#children of Alexander the Great

[jeannereames]

So I know you were the historical consultant for the Netflix "Alexander: Making of a God." I just read a post that said this, and wondered if you can comment on it?

"Btw, not the documentary commented by professors in history and archeaology, saying Stateira, wife of Darius III, died giving birth to Alexander's son (and that Alexander rubbed it in Darius' face) because Plutarch - who was born 369 years after Alexander's death - said so. Other sources invalidate this theory (like the age of the child, being 4 to 7 years old when Stateira died, meaning he was already born when Alexander first met her). And other sources say Alexander only met her once, when he took Darius' camp and that was it.

However her daughter Strateira II (who might have been Barsine or her sister) did marry him but had no children with him.

He had 1 known son from Roxana, that's all. That's in part why his empire was so easily taken apart by his diadochi.

So I don't know why, except for drama) they went for that version nor why the professor corroborate it when it's the least likely."

Yes, this quoted bit suffers from some mix-ups. I’ve not seen the full post, although I have read a few others with similar misunderstandings. Most of these seem to arise from reading (bad) online potted entries about Statiera and/or Alexander. At least go for Heckel’s Who’s Who in the Age of Alexander the Great or The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Anyway, apologies if the below sounds overly critical. It’s obviously not personal. I’m just cutting through the confusion.

We’re told about Statiera’s death only by Plutarch, Justin, and Curtius, and all probably owe to the lost source Kleitarchos. Even if Plutarch isn’t (technically) part of the vulgate while Diodoros is (who doesn’t mention it), Plutarch still used some of the same sources. (Diodoros no doubt left it out as part of his typical telescoping.) Yet all three disagree on the cause of her death, even if they do agree it wasn’t long before Gaugamela and Alexander gave her a sumptuous funeral. But the timing means, if she were pregnant, it couldn’t have been Darius’s child. I’ve discussed Statiera’s possible pregnancy before, so won’t again here, but it boils down to: if not Darius, it had to be Alexander. He wouldn’t have let anybody else touch the Queen of Persia.

In any case, ALL our surviving sources are late. The OP doesn’t seem aware the other source alluded to (Curtius) dates to the same period as Plutarch: late Julio-Claudians/early Flavians.* I checked Wikipedia, which gives a date for Plutarch’s birth (46 CE); I assume that’s where the OP got it, as it lines up with their estimate of “369.” But we don’t know his birth year except during the reign of Claudius after the acquisition of Britain and that he died early in Hadrian’s reign (see Lamberton 2001, 1). Anyway, Curtius probably lived a little before him, and Justin somewhat after.

Ergo, none of these sources are any closer to Alexander’s day, and trying to say one is less reliable than the other based on their dating only underscores the OP’s unfamiliarity with them.

Justin and Plutarch suggest Statiera died from complications related to pregnancy. Plutarch (30.1) says she died giving birth, while Justin (11.12.6) calls it a miscarriage. Only Curtius (4.10.18-19) says she died of, essentially, exhaustion. That’s the “other sources” the OP mentions, not realizing it’s just one. Only in Curtius do we hear about a young son of Darius named Ochus. The OP seems to have conflated that child with the baby born before Gaugamela. Looking at Wikipedia’s entry on Statiera, it mistakenly calls the baby that killed her a boy, but in fact, Plutarch doesn’t say (ἀποθανούσης ἐν ὠδῖσι). Again, a good example of why Wikipedia is unreliable as a resource.

In any case, these are two different children, and there may not have been a son. Either Curtius made him up or Alexander quietly did away with him not long after their capture, as the child disappears from Curtius after and is never mentioned by other sources, which might not be a surprise. But I’m a bit more inclined to think Curtius simply invented him as part of his “Good Alexander” pre-Gaugamela narrative arc. Ochus is used as a comparative to his father (3.12.26). The son is unafraid of Alexander and lets him pick him up while the father lost his nerve and fled the battle. See what Curtius did there?

In addition, Barsine/Statiera, not just Roxana, was pregnant at ATG’s death, which is why Roxana offed her. And there’s the supposed bastard, Herakles, from Barsine, Memnon’s widow. So, the OP is missing a couple (possible) kids who Alexander also fathered.

They seems to assume drama is the reason for the choice to make Statiera his lover. This, I’d like to address, as I happen to know why they did do it, and it’s something I support.

They were very, very interested in the fact Persian women had authority, and wanted to portray them as strong, even as advisors to their husbands (which they were). That becomes Statiera’s role with Alexander, too. This is part of their larger goal NOT to portray the Persians as just fall-guys for Alexander. Because they couldn’t show all the women—both for reasons of cost as well as to avoid confusing viewers with too many unfamiliar names/people—they settled on Statiera as representative, axing Barsine as his mistress, and Sisygambus as well. Statiera’s pregnancy, which is present in the sources, added context, not just “drama.” Historically speaking, it suggests the Chivalrous Alexander trope in both Plutarch and Curtius is more mythos than Realpolitik. Although see my earlier post on Statiera’s pregnancy, linked above. I don’t necessarily assume Alexander raped her.

--------------------------------------

* If an earlier date for Curtius is correct, then he was active under the later Julio-Claudians and may have written his history during the reign of Claudius—the same emperor under whom Plutarch was born. The Lives are later works, so probably date to the Flavians, or even Trajan. For more on Curtius, see Elizabeth Baynham (1988) and for Plutarch, Robert Lamberton has a more recent study (2001) than Hamilton’s classic commentary (1969).

[diioonysus]

dogs + art

[afterlife-2004]

Reminds me of “The World Was Wide Enough”, a song from the musical, Hamilton!

[ernestdescalsartwok]

SISIGAMBIS-ART-PINTURA-MADRE-REY-DARIO III-PERSIA-ACUARELAS-PERSONAJES-COLECCION-ALEJANDRO MAGNO-PINTOR-ERNEST DESCALS por Ernest Descals Por Flickr: SISIGAMBIS-ART-PINTURA-MADRE-REY-DARIO III-PERSIA-ACUARELAS-PERSONAJES-COLECCION-ALEJANDRO MAGNO-PINTOR-ERNEST DESCALS- La Reina Madre del Imperio Persa, su hijo el Rey DARIO III la abandonó en su campamento junto a las otras mujeres que formaban el Harén, ALEJANDROMAGNO la mantuvo bajo su protección personal y se estableció una relación familiar entre ambos, SISIGAMBIS acabó perdiendo a su hijo Dario asesinado por sus propios generales, Alejandro la tuvo como a su propia Madre en substitución de Olimpia que residía en Pella y más tarde en el Reino de Epiro. Cuando se produjo el desenlace de la muerte de Alejandro en Babilonia Sisigambis había perdido a sus dos hijos, el natural y el adoptado. Rostro con expresión de tristeza, el Destino golpeó dos veces. Pintura del artista pintor Ernest Descals con acuarelas sobre papel de 27 x 35 centímetros, Pintar el catálogo de personajes que rodearon al Rey de Macedonia en una amplia Colección de Arte histórico.

[alessandroiiidimacedonia]

[nortism]

it actually wasn’t netflix who turned alexander the great gay, it was ben willbond in 2009 on hit children’s tv show horrible histories

[macrolit]

The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

NYT Article.

*************

Q: How many of the 100 have you read? Q: Which ones did you love/hate? Q: What's missing?

Here's the full list.

100. Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson 99. How to Be Both, Ali Smith 98. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett 97. Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward 96. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman 95. Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel 94. On Beauty, Zadie Smith 93. Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel 92. The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante 91. The Human Stain, Philip Roth 90. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen 89. The Return, Hisham Matar 88. The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis 87. Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters 86. Frederick Douglass, David W. Blight 85. Pastoralia, George Saunders 84. The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee 83. When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labutat 82. Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor 81. Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan 80. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante 79. A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin 78. Septology, Jon Fosse 77. An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 76. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 75. Exit West, Mohsin Hamid 74. Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout 73. The Passage of Power, Robert Caro 72. Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich 71. The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 70. All Aunt Hagar's Children, Edward P. Jones 69. The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander 68. The Friend, Sigrid Nunez 67. Far From the Tree, Andrew Solomon 66. We the Animals, Justin Torres 65. The Plot Against America, Philip Roth 64. The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 63. Veronica, Mary Gaitskill 62. 10:04, Ben Lerner 61. Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver 60. Heavy, Kiese Laymon 59. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides 58. Stay True, Hua Hsu 57. Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich 56. The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner 55. The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright 54. Tenth of December, George Saunders 53. Runaway, Alice Munro 52. Train Dreams, Denis Johnson 51. Life After Life, Kate Atkinson 50. Trust, Hernan Diaz 49. The Vegetarian, Han Kang 48. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi 47. A Mercy, Toni Morrison 46. The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt 45. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson 44. The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin 43. Postwar, Tony Judt 42. A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James 41. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 40. H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald 39. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan 38. The Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano 37. The Years, Annie Ernaux 36. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates 35. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel 34. Citizen, Claudia Rankine 33. Salvage the Bones, Jesmyn Ward 32. The Lines of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst 31. White Teeth, Zadie Smith 30. Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward 29. The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt 28. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 27. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 26. Atonement, Ian McEwan 25. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 24. The Overstory, Richard Powers 23. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro 22. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo 21. Evicted, Matthew Desmond 20. Erasure, Percival Everett 19. Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 18. Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders 17. The Sellout, Paul Beatty 16. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon 15. Pachinko, Min Jin Lee 14. Outline, Rachel Cusk 13. The Road, Cormac McCarthy 12. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion 11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz 10. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson 9. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro 8. Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald 7. The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead 6. 2666, Roberto Bolano 5. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen 4. The Known World, Edward P. Jones 3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel 2. The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson 1. My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante

[justalittlesolarpunk]

I’ve teased it. You’ve waited. I’ve procrastinated. You’ve probably forgotten all about it.

But now, finally, I’m here with my solarpunk resources masterpost!

YouTube Channels:

Andrewism

The Solarpunk Scene

Solarpunk Life

Solarpunk Station

Our Changing Climate

Podcasts:

The Joy Report

How To Save A Planet

Demand Utopia

Solarpunk Presents

Outrage and Optimisim

From What If To What Next

Solarpunk Now

Idealistically

The Extinction Rebellion Podcast

The Landworkers' Radio

Wilder

What Could Possibly Go Right?

Frontiers of Commoning

The War on Cars

The Rewild Podcast

Solacene

Imagining Tomorrow

Books (Fiction):

Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness The Dispossessed The Word for World is Forest

Becky Chambers: A Psalm for the Wild-Built A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Phoebe Wagner: When We Hold Each Other Up

Phoebe Wagner, Bronte Christopher Wieland: Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation

Brenda J. Pierson: Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology

Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro: Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

Justine Norton-Kertson: Bioluminescent: A Lunarpunk Anthology

Sim Kern: The Free People’s Village

Ruthanna Emrys: A Half-Built Garden

Sarina Ulibarri: Glass & Gardens

Books (Non-fiction):

Murray Bookchin: The Ecology of Freedom

George Monbiot: Feral

Miles Olson: Unlearn, Rewild

Mark Shepard: Restoration Agriculture

Kristin Ohlson: The Soil Will Save Us

Rowan Hooper: How To Spend A Trillion Dollars

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing: The Mushroom At The End of The World

Kimberly Nicholas: Under The Sky We Make

Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass

David Miller: Solved

Ayana Johnson, Katharine Wilkinson: All We Can Save

Jonathan Safran Foer: We Are The Weather

Colin Tudge: Six Steps Back To The Land

Edward Wilson: Half-Earth

Natalie Fee: How To Save The World For Free

Kaden Hogan: Humans of Climate Change

Rebecca Huntley: How To Talk About Climate Change In A Way That Makes A Difference

Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac: The Future We Choose

Jonathon Porritt: Hope In Hell

Paul Hawken: Regeneration

Mark Maslin: How To Save Our Planet

Katherine Hayhoe: Saving Us

Jimmy Dunson: Building Power While The Lights Are Out

Paul Raekstad, Sofa Saio Gradin: Prefigurative Politics

Andreas Malm: How To Blow Up A Pipeline

Phoebe Wagner, Bronte Christopher Wieland: Almanac For The Anthropocene

Chris Turner: How To Be A Climate Optimist

William MacAskill: What We Owe To The Future

Mikaela Loach: It's Not That Radical

Miles Richardson: Reconnection

David Harvey: Spaces of Hope Rebel Cities

Eric Holthaus: The Future Earth

Zahra Biabani: Climate Optimism

David Ehrenfeld: Becoming Good Ancestors

Stephen Gliessman: Agroecology

Chris Carlsson: Nowtopia

Jon Alexander: Citizens

Leah Thomas: The Intersectional Environmentalist

Greta Thunberg: The Climate Book

Jen Bendell, Rupert Read: Deep Adaptation

Seth Godin: The Carbon Almanac

Jane Goodall: The Book of Hope

Vandana Shiva: Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture

Amitav Ghosh: The Great Derangement

Minouche Shafik: What We Owe To Each Other

Dieter Helm: Net Zero

Chris Goodall: What We Need To Do Now

Aldo Leopold: A Sand County Almanac

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Stephanie Foote: The Cambridge Companion To The Environmental Humanities

Bella Lack: The Children of The Anthropocene

Hannah Ritchie: Not The End of The World

Chris Turner: How To Be A Climate Optimist

Kim Stanley Robinson: Ministry For The Future

Fiona Mathews, Tim Kendall: Black Ops & Beaver Bombing

Jeff Goodell: The Water Will Come

Lynne Jones: Sorry For The Inconvenience But This Is An Emergency

Helen Crist: Abundant Earth

Sam Bentley: Good News, Planet Earth!

Timothy Beal: When Time Is Short

Andrew Boyd: I Want A Better Catastrophe

Kristen R. Ghodsee: Everyday Utopia

Elizabeth Cripps: What Climate Justice Means & Why We Should Care

Kylie Flanagan: Climate Resilience

Chris Johnstone, Joanna Macy: Active Hope

Mark Engler: This is an Uprising

Anne Therese Gennari: The Climate Optimist Handbook

Magazines:

Solarpunk Magazine

Positive News

Resurgence & Ecologist

Ethical Consumer

Films (Fiction):

How To Blow Up A Pipeline

The End We Start From

Woman At War

Black Panther

Star Trek

Tomorrowland

Films (Documentary):

2040: How We Can Save The Planet

The People vs Big Oil

Wild Isles

The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind

Generation Green New Deal

Planet Earth III

Video Games:

Terra Nil

Animal Crossing

Gilded Shadows

Anno 2070

Stardew Valley

RPGs:

Solarpunk Futures

Perfect Storm

Advocacy Groups:

A22 Network

Extinction Rebellion

Greenpeace

Friends of The Earth

Green New Deal Rising

Apps:

Ethy

Sojo

BackMarket

Depop

Vinted

Olio

Buy Nothing

Too Good To Go

Websites:

European Co-housing

UK Co-housing

US Co-housing

Brought By Bike (connects you with zero-carbon delivery goods)

ClimateBase (find a sustainable career)

Environmentjob (ditto)

Businesses (🤢):

Ethical Superstore

Hodmedods

Fairtransport/Sail Cargo Alliance

Let me know if you think there’s anything I’ve missed!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How the kleptocrats and oligarchs hunt civil society groups to the ends of the Earth

It's a great time to be an oligarch! If you have accumulated a great fortune and wish to put whatever great crime lies behind it behind you, there is an army of fixers, lickspittles, thugs, reputation-launderers, procurers, henchmen, and other enablers who have turnkey solutions for laundering your reputation and keeping the unwashed from building a guillotine outside the gates of your compound.

The field of International Relations has studied the enemies of the Klept in detail: the Transnational Activist Network is a well-documented phenomenon. But far more poorly understood is the Transnational Uncivil Society Network, who will polish any turd of sufficient wealth to a high, professional gloss.

These TUSNs are the subject of a new, timely scholarly paper by Alexander Cooley, John Heathershaw and Ricard Soares de Oliveira: "Transnational Uncivil Society Networks: kleptocracy’s global fightback against liberal activism," published in last month's European Journal of International Relations:

https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5e5a3052-c693-4991-a7cc-bc2b47134467/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=Cooley_et_al_2023_transnational_uncivil_society.pdf&type_of_work=Journal+article

The authors document how a collection of institutions – some coercive, others organized around good works – allow kleptocrats to take power, keep power, and use power. This includes "wealth managers, company providers, accounting firms, and international bankers" who create the complex financial structures that obscure the klept's wealth. It also includes "second citizenship managers and lawyers" that facilitate the klept's transnational nature, both to provide access to un-looted, prosperous places to visit, and boltholes to escape to in the face of coup or reform. It includes the real-estate brokers and other asset facilitators, who turn whole precincts of the world's greatest cities into empty safe-deposit boxes in the sky, while ensuring that footlose criminal elites always have a penthouse to perch in when they take a break from the desiccated husks they've drained dry back home.

Of course, it also includes the PR managers and philanthropic ventures that allow the klept to launder their reputation, to make themselves synonymous with good deeds rather than mass murder. Think here of how the Sacklers used charity to turn their family name into a synonym for culture and fine art, rather than death by opioid overdose:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/11/justice-delayed/#justice-redeemed

Beyond providing comfort to "Politically Exposed Persons" and "High Net-Worth Individuals," TUSNs are concerned with neutralizing TANs. Activists in these transnational networks play an inside-outside game: in-country activists will recruit peers abroad to bring attention to the crimes of their local kleptocrats. These overseas partners target the klept in the places they go to play and spend, spoiling their fun – and if they succeed in getting corrupt leaders censured abroad, then in-country activists can leverage that bad press to fight the klept at home.

To fight this "Boomerang Effect," TUSNs seek to burnish corrupt officials' reputations abroad, getting their names on humanitarian prizes, beloved sports teams, cultural institutions and great universities. They seek to capture international governance institutions that might wrong-foot kleptocrats, co-opting them to enable and even celebrate looters.

When it comes to elite philanthropy, TUSNs are necessarily selective. Kleptocrats' foundations don't fund anti-kleptocratic groups – they stick to "education, public health, the environment and the arts." These domains steer clear of human rights questions that might implicate their benefactors. Russian oligarchs love children's charities and disability rights – provided they don't target the Russian state.

If charitable giving is reputation laundering's carrot, then "reputation management" is the laundry's stick. Think of organized copyfraudsters who clone websites that have criticized their clients, then backdate the articles, then accuse the originals of infringing copyright in order to get them de-listed from Google or taken offline altogether:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#dark-ops

Reputation managers also spend a lot of time in court. In the UK – the world's leader in libel tourism, thanks to a legal system designed to let posh monsters sue muckraking journalists into silence – Russian oligarchs have perfected the art of forcing their critics to shut up and go away:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/04/londongrad/#enablers

Indeed, London is a one-stop shop for the global klept, a place were forelock-tugging Renfields will buy you a Mayfair mansion under cover of a numbered company, sue your critics into silence, funnel your money into an anonymous Channel Islands account:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/07/the-klept/#pep

They'll sell you whole galleriesworth of "fine art" that you can have relocated to a climate-controlled container in a Swiss or Irish freeport:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/14/poesy-the-monster-slayer/#moneylab

They'll give your thick-as-pigshit progeny a PhD and never check to see whether he wrote his thesis himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSE%E2%80%93Gaddafi_affair

Then they'll hook you up with a cyber-arms dealer to hunt your enemies by capturing their devices:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/27/gas-on-the-fire/#a-safe-place-for-dangerous-ideas

But don't let Brexit stop you from shopping for bargains on the continent. The Golden Passports of the EU – available in a variety of flavors, from Maltese to Cypriot to Portuguese – offer the discerning failson access to the luxury good shops and fleshpots of 27 advanced economies, making it a favorite of the Khmer Riche – the junior klept of Cambodia's ruling faction:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/cambodia-hunsen-wealth/

But golden passports are for amateurs. Skilled klepts travel on diplomatic passports, which offer the twin benefits of free movement and consequence-free criminality, thanks to diplomatic immunity. The former Kazakh dictator's son-in-law enjoyed a freewheeling diplomatic life in Vienna; one daughters of the dictator of Tajikistan had a jolly time as an envoy to DC; another, to London (where else?).

All this globetrotting serves a second purpose: when rival elites seize power back home and force the old guard into exile, those ex-monsters can show up in the lands they called their second homes and apply for asylum. It turns out that even bomb-the-boats UK will welcome any asylum seeker who enters via the private jet terminal at City Airport (to be fair, these "refugees" have extensive properties in Zone 1 and country places in the Home Counties, so they won't need housing).

This stuff works. After Kazakh state goons murdered at least 14 protesters at a Zhanaozen oil facility in 2011, human rights groups around the world took up the cause. But they were effectively neutralized by TUSNs, with former UK PM Tony Blair writing on behalf of the Kazakh government to the EU condemning any kind of international investigation into the mass killings (add "former Prime Ministers" to the list of commodities for sale in the UK to sufficiently well-resourced murderer).

The authors close their paper with two case-studies. The first is of the daughters of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, Gulnara and Lola. And President Karimov was indeed a dictator: he trapped his population within his borders, forced them to use unconvertible scrip in place of money, and ordered the murder of hundreds of peaceful protesters, plunging the country into international isolation.

But while Uzbeks were sealed within their borders, Gulnara Karimov became an international player, running a complex network of businesses that mixed the products of the nation's oilfields with her family's fortune. She solicited – and received – bribes from Teliasonera, MTS and Vimpelcom, who were all vying for the contract to provide service in Uzbekistan. All told, she extracted more than $1b in bribes, laundering them through Latvia, Hong Kong and New York. She acquired real-estate in France and Switzerland, and her spree continued until her father collaborated with Uzbek security to seize her assets and place her under house-arrest.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva was Gulnara's estranged younger sister. She and her husband Timur Tillyaev ran the Dubai-based SecureTrade, which did extensive business with "opaque Scottish Limited Partnerships," laundering more than $127m in a single year to offshore accounts in the UAE and Switzerland. They acquired many luxe assets – a jet, a Californian villa, and an LA perfumier.

Lola styled herself as the face of the Karimovas abroad, a "philanthropist and cultural ambassador." She was a UNESCO ambassador and commissioned works of monumental art – and also sued the shit out of news outlets that reported factual matters about her family repressive activity at home. She organized AIDS charities in the name of Uzbekistan – even as her father was imprisoning a writer for publishing a book explaining how to have safer sex.

The second case-study is on Isabel dos Santos, "Africa's richest woman," daughter of Angolan dictator Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Isabel's vast fortune stemmed from her personal capture of vast swathes of the third-largest economy in Africa: "telecommunications, banking, diamonds, real estate and cement, among many others." Isabel enjoyed seemingly limitless access to state credit and co-investment, and was given first crack at newly deregulated industries. Foreign firms that invested in Angola were required to "partner" with Isabel's businesses.

Isabel claimed to be a "self-made woman" – a claim credulously parroted by the western press, including the FT. She used her homegrown fortune to become a major player abroad, especially in Portugal, where she was represented by the leading Portuguese law-firm PLMJ. Her enablers are who's who of corruption-loving lickspittles: McKinsey, Ernst and Young, Boston Consulting Group, and the Spanish BigLaw firm Uri Menendez.

Isabel cultivated a public facade of philanthropic giving and public spirited activism, serving as head of the Angolan Red Cross. She attended Davos and spoke at the LSE (she was also invited to Oxford, but her invitation was subsequently rescinded). On social media, she dismissed critics of her wealth and corruption as "colonialists," decrying their "racism" and "prejudice."

Isabel dos Santos's corrupt sources of wealth were finally, irrefutably exposed through the Luanda Leaks, in which the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists mapped the network of "top banks, management consultants and legal firms that were central to dos Santos’s operations."

Both case studies shed light on the network of brilliant, driven enablers and procurers without whom the world's greatest monsters would falter. It's a rare window on a secretive world, one that is poorly understood even by its inhabitants. As Michael Mechanic wrote in Jackpot, his 2021 book on vast, intergenerational fortunes, the winners of the lucky orifice lottery often lack any real understanding of how The Money is structured, grown and protected:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

This point was reiterated by Abigail Disney, in a brave piece on what it's like to grow up subject to the oversight of these millionaires who babysit the children of billionaires:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

This is an important contribution to the literature. We naturally focus on the ultrawealthy individuals whose reputations and fortunes are the subject of so much attention, but without the TUSNs, they would be largely helpless.

Going to Burning Man? Catch me on Tuesday at 2:40pm on the Center Camp Stage for a talk about enshittification and how to reverse it; on Wednesday at noon, I'm hosting Dr Patrick Ball at Liminal Labs (6:15/F) for a talk on using statistics to prove high-level culpability in the recruitment of child soldiers.

On September 6 at 7pm, I'll be hosting Naomi Klein at the LA Public Library for the launch of Doppelganger.

On September 12 at 7pm, I'll be at Toronto's Another Story Bookshop with my new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/24/launderers-enforcers-bagmen/#procurers

Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/

CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Colin (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palace_of_Westminster_from_the_dome_on_Methodist_Central_Hall_(cropped).jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[floatyflowers]

Dark! Platonic Alexander the Great x illegitimate! Daughter reader?

He had you when he was really young, barely fifteen years old.

Even though many men back then had children younger than his age.

Alexander didn't give you up, in fact, he insisted that you stay by his side, not caring for the criticism lashed towards him.

Not only that, but also tried to convince his father to legalizes you.

But his father refused to do so.

However, when King Philip II gets assassinated, and your father becomes king at twenty-one, the first thing he does is claim you as his true-born child.

For the Macedonian Greek king, you were not just a child related to him by blood...

You are the daughter he spends long nights telling about his glorious fights and hunts.

Unlike his father who belittles his achievements, you always seem excited to listen to him.

Also, you have the same interests as him, you love to always learn and improve even as a young child.

Alexander decided to bring you with him on his conquests, even though his mother, Olympias objected to the idea, stating that war is no place for a girl.

But your father insisted that you shall come with him because you are his daughter.

Of course, he kept you protected away from the battle field.

One time, Cleitus, one of the generals, flirted with you during the celebration of one of your father's victories.

Alexander got word of that and killed his friend with his own hands in drunken fury.

As years pass by, your health becomes more frail, and you start to pass out during long journeys.

Alexander appointed the highest physicians to cure you, but they failed to even find out what is making you so weak in the first place.

On your deathbed, you keep mumbling your father's name while Alexander keeps holding your hand, pleading for his gods to save you.

"Father...Father"

"Don't leave your father alone, (Y/n), don't be so cruel" the conqueror choked out the words, with tears falling down his face

But unfortunately, you passed away at the age of seventeen, leaving your father heartbroken and feeling great guilt.

Alexander also died a few months later from typhoid fever.

His last request was that they move your body to his tomb, so he can find you again in the afterlife.

[jeannereames]

Alexander’s relationship with Philip seemed affectionate but competitive. What kind of father do you think he (Alexander) would have been to any children of his? Did he really intend to marry any of them to Hephaistion's potential children?

I’ve got a couple prior asks that address this question (except the last), in case you haven’t already found them. Then I’ll discuss the kid thing:

How do you think Philip may have felt about Alexander? Review of the evidence for why the supposed conflict between father and son is overblown, at least until the last year. “Affectionate but competitive” is, indeed, more accurate (and the asker may already have read this one).

What sort of father would Alexander have been? Also addresses the question of Alexander IV.

Philippos, Amyntor, and Fathering in Dancing with the Lion. While this addresses the novels, in particular, it also gets at what I think were some of (the real) Philip’s shortcomings as a father (and how I created Amyntor to be his foil).

Bonus! Not a question asked, but it might be a follow-up question….

Why did Alexander take so long to father an heir? A common question/criticism of Alexander’s apparent lack of concern for continuing his own dynasty. Tries to take the 20/20 hindsight out of the equation and adds some (early) political considerations as to why he didn’t marry sooner.

Now, as to the bit about Alexander and Hephaistion’s hypothetical children marrying…. Our ancient sources specifically say that Alexander married Hephaistion to Drypetis, the younger sister of his own bride Statiera,* so their children would be cousins. Those sources do not say he planned to marry any of those cousins to each other. Sure, cousin-marriage was fairly common among the upper classes. BUT.

A son, especially one intended to be heir, would need to make political marriages. The daughter of his father’s most loyal retainer does not count. Ha. (Something Kleopatra bemoans in DwtL: Rise, that Amyntor’s loyalty is not in question, so Philip would never in a million years give her to Hephaistion.)

Couldn’t a daughter of Hephaistion be an “extra” bride, as both Persia and Macedonia practiced royal polygamy? Perhaps. But the heir would need to make several of these political marriages, and to be “just another wife” could be awkward and potentially insulting to her honor (timē) and, thus, to Hephaistion’s. She might get Alexander’s second son, but he’s still the “spare,” so a third son is more likely.

Also, Hephaistion could need to marry off a daughter to create diplomatic ties for himself. His status would be extremely high (if not Alexander/King of Asia-high). So, his second (or third) daughter and a third son of Alexander would be the most likely pairing. (Assuming they each had that many kids.)

Why couldn’t Hephaistion’s son get a daughter of Alexander? Because daughters (and sisters) were alliance commodities.** Alexander would want to keep his unmarried. If Alexander had wanted a sentimentality betrothal, it would likely be a spare daughter of Hephaistion’s to a spare son of his.

I’ve seen some folks comment that Alexander and Hephaistion married the two sisters as a marriage by proxy for themselves, the cousin-offspring as close as they could get to having children together.

This is (semi-)modern thinking. Unquestionably, Alexander’s affection for Hephaistion is the reason Hephaistion was given Drypetis. But the basic concept of two dear friends marrying sisters, or one marrying the sister of the other, in order to unite families is as old as the hills. It’s about creating blood-kinship. Throughout much of history, one’s strongest ties were not to a marriage partner, but to blood kin. Such ties were so important, in fact, one could be executed for the treasonous behavior of one’s (close) blood kin.*** This expectation of kinship debt still colors our legal system today in inheritance, and guardianship of offspring.

Alexander wasn’t creating a proxy-marriage to Hephaistion. He was literally making Hephaistion part of his family. You might be thinking…but isn’t that the same thing? No. Because marriages weren’t for love but (among the upper classes) for politics, and might be dissolved at some future point. Divorce was, if not common, also not uncommon. Girls were considered “loaners” from one family to another for the begetting of legitimate offspring. If her husband divorced her, she went home to Daddy. But any children of the match stayed with the father; they were his, not hers. Thus, becoming uncle to Hephaistion’s children would be a blood tie. Much more significant than a mere (proxy-)marriage tie.

——————-

*Just a reminder that Persian women seem to have taken regnal names, so Statiera’s daughter (Barsine) became Statiera at her marriage to Alexander. In fact, this is probably from where Macedonian royal wives adopted the practice.

**See the article by Beth Carney “The Sisters of Alexander the Great: Royal Relics” that I linked in a prior blog entry on Alexander’s siblings, as to why he never married them off once he was consistently winning/became King of Asia. He stood so far above others that his sisters effectively did, as well. In ancient thinking, men married the women of the conquered; they didn’t marry their own women to them. That’s why the Susa Weddings were all one-way: Macedonian Elite men to Persian noble/royal women. The ultimate power-move (and dick-move) was to marry their women but withhold your own in order to demonstrate who has power in any alliance. 😉

***As with Parmenion after the fall/execution of Philotas.

[ciderbird]

​Konstantin catching strays left and right wtf did he do to you people

[dolokhoded]

with greece legalizing gay marriage and everything i'm so tired of people diminishing queerness in greece to "oh your ancient greek ancestors would be proud ! alexander the great would be proud ! achilles would be proud sappho would be proud plato would be proud" etcetc.

queer rights progressing in greece wouldn't make our "ancient greek ancestors" proud because they had an entirely different concept of marriage than us, viewed women as objects to be sold and traded and only accepted homosexuality between men, or even more likely, a man and a literal underage boy.

gay rights in greece aren't benefiting some people who died a few thousand years ago or are Literally Fictional. greek queerness isn't just some ancient dionysian fantasy of feeding each other grapes and reciting poetry to each other by the sea. actual greek people who do benefit from this still exist. it doesn't honor some ancient guy who condoned slavery. it honors greek queer people who were out there protesting at the controversy this law raised with the church and actually made the effort to win this fight.

ancient greece isn't the epitome of queerness, not even close. absolutely in no way when it concerned exclusively just gay men. the epitome of queerness is the trans kid from my hometown who insisted on cutting their hair and dressing masculine even within their transphobic high school environment and strict orthodox family, or the woman who taught me programming who was married with children and realized she was aromantic fifteen years into marriage, or the gay punks who kept cops out of the university's anarchist hotspot.

greek queer people aren't history or mythology, and ancient greece isn't the queer utopia you make it out to be. we're still here, and we're fighting against the exact ideas our ancient culture perpetuated.

[aphroditelovesu]

Since requests are closing in a few days, I just wanted to put another one in. No rush go get it done of course!

I want to request a oneshot/reaction where Alexander gives reader a really, REALLY expensive necklace. Maybe it's a wedding present, a just because present , or something following the birth of the twins. You can decide what you want to do with that 😁!

Also, I keep picturing a necklace made of opal??? Not only is it a stunning gem stone, but it was also thought to be the tears of Zeus in ancient Greece, which would be an interesting tie to Alexander. Again, it's just a suggestion. You can use whatever gemstone you want!

Thanks, and take care ❤️❤️❤️!

--O-

❝ 📜— lady l: this had been sitting in my drafts for a while and I finally decided to write it. I got a little carried away, so it's a little big, but I hope you like it and if you want to order anything else, feel free, anon! Good reading and forgive me for any mistakes! ❤️

❝tw: none, just fluff and very soft!Alexander.

❝📜pairing: yandere!alexander the great x female!reader.

❝word count: 1,308.

Alexander wanted to find something to give you. Something expensive and extravagant, something that would leave you impressed.

He felt like he owed you that. Not only had you given birth to his children, but you were loved by him and he wanted to please you. He thought of several options: a horse, silk clothes, food and even drink. He still wasn't sure what you might like.

Until he had an idea after talking to Hephaestion. He was the one who gave you the idea of giving you a necklace made from a special and rare gem. And he knew it was the right choice to make.

It was no easy task to get a merchant to have the necklace he liked and deemed worthy of you to wear around your delicate neck, but after the fifth try with a different merchant, he finally knew what your gift should be. He decided to gift you with an opal necklace, a jewel that reflected the beauty and mystery of his passion.

It would change color and he would know that it would look beautiful and graceful on your neck. Everything about you was beautiful and graceful, so the necklace would only stand out on you and no one else.

This opulent piece was adorned with the most dazzling opals that could be found in the entire Empire. Each stone sparkled with vibrant colors, dancing like the aurora borealis reflected in the starry night. The necklace was a unique treasure, a harmony of opalescent hues, displaying hues of celestial blue, emerald green, and royal purple.

The merchant who sold it told him a story about the necklace and it was this story that convinced him to buy it. According to the Persian merchant, legend said that opals were gifts from star spirits, who bestowed their blessings on those who used them with love and wisdom. The necklace was not just a piece of jewelry, but a source of magical power. Its colors and reflections were believed to contain the essence of nature, connecting the wearer to the spiritual realms and bringing fortune and protection.

Whoever owned the opal necklace was seen as a keeper of ancient secrets, an heir to the ancient magic that flowed through the precious stones. It was said that opal possessed the ability to amplify intuition and creativity, allowing the wearer to see beyond the ordinary, opening doors to new possibilities and inspiration.

After this explanation, Alexander knew that this necklace must be yours. Not just because of your story, but because of who you were. From when you really came. No one was more worthy than you.

There was also another version of the story that convinced him to buy it. Knowing how religious Alexander was, the merchant also told him that the opal was made from the tears of Zeus. Long ago, at the beginning of Greek civilization, when the gods walked among mortals, Zeus, the mighty king of the gods, shed tears of joy and sorrow over human fate. These tears, upon touching the earth, transformed into radiant stones known as opals, carrying within them the duality of emotions of the great god.

Thus was born the opal, a legendary gem forged by Zeus' own tears. Each stone was shaped from divine emotions, capturing the essence of heaven and earth. Its unique iridescence reflected not only the colors of the rainbow, but also the contrasting feelings of joy and sadness, hope and despair, harmonized in an eternal dance of light and shadow. Ancient sages believed that the necklace was not just a manifestation of beauty, but rather a link between mortals and the gods. It was said that whoever wore the opal necklace would be enveloped in the protection of Zeus and would have the divine wisdom to navigate life's challenges.

And maybe when little Aella grew up, he could give her a necklace similar to the one he chose for you.

He smiled at the thought and with the necklace inside a small wooden box with gold ornaments, he walked to the room you shared in the Babylonian palace. Straightening his posture, Alexander knocked on the door and after hearing a soft ''come in'', he opened the door and smiled widely when he saw you sitting in a padded chair with Aella in one arm and Cyrus in the other. He fell silent when he realized the twins were asleep.

You looked at him and smiled softly when you saw what he had in his hands. Alexander placed the box on a table next to the bed and approached you, carefully taking Cyrus in his arm. You smiled lovingly when you saw him cuddling the baby in his arms.

Whispering, Alexander says, ''I have something for you.''

You smiled and asked curiously, ''What is it?''

Alexander carefully picked up the box with the arm that wasn't swinging Cyrus and placed him on your lap, looking at you expectantly. You smiled and opened the box with a little difficulty due to the sleeping child in your arms. Your eyes widened when you saw the lush opal necklace. You had never seen such beautiful jewelry.

Alexander, who was watching you like a hawk, smiled at you.

''Alexander, that's…'' You swallowed and took the necklace in your hand, carefully observing its details. The necklace was a magnificent piece, a heavenly masterpiece that captivated the eyes of all who dared to gaze upon it. Every aspect of the necklace was a symphony of intertwined beauty and magic.

The centerpiece of the necklace consisted of a main opal, a generously sized gem that radiated an unparalleled iridescent glow. This central opal was an explosion of celestial color, with soft, shimmering hues that moved like an aurora borealis trapped within the gemstone. Its tones ranged from the deep blue of twilight to the lush green of enchanted forests, and occasional glimpses of the deep red of divine fire.

Around the main opal, a series of smaller opals were skillfully arranged, forming a necklace that seemed to have been woven by the stars' own hand. Each smaller gem had its own color personality, some glowing an ethereal blue, others a crystalline green, and still others with purple and gold hues reminiscent of the sun setting over distant mountains.

The structure of the necklace was as intricate as the reflections of the opals. Delicate strands of gold wove between the gems, creating a sparkling frame that complemented the iridescence of the opals. Small, intricate metal sculptures, decorated with designs that resembled star constellations, adorned the necklace, giving it an aura of ancient magic.

''Do you like it?'' Alexander asked after you remained silent, observing the necklace with a strange expression.

''I loved it.'' You whispered, admiring the necklace. Alexander walked over to you and took the necklace from your hands and placed Cyrus back in your arms, careful not to wake him. He stood behind you and removed your hair from your neck, placing the magnificent necklace around your neck. You closed your eyes when you felt the touch of his calloused fingers on your skin and sighed when the necklace was placed on you.

''I'm glad, it suits you.'' He kissed your neck affectionately and you closed your eyes, smiling.

Alexander leaned closer to your ear and whispered, ''When I heard the story about the opal… I knew it would have to be yours and yours alone.''

You opened your eyes and turned your head, looking at him. ''And what is this story?''

Alexander smiled widely and after kissing your forehead, he began to tell you both stories he had heard from the merchant. You just listened in silence, delighting in his words, with your sleeping children on your arm and the weight of the beautiful necklace around your neck.

Your small, loving family.

[girlactionfigure]

 THURSDAY HERO: Glagolev Family

It is undeniable that the role of Ukraine in the Holocaust was shameful. Almost a million Jews were killed by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, most of them shot and dumped into mass graves, many while still alive. Because of this ugly history, and at a time when the Ukraine itself is under threat, it is crucial to remember those Ukrainians who did the right thing, even at great risk to themselves.

Alexei Glagolev was a Ukrainian Orthodox priest who practiced his Christian faith despite severe persecution from the Soviet communists. Together with his wife Tatiana and their children, Alexei hid Jews during World War II, a heroic act that almost cost the Glagolevs their own lives.

Born in Kiev in 1901, Alexei was raised in a devout Eastern Orthodox home. His father Alexander was a priest and professor at Kiev Theological Academy and known to be an ally to Jews at a time of rampant antisemitism. Alexei, a stand-out student in high school, enrolled in the Theological Academy in 1919, and studied there until 1923, even after it was shut down by the Bolsheviks and the students had to study in secret. Alexei married Tatiana Bulashevich, the daughter of a sugar plant owner, in 1926. They had three children, Magdalina, Nikolei and Maria.

In 1932 the Glagolevs’ world was rocked when Alexei was arrested by the communists for “anti-revolutionary acts.” He was freed after a week in custody, but was designated a “cult leader” and deprived of civil liberties. With his professional options severely curtailed due to his status as leader of a cult (the Soviets considered all religions to be cults), he labored as a construction worker and security guard. From 1936 to 1940 he studied Physics and Mathematics at the Kiev Pedagogy Institute, while secretly running an underground church. After the war in Eastern Europe began, Alexei was ordained as a priest and served in the Pokrov Church in Kiev.

In October, 1941, Alexei’s sister-in-law asked him to help her brother’s Jewish wife, Izabella Mirkina, who was in imminent danger of being murdered by the Nazis. Without hesitation, Alexei and Tatiana determined to do whatever they could to help persecuted Jews, despite caring for their own three children in difficult wartime conditions. Tatiana gave Izabella her own identity card and baptism certificate. In his memoirs, Father Alexei wrote, “My wife almost paid with her own life for her reckless action. The Gestapo was going from flat to flat asking for papers, and when they found out that Tatiana didn’t have a passport, they were going to arrest her. Very few people returned to their homes after such arrests. We begged and managed to persuade them to leave her alone after a few witnesses confirmed her identity.”

Even with Tatiana’s papers Izabella was unable to escape and returned to the Glagolevs in desperate need of a place to hide. Alexei later said, “Tormented, we searched for a way to save her. What kind of Christians would we be if we refused this poor woman, who was reaching out to us and pleading for help?” The Glagolevs welcomed Izabella and her daughter Irina into their own modest home. When other desperate Jews approached for help, Alexei gave them fake baptism certificates and hid them in his church, even though hiding Jews was a capital crime punishable by execution. The Glagolev children also helped care for the Jews and keep them safe and fed.

In 1943 Alexei moved out of his home and into the hospital at Pokrov Monastery, where he lived beside the Jews he was helping. This was very risky because the Germans had forbidden Ukrainians to live in that part of Kiev. He and his son Nikolei were arrested in fall of that year and deported to Germany, where Alexei was brutally beaten by the Nazis. Somehow they managed to escape and returned to Ukraine after the liberation from Germany in 1944. In 1945, Alexei wrote a letter to Nikita Khrushchev, Secretary of the Ukraine, about the Jews he had saved.

Alexei continued working as a priest in the Pokrov church until it closed in 1960. He worked in several other churches despite increasing ill health caused by his brutal treatment while imprisoned by the Nazis. Alexei died in 1972. Journalist Sergei Kokurin wrote in an article about Alexei, “It is hard to understand to an average man the determination with which Glagolev went against the tide. In 1936 this fragile-looking intellectual publicly carried the cross taken off the Church of Nikola the Kind, and despite threats from the communists kept it in his flat. He was the only priest in Kiev who refused in April 1942 to hold a church service to celebrate Hitler’s birthday.”

Alexei, Tatiana and their children were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem in 1991. In January 2002, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Alexei Glagolev’s birth, a memorial plaque to him and his brave father Alexander was erected on the wall of the National University of Kiev.

For their heroic actions saving Jews, and for practicing their faith in defiance of Soviet persecution, we honor the Glagolev family as this week’s Thursday Heroes.

[margareth-lv]

⛓️ When art and life become one ⛓️

I believe fairy tales have a great deal of therapeutic power. And there's nothing quite like a good story.

As I’ve written here a few times before, I first started watching Outlander in 2020 – a challenging year for us all. At that time, we all needed a good story to take our minds off reality. And to move into the catharsis that art offers. You can imagine my excitement when I realised that two actors (who were so obviously in love) playing the characters in the story were born around the same time as the characters they were playing.

James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, born on 1 May. Sam Roland Heughan, born on 30 April. Both Taurus, just like me. Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, born on 20 October. Caitríona Mary Balfe, born on 4 October. Both Libra.

And, as you might expect, in both the play and real life, she is older than he is. Isn't it wonderful how things just fall into place sometimes? There’s always something to ponder, think about and enjoy.

But it's been a while since we've seen joy in "enjoy." The Taylor Swift concert is the exception that proves the rule, here.

I'm getting tired of the low-level storytelling we've been presented with for a while now. This story is the worst of the worst. It’s a pretty poor selection of C, D, and E cinema.

And it's pretty sad how two people, who literally built their relative public recognisability on being the 'hottest couple on the screen', are now pathetically role-playing their supposed 'real love lives'. And neither of them succeeds. They're also pretty weak actors in their roles of romantic lovers (I'm thinking mainly of Sam here). Let me just say that they're not pathetic only when they're together. *** *** *** When I saw the blurry, embarrassing footage from this weekend's Giorgio Armani Tennis Classic (tagged #ad on Sam's Instagram), my first thought was that it was a spectacle for us, our Tumblr fandom. There's no one else who would be interested in something you have to look for with a magnifying glass, zooming in, spending long minutes stopping frames of film. Then I got reminded about the Wimbledon Tennis Championships back in July 2019 and another poor performances by 'bride' and her 'groom' a month before their 'wedding'.

Do you remember those pictures?

First wife, second wife, Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and Laoghaire MacKenzie, I mean, Evie Greenwood, a primary teacher.

You know, realism and art all blend together.

We first saw this kind of kissing being reduced to sucking on the partner's upper lip in what we were forced to think was Sam’s ‘real life’, and then we saw the same thing on screen.

And what about Sam's somewhat embarrassing performance in The Couple Next Door? Which other actor in that film has exposed themselves so much (and so pointlessly), in a literal sense?

How many of us thought Sam's performance in the erotic scenes in TCND was not sexy at all, but disgusting?

I did.

Wasn't that display of Sam's rhythmically moving buttocks as distasteful as his other performance a few weeks ago?

Seriously, I would never want my husband/partner/father of my children to behave like this. There's no money worth it. But maybe there is.

Sometimes I feel sorry for them, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I remind myself of how jealous Cait can be.

How on earth do they manage to live like that?

[3 July, 2024]