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allthebrazilianpolitics · 3 years ago

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The Man Who Connects The German Far-Right To Brazilian Evangelicals

Alternativ für Deutschland deputy Waldemar Herdt talks about alliance between ultraconservatives from both countries

[Image description: Waldemar Herdt (right), member of the AfD, the largest party on the German far right, visiting the Temple of Solomon in São Paulo.]

March 26, 2021. A short, plump man walks through a city square lined with palm trees and golden columns, in the garden of the Temple of Solomon, in São Paulo, Brazil. He is accompanied by six people dressed elegantly, among them the federal deputy Aroldo Martins (Republicans party) and bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God Eduardo Bravo. A video shows the man strolling through a replica of the Tabernacle, admiring religious artifacts, and speaking into a microphone in front of a seven-branched candelabrum. According to him, in this place it is possible to see that “the word of God is alive”. He speaks of a “coldness of the gospel” in Germany and says that Brazil is an example for Europe to revive its faith.

The man in the video is Waldemar Herdt, 58, a member of the German Bundestag representing the AfD (German acronym for “Alternative for Germany”), the country's largest far-right party. At the end of March, he traveled to Brazil, where he met politicians and pastors and visited businesses and churches. What makes a German deputy travel to Brazil in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? The answer to that question goes back to an important man in Christian right-wing networking, to groups of Bible followers who form alliances around the world and try to redefine human rights, and to a German party that has been intensely seeking exchanges with far-right forces in Brazil.

"Brazil was special"

Neuenkirchen-Vörden, in northwestern Germany. A road winds through the bucolic village. The lawn in front of the houses is neatly trimmed, German flags flutter in the wind, and you can see some cows in the pasture. A little away, there is a gigantic terrain protected by trees and a wall. A gravel path leads to the house where Waldemar Herdt lives with his family. It's late July. After having canceled two interviews in Berlin at the last minute, the far-right AfD politician arranged to hold a meeting at his home.

AfD was founded in 2013. In 2017, it entered the German Parliament with 12.6% of the votes. At the time of its creation, it was above all an ultra-liberal, nationalist party against the European Union. However, with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Germany, the radical right forces asserted themselves within the party. Today the AfD is a party with connections to far-right movements and neo-Nazi groups. Its politicians often draw attention because of racist and anti-Semitic comments. AfD member Björn Höcke, for example, called the Holocaust Memorial (which pays homage to the 6 million Jews killed by Nazism) in Berlin "a memorial of shame".

At the entrance to Waldemar Herdt's huge house, a sign greets visitors: “God bless this house and everyone who enters and leaves it”. Has the reporter already had lunch? Herdt's wife had prepared something. "Not at all? Are you sure?" Herdt then leads the reporter into a spacious room with a tiled floor. The politician's adult son is busy behind five television monitors, taking calls to the family's carrier. A large window overlooks the immense garden. Trampoline, swing, a tent for events. A dog makes a racket on a leash.

Before the interview begins, Herdt still needs to respond to a few messages and calls. They have to do with Armenia, Greece, Uzbekistan. It's impossible not to notice: everything goes through Waldemar Herdt. “Brazil was special.,” says Herdt enthusiastically, with a Russian accent. He is originally from Kazakhstan. The largest country in Latin America is playing an increasingly important role for the European Christian right.

"Conservative International"

The plan to travel to Brazil emerged in 2019, during the National Prayer Breakfast at the White House, in Washington. Once a year, politicians and religious groups from around the world meet in the United States capital at the initiative of a conservative Christian organization. The meeting is considered an important event for lobbying Christian interest groups in the US. Some of these groups are Catholic, many are Evangelical, and not a few fundamentalists. Even Donald Trump, then president of the USA, spoke there. "It wasn't a presidential speech," says Herdt: "It was preaching." In 2019, 4,500 people participated in the event, mainly politicians, but also pastors and businessmen. Ten parliamentarians traveled from Germany. Herdt also had conversations with Brazilian parliamentarians at this event. With whom exactly, he doesn't reveal. But one thing he wants to say: "During the Prayer Breakfast, I realized that not just me, but the entire AfD has no relationship with Latin America." That would change soon.

In July of 2021, famous AfD politician Beatrix von Storch also traveled to Brazil and met with President Jair Bolsonaro. After the visit, which was widely publicized by the Brazilian press, the federal deputy spoke in an interview with the BBC that she intends to create a “Conservative International”, an allusion to the Communist International. In a text in the German right-wing newspaper Junge Freiheit, she complains that the left operates today at a world level. “Its networks reach from the United Nations and the European Union to international courts, from internet giants to national media. Antifa, ‘Fridays for Future’, and ‘Black Lives Matter’ serve as organizations worldwide. Unless conservatives also network on a world level, they will always be at a disadvantage and fall behind. The Bolsonaro government has understood this and is therefore open to international cooperation with conservatives in other countries.”, she declared.

In Brazil, she also met other influential politicians, including the president's son, Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro. Steve Bannon, former chief strategist of Donald Trump, has announced Eduardo Bolsonaro as the leader of “The Movement” in Latin America, an international right-wing network that is in the process of planning. Unlike Waldemar Herdt's visit, the meeting with Beatrix von Storch, who is the granddaughter of Hitler's finance minister, generated great indignation, particularly from Jewish groups and human rights organizations.

Von Storch, like Herdt, is a member of the Christian-Conservative wing of the AfD. In this branch, representatives of different Christian confessions joined together: free Evangelical churches, Anglicans, opponents of Pope Francis, and traditionalist Catholics. Its position is usually in great affinity with the official positions of the Catholic and Evangelical churches. The motto of this religious right is the defense of what they consider to be the “Christian West”: the fight against abortion and LGBT+ rights, the promotion of the “traditional family” as an universal norm, and the resistance to a supposed “Islamization”.

Beatrix's visit, however, has had few concrete results so far – unlike Waldemar Herdt's trip. He remains the most important politician in the new alliance between the AfD and Brazil.

Something rotten

An agenda that unites evangelicals and the new ultra-conservative right in the world is, alongside the criminalization of abortion, the fight against the LGBT+ community. It is also for this reason that they are intensely seeking contacts abroad. “They want to transform their agenda into a global issue.”, says Christina Vital, professor of the Post-Graduate Program in Sociology at the Fluminense Federal University – UFF and collaborator at the Institute of Religion Studies – Iser. "For this, they are joining numerous forces, acting in international networks." According to Vital, Brazilian evangelicals have direct connections with the White House. Contacts in Europe, however, are few so far, and none significant in Germany. Does Waldemar Herdt want to change that?

The AfD politician says he was impressed that there was a coalition between religious deputies in the Brazilian Parliament and that many of them are pastors. "In Brazil, it is possible to express the faith, without feeling contrary pressure from society." Herdt met with numerous evangelical politicians and pastors in Brazil. A meeting with the evangelical Eduardo Bolsonaro (Social Liberal Party - PSL), son of the president, was also planned, but could not take place due to a vacation trip. On the other hand, Herdt met Marcelo Crivella (Republicans), a licensed bishop of Universal and former mayor of Rio de Janeiro. Also with Deputy Bia Kicis (PSL), radical supporter of Bolsonaro.

But one interlocutor in particular calls attention: Marco Feliciano (Social Christian Party). Deputy, vice-leader of the government, and pastor, he is probably one of the most important links between evangelical churches and politics, and a highly controversial figure. Countless times, he made demonstrations considered racist and homophobic. About this, Herdt only says: "If you look, everyone has something rotten [in free translation]". Furthermore, he claims to have not done any detailed research prior to this meeting.

AfD looking for connections with Brazil

Waldemar Herdt is not the only AfD politician looking for connections to Brazil. On October 28, 2018, the day Bolsonaro was elected president, Petr Bystron, leader of the AfD on the Foreign Relations Committee of the German Parliament, described him as a “true conservative” and celebrated: “The conservative revolution has now arrived in South America."

Other politicians also celebrated the victory of the man who, during the campaign, threatened to shoot his political opponents and hung photos of torturers in his office. Christian Blex, for example. Known for being especially radical, the AfD deputy in the Parliament of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has family ties in Brazil and is in the country frequently. “For purely personal reasons.”, he emphasizes. Since his focus is on German domestic politics, he says he doesn't want to get involved in international affairs. However, he was pleased with the victory of Bolsonaro, with whom he sympathizes for denying the "climate bullshit" and not condoning the "corona panic". For Blex, it is logical that his positions do not please the “mainstream on the left”. He would have proposed the creation of a Brazil-Germany Parliamentary Group in the state parliament, but the attempt failed. “Maybe in the next term of the legislature.”, he says.

Another AfD politician with ties to Brazil is Torben Braga, 30, a member of the Thuringia state parliament. He was a press officer for the German Student Fraternities Association, a notoriously racist institution. He is considered a political godson of Björn Höcke, the most radical figure in the party. Braga was born and raised in Brazil, and attended school in Rio de Janeiro. His chances of entering the German Bundestag in the September elections are good. [Update by the mod: the article is from August 2021; as of January 2022, Braga didn’t get in.] On social media, Braga also celebrated Bolsonaro's victory, but when interviewed, he behaved in a more restrained manner. As for the spread of hatred against minorities? After all, Bolsonaro claimed that he prefers a dead child to a gay child, made racist offenses to the Afro-Brazilian population, and told a congresswoman that she wasn't even worthy to be raped. Braga claims that he does not know these quotes and therefore cannot comment on them.

In addition, the AfD presented to the Executive several Kleine Anfragen (Small Inquiries), official questions about foreign aid to Brazil. With this, deputies of parliaments can ask questions that must be answered and published by the government in good time. “This is a mere pretext to give a democratic air to Bolsonaro's government.”, says Yasmin Fahimi, German Social Democratic Party (SPD) politician who chairs the Brazil-Germany Parliamentary Group in the German Parliament. “Many problematic issues are not brought up.” Analysts interviewed for the report believe that, with the departure of Donald Trump, the country may come to assume a leadership role for the Christian right. And there are reasons to say that AfD politician Waldemar Herdt plays a central role in networking this conservative-Christian international alliance.

“Bible Values are what guides my path”

Herdt migrated to Germany in 1993. He grew up in Kazakhstan, trained as an agricultural engineer, was director of a production cooperative. Since 2004, he has owned a construction company in the German state of Lower Saxony. Before joining the AfD, he was involved in the small Christian Bible Followers Party. Until earlier this year, Herdt was the spokesperson for the Northern Regional Association of “Christians in AfD”. “It's the values of the Bible that guide my way.”, he writes on his homepage.

Herdt is a man who talks a lot about "humanism", he reinforces all the time that the family is the most important thing, and claims himself a pacifist. He's not that classic AfD type that propagates hatred against minorities. Even so, he speaks of “climate hysteria” and says that “the collective German sense of guilt” about Nazism would be taking away the dignity of the Germans. From time to time, he warns about a “new model of society” and a supposed “gender ideology”. “In Germany, the legislation has been changing under pressure from nonbelievers – to the point that we will soon end up in Sodom and Gomorrah.”, he says, referring to two legendary cities destroyed by God in the Bible due to a sinful population. "A conservative right-wing network would do no harm, as a counterbalance.", he explains. This became his most important mission.

The church Herdt attends is a two-story building with bluish-tinted glass, located on a busy street not far from the central train station in Osnabrück (a town of 160,000 in the state of Lower Saxony). At the entrance, a sign: “Free Source of Life Evangelical Church” (Lebensquelle in German, Fonte da Vida in Portuguese). Above, a cross. Other than that, the building doesn't attract attention. Herd actively engages in the commitments of the evangelical church. The “Source of Life” is part of the Pentecostal communities that, as a rule, do not critically read the Bible. It is estimated that this particular confessional branch has 60,000 adherents in Germany.

“Source of Life” has its own YouTube channel, and during services, bands play Christian pop music. The musicians look like any other young adult: three-day beard, earrings, T-shirts. Their performances are emotional, melodramatic even: “You conquered death for me. Thank you Jesus". At the front of the stage, people dance, clap their hands, hold their hands in the air. "Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus." The "Source of Life", however, is criticized for carrying out and promoting "conversion therapies" for the "cure of homosexuality" and dubious treatments against chemical dependency.

From time to time, other preachers are invited to Osnabrück – these visits are documented on YouTube. Alexey Ledyaev from Latvia is one of them. Ledyaev runs the “New Generation Church” in Riga and is known for aggressive homophobic preaching. Waldemar Herdt says Ledyaev is his "friend". Within that context, he also made an appearance in the election campaign, at an event that the preacher organized on behalf of "Watchmen on the Wall". The Watchmen are a joint project of Ledyaev and far-right American fundamentalist preacher Scott Lively. In a speech during the founding of the Watchmen, Ledyaev claimed that LGBT+ people tried to erect a "dictatorship of homosexuality" and that the Watchmen must protect society from the "culture of death", in addition to supporting politicians who share their values. Lively is co-author of the book Pink Swastika, which blames homosexuals for the Holocaust. At a Watchmen event in Riga in November 2018, Waldemar Herdt appeared alongside Lively, being presented as an acclaimed special guest. Despite this, when questioned, Herdt admits that he may even know the preacher, but can only vaguely remember him.

The alliance

In the summer of 2019 Waldemar Herdt traveled to Moscow and presented an idea: the creation of an “alternative human rights commission”. He explains it this way: “I have come to the conclusion that all human rights organizations have a touch of leftist gender ideology. The conservative side has no representation. We need an interparliamentary commission based on Christian, conservative, and patriotic values.”

A few months later, in December 2019, the AfD bench in the Federal Parliament actually decides to found the “Interparliamentary Commission on Human Rights” (IPMK, its acronym in German) – chaired by Waldemar Herdt. In a press release, the AfD writes that the commission will address the "left-wing environmentalist ideology hidden in the classic definition of human rights." So far, according to Herdt, the commission has members of parliament and experts from 30 countries, including the United States, Portugal, Serbia, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and, recently, Brazil. Resolutions are being drafted to become bills. Despite the pandemic, IPMK has already held several events. Among them, an online conference on the topic of “extremism”, which brought together Russian parliamentarians and activists, American preachers ,and Sam Brownback, who had been appointed by Trump as a special ambassador for religious freedom.

All over the world, the topic of human rights and the occupation of relevant political positions in this area has become something of a gateway for the Christian right. Even in Brazil, Marco Feliciano, Herdt's interlocutor, was chosen in 2013 as president of the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. “He did not reach this position because he had already worked in the area, but because he wanted to put an end to LGBT+ themes.”, says anthropologist Christina Vital. Minister Damares Alves, an Evangelical, has also been trying to establish a new definition of human rights. And what does Herdt think? For him, human rights mean above all three things: “the right to life, the right to work, and the right to religious belief”, he says. However, this is only a fraction of what is contained in Germany's constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In June, the German Institute for Human Rights was already sounding the alarm in a detailed study of the AfD. This study concluded that, from the point of view of human rights theory, the AfD defends positions that are not based on the Constitution.

This year Waldemar Herdt will not run again for the German Bundestag. He even ran for office during the party's first caucus, but he was not chosen. Despite this, the IPMK guild will continue, as he emphasizes in the interview. And Herdt intends to continue acting as a spokesperson for IPMK. In addition, a conference is scheduled at the German Parliament next year. The main guests are Herdt's interlocutors in Brazil: Bia Kicis, Kennedy Nunes, Aroldo Martins, Luiz Philippe de Orleans and Bragança. It is the beginning of a new alliance.

Source, translated by the blogger.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #germany #german politics #democracy #religion #international politics #translations and summaries #mod nise da silveira

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a-shakespearean-in-paris · 4 years ago

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Why Cullen?

Today I bring you a post I’ve been in the process of mentally drafting for a while, a post that essentially analyzes the age old question in the Dragon Age fandom: Why is there always something with Cullen?

To do this, I am going to go through different “phases” of Cullen discourse. My thesis and answering the titular question: It’s complicated, and I don’t think I can answer “Why Cullen,” but “there’s sometimes recycled discourses made about his character through the years, maybe there’s a pattern.” When it comes to Cullen’s detractors, I understand the fact that it might be frustrating to see much content for someone so “boring” when there’s more “interesting” and “well done” characters (though interest is of course relevant) so it leads to a lot of vitriol from both new and old fans who think the man had too much screen time already. Furthermore, he is highly complicated man dressed as a Disney prince, and the “Disney-esque” feel of his romance creates a dissonance between coming to terms with his problematic past and reveling in the romanticism. We can have a happy medium everyone, but because of what I can only describe as “tik tok thought” it’s become looked down upon to have problematic favorites, which leads to guilt in liking something problematic, or outright revisionism.

But liking things with problematic elements doesn’t make you a bad person.

Alright, let’s begin:

The first phase truly began of course with DAO with Cullen’s crush on the female Circle Mage Warden. Some were endeared, others not so much. I cannot speak to this phase too much as I was around 15-16 and pretty preoccupied with my high school drama instead of fandom, though I played both DAO and DA2 upon it’s release and followed updates for DA2 before it came out. Despite not being an active fandom member I was what they would call, a lurker. I knew some people liked Cullen and thought he was cute, wishing for more screen time after the game and hoping he’d be in DAI through IMDB message boards (remember those?) and YoutTube comments. When news broke he’d be an advisor in DAI and a romance option, I remember seeing a lot of people in those same spaces rejoice. I’m sure there were also people who weren’t so pleased, but from what I saw, people were happy. When Inquisition did release, I actually did quite a bit more lurking on tumblr despite the fact I didn’t have a blog, because I played the romance route, really gravitated toward it, and wanted to see fanart and such. People liked the romance, liked his arc and how Bioware handled his struggles with lyrium; and found it realistic. Even in my lurking days I did see some blowback on Cullen from detractors, those who didn’t think he should have been the military advisor (which canonically it makes total sense to me why he’s where he’s at, but I won’t get into it here however.) But likely because I wasn’t fully “in fandom,” my surface level understanding of how tumblr felt about Cullen was relatively positive and there was only standard fare discourse.

Phase 2: I can speak about this phase better because I established this blog in 2017. Two years after DAI was released, you still had a lot of fans who loved his romance and character, but you also saw a lot of those fans really dive into his flaws, insisting even that just focusing on the Disney Prince aspects of him reduced his character. There were also more internal debates. Would realistically Cullen be a good father was one. One thing however was for sure, there was a strange them and us line between detractors and fans, and to many fans, myself included, oftentimes the Cullen blowback would extend beyond the valid, “hey I don’t think his characterization was handled well” or “his redemption arc isn’t that great” to outright vitriolic hate that blatantly ignored his PTSD and lyrium addiction, and even sometimes “you just like Cullen because he’s white.” As a POC fan it was a fantastic thing to be accused of. I used to be more involved with discord during this period and I remember a few discussions about this as well. Even those indifferent to Cullen didn’t get it.

Overall, I have to say the air was one where people in Cullen fandom enjoyed all aspects of him, from delving into this troubled past to indulging in the Disney prince aspects of him. It was a happy medium I think, even if occasionally I would see a Cullen fan feel bad for liking him, and feel like they needed to justify it. Heck I even did and still do feel that way sometimes, like I need to justify what I like. But we all come into fandom for different reasons. I come into fandom some days for different things. Sometimes I want smut with my favorite character, other times I want more intense thought pieces and challenging fics. Great thing about fandom is that it’s a bakery that has cherry tarts, cinnamon rolls, or all kinds of pie depending on your mood. Craving a different sweet treat, you can make your own. Or you can commission an artist or writer for something you fancy.

*(sexual assault mentions here late in the paragraph****)And now I’ve been warped back into Cullen/DA fandom through what I am calling phase three, where the general air on Cullen reads as….very different. After having one foot outside DA fandom for a while coming back and reading the air has been different. There was the bizarre nuggetgate and other things with Cullen. Now, instead of accepting his flaws and exploring him there seems to be a lot of revisionism going on, as if his past never happened or we’re supposed to ignore he was a templar. A sexually active Cullen is looked down upon but in a different way from before. Instead of smut works with him “reducing his complicated character.” it’s distasteful to write smut with him where he’s sexually dominant or even just a lot of smut because he was sexually assaulted. (***Now, it is implied that he was, if you are a female Circle mage in DAO, with “sifting through my thoughts, tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never have” but this is an implication. I will be honest, it is what I have implied. However, it’s not there if you’re not a female Mage. He was however canonically sexually harassed in the Winter Palace, something I will always argue, even if canon treats it like a joke, even if Leliana tells him to “just look pretty.” Just because he is a man doesn’t make it funny that someone grabbed his bottom, and if you take Cole he flat out says “Cullen is afraid.”***)

So here I am, wondering what changed and what’s going on. Here’s what I believe: Cullen is a complicated character and his flaws and his past make him interesting to me, and they are interesting to explore. However there is nothing wrong with wanting to just explore a romantic, sexual Cullen. He’s a character with many facets. He’s romantic, determined, nostalgic, stubborn, unrelenting, loyal, driven, all things that made him seem so real. Here we get to my theory: in today’s media “criticisms” I see people—particularly younger people—beat themselves up for liking something problematic. It’s like every time you engage with media that’s potentially problematic you have to write essays to yourself why it is so and hold yourself accountable. I see this on tik-tok a lot and why I refer to it as “tik tok thought.” Look at the way some young Hamilton fans talk about the musical, or heck even here, and you may see what I mean. It’s like if you don’t acknowledge the problematic aspects of the historical figures behind their fictional portrayals in the show you’re a bad person. Same thing with nostalgic Disney fans my age in younger, if you don’t clown on Ariel for “choosing a man over anything” (SHE LIKED THE SURFACE WORLD BEFORE SHE MET ERIC) you don’t get your brownie points.

I want to make it clear: being critical of media is good. I am glad I see young people and people my age think about the messages we are given in media, but somehow this is turned into ANALYZE EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Ya’ll I’m a grad student. I’m critical most of the time, when I come to my tumblr blog’s lawn I’m here mostly to have some fun, and hey sometimes my fun is being critical. But sometimes it isn’t. You do not have to always be critical. You do not have to beat yourself up for liking something that’s problematic or write an essay about why it is as if that’s your due diligence in stanning a fictional character. I’m going to be honest I used to kind of think I had to justify my likes once, especially because of the Cullen vitriol on tumblr. I worked overtime in my early fanfic efforts to try to prove to the world I knew Cullen was problematic for fear I’d be perceived as just an idiot horny fangirl. Well, let me tell you: I largely don’t think that way anymore. If I want to just enjoy writing some smut or reading some smut with him, I am. But I think there is a second part of this in Cullen fandom currently, a revisionism of his problematic elements. Now, if you have to do mental gymnastics with a character in an effort to ignore problematic elements, perhaps you don’t like the character that much. That’s totally okay. DA has many awesome characters to write about and stan.

So, why Cullen? For so many reasons a bit of a shit show has always followed this character. There’s a divide between fans and his detractors and sometimes there’s a divide within the Cullen fandom. What I can extrapolate for now is the need to keep him squeaky clean and safe and away from anything “problematic” because his of past, his templar roots, or the fact that he’s white when there are POC characters with less content. It reads as a guilt associated with liking him. But please, do not be guilty. He’s not real. Templars aren’t real, mages aren’t real, Cullen isn’t real. Here’s my advice, something I learned while in my directing class in college. What my teacher always said was direct what turns you on, direct a story that gets you thinking, gets you excited. What gets you thinking and excited in a fictional world may be tons of conflict and dramatics, or it may be peace and love. Sometimes it can be both or more. Don’t shame others for coming to a bakery and wanting blueberry when you want cherry, and the baker has both, especially if the baker labels each pie, especially if the recipe for the pie has some salt in it and people like the salt. We can have it all and enjoy it all. What we want in our fiction doesn’t always align with something we may want real life. Lots of people write Modern girl in Thedas stories. Ya’ll if that actually happened to one of us it would probably suck. I’d probably get killed and not even get to meet Cullen and pose around the desk to get things going, so I’d rather it not happen. However, it is fun to read about.

Again, don’t be guilty for liking Cullen, please. But if you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to like Cullen, maybe you don’t like him at all. To that I say, there are many other amazing characters, or perhaps you could write your own.

#fandom critical #I spent too long on this #deleted a lot #but now it's written and I can move on #Cullen rutherford

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plussizeweddingdresses790ioo · 5 years ago

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spoilingstephanie · 3 years ago

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december 24, 2017.

Gotham was the concrete toilet that she remembered, though there was something nostalgic about Gotham at Christmastime. Maybe it was the snow and the fact that some of the shit was frozen beneath it until spring, or maybe it was the lights strewn about businesses and homes and the streetlamps downtown. Hard to dress up the shitstorm that was Gotham, but winter seemed to do it best. Either way, it was still home and it had been calling to Stephanie like a siren song since she’d left three years ago. Three years - it had been three full years since she’d left Gotham, smuggled on a plane by Dr. Thompkins to Africa with Stephanie Brown dead and buried and a fresh start at the end of their flight. Three years since the Black Mask had gotten his hands on her, even if the nightmares were still just as raw. Three years since she’d seen her mother or any of her friends, three years since she’d really felt like herself. Leslie’s intentions had been good, Stephanie knew: the doctor had wanted to give her a fresh start without all the crap she’d gotten herself into looming over her shoulder, to let Stephanie try to live without simply surviving...but even with all the best intentions, the actions had been questionable at best and Stephanie learned very quickly that there was no running from the past regardless of her distance from it. The lights in this neighborhood were extravagant, each house besting the last (and Stephanie couldn’t help but feel like that was intentional on the part of the homeowners). This neighborhood was one of the nicest ones in Gotham, the houses and yards reflecting care rather than poverty and neglect, and that certainly held true for the gate that Stephanie had paused in front of. The wrought iron fencing was weaved through with multicolored twinkle lights, leading to the inflatables and other decorations on the lawn. The big star was the tree in that oversized window, taking over the entirety of it, decorated carefully with more of those lights and colorful ornaments. The more delicate, adult-looking ornaments were fixed towards the top of the tree - the fragile-looking glass ones, ones not meant for small hands, ones that were meant to be kept safe. Further down were the more brightly colored ones, plastic and wooden and safe and homemade ones made by those tiny hands. Tiny hands belonging to that little blonde girl in the window, decked out in elf-themed Christmas pjs. Even from the distance of the street, Stephanie could see the glee in the little girl’s face - bright eyes, big smile, red rosy cheeks - as she fussed with some of those child-safe ornaments on the tree. Four. She was four now. Stephanie didn’t know her name, didn’t want to know her name, but hadn’t been able to help but look into where she’d gone. She’d saved up, paid a guy in cash, and well the adoption had been left open anyway so the information was easy to find. The address was burned into her mind, had been since before she’d left Gotham, but this was the first time she’d stopped by the house. It was nice. Didn’t feel like home. Didn’t look like home, definitely a far cry from the neighborhood she’d grown up in. That was what she’d wanted for the kid, and it looks like she’d gotten it. When the little girl turned towards the street with that big smile, Stephanie felt something twist in her stomach and continued on down the street. After she’d exited the subway, the neighborhood that greeted her did feel like home. The Narrows were the same as they always were, but even this shitstorm of a neighborhood cleaned up a little nicer at this time of year. Lights were weaving through fences, through balcony rails and fire escapes, along gutters, though the displays were so much more simple. This felt like home at Christmastime, and Stephanie’s feet continued on, crunching through ice-packed snow and streets left without much snow treatment, without much thought. Guided by muscle memory, even after all this time gone. As she continued to walk, bundling her coat closer around herself with her hands stuffed in the pockets as snow continued to fall around her, the neighborhood began to shift again: worse looking, less houses and more apartments, those crazy enough to be out on the street with how damn cold it was not making eye contact or looking a little too closely for comfort. The nicer-looking cars were probably stolen and all of them were missing something, the daily drivers looking as though they might fall apart if they drove more than a foot or two ahead. Businesses were boarded up, many had broken windows, and the same could be said for some of the ground-level apartments that she passed. Crime Alley. Definitely home. The apartment building she shuffled into was one of the ones near the end of the Alley, in better repair then some but certainly a far cry from anything resembling nice or safe. Stephanie stomped her feet on the worn, stained and torn carpeting of the entrance to try to get some of the snow off of her shoes. The elevator didn’t work, hadn’t when Stephanie had been here last and that out of order sign was still in place. Up the stairs, third floor, and Stephanie paused in front of the apartment with a ‘9′ on the door. The wreath on the door had a snowman on it - old, bought at a craft fair when Stephanie was a kid, kept in a tub full of Christmas decorations in the coat closet. Home. Stephanie hadn’t been home in three years. She’d been back in Gotham for about a month now, settled into a crappy apartment in the Narrows but outside of the Alley. Home but not quite. She hadn’t been ready to come home. She still wasn’t ready to come home, and yet here she was, face to face with the door of the apartment she’d grown up in. Still not ready. Stephanie had decided that when she heard the lock click and she felt a stalled breath vacate her chest when the door opened. Face to face with familiar blue eyes, greying brown hair, and Stephanie felt a lump in her throat. She knew that face. She saw it in her own, in her smile, around the eyes. She saw it in that little girl, too, even from the distance of the street. She’d know that face anywhere, had seen it in her mind every day and missed the woman it belonged to with an ache that was now overwhelming. “ -- Hey, Mom.”

#[ THIS ISN'T ABOUT COSTUMES AND FISTS ANYMORE . ( headcanon / self para ) ]

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nosebleedclub · 4 years ago

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The Dark Suburb

((Posting again because the original post on June 11th, 2017 6:09pm is no longer available due to me deleting and re-making this blog.))

This is a compilation post of Nosebleed Club prompts from 2015-16 revolving around the concept of “the dark suburb.”

Family Melodrama

something is wearing your mother

oh god his intestines strung up on the christmas tree

your dog’s body all over the house

banging on cellar doors

a creaking sound in your dead sister’s bedroom

warriors with spears and shields painted on the dining room ceiling of a violent family’s mansion

a woman in an expensive coat and an expensive car headed to her nephew’s funeral

coming home to a completely alien mother

getting a doberman on christmas morning that won’t let you leave the house

the reason your parents fled the city to live in the suburbs

summers in palermo where your father was looking for something

mother’s breakdown in the supermarket

the supernatural car you and your twin got for your 16th birthday

parents strangely and deeply interested in the boyfriend you brought home

a mom urging her son to quit basketball; she senses something is not right

all the holes - dozens of them - your mother dug in your backyard

grandparents hiding the reason your parents are away during your winter holiday break

your best friend doesn’t want to go to your house anymore

grandpa’s ghost followed us into the new house

dad hates her bc she killed her twin in the womb and then her mother

Do I Love You?

your boyfriend’s basketball shorts, his boy-aroma, his ghost between your legs when you watch the video of his last game

girls kissing in a gas station convenience store and a third recording them on snapchat

the boy you like drawing flowers on your ap biology practice test when you switch tests with him to grade

walking across a supermarket parking lot by yourself thinking of a boy you love

red mouth

girlfriend scrubbing the blood off her arms in the bathtub

in a tiny white house in florida, sitting on a beer-can-covered counter, legs spread apart, a boy between them

in a drug-induced haze i left home for his semi truck

he never fucked me without his ski mask on

a girl and a girl and claw marks on the door“don’t ever take me back”

The Occult

the incantation that annihilated a whole suburb

a body that drags other bodies into an oven

the witches gathering in the red lake

inhuman sacrifice

dogs gathered at the edge of town refusing to cross the boundary to the outside

a 10 year old girl with memories of a serial killing spree that occurred when her parents were children

white shirts hanging on branches all over the woods

the town of three-eyed children

arrows raining down on a soccer field

feeding time

mysterious scratch marks on your back

a fairy ring in the field where your sister disappeared

Crimes

just throw it in the back

snap!

we found the body but not the head

clearing in the forest where police found a blessed severed head

jar of baby teeth as evidence

children dressed as angels at the crime scene

seeing a face you thought you buried ten years ago at the supermarket

half a fraternity frozen under a lake

fbi agents rolling into a tiny town in appalachia

a severed arm among the hydrangeas

young men howling on the bridge one year after the murder

police cars prowling through your neighborhood, one after another - watching this from your bedroom window

Teen Dream

getting whipped by a towel in the locker room

best friend making the varsity tennis team

taking a shot of vodka in the bathroom after second period

boy gets a boner during gym class

“i’ll be like helicase i’ll unzip them genes (jeans)”

drunkenly reciting the quadratic equation

fear-mongering homecoming queen

track star died in a car accident

dead bodies photography club

“sorry i fucked up here’s some ice cream” “i’m lactose intolerant you douche”

article about demonic possession in the school newspaper

last pool party before summer ends & her hand on your thigh in your dad’s sports car

the first day back from summer vacation & someone in your friend group brings the whole #squad starbucks

a bonfire, lana del rey & drake blasting, the moon

weekend road trips to the ocean

walking around on the track alone, contemplating some philosophical concept you read about on tumblr the night before

coming out to someone completely random - a junior varsity basketball player

the last homecoming dance

lying on the track at your high school after sunset

getting picked up really early in the morning to go on a spontaneous weekend road trip

the sunday after the homecoming dance where you’re kinda tired kinda still energetic from the night before

inside a fast food restaurant drinking milkshakes eating fries until it closes

chill basement party where there’s white balloons gold confetti / glitter two girls who love each other kissing

sitting in the backseat your parents occupying the front of the car you look out the window you see the rural countryside crawl by

pool pizza party at night simple pleasures like that

on the bleachers during a powderpuff football game

sweating so much you might as well have been swimming it would be embarrassing but all the other boys are sweaty too

lost in the suburbs at like 5am and the world is still pale blue

lost in the city at 5pm the sun sinks its head behind skyscrapers

fights on the lawn of an all boys private school

applying makeup the morning after a breakup

huge friend group made up of oracles + boys’ swim team + legendary heroes + valedictorian

aesthetic blogging on a sunday afternoon just chillin in your bedroom

feeling like you could be something big if you work hard enough at it

getting psychoanalyzed by your teachers and parents and extended family

school bathroom pale blue tiles

a dream with damien hirst-esque elements

sleepover at your friend’s villa and you’re the only one awake

looking out at a black sea from your dead cousin’s bedroom window, seeing a light in the distance

funeral mass

chill that runs down your friends’ spines when you enter the classroom the morning after they tried to kill you

the sickness that spreads through the high school

sometimes i was a body in a dump sometimes i was a saint

he said he’d snapchat my burning body to all his friends

my body was evidence she was trying to get rid of

poison disguised as an eighteen year old

a world war between us

$$$

first: “super rich kids” by frank ocean

fast cars flecked with blood

girls who know you won’t be prosecuted if you’re young and rich and pretty enough

snapchat of a boy with red eyes and a glass of dom perignon with the text IS MY LIFE FUCKING REAL

snapchat of a girl’s dad’s black amex with the words MONEY CAN’T BUY HAPPINESS BUT IT GETS CLOSE

taking your middle-class friends out to nice restaurants but knowing they’re with you mainly for the money

“dude i know you’re only a year older than me but sometimes i think of you as my sugar daddy”

traveling to punta del este to find yourself but losing yourself instead

identifying heavily with the versace logo

an imperial bedroom and all one feels is the weight of all that empty space

“even my funeral has to be luxurious”

Hometown Visions

three dead owls on the side of the road

trees bare, houses barren

lanterns lit up on the dirt road at night

moths in a forgotten shed

a dusty old attic filled with dead rats and flies

seeing half your face in a splintered mirror. washing machine making dangerous sounds

midwest: watching a tornado funnel form from a window that won’t shut all the way

grass in the yard growing tall

girls carrying stray cats home

a cellar door swinging open and a man you never wanted to see ever again stepping through it, into the light

snake skins and insect carapaces organized on a torn mattress

a lovely place god abandoned

bat-filled house at the end of the street

a girl crawling out of a burning car

birds in jars

Hide & Seek

not being able to find anyone in a dark forest because they actually left you and it was just a cruel prank

person seeking you is something much worse than what you thought they were

being trapped in your hiding space & no one can find you no matter how loud you call for help

hiding in your friend’s house and finding evidence of a vile crime their parents committed

finding half of your friend

#prompts #nosebleedclub #from the nosebleedclub archive #dark suburb

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idunnoficsorsumthing · 4 years ago

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Forbidden pt. 2

written 2016-2017

Bash x reader

“Father.” you said quickly, as he had reached you both. You lowered your head, and looked at the ground. Bash made a bow to your father. “Your majesty.” he had mumbled. Your father looked furious at Bash. “Who are you?” my father asked Bash. “Sebastian de Poitiers.” he said, my father signed. My father made a hand gesture to one of his personal guards. “Take my daughter to her chambers.” he said, “She is not allowed to leave till I say otherwise.” You follow the guard; you look back one more time. Your father walked inside of the party.

“If the dauphine comes here you need to let him in.” you said, the guard shook his head. You had known the guard my entire life, he had dragged you to your room often enough. He was Bernard, and he was already fifty at least, you thought he would have retired by now. He was more like an uncle and friend so a kind face wasn’t unwelcome. “Why not, he said, you chuckle. “I am to not leave. He didn’t say anything about letting people in.” you said, the guard faintly laughed. “forgive me if I am rude princess, but maybe you should not be with them both.” he said, you opened your mouth in surprise. “Bernard, I can assure you that I am not with the dauphine. He will deliver a message from Bash.” you said, the guard smiles faintly, and he left your room. After a while you heard a knock was on the door, Leith entered with a tray of tea. “Good evening Princess.” he said, He put the tray on the table. “Thank you Leith.” you said, He shook his head. You sign. “If I may Princess, did Bash kiss you?” he asked, You thought it was a ridiculous but Leith was after all a friend. You simply nod. He smiled. “John owes me money now.” he said, You couldn’t help, but smile. “Thank you for the tea, Leith.” You said annoyed.

You woke up to Eliza my maid, waking you up. “Your father is coming.” she said, You yawn, as Eliza hands you your robe. Francis hadn’t visited. When the door opened without warning. The old man walked in. “Good morning father.” You said, he seemed calm. He smiled at you. “I have good news.” he said, while a grin appeared on his face. “That is why I came here, the Archduke of Austria, Maximillian II, he agreed to wed you.” he said, the blood drained from your face. You shake my head, your father’s smile turned into a frown. “You cannot be serious about the kings bastard,” he said: “I will not allow you to ruin everything.”You sit down on my bed with your hand on your mouth you were paralyzed to whatever he could say. He left the room, leaving you alone. You couldn’t phantom why he could make this decision at the moment. Why now? why couldn’t she just stay here in France for a while longer enjoying her youth?

You were sitting close to the lawn with your ladies drinking tea. You don’t hear anything they say, you were too lost in thought. You feel a tap on your shoulder. It was Francis, “Amaya, I need to talk to you.” he said, you nod, standing up, and walk a little with Francis, he looked a little sad. While staring at the grass. “What is it Francis?” You ask. He looks up. “I just heard Mary is coming. “he said, a mile came on your face. “Mary Stuart, I haven’t seen her in ages.” You said, you tried to suppress my happiness about the returning of the queen. Francis was silent. “You liked playing with her as kids,” You said: “better than some archduke.” his eyes widened. “You are engaged to an archduke?” he asked. You nod, “He is packing as we speak, he is coming here.” you said, he frowned. “My father will leave tomorrow, and our futures arrive in a week.” you said, he signed. “’Where’s Bash?” you asked, he looked away. “I haven’t seen him since this morning, I told him about Mary. He was packing” he said, you sign, “he just left?” you asked, Francis nodded. “leave me be, or my father might think I have another lover.” you said, Francis smirked while he walked away.

A week later: Mary Stuart would arrive today, and my future husband would arrive soon too. Bash, you had no clue, but you got more anxious by the day. More nervous for the day, you would have to leave him, the man who finally had the guts to tell you he loved you. Francis wasn’t much help either, he found himself even more indulged in the company of ladies, making the best of it while he still is a free man.

“Princess.” you heard a voice say from behind. you turn around it was Queen Catherine, “Majesty.” you said, you made a little bow. She was smiling at me. “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you on your engagement to the Archduke.” she said, she seemed pleased with herself. While for me it was a punch in the gut, a reminder of what was going to happen. “Thank you, Francis and Mary will be wed soon, I suppose? “you ask, she seemed very pleased. We heard the trumpets call for royal visitors. “Have a nice day princess, and I hope to see you at the feast tonight. “she said, she walked off.

That night, you wore a long sleeved light pink dress with flowers made on. But, you didn’t care for a party. You tried not to let boredom take control of your expressions. Where are my ladies you wondered? They just simply vanished. Queen Mary walked up to you. You made a little bow with your head to show respect. “Your majesty.” you said, “Princess Y/n, it’s an honor to see you again.” she said, you faintly smile. “The honor is all mine.” you said, she smiled. “Come here.” she said, and she pulled me into a hug. “It’s good to see you, old friend.” She said, it made you genuinely laugh. “You do need to tell me everything that is going on here.” She said, you hesitated. “I do not care for gossip much myself. But, I know some things. “ She gave me a friendly laugh. A boy came to her with a glass of wine. You noticed she didn’t drink it. Francis walked into the room, Mary’s attention went to him. “Would you excuse me?” You said, you gave her a nod, making your way over to meet Francis. “Have you seen Bash?” He asked me. You shook your head. “I saw him this morning. He seems to have vanished again.” he said, you nod. He was back, but hadn’t come to see you. “Maybe you should ask your future wife to dance?” you said, he didn’t smile. “I would much rather not be dancing right now.” he said, you smiled, “that’s too bad then because I am.” You said, you walked to the dance floor and started to spin rounds. Francis frowned at you, but soon Mary, and her Ladies had joined you, and you were all dancing. You stopped when you saw Bash in the corner of your eyes, he was glancing over to Mary. While she was deeply gazing in his eyes. You breathe air in. But, you cannot breathe. A girl took your arm and took you aside. She had blonde hair, and a sweet face. “Are you alright?” She asked, had he heard, had he been avoiding me because of that. Was he moving on by wanting his brother’s future wife. “Yes thank you so much.” you said, she handed me a glass of water. You drank it slowly. “Are you one of Mary’s ladies?” you ask her, she nodded. “Aylee” she said, “Thank you so much Aylee. Go dance again, I’ll be fine.” you said, she hesitated but went anyway because another lady was calling her name.

You walk out of the hall, and outside of the castle even if it was still within the walls. It isn’t safe being outside of the castle at night that is what was always told you. But, honestly you needed fresh air. You hear a sound of footsteps “Hello stranger.” you said, “Why are outside?” the voice said, you waited, you were standing in the moonlight, the footsteps came closer. “I don’t know Bash, you tell me.” You said, he hesitated, and then stepped into the light. “You have been avoiding me the whole day.” you said, he was silent. You stared into his blue eyes. “You’re getting married.” he said, “and you left without warning. “You said: “I was worried.”

“Can’t you see that we can’t be together,” he said: “your father is right, I can’t give you a life. You deserve everything, and I can’t give that to you.” he said, you make your hand into fists, but hide them behind the lace of your dress. “Is that why you have been away, and you have been avoiding me. Is that why you have been staring at Mary?” you ask, your voice sounds louder in the darkness. “I haven’t been staring at her.” he said, you frown. He smiled, “I never pictured you as the jealous type. The girl that does whatever she wants.” He said, “You are one to talk. You always do what you want. Unless you don’t want me, and then you said you loved me, and that was a lie, and then you left. Hoping I would leave in the time you were gone. But, I didn’t because Maximillian Is coming here.” you said as fast as you possibly could. His smile fainted, he held your head in his hands, and with his thumb he was circling over your cheek. “I didn’t lie. But, I can’t give you a palace, and dresses, and a lot more that I can’t give you. I don’t even have a title, I am a bastard, Y/n.” he said, you shake your head, he didn’t let you say anything he was already walking back to the castle. “Bash no.” you said, he didn’t listen.

#Bash #Reign #cw reign #Bash x reader #bash x you #bash imagine

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megbox · 4 years ago

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2020 Year in Review

Previous Posts: (2019) (2018) (2017) (2016) (2015) (2014) (2013) (2012) (2011)

2020 is a weird year because as the world goes through something collectively extremely traumatic and that is radically changing the structure of our lives, our workplaces, the way we connect socially, our mental health… our response to disease…. SO MUCH ABOUT THE WORLD…. And yet the day-to-day of living in a pandemic is so… mundane. I am privileged enough to have that opinion. I have stayed securely employed and it is privilege for my main reaction to something as intense as this pandemic to be boredom. But really, 2020 was a year of absences. It was a year spent largely alone, in my own company. It was a year that forced me to rest. It was a year that made me feel so terribly lonely but also forced me to get acquainted with myself and enjoy my own company in a new way. And it was a year of running.

I would also like to thank Connor for making this post happen by reminding me to do it and not to break tradition.

January & February

I am combining these months because they were not altogether all that memorable. My resolutions, as I noted on Twitter on January 2, were to 1) Keep running and 2) Learn how to make fresh pasta dough. I can safely say – mission accomplished on both fronts.

On January 14, I had the privilege of presenting a suicide intervention lecture to students at the medical school where my brother goes. By that time, I’d done a million of these presentations so nerves aren’t really a factor (imagine that! Me, no longer remotely afraid of public speaking…), but this one meant a little extra to me. My brother is so highly accomplished, and I am so proud of him, and I enjoyed having an opportunity to show him what I do and make him proud of me. I wore my favourite dress and did my hair all nice and he described it later as “exceptional.” It was a really, really good feeling. The first weekend of February, Ali and I had planned to go to Jasper. We wanted to go for a hike or two, and get super stoned and go to the planetarium. A huge blizzard hit Alberta just before we were supposed to leave, so we ended up having a staycation here in Calgary. We rented a hotel room, went swimming, drank wine, went to Japanese Village, had drinks in the lounge and then later to a punk rock band roulette night at the Palomino and finally crawled into our giant hotel bed and fell asleep to Remember the Titans… of all movies. It was the kind of night where you simultaneously feel 18 and 35 years old.

March

March was when the pandemic really started to become real. I don’t know exactly why, but I did not take the threat of coronavirus very seriously until the last minute. My coworkers would whisper about it in the hallways and I just rolled my eyes. But then, people started deciding they would work from home, the number of us in the office dwindled. The vibe was bad. Nobody could really focus. They held meetings at 8am and 4pm every day just for COVID-19 updates and we all waited with bated breath for them to finally tell us to go home and not come back. I really feel like I didn’t acknowledge the true implications of this virus until we got the official work from home order, and I had to tell my boss, my laptop at home is too old to run this software, I need a work tablet. My first official work from home day was March 23, 2020. I don’t remember much about that time except that the general sense of panic and anxiety made my job a lot busier, and it is hard to do a job like mine from home because it is hard to counsel or reassure clients through anxieties that are hitting you just as hard. I coped with wine, a lot of running, and listening to Ben Gibbard’s afternoon live streams where he would play acoustic versions of Death Cab songs and other covers. He played New Slang by the Shins one night and I burst into tears. I also coped with teaching myself how to make fresh pasta dough, and enjoying what was, at that point in the pandemic, the novelty and fun of Zoom.

April

In the absence of being able to have a party for my birthday, I decided to be obnoxious and do a “challenge” on my Instagram story. I asked my friends to record a distance run and/or walked and send it to me as a birthday present. My actual birthday ended up being a cold and windy and pretty miserable day. I ran 12km myself, came back home and watched both Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, and then went to my parents’ to celebrate both Scott and I’s birthdays with our family. My friends dropped off presents to my door and drove past my house and honked and I felt very loved and appreciated. I drank a lot of Prosecco with my brother and we listened to Kacey Musgraves.

It was also in April that I become “acquainted” with my neighborhood running nemesis. I put acquainted in apostrophes because I have never actually spoken to him. On one fateful run in April, I happened to catch up to him on my regular route. This was at the height of the COVID fear and so, while I would usually just pass someone on the sidewalk, I went out into the street. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and SPED UP. WHICH IS SUCH BAD RUNNER ETIQUETTE LIKE DUDE I’M IN THE ROAD LET ME PASS YOU. And then we ended up in this like, all-out 100m-finals-at-the-motherfucking-Olympics sprint challenge when all I was trying to do was go for a leisurely training run. And then I finally passed him, turned a corner and had to like collapse on to my hands and knees to catch my breath. Since then, I see this man running all the time. Sometimes while I am also running, sometimes from my car when I am driving through my neighborhood. He’s like… 16. And we are very competitive with one another. I hope to one day actually say hello to him. I both hate that guy and have to thank him for the motivation.

I ran my first half marathon on April 13, 2020. I was very hungover because I had stayed up quite late with someone on Zoom the night before on a virtual “first date” that had gone much better than anticipated. I don’t know why but I woke up the next morning in such a good mood that I decided I would go for a long, slow run. I got to 18km and figured, what’s 3.1 more? And so, I did it. The first thing I did upon finishing was call my mom. The second thing I did was contemplate calling an Uber to drive me the 2km left to my house. The other notable thing in April is that Maddy moved back from Australia, begrudgingly and a LOT earlier than planned, because of COVID.

May

May was kind of a blur. It was the first month of the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, which I signed up for while coming off of the high of actually running a half marathon all by myself. The GVRAT was fucking awesome. It was created by Lazarus Lake, of Barkley Marathons fame. The ask is to run 1022.68km between May 1 and August 31, an average of about 8.3km per day. Well, you could run, walk, or hike. This is the actual distance it would take you to cover the state of Tennessee. Myself and about 20,000 other weirdos from around the world signed up for this challenge. I figured I would never get a chance to run in a Lazarus Lake race for real, and being home all the time opened up a lot more opportunity for training. It was one of the very best things I did for myself in 2020. So May involved a lot of running, because I was fresh and naïve and fully intended to be ahead of the curve. I was running about 10-12 per day, sometimes more, and not taking any rest days.

In between these runs, I spent a lot of time going on long, ambling quarantine walks with Maddy. We would either go for a long walk or she would come over and we would get absolutely hammered in my backyard playing beer pong just to pass the time. We would send snapchats to our exes and make TikToks like 18 year olds. I know we never really said it out loud but having eachother during this time made these months bearable. We were lamenting the loss of a summer, and Maddy’s time in Australia, and all of the expectations we had for ourselves. We were watching our friends in relationships move in together or get closer due to the quarantine. We needed companionship, and stupid things to laugh about, and love, and distraction. And I can genuinely say I would not have gotten through this quarantine period if it weren’t for the nights I spent shooting Pink Whitney and dancing to Party in the USA in my living room with her.

May 13th was my one year anniversary of working at the university. It felt good to have accomplished so many things in that time, and have moved up already in my job, and to have a full-time, permanent contract.

And May 16th was when I ran my second half-marathon as part of a virtual challenge put on by a friend of a friend. My parents came and sat in lawn chairs in the park while I did loops. They cheered me on and filled my water bottle for me when I ran out. They’re my number one supporters and I love having a family that does that kind of shit for me in the face of something arbitrary like a virtual half marathon challenge. I knocked 7 minutes (!) off my original time. Amazing what not being hungover can do for your fitness levels.

June

I don’t remember many important things about June, other than Maddy moving to Banff. It was depressing but I was also happy for her and happy to have an excuse to go out there and visit. I went the very first weekend after she moved. Halfway through June I seriously contemplated quitting the GVRAT. My shins were bruised, I was dreading every single run, and I could not fathom doing it for 2.5 more months. I was dragging behind in the standings and losing my motivation.

I spent a lot of time with friends reading in parks. Sometimes, often, with wine. I met a stranger in Canmore Park and ended up kissing him. He was lovely.

Ali and I had one really good day in June where we went to the Farmer’s Market and then came back to her place and watched Ru Paul’s drag race for like eight straight hours. It was one of those days where we hadn’t seen each other in so long and you just feel totally high off of friendship and absolutely everything is funny and you just can’t stop laughing. I vividly remember it as one of the best days of the year.

July

Again, July kind of passed in a blur. I did a lot of hiking, and a lot of running… keeping up with the GVRAT. I hiked Picklejar Lakes, Castle Mountain, Little Beehive Lookout.

I went to Banff for a weekend to hang out with Maddy. We had a predictably wild weekend with her roommates and friends. We had dinner at Chili’s (hell yeah) and then went to High Rollers for beers and bowling. The “thing to do” at that point for all of these Banff people was to meet at the “rec grounds” aka public firepits and drink. The police would generally leave you alone so long as you weren’t being rowdy. I sat next to an Australian named Josh at a picnic table and later took him back to my hotel room and he gave me the world’s most unbelievable obvious hickey. Maddy and I sweat out the tequila shots the next day with a long ass hike, and then had a nap before her brother came and took us climbing at the Sunshine slabs – an activity I was not very good at but I wanted to be good at. It was the kind of weekend where you feel like, okay, I definitely indulged my wild side. And you drive home just like totally exhausted but smiling. I sent Maddy’s brother a voice note on my way into town thanking him for taking us climbing and saying it was nice to see him.

August

Okay – August was actually really eventful. Like most of the year’s events happened in August, honestly. A lot of running and hiking. I did Ha Ling Peak for the first time, and we did a 30km hike to Aylmer Pass one day that was a fricken GRIND. I spent the long weekend in Saskatchewan. We went to a cidery, and I ran laps around my Dodo’s acreage, and then we got to visit Wakaw Lake and reunite with our old next-door neighbours. We took the boat out and went tubing and lit fireworks and had an amazing dinner and honestly it was like reliving my childhood in the best, best, best way. I fell asleep on the car ride home.

I went camping with Ali in Sylvan Lake. We got ice cream and cooked fish tacos over the campfire. She told me that Cody had a date planned for the day they took possession of their house, that she wondered if he might ask her to marry him but didn’t want to get her hopes up in case it didn’t happen and ruin what otherwise was supposed to be a celebratory day. Spoiler – he did ask her to marry him  I was running when she called me. I was listening to Epsilon by Kygo, and now when I hear that song I always think of them. I stopped my watch and just openly bawled on the street out of happiness for them.

Steven successfully defended his master’s thesis. We went camping in Waterton to celebrate with Matt, Kennedy, Regan, Scott, and Rie. They brought cake. We did a sunrise hike. I slept in the back of my Ford Escape.

On August 27, Ollie passed away. It was both expected and unexpected. He had been having some issues with seizures. The vet didn’t think it was anything to be too concerned about, he was old and it wasn’t uncommon for them to happen. It happened suddenly. I had a terrible sleep that night, and woke up in a cold sweat somewhere between 3 and 4 am. In the morning, my mom called me and told me the news. He had a giant seizure in the night and was crying and yelping. They woke up and took him to the emergency vet, they made the executive call to put him down to prevent any further suffering. He died right around the time I woke up in the middle of the night. I like to think that was his way of saying goodbye, maybe. I cried all day. Well, let’s be honest, I cried all week. I burst into tears at the mere thought of him. He was such a good and lovely dog. He was so loved by us. He had a good life. It is always sad when we lose pets so early. They bring so much joy to our lives, and still when I go to my parents’ place the first thing I want to do is call for him or pet him. I hope he is running around in whatever the pet afterlife is. I miss him.

And on August 31, I ran my last kilometre of the GVRAT. I finished with 733.78 run, 83.18 hiked, and 205.09 walked.

September

September was a nice break from running. I got to start coming to campus one day a week, on Thursdays, which was good for my mental health and work productivity. I got to spend September long in Vernon with Maeghan and Madison at Michael’s family’s cabin. They took us boating and made us meals and didn’t judge us for drinking margaritas with Michael’s sister literally all day. It was the best. It was the epitome of every summer weekend you dream about. I was so happy I got to go.

I met a boy in September. It’s always September, isn’t it? It feels weird to write about him. Like, that makes him significant. But. He is significant. And I met him in September. And it was unexpected. Last minute. And essentially not a day has gone by since that day in September that I have not thought about him.

I also joined a Calgary Sport and Social Club team with my friends for softball and it started in September. We played two games and then I tore my hamstring running from second to third base. I tore… my hamstring…. Running like 30 metres…. After a summer of literally running 10+ km every day. I… it was the worst day ever. Softball itself was amazing and so fun even though I really do suck at the sport but highly recommend Rec League C-level beer league softball with all of your best friends. There’s just no way that isn’t fun.

October

A lot of pouting about my hamstring, I went to two physio sessions and then decided to just start running again. I’m bad. I’m a bad example. Don’t do what I do… but also…. It worked.

I went to Victoria to visit Sydney over the Thanksgiving weekend. We went to a Thanskgiving potluck party at my old coworker’s place. It was a nice experience to be the new people at a party, to have a room full of new people to meet and who ask you questions about your life. We got really drunk and they tried setting Sydney up with one of their roommate’s brothers, and gave us lipstick to try, and poured us tequila shots. We had such an amazing meal. It was honestly so fun. We laughed in the cab the whole way back about how we were going to need to debrief that evening HARD the next morning. We watched a lot of All Gas No Brakes, and went for dinner and brunch and I limped up Mount Doug with my hamstring. It was a very very chill weekend, like we spent a lot of time just lounging at Sydney’s apartment and doing nothing. Because that is the kind of friends we are. It was so relaxing and lovely. I was sad to leave.

Karla, my roommate, left for New York at the end of October. Her aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and she and her mom made the executive move to go there to basically be with her for the end of her life. She wasn’t going to be back until December. I was happy, because it’s nice to have a place to myself, but also sad because Karla is lovely and I knew it was going to be a stressful situation for her.

November / December

I am combining these two months because they have also been largely uneventful. In fact… I don’t know if I could really tell you anything significant that happened. We’ve been in a lockdown. I’ve spent my time playing piano, watching Netflix, listening to podcasts, basically doing all of the things I usually do when I’m bored. Lots of Among Us. Lots of outdoor things… skating… more running. We’ve been in a lockdown since early December. Time has dragged on since then. I spent Christmas with my parents. Scott and Rie stayed isolated, because Scott is in and out of the hospital for school. My mom and I watched shitty Christmas Hallmark movies and made fun of the guys who star in them. We drank a LOT on Christmas Eve and both spent Christmas with a wicked hangover. My dad and I ate edibles and I was launched into the stratosphere. I spent New Year’s Eve with Boy from September. We played beer pong, and card games, and he tried to use a coat hangover to pick the lock on the mysterious room that my landlord keeps locked. We spent most of the night kissing, honestly. I was happy to spend the last moments of the year with him.

2021:

Honestly... at this point... who really knows?

#year in review #text #personal #2020

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ask-de-writer · 4 years ago

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THE LUCK OF BLACK CATS : MLP Fan Fiction

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THE LUCK OF BLACK CATS

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

1441 words

Writing begun 10/21/17

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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It is well known that Black Cats bring bad luck. It may be that it is not QUITE true.

Sugar Maple was playing outside, in her Grandmare's neatly fenced yard. Sugar loved to visit Grandmare but her mom really didn't like to bring her this far into the Everfree Forest.

Sugar climbed onto the platform of Grandmare's swing set and began to shift her weight to make the swing swoop back and forth! It was fun! The wind made her light brown mane and tail fly about as the butter colored foal swept from one end of the swing to the other and back!

The swing was almost as much fun as playing with Grandmare's cats! They were all pure, silky black and over half of them had wings like a bat! They could fly really well, too! Sugar bailed off the swing at the top of its swoop and spread her own young wings! Her glide was inexpert but enthusiastic, as she sailed about Grandmare's cottage! She almost made it all the way around, back to the swing set! Her hooves hit the lawn sod only about ten feet short of her goal!

Little hooves clattering on the stone of the front steps, Sugar dashed into Grandmare's little house! “Mom! Grandmare! I glided almost all the way around the house! I made it almost all the way back to the swing!”

Her mother set her teacup down firmly and began, “SUGAR MAPLE, what have I told you about unsupervised flying!?”

Grandmare raised an admonitory black furred wing and used the other to scoop Sugar into a welcoming hug! Taking a moment to preen a few small tangles from Sugar's mane with her razor sharp fangs, Grandmare said gently, “You did very well. Did you flap at all or was it a pure glide?”

Giving her leaf brown mother a slightly fearful glance, Sugar replied, “I glided the whole way! I did cup my wings up to land! I came down real gentle.”

The hug was pulled tighter as Grandmare smiled, showing her fangs. Shifting her voice up, beyond the hearing of most ponies, Grandmare asked, “[How is your chirping coming along?]”

Answering the same way, Sugar replied, “[It is going really good! Mom can't hear it, so I practice it a lot!]”

“[Tell me, Sugar, what you chirp in my bedroom?]”

Excitedly, Sugar exclaimed, “You got a dress horse with a costume on it! It is too small for Mom or you, so it must be for me!”

Nodding, Grandmare agreed, “It is, Dear. Go and try it on. Later, we will practice flying our way.”

Sugar dashed for the back room!

Granmare returned her attention to Sugar's mom. “Hazel, I thought that I made it perfectly clear that Sugar must be allowed to develop! Look at you! You play the part of a crippled pegasus! You do it so well that you have lost the ability to fly or even hear chirping!

“THAT is too high a price to pay for 'fitting in'!”

Hazel looked down and fiddled with her teacup before trying, “If anypony ever saw my extended wing, or Sugar's for that matter, they would scream THESTRAL! There could be a mob! I don't want Sugar hurt!”

Grandmare softened, “In that, we are agreed. Caramel Treat's is always a safe place. Those Werewolves do understand the problem and will protect us. So will Reverend Smallflower at the Assembly.”

Their discussion was ended by the return of Sugar. She was wearing the costume as a thestral witch! Two of Grandmare's cats were riding her shoulders, purring happily. One casually lifted a furry, bat like wing to scratch under it.

Grandmare was delighted. Hazel was less so, but agreed that it was a great costume.

Grandmare led Sugar outside, the cats following. Soon Sugar was fluttering short distances and landing properly. The cats were 'helping.' They thought that the fluttering filly was a great toy! Conversely, Sugar, dodging their mock attacks thought that the cats were great teachers! It only took a few hours before she was swooping and dodging with them in a game of aerial tag! Happy foal's laughter pealed down from the October sky.

Grandmare nodded serenely, “She takes to the sky as naturally as breathing. A true thestral if ever there was one.”

Hazel agreed sadly, “I know. I hope that Ponyville will be better to her than it was to me.”

Grandmare turned Sympathetic eyes to Hazel. “I do know what you mean, dear. You half breeds have it rougher than we full bloods. The unicorns have never forgiven our service to the Nightmare Throne, 2000 years ago, in the Nightmare Wars. The only thing that shows Maple to be a partial breed is her color.”

Sighing, Hazel glanced at the sun's angle and suggested, “We must return home, Grandmare. It has actually been a good visit.”

Hazel and Sugar Maple trotted back along the nearly overgrown trail that led from Grandmare's to behind the Duchess O' Red Hoof's land. It joined the trail leading from Brightmane's cottage. It became far better and more traveled after that.

They reached Ponyville proper and went into their snug little cottage home without incident. The two cats that had ridden Sugar's shoulder all the way, immediately flew from her shoulder, circling about the room, high and low. They perched on the sofa back and began to preen.

Evening fell and with it began Nightmare Night. Gathering together her loot bag and a “Witch's Staff”, Maple set out. Both cats riding her shoulders.

She joined a group making the rounds of homes and small businesses.

“Wow! That is a neat thestral witch costume! How did you turn your fur black, Sugar?”

She smiled and replied, “Just a cheap brush in dye. It will wash out.”

“Gee, I wish that I had a cat like yours to go with my witch costume! Aren't you afraid of bad luck? Yours are pure black.”

The mare in charge of the small herd was in a silly looking deer costume with phony horns on a spring gripper across her head!

Of course, they dropped in on Caramel Treat's Sweets for their famous Nightmare Night display and fabulous foal bowl! It did not disappoint! There were the very real Werewolves, Caramel and Fangrin in their Everfree Ridgeback Wolf forms, a black gryphon, several games and the foal bowl hidden under mists in a big cauldron.

The party went on toward the more residential parts of town, followed by a pegasus in a skull like mask and a costume of bones painted onto black cloth. His wings could slide out through reinforced cuts in the fabric. It hid his cutie mark.

Sugar chirped to the cats in a voice too high for ponies to hear, “[Dark Sky, New Moon, could you go back and cross his path a few times? I do not like him following us!]”

In answer, both cats hopped from her shoulder, gliding to the ground and scampering back! They paraded across his path repeatedly. Undeterred, he continued to follow the herd of foals.

The cats returned to Sugar's shoulder. The foal herd was approaching Drastin Park and its big unobstructed hoof ball pitch. He charged toward the hapless foals!

He tripped over two cats that had been watching him for any such stunt! He faceplanted, in a most embarrassing way! The whole herd of foals heard him fall and stopped to watch!

Climbing back to his hooves, he charged again! Bowling the foals over like ninepins, he grabbed two foal loot bags and leaped for the night sky!

Two cats and Sugar were on his tail, almost immediately! The cats snagged his left wing, causing him to spiral out of control! Before he could do anything to get rid of the cats, Sugar slammed her head in between his hind legs from above and power dived, flipping him over onto his back!

Fluttering and flailing helplessly, he hit the ground with a crunch! Sugar landed lightly beside him and gathered up the stolen loot bags. She was still picking up spilled treats when the rest of the group swarmed around her!

As Sugar was returning the stolen bags, one of the colts said admiringly, “We could see the whole thing! The moon lit up those thin clouds and we saw it all!! You really are a thestral! That was so neat how you took him down!”

One of the fillies came and got her loot bag. She petted the cats and said, “I guess that the thing about black cats and bad luck is true!” Giggling, she pointed to the fallen pegasus thief. “It sure was for him!”

~THE END~

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#THE LUCK OF BLACK CATS #MLP Fan Fiction #Tales to read AFTER the Lights are OUT #Written by De Writer

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hannatuulikkdiary · 4 years ago

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Tracking the steps of the Deer Dancer

Some years ago, in Southern Arizona, a friend advised me to beware of the desert's spiky plant life. Sure enough, wandering the zigzagging paths through the canyon, I found myself picking fine spines from my clothes and skin. Learning to minimise this risk, I started paying attention to the ground and noticed human trails intersecting with animal tracks – javelina, coyote, and especially deer. With no rain for weeks, hoofprints remained debossed in the dry earth, like chains of split hearts, or strings of letters. Where clusters of tracks had accumulated, it looked as if the deer had been dancing.

During that same visit, I came across a copy of the book Yaqui Deer Songs / Maso Bwikam: A Native American Poetry, edited by Larry Evers and Felipe S. Molina. Originally from the Río Yaqui, the indigenous Yaqui (or Yoeme) people now reside across the divided borderlands of Sonora, Mexico and Arizona, USA. I read that before setting out to hunt, their ancestors held a festive rite, enacting the wilderness world through a series of songs that address the deer, asking forgiveness for those animals that will die. Though hunting is rarely practised by present-day Yaqui, traces of the tradition remain extant in the Deer Dance, wherea single male dancer becomes the Maaso– the deer – and, wearing a stag headdress, he imitates the movements of a white-tailed deer.

I was struck by the ways in which the photos of the costume bore a resemblance to some images I'd seen of the antlered headdresses found at Star Carr, a Mesolithic site in Yorkshire. Archaeologists have suggested that these red deer frontletswere worn in hunting rituals, allowing the wearer to harness antler effects, gaining access to the perspective of the 'animal-in-action'. Could this also be true for the Yaqui Deer Dance?

Pondering these connections, I recalled two dances I'd heard about in the British Isles – the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance of Staffordshire, believed to be a memory of a celebration of villagers’ hunting rights, featuringsix men bearing mounted antlers said to move like deer, and the Scottish Highland Fling, thought by some to have its origins in a warrior’s dance imitative of deer, with hands held aloft for antlers.

'Mimesis' – the imitation or emulation of the more-than-human-world – in traditional music and dance is something I've explored over the years, from Scottish Gaelic vocal imitations of birds, to the practice of embodying a river in South Indian Kutiyattam movement. I was keen to find out more and studythese three'deer dances' in tandem.What kind of deer effects are harnessed in these dances? Which deer behaviours are imitated and why? What do they reveal about our relationship with deer and ecology?

Over the next couple of years, I made numerous field trips to observe dances, interview practitioners, and learn steps directly from tradition bearers. Spending time observing deer, I consideredthe ways in which their behaviour is emulated in the dances and, learning about the ecologies of their habitats, I examined their relationship to hunting, stalking at Trees for Liferewilding estate in Dundreggan, and animal tracking in the Sonoran Desert. I was particularly interested in exploring the 'tacit' knowledge embodied in the dances. What could be discovered by 'learning' and 'doing' these dances, as opposed to just 'watching' them? What could be discovered in the body, through practices of stalking and tracking, instead of simply 'reading' about them?

Needwood Forest, Staffordshire...

I first went to see the Abbots Bromley Horn Dancein September 2017, and then again in 2018. This folk dance takes place once a year in the Abbots Bromley village, near to Bagot's Wood, an area of woodland just one and a half square miles, which is all that remains of the ancientNeedwood Forest. Like most forest in Britain, historically it was property of the Crown and, in this case, was once parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Today the word 'forest' refers to an area of wooded land, but the medieval sense of the word referred to land set aside for royal hunting. The 'Royal Forest' included large areas of heath, grassland and wetland, essentially anywhere that supported deer and other game.Villages and towns that lay within it were subject to forest law, protecting the 'Beasts of the Chase' from being hunted by anyone except the king, safeguarding the habitat in which they lived. These 'beasts' were primarily deer, and included native red and roe deer, as well as non-native species such as fallow deer, introduced to England for the very purpose of hunting.

Every Royal Forest in England was overseen by a keeper who was appointed by the King, and whose position was often hereditary. Forest Law meant that it was illegal to hunt deer, chop down trees or underwood, unless permission had been given by the Crown. Penalties for offenses were severe, but by 1217, the death penalty for poaching had been abolished. This didn't stop some kings; during the reign of Henry VIII, a yeoman named Richard Horne was caught poaching deer in the woods and was hung for his crimes. His ghost, known as Herne the Hunteris said to haunt Windsor Forest, with antlers growing from his head and chains rattling behind him.

Within the structures of Forest Law, payment for access to certain rights became a useful source of income and local nobles could be granted a licence to hunt an agreed amount of game, giving forest inhabitants a variety of rights. As I mentioned, theAbbots Bromley Horn Danceis believed by some to be a memory of a medieval celebration of villagers’ hunting rights, possibly recalling the act of giving thanks to the local nobility for access to the Royal Forest. Others believe it was danced to ensure a successful hunt, or a good harvest. The forest itself was largely lost in the eighteenth-century due to deforestation. With all this in mind, I couldn't help but think that the Horn Dance was taking place in an imaginary landscape, in the ghost of a place that no longer exists.

The dance itself featuresten dancers: six deer-men carrying mounted antlers, a hobby horse, bow-man with his bow and arrow, Maid Marian (or man-woman) with their stick and ladle, and the fool with his pig's bladder. The antlers are mounted onto carved wooden deer heads at the end of sticks, reminiscent of a child's hobby horse toy. Surprisingly the antlers are not native; carbon dated to 1065, they came from reindeer, long extinct in Britain.

At eight in the morning, after collecting the horns from the church, the ritual begins. Moving in procession, the horn dancers exit the church yard and, on a street corner in the village, they perform a sequence of steps, circling and winding in time with the accompanying music performed on melodeon and triangle. Though stylized, particular movements are especially mimetic. Recalling the rutting behaviour of a number of species of deer, the dancers move together in a parallel walk, and then face one another, moving towards and away, passing through, as if clashing antlers during a fight. Followed by villagers and visitors alike, the horn dancers and their musicians proceed to beat the bounds of the village, walking over ten miles throughout the day, performing at each farm and pub. Taking a drink at every stop, as you might imagine, banter follows, with jokes erupting at every turn. The music is constant and consistent and, soon enough, I found myself humming along with the tunes. The sound of the triangle was particularly affecting, cutting through the cacophony of sound.

At Blithfield Hall, the tone changes considerably. The hall, a Grade 1 listed country house owned by the Baggots, has been in the family since the 14th century. The horn dancers perform on the lawn outside and when the music stops, they stand in line and wait. The Lord and Lady of the house then proceed to shake each dancer's hand, while the audience looks on from across the boundary wall. In a legacy of class inequalities, the memory of a celebration of hunting rights becomes particularly visible. Back in the village, the dancing finishes at about eight pm, when the horns are returned to the church, to be hung on display until the following year.

During the dance, I met Jack Brown, a tradition bearer and local historian, now in his nineties, who was dressed as a fool in yellow tails. He explained that he had "played all the adult parts" in the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance – deer, hobby horse, fool, man-woman and musician – and invited me to visit him at his home, a treasure trove of photos and objects, including props from the dance – a pig's bladder, triangle, bow and arrow, and stick and ladle. Jack shared with me his memories and knowledge of the dance's history and gifted me a pamphlet on his interpretation of it.

The horn dancers themselves are also very generous, opening up the floor – or ground – to participation, and over the two years I visited, I took part in a number of dances, giving me direct insight into the movements, shapes and step formations, as well as an embodied understanding of the sheer weight of the horns. Weighing between sixteen and twenty-five pounds, it is physically difficult to dance with these objects, to carry and move with them. Reindeer antlers are larger than red deer – our biggest native species – and if, as it has been suggested, they were imported from Scandinavia, perhaps we could say that the dancers of yesteryear were attracted to their size, in order to 'harness their effects'. What are these effects, I wondered? The size and weight of the antlers certainly enhances a performance of physical strength, perhaps showcasing 'heroic' abilities of endurance. During times when hunting was commonly practiced, these were presumably important attributes.

The props are most deer-like during the 'fighting sequence' when the antlers become like weapons between three pairs of rutting deer-men, albeit in an incredibly stylized rut. Some folklorists have posited that the Horn Dance was a fertility ritual; the antlers in this case would be symbolic of the male sex organ. Was this a mimetic display of the stag's bravado? Certainly, at some point, multiple powerful effects were being harnessed.

Back in the studio, I began to make sketches, tracking the shapes made on the ground by the dancers in a series of visual scores. Returning the following year, I showed my score sketches to Jack, and to Jim, a deer dancer whose family, the Fowells, have been performing the Horn Dance since 1914 after it passed to them from the Bentleys – interestingly, the Bentley family were historically the foresters of the local woodland. Checking the shapes and patterns on the page, Jack and Jim approved my visual notations, confirming their accuracy.

My notation process was also supported by a surprisingly fortunate booking! Reserving a room in a local B&B that looked down onto the area of the final dance, I was able to film it from above and compare the footage with my scores.

Caledonian Forest, Scotland...

The Caledonian Forest, characterised by Scots Pine trees, was once a huge forest stretching across Scotland. About 6,000 years ago, as the climate became wetter, some of the forest began to disappear, but the impact of human beings was even greater; trees were felled for ships, buildings, fuel, and to make way for agriculture. By the 1700s, the Caledonian Forest remained only in the most remote places and much of the wildlife that depended on this habitat was lost through hunting, or simply because there was not enough forest left. The last wolf is said to have been shot in Scotland in 1743, which meant that by this point, all of the predators had been wiped out. In fact, all of the largeanimals had gone, leaving only the red deer. Since then, this animal has come to symbolise the Highlands.

In the 19th century, as deer stalking became fashionable, large tracts of land were dedicated to deer, allowing their numbers to increase, and ‘deer forests’, which are essentially open hills managed for deer, doubled in size. Today, many Highland estates still maintain large deer populations for stalking purposes and the current number is estimated to be 350,000 individuals. Through their excessive numbers and overgrazing, deer are often seen as the problem that prevents the regeneration of the Caledonian Pinewood, however, the ecological imbalance between native forest cover, numbers of grazing deer and lack of natural predators has been caused by humans, not deer.

Trees for Life acquired their Dundreggan estate in 2008, and since then, they have been rewilding the land, planting new trees in places, such as higher mountainous areas where it is difficult for trees to establish on their own, and reducing grazing pressure to allow the forest to recover and regenerate, which, inevitably, involves the culling of deer. In 2017, I went to stay in Dundreggan, and went out stalking with Allan Common, the lead deer stalker on the estate. It was autumn, which in the red deer calendar, meant this was the time of the rut. Meanwhile in the stalking calendar, it was the time for hunting stags. I wasn't sure whether this seasonal stalking tradition was due to the fact that a rutting stag, full of high levels of testosterone, was less alert and easier to hunt, or whether it was because this hormone surge meant that the stag was now adorned with a large mane and antlers, and so more desirable as a trophy. Doug Gilbert, the operations manager at Trees for LifeDundreggan suggested that perhaps it was a mixture of the two – a legacy from the stalking craze.

Dressed in a ritual costume of wax jacket, gaiters and tweed deerstalker hat, at 7am I was met by Allan and two of his friends. Up on the hill, he instructed us to move as one body, then, as we got closer to the deer, he showed us how to lie on our bellies and remain hidden. At the edge of a ridge, we stopped to look down into a bowl-shaped area. The distant sound of roaring stags reverberated into the cold morning and, for a brief moment, through binoculars, I watched as two mature stags walked in parallel, checking each other out, before lowering their antlers, initiating contact. Throughout the morning, Allan, or one of his friends, would position a gun, then using its view finder, take a shot. Sometimes this awkward movement alerted the deer to our presence, so to counter this, Allan skilfully mimicked the bellow of the stag with his voice, to keep the stags interested. It worked! – at one point, a mature male drew very close, standing only a metre or so away. Concealed safely behind a boulder we listened to his spine-tingling roar. My heart beat fast.

While staying with Doug and his partner Joyce, a fundraiser at Trees for Life, I learned more about their work. In order to regenerate the Forest, as well as the practical task of planting trees, they explained that there needed to be a shift in values, from "seeing the land as a place for deer, to seeing the land as a place with deer in it". On the estate, it does feel as though this is happening. When I asked Allan what the biggest changes have been in his job as a stalker, he explained that it was his shift in perception; he used to think the deer were the most important thing, but now he values the land in itself, the ecology as a whole. He told me about an earlier job, working for a sporting agency, where people pay money to go shooting, but had realised some time ago, that he didn't like this 'trophy culture'. He preferred instead to have a relationship with the place, and recounted lying on his back, watching as a golden eagle flew over him, just metres above his body. His most treasured memories were not to do with stalking itself, but a connection with the more-than-human world.

In February, when I returned to Dundreggan, there was heavy snow on the ground, and the deer tracks looked as though they had been debossed, not in earth but in thick white paper. It was the season for stalking red deer hinds, which, like the stags, were hunted in the morning. Night time was reserved for stalking the sika deer, an 'invasive' species from Japan. Being nocturnal, with a tendency to stay hidden under tree cover, they were difficult to spot. Allan used a combination of traditional tracking and an infrared thermal camera to find them. I began to reflect on the relationship of technology to the traditional costumes worn in the various dances, specifically in relation to the red deer frontlets found at Star Carr. Archaeologist Chantal Conneller has posited that these frontlets extended the body of the wearer, allowing them to "harness the animal in action", expanding their perception, essentially becoming-with-deer in order to hunt them. The user of the hunting rifle, with telescopic view finder and infrared thermal imaging also extends the body and perception, augmenting and expanding the senses, extending what is possible as a human being.

Allan may have used up to date technology, but he didn't appear to display any of the macho behaviours I had expected. His friends, however did, and on occasion, I felt uncomfortable. One ex-military friend, in particular, was keen to tell me all about his rifle throughout the stalks, even making me pose for the camera after a successful shoot. This macho sporting chat is not unusual in Scotland, in fact, it is part of mainstream stalking culture. After all, on most estates, the land is maintained as a 'wilderness' resource for deer, which supports an elite hunting economy for the privileged few – mainly rich cis white men on shooting holidays, collecting their trophies. This macho aspect of stalking is reflected in the language; the 'monarch', for example, is a term used to describe a mature stag with sixteen tine antlers, and thus the most prized trophy. Similarly, the language of animal behaviour studies is also gendered, and arguably problematic; the word 'harem', for example, is used to describe a group of female deer sharing a single mate.

Deer stalking itself is steeped in myth and folklore. Geographer Hayden Lorimer writes: "The pursuit of deer, both as a pastime and as a livelihood, has a long history in the Scottish Highlands. Celebrations of these activities, preserved through several centuries in native Gaelic folklore, oral ballads and apocryphal yarns, were seized upon by the authors of stalking guidebooks, histories and personal reminiscences." Scottish 'deer' folklore was mined and appropriated by the cultural elite, giving deer stalking culture seeming authenticity.

The Highland Fling seems to be part of this process of appropriation. The story goes: Legend tells of a boy who encountered a stag; his father asked him to describe what he saw and, lacking adequate words, he danced the animal instead, his movements imitating capering, his hands held aloft for antlers. Becoming popular as an authentic dance of the highlands, it seems that deer mimesis gave the Fling credibility, but after some digging, I discovered that the story is more than likely a bit of 'fakelore' and probably invented by an eighteenth-century, Lowland dance teacher as a caricature of a 'wild' highland warrior who imitates deer. I couldn't help but think that this 'fakelore' shares striking parallels with the romanticisation of deerstalking, itself a mimetic performance of hunting traditions, reinterpreted and distorted into a form of macho display by landowning classes.

In Spring 2018, I began my studies in Highland Fling, taking lessons with dancer and teacher Sandra Robertson in Kinguisse. Sandra gave me a pair of leather ghillies – soft shoes traditionally worn in Highland Dance. Strangely, the word 'gillie' also means 'hunting guide' or 'male servant to a Highland chieftain'. The shoe's name is thought to be a type originally worn by Scottish hunting guides, who were servants to the lairds – there it was again: the working-class highlander at service to the landowning class and to the elite hunting economy.

I put the shoes on over my thick red socks and Sandra showed me some basic steps. Having done ballet up until the age of 19, I was accustomed to jumping, but the first thing to get used to was landing on the balls of my feet. This took some practice and on the evening after my first session, my shins were agony. Slowly, with time, I got used to it, and before long, I had learned six steps: shedding, rocking, toe and heel, backstep, crossoverand last shedding. It took me months of practice to get through the whole dance without stopping – it was exhausting! Anyone doing this dance regularly, had to be extremely fit.

To help with my learning, I made visual scores of the dance, replacing arm positions with red deer antlers, and human foot fall with red deer tracks in a notation of the steps. I also began to experiment with blind debossing, inspired by seeing the tracks in the snow.

Romanticisation aside, learning the Highland Fling, I could understand why the story of deer imitation stuck. While dancing with deer in mind, the arms, when held high, felt like antlers. The steps, such as toe and heel, backstep and rocking were delicate and deer like, yet powerful and athletic. Two of the steps sheddingand last shedding seemed even to reference the stag's antler shedding, which happens once a year. I could imagine that if a dancer of the Fling performed well, it might make them feel powerful and elegant. I wondered how it might feel to perform this dance if I were a man?

Sonora Desert, Arizona and Mexico...

The indigenous Yaqui, or Yoeme tribe are originally from Sonora in northern Mexico. Seeking refuge from persecution by the Mexican Government in the 19th and early 20th centuries, some of this community were forced north of the border. Their descendants in the USA call themselves the Pascua Yaqui, and in 1978 they were finally recognised as an official tribe. Today, the Pascua Yaqui have eight communities in Southern Arizona.

The Yaqui Deer Dance is a small but important element in the modern Yaqui ceremonial cycle, a ritual involving dance, music, pantomime, and poetry, in a complex blend of catholic and indigenous beliefs. Yaqui traditions speak of the Deer Danceonce being part of a rite performed before the hunting of the deer, but today that connection is only a memory.

Supported in part by the University of Arizona Poetry Centre, in March 2018, I went back to Arizona to begin to make connections with the Pascua Yaqui community. I met with Larry Evers, who co-authored the book on Yaqui Deer Songs mentioned earlier. He was about to retire from his role as a professor between the English and American Indian Studies departments at the University in Tucson, and when I visited, he was clearing out his office. Generously, he gifted me a pile of books and papers on Yaqui culture, as well as a set of DVDs with hours of footage of a Deer Dance ritual performed in Mexico in 1976. Of particular relevance to my research was an old type-writer written thesis, in which the writer Susan Burton explores the relationship of the Yaqui Deer Dancesteps to the movements of real deer and, using the 1976 film footage, notates the dance's vocabulary with labanotation.

Larry was excited by my research, though warned me that I would have many boundaries to cross. Firstly, my gender – the Yaqui Deer Danceis strictly a male domain – and secondly, my ethnicity as a white European. As with many First Nations people, the Yaqui tribe have been consistently ill-treated by various outsiders throughout history, from the invasion of the Spanish Jesuit missionaries and the Mexican Government's persecution of indigenous tribes, to the early American anthropologists misquoting traditions, and the US authorities' mistreatment of anyone who is not white. Understandably, the Deer Dance, and Yaqui culture more broadly, is rarely discussed outside the community.

I was readying Donna Haraway's book 'Staying with the Trouble' and the following passage resonated:

"Indigenous peoples around the earth have a particular angle on the discourses of coming extinctions and exterminations of the Anthropocene and Capitalocene. The idea that disaster will come is not new; disaster, indeed genocide and devastated home places, has already come, decades and centuries ago, and it has not stopped. The resurgence of peoples and of places is nurtured with ragged vitality in the teeth of such loss, mourning, memory, resilience, reinvention of what it means to be native, refusal to deny irreversible destruction, and refusal to disengage from living and dying well in presents and futures."

I wondered if it was possible to foster a meaningful dialogue and cultural exchange? To open up possibilities, Larry put me in touch with his long-term collaborator Felipe Molina, a Yaqui tradition bearer, teacher and translator, from Marana, Arizona. We exchanged emails and, though Felipe was interested in my research, he was too busy with his Easter commitments as a Deer Singer. We agreed to be in touch again later in the year.

During the Easter ceremonies, the Yaqui Deer Danceis held on two occasions, at the Pahko– an all-night Fiesta – and then again on Easter Saturday. Seeking permission to attend these, I contacted Daniel Vega from the Language and Culture Departmentof the Tribal Council at the Pascua Yaqui Reservation. At our meeting, I explained how I was exploring the imitation of deer across cultures in order to better understand their relationship to ecology and, sharing a little about my research so far, I was delighted when he showed a particular interest in hearing about the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. He explained that the Yaqui tribe perform their various ceremonies as healing rituals, not just for the Yaqui, but for everyone around the world, so, if I went with respect, I was welcome to attend the Easter ceremonies at Old Pascua– the old village in South Tucson. He warned me not to take photos, make sketches or any recordings – this was strictly forbidden – and that I had to keep my cell phone out of sight.

Not quite knowing what to expect, on Friday evenings I began to attend the Lenten ceremonies, participating in the processions of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, following the various church groups who sang and prayed at each of the crosses positioned around the Old Pascua village. Also partaking in the processions was a ceremonial group called the Fariseos, who are said to represent those who persecuted Jesus. Within this group were the Chapayekas– masked figures who symbolise evil. One of the Chapayekas'ritual functions is to deride the procession and distract the church groups by silently mocking them, beating time with swords and daggers, and shaking the deer hoof rattles around their waists and moth cocoon rattles on their ankles. My initial reaction was to laugh at their pantomime-esque performance, but as the sun went down and the procession continued in darkness, they really felt quite sinister. I soon discovered that it is taboo to stare too closely at a Chapayeka.

On Palm Saturday, I attended the Yaqui Pahko. Though I'd read so much about it, nothing could quite prepare me for the experience of this multifaceted, powerful night-time ritual. Approximately two hundred performer-participants, divided into about twelve groups, each with a distinct role and music, carried out ritual processes and costumed dances representing the various overlapping forces of good and evil. There was only one Deer Dancer though; at the Ramada, a structure symbolising Huya Ania (the wilderness world), the Maaso(the deer dancer) emerged as a timid fawn and, dancing alongside the Pahkola(a group of clown-like animal-esque figures), he slowly grew into a virile adult male through the night, before predicting his own death and concluding his dance as an animal spirit.

During a break in the ceremonies, I chatted with someone I'd met in the 'audience' who made a striking observation about how the Maasoalways has his torso tilted forwards, like the enigmatic Palaeolithic ‘sorcerer’ cave painting of the Trois-Frères caves in Southwestern France. I hadn’t made the connection before, though I had stuck an image of the ‘sorcerer’ in my sketchbook. The visual similarity is uncanny – was this how humans become-with-deer?

A similar sequence of Deer Dances took place on Easter Saturday, another complex, multi-layered ceremony, where, in a battle against evil, the powers of the more-than-human world were harnessed. Dancing Matachiniswore flower streamers in their hats, processing Angels waved branch-switches in the air, trickster Pahkolas wore animalesque masks, and, the Maaso (Deer Dancer), in his final dance, charged at the Fariseos, threatening with his antlers. Finally, when evil was defeated, the Fariseoswere ritually ‘killed’ by 'flowers', symbolised by paper confettithrown at them, and a straw ‘Judas’ was burned in a fire, along with all the Chapayekamasks and swords. Bells rang out from the church and celebratory music was played. With so much colour and joy, I felt like I never wanted to brush the confetti out of my hair!

In a closer examination of the Deer Dance itself, the combination of the dancer's movements and costume seems to span a spectrum of mimesis, from iconic deer imitation to something more stylised. The deer's headdress enhanced the sudden sharp-to-still deer-like movements of the head; soon enough, I found myself watching not the dancer's eyes, but the deer's eyes, partially hidden beneath the cloth. The long line and tension of the tilted torso suggested a deer's back, and the white cloth joining the dancer's head and deer head gave the impression of a deer's neck and shoulders. The flexed feet were reminiscent of the animal's hind legs, while the gourd rattles suggested the front legs, the movements of which gave the impression of a deer's speed and agility. The footwork itself – the choreographed steps – seemed less iconic and more stylized. I wondered if I would be able to meet and learn from a dancer some time...

The dance is traditionally accompanied by three musicians who sing and play instruments: the hirukiam,notched rasping sticks resting on half-gourd resonators said to represent the deer’s breath or the scraping of the antlers against the brush, and the ba’ abweha’i, a water drum made from a half gourd floating in a bowl of water, representing the heart-beat of the deer. Sitting on the floor during the dance,I could feel the vibrations of the water drum in my chest, and I imagined that the dancer might be tuning his heart into a deer's heart beating.

The songs accompanying the dance, are sung in Yoem noki(the Yaqui language) and describe the Maaso(the deer) and his encounters with other animals, birds, insects and plants, especially flowers, which hold a spiritual significance. The Yaqui believe that there is a close communication between all the inhabitants of the Sonoran Desert, which they call Huya Ania. This could be translated as 'wilderness world', but it is worth pointing out that the word 'wilderness' here, does not mean a "neglected, uninhabited, or inhospitable region" like it does in the Oxford Dictionary, but a living, connected community. This ecology of the Sonoran Desert appears in the traditional songs, which become like scores, or a script to the dancer who, as the deer, also becomes, for a moment, the badger that is being described, or the hummingbird, or the mountain lion.

Later that Summer, I returned to meet with Felipe and, over a number of meetings, learned more about the dance. We shared our perspectives and he generously answered my sprawling questions, teaching me about aspects of Yaqui culture, including some Yoem nokiwords. Felipe explained how the Deer Dance was a way for people living in the city to connect with Huya Ania (the wilderness world) and Sea Ania (the flower world), and as he described how the songs are lessons for listeners to learn about ecology and Yoeme ancestors, I began to think of the Yaqui Deer Dance as a form of activism.

I was honoured when Felipe invited me to give a talk to his students, a class of young Yoeme adults, who were learning about their culture at the Yaqui tribal chambers on the reservation. I shared a little about my work with vernacular traditions, specifically Scottish Highland culture and language, and about the history of the repression of Scottish Gaelic and the current resurgence of the language. It was good to hear Yoeme perspectives. Though the Yoem Noki language is under threat of dying out, people like Felipe are out there doing the work of preserving and passing on knowledge.

Felipe and I began to make plans to visit a Deer Dancer in Mexico later in the year and, in November, over a number of days, we went back and forth by foot across the Mexico-USA border, to work with Indalecio ‘Carlos’ Moreno Matuz, a young Yaqui Deer Dancerfrom Vicam, Sonora, in the Yoeme homeland. We worked in Carlos’ hotel room, where I interviewed him and learned about the physical and symbolic aspects of the dance through demonstrations and diagrammatic drawings, while Felipe translated from English to Yoem Noki and back again.

Felipe and Carlos explained that the dance had only ever been performed by men because they were the ones who traditionally went hunting. Interestingly,the deer behaviours imitated were less about the bravado and display associated with the rut, and more about alertness and agility as a form of defence. This corresponds with the fact that in Yoem Noki, there is no word for 'buck' or 'stag'; Maasosimply means 'adult male deer', though his other song names are displayed here. The only time the Maasodisplays aggressive behaviours, such as charging or threatening with lowered antlers, is when he is being attacked or provoked by other figures in the ceremonies.

The white-tailed deer – and coues-white-tailed deer – live in areas of the Sonoran Desert – a land that rambles over 320,000 km, across two countries. It is home to about 130 species of mammals, more than 500 kinds of birds, 20 amphibians, 100 or so reptiles, 30 native freshwater fish. There are perhaps as many as 2500 native species of plants and 4000 in total. It is also home to at least 17 Indigenous cultures as well as many others who have adopted it.

The tribal lands of the Yaqui have been irreversibly damaged, initially due to the European invasion and colonisation, and latterly by the rapid growth of capitalism and climate change degrading the ecology. Along the Yaqui River in Mexico, eight tribal villages have no water due to drought and the actions of agricultural corporations and, every year, people battle with wild fires caused by rising heat levels and invasive grasses spread by cattle. Although the culture of the Yaqui Deer Danceis being preserved, the ecology of the wilderness world is seriously under threat.

Wild-deer-ness

Throughout the process of exploring these dances, I considered how a body of work might emerge from my research. By conjuring the antlered male deer, the dances evoke images of wild nature, but I realised there is a disconnect between what is encoded in their movements and the reality of local ecology. I was also acutely aware of the striking relationship between our cultural perceptions of 'wilderness' and ideas of 'masculinity'.

How could I honour these folk traditions and histories, yet simultaneously critique and de-stabilise constructed problematic narratives? How could I address contemporary intersections of ecology, gender and class? How could I touch on the complex relationship between indigenous cultural knowledge and the appropriation of vernacular culture? What did I want to explore and communicate?

I spent time writing, thinking, dreaming and in my note books began to distil my research into words:

From Palaeolithic cave paintings, to Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen, throughout time, artists have made representations of deer. Whether as staples to hunter-gatherers, icons of power and empire, or the focus of sport, deer have long been central to human cultures.

In popular imagination, deer remain etched into people’s consciousness as emblems of the 'wild' – the word wildernessitself, derives from the Old English wilde, wild, and doer, deer – and our relationship to the idea of wild-deer-nesshas shaped the landscape. Transported across continents, some species, such as fallow and sika deer, transformed ecologies with the establishment of royal deer forests and parks – hunting grounds belonging to the Crown. Other species, such as the reindeer of the arctic tundra and white-tailed deerof the Sonora desert, face threats of habitat loss caused by climate breakdown. In Scotland, the overpopulation of red deer due to human made environmental change impacted greatly on the degradation of Caledonian pinewood ecology.

And so, it follows, although they are perceived as powerful, deer also embody vulnerability. Constantly alert to the threat of a hunter or predator – or the ‘ghost’ of an extinct predator – they inhabit vulnerable places. It could be said that deer do not live in wilderness, but in ghosts of places that no longer exist.

Across timescales and cultures, our relationship with deer as a totemic and ideologically powerfulanimal has contributed to a construction of wilderness as an imaginary landscape, setting 'nature' apart from 'culture'. Is it possible to shift our relationship to the world and renegotiate these dichotomies?

The dancers at Star Carr, the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, the Yaqui Deer Dance and the Highland Fling are separated by geography and time, yet there is a commonality in these seemingly disparate cultures, which find echoes throughout history, fromthe ritualised carrying of stag heads condemned by medieval European church leaders, and Herne the Hunter, the antlered ghost of a royal gamekeeper in English folklore, to the Tibetan stag-headed Chamdance and Shishi-Odorideer dance of Northeast Japan.

Evolving over generations, each dance is mimetic in some way, with movements that imitate male deer behaviour and gesture, from the frolicking of the fawn and the alertness of the adult male, to the bravado, display and aggression of the rutting stag.Costumes also play a significant role, and often, but not always, feature elements of attire made from animal parts. Another common feature is that they are (or were) traditionally performed by men and, with their displays of muscular strength and athletic endurance, they are all thought to have their origins in (or associations with) hunting ritual practices.

As traces of hunting rites, how are these dances to be understood within a contemporarycontext?

How does the mimesis of male deer behaviours inform a 'performance' of masculinity by male dancers? What are the implications of these gendered performances in society today?

Returningto the animal tracks that obsessed me, back in the studio, I finished scoring the three deer dances I had studied, tracking the steps of the dancers, replacing human foot-prints with deer hoof-prints: red deer for the Highland Fling steps, white-tailed deer for the Yaqui Deer Dance steps, and reindeer for the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance steps. Working with Edinburgh Printmakers, I developed these into a series of blind debossed prints.

Becoming-with-deer

Considering different approaches to choreograph from the scores, I decided to draw upon the most mimetic aspects of what I had learnt and adopt fragments of steps to make something entirely new. But who would perform this? Drawing on multiple layers of my research, I began to conceive of a series of characters, each one a constructed assemblage of aspects drawn from a male-deer/male-human spectrum, playfully dissolving human:animal binaries. Making sketches of these figures, I gave each of them names borrowed from archetypal male characters found within traditional theatre, as well as deer and deer stalking terminology: monarch, warrior, young buck, fool and old sage.

To get to know them with my body, I decided to attempt to become each deer-man myself. By queering these figures, I hoped to challenge our constructed ideals of masculinity and question the mythologies that give authenticity to gendered behaviour. Having experienced some of the more negative and toxic behaviours of the heroic-hetero-male in my day to day life – let's call this thecrisis of masculinity– I also wondered if, by becoming these characters, I could release myself from their impact on me as a queer woman, and simultaneously bring to the foreground the impact of these behaviours – the crisis of ecology– on vulnerable and damaged habitats.

My plan became to create a moving image and sound work, performing each character in a choreography-to-camera. I began to collaborate with two performance artists: Peter McMaster and Will Dickie, who both practice at the intersection of live art and dance, and whose past work had, in various ways, explored tropes of masculinity, ritual and ecology. Peter collaborated with me on the film's dramturgy and Will became the movement director, helping to devise the choreography. Together, we discovered and developed the characters.

To begin our process, in October 2018, we spent a few days at Trees for Life, workshopping ideas and watching deer. We also went out deer stalking with Allan. This time I was very sensitive to his movements, almost reading him as a dancer, and was struck by the ways in whichhe took on qualities of the animal of the hunt, harnessing deer-perspective.Like the deer, he was quick to register distant movements and sounds and, on getting close to the animal, to remain hidden, he tilted his torso with bended knees, a pose strikingly similar to the Yaqui Deer Dancer's basic posture and cave painting of Trois-Frères.Will made an interesting observation about how the deer stalk appeared to be carried out in clearly defined ritualised stages. Beginning casually, walking upright and chatting, we slowly grew tighter as a pack, becoming quieter and more focused, tuning in to our surroundings and, as we drew near to the deer, we got close to the ground, not moving or making a sound, our bellies up against the heather. Before taking a shot, Allan spoke about a moment of stillness – a stillness of breath and of thought.

In a similar way, each dance that I had been studying, sat at a different stage in the ritualised drama of the hunt: the Yaqui Deer Dancetraditionally took place before hunting, allowing the hunter to access the perspective of the deer; the Highland Flingwas a dance of triumph, a dance to feel powerful and in control; and the Abbots Bromley Horn Dancewas a celebration after the hunt, to give thanks. With gestures that ranged from iconic imitation to stylized metaphor, these rituals of the hunt were clearly mimetic of the rituals of the deer rut. But how could the dramaturgy of my film address what felt urgent to me: the interconnections between the crisis of masculinity and the crisis of ecology? We slowly began to realise that if Deer Dancer was to function as a ritual space, perhaps the characters would have to stalk each other to the death...

Early the following year, Will, Pete and I worked together to discover the five characters from the inside, developing their movement vocabulary and training exercises and, as we explored the relationship between them, a story emerged. I began to conceive of a two-channel film and sound work that would play with, and attempt to destabilise narratives found both the within anthropology documentary and wildlife/nature documentary. To prepare for the filming process, I created a story board for the two screens, and composed and recorded a multi-layered vocal composition to perform to.

Utilised technology to 'extend my body' and expand my vocal range into 'male' and 'stag' pitches, I worked with my voice to imitate drum sounds. Recalling my experience of the Yaqui water drum, and the Abbots Bromley Horn Dancetriangle, my intention for the sound was to affect the viewer-listener on a body level, sometimes in a way that is unsettling, at other times like a heart-beat of low vibrations in the chest or belly. Alongside the process of developing the characters physicality, and the vocal score, I began to design and make the costumes and props, with invaluable assistance from my partner Lydia Honeybone, using an assemblage of materials, from ribbons and sequins, to bullets and hunting horn. I also worked with naturally cured deer hide, hooves, antler and skull, specifically for the cod pieces, and the weapons, hinting at the relationship between the posturing of male sexual bravado and violence.

We filmed over three days in Glasgow University's theatre against a black curtain. My director of photography Andrew Begg lit the space, and followed the story board shot by shot, filming each character one by one, then, in post-production, with editor Laura Carreira, I then pieced together the jigsaw puzzle.

Introducing the characters...

The Monarch is a mature, dominant male, who holds his head high, displaying his sixteen-tine crown and enlarged neck. Over his hide, he wears gold. His stance is wide and a bulbous codpiece with tassels enhances his majesty. Belling loudly, he asserts his authority, warning off rivals to his harem of hinds. But he's growing old and his limbs are becoming stiff. Soon he'll be past his prime.

The Warrior is highly alert, his senses tuned into his surroundings. He tracks and hunts, defending himself on attack with antlered spears that extend from his shoulders. He's in his physical prime; his chest is hard and strong and over his tartan loins, he wears a sporran and bullet belt. When he hears his rival, he sounds his horn, displaying his power.

Though the Young Buck has reached sexual maturity, he's still a spiker, yet to win his own harem. But he's looking. Dressed in tweed trews and protruding codpiece, he taps the ground, addressing potential rivals. He is lustful, cocksure and trigger-happy, challenging anyone in his close proximity. Breathing heavily, he's on the hunt for a hind, on the hunt for a fight.

The Fool, small in stature, avoids the dominant males as they proclaim their authority during the rut, bawling and displaying his white behind in fear. Wearing ribbons, bells and a modest codpiece, he carries a broom with antlers, a hobby stag that appears to push and pull him into combat. Haunted by ghosts, this skittish staggard is bewildered by his own inner conflict.

The Old Sage is a spirit of the wild hart and ghost of a man. Haunting the wilderness with skull and ragged horns, he relives his life tending the land with hooves and hands. He also relives his death. Only perceived by a few, he sees all.

Deer Dancer

In the resulting work, the costumes, movements and music work together to tell a story, with the visual scores acting as hidden keys to the work. In the 'pop up theatre space' of the gallery, we meet the five characters in an imaginary wilderness world. This wilderness world is not rooted in a particular ecology, but is place-less, black and empty, allowing the viewer-listener to construct and project their own wilderness into the space.

A dynamic emerges between these deer men, and slowly they begin to stalk one another.Then, in a face-off, they lock eyes, take a bow and the deer dancecommences. With movements that signify both the deer rut and a pre-hunt ritual, the characters face one another, performing their ritual dance, with fragments of steps from the three dances. In the visual scores, these steps are delinieated in gold foil on the debossed tracks – interestingly, the word 'foil' also means 'animal track'.

Then, coming to a stop, one by one, the deer-men draw their weapons, and we see each one lying in their death pose, with blood flowing from their body, signified by slow moving red ribbons. As bodies disappear (or decompose), the costumes remain as relics of culture to be performed again. Bit by bit, they too disappear, until then reappear on my body, piece by piece, reconstructing each character in a queer assemblage. And then it begins again...

Stuck in a perpetual loop of learned behaviour and appropriation, these stag-men are ultimately condemned to self-destruct. Humankind has left a footprint so deep that we are only now beginning to grasp the immensity of the calamity. In a small way, I've come to think of Deer Dancer as a contemporary life-crisis ritual for a damaged planet. But when the balance has been set right in ritual, the question becomes how do we really address the damage?

This text was originally written and presented as a talk at Edinburgh Printmakers in September 2019, to accompany Tuulikki’s Deer Dancer exhibition.

Deer Dancer credits: Performed & directed by Hanna Tuulikki; Character development and choreography by Will Dickie, Peter McMaster and Hanna Tuulikki; Dramaturgy by Peter McMaster; Movement direction by Will Dickie; Sound composed and recorded by Hanna Tuulikki; Sound mixed with Pete Smith; Director of photography by Andrew Begg; Edited by Laura Carreira; Costume fabrication assistance and wardrobe management by Lydia Honeybone; Production management by Amy Porteous; Costumes and print works by Hanna Tuulikki

Developed through conversations and interviews with tradition bearers and academics, Felipe Molina (Yaqui tradition bearer/ translator), Larry Evers (American Indian Studies, The University of Arizona), Jack Brown (Abbots Bromley Horn Dance tradition bearer/ historian), Doug and Joyce Gilbert (Trees for Life); by observing a number of dances and participating in rituals, including the Yaqui Deer Dance (Pascua Yaqui Easter ceremonies, Old Pascua, Tucson, Arizona, March 2018), Abbots Bromley Horn Dance (Abbots Bromley, September 2017/2018); and direct learning with Sandra Robertson (Highland Fling), Indalecio 'Carlos' Moreno Matuz (Yaqui Deer Dance), Gary Faulkenberry (animal tracking, March, July 2018), Allan Common (deer stalking at Trees for Life, Dundreggan, autumn 2017/2018).

Commissioned by Edinburgh Printmakers, funded by Creative Scotland. Research and development supported by Magnetic North's Artist Attachment, funded by Jerwood Foundation and Creative Scotland. Additional support from Hope Scott Trust, The Work Room, University of Arizona Poetry Center, Trees for Life, University of Glasgow, Glasgow School of Art, and CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow.

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