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mc-critical · 3 years

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I really don’t understand the amount of people who apparently dislike Mihrimah for not giving Rüstem a chance/not having Rüstem grow on her. I don’t know entirely how I feel about Mihrimah as a character but I feel like if you were to dislike her that’d be a silly reason. It was a opportunistic marriage, one she never wanted and to a man she never loved. Not to mention he was also borderline pedophilic (when he said to her on her wedding night that he had been “waiting for this moment for years” when she was 17..okay) and then coercing her into consumating the marriage through the threat of suicide. Sure, the circumstances of Rüstem’s life were sad, but I don’t understand how that entails him being *entitled* to Mihrimah’s love or affection. And if anything I found Rüstem to be misogynistic and possibly even abusive, which likely made marriage to him all the worse. Mihrimah’s definitely not perfect or above criticism, but that doesn’t mean she owed any man love, sex or affection, royal borne woman or not.

I don't understand them, either. Because this is the last thing Mihrimah should be disliked for.

Rüstem is a very odious character with minimal redeeming qualities. His supposed love for Mihrimah is established disturbingly early on and while that may have fled over the audience's heads (it sure did fly over my head when I first watched the show!) because their marriage is a historical fact and as such, is automatically considered the normal course of things - the questionable pedophilic implications are definitely there and send off the alarming signs of utterly problematic behavior. Sure, he's done his duty by saving her after she fell off a horse and (little!) Mihrimah thanked him for it, but it is clearly seen in his eyes by the second episode he's on-screen that there's something more and something baffling when the girl is so young. And it only escalated from there.

Obviously, most of his fanbase ignores or flat out misses this aspect of his character, but I also find people that think that his attitude to Mihrimah is the only bad thing about Rüstem when I find most of his negative traits to be present outside of Mihrimah, but with her witnessing them. I feel the connection to Iskender Çelebi and the way he bacame the stable-man of the castle are his most important character establishing moments: they shine a light into his sneakiness and ability to play dirty, but also reveal his immediate prejudice against Ibrahim. The ambition, similar to Hürrem's, but not for the same reasons, is set up from the get-go. He's seemingly following Iskender, just like he comes to seemigly follow Hürrem, but he always forges his own path for his own gain. His alleged "loyalty" is the thing that Rüstem usually gets the most credit for, but while he begins to look like Hürrem's loyal companion that shall fulfill her every order, this whole facade is deconstructed and ultimately, totally broken apart in S04. His character establishing moments recontextualize all the decisions he makes in that season and show the true nature of his ambition: he followed Hürrem when she prevailed over everyone, he followed her when she seemingly gave him the world and all the desired power and when she and the one she wanted for the throne were put into a disadvantaged position and Selim got the upper hand, he ran straight for the opportunity, despite of him making an oath in front of the Quran not to do that. He turns out to be simply an opportunist hyena who works only for his own gain. Nothing more. Just like he saw the opportunity to get rid of the stable-man before him in the past, now he sees the opportunity to be on the winning side again with Selim. He doesn't care who is he in front of and who he promised what, as long as they're of no use to him, he bails. His "loyalty" immediately disappears from his positive traits, because it turns out he never had it in the first place. People praise him for his loyalty for Mihrimah, but that "loyalty" also lasted so long - when he found out that she wouldn't ever come to love him, he began to bang with Gracia Mendez, in conjunction with the betrayal of what Hürrem stood up for. Now, tell me, how can Mihrimah love such a guy? That was one of the only reasons she tolerated him and when even that was lost, how can she still keep her ties with him?

[His backstory is sad indeed, but the only thing it does is put his actions into perspective, not justify them or make him likeable somehow. Especially when what that "character lore dump" specifically explains is his refusal to tell Nigar where her daughter is - the backstory makes that action logical for his character, but it's still framed as nothing short of spiteful. That said, he still does have some soft sides and the arc with his brother is where I found him the most sympathetic - this is the time Rüstem actually showed vulnerability without false alarms or disguise and his brother was probably the only thing that was precious to him and stayed precious after all these years, consistently throughout his screentime. What helps even more, is the brother's role as a moral compass and the last bridge between the past/his loyalties and the future/the victories he would achieve through opportunism. That was the last gasp of what was left of his possible humanity and after his brother was killed, he let it go almost instantly, because... well, after he willingly chose his own life in the saray, he might as well continue to live it, right? Him saving a boy in S03 without any hesitation whatsoever, was also respectable. But these demonstrations of a softer side of his being are also taking place outside of Mihrimah, but with her not witnessing them altogether. And they do little in changing the general impression of Rüstem's character and his relationship with Mihrimah.]

We have to keep in mind that Mihrimah's whole S03 arc was finding purpose in her life and finding true love. She had many love stories throughout the series with different people, different personalities and different motives to try to make it work with them. No matter what they've went through together and despite of them all having the same outcomes due to different outside (and inside) factors, there is a reason she fell for these people in the first place. Okay, while for Bali Bey it was a bizarre, puppy, immature, childish love, for Taşlicalı something truly genuine began to flourish with all the glances, poems, dedication (Mahidevran succeeded to break them up, but it's not to be denied that Taşlicalı was very hard to convince and he was still thinking of her afterwards) and sweet words. She got a call for a new adventure with him. Bali Bey, on the other hand, was adored by her mostly for his handsomeness, I feel, but even when he tore all her dreams apart, he showed tact and respect. What I mean to say is, if Rüstem has qualities that are "worthy of Mihrimah", wouldn't she see them? Wouldn't she see all these virtues? Because all she sees before the marriage are his words that she will marry him, that she will be his and that's it. The best she sees of him is his good manners when he asks her whether she wants something or stuff, but he could do that with everyone else, knowing his post, and the previous implications make even that alone head scratching. Why would she want a man like that? I agree with all your points. Are you, people, denying Mihrimah her feelings? She realized the potential advantages of this marriage and agreed to do it regardless, why does she have to come to love him when he truly gives her no real reasons to, even before she married him?

I believe Rüstem cares about Mihrimah, albeit in his own distorted, toxic way, but in reality, he didn't do her any good. His relationship with Mihrimah revels in manipulation and facades for her to keep, because she has to "protect" her brothers. Rüstem never actually took account of her own feelings or opinions on matters, especially when what she proposed wasn't an opportunistic enough option for him to afford. Their interactions are mostly focused on the survival of the game and the actions that have to be taken to achieve that. He often puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on her, which while given because of the system they live in, hurt more than it helped. Their relationship was never allowed to flourish in a healthy manner and Mihrimah could never be truly herself in it, not even for a moment. The castle she lived in, her home, was merely full of tension every day, not a source of comfort. His stoic, serious cunning contrasts with her own spirit. Not to mention that it always seemed he considered his marriage to Mihrimah as a price, a goal he had finally achieved and I doubt that she wasn't aware of it to some extent. The root of the marriage is only political opportunism and no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot force a person to love someone they're with only out of sheer necessity, only for a purpose for "the greater good". Rüstem never did anything to earn Mihrimah's love and she shouldn't be hated for not loving him. This is what MC Rüstem is as a character, whether we like it or not, and he isn't a healthy person for Mihrimah. If she couldn't warm up to him when she fully got to know him in their alone time, that means something is missing. That means he just isn't for her and. that's. OKAY.

But there may be reasons why some people could dislike Mihrimah because of it. I offer my experience with cases I've encountered in forums: these people are usually very invested in Hürrem's character to the point they view everything she does as excusable, at the least, so of course they would want to justify Hürrem marrying Mihrimah to Rüstem. But plainly selfish political gain is no justification and that may leave cracks in their view of Hürrem and it all may disturb them to a great amount. That's why they channel this ire on Mihrimah and perhaps demand for her to warm up to Rüstem, so they get the justification Hürrem supposedly deserves, especially paralleled with Valide and Mahidevran's previous attempt to marry Aybige and Mustafa, who.. surprise, surprise (but not really), didn't love each other. There's another facet to this, with people seeing or wanting to see Mihri only as "her mother's daughter" and not wanting to marry, not loving Rüstem destroys that picture, because there's a "crack in the system", she doesn't listen to her mother, who obviously knows better and that could be disappointing or demotivating, given the expectations she has set when she defended her in E84. Or maybe they dislike Mihrimah for not loving Rüstem, because they do find something in him. They love "bad boys" and genuinely don't know why Mihrimah doesn't, either and that could make them see her as an annoyance. Or maybe they just anticipate more juicy scenes between her and Rüstem because of the probable chemistry between the two actors and if they watch it only for the spectacle (believe me, such people really exist!), they may insist that Mihrimah is only spoiled and ruined everything for them. Or maybe, again, people may find this insulting to the historical facts or whatnot and if Mihrimah didn't not stand him, this "mess" of writing could be fixed a little. The writers have ruined her character along with the history, according to them. It's absurd, I know and I don't get it, either, but the reasons are there, as far as I'm concerned. That still doesn't take away from the fact that this is the weirdest accusation you could throw at Mihrimah, with how Rüstem himself is.

You're right that Mihrimah has many other, vastly more offputting traits that she could be disliked for. Little Mihrimah is very brash and spoiled and entitled, to the point she gave her own mother a run for her money. That was gone when she grew up, but it would be understandable if some didn't actually believe the change, especially when she shows this side of hers again every now and then. She could be perceptive, but could also be prone to influence at the same time, sometimes to an annoying degree. There have been times where she has let her own bias lead her and that clouded her judgement in several occasions. She came to idealize her mother too much sometimes, as well. She was terribly insistent on her infatuation with Bali Bey and letting go of it took her very long. She didn't want to listen much to the enemies of her own mother. Her huge love for Bayezid prevented her from viewing Selim as objectively. She could be vengeful. She could be bossy. She couldn't fully face someone calling her out on her mistakes. (the confrontation with Selim in E139) She became so engrained to her castle life that when she was offered a way out, she didn't follow it. All these are very interesting character flaws for me, but I get why they might be a dealbreaker. But disliking or hating her for not loving Rüstem? Heck, hating her for her contribution to Mustafa's death alone is more valid than that! Disliking her for all these flaws piling up together is perfectly reasonable. But for this? It's strange.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #mihrimah sultan #rustem pasha #ask #stuffandthangs

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rorodawnchorus · 3 years

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The Chinese journalist who’s been writing about Uyghur people

"Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.” - Uyghurs For Sale

Vicky Xu was born and raised in China. She thought the Tiananmen Square massacre was fake and she used to be very nationalistic, often standing up for the CCP. Now, she has been writing about the oppression and cultural genocide Uyghur people have been experiencing for years. In this tweet, she talks about her experience and why she was driven to do investigative journalism on human rights abuses in China, particularly Xinjiang.

https://mobile.twitter.com/xu_xiuzhong/status/1377527819715010561

(I won’t be translating her thread word for word but I’ll translate some quotes and also the gist of the thread)

She says she’s questioned herself about taking huge risks and writing about Xinjiang and Uyghur people. She’s wondered if it was all “worth it”. She says “no matter how difficult it is, I must report about all that has befallen on Uyghur people. The root of the oppression on Uyghur people stems from the governing authority which is held by the majority Han Chinese government and this is the destruction of Uyghur people and culture.” Using the excuse of anti-terrorism policies, Uyghur people who are just average citizens with no intention to overthrow the government, they’re being put into concentration camps that are called “re-education camps” by the CCP. “As an ethnic majority Han Chinese” she says, “I cannot sit by idly and remain silent.”

In 2017, when she was writing for New York Times, she was told that articles written in English would more likely fly under the radar of the CCP so she decided to do that. However, her articles had been translated and she has been cyberbullied, her family and friends have been harassed in China, and deepfake sex tapes/nudes have been spread online with claims that it is her.

When she graduated in 2018, she joined Australian Broadcasting Company. However, due to lack of funds, she was only able to interview Uyghur people who have moved to Australia (there is a community in Adelaide, as per her tweet). At first, she noted, they were reluctant to open up to her and share more with her. She says, “At that time, all I could do was to write and tell the truth. Even if no one cares about it now or what the truth is, at least I’m leaving a historical record.” She would listen to her interviewees in tears, talking about their captured relatives in Xinjiang. Then she would return to her office and draft an email asking for China’s formal response on these claims; she would always watch as her hand tremble, hesitant about sending the email.

In 2019, she wrote a piece for the NY Times which had enough international attention which put pressure on the CCP to release the relatives of the two families in that article. Ever since then, her family and friends in China began receiving threats and were harassed. Her Uyghur friends said to her at the time: “You’ve become like us.”

Later, she joined the Australian Strategic Policy Institute and was the lead author for a research publication, Uyghur For Sale. In that report, it was mentioned that “Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.”

“This report” she says in her tweet, “illustrates the undeniable relation between every other person to the human rights abuses against Uyghur people: Everyone could possibly be wearing a product that was manufactured through forced labour. This research report was passed on within the journalism industry and the influence it has far exceeds the expectations which my colleagues and I initially had. I haven’t purchased any new clothes or mobile phone this year for I know that once I step into the mall, I would see all the brands involved which I have written about and I would feel guilty (about buying any one of them).”

She says the State Security has been detaining, interrogating and harassing people in Mainland China who are close to her. They’ve also attempted to paint her in a bad light by “exposing” her sexual affairs, etc.

Recently, she has been accused for being the mastermind behind the “fake news” of Xinjiang Cotton. She clarifies that she’s never written about “Xinjiang Cotton” specifically but have only been reporting on supply chains involving forced labour. She also emphasised that in the past years, countless journalists and scholars have been writing about these human rights abuses. This was how so many countries were able to arrive at a conclusion regarding the allegations of human rights abuses, thus making policy decisions to stop import or penalise any companies involved.

She says “China is using “Xinjiang Cotton” to confuse the public (divert attention). The fact is that many companies, whether they are fashion houses, electronics companies or medical equipment manufacturers, or even food product manufacturers, they have all had some kind of relation to the Uyghur forced labour (through supply chains). This problem runs deeper than “Xinjiang cotton”*. The Chinese government is attempting to equate the forced labour issue in Xinjiang with the China-US trade war, completely ignoring the fact that Australian, American, European, Japanese and even some Chinese consumers are concerned about purchasing products that were manufactured through force labour.”

“At first, I chose to become a journalist because I didn’t have the courage to become an activist. While working in the newsroom, I was less outspoken and seldom expressed my personal views. Now, I see myself being labelled “a devilish woman”, “Han traitor (a traitor to China)”; I feel helpless but amused at the same time. I started from “secretly writing in English to leave some historical record” to becoming the target of State machinations, painting me as the female monster causing disaster to befall on countless Chinese people.”

“If I previously held onto the faint thought of remaining silent to save my own skin, I have become purged of all these thoughts after going through the cyberbullying. All I can do is to continue writing; I shall write to the day these “re-education camps” are closed down; I shall write until I see the day forced labour is put to an end; I shall write to the end of the earth. Personally, I must carry on doing what is right. The price which I must pay will all be worthy for the troubles I have caused to the people around me, I will repay them myself.”

***

Note: The CCP and their 50 cent army/Little Pink movement online constantly tries to place the focus on Xinjiang cotton, pulling out a photo of enslaved Black people during a press statement, saying “Look! The US did this. We, on the other hand, use highly mechanized harvest operations in Xinjiang.” to claim that there are no human rights abuses taking place there.

She concludes her tweet by saying she has not written in Chinese for some time and the CCP machinations has forced her to use a “translation tone Chinese” in her writing as response to the cyberbullying from C-netz. So this is basically a translation of a Twitter thread written like a translation O_O

I would like to add, though, the way I see the CCP works is that they like to use nationalism and patriotism to inflame C-netz and cause them to “take things into their own hands”. They caused this “national boycott” of Western fashion houses within Mainland China using nationalistic sentiments and “a sign of loyalty”; to act in any other way online or in public could bring about verbal attacks. Some Chinese staff of Adidas or other stores in China are being cyberbullied as well. Some Taiwanese consumers have expressed that they feel less guilty about shopping at fashion houses like H&M since they took this stance but I wonder how many people around the world actually cared enough to take on the personal initiative to consciously choose what they are purchasing? Obviously, a Twitter thread can’t go into the complex psychological workings of all that’s going on.

(Hopefully this adds to the voice for Uyghur people as well. Do not be confused by the whole “Western imperialism against China” talk. It does not erase or reduce the fact that there are human rights abuses happening.)

#Uyghur #Uyghur people #Xinjiang #Xinjiang cotton #Journalist #Vicky Xu #China #human rights #CCP

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astrognossienne · 4 years

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birthdays: 4 - the unabashed social climber

My dabbling in birthday numerology has resulted in a ridiculously viral and classic post on my tumblr that goes through all the birthdays. The total sum of all birthdays essentially adds up to a range of numbers 1-9. In that post, I provided snapshots of the personalities of these birthdays. Now, here, on my website, I shall expound further as to why I came to these conclusions. To continue this series, we'll get into my other least favourite birthday number: 4.

4, 13, 22, 31: humanitarians, romantic, penetrating, provocative, faithful, pragmatic, reserved, immature, nakedly ambitious, tries too hard to be omnipotent, controversy always seems to surround them, savage for no reason, prides themselves on being infallible but are utterly fallible, know-it-alls, critical, anxious, smart-mouthed yet very sensitive (almost too much so), proud, tries hard to be individualistic but in reality is just like everyone else, very shady, can be and is often very disrespectful, patronizing and egotistical, needs their ass kissed, due to their vast insecurity and inherent inadequacy they have a need to conquer others and if they can’t do so then they will try very hard to destroy them, wayyy too sensitive and resorts to being caustic and abusive when they’re hurt (which is all the time), tries too hard to act/look/talk hard, can be tough but sweet, can be quite judgmental, always working, likes to one-up people, needs control and is often very self-controlled, often fake, passive-aggressive, very opportunistic and savvy, great at making friends, very contradictory and hypocritical, often very talented and hardworking, competitive, inspires others, wants to be known as kind and great in everyone’s eyes, almost always supremely unlikable individuals, often downright repulsive, has low self-esteem and projects it on others, often has hidden motives, adroit in using people’s emotions for their own ends

I think I pretty much summed them up there. Those who have these birthdays (especially those born on the 4th and 22nd) are the ones who I'm the most indifferent towards and amused by, but in the interest of fairness, let's dive into the psyche of these people, because if nothing else, they're moderately interesting psychological case studies.

When I think of 4's, I think of the character Eve Harrington in the classic film All About Eve. They're hurt, bitter, broken, miserable insecure bitches and often have low self-esteem and inadequacies within themselves, but they cover it up with false "self-love" and "assertiveness" which is actually condescension, aggressiveness, cockiness, and arrogance. This is evidenced in their unabashed social climbing they do. All social climbing have one thing in common: they seek to increase the social climber status by attacking and taking status away from others. They revel in this, since in their mind it secures their power over others, which is very important to them. They're often sad cases with attitude problems. They can’t, or don’t know how to reconcile their pain in a healthy way, so they direct it back out in mean, cruel, and insensitive ways - hurting others just because they were hurt. This process works only briefly, and usually generates extreme guilt in the person, making them stop for awhile. But, the pain of their past hasn’t been healed, so once again they try to bleed off the pain by hurting someone by being mean or rude. It’s like draining the pressure in a boiler. They know they’re inferior and broken, so they take it out full force on the people they envy and those whose true authentic power that they want. They often say what they don't mean. They're also forces of nature, and they somehow always seem to draw deep emotions out of people, and a lot for people seem to be deeply drawn to them. Fours, in turn, are often drawn by those who know how to control their emotions and make them work for them as well as those who have a deeper well of emotion than they and aren't scared of displaying it.

They have the amusing paradox of being mean AND hypersensitive at the same time, but the key is if one feels that these people are actually worth the time you have to take to get to know them, ignore their natural walls, abnormal need for control, rudeness and meanness, and love them anyway. If one can get through to that hurting part and heal and love it, these individuals can be loyal and even amazing friends for life. (incidentally, it's for this reason that I always seem to see these individuals deeply connected to 2's, 5's and 9's because I think 4's sense in them a kindred spirit, or someone they can use this strange type of "love" on and still feel accepted. But I'll cover those numbers at a later date). It might seem crazy, but a common way these people try and pull their partner/friends close is by expressing anger (of which there is a lot of) and unneeded childish aggression, often ruthlessly attacking perceived weaknesses. It usually works in the opposite way (unfortunately), but often underneath the anger is a strong plea for connection and love. The anger is a mask of protest about not getting that love. They like to create conflict and are very restless. They’re whiny and their edginess is based on their M.O. that "people want to hurt me; I must hurt them first to be safe". They’re often very petty and very small and are too selfish to show any real compassion for those going through a tough time or a tragedy, often pouring salt on the wound (although strangely enough, they're often touted as paragons of compassion and virtue).

They're not satisfied with the ordinary, and more often than not they do tend to lead extraordinary lives. They have an accessibility and a mystery at the same time. They can be calm and insanely disciplined. But they are also very fiery and passionate, and often make rash and headstrong decisions and can be very immature and insecure about themselves because of the need for balance that the number 4 suggests. They can also (only when seriously evolved) be inspirational, using their talents to move masses of people in a way very few can, such as Barack Obama (August 4), and obnoxious personalities like Beyoncé (September 4), her husband Jay-Z (December 4), and their friend Justin Timberlake (January 31 [another classic case of the low-level 4]). They are victims masquerading as warriors and use their victimhood as a weapon and other opportunistic tactics to cement their power. However, there is a lot of fixed-sign-esque (especially that of a Leonine/Scorpionic nature) ego associated with the number 4, and this requires everyone to bow down and kiss their ass. If the 4 doesn't get this type of treatment, then they'll destroy everything and everyone in their wake to assuage their hurt feelings and damaged ego, such as it is in the case of Meghan Markle (also born on August 4) and what she and her husband Harry are currently doing to the Royal Family.

Meghan tried to gain unconditional and total acceptance from them/England/the world. Since she didn't get it, she and Harry took their ball and went home" by backing out of the Royal Family and the duties associated with it and moving with their children to America, effectively cutting themselves off from Harry's grandmother, brother, and ailing grandfather. Which brings me to another point about 4's: they like to do things on their own terms, often alienating others along the way to satisfy themselves. Now that Meghan has had time to think about the "abuse" that she feels that she has received, she's going to get her ultimate revenge by trying to destroy the Royal Family with allegations of racism and mental/emotional abuse. Note: it wasn't a problem when they were courting, and it wasn't a problem when they got married, but since she didn't get the "kid glove" treatment she wanted, now they're a "racist family". I often wonder, if the firm/tabloids/press went after Princess Diana so brutally, as blonde-haired, blue-eyed and pretty as she was, what did Markle honestly expect? This speaks to the 4s often shocking naivety. Also, Markle kept referring to Kate Middleton in her interview, so that means that she's fixated on Kate as a point of envy. This is how hate and negative emotions will cause things to change and often unnecessarily so.

On the positive side (only when evolved), 4's can be active, hard-working, systematic, diligent, careful, objective, firm, introverted, serious, patient, reserved, thoughtful, sensible, analytic, calm, orderly and loyal. For those born on the 4th, 13th, 22nd, and 31st, this describes them in a nutshell.

#a freebie from my website #enjoy!#4 #four #numerology #birthdays #mine

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scarlet--wiccan · 4 years

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(1/?) The MCU is going on a specific direction and might touch Wanda's history of mental illness. Maybe talk about that when you have the time? Wanda was going on a nice direction before all that happened.

Whew! Sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this— I have several super-long message chains like this one in my inbox and they’re hard to parse through and harder still to write a real answer for. I’m gonna try through a couple of these today.

Well, I think you hit all the important points here-- the optics of a mixed-raced family of first- and second- gen Holocaust survivors committing mass acts of terrorism, becoming rulers of a fascist, supremacist regime, and then, finally, committing pseudo-genocide, are, you know, not great. These are complicated characters whose representation can easily swing in either really positive or really, really negative directions, but this goes beyond the pale for me, especially given the proximity to 9/11.

The portrayal of Wanda's mental illness during this time, while not wholly unsympathetic, is wildly inaccurate and generally played as a horror motif. I'm not an expert on schizophrenia, but I think we can all agree that it's high time we moved past exploiting sick and disabled people's experiences for cheap scares. It's especially frustrating because Wanda, as a character, does have ground for poignant stories about mental illness-- she's had numerous traumatic experiences, starting with generational trauma and a lifetime of violent discrimination, and ending, at that point, with the deaths of her young children and the abrupt dissolution of her marriage. Her mental health should be addressed, but not in a way that demonizes illness or characterizes sick people as villains. One thing I appreciate about Robinson's Scarlet Witch is that it represents her mental illness in a very human, matter of fact manner and gives her the power to take control of her own wellness. She has realistic symptoms and pursues realistic treatments, instead of, you know, making hallucination constructs and getting mind-probed by Charles fucking Xavier.

Wanda is simultaneously infantilized and vilified in these stories-- she's denied agency at every turn, and yet, Wolverine and the other "heroes" of this saga view her with unbridled contempt, and most of them are immediately ready to murder her in the name of justice, even before the "no more mutants" spell was cast. You wondered how Bendis was able to inspire such a long lasting hatred of Wanda, and I think the simple answer is that almost every character in House of M hates Wanda. The characters you root for, the characters whose perspectives dictate the tone of the story, direct palpable fury towards her, and even those who aren't out for her blood don't extend any actual empathy towards her-- most are ambivalent to her wellbeing, while Xavier and Strange are incredibly paternalistic.

The final spell, "no more mutants", has baffled me for years. You're spot-on in saying that Wanda here represents a self-hating minority, but it's really hard for me to understand how she could have reached that point. It's not consistent with her previous characterization, nor is it thematically connected to the factors which led to her breakdown. Bendis places the onus of her condition on Erik, alleging that he abandoned and abused his children in his fanatic commitment to the mutant cause, which, besides being a willful misinterpretation of canon, has nothing to do with Wanda's current circumstance-- she's like this because Agatha Harkness altered her memories, because the Avengers continuously gaslit her, and becaue Mephisto killed her kids in the first place. It has nothing to do with Magneto, and Wanda's breakdown has nothing to do with mutant politics. She and Pietro were raised in a loving family until their adoptive parents were killed by racists. Erik didn't knowingly abandon them, and while he did mistreat them during the Brotherhood days, it wasn't parental abuse because he wasn't a father figure to them-- neither party had any idea they were related. Bendis is evoking specific forms of trauma that never actually happened, while ignoring the ones that did, and the effects of the spell itself are vague and seemingly random.

~~~~~

Young Avengers does call back to Wanda's circumstances in Disassembled and HoM, but it doesn't execute the concept of reality-warping in the same way. The driving force in YA is the spell which Billy casts, and Loki tampers with, in the first issue. It is a spell which distorts reality, but it has specific parameters, and neither party is characterized as "crazy" the way Wanda was. The spell was intended to bend space and time so that Billy could pull Teddy's mom from the past, before she was killed, into the present-- it's not dissimilar from how Wanda "retroactively reincarnated" her kids. Due to Loki's interference, however, the spell was hijacked by an interdimensional parasite called Mother. The Mother virus appears primarily as a construct of Teddy's mom, but as her influence over the Earth-616 dimension grows, she's able to create constructs of other dead parents, and even mind-control living adults. All of the ways in which reality is being warped hinge on the specific conditions under which Mother was summoned, and while it is Billy's magic that's fueling these constructs and distortions, they aren't symptoms of psychosis-- Billy doesn't lose control of his magic because he's losing his mind, he loses control because he's too young and inexperienced to protect himself from predatory forces. Those forces do take advantage of his depression and anxiety, but his condition is never the cause.

Loki's magic is wrapped up in the spell, too, but rather than conjuring dead parents, it emerges as a construct of their former best friend, Leah. Loki, in Young Avengers, is a mashup of two personae-- the reincarnated child Loki, and Ikol, a phantom of their past life who is carrying out the previous Loki's evil will even though their heart isn't in it. Ikol has mostly overshadowed Loki, who has been reduced to a ghost that torments Ikol by acting as a constant reminder of their guilt. Ikol is haunted by their past, but it's important that this haunting is a nuanced metaphor and not literal hallucination, as Wanda's condition was in HoM. Because Loki's power is part of the spell, Kid Loki's ghost is able to hijack the reality distortions to summon the construct of Leah, who, in turn, is able to summon the Young Avengers' other exes, the same way that Mother, in the form of Teddy's dead mom, can summon other dead parents.

Loki does raise the question of whether or not Billy might be subconsciously influencing Teddy with his powers, but this is clearly illustrated as a manipulation tactic and disproven several times. Loki's original goal in summoning Mother was to draw out Billy's full magical potential so that they could steal his power for themselves. Driving a wedge between Billy and Teddy, and causing Billy to question his own sanity, were devices to make Billy more susceptible to having his power stolen, and they worked-- Billy is not able to divest his magic from the spell and banish Mother from Earth-616 until he overcomes his self-doubt and start exercising mindfulness. Loki, in turn, is not able to divest their power from the spell and banish Leah and the other exes until they own up to their guilt and admit everything they've done. Both characters are experiencing symptoms of exacerbated mental illness-- Billy's depression and suicidal ideation, Loki's disassociation-- but their mental illness is not the source of their magic, but a challenge which makes it harder for them to live as their fully realized selves... just as it would be for any normal person.

I know that was a long-winded explanation, but I wanted to illustrate what sets Gillen's take on "reality warping" apart from Bendis's. It's based on clearly though-out ideas of how magic works and what defines "reality" in a world populated by parallel universes and living myth-forms. Gillen affords Loki and Billy a degree of sympathy without denying them agency, and Loki is held accountable for their decisions without being painted as a total monster. Bendis, meanwhile, characterizes Wanda's magic as delusion made real, and completely vilifies her for her illness in spite of the fact that she's given no control over her actions.

#bee text #Wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #house of m #Young Avengers #robintext

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aerinmelina · 4 years

Text

@seth-sorenson asked me a while back for a fic with gay/queer Seth, who meets a special someone and introduces him to the magical world, and I super apologize, but the writing bug has not reliably been in my brain for several months now, and truth be told, it’s really bumming me out. I did brainstorm with my friend @ifnotyourfriend and we came up with this cool idea for a multi-chaptered fic, which I’ll share below, along with some of my hc’s.

Picture like a 1920s speakeasy setting.

Also picture an aged-up Seth. I’m thinking along the lines of 19/20/21 years old.

The Knights of the Dawn are investigating illegal creature trades/allegations of abuse of magical creatures.

Seth is undercover with Kendra, Warren, Vanessa and Bracken. Kendra’s role is to keep attention on her. Bracken uses magic to keep her on a lucky streak with whichever gambling game she’s on, and to make sure she doesn’t get into trouble. Vanessa, Warren and Seth are to infiltrate the normal crowd and try to causally ease into conversation with other people there in hopes of getting in contact with those who are part of the illegal trade.

The story follows Seth around and is told from his perspective (but 3rd person). He sits down for a game of blackjack and thinks it would be good to try and get the dealer’s insights, seeing as how he works there and probably hears things. So Seth starts chatting it up with the dealer and the other occupants at the table with him. Small talk. After about 30 mins of this, he starts dropping hints that he’s interested in hypothetical magical creatures. Two of the people at the table give him strange looks, so Seth figures they’re not “in the know,” but one of the occupants gives him a quizzical, studious look, and the dealer looks nervous, so he knows that those two know something.

Seth continues idle chatter with the people at the table. The two who gave Seth strange looks eventually leave, and Seth drops more hints about wanting in on the creature trade. Dealer looks very nervous. The man sitting at the table who had given Seth knowing glances gets up to leave, and the dealer whispers to Seth that he needs to be careful about what he’s doing. Dealer guy has seen things he can’t talk about here. Seth asks to meet dealer guy for coffee that night at a diner on the other side of town, dealer guy accepts.

Seth is dragged outside by a couple of strong people, under careful watch by Warren and Vanessa, and is essentially interrogated by the other dude who’d been at the table about what he knows. Seth does his Seth thing and manages to stave off their paranoia while worming his way into the beginnings of the magical trade underground.

The story evolves from there and ultimately the trading ring is brought down while Seth and dealer guy (really should probably name him - let’s call him... Adam) build a friendship and a blossoming romance. They work together to liberate the creatures who’ve been abused (with the additional help of Kendra and the others, too, ofc). Adam is in the know from day 1 that Seth is undercover to help the creatures in need, and Adam is on board to help however he can. His primary role is to feed intel to the group, and he does it well. No questions about loyalties or whether or not he’s a traitor. He’s a good, solid person through and through.

Kendra loves Adam immediately. Vanessa and Warren are a little suspicious but he grows on them. Bracken is supportive and trusts Seth to make his own decisions. Unsure if Bracken is still a unicorn with mind reading capabilities in this AU. Leaning toward yes. That might bring all of them peace of mind faster. Gonna stop here before I keep rambling about my thoughts on that subject.

First, I have no idea why this was the idea which came to mind. It has almost nothing in common with the original request (sorry!). I try to stay true to my interpretation of what the characters’ personalities are, and I feel like a romantic relationship from Seth’s POV would take time to develop. I don’t see him as the type to be “immediately swept away” by physical attraction. (Don’t @ me about Eve. Maybe I’ll make a different post some other day to talk about my thoughts on Seth and Eve.) I think Seth is more likely to find that he’s attracted to someone after he discovers that he has things in common with them, and after they’ve built at least a little bit of a friendship first. The type for whom physical attraction follows after he’s been emotionally attracted. Ya know?

(I love imagining Seth as an adult in a committed relationship. He’s golden in my eyes.)

Second, I feel like Seth is in love with the magical world, first and foremost, and would probably be more likely to fall for someone who is already “in the know” about magical creatures and communities. He’s the type to spend the majority (if not all) of his time around people who are well-informed about magic, so it makes sense from that perspective that he would fall for someone who already knows this stuff. I’m not saying that it’s not possible for him to find someone who doesn’t know about magic; I’m just explaining why I didn’t think along that route for this particular exercise.

Third, if anyone would like to actually write this story, please do so. Feel free to take it. I’ve not really been in a writing mood since quarantine began, I’m overworked and waaaay overstressed, and as much as I would like to at least start it off, I will not be writing this story myself. :(

#fablehaven #dragonwatch #seth sorenson #aerinm spills hcs #adam... bahahaha I made a joke #get it? bc like. eve is the current sort of love interest lol #imma shut up now #somebody give this OC a better name. he deserves one #anyway if I were going to write queer Seth content - or any romance with Seth content really - it would be gradual and heartwarming #my son deserves low drama and high comfort and that’s how it goes

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zot3-flopped · 3 years

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Some people are so fucking dramatic. 1. Olivia is a 37 year old woman. Harries didn’t leak her video, a hacker did back in March. She’s not gonna break up with someone she loves because a handful (emphasis on “handful” her name was trending with most people defending her but only with 1,800 tweets and in the middle of the night in most of the world), were being obnoxious about leaked nudes they didn’t actually leak. What kind of absurdist scenario is this? I’m sure it’s annoying as fuck but she’s been trolled before even meeting Harry. That’s sadly how it works with public figures. And would she deprive herself of a relationship that, as far as we know, is entirely positive, with someone she seems to adore, because of a handful of entitled teenagers on the internet? Huh???

That doesn’t mean it’s in any way shape or form okay to do any of this, but some people need a reality check. It’s as absurd as claiming that Harry won’t be hired for roles because of fans showing up to set. Adults who don’t live online 24/7 are not this close minded.

2. Harry is most likely not gonna pull back at all. He’s not gonna be online but that’s not gonna change. It’s been that way for five years and good for him. But Camille got trolled even worse (people put her nudes on her tagged photos 24/7, even a scene where she’s having sex), and NO ONE supported her. And Fine Line was his more open era up until now.

I think it’s the same kind of self importance Larries place on themselves. We are not the reason he decides to do this or that with his life, art, or interviews. We don’t make or break his relationships. He’s an adult who makes his own decisions, who has friends and dates people who are also adults. And for the most part, they’re clearly able to ignore the fanbase and take it for what it is.

Nick got trolled SO BAD and it never broke his friendship with Harry. Xander got accused of distributing porn to underage fans (something he didn’t do) and got his alleged nudes leaked, and he’s still VERY close to Harry. There’s no reason to believe Camille gave a fuck about fans. There’s no reason to believe Olivia does.

She’ll be more private with socials and take measures to limit the amount of abuse she can get, because it’s not fun to be on the receiving end of that. But I doubt any person who’s actually in love and cares about the person they’re with would let 12/14 year olds drive a wedge in that relationship. That’s just not realistic. And acting like it does just gives more leeway to the people doing all this harassing, they’re encouraged to continue because they believe they can have an actual hand in ending the relationship, which is ultimately what they want

Not even Nadine Leopoldo, who got a ton of hate as well, ended the relationship herself. She wanted more and Harry didn’t, it’s implied in the interview where she mentioned it. And they clearly weren’t even that serious to begin with. Stop with the self importance we are not what makes the world go round

Let's hope you are right.

#harry styles olivia wilde

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fymagnificentwomcn · 4 years

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Why do people think Kösem mistreated or was mean to Turhan and Mehmed? I've never read that anywhere in a book, but it's so famous around internet that it's ridiculous.

<DISCLAIMER> Here I need to put a small disclaimer because while answering the question, I truly decided to share some interesting bits about Kösem vs Turhan and in the end it turned into some mini-essay heh. It was definitely a really complex matter and the myth of evil old hag who snatched unlawfully power from her angelic daughter-in-law and then began persecuting her because she was not obedient enough culminating in Turhan having no choice but to kill her mom-in-law and then become best (but absolutely not interested in power) Valide ever is just... not true.<END OF DISCLAIMER>

*******

Same.

I mean, we can bet that when later the rivalry between the two ladies was in full force, they were sometimes rude to each other, but I doubt they would have done it in public for people to note and record, and even that could be filtered out. Harem was truly a closed-off space and this is why we get most of quotes by Sultanas from their letters or if they act in political capacity, like Kösem’s speech to the pashas from the Divan. And yes you can find all sort of rumours cited in books, but I haven’t seen anything like that with legitimate sources provided.

This is also why we have so many different accounts of Kösem’s assassination, often very conflicting, and sometimes even completely internally incoherent and illogical.

And for example we have an account by Derviş Abdullah, who so wanted to avod placing blame on any of the Valides, that he put all blame of Süleyman Agha going from one Valide to another, with each telling lies about the other to incite them to act against each other. But why would the agha want to create showdown between two sultanas? In this case he was an easy scapegoat because he was present as the participant in brutal treatment of Kösem in most accounts. And both Sultanas surely actively participated in the conflict.

As I said, Turhan was very good at propaganda. She really put a lot of focus to keep a good image, especially an image as a lady who was not so much involved in politics and doing it legally, so she placed far more attention to make it seem like Mehmed was ruling, not her, during her regency. She also relied more on statesmen’s advice than Kösem because she was less experienced, and, as Halil İnalcık puts it, less talented than her mother-in-law. And when she gave her power to Köprülü (who was however her man through and through) she created that image of a woman giving up her power willingly. Sakaoğlu states plainly that those historians who criticised Kösem so much were exactly the ones who praised Turhan a lot and stresses how such historians desribed Turhan as having “no political aspirations” as opposed to her mother-in-law. “No political aspirations immediately meant “charitable lady with golden heart, religious and loved by all”. Turhan continued to create her image even when Köprülü began taking radical actions to maintain order:

The year 1656 is, nevertheless, an appropriate date at which to conclude a study of the political role of dynastic women in this period, for henceforth the emphasis in Turhan Sultan’s role as valide sultan would be altered. As her overt political involvement lessened, her ceremonial and philanthropic roles increased considerably. Indeed, the appointment of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha seems to have initiated a period of intense ceremonial aggrandizement of the dynasty. It was shortly after his appointment that Turhan undertook the construction of the Çanakkale fortresses and her great mosque—both reportedly at the grand vezir’s urging. The elaborate royal progresses between Edirne and Istanbul and to Bursa and other areas near the capital also date from this period. Mehmed IV, who in the forty-five years of his reign displayed little interest in the government of his empire, nevertheless campaigned a number of times as a figurehead ghazi under Köprülü Mehmed Pasha’s successors. It may be that these royal rituals were planned by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, or Turhan Sultan, or both, in order to divert attention from continuing crises and the severe and bloody solutions imposed by the grand vezir. With political power and military leadership delegated to the grand vezir, the most useful function that the sovereign might perform was to furnish visible symbols of majesty and piety to maintain the subjects’ loyalty and sense of community.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Peirce also said that Turhan was a sultana who was very concerned with “custom and propriety”.

Sakaoğlu also concludes his citation of Evliya Çelebi’’s account mentioning [short summary & parapharase of that account by me:] how Turhan and Meleki found a way to kill Kösem and then they killed many other people after that and then mentioning also alleged mismanagement by both that brought about Cinar incidents in with the following comment: “This historical account tells us that she [Turhan] had a character far removed from some of her descriptions on other sources and the only ting that saved her from a fate worse than Kösem Sultan’s was luck and her son”. Sakaoğlu also wrote a whole article on how male historians tried to villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history entitled precisely that (Turkish title of the article: Erkek tarihçiler Osmanlı tarihinin en güçlü kadınını nasıl kurban etti? How did male historians villify the most powerful woman in Ottoman history?)

Peirce mentions about Meleki that:.

Kösem was murdered in a palace coup led by Turhan’s chief black eunuch. Meleki became the new valide sultan’s loyal and favored retainer. She was eventually manumitted and married to Şaban Khalife, a former page in the palace training school. The couple established residence in Istanbul, where, as a team, they were ideally suited to act as channels of information and intercessors on behalf of individuals with petitions for the palace. Şaban received male petitioners, Meleki female petitioners; Şaban exploited contacts he had formed while serving within the palace, while Meleki exploited her relationship with Turhan Sultan. The political influence of the couple grew to such a point that they lost their lives in 1656 when troops stationed in Istanbul rebelled against alleged abuses in government.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Curiously, some people truly believe in some myth it all immediately became good after Kösem was killed. Evliya’s account is not the only one actually that mentions Meleki and Turhan being good friends even during Kösem’s lifetime, so maybe the “betrayal” wasn’t actually betrayal even if Meleki was formally Kösem’s slave/servant. Maybe the story of Meleki warning Turhan was invented. We will never know.

Turhan was truly careful to cut herself from controversial decisions and whatever the Grand Vizier was doing, but as Leslie Peirce puts it, she undoubtedly had influence on Köprülü and if she hadn’t liked what he was doing, she would have definitely had a way to end it.

Turhan saw what problems her mother-in-law encountered, so was careful to hide her interest in politics (which again does not mean she had none). But when she gave up power it was a necessity - chaos persisted and persisted after Kösem’s death, there was no Grand Vizier who could stay for longer, and last rebellion was bloody and very dangerous to both Turhan and her son. Turhan realised she would not be able to handle it and in the end made a correct decision because that was a necessary step at that point.

According to Naima, nothing came of these efforts because no one was strong enough to enforce the necessary reforms; the would-be reformer Tarhuncu was brought down by the discontent of influential persons injured by his attempts to economize.The year-and-a-half-long grand vezirate of Derviş Mehmed Pasha in 1653 and 1654 was a respite of relative solvency and harmony, but after his death matters once again began to deteriorate. The integrity of the throne was increasingly threatened both internally by rebellious pashas and externally by Venetian advances in the war over the island of Crete, as well as by chronic fiscal shortages now exacerbated by the costs of mounting campaigns against these internal and external enemies. A serious uprising of the troops in March 1656 that resulted in the execution of many palace officials demonstrated the urgent need for a political solution. It was found six months later when Turhan Sultan appointed the elderly Köprülü Mehmed Pasha grand vezir.

Source: Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire

Sakaoğlu descirbes this event in the following word “the financial and political management were responsibilities that Turhan Sultan and her son Mehmed IV could no longer attempt to rescue and operate, so they handed over the management to Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and new era began for the Ottoman Empire”.

Which does not mean Kösem ruling in her own right was a bad decision either - Kösem was more talented in state matters and she knew she could handle stuff, especially during her second regency when she also had a lot of experience. Turhan realising she could not handle it and withdrawing also spoke well of her sense of responsibility, even though she was not as gifted in politics as Kösem.

Thus said, while Turhan did not have such gift for state matters, she was truly skilled in the act of PR & ceremony, which truly helped her a lot during her career and after her death.

Since she later skillfully cut herself off from blame concerning what was happening in politics, there was still one huge stain on her reputation, namely the way she took power from her mother-in-law.

Contemporary Ottoman chroniclers did not welcome the news of Kösem Sultan’s death and recorded it as an injustice committed against a woman of great accomplishments and stature, and as a harbinger of greater social disorder. The manner in which the older valide was disposed of and the subsequent chaos in the palace was recalled during the reign of Mehmed IV as a time of upheaval. Bobovi, so taken by the event, was able to recall more than a decade later the part of the palace where the old valide had been removed from her quarters for the last time.

Source: Lucienne Thys-Senocak, Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan

Murder of Valide Sultan was unheard of in Ottoman history. And what was a better way to justify it then by assassination attempt on the padişah himself? But how to explain why Kösem, known for her prudence and careful calculation, would have attempted such a risky move for no reason? Wouldn’t it have meant that Turhan, the lady of pure characters with no political aspirations, actually did desire power and wanted to take her from her mother-in-law?

Peirce comments that:

The bloodiest contest between competing mothers—the murder in 1651 of the formidable queen mother Kösem by the party of her daughter-in-law Turhan, who was impatient to take power—was reminiscent of past rebellions of princes against aging sultan fathers.

We know little about their relations when Turhan was just a haseki - we only know about conflicts between Turhan and Ibrahim. We similarly know next to nothing about relations between Kösem and Ibrahim’s concubines - the person she was definitely in conflict with was Şekerpare aka one of the people who encouraged Ibrahim’s spending and supported corruption in his court (do not confuse her with his consort Şivekar, historically they were two separate people, show put them together because of limited screentime). There are however some mentions of her, similarly like in the show, backing up Turhan in her conflict with Zarife. Peirce mentions Kösem groomed Turhan in the Imperial Harem and one of her articles. This is a mention of Kösem backing up Turhan in the Zarife conflict from Sakaoglu’s Famous Ottoman Women, though of course this whole Padre Ottomano story with illegitimate prince has so many versions and legends surrounding it and again this account sounds sensationalised in some details like Turhan seeing them in bed or Zarife being pregnant with Ibrahim’s child only then, though we know such situation with throwing Mehmed after a quarrel did take place.

Turhan was definitely the person who benefitted most from Ibrahim’s deposition - from relative obscurity she entered big politics as Valide Sultan. While Kösem got the job of a regent, her position was actually not as stable as woman with her own son - it all depended on statesmen and their whims. She was offered a job due to her experience as opposed to really young Turhan (she was only around twenty two) and as person who had already stabilised Empire when it had been on the brink after Osman’s deposition and Mustafa’s disastrous reign. It was not legally normalised in the Ottoman Empire for a mother to be automatically regent - in the past it was often Grand Vizier and when Süleyman left for campaigns, he always appointed his viziers and later his sons as his regents, not his mother or Hürrem. Mehmed III was the first one to appoint Safiye as regent when he was on campaign to Hungary. Later Halime and Handan were appropriately co-regent and regent de facto, but they did not have the naib-i-sultanat title like Kösem and later Turhan.

Judge Abdülaziz Efendi commented on this unprecedented occurrence in the following words:

It being an ancient custom that upon the accession of a new sultan the mother of the previous sultan remove to the Old Palace and thus give up her honored office, the elder valide requested permission to retire to a life of seclusion. But because the loving mother of the [new] sultan was still young and truly ignorant of the state of the world, it was thought that if she were in control of the government, there would result the possibility of harm to the welfare of the state. Therefore the elder valide was reappointed for a while longer to the duty of training and guardianship, and it was considered appropriate to renew the assignment of crown lands to the valide sultan.

Of course I can bet neither Kösem wanted to go to Old Palace nor Turhan was happy about not becoming regent, but it obviously had to look like this officially :) Peirce comments here that truly the position of Valide Sultan had become institutionalised by then for Abdülaziz to put it in these words because he was a well-known as opponent of Kösem.

After quoting the above,Thys-Senocak goes on to say:

By the time that Turhan Sultan was to take up the position of valide, Kösem Sultan was in her sixties, and she had been a valide since 1623, close to three decades. Upon the death of her husband, Sultan Ahmed I, she had been removed to the Old Palace for six years until her son Murad IV succeeded to the throne in 1623 and she returned to the Topkapı. When Murad died, she continued to serve as a valide for her son İbrahim. During these years Kösem had established a solid network of alliances within the court and among the Janissaries, who would support her if her power was threatened. In the unstable times that faced the Ottoman administration Kösem’s seniority and guidance were seen as essential by many in the palace. Her authority was not, however, welcomed by Turhan, who saw her place in the harem administration usurped by her mother-in-law.

Turhan was deprived neither her Valide Sultan title NOR status. Kumrular mentions she was nowhere near as powerless as some try to portray her. There is even evidence from Spanish ambassadors she participated in foreign politics, e.g. that she complained about ambassador Allegretti sent by Spain .She also moved to Kösem’s old Valide chambers.

Kösem’s rank as “Big Valide” was a new one, created especially to allow her to be regent. It was the only time this title was used in the Ottoman Empire.

Also the new Grand Vizier, Sofu Mehmed Pasha, was against the appointment of Kösem as a new regent because he hoped to get the position himself and as Peirce says also saw himself as “temporary ruler”. He was supported by Abdülaziz Efendi, and these two were the two statesmen Kosem addressed particularly in her famous speech because she was well aware they plotted against her together. Swedish ambassador Ralamb said the following about two first years after Ibrahim’s death: “the state experienced two good years. The valide sultan, an intelligent and smart person, ruled well and peacefully thanks to her natural talents and much experience”.

It is generally assumed by historians who assessed the whole conflict, like Kumrular or Peirce, that Turhan was the one who initiated the rivalry. From the start, she tried to undermine Kösem’s rule, thus also making it difficult for her to stabilise Empire and Kösem was actually doing a good job with it. Her first decision was to remove corrupt harem aghas, who participated in mismanagement and mayhem of Ibrahim’s reign, but Turhan used this opportunity to lure them to her side and made them her supporters, which as Valide Sultan was not a difficult task. In her speech dimissing the aghas according to the account by Derviş Abdullah, Kösem apparently accused them of having schemed against her which resulted in her exile and then said that thanks to their corrupting influence “light of my eyes, Sultan Ibrahim, became a martyr, crying loudly. Do you intend to bring similar fate to Sultan Mehmed?”

Turhan also worked hard to lure as many statesmen as possible to her side by showing herself as morally superior to her mother-in-law, which again was quite easy considering she was up against a woman with so many years of experience on political scene. She especially used Ibrahim’s deposition for this purpose. According to Rycaut, she sent letters to statesmen describing herself as poor grieving widow with an orphan who hopes to see those responsible for his father’s death punished.. obviously she meant Kösem among them. She often incited anger following Ibrahim’s deposition and rebellions, which again made it difficult to restore peace after Ibrahim’s reign. And please - relations between her and Ibrahim were so bad & she was so sidelined by him during his reign compared to his other women, it is hard to believe she was truly in any grief. Sakaoğlu mentions three “strikes of luck” for her - Ibrahim’s death, Kösem’s death and surviving Cinar incidents of 1656). Rycaut ends his description of the “throwing Mehmed” incident with the following words: “All these matters served for farther fuel to nourish the implacable Spirit of the Queen [Turhan]”.

This tactic was also shown in the show – after pushing for Ibrahim’s death during the coup&making it bloody, she continued to incite riots to force the Şeyhülislam and others to demand Ibrahim’s execution, then made Mehmed sign his dad’s death order. For once, she seemed to acknowledge Kösem’s rank and didn’t do anything behind her back because she was well aware that Kösem, a seasoned politician, would realise that there was no way Ibrahim could survive this and decide to carry out the sentence herself being justifiably scared what might happen if he got into Turhan’s and her supporters’ hands or other angry people as she saw what had happened to Osman. Then Turhan could carefully remove herself from the scene and depict Kösem as Ibrahim’s murderer, while conveniently forgetting everything she had done from first episode she was in to have him dethroned and killed (when she told Haçı: “How any padisahs have you killed?” GIRL….) Plus, she knew the whole situation of Kösem carrying out the execution would fuck up Kösem mentally and make her an easier opponent for further fight...After all, following Ibrahim’s death she happily announced “Ibrahim is dead, now time for Kösem”.

Shortly before Kösem’s assassination there was still rebellion of sipahis incited by Turhan. Rycaut mentions she wrote to them about her husband’s death and how those who had caused it (implied Kösem and janissaries) disrespected her son’s authority and would soon bring similar end to sipahis and eradicate them forever. The rebels also mentioned Ibrahim’s name & demanded his killers punished during these riots in 1651 (!).

What happened next, we will never know for sure. Kösem was definitely a woman of action&it’s likely she had to take into account steps like dethroning Mehmed or getting rid of Turhan. Apparently, Turhan was afraid about Süleyman being put in Mehmed’s place for some time. What we know for sure she planned for eliminating four of Turhan’s allies.

Did she try to kill Mehmed? We will never know, but it spreading such rumours would definitely make it easier for Turhan to rally supporters.

Another example of Turhan’s strategic PR – she requested a fetva for Kösem’s execution, but after Kösem’s death dismissed the judge to cut off herself from his person and this decision&also to prevent punishment of people involved in the matter. Still, GV who carried out purges among Kösem’s allies was later dismissed for that and it’s hard to imagine Turhan had not been involved in the original decision for these purges. There is one account by Rycaut describing Turhan requesting fetva for Kösem’s execution in which the mufti was scared to make this sort of decision, while Turhan arranged a mob to come and demand justice “for their padisah”, and simultaneously Turhan hid behind a curtain to say to leave the woman (Kösem) in peace for the sake of the padişah her son and to stop slandering his grandmother’s name&involve the padisah in such matters The account goes to kinda sensationalised picture that there was a woman in crowd that Turhan pointed out as being Kösem and encouraged the mob to punish her, not the padisah’s mother, and then fell to her knees crying in front of her son, with Mehmed drying her tears with handkerchief, but this sounds definitely like sensationalised account to make the story more dramatic such as Rycaut’s mentions that Kösem was 80-year-old toothless old lady to stress her age (she was 60, chill)

Turhan was a very sly and PR-based sultana.

I’ve seen a theory (?) that Kösem was rude to Mehmed and Turhan because of her sassy speech to pashas (?). Firstly, one of the people to whom the speech was addressed earlier, Abdülaziz Efendi, had insulted MEHMED when during a Divan meeting Mehmed did attend (Kösem was there with him to instruct him, just as Turhan later) replied to Mehmed asking him about bribery among pashas: ’My dear, who taught you this?” Of course what they wanted was to express displeasure that in fact this woman was ruling them, not a padişah. And Kösem did mention the slight given to her grandson. After the “I’ve seen reigns” part the usually skipped later part is “Sometimes they attempt to kill me. When certain imperial commands have been issued, they have said [to the sultan], ‘my dear, who taught you to say these things?’ Such patronizing behavior towards sultans is impermissible! And what if the sultan is instructed?” [translation taken from Peirce]. Moreover, the same people were plotting against her and also tried to have her killed and she was very well aware of that, which is why she kept mentioning her death. The speech is not only sass, as Kumrular points out, Kösem also mentions that she is aware death might be near and is not scared of it and she’s also aware everything will go on following her death, no matter how important she was.

Kösem following Ibrahim’s death was shaken and just as shown in the show in fragile mental state that she did not resemble her old self in certain aspects – she was definitely more reliant on her trusted group of people mostly consisting of janissaries instead of co-operating closely with everyone unlike during her first regency (which was pointed out as serious mistake by Naima) and was more quarrelsome than ealier, but damn those people truly used her weaker mental condition for their purpose – like when she was crying in her room following Ibrahim’s execution, Abdülaziz Efendi (yes this bitch again) came to her and told her it was what she had been praying for in response to her “Whose curses and bad wishes reached him [Ibrahim]?”, which shook her mentally very much (Abdülaziz Efendi himself described this incident, so it’s hard to doubt its occurrence).

And in the end, while assessing the Kösem/Turhan conflict we must also take into account that this elderly woman who had been through a lot was automatically at disadvantage against young, seemingly innocent rising star, who in the end emerged as victor. And as Derviş Abdullah put it when talking about the matter “it’s easy to put all sort of blame on the deceased” (he used it when discussing all sorts of rumours & blame being assigned to Kösem following her death).

- Joanna

#turhan hatice sultan #turhan sultan #kosem sultan #kösem sultan #ottoman history #ottoman empire #answered #Anonymous #history #muhteşem yüzyıl kösem #historicalquotes

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amltdaily · 3 years

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For a second consecutive year, the season finale of A Million Little Things ended with the question, Who hit Eddie? The incident, which left Eddie fighting for his life, was the big Season 2 finale cliffhanger. Tonight, Eddie received a call from a woman claiming to be the driver who hit him. And that was not the biggest Season 3 finale cliffhanger.

Once again, AMLT left someone’s life hanging in the balance; this time, it was music teacher/sexual abuser Peter Benoit. He was attacked at his doorstep by Gary, who put a bag over his head and dragged him inside. In an interview with Deadline, series creator/executive producer D.J. Nash discussed both shockers as well as the slew of other developments in tonight’s packed finale. Before we get to that, here is a brief rundown on some of the Season 3 finale highlights.

Gary’s assault on Peter was a culmination of the Sophie storyline, in which she decided to go to the police and file a report so Peter could not harm other girls. Holding the diary of another student of Peter’s, Layla, who had killed herself, Sophie was interviewed by the police, but the detective did not think there was enough evidence to charge Peter, and indicated that a text exchange between Sophie and Peter after the alleged assault might have undermined her case. Gary, who felt responsible as Sophie’s guardian at the time, did not take this well and kicked a trash can in the hallway of the police station.

Already reeling emotionally, Gary was further jolted when Darcy shut down his suggestion that they may start a family by telling him she did not want more kids after he’d agreed to follow her to Lenox where she was moving so her son can be close to his father. Gary then got into a heated conversation with Delilah, who blamed him for not protecting Sophie. That was after Delilah’s older children found out that she was planning to move the entire family to France, something the teens strongly opposed.

The next time we see Gary he was at his father’s, creating an alibi, leaving his phone and saying goodbye before he headed to Peter’s house. Thus, he did not get Darcy’s voicemail, in which she told him she had changed her mind about kids, praising Gary, who has been the MVP of the group of friends this season, helping everyone, from raising Delilah’s older children while she was in France to taking in Eddie and chaperoning his visits with Theo.

As Gary went all vigilante on Peter, Sophie went after her abuser by telling her story — and revealing his name — on Maggie’s podcast.

In other developments, Eddie and Katherine, who spent most of the episode arguing over custody, came to a workable solution at the end, just before Eddie got the surprise call from the woman confessing to being behind the wheel of the red SUV.

Regina closed the restaurant but not before feeding a young father who had lost his wife to Covid. Rome and their foster son Tyrell continued work on their documentary about systemic racism. It led to Tyrell reconnecting with his mother’s former partner who now has the job Tyrell’s mother was vying for before she got deported. Convinced that the ex-partner had turned her in, Tyrell confronted the guy, with Rome intervening to deescalate the situation. It turned out that Tyrell’s mom took her partner’s car to drive to a FedEx office to mail her son’s summer program application when she was pulled over by cops.

Here is the interview with Nash, in which he also discusses the main theme and mystery next season and what is next for all characters (Rome’s documentary will be a smashing success), reveals that he had considered having a major character die of Covid, teases the return of AMLT favorites and his plans for ending the series.

DEADLINE: Let’s start with the second biggest question at the end of this finale. It’s a case of déjà vu because at the end of last year’s finale, we have exactly the same question, who hit Eddie? What can you say about bringing back the mystery?

NASH: We were talking about bringing it back a few episodes before. The reason we didn’t is because it obviously would make a great cliffhanger, but we wanted to, this season, examine Alex’s dad, the reverend, and all those stories. But just when we got you to forget about who did this, the question resurfaces again, and I think that’s true to Eddie’s journey. Just when he is accepting this is my life, and this is what I’m going to do, and I actually am going to find strength in who I am now, it’s upended by that call coming in, and what we will watch next season is everything about Eddie tested by this call, his sobriety, his ability to be the person he wants to be right now.

You sometimes have a settled moment and you’re able to move on, and then something else happens that challenges it, and I think we see that in the finale with Sophie. She is more at peace with what has happened to her than at any point since it happened. She is going to Maggie. She is going from victim to survivor and retelling her story, but as that’s happening, obviously, Gary’s doing something over at Peter’s that’s going to challenge and threaten all that.

DEADLINE: We’ll go through all of those one by one but let’s finish with Eddie’s call. What can you say about the identity of the woman? Have we seen, heard her? I assume we haven’t because some fans would recognized the voice.

NASH: That’s right, yes, and we definitely treated that voice in post. So, yes, it does not appear to be someone we’ve seen. I don’t think that it’s Alex’s sister. It does not appear to be Eddie’s sister, Lindsay, and some of the fan-favorites of who could’ve hit Eddie seem to be off the table. It’s another person, and it sounds also like she has remorse. So, either it was an accident, or it’s something that she did that she regrets doing. It definitely feels as though she feels horrible that this has happened.

DEADLINE: So, you cannot say whether this was an accident or intentional? Why is she contacting Eddie now?

NASH: Yeah, I think I want the fans to experience it the way that the episode leaves it, which, it definitely, definitely feels like this is a person who has great regret for what happened and is probably reaching out, out of guilt. I think guilt is a huge theme that we’ve started to uncover this season. Obviously, it’s leading a couple people to make some not-so-great decisions in our finale, and it’s something that we’ll see our friend group struggle with. There’s healthy guilt and unhealthy guilt, and I think it’s important to draw the distinction between them.

DEADLINE: A tangential question. Why didn’t the police investigate and get to the bottom of that hit? They have access to street cameras. It seems like this this should’ve been resolved by now.

NASH: They did. If you remember, there was an episode where the detective calls and says that they saw a camera that was on a gas station nearby, and it wasn’t a pickup truck, it was an SUV. So, there is an investigation. I think a lot of these investigations… I know, in our own life, there was an accident that happened in our family this year, and I called to say, hey, can we see the street camera to see if we can identify exactly what happened, and we weren’t able to get that.

DEADLINE: I remember that, that’s how we ruled out Reverend Stewart as a suspect. So, can we rule out a connection to Alex backstory now? Can we assume that this is part of a brand-new mystery that is not related to Alex’s death anymore?

NASH: I don’t know that we can rule out, but I’m happy to rule that out for you, right now, yes. This has nothing to do with Alex and the boathouse, and that story and that chapter is behind us.

DEADLINE: One last question about Eddie. I know we discussed this before and said that because of the strength of David Giuntoli’s performance, you wanted to explore more of Eddie in the wheelchair, but is there a possibility that he might begin to recover and start walking next season?

NASH: Yeah. I really am so impressed at the way in which David Giuntoli is approaching this storyline, and his work this season as someone who is in a wheelchair, he’s playing him with just authenticity and true grit from the moment we wanted to tell this story. There’s two writers in the room who have parents who are physically challenged, and as you know, I’m one of them, seeing my dad go to law school blind; he went to law school when I was a kid, and he was 45. I think he wasn’t a dad that you might think someone would be, but he was probably always better, and I think we were really excited to see that strength and to see Theo experience his dad’s true grit.

DEADLINE: You didn’t answer the question. Is there any chance for him to walk next season?

NASH: I think there is as much a chance of him getting out of the chair as there really is for someone who’s in a chair to get out of the chair, which is, it’s really highly unlikely, and in telling that story, I think while that might be an interesting story turn for TV but I want to be really respectful of the community that we’re representing, and I think the likelihood that someone walks again and puts the chapter of a wheelchair behind them after the accident Eddie’s been through is really unlikely, and our show is all about authenticity. So, I can’t say with 100 percent certainly we would never have him have movement and feelings and maybe walk a few steps, but for right now, for this next season, he’s in that wheelchair.

DEADLINE: Okay. Now, to the bigger cliffhanger involving Gary. What exactly is planning to do with Peter and why is he doing it? Clearly, Gary is not going for a quick death.

NASH: Well, I think the why goes back almost to Gary’s childhood. His mom left, he felt this loss of family, and he has, so many times in his life, tried to re-create that. I think it’s one of the reasons went to 41 hockey games a year with a guy he met in an elevator, because he’s just that desperate to have a family, which is probably why he proposed to Maggie earlier than he would have. It’s why he is moving so quickly with Darcy, prepared to move to Lenox and wants to have a family with her. You look at Gary, and he’s like the greatest friend you could ever have, and I think the reason he is so giving is because he’s treating his friends like family because he doesn’t have that family that he once had. When he was taking care of Sophie, he feels like if he hadn’t circled back to talk to Peter, if he hadn’t convinced Peter to give Sophie another chance, she would’ve been out of his world, and because Gary circled back, he gave Peter a lot of the tools to groom her, and I think he carries tremendous guilt of it.

It’s one of the examples of unhealthy guilt that we’re going to follow into next season, and that, combined with Delilah saying she’s moving to France, Darcy, at least leaving him earlier in the episode as though she doesn’t want to have kids with him, he had nothing to lose. I think the anger he’s feeling, the guilt that is overtaking him, and then the nothing to lose attitude is the perfect storm for whatever it is he’s doing over at Peter’s.

In answer to your question of what is he doing at Peter’s, whatever he’s doing is premeditated. He went over to his dad’s and came up with an alibi, and he puts a bag over Peter’s head. It is Gary. It is Peter. That is a bag. He pulls him inside and closes the door. So, that is a mystery, and certainly the question that we’re following next season is what happened over there.

DEADLINE: Will the question be answered in the Season 4 premiere? Will you pick up where you left off in the finale, or will that be something that will be revealed slowly?

NASH: What we’re watching in the first half of next season is how did Gary go from kicking a trash can at a police station to putting a bag over someone’s head. We’ll uncover all of that, and it happens quickly. It’s not at a frustratingly slow pace. We will get to it, and we will learn exactly, is Peter alive or dead? We’ll learn that right in 4-01 and what the fallout is of all of that. It happens right away.

DEADLINE: Moving onto Sophie. For her, doing the podcast feels liberating, but would there be any consequences for her naming her abuser? Peter, he obviously has bigger problems right now with Gary, but will there be anything more to this plotline for Sophie or has she gotten closure by sharing her story?

NASH: It’s a great question. I’m trying to be sensitive with every topic we do, but especially with this one, because it’s loosely based on something that happened to one of the writers in our room, it’s loosely based on something that’s happened to our community and to our world. I think since the #MeToo movement has been here, we’re seeing that there’s different stages that a survivor goes through, but moving from victim to survivor, one, is just acknowledging to someone that something happened.

The other would be acknowledging publicly that something happened, and then this huge step of saying and this is the person who did it. We’ve seen with some high-profile people the ramifications of saying that. It appears that Maggie was not aware that Sophie was going to single out Peter by name in the podcast, and she does, and what does that mean? What is the positive, and what are the potential negative consequences for Sophie of saying that? And all of that sort of power, strength, liberation that Sophie is having in reclaiming her story and reclaiming the power of her life, moving from victim to survivor, that is all potentially undermined by what Gary does over at Peter’s.

DEADLINE: What about Regina, Rome and Tyrell? By the way, another tangent. I have high school kids who are applying to a lot of summer programs, and all applications are done online, not via FedEx. Aside from that, will Tyrell be able to reunite with his birth mother or could he get adopted by Regina and Rome?

NASH: That’s really funny, Nellie, because when I was watching Star Wars with my wife, and she was like, you know, guns don’t make noise in outer space, and I was like, other than that, this is a perfect story, but that’s hilarious. So, I’m sorry, I was all fixated on that. I didn’t hear your question.

DEADLINE: It’s about whether the boy will be able to reunite with his mother. And you mentioned guilt, that clearly will affect Tyrell and the dynamic in his new family.

Nash: Yeah, 100 percent guilt is a big part of our series. He is feeling the guilt, and he now has confirmation that he caused his mother’s deportation. We worked very closely with Define American and with FedEx in bringing this story. I don’t think Regina and Roma will adopt Tyrell because he does have a mother, and she is alive and well. They wouldn’t want to offend her. He has a mom whom he can’t be near because of something he did, and how he processes that guilt, how they help the son that they’re fostering work through that. We saw him immediately want to run out and confront Kyle, and Rome trying to contain that, only to then have to chase after him. So, we’re dealing with someone who might let their feelings and emotions get the best of them, and so, how does Rome be there for his foster son and prevent him from making a mistake the way Rome’s other friend, Gary, did.

DEADLINE: Tyrell reuniting with mom this coming season, possible?

NASH: It’s certainly possible. I want the fans to see how the story plays out, but we did cast that mom, and she’s a fantastic actress, and we’re certainly hoping to see her again.

DEADLINE: Regina, she had a difficult, emotional arc this season, and now she lost the restaurant. Will she be able to revive her dream or owning a restaurant or is that part of her career over?

NASH: We really wanted to make sure, this season, that we tell the story of losing at least one person to Covid because, obviously, so many people were lost. There was a time in this writer’s room where we talked about potentially losing a recurring character or maybe even a series regular to Covid, and I think we felt like, honestly, we love these characters, we don’t want to lose them. That was really a big factor, and also, I think that we wanted to be authentic to the loss that people faced but at the same time not bring too much sadness and pain to that. The story was really deliberate. We wanted, as Regina is losing her dream and her restaurant, to put it in perspective, and earlier in the episode, Rome says ‘How are you doing?’, and she says ‘Compared to what?’

What we gave her for a story throughout the episode was a comparison, to have her realize that she’s doing better than she thought she was doing. Yeah, she lost her restaurant. Yeah, she lost her dream, and I think it’s really easy for us all, right now — I could say I haven’t been able to get to the stage this year, I haven’t been able to go out with friends, but compared to other people, we’re really fortunate. So, we wanted to have Regina have that moment where things are put into perspective At the same time, we also wanted to look at where we were at the end of last season compared to where we are this season. At the end of last season, Eve changes her mind, and Regina is denied the family she wants, whereas at the end of this season, despite losing her restaurant, she’s able to get through that because she is surrounded by her family, and Tyrell comes in and delivers this beautiful speech, and I think that is really the message of our series,. When you surround yourself with the right people, you can get through anything.

DEADLINE: Onto Delilah. Will there be an AMLT spinoff, Delilah in Paris, like Emily in Paris, or is her move doomed, or is she going but only with Charlie?

NASH: That’s what we’re watching. It really appears as though what this woman needs is a fresh start. It really feels like she was suffocating and didn’t even realize how much her level of pain was until she got to France and had a chance to step back and appreciate that. I think in Episode 3, as she’s leaving, buys a suitcase and was talking about how she hasn’t taken a trip without Jon. I think we were setting the table for her discovery in France, and we really wanted to tell that story.

Delilah has done many things in the series that make the fans question her, how good a mom she is, how good a person she is, and we wanted to make sure that we were telling her side of the story. So, that fight that she has with Gary really is that opportunity for us to hear that she went to France, it was supposed to be just for three weeks, and she was going to give her dad, who had memory loss, the last trip of his life, and then he fell, and yes, she was not there for some huge moments for her children, but that’s not out of choice. It’s because the pandemic happened, and so, we just wanted to humanize and continue that theme that I love, which is just when you think you know someone, you don’t.

DEADLINE: You didn’t say anything about her move to France? Is that happening, for her with/without her older children?

NASH: We really want the fans to see how that happens, but what I love about our series is just when people think, oh, it must be a card flip, maybe it’s not.

DEADLINE: Eddie and Katherine, they looked like they were starting to find a way to co-parent. How will their relationship evolve next season with that jolt Eddie got with the call? You hinted that he may relapse as a result.

NASH: I’m happy to say, because I think the finale, the story really depicts this beautifully, that they are not able to be there for each other the way the other person needs them to be, but they are determined to be there for Theo, and they are determined to not let the fact that they are divorced keep them from being the parents they want to be. So, we’re going to watch them have to navigate these very new waters for them, mostly separately, sometimes together, just trying to be everything to Theo that he deserves.

DEADLINE: Looking ahead to Season 4, you mention guilt as a theme, you mentioned the new mystery of the female caller. What else do you have in store? Do you have any other major themes and mysteries that you’re planning?

NASH: Well, certainly, we have what happened behind that door. We’re also following whether or not this family moves to France and if some of them do and some of them don’t and what’s the fallout of how that affects this family. We have the mystery of how did what happened to Peter affect what happens with Gary and Darcy, moving forward. We left the season with Maggie also aware that Gary wasn’t where he was supposed to be, and so, we’ll see how her awareness might affect the story.

We’re also seeing Maggie, who’s found her voice in this podcast, gain some notoriety, and that story is a story we’re tracking next season that has some very funny and fun actors, who are fans of our show, joining our series that we’re excited about, and then, finally, for Rome, his documentary is picking up, and we’ll see him have incredible success. We’re telling that story, and for Regina, her figuring out what the next chapter of her life is going to be and her relying on her friends, who have had to face similar questions, for support and love as she finds that next chapter. That will involve a return of some people who have been in our series before that we have been excited to come back.

DEADLINE: Covid limited your guest actor choices this season. Can you tease any favorites that are coming back? Jason Ritter? You also mentioned new guest stars. Would they be playing themselves as guests on Maggie’s podcasts or will they play characters?

NASH: Well, certainly, Covid has restricted us, and that’s we’re excited about some of the mystery of what happened and where we left things at the end of this season. That’ll get us through, hopefully, the quarantine part of Vancouver, which hopefully will lift before Thanksgiving, at which point, we will be bringing even more guest stars in. We have found, in the last couple seasons, that there are some more high-profile actors who are fans of our show, and I’ve had a conversation with a few of them about coming in and doing parts, and it’s incredible. In fact, there are people who I’m a fan of, and I’m like, you watch our show? That’s awesome.

So, we will see a couple of those people. I can’t say yet who they are, because those deals aren’t closed. In terms of the other part of who, who’s been in our show, who’s coming back, yes, there’s quite a few people who we want to have back. Again, it’s just a question of when we get to that point of the season, are they on other series that allow them to come hang out with us, but we put a pin in some pretty big stories going into season three because of Covid, and those are stories that could wait to be told, and hopefully, now, we can unpin them and bring them back, because we’re doing 20 episodes this year. It’s the biggest season we’ve ever had, and we want each episode to be special.

DEADLINE: Delilah had a love interest at the end of Season 2, played by Parker Young. He disappeared.

NASH: She did, Miles. Parker is on a series (United States of Al), so, that might be difficult to bring back. And maybe…she’s in France. Maybe she meets a guy or a woman in France.

DEADLINE: What about Ron Livingston? We heard him in the finale but will we be able to see him next season?

NASH: I would love to see him in this season. He and I talked about him possibly being in that finale, and for the amount of screen time I would’ve had him and for the amount that I would’ve had to have him quarantine. He’s got kids, and it didn’t feel like I could justify asking him to do that. He was awesome and willing, and I said to him, let’s wait for a future episode. So, I’d love to see him back. With where I want to go with our series, I know, for sure, he’s in it again.

DEADLINE: You have a very serialized show, and you’re going into now Season 4. Are you already mapping out a final arc? Do you know when/how the show is ending?

NASH: I knew what the last season of the show was when I pitched the pilot. So, that’s already mapped out. Every year, when we get together with the new writers, it’s the second or third day, the first thing I do is tell them is how the series ends. So, they’re all aware of that. They know what we’re building towards. What season that will happen in is a conversation that as soon as we get up and running, this season, I want to have with our partners at the studio and the network, just to find what we think is the best length of time to tell this story.

DEADLINE: So, you have the ending ready but you won’t know until the summer whether you should proceed with the idea or shelve it for next season?

NASH: I basically have about the six-episode last segment of our show, and that can fit at the end of any season. With us getting a 20-episode order, it doesn’t feel like that ABC wants this to be our last season. I think there are three things that are balanced, how our fans are and whether we still continue to get the numbers and the Live+ numbers that we get. I think the second factor is just the actors and their desire to keep telling these stories, but the biggest thing is me and the writers and us feeling like do we still have fresh situations that we want to put our characters in. At my heart, in my roots, I am a stand-up comic, and rule number one is leave the audience wanting more.

DEADLINE: How do you feel, do you have more stories? Can you do multiple more seasons?

NASH: There’s no question we have enough to do 20 incredible episodes this season.

#interview #dj nash #a million little things

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def-initely-soul · 5 years

Text

Burn The Witch {1}

pairing: yoongi x reader (f.)

genre: supernatural; angst; mystery; magical society AU; magicals!AU

rating: PG-15

warnings: violence; emotional abuse; blood; bullying; mentions of murder; mature language

words: 3k

summary:

↠ {a boy who keeps running away, a girl who can’t seem to no matter how much she tries and a series of murders caught all in between of the cracks spread through what appears as a quiet little town…} ↞

or alternatively, not everything is always what it seems

There’s something distinctively peculiar about little towns. About their alleged serenity and peaceful way of living. About their closed-off shops and their faded-out road signs and billboards left behind simply because no one bothered to replace them. About the undeniable bonds existing between the native-borns and the ex ostracization of anyone that threatened those bonds, or really anyone different. About their so-called hospitality that turns into vicious, violent hatred once that quiet, “peaceful” way of living is put at risk.

Yoongi is bound to feel intrigued, as he drives by the road sign that welcomes him into such a small town. Xefoto its name. Derived from the Greek word for “clearing”, as it was one of the first towns that took in supernatural beings -or magicals if you prefer a different term- and let them build shelter in the clearing in the woods. Back when humans and magicals didn’t get along too well, so their new home had to be founded away from the outskirts of the human town. But as centuries went by, the two small establishments began growing and spreading, until the borders meshed together and humans and magicals learned to live side-by-side.

Yoongi has done his research before moving here. He may have a house he can settle in already, seeing as the Min Vampire Clan was one of the first vampire families to live in Xefoto, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be welcomed here.

Trees pass him by as his eyes never stray from the road, his grip on the steering wheel tight as he taps his fingers on the leather impatiently.

If his research is correct, he just transferred to one of the most prestigious universities for magicals. The “Xefoto University of Magical Arts”, or Xuma for short, has been around almost as long as the town has existed. People Yoongi only ever dreamt of meeting have studied here and the path he’s about to take is only promising in its entirety.

Then why does he feel as if he’s about to lose control of his own life?

His heart thumps once against his chest as he finally drives into town, the gloomy skies seeming like an appropriate welcome.

Okay, maybe this wasn’t exactly the welcoming he had expected.

Yoongi was ready for apathy for the rest of the student body, even some suspicious glances thrown his way, given he’s an outsider infiltrating their little town’s haven. Instead, from the moment he stepped foot into the academy castle, he’s met with students approaching him to know his name, to befriend him, to know more about him. Girls and boys alike are flooding his path, overly friendly smiles, and kind gestures to the point of feeling overwhelming and Yoongi can't help but hate this sudden interest in him.

He expected -wished even- to be left alone, not this welcoming committee of students following him like a shadow everywhere he goes.

There hasn’t been a course he’s been to today without someone approaching him, interested in getting to know him but it’s not something he welcomes. Most of those students, -or professors in some cases-, are after him only because he’s the new student. Something entirely foreign and simultaneously so much fascinating to people that have known nothing more than what’s inside the premises of their little town. No one is really interested in him as a person and so Yoongi finds all those interactions irritating and weird.

But there is one person that managed to intrigue him.

There’s this fae boy, Jimin. He approaches Yoongi throughout the day.

Although his method might seem to some… unconventional.

Most people that approach Yoongi are really excited to get to meet him. Big, wide smiles, so forceful they almost look hurtful, eyes swimming with excitement and overall people practically throwing themselves at his feet. Although Jimin seems dormant. No skippiness in his steps, no trembling excitement or flashing smiles, no eagerness to get close to him. Instead, a frown masks the fae boy’s features every time he nears the dark-haired vampire boy, slow, dragging steps, as if unwilling to move, as he points Yoongi to the next class or the cafeteria. His words always come out as exasperated grumbles. Yoongi at one point thought the boy was cursing at him, only to realize he was just informing him about lunch hours.

Jimin helps out Yoongi through the school grounds and routine but it seems like the fae is doing it almost by force.

The notion that this might be a prank has passed Yoongi’s mind, but to be honest, Jimin’s tips have proven to be helpful, so Yoongi can’t help but wonder about the blond boy.

Hence, why, when he spots the man in the dining hall, he wastes no time in taking the empty seat next to him.

Jimin’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets as he regards the vampire sitting nonchalantly beside him. Yoongi doesn’t seem like he pays attention to Jimin as he settles down and goes through his lunch, though his ears are attuned to the fae’s reactions, waiting for the moment the younger man speaks up.

Jimin closes his agape mouth and swallows nervously.

“What are you doing here?”

Yoongi almost laughs at the accusatory tone, finding himself enjoying teasing the other boy, but nonetheless, he remains serious.

“Having lunch?” he cocks an eyebrow.

Jimin huffs in annoyance. “No, yeah, I know, I mean…” he takes an exasperated breath, “Why here?”

“Because it’s the dining hall?” Yoongi barely manages to conceal his laughter as Jimin’s ears grow red.

“I- ugh! I meant why next to me?!” he exclaims out loud, irritation shimmering in his words, though he looks more like a child that’s just been denied ice cream. A slight glimmer appears behind Jimin, at the place where his wings are supposed to be, threatening to reveal themselves.

Yoongi lets out a breath, deciding that was enough teasing.

“Well, to be frank, it feels like you don't particularly like me and yet you still help me around. Couldn’t help but feel curious…” he comments before taking a bite of his medium-rare steak.

Jimin once again remains speechless as he regards the other boy, suddenly feeling ashamed of his behavior. His eyes fall to his lap, biting his lip as he ponders on his answer.

“I… I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome, it wasn’t my intention, honestly…” he responds, for once no sign of annoyance in his features, only remorse, and guilt.

“Don’t worry about it. Actually, it was a nice change from being treated like the town’s local rockstar,” Yoongi chuckles, tone casual as Jimin visibly relaxes next to him.

“Oh, yeah, the whole town’s been buzzing since they learned about the new vampire transfer…” Jimin comments, finally seeming to be comfortable around Yoongi’s presence.

“But why?” Yoongi’s voice is full of confusion, not at all understanding why is everyone so enticed by him.

“Well I think being a Min and a vampire might have tipped the scale…” the fae boy says as-a-matter-of-a-factly.

Yoongi’s unimpressed stare makes Jimin reconsider.

“Ah, right… You’re new here…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jimin rolls his eyes before he speaks again.

“Well, the fact that you belong to one of the oldest vampire families in the world should be enough but this town…”, he pauses, clearly struggling to find a way to put this, “...it’s a little different from other magical colonies…” Jimin begins to explain and Yoongi puts his food aside in favor of something much more interesting.

“I’m sure you’re aware of how the universal hierarchy of magicals works at the rest of the world. At the bottom there are the werewolves, -due to their lack of self-control once they transform-, then demons, then shapeshifters, then mermaids, fae, elves, vampires and on the top there are sirens and… witches,” he speaks the last word in a hushed whisper, something that confuses Yoongi, “due to each species’ control of their respective magic. But here…” the fae boy shakes his head in thought, “the hierarchy is a bit different…”

Yoongi thinks it’s safe to say his attention has been captured.

“You see, 11 years ago an accident happened that killed almost half the town, humans and supernatural beings alike…” Jimin’s voice now becomes quiet, eyes wary as they look around to make sure no one else is listening.

“There was a fire, started right at the witch coven of Xefoto and it spread through the entire town. If it wasn’t for the faes’ help the whole town would have gone down in flames. And even though many people were killed and injured, witches were entirely erased. Only one witch survived and well… it’s pretty much common knowledge between the locals that she set those fires…” Jimin concludes but Yoongi isn’t easily convinced.

“But why? It makes no sense for her to wipe out her entire coven…” he interjects but Jimin simply shrugs.

“No one knows. Rumor has it she was drunk for power and wiped her peers out so she could act freely without her coven interjecting her every decision. Everyone suspects it’s her but some of the evidence was destroyed so she was never caught. Others say she’s cursed…” Jimin responds with wide eyes and Yoongi has an inkling Jimin is one of those people.

But the fae boy continues, undisturbed. “And well… The hierarchy changed after that. Since practical magic was the one that caused everything, it is kind of frowned upon to practice the art of it since most times it’s completely uncontrollable. Natural magic, on the other hand, is completely fine, like faes’, elves’ and demons’. Witches, -or well just this one witch-, is at the bottom of the hierarchy tower.”

Yoongi scrunches his eyebrows. “Even bellow werewolves?” he finds that hard to believe.

But Jimin nods. And Yoongi can’t help but wonder how awful this woman’s life must be. Bellow werewolves? That shit’s hard.

Jimin continues. “So witches dropped and since sirens also use practical magic, they got dragged along with them. Now they’re on the same level as mermaids,” Yoongi shudders at the mere thought. A prideful and vengeful being like a siren being cramped up with mermaids? That can’t be good.

“Fae also rose up due to the help they provided and now rest at the top,” the blond boy explains somewhat remorseful before he keeps going, “... along with vampires.”

Yoongi lets out a sound of understanding at that. That’s why everyone was treating him like that.

“Okay, now everything makes a bit more sense…” he admits, before stealing a glance at Jimin.

“And I guess it explains your behavior towards me, too.”

Jimin's head snaps up, eyes wide with alarm.

“You were forced into befriending me, weren’t you?” Yoongi asks insightfully and Jimin’s ears redden once more.

“I’m sorry. My parents thought it’d be great for our family if I were to become your friend… we may be fae but… we’re not the most prestigious family there is. Not even close…” Jimin sounds resigned as if already expecting the vampire boy to be offended but this. But Yoongi can only nod in agreement.

He knows a thing or two about family expectations.

He sighs before pushing his tray aside, done with his food and he stands up. “So, where does the course for “interspecies rights” take place?” Yoongi asks nonchalantly, even though the boy already knows the way to said classroom. He can’t help but feel a certain level of sympathy towards the fae boy, even if Jimin approached him with a certain agenda in mind.

Jimin looks at Yoongi with disbelief. “I- I’m sorry?”

The vampire turns to look at him with no sign of malice in his eyes. “You’re my tour guide, aren’t you? I expect you to show me around, not just the university but the town as well,” Yoongi explains and Jimin can’t help but look at the boy with gratitude. Then the blond boy stands up as well.

“Follow me.”

As Jimin walks Yoongi through the academy grounds, the vampire gets to know a little bit more about the quiet fae boy.

Jimin is one year younger, at 22, born and raised at Xefoto but his family, -being one of the few that settled years after the settlement was formed-, isn’t exactly prestigious among their peers. Actually, Jimin’s family, the Parks, have been around no longer than 3 eons, making them almost foreigners in correlation with the other families.

The fae boy is studying to become a Bringer, the magical equivalent of a lawyer. Although Yoongi spots a healing course at the younger man’s schedule that has nothing to do with being a bringer.

But Yoongi doesn’t ask. Everyone has their secrets.

What he also learned is that Jimin has a girlfriend. Actually, scratch that, the exact word used was “betrothed”. Which came as quite a shock to say the least, as when Yoongi first met the blond boy, he thought he was gay. To be honest, though, Sua and Jimin didn’t seem to be exactly enamored with one another.

But, again, Yoongi does not ask.

Instead, he pretends to be interested in the architecture of the castle and not at all observing the slightly suspicious looks Sua is giving him.

“So,” the fae girl exclaims, voice loud and commanding, successfully interrupting whatever Jimin was about to say. The boy effectively swallows his words before deflating slightly. But then, as if it never happened, a mask of excitement takes over his features as he turns his attention to his girlfriend.

Yoongi observes the interaction with hawk-like eyes. And again he says nothing.

Sua smiles brightly before continuing. “Where are you boys planning on going next? Jimin you should show Yoongi around our town! There’s so much to see really!” the girl exclaims enthusiastically and Yoongi fights to conceal the slight frown that threatens to appear. If he had to guess, he’d say Sua supports the Parks family’s decision to force Jimin on Yoongi.

Jimin timidly nods his head before speaking up. “Ah, yes, I was hoping to show him the old town of Xefoto and then grab some drinks-”

Sua gasps excitedly. “That’s a great idea! I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go to Selkie’s Place? They serve some wonderful mashed potatoes - and I can meet you there with some friends, I’m sure you must be dying to meet new people!” she concludes with a grin and Jimin throws an apologetic smile at Yoongi.

Yoongi grinds his teeth. “Yes… dying…”

Sua doesn’t get the sarcasm and squeals before clapping her hands together. “Fantastic! Let’s say eight? Yeah, that’s perfect, we’ll meet you there!” she says excitedly before fishing her phone out of her skirt and walking away almost immediately. Too engrossed in her typing to actually say “goodbye” to the two boys.

Yoongi sends a glare to a fidgeting Jimin. “That’s your girlfriend?”

Jimin sighs. “I know she’s kind of a lot. But she’s nice once you get to know her!”

Yoongi purses his lips before shrugging, it’s not his place to comment on that. “If you say so. So, old town of Xefoto, huh?” he redirects the conversation and Jimin’s eyes gleam in excitement, as they begin walking towards the exit.

“Oh yes! It’s very picturesque, there’s this museum with historic relics and the history of the town, plus the first families that gotten here, the founding of the academy and even-” Jimin rambles on about something he’s clearly into but as Yoongi listens to him he fails to see the person to his left.

This inevitably leads into him bumping into said person, thus spreading the books they’ve been holding all over the marble floors.

He hears a sigh of resignation coming from the girl dressed in all black before she crouches down to pick up her books.

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking,” Yoongi explains, ignoring Jimin’s terrified gasp as he rushes to help by picking up the rest of the books. Only to stop when he realizes the girl has stopped as well.

And currently stares at him.

He raises his eyes at her, indignantly, not ready to deal with another person dying to get to know him.

But instead of the heart-eyes look he expects to see, he’s met with big, doe-like eyes that stare at him with unadulterated shock.

Yoongi suddenly forgets the rest of his sentence. What did he want to say anyway? Something foolish and weird for sure and with the way the girl’s eyes are boring into him he can’t help do anything but blink.

There’s something about her, he can’t quite tell. Something about the way her eyelashes flutter, about the parting of her lips as she silently gasps, the roundness of her cheeks and the crystal color of her eyes. They all leave Yoongi breathless. Like she took the air out of the room and he’s left helpless. He could swear he’s been under some sort of spell. But he knows his spells. And this isn’t one.

The girl’s hair falls right into her face and Yoongi has an itch in his fingers, from the sudden urge to reach forward and brush them away to get a better look.

But that would be weird. Definitely creepy and weird.

Then the girl’s eyes, as if suddenly remembering where they are, move to the person behind Yoongi, Jimin.

Her eyes widen even more and Yoongi swears he sees fear in them.

Fear accompanied by sadness.

That doesn’t sit well with him. As he sees the girl’s eyes moving rapidly away, he has this bad feeling growing in the middle of his chest, warning him, burning him. Like a premonition he’s certain he doesn’t want to come true.

So he speaks up.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

But as soon as his voice reaches her ears, the girl springs into action.

She immediately grabs her books from Yoongi’s hands before taking off instantly, not sparing the two men another glance.

Yoongi’s eyes follow her figure down the hall, speechless. Did he actually creep her out? He couldn’t tell.

The girl disappears behind the gates, hasty in her steps, not bothering to look back.

At that moment Jimin releases a breath, Yoongi only now remembering the existence of the other boy, and he sees the fae being relieved by the girl’s absence.

“What?”

Jimin’s eyes are wide with horror. “God that was close! Do you know who that was?”

Yoongi’s unimpressed stare gives Jimin his answer.

“That was her! The witch!”

Yoongi’s features scrunch up in confusion at that.

The witch? The one that’s supposed to have caused the accident?

Yoongi thought the witch was an old woman for sure. Some recluse, living far away from modern society, deep in the woods, cursing everyone that crossed her path. After all the fires happened eleven years ago.

Realization hits him and his eyes widen in mortification.

She was only a child.

His stare moves to the gates, already curious about the girl with the black dress that disappeared behind them.

next part: {2}

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thewhumpstuff · 4 years

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D.I.S - Organized

Dispersal: Integrated-Squad. Organised and Mobilised

@badthingshappenbingo [Original Characters and content for -Dislocated Joint] Whumptober Day: No. 3 - My way or the highway - Manhandled, Forced to their knees, held at gunpoint [I couldn’t choose] [Art+Drabble] Ten Trails: Creature Feature (3)-Mob Violence [@yuckwhump]

CW/TW: Reference to a futuristic militaristic oligarchy. Dissent that fell into chaos. Power abuse. Art at the end features a man kneeling at gun-point and a woman forced to her knees. [Please let me know if further warnings are necessary and I missed something.]

Locked arms and buckled knees. The rabble knelt by choice. Locked arms and buckled knees. The defectors knelt by force.

At the first shot and the slump of the blood-slick body - The barricade was broken. Those that craved the executions and those that wanted to see the practice abolished, flew at each other. What started as candle-flames to pay tribute, now raged as flickering fires of rebellion.

‘We need all hands on deck. Remember to stick with your unit.’

But Akira and Novara weren’t going to get a chance to stick with their units. They were going to fly solo, dropped into the thick of things to carve their own path. Nova’s voice was barely audible over the order that boomed repeatedly, it bloomed with a gentle concern. And that infallible sense of unwavering faith and hope, “This is a tough one to start off with… But you’re going to be fine.” Akira pursed her lips and looked down from their hovercopter at the chaos that ensued. There were armed folks on both sides. Some with juvenile weapons, others with more. Sticks, stones, knives and guns. She knew which side she’d be on, if the sides were still demarcated. If it still mattered… But it didn’t any more, there were no sides. Just the swell of a crowd. Some scurried into the mob, most scurried out. The streets were strewn with banners, the alleys were a-crawl with Acers, Q.B agents and the dissenting civilians alike. She was just a damn Cadet. Novara and Tariq were just Officers, just a rank higher. None of them were in uniform. She peered over at Tariq who piloted the hovercopter with a lazy finesse. He looked like he belonged there, with or without the uniform. Nova was preparing her tools, she had a little more on her hands, given that she was qualified to help with stabilization. She too, looked like she knew exactly what she needed to do. Would just another year and some experience change me too? Would I look the part as an Officer? Akira couldn’t get lost in thoughts for long, soon, it was her time to descend. The ’danger zone’ had been sectioned into smaller regions and then divided into smaller areas, the Acer’s were assigned their spots.

‘Remember only tag and aid the ones with the G.C sanctioned Pro-Body chips.’

Most folks in her assigned area had suffered minimal injuries. Additionally, the data from the Pro-Body Chips made the process fairly easy to manage. All she had to do was sync the information of her physical exam, perform basic first aid and update the code accordingly. The exam itself was difficult to conduct initially, but she soon found her rhythm. Then she came up on her very first problem. A woman lay slumped against the wall of an alley, barely conscious. Blood seeped out of her hairline and she issued soft whimpers with every breath. Next to her, crouched a bruised and beaten man. Like a deer caught in headlights, he looked up at Akira fearfully. She approached with caution, “It’s OK… I’m just going to take a look at you two. I’ll tag her and help will arrive shortly. Do you have any serious injuries too?” The man couldn’t have been much older than Akira, he almost draped himself over the woman as he put himself between her and Akira. The Acer paused, “Is there a problem?” His answer was raspy, “We’re not chipped.” It was her turn to recoil in a semi-conditioned response. They were taught to believe that those who were not chipped, were the enemy. Most dissenters who were not G.C registered civilians - that is, chipped and IDed, had already fled the area. This woman seemed incapable of doing so… And Aki couldn’t help but hold a fire in her heart for the young man who chose to stay behind with her. Technically, she needed to report him and potentially the woman, as soon as possible. However, Akira’s prejudice didn’t run as deep as some of the other Acers. She wasn’t trained as young. She saw those who didn’t comply with G.C protocols as people too. There were several back home in Sector 09. She believed that she was capable of discerning a threat from… those who needed help. And as she came up on that decision, his words sounded like a challenge. Like a dare. This was her area right? She should have some jurisdiction. Enough to at least call this shot. She stood up straighter, convinced that there there was no one around to stop her either way, “She’s not going to make it if I don’t at least take a look… I’ll try get her to-” But there was. There were people here to stop her.

“Cadet. Step away from the fugitives.” Aki was annoyed that they were already labelled fugitives. Unless the man who had spoken had their faces on some docket somewhere. This person recognized her by rank, even without her uniform or ID. She didn’t know him. So, he was likely to be a fellow Acer, but not a colleague. Which could only mean he was a superior. Aki froze. Then she slowly turned to see who’d spoken. He looked like a civilian, but Akira knew how to recognize the bullet-proof fabric. He was likely to be a Major, or higher. A sneer marked his face. It looked like he was waiting to chance upon such an opportunity. And that became more apparent, when he didn’t wait to give Akira a reasonable chance to follow his directive. It seemed like less than a second had passed, and his hands were on hers. His grip was cruel around her wrists as he pinned her arms behind her back.

Akira knew better than to attempt attacking the man on instinct, mostly because, given the discrepancy in their training, she’d have no chance. But, she couldn’t resist the urge to flail and struggle. He twisted her arm with ease, in an attempt to force her to her knees. Defiance, just ran too thick in her blood. So she tried to reason with him through the gritty pain of her arm being wrangled, “Let go!” Needless to say, it didn’t work. Aki was briefly distracted by a lower ranking woman - she had an actual vest on, not the deceptive bullet-proof clothes - probably a Captain. This woman had a rifle levelled at the bruised man in the alley. The man was ordered to peel away from the wall and kneel too. He knew he was caught, so he did what he was told. Aki swore she saw tears glint in his eyes. They rolled off his cheek when the woman’s whimpers stopped. Feeling defeated and deflated as she shared a look with the alleged fugitive and Aki finally fell to her knees. She felt a sharp shooting pain upon impact with the ground, it ran down her leg and up her thigh. She teetered on the uneven cobbled-stone. Her kneecaps continued to protests, they ached and throbbed dully as the procession continued. The Major didn’t stop there, “You should think twice before being disobedient, don’t you know I could slap an insubordination charge on you?” In a swift motion and a brutish tug, he popped her shoulder. Purely to make a point, it would seem. Akira cried out rather boorishly. The Major let go of her and walked away as if nothing had happened. She folded into herself, stifling her groans. Her eyes were clenched shut as she winced in pain and clutched her dislocated arm with the other. The Captain cuffed the man and then kept him there, kneeling at gunpoint. Akira heard the Major making arrangements for the slumped woman to be bagged, as he left.

#whumptober2020 #no.3 #manhandling #forced to kneel #held at gunpoint #tw: implied mob violence #tw: reference to dissent #oc akira #oc novara #oc tariq #tempered grace #art #fic #whump

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thecreepiestcarrie · 4 years

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#JusticeforJohnnyDepp: Johnny’s opening statements at a glance

trigger warnings galore: physical abuse, verbal abuse, gaslighting

Things I Cover in this Post: - AH’s pattern of lies and inconsistency - the audio recordings of heated discussions between Johnny and AH - AH’s admissions of physically abusing Johnny - AH’s relationship with Elon Musk - the dogs that were illegally brought in to Australia - AH’s face bruise

As someone who has been an admirer and avid supporter of Johnny Depp for half of my life, I am very disheartened by the decision reached by the judge in his defamation case against The Sun. It would be easy to bury my head in the sand and dodge the topic because it’s too much.

But I simply cannot accept the decision reached in this court that Johnny is a ‘wife beater’ when I have seen and heard so much to suggest the exact opposite, that he is the victim.

On a personal level, as a fan, it makes me feel like I am dumb or ignorant or blind that I may be supporting a man with such violent tendencies, someone that I would hate if encountered in the ‘real world’, if he weren’t so damn sexy. But this has nothing to do with his looks and this has nothing to do with me wanting to save face to hold up an example of look world, the person I chose to endlessly idolise isn’t an abuser.

This has everything to do with the public narrative being manipulated by an awful woman, who continues to get away with her crimes. I wanted to get all of the information for myself, even when it’s hard to read/listen to. All of the court documents are online and I wanted to be able to provide a kind of highlights reel as other helpful and insightful tumblrs have for me in the past throughout all of Amber’s bullshit allegations.

From here on out, I will be referring to Amber simply as Scum because (as I’m hoping you’ll come to agree with this view) that’s what she is. I apologise for the squiggles in my screengrabs, these are simply for me to be able to keep track of which documents I am extracting from. I have done the best I can to keep the page numbers included in the screengrabs so that I can easily be fact-checked to confirm none of this text has been altered.

I am planning to post my screengrabs for each document in separate posts so that it isn’t an onslaught of information all at once. With all of that being said, let’s begin with the opening statements of Johnny Depp’s legal team.

I hadn’t been aware of this name dropping of Weinstein, clearly Wootton was trying to align Johnny entirely and conclusively with a serial abuser of women.

Why wouldn’t he show up to back his words up?

Scum took a dump on their bed and told two conflicting stories of the source of said shit. She has a pattern of lies, pay attention to that.

There are recordings that you can listen to on YouTube, they are lengthy and upsetting to listen to. But they are very helpful in shedding light on the gaslighting and yelling Scum was comfortable in levelling at Johnny. Please note, that she is recorded as saying that Johnny ‘always runs’ when a fight/argument/disagreement arises.

Here we are! Scum admitting to physically assaulting Johnny, then complaining that he doesn’t do anything back and then mocking him for complaining about this abuse and seeking help from his security team.

Again, another admission from a different instance of her physically assaulting Johnny

If you’re like me, then the restraining order was the first you heard of Johnny being abusive. After getting this restraining order, Scum asked for a private meeting with Johnny and wanted to hug him, her abuser? How does that make any sense? Of course, no one can dictate how a victim acts in response to their abuser, a battered woman is allowed to act however she sees fit to keep herself safe. But here we are clearly seeing her say one thing and then do another. She has issues with consistency.

and I oop, Scum went and broke a law by recording Johnny without his knowledge or consent.

Overlapping of Scum’s relationship with Musk and her marriage to Johnny

The whole debacle with the dogs illegally being brought into Australia had nothing to do with Johnny, nope, it was Scum and she knew what she was doing, she just doesn’t care about consequences.

Why would Johnny pursue this if he believed there was any chance he could lose? Why wouldn’t he just concentrate on regaining some of the ground his career had lost after the shitstorm that arose following the divorce?

This is something that I believe (and always have) is very telling- nobody would benefit for standing up for Johnny if there was even the slightest chance he actually was the abuser. That would tarnish their reputations and I’m talking about famous people here, who have reputations to be tarnished. Prime example being Winona Ryder, someone who he dated in the early 1990′s. She does not owe Johnny Depp a single fucking thing and she has nothing to gain from defending him, it would be detrimental to her career, which has gloriously been reinvigorated after her own legal issues in the early 2000′s. Why would she risk her name being dragged back down by re-associating herself with a ‘violent’ man from her past? Because she believes it’s the right thing to do, because she believes in Johnny’s innocence.

If one of her accusations is a lie, then they all are.

And now we come to the incredible bruise, which can move around her face at will and also hide at the drop of a hat.

Why would her stylist side with him? Scum is the employer, the stylist has literally nothing to gain from siding with Johnny. But she knows what she saw and she knows Scum is lying, so she’s speaking up, good for her.

And that’s all I have that I considered important and noteworthy from the opening statements from Johnny’s legal team. My next post will be about the opening statements from The Sun’s legal team.

#johnny depp #johnny depp is innocent #amber heard #amber heard is scum #amber heard is an abuser #I read through the court documents so you don't have to #justice for johnny depp #domestic violence #johnny depp vs the sun #dan wootton is a liar #johnny depp vs dan wootton

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tabloidtoc · 4 years

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Globe, August 31

Cover: Prince William and Prince Harry seeking the truth about their mother Princess Diana’s death -- Diana exhumed again

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Sylvester Stallone, pregnant Lea Michele, Jason Priestley wears a mask while picking up a package

Page 3: Alessandra Ambrosio puts on shorts at the beach, Scott Baio riles up the crowd at a political rally in L.A., Sofia Richie strolls along the beach in Malibu with a wineglass in hand

Page 4: Music diva Mariah Carey is turning her back on her sister Alison who’s caught in a raging battle over revelations charging shocking sex abuse and devil worship -- while Mariah is out promoting her new bio due in stores next month her troubled older sis Alison is suing their mom Patricia for damages claiming she was forced to perform sex acts with strangers when she was as young as 10 during satanic gatherings that included ritual sacrifice

Page 5: Rachael Ray and her husband John Cusimano and their dog Bella narrowly escaped death when a huge blaze tore through her luxury upstate New York home, Lady Gaga’s sharp dance moves and killer manicure left fellow pop star Ariana Grande with a nasty scratch on her face as the pair rehearsed for a music video

Page 6: Garth Brooks and wife Trisha Yearwood were terrified when their youngest child Allie was stricken with killer COVID-19 and the girl’s chilling brush with death turned their world upside down -- it hit them hard and reminded them about the importance of health and family and taking precautions plus how precious life is, Antonio Banderas has been laid low by COVID-19 -- he took to Twitter on his 60th birthday to reveal he tested positive for the deadly disease and is keeping himself quarantined

Page 7: Nearly 4 years after her death Zsa Zsa Gabor is going on a farewell tour of Europe in a fancy dog carrier -- her last husband Prince Frederic von Anhalt plans to take the ashes of the icon to her favorite places in the Louis Vuitton pet case in which she carried her beloved dog Macho before burying her in her native Hungary -- Zsa Zsa’s former publicist Ed Lozzi slams her husband’s scheme saying she would have wanted to be buried beside her only child Francesca and sister Eva Gabor in Hollywood’s Westwood Cemetery

Page 8: Fearing she’s losing ground in her continuing custody battle with Brad Pitt Angelina Jolie is demanding the judge deciding the dispute be booted from the case -- Angie insists that Judge John W. Ouderkirk be ousted claiming he’s a business crony of a lawyer working for Brad but Brad’s fighting to keep the judge on board and he thinks Angie’s desperate and willing to do anything to trip him up because she’s backed up against a wall, Alyssa Milano claims her brush with COVID-19 has left her losing her hair -- she was struck by the dangerous disease back in April and spent time in a hospital and recently in a Twitter video she brushed her wet locks and pulled a large clump of separated strands

Page 9: Simon Cowell is facing a life of agonizing pain and possible paralysis after a horrific bike accident left him with a back broken in three places and a rod inserted in his spine -- he may be left with what’s known as failed back syndrome which is chronic back pain that remains even after successful surgery or even more chilling may lose control of his legs and arms if the rod doesn’t hold and the vertebrae collapse

Page 10: Demons do exist swears exorcist Bishop Plato Angelakis who for the first time reveals his terrifying battle with an evil fiend that possessed a granny-aged woman and gave her the strength to overpower four grown men

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Billy Dee Williams out and about in L.A. (picture), there was a backstage battle between The Office star John Krasinski and producer Greg Daniels in season three of the smash comedy Daniels wigged out when John who played scruffy-haired sales guy Jim Halpert begged for a haircut in an attempt to launch a big-screen career by starring alongside George Clooney and Renee Zellweger in Leatherheads but the boss said no -- determined to nab the juicy role John recruited the show’s hairstylist and paid for a human hair wig and fooled the cast and crew, no funny business involved when it comes to Amy Schumer making sex appointments with husband Chris Fischer because without them you’re just roommates, Paris Jackson broke off her two-year relationship with Gabriel Glenn because she just couldn’t figure out who he was, Melissa Joan Hart is starring in Dear Christmas an upcoming Lifetime romance with her real-life teenage crush Jason Priestley who is playing a handsome firefighter who warms Melissa’s heart for the holidays, no baby talk is the rule for Marie Osmond’s husband Steve Craig who hates it when she calls him cutesie names

Page 13: Scruffy Jude Law in London (picture), Mindy Kaling out and about in a mask (picture), Goody Grace and Kate Beckinsale wear masks while shopping (picture), Heidi Klum is packing on the pounds during the COVID crisis confessing she can’t zip up her old clothes and doesn’t fit in her favorite jeans anymore

Page 14: Tiffany Haddish has lost 20 pounds since hooking up with boyfriend Common, Jennifer Lawrence sold her NYC money-pit apartment for $9.9 million which she bought in 2016 for $15.6 million but at least now she can stop paying the ritzy building’s ridiculously steep $5700 monthly fees and the $100,000 cost for taxes and insurance and upkeep, Fashion Verdict -- Tina Fey 3/10, Sarah Paulson 7/10, Emily Blunt 1/10, Aubrey Plaza 8/10, Olivia Wilde 2/10

Page 16: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has topped a list of Hollywood’s highest paid actor hauling in a hefty $87.5 million this year followed by Ryan Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg and Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel at $54 million, Lisa Marie Presley’s future looks grim as her liver problems have roared back and she faces death if the vital organ fails -- she’s been battling liver ailments and an abdominal muscle tear for some time forcing her to seek treatment in the days before the heartbreaking suicide of her son Ben Keough

Page 17: The late Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s daughter Bindi Irwin has made it official that she’s pregnant, scores more women have come forward to accuse porn star Ron Jeremy of rape and sexual assault dating as far back as two decades just a few weeks after he pled not guilty to sex offenses against for West Coast women

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Alex Winter, for Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo the show is all about the Benjamins saying she made a decision to make money and not chase creative acting roles and for her a healthy home life was more important than career, thugs robbed Alanis Morissette at gunpoint and nearly grabbed all her work for her 1995 hit album Jagged Little Pill

Page 20: True Crime

Page 23: Scandal-savaged Ellen DeGeneres wants to put her woes on pause and pamper herself with a morale-boosting plastic surgery blitz -- she’s been rocked by sinking ratings and allegations of a toxic work culture and the strain has made an ugly impact and it shows in the bags under her eyes and the saggy cheeks and jaw and she’s breaking out and her skin looks blotchy from all the stress she’s been under and even with makeup on she looks haggard, grieving mom Melissa Etheridge admits she steeled herself for the possible death of her drug-addled son Beckett

Page 24: Cover Story -- new Princess Diana death probe -- Prince William and Prince Harry have secretly arranged for the body of their late mother to be exhumed for a second time and subjected to another autopsy in a desperate last-ditch bid to learn the truth about her death in Paris 23 years ago -- the brothers suspect Diana’s death may have been ordered by the same people who forced Harry’s wife Meghan Markle to flee Britain -- William is worried his wife Duchess Kate Middleton may be in danger too

Page 26: Health Report -- miracle drug slams brakes on MS

Page 33: Debra Messing dropped from a size eight to a twiggy two while filming Will & Grace and says the extreme slim-down harmed her health

Page 38: Real Life -- Victoria Price of WFLA in Tampa gushed with appreciation after an eagle-eyed viewer pointed out a bump on her neck that turned out to be a deadly thyroid cancer

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Earth to Luann de Lesseps: quit being a boozy floozy

Page 45: Tiger Woods is set to marry Erica Herman if she signs an ironclad prenup to protect his $800 million fortune -- Tiger has agreed to wed Erica but he’s still gun-shy after shelling out a record $750 million to divorce first wife Elin Nordegren after he was caught in a sex addiction scandal

Page 47: Hollywood Flashback -- Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, Bizarre But True

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loudlytransparenttrash · 5 years

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This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 22

Students at George Mason University spent days protesting the hiring of Brett Kavanaugh as a visiting law professor at GMU’s Law School. Some students complained to campus leaders, telling them students’ mental health is threatened by the Kavanaugh hire, despite the Law School being located 3,500 miles away from the university. “This decision has really impacted me negatively. It is affecting my mental health knowing that an abuser will be part of our faculty.” Another female student gave similar comments to the board, “As someone who has survived sexual assault three times I do not feel comfortable with someone who has sexual assault allegations like walking on campus.” A third female student told the board, “we are fighting to eradicate sexual violence on this campus. But the hiring of Kavanaugh threatens the mental well being of all survivors on this campus.” The next day, students marched around campus chanting “kick Kavanaugh off campus” and holding “cancel Kavanaugh” signs while some stuck blue tape over their mouths.

University of Colorado Denver brought back a 2016 course, “Problematizing Whiteness: Educating for Racial Justice.” Students will learn “the plight of people of color and how white people are complicit.” The course details explains, “The study of whiteness has always sought to challenge racism, racial privilege, white supremacy, and colorblind racism. However, to overindulge in the spectacle of ‘white racial epiphanies’ overlooks the ongoing work whites must do to participate in racial justice. Beyond the feel-good of momentary White racial awareness lurk enormous concerns about how to continually examine Whiteness in order to uphold antiracism, moreover the fruition of a more racially just society.” It also, understandably, tells students that recording any of the lecture is forbidden.

A State University of New York College at Old Westbury professor wrote an article which he states it makes him happy when he sees poor white people on the street begging for food and often wonders how hard he should kick them in the head. “White people begging us for food feels like justice. It feels like Afro-Futurism after America falls. It feels like a Black Nationalist wet dream. It has the feels I rarely feel, a hunger for historical vengeance satisfied so well I rub my belly.” White people, he says, are a Rorschach test: “I see in them the history of colonization, slavery and mass incarceration that makes their begging Black people for money ironic - if not insulting. You wasted your whiteness! Why should we give to you?” The professor admits that this isn’t a “good look,” however, when he thinks about Martin Luther King Jr.’s “be thy best self” and “show compassion to those who spite you,” he retorts “go f**k another secretary Martin!”

A University of Utah student reported her business professor to campus administrators for assigning too many books written by male economists and philosophers. “Many of these figures are of great importance. But at what cost do we continue to plant the seed of sexism in the minds of individuals? But especially in a course and college that is already deemed to be a ‘boys club,’ continuing those teachings, and those teachings being delivered by a professor of his character is dangerous.” The student also took issue in her bias report about a joke the professor made about how, “while all our jobs will be taken by robots,” he will be “retired living in Tahiti surrounded by 40-45 beautiful women feeding him grapes.” The student complained, “Not only did the professor willingly and openly objectify women, but he also objectified women of color. Women of another culture.”

University of Texas at Austin freshmen were threatened to be doxed if they considered joining the Young Conservatives of Texas or Turning Point USA. “Hey #UT23! Do you wanna be famous? If you join YCT or Turning Point USA, you just might be. Your name and more could end up on an article like one of these,” the tweet said, linking to previous doxing posts of conservative students at the school. “So be sure to make smart choices at #UTOrientation.” They went on to encourage other students, “if you begin to spot the young racists trying to join YCT or TPUSA, send us a tip so we can keep our reports up to date.” The anarchist student network have already released extensive personal information of pro-Brett Kavanaugh demonstrators at UT Austin, including their names, photos and contact information. It went so far as to post some of the phone numbers of the employers of students and urged them to be fired.

Webster University offered its white faculty and staff a chance to “witness their whiteness” in a program that seeks to eliminate racism. According to the event description, Witnessing Whiteness is about “white people voluntarily coming together to do work around racism in a supportive, non-threatening setting.” It’s also about “learning to speak about race and racism, exploring white privilege, and practicing allying with sisters and brothers of color.” White attendees also were taught how to commit to positive change in their lives, workplace and region and understand and practice interrupting racism and developing skills to act as agents of change.

University of North Georgia hosted several "safe zone trainings" to make the school a “safer, more inclusive environment for members of the LGBTQ+ community.” Students were given handouts which featured a ‘gender unicorn’ cartoon and encouraged attendees to use “LGBTQ-Inclusive Language” by giving them a list of “Dos and Don'ts.” They asked students to not use words such as “mailman” and “ladies and gentlemen” or phrases such as “both genders” and “opposite sexes,” instead suggesting that they use “all genders.” Attendees were also shown a YouTube video from Franchesca Ramsey called “5 Tips For Being An Ally,” which instructed them to understand their privilege.

Middlebury College were forced to soothe upset and angry students after Polish conservative scholar and politician Ryszard Legutko was invited to speak on campus about totalitarian temptations within liberal democracies. Ironically, the school canceled the lecture just hours beforehand after some students complained, then later held a reflection meeting with the student protestors, where administrators told them, “I hear you, and you should be outraged, and we should acknowledge that and apologize, because that’s the least we can do right now, because we can’t make it right in the moment. But in the future we will do everything we can to make it right.” As the safe space meeting was going on, unbeknown to the protesters, a political science professor allowed Legutko to be ushered into his classroom and address students in secrecy.

At University of Texas at Austin, a pro-life speaker’s event was disrupted after someone set off a smoke bomb, triggering the building’s fire alarm and forcing attendees to be evacuated. The event went forward in another building.

A Canadian University of New Brunswick professor said he is in favor of taking a variety of actions against “white supremacists” who speak on campus, including publicly shaming them, firing them from their jobs and driving them from restaurants. What’s concerning about this is the professor’s definition of white supremacists. He said the "Make America Great Again" hats will carry the same shame as the uniforms worn by the Ku Klux Klan. “Every time I watch a documentary about the civil rights movement and all the hateful violence they faced, I wonder what the white people who were doing those horrible things were thinking... We are living in an era with Donald Trump and the Republican Party and the right-wing movement in America where things of similar gravity are happening. The entire sentiment of 'Make America Great Again' implies that there was a time when America was great and it's not any longer... America for Trump and his supporters is no longer great because black people have too many rights or there are too many women in the workplace."

A City University of New York professor was interviewed on radio where she stated the “ideology of racialized terrorism” is the responsibility of every white person in the United States. She criticized America for building "mental health hospital beds for white home-grown terrorists, but concentration camps and high-level security prisons for Black, and Black and Brown immigrants.” She goes on to wonder why we pay tribute every September 11 to “the pillars of American capitalism,” but never to “the young Black and Brown” victims. She also claims she's suffered in capitalist America after being designated a “other, non-white" on her arrival into the country and "white America has damned this democracy into the hands of white terrorists.”

A University of Arizona student live-streamed herself on Facebook harassing two Border Patrol agents who were giving a lecture to Criminal Justice students. The female student stood near the door of the room, zooming in on the officers repeatedly while calling them murderers and saying they were an extension of the KKK on campus. “They allow murderers to be on campus where I pay to be here. Murderers!” In the second part of the video, the student follows the Border Patrol agents to their vehicle, repeating the phrase “Murder Patrol!” and also yelling at them in Spanish. At the end of the video, she films a protest apparently against the appearance of the officers. The student also launched into a rant about the “white woman” who attempted to talk to her.

Gonzaga University’s Women and Gender Studies and Native American Studies departments hosted a screening and discussion about Disney’s film, Moana, titled, "Is Moana about rape?" According to the flyer, the professor behind the lesson discussed how Western patriarchy and masculinity attack “the feminine,” indigenous cultures, and the environment and nature. “Layne will ultimately also suggest that the film is Neocolonialist. It excuses Western culture from oppressing women, degrading the environment and erasing/murdering indigenous people,” the flyer says. It also came with a trigger warning, stating that racism, sexual assault, genocide and colonialism will be addressed.

Tufts University decided to remove a historical mural after students complained that the paintings depicting only white people eroded the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. The Alumnae Lounge mural, which depicts “the great names of men” of the school’s history, does not include “a single image of a person of color" which has lead students to complain that “they don’t want to receive awards in Alumnae Lounge because they feel excluded.” Tufts Senior Vice President said. “We want to attract a diversity of people to the university. But no less important, when they arrive, we want them to feel they belong here.” Tufts Africana Center Director applauded the decision, saying “the murals create an unwelcoming space for current students of color.”

Also at Gozaga University, an assistant professor wrote an op-ed where he blasted one of his white law students and accused him of deliberate “racial antagonism” because the student wore a MAGA hat to class. Without naming the student, the assistant professor wrote, “From my perspective as a black man living in the increasingly polarized political climate that is America, MAGA is an undeniable symbol of white supremacy and hatred toward certain nonwhite groups. I was unsure whether the student was directing a hateful message toward me or if he merely lacked decorum and was oblivious to how his hat might be interpreted by his black law professor. I presumed it was the former. As the student sat there directly in front of me, his shiny red MAGA hat was like a siren spewing derogatory racial obscenities at me for the duration of the one hour and fifteen-minute class. As my blood boiled inwardly, I jokingly told the student, ‘I like your hat.’ Without missing a beat, the student mockingly grinned from ear to ear and said, ‘Thank you.’” The professor concluded by arguing that “‘making America great again’ suggests a return to the days when women and people of color were denied access to these very institutions.”

A George Mason University assistant professor took to Twitter to ask white parents across America: “Why are you producing so many young white male terrorists?” “What is going on in your households? How involved are you with your sons? Are you missing signs their racism is filtering out of commonplace household racism into ‘I want to murder strangers’ racism?” She followed up with a reply to the white parents declaring their devotion to making sure their child isn’t a white terrorist, “I appreciate the testimonials of white parents doing the work of raising anti racist children. You give me a bit of hope.”

The University of Michigan revamped its already transgender-friendly student health plan to include more services on top of sex-change operations. The school already covers mastectomies, genital surgeries, hormone therapy and counseling for transgender students. These plans now also accommodate “facial feminization surgeries,” as well as facial hair removal and “Adam’s apple reduction.” Another addition is “fertility preservation” for transgender students whose transition efforts result in infertility.

A Massachusetts school superintendent told a community audience that white people in our “systematically corrupt system that oppresses black individuals” need to “rewire their brains” in order to overcome their biases. The Pittsfield Public Schools chief (who is white) also blasted Trump, blaming the president's “daily hate” for the rise in racism and hatred on a national level. The event was planned to announce the implementation of African American history courses in local high schools. The course will delve into African American oppression and plans on stopping the normalization of seeing “black people being beaten on TV.” A teacher who worked on the curricula design at the schools said her eyes had been opened after participating in implicit bias training and reading the book "Waking Up White."

Hofstra University students protested a statue of Thomas Jefferson at an annual event, titled “Jefferson Has Gotta Go!” which was co-organized by local Planned Parenthood staff. For the past few years, students have defaced the statue with “DECOLONIZE” and “Black Lives Matter” in an attempt to pressure the university president to join the long list of schools removing or covering up “traumatizing” statues and artwork. So far, the statue remains.

An academic conference in Toronto focused on “Critical Becky Studies,” with multiple professors and faculty from American universities participating. “This session aims to characterize ‘Becky,’ a term specific to white women who engage whiteness, often in gendered ways,” the session description states. “Explorations of Becky and implications of educational practice from a variety of perspectives and contexts will illuminate the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression tied to the gendered and raced mechanisms of whiteness enacted by Becky,” says the session description. Another paper discussed in the panel was titled “Border Becky: Exploring White Women's Emotionality, Ignorance, and Investment in Whiteness.” According to the description, the paper focuses on white women who must undergo a battle in order to extract themselves “from the white supremacist alliance.”

At University of South Dakota, a planned ‘Hawaiian Day’ themed event had to be changed to ‘Beach Day,’ due to a cultural appropriation complaint from a single student. The student group planning the party were told to make the name change and to ban handing out leis as it violates the school's policy on inclusiveness. The group posted, “It was determined that these (leis) are culturally insensitive by the administration after doing research based off of the essay written by the initial complainant.”

Williams College student activists demanded the Board of Trustees "commit to a complete process of reparation and reconciliation to indigenous peoples." The open letter states, “Many junior faculty of color are considering medical leave due to the unmitigating stress of living in an unsupportive and callous environment and to avoid the emotional detriment of existing here.” The students then demanded a “complete process of reparation and reconciliation” to the indigenous peoples, “approve a request of $34,000 as well as the increase of $15,000 additional funding for incoming Minority Coalition groups.” ”Offer free weekend shuttles for faculty and staff" and provide separate housing for black and queer students, as well as for all other marginalized groups. Lastly, “hire more therapists, especially trans and racial minority therapists.”

Dominican University in California has added a new major, wholly focused on social justice. The school created the major after a “growing number” of students became interested in social justice “careers,” according to the university news release. Students who major in social justice will have the chance to “examine the links between well-being, social justice, and diverse worldviews.” Additionally, students will “analyze social injustices and work toward positive social change.”

The State University of New York-Plattsburgh offered students the chance to de-stress with therapy donkeys during their Wellness Fair.

#college

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socialjusticeartshare · 4 years

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Why Did the Government Separate This Family?

Salvador and Rosita were separated a year ago. They still don’t understand why.

The video, shot hurriedly on a cellphone, is grainy and short. In it, a little girl peeks her head from behind a door, clutching a Hello Kitty plush toy. She grins widely and makes a nervous sound as she enters the room. She then turns and sees the person she’s been waiting for, lets out a giggle, and rushes into the man’s arms. This is Rosita, 8, and her father, Salvador. The video was taken at a foster facility in Southern California. This was the first time Rosita had seen her father in the five months since the two were separated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement shortly after crossing the border.

For many Americans, the family separation saga seemed to have quietly passed after June 2018, when the administration’s policy of “zero tolerance” prosecutions that led to widespread border separations was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. But new separations have steadily continued due to loopholes in the court order that ended the practice, resulting in more than 1,150 immigrant children being separated from their parents after arriving at the border between the end of zero tolerance in June 2018 and this March, when the southern border was closed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rosita was one of the children separated after the policy nominally ended. She and her father, who requested that their last name be withheld since their claim is still pending, left their home in El Salvador in 2017 in order to seek asylum in the United States. They left Rosita’s sister—Salvador’s stepdaughter—with his family because he feared that U.S. border officials would separate them without DNA proof that they were related. Rosita’s mother, Salvador’s former partner, also had to stay behind. The journey took half a year. Having fled gang violence at home, Salvador spent three months working in a restaurant in Tapachula, Mexico, just on the northern side of the Guatemalan border, saving money to afford bus fare to the American border. The pair arrived in Tecate, California, in March 2019. When their group was approached by Customs and Border Protection agents, they requested asylum. Two days after arriving, Salvador and Rosita were released together and allowed to travel to Los Angeles to stay with a cousin of Salvador’s while the case was adjudicated.

But then, within days of getting to L.A., the father and daughter were torn apart. At his first check-in with immigration officials there, Salvador says, the officers confronted him with an accusation that he sexually abused his two daughters. “I was stunned and I said, ‘What, no, who?’ ” he told me through an interpreter. “And the official said, ‘It’s appearing here in front of my screen.’ ” Salvador had no idea where the claim could have come from, he said. He had recently pulled his record of criminal antecedents in El Salvador, which he needed to apply for work there, and there was nothing on it. (Slate has viewed the record and confirmed this.) All the ICE officials could tell him, he says, was that there was an accusation of abuse. They didn’t say from whom. They didn’t say what evidence might exist. Even attorneys working directly on Rosita’s behalf have not been given details of the allegation beyond the claim that one was made.

To be sure, if the government had a credible report of sexual assault or child abuse, separation would be warranted. The ACLU, which sued to end family separation, has itself acknowledged in court that separation is justified in cases of serious crimes, particularly sexual violence against children. Still, the ACLU and other attorneys allege that hundreds of families have been unjustly separated on the basis of flimsy to nonexistent evidence of such criminal history. Salvador and Rosita’s would appear to be one of these cases.

Attorneys for undocumented immigrant children told me that the lack of information Salvador and Rosita received from the government about the allegations that were used to justify their separation is typical in recent family separation cases. Slate has reviewed a copy of Salvador’s latest records from the Salvadorian bureau of prisons and the National Civil Police registration and records unit, dated Oct. 18. According to the documents, he has no record based on a criminal conviction “or on account of a criminal offense” and he “lacks any pending police or judicial process to which he is subject.” The Office of Refugee Resettlement did not respond to questions from Slate about Salvador and Rosita’s case, and ICE did not respond to questions about the process it uses to determine when to separate families and the information it provides to families who want to challenge their separations.

When Salvador was told he was going to be detained without Rosita, his only request was that ICE not handcuff him in front of his daughter.

Salvador and Rosita were split up: He was sent to a detention facility and she ended up in a temporary foster care facility.

“My daughter was crying when she left,” Salvador recalled, beginning to cry himself. “We had never been separated before.”

No one would tell Salvador where his daughter was or how to find her again.

In January, Judge Dana Sabraw—the district court judge who issued an injunction against family separation in the 2018 case Ms. L v. ICE—denied an ACLU motion to put stricter guidelines on the family separations that have continued under the loopholes in his initial ruling, which allow for continued separations in cases of alleged criminal history, communicable disease, and parental fitness.

Salvador’s only request was that ICE not handcuff him in front of his daughter.

As a result, the process and evidence used by government officials to decide whom to separate is a mystery. A Health & Human Services inspector general report released in March said that even HHS finds it difficult to learn information from the Department of Homeland Security about separated parents whose children are in HHS custody. “HHS also continues to experience difficulties obtaining information from DHS about parents’ criminal backgrounds, impeding HHS’s ability to provide appropriate care and identify sponsors to whom children can be safely released,” the report stated.

A DHS inspector general report released in November, meanwhile, revealed that before the practice was halted, DHS had intended to separate 26,000 families in a six-month span with no means of reunifying them. The border has been closed to all asylum-seekers as part of the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the government was continuously separating families through March while putting little effort into reunifying anyone.

Salvador and Rosita were among hundreds of new families to be separated since 2018. The government has already reunited at least 125 of the more than 1,150separated families under this practice, suggesting a more than 10 percent error rate. The ACLU says the error rate is much higher, with hundreds more wrongfully separated for very old and minor crimes, like “vehicle offenses, traffic infractions, drug possession convictions (including marijuana), shoplifting, destruction of small amounts of property, and resisting arrest,” or separated for allegations for which there is no evidence or corroboration.

Rosita was luckier than most. She was ultimately released to her father’s custody. As for the accusation against Salvador, multiple attorneys who have worked on family separation cases told me that it was extremely unlikely that an immigration judge would release a migrant on parole if there were any corroboration for a claim of child abuse, and similarly unlikely that the Office of Refugee Resettlement—which conducts a thorough vetting before releasing children to parents and sponsors—would hand over a child to a parent were such a claim corroborated. According to ORR’s guidance documents, if a parent has been “investigated for the physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, or abandonment of a minor, he or she must provide related court records and police records, as well as governmental social service records or proof of rehabilitation related to the incident” in order to retake custody of the child. “I am not aware of any case in which ORR released a child to a parent with recent, documented criminal convictions for child sexual abuse,” says attorney Catherine Weiss. In the ACLU’s family separation litigation, Weiss represents legal service providers—organizations providing legal services to undocumented immigrants—who have been denied information about the separated families they represent.

“I myself have never seen them release a child to a parent whom they believed to have criminal history unless that criminal history has been proven untrue,” Weiss told me. “I’ve never seen them do it.

“So few parents are released for reunification with their children at all in the ongoing separation world,” she added.

The government initially did little to help newly separated parents find their children post-separation and only in the past eight months began to implement procedures that might help parents keep track of separated children. The public still doesn’t know if those new tracking policies are working, though. The ultimate decision to reunify still rests with ORR, but advocacy groups also help assess children in government custody and make recommendations to ORR about a given child’s best interests.

Jennifer Nagda, the policy director for the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, which worked on Rosita’s case, would not comment on her case because of issues around representing a minor. But, she told me generally, “when ORR releases a child to a parent they’ve made a determination that it’s in a child’s best interest to be with their parent.” Nagda further explained the process by which an organization like hers might help ORR determine parental fitness. These efforts include visiting children in government facilities to build rapport and make determinations about potential abuse, talking to family members and members of the child’s previous community, reaching out to consular offices to request information about potential criminal history, speaking with ORR staff, and attempting to get information from ICE about potential allegations. After the Young Center assessed Rosita’s case, she was released by ORR to Salvador. How families like Salvador’s come to be separated in the first place, though, remains a black box.

“In almost all of these cases, there’s no way to know and then there’s no way to track that information down,” Nagda told me of the government’s separation determinations. “It’s really hard to undo those decisions without understanding why or how they were made and what evidence was relied upon.” The ACLU has fought to pry loose the government’s current standards for separation, but information sharing has been minimal. The government only acknowledged in December that it had finally started giving parents tear sheets—pieces of paper providing cursory information and an email address for parents who want to challenge separation or request reunification.

How families like Salvador’s come to be separated in the first place remains a black box.

The situation is no better for the attorneys who represent the children. In January, Weiss filed a briefwith Sabraw’s court describing the Kafkaesque experiences of the legal service providers attempting to find out any information about the separated children they represented. Weiss surveyed four child advocates and 63 legal service providers, who reported that in 68 percent of cases federal field specialists in ORR shelters did not provide them any information about a child’s separated parent, including their name or Alien Registration Number. In 70 percent of cases, these federal workers did not share the locations of separated parents. In 89 percent of cases, federal workers did not share contact information for separated parents. In 71 percent of cases, federal workers did not share information about the basis for the separations. According to the HHS inspector general, though, the government officials who are responsible for these children often don’t even have this information themselves. “ORR staff reported that they continue to face challenges in obtaining information from DHS regarding parents of separated children, including complete information about parents’ criminal histories; further, they reported that in some cases, key identifying information such as the parent’s name or alien registration number is also omitted,” the report noted.

In discussing the government’s lack of information sharing with me this past December, Weiss repeatedly broke into exasperated laughter. “There’s a family that I and others have been working with for weeks where—I kid not—in the reasons for separation indicated by the government for this family, the reasons for separation read like this: ‘Father was separated from daughter,’ ” Weiss told me. “And you’re like, ‘Yeah, we got that. Why?’ Nothing beyond that.”

Because there is so little being done by the government to reunify newly separated families, it’s fallen to private citizens to try to help put families back together. The group Immigrant Families Together, which helped reunite Rosita and Salvador, has helped reunify 118 families by posting more than $1 million in bonds raised through crowdfunding campaigns. The organization has also guided dozens of others through the elaborate reunification process.

“I think it’s outrageous that it takes millions of dollars to reunite [families],” Casey Revkin, who helps run Immigrant Families Together, told me. “We’ve helped reunite cases where the government has even conceded that the family shouldn’t have been separated. We’ve reunited a dad with his son where they’d performed a DNA test to prove that the dad was the father and they still required a $9,000 bond.”

Revkin recently launched a new organization called Every. Last. One., “dedicated to helping all migrant families with children in government custody go through the process to have their children released to them.”

As the inspector general noted in November, family separation did not deter undocumented families from continuing to flee violence in their home countries to seek new lives in the United States. Salvador, for instance, says his family faced the threat of gang violence back home. “If you don’t pay extortion, they kill you,” he said. In spite of the separation, he said his situation in the United States felt less dangerous than the situation his daughter was facing in El Salvador.

Throughout the first three months of Salvador’s detention, he had virtually no information about his daughter. He said he wasn’t sleeping at the time and that he had to see a doctor because he was racked with stress.

“I was worried that she was going to go in the foster care system and go with other parents,” he told me. He said he even contemplated suicide.

Finally, on June 18, 2019, Salvador was granted an immigration hearing. All he could do was try to tell his story “without a lawyer, without documents, with nothing.” Salvador presented an affidavit that laid out the details of his departure from El Salvador and his family’s separation. The judge granted his release and set bail for $10,000. He had no idea how he would get the money.

Two days after the hearing, he was granted a phone call with his daughter, hearing her voice for the first time in three months.

After that phone call, Rosita drew a picture of her and her father smiling together with a heart around their initials. There were stickers of a dog, a cat, and a pig. In Spanish, she wrote in the corner, “My first phone call with my papa made me very happy.”

But they were still kept apart. Just two weeks after their first phone conversation, a large earthquake struck Los Angeles. Salvador was terrified that Rosita might have been affected. As the weeks passed by, he learned from a legal representative of his daughter that there might be a way to get him out and to reunite them. That’s when Immigrant Families Together, which connected with Rosita and her father through the Young Center, provided the bail money.

“Oh, my God, I’m going to be with my daughter again,” he thought when he learned of the bond. “But that was the beginning of the process.” The shelter where she was staying was also initially demanding a lengthy reunification process that would include a home visitation. Salvador had to wear an ankle monitor after being bonded out, and he was concerned the radius on the monitor would not allow him to attend a required visit with his daughter. He was able to visit her on Aug. 28, eight days after his release. “The first time that we saw each other, we hugged each other,” he recalled. After that, things began to move quicker. He had a second visit a week later, and, to his surprise, they told him two days after that they would release her to him.

Salvador started crying again at this recollection. “It was a lot,” he said.

The legal battles over family separation continue, even as the ACLU has lost its motion for clearer separation and reunification procedures. In his ruling rejecting that request, Sabraw did say that in cases like Salvador’s, where an immigration judge has made a determination to release on bond a parent who has been separated from his child, the government “should reunify that parent with his or her child in the same way they are reunifying families with resolved communicable diseases or long-term illnesses.” However, the judge left it up to the government’s good-faith efforts to make sure that happens. It did not happen in the case of Salvador, who was only reunified because Immigrant Families Together intervened.

Rosita and Salvador are now living together awaiting adjudication of their asylum cases in the Los Angeles area. Rosita’s school is closed due to the pandemic, and she is home with him now. Before the crisis, she was learning English, reportedly doing very well in school, and spending time with her father doing things like watching movies and reading together—she told me her favorite book was Huevos Verdes con Jamón, by Dr. Seuss. “She was very happy to be able to reunite with her father,” said Rosita’s previous attorney, Mickey Donovan-Kaloust. “She is clearly a wonderful and resilient young woman. I think she’s weathered this as well as anyone could.”

Still, the toll of these separations can manifest later in life, said Amy Cohen, an expert on child psychology and the mental health consultant to Flores Settlement Agreement counsel. (Cohen also serves as the executive director of Every. Last. One.)

“For a lot of these children, their trauma symptoms are delayed,” Cohen said. “But as time goes on, virtually all that I’ve ever spoken with start to demonstrate these symptoms. They start to become phobic, they start to become anxious, they start to become angry.” As the Center for Public Integrity and Texas Tribune reported, DHS was alerted precisely of these dangers as far back as 2016. “Separation can be acutely frightening for children and can leave children in ad hoc care situations that compromise their safety and well-being,” representatives of the American Academy of Pediatrics and civil rights groups warned DHS in a September 2016 report. “It can also be traumatizing and extremely stressful for the parent.”

Salvador’s and Rosita’s ability to stay together in the United States is still far from certain. Their cases have been consolidated, and they now have a new lawyer working for them. They had a case in family court scheduled for April 22 to determine sole parental custody, but that court date has been postponed indefinitely. Their next date in immigration court is scheduled for July 17, but immigration courts have been closed in light of the pandemic. On Monday, Salvador’s attorney, Cristel Martinez, was told that the immigration court closures would extend at least through May 29, but she is hopeful that her clients will be able to keep their next hearing date in July. The stakes are high. If Salvador’s asylum claim fails, then he and his daughter might have to return to a country where he fears for her safety.

Meanwhile, Rosita is saving her change in a piggy bank to send back to her sister in El Salvador. When asked if she’s happy to be back with her father, she says simply and with a smile, “Sí.”

Mikhaela Cielo, Will Brown Hernandez, and Lili Loofbourow contributed interpretation to the reporting of this piece.

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