#the thing with the fake native american con artist | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

persephoneyss · 3 years ago

Text

Doomeds.

Pairing: Min Yoongi x f! Reader. Ft. Bts.

Genre: Yandere, dark themes, anguish, suspense.

Summary: ❝We are doomeds, wandering in eternal suffering.❞

Warnings: Yandere behavior, obsession, stalking / stalking on cameras, humiliation, unspecified forced marriage, n*n-c*n explicit sexual relations (on the reader), abuse of power, implicit murder, drug use, kidnapping, hitting, manipulation, dating previous trauma, alcoholism and depression (in Yoongi), accusations of infidelity, dub-con (in Yoongi's case), the reader is in school but is of legal age, death threats, really strange facts. Possibly this would qualify as dark fantasy since everything is so unrealistic.

Number of words: 10,000+

︙Author's note: *sighs* This is the longest fic I've ever written, and I honestly don't know how it turned out because I didn't read it twice like I always do before publishing it. But my beautiful baby helped me correct, I hope you enjoy it and please read the warnings well, I do not want lawsuits. Thanks for being here!

(Sorry for any mistakes, my first language is not English and I am not fluent either.)

Puedes leer este fic y más aquí en español.

If they ever had to ask the reality of events it would be ... Unbelievable. Thinking of how just a simple action changes everything in an already established and perfect environment.

A life.

Your minutes, hours and days were the same under your criteria and eyesight, you study in the mornings, you work in the afternoons and you attend to your homework at night. It was a good routine that used to be repetitive at times, it was fun to follow, even more so in your part-time job.

You could meet many people working in one of the best cafes in the city, your classmate insisted too many times that you work with her saying that could recommend you and you should not even pass a test, they would only accept you for her.

It was a good opportunity and you accepted it with a smile, although she was long gone from work, you were still grateful for the good salary and health insurance that they gave you every month.

"An American coffee with a spoon of sugar and a green tea cake with cream on top." Your mouth and hand move in sync, the client nods silently. You smile, pointing out other details before asking what name you would give the order.

With a sigh, he name came out like a gust of light wind. "Min... Min Yoongi."

You write his name on the screen, the little receipt paper comes out of the machine. You hand it to him by brushing his hand with yours, strangely cold and pale. A chill runs through you but you ignore it, continuing with your work.

"Good Morning _____!" One of the employees greets you kindly, you correspond still concentrated on serving the mysterious stranger's coffee. "Do you have a request for me?"

"Oh, uh... Yeah, this is for table four."

Yun smiles taking the tray with Yoongi's coffee and cake, arriving at his table. The man's expression can be dazzled even under his black mask that covers half of his face, his eyes look for you before colliding with you. YYou refuse to play along, continuing with your work, you had a lot to do and wasting time flirting wouldn't really help you make money.

However, it became pointless trying to ignore him when he kept coming back day after day. Week after week. Tormenting your head, Yoongi was not the first nor the last handsome man you would see coming often, your work establishment was literally in a strategic area and not cheap, you knew that many men and women with money frequented them to drink a coffee or eat some delicacy, even sometimes they only came in to sit for a few hours attending to their affairs over the phone.

It was fine, it was comfortable. You weren't expecting too much, sitting behind a counter, always having to fake a smile despite being tired.

Perhaps it was the constant visits that led you to start a conversation with him. You had about an hour of rest, you prefer to spend those few moments sitting in front of the window of the premises eating any cake that was a few days before expiring to avoid paying for consumption, you felt comfortable in that place that seemed so far from all the other clients.

Until his voice interrupted once, he seemed as calm as ever. His gaze lost from you elsewhere avoiding making contact with you, nervous apparently. His rough and austere tone was changed to a bolder and lower one, asking if he could sit next to you for a few minutes.

"Sure, sit down... he's not busy." It was your answer without having any problem in sharing your place so secret, so comfortable. It was still just as safe even with him present.

And in much the same way, everything became a silent routine. You heeded his order, you took your rest next to him and then you both left at one point. The talks became more common, he being the first to ask about such insignificant things as the rise in the market in the country and how prices should start to rise in coffee as well.

You laughed, you really did it by getting his attention and sharing your reaction.

They both started laughing at how strange it all started, and it was always the perfect anecdote to tell their friends about how they met.

Everything was perfect, like a painting by a great artist, what you would see would be beautiful and cheerful colors, adorning both of you possibly holding hands with a smile and a loving expression from the man who was now your partner. Her pale skin and angelic face represented on beautiful thin paper, presented to the world as a painting that reflected a symbol of love between two souls met in a casual cafe and who wanted each other so much. Too much.

Yoongi was the clear representation of an ethereal person, casual and elegant, polite and kind, protective but not possessive. Simply to the target.

Your routine didn't change much after starting your relationship, you kept walking to your school in the mornings, you attended the cafeteria in the afternoons and you rested at night. Perhaps the only significant thing that you would get out of your boring schedule was your boyfriend's proposal about moving with him to the house of his best friend, almost a brother as he described it, and avoiding paying for your little apartment. You had made one and a thousand excuses, making Yoongi shut them all up.

"Jin is my brother, he would never take advantage of us. I already mentioned the proposal, about you... I have been living there for a few weeks, I assure you that you will be like family."

Family?

Your face relaxed for a few seconds, you had abandoned that feeling and sensation long ago since you moved from your home in your native country. Your mother used to call you every night but little by little that habit was lost, she also had her own problems and being aware of you as if you were a child was ridiculous.

"It's fine." It was your final decision, nervously you moved your hands in the air explaining what you would not accept.

Do not invade your privacy.

You had spent days thinking about how to introduce yourself to them, because apparently there would be more than just Jin, Yoongi and you in that house. Your things were scattered in boxes, you stood in the middle of the almost empty room still nervous about meeting new people and friends of your boyfriend.

That they were now family. Literally family.

The moving truck was parked in front of a large house, it had two stories and an incredibly large garden. More like a forest than an ordinary garden, you got out of the car trying to clean your clothes as much as possible and look presentable. Although it was difficult when your whole body was covered in dust after lifting the boxes.

"I'm not ready, Yoon." You say, containing your anxiety that vibrates to the surface of the skin within you.

Her hand gently brushed your cheek, giving you a bit of reassurance. "You look beautiful, they will accept you anyway." Her lips came up to yours, giving you a quick and soft kiss. "I just remember that I love you, and I know all my brothers will too because you are perfect."

You thanked the little compliment in a whisper, the door of the house opened just after the two of them left, you automatically showed a friendly smile approaching the first person to leave. He was a tall and rather handsome man, he seemed very well dressed to be indoors on a Sunday, more like he was going out to an important business meeting. He looked flawless and elegant.

"The suit was not necessary, Nam!" Shouted your boyfriend behind you mocking, the man laughed showing all the charm of him to your eyes.

"I'm Namjoon, Yoongi's friend. Nice to meet you... _____, right?"

"Yes, it's me. Sorry to see me so disastrous, it was a tiring day with the move."

Namjoon seemed like a very nice and incredibly understanding guy, his presence made you want to meet your boyfriend's other friends. You opened the door entering the house after Yoongi asked you to find your room to start carrying the other things, Namjoon stayed behind to help him, leaving you alone on your unknown route. You walk all over the place and you are surprised that you only walked through the living room, your eyes straying to a noise in the kitchen.

Curious.

You ignore it, continuing your way up, you read every name on the doors. Jin, Namjoon, Yoongi, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook. All written brilliantly on each different door, you walk a few steps to one that says your name and you thank it with a sigh.

You weren't surprised by how big it was, everything inside that place seemed to be exorbitant and out of the ordinary.

"Oh, it must be you." You are surprised to hear a voice behind you, you turn around in fear before remaining calm. You recognized her face from a photo Yoongi had on her phone.

"Jimin?" You ask with fear of being wrong.

"It's me, it's nice to finally meet you. Jin-hyung said you're moving in a few days, I didn't think it would be so soon." His voice seemed to be calm but there was a hidden question. Why? Why were you there?

You take a few uncomfortable steps back. "It really was, but ... I thought it would be better to do it today that I don't have classes, plus Yoongi doesn't work this day and it seemed like the right thing to do. I'm sorry if bother you."

"No you don't. it's okay, Welcome." With that one simple word he left.

You thought you would have a longer talk with him but you weren't expecting too much, they didn't even know each other and you plan to chat with him like they were old acquaintances. Well, naive.

It seemed strange to you that no one else showed up in the whole house, even when you were uploading the last boxes of the move no one seemed to be a little curious to meet you. Aside from the already friendly Namjoon and the reserved Jimin.

"Yoon" You get his attention, he smiles at you taking the sheets out of your suitcase and making your makeshift bed ready for the night. "Do your friends work today?"

"I guess so, they really don't spend a lot of time together or at home." Explain without noticing your downcast face. You nod, putting the issue aside and concentrating your eyes on arranging your clothes. "Hey... Okay, you can meet them all at dinner today."

Your chest clenches in anguish, "Dinner?!"

"Yes, darling. It's the only time they meet all day, when Jin-hyung cooks for us especially on days like these where we have pleasant surprises."

You purse your lips annoyed, Yoongi smiles kissing your forehead so carefully and lovingly that it melts your senses. The mere presence of him made you want to continue with him forever, you relax for a few seconds hugging his body in silence. They both stay like this, with nothing to say but telling each other everything at the same time.

The thought of ever letting go scares you.

You wait several hours, still sitting in the same place where Yoongi left you. You should be presentable for dinner, you take a quick shower before running to change into a nice comfortable dress, you try not to overdo it but also not show disinterest. From the stairs you hear everyone's mixed voices, chatting animatedly.

"Honey, come here." Yoongi watches you, being the only one to notice that you were peeking in the shadows still unsure of interrupting.

You say hello by walking a few steps until you reach your boyfriend's side, you present yourself the best you can. Everyone falls silent, Namjoon smiles at you just like he did before. Jin interrupts the moment where no one seemed to have anything to say about you, or if he wants to want to introduce himself.

"Today we have a special guest, the dear girlfriend of our brother. I introduce myself, I am Jin the official cook of this family." His body bends down with an exaggeratedly long bow, proud of his words. Jimin rolls his eyes, while his other siblings just choose to tease. "On Yoongi's orders we made her favorite dish, so I don't want any complaints of any kind about the food. I'm looking at you Jungkook."

You are surprised how well everything is going, you feel praised when your favorite food is in front of you. She looked just as elegant, as if you were eating in a five-star restaurant and at a luxurious table with silk tablecloths.

Jungkook still stayed away from the talks, preferring to eat quietly and fiddle with his phone. Hoseok was more animated, asking about you and exaggerating anecdotes that happened with his childhood friends. He moved you that he will still remember all that after years. Namjoon vaguely drew your attention with book recommendations when you commented on your love of reading, Jin quietly continued eating in complete tranquility, Jimin thanked the food and just left.

Taehyung... He seemed interesting to you, he was looking at you all the time with narrowed eyes and when Jimin got up and walked away, he followed closely with a small and almost hidden smile.

You had a strange feeling inside what they called home.

"I-I... I need to use the bathroom." You say goodbye by wiping your lips with a napkin before quickly walking behind them both. Something attracted you to want to know more, as if they were leaving clues knowing that curiosity killed the cat and that you wanted to be the one.

Your steps were quiet, even more so when you tried not to be noticed . You went upstairs listening to their voices whispering and then... An obscene moan was clearly heard, Jimin seemed to laugh in the air.

Your hands shook thinking of opening the door and seeing what was happening. And without knowing it, you had fallen into the same network of attraction as them.

You curse yourself biting your tongue and cheek until they bleed, sure that you were going to make a big and heavy mistake. Minutes later you are going down the stairs back to the table but no one is waiting for you anymore, the table was just as spotless and clean. You are pleasantly surprised to learn that they don't treat you like a guest and that they don't wait too long for you. Maybe they had things to do, however you feel a chill when silence comes.

Where were?

You look around the yard, but no one is outside. Neither in the kitchen and less in the room where you had already walked twice. You catch the sound of drums in your ears rumbling loudly, you close your eyes in a daze for a few seconds until in an instant it goes away, and then everything comes back to itself. You hear their voices upstairs, chatting animatedly for the second time.

"Where were you sweetie? Are you okay?"

You nod still confused. How did they... When was that... You were really fine? You refuse to fall into paranoia and lie down next to Yoongi, as they continue their conversation with each other. Your head keeps spinning with the fresh memories you have, but they seem to disappear second by second and it scares you, you open your eyes without wanting to fall asleep yet but it is as difficult as breathing.

You fall into the dark abyss of sleep, feeling the same chill.

Your gaze is lost in the gray sky, you are cold and your body is swaying. Your eyes move restlessly observing that you are under the snow and a person holds you in his arms through the forest, walking at a slow and safe pace.

It's fine. Are you okay.

Wake up. Yoongi greets you from the door of your now room, you try to regulate your breathing thinking that he would notice your overwhelmed state and he would worry, but no. He is as calm as ever, relaxed even.

"Good morning beautiful, it's time for breakfast. Jin-hyung made your favorite." And with that last sentence she is shifting away, closing the door behind he.

You go down the stairs ready to go, your backpack resting on your shoulder. The table is just as full as at dinner, Jimin seemed very tired trying not to fall asleep, you watch him for a few seconds before looking at Taehyung who ignores you taking his cup of ... Coffee. You approach making him recoil alarmed and disgusted, you check the cup realizing that it is the same recipe that you use in the cafeteria.

Like them?

You look up noticing that, you were uncomfortable, Taehyung takes a few steps away from your body almost leaning against his, still sitting in his chair. You apologize to him making me sigh irritated, still ashamed you apologize again without eating or serving anything, just leaving through the front door.

Your journey is reflective. You forget, dream and recognize, that was the pattern you were following, everything seemed so strange and deep down gloomy, you feel the already casual chill running through your entire body almost like a warning.

Your seat in class was empty waiting, ready for you. Ari greets you, being your table companion and friend.

"Hey, intense night?" She jokes, you look shaking his head. She laughs pointing your neck. "You have... something there."

She frowns even more confused, her face leaves her smile aside and she starts looking at her things until she takes out a small mirror and she hands it to you. You look with horror at a large red bruise painting on your skin, it seemed painful but you had not even noticed or felt it. You touch it still scared and nothing, it doesn't hurt or it seems real.

You take a deep breath before lying with silly chatter, "I had an accident, but I'm fine. I had forgotten I was there, it was nothing serious."

Ari seems worried but in the end she forgets it by returning to the same kind and joking attitude of her, but her gaze drops from second by second to your neck making you cover yourself uncomfortable. Who? It can't be Yoongi, he was always very calm in that regard. You think terrified, your hand goes up to touch it and this time you manage to feel a sharp pain.

You have to cover it with the collar of your shirt so that no customer will notice it and avoid staining the reputation of the cafeteria, you smile nervously taking orders as fast as you can and avoiding looks. Yun greets you like every day, arriving at his work time. You spend hours begging for the clock to advance faster, the night sky appears and the doors close, you clear the last counter before you can finally show your neck again and breathe.

"That's a big problem." Yun whispers looking at the horrible mark, you nod with a sigh giving the same stupid excuse you told Ari. "You should use a little makeup to cover it up, I think it will help you a lot."

You think about it for a few seconds before deciding what you would do. You bow to him with a bow after he offered to close in your place and finish the remaining work for you.

You come home with a smile, you greet Namjoon who is reclining on the couch in the living room watching something on TV. You wait a few seconds but you do not receive a small or accidental look, you approach a few steps to repeat it again but you only get him to get up and go upstairs closing the door of his room apparently with a door slam. What the hell? You think covering your face with your hands looking for some comfort.

Everything was happening inside you, it was like a whirlpool sweeping away your sanity. Were you going crazy? Or you were just thinking a lot about nothing.

You try to draw a picture of your situation, but the only thing that repeats is the constant painting of Yoongi and you together.

"Yoongi!" You say to yourself with a smile, you drop your backpack running towards his room, wanting to see him after such a day.

Your hopes fade like air, everything within the space him screams 'he', but he is not there. You check the safe time that he should be home at that moment. You hear Jin's voice screaming from below about dinner ready, you sigh losing your appetite at those moments.

You lie on your bed checking your cell phone in case there was a message from Yoongi warning about he delay but nothing. You feel empty for some strange reason, but there was nothing different about it now.

If I had been more attentive and conscientious, you would have noticed that two more people other than Yoongi and you were missing from the table. Jin smiles sitting in his same place leaving your plate not caring without you being there with them, his smile never fades even when all his brothers are sitting silently eating and looking at your empty place so intensely that it was terrifying, he squeezes the cutlery in his hand without wanting to break the tradition in his family.

Dinners are sacred and no one should be missing. There will be no discussions or complaints, that's what the rest of the time is for.

That was what her mother said, sitting at the table in her old home containing her anger at seeing her husband so calm after having been unfaithful once more. Not on the table, not on the table.

Not on the table, honey.

Jimin opened the last bottle with a little satisfaction, poured another glass before handing it to his friend who was only glaring at the ground.

"She's not like that... I know her." Repeating the same stupid prayer for hours, Taehyung rolled his eyes trying to calm his annoyance, looking at his other friend insisting that he help him.

"Yoongi-hyung you saw it yourself, she had that... That mark. you didn't do it, maybe Tae is right and she-..."

"Not!" I scream interrupting what to him were lies. "_____ she's my girlfriend, she's not like that. I know her ... she loves me! She loves me! Do you understand?" Says exalted, holding the shirt of his friend who closed his mouth immediately, Jimin noticed that same reflection of anger in him and knew it was better to leave it for now.

Taehyung pushed the drunk Yoongi away from his side, making him release him and repeat the same phrase as in his state, he tried to believe himself.

The door to your room was opened and the smell of alcohol invaded you, making you look disgusted. You closed your eyes without wanting to see him, his body fell to the side of your bed approaching your body so slowly that the anxiety inside you doubled.

"I'm sorry..." He whispered.

His hands rested around you, giving you that warmth so familiar and comfortable in your gray days. A sob was heard while you lost yourself in your own thought, you watch it melt into your arms crying and without wanting to tell you why.

"It hurts." It's the only thing it says. But... Why?

You wake up. Just like a week ago, days had passed and it seemed like your skin kept accumulating horrible marks all over the place. You even went to consult a doctor but he only insisted that something... Or someone did them with such fury that it was incredible that a piece of skin will not be torn off by the force of his suction.

You touched the last mark that came, it was dangerously close to your crotch, you try to hide the others with makeup but they were still visible at a short distance.

You went down the stairs to see them all again, you greet with regret taking the first thing you find. Your mug had your name written on it, it was a rather curious gift from Jin after your melancholic night with Yoongi days ago, he apologized explaining that he felt bad after hearing all the sobs and apologies. For a moment you thought it was something exaggerated but he kept insisting that he felt bad about himself, not with Yoongi who was almost his brother or with you, with him.

You accepted it without wanting to show your dislike for his selfishness and narcissism, thanking him so softly that he hardly heard you.

The special drink that morning was coffee... Americano. You felt insecure to drink it, and you just put it aside.

Same recipe.

Yoongi looked at you for a few seconds before smiling fondly, and you just looked away, leaving him with a confused face as you walk out the door so quickly that he can hardly feel you.

He sighed before being drawn to Jimin's grin-adorned face, he shrugged, hinting at his silent opinion. She is not faithful to you Yoongi, why do you keep waiting for something good? Only looks at her body, her attitude and who she surrounds herself with, it is a classic of womens. You will know that she is a fox hidden under her sheepsuit, just observing her more and you never leave her.

The marks on your body, your cold attitude made him more and more suspicious and fall for Taehyung's profound words. She bit his lip, refusing to spy on your life away from him... Out of his sight.

But he really wasn't doing anything wrong, just observing. In his now dirty head, everything was valid if he could know the truth.

You did the same thing you always told him on his nights where they stayed up talking about his heavy days. You went to school, to work, and then home. Nothing changed your version.

I try to focus on your friends, there was only one girl you spent more time with in your classes and after them. He researched everything about his life, but he had nothing to worry about after learning that he had a boyfriend. He passed your work, standing outside for hours waiting to see you do something dirty or guilty, but you never seemed to move.

You just served the orders and then kindly said goodbye to the customers. He felt guilty for doing something so low to you, until he saw you.

To you.

Your smile grew when one of the workers who was your partner approached your place in the box to whisper something in your ear, you left your place following him towards the warehouse.

Anger consumed him quickly, refusing to continue standing there observing the obvious, possibly he was being irrational and he knew it but the constant insinuations of Jimin. The conversations with Taehyung, his words, his suspicions, the pleased looks from they when he fell back at his feet asking them to tell him what to do with you.

With his damn relationship.

Where were you and him. Not them. You and he.

He opened the door to your room and started going through your things like a degenerate, something must have made him sure that you were cheating on him. Something, a letter, a note, a gift from him, or a simple cheap jewel.

This was your Yoongi? You were clearly looking at another subject.

"Yoon..." You started, his eyes coldly piercing you. He looked different, he was looking at you but you didn't feel safe being so close. "What are you doing?"

"What do you think I do?" He asked how else he will not point to the obvious, for a moment you thought that even if it was, out of respect or dignity, he would try to deny it or find another explanation for his actions so offensive to you. "Where is?"

"Where is what?" You claim, starting to get angry, his eyes leave you again as he continues searching through your drawers, dropping everything to the floor with thudding noises. You get closer trying to push it away but you only get rejection. "Stop it, Yoongi."

"Not until you say so."

You freeze without knowing what he meant by the latter, you take his arm to stop him but you only receive a push that makes you back away this time scared by the force of his attack. "Enough!" You claim this time by making him look at you with his cold eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about and why you're doing this, but enough."

"Then say it..." You shout again that you don't know what he wants you to say, you even curse furiously making him come closer to support your shoulders with his hands bringing you closer to his face. "Say it damn it! Say you're cheating on me with that bastard son of a bitch!"

You feel the pain of his grip, you sob, begging him to release you but are ignored as he continues to ask you to say so. You refuse to lie, especially with something so degrading.

Jin hears the screams as he continues serving the dinner desserts, Jungkook strangely puts aside his phone for a few minutes to thank him with a small toast and a smile that was rarely seen on him.

"The dessert tonight is sweeter than usual."

Jimin raises his glass with a bright smile, Namjoon adjusts his tie tied perfectly around his neck as he sips from his glass, Hoseok laughs eating the delicious cake with enthusiasm.

Curious, a green tea cake with cream on top.

"It's a shame Yoongi-hyung misses out on dessert." Taehyung speaks pretending a pout on his lips, playing with his spoon with the cream on her plate. "It is especially exquisite today."

"Stop playing already, when will you do it? I'm looking forward to getting started." Jin snaps angrily, pushing the cake out of her sight as he drinks from her wine glass.

Jungkook laughs, turning his phone back on to continue playing as usual. "So impatient, hyung." He says he with a click of annoyance.

Jin rolls his eyes, following her gaze to Jimin who is innocently cowering in her chair. Ignoring how completely obsessed Jungkook is with his games, it really was not his business,for something his youngest friend had his parents, who were too busy with their work, they ran the largest electronics factory in the country, leaving his son in the background just giving him everything he asked for without objection. Always showing a smile when little Jungkook came before them demanding a new console or the best phone.

"It only remains to wait..." Whispering, he released a patient Hoseok. His smile as charming as ever. "For her to decide what to do and then... Plot! She fell into the wrong well."

"I hate when you describe and talk like that, but I can't expect much from a Jung... like you."

However, Hoseok never stops smiling even when anger is consuming his mind causing him to clench his fists under the table and bite his tongue inside his mouth, hidden by his gleaming and visible teeth. Namjoon smiles at her, knowing that she managed to provoke him but that she won't do anything to shut him up.

"Pathetic."

Motherfucker.

Jin breaks the tense silence, shushing everyone with a snap. That silence. Nobody hears anything from you or Yoongi, for a moment they feel the anguish that something bad has happened or that his friend has lost a bit ... The hand. But just seconds later you're rushing down, wearing the same clothes and your face covered in tears. You don't even look at them when you run to the door, leaving a trail of emptiness behind you.

"Hm, intense." This is Jungkook speaking, his eyes still lost on the phone screen of him playing a silly online championship. "She will be fine after hours."

"Jungkook is right, now we must move with Yoongi."

Namjoon gets up walking to your room, surprised that everything seems almost the same as it was before their fight.

He smiles when he manages to see his friend laying on the floor sobbing, and like that children's book called Pinocchio, he feels good being that cricket-shaped voice of reason. Only this time that sweet and serene voice, released one and a thousand blasphemies that would contaminate even the most devout by his beliefs.

He managed to convince Yoongi's easy to manipulate mind, blurting out words almost like a song. Playing with the naive self of hes that still lived and breathes inside him.

You had come home after days of spending with Ari and her boyfriend away from him. You really didn't want to set foot in that house again in years, a small irrational part of you believed that it was all his fault, your real problems started when you set foot in that damn place.

You open the door observing the room in the same way, empty. You try not to make yourself feel ready to go to sleep, without having been able to do it in days, but now you doubted that it would be different here.

You remain static in view of everyone, you had forgotten that at that time they were having dinner together. They only met once a day and it had to be right there.

"Good evening, sorry to interrupt." You ignoring Yoongi's gaze that, he's trying not to get too excited about your return, even though she causes he to euphoric whirl. "Carry on, I'll just go to my room."

"Please no, sit with us."

"I'm not well."

"I insist, sit with us. They were difficult days but I know they can fix it." Jin puts a plate in front of one of the empty chairs, you refuse to sit down but you do it out of compromise.

Everyone seems to be exclusively quiet, dinner was gray, like a black and white painting. Remember the first dinner, where everyone seemed to have so much to say and now that was left behind, Jungkook continues to play with his phone sometimes moving his plate by accident, without touching a single silverware with the intention of eating. Jin eats in peace, so slowly that he is strange. Namjoon reads a book in his hand, eating so cleanly that it's amazing.

Hoseok looks at you playfully from time to time, with a smile that almost makes you smile the same. Jimin and Taehyung seem to communicate silently, they both look at each other with slight grimaces and smiles.

"We can talk?" Yoongi whispers, you feel her breath next to you and instinctively you walk away scared. Still hurt by her actions and attitude, you give your vow of silence by standing up and without saying goodbye, you walk up the stairs.

"How rude." Jungkook interrupts, keeping an eye on his screen lighting up his beautiful face. "He didn't even taste the food."

Yoongi looks at Jin, her oldest friend and the one she trusted the most, seeking some advice. But just gets the same treatment as always, a look insisting that go with you and try to fix her mistake.

However, it was late. You had packed a makeshift suitcase by going down as quietly as you could, exiting through the back door like a thief or a fugitive.

You spent days thinking about your cowardly way of running away, but in the same way you felt better and even more so when you did not receive any message from him. Maybe it wasn't that important to him, it hurt but it also relieved you.

You knew it would be awkward to see him in the face again, but you should go back and get your things over with as soon as possible. You naively thought of forming a friendship, a very distant one, but in the end it would be the healthiest thing for both of you.

"______?" Asked the person who opened the door after you barely managed to ring the bell due to nerves, he was clearly confused.

"W-good morning ... Jin." You greet by taking a few steps back to get a better look at it, you had forgotten how tall it was. "Sorry to bother I just wanted to -..."

"Talk to Yoongi? I'm sorry but he's already better without you, he even met someone new." You were surprised by his austere, sour tone and trying to intimidate you. "And you better go, you are not welcome here."

"No ... No, I-I came for my things but I'm glad to know that it's better now, and that ..." The words stayed in your mouth, almost as if it hurt to admit it. "I was able to find someone, I hope we can be friends. Also with you, I'm sorry I left without explaining or saying goodbye properly."

You waited what seemed like ages for her response, and you expected more than a simple nod of the head, letting you pass without a hitch. You searched your room quickly, trying not to have any contact with any of them for now. You opened the door that had your name on it but you were scared by what you found inside, the whole room had been painted blood red, a very dark color that managed to give you such familiar chills.

"What is this? Where are my things?!" You turned around ready to go and claim but the door closed behind you with a stormy noise. You ran to try to open it but it did not move an inch, you searched the whole room for something useful to help you but it was completely empty, and alone.

You sobbed in fear, not understanding what was happening and why it seemed that the walls were getting narrower every second. You fell to the ground, trying to stay calm and without losing your goal, hours and even days passed for you, you waited to hear at least one noise but everything was so quiet that you had to avoid going crazy, you played with your hands trying to distract yourself and think positive things, you had read many books about stressful situations to know that thinking a lot about those things caused even more stress, you lie on the floor sure that a nap will calm everything down, if it was a nightmare you wanted to wake up and if not , you wanted to dream that it was.

A lock, you hear that particular noise and you wake up. You open your eyes as fast as you can lifting your body, the door was slightly open as if someone was exiting. You scream for help but it closes, you fall back into sadness and despair screaming even more for your freedom.

You didn't deserve this.

You look with regret at the delicious food they left for you, for a moment you think about going on a hunger strike but your stomach demands you not to be so stupid. The same would not change anything. Regardless of manners, you eat as fast as you can, dropping quite a bit of food on the ground in your rush.

It had an exquisite taste, and you could recognize it everywhere. It was one of your favorite dishes, you felt disgusted to compare it to your mother's food, but as magnificent as it was, it reminded you so much of her.

You wait for something to happen, but minutes go by in which you just look at nothing, letting your head fly. Thinking of a thousand things, playing with the spoon and singing in a low voice.

You feel hot from one moment to the next, your vision becomes cloudy and the door opens again. You just stay in the same place, you don't care about anything, not even how they hold you by helping you walk into another room.

"You were right, she is very calm now."

You look at him, their faces so familiar and you try to place them, but your head is flying away at that moment. You close your eyes laughing, and drifting into unconsciousness.

You wake up. You open your eyes and you are tied, you struggle with the ropes that hold your arms while the bed below you makes your body bounce. You touch the sheets realizing that they are extremely soft, you are in an unfamiliar room surrounded by scarlet red, with elegant and shimmering decorations. You try to stand up but your legs, like your hands, are tied.

And you're still quiet because of the rag in your mouth.

You fight the bindings furiously, screaming into the cloth as much as you can get sick of being locked up again.

You think of Yoongi, although at that moment it was irrelevant you wonder where she is and if she knew that she was being kidnapped in such a way, would she help you at least? Resignation covers you completely, fighting the bonds again with such force that you feel like they burn your skin every time you move.

You sob, just as he did one fall day.

Yoongi watches you from the monitor in another room, Jin is talking to Namjoon to the side while Jungkook is still sitting in a corner entertaining on her phone. Jimin, Taehyung, and Hoseok seem reluctant to look at each other despite facing each other.

Remember the day, the one in the past, when he met them. Jimin and Taehyung were already friends playing in one of the children's castles, with their hands pretending to be weapons as they ran around. Hoseok was sitting next to his mother, talking and apparently they had a lot to say. Namjoon did not detach from the side of his father who urged him to go up to the games, while Jin was busy collecting Flowers in a basket that his grandmother was holding.

They were all strangers and even more so he, felt out of place surrounded by so many games and away from home. His parents had freed up a whole day to spend together in a decent park, it was several hours of travel from Daegu to Seoul only for his son to play in a beautiful park surrounded by luxurious buildings.

He dropped down next to her mother, hugging her without wanting to let her go.

"Min Yoongi, we didn't take this trip just for you to sit there all day, son."

"I'm scared..." he whispered, biting her lip and hiding her face in the neck of his beloved mother.

"I see... but the games look so much fun. Run and try them, love."

He nodded still uneasy, walking over to one of the swings where he sat rocking so slowly that he seemed still. He felt hands pushing his body from behind, scared he looked at the boy behind him, he had a smile on his face and waved him with a hand.

"Sorry, I thought you needed to be pushed." He spoke and did not seem at all nervous.

"I'm fine, but thank you..." There was a momentary silence before he interrupted again. "I am Yoongi."

"Hoseok, although my mommy calls me Hobi."

He smiled, offering himself this time to push the swing, they spent minutes like this just helping each other take a walk pleasantly. He didn't even think about it when Hoseok offered to talk to Jimin and Taehyung about how they'll all play together in teams.

Now in the present, he smiled again remembering how he met Jin that same day, he had collided with him when he was running so as not to be caught by Jimin. His older friend was flushed with anger, screaming for her flowers and his dirty clothes. His grandmother teased him a bit making him deny even more, he followed Yoongi for several minutes until the chase because of her desire to hit him became a game.

They both fell to the ground tired, laughing before Hoseok introduced himself to Jin. Namjoon arrived shortly after, curious about the commotion and why he had gotten bored of sitting for so long, as he explained later. Besides that his father didn't have the best conversation starters.

He cried so much that very day when he had to go home again, promising to return soon.

"We have everything ready, are you ready?" Jin stood next to him, his eyes looked at him but he couldn't recognize his childhood friend. The same one that he offered to organize his birthday parties when his parents could not afford them, the same one that he never took advantage of his money to lower it. The one who hugged him as many times as he could when he came out of his therapies after his parents died.

Who was this man?

"Y-yes." He murmured still stunned. He got up, following in his footsteps with his head lowered.

They opened the door showing him, you were distracted biting the cloth in your mouth and trying to move your hands to free them.

Your body felt the same repetitive chill making you look at them feeling their presences so... uncomfortable.

"Enough." Jin ordered as you continued your insistent useless movement, trying to free yourself. "I'm not playing around, stop."

Me neither, idiot. You clench your teeth as much as you can at not being able to say it out loud, you stubbornly keep moving even faster than before. Your hair falls on your face from your busy tossing and you stare at him, challenging his patience and judgment.

You try not to tremble when he approaches you with intentions that deep down manage to scare you. But you continue, the bed moves as fast as you do until his hand falls against your cheek causing a gasp to come out of your gagged mouth.

"Hyung!" Yoongi claims holding her hand to prevent her from trying to hit you again, you feel the particular burning on your right cheek and the tears growing back in your eyes. "Please, no blows. That was not what we agreed on."

Jimin cleared his throat, a satisfied smile on his face, "We never specified anything, actually... Yoongi-hyung."

"Jimin is right, you never specified any kind of restriction for her and us." Namjoon clarified making you look at them confused, it was as if they were talking in terms of employment or contract.

But you had never signed anything.

"B-but they can't do that, they'll never accomplish anything if they force her." He tried to persuade him but Jungkook sighed, dropping his phone to the ground and then stepping on it like it was worthless. "She will just hate them."

"She will do it anyway, if we let her off her or try to convince her to stick with sweet words she won't think twice and she will run away ready to report us for kidnapping."

"In addition to the damages that she suffered here." Namjoon continued to condemn Jungkook, uplifting her surname and her family's status.

"You are in this with us or against us, there is still a free place in the basement for you with chains just as heavy."

Again, the same chill ran through you causing you to cringe in your place. These men were insane, they were capable of betraying each other, and worse, they could possibly also consider shooting themselves in the back when they weren't looking at each other. All for you, as if you were some kind of prize for winning and owning.

After moments that seemed eternal, Taehyung was releasing your mouth as you began to complain about what they were doing, how they dared and demanding freedom.

Really a classic, so much so that it was witty and hilarious that you said it literally.

They forced you to kneel on the ground with your hands on your legs still perfectly tied. More questions filled your mouth not knowing what they were planning, all you could do was look at them so scared it was adorable.

"Uh... Well... I guess one should go first." Jin says, taking a few steps away from your crouched figure.

Jimin stepped forward, standing in front of you causing you to look up from your spot below him.

"What are you doing?" You ask weakly, you try to drag yourself away when his hand struggles with his pants to remove it but Jin holds you in place. Getting on his knees to speak into your ear softly.

"You better take a breath instead of trying to run away, honey. I thought you were smarter... hm?" He laughs mocking your scared face, you refuse to open your eyes and mouth making him stop laughing in annoyance.

Jimin sighs taking your face in his hands so roughly that they will surely leave a purple mark on your skin. He was still dressed, I was hoping I could humiliate you more and then fuck your mouth until you suffocate while his hyung explains everything to you. How it all started, his obsession, his plan, they had planned everything so perfect that it was terrifying, everything monopolized on one board.

Soon as soon as possible you will just be a cute housewife and you will forget your life before that day. Not for nothing did they have a closet full of cheerful and homely outfits ready for you, they wanted to destroy you and then put you back together just to serve them.

You would be his wife, of everyone.

"Come on, little bitch..." Jimin started, reaching over to kiss you on the lips even though you refused to do so. You really no longer had a vote or a word of objection in his plans. "Open your eyes darling, you don't want a stray bullet to land in your mother's skull, do you?" He threatened making you obey even more scared than before.

"P-please don't hurt my mother!" You sob, clasping your tied hands in supplication.

"Oh, we won't.... yet." He whispered kissing your lips one last time before imposing himself on your kneeling body. Her cock came out of her pants, stroked a few times before guiding it to your lips. Your stomach contracted, and you pulled your face away as far as you could before Hoseok held you by the hair tightly pulling you close again. "Take it, baby. Everything will be fine if you just obey."

"I hate them, they disgust me" You whisper before Jin forced you to open your mouth making you take it, you fight for a few seconds but her hips are already moving making you choke and gasp. His moans are so loud they make you squirm but his hands hold your head close to him.

"I told you you'll take a breath, but you're a dumb whore." His breath is hitting your neck directly, your skin crawling trying to distract you from anything other than Jimin's cock in your throat causing you to gag and vomit. "I bet you're wondering why, what did you do, and nothing really. Or if Yoongi!"

You do not look at your boyfriend before, you only focus on Jin who smiles, caressing your body with his hands, almost exceeding your limits. However, what did it matter if he did it, there was nothing you could do for yourself.

"You were only here, I think we all loved you from the first moment we saw you. We spent many nights wondering what was special about you, many of us had dated women before but you... You were so different, you had something that attracted us and it made us go crazy. " His hands squeezed your breasts causing you to gasp on Jimin's cock who moaned with pleasure, continuing his steady and hard rhythm. "Taehyung got involved in the matter. "

Jimin smirked when your eyes went up to him, your eyes showing how angry and helpless you felt. And it was exquisite.

"I bet you didn't know about your beloved boyfriend's background,locked up in a rehab center for alcoholics for two years. Three years taking therapy for his depression after the tragic death of his parents, quite strong actually." His words had such a strong past but from his mouth they came out as if it were not so important. Something common for him. "I'm surprised he loved you so much and didn't tell you."

You cried unable to turn your face to look at him, deep down you wanted to put Yoongi aside and not hate him for this. But it seemed almost impossible when he was there, doing nothing, so calm that it was unreal that he had ever looked at you directly and declared his love to you over and over again. For months.

"He really was fine for a while until we decided to make him fall again, one drink after another... First trust him, then question their relationship and finally make them argue." A laugh left his lips, it was almost uncomfortable that he was the only one doing it. Everyone else was so quiet just watching. "But I can't give myself all the credit, let me introduce ourselves well, my dear."

Jimin walked away from you letting you breathe again, you had almost forgotten that he had been doing that act against you. Your tied hands help you hold off the ground by not being able to breathe properly, you feel so weak that you are about to pass out but you refuse to look weak in front of them.

"Kim Seokjin, son of the best chefs in the country and heir owner of thousands of five-star restaurants, inside and outside the country." His body crouched down, making an extremely long bow. Namjoon stood next to him, with the same smile from the day he met you. "Kim Namjoon, the only and adored son of the best lawyers and mayoral candidates, future presidents if occasion permits." There was a strange tone behind his voice, with a knowing wink. "I thought you can guess what Hoseok's parents do, but I'll tell you just in case. Great psychiatrists recognized for their countless achievements outside and within the country, having a tradition from generation to generation, capable of manipulating even the cleverest mind like yours."

Hosoek smiled at you, but this time his smile showed malice and pride. All that time you were surrounded by people who wielded a certain power and influence, oblivious to the fact that they could ever use it against you.

"Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung... Maybe you heard about their surnames on the news two years ago? Families specialized in medicine, their knowledge dazzles science and biology. Before allies and now both surnames are enemies competing for the market, but who would say that their children would meet secretly and use their same knowledge to retain a precise treasure." His hand stroked your hair causing you to recoil angrily, with a grimace of disgust and resignation. "Well... Finally Jungkook, son of the best technology creators in the country. Capable of creating anything, millionaires obviously, like everyone. Faithful lovers and devoted to he son, giving him everything he wants. " He stopped for a moment and then brought his hand to your ear taking out one of your earrings, you looked at him confused before he opened it showing a tiny device that lit up. "Even creating a more than wonderful device, a tracker of the smallest size."

You opened your mouth completely petrified, looking at each and every one of them. Most of them had a firm and conceited posture, but your eyes only looked at him.

"Were you in on this?" You ask by moving your body slightly, Yoongi only remains silent, avoiding looking at you at all costs, even if it is out of mercy you demand a simple word. "Speak! Tell me! Tell me!" You scream completely out of control, letting out all your frustration and anger with him, just him. It's all his fault. "Tell me now! To finally be able to completely hate them all... Please tell me, I just want to stop inventing and fooling my head trying to justify why you are standing there doing nothing for me" You sob almost exhausted, " Without helping me, when before you said you love me."

His eyes meet yours a few seconds before Jungkook chimed in, completely certain that you were trying to play your manipulation cards to get rid of them. Funny, they had done the same to catch you, their hyung could sometimes be so... credulous. That it was ironic that she was older than him.

"Good enough talk for today." He demanded, causing you to hide your head again in fear. You were so scared, even with the pain in your cheek and jaw from being forced by Jimin, you would never give up on them.

Your mouth felt dry, you couldn't remember the last time you drank water alone. As if they could read your thoughts, Taehyung appeared with a tray with a glass of water and a purple pill.

"Take that away from me." You scream when he tries to put the pill in your mouth, backing up as far as your bound legs will allow.

He sighs bored, as if he doesn't have the patience to deal with it, "If you want water you'll have to do this."

"What is it?" You ask almost breathless from the lack of water in your body, he smiles before bringing the pill to his face to look at it rolling it on his finger.

"Hm... Vitamins." Respond after hesitating. "Everything you need in one compact little pill. It was an invention by Jimin and me, we were hoping you would be the first to try it."

A few seconds ago you remember hearing about the reputations of both families, they were specialists who probably passed that knowledge on to their children. If they knew what they were doing with them, they would be shocked. Your reasoning tells you no, to throw it away and try to run away but your head and body can't take it anymore, they demand water and a rest.

"I-it's okay." You accept, removing the pill and the glass of water from the tray angrily. You put the pill in first, then the water so hard your mouth hurts from the force.

You return the glass silently, eyeing him suspiciously before sitting back down and walking a few inches away. You wait for everyone to do something, but they stay so still as dolls that it scares you, everything about them and their attitudes was creepy.

I wish you had noticed earlier.

And now you feel it, it was not pain, nor anxiety. I was just calm, the noises seem to decrease and your vision does not blur but you feel so relaxed that you do not seem to be affected by any drugs. You could feel it all, but you didn't care.

It was relaxing but you weren't far this time, you remember the previous scenes. When you ate the food they gave you, it was similar but as if it had been modified so that you can remain docile and obedient, but at the same time you know what they are doing.

Your body falls on the bed, you don't even try to get up. Your brain isn't thinking about that, it just gets distracted by the decorations around it, but it clearly perceives one of them nearby. Namjoon is behind your body lying face down, half is on the bed and your legs are still kneeling on the floor. You feel his kisses so desperate on your neck, his hands touching your breasts and stomach trying to lower himself further, anxious not to wait to fuck you as he always wanted and should have been.

You do not fight when his legs open yours with force and speed, you just stand still, thinking with your head glued to the soft sheets of the bed, deep down you can slightly feel your desire to push him and push him away furiously, you want to do it but not you do. You feel so confused that you sob into the sheets in released frustration.

"I thought I heard from you, that her wouldn't refuse anything with his stupid pill." Jin whispers, disgusted seeing you struggle with yourself in search of reason.

"I don't see her deny it." Jimin retorts, crossing his arms with a small victorious smile.

Yoongi stands aside, not wanting to accept this but likewise, like you, does nothing to avoid it while Namjoon sinks deep inside you causing you to writhe overwhelmed and let out a groan of pain, your mouth opens to complain and probably ask him to stop, but he instantly closes again only releasing more gasps and squeals.

They spend minutes with all eyes on you, taking the cock of her friend who abuses your sore pussy from overstimulation, this time you are crying and begging for mercy to stop. Even in your unconsciousness you continue to feel all the pain and also the pleasure that is now almost non-existent.

"S-stop!" You cry between gasps of exhaustion, your hands had been released by Jungkook seconds ago so that you can hold on properly. However, you only use them to try to ward off Namjoon who is holding you against the bed by slamming his body against yours with obscene noises. The bed squirms like you, colliding with the wall in sync.

"A little more baby... Just a little more... And I'll fill you with my cum, so fucking tight. You like that, hm?" Her breath very close to your cheek makes you react, you squeeze your eyes almost suffering from your next inevitable orgasm. You scream making everyone watch you fascinated by how your face contracts with pleasure and pain, you try to walk away when the moment of ecstasy recedes, but he continues to fuck you bareback hard, selfishly chasing the release of him against you.

You spent hours repeating the same routine, sometimes sometimes even more hours than you can remember or count.. Your body was completely covered with bruises and marks not only made by them manually, you had discovered in the worst way that Hoseok had a great fetish to make small cuts to any animal or person that had skin and that glistening blood came out of those wounds, red as hell and as sweet as ambrosia.

A delicacy, truly a true delicacy blessed by God.

Jin could not stop laughing at your overwhelmed face, sometimes he would sit next to you while your body was fucked uncontrollably, watching your face move on the sheets with the constant and hard movements of his friends.

"Do you enjoy it, you dirty bitch?" You knew he was making fun of it, not only because it denigrated your dignity, but also because you couldn't answer correctly and the only thing that moved was your head up and down from the thrusts. As if you were affirming his disgusting words. "You like it right?" And again. "I bet you will enjoy it every day from now on, do you want to marry us, little bitch? Be ours forever, that we fuck you every damn day like that, that we also fill you up that you would get pregnant, you would have our children , and you would gladly. Do you accept _______?"

You did not want to know where he managed to get your last name, nor your full name and less because he thought that after the effect of whatever they had given you, you would really accept being his damned wife.

But he just stands there, watching Jungkook abuse his new power against you and taunt him.

I just wanted to wait for everyone to leave, so I could hug you, heal you, and ask for forgiveness.

He couldn't save you if he was chained to the basement like they threatened to do. He was afraid of his own friends, who looked at him madly when hours before he thought of withdrawing from the plan, Hoseok as charismatic as he always claimed to be able to cut his neck so easily if I took you away from them.

Now, they were doomeds.

The painting lost its color once more.

343 notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

Text

Vintage Shows to Watch While You Wait for the Next Episode of WandaVision - The 60s

So the 60s is the era that Wandavision pulls most heavily from for it’s inspiration. So much so that one could make the argument that each of the first three episodes are all set in the 1960s. Episode one pulls from the early 60s with multiple Dick Van Dyke refences, episode two is very Bewitched inspired, and episode three is aesthetically very similar to The Brady Bunch which started in ‘69. As such it was hard to narrow down the list for this decade and I had to get creative in some ways.

1. The Andy Griffith Show (1960 - 1968)

The Andy Griffith Show gets kind of a bad rap now a days for being, supposedly, a conservative’s wet dream. People claiming it as such have apparently never actually seen the series. Oh yes, it’s very much set in white rural 60s America and will occasionally present the obliviously outdated joke, but the story of a widowed sheriff being the only sane man in a small town full of lovable lunatics, who prefers to solve his and others problems with negotiation and hair brained schemes as opposed to violence has far more in common with modern day Steven Universe than whatever genocidal fantasy fake rednecks have in their heads.

As the gif above shows Andy Griffith was very subtlety progressive for its time. Andy was a stanch pacifist, pro-gun control, treated drug addicts and prisoners with respect, and all the women he would date had careers, ect. and so on. It’s not a satire making any sort of grand political statements but the series had a moral center that was far more left than many realize.

But if it’s not a satire, then what type of comedy is it?

The Andy Griffith Show excels in what I like to call, ‘awkward comedy’. See everyone in Mayberry is far too nice to just come out and tell a character they’re making an ass of themselves, so therefore whoever is the idiot punching bag of the episode’s focus must slowly unravel as everyone looks on in helpless pity until said character realizes the folly of their ways and the townsfolk come together to make them feel happy and accepted once more. Wandavision takes this polite idyllic awkwardness and plays it up for horror instead of laughs.

2. The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961 - 1966)

The creators of Wandavision actually met with Dick Van Dyke himself to pick his brain and learn how sitcoms were made back then. Paul Bentley also took inspiration from Van Dyke in his performance of the sitcom version of Vision, while Olsen stated Mary Tylor Moore had a heavy influence on her character of Wanda. But more than just being a point of homage, The Dick Van Dyke Show was hugely influential in modernizing the family sitcom and breaking a lot of the unspoken traditions and ‘rules’ of the 50s television era. It’s also just really, really funny.

3.The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962 - 1965)

Bit of a cheat here. Alfred Hitchcock Presents actually started in 1955 as a half hour anthology show, but in ‘62 the show got a revamp and was extended into a full hour tv series. I knew I wanted The Twilight Zone to be covered in my episode one recap, but ‘The Master of Suspense’ couldn’t be forgotten. While The Twilight Zone reveled in the surreal and supernatural, Alfred Hitchcock pioneered the thriller genre and made real life seem dangerous, horrifying, and other worldly.

4. Doctor Who (1963 - present day) vs Star Trek (1966 - present day)

Just like how westerns dominated the air waves during the 50s, science fiction was the center of the cultural zeitgeist of the 60s. From Lost in Space to My Favorite Martian, space aliens and robots were everywhere. So naturally I had to name drop the two sci-fi juggernauts that still air to this today. If you thought that the rivalry between Star Wars and Star Trek was bad then you’ve never seen a chat full of Whovians and Trekkies duking it out over who is the better monster, the Borg or the Cyberman. But which one has the more influence over Wandavision?

Well Star Trek owes it’s existence to sitcoms. As with The Twilight Zone before it, Star Trek was produced by Desilu Productions and it’s co-founder and CEO, Lucille Ball, was the series biggest supporter behind the scenes, lobbying for it when it faced early cancelation. As with all things sitcomy, everything ties back to I Love Lucy in the end. However despite that little backstory, it would seem that the series has very little to do with Wandavision itself beyond being quintessentially American.

I would argue that Wandavision owes much to Doctor Who though. Arguably more so than any show mentioned in this retrospective. Time travel, alternate realities, trouble in quite suburbia, brainwashing, people coming back from the dead, ect... just about every trope you can find in Wandavision has also appeared in Doctor Who at some point. As a series that can go anywhere and do anything, Doctor Who was a pioneer of marrying genres in new and interesting ways.

5. Bewitched (1964 - 1972) and I Dream of Jeannie (1965 - 1970)

It’s hard to pick one series over another because they’re essentially the same show. A mortal man falls in love with a magical girl who upends their lives with magic filled hijinks as they try their best not to have their secret discovered by the rest of the world. And both have their fingerprints all over the DNA of Wandavision.

There’s only two core differences; Samantha and Jeannie have completely different personalities, with Sam being confident and knowledgeable and Jeannie being naïve and oblivious, along with their relationships with their respective men, Sam and Darrin being married and in love at the start of the series and Jeannie chasing after Tony in the beginning in a will they/won’t they affair, finally only getting together in the last season.

6. The Munsters (1964 - 1966) vs The Adams Family (1964 - 1966)

Fans of these two shows are forever sadden that there never was a crossover between them. Because they’d fit perfectly together. Both shows are about a surreal and macabre family living in American suburbia and disrupting the lives of their neighbors with their otherworldly hijinks. Sound familiar?

The main difference between the two shows is the way the characters viewed their placement in the world they inhabit.

The Munsters were always oblivious to the fact that didn’t fit in. They just automatically assumed everyone had the same personal tastes as them. Whenever they encountered anyone who behaved strangely around them they would write that person off as being the odd one rather than questioning themselves. As such the main cast was structured like a stereotypical sitcom family who just happened to be classic movie monsters.

The Addams were well aware that they were abnormal and they loved it! They lived life with in their own little world and didn’t care what anyone thought of them. As such the characters were far more colorful and quirky as individuals but there was little in the way of refences to other horror franchises beyond just a general love of the twisted and strange.

7. Green Acres (1965 - 1971) and the Rual-verse (1962 - 1971)

So the MCU is not the first franchise to bring viewers an interconnected universe to the small screen. Far from it, as sitcoms had been doing this for decades, starting with the ‘rualverse’. Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres were all produced by the same company and were treated as spinoffs of each other, complete with crossovers and shared characters and sets.

Of the three, the last show, Green Acres, has the most in common with Wandavision. A well to do businessman and his lovely socialite wife settle down in small town America on a farm in order to get away from the stresses of city life, only to find new stresses in the country. Eva Gabor, herself a natural Hungarian, plays the character of Lisa as Hungarian making her one of the few non-native born Americans on tv screens during the cold war. Despite her posh nature and original protests to the move, Lisa assimilates to the rural life far easier than her husband, Oliver. Who, as the main comedic thread, can’t comprehend his new quirky neighbors’ odd and often illogical behavior.

8. Hogan’s Heroes (1965 - 1971) and Get Smart (1965 - 1969)

So as comic fans have been quick to point out, it’s looking like both A.I.M. (Hydra) and Sword (Shield) will be players in the story of Wandavision. To commemorate that here’s two shows to represent those opposing sides. Although in truth, neither series has anything else in common with each other but I need to condense things down someway.

In Hydra’s corner we got Hogan’s Heroes. A show all about taking down Nazis from within.

I love, love, love, ‘robin hood’ comedies where a group of con artists try week after to week to pull one over the establishment. The Phil Silvers Show, Mchale's Navy, and Top Cat, just to name a few examples are all childhood favorites of mine. However while those shows had a lot of morally ambiguous characters, Hogan’s Heroes has very clear cut good guys and bad guys, cause the bad guys are Nazis and the show relentless makes fun of the third reich as should we all. In fact I was watching Hogan’s Heroes while waiting for the GA run off election results. Fortunately my home state decided to kick out our own brand of Nazis this year.

For Shield, we got the ultimate spy spoof, Get Smart. Starring, Inspector Gadget himself, Don Adams, as the bumbling Maxwell Smart. Get Smart, is a hilarious send up of Cold War espionage but the real selling point of the show, imho, is Max and his co-worker 99′s relationship. You can cut the sexual tension in the air with a knife all while laughing your ass off.

9. Batman (1966 - 1968)

First was Superman and then came Batman. Yet while Superman was a serious action show, Batman was a straight up comedy. Showcasing that superheroes could indeed be funny.

Also shout out for Batman being the only show on this list to have an actual crossover with it’s competitor, The Green Hornet.

10. Julia (1968 - 1971)

Since episode two features the first appearances of Herb and Monica, let’s highlight the first black led sitcom since the cancelation of Amos ‘n Andy over a decade earlier. The show focuses on single mother and military nurse, Julia, as she tries to live her life without her recently decease husband, who was killed in Vietnam, as she tries to raise their six year old son on her own.

The series is cute. It’s more of a throw back to earlier family sitcoms where there’s no fantasy and life lessons are the name of the game. It’s the fact that the main character is a single black woman is what made the show so subversive and important at the time.

Runner Ups

There’s much good stuff in the 60s, so here’s some others that didn’t make the cut but I would recommend anyways.

Car 54, Where Are You? (1961 - 1963)

I call this the Brooklynn 99 of the 1960s. Bumbling but well meaning Officer Toody longs to do good in the world and help anyone in need, but often screws things up with his ill thought out schemes. He often drags his best friend and partner, the competent but anxiety riddled, Muldoon into his escapades.

Mr. Ed (1961 - 1966)

The grandfather of the sarcastic talking pet trope.

The Jetsons (1962 - 1963 and 1985 - 1987)

Hanna-Barbera often took popular sitcoms and just repackaged them as cartoons with a fantasy theme to them. The Jetsons has no singular show that it rips-off but is rather more a grab bag of sitcom tropes that feature, robots, computers, and flying cars.

The Outer Limits (1963 - 1965)

The Outer Limits was The Twilight Zone’s biggest competitor in terms of being a sic-fi/horror anthology series.

Gillian’s Island (1964 - 1967)

The only comparison to WandaVision I could think of was that this is a sitcom about people being trapped in one place. But by that point I was running out of room on the list. Still it’s one of the funniest shows on here.

So yeah, this took longer than expected cause there’s a lot, here. Hopefully the 70s will be easier. Which I’ll post on Friday.

#wandavision #sitcoms #1960s #dick van dyke #bewitched

114 notes · View notes

wiisagi-maiingan · 5 years ago

Note

Do you know anything about the Harry Potter controversy surrounding Rowling's American wizarding school Ilvermony, where the school's houses and backlore supposedly havr ties to indigenous history? This probably sounds like utter gibberish if you don't know anything about it, sorry about that. I was hoping for some possible clarification, I'm not educated enough about either topic to understand the problems there.

HOO BOY, ANON, YOU HAVE STUMBLED ON SOMETHING THAT ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME.

I’m going to start this out with a disclaimer. I love Harry Potter and the HP universe; it’s even one of my oldest special interests and has been a hugely important part of my life and my development as a person.

With that being said, Rowling is absolute shit at putting decent representation in her books and she needs to stay 5,000,000 miles away from Native people.

The most obvious issue with Ilvermorny is the mascots; every single house is represented with a spirit from indigenous cultures. The Thunderbird is common in numerous Turtle Island tribes and is actually an extremely important figure in my own culture, to the point where it’s on my nation’s flag. Pukwudgies are creatures from Delaware and Wampanoag beliefs. The Wampus cat is from South Eastern Native folklore, particularly Cherokee. Horned Serpents, like Thunderbirds, are found in a lot of Native cultures, particularly those in the Southeast and by the Great Lakes.

These are all sacred spirits in their respective cultures and having a white British woman use them as mascots in her white, settler school is extremely insulting. Which brings me to my next issue.

The story of Ilvermorny starts with a Pukwudgie, a Native spirit, becoming indebted to an Irish settler:

“The Pukwudgie now declared himself bound to serve her until he had an opportunity to repay his debt. He considered it a great humiliation to be indebted to a young witch foolish enough to wander around in a strange country, where Pukwudgies or Hidebehinds might have attacked her at any moment, and her days were now filled with the Pukwudgie’s grumbling as he trudged along at her heels.”

Which is fucking gross, lbr. This Pukwudgie then goes on to introduce this European woman to a whole fucking bunch of sacred spirits who just adore her for some reason. She could even understand the Horned Spirit because she’s ~special~

“William began to introduce Isolt to the magical creatures with which he was familiar. They took trips together to observe the frog-headed Hodags hunting, they fought a dragonish Snallygaster and watched newborn Wampus kittens playing in the dawn.

Most fascinating of all to Isolt, was the great horned river serpent with a jewel set into its forehead, which lived in a nearby creek. Even her Pukwudgie guide was terrified of this beast, but to his astonishment, the Horned Serpent seemed to like Isolt. Even more alarming to William was the fact that she claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her.

Isolt learned not to talk to William about her strange sense of kinship with the serpent, nor of the fact that it seemed to tell her things. She took to visiting the creek alone and never told the Pukwudgie where she had been. The serpent’s message never varied: ‘Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed.’”

(She named the Pukwudgie William. Because of course she did.)

This Irish woman, alongside her adopted European settler sons, founded Ilvermorny and decided on the “mascots” of the house without any input from Native peoples.

Then, it gets even worse. Because the Horned Serpent that Isolt could magically communicate with gave her its own horn to turn into a wand for her son.

“The Horned Serpent was waiting there for her. It raised its head exactly as it had done in her dream, she took part of its horn, thanked it, then returned to the house and woke James, whose skill with stone and wood had already beautified the family cottage.

When Chadwick woke next day, it was to find a finely carved wand of prickly ash enclosing the horn of the serpent. Isolt and James had succeeded in creating a wand of exceptional power.”

The next students of the school were from the Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes, and the school continued to grow with both European and Native students. There is no mention of why these children were suddenly being sent to a European school instead of being taught by their tribes, which clearly must’ve been the practice prior to Ilvermorny’s founding.

I also need to seriously stress that there is a very horrific history around Native children being sent to European-run schools, particularly boarding schools. This is a trauma in our communities, not something for a white European woman to use as a plot point in her shitty lore.

Now. Let’s move away from Ilvermorny because it gets even worse when we take a look at Rowling’s History of Magic in North America, particularly the Fourteenth Century – Seventeenth Century article..

In the second paragraph, Rowling immediately makes a statement about Native communities.

“In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits.”

Now, this isn’t inherently bad, but we need to keep this statement in mind when we take a look at the next paragraph.

“The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.”

First of all, what the fuck? “[. . .] No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure.” I shouldn’t have to explain why this statement is absolutely disgusting, but I’m going to anyway. Medicine Men are among the absolute most important people in any Native community. They are revered and respected spiritual leaders, vital to the running of the tribe and the main reason why we as Native people have any bits of our spirituality and religions left. And Rowling essentially called them con artists and liars.

And the idea that sk*nwalkers are just regular Animagi that those ~evil savage Medicine Men~ spread ~nasty rumors~ about is just as disgusting. It is literally rewriting Najavo folklore to make actual Native people look like liars and bigots who are just persecuting those poor misunderstood sk*nwalkers :(((

The article ends with discussions of wands, emphasizing that even though Native peoples had been doing perfectly fine without them and that wandless magic is typically seen as something incredibly powerful, Native people still needed em. In the Ilvermorny article, it’s specifically mentioned that the Native students receive wands made by the Irish woman and her family.

In the other articles about North America, Native people are mentioned exactly twice, once to mention that tribes would take in their “European brethren” and again when discussing a Choctaw woman making wands with Thunderbird feather cores.

“Shikoba Wolfe, who was of Choctaw descent, was primarily famous for intricately carved wands containing Thunderbird tail feathers (the Thunderbird is a magical American bird closely related to the phoenix). Wolfe wands were generally held to be extremely powerful, though difficult to master. They were particularly prized by Transfigurers.”

Sorry, correction; *a woman of Choctaw descent.

So. Tldr; Rowling is fucking racist and I am going to physically fight her with my bare hands.

#long post #harry potter #ilvermorny #indigenous #ndn #representation #Anonymous

7K notes · View notes

mythgirlimagines · 4 years ago

Photo

Talentswap Tuesday is today! Please keep your eyes peeled, or she just might jump out from the shadows to give you an impromptu makeover! It’s Myth, the Former Ultimate Makeup Artist!

————————-——————————

BACKSTORY AND TALENT

When you first of her talent, you would assume Myth to be some kind of Marylin Monroe-esque social media influencer. But despite Myth’s skill in standard makeup application, Myth’s speciality lies in horror and special effects. Able to turn a person from a beauty to a beast, Myth’s makeup skills are praised by both the horror fanatic crowd and the beautician crowd. As the third daughter to an American horror movie actor and a Ukrainian beautician, Myth’s talent manages to consist of the best of both worlds. Starting out as a humble assistant at some of her father‘s movie shoots, eventually Myth garnered internet fame for her tutorials on how to give yourself extra eyes or how to turn into a vampire. She still hasn’t lost any of her spooky and impish charm, even as an adult and chaperone of Hope’s Peak’s annual Kibo-Con field trip.

——————————————————-

RELATIONSHIP

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Storyteller

Folks come far and wide to hear Wyre’s macabre tales that can leave even the strongest of bodyguards shaking in their boots. Myth and Wyre knew each other ever since they were little, having bonded over their shared love of horror and the macabre. And you can bet your bottom dollar that their relationship is still going strong to this very day. Myth regularly helps Wyre with their makeup to up the horror factor, usually making Wyre resemble an oni or a dragon. This fearsome duo just love teaming up to scare the other Anons.

Outfit: White face paint with black circles around their eyes and cracks painted into their face, a large purple cape held together with a skull design, a black vest and red ascot over a white dress shirt, brown pants, black heeled boots.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Jazz Singer

With her proficient skill at both vocals and instruments, Anon Scar, also known by her stage name “Guardian of Soul”, managed to revitalize the jazz genre. You’d think that with her whole demon motif along with her cool and calm behavior on stage, Scar would be able to handle Myth’s horror. But all of that talk of demons and curses is merely a facade, concealing an easily-frazzled and heavily concerned mom friend. Myth loves drawing wounds on herself and pretending to be hurt around Scar, just to see Scar’s facade break.

Outfit: A black vest with a white music note design on the back over a white tank top, black pants, black fingerless gloves, a microphone around her right ear, the scarf and boots from her original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Forensic Sociologist

An expert on human behaviors, body language and social interactions, Fusion possesses an uncanny intuition and can read people like a book, making him a tough nut to crack for the more deceptive and manipulative students. Despite his creepy intuition, Fusion remains a kind-hearted, almost paternal, young man. Myth was thinking that if Fusion wasn’t so kind-hearted and she touched up on his makeup, his freakish intuition and his freakishly thin and tall body would make him the perfect horror movie monster.

Outfit: An oversized dark blue trench coat, an equally large red scarf that covers his mouth, the pants, shoes and glasses from his original design.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Beatboxer

Conquering rap battles after rap battles, Fusion II is famous for both her epic beatboxing skills and the equally epic roasts of her opponents. But similar to Scar, Fusion II‘s sarcastic and flippant demeanour is merely a facade. Deep down, Fusion II is a massive nerd, particularly for literature and poetry. This love for the written word can be found in many lyrics of her rap songs. Myth finds Fusion II to be a fun person to scare, especially when the beatboxer is in the middle of one of her breakdancing sessions.

Outfit: A white jumpsuit that is undone at her waist revealing her red tanktop and fake gold heart necklace underneath, blue and white sneakers, black fingerless gloves, a couple of piercings in her ears, a red cap worn backwards, sunglasses from her original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Seer

Ever since he was little, Janon has been having weird prophetic dreams and Janon felt the urge to draw them in his dream journal. Sleeping and drawing are about the only two things that Janon really puts effort into. Janon sleeps a lot to maximize the number of prophecies he can see, and he can get really grouchy if someone wakes him up in the middle of his dreams. As much as Janon tries to put up the image of a stoic emo, his ridiculous fashion sense and adorable appearance makes Janon Myth‘s number one teasing target.

Outfit: Back-length hair that he didn’t bother to cut with a couples of pencils stuck in, a pink ski cap with bunny ears, a white mask with a cat mouth and whiskers on them, a yellow raincoat, galaxy leggings, nothing on his feet.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Linguist

Coming from an influential family known for their international branches, Sparkle has a penchant for traveling and managed to pick up languages left and right. Currently speaking 14 languages at a native level, Sparkle has a loud, bombastic and dramatic personality. And that loud, bombastic and dramatic personality makes really great reactions to Myth’s jumpscares, along with the added bonus of hearing Sparkle curse in different languages. Sparkle would let Myth touch up on her makeup as long as Myth promises not to put gory details on the linguist’s face.

Outfit: A brown vest over a long-sleeved blue dress shirt, a brown skirt, grey nylons, black heels, a large cape with a map of the word on it, blue pauldrons.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Barista, and Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Perfumer

With the twin’s love for the cursed and macabre, Myth got along with them like a house on fire. Myth regularly hangs out with Egg at their coffee house and exchange their regular cursed inside jokes over a nice cup of joe. Wet Sock, despite their bitter personality, produces some of the best-smelling and luxurious perfume in the known world. Wet Sock’s and Myth’s shared love of cosmetics makes them quite the cursed duo. Both of them may have growing feelings for Myth and they usually fight over her, much to Myth’s amusement.

Egg’s Outfit: A white polo shirt, a green apron, black pants and brown loafers.

Wet Sock’s Outfit: A white polo shirt, a black vest, black pants and brown loafers.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Fencer

Being raised by a prestigious family of fencers, Curious managed to dominate fencing tournaments despite their height and age. Curious is loyal, stalwart and above all else, chivalrous. Said chivalry earned them tons of admirers in their old private school. Similar to Fusion, Curious is also a tough nut to crack, for Curious just has this constant poker face, no matter what horrifying imagery Myth throws at them. But Myth is a determined little lass and will find a way to scare Curious, or she will die trying.

Outfit: Hair in a small ponytail, red and white jacket over a red vest and green tie over a white dress shirt, cream pants, black boots and gloves, always has their trusty rapier on their person.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Lucky Student

Having been admitted to Hope’s Peak via a mere lottery, Anon Nerd has a foul mouth and an equally foul temper, which very clearly came from the poor hand in life that his bad luck gave him. Nerd doesn’t really have anything to his name apart from being part of his school‘s debate club and getting into screaming matches against 13 year olds online. Because of Nerd’s easily-enraged and overreacting personality, Myth finds Nerd in particular to be a fascinating subject to scare. Nerd’s blushy face is just so darn adorable!

Outfit: A black hoodie hood-up, black sweatpants, white socks, grey flip flops.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Crime Novelist

Famous for both his graphic and suspenseful novels and his general evasiveness about his personal information, it truly was a wonder that Myth‘s favorite crime novels were written by not only a Hope’s Peak student, but also someone who is 5 years her junior. Myth regularly tries to socialize with her hero in literature, but despite writing graphic crime novels, Eldritch is cowardly and runs away screaming at the slightest chance of danger. Myth’s generally creepy behavior and interests doesn’t really help matters.

Outfit: Longer hair in a ponytail, a dark purple vest with an orange question mark on the lapel over a long white dress shirt, an orange cravat, grey pants, black socks, black slip-on shoes.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Lighting Designer

Dream has become famous for catapulting her school’s theater club to stardom with her amazing light displays. Dream and Myth both have careers centered around show business, they both admire Eldritch Anon and his novels, and they both have outgoing and childish personalities. But a certain quality about Dream prevents Myth from putting her on her list of friends: Dream is a fashion disaster! Myth always tries to give Dream a makeover and a tirade about how crocs are evil, but everything goes in one ear and comes out the other.

Outfit: A blue headband, part of her hair is put into a small sidetail with a green scrunchie, her hair is dyed a rainbow of colors, a black tanktop, a black, white, and pink jacket draped over her shoulders, various fake gold jewelry, orange headphones, white jorts, a blue and purple stocking on her left leg and a green and yellow stocking on her right leg, red crocs.

Iris Anon, Ultimate Jack-Of-All-Trades

Unlike other Ultimates with a clear-cut talent, Iris has mastered a ton of talents but not to the point of Ultimate status. Iris’s unorthodox Ultimate makes her an enigma amongst the other Ultimates. Despite not knowing what her plans are for the future, Iris is determined to make the most of the vast array of skills she mastered. Iris is very optimistic, able to see the good in even the worst and cursed of monsters. Myth admires Iris’s determination and Myth regularly uses Iris as her pranking accomplice.

Outfit: A grey beanie cap with a dark blue star design, a green flannel jacket over a white t-shirt, a gold coin necklace, light blue jorts, white socks and green loafers with white soles, glasses and bandages from her original design.

Purple Anon, Ultimate Toxicologist

As the scion of an influential family in the science field, Purple Anon is hailed as a prodigy in the field of toxicology. Because of Purple’s upbringing, her vocabulary is both old-fashioned and heavily uses scientific jargon, which makes her speech very hard to decipher by the Anons, with a couple of exceptions. Purple has a timid and easy-to-startle personality, usually hiding behind her good friend, Fusion. Myth regularly consults Purple on any new makeup products, to make sure that the makeup isn’t toxic or an allergen.

This series centers around the gremlin make-up artist trying her best to scare her conmates, but eventually, she opens up to others and proves to be a bit of a cinnamon roll.

——————————————————-

PERSONALITY

Having been surrounded by horror for the majority of her life, MakeupArtist!Myth is unfazed at the prospect of horror and revels in the macabre and unnerving. Despite regularly getting kicks from scaring her fellow Anons, MakeupArtist!Myth has a surprisingly kind-hearted personality despite her impish and devious first impression, and can dial back her horror for people like Eldritch and Purple. MakeupArtist!Myth is a massive fashion police towards the other Anons, particularly towards LightingDesigner!Dream. ——————————————————-

APPEARANCE

MakeupArtist!Myth wears her dyed purple hair in two space buns that she keeps up with blue scrunchies with yellow stars on them. She also wears an oversized grey and black sweater, dark blue short overalls, white gyaru-style socks, and black Mary Janes. Holding up her shorts is a belt that holds a bunch of makeup supplies. MakeupArtist!Myth has the same glasses from her original design, which frame her adorable dot eyes with elaborately designed eyeshadow. ——————————————————-

I hope you like this Tuesday’s Talentswap! I can’t wait to hear what you think of it! By the way, I’d totally recommend “Danganronpa: The Wolf’s Game”, if you want to see another Killing Game with an Ultimate Linguist as the protagonist! I wonder how Wolf Game’s Ultimate Linguist would interact with your Ultimate Linguist!

-Fusion Anon

—

Dang I would so like to be this good at makeup XD Wyre and I actually have a friend who’s super good with horror makeup

8 notes · View notes

the-marx-brothers-will-live-on · 4 years ago

Text

Leonard Joseph "Chico" Marx (March 22, 1887 – October 11, 1961) was an American comedian, musician, actor and film star. He was a member of the Marx Brothers (with Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, and Zeppo Marx). His persona in the act was that of a charming, uneducated but crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. On screen, Chico is often in alliance with Harpo, usually as partners in crime, and is also frequently seen trying to con or outfox Groucho. Leonard was the oldest of the Marx Brothers to live past early childhood (first-born Manfred Marx had died in infancy). In addition to his work as a performer, he played an important role in the management and development of the act in its early years.

Chico was born in Manhattan, New York City, on March 22, 1887. His parents were Sam Marx (called "Frenchie" throughout his life), and his wife, Minnie Schoenberg Marx. Minnie's brother was Al Shean. The Marx family was Franco-German Jewish. His father was a native of Alsace who worked as a tailor and his mother was from East Frisia in Germany.

Billing himself as Chico, he used an Italian persona for his onstage character; stereotyped ethnic characters were common with vaudevillians. His non-Italian-ness was specifically referred to twice on film. In their second feature, Animal Crackers, he recognizes someone he knows to be a fish peddler impersonating a respected art collector:

Ravelli (Chico): "How is it you got to be Roscoe W. Chandler?"

Chandler: "Say, how did you get to be an Italian?"

Ravelli: "Never mind—whose confession is this?"

In A Night at the Opera, which begins in Italy, his character, Fiorello, claims not to be Italian, eliciting a surprised look from Groucho:

Driftwood (Groucho): "Well, things seem to be getting better around the country."

Fiorello (Chico): "I don't know, I'm a stranger here myself."

A scene in the film Go West, in which Chico attempts to placate an Indian chief of whom Groucho has run afoul, has a line that plays a bit on Chico's lack of Italian nationality, but is more or less proper Marxian wordplay:

S. Quentin Quayle (Groucho): "Can you talk Indian?"

Joe Panello (Chico): "I was born in Indianapolis!"

There are moments, however, where Chico's characters appear to be genuinely Italian; examples include the film The Big Store, in which his character Ravelli runs into an old friend he worked with in Naples (after a brief misunderstanding due to his accent), the film Monkey Business, in which Chico claims his grandfather sailed with Christopher Columbus, and their very first outing The Cocoanuts, where Mr. Hammer (Groucho) asks him if he knew what an auction was, in which he responds "I come from Italy on the Atlantic Auction!" Chico's character is often assumed to be dim-witted, as he frequently misunderstands words spoken by other characters (particularly Groucho). However, he often gets the better of the same characters by extorting money from them, either by con or blackmail; again, Groucho is his most frequent target.

Chico was a talented pianist. He originally started playing with only his right hand and fake playing with his left, as his teacher did so herself. Chico eventually acquired a better teacher and learned to play the piano correctly. As a young boy, he gained jobs playing piano to earn money for the Marx family. Sometimes Chico even worked playing in two places at the same time. He would acquire the first job with his piano-playing skills, work for a few nights, and then substitute Harpo on one of the jobs. (During their boyhood, Chico and Harpo looked so much alike that they were often mistaken for each other.)

In the brothers' last film, Love Happy, Chico plays a piano and violin duet with 'Mr. Lyons' (Leon Belasco). Lyons plays some ornate riffs on the violin; Chico comments, "Look-a, Mister Lyons, I know you wanna make a good impression, but please don't-a play better than me!"

In a record album about the Marx Brothers, narrator Gary Owens stated that "although Chico's technique was limited, his repertoire was not." The opposite was true of Harpo, who reportedly could play only two tunes on the piano, which typically thwarted Chico's scam and resulted in both brothers being fired.

Groucho Marx once said that Chico never practiced the pieces he played. Instead, before performances he soaked his fingers in hot water. He was known for 'shooting' the keys of the piano. He played passages with his thumb up and index finger straight, like a gun, as part of the act. Other examples of his keyboard flamboyance are found in A Night at the Opera (1935), where he plays the piano for a group of delighted children, and A Night in Casablanca (1946), where he performs a rendition of "The Beer Barrel Polka".

Chico became the unofficial manager of the Marx Brothers after their mother, Minnie, died in 1929. As manager, he cut a deal to get the brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts—the first of its kind in Hollywood. Furthermore, it was Chico's connection with Irving Thalberg of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that led to Thalberg's signing the Brothers when they were in a career slump after Duck Soup (1933), the last of their films for Paramount.

For a while in the 1930s and 1940s, Chico led a big band. Singer Mel Tormé began his professional career singing with the Chico Marx Orchestra. Through the 1950s, Chico occasionally appeared on a variety of television anthology shows and some television commercials, most memorably with Harpo in "The Incredible Jewelry Robbery", a pantomime episode of General Electric Theater in 1959.

His nickname (acquired during a card game in Chicago in 1915) was originally spelled Chicko. It was changed to Chico but still pronounced "Chick-oh" although those who were unaware of its origin tended to pronounce it "Cheek-oh". Numerous radio recordings from the 1940s exist where announcers and fellow actors mispronounce the nickname, but Chico apparently felt it was unnecessary to correct them. As late as the 1950s, Groucho was happy to use the wrong pronunciation for comedic effect. A guest on You Bet Your Life told the quizmaster she grew up around Chico (California) and Groucho responded, "I grew up around Chico myself. You aren't Gummo, are you?" Groucho is heard in videos pronouncing it "Chicko", as in a Dick Cavett episode with Groucho talking to Dan Rowan.

During Groucho's live performance at Carnegie Hall in 1972, he states that his brother got the name Chico because he was a "chicken-chaser" (early 20th century slang for womanizer).

As well as being a compulsive womanizer, Chico had a lifelong gambling habit. His favorite gambling pursuits were card games, horse racing, dog racing, and various sports betting. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account. When an interviewer in the late 1930s asked him how much money he had lost from gambling, he answered, "Find out how much money Harpo's got. That's how much I've lost." Gummo Marx, in an interview years after Chico's death, said: "Chico's favorite people were actors who gambled, producers who gambled, and women who screwed." Referring to Chico's love life, George Jessel quipped, "Chico didn't button his fly until he was seventy."

Chico's lifelong gambling addiction compelled him to continue in show business long after his brothers had retired in comfort from their Hollywood income, and in the early 1940s he found himself playing in the same small, cheap halls in which he had begun his career 30 years earlier. The Marx Brothers' penultimate film, A Night in Casablanca (1946), was made for Chico's benefit since he had filed for bankruptcy a few years prior. Because of his out-of-control gambling, the brothers finally took the money as he earned it and put him on an allowance, on which he stayed until his death.

Chico had a reputation as a world-class pinochle player, a game he and Harpo learned from their father. Groucho said Chico would throw away good cards (with the knowledge of spectators) to make the play "more interesting". Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on the television show Championship Bridge. He and his partner lost the game.

Chico was married twice. His first marriage was to Betty Karp in 1917. Their union produced one daughter named Maxine (1918–2009). His first marriage was plagued by his infidelity, ending in divorce in 1940; he was very close to his daughter Maxine and gave her acting lessons.

Chico's second marriage was to Mary De Vithas. They married in 1958, three years before his death.

In the 1974 Academy Awards telecast, Jack Lemmon presented Groucho with an honorary Academy Award to a standing ovation. The award was also for Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo, whom Lemmon mentioned by name. It was one of Groucho's final major public appearances. "I wish that Harpo and Chico could be here to share with me this great honor," he said, naming the two deceased brothers (Zeppo was still alive at the time and in the audience). Groucho also praised the late Margaret Dumont as a great straight woman who never understood any of his jokes.

Chico died of arteriosclerosis at age 74 on October 11, 1961, at his Hollywood home. He was the eldest brother and the first to die.

Chico is entombed in the mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Chico's younger brother Gummo is in a crypt across the hall from him.

#marx brothers #chico marx #classic hollywood #comedians

6 notes · View notes

princessnijireiki · 5 years ago

Note

what were the details of nk & mepoc? i rmbr smth happening but cant rmbr details

medievalpoc had just gotten a book deal so ppl were basically pointing out how that was ridiculous since she's not a solid researcher + doesn't have enough of a bg in history or art history to accurately describe art in the context of what was actually being communicated, or who its subjects were, or even like a solid understanding of how definitions & delineations of what race IS or how it's depicted change over time & based on setting, esp for art depicting people the artist had never seen before, or for example treating textbook orientalist art as a positive thing when it's meant to dehumanize subjects either as exotic objects or stand-ins for conceptual "foreignness," etc

and on top of that it was suggested that m.poc's work was basically cribbed together from other people's blogs, esp since her own page took (maybe still takes idk) submissions & she was (allegedly) including submissions + reblogs uncredited in her book

and on top of THAT, she was also inconsistent abt her own ethnic bg on her blog, which is a common enough thing (esp for mixed people of color & the fact that it's… a personal blog on tumblr dot com) that it's nbd, EXCEPT that she claimed a position of authority based mostly on being a PERSON OF COLOR due to a lack of academic credentials & like based on "oh I see this bc I'm coming at art history from a lens outside of the white hegemony" or whatever.

so it suddenly made those inconsistent claims BECOME a big deal & an actual issue when "random blogger gets book deal" didn't HAVE to turn into "random blogger gets book deal on sole 'credential' of ethnicity," esp when iirc she alternately claimed mixed romani or mixed native american heritage— neither of which are like uncommon or inherently suspicious things to be or lack 'documentation' for! just that they are also HIGHLY common choices for self exotifying white people to feel ethnically special™️ and as "get out of jail free" cards re: defending against accusations of racism… and so ppl began scrutinizing her to see if she was faking, and if she'd conned her way into a professional opportunity by claiming a diff race.

nk got pulled into it bc she either had just gotten an award or was publishing a new book around the same time, and they were gonna be presenting together on a panel abt authorship as people of color (iirc), and people were like, "damn, they're apparently friends & if nk doesn't address this that just gives tacit approval to everything going on," which is ofc stupid bc nobody weighs in on coworkers like this in real life or needs to judge others in their field, bc like… obviously that's not her job.

m.poc's angle, iirc, was to not address anything but the racefaker claims to be like "damn that's hurtful wtf" (which: fair if true! but also conveniently & deliberately sidesteps every other issue at play), which in turn made it seem like nk was being asked to be the racial arbiter & be like the black woman designated as a race cop and gatekeeper to bully or quiz or reject someone she'd seen as another person of color, and erased ppl's other legitimate complaints into sth like "this person only got their job bc of affirmative action."

which is calculating regardless of m.poc's actual ethnic bg, bc that cherrypicking makes ppl outside the context of this tumblr baggage see her as a victim of racial bullying, and shuts down folks' willingness to listen to anyone's critiques as a result, bc then those people are CLEARLY just looking for ANY kind of way to tear poor medievalpoc down in this moment.

and then basically the public spotlight passed, talk died down on its own, people are still defensive of m.poc bc Mean Ethnic SJWs AND ~racists who don't want to see poc in the arts~ tried to tear her down.

and ppl who were here for the whole thing are left to be like "yeah they're a con artist & frustrating as all hell if you have ANY academic training in the fields they've finagled their way into a professional place in. but mostly m.poc is an annoying crybaby who definitely DID use race (their own or faked) as a stepping stone towards success, but since they will also milk any controversy for attention, there's nothing to be done for it bc she's liable to spin it for another book deal + call on friends to yell back at you & bully you if you do."

that's how I remember it anyway, there were ppl paying closer attention to it all than I was, but it was mainly just a whole fucking mess.

11 notes · View notes

sleemo · 7 years ago

Text

Edge of Darkness

From the Marines to the Emmys to the most powerful cultural force in the galaxy, for ADAM DRIVER, finding his path has been a long, hard battle. Now, for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, in a role he never imagined could be so complex, the brooding face of millennial angst faces his toughest fight yet. Spoiler alert!

—British GQ, December 2017

His face shrouded beneath a hood, Adam Driver strides toward me. Shoulders hunched, fists jammed into jean pockets, he lets out a low whisper, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

The mixed messages – simultaneously worrying he’ll be recognised and that he won’t – hang in the air awkwardly as Driver surveys our spot, a near-empty New York City café. Neither fear is well-founded; there is no flock of fans to notice him and yet there is no mistaking the actor, his grey hoodie notwithstanding.

“I try to disguise things, but it just doesn’t really work for me,” Driver says, shedding the sweatshirt. “I honestly just look the way I look and it’s difficult to blend in because I’m tall and I look strange. I shouldn’t put a judgment on it.”

Others have judged his appearance more favourably. Driver has been dubbed a “cure for the cookie-cutter leading man” and “a millennial sex symbol”. Which may or may not be a compliment. Although few phrases are as loaded as “unconventionally attractive”, it’s as if those two words were combined expressly to describe Driver. Exaggerated ears; hooded, slanted eyes; long nose with a boxer’s bridge; broad mouth and lips – his disparate features coalesce into a surprisingly appealing whole.

“I guess I never think about it like ‘I am a leading man’ or ‘I am a sex symbol.’ It’s strange to hear that stuff. I don’t think I could have imagined it,” says Driver. Yet, there was his visage on Gap billboard ads; in American Vogue with a black-horned ram slung across his shoulders; in a close-up at the Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor three years in a row for his part in HBO’s Girls; and cast eternally in plastic as a Kylo Ren action figure for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – masked and unmasked versions available. (“Not bad,” he says of the likeness, “but my head and face are a lot bigger.”) Passers-by who once stopped him to ask, “How could you do that to Hannah?” in reference to the bad-boy behaviour of Driver’s character in Lena Dunham’s runaway-success television series, now ask, “How could you do that to Han Solo?”

“It’s a lot,” Driver says, “every part of my life. If we rewound to ten years ago, I would not have said that this is what my life would be.

“And now this music,” he waves his hands at the piano composition streaming through the café like pretentious Musack, “is making that sound so emotional. It isn’t helping, you know?”

Far from angry, the brooding face of millennial angst is smirking. At 33, Adam Driver’s signature intensity hasn’t wavered, but interest in being a tortured artist has. He’s aware of his tendencies – toward anxiety, analysis and absolutism – and is taking steps to temper them. Still, it’s a struggle, seeing good fortune as anything but a cause for self-flagellation.

If we did rewind ten years, we’d see why. Driver was a Gordian knot of clenched intensity. Enrolled at New York’s Juilliard performing arts school, he was so aggressive that his comments made fellow students cry. Every morning he would have six eggs for breakfast, then run five miles to the school from his home in Queens. He would eat a whole chicken for lunch and, during his day at the prestigious drama school, perform random feats, such as 1,000 push-ups.

“That must’ve been an obnoxious thing to be around,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to make it as extreme for myself as possible. Now it just makes me so tired and annoyed.”

I’ve met Driver in a peaceful, leafy corner of the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood that he and his wife, Joanne Tucker, call home. It’s a square precinct full of baby strollers that belies the borough’s hipster cred. “I like sleepy, quiet places,” Driver explains, “because my job is very loud.” Right now he’s savouring a respite from work, the first in a five-year sprint to stardom and even letting himself idle a little. Driver, who has made a career of ill-at-ease eccentricity, is starting to feel comfortable in his own skin.

He genuinely enjoyed himself on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will be released in cinemas this December. “The first one was all ‘You can’t fuck it up,’ you know? There was a lot more hanging out this time,” Driver says. “Then there are just practical things, like I have a lightsaber. That’s fun.”

Whatever the outcome of the larger battle between good and evil, the Resistance and the First Order, never underestimate the power of Driver’s light side. ”I had heard about Adam’s intensity before I worked with him, but he’s also really fun and funny,” says Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s director.

There was one emotionally charged scene that they shot over and over. “Every time the guy holding the clapper marked each take, Adam just starts trying to steal his shoe,” Johnson recalls. “It was hilarious. And then Adam goes straight into it with all the intensity of Kylo Ren. He just added a sense of play that made the process really click.”

Neither Johnson nor Driver can say what the scene was about or who else was in it. They are acutely aware of the cone of silence that surrounds the Star Wars films, suitably enough, like a force field. “There’s probably something in my contract, I don’t know – but it’s kind of unbelievable that no one has told me, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Driver explains. “It’s just implicitly understood.”

With plot points guarded like state secrets, even the tiniest perceived leak sets off an online feeding frenzy. Internet scribes grab at every quote, often misreading them. “You have to clarify truthful things you’ve said that people read these false things into,” Driver says. “It can be frustrating.”

After several years of sidestepping spoilers, Driver is practised at the art of obfuscation. His evasive manoeuvres are near perfect.

On whether he enjoyed acting opposite Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey: “That’s hard to answer. I mean, people assume that we’d spend time with each other. Maybe our characters see each other in the movie?”

On whether he had scenes with Carrie Fisher: “It’s hard to answer without being vague.”

On whether the lightsaber scar on his face, which came courtesy of Rey in The Force Awakens, was moved for the new film: “I noticed a lot of things.”

On whether Kylo Ren’s story has a happy ending: “Not saying yes or no. But continue.”

On whether Han Solo might have known Kylo Ren would kill him: “That’s interesting.”

On whether he appears with his mask off: “Yes, I can answer that. You’ll see it off in the new trailer, so I’m not giving anything away!”

Other times, Driver playfully embraces the absurdity of it all. “I can’t say anything, but what if I signal you,” he jokes. “If I just start sneezing uncontrollably…” He fakes a loud achoo and exclaims, “Bingo! Harrison Ford’s ghost returns!”

When I ask him about Kylo Ren’s mysterious order of Dark Side disciples, the Knights of Ren, he waxes whimsical. “We can talk about them. Peter, Paul, John… No, I was thinking of The Beatles. Except wait – there’s Peter. He was too ambitious on the tambourine. Now you know: the last Knight of Ren is Ringo Starr!”

On this particular mid-September day, the internet is abuzz with new speculation that Ridley’s character, Rey, is the daughter of Princess Leia (also Kylo Ren’s mother). This theory would take any romantic tension between her and Driver’s Kylo Ren into the realm of incest – territory that the first Star Wars trilogy explored with a kiss between Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher’s Leia.

“Yeah, my uncle and my mum made out,” Driver says, with a laugh. “Which Mark still talks about. He’s like, ‘Luke kissed his sister. How could he do that?’ I guess he hasn’t seen Game Of Thrones, you know?”

The Last Jedi marks the final film in Fisher’s storied career. Like the rest of the cast, Driver was shaken by the actress’ death last December at age 60. “It’s hard to talk about it without saying generic things,” he says. “Like, ‘It’s shocking,’ but it was. Or ‘It’s incredibly sad,’ which it is. I mean, it is all of those things.”

Driver brightens as he recalls Fisher’s wit on display at Comic-Con before the release of The Force Awakens. “The whole cast was downstairs in a conference room, talking through what’s supposed to happen at this big event. She was like, ‘Just pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit.’” Driver pauses for a moment then laughs. “So now I pretend I’m down to earth and you know what? People really do love that shit. They eat it up.”

The image of Driver that people have consumed is not so much down to earth as intense and uncompromising, the all-or-nothing avatar of millennial manhood named Adam Sackler, Driver’s character in Girls. Ever since Driver landed the part, originally a cameo called simply “Handsome Carpenter”, the notion he really was that id-driven artist has, like the life of another charismatic carpenter, been taken as gospel.

In the public consciousness, Driver’s backstory is as extreme as his alter ego’s: a Midwestern misfit enlists in the Marines after 9/11, then studies acting at Juilliard – and finds he’s an outlier in both worlds. The truth is both less and more dramatic.

Born in San Diego, California, Driver is the son of a preacher. When his parents divorced, Driver moved with his mother back to her native Mishawaka, Indiana, where she was soon remarried to a Baptist minister. As a teenager, Driver was a poor student who dabbled in pyromania, trainspotting and climbing radio towers. A fan of the film Fight Club, Driver started one with some friends. “Just seeing the angst, I thought it would be a good idea to emulate it.“

Acting offered Driver a way out of the tiny town he called a shithole. “I applied to Juilliard when I was graduating high school and didn’t get in, so I was like ‘Well, fuck it. I won’t go to college, then.’” Instead, he set off for Hollywood and what he thought would be overnight stardom. “I’d always heard the stories of people striking out and finding success,” he says. “Why not me?” The dream lasted as long as his hand-me-down 1990 Lincoln Town Car did. After it broke down outside Amarillo, Texas, the repairs cost Driver nearly all the money he’d saved. When he finally limped into Los Angeles, Driver spent two nights in youth hostels. The only agent he signed with was a real estate agency, which took him for the rest of his savings. Having landed neither an apartment nor an acting gig, Driver arrived back in Indiana a week after leaving.

Following the 11 September attacks, Driver did not, as some retellings suggest, march down to the recruiting station. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines several months later. “My stepfather pushed me into it a little bit, which was good – I was grateful for it,” Driver says. “It followed an argument where he was like, ‘You’re not doing anything!’ I’d gotten this brochure in the mail. He was like, ‘Why don’t you just join?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to join the Marines.’ Then I thought about it more. I had this sense of patriotism and wanted to get involved. I also had no prospects. I was living in the back of my parents’ house, working as a telemarketer.”

From the start, Driver’s time in uniform had a profound effect on him and his worldview. “The patriotism, the idea of country, doesn’t go away necessarily, it just turns into something else,” he says, reverently. “Not a big, sweeping idea, but this group of people you’re serving with, and that becomes your world, and it becomes sacred.”

Going into the Marines, Driver had a seemingly straightforward goal: “I’m going to be a man.” But rather than reinforce clichéd concepts of masculinity, military service put the lie to them. “You have to put implicit trust in the people to your left and right, and when they demonstrate that they’re looking out for you, that their own safety is secondary to yours, then all that kind of guy shit goes away and there is no ego,” Driver says. “There is no posturing, no need to say how much of a man you are, whatever that even means. You prove it with your actions.”

When Driver was not allowed to deploy to the Middle East with his unit, after suffering a broken sternum in a mountain biking accident, he was despondent. Although he fought to stay on active duty, Driver ultimately received a medical discharge.

He decided to apply to Juilliard again and this time got in. The transition from the Marine Corps to a New York City drama programme was jarring. During Driver’s second year, in an effort to bridge his past and present vocations, he launched a non-profit called Arts In The Armed Forces with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Tucker. Driver was able to carry a discipline and teamwork into his studies, but it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d gone soft. “I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m wearing pyjamas doing acting exercises where I’m giving birth to myself or being a plant or moving around in jelly,’” he says. “Then again, even now, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”

After a brief fallow period after graduating from Juilliard, Driver says he learned to hate everyone in the audition room. He didn’t like TV and almost skipped his audition for Girls entirely. Instead, he dazzled the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and the one-episode part Driver had read for was expanded into a central one. In audition after audition, Driver made a similar impression on a series of noted directors. Even before Girls aired, Steven Spielberg cast him in Lincoln, in which he played a telegraph operator opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. “He was very nice to me,” Driver says of the legendary method actor. “He would still talk in character, but very nice.”

In particular, Driver’s unusual, instinctive style made him a favourite of indie filmmakers. He landed meaty roles in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and a series of films by writer-director Noah Baumbach: Frances Ha, While We’re Young and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected). He played the lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and shared top billing in Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky. When Martin Scorsese was finally able to make his passion project, Silence, after two decades, he sought out Driver. Similarly, Driver recently wrapped shooting on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which Terry Gilliam had been trying to make for 17 years.

And yet nothing Driver had done remotely prepared him for Star Wars. He had grown up a fan of the original trilogy, but had little faith in outsized film franchises. “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle,” he says. “When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

Despite his initial trepidation, the complicated nature of Kylo Ren put Driver’s concerns to rest. “It was all about story and character and playing someone who doesn’t have it all together. Making him as human as possible seemed dangerous and exciting to me.”

Driver was drawn to an idea that JJ Abrams, who wrote and directed The Force Awakens, had. The man behind the mask was not a man at all, but rather a young person struggling to come of age. “I remember the initial conversations about having things ‘skinned’,” Driver recalls, “peeling away layers to evolve into other people, and the person Kylo’s pretending to be on the outside is not who he is. He’s a vulnerable kid who doesn’t know where to put his energy, but when he puts his mask on, suddenly, he’s playing a role. JJ had that idea initially and I think Rian took it to the next level.”

Driver is on a roll now, discussing what excites him: character and narrative and cinematic influences. The original Star Wars was an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, he says, and the link lives on in the new trilogy, in which concealed identities drive the narrative. Then he lets it slip. “You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices,” Driver says, apparently dropping a massive revelation about Rey’s royal origins.

Perhaps he’s unconcerned and Rey’s parentage is less dramatic than imagined by fans, who posited that her father is Luke then trumpeted that her mother is Leia. Or it could be that, in passionately holding forth, Driver is simply unaware he’s revealed anything, much less a major spoiler. In any case, he doesn’t skip a beat. “The things that made it personal to me,” Driver continues, “I’ll keep to myself, but I think everybody can relate to the idea of almost being betrayed.

“Wow, this music is killing me.”

As the café’s latest piano piece reaches its crescendo, I ask Driver if he tapped into his own experiences with his dad and stepfather and he reverts to evasive manoeuvres.

“I may leave that one. I have strong convictions about not talking about family, for many reasons,” Driver says. “It’s not as if the answers for Kylo are found in my relationships with my parents.”

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. “Adam was always pushing the context of the character,” Johnson says. “He’s put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he’s representing that side of adolescence.”

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. “It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be,” Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. “You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine – or hope or pray – are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. “We talked about terrorism a lot,” Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. “When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach,” Driver recalls. “The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s happening.’ Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife’s hand, and she’s like, ‘You’re really cold. Are you OK?’ Because I just knew what was coming – I kill Harrison – and I didn’t know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?”

One person in the crowd who appreciated that scene was Han Solo himself. “We were sitting on this catwalk in between takes,” Driver recalls, “and Harrison was like, ‘Look what we get to do. Just look what we get to do.’ Meaning, look at how lucky we are that this is our job, you know? To see someone at that point in his career still get excited like that hit me. It’s like, ‘Oh, right. I need to take this in more.’”

As if on cue, a couple stop and introduce themselves. “I love everything you’ve ever done,” the wife says. “Everything.”

“Thanks a million. Yeah. Hi, I’m Adam.”

As fan encounters go, it is respectful and pleasant, but not even a whimper of what will soon follow come the release of The Last Jedi.

For all the ways in which he’s made peace with his success, Driver, who is almost pathologically private by nature, remains uncomfortable with notoriety. “I’m not in the world the same way I was before,” Driver says. “It’s completely changed my life. My anonymity is gone. But who I am as a person is the exact same. I think. Or, I hope.”

Soon after, we exit the café, as Driver is heading home for some quiet time. He stops in front of a bicycle locked to a fence. “It only looks bourgeois-hipster because of the saddle,” Driver says, adding that he’s only just added the leather Brooks seat. “I bought the bike for $200 back when I was at Juilliard,” Driver says. “Besides the seat, it’s the same crappy bike I’ve had for forever.”

Driver pulls his hoodie up over his head and as he starts pedalling off turns back to me. “Remember,” he says. “Pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit. Right?”

The Last Jedi is out on 15 December.

#this is the ENTIRE THING #gah its so long #this took forever #adam driver #interview #gq #kylo ren #ben solo #star wars #the last jedi #the force awakens #long post

412 notes · View notes

ilikelookingatthings · 7 years ago

Text

The solution to one of WW biggest problems is Sexism

So I understandably love wonder woman in the DC movie universe but there seems to be a big issue seems to bother lots of people about this version. Mostly revolving around how it was implied that Diana had been mostly working in the shadows and not fighting crime or darkness like she said she would for a while before Batman vs. Superman. The biggest thing is people are scared Diana didn't act during WWII. and if she didn’t that means she was not acting heroic or wonder womanly by standing aside.

It was also implied that Diana got spooked about leading a team because it causes others to die and are your responsibility(with batman taking a jab about Steve). This was mostly done to explain why Diana isn't common knowledge or talked about before she came out in the open to help fight doomsday.

......but there is a rather easy solution that I think others are over looking. Diana could be just as influential, and go through all the battles and mission but still not be well known or talked about .....because of sexism.

The fact is sexism is a thing, it was ingrained in the culture even more during WW I, let alone WW II. and yes I can see why people don’t actually want to mention sexism but there are many many influential woman who are really remember or over looked because of the way history is written and doesn't focus on them or bring them up. Add that especially during WW I’s time they were more sexist and they probably wouldn’t take Diana seriously on principle.

They might give credit for her achievement to others or not believe soldiers or witness. creating cover ups and fake excuses that fit in line with what they believe. After all Ares was only shown to a few soldiers who people aren’t going to believe because PTSD or because a woman creating lightning and lifting a tank sounds crazy.

Witnesses in the town all died from the gas and if some had left earlier there still wasn't enough to be believed.

Etta was the closest connection Diana had to someone official in a position but Etta was also just a secretary add she was a woman during this time period and the one superior that had backing them up turned out to be Ares that Diana killed. and even with Steve who was a great spy and pilot they still didn't make much headway, and Steve is dead now.

The others in their group are a native American, a alcoholic, a con-artist who wants to be a actor etc.. not exactly well respected men during that time period, let alone people they would be listened to.

So Diana actually participating and doing her best to make a difference could still work, but her accomplishments could be over looked, ignored as a fantasy or given to other people.

Which would actually make sense and be a call back to the golden-age because a common trope would be that WW would constantly save the day and everyone would automatically assume Steve did it by himself and saved the day and Steve would have to adamantly correct them that it was all wonder woman and to stop praising Steve and acknowledge that WW is amazing and saved the day.

But as everyone who watched the movie or looked at the Diana/WW/Steve fanficts knows....Steve is dead. Steve is not there so no Steve means no one to correct or be adamant about giving WW the praise she deserves. Times will change but people would cover it up because of sexism, not believing it, maybe fear or resentment.

And yes, its uncomfortable to think of Diana being affected by sexism like everyone else or held back even if in reality she still did her duty and had faith. But ignoring that as a possibility or like it hasn't happened before so the only option is that Diana got too tired and didn’t do her best to save the world until Batman vs. Superman raises worst implications if you think about it.

Not to mention while I love Steve I am actually rather irritated by the implication they hinted that losing Steve was such a blow it scared Diana away from intimacy to trying to romance again. Its been YEARS. Diana only has sex with Steve once and wasn't even able to say I love you to him. I truly believe in their chemistry and they loved each other deeply for their short time together.

But that's just the thing....it was a short time together. Diana is young and while part of her will always love Steve and Steve can’t be replaced that doesn't mean Diana would never fall for someone else.

The best trope they avoided by making it about duty and Diana didn’t instantly fall for Steve like she did in the Golden-age comic by Marston is they were able to avoid the idea her motive was just Steve. It gave the feeling that Steve or no Steve Diana would do her best to improve the world.

But in justice league by bringing up Steve like Steve was the reason she feared leading the group or taking responsibility is......not the best choice as it implies WW was stuck on Steve to the point she got stuck in a rut. She has no reason to believe Steve will come back so why wouldn’t she try dating other people?

Batman has plenty of romances that mean different things to him but are just as important and helped him grow but just because one romance failed that doesn't mean he’d never fall for someone else again.

We know Steve is Diana’s soulmate, created to be by her side like Superman and Lois are made for each other but that doesn’t mean Diana has to not want to have some sexy fun or experiment.

.......I’ll add pictures later

....Either way its a rather easy answer that could fill up some plot holes or odd implications.

though I hope someone tells me what other options there could be

#wonder woman #Diana #romance #WWI #WWII #Wonder woman movie #Steve trevor #justice league

1 note · View note

vinayv224 · 4 years ago

Text

Hunter Biden, the black sheep who got Trump impeached, explained

Hunter Biden, then the chair of the World Food Program USA, speaking at an organization event on April 12, 2016, in Washington, DC. | Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

A troubled guy at the center of the fake scandal that became a real scandal.

Hunter is the younger of Joe Biden’s two sons. He never showed as much promise as his brother Beau, stumbling through life and often trading on his dad’s name and position for financial gain. He’s more or less operated in the background as something of a black sheep in the family, but he’s emerged to the forefront of American politics in recent weeks over work he did in Ukraine that fueled a bogus conspiracy theory at the heart of Trump’s decision to strong-arm the country’s president.

It’s not unusual for the children of successful politicians to trade on their family’s famous name and connections to get ahead in life. And when that happens, most political parents hope for a trajectory like the one enjoyed by Beau Biden until his life was cut short by cancer in 2015.

Beau followed in his father’s footsteps to Syracuse University for law school and then clerked for a US District Court judge. He got a job at the Justice Department and then became a federal prosecutor. He then dipped into the private sector briefly. But when Delaware’s attorney general, Jane Brady, resigned to take up a judicial post, the state’s governor appointed Carl Danberg to serve as a placeholder attorney general who wouldn’t run for reelection. Beau won the seat in the 2006 midterms, Danberg got appointed to serve as the head of Delaware’s Corrections Department, and all eyes were on Beau to run for governor in 2016 when Jack Markell’s term would be expiring.

Only an extremely naive person would see this as a career free of nepotism. But Beau, like a successful politician’s kid, had to actually do his work adequately each step of the way. As a candidate for attorney general, he clearly got a boost from his dad’s name, and it seems like the Delaware political establishment was working to open up an office for him to run for. But as a former federal prosecutor and Army JAG, he was qualified for the job and he won the election fair and square. And there’s nothing unusual at all about a two-term attorney general campaigning to win an open gubernatorial election in his home state.

This is more or less how the system is supposed to work for children of privilege — you get a consistent favorable tailwind at your back, but you still need to steer the plane. Hunter, by contrast, has been the guy who even into his 40s keeps needing dad to send the search—and-rescue party. And yet in a strange way, Hunter ended up being one of the most politically accomplished figures of our time since Trump’s efforts to smear Joe Biden over Hunter’s work in Ukraine ended up leading to his impeachment.

Hunter Biden’s whole career is being Joe Biden’s son

According to Adam Entous’s profile in the New Yorker, “it was clear to family and friends that Beau would follow his father into politics,” while Hunter was initially interested in more artistic pursuits “but, with a baby on the way, he decided to go straight to law school.”

The basic desire to make money is pretty commonplace. Hunter, after a year at Georgetown Law, was able to transfer to Yale and finish out at the country’s most prestigious law school. Yale Law grads don’t normally hurt for opportunities to earn a decent salary, but Hunter interestingly went to work right away for MBNA, a major Delaware-based bank (later purchased by Bank of America) that was also a big contributor to Biden’s campaigns.

This was part of a much larger coziness between Biden and the bank that the then-senator took flak for from conservatives like Byron York, who dubbed him “the senator from MBNA” in a 1998 American Spectator article. The nickname stuck in years to come as Biden became the leading Democratic advocate of a bankruptcy reform bill that most Democrats opposed but that major credit card issuers like MBNA strongly favored.

There’s no reason to think that Biden backed MBNA’s position because his son worked there — senators normally line up with their home state’s major employers’ policy priorities — it’s more like Hunter got the job due to his dad’s overall cozy relationship with the company.

Hunter’s career, however, never really seems to have quite launched as an independent entity. In 1998, he went to work for the US Department of Commerce and then left after the Clinton administration ended. He formed a lobbying firm with an old associate of his dad’s. By mutual agreement, Hunter avoided lobbying his father but did continue to collect consulting fees from MBNA through the 2005 passage of the bankruptcy bill the bank had long sought.

In 2006, President George W. Bush appointed him to the Amtrak board of directors as a gesture of bipartisanship. Here’s how Tom Carper, Delaware’s other senator, described his qualifications for the job (emphasis added):

Hunter Biden is a native Delawarian and I would go on to say that he’s also been nominated to serve on the Amtrak Board of Directors. When Hunter was unable to get into the University of Delaware, he instead went on to Georgetown and then to Yale Law School and managed to get through those OK. He’s ended up being Senior Vice President at MBNA one of the largest financial institutions in the country. He served as Executive Director of Economy Policy Coordination at the U.S. Department of Commerce. About 5 years ago he went off and formed a law firm here in Washington, D.C., and now they represent over 100 clients including a bunch of non-profit organizations and educational institutions.

More specifically, though, and for our purposes and for the purpose of this nomination, Hunter Biden has spent a lot of time on Amtrak trains. Like his father, like our Congressman, Mike Castle and myself, Hunter Biden has lived in Delaware while using Amtrak to commute to his job as we commute to our job in Washington almost every day of the week. You know, you learn a lot about what could work and what would work better at Amtrak by riding trains and talking to the passengers, the commuters, the passengers, the folks who work on the trains and make them work every day. You also have a chance to see the huge economic benefit the region receives from having a strong passenger rail corridor, something that should be available in a lot of other parts of our country.

It would obviously be a stretch to attribute any specific shortcoming of passenger rail in the United States to Hunter Biden’s service on the board. But the fact that the job is treated as a kind of patronage position to hand out to random senators’ kids who have no relevant knowledge beyond riding the train a lot helps explain why American passenger rail is low quality and exhibits little understanding of international best practices.

When his dad became vice president, Hunter left the Amtrak board and instead got involved with a series of investment companies. As detailed by Ben Schreckinger in Politico, a lot of this work seems to have hinged on Hunter and his uncle James Biden sort of hinting around that the family connection to the vice president could help get things done and then not delivering. The Obama administration generally regarded Hunter as a kind of embarrassing family black sheep rather than a real scandal.

Hunter Biden had a lot of problems in life

Stepping back from politics, the Hunter Biden story is basically sympathetic. His mom died in a car accident when he was a little kid, his dad was a loving but busy US senator, and his older brother was accomplished in ways he couldn’t quite match.

And the history of American presidential politics is littered with similar characters like Billy Carter, Tony Rodham, and Neil Bush, who try to capitalize financially on relatives in the White House and thereby succeed in embracing their family without really accomplishing much of anything.

In May 2013, Hunter joined the US Naval Reserve for which he required two waivers — one because at 42 years old he was above the normal age for a military recruit and the other due to a previous drug use incident. In August, his brother Beau received the initial diagnosis of the brain cancer that would eventually kill him.

By February of 2014, Hunter was discharged from the Navy for testing positive for cocaine. The next spring, Beau died. In October 2015, Hunter separated from his wife Kathleen. She filed for divorce in 2016, and in paperwork complained that Hunter had been “spending extravagantly on his own interests including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations.”

Sometime in 2016, Hunter began dating Beau’s widow, which family members claimed to be supportive of, but that relationship unraveled by early 2019.

Hunter’s personal troubles were severe enough that he was for whatever reason unable to attend Joe Biden’s presidential campaign kickoff — an event that featured Hunter’s three daughters, the boyfriend of one of the daughters, Beau’s two kids, Hunter’s half-sister Ashley, and Ashley’s husband Howard Krein, along with an empty seat in the row with a piece of paper on it that said “reserved.”

And during the bulk of this troubled period in Hunter’s life, he was fortuitously on the board of a Ukrainian energy company — a stroke of good fortune that’s become the centerpiece of a bogus corruption allegation leveled at his dad.

Joe Biden didn’t do anything to help Hunter in Ukraine

Back in 2014 after a change of regime in Ukraine, Hunter Biden joined the board of a scandal-plagued Ukrainian natural gas company named Burisma. Hunter had no apparent qualifications for the job except that his father was the vice president and involved in the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.

He got paid up to $50,000 per month for the job and the situation constituted the kind of conflict of interest that was normally considered inappropriate in Washington until the Trump era. These days, of course, the president of the United States regularly accepts payments from foreign sources to his company while in office, and so do the Trump children. The Obama administration probably should have done something about this at the time, but the White House couldn’t literally force Hunter not to accept the job. And given the larger family context, you can see why Joe might have been reluctant to confront his son about it.

This would all be a small footnote in history except that by 2016, officials throughout the Obama administration and in Western Europe had come to a consensus that Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, wasn’t doing enough to crack down on corruption. Biden, as he later colorfully recounted, delivered the message that the West wanted Shokin gone or else loan guarantees would be held up, and Shokin was, in turn, fired.

There was nothing remotely controversial about this at the time. No congressional Republicans complained about it, and the European Union hailed the decision to fire Shokin. The reason there is video footage of Biden touting his personal role in this is it was considered a foreign policy triumph that Biden wanted to claim credit for, not anything sordid or embarrassing.

But Shokin, of course, didn’t want to go down on the theory that he was corrupt or incompetent. So he started offering another theory: he was fired for going after Burisma by Joe Biden operating on behalf of Hunter Biden.

The question of whether Shokin was actually investigating Burisma at all is a matter of dispute (the relevant Ukrainian players have told inconsistent stories), but this is clearly not the reason he was fired. The desire to push him out was fully bipartisan in the United States and reflected a consensus across European governments, not than anything idiosyncratic to Biden.

The notion that firing Shokin was somehow problematic was not in the air until the New York Times ran a story co-bylined by Ken Vogel and a Ukrainian journalist named Iuliia Mendel (who a few weeks later would become Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s official spokesperson) highlighting Rudy Giuliani’s efforts at muckraking.

NEW: The BIDENS are entangled in a Ukrainian corruption scandal:@JoeBiden pushed Ukraine to fire a prosecutor seen as corrupt. BUT the prosecutor had opened a case into a company that was paying HUNTER BIDEN. The Bidens say they never discussed it. https://t.co/tblUPYPJMG

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) May 2, 2019

The worst you can say about any of this, however, was that Hunter’s position on the board was a standing conflict of interest that should have been avoided. There’s no evidence that Joe did anything wrong, specifically. But an examination of the life and times of Hunter Biden does provide a reminder that most Americans thought politics as usual was corrupt long before Trump arrived on the scene to make it more corrupt.

Hunter Biden is a product of an unloved system

While progressives find Trump’s promises to “drain the swamp” to be galling and hypocritical in light of his family’s massive financial conflicts of interest, the real direction of causation likely goes in the other direction. People who identify with Trump’s racial and cultural politics find progressive complaints about corruption to be hypocritical and unpersuasive because the whole system is corrupt.

As of 2014, Gallup found that 75 percent of voters felt corruption was “widespread” in American government.

And if you think about Biden’s role on the Obama ticket back in 2008, the whole point was that he was the reassuring insider to balance out the fresh-faced outsider reformer who was running for president. That’s a common formula in American politics, with an outsider (often a governor) promising to “fix the mess in Washington” with the assistance of a more seasoned vice president. That’s Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. The other formula — the political veteran balanced by a younger and more energetic vice president — is much rarer (H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle come to mind), even though in theory vice president is the junior job.

That’s no coincidence. Some aspects of Hunter Biden’s career and life story are a bit extreme (the Amtrak gig, dating his brother’s widow), but the kid who trades on family connections to make money is much more a case of business as usual than an extraordinary scandal. “Business as usual in Washington,” however, is normally the subject of scorn in American politics. Any focus on Joe Biden’s son is likely to remind people of at least some of what they don’t like about it.

Listen to Today, Explained

Ukraine finds itself at the center of the American impeachment drama, but President Trump is the least of the country’s worries.

Looking for a quick way to keep up with the never-ending news cycle? Host Sean Rameswaram will guide you through the most important stories at the end of each day.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2nlzA1A from Blogger https://ift.tt/3aJFjCl via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

Link

You can tell a lot about what fans think of the subjects of their admiration by how they portray them. That’s always been for of American politicians, but in the age of the celebrity politician, it’s especially true for fans of presidents and presidential candidates, too.

Barack Obama, for instance, inspired a huge amount of fan art (most famously the Shepard Fairey “Hope” poster), much of which positioned him as the fulfillment of years of struggle, and, at times, as a kind of American superhero, chosen by destiny to triumph in the struggles of our time. And when it looked like Hillary Clinton might become the first female US president, fan art sprang up painting her as a feminist hero and a badass.

But the Obama fan art canon is rivaled, and possibly dwarfed, by the work that’s been created about Donald Trump — and that work is just as revealing about the way Trump’s fans think about him.

Two of the most interesting varieties of Trump fan art exemplify two ways that his fans think about him: in traditional, pastoral terms, and in apocalyptic, warlike ones.

What ties both visions of Trump together, though, is how they embody versions of his most popular slogan, “Make America Great Again,” illustrating the slogan’s power as a piece of marketing. It’s punchy, but also vague and capacious, with enough room for anyone to imbue it with meaning. And these two ways of illustrating it — literally — help show just how flexible it is.

The single most famous pro-Trump artist, Jon McNaughton, mixes fantasy with historical and biblical signifiers in his work, figurative paintings that in some ways resemble works from the 18th and 19th centuries.

McNaughton probably first crossed the radar of average Americans days after the 2016 election, when Sean Hannity bought his 2010 painting The Forgotten Man:

McNaughton prefers to explain his paintings in detail on his website, with annotations describing each figure and symbol and, at least in the case of The Forgotten Man, a long list of responses to critics of the painting.

But though The Forgotten Man was picked up as a symbol of “what [Trump’s] election was all about” by Hannity, McNaughton writes on his website that it was painted “in response to the passing of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).” So it’s not specifically about Trump.

In fact, for much of his career, McNaughton, who is Mormon, wasn’t a political painter. He stuck mostly to general landscape and religious paintings.

But that changed in the Obama era, when McNaughton took to his canvas in order to depict Obama as a Constitution-burning, democracy-hating demagogue who spent his time alternately fiddling and golfing while the country itself goes up in flames. He has depicted Andrew Breitbart as a courageous activist in a war zone, Hillary Clinton as a con artist, and congressional Democrats as driving Jesus out of the Capitol.

Now, on McNaughton’s website, his politically oriented paintings are filed under a “Patriotic” heading, subdivided into three categories: Americana, Political, and “Conservative Drawings.” (That last one contains only two slightly baffling items, a drawing of Kim Jung Un and one of John F. Kennedy, both accompanied by quotations.)

Most of McNaughton’s Obama-oriented work is in the Political category, while most of the Trump-oriented work is filed under Americana, along with depictions of Ronald Reagan, George Washington, Billy Graham, cowboys and native Americans, military men and women, and several of Jesus standing amid soldiers and figures from American history.

But it’s the Trump depictions that really stand out, mostly because of the fantasies of greatness they represent. McNaughton’s Trump images don’t show the president in situations drawn from the headlines; instead, they imagine him as a hybrid of everyman and American hero, a defender of liberty and an instructor in the American virtues of pulling oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. The Trump of McNaughton’s imagination is a defender of the trappings of the great American experiment.

For instance, the painting Respect the Flag depicts, in McNaughton’s own words, “President Trump picking up a shredded and trampled flag off the football field. He holds a wet cloth in his right hand, as he attempts to clean it.”

Jon McNaughton’s Respect the Flag, painted in response to NFL players’ kneeling during the national anthem to protest against police brutality. Jon McNaughton

“The way Trump called out the NFL for not supporting the standing of the national anthem was an example of how a President should lead, with courage to say and do the right thing regardless of the reaction of others,” McNaughton writes in his artist’s statement.

Another painting that draws on an imagined occurrence is Teach a Man to Fish, in which Trump holds out a fishing rod fitted with a lure to a young white man wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt:

Jon McNaughton’s painting Teach a Man to Fish. Jon McNaughton

“I imagined President Trump sitting next to a young college student,” McNaughton wrote in his statement. “His pack is beside him and his Socialism and Justice Warrior books laid aside. He listens to Trump’s proposal and looks at the different bait he can use to catch his fish. Trump offers him a fishing pole. Each of us has the freedom to choose our own destiny.”

McNaughton has also weighed in on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Expose the Truth, he depicts Trump collaring a shaken Mueller and peering at him closely through a magnifying glass as members of Congress look on:

Jon McNaughton’s Expose the Truth, which depicts Donald Trump looking closely at Robert Mueller. Jon McNaughton

The label beneath the painting on McNaughton’s website explains that it’s about Robert Mueller and his council of “at least 17 partisan Democrat attorneys” who “ignore the mounting verifiable evidence against Russian collusion with the DNC and the Clinton Foundation.”

“There comes a time when you have to take a stand to Expose the Truth!” McNaughton writes.

Other paintings of Trump include Make America Safe, which shows him standing in front of a white picket fence holding a key; You Are Not Forgotten, in which he stands by as a white man and woman water a tiny seedling; and a more classically rendered portrait, underneath which he writes, “I am hopeful that President Trump will be able to help make America great again. He’s got the look he gets when the Fake News is trying to lie again. Go get them Trump!”

Some have pointed out the similarities between McNaughton’s images of Trump and the state art of North Korea that venerates the Kim family; the New Yorker’s art critic Peter Schjeldahl noted some continuity between The Forgotten Man and a 1934 Maynard Dixon painting titled Forgotten Man, prints of which are sold by Brigham Young University, where McNaughton studied for a time.

Obviously, McNaughton feels much more warmly toward Trump than toward Obama, and seems to be convinced of the version of current events peddled by Fox News and White House officials.

But it’s interesting to see how that manifests in his art about the two presidents. While paintings about both are based on imagined scenarios, Obama’s are often accompanied by images of burning landscapes and dark clouds, his face usually twisted into an angry or evilly delighted expression. Trump’s, by contrast, show the president as resolute and square-jawed; even in a relaxed image like You Are Not Forgotten or Teach a Man to Fish, his smile is slight and dignified.

To date, however, McNaughton has not depicted Trump in situations in which he’s actually rescuing a burning America. In fact, all his Trump imagery is more devoted to tying Trump to traditional symbols of America: the flag, agricultural cultivation, the brave soldier, the white picket fence. “Making America great again,” in McNaughton’s formulation, is preserving the images he and others most closely identify with America.

In interviews with the artist, McNaughton’s loyalties seem more tied to an idyllic throwback version of a (mostly white, suburban, and Western populist) American golden age than the figure of Trump himself, about whom he has expressed reservations at times while maintaining a baseline of support. He believes Trump could take his place in history as a truly great president, but that will depend on how he defends those American symbols.

That idealist optimism lies in stark contrast to other images that arise among another faction of Trump-supporting art.

You can most clearly see the contrast between McNaughton’s version of Trump and others by comparing it to some of the more bombastic imagery of the president. Much of that flourishes in the stranger corners of the internet — subreddits and 4chan and the like — where Trump’s head is photoshopped into memes, or he’s integrated into scenes from apocalyptic video games.

A lot of these images can’t be taken too seriously, in the sense that their creators often work from a nihilistic sense of trolling irony to confuse interlocutors and spread alt-right ideas. So when someone, for instance, depicts Trump walking on water to rescue a sinking Statue of Liberty or photoshops Trump’s head onto Napoleon’s body, it’s done half in jest, half in an attempt to confuse critics.

But memes are designed to spread into the mainstream and in some cases be taken seriously; that’s sort of the joke. And while the president and his associates have retweeted alt-right memes in the past, some of the imagery that’s sprung up on 4chan and the like seems to have made its way into more earnest depictions of the president.

Perhaps the most mainstream and unforgettable of these is the poster for the newest film from conservative filmmaker/self-styled incendiary Dinesh D’Souza, Death of a Nation, which seems to draw on some of the tropes favored by the fan artworks birthed in the recesses of 4chan.

The poster for Dinesh D’Souza’s newest film, which comes out on August 3. Dinesh D’Souza

The poster is mostly filled with a sternly resolute man’s face. The left side of the face is Abraham Lincoln’s; the right is Donald Trump’s. Lincoln’s iconic dark hair and beard fade into Trump’s blond hair, swooping across his forehead. Both half-faces have lined foreheads and faintly pursed lips. It’s a look of wisdom and determination.

The conflation of Trump and another heroic historical figure is one of the most common tropes in Trump fan art — there’s the aforementioned Napoleon image, for instance (though one assumes the creators aren’t advocating that Trump meets the same end as Napoleon). Or consider one of the more famous triumphalist Trump images:

Trump, with a bald eagle, standing on the smoldering remains of what might be a robot.

Here, the president, clad in Revolutionary-era garb with a bald eagle perched on his left arm, holds a machine gun fitted with a bayonet. He stands on the smoldering remains of what appears to be some kind of robot, all in front of a waving American flag.

The image appears to be a photoshopped version of artwork featuring George Washington produced by the Call of Duty Endowment, a fund set up by the Call of Duty video game franchise to aid veterans in getting jobs after they leave the military:

It’s not clear who first photoshopped Trump’s head onto Washington’s, but it seems likely to have emerged from one of the troll-populated corners of the internet that makes similar works, such as 4chan or the /r/The_Donald subreddit. But regardless of its origin, it’s clearly a completely imagined image. (Although the real Trump has actually had a bald eagle on his arm, he dodged when it tried to peck at him.) That imagined aspect aligns it with both McNaughton’s work and the Death of a Nation poster.

But there’s another kind of continuity between this image and D’Souza’s, both of which glow with something that seems like a cross between the fires of war and the fires of apocalypse.

The marketing materials for Death of a Nation say it “cuts through progressive big lies to expose hidden history and explosive truths” through “stunning historical recreations and a searching examination of fascism and white supremacy,” which plays out in the poster’s imagery: On Lincoln’s side are Civil War soldiers on the battlefield and shackled black slaves; on Trump’s, antifa symbol-bearing protesters with posters that say things like “Another World Is Possible” and “Immolate Your Local Fascist” and throwing objects into burning flames.

Like D’Souza’s three previous films, Death of a Nation is in essence a partisan argument seeking to recast current events and American history into a meta-narrative that posits an America in need of rescuing. The first, the 2012 film 2016: Obama’s America, positioned then-President Obama and his supporters as the threat. The 2014 film America: Imagine the World Without Her saw figures like Saul Alinsky and Howard Zinn, along with restraints on capitalism, as the main threat. And the threat posited in the 2016 film Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party is right there in the title.

For Death of a Nation, D’Souza revisits the claim that liberal historians have long covered up the secretly pro-slavery, pro-fascist, pro-white supremacist history of the Democratic Party. The effectiveness of that argument relies on the notion that D’Souza’s audience is unfamiliar with the common historical account of Southern Democrats switching parties as well as the Southern strategy. (Vox has videos on the histories of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party if you need to brush up on your high school history.)

But that argument nonetheless has been effective, at least among his target audience. D’Souza’s books and films on the subject have been huge hits among conservatives: 2016: Obama’s America is one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time, keeping pace with Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, and D’Souza’s books often reach the New York Times nonfiction best-seller lists.

So while the tattered American flag on the Death of a Nation poster recalls McNaughton’s Respect the Flag, it also recalls a flag that has been on the battlefield — in this case, the field of the culture war. And the imagery of fire that forms the base of the poster is also common in Trump fan art, a handy symbol of chaos and destruction.

Death of a Nation is being pitched, at least through its imagery, at a certain segment of Trump fans — those who populate the subreddits and 4chans where the alt-right lurk, or people like former adviser Steve Bannon — who are interested less in preserving the kinds of American traditions that appear in McNaughton’s paintings than in tearing the whole thing apart.

The president has at times tried to disavow this point of view explicitly — he criticized Bannon in January and called for his supporters to “take our country back and build it up, rather than simply seeking to burn it all down” — but images tying his face to flames continue to persist.

And it’s hard to control an image like that. For the president and some of his supporters, the implication may be that Trump will save a country on fire, just as McNaughton positioned Obama among flames to suggest he was ignoring a country on fire. In this formulation, Trump will put out the raging fire.

But for other supporters, the flames are part of the attraction: Trump’s MAGA agenda is, to them, about razing the “establishment” to the ground and putting him and his supporters in places of power. He’ll light the fire. The “greatness” of Trump has to do with his ability to trample his detractors and root out enemies.

That’s what’s so tricky about art. It’s open to interpretation. And while McNaughton works hard to make sure that the people who see his art are left with a crystal-clear sense of what his intentions were, the 4chan crowd courts vagueness and distortion. That spills over into more earnest versions of the same, like D’Souza’s movie poster, intended to bring you into the theater to find out whether Trump will be burning down the establishment or putting out that same fire. There’s a method to the imagery, and its many possible meanings only increase its effectiveness.

That sets up the two overlapping but differing definitions of “greatness” for fans of the “Make America Great Again” agenda. One has to do with preserving a certain version of a golden age most closely associated with times of American expansion and postwar affluence; the other has to do with trampling one’s enemies, abroad but especially at home, with a show of might and power.

So the art of Trump’s most ardent fans ranges from idyllic to imagined. What doesn’t change, however, is that it — like fan art of nearly all types — is interested in constructing and preserving a myth around the subject of its admiration. The proliferation of images on the internet and the ease of reproduction only makes it easier for these to spread, morph, and become something new.

MAGA will likely remain the rallying cry for Trump fans for a long time yet, and its power as a slogan for a certain partisan segment of the American public promises to stick around long past the eventual end of Trump’s presidency. But that’s less because of Trump himself and more because it leaves room for those who latch onto it to project onto its four words their own vision of American exceptionalism — whether that vision is populated by triumphant war heroes trampling foes on the battlefield, or by saplings, gently mended flags, and picket fences keeping interlopers out.

Original Source -> To Trump fans, #MAGA is more than a slogan. It’s an aesthetic.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

0 notes