#moon landing hoax exposed

[inwokewetrust1981]

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed: Did we go to space? (Documentary 2022)

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed

[its-short-for-jackalope]

crack pulp musicals episode 3 theory:

~spoilers for ep 1 & 2 under the cut~

We will see (hear 😉) Benjamin again because after his plan to expose the hoax and make a lot of money was ruined by Sir John Herschel, Benjamin— spurred on by spite and the simple fact that he has nothing more to lose—decides to keep trying. He will expose the hoax... by landing on the moon an entire century early. (dun dun dunnnnnnnn)

this is 99% a joke but listen: the monument is dated August 1865, so we know that however far they went into their future, it is at least 1865, and it's some time after August. maaaaaybe they're in 1869, and perhaps it is even *gasp* July (or June, they'd need time to get back to Benny Boy in the States).

Additional "evidence" to support this theory: 🎶 Planet Earth, eighteen-sixty-nine 🎶 would fit the established rhythm/melody we've had going with dates and stuff.

...really, though, I just think this would be funny. and this idea might’ve been rattling around since my silly silly brain heard "1865" the first time I listened to episode 2 and went

👁👁 ah, the moon landing 👁👁

because

i am fucking terrible at dates, and also

i was still recovering from the unfiltered awesomeness that had just finished reaching into my ears and altering my brain chemistry, so I was temporarily Dumb <3

plus, I mean, the moon is pretty significant to the story & the characters. I'd be shocked if we didn't get any other stories/mentions of the moon. like I really wanna know if/when ppl find out the moon story was all a hoax. are they going to accidentally be kinda correct? are they going to mAKE THE MOON LIKE THEY IMAGINED IT?? the Traveler turned a brick satellite into a jungle paradise, she and/or Margaret could totally do the same thing to the moon, right? RIGHT??! >:0

*ahem*

anyways, I'm sooo normal about this radio show and I have shared my little teehee joke theory, so I will be going now. toodle-oo. ✌🏻

[apokryphonmuseum]

Great Moon Hoax

In 1835, a series of articles began appearing in the New York Sun claiming that a British astronomer named John Herschel had made an extraordinary discovery on the moon. The articles described a world unlike anything seen before: there were forests of giant blue poppies, herds of bison with feathered wings, and even unicorns. Readers were captivated by these tales of a lunar utopia and the Sun's circulation increased dramatically. However, it soon became clear that the entire story was a complete fabrication. The Great Moon Hoax, as it came to be known, was one of the most infamous and successful hoaxes in history.

The author of the Great Moon Hoax was Richard Adams Locke, a journalist who worked for the New York Sun. Locke wrote the articles under the pseudonym "Dr. Andrew Grant" and claimed to be reporting on the discoveries of Herschel, a well-respected astronomer. The articles were published over several days in August of 1835, and they were accompanied by elaborate illustrations that further convinced readers of their veracity.

Despite the outrageous claims made in the articles, many readers were taken in by the story. The idea of life on the moon was not completely far-fetched at the time, and the articles were written in a convincing and scientific tone. In addition, the articles played on people's fascination with the unknown and their desire for adventure and discovery.

In the weeks following the initial publication, the circulation of the article increased rapidly, thanks in part to the sensational claims and vivid descriptions. People around the world were captivated by the supposed discovery of life on the moon, and many eagerly awaited further updates. However, as time went on, doubts about the veracity of the story began to emerge.

Firstly, the identity of the supposed author, Dr. Andrew Grant, was called into question. Despite claiming to be a respected astronomer at the University of Edinburgh, no one by that name could be found in any university records. Additionally, the newspaper that had published the story, the New York Sun, had a reputation for sensationalism and had previously been accused of printing fraudulent stories.

As suspicions grew, a rival newspaper, the New York Herald, offered a reward for information about the author of the article. It was eventually revealed that the story had been entirely fabricated by a group of journalists at the New York Sun, led by Richard Adams Locke. They had created the story as a hoax, partly to increase circulation of their newspaper and partly as a satire on the state of scientific knowledge at the time.

The Great Moon Hoax was eventually exposed as a fraud, and the New York Sun was forced to issue a retraction. However, the damage had already been done, and the hoax had a lasting impact on popular culture and scientific discourse. It became the subject of numerous plays, novels, and even a theme park attraction. The story also helped to fuel public interest in astronomy and space exploration, which would eventually lead to the real-life Apollo moon landing in 1969.

[daydreams-77]

Stanley Kubrick and Filmmaker’s Son’s Deathbed Confessions Expose Moon Landing Hoax!

http://dlvr.it/SnhTRw

[siryouarebeingmocked]

>You can send drones and unmanned craft…from which you can leave whatever reflectors you want.

>The initial video explains why it's harder….the van allen radiation belt. You can send drones and unmanned craft…from which you can leave whatever reflectors you want. But people cannot survive the trip.

Radiation shielding is a thing, and it was a thing in 1969. Lead aprons had been common for x-ray operation decades earlier.

>Also you want to talk about why Russia doesn't believe in the moon landing…it's because they also tried to get to the moon and figured out why it doesn't work.

No, I said Russia had a good motive to expose a fake landing.

I do find it interesting how so many people wildly misinterpret clear English sentences right in front of them, but also think they have a handle on a much more complicated issue.

>Their astronauts all died in the radiation belt, there's very hard to find audio of Russia's space flights where they get to the radiation belt and you can hear them start screaming and dying….Russia then covered up this failure by pretending the astronauts did not exist and edited them out of photos and news stories.

Or you listened to a hoax or misatribution. Which is more likely.

It is now known that the Soviets did cover up disasters and accidents within the space program, but there is no evidence to suggest they ever covered up any deaths in orbit.

Also, "Russia couldn't do it, therefore it must've been impossible for America" is not a good argument.

There's actually a bit of evidence about Russia I found earlier that would bolster the hoaxer case, but I've never seen a single one of you bring it up.

In over a decade.

>"we have photos of the landing sites" We also have photos of spiderman fighting thanos doesn't mean it's real.

And how many of those photos were collected by multiple space agencies, across the globe, for decades? Plus successive moon landings?

The coverup alone would arguably be more trouble than the landing.

>Speaking of photographic evidence that's fake…have you guys actually watched the moonwalk footage…where you can see the wires suspending them and they try to explain away the appearance of jerking on a suspension wire as "air pockets" in the suit.

And yet I'm still trying to find a single denier who can explain why the sand isn't falling in the right way for Earth gravity, even assuming the footage is slowed down. It falls parabolically, like it's in a vacuum.

Not staying in the air, like in atmosphere.

Heck, people picked up the TV signals, live. They just pointed antennas at the moon. Was the drone also a broadcast station?

Also, most people have no frame of reference for what someone looks like walking in a spacesuit on the moon. Which are, and always have been, heavy and cumbersome and unnatural.

Like conspiracy theorists often do, you're mistaking your own opinion for a fact.

Repeat the lies often enough and people will believe them. 🤔

[antifaintl]

Do you have any resources or articles for talking to family members about dogwhistles or social media fact-checking?

We wish we did because of how many people are getting sucked in to the bullshittery.  Uh, maybe that new semi-doc on Netflix?  Or this?

Or how about a list of fact-checking sites? Snopes NPR Fact Checker Guardian Reality Check  FactCheck.org Politifact Truth Be Told Hoax Slayer FactsCan (Canada) Detector De Mentiras (español) El Polígrafo (español) When you’re dealing with conspiracy theories, maybe it’s useful to ask the person to think about how many people would be involved in the conspiracy if it was real and how realistic it would be for that amount of people to keep the conspiracy a secret.  For example, if COVID-19 is a hoax, then it would mean the 28 million people who’ve been infected + virtually every government and health agency in the world would all somehow be communicating secretly to “fake” COVID without one or more of them spilling the beans, so to speak.   In fact, mathematicians looked at this and developed a formula to predict how long a given conspiracy theory can remain under wraps.  They examined three well-known conspiracy theories - the moon landing was faked; climate change isn’t real; and vaccines give you autism.  Looking at the number of people that would be involved in each, they found that a faked moon landing would be exposed in 3.7 years; the climate change “fraud” in 3.7 - 26.8 years;’ and the autism-vaccine “link” publicly revealed in 3.2 years. If these are people you care about, maybe start by asking them open-ended questions to get to the heart of what they’re actually concerned about.  We’ve done a number of posts about talking to family members being radicalized by social media   Take a look at some advice and resources we came up with when one of our followers wrote to us about their parents who were falling quickly down the QAnon anti-semitic conspiracy hole.  Let us know how it goes/what you have success with?

[srsly-messed-up-fruitloop]

Tug of War (Ch 5)

ch 1 - prev

Word Count: 1,574

“Hey Tuck, you busy tomorrow?” Danny asked as the trio walked through the halls after school.

“Um, yea, I’ve got plans,” Tucker replied reluctantly.

His friends both turned to him in surprise. 

“No way, you actually landed a date on Valentine’s Day?” Sam exclaimed incredulously.

Read on AO3 or under the cut

“Wait n—of course I have a date!”

“Who is it?” Danny and Sam simultaneously demanded. 

Tucker began to nervously play with his beret. “Heh heh, um...you don’t know them.” 

Danny seemed to easily accept his response. “Oh, okay then. Have fun Tuck.”

However, Sam was scrutinizing him. He definitely was hiding something. “Tucker, you know you could tell us anything, right?”

“What? Sam, I do!”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’m not hiding anything!”

Sam didn’t reply. Instead, her gaze bore right into Tucker. Within a few seconds, his resolve crumbled away.

“Alright, fine! But you guys gotta promise to not tell anyone this, okay?”

Danny raised an eyebrow at Sam. Honestly, he’ll never get how she does it.

Meanwhile Sam smirked. “We promise. What’s going on?”

“Okay, so you know how I’m trying to get into cybersecurity after college?”

His friends nodded, having a slight idea what it was after hearing him talk about it so much.

“Well, I’m working with this group, and...errr...we’re trying to...help? Some companies?”

“What do you mean by help?” Danny questioned.

Sam added on, “And which companies are you ‘helping’?”

“Just, um...companies like Chase and Capital One. We’re just...I guess you could say we’re testing their security?” Tucker hesitantly answered.

“Aren’t those credit card companies?” asked Sam suspiciously.

“That’s so cool man. I don’t get why you had to hide it from us though,” Danny told him right as he opened his locker.

Sam knew there was more to it, but dropped it when all three of them spotted an expensive camera simply hanging by the strap off one of the locker hooks.

“No way, is a Nikon D80?” Tucker exclaimed gleefully before carefully grabbing the camera to admire it.

Meanwhile, Danny was confused. Wes hardly keeps anything in their locker.

“Hold up. Tucker, turn it on,” Sam said.

He eagerly pressed the power button. “Dude, you didn’t have to ask me first.”

Danny pushed aside a nagging feeling when he saw the menu appear on the screen.

“Whoa, there’s over a thousand photos in here!” Tucker blurted out. “And...they’re all of you, Danny.”

Sam scoffed, “This must be what the creep uses to take those pictures he sells.”

As the trio flipped through the undoubtedly high quality pictures, Danny was suddenly struck by a genius idea. His friends grinned mischievously after he shared what he had in mind.

~

Wes was exhausted. The last game of the season was coming up and Ms. Tetslaff was really pushing them to their limits.

He lumbered to his locker, already feeling an ache from the intense practice he just had. Opening his locker, he gasped when he saw his camera hanging in plain sight. Crap!

He quickly retrieved the protective pouch from his backpack and delicately placed the camera inside. How could he be so careless? Practice must be really getting to him. He’s so damn lucky that Fenton didn’t take it.

He’s actually not that lucky at all.

Later that night as he was going to back up his recent pictures, his stomach dropped when he discovered they were all gone. Instead, there was one new video.

Wes hesitantly double-clicked to open the video on his computer.

“Hey everybody! Danny Phantom here,” Danny greeted in the video as he was floating against the backdrop of Casper High’s distinguishable brick wall. Listening real closely, you could hear two other people sniggering in the background. “I’m here to finally come clean about the truth.” 

Wes’ heartbeat picked up. Was he finally going to...?

Danny continued in the video, “If you go to Casper High, I’m sure you all have heard about the rumours. How Danny Fenton is actually me in disguise. That’s...that’s actually not that far from the truth; my true identity is none other than a Casper High student. I’m tired of hiding it. People of Amity Park, I am actually Wes Weston.” The video abruptly cut out.

When Wes’ dad heard a loud crash from his son’s room and came up to check on him, the boy could only growl in response.

~

To say that Wes was pissed the next day was an understatement. It turns out, that video was also posted online. All of his hard work over the years, just gone, right down the toilet. 

People wouldn’t stop interrupting him in the halls, bugging him to turn invisible or shoot an ectoblast. No matter how much he tried to debunk that video, they continued to wholeheartedly believe that he’s Phantom.

In history class, Paulina slapped him for charging her for pictures of “himself”. After that, he honestly didn’t want to find out how much worse Dash’s reaction would be. He should probably ditch class until this whole thing blew over.

As he pried open his locker to get his stuff, he glowered at the sight of Fenton’s first aid kit. Last week, when he showed off the expensive kit as evidence, no one even batted an eye. Are the kids at this school that stupid, that they’d believe a single video of Phantom speaking than years of proof?

He was about to leave until he noticed a pamphlet sticking out of Fenton’s bag. 

Instantly recognizing the logo on it, his frustration melted away and he couldn’t keep himself from chuckling as he flipped through its pages.

As he made his way to exit the school, he spotted Fenton walking by himself in the halls. He smirked to himself. Maybe he’ll be able to rile him up enough this time to expose him and get everyone to forget that video. That’ll be the perfect payback.

“NASA? You want to work for them?”

Danny jolted out of his thoughts at the sound of Wes’ voice. Surprisingly, he didn’t sound mad at all. Regarding him suspiciously, Danny replied, “Um...yeah?”

“Wow. I should’ve pegged you as the type to enjoy fabricating hoaxes for a living. We know you already love doing that in your everyday life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh Fenton, you know exactly what I’m talking about—NASA, the corporation whose whole aim is generating lies about outer space to deceive the public?”

“Right, I forgot you were a total conspiracy nut. Listen, I don’t have time for this, I—”

“I’m betting you’re more than eager to join in on the next fake moon landing. You’d just love the extra attention, wouldn’t you?”

“We—”

“Even if it’s for your measly human disguise. But why go through all this work when you could just possess the next ‘astronaut’?”

“Dude, that is so wrong!”

“Really? I wouldn’t put it past you.”

A moment of silence passed, while Danny’s defiant look faltered.

“Honestly, screw you Wes,” he muttered before walking off.

Wes could only stare after the now despondent boy, wondering what the heck was wrong with him. It wasn’t like him to just leave, this was supposed to rile him up even more!

Dammit.

~

Weeks later, the buzz around the whole “Wes being Phantom” thing finally died down. Eventually, the inevitable situation came where Phantom and Wes were spotted both being in the same place at the same time. Some people still had their doubts, considering Phantom’s duplication ability was well-known by now. But for the most part, Wes’ life eventually turned back to normal.

He sighed in relief as the buzzer rang, signaling the end of the final game for Casper’s basketball team. The Elmerton Owls beat them brutally with a score of 78-36. Ms. Tetslaff was shaking her head in anguish.

He actually wasn’t bothered at all. After all, it was a losing game from the start. Anderson, the best player of the team, broke his leg last weekend in a skiing accident. Wes was just happy that the embarrassing game was over. 

As he fist bumped his team members after finishing up in the change room, he left for his locker. Since the game occurred after school, the halls were completely empty.

When he turned the corner, what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

There, sitting and leaning back beside his locker was none other than Danny Phantom, covered in glowing green ectoplasm and clutching a large gash in his stomach as it threatened to spill more onto the floor.

Wes could only stand there frozen, taking in Danny’s unmoving form as the pool of ectoplasm inched closer to his white sneakers. 

Suddenly, Danny registered that someone was watching him. Sam? Tucker? Didn’t they already head home? He weakly raised his head to see who it was, only to grimace when he recognized the red-haired creep.

“What do you want Wes?” he barely managed to croak out.

Never in Wes’ life had he imagined seeing him in this position. The worse he thought was watching Phantom’s bravado crumble when the world discovered who he truly was. But this...all of it was already gone in this moment. And as the ectoplasm stained his shoes, he began to question himself.

Wes gulped. He didn’t consider himself to be a caring person. But as Danny sat there, bleeding out before him, he couldn’t…

After sending him one last look, Wes opened their locker, grabbed the first aid kit at the bottom, and got to work.

~end~

[chaoswillfallrpg]

SILAS CRUMP is THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS-OLD and a PETTY CRIMINAL in DIAGON ALLEY in LONDON. He looks remarkably like JOSH HARTNETT and considers himself NEUTRAL. He is currently UNPLAYABLE.

→ OVERVIEW:

tw: blood, bodily harm, death, murder 

An American werewolf roaming the streets of London, Silas has been running from himself since he was twenty-one years old though he has sadly ran into more danger than he intended to run away from. Born in Chicago, Silas was the eldest son of Muggle business owner CHRISTOPHER WHITLEY and his socialite wife MELISSA O’NEIL. As the eldest in their family and the Whitley family’s only son, Silas was heir to the Whitley Whiskey fortune and would be designated the family distillery that sat proudly on the outskirts of Chicago alongside their lavish home. The Whitley family had been Whiskey men since the 1800s when members of their family had arrived over from the North of England and brought their famous brand of drink alongside them. Silas’ early childhood was filled with long walks around their property, looking over their distilleries and being told day after day that all of this would be his. The first and smallest distillery they owned was the one next to their home, after their family brand had expanded most operations took place where they had more land leaving the Chicago distillers as mostly a tourist destination and occasional playground for Silas and his younger sister RIHANNON. When strange things began to happen to Silas, Rihannon was the first person to notice. At school children who bothered him would find themselves on the ceiling, whilst at home his mother’s pearls would vanish into thin air whilst Silas sported a knowing smirk. 

Silas’ sister liked to believe something was happening to her brother, but whilst Rhiannon panicked, Silas grinned. One day he’d woken up with the ability to do things which he’d spent time trying to perfect, then one afternoon he arrived home to a brown owl sitting on the bike rack, a letter in it’s mouth addressed to him. Taking it from the owl, he tore it open and read it there and then. Silas was a wizard and he had been accepted to begin studying a wizarding school to help him better control his magic. His parents had found assumed it was a hoax, until they made a key discovery. Whiskey was what made their family famous. But the blend hadn’t been simply alcohol, it had been mixed with an elixir that sent people crazy for the taste. Mount Greylock was unlike anything Silas could have imagined. A place where he learned to control the magic that flowed through his fingers, he fit in well amongst the house of fellow artistic thinkers and took to being a wizard as well as he could considering he had no prior knowledge when he arrived. His presence at the school was rare due to his Muggle-Born status, though he was never penalised for it as was the case in European schools. Silas enjoyed learning, particularly about the wizarding world and longed to find a place he fit amongst them. An experienced alchemist like his ancestors, Silas could brew anything he put his mind to. Becoming popular amongst the students at due to his ability to mix Muggle alcohol and potions into mind blowing elixirs. It was this talent that helped him catch the eye of Silas’ first girlfriend.

OPHELIA DELACOUR was a beautiful Half-Blood witch, Silas fell deeply in love with her very quickly. Upon graduating Mount Greylock Silas was sure of two things. He would take over his family business and extend its reach back to the wizarding world and he would marry Ophelia Delacour. Popping the question on her ninetieth birthday the pair got to work planning the wedding. Every other waking moment was spent at the factory with his father manufacturing their first blend of Whitley’s Wizard Whiskey which they would first serve to the world at the wedding. After perfecting the formula Silas visited the pub with his friends, stumbling home drunk in the dark and attempting to find a taxi. But it wasn’t a taxi that found Silas that night. A beautiful woman who he had been speaking to that evening followed him into the alleyway behind the pub and after exchanging a few short words and kisses, claimed she would be in touch before transforming into a beast before his very eyes. Biting Silas on the neck she slid away into the dark. Managing to get home Silas tried to hide what he had become. The wizarding world was not kind to werewolves and although his family accepted him as a wizard and his fiancée’s family were liberal they were not that liberal. Brewing himself wolfsbane and drinking it religiously, he hid it from them well. Locking himself in the distillery on a full moon away from the eyes and ears of his family. 

Days turned to weeks and weeks to months till his wedding was upon him. Burried in work on the night of his bachelor party he forgot to take his potion, chaining himself up in the distillery before passing out drunk. Unconscious, he hand’t noticed a pair of hands attempeting to untie him before he had shifted and it was too late. The next morning Silas awoke in the distillery to the sight of his sister torn to shreds on the floor in front of him. His whole world collapsing in a matter of seconds. Blinded by tears he buried her in her favourite field and made off into the dawn, changing his name and leaving his old life behind. Ashton Whitley could not live with what he had done, but Silas Crump might have a better life elsewhere with the past behind him. London was where he chose to drown his sorrows. Taking up a job in The White Wyvern he pulled pints before he was kicked out for draining their alcohol supply. That was when she found him. KAMALI SKENDER could smell the sorrow eating him up inside, stronger than any scent in London as he cried and wailed each full moon in the sewers below the surface of the city. The happiest Silas had been in a long while was when Le Cirque Des Rêves took him in. Though the circus was composed mostly of creatures and shady figures, Silas was grateful to find himself hired as an alchemy act, dazzling punters with his ability to mix weird and wonderful drinks they enjoyed during the show. Kamali was the mentor he needed. A werewolf who showed him that after the bite life went on.

She taught him how to love again and though his heart ached for Ophelia still, he forged a new life with Kamali, adopting a young wolf who came to need their aid and creating a family he did not think he would ever be able to have. CORIN HALE eased much of his pain, a little wolf she saw beauty in their kind and Silas began to see the world not through the dark lense he had always seen it but through her young eyes. Their life was a happy one. Until the evening BELLATRIX BLACK and RABASTAN LESTRANGE appeared at the circus. Cornering Silas the pair threatened to expose Silas to his new family and send word back to Chicago unless he joined their cause. A strong and older werewolf with pull in their community he was paramount to their cause, but shaken still by the death of his sister he refused and took off into the night with his daughter. Silas hadn’t wanted to take Corin, but he knew she would follow him to the ends of the earth even if it meant putting her at risk to find him. They had gotten as far as Nottingham before they had found them again. A fight ensued and seeing her strength and control despite the full moon, Rabastan and Bellatrix kidnapped Corin, casting a memory charm on Silas and staging the scene to appear as though she had been killed. When Silas came round again his daughter was gone. Shreds of her clothing remained and enough blood to suggest a massacre where she had stood. At first he thought he had lost control and murdered her, but something deep within him told him otherwise. 

The moon had been full when she had disappeared, but he had been taking his potion. Travelling back to London, Silas sought the help of defence lawyer RODOLPHUS LESTRANGE, knowing that as soon as Corin was reported missing the finger would be pointed his way. Silas doesn’t remember a lot from that night. Just the two figures and a bright light before everything went dark. Fragments came back to him, but as they did another body showed up. BOOKER BAGNOLD, torn to pieces and floating in a fountain. Just like his sister had been. With his name attached to the murder. Frightened, Silas thought on his feet and kidnapped fellow werewolf JONATHAN REEVES, taking locks of his hair and using it to masquerade as him with poly juice potion to allow him to search for his daughter without being taken by the Ministry. His plan was going smoothly until the evening of The Yule Ball, Booker’s older brother HARRISON BAGNOLD targeted him, attempting to strike him with the killing curse. In a final declaration of love, Jonathan’s girlfriend ROSALIE FLINT sacrificed herself and dived in front of the curse killing her instantly. After laying her to rest in the forest, Silas paid his respects, dropped his disguise and moved on, scared of being seen again as Jonathan. Currently on the run and uncertain of who to trust, Silas is leaning on the support of those closest to him. Though he is not sure of many things he is certain of one thing. He did not kill Booker Bagnold, Corin is still out there needing to be saved and there is something much larger going on in wizarding London which he must help stop.

→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Blood Status → Muggle-Born (Werewolf)

Pronouns → He/Him

Identification → Cis Male 

Sexuality  → Pansexual 

Relationship Status → Single 

Previous Education → Mount Greylock School for Magic (Walmsini)  

Societies → N/A

Family → Kamali Skender (partner), Corin Hale (adoptive daughter)

Connections  → Rodolphus Lestrange (lawyer), Andromeda Black (legal aid), Regulus Black (legal aid), Bellatrix Black (unknown adversary), Rabastan Lestrange (unknown adversary), Booker Bagnold (alleged victim), Harrison Bagnold (adversary), Ophelia Delacour (ex-fiancée), Jonathan Reeves (victim/adversary), Rosalie Flint (former girlfriend under polyjuice potion), Fenrir Greyback (former alpha under polyjuice potion)

Future Information → N/A

SILAS CRUMP IS A LEVEL 8 WIZARD/WEREWOLF.

[starxiddraws]

Your Guardian Angel Chapter 3

Chapter 3- A New Ladybug?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Tagging @princessaurax @cassiopeia-barrow @sketchy-characters-in-progress   @mystical818

“Please be safe, kitty,” Marinette called out to Chat Noir, who headed off to go see Master Fu. “It’s really late anything can happen.”

“Don’t worry my lady, I know how to defend myself, I’ll be back before you know it,” he gave her a wink before disappearing into the darkness. Marinette giggled and shook her head at the ever flirty Chat. She had to call Master Fu ahead of time to make sure he hasn’t turned in for the night, despite it only being the early evening. Sometimes he liked to turn in early to get up early to go to the park. Apparently there was a television show he was interested in at the moment, so conveniently, he’s still up, watching. They let him know that Chat Noir was going to drop by and give him the miraculous and to talk about a few things.

Marinette shivered and walked back into her room for warmth. Odd because it was approaching summer, chills were uncommon summer nights. She sat down and started working on her homework to pass the time while she waited for Chat Noir. It was very silent and she felt very lonely. Tikki always kept her company while she worked, always giving her encouragement and ideas. Marinette already missed Tikki and half of her wished that she didn’t give up the miraculous, but she thought it was the necessary thing to do. Still, the loneliness was suffocating and she hoped that Chat Noir hurried back.

* * *

Chat Noir landed on the rooftop of the apartment complex where Master Fu resided, looking around and making sure no one has spotted him. Confirming that the coast was clear, Chat transformed back into Adrien and gave Plagg a wedge of Camembert. Still carrying his backpack, Adrien set it down and pulled out a simple black hoodie, a green beanie and a pair of lens-less glasses so that no one would recognize him and ask questions.

“You stick out like a sore thumb, kid. A hoodie? Beanie? It’s almost summer, not winter!” Plagg bit into the wedge as he gave Adrien a once over. Adrien rolled his eyes as he pulled up the hood over his head.

“Relax Plagg. It’s kinda chilly out, so this is appropriate for right now. Besides, I just have to deliver the miraculous to Master Fu, and just head back. In and out.” Adrien began to descend to Master Fu’s floor, hiding whenever he heard anyone in the vicinity.

Finally approaching Fu’s door, Adrien knocked a few times and waited patiently. After a few minutes, Wang Fu answered the door and quickly let Adrien in and locked his door. All of the blinds were closed in the apartment. “Thanks for seeing me at such a time. Marinette thought the sooner the miraculous got back to you, the sooner you can find a new Ladybug,” Adrien pulled out the box from his backpack and held it out to the Guardian, expecting him to immediately grab it and hide it, but Wang just stared at the box thoughtfully.

“What do you think, Chat?” Wang asked, suddenly turning his back to Adrien and walked towards his stove to start making some tea.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Adrien placed the box into the pocket of the hoodie and followed him into the kitchen, where he sat down and waited for an answer.

“Do you think Marinette made the right decision?” Wang asked, setting the kettle on the stove, turning it on so that it could heat up. The question caught Adrien off guard.

“Well, she thinks it’s the right decision, so of course i’m going to support her–”

“Let me rephrase the question… Do you want Marinette to stop being Ladybug?” Taken aback, Adrien stared at Wang, wondering where he’s going with this.

“Personally, I don’t want her to stop being Ladybug, I think she’s the best there is, and we work so well together. But this isn’t about what I want, Master Fu. Why did you ask me that question?”

“Because I agree with you, Adrien. Marinette was one of the best Ladybugs I have ever had the pleasure of choosing. She’s very smart and kind, you two work together like Yin and Yang. I don’t want her to step down.” Master Fu poured water into some tea cups with some tea already in infusers. “Besides, I’m sure Tikki wouldn’t want to say goodbye to Marinette just yet.”

“It’s true… But it was her decision, she was set on it, even if it made her sad. I know she doesn’t want to stop being Ladybug, but she thinks it’s the best choice. I’m not going to disrespect that with what I want.” Adrien took the teacup from Wang and thanked him for the tea. Wang just gave him a big smile and nodded.

“That is the right answer, Adrien.”

“What?” Adrien had the cup up to his lips but paused.

“I was thinking about who to choose to be the next Ladybug, but, you have proven that you are fully capable of doing that yourself. Putting your feelings aside for what’s best. You have grown much.”

“Wait, so are you saying you want me to choose the next Ladybug? But I’d know her identity, wouldn’t that violate the rule you have given us?” Wang chuckled and sat across from Adrien.

“I suppose it would, but Marinette knows the identities of Rena Rouge and Carapace. And we all know Queen Bee’s identity. So let’s make an exception. I get the feeling it’s going to work out better than we think it is.” Adrien pulled out the box in his pocket and stared at it.

“That’s such a huge responsibility… I’m not sure–”

“Like I said, Adrien, you have proven yourself worthy of making that decision. It’s going to turn out better than we think it is. I trust you.” Adrien snapped his eyes up too look at his master, who was smiling at him. “You are one of the best Chat Noirs I have had the pleasure of choosing as well. You do tend to be a bit pushy with Ladybug, but I’m glad you’re calming that down right now. Now go, Marinette is waiting for you.” Adrien nodded and placed the box inside his backpack, keeping it safe. He got up to leave when Master Fu stopped him. “Before you go, I just want to let you and Marinette know that I’m proud of the both of you. Now go!” Adrien’s eyes stung with tears and thanked. Wang shut the door after Adrien and locked up tight. It’s going to be our hardest fight yet, but I believe in the both of them. Adrien hurried to the rooftop feeling ecstatic. “Did you hear that, Plagg? He said he was proud of Marinette and I. I have not heard anyone tell me that since… Since mother was still around. It…” Adrien burst onto the roof and stared up at the beautiful full moon, shedding a few tears. “It feels really nice. Plagg, claws out!” His form changed, but the hoodie, beanie and glasses remained. Weird, but okay. He sprung up from where he stood, and went on his way back to Marinette’s.

* * *

Marinette paced along her balcony a bit too fast, glancing out into the night, hoping for Chat Noir to arrive fast. “Oh kitty, I hope nothing happens to you and you get back safely.” The chill got slightly worse and Marinette headed downstairs so she could grab a blanket, leaving her phone resting on her lounge chair. It suddenly lit up with Luka’s name taking up the screen, quietly ringing for a few seconds, but then it stopped. Marinette walked back up and noticed it ringing a second time. Picking up the phone, and stared at the screen with a confused look on her face.

“Luka?,” She finally answered, feeling a slight blush brush across her face. “H-hey what’s up?”

“Marinette! Oh thank god you’re alright, I tried to call you a bit earlier, but you didn’t answer. It got me worried there.”

“Oh I’m fine, I was just away from my phone for a bit.” Marinette sat at the edge of the chair, wrapping the thin blanket around her shoulders. She heard a sigh of relief on the other side, causing her heart to flutter a bit. She shook her head to get rid of the feeling. It would be nice if it was Adrien on the other side… Again she shook her head and focused on Luka talking.

“I wasn’t paying attention to the mainstream media, but when Juleka got home from Rose’s, she immediately let me know what was going on. I knew I had to call you as soon as possible. How have you been all day?”

“I’ve.. had my fluctuations of moods all day. I mean, my civilian identity was exposed, so there’s only so much I can do for damage control, which isn’t much really…”

“How about saying it was a hoax?”

“That’s a kind of half and half thing really. Already a lot of people believe it, and I’m sure Hawkmoth wouldn’t believe that anyway, he’s too smart.”

“Obviously not as smart as you. But still, it’s worth a shot.” Hearing this, maybe she should have gone with saying it’s a hoax, and hopefully a lot could be resolved. But she gave up her miraculous already. She buried her head in her hands.

“I can’t do that because I already decided to step down as Ladybug and gave back my miraculous…”

“Oh… Gave back your miraculous? To who? Maybe they can give it back?”

Marinette scrambled to respond, “Ah, er, well, I-I can’t tell you that, and the person probably already gave it to someone else, someone more… worthy. Someone who won’t mess up as bad as I did.” Marinette stood up and walked to the railing of her balcony, sadly looking out to the rooftops.

“Don’t say that Marinette. Of course you’re worthy. How long were you Ladybug?”

“About the good part of a year, possibly longer.”

“That’s quite a while of hiding your identity. That’s pretty good, I’m sure some people can’t do that for two days.” Marinette giggled. She remembered how Chat wanted to reveal his identity to her soon after they became heroes, and Chloe, the exact moment she transformed.

“I’ll say Chat Noir was almost someone. Only to me though, so it wasn’t as drastic.”

“That Chat Noir… Have… You two spoken yet?” He sounded a bit resentful. It sounded almost like jealousy.

“Y-yes, as a matter of fact, I asked him to return the miraculous for me. He was kicked out from his civilian home so he’s crashing (with my parent’s permission) at my place until he can go back. In the meantime, he’ll be protecting my family and I until a new Ladybug arrives.”

“Why was he kicked out?” He didn’t hide the accusatory tone dripping from his words.

“He didn’t tell me. Regardless, he’s my partner and I trust him completely. I just hope everything gets resolved for him. I wouldn’t want whatever to bring him down.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, making Marinette a bit nervous. “Luka?”

“I-I’m sorry. Something just came up, are you sure you’re going to be fine for tonight?”

“I swear I’m okay at the moment, you don’t need to worry about a thing. Thank you for calling to make sure I’m okay,” Marinette gently smiled. She appreciates his concern but for tonight, she knows she’ll be fine, despite the chill she’s been getting.

“Okay, then have a good night, Marinette.”

“Good night Luka!” Marinette hung up her phone and stared out, again looking for Chat Noir. She felt a bit crestfallen. Luka called her and made sure she was okay, but the whole time, she felt like she wished it was someone else talking to her, someone like Adrien, but he hasn’t messaged her all day. Maybe his dad took away his phone….

* * *

“He wants me to choose the next Ladybug.” Chat took a moment to think on the roof nearby Marinette’s balcony. He saw her sitting on her lounge chair, and it seemed like she was talking on the phone, but she didn’t notice him watching. “I really wish I can choose her as my Ladybug. No one can ever replace her. But she’s insisting on not being Ladybug… Why does master Fu have to make this so hard on me? Why does he want me to pick? I know he said because I have learned to put my feelings aside for the greater good. But what if choosing Marinette is for the greater good? UGH this is so hard and confusing!” Chat slid a little ways down the roof onto the ledge. He kept watching as Marinette leaned on the balcony, still talking on the phone. Her raven black hair faintly glowing in the moonlight, her skin radiant as ever. She was still in her cute pink dress, with a thin blanket draped over her shoulders. He never really realized how cute Marinette was. He was so busy pining after Ladybug that he never really paid really close attention to Marinette. Technically they’re the same person, but still. “I’m still so confused. Is she just a friend or am I seeing her in a different light?” Chat Noir shook his head, frustrated at himself and finally decided to arrive at Marinette’s balcony.

“–swear I’m okay at the moment, you don’t need to worry about a thing. Thank you for calling to make sure I’m okay,” Marinette was too ingrained in her conversation to notice Chat landing on her balcony with a loud thud. “Good night Luka!” The name Luka pierced Chat Noir though his heart, suddenly spreading jealousy all over his body. Chat decided to ignore the sudden surge of emotion and cleared his throat gently, startling her a bit.

“Was that your boyfriend, my lady?” Chat tried to tease, but his voice caught a bit at “boyfriend.” He hid his face in the shadows to hide the pain on his face. Marinette shook her head and giggled a bit.

“Chat! Nice outfit, it is a bit chilly out, weirdly. Don’t worry kitty. He’s just a friend.”

Chat was inclined to retort with “Yeah sure,” but he realized that he constantly said that about Marinette whenever Plagg teased him about her. His own “medicine” was used against him and now the last two brain cells in his head are starting to work overtime to figure out something.

The reason why he was very confused; he never not noticed her, he constantly noticed her; he wasn’t seeing her in a different light, he was just finally realizing what Plagg had been trying to tell him all the time. Adrien Agreste was in denial about his feelings for Marinette. He was just so infatuated with Ladybug that he let it overshadow Marinette. “Go for a different target,” He remembered Kagami telling him. Welp, he’s stupid. He always assumed that she was talking about herself, well maybe she was, but it doesn’t change the fact that if he went after Marinette, he’d still date the girl he loves.

“Besides, I like someone else…” Marinette sadly looked up at the moon and sighed, leaving Chat perplexed. He was about to ask who, but seeing her looking so sad made him change his mind and he decided that he’ll get his answer when she’s ready.

“Let’s get you inside. It’s getting chillier,” Chat opened the hatch to her bedroom and gestured for her to enter, “my lady.” Marinette giggled and gave him a slight playful curtsy, walking down to her bedroom, followed closely by Chat Noir. “May I use your shower?” Chat tried to subtly sniff his armpits, he did feel a bit dirty today.  Marinette gave him a sheepish smile.

“I was going to shower before I headed to bed,” Marinette scratched the back of her head. “I feel like a shower would reinvigorate me after everything going on today.”

“Oh you go first then, Princess. I’m sure you need it more than I do. I can go afterwards.”

“Thank you kitty. I’ll help you settle into the spare bedroom. It’s actually connected to the bathroom. So you can sneak in after I finish,” Marinette grabbed Chat’s hand, which caused some fluttering of the butterflies in his stomach. She guided him to the bedroom which was a bit small, but cozy. A queen size bed rested in the corner nearest the window, with lovely light blue sheets and a white with silver fleur de lis patterned duvet covering the mattress. The pillows, same pattern as the duvet, looked large, soft and fluffy, Adrien knew he was going to have the best sleep ever. An oak nightstand stood next to the bed with a simple little lamp and an alarm. An oak dresser stood nearby the door and across from the bed was the door into the bathroom. Chat trotted to the bed and sat down, firm but not too firm, just like he likes it. “I hope it’s okay. It’s for the very occasional guests we get.” Chat Noir flashed her a dazzling smile and nodded.

“I think it’s perfect,” Chat laid down and tested out the pillows. They feel like fluffy clouds, so heavenly. “I’ll be crashing hard after my shower.”

“Make sure your hair is completely dry before you do. You’ll get sick,” Marinette warned, pouting her face and wiggling her finger. Chat laughed and Marinette joined.

“Okay mom, whatever you say mom,” Chat crossed his arms and dramatically scoffed. More giggling ensued.

“I’m going to go shower now so that you can too. I’ll see you in a bit kitty.”

“Take your time, my purrincess.” Chat shot her a wink as she closed the door. As soon as he was sure she was gone, he transformed back to himself, pulling out two slices of Camembert for Plagg to devour gleefully.

“My gosh kid, it’s exhausting to be Chat Noir all day. I’m pooped. I’m going to have the best cat nap since ever,” Plagg began to wiggle himself onto one of the pillows with one of his slices, apparently in complete bliss. Adrien rolled his eyes and smiled. Typical Plagg. Shrugging off his black hoodie and finally pulling off the beanie and glasses (which he looked amazing in), Adrien started getting ready for his shower. Pulling out pajamas, and his toiletries, he set them on the nightstand, having them ready for when Marinette gets out of the shower. He hears the shower turn on and began to wait, wondering what he should do in the meantime. “I should have brought my phone or a book or something, Now I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Why did you leave your phone behind? I noticed that you did it on purpose,” Plagg was still lounging on the pillow, not a crumb of cheese on sight. He might be a slob, but he wouldn’t dare waste an ounce of Camembert.

“My dad could probably trace it and I just really want to get away from him, at least for  few days,” Adrien lay down on the bed and rested his head on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

“How long do you actually plan on staying away? He will raise an alarm, and search parties will happen.”

“I’ll just go to him as Chat Noir and tell him that I’ve got it under control. I obviously know that I’m okay, because I’m Chat Noir and I know Adrien is okay because I’m Adrien.”

“Do you really think he’ll be convinced that you’ve got it under control as Chat Noir?” Adrien shot him a glare but Plagg shrugged and just snuggled back onto the pillow. “You know your dad, he’s a piece of work.” Adrien sighed and closed his eyes, trying to think on what he should do if his dad raises an alarm. Maybe transform back as Adrien and come out of nowhere and let him know he’s okay, he just wants to be away for a while? Let him know as Chat Noir that Adrien doesn’t want to see him? Or just go back? NAH.

“I don’t know Plagg. I just wish he wasn’t so controlling. He doesn’t understand how much Marinette means to me. Protect me? He’s just holding me back…”

“Holding you back from what exactly? You have it all to be honest. A great career as a model, a rich dad, popularity,” Plagg turned to face Adrien, who had his eyebrows furrowed and a frown.

“I don’t care about that. I just want friends I can spend more time with, I want to do my own things, and for my dad to not be so busy that I end up alone during dinner… Having dinner like a family. Like today with Marinette’s parents. It felt very nice…” Adrien turned and faced the wall, wanting to hide the tears that spilled out of nowhere. “I think I just want companionship in general. It’s… it’s something Ladybug gave me, even if it was unexpected. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere, right there, by her side, fighting, flirting, being accepted… Just having that taken away from me hurts…”

“Well why not just have a relationship with Marinette. She was technically Ladybug, just date her and all your problems would be solved.” Especially that convoluted love square thing that Sugar Cube and I have been watching for a long time. We both agree, it’s ridiculous.

“I can’t. I can’t because I would put her in danger. She may not be Ladybug anymore, but if Hawkmoth knew, he could use it against me…” He faced the ceiling again.

“It’s not like you completely lost all your friends. Marinette is still here. Heck, You’re in her house for cheese’s sake. Then there’s Your guy friend and his girlfriend… uhhh”

“Nino and Alya.”

“Yeah those two and blegh, I guess Chloe.” Adrien chuckled. He understood Plagg’s distaste, but he’s got her all wrong.

“Chloe isn’t that bad. She just… needs help getting along with others. She’s also been lonely, so I can see why she acts up… I just don’t want to lose Marinette. She’s been so amazing towards me. Even if she’d get nervous. I don’t know why though…” Adrien didn’t notice Plagg facepalm loudly beside him. There was a gentle knock on the door connecting the bedroom and bathroom, and Marinette’s voice chimed from the other side, “It’s your turn now, kitty. Take all the time you need!”

Bowing, although she wasn’t there to see, Adrien purred “Thank you my Purrincess. I’ll be going in soon.” He heard a giggle and footsteps walking away. “At least I’ve made her laugh a bit few times.” He then entered the bathroom and prepared for a nice, steamy shower.

* * *

Marinette sat on the chair at her vanity, still wearing her bathrobe, pulling the towel from her head, letting her damp hair fall to her shoulders. She grabbed her comb and began to detanlge her hair.

“You really did fool them, no one would have suspected a thing. Though, now that I think about it… You two do look a lot alike. I’m surprised no one caught that– Well… one person did though.”

The thought bounced around in her head in the shower and it continued to do so, aggravating Marinette with every passing. “I have to tell someone about what she did. I have to but will anyone believe me? I would have been fine if she didn’t catch me. Nothing would have changed. Like it usually does. Going back to normal… I am back to being normal…” Marinette stared at her reflection. “Just a normal girl, with a normal life. Everyone knows about me… It’s not a secret anymore. I have to go back to that. I… I don’t want to go back to that… I don’t want to go back to being a nobody. Someone who’s not worthy… I just don’t… I want to keep helping people, I want to… I want to keep fighting alongside Chat Noir… And be with Tikki. I miss her…” The pillow looked empty without Tikki lying down, reading a book or magazine. Her advice whenever Marinette was stuck on something. All of the uplifting words uttered when doubt and self consciousness arose. Tikki was such a positive influence on her. “I hope the next Ladybug appreciates her as much I do.” Marinette finished combing her hair and let it be so it could air dry. She began looking through her drawers for a nice clean pair of pajamas when there was a gentle knock on the hatch on the floor. “Yeah?” Chat’s voice carried through but she couldn’t understand what he said, so she knelt down, lifted the hatch a bit, revealing a Chat Noir looking up with his hair still wet from the shower. “What’s up?” She and Chat made eye contact which seemed to last a moment then his eyes accidentally wandered downwards and he looked away quickly, flustered and abruptly red. He barely noticed she was still in her bathrobe, and that her bathrobe was slightly askew, though not revealing anything. Chat realized at that moment that he was a bit innocent.

“I-I was wondering if you were doing okay and wanted to talk, b-but y-you’re still dressing up, I-I can wait until you’re ready,” He leapt quietly to the ground and sat at the bottom of the stairs, facing away from her and fiddling with his fingers. Confused by what just happened, Marinette resumed to getting dressed. When she finished, she fished Chat from his perch at the bottom of the stairs and they headed up to her balcony again to let the outside air dry out their hair.

“I wanted to ask you if you have any idea of who could possibly be the one to record you and spread the video. I’d like to have a nice little chat to chat with them. I have my theories, but I want to hear your input first,” the full moon shone upon them brightly as Chat stared intently at Marinette, who wore a stony face as soon as he said “who”.

“Funny you ask that seeing as how I was thinking about the person who held me captive in the bathroom at school admitted it to me,” she said through gritted teeth, eyes growing dark. Chat almost gasped out the name of who, but he knew as Adrien who it was, Chat didn’t.

“Admitted?” Chat furrowed his eyebrows, wanting to confirm this. He remembers Lila walking out of the bathroom, at first concerned but the brief look of malice was unforgettable. He just knew she was up to something, but not to this extent.

“Lila Rossi. She cornered me in the bathroom and told me ‘Who would have known that Marinette Dupain-Cheng was Ladybug. You really did fool them, no one would have suspected a thing. Though, now that I think about it… You two do look a lot alike. I’m surprised no one caught that– Well… one person did though.’ Then she waved her phone as if saying it was her. Then she did a total 180 when Alya stepped in to comfort me. She’s malicious and devious. I didn’t want to dislike her but…”

“You don’t like liars,” his attention was directed dark street underneath, as if he was hoping that it would show him Lila’s reasoning why she would do that.

“She also threatened me a few months ago. When she turned into Chameleon. Do you remember that? I got fed up with her lies so I hid in the bathroom to chill out. She then followed me to continue lying saying that she doesn’t know why I don’t like her, saying that I’m jealous because I wasn’t able to sit next to– sigh..– saying that we shouldn’t fight over a boy and that she may be able to help me get close to him. That’s when I called her out on her lies. She then told me that she only says what people want to hear–”

“That’s technically lying.”

“That’s what I said. Then she threatened to turn all of my friends, including my crush against me if I didn’t side with her.” Chat stared at Marinette with wide eyes, his eyes furrowing, and he frowned deeply. He slammed his hand on the railing.

“That little– Have you told anyone?” Chat doesn’t remember Nino or Alya telling him about this.

“For some reason, everyone seems to believe her over me. Even if I tried to tell Alya and Nino, they wouldn’t believe me. They… They believe a strange girl over their friend–” Marinette’s shoulders fell and she glanced away. She clasped her hands together on the railing and began to fidget. “What did I do to make everyone mistrust me?” Adrien has not felt so betrayed in his life. His own best friend and Alya, Marinette’s best friend, not trusting Marinette, the girl who does so much for them– for everyone– only to be tossed aside like fodder?

“I trust you, Marinette,” Chat placed his hand on Marinette’s to calm her down. “I know my bugaboo wouldn’t lie about something like this. You have always been a trustworthy partner, and a caring friend. I don’t know what’s wrong with your friends, but I’m not mad at them. I’m just highly disappointed in them.” He’ll have to have a word with the both of them at some point over this, when this all blows over. He shouldn’t be saying anything though… He, as Adrien, has told Marinette to not do anything about Lila’s lies, thinking that hopefully her lies would come crashing on her. It’s only come to this.

“Thank you kitty, that– that really means a lot to me,” Marinette sniffled, moving her gaze up to the moon, shedding one little tear. Chat was moved by how stunning she looked under the moonlight. The blueness of her eyes were somehow enhanced, and her skin was radiant and smooth, her hair has dried now and it was slightly fluffy and it framed her face beautifully. She caught him staring at her, but he refused to move his eyes from hers. His handsome green eyes shone under the moonlight, and his golden hair almost glimmered. His skin looked smooth from what she could see, and the faint smile she gave him was dazzling, Marinette was slightly mesmerized. She felt little butterflies flutter in her stomach and a very faint blush brushed across her face as they unknowingly inched towards each other. Their lips were mere inches away when they both realized what was going on and quickly pulled away, stammering.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“I-I’m the one who got close–”

They both faced away blushing, fidgeting and tapping their feet in ecstatic embarrassment.

“I-I’m sorry, I know you like someone and I shouldn’t have gotten close like that, you just look stunning under the moonlight and…” Chat cleared his throat and sheepishly glanced at Marinette, who gave him a bashful smile.

“Oh Chat. It’s not like he likes me anyway. So many other girls are after him, and well, as Chloe has said, I’m not worthy of him. Kagami is probably more worthy–”

“Wait, wait, Chloe said that?”

“Y-yeah.” Chat howled with laughter, doubling over holding his stomach.

“She’s really one to talk– Wait, Kagami…?”

“Yeah, she and Adrien seem to be spending a lot of time together, and it just seems like it’s a matter of time before they get together– Kitty, a-are you okay?” Chat stood stock still after hearing his name. The dots were finally connecting and Chat could only think about how Marinette said his name.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m,” Chat coughed “I’m processing this information. You like Adrien Agreste?” Marinette blushed at his name and looked away, nodding. “He’s a good guy, almost as handsome as me, possibly even more handsome.” Marinette giggled. His heart fluttered happily. He was desperately holding back his joy. His feet were threatening to jump and his heart was about to burst. She likes Adrien Agreste, Chat is Adrien Agreste.

“He’s dreamy, and kind, and has many talents, it’s no wonder many girls like him. Chloe, Kagami, Lila–”

“I don’t think he’d like Lila. Trust me, she really isn’t anyone to fawn over, especially if you’re in the picture,” Chat winked at her, causing her to gently hit his arm, blushing. He giggled gently and gave her a tight hug. “Everything will work out in the end. I promise.” He held her at arm’s length and held out his pinky, just like he did before he left earlier as Adrien. She gasped softly and she held his pinky with hers. She recognized the gesture, but didn’t connect the dots quite yet. “Let’s go to bed, we have tomorrow to face and we need to be well rested.” Marinette nodded and they both headed down into her room, Marinette securely locking the hatch and Chat Noir adding a pole for extra security. “Oh, before I go, please tell Alya and Nino about what Lila did. Please.They need to know.” Marinette stared with wide eye but she nodded.

“I’ll tell them tomorrow morning.” They bid each other good night and Chat quickly rushed to his bedroom to quickly transform back. He began to do a little excited dance as Plagg watched him.

“She likes me, Plagg!”

“What? Really? You?”

“Yes! Me as Adrien! Can you believe that?! Marinette likes me. Oh my god, and we almost kissed before that.” Adrien flopped down on the floor and began to roll around, covering his blushing face.

“Kid, you’re embarrassing me.”

“Sorry Plagg, I can’t help it! It’s just, who knew it would be so perfect like that?” He lay flat on his back on the floor and stared,smiling gleefully. “It’s almost like a dream.”

“Yeah, well, sorry to burst your bubble, but remember what you said earlier about you two dating?” Plagg, hovered over his face, and Adrien frowned.

“Yeah, thanks for spoiling that. Couldn’t you let me have one good thing after all of the crap that happened today?”

“Nope! Let’s go to sleep, I am exhausted.” Plagg flew towards  the bed and snuggled onto the pillow. Adrien rolled his eyes and he got up and switched off the lights, flopping onto the bed and he let sweet sweet sleep take over.

But sweet sweet sleep did not take over. The sudden thought of finding a new Ladybug suddenly took over his thoughts. He wondered who would be a good candidate for such an important position. Who does he know would make an exceptional Ladybug?

Chloe? No, she's not patient at all and can be very selfish at times. Besides, she's Queen Bee, she does not need any more powers.

Alya? Maybe. But she isn't as trustworthy as she likes to think she is. For goodness' sake, she doesn't believe her own best friend about Lila lying. How could he trust her to have his back in a battle?

Nathalie? She's his dad's assistant, he'd rather not.

That left Kagami.

Out of all of the girls he knows well, Kagami was the one who seems to be the more qualified candidate. She's sharp and her reflexes were precise. She doesn't let her emotions cloud her judgement and she can read movements, especially in fencing. She can be brash, but it's only a front, as she has shown a soft side to him as Adrien. How would she act towards him as Chat Noir? Maybe he can find out in some way before deciding.

Adrien stared at the ceiling, mulling over his options, blinking slowly as his tired eyes stung. Plagg was silently snoring beside his head and the rhythm of his breathing was lulling Adrien into sleep.

Adrien thought of Marinette as sweet sweet sleep finally took over.

I acknowledge that there is a lot of Marichat in this

Not sorry!

I am sorry if it a bit slow though.

Ack! I’m sorry it took a while because work (and block) but I finished the chapter!

YAY

Enjoy!

[drumpfwatch]

How to Convert Someone into a Conspiracy Theorist

Today I decided I’d take a break from specific ragging on Trump to talk about the cult of personality surrounding him - or, more specifically, cults in general.

Now let me be positively clear from the get go - I am aware that anti-science rhetoric and cult thinking provides both sides of the political spectrum. Anti-vaxxers tend to be leftists, for instance, and conspiranoia about the involvement of the government and/or large corporations in any given tragedy is pervasive. I used to be 9/11 Truther, and I have always been a liberal. So this isn’t targeting any particular political belief. This article - and myself, frankly - are interested in how smart people get pulled in by stupid things.

So I thought for a while about which one conspiracy to use as an example, and after much wringing of hands and internal arguing I decided I’m just going to pick “The Moon Landing was a Hoax” people as my example. Because that one is fairly apolitical and the only people who are going to get mad at me for that one are moon hoaxers.

Yeah, sorry guys. You’re wrong, and everyone who isn’t you is laughing at how stupid you are. We’ll get to why sooner or later, but for now let’s talk about how you got there.

But see, that’s the thing. You’re not stupid. Not statistically speaking, anyway. I’m sure there are legit crazy and stupid people in your community - there are in every community - but statistically, you’re an average everyday ordinary human with hopes, dreams, a job, and some common sense. But here you are, believing stupid things. How did you end up there?

It all starts with what I like to call “logic bait.” See, the thing about reality is that it’s often more complicated then common sense would lead you to believe. An indoctrinator will often dangle one of these logic baits in front of you, telling you “isn’t it suspicious that this is what it’s like?”, without mentioning that if it were that simple people at, say, NASA would have to be morons.

A perfect example of this is lunar regolith. One of the first things a moan hoaxer will tell you is “Isn’t it strange that the foot prints make these perfect shapes on the moon? Those shapes only happen in wet sand, and there’s no moisture on the moon so the moon dust can’t be wet! Those famous boot print pictures are a hoax!” At first that almost sounds convincing. Ignoring the fact that special effect artists and space scientists would have to be idiots to overlook something like that if they were trying to hoax people, why do those boot prints appear so pristine?

Well, the reason is that moon dust ain’t like earth sand. Moon dust - called regolith - doesn’t have any moisture to make it stick together, but there’s another thing the moon doesn’t have, and that’s erosion. Without an atmosphere, there’s no wind, and without wind, the hardened and sharp pieces of rock that end up on the surface from meteor impacts and moon quakes never get eroded down into fine points. What that means is instead of being a fine round rock, regolith is basically made of tiny sharpened spikes. This was actually a huge problem for the Apollo astronauts, the regolith kept getting in their space suit joints and restricting their movement and was almost impossible to get out. But this also means that unlike sand, which has little friction and will just roll around because it’s more or less circular, regolith has sharp edges and thus, a high friction. When you step foot on the moon, you’re basically basically shoving all these pieces together and hold that way because there’s no wind to blow them away, and their edges get caught against one another.

That’s the bait. And if you buy it, you get hooked. What follows is what I call “the reel”. You ever wonder why conspiracy theorists love to produce and distribute documentaries? They then drop a bunch of facts at you, one after the other, without explanation, and keep on doing it without interruption.

See the thing about “logic bait” is that it can be any number of logical sounding arguments. The moon is too hot in the day, and too cold in the night for humans to reasonably survive (the astronauts always landed on parts of the moon that were in dawn/twilight hours). There are belts of radiation that if a human were to pass through, would outright kill them (these belts are mobile and don’t encompass the entire Earth, and thus can be easily accounted for). The shadows shown in the pictures don’t make any sense (regolith is also highly reflective and causes reverse lighting - things that should be in shadows aren’t). There are no stars in the background of the pictures of the moon, and there’s no atmosphere so there should always be (this has to do with exposure levels - if you exposed it enough so you could see the stars, you’d not be able to see the things going on on the moon at all.) It doesn’t matter, any one of these could be used to hook you into their talk, but the rest are used as further evidence. Throw one on top of the other, and suddenly the case becomes convincing. Throw those one after the other without anyone to rebut it, and people can be convinced. From there, you end up on the ship with everyone else. And it’s there where the real indoctrination begins.

There could be another separate post entirely about the cult techniques used to draw people into these conclaves of people, but that’s a different topic. I’m interested in the fishing for conspiracy theorists. Needless to say, however, the techniques are similar. Once you’re on the ship, you’re encouraged only to associate with people who believe the moon landings never happened, to ingratiate your denial into your identity, and all those other wonderful, funderful things that cults do. But there’s another thing that happens unique to conspiracies.

If everyone basally accepts that the moon landing never happened, then you don’t even need to think about the obvious stuff. There’s a reason the first argument for the moon landing hoax is never the one about the “flag that still waves without their being wind”, it’s obvious to anyone with even a modicum of skepticism that it’s only moving because someone just touched it, and that it’s just taking a little longer to slow down because there’s no friction, but by the time someone’s on the ship they’re not thinking like that. To them, the moon landing obviously never happened, and any evidence to suggest it didn’t is just accepted at face value by most people. It’s another log on a burning fire.

But it doesn’t stop there. Often, after conspiracy theorists finish giving their pitch, they’ll pretend to ask themselves the question “if this happened, why doesn’t everyone know about it?” and that leads to the actual conspiracy. “They” are covering it up! “They” don’t want you to know about it! Why? Who the fuck cares, I’ve only ever heard that question answered once with an answer that wasn’t “because they think we’re dumb sheeple who need to be controlled” or whatever, and with an answer so absurd that a minute of thinking about it would reveal it’s folly.

This is a protective armor of sorts for the mind. If a cultist sees a person writing, say, a blog post online against Moon Hoaxers, they’re conditioned to believe that I’ve been deceived by this conspiracy. And when they see an actual scientist with actual credentials who actually knows what they’re talking about talk about it, they’re in on it! They can’t be trusted, they’re evil! Every one of them has a reason to lie to you, and apparently none of them have even the slightest modicum of morals to step forward and call their comrades out. Either way, they can’t be listened to.

Next, they believe that each and every piece of evidence invalidates the Moon Landings, so you have to refute every. Single. One of them. This is standard fare for dogmatic beliefs. You try and jump through a hoop, they pull it back. You manage to make it through anyway, they set up another one, and they keep doing this until you get tired - or they run out of hoops. But they probably won’t, because each and every one of those little reel lines and baits from earlier is a hoop, along with every single other stupid thing they thought of, and every aspect of it.

You throw that into the indoctrinated mindset, and the human desire to never admit they’re wrong and what you end up with is a conspiracy theorist, and some of them are just in too deep. Some do this as a job, it’s how they make their money and they will never give up. Others are just physically incapable of changing their mind, either because of strict indoctrination or stubbornness. Some can be helped. But that’s not what this article is about.

No, the conclusion here is that ignorance is not a crime. Your everyday average Jane Doe doesn’t need to know how regolith functions to go about their daily lives, they don’t need to know about the Van Allen radiation belts, just like how I don’t need to know the proper legal protocol and methodology for the operation of a crane. I am many things, but a construction worker is not one of them.

You’re not stupid if you’ve been tricked into believing a conspiracy, be it the Flat Earth, the Moon Hoax, Trutherism, or that Trump is a good president. But you are ignorant, and you need to be willing and able to look at the matter objectively. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing, especially when a very charismatic person is the one delivering the information, but you must choose.

[pastorvincentrhodes]

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed!

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed!

[sirfrogsworth]

There are two questions you can ask to help you rule out a conspiracy theory.

Does this conspiracy require a large group of people to be hyper-competent?

Does this conspiracy require a large group of people to keep a secret?

When you see actual conspiracies start to fall apart and become exposed, you can count on these two points of failure being the main cause. As the Trump/Russia story unfolds we are finding that everyone involved either really sucked at being sneaky OR they really sucked at keeping secrets. Usually both at the same time. But if you look at the moon landing "hoax", that would require hundreds of people to keep a secret and hundreds of people to be so good at their jobs, that they might actually be magical. For instance, to make the shadows in the video it would require creating laser lighting technology that is still not possible today. At that time, with that level of technology, it would have been harder to fake the moon landing than to actually go there.

[engmjr419]

Missionaries to the Moon! God made the stars, exoticism, and the Moon Hoax of 1835

An illustration of a paper boy announcing the news of life on the moon from The American Heritage (1969). The story of the “lunar discoveries” was highly profitable for the paperboys, enabling a comfortable life for a few weeks. Source.

If you found out that an astronomer had sighted a utopian society of orangutan-faced bat people on the moon, what would you first thought be? To attempt to communicate with them? Maybe shrug and go on about your day? Write it off as a hoax? For some people in the 19th century, the first thought was to convert the flying, utopian bat people to Christianity.

In the late summer of 1835, an article was published in the New York Sun by its editor Richard Adams Locke, that would forever change journalism, fiction, and hoaxes in the American Sphere; it was also failed satire. In a series of articles, supposedly republished from a scientific journal and authored by John Herschel, the Sun revealed that life had been found on the moon, deer like unicorns, bison-esc creatures, and humanoids with thin membrane, bat-like wings. According to Locke it was supposed to be satire on the rapid scientific discoveries of the era alongside the newspaper culture, however it proved to be too believable. It gained massive popularity, spread by newsboys, talk, and other newspapers commenting on it, and people truly believed there was life on the moon that year.

Obviously, there wasn’t, but the event stands as a massive turning point in American culture. It’s one of the earliest mass instances of “yellow journalism” and newspaper-based hoax.

An illustration from the 1865 novel, From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verns. The book is about the Baltimore Gun Club building a cannon to literally shoot people to the moon. Source.

It may not be surprising to find out that stories about the moon are nothing new. People have been looking up to it at night forever, after all. In a particularly similar pair of stories in 1638, The Discovery of a World in the Moone by John Wilkins and The Man in the Moone by Francis Godwins was published inspired by Galileo’s observations of the moon from his telescope. In the latter, a Spanish nobleman finds a species of swan-like birds in the West Indies who he attaches a harness to and they fly to the moon where they find “a place with plants, animals, and most surprisingly, a utopian civilization of tall, Christian people” (“Peoples & Creatures of the Moon”).

In a similar vein, the hoax was surrounded by a culture enthused about the celestial, scientific discovery, and religion. Hayley’s comet was set to return to earth after being gone for around 77 years, prompting interest in the heavens. John Herschel, one of the most popular astronomy of the century, had published Treatise on Astronomy only a year prior to great cultural acclaim. Poe had published a similar work about a journey to the moon via a newspaper crafted balloon published only weeks prior, which he would state was plagiarized. Finally, the 19th century was an era of scientific advancement, prompting even the most low-class person to be intrigued. Simply put, it was the perfect landing pad for the Bat People to land on.  

The Moon Hoax of 1835 is surely an interesting event, that exposes certain aspects of the culture around it through its portrayal of the moon people, reactions to them, and the actions people attempted to take. As I stated before, some people’s reactions to the articles was to attempt missionary work upon the moon inhabitants. They wanted to send bibles, in odd hope to make them see the “error of their ways”. The audience placed the hierarchy of being, human morals, and imperialism onto the fictional people, reflecting how they treated Africa, China, and other “barbaric” countries.

This Moon Hoax is a form of exoticism through the (telescope) lens of fiction, as everything in the 19th century seems to be a discussion of race. It is the century that had the Civil War, blackface and minstrelsy, and de-legalization of slavery. Furthermore, around the year of 1835 figures like Joice Heth, Tom Rice, and other race-based attractions had become popular amongst the populace. In a culture that seems in an endless discussion of race, its impossible for the Moon Hoax to avoid it. To make a fictional “other” Locke had to look upon what society considered the “other”. Thus, The Moon Hoax of 1835 mirrors the way Americans viewed foreign countries through exoticism and imperialism. The moon was simply another foreign culture.

“The Whiteman’s Burden” from 1899 depicting Uncle Sam trudging after Britian’s figure of John Bull while stepping on stones labeled Barbarism, Oppression, Superstition, Ignorance, and Vice towards the top labeled “Civilization”. On his back, Uncle Sam carries racist caricatures of the non-white nations, most obviously Africans with Native American elements. Notice how they are drawn almost animalistically. Source.

               The concepts of Exoticism and Imperialism tend to go hand in hand, one fetishizing a culture while the other overtakes it. British had already been colonizing land since the 17th century, including land within Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Asia. While America would not truly begin a full on colonization project, the so called “Colonial project”, until the late 19th century, the nation would still hold onto the imperialist thoughts of the British who they had only parted ways with barely half a century ago.

Exoticism, a trend where a culture becomes enamored in the foreign to dehumanizing degrees, was everywhere in the 19th century. To the 19th century viewer, the exotic was fantastical, eye catching, and seemingly fictional. “New Yorkers could sample what seemed to be all the exotica the world had to offer: stuffed birds and reptiles, Indian utensils, Indian dresses, and sometimes the Indians themselves. Peale’s Museum, across from City Hall, was not featuring a “living ourang outang, or wild man of the woods” named Joe” (Goodman 8-9). “Exotic” humans were on the same level as foreign objects, compared to apes (like Joe) and mystical concepts, thus “The more compelling attractions, though, were always the human ones” (9). That summer, Joice Heth was already on display, an old black woman claiming to be George Washington’s Nursemaid from 1674, playing into peoples odd beliefs of the foreign, magical powers of the slaves. Heth stands as a singular figure in a long history of “black people on parade, from the auction block to the menagerie, from the first Africans captured and brought as slaves to James in 1619 to  Ota Benga, shown in the Bronx Zoo as a pygmy savage in 1906” (Young 34).

The cover of the sheet music for “Zip Coon: A favorite comic song” sung by Mr G.W. Dixon from 1834. Dixon was a popular American entertainer, most notable for performing in Blackface as he sang “Coal Black Rose” and, obviously, “Zip Coon”. The lyrics of Zip Coon include “O ole Zip Coon he is a larned skoler” mimicking the language of African Americans. Source.

To add onto this parade of black figures, the imitation of the black figure had already become popular in the early 19th century through Minstrelsy. Minstrelsy being a form of theatre where white individuals would dress up in Black Face and exaggerate the actions and language of Black Americans to imitate them for humor. Figures such as G.W. Dixon and Thomas D. Rice (often stated to be the Father of Minstrelsy) were already performing before 1835. Thomas D. Rice is notable for playing Jim Crow, and adapting and popularizing a traditional slave song called “Jump Jim Crow”

Along with this, the new scientific discoveries and culture of the early 19th century was being used in tandem with Religion and Racial discussion:

“with phrenology emerging as just one of the many pseudosciences that sought to enact, reinforce, and restrict racial difference. Science, religion, and conceptions of race all confirmed one another: the Bible, the stars, and even the shapes of heads were enlisted over and over again to prove established prejudices true. “Objective” investigators constantly rediscovered that Negroes, Indians, and other dark races (some of them European, mind you) were indeed still inferior” (Young).

The culture surrounding race in the 19th century repeatedly tried to prove that it was truly important. People sought proof that the races were hierarchical, the white was superior, and that the “dark” were inferior. The “dark races” were caricatured as mishappen, monstrous (as seen in Joice Heth posters), and inhuman like the cartoon below.

“Puzzled which to Choose!! or, The King of Tombuctoo offering one of his daughters in marriage to Capt-“ from 1818, depicting an African king offering one of his daughters up for marriage to a white sea captain. The “wild” Africans are presented in grotesque, almost inhuman figures from the daughters exaggerated head shapes, to the faces of the crowd behind them. Meanwhile, the white foreigners are pictured as calm (save that one man on the left) and elegant in both figure and composure. Source.

In this era of Exoticism, and even today, the faces and bodies of non-whites are shown animalistically, to degrade them as being less than human. Later into the 19th century, figures like “What is It?” would be presented “beside “the great living Black Sea Lion” or literally beneath an albino family of “White Negreos, or Moors” and “What Can They Be? These most strange and MYSTERIOUS ANIMALS! Two in number and of distinct species, found in a cave in the hither-to unexplored Wilds of Africa” (Young 38). The foreign land would be presented as exotic, otherworldly, a region in need of taming (usually Christian-orientated taming).

Missionaries were one of the earliest to explore Central and Southern Africa in the early 19th century, before true colonization began. While these were viewed as good efforts, motives including teaching Africans to read and further education and helping those harmed by the slave trade (that had been outlawed In Britain only a year before the Moon Hoax), the main goal of these missionaries was to convert (“19th Century White Missionaries”). Christianity was used as a weapon against the Africans, calling their culture sinful and pushing Christianity as “civilization”. A first line from a collection of missionary accounts reads, “We have in this volume brought together the names of several of our most distinguished female heroines, who have toiled and suffered on heathen soil” (Eddy). Harriet Newell, called the proto-matyr by the author, describes the foreign world in regards to the Christian church, “the wail of a dying world as it echoed over land and ocean and sounded along our shores; she had not realized the great fact that every blackened tribe constitutes a part of the universal brotherhood of man” (13).

Let us not forget, the winner writes the history of the war and the missionary writes the account of their work. Missionaries accounts were some of the only exposures the early 19th century individual got to other cultures. This is not to say missionaries did not have a genuine interest in helping the African people, it is only to say that Christianity was used as a tool of Imperialism during this century with the goal of an abstract concept of civilization.

A French print published alongside the 1935 story, claiming to show all the Moon’s creatures and plants. The lushness of it is reminiscent of the forests of Africa and South America. Source.

    The Moon Hoax thus illustrates the most foreign area possible to the 19th century reader, the moon. Exoticism is a part of why the hoax became so popular, the description of another world, with odd, strange creatures, people, and geography. The land is described, “It was an oval valley, surrounded except at narrow opening towards the south, by hills, red as the purest vermilion, and evidently crystallized” along with animals:

“Having all the external characteristics of the bison, but more diminutive than any species of the bos genus in our natural history. Its tail is like that of our bos grunniens; but in its semi-circular horns, the hump on its shoulders, and the depth of its dewlap, and the length of its shaggy hair, it closely resembled the species to which I first compared it” (Locke 10).

The account of the Moon Hoax uses this mixture of scientific language with the fantastical, an attempt to make the world seem real through evidence but at the same time “exotic”. The moon would appear to the populace as proof of the hospitality of the universe, a gift of god. However, that so called “missionary moon” is set against the history of exoticism, “not just in the black of outer space but in the perceived darkness of Africa, which, to most of the Sun’s readers, may have seemed just as distant, hostile, and in need of saving” (Young).

The Moon of Locke’s Moon Hoax is representative of peoples thoughts of the foreign countries, particularly Africa. Its notable that Locke says these observations of the moon from the Cape of Good Hope, a headland in South Africa. The appearance of the inhabitants, most particularly the Bat People, find themselves uncomfortably close to “a range of racial types” and “stereotypically black” (Young).

“Vespertilio homo” from Neapel, 1836. The Bat People are depicted as covered with dark hair, with thin anatomy, and bat wings. Source.

Vespertilio Homo are noted as having “short and glossy copper-colored hair”, a face like a “large orang outang”, and “The mouth, however, was very prominent, …and by lips far more human”. Their hair is described as “a darker color than that of the body, closely curled, but apparently not wooly” (Locke 15). They are instantly claimed as being rational beings, simply for being human-esc in form in context to the “Great Chain of Being” (a Christian belief that the human form is the top of a hierarchical pyramid). The activities of these beings are described as “their amusements would but ill comport with our terrestrial notions of decorum (social etiquette)” , simply put, the narrator shames them for less “civilized” entertainment implied to be of the sexual variety (16).

Upon seeing a different tribe of these creatures, the narrator describes them as “larger stature than the former specimens, less dark in color, and in every respect an improved variety of the race” calling back to the pseudoscientific beliefs of the “Dark” races being inferior (21). Locke creates this lighter skinned version of the bat people, puts them at a higher civilization structure than the darker one, and then has the narrator state them to be the improved variety.  The narrator praises the lighter skinned variety of bat people for this odd activity of sharing fruit and indulging in a triangle-based religion, while the darker variety get shamed for indulging in each other.

The Bat People of the Moon are placed under this Christian tinted, anthropocentric lens (Along side the telescope lens) that value their actions based on human morality and religion. Who says that the Bat People are the most civilized species, when the biped beavers appear to have huts? They are considered such simply because they resemble the human form, thus they are forced under this colonial lens, the same one the African people and other “barbaric” nations are put under. The darker skinned variety are instantly labeled “heretics” just as the Africans were by missionaries, while the lighter variety are praised for indulging in what appears to be religion. They are placed under the imperial lens, that states what a culture should and shouldn’t do in line with the Christian ideal.

So, to finally talk on the matter that people wanted to send Bibles to the Moon, it seems like a logical conclusion to the 19th century Missionary-orientated Christian. They are given a fictional, foreign world, bereft of the “Holy Ghost”, that echoes the cultures view of Africa, Asia, and other foreign areas If you cannot send missionaries to the moon, bibles are the next best thing.

The New Negro by Allan R. Freelon. A form of an African American wanders in a strange world, notice the hanged bodies in the background in front of three crosses alongside a face of African art. Source.

      The Moon Hoax of 1935 stands as an important cultural flagstone in American Culture. It is stated to be the birth of the modern concept of fake journalism and alerting readers to begin reading askance. It stands as an important point of spiritual and celestial interest. It also an excellent way to see how fiction interacts with culture, and how that culture represents itself inside how fiction depicts. The Bat People are echoes of the African, the Asian, the Indian, and how the American and English saw these people. They are placed under a lens of anthropocentric values, then immediately criticized for not meeting those values. These fictional mashups of bat and man are degraded, praised, criticized, and ranked from seemingly insignificant actions that are characteristic of animals. The fact people wanted to convert them is no surprise, it seemed to be the first action the 19th century person did upon meeting a foreign country. Let us not forget the Crusades, after all.

This hoax stands to me as the opposite of Afrofuturism (A sci-fi genre that explores the diaspora of African people with modern society). It is a strange exploration of race, of a new world, of a new century where the Moon is inhabited by Bat People and humans want to convert them to Christianity. As people argue if fiction affects reality or not, it is clear that reality affects fiction. If the Moon Hoax of 1935 is not also evidence for the reverse, then what is?

Works Cited

Eddy, Daniel Clarke. “Daughters of the Cross: or, Woman’s Mission”. Dayton and Wentworth, 1855. Pg. 13.

Goodman, Matthew. “The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York”. Perseus Books Group, 2008. Pgs. 8-9.

Locke, Richard Adams. “Great Astronomical Discoveries Lately Made By Sir John Herschel”. The Sun, August 25th, 1835. Pgs. 10, 15-16, 21.

Young, Kevin. “Moon Shot: Race, a Hoax, and the Birth of Fake News”. The New Yorker, October 21, 2017. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/moon-shot-race-a-hoax-and-the-birth-of-fake-news

Young, Kevin. “Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News”. Graywolf Press, 2017. Pgs. 34-38.

“19th Century White Missionaries”. BBC World Service. https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/8chapter4.shtml

“Peoples & Creatures of the Moon”. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/collections/finding-our-place-in-the-cosmos-with-carl-sagan/articles-and-essays/life-on-other-worlds/peoples-and-creatures-of-the-moon

[superhalfrussian]

4/1/19 - There are very few books available on the subject. I am not aware of a more researched one than One Small Step? The Great Moon Hoax and the Race to Dominate Earth From Space by German researcher Gerhard Wisnewski, originally published in 2005, from which I will quote repeatedly. I am not going to discuss all the evidence presented in these sources. I can only recommend them and a few others on the way. I will simply sort what I see as the most convincing arguments, add a few recent developments, give my best conclusion, place the issue in the broader historical perspective, and draw some lessons from it all about the Matrix we have been living in. First of all, we need to be clear about the aim of such an inquiry. We should not expect any conclusive proof that Neil Armstrong, or any other Apollo moon-walker, didn’t walk on the moon. That cannot be proven, absent some indisputable evidence that he was somewhere else (orbiting around the earth, for example) at the precise time he claimed to have spent on the moon. In most cases, you cannot prove that something didn’t happen, just like you cannot prove that something doesn’t exist. You cannot prove, for example, that unicorns don’t exist. That is why the burden of proof rests on anyone who claims they do exist. If I say to you I walked on the moon, you will ask me to prove it, and you will not take as an answer: “No, you prove that I’m didn’t go.” Does it make a difference if I am the NASA? It does, because calling the NASA a liar will inevitably lead you to question everything you have been led to believe by your government and mainstream media. It is a giant leap indeed! Just like children of abusive parents, decent citizens of abusive governments will tend to repress evidence of their government’s malevolence. And so, people choose to believe in the moon landings, without even asking for proofs, simply because: “They wouldn’t have lied to us for more than 50 years, would they? The media would have exposed the lie long ago (remember the Watergate)! And what about the 250,000 people involved with the project? Someone would have talked.” I can actually hear myself speaking like that just 10 years ago. All these objections must indeed be addressed.

[bulldogedition]

Hold the cue cards! The Eagle has landed!

As America quietly--and we mean quietly--marked the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this week, TIME magazine decided to use nostalgia for its cover story on the topic.. Back when the moon was the hot location to get to, when John Kennedy's promise of landing a man  on the moon during the 60s ended with Richard Nixon's Administration celebrating it, and back when they were relevant as a weekly, they featured a 'race to the moon!' article a few months prior to the famed event..

This year on the 50th, they are placed a "next space race" re-do with SPACE X as the main racer.. Business taking over!!

Things have changed since then, obviously.. The ole-timers who lived through this event tell me that the world stopped in its tracks to watch coverage on TV of the moon landing.. The wiser elders of today inform me of the emotions of that time, the amazement and bewilderment so many had as they watched history being made in real time.. on TV sets--a new medium for so many in that era..

Even the  Brits did it their way across the pond.

BBC mounted programming to celebrate the great event. One of the shows featured a live jam by Pink Floyd. The program was a one-hour BBC1 TV Omnibus special with the whimsical title of So What If It’s Just Green Cheese?. It was broadcast on July 20, 1969, at 10 p.m.. The Floyd session eventually came to be called “Moonhead.”

TV GUIDE issued a cover story at the time cementing history: As major a worldwide television event as you can get.. Broadcast live not from our planet but from a satellite of it, the moon..

Children across America watched one small step for man became the giant leap for mankind, and turned to space .. they wanted to be astronauts when they grew up. Neil Armstrong became an American hero--looked up to by countless around the planet..

It was America's moment, the shining example of how WE could make it.. how WE could strive for more.. how WE could get to the moon and maybe one day beyond.

MALAISE DAYS

That brief but albeit amazing American moment of being the first to plant an earthly flag on a desolate space dwelling wore off quickly.

About 50,000+ deaths in Vietnam, Watergate, the Manson murders in Cali, high gas prices, inflation, and other world wide events suddenly forced people into a corner where pride and patriotism was not as evident.. Where we lost our focus on leaving this planet.

Instead, we decided to stay, and fight.. and argue.. Burn bras and protest war!

There was economic turmoil and other vastly amazing and historic moments of political upheaval.. whether it was Richard Nixon resigning before impeachment, or a sweater-wearing Jimmy Carter telling the nation to conserve its energy, it all led to the Reagan Revolution.

He indeed paid for that microphone and he intended on using it..

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd_KaF3-Bcw&w=935&h=701]

 PATRIOTISM UP IN SMOKE

President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation on January 28, 1986, hours after classrooms and media across the nation watched the Challenger explode on LIVE TV..

He called it a national loss.. He said during that broadcast, "I want to say something to the school children of America... I know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the faint hearted. It belongs to the brave."

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa7icmqgsow&w=935&h=701]

There seemingly something about this moment that killed the dreams of space.. The malaise 70s turned into roaring decade of greed in the 80s, and somehow we trashed the notion that space mattered.

By the 1990s, a decade when miraculous and amazing discoveries were being found on Mars and other moons of Saturn, we continued just finding ourselves finding space to be the frontier not worth mentioning..

George W. Bush had a similar moment when he addressed the nation in 2003 when the Columbia exploded after mission control lost contact.. Debris fell from the skies above Texas as the Columbia was lost without survivors..

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5ecjjXdqw&w=1218&h=685]

And now, 50 years after the moon landing moment, even the business SpaceX cannot get attention unless one of its rockets blows up on the way to the Van Allen Belt.

TAPES AND LEGACIES DESTROYED

I mentioned before the ole' timers.. those who lived through the decade of revolution.. As an 80s child, I only can contemplate the death of space exploration. .When I was just 5, I may or may not have known of the Challenger horror.. when I was growing up in the 90s, my love of space was not because of NASA exploration but instead because of my healthy diet nightly of staying awake late to listen to Art Bell expose and expand on potential alien life and UFO sightings around the world..  But my interviews of those who lived through the live stream -- the true live stream during the 60s of the event -- produce another interesting side effect of the moon landing: I am told the youth of that day were glued to TV sets, but the older Americans had disbelief in what they were seeing..

Hogwash! Man on the moon!? No way!

Perhaps this is where conspiracy theories were formed.. This could be the beginning times when people just could not believe their eyes..  It was all too perfect a story. Kennedy promised men on the moon before the end of the decade. And suddenly at the end of the decade we were going to the moon, safely on LIVE TV for the world to watch, land then leaving the moon without incident, arriving back at home.. all without injury. All without a situation. Without a disaster...

Also destroyed.. a legacy? This was reported last year:

US astronaut Buzz Aldrin is suing two of his children and his former business manager alleging they stole money from him and are slandering his legacy.

The lawsuit, which also claims they are stopping him from getting married, was filed after his children petitioned to take control of his finances.

They asked a judge to name them as his legal guardians because he is suffering from memory loss and confusion.

 HOAX OR NO

There is still a large amount of people (and actually growing if you see popular opinion polls and compare throughout time) that do not think we actually were on the moon. Some real events may not have helped the NASA defenders over the years..

Back in 2009, media reports told us that Nasa taped over its only high-resolution images of the first moon walk with electronic data from a satellite or a later manned space mission, officials said today  So the most historic event in the agency ever, and someone they managed to record something else over it to save money.. huh!?

Stories like that don't help...

Rumors like this don't help either: Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' was released 11 years after the first landing on the moon. In that movie, Danny Torrance - played by child actor Danny Lloyd - is seen wearing a knitted jumper with an Apollo 11 rocket on its front. In the scene where Danny first encounters Room 237, he is seen playing on carpet that it is said to resemble an aerial photograph of the launchpad of Apollo 11.. When Danny picks up the tennis ball, which is supposed to represent the hoax itself, he then enters Room 237 and comes out of it attacked and bruised. Later, in the climax of the movie, Jack Torrance - played by Jack Nicholson - screams and raves about the responsibility that's been placed on him, and that he has signed a contract to maintain the hotel and that he is responsible for holding its secrets.

The interpretation asserts that 'The Shining' was, in part, Kubrick trying to confess his role in the moon landing, from the carpets up to Jack Nicholson's crazed rants acting as Kubrick's vented frustrations.

Stanley Kubrick's daughter was forced to push back against this in 2016..

Also this.. There was a viral video that was released on the internet where Buzz Aldrin was attending the National Book Fest in Washington DC and was being interviewed by an eight-year-old girl named Zoey.

Zoey asked the astronaut: “Why has nobody been to the Moon in such a long time?”

Aldrin’s eyes grow wide in the video and he says to the little girl:

“We didn’t go there, and that’s the way it happened. And if it didn’t happen, it would be nice to know why it didn’t happen.”

Some have even claimed to see NASA being sloppy and forgetting to censor buildings appearing in moon footage..

And just on Friday night, Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis featured this as the topic for the program.. and also included a strange clip of the astronauts joking to mission control about cue cards and stage hands!!

Mission Control to Neil Armstrong: Is Buzz Holding the cue cards for you… over?

Neil Armstrong: Cue cards have a no. We have no intention of competing with the professionals believe me.

Unidentified voice: yea Ron’s getting to be known as the silent CAPCOM. (unintelligible) OK.

Buzz Aldrin: The only problem Charlie, these TV stagehands don’t know where they stand.

Mission Control: Well he doesn’t really have a union card there we really can’t complain too much I guess.

Neil Armstrong: Hey the restraints here are doing a great job of pulling my pants down.

x x x

NAZI CONNECTION

There are tons of questions that people will constantly ask about whether the moon landing REALLY happened in space or in front of TV cameraman somewhere on some elaborate set directed by Stanley Kubrick..

If you side with the conspiracy theory that the landing was a hoax, suspend your disbelief for a moment and believe.. because there is a whole other conspiracy theory/fact for your enjoyment..

Filmmaker  Aron Ranen got a grant for $65,000.. He got this grant in order to travel across the USA to interview former astronauts, mission controllers, scientists and others, in an attempt to prove that NASA actually sent men to the moon in 1969.

But instead of proving it was real, he was left with countless questions over whether it really happened.. His movie, MOONHOAX, is available for free download on YouTube and other platforms..

Along with the questions that persist whether it was real or not, Ranen asked some other question. If it was real, the set of facts that presents itself may be much more discomforting..

In the documentary, one of the Apollo mission’s few black employees reveals that the Ku Klux Klan operated openly at the Kennedy Space Center during the ’60s.

And more: A retired tracking engineer said that Nazi scientists helped the U.S. test hydrogen bombs in the South Pacific during the ’50s. This was a claim substantiated by recently declassified documents.

A former slave laborer recalls esteemed rocket scientist Wernher von Braun overseeing huge forced-labor camps in Germany during World War II (true).

And, finally, it turns out that all the basic data taped during the Apollo 11 mission has been misplaced--something confirmed in 2009 by NASA itself as we talked about earlier.

For your discernment, all the uploaded segments of MOONHOAX featuring some of the hard to stomach facts that Nazis helped the United States get to the moon, with one allegation that Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon because he was a German, and Nazis assisting the US get there wanted it that way..

PUNCH DRUNK

50 years on... 50 years later. We have not really been back since....

We have been stalled here on this planet. A planet filled with war and mayhem. Instead of reaching for the stars we are just forced to continue grasping at straws that something will change..

If the moon landing really even happened to begin with.

And on that note, we will end with Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon. When he was approached about the factual matters of the moon landing several years ago, he had an interesting response..

Back in 2002, Buzz was approached by a moon landing denier.. Aldrin decided to take action..

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_YM9cCtwz4&w=1218&h=685]

It would have been the punch heard around the world.. but after decades since 1969, everyone stopped listening.