#or subject to all sorts of it and ed raids

[coquettesamosa]

also it just gets to me how the govt is leveraging india's general (past) 'perception' as a secular democracy to build up goodwill and a good reputation for itself externally while it's doing everything thing it can to stifle democracy internally

[queerlennon]

Lesley-Ann Jones Is Untrustworthy

So I’ve seen some people in the fandom reading and citing Lesley-Ann Jones’ biography The Search For John Lennon recently and to be honest it’s concerning to me. Lesley Ann Jones has proved in the past to be an extremely untrustworthy source for info about the people she writes about. I understand that it’s exciting to have a book about John that’s not written by the typical “Lennon biographer” type (aka an ageing straight man) and for said book to also promise to shed light and focus on his bisexuality but, if we’re going to analyse John respectfully and accurately, it’s important to identify sources that are biased and untrustworthy, even if they’re technically within our favour. Especially when it relates to his queerness. And seeing as LAJ doesn’t have the best record when it comes to writing about rockstars’ sexualities in a respectful manner, it’s best to treat her words with caution.

Info about exactly how she’s a bad source is under the cut

Firstly, it's key to talk about LAJ's journalistic background when discussing what sort of writer she is: she's worked for papers such as The Sun, The Daily Mail, and The Mail On Sunday. Essentially, the bulk of her work has been for tabloids and traditionally the writing style for those kinds of publications place an emphasis on sensationalism and gossip. Now obviously that doesn’t discredit her work immediately, authors are usually able to write in more than one style so it doesn’t necessarily mean the tabloid style is going to carry over to her biographies; but it’s good to keep in mind when discussing and analysing the legitimacy of the narratives she creates and the stories she recounts in her work. 

LAJ has received criticism in the past, particularly from the queen fandom of often overexaggerating, or just straight presenting false information in her bios about Freddie Mercury. She is the champion of the claim that Freddie was bisexual and not gay. Her evidence for this is over-exaggerating and (seemingly intentionally) misinterpreting the nature of the relationship between Freddie and his friend, Barbara Valentin. LAJ claimed that the two had a relationship and even lived together:

“Barbara was very open with me about the sexual relationship she had with Freddie.”

(x)

(x)

However, no-one in Freddie’s life has ever corroborated that Freddie and Barbara were anything but friends. As for the claim they lived together, according to Peter Freestone, an extremely close friend of Freddie’s:

In the event, Freddie never actually lived there although Barbara fulfilled a huge role in Freddie’s life at that time... Freddie became very disillusioned when with more and more frequency articles were appearing in the German press’s gossip columns... about the relationship between him and Barbara... After one article claiming to have knowledge of him and Barbara getting married, Freddie... concluded that it could only be Barbara who was providing the information.

(x)

This exaggeration of their relationship and the insistence LAJ has on presenting Freddie as bi because of it has attracted criticism from queen fans for obvious reasons. For one, it’s borderline homophobic to essentially lie about a gay man having a relationship with a woman while downplaying his relationships with men. No, she’s not portraying him as a straight man, however it’s still erasure of the specific struggles Freddie would’ve faced being a gay man in his time, therefore those who want to analyse him would be missing some of the picture when trying to understand him and his life

LAJ’s research methods are also... questionable. This is a post from Crystal Taylor (one of Roger Taylor’s roadies) about her methods for her David Bowie bio which, if to be believed is particularly concerning.

(x)

LAJ is also known to greatly exaggerate her own relationships with her subjects. She often claims to have been friends with the people she writes bios about (coincidently the people she does this with are dead.) Back in the day she would meet with artists while on tour so the idea is convincing enough. However besides her word there’s nothing to suggest that she had close friendships with Freddie or Bowie, two people she claimed to be good friends with. There’s also this comment from Brian May which actually goes against the idea that she was close with Freddie:

(x)

So with all of this in mind, let’s look at the quote from The Search For John Lennon that’s been circulating around Beatles tumblr:

That Bowie worshipped Lennon is no secret. He'd banged on about it often enough. The ex-Beatle had gone to his hedonism. They'd met in Los Angeles, during John's Lost Weekend. I lunched from time to time with David in New York while working there as a music journalist, before he married Iman. He lent me his house in Mustique, to write the first draft of my first biography on Freddie Mercury.

The crazy pair went out to play, according to David, when John was on yet another break from May and far away from Yoko. They genderbender-ed about, John indulging again that 'inner fag' of his. What larks.

They later 'hooked up': 'There was a whore in the middle, and it wasn't either of us,' David smirked. 'At some point in proceedings, she left. I think it was a she. Not that we minded.' By the time they made it back to New York, the ambisextrous pair were 'lifelong friends'.

I’m suspicious of this story for several reasons but first I want to make it clear that none of them have to do with John having sex with men or being bisexual. I’m a very firm believer of John’s bisexuality (my username is literally queerlennon lmao) but once again I think it’s good to examine the legitimacy of sources, even when they favour our position.

Firstly, LAJ’s source for this story is the claim that David told her, which considering I can’t find any info about them being friends besides her word, combined with the fact that she’s lied about having close relationships in the past raises a lot of flags.

But even if we assume LAJ isn’t lying and did know Bowie, the quote is still suspect, particularly the line “John was on yet another break from May and far away from Yoko.” According to May in her book Loving John, her and John had only one break from their relationship (the phrase “yet another break” implies multiple) that lasted a week, and for the entirety of that week, John was with Yoko. (x)

Finally, the language LAJ uses to describe John and David’s sexualities not only puts me on edge but very much makes me question her intention. Phrases like “the genderbender-ed about,” “indulged his ‘inner fag,’” and “ambisextrous,” all come across to me as fetishisation. Bisexuality is already very highly fetishised and sexualised and LAJ is most definitely not concerned with deviating from that representation. That phrasing combined with the way she also discusses Freddie’s sexuality, where she’s alleged highly sexualised claims about him having threesomes:

And quite often that involved other people as well. Other men, other women. There would be a number of them in the bedroom at any given time. In fact they were raided by the police once and the police stormed in and they found more people than they were expecting to find in the bed that morning.

(x)

— leads me to believe that LAJ is an author less concerned with exploring John’s sexuality as apart of his life, something that made him who he was, and more concerned with including details about “bisexual threesomes” as shock value, as a sensational point she can use to to promote her book in press tours and interviews. Like a tabloid writer. And this sort disrespect representation of John’s queerness, imo isn’t that much better than the biographers who dismiss or underplay it. I totally understand that for a lot of us, finding out new info about John’s queer identity is exciting, especially for those of us who are queer and identify with a lot with John for that reason, myself included. But we shouldn’t be giving credence and legitimacy to someone who firstly, isn’t trustworthy and secondly who’s reason for talking about it is gross and exploitative at best and biphobic at worst.

tl;dr, LAJ is an incredibly untrustworthy source of info and in her own over exaggerations, treats discussions of queerness in an extremely problematic and exploitive way so please take anything you read from her with a massive grain of salt.

[an-dromedia]

if regulus black was the potions professor instead of snape

some of my headcanons if regulus was the potions professor instead of snape because i can't sleep. please give credit and tag me if you use/take inspiration from these. i’d like so see what you create :)

after coming back from the cave, he decided to talk to dumbledore for help

dumbledore offers regulus the position as a spy and the potions position when it becomes available

surprise. it became available

everyone was a bit doubtful when regulus first started working there

even though he was also head of house for slytherin, the younger slytherins were doubtful

after his first year, the students and staff start to like him

he’s gentle and kind while also being strict and determined 

every year, when first years get scared to go to potions because they know about the blacks and how the entire family is crazy and dark, the older years help them

the students learn that he isn't like his family at all and he easily becomes one of their favorite professors 

his door is always open for students to ask questions

students start to come to him when they’re having problems with their homework

after a while, students come just to read in silence or to play a game of chess and his room becomes a comfortable place to hang out and regulus accepts it

when students get assigned detention from regulus, they always end up sitting in the room to work on their homework, because even if they did something bad, regulus doesn’t feel right taking away their time

whenever he’s on night patrol and finds a student alone because they can't sleep, he sits next to them by a window and points out different constellations and stories about the stars until they fall asleep and he takes them to their common room, lays them on the couch with a blanket

sooner or later, one student comes in when they don't want to go home because of their parents or guardians and regulus works out an agreement with dumbledore 

any student that doesn't feel safe at home will stay with regulus at grimmauld place under the guise of summer school

when the agreement first becomes knowledge to students, only three students come up to him asking if they could join him

the next year, he brings home nine students

regulus is just as nice at home as he is at school

he never forces students to do anything, just occasionally points them in the right direction

he always has food out for them and never denies them their human rights like food, a bed, the bathroom, clothes, etc.

when 1991 comes around, he notices his brothers godson and his cousins son

he can tell harry was or is being abused by the state of his clothes on the weekends, his lack of hunger and his smaller form than the other kids

so, like he does every year, he announces in his classes his home away from home for kids who don't feel safe at home (which he later names GHOUL, grimmaulds home for unsafe learners)

at the end of the year, young harry potter comes up to him and asks if he can join ghoul. regulus, of course, lets him.

he helps harry get through his past abuse, like he does with the other students there

he tells harry stories about his family. he tells harry that he has a godfather who is in azkaban and is the reason his parents are dead

that summer, he has harry, adrian pucey, a slytherin who would be going into his fourth year, kenneth towler, a gryffindor also going into his fourth year, katie bell, a gryffindor going into her third year, elora dunn, a coming fifth year in hufflepuff and nicholas grimmett, a ravenclaw going into his sixth year at his home

when harry comes to him saying he can hear someone speaking in the walls, regulus doesn't know what to tell him, besides that he should come to him if he hears it again and what it says. spoiler: harry comes back again

when the dueling/parseltongue incident happened, regulus spent around twenty minutes telling harry it was okay, and that parsel was a trait in the potter family that most forgot about

regulus is extremely worried when harry goes to the chamber of secrets

when he comes back up, regulus gives him the biggest hug when harry starts crying about how voldemort was ruining his life

that year, the same six students come home with him, plus amelie ellis and her twin brother milo ellis, coming second years in ravenclaw and hufflepuff respectively

sirius black escapes azkaban. students immediately look at him when its announced by dumbledore at the opening feast

remus lupin watches him warily the first couple days. after that, they become friends of sorts

when his dear brother shows up, regulus feels guilty for not pushing for sirius to get his trial

regulus, having a brain and all, ties peter pettigrew up and turns him into the ministry

after that, sirius joins the kids at grimmauld after being declared a free man and cleared by mindhealers

ghoul now extended to younger students now that sirius was home all the time. the ellis twins bring their younger sister, freya. adrian pucey brings his baby brother elijah. kenneth towlers brings his sister renee.

nicholas grimmett leaves the house now that he graduated, but promises to write. regulus reminds him that ghoul was open for him whenever he’d like.

harry potter’s name gets called out of the goblet of fire. regulus blacks heart sinks. he can tell that his other ghoul students hearts also sink. they had become family and he can't let family get hurt

he does everything he can to get harry not to compete, but to no avail

regulus helps harry as much as he can

the yule ball comes around and regulus encourages harry to ask who he wanted to ask. harry says he can't. he ends up asking luna lovegood, a third year ravenclaw who harry had become close to during a late night excursion (regulus had caught harry telling luna about the stars when she couldn't sleep like regulus does to him)

the end of the tournament comes quickly and harry comes with cedric diggorys body

regulus consoles harry while telling him it wasn't his fault

when harry came to regulus the next year after detention with umbridge, regulus has a fit

if the ministry was allowing this, they were in dire need of a new minister. regulus goes to the goblins instead

the goblins arrest umbridge for possessing illegal goblin property.

regulus ends up doubling positions and teaches potions and dada (its hard, but the students know he's trying his best and help him wherever they can)

draco malfoy tells regulus that his father was joining a raid to find the prophecy and that voldemort was planning to send harry a fake vision of sirius black being held by death eaters. regulus tells harry and harry ignores it when it happens

no one goes to the department of mysteries besides death eaters

draco malfoy comes to him again at the end of the year and tells him that his father wants him to take the dark mark. if his father can't find him, theres no dark mark. draco joins ghoul. draco isn't the only student that ends up joining them after their parents told them they were going to get the dark mark over the summer

the next dada teacher isn't terrible, but also not excellent like remus lupin was

dumbledore tries to get harry to go find a horcurx with him but regulus informs him that he already found that horcrux and it was destroyed by the goblins

when harry tells regulus and sirius that he and hermione and ron have to go look for horcruxes, the brothers are devastated. it was a dangerous mission. regulus gives harry a two-way journal in which harry and regulus could write to each other. harry gives him the longest hug before he leaves

when voldemort calls all of his followers on the day of may 2nd, regulus ignores the call. he was in excruciating pain but poppy casts a numbing spell on his arm. it helps, but he can still feel the pain

when regulus walked into the great hall for the first time since chaos broke, he was heartbroken to see the dead bodies. he could see a circle of his ghoul students so he walked over to them, only to with he didn't. kenneth towler laid dead. amelie ellis was sobbing uncontrollably, saying he was dead because of her. once he calmed her down, she explained though broken sobs that he had jumped in front of an AK for her. the poor boy wasn't even a student anymore. he only came back to fight. the boy was well on his way to a potions mastery because regulus had helped him develop his love for the subject. regulus comforted all of his children while he could

regulus cried when harry told him he was going to the forest to meet dumbledore

when hagrid comes back carrying harrys limp body, it takes everything regulus has got to not drop to the ground sobbing. his children were next to him and he needed to protect them, no matter what it took.

when harry jumped out of hagrid’s arms, regulus was so relieved. draco jumped out and gave harry his wand.

when it was all said and done, none of his other children died. regulus had jumped in front of crucios, hexes, jinxes, curses, all to make sure none of his children were hurt

when regulus and his children returned back home, they were greeted by sirius and the younger children who's siblings had brought them there or just any of the younger hogwarts students who hadn't wanted to fight, regulus had sent them here.

regulus sat with each one of his kids to talk about what they went through and if they needed help.

in an empty journal, he started to kept track of all of his students. starting with his first student, lucas mitchell, the ravenclaw who started it all to his most recent, stella chapman a young slytherin. he also kept track of what his graduated students were up to like lucas mitchell who was studying to become a healer. the journal was available to everyone who wanted to see it. as of may 2nd, 1998, he had had a total of 56 students that call(ed) grimmauld their home. 

over the summer, regulus invited all of his current and graduated ghoul students to a party of sorts. before dinner, regulus announced the passing of kenneth towlers to those who didn't know. he said that he knew it was hard for them, the ghoul students had grown to be brothers and sisters, but they would always be there for each other and that ghouls door were always open to them

harrys year had the option to come back to finish their newts. harry chose to go back, along with most of his year. their classes were merged with the current seventh years as they were studying the same material

during the first month of the year, regulus learned who harry had wanted to ask to the yule ball but couldn't. draco malfoy. harry came up to him all nervous and anxious and told him he was gay and dating draco. regulus had smiled and congratulated him. he told him he was so proud of him for telling him. harry smiled and hugged him, all while thanking him for accepting him

when harry graduated, him and his ghoul students (ghoulies as they now called themselves) cheered the loudest.

harry came up to him after and told him he was going to become a defense against the dark arts professor now that the curse was lifted and that he wanted to help out with ghoul. regulus told him he would always be welcome to help the ghoulies. 

draco then came up and asked to be his apprentice because he wanted to be a potions master like regulus. normally, future potions masters didn't have to have an apprenticeship, but draco said he wanted to because he wanted to help with ghoul while working. regulus accepted him as his apprentice

when the years passed, regulus was named headmaster once dumbledore and mcgonagall left and draco was named potions professor and head of slytherin house. now they had professor black, the potions teacher and headmaster black. draco had taken on his mothers maiden name when his father was condemned to azkaban (but he was going to change it to potter when he and harry got married)

regulus retired when he was 97, dedicating his time to ghoul. neville longbottom took up the place of headmaster and harry the place of head of gryffindor

ghoul was officially known throughout the wizarding world and regulus went down in wizarding history to have had the first ever home for unsafe wizarding children. it was still the only house in wizarding england

when regulus finally passed away, he saw james and lily potter who thanked him for taking care of their little boy and being a father to him. after that, he saw kenneth towlers and elora dunn who had died in the middle of an explosion in 2016 during one of her auror missions. they both thanked him profusely.

many, many, many years passed and regulus finally saw harry again. harry had had a baby boy with draco who they named scorpius regulus potter. they had also had a girl, lily narcissa potter. a year later, regulus saw draco again.

ghoul was still running after regulus and sirius’ passing. first by the potters, then renee towlers, then by the potter siblings, scorpius and lily who were the current heads of ghoul. teddy lupin, the current hogwarts headmaster after neville longbottom, lets them come in on the first day of school and everyday for the last week of school to remind them that ghoul was there for them. for when scorpius or lily weren't around, there was a sheet in the great hall, the library, the room of requirement and each of the common rooms for the students if they chose to go to ghoul.

and not once did severus snape ever do something as caring for the students as regulus black would've done

let me know if you want a whole fic on this :)

ao3: asgardixn | wattpad: asgradixn

update: this is now being turned into a fic on ao3 and wattpad.

[tessatechaitea]

Darkstars #5

What happens when two guys clash, each thinking they're the ultimate authority for good and each believes violence is the best solution to a problem? We'll find out this issue!

I didn't know hawks were angry assholes but I'm assuming Hawkman is the personification of a hawk's personality so it must be true. I also didn't know spiders were mild-mannered. Or guys were misogynist, short-tempered jerk-offs (you know, like Guy Gardner). I've learned a lot from comic books! I just looked over the cover again and I think it might be on my Top Ten Sexiest Comic Book Covers of All Time. Mostly it's due to the way it looks like Detective Crumbstache and Hawkman look like they're furiously trying to jerk each other off and the way Hawkwoman double grips that crossbow the way she'd not have to double grip my cock.

How come I never read Modesty Blaise? It was about two whole things, one of which I really enjoy!

The cover of this issue just got even sexier if you consider the inside advert as part of the cover which I do because look at the way Modesty is sucking off that gun. I bet I was planning on buying Modesty Blaise but then I jerked off over this advert, fell immediately asleep on top of the comic, and woke up later having forgotten all about it. It's the exact same reason I never read Warlord. Now I want to make this advert into a sign to protest the police. It should really confuse them! This issue is called "Slaves and Other Prisoners." If one of the "R"s in "prisoners" was a "B", it would be an anagram for pissboner. A better writer probably would have written about the problematic casual use of the word slaves in the American vernacular. "Vernacular" is an anagram for "anal curver." A couple of aliens have arrived in Earth's orbit to pick up Evil Star and his Starlings and transport them to Galactic Prison. They treat Evil Star like shit and Darkstar is all, "Whoa, my dudes! Chill out, man! Don't make me have to raise my voice! We're all cool here. No need for negative vibes!" Man, I really misjudged Darkstar Colos when I began reading this comic book. He's actually a decent cop. But then again, his story is the exact story of any cop that tries to be decent in a corrupt system that fetishizes violence, power, and respect. He's been shoved off to a backwater planet that's so far out of the Controller's sphere of influence that they've already questioned the leader of the Darkstars as to the need for space cops so far afield. Colos was trouble and he was acting better than the other cops so he got sent off to where he can't cause any problems. Weird to think that the phrase "can't cause any problems" in police lingo actually means "improves the system and works toward justice and accountability." Detective Chicago-head gets put on the Carla White kidnapping case. The cops don't actually know she's been kidnapped but they suspect Pappas, the Loco kingpin, took her against her will. But Detective Two-Sausages-One-Bun pretends he's been on a drinking jag and isn't in his right mind to lead a raid on Pappas's warehouse. That's because he wants to raid the place himself in his Darkstars Sidekick outfit. Once again, he's proving that he's a terrible cop (aka a status quo, regular, run-of-the-mill police). Detective Two-Sizes-Too-Big-Head had better hurry with the rescue mission because Carla White is currently being sold into the space sex slave trade. I was going to make a joke earlier about her being sold into the alien sex slave trade but then I thought better of it, realizing that just putting "space" in front of "sex slave trade" didn't rise to an appropriate level of satire that would justify making light of sex slavery. I did add the word "space" to sex slave trade at the beginning of this paragraph but it wasn't for a joke; it was just stating the facts of this comic book. Look, we all read the title! We all knew where this story was headed but I wasn't brave enough to broach the subject earlier. I just said that stupid thing about an nearly correct anagram and moved on. Oh, by the way, when Carla White hears she's going to be sold into sex slavery, she's all, "I'm not going to be the property of some Middle East sheikh!" Seems a little racist to me. I bet she felt dumb (and racist) when she found out she was being sold to aliens and not Arabs.

Is this why conservatives don't have any morals or ethics? Because they think if they acted on those things, they'd get sold into the space sex slave trade?

Since I've added "space" to the phrase "sex slave trade," I can probably call it hyperbole and satire when I write something like, "Boy! I sure wish all conservatives would get sold into the space sex slave trade!"

Actually, yes, Detective Mustached-Rumproast, that's exactly what you were supposed to do.

It's not the cop's job to become judge and jury because they don't trust the judge and jury will do their job. If that's why cops kill people then I think it means citizens are allowed to kill cops if we don't believe they'll do their job? Am I using logic correctly? I'm just a stupid libturd so I wouldn't know logic if it constantly @ed me on Twitter demanding that I debate it. Flint (that's the name of Detective Sausage-fingers. I learned his name because I've run out of different types of meat to compare his fat head to) breaks into Pappas's space sex slave trade warehouse where the ship is nearly fully loaded with slaves for space sex. But instead of battling the space sex slave traders and saving the day, he starts a fight with Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Where rock has this guy's pink, salty ham-head been stuck under his entire life? He doesn't recognize the good heroes of the DC Universe?! I wonder if Stan Lee had ever considered a law suit against every comic book that had two different heroes mistakenly battle each other before they realized their error and teamed up? It's so recognizably a Marvel idea that I would have awarded Stan Lee all the money. Unless the idea is actually from The Bible? I mean Cain and Abel almost pulled that trick except Abel just wound up being too much of a loser to survive to the team up part. During the confusion of the violent good guys fighting the other violent good guys, the rocket with the space sex slaves takes off. Hopefully Hawkman and Detective Flint will learn a lesson from this incident. Maybe suss out the situation before beating everybody you see to a bloody pulp. Darkstars #5 Rating: B. The Hawklovers were only in this issue for a couple of pages which is fine by me but probably not ideal for all the Hawklover fans who purchased this book because they were on the cover. I'm sure the next issue will feature more Hawklover action. I'm also sort of hoping that Carla White has now been launched into space and won't be rescued. She'll just turn up in a spin-off series called Space Sex Slave Traders. Obviously that never happened but now that I put the idea out there, maybe it did happen in another, better, sexier timeline.

[radarsteddybear]

Whump Challenge Day 10

Is there any old whump you particularly enjoy? (say, pre 2000?)

You guys know me—the answer is a resounding “yes.”  Let’s see if I can think of some highlights (with a little bit of commentary here and there)…

Star Trek: “The Empath”

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy end up getting tortured by one species of aliens so they can test a single subject from another to see if she’ll use her empathic abilities to heal their injuries; if she does, they’ll save her people from the destruction of her planet. In addition to the torture, this episode also has Dr. McCoy sedate Kirk and Spock to make sure he’s the one to get the worst of the torture. A+

Star Trek: Voyager: “The Chute”

Tom Paris and Harry Kim are put in this crazy prison where there are no guards, not quite enough resources to go around, and no way out. Bonus: the jailers put devices in all the prisoners’ heads to increase their levels of aggression so that they can’t work together to build any sort of cooperative system and must suffer instead. So in addition to the usual fights and stabbings and whatnot you would expect to come out of such a situation, you also get Harry, who’s Mr. Straight-Laced Goody-Two-Shoes, completely unequipped to deal with the aggression, and Tom, who’s served actual jail time, being the one who can actually set aside his emotions to get through this. Until Tom gets stabbed and, in a moment of delirium/madness, destroys some escape device Harry’s been building, and Harry comes closer to killing him than he’s ever come close to killing anybody ever before, which, as you can imagine, causes a lot of guilt. I also see this episode as being a positive turning point in their friendship, but that's a post for another day.

The Flash (1990): “Sight Unseen”

GOD I wish this show had more whump. There was plenty of space for it—I mean, it’s a superhero show, there’s danger EVERYWHERE—and Barry and Tina’s relationship is perfect for worrying about each other. You definitely get a lot of that in this episode, where Tina and her boss are trapped in STAR Labs after some toxic substance has been released. The boss is irrelevant here—Barry’s worry for Tina as he works to get her safely out of there (with a couple of big obstacles standing in his way) is great.

M*A*S*H: “Mad Dogs and Service Men,” “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.”

And others; I mean, you don’t go 11 seasons of a show that takes place in a military hospital in a war zone without whump (of course, a lot of it is of the more poignant variety, and a lot of it happens to one-off patient characters). But these are the two that come to mind.

Ironside: “Five Days in the Death of Sgt. Brown”

Look—Detective Sgt. Ed Brown is, by far, the most boring character on this show. BUT. Throw him off a however-many-story balcony? Good stuff.

Lois & Clark: “The Green Green Glow of Home,” etc.

This episode marks the first appearance of kryptonite in this show, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, each subsequent appearance has a decreasing effect as Clark builds up some measure of tolerance to it, but its first appearance is 🔥

Colditz has some good moments 👌

Hogan’s Heroes: “That’s No Lady, That’s My Spy”

The Rat Patrol: “The Truce at Aburah Raid,” “The David and Goliath Raid,” “The Kill or Be Killed Raid,” “The Two If By Sea Raid.”  There’s definitely a whole bunch that I’m missing.  It’s been a while.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: “The Quadripartite Affair,” “The Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum Affair,” “The Come with Me to the Casbah Affair,” “The Nowhere Affair,” “The Foxes and Hounds Affair,” “The Children’s Day Affair,” “The See Paris and Die Affair,” etc.

The Wild Wild West: “The Night of the Murderous Spring,” “The Night of the Lord of Limbo,” “The Night of the Death Masks,” “The Night of the Amnesiac,” “The Night of the Simian Terror”

The Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes has some good moments

Rawhide: “Incident of the Town in Terror”

The Outsiders.  Oh, to be 13-year-old me, reading The Outsiders for the first time again.

That’s all I can think of for now.  There’s definitely more; it’s just been a while since I’ve watched a lot of those shows.

(See the full challenge here)

[brokehorrorfan]

Best New Horror Movies on Netflix: Winter 2018

There’s an overwhelming amount of horror films and TV shows to sift through on Netflix, so I’ve decided to take out some of the legwork by compiling a list of the season’s best new genre titles available on Netflix’s instant streaming service.

Please feel free to leave a comment with any I may have missed and share your thoughts on the films you watch. You can also peruse past installments of Best New Horror Moves on Netflix for more suggestions.

1. The Haunting of Hill House

The Haunting of Hill House is, quite simply, some of the best long-form horror storytelling of all time. Based on - but not a strict adaptation of - Shirley Jackson's influential gothic horror novel of the same name, the series is created and directed by Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil). Told through two timelines, with clever transitions between the past and present, the story concerns five siblings and how an alleged haunting they experienced as kids affects them as adults. The cast includes Henry Thomas (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Carla Gugino (Watchmen), Michiel Huisman (Treme), Elizabeth Reaser (Ouija: Origin of Evil), Kate Siegel (Hush), Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People), and Lulu Wilson (Annabelle: Creation). It is admirably character-driven, which makes the horror elements hit even harder, and a spooky atmosphere is present throughout all 10 episodes.

2. Green Room

Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier achieves the impossible by matching - and perhaps even surpassing - the unbridled intensity of his previous film, Blue Ruin, with Green Room. The exercise in white-knuckle suspense finds a scrappy punk band trapped in a skinhead club after unwittingly walking in on a crime. The late Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) delivers one of the best performances of his tragically short career as the de facto leader of the band. In a bit of inspired casting, Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) is chilling as the conniving, white supremacist venue owner. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Joe Cole (Skins), and Callum Turner (Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald) round out the band, while Imogen Poots (28 Weeks Later) is also wrapped up in the brutal fight for survival. Akin to Don't Breathe, the tension on screen is enough to induce anxiety, and Saulnier nails the punk rock DIY spirit to boot.

3. Cam

Cam stars Madeline Brewer (The Handmaid's Tale) as a cam girl - one who performs pornographic acts live on camera for paying viewers - who is desperate to gain popularity. Produced by Blumhouse, this is not your typical "seedy underbelly of the sex industry" movie, although there is some of that; instead, it goes in a refreshing, unpredictable direction. Reminiscent of a neon-soaked episode of Black Mirror, Cam is a suspenseful and compelling mystery-thriller with a sci-fi twist and horror undertones. Brewer is spectacular in her fearless performance, while director Daniel Goldhaber makes a powerful feature debut.

4. The Night Comes for Us

The Night Comes for Us is an unrelenting action thriller in the vein of The Raid, John Wick, and Dredd. In fact, the Indonesian film reunites The Raid's Joe Taslim and Iko Uwais. Taslim leads as a man who goes rogue from a dangerous crime syndicate. A variety of deadly individuals (Uwais among them) are out to get him, but he has some tough allies as well. It all culminates in an incredible final battle in which the viewer feels every blow. The blend of brutal, graphic violence and impressively choreographed fight scenes is written and directed by by Timo Tjahjanto (whose V/H/S/2 segment is a highlight of the franchise).

5. Apostle

Forget that Nicolas Cage abomination; Apostle is the Wicker Man reboot we deserve. The Netflix original film is reminiscent of the 1973 occult horror classic not only in plot but also in tone, style, and pacing. Set in 1905 London, a feral Dan Stevens (The Guest) stars as a man whose sister is kidnapped by a religious cult on a secluded island, which he must infiltrate to save her. Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon) serves as the cult's charismatic leader, while Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody) plays his daughter. The slow-burn is quite a change of pace for writer-director Gareth Evans (The Raid franchise) and his regular cinematographer, Matt Flannery, but they handle it beautifully.

6. May the Devil Take You

May the Devil Take You feels like The Evil Dead's Sam Raimi directing an installment in The Conjuring universe. The Indonesian horror film is not a scrappy splatterfest; it's elegantly directed by Timo Tjahjanto (V/H/S/2). He culls from modern supernatural tropes to craft fine horror set pieces, spooky imagery, a good atmosphere, and strong production value. Chelsea Islan (Headshot) earns to be mentioned in the same breath as Bruce Campbell in her lead role as a daughter who investigates her estranged father's past to uncover the truth behind his coma and her haunting visions. It's a tad overlong at 110 minutes, which is particularly felt during the last act, but there's enough kinetic energy to keep it moving forward.

7. Hold the Dark

Hold the Dark is not quite as strong as Jeremy Saulnier's previous efforts (Green Room, Blue Ruin), but his mastery of tension remains unparalleled. Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) stars as a wolf expert who's convinced by an Alaskan woman (Riley Keough, Max Mad: Fury Road) to hunt a wolf that took her young son, only to get wrapped up in a murder plot. Meanwhile, the boy's soldier father (Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood) returns home from duty in the Middle East unhinged. The screenplay is written by Macon Blair (I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore), based on the book of the same name by William Giraldi. As viewers have come to expect from Saulnier, the violence is as unrelenting as the suspense.

8. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Created by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Riverdale), Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is not your TGIF version of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Its aesthetically similar to the Archie Comics title on which its based, embracing the rich Gothic horror atmosphere, but the story veers more into teen drama territory. The result is like a mash-up of Riverdale, The Witch, and Harry Potter. It may take a few episodes to become invested, plus to get used to the distracting shallow depth of field style (which is thankfully used less as the season progresses), but it's eventually rather addicting. The midsection becomes something of a monster-of-the-week series, but it never loses sight of the overall story arc. Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) is charming as the titular witch, and the main cast also includes Ross Lynch (My Friend Dahmer), Lucy Davis (Shaun of the Dead), Miranda Otto (The Lord of the Rings), and Michelle Gomez (Doctor Who).

9. Into the Forest

Into the Forest is a post-apocalyptic tale of sorts, but it's a grounded take on the subject matter that largely functions as a drama. Ellen Page (Inception) and Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld) star as sisters who live with their father (Callum Keith Rennie, Battlestar Galactica) in a secluded, woodland home. Directed by Patricia Rozema (Mansfield Park), the movie follows the family in their fight for survival in the months after electricity is lost throughout the world. Although it drags in spots, Page, who produced the film after falling in love with Jean Hegland's novel on which it's based, is in top form.

10. In Darkness

In Darkness stars Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones) as a blind pianist who hears her upstairs neighbor (Emily Ratajkowski, Gone Girl) get murdered, drawing her into London's seedy underworld, where she meets Ed Skrein (Deadpool) and Joely Richardson (Event Horizon). With shades of Wait Until Dark, the thriller offers some solid suspense and tension, plus superb sound design and cinematography. The setup is gripping, though the plot later becomes too convoluted for its own good. Dormer is fantastic in the lead, and she also produced and co-wrote the script with director Anthony Byrne (Peaky Blinders).

11. Don't Watch This

Don't Watch This is listed on Netflix as a season, but it's simply five unrelated horror shorts, ranging between 2 and 9 minutes in length. There's body horror, killer kids, urban explorers, and Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski parodying American Psycho. In addition to a few clever setups and strong horror set pieces, they boast quality production value, cinematography, and special features (both practical and digital). Shorts usually struggle to find an audience on YouTube, so it's great to see them showcased on a platform as powerful as Netflix.

Bonus: De Palma

De Palma is a documentary on filmmaker Brian De Palma (Carrie, Scarface, Mission: Impossible, Blow Out, Phantom of the Paradise, et al.). The septuagenarian himself - with no other talking heads - discusses and reflects on his oeuvre, going movie by movie (plus a handful of unmade projects) in chronological order, accompanied by clips and stills. Co-directed by Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) and Jake Paltrow (Young Ones), the candid nature of the interviews prevent the film from feeling like a mere DVD special feature. It moves briskly, leaving you wanting more even at 110 minutes.

[sam-breakwell-bcu-viscom-blog]

Contextual Studies Lectures: Queer Theory

What is Queer Theory?

• Queer theory is an academic discipline that grew out of Feminist Theory and Gender Studies in the 1990s 

• Challenges the way that heterosexuality is considered “normal” (terminology: ‘Heteronormativity’) 

• Explores identities or behaviour that might be considered “other” or deviant

Structuralism 

1. The individual is an object / product 

2. There are universal laws and grand narratives 

3. Meaning is inherent in language 

4. Favours structures, categories and binaries 

5. Developed In the late 1950s and early 1960s, via structural linguistics 

6. Relates to Modernism in art

Post-structuralism

1. The “subject” is a cultural construct 

2. There are many “truths” 

3. Downplays the role of the author - meaning is intertextual 

4. Favours pluralities, nuance and complexities 

5. Developed In the 60s and 70s by continental philosophers and critical theorists, as a response to Structuralism 

6. Relates to Post-Modernism in art

Deleuze argues that homosexuals like other minorities – women, colonized people – have to question these identities and turn away from their own questioning in an ongoing fashion. They have to enter into a permanent revolution […] who searches not for a ‘gay identity’ or for ‘being-gay’ but for becoming gay.

Stonewall Inn nightclub raid, June 28, 1969

Stonewall Riots 1969

Yeah, come for me. Thirty-two years later and they’re still coming for me. And what have we got? Here, where it all started, trans people have nothing. […] And it really hurts me that some gay people don’t even know what we gave for their movement. 

“Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones,” by Sylvia Rivera, 80-81.

We must reject a queer politics which seems to ignore, […] the roles of identity and community as paths to survival, using shared experiences of oppression and resistance to build indigenous resources, shape consciousness, and act collectively. Instead, I would suggest that it is the multiplicity and interconnectedness of our identities which provide the most promising avenue for the destabilisation and radical politicisation of these same categories.

 Cohen, Cathy J. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ 3, 1997 (437-465), 459-460.

Queer Disability Studies / Crip Theory

[…] to be able-bodied is to be “free from physical disability,” just as to be heterosexual is to be “the opposite of homosexual. Like compulsory heterosexuality, then, compulsory able-bodiedness functions by covering over, with the appearance of choice, a system in which there actually is no choice. 

Robert McRuer, “Compulsory Able-Bodiedness and Queer / Disabled Existence, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (New York: NYU Press, 2006), 301-308

“Cripple”, when I use it, allows me to take ownership of everyone’s misconceptions of disability. I know you’re scared of me; I know you think I’m different from you, and guess what? I am. I’m owning that as best as I can when I use that word. It is a term of personal empowerment for me. I wouldn’t use it to describe another disabled person without their consent, but for me it helps me navigate the experience of disability with an honesty that I think is really important. 

Andrew Gurza in “Here's What This 'Queer Cripple' Wants You To Know About His Sex Life”, Huffington Post [online] (21st July 2017).

People invent categories in order to feel safe. White people invented black people to give white people identity. Straight cats invent faggots so they can sleep with them without becoming faggots themselves. 

James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni, A Dialogue (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1973).

Isn’t “queer” just another category?

Queer is by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. David Halperin, Saint Foucault: Towards a gay hagiography. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 62

Gender is the repeated stylisation of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990). Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalised, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation. If this is true, it seems, there is no original or primary gender that drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original. Judith Butler, “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” in Sara Salih (ed.), The Judith Butler Reader New York: Blackwell, 2004), 127.

Queer Theory as a way of life?

“How can a relational system be reached through sexual practices? Is it possible to create a homosexual mode of life? … To be “gay,” I think, is not to identify with the psychological traits and the visible masks of the homosexual, but to try to define and develop a way of life.”

Michel Foucault, “Friendship as a Way of Life” The Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, (Volume One). Translaed by Robert Hurley (New York: The New Press, 1997), 135-140.

Untimeliness dislodges queers from socially shared, normative periodicities. For those without children or ambitions to procreate, queers are cut loose not only from parenting responsibilities but from quotidian temporal rhythms that the family-orientated community imposes (school, soccer, shopping). With the notion of queerness strategically and critically posited not as an identity not a substantive mode of being but as a way of becoming, temporality is necessarily already bound up in the queer.

E.L. McCallum and Mikko Tuhkamen, “Becoming Unbecoming: Untimely Meditations” in Queer Times, Queer Becomings (New York: SUNY Press. 2011), 1-21.

…to refuse the battle for the right to marry, to refuse the presumed connection between marriage rights and liberation, to refuse to succumb to the idea that coupled monogamy is the best way to practice intimacy. To refuse to ask for the rights that have been refused to you is to turn your back on the carrot dangled by the state and to go looking for nourishment elsewhere.

Jack Halberstam, Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal, (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 128

Obviously not all gay, lesbian and transgender people live their lives in radically different ways from their heterosexual counterparts, but part of what has made queerness compelling as a form of self-description in the past decade or so has to do with the way it has the potential to open up new life narratives and alternate relations to time and space. 

Jack Halberstam, In a Queer Time & Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 1-2.

[redefinethegrind]

What Is Your Fondest Childhood Memory?

What is your fondest childhood memory? Have you ever tried to sit back and pick one out? I am asking myself that question to see what sort of answer I come up with. Until now I haven’t thought about it. If I had to pick, I would say my fondest memory, or memories, was being with my best friend Brandon. That is the truth. It wasn’t a family Christmas or Thanksgiving. It wasn’t anything I would think most people would answer. But then again, how could I know what most people would answer?

I was pretty sheltered throughout my life in some ways. In others I had no supervision. It was an incredibly odd child rearing situation. I lived with an elderly woman who was in poor health throughout much of my childhood. She was a single caregiver to me and I spent a lot of time caring for her back: emotionally, physically, etc. I imagine that is where my personality solidified. Prior to her taking ill, my caregiver was able to take me to do normal things such as preschool and elementary school conferences. She was present and involved then. Her parenting style was simple and traditional, she was raised poor in Kentucky and told me stories of her younger days which were nothing like anything I was living in.

As an elementary school-aged child I found myself at times embarrassed because of my situation. Most of my friends had two parents and normal lives from what I could ascertain.  I was frustrated at times with my caregivers parenting style in that she was always anxious and worried about my safety. She would not allow me to engage in certain sports or rough play because she didn’t want me to get injured. This led to me pushing the limits of destruction when her health gradually failed and she could no longer monitor me.

My friend and I would have the run of our neighborhood. We were on other people’s property often. Exploring wooded areas was a common thing we did for fun. One of our neighbors had a grape arbor and we used to sneak into it and steal grapes. We would pillage people’s garden’s. It was essentially us exploring further and further from the house on foot. Eventually we were old enough to gain access to firearms and later vehicles. The childhood spirit of freedom and pushing our boundaries didn’t die as we aged.

I didn’t get the traditional teenage advice an adolescent would get. I remember with my first girlfriend, I was leaving the home and my caregiver simply said crassly “keep it in your pants” as I closed the door on my way out for an innocent date. That was the extent of my caregivers sex-ed. talk. Of course, by that time I had already been getting on the internet for a couple of years and had seen pornographic videos of varying levels of intensity. My sexual education came in form of the internet, kid’s stories at school, an awkward conversation with my tomboy older cousin, and “keep it in your pants.”

I didn’t know what to make of it at the time. I was fascinated with all sorts of subjects, some were dark, some were taboo… I had the freedom to read about them and develop my own opinion without much adult influence otherwise. Even prior to the internet I had learned much about life from music and books. My caregiver’s son had moved out and left a mountain of old books in our basement. Some were about the occult, witchcraft, alien life, the world’s religions… I found antique pornography, I found a letter that was hand written about a woman having sex with a great dane. I rifled through boxes of possessions left behind in that old basement and found all kinds of strange things. Guns, bullets, syringes with needles, a microscope… just randomness. It was all so fascinating to a child. I began raiding the basement regularly behind my caregivers back and learning about life through dusty forgotten belongings. It was as intriguing as it was disgusting to a kid.

Eventually I converted the basement into my bedroom/apartment and was able to further hide what I was doing and learning from the world. By that time, I had a computer with dial up internet and was downloading music, videos, pornography… anything I wanted. I would leave the computer connected all night to slowly get the files I was searching for. I would also connect on AOL instant messenger and chat rooms to communicate with strangers. It was relatively limitless.

I am thankful that I never became interested in drinking or using drugs as a younger person. I could have easily figured out ways of getting anything I wanted. I actually looked down on substance abuse because I heard constant stories of substances taking my parents from me. I was more interested in figuring out how to have fun. Fun to me was loud music and destruction.

After spending countless hours scouring the internet I came across the anarchist’s cookbook at some point and learned all about making bombs, poisoning people, how to get away with crimes… all kinds of dark things. It was fascinating. I never did any of it myself luckily other than making a few explosives and using them to make craters in the fields behind my home. I was drawn into the darkness and destruction but fortunately didn’t have the desire to really go through with much of it.

As I became old enough to finally move away for college, something I decided to do on a whim, I was still pushing boundaries in my head. I spent much time thinking about why social norms and culture were odd and unnecessary rather than just trying to assimilate and be comfortable. I don’t know what made me think like that, I was frequently going against the grain just to do it I suppose.

Now as a 33-year-old man I am slowing down and phasing out my outsider’s point of view. I am trying to mentally figure out life and slip into a role that is comfortable for me. That isn’t an easy thing to do having been on the fringe for so long. Sure, I had a career, marriage, house, car… the usual suspects; but I did it my way. I jumped through the hoops of college, but I did that my way too. I remember being told “if you want to pass nursing school you’re going to need to make friends and form study groups.” I intentionally isolated and did it on my own. I did it my way and still made it through. I proved them wrong.

Academia is the perfect outlet for me. I wish I could be a perpetual student and make a living by learning. I am able to take my obsessive nature and apply it to learning. It also helps that I am prone to isolating so I don’t think much about setting down the books to spend time with other people, I simply keep obsessing. I remember times when I would read from my textbook forming my own lesson plan and completely ignoring what I was going to be tested over. This had an adverse effect on my grades but ultimately, I gained a deeper understanding of the topic than I was even intended to. It just took a little more time and effort. My GPA was never an understanding of how I could perform clinically. I didn’t care about grades or recognition by the professors, I wanted to impress those I would ultimately go on to work with. I was trying to build value in myself.

I now understand that I have OCD and a myriad of other diagnosable conditions which have made me unique. I accept them and actually embrace some of them. I have been obsessing over my mental illness lately so that I can use the positive traits of it and change some of the negatives. I am uniquely me, it does not make me broken, less of a person, or less valid. I am eccentric by some standards, but I prefer that to boring in my eyes.

So, in closing, my fondest childhood memories are those in which I bonded with my friend Brandon. He had many of the same interests that I did. We connected over exploration of mental and physical boundaries. We grew up together and found our own understanding of the complexity of the human condition. We developed goals and plans together. That was the comradery I needed to push forward. Truthfully, without him I’m not sure where I would be today, and I think he feels the same toward me. Those crucial moments of bonding early on, before we knew what culture was, before we knew what was cool, before we cared about popularity or fitting in… we had each other. Sometimes you just need a great friend in life to get you through. Never forget that and nurture your friendships.

[propracticegurveerpadhal]

Presentation and feedback

For my presentation I did a pitch for the Ian Perry Scholarship. The power point should be linked bellow. Overall I think I had decent ideas but my presentation was way of, I had way too much information to the point it became confusing as to what I was trying to pitch, I should have been more succinct and clear. I had to have two ideas to pitch and I think the one based in Africa should be my first personal project after I get my company going, I have been setting up places to stay and events I need to go to so Overall I feel positive about the experience, my pitch needs tightening but my ideas are strong.    

My presentation should be linked where i submitted.      

Speech

For my project I want to present the lives of immigrant employees who are doing the minimum wage jobs in a Varity of conditions but all gruelling In west London. This will involve me working in these places and actually building real relationships with my sitters. I will be getting these jobs in mostly Asian and Somali areas because I would like to emphasise people of colour in this project but that doesn’t mean I wont use European sitters also. My Close aunt being a Hindi and Punjabi translator I have always been exposed to the realties of working class immigration.

  The reason why I chose this project was because of my first job, which was working in an extremely rundown corner shop, although the conditions where a bit Grimy I found a strong sense of community lay there, they where still giving people tabs until the end of the week, and the check out was almost like a Jamaican Hairdressers, people always coming in for a chat. But what struck me was the preparation before opening, when the sun was still rising I would have to set up the fruit stand and carry deliveries into a very run down walk in freezer, I loved how the shop looked at that time, it was like a twilight zone. Then I worked in a garage in the slough trading estates, learning car body repair, I was apprenticing under a Hungarian gentlemen who spoke hardly any English and grew frustrated when he could not explain things. He would offer me Cigarettes and talk about his frustrations with he 6-day workweek. In the engine shop there was a person called Happy Singh and yes he was exactly as jolly as you are expecting, he also works a 6 day work week. It is interesting how people’s inner selves slowly reveal themselves after hours and hours of grinding labour. But I would also like to represent these people in their homes. Because as well as it portraying the life style, their mental state, money situation and also eccentricities.

 My first Job will be the first job I ever had again but the owner has since become some what of a king pin of Jersey Parade (the row of shops where the shop is located), he now owns 4 other shops on the same road and sold others, Him and his family live above these shops and he is currently trying to drive out a butchery on the road with his own butchery one shop over from them. As Wealthy as this man seems, this is much more a story about a constant struggle from nothing into his little suburban empire. This man and his family lives above a shop that they have ben working everyday for the last 20 years and didn’t get help until 5 years ago. He still speaks in broken English but he built many businesses and thrived in England.

 These people stories need to be told because I feel like there are many unsung heroes in everyone local areas and many pillars that make home feel like home but also as a contrast the story of many working class immigrants particularly in the Asian population of west London is one of displacement, Particularly in the 80s when the national front was challenging Asian communities with the support of the police when things where particularly intense in India. You would see a lot of Sikh people involved in protests during this time in areas like Southall because it is in the warrior nature of Sikhi but also because of the Indian government raid and destroying bits of the golden temple and assassinating A Sikh khalistani leader. Being a Sikh Myself I have always found the community comes together more then most weather it be melas, religious events or defending Temples from being stoned by white power nationalists.

 I will be getting jobs such as big to small Indian cash and carries, dock yard work, ware house work in Southall, cheap hotel cleaning, barbers, car washes and also immigrant women who support families with a cash in hand maid service. Which There are in a shocking abundance. I want to also explore the world of casual jobs and I will try and find odd ones in the classified ads in shop windows.

There are a lot of new immigrants who often are sleeping on the streets for months at a time, they have started congregating around the increasing industrial abandoned spaces in some areas, car parks to. Creating temporary pop up shanty towns at night in these places, most of them have been con-ed into believe they have job security by crooked travel agents in their countries, this reminds me of the dust bowl era in America.

 This illustrates why I need to do this project. With Brexit and also the current situation in America. We have not fully humanized working class immigrants, Often over exoticfitation is a poor excuse for progress. I want to appeal to the human empathy photography can produce, often borders can make people feel violated and have a need to ostracizes foreign people to maintain a sense of security. But I want to represent a side of England that are its stomach folds, the Gaffa tape no one sees. In Looking into the writer James Joyce, I have been inspired to represent the multiplicity in life through the language of my fellow local people.

 I will use the money allocated to me to pay my sitters, lenses, and film. I will also need to rent Medium Format film cameras for a few shoots inside the home. For quality sake but also it would legitimise my practice, it would be hard to be mistaken for a immigration detective with a mamiya. Aside from the budget this scholarship would really legitimise my practice. It would certainly give  me a more convincing reason to ask these people for their portraits, these delicate subjects cant be achieved by a passer by, it comes from building good bases with real people. I will be staying at home so the money I get for from the jobs will go to very discounted rent and travel expenses, 3 or more of these jobs would barely even get you ends meet, aside from the access I already have this is another reason why this scholarship would help.

 This would perfectly set me up for my next project. Which would be based on amateur rallying in Kenya but also a few others in Africa. Which is a massive deal to the Sikh community in Kenya. My family is 3 generations Kenyan and nearly everyone we know there are involved In motor sports somehow. This has been a proud tradition in the Sikh community since the 1940s and has grown ever since. The Sikh Community in Kenya are extremely well connected, everyone knows everyone. I will split my time in between Nairobi and Kisumu. And will stay with family and in my families farmhouse In Kisumu. Kisumu is an interesting place to start because it is split in between the hands on farmers and the contactors who often live very bourgeois lives. Everyone lives in their own compound and it is their own micro universe. The farmers have huge lots of lands and very eccentric houses, planning permission isn’t as strict there and people start driving by the age of 12. Nearly everyone there is an entrepreneur of some sorts. These spaces and visual language is like nothing I have ever seen before the wealth divide is crazy but the lives that the middle classes are like what billionaires do here. As well as the rally it self I want to focus on the characters that peruse it, and the almost village like aspects of this community. Although houses and land are extremely sparse in Kenya everyone congregates in the Gudwara in town and catches up, this is where the community is realised, a lot of networking also goes on there, if your family is known there they almost kill you with hospitality, this is why I think I have supreme access. My grandfather was a photographer and directed the first Swahili movie Milavi and also the second. He also shot the news for KBC and dabbled in Journalism. I will also assist his friend who has been documenting the races since the mid 50s, there are 2 photographer that I will be learning from in the field, although they have been shooting the days at the race I want to go further and capture the peoples lives who are big players in these events. This project makes sense for me to do and with this scholarships name and exposure, I will be legitimate enough to publish these grand stories with out being to invasive.

 I will start this project with my neighbour who lives 2 miles away. The Brar family who own a huge farm. They have had a difficult five years but their only son Satthi has had to have several reconstructive surgeries on his shoulder due to a crash. His father Billay lives on a huge compound, which also contains his brother’s house. He is someone else I want to photograph.

 He owns a mechanics workshop which looks straight out of the 50s. He is a very eccentric person to say the least he has over 40 monkeys who live around his house, they all have names and he loves and feeds them every day, they also have a zoo you can see while you pull up in the drive way. This place almost doesn’t seem real. By contrast I will be shooting some family friends The Baryans who own the biggest transpiration company in Kenya, Multiple Transportation. Their eldest son Manvir is an avid rally driver, he drives for Team Multiple. He has recently won first place in last years Kisumu cup. He is particularly close with my dad and a personal friend to me growing up. His best friend Babu was recently killed in a race they where both in. I personally knew him also; this project would be in dedication to Babu. Although what happened to his body was horrific, the passion In Manvir and the rest of the rallying community has not been diminished and is still stronger then ever. Much like James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake I want the project to constantly shift perspectives of all the different people involved with creating this community and the pillars that lead and shape to this die hard love for a motor sport. I am trying to portray all these different accounts while I tie them together to form a portrait of a place. A simulacra of a way of living un-fathomable by most.