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moonlightgukkie · 5 years ago

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quarantine-induced boredom fic rec masterlist

during these rough n scary times, i believe that we all need to step back from reality for a little bit, n these amazing stories help do just that. everyone be safe, wash your hands, and practice social distancing when possible!

title: utopic desire

author: @flowerwrites06

plot: vampire!jk, angst/smut; tangled in the messy layers of an elitist system, Jeongguk finds himself getting far too interested in the so called “runt” of their society.

one shot, two shot, series

title: heartfelt

author: @angelguk

plot: angst/slowburn; best friends!au

one shot, two shot, series

title: my beauty, my blood

author: @7cypher

plot: mafia!au, single parent!oc; with Namjoon out of the picture, Jeongguk has to step up and be the sole successor to the organization laid out before him. however, guilt doesn’t escape him very easily, and neither does your persistence.

one shot, two shot, series

title: drown for you

author: @callistojjk

plot: merman!jjk; there was something in that enormous tank, hidden in the murky water. all you knew was that you weren’t allowed inside the room and that it is used to hold something dangerous.

one shot, two shot, series (IN PROGRESS)

title: cruel intentions

author: @jeonqukie

plot: angst, smut, light fluff; all is well in your overtly simplistic life. you managed to maintain decent grades in university all the while progressing through your relationship with your long-time boyfriend and accompanying your best friend in her exhausting personal life. but as the saying goes, when there are up, there will surely be downs. while you’ve maintained this upward pattern, you are defeated when one afternoon inevitably brings you to a downward spiral. all good things must come to an end. who knew you would be sharing the name sentiment with someone you barely knew.

one shot, two shot, series (IN PROGRESS)

title: an abundance of mondays

author: @diortae

plot: college!au, childhood friends to lovers!au, “why the fuck would it be easy? you’re disgustingly in love with your best friend. of course it’s complicated.” he pauses to roll his eyes, as if he hasn’t just laid out the most secret parts of you here in the middle of the campus dining hall.

one shot, two shot, series

title: hard to get

author: @namfine

plot: fuckboi!jk, college!au; jeongguk is known as the fuckboy of your college campus. all he has to do is bat his eyelashes, and he’s in someone’s bed, but you’re the first person who’s ever rejected him, and he’s not sure how to fell about that.

one shot, two shot, series

title: chocolate milk

author: @vantaenims

plot: childhood friends!au; you never planned to catch some feelings for jeongguk but you didn’t know that he’s the mastermind of all these fickle thoughts. it’s all thanks to psychology and human behavior.

one shot, two shot, series

title: falling into you

author: @kookingtae

plot: college!au, slow burn, nerd!jk; jeongguk’s innocence is like a breath of fresh air in your wild life, and though you know you’re toxic for him, you just can’t seem to stay away.

one shot, two shot, series (IN PROGRESS)

title: pop goes the cherry

author: @1oserjk

plot: angst, childhood friends!au; jeongguk comes back home to find you visiting as well, all grown up - in more ways than one.

one shot, two shot, series

title: you’ve got that

author: @mikrksmos

plot: angst, fluff, established relationship; after making a life-changing decision for your career, you’re unsure of how exactly to bring it up to your boyfriend after your relationship and communication has not really been in sync. Namjoon is ready to take this relationship to the next stage, and he is sure that what he needs to ask you will be the solution to all the problems you have been having. both know this next move is the right idea, but are unaware of how parallel those ideas really are.

one shot, two shot, series

title: gentleman

author: @ironicarmy

plot: smut, fluff; Kim Namjoon, superstar frontman and intimidating rapper, always goes haywire at the mere presence of his girlfriend, a sweet girl who has him wrapped around her little finger. tired of restraining himself, he goes all out to ensure that as of tonight, he’ll be her one and only.

one shot, two shot, series

title: warmth

author: @jincherie

plot: demigod!joonie, roomate!au; even Cupid’s son needs a break every now and then, but Namjoon’s trip to the human world brings about more realisations than he intended.

one shot, two shot, series

title: BROTIÐ HJARTA

author: @abangtanfangirl

plot: elf!joonie, fantasy!au; when a magical storm threatens to wipe out your home, you venture into the forest in search of someone – anyone – to help end it. but when an Elf takes you in after getting injured, you learn that those who live in the forest, are not the monsters your town has made them out to be, but victims.

one shot, two shot, series

title: atmosphere

author: @kimtaehyunq

plot: Namjoon and you have been dating for a few years now, fully aware of the worries a relationship with a celebrity would be like. one night you spoke up, showing a bit of jealously after him coming back home from a promotional trip across seas. you didn’t mean to slip up, you didn’t want to taint the air with insecurities, but you lost your composure. don’t worry, you guys figure it out.

one shot, two shot, series

title: venom

author: @sunkoos

plot: venom!au, smut; “my, my, don’t you smell divine, little one,” a black appendage wraps itself around your waist, bringing you flush against Taehyung’s chest. “tell me,” the human counterpart whispers against the shell of your ear, lip just barely tracing the flesh, but enough to have every hair on your body stand. “won’t you let me have a taste?”

one shot, two shot, series

title: apartment 512

author: @moononthejoon

plot: fluff, smut, college!au, neighbors!au; after finally finding a decent place to live, you couldn’t believe that you landed next to the loudest neighbor in existence.

one shot, two shot, series

title: night terrors

author: @honeymoonjin

plot: smut; riddled with insomnia, you’d just about do anything to get a good night’s rest. enter sandman.

one shot, two shot, series

title: sehebon

author: @httpjeon

plot: angst, alien!au , fluff, smut; you find yourself on izo huen, home to the sehebon. luckily for you, you’ve arrived at an interesting time.

one shot, two shot, series

title: golden lotus

author: @flowerwrites06

plot: gods!au, angst, fluff, smut; trust is fickle and delicate. it is hard to build and easy to break. taehyung’s choice to ignore this leads to a devastating loss and a struggle for revival.

one shot, two shot, series (COMPLETE)

#bts fic recs #bts jjk #bts taehyung #bts namjoon #jungkook imagine #jungkook smut #jungkook angst #taehyung imagine #taehyung smut #taehyung angst #namjoon imagine #namjoon smut #namjoon angst #namjoon fic rec #taehyung fic rec #jungkook fic rec #jungkook fanfiction #taehyung fanfiction #namjoon fanfiction

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thesociologicalcinema · 4 years ago

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Racial Gaslighting 201: Five Racial Gaslighters Who Racial Gaslighted in the Comments Section of the Post on Racial Gaslighting

The Good Ol' American Boy "Stop trying to make America seem racist!" "Debate is what makes this country great." *Anything about Kaepernick, the troops, or blue lives* Translation: I grew up in a place and went to a school in which I learned little to absolutely nothing that did not confirm my world view. I believe everything they wrote in the textbooks happened as it was taught to me, including the part about happy slaves. To which we say: "It's wild that I need to tell you this but being anti-racist doesn't make you anti-American. By naming that racism is part of the fabric of this country (and the institution of policing), we are simply telling the truth.

The One Who Can Make Everything about Them: "So you're saying I'm racist for ___???" "How does it make me racist if ___" "Also I'm (insert marginalized identity), so what do you mean I'm being racist." Hit 'em with a: "Imagine how impactful it would be if you put as much energy into making sure everyone knows about the impact of systemic racism and this country's historical and very real terrorization of Black folks as you do in trying to make sure everyone who reads these comments knows that you personally are not racist."

The Debate Club One "So having questions/debating is racist now?" "So you can't even talk to anyone who has a different perspective? How does that help BLM?" "The fact that you're not responding proves you don't have an argument." Translation: "I am so fragile that I genuinely don't see that 'what about'-isms read as an attempt to invalidate Black suffering. I believe whole-heartedly that if you don't want to debate me, it's not possibly because you're tired of combating ignorance, but instead definitely because I'm right and you're a scaredy-cat. Instead of sitting with discomfort for a single second, I am diverting the conversation to a topic or angle in which I think I can 'win.' These are signals that I do not acknowledge or understand the human trauma of racism.” To which we say: "Listen mock trial and company, we can talk, and I'm open to helping you learn more, but Black Folx's trauma is not a topic I am going to 'debate' you on. Your desire to do so tells me you lack (or at least lack a way to communicate via IG comments) a sense of empathy towards this issue."

The Tough on Crime One: "lol you liberals actually want anarchy good luck in the ghetto without cops." "What about the riots? BLM are the real terrorists." "You're defending the guy with the rap sheet??" "so you want cops to just talk nicely to a Black guy shooting up a school?" (Response) *Keep scrolling* *Don't look back* *Don't waste phone memory on screenshot* This person is willfully ignorant and committed to misunderstanding data, history, cause and effect, the BLM movement and reality, generally. The news sources they trust are using the same data you have to intentionally mislead. This is not a have-a-conversation and change-a-mind situation.

The "This Is Not Gaslighting" One Translation: "I am diverting attention to semantics in a way that allows me to dismiss your experience without even attempting to hear you." Psychology Today defines gaslighting as "an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true, often about themselves." Many of these scenarios (coupled with collective amnesia and the whitewashing of US history) closely mimics this pattern of manipulation via false information, and the resulting cognitive dissonance. Moreover, this word is a set of letters that has no 'real meaning outside of human experience, and right now, this set of letters is helping BIPOC to understand our experiences of trauma and cognitive dissonance/double consciousness. Language has no inherent meaning and has always adapted to meet the needs of society, but, of course, since the term gaslighting has only been part of our common vocabulary since the 1960s, your problem obviously isn't with language changing--it's just with BIPOC changing it." Artist: @ITSAGREATDAYTOLEARNABOUT

#gaslighting #racism #itsagreatdaytolearnabout

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jenniferroland · 4 years ago

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[starter for @loverot]

"If you can look at what's there and not eat yourself hollow with shame, you are not human anymore."

Transferring out of Mount Massive to play brain scrambler in the middle of the Arizona desert was hardly a step up. She’d put in a request for leave numerous times and been denied on the grounds that her research skills and capability as a pathologist made her “too valuable an asset” to allow her to be off the asylum campus for any extended period of time. But when a handful of her female coworkers began experiencing hysterical pregnancies from proximity to the Engine, she was suddenly a liability instead. Never mind that she experienced precisely no negative effects from it; if anything, her mind felt sharper when working on location than it ever did in remote labs, like popping a handful of Adderall.

The segregation came without warning. Experiments and treatments went unfinished; communications went dark; theories withered and died without the proper environment in which to nurture them. Uprooted and shipped away to some toxic waste dump, Jennifer Roland never felt more useless.

Day in and day out, she sat behind a monitor, watching religious fanatics of varying degrees of insanity fight and fuck and feast and absolutely slaughter one another. The scheduled bursts from the Towers would resound, the crew inside the lead-insulated concrete shelters would shield their eyes, and shortly thereafter, an all-out shitfest would ensue on the screens in front of them. Recovery teams were dispatched to covertly collect any bodies they could, which were promptly tossed onto the slab in the operating theatre or iced in the morgue. Occasionally, they’d get a few on the table who just refused to fucking die, and in more than one instance, Roland would return to her quarters with a black eye or finger-shaped bruises branded into her throat.

“That’s why you get hazard pay,” she can recall Jeremy Blaire assuring her over drinks. “Relax, Jen. The building is radiation-proof. The radio waves can’t hurt you in there.”

Once rare, those desperately clinging to existence (it could hardly be called life by the time they’d arrived at the lab) were showing up in higher and higher numbers. Their presence always fucked with the medical equipment — due to the high levels of radiation they were exposed to, she was assured by Dr. Ewen Cameron — but more than that, it was affecting people: relief nurses, research assistants, those who had the least contact with them. It was Cameron himself who paged her into the telemetry lab to show her the increase in radio wave blips on the radar, seemingly organic hotspots of radiation cropping up out of nowhere. The “feedback loop,” he’d called it: such prolonged exposure to such vulnerable individuals mutated them from receivers to projectors.

These unholy fucks were walking nuclear reactors, and they were bleeding it inside the lab.

Between autopsies of lunatics and treatment of her infected staff, Roland accumulated the most exposure to these residual waves, which is perhaps why she held out the longest. While others were rushing to the bathrooms to puke their guts out or sobbing into their workstations, Roland kept the Towers from collapsing under its own weight. Just like she had at Mount Massive, at least in her own mind. Such responsibility, of course, takes its pound of flesh, resulting in a sharp uptick of headaches and irritability in the doctor.

In fact, she kept an iron grip on the facility, even as employee numbers began to drop. Some transferred; some just dropped dead. All were required to vacate the operating sector by 22:00 hours so that it could be “defunked” for the next day. Roland, of course, oversaw this expedition, which usually consisted of hanging out in a hazmat suit and surfing what little internet they were allowed access to while the facility was cleansed. The longer she sat at the computer, the more severe her migraines would become, which she chalked up to blue light exposure.

But when the urgent email alert – MOUNT MASSIVE ASYLUM STAFF EVACUATION – popped up in her notifications, the pain in her skull went from throbbing to blinding. The computer mouse flew from her hand and shattered on the floor as she dug the heels of her palms into her eye sockets, desperate to relieve the pressure behind them. Searing white heat tears at her retinas and she’s utterly convinced that her brain is hemorrhaging.

Through that glaring light appear misty shadows of men in lab coats, blurred as if through a foggy camera lens: men with clipboards and scalpels and blue latex gloves. A scrawny lad in his early twenties wriggles futilely on the table, strapped to the gurney by too-tight leather restraints around his limbs and forehead. He’s fully conscious but barely cognizant of anything but fear. She can hear the low timbre of male voices floating around her, murmuring words she cannot or perhaps will not comprehend. Her focus is on the young man before her and the muffled syllables he attempts to utter from beneath his oxygen mask. Cutting through the underwater noise is the sound of her own name, sharp and deliberate, and her gaze falls to the laryngoscope clutched tightly in her left hand.

Shifting behind the boy on the table, she adjusts her grip on the tool and removes the oxygen mask from his face. He’s drooling quite profusely. With the sleeve of her right arm, she gently mops up his mess before prying his mouth open with her fingers. At this moment, his eyes snap up to hers, pupils blown wide with terror, and though his movement is highly restricted, it’s evident he’s trying to shake his head. The raspy frantic whisper of “no, no, no” does nothing to phase her colleagues. She attempts to quiet him with a soft shushing (to absolutely no avail) and inserts the curved blade into his throat. Tears, mucus, and saliva flow together as he struggles to breathe; his eyes plead for mercy, the lightless gaze of a soul all but relinquishing itself to the higher power of Death. As she preps the endotracheal tube for insertion, Jenny tries to swallow her nerves but they catch in her throat, dry and brittle. Guilt won’t save them now.

“Oh, God, please—”

Roland’s torn out of the vision by the inescapable urge to vomit and she rolls onto her side to wretch away the venom in her memories. With no recollection of how exactly she ended up on the floor ten feet away from the monitors, she pushes herself up and wipes away the acid from her lips. Just like she had in her memory.

And she feels sick all over again, but not just for the fate of that patient: for all the rampant fuckery shoveled upon her by Murkoff. Psychological manipulation, radiation poisoning, blatant sexism. She enlisted in this army to study genetics, not to torture the cognitively vulnerable to the brink of insanity.

Fuck Jeremy Blaire. Fuck Murkoff. Fuck this Project Bluebird bullshit.

On the way out the door, she flicks a half-smoked cigarette into the server room trashcan to trigger the emergency sprinkler system. Whoops.

* * * * * * * * *

She never liked the company cars, anyway.

As the frame of the Mercedes rolls into the lake behind her (and with it all traces of her identity), Jennifer Roland makes her way through the Mount Massive Wilderness Reverse to the runoff reservoir. Armed with only an industrial flashlight-stun gun and her unlisted phone, she’s well aware that this mission will more than likely be her last. But when you’ve got nothing to lose and an insatiable hunger for vengeance, death doesn’t seem so bad.

Tucking her hair up under her cap and securing her phone in the zippered pocket of her plastic splash suit, she hoists herself up into the drainage pipe that pours into the lagoon from the sewers. The hospital isn’t even visible from this side of the mountain; according to her map, it’s about ten miles through a sea of blood, shit, and god knows what else to Mount Massive Asylum. If she’d ever wondered how Andy Dufresne felt escaping Shawshank, this is about as close as it gets.

Rats and snakes are her only company for the first several miles but in the last stretch of three, the scent of fresh death hits her like a brick wall. Mutilated corpses litter the pathways, slipping into the murky sewage and compounding the horrific stench. The closer she comes to her destination, the more pungent the odor becomes until she’s stumbling upon half-dead patients and doctors alike, as lifeless and miserable as the Temple Gate victims. The feeling of another impending migraine strikes her but she presses onward. She’s not sure what’s more unsettling: the gut-wrenching screams coming from above her head or the periodic gaps of silence between.

Drenched in blackwater, Jenny navigates her way up into the hospital block, only to be met with the gory sight of her colleagues and former patients strewed about the ward like discarded toys. She stands gravely still listening for anything — a scream, a whisper, a breath — but no sound breaks the stony silence. The only living presence in the block appears to be a few very persistent bees buzzing around her head. The doctor carefully peels away her suit and the clothes underneath, tucking them away in an air vent and replacing them with the least fluid-drench patient uniform she can find. Thank you for your sacrifice, 937.

Jenny’s exceedingly careful not to cause too much commotion with the beam of her flashlight as she stalks into the hospital security station and logs in under one of her former colleague’s ID. The security footage tapes appear to be highly corrupted, with some of the cameras shorting out completely, but through the hazy grey static, she can just make out a man’s shadow: impossibly tall, grainy, almost translucent, as though it were comprised solely of smoke. Shredding through its victims like razors through tissue paper. Clearly, this storm of fuck is just beginning.

“Ain’t a perdy sight, is it?”

Hot, humid breath hits the back of her neck before she can react and a spindly hand clamps down on her wrist.

“Not as perdy as them nails, brudder.”

“Don’t talk ‘im t’death. Get the goat and go.”

“Awful s-sorry ‘bout this, boy, but I gotsta.”

Jenny’s not keen to stick around to find out what exactly it is this dissociative man “gotsta” do. Firing up the switch on the stun gun, she jabs the pointed prongs into his throat and digs in. His grip on her tightens before it releases, the perp collapsing to the ground and clutching his bleeding neck with a frankly overdramatic gurgle.

Roland flees through a labyrinth of plastic wrap and broken gurneys, but the heavy slap of bare feet limping on the floor behind her soon catches up. And just as she looks over her shoulder to catch sight of him, her ankle snags against a tripwire, knocking her face-first into the bloodied tile. That fall triggers the release of two sheets of barbed wire that rattle towards her, coiling around her legs and torso; clearly, this trap was meant for a bigger monster than her. The barbs easily rip through the uniform fabric to sink into her thighs, calves, stomach. The more she wriggles, the deeper they sink, and the shards of shattered glass on the floor only amplify the pain.

Her only chance to protect herself is the flashlight that launched no more than a foot away during the fall. If she can just tear her arm free-

The arch of a dirty foot secures its grip on the flashlight handle.

“Just like a coward t’run. That won’t do at-tall, Dennis.”

“You shouldn’ta run, boy. Now you’ll be all bloody fer the weddin’.”

He picks up the flashlight and turns it over in his hand, checking the weight and feel of it; he decides he likes it.

He likes it even more when it cracks like a Louisville slugger against her temple.

* * * * * * * * *

Her muscles are stiff and achy when she regains consciousness, somehow sore and numb at the same time. The swelling beside her left eye blurs her vision slightly, but she knows she’s in some sort of chop shop, upright in a DIY-patient restraint system that would make even Hannibal Lecter shudder. Her instinct is to attempt another escape, to writhe her way out of these straps if she has to chew her shoulder off to do it. There’s no telling how much time she has before someone-

...Whistling.

#Eddie Gluskin: Lord Eddard of House Gluskin #Dennis: Goat Boy #Billy Hope: Anyway Here’s Walrider #Jeremy Blaire: Cokehead Elon Musk

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c0ry-c0nvoluted · 5 years ago

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THE ENEMY IS NOT A SKIN COLOR. THE ENEMY IS A CLASS.

White privilege. The phrase implies special rights. The phrase implies having a jumpstart in the race by way of DNA. What it doesn’t imply is that that white-skinned Jim or Judy is gonna win that race, just that the game is rigged in their favor.

I don’t hate the concept. The validity of it, I mean. It honestly rings some-kind-of-true in my brain when taking into consideration the general social status of people of color. But there’s a problem with it. Not in its validity, but in its generality, its assumption, and the overall affect it has on our society.

The biggest and most obvious problem with it is that there are tens of millions of white people (if not hundreds of millions worldwide), who are all struggling just to make ends meet (if they can at all). There are “poor white folk” everywhere. And there are white kids who are terrorized by their own parents. There are white boys and girls getting bullied at school or in their neighborhood. There are white people suffering at the hands of violent criminals, scam artists, corporations, policemen… And I’m not talking about white criminals suffering, here...

I worked with this insanely gorgeous blond who was one of several dozen (I don’t remember the actual number) of women who were raped by this cop in my city (San Diego). He’d follow them from clubs, pull them over, take what he wanted from them, then send them on their way. He got away with it up until he didn’t, but how many cops still do? His choice of victim was young and white, as are most serial killer victims, but does their skin color matter? In the sense that they’re preferred as targets, yes, but not in the sense of right and wrong. Their white skin, in this case, wasn’t doing them any favors.

But let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Is “white privilege” real?

Well that depends on what you consider “white privilege” to be, and I think that’s where our signals are getting crossed. I think that if you look at it on a more psychological level you’ll see that, yes, “white privilege” is a real thing in that “white people are less likely to be demonized or judged negatively based solely on their skin tone.” (But not on their appearance. If a white person is dressed like a thug, he/she is going to get negatively judged the same way a Hispanic would. Whereas vice versa, if a black person was dressed like a total bookworm, they’re going to get judged as such, not as a criminal.) But blacks being judged more often solely on skin color is 100% true. Black-skinned people have been demonized throughout our nation’s history (and many other nations) and this demonization, along with insidious, covert attacks on black communities by those in power, have caused two things (among a plethora of others, but two for the sake of my point). 1: It’s caused non-blacks who are not racist but are just recognizing the patterns they’ve been force-fed by the media, to unintentionally relate black-skin with ignorance, violence, and criminal behavior. And 2: It’s brought about disparity, anger, and emotional trauma in the black community that is the cause of the higher crime rates in those communities and more black-on-black crime than white-on-black crime (by the people, I mean. I’m not counting by the government because that’s a whole other fuck-storm of shit that isn’t only aimed at blacks, but at any who are considered “lower-class,” which, yes, the majority of blacks in our country are. That’s not to say there are more poor black people than poor white people. I really doubt that’s the case. But the percentage of blacks or other minorities who are poor vs the percentage of whites who are is likely leaning in the direction of exactly what makes “white privilege” a valid argument. But I’m not a “facts” guy. The numbers are just ways to distract from the problem, so you’re not gonna catch me quoting them to cry foul on the BLM movement. The reality is that yes, there are probably more poor white people total than blacks in this country, but the psychology, the demonization of blacks, is a real thing.)

But there’s a problem with looking at this as “white privilege.” Number one: if we do that we (unintentionally) discredit any white person who is or has suffered. Those who are, or have suffered, will absolutely not take kindly to being told that they are “privileged”. And what happens when they are told this? It makes anyone with white skin who has suffered or is suffering (and there’s a fuck ton of us) think to themselves, “Oh, fuck no! You think I got it good? You think you’re the only one who has problems? You think you’re the only one who’s getting fucked by the system? Well fuck you, and your white privileged bullshit excuse to whine to the guilt-ridden middle class to get your free handouts! The government has fucked me over more times than I can count!” And what does this mind-state do? It creates a racial class-war between those who have white skin and are suffering, and those who have black/brown skin and are suffering. And who wins in this scenario? If you guessed “the upper-class” you get a prize. (Whatchoo want, a fuzzy bear? A goldfish in a plastic tub? G’ahead. Pick something nice out. You earned it.) So now you got poor white people with guns itching to shoot any black person with or without a gun who supports a movement that indirectly claims that their suffering is invalid. And what does this “civil class war” accomplish? It creates more “criminals” for the fucking private-owned prisons to make money off of, further separating the upper-class from the lower, creating more suffering, more anger, more hate, MORE RACISM.

So is white privilege real? Psychologically, yes, to the extent that our society psychologically favors white skin over black/brown. But has it ever made me any more money? No. Has it ever stopped the cops from pulling me over and searching my car? Fuck no. I’ve been detained, searched, followed, fined, towed, impounded, harassed more than most people you know, regardless of your color. I’ve lost count of how many damn times I’ve been harassed by the cops in my city. Shit, I wrote a goddamn rap song about it back in the early 2000’s called SDPD, smashing on the fuckers for harassing a guy who was just trying to get by. And I was NEVER a criminal. I NEVER had any weapons or hard drugs (ok, some pills and plenty of pot, but…), I was NEVER robbing anyone or breaking into cars or homes or gang banging (maybe just a smidge of graffiti, but that shit’s art), or causing any kind of…ok, no, there was some drunken shenanigans, for sure, but that was mostly my boys, not me. Lol The point is, being white DID NOT stop me from getting constantly harassed by the cops in my city. You know what did? A new car, less homies in the ride, no smoke blowing from the windows, and a slightly more tempered demeanor while driving. I still bump my rap music, but I’m not in a car full of teenage “trouble-makers”. I still speed, but I come to a complete stop at them signs, bruh. I still run red lights, but I look reeeal fucking carefully when I do. I still zip in-and-out of lanes on the freeway, but I keep it below 80 (mostly). So the only thing that’s changed is that I “appear” to have more money (with a nicer ride), and I show more maturity in being on the road. My skin color hasn’t changed, but my run-ins with the cops have.

The bottom line: Crying out “white privilege” ain’t gonna help anyone but the rich who’re sitting back and raking in the dough off all the drama and weapon sales and fines and arrests and damaged property that needs to be rebuilt. So don’t make our society’s problem about a skin color. When you do that you divide people into groups when you should be uniting them. Divided we fall. I know most of your intentions are righteous, (and this goes out to white people too who’re acknowledging their “privilege”), but you’re doing it wrong. You’re creating enemies by unintentionally discrediting anyone with white skin who has suffered at the hands of the system, claiming that you own the rights (the privilege?) of deciding that they’re the ones who are privileged, all while they’re slowly rotting in inequity right beside you.

THE ENEMY IS NOT A SKIN COLOR. THE ENEMY IS A CLASS.

And that class is the rich. The 1%.

Are most of them white? Yes. But will that stop them from stealing money from poor white people? From bankrupting small businesses with corporate industry? From putting blue-collar white people out of work and replacing them with machines? From taking their homes when they can’t pay back their loans? From putting them in prison when they fight back right next to you for equality? No. Because the 1% only care about profit, and they don’t care who they have to manipulate, rob, demoralize, or demonize to get it, or what skin color those people have. Let’s get our heads right. Open them angry eyes and see who the enemy really is. And fight THAT enemy, not the enemy that their manipulation has created for you.

How? The real solution to “white privilege” and inequity and inequality is a very simple concept but an incredibly complex task. It involves creating a society where money is obsolete. When this happens there will be no more inequality. There will be no “superpowers” or 1%. There will be no poor. There will be no rich. There will be no profit other than the profit of betterment, progress, knowledge, discovery, science, quality of living. But there’s only one way to make money obsolete, and that’s by removing labor from our society. Sound crazy? That’s because you don’t realize how close we are to doing it anyway. A fully automated society is right around the bend, my dudes. We have the technology to make ALL LABOR OBSOLETE, in which case no one will have to work, in which case money will have no significance. What will have significance? RESOURCES. But this is a topic I’ve discussed before and will again soon and more directly. So for now what can we do? We demand a society that serves the people’s interests, not the corporations’. Unfortunately I can’t tell you how to this because I’m not into politics, I’m into actual change, not perpetuating the same system that’s fucking us all. My advice? Start spreading the concept of a RESOURCE BASED ECONOMY as loud and as often as you can. This type of society eliminates corruption and inequity and is only just now becoming possible thanks to advancements in technology. Look into it. Spread the word. AND STOP CREATING SEGREGATION AMONG OUR PEOPLE. Please, for fuck’s sake, stop adding to our problems and start moving towards eliminating them. #fightsmarter2020 Thanks for reading. -cc

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agape-philo-sophia · 4 years ago

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➝ We're in this Spiritual Warfare Together — Standing and Uniting in Truth in Our CommUNITY.

As many of us are well aware, the past weeks have been mounting with interdimensional spiritual warfare which also translates on the surface as covert military operations that are engaged in the end game battle against the globalist Controllers or Luciferian bloodline families, which is going to the next stage very quickly to reveal the beginning of the disclosure timeline. Things will likely escalate into reports of news with assorted global conflicts that will sound extremely scary, as in reports of preludes to global warfare and nuclear weapon warring. When things are appearing to be really dire on the external, please remember that things are not at all what they seem to be. Right now, we are in the height of false flags, agent provocateur, controlled opposition, blatant lies and falsity, deep fake videos and every propaganda tool they can come up with to keep the public confused and terrorized. This is a momentous time for human liberation, but we will need to become more discerning, and be aware that the propaganda is military grade warfare used to target us with demoralizing fears. Do not succumb, work your tools, pray and meditate, this is time for radical self-care and knowing your limits and inner child issues. Propaganda is used for the purpose of Psychological Manipulation, to generate mental fabrications and emotional reactions, that are intended for seizing control, power, benefits and advantages at the victim’s expense. The mainstream media is Propaganda, and it is not accurate. This is more aggressive than ever; the American public is being targeted with complex military grade psychological warfare and propaganda. If you find yourself being triggered, it may be best to retire from any mainstream outlet, as they are all owned and controlled by the satanic council members. The outer reality of the mainstream controlled narrative is now crumbling and in a free fall. It does appear that the freefall towards exposing truth towards global disclosure has an epicenter which is within the United States, and to which the web of the transnational criminal syndicates is being exposed through several foreign countries that have major tentacles operating in the corporatocracy that control the United States through the shadow government. The next stage will likely be finding alternative news channels, newly built social media platforms and online sites that transmit more accurate news to the masses of the current events transpiring. This requires the main six propaganda media corporations and their outlets be taken down systematically, while communication back channels and emergency broadcast systems are ready to go as the main news sources reporting to the awakening public. The only way accurate news can be given outside of CIA mockingbird intelligence mind control programming is to circumvent the controlled mainstream media sites, and this is now the phase where this behemoth can be toppled over successfully. In this phase the darkness that resides in the minds and hearts of those corrupted by power, wealth and depravity is being revealed to the masses. This will send a ripple of shock and fear through those that are unprepared or have been asleep to these hidden events, when they are awakened to see the reality of Power Elite pedovores and criminal psychopaths that have been acting above the law and controlling the mainstream narrative of global society. The lightning strike of shocking changes is upon us as the global dark night of the soul, in which the lies, delusions and falsity of the controlled mainstream narrative that gave us a false sense of security will crumble away. This phase of spiritual growth can bring shocking inner and outer change and greater self-realization, it is a time of great personal turmoil when we go through the process of seeing blind spots and deceptions in many situations. When we see these lies and our blind spots, the places we were naïve or just plain wrong, now, what will you do with this new knowledge and how will you manage the changes happening around us while facing the shocking truth? What is currently happening is a major lifestyle and cultural upheaval, life as we have known it in the past is ending. For many this is a major existential and spiritual crisis, bringing on normal reactions of grief, anger, sadness, confusion, sleepless nights and even facing confrontations with others that have been less than truthful. We are going to have an awful lot of very angry people when they find out how much they have been lied to and betrayed by those public figures they trusted. When we are undergoing a change in the foundation of our sense of security and identity, it penetrates to the deepest core of our being, reverberating shock waves that force us to get out of personal comfort zones and to emotionally and spiritually grow beyond the current level. Remember that the artificial façades, self-delusions and barriers are going to fall, whether you like it or not, because we have reached a collective limit in this area, and we can no longer live with it. Crimes against humanity must be accounted for and in order for humanity to heal, we must live to see true justice, in our society and at a cosmic level. Although this phase of spiritual growth is very hard, we all have to undergo this process of discerning and seeing the truth, no one gets away from this critical piece of spiritual ascension. The mountain of ego, pain body, deceptions, facades, illusions, manipulations and emotional bait hooks must be destroyed so that you are free to face truth and gain an accurate sense of reality without false attachments. There are some of us on the spiritual path that are holding space for others, loved ones around us that will be undergoing this intense process of lighting strike and shocking changes. Our loved ones, friends and acquaintances may be bewildered and confused about what is occurring. They may begin to show signs of trauma, projecting assorted images, they may have faulty memory, they may be acting out past life archetypes, they may feel threatened and terrorized with survival fears in the future. They are unable to deeply understand all that is happening because they are utterly overwhelmed with the intense energies forcing consciousness transformation, which surface deep emotional pain and grief. To hold a clear and unconditionally loving space for such intense forms of spiritual alchemy, it is important to hold complete observer towards the process, even when it can be painful to watch people we care about endure such intense pain, confusion and grief. In spiritual community, this is a call for self-mastery in compassionate witnessing, and never, ever taking on another person’s emotional process or disjointed perceptions when they are in the deep and heated battle of the inner Armageddon, while the ego construct is flailing about in its death throes. The most important relationships we have is with our higher power, God, and the inner relationship we have with ourselves. We go within to find that all we will ever need is existing inside of us for the purpose of building an impenetrable connection in your direct relationship with God - by focusing on the highest service to God that you can be in this moment. In that, it is all that matters, this is a virtue building exercise that will build incredible spiritual power. This is that moment. We must go within and rely on the inner feeling inside our heart, the truth as we know it right now, focusing on the inner connection and being aligned to one's personal values, praying and meditating to strengthen our direct communication with God and our inner spirit, in all ways that we can. Stay awake as we traverse the valley of the shadow and death, on the other side of destruction is creation, which awaits the deeper illumination of higher consciousness that we lightworkers and Starseeds have worked so hard to achieve. Be confident in your inner knowing that this is the event that we came to participate and witness on the earth, the massive transformation of global awakening, disclosure events and the process of catalyzing spiritual ascension of human beings on planet earth. Know in your heart that this is as it needs to be, and it is time now. Do not be scared, we are all in this together! https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1196865980862234624 ?referrer=MindCom

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arcticdementor · 4 years ago

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The massacres at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area this week, leaving eight human beings dead, others injured, and their families scarred, were horrifying. Read this deeply moving story about the son of one of the women killed to remind yourself of this. It’s brutal. The grief will spread and resonate some more.

But this story has also been deeply instructive about our national discourse and the state of the American mainstream and elite media. This story’s coverage is proof, it seems to me, that American journalists have officially abandoned the habit of attempting any kind of “objectivity” in reporting these stories. We are now in the enlightened social justice world of “moral clarity” and “narrative-shaping.”

…

We should not take the killer’s confession as definitive, of course. But we can probe it — and indeed, his story is backed up by acquaintances and friends and family. The New York Times originally ran one piece reporting this out. The Washington Post also followed up, with one piece citing contemporaneous evidence of the man’s “religious mania” and sexual compulsion. It appears that the man frequented at least two of the spas he attacked. He chose the spas, his ex roommates said, because he thought they were safer than other ways to get easy sex. Just this morning, the NYT ran a second piece which confirms that the killer had indeed been in rehab for sexual impulses, was a religious fanatic, and his next target was going to be “a business tied to the pornography industry.”

We have yet to find any credible evidence of anti-Asian hatred or bigotry in this man’s history. Maybe we will. We can’t rule it out. But we do know that his roommates say they once asked him if he picked the spas for sex because the women were Asian. And they say he denied it, saying he thought those spas were just the safest way to have quick sex. That needs to be checked out more. But the only piece of evidence about possible anti-Asian bias points away, not toward it.

And yet. Well, you know what’s coming. Accompanying one original piece on the known facts, the NYT ran nine — nine! — separate stories about the incident as part of the narrative that this was an anti-Asian hate crime, fueled by white supremacy and/or misogyny. Not to be outdone, the WaPo ran sixteen separate stories on the incident as an anti-Asian white supremacist hate crime. Sixteen! One story for the facts; sixteen stories on how critical race theory would interpret the event regardless of the facts. For good measure, one of their columnists denounced reporting of law enforcement’s version of events in the newspaper, because it distracted attention from the “real” motives. Today, the NYT ran yet another full-on critical theory piece disguised as news on how these murders are proof of structural racism and sexism — because some activists say they are.

…

And on and on. It was almost as if they had a pre-existing script to read, whatever the facts of the case! Nikole Hannah-Jones, the most powerful journalist at the New York Times, took to Twitter in the early morning of March 17 to pronounce: “Last night’s shooting and the appalling rise in anti-Asian violence stem from a sick society where nationalism has been stoked and normalized.” Ibram Kendi tweeted: “Locking arms with Asian Americans facing this lethal wave of anti-Asian terror. Their struggle is my struggle. Our struggle is against racism and White Supremacist domestic terror.”

When the cops reported the killer’s actual confession, left-Twitter went nuts. One gender studies professor recited the litany: “The refusal to name anti-Asianess [sic], racism, white supremacy, misogyny, or class in this is whiteness doing what it always does around justifying its death-dealing … To ignore the deeply racist and misogynistic history of hypersexualization of Asian women in this ‘explication’ from law enforcement of what emboldened this killer is also a willful erasure.”

In The Root, the real reason for the murders was detailed: “White supremacy is a virus that, like other viruses, will not die until there are no bodies left for it to infect. Which means the only way to stop it is to locate it, isolate it, extract it, and kill it.”

Trevor Noah insisted that the killer’s confession was self-evidently false: “You killed six Asian people. Specifically, you went there. Your murders speak louder than your words. What makes it even more painful is that we saw it coming. We see these things happening. People have been warning, people in the Asian communities have been tweeting, they’ve been saying, ‘Please help us. We’re getting punched in the street. We’re getting slurs written on our doors.’” Noah knew the killer’s motive more surely than the killer himself.

None of them mentioned that he killed two white people as well — a weird thing for a white supremacist to do — and injured a Latino. None pointed out that the connection between the spas was that the killer had visited them. None explained why, if he were associating Asian people with Covid19, he would nonetheless expose himself to the virus by having sex with them, or regard these spas as “safer” than other ways to have quick sex.

They didn’t because, in their worldview, they didn’t need to. What you see here is social justice ideology insisting, as Dean Baquet temporarily explained, that intent doesn’t matter. What matters is impact. The individual killer is in some ways irrelevant. His intentions are not material. He is merely a vehicle for the structural oppressive forces critical theorists believe in. And this “story” is what the media elites decided to concentrate on: the thing that, so far as we know, didn’t happen.

…

But notice how CRT operates. The only evidence it needs it already has. Check out the identity of the victim or victims, check out the identity of the culprit, and it’s all you need to know. If the victims are white, they don’t really count. Everything in America is driven by white supremacist hate of some sort or other. You can jam any fact, any phenomenon, into this rubric in order to explain it.

The only complexity the CRT crowd will admit is multiple, “intersectional” forms of oppression: so this case is about misogyny and white supremacy. The one thing they cannot see are unique individual human beings, driven by a vast range of human emotions, committing crimes with distinctive psychological profiles, from a variety of motives, including prejudices, but far, far more complicated than that.

There’s a reason for this shift. Treating the individual as unique, granting him or her rights, defending the presumption of innocence, relying on provable, objective evidence: these core liberal principles are precisely what critical theory aims to deconstruct. And the elite media is in the vanguard of this war on liberalism.

…

The more Asian-Americans succeed, the deeper the envy and hostility that can be directed toward them. The National Crime Victimization Survey notes that “the rate of violent crime committed against Asians increased from 8.2 to 16.2 per 1000 persons age 12 or older from 2015 to 2018.” Hate crimes? “Hate crime incidents against Asian Americans had an annual rate of increase of approximately 12% from 2012 to 2014. Although there was a temporary decrease from 2014 to 2015, anti-Asian bias crimes had increased again from 2015 to 2018.”

Asians are different from other groups in this respect. “Comparing with Black and Hispanic victims, Asian Americans have relatively higher chance to be victimized by non-White offenders (25.5% vs. 1.0% for African Americans and 18.9% for Hispanics). … Asian Americans have higher risk to be persecuted by strangers … are less likely to be offended in their residence … and are more likely to be targeted at school/college.” Of those committing violence against Asians, you discover that 24 percent such attacks are committed by whites; 24 percent are committed by fellow Asians; 7 percent by Hispanics; and 27.5 percent by African-Americans. Do the Kendi math, and you can see why Kendi’s “White Supremacist domestic terror” is not that useful a term for describing anti-Asian violence.

But what about hate crimes specifically? In general, the group disproportionately most likely to commit hate crimes in the US are African-Americans. At 13 percent of the population, African Americans commit 23.9 percent of hate crimes. But hate specifically against Asian-Americans in the era of Trump and Covid? Solid numbers are not yet available for 2020, which is the year that matters here. There’s data, from 1994 to 2014, that finds little racial skew among those committing anti-Asian hate crimes. Hostility comes from every other community pretty equally.

The best data I’ve found for 2020, the salient period for this discussion, are provisional data on complaints and arrests for hate crimes against Asians in New York City, one of two cities which seem to have been most affected. They record 20 such arrests in 2020. Of those 20 offenders, 11 were African-American, two Black-Hispanic, two white, and five white Hispanics. Of the black offenders, a majority were women. The bulk happened last March, and they petered out soon after. If you drill down on some recent incidents in the news in California, and get past the media gloss to the actual mugshots, you also find as many black as white offenders.

…

The media is supposed to subject easy, convenient rush-to-judgment narratives to ruthless empirical testing. Now, for purely ideological reasons, they are rushing to promote ready-made narratives, which actually point away from the empirical facts. To run sixteen separate pieces on anti-Asian white supremacist misogynist hate based on one possibly completely unrelated incident is not journalism. It’s fanning irrational fear in the cause of ideological indoctrination. And it appears to be where all elite media is headed.

#andrew sullivan #substack #journalism in action

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onisiondrama · 4 years ago

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I skipped ahead with my video summaries for his Speaks channel because I heard a lot of interesting things about this video and I wanted to watch it myself. After this I’ll go back to where I left off and continue to write summaries for videos I find interesting.

I want to note a week before this video he stopped making his Speaks videos fundraisers / for charity. (You can see the word Fundraiser under the videos if they are for charity.)

Comments and likes / dislikes are disabled for this video.

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“hiatus” November 1, 2020 Speaks

He says this is probably the last OnisionSpeaks video ever. He’s jokingly said that in the past and have done a lot of “I quit” videos, but back then he was trolling. This is not a troll and you don’t have to believe it him. You’ll see it’s true when he no longer posts videos to this channel.

(Times the internet called the police and animal control on him stories, pizza delivery trolls.) He implies you guys are hypocrites because you call animal control over alleged abuse toward animals, but then you’ll pay for animals to be killed and sent to him when you would order meat lover’s pizzas to his house. Says they’ll be studying the psychology of the stupidity of the Anti-Onision community for years.

He says he’s going to have his word here because this is his last video on Speaks.

(Shiloh said she was going kill herself to frame him story.) He says we used a video he filmed of her ranting about how he ruined her life. All because he broke up with her. He says you may not know, but some people are really like that.

He compliments his lighting in this video.

You know he didn’t do anything Anti-O accuses him of because when animal control, CPS, and the police show up they all turn out to be a fraudulent cases. You guys harass, terrorize, and bully someone until you get your way. Says it’s ironic because you say he’s a horrible person yet you lie to the police, animal control, and CPS.

(Someone tried to get him swatted story.)

(Twitter MAP troll story.) He says pedophiles are disgusting and they should have their balls chopped off. Pedophiles are attracted to prepubescent children. There’s nothing attractive about prepubescent children. Someone can’t have a pedophilic relationship with a 12 year old without the 12 year old being a victim. They are nowhere near socially, mentally or physically developed enough for such an interaction. People obsess over this concept, which makes him think they are projecting, and they project that onto him.

(Shiloh was taken away by the police story.) He tells his viewers to look up the police report. He says his name was Gregory Daniel at the time, he lived in the Tacoma, Washington area, and it was 2011. You might find a report for “boyfriend calls cops on girlfriend for threatening to kill herself and making it look like he did it and was hauled away by police.” He says if you look further back, you will see when he called the cops on Shiloh for other things and police concluded she needs to leave him alone because he was being harassed by her.

People say Onision should be in jail, but if you look at the history it doesn’t make sense. He dumped these people for committing crimes.

(People take pictures of his kids in public.) He says that’s how sick Anti-O freaks are. He’s trying to be a good father and protect the privacy of his children. He never tried to cash in on them or exploit them. [I guess minus all the clickbait videos he made to look like he was introducing them and the videos he made about their medical conditions. I don’t mean to nitpick, I just REALLY hate those videos.]

He has an Only Fans so there’s a pay wall so only adults can see his content. He says unless you steal someone’s credit card but that’s a while other issue and illegal on their part. Anti-O leak his OF content so now it’s available for kids. They’re the most pedophilic disgusting group he’s ever encountered.

Says CPS literally apologized to him for how degusting Anti-O groups are every time they showed up. You guys are like an evil cult.

He says CPS was called again.

He says he has a VPN, so he activates this thing and no one can trace his IP address. He says he used an IP blocker to access- [He laughs] “Most honest Youtuber here.” [This is his first time admitting this online, that’s why he’s stalling.] He used it to access “Ghetto Definitions” or “Street Definitions” [He means Urban Dictionary] “Onision” was ranked as “cuck” and the ones below it were nice. He wanted the nice definitions at the top so he used a VPN to vote for the good definitions to go to the top and it worked. They stayed at the top for a while. He says that was the first time he found out about IP blockers. He’s telling you this because he’s one of the most honest people you’ll ever encounter and lot of you are too stupid to know that. [Yep, pretending to be multiple people to manipulate a website that is based on voting is very honest.]

Says a lot of the people against him have admitted to being liars and he’s telling you he’s honest. That’s how stupid you guys are.

He made a poll asking if he or Hitler killed more people. You guys said Onision did, that’s how rational you are. Morons, cult of inbreds. [He was obviously looking for that outcome. That’s why he made that poll. He knows people will pick him because they think it’s funny and not because they are going off of historical facts. No one makes a serious poll asking if they killed more people than Hitler.]

He says “Ghetto Definitions” is now all filled with evil definitions that call him horrible things.

He says according to the CPS lady, someone reported Onision posted to Twitter that he was going to r-a-p-e and murder his family. He asks why would someone “r-a-p-e”? Murder? Go online and brag about it? He says it makes no sense. He says you’d mask your IP if you’re going to say something horrible online so it can’t be traced back to you. Says he’s never used a VPN to say something horrible, but doing that would be common sense.

This is why he’s quitting this channel. People can’t handle him having a controversial opinion or him kicking people out of his life for cheating and lying.

[He warned you about Shane, Social Repose, Blaire White, Shiloh stories] [Shiloh cheated and stole his money story] [Shiloh blog story]

He says Jaclyn Glenn and Blaire White are terrified of livestreaming with him. Blaire livestreamed with him 3 times and now she’s scared. He says one time she offered to livestream with him and he told her she needs to find a more productive way to spend her time. Shortly after she got canceled. She took the email he sent and said he’s trying to manipulate her. [I guess I missed the part where she was scared? They streamed three times and he rejected her recently for a stream?]

Blaire White is the one who started the witch hunt against him. She read off a news article that was bull crap. [It was not. You can read an archive of the article here.] She got canceled for admitting to taking hateful online rumors and using them in videos. He says she kind of canceled him in 2016, but he got re-cancelled later on. She was one of the leading voices against him when talking to Chris Hansen.

[Hansen is a fraud stories]

He says it’s one thing to go after him, but when you go after his family, we can’t do this anymore. You guys are fucking monsters so why would he grace you guys with his insight?

You guys have heroes like Jaclyn, Blaire, Repzion, Hansen and all these people who lie to you. They take your money and piss in your mouth and call it lemonade. The truth is right in front of you, screaming in your face and you only listen to Blaire and Repzion.

[He lists things he’s already mentioned about times he called people out and they wind up doing something shitty later on] He says you guys would blow up the car of the scientist who is trying to warn you the Earth is warming. You deserve a world that’s on fire because you don’t listen. You play dirty, attack people’s families, you try to get people swatted, you try to get their pets and children taken away, arrested, all because you disagreed with him or he dumped you.

He says he made a video about how he wouldn’t date anyone with BPD and Sarah came out and admitted to sexually extorting him.

The Anti-o cult has no morals. There was a guy with an orange shirt who was debating him in a livestream. They guy was warning a girl to watch out for Onision. She’s a fucking adult and he wasn’t interested in her. The orange shirt guy tried to reach out to the girl after the stream ended. It was actually orange shirt guy who wanted to fuck her and he was projecting.

He says he’s going to end the channel with one of his favorite quotes ever. [here we go] “You either die a FUCKING hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the CUNT ASS villain.”

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michaelsheenpt · 4 years ago

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Michael Sheen reveals the real-life serial killers who inspired his performance in Prodigal Son

Michael Sheen stars as serial killer Dr Martin Whitly in Sky’s new US import Prodigal Son – and if his character seems unnervingly realistic, that could be because the actor studied several real-life serial killers to get the performance just right.

In Sky One and NOW TV‘s Prodigal Son, Dr Whitly – also known as “The Surgeon” – has been behind bars for more than a decade. But before his crimes were discovered, he was a loving father-of-two, a highly-respected thoracic surgeon, and a pillar of the local community.

The role is an interesting one for Good Omens star Sheen, who in 2016 announced his directorial debut with a movie about the Green River Killer (in which he also planned to star). The project, still in development, would tell the story of Gary Ridgway – a US serial killer who pled guilty to 48 murders during the 1980s and 90s.

“Even though that’s a very different case and a very different serial killer, character, to my character in it, just being in that world and spending so much time working on that project gave me a lot of help when I came to work on this,” Sheen told RadioTimes.com and other press.

“But I also looked at Harold Shipman – my character in this is a very well-respected surgeon, so the idea of a doctor who was very loved and respected by people and who took advantage of that and was killing them, I looked at that.”

British doctor Harold Shipman was convicted in 2000 of murdering 15 patients under his care, but the true total was likely closer to 250 people. He is believed to be the most prolific serial killer in modern history, and operated undetected for years.

Sheen then also drew inspiration from Ted Bundy, an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped and murdered at least 30 girls and young women.

“Ted Bundy, who people found very charming and likeable… his biggest weapon is that he’s funny, and that people like him and warm to him and enjoy his company,” the actor said.

“And he has cultivated that because he wants people to let their defences down and if he can make you laugh, he knows he can manipulate you. He knows it’s working, and if he can get you to drop your defences he knows he can kill you a lot easier. Makes it a lot easier for him if he seduces you in that way. So he sort of developed that ability, and I thought Bundy was sort of interesting in that respect.”

In Prodigal Son, Dr Martin Whitly has a grown-up son called Malcolm Bright – played by Tom Payne – who is the show’s protagonist.

Having had his childhood torn apart by the discovery of his father’s sadistic crimes, Malcolm now works as a criminal psychologist specialising in serial killer profiling. But all these years later, he still suffers from night terrors and psychological trauma; and when people find out about his father they look at him differently.

Payne, who previously starred in The Walking Dead, spent some time getting into Malcolm’s head.

“There was a podcast which I found which was absolutely specific and relevant to the show, called Happy Face,” he revealed. “It’s this girl who is the daughter of the Happy Face Killer, in America and she travelled around meeting relatives of victims of her father, and spoke a lot about how it made her feel, and it was exactly what my character would have gone through.

“So I listened to all of that and it was really hard to listen to, and just the deep deep pain felt by her and all of the doubts that you have about yourself and whether you, any of your relative within you. It all speaks to Malcolm and, was there a trigger for his father? Was it inherent to his character? And all of these things.

“And then it also helped me to understand how the outside world views you through the lens of what your father did before you were even cognisant of being in the world, your relative has been doing all of these awful things, and then that immediately reflects upon you and people cannot help but see you as the spawn of this monster.

“So that really helped me and put me in the position of understanding it quite exactly all of the pressures that are on my character and why he changed his name and moved away in order to get some distance.”

As for why we’re fascinated with shows about serial killers, Sheen has a few theories.

“It’s probably a good idea for sheep to take an interest in wolves, because they literally prey on us – so serial killers are our predators, one of our predators,” he explains. “We’re interested in sharks, aren’t we, and we’re interested in anything that can kill us and there’s probably a good reason for that.

“Back in the day we went round campfires and told stories about wolves in the forests, because there were wolves in the forest. But they also take on a kind of bogeyman element and become a sort of folklore. So I think there’s a lot of different things going on in our being drawn to serial killers.”

And one final thought: “I think we also like to think of the dark, of a monster being there – we know that the monster is in here,” he says, patting his chest. “We know that it’s us. As well as it being the other, it’s also us as well and that is a way to engage with the darkness in us, by making it outside of ourselves.”

Prodigal Son begins on Tuesday 28th July 2020 at 9pm on Sky One and NOW TV. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide.

source

#michael sheen #prodigal son

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rahenning · 4 years ago

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Forgotten and Overlooked Cartoon Movies

On this week’s discussion we will explore two cartoon movies that you either may have watched when you were a child and got you disturbed giving you nightmares or you watched as an adult but probably had the same reaction as if you were a little kid. Or maybe it was just me who felt very confused watching it. This brings to my mind a thought. Are cartoons/ animation movies strictly designed for a young audience? Can a cartoon that is designed for children bring themes that may bring valuable discussions at home and teach good lessons to a little mind in development? Finding Nemo suggests to kids that step out of your comfort zone is important and to never give up even having so many obstacles on your life journey. Mulan is a great representation and inspiration for little girls to know that they can and should fight for their rights with confidence and independence. The list of animation movies that can be very inspiring for children is extensive. Although not all the cartoons/ animations movies have a young audience target. Titles such as “Fritz the Cat” (1972), “South Park” (1999) and the outstanding autobiographical “Persepolis” (2007) are definitely movies that probably wouldn’t be a good idea to have your child sitting next to you in the living room while you watch it.

Some movies sometimes either get forgotten or overlooked in the history of cartoon movies. Today we will give the attention necessary and deserved to two adult cartoon masterpieces; “Fantastic Planet” (1973) directed by Rene Laloux and “Watership Down” (1978) directed by Martin Rosen. Both movies are incredible on bringing to the table topics such as violence and power, authoritarian leaderships, division of social classes, democracy, the seek of home and belonging. We will cover that in a moment but excuse me on giving you some spoilers first. Both movies are modeled and gives to the audience historical lessons about specific times, events, and political aspects in society.

“Fantastic Planet” (1973) was a landmark in the history of European animation directed by Rene Laloux. The movie is a completely though-through science fiction vision which may be for many breathtaking or an unnecessarily experimental miserable detour. The movie resonates with historical allegories and radical politics based on European aesthetic principles. I personally find the aesthetic of this movie very surrealistic and resembles Salvador Dali’s artworks. The film takes place on the planet Ygam and shows two tribles of organisms that live against each other. The gigantic, intellectual, and blue Draags and the small and pinkish Oms that were removed by their masters Draags from their planet. The Oms are domesticated and enslaved by the Draags. The story unfolds and is narrated by Terr, one of the members of the Oms who grows and matures being domesticated next to the Draags. Terr learns about the culture of the Draags and their strange rituals of learning, meditation, wisdom, and development. Through mental inducement devices to transmit knowledge to future generations the Draags open the collective wisdom of their race. Terr escapes his captors and joins a renegade group of Oms. As the Draags try to control the radical Oms the film concludes in the final confrontation between the two groups and a satellite known as the Fantastic Planet.

In 1968 the film faced obstacles in the middle of its production. Soviet tanks invaded Prague, where the film was being produced, and occupied the city. After the invasion, the production of the film was extended for four years and was only released in 1973. In many ways the film represents these events. The communist occupation not only in Czechoslovakia but also in other Eastern European countries, is directly reminiscent of the convenient enslavement of the Oms by the Draags. In addition, the analogy of the relationship between owner and animal is effective between representing the relationship between the Soviet Union and its satellite states. While animals and Oms experienced modest degrees of autonomy, this was always monitored and limited by their masters. In both cases these masters maintained the fate of their servants. During that time, the illusion of this need was fabricated and often promoted to praise the positive attributes in the master. Besides that, the illusion of freedom has always been available at a distance, but it was collected in small doses. The masters reinforced and affirmed the hierarchical relationship that subordinates had with their servants. Two other elements are also symbolic of social and historical phenomena. Firstly,the tactics and techniques used by the Draags to destabilize the Oms and the camps where they lived that resemble the Nazi concentration camps and gas cameras. The film does an excellent job portraying the terror that the Draags cause in the Oms. The threat is greater than the attacks themselves. Didactically shows how to psychologically demoralize a society. Fear and oppression can have much greater causes and penetrate the coincidence of their victims. The film is then a provocative incursion into the state-sponsored psychological terror and its behaviors.

The second movie in discussion is “Watership Down” (1978) by Martin Rosen. The movie is a British animation based on the novel “Watership Down” by Richard Adams. The film was successful in the UK but not so much in the US. The controversy around it is what brings more attention. At first the audience may think it is a movie about cute bunnies living on a field. Well, its not extremely wrong but it goes far beyond it and its sensitive and explicit content is what labels the movie as an adult animation. The plot focuses on a group of rabbit living in the countryside. The group learns that their land is being invaded and poisoned by a construction company. They try to persuade the chief to evacuate. The chief refuses and they make a breakthrough with other members of their community. Many altercations happen between the group and makes the plot more excited and intriguing. The violence and the rage of the rabbits are shocking for many viewers. This film was U rated, which means it is suitable for all ages. And that’s what makes it more controversy. It creeps adults out and I can only imagine all the nightmares kids would have after watching it. The story is simply enough to follow with some tips of comedy in between the dramatic violent and swearing scenes.

What most of the viewers may not know is that “Watership Down” was inspired by its novel author Richard Adams real life personal experiences. He revealed that many of the animals in the movie were designed and based on officers that he, as a lieutenant, commanded in the World War 2. Not just the characters but many of the stories lived by the bunnies were also based on his real-life experiences and specifically the Battle of Arnhem, which he fought for over nine days in September 1944. Many soldiers were killed, and it answers why we see so many deaths and violent scenes in the movie. The character Hazel was inspired in his commanding officer Gifford. Gifford survived the war, and so did Hazel. According to the author, Bigwig was based on Captain Desmond “Paddy” Kavanagh. Adams describes him as “afraid of nothing and sensationalist”. “Good stories ought to be exciting and if they are exciting, they are inevitably scary in parts”- Richard Adams.

Learning more about the two films and its context, I believe it is easier now to understand and visualize the shared topics prior mentioned. Both movies are a tremendous critic to abuse of power and the use of mental and physical violence by the leaders in both fictional and real society. Our contemporary society lived and still experiences all these aspects. The movies simple used real-life events to base their narrative on. The division between social classes is clearly visible specially on “Fantastic Planet”. In todays age we still see and fight against this variance. Socio-economics class division happens in every and each country around the globe and it can be even more endured when we add race and sexual orientation for example. The seek of home and belonging are also very well covered in both movies. All the groups in both films wanted a place to be free from oppression and without fearing for their lives. I believe that everyone around this planet first goal in life is to feel secure, free and have a place that they can finally have this feeling of belonging inside their hearts.

Movements such as the Black Lives Matter are a great example of an oppressed community who is (and has always been) standing up for themselves, making them and their stories heard and fighting against an oppressive system in order to gain equality, safety and freedom.

https://blacklivesmatter.com/

In reference to the movie “Watership Down” I would like to also use the MST (Landless Workers Movement) as an example of fighting for the right of obtaining living and a sense of belonging. The Brazilian social movement defines it’s as goals access to land for the poor workers through land reforms.

To learn more about the movement please visit their page.

https://mst.org.br/english/

We already know that in “Fantastic Planet” the system the Draags kept the Oms in is oppressive and limit their capability of learning. They were labeled as savage and domesticated Oms. This system pretty much reflects the society we live in. The system intentionally takes out the chances of the less fortunate on learning and growing as people. It creates a division either in the movie and in our society between the “intellectuals” and the “anti-intellectuals”. What happens is that most oppressed group does not even have the eager of gaining more knowledge and that is all a consequence of the system they live in. It is all meticulously orchestrated by the system and it only makes the so called “intellectual” group of society more powerful over the other groups.

To be able to overcome their reality, the Oms had to finally come together and unite against the Draags. They had to listen to the domesticated and now more educated Oms who had more information and knowledge at the time. Without uniting, the Oms would not be able to defend themselves and attack the Draags.

Back to “Watership Down” we also see how internal conflicts inside a group or community may ruin or delay a common goal. In the movie we have characters that could fall into the label of intellectual and anti-intellectual. The protagonist of the movie, Hazel, may fall into the label of “intellectual”. He is the lead of the group and his actions were always to benefit all the band of rabbits and specially protect the small ones. Blackcherry is Hazel’s main source of knowledge and guidance. For this reason, he can also be called an “intellectual” in the group. In other hand we have Strawberry, a large rabbit but with no knowledge of how to live in the wild. He wanted to learn, although his lack of understanding of the wilderness could always affect their group.

To make a quick correlation to our society, we could divide the rabbits into a younger and older group. For example, in the younger group we have Hazel, Fiver, Strawberry and Dandelion. A group of young but very loyal and fierce rabbits. All of them with their specific positive characteristics that could be substantially important to a success of a group. In the older group we have General Woundwort, Captain Campion, and Captain Holly. Although they may be strong and experienced some of their actions may be destructive to the well being of the group. The older group often questions if the younger really knows what they are doing by their lack of experience. It is often seeing in our society too. An example is how our society keep only trusting in old candidates for important positions in our government. Why not to trust in new faces and new ideas for our society? The chances to keep repeating the problems are high. Maybe new minds and new ideas can make a lot of positive changes.

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fictionalplagueproductions · 5 years ago

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If The World Was Ending

Part 3 - You’d Come Over, Right?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Story Summary: Gavin is on the hunt for his missing android when the U.S. Government announces the end of the world. The end of his world. A world without his precious Nines.

Chapter Summary: Gavin’s search comes to a heartbreaking discovery and he must now decide what he is willing to lose in order to keep what he has gained.

Pairing: Reed900 (RK900 x Gavin Reed)

Rating: Explicit (NSFW)

A/N: Sorry for the long wait! I know I should be appreciative because I have two jobs that are considered essential during this pandemic which offer great hours and CAT pay, but I feel like a lifeless workaholic rn with school finals in a literal week. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well during these difficult times. If anyone is interested, I do take requests for one-shots (especially Reed900) for many fandoms. Just PM and I’ll see what I can do. Also, if you have never heard of Detroit Evolution and you ship Reed900, check it out! It’s a 75-minute fan film dedicated to the ship and I HIGHLY recommend it (gif is an actual scene from the film). Cuteness overload. Lastly, I am considering making an actual Reed900 one-shot based on another song. You can check out my work on AO3 or Fanfiction.net! Enjoy!

“Do you have any fucking idea what I’ve been through today?”

The swollen, tear-streaked cheeks on his lover’s face gave Nines a clue.

“I searched for you for hours! You couldn’t have sent me a goddamn text?”

Nines wished communication had been possible. Cyberlife would have tapped his servers within a heartbeat and tracked him down, leaving Gavin’s apartment a mess in the aftermath.

“I even found Connor still blubbering around. He told me about your stupid, little plan.” The pitiful man tugged at his hair mangled in distraught. “What happened to all those times you wouldn’t shut up about androids being superior? What the fuck were you thinking?”

Guilt struck Nines.

He thought it unlikely that Gavin would even bother searching Anderson’s home after the front the lieutenant had elected to put up for their safety. He thought it even more unlikely that Connor, a machine developed for the comfort of his human counterparts, would reveal Nines’ heartbreaking arrangement.

“I…I thought you were dead.”

He almost had been.

Nines’ original intention was to spare his android brother from the inevitable fatality of his species. Two RKs could not exist with the same familiar face. The humans would eventually notice, regardless if they had both relocated halfway across the world and scalped themselves of their LEDs. Even if their charades were believed, Nines was android through and through. Why should he be forced to pretend he was something he was not? No, Connor was more human than himself. He was the one who deserved to make it in this carbon-ruled world.

Gavin’s definitive words came out a dying whisper: “I thought you had left me.”

A churning sensation swirled Nines’ insides as he watched the broken man stumble before him. Sincerity was not an emotion he needed to readily practice, as he did not lie often, but he found even himself feeling rejected by his own words. “I’m here now.”

The response was simple, vague enough to dodge and nullify all of Gavin’s worries.

It wasn’t enough.

He stepped forward towards his human who now leaned heavily into the back of the couch, grimacing in fear of an image invisible to Nines. It cracked the straight face he had framed over his growing trepidation. “I’m here,” he repeated breathlessly.

Gavin seemed to fumble out of his terror, tearing a sharp inhale through his shuddering body and eventually allowing Nines to view his beaten soul through grieving lenses. Words would not suffice this time. It was one of the few moments that it clicked for Nines that words were just not enough.

Humans were such delicate creatures at times – his even moreso. The psychological issues he wielded piled into a mountain of stress-induced rage and caffeine-fueled insecurities. Just a little search through his social media lit up the diagnostic centers of Nines’ CPU in an array of colors far more paramount than the human eye could even begin to elucidate.

But as much as he could prove the dishevelment of his partner and all of humanity, neither could he deny his own deviant chaos rampaging indecision and hesitance in his day-to-day actions. He was slower now, more volatile to his environment, and almost no more could he distinguish subjective constructs now than over his previous machine-like state. He was truly living, as the humans often said, “the worst of both worlds”.

Nines was just as broken as Gavin in his own fashion. Except, despite it all, Gavin mended him in such indescribable complementing ways that none of it mattered.

The android clicked one foot forward, asking silently for permission to embrace him. It still surprised him to this day that there were ways of communicating with just a lift of the finger, but only with others one knew well. And Gavin, he could read like a book.

When Gavin released his clenched eyebrows from their angered posture, Nines presumed the reciprocal. Their “chemistry” had been undisturbed by his absence. He made haste in closing the distance, grappling needily onto the life-form already unfolding beneath him. Hands clenched into balls of fabric against his back and Nines melted under the sticky mess that clung to his neck.

Rarely did Gavin cry, but this time around, a waterfall had already begun to soak the top seam of his t-shirt.

The ability to cry was lost upon Nines. Sadness overwhelmed him, understanding the hurt his human had endured, but unsure if he even equipped tear ducts to perform such an action. Feeling pain was one thing; expressing it was entirely new. The quaking beneath him, nonetheless, wrenched at his thirium pump, and he so desperately wished to quake with his lover.

Eventually, Gavin ceased and unceremoniously dug his fingers through Nines’ hair and pressed their noses side-by-side. His eyes were glued shut as he pressed his wet cheeks against his android. The soggy touch was like velcro against Nines and he chased that feeling of a sobbing solace.

The android copied his partner’s actions and clutched his palms to either side of his head, smearing Gavin’s tear-stained face against his own and absorbing the physical exudations of emotion. The wet heat was so raw on his synthetic skin that Nines didn’t think when it retracted on contact, leaving his pearly plastic to glimmer under the tainted blue water that began to leak from the corners of his eyes. At first, it wasn’t much, trailing faint streaks of cyan behind the aqueous movements. But when Gavin realized the heart-wrenching moan that escaped Nines, he looked to him with such a mixture of pain and clemency that provoked a heavier round of blue artillery.

The android’s face became a painting illustrated by nothing more than his fear and affections to which Gavin happily contributed his own sultry paintbrush.

The resolve came quick for Gavin, and he tentatively watched Nines recollect his own bearings. “I’m sorry, I-”

“Shut the fuck up,” snapped Gavin, though no cruelty met his tone. “You’re okay. You’re okay?”

His android nodded, relishing in the bath that carried away his burgeoning emotions. Gavin held their faces still together, touching his lips stiffly against Nines. He had intended for nothing more than to be replenished by the idea of his lover existing within his grasp once again, but Nines seemed to bite in excess. The android’s tongue slipped between Gavin’s teeth, releasing a burst of iron from his ingested robot tears, and let it run rampant within his mouth.

The kiss wasn’t enough for Nines to convince his partner how much he missed him. He yielded his tongue from Gavin’s taste buds and lapped up the tears along his cheeks, sampling the crystallizing sodium and nibbling down his jawline.

Gavin moaned beneath him, his shockwave of dread dissipating into unhinged eroticism. If he had learned anything from years of failed relationships, it was that emotional turmoil made sex all the better.

The excitement incited within Gavin’s pounding chest turned arrhythmic when his android lifted him into his arms, shoving him against the wall behind him, and pushing into him with the testosterone of a bull. After enduring months of awkwardly finding their way around each other, it was an understatement to say that Gavin was surprised by Nines’ newfound wanton initiative.

Surprised, certainly, but not in the slightest disappointed.

He returned the actions tenfold, forcing their mouths to dance and recklessly tearing at the jacket that restricted his eyes from the beauty of his boyfriend’s bare chest. Nines let go of Gavin, using the wall to balance him against his groin, and tossed his jacket and turtleneck in one swift motion across the couch. The android’s own impatience erupted under a low grumble as he dropped Gavin onto the couch and clambered over top of him, shoving his human’s arms in the air to slip his tee off.

Nines worshipped the skin-to-skin contact. Since activation, he had come to cherish the vivid sensations of heat. Against his endothermic mammalian body, Nines soaked in the warmth that radiated from Gavin; against the words from his boyfriend that endeared him so heavily, he intoxicated his insides in benevolent wildfire. At times, he feared he would melt.

Melting was a fair price to experience the touch of fire.

And fire was what blazed within him as he felt his new component roar to life. It was even more pleasing to watch Gavin’s eyes stretch in wonder as he realized that his hardening member would no longer be grinding alone. Nines, though he tried maintaining his dominant pose, fell victim to the gasps that his lover relinquished underneath the length that overpowered his inferior, human phenotype.

Nines’ nibbling grew into starved bites, sinking lower and lower below his human’s neck. Despite the red blood that pulsed beneath his skin, shades of purple surfaced in splotches beneath the android’s teeth. They eventually created a trail to his waistband, his tongue dipping deep beneath the surface to test the waters. Gavin hummed in permissiveness. Nines palmed between his lover’s legs, unbuttoning his jeans and sheltering the member that popcorned into plaid boxers over his salivating tongue He kept his palate suctioned tightly around the tip of his cock, dampening the fabric and earning a playful tug at his bowed locks.

The soft moans his lover made set fire to Nines’ steadily growing impatience and he pulled the fabric barriers down to Gavin’s knees and inhaled the hardened flesh down to his throat. An unanticipated upward thrust pushed his cock even further and Nines indulged hungrily. Pre-cum was already dribbling onto his taste receptors and he craved to know what damages an entire mouthful would cause to his system.

His curiosities would have to be satiated at a later date, because Gavin – at his most human – demanded his own impatience be tended to. He clung to the android’s synthetic hair and pulled him up to his abandoned orifice. With as much brash force as he could manage, the human kicked off the rest of his clothing, slipping restless fingers under Nines’ own jeans, and winced as the android bucked under the feeling, pinching his dick under the metal zipper. Immediately upon impact, Nines lifted up from Gavin to prevent any more harm, but it only offered Gavin the leverage to shove what little clothing remained between their unappeased debauchery, and eyeing the massive cock that his lover had chosen for himself.

For a moment, he was breathless, apprehensive of the image set before him. Though Nines had not been his first gay sexual encounter, he had certainly never dated a man that could compete against Detroit’s Largest Bratwurst contest.

Nines could feel his stare. “Is it…satisfactory?”

Gavin could only grin his answer. “Ready to take it for a spin?”

Without waiting for a response, Gavin slid down the couch underneath his virgin boyfriend and placed a moist tongue against the skin beneath his tightly-clung balls. He flicked his tongue teasingly against the hairless strip before engulfing a single sac into his mouth and lightly sucking. Nines gave out, falling to all fours and gasping at the strange sensation.

The man wished he could see Nines’ face. He might be a machine built with bells and whistles that only ever sported the most aggressive resting bitch face, but the noises his lover made now were enough to make his own groin boil with pure bliss. Faint robotic mimics of pleasure raced across Gavin’s imagination and he rewarded the plausible responses by licking up the underside of his dick and kissing the soft flesh that fit like a gagball in his mouth. There was something so satisfying about bringing a hard-ass like Nines down to his knees; about having a hard-ass like Nines allowing Gavin to show him the true pleasures of humanity.

Nines hadn’t minded in the slightest. Deviancy had graced him with minimal traces of pride and did as he pleased regardless of what others thought of it. And although Gavin did not share these same traits, Nines was contented, nonetheless, to understand firsthand what tonsils felt like in their natural habitat. The android hadn’t been interrupted by his visual software windows often, but the way his lover hummed along his new member made the pop-ups block everything in sight, turning the world red in a flurry of error messages.

He had lost a good portion of his reserve amounts of thirium from the tears that he had been surprised to relinquish earlier. Now his CPU was requesting permission to tap into his main supply of bodily thirium already coursing through his plastic arteries. He struggled with the proper demand, desiring to feel immense waves of pleasure built contingently upon Gavin’s persistent tonguing, but ultimately he had to decline. He wasn’t sure how much thirium would be released; if there was too much that prevented his function, they were no longer living in times that Gavin could just meander into the nearest convenience store to pick up a bottle of “Blueberry Go-Go”.

Another error message interrupted the magnificent view of his lover choking below him. He was overheating.

Nines ripped away from Gavin, heaving under the frustration of his pulsating, wet cock. A familiar look of hurt flickered in his boyfriend’s eyes, but Nines was quick to place two reassuring hands on his shoulders. “I can’t absolve myself. I would be wasting my thirium…”

Gavin piped in with a pleading tone, “I have plenty.”

“You do?”

He nodded. “I stocked up on some last week after…” Gavin blushed, moving to touch his lover’s face. “…you know.”

The android’s first instinct was to feel relief, wanting to continue their relations and experience the sweet pleasure of a human orgasm. Then, a lighthearted afterthought pushed against his vivacious libido. “You were looking forward to doing this again?”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled Gavin, realizing the sweet-bitten look his boyfriend infected him with., “I bought you your blue juice. I guess it worked out pretty well considering the circumstances. Do you want to stop? It might be harder to-”

Nines answered his boyfriend by shoving him back into his subordinate position and breaking the skin of his luscious lips between his teeth. He dug claws into Gavin’s hips and gripped them like reins, grinding his monstrous dick against one that dwarfed in comparison.

Gavin, for once, didn’t mind being as small as he was, internally begging to feel Nines’ throbbing cock against his tight hole. Nines read his mind, dropping Gavin completely and demanding him to “suck me” with a cutting stare that made him indubitably obey.

When the android was dripping in saliva once again, he bent over to suck off the warm member below him, dipping to Gavin’s leveled waist and twirling his cock underneath the loose sack that melted over top of him. The android tested the feeling, appreciating the damp nook that his lover exposed to him, waiting for an objection. When none came, he pushed slowly into the puckered hole, staring blankly into the squirming man below him, though desperately trying not to break the dominant persona that had overtaken him.

It took milliseconds for the error messages to pop up once more, but Nines ignored them for the time being. He wanted to watch the pleasure melt into his lover’s eyes as he sunk deeper into the ever-tightening walls. When he thought the moans couldn’t draw out any longer, he extracted himself up to his tip, desiring to hear Gavin’s pleas. The man did not satisfy this desire, automatically slamming his naked ass over the android’s cock and ripping a glass-shattering moan that involuntarily sprung red alerts across his ocular view. If he did not accept to its terms, it would override his own demands, but he was not ready.

No, he wasn’t ready to –

Gavin curled his legs around his waist and clung fervently, grinding wantonly against his biocomponent. Suddenly, the alerts began to flicker statically, and Nines erupted without caution. He growled against his lover’s gasps, indiscriminately nipping at his cheek and shaking under the pulses that charged heavy projectiles into the dark cave of his pleasure.

This only seemed to provoke Gavin’s excitement further, intriguingly enough to Nine’s observations. He slapped harder against the android, thrusting his cock upwards into the heated skin above him and relishing in the liquid that squirted from his ass under each solid movement. When Nines regained some of his strength, he forced himself onto his elbows and enjoyed the unveiled show of his boyfriend climaxing around him.

A flash of anger appeared on Gavin’s face before he made a corporeal demand by guiding the android’s hand over his loaded member. Nines understood almost immediately, sitting up straight and stroking promptly the small dick in his firm grasp.

The man’s waist followed Nines’ towering movements, suddenly coming to touch his sweet spot and focusing his movements on that single area. The android glared down at him expectantly. Did he know how hot he looked when he acted so serious? Gavin assumed he did when he began to buck against him, digging straight into the spot that made his vocal cords weak. The fire in his ass consumed his entire being, releasing audible spasms throughout his body that coated his chest in a familiar sticky substance.

Nines continued to stroke him even after, unbelieving of the pleasurable writhing of which his lover was capable. Gavin had to clench onto the android’s wrist to stop the movements, needing to relax against the frigid state he had experienced for probably too long. He slid off of his boyfriend’s cock, relieving a sigh, and then a sad moan when a loneliness settled within his emptied hole.

“I don’t think I could ever go back.” The look on the android’s face was incredulous as he sat back on his heels.

“Go back to what?”

“Being a machine,” said Nines. “I love you. I love… being with you. I’m not human, but I can’t be… I can’t be a machine.”

Gavin hushed him, only rising to pull his lover into the cushions beside of himself. He pressed his lips gently against Nines, wrapping his body wet from any and all bodily fluids around his and nestling his face into his chest. “You don’t have to worry about what you are. You’re you. That’s all that matters.”

Though Gavin was unable to see the realization that crossed Nines’ expression, the android smiled and hugged his human tighter. All this time, he had been obsessed with labeling himself into either box. He hadn’t stopped to consider that he was just him. Nines was a sentient being that loved working as a detective, that loved beating people at chess, and that loved this man. Nines was Nines.

Why should he deserve less than others to live this life he was granted? Even if he was granted this life in non-traditional ways.

Yes, Nines smiled. He was not human, but he was himself. As he was Gavin’s.

He looked to the unknowingly wise man beneath him and kissed the sweat-stuck bangs along his forehead.

“I love you,” breathed Gavin. His tone was rigidly quiet, signaling the beginning stages of a drifting sleep.

Nines’ smile grew broader. “I love you,” he whispered back, slipping the blanket that hung over the back of the couch over their sleeping forms. “You won’t ever lose me.”

The End? You Decide.

The next morning, Gavin awoke to daylight seeping through the window shades, a pillow crushed between his arms. The body that had entered the darkness with him did not greet him on the other side.

Stumbling to his feet, the gruff man eyed the open floor plan, pacing down the hallway when Nines had not appeared in his view. Hints of panic began to travel through his veins upon the inspection of an empty bedroom. Then, with one last desperate pounce at the bathroom door, immense terror struck Gavin when the site was void. Immediately, Gavin fisted a washcloth over his dick uncleaned from the night before and threw on a pair of boxers crumpled on the tiled floor.

As his fingers wrapped around the doorknob, a red reflection caught his eye in the mirror, and he stopped. The source was circular, pulsing in a dying light of slow movements amongst the mess of toiletries. At the same moment, his front door clicked open and he engaged the guilty suspect in the living room with his respective organ laid in-hand.

“What the fuck were you doing? And what the fuck is this?”

Nines was dressed in one of Gavin’s maroon sweatshirts but wore the same black jeans (assuming he probably could not squeeze into a pair of his).

“I can’t be android anymore. I needed to rid myself of it if I were to ever have a chance of not being spotted. I’m sorry, I know I must have worried you.” The android shifted uncomfortably beneath Gavin’s scowl. “I needed to see Connor and the Lieutenant one last time.”

“What do you mean ‘one last time’?”

Nines visibly dropped. “I can’t stay in Detroit, Gavin. Neither can Connor. I thought you knew that?”

Gavin hadn’t thought of it. He had been too busy trying to find his boyfriend and later trying to convince himself that his boyfriend was still in existence and not some illusion. After that… he had no clue what the plan was. Perhaps, to just continue enjoying a love he had thought he lost.

“I love you,” continued Nines when Gavin had not. “If moving is too much, then I cannot force you to go. But, if I may add, my life is empty without my purpose as a detective; and it is also selfish to keep when it could imperil Connor’s safety. You are why I could not yet exterminate myself, Gavin. You were my first and last thought before stepping into one of those camps. If you say goodbye today, then I will understand, but please, I beg you to reconsider.”

Speechlessness was a rare condition for Gavin. His hand went slack, and he gaped with consternation, letting the LED clunk to the floor. From the first moment he had opened his eyes to this disgusting world, he had been a sour man. Although there were a few hidden gems, none of them compared to the way Nines had made him feel: so important, so loved. Could he really give that up to return to his life of android discrimination? For years, he despised their very being, hoping for the government to come to the consensus that they had finally arrived to. But now was different, now he was hopelessly in love with an android. An android built incapable of love who was now inconceivably begging for Gavin to stay. Was there even a level of shitty that existed within him to say no?

Despite the severity of the situation, Nines did not express a distinguishable emotion. His intense stare locked onto Gavin, nearly piercing straight through him into the void that was preparing for denial. The irony was not lost upon him, realizing that it was the android just last night promising he would never leave the despondent man; the tables were turned now. Gavin could provide it for him, it was not impossible to uproot his life and start fresh elsewhere.

Did he even have that much to lose? His still vocal cords told him he did.

For as much as Gavin hated many things, he would miss the familiarity of the DPD. He would miss the break room’s horrible coffee and fucking with Anderson on a daily. He would miss going on lunches to random places that Tina suggested and spitting out whatever dish she forced down his throat. He would even miss his damned broken chair that never stayed at the right height long enough for him to type up a single report. Yeah, as much as he hated a lot of it, he would miss this life.

But the pain that ripped through his chest when he realized Nines could have been gone forever… it was an unmistakably violent feeling he wouldn’t elect for anyone else to experience. The sheer rawness of his insides tortured his mind to the extent of self-harm. He would never admit to it, not even to himself, but the state of his existence was a questionable case had Nines not confronted him in his own apartment last night. A future without Nines was…indisputable.

That didn’t make the prospect of the change less difficult.

The befuddled man turned away and traveled to the far window, capturing a glance at the skyscrapers framed by the sill in his living room. Then, he turned, crossing his arms and meeting Nines’ line of sight. “Can we just enjoy one day without it all? No politics, no moving, no dumbass decisions like scalping your LED and putting yourself in danger. Just – one – day?”

The floor became a source of answers for Nines when it was made obvious that he did not care for his boyfriend’s. Without another word, the android joined Gavin by the window and folded him into his arms. Neither were unsure how long they could last there without discussing this emphatic problem, but neither wanted to know. And so they stood quietly in each other’s presence; Nines listening to the light breaths of his lover, and Gavin melting into the thrums of his android’s thirium pump.

Nines pressed his palm into Gavin’s tangled hair, inhaling his oily effervescence, and pressing his lips to the side of his temple. The man relaxed into his chest and smiled.

If the world ended right now, all their fears of their future would be completely irrelevant. There would be no reason Nines would have to decide whether life was worth living if Gavin denied him, nor would there be reason for Gavin to worry about leaving his old life behind.

If the world ended, there would be no reason for them to even say goodbye. They would be as they were, encompassing one another and riding out their affections until their beating organs failed.

Nines watched the outside world while he felt his lover inversely lose himself from it. They held each for what felt like hours. They held each other as the clouds passed from one corner of the window to the next.

They held each other and Nines watched coolly as the blue skies were shielded with roaring oranges that blocked out the sun.

They held each other until Nines could feel the ground tremble and he shushed his slumbering human back into his chest.

They held each other until Gavin inhaled a finalized breath, never to be proceeded by a relinquishing exhale.

Nines held on until his own systems depleted and he could no longer hold.

“I love you.”

#reed900 #dbh #detroitbecomehuman #900reed #gavin reed #rk900 #nines #nines x gavin reed #gavin reed x nines #rk900 x gavin reed #gavin reed x rk900 #gavcon #dbh fanfiction #dbh ff #reed900 fanfic

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womanwiththepoppytattoo · 4 years ago

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Invalidating the narcissist’s invalidation

7.13.20

Rey wanted me to feel insecure. To feel like I wasn’t important to him. That the love I felt for him and the things I did for him were nothing special. This was part of his pathology.

The other day, while running an errand at my dad's house, I passed the Suffolk Starbucks. I feel like I went to that Starbucks at least 20 times with Rey. (I never go to Starbucks by myself. Too snobby for me.) I asked myself, how much time did we spend here? How many times did he come with me to my dad's house? And why the hell would he do that if, as he would have had me believe, I meant nothing to him? My dad's house is not a fun place to hang out. It feels so odd to me now that he would have come with me, because his later actions made it so clear that he didn't love me and didn't enjoy my company.

This is one of a few interrelated resentments that surface again and again when I talk about Rey. When someone is extremely important to you, you need to be important to them too. Narcissists know this, and they use it against us. First, they build you up - during the first year of our relationship, he would frequently tell me that no one had ever cared about him the way I did - and then they tear you down.

Later, during the devalue stage of the relationship, he would say things to me like "I've had other foster families that treated me as well as or better than you do." (This is false, and his biological family has told me after his death that he told them, about me, "I finally found someone who really treats me like part of their family.") Or, "Angel (the guy he was selling drugs for) treats me like a son." Or, "Lots of people love me just as much as you do." (And I would think, 'Really? Where the fuck are they then?') In the community of narcissistic abuse survivors, this is known as triangulation. The narcissist subtly or overtly compares you a third person or group of people to make you feel inadequate so that you try harder, give more. It is one of many forms of psychological abuse I endured.

**A word about psychological abuse. In our culture, psychological is a synonym for "not real." Let me tell you something. I have been a victim of physical domestic abuse and sexual domestic abuse (in separate relationships.) I have suffered depression, anxiety, and "suicidal ideation". I lost my soulmate, a star-crossed first love, to an overdose. Seventeen years later, I found another piece of my soul in a boy I adopted as my son, only to lose him too when he was murdered. What would you say was the "worst" thing that I have experienced? Most people in our culture would very surprised to hear that the psychological abuse I suffered with Rey is what cuts the deepest. It's one of those things you can't even imagine unless you've experienced it.**

Narcissists don't just use words, either. They prove your insignificance to you with actions. Most of Rey's friends and girlfriends didn't even know I existed, and I was not allowed to meet them. He was happy to play the role of my son around my family and friends, but would never allow me to play the role of his mother (or anything else) around his friends. He would never give me that place of honor in his life. He wanted me to feel insecure and insignificant. He withheld what I needed, rightfully expected, and deserved from him in order to have more power over me. That sentence is bolded because you will see variations of it again and again as I write about narcissistic abuse - it all boils down to this.

And the ultimate proof that I was insignificant was, of course, when he left and ghosted me. At that point, it was as much about proving it to himself as to me.

This is why, even now, I struggle to validate my own importance to the person who, in spite of everything, is still at the center of my life. I live in terror that someone will say something or post something on social media that will make me feel even more excluded from his life than I already do. I'm not kidding - when his name or photo pops up on my feed, the first thing I feel is the sort of panic that sucks the air out of your lungs for a minute. A here-comes-another-blow sort of panic.

I have to keep reminding myself of all the evidence that I was, indeed, important to him.

All of this is, objectively speaking, absurd. Yes, of course other people loved Rey. Other people helped him out. Other people were important to him. Narcissists play a sick game of who-loves-me-the-most. I would win it, hands down, but I don't want to play any more. While it's delightful for them, it's not a fun game for the rest of us. I just don't know how to break the hold of it on my mind.

This is a rambling post that doesn't really answer the question it asks. I am still working on this. I know I'm not the only one.

I have some ideas I'm working on about how narcissists' ironic lack of the most basic personal boundaries - they are entirely ego, and yet they lack a coherent self - affects the real spiritual connections they have with other people. I wrote in my journal recently, Everyone thinks they are their narcissist's soulmate. We can't all be right, so none of us is right. And I immediately doubted the truth of what I had written. Can't we all be right? I'm working on my answer to that question.

#narcissist #narcissistic abuse #psychological abuse

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tossertozier · 5 years ago

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So, I’ve seen a lot going around about Eddie and Myra and what people are and aren’t saying and this is my meta and my full take as my tags were quoted in the post I believe what started it all.

The original post is by kaymcalls, who I, in my personal opinion, believe is getting unfair hate and backlash on their blog. This is my personal opinion. This is a link to the post with comments by dear-wormwoods

Because we respect people’s right to their own opinion and analysis, there is a rebuttal post I feel it important to link by wondefuleds, displaying a different view point.

I’m going to argue my point in this meta. Overall, I urge people to remember that this is a literary analysis and nothing greater. People have their rights to their own perspective above all else, and you have a right to yours, even if you greatly disagree with me. Please respect everyone’s right to see the world, read books, and understand relationships the way they do.

My point is neither Eddie nor Myra is abusive. There is no power imbalance present in their relationship. They are trapped in an emotionally manipulative, loveless, toxic marriage.

We open on Eddie fastidiously looking over his medicine cabinet, and packing a bag. There is a lot of discussion on the medications he takes, which are, for reference, a lot of sedatives.

Myra comes up the steps and demands to know what he’s doing. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request.

“‘Myra Kaspbrak was huge. She had only been big when Eddie married her five years ago, but he sometimes thought his subconscious had seen the potential for hugeness in her; God knew his own mother had been a whopper. And she looked somehow more huge than ever as she reached the second-floor landing.” There is a lot of fatphobia in our first description of Myra, which is in Eddie’s point of view. He is demeaning her based on her physical appearance in his mind.

“I have to go away for a while,” Eddie said.

“What do you mean, you have to go away? What was that telephone call?”

“Nothing,” he said, fleeing abruptly down the hall to their walk-in closet.

And then:

“What’s this about, Eddie? Where are you going? You tell me!”

“I can’t tell you.”

Eddie is being completely unreasonable. This is not how a married adult behaves. There’s independence, and there’s disregarding your partner entirely.

Myra’s POV tells us: “she stood there, watching him, trying to decide what to say next, or what to do. The thought of dumpling bundling him into the closet and then standing there with her back against the door until this madness had passed crosses her mind, but she was unable to bring herself to do it;”

This is a fire vs fire fight. This is a lack of communication skills vs a lack of communication skills. Neither of them know how to talk to each other, at all. Myra tells us she has no idea what to do because this behavior is so unlike him, like she walked in on her furniture levitating. Does it justify her thoughts?

No.

Instead, she makes up an excuse as to why he can’t go, for Al Pacino’s autograph, and he tells her she’ll have to get it herself. This isn’t an unreasonable request, but they are dancing around the topic at hand, they are not talking about where Eddie is going and why, they’re talking nonsense. Because they can’t communicate. Because they’re toxic for each other.

Let’s be realistic: eddie hasn’t even specified if he’s coming back. Myra has a right to be terrified. Eddie has a right to not want to dispel all of the childhood trauma that’s coming up for him at the moment. Neither of them communicate this to the other.

“Her face full of perplexity and terror, and he might have felt sorry for her if his heart had not already been so filled with terror for himself.”

He’s not scared of Myra. He’s scared of Pennywise, and returning to Derry. He’s failing to recognize, understand, and validate her emotions because he is so focused on his own.

His wife is sobbing, and he completely ignores her and walks by. He doesn’t say anything. Not where he’s going. Not if he’ll come back. He doesn’t answer her questions, which are: are you in trouble and who was that on the phone? This is emotional manipulation. It is being a bad partner.

Eddie realized he has more than enough time to make his train, and only then, does he think “Nine twenty. Plenty of time to talk to her, plenty of time to be kind.”

Eddie thinks he’s going off to die, and he is only considering being kind, in his own words, to his wife when it’s convenient. He thinks about the sound system he bought for her, criticizing her, and then thinks to himself “that wasn’t fair, and he damn well knew it.”

I think it’s a good metaphor for their entire relationship. He pulls these false equivalency for her… he blames her for his deep unhappiness which permeates every page of this chapter. He rhapsodizes about the similarities between his mother and Myra “they could have been sisters. The resemblance was that close.” He talks about only the physical resemblances for the longest time.He talks about how he fantasizes about breaking it off.

But then he talks about their psychological resemblance:

“It was Myra herself who had ended up tripping the scales away from independence. Myra had condemned him with solicitude, nailed him with concern and chained him with sweetness. Myra, like his mother had reached that final, final insight into his character: Eddie was all the more delicate because he sometimes suspected he was not delicate at all. Eddie needed to be protected from his own dim intimations of bravery.”

Here’s the difference between Myra and Sonia in this passage to me:

Eddie is an adult. Eddie has free will, and he damn well knows it. He isn’t saying Myra won’t allow him to leave his house. He is saying he is addicted to her care over him. That he, personally believes, needs that level of care. It isn’t her words that have power over him, it’s her actions. Things she does like

taking out his rainboots when it’s raining

buying healthy cereals

These are normal things to do for your significant other. The reason they are not normal is because Eddie, yes Eddie, has been convinced he is incapable of functioning without someone to care for him. This is, in large, not his fault, as the victim of childhood trauma. It’s also not Myra’s.

He goes on to say: “a hog she was, but she was a sweet hog, and he loved her, and there had really been no chance for him at all. She had drawn him to her with the fatal, hypnotizing snake’s eye of understanding.” He does not love this woman. He loves the care she takes of him. That’s a horrible marriage to enter yourself into.

And he knows he’s wrong. He says he’s wrong. He knows he has built himself this cage and it’s based on the fact that he never faced down his childhood head on. That is his cross to bear.

“Maybe this isn’t home, nor ever was- maybe home is where I have to go tonight. Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.” He knows he has never had a true home because he has not found it within himself.

Now: is Myra wholly innocent?

No.

Absolutely not.

To know there is trauma in someone’s past that makes them vulnerable to a certain behavior, and to exploit that? Is emotional manipulation. They are both using the other to get what they want out of the relationship. Hence, it is mutually toxic.

“Tears has been more than a defense for his mother, they had been a weapon. Myra had rarely used her own tears so cynically… but, cynically or not, he realizes she was trying to use them that way now… and she was succeeding.”

Eddie says Myra doesn’t have a particular track record for using tears as manipulation, and thinks that, regardless of whether she is cognizant of it, she is doing so now. Again: Eddie has not even said where he is going. She doesn’t even know if she is coming back. Again, I think this is Eddie, because of his trauma, which again: not his fault, but this is Eddie being unfair to Myra because of how he regards her. She has a right to cry at that moment. He can’t see her tears for anything other than the direct impact they are having on him, because he is used to emotions being a currency, because he is used to performative behavior. He is putting these things on Myra, and he knows that she probably isn’t being intentionally malicious, but cannot manage to make himself fully make that distinction.

He holds his promise to the losers club of greater importance than his promises to her. That is his decision to make, but I think the least he could do is explain himself.

He then does not answer the questions she keeps repeating, but instead, tells her what she is going to do. They’re not addressing the question, they’re not addressing the problem, Myra is still sobbing. This is some of the worst communication skills I’ve seen in a relationship.

(Wailing)“there could be an accident… there probably will be an accident… Eddie… Eddie, you have to stay home…” this whole, there probably will be an accident, thing is textbook manipulation. She’s not getting what she wants from him, so she resorts to disaster scenarios. Because they’re not communicating what they want and need from each other.

However, Eddie replies: “For God’s sakes! Stop it!”

“I hate it when you shout at me, Eddie,” she whispered.

“Myra, I hate it when I have to,” he said and she winced.

Holy SHIT: no. I shouldn’t have to tell y’all why this is bad. This is BAD. Like I said… this is a fire vs fire fight. He is taking out his fear, his personal need for vindication in this fight against the dark, out on her. In response to her trying to manipulate him. They are BOTH toxic.

I’m gonna repeat: He holds this promise to the losers club as greater than any promise he made to her.

He thinks:

“Dear God, if You are there, please believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt Myra. I don’t want to cut her, don’t even want to bruise her. But I promised, we all promised, we swore in blood, please help me God because I have to do this… there you go, Eddie, you hurt her again. Why don’t you punch her around the room a few times? That would probably be kinder. And quicker.”

I can’t even with this passage. He knows. He knows how badly he is emotionally hurting her. He does not love this woman. He would resort to violence if he had to. There is no love in that.

They are so upset with each other, because they married someone to fill a purpose in their life, and not because they loved them.

He gives her instructions on driving, and does not give her any information. His cab arrives.

He, again, refuses to give her any information. Again, she resorts to similar tactics to his mother, to try and manipulate him into staying. “‘You’ll get sick,’ she said desperately.” This is so bad. She tugs on him to make him stay. This is very bad. However, she doesn’t know where he’s going or if he’s even coming back.

For all she knows, her husband could be leaving her.

For all Eddie knows, he could be leaving her.

And then finally: finally, Eddie tells her something. He communicates! And you know what else he does? He lies to her.

‘“I’m going, but I’ll be coming back.’ Oh but that felt like a lie.”

Eddie then, as she screams over the length of the trip, only then: considers her emotions as real, considers her emotions not only to the effect they play on his.

“Not angry at him, only terrified for him, and coincidentally, for herself.”

And then:

“Was that what he meant? That he had finally decided it was all right to love her? That it was all right even though she looked like his mother…”

this is a loveless marriage. Eddie never even considered her okay to love. I don’t think anyone is disputing that. But they’re both perpetrators of this emotional web that keeps them tangled in each other. They’re both responsible. there is not a power imbalance between them, just horrendous toxicity they both simultaneously feed into and rely on.

Eddie, again, tells Myra to stop having her emotions, and asks her for a kiss. He tells her not to be afraid, tells her he’ll call if he can, and he leaves her. Forever. Eddie never comes home.

They never say goodbye or I love you, because Myra didn’t know it was goodbye, and they didn’t love each other.

#myra kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak #now PLEASE stop being rude to kaymcalls #and DON'T be rude to wonderfuleds either #come be rude to me #i can take it

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hexandbalances · 5 years ago

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October Reading Selection: Witches! Know Your History

The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege by Marilynne K. Roach

Based on twenty-seven years of original archival research, including the discovery of previously unknown documents, this day-by-day narrative of the hysteria that swept through Salem Village in 1692 and 1693 reveals new connections behind the events, and shows how rapidly a community can descend into bloodthirsty madness. Roach opens her work with chapters on the history of the Puritan colonies of New England, and explains how these people regarded the metaphysical and the supernatural. The account of the days from January 1692 to March 1693 keeps in order the large cast of characters, places events in their correct contexts, and occasionally contradicts earlier assumptions about the gruesome events. The last chapter discusses the remarkable impact of the events, pointing out how the 300th anniversary of the trials made headlines in Japan and Australia.

Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials by Marilynne K. Roach

The first work to use the lives of a select number of representative women as a microcosm to illuminate the larger crisis of the Salem witch trials. By the end of the trials, beyond the twenty who were executed and the five who perished in prison, 207 individuals had been accused, 74 had been "afflicted," 32 had officially accused their fellow neighbors, and 255 ordinary people had been inexorably drawn into that ruinous and murderous vortex, and this doesn't include the religious, judicial, and governmental leaders. All this adds up to what the Rev. Cotton Mather called "a desolation of names." The individuals involved are too often reduced to stock characters and stereotypes when accuracy is sacrificed to indignation. And although the flood of names and detail in the history of an extraordinary event like the Salem witch trials can swamp the individual lives involved, individuals still deserve to be remembered and, in remembering specific lives, modern readers can benefit from such historical intimacy. By examining the lives of six specific women - Bridget Bishop, Mary English, Tituba, Ann Putnam, Mary Warren, and Rebecca Nurse - Marilynne Roach shows readers what it was like to be present throughout this horrific time and how it was impossible to live through it unchanged.

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses (2nd Ed.) by Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English

As we watch another agonizing attempt to shift the future of healthcare in the United States, we are reminded of the longevity of this crisis, and how firmly entrenched we are in a system that doesn't work.

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, first published by the Feminist Press in 1973, is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in witch hunters. In this new edition, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English have written an entirely new chapter that delves into the current fascination with and controversies about witches, exposing our fears and fantasies. They build on their classic exposé on the demonization of women healers and the political and economic monopolization of medicine. This quick history brings us up-to-date, exploring today's changing attitudes toward childbirth, alternative medicine, and modern-day witches.

Who Cooked the Last Supper: The Women's History of the World by Rosalind Miles

Men dominate history because men write history. There have been many heroes, but no heroines. Here, in Who Cooked the Last Supper?, is the history you never learned--but should have! Without politics or polemics, this brilliant and witty book overturns centuries of preconceptions to restore women to their rightful place at the center of culture, revolution, empire, war, and peace. Spiced with tales of individual women who have shaped civilization, celebrating the work and lives of women around the world, and distinguished by a wealth of research, Who Cooked the Last Supper? redefines our concept of historical reality.

Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne L. Barstow

Over three centuries, approximately one hundred thousand people, most of whom were women, were put to death under the guise of "witch hunts", particularly in Reformation Europe. The shocking annihilation of women from all walks of life is explored in this brilliant, authoritative feminist history Anne Llwellyn Barstow. Barstow exposes an unrecognized holocaust -- the "ethnic cleansing" of independent women in Reformation Europe -- and examines the residual attitudes that continue to influence our culture.

Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany by Lyndal Roper

This book is a gripping account of the pursuit, interrogation, torture, and burning of witches during this period and beyond. Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families, and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women that were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterization of elderly women in our own culture.

Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft by Ronald Hutton

The first full-scale study of modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as Wicca. Meticulously researched, it provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that spread from English shores across four continents. From cunning village folk to Freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the process by which actual practices evolved into what is now a modern religion. He also presents biographies of Wicca's principal figures.

This is a small selection. I want to hear from you what books you recommend that tell our history, especially if it's Santeria, Vudun, Asatru, or any other tradition.

#witchblr #witch history #feminist witch #salem witch trials #witchcraft #witch hunt #wicca

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invertedeidolon · 5 years ago

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The Longest Library #4: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle (Or, Eidolon feels their OTHER age just a little too clearly and needs a nap now)

(This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.)

Rundown: A unicorn gets lost in that thing that happens where you exist in a weird, neverending pocket of time and when you finally leave your room your family is like 'oh my god we haven't seen you in three months! The dog died while you were gone!' except for her she doesn't look like hell because she's a Fucking Unicorn, but she does figure out that literally every other member of her race has gone missing from the world. She travels with a baby-faced magic man and a bitter but not yet broken older woman to find out where the hell everyone is. 5/5, makes me feel ancient and tired but no longer lonely.

So as a reader, almost all of these reviews (more like reflections) are just that: reflections of myself. So I'll be talking a bunch about the things that spoke to me and my soul. It might not necessarily speak to others in the same ways, with the same words, however, my ratings are based on how enjoyable I think others might find them, and I hope that in seeing that something could speak so richly and deeply to me, that others might give it a chance in the hopes that it might speak to them too.

This is a book that speaks in my language. It's a way of describing things that's a step to the left of your average descriptions, but the images they invoke are visceral and heavily textured.

From the very first page:

"She did not look anything like a horned horse, as unicorns are often pictured, being smaller and cloven-hoofed, and possessing that oldest, wildest grace that horses have never had, that deer have only in a shy, thin imitation and goats in dancing mockery"

God damn. God DAMN. Mmm. Tasty.

"The door did not swing open, and the iron bars did not thaw into starlight. But the harpy lifted her wings, and the four sides of the cage fell slowly away and down, like the petals of some great flower waking at night. And out of the wreckage the harpy bloomed, terrible and free, screaming, her hair swinging like a sword. The moon withered and fled."

AUGH. FUCK. YES. FUCK ME UP, PETER. MMM.

"The magic knows what it wants to do, he thought, bouncing as the horse dashed across a creek. But I never know what it knows. Not at the right time, anyway, I'd write a letter, if I knew where it lived."

So, Schmendrick (the baby faced magic man I mentioned before) has the same feelings about his magical talents as I have about my own, magic or no. My own magic comes and it goes. It's incredibly intuitive in nature and almost refuses to yield to order, logic, or ceremony. Same with my art, my writing, or anything that comes from the spirit. Even things like expressing my emotions feel this way. It's there when it's there, and it's not when it's not, and it's not when it's there. It doesn't feel like a part of me at times, despite being the purest description of my own soul when it decides to take form. Like an absent parent that never once hugged you but knows exactly what kind of candy bar you currently like and that you're nervous about your first boyfriend and the way he talks to you sometimes and how lonely things are getting. I grow resentful for it's absence, and have not grown welcoming to it's presence. It's something that needs to be worked on soon. In fact, Molly's sentiments on first seeing the unicorn kind of describe it pretty well:

"And what good is it to me that you're here now? Where were you twenty years ago? Ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?" With a flap of her hand she summed herself up; barren face, desert eyes, and yellowing heart. "I wish you had never come, why do you come now?"

That has always been a powerful moment that whenever I see it in the movie (and especially having finally gotten to read it in the book), I've come to understand it deeper, and deeper. Only now realizing that I've lost an entire decade of my life to a violently interrupted life and feeling like if my talents weren't stifled by years spent crying, in pain, and not really wishing to be dead but wishing I Weren't, I could be ten years ahead. And only now does it come to me, in fits and starts, when I've been displaced and scattered and turned to half-a-person, not when I called desperately to it, needing something, anything stronger than me, and being given nothing. Why now? I've gone far enough without you. Molly forgives her. I myself become pale with a feeling of unworthiness.

"The rind of the country cracked, and the flesh of it peeled back into gullies and ravines or shriveled into scabby hills."

There's just so much TEXTURE in a lot of these descriptions. I feel like the background artists in the movie could have done something a bit darker and grimier, although the movie did skip over the fact that the land was in a magically induced famine, to technically it wasn't relevant. Although I feel like the land itself being so scarred makes the king and his whole atmosphere come into sharper focus.

"Drinn opened his eyes and gave her an angry look. 'WE earned nothing," He protested. "It was our parents and grandparents whom the witch asked for help, and I'll grant you that they were as much to blame as Haggard, in their way. We would have handled the matter quite differently." And every middle-aged face scowled at every older face.

Boomers.

"The magician stood erect, menacing the attackers with demons, metamorphoses, paralyzing ailments, and secret judo holds. Molly picked up a rock."

Not going to lie, this part made me laugh.

"No hooves could have made these, Molly thought dazedly; the earth had torn itself shrinking from the burden of the Bull. She thought of the unicorn, and her heart paled."

"The Red Bull did not know her, and yet she could feel that it was herself he sought, and no white mare. Fear blew her dark then, and she ran away, while the Bull's raging ignorance filled the sky and spilled over into the valley."

The descriptions of the Bull especially capture just how heavy and menacing and seemingly mindlessly terrifying it is, not just physically (which is very effectively communicated mind you) but psychologically. The unicorn's terror is my own. There's no fear like the root of you realizing the person in front of you is intent on soul-murder, yet wholly ignorant of their own deeds. Being run down and forced to submit, forced to die, and realizing the blind, animal nature of your attacker. It's how they are. Like blaming a wolf for eating cattle. It can't be reasoned with.

"If she would try one more time to escape- but she was the Bull's and not her own. The magician had one glimpse of her, pale and lost between the pale horns, before the wild red shoulders surged across his sight. Then, swaying and sick and beaten, he closed his eyes and let his hopelessness march through him, until something woke somewhere that had wakened in him once before. He cried aloud, for fear and joy.

What words the magic spoke this second time, he never knew surely. They left him like eagles, and he let them go; and when the last one was away, the emptiness rushed back with a thunderclap that threw him on his face. It happened as quickly as that. This time he knew before he picked himself up that the power had been and gone."

You know, doing anything that has to do with having a soul is exactly this exhausting sometimes. I get excited and talk about my interests more energetically than none? I feel like I just shouted it at the top of my lungs and violently shook the person I was talking to by the shoulders. They say I was even toned, quiet even, but I'm out of breath and my heart is in my throat and I feel a little sick in the arms from it.

"For a moment she turned in a circle, staring at her hands, which she held high and useless, close to her breast. She bobbed and shambled like an ape doing a trick, and her face was the silly, bewildered face of a joker's victim. And yet she could make no move that was not beautiful. Her trapped terror was more lovely than any joy that Molly had ever seen, and that was the most terrible thing about it."

*sips the words like fine wine* *inhales through their teeth* MMMmm fuck yeah~

"I am myself still. This body is dying, I can feel it rotting all around me. How can anything that is going to die be real? How can it be truly beautiful?"

See, I have the opposite problem, where I feel like I've been long dead, and people keep digging up my corpse and forcing me to walk on broken, stringy legs, the moist, forgiving soil not even yet dried. I can feel it living all around me. How can anything that is going to live be unreal? How can it be truly horrific? I'm supposed to be a memory by now.

"Prince Lir's face bent toward her: older by five dragons, but handsome and silly still."

I love impactful but unconventional measurements of time and space like this. More of these please. 'You've been gone since seven arguments ago! And you know how slow the old man is to anger.' 'I've aged by three national crises in the span of two weeks, please help.'

"...holding her voice together like the edges of a wound."

*licks the goddamn wine glass like an animal* MMPH

"There was too much to hold, too much ever to use; and still he found himself weeping with the pain of his impossible greed. He thought, or said, or sang, I did not know that I was so empty, to be so full."

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"I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, though I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret."

I have been small, and some part of me is small yet. I am full of terror, and hunger of death, though I cannot utter a noise, and I cannot die.

Please read this book.

Have a song that I really like and will likely make an old-fashioned AMV out of it at some point.

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4 down 293 to go.

#The last unicorn #peter s beagle #book review #thelongestlibrary #origin1 #wri1

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