#all the time. and i think generally the public would still be all for credo

[mariyekos]

Oooh yeah. I feel like Credo would have to jump through a bunch of mental hoops to justify letting the Order have Nero, but he'd definitely get there.

Quick addition after I typed the rest of it up, but it just occurred to me that there's a big difference between the Nero and Kyrie thing: Nero is the only one who would work (other than Dante, who's harder to capture) because he has the blood of Sparda. Kyrie's place could be taken by anyone, because all that's required for her part is a human. Credo would sacrifice Nero even though he loves him because he's the only one who could be sacrificed, whereas he wouldn't sacrifice Kyrie because (he loves her more and) her place could be taken by anyone else. Kyrie is taken specifically to hurt Credo and Nero, which goes against his moral code. Necessity in choosing Nero versus cruelty in choosing Kyrie. I see Credo as someone with a very strong moral code but also a strong sense of necessity, who can permit even terrible things if he thinks they're necessary for the greater good.

For why Credo would be okay with Sanctus using Nero, I have 2 trains of thought on justification:

1) Agnus/Sanctus tell Credo that Nero will be used to get closer to the Savior, but they don't tell him they plan for Nero to be absorbed and die. Credo accepts their plan because okay, helping to form the Savior is good, and even if it's an unpleasant process, Nero will be okay in the end. Nero may or may not forgive him, but as long as Nero and Kyrie survive, everything will be okay. The world they're creating will be safe and holy and all will be for the better, no matter the cost.

2) Agnus/Sanctus tell Credo that Nero will become a part of the Savior and thus technically die, but they also advertise it as a Holy joining of eternal bliss, and thus a gift to Nero. As in, they tell Credo they will bring Nero in, lead him to the Savior, and then he will essentially be carted off to whatever the Order's version of Heaven is. (If you're familiar with it, Galahad immediately dying/ascending upon touching the Holy Grail in some variations of the story comes to mind). Immediate, guaranteed Salvation sounds good to Credo. Furthermore, he knows Nero has had a hard life and has always been an outcast, so maybe this is for the best for him. His life has been full of suffering, but in death and sacrifice he will be at peace and part of a greater being and purpose. It would be an honor.

In both versions I could see Agnus placating Credo by telling him that momentary suffering is worth a chance at eternal bliss (either from being joined with the Savior in Scenario 2, or being one who helped usher in the New Age cementing him a blessed place in either current society or Heaven-equivalent in Scenario 1). Sanctus would use this to convince Credo that any pain/wounds Nero may be dealt when capturing him would be worth it. He promises they will do their best not to hurt him too badly, keeping injuries to a minimum and doing absolutely nothing that isn't strictly necessary, but whatever must be done to secure his cooperation will be worth it.

Now I'm imagining a scenario where Nero vs Agnus is drawn out a little more. Say Agnus beats Nero and starts toying with him. Stabs him over and over (even more than he does) to see how he heals. Credo makes it there but is somewhere far off, pretend there's another, distant observation deck, and watches in horror as Agnus monologues and has his way with Nero. At that point I think Credo would realize that no, this is not worth it. The Savior would not sanction this. Sparda would not condone meaningless torture. Even if Nero were to be joined with the Savior- which Credo is now starting to doubt, because if Sanctus and Agnus lied about how they were going to treat Nero prior to using him to power the Savior, why should he think they were telling the truth about what would happen to Nero during and after the fact?- he wouldn't want it. Credo can see that now. Nero fought until his last breath. His actual last breath. I'd have Credo watch Nero "die" when his heart stops after the last of the stabbing. Could have him cry out, distracting Agnus and alerting him to his presence, but still be out of sight so that Nero doesn't notice him as he Awakens, repairs the Yamato, and attacks Agnus.

From there Credo would be a delightful mix of uncertainty. What does he do now? Nero lived. He fixed the Yamato- one of Sparda's swords!- and healed from a mortal wound. How closely is he related to the Savior? Is this what true Holiness looks like? Why does he have a shade, where Credo transforms? Nero was calling out for Kyrie; the boy has a good heart and it really sinks in that Kyrie will never, ever forgive Credo if he lets Nero be killed, and while Credo had previously told himself that would be okay, he knows that's a lie. Seeing Nero die had nearly killed him. He can't live with himself if things go according to plan. He's a fool. The scene in the church was distressing enough, this moreso, and the peace that Sanctus claims will come to them at the end of their plan is not worth the suffering in the interim. And again, how does he know things will go according to plan when he's now seen the evidence of Sanctus and Agnus' lies? How can he place his trust in their promises of peace and salvation? How can he stand by and watch them hurt innocents for a future they promise will be worth it that itself has been built on the execution of a lie?

Again, I have a sort of split in ideas here. Agnus saw Credo, so I think Credo would be conflicted about what he does next. Does he confront Sanctus about what he has seen? Does he go back to Sanctus and pretend he's still loyal to secure more information, when Agnus saw and heard him and might tell Sanctus Credo can no longer be trusted? Does he go find Kyrie to ensure she's safe? Does he locate Gloria, who at this point he realizes is most likely a plant by Dante's people, and beg for her aid? Does he try to find Dante? Does he try to find Nero? Who can he trust? Who would trust him after what he has (and hasn't) done?

(tl;Dr I think in Credo's head, killing Kyrie is absolutely 100% not okay ever. Killing Nero isn't ideal, but it can be acceptable under the right circumstances if done for the good of the people and isn't too brutal. He realizes Kyrie may hate him for it, but all that matters is that she lives. In the end he cracks under the pressure regardless, because he loves Nero too and doesn't want him to die.)

i love credo dmc btw he kind of sucks. definitely the sort of person that would result from having to raise your own sister (and nero) when he was a kid himself, lol.

[rat-and-chupacabra-inc]

Nero Sparda Rewrite (Devil May Cry)

When i first watched the cutscenes for Dmc4, we had a slight dislike for Nero. Which was mostly based on the fact that he feels a lot like another Dante and didn't really fit the Games premise. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact this kid with a demon arm and white hair came around and they were like "oh yes your allowed into this church" yes. He fights demons (which could be them using him as a knight) in the beginning yes he hides it in a cast but come on. He couldn't have been doing that forever so We came up with a worse idea.

A Child washes up on the lake behind The Order of the Sword, Where Sanctus finds him, crying, blood flowing from his tiny body. Similar to stories of the Messiah, they take him in and take in account his impressing healing abilities. 5 sisters are assigned to raise him while they pledge they know of their new savior, but that he must be hidden away from the public eye. Praising the heavens and the Father for this gift of divine.

Until around the age of 7. The child's arm begins to grow dark blue unnatural veins starting at the finger tips, morphing into sharp claws and glowing tendons. It's then they realize the full demonic power of the boy, his arm glows and holds power inhuman, sharp razor teeth (that has something to do with my redesign of all the sparda family in general). Thinking he may have been cursed by some unholy force, they baptize him repeatedly, every day for hours. Praying over him, doing everything in the highest power they can to try and reverse the curse he's obtained. As we know though it's not a curse, and the veins continued to spread until his entire arm glowed blue. The boy was claimed to be under demonic possession. In attempts to 'exorcise' him, they cut off his demonic arm and hurt him, refusing to give him real treatment, only patching both of his eyes and arm stump with dirty bandages never to be cleaned or redone, blinding him. To keep him away from people, he must be even more isolated. So they did the most rational thing and chained him behind the Main Sparda statue, guarded by gates and hidden from the public eye still.

(The thing with the Order of the Sword here is that they don't worship Sparda directly, they use him as a symbol of overcoming sin but they still worship God and condemn demons.)

Sanctus baptized the rest of the children they took in and the idea of not being around him was branded into their minds. But that didn't stop them.

Like goblin children usually do behind the backs of the harsh sisters, they ridiculed him at any chance. Calling him the antichrist, throwing rocks at him and even as he grew older, Credo used him at training practice. But by the second his senses became stronger, even if he couldn't see he started becoming more sensible to noise. The feeling of sword swings, steps. As more time passes and he isn't removed like they said he would be, he's able to detect movements of meters away based on vibration. He grows to adapt to fighting styles and learns to fight back.

By the 4th Game, he's grown to 17. The chain never changed, leaving a gaping scar on his neck (its damage done over many many years which makes me think it wouldnt heal? Well yes heal. But stay deformed) Dante arrives to assassinate Sanctus. With a sword from a fallen soldier, Nero attacks him. With the swing of Dante's sword, his chains are cut from his neck(ripped off and bleeding) and he's free. Dante escaped and Nero goes after him, still holding the belief that Sanctus is a loving higher power. Also getting an in my head cool game mechanic, where the games vision blurs at points if not goes out for seconds as Nero moves along his mind, to simulate his blindness to the player and his mental state becoming more and more messed up as he feels more in control. His final main weapon became a giant great sword that encased the Yamato hidden inside. (Part of Dante's mission to find)

While fighting, his objective changes. From revenge for Sanctus to learning about their deceit, instead putting the pain he has felt for years on someone or something not him. Leading up to the end of the game where after rescuing Kyrie and she promptly rejects anything to do with him, he loses it, getting the church together to declare himself as the new god to be worshipped, reclaiming his lost title of the savior he once had. He begins threatening and hurting civilians in the process with weapons he got on his way through the game.

The final battle is of Dante fighting Nero instead of the weird plot of a giant statue. Once he's down, Dante picks him up and chooses to fix him up instead of killing him. A very slow and painful process which often takes more efford than Dante is willing to give him but it works out also Nero is uh. A Healer now bc he finds that helping people brings him joy. Yes, he can fight but prefers to help civilians out of the situations he follows the crew in 5. (Long hair DMC4, buzzcut DMC5)

There's many more lore plot details but they're secret<3 We hope you like this weird au we've been waiting for a little while. We've been working on it for a while and are proud of it. It's not 100% finished but we're proud.

-(Rat the blue one)

{R&C}

[neutron-stars-collision]

The Art of Inversion

Neil x Reader

Chapter 24 - If You Want Me... 

Masterlist; Chapter 23

Summary: Tension reaches its boiling point when you overhear an unfortunate conversation. With unexpected allies, you attempt to break the impasse once and for all.

Warnings: ANGST (still but... well you’ll see ;)); at few points R! is being a little dramatic which can be triggering if you’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts (nothing too bad though); swearing.

Author’s Notes: Finally! It’s been a wild ride... and god am I happy i’ve managed. This part took a lot of effort but I quite like what I came up with... even if sometimes it gets too angsty. Can’t wait for what’s coming next, however... :)))) Hope you enjoy and all feedback is always appreciated! <3 

The shooting range on the icebreaker was a strange place. It occupied a large proportion of the deck floor in the accommodation part of the ship, next to the turnstile and sparring grounds. With darkness swallowing every corner that was not lit up by the blinking fluorescents, it was a perfect place to hide. Soon it became your go-to solace when things got difficult, and the only other idea you could come up with involved going outside without the oxygen mask attached. You did not want to go that far. Yet. Target practice became your favourite occupation. It was simple and did not involve talking to people that could give you worrying looks or comment on the dark circles underneath your eyes. Sleep was no longer a thing, with you catching three-hour-long naps at best, in between never-ending worrying and staring at the ceiling, reminiscing the past. The constant headaches were something you soldiered through, accepting them as a part of reality. The worst part of that new life was the fact that you and Neil stopped talking to each other altogether. Not even empty pleasantries could get through the stone-cold awkwardness and tension capable of killing you before the heartache would. After a day of near-misses and horrifying mistakes that culminated with you accidentally spilling boiling water all over the sweater when Neil entered the galley, you both mastered the art of hiding. You only saw him once afterwards, sitting at the table in the corner of the canteen. That was almost two days ago, and you were thankful.

Once you went through the assigned daily rounds, you moved onto the task of cleaning the guns and rifles. Polishing the metal cases and arranging the bullets was as close to therapy as it could get. With the repetitive action occupying your brain, there was no time to get emotional over things you could not change. Only at the shooting range, you did not feel so utterly hopeless. So terribly unloved. A sudden noise by the airlock made you look up. Conveniently the air in the range was sealed so that you need not to worry about oxygen masks during the target practice. It also meant you got approximately five seconds warning to check the identity of the intruder. This time you were surprised.

“Hi, Y/N. Thought I’d find you here” TP’s dark gaze slid over you cautiously.

Taking off the mask, he joined you at the makeshift table, looking at the arsenal you have spread over the surface. You eyed him with curiosity. That was unexpected. So far, he has never interacted with you outside of the meetings. And every time he did, you could not stop thinking about how much he knew. Who did he see when he looked at you?

“Afternoon” shaking off the reverie, you offered him a tight smile, “Is it afternoon?” glancing at the watch, you grimaced, “Oh,”

The last time you checked, it was 3 pm. The blue numbers on your wrist were mercilessly ticking away. 8:30 pm. How the fuck. TP caught your silent crisis as he asked:

“How long have you been down here?” looking up, you encountered a glimmer of worry in his eyes.

Interesting.

“Umm, five hours?” it felt like the best estimate.

It was probably longer. But he need not know that.

“Jesus,” wincing, he directed his taxing gaze back onto you, “When was the last time you had food?” tone strictly business.

The truth was that you did not remember. With everything falling apart and losing meaning, food became an afterthought. Half the time you would realise you only had one meal around 1 am, forcing you to tiptoe to the kitchen and grab something from the cupboard. A hungry stomach was nothing compared to all the other issues. It could be ignored.

“Breakfast. I’m not hungry though,” brushing off the concern you chose defiance, “Is this an interrogation?” you arched one eyebrow and cocked the gun you have wiped clean.

TP snorted at your comedic timing.

“No, I come here in peace” he raised his hands in defeat and added, “To see if you’re… alright” the hesitation made you scoff.

“You know that I’m not. Because things are generally far from alright,” letting annoyance slip into the sentence, you let go of the tools and met his gaze with coldness.

The deepening frown was concerning. You were being unfair. After all, it was not him who has caused all this pain. Remorse nipped at your heart as you sighed heavily.

“Sorry, that was unnecessary,” he accepted your apologetic smile with a nod, giving the courage to continue, “And I’m also sorry that you all have to witness that mess in the meetings. I’d rather it stayed between him and me... but he seems to disagree” you shrugged.

Sometimes you did wonder why Neil seemed so intent on making your arguments a public spectacle. Whether that was a part of the intricate plan to make you look like an idiot or a result of his emotions boiling over. Not that it mattered. Everyone on the team knew what the deal was anyway. A poor, naïve you, desperately in love with someone who could not care less. Nothing out of the ordinary. Judging by TP’s passing frown, for him too the topic was rather uncomfortable. He took a long moment to respond, looking for answers in the rows of bullets you have arranged on the table.

“Not going to lie, it’s awkward, but at least I know what’s going on, and I can offer to listen” he met your gaze with newly found determination.

Okay… Confiding in TP was quite low on the list of things you expected to have the opportunity of doing. But then so was having to convince Neil not to get himself killed for the sake of the operation. Anything goes.

“Aren’t you taking a side?” that suspicious voice in your head was difficult to get rid of, “Agreeing with him that I’m stupid, emotional, and overall a burden?” you recited the memorized litany of epithets with a stone-cold expression.

The words have lost their meanings after you have put them apart in the quiet of your mind. Now they were just sounds, incapable of inflicting pain. It was the least that could be done.

“He went too far with that” TP winced, his eyes expressing traces of disapproval, “I might not know you well, but you’re none of these things,” a sympathetic smile softening the tone.

An open hand. An olive branch. Why not? Taking a deep breath, you got ready to open up before the most unexpecting of allies.

“In a way, he was right though…” you looked down, trying to find the needed strength, “I am stupid because I have allowed myself to care too much for him” there it is, “And now I’m paying for it” when you met his eyes again, you found nothing but thoughtfulness.

It was something you thought about often as well. The fact that Neil was right, you did care, and that it was perhaps the reason for your demise. But who could blame you for falling for the bastard looking like the devil? And equally charming too.

“Maybe it’s a little too forward, but-” TP’s tentative tone made you grin.

In moments like this, you acutely remembered that he was still a rookie. Not used to the half-truths and strange tenets you accepted as your credo. His innocence was adorable even.

“In this profession, a it’s sometimes nice to say the truth. Shoot away” you waved your hand dismissively, anticipating the question.

There is a first time for everything.

“Fair point” he mirrored your smile before asking, “Do you love him?”

Plain and simple. Ignoring the panic, you took a moment to ponder the answer. It was… obvious. You told Neil as much twice before, and no amount of pretending and lies could ever undo it. The words were his. Just as you were. Unfortunately.

“I’d want to say no, that I got over it, but… Yes, I do,” you offered the answer with a helpless frown, “Think any idiot can see it” noticing a hint of embarrassment briefly you patted TP’s shoulder, “No matter how much he hurts me, I always find myself wishing things could be… like they once were”

Whatever that meant. In truth, you wanted more. You wanted to wake up next to him every morning. You wanted affirmations of love every day as you tasted his coffee-stained lips. You wanted to lie in his embrace, feeling desired and loved. But most of all, you wanted to be able to lace up your fingers with his, following the instincts that became your second nature. To card your fingers through his silky golden strands and to give him everything he would desire. You wanted to be his. He was supposed to be yours. Or was the universe wrong?

Thoughts of that kind could be lethal. Shaking yourself awake, you met TP’s eyes. Apart from the lack of surprise at your admission, you noticed something strange. A passing realization. As though he has heard something similar before but was afraid to speak up. Once again, you found yourself wondering what Neil told him. What did he mean by ‘things you and I should explain to each other’? For a moment, you wanted to jump head in and ask. But what good would knowing the truth be when you could not act on it? As though aware of your increasing dilemma, the man spoke up again.

“I’m sorry for Oslo” your eyes widened at the reminder.

“Why?” blurting out the question, you eyed him cautiously.

The deepening discomfort radiating off him confirmed your assumptions. That was it. He knew what nearly happened that night. And he was flustered about his role in it. That was not the conversation you ever expected to have.

“I can’t help but think that maybe if I hadn’t… interrupted you, it would’ve-” he stumbled over the sentence somewhat endearingly.

Perhaps it was the lack of care that made you say the next words. Or maybe just the fact that nothing mattered anymore, and so who could judge you for the purest form of honesty.

“Doubt it,” interrupting him with a sour smile, you added, “Maybe it’s good you knocked then… Least he doesn’t have absolutely everything” noticing the alarm painted on TP’s face, you blushed.

Yep, too far. Still true, however.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t have to know that much” you brushed off the sudden awkwardness with a sincere apology.

“I can pretend I’ve never heard it” it was his turn to give a reassuring shoulder squeeze.

You could feel the strange companionship forming. Sure you did not mind. Relaxing back in the chair, you spoke up:

“Thanks,” as TP also visibly reclined, you brought up the thought that was not letting go of your mind, “I don’t know how much he has told you about… this,” gesturing vaguely, you bit your lip.

Somehow you knew that he would not betray Neil by sharing with you everything that has been said. But even crumbs would do…

“Quite a bit,” you watched him closely, intrigued by the hesitation, “Enough for me to know that you’re someone I can trust and that he had reasons to be acting that happy in Tallinn before the action” oh.

That painful pang in your heart was heart to ignore. You winced, feeling the steady gaze fixed on your face. The analysis was mutual. Neil, happy, back in Tallinn. Because of you. You have lost too much.

“What do you mean?” treading carefully, you asked the safest of questions.

A small smile on his face showed you just how obvious you were. Lovesick idiot.

“Hours he has spent texting someone, phone calls he would pick up instantly and then come back grinning like a madman” TP offered you examples with a glimmer in his eyes “It only clicked when we were inverting, and I asked him about you” the blush on your cheeks deepened under his taxing gaze “Suddenly all of that made sense if you were in Estonia with us” he shrugged, finishing the thought.

Oh my god. While you experienced it all firsthand during those chaotic yet hopeful days in the safehouse when everything seemed to have infinite potential, hearing about it from someone else’s perspective felt strange. Almost like a slap in the face. Because it only confirmed what you knew – he once loved you. Once.

“Well, it seems like he has changed his mind…” you muttered, feeling the resentment settle in.

You wondered whether one day it would stop hurting. If you could ever get over this and find someone else. That darkest part of your brain knew the answer well enough. Nothing could come close. And nothing ever would.

“Or he’s just an idiot” the cheeriness felt forced.

But judging by the way TP was staring at you, you could tell it was his attempt at dispersing the sudden melancholy. It was strange to see him worried about you of all people. Perhaps your shit attempts at diverting everyone’s attention from your declining mentality were failing. And that was a reason to be concerned.

“That too,” plastering on an unconvincing smile, you stifled a yawn.

That caught his attention.

“You should get some rest” upon further thought, he added, “And food,”

The intensity of his look was stifling. You hated being the centre of attention. Especially in moments like this when you felt vulnerable, an object of pity and unease. Stupid, weak, and useless. The sabotaging voice came out in full force, making you want nothing but to curl up in bed and disappear. Not yet, however.

“Yes, sir” you raised your hand in mock salute.

Your face fell when instead of a laugh, you got a frown in response. Oopsie.

“I’m serious” TP seemed to consider something quickly before placing his hand on your forearm, “I’m… I’ve been a little worried about you” he met your eyes with a clear purpose.

Shit. That is exactly what you wanted to avoid. Being seen as pathetic and a burden. Internally, you cursed yourself for not being strong enough. For letting anyone see the cracks. You would not let them see you shatter into pieces.

“I’m doing fine,” mustering the happiest of grins, you tried to mask the urgency.

Please buy the bullshit.

“Are you?” he didn’t. Before your brain could fully arrive at the panic station, his inquisitive expression softened. You held his gaze for a beat, hoping to convey everything. Hoping to convince him to let the conversation go. It worked for TP gave a final taxing look before backing off. You exhaled slowly, relaxing a little. Maybe the worst was over…

“Before we go… there’s one more thing I wanted to talk to you about…” TP changed the subject, looking down at the table “The lock. You want to go with him”

It was not exactly a question, yet you knew he expected an answer. That one you could easily give him. It was obvious, even if you have never said it out loud. Up till now.

“Yes... Maybe it is an impulsive and stupid thing to do, but I can’t let him do it alone. I can’t let him get killed” the word felt foreign in your mouth.

As though ‘Neil’ and ‘death’ were two irrelevant concepts that did not fit together even in theory. They could not. You would not allow it. And you were willing to accept the worst of risks to make sure it would not happen. Hell, you would even fight against fate and time to assure that.

“I’d rather avoid that too” TP’s quiet comment made you look up, “He deserves so much more than…” there was something startling in his gaze.

As though he has stopped himself before saying too much. Much more than what? And why was he looking at you like that? Like you were missing something tragic, and his heart was breaking for your loss. You felt like going insane. TP cleared his throat awkwardly, resuming the conversation, not at all fluently:

“I don’t buy the whole ‘what’s happened, happened’. What does that even mean?” the irritation shining through his strange tone was distracting.

“Don’t ask me,” you shrugged, “I like to think there’s a different solution to this. One that doesn’t involve Neil sacrificing himself. And I need to be there with him because if it comes to it… I’d take that bullet for him” you did not know where the honesty came from.

Or why you would admit something that fundamental to TP. His response was just as anticipated – a gasp and widened eyes. Nibbling on your lower lip, you broke the eye contact and chose to stare at the forgotten gun lying on the table. It was the truth, so why did admitting it feel so… radical?

“Are you sure?” when he found his voice again, it was hoarse.

“It’s that kind of love,” you replied, still unable to meet his gaze.

You never expected to reveal yourself like that to TP. Wheeler? Maybe. Even Kat seemed like a probable option, but not the boss himself. And especially not at this stage of his story. Yet he was there, willing to listen, and that was enough. You would deal with the consequences later, in your mind that would undoubtedly rebel against such a display of fragility.

“I don’t want it to sound patronizing… but you’re still young. There might be someone else for you along the line if Neil-” his voice broke through your reverie as you interrupted him with a start.

“I know” finally, you raised your head again, showing the sincerity of expression, “But something tells me it’s him or nothing. Call it fate or insanity” biting back a dry chuckle, you felt a single tear form in the corner of your eye.

That was something you have spent most of the time thinking about. At the start, you desperately wanted to believe that you would get over this. That it was just another disappointment, and like before, eventually you would forget about those blue eyes and maniacal grin. But your heart knew better, constantly reminding you that it was not that simple. That Neil was not someone you just forget. Because how could you?

“Reality?” TP’s eyes were filled with thoughtfulness.

“Perhaps,” you cracked a smile, feeling heaviness in your heart lift by an inch.

Always something. Another yawn ended the delicate moment seconds later, making you scowl in annoyance. What was the point of tiredness when you could not even rest properly? TP laughed at your pained expression and got up:

“Now, you into the kitchen. And try to get some sleep” he offered you a hand which you took and stood up.

“I’ll try” a lie, “Thank you… for checking in and listening” sheepishly, you tried to find any words of gratitude.

“I owed you that after those hours in Oslo, filled with plans, coffees, and awful songs you’d sing to entertain us” the knowing smirk suggested that he did remember what you hoped would be forever forgotten.

MTV in Norwegian. Your knackered brain deciding that singing along to ‘Like a Virgin’ and ABBA was what had to be done to make everyone smile. Mistakes have been made.

“Don’t remind me,” TP laughed as you smacked him on the shoulder.

*** You did not sleep after you bid goodbye to TP. That night too was spent tossing and turning in bed, thinking about how everything could have crumbled so quickly. It has only been weeks since Tallinn. In fact, looking from the linear point of view, it has not even happened yet. The normal you have been enjoying the confusion of those days before Oslo when everything was difficult yet hopeful. Too good to be true, at times. Well, now you knew that those moments never lasted too long.

The next morning you quickly grabbed breakfast and sneaked into the sparring area, hoping to catch a few minutes with the punching bag before the troops would take over space. However, that day it was not meant to be.

You heard the voices as soon as you opened the airlock and entered the large room. It was divided into a few sections, each devoted to a different training exercise. To your advantage, each was also separated with a thin plastic screen. Cautiously, you approached the nearest divider, trying to determine whether your mind was not playing any tricks. After one second, you knew. TP and Neil were having a rather heated conversation on the other side of the screen. A sparring ground was the place you least expected to encounter them. And yet… You wanted to turn away and leave before more damage could be done, but the moment you heard the boss’s voice, you froze on the spot:

“Why are you so hard on her?” TP’s question rung out clear in the highly domed room “The only crime she has committed was falling in love with you. I don’t think that’s worth all that pain you’re inflicting”

There was no doubt as to who he meant. Your heart sank. Oh my god. On one hand, it was encouraging to know someone was fighting for your side and pointing out the unnecessary torture Neil was so keen on. But the fact that they were discussing the nature of your feelings was terrifying. Listening on felt wrong, yet you could not move away.

“It would be better for her if she hadn’t” Neil’s cold tone made your blood turn to ice.

There was something frightening in how distant he sounded. As though he was nothing like the man you fell in love with, only a cold impostor that borrowed his face and voice. He was right.

“Why? You told me that you love-” TP’s voice rose, incredulity tinging every single word.

Neil told him his feelings. You expected that, and it still felt like a punch. You leaned on the wall for support.

“It doesn’t matter what I said” the biting edge to Neil’s voice was new, “Or how I feel. The sooner she gets over it, the better for all of us” he threw it without caution, as though he was done with your bullshit.

With the fact that you were stupid enough to love him. He did not want your love. Never did. The crushing weight on your chest would not give way.

“You’re cruel” TP was surprised, as though he could not believe what he was hearing.

“That’s mercy” Neil was begging for the conversation to be over, “Cruelty would be letting her entertain the idea that we can...” he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

Christ. All those nights spent wishing for answers, and when they came you wanted to forget you ever heard it. It was foolish to believe anything could ever happen between you.

“But why? Neil, you are in love with her” TP raised his voice yet again, utterly done with whatever the blonde bastard was doing.

You could not care less. Nothing mattered anymore. But you did not expect the very next punch. Or the pain you would feel.

“I’m not” clear-cut rejection; nothing to interpret “I don’t love her. There’s no need to look at me like I’m a monster”

Enough. You heard enough. The pain was as bad as ever as you walked away. Your mind set on one simple thing - tea. Yes, that would solve it.

*** Going to the galley felt as though you were stuck within a dream you could not shake off. Half-aware of your surroundings, you nearly walked into Dominic, whose survival instincts kept him off your path. Muttering apologies, you undid the zip lock and sauntered into the kitchen without a care in the world. With a start, you noticed Kat sat at the table. She gave you a welcoming half-smile as she sipped the tea from the metal cup. Your autopilot stuttered, overwhelmed by the company. Blocking off any attempts at thinking, you followed the muscle memory. Setting the kettle on. Putting teabag into the mug. Earl Grey because it reminded you of those morning kisses in London. No. Wrong memory. You shook your head, waiting for the water to boil. The fridge was too loud, the buzz making thoughts appear. Sighing, you leaned on the counter. Your eyes were burning, the sensation increasing with every single blink. It was alright. So why did it feel like the world was ending?

The kettle switched off. Without sparing a single thought to the reality, you poured the water in, watching with fascination as the teabag floated up. Kat’s spoon let out a clink as she placed it on the edge of the plate. You jumped up, startled. That was enough to break through your carefully woven barrier. The thoughts came rushing in. Neil didn’t love you. Your chest tightened as the next breath came out strained. The air was gone. Your hands shook as you tried to take out the teabag. Fuck. Everything was over. A single gasp was all you could manage before you shattered. The tears fell down your cheeks in a steady stream, blurring everything with tragedy. Choked sobs shook your frame as you desperately tried to hold on. To sanity. To reality. Anything to make the pain go away. But it would not disappear, only getting stronger. As though through the glass, you could hear someone say your name. Voice tinted with worry and urgency. But you did not care. The sobs turned into a howl as you slid down to the floor. The sounds coming from your throat sounded foreign and harsh, tearing at your vocal cords mercilessly. Oh my god. That was the break you always feared. There was no end to tears falling down your cheeks onto the floor and beneath your shirt. Slowly breathing became almost impossible, forcing out those pathetic half sniffles that only made everything worse. You wanted to do something. Anything. To make it stop. To forget. To lose the ability to feel things. Your fingers clawed at nothingness, barely losing against the desire to make all that internal pain physical. By any means necessary. Because then at least you could blame it on something concrete. And not just heartbreak. A word you despised because it sounded weak. Stupid. Easily avoidable for everyone but not you. A lost cause. A failure.

“Hey…” warm fingers gently touched your shoulder.

You raised your head. The pounding headache and lack of oxygen, making everything seem twice as difficult. Kat’s blue eyes bore into yours with concern. You have made quite the show. Self-preservation told you to get up and leave, save yourself some shame. But you would not even know where to go. Or what to do. You did not trust yourself to make reasonable choices.

“Are you alright?” Kat’s voice brought you back to the present moment.

An anchor. Maybe this could work… She was still eyeing you closely, unsure about how to act but wanting to be helpful.

“Mmmm no,” you sent her a broken smile, grateful for the handkerchief she handed, “But it’s okay. Sorry about this. I didn’t mean to-” you gestured vaguely, knowing she would catch on.

Tears were still flowing steady, threatening with dehydration should this continue. But at least the wailing subsided to quiet sobs interrupting your sentence every few words.

“Don’t apologise, we all break sometimes,” Kat squeezed your shoulder, joining you on the floor, “Do you want to talk about it?”

It was tempting. Even if terrifying. But you felt like maybe she could be the listener you needed. Someone objective enough, without any ties to Neil or you. Someone safe to confide in that would keep your secrets in safekeeping. But…

“What if someone comes in?” grasping the most idiotic of excuses, you glanced at the airlock with apprehension.

You could just about imagine what would have happened should Neil walk in during your conversation. Your heart would not take it.

“We’ll just tell them to leave,” Kat’s cheeky tone made you turn to her, “I think they’re all a little afraid of me for some reason,” she added, with a small smirk.

She crossed her long legs and sat next to you with both your backs supported by the cupboard doors.

“As they should be,” you replied, feeling strangely at ease, considering everything.

That spark in her eyes was worth the stress over being too forward for someone you barely knew.

“So…” she nudged you with her shoulder as further encouragement.

There was no more escaping it. You took a deep breath, urging your heart to stay strong. Words started spilling out without sense or order.

“Is just... the world is potentially ending in a few days, and here I am crying over the fact that someone doesn’t love me” your throat contracted upon the word as though it was forbidden “I should’ve known better. He never could want someone like me because why would he” more tears as you realised the ultimate truth “I’m not extraordinary. It all feels so stupid, pathetic. But I can’t get over it because I still love him. And I don’t know how to stop” you finished the rant on a sob that forced you to cover your face with your hands.

There it was. Out in the open. You wondered how you could have ever been naïve enough to think your feelings could be reciprocated. For him, it was just a crush. Amplified by the troubles you had to face and the recent difficulties. Nothing more. You were conveniently there when he needed someone to lean on. But if it came to it, he would never choose you.

“It’s about Neil, isn’t it?” something in her voice made you meet her gaze.

You were that obvious, huh? A panicked thought convinced you that everyone on the bloody ship knew about your weakness for the blonde bastard. Yes, even that mess sergeant that always gave you a sorry smile when you approached the counter at mealtimes. Before you could spiral down another wretched rabbit hole, you asked the most innocent of questions:

“How do you know?”

There was no point in trying to convince Kat she got it wrong. She seemed to consider something for a moment before she looked at you with newly found resilience:

“Let me tell you a story,”

You quirked your eyebrow, confused and intrigued. Might as well… Nodding at her silent question, you rested your head against the cupboard. Dried tears tinged your chapped lips with salt.

“When we were in Oslo, staying in a hotel for two nights, TP went out, and Neil stayed with me” she set up the scene with a neutral tone, “We talked a lot about everything really. He asked me about Andrei...” you glanced at Kat, noticing a passing grimace, “Normally I would shut off, but there was that calm curiosity about him, and I didn’t mind saying too much” she admitted with a sheepish smile.

You knew the feeling well, always telling Neil too much because he was such an excellent listener. Confiding even the darkest of secrets and thoughts never felt like anything significant when he reacted with that same confidence and acceptance. That was one of the reasons why the fall was unavoidable.

“Neil has that sort of effect on people,” you returned her smile, shrugging slightly.

Kat patted your hand gently, noting the look on your face. The infatuation and yearning you could not get rid of whenever you did as much as spare a thought towards him.

“I can tell... the point is that he mentioned you, as well” your eyes widened as she paused, “His friend, as he referred to you but not without stumbling over the word a little” she grinned upon your struck expression, “He told me about your role in this. That you’re an asset, excellent sharpshooter, brave as hell and equally reckless at times” my god

You blushed, feeling Kat’s taxing gaze. Friend? Suppose that’s one way of introducing you to people. It was fascinating to know that even after the mess of Tallinn, Neil valued your contributions to the mission. That he would mention you to anyone. Favourably, at that.

“Sounds about right,” frowning, you pondered the implications of her words, “So you knew who I was that morning on the bridge?” the sudden realisation felt refreshing.

That explained her looks directed at you and Neil back then. The visible consternation about the matter of your relationship.

“Yes, it clicked pretty quickly” upon your perplexed gaze, she picked up the story, “I could tell that there was more underneath all the praise. There was that longing in his eyes and a spark that lit up only for you,” Kat added, smiling as you gasped, “I asked whether love was allowed in your line of business” there was boldness in her eyes that made your heart clench. Something important was coming, “He said yes, but it’s dangerous and best avoided. Only that’s not always possible. Sometimes it gets you, and before you realise you can’t breathe another word without missing that one essential person. Your heart doesn’t belong to you anymore, and nothing can be done” oh my god.

You stared at the floor as her words sunk in. It felt surreal, as though you have wandered into a dream. A good one. But dreams could only last so long… Shaking off the haze, you glanced at the woman sat next to you. She was observing you with an enigmatic smirk gracing her features.

“He said that?” your voice came out raspy.

Just a clarification. In case you have misunderstood. But Kat was not surprised.

“Yes,” she nodded, that same sympathetic expression on her face, “Considering what I’ve seen with you and him... there’s only one person he could’ve meant” your heart dropped, as though unused to the idea “I understood it that morning on the bridge when despite the awkwardness, he was willing to defy everyone else for your sake”

Your mind wandered back. Neil’s constant presence by your side, his hand touching the small of your back and then staying there for longer than necessary. His support and trust placed in your hands without hesitation. Right now, even something that insignificant felt unattainable. But it did happen. Could it be that he meant you? Unable to withstand the whirlwind of emotions, you stood up. Pacing in the tiny room, a protest came up, spilling out of your mouth:

“But I just heard him tell TP that he doesn’t love me” you swallowed hard as the reminder of the reality hit.

It was one thing to know it. Another to put it into words once again. You felt like screaming, demanding answers from the main culprit of this whole mess. But it was too dangerous. Another heartbreak could be lethal in its consequences.

“Sometimes we lie to ourselves to save the pain” the quiet certainty of Kat’s voice kept you grounded.

It felt risky to believe that he was pushing you away out of fear. But what if… No. You met her inquisitive gaze, hoping to convey the confusion and desperation. She must have understood for she added:

“He’s still coming to check up on me every evening, and the last two days he’s been a little… strange” the meaningful pause felt like bait.

One that you did not hesitate to take.

“How do you mean?” stopping mindless trotting, you sat down on the stool.

“Quiet, wistful, as though something was troubling him, threatening to spill out if he wasn’t too careful” a long taxing look; it sounded familiar, “Trust me, I don’t mean to give you false hope, I just thought you should know that before deciding on any further action” Kat got up and approached you.

Placing a hand on your shoulder, she squeezed it. You felt immensely grateful. Even if a little speechless… Because all of that was a lot to take in. You desperately needed a long afternoon spent in bed, staring at the ceiling and processing the eventful morning. Was it still morning?

“It means a lot, I’m not sure how I could repay you” finding the words again, you gave her a helpless smile.

“Just try to be happy. And don’t give up on things that seem too good to be true. Sometimes those are most worth keeping around” the depth of melancholy in her eyes was startling, “What will you do now?” the tentative tone assured you of the intent behind the question.

It was Kat’s way of saying: don’t do anything stupid. You could not promise that to anyone. The wounds were too fresh; emotions barely kept under control. Anything could happen. But you did not want to alarm her.

“I’m not sure. Think, probably” an unconvincing nonchalance had to do, as unprecedented honesty took voice “But I’m beginning to realise that if I won’t be able to… have him… I’ll just let him be. He deserves the best more than anybody else” you finished the thought and met her eyes.

A passing shock you found there was intriguing. As though your words reminded her of something, and she needed an additional moment to recover. God knows what sort of secrets everybody held on this god-forsaken ship… If the weight of the past and the unsaid could sink boats, it would have been long over. For everyone.

*** You thanked the gods (and Ives) for letting the topic of the lock wait out a little longer. Instead, the next morning’s meeting concerned the splinter unit, the who, and the how. As a result for once, no voice has been raised throughout the two hours spent on the bridge. Nothing much has been decided, but you did not mind. The burden of the last few days rested on your shoulders, preventing sleep or any form of relaxation. The word ‘tired’ did not even begin to describe it. But duties had to be put ahead of any personal issues and so you took part in the confab as usual. Seeing Neil after everything felt like a stab straight in the heart. His silence and the complete lack of acknowledgment of your existence were the added twist of the hilt.

The moment the meeting was over, you bolted out of the door in desperate need of fresh air. It was bound to rain later as the entire deck was covered in strange puddles that formed out of nothing. Perks of inversion and all that. Lost in thoughts concerning the locks, blonde bastards, and the torture of love as a concept and a feeling, you forgot about the golden rule of inverted rainfalls in the making – caution upon stepping on the wet surfaces. Turning around the corner, your foot slipped. Fuck. All you could do was flail your hands helplessly while praying that the fall will not be painful and that it will not detach the oxygen tank. Suffocation was not the death of your choice.

Suddenly the fall was interrupted with a strong grip on your waist. Hands pulling you upright, back to standing. The hold felt familiar. And forbidden. Turning to face the saviour, you were struck by the sight of the blue eyes that haunted your every waking hour. Every dream too. He was close, with hands wrapped around your waist securely. Somehow this felt worse than the fall. You half expected Neil to let go any second now, step away and yell at you for being clumsy. Or maybe just for existing. But he was still there. One of his hands slipped down onto your hip. Speechless, you kept on gazing into his eyes, trying to understand what was going on. All you could see was increasing the confusion. Desire. The boundless depths were drawing you in. Neil pulled you closer. Something in his face made you believe that if it was not for the oxygen masks, he would have kissed you. His gaze roamed across your features, intense, relentless, as though he could never have enough of you. It felt like being stripped bare, left exposed and vulnerable. Despite trying, you were unable to put up a guard, showing him all that he was not supposed to know instead. Everything you tried to hide and deny, bury deep inside so it could be forgotten. Well not anymore… Whatever Neil saw in your eyes woke him up. You noticed a passing frown, replaced with increasing shock. And then horror. What the hell. Before you could even process what happened, he let go and took a hasty step back. He looked sick, pale with fear and panic. Then, just as you tried to find any relevant words, Neil spoke:

“Be more careful next time,” cold and curt as though nothing happened.

He walked off briskly, disappearing into the darkness of the training grounds. What the fuck? A single drop flew up from the deck, splashing onto your chin. The rain has begun. You felt strange. Suddenly mourning the fact that you have been saved from suffocation. It would have been simpler. Less painful. Less terrifying.

*** No matter the hours passing by, or the thousands of different grounding techniques you have attempted, nothing was helping. Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, you wanted a multitude of things. To get blackout drunk in the hope of forgetting this morning ever happened. (You checked the galley, utterly disappointed to have found nothing with the necessary voltage). You wanted to talk to someone, briefly considering visiting Kat further down the corridor. But that would have meant being even more vulnerable. And a burden. So nope. At one point, you once again considered marching outside without the mask, letting the inverted lung membranes and fucked up rain do the rest. But you did not want to end the life itself. That was not all that bad. You liked your job, the various people you have met along the way. It was only that the current predicament was… unbearable. There had to be a different option.

Then mindless pacing replaced the stillness of lying down. Window, door, and back again. To be repeated for at least an hour. Your thoughts swirling around everything that has been said. Everything that happened. Kat’s story. The look in Neil’s eyes. What if… what if? The unknowns kept multiplying in your head, driving you insane with the extent of what you did not understand. You always hated those moments of suspense. Unsure whether to give up, let go and try to move on, or to keep trying, hoping. Your heart could never process them well without breaking and shattering into millions of pieces. Fuck.

There was one way out of it. One that you tried to push to the back of your head for the few past hours because it was too terrifying. But you were slowly running out of alternatives. One look out of the window told you that you had spent at least six hours like this. It would not do. It was either him or nothing. But you could not survive the insufferable without knowing which one it was. Taking a deep breath, you stopped in the middle of the cabin. This is it. You knew what had to be done. You put on the sweater as though in a trance, making sure to repeat silly affirmations in the quiet of your mind. It had to be alright. If it wasn’t, there were always the seals left…

The walk down the short corridor felt like ascending the steps to the guillotine. Only whatever might happen could be worse than beheading. Your hand shook as you rapped on the door to Neil’s cabin. The sound felt like the worst mistake you ever made. It was too late to turn back. After a very long moment, you heard shuffling inside. When the door opened, you were shocked by a few observations all at once. Neil’s eyes were reddened, hair in absolute disarray. When he realised that you were the intruder, his hands automatically went to smooth the strands in some way. Making even more mess in the process. In any different situation, you would have found that endearing. But your heart was too heavy. You eyed him instantaneously, gaze slipping over the fitting black thermal shirt and the joggers with narrowed cuffs. Not helpful. As you glanced back at his face, you noticed the intensifying confusion. That was the chance to speak…

“Can I come in?” a tentative start to make him more likely to agree.

The shock in his blue eyes slowly changed into careful curiosity. Neil gave you a once-over before opening the door wider and stepping back.

“Of course. Friends are allowed to visit each other” a hint of impatience as though he already had enough.

But that was not the most infuriating bit…

“Friends?” you crossed the threshold and met his eyes with the face of stone, “Sure, that’s one way of looking at what we are” the lack of reaction was inspiring, “Or were” you took a look around his room.

Equally small cabin, littered with a few personal objects. His was phone abandoned on the bedside table, a change of clothes on the floor. A naïve idiot would have taken a moment to consider the fact that maybe he was not as well as you thought. But you were past that, desperate to get answers. A reaction. An end to this madness. With resolve ever-increasing, you sat down on the edge of Neil’s bed, ready for the battle ahead. Meeting his perplexed gaze, you let the penny drop:

“I wonder with how many friends have you been kissing on the bed for two hours” a flash of recognition and then a frown.

As expected. But it still hurt.

That moment from the afternoon before the morning plane to Tallinn was one you often replayed in those desperate hours when nothing seemed to help. You were lying in bed in your room back in London, enjoying each other’s company, exchanging kisses like compliments every few minutes. Sometimes Neil would let his hands become more daring in their caress, causing goosebumps all over your skin. Bringing out sighs and making your heart overflow with love and hope that you finally found what you have been looking for. You felt wanted. You talked a lot about the future, sharing different ridiculous plans for how it could play out. Neil promised to visit your prospective farm with the sheep and dogs. Back then, judging by the look in his eyes, you dared dream that perhaps he would want to be a part of those days still to come. Now, looking at the blonde man awkwardly perching on the chair in front of you, nothing made sense. He stayed for the night then, allowing you to hug him close until the morning. You woke up first, watching him for a few minutes. The steady rise and fall of his chest. Relaxed face with hair sticking up. Calm and content. The warmth spreading from your heart inspired you to press a kiss to his lips as a means of wake up. The sight of Neil sleepy-eyed, peering up at you with a fond smile gracing his features was worth much. Maybe even the current tortures…

Facing him now, you could see the frown deepen.

“Painful memory?” you countered, watching him closely for any hints.

A mask was put on well. But there were flashes of something there. A potential… A possibility of getting burned too.

“In a way,” Neil grimaced, avoiding your piercing gaze.

He was uncomfortable, mindlessly picking on the skin around his nails and tapping his foot. That was the signal to keep on pushing. Until he would be forced to be honest.

“That’s a shame. It’s one of my favourite ones” as he looked up, you offered a deadpan smile, “Just like Oslo,” a shrug complemented with a quick scan of his body, “Though I’m not sure about that… ending,” feigning thoughtfulness you ended the harsh scrutiny.

The point was to back him up against the wall without making him throw you out. That tiny voice at the back of your head told you that he would have done that already if you were not in any way important. That voice was too confident.

“What is your point?” Neil bit back, betraying the level of annoyance you have brought with the innocent reminder.

You knew there was no more skirting around the issue. Now or never.

“Why did you do that earlier? Why did you hold me like...” you trailed off, unable to put into words what it felt like.

Like what? Like a lover. Like someone you actually cared about and not just an irritation. Like someone you could want in your life. But you could never say that to him.

“I was being a gentleman” Neil glanced at you with painfully fake indifference, “Women tend to appreciate that,” a shrug that could not fool you.

Women. The spark of jealousy burned bright. Because what if you were just another distraction. Nothing special. But then the things he said to Kat suggested otherwise. You held onto that thought and squared your shoulders. The game was on.

“...Right,” a sceptical glance in his direction before you continued, “Was that look gentlemanly too? Because last time I checked, gentlemen didn’t tend to look at women as though they wanted to…” trailing off, you awaited the response.

That would mean he took the bait. And the case was not yet lost.

“What?” the lazy tone made you meet Neil’s gaze.

He looked… off. As though before you knocked, he was not exactly fine. It was that nervousness and unkempt appearance that betrayed him. On its own accord, your heart gave out a painful thump, anticipating the fact that Neil too might have been hurting. But why? Ignoring the distraction, you found the needed words and dropped them carelessly.

“Devour them” you held his gaze confidently.

The verb felt right. As though Neil was not trusting his instincts, he looked down, breaking the contact. Putting up further guards. Bingo. He scoffed, throwing in cruelty to the mix:

“And here I was thinking you’re over… this” a vague hand gesture to show what this meant.  

You. And him. That something that both was there and was not. Or rather, he wanted it to cease to exist. Only it was not that easy.

“I never said that” putting on the necessary emphasis, you kept on staring at him until he looked up.

Mouth open for another quip. That same steel-blue eyes and clenched jaw. Whatever you have been doing was working. Slowly aggravating him to the point of discomfort. You had to keep the upper hand. Neil seemed to consider something, restlessly fiddling with a pen he picked up from the bedside table. After a beat, he spoke up:

“Why are you here?” weariness in his eyes as he gave out a long exhale.

Easy question… right?

“Because I want answers” it could not be any simpler.

He flinched, letting you see the extent of panic hidden underneath the annoyance and casualness.

“What makes you think I’ve got them?” an arched eyebrow adding the mocking intonation.

The meter of space between you felt like an ocean. He was close enough for you to brush away the strand that has fallen into his eye if you only leaned in. And yet so far that you felt alone, alienated by the cold scrutiny. You had to keep going, tearing at the carefully build up armour hiding him away from you.

“Because you always have words. An abundance of them” you waited till he looked at you again before pressing on “Be it things you probably wish I have forgotten that you have once whispered between kisses” a pause, noticing the boundless unease in the blue eyes “Or all those lovely adjectives you have given me the last couple of days” using the moment of hesitation, you added, “But maybe you were right, and I am stupid, emotional-”

You could give him the whole litany. Your legacy. Exactly how much you were worth in Neil’s eyes. Unless it was a lie…? Before you could begin, Neil raised his hand, interrupting sharply:

“Okay, I get your point” no pride in that frown, almost as though he regretted it, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that” the apology took you by surprise.

As did the sudden change in his face. Neil held your gaze with unusual sheepishness. As if even the act of looking at you was dangerous. Tearing the skin from his lower lip, he was the epitome of insecurity. There was no time to falter.

“Everything?” you prodded, mindful of the poker face you had to maintain.

You could not lose him now. Neil hesitated for a short moment before responding:

“Yes,” another second of eye contact, and he got up, impatiently touching the doorknob “If this is all you wanted, then I’d rather be alone-”

No. You leaped up, reaching out before he could finish the sentence. As your hand landed on his forearm, his eyes snapped to you in shock. He was not expecting you to breach the touch barrier. But there was no other choice. With heart hammering in your chest, you felt your throat tighten. Please not now…

“No,” emotions exposed in the tiny voice crack, “Neil, I’m tired of this, of you not making any fucking sense and expecting me to accept it” pleading, you let your fingers wrap around his wrist.

That had to do. Judging by the terror in his eyes, it was already too much. You could feel your resolve waning. Terrified of the consequences if this backfired. Of what you would have to do if he rejected you once and for good. Of the pain you would have to face then. But you had to be brave. He swallowed hard. You wondered what caused the goosebumps on his skin.

“If this is about earlier, then you’re blowing it out of proportion. Be more reasonable” there was a raw edge to his voice that was new.

You were close now. Enough to force Neil to stare at the ground to avoid looking at you. You noticed those dark circles under his eyes. And the tension spilling out in waves. He was scared of you. And that was a horrifying discovery. Your eyes were burning as you begged your heart to hold on. You had to survive this.

“It’s not just that” betraying the nerves, you took a greedy inhale, “It’s what you told Kat in Oslo. It’s how you look at me” following potentially disastrous instincts, you tipped his chin to meet his eye, “It’s all those sudden switches when you seem so cold and calculating and yet so separated from the real you” running out of breath, you could only stare at Neil.

The widened eyes and parted lips told you exactly how shocked he was. You did feel bad for bringing Kat into it. The argument was too strong to let it go. And it worked if his silent panic was anything to go by. He was desperately searching for words, unable to tear his eyes away from yours as though what you said was a binding charm.

“Why do you think you know the real me?” finally, Neil settled upon the question.

One last attempt at making you forgo this madness. Only there was nothing convincing in his delivery. Eyes hazed, showing you fear and uncertainty. A blood droplet on the lower lip where he tore through the skin. Ignoring the most innate of desires to wipe it off, you cupped his cheek. Neil gasped, frozen in the spot. Could it be working? Sliding your hand down, you interlocked your fingers with his. Everything felt surreal. As if you were not a part of the scene. But you had to persist. To finish what you started.

“Because you once told me that you’ve never lied to me. That I’m very important. Your everything, even” your voice broke again on the last sentence as you tightened your hold over Neil’s hand, “And I understand that you could have changed your mind, but…” you hesitated, feeling him shudder.

Oh my god. Your heart broke for the umpteenth time as the fact dawned on you. Neil was shivering slightly as though he was cold. But there was no draft. Nothing to cause it apart from your presence, words, and the physical touch. A choked sob built up in your throat.

“…why are you trembling when all I’m doing is holding your hand? Am I that revolting?” the questions were interrupted by a sniff you could not hold back any longer; there was time for honesty, “The last few days have been awful, making me want to stupid things just to feel something different than heartbreak. I’m not saying that to get your pity, but if I got it all so wrong then tell me now. Because I’m not sure I can survive much longer like this” after finishing the speech, the tears trailed down your cheeks uninvited.

It was all there for him. Nothing to add. Your heart was beating fast, blood pounding in your ears. For a second, you felt suspended in time, unable to do anything but stare at Neil, who seemed utterly speechless. And then his face fell. Eyes fell shut as he let out a heart-shattering whimper. Tears started falling down his face as you tried to brush them away. You have not seen him that broken since the aftermath of TP’s death. He tugged his hand out of your hold to cover his face, turning away. Christ… The searing pain was back, this time making your heart bleed for Neil. You did not know what to do, powerless and paralyzed with a multitude of thoughts and feelings. After a minute which felt like an eternity, Neil faced you again with red-rimmed eyes and tragedy in his gaze. That was the needed wake-up. Stepping back into action, you placed your hand on his chest. Just over the beating heart. A gentle encouragement.

“I can’t… I can’t tell you that it’s over because I still…” the breathless words tinged with panic and struggle as he fought for every gust of air, “I can’t keep on…” another sob, shaking his whole body “You’re…” a sharp intake followed by instant defeat.

Immeasurable anguish in Neil’s eyes was another reason to find the strength you did not know you had. Maybe it was worth it.

“What? I’m here with you and willing to listen. To do anything but please just make me understand” holding back more tears, you made sure he saw the determination painted on your face.

Slowly you were coming to terms with the reality. You would do anything for him. Anything he asked.

“I don’t know how to…” Neil trailed off, looking for answers all over the floor and ceiling, “I’m tired of having to pretend when you’re all I…” a moment of hesitation as his eyes widened.

He did not intend to say that much. You’re all I… what? Before you could find ways of pressing on, he turned away again and sat down on the bed. A frown etched deep into his forehead. Eyebrows furrowed. Eyes glistening with unshed tears. This was bad. Awkwardly, you shifted from one foot to another. Words were escaping you both.

“Then don’t. I won’t bite” your useless quip was received with an ill-disguised dry chuckle, “Call it naïve, but I don’t think it’s anything we can’t fix if we…” shit.

You knew what was there on the tip of your tongue. It was too early. Fuck knows if he even… But he had to. There was no other force in the universe that could cause this much pain.

“If what?” Neil caught your mistake with strange emotion in his eyes.

As though he wanted you to spell it out. You could not give in. Some words had the potential to destroy, and it was too fragile. A freshly opened wound you still had to mend somehow.

“Don’t make me say it again” a whisper to make him understand your actions.

After a beat, Neil nodded. He seemed exhausted, slouching and staring at the floor unseeingly. That feeling of helplessness threatened to come back with force as you were running out of ideas to make it work. To get him back somehow. Then his voice broke the tense silence:

“Christ…” a long exhale before he looked at you again, “I don’t even know where to begin, but…” resignation passed through his face.

You felt a strange spark of hope flicker in the depths of your heart. It did not look like rejection. It did not look like anything you have ever experienced, and yet it made so much sense. Because after everything you have been through, there was no way this could be easy. Kindling that building fire, you cautiously took a step forward, maintaining the eye contact:

“Yes?” the most neutral of tones, holding the emotions at bay.

Everything not to scare him off. You made it so close. You could give up now. A hint of a sad smile upon Neil’s lips was encouraging…

“Come closer. I want to…” he reached out a hand you gladly took, letting him pull you nearer.

It did not matter what he wanted. Only that you could give it to him. Anything. Everything. Upon the sudden surge of courage, you covered the remaining inches of space and straddled his lap in one smooth movement. Another gasp as Neil glanced at you with obvious amazement. Then, as though he worried that even this was too much, he looked down at where his hands tentatively settled on your hips. This position was familiar. And yet, you felt different, unable to make sense of the myriad of emotions and thoughts occupying your mind. All that mattered was Neil. His hesitant but intimate hold. The hair falling into his eyes. Shallow breaths escaping through the parted lips.

“It’s alright, look at me,” gently you lifted his chin so that you could meet his gaze.

Blue eyes full of longing. For you. Exhaling sharply, you knew well enough what to do. You wound your hands around his waist, drawing him into a tight embrace. That too felt natural. After a second, Neil relaxed, melting into your hug as if that was exactly what was missing. At that moment, with head resting in the crook of his neck, at last feeling as though there was a point in all this, your eyes welled up. No matter the suffering, this had to be it. Your everything. Neil breathed you in, warm puffs of air causing shivers all over your body. There was no point in pretending.

“Please come back to me,” you whispered against his skin, letting tears trail onto his shirt.

Neil tightened his hold, hands roaming over your back, pulling you even closer. All it took was a kiss he pressed onto the exposed skin of your collarbone to make you tremble.

“I never left,” the hesitancy told you he did not believe it either.

“You did. But maybe… I’ll do anything to have you back” the urgency in your voice causing Neil to lean back.

He wiped the stray tears from your cheeks, taking an additional moment to caress your neck with tenderness. You could only lean into his touch, feeling as though whatever might happen has already been decided. There was no way you could let this go. Neil seemed to consider something quickly before he spoke:

“All those words… they fail me when I’m trying to explain what I was doing” his voice was raspy with the weight of emotions, “Or why. Because I’m scared of making it come true. It’s as if once I say it… it might…” he paused, searching for words in your eyes.

“Become real?” you offered, running your fingers through his unruly hair.

You were right. It was all an act. The elation was restrained by worry and love. It didn’t matter.

“Yeah…” Neil swallowed hard, “And then there’s all this mess in my head… The thoughts that just won’t shut up. I’m so fucking tired of… of-” the familiarity of his words causing another flash of pain within your heart “I can’t ask you to-” he cut himself off as though the idea was unspeakable.

You caught a sight of something darker within his gaze. They always said that actions speak louder than words…

“Neil, I said I’ll do anything. I mean it. What do you need?” you met his panicked eyes with resilience.

It took him a longer minute to stop staring at you. To wake up. And then, as simple as it can be:

“You. I need you,” touching his forehead to yours his breath ghosted your lips, “But after everything I did, I wouldn’t expect you to want me… like that” the depth of remorse was heart-breaking.

You already knew what the answer would be. Nothing else mattered. Regrets, worries, and fears had to be abandoned for the sake of this.

“The trouble with the heart is that it doesn’t care what you’ve done. Only that this is you,” smiling lightly, you cupped his cheek, “Just… kiss me. Like you mean it. Like you could love me. And then we’ll see if we can make it work,” unsure where the words came from, you faltered.

But before any vicious doubts could step in, Neil closed the gap. His lips slowly glided over yours, reminding you what it felt like. It did not take much persuading for you to open your mouth, deepening the kiss. It felt like coming home after a long time away. Like that first step over the threshold when one is unsure what they will find. Only to realise that everything is in the right place. That they should have never left. You tangled your fingers in his hair, bringing him even closer. He groaned upon the sensation, teeth grazing over your bottom lip. A sigh escaped your throat as Neil’s hands ventured underneath the sweater. For the first time in a while, everything made sense. You tugged at his shirt just for the sake of it as a means of showing him how wrong he was. You wanted him more than before if that was possible. The kiss consuming you both with its intensity and force. Your tongues participating in their dance, brushing against each other, increasing the intimacy of the moment. It finally felt right. Slow, unhurried, but desperate. Unforgettable.

You did not even know when it ended. One moment you were willing to give up breath if only to make it last longer. The next Neil had you pinned to the bed, breathless and shocked. When you met his gaze, the depth of expression told you what it meant. Finally.

[princessanneftw]

The truth about the Queen's relationship with Princess Anne - the trailblazing royal 'Daddy's Girl'

by Camilla Tominey, Associate Editor of Politics and Royals for the Telegraph

Having inherited her father’s no-nonsense approach to life, it is well known within royal circles that Princess Anne has never been one to suffer fools gladly - even if they are the leader of the free world. That might explain the footage that went viral on social media yesterday, seemingly showing the 69-year-old dodging a meeting with Donald Trump.

As the Queen greets the US President and his wife at Buckingham Palace, flanked by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, she spies her daughter lingering in the doorway and lifts a black glove to beckon her over. Princess Anne appears to respond with a shrug and stays exactly where she is.

An aide has explained the moment as “some mother/ daughter banter”, insisting that Her Majesty was “just encouraging the family and staff to come through” (others have suggested that a bemused Anne was telling her mother there were no remaining world leaders in line to greet). But Twitter users have interpreted it as a show of amused defiance and Anne has been praised for “not giving a s---” about shaking Trump’s hand. “She’s always been my favourite royal,” wrote one.

It’s a sentiment that seems to be spreading. the Princess has also unwittingly enjoyed a renaissance as one of the sassiest characters in the latest series of The Crown on Netflix – her straighforwardness, raised eyebrows and determination to live an independent life all endearing her to a new generation of admirers.

Always known as a “Daddy’s Girl”, the Duke of Edinburgh once famously remarked of his horse-mad only daughter: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”

Having grown up in the shadow of her older brother and heir Prince Charles, Anne has won respect for not only carving out a successful career in equestrianism, but also as one of the hardest working members of the Firm. She carried out 518 royal engagements in 2018 and shows no sign of slowing down, even as she approaches her 70th birthday next August.

Her steely demeanour has long hidden a genuine passion for the compassionate care of others, be it through charities such as Save The Children, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers she set up in 1991, or her work in poverty-stricken African nations.

Indeed, such is the recognition of her trooper-like reputation behind palace doors that the Queen has allowed documentary makers to film the Princess Royal for a special programme due out next year - to mark not only her 70th birthday, but half a century of public service, which she began in 1970, aged 20.

It highlights an increasing intimacy between mother and daughter. The pair have already grown significantly closer since the Queen lost both her mother, the Queen Mother, and her sister, Princess Margaret, in swift succession in 2002.

“I was surprised she would cooperate with something like this [the documentary] but the Queen clearly thinks recognition is due for all her daughter’s hard work over the past 50 years,” says Joe Little, editor of Majesty magazine.

Royal author Phil Dampier believes Her Majesty will also hold a party to mark Anne’s auspicious birthday: “Last time, she had to share with Prince Andrew, who is exactly 10 years younger, but this time the Queen will throw a party just in her daughter’s honour. Although Anne wouldn’t want it, her mother will insist.”

It is perhaps worth noting that plans to mark Andrew’s 60th have reportedly been shelved, given the recent furore surrounding his friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Both royal experts agree that the Duke of York’s fall from grace will have an impact not only on Anne’s workload, but her relationship with the 93-year-old monarch. According to Dampier, “Anne is much closer to the Queen than she used to be. She’s always been close to her father, because she’s very similar to him. His philosophy is just get on with it - and that’s just the way she is, too.”

As Kevin S. MacLeod, the Canadian Secretary to the Queen, has said of Anne: “Her credo is: “Keep me busy. I’m here to work. I’m here to do good things. I’m here to meet as many people as possible’.”

But there has always been more to Anne than her 300-plus string of patronages - not to mention the somewhat bizarre fascination with lighthouses that has seen her tick off almost every example on the British coast.

As the first member of the monarchy to compete in the Olympics, in 1976, she was arguably the trailblazer for royals breaking with tradition and living an independent life. In 1987 - the same year she was given the title of Princess Royal - she memorably became the first member of the family to appear as a contestant on a television quiz-show, when she competed on the BBC panel game A Question of Sport.

In 1974, she famously became the victim of a kidnapping attempt by a pistol-waving man named Ian Ball, who stopped her car on Pall Mall. When Ball demanded Anne get out of the limousine, she replied with characteristic gusto: “Not bloody likely!” and reportedly considered hitting him, before exiting out of the other side and being rushed to safety. She later told Michael Parkinson that she was “scrupulously polite” to her would-be abductor, as she thought it would be “silly to be too rude at that stage”.

But there have been moments of rudeness - most notably to the press, who Anne insists do not accompany her on any official engagements. Having gained a reputation for spikiness, she then courted all the wrong headlines when she had a fling with her royal protection officer, Sergeant Peter Cross, while still married to her first husband, Mark Phillips. Because the romance happened when Anne had two young children - Peter and Zara - it sent shockwaves around the palace. But there was some sympathy for the royal mother-of-two when Cross, who by then had left Scotland Yard, sold the sordid details to the News of the World in 1984, and when Phillips himself (whom she divorced in 1992) was later revealed to have fathered a love child.

Yet, since marrying her second husband, Tim Laurence, then a Commander in the Royal Navy, in December 1992 - Anne’s life has largely been blemish free.

So could the Queen’s increasing reliance on her only daughter - and the decision to remove Prince Andrew from the Firm’s front line - make the House of Windsor’s most industrious member even busier?

“She’s likely to become a much more important figure,” explains Phil Dampier. “Unlike her younger brother, she’s extremely discreet and not likely to make any faux pas. She’s a safe pair of hands.

“Thirty years ago she was seen as the black sheep. She got a bad press because she was quite rude to journalists. She had an affair and then came the break up of her marriage. But she has put it all behind her and is now one of the most reliable members of the family. She’s had her own scandals in the past but got through them, while it’s probably much too late for Andrew to do the same.”

One consideration for the Princess Royal is likely to be her relationship with her grandchildren - Savannah, 8 and Isla, 7, Peter’s children with his wife Autumn Kelly; and Zara and Mike Tindall’s daughter’s Mia, 5, and Lena, 1 - who all live on her Gatcombe estate.

A royal insider revealed: “They are an incredibly close family. I know the Princess has got a bit of a reputation as an ice maiden, but she absolutely dotes on her granddaughters. She works so hard that she doesn’t see them much during the week, but loves to spend her weekends with them. I wouldn’t imagine she’d want to sacrifice much more of that precious time together.”

Yet, Joe Little insists that Anne will remain a vital cog in the royal machinery, even though Prince Charles is reportedly planning to slim it down in the future.

“She’s in her 70th year but in remarkably good shape mentally and physically, so there is no sign of her slowing down,” he says. “Whether she can take on any of her brother’s workload remains to be seen, but Charles couldn’t not have her around. When they do see each other they get on like a house on fire, but they’re not in each other pockets. He trusts his sister implicitly.”

With her father, oldest brother and now her mother increasingly looking to her for support, one can’t help but think that Princess Anne could yet prop-up the Firm, as well as The Crown, for some time to come - whether she agrees to shake hands with world leaders, or not.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Marina Abramovic in Belgrade

Jasmina Tesanovic:

I have always liked Marina Abramovic, from her earliest works to the latest ones.

   Many who knew her in the legendary early years of bitter struggle now resent her grand fame and success. They consider her commercialized, cosmopolitan, a celebrity artist recycling proven successes, but they're all wrong.  This is mere snob activity.

  It's possible to be the cliched, true artist who is permanently poor, pure, and out of touch with the entire material world, but art snobs never notice or praise these people.  They're too busy attacking Marina for not being like that.  Oscar Wilde used to point out that snobs are a useful motor of society, propelling the fame machine by loudly including, excluding, over-praising and denouncing.  Women artists might even get snobbishly confined to small pedestals and defined as muses rather than real artists.

  But snobs will always lack Marina's creativity and painful brilliance.  I appreciate Marina’s direct and sharp attitude towards fame, glory, wealth, the female body and universal death.   She confronts complex issues directly, in the world as it is, instead of accepting trends at face value.  Her work will be noticed, disciples will follow her, but by that time she will already be elsewhere.

    The grandma of performance art, as she calls herself, will soon be playing Maria Callas, the diva of opera, in her most famous death scenes. At Maria's age, and with the portfolio and life-histories of Marina-and-Maria, I feel sure that is not only the best way, but the only way.  Marina Abramovic and Yoko Ono are my role models for female living artists who have transcended the many threats of fame and glory, and prevailed over suffering.

    So, Marina is returning to Belgrade

In September, after 45 years of exile, like a much-condemned heretic witch finally accepted as a goddess. At long last, a proper, large-scale show in the museum of modern art on the Danube, with a welcome from plenty of celebrities, friends and of course politicians.  Naturally her long-time local foes and critics will be there to wave national flags.

   This show will be a performance in and of itself: life is art and art is life, the conceptualist credo.  In this case, a kind of Warhol ghost of the art-is-life of the former Yugoslavia, the Belgrade of Marina's youth, that  underground stage like an art-factory, neglected, obscure, weird, where three artists performed for an audience of two, and all recording was forbidden... This show will have the melancholy grandeur of the last volume of Proust's memoirs of lost time.

      Will these artists recognize others, see themselves after the wars, the gossip, the death of a nation, of a lost social order?  Will they have the courage to say hello and goodbye to their past?

We will see!

      I will be there, watching from the second row, while Marina will perform the story of her life, as she always does. When I last met her in Torino Italy, she offered a deeply sentimental speech which ended in tears, about her artistic credo.  She said: I believe in telepathy, not in technology. Today she is doing some tech art, so I wonder how things have progressed with the telepathy.  I am willing to trust her instinct even when she is wrong! Creatives are never exact, they are just daring.

    In her recent public "Letter to Serbia,” the cover story for a local magazine, she says: I worked and lived in Belgrade for 29 years. I was coming back only to visit family. My last personal show here was 45 years ago. Now almost half a century later, I want to show, especially to the new generations, what I did all these years. And I want them to understand through my work how important it is to risk, how important it is to have seen the big picture and to have big dreams, notwithstanding everything.

    In that public letter, she speaks about the importance of failed projects in order to find the path as an artist, about the need not to abandon the impossible. (I was already making a list of favorite projects that "failed," the second-prize winners of shows that I curated.  How often, with time, the second-prize reveals itself to be more prescient, more forward-looking and inventive, than the first prize that seemed such a clear winner).

   Marina talks about her luck in discovering early on that performance is her way through art, either once, for a small public, or, today with an attentive worldwide audience. Especially, long performances can have the transformative energy of life itself. Performance is a living art, not a recording, like video or text.  A performance can be re-enacted by other people, but they will be living it, not creating the artwork.

    Marina says if she paid attention to what was written about her all these years, she would never have left her room.  At age sixty, though, she proved that all she needs is a room, along with a couple of chairs.  That was the famous performance "The Artist is Here" at the Museum of Modern Art, where she sat in a room and registered her presence, eye to eye, with her public. For days on end that other chair was never empty.

The Marina Abramovic show in Belgrade will be her biggest retrospective ever, and she is close to a popular sensation in contemporary Serbia.   After decades of studiously pretending that she didn't exist and had no significance, everybody knows and quotes her name, from politicians to the handyman. She and Novak Djokovic are the queen and king of the updated Serbian national image.

   This art and sports mania may have an unhealthy air of Serbian royalty above the common unwashed herd, but I think we should embrace good news about Serbian culture, when it occurs.  The Museum of Modern Art on the Danube has been a decaying ruin for years, but is recently re-opened as a beautiful space and place.  So why not enjoy the Marina Olympics?  

    I happen to be a Serbian expatriate myself, the notorious activist and artist of a wretched Balkan country beset with too much history, but I can cheerfully admit that Marina Abramovic is global art-world royalty, and even Novak Djokovic can really whack a tennis ball. Who knows what the next, still-nameless Marina Abramovic is doing right now in her overlooked niche-space, somewhere in the cracks of the walls of our 21st century? In Belgrade a street artist can be a fairy queen, and only from  the outskirts one can see the center. Only from a distance one can hit the target.

https://boingboing.net/2019/09/06/marina-abramovic-in-belgrade.html

[daddyspumpkin86]

BDSM: An Ethnography

Disclaimer: As always, this blog is written from the point of view of a brat submissive. Please keep this in mind, and just bugger off if you feel the need to be negative about my experiences.

This is an ethnography I wrote for my Rhetorics of Pop Culture class a couple of semesters ago. The assignment was to write an ethnography about a counter culture - in which we were to demonstrate our understanding of the concepts we discussed during class (hence the citations.)

The Ultimate Surrender: Living the Lifestyle

In early 2014, the hype for the release of the Fifty Shades of Grey motion picture began. I had heard of the steamy book series written by E.L. James, but had never really had an interest in it until I saw the preview for the movie. I am still somewhat embarrassed to admit that I actually like the book series, mainly because critics affectionately dubbed it “Mommy Porn.” Surely, as an English major, I was above reading that sort of thing. I normally turned my nose up at authors like E.L. James, because I thought their writing gave women unrealistic expectations of what relationships were supposed to be like. Fifty Shades of Grey totally fits that mold. But, one fateful day, completely out of the blue, my curiosity got the better of me and I downloaded a bootlegged copy of the first book, Fifty Shades of Grey. I finished it in two hours and read the other two over the rest of Christmas Break because the story reminded me of my husband and me, and all we’ve gone through over the last twelve years. That week, the BDSM rabbit hole opened, and I gladly jumped in with both feet.

What is BDSM?

BDSM stands for Bondage & Discipline (BD), Domination & Submission (DS), and Sadism & Masochism (SM). The acronym, BDSM, helps those of us who live the Lifestyle bundle all of the possible avenues under one umbrella name so that we can teach others what it means. We call actively living this way living the Lifestyle instead of just saying, “oh hey, I practice BDSM,” because it helps us avoid having to endure the stigma that has been attached to our way of life by popular media, and others who oppose our subculture (Haenfler 2016). We also have our own set of rules, just like every subculture.

Titles & special names

When writing, most of us will capitalize words like: Lifestyle, Master, Mistress, Maitresse, Dom, Domme, Domina, Top, Daddy, Mommy, Sir, Ma’am, or whatever the title of the person who is the Dominant party in the relationship may be. The Dom/me or Top chooses their title depending on what kind of Dominant they want to be, or are, and there are many more titles than what I have listed here. Simple capitalization of a title while writing shows a sign of submission, and knowing one’s place in the BDSM Hierarchy. Submissives are called subs, bottoms, babygirl, babyboy, princess, little girl, little boy, little one, kitten, and many others that. Most have custom collars with their names on them, like the one pictured here.

Be Excellent to Each Other

We call non-kinky people vanilla because they don’t have any exotic flavors in the ice cream that is their life. When we have playtime some of us call it play and some of us call it scening. Just depends on what generation of the lifestyle you’re around at the time, and how structured the play session is. We use safe words, like red for stop and yellow for slow down, every time we play. We also do not follow proscribed gender roles; in fact, many of us challenge them with things like sissification (the feminization of a male, by a Dominant woman, at his request). If you’re non-binary, transgender, cis, asexual, or whatever and want to be a Dominant, do it! If you want to be a submissive, do it! If you want to be a switch (someone who does both), do it! That’s the beauty of this Lifestyle, you can be whatever you want to be and no one will judge you for it. If they do judge you, they’re an elitist prick and shouldn’t be part of the Lifestyle because they don’t belong there. We follow the credo, “Your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.”

When someone who actively practices BDSM hears “I live the Lifestyle” in public, it tips us off, but not everyone in the room, and that’s the way most of us prefer it. We can also ask others “are you part of the Lifestyle,” without outing them in public, because if they aren’t they’ll ask, “what lifestyle?” Unfortunately, because of the controversial nature of our relationships, most of us have to stay behind locked doors and maintain a vanilla appearance. There have been many kinksters charged with assault and domestic battery over bruises, or loud noises that led to a welfare check, because of over-concerned vanilla neighbors, friends, or family, even though what we do is 100% consensual.

Disclaimer

Many of us have to hide our identities, and where we live, for our personal protection because some people really do hate the way we live, and have threatened to hurt us. This is why I have chosen to write under my pet name, Daddy’s Pumpkin. They either don’t, or don’t want to, understand how living the way we do enriches our lives, but that’s okay. It gives us things that we’re lacking, thereby making us feel whole, if even for just the hour or two scene we’re participating in. I have an anonymous Twitter, Tumblr, and WordPress blog because my family would never accept the way we live because they think anything like what we do is abuse. I need to be part of the Community, but I have to do it secretly so I can maintain a career outside of my personal life.

As a responsible member of the kink community, I have to write a disclaimer about this topic. First, I want to be clear that the Lifestyle is NOT what you see in porn videos, nor is it what you read about in romance novels, or on the Penthouse Forums. That’s why the kink community hates Fifty Shades of Grey. Christian Grey is abusive, and uses being a Dominant as justification to beat women because of his psychological issues. Yes, some people in porn today do live the Lifestyle outside of their careers, but most of them perform it for the money and don’t live their lives as strictly as the actual kink community does. Please remember that they are all paid performers.

I’ve learned a lot from www.kink.com, where all three of these performers work, and I am very impressed by what they do in creating our ultimate fantasies, and shipping together the performers in pretty amazing ways (Duffett 202-207). Everyone just needs to remember that porn is for entertainment purposes only, and do not try what they do in the videos at home unless you know how to do it correctly and safely. There are on-average 10 professionals involved with each shoot at www.kink.com to ensure the safety of the performers. I also follow Sunny Megatron, a well-known sex blogger, and her blog is http://www.sunnymegatron.com.

My Frame of Reference

Most of the people I know who participate in the Lifestyle live by the simple principles of Domination & submission, in which one partner is the Dominant partner, and the other is the submissive partner. Thusly, in this series of articles, I will only be discussing monogamous, Dominant/submissive (D/s) relationships, as I am not familiar with polyamory and cannot claim to understand it. I will also do my best to remain gender neutral, as I know there is not just the typical male Dominant and female submissive mold as popular culture would have us believe (Nowell 2011). Many people in the community are non-binary, transgender, or cis, as well as pansexual and polyamorous, gay, straight, and lesbian and I do not discount their relationships at all. I’m just the most familiar with my niche in the Lifestyle. The rest of the acronyms usage depends the parameters of the relationship. There is always an agreement to which the Dominant and submissive have both consented, either verbally or in writing. It’s good to write the relationship parameters down whether you’re a newbie or a long-time kinksters, because sometimes we forget what we’ve agreed to, and that’s when things can go terribly wrong during a scene.

Contracts

Contracts typically include what the Dominant will and won’t do, and what the submissive will and won’t do, as well as what they’d like to try as they grow to trust their Dominant. The contract will also detail what words the Dominant prefers to use as safe words. The submissives portion of the contract normally has an intensity scale for each activity as well so that the Dominant knows how hard to push them during a scene. When something on the contract is an absolute no, it is called a hard limit. Hard limits are not to be broken, and both Dominant and submissive have the right to call anything they want to a hard limit. If either party breaks hard limits, it’s a gross violation of trust and can end a relationship immediately depending on the situation. When something is a maybe or they’d like to try it, but with provisions, it is called a soft limit. Limits can be re-negotiated at any time, and honestly should be gone over regularly as the partners get to know each other. A true Dominant will only do what the submissive has agreed to, and will not push them into anything they are not comfortable doing. A good resource for contracts is BDSM Contracts.org.

Types of Activities

Bondage & Discipline (BD) play a large role in many D/s relationships, as do Sadism & Masochism (S&M), for both punishment and fun. Most Dominants are also Sadists (they like to control and administer pain & punishment), as most submissives are Masochists, (they like to be controlled and receive pain). Most include punishment in their contracts for when the submissive breaks rules, or gets sassy with their Dominant so they can remind the submissive whose boss. That’s what floggers, riding crops, whips, canes, paddles, leather straps, hot candle wax, clothes pins, clamps, electricity, fire, needles, spanking, slapping, punching, ball gags, blindfolds, embarrassment, public humiliation, and uncomfortable or predicament bondage are for, most of the time.

Types of Dynamics

However, punishment can also be fun for major masochists, and some actually piss off their Dominant on purpose to get what they want. These submissives are called brats. So, if the Dominant finds themselves with a hardcore masochist, they really have to get to know their partner on a deep level, and find out what tool they really hate used on them so they can use it for punishment. For example: I have a friend who hates canes, so that’s what her Daddy uses. But it’s not just to make us cower in a corner. The whole point of using an implement that scares the submissive is to maintain control, but also to push their limits and help them to not be afraid of that implement any more.

I know this sounds insane to those outside of the Lifestyle, but the whole point of a D/s relationship is safety and structure for both the Dominant and submissive. It gives them a space in which they can explore their limits and needs together. True Dominants are very nurturing, squishy-hearted, people, and that’s what attracts submissives to them. They want a piece of property (yes I know that’s problematic to feminists, but remember the submissive has chosen this role) that they can spoil and do with as they please, which totally does it for submissives because that’s how they want to be treated. People who fall into the submissive mold are looking for security and safety from someone they can grow to trust with their life. Someone to fill their heart with love and feelings of being cherished; someone to fill the void they feel in their lives (Lacan quoted in Storey 2015).

Domestic Service Dynamic

However, there are many titles and dynamics within the D/s lifestyle, because there are many types of D/s relationships, some of which don’t even involve sex. Domestic service is one of the most popular types of non-sexual D/s relationships, and the one I use most as an example when talking to newbies or people who are curious, because it doesn’t make them as uncomfortable as talking about sexual servitude does. In a domestic service situation, the submissive can feel safe and cared for without worrying about being pressured for sex. Simultaneously, they can fulfill their desire to serve someone and be rewarded for a job well done. Often times, domestic servants exist alongside the Dominants full-time submissives, and don’t get a lot of one-on-one time with the Dominant because they’re usually performing their duties while the Dominant is at work, and they don’t typically live with the Dominant. Rewards for great service come in many forms, but the most common reward for domestic service is alone time with the Dominant, be it a date, shopping, or being spoiled. All most submissives want is to feel cared for, safe, and useful to whomever they are serving, as set forth in their contract.

The 24/7 Dynamic

A 24/7 live-in submissive performs all domestic and sexual duties for the Dominant, according to the contract they have arranged. Many of these submissives are actually wives and mothers, so these duties fit right in with their routine, but they have added significance because the Dominant has agreed to a much greater reward than, “thanks for buying the shaving cream I like babe.” A lot of what is required of a live-in submissive is expressed in daily rituals like (but not limited to): making breakfast, packing their Dominants lunch, setting out their Dominants clothes, doing laundry and putting it away correctly, making the bed, cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, having dinner on the table when the Dominant comes home, making sure the kids have done their homework and are ready for school the next day, and tucking in the kids at night and reading them a bed time story. Many do have cages, like this one. Some are kept in them for long periods, and some are just used for play. After everything for the day is done, kids or no kids, the Dominant and submissive spend time together and the submissive is rewarded for a good days work as the Dominant sees fit. Actual recognition from your partner for your hard work every day, imagine that!

Why live this way?

I have often thought about why I chose to finally tell my Husband what I needed, and have concluded that living this Lifestyle really does fill a huge hole in my psyche. I grew up in an extremely disciplined, military home, and I was majorly missing that discipline. At the time of my inception to the BDSM world, I felt like things were spinning out of control with our life, with school, just with everything. Having my Husband take the reins and literally make me follow chore lists, a homework schedule, an exercise schedule, a cooking schedule, and a schedule for everything else we could think of (because I’m obsessive compulsive) has really helped me become a more disciplined person. It has also helped alleviate the major anxiety I used to get from not feeling like I was doing everything I was supposed to be during the day, because my compulsions were getting in the way.

BDSM provides structure for many people like me who suffer from emotional and mental health issues. It also provides a way for us to let go, and just be who we are without repercussion, or judgment from others. I trust my Husband more than ever, because not only can I trust him to take care of me and keep me safe, but now I can trust him to call me on my bullshit and keep me in line when I am not capable of doing it myself. We have become closer than I ever could have imagined over the past three years since we started exploring the world of BDSM together. I’m grateful every day for this wonderful thing we have found.

 

Works Cited

Duffett, Mark. Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture. Bloomsbury Academic. 2013.

Haenfler, Ross. Goths, Gamers, and Grrrls: Deviance and Your Subcultures. Oxford University Press. 2016.

Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Routledge. 2015.

Nowell, Richard. "There's More Than One Way to Lose Your Heart": The American Film Industry, Early Teen Slasher Films, and Female Youth." Cinema Journal 51.1 (2011): 115-40. Web.

[youngandhungryent]

When Hip-Hop’s Protege-Mentor Relationships Turn Sour

In any creative discipline, conflict is an inevitability. Wit the fast-paced, high-pressure terrain of hip-hop, even a working relationship that seemed indestructible can be left in disarray. Whether undone by jostling egos, monetary disputes, musical differences, or even personal betrayal, one dynamic that’s proven particularly hard to retain is that of a mentor and protégé. Among the most intimate relationships that an artist can have, founding a partnership takes a remarkable amount of trust and faith in one another. Oftentimes, it pays off in spades, fostering durable bonds between teams like Dr. Dre & Eminem, Pharrell and The Clipse, Nicki Minaj and her Cash Money label boss Lil Wayne. For others, what was once a mutually beneficial arrangement would eventually give way to toxicity and ruination.

After they concluded all business dealings in 2015 on abrupt but by no means mean-spirited terms, Grand Hustle CEO T.I reignited the unease between himself and his former charge Iggy Azalea at a press event for Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow. “I’m still actively looking for another female rapper who can undo the blunder of Iggy Azalea,” the Bankhead veteran revealed. “That is the tarnish of my legacy as far as [being] a [music] executive is concerned. To me, this is like when Michael Jordan went to play baseball.”

Back when they first cut ties, Tip claimed that, although misguided in some ways, Iggy still had the “talent” and “charisma” required to triumph in this high-octane game. Now, he equates their tenure together as an uncharacteristic lapse in judgment. Naturally perturbed by his comments, the Australian artist fired back by casting some aspersions about her former employer’s attitude towards the opposite sex. “The tea I could spill on what bullshit this is but at the end of the day I think people can see it’s clear he’s salty”, Azalea retorted. “He’s a huge misogynist and has never been able to have a conversation with any woman in which he doesn’t speak like a fortune cookie.”

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At the same time Iggy and TI were prising open old wounds, G.O.O.D Music’s Desiigner was voicing his displeasure with his current label predicament. Scouted by Kanye West after the runaway success of “Panda,” the Brooklynite seems to have been thwarted at every turn in the years since signing on the dotted line. Months after he claimed that he “brought G.O.O.D. Music back” and downplayed Kanye’s purported “genius” in favor of labeling him “crazy,” the New English MC is rallying against his circumstances on Twitter. “FREE ME FROM THIS LABEL”, he declared in a tweet that is yet to be deleted, leading many to speculate that the relationship between himself and his one-time confidants at the Def Jam subsidiary is now irreparable.

Rather than serving as rare occurrences, these recent public spats are endemic of how the hip-hop industry and all its intricacies have been ravaging tight-knit relationships between master and apprentice for decades. Long before up-and-coming rappers and their elders could take to social media to vent their frustrations, mentor and mentee bonds were becoming uncoupled. While each dispute will harbor traits unique to their particular scenario, each falling-out between a protégé and their former champion can be grouped into two main categories: Personal and Business.

When it comes to ill-feeling laying waste to a long-held bond, few MCs are more accustomed to this scenario than hip-hop’s first billionaire, Jay-Z. In line with his late friend’s credo of “Mo Money Mo Problems,” a recurring blight on the self-styled entrepreneur has been friction between himself and those he once deemed to be the next generation of the ROC. First alluded to in Graduation’s “Big Brother,” Kanye and Jay’s relationship has been defined by minor skirmishes that would eventually lead to reconciliation. Both fiery and unflinching in their temperament, the two maintained this uneasy truce until the Summer of 2017. After Kanye split with Jay’s streaming service TIDAL in July, amid claiming that his kids had never played with Blue Ivy, an interview with Elliott Wilson that following month saw the real Sean Carter come to the fore. 

“You can’t bring my kids and my wife into it”, Jay told Rap Radar. “Kanye’s my little brother. He’s talked about me 100 times…. We’ve gotten past bigger issues. But you brought my family into it, now it’s a problem with me. That’s a real, real problem. And he knows it’s a problem.” But where the death knell of Jay and Kanye came appeared to have stemmed from a family feud, the issues between Jay and another one of his students came from a undue physical interaction. Touted as the future of gritty street rap, South Philly’s Beanie Sigel was among the centerpieces of Jay’s newly devised dynasty in the early 2000s. But over time, the chemistry that the Broad Street Bully and Hova displayed on wax began to disintegrate.

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“The sh-t stem[med] from a situation from me that happened when Jay-Z’s bodyguard put his hands on me not in a manner that was harmful to me, but in a manner where he shouldn’t have touched me period,” Beans declared in 2011. “I addressed Jay about it in front of his A-List company and I guess he ain’t like that too much. I think that was the opening of the 40/40 Club, after that I never saw Jay again. I never talked to him again. That couple months went by or whatever, I even tried to reach out to him. It got to the point where you had to get to four different people to talk to Jay.” The alleged recipient of subs on Jay’s infamous “Monster” verse– all I get is these vampires and bloodsuckers, all I see is these n***as I made millionaires / Milling about, spilling their feelings in the air”—the State Property leader felt the need to renege on these claims and speak with a renewed perspective. “Whatever I felt this dude Jay did wrong to me”, Beanie offered, “it can’t outweigh the one thing he did do for me – he gave me an opportunity.”

Uncommon but not impossible, this moment of clarity bears resemblance to how Bow Wow backtracked on his disrespect towards his So So Def mentor Jermaine Dupri in September 2018, after remarking that “Snoop put me in the game, not you.” Yet by the end of the month, the former child star was taking to Twitter to recant his wayward comments. “Want to apologize to my fans and the public and my SSD family lately I been tripping and acting like a f**k boy,” he conceded. “Forgive me for my immature ways. Let’s handle business. Thanks.”

Even within the most legendary crews in hip-hop history, there’s still ample room for discord to arise. Despite the fact that he “told people for years that Jimmy was gonna be a star, so it’s better on my resume,” even Cam’ron and his Dipset brethren Jim Jones were driven apart. Left on life support in 2007 after Jim claimed that “Me and Cam’ron haven’ spoken to each other in a year,” things would continue to degrade as Cam went as far as to claim that the CAPO didn’t grow up in the Byrd Gang’s homestead of Harlem.  

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When heading down to South Florida, this dissolution bears a stark resemblance to the lengthy period of mudslinging between Denzel Curry and Spaceghostpurrp. Cited as the progenitor of much of the cloud rap wave that became commonplace in the early 2010s, Purrp headed up the enigmatic Raider Klan, providing counsel and early exposure to Robb Banks, Yung Simmie and Zeltron 6 Billion himself. After Denzel left their ranks of his own volition, the two remained amicable until 2016 when he took umbrage with Purrp’s disrespectful comments about the late ASAP YAMS. Amid a spree of egregious tweets that mocked the deceased figurehead—where is Yams? Oh I forgot he’s dead, my bad– Denzel rallied the new school of Florida for “SPACEGHOSTPUSSY (RIP YAMS).” After trading diss tracks back and forth over the course of January 2016, the pacifistic Denzel declared that they “good” by that June. However, Purrp’s derogatory claims about Denzel, the nature of his relationship with Billie Eilish and suggestion that he “sacrificed” XXXTentacion would suggest that he still harbors plenty of resentment towards his former protégé.

We also have scenarios where the corruptive forces of money and artistic status come into play. Lengthily explored on this very website last month, these are the sort of contractual disputes and underhanded tactics that have plagued Lil Wayne and his “daddy” Birdman for years on end. Among the most iconic duos of the “jiggy era,” it is the unrelenting specter of financial gain that is said to have driven a wedge between Diddy and Mase. Left hanging by Mase’s abrupt decision to renounce the rap game in favor of the life of a pastor, it’s been widely speculated that Diddy’s sole reason for signing Loon was due to a brewing confrontation between the two Harlem MCs. Despite agreeing to perform alongside his former Bad Boy cohorts on their reunion tour in order to “be the bigger person,” Mase’s belief that Diddy took credit for the vast majority of his hard work has meant that this issue will remain lingeringly unresolved until it’s publicly squashed.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Left to languish in a place of passive-aggression, the unrest between the two is eerily similar to that of two former confidants from Canada. Partly brought to the fore by the 6 God’s co-sign in the first place, the issue of ample credit and compensation—or lack thereof— has hovered over the formerly fruitful relationship between Drake and The Weeknd. Initially aligned with OVO in the Take Care era, Abel Tesfaye was still very much in the embryonic stages of his career. As a result, The Weeknd claims that he willingly regifted songs that he’d devised for House of Balloons to Drizzy. “I was hungry…. I was like, ‘Dude, take anything”, he told Rolling Stone. “I gave up almost half of my album. It’s hard.”

Amid internet chatter that Drake was aggrieved by The Weeknd founding his own label with Republic Records, —the two maintained an uneasy truce and even sporadically performed tracks such as “Crew Love” side by side. But when Take Care’s sixth anniversary rolled around, an Instagram comment made it all too clear that Abel’s suggestion that he was instrumental to the record’s creation has stuck in Drake’s craw. “Abel Tesfaye CO WROTE on ‘Shot For Me’ and ‘Practice,’ obviously was featured on ‘Crew Love’ and ‘The Ride’ and that’s it,” he typed. “There’s 20 songs on that album … don’t try me.” Teamed with the cryptic but not undecipherable words of Abel on the 2019 Gesaffelstein collaboration “Lost In The Fire” in which he claimed, “I just want a baby with the right one, cause I could never be the one to hide one,” all signs point to a turbulent relationship between the former friends. 

Whether the product of personal strife or business matters infringing on friendship, the protégé-mentor relationship is hardly an easy dynamic to navigate. From all the above exemplars, what’s clear is that each and every one of these corrosive incidents could’ve been avoided with cooler heads and greater transparency between the two parties. 

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[under-the-lake]

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Film: Deeper First Impressions - Part 3: The NSPS

The NSPS, also known as Second Salemers, are named not after the Salem’s Witches Institute (mentioned in GoF during the Quidditch World Cup) but after the witch trials held in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692-1693, in which twenty people were sentenced to death. A monument to the victims, resembling the Albert Memorial in Kensington Garden, London, UK, can be seen in the entrance hall of MACUSA. The aim of the NSPS is to track and eradicate witchcraft from the USA soil, no matter the means - banishing or killing.

That witch hunt happens in an already tense context, because of the end of WW1 bringing many immigrants to the USA, because a certain amount of trauma being generated by the flaw of foreigners, ploughing the field for the KKK and discrimination to grow and blossom, and also by the news from Russia and the rest of Europe, where not only Communism but also right-wing extremes slowly make their nests with the consequences we know.

Scourers, Salem Trials and the Creation of MACUSA

The origins of the NSPS is unknown but it is said, according to PM, that it might be of Scourer descent. Scourers were a band of mercenaries, all wizards, who hunted down criminals and later anybody who could be traded for a fair amount of Dragots (the USA wizarding currency), at the time where the colonial wizarding community was still small and scattered and had no laws of their own. Scourers decided to be the law.

Some of them were so greedy they became increasingly corrupt and started to kill, torture and traffick their fellow wizards (or Muggles they sold as wizards because of sheer money lust).

During the Salem Witch Trials held between 1692 and 1693, at least two of the Puritan judges were known Scourers (I never got it why the witches caught and sentenced to death by the Puritans didn’t simply Disapparate… or are the modern Muggle doctors right, and they weren’t witches but moslty ill women who were epileptic or had eaten mushroom-infested rye bread that is known to drive people mad?).

The Salem Trials caused many wizards to flee the New Continent, mostly back to Europe, and many more not to move there at all. As a consequence, the wizarding community in the USA remained small compared to other continents until the first decades of the twentieth century. Most of the community was made of Muggle-born witches and wizards. Therefore, the pure-blood ideology that spread in Europe had much less possibility of developing in the USA.

The most important collateral effect of the Salem Trials was the creation of the Magical Congress of the United States of America in 1693 (btw it can’t be named the Magical Congress of the United States of America because that country didn’t exist until nearly a century later, and at the time was a cluster of thirteen British Colonies). MACUSA followed the model set by the Wizards’ Council in Great Britain. Their main aim was to rid the country of Scourers, so they caught them and put them on trial. The sentence was death.

However, several of the most well-known Scourers escaped and eluded justice, even if there were international warrants for their arrest. They vanished into the Muggle community. Some married Muggles, and shunned their kids who might show signs of being magical. What happened to them is unknown. The worst those Scourers could do was pass on to their offspring the conviction that magic existed and was evil, therefore witches and wizards should be exterminated. That is probably the link to the NSPS, the New Salem Philanthropic Society.

New Protestantism, Ku Klux Klan, Dictatorships and the NSPS

To help eradicate magic, Mary Lou Barebone, a Muggle (or that’s what we see at least - I think she’s of a Scourer family), lectures people in the street, and ‘hires’ lost and orphaned kids to hand out flyers, paying them with a bowl of gruel if they do their job (makes me think of Oliver Twist, that one). She also has three adopted kids, Modesty, Credence and Chastity, whom she hates and abuses. Actually she doesn’t hate the human beings in them, but only what they represent to her. Basic xenophobia. Their names are virtues and make me think that the NSPS can be compared to the Puritan movements that were again flourishing throughout the US in the 1920s, the so called ‘new protestantism’ that wanted to eradicate everything ‘bad’ from society, making the Gospel THE law and reference to answer any question and address any issue in life, from the creation of the world to modern technology. That’s the theory of biblical inerrancy, meaning that the Bible can’t err.

New Protestants thought modern society had bad influences like alcohol (very modern indeed), cinema, cars, bad habits and jobs (yes, because prostitution isn’t the oldest job in the world - not saying it should be supported, but only that the argument is irrelevant), communism, atheism and whatever isn’t typically United-Statesian (which means everything that is different from their ideas in their opinion, basically), because they felt threatened.

The leaflets handed out show very clearly the views of the Second Salemers: Witches and wizards are sinners, the NSPS is an army that fights them, and if you don’t follow God’s word, bad things will happen to you. There is even a cross-stitched sampler called the Sin Sampler, that starts with ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, Blasphemy, Cursing, Divorce’… and goes on down to Witchcraft. That’s exactly the credo by which the puritans live. I say ‘live’ because there’s still people like Mary Lou today. I know some myself. There’s some words on that sampler that are not their credo though: racism, envy, hatred, jealousy, prejudice… which shows that in each dictatorship or extreme ideology there are Lies. I mean, Hitler was nor German nor Aryan, but he advocated aryanism and pangermanism. Just for the example. NSPS members are racists, envious and jealous of other people’s individualism, hate them because they are prejudiced against them…. -sighs-

Another organisation to which the NSPS can be compared is the Ku Klux Klan. Created in the late 1860s, it had three periods, but always with the same aim: racial purity of the USA, and fight against everything that was different, because the members felt threatened. The first period was short, from the late 1860s to the early 1870s. The second was in the first half of the 20th century, when the KKK was recreated in 1915, and flourished in the early and mid-1920s, until temporary death in 1944. It was during that period that the cross burning was brought into the show. We can draw a parallel with the wand-snapping in the NSPS. The third period is from the 1950s onwards. The KKK between 1915 and 1944 was reborn from the ashes by William Joseph Simmons, starting in Georgia, soon helped by Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler, who make the KKK a nation-wide organisation. Simmons decided to reform the KKK after seeing the film Birth of a Nation, that glorified the first Klan. Simmons’s aim is to preserve pure Americanism (btw it’s funny how all those people who want to preserve ‘pure whateverism’ are forgetting that they weren’t the first to live there and are a melting pot of immigrants from all over the world). Another aim was to preserve the nation of the evils of the modern world, in the name of God; a bit like New Protestantism, but remarkably more violent and cunning (collecting money and sending part of it to the State, for instance, thus making them ‘tolerable’, a bit like the Malfoys in the Potter books). In the 1920s, the KKK boasted about 4 million members across the USA. It is curious that the KKK should be defending everything they’d call pure and biblical, but at the same time give the name of magical beasts or people to some of their hierarchy: titans, dragons, cyclops, Wizard (this was the overall leader at the time).

If we put together the ideals and ways of dealing of both the ‘new protestantism’ (notice the similarity with the ‘second Salmers’ name) and KKK (SS for Second Salemers, yet another similarity, and not only with KKK), we get a pretty good notion of the ways of the NSPS.

The fact that the Second Salemers are living and working in a small church is also relevant: the church is made into a home and has no sacred function anymore, as if the movement was detached of all fundamental virtues of the Christianism it claims to stem from (there’s even quotes of the Gospel on the leaflets). The church is the NSPS HQ. It is small and shabby, lost between huge modern buildings on Pike Street, as if willing to demonstrate that humility should be a virtue (which is totally true, but none of those NSPSians is virtuous in my eyes - or should I say not yet, since we don’t know what Credence and Modesty’s futures are). Moreover, it is dry and austere, like the New Protestantism wanted its members to be. It is discreet, like the KKK would have been (they called themselves ‘The Invisible Empire’), because it’s not completely fitting; after all, killing people is not exactly the best way to demonstrate charity (which is one of the cardinal virtues). So while the meetings are held in public places (and not just any place, but in front of capital buildings), the HQ must remain hidden so as not to attract too much attention.

Dictatorship-like brainwashing

If you want to go further into the comparison with extremism, it is rather easy. One of the things that strike me most is the brainwashing of children, that is done in so perverse a way that they don’t get what is happening to them. The children get food if they hand out leaflets on the street. In the script, they are told to get their leaflets before if they want food, which, by the way, looks like some horrid grub. So hand out leaflets or you starve. That would be a bit more acceptable (yet still not acceptable) if the kids weren’t brainwashed to believe the leaflets actually tell the truth. However, in one of the scenes in Pike Street, we see one of the boys asking if the mark he has on his face is a witch’s mark, which can lead us to think that they are instructed not only to hand out tracts, but also taught what witchcraft is and how to recognise it. This is proper indoctrination and smells strongly of the hitlerite or stalinist antisemitic and anti-manyothers propaganda: giving physical signs of how to recognise Jews or Catholics or Homosexuals. Building stereotypes. Of course you can claim that neither the Third Reich or Stalin’s USSR had really come into being in 1926 but Hitler had already written Mein Kampf and was campaigning energetically and gaining followers, and Stalin was fighting with Trotsky over the leadership of USSR now that Lenin was dead (1924; Stalin then became First Secretary of the Communist Party). Both doctrines were well established in the mind of their creators, and antisemitism and anti-manypeople were at the heart of them.

Thing is, in the Barebone case - like in many others, the use of physical signs doesn’t work. Credence is a wizard, and maybe Modesty too. Rowling herself said the Barebones (meaning Mary Lou, since the others are ‘adopted’) are of wizarding descent, probably Scourer, which would explain the urge of getting rid of that evil branch of humanity, wizards. Mary Lou is the result of generations of anti-witch brainwashing. She actively looks for children with traces of magic and tries to un-magic them, with ways that are worse than those of the Dursleys (who would have thought I’d say that one day), and that create dead children or haunted children. That’s what they look like into my eyes. While reading things about those kids, I found a quote of what the Warner Bros. Casting crew had said about Modesty, and this was the very word about her: ‘haunted’.

Harry never came to the point when he created an Obscurus inside him. However, if you look at the acts he performs when angry or distressed or upset while being forbidden to perform magic, they are always rather violent, particularly when it comes to Aunt Marge. Maybe it’s the very beginning of the birth of such a creature. Harry was saved that fate because he could attend Hogwarts though. Which is maybe not the case for Ariana Dumbledore… who knows? Perhaps she started repressing her own magic after her dad was sent to Azkaban for killing the three Muggles?

The brainwashing takes another visage in the shape of the what-would-you-call-it…. Er… rhyme? -For want of a better word - recited by Modesty when she plays hopscotch. They are anti-witch. Not only just anti-witch. The rhymes give the means of getting rid of them. This is kids’ indoctrination. Like you’d see in other dictatorships, you’d want to engrave some unique ideas in the mind of children so that they believe it’s right. Here it’s definitely ‘witches are the ‘’other’’, they are dangerous and deserve death’. Hatred generated by fear. Like always in such instances. The last bit of brainwashing comes in the shape of the dolls that Modesty has. Of course that’s something that was added in the film by the props department, but it goes along Mary Lou’s lines: it’s a toy girl and a toy witch, the latter being burnt at the stake.

Not only does Modesty sing that rhyme while playing alone, but also while walking in the midst of the other children who are folding leaflets. This is unconscious learning. The fact that you hear something over and over again, passively, finally settles in your brain as a truth, while you have never actually learnt it and never been aware of the significance. You know that witches deserve to die because you’ve heard that sung all around you for hours at a time, but you wouldn’t be able to say why. You just know it’s right to think so. That’s how any kind of advertising works, actually, with the difference that usually advertising only affects the contents of your wallet. Not your way of behaving to people.

Mary Lou

As said before, Mary Lou Barebone is probably of Scourer descent. She believes witchcraft exists, and that witches and wizards are among the regular Muggles, polluting the genes and thus the purity and nobility of ‘normal’ people. In this she combines the sort of pureblood madness we saw with Voldy later but the other way round, she embodies the fears of the other that always darkened the history of the USA, the racism, the xenophobia, the narrow-mindedness and paranoia of extremes. She’s a piece of social history alive. And she’s eerie. She’s scary. We can sense that she’s terrified to the bones that something that the Bible can’t explain - magic - exists. She’s degenerated, in a way, like Voldemort. Obsessed by her own thoughts and nothing else is important in her life. That’s the force that makes her get up every morning. She’s not yet in the state of a dictator in the end of their life, not a Lady Macbeth devoured by guilt and remorse, committing suicide, not a Macbeth going totally mad yet stubbornly never giving up his thoughts, but she’s not far from the latter. She’s already besieged by magic in the shape of Credence and maybe Modesty, like Macbeth was besieged by the moving Birnam Wood in his castle at Dunsinane, but, unlike Macbeth, she doesn’t know she’s fighting her final battle.

She’s scary because she’s so convinced, quietly convinced that she’s right. She doesn’t shout. She states things, quietly yet intensely, and goes forward unerring on the path she chose for herself. And that helps her manipulate the children and other people. She’s also scary because you can’t really know where her beliefs stem from and she’s cunning, which makes her character really complex.

She’s a manipulative dictator who took advantage of the end of the First World War and of humankind to any possible extent:    She surfs on the already rooted paranoia and racism to create the anti-witchcraft movement.    She uses all the possible orphans left by the war to make them her slaves (I didn’t find a record of the number of orphans in New York after WW1 and the two Spanish Flu waves, but if anyone finds one, please comment below or on the fb page with the source). Her work is probably made even easier because of the children hearing she feeds them, and coming to her themselves. Besides, the link between someone feeding you and that someone being good is a strong and easily built one. She wouldn’t need too much effort to make them believe her ideas are right. Actually, we don’t see her schooling them at all, nor do we see her really bullying them into believing her. The only thing we can see is Modesty sing-songing the rhyme to them while they’re folding leaflets on which it’s written in bold and big characters that ‘witches are among us’.    She also uses the fact that actually distributing leaflets is not that hard a job compared to what those kids would have been doing in other circumstances. So it’s a win-win in all their minds, but not in mine of course.    She uses the fact that she’s helping the children to be considered a charitable person to soften the opinion towards her. That’s no charity; that’s manipulation.        She feeds the kids the worst possible grub and bullies and abuses them. That’s, again, very much reminding of workhouses in the 19th century England. One example of a use she makes of the children is when she goes to see the Shaws. She takes them along, putting them forward to try and gain power with that, using the emotional chord, but fails miserably, since the Senator and his father are only drawn by power and money.

What we see in the film is that the children who aren’t in continuous and ‘close’ contact with her don’t see the evil. Those who are, namely her ‘adopted’ kids, either choose to fight or to follow.

Lethal or Not So Lethal Consequences

Trouble is, for Mary Lou, that her adopted children, apart from Chastity from whom we know very little, are really connected with magic (that was her point in the first place: take in kids whom she thought were magical but de-magic them). The risk in ‘adopting’ them was that they might fight her beliefs and get the magic out. I don’t reckon she thought of that. There was a flaw in her plan. Modesty believes in magic positively enough to have procured a toy wand and playing with it (is it really a toy?). As for Credence… well, he’s an Obscural. That means he’s a wizard, and his Ma’ tells him so: ‘your mother was a wicked, unnatural woman’ (scene 88).

An Obscural is a child whose magic has been hindered by force (their own or someone else’s) and who has developed a devastating negative power inside them, called an Obscurus. According to Newt, Obscurals are destroyed by their Obscuruses and don’t survive beyond 10 years - or at least, there was no records of anything surviving beyond that age so far (scene 61). Credence Barebone, however, is at least 21 years old, which makes it extraordinary that he’s still alive. The collateral effect of this is the fact that he lost control of his Obscurus (that’s what wiki says, but I don’t know if I agree. - thinks - Let’s close this bracket, because I don’t agree.).

So. I don’t agree about Credence losing control. He may have lost control at some point, but he’s learnt to control it. See, there are at least three pieces of evidence: Credence kills Henry Shaw Jr. during his gala speech. Only the Senator is killed. All the audience survive. Credence also kills his adoptive mother and sister, but not his little sister, who is standing inches from him. The same happens in that Bronx tenement, when Graves looks for Modesty and has cast Credence away. He unleashes his Obscurus on purpose, again, wanting to hurt something but sparing Modesty and, surprisingly, Graves. If he had lost control totally, then Modesty and Percival would have been hurt, as well as all the people on the streets. Yet only the cause of the fury (Mary Lou, Chastity and Shaw) and buildings are destroyed. So Credence controls his Obscurus. I’m really curious to see what is held in store for him in the future. How is his strange relationship with Grindelwald continue, did he finally understand that he had been manipulated by both his ‘Ma’ and his ‘friend’ Graves? Who did actually see the tiny bit of him fly out of the subway station, besides Newt? Because Credence’s not dead, is he? :P

Now regarding Modesty, all we know is that she’s apparently not developed an Obscurus inside her, which can mean two things: either she didn’t repress the magic inside her or she is no witch. I’m inclined to think she didn’t repress the magic. She’s not afraid of Credence and is rather close to him -as far as you can get close to an Obscural- and she knows he’s different. She’s scared of his Obscurus, and honestly, who wouldn’t, but it’s not a Muggle kind of fright. It’s not panic. She seems to understand what it is and where it comes from, sort of. Then she has a wand hidden under her bed, and she must have found a way of getting it, which denotes she’s got a will of her own. She knows what she wants, Modesty does. She wants to be freed of her ‘Ma’. We see that in a couple of instances in the film. When she deliberately throws the leaflets in the air without handing them out, with a triumphant look on her face. When she acknowledges defiantly that the wand Credence is holding is hers. And when she’s sing-songing the rhyme, I don’t know to what extent she does that out of habit (it sounds dull and boring) and because she knows nothing else, rather than out of conviction that she’s indeed educating the other children. I’m really curious to see what she becomes in the next film (if she becomes anything, but what would have been the point of keeping her alive and getting ‘closer’ to understanding Credence if it’s not to use her in any way later on?)

The others, that is to say Mary Lou and her eldest ‘daughter’ Chastity, who is a mini-Mary Lou, were both killed by Credence’s Obscurus after the discovery of Modesty’s wand. Those who wanted to get rid of wizards were finally got rid of by the very people they wanted to eliminate.

Sources for part 3:

Kaspi, André, Les Américains, I. Naissance et essor des Etats-Unis 1607-1945, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1986 (last edition exists, printed 2014), chapter 9

Immigration Act of 1924, wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924

Christian Fundamentalism, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_fundamentalism

Ku Klux Klan, wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

Pottermore, History of Magic in North America, Writings by J.K. Rowling

Rowling, Joanne K., Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The Original Screenplay, Scholastic, 2016

Rowling, Joanne K., Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London, 2000

Salisbury, Mark, and MinaLima, The Case of Beasts - Explore the Film Wizardry of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Obscurus Books, Diagon Alley, London; Harper Collins, London, 2016

[lewepstein]

Close Encounters With the Truth

I was recently listening to a recording of Anthony de Mello, an inspirational Jesuit priest and psychotherapist when something he said stopped me in my tracks.  The story that he told seemed to go to the heart of what it means to be honest with ourselves.  It also spoke to what has gone terribly wrong in our society regarding what we call The Truth, a  problem that seems to have reached some kind of critical mass in the era of Trump.             

 De Mello describes a lecture that he was giving to a group of fellow Jesuits regarding certain tribal cultures.  The central idea had to do with how innocent and good these people were before ever having read  the gospel or known anything of Christianity.  Following the presentation, he was approached by an elderly Catholic missionary who had devoted the last forty years of his life to working with the very tribes de Mello had been speaking about.  The question that this clergyman posed struck me as remarkable for its courage and its candor.  He said the following:

 “ I’ve been reflecting on what you spoke about today and wonder if I haven’t spoiled these people  by introducing Christianity into lives that already possess  innocence and goodness.”

 One thing that I take away from this story has to do with the willingness of an individual to consider a view of the world contrary to what he had always believed to be true - to allow doubt to cast a shadow on something he once thought of as God’s work.  Regardless of what we may personally believe or feel about the work of missionaries, we can still marvel at the strength and faith that this priest displayed.  When confronted with evidence challenging the value of what had been his life’s work, he was willing to question whether his efforts had been of any value at all.

 I can’t say whether or not the truth will always set us free or even that we’ll feel better having faced a truth.  What  I can say from my experience as a family member and from what I’ve learned from my work with families is that our life-long relationship with the truth is possibly the most important connection that we will ever have.

 Sometimes I find myself asking clients faced with an important life decision, “In your heart of hearts what do you believe to be true?”  Often, the underlying questions I am asking are: “How well do you really know yourself?”  and,  ”Do you honestly feel that you can live with this situation or relationship in your life without it eroding your sense of self?”

 Polonius’s final words of advice to Hamlet in Shakespeare’s most performed play is: “Above all else to thine own self be true.”   The wisdom that he offers Hamlet beyond the virtue of being honest with himself  has to do with being courageous in the face of difficult realities.  I take this to mean that we place ourselves in jeopardy when we ignore or deny what we underlyingly know to be true.  The reason that we avoid exploring things more deeply is usually because they frighten us or take us out of our zone of comfort.

 Close encounters with the truth can also arise in our jobs and careers. One run-in that I had with the truth had to do with my work as a family therapist.  With the benefit of hindsight I can say that in the 1990s I had  “fallen in love” with an approach to treatment called family systems therapy and the theories of Murray Bowen.  This approach had been very helpful to me in my work on my own family issues and some clients of mine reported growth in other parts of their lives after having examined and established more mature relationships with extended family members.                                                                                                                            

The danger I fell prey to was believing that the theory should work in all cases even when some of my experiences with clients didn’t support that conclusion.   I was finding that there were clients of mine with more severe symptoms - usually eating disorders and post- trauma problems - who seemed to derive little benefit from this type of treatment.   It was emotionally difficult for me to let go of my belief in the universality of this approach.  But I would have eventually faced my own crisis of honesty and integrity had I continued to apply a method that was contradicted by the evidence that I was witnessing in my daily work.                                                                                                                            

“The Fog of War,”  a 2003  documentary memoir of  Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was a film that left me with a deep respect for truth telling as confessional - a  public figure’s way of making amends for policies that wreaked death and destruction on entire populations.  McNamara was a figure reviled by the American Left in the 1960’s, one of the architects of the Vietnam War and a Pentagon number cruncher who always came across  to me as devoid of feelings and humanity.   But watching this frail eighty-five year old bare his soul and humbly admit to the miscalculations and moral failures of himself and others during that era was a lesson in humility.  I felt like I was witnessing  a different kind of power in his willingness to tell the truth.  And this in turn left me with a begrudging respect for a man whom I had once held in contempt.

 It is important that we bring truth to bear in our careers and in examining the regrets we may carry around past decisions that we have made, but it is our intimate relationships that challenge us to face the most difficult truths about ourselves and others.  As a couples’ counselor I have found that  almost all marital problems are crises of honesty in one form or another.  Resentments build when people ignore or deny the sincere criticisms and requests their partners offer them.  Our narcissism becomes the enemy of the truth when we are unwilling to take a closer look at the negative and sometimes even destructive aspects of ourselves.   

 Another reason that we are susceptible to lying to ourselves and distorting the truth is because of our early need to be cared for and to trust our caregivers.  This leaves us forever vulnerable to the self-deception of being seduced.  Life partners, friends and relatives can become surrogate and symbolic caregivers who can abuse their positions of power and exploit the powers that we hand over to them.  This kind of adulation can extend to gurus and politicians who we deeply want to believe in.

  I have sat in my office with emotionally and even physically battered women who have defended the husbands who abused them daily.  They would insist that, “ Underneath his hurtful behaviors I know that he really loves me.”  When I have inquired further about any evidence they might have to support that belief they generally have had little to offer.  When we create mythologies around other human beings and brainwash ourselves into believing that they are OK when they are not, we do so at our own risk.  We also harm the other person whose distorted ideas and behaviors remain unchallenged.

 The denial of reality that I have witnessed in women who defend their abusive partners is part of what we are witnessing in the election of and continued support by large segments of our population for Donald Trump.  The idea that underneath his crass bombast he is really a good guy who is looking out for us, the common people, is almost identical to the myths that women create about their abusive partners. The fact that Trump is himself a chronic liar is compelling in itself, but the daily reports of his breaking major campaign promises is something  that few can deny.  And yet that denial of reality is exactly what is happening with his political base.  The cruel irony of the Trump phenomenon is that the people who saw him as the authentic, straight-talking, non-politician who would “drain the Washington swamp” and fight for the little guy now have significant evidence to prove that they were betrayed once again.

 Trump’s assault on the truth is part of an epic, global battle that will probably determine the direction of the entire world.  The Russia connection and Putin’s placing his thumb on the American electoral process by hacking into computers and planting fake news on the internet is designed to create confusion and undermine our democratic institutions, raising the question, “is there anything that we can believe in or trust?  On-going investigations will soon determine whether there was collusion between Putin and Trump’s election campaign that could have tilted the election in Trump's favor.  Many people are left with the question: Who do we believe? - the press and investigative agencies or a leader and his own media entourage who daily attack mainstream journalists and declare that what they are exposing is  “fake news?”

 The Trump regime certainly seems to have an Orwellian character built on distortion and lies.  In the dystopian novel 1984, Big Brother’s credo for the masses is, “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.”  In this absolutist, totalitarian state the “Department of Justice” is the agency of torture and mind control.  But is this “new-think” much different from the Environmental Protection Agency in the era of Trump which is headed by the very man who sued it multiple times in the past, is rapidly dismantling regulations on the chemical and oil industries, and is being “advised” by the lawyers of the corporations that it is charged with regulating?  Is this all part of what activist Naomi Klein has called the “Shock Doctrine?” - a flipping of reality on its head and sowing confusion about what is real? - a further softening us up as a prelude to our acceptance of  the authority, protection and wisdom of the Great Leader?

 Much is at stake in the willingness of people to be open enough to re-examine what they hold to be true.  What is in jeopardy has to do with some people’s very survival - the  coverage they receive in our American healthcare system and the environmental fate of our planet.  The direction we move in as a nation may be based in large part on the willingness of a portion of our society to take an honest look at the political package they were sold and to consider fighting back against the beginnings of  tyranny.  Or, on the other hand, will people double down on what they'd rather believe to be the truth out of some misplaced loyalty and shame, without ever considering the facts or other possibilities?

 If we connect the dots, we can begin to draw a line between the Jesuit priest who was listening to the DeMelo lecture, Defense Secretary McNamara’s early look backs at his role during the Vietnam War, the person in a relationship who knows that she is not being treated in the way that she deserves and the citizen in a democracy who is confronted with critical political choices that challenge his ingrained prejudices and group loyalties.  What each is being called upon to struggle  with is his relationship with the truth.  This is the part of our humanity that may be even deeper than the influences of social class, gender, race and  culture.  It has to do with the qualities we all need to cultivate in order to get things right in our personal lives and in our society -  curiosity, honesty, courage and the willingness to be open to new ideas.  They are the parts of our humanity that may unsettle us, but may also bring on the necessary internal shake-ups that challenge our narrow, tribal beliefs.  Hopefully, they will keep us on a never ending quest for what is true.    

[bountyofbeads]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/29/the-case-of-al-franken?utm_brand=tny&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_social-type=owned&mbid=social_twitter

AL Franken should have never resigned. This was a tremendous loss for the Democrats and the nation. He should run again for his Senate seat.

In 2017, Al Franken resigned from the Senate amid accusations of sexual impropriety. Seven of the senators who demanded his resignation told @JaneMayerNYer that they’d been wrong to do so.

Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine: “I don’t denigrate the allegations, but this was the political equivalent of capital punishment.”

Tammy Duckworth, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois: “We needed more facts. That due process didn’t happen is not good for our democracy.”

But in an era when women’s accusations of sexual discrimination and harassment are finally being taken seriously, some see it as offensive to subject accusers to scrutiny.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who was the first to call for Franken’s resignation: “We had eight credible allegations, and they had been corroborated, in real time, by the press corps.” She says, “I’d do it again today.” https://t.co/84e2ylW3bG

Rebecca Traister, a writer-at-large for @NYMag: “It’s obtuse to say ‘Let’s have an investigation’ and pretend that solves it. Investigations take months. Meanwhile, women like Kirsten Gillibrand were being grilled on it every day.” https://t.co/84e2ylW3bG

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a statement: “Al Franken’s decision to step down was the right decision—for the good of the Senate and the good of the country.” https://t.co/84e2ylW3bG

Was justice served in the case of Al Franken? @JaneMayerNYer

takes a fresh look. https://t.co/84e2ylW3bG

The Case of Al Franken

A close look at the accusations against the former senator.

By Jane Mayer | Published July 22, 2019 5:00 AM ET | New Yorker | Posted July 22, 2019 | Posted Part 1/2

When Franken was asked if he regretted his decision to resign from the Senate, he said, “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”

Photograph by Geordie Wood for The New Yorker

Last month, in Minneapolis, I climbed the stairs of a row house to find Al Franken, Minnesota’s disgraced former senator, wandering around in jeans and stocking feet. It was a sunny day, but the shades were mostly drawn. Takeout containers of hummus and carrot sticks were set out on the kitchen table. His wife, Franni Bryson, was stuck in their apartment in Washington, D.C., with a cold, and he had evidently done the best he could to be hospitable. But the place felt like the kind of man cave where someone hides out from the world, which is more or less what Franken has been doing since he resigned, in December, 2017, amid accusations of sexual impropriety.

There had been occasional sightings of him: in Washington, people mentioned having glimpsed him riding the Metro or browsing alone in a bookstore; there was gossip that he had fallen into a depression, and had been seen in a fetal position on a friend’s couch. But Franken had experienced one of the most abrupt downfalls in recent political memory. He had been perhaps the most recognizable figure in the Senate, in part because he’d entered it as a celebrity: a best-selling author and a former writer and performer on “Saturday Night Live.” Now Franken was just one more face in a gallery of previously powerful men who had been brought down by the #MeToo movement, and whom no one wanted to hear from again. America had ghosted him.

Only two years ago, Franken was being talked up as a possible challenger to President Donald Trump in 2020. In Senate hearings, Franken had proved himself to be one of the most effective critics of the Trump Administration. His tough questioning of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, had led Sessions to recuse himself from the investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 election, and prompted the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel.

As it turns out, Franken’s only role in the 2020 Presidential campaign has been as a figure of controversy. On June 4th, Pete Buttigieg was widely criticized on social media for saying that he would not have pressured Franken to resign—as had virtually all his Democratic rivals who were then in the Senate—without first learning more about the alleged incidents. At the same time, the Presidential candidacy of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been plagued by questions about her role as the first of three dozen Democratic senators to demand Franken’s resignation. Gillibrand has cast herself as a feminist champion of “zero tolerance” toward sexual impropriety, but Democratic donors sympathetic to Franken have stunted her fund-raising and, Gillibrand says, tried to “intimidate” her “into silence.”

Franken’s fall was stunningly swift: he resigned only three weeks after Leeann Tweeden, a conservative talk-radio host, accused him of having forced an unwanted kiss on her during a 2006 U.S.O. tour. Seven more women followed with accusations against Franken; all of them centered on inappropriate touches or kisses. Half the accusers’ names have still not become public. Although both Franken and Tweeden called for an independent investigation into her charges, none took place. This reticence reflects the cultural moment: in an era when women’s accusations of sexual discrimination and harassment are finally being taken seriously, after years of belittlement and dismissal, some see it as offensive to subject accusers to scrutiny. “Believe Women” has become a credo of the #MeToo movement.

At his house, Franken said he understood that, in such an atmosphere, the public might not be eager to hear his grievances. Holding his head in his hands, he said, “I don’t think people who have been sexually assaulted, and those kinds of things, want to hear from people who have been #MeToo’d that they’re victims.” Yet, he added, being on the losing side of the #MeToo movement, which he fervently supports, has led him to spend time thinking about such matters as due process, proportionality of punishment, and the consequences of Internet-fuelled outrage. He told me that his therapist had likened his experience to “what happens when primates are shunned and humiliated by the rest of the other primates.” Their reaction, Franken said, with a mirthless laugh, “is ‘I’m going to die alone in the jungle.’ ”

Now sixty-eight, Franken is short and sturdily built, with bristly gray hair, tortoiseshell glasses, and a wide, froglike mouth from which he tends to talk out of one corner. Despite his current isolation, Franken is recognized nearly everywhere he goes, and he often gets stopped on the street. “I can’t go anywhere without people reminding me of this, usually with some version of ‘You shouldn’t have resigned,’ ” Franken said. He appreciates the support, but such comments torment him about his departure from the Senate. He tends to respond curtly, “Yup.”

When I asked him if he truly regretted his decision to resign, he said, “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.” He wishes that he had appeared before a Senate Ethics Committee hearing, as he had requested, allowing him to marshal facts that countered the narrative aired in the press. It is extremely rare for a senator to resign under pressure. No senator has been expelled since the Civil War, and in modern times only three have resigned under the threat of expulsion: Harrison Williams, in 1982, Bob Packwood, in 1995, and John Ensign, in 2011. Williams resigned after he was convicted of bribery and conspiracy; Packwood faced numerous sexual-assault accusations; Ensign was accused of making illegal payoffs to hide an affair.

A remarkable number of Franken’s Senate colleagues have regrets about their own roles in his fall. Seven current and former U.S. senators who demanded Franken’s resignation in 2017 told me that they’d been wrong to do so. Such admissions are unusual in an institution whose members rarely concede mistakes. Patrick Leahy, the veteran Democrat from Vermont, said that his decision to seek Franken’s resignation without first getting all the facts was “one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made” in forty-five years in the Senate. Heidi Heitkamp, the former senator from North Dakota, told me, “If there’s one decision I’ve made that I would take back, it’s the decision to call for his resignation. It was made in the heat of the moment, without concern for exactly what this was.” Tammy Duckworth, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, told me that the Senate Ethics Committee “should have been allowed to move forward.” She said it was important to acknowledge the trauma that Franken’s accusers had gone through, but added, “We needed more facts. That due process didn’t happen is not good for our democracy.” Angus King, the Independent senator from Maine, said that he’d “regretted it ever since” he joined the call for Franken’s resignation. “There’s no excuse for sexual assault,” he said. “But Al deserved more of a process. I don’t denigrate the allegations, but this was the political equivalent of capital punishment.” Senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, told me, “This was a rush to judgment that didn’t allow any of us to fully explore what this was about. I took the judgment of my peers rather than independently examining the circumstances. In my heart, I’ve not felt right about it.” Bill Nelson, the former Florida senator, said, “I realized almost right away I’d made a mistake. I felt terrible. I should have stood up for due process to render what it’s supposed to—the truth.” Tom Udall, the senior Democratic senator from New Mexico, said, “I made a mistake. I started having second thoughts shortly after he stepped down. He had the right to be heard by an independent investigative body. I’ve heard from people around my state, and around the country, saying that they think he got railroaded. It doesn’t seem fair. I’m a lawyer. I really believe in due process.”

Former Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who watched the drama unfold from retirement, told me, “It’s terrible what happened to him. It was unfair. It took the legs out from under him. He was a very fine senator.” Many voters have also protested Franken’s decision. A Change.org petition urging Franken to retract his resignation received more than seventy-five thousand signatures. It declared, “There’s a difference between abuse and a mistake.”

In recent months, Franken has witnessed a prominent Democrat survive a similar political storm: this past spring, several women accused Joe Biden of unwanted kissing or touching at rallies and other political events. Biden apologized but never stopped campaigning for President. Unlike Biden, though, Franken was caught on camera. His undoing began with a photograph, which was released by a conservative talk-radio station on November 16, 2017. The image was taken in 2006, the year before Franken first ran for the Senate. At the time, he was on his seventh U.S.O. tour, entertaining American troops abroad as a comedian. The photograph captures him on a military plane, mugging for the camera as he performs a lecherous pantomime. He’s leering at the lens with his hands outstretched toward the breasts of his U.S.O. co-star, Tweeden, who is wearing a military helmet, fatigues, and a bulletproof vest. Franken’s hands appear to be practically touching her chest, and Tweeden looks to be asleep—and therefore not consenting to the joke.

Some people saw the photograph as a mere gag. Emily Yoffe, writing in The Atlantic, called the image “an inoffensive burlesque of a burlesque.” Yoffe, who has argued that men accused of sexual misdeeds deserve more due process, noted that Franken and Tweeden were “on a U.S.O. tour, which is a raunchy vaudeville throwback.” But the minute the photograph surfaced it went viral, and condemnation came from both conservatives and liberals. Breitbart, which loathed Franken’s politics, elicited gleeful comments from readers after it posted a piece from Slate, a liberal publication, headlined “Franken Should Resign Immediately.” The article argued that “there is no rational reason to doubt the truth of Tweeden’s accusations, no legitimate defense of Franken’s actions, and no ambiguity.” Sean Hannity, Fox News’ biggest star, also quoted the Slate piece, and on his show he interviewed Tweeden—a friend who had been a guest on his show dozens of times, often as a booster of the military. The media uproar was further heightened by an impassioned personal statement released by Tweeden’s Los Angeles radio station, KABC-AM, which provided her account of the story behind the photograph.

The damning image, Tweeden said, was the culmination of a campaign of sexual harassment that Franken had subjected her to after she had spurned his advances at the start of the U.S.O. tour, which lasted two weeks. It was Tweeden’s ninth U.S.O. gig, but her first with Franken. She alleged that he had written a skit with a kissing scene expressly for her, telling her, “When I found out you were coming on this tour, I wrote a little scene, if you will, with you in it.” She said that when she saw the script, which required them to kiss, “I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute.”

According to Tweeden’s statement, after they landed in Kuwait, the tour’s first stop, Franken told her, “We need to practice the kissing scene.” At first, she said, she “blew him off,” but “he persisted” so aggressively that it “reminded me of, like, the Harvey Weinstein tape”; Weinstein, she noted, had been taped “badgering” a resistant sexual victim. Just five weeks before Tweeden released her statement, the Times and this magazine had published allegations accusing Weinstein of serial sexual harassment, assault, and rape. The resulting outcry had emboldened women across the country to speak out about their own victimization; online, the hashtag #MeToo emerged. Tweeden cited these developments as having inspired her to come forward about Franken.

She wrote that, in 2006, she’d initially told Franken that it was unnecessary to rehearse, saying, “Al, this isn’t ‘S.N.L.’ ” She relented only so that he would “shut up.” The rehearsal occurred, she said, in a makeshift gym behind the stage. When they got to the kiss, Tweeden said, “he just put his hand on the back of my head, and he mashed his face against it.” She went on, “He stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast—and all that I could remember is that his lips were really wet, and it was slimy.” Privately, she began thinking of Franken as Fish Lips. She emphasized that she’d fought back: “I pushed him off with my hands, and I remember, I almost punched him.” Afterward, her hands instinctively clenched “into fists” whenever she saw him. She said that she had warned him that “if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time.” Tweeden said, “I was violated.”

Tweeden wrote that she “never had a voluntary conversation with Franken again.” When they performed the kiss onstage, she said, “trust me, he didn’t get close to my face.” She said that, because she had felt powerless, she hadn’t reported the assault to the military authorities. She claimed that she had “told a few others on the tour what Franken had done and how I felt,” but her prepared statement provided no names of corroborators. Franken, she said, “repaid me with petty insults” for having rejected him. He doodled “devil horns” on a head shot of hers. As a final act of reprisal, Franken demeaned her with the photograph of her sleeping. Tweeden remembered clearly that the photograph had been taken on the final day of the tour, Christmas Eve, as “we began the 36-hour trip home to L.A.” and “our C-17 cargo plane took off from Afghanistan.”

Tweeden concluded her statement by declaring, “Senator Franken, you wrote the script. But there’s nothing funny about sexual assault.” She continued, “You knew exactly what you were doing. You forcibly kissed me without my consent, grabbed my breasts while I was sleeping, and had someone take a photo of you doing it, knowing I would see it later, and be ashamed.”

She said that it wasn’t until she returned home and received a CD of images from the tour photographer that she saw the image of Franken pretending to grope her while she slept. “I felt violated all over again,” she said. At that moment, she had wanted to “shout my story to the world,” but hadn’t felt secure enough. Now, she said, she wanted “other victims of sexual assault to be able to speak out,” adding, “I want the days of silence to be over.”

Tweeden went public the Thursday before Thanksgiving, while Congress was wrapping up for the holiday break. At 9:54 a.m., Ed Shelleby, Franken’s deputy chief of staff, was at his desk in the Capitol when he noticed that a strange e-mail had arrived in an office account. The subject line was “Comment Requested,” and the sender was Nathan Baker, the news director at KABC-AM. The e-mail said that the station’s “morning drive anchor,” Leeann Tweeden, had written “a piece about experiences she had with Senator Franken while on a U.S.O. tour.” It noted, “If you have any reaction or comment from the Senator we would of course include it in our coverage.” There was a link to Tweeden’s statement and to the photograph, both of which had already been posted on the Internet. Shelleby called Franken’s chief of staff, Jeff Lomonaco. “We gotta get Al!” Shelleby said. “We’ve got this thing! ”

Franken was in a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Lomonaco ran through a series of corridors and pulled him out.

“What’s going on?” Franken said.

“It’s important,” Lomonaco said.

“But I want to vote,” Franken protested.

Lomonaco showed him the KABC-AM story and the photograph.

Oh, my God, my life! My life! was Franken’s first thought. He remembered the picture being taken, but he was stunned by Tweeden’s account. He had thought that they were on friendly terms. In 2009, she had attended a U.S.O. awards ceremony, in Washington, honoring him; photographs of the event capture them laughing together. He had no memory of her having balked at the kissing scene, and knew that he hadn’t written it for her. He had written it in 2003, and performed it on other U.S.O. tours before meeting her.

In Franken’s 2017 book, “Al Franken, Giant of the Senate,” which was published before Tweeden’s accusations, he writes of being preoccupied during the 2006 tour with deciding whether to run for public office. Others on the trip confirm this, recalling that he spent much of his downtime studying policy positions with an assistant, Andy Barr. Records show that Franken had already set up a political-action committee, and he announced his Senate bid soon after returning home.

Tweeden may well have felt harassed, and even violated, by Franken, but he insisted to me that her version of events is “just not true.” He confirmed that he had rehearsed the skit with her, noting, “You always rehearse.” The script, he recalled, called for a man to “surprise” a woman with a kiss, in a “sort of sudden” way, and though Tweeden had read the script, it’s possible that in the moment he startled her. Tweeden wasn’t an actress—before going into broadcasting, she had been a Frederick’s of Hollywood model—so she may have been unfamiliar with rehearsals. But Franken said, of Tweeden, “I don’t remember her being taken aback.” He adamantly denied having stuck his tongue in her mouth.

Franken’s longtime fund-raiser, A. J. Goodman, a former criminal-defense lawyer, told me that it was “easy to see how it could have grossed Tweeden out” to be kissed by Franken. At the time, Franken was fifty-five, and his clothes tended toward mom jeans and garish windbreakers. “He was like your uncle Morty,” Goodman recalled. “He wasn’t Cary Grant. But tongue down the throat? No. I’ve done hundreds of events with this guy. I’ve been on the road and on his book tours with him.” She said that Franken was “five hundred per cent devoted” to Bryson, his wife, whom he met during his freshman year at Harvard. “He can be a jerk, but he’s all about his family,” Goodman said. (Franken and Bryson have a daughter, a son, and four grandchildren.)

In Hollywood, Franken’s reputation had been far from wild. According to Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad’s book, “Saturday Night,” when Franken worked on “S.N.L.” he was seen as a stickler and a “self-appointed hallway monitor” figure. James Downey, who spent decades writing for the show, told me, of Franken, “He’s lots of things, some delightful, some annoying. He can be very aggressive interpersonally. He can say mean things, or use other people as props. He can seem more confident that the audience will find him adorable than he ought to. His estimate of his charm can be overconfident. But I’ve known him for forty-seven years and he’s the very last person who would be a sexual harasser.”

As Franken absorbed Tweeden’s statement and the photograph, he realized that, given the recent rise of the #MeToo movement, “anyone who wanted to read the photo as confirming what I was accused of could do that. I understood that right away. And boom—I was instantly in shock.”

Franken wasn’t the only one. Two actresses who had performed the same role as Tweeden on earlier U.S.O. tours with him, Karri Turner and Traylor Portman, immediately recognized that Tweeden was wrong to say that Franken had written the part in order to kiss her. Both women told me that they fully supported the #MeToo movement and could speak only to their own experiences. But Turner confirmed that she had acted in the same skit in 2003. Video footage of her performing it, which can be seen online, shows that the script was altered for Tweeden only by cutting references to “JAG,” a TV show in which Turner starred. In a statement, Turner said that “no woman should have to deal with any type of harassment, ever!” But on her two U.S.O. tours with Franken, she said, “there was nothing inappropriate toward me,” adding, “I only experienced a person that was eager to make soldiers laugh.”

Traylor Portman, who used her maiden name, Traylor Howard, while appearing on the TV show “Monk,” said that she also played the role in Franken’s skit, in 2005. “It’s not accurate for her to say it was written for her,” Portman told me. She had rehearsed the kissing scene with Franken, and hadn’t objected, because “you’re going to practice—that’s what professionals do.” She said that the scene involved “what looked like kissing but wasn’t,” adding, “It’s just for comic relief. I guess you could turn your head, but whatever—it’s nothing. I was in sitcoms. You just play it for laughs.”

Portman went on, “I get the whole #MeToo thing, and a whole lot of horrible stuff has happened, and it needed to change. But that’s not what was happening here.” She added, “Franken is a good man. I remember him talking so sweetly and lovingly about his wife.” Portman recalled, “There were Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders there, and he didn’t pay any special attention to them. He had a good rapport with everyone. He was hilarious. He was just trying to get them to laugh. It was about entertaining people who were risking their lives.” Asked about the allegation that Franken drew “devil horns” on Tweeden’s head shot, Portman said, “It doesn’t sound out of line for him—but please. To get offended by that sounds ridiculous, like fourth grade.”

Franken’s claim that he wrote the skit years before Tweeden’s performance was also borne out by interviews that he did on NPR in 2004 and 2005. He described the skit as a throwback to the frankly lascivious U.S.O. sketches that Bob Hope used to perform with Raquel Welch. The conceit of Franken’s skit is that a nerdy male officer has written a part for a beautiful younger woman, and she has to audition for it. As she reads aloud from the script, she grows suspicious but keeps going, eventually reaching the line “Now kiss me!” To her disgust, the officer lustily does so. The stage directions in the 2006 version of the script say “Al grabs Leeann and plants a kiss on her. Leeann fights him off.” She then reproaches him, saying, “You just wrote this so that you could kiss me!”

“Yeah,” Franken’s character admits. (In videos of the skit, the audience bursts out laughing.)

The young woman protests, “If I were going to kiss anybody here, it would be one of these brave men—or women.” Pointing to the audience, she calls a random soldier onstage, who begins reading from the script. When the soldier says, “Now kiss me!,” the stage directions call for “a long deep kiss” from Tweeden. In video footage, she seems to be gamely playing the part, setting off hoots and hollers from the crowd.

It was “surreal,” Franken told me, that Tweeden had publicly said of him, “I think he wrote that sketch just to kiss me”; her language was essentially borrowed from his skit. Moreover, her fighting him off and expressing anger had also been scripted by him. But it seemed impossible to relay such nuances to the press. Explaining that her accusations appropriated jokes from comic routines that they’d performed together would be as dizzying as describing an Escher drawing.

The U.S.O. skit didn’t end with the kissing scene. In a coda, Franken appears as a doctor who has just had “a cancellation” in his appointment schedule. Tweeden’s character is informed that “a woman your age should have a complete breast examination every year”; Franken then approaches her with his arms outstretched and his hands aimed at her chest. The script calls for Tweeden’s character to protest, “Al! At ease!” Franken, with a dirty-old-man nod to the audience, replies, “I’m afraid it’s a little too late for that.”

The joke was not memorable, yet when Shajn Cabrera saw the 2006 photograph of Franken on the plane, approaching Tweeden’s chest with his arms outstretched, he immediately recalled the “Dr. Franken” skit. Cabrera had been on the plane when the photograph was taken. At the time, he was a special assistant to the Sergeant Major of the Army, who hosts the U.S.O. tours. “I was the one who put the trip together,” Cabrera said. Looking at the photograph, he thought that “it was a hundred per cent in line with that skit when he does the breast exam.” The image, he said, “was not at all malicious.”

It’s understandable that Tweeden objected to Franken’s having reënacted the gag for a photograph while she was asleep. But when she wrote, “How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?,” she omitted the fact that she had performed the “breast exam” bit multiple times. Metadata from the camera suggests that, contrary to Tweeden’s statement, the image was taken not on Christmas Eve, 2006, as a final taunt, but on December 21st. Photographs of a stage performance the previous day show Franken advancing toward Tweeden with splayed hands as she fends him off with a script, smiling in a winter coat and a Santa Claus hat.

Consenting to an act onstage is not the same as consenting to an act while sleeping. Rebecca Solnit, the writer known, among other things, for identifying the phenomenon of mansplaining, told me, “One of the key things about consent is it’s not blanket consent. The actor playing Romeo doesn’t get to kiss Juliet offstage because it’s in the script that they did onstage.”

Yet Bonnie Turner, a writer who worked with Franken on “S.N.L.,” said of Tweeden, “It showed bad faith, and was really wrongheaded of her, not to say that the skit was something they’d rehearsed and done over and over, night after night.” Cabrera told me that, when he saw the photograph, he felt sure that Franken had just been “goofing around” at the time.

Tweeden participated in other ribald U.S.O. skits. In one routine, she tells the audience that, as a morale booster, she has agreed to have sex with a soldier whose name Franken will pull from a box, explaining, “These are extraordinary circumstances.” The gag is that every name she picks is Franken’s, because he’s stuffed the raffle box. In a 2005 U.S.O. show with Robin Williams, Tweeden jumped into his arms, wrapped a leg around his waist, and spanked his bottom as he suggestively waved a plastic water bottle in front of his fly.

Given Tweeden’s repeated participation in such U.S.O. skits, Cabrera said that when he first heard about her allegations “it was shocking to me.” He noted that all the scripts had been approved by the Army, though he acknowledged that such humor might now be seen as inappropriate. He “never saw any animosity” between Franken and Tweeden, and noted, “No complaints were ever addressed to the Sergeant Major of the Army, and our job was to make sure everyone was happy.”

Though Tweeden has said that she felt too intimidated to complain to those in charge, she claims that she confided in several other people on the tour. But she declined to provide any names to me, or to be interviewed for this story. Two friends, who acted as intermediaries, said that she saw no gain in reopening the subject, which had exposed her to virulent online attacks.

I spoke with eight participants in the 2006 tour, including Julie Dintleman, the military escort who was assigned to Tweeden; none observed Tweeden being upset with Franken. “I don’t remember anything like that,” Dintleman said. Her assignment was to be almost continually at Tweeden’s side, except when the stars went to their quarters for “bed down.” Todd Tabb, a retired Air Force pilot who served as Franken’s military escort on an earlier U.S.O. tour, added that, ordinarily, “any incident would have been witnessed by a military officer with the ability to have someone arrested on the spot if there was an assault. Entertainers were treated carefully so that incidents did not occur. I was instructed to even go into the rest rooms, so I was never out of sight of the celebrity.” Though he wasn’t on the 2006 trip, he said, “I can’t imagine how someone wasn’t watching when they rehearsed.”

Jerry Amoury, who was then a trombone player in the Army band, was onstage during every show with Franken and Tweeden in 2006, and performed on two other U.S.O. tours with Franken. Amoury said, of Tweeden, “I’m not mitigating what she said, and if someone says something the ethical thing is to listen. But, based on my experience, it makes no sense.” As Amoury recalls it, Franken directed “no inappropriate energy” toward Tweeden, and he observed no tension between them. He said that Franken’s “humor could be blunt,” but, he added, “he was not a lecher, and didn’t have a wandering eye.” The photograph of Tweeden, he said, certainly “looked sexist out of context,” but “in context the whole thing was like being stuck on a smelly bus. Those planes are loud, there was a wrestler on board, and people were taking funny pictures. It was campy.”

In Tweeden’s telling, Franken “had someone take a photo” expressly to humiliate her. Doug McIntyre, a co-host and confidant of Tweeden’s at the radio station, who helped her prepare her public statement, told me, “She alleged that Franken got the Army photographer to take the picture, and put it on a disk, so her disk had this one extra picture. It was the caboose. She took it as the final ‘F.U.’ from Franken. The only person who got it was her.” He said that Tweeden had especially objected to this “bullying,” and that Franken’s pose in the photograph was no mere joke. “A comedian does jokes for an audience, but this was an audience of one,” he said.

This is incorrect. Many people on the trip also received CDs that included the photograph. Andy Barr, the Franken assistant, received the CD, which I have seen. He is a pack rat, and kept the original packaging. The mailer, postmarked January 9, 2007, is stamped “Official Business.” The return address is “Department of the Army, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.” The disk’s label says “U.S.O.” and its plastic case includes a personal note from and contact information for Montigo White, an Army photographer on the trip, who wrote, “It was a pleasure to serve with you on the 2006 Tour.” White, now a command sergeant major in the Army’s Defense Information School, declined requests for comment. His wife, reached at their house, in Alexandria, Virginia, said, “I’m not confirming or denying that he took the picture.”

Franken recalls the incident that ended his career as lasting a split second. “I remember stepping on the plane, somebody saying, ‘Al, take a picture,’ and pointing to Leeann.” Pictures taken within a few minutes on the same camera roll show Franken doing other gags: in one, he’s delivering a mock speech; in another, he’s dancing with White, the Army photographer. It was near the end of what Franken called “a bawdy tour.” He said, “We were punchy. I was goofing around.” Even so, Franken admitted, the photograph of Tweeden could be seen as having crossed a line. “What’s wrong with the picture to me is that she’s asleep,” he said. “If you’re asleep, you’re not giving your consent.” When he saw the image that November morning, he said, “I genuinely, genuinely felt bad about that.”

Many people who worked in comedy with Franken defended his behavior more strongly than he did himself. Jane Curtin, who regards him as one of the few non-sexist men she worked with at “S.N.L.,” said, “They were doing a U.S.O. tour. They’re notoriously burlesque. The photo was funny because she’s wearing a flak jacket, and he’s looking straight at the camera and pretending he’s trying to fondle her breasts. But the humor is he can’t get to them—if a bullet can’t get them, Al can’t get them.” James Downey said, “Much of what Al does when goofing around involves adopting the persona of a douche bag. When I saw the photo, I knew exactly what he was doing. The joke was about him. He was doing ‘an asshole.’ ”

Christine Zander, who wrote for “S.N.L.” between 1987 and 1993, said, “It was a mockery of someone acting in bad taste,” adding, “It’s so absurd she turned something that was written—these were trunk pieces, old sketches—into something improvised just for her.” Zander went on, “It’s tragic. All the women who know him from ‘S.N.L.’ and in New York and L.A.”—thirty-six in all—“signed a petition, but it wasn’t enough.” She added, “It makes you feel terrible and depressed, especially when there are people running the country who need to be charged.”

Franken’s friend Eli Attie, a former speechwriter for Al Gore who moved to Hollywood to write for “The West Wing” and other shows, told me, “Things he’s done as a comedian look very different through the prism of a senator.” He observed, “The comedy world is very different from politics. In writers’ rooms, they try to be loose. They say outrageous, unfiltered things. In politics, you try to censor yourself. You’re always fearful you’ll offend. You have to play error-free ball.”

A big part of Franken’s political problem was the way the story broke. KABC-AM released Tweeden’s material on its Web site, giving it the look of a proper news story. In reality, the station, which is owned by Cumulus Media, was a struggling conservative talk-radio station whose survival plan was to become the most pro-Trump station in Los Angeles. Three top staffers there had been meeting secretly for weeks, after hours, with Tweeden to prepare her statement, but it hadn’t been vetted with even the most cursory fact-checking. Nobody contacted Franken until after the story had been posted online. The station gave Franken less advance warning than it gave the Drudge Report, which it tipped off the previous day. After posting the story, Tweeden embarked on a media tour, starting with a live press conference and proceeding to interviews with CNN’s Jake Tapper (who had been alerted the previous day), Sean Hannity, and the cast of “The View.”

Lomonaco, Franken’s former chief of staff, said, “Typically, reporters will reach out to you for comment, so you have a heads-up, and some opportunity to put your best foot forward. But KABC posted it first and only then reached out to us. It was such an important framing moment. It had the veneer of a legitimate news story without having to abide by any of the conventions of journalism.”

McIntyre, Tweeden’s former co-host at the station, told me that he had “bluntly” lobbied to give Franken more time to respond but was overruled by Drew Hayes, the station’s operations director, and by Nathan Baker, the news director, both of whom feared that the story would leak. McIntyre and Baker confirmed to me that nobody fact-checked Tweeden’s account. They evidently didn’t ask for the names of the people on the U.S.O. tour whom Tweeden said she had confided in at the time; in fact, they made no effort to reach anyone who’d been on the trip. They didn’t check the date of the photograph, or look at online videos showing other actresses performing the same role on earlier tours. They didn’t realize that although Tweeden claimed she never let Franken get near her face after the first rehearsal, there were numerous images of her performing the kiss scene with Franken afterward. Nor did they review the script or the photographs showing Tweeden laughing onstage as Franken struck the same “breast exam” pose.

“The photograph speaks for itself,” McIntyre told me. “That carried the day.” He explained that, “as a local radio station, we didn’t have the investigative tools at hand” to vet her account. But he had worked closely with Tweeden for nine months, and had confidence in “the integrity of her character.” She was “a trusted employee who had a photograph,” he said, adding, “If we didn’t trust her, she couldn’t have been our news anchor.”

McIntyre, who describes himself as a Never Trump Republican, has since left the station, which, he said, has “taken a more pro-Trump position since I left, as a business decision.” Hayes, the operations director, declined to be interviewed. In 2011, under his management, Trump appeared on the air at least once; the station also provided an early platform to Steve Bannon. In 2016, according to a well-informed source, Hayes began chastising on-air talent if they criticized Trump. Hayes’s Twitter account shows that in 2016 the family Christmas tree was decorated with a crocheted Trump ornament, and that in 2018 his son had an internship with the Republican National Committee. Baker, who describes himself as politically independent, has since left KABC-AM to work as a senior strategist at Madison McQueen, a conservative media company; among other things, he has helped create ads for Senator Ted Cruz. While at KABC-AM, he was also a consulting producer with PJ Media, a hyper-partisan conservative opinion platform. He told me that, as KABC-AM’s news director, he had felt obliged to contact Franken’s office; at the same time, he “didn’t want to step on Leeann telling a story that was very difficult for her.”

In interviews, Tweeden has described her decision to speak out as torturous. She has said that she “wanted to say something” earlier, but people she knew “said, ‘Oh, my God, you will get annihilated and never work in this town again,’ and I was afraid.” At the time of the 2006 U.S.O. tour, Tweeden was transitioning frommodelling to broadcasting, and she was an on-air correspondent for Fox Sports’ “Best Damn Sports Show Period.” She went on to host a late-night poker show on NBC.

During those years, Tweeden shared the damning photograph of Franken with a few good friends, including Hannity. On Super Bowl Sunday in 2005, Hannity introduced her to his audience as a “right-winger” who was there to discuss the game. But he soon asked her how she, as a conservative, could pose “halfway naked on the covers” of magazines such as Playboyand FHM. “I do it with the troops in mind,” she said, and described how much she enjoyed signing such photographs for soldiers while doing U.S.O. tours. “I want to be this generation’s Raquel Welch,” she said. By the time of the 2006 U.S.O. trip, Tweeden had begun referring to Hannity as a friend.

According to McIntyre, Hannity wanted to use the photograph in 2007, when it would have derailed Franken’s first Senate bid. But he deferred to Tweeden, who feared that, because she had been a lingerie model, her credibility would be attacked. “To Sean Hannity’s credit, he never said a word about it,” McIntyre told me. (Hannity, through a spokesperson, praised Tweeden as “patriotic” and called Franken “literally insane.”) McIntyre emphasized that Tweeden and KABC-AM deliberately chose not to break the story with Hannity, or on Fox, because they didn’t want it to be tainted with charges of political bias.

There was a history of deep animosity between Fox News’ conservative hosts and Franken. Fox sued Franken over his 2003 best-seller, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” which relentlessly disparages the network and its big star at the time, Bill O’Reilly. It includes a chapter mocking Hannity as, among other things, “an angry, Irish Ape-man.” Franken writes that, after having a greenroom shouting match with Hannity about Rush Limbaugh, in 1996, he “had never in my life hated a person more.” Fox dropped the suit, but O’Reilly reportedly threatened vengeance. When Andrea Mackris later sued O’Reilly for sexually harassing her while she was a producer at Fox News, she revealed that, in 2004, O’Reilly had told her, “If you cross Fox News Channel, it’s not just me, it’s Roger Ailes”—at the time the head of the network—“who will go after you. . . . Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.” When Tweeden accused Franken, one of his wife’s first thoughts was of O’Reilly’s prediction.

Tweeden may have had reasons to worry about how her story would be received. In the past, she had been accused of making misstatements about her life. In 2002, when she was twenty-eight, she appeared on “The Howard Stern Show” to promote her inclusion in FHM’s “100 Sexiest Women” feature. Stern questioned a claim, in her official bio, that she had turned down admission to Harvard University in order to model. At first, Tweeden chatted with Stern about growing up in Manassas, Virginia, where her father was a mechanic in the Air Force. She said that she had graduated from high school at sixteen and “ran off with a thirty-year-old guy” at seventeen. Stern asked, “Didn’t you say you got into Harvard, but you turned it down for modelling?” She answered, “Yeah, I was going to go.” Stern said, “What do you mean you were going to go? You didn’t get in!” Tweeden stuck to her story, explaining that her mother was friends with someone who got the children of celebrities into Ivy League schools—and could have secured her a spot, too. Stern asked for her SAT scores; she said that she couldn’t remember them, but guessed that they were around twelve hundred. “You couldn’t get into Harvard!” he said. Tweeden insisted, “I guarantee you, if I had wanted to, I could, absolutely.” Stern joked, “I was going to go to Harvard, but they didn’t want me. I was going to do Pam Anderson last night, too.”

Tweeden had also taken some controversial political stands. In 2011, in an appearance on “Hannity,” she sided with “birthers,” calling on President Barack Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove his citizenship, and praised Trump, who had been stoking racist suspicions about Obama’s identity. “I think Donald Trump is brilliant,” she added. “Who knows how far he could go?”

In February, 2017, Tweeden was hired as a news anchor on KABC-AM’s show “McIntyre in the Morning.” That spring, McIntyre mentioned Franken on the air and noticed that Tweeden “flinched.” He later asked her about it, and she said, “Let’s just say I’m not a fan.” On October 30, 2017, as the Harvey Weinstein story was inspiring a torrent of other sexual-harassment accusations, “McIntyre in the Morning” did a phone interview with Jackie Speier, a Democratic representative in California, who said that, as a young congressional aide, she had been sexually assaulted by a chief of staff; he had held her face and stuck his tongue in her mouth. During the break, Tweeden said to McIntyre that this was what Franken “did to me.” Speier’s allegation, however, involved a boss assaulting a subordinate in an office; Franken and Tweeden were volunteers performing a scripted kiss, and he had no supervisory authority over her.

Tweeden had access to the eleven-year-old photograph on her phone, and she showed it to McIntyre. “The picture is what got my attention,” McIntyre told me. Without it, he said, he wouldn’t have done the story, adding, “It wasn’t sexual assault, or rape, or anything approaching that. It was degradation and humiliation, and she had proof.”

He asked Tweeden if she wanted to go public, warning her that accusing a political figure would make her “fair game.” Her husband was in the Air Force, and they had two small children. McIntyre told me that, a few days later, Tweeden said that she was ready. (Baker recalled that the preliminary discussions had gone on for months.)

Tweeden began working through every detail with McIntyre and Baker, and, later, with Hayes. McIntyre also suggested that Tweeden talk to her friend Lauren Sivan, a former anchor for the station, who was one of the witnesses against Weinstein. Sivan had risked her reputation to speak out about Weinstein’s having masturbated in front of her. When Tweeden told her about Franken, Sivan said to me, “the story, it was strange—because they were doing it as a skit.” She sympathized with Tweeden, whom she described as having felt “mocked and humiliated” by Franken. But she wasn’t sure how a public accusation would be received. She suggested that Tweeden take the story to a mainstream outlet, and even gave her the name of a reputable reporter. Instead, Sivan told me, Hayes controlled the process, which she considered a “mistake,” because “it’s a right-wing conservative radio station” and “it seemed like they just wanted to milk the story.” Nevertheless, Sivan said, of Tweeden, “it was absolutely something she wanted to do—I think she hated Franken.”

A week before Tweeden went public, Roy Moore, the Republican nominee in a special Senate election in Alabama, was accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with several teen-age girls, one of whom was fourteen at the time. Moore denied the allegations, and Trump, who had endorsed Moore, stuck by him. But the allegations handed Democrats a wedge issue and put Republicans on the defensive. Hannity was particularly on the spot: having dismissed Moore’s conduct as “consensual” and mere “kissing,” he issued a rare on-air apology.

At the same time that the Republican Party was contending with the scandal, Franken was rising in prominence, in part because of his deft cross- examinations of such Trump Administration appointees as Betsy DeVos and Rick Perry. Bystanders applauded when Franken walked into Washington restaurants. His latest book had reached No. 1 on the Times best-seller list. Feminists had welcomed his support of the #MeToo movement, and praised him for drafting a bill to prohibit mandatory arbitration in employment-related cases of sexual harassment and discrimination. The legislation would guarantee women the right to publicly press charges, rather than submit to secret settlements. He was also praised for supporting advanced training for law-enforcement officers who dealt with rape victims.

But along with the adulation came detractors. Several far-right news sites appear to have known about Tweeden’s story shortly before it broke. In Southern California, a gossip Web site, Crazy Days and Nights, was contacted by an anonymous tipster who predicted that Franken was about to get caught in a sex scandal. There was a link to an online message board where someone calling himself Sam Spade was claiming that Franken had “groped” his aunt on a New York City subway in the nineteen-seventies. (Asked about this, Franken joked, “Ah, yes, Aunt Gertrude—I remember her well.”) Archives show that “Sam Spade” separately posted a message saying that he “hoped Al Franken would die a slow painful death.”

At 1 a.m. on November 16th, Roger Stone, the notorious right-wing operative, announced, on Twitter, “It’s Al Franken’s ‘time in the barrel.’ Franken next in long list of Democrats to be accused of ‘grabby’ behavior.” After Tweeden’s story was posted, Alex Jones, the extremist radio host, boasted on his show that Stone had told him, in advance, “Get ready. Franken’s next.” Stone told me that an executive at Fox who was friendly with Tweeden had tipped him off.

Sean Hannity exulted when the news broke. Tweeden called in to his radio show live, and Hannity described her as “a longtime friend.” Hannity, who, when Ailes died, celebrated him as one of America’s “great patriotic warriors,” pronounced the Franken photograph “disgusting”—and declared that Franken had been accused of “sexual molestation.” Trump joined the fray on Twitter, insinuating that the photograph documented an assault in progress: “Where do his hands go in pictures 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6?”

[ecotone99]

[RF] Nobody Asked

I

​

It started with a revelation: Nobody asked to be here.

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People lost their minds, companies collapsed, civilizations fell.

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Nobody asked to be here.

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We knew it all along, but couldn't put it into words. A self proclaimed Russian genius by the name of Enrico Chavez had to do it for us. He stumbled out of his office at the University of Chicago, late one night, and proclaimed to the darkness, “Nobody asked to be here!”

​

Professor Chavez's philosophical genius went unnoticed for many years, primarily due to his name. Enrico Chavez is not a typical name for a Russian. His peers found this too confusing to comprehend. “Why is this man not a Mexican?”, they would utter to each other during his presentations. The distraction provided by his name gave his fellow philosophers a reason to avoid him and belittle his ideas, given they listened to them in the first place.

​

​

Several years ago Enrico Chavez found the solution to his name problem. He tanned his skin and started calling himself a Mexican.

​

​

“Nobody asked to be here!”, Professor Chavez shouted into the darkness. He was elated! Years of research had finally led to something substantial!

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“Nobody asked to be here!” He chanted again and again, sprinting out his door and running through the nearby park.

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A voice yelled back from the darkness, “Nobody asked you!”

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Once Professor Chavez started tanning his white skin and lying about his nationality, it didn't take long for others to listen to him. He rose through the ranks like a balloon, and was promptly given a position at the University of Chicago. A few weeks after his promotion he made his now infamous/famous proclamation.

​

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The day after proclaiming into the night, Professor Chavez wrote a brief twenty page academic article about his findings. This was when the world took notice.

​

Professor Chavez's groundbreaking discovery created a shock wave that started on a personal level. It began with people realizing that they did not, in fact, ask to be here. Many of them decided they would rather be anywhere than here, so they left! These folks were called “The Depressed”. Others demanded money as retribution since they were brought here against their will. These folks were called “The Greedy”. Others still asked not for money, but for changes to take place so they wouldn't mind being here. These folks were called “The Outcasts”. The largest group was known as “The Content”. They acknowledged that “Nobody asked to be here”, but that it didn't really matter.

​

​

Once the people took notice, this devastated the economy. The Depressed were no longer here (they were There), so they couldn't even participate. The Outcasts were demanding reform on a global scale and began spending their money in a “responsible” way. The Content didn't really care either way, and continued to spend money in a similar way to how they usually had.

​

​

As for me, I was one of the Content. I guess I had known all along that “Nobody asked to be here”, but figured that since we were here, we might as well do what people here do. And boy, do they do a lot! Hiking, biking, writing, reading, drawing, singing, climbing, driving, creating, destroying, spending, killing... Lots of ing-ing! I partook in this ing-ing, primarily working, sleeping, eating, driving, and buying. By the time I was thirty, I had a wife, three kids, a three thousand square foot house to hold my family and things needed for ing-ing, including two beautiful cars and all the knick knacks to go with my upper-middle class lifestyle. I was living a content life. Guess the label fit!

​

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Which group did Professor Chavez belong to? Who can say? He was murdered shortly after publishing his work. Some say he would have been Depressed. Others think he was Content. Others still think he was an Outcast. How popular!

​

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Companies began collapsing a few months after Professor Chavez sang into the night.

​

The Depressed and Outcasts, although a minority compared to The Content, had enough of a financial impact to cripple multiple banks and businesses. This in turn caused the housing market to go belly up. Once the housing market went, everything else followed. People who can't afford their home aren't likely to buy anything else! Of course, a few companies flourished in this new economy. Many Outcasts supported local companies, and many Contents supported PayDay Loans Inc. Eventually, as local companies became more successful, they would become global and fail!

​

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Long live PayDay Loans!

​

​

​

II

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This next paragraph is being written as I sit in my armchair, drunk as a skunk. I am moving across the country next week to begin another career. Maybe if I make enough money I can become an Outcast! In my experience, Outcasts are resoundingly rich. This is why they are not Greedy, and can claim they are not Content. Most poor folks are Greedy, at least those who weren't Depressed. Us Contents are just trying to get by. I've got a family to support! What am I to do, quit my job and protest? And why? I have a beautiful life!

​

​

Professor Chavez's article changed the world instantly. People starting leaving Here, companies collapsed, and widespread panic overtook the general population. I can only assume that's what led to his murder.

​

Hard work pays off!

​

Before he was thrown to the wolves, Professor Chavez tried to explain that his finding (dubbed The Discovery) was miraculously uplifting news. He told the people that because we didn't ask to be here, we should think of ourselves as free to do as we wish, as long as our actions did not hurt anyone else.

This speech came to be known as The Amendment.

​

To some, that was a Godsend. Folks across all groups (The Depressed excluded) began living with renewed vigor, and they found their lives better off than before the discovery, even as the world was changing around them.

​

To others, it was too baffling a concept to grasp. Perhaps being told that they didn't ask to be here had shook them too deeply, or they were too entrenched in their current stance of Outcast, Content, or Greedy to shake their belief system yet again. These folks gained nothing from Professor Chavez's Amendment.

​

There was a small group of people that was so moved by this discovery, however, that they became known as The Free. These were folks that asked nothing of society, but stayed here and lived a new lifestyle. In a way they were Content, however they shunned their old lifestyle of ing-ing, and focused on living in the here and now. They were primarily people who had little responsibility in the old world, such as parents with no children, young professionals, and the homeless. This ragtag group of The Free, although leading disparate lives not more than a month before, all lived by the same credo in the new world: Stay Carefree. Be Happy.

​

​

III

The night Professor Chavez screamed into the darkness, I was fast asleep, even though I was at work. It was late! That morning, as it was for most people, started out like every other day. We continued on with our lives as if we had asked to be here and moved forward with futile purpose. At that point, only two people knew of Professor Chavez's discovery: Professor Chavez and a homeless man in Drake Park.

​

The homeless man would go on to become a leader of The Free, but as for now he was taking a “dump” behind a juniper tree. He enjoyed the fresh Christmas smell given off by these plants and how it perfectly masked the smell of his “dump”. Say what you will, but that's resourceful!

​

​

The homeless man's name was Jack Roan. Jack was previously a mechanic, gas station attendant, convenience store manager, day trader, and then briefly incarcerated. His colorful past is due to his high level of intelligence and terrible attention span. Jack's interests come in violent waves, and leave like a calm tide receding into the ocean. Within weeks he has mastered a new trade, and within months the passion fades. Today, he is homeless. Tomorrow? Who knows!

​

​

My career at the time of The Discovery was Head of Security for Public Resources. It was a boring, yet well paying career. I choose to work at nights, that way I could be home to take my children to school, sleep while they were out, wake up, bring the kids home from school, then head in to work. It ravaged my body and I felt out-of-sorts everyday, but it was best for my family.

​

Head of Security is an overly prestigious title for an unglamorous job. It comprised solely of staring at computer monitors all night long that showed live feeds of all the parks in town. I was in charge of keeping the parks safe, and if some unsavory event began to transpire, I had to dispatch our Security Executives to deal with the issue.

​

That night, if I hadn't nodded off, I would have been one of the first people to hear Professor Chavez make his grand announcement! I also would have dispatched a Security Executive to get homeless Jack Roan out of the park for loitering.

​

​

Some days I wonder what would have become of Jack if I had kicked him out of the park that night.

​

​

That inconsequential morning finally became consequential for me when I reviewed the tapes from the night before, from when I was fast asleep. That is when I learned about Professor Chavez and heard Jack Roan shout back, “Nobody asked you!”

​

​

Jack pulled his pants up after his dump, stretched his arms to the sky, and yawned. He must have been planning out his day, wondering what to do next. He wore a perplexed look on his face, and proceeded to do something I had never seen him do before, in all my years monitoring the parks.

​

He walked down toward Cherry Creek, dropped to his knees, and washed his hands.

​

​

Later that day, Professor Chavez published his finding through the University of Chicago Newspaper. Usually, an academic article of this caliber should be published in some fancy journal, however Professor Chavez rightly assumed it would have a larger impact if published in a newspaper that was widely circulated. Given his position in the university, the newspaper would accept anything he asked them to, and the article was published that afternoon.

​

​

Here is Chavez's summary of his Discovery:

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Through a rigorous literature review of past and present philosophies, it has been discovered that nobody, throughout the history of recorded time, has ever asked to be here. People may hold an opinion on whether or not they are happy to be here, but the fact remains that they were brought here without any say in the matter. Further study hopes to determine who was responsible for bringing us here, and why we were not given a choice.

​

Incredible!

​

​

Once Jack had finished washing his hands, he tied back his long black hair, laced up his boots, and walked towards the University of Chicago. He walked with purpose, another first for him, as he made his way up the steps to Professor Chavez' office. He threw open the wooden door in a fury.

​

“What are you thinking?! Do you know what that news would do to people?”

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Professor Chavez whirled around from behind his desk and stared directly at his intruder with a look of fear on his face.

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“Nothing good! Nothing good at all!” Jack was shouting at Chavez, who just sat there bewildered.

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Chavez cleared his throat. “I'm sorry, who are you?”

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Jack replied that it didn't matter who he was, but he knew what Chavez was up to.

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“You can't just drop this bomb into the masses, it'll wreak havoc on 'em! They've been taught to live a very specific way, and you are gonna mess with their heads! Nothing subtle about this at all!”

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“Sir, just because you cannot handle the truth, doesn't mean the same of others. I think you'll find that most folks out there want to know the truth, even if it may be hard to believe at first. If you would...”

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Chavez was cut off by a sharp slap to the face.

​

“Are you fucking stupid?” Jack was livid. “Nobody wants that! They want confirmation that the way they are living is the right way! This discovery will just cause people to lose their minds!”

​

The argument continued, going in circles, for just short of an hour. In the end, Jack simply got bored of trying to persuade Professor Chavez.

​

“Listen, I'm telling you. This is a terrible idea. I promise if you go through with this, everything will change.” Jack turned and walked out the door.

​

Chavez shouted after him, “Don't underestimate the public, young man! You'll find they are more capable than you imagine!”

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Capable, indeed.

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Still in a tizzy from this argument, Professor Chavez began writing his world-changing article.

​

​

Jack knew the article was published later that day when he saw a man walk into oncoming traffic, holding a newspaper in his hand.

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What an easy way to leave Here!

​

This preliminary chaos ensued for a week. As Professor Chavez had said, the public was very capable. The things they happened to be capable at however, where the things that most easily brought chaos into the world. If they weren't leaving Here themselves, they found ways to make others go There. They looted, pilfered, pillaged, went haywire.

​

It was a terrible week.

​

​

Once the initial shock from the announcement wore off , the four distinct groups arose. The Depressed, Outcast, Greedy, and Content. The Greedy and Outcasts began petitioning for their respective philosophies. The Depressed had already left. The Content returned to life as normal, at least as normal as it could be.

​

As Head of Security, my job became even more difficult. Daily protests were held in the park from all groups, usually in the vain of, “We are right, the other groups are wrong.”. Every day I sent out Security Executives. Spying on people has never been more active!

​

​

The week following all the chaos, Professor Chavez went to work on his Amendment. It wasn't a formal written article, just a colloquial two minute speech. He spoke very slow, the speech itself should have lasted no more than thirty seconds. Here it is in its entirety.

​

My friends, it has become aware that my Discovery was not received how I intended it to be. The Discovery is a wonderful thing! It means are free to do as we wish, as long as we are not harming anyone else in the process! Please, rejoice in knowing that you did not ask to be here, have no path forward set in stone, and can choose your destiny!

​

I mentioned that he spoke slowly, yes?

​

​

So Jack went on to become a leader of The Free, Professor Chavez went on to be murdered by Jack, and I went on observing it all. I never came forward with this information, and deleted the tapes instantly. However, I believe that the truth must come out. I always wondered why Jack, a man who lived Free all along would care that the Discovery was made public.

​

Perhaps he was just abiding by the rules laid out in the Amendment.

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Imagine that!

​

​

​

​

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[thesnhuup]

Unveiling SNHU’s 2018-2023 Strategic Plan

Strategic planning efforts in higher education usually elicit resigned eye rolling from those who have seen strategic planning as a form of participatory theater, with lots of stakeholders involved and endless meetings and a product that has something for everyone and thus little focus or use. Those plans often sit on a shelf gathering dust and find their best use when someone needs to say to some outside regulatory body, “Yes, of course we have a strategic plan – here it is. See!”  To reverse a phrase from Churchill, rarely does the effort of so many result in so little.

We have taken a different approach with our recently released 2018-2023 Strategic Plan (Http://bit.ly/SNHUStrategicPlan). How so?

We started three years ago with first principle, existential questions such “Why do we exist?” and “What are our core values?” We began with a rethought and revised Mission Statement and adopted a clear and straightforward Vision Statement: “Make the world a better and more just place through our work, one learner at a time.” (I know, not a small vision….)

We held ourselves accountable to the previous 2013 to 2018 Plan (page 35) and included our report card in the new Plan document.

We pulled together our best thinking about the current context in which our students live and study (p. 13) and engaged The Institute For The Future to help us think through how the world would be different for our students in 2030 (p. 29, the SNHU 2030 section).

We developed our Five Commitments (p. 21) and used that term instead of “goals.” People set goals all the time and often fall short of them (e.g. me, every January 1) and we think “commitments” conveys a stronger determination to deliver and a willingness to hold ourselves accountable.

Each commitment is structured around four areas of effort: strengthening what we do well; innovating for the future; building capacity for our new ambitious goals (to build a platform that allows us to educate 300,000 learners by 2023); and game changing initiatives.

We talked to everyone we could when we were developing the Plan. Wil Zemp, our Chief Innovation Officer, who also heads our strategy work, deployed his team to work with our unit heads, to socialize earlier drafts, to solicit feedback, and to rewrite and revise.

KPIs have been developed for every functional area of the University, as our business units thought through their role in the plan. We made a copy of the plan for every single employee, since our success in delivering on this plan rests with them; we are entrusting them with making the plan come alive. The task we are setting out for ourselves is to reinvent what a university can be and needs to be for the digital age in which we find ourselves.

I often use this graphic to describe the current model of higher education, which is more institutionally centered than student centered and still largely offers a one-size-fits-all model of learning inspired by the industrial age for which it was largely designed to serve.

  In the future, we will become more learner centered, bringing to higher education the same kind of personalized experience that we see happening in so many other industries, including health care.

    This shift recognizes that content and its delivery is becoming widely available and increasingly inexpensive (and often free). In that world, the role of the university shifts from content delivery (where we still spend far too much of our time and energy) to curating learning, translating all of those learning experiences, assessing that learning, and certifying what the student has accomplished. In many ways, we might argue that higher education becomes an assessment and certification industry, though the curation of learning remains an important function (the DIY grazing model works for just a tiny percentage of students). This is a fundamental shift, of course, but all of the component parts of what we envision exist today and our plan calls for us to move in this direction.

Related to the plan, the questions I hear most often are “So what’s your target for growth? How big do you want to get?” People generally want a number, but the number for me is a by-product of our work.  If we reach 300,000, 500,000 or 750,000 students, we would still be serving only a small slice of the current market of college students and not making a real dent in the bigger problem, the tens of millions of Americans who have some credits, but no degree (though often debt), the tens of millions who never started a college degree, the tens of millions that will need to retool as we see massive job displacement from artificial intelligence and automation, and the even greater need globally.

So I don’t look to a number, I look for signs that we are slipping in our commitment to student success, that we stop following our “always do the right thing” credo, that we start to slip in our systems and capacity. Most importantly, that students continue to feel like they are getting personalized support and that we treat them as individuals deserving our best effort and not as a number, no matter the total overall number of students being served. If any of those goals start to slip, we will be the first to hit the pause button and get things right again.

However, as long as we can stay true to our values and mission, we will seek to educate students wherever they are and whereever they need us. This is true today with our parents juggling work and family with their studies, with our veterans and military families, with our DACA students, with our on-campus students, with our refugee students, with the homeless kids in our RISE High partnership, and the tens of thousands of SNHU students who choose us as their university.

Increasingly, our work will have us reach “upstream” to serve more pre-college students and “downstream” to serve more workers and adults long past traditional college age. We envision a learning platform really, in and out of which people will go to get just the right learning at just the right time in just the right way for their needs, over the course of a career and a lifetime. A platform that is as comfortable with an 11th grader working on an associate degree as a 60-year-old working on a high school degree. One that continues to offer conventional college degrees, but also badges, micro-credentials, and more options of credentials offered in more modalities, eventually evolving to highly curated and personalized learning pathways.

In our recent ten-year accreditation, our planning was singled out for high praise. Board members asked for extra copies to bring back to their organizations. Barbara Brittingham of NECHE asked us to share the plan. We made a decision to make the plan available to the public, including our competitors. This plan is our roadmap for the future.

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[junker-town]

A day with Hornets assistant coach — and NBA lifer — Stephen Silas

See the intense work that goes into every game.

Stephen Silas, the associate head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, is the ultimate NBA lifer. He was literally born into the league in Boston, where his father Paul, a former NBA star and coach who spent more than 40 years in the league, was helping the Celtics win a pair of championships. Stephen can remember toddling around the Kingdome while his dad completed his playing career for the Sonics under Lenny Wilkens.

While born to a great player, Stephen has always considered himself the son of a coach. More than that, he wanted to be around his dad as much as possible, so he grew up going to practices in San Diego when Paul coached Donald Sterling’s Clippers. Later, he was a ballboy for the Knicks while his father was an assistant under Pat Riley.

Young Silas played games of HORSE on the Garden floor with Patrick Ewing’s son (little Patrick) and mopped sweat while Big Patrick was shooting free throws. He also learned an essential lesson in those years.

“Being on the sideline I knew I had to be quiet when Pat Riley was coaching,” Silas says. “Be seen and not heard was how I grew up.”

That may as well be the essential credo of assistant coaches everywhere. Do your work, stay on top of things, and keep out of the spotlight. Some teams go so far as to keep their assistants completely off limits. The Hornets are not one of them.

They’ve granted me access to Stephen while the team prepares for a mid-November game against the Celtics. I’ll be with him from shootaround through pregame and postgame, with a film session sandwiched in the middle, to document the largely opaque daily world of an NBA assistant coach.

His boss, Hornets head coach Steve Clifford, shrugged when I thanked him for agreeing to the project. He knows what it’s like to toil in anonymity. Silas, frankly, doesn’t need the extra publicity. He has interviewed for the head jobs in Charlotte and Houston and annually shows up on lists of up-and-coming coaching candidates.

If Silas is unknown to the general public, he’s practically family within the larger NBA ecosystem. He worked with the retired players’ association after graduating from Brown with a double major in sociology and management. Later, he cut his teeth as an advance scout working both the college and the pro circuit, where he first met Clifford almost 20 years ago.

When a job opened up on his father’s staff in 2000 with the Charlotte Hornets, friends suggested he hire his son. Paul wasn’t sure. Neither was Stephen, for that matter. Enough people convinced them it would be a good idea and Stephen had his first coaching job at the age of 27, then the youngest assistant in the league.

“To be Paul Silas’ son in the world of basketball wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do right away, but it was a way in,” Stephen says. “Being my dad’s son has always been great. That’s one thing I’ve just had to deal with.”

Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

Paul Silas

Father and son stayed together through stops in both Charlotte and Cleveland. Stephen later worked with the Warriors under Don Nelson before returning to Charlotte in 2010, where he’s been ever since.

After almost two decades on the sidelines, the 44-year-old Stephen has outgrown his father’s shadow. His fellow coaches find him to be thorough and meticulous. Players respond enthusiastically to his even-keeled, yet demanding, approach.

“He’s always been around the game,” says Hornets forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who has worked with Silas since his rookie season. “He knows it inside and out. He coached my cousin in Cleveland, Dajuan Wagner. It’s like damn, feel me? He’s old, but he don’t look old.”

In a league that is trending toward more and more toward specialization, Silas’ coaching profile is broader and more diverse. He’s done offense with Nelson and defense with Clifford, two of the game’s great tacticians. He’s worked individually with guards, big men, and wings. He’s coached summer league.

“There isn’t much in the NBA that I haven’t done,” Silas says.

There also isn’t anyone he doesn’t know. As we chat following a practice session at Emerson College, Silas nods toward an Emerson coach. “That’s my guy,” he says. “We met at Dave Cowens’ camp.”

9:30 a.m. Shootaround

There’s something about the cold quiet of the morning shootaround that says it’s time to go to work. There are no frills to be had in this environment, least of all heat. The players and coaches arrive on buses in their workout gear, while the support staff stocks their locker room with uniforms and equipment.

After watching film, the Hornets hit the court at 10 a.m. for a 50-minute walkthrough, which, like all NBA walkthroughs, is closed to the media. There’s 25 minutes of offense and 25 minutes of defense. Everything is planned in advance.

“When I first started, shootaround would be literally, shoot around,” Silas says. “You go and play some shooting games, maybe walk through four plays. And that’s it. Everybody get on the bus and go.”

Things change. Under Clifford, the Hornets are known for preparation and attention to detail. Before they get to the Garden, the coaches will have gone through a thorough scouting report that was compiled by one of the assistants.

“Cliff is so detailed,” Silas says. “He’s got it down. If we have an opinion, we’ll give it to him. As the years have gone on he’s leaned on us a little more.”

When Clifford got the Hornets job four-and-a-half years ago, he didn’t even bother to interview Silas. He simply asked him if he’d like to stay on staff. As the number two man, Silas runs practices on occasion and takes the lead in game-planning. During games, he’s responsible for substitutions.

“He can do everything,” Clifford tells me. “It’s healthy for the team to not have to listen to the same voice 82 times. I have so much trust and he’s so thorough and knowledgeable in what he does that I’m never worried. The preparation is going to be as good or better.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas talks with Kemba Walker

That’s in addition to his other duties, which include working individually with the wing players. If Silas has a speciality, it’s player development — Clifford was immediately drawn to how Silas interacts with players.

A special education major in college, Clifford notes something a former professor had told him about teaching: “If you gain the right type of communication with your group they will try hard to meet your expectations,” Clifford says. “That’s what he’s very good at. He has a way to gain their respect and establish the right kind of credibility so they know he can help them. There’s nothing more important than that.”

Silas is perhaps best known by hardcore NBA aficionados for his work with a young Steph Curry. He taught Steph his two-basketball dribbling routine and he gets a chuckle when fans come to the arena early to watch Curry’s pregame workout. Their relationship has deep roots.

Silas had known Steph since he was a kid growing up in Charlotte. His niece and nephew went to the same school and Paul Silas had coached Dell Curry with the Hornets. They were both sons of former players and hit it off immediately. Curry would come over on off days and watch games or eat dinner. They’d go to church together or go to the gym and get up shots.

“He’s like the perfect student,” Silas says. “He listens all the time, asks great questions, challenges you a little. You can tell him something and he’ll get better right after you tell him. He stretches you, which was good for me as a coach.”

After the walkthrough is completed, everyone heads back to the bus for the short ride back to the hotel. Now it’s time to think about a future opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

12:30 p.m. Film work

Still in his sweats from shootaround, Silas has a tablet setup on a stand next to his MacBook, where he’s watching film of Cleveland’s game against Houston. We’re in a suite on top floor of the Ritz, where the team is staying. Being the number two man has its perks.

Like most teams, the Hornets divide the scouting work, with each assistant taking 20 games. Silas has the lead for the Cavs, which consists of watching five games worth of film and compiling his notes into the scouting report that goes to Clifford. He’ll then go over the report with the head coach before they present it to the group.

In his early days, Silas would travel with a plastic bag full of VHS tapes. He once spent a lonely Saturday night in a Los Angeles Walmart looking for two VCRs so he could make his edit on the road. Now the team has its own software for watching film.

As with everything, there is a routine. Silas likes to watch two games back-to-back, which helps him recognize patterns. He never watches live so he can skip past commercials and free throws. He keeps the sound on because he can occasionally pick up a tidbit or two based on what they’re talking about on the broadcast.

Once he has his five games he’ll compile the scouting report, which sounds a lot cooler than it actually looks. The report is only a few pages long, but it’s crammed with offensive and defensive keys, matchups, and individual play sets. Silas and the other assistants draw the sets in black ink and make notes in red because Clifford prefers it to computer generated diagrams.

“Our game plans are pretty substantial,” Silas says.

Before he even gets to the video, Silas will have received an email from the team’s advance scout, Drew Perry, who sees each team live at least twice. Perry tracks all the play calls and forwards them to the team’s video department.

The video team then syncs them with the film so they appear on the bottom of the screen. They also catalogue them for the scouting report software they use where Silas makes his notes on the tablet. After watching games all the way through, he can jump back and forth between specific sets, individual personnel, or outcomes.

Perry will also send along a playbook consisting of diagrams as well as his own notes. Silas flips through the diagrams that run on for several pages detailing how the Cavaliers try to score: early offense, secondary offense, post-ups, corner, high posts, Hawk cuts, UCLA cuts, zippers, catch and shoot, loop action and spread, Princeton, dribble hand-off, step ups, horns, middle pick-and-roll, side pick-and-roll, side out of bounds, deep corner out of bounds, baseline out of bounds, ATOs, and crunch time plays.

It’s literally everything you could ever want to know about how the Cavs run their offense in every conceivable situation. Even for someone who consumes a ton of NBA basketball, the diagrams look like hieroglyphics. For coaches, they’re an unspoken method of communication.

“Drew is unbelievable,” Silas says. “He’ll do seven different options on double drag, which is just two picks in transition. It’s a little bit of overkill, but it’s better to have more than less.”

Advance scouts are the true information brokers in this league. They see everything from play calls to player reactions on the bench and in the huddle. Silas learned the art of scouting from his days doing advance work and it was an invaluable apprenticeship. He used to diagram everything. Now, he instantly recognizes actions and traces them back to the root.

“Slice 4 Pop,” he says as the Cavs run through a set. “A Kevin Love play. This is actually a play they used to run for Amar’e Stoudemire in Phoenix where the small will pin down on Kevin Love coming up to the top.”

On the screen, all of this happens in a few seconds. A guard runs toward the baseline to set a screen on Love’s defender that will allow Love to catch the ball about 18 feet from the basket near the top of the key. Within that set are variations, and within those variations are options if the play breaks down. Silas can diagnose all that in less than the time it takes to watch the full clip.

On defense, he’s looking for coverage patterns. Do they shoot the gap on a stagger screen or lock-and-trail? Do they get up in the passing lanes and deny everything or lay back and pack the paint? Always, he is looking for tendencies in pick-and-roll coverage. “That’s the nitty gritty of offense,” he says. “Try to get two guys to the ball.”

Despite all those tactical adjustments, there is a fairly consistent collection of sets and calls from team to team. The difference is philosophy, as well as personnel. Right on cue, as the Cavs bring the ball up in transition, LeBron James waits a half-beat and then hits a trailing Love for an open three at the top of the arc.

“Those transition threes,” Silas says, shaking his head. They will be an adjustment for Dwight Howard, a traditional center in a world that emphasizes speed and shooting.

“Dwight is programmed to run back to the rim,” Silas says. “But with the game changing and more spacing [for centers], he has to be conscious of staying up. So when I do my writeup it will talk about all those aspects. Kevin Love running into that trail three.”

When his film work is done, Silas will have a few hours to himself before heading back to the arena.

5 p.m. Arrive at the Garden

Before every road game Silas will catch a ride with forwards Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Treveon Graham 30 minutes before the first bus leaves from the hotel. Guards Jeremy Lamb and Malik Monk will arrive around the same time, and the next part of the workday will commence.

They are his guys and they run the gamut of experience levels and roles. They all need something different from their coach. Silas is responsible for them and takes ownership over good plays and bad ones. The bad ones linger. Maybe he could have found another clip or talked through a coverage one more time.

“You’re always thinking about your guys,” Silas says. “Every guy is completely different. You can’t approach it the same way. Some guys are better learners on the floor. Some guys need 20 clips, they want to see everything. Some guys want 10 of their good and 10 of their bad.”

Each player gets his own individual time with Silas for a pregame shooting routine and going through more film on the bench on a laptop. The order is set and never deviates.

Graham is up first. The 24-year-old from Virginia Commonwealth caught on as an undrafted free agent last season after a year in the D-League. Graham earned a role off the bench in the absence of Nicolas Batum, but he’s out with a thigh contusion. Coach and player sit on the bench and talk.

“For him, it’s, ‘Are you good? Is there anything you need a little more work on?”’ Silas says. “If it’s a veteran that’s not playing much they’re completely different than a young guy who’s not playing much. They have to know you have their best interests at heart and you understand what they’re going through. If a guy’s not playing much you can’t hammer them all the time because they’re going to hate coming to work every day.”

Kidd-Gilchrist, a low-maintenance defensive stalwart, takes the court next. He always gets exactly what he needs. No more. No less. Before a game against the Rockets, Silas sent him a clip defending James Harden. The next day Silas asked if he got the text and MKG nodded. Silas laughs. “I can’t get a thumbs up, or an OK, or a black fist or something?”

That’s MKG: quiet and dependable. They’ve been together for six years and their connection grows deeper every season. “He’s more than a coach, man,” MKG tells me after finishing his pregame routine. “He’s a friend. He’s a mentor.”

Lamb, a thrice-traded former lottery pick from Connecticut who is off to the best start of his career, is up next. His emergence as a starter in place of Batum has been one of the team’s positive developments. It’s early in the season, but Lamb appears to finally be achieving a breakthrough six years into his career. Then again, it’s not that early. He and Silas spent much of the summer working out in Charlotte.

“It was real this summer,” Silas says. “That’s a win. A good summer is a win and now he’s had 11 really good games. He’s super confident, he works, and is very conscientious.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas

Lamb always has to get shots up after practices and shootarounds. They hit the same areas of the floor day in and day out. Devising a routine and sticking with it has been an important part of his development. And he’s always asking for clips. Silas makes it a point to mix in positive plays so Lamb can leave the session feeling good about himself.

“When you do have a coach who cares about you and really likes to develop players and make people better that’s huge,” Lamb tells me. “You don’t always find that in the NBA. People always talk about how hard players work and stuff like that. At the end of the day, they never get a day off. He’s always texting me, ‘What time do you want to go tomorrow?’ Even when I’m late, he’s there. It’s great having a coach that believes in you but also pushes you.”

Because he is a rookie, Monk gets the final pick and winds up with the last shooting slot right as the arena countdown clock gets to 90 minutes. “He got the best time,” Silas says with a bemused look. “Go figure.” Silas has to bring Monk up to speed quickly but not overload with him with too much information. It’s a delicate balance.

“This is completely different than anything he’s ever seen before,” Silas says. “It has to be enough but not so much that they don’t tune you out, which I would have done when I was 19 and someone was showing 20 clips of pick-and-roll protection.”

Monk, who is already getting important rotation minutes, is full of boundless energy and enthusiasm. On our way off the court for a quick interview, he stops to sign an autograph and winds up signing for every person in the section. This is still new and fresh and he’s eager to please. I ask Monk if Silas ever loses patience with him.

“Never. Never. Never. He doesn’t get mad,” Monk says. “You make a mistake, he’s going to tell you and you learn from it. In the tone that he talks. No get mad, no get frustrated, nothing like that. Coach Clifford is the one that gets mad.”

After their workouts, there’s still more time for film and final prep. The crowd is starting to arrive and the Garden is coming to life.

Gametime 7:30 p.m.

The gameplan has been well established since early this morning. On offense, they want to run multiple actions to try and gain an advantage against the Celtics’ switching defense. Any possession that ends with one pass or or one screen is probably not a good possession. On defense, they want to keep the Celtics’ new star point guard Kyrie Irving out of the paint and off the three-point line.

The Hornets catch a break when it’s announced that Al Horford won’t play because he’s recovering from a concussion. That solves one issue since Horford is a mobile big man who takes opposing big men out to the perimeter, and the Hornets prefer to pack the paint. His replacement, Aron Baynes, also isn’t as likely to switch on pick-and-rolls. They catch another break when Irving crashes into Baynes and suffers a facial fracture less than two minutes into the game.

The first half goes according to plan. The Hornets limit transition and dare the C’s to beat them from the outside. The offense runs through multiple sequences and keeps turnovers to a minimum. Even though All-Star guard Kemba Walker struggles with his shot, he still hands out 10 assists in the first half as the Hornets build an 18-point lead.

They’re still up a dozen points going into the fourth quarter, but that’s when things fall apart. Walker is suddenly the only player who can score and the Celtics make an inspired comeback to extend their winning streak to 12 games. It’s a brutal loss for the Hornets, even more so because it’s their fourth straight defeat and they won’t play again for five days.

As I head down the tunnel to catch up with Silas, Celtics coach Brad Stevens pulls me aside and says the Hornets were as prepared as any team they’ve played this season. “Whatever we did, they were on it,” Stevens says.

I relay the complement to Silas, who grimaces. “Great,” he says. “What does that get us?”

The Hornets mood is forlorn, even angry. Coaches and support staff walk by sporting thousand-yard stares. It’s only November, but these setbacks hurt. I ask Silas how he deals with the losses. “Not well,” he says.

He’s got family waiting for him and he’d rather not deal with any of that right now. There are postgame duties to handle on the plane ride home, and he’s already thinking of clips to show his guys. The Cavs’ report is waiting to be finalized when he lands.

The bus is leaving for the airport in 10 minutes, and it occurs to Silas that they’ve been on the road for a week and a half. As he searches for something positive, he says, “It will be good to go home.”

[youngandhungryent]

When Hip-Hop’s Protege-Mentor Relationships Turn Sour

In any creative discipline, conflict is an inevitability. Wit the fast-paced, high-pressure terrain of hip-hop, even a working relationship that seemed indestructible can be left in disarray. Whether undone by jostling egos, monetary disputes, musical differences, or even personal betrayal, one dynamic that’s proven particularly hard to retain is that of a mentor and protégé. Among the most intimate relationships that an artist can have, founding a partnership takes a remarkable amount of trust and faith in one another. Oftentimes, it pays off in spades, fostering durable bonds between teams like Dr. Dre & Eminem, Pharrell and The Clipse, Nicki Minaj and her Cash Money label boss Lil Wayne. For others, what was once a mutually beneficial arrangement would eventually give way to toxicity and ruination.

After they concluded all business dealings in 2015 on abrupt but by no means mean-spirited terms, Grand Hustle CEO T.I reignited the unease between himself and his former charge Iggy Azalea at a press event for Netflix’s Rhythm + Flow. “I’m still actively looking for another female rapper who can undo the blunder of Iggy Azalea,” the Bankhead veteran revealed. “That is the tarnish of my legacy as far as [being] a [music] executive is concerned. To me, this is like when Michael Jordan went to play baseball.”

Back when they first cut ties, Tip claimed that, although misguided in some ways, Iggy still had the “talent” and “charisma” required to triumph in this high-octane game. Now, he equates their tenure together as an uncharacteristic lapse in judgment. Naturally perturbed by his comments, the Australian artist fired back by casting some aspersions about her former employer’s attitude towards the opposite sex. “The tea I could spill on what bullshit this is but at the end of the day I think people can see it’s clear he’s salty”, Azalea retorted. “He’s a huge misogynist and has never been able to have a conversation with any woman in which he doesn’t speak like a fortune cookie.”

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At the same time Iggy and TI were prising open old wounds, G.O.O.D Music’s Desiigner was voicing his displeasure with his current label predicament. Scouted by Kanye West after the runaway success of “Panda,” the Brooklynite seems to have been thwarted at every turn in the years since signing on the dotted line. Months after he claimed that he “brought G.O.O.D. Music back” and downplayed Kanye’s purported “genius” in favor of labeling him “crazy,” the New English MC is rallying against his circumstances on Twitter. “FREE ME FROM THIS LABEL”, he declared in a tweet that is yet to be deleted, leading many to speculate that the relationship between himself and his one-time confidants at the Def Jam subsidiary is now irreparable.

Rather than serving as rare occurrences, these recent public spats are endemic of how the hip-hop industry and all its intricacies have been ravaging tight-knit relationships between master and apprentice for decades. Long before up-and-coming rappers and their elders could take to social media to vent their frustrations, mentor and mentee bonds were becoming uncoupled. While each dispute will harbor traits unique to their particular scenario, each falling-out between a protégé and their former champion can be grouped into two main categories: Personal and Business.

When it comes to ill-feeling laying waste to a long-held bond, few MCs are more accustomed to this scenario than hip-hop’s first billionaire, Jay-Z. In line with his late friend’s credo of “Mo Money Mo Problems,” a recurring blight on the self-styled entrepreneur has been friction between himself and those he once deemed to be the next generation of the ROC. First alluded to in Graduation’s “Big Brother,” Kanye and Jay’s relationship has been defined by minor skirmishes that would eventually lead to reconciliation. Both fiery and unflinching in their temperament, the two maintained this uneasy truce until the Summer of 2017. After Kanye split with Jay’s streaming service TIDAL in July, amid claiming that his kids had never played with Blue Ivy, an interview with Elliott Wilson that following month saw the real Sean Carter come to the fore. 

“You can’t bring my kids and my wife into it”, Jay told Rap Radar. “Kanye’s my little brother. He’s talked about me 100 times…. We’ve gotten past bigger issues. But you brought my family into it, now it’s a problem with me. That’s a real, real problem. And he knows it’s a problem.” But where the death knell of Jay and Kanye came appeared to have stemmed from a family feud, the issues between Jay and another one of his students came from a undue physical interaction. Touted as the future of gritty street rap, South Philly’s Beanie Sigel was among the centerpieces of Jay’s newly devised dynasty in the early 2000s. But over time, the chemistry that the Broad Street Bully and Hova displayed on wax began to disintegrate.

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“The sh-t stem[med] from a situation from me that happened when Jay-Z’s bodyguard put his hands on me not in a manner that was harmful to me, but in a manner where he shouldn’t have touched me period,” Beans declared in 2011. “I addressed Jay about it in front of his A-List company and I guess he ain’t like that too much. I think that was the opening of the 40/40 Club, after that I never saw Jay again. I never talked to him again. That couple months went by or whatever, I even tried to reach out to him. It got to the point where you had to get to four different people to talk to Jay.” The alleged recipient of subs on Jay’s infamous “Monster” verse– all I get is these vampires and bloodsuckers, all I see is these n***as I made millionaires / Milling about, spilling their feelings in the air”—the State Property leader felt the need to renege on these claims and speak with a renewed perspective. “Whatever I felt this dude Jay did wrong to me”, Beanie offered, “it can’t outweigh the one thing he did do for me – he gave me an opportunity.”

Uncommon but not impossible, this moment of clarity bears resemblance to how Bow Wow backtracked on his disrespect towards his So So Def mentor Jermaine Dupri in September 2018, after remarking that “Snoop put me in the game, not you.” Yet by the end of the month, the former child star was taking to Twitter to recant his wayward comments. “Want to apologize to my fans and the public and my SSD family lately I been tripping and acting like a f**k boy,” he conceded. “Forgive me for my immature ways. Let’s handle business. Thanks.”

Even within the most legendary crews in hip-hop history, there’s still ample room for discord to arise. Despite the fact that he “told people for years that Jimmy was gonna be a star, so it’s better on my resume,” even Cam’ron and his Dipset brethren Jim Jones were driven apart. Left on life support in 2007 after Jim claimed that “Me and Cam’ron haven’ spoken to each other in a year,” things would continue to degrade as Cam went as far as to claim that the CAPO didn’t grow up in the Byrd Gang’s homestead of Harlem.  

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When heading down to South Florida, this dissolution bears a stark resemblance to the lengthy period of mudslinging between Denzel Curry and Spaceghostpurrp. Cited as the progenitor of much of the cloud rap wave that became commonplace in the early 2010s, Purrp headed up the enigmatic Raider Klan, providing counsel and early exposure to Robb Banks, Yung Simmie and Zeltron 6 Billion himself. After Denzel left their ranks of his own volition, the two remained amicable until 2016 when he took umbrage with Purrp’s disrespectful comments about the late ASAP YAMS. Amid a spree of egregious tweets that mocked the deceased figurehead—where is Yams? Oh I forgot he’s dead, my bad– Denzel rallied the new school of Florida for “SPACEGHOSTPUSSY (RIP YAMS).” After trading diss tracks back and forth over the course of January 2016, the pacifistic Denzel declared that they “good” by that June. However, Purrp’s derogatory claims about Denzel, the nature of his relationship with Billie Eilish and suggestion that he “sacrificed” XXXTentacion would suggest that he still harbors plenty of resentment towards his former protégé.

We also have scenarios where the corruptive forces of money and artistic status come into play. Lengthily explored on this very website last month, these are the sort of contractual disputes and underhanded tactics that have plagued Lil Wayne and his “daddy” Birdman for years on end. Among the most iconic duos of the “jiggy era,” it is the unrelenting specter of financial gain that is said to have driven a wedge between Diddy and Mase. Left hanging by Mase’s abrupt decision to renounce the rap game in favor of the life of a pastor, it’s been widely speculated that Diddy’s sole reason for signing Loon was due to a brewing confrontation between the two Harlem MCs. Despite agreeing to perform alongside his former Bad Boy cohorts on their reunion tour in order to “be the bigger person,” Mase’s belief that Diddy took credit for the vast majority of his hard work has meant that this issue will remain lingeringly unresolved until it’s publicly squashed.

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Left to languish in a place of passive-aggression, the unrest between the two is eerily similar to that of two former confidants from Canada. Partly brought to the fore by the 6 God’s co-sign in the first place, the issue of ample credit and compensation—or lack thereof— has hovered over the formerly fruitful relationship between Drake and The Weeknd. Initially aligned with OVO in the Take Care era, Abel Tesfaye was still very much in the embryonic stages of his career. As a result, The Weeknd claims that he willingly regifted songs that he’d devised for House of Balloons to Drizzy. “I was hungry…. I was like, ‘Dude, take anything”, he told Rolling Stone. “I gave up almost half of my album. It’s hard.”

Amid internet chatter that Drake was aggrieved by The Weeknd founding his own label with Republic Records, —the two maintained an uneasy truce and even sporadically performed tracks such as “Crew Love” side by side. But when Take Care’s sixth anniversary rolled around, an Instagram comment made it all too clear that Abel’s suggestion that he was instrumental to the record’s creation has stuck in Drake’s craw. “Abel Tesfaye CO WROTE on ‘Shot For Me’ and ‘Practice,’ obviously was featured on ‘Crew Love’ and ‘The Ride’ and that’s it,” he typed. “There’s 20 songs on that album … don’t try me.” Teamed with the cryptic but not undecipherable words of Abel on the 2019 Gesaffelstein collaboration “Lost In The Fire” in which he claimed, “I just want a baby with the right one, cause I could never be the one to hide one,” all signs point to a turbulent relationship between the former friends. 

Whether the product of personal strife or business matters infringing on friendship, the protégé-mentor relationship is hardly an easy dynamic to navigate. From all the above exemplars, what’s clear is that each and every one of these corrosive incidents could’ve been avoided with cooler heads and greater transparency between the two parties. 

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[96thdayofrage]

Black America is “Pro-Peace,” but Its Politicians Work for the War Party

The Black Alliance for Peace will have to work around or against the Black Misleadership Class. “For these infinitely self-centered creatures, even the Mother Continent is unworthy of basic human empathy, much less solidarity.” The Congressional Black Caucus won’t even complain of genocide in the Congo, much less war against Syria. Even the Movement for Blacks Lives’ position on peace is weak. Malcolm, MLK and Du Bois would disapprove.

“The Black political class has disavowed and defiled the legacies of W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Dr. Martin Luther King.”

The United States is at war with the very concept of the rule of law among nations, and constitutes the most imminent threat to the survival of the human species. Washington’s outlaw doctrine of “humanitarian” military intervention, championed by Bill Clinton and elevated to a defining national principle under Barack Obama, marks the U.S. as “a rogue state, a state that is completely rejecting international norms,” says Ajamu Baraka, of the Black Alliance for Peace. “There is no legal right for the United States to be in Syria, but yet they are in Syria with no domestic opposition."

Instead, much of what should constitute the “domestic opposition” to Washington’s flagrant crimes against peace is consumed with an obsession to punish Russia for imaginary offenses against a fictitious American “democracy.”

Ajamu Baraka calls for “a restoration of the commitment to the rule of law on the part of the US authorities" -- a minimal demand that should resonate with all civilized peoples, most especially Black Americans, for whom U.S. law has always been riddled with “exceptionalisms.” However, the Black political (Misleadership) class now takes its cues from the CIA, NSA, FBI and other spook agencies currently allied with the Democratic Party -- the most abject capitulation to evil imaginable.

On the world stage, the United States has declared itself above the law, as if it had already completed the conquest of the globe. Thousands of U.S. troops are implanted on Syrian soil, the better to arm, train and protect the Islamist jihadists that act as foot soldiers for U.S. imperialism in the region. Washington has no plans to leave, even after ISIS, the purported rationale for the U.S. presence, has been reduced to small guerilla bands. “We call that ISIS 2.0 — an insurgency, rural,” said General Stephen Townsend, commander of the U.S.-led “coalition” in Syria. “So I think we’ll still be here dealing with that problem set for a while.”

“The Black political (Misleadership) class now takes its cues from the CIA, NSA, FBI and other spook agencies currently allied with the Democratic Party.”

Townsend’s forces are laying trip-wires for nuclear war with Russia, whose eminently legal presence in Syria is at the request of that country’s government. That the U.S. has been enabled to invade and occupy a sovereign state “with no domestic opposition" is a testament to the collapse of progressive politics, in general, and the moral debasement of a Black political class that is utterly at odds with its own people’s history. Tethered mouth and foot to the Democratic wing of the rich man’s duopoly, the Black political class has disavowed and defiled the legacies of W.E.B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Dr. Martin Luther King. They have trashed the sacred essence of the Black Liberation Movement: solidarity with other peoples oppressed by white supremacist capital.

Solidarity has its own value, but it also earns reciprocity. In abandoning solidarity with those oppressed by the United States -- comprising an ever-growing proportion of the world’s people -- Black America sacrifices the moral authority to expect support for our own struggles. We are left alone to fend off the beast, here in its belly.

It is widely understood that U.S. rulers felt compelled to appear amenable to Black demands in the Fifties and Sixties because of concerns about how the rapidly decolonizing world viewed race relations in the United States. Dr. Gerald Horne, the Black historian who has studied African American political alliances dating before the War of Independence, maintains that it serves Black people’s interests to “ally -- as our ancestors did -- with the prime antagonists of US imperialism,” including, in various epochs, the British, French, Spanish, and later, the Soviets and Third Word revolutionary movements.

“The United States has declared itself above the law.”

In Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil, his 1920 global sequel to The Souls of Black Folk, the public intellectual and political activist W.E.B. Du Bois laid out his case for solidarity among the oppressed peoples of the planet:

“I believe that armies and navies are at bottom the tinsel and braggadocio of oppression and wrong, and I believe that the wicked conquest of weaker and darker nations by nations whiter and stronger but foreshadows the death of that strength.”

Malcolm X urged Blacks to think in terms of “human,” not “civil” rights, and to take their case against the U.S. to the United Nations -- as did Paul Robeson, earlier. The credo of Malcolm’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, released on February 21, 1965, the day he was assassinated, stressed the need for internationalist solidarity:

“The Organization of Afro-American Unity will develop in the Afro-American people a keen awareness of our relationship with the world at large and clarify our roles, rights, and responsibilities as human beings. We can accomplish this goal by becoming well-informed concerning world affairs and understanding that our struggle is part of a larger world struggle of oppressed peoples against all forms of oppression. We must change the thinking of the Afro-American by liberating our minds through the study of philosophies and psychologies, cultures and languages that did not come from our racist oppressors. Provisions are being made for the study of languages such as Swahili, Hausa, and Arabic. These studies will give our people access to ideas and history of mankind at large and thus increase our mental scope.”

“Our struggle is part of a larger world struggle of oppressed peoples against all forms of oppression.”

Two years later, Dr. Martin Luther King told a crowd at New York City’s Riverside Church why he was “Breaking the Silence” on the U.S. war against Vietnam.

“I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission -- a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for ‘the brotherhood of man.’ This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ.... To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war.”

Dr. King saw clearly that foreign wars are incompatible with domestic progress.

“I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton took solidarity to a “higher level,” making common cause with those against whom the United States makes war. U.S. imperialism is the enemy of all mankind, therefore: “We join the struggle of any and all oppressed people all over the world, as well as in this country, regardless of color, who are attempting to gain freedom and dignity.”

These are voices of the Black Radical Tradition, the tradition that has made African Americans the most anti-war constituency in the United States, but which the Black Misleadership Class consistently betrays. For these infinitely self-centered creatures, even the Mother Continent is unworthy of basic human empathy, much less solidarity. No one has been more intimately involved, over a longer period of time, than Susan Rice in the U.S. sanctioned genocide of at least six million Congolese. From 1996, as a national security staffer and Under Secretary of State for African Affairs under Bill Clinton, to the Obama administration, Rice has dutifully facilitated the bloodbath in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the hands of U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda. Her service on behalf of this genocide, and other slaughters, earned Rice a shot at becoming Obama’s secretary of state, when Hillary Clinton left the job, in 2012.

“The Congressional Black Caucus is in solidarity with U.S. imperialism, not with the victims of Washington’s lawlessness in the world.”

Republicans mounted a campaign against Rice, claiming she was culpable for the jihadist attacks in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya. (Actually, the GOP failed to nail her on the real Benghazi crime, which involved transfer of Libyan weapons to jihadists in Syria.) Despite her well-known role in the worst genocide since World War Two, most of the Congressional Black Caucus supported Rice’s bid to become the top U.S. diplomat -- including Barbara Lee (D-CA), the most “anti-war” member of the CBC.

Six million dead Africans are not worth one Black face in a high State Department place, as far as the hideous Black political class is concerned.

The year before, in 2011, more than half of the Congressional Black Caucus voted to continue the bombing of Libya, which had once been Africa’s most prosperous and generous country.

Only three members of the Black Caucus (and just 5 Democrats) are co-sponsors of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s Stop Arming Terrorists Bill, designed to halt U.S. proxy jihadist wars in Syria and elsewhere in the Muslim world.

The Black Caucus is at opposite ends of the spectrum from the Black Alliance for Peace. "The first thing that has to happen is for the United States to stop supporting those elements that are committed to perpetuating the conflict [in Syria], to stop supporting those elements that many people define as terrorist elements, and to be serious about a real diplomatic solution to this issue," said Ajamu Baraka. Clearly, the Congressional Black Caucus is in solidarity with U.S. imperialism, not with the victims of Washington’s lawlessness in the world.

However, the Black Radical Tradition is not dead. The Black Is Back Coalition, in its 19-point National Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination, calls for “U.S. Out of Africa, Asia and Latin America.... In addition to U.S. military withdrawal to within its own currently recognized borders, we demand an end to U.S. proxy wars, drone attacks and political subversion of governments and people’s movements around the globe. Given that the U.S. was the first nuclear power, is the only country to have used nuclear weapons, and has never renounced First Strike, we demand U.S. nuclear disarmament without preconditions––unilaterally, if necessary.”

The coalition also demands reparations and immediate forgiveness of debt for the formerly colonized world, the right to independence for the Palestinian people, and cessation of all U.S. aid to Israel.

“Even the Movement for Black Lives is weak on peace.”

Other grassroots Black organizations have been true to the Black Radical Tradition and its ethos of solidarity with the oppressed. But, the closer one gets to the Democratic Party, the less peace-oriented Black organizations become. Among the establishment Black civic organizations -- which behave like annexes of the Democratic Party -- peace has no priority whatsoever. However, even the Movement for Black Lives is weak on peace. The M4BL’s closest approximation to an anti-war plank pledges to:

“Use upcoming international opportunities and human rights mechanisms to expose the systemic human rights violations inflicted on black communities, the linkages between people of African descent in the US with other Black people around the world, make connections with oppressed people globally, and chip away at American exceptionalism.”

In Syria, Washington is playing with nuclear war, and everywhere in the world, the U.S. rejects the very notion of international law. The Movement for Black Lives better get busy with its “chipping away” project.

[arichardsonbbbwc-blog]

Research notes from the beginning of the project

Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture, Gilles and Hollows.

  “Whites have used blacks as a screen upon which to project a montage of the primitive for at least three hundred years.”

(The vulgar) “Contemplation would give way to noise. Aristocractic taste had been trained to transcend the narrow limits of time, place, and self and to view the world from the stillness of a larger perspective. Democracy is sunk in the here and now of pantheism, and the one subject available for its art is the individual, because ‘each citizen of a democracy generally spends his time considering the interests of a very insignificant person, namely himself’. The democratic artist cannot with a straight face write about gods, myths, or traditions. These are stuff of refined, transcendent culture, and the democrat who makes these his themes must end in pretension. The poet who is true to his democratic roots must be a vulgarian… He will be loud and common… He will depict passions and ideas rather than men and deeds… Noisy, primitive, and self-centred, the democratic ideal generates a vulgar pantheism. In the American South, this pantheism moves in an orbit with Romanticism and black primitivism. All these elements fuse in rock, the music of vulgar American democracy.”

 “The source of rock is the primitive as interpretated by vulgar, democratic Romanticism, and the white man’s motive for adopting the primitive is his desire to get moved, to get real, real gone for a change.”

 “Rock’s credo of feeling leaves it open to attack as a mindless species of musical barbarism. The attack has been the more persuasive because a movement holding instinct and feeling as its central values appears confused and inarticulate and therefore unable, unwilling, or uninterested in defending itself on the battleground of rational debate selected by its opponents. But in rock, as in the pantheism from which it springs, confusion and inarticulations are virtues substained by a network of Romantic arguments about self, world and change.”

 “Pantheism need not share Whitman’s unyielding cheerfulness, but its never tragic… Tragedy demands a seemingly immensurable chasm between us and some immense power. When we cannot span it, we tumble into the intervening abyss of suffering. There is no gap in pantheism. Our suffering is whole, organic, and our own. Suffering and death are merely projections of our own self-ignorance. They are finally eradicated by blasts of self-sustaining energy. Death, tears, and defeat are the stuff of many rock lyrics, but always enveloped in an extravagance of words and music that is in the end comic… Rock has no room for the spiritual catharsis of tragedy, substituting for it the physical catharsis of the dance floor”

Because it cannot support tragedy it also cannot support heroic depictions

 “Rock’s is the aesthetic of Romanticism vulgarized… The artistic virtues of rock and Romanticism are originality, primal order, energy, honesty, and integrity. The bad critics of the zombie world consistently misread these as incoherence, lack of discipline, immorality, madness, and confusion.”

 Romanticism’s aesthetic is elitist because only few can recognise the artistic quality.

Genelle standing passively to metal because she has not been instructed to mosh

Constructed romanticism, me representing all the bad critical responses to romanticism.

   “I suggest that we ‘unsettle’ feminity by pushing it over the postfeminist edge and I put forward the term postfeminity to highlight the challenges and paradoxes of a postfeminist feminity/domesticity that can no longer be conceptualised along a sharp split between feminism and housewifery, agency and victimization, work and family life. This is to acknowledge that femininity can be changeable and can operate in a variety of ways, acquiring a range of different meanings that have come to the fore in our postfeminist present. Post-ing femininity thus involves a certain amount of re-thinking, not a reversal of well-established dualisms, but a process of resignification that threatens to reinscribe what it also transposes.”

 “Reality television uses relationships to illicit raw and spontaneous outbursts of emotion, what Laura Grindstaff (2002) refers to in relation to the talk show as the money shot… The currency placed on the unscripted emotion in ‘reality’ television can be related to the trend towards the commercialisation of feeling.”

FREUD’S NOTIONS OF THE HYSTERICAL WOMAN/

 “Oprah Winfrey, calls moral entrepreneurship: making money through the sensationalising and exploiting emotional expression.”

“The transmutations of emotional life- the move from the private realm to the public realm, the trend towards standardisation and commercialisation of emotive offerings are being recycled back into individual private lives; emotional life now appears under new management… opens the family home to a larger world of feeling rules.”

 In preparation for the slave market (“African women and men aboard he slave ships were only the intial stages of an indoctrination process… into a slave, so that (they) would be marketable as a ‘docile’ slave in American colonies.”

 Camera positioned as casting call- pornography

 “As American white men idealised white womanhood, they sexually assaulted and brutalised black women.”

“As white colonisers adopted a self-righteous sexual morality for themselves, they even more eagerly labelled black people sexual heathens. Since women was designated as the originator of sexual sin, black women were naturally seen as the embodiment of female evil and sexual lust.”

"younger artists no longer feel responsible for a black- ness that is itself increasingly hypervisible in the global market of multicultural commodity fetishism.

How to rewrite/refilm history when the very model of history is so much a product of the history the group wished to refilm/rewrite?

There’s a problem with placing a person in a situation where they have to act in a musical culture that is not their own

  “The aversion to fiction, is what keeps me interested in the non-fictive, it’s what keeps me interested in questions of the historical, because they act as a powerful counterbalance ….to amnesia.” (Tate, 2015)

Genelle in her bedroom smashing things with a vinyl recorder

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPMtsGgoQM

this video made me want to be more collaborative in my approach and also do an interview with me and Genelle.

  mlle bourgeoise noire lorraine o grady

  “Minaj’s performances do not have the anti capitalist logic that most performance art has, by on the contrary she is situated in and expertly marketed as a highly consumerable product that imbues many historical and cultural narratives that she appropriates. Capital was always a necessary component (if not foundational principle) of black performance art… especially when its practioners were so often fungible commodities themselves.” (page 206)

 “The late Stuart Hall, writing in 1992, characterised black popular cultures in exactly this way. If, as Hall argues, there are no pure forms in black popular cultures (but instead only hybridised ones), black popular cultures are also highly charged, mixed, and clashing spaces where cultural identities are imagined, stylised, theatricalised, and rendered ‘mythic’.”

…popular culture is highly mythic…”

 “If fantasy itself is a part of identity formation, as Anne Anlin Cheng argues, then Minaj’s often-hyperbloic performances can be understood as an aggressive and imaginative form of self making… this has often taken form of her transubstantiation into mythic-like selves- a process I have been terming avatar production” (page 207)

 CRITICISM- is Minaj exacerbating the angry black woman trope?

 “Forsaking authenticity, respectability, and even reality, Minaj and her mouthy avatars instead embrace (even boast about) their pointed failure to properly perform any of these attributes, suturing hip-hop’s typically masculine braggadocio to frenetic, if oddly juvenile, paeans to a plastic artificiality.” (Page 208-209)

 ‘She wields grotesque aesthetics as a skilful strategy of self-estrangement. In doing so, while Minaj is in accord with the polygot meanings the grotesque suggests- its disruption of order, challenge to notions of the normal, and strange ability to evoke both fear and desire from audiences.” (Page 213-214)

 OPTICAL DOUBLE TAKE

“The character’s operatic misbehaving is a rupture that punctures the tautly scripted understandings of proper behaviour, particularly for black women.” (page 217)

 white background white sheet- armless

 “Studies of heavy metal invariably link the preference for heavy metal among adolescents and people in their early twenties with issues such as low socio-economic position (Straw 1983), unsettled family life (Arnett 1991, 1996) and postindustrial risk and anomie (Locher 1998). Moreover, it is argued, the factors influencing a preference for heavy metal make for a ready associations on the part of disempowerd and disaffected young people with what Harrell (1994) terms the poetics of destruction in heavy metal lyrics, the latter frequently focuses on issues such as death, mutilation (Grooss 1990; Harrell 1994), physical violence and misogyny (Walser 1993; Sloat 1998).”

 “Although appearing on the surface to be an individual act of daring or exhibitionism, stagediving relies both upon the willingness of the group performing to allow members of the audience up onto the stage and coordination between relies both upon the willingness of the group performing between stagediver and crowd… Despite the risks they are always caught.”

 “… Cock rock performers are aggressive, dominating and boastful, and they constantly seek to remind the audience of their prowess, their control. Their stance is obvious in live shows; male bodies on display, plunging shirts and tight trousers, a visual emphasis on chest hair and gentials.”

 “… the way that rock music in general, and death metal in particular, places the group, the fan and the ideology in opposition to the entrenched values of society- the ‘we’ vs ‘they’ mentality… serves to elevate the metalhead to a position of moral superiority.”

 The effect of Gothic fiction feeds on a pleasing sort of terror, an extension of Romantic literary pleasures that were relatively new at the time of Walpole's novel.

Among the aspects of the romantic movement in England may be listed: sensibility; primitivism; love of nature; sympathetic interest in the past, especially the medieval; mysticism; individualism; romanticism criticism; and a reaction against whatever characterized neoclassicism . . . The term designates a literary and philosophical theory that tends to see the individual at the center of all life, and it places the individual, therefore, at the center of art, making literature valuable as an expression of unique feelings and particular attitudes (the expressive theory of criticism) and valuing its fidelity in portraying experiences, however fragmentary and incomplete, more than it values adherence to completeness, unity, or the demands of genre. Although romanticism tends at times to regard nature as alien, it more often sees in nature a revelation of Truth, the "living garment of God," and a more suitable subject for art than those aspects of the world sullied by artifice. Romanticism seeks to find the Absolute, the Ideal, by transcending the actual, whereas realism finds its values in the actual and naturalism in the scientific laws the undergird the actual. (Harmon, 6th. Edition).

 Gothic horror functions as an extension of the Romantic notion of literary pleasure, that literature should inspire deeply felt emotional responses. Gothic horror sought to instill a pleasing sort of terror and thrill from its emphasis on taboo subjects, such as satanism and matters of the occult, that both fascinated and repelled polite English society. The Romantic, Byronic hero equates to the brooding gothic villain in that both figures are tortured souls placed at the center of action.

 William Wordsworth, the father of British Romanticism, gave us. He said that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility"

One of the most complex developments during this period is the transformation of religion into a subject for artistic treatment far removed from traditional religious art. The Enlightenment had weakened, but hardly uprooted, established religion in Europe. As time passed, sophisticated writers and artists were less and less likely to be conventionally pious; but during the Romantic era many of them were drawn to religious imagery in the same way they were drawn to Arthurian or other ancient traditions in which they no longer believed. Religion was estheticized, and writers felt free to draw on Biblical themes with the same freedom as their predecessors had drawn on classical mythology, and with as little reverence.

Fake emotion versus real emotion

Being true to the romantic spirit by being true to yourself, a romantic reaction to romanticism.

 Neoclassical works (paintings and sculptures) were serious, unemotional, and sternly heroic.

  INSPIRATION

Mikhail and Sonia Boyce

John Akomfrah

Simone Leigh’s Breakdown

Yinka Shonibare Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz

Lis Rhodes Whose History

Ana Menedieta

Centre Jenny

Nicki Minaj

 PLAN

 SCENES Genelle with dripping green paint over her body, disappearing into the background

Falling into the stage dive

Ana Menedieta

Silence

Action Language Genelle at the desk looking at pictures of water and pours from out the screen

Slowly getting faster to ridiculous levels- never gonna give you up

Depictions of the primitive in romantic art

Black feminism

She takes the camera from me and films me

Selfie

Find her at home listening to her music Her snapchat In a gallery next to romantic artwork- by placing her next to the paintings, she becomes part of the history in modes of representation

Filming her eyes with my camera on her camera phone Metal sounds slowed down Flashes of light to light up the dark room

Chantel Ackerman- Jeanne Dielman- 23 quai du commerce

Sally Potter’s Thriller

Found footage

Film camera

Record metal sounds, growling

Drawings to overlay, Ed Pool

Lighting from only phone screens

Narcissism- compensation for lack of phallus, Freud, Otherness

Film her getting ready

Projection on the wall

Create vintage borders with subtitles for lyrics- bad music video

Good music video of Genelle singing

Rnb moves to  metal, metal moves to rnb (dance) NO

‘I want you to do this” ‘why’ Re-creating an authentic scene- deconstruction of a music video, behind the scenes

Emotional labour

Poses= femininity/performance

Romanticism of death

Genelle in artificial nature- technology Psychology of listening to different kinds of music

Past ‘feminine’, present not ‘feminine’

Genelle holding things walking down a tunnel The camera lowers and gives her respect for doing work Project in bedroom

Black women ‘s portrayal in media

A narrative in a narrative, a deconstructed music scene

Black panther

Gang violence

Colonislism, imperialism

Genelle going crazy and smashing domestic items (bad)

Totalitatarism

Active/Passive

Breaking the fourth wall Grace Kelly

Metal music- death associations

Devil horn sign

The Emporium- 88 London Road

Marwoods- coffee shop

The Marlobrough pub.

Textured walls- bricks

Green scene- coffee shops

Costa/Starbucks décor

Semotics of coffee shops

Korakrit Arunondchai- deconstruction of large social narratives music videos, rnb

Camera always circling round, various voiceovers- Trinh T Minh Ha- Reasssemblage, writer. The frame by frame.

Jump cut, silence vs noise

Genelle reads out the iron maiden songs slowly

Stages of grief

 First scene- Genelle in normal clothes- comes into the studio, seeming happy.

Second scene- Genelle putting on makeup clothes and changing- eye from phone

Second scene- reading out the lyrics for Iron Maiden (CLOSE UP )Genelle criticises the song because it’s about native American Indians not black people- I respond ignorantly

Third scene- putting on fake tears (CLOSE UP) Fourth scene- anger- moshing Fifth scene- PTSD- shaking Sixth scene- Metal sounds Two cameras- non objective, objective

Seventh scene- Long shot of her reading out the lyrics slowly

Eighth scene- Moshing

Ninth scene- Lunch break- her being quiet looking at her phone.

Last scene- she walks out, (LONG SHOT)

Tenth scene- playing dead (MID SHOT)

Eleveth scene- running to the hills

Twelth scene- reading out the lyrics (LONG SHOT) native criticism, well you’re all minorities

Stomping foot

 Criticises the violence of the song and imagery

Green screen could have paintings from the romanticism era

 Why metal and what song-

The romanticism of death and how we come to use it to come to terms with the horror of death and contemplating our own mortality and expressing that contemplation helps alleviate the anxiety around it. and hyper masculine performance – what the director intends to portray as satricial

The way that metal talks about important horrific issues such as war as an outlet for expression.

Talks about death with Genelle- make up a narrative about a racial issue.

Don’t use the green screen to project at all. Have the metal songs on laptop in the background off set.

Have Genelle putting on makeup offset

The atrocities of world war- The (emotional?) reactions against/by war

LOCATIONS Church/Graveyard

Somewhere where it is priviledge white male dominated

Coffeeshop