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creatingblackcharacters · 5 months ago

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“The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth” - Violence, Violent Imagery & Black Horror

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of death, violence, blood, hate crimes, antiblackness, police violence, rape

Note! I am going to be speaking from a Black American point of view, as my identity informs my experience. That said, antiblackness itself is international. The idea of my Blackness as a threat, as a source of fear and violence to repress and to destroy, is something every Black person in the world that has ever dealt with white supremacy has experienced.

There are two things, I think, that are important to note as we start this conversation.

One: there is a long history of violence towards Black bodies that is due to our dehumanization. People do not care for the killing of a mouse in the way they care about a human. But if you think the people you are dealing with are not people, but animals- more particularly, pests, something distasteful- then you will be able to rationalize treating them as such.

Two: even though we live in a time period where that overt belief of Blackness as inhuman is less likely, we must recognize that there are centuries of belief behind this concept; centuries of arguments and actions that cement in our minds that a certain amount of violence towards Blackness is normal. That subconscious belief you may hold is steeped in centuries of effort to convince you of it without even questioning it. And because of this very real re-enforcement of desensitization, naturally another place this will manifest itself is in how we tell and comprehend stories.

There are also three points I'm about to make first- not the only three that can ever be made, but the ones that stand out the most to me when we talk about violence with Black characters:

One: Your Black readers may experience that scene you wrote differently than you meant anyone to, just because our history may change our perspective on what’s happening.

Two: The idea that Black characters and people deserve the pain they are experiencing.

Three: The disbelief or dismissal of the pain of Black characters and people.

You Better Start Believing In Ghost Stories- You’re In One

I don’t need to tell Black viewers scary fairytales of sadists, body snatchers and noncoincidental disappearances, cannibals, monsters appearing in the night, and dystopian, unjust systems that bury people alive- real life suffices! We recognize the symbolism because we’ve seen real demons.

Some real examples of familiar, terrifying stories that feel like drama, but are real experiences:

12 Years a Slave: “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture. I doubt not hundreds have been as unfortunate as myself; that hundreds of free citizens have been kidnapped and sold into slavery, and are at this moment wearing out their lives on plantations in Texas and Louisiana.” – Solomon Northup

When They See Us: I can’t get myself to watch When They See Us, because I learned about the actual trial of the Central Park Five- now the Exonerated Five- in my undergrad program. Five teen Black and brown boys, subjected to racist and cruel policing and vilification in the media- from Donald Trump calling for their deaths in the newspaper, to being imprisoned under what the Clintons deemed a generation of “superpredators” during a “tough on crime” administration. And as audacious as it is to say, as Solomon Northup explained, they were fortunate. The average Black person funneled into the prison system doesn’t get the opportunity to make it back out redeemed or exonerated, because the system is designed to capture and keep them there regardless of their innocence or guilt. Their lives are irreparably changed; they are forever trapped.

Jasper, Texas: Learning about the vicious, gruesome murder of James Byrd Jr, was horrific- and that was just the movie. No matter how “community comes together” everyone tells that story, the reality is that there are people who will beat you, drag you chained down a gravel road for three miles as your body shreds away until you are decapitated, and leave your mangled body in front of a Black church to send a message… Because you’re Black and they hate you. To date I am scared when I’m walking and I see trucks passing me, and don’t let them have the American or the Confederate flag on them. Even Ahmaud Arbery, all he was doing was jogging in his hometown, and white men from out of town decided he should be murdered for that.

Do you want to know what all of these men and boys, from 1841 to 2020, had in common? What they did to warrant what happened to them? Being outside while Black. Some might call it “wrong place wrong time”, but the reality is that there is no “right place”. Sonya Massey, Breonna Taylor- murdered inside their home. Where else can you be, if the danger has every right to barge inside? There is no “safe”.

It is already Frightening to live while Black- not because being Black is inherently frightening, but because our society has made it horrific to do so. But that leads into my next point:

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

Think of all the videos of assaulted and murdered Black people from police violence. If you can stomach going into the comments- which I don’t, anymore- you’ll see this classic comment of hate in the thousands, twisting your stomach into knots:

“if they obeyed the officer, if they didn’t resist, this wouldn’t have happened”

Another way our punitive society normalizes itself is via the idea of respectability politics; the idea that “if you are Good, if you do what you are Supposed to do, you will not be hurt- I will not have to hurt you”. Therefore, if my people are always suffering violence, it must be because we are Bad. And in a society that is already less gracious to Black people, that is more likely to think we are less human, that we are innately bad and must earn the right to be exceptional… the use of excessive violence towards me must be the natural outcome. “If your people weren’t more likely to be criminals, there wouldn’t be the need to be suspicious of you”- that is the way our society has taught us to frame these interactions, placing the blame for our own victimization on us.

Sidebar: I would highly suggest reading The New Jim Crow, written in 2010 by Michelle Alexander, to see how this mentality helps tie into large scale criminalization and mass incarceration, and how the cycle is purposely perpetuated.

You have to constantly be aware of how you look, walk and talk- and even then, that won’t be enough to save you if the time comes. The turning point for me, personally, was the murder of Sandra Bland. If she could be educated, beautiful, a beacon of her community, be everything a “Good” Black person is supposed to be… and still be murdered via police violence, they can kill any of us. And that’s a very terrifying thought- that anything at any point can be the reason for your death, and it will be validated because someone thinks you shouldn’t have “been that way”. And that way has far less to do with what you did, than it does who you are. Being “that way” is Black.

My point is, if this belief is so normalized in real life about violence on Black bodies- that somehow, we must have done something to deserve this- what makes you think that this belief does not affect how you comprehend Black people suffering in stories?

Hippocratic Oath

Human experimentation? Vivisection? Organ stealing? Begging for medicine? Dramatically bleeding out? Not trusting just anyone to see that you are hurt, because they might take advantage? All very real fears. The idea that pain is normal for Black people is especially rampant in the healthcare field, where ideas like our melanin making our skin thick enough to feel less pain (no), an overblown fear of ‘drug misuse’, and believing we are overexaggerating our pain makes many Black people being unwilling to trust the healthcare system. And it comes down to this thought:

If you think that I feel less pain, you will allow me to suffer long before you believe that I am in pain.

I was psychologically spiraling I was in so much pain after my wisdom teeth removal, and my surgeon was more concerned about “addiction to the medication”. Only because Hot Chocolate’s mom is a nurse, did I get an effective medicine schedule. My mother ended up with jaw rot because her surgeon outright claimed that she didn’t believe that she was in more than the ‘healing’ pain after her wisdom teeth were removed. She also has a gigantic, macabre (and awesome fr) scar on her stomach from a c-section she received after four days of labor attempting to have me… all because she was too poor and too Black to afford better doctors who wouldn’t have dismissed her struggles to push.

As a major example of dismissed Black pain: let’s discuss the mortality rate of Black women during childbirth, as well as the likelihood of our children to die. When we say “they will let you bleed to death”, we mean it.

“Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Black babies are more likely to die, and also far more likely to be born prematurely, setting the stage for health issues that could follow them through their lives.”

Even gynecology roots in dismissal (and taking brutal advantage of) Black women's pain:

“The history of this particular medical branch … it begins on a slave farm in Alabama,” Owens said. “The advancement of obstetrics and gynecology had such an intimate relationship with slavery, and was literally built on the wounds of Black women.” Reproductive surgeries that were experimental at the time, like cesarean sections, were commonly performed on enslaved Black women. Physicians like the once-heralded J. Marion Sims, an Alabama doctor many call the “father of gynecology,” performed torturous surgical experiments on enslaved Black women in the 1840s without anesthesia. And well after the abolition of slavery, hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on Black women, and eugenics programs sterilized them.”

If you think Black characters are not in pain, or that they’re overexaggerating, you’re more likely to be okay with them suffering more in comparison to those whose pain you take more seriously- to those you believe.

What’s My Point?

My point is that whatever terrifying scene you think you’re writing, whatever violent whump scenario you think you’re about to put your Black characters through, there’s a chance it has probably happened and was treated as nonimportant (damn shame, right?) And when those terrifying scenes are both written and read, the way their suffering will be felt depends on how much you as a reader care, how much you believe they are suffering.

There’s a joke amongst readers of color that many dystopian tales are tales of “what happened if white people experienced things that the rest of us have already been put through?” Think concepts like alien invasion and mass eradication of the existing population- you may think of that as an action flick, meanwhile peoples globally have suffered colonization for centuries. The Handmaid’s Tale- forced birthing and raising of “someone else’s” children, always subject to sexual harassment by the Master while subject to hate from the Mistress- that’s just being a Mammy.

There’s nothing wrong with having Black characters be violent or deal with violence, especially in a story where every character is going through shit. That is not the problem! What I am trying to tell you, though, is to be aware that certain violent imagery is going to evoke familiarity in Black viewers. And if I as a Black viewer see my very real traumas treated as entertainment fodder- or worse, dismissed- by the narrative and other viewers, I will probably not want to consume that piece of media anymore. I will also question the intentions and the beliefs of the people who treat said traumas so callously. Now, if that’s not something you care about, that’s on you! But for people who do care, it is something we need to make sure we are catching before we do it.

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

Stop that. There are plenty of examples of stories containing horror and violence with Black characters. There’s an entire genre of us telling our own stories, using the same violence as symbolism. I’m not telling you “no” (least not always). I’m telling you to take some consideration when you write the things that you do. There’s nothing wrong about writing your Black characters being violent or experiencing violence. But there is a difference between making it narratively relevant, and thoughtlessly using them as a “spook”, a stereotypical scary Black person, or a punching bag, especially in a way that may invoke certain trauma.

The Black Guy Dies First

The joke is that we never survive these horror movies because we either wouldn’t be there to begin with, or because we would make better decisions and the narrative can’t have that. But the reality is just that a lot of writers find Black characters- Black people- expendable in comparison to their white counterparts, and it shows. More of a “here, damn” sort of character, not worth investment and easy to shrug off. The book itself I haven’t read, just because it’s pretty new, but I’m looking forward to doing so. But from the summaries, it goes into horror media history and how Black characters have fared in these stories, as well as how that connects to the society those characters were written in. I.e., a thorough version of this lesson.

Instead, I wrote an entire list of questions you could possibly ask yourself involving violence or villainy involving a Black character. Feel free to print it and put it on your wall where you write if you have to! I cannot stress enough that asking yourself questions like these are good both for your creation and just… being less antiblack in general when you consume media.

Black Horror/Black Thriller

We, too, have turned our violent experiences into stories. I continue to highly suggest watching our films and reading our stories to see how we convey our fear, our terror, our violence and our pain. There are plenty of stories that work- Get Out, The Angry Black Girl and her Monster, Candyman, Lovecraft Country (the show) and Nanny are some examples. There’s even a blog by the co-writer of The Black Guy Dies First who runs BlackHorrorMovies where he reviews horror movies from throughout the decades.

Desiree Evans has a great essay, We Need Black Horror More Than Ever, that gets into why this genre is so creative and effective, that I think says what I have to say better than I could.

“Even before Peele, Black horror had a rich literary lineage going back to the folklore of Africa and its Diaspora. Stories of haints, witches, curses, and magic of all kinds can be found in the folktales collected by author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston and in the folktales retold by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Hamilton. One of my earliest childhood literary memories is being entranced by Hamilton’s The House of Dies Drear and Patricia McKissack’s children’s book classic The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural, both examples of the ways Black authors have tapped into Black history along with our rich ghostlore.” “Black horror can be clever and subversive, allowing Black writers to move against racist tropes, to reconfigure who stands at the center of a story, and to shift the focus from the dominant narrative to that which is hidden, submerged. To ask: what happens when the group that was Othered, gets to tell their side of the story?”

For on the nose simplicity, I’m going to use hood classic Tales From The Hood (1994) as an example of how violence can be integrated into Black horror tales. Tales From The Hood is like… The Twilight Zone by Black people. Messages discussing issues in our community, done through a mystical twist. Free on Tubi! If you want to stop here before some spoilers, it’s an hour and a half. A great time!

In the first story, a Black political activist is murdered by the cops. The scene is reflective of the real-world efforts to discredit and even murder activists speaking out against police violence, as well as the types of things done to criminalize Black citizens for capture. The song Strange Fruit plays in the background, to drive the point home that this is a lynching.

The second story deals with a Black little boy experiencing abuse in the home, drawing a green monster to show his teacher why he’s covered in wounds and is lashing out at school.

The fourth story is about a gangbanger who undergoes “behavioral modification” to be released from prison early. Think of the classic scene from A Clockwork Orange. He must watch as imagery of the Klan and of happy whites lynching Black bodies (real-life pictures and video, mind you!) play into his mind alongside gang violence.

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

That last story from Tales From The Hood leads into a good point. It can be! But it does not have to be! Violence is a human experience. By suggesting we don’t experience it or commit it, you would be denying everything I’ve just spoken about. We don’t have to be racist to write our Black characters in violent situations. We also don’t have to comprehend those situations through a racist lens.

Even experiences that seem “stereotypical” do not have to be comprehended that way. I get a LOT of questions about if something is stereotypical, and my response is always that it depends on the writing!!! You could give me a harmless prompt and it becomes the most racist story ever once you leave my inbox. But you could give me a “stereotypical” prompt and it be genuine writing.

Let’s take the movie Juice for example. Juice in my honest to God opinion becomes a thriller about halfway in. On its surface, Juice looks like bad Black boys shooting and cursing and doing things they aren’t supposed to be doing! Incredibly stereotypical- violent young thugs. You might think, “you shouldn’t write something like this- you’re telling everyone this is what your community is like”. First- there’s that respectability politics again! Just because something is not a “respectable” story does not mean it doesn’t need to be told!

But if we’re actually paying attention, what we’re looking at is four young boys dealing with their environment in different ways. All four of them originally stick together to feel power amongst their brotherhood as they all act tough and discover their own identities. They are not perfect, but they are still kids. In this environment, to be tough, to be strong, you do the things that they are doing. You run from cops, you steal from stores, you mess with all the girls and talk shit and wave weapons. That’s what makes you “big”. That’s what gives you the “juice”- and the “juice” can make you untouchable.

I want to focus particularly on Bishop, yes, played by Tupac. Bishop, the antagonist of Juice, is particularly powerless, angry, and scared of the world around him. He puts on a big front of bravado, yelling, cursing, and talking big because he’s tired of being afraid, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it otherwise. So when he gets access to a gun- to power- he quickly spirals out of control. His response to his fear is to wave around a tool that makes him feel stronger, that stops the things that scare him from scaring him.

Now, that is not a unique tale! That is a tale that any race could write about, particularly young white men with gun violence! If you ever cared for Fairuza Balk’s character in The Craft, it is a similar fall from grace. But because it is on a young, Black man in the hood, audiences are less likely to empathize with Bishop. And granted, Bishop is unhinged! But many a white character has been, and is not shoved into a stereotype that white people cannot escape from!

Now would I be comfortable if a nonblack person attempted to write a narrative like Juice? Yes, because I’d worry about the tendency to lose the messaging and just fall into stereotype outright. But it can be done! The story can be told!

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

“In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds, and in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

First, rap is not “only violence and misogyny”. Step your understanding of the genre up; there are plenty of options outside of the mainstream that don’t discuss those things. Second, every genre of music has mainstream popular songs about vice and sin. The idea that Black rappers have to be held to a higher standard is yet another example of how we are seen as inherently bad and must prove ourselves good. We could speak about nothing but drugs and alcohol and 1) there would still be white artists who do the very same and 2) we would still deserve to be treated like humans.

That said, many- not all- rappers rap about violence for the same reason Billy Joel wrote We Didn’t Start the Fire, the same reason Homer first spoke The Iliad- because they have something to say about it! They stand in a long tradition of people using poetry and rhythm to tell stories. Rap is an art of storytelling!

Rap is often used as an expression of frustration and righteous anger against a system built to keep us trapped within it. I’m not allowed to be angry? Why wouldn’t I be angry? Anger is a protective emotion, often when one feels helpless. Young Black people also began to reclaim and glorify the violence they lived in within their music, to take pride in their survival and in their success in a world that otherwise wanted them to fail. If I think the world fights against me no matter what I do, I’d rather live in pride than in shame with a bent head. Is it right? Maybe, maybe not. But if you don’t want them to rap about violence, why not alleviate the things leading to the violence in their environment?

Whether you choose to listen to their words, because the delivery scares you- and trust, angry Black men scared the music industry and society- doesn’t make the story any less valid!

Conclusion

I am going to drop a classic by Slick Rick called Children’s Story. I think listening to it- and I mean genuinely listening- summarizes what I’ve said here about how Black creators can tell stories, even violent ones, and how even the delivery through Blackness can change how you perceive them. Please take the time to listen before continuing.

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I’ve been alive for 28 years and have known this song my whole life, and it just hit me tonight: not once is the kid in this story identified as Black! My perception of this story was completely altered by my own experiences, who told the story, and how it was told.

That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You can tell stories of violence that involve Black characters. I love and adore a good hurt/comfort myself! But you need to be cognizant of your audience and how they’ll perceive the story you’re telling, and that includes the types of imagery you include. It’s not effective catharsis via hurt/comfort for the audience if your Black readers are being completely left out of the comfort. “I wrote this for myself” that’s cool, but… if you wrote racism for yourself, and you’re willing to admit that to yourself, that’s on you. I’d like to think that’s not your intention! You can write these stories of woe and pain without mistreating your Black characters- but that requires knowing and acknowledging when and how you’re doing that!

@afropiscesism makes a solid point in this post: our horror stories are not just fairytales full of amorphous boogiemen meant to teach lessons. Racial violence is very real, very alive, and we cannot act like the things we write can be dismissed outright as “oh well it’s not real”. Sure, those characters aren’t real. But the way you feel about Black bodies and violence is, and often it can slip into your writing as a pattern without you even realizing it. Be willing to get uncomfortable and check yourself on this as you write, as well as noticing it in other works!

If you’re constantly thinking “I would never do this”, you’ll never stop yourself when you inevitably do! If you know what violent imagery can be evoked, you can utilize it or avoid it altogether- but only if you’re willing to get honest about it. You might not intend to do any of this, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t change the pattern, because as always, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

#creatingblackcharacters #long post #writing #writing black characters #black character design #black history #media history

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the-bi-library · 7 months ago

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As bisexual visibility month approaches us, I wanted to highlight a few bi books we don't see people talking about much and give people some recs for bi books to read!

Books listed:

Fall Into You by Georgina Kiersten

Splinter by Jasper Hyde

Spring on the Peninsula by Ery Shin

When Tara Met Farah by Tara Pammi

Forever Is Now by Mariama J. Lockington

More to Love by Georgina Kiersten

When the Stars Alight by Camilla Andrew

Lulu Sinagtala and the City of Noble Warriors by Gail D. Villanueva

No Two Ways by Chi Yu

Exposing Lesser Demons by K.N. Robertson

Wolfpack by Rem Wigmore

A Dance of Water and Air by Antonia Aquilante

Hugged by Verity Ritchie

Where Willows Weep by Luna Fiore

Fake it by Lily Seabrooke

Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo

Beyond Repair by Catherine Stein

Baptism of Fire by Jessie Thomas

Poisoned Primrose by Dahlia Donovan

Birthright by M.A. Vice

A Masc for Purim by Roz Alexander

Your Driver is Waiting by Priya Guns

Errant by L.K. Fleet

Loser of the Year by Carrie Byrd

Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood

Monstersona by Chloe Spencer

Scoring a Spouse by Liz Lincoln

Tengoku by Rae D. Magdon

Leaving's Not the Only Way to Go by Kay Acker

Speech and Debacles by Heather DiAngelis

Things I'll Never Say by Cassandra Newbould

Chameleon Moon by RoAnna Sylver

Allure by CEON

To Beg or Not to Beg by Cat Giraldo

Shadows Dark and Deadly by Andrea Marie Johnson

Ride with Me by Jenna Jarvis

Dearly Departed by Heather Novak

Swift and Sudden Exit by Nico Vincenty

Wishing on Winter by Brenna Bailey

Crystrals and Contracts by A. A. Fairview

Tomb of Heart and Shadow by Cara N. Delaney

False Hearts and Broken Frets by Elle Bennett

The Blood Born Dragon by J. C. Rycroft

An Act of Devotion by A. M. Leibowitz

Biting down by Torrance Sené

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partisan-by-default · 27 days ago

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(Dominic Byrd-McDevitt on LinkedIn)

On Friday night, the president officially fired the Archivist of the United States, as he had promised to do before taking office. So, hi there! 👋 Former National Archives employee here. The quality of the reporting on this has been disappointing to say the least, with only the most basic understanding of what the National Archives does. This is bigger than a little spat with a small agency.

Yes, the National Archives holds billions of pages of government records—essential for research, journalism, and government transparency—making it a crucial part of how citizens hold their government accountable, and also a key steward of our nation’s historical narratives. But, even beyond that, the functions of the National Archives and the Archivist of the United States are far more significant than most citizens realize. If you are wondering about what this could mean for our democracy, here is a short list of other things you should know about NARA and the AOTUS:

The Archivist of the United States is responsible for administering the Electoral College process. They are provide the official instruction to the states on how to carry out their Electoral College voting and transmit their electors’ votes, and also for receiving and validating the certificates before public viewing and permanent preservation.[1]

The National Archives is responsible for the publication of the Code of Federal Regulations, which is the official document that codifies all regulations of federal agencies, as well as the Federal Register, which is where the government gives notice of presidential actions, public meetings, and any proposed changes federal regulations before their required public comment period.

The National Archives is responsible for administering the Constitutional amendment process. The Archivist would receive any proposed amendment from Congress and transmit it to the states with instructions. They then receive and authenticate any ratification documents from the states. When sufficient states ratify, the Archivist is the one that formally certifies that the Constitution has been amended, with an official proclamation.[2]

As the National Archives states in all of its rulemaking postings, “Agencies may not destroy Federal records without the approval of the Archivist of the United States.” The National archives maintains records schedules, mandatory rules for agencies about how to retain records, and can determine which records are temporary (not permanently preserved). When these are violated, NARA can investigate and conduct oversight.[3]

The National Archives houses the National Personnel Records Center for the federal government. This is where all the personnel files of all federal employees are transferred after they separate from the government. Agencies have been charged with making lists of employees engaged in certain jobs for the White House, but it is worth noting any federal worker who ever left the government before now also has a file at the NPRC.

The National Archives has important roles in the classification process, including housing the Information Security Oversight Office and the National Declassification Center. In addition, the National Archives receives classified documents from the government for retention, as was widely reported during the president’s related criminal indictment. ISOO is the office that, by law, must be notified by anyone who encounters mishandled classified documents.[4]

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ensures that citizens have the ability to hold the government accountable by establishing a right to access public records. It is a crucial tool for journalists. National Archives’ Office of Government Information Services is the ombudsman for federal FOIA program, receiving public complaints about violations of the law and producing compliance reports on agencies.[5]

Do you know of anyone who wants to interfere with the Electoral College vote, wipe out government regulations, change the Constitution, destroy or illegally retain government records, etc.?

So far, with everything else going on, this has hardly registered in the top news stories. It is important to know that none of this is normal. No Archivist of the United States has ever been fired by a president, in almost 100 years since the position was created, making Shogan—the first woman in the office—the shortest serving AOTUS. This is an apolitical position, even when the officeholder was appointed by the previous president. The statute regarding the office of the Archivist of the United States (44 USC § 2103) reads: "The Archivist shall be appointed without regard to political affiliations and solely on the basis of the professional qualifications required to perform the duties and responsibilities of the office of Archivist."[6]

Regardless of your politics, failing to defend the independence National Archives and its staff right now—and allowing it to be gutted or turn political—could be disastrous for the future of democracy.

Notes

[1] Here is the letter sent by Shogan after before 2024 election to state officials: https://www.archives.gov/files/electoral-college/state-officials/example-archivist-letter.pdf

[2] Here is the Archivist’s proclamation of the 27th Amendment: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/1512313

[3] For example, here is the letter sent when, in the Obama administration, the IRS was scrutinized for targeting conservatives and emails were deleted. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/6-17-2014-NARA-to-Bennett.pdf The Archivist provided testimony to Congress in the matter. https://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/irs-lost-emails-archivist-108242

[4] In response to high-profile cases of government officials retaining classified documents, ISOO published a notice in 2023 with guidance on identifying and handling classified materials. https://www.archives.gov/files/isoo/notices/cogc-isoo-notice-final-06-21-2023.pdf

[5] See https://www.archives.gov/ogis/mediation-program/request-assistance & https://www.archives.gov/ogis/foia-compliance-program

[6] It also states regarding removal from office: "The President shall communicate the reasons for any such removal to each House of the Congress." Which does not appear to have happened yet, or has not yet been reported in any news reports. 44 USC 2103

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byrdsfly · 5 months ago

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@groovy-rat-man I know exactly how you feel

Do you guys wanna see a cursed food item I found at the glorious American discount supermarket store

#byrd says things #ive had this for months #and im am geuinely afraid

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rebouks · 8 months ago

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Byrd: Don’t you think mom n’ dad have been a bit weird recently? Wren: It’s probably just ‘cause grandma’s sick. Byrd: Do you think she’ll die? Wren: She said she’ll be fine. Byrd: I think she’s just saying that, don’t you? Wren: [scoffs] How am I supposed to know?! Byrd: If I were a doctor, I could fix her. Wren: You’re too stupid to be a doctor. Byrd: Hey! [Wren cackled, shoving Byrd for good measure] Byrd: I know you’re just messing with me, but what if you’re right? Wren: Oh my god, Byrd.. I don’t know the meaning of the whole world, stop asking so many questions. Byrd: Still, wasn’t very nice… Wren: [sighs] Sorry, Birdie. Byrd: What do you wanna be when you grow up? Wren: I don’t know, who cares. Byrd: Ugh, you’re no fun-.. what about you? Ava: Ummmm, I wanna be a boss. Byrd: [laughs] The boss of what? Ava: Dunno-.. stuff? Or a tree. Wren: You wanna be the boss of a tree? Ava: No, I wanna be the tree. Wren: You can’t be a tree, thick-o. Byrd: Don’t listen to her, you can be anything you want! Wren: She can’t. Byrd: Well, that’s what mom always says. Wren: Yeah, but not literally-.. bird brain. Ava: Don’t call him that! Wren: Ow-.. bitch, don’t kick me! Ava: [gasp] MAMA!! Wren: Ava kicked me again! Ava: Wren said a naughty word-.. and called Byrd a bird brain. Courtney: Well.. neither of those things are nice, are they? You know what to do. Wren: But-… Courtney: Really? Wren: [huffs] Fine. Courtney: You too. Ava: Nnnng-.. you’re so POOPY! Courtney: Congrats on the double time-out, honey. Robin: Days without inciden-.. Wren: ZERO days since you sprouted a new zit. Robin: Y’know-.. just you wait.

#ts4 #sims 4 #simblr #ts4 story #sims story #forever in between #fib #courtney finch #robin finch #wren finch #byrd finch #ava finch #ten million years later.. the penny drops for byrd like hmmm smth is up #😂#and ofc what started as an earnest conversation just devolves into chaos and time-outs #wren is pretty much on the time-out stool every day for some reason or other lmao #ksjdksj

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gardenschedule · 1 year ago

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Beatles defending each other ❤️

In 1965 [the Byrds] toured England and Paul invited us to his club, the Scotch of St James’s [sic]. He sent a limo to pick us up. He said he had been listening to our music. We were blown away. He took us for a ride through London in his Aston Martin, at great speed. He was really hip, he and John were so tight it was like one person at times. Unlike the Byrds, [where] Crosby would just leave you out to dry, the Beatles all defended each other to the hilt. If you criticised, say, George then they would all respond.

Roger McGuinn, in Paul McCartney: Now & Then, Tony Barrow and Robin Bextor

“They’re four very different people who together form a unit that is virtually impregnable. If, for instance, someone should find fault with anything one of them has done, the others rush to his defence. They close their ranks. They’re very close indeed. A lot closer than people think.”

George Martin, Disc and Music Echo (1967)

And actually, we’ve got the image of him all these years about criticising Paul – yeah, he did, but it’s like [when] you criticise your wife. “I can criticise her, but you can’t.” I was there once when some guy was saying that he didn’t think ‘Let It Be’ was such a great record, and he thought John would agree, and he didn’t.

November 10th, 2009: Journalist Ray Connolly

Q: How did Paul react [to “How Do You Sleep”]?

John: I don’t know because I never saw him, but I think he made a comment last year which was pretty spot-on which was ‘whatever I’m saying about him is my problem, or vice versa.’ The only regret I have about it is that it should never have been about Paul because everybody’s so bothered with who’s it about that they missed the track. That’s what bugged me. I’m entitled to call him what I want to, and vice versa. It’s in our family, but if somebody else calls him names I won’t take it. It’s our own business. And anyway, it’s like Dylan said about his stuff when he looked back on it, it was all about him.

Patrick Synder-Scrumpy with Jack Breschard, “Sometime in L.A., Lennon Plays It as It Lays.” Crawdaddy [March 1974]

"When John did 'How Do You Sleep?' I didn't want to get into a slinging match. Part of it was cowardice. John was a great wit, and I didn't want to go fencing with the rapier champion of East Cheam-- But it meant that I had to take shit--It meant that I had to take lines like 'All you ever did was Yesterday.' I always find myself wanting to excuse John's behavior, just because I loved him. It's like a child, sure he was a naughty child, but don't you call my child naughty. Even if it's me he's shitting on, don't you call him naughty. That's how I felt about this and still do. I don't have a grudge whatsoever against John. I think he knew exactly what he was doing, and, because we had been so intimate, he knew what would hurt me and used it to great effect. I thought, 'Keep your head down and time will tell,' and it did because in the 'Imagine' film (Imagine John Lennon, documentary), he says it was really all about himself."

Barry Miles, Many Years From Now, 1997

“Well the deal was, he could say that, but if you said that, if anybody said anything bad about Paul, John’d take a swing at you. He’d say “you can’t talk about Paul like that”, Paul was his best buddy. If you were talking to Paul and you said something derogatory about John, he’d get up and leave. Paul was more of a peaceful guy, but John had that hot head, and he’d say “you wanna talk about Paul? Let’s go”. You weren’t allowed to say anything bad about John or Paul to each one of them because they would defend each other to the nth degree, which I liked, because you could tell they were attached at the hip.

Alice Cooper Live and Uncut on the Kim Mitchell Show

You know, John loved Paul. No doubt about it. I remember once he said to me, “I’m the only person who’s allowed to say things like that about Paul. I don’t like it when other people do.” He didn’t like if other people said nasty things about Paul. And he always referred to Paul as his estranged fiancé and things like that, like he did on that [live] record ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ with Elton in Madison Square Garden. And he knew that his relationship with Paul was very important to him. But you know, like all great friendships, they’d grown apart and married different people and had different lives. He knew what he didn’t like about Paul, but he also knew what he liked about Paul.

1990: Former Beatles publicist Tony King

George didn’t mind slagging Paul off. But he HATED other people doing it.

Tom Petty

When I talk about George, sometimes I feel like I’m making him sound too much like he was a saint. By no means was the man a saint! Over the years with him and John, they could both be really brutal with Paul. I learned very early on that I couldn’t join them. They both on different occasions said, “We can say that, but you shouldn’t.” They were truly brothers who loved taking the piss out of each other, but they didn’t want anybody else doing it.

Jim Keltner on George Harrison

I felt protective of George. He was a long way from home and seemed to miss the attention of his family. The other boys were more grown up and so were a little less concerned with all that. I know, for example, that he always looked up to John, and probably even Stu, as big-brother figures. And conversely, it was sometimes difficult for them not to see George as something of a pain for being so young. Still, in their own way, they loved him. We all did. Even when things were pretty rough they all stuck together. They often argued amongst themselves, but just let an outsider have a go at one of them and the sparks would fly. At first they were close out of necessity; later it was out of love.”

Astrid Kirchherr

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #mclennon

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byrdsfly · 5 months ago

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Not gonna lie, I thought this was a Minion at first

Hey, Picasso, I like it

#minion jumpscare #byrd says things

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howlsofbloodhounds · 2 months ago

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Is there any version of Nightmare across the fandom that you like? Or ones that you think are interesting? [Im a nightmare fan :D. But mostly, particular fanon Nightmare versions. i have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the original Nightmare.]

I don’t care enough about nightmare or most fanon depictions to seek out content of him, but I do like signanothername’s version, as well as the Creature (i forgot what the users name was, the one where nm is very small and treats the gang like pets or toys, is kinda childish).

There’s also byrd’s version, can’t remember the username rn but from the little I have read about, that version is very interesting.

But tbh gang I prefer more canonish depictions of nightmare because fanon just isn’t interesting to me and feels very sanitized most of the time. Most people want him to just be misunderstood and that’s it, but this often comes at the cost of making him “good actually and everyone else is wrong” or “Dream was secretly bad or just mislead and naive” or just plain boring to me.

Not to mention I feel it again overlooks and ignores an opportunity to address or portray things like labor trafficking/modern day slavery, abuse, trauma, etc, because it feels like the fandom just wants everyone to like everyone and get along always and forever and everyone can be redeemed. Which is fine of course, just not for me.

Same way people think people going through the same types of abuse will all become codependent and empathic and love eachother and understand eachother so much even though the environment they’re in actively doesn’t foster that environment and it feels like another trope of the “perfect victim” where everyone is all so empathic and kind and understanding and they all hate their abuser together and trust eachother and will never harm or hurt eachother ever.

Even when their environment does not allow or foster that. Everyone just reacting and responding the exact same way to the same trauma and abuse and horror just feels very unrealistic and boring ig im tryna say as I go completely off topic.

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byrdsfly · 2 years ago

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(After giving the proper result description)

But something else catches your eye. It's hazy; hard to make out as it seems to blur into the background. A face, looking at you, not just one but many, but one stands out. It's staring more intently, more thoughtfully, as if considering the very depths of your soul. The face appears... (describe the character's player)

On a critical success at a perception check?

YOU SEE

A L L

#byrd says things #i started doing this #when the rogue broke into the 30's #with his perception nat 20's

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scapegoated-if · 2 months ago

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How did the band come up with the name “Voyeurs” and why did they choose it? Would the name itself have been controversial in-game at that time, due to the sexual connotation?

This also comes up in the story but I will spoil it because it’s not majorly significant in the grand scheme of things. There will be a scene that explains all of this again, so read at your own discretion.

In the group, their initial idea as a band was ‘The Spectators’, which I got from a 1970 Jim Morrison interview where he said something along the lines of ‘a spectator is the most dangerous thing you can be’—I will reblog this with the specific quote and interview when I get home later (I have spare time on my hands so I’m replying to this at work).

Léon, however, suggests the name ‘The Spectators’ in reference to Oscar Wilde’s Preface from The Picture of Dorian Gray:

‘All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.’

Léon also sees “spectating” as the act of baring witness to the world around him at the time and writing what he’s baring witness to, more so than having anything to openly say about it. He doesn’t see himself as a writer but a vessel.

I imagine Vince thinks it’s too pretentious and, although Léon doesn’t agree with this sentiment, he does agree that the name in particular isn’t right for the band because it’s too on the nose.

Shiloh then suggests ‘The Voyeurs’ as a synonym, without knowing that the actual sadistic meaning refers to sexual voyeurism as well as in a sense enjoying pain inflicted upon others.

Vince would shut it down, interpreting the former. Leon would be open to it in the context of the latter—he would elaborate that he is specifically referring to watching those who suffer at the hands of progression and transgression from capitalism and the discriminatory systems currently in place at the time.

Eventually MC would decide to remove ‘The’ altogether from the name because there are many examples already of groups that have ‘The’ in their names: The Beatles; The Rolling Stones; The Velvet Underground; The Lovin’ Spoonful; The Byrds; The Who; The Doors; and etc, but I could go on.

I have the scene written down for the sake of myself contextually (it was one of the first pieces of writing I did for Scapegoated to grasp a sense of the dynamic between the band), but I’ll share it with you guys at a later time because I want to include space for coding so your MC can decide where she stands in this discussion.

The name is received negatively for a while by others and has a lot of discourse around it. Many record labels receive it negatively in the fear of a lack of marketability. But your label is open to it and loves it for the discourse it can create and the image of your band as very much so a product of your “angry” and “subversive” generation. At the time your band takes this well, especially because it’s a very famous and successful label (evidently), but bad publicity isn’t always good publicity…

I offered a different name to my best friend when I was planning Scapegoated: ‘Pitstop’. It would have been a literal reference to the QE2 and the fact you met Léon on a pit stop along the ship’s schedule. But I didn’t feel that it had the same impact if the MC was from France because you would both be getting on the QE2 at the same time, rather than experiencing the journey without Leon for a day, and then picking him up at the South of France terminal where it massively turns around what the trip is like for you. On the other hand, metaphorically it was meant to be allusive to the fact your group are passing by—you’re dropping an album and then disappearing, which felt too on the nose on my part in terms of the hiatus. The band wouldn’t know they’re going on hiatus when they start it, otherwise it’s like what’s the point in the first place?

Also, I associated the name ‘Pitstop’ as less ‘70s and more ‘00s heavy metal for some reason—maybe I’m subconsciously rhyming it with ‘Slipknot’ or something.

Sorry for how long this has become! A lot to unpack!

Stay groovy!

#inbox #general

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tavolgisvist · 2 months ago

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When I interviewed Derek Taylor he was in semi-retirement. Being off the drink he wouldn’t meet in a pub, suggesting instead a cafe near my office and close to Brian Epstein’s old London HQ, by the London Palladium. Just across Regent Street was the Savile Row building where Apple used to be.

Within the record business he was still revered by PRs and journalists who’d watched him operate in his heyday. ‘There’s a man I have a lot of admiration for,’ one told me. ‘He was a man of manners. He had great style. And when you didn’t get anything from him, he made you come away feeling you’d been royally entertained.’ Another said: ‘If I’ve ever modelled my approach on anyone, it was him. It just struck me that he had this incredibly civilised attitude to the whole thing.’

Raised in the Wirral, Taylor left the Manchester showbiz desk of the Daily Express in 1964 to be Brian Epstein’s assistant - he’d just helped Brian write his autobiography A Cellarful of Noise - and then became the Beatles’ public relations man. ‘My inclination was always as an enthusiast rather than a relentless hunter down of evil men, which is why I crossed over from writing about the Beatles to writing for the Beatles.’ Friendship with Lennon was cemented one drunken night in Pans: ‘Are you pretending to be from Liverpool or something?’ John demanded. But he could be won over, Taylor recalled, ‘once you had proven you weren’t from Manchester and therefore useless’.

Derek looked after Epstein’s public relations in the media frenzy over Merseybeat, which had no precedent in Britain. ‘I remember going to get hold of Cilia Black at a hairdresser’s in Liverpool - because if you got to Number 1 you went and had your hair done. It was a more innocent age. The joke of getting your parents a house in the country had been laid out in the 50s: the paradox was that whereas pop stars were seen as very vulgar and crude people, they were in fact very sentimental people who bought their parents homes.’

Within a year he was restless, however, and after a minor tiff with Brian he moved with his wife Joan to Los Angeles. Here his first PR clients were the Byrds, another brilliant group who were transforming the sound of pop. When they toured England, Brian took them to a West Country gig by train, so that they could re-create the scenes in A Hard Day’s Night. In America, Taylor’s gentle whimsy and optimistic world-view made him an ideal mouthpiece for the Love Generation, and in 1967 he helped set up the first great hippy event, Monterey: ‘Doing the Monterey Festival was easy. I was never afraid of looking a prat. I sent out a very fancy press release: “Through a gold Californian sky, a festival of great delight and magic . . .” It was part GCE poetry, part journalese and part marijuana, and it was saying this is not an ordinary thing we’re doing . . . We were not trained PR men. I wasn’t that smooth. I was honest. The Beatles got us pretty well trained to be straight, to be yourself, and that got me by a lot.’

Droll and charming, Taylor acquired a glittering reputation for hip eloquence. He’d need these qualities more than ever when he was recalled to London to become the Beatles’ PR again. During their troubled and final years, he was the spokesman for their idealistic but chaotic Apple adventure. ‘That was the biggest test,’ he told me. That was a hard and unhappy time, a lot of the time. The press had turned against the Beatles, and the Beatles turned against Apple. I never lost faith. I still believed in an Apple that was there to fulfil at least some of the promises, to give people a cup of tea if they came in, or a few quid. At the same time we were all having a couple of drinks during the day… And what we were trying to do was to save the world. This had gone beyond PR, this had gone to another phase. In my case it was entirely political: we had lots of money and other people had bugger-all, so Apple seemed to me like a wonderful idea.’ Was money wasted? ‘Well, what is money wasted? It depends on what you think money is for. I’ve always felt that it was for spreading about.’

Newsreels show Derek, bravely defending John and Yoko in the media circus of their bed-in for peace. Back at Savile Row, his hospitality was legendary. He became an alcoholic in the process. ‘So, what with the Beatles falling out, the money running out, my administrative skill being limited, my generosity with their money being unlimited, confusion ensued. Downstairs you had John and Yoko running a peace campaign on a grand scale; Paul was wondering how he’d got into this madness in the first place; George was only interested in spiritual matters; and Ringo was quite indifferent to the whole thing, really. There was a lack of direction, to put it mildly. In Liverpool they were asking, What has happened to our boys? Liverpool has the capacity to absorb all sorts of craziness, from Derek Hatton to Bill Shankly. It’s a place which is never short of extremes. But the Beatles even had Liverpool baffled: “They’re goin’ round in fuckin’ dresses now!” ’

When the Beatles split, Derek stayed on for another year: ‘I didn’t accept the break-up. I’d say: The break-up is temporary. The Beatles will never break up. And they haven’t. They can never be ex-Beatles.’

Then he took a job at Warner Brothers, eventually becoming its UK boss. His philosophy was unchanged: ‘It was always trying to show people a good time, that was the thing. And that meant lunching, parties, receptions, meeting them at the airport with enormous limousines and people with flowers. In Liverpool I’d see that they stayed in the Adelphi and not some modem place.’

He’d greet the visiting US acts at Heathrow and drive them into town via Windsor - a big detour, but Taylor always took the qualitative view of life, not the quantitative.

When he spoke about the Beatles it was never the statistics of chart success that excited him, but the magical essence he detected at the group’s very core: ‘I never saw the charts as being the real measurement of value. Real value doesn’t necessarily end up in the singles charts.’

He kicked the drink in 1975 and as a Warners executive sponsored several Liverpool acts, especially George Melly, but also Liverpool Express and Deaf School. (When he tried to sign the Sex Pistols from EMI in 1977 he was overruled.) By 1978 he was ready for retirement in East Anglia: ‘I began to dread people coming in and saying, “D’you wanna hear the guy’s new album?” Because I didn’t. I wanted to hear George Formby.’

His last project for Warners was overseeing the clever Beatle parody the Rutles. ‘After that I realised that was more or less it: I’d done the Beatles at the beginning and the Rutles at the end. Out!’

But that was not the end: by 1995 he was back at Apple, hard at work on the Anthology CDs, films and book. I’d visit him there, in the company’s smart new place in K. - no longer dispensing unlimited hospitality, but still the in-house wit and sage, perched above the fray like some benevolent owl.

As a publicist he was a cut above the average spin doctor; he had the sense to know that the spinner is not the ball. ‘Anyone can do it,’ he said of PR. ‘There’s no mystery to any of this. On the other hand, what I love about soccer, or tap-dancing, is that there’s no deception there. I’d watch John Barnes on TV, taking those corners, and say to my wife as a joke, “He’s bullshitting, it’s trickery.” Because it so obviously isn’t. It’s all so wonderfully honest . . . Artists are reachable, and so deeply human and insecure, that if you can slot into that - the fact that we’re all little children, weak, we’re all in this struggle to get by as best we can - then you can become a publicist and you can become their friend.’

Derek Taylor died in 1997, leaving the magnificent Anthology book as a memorial. ‘If you want to think I’m a bit of a Charlie,’ he once told me, ‘I still believe that we come back, and that your body is just like a coat and hat that you take off, and you’re still here even if you’re dead.’ On the dangers of fame, he wrote: ‘I would guess that there is no combination of weapons more dynamic than a strong childhood within the closeness of Liverpool, a sense of humour and a belief in a power higher than ourselves.’

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI), (XII), (XIII), (XIV), (XV), (XVI), (XVII), (XVIII), (XIX), (XX), (XXI), (XXII)

#paul du noyer #derek taylor

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