#read any books on the Manson family and you will see clear similarities in how Charles Manson and Voldemort groomed followers to join him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jgroffdaily · 5 years

Link

[This story contains spoilers for season two of Mindhunter on Netflix.]

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you: That well-worn Nietzsche quote might be the best explanation for what happened to Holden Ford, the impetuous FBI wunderkind played by Jonathan Groff, in the season one finale of Mindhunter. Holden, alongside his partner Bill Tench (Holt McCallany), had spent months interviewing incarcerated serial killers in order to glean insight into their mind-set, pioneering the science of criminal profiling.

Having demonstrated an uncanny knack for getting truths out of monsters, Holden started to ride way too high on his own brilliance, alienating his colleagues and jeopardizing the already uncertain future of the fledgling Behavioral Science Unit. In the season finale he paid an ill-advised solo visit to the serial killer Ed Kemper (Cameron Britton), who responded by giving him the most menacing hug ever committed to film. The season closes with Holden in the grips of a long-overdue panic attack after escaping Kemper, the darkness of his work and the recklessness of his approach finally catching up to him.

Season two, which picks up directly after the finale, sees Holden continuing to struggle with panic attacks in private, while still letting his ego run away with him at work. “Though Holden is still engaged with doing interviews with serial killers, now he's getting a little snobby about it,” Groff tells The Hollywood Reporter. “He only wants to interview the killers that he personally deems worthy.” That new attitude, combined with his mental fragility, seems like a recipe for disaster — particularly once Holden travels to Atlanta to tackle the most difficult case of his career to date.

Groff spoke to THR about depicting Holden’s mental breakdown, what’s different about season two’s interrogation scenes and how the Atlanta child murders case unfolds onscreen.

At the end of season one, it feels like Holden has the air punctured out of him by Kemper. He goes from incredibly cocky to total psychological collapse. What was it like to play that very dramatic shift in the new season?

I was so interested to see how the writers were going to pick Holden up off the floor after the finale. In terms of the continuity between his panic attack in the hospital [after seeing Kemper] and his panic attack at the end of episode one after Shepard [Cotter Smith] talks to him, I realized that any time there's a mirror held up to Holden and he can sort of have a moment of self-awareness and really look at himself, it sends him into panic mode. That’s what Ed Kemper did at the end of the first season, he was turning the mirror back on Holden, and I think that’s also what Shepard does at the end of the season two premiere.

He’s in his element when he’s probing into other people’s psychology, but when it’s turned on him he can’t handle it.

Yeah, and when he’s in work mode, and he's a dog with a bone, it sort of evaporates and he's fine. It's just these little moments when his blinders are removed that he sinks into panic. The minute he pulls his shit together for the [David] Berkowitz interview, and Tench says “I think he’s back,” I love it because it adds a layer of drama to every scene moving forward. We’ve logged this information as something that can happen to Holden, and now that factors into every interview, knowing that potential is there.

What goes into depicting a panic attack onscreen?

I’d forgotten about this until just now, but when we were filming the season one finale, in the moment right before Kemper hugs me, David [Fincher] had me do this (inhales and exhales rapidly), just a lot of breaths really quick in and out, I think just to get all of the blood out of my face. I did almost pass out. That was the scene right before I run out of the room. The panic attack scene in the season two premiere was sort of the same thing — we did it at varying levels, and I started out by overdoing it. I think I was making noises, it was a lot, and David was like, “OK, Groff, take it down a notch.” I love working with him because he can say something like, “Take it down 50 percent from that,” and I’ll know what he’s talking about. I tend to just throw it out there, and then he shades and shapes the level of explosion.

The Atlanta child murders is the most contentious case that the show has tackled so far. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the case itself, and the FBI’s role in it was specifically controversial. How does the show approach the case?

I listened to [podcast] Atlanta Monster and read James Baldwin’s book, The Evidence of Things Not Seen. And Courtenay Miles — who was our first AD in season one and one of our head writers on season two — could have a degree on the subject of Atlanta between 1978 and 1982. She did so much research, she spoke to police officials that were there during that time, and tried to really get all the conflicting opinions and ideas about what happened. They really try to lay out in the scripts the political atmosphere of what was going on at that time in Atlanta — the first black mayor had just been elected, “white flight” was happening in the city center, the new Atlanta airport that we now know as this giant hub was about to open in 1980.

It was just a huge moment of change in Atlanta, and the last thing that the city needed — in some people’s minds — was a lot of publicity about these children being murdered. On top of which you have the FBI coming in there and trying to prove this core theory of the Behavioral Science Unit, that you can actually take this psychological work and these interviews, and make a profile of someone and use that to catch an active criminal while it's happening.

Why is Holden so stubbornly determined that his theory of the case is correct?

One of the conclusions the BSU has drawn is that serial killers rarely cross racial lines, and so Holden firmly believes that this killer is black. A lot of other people think it’s the Ku Klux Klan, some people think it's a child pornography ring, there’s a bunch of different theories. But Holden is there to help catch what he believes is a serial killer, in order to help the city of Atlanta and also to prove his theory right, to prove that this method of profiling works.

Season two brings back Jim Barney (Albert Jones), the African-American agent Bill wanted to hire in season one. What’s the dynamic when Holden is doing interviews with Jim versus Bill, whom he’s used to working with?

I love Albert, he's a phenomenal actor, and they knew in the first season when they cast him that he was going to come back to play this bigger part. What’s interesting in those interview scenes is that this season, though Holden is still engaged with doing interviews with serial killers, now he's getting a little snobby about it. He only wants to interview the serial killers that he personally deems worthy, which is a stark contrast from the first season where he's like, “Feed me, I want everything, I want all the information! I want to meet everyone!” Now he’s a little more picky about who he’s gonna spend his very valuable time with.

So in episode three, he sort of begrudgingly agrees to go to Atlanta to meet with these killers who he deems unintelligent, and Barney ends up being sort of the Holden in those interviews, in that he's the one that's actually engaging with the person in a deep way, and ends up gleaning the information that Holden would normally glean. I loved reading that when I got the scripts, because there’s a clear evolution of these interviews in the second season, now that Holden kind of thinks he’s above it to a certain extent. Obviously not Charles Manson or David Berkowitz, but he maybe feels he’s outgrowing the interviews a little bit, and the character of Jim becomes my foil in that regard.

John Douglas, the real-life inspiration for the show, eventually moved away from FBI work and became more of an author and consultant. Holden is only loosely based on Douglas, but do you think he could take a similar path?

Well, I don't know this for sure and I'd have to ask John, but my feeling from meeting him and reading his stuff is that he didn’t move away from the FBI because of disinterest. He had a total mental and physical breakdown from how intense the work was. He was, I think for his whole career, a very obsessive worker. His breakdown happened much later [than Holden’s], when he was a little bit older and had been in the thick of it for much longer, so I think Holden’s panic attacks are kind of a nod to that. We deviate a lot in terms of the characters’ personal lives.

When Holden is hospitalized he calls Bill — who’s not thrilled about having to fly across the country to get him — and says he didn’t have anyone else to call. That line was interesting. Does he not have family?

I think at the end of the first season, we saw him kind of shut everybody out and go off on his own, so in my mind when I was reading that, when he says, “I didn’t have anyone else I could call," it was a moment of self-awareness. He realizes that he has put himself on an island. I mean, the only person he could turn to at the end of season one was Ed Kemper! But when he calls Bill, I thought it was kind of a beautiful nod to the fact that at the end of it all, the person I'm gonna call, for better or for worse, is the guy that I've been through all this shit with. Sometimes we have those people where we experience something insane, and the only person who gets it is the one who was in the room too. I think that line from Holden is a reminder, at the top of the season, that these two are kind of bonded forever, in a way. As different as they are, they have this very specific fucked up world that will bind them together for the rest of their lives.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

#jonathan groff #mindhunter #press #interview

24 notes · View notes

alexsmitposts · 5 years

Photo

Epstein is Dead, But His Legacy Will Be Inflicted On Us All The alleged suicide of Jeffrey Epstein has become one of the few things the currently very divided US population can broadly agree on. Epstein and his network of friends were so high profile that this alleged sex predator is highly unlikely to have committed suicide. At the very least he was assisted, while someone intentionally turned a blind eye to protect others hiding in the proverbial shadows. Even lawmakers on both sides of Congress have agreed to the need for an investigation, if only in the hope that it will cover themselves. This would involve not only the death but the “slap on the hand” lenient deal bargain brokered more than 10 years ago in the Miami Office of the US Attorney concerning previous cases of sexual abuse. What worms may turn up with a turn of a shovel are reported by the New York Magazine:. …for decades, important, influential, “serious” people attended Epstein’s dinner parties, rode his private jet, and furthered the fiction that he was some kind of genius hedge-fund billionaire.” Nearly everyone I have spoken to believes this was a faked suicide, and the government is lying about it. As the low voter turnout figures at elections have long suggested, most Americans already believe that all the US government does is lie rather than serve the people. But when all the contrary organs of disinformation – Democrats, Republicans, Fox News and CNN – agree there is a conspiracy, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there is. Yawn yawn The Epstein case is the latest in a long line of sex scandals involving high profile individuals. If you have never heard of Epstein, you can work this out by how this story has been handled. The usual playbook has been followed, in brazen defiance of the fact that we have seen and heard all this before, many times over. Belgium had the Marc Dutroux scandal, in which a convicted child rapist was released to rape and murder more children. After he claimed that he was part of a child sex ring involving many powerful people, the experienced and publicly trusted judge in charge of the investigation into his case was dismissed and replaced with a novice. The dismissed judge was later called as a witness in Dutroux’s trial, and stated under oath that the authorities were protecting witnesses and pressurising the prosecutors and the courts. At least 20 witnesses to Dutroux’s crimes have since died without apparent explanation. Strangely enough, the government’s investigation found that Dutroux had no high profile accomplices in his crimes, blaming everything on unspecified “corruption” within the police service ultimately responsible to the government. Jimmy Savile was a popular disc jockey and TV presenter known for his charity work. Only after he died was he revealed as one of the most prolific paedophiles in history. It is obvious from what has come out since that hundreds of people knew a great deal about Savile’s crimes, and that his charity work was a scam designed to gain him access to vulnerable people he could abuse. But at the time, few of these people (professional colleagues and family members) were listened to, and those who spoke up had their careers damaged. Nor will we ever know the details of some of Savile’s wide circle of influential friends, who are known to have ensured he paid off enough police and complainants to escape justice. Practically every country you can think of has similar stories to tell. Well connected people get away with everything whilst alive, then those who can talk mysteriously die. The few who face charges, such as former President of the French National Assembly Andre Le Troquer in the 1959 Ballet Roses scandal, get off lightly because if they had the book thrown at them they would deflect the book to several other people they would no longer have any incentive to protect. Epstein had to go because if he didn’t, too many other people would. He had served his purpose by providing sex slaves, as the documents released just before his death make only too clear. Like many another person who cultivates the well-connected for the wrong reasons, he found that he remains expendable at the end-of-the-day. Questions without answers! The question everyone is asking, including US Attorney General William Barr, is why Epstein was taken off suicide watch and left with little supervision, given the release of those thousands of pages of incriminating documents. The guards on duty, if they were even there, or sleeping, were on extreme overtime shifts. It is too reminiscent of the kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro – he had the lowest security of any politician in Rome, no one would negotiate with his kidnappers (though they negotiated in every similar case) and the external agents drafted to help release him were obstructed at every turn by his “friends” in the political establishment, who seemed to be in league with the Red Brigades kidnappers. Epstein had been found unconscious in a cell a few weeks earlier with marks on his neck, apparently from an earlier attempt to take his own life. There is a long history of such instances amongst criminals convicted by the public. Dr. Stephen Ward, the society osteopath at the centre of the UK´s Profumo Affair of the early 1960’s, killed himself by overdose after he was convicted. Fred West, a serial killer, likewise suffocated himself in his cell to avoid being convicted of crimes which had been well publicised, even though his conviction had not yet been secured. There are so many such examples that it is almost as if we are being encouraged to think that this must be just another suicide of a lone criminal. But this is not the only explanation. Take for example the story of Frank Rudolph Olsen, an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist and CIA employee who worked at Camp Detrick (now Fort Detrick) in Maryland. He fell to his death from the window of a New York City hotel room. Some — including the US government — consider his death a suicide, while others allege cold blooded murder. All the information is out there, even about scum who were associated with Epstein. At the time of writing, attention is being focused on Ghislaine Maxwell, who might be described as Epstein’s right hand woman in the recruitment and grooming of young girls for sexual abuse. Maxwell is the daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, the notorious crooked newspaper proprietor who had links to Mossad, the CIA, Soviet and Czech intelligence and practically every other dark organisation you can think of. As one door closes, another opens, if only to ensure the other stays shut. Brand of convenience But anyone who alleges anything other than suicide in this case – even if they can be numbered in the tens of millions – will be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist. We have heard all this before too. So much so that it doesn’t seem so terrible a charge, and we lose interest in the implications of it. “Conspiracy theorist” used to mean either “crank” or “person with a bad agenda”. But after Epstein had been indicted, and just before his death, the FBI gave the term a new meaning – “terrorist” as being a domestic threat. Does this matter? Read any newspaper and you will see that it does. If someone is a crank or a person with a bad agenda, they are still entitled to due process … but if they are a terrorist, (at least labelled as) anything goes. In the name of freedom, you and anyone you are associated with can be hunted down and killed, even if Uncle Sam recruited you. Say the wrong word against the official account of Epstein and you can be eliminated on the spot. If this were not going to happen, the FBI, which has the same connections as Epstein, wouldn’t suddenly be interested in this long known phenomenon. Anyone who questions the MSM and official account of anything is deemed a conspiracy theorist by those who write the official stories. Just like those who alleged that Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba might have been killed by rogue CIA operatives, who then discovered that President Eisenhower had ordered the killing himself. Like those who said that Herr Klaus Altmann, longtime resident of Bolivia, was Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie, then proved he was. The time has passed when local and even national newspapers would investigate, dig up, muckrake the truth. Now it is spin, paid articles and damage control, all to protect the powers to be—and their royal friends, close associates and fuck buddies. Dead men speak no tales Suicides know each other. Olsen and Epstein were just not the type. Most others in the news were, but not them, and neither was Dr. David Kelly in the UK, that other strange death which results in everyone who questions the official narrative being deemed a conspiracy theorist. Want proof? Read “Silence of the Heart” by David Frith. This is about sportspeople, and particularly cricketers, who have ended it all. Though widely separated by time and circumstance, these unfortunates seem almost a club, united by an indefinable common strain. Try and write up Epstein in the same vein and see if even you are convinced. Just too many things don’t make sense. One of the two persons on watch over Epstein was not even a correctional officer, and went hours without being checked when protocol was to check on him at least every 30 minutes. The higher profile the case, the more procedures are followed to ensure the defendant is alive and well and available for the justice system. Charles Manson was watched day and night. You don’t leave the Epsteins of this world unsupervised unless you don’t want to see them face justice. Rachel Maddow raises many questions about whether the non-prosecution agreement for Jeffrey Epstein and any co-conspirators he may have had, as well as the non-disclosure agreements Epstein made his employees sign, are still valid after Epstein’s death or whether prosecutors will now have new avenues of inquiry as a result. As Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman recently said, “These events, [death in custody] are disturbing, and we are deeply aware of the potential to present yet another hurdle to giving Epstein’s many victims their day in court.” Perhaps now many more victims will come forth, who have previously been intimidated or paid off. The 2007 Miami plea deal is now moot, and in any event, it only applied in Florida. I suspect there will be more suicides, and not only in custody, as too many names were into the young girls. We can start with the passenger list of the Lolita Express. Stanley Kubrick’s 1999 death from a heart attack, just six days after screening a completed Eyes Wide Shut, can be compared by such a conspiracy theorist as myself to the opening of sealed court documents in the Epstein investigation. This should keep the media busy till the next presidential election in 15 months. Besides the ones that we already know about as fellow travellers and sex offenders, I am sure many more worms will soon surface, enough to keep the tabloids and MSM totally distracted. There are hundreds of names on Epstein’s contact “black book” list. Some of the alleged victims have claimed they were farmed out to other men. So it is little wonder that most people are risking summary murder by the US authorities by starting to believe the conspiracy theories which only a case like this could have criminalised them for believing.

4 notes · View notes

ghostgothgeek · 5 years

Text

Mistletoe.

This is my Christmas Truce gift for @ceciliaspen, Merry Christmas!!

A few random things: I had to include one of your posts in this because it was just too perfect to not be included. Hope that’s okay! Here is some Danny/Sam Christmas fluff! I hope you like it!

AO3 || FFN

It was a crisp, cold December afternoon in Amity Park. Danny, Sam, and Tucker were walking home from lunch at the Nasty Burger. Now that school was out for the holidays, their schedules became much more flexible. They could actually hang out during the day and fight the straggling ghosts without worrying about strictly following Mr. Lancer’s attendance policy or trying to cram for exams that ghost fighting took study time away from.

It was almost Christmas, but there oddly wasn’t any snow on the ground in the Midwest town yet. Tucker made the mistake of bringing that fact up, which started Sam on a long tirade about global warming. Danny tuned most of it out. In fact, he tried to tune most of the holidays out. He pretended not to notice the festive decorations, the cheery music, and peppy holiday wishes everyone granted to each other. On a particularly bad day, he almost ectoblasted a group of carolers. They didn’t do anything wrong, per se. Oh no, Danny Fenton just did not enjoy the holidays.

After his little tantrum freshman year, his parents tried to keep The Great Santa Debate to a minimum, at least around Danny. However, Danny was a junior now, which meant Jazz was off at Brown most of the time and couldn’t mediate her parents the way she used to. His parents’ antics ensued, though they tried to do their best at making amends with their family by hosting what was this year’s Second Annual Fenton Family Christmas Eve Party.

“Pleaseeee tell me your parents will let you come over for my family’s Christmas Eve party. My parents will say they’ll put their bickering on hold for a few hours only to try and round up their friends to take sides in The Great Santa Debate. Jazz will be home for winter break, but she at least has the excuse to study and get ahead on her work, so she can ignore them. I need you guys there to keep me sane. I hate the holidays.” Danny groaned and shoved his hands in his coat pockets.

“Hey man! You know I’m there! As long as I’m home before curfew. My parents actually want me to come back closer to curfew, no earlier, no later. They want to ‘spend time catching up’. Eww.” Tucker shivered, though it wasn’t because of the cold air.

“Now that Hanukkah is over, it’s pretty much back to the normal boring antics at the Manson house. I’ll be there. And Danny, there’s really nothing to hate about the holidays. The holidays are great! Most people usually are more generous, once they get past all their corporate greed. There’s no school, the ghosts still have the Christmas Truce, and lots of places are shut down. It’s actually quite peaceful.” Sam smiled to herself.

“No, I still hate it. How is it that you of all people are happiest this time of year and I’m not? Did we switch personalities or something?”

Sam scoffed, “Just because I’m a goth doesn’t mean I have to be angry and broody all the time.”

“Sam, you’re still the cheeriest goth we know.” Tucker pointed out.

“I’m the only goth you two know. Seriously, Danny. Take advantage of the Truce. Enjoy this time of year. Take some time off. You certainly earned it.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s conditioned in my brain to not enjoy it no matter how hard I try. Look, three months of Jazz away at college and I’m talking like her already. Soon I’ll be filling in for her as my own therapist.”

“Bah, Humbug!” Tucker shouted and laughed.

Sam shot Tucker an unamused look. “I can help you enjoy Christmas, Danny. I mean...Tucker and I can. Right, Tuck?”

“Right! First thing you gotta do is find some mistletoe and dangle it from a hat,” his two friends rolled their eyes, “Don’t get it confused with holly though, because then it’ll just look stupid and you’ll get laughed at…”

“Wow, Sam. You look...really nice.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably as he greeted his friend at the door. It’s not that he never told her she looked nice before, she was just more formal than he had been expecting.

Sam was wearing a velvet black long sleeved dress with a white collar, black stockings, and her usual boots. Her hair was all the way down and slightly wavy in places. She was carrying a large shopping bag, probably filled with presents.

“My mother said I had to look nice for your parents’ party. She wanted to put me in this red sparkly thing. She let me wear this instead,” Sam said with a satisfying smirk. “I don’t think she realizes it’s from one of my old Wednesday Addams costumes.”

Danny chuckled as he escorted her inside. “I’m glad you’re here. Tucker is driving me crazy.”

“More so than usual?” Sam raised an eyebrow and let out a small laugh.

“We’ll get to that…” Danny promised, weaving in between the groups of adults happily chatting away, dodging his parents in the process. Sam looked around the Fenton house. It was eloquently decorated - stockings with each family member’s initials hung across the fireplace mantle, Christmas music was playing from an old turntable, though it could barely be heard over the loud conversations. Jazz was in the corner chair reading a book, using the Christmas tree as her light source.

“That’s a beautiful tree,” Sam gawked at it as they passed it on their way upstairs to find Tucker.

“Thanks, I guess. Jazz was in charge this year. I just don’t see the point. I mean, who even thought of Christmas trees? What misguided sap looked at a tree and thought ‘I’m going to bring it inside and decorate it with glass balls’? It’s pointless!”

“It stems off the Pagan tradition of bringing in decorated branches to celebrate the winter solstice, although it was the Germans who-” she paused at his scowl, “but that’s not really the point you’re trying to make. Actually, I kind of agree with you about Christmas trees. They’re beautiful, but why chop down a big beautiful living tree just to set it up in your house, under water it for a month, then toss it out on the curb the day after Christmas?”

Danny smiled triumphantly, “there’s my grumpy goth!”

Sam rolled her eyes, though softly smiling, and followed him into his room, where Tucker was sitting at Danny’s computer chair playing some game that involved shooting snowmen with candy canes. He was playing exceptionally terrible, even for Tucker, missing nearly all the snowmen. “Fuck!”

Sam raised an eyebrow at Danny. Danny laughed, “I think my dad accidentally gave Tuck his adult eggnog and kept the non-alcoholic version for himself. I’m hiding him up here so no one notices. Hopefully he’ll be fine by the time he has to go home.”

She nodded and took a seat on Danny’s bed, while he crawled under it to fish gifts out.

“Finally! Present time!” Tucker paused his game at the sound of his friends’ voices and clapped his hands together, swiveling around to face his friends.

“Tucker, you didn’t even bring anything!” Sam objected, noticing he was empty handed.

“I forgot your gifts at home!”

“He didn’t forget. He’s broke.” Danny chimed in, coming out from under the bed with the gifts he had been “hiding” there.

“Nuh-uh! I got you guys something!” Tuckers words slurred a little.

“That must have been some eggnog,” Sam offered.

“That, or Tucker is probably just a lightweight.” Danny laughed. Sam chuckled as well, ignoring Tucker’s protest that he was, indeed, not a lightweight due to his strict all-meat diet. He shut up when Sam handed him a small cleanly wrapped box, and kept a bigger blue-wrapped box on her lap. Danny handed Tucker a box similar to the one Sam gave him, though it was clear he wrapped this one. He handed Sam a poorly wrapped log of a gift. It was cylindrical shaped, which granted is a tricky shape to wrap, but it looked like about halfway through the wrapping process he gave up and just wrapped the entire roll of tape around the gift to keep the paper on. “Merry Christmas, or whatever.”

Sam laughed, “Danny, what is this? It looks like it’s been though the Ghost Zone and back a few times.”

Danny sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “It did. Only once though! Klemper caught me off guard when I had it on me and I had to put him back in the ghost zone, no big.”

Sam smiled and rolled her eyes for about the one-hundredth time that night, carefully examining the disastrously wrapped gift after exchanging with Danny the box from her lap. Tucker, of course, had already unwrapped his presents. “Wow! I love you guys, you’re the best, thank you! I love you so much, you’re the best.” He slurred and pulled his two best friends into a hug neither was prepared for, their faces smushed against Tucker’s chest.

Sam and Danny had decided (well rather, Sam let Danny join in on her idea) to give Tucker the newest portable gaming system, complete with a few new games and upgrades. Between Sam’s bank account and Danny’s connections as Phantom, they were able to get their hands on some yet-to-be-released gaming software.

Sam pushed herself away from Tucker, breaking the embrace. She smiled when Danny’s face lit up upon opening her gift to him: a vintage NASA hoodie. “Sam, this is awesome!” He immediately pulled it on. “How did you get this? They don’t make these anymore!”

Sam smiled, “I have a few goth friends who are into vintage clothing stores. Do you like it?” She glanced at Tucker, who was sitting criss-crossed on the floor and already trying to set up his new device.

“I love it! It’s amazing! Though, I don’t really get all that cold anymore since I figured out my ice powers.” He snuggled into the sweatshirt regardless.

“Well you may not be cold anymore, but I’m certainly still not used to your ghost core dropping the temperature of the room. When you wear warmer clothes, it helps me not become a human popsicle. I dunno, I just thought it would keep you motivated towards your career goals and whatnot despite all the ghost hunting getting in the way. And I didn’t want to get you the same thing I got Tucker, especially because you already knew what I was giving to Tucker, but-”

“Hey, Sam. Chill out.” He grinned cheesily at his pun, which she punched him in the shoulder for. “This is great, I’m going to wear it all the time. Open yours, it may help my ice core too.” He smiled softly.

“I’m glad you like it. You should have seen how happy you were when you opened it.” She smiled. “Operation Make Danny’s Christmas Less Sucky is being executed as planned.”

It took a little muscle to break past Danny’s heavy taping job. Sam’s jaw dropped slightly when she saw what was inside his disaster wrapping job.

In Sam’s hands laid a purple, black, and gray scarf. A homemade scarf. She could tell because it certainly didn’t look perfect or store bought. There were a few pulls in it, but she immediately loved it. “You made this.” She stated incredulously, looking up at him.

He nodded, a soft blush forming at his cheeks. “Well, you kinda have everything and you can be very hard to shop for since you’re not into materialistic things and corporate greed and all the stuff you preach about. But this can keep you warm if my ice core goes out of control. My grandma helped me start it and showed me what to do, but yeah I made it, which is why it looks like a perfectly sloppy representation of my life. I’m sorry. I can buy you a new one you’ll like that’s organic or gluten-free or something.”

Sam laughed at his speech, particularly at his misunderstanding. He put so much thought and effort into it. And of course, he knew what was important to her: thoughtfulness and a caring friend. It was actually the perfect gift. “Danny shut up, I love it.” She stood and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.” She began wrapping it around her neck.

“Gross, get a room.” Tucker was sprawled out on the floor, pressing buttons on his device, staring at the blank screen.

Danny and Sam’s faces heated up in a deep red blush as they looked away from each other, muttering “not lovebirds” or something along the lines of it underneath their breath. “We are in a room, Tucker. My room. And you’re making it even messier with all these gadget pieces!”

Tucker’s portable gaming system suddenly sputtered to life, a welcoming melody assuring the user it booted up correctly. Sam and Danny stared at it.

“I’m kinda amazed he was able to set it up that fast while tipsy. It’s actually kind of scary.” Sam muttered.

“Here’s my gift to you, loooovebirds!” Tucker tossed Danny his hat, the one with mistletoe dangling from it.

“Tuck, that’s for Danny, not for me. I’m not wearing that. And I’m holding you accountable for not keeping up our gift exchange tradition.” Sam crossed her arms over her chest.

“Nooooo Danny uses it on you! Thank you, you’re welcome, Tucker! You’re a genius and a stud.” Tucker rambled and shoved the hat on Danny’s head and shoved Sam towards him before he continued pushing buttons on his new device.

“Uhh…” Danny threw the hat to the ground as if it had been crawling with spiders.

His entire face felt like it was burning. It’s not that he didn’t want to kiss Sam, because he did. He really liked her. Sam was just an anomaly to him. He could never read her. One misread action and he would have bruises deeper than those ghosts gave him. It was better for him to not say anything for the sake of their friendship. Plus, he still wasn’t even sure if he liked her liked her. That sounded so juvenile. Sam was his best friend, of course, but he felt something different with her than he did with Tucker. Way different. It was a different kind of love. He didn’t love Sam like she was his sister. It was deeper than that. Sam of course had already come to that conclusion years ago, not that either boys knew it. For Danny, it was something he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

Danny looked over at Sam, whose face was as red as Rudolph's nose. Of course Tucker’s actions would make her uncomfortable, too. She was the only girl of the group, which meant she was constantly teased to be dating one of them (usually Danny) or both of them (gross) from bystanders, but never from her friends.

Tucker frowned and picked the hat back up and put it on Danny’s head. “No take backs!”

Danny looked over at Sam apologetically. Surely, they both knew they didn’t have to apologize to each other for their friend’s antics. But it was Danny’s clueless father who accidentally made Tucker more obnoxious than usual. “Sorry, I think he’s drunk.” Danny and Sam both scowled as Tucker tried pushing their heads together. “Enough Tucker!”

Tucker stared at them blankly, hands still on each of them.

Sam groaned. “Just get him to shut up! It will just be like another fake out make out.” She grabbed Danny’s face with both of her hands and gently pressed a kiss upon his lips. That got the boys to shut up.

“Tucker, take your stupid hat back,” she tore it from Danny’s head and threw it at Tucker, hitting him square in the face. “I can’t deal with you right now. Come on, Danny. I still promised to make your fucking Christmas fun, damnit.” She said grumpily, grabbed her bag and Danny’s wrist and dragged him out of the room, leaving Tucker in Danny’s room alone to play with his new toys.

Danny blinked a few times and followed her. He still hadn’t gotten used to kissing her. Granted, this was only the fourth time and all of the previous times served as identity-saving distractions, but it still made his head spin. He shook his head and laughed, “Now who’s the Scrooge?” He wagged his eyebrows up and down stupidly, which immediately broke her trance and she laughed. “So, what’s next then, Mrs. Claus?”

“Don’t call me that.” She led them up to the op center, not quite ready to go back to the high-energy party happening downstairs, and certainly not wanting to see Tucker again until he either sobered up or passed out. Sam dug in her bag and handed Danny a tupperware container.

“Cookies? You made cookies?!” He opened the lid and examined them.

“Hey, I can bake! I don’t know much about Christmas traditions since I’m technically Jewish, but I looked some up and apparently decorating annoyingly adorable cookies is a tradition. Are you filled with cheer yet?”

“You baked the cookies. YOU did?” He picked one up and gently pressed the tip of his tongue to the cookie, testing it out.

“Yes, asshole. I baked them. And they’re not vegan, so you may actually like them.”

“Oh,” he said stupidly. He took a bite into the cookie and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wow, you really can bake. These are actually really awesome, Sam.” He smiled and finished the rest in one bite, grabbing another immediately.

Her glowering face softened up as she smiled. “Come on, I’m not done yet.” She pointed to the roof, signaling Danny to go ghost and phase them up there. She pulled out some blankets from her bag and laid down on one, signaling for him to follow. She snuggled into her new scarf until he changed back to his human form. “So tomorrow, if you can get away from your family for a bit, you and Tucker and I are going to do all those cliche Christmassy things. Sledding if it snows, ice skating, we’ll drink hot chocolate and build gingerbread houses, and we can make fun of corny Christmas movies. But I’m not fucking singing any Christmas carols. I draw the line there.”

Danny smiled as he sat down next to her, looking up at the stars, an immediate habit for him.

She noticed his quick serenity. “See? It’s so quiet and peaceful up here. Everyone is inside enjoying their families, you can still see the stars somehow shining brighter through the small amount of clouds, and they aren’t masked from all of the houses and their Christmas lights. It’s beautiful. You can get that calm and quiet you desperately need.” She laughed, her breath creating a small ghost sense of her own in front of her.

“You didn’t need to do this all for me, Sam. I appreciate it, though, I really do. But of all the things you’ve given to me today or signed me up for tomorrow....this is actually my favorite part.” He smiled and changed his focus from the sky to her.

“I know. You’ve always been a sucker for the sky.” She smirked.

He laughed and grinned wider; a genuine, large smile. “I meant that it’s nice to get away from everything and just hang with you.”

Sam blushed and glanced at the small snowflakes now dusting her hair. She looked up at the sky and smiled. “Okay, I’ll admit I didn’t plan for it to snow, but there’s no way you could hate Christmas now.”

Danny didn’t say anything. He watched his beautiful best friend enjoy nature, trying to catch a few snowflakes on her tongue. He liked the way the stars made the snow in her hair sparkle. And then it hit him. That deep feeling again. Like a love that was more than love. He gently grabbed her face and turned her towards him, pressing a sweet kiss on her cold lips.

When they broke apart, Sam looked around, puzzled. “There’s no mistletoe?”

“No mistletoe.” He confirmed nervously, smiling when she came to the same conclusion he did. They both knew the feeling was mutual. This time, she leaned into him, initiating the kiss. It felt hot against the cold air. She tasted like peppermint from the candy she was eating earlier. Danny’s heart pounded. He felt like his whole life led up to this one moment here. He wrapped his arms around her as she tangled her hands in his hair. Sam pulled back to whisper “Merry Christmas, Danny,” before kissing him again. He smiled into it.

Maybe Christmas isn’t so terrible after all.

#Christmas Truce 2018 #Danny Phantom #Danny Fenton #Sam Manson #Tucker Foley #Danny/Sam #Danny x Sam #Amethyst Ocean #Christmas Fluff #Christmas Truce #stephanie writes sometimes

61 notes · View notes

letterboxd · 5 years

Photo

Family.

“We’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.”

Jack Moulton talks cults, Trump and noise-cancelling headphones with American actress and screenwriter Guinevere Turner. Charlie Says is her latest film with frequent collaborator, Canadian director Mary Harron.

Of the serial-killer films currently in release, Charlie Says is the one that puts a strong focus on the women who often remain in the background of these retellings. Leslie Van Houten (Hannah Murray), Patricia Krenwinkel (Sosie Bacon), and Susan Atkins (Marianne Rendón)—the three women who killed for Charles Manson (Matt Smith)—are imprisoned in isolation in a California penitentiary, as well as psychologically imprisoned by Manson’s delusional ideas.

Then graduate student Karlene Faith (Merritt Wever) is given the job of rehabilitating the young women—as long as they are prepared to confront the horrors of their actions.

Turner co-wrote the 90s urban indie lesbian feature Go Fish directed by Rose Troche, which preceded her meeting with Harron. Charlie Says is their most recent collaboration, having partnered previously on American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.

What interested you in writing a film about Charles Manson? Guinevere Turner: When the producers met with me they said they wanted to focus on the women as we definitely never got a sense of a story told from their perspective before. Once I found Karlene Faith’s book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten [Faith’s study of the rehabilitation process and elongated incarceration of the three Manson Family girls], I saw a whole side of the story that literally never gets represented.

I got very excited that I could make a good movie out of this and it would also be an interesting commentary on what it says about society that we always treated these women like they’re interchangeable. Nobody’s ever asked “what happened to them?”, “what made them do what they did?” and more importantly “why did we stop talking about them?”. We never stopped talking to Charlie! There was a real opportunity to talk about men and women, who and when we pay attention to historically.

Did you get the chance to work with Karlene Faith in person before she passed away [in May 2017]? Yes, she was fantastic. It took a while to persuade her into talking to me at first. I slowly gained her trust via email, then we would talk on the phone, and eventually I would be visiting her apartment in Vancouver and we became friends. For about two years we were as thick as thieves.

Her book was obviously a huge resource but she was also useful for research as she was a woman of that time. She gave me a great visual, listening to her activist life outside of prison. When she met the girls for the first time she had all these assumptions that they were gonna be freaky psycho-killers and she was blown away by how sweet they were. She was immediately turned by them and she wanted to help them.

What were some of the unexpected realities of living in a cult environment that you wanted to portray? So I grew up in a cult environment as you probably knew so I assume that’s why you ask that question. [Ms. Turner spent the first eleven years of her life as part of the Lyman Family. They were devotees of Mel Lyman who believed he and his commune members would eventually live on the planet Venus. Though parted from her mother after birth, she and her younger sister were ejected from the Family when her mother eventually decided to leave. Ms. Turner considered returning at eighteen but chose to go to college instead.]

Yes, I read the article in The New Yorker. For me, I was excited to bring this knowledge in my DNA of what it’s really like living in that environment to represent both the good and the bad parts. You have those semi-orgy scenes and people doing acid, but also scenes where everyone is sitting around for dinner. That grounds it a little more. At the end of the day, it is a family—albeit an infamously weird one—but it is a bunch of people trying to live together.

While there’s the “everyday” quality to it I also wanted to show the volatility. It can be beautifully tranquil one moment and then turn on the dime into something scary and destabilizing. I feel like those things were true of my childhood. Mary Harron heard me talking about my upbringing for decades and she would always say “you should write about it”. I didn’t want to write about it specifically, but when I found this movie I thought I could bring something personal to the project that no other screenwriter could.

We’re curious about how you like to write. What music do you listen to while you work and are there any films you used as inspiration? I can’t listen to anything when I’m writing. I have noise-cancelling headphones that don’t cancel noise enough. I could live in an actual sensory deprivation tank while I write and I would be so happy, but unfortunately you can’t bring computers underwater. So, no music.

I watched a lot of movies of the era, especially unconventional movies about Jesus such as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Those were interesting aesthetically.

There’s a shot in the movie where they’re walking up the side of this mountain and I just loved that iconography. We were short for time on the day and I pleaded with Mary to make it happen. It made me so happy that it became one of the images they use for the promotion of the film. It does feel like this biblical journey and we were trying to capture that vibe.

What do you do to ensure the female gaze is considered from the script? I find a lot of that is intuitive. For example in this script, there has to be nudity but you notice that every time someone is naked in this movie it’s really uncomfortable. That’s one thing in terms of subverting male gaze, is that there’s no way that any person could see those scenes as objectifying the body for more than a nanosecond because of what’s happening.

It’s all about power, so I like that it’s portrayed as being uneasy. Even when Matt Smith is naked, Charlie is exerting power over someone else and she’s repulsed by him. That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movie.

How does your acting background feed into the way you write your characters? I think because I’m an actor I deeply feel the reality of what’s available for the average female actor to play. There’s tons of “someone’s girlfriend” and all the tropes, so for me when I’m writing I’m asking myself what about this is going to make an actor say “yes please, let me play that part!”.

I need to present something complex and challenging that they don’t often see. As someone who’s auditioned for many characters that I thought were poorly written, I try and give even the small parts something that will make an actor excited to play them.

What makes your creative partnership with Mary Harron work so well? It’s funny because we’ve never really asked ourselves that. Of course in the last week we’ve been asked that a lot while we’re in the same room and we look at each other like confused animals going “why does it work?”.

We realize that we have a similar sense of humor so we laugh a lot even while we’re writing all this dark stuff. The main factor is that we really trust each other. One of the hardest things about collaborating is that you’re not sure if someone is shooting down your idea because it doesn’t work or they’re jealous that it’s good. You need to trust that you can test stupid ideas with them.

When we first met in 1996 [shortly after Harron’s directing debut I Shot Andy Warhol and Turner’s writing debut Go Fish] we immediately had an affinity for each other and started writing together. It was as easy the first time we tried it as it is now. There’s not even much of an evolution. I feel really lucky for that because as a screenwriter it certainly means I have a lot more access to the movie than usual because the director is always checking in with me.

Despite all of the bleakness, it’s clear in the film that these women just wanted to be loved. There’s such a deep sympathy for them. What interests you about the line of responsibility for those influenced by dangerous charismatic leaders? I’d say everything about that interests me.

I’m drawing parallels to politics today such as the alt-right people that Trump influences, for example. We’re seeing echoes where people are mindlessly following a person who is validating evil, dangerous, and disgusting ideas. For these women I had to constantly remind myself that they did commit these horrible crimes.

I feel like Charles Manson and Donald Trump are apples and oranges except for the fact that they strike me as people where their only real fuel is power and that half the time they don’t know what they’re doing or saying, they’re just terrified of losing it. They almost have no internal life. They just feel when they have the power and when the power may be taken away and what they do to keep it makes people do terrible things. It’s like an addiction.

Matt Smith as Charles Manson in ‘Charlie Says’.

I’m sure you’re painfully aware that we have four Charles Manson films coming out in a short space of time. There’s Tate, The Haunting of Sharon Tate, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, though I’m certain Charlie Says was conceived before all of these. How do you feel about being a part of this cycle? I started writing the movie in 2014 and most of the time movies are made two years later but that’s not how it worked out for various logistical reasons. So on the one hand, I cringe that it’s the 50th anniversary [of Sharon Tate’s murder] and that’s when our movie’s coming out—it feels tacky but it’s definitely not on purpose.

Which seems to be very deliberate on Tarantino’s part… But the way independent films work is that you try and get them made until you get them produced. You don’t have these luxuries of when exactly they’re going to come out. That said, we have landed in a zeitgeist moment which is nice in terms of people paying attention to the movie. I don’t know much about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but I’m sure Tarantino has a radically different approach from ours.

While they share some similarities, your depiction of Charles Manson doesn’t work in quite the same way as American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. How did you decide the ways you wanted to humanize Manson? I think the first thing that’s similar between how we portrayed these two characters is that while they’re these powerful frightening people, we’re demystifying them and grounding them in an essential pathetic loserness. Mary and I don’t talk about how we can make another movie that takes down toxic masculinity, that’s just where we end up sometimes.

With American Psycho the stakes of social responsibility were different. We were asking people to put your baggage with the book away, we’re women making this, and we are trying to turn it into something that’s a critique of masculinity in a funny and dark way.

For Charlie Says we’re trying to say: stop thinking about Manson as the embodiment of all evil. We want to stop giving him that power and show that he was a conman who was just a failed musician. If he got a record deal, maybe nobody would have died.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ (2000).

I have to say, American Psycho holds up really well for the Trump era. One could argue that it works better now than when it came out.

How do you respond to the way you’ve already satirized these sociopaths in power and how that affected the increasing appreciation for the film over the years? It’s gratifying, because [American Psycho] was not particularly well loved when it came out. That’s disheartening when you work hard on a project that you think is more worthy. That said, it being more relevant now is terrifying. I watched the movie again recently and there’s a little part of you that cringes when we make Trump jokes because Donald Trump was a different kind of funny at the time.

‘Charlie Says’ is in US cinemas now, and available on VOD and digital from May 17.

#american psycho #charlie says #mary harron #guinevere turner #female filmmakers #female directors #directed by women #letterboxd

7 notes · View notes

surveysonfleek · 6 years

Text

724.

5000 Question Survey Pt. 45

4301. Suggest a question for the 5,000 question survey: anything not super outdated. 4302. What's your preferred form of artistic expression (writing, drawing, musicianship, etc...)? photography. 4303. Name one thing that's overrated: taylor swift. Name one thing that's underrated: sza. 4304. Are the beatles overrated? never really listened to them so i can’t be one to judge.

4305. Do you smoke? if so, what brand? yes, winfield. 4306. Why do you choose to listen to the music you listen to? i like the way it sounds and i relate to it the most. 4307. Does music these days suck? well they aren’t as good collectively as they were years ago. 4308. Are personal ads acts of desperation? not at all. 4309. Have you ever been/are you a vegetarian? never been. 4310. Who are the three most important musical artists in your life? i couldn’t cut it down to three tbh. 4311. do you find it disrepectful when contemporary musicians cover older ones? not at all. it’s like paying homage to an artist they looked up to. How about when people attribute the writing of these songs to the bands that only covered them? meh. 4312. Do you believe in arming civilians? no. 4313. Do you find desolation and darkness sometimes beautiful? eerily beautiful. sometimes. 4314. If you were drafted to fight in Afghanistan, would you willingly and proudly go? nope. my country would never do that anyway. 4315. What is people juice? i don’t want to know. 4316. Isle or window seat? aisle because i hate bothering random people so i can go to the bathroom multiple times. 4317. What is your Favorit Simpsons character? the grammar omg. i like patty and selma tbh. 4318. Have you ever been to Mexico? no. 4319. Are people that wear glasses more or less attractive? neither? i don’t judge someone’s attractiveness from their glasses lol. 4320. What sucks more, a Mini Van or SUV? i hate driving behind both. 4321. Are the days of writing and mailing letters lost? somewhat. not completely. 4322. What do you think about right before you go to sleep? it changes every night. 4323. Do I ever cross your mind - anytime? no. 4324. Have you ever solved a Rubix Cube? nope :( 4325. Why is everyone so emotionaly and spiritually dead???? Are YOU?? no. 4326. What can you feel BURNING UP inside your head? nothing. 4327. What life experiance do you have? travel for the most part. 4328. Have you ever hit rock bottom? What was that like for you? not completely. i never want to go there. 4329. Are you self destructive? somewhat. 4330. Are you very extreme? no. 4331. Are you completely full or do you feel empty? in between. 4332. Can you turn the whole world inside out? no lol. 4333. Are you potentially a criminal? not at all. 4334. Where is your PASSION?? i’m actually not sure anymore. i sorta lost it. 4335. Why do we hide our souls? do we? 4336. How many times have you lied today? Did you just lie to that question? i haven’t yet. no. 4337. Do you always notice when you are lying? usually. i hardly lie. 4338. Do you think that lieing is so built into our culture that we can't help it? not for me. 4339. What are fighting against? What are you fighting for? Why aren't you fighting? boring. 4340. Give the following things a rating. One is compltely normal, ten is completely crazy/rebelious. tattoos: 3 no pircings or tattoos: 1 piercings: 2 pink hair: 5 openly discussing sex: 6 bob marley: 4 green hair: 6 extreme emotion: 6 a tie: 1 spiked bracelets: 7 4341. What'd you think of the grammys? it gets more and more boring every year. 4342. When you see the stars and the waves crash in how do you feel? i haven’t seen that in a long time. 4343. What do you think about under a midnight sky? pretty when it’s clear. 4344. Who are 'they'? ask dj khaled haha. 4345. Who cares what they think??? not me! 4346. Do you ever let them stop you? nope. 4347. What would you do if there were no limits? There are no limits. Go Do it. lmao. 4348. Will you dance with me? no, i hate dancing. 4349. Will you drink yourself on the floor with me? clearly running out of questions here... 4350. Will you sleep in the streets with me? no. 4351. Courtney love or Madonna: musically? madonna. personality wise? eh, tie. looks? madonna. 4352. Do you have a negative attitude towards the opposite sex? i won’t lie, sometimes. 4353. Can you imagine anything that would seriously improve the world? a cure for cancer. 4354. Have you read the book Venus in Furs? Did it turn you on? no. 4355. Velvet Underground with or without Nico? idk them. 4356. Is there any similarity between what eminem is doing and what manson is doing? don’t listen to either. 4357. Who wants to be your dog? no one. 4358. Are you SURE you aren't pretentious(I've been reading SOME surveys that sound pretentious to me)? i’m not. 4359. Can you understand and express subtle and complex ideas? it depends on the topic of conversation. 4360. Is writing akin to thinking for you? no, i’m not a good writer at all. 4361. What do you imagine it feels like to be a member of the opposite sex? powerful. lol. 4362. Bowie's Outside, can you tell who the murderer is? idk this. 4363. Are you a bad banana with a greasy black peel? nope. 4364. What do you think of the Atkins diet? short term weight loss. 4365. 'If it bleeds, I will fuck it' How does that make you feel? pretty disgusted. 4366. The greatest shock rocker of all time is: idk. The most pathetic shock rocker is: 4367. Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, or Red Dragon? none. 4368. If Dr Lechter were to visit you what would you do? he’s not real so.... 4369. Who is your favorite director of movies? i don’t really have one. 4370. What is Kubrick's best film? i only know of one. 4371. Fill in the blank as if you were speaking. I don't want anybody else. When I think about ___ I touch myself. you. 4372. Are you overly confident and blinded to your own fraults? If you were you probably wouldn't know the extent of it. is this even a question then? 4373. Do you like: King Crimson? no to all. Emerson Lake and Palmer? Tajmahol? Republic? Thursday? 4374. Do you write your favorite bands on your clothing? no lmao. 4375. Are you wild and crazy? not anymore. 4376. Do you party like River Pheonix? no. 4377. What is it that you still are hiding? my potential. 4378. How attractive is a girl is a suit? How attractive is a guy ina dress? i’d have to see if they can rock it first. 4379. Why is it more acceptable for a girl to dress like a guy than for a guy to dress like a girl? ask society. 4380. Why is being a girl seen as somehow something LESS than being a guy? idk. 4381. What are three things you value? life, family/friends, opportunities. 4382. What are three things you normally do that go against those values in some way? not make the most of it. 4383. Name three things society in general values? money, looks, success. 4384. Name three behaviors that society accepts as normal that go against those values? no. 4385. Name three highly specific things you look for in a potential mate? good hygiene, genuinely kind and loyal, a drive to become successful. 4386. Who is the basis for your comparison when choosing a partenr? haha my boyfriend? 4387. Have you ever given someone multiple orgasms or received them yourself? both. 4388. The older generations thought the beatles were hip. Now they think today's music is shocking. What could music evolve into that people might find more shocking ten years from now? this survey was made over ten years ago... so look at the music now. mumble rap is rising. 4389. Do you have any motives for your actions other than anger and lust? sure. 4390. Would you be more likely to rape someone or to kill someone? kill. 4391. What have you read by James Baldwin? nothing. 4392. Can you read Naked Lunch straight through in one sitting? nope. 4393. Are you a snob? If yes, in what regards? no. 4394. Fill in the blank. ___ is all there is. love. 4395. Is common sense dead? i hope not. that’d be stupid. 4396. Are you unapproachable? sometimes. 4397. Are you the kind of person strangers like to talk to? yes, for some reason lol. 4398. Do social interactions enerize or drain you (in general)? it’s draining nowadays. 4399. What's the longest you have ever gone between sexual encounters? the first eighteen years of my life. 4400. Compare John Lennon and Kurt Cobain: no.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

1 note · View note

artificialqueens · 7 years

Text

orange is the new drag (group fic) - comeapart

a/n: the title is incredibly misleading this isn’t a oitnb au it’s just prisonfic. this is the kind of fic you shouldn’t read when you’re already sad. please read the warnings before reading. please leave feedback if you want to see more, because if it bombs i’ll just drop it and write something else haha

Rupaul Charles Federal Correctional Institution had a reputation. Between the few personal items the inmates were allowed and the standard issue grey and orange, it was the only talking point left. Everyone had different reputations, but there were a few that stood out, even between the similar groups of the prison blocks.

Danny Noriega was the baby of the B-Block. Nobody had figured out how he had managed to achieve universal likeability, but it was clear in the attention he got from others and even guards that he was one of the lucky ones, visible in eyes that hadn’t quite lost their colour yet. Sutan Amrull was essentially the Charles Manson of the B-Block; the cult leader with a following ready to brand the sign of the Gemini into their skin with whatever they could find. Willam Belli was the unofficial king of the B-Block; the only person who had dirt on every single inmate and was fucked with by no one. These reputations came with power, the kind that attracted people to follow at beck and call. These reputations drew crowds.

Manila Luzon had a different type of reputation.

“I heard that fag killed a guy,” tended to be the way conversations turned when he walked past.

“I heard he tried to hang his ex. Hung and quartered or some shit. That one is real crazy, you can see it in his eyes. Fucker would probably kill you and leave your guts on the floor for the next guy to come and see, damn tranny exhibitionist,” someone said, correcting the other. The story was always somewhere along the right lines, but it wasn’t ever correct. The ambiguity of the whole situation gave Manila a little power, because the crime had been planned. Manila was a perfectionist, which was something that his boy persona had always lacked in the best of situations.

The reality of the crime had been that Manila had killed his boyfriend after he admitted to cheating and attacking his sister. The cheating wouldn’t have phased him, but Manila was always big on family values, and didn’t hesitate to spike his drink the next day after supposedly making up with him, putting to use the knife skills that boy scouts had once taught him. Everyone loved a story, but Manila didn’t doubt that if people knew the truth that he would lose some of the protection the secrecy gave him.

What people did know was that he killed, and he had succeeded to the point he had almost been able to prove herself innocent. If she hadn’t been seen by her neighbour, she probably would’ve been walking on the other side, with nicer clothes than the uncomfortable greys she was so used to. For someone who was constantly referred to as a fag, he generated an impressive amount of fear, especially because nobody could really figure out what had actually happened. Inmates and guards both tended to keep a little distance, and even the inmates who could have beat him in a fight tended to give him space when he walked past.

That was okay for Manila, though. He spent most of his time in the library, when he wasn’t allowed to be in his cell, reading up on the donated textbooks that left little to the imagination. There was no point in reading fiction in a place that had an overwhelming feeling of death in the halls. It was probably more dangerous, either way. Everyone took it as just another coping mechanism, just like how they had taken the fact he had used to be a drag queen. It was safe.

He had managed to spend most of the first six months keeping entirely to himself, buried in books and his cell, without actually starting any conversation. When it finally happened, once the books were starting to get old, it was none other than Willam Belli.

It hadn’t been a surprise to anybody that Willam had made the first move. People had their stories, but Willam had worse, and the theories that floated behind him hung heavy in the air. He was the kind of crazy that nobody could really understand, or fuck with, and he was a genius. Manila thought they were actually more similar than he wanted to believe, but there was no way he was set to have the same reputation that Willam held, so he kept quiet.

Willam had walked into the library as if he owned the place, and he might as well have, sitting on the desk and kicking his feet up onto one of the nicer chairs and staring at Manila. He pulled the book from in front of him, picking it up and reading over the first line before looking down at him and raising his brows. “You need all this math to figure out where you hide the bodies, or is this for fun?”

When Manila looked up, Willam had a grin full of teeth that looked too nice to be real. If he didn’t have a reputation which Manila was pretty sure could get him killed he would’ve ignored him, but because he wasn’t stupid, he looked up and answered. “This is for fun. If I was going to hide bodies, wouldn’t I be reading about gardening?”

“Oh nurse, that’s sick. You buried the body?” Willam laughed, shaking his head before putting the book back down in front of Manila.

“Yes. What else are you supposed to do with a dead body?”

“There are rumours that you ate it,” Willam grinned wider, and Manila wanted to laugh purely on how ridiculous it sounded coming from him. Who asked questions like that? It wasn’t exactly a normal conversation topic, and it wasn’t comforting in the slightest.

“I don’t think there are many health benefits in eating internal organs. Sorry,” Manila said quietly, looking back down at the book and turning the page. “I’m sure you can find someone who’s into that, though. I’ve heard there are plenty of killers here.”

“I guess, but I’m interested in you. Did you like it?” Willam was either a genius or a complete idiot, and Manila hated that whatever he was playing was working on him.

At the time, killing had been the best and only possible option. It was okay, because it was protecting others. It was protecting his family and it was good because it was stopping someone dangerous going back into the world without any punishment for the torment they had caused on another living creature. At the time, he hadn’t thought of what came after, other than the feel of flesh splitting under gloved hands and knives.

Manila just shook his head. “It isn’t that simple.”

Willam took the answer for what it was, eyes not straying once from Manila. “You wanna kill anyone else? You wanna kill me?”

“No,” Manila answered. It was simple, because if anything happened like that ever again, he wasn’t going to stay to let the feelings manifest into violence and destruction. Instead, he would see a therapist, or get a pet cat or something. If he avoided situations where it seemed reasonable, there was less of a chance of wanting to kill again.

Willam seemed to be happy with the answer, and with the fact he hadn’t hesitated. He nodded, reaching to touch Manila’s hand. Manila pulled away, but Willam still had the same grin as before plastered on his face. “So, I’m going to go. But I have a proposition for you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“If you see me around, and I nod at you, nod back, ‘kay? Don’t need any sissy fags thinking you’re neutral. You want to be on my team, ladyboy. I’ll owe you one.”

“What?”

“If I nod to you, you nod back.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And that’s it?” Manila wasn’t buying it. Whatever Willam wanted, it was more than just nodding, and Manila wasn’t about to get in a war with the white supremacists for a favour from Willam Belli. Most of his vices weren’t the kind you could trade for in prison, anyway.

“That’s it. Man, for a killer, you’re fucking dumb. People are freaked out by you, ‘cause you killed a dude with one of those pocket-knives or whatever, or maybe you didn’t but everyone thinks you did. And if you look like you’re on my team, people will think I’m scarier by proxy. I need it before the next batch of inmates transfer.”

“Oh. I guess I can do that, okay.”

“Awesome. See you around, Luzon. And stop looking so sad. You didn’t hear it from me, but I hear Sutan has a soft spot for boys who look like girls. Maybe you want to get in on that.”

“Isn’t he like… A cult leader?”

“I didn’t know you were picky with your violent, fucked up felons. Take what you can get,” Willam rolled his eyes, getting to his feet before smiling at him and adding, “You’ll do fine if you don’t let yourself rot up here.”

That had been it for the next few months, until the new inmates slowly started to fill the empty bunks, and Willam came back with more of a reputation than before. Since then, he had started to talk to Sutan on occasion and had lost all three cellmates since, all of them scared of him, begging the guards to switch them out on account of whatever rumour Willam had told them.

He felt like a monster, but it let him keep the safety that came with being avoided by most and that was more than enough for him. He didn’t want to be near any of the fights, or any of the drug dealers, and the fact that they didn’t want to be around him either was comforting. He wanted to leave and go home earlier than he was sentenced to, and to live a life that wasn’t haunted by his bad decisions. Anything to improve his quality of life was the ideal.

That was, until he was allocated a new roommate with as much of a reputation out as Manila had in. He didn’t like the name Brian, and he definitely didn’t like that he had managed to adapt to life in a prison cell as quickly as he had. There was a hint of jealousy when he heard the name of the person Brian had dragged down with him, another queen, and Manila was either going to become Alaska’s best friend or her worst nightmare.

#manila luzon #willam belli #raja gemini #group fic #prison au #angst #au #tw homophobic slurs #tw violence #tw minor character death #tw prison #comeapart #rpdr fanfiction #m/m au #orange is the new drag by comapart

34 notes · View notes

bookedsuccess · 5 years

Photo

#DAY354

The Book “The Compound Effect” in Three Sentences

Summary by James Clear

The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions. You cannot improve something until you measure it. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you.

The Compound Effect summary

This is my book summary of The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts. This summary also includes key lessons and important passages from the book.

“Talk about things that matter with people who care.” -Jim Rohn

The compound effect is the operating system that has been running your life whether you know it or not.

“There are no new fundamentals.” -Jim Rohn

Success is doing a half dozen things really well, repeated five thousand times.

You don't need more knowledge. You need a new plan of action.

Consistency is the ultimate key to success.

If you aren't better, work harder.

The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions.

Small choices + consistency + time = significant results.

Tony Robbins' no man's land concept is when you're not really happy about your life, but you're not unhappy enough to do anything about it. You want to avoid this complacency.

Knowledge uninvested is wasted.

Choice is at the center of all success and failure. It is what we choose that makes the biggest difference. Too often we sleepwalk through our choices. We default to choices that our society and culture tells us we should do.

It's not big choices, but ones that you think don't matter or count for much that derail us. You don't consciously think about it, but these small decisions can really change things.

Keep a daily gratitude journal about your spouse. Write down one thing you are thankful for each day about your spouse then give them the book as a gift one year later.

Gratitude is acknowledging there are people in your life who have done things for you that you couldn't do for yourself.

What you appreciate, appreciates.

You have to be willing to give 100 percent in your relationships. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you.

You alone are responsible for your situation.

Everyone has the opportunity to be lucky. If you live in a free society, you are lucky.

The first step toward change is awareness. The best way to become aware is to measure. Writing it all down is key.

Tracking your progress and missteps is key for long-term success.

Track your behavior for at least one week.

All winners are trackers. You cannot improve something until you measure it.

Professional athletes are particularly big trackers.

Tracking will revolutionize your life. The author started by tracking every financial decision in a notebook.

Merely becoming conscious of your actions begins to change them.

Every dollar you spend today is costing you $5 in twenty years. (Because of opportunity cost from investing.)

Making small course corrections will result in exactly zero applause.

The difference between the number one golfer and number ten golfer is just 1.9 strokes. The difference prize money is huge.

Start by saving 1 percent of your money each month. Then save 2 percent the next month. Continue until you are saving 10 percent of what you earn.

Dave Ramsey: personal finance is 80 percent behavior.

The earlier you start making changes the more the compound effect works in your favor.

The key to success is this: are you learning each day?

No business is going to keep someone around just for showing up. You have to continually get ready.

Your life is a result of your moment to moment choices.

The older your habits are and the deeper their roots, the harder they are to change.

It stands to reason that since you learned every habit you have, you can also learn new ones.

If the nose of a plane is pointed just one percent off course when it leaves LA for New York, it will end up in Delaware once it gets to the east coast.

The most motivating choices are ones that align with your “why” and your purpose.

You need a deep why for doing stuff. With a why that is meaningful enough, you will do almost anything. (Think of Kristy exercising for the wedding.)

Too many people focus on achievement without fulfillment.

If you create goals for yourself that have friction with your values, you're going to self-sabotage or feel guilty about your progress. For example, if your family is a high priority, but you set high financial goals for yourself then there is friction between those two goals. (Note: this is basically identity-based habits. You can't have friction between your identity and your goals.)

Design the life you want first and the business you want second. Most people choose a career before thinking about what kind of life they want to build. (Note: great idea. Even better idea might be to test lifestyles. Try one project in various “lives” and see which you enjoy most. Write a book (author), show a photo project in a gallery (photographer), etc.)

The Law of Attraction is simply directing your attention toward something that was already there.

Write down your most important goals.

When you set a goal, most people ask, “What do I need to do to achieve your goal?” Instead, you should ask “Who do I need to become?”

What is your entertainment vs. education ratio? The top 20% of people spend their time focused on education.

Stop watching the news. The news just aggregates the worst, saddest, and most stressful stories every day.

If their is a difference between what you say and what you do, then your behavior is the winner.

Identify your triggers for your bad habits: the who, what, where, and when that prompts you to start your bad habits.

Start by eliminating your triggers. Throw out junk food, etc.

Stop lying and justifying hard choices by saying things like, “It's not fair for everyone to avoid sweets just because I don't want to eat sweets.”

Dean Ornish study found it was easier for people to ditch lots of bad habits at the same time.

Any new habit has to work inside your current life and lifestyle. The gym can't be out of the way. It has to be on the way.

Montell Williams has an add-in principle where he focuses on adding something in to his life rather than what he is cutting out or sacrificing.

Hardy recommends using a Seinfeld calendar for public accountability too. Hangout in the office, etc. so other people can see it.

Be patient. You've spent years repeating bad behaviors. It's going to take years to build good ones.

Momentum is huge. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.

The hardest part of momentum is the beginning. But like pushing the merry-go-round on the playground… Once you get moving you can keep going very easily.

With momentum, you can continue succeeding with less work. It's easy to keep things running once you have momentum.

Jack Nicklaus had a repeated pre-shot routine that he did the same way over and over again. A psychologist tracked his pre-shot time for every shot at a tournament and it never wavered by more than one second. Set yourself up for success.

Book end your days. You can always ensure how your day starts and ends. Finish your most important tasks first. Review your day each evening.

Commit to doing a relationship review each weekend. Cover what went well in your marriage that week. Rank your relationship on a scale of 1-10 over the last week and then ask what could get it to a 10.

“Anyone can fall in love. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love takes real work.”

When you lose two weeks of work, you don't just lose the work you would have done. You also lose momentum and that is the bigger problem.

Garbage in, garbage out. Don't waste your time watching TV, eating junk, reading useless stuff, consuming negative stories, and more.

Who is on your personal board of advisors? Who are the 10-12 experts you get advice from?

The best people hire the best coaches. Harvey McKay had 20 coaches. A speech coach, writing coach, humor coach, etc.

What are you willing to tolerate? If you tolerate people being late that is what you'll get. If you tolerate earning less than what you're worth, that's what you'll earn. (This is similar to Mark Manson's idea of “what kind of pain do you want?” Except here it is applied to the negative forces in our life whereas he applies it to our goals and ambitions.)

Oprah's 2004 season opener is one of the greatest product launches and examples of going above and beyond expectations.

Always go a little bit beyond what people expect. Dress a little nicer. Try a little harder.

There is a difference between learning and studying. Learning leads to knowledge. Studying a topic means you are invested in it and try it out. The world already has tons of knowledge. You don't need to learn more. What you need is to study, to practice, and to take action on the knowledge you have.

0 notes