#and and ! i keep seeing videos of these ‘street interviewers’ harassing people.

[killsaki]

i hate how uncool social media has become in the way that everyone is trying to be cool. why do people need to “boycott” perfectly good products that could be donated to people in need—by mass buying them and destroying them on video, or why do we film strangers in public, harassing them and then getting angry and painting them to be a horrible person online for millions of people to see when they just wanted to be left alone. in public. but this also includes the platforms themselves. kinda wish that they would just shut up and make their apps function. make them easier to use, add more settings for how we want to navigate our time on the apps. why does twitter come out with a new “feature” every week? why does instagram and facebook to copy every single other app in existence? why do these people think that fucking pinterest and tiktok are so popular? because they keep the same format, they keep their apps usable, and they don’t add unnecessary shit every 5 seconds.

[lovejosephquinn]

I have this idea, you can completely ignore this by the way! Also I hope you had a great day today <3 make sure you take rest!

My idea was this, what would it be like Joseph Quinn dating someone who isn’t a actor/model? Like the reader just lives a normal life, being a vet etc. what would that be like?

Oh, I mean I think he'd quite suit it seeing as he's not lived in the limelight his whole life but would do anything to keep you protected and wouldn't want you in the public eye much - ummmm I LOVE IT

Thank you so much anon, my day got easier eventually :) ilysm!

Similar to my mini-series I wrote: 'Worlds Change When Eyes Meet'

A small, short imagine is screaming into this, I hope you love it! It'd break my heart for when Joe gets a girlfriend for her to actually go through this, but I've seen it happen with a lot of celebrities over the years.

Thanks for requesting :) x

Joe loved having you as his girlfriend, he adored you and spoilt you in every way you had always deserved, but his main fear now that he was becoming more and more known to the public since the premiere of Stranger Things all those months ago and that your relationship was progressing further was that once you were known to the public, things may go down south.

He didn't want to let that happen, but he was always terrified of losing you almost because of the career path he'd chosen. You were once photographed around London together around a month after the premiere to which it caused a stir amongst a small dose of his fan base and the abuse you got online from people finding your social media was something that scarred you, especially when people go to extreme lengths with the death threats you began to receive, truly unbearable at times. That was just the start of it.

It was harder after Joe finally admitted in an interview that he was in fact in a relationship and had kept it private for a long time, even before his fame hit. Going from being a normal part of society to becoming headline news and being named as: "Joseph Quinn's secret lover." or "Joseph Quinn's dirty little secret." It would drive you mad. You'd go to your normal 9-5 job every day with harassment from strangers you'd never even seen before, hounded by paparazzi and people filming you secretly or at least watched by someone wherever you went, whether it be at the end of your shift or just walking along the streets, with or without Joe. Since he was put at the top, you were proud of everything he had achieved, but this was becoming a definite strain on your everyday life.

One particular night, Joe had come home to find you crying in your apartment you shared together, curled up in a ball on the sofa, clutching your phone in your hand as you scrolled through social media, sighting videos about you being made by crazy fan girls who clearly didn't want you around or the tabloids spreading lies about you two breaking up which also clearly meant they weren't out for Joe's true happiness either. He instantly fell to his knees in front of you and pulled you into him in an awkward position, but you welcomed it. He took your phone out of your hand, took a glance and threw it onto the armchair beside where you lay.

"Y/N, I told you not to delve that deep into stuff, it's all bullshit, it's all stupid, please stop looking at it, baby. I beg of you."

You sobbed your heart out, not a word could be brought from your lips, only muffled weeping noises jerked from your chest to your throat. Joe felt his heart breaking for you, he was learning to deal with the anxiety that stardom had brought, but you in a way, were still foreign to all of this.

"I love you so much, beautiful. Please don't let them win, please don't cry." His hand ran through your hair slowly as his other hand was wrapped around the top of your back, rubbing it to ease the severity of your upset.

"I don't want this to ruin you, to ruin us." Joe muttered as a single tear fell from his eye.

You looked up at him at the mention of ruin and managed to speak, the touch of your boyfriend slowly calming you down, nothing could bring you back down to earth more than your Joseph.

"Nothing could ever tear me away from you, Joe. But will it ever stop?"

He couldn't lie to you, he had no idea, but he could try and come up with a solution. "I'd like to think so, but maybe it will be something more of acceptance and ignorance eventually that will get you through it and eventually you won't care what people say."

You agreed as he planted a soft kiss on your lips, a small glimpse of a smile from the gesture. "You know I'll protect you from everything right? Shield you where I can, I'll never let anything, or anyone harm you as long as I'm around. They're only jealous that you've got what they can't have which you know, is pretty good."

He was completely right, cocky as hell sometimes, but right. You chortled at his smugness and playfully moved your hand out from your chest to hit his arm.

Before fame and after fame, Joe was still himself, his sweet, loving, funny and carefree nature that you'd come to fall in love with originally never ripped away by his breakout status.

You were willing to go through hell and back just to be with this man and eventually yes, your life did continue maybe a little differently to normal, with a few added unexpected extras in between but as the saying goes ignorance is bliss.

[ravennm84]

Damning Evidence

This story was inspired by the idea of a what would happen if a civilian tried to go after Ladybug or Chat Noir’s miraculous and it got caught on video. Origially, I was going to have Alya be the one recording, but I decided someone outside of the Akuma Class needed some love. Warm-Fuzzies and please enjoy!!

Aurore Borell considered herself a dedicated weather girl and journalist. She paid attention to leads, always checked her sources, listened to witnesses after akuma battles, and always minded her safety when there was an attack. The akuma of the day was a boy from her school, she didn’t know him personally but he was going by the name Stillshot. Aurore had heard on the news that he had the ability to freeze people in place if he took your picture. 

The battle had moved close to where she lived and she hadn’t felt safe in her home, seeing as the akuma was a street level type and she lived in a lower apartment with her parents. So, she had moved to the roof of her apartment building with her phone to record everything she could see from her vantage point. 

And boy, did she see a lot.

Ladybug and Chat Noir were barely keeping clear of the beams that were shooting from the camera in Stillshot’s hands. They were even more encumbered because they were carrying a civilian around with them. Aurore recognized her as Lila Rossi, another student from her school. She didn’t know her well, but was pretty sure that the girl was a total liar. She’d once heard her say that she used to be a junior weather girl in Italy, which was admittedly impressive. But when Aurore looked her up, she couldn’t find a single news or radio station that ever listed her as an employee, intern, or even a volunteer; so she was pretty sure that it was a total lie.

Looking down, her phone in hand, she could see Stillshot shouting at the two heroes for protecting the girl. To her surprise, Ladybug and Chat Noir didn’t look thrilled by the situation either, but were still doing their best to protect her. When Ladybug called for her Lucky Charm and got a can of hairspray, Aurore was excited to see how the heroes would use it to save the day. 

Lila was quickly tossed to the side, Chat Noir used his Cataclysm to destroy the top spray button, and then Ladybug chucked the can at the akuma. Hairspray practically exploded all over him, covering his lens with a thick coat of the sticky substance and making it impossible for the camera to focus enough to take a picture. Then the yo-yo shot at the camera, breaking the lens and freeing the little purple butterfly to be caught and purified. 

Seeing the magical ladybugs swarm around the city always made Aurore smile. So much so that she almost missed Ladybug and Chat Noir jumping over her roof and landing on the building next to hers. It was a story lower than her apartment building, which gave her a good vantage point to look over at them. It was a bit surprising to see that they had brought Lila with them… and they appeared anything but happy with the girl.

“Thank you so much for saving me! I was so scared, and I have no idea why he was coming after me-”

“Will you stop lying already? There’s no one here to show off for.” Ladybug snapped at the girl, surprising both Lila and Aurore. “We know that you told that poor boy that you would get him a personal interview with Gabriel Agreste to become one of his photographers, and he believed you because you're a Gabriel model. Then when he went to the mansion, at the time you told him to, he was arrested for trespassing!”

Chat Noir put a hand on his partner’s shoulder in an attempt to calm her down, but he didn’t look any happier. “This has got to stop, Lila. We’ve heard about all the things you’ve been doing; lying about having disabilities, sexually harassing Adrien Agreste, getting Marinette Dupain-Cheng expelled from school because she called you out on your lies! Do you not care that your lies are hurting people?”

The facade that Lila had been wearing at first faded into a cruel scowl that caused a cold shiver to crawl down Aurore’s back.

“Do I look like I care? I only tell people what they want to hear. If they’re stupid enough to believe me, then that’s their own fault.”

“And what about the danger you’ve put your family in?” Ladybug asked, seeming almost desperate. “What if Hawkmoth sees that fake interview on the Ladyblog of you claiming to be my best friend? He’ll target you or your family, just to get leverage to get out miraculous!”

Lila let out a manic laugh before stepping closer to Ladybug. “Like I would care about that? If anything, I would gladly help him if it meant taking you down!”

That’s when the girl lunged at the red and black spotted hero, her hands reaching for her ears as Ladybug was knocked back onto the roof in surprise. But before she could rip the jewels from her earlobes, Chat Noir had grabbed Lila by the back of her jacket and flung the girl away from his partner. The italian landed hard on her shoulder and Aurore could see scrapes on her cheek and knees from the impact as Chat helped Ladybug to her feet and checked her ears to make sure her miraculous were still in place.

Aurore made doubly sure that she was out of sight as she kept recording, barely believing that someone would dare try to take Ladybug’s earrings while knowing what would happen to Paris and its people without Ladybug. Lila’s smile reminded her of a feral animal as she stood up. “Now I’ll make both of you regret ever challenging me! Everyone saw you carrying me away, I’ll tell everyone that you beat me up.”

“And why would we even do that?” Chat snapped at her.

“I’ll think of something,” she continued to grin. “A few tears, tear my clothes a bit more, you’ve already given me a few marks to make it more believable. By the time I’m done with the two of you, you’ll be just as infamous as Hawkmoth.”

Chat and Ladybug were alerted by their miraculous that they were down to their last minute and had no choice but to flee, glaring at the girl before jumping away. Aurore continued to record as Lila grabbed the sleeve of her jacket and ripped it at the shoulder, then slapped herself across the face to leave nail marks on her right cheek, opposite of the scrape on the left . She paced around for a moment, muttering to herself before she began crying.

“I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. *hicup-sob-hicup* I tried to get away but Ladybug slapped-” she stopped crying suddenly, giving her head a shake “No, I can do  better than that.” Then she started crying again “I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, it hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me and said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!” 

Then Lila’s face went back to that manic look that gave Aurore the creeps before skipping over to the fire escape and began climbing down. She stopped recording as soon as the girl was out of sight and then played the recording back. She’d never been so relieved to have a good quality phone, the camera had caught everything that happened and picked up every word that was spoken.

She was nearly in a state of panic, indignation, and urgency as she raced inside and down the stairs, calling her producer at KIDZ+ news to call an emergency meeting and get some police there as well. The producer sounded skeptical at first, but when Aurore went on to say that she had proof of someone that was not akumatized trying to steal Ladybug’s earrings, that got her moving.

~oOo~

The entire upper level staff of KIDZ+ and TVi News were present when Aurore arrived. Officer Roger Raincompix had come, along with Mayor Bourgeois. They had been in a meeting when Roger received the call and the mayor insisted on coming, saying that if someone was threatening the heroes of Paris, he wanted to be in the know. She began playing her recording from the beginning, attempting to prove how recent it had been made and that she’d of had no time to doctor the footage. When it came to the footage from the roof… the reaction to her recording had been immediate and about what she had expected; shock, horror, fear, and disgust at the girl’s actions.

“Are you sure this recording is accurate?” Officer Roger asked, looking like he was about to be sick.

“I’m sure,” she said before sliding it towards him. “Check it, put it through every test you can think of to see if it’s authentic. I recorded that video from the roof of my building, it was right by where the akuma battle ended. I’ll give you my address so you can make sure it’s right.”

“I can also say, from a preliminary look, that I didn’t see any cuts, skips, or changes in color or texture which would indicate that this recording has been altered.” Nadja Chamack stated as she restarted the video and looked it over with a more critical eye. “At this point, I’d say that this is authentic, but I agree that we’ll want to run some tests to be absolutely sure before putting in on the news.”

Just then, Roger’s phone rang. He mentioned that it was the station and that he had to answer it. Stepping away, Aurore watched his back go stiff and his brows crease into a deep scowl. “I understand. Are her parents present?” Another pause and he nodded. “Put her in a private interrogation room, and don’t let her talk to anyone else. Tell her that we cannot do anything or properly take her statement unless she has a guardian present. Do what you can to keep her at the station and her mother present. I’ll be in touch very soon.”

Hanging up his phone, he turned back to the group. “Apparently, a Mlle. Lila Rossi has just come to the police station claiming that she was assaulted by Ladybug and Chat Noir. Her injuries that Officer Laurent told me, match the ones that were shown in the video.” He then looked to the President of TVi News. “How long will it take your people to inspect the recording?”

“Since it hasn’t been uploaded to any social media sites and we have the date, location, the phone that recorded the video, and the person who recorded it; not long, maybe a few hours.” She glanced at the clock, reading 11:27am before looking back at Officer Roger. “It could be ready and verified in time for the 6 o’clock news tonight.”

“Get started,” Roger nodded, “I’ll be sending a few of my people from our tech division to observe and double check the work. Once it has been verified, I want copies made for evidence.”

“I will also need a copy,” Mayor Bourgeois spoke up, finally finding his voice after the shock of the video. “If I’m not mistaken Mme. Rossi is employed by the Italian Embassy, meaning this could result in an international incident. If this turns out to be true, I will not allow this horrid girl to remain in my city or to ever set foot on French soil again.”

The TVi President nodded, writing down notes while Officer Roger called his best tech people from the station to drop whatever they were doing and come to the TVi station immediately. Then he turned to Aurore, took her statement, her address, and had her send him a copy of the recording before calling another one of his officers to meet him at that address to compare the video to the scene. As well as sending officers to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery and the Agreste Mansion to get corroborating statements. 

~oOo~

Lila was beginning to get tired, she had been fake crying for hours and really wanted to go home and take a nap. It had become even more taxing when she was forced to call her mother to the station or else the police wouldn’t be able to take her statement. At least her mother had bought her story hook, line, and sinker and was already talking about filing charges against the city of Paris for allowing a couple of vigilante teenagers to run around and hurt her daughter.

It was just after 5pm when Officer Roger, Sabrina’s dad, entered the interrogation room along with Officer Laurent. The younger officer had taken her statement not long after her mother arrived at the station but had told them that, due to the serious accusations being made, it would be best to take this up the chain of command to make sure that nothing was overlooked. That had made Lila nervous at first, but she was confident that they would believe her. After all, she was the one that had been hurt and Ladybug and Chat Noir were nowhere in sight to contradict her story.

“Hello Mme. and Mlle. Rossi, I’m Officer Roger. I want you to tell me what happened.” He said as he placed his tablet and a notebook on the table and pulled out a pen.

“Do I have to do this again? Just thinking about what they did scares me.” Lila squeezed her eyes shut as she pinched her inner thigh to draw tears. Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulder in comfort, eating it up.

“I understand that this must be difficult, but I need to hear your statement.”

Giving a shaky nod, Lila went into her story again, making sure that her voice trembled a bit and to keep her shoulders hunched. “I don’t know why they did it. *sob* They carried me to the roof, I thought it was to make sure I was alright, but then they started blaming me for the akuma, said that they should have just let it have me and then they wouldn’t have to deal with me anymore. *hicup-sob-hicup* I tried to get away, but Chat Noir grabbed me and threw me down, he even kicked me. It hurt so bad. Then Ladybug slapped me when I was trying to get up and then grabbed my face, it felt like she was going to crush my chin. She said that if she ever saw me again, she’d do worse than just scare me. Chat Noir even said he would gladly use his Cataclysm on me. Please, I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!” 

Officer Roger nodded as he continued to write everything down. “And you’re willing to testify to this in a court of law?”

Mme. Greta Rossi was already nodding to the affirmative. “Yes, those incompitent vigilantes are going to pay for hurting my daughter. I want to file lawsuits against them for assault and intimidation.”

Roger nodded in understanding but then gave Mme. Rossi a curious look. “I understand that you are upset, but I don’t see how Ladybug and Chat Noir could be labeled as incompitent. They have always defeated the akumas sent by Hawkmoth.”

“That’s not true, my daughter’s school was closed for months, months, because those two couldn’t beat the principal of her school after he was akumatized and damaged the school.”

He blinked at her. “Mme. Rossi, I’m not sure if you are aware of this, but our daughters are enrolled in the same school and attend the same class. There have been days when an akuma will cause the school to open a bit late or close early, but it has never been closed for months. And as for M. Damocles being akumatized, that occurred after school hours, with the majority of the battle taking place off of school grounds, and he was returned to normal before the end of the night. It did not interrupt the school at all.”

Hearing this, Mme. Rossi’s mouth dropped open before turning to look at her daughter, who had gone suspiciously quiet and was ducking down a bit in her chair.

“And as for the lawsuits that you wish to file, you should be made aware that there lawsuits being filed against your daughter by three different parties for assault, slander, intimidation, sexual harassment, and a few other charges.”

“WHAT!?”

“Yes, Madame. Some of those charges are being filed by the city of Paris, itself.”

“How dare you!” Mme. Rossi yelled as she stood so quickly that she knocked her chair backwards onto the floor. “My daughter was assaulted by those two and the city has the nerve to blame Lila? I won’t stand for this!”

Officer Roger stayed calm as he turned on his tablet and played the video he’d queued up. As Mme. Rossi watched the video, her anger ebbed away into surprise at the things the two heroes  said and how Lila didn’t deny it; then shock when Lila attacked Ladybug for her earrings only to see that she was injured because Chat Noir had protected his partner; back to anger as she watched her daughter rip her clothes, scratch her own face, and then practice the lines she had told the police, almost word for word. Officer Laurent was forced to come around the table to steady Greta before righting her chair so she could sit down. 

“For the record, Mme. Rossi, multiple people have inspected this recording, including TVi News and members of the Paris Police Department, and have come to the conclusion that it is authentic. No tampering whatsoever. Your daughter assaulted Ladybug in an attempt to steal her miraculous, which is designated as a terrorist act as she and Chat Noir are the defenders of Paris, and currently our best defense against the known terrorist, Hawkmoth.”

Lila had been silent since giving her statement again, she hadn’t expected her mother talking about the school being closed or Officer Roger destroying that lie so easily, but that was something she might have been able to recover from if given the chance. But now with that recording, actual hard evidence that proved that she’d been lying, had attacked Ladybug, and had faked her injuries and lied to the police… there was hardly a single thin straw for her to grab at, but she had to try.

Lila turned up the tears as she desperately gripped her mother’s arm. “Mom, you don’t actually believe them, do you? You know I would never do the things they’re saying I did. That video has to be a fake! Please, you have to believe me!” 

To her dismay, her mother removed her grip on her arm, stood from her chair, and began pacing the room. “Who are the other parties that are filing lawsuits against her?”

“Mom!”

“Be quiet!” Mme. Rossi snapped at her daughter, glad that her mouth snapped shut before slumping lower in her seat. “Who else has she hurt?”

“M. Agreste is planning on filing lawsuits for sexual harassment and slander. The Dupain-Chengs are filing lawsuits for slander, intimidation, and harassment. I have looked into the school and found that Mlle. Dupain-Cheng was indeed expelled after your daughter accused her of assault and theft, but later recanted her story while claiming that she suffered from a disease that makes her lie uncontrollably. Mlle. Dupain-Cheng also claims that your daughter has been bullying her by spreading lies and rumors about her to isolate her from her friends.”

“She’s lying! Marinette’s the one that’s been bullying me!”

“I SAID BE QUIET!”

Lila jumped in her chair that time before cowering, she’d never seen her mother this angry before. It was actually kind of scary, but even worse… she was sure that her mother wasn’t going to support her or back up her lies. She was on her own.

~oOo~

When the news broke an hour later, Mme. Rossi had never been more humiliated in her life. The Embassy had called her as well, saying that she would be on leave pending an investigation, meaning that she would be lucky to still have her job by the end of the week. After leaving her daughter at the police station to face the charges against her, Greta had made a beeline for the school, demanding to know why they had never contacted her about the truancy, the disabilities, or her daughter’s supposed tumble down the stairs. The teacher and principal had given her less than satisfactory answers like “Lila said you were busy and we didn’t want to disturb you” and “she promised that she would get us those doctors notes”. She was on the phone with the Board of Governors before she was off the property. Since they had also seen the news, she could easily say that they were almost as upset as she was and the two incompitent educators would be lucky if they were still employed at the end of the week. 

The visit to the Dupain-Cheng Bakery was even more enlightening. From the stories Lila had told her during the past few months, she expected Marinette to be cold, callous, and rude. But that couldn’t have been further from the truth. Sabine Cheng had invited her up to the livingroom to speak and Marinette soon joined them. She was a shy but sweet girl that offered to get her a glass of water and whatever she would like from the bakery. To be honest, she had wanted to try the pastries from the shop months ago, but had made the mistake of believing her daughter when she said that they were terrible. So she asked for a berry scone and Marinette gave a kind smile before going down stairs and coming back up with the scone, a few different macaroons, a croissant, and a chocolate chip cookie. 

When Mme. Rossi looked at her in surprise, Marinette gave her a kind smile. “You look upset, I thought having a variety of sweets might help cheer you up.”

The sincerity on the girl's face nearly brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t believe that her daughter had been tormenting this sweet girl just because she had called her out on her lies. She asked the girl honestly, what her daughter had done to her. And although hesitant, Marinette told her everything; from the threats and lies, to acting like she had been pushed down the stairs and planting her necklace in Marinette’s locker; if it could even be called that since it didn’t lock. 

After that, Marinette asked to be excused and Greta proceeded to speak with Sabine. She admitted that she’d had no knowledge as to what Lila had been up to, that the school had never contacted her about any of the incidents, she had already filed a complaint with the Board of Governors, and recommended that they do the same. Despite Lila’s terrible treatment of Marinette, Sabine accepted the advice with gratitude but informed her that they would still be filing the lawsuits against Lila. Greta stated that she hadn’t come to change their minds, but to hear Marinette’s side of the story.

Just before she left, Marinette hurried down the stairs with a small white silk square with royal purple flowered embroidery. In one corner, the initials G.R. were stitched in elegant script and looked to be hand sewn. “It’s a handkerchief, my way of saying ‘thank you’ for hearing me out. Other than my parents and the police officers that came by this morning, you were the first person to really listen to what I had to say about Lila. Thank you.”

Not bothering to hold back tears this time, Greta accepted the gift and asked the girl for a hug, which she easily gave. Then turning to Sabine, she told her. “You are wonderful parents, I am so sorry that my daughter has put you through so much. I just hope after this, she’ll learn that actions have consequences.”

After that, Greta jumped in a cab and made her way over to the Agreste Mansion. This was a completely different experience compared to the Dupain-Chengs. She never actually spoke to Gabriel Agreste, only Adrien and Gabriel’s assistant Nathalie. Adrien explained that he discovered that Lila was lying on the first day when she claimed to be best friends with Ladybug and the descendant of the wielder of Fox Miraculous. That was when Ladybug had shown up and chastised her for lying about her. Adrien agreed due to the danger of tempting Hawkmoth. 

He went on to say how Lila claimed that she was traveling the world with her mother and was friends with all sorts of celebrities. If Mme. Rossi wanted a more complete list of her lies, to check out the Ladyblog, as she had done several interviews. Adrien also went on to talk about how during their first photoshoot together, Lila wouldn’t keep her hands off of him and it made him uncomfortable. Lila had told him that unless he wanted Marinette to suffer even more, he’d stop complaining.

When Greta mentioned that she was told that the photoshoot was a relationship announcement between the two teens, and that she’d had no idea that she was a Gabriel model, Nathalie pulled up Lila’s contract on her tablet. The one that Greta had supposedly signed to grant her underaged daughter permission to work as a model. Mme. Rossi told the assistant at a glance that it wasn’t her signature and Lila had never shown her any such paperwork. To which Nathalie informed her that Gabriel would also be adding forgery and fraud to the list of charges being filed against her daughter, Greta simply nodded in acceptance. After all, forgery and fraud weren’t nearly as bad as assault, sexual harassment, or terrorism. 

~oOo~

When her daughter was brought to trial two weeks later, Greta Rossi sat dutifully behind her daughter but refused to testify on her behalf, not that it would have helped her. Between all the charges that were filed against her by the city of Paris, the Agreste family, the Dupain-Cheng family, and the investigation into the school and Lila’s actions by the Board of Governors; her daughter had no leg to stand on. She also made the mistake of lying to the judge on the first day and committing perjury, which only added to the charges.

The trial lasted for three days due to all the evidence and testimonies brought against her and the fact that Lila was the daughter of a diplomat. However, the evidence was overwhelming and the Italian government had already revoked any immunity that Lila might have had. The jury found her guilty and the judge declared that the sentencing would lie in the domain of the Italian government. Although it was decided that Lila would not be permitted to return to France.

Mme. Rossi made it clear to the court that she was already preparing to send her daughter to a juvenile corrections center in Italy, where she would remain until her 18th birthday and the courts would decide further sentencing. 

Lila had screamed at her mother, accusing her of betraying her only daughter and that she was not her mother anymore. She had also hissed and attempted to attack Marinette for “ruining her life because she couldn’t keep her nose out of her business” and “why couldn’t you have just killed yourself”. Greta did her best to ignore the cruel words, but found herself pulling out the handkerchief that Marinette had given her. It was a small comfort, but it was more than what she deserved after Lila had hurt so many people.

Taglist:

@7-sage-7  @fantasiame  @seraphichana

@t1dwarrior-of-earth  @ghostmaster83  @izang

@ulmban  @plushbookworm  @corabeth11

@ramos123  @darkened-flame  @caffeinetheory

@iamablinkmarvelarmy  @abrx2002

@delightfulcookiesrecipespizza 

[noisytenant]

shipping discourse related below sorry. not really arguing about "pro" or "anti" but more about the discourse itself

Lord forgive me but I have toPost or ill die. anwyays. im about to be both a centrist and a debate kid at the same time but it is really annoying when people use the bottom of the barrel reductive strawman to make their arguments about shipping stuff. The one that gets my goat is the whole "fiction is reality" vs "fiction has 0 effect on reality" arguments. Yeah you can find people who have quite literally said that but if youre theoretically making a post to bolster your ideological stance then citing that rhetoric is like doing one of those smashcut videos where you interview college students on the street about communism and turn it into a cringe comp about leftist brainwashing. Of course you sound smart if you only argue against the most stupid idiot arguments.

It feels like that kind of rhetoric is about affirmation and coalition building--"I'm not crazy! I'm not crazy, right?"--which serves the purpose of rallying people around a line in the sand that we can call our collective boundary. We as a society do, theoretically, need collective boundaries to protect against severe harms and abuses, but time and time again we see that no group seems to fundamentally agree on what abuse looks and sounds like in practice beyond some very basic and shaky concepts (ie, we can seemingly agree it's wrong to hit children, but many people make an exception for spanking or using a switch). my current feeling is that we have to create smaller and more managable communities within which we can hold each other accountable for boundary transgressions, but time will tell. in a better world the internet might be a space where we can do this easily, but we do not live in that world, and not so many people are up on the whole anarchist communism transformative justice thing or whatever it is i'm talking about.

while im not against tasteful schadenfreude (though public Post Schadenfreude is basically evil/can only lead to harassment regardless of intention) the kinds of posts that annoy me so much lack both schadenfreude and genuine argument--being only the most pathetic strawman cobbled together for your entertainment--leading only to a feeling that it's this masturbatory self-congratulation about how smart and right you are compared to how stupid and wrong the other people are, and how smart and right all your friends are for liking and reblogging with you. let's all laugh together! let's all be angry together! we're all normal! let's be friends!

the worst potential outcome of this phenomenon is the kind of mentality where people only think in terms of collective boundaries and refuse to internalize, examine, or control their personal boundaries and the responses they have to transgression. If you keep trying to build a coalition of allies who agree with you about this collective boundary for or against (kink/shipping/fiction/pedophilia whatever else shit theyre gonna come up with to describe this--can you see how ambiguous and personal this discussion ACTUALLY is, and how flattened it becomes in these terms?) you will find a time where you're the odd one out and you will either sink or swim. sure, we can all agree about chromebook bakudeku fanfiction cringe, we can all agree about fiction is reality cringe, but the boundary you just defined with those strawmen are utter nonsense and don't bring you any closer to anyone who's actually your ally, and don't really separate you further from your enemies either. you end up alienating friends, fraternizing with foes, and cultivating dumbshitness 24/7/365

anyways, feel free to define collective boundaries together, and to create spaces where you can agree on some ground rules about what is and isn't acceptable, but don't do it in this illusory schadenfreude masturbation. or do, i'm not your dad, i'll just personally be annoyed enough to write a long stupid post about it. thanks. bye

[herkingmentality-shesunbreakable]

Facebook has banned me for 30 days so I am going to stop making posts on Marie Deiona before it's terminated and make another FB under a random email and under another name. I will not even connect the profiles. I have three and I can't use one right now. That is how bad ass I am 🖤

Here's to 4.0 ascending aortic aneurysms. I am so bad, I still have all my fingers. (Bad joke...so was the "so, you don't wanna come and rape and kill me" statement. Dr. John Hall is making movies now or he did and has a few interviews online talking about military weapons but, he wrote Satellite Terrorism after his female friend came to him for help and he discovered she actually was being raped and drugged by male co workers who entered her home because landlords can be involved in organized crime too. This woman was a victim of sexual harassment at her workplace and she reported it only to become blacklisted and physically raped by the men at work she accused of harassing her.

Facebook promoted this and it was professionally made and promoted to me on Facebook but I am banned for bullying. I exposed a bully who I wouldn't trade my life with. I would only commit suicide if she were my mom or if I were a mom like her.

I will target Andrea Gigilo like I targeted Molly Ellis and everyone else that mobbed me. I have named Presidents and senators. Andrea is a low life criminal. And a laY, pathetic thief. I will keep reposting her words to me and what her kids need to know about their mom. I will get her photo and post it. My father did not rape me nor did my uncle's. And if and when women are raped, they do not love it. She has a daughter in the military that she is using as Plan Z because she is a failure. "If my daughter is killed, I will get her daughter and a check." Who tells a person that? She told me proudly.

My father was amazing and he protected me when he was alive. But she is a fucking horrible mother who truly doesn't love her kids. She told us she only had five the first year we met her. She actually has seven children. Her kid's should know she denies them. She denied them, abandoned them and she told me that when they get a house, they might need her as a babysitter and she can live in their basement. And that they could take care of her when she is old.

They should be ashamed of her. I am, I am and I am reposting that video. If brutal rape of children can remain in the dark web, my video of being bullied will be posted.

(makes a heart attack gesture....😱😱😱😱😱😱🥶🥶🥶🥵🥵🥵 Aand then strokes my clitoris.) I am not dying silently. I am dying loudly. Andrea is always going to see me post about her and if I have to, I will hide the word RAPE. But, I have posted about people for over ten years. Andrea Gigilo is one of the most pathetic bitches because she tried to live with me and bully her way into my home.

*There is also another comic like this about "lil fuck" up having swollen knees and in 2021 after years of going to the doctor and e.r complaining about swollen knees, I was diagnosed without lab work or anything like checking my reflexes with chondromalacia bilateral patella. I went into a clinic called Family Health Centers on 2500 West Market Street in Louisville, KY telling them that I had swollen knees and no reflexes so he told me I have that condition. Dr. DENNIS kinlaw also told me that I would get a follow up regarding my 4.0 ascending aortic aneurysm and no one has called me to follow up.

[thelifedocumentor]

Nkuley Masemola and his iconic creative expressions

Nkuley Masemola is a multidisciplinary creative who works as a fashion model, DJ and stylist. Nkuley Masemola has modelled for iconic South African fashion brands such as Rich Mnisi, Thebe Magugu and Nao Serati. They also invite the young vibrant youth of Johannesburg to the eccentric scenes of Braamfontein through DJ’ing. With styling that transcends cultural eras and borders, Nkuley translates their experiences of navigating South Africa and the creative culture artistically into their photographs. The success they have garnered since working as a fashion model from the age of 17 is truly inspiring. In this interview we talk about what inspired Nkuley growing up, their artistic journey and the importance of being yourself in order to thrive in the creative industry. 

1. How was it like growing up in Pretoria? 

The funny part is that I didn’t actually grow up in Pretoria, it was more outside of Pretoria than it was Pretoria. I grew up on the outskirts of Pretoria - that’s the farms. Bronkhorstspruit is where I was from. And it was bland - I don’t know any other way to explain it. It was like growing up on a big sheet of white paper. I had to make out myself. It was an experience but it was also really overwhelming because no one there had progressed to anything. It was complicated but also a good learning curve. I always say I would have rather not. I would have rather had a soft life but I guess I see the benefit of growing up like that but it was overwhelming. 

2. What are some unforgettable childhood experiences you believe shaped who you are today? 

When I finally moved to Bronkhorstspruit, after my father passed on, my mom bought herself a huge mirror. I didn’t have friends, I didn’t have anyone. So the only thing I ever did was look into that mirror. I had all my performances there, I had all my interviews, I did everything with that mirror. I just became so self-obsessed, all of my art is self-obsession. Everything is all about me. It’s my self-portrait, it’s music that is about me, everything that is structured in a way that is like self-worship. So I think that particular childhood experience shaped me forever. I got harassed but I never got bullied. I never let anyone bully me. If it happens, I can just avoid it, I’m not gonna stick around. I was always inside the house. I would make up my own stories, live in my head, and wait for the day I move to Jo’burg. When it finally happened, I already had like self-discovered so much. That particular childhood experience shaped who I am today. I created my whole world, and now I’m living in it. 

3. How did you start modelling? 

Back home, there used to be this modelling agency. It was just high school kids who had high-quality cameras, more than it was a modelling agency. They were like, “Yeah you should be a model.” And I was like, “I guess.” It was never my thing. I take really good photos, but I don’t look like a model, I don’t present myself as a model. At that time, I wasn’t the typical male model. And so I was like I’m not a model. That happened and it wasn’t really serious. When I moved to Jo’burg, my friend and I had just come from registering and we were going past Kitcheners and my friend was with their friend. We were all speaking to a guy and he said, “Yeah you can just come back to my place.” We all went back to the place. Then I left my matric certificate at their place and then when I left and went back home, they were like, “You left your stuff here [matric certificate] and also, I saw on Twitter that you might have to drop out of school because you don’t have anywhere to live until March so you can just live with me.” This is the person that I met with a friend because they met on the streets of Braam, literally at the corner of Kitcheners. I lived with that person for 3 months. They literally got me into modelling.

The first day I got here they were like, “You’re a star!”. I was on a music video set, and they needed one guy and I had just moved to Jo’burg and put my bags down. My parents had just dropped me off. I put my bags down and went up to shoot the music video. After that, I had another job. It was quiet for a minute and then my friend asked me to escort them to a casting. Still, I was not in the modelling game, I was just deep in love at the time. So cool, I go to this modelling gig, and then when we get there, my friend doesn’t get picked but they’re choosing from outside. They’re like, “You? Come here.” I said that I’m not here to model what’s happening? They said, “No, just audition quickly.” So I walked and strutted to the wall and then when I came back I got picked. It was The Threaded Man show. After that, everything started picking up, everything just set off. That’s how that happened. I just started modelling after that. Still very weird. 

4. Wow! The Threaded Man was so huge at that time. 

I didn’t even know. I didn’t know who Siya Beyile was. I had just got to Johannesburg. I had no idea who anyone was. So literally getting calls from Rich Mnisi being hey it’s Rich Mnisi. When I found out it was Rich Mnisi I was like OMG! They were shooting for i-D. That is one thing I’ve always dreamt about - I’ve always bought i-D magazines at the taxi ranks. When they said, "You’re 17 you’re gonna shoot for i-D", I was like that’s crazy, that’s crazy. I shot for almost every magazine that I had back at home. In one year, I had Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and i-D. My mom was like, “Aren’t these the magazines that are in your room.?” It was my favourite flex. I didn't even know it’s gonna happen in terms of modelling. I had always imagined being a part of the creative team or like one day when I’m all the way older on the cover of i-D for doing something. But not a whole documentary that is based on us. That’s so crazy, that’s insane. 

4. Which would you say are your favourite fashion collections you have modelled for?

I really enjoyed the Rich Mnisi collections that I modelled for in the first year - I thought I looked really good in zebra print. Thebe Magugu gave me a suit and said “Do what you must with it.” That was really insane for me. Siyababa Atelier’s collection, Rich Mnisi’s collection and Nao Serati’s collection. 

5. The South African creative scene has truly evolved over time, but there’s still so much work to be done. What do you think still needs to be done to move the culture forward? 

I think South Africa needs to stop normalizing things and actually live in them. We need to stop trying to normalize things so much because we are othering them more than we think. We are othering people more than we think. We are regressing more than progressing. If we keep saying “Normalize trans women” - why? They’re women. Women are already normal. You don’t need to normalize women. It’s microaggressions like that. People don’t realize homophobia is just as serious as racism. The same way people are judging you because of your skin colour is the same way you are judging someone for loving someone. I think South Africa would be much better if they just lived in their truth more than trying to be these progressive people. We’ve been through so much, that we should know by now that we can’t risk having another revolution. We’ve revolved too many times. We’ve been traumatized too many times - we don’t need any more trauma. We just need to get that into our heads. We need to let go of the power game. The obsession with power in this country is a hectic obsession - that needs to be let go of. 

6. How do you find the experience of integrating fashion, music and creative direction together to tell a story? 

It comes easily because everything that I do is still self-obsession. Everything that I create is based on me so it’s not that hard. Self-awareness. It’s hard in that term that you know yourself so much that people want to digress you into this way. The only thing hard about it is people not understanding you and wanting to change you and who you are at that point. You already know who you are. Trying to accommodate everyone into your world because I’ve already said I am living in my own world, in my own space. In my own space, there is no need to accommodate other people. I think that’s the hardest part about it. It’s just me finding spaces for people in my world. In terms of navigating it, it’s always been me living out what I wanted to live out. It’s always playing music - when I DJ I play all the music that has registered with me. I’ve always been a Rihanna girl, I’m always going to play Rihanna. I’m always going to have the Rihanna aesthetic - the same way she does it. I’ve been studying Rihanna for the longest time in my life. The same way she does it. The same way she has this creative direction that goes into her music that also goes into her modelling - it’s really insane. That’s what I’ve always done. Rihanna, FKA Twigs, and FAKA do that in the most perfect way ever. That’s my thing. 

7. If you ever feel a creative block during a project, how do you reconnect and channel your energy? 

I like feeling things out. If it doesn’t happen then it’s not gonna happen. I was at a point where I was really depressed last year - I was at my lowest. I had never been that depressed ever in my life before. I told myself that I never want to feel like that ever again. For that to happen, I always have to be honest with myself. I have to know that I can’t do this right now. If I’m gonna go somewhere and I’m like okay you’re gonna have to model today but you don’t have the haircut. You look bad, you’re gonna feel bad and the pictures are going to look bad. So rather, we don’t do it. Rather sacrifice that and put me in a risky position but I’m not going to put something out there that I don’t believe in and don’t feel comfortable with. Being uncomfortable with something that’s seen by so many people is actually kinda crazy. It’s like uploading a picture of your pinky toe that you don’t like. I know people always say embarrassing yourself on the internet is being real, but that is always different for me. My realness is perfection. The real me is the perfect me. 

8. Which creative material inspired you on your overall journey - it could be a book, film, exhibition, art collection - anything really. 

Definitely seeing FAKA. Sitting down, talking to FAKA, and realizing that we have had the same life experiences. When I was 15, when I was a party girl - I still am, FAKA was like, “Oh you host this party called “Umrubisho” and I was like omg we used to host that party and FAKA was like we were always there. It’s so crazy how the Universe aligns like that - that’s insane to me. No one at that point understood what that meant to me but it just means to me my life is fine, I don’t need to worry about a lot of things. Life is just going to progress the way life progresses. I’m just going to get to where I need to get. A moment most pleasing to me was when FAKA was curating a Versace show. That’s so insane. That means anything is possible. That moment for me just sparked up everything. Thebe Magugu winning the LVMH Prize. Rich Mnisi doing Milan Fashion Week. Moments like that for me make anything. Moments like that for me are the most affirming.

9. Which brands and artists would you like to collaborate with in the future? 

I’m not a big fan of Kanye but I really love Yeezy and the direction that it’s taking. As much as I’m working with Adidas, I would love to go deeper into Yeezy like that. Of course, I want to be a FENTY girl so, so, so bad. All the luxury brands - not necessarily as a model but as a muse nonetheless. I would love to be a DIOR girl, I would love to work with YSL but most mostly, I want to be a FENTY girl. 

10. And lastly, which words of advice would you give to artists who aspire to manifest their dreams in this creative industry? 

I would say be yourself. It’s not a joke, really be yourself. Everyone always says this, and it sounds corny all the time but really but it took me at least 2 years to realize, be yourself. Don’t fake it out, be yourself in such a way that even if you are being fake, you’re being fake in a way that is beneficial to you. You’re being fake in a way that is not going to hurt you in the end. You’re doing chaotic things but everything you do must be aligned with you. Everything you do must not come back and bite you. Everything you do must be something that you’ve always wanted to do. Be selfish as much as you can because being selfish just means being yourself and be selfish in ways that will still benefit you. That’s what it has always meant. Just remain yourself because that’s all you’ll have. People will come in and out, but you’re gonna remain with the same person forever - and that’s gonna be you. Take care of yourself, you know what’s good for you, you know what hinders you. You know what you need to do, so just do enough of that to keep yourself going. 

[atlanticcanada]

'In Canada, it's racism with a smile': Donovan Bailey reflects on racial inequality

In 1996, Donovan Bailey spoke up about racism in Canada months before he ran the fastest 100-metre race in history up to that point, earning an Olympic gold medal and cementing his place in the history books.

Twenty-five years later, many things have changed. Bailey, who has three world championship titles alongside his two gold medals, is now in his 50s and retired from sprinting.

But as he watched the events of the past two weeks unfold, he knew that one fact was the same: racism was still pervasive in our society.

“The last two weeks -- I’m tired,” Bailey said. “Frankly, I’m numb. I really am. I’m emotionally exhausted.”

Speaking to CTV News during a Sunday segment called Realities of Racism, Bailey said that when he saw the video of a white Minneapolis, Minn. police officer kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while the Black man begged for air, he was “disgusted.”

“It appears way too easy for a police officer, that police officer in particular, to snuff the life out of a man who seems to be very helpless,” Bailey said. “I thought it was probably one of the most despicable and disgusting things that I’ve seen.”

Ever since Floyd was killed on May 25, the U.S. has been embroiled in protests, with Americans taking to the streets to call for an end to police brutality against Black people.

Canadians have responded by organizing marches, protests and vigils in solidarity with the movement in the U.S., and to draw attention to Canada’s own issues with anti-Black racism and police violence against marginalized communities.

“At this juncture, I keep asking myself, and my friends … is this past two weeks just another episode of what we’ve seen so many times before, or is this time, we’re going to see some results?” Bailey said.

At the height of his career, Bailey made headlines with a quote that appeared in an interview in Sports Illustrated in 1996, shortly before his record-breaking run in that year’s summer Olympics.

“Canada is as blatantly racist as the United States. We know it exists,” Bailey was quoted as saying. “People who don’t appear to be Canadian -- people of colour -- don’t get the same treatment.”

Bailey would dispute the exact quote shortly after, saying in a Toronto Star interview from the same year that he had actually said Canada was “not as blatantly racist as the United States, but it does exist.”

He told CTV News on Sunday that the “systemic racism -- that’s certainly in Canada -- has got to be dealt with.”

Blatant racists, he said, are “really easy to deal with,” because people who are loud about their bigotry have “already shown you their cards.

“So essentially, you can go around them, you can go over them, you can go under them or you can go through them,” he said.

The danger of Canadian racism is that “in Canada, it’s racism with a smile,” he explained.

“There’s gotta be a different game plan for each of [these types of racism].”

He said Black people and other people of colour in Canada are invited “into the room” or to apply for jobs, but that often this show of inclusion and diversity is only symbolic.

“We know for sure that in many cases, [the] decision’s already been made,” he said. “I think that that’s a big part of the problem.

“One of the things that we certainly encourage, is that you have to be able to vote,” he said, speaking on how people of colour can make themselves heard in Canada. “You have to be able to own businesses, you have to be able to be in the boardroom … be a part of the decision-making process. You have to be entrepreneurs.”

Bailey was born in Jamaica, but grew up in Oakville, Ont. He said he “didn’t get the same treatment that I hear a lot of my brothers and sisters talk about,” in terms of police harassment when he was a teenager and that “Oakville was amazing.”

However, he said he “always knew that colour mattered.”

“My parents were community leaders,” he said. Bailey’s mother and father started the Canadian-Caribbean Association of Halton, a non-profit organization that promotes diversity and still operates today. “So we were encouraged to give back when we’re blessed.”

He points to his parents’ influence as one of the reasons that he was “not afraid to speak up.

“Hence me being called arrogant,” he added, referring to the reputation he had garnered in the sports world for being outspoken during his time in the spotlight.

That confidence didn’t just help him snatch medals and set world records in the 1990s though. It helped him stay true to himself despite adversity.

“I thought that I was Black and I was proud and I was beautiful,” he said. “Because that’s what my mother and my father said to me.”

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2UBnT4j

[coffeecomicsgalore]

A Night to Remember

Mention of Lila, Gabriel being a jackass, and of course some cute Marichat.

Ao3

Chapter 13 – The Kitty Apprentice

“What is the meaning of that interview, Adrien?” Gabriel stood at the top of the stairs as Adrien walked through the atrium doors. His usual scowl marked his face while his arms were crossed behind his body.

Adrien mentally sighed and rolled his eyes. “What ever do you mean, Father? I think the interview went well. I presented myself professionally and the media took my side over the relationship conundrum.”

“Do not play coy with me, boy. You know very well which part of the interview I am speaking about.” Gabriel made his way down the stairs. “You spewed hatred against Mlle. Rossi and made a mockery of her in front of millions of viewers!”

“And her reputation had spoken for herself during the akuma when she announced to everyone around her what she did to me and Marinette over the years!”

“Do you think that was necessary? Do you know that she came here and tried to argue your actions and tried to spew more slander against you while you were out gallivanting? Nathalie had to take a moment to escort her off the premises and give a statement to the press that have been staked out since the interview was broadcast, and who also saw the tantrum she displayed as she was escorted out.”

Adrien smirked at the idea of Lila throwing a child-like tantrum before turning back to his father with anger in his eyes. “She deserved it then for lying the way she did. All she did was slander my good name. Do you know what people said to me at school? The looks people gave me on the streets? They called me scum and a cheater. Do you want the face of Gabriel to be known as a cheater? Especially cheating on a sweet and innocent girl like Kagami? What I said needed to be said. She deserved every bit of spew that came out of my mouth.”

“Your disobedience continues to surprise me. All these years of grooming you to be a gentleman, to be poised and professional, and to be the perfect son and model, all for you to throw all that away for someone that stated a little white lie. All of that could be disclosed with a press conference, but you took it a step too far and renounced that girl on the news.”

“What’s done is done. If you want me to give out another statement, then fine, I will. But I’m done with her and her lies.” He stared down his father before walking around him and up the stairs.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Gabriel hissed.

Adrien continued towards his room and responded with a smug tone. “Going to my room. That’s where you send me when your angry with my actions. I just decided to take action and end this conversation myself.”

Gabriel just stood there bewildered over his son’s actions. He was only startled back to reality when Adrien’s door slammed shut. Nathalie, who had been watching from a distance, mirrored Gabriel’s facial expressions before shaking her head and clearing her throat and walking hesitantly towards the frozen man.

“Sir?”

“I’ll be in my office. Only disturb me if it is important.”

-----xoxox-----

Plagg shot out of his chosen’s blazer and curled up on the pillow on the bed. He was staring intently at Adrien, watching him pace the length of the room as he brushed his fingers through his hair.

“Why does he have to act so... so... cold?” Adrien bellowed. “All he ever cares about is his brand. He doesn’t care that I am being harassed as long as the brand isn’t affected by it.”

Adrien stopped his pacing and turned towards Plagg. “I can’t stand being here anymore! Why did I decide to move back here? Why couldn’t I have stayed with Marinette until we finished school? Why did I have to have a heart and hoped that Father would make an effort to change his demeanor after that moment of hostility towards him a few weeks ago? Why do I still care so much!”

The kwami frowned as he watched his charge gesticulate his feelings and shivered when the tears slowly fell from Adrien’s eyes. He floated slowly towards Adrien’s face and nuzzled up against his cheek.  

“Why does he hate me so much?” His voice cracked in anguish.

Plagg knew that this lonely boy deserved so much more than what his father could give him. The pain in his chest and the sadness that poured through Adrien’s soul only confirmed it.  

“Hey kid. I know things are hard right now. In a few months, you can finally move out on your own. Maybe even room with a friend who’s also heading to university near you. You don’t have to be here forever you know.” Adrien wiped the stray tears that streaked his face with his palm as he nodded at Plagg’s assurance. “Do you want to go out and clear your head?”

“You- You actually want to go out?” Adrien sniffled.  

“Kid, I know when you need time to run. I get it. I would want to too if I had a dad like yours, and since you won’t let me cataclysm him, the next best thing is to keep up your rebellion streak tonight and head out while you still can.”

Adrien scratched Plagg in his favorite spot and told him to grab an extra bit of Camembert before he transformed. “I’ll give you a round when we get back.” Plagg purred in delight. “Plagg, claws out!”

-----xoxox-----

Chat Noir leaped across the skies while the shifting wind beat against his cheeks. He had no care in the world of where his destination would take him; all he cared was that he was far enough away from the cold and empty place of the mansion. He catapulted to one balcony and then hopped towards another, bolting left and right as he pushed the anger out of his body with every step he took. He felt like he was running for hours when he finally paused his run on a rooftop to catch his breath. When he looked around to determine where he was, he noticed a familiarity to the location. Peering to the left, he could see a light emanating from a skylight as the twinkle lights from a canopy glowed a yellow hue.

Marinette. He chuckled. Even as he mindlessly ran across the rooftops to clear his head, he still ended up at the home of the one person who could calm him down. If he needed more proof that he was in fact in love with this girl, then he would really have to be an idiot.

He hopped over to her balcony and tapped the glass of the skylight with his clawed finger. A short moment later, the blue-eyed girl pushed up on the glass and smiled sweetly to her visitor. “Chat? What do I owe this pleasure?”

“Princess,” he bowed “this stray cat was taking a rooftop stroll and happened to see you were still awake and I thought maybe she would like some company?” He smirked as he flexed in his usual Chat-like humor. “And maybe a round of Ultimate Mega Strike IV while enjoying some delicious pastries?”

Marinette shook her head as she quietly chuckled. “I’m sorry Chat, but I can’t play a game with you tonight. There is a dance at my school coming up and I have a few dresses I need to finish before then.”

Chat frowned. “I’m sorry, Marinette. I didn’t mean to bother you. I didn’t realize you were busy.” Chat turned around and grabbed his baton to extend it. “I’ll come back another night.”

“Wait!” Marinette reached out to grab onto his tail before he leaped away. He stopped and turned to her, noticing she was pressing her index fingers together as she thought about what she wanted to say next. “I didn’t say you had to leave. I just won’t be able to play video games tonight. I could use the company if you would still like to hang out?”

Chat smiled. “Of course, princess. How can I say no to that?”

Chat shimmied his way down the skylight after Marinette, careful of landing his boots away from her bed in case he still had any lingering dirt on them. He noticed that Marinette already made her way to her desk, grabbed her pincushion bracelet, and made her way over to the mannequin draped in a pink satin fabric. She started to pin up the waist, careful to pin the pleats in a uniformed size. He watched her in awe as she was laser-focused on the task at hand.

She could feel the gaze from the masked cat and an idea crossed her mind. Without looking up, she smirked at him. “If you’re going to stand there and watch me work while keeping me company, I might as well put you to work.” She placed one last pin before heading back to her desk and grabbing a pair of scissors. “I can trust you know how to use these, right?” He nodded. “On the table over there, there is a black pair of pants that I just hemmed. I would like it if you could cut here, here, and here. It doesn’t matter if there are frays; I need to finish the hem work anyways. I just need it to be as straight as possible. Do you think you can handle it?”

“Don’t worry, Marinette, I got this!”  

Chat worked diligently on his task while Marinette pinned in the elastic waistband on the dress she was working on. Every so often, Chat would look around to all the almost-finished designs that were spread around the room. A kitty with an attention span of a goldfish would always be curious, so this curious kitty had to ask: “Who are these dresses for and what have you got planned for them?”

Marinette smiled with elation. “The pantsuit you are working on is for Alix. She didn’t want a dress, and I’m glad she didn’t - it just doesn’t fit her personality. The white top beside it goes with it. I just need her to wear it to ensure the fit, and hers is pretty much done. Max is her date and asked for a tie to match. Alya’s is the orange dress hanging up. I just need to finish the stitch work on the bodice and have the final fitting for it. She requested an orange tie for Nino, so that slice of fabric there is for me to work on. The black and purple fabric over there,” she said as she pointed to the folded satin fabric on the table, “is for Juleka – she wants something more form fitting, so that one will be a little more work than everyone’s as I need it to be just right. I’m starting on hers tomorrow. And this one,” Marinette pointed to her mannequin, “is Rose’s. She wants a ball gown inspired dress, but short and bubbly. Right now I’m just bunching up the pleats before I cut the fabric and hem it.”

Chat looked all around him.  The designs that she had time to do plus the work already put into was incredible. She was going to be an amazing designer one day. Then a frown claimed his face. Where was her dress?  

Marinette saw the concerned look on Chat’s face. “Are you okay, Chat?”

“Where is your dress, Marinette? You must have a date to the dance, don’t you?”

The smile she gave him didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t have a date yet. I haven’t started on my dress yet either.” She shrugged. “There is someone I hope that would ask me, but I’m not sure if he sees me more than a friend. I mean, he’s been acting sweeter towards me lately, but I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it or not. And I have an idea for a dress, but that can wait until I’m done with everyone’s first.”

Chat internally screams at the thought. Hopefully she means his civilian self. “Well you are pawsitively purrfect, princess. If he doesn’t take you, I will. And I know your dress will come out amazing.” Chat was smiling with a proud look on his face making Marinette snicker before throwing a pillow at his head.

“Thanks, Chat...” a warmth fills her chest that brought a loving smile to her face, “for everything.”

[loudlytransparenttrash]

This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 22

Students at George Mason University spent days protesting the hiring of Brett Kavanaugh as a visiting law professor at GMU’s Law School. Some students complained to campus leaders, telling them students’ mental health is threatened by the Kavanaugh hire, despite the Law School being located 3,500 miles away from the university. “This decision has really impacted me negatively. It is affecting my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty.” Another female student gave similar comments to the board, “As someone who has survived sexual assault three times I do not feel comfortable with someone who has sexual assault allegations like walking on campus.” A third female student told the board, “we are fighting to eradicate sexual violence on this campus. But the hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well being of all survivors on this campus.” The next day, students marched around campus chanting “kick Kavanaugh off campus” and holding “cancel Kavanaugh” signs while some stuck blue tape over their mouths.

University of Colorado Denver brought back a 2016 course, “Problematizing Whiteness: Educating for Racial Justice.” Students will learn “the plight of people of color and how white people are complicit.” The course details explains, “The study of whiteness has always sought to challenge racism, racial privilege, white supremacy, and colorblind racism. However, to overindulge in the spectacle of ‘white racial epiphanies’ overlooks the ongoing work whites must do to participate in racial justice. Beyond the feel-good of momentary White racial awareness lurk enormous concerns about how to continually examine Whiteness in order to uphold antiracism, moreover the fruition of a more racially just society.” It also, understandably, tells students that recording any of the lecture is forbidden.

A State University of New York College at Old Westbury professor wrote an article which he states it makes him happy when he sees poor white people on the street begging for food and often wonders how hard he should kick them in the head. “White people begging us for food feels like justice. It feels like Afro-Futurism after America falls. It feels like a Black Nationalist wet dream. It has the feels I rarely feel, a hunger for historical vengeance satisfied so well I rub my belly.” White people, he says, are a Rorschach test: “I see in them the history of colonization, slavery and mass incarceration that makes their begging Black people for money ironic - if not insulting. You wasted your whiteness! Why should we give to you?” The professor admits that this isn’t a “good look,” however, when he thinks about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “be thy best self” and “show compassion to those who spite you,” he retorts “go f**k another secretary Martin!” 

A University of Utah student reported her business professor to campus administrators for assigning too many books written by male economists and philosophers. “Many of these figures are of great importance. But at what cost do we continue to plant the seed of sexism in the minds of individuals? But especially in a course and college that is already deemed to be a ‘boys club,’ continuing those teachings, and those teachings being delivered by a professor of his character is dangerous.” The student also took issue in her bias report about a joke the professor made about how, “while all our jobs will be taken by robots,” he will be “retired living in Tahiti surrounded by 40-45 beautiful women feeding him grapes.” The student complained, “Not only did the professor willingly and openly objectify women, but he also objectified women of color. Women of another culture.”

University of Texas at Austin freshmen were threatened to be doxed if they considered joining the Young Conservatives of Texas or Turning Point USA. “Hey #UT23! Do you wanna be famous? If you join YCT or Turning Point USA, you just might be. Your name and more could end up on an article like one of these,” the tweet said, linking to previous doxing posts of conservative students at the school. “So be sure to make smart choices at #UTOrientation.” They went on to encourage other students, “if you begin to spot the young racists trying to join YCT or TPUSA, send us a tip so we can keep our reports up to date.” The anarchist student network have already released extensive personal information of pro-Brett Kavanaugh demonstrators at UT Austin, including their names, photos and contact information. It went so far as to post some of the phone numbers of the employers of students and urged them to be fired.

Webster University offered its white faculty and staff a chance to “witness their whiteness” in a program that seeks to eliminate racism. According to the event description, Witnessing Whiteness is about “white people voluntarily coming together to do work around racism in a supportive, non-threatening setting.” It’s also about “learning to speak about race and racism, exploring white privilege, and practicing allying with sisters and brothers of color.” White attendees also were taught how to commit to positive change in their lives, workplace and region and understand and practice interrupting racism and developing skills to act as agents of change.

University of North Georgia hosted several "safe zone trainings" to make the school a “safer, more inclusive environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community.” Students were given handouts which featured a ‘gender unicorn’ cartoon and encouraged attendees to use “LGBTQ-Inclusive Language” by giving them a list of “Dos and Don'ts.” They asked students to not use words such as “mailman” and “ladies and gentlemen” or phrases such as “both genders” and “opposite sexes,” instead suggesting that they use “all genders.” Attendees were also shown a YouTube video from Franchesca Ramsey called “5 Tips For Being An Ally,” which instructed them to understand their privilege.

Middlebury College were forced to soothe upset and angry students after Polish conservative scholar and politician Ryszard Legutko was invited to speak on campus about totalitarian temptations within liberal democracies. Ironically, the school canceled the lecture just hours beforehand after some students complained, then later held a reflection meeting with the student protestors, where administrators told them, “I hear you, and you should be outraged, and we should acknowledge that and apologize, because that’s the least we can do right now, because we can’t make it right in the moment. But in the future we will do everything we can to make it right.” As the safe space meeting was going on, unbeknown to the protesters, a political science professor allowed Legutko to be ushered into his classroom and address students in secrecy. 

At University of Texas at Austin, a pro-life speaker’s event was disrupted after someone set off a smoke bomb, triggering the building’s fire alarm and forcing attendees to be evacuated. The event went forward in another building.

A Canadian University of New Brunswick professor said he is in favor of taking a variety of actions against “white supremacists” who speak on campus, including publicly shaming them, firing them from their jobs and driving them from restaurants. What’s concerning about this is the professor’s definition of white supremacists. He said the "Make America Great Again" hats will carry the same shame as the uniforms worn by the Ku Klux Klan. “Every time I watch a documentary about the civil rights movement and all the hateful violence they faced, I wonder what the white people who were doing those horrible things were thinking... We are living in an era with Donald Trump and the Republican Party and the right-wing movement in America where things of similar gravity are happening. The entire sentiment of 'Make America Great Again' implies that there was a time when America was great and it's not any longer... America for Trump and his supporters is no longer great because black people have too many rights or there are too many women in the workplace."

A City University of New York professor was interviewed on radio where she stated the “ideology of racialized terrorism” is the responsibility of every white person in the United States. She criticized America for building "mental health hospital beds for white home-grown terrorists, but concentration camps and high-level security prisons for Black, and Black and Brown immigrants.” She goes on to wonder why we pay tribute every September 11 to “the pillars of American capitalism,” but never to “the young Black and Brown” victims. She also claims she's suffered in capitalist America after being designated a “other, non-white" on her arrival into the country and "white America has damned this democracy into the hands of white terrorists.” 

A University of Arizona student live-streamed herself on Facebook harassing two Border Patrol agents who were giving a lecture to Criminal Justice students. The female student stood near the door of the room, zooming in on the officers repeatedly while calling them murderers and saying they were an extension of the KKK on campus. “They allow murderers to be on campus where I pay to be here. Murderers!” In the second part of the video, the student follows the Border Patrol agents to their vehicle, repeating the phrase “Murder Patrol!” and also yelling at them in Spanish. At the end of the video, she films a protest apparently against the appearance of the officers. The student also launched into a rant about the “white woman” who attempted to talk to her. 

Gonzaga University’s Women and Gender Studies and Native American Studies departments hosted a screening and discussion about Disney’s film, Moana, titled, "Is Moana about rape?" According to the flyer, the professor behind the lesson discussed how Western patriarchy and masculinity attack “the feminine,” indigenous cultures, and the environment and nature. “Layne will ultimately also suggest that the film is Neocolonialist. It excuses Western culture from oppressing women, degrading the environment and erasing/murdering indigenous people,” the flyer says. It also came with a trigger warning, stating that racism, sexual assault, genocide and colonialism will be addressed.

Tufts University decided to remove a historical mural after students complained that the paintings depicting only white people eroded the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. The Alumnae Lounge mural, which depicts “the great names of men” of the school’s history, does not include “a single image of a person of color" which has lead students to complain that “they don’t want to receive awards in Alumnae Lounge because they feel excluded.” Tufts Senior Vice President said. “We want to attract a diversity of people to the university. But no less important, when they arrive, we want them to feel they belong here.” Tufts Africana Center Director applauded the decision, saying “the murals create an unwelcoming space for current students of color.”

Also at Gozaga University, an assistant professor wrote an op-ed where he blasted one of his white law students and accused him of deliberate “racial antagonism” because the student wore a MAGA hat to class. Without naming the student, the assistant professor wrote, “From my perspective as a black man living in the increasingly polarized political climate that is America, MAGA is an undeniable symbol of white supremacy and hatred toward certain nonwhite groups. I was unsure whether the student was directing a hateful message toward me or if he merely lacked decorum and was oblivious to how his hat might be interpreted by his black law professor. I presumed it was the former. As the student sat there directly in front of me, his shiny red MAGA hat was like a siren spewing derogatory racial obscenities at me for the duration of the one hour and fifteen-minute class. As my blood boiled inwardly, I jokingly told the student, ‘I like your hat.’ Without missing a beat, the student mockingly grinned from ear to ear and said, ‘Thank you.’” The professor concluded by arguing that “‘making America great again’ suggests a return to the days when women and people of color were denied access to these very institutions.”

A George Mason University assistant professor took to Twitter to ask white parents across America: “Why are you producing so many young white male terrorists?” “What is going on in your households? How involved are you with your sons? Are you missing signs their racism is filtering out of commonplace household racism into ‘I want to murder strangers’ racism?” She followed up with a reply to the white parents declaring their devotion to making sure their child isn’t a white terrorist, “I appreciate the testimonials of white parents doing the work of raising anti racist children. You give me a bit of hope.” 

The University of Michigan revamped its already transgender-friendly student health plan to include more services on top of sex-change operations. The school already covers mastectomies, genital surgeries, hormone therapy and counseling for transgender students. These plans now also accommodate “facial feminization surgeries,” as well as facial hair removal and “Adam’s apple reduction.” Another addition is “fertility preservation” for transgender students whose transition efforts result in infertility.

A Massachusetts school superintendent told a community audience that white people in our “systematically corrupt system that oppresses black individuals” need to “rewire their brains” in order to overcome their biases. The Pittsfield Public Schools chief (who is white) also blasted Trump, blaming the president's “daily hate” for the rise in racism and hatred on a national level. The event was planned to announce the implementation of African American history courses in local high schools. The course will delve into African American oppression and plans on stopping the normalization of seeing “black people being beaten on TV.” A teacher who worked on the curricula design at the schools said her eyes had been opened after participating in implicit bias training and reading the book "Waking Up White." 

Hofstra University students protested a statue of Thomas Jefferson at an annual event, titled “Jefferson Has Gotta Go!” which was co-organized by local Planned Parenthood staff. For the past few years, students have defaced the statue with “DECOLONIZE” and “Black Lives Matter” in an attempt to pressure the university president to join the long list of schools removing or covering up “traumatizing” statues and artwork. So far, the statue remains. 

An academic conference in Toronto focused on “Critical Becky Studies,” with multiple professors and faculty from American universities participating. “This session aims to characterize ‘Becky,’ a term specific to white women who engage whiteness, often in gendered ways,” the session description states. “Explorations of Becky and implications of educational practice from a variety of perspectives and contexts will illuminate the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression tied to the gendered and raced mechanisms of whiteness enacted by Becky,” says the session description. Another paper discussed in the panel was titled “Border Becky: Exploring White Women's Emotionality, Ignorance, and Investment in Whiteness.” According to the description, the paper focuses on white women who must undergo a battle in order to extract themselves “from the white supremacist alliance.” 

At University of South Dakota, a planned ‘Hawaiian Day’ themed event had to be changed to ‘Beach Day,’ due to a cultural appropriation complaint from a single student. The student group planning the party were told to make the name change and to ban handing out leis as it violates the school's policy on inclusiveness. The group posted, “It was determined that these (leis) are culturally insensitive by the administration after doing research based off of the essay written by the initial complainant.” 

Williams College student activists demanded the Board of Trustees "commit to a complete process of reparation and reconciliation to indigenous peoples." The open letter states, “Many junior faculty of color are considering medical leave due to the unmitigating stress of living in an unsupportive and callous environment and to avoid the emotional detriment of existing here.” The students then demanded a “complete process of reparation and reconciliation” to the indigenous peoples, “approve a request of $34,000 as well as the increase of $15,000 additional funding for incoming Minority Coalition groups.” ”Offer free weekend shuttles for faculty and staff" and provide separate housing for black and queer students, as well as for all other marginalized groups. Lastly, “hire more therapists, especially trans and racial minority therapists.”

Dominican University in California has added a new major, wholly focused on social justice. The school created the major after a “growing number” of students became interested in social justice “careers,” according to the university news release. Students who major in social justice will have the chance to “examine the links between well-being, social justice, and diverse worldviews.” Additionally, students will “analyze social injustices and work toward positive social change.”

The State University of New York-Plattsburgh offered students the chance to de-stress with therapy donkeys during their Wellness Fair. 

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Meeting Jack; Queen x reader

*Author’s note*

Hello all! First of all I would like to apologize to those who have sent me anon requests. I have been in SUCH  a writer’s stump that I couldn’t figure out what to do. And school starts for me in 2 days and I’m afraid I may not be able to get to those requests again till either spring break if not by the end of this semester. Again I am so sorry but I hope this makes up for my lack of updates.

Now this chapter of my Rock Angel series doesn’t really include the boys as the other parts have (sorry *dodges TVs and drum sets being flown at me*) but I PROMISE this is an important story arc for you readers as the Rock Angel. I’ve also included a face cast for this person you will read about and yes I used the same name as it is in the TV show, but I will let you all read about it and you can comment and like to your hearts desire. I promise the next part I write will include the boys more. 

Warnings: Usual swearing, some derogation insults, pictures W/O consent (ALWAYS ASK BEFORE YOU TAKE SOMEONES PICTURE. DON’T JUST TAKE IT without their permission. It’s a total DICK move.), some fluff.

Taglist *open*:

@isabella-bby

@onebigfangirlworld

@phantom-fangirl-stuff

@dj-lowkey

@mr-badguymercury

@labessieisallama

@starswin

@naturalswifty89

_______________________________________________________

*May 11th, 1983*

After recording my 5th album I decided that I needed a break. Some time to myself and hope and pray I can manage to sneak away from the annoying paparazzi that are always stalking me in the day.  So at around 11pm, I headed to a club that was in downtown London that I knew where the paps never really go to.  Plus I needed a distraction since my boys were on their Japan tour and I was missing them.

I got dressed in a normal pair of jeans, simple black high heeled combat boots, a white Aladdin Sane t-shirt and a jean overcoat. I took my motorbike instead of calling my driver Louis as to not bring about attention.

Once I got to the club, I parked my bike aside and placed my helmet under the seat trunk and headed into the club.  With my shades over my eyes I walked towards the club so that I could escape the silence of the streets.

I entered inside and the club was still pretty crowded, the current song that was playing over the speakers was Deacy’s song “Another one bites the dust”.  People were dancing close to each other, grinding their bodies together and just getting hammered.  I walked up to the bar and I told the bartender.

“Just get me a cold beer please.” He nodded and handed me a tall bottle of beer.  I uncapped it and took a swig of it as I observed the crowd.  As a musician and as Queen’s personal ‘eyes of young audience’, I wanted to see what really got the people moving.  Of course Roger and Brian say that most of the music is either disco or the rising “Pop”, which really isn’t Queen.

After only having one beer and staying at the club for about another hour, I let out a soft yawn and looked down at my watch to see that it was 12;45am, so I decided that it was time to head back home and get some rest since I needed to get ready for a radio interview tomorrow, plus a music video shooting of my song ‘Bridge of Light.’

But as I went outside, I was suddenly bombarded by camera flashes.  However it all came from one camera and I heard a very familiar voice say.

“Come on (y/n) darling give me the dirt. Are you really gonna drive while hammered? Were you here meeting someone? Give me the dirt darling!” Duke Weasleton, my current annoying one man paparazzi stalker. He started stalking me around four months ago, trying to always get the dirt on “the Rock Angel”, just to see what gossip or rumors he can spread about me.

I’ve tried to be nice to him and tell him to go away but he keeps coming back like an annoying mosquito, draining me of my patience.  One time when Deacy, Brian and I were out catching up for lunch, he came in with camera flashes and calling out accusations that I was having an affair with the two of them, asking if they were my “Sugar daddies”.

That just got Deacy and Brian riled up and they almost went to town to beat the shit out of Duke but I told them to not get caught because he could easily ruin all of us if we try to start something, and I didn’t want my boys getting into trouble, so we walked away from the restaurant and I had my bodyguard Big Rob take care of him.

“Duke I really don’t have time for this. I’m exhausted and all I wanted was one night off of no press or annoying paps like you, so please leave me alone.”

“Why? Are you meeting your secret date? What’s his name? Come on Angel give me everything!” He kept taking pictures all the while walking closer and closer to me.  I was now backed up against the building of the club while the flashes of his camera were still going off and him hounding me with accusations and questions. I was almost about to snap when I heard a soft male’s voice say.

“Hello.” The flashes stopped and we both turned around and from the lights above the club plus the streetlights there stood a young man a few years older than me but definitely not in his 30’s, he had short sandy blond hair that slightly combed over his forehead.  He wore a simply white t-shirt, a dark blue jacket and jeans.  “Sorry to interrupt, but the boys sent me here to come pick you up, (y/n).”

Based on his accent, I could tell that he was American with a slight tang in his voice, maybe he was from one of the southern states but I couldn’t tell which one.

“Excuse me, but who are you exactly?” Duke asked as his camera hung over his neck. “And this is a private chat between me and her.”

“Really? Because it didn’t seem private to her. And it also seemed that she didn’t want to talk to you” The boy stated narrowing his brow and seemed to be glaring at Duke.  There was silence in the air as I looked between Duke and this boy. “Listen I’m…..”

“Duke Weasleton. Yeah I heard. But see the way I was raised, in order to get pictures of someone you need to first ask for their consent, not lay in wait before ambushing them with false accusation. But then again your paparazzi so what would you know about that?” Wow, this guy’s hitting all the right places when describing Duke at this point.

Duke grinned icily and said as he walked up to this boy.

“Okay, why don’t you back off kid?”

“No you back off, old man.” The boy stated lowly as he stood his ground and stared Duke down.

It was at that point Duke got a look of shock and humiliation.  For you see, Duke Weasleton is always self-conscious about his age, even though he’s around his late 40’s he looks like he’s in his 50’s if not 60’s.  This guy just did not age well.

I softly coughed out a laugh as I stared at this kid literally giving Duke a sucker punch straight to his ego.

“Old man?” choked out Duke.

“Yeah, that’s right.” The boy said in a light, challenging tone. Duke turned towards me and I hid my smile behind my hand as I cleared my throat.  Duke turned back towards the boy and growled lowly.

“Okay, alright, this isn’t over.” And without another word, Duke walked away and disappeared into the darkness of the London streets.  Once everything had calmed down I walked up towards the boy and I said.

“Wow, so American chivalry isn’t dead.”

“Nope, you just gotta know where to look for it, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Thank you, you really didn’t have to do that.”

“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. I can’t imagine what it’s like for celebrities to get hounded day in and day out when they’re just minding their own business by press or photographers.” He told me.

“Just the price of fame, the one downside unfortunately. Wish it wouldn’t happen but it does.”

“I’m Jack by the way,” the boy now known as Jack extended his hand out to me and as I took it he fully introduced himself. “Jack Kline.” I took his hand and we shook hands as I introduced myself.

“(Y/n). But then again you might know that cause otherwise why would a one man paparazzi hound me like that if I wasn’t famous.” Oh god that sounded so arrogant of me. What the bloody hell (y/n)? “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to sound conceded I…..”

“It’s alright, besides I already knew who you were the minute I saw you at the bar.”  Wow, so he knew who I was and yet he didn’t come up to me and hound me for an autograph or ask for a picture or even try to sit by me pretending to be my date (you do not want to even know how many guys have tried to do that to me).

“Well Jack Kline, is there any way I can repay for your chivalrous act?” I asked him.

“Oh no I couldn’t as that of you. All I wanted was to be sure you weren’t being harassed by that guy anymore.”

“Please, I won’t take no for an answer. I must repay you, no one but my boys would’ve done that for me. And I was just about this close from ripping Duke’s head off. Please I know a little coffee shop just a few blocks away.”

“Well, okay. Just one cup of coffee, then I pay for the rest of the drinks we may have.” I smiled then I lead him towards my bike and we both got on it and I drove down to the coffee shop.

We took a booth at the coffee shop, minus about 2 other people, the café was pretty much a graveyard shift.  Jack ordered a plain coffee while I got sweet coffee.

“Now I hope you don’t mind me asking but, just so I can officially confirm this without making assumptions but you’re American right?”

“Yes, I am from a little town called Lebanon, Kansas. It’s definitely a lot smaller than London is.” We both smiled softly and then I continued,

“So what’s a small town boy from Kansas doing here in London of all places?”

“Just thought I might have a bit of fun. Been wanting to see London for some time so I thought, what the hell pick up a passport and spend a summer here and see what the British people are like.”

“Well I can tell you that we’re dull and very boring.” I teased which made him laugh. “The weather is also terrible and some of the food is bland even to me, a born and raised British girl.” We both continued laughing.

“So….what exactly were you doing at the club anyway?” he asked me.

“I just needed a break. I’ve been recording my 5th album for months now, endless TV and radio interviews and a music video shoot. I thought going to a club just to clear my head would be best. Going late at night since press don’t typically stay so late. But Duke is a different case and I guess I should’ve known better. Or had at least called up Big Rob my bodyguard.”

“I can understand why you did. If I were in your shoes I’d probably do the same thing.” He said.  I looked up at him.  

“So Jack, what type of music do you like? Or whose your favorite artist?”

“Will it increase your ego if I said you’re in my top 5 favorite female singers?” he teased with a smirk and a mischievous glint in his light blue/green eyes.

“It just might. Am I number 1?”

“Sorry but you’re close. Joan Jett’s my number one.”

“Understandable, she is pretty cool, never got to meet her yet but I hope to someday. She’s in fact my inspiration.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she’s showed me that when it comes to women performing, you don’t need to show much skin just to put on a good show. She can dress in such casual punk rock clothes like any other man and still give a good show.”

“True. As for my music choices, I tend to stick with classic rock thanks to my cousin for introducing me ever since I was 5. Other artists I like are Bowie, AC/DC, George Michael, my guilty pleasure is Michael Jackson.”

“Hey, he’s no guilty pleasure. Even I the Rock Angel am a slave when it comes to the King of Pop. He’s actually a real sweet guy too, gave me some good tips when it comes to dancing.” He looked at me in shock at the fact that I actually got to meet Michael Jackson himself.

“You’ve met Michael Jackson?”

“Yeah, three times actually when he came to London to do some recording. In fact he told me to make ‘So good’ my second single, and said that it would be even more popular than ‘Set it all free’. In a way he was right.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.” I shrugged and then I asked him.

“Okay so who would you say your all-time favorite rock band is?”

“Oh Queen hands down. Even though my cousin and I get into disputes about whose better them or AC/DC, I’ll still pick Queen. Their music is just unlike anything I’ve ever heard. And I really love John Deacon’s bass playing, and the songs that he’s made already. I don’t wanna sound too much like a fanboy but—he’s my inspiration for picking up a bass guitar in the first place.”

“Really?” I asked astounded.

“Yeah. After hearing Queen for the first time back in high school with their song Bohemian Rhapsody, it helped me into wanting to study more about music composition and song writing. But it wasn’t until I first heard the bass solo for ‘Liar’ that I picked up my first bass guitar and would practice day and night till I got it right. Now anytime I play that song on my record player, I have to pick it up and play it, imagining that I’m playing alongside my hero.”

And Deacy thinks he’s not the most important person in the band.  He underestimates himself most of the time, and I respect his shyness when it comes to being out in public but he’s written so many great hits for Queen, that he too can inspire people, not just Brian, Roger or Freddie.

“He’d be honored to hear you say that.” I said solemnly.  We stayed at the café and continued to just talk for what felt like hours until I noticed that it was a bit pass 3am and I knew I had to get home and get at least 2hrs of sleep before my radio interview all the way in South London.

“You sure I can’t give you a lift to your flat Jack? It really isn’t safe this late out on the streets.” I asked him as we left the café.

“I’m sure, the cab’s almost here. Plus I’ve already taken too much of your time, you should get some sleep. I bet your today is packed in the next few hours.” I nodded then as the cab drove up to the café I told him.

“Thank you again Jack. For what you did to Duke for me.”

“Again, it’s no trouble at all. You probably would’ve done the same thing if it were me.” He went to open the door and I suddenly blurted out,

“When can I see you again?” He faced me and he said.

“When are you free next?”

“I’m free on Saturday, or I could give you a pass to come see me film my music video later this afternoon?” He smiled and he said.

“I’ve always been interested in how music videos are filmed.” I smiled and said.

“Great! I mean I’ll send my friend’s driver Terry to pick you up tomorrow. Just be sure to be ready by around 12:00, filming will begin at around 1:30 once I’m done with my radio interview.” He nodded and then he got into the taxi and drove off.  I waved bye to him before I got on my bike and drove on home.

The minute I got back home, I immediately collapsed onto my bed and didn’t even bothering to change into pajamas.  I quickly set my alarm clock and then fell right asleep.

The next morning I was at BBC radio station being interviewed by Freddie’s good friend Andres.  He’s probably one of my favorite interviewers because he loves to spice up the talk show and makes asking questions fun.

“So (y/n) dear you’re known as the youngest woman inspiring artist but let’s get a bit personal. Any plans on finding a future man in your life?”

“Oh Andres you cheeky little boy, always wanting to know if I’ve got a man yet. Sorry to say but my answer is still no, I haven’t found Mr. Right just yet.”

“Not according to this morning’s paper, come on darling what’s his name?” I looked at him confused and said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Ohh, ohh honey you didn’t know. It’s all over the papers and the tabloids.” He said in pure concern, realizing that I had no idea what he was talking about.  He then handed me a copy of this morning’s gossip tabloid and written in bold caps print was.

SPARK FLY WITH THE ROCK ANGEL:

Super Star (Y/n) (l/n), also known as the Rock Angel been spotted with a mysterious American man. The two were cuddled up at a local café very early this morning at around 2am.

And the heading picture was a picture of me and Jack sitting at our booth through the see-through window of the café.

“Duke.” I sneered under my breath. I took a deep breath and I calmly stated in order to protect Jack’s privacy and not drag him into this insanity. “He’s an old childhood friend of mine that went to America. I hadn’t seen him in so long, so we met at the café just to catch up. Told him all about my rising fame that he’s heard so much about. He says that he’s very proud of me.”

“Ohh well that’s very good. Although if I might say that if he wasn’t your friend, then you two would make such a cute couple. Now then I’m told of rumors of a tour with you and Queen are about to be in order, is that true?”

“You will have to find that out for yourself darling.” I teased as I literally downed my champagne all the while cursing and thinking of ways to torture Duke for this story.

The interview went on for the rest of the morning and then by around 11:45am, it was all done and I had met Louis outside and he drove me to the studio where I would film the Bridge of Light music video. All the while I kept glaring down at the tabloid before slamming it down to the ground and turning towards the window.

“The press is really milking this story out (y/n), you sure inviting him over to your film shoot was a good idea?” I heard Louis asked.

“I don’t know. But Louis you should’ve seen it. He’s the only boy who talked to me like I was just (y/n) (l/n). Not just (y/n) the Rock Angel like most guys who see me do. All those douchebags either use me for a chance to knock me up or get close to the band, but Jack he—we just sat in that café and just talked and talked and talked for hours on end. God I just hope I haven’t screwed up his life now by being associated with me.”

“The price of fame love, but word of the wise; If this Jack boy is as kind as you claim he is, then he won’t let the press or paparazzi get to him.”

“You really think so?” I asked him hopefully.

“I’m sure love, plus this boy has made you more happier than I’ve ever seen you ever since I started working for you.” I smiled softly and thanked him and he continued driving till we reached the studio.

I walked on in and got into hair and makeup department first and as I was now walking to costuming, I had been told that someone was trying to get in claiming that I was allowing them in. Having received a call from Terry while I was in makeup I knew that it was Jack.

I raced up to security to see that my assumption was correct.  I raced up to security and told them that he was allowed and that I gave him my permission to be here.  As I gave him a quick tour of the set and once we reached the costume trailer, I turned to him and said.

“Look Jack about the tabloid picture…..”

“You don’t have to explain anything (y/n). I’ve got a good feeling of who it was that took that picture of us anyway.” Jack interrupted me.

“I promise I will try to get the publisher to take that photo off or at least try to come up with a better story than what I did this morning with Andres…..”

“It’s fine (y/n). Besides if you keep changing your story it’ll end up ripping your reputation apart. And I don’t want that to happen to you. Besides I don’t mind being the old American friend.” I smiled.

God this guy was such an angel.  I mean I knew that Mary, Dominique, Chrissie and Veronica were understanding of their husbands living like this but never would I expect a guy to be understanding when it came to having a female superstar as a friend/partner.

“Jack Kline you are a literal angel. Now why don’t you go over to set and I will meet you there once I’m done getting fitted into my first costume.”

“Alright, can’t wait to see what the director comes up with for this song.”

“Me neither.” I then stepped inside the costume trailer and Susanna was getting me fitted into my first angel costume.

What Director Silvester Favarou had in mind is that I am the angel singing to an unhealthy, suicidal young man.  I am the light that helps guide him when he is un utter darkness.  I’m also the leader of a whole guardian angel choir towards the end and at the very end I end up having to wear these beautiful handcrafted and sewed angel wings that literally stand about 7ft from tip to tip.

The whole day was restless and endless as we did take after take, after take of the music video.  By the time the clock struck 10pm, the video finally wrapped and surprisingly Jack had stayed for the whole thing.

After the filming, I treated Jack to dinner for being such a good sport about staying so long before having Louis take him home.  

Once we arrived at his place, he bid me a goodnight and thanked me for allowing him to see the studio and having a first look at my upcoming music video.  I smiled and told him it was no problem before bidding him a goodnight.

Finally after a seriously long day, I finally reached home sweet home.  I opened my door and let out a yawn ready to hit the sack.

“You’ve got some serious explaining to do young lady.” I froze in shock.  Oh shit it can’t be them.  As I turned around there they all stood at the entry way between my front corridor and the living room.  Each of them with their arms crossed over their chests staring me down.

Looks like my long night is about to get even longer.

[aiyh]

AUs are a problem I have

I found all the original posts in this series from my deactivated blog and collected them here.

you work the register at a store I frequent and I get super self-conscious that you’re judging my purchases AU

our kids got paired up to do a school project and I meant to just drop mine off at your house but we ended up talking for three hours AU

battle of the bands AU

made small talk while waiting for different flights and assumed we’d never see each other again AU

our grandparents are in the same nursing home and they hate each other AU

arrested at the same protest AU

classic literature professor vs. modern literature professor AU

I injured myself doing something stupid at a holiday party and you’re the doctor at the emergency clinic AU

volunteered to wait tables at your fancy charity fundraising dinner AU

how do you keep getting my name that wrong on my coffee cup AU

adjacent stands at the farmer’s market AU

risked my job by talking you out of buying a crappy product at the store where I work AU

only two people who bought tickets to see this movie AU

don’t really care if I win that giant stuffed animal but keep playing the carnival game you’re running just to see you AU

our dogs are in love with each other and it’s making things awkward at the dog park AU

who’s this asshole who keeps beating my high score on Pac-Man AU

it’s a total coincidence that I happen to water my plants at the same time you jog past my house AU

our manager is making us push this crappy item that no one needs but you thought my sales pitch was funny so you bought it AU

interviewed you for the newspaper AU

I desperately need you to fix my laptop but please don’t judge me for my browser history AU

chef/ restaurant critic AU

my kid’s hamster died while she was at school and I don’t know how to tell her about death so long story short does your pet store have a hamster that looks just like the one in this photo AU

rival local news stations AU

news anchor/ meteorologist AU

I planned a program at the library where I work and you’re the only person who showed up AU

you are definitely drunk-texting the wrong number but I’m bored so I’m gonna keep this going for a while AU

I hate flying but your snarky announcements are a good distraction and you have a nice voice and I might be calling you Captain Cutie in my head AU

I made a dumb science joke in class and you’re the only one who laughed AU

auditioning for the same part AU

accidentally got drunk at a wine tasting AU

you’re the only other person I’ve ever met who can quote this movie AU

everyone else in our dorm has gone out but I have the flu, and I just heard you coughing pathetically from the next room, wanna share my stash of cough drops and marathon Netflix with me? AU

showed up to a Halloween party in matching costumes AU

will you pretend to be my date to my family’s holiday party so they’ll stop harassing me about being single, there’s food in it for you AU

Christmas lights rivalry AU

I found a bunch of your stuff when I moved into this apartment and I have no idea who you are but I think we might be soulmates AU

I teach in this classroom in the mornings and you teach in the evenings and we communicate entirely through notes left on the board AU

how the hell does your cat keep getting into my house AU

I volunteered for a sex study and you’re the lead researcher and thank god it’s acceptable for me to be turned on in this situation because damn AU

You’re the prosecutor and I’m the defense attorney on the most ridiculous case either of us have ever heard of and I don’t know about you but I’m not sure how much longer I can be serious about this thing AU

Got into an absurdly heated argument in the comments on a mutual friend’s Facebook post AU

Rival street performers AU

You keep bringing your car into my shop with a series of increasingly unlikely problems and my professional opinion is it’d be cheaper for you to just ask me to dinner already AU

Our families are having funeral visitations at the same time and we’re both hanging around outside because we can’t deal AU

I spent a whole subway ride checking you out but didn’t have the nerve to talk to you and thought I’d never see you again but you just showed up on Humans of New York AU

Cheering for opposing teams at a sports bar AU

My kid shoplifted from your store and I marched her back here to apologize to you AU

Why didn’t you tell me this cabin was haunted before I rented it from you AU

Character performers who only see each other at ren faires AU

My band plays at this restaurant every Friday and you always show up and make obscure requests and I know you’re trying to stump me but you’ve severely underestimated how much of a music geek I am AU

I’m the caterer and you’re the florist on a huge expensive wedding and we bond over what an awful person the mother of the bride is AU

We’re chaperoning kids at the same skating rink party and the last couple’s skate was pathetic so what do you say we show these little punks how it’s done AU

We’re both trying to get an apartment in this city at the same time as a million other people and I’m tired of competing for the same ones as you so I think it’s time we joined forces AU

Adjacent shops Christmas decorations war of escalation AU

We work at competing gossip magazines and keep trying to outdo each other’s ridiculous stories AU

Our moms belong to the same garden club and are fiercely competitive about their gardens and keep sending us to pick up supplies for them and would have matching heart attacks if they found out we’re hooking up every trip AU

My kid is in your class and you called me in for a parent-teacher conference and I don’t know what she did but she didn’t learn it from me and wait what do you mean you think she should skip a grade AU

We’re neighbors and I’m telling you this as a friend but if you give out pencils for Halloween again this year I’m going to look the other way when the kids roll your yard AU

I accidentally caught the neighbors’ yard(s) on fire while burning leaves and I didn’t think it could get worse but the volunteer fireman reprimanding me is gorgeous and clearly thinks I’m an idiot AU

I bought this talisman from your occult shop and I know you warned me but I didn’t think this stuff was real but it IS and now I need you to make it go away AU

You just sold a bunch of old books to my secondhand store for cheap and one of them’s worth a fortune and my partner will kill me if he finds out but I think you should have the money AU

I didn’t mean to get you arrested, I thought I was helping AU

I’m planning a heist and I need your very specific skillset to pull it off but when I tracked you down you’d become an alcoholic and spend your days cheating at video poker AU

Your pizza keeps getting delivered to my house by mistake and I need to talk to you about your choice of toppings AU

Prison chaplain/ wrongfully convicted death row inmate AU

You bring my grandmother a basket of homemade candy every Christmas and she keeps dropping hints about how great you are so we should probably go out at least once—you know, just to make grandma happy AU

I was down on my luck and had lost the will to live when I heard you playing the fiddle and long story short I think you saved my life AU

The PTA bake sale is coming up and you’ve outsold me two years in a row so I’m pulling out all the stops AU

I just quit my job and put all my belongings in a U-Haul and started driving, you’re the hitchhiker I picked up on a whim who I’m starting to think is a dangerous fugitive AU

Graffiti artist/ mural painter AU

You’re the only major film critic who hated my movie and I need to talk to you about it because I agree with you AU

[writingonjorvik]

Impromptu Can We Discuss: Can We Discuss The Chat Features?

In all honesty, I can’t say I care a whole lot about this issue. I tend to agree with the complaints, that this is a generally bad idea on a large scope, that it makes an arguably elitist game even more elitist, and it’s only going to severely highlight the issues inside the community, or push problematic players to find a different way to continue causing problems. So, what’s the point?

First, I want to spend a good portion of time promoting actual solutions to this issues. I think a lot of people can be angry, but I see very few people suggesting solutions to do this better. Because the issue is real, so if we find the devs’ approach wrong, what would work instead? So here’s a dozen and a half of those in no particular order. 

1. Implement a better reporting system to allow problems be more accurately and quickly report.

2. Have a real moderator team across all servers with a concrete and clear set of rules.

3. Implement a preset chat system, so people can still communicate, but to prevent harassment due to limited dialogue options.

4. Add a Captcha to your account registration to prevent botting or easy account creation.

5. Have harsher punishments for offenses, with third and fourth offenses having a player’s account deleted.

6. Ban IP addresses that are continuing to spam accounts. It doesn’t stop people, but it slows them down.

7. Make a series of videos clarifying correct online behavior so bad behavior is easier to identify and report.

8. Allow for multiple characters per account to track more people who may be making second accounts to get away with bad behavior, but also to prevent boredom and pushing people to this kind of attitude in the first place.

9. Promote creators who promote healthy online behavior, and are being reported to be promoting healthy behavior by the community, to start breaking down the popularity contests inside SSO.

10. Rework the FAQs and the tutorials to actually be clear on the expectations for the players, particularly since the FAQs haven’t been updated since Golden was still level 12, and the help function in game is massively outdated.

11. Implement an official forum/wiki to allow players to resource more easily to find communities and answers to questions.

12. If someone misreports for the first time, inform them why the report wasn’t really breaking a rule to help educate the player base.

13. Create a clearer understanding out of the game besides the Terms & Conditions about what the rules are, somewhere in written form.

14. Ask for more information for all accounts, locking out chat for everyone until everyone files more information.

15. Implement a “Looking For Group/Club” function inside the game to help players working on similar things (racing, questing, exploring, etc.) find each other, which doesn’t require chat interaction, to promote a more helpful community.

16. Don’t incentivize reporting with Star Coins, incentivize it with the idea of improving the community.

17. Have a separate “prison” server for repeat offenders and cheaters where chat is removed instead of punishing the whole community for the behavior of the few.

18. Have a separate server dedicated to beta testers for the game to separate people breaking the rules to find problems in the chat filters or in the world intentionally, and people breaking the rules for the sake of breaking the rules.

But here’s the real problem. Reviewing the company’s comments, they seem to insist that Non-Star Riders are the real source of this issue, prompting this implementations. Based on the PR team’s insistence, I’d like to believe they’re telling the truth, but the fact of the matter is that the devs have lost most of their credibility. And that is likely the heart of the problem. When things like this happen, the community struggles to believe the devs have the players in their best interests because there’s no history of credibility. Instead, there’s a history of the devs actively removing criticism, promoting numbers we’ve never seen evidence of, and struggling to keep promises. And that’s not the environment to promote trust.

If SSO really has an issue with Non-Star Riders, show us the numbers. Have a real conversation with players about the problems. Stop taking soft-ball interviews to pad your reputation. Restore our faith that you’re being sincere and not half assing facts because you know most of your audience won’t recognize the truth of the industry so you can excuse bad business practices. You’d probably be surprised how many people are willing and able to have that conversation. Because if we keep getting treated like dumb kids, guess what the majority behavior will be in the game? Start treating us like adults with smart and capable thought processes, and the standard will increase. Respect is a two-way street.

Whenever the devs are ready for that conversation, I’m ready to push the conversation forward. Hell, I’d write the interview myself if that’s what it took. But if the devs want us to trust them again, then they need to put in the effort to make themselves trustworthy again. I’m all ears. Here’s the community trying to help. Just waiting on the devs to acknowledge our attempts.

[danilanidingdong]

My partner was targeted by a predator - a small NYC director.

Please be aware that the following writing discusses kink, LGBTQ+ issues, assault, misgendering, and other topics that are generally not feel good issues. It is in regards to how my partner was treated. She’s read this and given their stamp of approval on posting this. Not because we want folks to feel bad, but because we legitimately want to warn people about a predator.

I’d like to start this off with some personal information. Typically in a situation like this, individual details aren’t necessary, but in this case, I believe it’s important to form a foundation.

My partner and I live quite happily and openly under the queer umbrella. We also function very vocally in kink circles. We don’t believe in kink shaming. We have no qualms with strange kinks. As long as everyone involved consents, we have zero issues.

It’s the consent thing that was recently violated when my partner was assaulted by a so-called director for a short film.

My partner was using a casting website with a very professional reputation (Netflix and Stars have used this site), and she was contacted by a small production company in response to seeing her resume.

The short of it was that this director was looking for LGBTQ+ folks for his social commentary werewolf short films. My partner was so excited, showing me everything that this director sent her. What I was shown was short, but seemed fine. It appeared to be a small budget production company, and the script was nothing to write home about, but honestly it didn’t seem like a bad start. And it paid! The casting website even gave him a neat little verified check to assure performers that they’d been vetted by the site.

The more she talked to the director, the more excited she got. Finally! Someone that wanted to make awesome werewolf content that focused on queer communities! She was excited to show the director what she already had from her costume closet for werewolf makeup and fangs, and he seemed excited to work with her. He suggested possibly using contact lenses, along with some minimal makeup and light use of prosthetics.

When she arrived at the shoot, though. She was met with only the director. No team. In his parent’s empty apartment. Instead of the fake nails that he had explained to her in the interview, he informed her that they would be going to a salon and getting acrylic nails put on. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but anyone who’s had acrylic nails applied knows how difficult (read: impossible) they are to get off quickly. Fake stick-on nails (which he said would be used) are cheaper, and in an emergency, can pop off rather quickly. Acrylic nails are typically an investment of both time and money. Seriously, if you’ve never had them, ask someone who has. Those suckers don’t budge.

But the director didn’t make a big deal out of it. My partner wasn’t very experienced in the film industry, so she took his word for granted.

My partner then spent two hours at a nail salon near the apartment, and while everyone around her was getting French tips, she couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed by the six inch claws that the nail technician was crafting. When some of the other salon customers asked, she proudly informed them “It’s for a werewolf movie!” - in an attempt to save herself from some embarrassment. But the director cut her off, and said “No, don’t tell them that.”

Once the nails were on, she realized that she couldn’t use her hands for anything. Her dexterity was destroyed with these huge, thick claws, and she relied entirely on the director for any fine motor skills.

Still, nothing seemed off. She would film this short scene and be done. When they returned to the apartment, he told her to put contacts in. She expressed discomfort. It was already very difficult for her to function with the nails, would it be possible to try filming without the contacts? 

No. She had to wear contacts.

They had this conversation in his bathroom, where he blocked her with his body from leaving the bathroom until she agreed to wear the contacts.

Because of her nails, the director had to put the lenses in for her, and once they were in, she noticed something else that was a little off.

She could not see with the contacts in.

She now relied entirely on this director for even basic functions, but even then he did not provide her with what she needed. She was not given water at any time during the entire 8 hour filming.

He started asking extremely uncomfortable questions as soon as she was physically unable to leave.

He noted that her resume indicated “nonbinary” as her gender, so he asked plainly, “So that means you have both right? Both sets?”

She was taken aback, and he was rather crestfallen when she explained what nonbinary meant, and she steered the incredibly inappropriate conversation away from her genitalia.

Which he kept bringing up. Repeatedly.

He talked frequently about the character that she was playing, and made her very aware that after her werewolf transformation, her character had “both sets of genitals”. Information that would be important for an actor, sure, but the way he brought it up and discussed it was entirely sexual.

He told her “Let’s just do some improv, no script.”

When he started asking her to touch him with her nails, she realized that she was filming a fetish video.

That was when she shifted into survival mode. He continued trying to make sexual conversation while they filmed, but she would shut down his advances in any attempt to get out of the vision blocking contacts quicker. She felt trapped, unable to leave due to her inability to see or hold anything.

The director mentioned, while filming, that the concept of my partner growing a penis during her werewolf transformation was “getting him hard”, and he kept insinuating that her actions were causing him sexual arousal. She mentioned having a partner as a defense strategy, and he asked if she (in other words: me) would be interested in bringing that partner around in order to shoot a lesbian scene.

In addition to this, he openly spoke of his work with other performers, and it became clear that he was using this casting site to find LGBTQ+ performers in order to find very specific people for his fetish work. It was only then that it became clear that he was looking for trans folks for his performances, in order to act out his fetish. He kept the information quiet during the talent scouting phase, but specifically sought out individuals under the LGBTQ+ umbrella for sexual reasons only, not actual inclusivity. It was only driven home by the near constant misgendering of his previous performers that he frequently spoke about. He told my partner he was trying to create inclusive media. He spoke at length regarding his obsession and sexual fetish for women with penises. The wording he used was dated at best, and offensive at worst.

There was so much, little pieces that my partner remembers from that day as she recovers, things like how he mentioned stopping people on the street to take pictures of their nails, how he worked with a lot of adult entertainers (and misgendered them frequently), and worryingly, minors. Things that on their own wouldn’t raise eyebrows, but when put together becomes a rather disturbing depiction of a predator.

Had she not been on her toes and aware of the situation, my partner doesn’t doubt that this director would have tried to push her boundaries further. He asked her to sensually touch her chest with her nails, and focused on the importance of the ASMR - or the sound the nails made. She skirted the sexuality as best as she could, keeping things professional until she could leave - not that he had earned professionalism after lying to her, but she was simply trying to get him to remove the nails and contacts as quickly as possible.

Afterwards, he requested an exit interview. Desperate to leave, she wondered if she could film it at home and send it to him. He refused, and added that he would only clip the end of her nails so she could leave if she did this exit interview. When he deemed the interview over, he forced her to behave in a bizarre perky way before he would clip each nail, even when he was told that the force of the nail clipping was painful. What was left behind were jagged, thick acrylic stubs that were still difficult to use, but not as difficult as the full nails.

Now, let it be said, neither of us have any issues with fetish videos. So long as everyone involved consents. However, my partner was utterly unable to consent. She was lied to about the project itself, and everything involved with it. This wasn’t a production team, it was a solitary director with a camera who wanted to film sexual gratification videos. 

And the pay?

Well, the nail technician who applied the nails got a total of $145, including tip.

My partner received $100, and as she left he put in an additional $20 for her to “get the nails removed at a salon”. 

Not only was my partner lied to, but she was then physically kept under this director’s control with the nails and contacts that he made her wear. She was unable to leave, and continuously harassed and asked wildly inappropriate questions by someone who was claiming to be an ally, when in reality, he was a predator. He seeks out LGBTQ+ performers in order to film them for his own sexual exploits under the guise of creating inclusive characters and stories.

The lies are where consent is no longer possible. Because of this, my partner filed a complaint and he was removed from the casting website. That being said, we’re still concerned that he won’t stop at that, and will only move to other spaces. He already admitted to using OnlyFans to find performers, and his open conversation about hiring minors has left it hard to sleep at night. Again, absolutely nothing is wrong with minors in film, but judging by the way that this man refused to be open about the nature of his work, it’s a parallel that I’m uncomfortable just leaving without an attempt to stop it.

Part of the healing process has been going public with this experience. I’m never one to speak on behalf of someone, but writing clearly about your own trauma can be harrowing, which is why I offered to write this on behalf of my partner. 

If this production company continues to hire performers, they need to be transparent with their intentions. Not another human being should feel so manipulated and helpless after being assured that they would be doing something positive for the queer community.

Please share this. Please spread this. Please do not let another individual suffer the way that my partner unfortunately has. The production company is called Exiram Productions. They’re easy enough to find on youtube, but I cannot stress enough that what is available there is not at all any indication of what was actually filmed the day my partner experienced this harassment. His secondary company that he works under is called Were-Creature Videos. That particular production company is what my partner filmed for, but she was originally approached by Exiram Productions, and was given absolutely no indication about the sexual nature of filming.

If you’re in the NYC area, please be careful of this person who is seeking out the queer community in order to fetishize them without their consent.

Happy Pride.

Eat a brick, Alexis. 

[orbemnews]

On the frontline with Britain's new feminists, fighting for women's rights “Did women get the vote by waiting for it to be granted to them?” activist Steph Pike bellowed into a loudspeaker. “No! they fought for it,” she said. “We’ll come back time and time again to fight for our rights. And,” she roared towards lawmakers across the road, “you can’t stop us!” As the crowd cheered, I thought of how lonely Fawcett’s statue seems on calmer days in Westminster, facing down the UK’s still largely male-dominated seat of democracy across the road. The monument to the leading women’s suffragist carries a banner emblazoned with one of her most famous quotes: “Courage calls to courage everywhere.” Until Fawcett’s statue was unveiled here three years ago by, among others, Britain’s second female Prime Minister Theresa May, the green patch outside Parliament had only commemorated men. Yet on a windswept Monday in March, despite Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, this traditional protest site was filled with hundreds of women clutching signs and slogans under Fawcett’s protective gaze. “We demand the proper funding of services that women need and women rely upon every day,” shouted Helen O’Connor, a representative of the UK’s GMB union. “The government has spent billions on this pandemic. My members are health workers and mostly women. Where is the pay rise they deserve — and need — during this pandemic?” she asked. Expectations vs. reality Readers outside Great Britain may wonder where this upswell of resentment has come from in a nation normally known for its mild manners and modern values. As a major world economy, the UK often makes interventions with other countries on human rights, including for women. Women here have had the right to vote for a century, while equal pay legislation has been around for half of that time. Even the UK’s head of state — the Queen — is herself a woman. However, what many British women — of which I am one — will privately concede is that there remains a big difference between the liberties they are awarded in principle and what they can expect in practice in many aspects of their lives — from the right to feel safe on the UK’s streets to the right to expect equal treatment in the workplace. Igniting a national debate This issue came to a head last month after the disappearance of 33-year-old Sarah Everard while walking home from a friend’s house in the peaceful south London suburb of Clapham. The suspect charged with her killing is a serving officer of the UK’s largest police force — London’s Metropolitan Police. Everard’s death prompted an outpouring of grief, culminating in a vigil around a local park bandstand — which the same police force then aggressively broke up, ostensibly because it posed a danger to public health. A review ordered by the Home Secretary vindicated the Met’s handling of the vigil. But to those of us who were there that night, the response, given the occasion, felt decidedly uncomfortable. When scuffles broke out as women were handcuffed a few meters away, my all-female film crew was asked to show credentials five times and urged to move on, almost disrupting our ability to document the events unfolding. It was amid these scenes that Pike and O’Connor met at the vigil. Also there was Alia Butt, a psychotherapist for the UK’s National Health Service. What they all saw prompted them to form a pressure group called “Women Will Not Be Silenced,” under whose banner they spoke at the protest days later next to Fawcett’s statue. “It just ignited a deep-seated anger, which I think we all recognized,” said Pike, speaking in an interview with CNN in April. “This violent culture against women in the UK isn’t new to women, but it’s come on top of years of austerity that has disproportionally affected women,” she said. “I see it in my job as a welfare rights adviser: women who are single mothers may need access to services more, yet those services they need are often the ones being cut.” Butt told CNN she witnesses the effect of this trend every day as well. She’s seeing more and more patients who are younger and younger suffering from the effects of psychological or sexual violence, perpetrated either in person or online. She has even had to change her job to focus solely on minors due to the increased caseload of teenage girls presenting with mental health problems caused by violence against women. “There are so many different forms of violence,” Butt says. “It can also be institutional and economic. The threat of that can have a huge effect on people’s mental health.” For O’Connor, who suffered abuse while growing up in her native Ireland, this is about standing in solidarity with other women who have shared similar experiences, advocating for what they are entitled to. ‘Rape culture’ Since Everard’s death, women across the country have come forward with their stories of daily sexual harassment and mishandled cases of serious sexual assault. There has even been a debate about a pervasive ‘rape culture’ in some of the most elite schools and universities. Women took to the streets again over the Easter weekend to protest police brutality and the need to “police themselves” by avoiding the streets and public transport after dark. At those marches I met Daphne Burt, wearing the pinkest outfit she could find in her wardrobe. Burt claimed she had survived rape, reported it, and never seen the case pursued. Another woman, who did not wish to be named, carried a sign saying she could get more years in jail for protesting during the pandemic than her rapist got for what he did to her. Also among the crowd, thousands strong, was photographer Lily-Rose Butterfield, who said her sexual assault experience had prompted her to tattoo parts of her body to demarcate her “physical boundaries.” She showed me some of them, including a Venus de Milo on her leg. Crime bill What had brought these women together was not the hope of being able to secure more of a say in their country, as Fawcett and her fellow suffragists had done, but a fear they were losing their voice. Everard’s death occurred just as a controversial policing and crime bill began to pass through Parliament — legislation which critics say would curb Britons’ ability to protest and hand more powers to police at a time when they should be facing tougher scrutiny. Covid restrictions mean fines of up to around $14,000 for those found to be organizing or participating in large gatherings, even if the UK courts have ruled that people’s right to protest should be protected. That risk has pushed some of Britain’s more radical feminists underground. “D” would only go by her first initial when we met via video call. An activist for the group called “Sisters Uncut,” which campaigns for the rights of women and non-binary people to live in safety, she is among some of its organizers who now feel compelled to hide their identity. Wearing a mask, hood and glasses, she also sat so far away from the camera it was impossible to tell who she was. “We’ve had to go online to keep our movement going,” she said. “There are real risks to our members for being identified. The fine is a lot of money and we are conscious of the risks of being documented as organizing a protest one maybe two years down the line.” Sisters Uncut have drafted a 10-point “feministo” demanding an overhaul of the UK’s domestic violence services, of its immigration and family courts systems and campaign for more welfare funding to be made available to women and the LGBTQ community. Statues vs. sex offenses The UK’s new crime legislation also contains a clause introducing a maximum 10-year sentence for those who deface a statue. Critics note that, in comparison, the average sentence for rape is just under 10 years. “What message does this send to victims?” Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Labour Member of Parliament for the South London suburb of Streatham, told CNN in an interview in Clapham after coming to pay her respects to a makeshift floral tribute in memory of Everard. “What example does it set of us as a country?” It was while contemplating the irony of Fawcett’s stone likeness being potentially awarded better protections than her flesh and blood sisters, that I noticed something all too familiar. She has been interrupted. Her quote — “Courage calls to courage everywhere” — should also read, “and its voice cannot be denied.” CNN’s Lauren Kent and Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou contributed to this report. Source link Orbem News #Britains #feminists #fighting #Frontline #Rights #womens

[newstechreviews]

In November 2017, the House Intelligence Committee released fake advertisements found on Facebook in the walk up to the 2016 election. As politicians on each side argued over whether the ads changed the election results, the heart of the revelation was way more disturbing. The Russian ads targeted the American public to deepen wounds on divisive issues and spread false information. Facebook said the posts were “ what we saw from these actors was an insidious attempt to drive people apart,” according to Colin Stretch, the general counsel for the company.

In 2020, less than one month before the election, America seems even more divided and deeply fractured after a turbulent year with a deadly pandemic, economic pain, and a chaotic presidency. With many Americans on lockdown, social media has been a vital form of communication — but one that is also driving dangerous conspiracies. From the false QAnon conspiracy, which promotes Trump as the final defense against a “deep state” cabal of Democrats and Hollywood elite who traffic, rape, and cannibalize children, to fake claims that COVID-19 is a hoax, the spread of disinformation on social media is deepening divisions that some fear could lead to a further rise in civil unrest in the coming weeks.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteSigns showing various conspiracy theories at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Convoluted messaging from the White House on these fake theories doesn’t help. During the Oct.15 NBC Town Hall President Donald Trump denied knowing what QAnon was, and then quickly contradicted himself, saying, “What I do know it is they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard but I know nothing about it.”

To combat the spread of false information, on Oct. 15 YouTube announced “efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence.” Facebook also recently said they would ramp up their fight against disinformation, particularly QAnon, by removing pages and groups from the app, but it may not be effective—or it may be too late.

Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, an LA-based photographer originally from England, spent more than a year covering America political rallies and protests he mostly found on Facebook. He began to see the conspiracies manifest themselves through the believers caught in the fervor of misinformation that show the social media platform’s darkest side as a divided reality.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protester with a Pizzagate and QAnon sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Speaking via Zoom, he recalls how it all began.

When did you start noticing conspiracies in the political landscape?

I always had an interest in documenting people with fringe beliefs; it used to be a lot more difficult to find. I started seeing more of it in the real world in 2019, and there’s been a huge explosion of conspiratorial thinking both online and off since COVID started.

We’ve always lived with conspiracies — like the moon landing was fake, or conspiracies around who killed JFK. I think they’ve gotten worse this year because: A, social media makes it easy for people with the same beliefs to connect more easily, and B, everybody is stuck at home, spending all their time on the internet, which makes it easy to fall down these rabbit holes.

It’s also something you see when the world is in turmoil, and things are unstable. People don’t know what they can trust. I think it’s a lot easier for people to cling on to something like QAnon, which is an easily understood—if imaginary—battle between good and evil, than the complicated reality of the world.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteAnti-lockdown rally in Huntington Beach, Calif., May 1, 2020.

Can you tell me about the process of finding conspiracies in the social media landscape?

I’m in a lot of Facebook groups. That’s the only thing I use Facebook for these days. I’ve joined various QAnon, far-right, Three Percenter, and militia Facebook groups. The ‘groups’ tab on Facebook shows a curated newsfeed from the groups you’re in. I use that and Facebook’s events pages to keep up on real world happenings.

Many of the pictures here are from anti-lockdown rallies. But the boundaries between these things have become incredibly blurred. The event might be a Trump Rally, but you’re still going to see a huge anti-lockdown presence and QAnon signs.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protestor’s sign at a rally calling for the reopening of California from coronavirus lockdown measures in Los Angeles, May 24, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA QAnon shirt at a Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Oct. 10, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA anti 5G sign at a pro-Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Aug. 8, 2020.

Do you find it hard to question supporters about Trump?

It can be hard to find common ground with people at these events, because many of them refuse to admit Trump is at fault, no matter how trivial the issue is.

Which is by design. I don’t think Trump cares if he’s seen by people as a liar. He just wants to bring reality into question as much as possible because that’s the most convenient thing for him, ultimately.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtester at a Save Our Children rally in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Sept.r 5, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at an anti-lockdown protest in Downtown Los Angeles, July 13, 2020.

I have a family member who started posting “Save the Children” messages about children being trafficked. They believe this is the biggest story that the media is not reporting. As a reporter, I’m like, human trafficking is an important issue, but this is not the same. It’s hard to have a conversation and not seem uncaring.

Yes, it very difficult to have a critical conversation that’s about a campaign to stop child abuse, because you sound like your pro-child abuse. But the type of human trafficking they’re talking about isn’t really happening in this country. Human trafficking exists and is bad, but the reality is more complex and is often linked to abuse, survival sex work, and homelessness. It’s not what you see in Taken and Rambo 5.

Can you tell me what they say is happening?

They think millions of children are being snatched in grocery stores and parks and sold on the internet for people to sexually abuse or cannibalize. Some believe thousands of children are being kept in underground lairs under Central Park and LA’s Getty Center. But the data does not back that up.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

In your work on Instagram, I’m shocked by someone holding up a sign about Tom Hanks being a pedophile. When you publish that work, I fear the photographs could be removed from the original context. What’s the best way to present this work?

It’s difficult but I sort of think the rules have gone out of the window a little bit. In the past I’d maybe lean toward not wanting to amplify toxic views or give people more attention, but the ‘Tom Hanks is a pedophile’ thing is a huge narrative in the QAnon world, so there are potentially hundreds of thousands of people who think Tom Hanks is murdering children to cannibalize them or has been executed or replaced by a body double. I think it’s important to look at the specifics of what these people believe, rather than speaking generally about “the QAnon conspiracy theory,” because it shows how ridiculous these things are.

I think a lot of media ignores some of the more out-there sides of these conspiracies because they’re worried about amplifying it. Or it’s difficult to use traditional reporting methods to report on them. Like, if you were to approach Tom Hanks for comment on a story about people accusing him of being a cannibal pedophile, he’s probably not going to respond. And that might lend legitimacy to the theory.

I’m hoping the context and the way I take the photos makes it clear that I think many of these things are absurd. I wouldn’t be posting these conspiracies if I felt there was a chance people were seeing my photos and thinking these things were real. I’m, hopefully, not going to post a sign that has some made-up facts about human trafficking that might seem real if you just stumbled across the picture.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protester stands on Tom Hanks’ star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Aug. 22, 2020.

Do you talk to and engage with the people you’re photographing?

Yes. I posted a video recently of a woman I interviewed on Tom Hanks’ star on the Walk of Fame, where she explained that she believes Tom Hanks is killing babies to extract a chemical called adrenochrome, which he uses to keep himself young, and that he’s escaped to Greece to avoid prosecution.

I empathize somewhat. It’s easy to understand how people end up falling for these conspiracies about powerful people if you have Jeffery Epstein and Harvey Weinstein operating in full view of many powerful people, doing a lot of really F-ked up things for years, and that’s true. Is it that much of a stretch to believe that Tom Hanks is killing babies?

What are the other conspiracies that you think are harmful right now?

I’m seeing a lot of anti-Antifa and anti-BLM stuff in the Facebook groups I’m in. “Antifa/BLM riots” are the biggest story on my Facebook right now. If these groups were your main source of information, you would think that the ’94 LA riots have spread across the country and that people are being executed by BLM in the middle of the street. It’s making people extremely scared of these protests, and I think you’re seeing that in the violence that they’re being met with.

These are huge groups that have tens of thousands of members where it’s just a constant feed of those kinds of conspiracies that are met uncritically. A lot of people trust these groups more than they trust mainstream media outlets.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Do you notice Facebook cracking down on this at all?

I think Facebook is mostly dealing with it from a PR perspective. They’ve removed some QAnon groups, but that’s had very little impact on my toxic feed of Facebook groups. The “Save Our Children” groups are still there, “Against Human Trafficking” is still there, which is essentially just QAnon-lite.

I don’t think they have any real interest in stamping out misinformation. That would require a huge investment from them. I don’t think you can use an algorithm to block this stuff. People will find a way around it.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

[/diptyche]

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA man with an anti-antifa sign at a Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Oct. 10, 2020,

[/diptyche]

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteThe group Justice 4 Prince protesting outside the Grammy’s in Downtown Los Angeles, Jan. 26, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteSave Our Children protesters walk past an Arby’s restaurant in Los Angeles, Oct. 10, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA child with a QAnon sign at an anti-lockdown rally in Huntington Beach, Calif., May 1, 2020.

[phooll123]

New top story from Time: A Photographer’s Journey Through the Dangerous New Age of Conspiracies in America

In November 2017, the House Intelligence Committee released fake advertisements found on Facebook in the walk up to the 2016 election. As politicians on each side argued over whether the ads changed the election results, the heart of the revelation was way more disturbing. The Russian ads targeted the American public to deepen wounds on divisive issues and spread false information. Facebook said the posts were “ what we saw from these actors was an insidious attempt to drive people apart,” according to Colin Stretch, the general counsel for the company.

In 2020, less than one month before the election, America seems even more divided and deeply fractured after a turbulent year with a deadly pandemic, economic pain, and a chaotic presidency. With many Americans on lockdown, social media has been a vital form of communication — but one that is also driving dangerous conspiracies. From the false QAnon conspiracy, which promotes Trump as the final defense against a “deep state” cabal of Democrats and Hollywood elite who traffic, rape, and cannibalize children, to fake claims that COVID-19 is a hoax, the spread of disinformation on social media is deepening divisions that some fear could lead to a further rise in civil unrest in the coming weeks.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteSigns showing various conspiracy theories at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Convoluted messaging from the White House on these fake theories doesn’t help. During the Oct.15 NBC Town Hall President Donald Trump denied knowing what QAnon was, and then quickly contradicted himself, saying, “What I do know it is they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard but I know nothing about it.”

To combat the spread of false information, on Oct. 15 YouTube announced “efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence.” Facebook also recently said they would ramp up their fight against disinformation, particularly QAnon, by removing pages and groups from the app, but it may not be effective—or it may be too late.

Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, an LA-based photographer originally from England, spent more than a year covering America political rallies and protests he mostly found on Facebook. He began to see the conspiracies manifest themselves through the believers caught in the fervor of misinformation that show the social media platform’s darkest side as a divided reality.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protester with a Pizzagate and QAnon sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Speaking via Zoom, he recalls how it all began.

When did you start noticing conspiracies in the political landscape?

I always had an interest in documenting people with fringe beliefs; it used to be a lot more difficult to find. I started seeing more of it in the real world in 2019, and there’s been a huge explosion of conspiratorial thinking both online and off since COVID started.

We’ve always lived with conspiracies — like the moon landing was fake, or conspiracies around who killed JFK. I think they’ve gotten worse this year because: A, social media makes it easy for people with the same beliefs to connect more easily, and B, everybody is stuck at home, spending all their time on the internet, which makes it easy to fall down these rabbit holes.

It’s also something you see when the world is in turmoil, and things are unstable. People don’t know what they can trust. I think it’s a lot easier for people to cling on to something like QAnon, which is an easily understood—if imaginary—battle between good and evil, than the complicated reality of the world.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteAnti-lockdown rally in Huntington Beach, Calif., May 1, 2020.

Can you tell me about the process of finding conspiracies in the social media landscape?

I’m in a lot of Facebook groups. That’s the only thing I use Facebook for these days. I’ve joined various QAnon, far-right, Three Percenter, and militia Facebook groups. The ‘groups’ tab on Facebook shows a curated newsfeed from the groups you’re in. I use that and Facebook’s events pages to keep up on real world happenings.

Many of the pictures here are from anti-lockdown rallies. But the boundaries between these things have become incredibly blurred. The event might be a Trump Rally, but you’re still going to see a huge anti-lockdown presence and QAnon signs.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protestor’s sign at a rally calling for the reopening of California from coronavirus lockdown measures in Los Angeles, May 24, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA QAnon shirt at a Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Oct. 10, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA anti 5G sign at a pro-Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Aug. 8, 2020.

Do you find it hard to question supporters about Trump?

It can be hard to find common ground with people at these events, because many of them refuse to admit Trump is at fault, no matter how trivial the issue is.

Which is by design. I don’t think Trump cares if he’s seen by people as a liar. He just wants to bring reality into question as much as possible because that’s the most convenient thing for him, ultimately.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtester at a Save Our Children rally in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Sept.r 5, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at an anti-lockdown protest in Downtown Los Angeles, July 13, 2020.

I have a family member who started posting “Save the Children” messages about children being trafficked. They believe this is the biggest story that the media is not reporting. As a reporter, I’m like, human trafficking is an important issue, but this is not the same. It’s hard to have a conversation and not seem uncaring.

Yes, it very difficult to have a critical conversation that’s about a campaign to stop child abuse, because you sound like your pro-child abuse. But the type of human trafficking they’re talking about isn’t really happening in this country. Human trafficking exists and is bad, but the reality is more complex and is often linked to abuse, survival sex work, and homelessness. It’s not what you see in Taken and Rambo 5.

Can you tell me what they say is happening?

They think millions of children are being snatched in grocery stores and parks and sold on the internet for people to sexually abuse or cannibalize. Some believe thousands of children are being kept in underground lairs under Central Park and LA’s Getty Center. But the data does not back that up.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

In your work on Instagram, I’m shocked by someone holding up a sign about Tom Hanks being a pedophile. When you publish that work, I fear the photographs could be removed from the original context. What’s the best way to present this work?

It’s difficult but I sort of think the rules have gone out of the window a little bit. In the past I’d maybe lean toward not wanting to amplify toxic views or give people more attention, but the ‘Tom Hanks is a pedophile’ thing is a huge narrative in the QAnon world, so there are potentially hundreds of thousands of people who think Tom Hanks is murdering children to cannibalize them or has been executed or replaced by a body double. I think it’s important to look at the specifics of what these people believe, rather than speaking generally about “the QAnon conspiracy theory,” because it shows how ridiculous these things are.

I think a lot of media ignores some of the more out-there sides of these conspiracies because they’re worried about amplifying it. Or it’s difficult to use traditional reporting methods to report on them. Like, if you were to approach Tom Hanks for comment on a story about people accusing him of being a cannibal pedophile, he’s probably not going to respond. And that might lend legitimacy to the theory.

I’m hoping the context and the way I take the photos makes it clear that I think many of these things are absurd. I wouldn’t be posting these conspiracies if I felt there was a chance people were seeing my photos and thinking these things were real. I’m, hopefully, not going to post a sign that has some made-up facts about human trafficking that might seem real if you just stumbled across the picture.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA protester stands on Tom Hanks’ star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Aug. 22, 2020.

Do you talk to and engage with the people you’re photographing?

Yes. I posted a video recently of a woman I interviewed on Tom Hanks’ star on the Walk of Fame, where she explained that she believes Tom Hanks is killing babies to extract a chemical called adrenochrome, which he uses to keep himself young, and that he’s escaped to Greece to avoid prosecution.

I empathize somewhat. It’s easy to understand how people end up falling for these conspiracies about powerful people if you have Jeffery Epstein and Harvey Weinstein operating in full view of many powerful people, doing a lot of really F-ked up things for years, and that’s true. Is it that much of a stretch to believe that Tom Hanks is killing babies?

What are the other conspiracies that you think are harmful right now?

I’m seeing a lot of anti-Antifa and anti-BLM stuff in the Facebook groups I’m in. “Antifa/BLM riots” are the biggest story on my Facebook right now. If these groups were your main source of information, you would think that the ’94 LA riots have spread across the country and that people are being executed by BLM in the middle of the street. It’s making people extremely scared of these protests, and I think you’re seeing that in the violence that they’re being met with.

These are huge groups that have tens of thousands of members where it’s just a constant feed of those kinds of conspiracies that are met uncritically. A lot of people trust these groups more than they trust mainstream media outlets.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA sign at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Do you notice Facebook cracking down on this at all?

I think Facebook is mostly dealing with it from a PR perspective. They’ve removed some QAnon groups, but that’s had very little impact on my toxic feed of Facebook groups. The “Save Our Children” groups are still there, “Against Human Trafficking” is still there, which is essentially just QAnon-lite.

I don’t think they have any real interest in stamping out misinformation. That would require a huge investment from them. I don’t think you can use an algorithm to block this stuff. People will find a way around it.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteProtesters at a Save Our Children rally in Los Angeles, Aug. 22, 2020.

[/diptyche]

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA man with an anti-antifa sign at a Trump rally in Beverly Hills, Calif., Oct. 10, 2020,

[/diptyche]

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteThe group Justice 4 Prince protesting outside the Grammy’s in Downtown Los Angeles, Jan. 26, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteSave Our Children protesters walk past an Arby’s restaurant in Los Angeles, Oct. 10, 2020.

Jamie Lee Curtis TaeteA child with a QAnon sign at an anti-lockdown rally in Huntington Beach, Calif., May 1, 2020.

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