#I was obsessed with Dotty as soon as I seen her when I started playing five years ago | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kurojiri · 6 years ago

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How about a ballad or two (if you wouldn’t mind)

Fandom: Harry Potter Pairing: Tom Riddle/ Luna Lovegood; Daphne Greengrass/ Pansy Parkinson Summary: When Luna Lovegood came to his life, Tom didn't want ever want to go back to the days when he didn't know her. A/N: @tunavibes Additional Tags: Muggle AU, No Magic, Modern AU, Rich society, arranged marriage, dysfunctional family, music, dance, secret romance, angst, happy ending, Musician Tom, Dancer Luna Word Count: 10,407 Or Read on Ao3 or ffnt

“I love you, I love you alone. Truth cannot be destroyed: time has no effect upon it.”— Simone de Beauvoir, from The Woman Destroyed, transl. Patrick O'Brian (Pantheon, 1987)

They had met before.

Sometime ago, when Tom had been a novice piano player. During the days when he had thought he had it all together. Tightly bound, and without any other reason to believe it would change.

His fingers had bled and ached. But he had remembered it; the frosty ice that plunged into his bare skin, when the night had been young, and she had been his light of hope. Her body had been shorter, younger, and somehow far wiser before her years even back then. Tom had not yet known what she meant when she told him that they would see each other more often.

He could, at the time, feel how her arms and body moved to hold him securely as they made their way to the closest convenience store. She had grasped his hands with care, while he had watched her clean them when she had bought a first aid kit with too much experience. It hadn't taken long for her chatty mouth to keep him company, even if he never asked for it. She just had been the kind of stranger that loved foolishly and completely for animals and stringing her empathy to people that greeted her. They had been younger, but Tom had always wondered why her. Why did he allow a stranger that could have been assumed to be loony to mend his wounds.

He didn't thank her that night verbally.

Not that it looked like she minded. She just had been funny in how she calmed his soul. So quickly, so randomly that it made him feel as if he was losing his rationality.

He didn't ask for her name, and she didn't ask for his either; they just heard the ice freeze the snow into place. They had made an odd pair. With Tom's custom dinner jacket dirty from blood, while, Luna's had been wearing common clothing with the material that had been aged by constant use. His black trousers and coat had not given him much warmth, he hadn't bothered to grab a thicker coat or a muffler when he had left the reception. He couldn't really regret it since his own bones felt numb. That had been his own saving grace that someone like her had turned up.

She had bought two cups of hot tea, and while he didn't like the quality his body did appreciate her efforts. Besides her one-sided conversation Tom had figured that he would have to call his parents soon. But back then and now, he would try to feel his body regain some purpose and focus.

It had started when he looked at her. Tom had known that in that day, she had come from out of nowhere. A total surprise and rarity from his life. That had been the very conception of his life pivoting into a new corner.

Back then, he hadn't known about it, but she had changed him. Gave a new concept of seeing his life as something more. It had reminded him about his childhood had that been vacated, with a mother that had obsessed in loving her husband and son. The same woman that had always monitored who he interacted with, how he talked, stood and behaved. How he had an estranged father that did not, nor would ever love him or his mother. The coldness he learned from him, and Tom had hated how vicious he had become with his emotions.

He had always known he was a monster. Even if his mother praised him. Or when he felt like his facade had felt like it had been working.

But the girl he met that night, she had poked, and ultimately had accepted his entire being. All before they knew each other's real friendship, mind you. (Or so, Tom had first thought when he had walked away from that night.)

She had graced her presence the following weekend. Her hair had been combed, maintained and had been transformed into a braided crown. Her skin, still pale, had a light blush. But when her lips had opened, her words had still evoked a breath from within his soul; it had frozen him. Her silver eyes had a sharp gleam in them, unlike the previous night.

(He liked it.)

Her parents had been dressed well, but Tom had known that his own parents hadn't been that impressed. The Lovegoods had been known in their circles for a couple of generations, just like how the Gaunt and Riddles had been. But they, Xenophilius and Pandora Lovegood had stripped some of their traditions that his mother and father did not agree with. It had brought some of the more gossip chatter to brew into his view. That night he couldn't stop looking at how lovely she had been.

The transformation had not been that drastic to cause him to lose all his breath, but it had only reinforced that she had been a lovely vision, regardless of her outfits or decor she kept within her body. A natural beauty that felt timeless and visionary.

Someone that intrigued Tom for unconventional pretenses.

When she had told him that her name was Luna, Tom couldn't help but agree to her naming. She had been pale, and lovely like the moon. She was dotty, but it had not bothered him like how other girls acted before. It had been a new different. A plane of existence that he could see to wrap his dull days. It could have been better if he had danced with her.

But when his mother gave him her infamous long glare he didn't push it. She never liked when he acted before her. Nor when they had been in the middle of an open room with too many eyes watching them. She clung to his father and kept Tom in a tighter invisible lease. He couldn't wait until his holiday was over.

School had been his only escape from her.

With the dancing portion still at play, Tom had made due with his time as few peers had walked over to his station. Small mercies were given when he had people around him. It had made it easier to pretend his role. And, for his mother to pay less attention to him when his father had to keep her company. That had helped him to breath temporally.

(Her dancing figure had flooded his dreams soon after their second encounter.)

He knew it had been trouble when he felt his mother's glare and his father's low voice to cease his daydreaming. It hadn't been like he meant to zone out.

It had been out of character of him to seem distracted, but somehow Tom had found his mind to be fuzzy. A blurry mess when he had watched the same group of people sit, eat and pretend to be superior to others. It had been a game Tom did not want to continue.

Maybe in another life he would have been ambitious to be the best heir of his family. To live accordingly by becoming a perfect Lord that his mother wanted and one his father expected; but in this one, Tom wanted to be fulfilled differently. His heart yearned for other pleasures.

To have meaning when he woke up. Or to feel vaguely satisfied in his future career. Instead, what he had been received were his parents' cold touches and a colder building that he been forced to call home. Tom wanted more. And if he wanted to be happy meant for him to be greedy, then so be it.

They had unofficially met for a thrice time in his school. The morning snow had almost blinded him when he stepped out of his ride. She had been in the midst of the early crowd, dressed in the same uniform he'd always seen for past couple years since he had been admitted. Her hair had been let down, and her shoes had been worn down. In the mix of rich girls that flaunted their jewelry and intricate hairstyles, Luna had still won over his time.

However, that did not mean that he spoke to her right away. He had noticed that she had carried a second bag, where a pair of flats had stuck out. The same ones that he had seen his fiance use when she had her dancing lessons.

Tom did not pursue her when he heard a call for his name to be repeated by shrill of girls coming closer to his person. Within them and sea of students, Tom could have sworn that she had learned of his presence too.

School had begun in the same manner he expected: dull, slow and tedious. The only few hours he had to himself, had been music. The piano had never actively started as a part of himself or as form of escapism; not purposely. It had always been just another task for him to master. Another form for him to be perfect in.

But it had come along. Once he noticed how his parents left him, Tom worshiped the keys. The melodies he could sing with his fingers had made it worth in his eyes. He grew up to be a performer. A strong voice came with it in his dreams when he learned a new key or a new combination. His youth had grounded him when he soon had been toured into competitions.

They may have started as a means for his competitive blood to chime in his awards, but strangely, it had given Tom an outlet.

Years later when they had pulled and strangled him Tom could still not hate music. He couldn't fully embrace his hatred either when his mother began to want more from him. The recitals, competitions and tutors had boiled to him losing feelings on his arms and fingers. (He could remember how they throbbed and ached until he couldn't stop feeling numb.) If it hadn't been his mother, then Tom's life went against his father's rules.

His father's own family had demanded for a stricter life too when they wanted him to stop dabbling in the piano. While Tom never liked both sides of his family, he had known the Riddle's more since his mother's brother and father were worse company. They always came to watch him. His looks had always made it feel as if it had been a cure to be the next generation of the Riddle and Gaunt Family. With one side happy he looked like a spitting image of his father, and to another that the Gaunt line did not appear so heavily in his eyes.

His aristocratic features had very little praise when each time both families scrutinized him when he kept playing. A Lord never had time to play an instrument. Only a dreamer with no future could waste his hours.

In a cruel twist of fate, Tom had been allowed to maintain his hours on the piano when he had been in the middle of meeting the Greengrass family.

It had been during a late winter when he had working on a new piece that his mother wanted him to play for small gathering she had planning for weeks. It had been a hush operation as the walls of his room twitched with anticipation. His skills among the rest of their family's circles had made his mother win the battle for him to continuing to improve his skills. And since then, his father still did not appreciate his efforts on proving to be a good son, even when he won more and more awards and recognition. That, had made Tom see that the piano was all his own, a piece where he never wanted to change, even if his heart had throbbed in loneliness.

Daphne Greengrass had always been a lovely image: hair always perfectly styled, flawless skin with no blemishes in sight, and a slim body that most guys would appreciate from his grade and school. She had a family history that his parents respected, as much as his mother could allow for him to marry. Her grades were close to his own. Tom had no real issues before when he had been told that she had been arranged to be his fiance. A few years too soon they would be wed.

Before he had met Luna Lovegood, Tom had thought he could promise himself to a loveless marriage without too much thought, concern, or belief that love existed.

He had lived with that kind of impression with how his father and mother worked alongside each other. (His mother may have been obsessed, but it had been his father that really showed how arranged marriages were all political. Cold.) His lineage had always been a talk, with Greengrass being one of the few ladies that had acquired some status for him to march in the same halls with her hand.

All before that night, he had thought he had figured how his life would entail.

But, like all chances were fabled to be, Tom had seen her. She had burned his blood, had made him corrupted by her pureness. It hadn't been fair. Lovegood had been something only stories could makeup. With her kindness and oddly charming riddles. She intrigued him. Had made him torn of how woven his life had already been with from his mother's shackles.

She made him want more than he could ever thought were possible for himself.

That reason alone, had been why he couldn't afford himself lose any more inches of himself. Never for a girl he had met on that bizarre night when all his sense had been bitter and torpid from use. He had a life already planned, with people expecting him to accomplish.

But life could never be that easy. Not when Lovegood had been involved. Her actions had made Tom cling to their encounters. The hallways were always crowded with numerous witness, but Tom had grown to welcome the few minutes of hearing her laugh. To see her healthy and enjoying her time with the friends she made.

(Although, Tom had wanted to be the reason why she smiled. To be the person she hugged. It never felt like it had been enough for them to be in the same school and not interact.)

It did not take long for him to figure and then accomplish a few stolen moments with. In those rare bouts of silence in the open corridors, Tom had found her figure sitting down on a bench. The trees and bushes of roses gave her cover and privacy.

As he walked over, Tom was hit momentary when his mind went completely blank mind unexpectedly. Right before he could recover, she sensed him. Her eyes sparkled with recognition when he stopped a couple of feet away from her.

"Hello." She had a thick jumper and muffler on. "It's good to you again." She didn't put away her writing material from her lap, but she had made the motion for him to sit down.

His body may have been cold from the weather, but he hadn't care then. The only thing he could clearly remember of that day had been the simpler things. The way she smiled at him, how he grew comfortable with her odd stories she loved to write or sketches of magical creatures her father and mother used to describe about. It had been a nice mid-afternoon all things considered when the campus had been quiet. The best thing however, had been she laughed at his horrible jokes.

He never did know why he had said them, only that he loved the sound of her giggling.

In the end, they didn't mention his hands that day they first met. And it didn't bother him one bit. Tom had just been relieved that she had been kind enough to understand to not touch that yet.

Greengrass had not ever really cared in the beginning, middle, or end.

Years ago, they had already established how reluctant both parties had been when they had been told of their future union. They each grown fond of each other as one could be for acquaintances. Their differences had been vast enough for them to realize early on that they knew they would never be a perfect match.

She was louder; Greengrass had often preferred riding on her horse and spending many hours either being physical or dressing like a proper Lady. Even if she danced because of her mother's background, she did not love it the way Lovegood did. There was unspoken coldness in her, the kind that made Tom see Greengrass struggle to put her emotions in way that could be described as delicate. She knew wrath, pride, and boredom, but she could never truly dance with a whimsical or soft manner like Lovegood. That had been why it all made sense.

Why Tom couldn't find himself to ever fall in love with Daphne Greengrass. There was no passion. He could never give himself to her, as she couldn't to him.

That had been why when he met Lovegood he saw how much he hadn't been alive. Music could only reanimate his body when he played. But it had been exchanged with new vigorous when Lovegood had walked up to him.

They both had reactions to make each other smile, and feel at peace when the silence pauses came forward. Nothing ever felt forced, and it had made Tom sense that his own happiness would trap him. He couldn't afford it, losing Lovegood, losing his name and his future. It all had been wrapped perfectly when his mother noticed his happiness radiating closely to his skin. His parents both had been suspicious when they learned that Tom had started to spend more time by his piano or in school than before.

"Tom, I see you are more passionate during your piano lessons lately." His mother's eyes were hard, charier when she noticed how his jaw tightened by her interrogation during dinner. "Should I worry?"

He did his best to maintain a placid tone when spoke. "No, mother." He touched the silverware close to him. "I merely am enjoying the current piece that I am playing."

She didn't fully believe him, but left the matter to drop when his father entered the room.

The dinner left him without a full appetite.

Greengrass had never objected when Tom escorted her to her dance classes before, and not much more when Lovegood became apart his life. They had that sort of system of them pretending to be a school's perfect couple. Their schedules had done enough for them to know each other's activities to be stifling.

But now, it had also made it easier for Tom to see Lovegood. There had few occasions of him seeing her abilities out in the open, and as he kept coming frequently, he didn't mind when Greengrass paid no attention. It hadn't been like he was there for her anyways.

She didn't disappoint; couldn't ever, when she looked at him. Tom had now learned what it meant to live a life with her. She would never cease to amaze him at how selfless she could be. To be pure of heart.

Luna never allowed their meetings to speak more, to invest in anything further. She had met his fiance, as they were in the same class and rank when they danced. That had been why Tom could stand the hours he spent when he could watch them practice. They both knew it had been a terrible reason for him to suddenly pick up more enthusiasm, but it hadn't been like his fiance cared. She, herself had been absent as she stayed closer to her own pack of acquaintances.

Tom didn't do anything else but watch Luna stretch her body, sing a song with her limbs and, Tom had been fine with the imagery she could create within a moment's notice.

Those hours had been his own personal grip of a reality he knew could not stay in.

As spring loomed Tom and Luna had grown closer. So much he couldn't go back to calling her anything else than her first name. It had been a journey for them to meet up without making others aware what they both wanted. From brief glances in hallways, to sitting at the same bench when the campus died down. It had inherently made Tom seek more hours, opportunities to be in the same room as her. (He still couldn't believe at the levels he did to have a justification for his affections and friendship he had with Luna.)

The crossfire he eventually found himself in had been acted on the simple coincidence of being in the same room as his music professor and the director for the dance section. They had wanted to bring in more cheer as the new season would come into view. A recital had been dubbed soon after they gained enough attraction from others.

Tom did not actively sign in; but, he had not said no when Luna asked him to perform with her. When he had been asked about it, he made sure that the people who asked had been aware of how he had ended up in the situation. How he couldn't refuse his professor when he agreed for their paired union for the recital. It hadn't been like he would perform with Greengrass, she already made plans to work with another girl, Pansy Parkinson. It all worked out in the end.

With Tom, he had more excuses to use the school's practice rooms, while Luna could actively, and freely talk to him about her ideas or music. It had been spur of joy when he could walk to school and have Luna be at his side. Greengrass hadn't said anything negative either as she accepted it and even provided him more time with Luna as they both covered for each other.

Tom at the time, hadn't bothered to question it when they worked together for those reasons. All he could be gratefully was how it worked out for the time being.

Through trial and error Tom eventually understood what Luna tried to say in her movements. She twirled with ease and hummed when she couldn't stop feeling happy. She had the knack of always being positive, it warmed his own heart when she told many stories of where her family visited during their holidays. It had been obvious that her life had been more loving and free.

But what really drove him was how she never pitied him when he gave her small insights of how much he wanted out. She had been born from wealth too and had some responsibilities, but unlike her, Tom could never strip away his name unless he took Luna's hand. Something had always guarded him, protested for him to stay away from making a huge mistake; but even when the danger hovered when he saw Luna he couldn't back away. He always took another step closer. He wanted to taste his freedom.

He never wanted his parent's life. Tom could admit that when Luna sat next to him as he played a tune. With every breath he took he knew how much he wanted to leave. He had been sure that she knew what he thought when he finished a song, with the keys ghosting a decrescendo in the air as his fingers lowered to his sides.

Fundamentally, they both knew where Tom couldn't venture, and where, more importantly, Luna wouldn't ever touch.

But they had both couldn't estimate how much stronger their youth and love was stronger, and more palpable when she danced, and he played the piano alone. Something made her lower her guard, and his heart. It was intoxicating. A slip from both their judgments when her skin was flush from her dancing and his mind whirling with finding the perfect song that could replicate how much he loved her when he thought about her. It had become intense.

With her so close, Tom couldn't stop himself from falling deeper.

It had been a mistake when she sat next to him, her hair had been pulled up into a messy bun making easier for him to see her flushed face. Her silver eyes gleamed when she lowered her head back.

"That was lovely."

The pile of music sheets had dwindled slowly, but it still hadn't felt like he found the right song yet. Not when he still wanted to discover and ultimately to find the right words and keys that could make her see how much brighter his life was since he'd met her. She, Luna's dancing was unworldly too as she painted the songs he played with more meanings.

He didn't know when time stopped, only that when she opened another folder the light beamed with more focus. His heart soared. It had occurred to him that Tom moved was when one hand touched the closest arm to him, she didn't pull away but nearly, did Tom felt like a dying man when her eyes searched for him to answer.

He didn't want to lose her, couldn't bare of the idea of ruining it and having her leave his side.

Tom knew that his eyes burned with longing. He could have kissed her, could have confessed more of his dreams, but he didn't. His heart swelled when he let—Tom died instantly and then came back to life when Luna kissed his cheek.

It had been a small opening, but Tom Riddle knew that they both made their graves when he kissed her back.

The recital practices had been the kick starter. It had unlocked something for Tom to rebel from within his confinements. It gave him the strength when he had still kept up appearances when he escorted Greengrass.

Neither spoke about their private hours, but Tom and Greengrass at least both shown that they could work together when they were watched by their own set of parents. In those days when they shared dinner or had to be chaperoned as they walked back and forth each other's gardens Tom noticed Luna's influence when he listened more actively to Greengrass' chatter. It had been different from Luna's happier and gentle tones, but Tom could at least acknowledge that Greengrass did not spend their own time of her talking about her clothes or makeup. They debated, but it had not been without any real heat. It had been friendlier; and it had caught him off guard how he had wasted some of his years of not better acquainting with her and the dry humor she used.

As they reared into one of the many water fountains Greengrass quietly lowered her head as she repositioned her umbrella. "While I do not care much of what you do in your own time, may I offer a few words of advice?"

Tom didn't slow down, but he had readjusted his arm that had been wrapped by hers. He didn't reply but she must have read on his face that he would allow her to say her peace. With the waters still their background she whispered to him.

"Our practice rooms are not soundproof or windowless. In case you forget yourself of who you are, I suggest that if you want to partake in that kind of behavior, you should pick a more private area."

Greengrass didn't sound partaken offended or repulsed that he found someone else for his affections, but it still made him wary of her assigned at times. As if, she knew from experience of keeping a lie to herself. (He wouldn't be surprised if she had a lover in the past to hide.) It still hadn't meant that he would ever expose her; Tom had known that their lives and happiness were limited. And if she were willing to help him, then he supposed he would help her if she ever asked for his assistance.

"I'll keep that in mind, Greengrass."

Her hands flexed and tighten on his arm, "Daphne." Her eyes locked to his. "At least call me Daphne. We have been betrothed for a while to at least be familiar with each other."

He resisted to roll his eyes as he heard her tone chip at being friendly, almost teasing. He didn't see another reason to not cooperate or humor her. "Daphne."

Her lips curled into a smirk when he finally said her name, as they walked another lap around the fountain. Mid-way to the rows of lilies it had seemed like they both unlocked another level for them to be friendly with each other. It felt had nice to have a friend in his secrets.

(Even if had been his fiance.)

It had always been gentle, the glide of her arms around his neck, the flutter of her eyelashes when she pressed her face at the crook of his neck. Sometimes, Tom liked how time slowed down when it had been just the two of them. Nothing else felt like it mattered, as if Tom had a moment to collect himself and feel free to reacquaint with thoughts he never got to finish before.

Luna had always helped with that, with him winding down and seeing what he left behind. Stolen chaste kisses had never been what he thought he would ever do, nor how much spirit he gained since she came to his life. It had strangled him when he had to leave the school and be away from the piano room they used. Even the bench that they used had become a spot he liked to visit. It had been one of those places where the world held more warmth than he was used.

It had become a second escape for him.

Those seconds and days had accumulated to an existence that harbored something far grander. Practically tangible. It had made Tom both weak and strong.

He hadn't at the time, thought Tom could ever he could ever experience what he had with Luna and be allowed to keep it. He had known that if he ever, that it would be temporary; but he hadn't planned to have been that alluring—promising to be in love. It had made him almost careless with his bundling emotions.

Luna's shape had engulfed him in his dreams.

Tom could stamp most of his dreams as that, images of warmth swarming into his blood and her own heart squeezing his own when she had tightly wrapped her arms around his torso. Both in reality and in his dreams, Luna had the exact talent of making him want to seek a new way to have more hours stolen by her presence. It seemed like nothing could be denied when she came to his quarters.

He needed her. More than the oxygen he breathed, more than all the power and influence his family were willing to give him one day. She had been his sanctuary.

And that had meant that Tom never wanted to let go of her.

It had been it had been easy to start the same cycle. Leaving his home, going to any piano and play a song or two until she would appear. She would either sit next to him or dance to mirror her emotions. Each song held a memory, an echo of something they each wanted to convey. And it made sense, for him and to her for them to tell each other their secrets, their whims and desires for their lives.

Tom had always been known for being cold and having walls, but when he had met Luna, she had been the real test. With her honesty and empathy she had been genuine with her words. With her actions, and love. She freely admitted it when Tom had been taught to guard his own heart from himself as much as the world.

Somehow Luna would never cease to stop smiling. It had been a silly song, one Tom had heard before his studies took priority when he finished primary school. The keys had come back into a hum, and her face had been too pretty and the lighting had made him move to capture her silly story she just finished telling him. The song did wonders. It filled his soul, and it had made Luna laugh and laugh in those holes he never stopped digging from.

She had made the difference.

In the same way that Tom had seen how his own life had started to tip out of balance. If it had been another year, Tom would have not welcomed how she kissed his cheek. How he bent down mid song to close his eyes and let his forehead touch hers as he kept the song flowing, filling the air with his love for her; for keeping the image of what she represented in his heart when she was so close—Tom didn't know if he could live another day without her. He would have been appalled before, for being so open to another person. But it had felt right.

To have Luna so close to his own body and have her own arms cup his face as she gave him butterfly kisses.

That sort of delicate touches had been lost before, but now, with her Tom had found his paradise. His own heaven on earth. Tom had always had a streak of being selfish, and with the introduction and addiction he had with Luna, he would do anything to keep her by his side.

Anything.

They had been laughing. A display that Tom would have never been able to afford before. Not with his mates or with his family.

Tom remembered that with clarity that never dulled with time. In those occasions Tom figured that had been a reason why he had felt so horrid, having clarity in some venues on his life and others he drifted without much fuss. It hadn't been healthy when it all crashed and burned; but he supposed, it had all made sense for it all. The clash of his happiness and his reality of losing everything he had never been supposed to have. It had hurt. Yet, it had also spoken for the miles he had been given before it all went to waste.

The grey and dreary skies had not bothered him that day. In a stroke of luck, Tom had watched most of his life slightly turning lighter, and in some ways, more naive when it came to his heart. He had been working on the piano when Daphne called for a small meeting. A causal day off, if his parents questioned it. They had been after all, teens filled with youth and always wanting to explore beyond their walls. His father had been the one that caught him leaving. They didn't share many words.

Tom ended up an hour away from his home and inside a larger community that bare resembled a small city between hills of suburbias. It had ached a part of his soul he never thought could call out. Walking, driving and escaping a part his life. Most of his life had never favored for him to have a Saturday afternoon where he did nothing productive. A lazy day. It felt so liberating.

Daphne had showed him to a small diner where Luna had been sitting in a lone booth. Tom stopped short, "What?"

Daphne's own eyes were shaded with a playful tint. "Don't worry, nobody we know linger here." She still had an arm linked with his as reflex. "Besides, I thought ahead of it."

When he looked back at where Luna was, he saw Parkinson sitting down next her. Her eyes didn't meet his, but Tom knew what she was saying to Daphne. In a silent, but meaningful way, he understood what she wanted. What, she had given him too as they sat down in the same booth as Pansy and Luna.

He had wanted to say more, but when Luna's eyes shined at him—Tom only wanted to remember the way his own soul sang when she called his name that day.

When they were all laughing.

They, meaning Tom and Daphne, had thought it would have been safer to continue the charade. Of them all being good friends, and that nothing else took place. They all laughed, joked and spoke to each other in the same beats. Luna may have of not liked lying to most of her peers and friends, but she had also longed for the days when they could just be themselves. Her own friends, in particular had been a hefty weight on his limbs. They watched him when he was alone, when he was Daphne and when Luna was talking to Pansy.

That had been a transition he couldn't really believe that took place. Pansy was glamorous, talkative and known to be a queen of information. She led the masses when she wanted. Had known a couple of blokes that made her like a modern version of a black widow. When Luna sat and danced next to her it felt like a small lamb was prancing around a lioness, where the line of death and life swept him. They made a quite a pair. One fragile-looking girl with a fairy goodness and another where danger lurked in passion that youth only could delve in.

It had made sense why Pansy had found a place in Daphne. They each complimented each other. Just like how Luna showed him how to live. Their own adventures had been hidden longer than Tom could have imagined, and in the sum of his own musings he wondered if he could have the same highs as them. If he could provide some strength in himself to finally break away.

There had been enough nights when he wanted to fight for his right to happiness. Money and influence didn't make him happy, had never granted him to smile or laugh the way he did when he was with Luna. Daphne had a lovely vision for many, but Tom knew what she really wanted. And he was not Parkinson; just like Daphne would never be Luna to him. They could be friends. Allies, if they were able to firmly establish that with their families. Marriage wasn't the only way to unite people.

It just became a sore topic when he went to school, or when he had been forced to watch how his parents kept on looking at his progress. He didn't want it. Couldn't care that he was becoming less than the person he was a year ago.

They didn't look overly pleased when the recital came. But his mother did persuade his father to not overly judge his performance like in the past. It had been strangely, a mute day; he had walked to his classes, and had talked to Daphne like normal. It shouldn't have been any different. And yet, it had been. A slow burning heat had touched him.

He could still eat calmly, could still answer each question his teachers asked him.

However, there had been a disconnection with him and the world. Had only been the one to restore some echos of what he had been cut off from when she called out to him. The static rose and then had been lifted when he touched a piano key. He knew what Luna had been thinking when they rehearsed for the final time. He didn't open his mouth, and she didn't either; because they knew that it wouldn't have last forever.

It had been (always) temporary.

Having the rush of people roaming, running and presenting themselves had been a means of seeing time pass. He had learned about the life behind the curtains. With it chaotic spirals and time ticking.

His dinner jacket had been dutifully pressed and perfect. He had fiddled with his fingers before he heard his mother.

She spoke with a clear brightness that always felt like fluorescent lights from a hospital, her eyes were always direct and wild. With few people watching them Tom wondered why she didn't stay in her seat with his father. She tutted for a second as she straightened his jacket, her icy form hadn't bore him any real smiles. Not with a tender love a mother would provide to her son either. She had always been a bit obsessive for him to act like his father, and when he showed some divergence it could go either way.

And as faithful as she had always been for wanting a good son, she put pressure in any form in his life. The recital winners would be granted a nice prize and more importantly, a sway in best higher level schooling. He wouldn't go to any higher arts school, but the title of being a winner nonetheless had been something she wanted him to achieve.

"Make us proud, Tom." Her eyes gleamed again, and Tom did his best to not flinch.

"Yes, mother." His voice had automatically answered her as she turned away from him. "Always."

Right before the storm, Tom had stolen his minutes with Luna. The girl that looked like a right princess with her slim body, her hair had been braided again by Pansy and Daphne's help. With light makeup and shoes on, she was ready to take the world. He wanted to kiss her, wanted to let her know she was lovelier than any pictures could ever capture. Her own natural blush when he escorted her had been enough to satisfy him then.

When they walked to their appropriate spots they shared one final look before they bared their souls together. He didn't consistently recall how the audience sounded like, or how his parents felt when they watched him and Luna perform together. But he did memorize how she glowed in the stage lights, how she enchanted him. The song they ended up with had a bit softness that made sense when he saw her in the early spring mornings, a tempo that carried how his heart bled for her voice. It could have been described as romantic, playful and whimsical; but Tom had loved how free she danced.

How she opened his eyes when she twirled and swam in the notes he pressed. They had told as many plot points in their story as they could in the limited minutes that they had, and Tom had felt breathless when they ended it. And, when the silence the stage and rows of people processing it had engulfed for a short breath, he smiled openly, when they cheered for her.

It had been a brief life, but Tom had loved playing the piano when its star featured her. He knew he would pay the price, but the flushed and happy face of Luna Lovegood had been worth it. Even if he knew it meant he had to brace the wrath of his mother, who, at the front row had seen his eyes never leave Luna.

Only a daft person couldn't see what Tom felt and wanted.

Backstage, Daphne and Pansy congratulated them. Their outfits had been expressful, and in contrast to Luna's delicate color and shape. It had suited them too. When the program ended and winners announced Tom had steeled himself as Luna's parents came first to pick her up. They had been kinder when he shook hands with Luna's father and mother. Both Lovegood's had sharp eyes as they hugged their daughter. He had known that they wanted to say something to him, but decided that it hadn't been the right place to. And as Luna left Tom halted his next thoughts when he caught his own parents coming along.

His mother did not openly say much when she caught Luna's figure; but he had sensed that they would talk in depth in their home. Her hands had been tight when they walked away from the school. His father still didn't say a word, unlike how his mother kept pursing her lips in order to not start a fit. It had been a colder ride back, with tense shoulders, deeper scolds and barely concealed fury. When his father opened the door Tom could hear the precise moment when his mother went straight for Tom's neck.

She didn't strangle him, but she had been furious. Her anger was always a hellfire; it left burning marks in Tom's memories. "Who said you could talk to her? Let alone spend any time with that kind of girl?"

Tom move an inch, not when she still had turned her body to have his father have a go at his opinion. He was not shocked when his father went straight to a disgusted murmur before leaving for a strong drink. He had always been against him playing music, and when it showed he had the capacity of loving anyone not his fiance, his father did not even coax his mother into not stopping her screaming for the rest of night.

She did not accept his apologies. Not that he expected her to even loosen any of her anger when he still kept his grades up or when he went to their joint lunches and dinners with the Greengrass family. In the wake of the recital, his mother did everything she could to reinforce his limitation towards Luna. She couldn't do much when it came the dancing lessons, but it had still festered for Tom to want to rebel. He couldn't go back to before when he didn't know who Luna was. To the days when he felt like a defeatist in the wake of his younger years.

Daphne's own romance with Pansy had been momentarily shaken too when Tom couldn't be there to help them. Rumors were awful and as iron clan when people wanted them to. It had made them all suffer the few times they could even talk to each other. Daphne couldn't rightfully ignore her duty any more than Tom could find the right hours to sit with Luna. The bench they used to have had been taken by another pair of stringed lovers. And without a legitimate excuse Tom and Luna had their own circles to maintain.

That didn't mean that it had fully stopped him from seeing Luna.

And, it had been because of that, that Tom didn't know what to say when his mother found him lounging with them. Her hair still, styled in a tight bun, and her lips in a glossy red. She didn't scream, quietly, she glided towards Tom and Luna.

Nobody said anything. Didn't look away from her the way one hand outstretched to Tom and Luna's linked hands. Luna's parents in the background soundlessly went to the rescue and plucked her out of his mother's radius. Tom, had too went to block her from Luna. He would shield her and her parents until they could safely be away from his mother.

In a tense, but firm quiet voice she looked at Tom. "In the car. Now."

Tom didn't want to leave without reassuring Luna that everything it would be okay. But when he saw Luna's sad figure leaving, he couldn't help but wonder if they would let him see her again. They had never shown that they disliked him, but when the few times he had met them he couldn't help but see how they compared him to his parents. Her father especially when he had caught him escorting her back to her home. Tom had grown to please many adults in his life, but when it came to Luna's Tom had genuinely wanted them to like him.

To approve of him of ever being in Luna's life.

It had once been a silly dream of moving away from his parent's lives and move into Luna's lifestyle. He had wanted to wake up with her being the first thing he saw. To have a set of parents that didn't care if he took business or music as a major.

He had wanted a simpler life with her.

But when they left without a second word, and Tom only seeing of the braver random strangers staring at him, he collected himself and walked away from the place. He didn't swear, didn't cry when he had been disciplined. In all, Tom had chucked some books when he had been locked in his room. He hadn't been allowed to touch the piano for the rest of the remaining year, unless for academic purposes. He later found out that after the spring holidays the Lovegoods moved away.

To where, he hadn't been given expressive permission to know.

His mother eventually regained the normal pale color back to her cheeks. She still had been strict with him, and the Greengrass had been cold to his presence. Daphne and her little sister were kinder, when they talked to him. School or not, he still checked in for Pansy to have her time with Daphne. In a way, the distance he had been given from Luna gave a better perspective of his life. She had been the push he needed, the ache that developed for him to gain thicker skin. His own emotions may have been still stuck in being rusty, but Tom had known that he would not stay still forever.

Not when he had seen what was beyond the walls he had been born into. As the year settled the Greengrass family had wondered about Tom and Daphne's dynamic. With Luna gone, and Tom barely holding on some days, Daphne had grown bolder. It had made sense, when Pansy and Daphne made plans, they always sparked with gambles when their rationalities shrank. Both families had been roaming an open garden museum.

Tom had Daphne's arm. They haven't chatted much of Luna since her departure, and that had been kind of her. The months since then had been rough. But he still had been able to hear her light steps in the corridors in school, hear her laughing when he sat down and closed his eyes.

But it had been in the deepest hours when he slept that he had Luna's ghosting kisses that made him feel lonelier.

Daphne's sister came around to them. Her hair and eyes mirrored her sister, but Astoria had always been a bit more delicate. Her eyes were warmer, her cheeks almost permanently flushed when she caught anyone's eyes. She had been a sweet girl, and when she heard of Luna and her erupt move she had been gentle too when Tom came over during his visits. It had been sweet for some time, but as they rolled closer to summer sometimes Tom wanted her to shut up with her sympathy. He couldn't heal when all the pity looks that were given to him.

He didn't remember most of that day. Just fades words of Astoria and Daphne giving him a crash course of what some flowers meant as they encountered them.

It had been a semi warm day when he had wanted to stretch his legs. Tom's few mates had come along when his feelings registered for him to stop moping outwardly. It had been uncharacteristic of him slipping his emotions, but he figured it had been due to his inexperience of falling in love. He didn't think he could ever stop loving Luna, but it had become easier in accepting that she was out of his grasps. For now, at least.

In that time period of his life, Tom Riddle had thought that one day he would have been able to trace Luna out, and ask what she did after. If she missed him the way he did to her, if she moved on faster and forgot about him. If their first meeting had crossed her mind as much as it did to him the older he got. He had never been much of a sentimental person, but there had been inches of his life when he did pay attention. When he wanted to recall each time she had touched his soul.

He reached his own conclusions when Daphne ran away from home on an early July day.

She didn't carry much on her person. With sunglasses hiding most of her face, the rest of her commoner clothes didn't shock him. Daphne had later told him how she always secretly preferred street wear than the dresses she wore during their parties. A couple of bags that weren't all that heavy were by her feet. From what he could see she seemed small; and when he grabbed the keys to his father's less used car he took her to the closest train that would take her away. Pansy had met them shortly.

Seventeen-almost-Eighteen and still children to many, Pansy and Daphne chose to leave what they had been offered when they had been born. He kissed Daphne in the forehead for luck and gave a small hug to Pansy. And as the train left, Tom stayed sitting down as he looked at the different places he could go too.

When he got back to his room he briefly jotted down a couple of places he wanted to see.

He didn't confess in helping his ex-fiance and her lover escaping until when he himself got disowned by his father when he refused another arranged marriage with another well-off family. Tom may have been placed into a tight corner when he had few pounds to his person, but he had felt freer, curious again since that night when he met Luna.

And that—that had more than enough for Tom when he restarted his life again.

The bareness of pale flesh of his arms had woken up. A dream from long ago that had reclaimed him had made Tom sigh. The coldness that only winter could bring made it possible for him to get up as routine. In his younger days, Tom had foolishly thought that his first taste of freedom would rekindle him with a life fitting for his troubles. But it hadn't.

It only brought him to his knees.

Without his family, going to uni had been a bit like strangling himself underwater while running a marathon. That didn't mean it had been all unpleasant. He had made acquaintances, friends and few short-lived links that could have been called lovers for some people. He made healthy connections, destroyed and sabotaged others. It all had been part of the cycles he went through. His practice at the piano had paid off. His name, in the barest parts did few turns.

Nonetheless, it had been his own work and practice that made him successful. Since he left his teens, his adult life paid off with the countless people he'd met after. They gave inspirations, had given him lessons and few had influenced him.

(But never like Luna had.)

When they tried to get closer to him it had become a problem; and one he couldn't easily solve. It had always felt like they went against a current that had been made of a maelstrom. Sometimes he had been forgiving when he didn't want to be alone. But loneliness was maddening, it had trapped him, engulfed him and Tom swam in their storms. He had lived before in the darkness. With its stifling air, or cold clutched when he tried to find a way out.

In rare moments, he had one or two lovers that were what he needed. But they couldn't work it out the longer they shared their dreams.

One of them didn't want children, and Tom at the time hadn't either; not until he one day looked and saw a happy family enjoying one of his concerts. One of the youngest children of three, barely ten, had been awed by his performance. He had curly black hair and brown eyes that shined, he had wanted to be a great musician like Tom. He had been such an innocent kid, and when his parents smiled and shook hands with him, Tom pictured a faceless child that danced gracefully as Luna, or played the piano with passion he had now. Tom couldn't go back to the days when he didn't want another family; and so, he parted with that person.

The other partner he had loved to explore and meet new people. It had been only six months or nine with that person. The time had flown with that one. The second longest partner that Tom ever had.

He went with his life. Eighteen to Twenty to Twenty-One. All short-lived epilogues of what Tom thought he wanted.

Then, like how life is meant to change, he was Twenty-five. With a career that had given him lee-way of seeing the world as he fancied. The flats that he had over the years had evolved throughout his life too, with photos he'd taken where he traveled and who he met. Of books, he bought when the hours weren't spent on the piano. And of course, the first piano he bought when he had been able to afford a good one. That one, had always been a fixture for him as he coasted the world and his years.

Right after a short shower and breakfast he looked back at the calendar on his wall. In a tight scribble, a date and place had been marked for that mid-morning for his upcoming job. He ended up inside a grand theater, where the golden details almost blinded him from the cravings the ceilings had. The music composition had been drafted and composed to fit an epic. Tom's own talent had drawn their views and a job had been secured.

As he stepped onto the stage, he admired the view of thousands of rows of chairs. Even in at the wake of dancers coming along, he couldn't help but feel at peace for those short minutes. Leaving the theater with his own notes and music sheets he saw a list of the cast and most importantly, the grand star he would play for, Tom smiled softly.

Her face and name were his lullabies during the times he couldn't breathe despite her time with him had been a short couple of months. When the hours didn't seem to move any faster other than to antagonize him. Past lovers couldn't hold a candle when he remembered her sweet face, or her softer kisses that had always brought him to life. Young and first loves were always that strong, precious, and difficult to forget. She had been the first that had held him, his soul and heart.

When Tom had been chased out, he thought he could one day follow the trails and see his own ghosts leave him. However, when he was haunted, they lingered. Firmly. Without any remorse or mercy.

Luna Lovegood had been his ghost.

And since that day, Tom still couldn't stop his fingers to dedicate songs for her, them. For his heart to yearn when they were both young, naive and together. In sober moments when Tom could see away from her, he had wished that he had said something earlier. He hadn't spoken to his parents when they disowned him, nor when his name became bigger as he sold out concerts. Not that they reached out to him, he was sure that his mother had been persuaded into not contacting him by his father.

The cold blistering night nipped his naked neck. It made it uncomfortable as the coat he had grabbed had been thin, made it nearly impossible for him to walk back to his flat without fearing he would turn into a solid pile of limbs. The night sky had been clear, with no clouds in sight.

It made him think back to that night. When Tom had been numb. Where his life had once been dictated, and he hadn't cared. At Twenty-five, he knew more or less what he wanted than compared to when he had been a young boy. Had decent mates to drink with and a career that had given a place to air his whims. It was more than he could have hoped when he first started to hope to dream.

He had been about to cross the street when he saw a lone figure sitting, or sleeping, on a fountain. There had been few snowflakes falling, and with fewer people mingling where a body of water was. The fountain hadn't been on, but there had still been a body of still water slowly turning frozen. Tom normally would have not reached out to a stranger, but in a case of dreamless sleeps he did. The bundle at least had the courtesy of wearing a thick jumper and coat. The muffler had been a faded green and so were her boots.

As he got closer, he could see a peek of white blonde hair, and pale, pale skin. She looked up at him. It felt like time stopped for that moment.

He didn't outright gasp, but he almost did in the end when he reached for where her fingers were left to turn red from the weather exposure. Tom knelt down slowly as she sighed when he placed them inside his own warmer gloved hands.

His breath ghosted between the distance of them. "Luna."

Her silver eyes shined brighter than the moon. "Hello, Tom."

They didn't kiss right away. But Tom hadn't cared when she had been close to him again. Where he could physically touch her again and not have her image didn't disintegrate from his fingers like how his dreams did.

He still couldn't reel back how speechless he was with her there. And from the years away from her, Tom had been glad that she could still read him. Her affinity of being a pleasant and thoughtful had calmed him. It had always made him curious and even as adult, she still seemed otherworldly. Mystifying as the fairies of bedtime stories.

With her hands still held by him, her eyes drew back to his own. "How are you?"

He thought back to when the first months of when she left. When he came to the city for work and the friends he'd made since then. How the music he worked and written had built him up again. Then, back to the night they met.

"Better."

And he was, because she was there again, alongside with a second chance for the two of them to start again in this new stage in their lives.

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chiseler · 8 years ago

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DEATH LIVE: A Brief History of Snuff Culture, 1900-2017

“I love it. Suicides, assassinations, mad bombers, Mafia hitmen, automobile smash-ups: "The Death Hour." A great Sunday night show for the whole family. It'd wipe that fuckin' Disney right off the air.”

—Max Schumacher: Network (1976)

On Sunday April 16th in Cleveland Ohio, Steve Stephens shot and killed a random stranger named Robert Godwin. Godwin, a grandfather, was on his way home from an Easter celebration when Stephens approached him on the sidewalk and, after a few brief words, shot him in the head. Stephens filmed the murder on his smart phone and live streamed it on his FaceBook page. The video instantly went viral. Along with triggering a nationwide manhunt, the online post led to an explosion of shock, outrage and chest thumping over what we had become as a culture.

The Stephens case was only the latest in what was becoming the nation’s hottest new trend, with people live streaming assaults, murders, rapes, suicides and accidental deaths on popular social media sites. Pundits everywhere were trying to make sense of it. Why were people suddenly posting all these horrific things, and why were so many millions scrambling to see them? Yes, well, pundits do a lot of head scratching like that, considering so few of them seem to have the slightest working knowledge of American cultural history.

Without pausing to ponder the fairly obvious impulses behind the species’ millennia-old morbid fascination with violent death, let’s just back up a ways and try to focus a bit.

Recall that bloodsport spectacles in the Roman Coliseum were more popular than soccer is today. Recall also that throughout Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, public autopsies were considered not only educational, but a form of high popular entertainment. Real images of real death have been part of American pop culture for a very long time now. At the turn of the 20th century, stereographic images of beheadings and torture were among the most popular photos sold by Underwood & Underwood. When Topsy the elephant was electrocuted on the Coney Island boardwalk in 1903, Thomas Edison, who supplied the electrodes and electricity, also dispatched a film crew to record the event for posterity. During Prohibition, newspapers around Chicago were never exactly hesitant to splash bloody pictures of gangland violence across the covers of the early edition. When Ruth Snyder and her lover were electrocuted in Sing Sing in January of 1928, an enterprising reporter strapped a camera to his ankle, and the resulting shot of Snyder mid-execution graced the cover of the next day’s New York Daily News. It became one of the paper’s best selling issues up to that point.

Where would we be without Abraham Zapruder’s footage of JFK’s exploding head, or that live televised broadcast of Jack Ruby assassinating Lee Harvey Oswald? During the Vietnam War, television audiences grew accustomed to seeing images of not only dead soldiers, children, and self-immolating monks, but also seeing journalists getting shot on camera in the middle of live broadcasts from the front. In January of 1987, R. Budd Dwyer became an underground superstar after blowing his brains out on live TV, the footage traded among collectors of weird and morbid videos for decades afterward. And that’s just a few random highlights.

The news is one thing, popular entertainment’s another. We are a bloodthirsty lot, and by mid-century real images of real death began infiltrating assorted, often under-appreciated cinematic subgenres.

As explained in Bret Wood’s 2003 documentary Hell’s Highway, in the mid-‘50s Ohio-based amateur photographer and cop groupie Richard Wayman began snapping pictures of fatal car accidents. Although he always insisted it was because he was obsessed with driver safety, you do have to wonder what really motivated the curious hobby. After sharing some of the grisly shots with officers of the local highway patrol, they encouraged him to take more. Soon teaming up with Phyllis Vaughn, her sister Dottie, and a local reporter who was already covering auto wrecks, Wayman and the small crew began spending their nights trolling the highways and backroads in search of twisted metal and mangled flesh, cameras at the ready. They turned the collective photographic mayhem into a slide show that played county fairs around Ohio. Hosted by actual highway patrolmen, the sincerely earnest intent behind the slideshow was to confront viewers with horrific and real images of deadly car wrecks in order to shock them into being safer drivers.

At the suggestion of the state highway patrol’s chief officer, Wayman and his team switched out still cameras for movie cameras and began gathering footage (complete with sound) of deadly car accidents, often arriving on the scene before the ambulances. Now along with images of the twisted and bleeding corpses, the films also captured the anguished shrieks of the merely injured and maimed.

In a stroke of genius, in 1959 Wayman’s Highway Safety Foundation, as it had been dubbed, edited the footage together, added some narration, some recreations and back stories, and released Signal 30. Shockingly brutal for its time, the hour-long film was shown to teenage driver’s ed students throughout the state. They soon followed their debut with other equally graphic highway safety films like Mechanized Death and Wheels of Tragedy. In time the films became a standard part of driver’s education classes across the country.

Although driver safety films aimed specifically at teenagers had been around since the 1930s, no one had ever seen anything as stark and grim as Wayman’s before. The films, with their lingering shots of bodies thrown through windshields, pinioned behind the steering wheel or spread out all over the pavement, were far more shocking in their levels of violence than anything Hollywood would dare show for another decade. Whether they actually saved any young lives is unclear, but they became the stuff of urban legend. Generation after generation passed along stories, some exaggerated to be sure, about all the spilled guts and splattered brains onscreen, as well as the audience reaction. My sister, who took drivers ed in the mid-‘70s, couldn’t wait to get home after class to tell me about the gross film they saw that day. My reaction, and the reaction of millions of other younger siblings hearing similar stories, was not horror. No, we couldn’t wait to take driver’s ed so we could see these films ourselves. Unfortunately, the mood of the country had started to shift, and by the end of the ‘70s fidgety and righteous parental and civic groups thought it best to shield youngsters from violent images for their own good. So along with editing all the slapstick out of Looney Tunes, thanks to humorless do-gooders cautionary and bloody highway safety films disappeared from driver’s ed classrooms. The focus shifted away from the agonizing human tragedy to the science and technology of car safety features. Instead of brains smeared on a dashboard, we got lots and lots of footage of crash test dummies. I suspect the lives of very few teenage drivers were saved as a result, but I can tell you how deeply gypped many of us felt with the loss of this rite of passage.

In 1962, Italian filmmakers Paolo Cavara and Gualtiero Jacopetti decided to make a new kind of documentary. Sending small film crews around the world, from Africa and India to Malaysia, the Amazon, and Vegas, they collected footage of strange customs, rituals and eating habits from all the shadowy corners of the globe. Some of the footage was banal (a staggering drunk in Germany), while more tended toward the disturbing and grotesque, like the scenes shot inside a slaughterhouse. Then they invented a few strange customs and rituals of their own and shot those, editing them in with the real footage. The travelogue of the odd and quirky was accompanied by a breezy, wide-eyed explanatory narration and an incongruously lush score. The resulting film, Mondo Cane, turned out to be hugely popular, winning an Oscar for Best Song (“More”) and spawning an entire subgenre of extreme documentaries known collectively as mondo films.

The trick of course when it came to the follow-ups and copycats was to outdo the original, pushing the limits of onscreen violence, sex, and the grotesque under the guise of anthropology. It was something Cavara and Jacopetti realized themselves. They not only increased the percentage of invented footage for mondo Cane 2 a few years later, they also included more footage of animals slaughter, as well as footage of public executions and the above-mentioned Buddhist monk setting himself ablaze to protest the war in Vietnam. The onscreen death toll only increased with their later documentaries like Africa Addio, an unflinching chronicle of the bloody and genocidal civil war in central Africa. Meanwhile, copycat filmmakers amped up the onscreen violence, gore and sex (both real and created) in films like Shocking Asia, Shocking Africa, Mondo Magic and dozens of others. Eventually, however, events in the world as reported on the nightly news left the mondo films looking a little prurient, maybe, but little more than quaint time capsules.

Like so many other grindhouse filmmakers at that moment in history, in 1971 Michael and Roberta Findlay decided to join the mad rush to exploit the Tate-LaBianca murders. To that end they flew down to Argentina and made a quickie no budget splatter film called Slaughter, about a young actress who travels to South America to shoot a movie and crosses paths with a Manson-like guru who leads a cult of murderous, drug-addled hippies. The film was picked up by producer-distributor Allan Shackleton, who let it sit on the shelf for the next few years.

Around this time, and following Manson it was almost to be expected, a new urban legend began making the rounds claiming there was a dark and sinister subset of the porn world involving films that featured actual people (almost exclusively young women) being tortured and killed on camera. The loops, inevitably produced in South America it was claimed, were then sold for thousands of dollars to degenerate collectors in America and Europe. There was no hard evidence that any of these so-called “snuff films” actually existed, but few seemed to have any trouble believing they did.

Never being one to let a potential marketing gimmick go to waste, Shackleton pulled the Findlay’s film off the shelf, shot a quick new scene in a shaky, abrupt verite style, tacked it onto the end and released the film in 1976 under the new title Snuff.

That final scene, which purported to be real footage of a woman being killed and disemboweled by the crew of the original film, fooled precious few who actually bothered seeing the movie, but it didn’t matter. Although Shackleton’s initial marketing scheme involved sending fake protest groups to picket theaters where Snuff was being screened, they soon became unnecessary. Once word spread about what the film claimed to be, legitimate women’s groups began picketing theaters themselves, the supposed shocking depravity on display in New York and LA grindhouses was decried by numerous major news outlets, and several prominent types began writing outraged editorials about Snuff. In response to the public outrage, New York District Attorney Robert Morganthau launched an investigation. It didn’t take long for him to announce the film was a fake, which anyone who’d seen it could have told him. Awful, awful film, but you had to sit through the hole thing to see those three minutes at the end. As a result of all the publicity, the curiously morbid lined up to see it, and the film made a lot of money.

(A year before Snuff was released, a similar rumor began circulating about the final sequence in Pasolini’s Salo, which was much more graphic and much more realistic than anything Shackleton could have whipped up, but given it was an arty film, no one much cared.)

Even after Snuff’s veracity was publicly debunked by multiple sources, the legend that snuff films were a real phenomenom persisted, and not surprisingly Hollywood loved the idea. In Paul Shrader’s 1979 film Hardcore, George C. Scott plays a father trying to track down his missing daughter, whom he learns has been lured into the porn business. As part of his investigation, he pays several hundred dollars to sit in a cramped basement with half a dozen perverts who’ve likewise paid a lot of money for the privilege of seeing a silent, b/w 8 millimeter short of a woman in a bondage mask getting shot in the head. Two decades later and, to be honest, a decade outdated by that point, Joel Schumacher directed 8mm, in which Nicholas Cage plays a private detective hired to determine whether or not an 8mm snuff film is authentic or not. As in hardcore, in this case it is.

A year after Snuff was released, documentary filmmaker John Alan Schwartz, who up to that point had mostly worked on gentle, family-friendly projects, was approached by a Japanese producer who hired him to make a documentary about death. More specifically, the producer wanted him to make a film that was far more extreme than anything anyone had seen before, with real images of real people dying.

Schwartz (who directed the film under the pseudonym Conan LeCilaire ) made the rounds of local TV news outlets, buying up rolls of raw footage of fires, car wrecks and crime scenes. Most of the footage was far too gruesome to be shown on TV news broadcasts, so he and his editor began piecing the bloodiest bits together into a feature they were calling Faces of Death.

When the Japanese producer was shown a rough cut, he told Schwartz he wanted “more death.” He also wanted a full back story for each segment. Since no back stories were available for most of the footage they’d obtained, Schwartz and his team returned to the tried and true mondo formula, not only inventing back stories, shooting new scenes, and adding extra gore effects to the existing footage, but also making up a number of sequences out of whole cloth (like the flesh-eating cult, the ritual beheading, the alligator attack, and the notorious monkey brain sequence). He also brought in actor/director Michael Carr to play the film’s host and narrator, “Dr. Francis B. Gröss,” who leads the audience on his own far-reaching investigation into the realities of death.

Looking at the film today, the gaffed scenes are fairly obvious, and the film as a whole seems as tame and quaint and silly as Mondo Cane. It also features one of the most godawful movie theme songs ever recorded. But when it hit the grindhouses in 1978, as requested, it was quite unlike anything audiences had seen up to that point, and they were anxious to believe without question everything they were seeing was real.

The film did well in its limited theatrical run, but with the home video revolution of the early ‘80s, it became a phenomenon. I was working at a small video store in Wisconsin at the time. The store mostly catered to the trailer park next door, and while seventy percent of our business was porn, I can easily say Faces of Death and its many sequels made up another fifteen to twenty percent of our rentals.

Faces of Death also sparked a renaissance of straight-to-video mondo films, most of which simply adopted the FoD model by stringing together bits of news footage far too graphic for TV. Traces of Death, for instance, included the Budd Dwyer suicide, while too Hot for TV closed with footage of a woman being struck by a speeding train. Death Scenes, hosted by the Church of Satan’s Anton LaVey and based on the Feral House book of the same name, was a montage of archival police photographs of murder scenes, suicides and executions.

While modern young and cynical viewers tend to sneer at the original Faces of Death’s clumsiness, seeing it at best as, again, a time capsule from a more innocent era, many who saw the film back in the early ‘80s insist to this day that everything we’re shown is absolutely authentic.

Almost two decades before fake “found footage” movies would become yet another popular subgenre following The Blair Witch Project, director Ruggero Deodato would find himself oddly echoing Snuff’s saga with his 1980 splatter film Cannibal Holocaust.

The Italian production concerned a professor who travels to a remote region of South America in search of three young documentary filmmakers. As the story goes, the trio had flown down there months earlier to shoot a film about primitive tribes, then vanished. Although he does not find the kids, he does find several canisters of film, the contents of which make up the bulk of Cannibal Holocaust’s run time.

The supposedly found footage reveals the trio raping, killing and mutilating several natives and countless animals just for fun before being beheaded, disemboweled and eaten themselves as the cameras rolled. It’s a wildly, even wondrously nihilistic feature few viewers can stomach.

The difference between Deodato’s film and Snuff is that the images in the former are deeply disturbing and much more realistic. The film’s publicity campaign insisted the footage was authentic, and Deodato even ordered the three principal actors to go into hiding to help keep the rumors alive. Those claims, combined with the fact the effects were so convincing, prompted Italian authorities to launch an investigation. Deodato was forced to produce the still very much alive actors and admit publicly it was just another cannibal movie.

It’s worth noting here that although all the human deaths onscreen were achieved with clever special effects and makeup, all the animal deaths are real, which I find far more deeply disturbing.

With the sudden availability of camcorders in the early ‘80s, I remember thinking that only then did the possibility of genuine snuff films become a distinct reality, at least on the scale that had always been rumored. Super 8 and, lord help us, 16 millimeter cameras were expensive, clunky and complicated. Plus there was the question of getting the film processed after you shot it. Animal porn was one thing, but torture and murder? What, you’re just going to drop it off at the Fotomat and pick it up Tuesday? With these new camcorders everything was easy as pie. All you had to do was point and hit the button, and when you were done just pop out the tape and throw it in the VCR and there you go, with no meddling middleman sticking his nose in your business. It was an idea that wasn’t lost on director John McNaughton. Perhaps the most disturbing sequence of his 1986 feature Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer finds Henry and his partner Otis using a stolen camcorder to film the murder of a family. Later we see Otis watching the tape over and over again. Sure enough, throughout the ’90s and early 2000s, there were several cases of psychopaths who held victims hostage for weeks, even months, raping, torturing and eventually killing them, videotaping all the sordid goings-on for their personal video library.

Which brings us to the point, and up to the present. If you’re watching it on a screen of whatever sort, no matter how desperately you want it to be real, it’s simply just another show. This has never been truer than today.

While writing a weekly crime blotter back in 2005 as the Internet, smart phones and social media sites were gelling into a singularity, I was amazed at the number of cases I was reporting in which people were not only filming themselves committing crimes, but immediately posting the footage on FaceBook or some similar site. Criminals, despite what the movies like to tell us, tend not to be the brightest bulbs. Still, this public self-incrimination just seemed ludicrously stupid.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it made perfect sense, In fact it was inevitable.

The unchecked expansion of state-sponsored surveillance following the collapse of the WTC had become redundant. What’s the use of installing cameras on every corner when you’ve already thrust iPhones into the hands of nearly every last person on the planet, appealing to their insatiable egos by subconsciously indoctrinating them to film everything they do and post it online? Again, we have that distance through the intervening screen, it’s all just another show, and they’re the star. It doesn’t matter if they film themselves eating at Burger King, visiting the EPCOT Center, or raping a retarded boy. It’s all the same thing.

Snuff culture has been with us over a century, but only now has it come into its own, announcing itself as the dominant art form of the 21st century. It goes far beyond the likes of Steve Stephens shooting a stranger in the face on camera or a couple teenagers live streaming their own suicides.

Who needs an actor with a turban and a sword lopping off a dummy’s head in Faces of Death when, for awhile there anyway, Jihadi John was posting the real thing on Youtube every week? What does it say when one of the first porn subgenres to gain widespread popularity in the Internet Age were “crush videos”—fetish films in which women in high heels stomped kittens, hamsters, and other small animals to death on camera? When someone falls onto the tracks in a crowded subway station, only rarely will someone hop down to help, but it’s inevitable everyone else on the platform will whip out their phones to film the splatter when the train roars into the station. When a British soldier was hacked to death and nearly decapitated by two angry Muslims on a busy London street a few years ago, none of the hundreds of witnesses tried to intervene, but they all made a point of filming the murder, even allowing the blood-soaked attackers to pause and recite a carefully prepared speech for the cameras after the fact.

William Holden’s character in Network was dead to rights, save for one small detail, The Death Hour isn’t just on Sunday nights. Every hour of every day now, footage of some new atrocity is going viral: another cop shooting another unarmed kid in the back, a tornado obliterating a small Midwestern town, people leaping to their deaths to escape a high-rise fire, a tractor trailer slamming into a packed school bus, a fresh pile of Syrian corpses, another gang rape, another shopkeeper stabbed, another mass shooting in a mall or middle school. We wring our hands and feign outrage, but we have to pause a moment to wipe the drool or semen away first. We can’t get enough. Steve Stephens and those teen suicides were merely a couple of the later episodes. Pretend to be shocked and grossed all you want by it, snuff culture is simply our culture, and always has been.

by Jim Knipfel

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