#so she had to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN three years later but more racist

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

crazy that miley cyrus released a song with the line “i met a boy in every city / no one kept me amused / but don’t call me a lolita cuz i don’t let them through” and it has never raised any kind of controversy because the song is so unlistenably bad you have to stop playing it 15 seconds in or else die

#it will never stop being funny to me that she like #literally tried to have her big sexy i’m not a kid anymore i’m hot and crazy and making parents angry moment #and the album sucked without redemption and she has no talent or charisma so no one cared #so she had to DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN three years later but more racist #like please remember twerking miley was THREE YEARS AFTER what was supposed to be her rebrand which failed because she’s superhumanly borin #that was miley 3.0

[itsdeathofabachelor]

I really like the dynamic I’ve created for Jotaro and Kakyoin in a modern day setting.

Like, Jotaro got an after school gig and instead of going to college he’s took a gap year off the funds of said job, which is like some sort of warehouse or labourer thing because he can dead-lift three hundred pounds.

(The fact that he can deadlift three hundred pounds is also why his manager lets him smoke and drink outside on his breaks as long as nobody else sees him and it doesn’t affect his work, which is doesn’t because a can of beer isn’t going to knock him on his ass being 6’5 and like two hundred pounds himself*)

And Kakyoin is in college for some sort of business something because he also doesn’t know what to do but his very traditional Japanese parents overseas refuse to raise a NEET so he picked whatever had the highest graduate rate and games alone in his apartment after classes.

They’re roommates now but had been friends since they were kids and had reconnected literally by chance, as Jotaro had been working at said labourering gig at that time to pay for his Mom’s medical bills.

Side note: in this au Holly’s sick but more chronic illness sick, and after Sadao realized she wasn’t getting better and, in fact, it was a lifelong illness, he told her to leave. As the Japanese High End music industry is extremely judgmental and he was advised by several of his coworkers (and mistresses) that it would ruin his image if he was branded as a nurse and homebody taking care of Holly while Jotaro was at school.

With that in mind, Jotaro and Holly moved to America to live with Holly’s father, Joseph. Who is considerably more racist and far less charming for people to over look said racism. Suzy Q, his late ex wife and Holly’s bio-mom, noticed that after he gained a few pounds and suddenly didn’t have pretty privilege anymore.

She still barges into Joseph’s house to visit Holly and Jotaro, much to Joseph’s dismay. Jotaro likes her but finds her pushy and touchy without asking for permission first.

Jotaro worked at the same job he does now immediately after school to avoid the jokes and pokes at his father and about his race from Joseph, and seeing his mother try to walk again and cry when she can’t— Lining up perfectly one day when Kakyoin was walking (having just recently moved from overseas into the area of Jotaro’s job site) back from a later class.

Looking up from his phone he saw Jotaro, who was looking right at him from across the road, past the wire fencing set up to stop anyone from getting into the site and messing with the machines.

Kakyoin didn’t recognize Jotaro nearly as quickly as Jotaro recognized him. So as Jotaro long-jumped over the fencing and came barrelling into the street to the sidewalk where he stood, there was a split second where he thought he was going to die by the hands of a two hundred and fifty pound silverback gorilla. Like in the bootleg movie he had just watched the night before. And he wondered if this was the digital pirating god finally taking his dues.

Quickly, I should note, I remember seeing a post somewhere about how Jotaro’s love language is soft but he’d never let you get that close to him (the post included a picture of a teddy bear in a steel cage to represent this) and I think that fits very well with my own fanon interpretation of Jotaro’s character.

However, I do also think after so much time spent trying to help his mother, dealing with the weight of having to be the only reliable shoulder for her to cry on (because we all know THIS Joseph doesn’t have a emotionally intelligent bone in his body) and also the crushing feeling of grinding your body into a pulp for both school and some labouring job you hate— after about the year or so he had been there— would have had him clinging to those hinges by his fingernails.

So, bam! The last comfort of his childhood that hadn’t been ripped away, standing awkwardly at the crosswalk because he wasn’t sure if he should jaywalk because there were no cars coming, or if he should wait because the statistics of automobile casualties due to the average pedestrian’s immortality complex when it comes to giant metal machines are flicking behind his eyelids— obviously, Jotaro loses his mind.

Imagine a black bear. Giant. Huge, okay? Got that?

That’s what Kakyoin was suffocating into as Jotaro hugged him so hard his pre-mature stand popped out a little from his back.

This Kakyoin, having no fighting instincts what-so-ever, kind of just goes limp. And Jotaro, so happy he’s really really upset, shakily puts him back down.

And then there’s a moment like, wait wait wait wait. . . I know that mean mug— and then Kakyoin sort of connects the dots because Jotaro had always been a lot taller than him and also he literally was the only person Kakyoin had ever known that had let him blow out his birthday candles at his seventh birthday party when he found out Kakyoin’s parents didn’t ’believe in birthdays’ other than ‘milestone birthdays’.

And Jotaro had also treated him with basic human decency, considering he could have very easily bullied him.

So his face was burned into his memory for years now, whenever he tried to socialize and said the wrong thing, or if he saw a friend group doing friend group activities and suddenly he felt very very lonely. He actually really missed his and Jotaro’s friendship.

So they became best friends again like immediately.

It turns out in their time apart, Kakyoin had gotten an Autism diagnosis, which explained his unusual speech pacing and all the other things leading to ruthless bullying in middle school.

When he told him this on the floor of Kakyoin’s apartment— both of them doing a Pokémon themed puzzle together even though Jotaro had trouble picking the pieces off the floor— Jotaro could not have given less of a shit, but instead asked if that’s why, when the were kids, Kakyoin had always asked him for ‘pressure’ (AKA, Jotaro being taller than Kakyoin made it so he could give him a hug or lay on top of him in order to provide a good sensory feeling, or what Kakyoin had called ‘Pressure’).

And Kakyoin’s like, ‘Yeah.’

And Jotaro’s like, ‘Do you need some now?’ And mutters something about not wanting him to freak because he’s over whelmed or anything but really he wants a hug and doesn’t want to be the one to ask.

And Kakyoin’s like, ‘Sure. That’d be nice because I couldn’t enjoy the other hug properly when thinking you were a stranger trying to kill me’.

And now they’re roommates and Kakyoin streams his gaming seshes after he realized his parent’s monthly payments towards his rent were giving them ammo for guilt-trips and that he could make money off of games.

Weirdly enough, the same speech abnormalities he got bullied for actually helped him get his streaming platform, as it became his ‘brand’ in a way. Same thing with his flat humour and ‘fun facts’. Also, because he talks so much, his streams are very long, and there’s a running joke in his audience to— when he’s saying he’s going to log off for the night— ask him questions and see how long they can keep him on stream.

He doesn’t have a face cam, and plans to remain faceless to his audience, so whenever he really needs to focus and Jotaro comes lumbering in from a hard day at work and kicks his shoes off, Kakyoin—laying on the couch—raises his arms with his controller clicking over his head, not looking away from the screen, and is like ‘Jotaro, pressure. Streaming.’

And Jotaro hears Ode To Joy playing in his head as he tosses his ballcap with the company’s logo somewhere behind the tv and falls facefirst onto Kakyoin, who, after getting the air pressed out of his lungs, wins his match and talks to the chat.

The chat, obviously, asks about Jotaro, and Kakyoin just says, ‘A good friend of mine gifts me plus five stamina.’ Or some nerd shit.

* I headcannon Jotaro as fucking huge btw but that’s because I love very large angry men who, when relaxed, melts into a puddle of goo because their muscles aren’t straining. Jotaro has that kind of physique. Suzie Q (being Italian) loves this as Jotaro burns more calories flexing all day because he’s so stressed and tensed about everything, than a two mile sprint. So he eats. A lot. He’s one of the only people who actually eats enough not to have left overs. It impresses Joseph more than he’d ever admit.

#jojo headcanons #jojo stardust crusaders #jotaro kujo #jjba #jojo #noriaki kakyoin #jjba kakyoin #jjba jotaro #jotakak #noritaro #I love them #I can’t think of anything else sorry #this is a long one #alternate universe

[ultimatefartwizard]

Agonies of a Late Homestuck Reader Pt.3

Wiz is here for the hell that is this work, and now we start off with Act 2, we begin with a mysterious vagabond wandering a desert. He like... finds this underground bunker type thing with a lid that has the same symbol as the cruxtruder? Quite interesting!

Jumping back to John, since he seems to now be in like floating purgatory type situation yet alive and well.... as well as a just now 13 year old boy can be after just nearly dying from a meteor hurdling towards him and his father's house.

Am I insane and used RPGmaker XP too much? Or does the wind sound in it sound like one of the wind effects RPGmaker XP use (specifically using it as an example as I've never used other rpgmaker programs)

I downloaded Ruffle (a in-browser flash player replacement) to circumnavigate the "flash player no longer supported" issue since I wanted a true genuine experience as it was intended, and thankfully it works! For those wanting Ruffle, you can find it -HERE-

I played the segment with John looking around his house, and was amused by this sort of omnipotent narrator type character (soon revealed to be the vagabond, having gone down into the bunker and is using a computer to communicate) that would order commands at him and just call him "BOY."

Various Vagabond antics; makes me think of how Kratos calls his son "boy" continually in Ragnarok.

As I further mucked about, John's father seems to be missing and some sort of oil substance is everywhere. I originally thought his father got whole ass slaughtered and had him bleed out like a pig, thankfully not... maybe? I haven't read far enough yet.

I immediately thought of John Kramer talking through Billy the puppet when I read this clicking on the cabinet. And considering the species of "Cherub" in Homestuck is based on the puppet, I wouldn't put it past Hussie to make a (slightly butchered) reference.

John talks to Dave, and.... well I won't show the image of the exact things he says when he starts rapping cuz 1. I can't put a clickable censor on images and 2. not comfortable posting that but OH MY GOD. HUSSIE... HUSSIE! NO STOP HUSSIE DONT WRITE THAT YOU ARE WHITE OH MY GODDD.... DON'T MAKE THAT CHILD SAY SUCH THINGS AND MAKE MORE WEIRD AND BORDERLINE RACIST COMMENTS.... Why are you obsessed. Why are you especially obsessed with black presidents and, in conjunction, Obama??? Do you have some sort of weird crush on this man because you think about him too much. (joking around with myself to save my sanity, im dying here, also note i feel these negative ramblings are important especially when looking at this piece of media in a critical light)

Please I pray the comments like this calm down... though knowing the later stuff ik Hussie doesn't stop being weird or finds new ways to be gross and weird. I also made the mistake of reading the "sweet bro and hella jeff" comic Hussie linked on Dave's segment and my god this explains the later incident with..... a certain Homestuck 2 character. DO NOT READ THAT FOR YOUR SANITY BTW.

Back onto the story itself, watching Dave manage his sylladex and how his captchalogues/uncaptchalogues stuff makes me realize how stupidly complex his is, and it's the most complex thus far. I still don't understand it but that's for another time for rambles. Also rather curious out of the three revealed human children so far he's the only one who's not apprehensive to his family member's collection of themed stuff; in this case, it's his brother's puppet collection. I swear to god there's got to be some sort of underlying reason for these, there's no way that these are all presented to the reader and somehow don't have any strong significance or meaning.

It cuts over to Rose again, who's trying to get out to the generator in the rain so she can boot up her computer to pair up with John again and escape certain doom due to a meteor shower hitting the forest she lives in and is engulfed in flames. She seems to have a lot of contempt for her mother, not sure if it's the same back towards her but they are noted to have some sort of one-uping competitions. Both John and Rose seem to compete with their parents while Dave nods and seeminly respects his brother's stuff, which is interesting and definitely will try to investigate this phenomenon as I read.

I leave off on page 374, certainly to return later for more reading! -Wiz

#ultimatefartwizard #wizardyaps #homestuck #homestuck related #john egbert #dave strider #rose lalonde #agonies of a late homestuck reader

[missizzy]

End Racism in the OTW-Knitting (Critical Role, Deanna)

(Curious about the title of this fanwork? I’m joining an effort to call on AO3 to fulfill commitments they have already made to address harassment and racist abuse on the archive. Read more, boost, and get involved here!)

In Vesrah, Deanna uses up the last of the yarn from Catlyn's.  The ocean water ruined too much of what she hadn't used already; it seems it lacked whatever magical protections kept their store-bought garments wearable.  But she's salvaged what she could, and tonight, thanks to the kindness of the Water Ashari, they are able to rest in safe quarters, even in proper beds.  

They ended up taking two rooms.  Chetney and Fearne were quick to invite her into theirs, and maybe on another night (if they don't die tomorrow), she'll even say yes.  But what they've got to offer is very much not what Deanna wants tonight.  What she wants tonight is to rest, and to knit, and to have FRIDA near her.  And she got it, if only because FRIDA didn't want to be parted from her tonight either.  Or from Fresh Cut Grass, so the three of them are in one room, and Imogen joined her other companions.

Fresh Cut Grass was all worried about being there and in the way, which he wasn't.  At least until they spent too long trying to get Deanna to talk about her feelings, and at the moment she doesn't want to have any breakdowns around anyone besides FRIDA.  Which she thought they realized, because they actually suggested Fresh Cut Grass go have a little talk with their other friends, and that gave her time enough to cry a ridiculous amount in her friend's arms.

He's back, and the two of them are snuggling and maybe quietly talking a few feet away from her.  Deanna is sitting and knitting.

Knitting's always been a comfort for her.  From the time she learned how from her sister and first got her hands on her own yarn, knitting's been a constant, something she knows how to do.  Two hundred years could pass without the basics of knitting changing too much, even when so much else has.  (Although there are apparently some fancy contraptions somewhere in the world that do it for you, but that Deanna can ignore.)  Even now, when she can't even rely on keeping all her new powers, so long as she's still got her fingers and they're in good shape, the gods and their ilk can't take her ability to knit away from her.

Also, she has to concentrate while knitting.  Which means she doesn't need to think about the likely imminent end of the world.  Or that tomorrow morning they're going to try teleporting out again, and if it goes as badly as the last one did, they probably can't survive that a second time; they were extremely lucky they did once.  Or just how close to drowning Chetney especially came, even in semi-wolf form.  Or that they still don't know how much the prolonged salt water exposure damaged FRIDA and Fresh Cut Grass.  When her needles click together, it blocks out the faint creaking each of them still makes whenever they move.

The surviving yarn is in three different colors.  There's the richest, deepest maroon Deanna's ever worked with, an vibrant emerald green, and a pale, dusty coral pink.  Combined, there's just enough for a shawl that cover a good deal of Imogen's shoulders.  She's the only one of her new friends Deanna hasn't made anything for yet, so she wants to make her this.  The color combination isn't ideal, but she can make it work.

She considered making gloves, but she's not sure Imogen would like trying to cast her spells through them.  Also, they're going to a hot continent, the one where Imogen had lived in her entire life, and Deanna imagines she'd prefer to settle down in once her adventures are over, so gloves aren't going to be much use to her.  The shawl she's making can also be used to shield her skin from the sun, if it needs to be.  She hopes.

(Another thing she is refusing to think about is whether they'll live to see even this adventure end, let alone any later ones.)

It may not have been the first time Deanna's been in a hot climate, but hearing descriptions of Marquesian weather is still enough to daunt her a bit.  She'd even seriously worry how FRIDA would fare if Fresh Cut Grass hadn't seemed to have done all right there.  

Any hopes she had of taking being whisked off to a different part of the world in stride, because she had, after all, already been displaced far more than anyone who remained in a single time period could be, hadn't survived nearly drowning from the teleportation gone wrong.  And at least when she returned to Uthodern, there were the parts of it that had been there back when she'd died.  Vesrah's unlike anything she's ever seen.  Fearne's talked about how it was like and unlike Zepyrah, the other Ashari settlement she's seen, but that's just made Deanna even more aware of how big the world is, this place they're trying so crazily to save, and she's telling herself they'll save it, but she doesn't know how, not really.

Near her, she hears FRIDA whispering, "I think he's gone into stasis."  She looks over to see them, tenderly cradling the smaller robot and shifting him into their lap as they prepare to go into stasis as well.

Love has seemed so easy for them so far, though it's still so early on.  Deanna hopes it continues like that, honestly.  They could all use something easy right now.

But then they look at her, and stand up, still holding Fresh Cut Grass close, then sit down on the bed and extend their arm, providing a perfect opportunity for her to snuggle under it.

It's been a while since the two of them have done that, and Deanna especially wasn't sure about it in a climate this hot.  But now she happily takes the opportunity, scooting back into them, and resuming her knitting while pressed into them, the hum of their body reassuring even as they sink into stasis.  Between that and the shawl forming nicely beneath her needles, she almost feels as if everything could be all right again.

#critical role #bells hells #deanna leimert #f.r.i.d.a. #end otw racism

[catelyngrant]

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 for Sarah Jane

SARAH JANE SMITH, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST MY BELOVED 😭😭😭

5. My favorite ship of them: Oh, it's the Doctor and Sarah, always. My first encounter with both Doctor Who generally and Sarah specifically was School Reunion and I'm a sucker for angst, so Ten/Sarah is probably my favorite, but I really adore Four/Sarah and Three/Sarah as well, for different reasons, and I have a LOT of headcanons about Twelve/Sarah, actually. It's such a heady and complicated mix of feelings for them; I feel like the alien/human distinction mattered a lot more in the Classic Who days, so there was never a strong 'will they/won't they' vibe but there was such clear love between them and it felt bittersweet all the way through, especially as they got closer, because I think it was clear to Sarah in a way that it wasn't to some of the modern companions that it wasn't going to be forever, even if she didn't expect how the journey ended (for awhile...). And I think Sarah more than anyone else has really driven home for the Doctor the reality of fleeting human lives, both in the sense that he chose to leave her and not return so as not to lose her and then to find her all those years later and come face to face with the reality of her aging and preparing to lose her all over again, along with all of the feelings - for both of them - that come from her being one of the very very few people to have known him both before and after the Time War and how it changed him. There was just such a beautiful, bittersweet sense of unspoken understanding between them. This sums it up so well for me.

10. Describe the character in one sentence:

Doctor: Sarah, NO! Sarah: Sarah YES! [time elapses] Sarah: Kids, NO! Maria, Luke, Clyde, and Rani: Kids YES! Sarah: ...okay fine but I'm coming too.

(more than one sentence, but close enough.)

15. Worst storyline they had: Oh, well, I'm sure I'm completely forgetting some of the classic episodes that were a bit...much, but of the ones I'm thinking of, "The Tao Connection" episode of the Big Finish series was revolting, homophobic, and racist af.

20. A weird headcanon: I don't know if it's weird, but I certainly have EXTENSIVE headcanons about the years that Twelve spent as a professor in 2018-ish England and the fact that their timelines would have been in sync and that Sarah was probably a frequent "guest lecturer" and the conversations he probably had with her about whether or not he could trust Missy and that Maria was probably one of his students and had a massive crush on Bill and that Sarah and Twelve probably played matchmaker...endless potential, there.

25. When do you think they acted the most ooc: I know that it was a feature of being a kid's show, but Sarah's anti-gun, anti-violence at all costs high-and-mighty attitude kind of came out of nowhere. Not trusting UNIT, sure, and wanting to keep the kids safe, fine, but it was over the top. And - while again acknowledging the constraints of the CBBC and episode formats - her relationship with Peter Dalton was so rushed and unbelievable, even when you factor the hypnosis in. It's a bummer because that could have been a really great story if it had been handled a bit bette

30. The funniest scene they had? The first one that comes to mind is from The Hand of Fear:

Four: Right, you stay here. I'll go on. Not you, Sarah. Sarah: (pouts and goes to follow him anyway) Extra: I think you'd better do as he says. Sarah: Yeah, you're probably right - but I'm not going to! (breaks through the fence and runs after the Doctor)

It just sums her up pretty well. I also like the tantrum she throws while in the air ducts in Ark in Space while the Doctor goads her on, and all of her "cool mom" moments in SJA.

send me character asks!

#doctor who #sarah jane smith #sarah jane adventures #ty! i have a couple more that i'll do tomorrow #keep 'em coming!

[adriel-montejano]

My Testimony

I was born in April of 1983 in the small town of Hanford, California to parents of Mexican descent. I was a premature baby born three months early and weighing only 2lbs and 12oz and as a result of that I was very weak when I was born which resulted in me dying twice and having to be revived. My dad was upset that I was born and survived as he tried to force my mom to get an abortion several times as he did not want any children to take care of. I had to stay in the hospital for two weeks after I was revived so the doctors can monitor me and make sure everything was ok. After two weeks I was allowed to go home but the doctors told my mom that I was going to be special needs and that she would have to take care of me for the rest of my life. As soon as I got home I was greeted by my grandparents and bragged about all over town as my grandfather had many friends. My grandmother held me tight for as long as she could followed by my great grandmother before giving me a bottle and putting me to sleep. Later that day my grandmother went to check up on me but could not find me anywhere and as the only person home was my dad she went to ask him where I was only to find he was putting me in the dryer and trying to turn it on. My grandmother stopped him and slapped him across the face while shouting at him in Spanish. The rest of my family found out soon after and my dad got in very big trouble by my family. A year later my mom was pregnant again and my dad this time accepted the pregnancy and after my brother was born stayed for five months and left never to be seen again. My mom met another man a year later and they started dating and eventually got married and it was during this time that I was abused physically and sexually by him. After he got arrested my mom found out her marriage was not legal as he was married to another woman and seven months later she met another man who tried to force me to become Mormon and control everything I did. This man would have my mom cook him good meals while forcing me to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches only. After that relationship was over my mom got into gangs and it influenced me to embrace the gang life as well. My mom was arrested shortly after and I was sent to live with my grandparents and my uncle who lived with them and while my grandparents were very nice people my uncle was not and he would verbally and physically abuse me every day while calling me names such as idiot and stupid and yelling at me. Each day living there made me angry, bitter, and full of rage which also lead me deep into depression to the point where I would not talk to anyone because I was afraid. When I got in my teens I was put on probation for damaging a car and I didn't care. I started hanging around satanists and got caught up in doing spells and mocking Christians but at the same time I was also into paganism. Two weeks before my 17th birthday my grandfather passed away and I got even angrier but decided to go to church. I started going to the catholic church where I was baptized as a baby and said prayers to Mary, saints, and angels as the church taught only to be told by the catholic priests that I was not truly a catholic and I left shortly after and tried attending many churches but never stayed. It was during this time I attended a church called victory outreach but got made fun of every week by the pastor and I stopped going to church altogether. Soon after my grandmother died and I started drinking to the point I became an alcoholic and even more depressed. I was in several relationships but they did not work out as I was always called racist names and cheated on and in one case almost killed. I tried looking to my family for help but to no avail as my brother made fun of me, my mom rejected me, and I was still verbally abused by my uncle. It got to the point where I said I am done with with this world and decided to end my life but the minute I was going to end it a person who I saw at church in the past invited me to a church they were going to and I rejected it for two weeks before finally going and the night I went I gave my life to Jesus Christ and was baptized a few months later. Today I am still alive, I am an Evangelist, and I am still serving Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ saved my life and He can and will do the same for you

#Christianity

[dollarbin]

Nickel Bin #6:

Randy Newman's Louisiana 1927

Don't drop the needle on Randy Newman's 1974 Dollar Bin problem record, Good Old Boys, with anyone else around. The record starts with the all too hummable pop nugget Rednecks in which Newman drops the n-word not once, as Dylan would a year later in Hurricane, but over and over again.

Yes, Newman had a plan in mind - Good Old Boys is a concept record about what its like being racist white trash - but it's 2024 and your neighbors, your kids or your cats might hear the lyrics, see you grooving along to them and then decide to call the cops, or at least write you off as something worse than a redneck.

I'm not enough of a Randy Newman buff, nor am in the mood, to try justifying the record (here's a good attempt to check out if you're interested) but I do want to take a moment now that rain has momentarily stopped in Southern California to talk about the record's most shimmering, and slightly less problematic, ear worm about flooding: Louisiana 1927.

Let's listen (and don't worry, no need to cover the cat's ears for this):

Warm Disney strings provide the opening, then give way to Newman's iconic piano prodding and hazy vocals. By the time the strings reemerge in the second verse they chase one of the richest drum tones I know and together they guide us to the chorus. Everything sounds majestic.

But Newman refuses to offer straight-forward pleasure. After Side 1's paradoxically sympathetic and deeply judgmental portrayal of a modern, singularly awful white dude, Louisiana 1972's lyrics pivot the record into a three song examination of Huey P. Long, one of the Great Depression's prequels to the even more loathsome Donald Trump. Long is the subject of a bunch of books I have not read, including All the King's Men, and Louisiana 1927's refrain of "they're tryin' to wash us away" and its second verse's oddball storytelling about a belittling, elitist visit after the storm by Calvin Coolidge introduces us to Long's version of Trump's "I'm so proud to be a deplorable" populism and racism.

What was Newman thinking? Why'd he undercut such glorious music with obtuse menace? Couldn't he have provided us with a hero, or at least something banal, to bask in and compliment all that rich sound?

Maybe he was busy refusing the public's potential broad stamp of approval in thoroughly Shakey style and thereby ingratiating himself with the kind of people (like, far too often, me) who need to be reassured that they are not victims of the mainstream. The irony, of course, is that Long and Trump's brands were, and still are, largely based on the same exercise: they generate their self-serving support by loudly rejecting any moderate, popular or ethical center.

Maybe that was Newman's plan. Or maybe he's way smarter than me (of course he is!) and had another plan in mind, which leaves me the dumb redneck. Or maybe he was just being an obscuring grump.

Either way, this still-lovely song, together with its sonic and thematic predecessor, 72's enslaver's sales pitch sing-a-long, Sail Away, has served as a godparent to a lot of equally lovely anxiety inducers ever since.

To begin, there's Lambchop's foul mouthed If Not I'll Just Die, which sounds like some psycho is standing in for Bert Bacharach.

And then there's Cat Power's almost unendurably beautiful The Greatest. Warmth and grace mask over brooding terror as Chan Marshall interpolates the tones of both Louisiana 1927 and Moon River into her own composition, leaving us awash once again in beauty but never at ease; after all, Chan was a step away from killing herself with drugs and booze while she sang about being lowered down and pinned into the earth.

Once she wanted to be the greatest. But now? Yikes. Thankfully she made it through. It's been 15+ years since she offered us such terrifying beauty; the sun's shining now and Chan is busy gleefully covering Dylan.

Even so, there are more storms coming. Way more. But hopefully they will wash away Trump's grip on our country (not to mention Stephen Stills next comeback attempt) rather than flooding anything too precious. Hopefully we can come together and convince Randy Newman to write something positive and beautiful for once (and not have him turn around and lend it, ironically or sincerely, to the forthcoming Toy Story 7).

#Youtube #randy newman #cat power #lambchop #nickel bin! #stephen stills sucks

[fortressofserenity]

Hanson, antiblackness and toxic masculinity

Hanson is a band that used to be popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it consists of three brothers though they have a few more siblings they just aren't involved in the band that much. Two years ago, there was controversy over the band being slow to the news about more killings of innocent black civilians given they're inspired by black musicians. To make matters worse, one of them had a webpage full of Alt-Right memes.

The fact that a good number of Fansons (Hanson fans) are LGBT, left-leaning, black or feminist makes it even worse. They have supported the band for so long that the sting feels more painful, especially once their dark side is exposed. There was one former employee of theirs who said that the members didn't want their wives to have jobs, even though one of them has so many children that it's only logical his wife has to work to support such a family.

It has to do with wanting to be the sole breadwinner that I think an undertone of sexism within the band will rub their fans the wrong way, especially if so many of them are feminist. The fact that not only did the band have a song called 'Weird', but also because two of them were mistaken for girls at some point attracted not only lesbians but also more feminist minded straight women who thought they were tomboys.

Being mistaken for girls would've hurt their self-esteem, but for some reason it never made Bill Kaulitz of Tokio Hotel a massive chauvinist or sexist. Then again, he's rather queer and flamboyant so between him and Taylor Hanson while the latter could've pulled off androgyny onto adulthood, the former's fine with that. One would wonder what sort of person Taylor Hanson could've been had he not been exposed to conservative politics later on in life.

Bill Kaulitz was never radicalised by conservative politics, in fact he's politically liberal given his support of the LGBT community (he's bisexual himself) and an animal rights activist. The sort of person Taylor Hanson should've been, considering how heartbroken ex-Fansons are. From my experience, since one of the brothers made a blackface joke despite listening to black music himself, I know somebody who's like this.

My own father is like this, he likes listening to the Platters, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole and Chuck Berry and has made anti-black jokes himself. He jokingly said about shooting black people and that black people are brain-damaged, Zac Hanson is probably no different in this regard. I'm starting to think while the Hanson brothers may try to be anti-racist, at times they disrespect black people if they make similar statements.

While I'm not the biggest Hanson fan around, I feel by making these statements and being tone-deaf to their ex-fans they messed up big time with their conservative machoism. One ex-fan admitted to wanting to marry one of them but realised she dodged a bullet when being a Hanson wife isn't all it's cut out to be. Especially when that involves being unemployed for a long time, I feel the Hanson brothers are threatened by wives working.

When it comes to their ex-fans being feminists, this is where they crossed the line and burnt bridges for them. I feel it's about time to admit hurt feelings now that Hanson has done rather hurtful things and still continue doing so.

#hanson #post-hanson #posthanson #anti-blackness #racism #lgbt #feminism #antiblackness #antiblackracism #tokio hotel

[pinerscope]

Efforts root out farright extremism

#Efforts root out farright extremism zip

And we need to be aware of all the stuff they're doing it.' So I stayed another two or three minutes after that and then I left."ĭecades later, Green recalled stories like that as he watched the attack on the Capitol in horror. 'But, you know, it's not - it's not about Black people. It's about Jews.' He said, 'You know, the Jews are taking over. They're doing all this stuff in America and people don't know it. "He said, 'Yeah, you know, I do get that magazine,' he said. Green didn't believe it, so he confronted Andy. but he has a stack of them in his wall locker, in his room.'" "He said, 'He receives the magazine from a hate group.' I said, 'Really?' I said, 'How often does he get this magazine?' He said, 'Well, you know, every two weeks or every month, I'm not sure. He remembers how a fellow service member warned that his close friend, a man named Andy who he spoke to every day, was a racist. He's now director of outreach with Vote Vets, a progressive political organization.Īn African American, Green was stationed in Germany in the 1980s. Green spent 20 years in Army special operations. "And to do something like that - as an ex-military person, a veteran, or as an active duty person - it's hard for me, again, to understand how you could convince yourself that this is the right thing to do." "The Constitution of the United States is what guides us, it's what guides the military," Green said. He says he was appalled when he saw men and women with military connections attacking the Capitol. According to the same report, more than 50% of minority service members said "they have personally witnessed examples of white nationalism or ideological-driven racism," and "Overall, troops who responded to the poll cited white nationalists as a greater national security threat than both domestic terrorism with a connection to Islam, as well as immigration." These numbers are up significantly from similar polls the Military Times fielded in 20. In 2019, the Military Times polled active duty service members and found that more than 30% of white service members said they'd personally witnessed examples of white nationalism, such as white supremacist tattoos and Nazi-style salutes within the ranks. Of the more than 140 people charged so far, almost 20% have some current or former service connection to the military, according to an NPR analysis. He retired in 2014 and on Facebook, he once posted that he was preparing for "a second civil war." According to NPR, in the weeks after President Biden's election victory, Brock posted: "We are now under occupation by a hostile governing force."īrock was arrested and charged several days after the attack. And in a recently deleted LinkedIn profile, first reported by The New Yorker, Brock described himself as having served as a flight commander with the 706th Fighter Squadron. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1989.

#Efforts root out farright extremism zip

He held white zip tie handcuffs in his right hand.īrock is a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Rendall was clad in a helmet and tactical gear. He and thousands of others had attacked Congress and sacked the Capitol building. stood on the floor of the United States Senate. Jerry Green, Army veteran and director of outreach and politics for Vote Vets. Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. George Reed, retired Army colonel and military policeman. ( Beirich, co-founder and chief strategy officer of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. She testified before the House Armed Services Committee in February 2020 on white supremacy in the military. Visiting professor of international security at Dickinson College. National security consultant for CBS Radio. Founder and CEO of Diamond6 Leadership and Strategy, LLC. How far-reaching is extremism in the United States military? GuestsĬol. Nearly 20% of people charged in connection with the Capitol attack have some sort of military background. (Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images) This article is more than 1 year old. Capitol as the Inauguration of Joe Biden begins. National Guard troops carry riot shields as they assume positions in the vicinity of the U.S.

#Efforts root out farright extremism

[hewhofragments]

Funny/sad story!

So there's a woman in my office that's absolutely terrible, and sadly, she also has some pretty severe mental issues. Somehow, despite never doing anything productive in three years here, she's managed to get a higher paying position with a better department!

How is she terrible you might ask? One time, she was in a conversation with my Indian coworker, and he pointed out that it was funny that she drinks coffee with a straw. He asked her why she did. She responded, "Oh if I didn't drink coffee out of a straw, my teeth would be darker than your skin." When we all pointed out that it was a very racist thing to say, she claimed she could not be racist because she was Mexican.

More terrible-ness: when asked to write a simple letter, she took it to every person in the office and asked them to proofread it for her (even though it was not tangentially related to any of our jobs and she had a helpful supervisor). One coworker, having been a pushover, reviewed one of her letters and realized she was pressing the SPACE key X many times between words to mimic justified spacing instead of just selecting justified spacing in Word.

Whenever a task involved downloading or saving a file, she placed the file on her desktop, and proceeded to lose the same file over and over again. Her bosses would send back her writing with corrections, and then they would get a totally different file back with new errors because she would re-draft the entire document instead of finding the original file. She had zero attention to detail, and her bosses had to go line by line with her to correct documents, saying "capitalize this, put a period here, this is misspelled, there's an extra line here, etc." Though more often than not they just gave up and did the work themselves.

This woman would answer calls from her religious mentor on her work phone, and she would take calls related to her side business during working hours. She covered her desk in self help books and bibles, and she posted all sorts of fake bullshit quotes and nonsense all over her desk. She even went as far as to send my coworkers links to a pyramid scheme on social media.

She constantly talked herself up, especially when we were hired together, and pretended to have a wealth of experience that I doubt really exists. I found out later that she was fired from her previous job for mocking a person with a speech impediment and for stealing other people's food.

She used to brag about her firefighter boyfriend, and bragged about how she was going to get married and have kids, and talked about a bunch of shit where we all said "bitch, you need therapy!" to which she responded "my pastor and my church will guide me through my troubles."

Well here comes the sad part. She had a total fucking mental breakdown at work when her boyfriend broke up with her, and I honestly feel bad that it was allowed to happen by management. The day before they found her wandering on the street outside the office at the end of the day in a dangerous area, and her manager decided to give her a ride home because she didn't have a working car supposedly.

The next day, the manager also decided to bring her into work, even though they knew she was having issues. She came to work acting odd, and at some point, she started going up to all of the men in the office and talking to us like we were the boyfriend that broke up with her. She wasn't even aware that she was speaking to another man, she would call us things like "my prince" and ask if we would "take her away" and whatnot. With women, she would just break down and cry.

Us low-level employees tried to get her sent home, but management figured she was just big sad and told her she needed to keep it together at work. Eventually, they took her into a big meeting on financial where she embarrassed herself in front of the director. The director asked if anyone had any comments, referring to senior employees implicitly, and this woman chimed in and started talking about how marriage is sacred and how there's a really good Catholic book on marriage and how people just need to stick it out. Only then was she removed from the office.

She was gone for a time, but the issues continued when she returned. She would just constantly clean and redecorate her desk instead of doing any work. And there were other mental issues that were clearly not being addressed. She yelled at one woman for no apparent reason and accused her of disregarding human lives, luckily an older coworker stepped in and smoothed over what could have been a REALLY bad situation.

On another occasion, two coworkers heard a phone ringing in the breakroom, and this woman walked in, opened the fridge, and pulled out her cellphone. She was also found lying on the floor of the women's restroom, and on one occasion she kicked in the door of the men's restroom while a manager was inside.

And I know there were more instances. Many more that could not he shared for one reason or another. And management/supervisors tried for years to make it work. But this woman could not get anything done correctly. She was a total lost cause. They tried to fire her, but they could not because each time she would claim mental health issues.

Honestly, I despise her as a person, but I think some of her bad qualities probably come from a lack of proper mental health care, and she obviously has a lot of issues she's working through. I don't the job she's in now is appropriate for her, at this time, and I sure as hell don't think she deserves a better job, but nor do I want her to starve. I think a position with plenty of oversight and limited responsibility would be good for.

But! She's a fantastic liar, so she's now getting a higher paying job! This world is totally fucked!

#work stuff #complaining #story time #it's long #don't bother reading

[youremyonlyhope]

Ok wait I’m not done ranting about tonight’s Survivor yet.

Another reason that Maryanne and Drea chose to not vote each other out is because they probably realized they NEED each other to be present in the game to have a chance to win.

There has never been a Black winner who didn’t have another Black contestant with them either at the end, or close to the end.

Wendell had Laurel, who he teamed up with after the tribe switch, and stuck with until the final tribal council. Wendell has said (I believe during one of the Black Voice of Survivor Roundtables) that for the first few days on the island, he actually purposefully avoided being seen talking to the other Black contestant, Desiree, because he didn’t want either of them to be targeted and stand out for aligning early on. When he had a more comfortable position in the game, and his alliance with Dominick, that’s when he felt safe enough to become close to Laurel. That relationship with Laurel literally won him the game since she was the unprecedented tie breaking vote.

Jeremy had Tasha with him at the end. The alliances of Cambodia were pretty fluid throughout the season, especially due to all the swaps, it wasn’t until later in the merge that he and Tasha, along with Spencer, really became a team. The jury accused Tasha of doing all of Jeremy’s dirty work, and he got an unanimous vote in the end.

Earl had Cassandra and Dreamz, and to this day this is the only fully Black Final Three in Survivor history. I admittedly have not yet watched this season in full (my brother has gotten into Survivor, so I want to watch this season with him eventually), but part of that is because I’ve heard over the years that this jury is infamously bitter during final tribal and that Lisi was racist, so I’m sort of dreading watching it even though I know Earl wins in the end with the unanimous vote.

Vecepia is the only Black winner to win Survivor without having another Black person with them at the final tribal council. For most of the merge, she and Sean were the only people from her original tribe and the only Black people left in the game. Luckily, instead of being picked off one by one, they wrangled together people at the bottom of the other alliance to vote everyone else out. He got 5th place, so he was with her for 36 of the 39 days. She only won against Neleh by one vote. She became the first Black winner, the ONLY Black woman to win so far, and the first Black winner of any reality TV show.

When Survivor Winners at War came around, Wendell and Jeremy once again made a point of not seeming like they were a pair because they knew, as the only Black people, other contestants might make assumptions. This didn’t work since Wendell was eliminated at the merge because of how “close” he was to Jeremy, and Jeremy was on the chopping block for nearly every tribal council until he was finally eliminated. The other contestants considered Jeremy and Wendell to be an obvious pair, but did not seem to care about “Cops R Us.” I’m not even complaining about Cop R Us as an alliance, unless it’s to complain about the name, since I genuinely enjoyed watching Tony and Sarah’s friendship get them far in the game and have an emotional end. But Wendell and Jeremy had a target on their back from the get-go because as the only two Black men, everyone just assumes they’re a tight pair and tight pairs are dangerous so they have to go. Tony and Sarah had the privilege of not LOOKING like they’d be a tight pair, despite having played on 2 other seasons together and sharing a profession and having A NAME for their alliance, so they stayed a little more under the radar. So while we need other Black people to be with us in the game order to win, just being seen talking to other Black people can be dangerous because it can scare the other contestants into thinking there’s an alliance that needs to be broken up. It’s a very fragile balance, which is why it’s only been accomplished 4 times so far. (Also Vecepia says she wasn’t even asked to compete in Winners at War, so there’s that. Earl declined due to having a new baby)

Something that’s weird, and something that I didn’t notice until writing this post, is that when we do win Survivor, we either win unanimous votes, or we win by only one vote (and it’s the one made by another Black contestant). Not sure what that means exactly, but it’s interesting now that I’ve noticed.

We’ve had 4 winners out of 41 seasons, less than 10% of winners are Black when we make up 12.4% of the American population (14.2% if you count mixed-race Black people like myself). We’ve had only one Black woman win, and that was 20 years ago. In 3 of the 4 cases, there was another Black person sitting at final tribal council with the winner.

There has been 1 Final Two with one Black person in it (Vecepia won), 3 Final Threes with at least two Black people (Earl, Jeremy, and Wendell won), and 7 Final Threes with only one Black person (no Black winners). Statistically, we need another Black person in the Final Three in order to win because we’ve never won a season as the lone Black person at the end. The only time we have won alone was when it was a Final Two, and Survivor doesn’t seem to want to ever do those again.

I hope Maryanne and Drea make it to the end together, and that we finally get another Black woman winning. Based on every other situation, they need each other there to win.

#survivor #survivor 42 #survivor 42 spoilers #survivor spoilers #if i got anything wrong let me know but i looked through all the Final Twos and it was just Vecepia #i went and rewatched 4 episodes of Shadow and Bone and needlepointed #but honestly i forget which episode but there was one scene where i had to rewind like 5 times #because i was staring at my needlepoint and internally raging about survivor and not paying attention to the show #then once i finished the show i tried to calm down #then i didn't calm down #then i wrote this over the last hour #also worth noting i haven't seen marquesas in full since Hulu is missing episodes and i'm not paying for paramount plus #or at least not paying yet. maybe in a month or so i might just buy it so i can keep showing my brother more seasons #also don't come at me with 'there aren't a lot of Hispanic winners' i am very aware of that and same for Asian winners #but i'm talking about Black people since i am Black and i've lived the Black experience #but if anyone actually wants me to try to research stuff about other contestants of color and win rates and stuff i'd be very happy to. #i just pay more attention to the Black players due to myself being Black #so that's all more readily available and i don't need to research as much

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I have always appreciated your thoughtful views on the defence of the British monarchy, and as a university historian it’s reassuring to see someone using history to make invalubale insights to a controversial institution. I wonder what are your own thoughts on the passing of Prince Philip and what his legacy might be? Was he a gaffe prone racist and a liability to the Queen?

I know you kindly got in touch and identified yourself when you felt I was ignoring your question. I’m glad we cleared that up via DM. The truth is as I said and I’m saying here is that I had to let some time pass before I felt I could reasonably answer this question. Simply because - as you know as someone who teaches history at university - distance is good to make a sober appraisal rather than knee jerk in the moment judgements.

Contrary to what some might think I’m not really a fan girl when it comes to the royal family. I don’t religiously follow their every movement or utterance especially as I live in Paris and therefore I don’t really care about tabloid tittle tattle. I only get to hear of anything to do with the royal family when I speak to my parents or my great aunts and uncles for whom the subject is closer to their heart because of the services my family has rendered over past generations to the monarchy and the older (and dying) tight knit social circles they travel in.

Like Walter Bagehot, I’m more interested in the monarchy as an institution and its constitutional place within the historical, social, and political fabric of Britain and its continued delicate stabilising importance to that effect. It was Walter Bagehot, the great constitutional scholar and editor the Economist magazine, who said, “The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.” In his view, a politically-inactive monarchy served the best interests of the United Kingdom; by abstaining from direct rule, the monarch levitated above the political fray with dignity, and remained a respected personage to whom all subjects could look to as a guiding light.

Even as a staunch monarchist I freely confess that there has always been this odd nature of the relationship between hereditary monarchy and a society increasingly ambivalent about the institution. To paraphrase Bagehot again, there has been too much ‘daylight’ shone onto the ‘magic’ of the monarchy because we are obsessed with personalities as celebrities.

Having said that I did feel saddened by the passing of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. After the Queen, he was my favourite royal. Anne, Princess Royal, would come next because she is very much like her father in temperament, humour, and character, so unlike her other brothers.

I have met the late Prince Philip when I was serving in the army in a few regimental meet-and-greet situations - which as you may know is pretty normal given that members of the royal family serve as honorary colonel-in-chiefs (patrons in effect) of all the British army regiments and corps.I also saw him at one or two social events such the annual charitable Royal Caledonian Ball (he’s an expert scottish reeler) and the Guards Polo Club where my older brothers played.

I’ll will freely confess that he was the one royal I could come close to identify with because his personal biography resonated with me a great deal.

Let’s be honest, the core Windsor family members, born to privilege, are conditioned and raised to be dull. Perhaps that’s a a tad harsh. I would prefer the term ‘anonymously self-effacing’, just another way of saying ‘for God’s sake don’t draw attention to yourself by saying or doing anything even mildly scandalous or political lest it invites public opprobrium and scrutiny’. The Queen magnificently succeeds in this but the others from Charles down just haven’t (with the exception of Princess Anne).

However, many people forget this obvious fact that it’s the incoming husbands and wives who marry into the Windsor family who are relied upon to bring colour and even liven things up a little. And long before Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle (very briefly), or Lady Diana Spencer, were the stars of ‘The Firm’- a phrase first coined by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II's father who ruled from 1936 to 1952, who was thought to have wryly said, "British royals are 'not a family, we're a firm,” - it was Prince Philip who really livened things up and made the greater impact on the monarchy than any of them in the long term.  

Prince Philip’s passing belied the truth of a far more complex individual: a destitute and penniless refugee Greek-Danish prince with a heart breaking backstory that could have been penned by any 19th Century novelist, and also eagle eyed reformer who tried to drag the royal family into the 20th century. At the core of the man - lost scion of a lost European royal dynasty, a courageous war veteran, and Queen’s consort - were values in which he attempted to transform and yet maintain much older inherited traditions and attitudes. Due to his great longevity, Philip’s life came to span a period of social change that is almost unprecedented, and almost no one in history viewed such a transformation from the front row.

Prince Philip would seem to represent in an acute form the best of the values of that era, which in many ways jar with today’s. He had fought with great courage in the war as a dashing young naval officer; he was regularly rude to foreigners, which was obviously a bonus to all Brits. He liked to ride and sail and shoot things. He was unsentimental almost to a comic degree, which felt reassuring at a time when a new-found emotional incontinence made many feel uncomfortable. Outrageous to some but endearing to others, he was the sort of man you’d want to go for a pint with, perhaps the ultimate compliment that an Englishman can pay to another Englishman. This has its own delicious irony as he wasn’t really an Englishman.

There are 4 takeways I would suggest in my appraisal of Prince Philip that stand out for me. So let me go through each one.

1. Prince Philip’s Internationalism

It may seem odd for me to say that Prince Philip wasn’t English but he wasn’t an Englishman in any real sense. He was a wretch of the world - stateless, homeless, and penniless. That the Prince of Nowhere became the British Monarchy’s figurehead was more than fitting for a great age of migration and transition in which the Royal Family survived and even flourished. That he was able to transform himself into the quintessential Englishman is testimony not just to his personal determination but also to the powerful cultural pull of Britishness.

He was born on a kitchen table in Corfu in June 1921. A year later in 1922, Philip, as the the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and nephew of Constantine I of Greece, was forced to flee with his family after the abdication of Constantine. He grew up outside Paris speaking French; ethnically he was mostly German although he considered himself Danish, his family originating from the Schleswig border region. He was in effect, despite his demeanour of Royal Navy officer briskness, a citizen of nowhere in an age of movement. From a very young age he was a stateless person, nationally homeless. Indeed, Philip was an outsider in a way that even Meghan Markle could never be; at his wedding in 1947, his three surviving sisters and two brothers-in-law were not permitted to attend because they were literally Britain’s enemies, having fought for the Germans. A third brother-in-law had even been in the SS, working directly for Himmler, but had been killed in the conflict.

Even his religion was slightly exotic. He was Greek Orthodox until he converted to Anglicanism on marrying Elizabeth - what with his wife due to become supreme head of the Church and everything  - but his ties with eastern Christianity remained. His great-aunts Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine and Tsarina Alexandra are both martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, having been murdered by the Bolsheviks; Philip’s mother went on to become an Orthodox nun and a “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece, spending much of her time in squalid poverty.

His parents were part of the largely German extended aristocracy who ruled almost all of Europe before it all came crashing down in 1918. When he died, aged 99, it marked a near-century in which all the great ideological struggles had been and gone; he had been born before the Soviet Union but outlived the Cold War, the War on Terror and - almost - Covid-19.

The world that Philip was born into was a far more violent and dangerous place than ours. In the year he was born, Irish rebels were still fighting Black and Tans; over the course of 12 months the Spanish and Japanese prime ministers were assassinated, there was a coup in Portugal and race riots in the United States. Germany was rocked by violence from the far-Left and far-Right, while in Italy a brutal new political movement, the Fascists, secured 30 seats in parliament, led by a trashy journalist called Benito Mussolini.

The worst violence, however, took place in Greece and Turkey. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, what remained of Turkey was marked for permanent enfeeblement by the Allies. But much to everyone’s surprise the country’s force were roused by the brilliant officer Mustafa Kemal, who led the Turks to victory. Constantinople was lost to Christendom for good and thousands of years of Hellenic culture was put to the flames in Smyrna.

The Greek royal family, north German imports shipped in during the 19th century, bore much of the popular anger for this disaster. King Constantine fled to Italy, and his brother Andrew was arrested and only escaped execution through the intervention of his relative Britain’s George V. Andrew’s wife Alice, their four daughters and infant son Philip fled to France, completely impoverished but with the one possession that ensures that aristocrats are never truly poor: connections.

Philip had a traumatic childhood. He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his older sister Sophia later described it.

In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress. "I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.

Philip’s four sisters were all much older, and were soon all married to German aristocrats (the youngest would soon die in an aeroplane crash, along with her husband and children). His sisters became ever more embroiled in the German regime. In Scotland going to Gordonstoun boarding school, Philip went the opposite direction, becoming ever more British. Following the death of his sister Cecilie in a plane crash in 1937, the gulf widened. As the clouds of conflict gathered, the family simply disintegrated. With a flash of the flinty stoicism that many would later interpret, with no little justification, as self-reliance to the point of dispassion, the prince explained: “It’s simply what happened. The family broke up… I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.”

In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him. He got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private boarding school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea. It was Gordonstoun that nurtured that love through the maturation of his character.

Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, a Jewish exile from Nazi Germany.

Hahn first met Philip as a boy in Nazi Germany. Through a connection via one of his sister’s husbands, Philip, the poor, lonely boy was first sent off to a new school - in Nazi Germany. Which was as fun as can be imagined. Schloss Salem had been co-founded by stern educator called Kurt Hahn, a tough, discipline-obsessed conservative nationalist who saw civilisation in inexorable decline. But by this stage Hahn, persecuted for being Jewish in Nazi Germany, had fled to Britain, and Philip did not spend long at the school either, where pressure from the authorities was already making things difficult for the teachers. Philip laughed at the Nazis at first, because their salute was the same gesture the boys at his previous school had to make when they wanted to go to the toilet, but within a year he was back in England, a refugee once again.

Philip happily attended Hahn’s new school, Gordonstoun, which the strict disciplinarian had set up in the Scottish Highlands. Inspired by Ancient Sparta, the boys (and then later girls) had to run around barefoot and endure cold showers, even in winter, the whole aim of which was to drive away the inevitable civilisational decay Hahn saw all around him. To 21st century ears it sounds like hell on earth, yet Philip enjoyed it, illustrating just what a totally alien world he came from.

That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".

It was at Gordonstoun one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life was born. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.

At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.

The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".

2. Prince Philip and the modernisation of the monarchy

In his own words, the process of defining what it meant to be a royal consort was one of “trial and error.” Speaking with BBC One’s Fiona Bruce in 2011, Philip explained, “There was no precedent. If I asked somebody, 'What do you expect me to do?' they all looked blank. They had no bloody idea, nobody had much idea.” So he forged for himself a role as a moderniser of the monarchy.

He could not have had much idea back in 1939. Back then in Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.

When King George VI toured Dartmouth Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.

Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.

He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death in February 1952. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a ton of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.

While the late Princess Diana was later to famously claim that there were “three people” in her marriage - herself, Prince Charles and Camilla - there were at least 55 million in Philip and Elizabeth’s. As Elizabeth dedicated her life to her people at Westminster Abbey at the Coronation on June 2, 1953, it sparked something of an existential crisis in Philip. Many people even after his death have never really understood this pivotal moment in Philip’s life. All his dreams of being a naval officer and a life at sea as well as being the primary provider and partner in his marriage were now sacrificed on the altar of duty and love.

With his career was now over, and he was now destined to become the spare part. Philip, very reasonably, asked that his future children and indeed his family be known by his name, Mountbatten. In effect he was asking to change the royal family’s name from the House of Windsor to the House of Mountbatten. But when Prime Minister Winston Churchill got wind of it as well as the more politically agile courtiers behind the Queen, a prolonged battle of wits ensued, and it was one Philip ultimately lost. It was only in 1957 that he accepted the title of “Prince.”

Even though he had almost lost everything dear to him and his role now undefined, he didn’t throw himself a pity party. He just got on with it. Philip tried to forge his own distinct role as second fiddle to the woman who had come to represent Great Britain. He designated himself the First Officer of the Good Ship Windsor. He set about dusting off some of the cobwebs off the throne and letting some daylight unto the workings of the monarchy by advocating reasonable amount of modernisation of the monarchy.

He had ideas about modernising the royal family that might be called “improving optics” today. But in his heart of hearts he didn’t want the monarchy to become a stuffy museum piece. He envisaged a less stuffy and more popular monarchy, relevant to the lives of ordinary people. Progress was always going to be incremental as he had sturdy opposition from the old guard who wanted to keep everything as it was, but nevertheless his stubborn energy resulted in significant changes.

When a commission chaired by Prince Philip proposed broadcasting the 1953 investiture ceremony that formally named Elizabeth II as queen on live television, Prime Minister Winston Churchill reacted with outright horror, declaring, “It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.” Though the queen had initially voiced similar concerns, she eventually came around to the idea, allowing the broadcast of all but one segment of the coronation. Ultimately, according to the BBC, more than 20 million people tuned in to the televised ceremony - a credit to the foresight of Philip.

Elizabeth’s coronation marked a watershed moment for a monarchy that has, historically, been very hands off, old-fashioned and slightly invisible. Over the following years, the royals continued to embrace television as a way of connecting with the British people: In 1957, the queen delivered her annual Christmas address during a live broadcast. Again, this was Philip’s doing when he cajoled the Queen to televise her message live. He even helped her in how to use the teleprompter to get over her nerves and be herself on screen.

Four years later, in 1961, Philip became the first family member to sit for a television interview. It is hard for us to imagine now but back then it was huge. For many it was a significant step in modernising the monarchy.

Though not everything went to plan. Toward the end of the decade, the Windsors even invited cameras into their home. A 1969 BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, instigated by Philip to show life behind the scenes, turned into an unmitigated disaster: “The Windsors” revealed the royals to be a fairly normal, if very rich, British upper-class family who liked barbecues, ice cream, watching television and bickering. The mystery of royalty took a hit below the waterline from their own torpedo, a self-inflicted wound from which they took a long time to recover. Shown once, the documentary was never aired again. But it had an irreversible effect, and not just by revealing the royals to be ordinary. By allowing the cameras in, Philip opened the lid to the prying eyes of the paparazzi who could legitimately argue that since the Royals themselves had sanctioned exposure, anything went. From then on, minor members of the House of Windsor were picked off by the press, like helpless tethered animals on a hunting safari.

Prince Philip also took steps to reorganise and renovate the royal estates in Sandringham and Balmoral such as intercoms, modern dish washers,  generally sought to make the royal household and the monarchy less stuffy, not to have so much formality everywhere.

Philip helped modernised the monarchy in other ways to acknowledge that the monarchy could be responsive to changes in society. It was Prince Philip - much to the chagrin of the haughty Princess Margaret and other stuffy old courtiers - who persuaded the Queen to host informal lunches and garden parties designed to engage a broader swath of the British public. Conversely, Prince Philip heartily encouraged the Queen (she was all for it apparently but was still finding her feet as a new monarch) to end the traditional practice of presenting debutantes from aristocratic backgrounds at court in 1952. For Philip and others it felt antiquated and out of touch with society. I know in speaking to my grandmother and others in her generation the decision was received with disbelief at how this foreign penniless upstart could come and stomp on the dreams of mothers left to clutch their pearls at the prospect there would be no shop window for their daughter to attract a suitable gentleman for marriage. One of my great aunts was over the moon happy that she never would have to go through what she saw as a very silly ceremony because she preferred her muddy wellies to high heels. 

A former senior member of the royal household, who spent several years working as one of Prince Philip’s aides, and an old family friend, once told us around a family dinner table that the Duke of Edinburgh was undoubtedly given a sense of permanence by his marriage into the Royal Family that was missing from earlier years. But the royal aide would hastily add that Prince Philip, of course, would never see it that way.

Prince Philip’s attitude was to never brood on things or seek excuses. And he did indeed get on with the job in his own way  - there should be no doubt that when it came to building and strengthening the Royal Family it was a partnership of equals with the Queen. Indeed contrary to Netflix’s hugely popular series ‘The Crown’ and its depiction of the royal marriage with Philip’s resentment at playing second fiddle, the prince recognised that his “first duty was to serve the Queen in the best way I could,” as he told ITV in 2011. Though this role was somewhat ill-suited to his dynamic, driven, and outspoken temperament, Philip performed it with utter devotion.

3. Prince Philip’s legacy

One could argue rightly that modernising the monarchy was his lasting legacy achievement. But he also tried to modernise a spent and exhausted Britain as it emerged from a ruinous war. When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. He was on top of his reading of the latest scientific breakthroughs and well read in break out innovations.

This interest in modernisation was only matched by his love for nature. As the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable. As president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the UK for more than 20 years from 1961, he was one of the first high-profile advocates of the cause of conservation and biological diversity at a time when it was considered the preserve of an eccentric few.

For a generation of school children in Britain and the Commonwealth though, his most lasting legacy and achievement will be the Duke of Edinburgh Awards (DofE). He set up the Duke of Edinburgh award, a scheme aimed at getting young people out into nature in search of adventure or be of service to their communities. It was a scheme that could match the legacy of Baden Powell’s scouts movement. 

When Prince Philip first outlined his idea of a scheme to harness the values of his education at Gordonstoun by bringing character-building outdoor pursuits to the many rather than the fee-paying few, he received short shrift from the government of the day. The then minister of education, Sir David Eccles responded to the Duke’s proposal by saying: “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth.” Undeterred he pushed on until it came to fruition.

I’m so glad that he did. I remember how proud I was for getting my DofE Awards while I was at boarding school. With the support of great mentors I managed to achieve my goals: collecting second-hand English books for a literacy programme for orphaned street children in Delhi, India with a close Indian school friend and her family; and completing a 350 mile hike following St. Olav’s Pilgrimmage Trail from Selånger, on the east coast of Sweden, and ending at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, on the west coast of Norway.

It continues to be an enduring legacy.  Since its launch in 1956, the Duke of Edinburgh awards have been bestowed upon some 2.5 million youngsters in Britain and some eight million worldwide. For a man who once referred to himself as a “Greek princeling of no consequence”, his pioneering tutelage of these two organisations (alongside some 778 other organisations of which he was either president or a patron) would be sufficient legacy for most.

4. Prince Philip’s character

It may surprise some but what I liked most about Prince Philip was the very thing that helped him achieve so much and leave a lasting legacy: his character.

It is unhelpful to the caricature of Prince Philip as an unwavering but pugnacious consort whose chief talent was a dizzying facility in off-colour one-liners that he was widely read and probably the cleverest member of his family.

His private library at Windsor consists of 11,000 tomes, among them 200 volumes of poetry. He was a fan of Jung, TS Eliot, Shakespeare and the cookery writer Elizabeth David. As well as a lifelong fascination with science, technology and sport, he spoke fairly fluent French, painted and wrote a well received book on birds. It’s maddening to think how many underestimated his genuine intellect and how cultured he was behind the crusty exterior.

He didn’t have an entourage to fawn around him. He was the first to own a computer at Buckingham Palace. He answered his own phone and wrote and responded to his own correspondence. By force of character he fought the old guard courtiers at every turn to modernise the monarchy  against their stubborn resistance.

Prince Philip was never given to self-analysis or reflection on the past. Various television interviewers tried without success to coerce him in to commenting on his legacy.But once when his guard was down he asked on the occasion of his 90th birthday what he was more proud of, he replied with characteristic bluntness: “I couldn’t care less. Who cares what I think about it, I mean it’s ridiculous.”

All of which neatly raises the profound aversion to fuss and the proclivity for tetchiness often expressed in withering put-downs that, for better or worse, will be the reflex memory for many of the Duke of Edinburgh. If character is a two edged sword so what of his gaffes? 

There is no doubt his cult status partly owed to his so-called legendary gaffes, of which there are enough to fill a book (indeed there is a book). But he was no racist. None of the Commonwealth people or foreign heads of state ever said this about him. Only leftist republicans with too much Twitter time on their hands screamed such a ridiculous accusation. They’re just overly sensitive snowflakes and being devoid of any humour they’re easily triggered.

There was the time that Philip accepted a gift from a local in Kenya, telling her she was a kind woman, and then adding: “You are a woman, aren’t you?” Or the occasion he remarked “You managed not to get eaten, then?” to a student trekking in Papua New Guinea. Then there was his World Wildlife Fund speech in 1986, when he said: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” Well, he wasn’t wrong.

Philip quickly developed a reputation for what he once defined, to the General Dental Council, as “dentopedology – the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it”. Clearly he could laugh at himself as he often did as an ice breaker to put others at ease.

His remarking to the president of Nigeria, who was wearing national dress, “You look like you’re ready for bed”, or advising British students in China not to stay too long or they would end up with “slitty eyes”, is probably best written off as ill-judged humour. Telling a photographer to “just take the fucking picture” or declaring “this thing open, whatever it is”, were expressions of exasperation or weariness with which anyone might sympathise.

Above all, he was also capable of genuine if earthy wit, saying of his horse-loving daughter Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay she isn’t interested.” Many people might have thought it but few dared say it. If Prince Philip’s famous gaffes provoked as much amusement as anger, it was precisely because they seem to give voice to the bewilderment and pent-up frustrations with which many people viewed the ever-changing modern world.

A former royal protection officer recounts how while on night duty guarding a visiting Queen and consort, he engaged in conversation with colleagues on a passing patrol. It was 2am and the officer had understood the royal couple to be staying elsewhere in the building until a window above his head was abruptly slammed open and an irate Prince Philip stuck his head out of the window to shout: “Would you fuck off!” Without another word, he then shut the window.

The Duke at least recognised from an early age that he was possessed of an abruptness that could all too easily cross the line from the refreshingly salty to crass effrontery.

One of his most perceptive biographers, Philip Eade, recounted how at the age of 21 the prince wrote a letter to a relation whose son had recently been killed in combat. He wrote: “I know you will never think much of me. I am rude and unmannerly and I say things out of turn which I realise afterwards must have hurt someone. Then I am filled with remorse and I try to put matters right.”

In the case of the royal protection officer, the Duke turned up in the room used by the police officers when off duty and said: “Terribly sorry about last night, wasn’t quite feeling myself.”

Aides have also ventured to explain away some of their employer’s more outlandish remarks - from asking Cayman islanders “You are descended from pirates aren’t you?” to enquiring of a female fashion writer if she was wearing mink knickers - as the price of his instinctive desire to prick the pomposity of his presence with a quip to put others at ease.

Indeed many people forget that his ‘gaffes’ were more typical of the clubbish humour of the British officer class – which of course would be less appreciated, sometimes even offensive, to other ears. It’s why he could relate so well to veterans who enjoyed his bonhomie company immensely.

But behind the irascibility, some have argued there also lay a darker nature, unpleasantly distilled in his flinty attitude to his eldest son. One anecdote tells of how, in the aftermath of the murder of the Duke’s uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten,  Philip lectured his son, who was also extremely fond of his “honorary grandfather”, that he was not to succumb to self-pity. Charles left the room in tears and when his father was asked why he had spoken to his son with so little compassion, the Duke replied: “Because if there’s any crying to be done I want it to happen within this house, in front of his family, not in public. He must be toughened up, right now.”

But here I would say that Prince Philip’s intentions were almost always sincere and in no way cruel. He has always tried to protect his family - even from their own worst selves or from those outside the family ‘firm’ who may not have their best interest at heart.

In 1937, a 16-year-old Prince Philip had walked behind his elder sister Cecile’s coffin after she was killed in a plane crash while heavily pregnant. The remains of newly-born infant found in the wreckage suggested the aircraft had perished as the pilot sought to make an emergency landing in fog as the mother entered childbirth. It was an excruciating taste of tragedy which would one day manifest itself in a very princely form of kindness that was deep down that defined Philip’s character.

When about 60 years later Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctors in Downing Street tried to strong arm the Queen and the royal household over the the arrangements for the late Prince Diana’s funeral, it was Philip who stepped in front to protect his family. The Prime Minister and his media savvy spin doctors wanted the two young princes, William and Harry, to walk behind the coffin.

The infamous exchange was on the phone during a conference call between London and Balmoral, and the emotional Philip was reportedly backed by the Queen. The call was witnessed by Anji Hunter, who worked for Mr Blair. She said how surprised she was to hear Prince Philip’s emotion. ‘It’s about the boys,” he cried, “They’ve lost their mother”. Hunter thought to herself, “My God, there’s a bit of suffering going on up there”.’

Sky TV political commentator Adam Boulton (Anji Hunter’s husband) would write in his book Tony’s Ten Years: ‘The Queen relished the moment when Philip bellowed over the speakerphone from Balmoral, “Fuck off. We are talking about two boys who have just lost their mother”. Boulton goes on to say that Philip: ‘…was trying to remind everyone that human feelings were involved. No 10 were trying to help the Royals present things in the best way, but may have seemed insensitive.’

In the end the politicians almost didn’t get their way. Prince Philip stepped in to counsel his grandson, Prince William, after he had expressed a reluctance to follow his mother’s coffin after her death in Paris. Philip told the grieving child: “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?”

It’s no wonder he was sought as a counsellor by other senior royals and especially close to his grandchildren, for whom he was a firm favourite. His relationship with Harry was said to have become strained, however, following the younger Prince’s decision to reject his royal inheritance for a life away from the public eye in America with his new American wife, Meghan Markle. For Prince Philip I am quite sure it went against all the elder Prince had lived his life by - self-sacrifice for the greater cause of royalty.

This is the key to Philip’s character and in understanding the man. The ingrained habits of a lifetime of duty and service in one form or another were never far away.

In conclusion then....

After more time passes I am sure historians will make a richer reassessment of Prince Philip’s life and legacy. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man that not even the suffocating protocols of royalty and tradition could bind him.

Although he fully accepted the limitations of public royal service, he did not see this as any reason for passive self-abnegation, but actively, if ironically, identified with his potentially undignified role. It is this bold and humorous embrace of fated restriction which many now find irksome: one is no longer supposed to mix public performance with private self-expression in quite this manner.

Yet such a mix is authentically Socratic: the proof that the doing of one’s duty can also be the way of self-fulfilment. The Duke’s sacrifice of career to romance and ceremonial office is all the more impressive for his not hiding some annoyance. The combination of his restless temperament and his deeply felt devotion to duty found fruitful expression; for instance, in the work of Saint George’s House Windsor - a centre and retreat that he created with Revd. Robin Woods - in exploring religious faith, philosophy, and contemporary issues.

Above all he developed a way to be male that was both traditional and modern. He served one woman with chivalric devotion as his main task in life while fulfilling his public engagements in a bold and active spirit. He eventually embraced the opportunity to read and contemplate more. And yet, he remained loyal to the imperatives of his mentor Kurt Hahn in seeking to combine imagination with action and religious devotion with practical involvement.

Prince Philip took more pride in the roles he had accidentally inherited than in the personal gifts which he was never able fully to develop. He put companionship before self-realisation and acceptance of a sacred symbolic destiny before the mere influencing of events. In all these respects he implicitly rebuked our prevailing meritocracy which over-values officially accredited attainment, and our prevailing narcissism which valorises the assertion of discrete identities.

Prince Philip was Britain’s longest-serving consort. He was steadfast, duty driven, and a necessary adjunct to the continuity and stability of the Queen and the monarchy. Of all the institutions that have lost the faith of the British public in this period - the Church, Parliament, the media, the police - the Monarchy itself has surprisingly done better than most at surviving, curiously well-adapted to a period of societal change and moral anarchy. The House of Hanover and later Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (changed to Windsor), since their arrival in this country in 1714, have been noted above all for their ability to adapt. And just as they survived the Victorian age by transforming themselves into the bourgeoise, domestic ideal, so they have survived the new Elizabethan era (Harry-Meghan saga is just a passing blip like the Edward-Wallis Simpson saga of the 1930s).

There was once a time when the Royal’s German blood was a punchline for crude and xenophobic satirists. Now it is the royals who are deeply British while the country itself is increasingly cosmopolitan and globalised. British society has seen a greater demographic change than the preceding four or five thousand years combined, the second Elizabethan age has been characterised more than anything by a transformational movement of people. Prince Philip, the Greek-born, Danish-German persecuted and destitute wanderer who came to become one of the Greatest Britons of the past century, perhaps epitomised that era better than anyone else. And he got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

I hope I don’t exaggerate when I say that in our troubled times over identity, and our place and purpose in the world, we need to heed his selfless example more than ever.

As Heraclitus wisely said,  Ήθος ανθρώπω δαίμων (Character is destiny.)

RIP Prince Philip. You were my prince. God damn you, I miss you already.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #prince philip #duke of edinburgh #queen elizabeth II #the queen of spades #monarchy #britain #british #royalty #politics #history #culture #europe #crown #icon #great briton #society

[castexpectopatronum]

I’m Here For You [Sirius Black x Reader Imagine]

request by @kawaiitickle: Could you do a young Sirius x reader (7th year?) where they're dating a Bellatrix is bullying reader like calling her a mudblood and Sirius looses his temper and Bellatrix says something like "look at you, acting like a real Black." And reader calms him down and later she says that she's wrong and he's better than his family. Something like that.

notes: Bellatrix is actually quite a few years older than Sirius, but for this Imagine I made her younger so she's the same age as him and in her 7th year as well. Sorry this took so long, I hope you like it! Also this is a reupload, because Tumblr deleated the imagine.

trigger warnings: bullying, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, phsyical conflict

word count: 1.5k

Masterlist

"Maybe I'll just cut my hair on my own."

Sirius threw you a glance, his arm casually drapped over your shoulders. "You will refrain from doing that, (y/n)."

"Why not, it can't be that hard."

"You'll just fuck up your own hair."

"It can't get any worse than it is now."

"Wanna bet?"

You linked your fingers with Sirius', your heart filled with easy joy from the casual banter, and together you walked around the corner into another corridor – only to spot Bellatrix Black at the other end.

You felt Sirius stiffen beside you and supressed an eyeroll at the sight of her – the three of you had a bit of a ... complicated relationship. Probably due to the fact that she was a racist bitch.

"Well, who do we have here?" Her sneering voice echoed through the corridor as her cold dark eyes settled on them. "If it isn't the bloodtraitor and his precious little mudblood."

You felt a hot rush of anger surge through your veins, making the collar of your blouse suddenly feel far too tight. Sirius's arm dropped off your shoulder.

"Don't call her that, Bellatrix."

She lifted an amused brow. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt her feelings?"

The fact that she didn't even have the decency to directly address you make your blood boil even more. Your (e/c) eyes were flashing menacingly. "Sod off, Black."

A wicked grin ghosted over Bellatrix's face. "Now, now, where did you leave your manners, mudblood?"

"I said don't call her that, Bellatrix." Each one of Sirius' words he was spitting out like a piece of foul fruit. He was standing taller than before, his posture broader, and he'd pushed himself slightly infront of you, as if he wanted to block you from her.

You placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Sirius, it's fine. Just leave it."

"No, it's not fine." Sirius' eyes were like a storm as he glared at a bemused Bellatrix across the corridor. "Take it back."

"No."

In a blink of an eye, Sirius had pulled out his wand. "Take. It. Back."

With her thick black locks, dark eyes and long lashes, Bellatrix was actually a beautiful girl, but the wide grin splitting her face now almost gave her something demonic. A cold shiver ran down your spine. She looked evil. There was no other word for it.

"Now, Sirius, where are your manners? Seems like the mudblood's a bad influence for you." The moment the words had left her mouth, you knew she'd gone too far. Sirius lost it.

It seemed it was only due to her excellent reflexes and duelling skills that Bellatrix was able to block Sirius's curse, but you knew better. She'd known he was going to fire the spell. She'd counted on it.

Her dark eyes were glimmering wickedly as she slowly lowered her wand again, perfectly aware of every one of your movements. "Is that really the best you can do? How pathetic."

As Sirius fired the next spell, his face white and his body shaking with fury, you were quick to pull out your own wand out of the pocket of your robes.

"How about we all calm down before this gets out of hand?" you suggested, voice tense with fearful anticipation.

"I think it's too late for that," growled Sirius, not taking his eyes of Bellatrix who was watching the entire situation with obvious bemusement. She wasn't scared. She was actually enjoying this.

"For once, we actually agree on something," said Bellatrix, starting to raise her wand. "Now, do you want me to show you how properly duel?"

You fired before she could.

Bellatrix deflected the spell with casual ease, her thick black locks wildly framing her pale face as she watched you step forwards, shielding her from Sirius.

"And now you even need the mudblood to protect you. Just when I thought you couldn't sink any lower."

If she'd crossed the line before, now she'd completely ripped it apart, and both of you had had enough. And this time, you didn't bother holding Sirius back as he send a wave of curses towards her. The corridor filled with shadows of the most vibrant colours and the sounds of the spells being fired and deflected were so loud that it was a miracle you hadn't been caught yet.

You were a very good duellist. Sirius was even better. But even the two of you together couldn't drive Bellatrix into a corner.

And then, she laughed, loud and high-pitched, as though she had just remembered a hilarious joke.

"Look at you, Sirius, acting like a real Black," she grinned. "Maybe there's hope for you, after all."

Sirius froze. So did you. Your eyes quickly flickered over to him. His face was as white as snow and his lips were pressed into a thin, hard line. His grey eyes had turned murderous. But he didn't say anything. Nothing at all. And as you looked at his face, you doubted he even could.

"I think you should go now, Bellatrix," you said, your voice dangerously low. "Before you get hurt."

"Is that a threat?" Her dark eyes glimmered with a joyful wickedness.

"It's a warning."

Bellatrix threw her head back and laughed, almost hysterically.

"Fuck. Off. Bellatrix."

She grinned widely. "Why would I leave when we're having so much fun?"

In that moment, you decided you were done. Next to you, Sirius was shaking, out of shock or fear or anger, you weren't certain. Probably a mixture of all of them. And Bellatrix's presence and her taunting words were only making it worse by the second. You needed to get him out of here before the entire situation escalated.

"Come on," you said, grabbing Sirius's arm. His eyes were still focussed on his cousin and although you were strongly pulling his arm, he didn't move an inch. His skin was burning. "Sirius."

A fake pout appeared on Bellatrix's face. "Leaving so soon?"

Trying your best to ignore the hot anger tightening your throat, you repeated, "Come on, Sirius, let's go."

He was still glaring at Bellatrix across the corridor, but at least he let you pull him away until she was finally out of sight. The picture of her smiling sweetly as you two turned around the corner make your stomach tense in fury, but you just let your grip tighten around Sirius's wrist and pulled him along faster.

Only when there were two flights of stairs and a giggling poltergeist between you and Bellatrix did you let go of him and turned around. You had led him into an old corridor where the Transfiguration classroom had once been. But since it had been relocated, there was no reason for anybody to come down here anymore and the corridor was now grey and empty.

"She's wrong."

Sirius's face was still white and his hands were gripping his robes so tightly you feared he was going to rip them. "About what?"

"About what she said about you being a true Black. She's wrong. You're nothing like them."

A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Really?" His eyes, darker than usual, locked with yours, hard and hurt.

"What do you mean, 'really'?"

Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "Because sometimes I think maybe I am like them."

You stood, appalled, staring at him. "Why the hell do you think that?"

He shrugged and looked away. A shadow flickered in his grey eyes. "I don't know. It's just ... a thought I have sometimes. It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters, Sirius," you said firmly. "Your feelings always matter." His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, but still he refused to look at you, so you stepped towards him and laid your hands on his shoulders, finally making him meet your gaze.

"Listen to me," you said quietly, looking deeply into his eyes. They were dark and grey and full of unexpressed emotions that broke your heart to see. "You are nothing like your family. Okay, perhaps you share some simliarities. You and Bellatrix are both very talented. You both have the same temper – so what?" you said as Sirius was about to protest. "It doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is how you handle it. Bellatrix taunts people. She makes fun of them. She tortures them just because she can – and she enjoys it. But you stand up for people. You do good. You lose your temper when somebody is being mistreated, when you see someone abuse their power, not because you're a spoiled brat."

Sirius's chest rose and fell heavily as he stared at you. His hair was falling into his eyes, but he didn't bother brush it away. Then, suddenly, he had pulled you into his arms and was hugging you so tightly he lifted you off your feet. You yelped, but laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck to return his hug ever so tightly. "Thank you, (y/n)."

"I'm here for you," you whispered into his ear. "Just like you are here for me."

Taglist: @maycountessofdarkness @this-bunny-tastes-funny

#sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black imagine #marauders era imagine #marauders #request #i'm here for you

[loveatfirstwriteblog]

A Complete Analysis of Harry Potter

Like a lot of kids, we probably grew up on Harry potter. We were obsessed and rightly so. The universe created in the world of Harry Potter was, and is, a hugely successful one because of the fact it gave kids a world where magic exists! It seemed to be a great world to live in and it made even better with the fact that it included elements of empowerment, Whether it be showing girls can be just as successful if not more in various pursuits(Hermione), or the fact that even if you have a history of bad events, you can have a good heart(Hagrid), Harry Potter teaches us a lot.

JKR has written a mind-blowing plot in a world of magic, wizards, witches, wands, potions, friendship, love. Our inner-five-year olds--and actually most of our young adult selves too--jumps around excitedly at the beautifully penned words that creates an exit out of this world and into one where magic does exist. 

As you get older, though, you begin to think of Harry Potter in a more critical fashion. The thought of ��oh my god, it’s magic” no longer completely overrides my mind, but more of “but what are the laws regarding this? Can people just do this whenever they want? Are there no ethics?” 

No matter how much we’re going to expose the flaws and plot holes in HP now, we’ll always love the books--we grew up on them! But some things just niggle you as you get older, and that’s what we’re going to be focusing on in this post.

Something I adore about the HP books is that everyone, including the “good guys”, has flaws. Harry has a “save the world alone, do first, think later” complex, a driving force that makes him go save Sirius, Ron is very, very insecure to a point where he ditches Harry twice, probably when Harry needed him the most, Hermione is a judgemental, narrow-minded nag (her thoughts on Luna, divination, Trelawney, basically anything that doesn’t fit her black and white world), Molly Weasley is misogynistic and blatantly favourites her children—probably being one of the main factors behind Ron’s insecurities, Arthur is condescending towards Muggles and makes several comments you cringe at while reading the books as a young adult/adult, Sirius, Snape, and Lupin still haven’t let go of their childhood grudges and hatred, etc etc etc. 

These flaws are what make these characters so three-dimensional, so layered, so human. But the problem was, most of these flaws are never intentionally acknowledged. And honestly, that could have been such a good character arc, because the main characters are mostly students. No student is the same through their teenage years—they change, they evolve, they get over their flaws, they try to better themselves. I would have loved to see Ron becoming his own person, Hermione opening her mind up a little, etc. 

Neville is not one of my favourites, but I love his growth and development, from someone who was scared of his potions professor to a man who faced down Lord Voldemort. Ginny Weasley could have had character development, from the trauma she went through in second year, but that was never written in.  She went through this terrifying ordeal when she was only twelve years old, and jump to a year or two later and she’s absolutely fine, with no transition from her trauma whatsoever.

Some of JKR’s characters are brilliantly written and fleshed out, but some of her others lack the structure and complexity that usually comes with being vital to the plot—Ginny Weasley for one. Her internalised misogyny also plays a huge part in the way her female characters are written. We see this again in the case of how she wrote the character of Ginny. 

Ginny Weasley is not a favourite of ours (if you don’t know that by now). She feels a lot like a convenient male daydream—when she waits for Harry to notice her by dating other guys, gets annoyed by Hermione “not knowing quidditch”, etc etc—and fits the “not like other girls” archetype too much, almost like she was made for it (hint hint). She’s portrayed to be strong-willed, spunky, and independent, and I love the idea, but I really don’t see it. To me, she’s a very shallow character, the least fleshed out one. 

Just like James Potter wasn’t necessarily redeemed just because JKR said he was, and Ginny isn’t interesting just because JKR writes that she is. 

Hermione also fits the archetype, but she’s JKR’s self-insert, so we really can’t say much about that. 

To make things worse, Ginny and Hermione are pitted against each other in a very subtle way. Ginny is the sporty, pretty, flirty girl who’s never single from book 4. Hermione is the not-conventionally-attractive, nerdy girl who’s had a few dates here and there but never a relationship. They’re very different characters (the only thing they have in common is the archetype) but they’re against each other in the defence of Harry. 

Another place where JKR’s misogyny shows up is the way other girls are written. Lavender Brown is shown as vapid and immature, just because she likes clothes and boys and didn’t know how to handle her first relationship. Cho Chang is perceived as shallow because she’s emotional. Pansy Parkinson is seen to be throwing herself at Draco Malfoy. The Weasleys hated Fleur because she was beautiful and sexy and French, and that was ever really resolved in the end (Molly accepted her, but we never got Ginny’s and Hermione’s opinions again). You see where we’re getting at? The typical “girly girls” are portrayed as insipid, shallow, emotional, and boring, while girls like Hermione and Ginny are seen to be fun and multilayered. 

The problems with Harry Potter don’t just stop with non-fleshed out characters. There are plot devices that go unacknowledged, issues like blood purity—which is the basis of Voldemort’s tyranny—are never really resolved, huge Chekhov’s guns that aren’t fired. 

A common misconception, which if cleared up could probably expose a load of problems in wizarding society by itself, is that the wizarding world is racist. It’s not racist. Muggles and Muggleborns are not a different race, they’re a different class, at least according to pureblood wizards. Mudblood is a classist insult (a direct reference to nobility blueblood and aristocracy).

Another factor that wasn’t talked about but made the HP world so complex and realistic is the inherent classism in every single pureblooded wizard, including the Weasleys.

 The “Light” wizards all operate on the notion “at least I don’t kill or torture Muggles”. The Weasleys refuse to talk about Molly’s squib cousin who’s an accountant, the Longbottoms were so desperate for Neville to not be a squib they nearly killed him trying to force magic out of him, Ron makes fun of Filch for being a squib, thinks house-elves are beneath him, and confounds his driving instructor in his mid-thirties, the ministry workers kept obliviating that muggle at the quidditch World Cup, etc. 

This could have been a metaphor for how small prejudices and microaggressions (kind of the wizarding equivalent of white privilege) enable discrimination and murder, if JKR had actually acknowledged it. 

The parallel to Nazi Germany is very twisted and definitely shouldn’t be taken too far, but the Nazi ideology grew on the basis of everyday antisemitism, “that’s not that bad” little things. Voldemort’s circle and army grew because the wizard superiority complex festered and blew up in some people, egged on by a deeply classist society. 

Ultimately, Harry Potter has very, very shoddy worldbuilding, the kind of worldbuilding that’s obsessed with answering the “what” of the wizarding world, rather than the “how” or the “why”, which is strange, considering that fantasy or dystopian-era novels’ driving plots and conflicts are usually answering the questions the worldbuilding raises--The Hunger Games and The Shadowhunter Chronicles are two of the best examples of brilliantly written YA fantasy and dystopian novels. 

In HP, however, the main plot just avoids the questions the worldbuilding brings up like the bubonic plague. 

Voldemort’s agenda is built on prejudice towards Muggles and Muggleborns, but the plot just validates the negative perception of them—at the end of the day, being a wizard is what’s special. The Statute of Secrecy is the foundation of the main concept—blood supremacists believe wizards shouldn’t be hidden away—but only vague, barely-there answers are given to why it exists (a Chekhov’s gun that was never fired). 

There are love potions that function like date rape drugs (even Harry was given one by a girl who wanted him to ask her out), potions that force people to tell the truth, potions that literally let you disguise yourself as another person, but the ethics are never talked about, and the laws are so lax that three twelve-year-olds broke them and were never caught. 

But at the same time, the worldbuilding is so authentic, because it transforms the wizarding world into straight-up fridge horror. The everyday horrors are just accepted and rolled with. A corrupt government, constant obliviation of Muggles, slavery that isn’t even talked about. These things aren’t obvious to us as readers, or to the wizards as characters, because they match up to the real world, which is filled with things that are horrifying if you dig deeper. The multiple, normalised forms of abuse, police brutality, the violence in prisons that nothing is done about, the glaringly obvious cultural problems we have with consent, etc. 

The abusive authoritative figures in HP, like Rufus Scrimgeour, Cornelius Fudge, Dumbledore, Umbridge, etc, are so authentic because real-life politicians and people in high places of power behave that way, and their abuse is excused. 

The wizarding world is just like the real world. Corrupt, prejudiced, messed up, but if you’re privileged, or at least have certain privileges, you’re probably not going to notice. The ultimate problem is that the plot doesn’t acknowledge a lot of fridge horror things are messed up either, which is why it miserably fails. 

#harry potter #shoddy worldbuilding #flaws #plotholes #ron weasley #hermione granger #draco malfoy #jk rowling #tom riddle #lord voldemort #dumbledore #rufus scrimgeour #cornelius fudge #dolores umbridge #ginny weasley #molly weasley #arthur weasley #pansy parkinson #fleur delacour #luna lovegood #lavendar brown #cho chang #hagrid #sirius black #severus snape #james potter #remus lupin #amortentia #veritaserum #polyjuice potion

[snail-speed]

Hot take: G4 Equestria was destined to fall apart sooner or later

When news of G5 first broke out, I was among the many that were weirded out over G5 Equestria being split among the three pony tribes, with no other species mentioned. But since then I've rewatched G4 and all I can say is... yeah, I can see why they split apart.

G4 Equestria wasn't started due to the pony tribes putting aside their differences, it was formed out of necessity to quite literally not freeze to death. The union of the tribes wasn't done by the populace as a whole, but because three individuals were thankfully less bigoted than their superiors.

And even though it had been god-knows-how-many years since the founding of Equestria, ponies were STILL racist. All that Cozy and Chrysalis had to do in the series finale was say "lol mud ponies amirite" for a good chunk of the population to immediately disregard social order in favor of acting like lobotomites.

Even government officials, like Chancellor Neighsay, were braindead enough to seriously go on racist tirades in front of the rulers of other nations, almost causing an international conflict.

And you wanna know why they're like that?

There is zero pressure from the princesses to stop being like that.

Going back to the Chancellor Neighsay example, he is inarguably Celestia and Twilight's subordinate. Twilight only adhered to the EEA out of a desire to not act like an entitled prick, not because she literally had to do what he said. Either her or Celestia should've immediately put their hoof down the minute he started making ponies look like xenophobic nutjobs, but they didn't.

Who's to say that most, if not all, other government officials aren't like him? The general population sure as hell is, Cozy and Chrysalis proved all they needed was a trigger to start blowing spaghetti. And the only reason Neighsay got better was because it just so happened that the villain of the season was a pony and the heroes were (mostly) non-ponies.

Equestria very clearly lacked any sort of anti-discrimination laws or civic education. Twilight's School of Friendship looks stupid as hell in theory until you realize that her school is probably the only institution in Equestria that's actually teaching civics.

Not only that, but the princesses' reactions to shit like Neighsay, or the series finale, or whatever, are too fucking tepid to actually do anything. They just sit there ignoring the issue.

The only reason G4 Equestria was holding on was because time and time again, the nation got lucky in that the more important individuals happened to be smarter than the general populace. Again, there was no precedent, no laws or lessons or anything, they just got lucky in that the individuals that rose to power, like the Mane 6, were completely unproblematic and open-minded.

Twilight's Equestria features multiple non-pony species, so maaaaaaybe she did introduce some sort of reform. But judging by what happens in G5, I say it's possible she just opened Equestria's borders without actually getting rid of the systemic issues.

Aight that's it. That's my hot take. Snail out.

#mlp #my little pony #mlp g5 #mlp g4 #theory

[snothing]

Mar’i’s going on a date Drabble

I wrote this a while ago, and never really finished it. I decided oh what the hell and posted it. Sorry for any spelling mistakes! 

Also, love triangles, jealousy, and protective (immature) twin brother galore! 

“I can’t go on the mission tonight.”

Seven pairs of eyes peered at the seventeen-year-old Prince of Tamaran. Jake was out of his Nightwing uniform, donning instead a comfortable pair of blue jeans and a loose-fitting t-shirt. He looked out of place amongst his fellow Titans, who were all donning their superhero uniforms.

“Are you joking, Grayson?” Damian growled, getting up from the monitors. The Boy Wonder stalked right up to Jake, the opaque lens of his mask glared at the younger boy. “We’ve been staking out the warehouse for an entire week! You can’t just bail now.”

“Yeah, Jake. There’s literally a shipment coming in tonight,” Lian spoke up, arms crossed. She tried her best to rein in her disappointment, but the displeasure was evident in her features.

“Sorry, guys,” Jake responded sheepishly. “Sometimes things just pop up, but hey, tomorrow, I’ll be back in duty and ready to unleash some Tamaranean hell.”

“Like that’ll do us any good,” Jai West snorted. “You’re like one of our heavy hitters.”

Irey was inclined to agree with her brother. “Yeah, Jake. We could really use you in the air with Jon. Are you sure you can’t come tonight?”

Jake shook his head apologetically. “Positive. Look, I’m really sorry, guys. I know I really dropped the ball on this, but it’s really out of my hands.”

“Tell me, Grayson,” Damian narrowed his eyes. He resisted the urge to look up. Even though they were only two years apart, Jake held two inches over him, a source of contention for the ex-assassin. “What’s more important than stopping an illegal shipment of kryptonite firearms?”

Jake glared and stood his ground. “It’s personal.”

“Oh come on, Jake,” Jon elbowed him. “You can’t just quit on a mission like that and not tell us.”

“Yeah, tell us, Jake!” Colin Wilkes sang from the couch. “And we were supposed to get nachos after, remember? How can you say no to nachos with your bro?”

In a blink, Jai was behind him, looping an arm around his neck. A friendly smile played on his mouth. “Whatcha got that’s so important, Jakey baby? Got a hot date or something, hmm?”

Lian frowned as she eyed Jake sharply. “Well?”

“Oooh, look at his face! Jake’s gonna see his girlfriend tonight!” Jai teased, oblivious to the darkening cloud on Lian’s face. “He’s gonna get some of that-” he made crude thrusting gestures.

“Ew, Jai, stop it!” Irey scolded, hands on her hips. She smiled kindly at Jake. “Jake’s a gentlemen. He’d never be so vulgar.”

“You should hear him when we game,” Cerdian grumbled. “Boy’s got a foul mouth.”

“It’s okay, bud,” Collin patted his shoulder understandingly. “I’d chose a lady over nachos any day.”

“Tt. Figures, Grayson,” remarked Damian, haughty. “You can at least try to take this job seriously. If you weren’t so busy thinking with your-“

“I’m not going on a date!” Jake blurted out. “Mar’i is!”

Oh shit. He was not supposed to say that.

The shadows on Lian’s face disappeared. She let out a sigh of relief but slyly cast a glance at the gobsmacked Robin and SuperBoy. They looked as if Jake had slapped them in the face.

“What?” Jon asked, failing to keep the crack in his voice at bay. Beautiful, studious Mar’iand’r Grayson— his secret crush of THREE years— was going on a date— with someone— who was not him? “Mar’i? Date?”

Damian tried to tame the storm on his face, knowing damn well that Harper and Wilkes were analyzing his every move. Still, even he could not help asking dumbly, “Mar’i as in your sister?”

“What other Mar’i would it be,” Lian chided before grinning micheviously. She knew she was treading in dangerous territory, but the chaotic side of her couldn’t resist. “She’s going on a date? That’s great! It’s about damn time someone asked that girl out!”

Lian swore she could feel someone’s heat vision on her, but whose, she was not quite sure. Damian would no doubt make her pay in training later.

“No, not great, Lian!” Jake retorted, cross. “The pokar’s name is,” he paused to gag dramatically, “Brendon.”

“Oh, I remember her talking about Brendon!” Collin said thoughtfully. “They’re both in the Astrophysics club at your school, right? She said he was a senior?”

“Ooh! Mar’i’s dating a senior!” Irey exclaimed happily. “How exciting!”

Jake, Damian, and Jon all shot the speedster a glare. “Yes, Brendon. He asked her out yesterday. Said he wants to take her to get milkshakes and,” Jake stopped to shudder, “tour the observatory.”

“Oh, that’s kind of romantic, right? They’re both into space stuff— well, she’s from another planet! I think it’s sweet,” Irey tried to appease him.

“It’s tacky,” Damian snorted, arms crossed. “Who takes a girl to get a cold beverage and see stars? Overplayed and overrated.”

“Not to mention racist! Yeah, take the alien girl to an observatory! She has other interests, too, you know! Like gardening, old movies, and birdwatching!” Jon snipped. The team was shocked to see him react this way; he was characteristically optimistic, rarely ever showing aggression outside the battlefield, and now, he looked ready to explode.

“Don’t you think you three are being too harsh?” Lian asked, eyebrow raised. “It probably took a lot of courage for this guy to ask Mar’i out.”

“Uh, no, Lian, I don’t,” Jake answered, indignant. Lian promptly rolled her eyes.

Damian turned to him. “Does Grayson know about this?”

“Uh, yeah, Damian, I’d think Mar’i’d know if she were going on a date.”

“Not Mar’i, idiot. Your father!” Damian snapped. Dick was very protective of his children, especially his darling Mar’i. 

“Use our first names, dummy! If you hadn’t notice, my mom, my sister, me, and my dad all share the same last name!” Jake shot back. “And of course, he does! He’s not happy about it either, but Mom-- the traitor-- made him agree to it!”

“So what are you going to do, Jake?” Lian inquired. She eyed him suspiciously. “You better not be thinking about ruining her date.”

“Do I look like I have a death wish? She’d kill me if I did that!”

“Then what? Last time I checked, Mar’i was the same age as you, and —get this— totally capable of making her own damn decisions!”

“I disagree with Harper, ruin the date.”

“Damian!”

“I’m not going to ruin the date. I am simply going to ensure this Brendon behaves in an honorable fashion,” Jake interjected. 

Lian frowned. “So you’re gonna spy on them?”

“Yeah, essentially,” Jake conceded. “But I’d like to say reconnaissance. This ‘Brendon’ is perhaps a form of ooze monster in disguise. If that’s the case, her dear brother Jake is here to save the day! And hopefully, she’ll see that dating is gross and never do it again.”

“You’re absolutely ridiculous, you know that?” Lian sighed, exasperated. She always knew there would come a day when Mar’i would go on a date and Jake would freak out, but honestly, she expected it would either be Damian or Jon. She could not even imagine the fallout from that.

Jon cut in, placing a hand on Jake’s shoulder. Normally, he’d never condone something this immature, but today, he would make an exception. “I don’t think so Jake. You gotta do what you gotta do.”

A grin blossomed on Jake’s face. Feeling validated, he turned to the archer, a smug grin on his face. “Thank you, Jon! See, Lian, at least someone understands me! I’m just doing my brotherly duties. 

Lian rolled her eyes. 

#random drabble #drabble #next gen teen titans #jake and mar'i are twins #mar'i grayson #mari grayson #jake grayson #fanfiction #damian wayne #dick grayson #koriand'r #jon kent #lian harper #collin wilkes #jai west #irey west #superstar #demonfire