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creatingblackcharacters · 18 days ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They Shouldn’t Have Resisted”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hippocratic Oath

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What’s My Point?

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

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

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

“So I just can’t write anything?!”

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

The Black Guy Dies First

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

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

Black Horror/Black Thriller

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Isn’t Violence Stereotypical or antiblack?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But if Black violence bad, why rap?”

The short answer:

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

Marwhan Makhoul, Palestinian Poet

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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theconstitutionisgayculture · 3 months ago

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Indefinite hiatus

I was toying with writing up a long post about what running this blog has meant to me over the years and why I'm stepping away for the foreseeable future, but that feels too dramatic for what's really just me saying "I'm not going to be on tumblr for at least the rest of the year". So, I'll just say I'm not going to be on tumblr for at least the rest of the year.

Okay, actually I have a bunch more to say, but it'll be under the cut.

Politics sucks. And paying attention to it, even in the reduced way I've been paying attention to it over the last few years, is hard. You end up spending so much of your supposedly free time thinking about things you can't change, getting mad about things you can't change, and getting depressed when the people who can change things just keep going in the wrong direction. Even when good things happen, it's just a matter of a few days before something bad happens once again. And vice versa. It's an endless cycle of hope, despair, resignation. Rinse and repeat, and triple speed that cycle during an election year. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of spending every other year worried about what's going to happen on one day in November. I'm tired of hearing a piece of news and automatically composing a post about it or running through 20 different responses I might give to asks I might get about it in my head.

Everyone I know who doesn't pay attention to politics (or at least doesn't run a social media page dedicated to it) seems to enjoy their live a lot more than I currently do. Which sounds way more dramatic than what's actually going on, which is mainly that I want to get to a place where I just don't care. I want the world and its problems to flow off my back instead of weighing it down. I want to stop thinking about what people on the internet might say about something I haven't even posted yet. And that can't happen while I'm tied to this blog. So I'll be staying away from it for at least the rest of the year.

I did have a good time with this blog. I've met a bunch of really awesome people, some who are sadly no longer with us (RIP Blue), and some who I think will carry on the "fight" way better than I ever did. This isn't an admission of defeat, or pessimism about the election. Even if Trump wins, and I truly think he will if we have a fair election, I still won't be back this year. But I'll still vote and I'll still be proud that my silly little tumblr blog had an impact on some people's lives. I may not have the reach of a Tucker Carlson or a Glenn Beck, but I've gotten a lot of messages from people who said they changed their minds about an issue, or even politics in general, because of things I said, and that counts for something. If you guys take anything away from me, I want it to be this: Even the smallest impact matters. It doesn't matter if you only ever reach one person and then stop, reaching that one person is enough. Changing one vote is enough. Changing one mind is enough.

To all my mutuals, you guys are the best. I truly hope you have wonderful lives and I'm sad I won't get to see your names on my dash everyday anymore. To anyone I've ever followed or reblogged from, I couldn't have had a blog without you, so thank you. Yes, even the leftiod psychos, XD. To everyone else, find your own balance and never give into despair and never listen to people who tell you not to try. Even a failed effort is still more meaningful than sitting back and mocking people for trying to improve even the smallest thing about themselves or the world around them.

I won't be logging back in after I post this, so any messages or asks you send, I won't see. I'll still be active (or as active as I ever am) in my discord, so feel free to join there if you want to. It should still be my pinned post, but if it isn't, I'll edit this with a new invite link.

And that's all I've got to say for now.

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angelbarelywrites · 8 months ago

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♡ slashers scenarios | y’all accidentally adopt a kid (part 2)

♡ fandoms; House of Wax, Hannibal (TV)/Silence of the Lambs, slashers (general)

♡ characters; Vincent Sinclair, Bo Sinclair, Hannibal Lecter

♡ reader; gender neutral

♡cw; parenthood, kidnapping, mentions of violence. basically don’t tell these guys you want a kid ig

♡notes; another sparse selection but i don’t think Billy Lenz is allowed within 100 yards of a school so it is what it is

also I hate how much I’m starting to love Bo oh my god

•┈••✦ ❤ ✦••┈•

Vincent Sinclair

> he’s a nurturing man- to his brothers and you

> hell he babies Jonesy too

> even so, he’s shocked when you mention offhandedly that he’d make a good father

> he denies it vehemently

> even as the golden child he grew up in hell

> no way he’d know how to do any of it right

> but you just gently laugh and shake your head, insisting but not pressing it

> it makes him think

> and think and think

> he didn’t know much about kids, but you’d be a great parent

> and you wouldn’t lie to him- maybe he’d be at least an okay father

> families don’t come through often

> and when they do, Lester leaves them be

> if they ever get to Ambrose on their own, the town stays off- none of the Sinclairs want anything to do with harming children

> but mistakes happen, and Bo is freaking out

> a little girl with dark hair and bright blue eyes was sleeping in the back of a car while he took care of her parents, and he didn’t realize until far to late

> she’s maybe 3, and awfully scared and quiet- but when they bring her in the house she walks right up to you and Vincent

> she hugs your leg and finally smiles when Vincent kneels down to show her that Jonesy is a nice dog

> Bo is in shock when you volunteer to adopt her, but Vincent is in quick agreement

> she’s nonverbal, but you look through her family’s things to find out her name - Lilly Henson, or something to that affect .

> Lilly Sinclair has a much better ring to it anyways, doesn’t it?

Bo Sinclair

> he’s the type that if you mention that you want a kid to this man, he asks what color

> he is endlessly devoted to you

> and while he never wanted a kid before, he’s always so insistent you make him a better man

> so some snot nosed brats would complete the picture perfectly

> he’s not super serious about it, not really

> you have plenty of time to plan for a family

> and he’s the type to want biological children if possible- he’s so used to white picket fence suburbia-type ideals

> when a car pulls up to the gas station, he stops when he sees the infant car seat in the back

> he’s about to tell the parents to move along- but then he sees the second matching one

> something - probably his overinflated self worth - tells him he’d be a much better father to twins that these chucklefucks

> and you want a kid anyways! would two be much better

> they’re not identical- he’s not not disappointed by the fact, but they’re still adorable

> a boy and a girl a bit over a year, with big brown eyes and infectious giggles

> he’s beyond proud when he strides in with them

> “daddy’s home!”

> he thinks you might actually kill him this time

> but then Charlotte - the girl based on what’s embroidered on her blankie, reaches for you and you melt

> you’re still scolding him as you happily take Theodore too

> but he knows you’re beyond thrilled

Hannibal Lecter

> he’s always wanted a successor

> quite frankly it never had to be his child - or a child at all

> he thought about taking younger serial killers in the making under his wing more than once

> to teach them the art of culinary cannibalism and the finer points of flaying people

> but it’s far too dangerous - especially with you around

> you’re the one thing that trumps his egomania

> so he lets it be for the time being

> but one day, he takes on a special case at work

> a young boy who recently lost his parents very violently

> he’s in kindergarten, and expresses most everything through his rather advanced drawings

> you don’t interact with his patients- even though he works from home you’re pretty skilled at dodging them

> but on the way out that afternoon the little boy- Peter, his name is, runs out before his social worker and smack dab into you

> she apologizes on his half profusely but you’re so sweet with the boy

> you pick up his dropped drawings and comfort him- he’s quite upset he may have hurt or angered you

> he gives you a huge hug and Hannibal can see the fond, parental look on your face

> after that it’s quite simple to draw up the paperwork

> he’s already in foster care, and it only takes a few false documents to make the courts think that Hannibal’s custody is the best place for little Peter

> you learned long ago that it’s best not to question how or why Hannibal does something when he gets like that

> and either way you’re content with your new little family

#slashers #slashers x reader #slashers x you #vincent sinclair x reader #vincent sinclair #bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #house of wax #hannibal lecter #hannibal x reader #hannibal #silence of the lambs #cw kidnapping #cw mentions of death #jonsey sinclair

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justinspoliticalcorner · 4 months ago

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ANNA BONESTEEL AND EVAN GREER at Them:

Pride Month is over. As the “LOVE IS LOVE” banners come down and companies lose the rainbow gradients from their logos, we’re faced with a painful truth: LGBTQ+ people, especially the most marginalized among us, are in the crosshairs of a queerphobic backlash that is targeting our health, our histories, and especially our youth. And things are getting worse, not better. According to NPR, half of all US states now ban gender-affirming care for people under 18. Eight states now censor LGBTQ+ issues from school curricula via “Don’t Say Gay” laws, and two more states are considering similar legislation this year. The number-one book targeted for censorship is a graphic novel memoir about gender identity.

This June, Democratic lawmakers marched in Pride parades and spoke on stages, vowing to protect our community and fight back against legislative attacks on queer youth. But some of these same lawmakers are actively pushing federal legislation that would cut LGBTQ+ youth off from resources, information, and communities that can save their lives. Currently, 38 Democratic senators support the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), a bill that is vocally opposed by many queer and trans youth, along with a coalition of human rights and LGBTQ+ groups. As a queer- and trans-led advocacy group focused on the ways technology impacts human rights, our organization, Fight for the Future, has seen bills like KOSA before: misguided internet bills that try to solve real problems, but ultimately throw marginalized people under the bus by expanding censorship and surveillance rather than addressing corporate abuses. KOSA’s most obvious predecessor is SESTA/FOSTA, a Trump-era bill that its supporters claimed would clamp down on online sex trafficking. Instead, the bill did almost nothing to accomplish its goal, and has actively harmed LGBTQ+ people and sex workers whose harm-reduction resources were decimated by the subsequent crackdown on online speech.

Like SESTA/FOSTA, some of KOSA’s supporters have positive intent. Many lawmakers and organizations support KOSA because they are concerned about real harms caused by Big Tech, like addictive design features and manipulative algorithms. But, also like SESTA/FOSTA, KOSA doesn’t touch the core issues with Big Tech’s extractive, exploitative business model. Instead, KOSA relies on a “duty of care” model that will pressure social platforms to suppress any speech the government is willing to argue makes kids “depressed” or “anxious.”

Under KOSA, platforms could be sued for recommending a potentially depression- or anxiety-inducing video to anyone under 18. We know from past experience that in order to protect their bottom line, social media companies will overcompensate and actively suppress posts and groups about gender identity, sexuality, abortion — anything they’re worried the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) could be willing to argue “harms” kids. How do you think a potential Trump administration’s FTC would use that kind of authority?

Other features of the bill stretch its censorship potential further. Despite language claiming that the bill does not require platforms to conduct “age verification,” to meaningfully comply with the law, platforms will have to know who is under 18. This means they’ll institute invasive age verification systems or age-gating, which can completely cut off access for LGBTQ+ youth who have unsupportive parents, and/or make it unsafe for queer people to access online resources anonymously. KOSA creates powerful new ways for the government to interfere with online speech. For this reason, the bill is like catnip to extreme right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation, the coordinators of Project 2025, who have explicitly said they want to use it to target LGBTQ+ content. KOSA’s lead Republican sponsor, Marsha Blackburn, has also said in an interview she wants to use KOSA to protect minors “from the transgender.”

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) purports to protect children, but in reality, it’s a censorship bill that would impact LGBTQ+ youth. #StopKOSA #KOSA

#Kids Online Safety Act #KOSA #Stop KOSA #Big Tech #Censorship #LGBTQ+#Anti LGBTQ+ Extremism #Age Verification #Internet #Internet Safety #Internet Freedom #Internet Censorship #Civil Liberties #Duty of Care

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qqueenofhades · 8 months ago

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what's been particularly vile to me is this group of white online leftists who insist that anyone who cares about more than this one issue for the election is a bad person, like, as if us black and brown people are making up reasons to be afraid and not.....believing the gop when they say they are coming for us. believing trump who has said previously that he does not bluff, that he will do the things he's said he will do (i hate what social media has gone to the word gaslighting but it feels like gaslighting. we lived through four years of trump. we saw the damage. stop treating us like we're being dramatic). it must be great to not have to worry about that i guess? "life won't change under trump" is such a telling admission because maybe theirs won't but mine will. and so many others' will.

and it is often again these (white) online leftists that love to call anyone who disagrees with them a white liberal (derogatory) because they know it would be racist (bad) to be this shitty and condescending to poc but they don't want to actually listen to anything black and brown voters are saying. it's easier to just call us white liberals and throw our opinions out, to ignore the work of black people for decades to gain the right to vote, to disregard the weight of telling them to not do that. it's genuinely appalling. they care so much about racism until it's time to engage with poc who have different opinions than their online echo chambers, then we're just stupid liberals with terrible opinions like..... wanting to live. not wanting four more years of trump. so sorry for that.

sorry for this vent in your inbox, i'm just so fucking tired of white people trying to rewrite history as if trump wasn't that bad. he was for my family and countless others and i am terrified for what's to come if he wins.

The thing about (the often-white) Online Leftists is that they have become just as much as a radicalized death cult as the diehard Trumpists. If you don't want to die for The Revolution and/or sacrifice your life, friends, family, the rest of the country, etc., then you're Insufficiently Pure and must be Purged. (Which I think is just complete BS, as none of them could actually handle sacrificing anything, but it's increasingly the only kind of performative rhetoric that is acceptable in leftist-identified discourse spaces.) This is functionally identical to "if you aren't willing to lay down your life for our Lord and Savior Donald Trump and the Great White Christian Nationalist Dictatorship, you're a liberal cuck," but with the names and justification changed. It doesn't change the underlying radicalization, nihilism, and insanity of the premise.

Another thing the Trumpists and the Online Leftists have in common is that they are busily rewriting just how bad Trump was in order to serve their Ideology. Ever since January 6, 2021, the Republicans have thrown everything they have at revising and whitewashing any suggestion that it was an "insurrection," and the Online Leftists have done the same, in an attempt to "prove" their insane point that Trump "would be better" than Biden. This is embodied in the recent ultimate-brainworm-nonsense maximalist-online take that "Biden has to lose so the rest of the world will see that the US rejects genocide!!!" That's right, the message that the rest of the world would take from Biden losing to Trump is that the US rejects genocide. Never mind if Trump literally wants to commit all the genocide possible and to install himself as a fascist theocratic dictator. In the deeply twisted minds of the Online Leftists, this is the only possible interpretation of Biden's loss, so they'll push for it as hard as they can! The Trumpists and the Online Leftists, at this point, are working pretty much in concert to damage Biden for similar insane reasons and get Trump elected. Etc etc., one Nazi and ten people at the same table is eleven Nazis.

Like. Sure. Four years ago, when Trump was president and people were dying by the thousands because he didn't want to wear a mask because it smeared his bronzer, just to name literally one of the terrible things he did every single day (and not even mentioning how much worse a second term would be) we were absolutely better off. Super-duper great. (Sarcasm.) Either that or "there is suffering and evil in the world and the only solution is to drastically increase the suffering and evil for everyone and to destroy what progress we have managed to make because It Does Not Fix Everything Now" is an absolute moral imperative, and either way, yeah. I'm calling bullshit.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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bitterkarella · 8 days ago

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Midnight Pals: Elon's Victory

Stephen King: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of Elon Musk: [emerging from bushes] eyyy Stephano king King: well well well if it isn't the president's wife King: zing! King: hahaha King: get it guys, guess he likes trump so much Barker: yeah we get it

King: i mean it's pretty funny because it's like he's gay for trump King: ha ha! Barker: its very boomer humor steve King: oh Barker: but since its elon i'll allow it

Musk: "president's wife??" Musk: datsa not funny Musk: itsa not even a meme

Musk: i suspend you Stephano king! Musk: you no post no more on da twitter! King: elon! no! i need my twitter! Musk: haha whosa laughing now monkey boy? Musk: comedy issa illegal again!

King: guys, I've been suspended from twitter! Barker: congratulations steve Barker: you're free now King: no! this is a bad thing! Barker: is it now?

Elon Musk: well well well Stephano king Musk: you think you so smart? Musk: now who hassa the lasta laugh? Musk: oh ho ho! Musk: iss me, Elon Musk, thatsa who!

Musk: i suspend you, Stephano king! Musk: anna i hava da royal proclamation right here! Musk: it says you gotta be my friend! Musk: onna da pain of DEATH!!! Musk: so how you choose Stephano king? King: Musk: i say how you choose King: i'm thinking!

Musk: now I amma da government! Musk: now you gotta be my friend Stephano king Musk: or else! King: or else what? Musk: or else i maka you stand next to dissa cybertruck! Koontz: oh no steve! you could be killed! Poe: you better listen to him steve, i think he's serious

King: fine! King: i guess i'll have to hang out with you King: under duress Musk: mama mia! Musk: [chef's kiss] under duress! da two sweetest words inna da English language!

Musk: itsa gonna be so much fun Stephano king Musk: first imma gonna show you my meme collection King: your what collection? Musk: my meme collection King: joe what's a meme Musk uh uh uh Stephano king! Musk: youra boy joe can't sava you now!

Musk: an dissa meme issa da pepe frog King: great Musk: an dissa meme issa da pepe frog but now he gotta da hat King: cool Musk: you see whata it says onna da hat? King: yeah its a maga hat Musk: datsa right! you ever see anything lika dat before? King: these memes are kinda old

Musk: mama mia! you say my memes aren't fresh? King: they seem a little dated Musk: how dare you saya dat Stephano king Musk: to da joint chairman secretary supreme offa da department offa all your base itta belong to us!

#midnight pals #the midnight society #midnight society #stephen king #clive barker #edgar allan poe #dean koontz #elon musk

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mariacallous · 2 months ago

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There was a moment that struck me, and I think it would strike you too: Donald Trump openly praised Viktor Orbán, as he has done repeatedly in the past. But he said, explicitly, Orbán is a good guy because he’s a “strongman,” which is a word that he clearly takes to be a compliment, not derogatory. You’ve written about the strongman fantasy in your Substack, so I’m curious: What do you think Trump is appealing to here?

Well, I’m going to answer it in a slightly different way, and then I’ll go back to the way you mean it. I think he’s tapping into one of his own inner fantasies. I think he looks around the world and he sees that there’s a person like Orbán, who’s taken a constitutional system and climbed out of it and has managed to go from being a normal prime minister to essentially being an extraconstitutional figure. And I think that’s what Trump wants for himself. And then, of course, the next step is a Putin-type figure, where he’s now an unquestioned dictator.

For the rest of us, I think he’s tapping—in a minor key—into inexperience, and that was my strongman piece that you kindly mentioned. Americans don’t really think through what it would mean to have a government without the rule of law and the possibility of throwing the bums out. I think we just haven’t thought that through in all of its banality: the neighbors denouncing you, your kids not having social mobility because you maybe did something wrong, having to be afraid all the damn time. African Americans and some immigrants have a sense of this, but in general, Americans don’t get that. They don’t get what that would be like.

So that’s a minor key. The major key, though, is the 20% or so of Americans who really, I think, authentically do want an authoritarian regime, because they would prefer to identify personally with a leader figure and feel good about it rather than enjoy freedom.

You mentioned the word banality, which makes me think of Hannah Arendt’s theory of the “banality of evil.” What would the banality of authoritarianism look like in America?

So let me first talk about the nonbanality of evil, because our version of evil is something like, and I don’t want to be too mean, but it’s something like this: A giant monster rises out of the ocean and then we get it with our F-16s or F-35s or whatever. That’s our version of evil. It’s corporeal, it’s obviously bad, and it can be defeated by dramatic acts of violence.

And we apply that to figures like Hitler or Stalin, and we think, Okay, what happened with Hitler was that he was suddenly defeated by a war. Of course he was defeated by a war, but he did some dramatic and violent things to come to power, but his coming to power also involved a million banalities. It involved a million assimilations, a million changes of what we think of as normal. And it’s our ability to make things normal and abnormal which is so terrifying. It’s like an animal instinct on our part: We can tell what the power wants us to do, and if we don’t think about it, we then do it. In authoritarian conditions, this means that we realize, Oh, the law doesn’t really apply anymore. That means my neighbor could have denounced me for anything, and so I better denounce my neighbor first. And before you know it, you’re in a completely different society, and the banality here is that instead of just walking down the street thinking about your own stuff, you’re thinking, Wait a minute, which of my neighbors is going to denounce me?

Americans think all the time about getting their kids into the right school. What happens in an authoritarian country is that all of that access to social mobility becomes determined by obedience. And as a parent, suddenly you realize you have to be publicly loyal all the time, because one little black mark against you ruins your child’s future. And that’s the banality right there. In Russia, everybody lives like that, because any little thing you do wrong, and your kid has no chance. They get thrown out of school; they can’t go to university.

We don’t imagine how a regime change is going to be at the dinner table. The regime change is going to be on the sidewalk. It’s going to be in your whole life. It’s not going to be some external thing. It’s not like this strongman is just going to be some bad person in the White House, and then eventually the good guys will come and knock him out. When the regime changes, you change and you adapt, and you look around as everyone else is adapting and you realize, Well, everyone else adapting is a new reality for me, and I’m probably going to have to adapt too. Trump wants to be a strongman. He’s already tried a coup d’état. He makes it clear that he wants to be a different regime. And so if you vote him in, you’re basically saying, “Okay, strongman, tell me how to adapt.”

Yeah, we could talk about Project 2025 all day. This new effort to bureaucratize tyranny—which was not in place in 2020—could really make the banal aspect a reality because it’s enforced by the administrative state, which is going to be felt by Americans at a quotidian level.

I agree with what you say. If I were in business, I would be terrified of Project 2025 because what it’s going to lead to is favoritism. You’re never going to get approvals for your stuff unless you’re politically close to administration. It’s going to push us toward a more Hungary-like situation, where the president’s pals’ or Jared Kushner’s pals’ companies are going to do fine. But everybody else is going to have to pay bribes. Everyone else is going to have to make friends.

It’s anticompetitive.

Yeah, it’s going to generate a very, very uneven playing field where certain people are going to be favored and become oligarchs. And most of the rest of us are going to have a hard time. Also, the 40,000 [loyalists Trump wants to replace the administrative state with] are going to be completely incompetent. When people stop getting their Social Security checks, they’re going to realize that the federal government—which they’ve been told is so dysfunctional—actually did do some things. It’s going to be chaos. The only way to get anything done is to have a phone number where you can call somebody at someplace in the government and say, “Make my thing a priority.” The chaos of the administration state feeds into the strongman thing. And since that’s true, the strongman view starts to become natural for you because it’s the only way to get anything done.

Timothy Snyder Explains How Americans Might Adapt to Fascism Under Trump

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cardboardheartss · 16 days ago

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Hi, now since the election results are out. Can I ask like what will he the results after this if it makes sense. Is it going to get better or worse? I mean are there still any chances of seeing light? 🥲☝🏻

United States of America for the next 4 years under President Donald Trump Reading.

Overall affect on the USA

The Sun, KNoC rx, KNoS rx, The Lovers rx, KoS, 7oS rx, 10oW rx, 8oS, Empress

- what have y’all voted for?

I see that many people are going to regret voting for him! Like a lot of people! Mainly the ones who were boasting about it on social media and with people around them in general. It seems like Trump will also be deliberately and intentionally say very foul things about the people, I think I’m leaning heavily towards POC’s.

Looking at this… I do get the feeling that Trump will be implementing Project 2025. Seems like he is relied up, and really wants to get this project started. The lovers card… this could mean that, the first rule he implements could be toward the LGBTQIA + community and maybe one of the other rules, can also lead to the decline of relationships, mainly male and female relationships.

Even during his power, we will come across MAGA supporters who will still believe everything and anything Trump says, as they put him on a really high pedestal. OR! We could see more celebs, mainly leaning towards more Male celebrities in particular who will be exposed for endorsing Trump for these elections and help him gain connections for the ‘Red Mirage.’

Looks like whatever Trump is passing for the Project 2025 is going to be putting Americans through a lot of pain and exhaustion. Expect many people to work low wage jobs for income, getting sick from overwork and etc. I know this usually indicates a card for standing for oneself, but this just speaks volumes of how tired and restless Americans will be after protesting and fighting for the next 4 years.

My fellow American women… looking at these cards. You all will be the main targets and at a higher detriment to be honest. It seems like Trump is definitely going to seriously enforce Anti-Abortion laws, and it seems like if you go against it, you will be locked up or deal with serious consequences. With that being said, more kids will be born, but will be unloved and will not be used to the natural “Motherly affection.” that many of us were lucky to have. It’s really not looking good, for you guys specifically. Another thing, if any female experiences Rape or any abuse, there could be some issues with gaining justice because, whatever Trump implemented, it’s not going to benefit any female.

White Americas for the Next Four Years

PoW, 9oS rx, KoW rx, 6oW rx, The Moon rx, 2oP

The more Trump speaks, the more they’ll regret it. They could possibly feel the same pain that Democratic Black/POC voters feel right now. I see this could also be heavily influenced by the Anti-Abortion laws because even they themselves will not get an upper hand in this and will be like everyone else. I see that many White Americans are going to suffer financially, and will have to rely on buying cheaper stuff in general just for the sake of saving more money.

Hispanics/Latinas for the Next Four Years

3oC, QoW, PoS rx, The Emperor, 3oS, 7oC

I see in the beginning, as we have witnessed today. Many of them are Pro-Trump, and they are really proud of it, and I don’t see that ending anytime soon. They will still be proud of the decision they made, because I’m sorry, and no offense, but they all have their heads stuck in the clouds.

I also get the feeling that, when Trumps 4-years are over, they’re going to be a bit heartbroken and will have to obviously re-elect again, and I see them struggling to pick the right party for themselves. A lot of division still I see…

Asian Americans for the Next Four Years

The Magician, The Tower, The Star rx, PoP, QoP rx, KoP, QoS, AoP, QoC, 6oS, Judgement, 3oP

Woah?! It seems like there could be an end of rising Asian celebs in America? I see that Trump may ensure some cut ties between the industry and Asian people. I see that someone may be paid off to actually do this. Oddly enough, I see a fued between two Asian nationalities, or that some Republicans will somehow pay Asian countries or other countries to take back their people?

And I actually do see that happening. Many Asian Americans will be moving away from America and find other countries to relocate to, but I see many rejections from those countries. I believe they’ll reject them because, they’ll want to give the same energy back from what they receive from Asians themselves when traveling.

Or they could face rejection from their own kind in the Asian continent.

Arabs for the Next Four Years

WoF, 2oW rx, 3oW rx, 4oC rx, Strength, 5oS rx

It seems a bit moderate. I see that they really won’t have much luck in general, I see that initially they believe they made the right choice for voting for Trump. As time progresses, they’ll slowly regret their choice for Trump. I see that there could be a rise of Islamophobia and racism towards them, and they’ll actually all sit and realize what exactly African Americans have been complaining for, for decades and will understand how much work it takes to fight for your race and safety.

African Americans for the Next Four Years

10oC rx, 10oS, AoC rx, 4oW, The Hierophant, 8oP rx, 5oC, 7oP rx, The Chariot, KoC rx, Justice

Obviously… never ending cycle of racism and divided communities. I do see that many families will still be made, but the connections and the energies will not be positive at all. Many Black men will conform to whatever is being said by the Republicans. This will lead to a lot of conflict and anger, and many Black people will be dissatisfied with these type of Black People.

There will be a delay in their businesses, and more of them will be held back and forced to not work. The government will truly be working against them thee most. Oh and the Justice system… will not be for any of them. Which is why, it is important, MAINLY NOW, for Black people to have their own proof and evidence because if not, the judge will 10000% throw them in jail.

So get your own little dash cams, recording devices and space for any video proof just in case you’re in danger.

Native Americans for the Next Four Years

KNoP rx, The Devil, PoC rx

No progression at all! I see they’ll still be gambling, and relying on Government money. It’s possible that Trump will decrease the amount that they need. There will still be struggles with drug/alcohol addiction, and issues with relationships, and still high rates of women and children going missing. A lot of broken dreams and trauma just being passed down from one to another.

Continuations of people affected

Muslim Americans

Palestine + Non-Voters + Third Party Voters

Well… that was one stressful reading. I was getting headaches thee entire time. Apart from that, this reading is quite saddening you know. I just don’t understand how the world can still be so Anti-Black and misogynistic?

EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN had the opportunity, right now to have elected Mrs Kamala Harris as the 47th President of the USA, but no! Everyone chose who?? Trump! Now look what’s going to happen to everyone?

I am praying and hoping that this will be a wake up call for every single one of you, to just put race and gender aside and vote for your rights! Now look, the women and marginalized groups are going to suffer!

Wishing you all thee bestest of luck, and from a completely different continent, I apologize to my fellow gays and women. It’s truly going to be a hard time for you all.

Please! Choose wisely everyone!💙🥺

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