#william breaking out of the stereotype with the white hair | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spine-buster · 3 years

Text

The President Wears Prada (William Nylander) | Chapter 33

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy this one...⛪️

August 7th, 2020

Aberdeen Bloom was nervous as fuck.

It was Game 4, less than 24 hours after giving up a 3-0 lead, and the Leafs were on the brink of elimination. The boys were quiet. Focused. Only had one thing on their mind. They didn’t want to leave the bubble. They wanted to prove everybody wrong – everybody. Their coaches. Their bosses. Their fans. Their haters. The media. Themselves. This was their opportunity to show everybody what they could do.

Aberdeen couldn’t even think about it without trembling. She never in a million years thought hockey would make her feel this way. It didn’t help the love of her life was a major part of it. And it didn’t help that Alec had texted her early this morning.

Looks like the boys might cost you a writing job if they get eliminated early. Not many shenanigans to get up to in, what, ten days? Article might be a bust.

I’ll have 10,000 words written for you as promised was what she texted back. She didn’t want to stroke his ego, play along with his games, or have him think she wasn’t going to produce just because he thought they might leave early. It didn’t matter to her. Even if they did leave early, she could still do it. She knew she could. She knew she had to, because she couldn’t blow this opportunity.

They morning had been anxiety-ridden at best. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep, tossing and turning after getting off the phone with William, and then because of the text, she was barely eating breakfast. Apparently, it was noticeable to the boys, because John had come over to her table and brought her a plate stacked fruit. “If we can eat, you can eat,” he said as he set it in front of her. Mitch ended up coming to sit across from her at the table, and John took the other seat. William approached, standing six feet away, and Auston too. They were congregating, which made her even more nervous.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, forking a strawberry and putting it into her mouth reluctantly. “You guys aren’t nervous?” she posed the question to all of them.

John shrugged. “We know what we need to do. We just have to go out there and do it.”

Aberdeen didn’t know how he could be so calm, as the captain of the team. Then again, he was John fucking Tavares, and calm seemed to be his middle name. She nodded her head. “I don’t mean to be a nervous wreck. I’m just not used to playoff hockey, as you can imagine. This is all new. I never knew I could feel this way about a sport.”

That made John laugh a bit. “Not about a sport, but definitely about a book, right?”

She couldn’t help but smile slightly as she forked at a piece of watermelon. “Definitely about a book.”

“How’s the article coming along?” William asked.

Aberdeen almost dropped her fork on her plate. All the guys turned their heads towards him at the same time skeptically, then towards her at the same time, their eyebrows furrowed. Her body felt like it was on fire. She hadn’t told anybody about the article – except William, of course. She assumed Brendan sort-of-kind-of knew since he set her up for it, but she hadn’t said anything to him. William was the only one who knew. Her cheeks flushed red.

“What article?” Mitch asked, turning his head back and forth between the two of them once more.

“Yeah, what article?” Auston asked.

“It uh, it’s—um, it’s a thing for Toronto Life,” Aberdeen stuttered out.

“Toronto Life?!” Mitch repeated excitedly.

“Yeah,” she nodded slowly. “Brendan uh, Brendan put me up for it. It’s, like…an audition. I don’t know.”

“An audition? So like if it’s good they’ll publish it?” Mitch kept asking questions.

“Basically, yeah.”

“Well what’s it about?”

Aberdeen gulped. “Um, life in the bubble.”

The boys looked taken aback for a brief moment. She knew they were trying to hold back the emotion, but she could see it in their eyes. She wondered if they were thinking the worst now. She wondered if Auston was looking at her and thinking that all she wanted to do in this bubble was get a scoop like Steve Simmons. She wondered if Mitch was looking at her and thinking that she was going to write some scathing article about how he was being paid $10.8 million to not show up in the playoffs, like most articles were saying. She prepared for the worst, honestly. She really did. Because she knew these guys had been betrayed before. She knew the media were constantly down their throats. She knew all they wanted was a little reprieve from that. And now, someone they knew, someone they worked with – someone they trusted completely – was writing something about life in the bubble? When she was in the bubble with them?

“Life in the bubble, huh? So, like how we play video games the entire day ‘cause we can’t do anything else in here?” Mitch asked.

Her stomach was in knots. But that follow-up from Mitch was definitely not was she was expecting. Truth be told, she didn’t know what she was expecting – anger, maybe? Caution? Suspicion? – but it definitely wasn’t Mitch saying that. “Something like that,” she said. “I’m trying to, like, capture how hard it is for you guys to be in here. How hard it is to be away from your families. How you guys are…you know, human, and not just hockey players.”

Mitch smiled. “I think it’s gonna be a great article, then.”

“How’d William know?” Auston asked. “How’d he know before any of us?”

William knew he had to think fast. “I saw her writing it the other day when we went out to the gym,” he said. He had approached her on the sidelines that day for a brief minute or two, during a break in his workout, so if anyone was paying attention and saw them, it was an entirely plausible scenario. “She told me what she was writing.”

“Why didn’t you tell any of us?” Auston asked him.

“Because it was Aberdeen’s news to tell, not mine,” William said.

Auston looked towards Aberdeen. “You’re not writing, like, gossip about us, are you?” he asked.

“Auston, what the fuck—” William began.

“Buddy—” Mitch intervened.

“Hey now—” John piped up.

“No no, it’s fine,” she waved the boys off, staring directly at Auston. She knew exactly where Auston was coming from. She knew he trusted her. He admitted so during the phone call when his Covid-19 story became national news. She knew she had to be one hundred percent honest with him if he was going to have no qualms or suspicions about this article. “They want me to. They want me to write about shenanigans. The stereotypical stuff. But I’m not. I refuse to. I wouldn’t…you guys know I wouldn’t do that to you. And I mean…I—I haven’t told them yet that I refuse to pander to that shit, but they’ll know when they get my article.”

Auston’s entire demeanour softened at her words. It was like his entire body relaxed. He knew – he always knew – he just needed the affirmation. But then he realized what that meant. “But then what happens if you don’t get the job because you don’t give them what they want?” he asked.

Aberdeen shrugged. “Then I have keep looking for writing jobs at other magazines.”

Then and there, he realized what was on the line for Aberdeen.

***

As Aberdeen wallowed in her room, she was nervous. As she showered before the game, she was nervous. As she did her hair, she was nervous. As she got dressed, she was nervous. As she opened her door and walked out into the hallway, meeting some of the guys, she was nervous. When she got off the bus and the team went one way while she, Brendan, and Kyle went another, she clutched at her iPad pro. She looked at the boys one last time, catching Willy’s eye, before the disappeared down the hallway, where no doubt a photographer was waiting to get pictures of their outfits before they went into the locker room.

As she sat in the box with Brendan and Kyle, as always, she saw Brendan look her way. “Don’t even think about asking me how it’s gonna go tonight,” she said before he could even open his mouth.

He held his hands up in front of him. “Excuuuuuuse me.”

“I’m so nervous. I barely ate today,” she elaborated.

“Somebody get Aberdeen a Coca Cola,” he called out to no-one in particular. “She’s gonna need the sugar and the caffeine or else she’ll crash by the third period.”

She couldn’t believe how light-hearted he was being. She didn’t know if it was some type of coping mechanism or if it was because he was generally in a good mood. “How can you be so…calm? Such a jokester?”

Brendan shrugged. “If I was doom and gloom all the time, I wouldn’t still be president.”

***

Aberdeen was on the verge of tears.

Cam Atkinson had scored in the first period. Vladislav Gavrikov scored in the second period. Her heart was heavy. Her stomach was in knots. And now, the impossible: she was watching Jason Spezza fighting. The last person who should be fighting. A part of her understood what he was doing, somewhat – trying to fire up the guys – but the other part of her kept asking why the fuck does he have to do this? Where the fuck are they? Why aren’t they playing? WHY AREN’T THEY PLAYING?!

“I can’t believe they’re fucking doing this to him,” she mumbled under her breath through gritted teeth as she watched Jason skate off the ice. Her knuckles were white for how tightly her hands were in fists in front of her mask. Her leg was bouncing uncontrollably. She couldn’t believe what was happening.

“What was that?” Brendan asked, apparently hearing her, his own voice indiscernible but also just…void of any emotion.

She glanced at him quickly before shaking her head. “Nothing.” She looked over at Kyle. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling, either. What was it with these men and being so stoic?

She pressed the palms of her hands together and intertwined her fingers. “God, if you love me…” she began, mumbling into her hands. “If you love me, God, don’t let them go out like this. Not. Like. This.”

***

Boone Jenner scored in the third period. It was 3-0. This was it.

Aberdeen had to come to terms with the fact that they were leaving early. She had to come to terms with the fact that the boys would lose, again. They’d be out of the bubble. She knew that was probably a silver lining, but these guys so desperately just wanted to play hockey and play hockey and win, and for them to crash out like this was just going to be the worst. They’d never hear the end of it. Bee McTavish told her about last year, about how they lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 and how hard it was on the boys, particularly Morgan, and how awful the media was to them, and Aberdeen didn’t want to think about what the media would say now. She didn’t want to think about what they’d say about Fred. About Mitch. About Morgan. About John.

About William.

But just as Aberdeen came out of her thoughts, she noticed something weird on the ice. It wasn’t the regular line out there. Sheldon was doing something different. It was…well, it seemed to be the nuclear option. All the top goal scorers were on the ice. William, Mitch, Zach, Auston, and John. Hustling all over the ice. Passing the puck. Shooting at the net.

And then, with just less than four minutes left, William scored.

Aberdeen jumped out of her seat and screamed. The boys celebrated briefly, but they knew more work needed to be done. She looked over at Brendan, who wasn’t blinking as he looked down at the ice. She looked at Kyle, who wasn’t blinking either.

“Please God…please…” she whispered to herself.

Sheldon kept out the nuclear option. They were young. They could do it.

John Tavares scored only forty seconds later.

“Holy fucking shit,” Aberdeen stood up from her seat, saying her words loud enough for Brendan and Kyle to hear. “Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit.”

She barely breathed a single breath for the next two and a half minutes. She was standing with her hands over her mouth over her mask and her body was completely still as she watched every move on the ice like a hawk.

William, to Auston, to Zach, who scored to tie it at 3-3.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!!!!” she screamed as the boys really celebrated on the ice now. She banged her fists on the counter in front of her as she watched Zach jump on top of William as all the boys on the ice huddled together excitedly. She swore she heard some happy swears from Kyle, and she definitely heard some happy swears from the extra players who were sitting in the seats right below them where the seat covers ended. She barely remembered the period ending.

“They’re gonna fucking do it,” she said to no-one in particular. “They’re gonna fucking do it. They’re gonna make a comeback.”

Everything was a blur as Aberdeen sat back down into her seat. The overtime period. The lines. The minutes. She felt like she was in the twilight zone – some alternate universe where time stood still and nothing else mattered besides hockey. Not even just hockey – nothing else mattered besides this game and what was happening right here, right now. Seven minutes into overtime, Morgan drew a tripping penalty. An enraged Nick Foligno was sent to the penalty box. The puck dropped. It was passed. Marner to Tavares. Tavares to Matthews.

Auston let it rip and scored.

“WHAT!!!!! WHAT!!!!!” Aberdeen screamed louder than she ever had in her life as she jumped up from her seat like a rocket and threw the pen she was holding out into the stands. She began pumping her fist in front of her and pointing out onto the ice. “THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, BABY! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!” she shrieked, her jaw somewhere between her face and the floor but her smile taking up her entire face. Then came the excited, can’t-believe-what-I-just-witnessed high pitched uncontrollable laughs. She looked over to Brendan and Kyle. They were stoic. She liked to believe they already freaked out and she missed it.

“Down 3-0 in the third period!” she screamed at them. “Down 3-0 in the third period! Can you believe it?!”

“What are you doing waiting up here? Go down there,” Brendan said, nodding his head towards the exit.

Aberdeen bolted out of the box and rushed towards the locker room as quickly as her feet could take her. Once she got there, she saw the boys filing in, screaming ‘Woooo!’s and ‘Let’s fucking go, baby!’s. William entered the locker room first. He noticed her standing in the room almost immediately and rushed over to her.

She held her breath.

He picked her up and spun her around, causing her to squeal until he set her down. He was wet and sweaty and she could see the droplets of sweat dripping down his face but God if he didn’t look incredible and like the perfect human specimen. “Let’s gooooo!” he screamed once he set her down.

“Let’s gooooo!” she repeated, noticing more of the boys make their way in. Clifford. Spezza. Kerfoot. Barrie. Kasperi. Hyman. Engvall. Rielly. Tavares. Holl. Dermott. Everybody. Everybody. They all came in screaming and did the exact same thing that William did, lifting her up and spinning her around excitedly as they continued to scream and go their stalls and start stripping in front of her. They probably weren’t allowed to do that – they definitely weren’t allowed to do that, be that close together – but it didn’t matter right now. Nobody cared.

“You guys gave me a fucking heart attack!” she yelled at them, clutching her heart as she looked around the room at all of them. She saw a couple of them giggling as they undid their hockey tape and threw it into the garbage.

“Wouldn’t have been a Leafs series without one!” Morgan joked.

Sheldon walked into the room and high-fived Aberdeen. Then Auston walked in and the boys started screaming and yelling all over again. “Let’s fucking goooo, Aberdeen!” he screamed as he picked her up too, one last twirl, before setting her down. “Let’s fucking go, baby!” he screamed to everyone in the room.

It was at that point that Brendan and Kyle walked into the room. Aberdeen composed herself as much as possible as she faded into the background, watching Sheldon give his post-game speech. Everybody looked so happy. So excited.

They could fucking do this.

***

Aberdeen was typing like a furious mad woman in the Notes on her phone. She wanted to write – needed to write all the authentic feelings that were in the air right now as she waited on the bus for everyone. She needed to remember this moment. Every single detail of it. What was said. What was heard. The smiles. The spins. How she was still dizzy.

“Hey Aberdeen! You made it on to TV!” Mitch yelled from the middle of the bus.

Everyone’s head popped up, and she watched as all the guys already on the bus took off their headphones. “What?!” she shrieked.

“They caught you celebrating in the box!” he said, turning his phone and showing her the video.

Aberdeen heard all of the boys get up out of their seats and crowd behind her to watch the video. She noticed the Sportsnet logo on the bottom of screen first and foremost, then listened as she heard the announcers describing the scene, which they replayed in slow fucking motion. “I think that young lady is indicative of most of Leafs Nation right now!” she heard Jim Hughson’s voice as the video showed her jumping up from her seat and throwing her pen. The boys behind her were howling as they watched, and when she began pumping her fist in front of her, they laughed some more. Slightly embarrassed, Aberdeen buried her head in her hands and shook her head. “It’s always me! Why is it always me that gets caught doing these things?!”

“The camera loves you, Aberdeen!” Mitch giggled.

“It happens to all the wives and girlfriends at some point,” Morgan said as most of the guys went back to their seats on the bus.

“But I’m not a wife. Or a girlfriend!”

She could tell Morgan was smiling behind his mask. “Not yet,” he mumbled to himself, shrugging.

Aberdeen turned red. She sat back down in her seat and continued typing away on her phone furiously, making sure nobody saw her skin hue.

***

It was only when everybody got back to the hotel when Aberdeen had to stop typing, but by then, she was sure she’d gotten every feeling. Everybody was still buzzed as they rode two at a time in the elevator up to their floor, and she could still feel the energy even when she was bottled up in her room – like everybody else – and it was eerily silent after just having been so loud.

She had just finished changing into her pajamas when she heard her phone buzz. She knew it was William texting, so she grabbed her phone immediately, ready for his request to FaceTime.

open ur door really slowly so it doesn’t make any noise

Her eyes bulged out of her head. She set her phone down and rushed over to her door, not bothering to look out the peephole, but doing exactly what she was told. She opened it slowly, carefully, making sure not to make a peep. She looked out into the hallway, down to the other wing, and saw William’s head popping out of his own room. He rushed out, closing the door quietly before rushing over to her wing.

“William,” she whispered. Her heart was beating out of her chest. He was not allowed to do this. He was not allowed to do this. She watched as he made his way over. “William what are you—”

She was silenced by his slipping past her and into her room, putting his hand over hers to shut the door slowly so it didn’t make a clicking sound. When it was closed, she tried one more time. “Willy—”

Her attempt was futile. He crashed his lips against hers, wrapping his arms around her as he squeezed her against his body, so much so that he could lift her up in his arms and she could wrap her legs around his torso. He stuck his tongue down her throat. She moaned out at the sensation before realizing that he was walking them into her bathroom – her bathroom that faced the open area in front of the elevators, and not facing or sharing a wall with her room neighbour. He kicked the door closed with his foot before setting her down on the marble vanity sink, her legs still wrapped around his body keeping him close.

“Take this off,” he mumbled as he tugged violently at her pajama shirt, almost ripping it as she shoved her off her body and threw it across the bathroom. She pulled on his t-shirt too, throwing it in the same direction as they crashed their lips against each other’s again.

“We’re not supposed to be doing this,” she whispered out after he bit down on her bottom lip and pulled it away from her. “You’re not supposed to be in my room. We’re breaking the rules.”

“Isn’t that half the fun?” he quipped, a small smirk on his face. Aberdeen could feel her body get hot – hotter than it already was. This was so wrong. So wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be in her room. They weren’t supposed to be touching. They weren’t supposed to be kissing. They weren’t supposed to be doing any of it, yet here Aberdeen was, her body heating up and her core getting even hotter. She scratched her nails down William’s broad and toned chest as he kissed a trail down her neck and to her breasts, sucking and biting down at her nipples gently, causing her to gasp out.

He immediately put his hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide. He looked up at her from where he was at her breasts. “You can’t be too loud or else we’ll get caught.”

Oh my fucking God. Now she really felt her body light up like a fire. She whimpered slightly. “But Willy—” she tried to mumble against his hand.

“Shhhh…” he cooed. “Can you be quiet, Aberdeen? Can you be quiet while I fuck you?” He was waiting for an answer. She felt a shiver run up her spine. She nodded her head. “That’s my girl.”

William continued paying attention to her breasts before kissing his way back up to her lips and sticking his tongue down her throat again. Aberdeen ran her fingers through his hair and tugged on it slightly before scratching down his back and pulling down his trackpants and underwear. He did the same to her, letting his fingers play with the wet folds of her pussy until he heard whimpers from her again. “Quiiiiiet, Aberdeen,” he cooed once more, bringing his hand that was just playing with her pussy up to her lips.

She grabbed his hand in both her hands and sucked his fingers into her mouth. “I’m not going to be able to,” she whispered, shaking her head.

William pulled her off the marble vanity, grabbing her hips and spinning her around so her back was against his chest. They were able to see each other through the mirror. Aberdeen watched as William’s hand snaked around her body and down to her hot core again. “You’re going to have to be quiet or we’ll get caught,” he whispered huskily in her ear as he played with her core again. Her legs were shaking at the feeling. She gripped on to the vanity.

“Fuck me raw, Willy,” she begged. She had her own tricks up her sleeve. If William was going to play this game, she was going to play hers. She watched his reaction in the mirror and could see his pupils dilate. “I started birth control. It’s okay.”

“You what?”

“I started birth control a month ago. It was supposed to be a surprise but—”

“—Aberdeen—”

“—Please Willy,” she begged, her voice breathless. She could feel his hard cock against her body and was so desperate for it, she didn’t care how wrong this was. “Fuck me raw. Fuck. Me. Raw.”

He bent her over the vanity. She stuck her ass out and kept her eyes on him through the mirror, watching as he positioned himself at her entrance, sliding into her easily. She cried out at the sensation, feeling his hand almost automatically cover her mouth to silence her. When he began moving in and out of her, the sound of their flesh smacking together, she didn’t know if she should close her eyes to revel in the feeling of his slick, hard cock filling her up, or if she should keep her eyes open to watch him fucking her hard and fast through the mirror. She chose the latter. She and William had had many sexual escapades before (sexcapades, if you will), but nothing had been as hot or as raw or as dangerous as this was. The exhilaration of doing a completely banned act – banned since they figured out they were working together, even more so banned now – was giving her the ultimate rush.

His hand was still over her mouth as she arched her back and William pulled her back against his chest. She could feel herself getting close, and when William’s other hand snaked around once more to play with her clit, she tried to cry out but couldn’t. “Are you gonna be quiet when I make you cum?”

She shook her head. “I won’t. I can’t.”

He thrusted into her harder, trying to make a point. She whimpered again and his hand somehow tightened around her mouth. “Are you gonna be quiet?” he asked again. She looked at him through the mirror, seeing the absolute fire in his eyes. She knew what he was looking for. She knew he would tease her and tease her and tease her until she agreed to what he was asking. She nodded slowly. He smiled. “Good.”

He quickened his pace, harder and faster and rougher than before, and Aberdeen continued to watch them fucking through the mirror until she could feel closer and closer to her sweet release. Eventually, her legs began to shake, and she could feel an intense orgasm rush through every single inch of her body. She tried to stay as quiet as possible, but the feeling was too much, and her whimpers escaped her, though they were much quieter than the usual vocal performances she usually gave when she and William had sex, and though William still had his hand over her mouth. At the sound of her stifled whimpers she could feel William’s hot cum spill inside her. The feeling was hot and raw and simultaneously everything she imagined it would be and feel like but also completely new and unlike anything she could have ever expected. His own small grunts escaped his mouth as he felt himself empty inside of her, revelling in the feeling of filling her completely. He eventually let go of her mouth, and her body bent over against the marble vanity again, unable to stand up straight due to the long, intense orgasm. He tried to catch his breath as he continued to watch her body shake, the last of her orgasm rushing through her. He could see her chest rising and falling from her trying to catch her breath.

It was a few minutes before Aberdeen and William could regain their breaths. He slipped out of her slowly, and she whimpered again at the loss of him, still bent over the vanity, though she could still feel a slickness between her thighs. She felt his body bend too, his chest on her back, and felt him kiss her shoulders delicately. She craned her neck to get a look at him. “I better get a writing job soon. I don’t think we’re gonna be able to hold it back for much longer,” she whispered.

William giggled – a low, rumbly giggle from his chest as he smiled and continued placing kisses on her shoulder. “I agree,” he whispered back. “We gotta make sure you get that Toronto Life job.”

She bit her lip. “Did it feel good for you?”

He nodded. “Of course. What about for you? Did it feel different?”

“It felt fucking amazing,” she nodded. “It…it did feel different. I…you’re the first one I’ve ever let fuck me raw,” she admitted.

William nodded in understanding. He knew what she was really saying – that this was, at least physically, the ultimate form of trust, and he was the only one in her life, ever, who she trusted that much. “We can keep doing whatever you’re more comfortable with,” he said.

“I liked this. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back,” she giggled slightly.

William smiled. He pulled her back upright and, at that point, she could stand on her own again. She spun around so she was facing him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him down to kiss him. They stood in her bathroom kissing for a while until William pulled away slightly. “I love you so much,” he mumbled.

“I love you too.”

“Sorry I made you break the rules…yet again,” he smiled mischievously.

Aberdeen winked. “Isn’t that half the fun?”

163 notes · View notes

chiseler · 3 years

Text

Larger Than Life

In 1927, Albert Bertanzetti and his three-year-old son, William, were taking a stroll when they stopped to join a small crowd watching a film being shot on the streets of Los Angeles. During a break in the shoot, Albert suggested his son go show the director, Jules White, his little trick. So William toddled over to White and tugged on his pant leg. When he had White’s attention, William flipped over, went into a headstand and began spinning in circles. White was so taken with the trick he gave the young Bertanzetti a small uncredited role in the two-reel short, Wedded Blisters. Afterward, William earned a regular role in the popular Mickey McGuire series of shorts, where he played Mickey Rooney’s younger brother Billy. Taking prevailing anti-Italian sentiments into consideration, in the credits he was cited as “Billy Barty.”

Barty had been born in Millsboro, Pennsylvania in 1924, but when it was determined he had hay fever, Albert decided to move the family West, to the dry, clean air of Hollywood. Depending on how you look at it, hay fever was the least of Barty’s problems. Or maybe not, given how things worked out.

Apart from hay fever, Barty had also been born with cartilage–hair hypoplasia, a form of dwarfism. Being extremely small for his age at three (as an adult he stood three-foot-nine), when it came to early film roles he was almost exclusively relegated to playing diaper clad infants. It was a director’s dream—having an infant on set who could not only take direction, but could walk, run, talk and do tricks as well. As a result, along with the Mickey McGuire shorts, he played infants in everything from the all-star live action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland (1933) to Golddiggers of 1933 (1933) to Bride of Frankenstein (1935). In fact Barty, tiny as he was, would play diaper-clad infants until he hit puberty.

Over a career that would span seven decades, along with infants, Barty would play his share of elves, leprechauns, imps, Hobbits, trolls, assorted other fairy tale and fantasy characters, clowns, court jesters, pygmies, sideshow performers and mad scientist assistants. Ironically, for having appeared in over two hundred films and television shows, Barty did not appear in the three touchstones of American Dwarf-centric cinema: Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), Sam Newfield’s The Terror of Tiny Town (1938), or Mervin LeRoy’s The Wizard of Oz (1939). No, although he would appear in the behind-the-scenes comedy Under the Rainbow (1981), contrary to the general assumption, Billy Barty was never an original Munchkin. There are reasons for this.

In 1932 when Browning was working on Freaks, Barty was only eight, he was not a professional carnival freak, and he was too busy with the Mickey McGuire shorts. And after the shorts’ seven-year run ended in 1934—two years before casting began on Tiny Town or The Wizard of Oz—Albert Bertanzetti, recognizing talent in all of his children, pulled Billy out of the movies and sent the whole family on the vaudeville circuit.

Now, 1935 was hardly the most opportune time to try and break into vaudeville. As an entertainment form it had been on life support for a decade already, with theaters either closing down or becoming movie palaces with performances, almost as a sad afterthought, taking place after that evening’s double feature had ended. Those performers who could were trying to break into pictures, and those who couldn’t were vanishing without a trace. Now here was Barty, who’d been working regularly in films for nearly ten years, trying to break into vaudeville. Nevertheless, Billy and Sisters, as they were touted, marched on, with a musical act featuring Barty’s sister Evelyn on piano and accordion, his other sister Dede playing violin, and Barty himself on drums. They all sang and danced a little, and the adolescent Barty told jokes and did impressions. In his later years he remembered the time fondly, mostly because it gave him a chance at that early age to see much of North America.

In 1942 Barty enrolled in college in Los Angeles and majored in journalism, hoping to become a sportswriter. While there, he joined the football and basketball teams, where he was both a novelty and a ringer. He also played second base on a semi-professional baseball team for a spell, where by his own account he was walked forty-five times.

Instead of pursuing work as a sports columnist after graduation, he returned to show business. Later he was quoted as saying, “You don’t see any little people doing newscasts, you don’t see any doing sports writing, you don’t see any sports announcing, you don’t see any coaches, but there are little people who are capable of doing these things, who have proven themselves.” You get the sense there was a little personal bitterness there, hinting he may have been forced back to Hollywood because that was the only place he could find work.

By 1947, now an adult with a gravelly but high-pitched voice, Barty sported a boxer’s face on a disproportionately large head. In many ways he resembled a diminutive William Demarest, and in many roles would adopt Demarest’s gruff but lovable demeanor. Shedding the diaper at last, he nevertheless picked up where he left off, playing assorted pygmies and leprechauns and elves, usually for cheap laughs.

In the early Fifties he became a regular member of Spike Jones musical comedy ensemble, The City Slickers, and was a big hit on Jones TV shows, where he became especially known for his slapstick, spot-on Liberace impression, and his ability to roll off his piano bench into a head spin, a trick which continued to serve him well.

Growing up, Barty said, he had no idea he was different, that his parents never told him there were things he couldn’t do because he was too short. By the time he was thirty, however, he’d come to learn the rest of the world was not quite as accepting as his parents. In 1957, Barty put out a call for little people from around the country to join him for a get together in Reno. Only twenty people showed up to that first convention, but it became the foundation for Little People of America, a support and advocacy group pushing for equitable treatment and civil rights for dwarfs, midgets and other people of unusually small stature. His aim was to ensure little people across the country would be treated fairly, would be able to get jobs, and would be granted the same accessibility rights afforded the normally-sized. It always struck me as a little odd that, for all his tireless efforts lobbying to normalize perceptions and treatment of little people throughout American culture, Barty, without much apparent gumption, would continue to take roles some might call demeaning, or at the very least helped cement those stereotypes he was fighting so hard to break. Perhaps to him it was simply paying work, it was showbiz, and he knew full well what his role was within that world. But the apparent ironic contrast between his activism and his work would lead to a public tiff in the Seventies with fellow small actor Hervé Villechaize of Fantasy Island. Barty, who’d appeared on the show, felt Villechaize was undercutting all his work when he said bluntly that people like him and Barty “were midgets, not actors.”

After the second annual Little People of America convention, Barty began courting Shirley Bolingbroke, a little person who had attended the meeting. When he proposed, however, she declined, telling him she was a devout Mormon, and so would never consider marrying anyone outside the faith. In 1962 Barty relented and converted to the church of Latter-day Saints, and the two were married. Although Mormon insiders and publicists have made a big deal of Barty’s enthusiastic True Believer status within LDS, it would be many years before he agreed to get baptized and receive full member status, and then only to participate in his son’s baptism.

Around the time of the marriage, as Barty was making regular TV appearances on various comedy and variety shows (including a recurring role on Peter Gunn), he also began hosting a weekday afternoon local kid’s show in Los Angeles which was called either Billy Barty’s Big Top or Billy Barty’s Big Show, depending on who’s doing the remembering. That stint may well have brought him to the attention of the sinister Sid and Marty Krofft, who in the late Sixties conscripted Barty to become a regular on several Krofft shows including H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and later Sigmund The Sea Monster, where he played the titular sea monster opposite Rip Taylor and aging child star Johnny Whittaker.

For all the low-brow antics and his uncredited roles in Elvis movies, it must be said Barty was always a compelling and charismatic screen presence, a, yes, larger than life character. In those few rare instances when he played roles that made no references at all to his height—like Abe Kusich, the shady drunken cockfighter in Day of the Locust or Ludwig, Rod Steiger’s sidekick in W.C. Fields and Me, he proved himself an electric onscreen presence who could dominate any scene.

(Just a quick aside, in 1980 Ralph Bakshi rotoscoped Barty to portray both Bilbo and Samwise Baggins in his animated version of Lord of the Rings. I wasn’t aware of that at the time, but thinking back on it now, the way both characters moved, it seems so obvious I was watching another Billy Barty performance.)

In 1975, around the same time he opened a Southern California roller rink he called “Billy Barty’s Roller Fantasy, Barty established The Billy Barty Foundation. As an adjunct to Little People of America, the Foundation aimed to provide practical assistance—money, adaptive equipment, etc.—to little people in need, particularly children. And after campaigning for George H.W. Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign, he sat on a panel of advisors working to hammer out the details of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which President Bush signed into law in 1990.

At the same time he was sitting on that panel, Barty was also producing, directing and starring in Short Ribs, a syndicated sketch comedy series featuring an all-dwarf cast including Patty Maloney, Jimmy Briscoe and Joe Gieb. The show, which was modeled after SCTV and SNL, only aired in the Los Angeles area and ran thirteen weeks. After the show went off the air, Barty was slapped with two lawsuits, one from the show’s co-producer William Winckler and one from the show’s co-writer Warren Taylor, both of whom claimed Barty owed them money. The suits ended up, inevitably, in small claims court. Barty lost both suits, and even though few people had ever heard of, let alone seen the show, news of Barty in small claims court was too much for reporters to resist, and the case received smirking national attention.

After the suits were settled, Barty continued to work, but a bit more sporadically. He had one-off roles on Frasier, Jack’s Place, and a few low-budget quickies, and seemed to be edging more into voice roles, providing characterizations for a Batman cartoon and The Rescuers Down Under, to name a couple. But he was still working until the end, when he ended up in the hospital with cardiopulmonary issues in late 2000. He died on December 23rd of that year at age 73.

In the late Eighties he told an interviewer, “I’ve never looked at acting as ‘Ahhh!’ and ‘Gee!’ I started in vaudeville when I was five and for me it was just walking on a stage and I’m gonna perform. Later on I was impressed by many things, like when I worked with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in Tough Guys. That was an ‘Ahhh!’ for me. When I look back, even today, I guess I can go ‘Ahhh!’ because I worked with Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933 when I was nine. Then they were just grown-ups on the stage. As I look back, I’m more awed now than I was when I was actually doing it.”

Those who knew and worked with Barty always recall what a joy it was, how kind and enthusiastic and funny he was, a real spark who could enliven even the most questionable production. I would never deny that. I’ve always loved and admired Barty, and have sat through countless godawful films and TV shows simply because he had a role, no matter how small.

That said, I do have to wonder if at the end, after all his decades of work fighting for the dignity of little people everywhere, he felt like a bit of a hypocrite for spending those same years and more cementing the stereotype in the American consciousness. I also wonder if he died still wishing he’d become a sportswriter for a Des Moines daily instead.

by Jim Knipfel

7 notes · View notes

helenaspencer · 4 years

Text

intro to helena

Is that HELENA SPENCER-MAY? Wow, they do look a lot like PHOEBE DYNEVOR. I hear SHE is an EIGHTEEN year old FRESHMAN who are studying HISTORY at Luxor University. Word is they are an ARISTOCRAT student. You should watch out because they can be CHILDISH and SNOBBISH, but on the bright side they can also be GENEROUS and CHARMING. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself. [YUNI, 21, GMT, SHE/HER]

lord knows why i did this. im sorry.

01: basic information

Full Name: Lara Helena Spencer-May

Nicknames: Helena - she insists on being referred to only by her middle name.

Date Of Birth: August 12, 2002 (currently aged 18)

Zodiac: Leo sun, Leo ascendant, and Libra moon.

Place Of Birth: New York

Nationality: American and Swiss.

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Course: History (Freshman)

02: physical

Faceclaim: Phoebe Dynevor

Ethnicity: White (Swiss, English)

Height: 173cm (5′8)

Weight: 56kg (124lbs)

Eye Colour: Blue

Hair Colour: Blonde

Distinctive Features: a tangible air of disdain for anyone who earns less than 100k a year

Clothing Preference: Helena won’t wear anything which isn’t designer, but even then, she has her preferences. Perhaps stereotypically, she adores Chanel, closely followed by Versace. Her sense of style is fairly feminine, with a lot of dresses and skirts, and she wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair of jeans.

03: personality

Overview

Positive Traits: Generous, charming, loyal, creative

Negative Traits: Childish, snobbish, insincere, judgemental

MBTI: ESTP

Religious Beliefs: Atheist

Description

Helena has pretty much the emotional maturity of Veruca Salt. Which is to say, she cares about one person in the world, and that is herself. She doesn’t make long term plans, instead pursuing short term happiness - which means that whatever she wants in that moment, she will go for. And if you stand between her and whatever she wants, no matter how dumb - whether it’s a bag or a college - she reacts dramatically. She’s not above throwing tantrums, literally stomping her feet and screaming, scratching, you name it, until she gets what she asked for. She once keyed an ex boyfriend’s car because he understandably refused to invite her to his sister’s wedding and Helena had already picked out her (white) outfit. In addition to this, Helena’s sheltered upbringing has made her extremely ignorant to the world as a whole. She fails to comprehend how anyone can not be rich, since it’s all she knows, and so she tends to assume that poor people are always lazy and unambitious. As a result, she refuses to associate herself with anyone who is a scholarship student or comes from a poor family, as she insists that mindset might be contagious and drag her down. Her mood can switch very rapidly - one minute she is being sweet and charming to you, and the next minute she is screaming and crying. She’s also extremely adept at crocodile tears, which she uses on everyone she wants something from, seeing no problem with manipulating others if it gets her what she wants. She generally has a very superior outlook on herself as opposed to others, hence why she just assumes she’s going to inherit the May family’s company, over her cousins.

04: past

Biography:

Lara Helena Spencer-May was born in New York to a Swiss father, Matteo May, and English mother, Margaret Spencer. Her father works for the family’s pharmaceutical company, her mother is from British landed gentry and works as a classicist for the British Museum. Helena spent the first few years of her life in New York, before moving back to Switzerland, although she continued to spend a lot of time in New York over the summer, where she would later meet Zander Driskell.

Although her first name is legally Lara, Helena forced everyone to call her by her middle name from the age of eleven. Firstly, she thought that Lara sounded common, and slightly too similar to her cousin Loren’s name, and secondly, as her classicist mother told her the story of Helen of Troy, who she had been named after - and there was nothing which sounded better in Helena’s shallow mind than being beautiful enough that men started wars over you.

Helena is her parents only child, and she was absolutely spoiled rotten from the moment she was born. Her father gives her anything she asks for, and pretty much dotes on her; her mother also treats her as if she’s the centre of the universe. As a result, Helena has become accustomed to never being told no, and has no idea of a good way to act if she is - hence her tendency to throw tantrums if she doesn’t immediately get what she wants. She’s far too used to being able to manipulate daddy with a few tears into giving her an extra 5k in her bank account.

From the age of six, Helena was sent away to attend Ecole des Roches, a prestigious boarding school in Paris. She would either come back to Switzerland over the summer, or spend summers in New York. One such summer was spent in Saratoga Springs when she was sixteen, where she met Zander Driskell - and who she began dating, with Helena deciding to stay in New York after summer ended to be closer. Despite this, their relationship quickly turned toxic, with Helena’s spoiled and selfish nature making it difficult for her to put up with Zander not giving her everything she wanted - they broke up and got back together multiple times over the course of the next year, before a particularly bad break up caused Helena to up and leave for Paris again, finally finishing her high school education in Paris.

Then came the time for college. To be honest, Helena has no actual interest in gaining a degree. As far as she is concerned, she is just going to get a degree for the sake of having one, as she is convinced she is going to inherit the family business. Still, she had ambitions to attend the University of St Andrews in Scotland, primarily because she knew Kate Middleton met Prince William there, and Helena would love to be a Queen one day. However, her grandparents instead gently pushed her to attend Luxor University, suggesting that Helena would benefit from some bonding time with her cousins. She instantly refused - and was thus incredibly shocked when for once, her father put his foot down, insisting that either Helena attend Luxor, or he would cut her allowance. No number of tantrums, screaming, threats to jump out of the window, or run away would work - Helena ended up at Luxor, much to her upset, surrounded by her dreaded scholarship students.

Timeline:

August 12 2002 - Helena is born in New York

2006 - Helena moves back to Switzerland

September 2008 - Helena is sent to Paris to attend boarding school. She returns to either Zurich or New York over the summers following.

Summer 2018 - Helena meets and begins a relationship with Zander Driskell. They have many fights and an on and off relationship.

December 2019 - After a particularly bad argument, Helena throws a tantrum and leaves New York, returning to Paris to finish her high school education.

September 2020- Helena begins attending Luxor University.... fashionably late.

05: other trivia

- Helena speaks fluent Swiss German, Swiss French, and English. In addition to this she is fluent in High French, since she attended school in Paris. Her accent when speaking English is sort of an amalgamation of American, English, and French due to her upbringing and her English mother, and it tends to change depending who she’s speaking to - if she’s speaking to someone English, for instance, it will be more on the English side as she subconsciously matches them, whereas if she’s speaking in English to a French person, it becomes more French.

- Adores the British monarchy. Especially Princess Diana. And yes, Spencer means she’s a distant relation. She won’t let you forget it.

- If you call her Lara, she will spit on you.

-She loves classical paintings, and collects art. Her dorm room walls are covered with paintings and reproductions of Greek tapestries. She dresses as Helen of Troy every. single. Halloween.

- She can play the piano, and the flute. She is constantly in a stage of quitting and rejoining the concert band though, as she joins, can’t take any criticism at all, quits, and then misses it and wants to rejoin.

- Massive fan of Lana Del Rey.

06: notable connections

Within Luxor:

- Friendships: ...

- Former Relationships: Zander Driskell

- Cousins: Loren Velazquez, Zelda Reese

NPCS

- Matteo May and Margaret Spencer May: Her parents, who she has wrapped around her little finger.

07: connection ideas/wcs

Friends

Although Helena is often too childish to hold friendships for long, she can be fun for a party, so I see her having a lot of friends who she just drinks with or parties with every once for a while, without any genuine connection going on or spending too much time together

Enemies

Maybe someone who is annoyed by her antics and has been on the receiving end of one of her tantrums and thus sees the immature side of her personality as an annoyance.

Hookups

As long as she doesn’t perceive you as poor (god forbid), she loves a good hookup or friends with benefits.

08: tl;dr

Helena is highly immature, childish, and spoiled. She is rich to the point of not being able to understand or appreciate anything cheap or anyone poor in life, and looks down on pretty much anyone who isn’t at her level of rich as a result, seeing them as lazy. She truly believes she is superior to her cousins and that she’s going to inherit their family’s company, purely because she wants it that way.

#luxorintro #here is helena #loool i am sorry in advance #but feel free to dm if youd like to plot!!!!!!!

10 notes · View notes

nachohypno · 4 years

Text

William and the demon Ch. 1 - The day I met him

Before I start with this, I should introduce myself. My name is William Cooper. I’m a student at OceanVille High School. I’m not really an important person, nor I have any special power that would turn me into this story’s hero. Just what seemed to be an error, in the universe’s big scale. I’ll start with the day I met him, when everything started to go downhill.

It was an autumn morning, two months after classes began. Everything was normal at school, everyone was chatting around, making the most of their time before the first class, and etc. I don’t intend to bore you with details, but my school never stood out, nothing interesting happened.

I entered with the rest of my classmates, we knew each other from years ago. They could be dicks from time to time, but never with bad intentions. You could say we were all friends, yeah. Specially me, I liked the idea of being friends with a lot of my schoolmates just because I was nice. I believe there’s good in everyone, so I would never turn my back on a possible friend.

I went directly to my locker to grab my stuff, as I talked to my best friend, Harry. Just like me, he was an average guy. His hair was a bit longer than mine, and darker, dark blond to be precise. And his face was a bit rounder, but still good looking.

It was a normal day, we had science class, but before we met up with the rest of my friends on the hallway, we had a few minutes after. We actually were a group of 4 guys (Harry, Derek, Tony and me). We discussed normal stuff, videogames and TV shows. Some of them heard some rumors from our schoolmates, and while I found them interesting, it was nothing from another world.

My group was the best. Not socially, since we didn’t fit in any of the school stereotypes (unless you count us as videogame-loving nerds, of course). But my favorite part was that nobody bothered us. The jocks didn’t care about us enough to bother with their stupid pranks. The cheerleaders acted like we didn’t exist at all. The others were mostly friendly with us. It was perfect!

Harry patted my back and tried to get me to turn around. One second later, I discovered why. Lily passed by, she was my crush and also one of my friends (but that wasn’t important since I was friends with almost everyone). She gave me a little smile as she walked with her friends too. Man, life was perfect.

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the point. We went to science class. It was senior year and some of my classmates didn’t really give a fuck about some classes. But not science class, this one was one of the hardest ones at the school, and it was because of the professor, Mr. Sawyer. That man was really demanding when it came to schoolwork, but I actually enjoyed his class.

When I went to my place, there was already another guy sitting on the other half of the table. Harry seemed annoyed by this, we always sat together. Even when we were mad at each other. He seemed like a new guy though.

“Uh… Hey, that’s my place” Said Harry. The guy didn’t care; he was too focused on his phone to care, I guess.

Harry frowned, he touched the guy’s shoulder to get his attention, to no avail. “Man, mind if you sit, I dunno, somewhere else?”

“Dude, just go over there and stop bothering me” That sounded more like a command than a request, and I knew Harry enough to think he wouldn’t be so kind at the next time.

However, nothing happened. Harry just nodded and went away to another table. That should have been the first sign to move away from the table too, but I was too dumb to care.

Maybe I should give him the welcome? He obviously started with the wrong foot, maybe he was a good guy! I thought. Poor silly me.

I started thinking about how should I introduce myself as I sat back on the chair. Meeting new people always made me nervous. “Hi! My name is William!” No, too much energy.

“’Sup, name’s William” No, sounds weird.

Funny thing, Mr. Sawyer doesn’t let you change your science partner unless he states otherwise. You’re stuck with whoever you sit with in the first class. But he entered after a bit, stared at my new classmate, and just shrugged it off.

Finally, the guy left his phone on the table and looked over at me. “Kevin, nice to meet ya” said him, extending his hand. I had a look at him before shaking hands. He was good-looking, despite having a childish face with a mischievous smile, but for some reason that made me feel comfortable with him? He also had his black hair neatly combed. He wore a leather jacket with a white shirt, and blue jeans.

“Hi, I’m William” I finally said. We shook hands, then he remained silent once again.

He kept staring at me, like there was something on my face, but suddenly he sighed and looked away.

A bit later, as Mr. Sawyer was explaining today’s lesson, I noticed Kevin was looking at the rest of my classmates, then he stopped at one of the big jocks. Coincidentally, the guy got up and ran to the door, probably to the bathroom. The professor sighed “Damn millennial kids, thinking they can do whatever they want” Kevin smiled. I shrugged it off and went back to paying attention to the professor. The rest of the class was mostly normal, besides the fact that my classmate started typing on his phone, while Mr. Sawyer saw using phones in his class like disrespecting him and would normally send you to the principal.

Class was over, but Kevin asked me if he could stick around for today. “I’m new here and would appreciate having a bit of company”

“Sure, I guess” I grabbed my stuff and walked out of the room. I gave him a quick tour of the school before heading back with my friends. He didn’t seem interested at all on what I had to say, but still followed me around.

We passed by the now broken trophy display. The principal was yelling at someone besides it, and I noticed it was the jock that left the classroom before. From what I’ve heard, he threw a rock to it, ‘accidentally’. And of course, the principal wasn’t buying it.

It wasn’t my problem so I walked past them, heading to my locker, but Kevin was a bit interested on it. He started asking if I found that funny, but I didn’t. “That seemed so… random. I’m curious about why but I wouldn’t get myself involved on it”

We finally arrived with my friends, and Harry wasn’t happy to see Kevin with me.

“Hey guys, this is the new guy” I said, pointing to Kevin.

“Name’s Kevin, nice to meet ya” They were mostly silent, so I assumed Harry told them about what happened with the seats. However, if he did, they didn’t care at all, because a minute later they started talking with him like he was another guy at the group.

The rest of the day was as normal as it could be, luckily.

Kevin got really friendly with the rest of the guys pretty quickly, like it was natural for him. And the others (except for Harry, who was still bitter) seemed to like him a lot. Derek asked him if he wanted to come around his house to play some games. I found that weird because he wasn’t that social normally, and would not ask a stranger to come over his place.

I shrugged it off and went on with my day.

Derek’s POV

After school, I went home with Kevin. He gave me a ride on his bike, and it was fantastic. I’ve never been on a bike before, and now I’m glad I did. I knew he was new around the school and I shouldn’t take strangers to my house, but something about him felt… right, I guess? I couldn’t really tell, but I felt compelled to invite him over today.

We entered the house after parking his bike on the garage and greeted my mom. She was a bit surprised to see Kevin, but I made up that we were friends since the classes started. Again, I felt compelled to, because I never lied about anything before. Never

But it wasn’t weird at all! Just something normal anyone does at some point in time, I assumed.

“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Michaels” Said my new pal. Mom seemed to like him already, which was a bit surprising, too! After a bit of chit chat with her, we went directly to my room.

“Nice place you’ve got here, man” Said Kevin. It was a normal bedroom; I’ve had a few posters around from movies I liked. Everything was neat and organized, luckily. My room was like my sanctuary or something, so I tried to leave it as nice as possible.

“Thanks! So, wanna play something?” I said, I didn’t actually know if Kevin liked videogames, we actually haven’t spoken that much. Now that I think of it, we barely spoke at all, why did I invite him over?

Kevin stared at me, and those thoughts vanished as soon as they appeared. He was a good friend, a really good one.

“Nah, not now. Let’s have a chat, alright? Just two good friends speaking”

“Sure, a chat sounds neat” I said, sitting on a nearby chair.

“Good. Good.” Said the new guy, I was curious. What would he want to talk about? “I’ve heard you’re a goody two shoes around school, is that true?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it like that, but I do really enjoy sticking to the rules…” Who told him that about me? And geez, that was fast! Didn’t he arrive just today?

“So, you don’t like breaking the rules, do you?” What’s with all these questions? He kept staring at me, expecting an answer I supposed. My worries vanished and a calm washed over me. I felt ready to answer anything. It was the right thing to do.

“No, I don’t like breaking the rules” I said, dreamily. I felt amazing for answering that!

“Wrong answer, you do like breaking the rules” I nodded, he was actually right. I liked breaking the rules. Wait, what? “In fact” He continued “You’re not a goody two shoes, you’re more like a rebel, you love breaking the rules.”

I stopped worrying, he was right. I wasn’t a goody two shoes like everyone said, I actually loved breaking the rules. A little smile formed on my face, I felt like on a cloud. “Pfft. This is way too easy.” I could hear the new guy say “C’mon, get up, we’ll have a chat about your dressing choices now.”

I did as told, we had to talk about my dressing choices, Kevin was right! I saw him snapping his fingers and a leather jacket, similar to his one, appeared on my bed. Along with a white shirt and worn out jeans. It all seemed my size, amazing! I didn’t ask him how he did that with his fingers, I didn’t need to ask any questions!

William’s POV

Next day at school, Derek was nowhere to be found. We waited for him on the hallway, which was already weird since he was always the first one to arrive. He HATED being late to class.

Some time passed and it was time to enter the first class. And that’s when he came in. Kevin appeared wearing a tank top with jeans, but that wasn’t important. Derek was walking alongside him, wearing a similar leather jacket and white shirt. And sunglasses. His hair was a bit darker and longer than yesterday, too.

We stared amazed, as the guys walked towards us.

“How’s it going?” asked the new Derek. Kevin was smiling a lot, and I could swear he winked at me.

“Dude, what the hell?! You look awesome! And did you dye your hair?” said Tony. Harry was amazed by it as well, but refused to go near Kevin.

“Thanks man! Yeah, Kev here helped a lot, he told me he would help me be as cool as himself!”

“Neat! Can you help me too?” asked Tony, he seemed excited by Derek’s makeover. But something was weird, he seemed… off. It wasn’t a normal change, something was up. I tried to shrug that weird feeling away, but it seemed impossible.

Derek still made me a bit nervous, and he got a bike. ‘HOW DO YOU GET A BIKE THAT FITS YOUR NEW STYLE IN LESS THAN A DAY?’ I thought, but again just shrugged it off. It wasn’t my problem.

I went on with my day, trying to ignore his new ‘style’ as he liked to call it. He refused to enter the first class, but entered 15 minutes later after the hall monitor threatened him with detention.

And Kevin was also awfully close to me now, like I was his favorite friend from the group. I tried to ignore that too, excusing his behavior thinking it was because I was nice with him on his first day.

Yeah, that should be it. Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? We’re just high school seniors!

Boy, was I wrong.

Chapter 2 is already available in my Patreon! And, by pledging you also get access to other stories before they go public!

#William and the demon #mind control #tf #demon #brainwash #brainwashing

24 notes · View notes

goth-bunny · 5 years

Photo

I’ve been losing my mind over the hints at Bloodhound’s backstory that it’s unreal. So I wrote a lengthy blog entry about it. It’s at 1,711 words under the Read More.

(If you see this post on @bloodhound-and-jackrabbit, don’t worry, that’s my sideblog!)

Alright. Anyone who knows me, within the Apex fandom and outside of it too, knows that I am in love with Bloodhound. The season 3 launch is killing me! But don’t worry! I only have good things to talk about it!

A bit of a background: I was into playing Overwatch from late October 2018 to May 2019 thanks to my ex. But it wasn’t until I saw someone tweet about a new video game franchise having a canonically nonbinary character. Unfortunately, I felt like the genre wouldn’t be my cup of tea as I have minimal experience with battle royales, let alone FPS. The teaser trailer did manage to convince me otherwise with its diverse cast of characters, fast pacing, and killer song choice. I didn’t pick up the game until the end of February, which was a few days after my ex dumped me. I needed a distraction from it; so hell, why not play that hot new game?

I launch the game and don’t think too much, selecting the Tutorial mode, because of course, it’s a brand new game with different controls and mechanics from Overwatch. Imagine my surprise that I see the very Legend who’s piqued my interest in the series in the first place! After the Tutorial, I try the regular Play mode and got matched up with someone playing as Mirage. Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing so well, and I was nervous about speaking on mic at the time as I sound too feminine to be read as androgynous. I don’t remember much besides dying in a skirmish and being unable to use ziplines as they weren’t a part of the tutorial. After that match, I spent the remaining time checking out Bloodhound in the Legends gallery. What stood out the most for me were their quips or voicelines; a lot of them were very comforting for me to hear, especially in a low point of my life.

Weeks later, I was still talking to my ex, but it was clear that things were completely different than before. I played Overwatch without him anyway, but it wasn’t the same. I was still unable to come to terms that I do have somewhat of a crush on Bloodhound until early June; I had a dream that the two of us were alone in the woods, and they found it safe to take off their helmet and mask around me. They revealed themself as an androgynous black person with short, curly red hair, and I kissed them on the cheek. Two more dreams would succeed that: one where we were both dressed in black and red suits on a date, and the other one was…it ended up being not safe for work, to say the least. These all lead me to formulating a self-insert fanfic, and then finally giving Apex a second chance just so I can figure out the lore and feel of the game. Initially, if I have not gotten into Overwatch, I wouldn’t have considered playing Apex Legends even if I learned there was a nonbinary character.

Within the past 3 months, Bloodhound has been a comforting character for me. They were absolutely relatable to someone like me; besides the fact that they’re nonbinary, they also happened to be a pagan with an affinity for birds, sharp objects, and mortality.

The main catalyst for writing this post is the season 3 launch. Last week, when the launch trailer debuted, I lost sleep over seeing Bloodhound sharpening their handy hunting knife with a whetstone as they’re surrounded by numerous candles in their dropship room. The very scene made me fall even harder with them, as I too have always loved candles, and even more so when I started identifying as a pagan since last year. However, it was the season launch itself that made me even more anxious.

During the past 3 months I’ve immersed myself into the fandom, I’ve come up with multiple headcanons for Bloodhound, a great portion of them never having been published here on Tumblr or discussed publicly, the most notable being their backstory: I’ve figured that Bloodhound would have an Afro-Latina/Filipina biological mother (Nimfa Vilhjalmsdottir) who remarried to a white man named Sigurdur (Sigurdur Steinnson), thus Bloodhound ending up with a meathead stepbrother named Albert. The parents had a military background, and they all lived on a planet with a high population of humans of Icelandic or Nordic descent. As a kid, Bloodhound was kind of an oddball, preferring to spend lengthy periods of time outdoors and exploring the woods or reading books about fantasy and adventure. One time, little Bloodhound was flocked by an unkindess of ravens, much to their parents’ concern. As they grew older, they became more and more visibly uncomfortable with their birth gender, and their stepfather’s pressure on them to join the military. As Bloodhound turned 18, the tension between them and their stepfather grew, thus prompting them ran away from home and join a group of ragtag freedom fighters dedicated to preserving the Frontier lands from militarization and imperialism. Eventually, Bloodhound would end up knocking at death’s door in the middle of the woods after a young Anita Williams snipes them from a distance. This would be a turning point in their life, where they’d meet the Allfather and promise to be devoted to him. Coming back to the mortal realm, Bloodhound sees that their group has lost the battle, and decided to go into hiding, hopping from planet to planet to run away from their past.

However, it was teased that Bloodhound’s parents are named Johann and Brigida, and that they’re probably both scientists and not war veterans. Not disapproving or judgmental of their child’s gender of interests, as far as the loading screen with Johann’s letter to Brigida suggests. I would be fine with this, but it opens up a new can of worms for me.

Before I point what these potential worms would be, let me remind you that the new season dropped at the same time I had my psychiatrist appointment where I finally brought my mom over to talk with her about me, thus revealing that what I originally speculated was completely wrong.

Okay, here’s the can of worms: Johann and Brigida, and Artur to an extent, are very “white” sounding names. I would be lying if I denied that I didn’t speculate Bloodhound as a white person during the first few weeks after the game’s release. If the races of Bloodhound and their relatives were revealed to be all white, I’m worried that it’s going to cement the falsehood of Vikings or Norse pagans as being exclusively white, which was not the case in reality. I’m worried that Bloodhound being revealed as explicitly white would mean that they would be co-opted as white supremacist symbol because a sizeable amount of neo-Nazis/white supremacists/bigots practice Norse Paganism (which I learned the hard way a few weeks back).

Another concern would be Bloodhound getting a face reveal, which would undermine a lot of fans’ headcanons for them, mine included. The headcanons are as diverse as the Apex Legends cast itself and a lot of heart and soul have been poured out into them, so catastrophe is inevitable if the official unmasked!Bloodhound face will be revealed.

On the bright side, there are some things I hope will be executed instead of my worries. Bloodhound and their relatives are never portrayed explicitly, and are instead, shown as silhouettes, in addition to them never getting their face shown even when they have removed their helmet and mask. Another thing that would be nice to see is that they’d be ambiguously brown; Bloodhound being ambiguously brown would help break many stereotypes about them as a person, one of which is that one has to be white to be a Norse pagan, which is an open practice, anyway, and that Vikings have traveled across the globe and intermingled with different civilizations, meaning that a white viking homogeneity is racist and historically inaccurate. Besides, names like Johann, Artur, and Brigida can be just as white a name as Elizabeth Harris (that’s Cupcakke the rapper’s real name by the way!). It would also be a relief if the writers pull a Riley Cavanaugh and never hint at Bloodhound’s birth gender and keep them as androgynous as possible.

It’s also been speculated that Johann and Artur are Icelandic, and that Brigida is Italian, meaning that Bloodhound is potentially mixed-race. Let’s not forget that Apex Legends takes place in the 28th century, and people of all races are in space. Sure, there’s space ableism and imperialism, and to an extent, transphobia, but it would be unrealistic for racial homogeny to still exist.

Bloodhound has been a great source of comfort for me these past few months. I see so much of myself in them: besides being nonbinary, I’m also a pagan who venerates a psychopomp, love books and birds, introverted but sympathetic of others, and unashamed of my identity. I’ve seen my confidence spike upwards, knowing that a person like them exists. That I am much more than my weaknesses and how people perceive me. That I still have so much to live for. That I am not alone.

Before I end, I’m actually glad that Bloodhound grew up with a loving and accepting family, and thus destroying what projection of my hurt I have on them; I assumed that my mom would be immensely disappointed in me being nonbinary and bi, so I wanted someone who would be going through the same predicament as me, so that there’ll be some common ground. But it seems we do have enough common ground, having scientist parents who moved to a different place from my place of birth. Last August, my psychiatrist asked me how can I be a happy nonbinary person, in a world that sees everything in a male/female dichotomy? Perhaps I’ve found my answer in the form of Bloodhound.

If you have reached this paragraph, thank you so much for taking the time to read my post in its entirety. I just want to get my feelings off my chest, as Bloodhound has been very important to me.

Have you any questions or reactions, please feel free to message me!

#apex legends #apex legends bloodhound #bloodhound apex legends #bloodhound #bloth hoondr #stuff jun says #long post

21 notes · View notes

blackfreethinkers · 4 years

Link

This is where helicoptering and black mothering diverge. While helicopter moms are busy multiplying their children’s privilege and advantages, many black moms are fighting to protect their children from the structural disadvantages that keep opportunity just out of reach.

The burden of inequality

Even in an age of rising inequality, white children find socioeconomic mobility easier to come by than do black children. In Richard Chetty’s landmark study of 20 million Americans, one in 10 black kids who grew up poor made it to the top two quintiles of earners as adults. For white kids, that figure was one in four.

Inequality follows black children to school, a place traditionally seen as a vehicle for mobility. Black children are disciplined more often and more harshly than their white classmates. They are more likely to be arrested in school—in part because they are more likely to have police officers stationed at their schools. From preschool (pdf) onward, black children are suspended at almost four times the rate of their white peers, and research shows that teachers are more likely to expect black children, and especially black boys, to display “challenging behavior” even before they do anything wrong.

The threats extend beyond the classroom. Black teens go to jail for committing fewer crimes than their white counterparts. Black children are overrepresented in arrests for nebulous, low-level charges like loitering, breaking curfew, and suspicion. During the admissions scandal, many observers pointed out that black mothers had faced criminal charges for trying to get their kids into better schools, too—under very different circumstances. Tanya McDowell (sometimes written as Tonya) was charged with larceny for “stealing” $15,000 from Norwalk, Connecticut by sending her son to a public school there when they actually lived in homeless shelters in nearby, poorer Bridgeport. Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced to jail in Ohio for using her father’s address to send her kids to a better-funded public school.

“When my child comes to me and tells me something is wrong, I believe my children first.” These fundamentally different odds create separate motivations for black and white parents to be protective, even when they share class backgrounds. Riché Barnes, an anthropologist at Yale and the author of Raising the Race: Black Career Women Redefine Marriage, Motherhood, and Community, says the term “good school” holds different meanings for some black families. While white parents might be looking for schools that are mostly white and have high test scores, those same environments can actually hurt black students.

Research shows that non-black teachers routinely underestimate black children’s academic potential. Black kids who have had at least one black teacher by third grade are 7% more likely to graduate from high school and 13% more likely to enroll in college than their counterparts without black teachers.

In light of these statistics, Barnes says black parents are beginning to think, “Maybe my kids are better off in a school where the teachers love them and care about them and their heritage and want to teach them to love themselves and their heritage. And that ends up being just as important as if you do well on that test.”

For Winnie Caldwell, a 30-year-old mom raising her son in St. Louis, the challenge of finding the right school for her child came into focus in 2014, when her son was one of two black children in his third grade class. It was the year that Michael Brown, a black teenager, was killed by a white police officer in nearby Ferguson, Missouri. Caldwell says her son’s teacher, who was white, asked the class about the shooting and made it clear that she believed Brown was at fault. When Caldwell’s son came home that day, he asked, “Is that what’s going to happen to me when I’m 18? If I’m walking down the street, and the police find me, am I gonna die?”

Aisha Wadud, a 36-year-old mother of four from Minneapolis, says she is “very stern with other adults when it comes to [her] children and their care.” She’s a fierce advocate for them the way her mother was for her—Wadud remembers her mother taking on her younger sister’s school after a teacher called her a racial slur, the culmination of a trend of purposefully neglecting black students. “When my child comes to me and tells me something is wrong, I believe my children first,” Wadud says of her own approach to parenting. “And then I take action.”

The mothers who shared their stories with Quartz were clear that not all interactions with their children’s educators have been negative. “There are teachers and staff out here that advocate for our kids when we don’t have the time to do so. As a single mom, I know both sides,” Caldwell says. Alston, the Atlanta mother, is pleased with her children’s schools and appreciates that when she raises concerns, the teachers and administrators take them seriously.

Still, the toll of adversarial interactions with other authority figures in their children’s lives weighs on black parents. Just under half of parents of black children are very satisfied with their children’s schools, compared with 60% of parents overall and 65% of parents of white children. Dissatisfaction and concern over their children’s ability to feel confident and succeed in schools where they might be overlooked or mistreated leads some black parents to seek alternatives to traditional school settings—including schools with Afrocentric curricula or homeschooling.

Since the 2014 incident, Caldwell’s son, now 13, has moved to a majority-black, all-boys school. He also founded a nationwide book club for black boys. Though Caldwell says she did not choose her son’s new school based on its racial composition, she enjoys seeing him surrounded by other boys who look like him. “They have this sense of brotherhood, and I can tell that that’s infinitely helped his education.”

Parenting while black

Black parents who are forced to teach their children how to cope with inequality have to contend with another set of prejudices themselves, including being blamed for their children’s supposed misdeeds. A Google search of “African American parenting” or “Black parenting” returns results on authoritarianism, hostility, and toxic stress. Featured articles blame black parents for preschoolers’ bad behavior, adolescents’ obesity, and teens’ drug use. In the top results, there is nothing to be found about watchful protectiveness. (Much of this is about black mothers—black fathers are often excluded from conversations about parenting because academia and pop culture alike have perpetuated the stereotype that they do not parent, though research shows that black men actually spend more time with their children than men of other racial groups, regardless of whether they live full-time with their kids.)

“They’re seen as bad mothers,” says Barnes. “That’s a historical stereotype: That black women were bad mothers to their own children while at the same time being the women who raised white people [as enslaved caregivers and domestic servants].”

“They’re seen as bad mothers.”

Black mothers’ vigilance and protectiveness long predates the intensive parenting boom in the 1990s. According to Barnes, whose work examines contemporary strategic mothering, black women have been watchful parents since slavery. “The community of enslaved women was charged on their own with ensuring the survival of those children, whether biological or not. And that’s a framework that has lasted throughout the African American experience,” she says.

Reporter Dani McClain agrees. In her account of Black motherhood, We Live for the We, she writes, “Black women have had to inhabit a different understanding of motherhood in order to navigate American life. If we merely accepted the status quo and failed to challenge the forces that have kept black people and women oppressed, then we participated in our own and our children’s destruction.” McClain’s words point to another reality of black motherhood—that raising healthy, happy black children is political. Under slavery and Jim Crow, when racial violence routinely stole black children away, keeping a black family together was an act of rebellion. McClain points out that even today, black mothers are charged with organizing movements while still mourning children lost to shootings by police and vigilantes.

Even so, mainstream narratives of motherhood exclude black women. When the author Neferti Austin began the process of adopting a child, she struggled to find books written by or for black mothers. The resources she found seemed to assume all moms were white and overlooked experiences common to black mothers and mothers-to-be: navigating higher-risk pregnancies, caring for children’s natural hair, explaining and combating systemic racism, or having “the talk” about interacting with police.

Austin decided to publish a book of her own, titled Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America. Similarly frustrated with the lack of resources for new black mothers, Dani McClain wrote her book on black motherhood, too. Neither is a how-to guide, but both offer a comforting and all-too-rare message to black mothers: you are not alone.

This message is perhaps the oldest strategy black women have employed to sustain themselves and their families. Throughout history, black women have collectively raised communities of children, biologically related and not. These “othermothers,” as black feminist scholar Patricia Hill Collins terms them, provide crucial support to black children and to one another. Together, they face down inequality and seemingly unbeatable odds to ensure their families survive—and thrive. In Barnes’ words, black women have always known, “[Mothering] is not just about raising children… It’s not just about making sure people are alive. It’s also about making sure that their spirits are intact, that their souls are intact, that they are finding joy.”

3 notes · View notes

onestowatch · 6 years

Text

10 Ones to Catch at AFROPUNK 2018

Add this to your summer festival list: AFROPUNK Festival. Taking place in Brooklyn, New York, on Aug. 25 & 26, this is a time to celebrate the booming black community. Rooted in activism and self-care, AFROPUNK is going global as they take the festivities to London, Paris, and Atlanta. Over the years, AFROPUNK has become a critically acclaimed festival with features in The New York Times, TeenVogue, GQ Style and The Guardian.

As for this year’s lineup, we handpicked 10 rebellious creatives who are a testament to the unapologetically real culture that defines AFROPUNK. Also, follow our Spotify playlist for your pregame and car ride turn-up.

Mahalia

Based in Birmingham, England, Mahalia is an alternative R&B/soul singer-songwriter who is influenced by Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Mahalia started her creative journey as a preteen, writing songs and playing the guitar. In 2016, she released her debut album Diary of Me on Asylum Records UK. In the past couple of years, she has continued to release singles featuring artists like Little Simz and Buddy. Mahalia’s voice is smooth, relaxing and invites the listener in to experience her story.

youtube

Blac Rabbit

Photo Credit: Angel Boyd

Let me introduce you to the psychedelic rock band, Blac Rabbit. Along the lines of California surfer/beach rock bands, these guys root themselves in groovy guitar lines and echoing melodies. Formed by twin brothers Amiri and Rahiem Taylor, the band is heavily influenced by The Beatles, Tame Impala, Stevie Wonder, Radiohead, and many more. As the Taylor’s dominate on guitar and vocals, their friends have joined them to make a four-piece live band with Patrick Jones on drums, and Josh Lugo on bass. In 2017, the band released a self-titled EP.

youtube

Lion Babe

Lion Babe is the very depiction of its name, with huge hair and an even bigger voice. Jillian Hervey is the vocalist of Lion Babe and accompanying her is producer Lucas Goodman. This duo found each other in New York City at a college party. Taking a funky retro spin of R&B, they are continuing to fuse generations of music together. In 2016, they came out with Begin, a full-length that features Childish Gambino.

youtube

Nova Twins

Talk about rebels -- this punk rock duo is dominating the scene with their aggressive guitar lines and strong raspy voices. The Nova Twins – EP arrived on the scene in 2016, breaking away from the stereotype of black female artists singing soul and R&B. Georgia South plays the bass guitar, while Amy Love belts her voice through the speakers, bringing the Nova Twin experience to the listeners’ ears. South and Love are influenced by power houses like Missy Elliot, Betty Davis, Stevie Wonder, and Jack White.

youtube

Fantastic Negrito

Fantastic Negrito brings a dynamic grit to soul music. Xavier Dphrepaulezz fuses blues, rock and funk all together to tell stories of battles, tragedies and redemption. After a severe car accident, he moved back to his hometown of Oakland. After the birth of his son, he returned to his passion: performing a soulful hybrid of R&B and rock. The name Fantastic Negrito is a representation of Xavier’s rebirth in his musical career.

youtube

Denzel Curry

Born to Bahamian and Native American parents near Miami, Denzel Curry began writing poetry in elementary school, while battle rapping in a local Boys & Girls Club. The natural flow of his lyricism and the intenseness of his voice derive from his influences 2PAC and Buju Banton. His 2016 album Imperial features artists like Rick Ross and Joey Bada$$, adding to his already impressive traction in the rap community. Curry continues to gain momentum with recent singles “Percs,” “Uh huh,” and “Sumo.”

youtube

Yuna

Malaysian pop vocalist and guitarist, Yuna was born in Kedah, starting her creative journey at the age of 14. While attending law school, she realized her need for a creative outlet and started performing. Gaining attention by posting her music on MySpace, she signed to the Fader Label in 2011. In 2012, she debuted at festivals like Lollapalooza, while having hit singles produced by Pharrell Williams. Her latest full-length album, Chapters, featured Usher and Jhene Aiko. Yuna’s music is soulful and heartfelt, resembling her influences Lauryn Hill, Bjork, and Aaliyah.

youtube

Smino

Smino is not new to Ones To Watch, but we will never get tired of featuring him. He is a rapper and multi-instrumentalist from St. Louis, Missouri, who later transplanted to Chicago to contribute to the rising music scene there. Most of Smino’s releases are in collaboration with the Zero Fatigue collective, a conglomerate made of Smino, producer Monte Booker, and vocalist Ravyn Lenae. After his debut album, blkswn, he released several entertaining singles like “Anita” and “New Coupe, Who Dis?” featuring Mick Jenkins. Get ready to dance when Smino takes the stage at AFROPUNK.

youtube

Jamila Woods

Jamila Woods’ voice is as pure as the summer days are long. Not just a vocalist, she participates in activism, poetry, and songwriting inspired by Toni Morrison, Erykah Badu and Kendrick Lamar. Early in her career, she signed to Chicago’s Closed Sessions label as a solo artist, releasing her debut album HEAVN. Woods has been featured on multiple Chance The Rapper tracks such as “Sunday Candy” and “Blessings.”

youtube

DUCKWRTH

DUCKWRTH is another Ones To Watch featured artist that is always exciting to keep up with. His first LP was the critically-acclaimed 2016 I’M UUGLY. An XTRA UUGLY Mixtape released just a year later, fusing together rock, hip-hop, funk and soul. Introducing not just a certain masculinity but also a unique femininity to his music, DUCKWRTH is able to show his vivacious and free-spirited soul.

youtube

#ones to catch #blac rabbit #lion babe #mahalia #nova twins #Fantastic Negrito #AFROPUNK #Denzel Curry #Yuna #Smino #Jamila Woods #DUCKWRTH

4 notes · View notes

itsmrjawsh · 3 years

Text

Respect and Accept different Cultures: The world is like a huge playground, don't expect everyone to play the same game you play.

I am publicly known as Joshua Tamboong, a Major Bachelor of Arts in History at University of Tulane, New Orleans since March 2020. I had made the decision to take this major to become a social historian and focus on the progress of the human society. As a rookie I only have tons of knowledge on a few of the different countries I have studied around the globe. One of the countries that I have studied is the Philippines, and I have learned that this country has vast amount of cultures, and ethnic groups, most of them practice foreign cultures as some of them are ethnocentric at the same time.

Colorism in the Philippines

Colorism is one of the most serious social problems in the Philippines.

There are numbers of citizens (small including ethnic groups) in the Philippines that is discriminated because of their dark skin, coily hair and flat nose which they refer to "negra/negro" and bruha."

A person will only be gorgeous when he/she is wealthy with a tall nose, clear and fairly white skin, and hair that looks neat.

Imagine being in a playground where you play a game that almost everybody dislikes, what would happen to you? You get Discriminated and Outcasted.

A Chinese-Filipino teen speaks out in Racism and Coronavirus

Ethnocentrism is sometimes related to racism, stereotyping, discrimination, or xenophobia. However, the term "ethnocentrism" does not necessarily involve a negative view of the others' race or indicate a negative connotation.

The term "ethnocentrism" was first applied in the social sciences by American sociologist William G. Sumner.

In his 1906 book, Folkways, Sumner describes ethnocentrism as "the technical name for the view of things in which one's own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it." He further characterized ethnocentrism as often leading to pride, vanity, the belief in one's own group's superiority, and contempt for outsiders.

William G. Sumner

Everyone can have a great time in the playground if they learned how to respect differences.

Reference:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnocentrism

https://interaksyon.philstar.com/breaking-news/2018/06/11/128496/history-behind-philippines-culture-colorism-skin-discrimination/amp/

https://www.rappler.com/voices/ispeak/opinion-chinese-filipino-teen-racism-coronavirus

0 notes

black-women-matter-blog · 7 years

Text

treatment of black women

The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” Those words came from Malcom X, the great human rights activist of the 1950s and 1960s. While these words were spoken back during the Civil Rights Movement they still harbor some truth today. Although its the 21st century, black women are still at the receiving end of racist and misogynistic views. I experience these situations first-hand everyday as black woman, so I feel like it’s time for a change. In order to fix the way people view black women society needs to stop the spread of stereotypes/double standards, derogatory ideas, and start treating black women like they matter. Unfortunately, stereotypes are something every age, race, sex, and class has to deal with. Stereotypes are used to categorize or define groups based on certain beliefs. They aren’t anything new to black women, they’ve been stereotyped for a very long time. Black women have been stereotyped as "ghetto", loud, mean, jealous, and plenty of other outrageous slurs. They are so strongly linked to these stereotypes that it has become a “black thing”. If a nonblack person were to use slang commonly used in black culture, someone might call them out for sounding ghetto. Some people may even say “you sound black” to describe the way someone talks. There should be no such thing as sounding “black” or sounding “white”. Society needs to stop associating race with how “intelligent” someone sounds when they speak, it’s incredibly degrading. Also, it’s very odd that if a black women isn’t afraid to voice her opinions she is labeled as loud, but if a Latina does it, it’s considered sexy. If a black girl wears her hair 2 / 4 cornrows or an afro, it’s ghetto (and in some cases distracting) but if white girl does it, it’s “trendy”. In the article, "It’s A Slap In The Face When White Women Wear Black Hairstyles", Zeba Black states, "If it’s not a white model photographed in blackface, it’s an article declaring baby-hair and cornrows as the latest “trends” — even though those black styles have been around forever. These are the kind of double standards black women are sick of. Stereotypes and double standards are one of the main reasons misogyny is still around. From the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” Society must break out of the habit of stereotyping others, even if it’s unintentional. These stereotypes feed into the way people view black women. Black women are so often disrespected and belittled that it has become a normal thing to see them as inferior to everyone else. It happens all the time on social media, people degrading black women for their skin color, their hair, and even their body. Even black men like to chime in from time to time. They’ll call black women all types of nasty things on their social media accounts and then when black women retaliate they’re either jealous or dramatic. They’re even black men that like to degrade black women to uplift other women. Oddly enough, not only are they black, but they’re mother is too. Instead of tweeted about how they would never date “a ghetto black girl”, maybe they should consider having a long conversation with their black mother about self-love. But, on the topic of dating it’s important to note that black women are sometimes viewed as undesirable. In 2010, ¼ of black women over the age of 35 were never married, and the percentage continues to rise. Maybe it is because more and more women in general are just independent this day in age. However, it’s important to note that a white woman is more 3 / 4 than twice more likely to marry at that age than black women. So with that being said, it is time to come to terms with the way black women are being treated on a daily basis. For a while now, issues dealing with black women have been not focused on the way they should. Black women have been put on the back burner of society as if they don't matter. Over 60,000 black women in America are currently missing, and within a one week time period 10 black teenage girls have gone missing in DC. Most of these cases are predicted to be sex trafficking. Many have just now found out about these numbers recently because of the black community speaking up about it on social media. Not because of actual media outlets like Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. Which is unfortunately not as surprising as it should be. Kennedi High for example, an autistic 16 year-old girl had just recently gone missing after school. Later, she posted a snapchat explaining she was fine, but a lot of people speculated otherwise. It wasn’t until the black community became outraged about it when a few media outlets starting covering this story. But, if these were young white women going missing, there would without a doubt, be immediate media coverage. This is nothing new to the black community though. Before the Sandra Bland case, many had never heard any other stories about black women being killed by cops. People standing in support of Sandra Bland started the hashtag #SayHerName to bring light to black women being killed by police. They did it for Darnesha Harris, Malissa Williams, Yvette Smith, and many others as well. These situations are happening, and we can’t keep shoving these things under the rug and pretend like they aren’t. In a perfect world, the black woman wouldn’t have to worry about being stereotyped, degraded, double standards and how they are treated. Sadly, as of now a perfect world does not exist. That black woman will have to continue to accept the fact that before she even 4 / 4 speaks to someone they may have already labeled her based off of what she looks like. She will have understand that some people will look at her as less than them just because of the pigment in her skin and the curl in her hair. As a double minority, she will never be put first. She will have to work twice as hard to achieve what some people can be handed. And maybe even twice as hard to find a man too, who knows. But change exists. Society can stop the spread of stereotypes, double standards, derogatory ideas, and change the way black women are treated as long as people as a whole come together and speak up. It’s about time the world stopped normalizing all these things. They are not normal. Society must stand up and speak out to shed a light on these things happening today and show that black women matter too.

#black girls #black women #black women matter #black lives matter #black liberation #change the world

4 notes · View notes

chiseler · 5 years

Text

LARGER THAN LIFE

Instead of pursuing work as a sports columnist after graduation, he returned to show business. Later he was quoted as saying, “You don't see any little people doing newscasts, you don't see any doing sports writing, you don't see any sports announcing, you don't see any coaches, but there are little people who are capable of doing these things, who have proven themselves.” You get the sense there was a little personal bitterness there, hinting he may have been forced back to Hollywood because that was the only place he could find work.

In the late Eighties he told an interviewer, “I’ve never looked at acting as ‘Ahhh!’ and ‘Gee!’ I started in vaudeville when I was five and for me it was just walking on a stage and I'm gonna perform. Later on I was impressed by many things, like when I worked with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas in Tough Guys. That was an ‘Ahhh!’ for me. When I look back, even today, I guess I can go ‘Ahhh!’ because I worked with Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell in Gold Diggers of 1933 when I was nine. Then they were just grown-ups on the stage. As I look back, I'm more awed now than I was when I was actually doing it.”

by Jim Knipfel

5 notes · View notes

blackhistoryday · 7 years

Text

I told you about messing with those white girls: Michael Che, Leah McSweeney and the dangerous history of fragile white women

When comedian Michael Che chose to no longer engage with Leah McSweeney after connecting on a dating app, McSweeney responded with a podcast where she bashed Che, calling him a woman hater, “arrogant and so rude and disrespectful…” Michael Che produced the actual text conversations, exposing McSweeney in her lies. She tried to defend herself in the “chetuation”, by saying, amongst other things, “I’m not making excuses at all but he had this very condescending tone when he did the rejection part and that like…got me like…stirred me up inside.” False accusations made against black men and boys by white women are not a phenomenon that started with McSweeney. Just this past week we read about Carolyn Bryant, the white woman whose accusations led to 14-year-old Emmett Till’s gruesome murder in 1955, recanting her initial story that Till made verbal and sexual advances that left her “scared to death.” While Che’s interaction with Leah only led to temporary slander (thank Big Brotha Gawd Almighty that he didn’t delete that thread), it did remind us of the dangerous history of white women who have chosen to lie about their encounters with black men, and the overall belief that the black man is a threat to the fragile white woman.

The white race has always considered itself to be the superior race in all aspects of life. As Thomas Jefferson says in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “I advance it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.” The white woman in america has always been placed on a pedestal with her long hair and her white skin. She is seen as pure and angelic; a person who can do no wrong. A quote from Phyllis Palmer in Mamta Accapadi’s piece “When White Women Cry: How White Women’s Tears Oppress Women of Color,” says, "the problem for white women is that their privilege is based on accepting the image of goodness, which is powerlessness.” Accapadi then breaks it down, “This powerlessness informs the nature of white womanhood. Put in simple terms, male privilege positions the nature of womanhood, while white privilege through history positions a white woman's reality as the universal norm of womanhood…” The need for the white race to love the white woman and to protect her at all costs has caused the black man to be seen as a threat to her purity. As Maya Angelou says, “As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, black men desired them and black women worked for them.”

Historically, black men have been stereotyped as hypersexualized savage brutes that only want to rape and fetishize white women. This thought helped white women who were caught with their black male slaves. It also helped Victoria Price and Ruby Bates falsely accuse Charles Weems, Clarence Norris, Andy Wright, Ozie Powell, Olen Montgomery, Eugene Williams, Willie Roberson, Roy Wright and Haywood Patterson, 9 young black men (who would eventually be called the Scottsboro Boys) of rape after a brawl led to the discovery of them on a freight with all men, which could have possibly led to, “moral charges.” The fear of black men hurting white women led Charles Stuart to describe a “dark-skinned mugger” in a “dangerous part of town” as the person who killed his wife. It would be discovered that it was actually Stuart himself who killed her. The understanding that law enforcement will always take a white woman at her word when accusing a black man threw the scent off of Bonnie Sweeten, who told authorities that two black men in a Cadillac kidnapped her and her daughter when she had in fact stolen money from family and her job and taken her kid to Disney. It’s the reason why 19-year-old Darryl Hunt was convicted without evidence of the rape and murder of a white women. Even after DNA proved he didn’t commit the crime, he was still imprisoned for 9 more years.

The thought that Obama’s presidency led to a post-racial america would lead some to believe that incidents like those mentioned above are a thing of the past; yet, just in 2015, american terrorist Dylan Roof cited the need to protect the pure white woman as a reason for his decision to murder 9 members of Mother Emanuel AME stating, “you rape our women and you’re taking over our country.” In February of last year, 5 teenagers in Brooklyn were accused of raping a white woman at gunpoint. After sending police on a hunt to find the boys she eventually recanted her story, and it was discovered that she was actually having sex in the park with her own father. In November, Leiha Ann-Sue Artman accused four black men of kidnapping, raping, and holding her hostage for ransom. After more questioning, it was discovered that she made the whole story up, and she got a year in jail for it –significantly less time than the men they would have charged for the crime had it gone further. The belief that black men should always be eager and honored to sexualize, fetishize and be in the presence of white womanhood came through with a chance encounter between Lena Dunham and Odell Beckham in which she assumed, “The vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to [f—k] it? Is it wearing a … yep, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go back to my cell phone.’ It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, ‘This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.’” Even our 44th President could not get away from this narrative when Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said that she, “felt a little bit threatened, if you will, in the attitude that he had,” after he had the audacity to start walking away from her mid sentence.

As Dr. Nsenga K. Burton wrote, “Law-enforcement agencies pull out all the stops when a white woman says a black man or woman has committed a crime against her, even when the white woman is the actual predator. The behavior of the white woman and law enforcement plays to the worst aspects of our society: the idea that black men in particular and blacks in general are violent and obsessed with white women to such an extent that white women need to be protected from blacks at all costs.” In season 1 of The Boondocks, when Sarah jokingly says to Tom, “ I told you about messing with those white girls,” the implications of these words go deeper than our laughter. Michael Che and Odell Beckham survived the false accusations with just slanderous conversations; however, false accusations led Emmett Till to his death, and have landed many black men in prison. Black mothers have had to have conversations with their sons about the possible dangers of interactions with white women, and while we always like to have hope that these situations will somehow disappear, we have to remain in a reality driven state of mind. It’s the only way we will survive.

#BlackHistoryDay

168 notes · View notes

gsasustainability · 3 years

Photo

Josie Ko

My Lady with the Mekle Lippis

In my work, I have responded to a poem by William Dunbar titled which records one of the first documentations of African women in Scotland. This project led me to learning very labour-intensive practises, engaging with wood carving, beading, sewing, and knitting. Each of these components meant hours of slow and back breaking work, performatively illustrating the labour of women and marginalised communities. By integrating craft practises into my work, I use its relegated status in the art world to address the identity politics of marginalised groups. In addition, by interacting with craft practises, my work celebrates the art from these communities that is often left out the canon of art history.

This rejection of the Western art canon and the white gallery space is a theme that perpetuates throughout my work. Inspired by Black artists before me such as Chris Ofili, Micklene Thomas and Tschabalala Self, in my work I incorporate mixed media techniques, reusing found materials I get from charity shops, Gumtree and Circular Arts Network, to present a new reimaged depiction of the Black body.

The collection of these materials and embellishments makes the work loud, seducing the viewer into looking at it. My figures consequently become unavoidably noticeable, counteracting the erasure of Black women in art history. Furthermore, the textual and tactile qualities of the work, encourages the figures to be touched, provoking audience engagement while also placing myself in the piece as we see the signs of the artist’s hands. Together, my construction of the women with irregular limbs and glittery bodies, glorifies the handmade and rebelliously drifts from the norms of Western painting traditions, re-evaluating conventional Western art ideals.

Significantly, this autonomy I have towards my work speaks through the figures as they are similarly raised to a high status and stand independently as I capture the Black figures on my own terms. I do this by reimaging racist caricatures and stereotypes placed on the Black female body and turn these ‘Mammy’-like figures into empowered, historically significant symbols. At the same time, with cheap blonde hair which is clearly a wig, make up and dresses that have western origins, I consider the physical and mental changes that Black bodies go through to be seen by a predominantly white audience. Symbolically, all my figures are depicted with their eyes closed, referring to Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eyes’ where Pecola similarly shuts her eyes wishing for blue eyes. This reflects on the social construct that we are living in where white supremacist beauty ideals remain dominant.

The contrasting ideas within the work, with juxtaposing materials brought together in one cohesive piece, attempts to mimic the same duality of being Black and European at once and illustrate a shared Black experience of living with that dichotomy.

Instagram Email or email

Main top image 'My Ladye with the Mekle Lippis'

0 notes

whimsically-ominously-auspice · 4 years

Text

Did you know about two years ago i saw King Harry at a local Burger King?

I heard him speak and noticed his accent and so I kept looking at him not feeling he was a Prince of any sort.

My soulmate was screaming "That's the King!!"

I told him "okay that's great but would you shut up? I'm trying to look at This guy. He seems familiar to me and I'm at Burger King, yeah i know. Now just please!"

So I'm looking him up and down and he loos me up and down, King Harry with amusement. And im like dude what you looking at me and laughing for? And I'm all this is a set up and hes figured me out before i figured him out. And i wonder if he's got amnesia, too...

He let's me order ahead of him although he was there first... Although i had went in first, I had gotten in line second after seating my kid as we had not been to that particular Burger King before.

Then I heard him going on and on about making sure the receipt was gotten for him. Because he had forgot and it was placed on the counter and he had people with him.

I was all surely that is not the Prince of Harry he would not care about a receipt!!

Then he tells his friend in a whisper "No you should call me King. Then no one would know who i am."

"You mean us"

I looked up to see King William laughing.

Whoa shit!! My mouth dropped open! It really was them! Or him!

William turned around and his mouth dropped open at the sight of me!

"First i want you to know this wasn't planned. Second i want you to tell me where you have been"

I didn't know who he was talking to so i looked away because i was like not planned my foot and you're not tricking me hostage negotiatiator! We're not gonna be your hostages! Not today!!

I heard stuttering and mumbling. "I was waiting in the car, you didn't answer your text. And i wanted to make sure the drink order was okay"

"How's your drink order ma'am?" Asked Harry

"Great!"

The entire time my daughter is laughing. Ever since she saw Williams jaw drop she was in a fit of giggles.

"We are just doing something incognito. It was nice to see you. Pleasant surprise! And it seems you have raised her right. I hope i do the same. But why have you recognized him but not me?"

"LET'S GO! IT MIGHT NOT BE HER!" William said through clenched teeth.

Which made me laugh because it was them!! Or very good actors!!

And Harry laughed and tried to get his brother to wait.

"He's aged. He's old. That is what i recognize" I barely gasped out between giggles.

So Harry repeated in a low murmer. So next thing I know William stomps back "what do you mean he's old?!?!"

"Not him you! Shit!! Oops I mean! No! No! I don't you got it right the First time!" Finally i could quit laughing and get myself together! Im sure i looked quite the Loon of Los Lunas!!

Behind me i could hear Harry taking pictures of my daughter who was just lit up.

"It IS! LOOK AT THEM! THEIR FACES! Its all her!!! You could tell can't you Harry!!!" William had the same amused satisfied look on his face that Harry had had in the line.

It was weird because Harry was in front of me with a black beanie and all black clothes and i had a feeling. And a memory of the burglar guys from Home Alone. And i started messing around in my head from that feeling because i felt very safe and comfortable to have my own presence.

And Harry spun around and grabbed his heart. His eyes wide with shock. Then kept turning his head to look at me. Gave up and then stood next to me.

I felt he was very tall. Almost too tall, i felt he had grown into a handsome young man. And i wondered why i thought those things. And it made me cautious. So i put my hand on my hip and spread my legs a bit like Wonder Woman and in my head said "And who are we to serve today sir?!"

My soulmate was all "you feel uncomfortable but you feel you should do like that?!?!"

"Uh huh."

That is when Harry's mouth dropped. But also colors whizzed by me. Colors of me in an outfit I had worn Before that only he found striking enough to remember.

And he spun around like Wonder Woman changing into her super self and said "there"

And i said "oh well what will you be having? She wants the chicken"

He laughed and barely squeezed out "burger and fries"

"Oh we are getting milkshakes, too. Coupon"

"Oh let me see? Are you done? May I?" And he clipped a coupon

"In the mail, the mailbox that is where i got them at my house"

"Oh you live nearby?"

"Down the road"

His face turned white and he grabbed a pen and wrote my name on his hand.

"Yeah but it's okay. There's nothing to it. Just be me"

And he doubled at the waist laughing.

"I'll admit some days it ain't easy but hey what else are ya gonna do? Cant die"

He had tried to steady himself but bust laughing again.

"Yeah I know you can't be me. I'll go first"

"Please do!!"

Later, as i left, the Police Department went in and asked for all copies of the security footage. And ordered something to eat while he waited.

...... ..... ....

Back in 2008 they had visited and I had kept explaining how I for each event we needed money and who had the funds.

Harry who i had not recognized yet although i had recognized his brother, because Harry had changed outfits and was walking about and had confused me as I was super busy interrupted, "excuse me if i may, but why do you keep saying you need money? You're like the richest person we know!!"

"Oh I'm so glad you asked would you like to see my bank account?!"

"No!"

So i showed him, we got like $2000 per month for my now ex husband's wages and my money from the VA to attend school.

And he turned white and he said "so so so someone stole from you?!?!?"

I didn't know i had money. I just knew people were offering to fund it. And would say "you got money for that" Saint Luches had caught on and would say "from me" as he played my accountant when Dan was busy.

Otherwise Dan would say "there's funding for that"

So it was quite the Bermuda Triangle of communication for me to understand that it was my own money we were using and it was my own money for businesses I owned and didn't know i owned.

And my face turned white.

And that is what seeded the desire two Kings to live as peasants.

Except Harry said he also wanted to do it alone. And so now it is his blessing to do so.

They would take breaks and leave their money as it was and go back to work and do what they needed to do for their country then they would return to where they were and be at the same amount of regular money they had at where they lived.

They would stay in the USA and use USD. They would stay in England even in their castles and use regular Euros and be on a budget under the Queen whom of course would bail them out.

I posted an article not to long ago about the Young Queens wearing mall priced jewellery along with their crowns.

And so while the world is in an uproar, they're doing what they have been all along. But this time a bit louder.

And William will take his turn at living singley with his family as a peasant eating 15 year old French fries from the back seat of their nearly broken down auto.

They have a series of different lifestyles to live.

Eventually they will have to hitchhike and stumble across luck in life.

When they do, they will be disguised and without their children. And to prove the world is safer.

Which we cannot bail them out. Unless it is subzero temperature and they are not near any buildings they can seek shelter at. Or extremely hot and they had not had water.

So in a sense how the brave Americans and other people from other lands will backpack across Europe, they will backpack across the world.

In my old age I am not that brave.

So while many think now "what if God were one of us" in a few years you will know to think "what if the King was Queen was hitchhiking back there?"

Alas. Do realize that people are kidnapped by picking up hitchhikers and they are not going to do so for until 2024. And of course they will have security that is nearby.

So please don't go picking up hitchhikers now! If you don't regularly.

I did in the past until I had my daughter and I can count on one finger how many times I've picked up a stranger on the road side since then. And the same for as many times as we hitchhiked ourselves.

I do help people in well lit and populated parking lots if I am not feeling ill.

I applaud Harry and William and their Queens for their adventures they have done in secret. And I look forward to the days we can see their adventures on TV.

May all the Good Gods and Goddesses and Trees bless both Harry and William, their children and their Queens.

My heart goes to Harry and his family on their new adventure they strike out alone!

My happiness still exist for them all!!!.

The number one cause of fights is about money... But I am sure they will still have that ability to find love... Despite that red hair temper stereotype that everyone fears!!! ;)

0 notes

bearprodigy · 4 years

Text

I found this in my notes from 2014

The night was cloudy and slightly chilly when a short and round peppermint patty came out of the police station. It started as a regular Thursday night for Detective William Graham. Detective Graham had gotten of shift and had gone to the opera house to see his favorite show. The transmission had just begun when a scream was heard. He raced backstage and found the door open for Olivia Sours’ dressing room. It was obvious that a struggle had happened due to the knocked over furniture and clothes on the floor. Graham called it in and began to inspect the scene as there seemed to be no forced entry. Soon after he had finished taping up the scene in the room the police arrived. Olivia Sours was a young aspiring actress who been kidnapped from her dressing room making this a high profile case with a building was full of suspects.

The next morning Detective Graham went into the station to question the remaining people from last night. All of the staff on duty last night had already gone through questioning and came out clean. The only people left to question was the witnesses. Charlie Sours, the director of the opera and grandfather of Olivia Sours, was a round and green skittle with a friendly personality, who looked nothing like Olivia as she was a bright yellow skittle bursting with attitude. The other witness was a close friend of Olivia’s a Hershey’s bar named Carla Coco who had been the side actress of last night’s show. Graham decided to talk to Mr. Sours first, he hadn't been seen with the victim before the kidnapping, but this way Graham could get a better feel of what the victim was like. He opened the room to find Mr. Sours pacing the floor with a worried expression on his face and dark crescents under his eyes.

"Mr. Sours, would you please have a seat, so we can get through this as quickly as possible." Graham started off with this to try and ease the tension. He was not a people person.

"Yes, yes of course," Mr. Sours said as he sat down, "if I could just know what is begin done about my granddaughter?"

"I can assure you that we are doing as the we can at the moment. I would like to ask a few questions to try and get a better picture on who might have done this"

Mr. Sours got a pinched expression on his face.

"Olivia was a drama queen on the best of days and a brat on the worse. Of course she was my granddaughter and I spoiled her, but she had many enemies or rather people who disliked her. She was a good actress, one of the best even, but if it wasn't for that Olivia would have been fired in the first week."

"She had many who would do her wrong then?" Graham asked grimly. If that was the case then the suspect list had just gotten longer.

"No, no nothing like that. Mostly just people who would send hate mail or post hurtful words. No one would go as far as to physically hurt her." Mr. Sours sound sure as can be as he said this.

Graham would follow up with the other witness about the truth if this statement, but it seemed as if he had no further questions, but this.

"Is there someone who was too attached to her? Who seem obsessive?" It wasn't uncommon for stalkers to take it to the next level, as sad as that was.

"There was a fan who would send mail after each show. At first it was sweet, but then it got disturbing." Mr. Sours seemed embressed as he said this.

"You didn't find any reason to inform the police or at least the bodyguards?"

"No as Olivia thought it would go way given time. I tried to convince her, but she wouldn't listen to an old man like me."

Graham felt bad for bringing it up as it seemed like a fresh wound, but it helped with the investigation significantly.

"Thank you for your time Mr. Sours. You are free to leave." With that Graham was out the door. He decided that he would she the next witness, Carla, right away. She was in the next room and was sitting with a blank look when he opened the door.

"Ms. Coco, is it? I know you must still be in shock, but if we can get through this quickly you can go home as soon as possible. I only have a few questions, so this should go by fast if you are willing." As stated befor Graham was not a people person, however he had decided to take a gentler approach for Carla. She nodded her head without looking up and Graham thought that would be the best he would be getting out of her at this point.

"Now from what Mr. Sours told me Olivia had a secret amirer, is that true?" Again Carla nodded. " He also said the the letter got more disturbing as time went on, but Olivia refused to report it, is that also correct?" Carla looked up sharply at that.

"The letter weren't disturbing in the common way. The said how much he loved her and perfect they would be together. Of course the never met and she didn't know his name, but that didn't stop Olivia from finding it flattering. It stroked her ego which was as big as her attitude." Carla seemed fond as she said this. She really must be Olivia's best friend.

"Do you think it is possible that this secrets amirer was the one that kidnapped her?"

"Definitely. If it was him and he used the back you can always check the store next door. They have a security camera that watchs the whole alley."

"How do you know this Ms. Coco?" Graham didn't think it was normal for someone to know that.

"The director uses it sometimes to check on the staff when they take their break. In fact I saw some lollipop going out there right the scream." Carla had a look of dawning horror on her face. "I had thought it was one of the staff looking for the noise, but now that I think about it, they seemed to calm."

"Ms. Coco may I ask why you were not with Olivia at that time?" Graham didn't mean to sound so harsh, but this was crucial information.

"I was about to go on stage when I heard the scream. By the time I got back there I saw the lollipop leaving." Carla looked so upset about that part as if it was her fault.

"What do you remember about the lollipop? Gender, type, shape, color of stick, anything at all?"

"They were round and male. Yes male with had a white stick and a dum-dum." She looked back down. "That's all that I remember. Really I'm sorry, but I was to dark to see anything else."

"No that helps, we have a lead now." Graham stood and grabbed his noted hurting to the door. Over his shoulder he shouted, "Thanks, your free to go!" The door slammed behind him leaving Carla sitting there stunned.

"I want everyone on the search for any male dum-dums that were near the opera last night. I'm going back to the scene to check the security camera next door." Graham grabbed his hat and coat that he had thrown in his chair earlier.

"Detective why are you checking the camera for next door? The kidnapping was inside." This was said by a new officer.

"The camera shows the whole alley. Next time I want your comments I'll ask." Graham was out the door not seeing the hurt expression on the recruit's face. Again he was not a people person in any definition of the word.

He got to the scene quickly and walked right into the jewelry store next door to the opera. It was the stereotypical place with the nice rug and clear display cases. A clerk was right at the front to welcome him in.

"Hello sir, I hope you are having a good day. Is there anything I can help you with?" The clerk was a female pixie stick, all sweet and happy. She seemed to be young and new to her job, otherwise she wouldn't be so happy.

"I need to see you manager for a case." Graham ordered as he flashed his badge. She was quick to go and get the person he asked for. Out of the side office came a lemon drop. He was round and a dull yellow that seemed to be in his mid thirties to young forties.

"Is there anything that I can help you with officer?"

"Detective and yeah you can help me. Bet you've heard 'bout Olivia Sours' kidnapping last night?"

"Oh yes it's just tragic."

"Yeah, tragic sure," It wasn't that Graham was heartless, but he dealt with stuff like this on a daily basis. "we think your camera saw it all. I need to check the footage from last night in the alley."

"Yes, yes whatever I can do to help get the girl home." The manager showed Graham to the back room and then left with the order to lock the door behind him when he left. The footage was slightly blurry, but it still showed a male dum-dum with red writing on his wrapper. Graham pulled out his phone and called the chef of police.

"Hey chef, I want that search narrowed to cherry male dum-dums near the scene last night."

"Glad you called Will, but we have someone in custody already who matches you description. I want you back here got questioning right way." The phone went click and Graham was on his way back to the station. He sped walked to the questioning room without stopping and opened the door to see the suspect slouched over in the chair.

"I suppose that you are who we were looking for?" The lollipop didn't look up. "It says here that your name is John Dum, is that right?" The man still didn't look up. "I'm going to get right down to business, where did you take Olivia to?"

"She's at home." John mumbled.

"Excuse me? Did you say that she was at home?" Graham was flabbergasted at the gall of this man.

"She was so annoying always saying how she wants to go home or to tell her how wonderful she is. I couldn't take it!" He was standing and gripping his hair as he yelled this.

"Be that as it may, did you do anything to her?" Graham thought this had to be the weirdest conclusion to a case ever, but the necessary questions still needed to be asked.

"I knocked her out 'cause she wouldn't shut up! I dropped her of in front of her house after that, so I don't know what happened to her." He said this with relief as if remembering the silence.

"I still have to take you to jail, you understand that right?" Graham needed the man to understand the circumstances.

"Yes, yes! Just get me away from her!" John was frantic as he shout this.

"I'll send someone in shortly then." With that Graham turned around and left the room to get someone to put John away and another to check on Olivia's house, then report back to him.

Awhile later he got the call that Olivia was ok and at home. Graham sighed, then started in the paperwork after calling Carla and Charlie to inform them of Olivia's return.

0 notes