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brainysmurfofficial · 7 months ago

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Evolution of Brainy Smurf, Part 6

Years covered: 1986-1989

Picking up our Brainy Smurf journey from where it left off, we can now have a look at the latter seasons of the cartoon show!

You know that phrase, “jack of all trades, master of none”? Well, Brainy likes to style himself as a “jack of all trades, master of all”, but in the end, it just means he’s not actually good at anything beyond forever exhibiting severe cases of the Dunning-Kruger effect. One might be tempted to claim that the only thing he’s actually good at is pretending to be good at things, but in reality, he’s not even good at that, because everyone is almost constantly seeing through the illusion.

There have been a minority of occasions where other smurfs have taken Brainy at his word – and in practically every instance, they have quickly learned their lesson – that their trust is misplaced. Anything from other smurfs trusting Brainy’s insistence about knowledge of which way to go, to the smurflings trusting that he knew what he was doing with Grandpa’s hot air balloon.

The veneer, the illusion of expertise, is what seems to matter to Brainy – the notion that if he could simply get others to believe he’s an expert, it would automatically bestow legitimacy and corresponding skill upon him.

In fact, these tactics can work quite well in the Real World if applied effectively. Someone who is genuinely very good at something but doesn’t know their own worth or how to market themselves generally isn’t going to receive the recognition of someone who is constantly putting themselves out there even if their skills are significantly less than that of others in the area.

But that isn’t really applicable to Brainy’s situation. His sneaky tactics may work on occasion – see what I mentioned above about others extending their trust to him sometimes – but they just about always pay the price for it. Everyone ultimately knows the score.

Brainy Smurf is incompetent.

And he’s incompetent at covering up his own incompetence.

In All The Smurf’s A Stage, he dubs himself as “Brainy Smurf: Manager to the Stars!”. He promises much, but doesn’t exactly deliver. When it comes to undertaking negotiations in his managerial role, Brainy instantly falls flat and fails to secure any kind of good deal, instead declaring, “I’ll make you all stars of the play, but that’s my final offer!”. (“Final offer”… as if it’s any kind of hard sell!). That is not how you negotiate, Brainy! The others already weren’t going to put up any fight or seemingly make any demands at all, and then you went ahead and promised them above and beyond what was needed, not to mention that the play didn’t have three starring roles to spare. And yet, he’s totally clueless about all this. He thinks he’s doing a good job. He’s unable to properly step outside his own mind for a second and properly survey or even understand the situation. The scene is very deliberately written this way, of course – that’s the entire joke. The writers know exactly what they’re doing and they know Brainy tends to be rather hopeless in the skills department, in contrast with what he’d like to believe.

In Sassette’s Tooth, when the other smurfs find out about Gargamel’s plot, Snappy wonders: “But who’d be silly enough to fall for a trick like that?”

Cue the group collectively exclaiming in realisation: “Brainy!”

Yeah, they know the score.

When Brainy Smurf, by some miracle or other, is actually able to get his way, his suggestions, when implemented, do not work.

In The Answer Smurf, when the smurflings follow Brainy’s advice for building their treehouse, it’s obviously structurally unsound and readily crumbles. (Handy’s machine is also having issues thanks to Brainy’s input. Brainy’s advice backfires. A lot.)

And let’s not forget Papa For A Day. There is a rather amusing set-up wherein the ironic words of “how much worse can it possibly get?” are voiced. And then, of course, this is immediately followed by...

...Brainy taking his turn in the role of Papa Smurf. This juxtaposition between scenes is very intentional.

Brainy’s supposedly “easy, step-by-step” plans are contradictory, self-defeating nonsense. Nails are to be hammered into the very same place they are to be removed from – instructions that undo other instructions. It even proves to be dangerous, with his own instructions sending him hurtling to the ground!

“Oh, well, it looked good on paper…”

This is a smurf who really doesn’t know what he’s doing.

In Predictable Smurfs, we’re also treated to a scene where Brainy states: “Using Brainy Smurf’s Boat-Building Bible, I have perfected a pod totally impervious to water penetration! In short, this boat is –” (at this point, Brainy notices with some alarm that his boat is sinking) “-Unsinkable!”

Grandpa chimes in with the following response: “Yep, just like last year!”. Not only does Brainy run rampant with making mistakes, but he doesn’t seem to learn from them (and this is widely known and understood by other smurfs). He’s prone to making the same mistakes over and over. An example of this kind of thing which I especially liked can be found in The Smurf Who Could Do No Wrong:

“Face it, Grandpa, you were just lucky in our first 326 games, but now, I, Brainy Smurf, have finally come up with a foolproof strategy to win!”

THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX GAMES. I love that. I tend to forget just how large the amount of games that have already taken place actually IS. And then the sheer size of the number always leaves me taken-aback. He seemingly didn’t win ANY of those games?? It certainly rules out Grandpa merely being “lucky”, but that doesn’t deter Brainy from claiming luck as a paper-thin excuse anyway, of course! (An additional fun thing to note here is that Brainy’s comics counterpart has also been depicted as losing at chess, but I digress!)

How informative do you think his endless supply of books on any and every subject really are? Not very. In Land of Lost and Found, he makes basic mistakes e.g. looking through the telescope incorrectly, despite having authored a work titled “Brainy Smurf’s Guide to the Stars”. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Brainy boasting about authorship of a book with a subject matter he’s clearly inexperienced with is very par-for-the-course – we are especially stripped of any benefit of the doubt when he’s writing or in the process of writing book(s) on topic(s) he cannot reasonably know about if he has only just become acquainted with the subject at hand. Brainy’s vast library of literature writ by his hand is not indicative of knowledge (as he would be wont to claim), but is instead indicative of a kind of graphomania.

To help illustrate this, we can talk about Archives of Evil.

I don’t just want to talk about how Brainy’s typical approach of “doing things completely wrong/incorrectly with total confidence” is on stark display within this episode, I also want to discuss what the episode seems to (try to) do with its ending – the statement it seems to be making.

First, though: we are treated to some rather amusing scenes when Brainy misconstrues what he is reading, unable to realise that it’s not a book of spells, it’s a cookbook. One should think the difference would be obvious, but this is Brainy Smurf…

And then we get the ending, and the way that Nemesis is defeated. Papa Smurf bluffs about the value and power of the book in his possession, so naturally Nemesis steals it so that he can absorb its contents – this is precisely what Papa wanted him to do. The book happens to have been created by Brainy.

“I now possess pure-”

“-ignorance?!”

[...]

Papa: Nemesis thought he was absorbing powerful magic, but Brainy’s book was so full of, eheh…

Papa: ...pure ignorance, the evil knowledge Nemesis absorbed fled for its life!

Nemesis is defeated by none other than the sheer power of Brainy’s ignorance. That’s it. That’s the episode resolution. (I love it).

Brainy appears to remain largely oblivious (or should I say ignorant) to the actual implications of all of this. He puts on his usual self-aggrandising spin instead, choosing to proudly proclaim, “In other words, I, Brainy Smurf, once again saved the day! Naturally, I knew what I was doing all along!”

Brainy wants to be (perceived as) a fountain of knowledge, but in the end, he’s really a fountain of ignorance.

It’s interesting to note that in Reckless Smurfs, it’s Brainy and Snappy who are (initially) the only ones unaffected by the spell that makes smurfs reckless. As discussed in a previous post (when I talked about Love Those Smurfs), whenever the village falls victim to some magic or other, any unaffected smurfs will typically already exhibit the traits brought out by the spell in a significant enough capacity for ironic purposes, and this is no exception. Snappy in this episode had a clear theme/plot line of being too reckless as a tie-in to the overall story, but what of Brainy? Well, we already know Brainy has impulsive and reckless tendencies in general, but if that wasn’t enough, the story makes a point of calling attention to this – Brainy scolds Snappy for not thinking enough about the consequences of his actions, only to cause himself to become stuck and in need of assistance for failing to do just that. In fact, it seems that Brainy and Snappy remained exempt from the effects of the Daredevil Dust because of Brainy’s reckless lack of attention to his surroundings, as it is what causes their delay, preventing them from being amongst the victims at time of “infection”.

(And of course, Brainy’s self-perception continues to be hilariously inaccurate, as he can be found referring to himself as a “responsible smurf” in Jokey’s Joke Book, for example.)

Now let’s turn our attention to Brainy’s bureaucratic inclinations – this has been discussed in prior post(s), but these latter seasons of the cartoon show also offer up plenty more examples of it. In Smurfing For Gold, Brainy tries to deal with Gargamel by drawing up a contract.

(A side note, Papa also imagines Brainy trying to solve an issue through a contract (specifically, a treaty) in the season 5 episode Papa’s Day Off).

In Locomotive Smurfs, he writes a schedule for the train and checks tickets. In Gargamel’s Quest, he turns to petitioning as a means to attempt to achieve his goal at the time.

As also discussed previously, Brainy is someone who often likes to Get Involved with things (i.e. taking advantage of the latest fad in the village, so long as he’s not the designated naysayer for that episode), getting in on the “ground floor” and taking charge in some capacity – this is often combined with his bureaucratic leanings.

In A Hole In Smurf, Brainy doesn’t hesitate: he positions himself as an essential go-to, having a proper counter and set-up at the ready in no time to distribute the sheets that smurfs need to mark their golfing scores. He’s leapt at the opportunity to formalise it all, taking the idea of golfing that’s taken the smurfs by storm, and giving it more structure and sense of being official. He’s also involved in scheduling – what times courses are available, who golfs when, etc.

Unsurprisingly, he’s also taking the opportunity to hawk his new book on golfing as well.

In The Smurfy Verdict, it’s Brainy who takes it upon himself to start lawyering all over the place, etc.

He likes to be at the centre of things, such as the numerous instances where he takes on a detective role to investigate the latest mystery that has presented itself to the village. This allows him to take charge of a/the narrative, put a spotlight on himself while also trying to satisfy his own curiosity.

And in Season 9’s Like It Or Smurf It, we see Brainy’s sense of showmanship – something he’s exhibited before in the show, but it really comes out here, when he takes on a game show host-type role.

All in all, seasons 6 and beyond are very much a continuation of the character we have already been well-acquainted with from the previous seasons, and so we get to see more of the traits that have already been expressed before – such as carelessness, cowardice, etc. I’ve mentioned his tendencies towards melodrama and exaggeration before (just one example: in Smurf Pet, he claims, “I had to risk life and limb as I was attacked by vicious Nebbits”, which really goes beyond misconstruing what actually happened and reaches into outright fabrication), and this can sometimes combine with his naysaying – there are instances where he assumes The Worst in a given situation/crisis and reacts accordingly, assuming that they’re all doomed – in other situations his reactions may not be quite so severe, but he can still be quite negative in a more low-key manner, leaning into sarcasm instead to bemoan a given situation or other. He can be very cynical sometimes.

But all the groundwork has already been laid, in previous seasons. Seasons 6 and beyond are just a continuation. Brainy vies for power, Brainy is inclined to be sneaky and deceptive at times to try and get what he wants, he is unafraid to shift blame onto others for his own mistakes, etc etc etc.

Essence of Brainy is a great character study for how we can use it to reverse-engineer a description/analysis of Brainy Smurf. While stripped of his essence, he acts opposite to his usual self in order to serve as a narrative contrast, so by looking at his portrayal in the episode while stripped of essence, we can then ask: what does this tell us about Brainy in his usual incarnation?

Brainy as depicted without his essence is meek, lacking strong opinions on things, and polite.

So Brainy as a character is overconfident, opinionated, imposing, inconsiderate, overbearing and rude.

In the season 8 intro sequence, he really does just shove Handy out of the way so that he can look through the telescope instead, ahaha. And I just thought: isn’t that a small but good/accurate encapsulation of his character? He’s rude, he’s pushy, he’s self-serving, and so on and so forth. We know the routine by now, in the latter half of the show.

Take this exchange from Jungle Jitterbug:

Brainy: “[Vanity’s] back to normal, all right – the most self-centred smurf of all!”

Jokey: [chuckles] “Next to you, Brainy!”

Yeah, pretty much. :P

This post isn’t all-encompassing; there are many other episodes/scenes that could be discussed, but I’ve mentioned before that these posts are not meant to be a completely comprehensive rundown, but rather to provide more of a scaffold, an outline of the Brainy Smurf character and its evolution.

Finally, we have to mention the comics for a moment!

The Smurflings comic was released in 1988, and I daresay the influence of cartoon Brainy on his comics counterpart is quite palpable – for one, we get a being-tossing-out-of-the-village gag!

Brainy as depicted in this comic also seems to be quite mean-spirited in actively wanting the smurflings’ concert to flop.

And… Hmm, the vibes just feel different here compared with the earlier comics Brainy. I really think the influence of cartoon Brainy is seeping in – which would especially make sense considering that the episode of the cartoon introducing the smurflings came first, before this comic, so the situation is rife with opportunity for cartoon Brainy to have a bleed-over effect!

I just don’t think this would really be in the earlier incarnation of Schtroumpf à lunettes’s particular style/approach. I’m welcome to hearing other opinions on this, but yeah. (I think cartoon Brainy is a bit of a Bad Influence in this respect, ehehehe).

And… Well, I think that’s about it? Brainy’s famous 80s cartoon iteration sketched out – and a hint on how it’s even started to make an impression on other media he’s featured in, too!

The situation seems to call for some kind of sweeping summary/statement/conclusion, and there were some things I toyed with discussing, but ultimately, I really don’t know if I could do it all justice, so I’m going to be a touch light on closing off this post.

But this nevertheless certainly closes a huge and far-reaching, impactful chapter in the Brainy Smurf timeline. Next, we’ll take a look at how Brainy’s character/characterisation proceeded after the end of the 80s cartoon show! Thanks so much for reading! ^_^

#Brainy Smurf #Smurfs #The Smurfs #Smurfs 1981 #<- I'll throw this in there too I guess lol

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drakeanddice · 5 months ago

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DM Burnout is a D&D Problem

This is a trad-game problem and I’m tired of pretending that it’s not.

The implied structure of Dungeons & Dragons in which an authorial/managerial Dungeon Master provides content to a number of passive/experiential players who provide little to no input into the cycle of adventure creation, plot development, and experience tailoring is a direct cause for the phenomenon of “DM Burnout.”

I say implied up there because, like much of the game, the structure of a D&D game is mostly a matter of “you’ll know it when you see it.” Sure there's a section in the book that lays out the responsibilities, but the book's already told you to ignore it if it feels wrong a couple of times by this point. So really, structure is oral tradition and folkways, passed down by a neighbor kid or an older sibling, or the internet. But the basic fundamental principle is fairly inviolate; the players create characters, and the GM creates an adventure for them to go on. The Players play their characters, and the GM plays everything else, to include the impartial arbiter of the fiction. That’s about all we get. It’s not a balanced equation from the get go.

The installation of a single authorial voice, providing the framework for the players, their context, and their boundaries is heavy. That single brain at the table has to create content ahead of time, present it, and then ensure that the players don't stray. Or else, they have to pivot and adapt real-time, either exploiting their prep or improvising whole cloth. In combat encounters, they have to make decisions for multiple characters, enemies and allies both, and often present those choices as rational and plausible rather than optimal--because the oral tradition of the internet veers toward the death of Player Characters being a fail state. And moreover, they must contextualize and narrate the results and moves of not only their pieces on the board, but also often those of the player. Any collapse down to "17 hits, it does 9 slashing damage" is a reduction of interesting tactical combat to slog.

Players are, on the other hand, expected to show up and react. The content is provided, they make choices in reaction to the content, and the game proceeds. If, perhaps, they did some creative writing and crafted a backstory for their character, it is incumbent upon the DM to weave that into the overarching plot. Otherwise, it's purely an exercise in passivity.

DMs are increasingly called on to provide accessories and sensory input beyond just their narrative and roleplaying performance. Maps, minis, tokens, music, soundboards, mood lighting, handouts, item cards, "scent-scapes" apparently. More plates to spin. More steps to the dance that a DM is expected to perform every game night.

I get it. It's fun. It's a labor of love.

But it's labor.

Eventually, you get tired. One week you realize that you're swamped. One week you don't feel like getting a lukewarm reaction to your labor. One week you're not in a good headspace to graciously lose to your players again. You're burnt out, and you need some time to recapture the joy.

I've never heard a story about a D&D player burning out. I've never seen a person, with martyred pride call themselves a "forever player." Though they're quick to say that the DM is also a player.

The DM is not a player. They are providing play. They are a single point of failure, the single authorial voice who provides content and context for every part of the game.

The thing about single points of failure, they wear out faster. Distributing strain preserves a machine. Redundancy is good. D&D is not built this way. It is a simple machine, a single pulley-- a single brain-- supporting the weight of the fiction.

You cannot be surprised that you can't find a service-minded DM to run this game for you long-term. You should not be surprised when the average length of a D&D campaign is 6 sessions. You shouldn't be surprised that many DMs have an antagonistic view of players as agents of chaos. You certainly shouldn't be surprised that a service industry has sprung up around paid DMing almost exclusively around D&D and its inheritors.

Because if you can endure it longterm and not be reduced to a ragged nub by the friction of being the sole authorial voice, you have a marketable skill. Get paid.

Tldr: D&D tells the DM to prep, improv, adjudicate on the fly, and dance for the amusement of passive players and then wonders why DMs are hard to find. DMs do this dance and then wonder why they're creatively worn-down. This is not a place of honor. This is just the service industry in your free-time, and you deserve better.

#ttrpg #d&d #miscellaneous grumping #there are five brains at the table #games are supposed to be fun #what you are describing is labor and i do not dream of labor #d&d 5e #pathfinder #dnd

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glendylucast · 2 months ago

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Call of Duty WWII OC : Clifford "Brick" Wildblood

Born in 1919, Clifford enlisted at the age of 23 after leaving behind his coal mining family business. Stoic and not one for small talk, hence he earned the nickname "Brick" during basic training. He served with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division before being captured by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp, where he crossed paths with Robert Zussman—his squadmate and arguably his least favorite person in the entire division. Their time together in hell changed everything he ever believe.

GENERAL

Name : Clifford Arden Wildblood

Alias : Brick

Gender : Male

Birthday : October 2nd

Place of birth : Bloomington, Illinois, US

Nationality : US - British

Spoken language(s) : English

Sexuality : Bisexual

Occupation : Mechanic on coal mining (pre WWII), enlisted soldier (WWII), Blacksmith on Chicago (after WWII)

Rank : Sergeant (beginning) , Staff Sergeant (at the end)

PHYSICAL TRAITS

Eye color : Light Brown

Hair color : Black, but his hair started turning grey early due to the immense stress and malnourished during his time in the concentration camp

Height : 6’0” / 185 cm

Build : Lean (WWII era), Muscular (After WWII)

Blood type : O+

Fan Cast/Face Claim : -

PERSONALITY

Myers-Briggs Type: INTJ-T

Enneagram: 2w1

Positive Traits

Formidable Soldier and Natural Born Leader: Wildblood was a great soldier and formidable fighter in 1st Infantry. Albeit showing no interest at first, Wildblood was also a natural born leader. He had his ways to make people following his order due to his managerial experiences and trainings in mining business.

Keen eye, sharp and observant: Wildblood's judgmental nature gave him natural instinct for reading situations, noticing details and tactical advantages others miss even in chaotic situation. His order was clear and sharp, ensuring the team knew exactly what to do even under fire or difficult situation.

Sharpshooter: Hunting hobbies with his father and grandfather sharpened Wildblood’s shooting skill. This helped him excel at training camp.

Mechanical and Explosive Expertise: Wildblood’s time working in his grandfather’s coal mine in Illinois gave him an extensive understanding of machinery and explosives. His experience as a blacksmith also enhanced these practical skills, which now serve him well in the battlefield.

Negative Traits

Direct and Blunt: Wildblood dislike small talk and keeping distance with his squad. He prefers a straightforward, no-nonsense approach with those around him. While his straightforward style is often efficient, it can come across as harsh to more sensitive comrades.

Overly Independent: Though Wildblood is a reliable team player and leader, he has a fierce independent nature and often prefers to rely on himself. This can sometimes cause him to push others away.

Emotionally Distant: Raised by a father who emphasized masculinity and stoic behavior, Wildblood struggles to express or talk about emotions. For him, showing vulnerability is a sign of weakness, making it difficult to open up or show affection to others.

BACKSTORY

Early Life

Born on October 2, 1921, in Bloomington, Illinois, USA. His father was originally from England, while his mother was from Bloomington, Illinois. When he was eight, their family moved to England where he spent most of his childhood.

He had a typical childhood in a loving family in London, England, that frequently traveled to the US, which left him with a British accent that slips out (especially when he's upset). He has a younger sister-Ciara Godwyn Wildblood, that born five years after him, and younger brother-Charles Ernest Wildblood, that born seven years after him

Later, he spent the rest of his high school years in Illinois after his father inherited the family’s coal mining business. They moved back to US.

His father groomed him to become the next owner of the mining business, so beside the basics works, he also learns leadership and business managerial. But over time, he shown no interest in being an upper management and more fascinating with the operational and how things work. Understand his son passions, he let Wildblood learned everything he wants on the operational, and instead pushed his younger sisters and brothers to pursuit higher education so they could hold the responsibility instead.

Wildblood usually helped there after school and eventually works there to help as a mechanics instead of going to college.

When the war sparked, his national senses called him to served.

His family strongly opposed his decision to enlist in the military. Initially, he stayed home, but at 23, he ran away and enlisted anyway, going so far as to forge his father’s signature with the help of his sister.

Yet his father eventually found out. Furious, he tried to drag his son back home, but Wildblood’s determination to serve ultimately shook him. He was never prouder, but as his father he was just deeply afraid of losing his son.

WWII Campaign

Beginning of Campaign

Wildblood graduated from the camp and promoted as Sergeant. In the camp, he befriended with Sgt. Benedict Baileys, his childhood and high school friend, who become his closest pal.

After surviving Normandy and Operation Cobra, he and Baileys served with Second Platoon under Lt. Will Chester. Unfortunately, Lt Chester got injured on his legs few weeks later and have to be sent to medical for a while, leaving him and Baileys temporary in charges. Colonel Davis impressed with Wildblood performances thus promoted him as Staff Sergeant.

Some Privates called him "a loner" because he always keeps a distance with everyone, and his leadership style was direct and blunt. At first people find it hard to likes him, but overtime they knew that beneath his stoic and cold exterior, he was actually an incredibly caring and dependable figure. Besides, him and Baileys complimentary to each other because Sgt. Baileys very sociable and close to the men.

His priority action was always how to executes an operation without causality from his team. It was impossible, but most of the time, he was able to minimize the numbers of dead and wounded soldiers.

Albeit from different platoon, he was one of the rare few who Lt. Joseph Turner and Tech. Sgt. William Pierson like and respect, because of his no-nonsense style.

(More campaign story will be updated)

Wildblood and Zussman

Little Trivia but Wildblood was born because I need someone to keep an eye on Zussman. I don't want him to be Daniels' homewrecker because on my latest revisit playthrough I really like Daniels and Hazel.

Initially, Wildblood never like Zussman, but he always kept a quiet eye on him throughout the campaign. He couldn’t stand Zussman’s troublemaking nature, answering at Lieutenant, or antagonizing Pierson, someone Wildblood deeply respected.

Fate brought them closer when both were captured and imprisoned in a concentration camp, where they watched comrades die at the hands of the Germans. Together, they did whatever was necessary to survive, clinging to each other to maintain their sanity and avoid feeling alone.

They were eventually separated when the Germans transferred prisoners to different camps, moving them constantly to evade the advancing Allied forces. Daniels’ squad found the camp that had detained Wildblood, and it was Wildblood who gave them the critical direction to locate Zussman. Wildblood was rescued by the U.S. Army, malnourished, with broken ribs and a limp, but he survived.

Weeks later, Daniels’ squad finally located and saved Zussman. When Wildblood heard the good news, he couldn’t hold back his tears.

After World War II end, few hours after Daniels said his farewells to Zussman, Wildblood visited him and insisted that he wouldn’t return home until Zussman was fully recovered. He refusing to leave Zussman’s side and promised never to leave him alone again.

Aftermath

A few weeks later, after Zussman convinced him that he was healthy enough to return to Chicago, they both going home to US. They separated ways as Wildblood moved back to Bloomington. For a year, the two exchanged letters.

After hearing that Zussman was no longer with Susie and was single for a while. Wildblood decided to move to Chicago to be closer to Zussman, working there as a blacksmith on local workshop.

They both become close and then, closer...

1940s was a hard time for being "different", you know

After three years in a secret relationship and saving enough money, Wildblood and Zussman decided to travel the world together. Their journey began with a visit to Daniels’ family in Texas.

They never told anyone about their relationship, maintaining a casual front whenever they were around others. However, Zussman’s best friend, Daniels, could easily tell that there was more between them than just friendship.

Still, Daniels chose to keep their secret to himself, letting the world figure it out on its own—if it ever did.

Thus, from Texas, Wildblood and Zussman set off to explore the country, then the world, travelling side by side.

Yes they're bestfiend

TRIVIA

He prefers a buzzcut because I hate drawing complex hairstyles, lol.

His Surname originally Wyldeblode, another variation of the name "Wildblood", but on the second thought I think the literal "Wildblood" sounds cooler, so I chose that.

His permanent early grey hair inspired by Guts (obviously) and Motaz Azaiza, journalist from Gaza, Palestine (massive respect, that talks about his hair greying already before he even reach 25yo still haunts me.)

He's an excellent violinist because he was obsessed with Sherlock Holmes's back in high school and learned violin because of that.

In high school, he also actively played football (not American Football) as a goalkeeper and was quite skilled at it.

Both he and his father hated how Americans referred football as "soccer," since they were originally from the UK.

He has sopite syndrome, a condition that makes him easily fall asleep in cars, trains, or any moving vehicle. Because of this, Zussman usually takes the wheel during their travels. (Wildblood never knew this habit of his was neurological disorder.)

One time he slept standing on the moving truck, and the whole platoon talks about this from time to time.

He had a deep fascination with dinosaurs and once considered studying paleontology, but family obligations and WWII derailed that plan. As a result, his apartment is now filled with dinosaur woodcrafts and doodles he made himself on downtime.

Despite having pollen allergies, he has no trouble working with woodcraft.

After WWII, He loves drinking Baileys because it reminded him of his late best friend.

Speaking of last trivia, Wildblood once believed he had schizophrenia after Baileys' death, as he kept seeing him everywhere. But after months in psychotherapy, he discovered he actually had hyperfantasia—the ability to visualize with such intensity that it felt real, it become in the room with him. It turned out Baileys wasn’t haunting him, nor was he losing his mind; Wildblood had subconsciously projected Baileys' to stay with him everywhere because he was lonely, something he didn't want to admit,

This hyperfantasia was also the reason Wildblood could precisely set up explosives and remember complex maps or blueprints during WWII, or sculpt dinosaurs and his squads from memory without references after the war.

Ironically, has a descendant who later joins Vladimir Makarov and works with the Konni Group. This accident happened when Wildblood and Zussman travelling Russia together.

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

Will be updated as I draw and write his story!

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church-of-lilith · 2 years ago

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Whatever you do don't think about young mid 20s Trent Crimm having been bullied so badly for being different and gay that he can't stand it anymore, shoves it all inside and marries a woman, tries to leave the gay life behind. And she loves him, but she doesn't know him at all, not the real him, and how can he risk losing her by telling her?

He grows more bitter and unsatisfied every day, and his articles show this. Soon, he becomes cruel- these athletes are strong and manly, it all comes so easy to them, people adore them, shower them with love, and then he goes home to an unhappy wife, and she's unhappy because of him, because he just can't make himself right, can't fit into this life, can't be who the world wants him to be.

So he tells her, and regrets the words as soon as they come out. But she chuckles, "Come on, Trent, you're not serious. I know we've been having some problems lately, but I love you, okay? We can work on it. We can be happy again." It's an out, an option to take the words back, and so he does. And they decide to work on their marriage. They decide to have a child.

And for the first few months, his daughter is all that matters, and he's happy. This precious human being, she deserves a good father, and he wants to be that for her, to give her a happy, united family. A mom and dad.

But the high highs are followed by lows lower than he's experienced in a long time. His wife's kisses leave him feeling hollow. His heart is weak and empty, and he yearns for something to make it beat again.

One day, when his wife is at the park with their daughter and he's reorganizing his closet, he stumbles upon the purple American shirt, the one he got from his summer boyfriend in university. His hands tremble as he picks it up, presses it against his nose. He hasn't washed it since. It still smells like him.

He sits at the edge of his bed and cries. He remembers his kisses, the days they'd spent together at camp; the nights, too. He longs to have them back, just for a moment. But then he remembers his father's face when he found out. He remembers what followed.

He has a family now, a responsibility. He's made his choices, and they're wise. His father invites him over for Christmas, congratulates him on his promotions, plays with his granddaughter. Respects him, despite his failures, his many mistakes.

He shoves the shirt back in the closet. He will keep thinking about it for a few days, but then he'll forget about it again.

He's had his job at the Independent for a few years, and he's grown a bit bored of it. But news come of a managerial change at AFC Richmond, and he knows it's about to get interesting. The new owner must be losing it after her very public divorce; why else would she hire a dumb hick from God-knows-where USA, who's never touched a real football in his life, to coach her Premier League team? This guy is uneducated, dumb, undeserving of this privilege. This guy is going down.

An interview is arranged, and he's the man for the job. He'll give the fans what they want. He'll eviscerate this clown in the papers. His boss will give him a pat on the back. His colleagues in the press room will look up at him with respect. His father will call him and they'll have a laugh about this clown together. Who does he think he is, to come all the way to England and take this job from someone who knows a damn thing about the sport?

But Coach Lasso is, to Trent's surprise, competent. He knows how to work with people. He wants Roy Kent to be a leader, and he knows what to do to get that result.

He's also kind, genuine, warm. He spends hours at the school, kicking a ball around with some kids. He stays there longer than any other coach would have. It's not just a tactic to come across as sympathetic in the article, to soften Trent's perception of him. He actually cares.

And then he invites him to dinner.

Trent is starving, of course. Hasn't eaten anything since his plain breakfast that morning. They walk to an upscale Indian restaurant. Interesting choice. He wonders why he picked this place, in particular. It all becomes clear when he introduces his friend Olly.

The food is too hot. He can't eat it. Curse his middle-aged stomach and his eating habits over the years. Now he can't even handle a bit of spice. And by the looks of it, neither can Ted, and yet, sweating profusely and gasping for air, he still eats both their meals. He can't embarrass Olly in front of his family, he says. He has to show his respect.

"To me, success is not about the wins and losses."

What a stupid thing to say, and twice in a day, no less. They were in his office hours ago when this dumb phrase last came out of his mouth, and Coach Lasso was getting changed, his shirt unbuttoned- but Trent can't think about that right now. The American just gave him exactly what he needed for the article- a reason to mock him.

"It's about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field."

Oh, God. That's all he wants, to help these young men, and here Trent is, attempting to take him down. But this man doesn't want to destroy this club, he just wants to help. To help them get better. Most of all, that's why he's here.

Who has he become? The man in front of him has been nothing but generous, considering, inviting all day. Strike that, actually. Since he's arrived in London. And what has Trent done, besides being cruel to him? Hurting him? Bullying him?

"I really should go. Deadlines and all."

"Yeah, gotta do the work. I'll say this, though. I really enjoyed getting to spend this time with you, Trent".

And he actually means that.

He writes the article as soon as he gets home. He admits to himself how much he wants Ted to win. He probably won't, but he desperately hopes he will. Why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't a kind, good man like him prevail? Why was this world built for the Rupert Mannions and the George Cartricks of the world, and not for Ted Lasso? Why is Ted the one being called a wanker on national TV, in stadiums, on the street ?

Prove them wrong, Ted, please.

His wife and his daughter have already gone to sleep when he sends in the article. The apartment is dark, quiet, and a chilly breeze is coming in through the window that's been cracked open in the bedroom. He climbs into bed, careful not to disturb his wife. The rush of the interview has worn off, and he feels strangely at peace. He closes his eyes, allows himself to think about Ted in the office, getting changed. About his warm voice, about the gleam in his eyes in that Indian restaurant. About "What do you love?" and "I'm about to hallucinate from this heat here".

He thinks about that press room, about seeing him up there, in the light. He falls asleep to one certitude.

He can't wait to see Coach Lasso again.

oh anon now you have me thinking about it!! so much!! how are you gonna casually drop this absolute masterpiece in my ask box?? I don’t feel that I’m even deserving of this, it should be on ao3 or something??

The way you put all the little bits and pieces of backstory James Lance has given us together to paint this perfect image of season 1 Trent is so incredibly impressive to me. Like this is exactly how I picture his journey and you put it together perfectly.

The little bit about him finding the Ashland University shirt in his closet and yearning to have that young love back again, despite repressing himself so deeply all these years… so incredibly heartbreaking and beautiful.

And then Ted comes in and suddenly Trent remembers what it’s like to find real, true joy in what he does. For once he’s not garnering his satisfaction from putting other people down, and writing scathing pieces about them. Instead he finds himself smiling down at his screen as he sends that first article in, Ted’s kindness and compassion for others lingering in the back of his mind. Ted’s undying enthusiasm leaves him genuinely excited to see what comes next, makes him go against everything he’s ever conditioned himself towards. And he can’t let anyone else know, not yet, maybe not ever. But he holds the beginnings of this change close to his chest, while he decides what to do about it. While he waits to see if Ted Lasso really can succeed with kindness alone. Maybe if he can, it’s possible for Trent, too.

thank you for sending this piece of writing in anon! honored that you chose to share it with me. if you don’t write fic on ao3 already you should!! I’d love to read more of your thoughts/ideas.

#thank you anon!#ted lasso meta #ted lasso #trent crimm #ted lasso season one #tedependent #tedtrent #lily answers #long post

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vvintercearig · 2 months ago

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yo it's me (again (jay)) back at it again with no self control and my dumbass son doyun! below are the usual links and info and feel free to continue to smash that mf like button for some plotting

STATS - MEMORIES - PLOTS - PINTEREST - PLAYLIST

𝒊. 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒕 —

doyun popped up around ansong around 25 yrs ago (at least he lived thru the 90s lets gaur). he has no idea what's happening, he's just happy to be here.

he remembers a little about his life, but always drawn to music, beat street seemed like the easy answer when it came time to start working. for years, he was only working the register, stocking the shelves, before eventually working his way up the managerial ladder. he's owned beat street for around ~10 years now.

his first memory unlocked when he was attempting to tidy stuff up around his apartment and was just about to throw the band-aid away without realizing it's significance. it elicited feelings of aloneness and otherness, but also comfort and being loved and taken care of.

he can typically be found at beat street (obv, always working), mirage, the farmer's market, sweet bean, and illusion.

𝒊𝒊. 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 —

doyun is a little bit paris hilton-esque. he absolutely acts stupider than he truly is (for the plot) and so he can gauge people and how they are before he decides to let them in. he is also a tactical oversharer, so while a lot of people might know a lot about doyun, it's hard to pin down his core values and personality. he is very flippant about most things outwardly even if he cares deeply. doyun!! is!! a!! fuckboy!! but not in like the toxic sense (he drinks his respect women juice tyvm) he will flirt with anyone willing and able but he is very clear about drawing the no-relationship boundary from the start. he won't lead you on. despite all his flaws, doyun is highly compassionate. it takes him a while to warm up to people fully, but once he does, you're in his circle for life. he is not shy about his affection either, platonic or otherwise. he's clingy, he's needy, he will annoy you, and you need a high tolerance for bullshit and stupidity, but doyun will fight your bullies and kiss your booboos. about the only thing doyun excels at is his encyclopedic knowledge of 80s and 90s music and ball sports. do not ask him to cook, do not ask him to fix something around your house, do not ask him the time of day, he absolutely will fuck it up. he isn't book smart (at all, like did not even graduate high school), but he is incredibly emotionally intelligent. doyun can walk into any room and almost with 100% accuracy read the vibes. tl;dr: he's a big-headed moron with a big fat bleeding heart. he doesn't know a lot and won't try to solve ur problems, but he will throw hands for u and make you laugh when you wanna cry.

𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒑𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒃𝒖𝒏𝒏𝒊𝒆𝒔 —

to preface everything below, i'm v v big on chemistry first. i love plotting, but it doesn't necessarily work if our characters don't have chemistry to begin with. i tend to lead with quick and fast plotting to see what we can get our characters to do and then we can go into more detailed plotting after, but i'm always willing to discuss things regardless!!

regulars and employees at beat street!

people to teach him modern technology (with lots of patience pls he's stupid)

literally anything else honestly i'm down for a lot. he's really social and really easy to get along with.

#ansong:intro #𝒊. 𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 — intro #𝒊. 𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅 — pinned

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bluepecanpie · 7 months ago

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UK tumblr

I'm not gonna vote. Don't ask me to vote. Don't try to guilt trip me into some BS about 'tactical voting', or worse 'harm reduction' *vomit*. Any government that comes in is going to be bland, managerial, authoritarian, and racist. Fuck off with this "the Tories are uniquely bad, so hold your nose and vote Labour led by Keir 'Israel has a right to turn off tap water and power in Gaza' Starmer". GTFOH with that.

#uk politics #general election 2024 #not voting

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halfturn · 5 months ago

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this might be premature because we're still in preseason but looking at #certain clubs who also made managerial changes this summer, i have a feeling we got real lucky with slot and based on what we've seen wrt his approach to youth development and tactics and training and football itself im glad he's our head coach. slotheads make some noise

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chaifootsteps · 1 year ago

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Just saw this response on the doc

I held a higher position in Spindle, originally starting on a work for hire basis. I eventually worked my way up into a managerial position. As a result i was in calls with other staff and creators on a daily basis. Unfortunately i perceived this as a safe environment to chat about the shows, this wasn't true. I gave plot ideas and character development concepts. These were all taken without my consent and added to the show. I wasn't paid nor credited for any of these ideas. The process of writing the concepts was incredibly sporadic and rushed. The studio head was forced to lie on livestreams and say everything was planned, however they weren't. Many ideas were created during drunken calls late at night. The story was bare-bones to begin with, which explains why many of my ideas were stolen to pad out the story. I eventually lost my position because i told the studio head that their conduct on social media was having a negative impact on the company's reputation. I was scolded and kicked out of their social circle. Shortly after i received my notice of termination. 2 years of work wasted because i wanted what was best for the company. Before i finish, Spindlehorse uses an underhanded tactic of paying artists in the community. One in particular has over 90 thousand twitter followers. These people are paid by Spindlehorse. They may act like fans but they are paid on a routine basis. This is why they defend the company so vehemently.

I suspected that Viv would pay people in community to defend her because the amount of cover up she gets on all her antic is astonishing almost PR like but always brushed it off. This is damning evidence of it all being true. And solidifys with Ken on spindlehorse stealing the ideas made by staff and how nothing was planned really in helluva. These animators were working on the fly making these episodes wtf.

If even a tenth of this is true, I don't even know what to say except that when all's said and done, I want a documentary about all this.

#vivziepop #spindlehorse #vivziepop critical #Spindlehorse critical #Helluva Boss #actual blog post

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facility-omnicron · 8 months ago

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Official File #1 - Managerial Staff

Manager F - He/Him

“The Manager here at Omnicron, F can best be described as…eccentric. Speaking in a fanciful manner and sometimes not making much sense…but beneath that lies a terrifyingly competent man who is extremely crafty, intelligent, and cunning. He cares about all the Agents in Omnicron, which…will totally not lead to problems.”

-He is fused with the DNA of an axolotl, which also him to breathe underwater and regenerate lost limbs.

-His eyes are able to move like a chameleon’s! What they look like as well as individual fullbodies will be under the cut.

-He was biologically created just to run the facility, though…he wants a purpose other than to just run a facility. This will totally not cause problems later.

-There is an Abnormality Core inside him.

Manager’s Assistant Omnis - They/He

“A no-nonsense abnormality, Omnis is the complete opposite to F, though despite that, the two are extremely close. Omnis takes his job as Assistant Manager very seriously, and sometimes gets frustrated with F due to his many antics. They do find them fun however, being able to meet Agents (somewhat) face to face.”

-An ZAYIN abnormality, designated MA-02-1111.

-His core is the one inside F, as a measure to limit their power.

-They are a non-corporeal entity that mainly resides in the computers of F’s office, though he can travel through any computer in the facility.

-To go into the real world, he has to basically possess something in order to do it. He can also manifest himself for a short time but it takes a lot out of him plus it’s only like. An intimidation tactic.

-Is based off of the Yellow Dragon from Chinese Mythology.

Individuals

+ F’s eye reveal

#lobcorp #lobotomy corporation #lobotomy corp oc #lobotomy corporation oc #Manager F #Omnis - Assistant Manager

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anarchistmemecollective · 1 year ago

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would you be willing to recognize henry ford's extremely vitriolic antisemitism, american imeperialism, and his role in the development of contemporary capitalist managerial tactics

obviously? henry ford was a fascist. did the hemp car post come out of Q? that was about hemp cars being possible in henry ford’s day, not celebrating henry ford.

#dietspam #dietspam answers

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unitedbydevils · 13 days ago

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Ashworth gone, Rashford going?

Well, the circus keeps performing...

Dan Ashworth has left his position at Manchester United as Sporting Director by "mutual decision".

The story was broken by The Athletic at the weekend, following United's 3-2 home defeat to Nottingham Forest, which was considered an odd situation as Ashworth had performed his day's duties and attended multiple matches - even bringing his family to Old Trafford for the Forest game.

Rumours in the days since are that a lack of synergy with the vision held by the rest of the club has deemed the former Newcastle director to be surplus to requirement at the club, whilst others have suggested he was the driving force behind the temporary reprieve that Erik Ten Hag received and proposed unimaginative choices for a new manager like Graham Potter, Gareth Southgate and Eddie Howe.

It is unclear if United will move to appoint a new Sporting Director as soon as possible or will be patient to find the right candidate.

Rumours have also come out today surrounding Marcus Rashford and a departure - which could be as soon as next month.

The United forward has had a rollercoaster ride of good form, bad form during his career to date. Some of this can be blamed on the general poor era United are in, managerial changes and tactical adjustments, injuries, maybe even personal life issues... but whatever has been at fault, it has been evident for some time that Rashford isn't firing at the moment.

My personal take is that he needs the confidence of the manager, and for Ruben Amorim to play him for a good run of starts. Alejandro Garnacho has a better G/A return this season but his general play has been poor bar those big moments. Garna has the worst dribble success rate (21.6%) in the Premier League this season (30+ attempted), and might also be mired in scandal imminently around teamsheet leaks to his brother for social media clout.

So yes, I'd give Marcus more starts, bench Garna as punishment/for development purposes, and then go from there and re-assess in the summer.

Should Marcus leave, the obvious destination would be Paris Saint-Germain, but there are also rumours of Barcelona being interested. I'd be surprised if one of the Milan teams wasn't willing, maybe a Leipzig or Dortmund, and then there's also the MLS and Saudi. If Marcus has lost a yard or confidence because of the back breaks for example, a move to sunnier America and being more of a star personality over there could be good for him.

Given his self-sacrifice, I won't demand Rashford be shifted on. It's good for PSR sure, and being Mancunian doesn't equate to the right to play for the club, but he put in the work and played through the pain. That earns him credit in my eyes - even if that means using him as a backup player.

#manchester united #man u #man united #man utd #manchester reds #marcus rashford #dan ashworth #sir jim ratcliffe #psg #paris saint-germain

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antoine-roquentin · 2 years ago

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The previous part of this series, Part 2, is available here.

In the world of internal Democratic Party politics, the chosen party of the professional-managerial class, fighting for a role in the party hierarchy is done by resume-padding. You have to have worked the correct jobs under the right managers with subsequent letters of recommendation from your patrons, showing both that you care but your primary commitment is to the job itself, not to the cause you were purportedly fighting for in that position. In that sense, Allard Lowenstein fits the bill as a typical upwardly mobile member of the party in the same way Pete Buttigieg does today. If America knows Lowenstein at all, it's from his role in the popular PBS documentary series on the civil rights movement Eyes on the Prize, especially episode 5. The emotional climax of the episode comes over the party machinations to keep the alternative slate of black voters from being seated at the 1964 Democratic convention, which LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, and his protege Walter Mondale succeeded in because of their superior knowledge of debate club tactics. A series of copyright claims by rightsholders for whom licenses had expired kept this show off the air in the 90s, but early filesharing advocates got to work promoting the show across the internet. After all, if they were trying to ban it, it must be important. The clip here is from that episode.

Lowenstein got his law degree at Yale, did his stint in the military like an honorable American, and then got a job from Eleanor Roosevelt directly, always the most powerful player in the party from her husband's death to 1960. However, Lowenstein also cared to an extent. He wanted the black people of the American south to have a chance to vote, based to a large extent on what he witnessed on a fact-finding tour of Namibia, then an internal colony of Apartheid South Africa. His passion was such that he was a major player in the movement to prevent LBJ from being renominated in 1968, recruiting Eugene McCarthy to run against him. This was because they were both politics nerds in the West Wing sense. Young guns, they believed they knew better than the Democratic machine politicians what voters wanted. They knew the people wanted an anti-war candidate who satisfied liberal pieties and who thumbed his nose at the old hierarchies. The result was three unsuccessful campaigns for presidential nomination and Lowenstein himself becoming a one-term congressman. As Gus Tyler, president of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (himself a young rebel against an old guard at one point, now an old man leading younger women) said, Lowenstein was leading politics "away from economics to ethics and aesthetics, to morality and culture", and ultimately "to the Republican Wolves".

The problem here wasn't that Lowenstein cared too much, as most of his contemporaries wrote. Rather, he'd performed like a racer trying to slipstream/draft who had spun out of control. This was because of Lowenstein's background and training. As the consummate liberal striver, he'd managed to become president of the National Student Association in 1951 (note this in particular for future posts). This was a union of students' unions, which was basically the debate club to end all debate clubs because that's all student unions are. Even today, but especially so in the 40s and 50s, the only reason to get involved in student politics was because it was a training ground for how parliaments and congresses work. All they do is argue over arcane resolutions on mundane subject matter, until one manages to land a blow strong enough to gain a majority in favour. It's a weirdo politics junkie's dream.

Lowenstein brought that energy to organizing black people in the American South. Even before his role in organizing 1964's Freedom Summer in Mississippi, the project for which Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered, he was already getting on the nerves of more radical black people. James Forman, right of MLK in the pic below, ended up on the wrong side of Lowenstein at the 1956 NSA convention. Lowenstein didn't want passage of a more progressive civil rights platform than the one the Democratic Party had adopted. At one point, he literally shoved a black man to the microphone to speak on his behalf, according to Forman. He won, of course, because he knew his debate club tactics better.

7 years later, Lowenstein and Forman butted heads over the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's work in Mississippi and Alabama. Forman notes that he arrived almost unannounced, and yet many of the white volunteers suddenly claimed that they were under his orders to do what they were doing, including going to towns that were centres of white violence and had no organizing done. As a Yale alumni, Lowenstein probably had links to major white supremacist orgs to protect these people given that Yale was the university of choice for white southerners in the Ivy Leagues. On the other hand, Lowenstein's line was against black radical politics and towards conciliation. Forman found that Lowenstein often worked hand-in-hand with Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, and John Lewis (far right in the pic above), and were close to Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington's Socialist Party (eventually Democratic Socialists of America), bankrolled by Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers union. He was particularly piqued when they went to the Dominican Republic as supposedly independent observers and certified the election of the pro-American candidate not long after an American invasion, despite the well-known popularity of his opponent Juan Bosch.

This rankled Forman because the struggle in America for the civil rights of black people was part and parcel of the decolonization struggle abroad, or so he thought. To have America going around and imposing governments on nations through its military industrial complex and arcane intelligence apparatus reeked of what South Africa was doing in Namibia. After all, there was a reason the SNCC had adopted the phrase "one man, one vote" for its 1964 Freedom Summer campaign: it had been a slogan of the 1958 All African Peoples' Conference, the first meeting of black revolutionaries from all of Africa in history.

This conference was convened by the newly independent Ghana, the eighth independent nation in Africa and the first of a long wave which gained independence between 1958 and 1994. The resounding waves of this action were felt in America. Martin Luther King Jr explained in an interview that year "This event will give impetus to oppressed peoples all over the world. I think it will have worldwide implications and repercussions—not only for Asia and Africa, but also for America… At bottom, both segregation in America and colonialism in Africa are based on the same thing—white supremacy and contempt for life". But "Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent", incoming Ghanian prime minister Kwame Nkrumah declared, which is why the All African Peoples' Conference had to be held.

Nkrumah did not learn his debating skills from the NSA. As a student in America in the 30s, he'd given sermons in churches across New York City and Philadelphia, talking always about Africa. Yet it was his experience of American segregation that radicalized him. Being told he was only fit to drink from a spittoon was one of many insults he faced from white Americans. At times, he would buy a subway ticket so that he had a place to sleep. He knew the civil rights struggle was the same as his own, and this followed to the rest of his government. When Ghana became independent, it had virtually no skilled workers because universities in the country barred black students and everybody who had the ability travelled to America to learn. In 1958, Nkrumah spoke at an NAACP dinner in Harlem, telling black American dignitaries that the next step in their fight for civil rights was to send their well educated members back to Ghana, where they would receive a warm welcome and teach their fellow Africans to build a strong, independent nation that could one day bring together a united Africa to rival America.

The opening salvo in this project was the call for all freedom fighters of Africa to send representatives to the AAPC. Nkrumah welcomed them personally. First came Tom Mboya (keep your eyes on this guy) from Kenya, a trade unionist official and future Minister of Justice who one day soon would ensure a member of his tribe, Barack Obama Senior, made his way to America to attend university. Future successful and failed revolutionaries like Joshua Nkomo, George Padmore, Kenneth Kaunda, Hastings Banda, Frantz Fanon, Dr. Felix-Roland Moumie, and Holden Roberto, as well as notable black US Congressman Charles Diggs, were among 300 delegates. Perhaps the most important delegate was accidental. Joseph Kasavubu had initially been invited as the representative from the Congo. However, when the plane to Ghana stopped in Leopoldville/Kinshasa, Belgian authorities had stopped him from getting on, recognizing him from anti-colonial speeches earlier. However, they did allow Patrice Lumumba and two comrades who had impressed the plane's passengers with their rhetoric at a bar to join in. When Nkrumah met Lumumba, he was deeply impressed and called for a photographer to record the moment.

Also among them was Horace Mann Bond as a representative of the African American Institute, a group funded by western mining interests but staffed with academics from major American black universities like Howard and Lincoln. He brought along a reporter named Bob Keith, who was arrested during a closed session of the congress with bugging equipment. Bond was also president of the American Society of African Culture. AMSAC had deep pursestrings, bailing out a number of black groups soon after it was founded, and sponsored Bond as well as CUNY professor John Aubrey Davis, who reported on all the proceedings to former National Student Association president and current AMSAC leader James Theodore Harris Jr, according to AMSAC's archives. A third group that attended the conference was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, who sent white AFL-CIO leader Irving Brown. AFL-CIO in turn sponsored International Ladies' Garment Workers Union member Maida Springer, one of the few black women. One thing that AAI, AMSAC, AFL-CIO, and CCF shared was an explicit commitment to anticommunism in their charters, even as some claimed apoliticality otherwise. CCF sent its future president, South African poet Ezekiel Mphaphele. Some CCF funding came from the Fairfield Foundation, a charitable organization that sent its own observer Patrick Duncan, a white member of the South African Liberal Party. Other funding came from the Ford Foundation, which sent white University of California Santa Cruz professor John A. Marcum on its own. Marcum and Brown helpfully offered to translate ad hoc between French (spoken by Lumumba) and English (spoken by Nkrumah), and the two report an unknown American helping them with all their conversations.

I note these people because they or the organizations that sponsored them were all revealed to be CIA fronts or conduits by the magazine Ramparts in 1967 (Brown's one time boss at the CIA's International Organizations Division, Thomas Braden, wrote a response entitled "I'm glad the CIA is 'immoral'"). Many of them defended themselves by saying they were unaware of where the money was coming from or that they did not know the people they reported to were compromised. As Ramparts was drawing primarily on IRS information that had been leaked as well as corroborating testimony, they did not know the full extent of their integration into the intelligence apparatus. As many of these organizations folded in the 70s and 80s after these revelations their archives were given over to universities for preservation. They were rarely perused, two notable exceptions being by Frances Stonor Saunders and Hugh Wilford in the 90s and 2000s respectively. What they revealed was not wholesale domination or complete innocence, but rather a joy that the CIA was funding them to do what they knew was the right thing combined with strident insistence to the conduits for their funding that they not be forced to do anything that would contradict with their politics. When Farmer, of Forman's Lowenstein faction at CORE and SNCC, went on an AMSAC-sponsored tour of Africa, he criticized Malcolm X's beliefs as "apartheid and… worse", then got into arguments with diplomatic staff for his criticisms of American policies towards South Africa, Portugese Africa, and most of all the Congo. He later claimed that seeing apartheid abroad helped to calcify his opinion the American government. When Brown became harshly critical of Nkrumah, Springer, his subordinate and mentee at AFL-CIO, explained decades later that the 1958 conference gave her "goosebumps" and was more significant than the fall of the Berlin Wall in her opinion.

Evidently, many of these liberals, like the more radical leftists they battled, viewed the American civil rights struggle as an anti-colonial one. So too did the CIA, given the similar manner in which they infiltrated both through the liberals. However, portrayals of the struggle in popular culture like Eyes on the Prize show nothing of the sort. They tend to show a struggle from the streets right into the Democratic Party. This pattern also befits all of the above named associated with the CIA, albeit with the ones less inclined to support whoever the current president was also ending up becoming less powerful. Typically, they emerged in academia rather than politics, ie the other glorified debate club. In contrast, the radicals tended to find themselves sidelined or shot. Forman was an early supporter of the Black Panthers along with his associate at the SNCC Stokely Carmichael, but as the group descended into factional infighting, his former comrade stuffed a pistol in his mouth and threatened to shoot, giving him a nervous breakdown. He went into academia and helped ensure his son, now a Yale Law professor, could do the same. To co-author his autobiography, "The Making of Black Revolutionaries", Forman picked Julian Bond, son of Horace Mann Bond.

‘Irving Brown was never a CIA agent’, said Cord Meyer, the head of the International Organizations Division of the CIA. ‘The very notion is laughable. He was as independent as you could get, and very strong-willed. What the CIA did was to help him finance his major projects when they were crucial to the Western cause. But in his operations he was totally on his own’.

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