#Church Production Magazine | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

renthony · 2 years ago

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hey!! i am genuinely curious about how the catholic church helped implement the hays code, would you be able to tell me more/do you have any good reading material about it? thanks so much!!

This has been sitting in my inbox for aaaaaages, because I want to do it justice! It's actually a big facet of my research project that I'm going to go into much, much, much more depth on, but here's the short(er) summary:

The foundational text of the Hays Code was written by two Catholics: a Jesuit priest named Father Daniel Lord, and a man named Martin Quigley, who was the editor of the Motion Picture Herald. They grounded their guidelines in Catholic morality and values, based on the idea that art could be a vehicle for evil by negatively influencing the actions of those who view it.

The original list of guidelines written by Lord and Quigley was adapted into the Production Code, popularly known as the "Hays Code" after William Hays, the president of the Production Code Administration that enforced it. As president of the PCA, William Hays appointed a staunch Catholic man called Joseph Breen to enforce the code. Breen enforced it aggressively, confiscating the original reels of films he deemed inappropriate and against the Code. Many lost films from this era are only "lost" because Joseph Breen personally had them destroyed. Some were rediscovered later, but many were completely purged from existence.

When Breen died in 1965, Variety magazine wrote, "More than any single individual, he shaped the moral stature of the American moral picture." He was a very, very big deal, and was directly responsible for censoring more films than I could even begin to list here.

In 1937, Olga J. Martin, Joseph Breen’s secretary, said, “To an impoverished country which had become religious and serious-minded, the sex attitudes of the post-war period became grotesquely unreal and antedated. The public at large wanted to forget its own derelictions of the ‘gay twenties.' The stage was set for the moral crusade.”

In 1936, once the Code was being fully enforced on filmmakers by Joseph Breen, a letter was issued by the office of Pope Pius XI that praised Breen's work, and encouraged all good Catholics to support film censorship.

The letter read in part, "From time to time, the Bishops will do well to recall to the motion picture industry that, amid the cares of their pastoral ministry, they are under obligation to interest themselves in every form of decent and healthy recreation because they are responsible before God for the moral welfare of their people even during their time of leisure. Their sacred calling constrains them to proclaim clearly and openly that unhealthy and impure entertainment destroys the moral fibre of a nation. They will likewise remind the motion picture industry that the demands which they make regard not only the Catholics but all who patronize the cinema."

Basically, this letter was a reminder from the Papal authority that bishops and priests are supposed to stop people from engaging with "lewd" or "obscene" art. That meant supporting things like the Hays Code.

So, to summarize: the original text of the Hays Code was written by two Catholics, including a priest. The biggest and most aggressive censor under the Code was a Catholic man, who had the full support and approval of the Pope at the time. Good Catholics were called en-masse to support the Hays Code, because it was intentionally written to line up with Catholic teachings.

There's a lot more to say on the subject, and if you're interested in reading more on your own, I recommend the book "Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934," by Thomas Doherty. There are plenty other sources I can recommend on request, but that's a solid place to start.

(And if I can toot my own horn, I'm intending to do a video lecture series all about American film censorship and the Hays Code. Pledging to my Patreon helps keep me fed and housed while I do all this damn research.)

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mostlysignssomeportents · 10 months ago

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How a billionaire’s mediocre pump-and-dump “book” became a “bestseller”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

I was on a book tour the day my editor called me and told me, "From now on, your middle name is 'Cory.'"

"That's weird. Why?"

"Because from now on, your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author.'"

That was how I found out I'd hit the NYT list for the first time. It was a huge moment – just as it has been each subsequent time it's happened. First, because of how it warmed my little ego, but second, and more importantly, because of how it affected my book and all the books afterwards.

Once your book is a Times bestseller, every bookseller in America orders enough copies to fill a front-facing display on a new release shelf or a stack on a bestseller table. They order more copies of your backlist. Foreign rights buyers at Frankfurt crowd around your international agents to bid on your book. Movie studios come calling. It's a huge deal.

My books became Times bestsellers the old-fashioned way: people bought and read them and told their friends, who bought and read them. Booksellers who enjoyed them wrote "shelf-talkers" – short reviews – and displayed them alongside the book.

That "From now on your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author' gag is a tradition. When @wilwheaton's memoir Still Just A Geek hit the Times list, I texted the joke to him and he texted back to say @jscalzi had already sent him the same joke (and of course, Scalzi and I have the same editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden):

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/still-just-a-geek-wil-wheaton

But not everyone earns that first name the same way. Some people cheat.

Famously, the Church of Scientology was caught buying truckloads of L Ron Hubbard books (published by Scientology's own publishing arm) from booksellers, returning them to their warehouse, then shipping them back to the booksellers when they re-ordered the sold out titles. The tip-off came when booksellers opened cases of books and found that they already bore the store's own price-stickers:

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-scientology062890-story.html

The reason Scientology was willing to go to such great lengths wasn't merely that readers used "NYT Bestseller* to choose which books to buy. Far more important was the signal that this sent to the entire book trade, from reviewers to librarians to booksellers, who made important decisions about how many copies of the books to stock, whether to display them spine- or face out, and whether to return unsold stock or leave it on the shelf.

Publishers go to great lengths to send these messages to the trade: sending out fancy advance review copies in elaborate packaging, taking out ads in the trade magazines, featuring titles in their catalogs and sending their sales-force out to impress the publisher's enthusiasm on their accounts.

Even the advance can be a way to signal the trade: when a publisher announces that it just acquired a book for an eyebrow-raising sum, it's not trumpeting the size of its capital reserves – it's telling the trade that this book is a Big Deal that they should pay attention to.

(Of all the signals, this one may be the weakest, even if it's the most expensive for publishers to send. Take the $1.25m advance that Rupert Murdoch's Harpercollins paid to Sarah Palin for her unreadable memoir, Going Rogue. As with so many of the outsized sums Murdoch's press and papers pay to right wing politicians, the figure didn't represent a bet on the commercial prospects of the book – which tanked – but rather, a legal way to launder massive cash transfers from the far-right billionaire to a generation of politicians who now owe him some rather expensive favors.)

All of which brings me to the New York Times bestselling book Read Write Own by the billionaire VC New York Times Bestselling Author Chris Dixon. Dixon is a partner at A16Z, the venture capitalists who pumped billions into failed, scammy, cryptocurrency companies that tricked normies into converting their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money into shitcoins, allowing the investors to turn a massive profit and exit before the companies collapsed or imploded.

Read Write Own (subtitle: "Building the Next Era of the Internet") is a monumentally unconvincing hymn to the blockchain. As Molly White writes in her scathing review, the book is full of undisclosed conflicts of interest, with Dixon touting companies he has a direct personal stake in:

https://www.citationneeded.news/review-read-write-own-by-chris-dixon/

But this book's defects go beyond this kind of sleazy pump-and-dump behavior. It's also just bad. The arguments it makes for the blockchain as a way of escaping the problems of an enshittified, monopolized internet are bad arguments. White dissects each of these arguments very skillfully, and I urge you to read her review for a full list, but I'll reproduce one here to give you a taste:

After three chapters in which Dixon provides a (rather revisionistd) history of the web to date, explains the mechanics of blockchains, and goes over the types of things one might theoretically be able to do with a blockchain, we are left with "Part Four: Here and Now", then the final "Part Five: What's Next". The name of Part Four suggests that he will perhaps lay out a list of blockchain projects that are currently successfully solving real problems.

This may be why Part Four is precisely four and a half pages long. And rather than name any successful projects, Dixon instead spends his few pages excoriating the "casino" projects that he says have given crypto a bad rap,e prompting regulatory scrutiny that is making "ethical entrepreneurs … afraid to build products" in the United States.f

As White says, this is just not a good book. It doesn't contain anything to excite people who are already blockchain-poisoned crypto cultists – and it also lacks anything that will convince normies who never let Matt Damon or Spike Lee convince them to trade dollars for magic beans. It's one of those books that manages to be both paper and a paperweight.

And yet…it's a New York Times Bestseller. How did this come to pass? Here's a hint: remember how the Scientologists got L Ron Hubbard 20 consecutive #1 Bestsellers?

As Jordan Pearson writes for Motherboard, Read Write Own earned its place on the Times list because of a series of massive bulk orders from firms linked to A16Z and Dixon, which ordered between dozens and thousands of copies and gave them away to employees or just randos on Twitter:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7emkx/chris-dixon-a16z-read-write-own-nyt-bestseller

The Times recognizes this in a backhanded way, by marking Read Write Own on the list with a "dagger" (†) that indicates the shenanigans (the same dagger appeared alongside the listing for Donald Trump Jr's Triggered after the RNC spent a metric scientologyload of money – $100k – buying up cases of it):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/books/donald-trump-jr-triggered-sales.html

There's a case for the Times not automatically ignoring bulk orders. Since 2020, I've run Kickstarters where I've pre-sold my books on behalf of my publisher, working with bookstores like Book Soup and wholesalers like Porchlight Books to backers when they go on sale. I signed and personalized 500+ books at Vroman's yesterday for backers who pre-ordered my next novel, The Bezzle:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53531243480/

But there's a world of difference between pre-orders that hundreds or thousands of readers place that are aggregated into a single bulk order, and books that are bought by CEOs to give away to people who may not have any interest in them. For the book trade – librarians, reviewers, booksellers – the former indicates broad interest that justifies their attention. The latter just tells you that a handful of deep-pocketed manipulators want you to think there's broad interest.

I'm certain that Dixon – like me – feels a bit of pride at having "earned" a new first name. But Dixon – like me – gets something far more tangible than a bit of egoboo out of making the Times list. For me, a place on the Times list is a way to get booksellers and librarians excited about sharing my book with readers.

For Dixon, the stakes are much higher. Remember that cryptocurrency is a faith-based initiative whose mechanism is: "convince normies that shitcoins will be worth more tomorrow than they are today, and then trade them the shitcoins that cost you nothing to create for dollars that they worked hard to earn."

In other words, crypto is a bezzle, defined by John Kenneth Galbraith as "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

So long as shitcoins haven't fallen to zero, the bag-holders who've traded their "fiat" for funny money can live in the bezzle, convinced that their "investments" will recover and turn a profit. More importantly, keeping the bezzle alive preserves the possibility of luring in more normies who can infuse the system with fresh dollars to use as convincers that keep the bag-holders to keep holding that bag, rather than bailing and precipitating the zeroing out of the whole scam.

The relatively small sums that Dixon and his affiliated plutocrats spent to flood your podcasts with ads for this pointless 300-page Ponzi ad are a bargain, as are the sums they spent buying up cases of the book to give away or just stash in a storeroom. If only a few hundred retirees are convinced to convert their savings to crypto, the resulting flush of cash will make the line go up, allowing whales like Dixon and A16Z to cash out, or make more leveraged bets, or both. Crypto is a system with very few good trades, but spending chump change to earn a spot on the Times list (dagger or no) is a no-brainer.

After all, the kinds of people who buy crypto are, famously, the kinds of people who think books are stupid ("I would never read a book" -S Bankman-Fried):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-reading-effective-altruism/

There's precious little likelihood that anyone will be convinced to go long on crypto thanks to the words in this book. But the Times list has enough prestige to lure more suckers into the casino: "I'm not going to read this thing, but if it's on the list, that means other people must have read it and think it's convincing."

We are living through a golden age of scams, and crypto, which has elevated caveat emptor to a moral virtue ("not your wallet, not your coins"), is a scammer's paradise. Stein's Law tells us that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop," but the purpose of a bezzle isn't to keep the scam going forever – just until the scammer can cash out and blow town. The longer the bezzle goes on for, the richer the scammer gets.

Not for nothing, my next novel – which comes out on Feb 20 – is called The Bezzle. It stars Marty Hench, my hard-driving, two-fisted, high-tech forensic accountant, who finds himself unwinding a whole menagerie of scams, from a hamburger-based Ponzi scheme to rampant music royalty theft to a vast prison-tech scam that uses prisoners as the ultimate captive audience:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Patrick Nielsen Hayden – the same editor who gave me my new first name – once told me that "publishing is the act of connecting a text with an audience." Everything a publisher does – editing, printing, warehousing, distributing – can be separated from publishing. The thing a publisher does that makes them a publisher – not a printer or a warehouser or an editing shop – is connecting books and audiences.

Seen in this light, publishing is a subset of the hard problem of advertising, religion, politics and every other endeavor that consists in part of convincing people to try out a new idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/04/self-publishing/

This may be the golden age of scams, but it's the dark age of publishing. Consolidation in distribution has gutted the power of the sales force to convince booksellers to stock books that the publisher believes in. Consolidation in publishing – especially Amazon, which is both a publisher and the largest retailer in the country – has stacked the deck against books looking for readers and vice-versa (Goodreads, a service founded for that purpose, is now just another tentacle on the Amazon shoggoth). The rapid enshittification of social media has clobbered the one semi-reliable channel publicists and authors had to reach readers directly.

I wrote nine books during lockdown (I write as displacement activity for anxiety) which has given me a chance to see publishing in the way that few authors can: through a sequence of rapid engagements with the system as a whole, as I publish between one and three books per year for multiple, consecutive years. From that vantagepoint, I can tell you that it's grim and getting grimmer. The slots that books that connected with readers once occupied are now increasingly occupied by the equivalent of the botshit that fills the first eight screens of your Google search results: book-shaped objects that have gamed their way to the top of the list.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

I don't know what to do about this, but I have one piece of advice: if you read a book you love, tell other people about it. Tell them face-to-face. In your groupchat. On social media. Even on Goodreads. Every book is a lottery ticket, but the bezzlers are buying their tickets by the case: every time you tell someone about a book you loved (and even better, why you loved it), you buy a writer another ticket.

Meanwhile, I've got to go get ready for my book tour. I'm coming to LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Phoenix, Portland, Providence, Boston, New York City, Toronto, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Chicago, Buffalo, as well as Torino and Tartu (details soon!).

If you want to get a taste of The Bezzle, here's an excerpt:

https://www.torforgeblog.com/2023/11/20/excerpt-reveal-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/

And here's the audiobook, read by New York Times Bestselling Author Wil Wheaton:

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459_-_The_Bezzle_Read_By_Wil_Wheaton.mp3

#pluralistic #molly white #books #publishing #dunning kruggerands #crypto #cryptocurrency #a16z #venture capitalism #guillotine watch #this is why we can't have nice things #bookselling #the bezzle #bezzles #web3 #blockchain

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newyorkthegoldenage · 11 months ago

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Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier in Romeo and Juliet, which ran for a month at the 51st St. Theater (later the Mark Hellinger; now a church) in 1940. Dame May Whitty played Juliet's nurse, Edmond O'Brien was Mercutio, and Cornell Wilde was Tybalt. Olivier produced, directed, and (lavishly) designed the production in addition to starring in it. The critics were not kind: "Much scenery: no play," said Brooks Atkinson in the Times. Time magazine said that Leigh “looked like a poem but had no sense of poetry.” Leigh and Olivier were several years into a passionate romance that would, a few months after the play, result in marriage.

Photo: Getty Images

#vintage New York #1940s #Vivien Leigh #Laurence Olivier #Romeo & Juliet #Shakespeare #vintage Broadway #theater #vintage theater

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cartermagazine · 11 months ago

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Today In History

Leontyne Price, world-renowned opera singer, and the first African American singer to achieve an international reputation in opera—made her formal debut at the Metropolitan Opera House on this date January 27, 1961.

Both of Price’s grandfathers had been Methodist ministers in Black churches in Mississippi, and she sang in her church choir as a girl. Only when she graduated from the College of Education and Industrial Arts (now Central State College) in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 1948 did she decide to seek a career as a singer.

She studied for four years at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, where she worked under the former concert singer Florence Page Kimball, who remained her coach in later years. Her debut took place in April 1952 in a Broadway revival of Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein.

Leontyne Price performance in that production, which subsequently traveled to Paris, prompted Ira Gershwin to choose her to sing the role of Bess in his revival of Porgy and Bess, which played in New York City from 1952 to 1954 and then toured the United States and Europe. The year 1955 saw her triumphant performance of the title role in the National Broadcasting Company’s television production of Tosca, and she sang leading roles in other operas on television in the next few years.

CARTER™️ Magazine

#leontyne price #carter magazine #carter #historyandhiphop365 #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #history #cartermagazine #today in history #staywoke #blackhistory #blackhistorymonth

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warnersister · 1 year ago

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Gonna give you a baby (smut)

The Beatles x Reader, Paul McCartney x Wife! Reader

Summary: you and Paul have fertility issues, the three men with a thing for you see this as a great opportunity to lend a helping hand. -> hate this one didn’t write it well🤧

Warnings: mentions of infertility, pregnancy, filthy smut, five-some, degrading (slut, whore, etc), hand-jobs, oral (f+m receiving), just a lot.

Requested by: @jill-smith-123

You and Paul had met in the early 50’s. Your family had moved in just down the street from him and the 10 year old McCartney was awestruck from the moment he laid eyes on you. The next day, he’d showed up at your house, to which your less-than-pleased father had answered the door, with a bow-tie and bouquets of flowers he’d taken from your mother’s new garden, to ask you to accompany him to the local youth centre for disco night.

He’d bought you a sherbet straw while he puffed on candy cigarettes before pecking your lips with tight-shut eyes mid way through you dining along to The Andrews Sisters’ song your mother had on vinyl.

When you were each a bit older, you’d accompanied Paul to the cavern club sitting in the front row as you’d hummed along with him, his eyes never drawing away from your own. Then he’d take you for dinner, a real fancy restaurant that his uncle owned, and he said that he’d pay - but it was always on the house.

Eventually, another three boys had somehow weaselled their way into your life and the product was an up and coming band: The Beatles. John Lennon, George Harrison, Pete- (scratch that) Richard Starkey and your boy Paul McCartney. And it was no secret that the three also had a thing for you - between the constant bickering and playful flirtations, Paul brushed it off because he always knew in the end that you were always his, and he was always yours.

Especially when he proposed on your twentieth birthday in 1962. Beatlemania crazed the nation and it wasn’t long before scandalous magazines began to accuse the boys of unruly acts and Paul was no different. And realistically, Paul saw the only way fit to prove his innocence to you was to ask for your hand in marriage. With your father’s approval of course… (?)

The fame never concerned you, nor did it necessarily appeal to you either - so you’d had a small ceremony in the local church, doors locked for a healthy gathering of your closest family and friends and an after party conjoined with a reception in the Cavern Club into the early hours of the morning.

“Y’know love, I never read a rule that said your first night had to be with your actual husband.” George had whispered into your ear, smirking at you after seeing the look on your face. “Not her first night.” Paul responded, hints of jealously in his tone as he threw you over his shoulder and off to his car.

That was also the night you’d discovered Paul’s intense breeding kink. His hips pushing into you at a bruising rate, lips failing him as he stuttered out his desire to see you full with his children.

But that was the problem.

“Am I the problem?” You’d asked Paul as you buried your face in his neck, crying after umpteen times, you still weren’t pregnant. “No, no, not at all dove.” He caressed your back gently. “We’re just going to have to be moved patient and keep trying. You’re perfect.” He said softy, cupping your puffy face between his hands, looking you over with a concerned gaze.

“Hey, woah woah woah what’s up lovey?” John asked as the other band members entered the room. They all ran to your side, helplessly watching the tears roll down your cheeks. “I can’t get pregnant.” You sniffed, hiccuping as the tears continued to flow. Ringo’s hands cupped yours as his sad eyes looked into yours. “Maybe there’s just not enough.” He said and your brows creased.

“Y’know our offer is always on the table.” George’s continued. “What offer?” You asked, confused. “Y’ mean you never told her, paulie boy?” John cocked his head. “No, cause I know what you lot are like.” “What y’ on about?” You ask again. “All of us.” George said. “Y’ mean-” “all of us at once.” John took your chin between his fingers and squatted down to where you were sat. “Wrecking y’ can handle us, dovey?” Shocked, you look from John to Paul who had a knowing smirk frowning on his lips. Without thinking, you nod at them. Suddenly, you were swept off of your feet and into the arms of John. “Let’s make you a baby.”

A king size bed was certainly not big enough to support the five of you, but in the boys’ desperation, you certainly managed. You were placed down gently on the bed, soft covers enveloping you as the four starved men looked down at you with lustful eyes. Your clothes were practically torn from your body, apparently them being to impatient to allow you to get undressed properly.

Paul caressed your hair gently before leaning into kiss you, as you begin to feel light kisses and licks on your breasts. You look down to see John staring back at you, a cheeky grin on his lips. He bit your nipple harshly and you hissed, screwing your eyes tight and throwing your head back. “Better get used to that if y’ want a baby.” George said, tracing his hand up and down the sensitive skin on your inner thigh.

Then all the delicious contact went again and you groaned, searching for the friction they were giving you. “Y’ want a baby? Y’ gonna have to let us get undressed first.” George chuckled. When they were undressed, John situated himself between your legs. “Oi, shift she’s my missus I’m having the first go.” Paul grumbled. “And the reason she can’t get pregnant.” John replied smugly, but was shoved out of the way by your husband. “Y’ gonna show em what a good slut y’ are for me, hmm?” He asked, fingers wandering down your thigh and towards your heat, beginning to pump them at an agonisingly slow pace.

George yanked your hair back and forced you to look at him, your mouth falling agape in the process. “Y’ gonna be good for us? Gonna give old Paulie a baby?” He taunted, rubbing himself a few times before forcing his length into your mouth. Gagging slightly, you tried your best to open your throat in the position you were in.

A heat built up inside of you, warmth rushing as you chased your high but it was soon stripped from you. Unable to complain, the disheartenment was soon replaced by something much larger - you and Paul groaned simultaneously, George doing the same as you sent vibrations flying through his cock.

After a while of Paul’s bruising pace, you rest his unwavering hips stutter as he released into you, you doing the same and realising all over him. George pulled out of your mouth and thrust himself into his hand a few times before also cumming. “Such a filthy whore.” Paul taunted, enamoured by the drool leaking from your lips.

“My turn now, birdie?” Ringo asked and you hummed, still dazed and coming off of your high. “He asked you a question. You being a disobedient slut for him?” John asked and you shook your head no. “Y-yes, your turn Richie.” You managed to stutter out.

His dick hardened at his routine nickname, needing no time to prepare you so without warning, sliding himself straight in. He let out a big breath of air at the feeling of your soft wall enveloping him. He began thrusting at an agonisingly slow pace, you in turn, crying out in desperation. “Patience now, doll.” Ringo told you. “Good things come to those who wait.” He took his time with you, not knowing when an opportunity like this one would come again.

Your head fell to the side and your eyes connected with John’s, who looked down at you with a small shit-eating grin. He leant down and licked your ear love, whispering gently “gonna give me a hand job while you let your husband’s friend take you?” You moaned at his question but nodded at him, raising your hand to rub up and down his hardening cock, swiping the tip a few times to use his pre-cum as some sort of lubricant. You pulled away and spat saliva into your palm, beginning to jerk him off at a faster rare. “Isn’t your first rodeo, is it dove?” John asked with a chuckle. “Got you well trained, haven’t I chick?” Paul said, leaning down to latch his lips onto yours.

Your high came excruciatingly slow, Richard building up the pace to the point he could no longer take it and took you animalistically, only stopping to release his seed deep into your womb and felt you cum over him. Waiting long enough for some of it to sink in, he slowly pulled out and kissed at the cold air attaching his sensitive member.

John released into your hand and felt his cock re-stiffen at the sight of you licking your hand clean. “Fuck. Me next.” He said, walking around the bed to your feet and positioning himself between your legs, feeling yourself being manoeuvred like some inhuman marionette. He moved you until your face was in the sheets and back arched for him, arse and sweet warmth on display for him. “Can’t let any of their cum get out, can we love?” He’d asked tauntingly, nails digging painfully rough into your hips.

He slipped in quickly, cock twitching at the sound you made, sensitive from the numerous rounds you had been put through. “Can’t believe Paul gets to keep you all to himself. A little slut all for him.” He said, staring to pepper kissed down your back while his hands found your breasts. Your arse was unquestionably bruised, as was your neck from the way Ringo and George were sucking at either side of it. John let out his load deep inside of you, full ovaries feeling themself being stuffed by the liquid trickling down into them.

George had waited so patiently for his turn, so patient with a so painful hard-on that he was going to make you regret giving him. Seeing himself torture you would be enough of a reason to make himself wait a few more moments. He spun you around and returned you into your back, kneeling down to kiss and worship the skin of your inner thighs, yet never close enough to provide the friction you so-desperately needed.

He kissed and sucked at your clit, thumb coming up to rub it as his tongue delved deep into your walls, making you cry out at the sight of their cum on his tongue. He thrust it into you a half a dozen more times before standing up and forcing his elongated cock into you. You hissed, pained by the repetitive beatings your intestines were receiving.

“Such a good little brat for us aren’t you?’ Paul asked, staring down at you as if a predator staring at its helpless pray. “Yes, ‘m good.” You repeated, doing as you were told as he tapped your chin to tell you to open it. You parted your lips and allowed your husband to force his dick into your already sore and throbbing throat.

George’s hips snapped at a consistent and quick pace, eyes not deferring from yours as he watched you take his bandmate’s cock so well. “Take him so well, don’t you dove?” He asked, praising you as you hummed and Macca moaned. George put his thumb onto your overstimulated clit and pressed down harshly. You cried out but tried your best to keep your throat open. “That’s if, keep it open.” Your husband taunted. And with a few more final thrusts, George cummed inside of you as you did the same, Paul releasing deep down your throat and you refrained from coughing - instead harshly swallowing and wiping the remaining resales from your mouth with your tongue and the back of your head.

“You were such a good girl.” John said, petting your hair gently and pecking your forehead. “Y’ alright, princess?” Ringo asked and you looked up at him and smiled with a nod. “Definitely gonna give Paulie boy a baby for being so good.” George added as he strolled your leg comfortingly. You enjoyed the praise you were receiving, letting the men manoeuvre you so you were in Paul’s lap. With your eyes shut, you felt yourself being lowered onto his cock and you hissed in both oversensitivity and surprise. You looked at your husband with tired eyes. “Don’t want any of it to go to waste.” He said with a wink and cheeky little smile. “Thank you.” You mumbled, drifting to sleep on his chest their quiet conversation turning into distant white noise.

A week or two later, your head was in the toilet bowl as Paul pulled your hair back into a make-shift pony tail and caressed your back at seven in the morning to let you be sick. “It’s alright love, think you’re coming down with something.” He said, pressing the back of his hand against your forehead to check for a fever. It was winter after all and your unreliable immune system was no match for England winters. “I’ll take you to the pharmacy, yeah?” And you’d nodded, wiping your mouth and letting him lead you out to the car.

You weren’t sick, unless your count baby fever. You were pregnant. Pregnant with a child. Pregnant with Paul’s(?) baby. The two of you were overjoyed and as were the rest of the boys when they found out, although offering if you wanted to have two in there just to ask, not minding the sight of you naked and belly swelling with a child.

And eight and a half months later, two weeks premature, your water broke at midnight. Paul sped to the hospital, mentally timing the distance between your contractions to tell the midwife when you got there. After a while of pushing, swearing, breaking Paul’s fingers, and him nearly dainton at the sight of the head coming out of such a small area, at seven minutes past 8, your son was born.

The boys all crowed around, in awe at the new baby in your arms. “He has his mother’s chin.” Paul notes, grinning from ear to ear. “And his fathers face.” The lads then piped up. “And Ringo’s droopy eyes-” George stated but was Vito off by the man himself “oi, oh yeah actually he does. And John’s nose.” John hummed. “And George’s eye colour and ears.” You all began laughing.

Whoever’s paternal child this may be, he was certainly a gift you yourself, your husband, and the three men who tagged along with you.

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scotianostra · 7 months ago

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On May 25th 1726 the worlds first lending library opened in Edinburgh by Allan Ramsay.

Ramsay was born in Lanarkshire in 1686, and by 1701 had settled in Edinburgh as an apprentice wig-maker.

At the turn of the eighteenth century wigs were worn by men as a form of status symbol, elaborate constructions of human, goat or horse hair that often fell in ringlets below a man's shoulders, or were elevated to a significant height as a means of increasing their wearer's sense of physical stature. They were expensive products and were created by skilled craftsmen whose reputations rested on their ability to create ever newer and greater objects for their customers to display in public.

By 1712 Ramsay had become a well-known wig-maker of excellent reputation with premises on the High Street, Royal Mile, for the richest and most high status customers to buy.

During this time Allan, through his love of reading and literature, became involved with the Easy Club, a cultural group established to celebrate traditional Scots writing. From this association Ramsay began writing, and by 1718 was a successful enough poet to turn his wig shop into a bookshop. Some people have credited Ramsay's early writing with being a major influence on the careers of Robert Fergusson, and later Robert Burns.

In time Ramsay's bookshop mutated into the world's first organised circulating library, a cultural hub for readers to borrow books, magazines and periodicals and take them away in order to peruse them at leisure, and then return them for other readers to enjoy.

The modern notion of a library providing such access free of charge is quite different from the original circulating library system, where members where charged an annual subscription fee in order to have access to the collections of materials available. The early function of such organisations was not primarily an educational one, as might be expected, but a capitalist one - to profit from those who had money to spend on such memberships.

In Edinburgh, the rise of the Enlightenment ideals and the city's relative affluence made Ramsay's library a roaring success, and he was able to spend time focusing on his own writing, penning not just poems but also dramas, his 1725 pastoral play The Gentle Shepherd being performed and celebrated as a work of theatre in his own lifetime.

Ramsay GardenRamsay opened a theatre on Carubbers Close, off the High Street, which was opposed by the religious fervour of the Calvinists, and later forced to close. Ramsay railed against the dour principles of the Presbyterian church in some of his poems of this time.

In 1740 Ramsay retired to the house he had built for himself, still seen on the land immediately east of Edinburgh Castle - the cream and orange coloured building at the top of the Royal Mile is called Ramsay Garden, and the central structure - Ramsay's original home - was popularly known during his own lifetime as 'Goose Pie House' because of it’s octagonal shape.

Ramsay died in 1743 and in buried in the Greyfriars Kirkyard, where a memorial on the side of the church building celebrates his life. The statue of Ramsay on Princes Street was carved by John Steell, and ensures that Ramsay is still visibly commemorated in the city where he made most impact during his lifetime.

#scotland #scottish #history #edinburgh #library #poet #bookseller #wigmaker

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shewhoworshipscarlin · 10 months ago

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Louise Beavers

Louise Beavers (March 8, 1900 – October 26, 1962) was an American film and television actress who appeared in dozens of films and two hit television shows from the 1920s to 1960. She played a prominent role in advancing the lives of Black Americans through her work and collaborated with fellow advocates to improve the social standing and media image of the Black population.

Beavers was born in Cincinnati, Ohio to school teacher Ernestine (Monroe) Beavers and William M. Beavers, who was originally from Georgia. Her mother's illness caused the family to move to Pasadena, California.

In Pasadena, she attended school and engaged in several after-school activities, such as basketball and church choir. Her mother also worked as a voice teacher and taught her how to sing. In 1920, Beavers graduated from Pasadena High School. She then worked as a dressing-room attendant for a photographer and served as a personal maid to film star Leatrice Joy.

Beavers' acting career began as a member of the Lady Minstrels, a group of young women who staged amateur productions and appeared on stage at the Loews State Theatre. Charles Butler, an agent for African-American actors, saw one of her early performances and recommended that she audition for a film role.

Beavers was initially hesitant to audition for film roles because of the negative portrayal of blacks in film. She once said, "In all the pictures I had seen… they never used colored people for anything except savages." However, she won a role in the film Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1927) and went on to play stereotypical black roles such as those of a slave, a mother figure, a maid or domestic servant. With Claudette Colbert in Imitation of Life (1934)

After playing the role of Julia, the maid and mother figure to a young white woman, in Coquette (1929), Beavers gained more attention for her work and was able to transition to less stereotypical roles. Beavers played Delilah in Imitation of Life (1934), again in the role of a housekeeper, but instead of the usual stereotypical comedic or purely functional role, Delilah's storyline constitutes a secondary parallel plot in which her problems are given considerable emotional gravity. Some in the media recognized the unfairness of Hollywood's double standard regarding race. A contributor to California Graphic Magazine wrote: "the Academy could not recognize Miss Beavers. She is black!"

In 1936, Beavers married Robert Clark, who later became her manager. Beavers and Clark later divorced.

Beavers played the lead role in the film Reform School (1939), once thought to be a lost film, as a forward-thinking probation officer who becomes the superintendent of a reform school and implements major changes.

In the film Holiday Inn (1942), Beavers performed a song during a minstrel show number celebrating Abraham Lincoln's birthday. Because the number features Bing Crosby and others in blackface, some consider it racially offensive and it is often excised from television screenings of the film. Lobby card for the Million Dollar Productions film Life Goes On with "Harry M. Popkin Presents Louise Beavers" logo inset

As Beavers' career grew, some criticized her for the roles that she accepted, alleging that such roles institutionalized the view that blacks were subservient to whites. Beavers dismissed the criticism, acknowledging the limited opportunities available but saying: "I am only playing the parts. I don't live them." As she became more widely known, Beavers began to speak against Hollywood's portrayal and treatment of African Americans, both during production and after promoting the films. Beavers became active in public life, seeking to help support African Americans. She endorsed Robert S. Abbott, the editor of The Chicago Defender, who fought for African-Americans' civil rights. She supported Richard Nixon, who she believed would help black Americans in the struggle for civil rights.

In 1952, Beavers married Leroy Moore, with whom she remained until her death in 1962. She had no children.

In later life, Beavers was plagued by health issues, including diabetes. She died on October 26, 1962 at the age of 62, following a heart attack, at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles.

Beavers was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1976. She was an honorary member of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American sororities

#black history month #historical #actress #civil rights

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k-hippie · 1 year ago

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CHAMPIGNAC CC and STUFF PART 1

Before the upload of Champignac, let's talk about the CC used in the World ...

Let's face it, there is a little bit more CC used in Champignac than in our other Sims 3 Worlds, because we really wanted to create a French ambiance for a French flavored world :)

Don't worry : except 2 or 3 things, we still use the same creators stuff aka mainly ATS ( Around the Sims 3 ) and Cyclone Sue ( from TSR ) for the build part. And of course, our own stuff which is not huge :D like our Rabbit Holes you may find here on Tumblr ...

Before any further, the fantastic towers you need to get in order to fully enjoy Champignac come from MTS ( Mod the Sims ) and have been converted from The Sims Medieval by Votenga ( MEDIEVAL TOWERS & BUILDINGS ) you may find there :)

I hope you'll enjoy discover all these gems in Champignac ;)

our "Stadium" is the Football Club by Norn @ MTS and tumblr

the Junk Yard is based on : Old Art Deco gas station yard by flora2 @ MTS :)

le Marché Bio ( Bio Market ) is based on Farmers Market by efolger997 @ MTS

the Supernatural Tavern is based on Old Tomes bookstore by Vera J @ MTS

the Bistro of Champignac is based on Rattlesnake Juice by bellakenobi @ MTS

the Vampire Lounge is fully based on Pastor John's Church by Diwtay @ MTS

the beautiful City Hall of Champignac is a simplified version of a community lot by Jeanpass ( here on tumblr )

the Museum of Champignac we named : Villa Medicis is a creation of Petalbot ( Palazzo Venezia )

Let's talk now about the CC ...

As you already know ;) ATS made a lot of French stuff for the Sims 3. In fact, it's even THE Place to find everything you need to create a French flavored World :D so, here everything we used in Champignac

Set Exhibition & Museum Shop

Set Eco Café

Set Grocery - Fresh product displays - add-ons

Set Bakery Shop Part 2

Baguettes Display | Baguettes Baguette | Baguette Bread | Pain Shelf | Etagère

Set Bistrot Part 2

Price List | Tarifs des consommations Wall Menu | Menu Shelf | Etagère

Set City Urban Objects

Community Trash Can | Poubelle Communautaire Mail box (decorative) | Boîte aux lettres Phone Cabin (mirror) | Cabine téléphonique

Set City Newspapers Kiosque

Set Beach Activity Add-ons

Beach cabin | Cabine de plage (Decorative | Décor) Beach cabin | Cabine de plage (Toilets | Toilettes)

Set Uglify your Town

Concrete bench | Banc en béton Park bench | Banc de parc

Set Canal Locks

Set Church : ALL Items

Set The Dailies Café : Coffee Bar | Bar à café University Set Gardening Shop : Painted Crate | Cageot peint

Set Scuba diving & Surf Club : Surf board | Planche de surf

Set Electric Scooters : ALL Items

Set Misc Vehicles : Scooter with slot

Set Bakery 4to3 : Baking Pan - Bread | Moule - Pain/Cake + Bread | Pain

Sims 4 to 3 - City Living Landmarks #2 : Telephone pole | Poteau téléphonique x 2

Set Chocolate & Tea Shop : Chocolate Box | Boîte de chocolats ( ATS3-object-chocolatier-chocolatebox-heart-open )

In theory, all those items are .sims3pack files and should be encapsulated in the different lots. Anyway, we shall provide a folder with the .package files we used, just in case ;)

As said in the Road Map previous post, the tech-hippie website is already online and running fine. And the Sims 3 Lounge is mostly back too :) oh ! and Champignac will be uploaded later into the night or tomorrow maximum ...

Welcome in France :D

#sims 3 custom content #sims 3 cc #sims 3 world #k hippie #sims 3 build #sims 3 champignac #champignac #sims 3 champs les sims #champs les sims #sims de nimes #sims 3 #sims 3 worlds

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alliluyevas · 4 months ago

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hello in an earlier post you mentioned listening to academic history oriented podcasts. if youre willing, can you please share a few of your favourite podcasts? i'd love to give them a listen. btw i love your blog and i always look forward to seeing your posts on my dashboard !

Ooh, this is such a great question, thanks for asking! And I'm glad you love my blog :)

Most of the history podcasts I listen to regularly are hosted by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, which is affiliated with George Mason University where I used to work until about a month ago. I've been really impressed by their podcasts in terms of content, historical research, and production quality.

Their podcasts are hosted here: https://www.r2studios.org/

The ones I've been following are Your Most Obedient And Humble Servant, which examines letters written by women in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and Worlds Turned Upside Down, which is the "story of the American Revolution as a transatlantic crisis and imperial civil war." I particularly like Your Most Obedient and Humble Servant because I think the format with the letters is really interesting: every episode, the host and a specialist she's invited on for that specific letter read a letter written by a historical woman, usually but not always to a female friend or relative, and then discuss the letter's historical context and its place in the life of its creator and recipient. This is not a podcast you need to listen to chronologically, as they jump around in place and time. Pick whichever letter authors or topics interest you most and start there! If you want to listen to Worlds Turned Upside Down, though, start at the beginning.

Another Rosenzweig Center podcast I want to plug, even though I haven't actually started it yet, is Antisemitism, USA. It's about the history of antisemitism in America and it's written by John Turner and Lincoln Mullen, who are religious history professors at Mason. (Specifically, Dr. Turner is in the religion department but also teaches courses in the history department, and Dr. Mullen is in the history department and focuses on the history of American religion.) I have taken classes with both of them and I cannot say enough good things about them as both historians and people, so check out their podcast. (And I will too! Eventually, lol.)

I am also a fan of the Sunstone Mormon History Podcast, which is hosted by Sunstone, an independent (ie non-church-affiliated) Mormon studies magazine that's been publishing since the 1970s. Unlike the Rosenzweig Center podcasts, neither of the hosts are academics, but I do think they do a solid job with delving into primary sources. It is presented in a roughly chronological order, but it's not as much of a directly linked narrative so I think skipping around based on what topics most interest you is probably fine here (and, in fact, is what I do.)

#also if anyone has anything they think i would like feel free to rec it!

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mayamistake · 7 months ago

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"Frank Sinatra's self-inflicted tough-guy-party-animal-Rat-Packer image was not only childish and tiresome, it belied the fact that he was well-read, thoughtful, and a committed free thinker. In this 1963 interview with Playboy magazine, Sinatra speaks frankly (sorry) about the hypocrisy and dangers of "the witch doctor in the middle"--his term for organized religion.

Playboy: All right, let's start with the most basic question there is: Are you a religious man? Do you believe in God?

Sinatra: Well, that'll do for openers. I think I can sum up my religious feelings in a couple of paragraphs. First: I believe in you and me. I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life — in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God. But I don't believe in a personal God to whom I look for comfort or for a natural on the next roll of the dice. I'm not unmindful of man's seeming need for faith; I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. But to me religion is a deeply personal thing in which man and God go it alone together, without the witch doctor in the middle. The witch doctor tries to convince us that we have to ask God for help, to spell out to him what we need, even to bribe him with prayer or cash on the line. Well, I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It's not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to Seven, The Sermon on the Mount.

Playboy: You haven't found any answers for yourself in organized religion?

Sinatra: There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion and I'll show you a hundred retrogressions. Remember, they were men of God who destroyed the educational treasures at Alexandria, who perpetrated the Inquisition in Spain, who burned the witches at Salem. Over 25,000 organized religions flourish on this planet, but the followers of each think all the others are miserably misguided and probably evil as well. In India they worship white cows, monkeys and a dip in the Ganges. The Moslems accept slavery and prepare for Allah, who promises wine and revirginated women. And witch doctors aren't just in Africa. If you look in the L.A. papers of a Sunday morning, you'll see the local variety advertising their wares like suits with two pairs of pants.

Playboy: Hasn't religious faith just as often served as a civilizing influence?

Sinatra: Remember that leering, cursing lynch mob in Little Rock reviling a meek, innocent little 12-year-old Negro girl as she tried to enroll in public school? Weren't they — or most of them — devout churchgoers? I detest the two-faced who pretend liberality but are practiced bigots in their own mean little spheres. I didn't tell my daughter whom to marry, but I'd have broken her back if she had had big eyes for a bigot. As I see it, man is a product of his conditioning, and the social forces which mold his morality and conduct — including racial prejudice — are influenced more by material things like food and economic necessities than by the fear and awe and bigotry generated by the high priests of commercialized superstition. Now don't get me wrong. I'm for decency — period. I'm for anything and everything that bodes love and consideration for my fellow man. But when lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday — cash me out.

Playboy: But aren't such spiritual hypocrites in a minority? Aren't most Americans fairly consistent in their conduct within the precepts of religious doctrine?

Sinatra: I've got no quarrel with men of decency at any level. But I can't believe that decency stems only from religion. And I can't help wondering how many public figures make avowals of religious faith to maintain an aura of respectability. Our civilization, such as it is, was shaped by religion, and the men who aspire to public office anyplace in the free world must make obeisance to God or risk immediate opprobrium. Our press accurately reflects the religious nature of our society, but you'll notice that it also carries the articles and advertisements of astrology and hokey Elmer Gantry revivalists. We in America pride ourselves on freedom of the press, but every day I see, and so do you, this kind of dishonesty and distortion not only in this area but in reporting — about guys like me, for instance, which is of minor importance except to me; but also in reporting world news. How can a free people make decisions without facts? If the press reports world news as they report about me, we're in trouble.

Playboy: Are you saying that . . .

Sinatra: No, wait, let me finish. Have you thought of the chance I'm taking by speaking out this way? Can you imagine the deluge of crank letters, curses, threats and obscenities I'll receive after these remarks gain general circulation? Worse, the boycott of my records, my films, maybe a picket line at my opening at the Sands. Why? Because I've dared to say that love and decency are not necessarily concomitants of religious fervor.

Playboy: If you think you're stepping over the line, offending your public or perhaps risking economic suicide, shall we cut this off now, erase the tape and start over along more antiseptic lines?

Sinatra: No, let's let it run. I've thought this way for years, ached to say these things. Whom have I harmed by what I've said? What moral defection have I suggested? No, I don't want to chicken out now. Come on, pal, the clock's running."

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sisterdivinium · 1 year ago

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Mother Superion barely had time to assess the large coat, the expensive hat and the aviator sunglasses all bunched up together into a messy pile located at the edge of her own desk when Jillian noticed her entrance.

“You’re alone?” She asked by way of greeting, peeping behind the nun’s back to make sure. “We should best close the door.”

“And ciao to you too, dottoressa,” Superion replied dryly, watching as Jillian went on to lock them in after looking outside for any other nuns strolling in the corridor.

“You’ll understand my bluntness in a second.” Jillian returned to her companion, gave her an apologetic peck on the lips and soon produced a magazine which she put into Superion’s hands. “You should take a look at this.”

It was a thin little rag, the sort that printed more low-quality paparazzi pictures than it did any sort of meaningful text—when there were any words to go along with the images, typos and grammatical mistakes abounded throughout the extravagant theories “explaining” the ins and outs of the love lives of all sorts and ranks of celebrities, from international movie stars to barely significant internet phenomena boasting of a couple thousand followers online.

Mother Superion might have wondered how and why a woman such as Jillian Salvius would ever have any such dreck in her possession had she not at once recognised what the low-quality paparazzi photograph chosen for that particular issue’s cover revealed: it was an aerial shot, likely the product of a snooping drone, which had captured an inner patio of Jillian’s house—and both of them, Jillian and Mother Superion herself, featured in it, standing suspiciously close together as the nun’s hand stroked the renowned scientist’s cheek.

“This has been out for only some two hours and it is making a hell of a lot of noise already. My PR staff are going completely mad. ArqTech’s social media accounts are being bombarded with either accusations of hypocrisy on my part, secretly seducing the church in the background while fighting it in public, or celebratory messages about ‘crushing the patriarchy of a decadent institution’ through ‘full contact sisterhood’ or something like it. Dozens of extremely suggestive emojis are sprinkled throughout in both kinds.”

Jillian said all this with a wealth of gestures, drawing abstract, nervous shapes in the air, squinting her eyes at every word, as if they stung her tongue with each absurd syllable that escaped her lips.

Suzanne looked down at the magazine again, flipping through some of its pages. A couple more of blurry or pixelated images where she and Jillian could barely be made out adorned a page with a single column of text in a large font over a red background that would make anyone’s eyes water; she couldn’t read the speculation contained therein.

She could likewise not speak her mind on the matter, as Jillian continued her tirade.

“And there’s more, of course there’s more. I regret to inform you that you and I have been…" She grimaced. “Blorbofied. And please don’t ask me how I know that word.”

Mother Superion raised an inquisitive, insistent eyebrow nonetheless. Jillian sighed and submitted.

“… Camila,” she admitted.

The nun pinched the bridge of her nose.

“But what I mean to say is that the internet is simply abuzz with this. We’re being shipped. People are writing fanfiction about us. I don’t know if you know, but that’s when they tell stories—”

“I know what that means, Jillian.”

Catching her off-guard, Suzanne was the one moved to confess by another eyebrow raised high.

“Well, Xena fanfiction didn’t write itself in the nineties, you know.”

Jillian remained speechless for a few seconds more as she attempted to process the information of how the woman standing in front of her, who she had seen kill scores of malevolent men as well as writhe beneath her in pleasure, who wore a habit and a veil and prayed to God every day, was the same person who would write Xena fanfiction in the late nineties and post them on the internet—some of which might still be out there, somewhere.

On second thought, the whole killing men part did make quite a good deal of sense…

“If this has been out for only two hours, how are these people writing stories already?” Suzanne asked, rescuing her from her trance.

Jillian shook her head slightly, as if to dispel the thought of a young Suzanne writing stories of dubious merit and intentions in some corner of the convent when not absorbed by training.

“I don’t know. I haven’t read any—nor will I—but they even came up with a name. They’re calling us ‘doctor superion’.

The look she received as a reply was impenetrable. Jillian couldn’t tell whether Mother Superion despised it or was somehow amused by it.

“But that’s beside the point,” Jillian went on, rather exasperated at the possibilities, “because if I’m getting hell over this, what can it mean for you?”

She reached out to Suzanne’s hands, her touch scared, her eyes pleading.

“Can the Vatican take any sort of action against you? Have I put you in trouble again?”

“This will pass,” Suzanne said to comfort her, cupping her cheek. “You’re talking about the Catholic church. They didn’t even believe women could have any kind of sex for the longest time. They won’t read into a bad picture where I’m doing nothing more apart from touching your face.”

“And the gossip? The articles are multiplying online, the stories—”

“How many stories has the Church survived?”

“Suzanne, don’t fault me for saying this, but I don’t give a fuck about the Church surviving anything—it’s you I’m worried about. If my investors drop out now, I can always find others if I need to, but if they excommunicate you and tear you from the girls—”

“Jillian. I’ve been here for about twenty years. I’ve done worse than touch rich ‘heretic’ women’s faces and they know it. You know it,” she said, looking pointedly at her. “Stop worrying.”

The scientist relaxed, if somewhat against her will. She frowned soon after, however.

“… What do you mean by ‘worse’? How many other ‘worse’ things were you involved with?”

“… A conversation for another day. I think doctor superion has given you enough strong emotions for the time being.”

Jillian laughed despite herself. Mother Superion smiled seeing her unwind.

“I won’t hear the end of this anytime soon,” the owner of ArqTech pondered.

“Hence the detective disguise in coming here when it’s thirty degrees Celsius outside?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to unwittingly inspire any more fanfics than are already being written, would I? They’d have a field day with it, no doubt… But are you very sure you won’t suffer any repercussions for this?”

Suzanne kissed her.

Jillian attempted to repeat her question, but she found that kissing Suzanne back was quite a balm to her burdened heart—after all, if there were consequences to face either way, might as well deserve them in full.

When they parted to catch their breath, Mother Superion offered her an idea.

“We can say you’ve had a revelation through me, a miracle conversion. Even the Vatican will be glad to hear of it, for once.”

“Excuse you, but I have known what I liked since very early on. You wouldn’t be able to convert me to anything,” Jillian replied with a smirk. She leaned in to kiss Suzanne again, but stopped short thanks to a thought. “Hold on. Did you already have a contingency plan at the ready in case anything like this should happen?”

Mother Superion shrugged lightly.

“I told you. Worse things. In this line of work, it’s always best to look ahead of yourself.”

“Well, I might just run with your version, then. If only to calm these people down for a time.”

“The writers won’t stop.”

“I know. They might go at it even more excitedly. But the public image of the company might still be salvaged.”

“I pray it will. You’re invited to service if you want to show off just how genuine your new quest for God is,” Superion provoked her.

“Please don’t make me,” Jillian said with a laugh, pulling her closer. “I think I prefer private prayer to this whole blasphemer-to-devoted-choirgirl-overnight AU.”

Suzanne chuckled and kissed her again, throwing the gossip magazine away.

“See? Don’t worry about the others. We can write our own story all by ourselves…”

#doctor superion #warrior nun #jillian salvius #mother superion #this is what happens when you decide to write while sleep deprived #i don't usually write comedy but when i do it is utterly nonsensical lol #in earnestness i confess comedy isn't my strong suit. i think aristotle is right when he says it is based on characters “worse than us”#(while tragedy is about characters “better than us”)#and that usually means dumbing down and exaggerating some character traits which might risk losing their voice in the process #but i thought oh to hell with it -- it's not like i'll do this often anyway #and maybe someone might have a laugh the way i did when this came to me as i washed the dishes #narratives and similar

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 1 year ago

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Frank Sinatra's self-inflicted tough-guy-party-animal-Rat-Packer image was not only childish and tiresome, it belied the fact that he was well-read, thoughtful, and a committed free thinker. In this 1963 interview with Playboy magazine, Sinatra speaks frankly (sorry) about the hypocrisy and dangers of "the witch doctor in the middle"--his term for organized religion.

Playboy: All right, let's start with the most basic question there is: Are you a religious man? Do you believe in God?

Playboy: You haven't found any answers for yourself in organized religion?

Playboy: Hasn't religious faith just as often served as a civilizing influence?

Playboy: But aren't such spiritual hypocrites in a minority? Aren't most Americans fairly consistent in their conduct within the precepts of religious doctrine?

Playboy: Are you saying that . . .

Playboy: If you think you're stepping over the line, offending your public or perhaps risking economic suicide, shall we cut this off now, erase the tape and start over along more antiseptic lines?

#Frank Sinatra #interview #religion #Playboy magazine

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dcbbw · 1 year ago

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Sneak Peek Sunday 7.23.23

Hi, Tumblr! Anyone remember me? If you don’t, I completely understand. For sure, I am more out than in nowadays, but rest assured I have not packed my tumblr luggage yet, nor been jailed or hospitalized, and I am not dead. All I’m going to say is I thought life was supposed to be easier as you get older, and definitely get better post-Covid.

I have been working on a couple of WIPs and have something to share with anyone who may be interested. Going to use my current tag list, and please … DM me if you want on or off. No hard feelings if you want off; I realize that readers want/need content, and I have seriously fallen off the wagon there.

Only two sneak peeks this time around, but hopefully it’ll be enough to whet your appetite for more (which is coming soon, I promise). As usual, everything is in a state of rough draft and final/posted product may vary. Everything is below the cut; hope you like it!

Content Warning: Mature themes

Sins of the Father, PB Mashup (TRR x PM x VoS)

Father Joseph approached the lone teenager shooting hoops on the basketball court slowly, thoughtfully. The lad was tall, his long brown hair up in a manbun. Although only 16, his frame was impressively muscular due to his part-time job at the Dockyard. The priest licked his dry lips as he discreetly adjusted himself through his pants.

The teenager seemed to be paying Father Joseph no mind, intent on shooting three-pointers, but when the cleric was less than three feet away, Drake Walker spoke.

“Don’t come any closer, Father,” he warned. “Whatever you have to say to me, you can say it from there.”

Father Joseph stood still, his eyes surveying the recreation area. Drake was alone at the basketball hoop; on the other end of the asphalt a group of boys were playing an impromptu game of soccer, their eyes uneasily watching the priest. Further to the left, in the grassy area known as the Big Field, younger children played on seesaws, swings, and slides. A group of older girls popped bubblegum while pointing excitedly to the pages of a magazine.

Delighted shrieks and yells were interspersed with the stern admonishments of the nuns who were watching over the charges.

Father Joseph’s eyes went back to Drake who was now standing on tiptoes as his long arm arced through the air, the basketball rolling off his fingertips before it whooshed through the air and basket. It hit the ground with a thwack, rebounding back into Drake’s palms.

“I summoned you to my office. You never showed. That’s insubordination,” Father Joseph chided in a soft tone.

Drake turned to fully face the elder. “I will NEVER come to your office again! I have rights, I have boundaries and you respect NONE of that!”

“Never say never, Drake. Insubordination is grounds for dismissal from St. Joan’s. How do you think your poor, widowed mother would take that news?”

“I’ll tell her what you did to me,” Drake threatened.

“She won’t believe you. I’m Father Joseph. It is because of my benevolence that you AND your sister are here tuition free. She gets her groceries to feed you two from the church’s pantry. The clothes she wears to work come from our donation boxes.”

“I’m her SON!” Drake’s voice was raised, his cheeks flushed. “And you RAPED me!”

“I infuse your soul with the essence of God. Children are vessels waiting to be filled with the sins of the world. I provide a barrier of protection.”

Drake shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a sick sonofabitch.” He dribbled the basketball.

Father Joseph smirked at the insult. “Then report me.”

“You know no one will believe me or my mother if I did.”

The priest clasped his hands behind his back as he began to rock on his heels. “This is not a negotiation, young Walker. You WILL meet me in my office directly after the dismissal bell, or you WILL be removed from this school and barred from the property. And who will protect that pretty little sister of yours then?”

Without thinking, Drake shoved the basketball from his palms, aiming at the Father’s chest. “You WOULDN’T!”

With lightning speed, the priest’s arms and hands outstretched, catching the sporting apparatus before tucking it in the crook of his elbow.

“Are you willing to chance that? I love all of God’s children, you know.” Father Joseph turned on his heel, walking away.

At 3:05 pm, Drake knocked on the closed door of Father Joseph’s office, tears streaking his cheeks.

Dead in the Water (Rewrite Challenge, TRR AU)

The figure, dressed completely in black, including balaclava, traipsed easily up the ladder that led to the building’s rooftop despite the plastic bag slung over one shoulder. The person was certain they hadn’t been seen or followed but surveyed the duchy below before heading towards the water tower.

With a grunt, they carefully shifted the heavy package to their other shoulder; it was literally dead weight. Their head tilted upwards, staring at the ladder that led to the tower’s catwalk. With a heavy sigh, they trudged lightly to the steel staircase and began the long climb to the top of the water tank. The person maneuvered more slowly; one misstep and there would be two bodies found.

The goal was no body be found.

Their breathing grew heavier and was an outright pant once they reached the catwalk. They carefully placed the bag down before gloved hands began unwrapping and unrolling the plastic away from the body. As the dead woman was revealed, the person’s eyes took her in impersonally. Her once shapely body was swollen with putrid gases, her flawless skin mottled and bruised from long-settled blood. Lipstick still stained her lips, and her uncombed hair looked to be the texture of straw.

Reluctantly, their eyes pulled themselves away from the subject of a country-wide manhunt and focused on the door; a combination lock kept the door sealed. Their hands went to the tool bag hanging from their leather belt, fingers extracting a pair of 12” bolt cutters. Eyes narrowed in concentration, they neatly cut the lock off before fully opening the door.

Scooping the dead woman from the catwalk, and cradling the body next to his chest, the person entered the facility; it was pitch-dark and filled with the humming of pipes and pumps regulating the flow of water throughout not one, but two duchies. Operating by feel, the person came to a stop when they bumped the guardrail. With another grunt, they outstretched their arms and heaved the body into the tank of water.

There was a loud splash, then nothing. The person stood for a few moments more, thinking they should say a prayer for the dead or themselves, but they left without a word for either of them. Outside, they pulled the door shut, gathered the broken lock and sullied plastic, and made their way back down to the street where a rental car was parked in a darkened, dead-end alley.

At the dumpster approximately six feet from the car, the person stuffed the plastic bag, the broken lock, the face covering, and the gloves inside. As they strode towards the car, they fished a cellphone from their shirt’s breast pocket and quickly dialed a number.

The call was picked up, but there was no greeting.

They didn’t expect one.

“It’s done,” they said tersely before hanging up, and climbing into the vehicle.

Tagging: @jared2612 @ao719 @marietrinmimi @queenjilian @indiacater @kingliam2019 @bebepac @liamxs-world @mom2000aggie @liamrhysstalker2020 @twinkleallnight @umccall71 @superharriet @busywoman @gabesmommie1130 @tessa-liam @beezm @gardeningourmet @lovingchoices14 @mainstreetreader @angelasscribbles @lady-calypso @emkay512 @princessleac1 @charlotteg234 @alj4890 @yourfavaquarius111 @motorcitymademadame @queenmiarys @walkerdrakewalker @choicesficwriterscreations

#dcbbw writes #wips #mature themes #trr au fanfic #writer on tumblr

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godlessondheimite · 9 months ago

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LUNCH WITH JAN WONG To speak or not to speak, that is the question for Stratford's BrentCarver.

JAN WONG Saturday, July 1, 2000

Brent Carver is shy, so shy that when you start asking questions, he stops eating lunch. Sometimes he stops talking altogether. "Some people think silence is golden," says Carver, 48, after one particularly excruciating pause.

On stage, the actor is a fountain of eloquence. He's worked in every major Canadian theatre. He won a Tony in 1993 for his work on Broadway. At Stratford this summer, he's starring in two productions, Fiddler on the Roof and Elizabeth Rex,a Timothy Findley play that premiered Thursday.

But take away his script and ask him about himself or, say, Garth Drabinsky. Then there are only half-sentences, long stares and silence, lots of silence.

Carver is a vegetarian. He normally has a bowl of oatmeal or Red River cereal for breakfast. But at this brunch at Stratford's elegant Church Restaurant, he fortifies himself with salmon cakes and apple slaw to make it through the day's rehearsal -- and this interview.

In Elizabeth Rex, about a meeting between Shakespeare and Elizabeth I, he plays an actor specializing in female roles. Carver often takes on gender-bending parts. He won the Tony for his portrayal of Molina, the flamboyant gay window dresser in Kiss of the Spider Woman. Time magazine said that his performance "far surpasses" William Hurt's 1985 Oscar-winning version.

But ask Carver about the influence his own life has had on these roles, and an awkward silence ensues. For someone whose day (and night) job is performing before a live paying audience, he's paralyzed one on one. In 40 articles about him, including two promisingly headlined "A Personal Profile" and "A Frank Conversation," there's scant information. Not one mentions whether he's married, single, divorced or living with anyone. Only one says he has a cat named Licorice.

At lunch, Carver admits to having a cat named Licorice. He also acknowledges having a tiny home in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake. He won't say more. As for his temporary digs in Stratford, he says, "I'm living alone here." He imbues "here" with all the significance a great actor can muster. Does that mean he doesn't live alone over there in Niagara-on-the-Lake?

"I won't talk about my personal life, particularly when we witness across America the intrusion . . . ." His voice trails off. He looks down. "I have nothing to sell. What I do is I'm an actor. My home is found in the theatre."

Jeez. You'd think I was asking if he was gay. Actually, I am. And he is. But he's uncomfortable talking about it, even in this age of record-setting gay pride parades. You feel as though you're dragging him out of the closet. Yet he's not in the closet. Carver has talked, sort of, about his homosexuality in Xtra! He told the gay bi-weekly he feels "a part of the gay community." But even Xtra! elicited nothing more than the fact that in 1995 he was single and sharing his house with an ex-lover.

"I have no children," he says at lunch, daring you to read more into it. Then he looks down again at his lap. He pushes away his plate. He sips some Red Rose tea.

"Not many people ask me who I actually am," he says slowly. "As Shakespeare says in Hamlet, 'What ultimately is plucking out the heart of one's life?' Do we actually think that's going to illuminate who we are? Say what is our existence on earth?"

He played Hamlet 16 years ago. The exact quote is: You would pluck out the heart of my mystery; You would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: And there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak.

Shakespeare was right. In Carver, there is much music, excellent voice. Yet you cannot make him speak. In the long edgy silence that follows, the actor stares at the oak table. He carefully delineates segments of it with the edges of his hands. He does not look up.

His fingers are long and white, like the rest of his body. At 5 foot 11 and 158 pounds, he looks like a graduate student in his tan plaid shirt, red backpack and 32-inch waist jeans. His lean look suits both his current roles. In Fiddler, he plays Tevye, a gaunt Russian peasant in the midst of a czarist pogrom. In Elizabeth Rex, he's a Shakespearean actor dying of the pox.

Carver was born in Cranbrook, B.C., the fourth of eight children. His mother was a clerk at Woolworth's. His father, who loved music, drove a logging truck. Carver loved music, too. "My uncle remembers me singing things from the radio before I could talk," he says.

At seven, he earned money singing at weddings. He also sang for the Lions Club and the school choir. The choir stuff, and his blond ringlets, made him a prime target. Neighbourhood bullies beat him in Grade 1. They threw snowballs in his eyes. "I used to make sure my older brother would walk me home from school," Carver recalls.

As Tevye, the beleaguered father of five headstrong daughters, he spends virtually the entire two hours and 45 minutes on stage. He also sings and dances to 14 songs. After one matinee, Carver leaned in exhaustion against the backstage wall, before emerging to acknowledge a standing ovation.

With Elizabeth Rex up and running too, he'll have up to seven shows a week. On 13 gruelling days, he'll perform both Fiddler and Elizabeth Rex. On those days, he says, he'll steal a nap between removing his matinee makeup and applying new makeup for the evening. "It's essential to lie down, put on music -- Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Mozart."

Since he won't talk about himself, perhaps he'll talk about why he won't talk. Asked if questions make him nervous, Carver segments out more sections of the oak table with his long fingers. He says he's always talked in fits and starts. "I start talking." He pauses. "That's not quite what I think, so I edit."

After high school, where he was valedictorian, he enrolled in theatre studies at the University of British Columbia. Three years later, he dropped out to act in movies, television and the theatre. In 1984, after working in four movies in a row, he abruptly withdrew from acting for eight months. "I just needed to not work," he says.

His most famous withdrawal came after winning the Tony. He was the toast of Broadway. Barbra Streisand came backstage to visit. But he quit three months later. His contract for Kiss of the Spider Woman gave him an escape clause, and he grabbed it. "Some people can go for three or four years. I'm just not made that way."

Livent asked him to reconsider. He did, and still said no. As for Drabinsky, Carver hasn't seen or spoken to him since Livent went kaput. He says he isn't owed any money and had a "terrific working relationship" with Drabinsky. He won't say more.

Most actors would have tried to parlay the Tony into a career in Hollywood. Instead, Carver went to Edmonton, where he played Cyrano de Bergerac at the Citadel Theatre. "I didn't leave Broadway specifically to go to Edmonton," he says defensively.

His withdrawal is more understandable if you know that one of his best friends died a year and a half earlier -- in a fire at Carver's Stratford house. (He was out of town at the time.) Susan Wright, the Canadian actress, died on Dec. 29, 1991, along with her parents. It was Wright who had urged him to take on the role in Kiss of the Spider Woman. When he won the Tony, he dedicated it to her.

At lunch, the salmon cakes are still uneaten, but Carver has to rush off to a rehearsal. He looks relieved. Soon he'll be able to speak lines somebody else wrote. He gets up, shakes hands and slings his backpack over his shoulder. He says he's really enjoyed lunch. Carver is a great actor, but not that great.

#brent carver #wells for boys for men

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mostlysignssomeportents · 15 days ago

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This day in history

#15yrsago Google CEO says privacy doesn’t matter. Google blacklists CNet for violating CEO’s privacy. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/my_reaction_to.html

#15yrsago Spanish cops called in over allegation that band was playing “contemporary” music at jazz festival, medical necessity cited https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/dec/09/jazz-festival-larry-ochs-saxophone

#15yrsago US lobbyist: Canadians would get US government infrastructure contracts if it adopted US copyright laws https://web.archive.org/web/20091213133326/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/could-copyright-reform-win-buy-american-battle/article1392951/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheGlobeAndMail-Business+(The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Business+News)

#15yrsago Famous architecture photographer swarmed by multiple police vehicles in London for refusing to tell security guard why he was photographing famous church https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/08/police-search-photographer-terrorism-powers

#10yrsago Corporate sovereignty: already costing the EU billions https://www.techdirt.com/2014/12/09/true-cost-corporate-sovereignty-eu-35bn-already-paid-30bn-demanded-even-before-taftattip/

#10yrsago Taxpayers pick up the tab for violent, abusive, murdering cops 99.8% of the time https://nyulawreview.org/issues/volume-89-number-3/police-indemnification/

#10yrsago Modern slavery: the Mexican megafarms that supply America’s top grocers https://graphics.latimes.com/product-of-mexico-camps/

#15yrsago San Francisco’s Monkeybrains ISP offering gigabit home wireless connections https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gigabit-wireless-to-the-home--2#/

#5yrsago The New Yorker’s profile of William Gibson: “Droll, chilled out, and scarily articulate” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/16/how-william-gibson-keeps-his-science-fiction-real

#5yrsago Model stealing, rewarding hacking and poisoning attacks: a taxonomy of machine learning’s failure modes https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/engineering/failure-modes-in-machine-learning

#5yrsago The blood of poor Americans is now a leading export, bigger than corn or soy https://www.mintpressnews.com/harvesting-blood-americas-poor-late-stage-capitalism/263175/

#5yrsago Popular Chinese video game invites players to “hunt down traitors” in Hong Kong https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1172323.shtml

#5yrsago The student movements at the vanguard of Chile’s protests are allied with former student leaders now serving in Congress https://apnews.com/article/student-loans-santiago-chile-business-social-services-819108269b65dc2dd4dffcfd7712d53a

#5yrsago In any other industry, emergency medical billing would be considered fraudulent https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/07/opinion/sunday/medical-billing-fraud.html

#5yrsago US pharma and biotech lobbyists’ documents reveal their plan to gouge Britons in any post-Brexit trade-deal https://theintercept.com/2019/12/09/brexit-american-trade-deal-boris-johnson/

#5yrsago As the end nears for Yahoo Groups, Verizon pulls out all the stops to keep archivists from preserving them https://modsandmembersblog.wordpress.com/2019/12/08/verizon-yahoo-bad-form/

#5yrsago Church nativity scene puts the holy family in cages, because that’s how America deals with asylum-seekers like Christ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/church-nativity-depicts-jesus-mary-joseph-family-separated-border-n1097891

#pluralistic

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