#icons angela childs

[lilacsupernova]

*Note: Tumblr might say reblogs have been turned off for this post. They haven't!*

(Also: I have a deeper, updated dive coming soon!)

Some commentary on the Imane Khelif & Lin Yu Ting boxing situation

I read these two as male. Nothing has indicated they are trans-identifying but the image of Imane Khelif as a child might indicate him being raised as a girl due to having a DSD. This is irrelevant to whether he should compete as a woman though. Both athletes have XY chromosomes – which if untrue they could do a simple cheek swab to prove they're women (as if they wouldn't already know from not having periods etc.). This would only need to be done once, and is less invasive than regular doping tests all athletes do! If XY chromosomes are found (as they already have been), they should do as Erik Schinegger did in 1968 and refuse to compete in the women's category anymore.

Claims this is a big conspiracy where the IBA are lying due to corruption are illogical. The claim they only disqualified Khelif and Yu Ting so they couldn't beat Russian boxers is false. While it sounds like they are corrupt due to Russian influence, and they ordered the DNA tests, the tests themselves were performed independently and showed they had XY chromosomes. Based on this info, and their women-have-XX-chromosomes policy the IBA banned them from competing in the women's category. Think about it, how bold (and stupid) would it be to falsely claim these two aren't female, given how easily that claim could be disproved?

Plus, if we're going to throw around corruption claims, how about the IOC? Who we know are happy to allow men to compete in the women's category based on their baffling and nonsensical rules (including no presumption of advantage based on sex)? Who ended sex-verification screening in 2000? Something Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) co-founder Marshi Smith has condemned, saying it allows the Yu Ting/Khelif issue to even be a thing. The IOC who decided they could compete as women based on passport sex markers? (Which we know can be legal fictions). Who previously allowed Caster Semenya - a man with a DSD, XY chromosomes and undescended testes - to compete as a woman? Who allowed Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba and Margaret Nyairera Wambui to take all three medals at the Rio 2016 women's 800m? I see far more evidence for how corruption is affecting the IOC's view in this matter than the IBA's.

I will also remind everyone (including radfems) that all because a corrupt/'bad'/bad person said something, it does not necessarily mean what they're saying is false! We know the words of radfems/GC people/anyone can be disregarded and derided because they've been branded a 'TERF', but that does not indicate the veracity of their words! The strength of their claims / arguments do. (I wish I could find that meme about a priest saying the sky is blue or something like that). I'm not telling you to believe what I'm saying because I'm saying it; do your own research, think critically, and make up your own minds based on the evidence.

The boxers in question:

Lin Yu Ting is guaranteed a bronze medal at minimum in the Women's 57kg due to making the semifinals (both boxers who lose the semis get bronze, the winners compete in the final for gold). His semi is 7 August at 9.30pm (all times Paris time) against Turkey's Esra Yildiz Kahraman, and the final will be 10 August at 9.30pm (worth watching anyway to support the women!).

Imane Khelif is also guaranteed a bronze minimum in the 66kg Women's category. He plays Janjaem Suwannapheng from Thailand on 6 August at 10.34pm. If he reaches the final, it's 9 August at 10.51pm.

What other boxers have said:

Svetlana Staneva of Bulgaria protested by refusing to shake Lu Ting's hand and making an X symbol after she was defeated by him 5-0.

Angela Carini burst into tears and refused to shake Khelif's hands after choosing to forfeit the match due the fearing for her safety due the strength of his punches. She later issued an apology, which frankly I suspect she was pressured into in order to be allowed to continue to box.

Brianda Tamara from Mexico also alluded to the strength of Khelif's blows, saying "when I fought with her I felt very out of my depth. Her blows hurt me a lot, I don’t think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men. Thank God that day I got out of the ring safely, and it’s good that they finally realized."

Caitlin Parker, the Australian boxing captain says "I don't agree with [Khelif and Yu Ting] being allowed to compete in sport, especially combat sports. It can be incredibly dangerous. It's not like I haven't sparred men before. But you know it can be dangerous for combat sports and it should be seriously looked into. Yes, biologically … genetically they are going to have more advantages. I really hope the organisations get their act together so that boxing can continue to be at the Olympics. It's the oldest Olympic sport. Women's boxing was only introduced in 2012 and I want to see it for the next 100, 200 years to come." (She competes in the 75kg semifinal on 8 August at 10.02pm).

Santiago Nieva, an Australian boxing coach, and Marissa Williamson, who could have met Khelif in the 66kg category disagree. Only the male coach is quoted, however.

Hergie Bacyadan, a female Filipina boxer who identifies as a trans male (but hasn't taken testosterone) on the other hand agrees with Parker, saying through a translator "in sparring it's OK, but if they have XY chromosomes in competition, they should abide by the rules."

Former women's world champion Mária Kovács has wryly remarked that in modern women's boxing "there is a 20 percent chance that one of the athletes will suffer a testicular injury." She also discouraged Hungary's Anna Luca Hámori from competing against Khelif. Hámori posted an AI picture on Instagram of a female boxer fighting a devil and referred to Khelif as a man, for which the Algerian Olympic Committee submitted a complaint to the IOC, and forced her to delete it and apologise to Khelif. She was then defeated by Khelif 5-0 in the quarterfinal, hugging him afterwards. (Similar situation to Carini?)

What others have said:

An open letter calling for the IOC the reverse its decision to allow Yu Ting and Khelif to compete, and to reinstate sex screening has been signed by the likes of: Sharron Davies, Riley Gaines, Martina Navratrilova, Fair Play for Women, Save Women's Sport Australasia, Women's Declaration International, and more.

Dr Emma Hilton, a developmental biologist, has done research which found "a male boxer's punch is 160% more powerful than a woman's". (Unfortunately the article doesn't cite which study, and I don't have access to her articles to determine which one it is). She considers "this decision to include two men (Khelif and Yu-ting) in women's boxing to be extremely worrying, both for the safety and well-being of the female boxers against whom these two men will be competing."

Lastly, the UN's special rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem has said Carini "rightly followed her instincts and prioritised her physical safety, but she and other female athletes should not have been exposed to this physical and psychological violence based on their sex."

Other commentary:

Here is some commentary from IreneBritUSA, Karen Davis of You're Kidding, Right?, Aja the Empress, Marshi Smith (co-founder of ICONS), Jennifer Sieland, Anna Slatz, Dr Colin Wright (an evolutionary biologist), Meghan Murphy and Mary Lou Singleton (upcoming), and Doriane Lambelet Coleman. Note several WoC are speaking out!

[roomtemperaturesuperconductor]

I’ve always empathized with the monstrous, tried to reclaim how I’ve been othered. But empathizing with a story’s monster has the knock on effect of creating a narrative that’s more romantic, more emotionally open and less HORRIFIC. You’re still telling a monster story, but not really a horror story anymore. The fear diffuses. If anything, queer monster stories become empowerment. Watching sleepaway camp and cheering for Angela to rip all those cis kids to shreds.

Gretchen Felker-Martin’s approach in “Cuckoo” is that she’s making horror, and horror demands the monstrous, the threat, the evil. She puts a stake in the ground and defines queerness as uniquely human, uniquely beautiful and alive and NORMAL. Her queer protagonists are fully realized people with jobs and hobbies and rent payments and over-complicated messy networks of friends-with-benefits. It’s the bigots and authorities and abusers who get deprived of humanity, reduced by their hatred to beastly allegory.

For me, I look at the story of a child getting replaced by a changeling and I think I’m the monster. I imagine some perfect son who never existed that I killed and took the shape of. I accept that othering narrative. For felker-Martin, there’s nothing more natural and beautiful than a little human trans kid, and the other, the monstrous force that replaces her, is the soulless husk of normalcy, the ghost of an imagined straight boy who never and can’t exist, who SHOULDN’T exist.

Here’s the important part: beyond being politically coherent, this inversion lets her tell a REAL horror story. One of unrelenting brutality, of a monster to give my kind of person nightmares, a monster you really dread GETTING you. Something designed specifically to prey on the human fears of a queer audience the same way Dracula’s gay seduction or the gender confusion of Norman Bates preys on the fears of cis men.

I can romanticize getting ripped to shreds by a slasher or a demon or a werewolf: icons of otherness to a hegemony I hate. I can take glee in that. The monster in Cuckoo is designed so that I’m JUST scared of it, just repulsed, just desperate to escape.

She made a monster to horrify monsterfuckers. because all those subversive queer sensualities that aroused us but scared straight kids, have been flipped. This is not a monster you can love. It’s not some misunderstood freak with righteous anger. It’s putrid, and it was made specifically to defile me and what I hold dear. And I’m truly scared of it.

Basically. By constructing horror like this. I finally get to feel what cis people feel when they watch those movies I love.

[meddwlyngymraeg]

helo! dwi'n dysgu cymraeg a dwi isio gwrando ar fwy o bandiau sy'n canu yn gymraeg. oes gen ti hoff bandiau neu albymau? dwi'n licio yws gwynedd a gwilym yn fawr ond dwi ddim yn siwr os mae 'na bandiau eraill fel nhw, felly mae steiliau gwahanol yn iawn hefyd. diolch yn fawr!

Helo! Gobeithio ti’n iawn! 😄 Mae llawer o hoff fandiau gyda fi, mawr a newydd. Mae sîn cerddoriaeth Cymraeg yn wych ar hyn o bryd!

Super Furry Animals yw fy hoff band yn y byd (ces i gyfle i ddwued hyn i’w canwr nhw Gruff Rhys, moment o fy mywyd!) Gwenno yw un mwy o fy ffefrynau! Mae hi’n canu yn Gymraeg a Cernyweg, synthpop musician yw hi, a does dim neb yn gwneud miwsig fel hi nawr! Os ces i roi dim ond un rec i bobl, mae’n Datblygu. Genre-wise mae nhw’n post punk, ond oedd y llais, geiriau a sylwebaeth David R Edwards a cerddoriaeth Patricia Morgan yn singular. Does dim neb yn debyg iddyn nhw!

I do have a few recommendations for you os ti’n hoffi Gwilym ac Yws Gwynedd!

If you like Gwylim I think you’ll also enjoy Fleur de Lys, they’re an indie rock band from North Wales in the mid-2010s. They’ve just released a new single called Gad Ni Fod that reminds me a little of Gwilym! You might also like Sŵnami, though they’re a bit more of a pop band. I like their song Gwenwyn. If you’re into heavier music though, there’s another song called Gwenwyn by a band called Alffa. They’re just two lads but they make a ginormous sound, and they’re all-independent and also amongst the most lovely people I’ve spent 3 hours with, so check them out! Gwenwyn also became the first Welsh language song on Spotify to cross a million streams, which is a great achievement. My favourite song of theirs is Babi Mam, a song on men’s mental health, and crucially the lyrics are also available online.

Another rec bouncing off of Gwylim would be Ynys from Aberystwyth. They make harmonic pop/psychedelic rock, I can’t recommend them enough! They’re a newer band, but they’re formed by Dylan Hughes, who used to be in a lovely 2010s indie band called Race Horses (another Cymraeg fav of mine tbh), and some of that band play with him in Ynys too. Helpfully, Dylan is also particular about making sure all his lyrics are available, which is great as a learner! It’s in the lyric booklets but also on their Bandcamp.

You should also definitely check out Adwaith, who are one of the best new bands in Wales! They’re from Carmarthen, so you’ll also hear in their lyrics that they use bits of South Walian Welsh, and the thing I admire about them is they’re learners too. They said they deliberately try and write their lyrics to be true to how they really speak, and so it’s meant to be less formal and more casual. They’re also one of the voices singing about life as girls growing up in Welsh-speaking Wales, and they’re the only musicians ever to win the Welsh music prize twice! Icons. There’s a spinoff band 2/3 of them started in lockdown called Tacsidermi, and if you like Gwilym’s song Cwin you’ll love their song Ble Pierre.

Like Yws Gwynedd - there’s a Candelas song called Brenin Calonnau you’ll like. HMS Morris are another really good band, try their song Ceredigion. Chroma wrote a fantastic album called Asking For Angela this year. Check out Sai’n Moyn Mynd Mas! They released this song in English and in Welsh.

I’ll give you a few more alternative and rock bands I really like, I’ll put them in a playlist for you! It’ll have some Welsh language music from rock bands like Super Furry Animals and Gruff Rhys solo, Datblygu, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, big leaves, Y Reu (and their guitarist Lloyd Steele’s work, who wrote some fantastic tunes in lockdown reflecting on identity — specifically about being a mixed race gay man in Welsh speaking Wales), Ysgol Sul, Hyll.

There’s a Gorky’s song that’s not on Spotify that I love, so I’ll give you a YouTube link. It’s an older song though, written before violinist Megan Childs joined the band - Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Eu Gilydd, from the Introducing Gorky’s CD.

Dyma rhestr-chwarae i chi:

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

For those of you who don’t know, I decided to run the gauntlet of @bengiyo’s queer cinema syllabus, which is comprised of 9 units. I have completed four of the units (here is my queer cinema syllabus round up post with all the films I’ve watched and written about so far). It is time for me to make my way through Unit 5- Lesbians, which includes the following films: The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995), Bound (1996), Water Lilies (2007) [Skipping for now until I can get access to it], Saving Face (2004), D.E.B.S. (2004), Set It Off (1996), The Handmaiden (2016), Carol (2015), Imagine Me and You (2005), Two of Us (2019), Rafiki (2018), and The Color Purple (1985).

Today I will be talking about

D.E.B.S. (2004) dir. Angela Robinson

[Run Time: 1:31, Language: English] [Content Warning: there is one use of the r word] Summary: Plaid-skirted schoolgirls are groomed by a secret government agency to become the newest members of the elite national-defense group, D.E.B.S.

Cast:  -Sara Foster as Amy -Jordana Brewster as Lucy Diamond -Devon Aoki as Dominique -Jill Ritche as Janet -Meagan Good as Max ___

This write up will not be very long because this movie is not working with substantial, in-depth, layered messaging. BUT HOLY SHIT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. This is a shitty little cult classic that sees a paramilitary agent (who was recruited from some secret questions in the SATs) and a supervillain falling in love and running off into the sunset together. 

So, I’ve seen low budget films that have quite a lot to say and know it can be done, so I was curious about how in-depth this film might go into discussions of law enforcement, mostly because in the evil lair there is a sign that says The Only Good D.E.B. is a Dead D.E.B. But this is a light hearted comedy piece so though we do get Amy literally saying she’s a cop, there is not a whole lot of like anti-cop sentiment or anything in the film. 

The premise is a spy and a supervillian literally crash in to eachother, have some level of instant connection, the spy has her queer awakening and runs off with the supervillian, is rescued essentially mid coitus, and the supervillian is inspired to start returning all of the things she’d stolen over the years in an effort to get Amy to leave D.E.B.S. and just be in love with her. It’s riddled with hilarious sound effects, forcefields made of plaid, and a SECRET TUNNEL! 

What it does is show that the world’s most wanted supervillian is pretty chill, very gay, and has maybe been portrayed as more ruthless than she actually is (yes that is in fact Madam Super Villan dancing with her henchman in the gif above). What it does show is that little Miss Perfect Score on the secret spy test does not want to be a spy but felt obligated to do so because she was good at it. I did enjoy the repeated questioning of standardized testing, Lucy asking what the spy test tests for and Amy realizing that she doesn’t know and never bothered to ask yet that test was deciding her entire future. 

But again this was SO. MUCH. FUN. to watch and I would recommend it to many people even as just like a silly little wind down film if they were in need of a quick pick me up.

Also there was lots of gay kissing, which I feel is important to note. 

Favorite Moment

My favorite moment was Lucy breaking in to the D.E.B.S house to see Amy the first time. What an iconic piece of comedy: the plaid forcefield around the property that matches their school uniform, Lucy cutting a hole in the forcefield with what legitimately looks like a sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who, jumping over laser detectors on the grass that are also plaid, and climbing up the wall with those like hand-held suction cup things with the most hilarious and incredibly incorrect popping motion every time she sticks the suction cup to the wall. 

Favorite Quote 

“Yes, well, the poster child doesn’t know it yet but she’s into me.” 

I love when queer people recognize queer people, and appreciate that because Amy is young and was just getting out of a relationship with her boyfriend that she might not know her own sexuality yet or have a full understanding of what she is feeling. But Lucy Diamond is an established, adult, queer woman who definitely sees the way that Amy is acting around her and understands immediately what is happening. 

Score

10/10 

For this moment alone

THAT SAID. I do feel the need to justify this scoring. I tend to score things by what they put forth, so a show with campier premises and executions like this one would be scored almost exclusively by vibes. Things like The Miracle of Teddy Bear, for example, which takes itself incredibly seriously, has multiple layers of messaging, and incredibly realistic depictions of queerness, homophobia, and domestic violence is something I would score with a number of actual story telling factors in mind. 

This gets a 10 for vibes, I don’t think I had a single critical thought in the entire hour and a half watching it and I was having a fucking BLAST.

[dearorpheus]

Do you have any writings abt sex and death, and how they're connected? Thanks if you decide to answer!

hiiiii yes♡ 

first and foremost is Bataille’s Erotism: Death and Sensuality which is expressly about this. everywhere you turn while researching this subject, Bataille will be mentioned. inclusive of this is a foray into religious eroticism/divine love/mysticism and elements of dissolution/continuity, violation and violence, aberration, so on... "There is no better way to know death than to link it with some licentious image." (pdf)

also v central are Freud’s theories surrounding our competing Eros/Thanatos drives, in which (as a very reductive summation) “the death instinct pervades sexual activity”; Freud also touches on dissolution, displacement and 'higher order/form'—you can see here one of the many ways Freud influenced Bataille's theories/writings. ultimately we might agree that the drives, rather than competing, are irreparably intertwined. "Life is displaced death, and death is displaced life." -> I like this article about them, but the source material is his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (pdf) +if you're interested in this, you could further research in sexology, sexual ethics and phenomenology as regarding sexualities linked to death, namely necrophilia, lust murder/sexual homicide, asphyxiophilia (sexual arousal by oxygen deprivation/erotic asphyxiation) and autassassinophilia (sexual arousal from the idea/risk of legitimately—imperatively, not in a fantasy-sense—being killed)

speaking of necrophilia (from Howard Barker’s afterword for Eroticism and Death in Theatre and Performance):

the last two sentences accordant with the modern usage of la petite mort in which the sensation of orgasm is likened to death. literature which comes to mind: M.G. Lewis’ The Monk*, Gabrielle Wittkop’s Le Necrophile, Angela Carter’s “The Snow Child” and “The Lady of the House of Love” as published in The Bloody Chamber, Poppy Z. Brite’s Exquisite Corpse, some of Baudelaire’s poetry...

then getting into more periphery stuff, there’s a lot of theory on the corpse and its sexuality (touched on above) + fetishisation. some theories have to do with executions, others with the sexual aspects of ritual sacrifice, as below in Death Comes To The Maiden: Sex and Execution 1431-1933 by Camille Naish:

more on the former in Julia Kristeva’s The Severed Head: Capital Visions and Nicole Loraux’s Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman

also the eroticisation of the medical venus—for this i heartily recommend Joanna Ebenstein’s The Anatomical Venus which is an absolutely fucking stunning artwork of a book to caress and coo over and cradle as you would a baby and which has a chapter dedicated to ‘Ecstasy, Fetishism and Doll Worship’ that delves into this (and religious eroticism, ne'er shall these subjects be pried apart for individual study it seems, not that i’m complaining)

+supplementary readings into our corpse-like beauty standards, with the heroin chic of the 90s (which has perhaps insidiously returned?) but esp in terms of the consumptive beauty ideals of the fin de siècle x, x etc etc. pervasive and perverted when beauty—an engine of evolution/a vehicle for sexual selection—becomes dictated by icons of illness

other haphazard things which come to mind: Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae (tw for terf rhetoric); Angela Carter’s Sadeian Woman; cause-and-effect death by sex horror trope/generic imperative of post Halloween/‘78 slasher film; death and the maiden trope ofc which is often highly sexualised

*there is a v good essay on this called “Between Life and Death: Representing Necrophilia, Medicine, and the Figure of the Intercessor in M.G. Lewis's The Monk” by Laura Miller

[midnightsaboteur]

So gutted that Dame Angela Lansbury has died - a true Hollywood legend with a range as wide as playing one of cinema's all-time great villains in The Manchurian Candidate, to the iconic role of Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote.

A phenomenal impact on acting and such a great loss from so many wonderful eras.

In particular for me, Murder, She Wrote is definitive 'cosy' detective fiction and Jessica Fletcher is one of the iconic fictional detectives because of Angela Lansbury's portrayal. I’ll never forget first discovering the show and Jessica through all those re-runs on the BBC as a child, and the delightful format of each episode <3

[sweetfirebird]

I know I love old movies and all... but I really cannot describe to you... how much I do not care about Judy Garland. There. I said it. She's fine. She worked hard. She was probably nice in person because other actors seem like pretty devoted friends to her. Meet Me in St Louis is ok. Angela Lansbury stole Harvey Girls. Any child actress probably could have done Wizard of Oz all right. In the Good Old Summertime was adequate (but Shop Around the Corner is better). She's fine. I know she has been decreed an icon and I'm not taking that away from anyone. I just don't get it.

That said, her Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas *is* somehow the saddest Christmas song of all time.

[cinema-tv-etc]

Angela Lansbury winners James Earl Jones, Julie Harris and Jerry Orbach

Elizabeth Taylor - Jackie Jenkins - Angela Lansbury

Angela Lansbury's Life & Legacy

You probably know Angela Lansbury as the sweet grandmotherly Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote. … Or you might know her as a sexy seductress from her early film roles. … Or as a scheming villainess.

But in real life, Dame Angela's life has been nearly as tumultuous as those of her characters. From fleeing the Nazis as a child, to marrying young only to discover her husband was gay, to rescuing her cat from a fire and her children from a gang of serial killers, to proudly accepting her status as a gay icon, Angela Lansbury lived a nearly century-long life of adventure, upheaval, and constant reinvention.

Angela Lansbury's Life & Legacy

[babiebom]

Ranking Nerdy Prudes Must Die songs

A/N: because I need something to post and I’ve been obsessed since the musical came out. Also merry Christmas and happy holidays!! Also PLEASE DONT HATE ME

Tw:some sexual mentions, cursing, lyrics might be wrong bc I’m going off the top of my head, mentions of murder etc

Wc: idk it’s headcanons so like 3 points for each song

Misc Masterlist

15)The Best of You

I just don’t listen to this as much as I listen to the other songs

Like it’s not bad

I just don’t really listen to it

It sounds like a high school musical song and the child in me loves it

14)If I Loved You

Idk y but the first time I watched this song made me uncomfy

Well not the whole song literally just the “don’t need lover boy need lover man” part even though Mariah KILLS it idk what it is about that part

But also their voices are immaculate

like Actually I love their voices so much

And the song itself is VERY good

Again I just don’t listen to it as often as the others

OH BABE ID LET YOU KNOW

PERIOD

I also really love the chaos that would be watching two people do this in a cafe

Like how they’re standing at the door like “you leave” “no you leave” actually funny.

13)Cool as I Think I Am(Reprise)

SADGE

I DONT LIKE SADGE

But also they again kill this Mariah and Joey are top tier

The whole “you’re not as cool as you think you are” “you’re as smart as I know you are”

To the “IF I LOVED YOU I WOULD SHOW IT”

IMMACULATE

Would be higher up if I listened to it more often but alas like the ones before this I just don’t listen to it enough.

12)Just For Once

Tbh this is only this high up because of the iconic parts that I listen to over and over

Like I think the only time I listened to the whole song was while watching the musical in its entirety

I literally only listen to VERY specific parts of this song

I’m gonna skip around some of the lyrics but y’all know the parts

The “I wasn’t upset about the attention I ensnared JUDGE ME”

“It fucking worked, I’m fucking here, he’s fucking her, I’m disappointed”

“Should I let the coals burn out? JUST FOR OOOOOOONCE” LAUREN LOPEZ IS A GODDESS PLS

“The other day the Johnson’s borrowed my tap shoes. I used to dance”

Like actually makes my heart clench

Like I’m 23 and this song makes me feel like it’s too late to do what I want because there’s all these things I used to do when I was younger and now I’m just….living but not really.

11)The Summoning

THE CHAOS

HELLO FWENDY-WENDS

Out OF THE DEPTHS OF HELL AND BACK

I LOVE THIS SONG

Stephanie yum yum

I love the lords in black (especially because they’re so colorful)

Also the beginning of this song is iconic

Literally their chanting and voices are so good.

Honestly if they remade this musical into a movie with all sorts of cgi I feel like this would be a VERY CHAOTIC PART

I love it

Also I think I just love when it’s a bunch of noise that allows me not to think

Which is what this song is when they’re singing the repetitive parts

And I know people hate the repetitive parts but I love them

Like so good

10)High School is Killing Me

Again don’t listen to this as much as I should

But I should mention that I listen to this at least once a day so we see how much I listen to the songs after this one

IM DEAD!!

I’m scared someone comes for ME I’m unprepared

Jon and Lauren sound so good here and I honestly think this was the perfect way to open a musical

Like yeah it’s a little spoiler but it’s so GOOD

It’s hell on earth you know? I’m tweeting all about it!

The way Angela covers her mouth every time they curse is funny

AND the part where they’re like “is god the one giving the test” and Angela (Grace) is in the middle with the light shining down on her is imagery I love

Like idk why people aren’t mentioning that she’s literally a Christian and is highlighted in that part.

Stephanie was up late last night and couldn’t study bc she was arguing about the homophobic dog

Also crypto?

Also I think this song perfectly embodies what it’s like to be in high school?

Like it was killing me and I swore that I wouldn’t miss it after I graduated, and that I would always hate high school and that idk how I survived it

But now as an adult I’m like damn while I hated going to school it was something about those days that I miss so much. And I only graduated 5 years ago.

09)Bully the Bully

BE COOL BEANS

Keep the beans cool

Bean school

Also I think we’re starting to show that I have a very special place in my heart for Angela

I love how she performs and portrays characters

Also the fact that they’re just singing about bullying the bully for all sorts of different reasons is funny to me

Petey gonna jump on out ✋😐🤚

Jäeger gonna Jäger out 🤘🤪🤘

Also actually was a funny plan that probably wouldn’t work irl but would be funny to watch on a school fight page

Also the fact that Max says that it’s the nicest thing anyone has done for him

08)Bury The Bully

Oh no 😥 she’s snapping again 😟

Please let this be a normal field trip

Give off same vibes

Also I love the layers in the song

Mariah does a good job

HACK ALL HIS LIMBS OFF (did you say hack all his limbs off?) YEAH!

Also very funny

Like Grace’s descent into madness is entertaining

RUTH IS GONNA CUT OFF HIS NIPS

Also shows how stupid they are because they literally could’ve said that it was an accident

It’s literally 5 of them

Just be like yeah we brought him here to scare him and his stupid ass decided to stand on top of some old ass wood and it cracked under him and he died.

But no listening to Grace they become criminals.

No one is gonna make Ruth their bitch

“Do you wanna get the fullest ride? Then start CUTTIN RIGHT ABOVE THE THIGH!”

07)Cool as I Think I Am

Song that shows up throughout the musical

Like it’s in almost every single song if you listen closely to the background

And honestly it’s so good

Because it makes me feel something inside

Like it plays as Richie dies

As Pete and Stephanie realize that she’s gonna have to kill him

At the very end in dirty dudes must die

It’s just an iconic song

Also Joey’s voice is AMAZING

“If I could finally break the rules I would know that IM NOT A LOSER”

Of HIS WORLD HE IS THE RULER

He’s as cool as she thinks he is and she’s as smart as he thinks she is

It’s so cute

Like it’s inspiring in a way

And it’s like he’s finding himself.

LOVE IT

OHHHHHHH SHUT UP-Max

06)Go Go NightHawks

ITS LIKE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL YEAH

N

I

G

H

T

AHH AHH 🦅🦅

FIGHT 🥊💥

Fuck YOU CLIVESDALE GO GET FUCKED

YOU FUCKING LOSERS

I literally just love this song and that’s why it’s high

Like literally no other reason other than this song gets me crunk

I wanna whoop clivesdales asses

Bitch ass hoes

Like I did not like my own school rallies this much

But I would love to aten one of these football games

05)Hatchet Town

He is Dan Reynolds with Action News

WHOS SWINGING THE HATCHET NOW?

I think her name is Bryce I am not sure

But the pretty woman who sings the slow part

So beautiful and her voice is literally out of this world

“I REMEMBER BEFORE THE LOCKDOWN THE SUN WAS SHINING ON OUT TOWN AND OUT KIDS COULD WALK THE STREETS”

Literally I was blown away when I heard this part

And I honestly just really like this song

Like it perfectly portrays how people act when anything happens

Like shifting the blame and causing hysteria when all you really need to do is be vigilant and listen to what the professionals are saying

But then also the people in charge don’t know what they’re doing so it’s like WTF do we do

“YEAH ITS GOT TO BE DONNA”

It’s a chaos song that depicts people properly

I feel like most of their songs depict people pretty well.

Like yeah it’s exaggerated but it’s accurate as well.

I also like dancing around to this song like I’m being sneaky and gossipy

“Someone’s got their hands on the hatchet handle” 🕵️‍♀️🕵️‍♀️

04)Literal Monster

I LOVE THIS SONG

The only reason it’s not higher is because I listen to the other songs more

But OH MY GOD

everyone’s vocals immaculate

The dancing?

Amazing

Like actually literal monster is so good

“HE ROARS AND WE CRY HES THE REASON WE RUN AND HIDE”

Is her name Kim? I think this is Kim

I LOVE HER VOICE

Also everything about this song is just like YES this is how you do a musical

Also I think the guy who plays Max is named Will?

This is my first time ever hearing him sing and actually it’s so good

He’s the goofiest bully to exist like HUH

His little dancie dance is so funny

He’s like a Fortnite character

He doesn’t need anyone to tell him high school will be his peak

Also his obsession with Grace is so funny and comes out of nowhere.

And the fact that he hates nerds like her but somehow wants to smash even though there are more than enough people who are probably willing makes me think he genuinely likes her but would never admit it.

He’s a literal monster (lmao rip bozo)

03)Dirty Dudes Must Die

BROTHER

When I tell you I am obsessed

I mean I am literally listening to this song like a dozen times a day

And I sing it at the top of my lungs

I’m actually in love with this song

The only reason it’s not number one is that I like the vocals of the other songs better

“WHO WILL PRAY FOR YOU WHEN YOUR BODYS GONE? THIS IS THE CONSEQUENCE FOR WHAT YOUVE DONE”

Like YES

“ARE YOU HARD BC YOURE STRESSED?” (What?) “OR IS THIS A POWER I NOW POSESS?!”

Like yes girl use your haunted poosay to kill everyone YES

Like actually her arc is so good to me even though it’s like not what you’d expect/think would happen

Like you would be like oh Christian girl has sex and realizes that it’s not that bad and that she doesn’t have to be a radical religious person

But instead she’s like yeah okay I’m gonna use my new evil powers for GOD and now no one is gonna stop me

She goes from crazy to crazier and I love it

Angela is the love of my life

Like actually she makes me wanna act

And also be absolutely insane but that’s a different topic

Good song gets me hype.

02)Dirty Girl

YESSSJSJAKWOWKNSKWLA

I know this song makes people uncomfy

But I am a horny girl and this song literally gave me whiplash when I first watched like

GIRL ME TOO

Their vocals and just the song itself is so good

Like her struggle with staying true to her religion and herself but also now feeling lust and want for someone that she previously never would’ve thought about before

And it does prove that Max is right about Grace being kinky af because as we see her descent into madness the things that she’s into are things that I know Christian people would be horrified at

Like when they bring him to the Waylon house and he’s aggressive and she’s like OH YEAH THIS IS GOOD

This song is just like look at her try to deny what she’s feeling and look at her struggle with something that many other people religious or not struggle with and look at how badly she handles it

Like if her parents would’ve handled this better Max would not have died

She is hungry for more and now her judgement is all cloudy because of ONE BOY

Everything could’ve been avoided if she was raised to believe that lusting is okay, feeling those feelings is okay

You don’t have to act on them but LORD they aren’t something that is wrong to feel.

It just makes it worse when you try to suppress things

But alas she lives in a no moan household.

01)Nerdy Prudes Must Die

IM SO SORRY RICHIE BUT THIS SONG IS ICONIC

Literally the name of the musical

And rightfully the best song

Jon’s acting and voice is AMAZING

Will sounds amazing

Like actually I could not stop repeating the “will you pray for me, when I’m gone?” Part for WEEKS

Like I’m still singing it to myself

It’s so good

IM NOT A LOSER

Like brother how he just sings that part is like OH MY GOD

Like everything about this song is good

And the fact that Max is like Yeah I couldnt care less how you actively dismembered me and defiled my body(his nipples) and buried him in an abandoned old house.

Like everything about this song is also tragic

Because everyone is celebrating his disappearance

And at this point I feel like he has to have seen that they’re celebrating.

And he was so close to changing

We see that he’s an asshole because of his family life which is tragically the reality of a lot of bullies and hurt people in general

So to have him on the brink of maybe changing and then dying and being dismembered and buried in a place no one knows he’s buried in

Is so sad in a way

Like we don’t even get to see if he would have changed because he does

And when he comes back as a literal monster he’s hurt and angry and wants revenge on the people and people like the people that got him killed even if it was an accident.

This musical is genuinely so good UGH

[gatheringbones]

[“Mainstream feminism too often puts ‘police violence’ and ‘male violence against women’ into different conceptual categories – if, indeed, it considers police violence to be a topic of feminist concern at all. This is especially the case for the violence that is ‘normalised’ as part of policing: arrests, most obviously, but also violations such as intimate searches, and harassment such as stop-and-frisk. The result is that police violence gets left out of mainstream feminist anti-violence work. However, when we think of police violence not only as state violence but also (often) as male violence against women, the criminalisation of prostitution comes into focus in a new way: as a key driver of male violence against women.

The infrastructure of criminalisation saturates our political consciousness. It is the bobby on the beat, the jail on the Monopoly board, the crime-drama TV show (with its inevitable murdered prostitute), the car-chase footage on the news. In this saturation, such images are rendered mundane, sidelining questions of the legitimacy or purpose of these modes of control. As Angela Davis writes, the prison ‘is one of the most important features of our image environment’, yet it

functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the ideological work that the prison performs – it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.

Theorist Beth Richie uses the term prison nation to mean a ‘broad notion of using the arm of the law to control people, especially disadvantaged people and people from disadvantaged communities’. Her term encompasses not only the physical infrastructure of prisons and jails, but also ‘surveillance, policing, detention, probation, harsh restrictions on child guardianship … and other strategies of isolation and disposal’.

Perhaps the key trick of the prison nation is ‘now you see it, now you don’t’. Prison vanishes people; criminalisation renders those same people hyper-visible. The deeply racialised, anti-Black figure of the Pimp looms large as the perpetrator of ‘slavery’ – while the prison system itself, one of the key material legacies of chattel slavery in the Americas, is filled with ever more Black inmates.

Through the intensifying militarisation of police departments, there is a direct link between the foreign wars at the frontiers of the contemporary American empire and the hyper-carceral state at home. As the New Yorker reports, since the 1990s, ‘local governments have received approximately thirty-four billion dollars in grants from the Department of Homeland Security to buy their own military equipment … That brings the total [spent by American police departments on military equipment] to thirty-nine billion dollars – more than the entire defense budget of Germany.’ The same trend is visible even in the histories of policing; early-twentieth-century American policing drew on the US Army’s experience imposing brutal colonial rule in the Philippines, just as UK policing explicitly drew on tactics developed by the British Army in subduing colonised populations.

Communities feel the police are an occupying army; the police feel themselves to be an occupying army, and the police respond to the people they encounter with the hostility that engenders. Some of the most powerful photography emerging from the ongoing fight for Black lives in the US speaks to the visual dimension of this: an iconic photograph taken in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, shows Ieshia Evans, a young Black woman in a summer dress, calmly facing down two oncoming police officers in full body-armour. Meanwhile, the overlapping military and prison industrial complexes drain hundreds of billions of dollars from the American public purse, outfitting the police who rushed Ieshia in futuristic ‘protective’ armour – alongside cuts to Social Security, healthcare, and education, and catastrophic divestment from Black communities.”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

[bonniehooper]

MR. ROBOT REWATCH, 1x01: "eps1.0_hellofriend.mov"

-Elliot: "Hello friend." That line is so iconic and so it begins.

-"I did not hurt anyone." You're selling child pornography, dude. What do you mean you didn't hurt anyone?!

-Elliot, I don't he cares about your dad dying, unless you're not gonna turn him in.

-What an opening to the show and introduction to Elliot's character.

-Oh my God, I forgot how annoying Angela's boyfriend is.

-I love Elliot's monologue that he says in his therapist office.

-Bro, Elliot doesn't like you. Please go away.

-Tyrell! I forgot he was introduced in the first episode.

-That first interaction between Elliot and Tyrell is so weird. I can't remember if Tyrell is already working with Elliot.

-Shayla, my love!!

-First mention of fsociety.

-Gideon: "Did you know I'm gay?" Gideon, I don't know if this is the right time to just come out to your coworker.

-The first interaction between Elliot and Mr. Robot.

-Don't be mean to Shayla just because you forgot there was a possibility she would still be in your bed. Also, who cares if Angela sees?

-This interaction between Elliot and Darlene is so interesting when you already know they're brother and sister. Like how does Darlene not realize something is wrong with him?

-I love this scene between Rami and Christian on the farris wheel.

-I love how Colby kicking Angela out of the meeting made Elliot do what Mr. Robot asked him to do.

-I love that Elliot takes Flipper away from that dickhead.

-This shot of Elliot looking so happy in Times Square is so iconic.

-Elliot: "Please tell me you're seeing this too." Another iconic moment and I love that Rami Malek said that when he won his Emmy.

[magicofsimplestories]

0. Introductions

The land of Pleasantview. It’s hard to find a person, who doesn’t dream of building a career in one of its shiny skyscrapers, moving into a cozy house of its calm suburbans and taking a stroll in between the peaceful greenery of its vast parks. But is there something more to it? Is there something that is hidden behind this polished image of ultimate happiness and breathtaking success? Is there something that never leaves the borders of the neighborhood stories? 

Not So Pleasant

They’ve always seemed to be an exemplary family: famous football player Daniel with his successful business lady Mary-Sue and their twin-princesses Angela, the bright mind, and Lilith, the creative soul.

So when Daniel moved out unexpectedly the neighborhood of Willow Creek couldn’t let the case without digging. Soon enough the rumours of Daniel cheating on Mary started to spread, and the exemplary image was left shattered in pieces.

What other secrets keep the Pleasants? And will Mary ever be able to trust a man again?

Broken Souls

Brandi never regretted leaving the luxury of her parents behind in order to move in with her high school sweetheart Skip Broke. She had no other choice. Her parents planned a shiny academic future for her, so they would never allow their 18-year-old daughter to keep her and Skip’s baby. 

The Brokes traveled enough around Pleasantview, with Skip doing his best to provide for his wife and his little son Dustin. After a long time of moving around, Skip has found a permanent job at the Landgraab facility and the family has finally been able to settle down in a tiny trailer house in one of the modest corners of Willow Creek. That’s where they had their second son, cutie Beau. And that’s where Brandi has lost her Skip to a “tragic and mysterious facility accident”. 

Will Brandi be able to raise her sons alone? And what troubles will Dustin get into while trying to deal with his heavy loss?

A Fresh Start

After months of unsuccessful attempts to conceive their second child, Leo and Lina have come to a conclusion that a calm suburban area might be the solution to their difficulty. So they changed the stuffy San Myshuno Business Quarter to the Copperdale fresh air, leaving Leo whining from time to time about spending a whole hour daily to get to his office and back. 

To Lina’s mind, apart from the fresh air there were more bonuses that Copperdale has offered her family. The local high school has always been famous for gifting its students a lucky ticket to the best universities of the countries, and Lina couldn’t dream of a better opportunity for her eldest daughter from the previous marriage Nina. 

On top of that, Copperdale was significantly further from San Sequoia, making Nina spend much less time with her rock-star father Niel Dwyer. 

But will the distance help Lina get rid of Niel’s troublesome and careless influence on Nina? And will Copperdale finally become Lina's and Leo’s family happiness corner? 

[Next]

---

Vikie’s notes: With my recent nostalgia about The Sims 2 lore, I’ve been dreaming of creating TS2 world in The Sims 4. Apparently it has already been done by violetpixels in the TS2 to TS4 Uberhood save file.

Currently I’m focused on the two iconic TS2 families - the Pleasants and the Brokes, along with my Gross-Dwyer family whom I decided to give a fresh start after I had lost any interest in going on with “My Willow Creek Teens” story. However, later on I might add a couple of other preexisting TS2 households to the “Neighbourhood Stories” (with proper introductions, of course).

[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Dorothy Scott (Audra McDonald)

As Peggy Scott's pianist mother, Dorothy isn't afraid to give her husband a piece of her mind at every opportunity. Though enmeshed in bettering Black society up north, she worries for her daughter's safety down south. As she should.

Here she is boys, here she is world, the one you've all been waiting for. Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald. *The* Broadway Diva. Our reigning queen. Our legend. Our great soprano. Audra has won more Tony Awards for performance than any other actor, and is the only one to have an award in each of the four competitive categories for which she is eligible (Best Leading Actress in a Play/Musical, Best Featured Actress in a Play/Musical). As such, she is one of three theatre greats to have nominations across said categories: the others being the late greats Jan Maxwell and Angela Lansbury. With ten nominations in total, she is tied with Julie Harris and Chita Rivera for most performance nominations and will certainly surpass them the next time she comes to Broadway.

Audra McDonald's repertoire is so vast that this post became the hardest to narrow down. I have elected to highlight a little of everything: songs from shows that deserve a little more love here on Tumblr, Audra favorites, obscure gems, etc.

#1: "The Glamorous Life," Sondheim's 80th Birthday Celebration (2010)

We have no choice but to start with Sondheim. The third of six performers in the iconic Ladies in Red segment of the Sondheim 80th Birthday Concert, Audra takes on this exquisite A Little Night Music number sung by the teenaged Frederika in the movie version (we don't talk about it).

Among Sondheim standards such as "The Ladies Who Lunch" (Patti LuPone) and "Losing My Mind" (Marin Mazzie), some considered the inclusion of this number a little misplaced. I adore it.

According to the Word of God (Donna Murphy), some of the Ladies in Red were being sewed or even taped into their dresses just minutes before taking the stage.

#2: Lady Day at Emmerson's Bar and Grill (2014)

Though this particular show features music throughout and has a phenomenal cast album, it is classified as a "play with music," thus Audra was able to win her multi-record-breaking Tony in 2014. She plays the iconic Billie Holiday in 1959 at the tail end of her career. Here, she performs in a run-down nightclub and grows increasingly drunk and demoralized throughout the evening. It is an incredible piece of both singing and acting.

#3: "As You Make Your Bed," Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (2007)

Though the costume is something I feel we should all bear witness to, Audra's demonstration of her full operatic range adds another layer of excellence. A Weill and Brecht collaboration, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny was first performed in 1930. This clip is from the 2007 Los Angeles Opera production starring Audra and Patti LuPone. Audra plays Jenny Smith, "a whore." The production was recorded for PBS's Great Productions and won two Grammy Awards.

Truly, is there anything Audra can't do?

#4: "Wheels of a Dream," Ragtime Reunion (2023)

Ragtime. Oh, Ragtime. That we live in a world where Ahrens and Flaherty's magnum opus lost Best Musical to The Lion King is my villain origin story. Natasha Richardson (Cabaret) beating out Marin Mazzie for Leading Actress is something I have to accept, but this? In 1998, Ragtime won Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Orchestrations, and Best Featured Actress for Audra McDonald's glorious Sarah. Sarah is a young woman at the turn of the century who has a baby with Brian Stokes Mitchell's (Broadway's Leading Man) Coalhouse Walker, and is taken in by Mother (Marin Mazzie), an upper-class white woman with no name after she is caught having partially buried the living child in Mother's yard. It is a masterpiece of musical talent with a breathtaking score and story.

This role won Audra her third Tony in the span of five years. Listening to Audra and Stokes reunite may well be the closest you ever get to hearing divinity. I implore you to seek out the full original cast album.

A reunion concert was planned for April 2020, but was postponed until this past year with Kelli O'Hara stepping in for the late Marin Mazzie as Mother. The concert was done as a benefit for the Entertainment Community Fund, and dedicated in memory of Marin, who passed away in 2018 from ovarian cancer, book-writer Terrence McNally who died of COVID complications in 2020 (lung cancer), and director Frank Galati, who died in 2023, also of cancer complications.

#5: Master Class (1995)

Master Class is yet another Terrence McNally work, this one a play depicting a fictionalized master class given by opera singer Maria Callas towards the end of her life. Audra, as Sharon, takes the part of her student, the second soprano. This play won Audra her second Tony, and garnered a Tony for the brilliant leading actress Zoe Caldwell, whom Audra partially named her firstborn child after some years later. Her daughter's middle name is in honor of Audra's other close friend, the late Madeline Kahn, who like Marin Mazzie, died of ovarian cancer at 57, the same age, though many years prior.

LINK TO MASTERPOST

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Jonestown Massacre

The Jonestown massacre was, before 9/11, the largest single incident of intentional civilian death in American history. More than 900 people died, many children. It was also a devastating cultural trauma: the end of the last strains of a certain kind of 1960s idealism and 1970s radicalism. Jonestown’s legacy lives on in the ironic phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”. (In actuality it was Fla-Vor-Aid.)

Although he would later become a symbol of the darker side of the west coast counterculture, Jim Jones was born to a poor family in Indiana. Described as an intelligent and strange child, Jones was instinctively attracted to religion, especially charismatic Christian traditions like Pentecostalism. He cut his teeth as a street preacher, and was, unusually for the time and place, a passionate advocate for racial equality. Jones’s idiosyncratic blend of evangelical Christianity, New Age spirituality and radical social justice attracted an enthusiastic following. He called his burgeoning church the Peoples Temple.

Although Jones’s followers would later be stereotyped as sinister, brainwashed idiots, the journalist Tim Reiterman argues in his seminal book on the subject that many were “decent, hardworking, socially conscious people, some highly educated”, who “wanted to help their fellow man and serve God, not embrace a self-proclaimed deity on earth”. The Peoples Temple advocated socialism and communitarian living and was racially integrated to an exceptional standard rarely matched since.

In 1965, when Jones was in his mid-30s, he ordered the Peoples Temple moved to California. He drifted away from traditional Christian teachings, describing himself in messianic terms and claiming he was the reincarnation of figures like Christ and Buddha. He also claimed that his goal all along was communism, and, in a twist on the famous dictum that religion is the “opiate of the masses”, that religion was merely his way of making Marxism more palatable.

By the 1970s, the Peoples Temple, now based in San Francisco, had gained significant political influence. Jones’s fierce advocacy for the downtrodden earned him the admiration of left-wing icons like Angela Davis and Harvey Milk and the support of groups like the Black Panthers – a tragically misguided political affinity, given that more than two-thirds of Jonestown’s eventual victims were African American.

There were signs, however, of a sinister undercurrent to the Peoples Temple. Followers were expected to devote themselves completely to the church’s utopian project: they turned over their personal wealth, worked long hours of unpaid labor for the church and often broke contact with their families. They were expected to raise their children within the commune. As a show of commitment, Peoples Temple members were asked to sign false testimonials that they had molested their children, which the church kept for potential blackmail.

In his 1980 study of Jonestown, the writer Shiva Naipaul, younger brother of VS Naipaul, argued that the Peoples Temple was at heart a fundamentalist religious project – “obsessed with sin and images of apocalyptic destruction, authoritarian in its innermost impulses, instinctively thinking in terms of the saved and the damned”.

The result, Naipaul wrote, “was neither racial justice nor socialism but a messianic parody of both”.

Jones, who had long believed the US was in danger of imminent nuclear holocaust, had been searching for a place where his church would be “safe” during an apocalyptic event. A magazine article alleging abuse in the Peoples Temple spurred Jones’s desire to relocate. He chose Guyana, a former British colony in South America whose socialist regime was politically sympathetic.

In 1977 the Peoples Temple moved its headquarters to a remote area of Guyanese wilderness. Here, Jones declared, they could build a utopian society without government or media meddling. Battling an oppressive tropical climate and limited resources, they began to convert the dense jungle into a working agricultural commune, soon known as “Jonestown”.

The church delivered Jones’s rambling monologues to Jonestown’s inhabitants by megaphone as they worked. In the evenings they attended mandatory propaganda classes. Jones’s writ was enforced by armed guards called the “Red Brigade”.

Jonestown had little reason to expect interference from Guyana – a “cooperative republic” whose government happily ignored signs of the cult’s authoritarian and paranoid bent. Back in the US, however, parents of Jonestown inhabitants – concerned by the strange letters, or lack of letters, they received from their children – had been lobbying the government to investigate. After a family in the US won a custody order for a child in Jonestown, paranoia escalated. The commune became an armed camp, ringed by volunteers with guns and machetes, threatening to fight outsiders to the death.

During the siege, Black Panthers Huey Newton and Angela Davis spoke to Jonestown inhabitants by radio patch to voice solidarity. Davis told Jonestown inhabitants that they were at the vanguard of revolution, and right to resist what she called “a profound conspiracy” against them.

Sometime during this period Jonestown began drills called “white nights”, in which inhabitants would practice committing mass suicide.

At the behest of concerned family members in the US, the California congressman Leo Ryan organized a delegation of journalists and others to make a fact-finding mission to Jonestown.

The delegation arrived at Jonestown on 17 November 1978 and received a civil audience from Jones, but the visit was hastily called short on 18 November after a member of the commune tried to stab Ryan. The delegation headed back to the airstrip, accompanied by a dozen Jonestown inhabitants who had asked to leave the commune, and escorted by Jones’s watchful deputies.

The delegates never made it off the ground. As they boarded the planes, their escorts drew guns and opened fire. They shot Ryan dead, combing his body with bullets to make certain, and killed four others – including two photographers who captured footage of the attack before dying. Wounded survivors ran or dragged themselves, bleeding, into the forest. (One of Ryan’s aides, Jackie Speier, survived five gunshots and is now a congresswoman representing California’s 14th district.)

Back at Jonestown, Jones announced that it was time to undertake the final “white night”. To quell disagreement, he told inhabitants that Congressman Ryan had already been murdered, sealing the commune’s fate and making “revolutionary suicide” the only possible outcome.

The people of Jonestown, some acceptant and serene, others probably coerced, queued to receive cups of cyanide punch and syringes. The children – more than 300 – were poisoned first, and can be heard crying and wailing on the commune’s own audio tapes, later recovered by the FBI.

When Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next morning, they discovered an eerie, silent vista, frozen in time and littered with bodies. A tiny number of survivors, mainly people who had hidden during the poisoning, emerged. One elderly woman, who slept through the entire ordeal, awoke to discover everyone dead. Jones was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.

[dailyunsolvedmysteries-movedd]

Jonestown Massacre

The Jonestown massacre was, before 9/11, the largest single incident of intentional civilian death in American history. More than 900 people died, many children. It was also a devastating cultural trauma: the end of the last strains of a certain kind of 1960s idealism and 1970s radicalism. Jonestown’s legacy lives on in the ironic phrase “drink the Kool-Aid”. (In actuality it was Fla-Vor-Aid.)

Although he would later become a symbol of the darker side of the west coast counterculture, Jim Jones was born to a poor family in Indiana. Described as an intelligent and strange child, Jones was instinctively attracted to religion, especially charismatic Christian traditions like Pentecostalism. He cut his teeth as a street preacher, and was, unusually for the time and place, a passionate advocate for racial equality. Jones’s idiosyncratic blend of evangelical Christianity, New Age spirituality and radical social justice attracted an enthusiastic following. He called his burgeoning church the Peoples Temple.

Although Jones’s followers would later be stereotyped as sinister, brainwashed idiots, the journalist Tim Reiterman argues in his seminal book on the subject that many were “decent, hardworking, socially conscious people, some highly educated”, who “wanted to help their fellow man and serve God, not embrace a self-proclaimed deity on earth”. The Peoples Temple advocated socialism and communitarian living and was racially integrated to an exceptional standard rarely matched since.

In 1965, when Jones was in his mid-30s, he ordered the Peoples Temple moved to California. He drifted away from traditional Christian teachings, describing himself in messianic terms and claiming he was the reincarnation of figures like Christ and Buddha. He also claimed that his goal all along was communism, and, in a twist on the famous dictum that religion is the “opiate of the masses”, that religion was merely his way of making Marxism more palatable.

By the 1970s, the Peoples Temple, now based in San Francisco, had gained significant political influence. Jones’s fierce advocacy for the downtrodden earned him the admiration of left-wing icons like Angela Davis and Harvey Milk and the support of groups like the Black Panthers – a tragically misguided political affinity, given that more than two-thirds of Jonestown’s eventual victims were African American.

There were signs, however, of a sinister undercurrent to the Peoples Temple. Followers were expected to devote themselves completely to the church’s utopian project: they turned over their personal wealth, worked long hours of unpaid labor for the church and often broke contact with their families. They were expected to raise their children within the commune. As a show of commitment, Peoples Temple members were asked to sign false testimonials that they had molested their children, which the church kept for potential blackmail.

In his 1980 study of Jonestown, the writer Shiva Naipaul, younger brother of VS Naipaul, argued that the Peoples Temple was at heart a fundamentalist religious project – “obsessed with sin and images of apocalyptic destruction, authoritarian in its innermost impulses, instinctively thinking in terms of the saved and the damned”.

The result, Naipaul wrote, “was neither racial justice nor socialism but a messianic parody of both”.

Jones, who had long believed the US was in danger of imminent nuclear holocaust, had been searching for a place where his church would be “safe” during an apocalyptic event. A magazine article alleging abuse in the Peoples Temple spurred Jones’s desire to relocate. He chose Guyana, a former British colony in South America whose socialist regime was politically sympathetic.

In 1977 the Peoples Temple moved its headquarters to a remote area of Guyanese wilderness. Here, Jones declared, they could build a utopian society without government or media meddling. Battling an oppressive tropical climate and limited resources, they began to convert the dense jungle into a working agricultural commune, soon known as “Jonestown”.

The church delivered Jones’s rambling monologues to Jonestown’s inhabitants by megaphone as they worked. In the evenings they attended mandatory propaganda classes. Jones’s writ was enforced by armed guards called the “Red Brigade”.

Jonestown had little reason to expect interference from Guyana – a “cooperative republic” whose government happily ignored signs of the cult’s authoritarian and paranoid bent. Back in the US, however, parents of Jonestown inhabitants – concerned by the strange letters, or lack of letters, they received from their children – had been lobbying the government to investigate. After a family in the US won a custody order for a child in Jonestown, paranoia escalated. The commune became an armed camp, ringed by volunteers with guns and machetes, threatening to fight outsiders to the death.

During the siege, Black Panthers Huey Newton and Angela Davis spoke to Jonestown inhabitants by radio patch to voice solidarity. Davis told Jonestown inhabitants that they were at the vanguard of revolution, and right to resist what she called “a profound conspiracy” against them.

Sometime during this period Jonestown began drills called “white nights”, in which inhabitants would practice committing mass suicide.

At the behest of concerned family members in the US, the California congressman Leo Ryan organized a delegation of journalists and others to make a fact-finding mission to Jonestown.

The delegation arrived at Jonestown on 17 November 1978 and received a civil audience from Jones, but the visit was hastily called short on 18 November after a member of the commune tried to stab Ryan. The delegation headed back to the airstrip, accompanied by a dozen Jonestown inhabitants who had asked to leave the commune, and escorted by Jones’s watchful deputies.

The delegates never made it off the ground. As they boarded the planes, their escorts drew guns and opened fire. They shot Ryan dead, combing his body with bullets to make certain, and killed four others – including two photographers who captured footage of the attack before dying. Wounded survivors ran or dragged themselves, bleeding, into the forest. (One of Ryan’s aides, Jackie Speier, survived five gunshots and is now a congresswoman representing California’s 14th district.)

Back at Jonestown, Jones announced that it was time to undertake the final “white night”. To quell disagreement, he told inhabitants that Congressman Ryan had already been murdered, sealing the commune’s fate and making “revolutionary suicide” the only possible outcome.

The people of Jonestown, some acceptant and serene, others probably coerced, queued to receive cups of cyanide punch and syringes. The children – more than 300 – were poisoned first, and can be heard crying and wailing on the commune’s own audio tapes, later recovered by the FBI.

When Guyanese troops reached Jonestown the next morning, they discovered an eerie, silent vista, frozen in time and littered with bodies. A tiny number of survivors, mainly people who had hidden during the poisoning, emerged. One elderly woman, who slept through the entire ordeal, awoke to discover everyone dead. Jones was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot.

[fanaticsnail]

meant to send this yesterday but the sleepy got me so....

Off to an amazing start with my dad coming up behind me during opening credits/music and asking if I'm watching Tom & Jerry.

Thats such a pretty frame!

I wasnt expecting singing!! But hell yeah!! Sing your funky songs, bug man! - Ooooooh, is that a watercolor background? So pretty!

THE 🏹 BLACK ⚫️ FOX 🦊 - "Good friend Griswold from the north" Snail, is there something you'd like to sbare with the class?

Also, the costuming! I havent seen this many men in tights since Romeo and Juliet!

Sword Fight⁉️

Quick aside; his daughter looks so unbothered. Also, what is she embroidering? Is that a map? - "You marry griswold" -girl, I CACKLED

The King X Griswold- 20 k slowburn, friends to lovers - The singing should not surprise me as much as it does. I was practically raised on bollywood, so its not like im not used to it, maybe its because this is Hollywood not Bollywood, so I'm not used to it here? - Wearing his clothes is one thing, but did Hawkins make 6 additional Fox outfits for his friends? I'm starting to see the Buggy comparison you were making

I've always been under the belief that every weird little man needs a weird little child. So far, I'm not disappointed

Pretty sets, pretty people, what's not to love? - UGHHHH this is so soft, I love itttttt

question: did he do his own singing for this? singing for yourself isn't common in Bollywood so idk. - ONE BED? ONE BED!!??!??!!

Damn, no song in the swiss Alps, but worth it to see this little nerd short-circuit around a pretty girl. Ripe for the fic writing, this scene.

Me and who? ME AND FUCKING WHO?

Couples who commit crimes together stay together. Nothing like some good old treason to set the mood. - waitwaitwaitwaitwait she's actually a witch????

If Jean and Hawkins aren't endgame I'll cry - This movie is like if the Princess Bride and Once Upon A Mattress had a child and made Monty Python and the Holy Grail the godparent - JEAN 🩷✨💋 (she didn't do anything, I just think she's pretty) - Snail! Snail, why haven't you written this fic yet??? - I-I don't think that's how lightning works......could be wrong tho, who's to say, I've never been struck by lightning.

They're both the same flavor of stupid, bless - HIS FUCGKNG HEAD!! - That white shirt 🫦 That orange dress 🫦🫦 - THE 🏹 BLACK ⚫️ FOX 🦊

What the hell is going on???????????? - UGH, what an icon - okokokokok so the king is on the throne now but he's still....yk a baby. Give me a 10k fic about Jean being a girl boss and running the kingdom while Hawkins sits there like the goof he is and just admires her. 10k words of him being the biggest simp in existence.

-♡♡

Me at you right now:

"With your permission, my lady. I'd like to go round again."

I love Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone. The fact that Angela Lansbury is there too as a gorgeous young, sassy princess is just my favourite thing.

"If it pleases me, you will marry Griswold." "If it pleases you so much, you marry Griswold." -> yes, queen. Get it. She is going to be the model for the type of sass Sir Crocodile's Sapsorrow is going to need to endure.

Your commentary is everything. The shipping of Griswold and the King is just hilarious. I need it 🤌.

Hawkins x Jean is beautiful. The whole plot is simply the best: failing forward incarnate. The masquerade trifecta. The disguises. The songs. The wenches. The silly dancing. Danny Kaye can absolutely sing, and his voice is gorgeous. His speciality was reciting tongue twisters.

My favourite line in the whole movie is: "Sometimes tenderness and kindness can also make a man. A very rare man." Coming from a strong woman who had to claw tooth and nail to become the pinacle of her rank. In the 50s.

Again, I love this movie to much that I got a tattoo of it.

I hope you liked it. It's an odd one, I'll give you that. It's one of my childhood favorites.