know COINTELPRO?” he asks. “That’s real. Stop the rise of a Black messiah. The idea of a Black man becoming intelligent, then grouping everybody together and making them turn against the system. Look at what I was doing: I had influence over people.”

COINTELPRO was, in fact, real. Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI had a covert program to undermine individuals and organizations it deemed radical that targeted Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton, among others. One explicit goal, as detailed in a 1968 memo, was preventing “the rise of a messiah” who could unify Black nationalists. Bishop has repeatedly leaned into this history, conflating his situation with those of vaunted Civil Rights leaders, and blaming criticism or law enforcement on shadowy forces colluding to silence him.

“What you see happening with all these Black leaders from that time is exactly in congruence with what’s going on with my chief today,” says Edgar Bright, who’s still loyal to Bishop and goes by Jax. “The powers that be designed a whole system to stop the rise of a Black messiah.”

Coleman says she understands the impulse to draw these parallels, but they don’t hold up to scrutiny. “It’s disingenuous to compare those guys to Fred Hampton or Malcolm X, because those guys don’t have sex charges. I know it’s hard for people because they’ve got to blame somebody for all these different men who have the ability to move large groups of Black people, so they say, ‘They took him down because he was too controversial.’ But the government didn’t set them up to commit these crimes. That’s their own doing.”

As Carbon Nation bounced from Hawaii to California and then to Las Vegas in 2020, the ideological messages once so prominent in their videos were increasingly buried beneath a surreal, debauched montage: members slapping each other, a brawl on the beach between Bishop’s wives. Bishop would berate followers or stoke conflict on livestreams tagged as “Real Nigga Moments.”

He explains away some of the drama as part of a psycho-spiritual healing process. “What you’re watching is shadow work,” he says during one of our calls. Much of the rest, he claims, is a strategic bait and switch. “I utilized that to get people’s attention. Behind the scenes, the guys knew we were acting.”

There were financial incentives, too. The $300,000 Goss had donated years earlier was long gone, as was Goss. Money came in from other members. Dixon received a monthly disability check from the VA, which he gave to Carbon Nation. Another ex-military member also regularly donated disability pay. Others received Social Security or unemployment that went into the pot. Members also applied for food stamps and donated Covid stimulus payments. They solicited donations from online supporters, too. According to Townsend, many of the men regularly hit up women outside of the group for money. “Say we need to go somewhere and we’re short $200. I’ll hit up one of my girls and be like, ‘You got space for 600 this month? Just send me 200 right now.’ This is their way of proving their loyalty from a distance.”

The Singapore-based social media app Bigo Live paid members to stream over their platform. “That’s how we were eating — off the internet and donations,” says Shaka Calvin, a.k.a. Shaka Zulu, who spent several months in Carbon Nation. “That’s when it would really get bad because [Bishop] started becoming a celebrity. They were all having to do things to get attention, to get money.”

The line between reality and fiction blurred. “All the stuff, us acting crazy, being militant, the fights, we’d tell people it’s just a show,” Townsend says. “It wasn’t. That stuff was happening off camera, too. These women were actually getting abused. At a certain point, it was no longer acting. He never stopped.”

In early 2020, Jenaé Newell was 25 and working at Tassili’s, the same Atlanta raw vegan restaurant whose menu Bishop had tacked up in his bedroom when his journey as Natureboy began. She’d followed Carbon Nation online for years and had built her own small following, posting her artwork and music, offering tarot-card readings, and discussing many of the same spiritual concepts they did. The cult had recently relocated to the Atlanta area, and Newell connected with members at Tassili’s.

“I loved them,” she says. “I believed they were my frequency family, which was what he preached, people of like minds coming together on a common mission to elevate the consciousness of the Earth.” 

When Newell first joined, she says, Bishop was “a teddy bear,” but she wasn’t attracted to him. Over time, their relationship evolved. “He was a teacher, then a friend, then after some time, he tried to make me his lover and wife.”

The night of March 27, 2022, there was a small party at the house the group was living in on a suburban cul-de-sac in Dekalb County. Newell testified that after Bishop chastised her for disrespecting him, one of Bishop’s wives, Jayon Marie Hamilton, who goes by Zoca, punched her multiple times. Bishop told Newell to leave. She packed her bags and when she walked out to her Uber, Bishop called to her from upstairs. She returned and joined him, alone, in a bedroom.

According to testimony at the trial, Bishop told Newell he wanted to have sex with her “one more time.” She repeatedly said she didn’t want to. At one point he said, “I’m not going to rape you.” She froze. “I didn’t want to be raped.… I said, ‘OK. I’m going to do this one last time.’” Early the next morning, Newell quietly left the house and never returned.

After her departure, Bishop reposted videos on social media of himself and Newell having sex. Newell reported this to the police as revenge porn, but made no mention of rape. In a later police interview, she said that “he made love to me” and that she “gave it to him” because she “still care[d] for him.”

Newell tells me she thinks about that night differently now. “When I heard the rape charge, I was like, ‘What? He never raped me,’” she says. “But then they explained, ‘Jenaé, this is what rape is.’ I never thought that power dynamic was rape. After researching cults and cult leaders, I was able to understand that all he did was rape us. It was a culture of rape in Carbon Nation.”

When Bishop stood trial for raping Newell, two other ex-members testified that he raped them too, though he was never charged. Bishop denies the allegations. 

“He obviously didn’t think he raped me,” Newell says. “But he has been doing that for years. That’s what makes him dangerous. He doesn’t know the wrongs he’s doing and doesn’t admit to them. He thought because I said yes one time after a million no’s, it was OK. It wasn’t.”

Bishop was arrested at the house outside of Atlanta on April 13, 2022. He was denied bond and remained incarcerated until his trial began last February. During that time, Carbon Nation began to crumble.

Townsend, Musa, and Palmer left within a week of his arrest. Dixon hung on until September, by which point he was living in his car, showering at a nearby Planet Fitness. His wife, whom he’d met in Carbon Nation, had already left with their child, but it took him time to reintegrate into society. “I’ve had to unlearn a lot of habits and belief systems I’d adopted,” he says.

That’s been true for many former members. Some have joined other groups, becoming what Lalich calls “cult hoppers.” Many still believe in Bishop’s teachings, even if they’ve lost faith in Bishop himself. Townsend and Marquez attempted at one point to relaunch Carbon Nation with themselves as leaders. “Why should we let one guy ruin what was changing the world?” Townsend says. The project didn’t take. 

Musa currently lives in Puerto Rico and says that after taking psychedelics “that bleached my mind,” he’s been able to gain perspective. “The way I look at it, I’m not any different than him. I don’t see anybody in the group that’s different or better than him.”

The day I spoke with Newell, she’d just returned from applying for a job as a restaurant server. “I’m trying to get my life together,” she says. “I’m a single mother, so I’m doing what I have to do to get where I need in life.”

For others, the path out has been darker. Amaar Jawaid, who went by Loyal, left about a month after Bishop’s arrest and, according to Dixon, took with him money, cellphones, and hard drives that belonged to the group. Jawaid was a Canadian whose father had died when he was young. He’d spent much of his life searching for belonging and had joined Carbon Nation at 18.

“He looked at Eligio as a father figure,” Townsend says. On March 6, 2023, police in Oshawa, Ontario, responded to a house fire and found Jawaid’s body. The death was ruled a homicide. Three people have been charged with second-degree murder. “I watched this kid go from a neutral guy to thinking he’s a gangsta,” Townsend says. “This is what ended up getting him killed.”

By the time Bishop’s case went to trial, Carbon Nation’s core membership numbered barely more than a half dozen. On the trial’s opening day, Bishop wore gold-rimmed glasses and a blue paisley blazer over a white turtleneck and white pants. Before testimony began, the state offered Bishop a plea, 30 years, with the rape charge reduced to aggravated assault. He declined. 

Over four days, the prosecution called ex-members to the stand, including Dixon, Townsend, Newell, and Marquez. Several Carbon Nation die-hards testified in Bishop’s defense, but didn’t seem to help his cause. One of his wives, Iyah, admitted under oath to posting revenge porn. Another member, Juliano Diaz, who goes by Juju, was ejected from the courtroom by the judge when he lingered on the stand after his testimony concluded to declare Bishop was being “maliciously prosecuted.” 

The verdict came in on March 1, after a six-day trial: guilty on all counts. At the sentencing hearing later that day, Bishop stood in his orange prison jumpsuit, handcuffed, and addressed the judge directly. “I see what y’all are doing, and I want you to know I forgive you,” he said. “And I still love you.” 

A few minutes later, just before announcing his sentence, the judge spoke from the bench, calling Bishop a “master manipulator” and “the classic definition of a narcissist.” 

“I would’ve been inclined to show some discretion if Mr. Bishop had shown any remorse, guilt, or regret throughout this process,” she said. She sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole, plus 10 years. 

Bishop claims he was maliciously prosecuted, and insists, at the very least, he was oversentenced. “That’s been happening to Black men for a long time,” he tells me.

In an email, Kay Levine, an Emory law professor who studies sentencing, described the sentence as “excessive to me for the crimes and the number of counts (and the lack of force); I’d be surprised if other rape defendants in Dekalb have received something so extreme under more severe circumstances.”

A spokesperson for the Dekalb County DA noted the potential punishments for rape in Georgia range from 25 years up through the death penalty. “Our office asked the judge for a sentence of life without parole. We believe that’s appropriate.”

As Newell sees it, “They put him away for the totality of everything. It wasn’t just for me. What about the other victims, the people that never came forward?”

In August, Bishop was transferred to Macon State Prison. On his first full day there, he was stabbed. He was briefly hospitalized then returned to his cell. Prison officials described his injuries as “non-life-threatening,” but Iyah tells me Bishop suffered a collapsed lung. (Georgia Department of Corrections officials didn’t respond to multiple requests for information.) Macon State curtailed Bishop’s phone access, and since then, he’s been largely incommunicado.

During a previous conversation, Bishop told me he has no money to mount an appeal. “I know I’m going to be exonerated, but I don’t know how. God isn’t going to let me sit in here. I’m too valuable to humanity.”

In recent months, the remaining members of Carbon Nation have rebranded themselves Imagine Nation, which feels oddly appropriate for a group that at this point merely reflects its leader’s warped psyche. As Dixon puts it, “Carbon Nation is over. We’re just waiting for them to realize that.”

The disillusionment Bishop tapped into remains very real. 

“What Natureboy was trying to do is get these Black kids to see that the trick is being stuck here in America,” says Shaka Calvin. “Because I didn’t feel like America was giving me ­anything. They take, take, take, take, and take. I feel like I’m crazy if I’m in a situation where I’m trying to make peace and I’m getting took.”

But in the end, whether Bishop was ever earnest or was always running an elaborate con is beside the point for Dixon. He and many others bought in. 

“It was very hard for me to accept that Carbon Nation was a joke,” he says, “and that for the last four years, I’ve literally been following behind a clown who has been putting on a show for people.”