#America is and has always been super racist. No doubt about that

[missellafitz]

“Ella worked with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Nelson Riddle,” Morris Rosman said, but never recorded with Frank Sinatra because at the time it wasn’t approved for a black and white singer to do a duet."

First and foremost, they recorded the duet "Necessity" in 1954.

Second, did they plan to record romantic songs? I think "Going Out of My Head" is quite romantic, and we know they were planning to put that song on their album in 1967.

Either way, this statement doesn't seem right to me, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that Ella said this as some kind of diversion from the truth (my theory being that Norman hated Frank because he was in love with Ella but knew Frank and Ella had been having an affair for a long while).

*Also (based on the tag), she recorded several duets with Bing Crosby in the 40s and 50s. So, yeah, this makes no sense (and I love it!!!)

*Another also, on the 1958 episode of The Frank Sinatra Show, where Ella guest starred he literally said (which was scripted) "I sure am a big fan of yours, and I don't know, maybe, why don't we make an album together?" I will say this for Sinatra. The man would've moved heaven and earth to make the album with her if it was discouraged for racial reasons. He was a wonderful contrarian in that way. And let's not forget that his one regret of his career was not recording an album with Ella. Beyond the Norman and Frank feud, apparently, Capitol and Reprise never could come to an agreement in terms of recording times for contractual reasons.

From: https://www.circlingthenews.com/palisadian-morris-rosman-recounts-the-life-of-a-remarkable-woman-ella-fitzgerald/

[gojo-kisser-9000]

I’m a big fan of HxH too which Gege draws inspiration from heavily. The Chimera Ant Arc is considered one of the greatest pieces of literature by fans. The kicker is…as it was coming out in a weekly format, everyone hated it. Only after it was finished and read uninterrupted did people really start loving it. I almost wonder if that’ll happen with the Sukuna fight too.

Media Literacy curse in JJK fans is really funny to me regardless. Gojo’s racism didn’t come out of nowhere. He was already kind of sus to Miguel in JJK0. This only confirmed the allegations people picked up on then. One thing I love about Gege’s writing is future information permanently changing how you view older scenes. This is one of those times. It makes me love Gojo more tbh. (I have a soft spot for racists who try to do better.)

People are too hard on Megumi for sure (even if I find the memes kind of funny). Not a lot of people realized that he spent his 16th birthday trapped inside Sukuna all by himself. Which probably made the Tsumiki death feel even worse. (I have no doubt she forced him to celebrate it.) Then he kills his adopted father and has 0 family left and is somehow supposed to tough it out. He’s just a little boy!

Yuji has always been built bigger too. His official weight is super heavy for his height. Gege explicitly stated that was done on purpose. Smh I wish people could read.

It’s funny you say that. Visiting Hawai’i radicalized me significantly. I spent a good deal of my time picking up trash and seething at the golf courses and other severe ecological damage brought on by colonization. In an ideal world [redacted]. Anyways I think you should rant about it too.

OOOOO I WILL RANT, so sorry about this in advance btw. After that I’ll get back to JJK

So I am Hawaiian-Filipino, my father is white however I was raised by my mother who held the ideals she grew up with.

Now the problem with tourism is not only does it actively mess up the environment but it also destroys the economy in Hawai’i, which I don’t need to go over I don’t think.

BUT THE WHOLE THING, IS THAT IT IS STOLEN LAND. And Native Hawaiians are STILL being kicked out of their homes, STILL struggling with everything they lost in Lahaina, STILL struggling with the water being poisoned. And yet people STILL have the audacity to take a “cute little vacation to perfect Hawai’i”.

I can NEVER go to the islands, the islands my family are from mind you, BECAUSE TOURISM FUCKED THEM UP. The amount of disrespect tourists have for the islands is insane. I can’t speak on what tourism is really like as I have never been to Hawai’i except for when I was an infant. But I do see what Native Hawaiians say, I see the damage caused by tourists when I see content by the Hawaiians.

And it’s frustrating, so very frustrating. How can people be SO disrespectful to land that they not only visit, but actively keep colonized.

I always encourage everyone to do their own research on Hawai’i and Hawaiian culture! Especially before America comes in and colonizes them. It’s hard to find accurate sources, and it’s been a while since I’ve done my own research so I don’t have any available websites on their history.

Okay I’m stopping while im ahead. Thanks for letting me get that out!

Back to JJK

You’re so right about EVERYTHING ‼️‼️

Honestly, the weekly format is only “annoying” because they wait, expect the story to drastically change, and then get more story the next week. And it HAS to be something different or it’s Bad Writing (so incredibly NOT happy with people saying that Gege’s writing is bad, there are some iffy moments but it’s overall AMAZING)

Tbh I think the internet has ruined people’s media literacy, so I encourage everyone to write something, but you can’t outright state what you’re trying to say in your story. Let your friends guess what your story conveys, it’s a great way to help boost media literacy (it’s like if ELA class was cool)

And I think we’ve covered everything about Megumi and Yuji.

Once again thank you for talking with me, especially about things I’m passionate about! It means a lot :))

[wenellyb]

My journey in the MCU fandom on Tumblr: Sharing my thoughts on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, racism in the MCU fandom and the best and the worse of the fandom

I wasn’t going to write this much but here I am… I don’t even know where I’m going with this but since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier just recently came out, I wanted to share some thoughts.

I joined Tumble because of a show I loved but most of you don’t know it “ Hit the Floor”

I stayed on Tumblr for two reasons only, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan.

Before the Captain America:Civil War premiere, a friend sent me the link to the Sebastian and Anthony ET interview, and I was hooked. In just one interview. I discovered Anthony Mackie. The guy was hilarious!!! I just couldn’t get enough and I knew I had to know more about him. How could he improvise so many funny lines on the spot? He was just amazing.

I had pretty much watched all the avengers movie but that was it. I was not involved in the fandom. So I knew Sam Wilson’s face, but I couldn’t even remember his name if my life depended on it. That’s how much the MCU treated him as a side character.

I was like how the f*ck don’t I know this guy?

His talent reminded me of Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, like yes they can make some emotional or serious movies, but when they want to make you laugh, you will laugh. Whether you want it or not.  I kept wondering how this guy wasn’t more famous.

And the banter with Sebastian Stan? Wow, you could tell their friendship was strong, the way Sebastian lighted up when Anthony was talking, and keep bouncing off his jokes. It was art. the way Sebastian said “ I love you” at the end of the interview. Pure gold.

I then started to watch some of the interviews and boy was that a mistake!!! I literally couldn’t get enough. So I watched all and I say all their interviews, it was the best. We got some gems:

“Why aren’t you looking at me as much”

“Which way is the beach Seabass”

*Them saying nonsense in Spanish and then Sebastian Saying Papi Chulo*

 ¨And so many more, ....

I watched other solo Anthony interviews and he was still HILARIOUS, but you could also tell he felt a little bit more at ease with Sebastian around. I won’t pretend I know him or his personality, but Sebastian seems like a little bit more of an introvert and looks like he doesn’t enjoy the interview experience unless Anthony id around him. Just my thoughts

I watched the interviews before I went to see the movie, I even cosplayed as the Winter Soldier to the movie premiere and I was IN!!! When I saw Captain America Civil War, I became a SamBucky shipper, these two were hilarious and I really so the potential for a great realtionship I love enemy to lovers stories.

I also shipped Stucky because, to me, the trope of the movie was Superhero gives up everything to protect his long term friend” Hollywood movies have some codes and if Bucky were a female character, there is no doubt in my mind that the movie would have been marketed as romance.

Stucky really was an easy ship! But then the MCU fandom of Tumblr fandom messed up everything for me. You see I really liked the CACW and I I liked Stucky, I liked Sambucky, and I loved the introduction of t’Challa’s character, but one of things that affected me the most in the movie was that it was the first blockbuster I watched with 3 black main characters, Rhodey, Sam and T’Challa. That, and the fact that they were planning to realease a Black Panther movie in two years, I was super excited, and that’s the main reason I got involved in the MCU fandom so much, when before, I was just a casual watcher.

If this seem weird to you, then you have no idea how we were only getting crumbs before. For me it was soo huge, I even told all my friends, and they were laughing at me. But usually blockbusters, especially superhero movies get one black character and that’s it, usually the best friend or something and never the leads. So, for me it really was a big deal. How sad is that by the way…

I became more involved in the fandom and, at first, I wasn’t focusing on anything special, Sambucky, Stucky, Stackie, the Black Panther, and even Zemo, whose character I really liked.

But soon I noticed that the CACW tags were always flooded, and I mean flooded with the same two white characters: Steve and Bucky. I told myself, ok that’s fine Steve is the lead after all, but it would be good to see the other characters too.

And then I noticed another interesting trend: Evanstan…. Wait what?

Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan… did I miss something? Listen, obviously I’m sure they must be friends or something, but you’re going to tell me you watch all MCU the actors and you’re going to focus on Steve and Sebastian? I’m sorry what?

Sebastian and Anthony are right there… Or Chris and Anthony, they even have a secret handshake, only the 2 of them do… what more do you want?

Tell me one iconic Evanstan moment… go ahead tell me… See??? There isn’t.

Because of this and because of how badly some Stuckies were treating Sam and Anthony. I became less and less of a stucky shipper . I mainly focused on SamBucky, Stackie and the Black Panther,

And then the Sebastian Stan stans saw how popular Stackie, Sambucky, were becoming and I started to see some problematic stuff in our fandom too.

I don’t want to generalize, but when you go into the Stackie tag, and you see cropped pictures of Sebastian without Anthony, it’s easy to assume that a Sebastian fan did that. And we know damn well you cropped out Anthony because we watched all Stackie interviews and know exactly which interview your picture was taken from. We know that Anthony was sitting right next to Seb.

You post a picture of Sebastian laughing but you crop out the person who was making him laugh??

“but it has nothing to do with race” How do you know that?

“Sebastian had more screen time” More screen time than Anthony in CATWS or CACW? I don’t think so.

“I have been a fan of Sebastian for longer”, that’s fine but don’t go out cropping Anthony, just post gifs of Seb in his usual, sad, and Anthony-less interviews, not the ones where he’s smiling because his best friend is next to him.

Some of you really are the worst. And just so you know, your fave Sebastian is Anthony’s biggest fan, if he saw pictures where you cropped out Anthony, he would block you on the spot.

When I realized that Anthony Mackie would be the next Captain America I was screaming, no actually, I was crying, Sam Wilson will be Captain America, and Anthony would finally get the recognition he deserves.

You would think that the MCU fandom would focus on Captain America or at least one the two leads, instead of just Sebastian? Right? Right? WRONG.

Anthony is handsome, he’s funny, he’s a great actor, he went to freaking Julliard, he’s at the top, I don’t see what else the man can do??? He should already be a superstar, but no, you will side-line him even to he is the lead of the show.

Even when they are the actual leads, you guys would do anything to bring up the White characters even if it means ignoring the Black characters.

I remember I was having a conversation about Black Panther with my friends and I asked one of my white friends who was his favorite character in BP was and he told me Martin Freeman (don’t even remember his name in the movie) Martin Freaking Freeman, there are half a dozen of great characters and your fave is the only white man??? Ok, ok, that’s great.

Don’t give out automatic reply like “It has nothing to do with race, if you haven’t thought about it first”, because there’s a high probability that it is indeed about race. Stop saying it isn’t, sit down and ask yourself, “Am I biased?” “Why am I reblogging only stuff related to the white characters”.

One of these days you guys are going to make me hate Sebastian with the sh*t you are pulling.

I looove the Stackie friendship and the Sambucky dynamic but after seeing the way some of you treat Anthony and Sam’s character, it make me want to focus on Sam’s character and forget about the rest.

 I remember they were some posts about how Anthony was problematic, and I just lost it. Apparently, there was an old article that resurfaced were Anthony was making a joke about women making sandwiches or something.

If you were offended by the sandwich joke, that is totally ok, and I can understand that.

But if you were offended by the sandwich joke, and saying Anthony is problematic BUT you still stan Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, ScarJo or even Sebastian Stan, just know that there is a high probability you’re racist.

They have all said or done problematic stuff, and people only seem to remember stuff related to Anthony, which was probably just a joke by the way.

Chris Evans and Jeremy called Black widow a wh*re, ScarJo took roles that she maybe shouldn’t have and I didn’t forget Sebastian shady Instagram post, when Kaepernick was kneeling. There are so many more things to be said about Jeremy Renner but google is your friend.

Anthony also got hate for hating on Tom Holland? Like what? Do you guys even hear yourselves? Don’t you have any friends you like to tease? If you hate someone, do you go around talking about him every chance you get? It was obviously friendly banter but some people wanted to turn it into something it was not. Sigh.

I really cannot with this fandom

 The stackie fandom was small at the beginning and the Sambucky fandom even smaller, but we were there and it was amazing. Sebastian and Anthony received the same amount of love from the fandom and I wish we could go back to those days.

Stop pretending the fandom isn’t racist. Stop saying “it isn’t about race” when you haven’t even thought about.

Saying “it has nothing to do with race” only shows that you haven’t thought about anything but don’t want to be called a racist.

There is racism in this fandom and it will always be there, but if you guys want to do anything about it, you have to acknowledge it first.

You can’t be pulling off stuff like “I don’t see colors”, “ it has nothing to do with race”. Stop, sit down, think about it and then we can have a conversation.

If you’ve made it till the end, I apologize for the typos and grammar mistakes, I wasn’t planning on writing this much.

[paenling]

no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin. 

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness. 

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world. 

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably. 

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences. 

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

[vidavalor]

They’re gonna fight whether or not that article is correct and I’m hoping for peak married angst, tbh...

I have thoughts on those rumors from that site that probably isn’t legit anyway but this is basically future SamBucky plot spec so yeah...

There’s no way to make a movie or another series (or both) of TFATWS/Captain America without Sam & Bucky having some conficts. They can still be in love and on the same team and everything but TFATWS essentially sets up at least several more bits of Sam-and-Bucky-centric story. At minimum, there’s a Captain America 4 (and if there’s a 4, there’s probably a 4, a 5 and a 6) and/or another season of TFATWS at some point. Which is why it’s interesting that they end TFATWS S1 in such a place of peak romance because it’s then all about establishing that foundation for the upcoming canon and they have to have more conflict in those stories than just how many stray cats they’re going to adopt. But there’s a *ton* of potential for the growth of their relationships over whatever they end up fighting about because there will be something. 

I don’t know enough about the website that started the fighting rumor thing to have an opinion on whether or not it’s legitimate. Based on what you all who have been around this beat longer are saying, it seems to not be but I’d be willing to bet that if that’s the case, that site’s been sticking around by making logical story predictions for awhile and calling them leaks. Like, I could do a few myself. Here you go lol: 

-Rumor has it that Joaquin Torres will don The Falcon wings in S2 of TFATWS!

-Rumor has it that Sam will struggle with the world being obnoxiously racist to its first public-facing Black Captain America in Captain America 4!

-Rumor has it that Bucky will once again interact with the characters from Wakanda in future bits of Marvel canon! 

To me, saying that Sam & Bucky will fight in the future is as sure bet likely as any of the above and so was a safe rumor to start, whether or not the site is legitimate. 

Since everyone’s talking about what their dream fight scenarios are and if we can’t just have the domestic bliss versions because there needs to be a plot (sadly lol), that would eliminate my dream sequence ‘they’ve taken up boxing in their training because Sam is determined to be able to knock Bucky on his ass without mentioning how fine his ass is as a distraction’ and I give you a whole Plotty McPlot set up in TFATWS for whatever the next story beat is (Cap Amer 4 or S2 of TFATWS)... the ‘Hydra Returns’ plot. 

TFATWS conveniently gave the audience way more info than Sam & Bucky know about the antagonists right now. It’s not just that Karli was working for Sharon-- the audience knows about Madame Hydra and Walker but Sam & Bucky do not. They *couldn’t* know because the story needed them to have their Delacroix romantic happy ending, not just running right out to stop Hydra but Evil Elaine and John Walker are not going anywhere and that means that Hydra is going to be resurfacing in Sam & Bucky’s plot in the future. Now, imagine Bucky’s response to learning that...

Think Bucky is going to stay in line? Think he’s going to treat this like any other mission where he’s normally willing to back up Sam & is fine with that? Oh. Hell. No. 

No Hydra people are getting within ten miles of any of his Wilsons. No way on Earth. 

Bucky’s going to go rogue and the plot will somehow involve him seeming to get back into Hydra-- he’s either going to go undercover against Sam’s orders/will because Sam will be like no, he doesn’t need to do this to any authority asking and tell Bucky he can’t let him do this and Bucky’s going to have to work around Sam-- ironically, the guy who has always been about making sure Bucky has the space to make his own choices after all the free will that was stolen from him. Sam is objecting because he can’t see Bucky be hurt again and this is dangerous-- more so than the Zemo situation in TFATWS, especially since Sam can’t go with him. Bucky’s going to defy Sam to go do it anyway. 

He’ll be undercover with Hydra when Sam comes after Hydra, resulting in Sam & Bucky possibly having to fight one another. (And, see, if they want to add in my boxing bit or another training sequence to the beginning of the movie when they’re in their happy domestic bliss to set up how they’ll fight one another for real later in the movie, NO OBJECTIONS HERE, MARVEL...) 

Alternatively or in addition to that, Hydra could get ahold of Sam and hurt him in some way. (I’m really hoping this doesn’t go the route of them trying to get Bucky to prove that he’s really one of them by trying to force him to hurt Sam so let’s hope that doesn’t happen.) I’m not sure if I buy the rumors that Sam is going to get the serum in Cap Amer 4 or the next beat of his story or whatever. He could but it won’t be willingly if it he does. The only way that could happen is if someone forces it on him or if it’s some kind of accident. It’s made abundantly clear in TFATWS that Sam doesn’t want the serum and wouldn’t take it if he had the choice. He has real empathy as well for the fact that Bucky never had the choice and lives with that everyday. If they’re tussling with Hydra, though, it’s possible that something happens to Sam and he winds up being given the serum against his will and then will need to lean on Bucky in the future for help with figuring out how to deal with that. I would prefer they don’t do this. I love the possibility of it in terms of it being something for Sam to angst over & something for him & Bucky to go through together a bit-- storywise, it has potential-- but I like Human!Sam and I think that’s a better story, ultimately, than making him a literally super superhero.

But forget the serum in question, I could just see Sam & Bucky on opposite sides of the idea of how to handle Hydra and Bucky working undercover making Sam worried but he’s also aware that Bucky is their best in to stopping them. There’s just no way that they didn’t set Walker up with Madame Hydra in TFATWS for that plot to never really again cross paths with the former Hydra assassin and his husband who spent the whole season going up against Walker. It’s going to be all about Hydra & the next beat of SamBucky is totally Hydra-angst fanfic where they go through hell but save the day because their somarried trust in one another, even if they have a moment of doubt or something, will ultimately win out. 

Bonus points if it ends with them sweaty and exhausted and beaten half to death sprawled somewhere after a fight and Bucky’s just like “I’ve been meaning to tell you... I think we should get a cat.” 

[ressyfaerie]

OKAY YALL. 

I haven’t been paying attention at all. 

Do you want to be really angry,

Like really, really angry? 

I’m putting this in a read more since there’s going to be a LOT and it may start a FIRE.

It was a lonely snowy night in the north of British Columbia Canada.

Just kidding.

For real though- I had no internet! We could only watch TV on satellite (the only anime I watched was on YTV). If it snowed in the winter we had to go outside and brush the snow off the satellite to continue watching Beyblade or Inuyasha. 

So I was 5-6 when I first started watching Beyblade. Of course I LOVED IT. I would rush home to try to watch it everyday. Beyblade has just airing and it was a HIT. I watched season 1 religiously, I actually don’t remember watching much of V-force or G-rev but that’s probably because it wasn’t made yet lmao. 

I grew up in a small town, whatever you’re imagining, imagine it smaller. (I could write a whole essay on the social hierarchy of Port Ed in the early 2000s but I’ll keep it short for now) White kids= rich/ pretentious, Native kids=poor. I didn’t like the attitude of most of the white girls, so I mostly made friends with the native kids (I miss yall btw) but anyways, this is where you’re going to get angry.

So I didn’t know what Japanese WAS. Like I knew what Chinese was (Small town surrounded by racists? Who would have guessed?) I don’t even think I knew Japanese existed, but any other anime I watched (Sailor moon, Inuyasha, Gundam Wing) most of the characters were white representing or had extremely light skin tones.

So what the heck was 5 year old me supposed to do with beyblade? Which was a show filled with lots of different ethnicities? 5 year old me was obsessed with beyblade, tearing apart every episode I saw, so I gathered: Max=American, Ray=Chinese, Kai=Russian (Because that’s what matched with all their championships, makes sense to a kid right?)

But what WAS Japanese? I dunno? But you know who Tyson looked like? 

My chubby native friends.

THAT’S RIGHT

YALL ARE DEBATING BIRACIAL KAI

LITTLE ME THOUGHT TYSON WAS NATIVE FOR YEEEAAAARRRSSSSS.

I’m laughing as I write this, when I learned Japan was indeed a real place, it didn’t dawn on me immediately. It still took finding beyblade online when I was like 11, re-watching it and being like ‘huh’. (Note: Remember when beyblade was on youtube but each episode was like 4 parts? Good times.) 

So, on the topic of Kai.

First of all, I need to point something out that I deem obvious, but must be said. 

Beyblade (As well as many other shows from long ago (Yugioh, Naruto, Inuyasha, and Sailor moon come to mind), a lot of us latched on to these shows so hard because of trauma or lonely childhoods. Which means a lot of us find our connections to these shows or characters very personal, which is why it’s hard to break headcannons. It’s more than a fandom for us, and any of us who feel this way, are risking their comfort show to involve themselves in the fandom (This is why I believe a lot of beyblade fans don’t interact with fandom, and I go out of my way to warmly welcome all whenever I can)

It needs to be said, that you owe no explanation to anyone, and neither do I, nor do I apologize for my headcannons.  

With this being said, I knew eventually the fandom would blow up (as it has many times, over the idea of biracial Kai/ Kai with Russian ancestry/ Japanese Kai), now that it has hit so close to home, I feel the need to validate my decision to make Kai biracial in my two long main fics. However, it needs to be stated, I am not doing this to validate myself, but because I simply want to talk about it, I’m not explaining, or apologizing, simply stating some facts, and how I feel. 

For a lot of us, these characters are so personal and we’ve kept them for so long that they’re verging on OC’s, this is NOT YOUR JOB to point out! Although I believe my Kai is very close to canon, there’s many things that aren’t, regardless, myself and many others, still belong to the fandom. 

Back to my childhood:

FINALLY DIAL-UP INTERNET!

The first thing I did when I learned how to read and had private access to internet was google ‘Kai Beyblade’, if you asked, I probably would have said a child’s equivalent to ‘“fuck you that’s why”. 

I learned his last name was Hiwatari, and man, I thought that was SO COOL. But that wasn’t a Russian name was it? I dived further, I don’t think the beyblade wiki even existed at this point, I think I was reading everything off of wikipedia. What I read was: Kai’s father was Russian and his mother was Japanese. I didn’t think too much of it, I mean, it made sense. It would explain Voltaire’s connection to Russia. Later on I realised it made more sense for Kai’s mother to be Russian since the Hiwatari name is Japanese and would most likely come from his grandfather, and for some reason, I was convinced Susumu was Voltaire’s son. The idea of Voltaire marrying his son off to some Russian heiress made so much sense to me. I never read fics, my ideas were definitely influenced by wiki edits, I had no reason to doubt it, or think any differently, I think a lot of people followed the same footsteps. It’s interesting to think that’s how headcanons became universal back in the day. 

I learned the manga existed after a trip to Metrotown Vancouver where I bought every volume they had (3 lmao) (I still haven’t read every volume, and will when I can afford them). 

I just always assumed Kai was biracial, IT JUST MADE SENSE. Kai’s family’s deep ties to Russia, the reason why he knew Russian (regardless of the Abbey), his figure compared to Tyson’s in season 1, I had no reason to doubt it, and it seemed the Dub side of the internet agreed! 

When I wrote my fanfics at 18-19, 5 (years ago now, wow), I still assumed Kai was biracial. Only recently have I dived into the fandom and got into every side (Sub, Dub, Manga). I learned there’s 3 things Dub/Sub/Manga people will instantly fight over: Kai’s race, character’s names, and their ages. 

The reason these three things are so debated is because of the dramatically different storylines/ differences in language versions. The Dub and Sub are two completely different shows when played side by side. I am most familiar with the Dub, as it stays close to my heart, which influences most of my headcanons.

I still headcanon Kai as biracial. We actually don’t know much about his parents, and canon is very loosey goosey. We’re learning more in Rising, but I highly doubt Takao Aoki is going to be like “AND THEN KAI’S MOM WENT TO VISIT HER RUSSIAN FAMILY IS RUSSIA BECAUSE SHE IS RUSSIAN” I’m not going to go into super detail why I think it’s likely that Kai is biracial, but you know what? It doesn’t really matter. This fandom is old, and being from the early 2000’s that means the dub is much different, which means there are MULTIPLE versions of canons. I guarantee you, in every version there is something problematic, and one of the least important ones, is whether or not the fandom white-washes Kai by making him biracial (Maybe full Russia could be an issue, but you know what? Does it really matter?). You know what DOES MATTER. What they did to Eddy, they did that boy dirty. 

I mean they LITERALLY white-washed him. LIKE. 

Also changing Tyson/ Takao’s skin tone in G-rev/ V-force will forever annoy me; that might be an asian skin whitening thing though, still, problematic.

But anyways, in the end I’m sure the reason why the English fandom so frequently headcanons Kai as biracial is not because of white-washing, but because of the time the Dub was created. 

The early 2000’s was an interesting time. Some towns were still stuck in the 90’s, lots of kids had no access to the internet, and when they finally DID, they did not use it wisely. Misinformation was spread easily. Not many people in America read the manga, and very few people watched the Sub.

People like me, young and old, filled in the gaps that were missing.

It’s been 20 YEARS GUYS. A lot has changed. Headcanons that aren’t problematic will stick. As long as it’s not hurting anybody, or anyone else, it’s really not a bad thing. 

Our main focus should be to keep the fandom going! We can’t die, we’ve been together too long to die and I refuse to let it happen, where will I get my serotonin from?? 

Here’s a pic of my love to end it off:

Dumb idiot loser fuckin smiles fucking lunatic.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #1-3

May, 1984

THE WAR BEGINS

Oof, here we go.

Just gotta replicate the pace that let me do the Hawkeye miniseries in one go, three times in a row.

This is probably too much effort considering its Secret Wars (or more accurately Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars) and maybe there’s not going to be a lot of big changes from this in the Avengers book to really justify it.

But we’re getting Jim Shooter writing the Avengers and his non-consecutive runs were a lot better than I had remembered. And it continues the theme he had from the Avengers book.

It just makes sense in a nonsense way to cover this story.

Last relevant time in Avengers! Acting Completely Normal Vision warned the Avengers about some weird, possibly hostile energy surges right in time for an energy surge to surge energetically in Central Park.

When the Avengers went to investigate, they found a weird structure that looked like a techy coliseum maybe. When some of the Avengers wandered into it (apparently the most bankable Avengers? Sucks to be Vision and Wanda, shrug) they vanished.

In the next issue, after several days, these heroes returned, speaking of a secret war they fought. Weird stuff like She-Hulk taking the Thing’s place on the Fantastic Four happened. In other books, Spidey got a cool new suit.

Would you know more?

After being raptured in their various books, the missing superheroes all end up on one of those distinctive structures like the one that appeared in Central Park, except IN SPACE.

Its cool that the Avengers will have some company.

We’ve got a terrific 3/4ths of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men (including Lockheed but not including Kitty Pryde for some reason), the Avengers, Iron Man, Spider-Man, the totally Articulate Hulk, and hilariously Magneto is also here.

Maybe Secret Wars is just setting up the most awkward moment in the universe, as a prank show.

I think I’d enjoy a big event that turned out to be a prank show at the last minute. The fan discontent. Imagine.

Everyone introduces themselves to each other but mostly the audience and Ben Grimm claims his new codename as the Easter Bunny.

Checking, marvel wiki doesn’t have Easter Bunny listed as one of Ben’s known aliases. Cowards.

Looking up into space, Captain America spots another one of the totally cool constructs and Professor X scans that it contains EEEEEEEVIL.

Specifically Amora the Enchantress, Ultron, the Wrecking Crew, the Absorbing Man, the Lizard, VICTOR VON DOOOOOM, Kang the Conqueror, Doctor Octopus, and Molecule Man. Also, hilariously, Galactus is there.

I’m more convinced than ever that this is a prank show.

You know what would be more hilarious? If Punisher ended up on this construct.

The distribution of villains is kind of odd though. Galactus and Doctor Doom map to the FF. Doctor Octopus and the Lizard to Spider-Man. Ultron, Molecule Man, and Kang are Avengers foes. The Absorbing Man and the Wrecking Crew can go a couple ways but started off as Thor villains. And Amora is usually a Thor villain but supposedly has chilled out around this time or at least is less of a pain than her horny sister.

No X-Men villains. Because Magneto is chilling with them in the generally heroic pod.

Also, all the heroes were raptured from Earth while the villains were grabbed from Earth, from space, from Asgard, resurrected just to be here, or from the FUTURE.

I know marketing is wagging the dog but be consistent, secret organizer who we don’t know yet.

The Thing points out that Magnet is off-sides, re: being in the hero construct, and Magneto is like ‘hey, chill out dudes’ and denies specifically doing murders.

Magneto: “I know not what power transported me here from my secret lair, nor why I was placed among you -- but I find it more appropriate to ask why such as you were judged fit to be placed in my presence!”

Oof.

Burn.

Then the conversation is put on halt on account of the wildest shit any of them have ever seen.

An entire galaxy vanishes but probably not due to a wave of anti-matter.

Thor: “It’s gone! Gone -- ! Swept away like dust before some unseen, giant hand!”

And then around that last star left unswept, various chunks merge together to form some sort of world, perhaps for battle.

A nice touch for later is that you can definitely see that one of the chunks is a stray chunk of city.

Some of the villains start squabbling because close quarters, ego, etc.

But Ultron goes hey we’re allowed to fight? I’m the best at that.

Ultron: “I am Ultron! I do not understand the events transpiring! I do not understand how I came to be resurrected... nor how I came to be here! Nothing computes... Insignificant! I am Ultron! My purpose is to slay that which lives. You are all living things, ergo -- Ultron must destroy you!”

With the benefit of having read all the Avengers up to now, I feel that Ultron got up on the wrong side of the resurrection a little.

He’s not not like this but he’s not usually this turned on?

(Then again, maybe he just came back cranky)

DOOM grabs and shakes Molecule Man to do something about this because given enough time even the mighty DOOM might fall before Ultron.

Ultron is famously annoying to defeat, what with that adamantium.

But Molecule Man is in therapy after the Avengers kicked his shit and Tigra yelled at him for being a punk. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

So Doom with all his brilliant genius tells MM a cool way to help out that won’t hurt anyone. Directly.

Using his Molecule Man power over molecules to lightly toss Ultron into Galactus.

So that Galactus goes ‘who the fuck scuffed my boots’ and rips out all the energy in Ultron’s Ultron.

He can do that.

Why wouldn’t he? If he can do that to a planet, he can do it to a pissbaby robot. Even one apparently containing more power than an atom bomb.

Then, because this is one of those plots where things are always thenning, a rift opens in the nothingness of space and a heavenly esque light shines out. A warbly voice commands the action figures beat each other up.

I mean. Its more like

The Beyonder: “I am from beyond! Slay your enemies and all you desire shall be yours! Nothing you dream of is impossible for me to accomplish!”

But you have to admire that this toy commercial of a comic book is being honest and upfront about being a story where action figures bonk off of each other.

Galactus just hears ‘i can finally shake off these persistent forever munchies’ and flies off to demand prepayment for action figure bonking, with DOOM following behind him.

The Beyonder speaks up warning Galactus that hey, personal space. And that a guy that can effortlessly wipe out a galaxy is gonna have a sweet barrier but Galactus wants the hunger pangs gone and does not listen.

DOOM recognizes a bad idea when he sees one once in a while and hangs back but still gets blown out of space by the force of Galactus bonking off the Beyonder’s barriers.

Captain America: “They were swatted back like flies!”

Professor X: “To the Beyonder, even Galactus is less than a fly, Captain!”

Interruption dealt with, the Beyonder gets the show on the road and sends the two constructs to different parts of the patchwork planet.

The Marvel Super Heroes And Magneto land on some hill and quickly make sure that there are no villains excepting Magneto around.

With Magneto around, the non-X-Men raise an objection to Magneto being around.

He sank a Russian submarine with all hands back in X-Men #150 but he insists that it was self-defense and also they started it.

The X-Men’s position is ‘hey he’s a jerk but he’s our jerk plus we could use his help? The bad guys get GALACTUS, how is that fair?’

Well, they don’t say it but they’re probably thinking it.

And Hawkeye decides to be a little racist today.

Hawkeye: “You mutants stick together, huh? Well, sticking to a blood-soaked maniac like him doesn’t speak well of you, pal!”

Dude, Clint. Your dear old friend is Wanda.

Wait, why ISN’T Wanda here? Did the toy people really not want her? Fools. Her husband is toyetic as all get out.

Also, point of order, Wolverine? If anyone qualifies as ‘hey he’s a jerk but he’s our jerk!’ here its you.

Johnny “good life choices” Storm decides he’ll just kick Magneto’s ass and end the debate but yeah. Yeah, no. Magneto makes a fool of him.

And then Magneto decides eff this noise and flies off.

With Magneto alienated (good job, guys), Professor X decides this group needs some dang leadership and throws a nomination to Reed Richards. Reed defers since he’s thinking of Sue, left at home and not able to participate in the event.

Wasp, the cool leader of the Avengers, nominates instead Captain America.

Wasp: “We’re off in a strange land, up to our ears in a little secret war that may decide the fate of the universe! Some people don’t know me well! They might have doubts... and there’s no room for that!”

I’m baffled that there’s people here who don’t know Wasp who has been heroing since the 60s but sure. Cap(tain America) probably gets more crossovers and whatever.

I mean, heck, we’re talking a group of heroes consisting of the Avengers (who she already leads), the Fantastic Three (who she’s well acquainted with), and the X-Men (who I’m sure she’s met, although awkwardly its going to later be revealed that Wasp is in the Hellfire Club, but only the sex parts).

And I guess Wolverine’s extensive backstory with Cap doesn’t exist yet because Wolverine isn’t keen on him being the leader, describing him as the least of the assembled heroes. When Hawkeye is right there!

I kid because I love.

Meanwhile, DOOM wakes up adjacent to Galactus ankle and heads to a nearby fortress which he correctly assumes is where the villains have ended up.

Wait, the heroes get beamed down to a random hill while the villains get sent to an advanced fortress with weaponry and we later learn vehicles sold separately?

Kinda stacking the deck, the Beyonder.

You gave the villains GALACTUS and A FORTRESS PLAYSET right out of the gate.

The other villains tell Doom that they’ve (mostly) decided that he should be their leader. But Doom has bigger fish to fry than the prizes that the Beyonder is offering.

In typical Doomesque fashion, he wants the whole kettle. But the other villains what with their petty concerns think he’s too afraid to fight.

So he ditches.

He goes to steal-borrow a spaceship and even though he hates the thought, takes off to go talk to Richards. And then Kang shoots him out of the sky with a GIANT GUN THAT THE VILLAIN FORTRESS ALSO HAS? to stop him from allying with the heroes.

Said (marvel super) heroes see the distant explosion and fly as a group in the most hilarious way possible to check it out.

God, I have always loved this image. Its squished down into the bottom third of the page but its a delight.

They find Doom sprawled in the crash site, rambling that he’ll only speak to RICHARRRRRDS and about the Beyonder’s power. But Cap offends Doom mightily but offering him a hand up and because Doom sees pity in Cap and RICHARRRRRRDS eyes.

So he blasts the heroes and fucks off.

How very Bakugou of him.

And right as the heroes recover from that, a bunch of villains arrive to get this secret war started.

I have a fondness for this particular issue. For a long while, issue 1 was the only issue of Secret Wars I could find. So I just had the start of this story with all these non-Spider-Man non-X-Men heroes I barely knew cliffhangering into an attack by villains I really didn’t recognize except for Doc Ock and the Lizard.

It was a window into another side of the Marvel Universe. And for child me, this first issue worked perfectly to intrigue me. All these characters, the very straightforward conflict, all the complications that immediately pop up like Magneto, Galactus, and Doom. Alas, small child resources.

June, 1984

PRISONERS of War!

The heroes react slowly to the sudden villain attack but thankfully, the villains aren’t working together well. Unthankfully, half of the heroes were already knocked out by the first attack.

Meanwhile, over at Doctor Doom’s side of the plot, he flies back over to where Galactus just in time to see him finally rouse from being slapped down by the Beyonder.

Galactus floats to his feet and wanders off.

Doom: “He ignored me! As though I were a gnat buzzing at his feet! And so I am... Just as all of us, even Galactus himself, are but insects to the all-powerful Beyonder! Thus, the others have chosen to play the Beyonder’s simple game -- thereby, in effect, paying homage to him. Should I, too, pay homage? Should I worship at the feet of this god-like being -- or chose another path... one only Doom would dare!”

I think anyone that knows Doom knows which option he’s gonna choose.

He heads back to the villain fortress and finds Ultron’s deactivated body and decides Doom can use this.

Meanwhile, back at the first secret battle of the secret war, the heroes rally and start fighting back under Cap(tain America)’s leadership.

She-Hulk even gets a designated girl fight with the only female villain on the villain team.

I’d complain, I would. But at least She-Hulk isn’t the only heroine on the hero side.

She-Hulk: “Hiya! I’m the She-Hulk! You must be the Enchantress! Gee, I’ve heard so much about you -- ! You’re a not-nice lady!”

Enchantress: “A green woman? Is there no end to the varieties of mortals?”

The Enchantress magic slaps She-Hulk away and comments that she could crush She-Hulk physically but its beneath her.

Yeah, all Asgardians have some level of super strength, that’s right. Even the squishy wizards.

But all She-Hulk heard was, ‘someone I can really punch!’

She-Hulk: “I don’t often duke it out with someone solid enough to really unload on -- and slow enough to let me! Oh, wow! That was, like tubular, you know -- to the max!”

Uh. Jen, are you okay? Did you have a stroke? You don’t usually talk so much in Mario World secret world levels.

I think maybe Jim Shooter didn’t have a good grasp on her. I don’t think he’s ever written for her. And the other heroes mostly don’t vary too much from generic hero speaking patterns. Add some smart for smart characters, add some rude to Wolverine, and so on.

The battle wraps up with Kang, the Enchantress, and the Wrecking Crew captured and the rest of the villains fleeing when the battle didn’t go their way.

Cap sends Storm off to scout for a cool playset that they can use as shelter and she does so, noting that the winds on Battleworld are super easy to control. Like Battleworld was created to create ideal fighting conditions for everyone. Pretty neat, the Beyonder.

Storm finds a particularly rad fortress (”Bigger than fifty-four and a half Pentagons, I’d estimate!” Wow!) and the heroes move in.

I unironically enjoy how toyetic this story is with the fortresses and the vehicles and the weapons. Because I’m almost positive that Mattel barely capitalized on it.

There were only two playsets. Pitiful.

Over in their new headquarters, Reed stashes the captured villains in some form of psychostasis which “works by controlling aggression through brainwave modulation!”

He also sticks Enchantress in a healing pod to address that nasty case of being She-Hulked right in the face. Nothing will salve her ego though.

Captain America: “It’s no wonder that the name Mister Fantastic is renowned for compassion as well as courage! You give added meaning to the word hero, Richards!”

Whenever someone loudly announces that Reed is super compassionate, it makes me feel like they’re overcompensating.

Nobody ever makes note of, say, Captain America’s compassion.

With the prisoners (of war? Is that the whole reason for the title?) accommodated, Cap calls everyone for a meeting in a cool meeting dome he found which has a small waterfall for aesthetic and so everyone has to yell to be heard.

Wolverine yells that they should mop up the rest of the villains and get this over with.

Not mentioning that in order to “win it” they’d have to kill the villains, which none of the heroes have shown any interest in doing so far.

Cap(tain America) replies that A) planet big and they have no idea where the villains got to. And B) the remaining villains slash antagonists are Galactus, Doctor Doom, Molecule Man, Doctor Octopus, the Wrecker, the Absorbing Man, and Magneto. Not really people you mop up.

In a fun logistics bit, Cap sends out a patrol to make sure the area is secure but he also sends out two additional groups to find  if there are any places in this fortress they can sleep and whether there's any... food.

Makes me imagine a Secret Survival War where the sides have to wrestle over limited resources.

Hours later, the villains that escaped the fracas arrive back at their fortress.

I’m sort of confused here.

Maybe it took so long because they had to make sure they weren’t followed. Or maybe because they didn’t have the sweet tripod vehicle anymore. But think about the flow of events of: everyone beamed down to Battleworld > Doom ditches the villains and gets shot down > heroes investigate and Doom ditches > villains show up for cliffhanger fight.

The villain fortress should be pretty close to where that fight took place. And then the heroes find a nearby fortress of their own so their fortress should be pretty close to the villain fortress. Maybe not in the same neighborhood but surely the same zip code.

Anyway, they find that while they were gone, Doom swanned in and renamed the place the Doombase.

If they have problems with it, they can talk to his Ultron.

Which I’m surprised he didn’t rename Doomtron.

Doom also tells them that he’s in charge now.

Absorbing Man: “Aw! Who gives a hoot! I need a meal an’ sleep! You wanna be in charge, Doom? Okay by me!”

If you think about it, this is just some steps added what the villains wanted all along.

They wanted Doom to be their leader but he told them he had bigger fish to fry and fucked off. Now he’s fucked back on and told them all that he’s their leader. They initially object before reconsidering due to Doomtron but, yeah, its all gone full circle.

Doom is a lot more cordial to Molecule Man though.

Doom: “Molecule Man... uh, Mr. Reece, I believe it is? I trust you were not inconvenienced.”

Molecule Man: “Well, being absolute master of molecules I can just assimilate molecules when I want, so I never have to be hungry, and I can just shoo away dirt molecules, so I’m always nice and clean -- but I am tired!”

Doom: “I have prepared a special chamber for you! I hope you like it!”

Molecule Man: “If not, I can always reconstruct the molecules -- !”

Heh.

Nice to see Jim Shooter able to follow up on the trajectory he sent Molecule Man on.

The rest of the villains head off but Doctor Octopus, the only other brain cell in this group, hangs back to talk to DOOM.

He wants to know what he plans to do about Galactus and then shows Doom on the biggest screen TV that Galactus is standing on a mountain glowing with an awesome power.

Doom just retorts that his plans are for his forces to triumph.

Doctor Octopus: Something tells me he’s got ambitions that dwarf merely triumphing in the Beyonder’s little contest! The question is whether he will destroy us in trying to achieve them -- or immediately after fulfilling them?!

Like I said, the only other brain cell in this group.

Meanwhile, while Magneto secretly sneaks into the hero fortress for Reasons, the heroes have a quiet moment that lets this Secret Wars biz really sink in.

Wasp: “I’d be having tea in my studio now, Jenny... And lunch on my patio tomorrow... This... um... situation we’re in... is kind of... much, you know? I feel there’s just a little thin wall inside me holding back a flood of despair!”

Its a nice touch, if intentional, that Wasp only admits this kind of thing now that she’s passed off the leadership responsibilities to Captain America. Its been a recurring character beat that she’s been keeping these sorts of worries to herself as chairwoman.

Over in another part of the fortress, Cyclops complains that he was right in the middle of his dang honeymoon when he was yanked into this event.

Cyclops: “I don’t know about you, Richards, but more than angry or afraid, I feel cheated! I -- I was on the verge of real happiness...”

Oof. This really sets the tone for his marriage with Madelyne Pryor.

Spider-Man and the Human Torch even have a little conversation.

Spider-Man: “You mean it doesn’t shake you, Torch, being here? What if we don’t get home?”

Human Torch: “The Fantastic Four have been off on space missions a couple of times, Spider-Man! We’ll get back! Believe me!”

I like when they’re friends.

So, I’m not sure what Magneto’s plan actually was. He was going to sabotage the fortress’ fusion generator as a distraction but Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense Spider-Alerts him to shenanigans afoot and he runs off to the power plant while Johnny Storm goes to get the other heroes.

Magneto decides to abandon whatever his plan was and captures Wasp as a consolation prize.

Gasp, another prisoner of war!

The Thing tries to give chase but inexplicably turns back to normal, smooth skinned Ben Grimm.

Also, Magneto escapes with the Wasp.

It’s like the aardvark says, you can get what you want and still not be happy.

Captain Marvel is holding the randomly anti-mutant ball for Hawkeye here and comments that none of the X-Men showed up to help stop Magneto.

Cap(tain America) tells her to belay that.

Captain America: “Let’s keep our minds on solving problems, not creating more!”

And they can’t even go after Magneto or rescue the Wasp right now because they have bigger problems: Galactus glowing with an awesome power and a massive storm that’s forming on Battleworld.

July, 1984

TEMPEST WITHOUT, CRISIS WITHIN!

The Beyonder has thrown in a nice stage hazard to keep things fresh in the form of a massive storm raging on Battleworld, with lighting that shatters mountains and winds that could tear someone’s limbs clean off.

Or perhaps its the unintentional result of just slapping a planet together out of random stuff you have lying around. The climate must be shot to shit.

I like it either way. Secret Wars has a lot of very toyetic collisions between groups of characters so its nice when Battleworld itself manages to be an obstacle.

Over in his giant U-shaped fortress, Magneto finally unwraps Wasp from the ball of random metal crap he has her in.

He lets her wander around until she finds him so that he can be all casual and eating a space scone.

Magneto: “Do not bother trying to attack me, my dear! My person is magnetically shielded!”

Wasp: “Well, la-de-da!”

Wasp: -blows up his space scone- “You think I have to strike at you directly to hurt you, monster?”

Hilarious spite, thy name is Janet van Dyne.

She also makes the point that magnetic shielding or no, she could bring this whole room down. Her being able to knock over a small house with her pew pew hasn’t stopped being true.

Magneto hastens to ask her not to do that because neither of them want to be out in the storm outside.

Besides, he just wants to talk! And flirt!

Magneto: “You are obviously a woman of intelligence and understanding as well as great beauty -- and I am not the monster you believe I am -- which is precisely what I wish to discuss!”

Wasp: “Oh? My intelligence, understanding and beauty or your non-monsterhood?”

Magneto: “Why... both!”

Back at the hero base (which is apparently ROUGHLY THE SIZE OF CHICAGO?? I want that playset), the storm has almost completely flooded the area, leaving just the top dome and such poking above the water.

The storm keeps dropping chunks of mountain at the base but Thor is standing on top, protecting it while grinning like a loon.

Captain Marvel even speculates that Thor could calm the storm but is whipping it up into a greater frenzy instead. Those storm gods, amirite?

Hawkeye is also standing by, with his explosive arrow, thinking to himself that if Thor fails, Hawkeye will totally save the day.

I don’t know whether that’s sad or endearing.

Mostly though he’s trying to distract himself from thinking about the new wife he left behind.

Cap, Reed, and Hulk are watching the villain base because apparently they do know where it is. The storm is keeping the villains in too but Cap figures they’ll pull one desperate attack as soon as the storm breaks.

They’ve already lost four of their dudes. Plus, Galactus isn’t a team player.

Spider-Man is just swinging around, enjoying how good for swinging the random technological pipes and tubes and whatsits are when he stumbles upon the X-Men having a secret meeting.

Professor X has decided, possibly on the basis of two (2) rude comments from Hawkeye and Captain Marvel, that the X-Men just don’t belong here and that they’d be better off going and teaming up with Magneto.

This... sure is a take.

Rogue comments that the Avengers don’t trust her because of that time she kicked their asses collectively. Which, hey, very possibly. They haven’t really had a thing to say about you though. They’ve mostly been grouchy about Magneto.

Which is kinda born out by the way he tried to blow up their base and definitely kidnapped the Wasp?? And is even now aggressively eating scones at her?

That’s the Magneto you guys want to go join because he’s more your people than the Fantastic Avengers and friends are?

You know, there’s a pattern I sometimes see with the X-Men where they loudly insist that the other superheroes don’t help them and don’t care about mutant stuff while at the same time doing shit like this.

“Should we get Reed Richards, smartest dick in the world to help with the legacy virus or the techno-organic virus Stryfe shot into Xavier? NAHHHH Beast can handle it.”

“Should we stick with the other superheroes or go hang with Magneto instead in a cool mutants only U-shaped fortress? Well, U is the coolest letter that isn’t X...”

If you squint, you can definitely see Krakoa all the way in the future.

Anyway, Spider-Man overheard all of this and goes ‘I’M TELLING!’

Wolverine tries to tell him that snitches get stitches but the thing is?

Spider-Man is ridiculous. He’s a ridiculously good combination of skills and powers which lets him make chumps out of entire groups at a time.

He’s embarrassed the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and now he’s about to embarrass the X-Men.

After making them all feel foolish, Spider-Man gets away and goes to tell Reed what that doody-head Xavier said when Xavier uses his psychic powers to just wipe the entire encounter out of Spider-Man’s memory.

Yeah, it’s to cover their imminent blowing off but also? I don’t think he wants anyone else to find out how badly his X-Men just got stomped.

Psychics are too OP, I tell you what.

In fairness IN FAIRNESS, the X-Men kind of have the right to fuck right off if they wish. I don’t even know what it had to be in secret. In fact, doing it in secret is a massive dick move of its own for reasons.

What would the Fantastic Avengers have done if the X-Men had just said ‘hey we’re heading out’? Would they have put them in stasis tube jail? I doubt it.

Professor X made the decision to handle this the stupidest way for whatever reason. That scamp.

Speaking of Magneto, he’s over at the U-Lair turning down a partnership offer from DOOM. So, hey, he has standards.

Wasp has become less ‘i’ll blow up this room and your breakfast’ about him over the course of whatever the hell they discussed in their offscreen chat.

Magneto even starts to make out with her and Wasp is like ehhhhhhhhhh what the fuck why not.

Why is this happening?

I guess he has a...................... magnetic personality?

Eh? Eh??

No, but seriously, I do have a theory that I heard someplace but it’ll have to wait.

What’s weird is that there’s a Marvel What If about some spinoff babies that come about if the heroes and villains got stuck on Battleworld and never managed to leave.

Wasp has a son with Human Torch. Which is pretty weird and comes from nowhere. I guess a lot can happen during a massive time skip. My point being though, its weird that they didn’t have a Wasp/Magneto baby instead given the weird chemistry they have here.

Meanwhile, over at DOOMBASE, DOOM has some women in giant tubes.

That’s So Doom.

Doctor Doom: “All is ready -- ! This alien technology, so rich, so subtle... so easily harnessed to serve my purpose... Energy, tapped from the raging tempest... And two mortal subjects who dare to gamble for power -- knowing that to lose is death, for truly, here I shall test the limits of power a human body can contain! With the throwing of a switch... so -- the die is cast! Hear me -- ! Power must be seized -- ! Crave it! Welcome it! Drink it in, despite the pain... or it will destroy you.”

And thus are Volcana and Titania created!

Talk about lasting effects of Secret Wars! Titania is going to be around forever! Mostly annoying She-Hulk!

Where did Doom find two random women to give superpowers?

Denver, Colorado.

No, seriously.

That city chunk we saw as Battleworld formed? That’s Denver, Colorado, USA, EARTH.

Why isn’t there a miniseries or one-shot about a normal ass civilian from Denver having to deal with OH MY GOD WHERE DID EARTH GO?

I actually read an interesting thing re: this scene. It exists because Mattel asked Marvel to introduce some new female characters so Shooter wrote in these two and a third who I’ll get to when I do.

Mattel then promptly used none of these characters for the associated toyline.

The toyline, in fact, used none female characters at all. It made toys of characters who weren’t in the story but did not have a single female character.

So its very weird that they asked Marvel to introduce some but I’m not going to knock the results.

Doom introduces these two new characters to the other villains.

Hilariously, Absorbing Man guesses that Doctor Doom just made women from scratch. Because doesn’t it sound like something he could do?

Volcana and Molecule Man immediately hit it off, her being attracted to his sensitivity and him being attracted to... positive attention at all, I guess?

He muses that he could easily stop the storm outside, because molecules, but his therapist told him to let nature take its course. “Unless Doom asks me to!”

And Titania and Absorbing Man. They don’t hit it off. She either wants to hit him or hit that and its not clear and it might be both.

(Spoilers: Its both)

Titania: “You! Absorbing Man! You look like the toughest man here! Get up!”

Absorbing Man: “Whatcha got in mind?”

Titania: “I’m going to do anything I want to you! Everything I always wanted to do to everybody who used to be bigger and stronger than me! Maybe I’ll just play with you... or maybe I’ll make you eat dirt... or maybe...”

Absorbing Man: “Woman, if you got somethin’ to prove, prove it tomorrow against the guys we’re fightin’!”

Titania: “You’re backing down?”

Absorbing Man: “Nope! I just ain’t getting up! I got nothin’ to prove... to a dame!”

Would you believe that they become one of the healthiest and most stable romantic relationships in Marvel?

Speaking of weird relationships, back over at hero base, Thor goes and pops the lid on Enchanteress’ healing tube because he’s bored and wants to talk to a peer. A god peer.

Enchantress is at first more characteristically worried about what her face looks like after being She-Hulked.

But she then creates a portal so she and Thor can go have a chat.

Later, it’s morning and Hulk has been too busy stressing over losing his Banner smarts to actually keep watch or wake up Cap for watch like he was supposed to.

So when the villains ram an airship into the hero base, the heroes are not at all prepared.

Titania hurls a giant slab of wall through the room the Terrific Three are sharing, breaking Johnny Torch’s arm and ribs and knocking out the other two. He manages to get himself and co out of danger by melting through the floor.

Meanwhile, She-Hulk is carrying a big heavy as she’s been doing since the previous night and is caught unaware by Volcana who blasts her off her feet and then collapses the room on top of her.

Doctor Octopus knocks out Captain Marvel who is in the hot springs dome but gets chased away by Hawkeye, claiming that long-range firepower is his weakness.

I’m stunned at the implication that Doc Ock is one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes but could be scared off by Hawkeye while Spider-Man could pretty easily drop Clint’s ass. There’s some rock-paper-scissors nonsense at play here.

Spider-Man and Iron Man are also taken unawares by Ultron but manage to hide under some rubble.

Hulk leaps into the fray at Molecule Man and Doom but Cap convinces him to fall back to a defensible position.

The villains reconvene with all the captured villains freed except Enchantress (since she fucked off to have a chat with Thor) and the heroes scattered and buried under various rubbles. How the fortunes of Secret War turn.

Sure would have been nice if the X-Men had been around to help or if they mentioned they wouldn’t be. Sure would have been.

Doom: “We have accomplished much here today! And to finish it, we shall level this place so that no stone remains on stone!”

No wonder Mattel didn’t make a playset of this base! Dammit Doom, you’re ruining the merchandising!

Follow @essential-avengers​ for more of Secret Wars! At this same pace! Its sustainable! This is fine! Like and reblog too!

[lsobelevans]

Horror tropes? In my Roswell, New mexico? It’s more likely than you think!

In this essay I will...

...be mentioning a few horror/thriller movies and while nothing explicitly gory or scary will be shown in this post, those movies definitely contain scenes and themes that can be disturbing/scary/triggering, do your researches if you’ve got doubts!

...be focusing on the Maria and Alex road-trip, from the moment the car breaks down to the last scene with Travis’ twin. I’m probably going to be led to briefly mention the other scenes that are intertwined with this arc (the echo date and the Planet 7 Kyle and Isobel scene, as well as the marlex car drive when I feel like it is relevant). 

...be approaching specific themes that are used in the scenes that compose this little arc and also more general ones like sound, editing, cinematography and color. 

... be reaching a lot. I do not think everything I will be mentioning is 100% thought-out and voluntary (although you never know). But I’m a firm believer that in filmmaking, yes even inside a CW show, the symbolism comes through subconsciously. So like, maybe they didn’t mean to use corn field as a mark for transition, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that this symbolism works with the story they’re telling and for the journey the characters are in that moment. Additionally, lighting, decor and costumes are always a choice, just like the camera doesn’t position itself randomly, someone’s behind and thinking of the composition of shots that, even if it’s in a basic way, has meaning.

... be starting chronologically but I’ll also make jumps backward and forward, grasping on themes when they come up. Ok, then, let’s dive in! 

This episode references and uses a lot of the iconic mechanisms of the horror movie genre. Alex and Maria’s comfortable road trip atmosphere, open hearted conversation in the car, breaks at the same time as the car itself breaks. The camera, steady so far, the shots following a well known pattern of shot/counter-shot, becomes more unpredictable and shakier and suddenly we’re out of the car, and bam, large shot. 

From the moment they’re out of the car, you won’t be able to see the horizon. Maria and Alex are stuck in a corn field, and they’re stuck in the frame. 

Then poof, Travis appears out of nowhere, accompanied with a pang of music, frightening us and them. Well, more exactly, it cuts on a shot that we’ve seen before without Travis, now with Travis, which gives us the appearing out of nowhere effect. 

Alex says it best.

Well now they’re stuck with a strange guy with an axe, and in a corn field 😬

Hey, have you seen he’s got an axe??? or do you need a close-up???

Okay, this scene ends there. So, let’s take a break and talk about cornfields. There’s many examples of horror movies making use of a field of corn as a location, famously Children of the Corn (1984), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1995) Signs (2002), that last one also involving, you guessed it, aliens. 

Screenshots from the Signs trailer.

Corn fields are strongly associated with rurality, especially rural America. More largely, they can represent renewal, fertility or abundance. In the contrary, they can be seen as a very ominous location due to their immensity, a labyrinth in which you can’t see very far away and from which you’ll have trouble coming out. 

Although I’m pretty sure Maria’s chase in the cornfield is more of a reference to The Shining (1980) it reminded me of one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies Tom à la ferme (2013), in which Tom is basically held hostage in rural Canada. The corn field chase is a turning point, the last of Tom's attempts to escape. 

Cornfields apparently also often imply scarecrows, which are inherently scary in my opinion but we’ll talk about it more later. 

The next scene takes place inside of Travis' cabin. 

The lighting here is pretty low, the light coming from a few small sources, creating a lot of shadows. The main color is a greenish/yellow which can be associated with nature and earth, rurality, dirty, suffocating. If we look at it, the color scheme of the entire road trip is very much following this pattern of browns/yellows/greens because of the cornfield and the color of the characters costumes (the exception being Maria’s truck which is a bright red). In opposition, the scenes that are intertwined are either blue and orange for Max and Liz or a lot of pink/blues/purples for Isobel and Kyle in planet 7 (bi bi bi).

The cabin is messy, supposedly reflecting the state of the owner’s mind. We get a nice close-up on meat + a knife and all of the creepy skins on the walls. Also, it’s noticeable that from this moment on, the camera is shakier, we experience different angles too. 

We are given many visual clues that something is wrong. 

I’m gonna pass on the sound of the sound of the cow parodying a werewolf + the vampire diaries inside joke. 

Btw, if the fact that Travis names his cows -- that he skins for a living -- like human women isn’t enough for you to think mmmm. we are in danger. Well, don’t worry. The cw spells it out for you!!

We know Alex! We got contextual clues!

Right after this, Alex and Maria make another direct reference to being in a horror movie situation. 

ALEX: This is why I don’t like horror films. The gay guy always dies first.

MARIA: ???? 

ALEX: Or... second. Okay, that’s fair. That look, that’s fair. 

I think this bit is interesting, because not only does it denounce an horror movie cliché (the black person of the cast dies first, the queer person is second) but also in this situation I believe it can be see as kind of a callout on the fandom’s behavior that i’m not gonna spell out for you but yeah. Fellow queer people, don’t forget you’re not the only one who is sometimes badly/unfairly represented. 

Moving on. In the next scene, Alex is searching the cabin for clues, and we are also given some about Travis. 

Either he has a twin brother or he’s got a framed picture of himself on his wall. Oh, and he’s military.

Then Travis startles Alex and plays a little bit of banjo, which is a good excuse to stop and talk about music. The show uses a lot of diegetic music aka music that is present in the universe of the story, that the characters can also hear. It justify the use of said music and it ties the audio with the picture.

The banjo already is heard at the very beginning of the arc during a cut from the planet 7 scene to the road trip scene. We get a few notes that indicate a change of scenery and that helps smooth up the transition, and I’m pretty sure it was also supposed to be diegetic music coming from Maria’s radio. The banjo, like the corn field, is super linked with rurality and rural America (again!)

Another reference of the banjo in horror/thriller would be Deliverance (1972).

I can’t not think of this movie when I hear banjo unfortunately. 

The way Travis plays, aggressively bad, and while singing I Think We’re Alone Now, is supposed to make you think about that scene in The Umbrella Academy be quite unsettling, another point for isolation horror. 

So sweet of Travis to attack Alex with a guitar, and then a smol knife, and not with the axe <3. 

Then we’ve got a traveling zoom-in (or equivalent I’m not sure it isn’t a steady-cam here but the effect is the same) on Maria. This kind of effect can feel a little bit over-the-top and dramatic, in a old genre movie kind of way. It is usually used to bring the audience in, make it feel like you’re evolving in the same universe as the characters (here you’re walking toward Maria). In a scene where you should feel scared, it can be a mean to make you feel more engaged, as well as underlining Maria’s expression, her fear. In my opinion, this is also a way to tell you that from now on, Maria is the main character of this arc, the one that you will be following after the commercial break (that occurs right after) and making it more suspenseful. 

The scene after the break is the start of the corn-field chase. Travis steps out of the cabin, the cuts are faster, many close-shots, some even out of focus, that accelerate the rhythm, and a long fade-in of a new song: a modern, electronic song (Kim Petra’s Close You Eyes) completely in opposition with the acoustic banjo and with the atmosphere of the scene, which makes it strange and makes you think oh, what a weird choice! (at least it did for me lol). The lyrics, however, go very well with the scene. 

I feel it coming on You've got nowhere to run There's no way you'll make it out alive

Yep. 

We find out right after that the music is in fact diegetic but for Isobel and Kyle, it’s another use of music to ease a transition between 2 scenes that are different in every possible way. 

Now, the corn-field chase. As I mentioned before, I believe it’s a direct reference to The Shining’s ending chase scene where Jack Torrance chases his son Danny through a vegetal labyrinth with an axe. 

From the shots to the lighting (from behind or on the side, making the characters look like silhouettes) both scenes are very similar. Also, Travis is styled like Jack Nicholson ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh look, Michael’s here to save the day!

Oh well, guess not. 

Yeah, in this scene, and like we’ve been shown before, Maria is going to be the one that saves everyone. The racist cliché of the black character dying first in a horror movie is reversed, Maria is the last one standing. The scarecrow (that looked conveniently a lot like Maria) is supposed to play in favor of the bad guy, it’s a scary element, creating confusion and unease, but here the character decides to basically take it into her own hands and bend the rules. This character says i’m not that archetype, and she’s going to be using the horror movie tools against itself. 

Lastly, the final horror movie recurring theme that I’m going to talk about is the twin/the double. 

Yes, twins is a spooky tool used in horror movie because their similarities make them unsettling, uncanny. 

There’s also the idea that if one were to replace the other, you wouldn’t be able to tell. The impostor is a very scary concept that Roswell has also dealt with before. 

I can’t be the only one that has been traumatized by that halloween special of the Simpsons where Bart has an evil twin... 

It’s the last twist of the arc, there is a bad!Travis and a good!Travis. The bad one kept the other locked-up somewhere and had taken his place. 

It’s particularly interesting for Roswell that has a history with twins/doppelgänger, and that since the original show. It is a clear instance of in-world foreshadowing here! (howdy)

My conclusion about all this is that the people who worked on 2x06 had a great time building the episode and it shows, while also making it enjoyable to watch and yeah, we love to see it! 

[emilyrosebass]

One Nation Under God: How President Biden and The Bachelor Franchise Use Christianity As An Unassailable Defense Against Divisiveness

“I’m going to pray for everybody.” 

Since Day 1, The Bachelor has always been a reflection of American values. But who could have expected that in 2021, just days apart, the inaugural speeches of America’s first Black Bachelor and President Joe Biden would be so similar, they practically followed the same sermon? 

Matt James, the first Black man to lead The Bachelor in its 20 year run, had much stacked against him when he “entered office.” He was a person of color navigating a show with a very white, often incredibly conservative audience. James followed Rachel Lindsay Abasolo, the first Black Bachelorette, whose 2017 season was met with record low ratings—a harrowing survey of Bachelor Nation which Mike Fleiss, creator and producer of the show, commented on in a NYT article, saying, “I found it incredibly disturbing in a Trumpish kind of way. It revealed something about our fans.” And in the three years since Rachel’s season, racism in the country has been pushed even further towards the surface; James took the helm amidst a resurgent wave of Black Lives Matter protests, racial inequity exasperated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and calls to defund a criminal justice system whose governance is inherently racist—each of which was met with equally loud conservative protest. Matt James’s season practically invited criticism from detractors: That he’s here for the wrong reasons, is undeserving of the (traditionally white) title, or was cast to placate increasing demands to diversify the show’s cast rather than for his merit. 

Facing an incredibly traditionalist racist sect of Bachelor Nation, James began his opening speech: “I’ve had so long to think about what I’m going to say to you all, but I’m going to take a different approach. If everybody could just bow their head really quick, I’m going to pray for everybody.” James framed his introduction with the one thing a conservative audience can’t argue with: Christianity. His entire image on the show is centered around his faith—his belief that love is “a blessing,” that he’s “been called” to find his wife, and his confession that each decision he makes is based on his religious code of ethics. 

His faith in God, and by extension, his faith in the show’s process as God’s plan, protects him and the franchise from criticism over political or ideological differences. Frankly, being Christian is very “here for the right reasons.” Because he’s a godly man, anything else can be understood (Throwback to Hannah B’s infamous line: “I’ve had sex, and honestly, Jesus still loves me.”) It’s an MO that resists criticism—You cannot question a person’s character if their decisions, in James’s own words, are inspired by God. Worshipping the same god levels the playing field; two people are one and the same standing before their Lord. 

Framing Matt James’s season in Christianity was vitally important for the show to maintain its conservative Christian audience. With this one prayer, and the many to follow, the show effectively fulfilled its two opposing demographics—one that would, under any other circumstance, reject a Black Bachelor, and the other which threatened to stop watching if the show made no effort to diversify or progress. This isn’t to doubt Matt James’s faith, he is clearly a religious man, but the degree to which The Bachelor producers highlighted his Christianity was undoubtedly damage control.

Herein lies the identical strategy used throughout President Joe Biden’s speech at his inauguration on January 20th: Christianity as an unassailable call for unity.

Of course, President Biden faced the same divisive nation when he took office, on an even larger scale. His opposition was loud and numerous (I know few who actually favored him as anything more than an alternative to the last administration, but that’s a conversation for another day). “Sleepy Joe” was fervently and vocally hated throughout his campaign, and especially in the months leading up to his swearing-in ceremony. Just days before his inauguration, domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol in an act of political extremism opposing a peaceful transfer of power. This group, and those around the country who share their beliefs, are white supremacists who villainize the Black Lives Matter movement and the fights for economic and racial equity. Now-president Biden was called to speak to a divided, suffering nation in the heat of battles over innumerable causes: the origin of COVID-19 and the resulting xenophobia, the prior administration’s response to the pandemic, mass unemployment, the need for financial stimulus, the role of our criminal justice system, the (in)efficacy of a government that underprioritizes social programs—the list goes on. 

President Biden’s inauguration was framed by fears of another insurgence, increased police presence throughout DC and other major cities, and national uncertainty apart from the consensus that the fight is not over and more conflict is sure to come. Strategically, in response, he delivered a speech that carefully aligned national unity and peace with Christian beliefs. 

His sermon urging Americans to come together was packed with references to Christianity: “History, faith, and reason show the way of unity,” “From now on, on this hallowed ground, where just days ago violence sought to shake the Capitol’s very foundation, we come together as one nation under God,” Let us add our own work and prayers to the unfolding story of our great nation. If we do this, then when our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say to us, ‘They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land,’” and “I promise you this—As The Bible says, weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning. We will get through this together.” 

The president’s heavy handed implication is that if Americans come together united by religious values, they may still disagree politically, but morally they must grant eachother mutual respect. And if the nation at least shares a faith and a belief system, the rest can be worked out. 

With that, Biden punctuated his speech with the same sentiment that began Matt James’s: “We’ve been through so much in this nation, and as my first act as President, I’d like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer.” 

The Christian unity gameplay—and that’s what it is, a defensive play leaders can pick from their playbook, as strategic and well-thought-out as a quarterback at the Super Bowl—deflects criticism and forces togetherness in a way that only religion can achieve. This isn’t to say that President Biden fixed bipartisan division overnight, or that there are no more intolerant, racist Bachelor fans, but it’s clear the two both recognized the Christian gameplay was their best shot at a win. 

[sataniccapitalist]

“Our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is.”

Chaos, violence, legal challenges, voter suppression and party suppression all culminated in the pathetic display of democratic degeneration on Election Day. After two decades of losing wars, plus the economic collapse of 2008, the response to COVID-19, and now the election debacle, if there were any doubts the U.S. is a morally exhausted empire in irreversible decline, they would have been erased with yesterday’s anti-democratic spectacle.

Democratic Party propagandists and “frightened” leftists are desperate. They tell their supporters and the public that the republic will not survive another term of Donald Trump. They point to his despicable, racist descriptions of undocumented migrant workers from Mexico; his characterization of some global South nations; his misogyny; his crude and obvious white supremacy; his authoritarian proclivities; and his pathological dishonesty—among his many character flaws—as reasons why he must be stopped.

However, for those of us who have been historically subjected to the colonial fascism that is the U.S. settler project, the liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations that were equally committed to white power and that he is an existential threat (to whom, we are not clear) remains unpersuasive.

As the Biden and Trump drama plays out, we ask from our experiences some simple questions on what might happen when a victor emerges:

Will either candidate really have the ability to restore the millions of jobs lost during the current economic crisis?

Will the illegal subversion of Venezuela and Nicaragua stop, and the blockade of Cuba end?

Will the prison-industrial complex that is housing ten of thousands of the Black and Brown economically redundant be closed?

Will the charges be dropped against Edward Snowden and the extradition demand for Julian Assange end?

Will Gaza continue to be the largest open-air prison on the planet?

Will the U.S. reverse its decision to deploy new intermediate-range missiles that will be equipped with nuclear warheads targeting Russia in Europe and China in the Asia-Pacific?

Will the Saudi and Obama-originated war on Yemen end?

Will the U.S. settler-colonial state really defund the police and the military?

“The liberal-left argument that the Trump regime represents some fundamental departure from previous administrations remains unpersuasive.”

What is this “new fascism” the latte-left talks about? What is this “existential threat”? For most of us, the threat has always been existential. When colonial Nazism that was inspired by the U.S. Jim Crow South was applied in Europe—with its violence and racism—it was only then that it took on a different moral and political characterization.

The racist French government launches a domestic terror campaign against Muslims in the country, while bombing Africans in Africa and overthrowing their governments. The European Union gives a human rights award to a political opposition in Venezuela that burns Black people alive because those Black people are seen as Maduro supporters. Meanwhile, NATO, the military wing of U.S. and European white supremacy, expands into South America to support the Monroe Doctrine that morally justifies U.S. regional domination. But fascism is coming to the U.S., they cry!

For those of us who reside in the colonized spaces of empire, leading with uncritical emotionalism as we confront and attempt to deal with the Trump phenomenon, is a self-indulgent diversion we cannot afford. That is because, for us, the consequences truly are life threatening.

In occupied Palestine, Venezuela, Yemen, the South-side of Chicago, Haiti, the concentration camps for Indigenous peoples called “reservations,” as well as “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, our survival depends on seeing this violent, barbarian behemoth for what it is. We must have no sentimental delusions about the difference between the governance of either of the two ruling class-dominated parties.

For us, both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises that are committed to one thing and one thing only: Ultimately serving the interests of the capitalist ruling class—by any means necessary!

It is in that commitment that we, the colonized, the excluded, the killable, who experience the murderous sanctions that deny us food and life preserving medicines, the killer cops who slowly snuff out our lives with their knee on our necks, the deadly military attacks that destroy our ancient nations and turn us into refugees, the subversion of our political systems, the theft of our precious resources, and the literal draining of the value of our lives through the super-exploitation of our labor.

“Both parties are ongoing criminal enterprises.”

For us, we ask, what will be the difference if Biden wins? Wasn’t Biden part of the administration that conspired with the Department of Homeland Security and Democratic mayors to repress the Occupy movement once it became clear the movement could not be co-opted?

Didn’t Obama place Assata Shakur as the first woman on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” list and increase the bounty on her head? A recent release of FBI documents revealed it was during the Obama-Biden years that the “Black Identity Extremist ” label was created.

The illegal subversion of Venezuela began with Bush, but intensified under Obama. The sanctions slapped on that country—that were expanded under Trump—have resulted in tens of thousands of innocent people dying from lack of medicines. It was the Obama-Biden administration that decided to devote over $1 trillion to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next decade.

Democratic and Republican strategists support the white supremacist NATO structure, the “Pivot to Asia,” and the insane theory being advanced by military strategists, who are wargaming a nuclear “first-strike” strategy against Russia and China that they believe can be successful in destroying those countries’ intercontinental ballistic missiles while the missiles are still in their launchers. That is why the Trump administration pulled out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and has so far failed to renew the START nuclear treaty with Russia, scheduled to end in February 2021.

“It was during the Obama-Biden years that the ‘Black Identity Extremist’ label was created.”

Not being confused by the liberal framework that advances a cartoonish understanding of fascism that Trump’s bombastic theatrics evokes in the public imagination, it is clear the threat of increased authoritarianism, the use of military force, repression, subversion, illegal sanctions, theft, and rogue state gangsterism is on the agenda of both capitalist parties in the U.S. and the Western European colonizer states.

No matter who sits in the white peoples’ house after the election, we will have to continue to fight for social justice, democracy, and People(s)-Centered Human Rights.

It is important to re-state that last sentence because the left in the U.S. is experiencing extreme anxiety with the events around the election. They want and need to have order, stability and good feelings about their nation again. But for those of us from the colonized zones of non-being, anything that creates psychological chaos, disorder, delegitimization, disruption of the settler-colonial state and demoralization of its supporters is of no concern for us.

Unlike the house slave who will fight harder than the Massa to put out the flames in the plantation house, we call to the ancestors to send a strong breeze.

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party ticket. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC). He is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for Counterpunch. He was recently awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shim award for uncompromised integrity in journalism

[batboyblog]

Please don’t boost bad actors.

So there’s a lot going on right now on the Black Lives Matter front. When this happens people (generally not black) tend to toon in and start commenting. People who maybe don’t pay SUPER close attention otherwise. I get it, thats fine. Some of those trying to be responsible try to boost “POC voices” okay A for effort. Firstly make sure they’re black voices. Secondly? please make sure they’re good actors, I’m gonna pull out 3 examples I’ve seen A LOT of on Twitter and Tumblr! 

Shaun King

At this Point I’d hope this one would go without saying, but I keep seeing people re-tweet him, take screen shots of his tweets and just.... He’s a Scammer he raises money and then his projects just never happen.... whats worse is sometimes he’s raising money for the families of victims of these racist shootings and they just don’t get the money? My favorite scam was when he raised a bunch of money so he could hike 7 mountains and then faked being hurt to get out of climbing even one. Also Shaun likes to bully lesser well known activists who question him and claim they’re white nationalists. Basically every black activist has called out, if you don’t know you haven’t been paying attention, please don’t boost him (again) during yet another crisis

Press TV

I’ve seen that tweet going around a lot. Press TV is state owned TV of the Iranian government. In January the Iranian government killed 1,500 protesters in the streets  Press TV does not care about black lives, the Iranian state does not care about black lives. This and all other coverage (including statements from the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif) are about white washing Iran’s human rights record. It’s about saying to the Iranian people “no no it’s fine we opened up on protesters with live weapons, because look at America, it happens there too” and to deflect criticism from the West “you guys are just as bad” don’t boost a repressive police state and help it white wash it’s crimes.

The Women’s March/Tamika Mallory:

I’ve seen this shared a lot, and it is no doubt a powerful speech. It’s by Tamika Mallory who is ALWAYS when I’ve seen this called a “co-chair” or “co-founder” of the Women’s March. Problem? Anti-Semitism, both in the Women’s March in general and Mallory in person. Mallory has been linked to Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, which are famously anti-semitic and homophobic. In 2018 Mallory went to the NoI’s “Saviours' Day” event where Farrakhan went on a long anti-semitic rant Mallory has multiple allegations of anti-semitic abuse against Women’s March employees and co-founder Vanessa Wruble (1, 2) even after being pushed out of the Women’s March last year Mallory still refused to condemn Farrakhan’s anti-semitism. Other victimized peoples shouldn’t have to put aside their struggles to be allies 

So There’s a lot happening, and I get if you don’t spend all day everyday on top of this stuff, but be careful that you’re not boosting people acting in bad faith (King, Press TV) or causing other people to be victimized by boosting a bad actor (Mallory) 

[vocalfriespod]

Cheaper than Therapy Transcript

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination!

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, Carrie, I was so weirded out when I was about to say my name because we just recorded a future episode about names.

Carrie Gillon: And you’re like, “What is my own name? Ahh!”

Megan Figueroa: It’s true because sometimes I say /mɛgən/ and sometimes I say /mɛɪgən/ because I’m the weirdest Megan.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, I’ve never noticed that. But for me, I basically can’t tell the difference before a G because I think I just collapse it to one of them. So, it’s not distinctive for me.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. It is for me because it’s my name and I’ve heard it so many which ways, but when I say it, I feel like I’m collapsing them on purpose to give people the out of you can say it either way because I hear it either way all the time. Just letting people know, it’s okay if you say /mɛgən/ or /mɛɪgən/. 

Carrie Gillon: That is good to say that.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. 

Carrie Gillon: Whereas, I’m like, “No. Has to be /kɛɹi/.” 

Megan Figueroa: Well, my mother says /mɛgən/. If for some reason I really wanna articulate my name carefully, I think I definitely say /mɛɪgən/. I don’t actually know how my dad says it because he always says, “Mi hija.” I’m like, “I’m gonna notice next time.” Either way, ya’ll, is fine.

But speaking of language – just kidding. [Laughter] I’m so bad at these transitions. We’re always talking about language. It was a big weekend last week for Parasite at the Oscars.

Carrie Gillon: I was watching the Oscars and I actually voted for it to win all the categories that it won because I just love the movie so much. I was shocked that it won for all of the things that I said it would win for.

Megan Figueroa: You’re shocked not because it didn’t deserve it but because you just didn’t expect the academy to do it.

Carrie Gillon: Because I love it, so clearly, I think it deserves it. I just was shocked, especially after it won Best Non-English – whatever they call it now. I was like, “Ugh, it’s for sure not gonna win Best Picture,” but I chose for both for some reason and it did.

Megan Figueroa: Well, chills because it kind of – okay. This is the way the Oscars has set itself up that I have, and I think a lot of people had, the expectation that there’s no way the picture that won in Best Non-English would also win the Best Picture because it’s literally never happened.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I couldn’t remember if a movie like that had ever been nominated for both categories before. We were trying to remember – couldn’t remember.

Megan Figueroa: But not won. Certainly not won.

Carrie Gillon: Certainly not won, but possibly never even been nominated. It was definitely unprecedented in either direction. I was so happy because last year’s winner was a bit problematic.

Megan Figueroa: Was that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood? I don’t even remember – no, no. Sorry. La La Land? What was last year?

Carrie Gillon: La La Land didn’t win. It was Moonlight, remember? 

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that was the best! The chaos. 

Carrie Gillon: No. Last year was The Green Book.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway.

Megan Figueroa: Was that like a mea culpa thing? The – Parasite – god.

Carrie Gillon: I just think – obviously, I can’t read their minds. I don’t know what happened but, honestly, I think this movie is just that good that it kinda blew the competition out of the water. I thought maybe Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood would win because it’s about Hollywood and LA loves to give itself plaudits – kind of why I thought originally La La Land had won, even though it didn’t. But, no, they went with the actually, genuinely best film.

Megan Figueroa: I haven’t seen it. I’m one of the two people –

Carrie Gillon: Get thee to a theater!

Megan Figueroa: I know. I know. So, no spoilers here. Just the fact that – I mean, again, I am glad that we’re moving a little bit forward that we can break this precedent where no non-English film has won Best Picture because of course non-English films can be best picture. C’mon.

Carrie Gillon: Well, right. Last year, Roma was nominated.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that’s right.

Carrie Gillon: Roma probably should’ve won. It’s certainly better than Green Book.

Megan Figueroa: Did it win Best Foreign Film? Because it was called “Best Foreign Film” last year I think, wasn’t it?

Carrie Gillon: I think you’re right, and I don’t remember. 

Megan Figueroa: Well, anyway.

Carrie Gillon: I don’t remember if it was nominated for both.

Megan Figueroa: I think he won for Best Director though – the Roma director – because it was like Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, that same director.

Carrie Gillon: I think that’s correct. Anyway, speaking of Parasite, John Miller – @MillerStream on Twitter – tweeted this lovely tweet, “A man named Bong Joon Ho wins #Oscar for Best Original Screenplay over Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood and 1917. Acceptance speech was, ‘Great honor. Thank you.’ The he proceeds to give the rest of his speech in Korean. These people are the destruction of America.”

Megan Figueroa: There’s – okay. [Laughter] It’s so layered, Carrie. Racism is the stinkiest onion of all. I hate that – I think, just given his tweet, he’s making a point of the quote-unquote “broken English,” right? I’m imagining him pulling it out and writing it exactly word for word what he said because what did he say?

Carrie Gillon: He claimed that Bong said, “Great honor. Thank you.” And, honestly, I don’t remember –

Megan Figueroa: If that’s what he actually said?

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. He said something along those lines, but I dunno if he’s quoting directly or not. 

Megan Figueroa: I don’t have any – Alberto Rios called it “generosity of spirit.” I don’t have any generosity of spirit. I think that he’s probably mocking his English too in that little bit. 

Carrie Gillon: Right. I mean, why would you give him any benefit of the doubt? He’s saying these people are the destruction of America. 

Megan Figueroa: Okay. He starts out mocking his English and then being upset that how dare any other language be spoken on the Oscar stage and then othering – okay. That’s the ultimate othering. And then you’re just gonna directly other by saying, “these people.” 

Carrie Gillon: I mean, it’s worse than othering. This is straight up xenophobia. 

Megan Figueroa: I mean, I’m surprised he didn’t pull out some of the cockroach imagery or – you know.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I mean, the next step is that, for sure. Then, he claims in the next tweet that he’s not talking about Koreans. He says, quote, “These people,” unquote, “are obviously not Koreans, but those in Hollywood awarding a film that stokes flames of class warfare over two films I thought were more deserving simply to show how woke they are. That should be clear from the rest of what I tweeted about tonight’s production.” No. It’s not clear. And also, I think you’re lying.

Megan Figueroa: So lying. Well, because it probably went viral, he got ratioed I’m sure, hopefully. 

Carrie Gillon: I can’t tell, but I’m pretty sure. It did get 32,000 likes. 

Megan Figueroa: Well, there’s a lot of racists on Twitter. It’s a cesspool. 

Carrie Gillon: I mean, there’re a lot of racists in general, period. And, in this case, super racists because a lot of people are racist. But anyway.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah. Yes. This outwardly “I don’t want your language or you people in my Oscars or in my grocery store or anywhere in my space – in my white public space.” 

Carrie Gillon: And also, no. I am sorry. Neither of those movies are more deserving. Okay. We have an email from Kelly. “Hi Megan and Carrie, I just listened to your February 3rd episode and wanted to echo something that Daniel mentioned re: one of your perspective guests he suggested to you” – the Scottish Gaelic consultant for Outlander. I’m not saying his name because I forgot to look up the pronunciation beforehand, and I don’t wanna mess it up. 

“If you’re already Outlander fans, you may already know this, but if not, you might enjoy checking out the series.” I still have not seen it. I know so many people love it.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I need to watch it.

Carrie Gillon: I just have so many shows that I love that it’s hard to slot in a new one, but I do really kinda wanna hear some Scottish Gaelic.

Megan Figueroa: I know. Well, how am I supposed to fit it in when I keep watching Schitt’s Creek over and over again? [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: At least I’m not doing that. 

Megan Figueroa: Anyway, back to the email.

Carrie Gillon: One of my favorite shows is about to start again so, anyway. “He’s been a guest on a couple episodes of the Outlander podcast where he’s talked about his approach to consulting on the Scottish Gaelic used in the production. The showrunner, Ron Moore” – who’s also the show runner for Battlestar Galactica, just FYI – “also talks about the use of Scottish Gaelic in a couple of episodes of THE OFFICIAL OUTLANDER PODCAST” – all capital letters, so I think that’s actually its name – “and how they opted not to use subtitles for it to keep the audience tightly in the protagonist, Claire’s, point of view. Since she doesn’t understand the Gaelic, we don’t get subtitles for it. In other parts of the series, they’re in France and, since Claire has French, we get subtitles so that we understand the same content that she does.” That’s an interesting choice.

Megan Figueroa: That’s really interesting, yeah.

Carrie Gillon: “I just thought that was a cool and unusual way for a TV production to approach incorporating an additional language. Also, Outlander does a pretty good job overall of portraying languages and multilingualism in a positive light. One of the main characters, Jaime, is a polyglot. In the books, he’s described as having a talent for languages and he knows at least English, Scotts – Scottish Gaelic – French, German, Latin, and I think Classical Greek. Claire speaks French and English. More recent seasons also include Spanish, Mohawk and, if I remember correctly, a character who speaks Dutch. Anyhow, they build a world that includes the basic assumption that people will and should speak different languages, which is refreshing.” I agree.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: “There’re still some arseholes. One scene stands out in which a bunch of British soldiers make fun of a Scotsman’s phonology, but it’s a really enjoyable series with a lot of details that language nerds can enjoy. Hope you get a chance to check it out.” Thank you, Kelly.

Megan Figueroa: Well, now I have to watch it because a listener suggested it.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. And also the language stuff does pique my interest quite a bit.

Megan Figueroa: Is it on Netflix? Do we know?

Carrie Gillon: I do not know. I’m sure listeners will let us know.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Also, this is not an advertisement for Netflix.

Carrie Gillon: Unless they would like to. [Laughter] Yeah, Netflix, you wanna send some of those billions of dollars you’re spending on content. Doesn’t even have to be in the millions.

Megan Figueroa: No. No. We’re very humble people over here. 

Carrie Gillon: Very humbled all the time by things. [Laughter] All right. Well, this week’s episode is all about storytelling. We talk with Anna Marie Trester – not Anna Maria, which I briefly mis-call her.

Megan Figueroa: Me too. What a good sport.

Carrie Gillon: Yes.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Today, we have Dr. Anna Marie Trester who is the founder of Career Linguist. She’s an educator, researcher, and consultant who is passionate about bringing linguistics to work. She helps linguists figure out better ways of articulating how our expertise is useful and helps a world of work use linguists to solve the kinds of puzzles we are uniquely equipped to solve. She’s also interested in storytelling as the author of Bringing Linguistics to Work: A Story Listening, Story Finding and Story Telling Approach to Your Career. Welcome, Anna Maria – Anna Marie? Anna Maria. [Laughter]

Anna Marie Trester: Oh, yeah. That has been my whole life. I answer to both. I’ve had business cards that say “Anna Maria” and I, yeah, I understand and celebrate this.

Carrie Gillon: Well, it also makes me think of Anna Maria Tremonti – a Canadian journalist – and I think that’s where I always wanna go because your name is so close.

Megan Figueroa: And you’re from southern Arizona so, like, or at least spend a lot of time.

Anna Marie Trester: I’ve lived a significant portion of my life in Tucson – high school, college. And, yeah, I still light up – I was at a book reading the other night and the author hinted that she was from Arizona. And it’s like, “Where are you from?” And she goes, “Tucson.” And ahh! [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: I love that. Surely, you’re not the only Anna Maria in Tucson.

Carrie Gillon: Anna Marie.

Megan Figueroa: I mean – I know. That’s what I’m saying, you know?

Anna Marie Trester: Also, there’re Tresters in Tucson. My last name is quite uncommon, but when I say “Trester” in Tucson, I’m often asked, “Are you related to the So-and-So Tresters?” I am not, that I know of.

Megan Figueroa: Well, you’re so close – Rebecca Traister. 

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah! [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: I’m sorry. What we’re really saying is, your name is very, very perfect and interesting.

Anna Marie Trester: I love it. I teach storytelling to people, and one of the first ice breakers that I like to do is tell a story about your name. There are endless – or I do this at networking events too. We just go around and, you know, the linguists always have interesting stories to tell about their names. It’s a great way to start.

Megan Figueroa: So, you say you spend a lot of time in Tucson, but I am hearing a little bit of Minnesota.

Anna Marie Trester: I’m Canadian and mid-western. I moved around a lot when I was growing up and I blame that on why I became a linguist because every time I moved, I would have an accent, and then try to not have an accent, and then have more of an accent, and what I have now is a big mix.

Megan Figueroa: Well, I think every linguist has some sort of story or a moment where they realize that their language was X or someone else’s and they want to know the answer, and then all of a sudden, they’re down this rabbit hole of what is linguistics.

Anna Marie Trester: 30 years later.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Sure.

Carrie Gillon: Let’s begin with Career Linguist. Why did you start that?

Anna Marie Trester: Well, it’s a funny story actually. I was teaching at Georgetown University. I was the director of a program that was focused on professional applications of linguistics – the MLC shout out, the MLC program, Masters in Language and Communication at Georgetown. I taught them a course that was called “The Professionalization Seminar.” In the course, one of the things that we did was your picked an organization and your did an ethnography – I called it a mini ethnography – where you spent some time and, if you could, get in the doors of that organization. Be an ethnographer. Talk to people who work there, spend any time that you can learning about it in any way that you can.

Anyways, we were doing this project and my students were like, “Why aren’t you doing an ethnography of an organization of interest?” It’s like, “Oh, okay. I accept that challenge.” So, they had a portfolio that was an online portfolio. I had been kinda blogging and doing some stuff but, you know, put it all together into Career Linguist. That started in, like, 20 – I mean, that was probably 20 – oh, yeah. In the aughts we said 2006.

Megan Figueroa: Yep. We sure did. 

Anna Marie Trester: I mean, I first was dabbling when I was a graduate student then I guess it became – I think it became a thing in like 2012/2014 that I was Career Linguist. I even forget. Anyways, that’s how it started. Then, over the years blogging, sort of found my voice – what is this gonna be? Why am I trying to say? Who am I trying to talk to? Defining – so now I would say, yeah, it’s a resource center and it’s a blog where I share ideas about career. I think, write, and speak about career – so musings and job ads. Today I posted some job ads up there.

Megan Figueroa: What does a job ad look like that you might wanna share with people?

Anna Marie Trester: I share things that I come across that sound interesting. The ones I posted this morning were job ads for an organization called “Appen,” who’ve actually hired me recently to talk about – they wanna think about making recruiting be more human.

Megan Figueroa: Instead of algorithms and stuff?

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah. I’m actually organizing networking events in different cities where people who work at the organization come – and I’m hoping to do one in Tucson soon, or Phoenix. We’ll see. This organization hires tons of linguists. No matter where you go in the states or in Australia – they’re actually housed in Australia, this organization. I dunno if they’re gonna send me to Australia but – hey! If anyone’s listening, who wants to? That’d be great.

But just get people to talk about “You work here. What’s it like to work here? I’m thinking about working here,” just bringing it to an interpersonal interaction. Then, I posted another job. I have been really interested in Nextdoor. I dunno if you know this app. It’s big out here and – I live in Silicon Valley area.  They seem to be very thoughtful about what that app can do. It builds community. They’re always asking, and they listed: sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist. 

And I’m like, “Hello! You’re looking for a linguist.” They want people who are thoughtful about community and are theorizing about community and the role of social media in organizing community. They cite Bowling Alone, extensively – you never see this in a job ad where they’re doing a lit review and citing research, so I need to meet whoever this is that’s writing these job ads.

It’s an app where people can get to know their neighbors, ask things like –

Carrie Gillon: This one, yes!

Anna Marie Trester: You’ll ask like, “Is there a power outage?” This kind of thing. “Did somebody just hear a noise? What was that?”

Megan Figueroa: I joined that and then, as someone who likes true crime as – like, I’m one of those women that listen to true crime for my anxiety – I thought that it was really scary because people were like, “Why are the cops” – so I was informed of every situation in which the cops were involved.

Anna Marie Trester: This is why they need a social – they know that they need people to be thoughtful –

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. That’s good.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah! They’re aware.

Megan Figueroa: Right. And it was a little bit racist. 

Carrie Gillon: Oh, there’re a lot of people on there who’re racist, yeah. 

Megan Figueroa: I was like, “Why are you informing me that a sketchy-looking person was walking through the neighborhood?” Let people walk through fucking neighborhoods, you know?

Anna Marie Trester: Well, if that conversation happens there, it’s a tool, it’s a platform, so people have these conversations. Exactly this conversation happens weekly, daily. 

Megan Figueroa: This kind of job would be to see what people – you kinda wanna be behind the scenes and see how that can be facilitated or prevented or what is that, do you think?

Anna Marie Trester: I have so many different jobs, but the one that I posted was about – so they call it the “product.” This is how Silicon Valley talks about the community as a product. So, these people are thinking about how the technology, I guess, could be structured. I’m not a tech person, but I like to think about how tech needs us because they do.

So, I mean, kudos to them. They’re realizing they need someone who’s aware of social science and human theory to think about how they’re developing this technology so that, if there is that – if that is making certain conversations really easy to have – maybe we can shape that.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. Then, you need – this is great – you need linguists because – or people that think about these questions – because then you’re like, “Okay. At what point is it hate speech, and when can we flag that, and when are encroaching on the first amendment?” and all of that.

Carrie Gillon: Well, it doesn’t encroach on first amendment because it’s not the government.

Megan Figueroa: Ah. Good point. Yes. But that’s not – so I did a, how do you say it, a consultation with a tech company and they were asking me these questions about their avatars and if people can talk to each other about these things, when will people feel like their first amendment rights are being encroached upon?

It’s not just that maybe they know, perhaps, that they can do whatever they want, but they don’t want people to feel like their rights are being encroached upon because then people get pissy.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. They do. Because they don’t understand what the law actually is.

Megan Figueroa: As I just showed. [Laughter] I’m just in the presence of Anna Marie and I’m thinking about all these ways linguists can help people in other sorts of jobs.

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, who thinks – we don’t think about it enough.

Anna Marie Trester: We have something to say in every – we are thoughtful about language and communication and how it means, like, how language does things everywhere. No matter where you are, if you’re working, you’re using language, so you could use a linguist. You need a linguist. I’ll say it.

Carrie Gillon: Everyone needs a linguist. They just don’t know that they need one.

Anna Marie Trester: They just don’t know it. 

Megan Figueroa: Just put that linguist in your pocket. You need one. Just carry it around. 

Anna Marie Trester: I think a lot about job ads, right? I actually was writing – I’m putting an activity in my new book where I’m calling it, “Put yourself into conversation with a job ad.” This is an activity that I like to do. There was a job that I saw recently at Earthjustice, this is a law firm that focuses on climate change. Their tagline, I love it, is “Because the earth needs a good lawyer.”

Megan Figueroa: Aw, that’s awesome!

Anna Marie Trester: That’s their organizational catchphrase. But then they’ve realized that they need people to be helping them communicate internally, like within the organization, and the way that they wrote this job ad, it’s just – I’m putting it in my book. I’m using it as an example of when you see a job ad like this, it almost is – they’re not asking for a linguist, but they are saying what they need is someone who can help them be thoughtful about how they are talking to each other in ways that can be excluding or –

You know, when people think about diversity, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. We need to hire more. Yeah. It’s great. Hire more diverse teams.” Then, the work really begins when we start talking about thinking about how does the way that interact, talk inclusivity into being. It’s gonna happen all day every day, a thousand times a day, that there’s gonna be a million interactions that we can all be more thoughtful about.

Megan Figueroa I’m actually impressed that they got to that point because a lot of places will check the box of being quote-unquote “diverse” because they hired someone that doesn’t look like everyone else or whatever. Then, it stops there.

Anna Marie Trester: It starts there.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly, right? Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: Well, I think it’s actually certain kinds of organizations are more thoughtful about this than others. Universities are possibly – I might as well say the worst – but they’re way behind some kind of organizations because they’re just – they’re like, “Well, we’re good. We have all these students from all over the place.”

Anna Marie Trester: Carrie, I love that you say that because – so a lot of people reach out to me with questions about applying for jobs. They’ll see a job ad or have an interaction with somebody where they’re like, “This person isn’t very thoughtful about – they’re telling me I need to get more training in Python.” And you’re gonna encounter plenty of people who don’t get it, but we have to be okay – better than okay – we have to welcome this opportunity to talk about who we are, or what we do, what we can bring. 

A lot of people aren’t gonna get it, and that doesn’t mean that we need to stop. That’s why we need to keep talking about why we care about what we care about and what we can offer because we have – I say, the world needs us. The world needs more of us.

Megan Figueroa: I was thinking recently about what happened because I’m on a campus and there was an ad for an accent modification workshop, and I was just thinking, it’s like, “Someone probably asked for that or require” – I don’t know who on the uppers wanted it. But why can’t there be someone that’s like, “If we’re gonna do that, we need to do accent accommodation workshops too” or something like that? If this is something that we’re really gonna keep doing – because I see it all the time, and I don’t see it dying.

Anna Marie Trester: Well, so my dissertation research was on improv, so I take a “Yes, and…” approach always to life. It’s how I think. When I was at Georgetown, the business school approached me. Somebody went to a conference and learned about ethnography, and then they came back and looked at the course calendar – who’s teaching ethnography – and it was me. They brought me over for a meeting and they were like, “We wanna have some resources for our international students.” And I was like, “Yes, and what I see here is an opportunity to talk to everybody about what we all can learn about” –

To their credit, they took me up on it and that turned into a five-year project that we called “Talking Business” where we all learned – and we have so much that we can learn from the experience of an international student who can tell us so much about what they’re learning and observing about how we communicate.

Megan Figueroa: Perhaps here how when they’re in class, how hard it is for them when they’re listening to an American accent. I mean, just these things that would make others more empathetic toward others.

Anna Marie Trester: Well, at the end of the day, we just have to realize that our ways of speaking are always unique. We decide that there is a way that we talk to one another, but that is always contextually situated and negotiated and constructed. 

Megan Figueroa: “Talking Business” – I love that. I’m happy to hear to there are some places that are running with this idea of we’re all in this together, basically, as cheesy as it sounds.

Anna Marie Trester: It is so much fun. They really opened their doors to us. What we did was they let us record all of their interactions. Then, when somebody in that group wanted to know – we just would offer it to them. Like, “If you would like to have a conversational style consult, let us know.” If they said yes to us – and I’m gonna be reaching out to these folks because it’s now been 10 years, so how has this – has this helped? I hope that it has.

We would be able to pull up – we had video. And I had, at that time, a team of seven research assistants, so we could cue up the video and we could find an example of them, like, “This is how you have an argument with a classmate,” “This is how you make a persuasive presentation,” “This is how you” – and we could help them be thoughtful and reflective on, “This is how you are using language. Here’s some ways that could be interpreted, misinterpreted. There’s ways that this makes a lot of sense in this context, how could this” – 

I had one student, he was about to become a Dean, and he realized that he had to totally recalibrate – moving from being a student to being a Dean – he had to totally recalibrate how you do humility, for example. When invested with a lot of institutional power, it’s totally different how you be folksy. 

Megan Figueroa: That’s something I didn’t even think about because I just don’t have a lot of power, Anna Marie, so I don’t have to think about how I talk when it comes – how am I gonna sound more down to earth? Well, I couldn’t be further down here. 

Carrie Gillon: There’s always lower you could be.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I’m sure. [Laughter]

Anna Marie Trester: With Career Linguist, I find I’m often experimenting with trying on a little bit more power. There’s ways that, especially women – and we live in a world where what gets heard as “confident,” and I’m using air quotes. People love to tell women, “You need to change the way that you talk You need to sound more confident. And you need to” – you know?

Megan Figueroa: Right. Plus vocal fry.

Anna Marie Trester: Aye yae yae. Okay. Let’s think about what gets heard as confident. I’m working on this new book that is – right now, I’m calling it, “Employing Linguistics,” we’ll see how that – I want there to be that ambiguity because it’s about work, but it’s not just about work. It’s how you use linguistics. 

I’m starting off with a story from a woman who’s just starting off her professional life. She just graduated. She’s got a masters in linguistics, and she’s launching her own business. And I do workshops. I travel and do workshops at linguistics departments around the country and world, now. I went to Finland last – 

Megan Figueroa: Ooo!

Anna Marie Trester: It was so great. Yeah. In Finland, they were saying, “Maybe it’s just here, but we have a hard time projecting power.” Like, “Yeah, no, it’s not just here.” But I was playing them this interview from this woman because they were saying, “She doesn’t sound confident.” And I’m like, “And yet, I’m telling you, this woman is launching her own business. She knows what the hell she’s doing. She’s doing it.” Okay. We need to really question what we are saying when we say, “That person sounds” –

Megan Figueroa: Going back to job ads, some of the language they use in job ads is so off-putting. 

Carrie Gillon: It makes it sound really boring, a.), and then b.), yeah, it’s like, “Oh, I don’t think they want someone like me.”

Megan Figueroa: Or I’m like, “Is there some tinge of sexism or something here?” And I’m like, “Do I wanna work for them?” 

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. That’s kinda what I meant.

Anna Marie Trester: This is where I mean we have to – I like to say that we linguists, we lean in when we hear miscommunication, misunderstanding – yeah. There are problems, and they need us. I mentioned that collaboration. I’m finding this organization, Appen, they’re open to me talking with them about even it starts with the job ad. When you’re talking about who you’re looking for, there’s gonna be – we all have a way that we can become more aware of how we’re using language and embedding our own perspective. This is a process that we all need to be working.

Megan Figueroa: Someone emailed me and asked me for some perspective on a job that they were sending out. My first thought was, “Can you explicitly put that ‘You may read these job qualifications and think that you’re not qualified. Try anyway’?” 

Anna Marie Trester: Nice.

Megan Figueroa: Because I’m like – this is something that I run into where I’m like – and I have to be like, “All right. Put on your cap and think about all the people that are just like” – you know, more confidently.

Anna Marie Trester: “I have one of those things.”

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Just be more like that because you never know. I wanted them to put that specifically because it’s women or other minoritized people that are going to read that and say, “I’ll pass on even applying.”

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely. A thousand times, yes.

Megan Figueroa: I was happy just to know that someone was reaching out, that people are being more thoughtful about this.

Anna Marie Trester: People are. They need help. And we’re gonna make mistakes. We’re gonna make a couple of mistakes. We need to get better at – this is where my improv, I think, is such a boon to me because it really taught me how to make mistakes and to be a little bit easier about “I messed that up and we need to try again.”

Megan Figueroa: What? Are you telling me that improv is basically therapy? Is that what you’re saying? Because it’s like, that’s where I learned that!

Anna Marie Trester: What if I told you my improv troupe was called “Cheaper Than Therapy”? [Laughter] 

Megan Figueroa: Oh, perfect. Well, I mean, it’s funny because you said you’re always “Yes, and…” because my therapist taught me that. 

Carrie Gillon: So, your therapist is probably from improv because –

Megan Figueroa: I think that’s what they’re teaching now to people that go this route – all these new techniques. But it’s like, sure – 

Carrie Gillon: Someone from improv started that. 

Megan Figueroa: The facilitator of what workshop or whatever.

Anna Marie Trester: I taught improv for about 10 years in Washington, DC. I got so many people, they would tell me, that they came into improv because their therapist told them to come to improv. I started having relationships with therapists who were recommending their clients come to work with me because they knew that I was thoughtful and welcoming, particularly embracing of this kind of work.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, it applies to anything, right? Just thinking of getting to the jobs ads, maybe you’re looking at these qualifications and you might say to yourself, “Ah, I don’t have the two years of experience. Yes, and I have so much experience in X.” It’s just a way to remind yourself that – I dunno. It’s a way to be kind to yourself. That’s what I’ve learned, for sure.

Anna Marie Trester: I call job ads a wish list. That’s some committee’s wish list. That’s great. They can ask for their purple unicorn. That’s fine. This is the real world, and you’re gonna get somebody who’s gonna have 10%, 20%, 30% of what you’re asking for.

Megan Figueroa: I just helped a friend. I was like, “No. You need to apply for this. I don’t care that you think that you’re not – you really want it. Try.”

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely. There’s often – I dunno if you’ve read the book, there’s a book written by Stanford Design School professors called Designing Your Life. They are kind of down on job applications. They say don’t even look at them. But I say do look at them because that’s enough to look at and see if there is a spark. If there is any interest, then go for it and use that to start a conversation, use that to launch in.

But the truth is, so few jobs actually – when you look at the hiring process – or [pɹoʊsɛs] – there’s such a misalignment. There’s so few job ads that actually correspond to the thing that gets hired. I look at their book to talk about the numbers. I’m not the most quantitatively oriented person. But it’s a lot. Know that if you find a slight interest, a slight alignment, apply, and it could well be that there’s another job or a different job or a new job that they see when they see your materials. They think, “Oh, we didn’t even know that we were looking for this person. Let’s create a job for them.”

Megan Figueroa: You have clients. Are your clients the companies that are looking for linguists?

Anna Marie Trester: Sometimes. It’s a new thing started last year where I have this organization that’s trying to – I would like for it to be both. But it has been, for many years, that I’ve been working with universities to help their students or individual jobseekers to help make their materials –

Megan Figueroa: So, someone could send you their materials and you’d be pointing out, “Why aren’t you talking about how great you are at this? Obviously, you have this skill.”

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah. I feel like I give – I hope I give – a different – I’m not your typical resume helper person. I’ll look at a cover letter and I’ll notice things like you are not shifting your dietic center the way that you should be. This is a classic thing. In cover letters, people write about why this will be a great job for me – this will be a wonderful opportunity for me. It’s understandable, right? You’re in your head and you’re thinking about “Wow, I speak French. This will be a great opportunity to practice my French.” 

What you have to do in job materials or at large, but especially in a cover letter, you need to say, “You need someone who speaks French because think about how that’s gonna help you with this initiative that I see you talking about in the press.” That signals a lot of things. That signals that you’ve been reading about them, you’ve been thinking about them, and that you’re thinking about how your skills help them.

Megan Figueroa: Because they are their center, right? They’re thinking about them, so make sure you appeal to them.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa You do work with the Linguistics Society of America?

Anna Marie Trester: For four years, and now I stepped down. Anastasia Nylund and I were the co-organizers of a special interest group for “Linguistics Beyond Academia.”

Megan Figueroa: Okay. That was you.

Anna Marie Trester: We restarted it. It had been started a long time ago. We sort of breathed new life into it in 2014. We carried the torch for four years. Now, we’ve passed it off to a team that has a ton of energy and they are just kicking butt. We just had the meeting – were you there?

Megan Figueroa: I wasn’t there, no. It was my first time. I haven’t been in a while. I had a little bit of fomo but – yeah. 

Anna Marie Trester: I was telling Carrie, one of the top tweets for a long time about the conference at the #LSA2020, one of the top tweets from a presentation that one of our SIG members made to a department chair meeting where it was a list of dos and don’ts for when your students get a non-academic job. The big don’t was – and somebody took a picture of this. It was Lauren Collister, and her tweet blew up. It was, “Don’t say ‘We’ll miss you.’ Say, ‘How wonderful! You got a job that I hope you’ll come back and tell us about. Keep us connected to you. Keep coming back and telling our students.’” That’s an act of erasure that is probably not intended. How othering is that? That is so common.

Carrie Gillon: It happened to me after I decided, “You know what? Fuck this shit.” One of my Facebook friends, who I’d known since I was an undergrad, he was like, “Oh, we’ll miss you.” And I was like, a.) I still have stuff coming out. Still. I still do. And b.) what? We’re still connected on Facebook. We’re still gonna be –

Megan Figueroa: You’re not not a linguist anymore.

Carrie Gillon: Right. I’m still a linguist. I’m still doing stuff with language. I dunno. I was mad.

Megan Figueroa: As you should be, yeah. When I graduated, someone told me, “It’s a shame because you’re such a good researcher.” And I was like –

Carrie Gillon: Like you can’t do research anywhere else?

Megan Figueroa: I still am. I don’t have a tenure track job or I’m not a postdoc, but I’m still doing research. It was like, “Ugh. I know you mean so well.” I can tell that you think that’s a very – you’re speaking highly of me, and I get it, but it hurts. I’m glad that you brought that up because I just want to say to all of the undergrads and grad students listening that you don’t have to go into academia. If someone shames you for it, that’s some of their stuff going on.

Carrie Gillon: It’s part of the cult of academia, right?

Megan Figueroa: It is. Absolutely. I hope you have an advisor that is comfortable enough with whatever. I know the numbers look good when you have, “Oh, look. My student went to tenure track.” I know that’s what’s underpinning all of this, but it’s like, academia doesn’t look like it did 30 years ago. Not everyone wants to be a professor. All these things. It has to be okay.

Anna Marie Trester: I have to say it again, the world needs us. On this panel that we had at the LSA, we had an asylum officer talking about how his linguistics – of course, his linguistics skills come into play a thousand times a day as an asylum officer. The world has some wicked problems.

Carrie Gillon: I think lawyers should hire linguists on retainer because we can help you a lot.

Anna Marie Trester: Sometimes, I show up at a school and people are like, “I’m gonna get an academia job!” And I’m like, “Okay. Wonderful.” I’m not trying to take that away from anybody. I was scared too when I – so I started this job, I was one of those PhD students who was gonna get an academic job and I just knew it. I had magical thinking it was just gonna work out. When I was graduating, there was this program that was starting at Georgetown, and my advisor, Deborah Schiffrin – well, she was one of my committee members. She was not my advisor. Sorry, Natalie. Natalie was my advisor. Deborah Schiffrin was on my committee.

She advised me in that moment to apply for this job. She said, “This is why you’d be good at it.” Again, talking about how we don’t think about our own expertise. Before grad school, I had worked in an investment bank. I had some industry experience and I came to linguistics from that. Anyways, I was good at that job, but the whole time I was still applying for academic jobs, and I was gonna get an academic job, and I was convinced that was the path that I was on and, gradually, started to realize that –

Oh, now I remember what I was gonna say. The point I was gonna make was that Debbie Schiffrin, when she was getting me started with this job, she was like, “Okay. The first thing you’re gonna do is have 50 informational interviews.” And I was like, “What’s an informational interview? Huh?” I didn’t know. One of the reasons I wouldn’t have thought to apply for that job is I dunno how to help grad students figure out non-academic careers. 

So, I just started – well, “Yes, and…” – having these informational interviews where I went and talked to alum and said, “What do you do? How does your linguistics come here?” One of the first ones I went to was an alum who worked at the Census Bureau. She’s like, “I have the best job, right? Of all the people that you’ve talked to, I have the best one, right?” And I was like, “You’re the first one. I don’t know! Maybe? You seem really happy.”

She was so happy with her job, and so in touch with how her work was really having real world – she had done research in Chinese – well, she was, herself, a speaker of Mandarin, I believe, and she was helping the Census Bureau think about, as they were bringing surveys to Chinese-speaking communities, there was a way that they were gonna need to restructure the letters so a, quote-unquote, “American style” – like a white, non-thinking-about-it style would be to say, “Please complete this survey because blah, blah, blah.”

But in the discourse style of Chinese-speaking communities, you needed to structure the request such that it said, “Background, background, background, background, background, build up to the request.” The survey, when it was restructured that way, was getting a much higher – people were actually responding and getting the data that the data that the Census Bureau needed. 

Megan Figueroa: And she did that. She helped with that.

Anna Marie Trester: She did that.

Megan Figueroa: Awesome. Especially since it’s so fucking important – the census.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa: That’s awesome.

Carrie Gillon: I’m looking forward to it coming. I like filling those things out. 

Megan Figueroa: I know! I do too. I remember being 10 years old or, like, 13, and being like, “Can I fill it out, Dad? Can I be the one? Can I do it?” Such a nerd.

Anna Marie Trester: They have a bunch of linguists working there. 

Megan Figueroa: That’s good. That’s awesome. Doesn’t every state have their own little census bureau too? I mean, I’m just thinking about all of – there’s so many places for linguists. It’s not just like there’s one centralized census bureau. Every state has something that’s working on these things and all of that. So many jobs. 

You collect stories for your books?

Anna Marie Trester: It’s one of the things that I do, yeah.

Megan Figueroa: That’s the kind of stories that you’re collecting?

Anna Marie Trester: As a community, we need to hear more stories. I think through stories we learn about the different kinds of things that people can do with their skills and training in linguistics. That’s why I’m writing this book now, again, another one, because I felt like the last book I wrote didn’t have enough stories. It had, like, five, but now I wanna have 50 because I wanna tell a story of career diversity. 

That’s one of the ways that – I have this approach where I think about story telling, story listening, and story finding. The story telling part of that work is just getting lots of stories out there. Then, I advocate for an approach that is more ongoing. It’s sort of like what I was talking about when I’m talking about that job at Earthjustice that I see having such potential. We could learn a lot from paying attention to the stories, listening to the stories that are being told in a job application, at the workplace. Adopting a story listening approach could be really informative about anything. 

I always think about Charlotte Linde’s work when I think about story listening. She was hired for many years by NASA to – well, I always say she was chasing astronauts around, but I think that’s not exactly what she did all day. She could capture the stories of missions when they were being retired. It was one of the things that she did. They had her having her job responsibility, they called it “Knowledge Management.” But, as a linguist, she has expertise in what is the knowledge – the expert knowledge – that is contained in these stories that will not – they will not be codified when these people retire, or leave, or this mission gets retired.

Having someone who’s listening for a story and being very thoughtful about the knowledge and wisdom and institutional best practices that are contained in – so, again, everybody needs one of those linguists story listening at their organization. 

Carrie Gillon: That’s amazing.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. I wanna work for NASA!

Anna Marie Trester: I visited her one day and I was like, “Charlotte, you are doing nothing to dissuade me from saying you have the coolest job in the world” because she took me to the Mars model and we were chasing around – 

Carrie Gillon: Oh, man! [Laughter] Dream job.

Megan Figueroa: I was gonna say, isn’t every little nerdy kid’s dream job NASA? You don’t even know what part of NASA. You’re just like – NASA!

Carrie Gillon: Well, when I first went to university, I went into engineering because I was like, “Star Trek. Yeah. I’m gonna build shuttles.” Then, I was like, “Nope. Hate this.” But if linguistics could’ve gotten me there – oh, man!

Megan Figueroa: Yeah! You’d want her job the whole time.

Anna Marie Trester: Linguistics got Charlotte Linde to NASA twice. Twice! You’ll have to read her story in my book to learn how. In the book, I’m telling stories about how people use their linguistics as a Mom, or how people use their linguistics in bystander activism. It’s not just at work. But, for many of us, work is gonna be the way that we bring – I grew up in a family that doesn’t have a ton of money, so my job was gonna be how I travelled. It was gonna be how I got to try on different worlds and explore. Career has been a major way that I have expressed my sense of contributing to the world. 

For many of us, it is that too. It is not just our livelihood – but it is also our livelihood – but if you’re trying to use your career to express meaning and purpose and find that broader “What do I wanna give to the world?” it’s gonna be more bottom up, I think. It’s both. It’s top down and bottom up.

Carrie Gillon: That, I think, is particularly for people who went into academia. That’s really important for us is that we wanna be doing meaningful work. 

Anna Marie Trester: One of my favorite networking groups – I participate in this group here in the Bay Area called “Ethnobreakfast.” A lot of them are –

Megan Figueroa: That’s just nerdy. 

Anna Marie Trester: It’s so nerdy. All right. Professors who are listening, do this. This was a professor of anthropology. She has kept such a tight, close community of her grads that, every month, one of them invites a group of nerds into their workplace. We all trudge out to Facebook or to Workday, and we sit for an hour. We read – well, whatever the host gets to decide what we’re gonna read. We all read something. Then, we talk about some theoretical thing or. 

They get to invite their colleagues who get to learn a little bit more about “I always knew that you had this anthropology or ethnography or linguistic interest, but I didn’t know how you used it or how it came” – they get to learn about us. We get to learn about them. I think this should be happening everywhere.

Carrie Gillon: That sounds amazing.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s breakfast, so it is early in the morning. But it doesn’t cut into anybody’s workday. We have it from 8:30 to 9:30 on a Friday which, let’s be honest, who can start to work at 9:00 a.m. on a Friday anyway? We all bring – it’s a potlatch. It doesn’t cost anyone anything. Those are the conversations that we need to be – okay. So, story finding. Talk about a little cue that I left for a long time. That’s what I think of when I think of story finding. Let’s look for places where conversations could be happening but aren’t and let’s build spaces for them. 

Megan Figueroa: I would totally go to that breakfast.

Carrie Gillon: Me too.

Anna Marie Trester: It’s the best. Make one! So many alum from U of A are doing so many interesting things. For the record, I think that that’s what your podcast is also – a story finding thing. You’re out there making space for conversations that should be happening, but they haven’t been.

Carrie Gillon: I agree. It’s also story telling by letting the rest of the world who are not linguists know that, hey, these are things to think about. We should think about that more carefully than we have, but absolutely.

Anna Marie Trester: It seems like what we’re talking about are these tiny little interactions. I was inspired – I was telling Carrie – by Anne Charity Hudley’s amazing plenary at the LSA. She was sharing this model, and this is a social activism model, where it’s tiny little changes, when they are amplified a hundred-fold and consistently reinforced, that’s a movement. I think we’re engaged in a movement. It’s gonna be tiny little things, but they are happening all over the place. When you hear those little moments, or those little moments where you caught yourself being an asshole or –

Carrie Gillon: Which we all do.

Anna Marie Trester: Try to adopt that mindset of like, “Here’s a moment. Here’s a tiny moment.” We can be easy about it, and we can admit that we make mistakes and learn – after Anne’s plenary, I went up and tried to say this, so I’ll say what I sort of said that we all have to adopt a learning mindset. It's so powerful.

We’re bringing these messages to people with power so, especially people with power out there, remember, when you have power, it is especially important that you adopt this learning mindset and remember that it feels – I think sometimes people with power, it feels very dangerous to let go of any of that power or to admit that you could make a mistake. 

Megan Figueroa: That’s why I was afraid of this podcast. I mean, this is my little bit of power, right, too, where I was like, “What if I say something wrong?”

Carrie Gillon: A.) we can edit.

Megan Figueroa: It was very scary. 

Carrie Gillon: B.) we can learn!

Megan Figueroa: Yes. The learning part has been very – I thought it would be scary, but it’s actually very freeing. 

Anna Marie Trester: It’s like this for me. It’s human.

Megan Figueroa: It is, yeah. Absolutely. 

Anna Marie Trester: I remember K-Cat – Kathryn Campbell-Kibler – at a session at LSA a couple years ago where she invited us to come practice in the lobby. They had a panel on ethics. Then, she was like, “Meet me in the lobby.” And I was like, “Oh my god! I’ll be there.” I was there early. “Let’s practice having these conversations.” It was just – let’s practice having these conversations where we just say, “Huh. That wasn’t great” or “We can do better,” however we learn how to say these things. 

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. I think that all boils down to, don’t be an asshole, right?

Anna Marie Trester: It is absolutely how you do, don’t be an asshole. That’s how we all make sure that happens. We’re all responsible for it. Yeah!

Carrie Gillon: Acknowledging that you made a mistake is Step 1, and it’s good to acknowledge.

Anna Marie Trester: What a life-affirming conversation. 

Carrie Gillon: I know! This has been great.

Anna Marie Trester: Go be awesome.

Megan Figueroa: I’m gonna cancel therapy on Tuesday.

Anna Marie Trester: Go share your power with the world.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Go be empowered, for sure. Thank you so much for being our guest today.

Anna Marie Trester: Thank you guys.

Carrie Gillon: It was so great.

Megan Figueroa: It’s been so lovely.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. Don’t be an asshole.

Megan Figueroa: Don’t be an Asshole.

Anna Marie Trester: Yes, and…

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: The Vocal Fries podcast is produced by me, Carrie Gillon, for Halftone Audio, theme music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us at vocalfriespod@gmail.com and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

[robert-c]

The Immigration Issue

What disturbs me most about this “debate”, apart from the complete ignoring of the facts, is the clearly racist overtones of the discussions. So let’s start with some of the facts. Neither I, nor anyone I know of in Congress, supports a completely “open border” policy. That sort of claim is used only to inflame the fears of people. The constant claims (without real support in fact) that the surge in asylum seekers and other immigrants are largely composed of violent criminals would have no traction were it not exploiting racist fears of non-white people.

The inhumane separation of families meant to discourage people from crossing was finally overturned, but the legacy of this cruel practice is still with us, and measures like this do nothing to solve the underlying problem. The only kind of “wall” that might be effective is one like the Soviet Union built in East Germany and along other parts of their borders. In addition to a tall concrete barrier, there was a wide open field in which anyone entering was shot. There were, at its peak, about 47,000 border guards along the east German border with the west. That border was approximately 866 miles long. The US border with Mexico is about 1,954 miles and proportionally that would require, in addition to walls, watchtowers, and cleared shooting fields (typically wider than a football field long) approximately106,000 troops to “defend”. Is this really the country we want to be? And still some people managed to get past that East German border.

In an attempt to make their restrictive immigration policies seem reasonable some have suggested that there should be a skills based assessment of applicants that could be compared against our economic needs. This sounds reasonable until you realize that the same people putting this idea forward are the ones always opposing the creation of more government bureaucracy, always telling us the government can’t possibly respond quickly enough to the needs of American businesses. It isn’t a serious or reasonable solution, it is only meant to look like one.

But even if the government could accurately and efficiently update what skills we were short of, no one can completely predict the needs of tomorrow. The power of all immigrants has always been their imagination to create businesses and services we didn’t have before and therefore didn’t know we wanted or needed. From something as simple as there would have been no “need” for pizza cooks before the first pizza was sold in the US to more esoteric skills. Who would have needed physicists, other scientists and engineers, let alone Jewish ones, before the Second World War? But several very famous ones who immigrated here were responsible for getting us the atomic bomb that led to the end of WWII.

But this skills inventory, even if honestly and efficiently conducted and somehow anticipatory of future needs, only applies to economic immigrants, those coming here for better economic prospects. Dishonestly applied it maintains only the highest skilled jobs that we’re short of, and therefor effectively discriminates against any and all who do not have technical degrees.

Now let’s talk about the real problem. There is a real immigration crisis. We are getting more requests for asylum than before and they are coming from families not lone individuals as it used to be. One of the coldest and most ignorant comments I have ever heard about this is “they should fix what is wrong in their own country instead of trying to come here.” When I heard this I was dumbfounded. I honestly couldn’t believe someone could say such a thing. Duh!? Don’t you think they would have if they could? Who leaves all they know, everyone they know, and most of what they owned to go to someplace where they need to learn a new language, a new culture and find a way to survive? Would these so called American “patriots” have said the same thing to Jews fleeing Hitler’s Germany? (Sadly, I think some would have.)

But let’s return to the issue that there truly is an increase in the numbers of people who want asylum in our country (despite knowing that they will likely enter at the absolute bottom rung of the societal ladder). They are fleeing political persecution by the authoritarian gangs, or the drug gangs, that run their countries. In a sense, they are having to flee BECAUSE they tried to “fix” their country. “Not our problem” say some of my conservative friends.

Well, not so fast. Most, if not all, of those Latin American de facto dictatorships were installed with and/or are propped up by, our support. You see, for well over a century our overriding interests in Latin America have been that American businesses can continue to exploit their resources under terms very favorable to us, and related to this that they do not support Cuba or communists in general. Of course like ‘good businessmen’ we share some of the exorbitant profits with a few powerful locals, to ensure our continued arrangements. Then there are the drug cartels – created entirely from our own demand for drugs and our (again) failed policy of prohibition.

Last time we tried this simplistic policy of prohibition (for alcohol) it created a nationwide crime syndicate, which we called the Mafia. Now we have created an international set of crime syndicates. Way to learn from past mistakes! So these people aren’t just fleeing terrible regimes in their homelands, they are fleeing the very thugs we have directly or indirectly empowered in their homelands.

Now how do you feel about our responsibilities toward these asylum seekers?

If we truly want to solve this immigration issue, we need to do something about the regimes we have helped put in power or maintain in power. Once again, it is an issue of either helping American businesses get what they want, or helping the US get what is best for the country as a whole. For too long we’ve confused those two as the same thing. It’s time we quit imagining that the interests of a handful of American businesses is synonymous with the interests of the country as a whole.

BTW if anyone is interested in why communist and socialist ideologies seem so popular in Latin America they only need to look into how American style “capitalism” has affected the people.

There is a fundamental philosophical contradiction in this current immigration stance. We cannot at the same time be the model for the world and not expect others to want to come here for what we’ve created. We cannot support oppressive regimes overseas because that does our domestic businesses (and campaign contributors) good, while at the same time not seeing some sort of reaction. Our Congress and President must realize that despite the fact that most of the people in the world do not vote for them, they are still a sort of constituency – that is what it means to be a “Super Power”. And you can’t just “walk away” from that and return to some romanticized version of isolationist America. Our essential trade with the rest of the world alone would prevent such a naïve move.

There was a time, presumably when some thought America was “great”, that problems overseas were things we fixed for them, because we were arrogant enough to imagine that we had all the answers. Well, here at last, we actually do have some answers because we are the origin of the problem. But do we try to fix what we have broken? No, the best our “genius” leaders can come up with is a doomed to fail strategy of locking the doors and pretending that they are impenetrable.

Now the other form of immigration is economic. The people who want to come here for a better life, and are not seeking asylum. If you really want to crack down on the illegal version of this there is a much more effective way than simply building walls, or running some skills databank. Start criminally prosecuting the businesses who hire them. Checks on applicants’ legal status theoretically already exist, but because businesses lobbied the government successfully they have numerous ways of avoiding responsibility. The company is essentially obligated only to collect some information on a form, not to verify it in any material way. And these loose requirements only apply to employees, not to “independent contractors” which is a whole other way companies can dodge providing benefits and other worker protections.

Don’t doubt for a moment that American businesses knowingly hire illegals. Many don’t bother to know because they want deniability. Think of the advantages to the company. Here is a workforce likely willing to work for less than the prevailing wage, unable to complain about unsafe, or illegal working conditions, let alone organize a union. It’s the closest thing to the reintroduction of slavery you can get.

Solutions can be found, but not if we keep demonizing and slandering immigrants and shielding businesses who benefit from this sort of immigration. Let’s keep this in mind – for those who believe money is a motivator, the penalty for a business must be greater than the profit to change its behavior. Likewise, no matter what rationale they use to complain about these solutions, rest assured the real reason is that they make more money the way things are now. While making a profit isn’t (and shouldn’t be) illegal by itself, some ways of doing so certainly are, and should be. For too long we’ve heard the argument that profit is a good thing, without reservation or exception. Profit, like most things in the world, is neither good nor bad, or perhaps more accurately both good and bad, depending on how it is obtained and used. Once again, we are confronted with the desire to have a simplistic answer for all of the problems, an absolute that will require no further thought.

And now it’s time to be really honest and confront the ugliest part of ourselves and ask (and try to answer honestly) if anyone would be this upset if it were Canadians, or Europeans who were the primary source of immigrants. The slandering of the immigrants and the draconian solutions proposed tell us all we should need to know about the people supporting these ideas. They may smile, wave the flag, and speak in reverent tones about the principles of America, but they have forgotten what has always been our greatest strength and most unique feature. They have forgotten that at one time in the past, their ancestors were the immigrants. Unless you are fully Native American, at least some of your ancestors came here either as colonists or as immigrants, neither with an indisputable right to be here. Virtually every prejudiced claim leveled at today’s immigrants (criminal, dishonest, lazy, irresponsible, etc.) were applied in the past to the Irish, the Italians, the Jews, the Catholics, and just about every other religious or ethnic group. And yet, somehow, the republic survived the arrival of these people. In fact, most of them now constitute what many would consider the “white traditional” Americans.

There is no doubt that we have serious problems with our often contradictory immigration laws and policies. But we are never going to find a realistic and lasting solution as long as we keep entertaining bigoted racial stereotypes, and looking for simplistic answers.

Let’s start with some facts we should all be able to agree to because they are independently verifiable.

There are more requests from families for asylum,

Requiring that they not travel through another country to get here only means that we allow only the richest of these asylum seekers to make their request,

The regimes that these asylum seekers are fleeing are dependent in many ways on the US and US businesses,

There are virtually no significant penalties on businesses for hiring (or using as contractors) illegal economic immigrants,

There is not a clear and unambiguous path to immigration and citizenship in our current laws, and

Children of illegal immigrants, who have only known this country, are no more responsible for their parents’ actions than the child of a rape that anti-abortion forces are so fond of using as an excuse to not allow a rape exception to their anti-abortion stance.

With these facts alone, we should be able to come to some sort of reasonable policy. It will require letting go of racial and ethnic prejudices as well as the idea that we are being fair by simply ignoring what is happening in their home countries. It is not about a completely open border where any number of people for any reason can enter, but it is also not about limiting immigrants to those who are similar to the people currently running the country.

My call is to heed our better angels, we are better than this fearful clinging to what is familiar and common in our experience. We are better as a people and a nation than this angry response to anyone who is different. We have always been stronger and better by expanding our experiences; by adding more stories to what it means to be an American.

[marcjampole]

BERNIE VERSUS BIDEN. IT'S NOT AN EASY CHOICE, EVEN FOR PROGRESSIVES

If we were judging only on their ideas and proposals, I would make a strong recommendation that every Democrat give their primary or caucus vote to Bernie Sanders. Biden, like Bill Clinton and Obama, is a conservative Democrat who has always been too quick to give away the store to Republicans, whereas for decades Sanders has taken progressive stands (which usually means the position backed by the facts) on war, equality of wealth, education, the environment, taxing the wealthy and healthcare. Used to being a strident voice from the back bench, Sanders has not developed his policies as much as Elizabeth Warren has (who has?), but his ideas are stirring and right-minded. But there’s more to deciding between two candidates than where their hearts lie. Two other factors are of equal, and perhaps greater importance in the current election: One, who is more likely to beat Trump? Two, who is more likely to accomplish the wish list of progressives and left-leaners?

Surveys show just about every candidate beating Trump, but Bernie having the biggest lead. If we carefully analyze the Super Tuesday results, however, we get a different picture. Across the board, the more likely a Democrat will win the state in November, the better Bernie did on Super Tuesday; the more likely Trump will win the state, the better Biden did. It’s very possible that Bernie’s lead over Trump is greater than the other candidates’ in the national surveys because he got more votes in California and New York. So what would we progressive rather see? A candidate win California by 4 million votes and lose North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida and Wisconsin by a total of 100,000 votes OR a candidate win California by 3 million and also win these important swing states.

As far as the campaign goes, there can be no doubt that Bernie destroys Biden as both a debater and a speechifier. There is also no doubt that Bernie carries more real baggage. The Trump campaign will inundate social media with lies and exaggerations about either candidate. But whereas the Hunter Burisma scandal is made up, Bernie Sanders really has said he was a socialist and he really is a Jew. As a Jewish socialist, I personally identify with Bernie, but understand that many people hate and fear both. Most candidates have scandals and dubious relatives. Few have won as socialists. The very label turns off the dying breed called “moderate Republicans.” Several of the swing states have long histories of fringe and not-so-fringe anti-Semitism. I have no idea who is more likely to beat Trump.

But I am reasonably confident that whichever of the B Boys the Dems select, if elected he will get just about the same things done. As I’ve written before, both will move quickly to reverse Trump’s dangerous loosening of environmental and safety regulations. Both will bring competence and science back to government. Both will rebuild bridges with our allies. Both will appoint left-leaning judges. Both will have much less power than Nancy Pelosi when it comes to drafting and passing legislation. 

There are a number of other similarities between the candidates. Both are in the late 70’s with a history of health problems. More significantly, both are likely to name a woman who is a minority as his running mate. Thus, the election of either Biden or Bernie will likely lead to the first woman president. What to do? Who to pick?

I’ve thought about it a long time, and I’ve decided to do whatever Liz does. Elizabeth Warren, far more competent, experienced, organized and dynamic than either of the B’s, will crunch the numbers and weight the arguments with the very highest level of intellectual rigor and heartfelt empathy for all Americans. Her decision will reflect what she thinks is best for the country. I trust Warren, more than I’ve trusted any presidential candidate since Clean Gene McCarthy.

If Liz endorses Bernie, I’ll support Bernie.

If Liz endorses Biden or decides to make no endorsement, then I’ll support Biden. My reasoning: her ideas are so close to Bernie’s that staying silent is really a nod towards Biden.

Let me close by expressing my disappointment on how the Democratic race has gone. At the beginning of the campaign, I made a list of how I ranked the two dozen or so candidates and found 14 competent to be president (Beto and America’s favorite small town mayor did not make the cut). Warren was first on my list, followed by Inslee. Sanders (because of age and baggage) was 10th and Biden 14th, or the lowest rated of the 14 who made the competence cut. Very disappointing. But either of the B Boys will still better than the ignorant, racist sociopathic and venal autocrat now roaming the White House.

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (22.22% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Fourteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

It’s delightful. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Maggie passes with Cassie as she puts her to bed.

Female characters:

Peggy Carter.

Hope Van Dyne.

Cassie.

Maggie.

Male characters:

Howard Stark.

Hank Pym.

Scott Lang.

Peachy.

Luis.

Dale.

Kurt.

Dave.

Darren Cross.

Frank.

Paxton.

Gale.

Mitchell Carson.

Sam Wilson.

OTHER NOTES:

Dave calls Scott a pussy, and Scott is not fussed at all about accepting the attempted insult.

Ah, the old ‘wish you’d call me dad’ cliche, the most worn-out lazy way to establish an antagonistic parent/child relationship. 

“a sustainable environment of well-being”, what an excellent fascist euphemism.

Maggie is very reasonable with Scott about the conditions for seeing Cassie; it’s refreshing to not have this played as ‘harpy ex-wife refuses to let man see his child because she’s just the worst!’ Maggie has a child to look after - and has been doing so for years now while Scott was in jail - and she has every right to impose rules on how things proceed, Scott doesn’t get to just march in and have things his way ‘because she’s my daughter!’ Children are not possessions or status symbols, and this movie does a nice job of recognising that and having the adult characters recognise that and behave in reasonable and understanding ways for Cassie’s benefit rather than their own egos. Other films should take note. Also, real people.

“Yeah man, it killed DiCaprio.”

Turning lambs into goo is worse than kicking puppies. What a monster.

They do a pretty solid job with the reason for Hope not being allowed to don the suit instead. It has strong potential for seeming like flat-out sexism, the idea that a woman can’t get the job done (in universe) and that a female hero won’t sell (out universe), and while that may indeed still be the core reason, they still pull off the reasoning as if it’s genuine.

Pym’s excuse for why he never told Hope the truth about her mother’s death, on the other hand, is pretty fuckin’ weak. Tell people to stop pretending ‘I was trying to protect you’ is a reasonable explanation for lies. It’s super-high - easily Top 5 - on my list of Worst and Most Tedious Cliche Lines.

Kurt suggests that the suit is the work of gypsies and it’s...not the best line they could have picked. Something less racist instead, maybe? No?

Cross is really fixated on Pym as a father figure. It’s different. I like different.

“That’s a messed-up looking dog.”

Scott and Paxton making peace is so great. Paxton peeing in all the corners and Scott being all jealous and threatened by Paxton ‘usurping his place in the family’ would have been such a predictable cliche for them to use, and this very palatable mature adult behaviour is sooo much better. This is how you stop normalising petty possessive rivalries. 

Luis is magical, and also, mad cultured. I love it, but I love even more that they don’t hang a lantern on it, they just let it be part of his character.

Ok, I confess, this is probably gonna be a weird sort of meandering review, because I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts for two months gathering dust while I deal with the mental and physical fatigue of the first trimester of a pregnancy (it’s FUN), and now the due date for this post (pun definitely intended) is right on the horizon, so...I’m just gonna get it done, and it’ll be whatever the heck it is in the end. This is not a complex film filled with deep nuance, it’s basically just an action-y heist movie with some hand-waved scifi on top. And there’s ants. It’s not a hard film to talk about, so you’ll excuse me if it doesn’t get my very best effort. I’m kinda busy growing a human over here.

I remember a lot of grumbling and even some outrage in fandom, back when this film was announced; a lot of people upset that the MCU was bringing in a comparatively little-known and perhaps little-loved superhero like Ant-Man when they still hadn’t bothered with a single female-led film yet, and various complaints about the problematic nature of the Ant-Man character from the comics (referring, I believe, to the Hank Pym version). And then, of course, there was the doubt about whether or not an Ant-Man story was just a fucking idiotic idea in the first place, what with the questionable application of science and the even more questionable appeal of a tiny little man running around playing with ants. Expectations were not high. And yet, Ant-Man pulls through, not just with a great fun romp, but with what I consider one of the more entertaining films the MCU has churned out to date.

I have made my fair share of sour comments about previous films in the MCU and their unimaginative paint-by-numbers plots, and so what I’d like to talk about with Ant-Man is how it manages to be such a success to me despite an essentially uncomplicated story that follows a predictable narrative arc the likes of which we’ve all seen a hundred times before. The basic tenets of a heist movie are all there; the basic tenets of a good vs evil story play straight, alongside a low-key but typical redemption plot, and some plight-of-the-regular-guy vs corporate greed and warmongering, and the leading man hooks up with the leading lady in the end and proves himself as a hero to his family and all that jazz. We know every one of these story and character beats. So. Why do they work?

Let me back this up a second to talk about a couple of major-league pet peeves of mine, the one a microcosmic version of the other: firstly, when people say ‘all Marvel films are basically the same’, and secondly, the Advanced Level Faux-Intellectual Douche version of that sentiment, when people declare that ‘there’s no such thing as originality anymore! There are only seven types of story in the world anyway! Everything is derivative!’ It’s an obnoxious absence of a viewpoint that betrays a lack of imagination and a use of such broad-strokes surface-level comprehension as to be essentially meaningless. Sure, if you break down story concepts to their most fundamental core drives, you can summarise their arcs in a relatively small number of ways, and familiarity with these core concepts can provide a degree of predictability in the way things play out. But that doesn’t mean that every single version of, say, the classic Hero’s Journey is the same damn story, and therefore a useless derivation from which no entertainment or message can be gleaned. If someone asks you to tell them the plot of a movie and you just go ‘oh, it’s a Hero’s Journey’ and leave it at that, you’ve told them almost nothing about what to actually expect. The Matrix is a very, very different Hero’s Journey to The Lord of the Rings, which is a very different Hero’s Journey to Finding Nemo, which is not at all the same as Iron Man. And which of them is closest to The Odyssey, anyway? One of the most obvious differences with all of those examples is genre, and the traditional trappings which often (but not always) follow from them. Sure, the MCU films tend to all fit superhero-comic genre conventions, and some of them (particularly origin stories, as with Iron Man and Thor) may employ a lot of the same tropes while they’re at it. But does anyone really, genuinely think that Ant-Man is ‘basically the same’ as Captain America: The First Avenger? Is Guardians of the Galaxy almost indistinguishable from Black Panther? Does anyone who says ‘Marvel movies are all basically the same’ actually believe the words out of their own mouth, or do they just hope it makes them sound smart if they imply that they’re ‘above’ enjoying mainstream popcorn action?

All of this is to say, what makes Ant-Man work where other trope-heavy films fall apart? The same thing that makes literally any story ever work, and be worthwhile, whether it ‘breaks barriers’ or ‘teaches something’ or is considered ‘high art’ or not: details. Some films are too light on details, which makes them boring because they never really bother to build anything on top of those core foundations we know so well. Sometimes, the details - numerous as they might be - are too generic to have an impact, and the dull result is the same. Sometimes the details are too absurd to land, or there are too many to keep track of, or they require too much extraneous qualification to fit into the flow of the rest of the story, or they’re irrelevant to the rest of the story anyway. The thing about details? There are countless options. People come up with new ideas all the time, through the exercise of imagination or through developments and innovations in the real world. Basic, core plot arcs may be distilled to a handful of options, but story details are limitless, and the possibility of fun new combinations is always there, whether you’re inventing something entirely never-before-seen or not. The idea that you have to be shocking and unexpected to be worthwhile is ridiculous, and shepherds illogical contrivances and gimmicks without narrative cohesion or purpose much more often than it achieves something genuinely surprising with merit (and storytelling that prioritises ‘shocking twists’ is usually so busy trying to look clever it forgets to actually be clever, but, that’s another conversation). The point is, Ant-Man being a delightful film isn’t rocket science. It’s as simple as just a little forethought in the construction of its details.

As noted back near the top, the whole Ant-Man concept and its wobbly science was something that drew some doubt regarding whether or not it could be pulled off in a convincing manner; the solution to achieving that is to do more than just lean in to the idea. The film throws itself whole-heartedly into its core conceit and its tropes, and it drags us along with it to gleefully delight in the act. The story is not embarrassed by itself, it doesn’t try to keep its distance; instead, it gives us a flying ant named Antony, and a dramatic death scene for that ant. What is the point of the Pym particle science conceit if we don’t enjoy the comedic potential of an epic battle inside a briefcase, or on a child’s train set? Relevant to this also is the subject of casting choices (as much a detail-of-interest as anything; a single casting choice can legitimately make or break a film). Paul Rudd has a perfect blend of leading-man charisma and affable comedic chops; he plays Scott as a beta-personality, which is always a refreshing change-up for a lead, and one which invites other refreshing changes around him. It avoids tedious masculine antics in his interactions with other men, while encouraging balanced and respectful interactions with women; Scott never asserts himself as the boss or leader in his relationship with Luis and the rest of his crew, allowing for a smoothly-cooperative dynamic; no time or plot is wasted on pointless jostling for control of the operation with Pym; the idea that Scott needs to prove himself to the three female characters in his life - Hope, Maggie, and Cassie, each for similar but different reasons - is given legitimate weight, instead of implying that Scott and his perspective is inherently superior and correct and the onus is on the other characters to realise that, rather than being on him to live up to other people’s reasonable expectations. It should come as no surprise that the latter element is especially interesting and heartening in the context of this blog.

This is particularly good news when it comes to the kinds of relatively minor details which can make a huge difference in whether or not one reflects on a film in a positive or negative manner; the fact that the narrative supports and validates Hope’s anger, her frustration and resentment and her all-business-no-fun attitude, is vital to keeping a viewer like myself on-side with the film. Hope is never presented as someone who should ‘just loosen up’, or ‘have faith in her father’s plan’, the fact that she is denied the Ant-Man technology because Pym ‘can’t bare to risk losing her’ is offered as a reason but not as an excuse for something deeply patronising, and Scott proving that he can get the job done despite Hope’s misgivings about him is not framed as her being ‘wrong’ - her concerns were legitimate, as all her emotions across the film are, and the story never compromises on that in order to bolster another character. Whether or not Hope is well-handled is not important to the operation of the central narrative plot in a technical sense, but it means a lot in terms of delivering strong characters with satisfying arcs, and a central plot can easily fall flat if the characters participating in it don’t work well, individually or together.

I’m trying to wrap this up coherently, but it’s just as well that I disclaimered myself in the beginning because all I’ve got are frayed pieces of, probably, five other paragraphs I could waffle about. It’s not a complex film, no, but it has a surprising amount of quality details, the more I think about it, even regarding aspects of the movie that I liked less than others (Pym, for example, I did not love, but I like that the movie never tried to pass off his ‘genius’ as an excuse for him being a significantly flawed figure in the lives of most people who encountered him, often with bitter consequences. I’m also a big fan of the fact that both he and Scott have complicated but loving relationships with their daughters, considering that Hollywood has a hyper-obsession with the idea of ‘A Man And His Son’ as the beating heart of family narratives). I’m going to close this out with what may be my personal favourite refreshing detail of this movie, and that’s the mature adult relationship between Scott, Maggie, and Paxton. I mentioned it already in the notes, but honestly, how many times have we seen that toxic cliche, with the shrewish ex-wife and the terrible new man in her life, where the main character (who is Doing His Best!) has to prove through [insert plot heroics] that ex-wife is WRONG and should have stayed with him, the father of her child(ren), because did we mention, her new man is terrible and the main character is always right and good and better! In the end, ex-wife almost certainly leaves her terrible new man to get back together with the main character, because he is Doing His Best and that’s more important than actually being a stable/responsible person! The American nuclear family is the ideal! Divorce is for heathens! Y’all know that toxic plot. I can think of three different examples of it in action right off the top of my head, with no effort required. Point is, the degree to which I was utterly thrilled by this movie subverting cliche at every turn of its family saga really cannot be overstated. Maggie is a reasonable person! Scott respects that Cassie’s needs are more important than his wants! Paxton cares about his family and genuinely wants Scott to land on his feet, for the benefit of everyone! There’s no jealous posturing and Scott acting all hurt about being ‘replaced’! HE LITERALLY THANKS PAXTON FOR EVERYTHING HE DOES, WHEN HAVE I EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE?! Honestly, you don’t have to tell the most original story in the world to tell a story that resonates. You don’t even have to avoid common tropes, you just have to think about what you want to do with them. It’s not rocket science. It’s just good honest storytelling.

With ants.

[liveridiculously]

Unreleased Caleb Barnett Interview From 2018

Not everything you write or do ends up getting published, but always keep your work in case someone references it, and remembers the interview… going differently than you do.

Caleb Barnett Interview January 2018 By Christian Senrud It’s been a while since an am really stood out to me. Admittedly, I’m getting older and I don’t dedicate as much time to keeping up with all the names and faces, sponsor changes, so a lot of the videos and various posts can tend to blend together in the daily deluge of “content” in a failing mind such as mine. But every now and then something surfaces and reminds you how awesome skateboarding is. When Hockey III released and Caleb opened up the video to a rattling industrial background track, it showcased a brand of skating that looks as natural and gnarly coming out today as it would in basically any era. It’s the kind of raw, no bullshit skating that gives a rider a timeless aspect to their talent and style. We only got a taste of what Caleb can do, so far, but riding for a company like Hockey and being in the van with guys like AVE or Nakel looking out for him, chances are there’s a lot more we’ll be lucky to see from him in the future. I don’t envy the ams of today and tomorrow. How anyone stands out in a sea of hungry and talented kids is somewhat of a mystery. How does someone coming up set themselves apart from all the others without forcing it or inevitably faking some aspect of their style or personality or relying on the crutch of a gimmick? It’s not a new question, nor is it a new phenomenon. It’s always been a giant part of the skateboarding equation. Some people just have a little extra light to shine, some unquantifiable quality to them that makes us keep watching and wanting more. So with all that in mind and with Caleb’s Hockey III part playing on repeat in the background, I was happy to give the young man a call to find out a bit more about who he is and his story so far. Who are all your sponsors? Hockey, Nike, Stussy, that’s pretty much it right now

How old are you? 20 What are you up to today? I might go skate later but right now I’m watching Netflix. Chilling. What’s your average day-to-day in LA? Well right now, I tore my meniscus when I went to Hawaii so I haven’t really been skating that much recently, but pretty much all I do is skate every day and hang out with friends. How’d you tear your meniscus? I was trying to noseblunt some shoot-out ledge and slipped out and fell back on my knee. I also popped my shoulder out of place at the same time. Was that it for the trick or did you keep trying? It took me out. I had to go to the hospital to get my shoulder popped back in place. I’ve done physical therapy. Now I’m just chilling, trying to skate a little more every day. Nak was saying you’re a warrior and won’t quit on tricks, like you’ll try something until you physically can’t or you’ve thrown up while trying a trick, so if that’s the case how’d you get the nickname “Big Baby”? Hell nah? Who said that? I mean, that’s just what someone told me. Is it not true? Nah, I mean I wouldn’t want myself known as Big Baby. Yeah, I doubt most people would, but is there a story behind it or why would someone tell me that? I have no clue. Maybe because I have a baby face, I don’t know. And maybe because you’re seven feet tall? Yeah. How tall are you actually? Are you openly tall? I’m 6’4.” How long have you been on Hockey and what was the process like getting on the team? Well I moved to LA when I was like 17, so like 3 years pretty much now. I’m friends with Sage and whatnot and he first got me hooked up with some Converse shoes, and then he randomly texted me one day and was like, “Do you want to get FA boards,” or whatever. It wasn’t really like Hockey or FA; I would just go to the warehouse and get stuff from either Hockey or FA. After that I was just getting hooked up, getting boxes and whatnot, but I was actually staying out in Moore Park, California, and that’s like far [from LA]. So I was working and not really able to skate that much. Then Nak was kind of just like, “I’ll get a spot in L.A. and you can stay with me out here.” So I ended up doing that, and I went on a trip last December with FA and Hockey, and I got on from there. They were like, “You want to skate for Hockey?” and I was down. I quit my job. You quit your job so you’d be able to skate more? That’s what’s up. Where were you working? I was working at some sports memorabilia place. It was in the mall. So like selling autographs, pennants and jerseys? Yeah, hats and shirts, coffee mugs…

Are you interested in that kind of stuff or was it just sort of a job so you could get by? I was just looking for a job and they wanted me to work there I guess, so I just took that job and was working there. Do you actually like Hockey, the sport? I think it’s interesting, yeah. I like hockey. I like how you can fight in it. A little bit, they let you fight. They kind of self-regulate. Yeah. Did you ever bring anything home from work? Did you have to deal with gnarly sports fans or anything? It just depends. Sometimes there would be some annoying-ass customers. They’d be super into sports and try to talk to me about sports. They’d come in and be like, “So did you see the so and so game?” and I’d just be like, “Nah.” I mean, I fuck with sports, but not to the point where I’m gonna talk to some old-ass dude about what Kobe Bryant was doing. Maybe with some homies, but not with some old man. But you never scored any jerseys or anything that you could sell on eBay? Nah, I didn’t really care to, I guess. I would just go to work and pretty much just watch skate videos the whole time.

How long do you think it is until skate stuff is going to be in those kinds of stores? I don’t know. It would have to be a long time probably. Once the Olympics start rolling in with all that. It would take a while for that. That’d be crazy if they do have stores like that, with skate memorabilia. That’d actually be kind of sick now that I think about it, haha. You’re from Detroit originally right? I was actually born in Columbus, Ohio. And then when I was like three, I moved to Detroit until I was like 12. Then I moved to Arizona and I stayed in Arizona until I was 17, then moved to LA.

Where were you when you started skating? Arizona. I’ve heard some pretty racist shit about Arizona. Was it hard growing up there, or was it like anywhere else in America pretty much. I wasn’t really around any racist areas, so I wouldn’t really know that much. I have heard that people say it is pretty racist, but nobody was ever super racist to me out there or anything. So when you moved to California, was that to try to make it in skating, or were you just trying to get out of your hometown? I was just trying to get out of Arizona. I liked California because I would go out there when I was younger. My friends would take me on little trips there, and it would be fun every time I went. I was just like “I want to just live out here.” It just feels more alive there, so I graduated high school then moved out. Was there any kind of initial culture shock when you got to LA? Had you ever lived on your own? I’ve been pretty much been couch surfing. Staying at people’s houses. You haven’t paid rent or anything yet? Nah.

Hell yeah, keep that up for as long as you can. Haha, I want to though, so I can have my own spot. I’m gonna start paying my own rent. Does couch surfing make bringing a chick home hard? Well, I have a girlfriend now, so it’s not even an issue. I mainly just be at her crib, but I couldn’t really imagine being trashed and trying to like, hanging out with a chick and just being on the couch. But I could go back to their crib. It’s almost not even worth being a single dude and getting a place, because you just end up moving in together and it’s all their shit and you get rid of your stuff anyway. Yeah, haha. I heard your lady’s dad is a director? No, her grandma is. Her grandma directed, like, The Decline of Western Civilization or something like that, and Suburbia, movies like that. She also did Wayne’s World. How’d you meet her? What does she do? I just met her while I was out with my friends, and my friends kind of knew her and I seen her at a party one time and we just hit it from there. She works for her grandma. She’s on her own shit. Has anything really changed since Hockey III came out? Yeah, it has changed. I went to this Whole Foods up the street from my house right after the video came out and some dude that was working there recognized me from the video and gave me some free acai bowl. I was like, “What the fuck?” It was sick. What’s the whole vibe at FA to you? It seems like it’s got a real thing going that a lot of classic teams have had over the years where it’s actually a bunch of friends that skate and hang out together rather than a team that was put together. It’s pretty welcoming, yeah. It’s like a family. It’s nice, like Glen [Hammerle] and whatnot are super cool. Everybody there is cool as fuck. Have you spent a lot of time with AVE or Dill? I’ve spent more time with AVE because I’ve gone on trips with him. I just recently got off a Hockey trip with him, but I haven’t really spent as much time with Dill, because he’s busy and I haven’t gone on any trips with him, but I’ve kicked it with him and gone skating with him. Is it intimidating being around AVE? Haha, he’s super mellow. I don’t say that much around him, but he’s not a dick or anything. He’s super nice. So how’d you meet Sage originally? Just being around. LA is weird; you just meet people. I actually met him a long time ago before I’d ever lived in LA. I was at Supreme and he was there and we were just chillin’, skated the bowl a little bit. I think he was getting hooked up with Alien boards and Gravis shoes and whatnot; it was a long time ago. I hadn’t seen him in a long time then we met up again, somehow linked up and he helped me out. Did you meet Nak through him? Nah, me and Nak just met through skating randomly. Then when he found out I was getting hooked up with FA boards and whatnot we started skating more and hanging out, and became cool. With getting stuff from Nike, Stussy, and Hockey, are you getting paid now where you can live, or is it still a hustle? Yeah, I’m on Nike now, so I’m starting to get money or whatever. Next year, I’ll be more set I think where I could move out. More comfortable at least. Yeah. I don’t know if I just want to jump right into getting my own place as soon as I start getting money. I want to save and be smart about my money. Yeah, you can’t just blow it as soon as it starts coming in. Yeah, gotta get my savings going and everything. Did you get that mentality from your parents? Nah, I didn’t really get that from my family. My mom tells me to save my money because she didn’t really do that I guess. She’s like a nurse now. I’m just learning from people’s mistakes and the homies that have been in my position. Now they tell me like, “Make sure you do your taxes and save,” and everything. Everybody just be looking out for me and what should I do. I’m just kind of learning on my own and from the people I surround myself with. Is your mom still out in AZ? Yeah, I’m actually going out there tomorrow. She’s going to move to Arkansas and get some land. So where’d all you go on that Hockey tour? That was to premiere the video in shops right? We went to New Jersey, Chicago, Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas. It was pretty long. Well it felt long, but it was like 10 days. It was fun as fuck though. I didn’t really get to skate on that trip though, which had me pissed, because I was still hurt. I’m still kind of hurt. Did you run into any shenanigans while on the road? This last one we didn’t really have to deal with the cops or anything, but I remember the first trip I went on it was pretty fucking crazy. John got arrested. It was funny as fuck. It was crazy, just random. I went to a strip club. I’d never gone to one before. How did you enjoy your first strip club experience? It was trash! I was in El Paso, Texas, like right on the border of Mexico and it was crazy. I was like, “Hell no.” I guess it wasn’t a great first strip club experience. What made the strip club so bad? It was just a shit strip club. The girls were gnarly. I seen some chick in there with a c-section cut on her stomach, she had a scar. She was older. That shit wild. Were any of the other guys super into it? Haha. I don’t know. I didn’t really get to see. I only stayed there for probably 20 minutes, then me and Nak and Ben were off it. But John and Cody Green were there and probably loved it. They didn’t leave with us, so they probably had fun. Well it can only get better I guess. I don’t even know, I don’t even care about strip clubs. It’s cool, I just be thinking like, “If this was someone in my family or some shit…” I’m just thinking of the girls’ families. I don’t know why I’m so serious about it, but I just look at it differently and see the sadness behind it. I’m not into it. Yeah, I’m not really into them either. I don’t even like going to Hooters and that’s just girls in go-go shorts at a chicken wing place. So why did John get arrested on that trip? I think he was a little buzzed probably and he went to the wrong hotel. There were like two hotels, and there was one across the street from us, and I think he went to the wrong hotel thinking it was ours and was trying to get into the room. Somebody probably called the cops on him. “A giant, drunk man is trying to get into my room!” Haha, yeah. So we would link up every morning in the courtyard of the hotel, and the next morning he was just not there. So we were just like what the hell’s going on and AVE called the sheriff’s office or jail or something, and they’re like, “Yeah, we have a John Fitzgerald.” I forgot that he didn’t get out right then, because that was in the morning and he got released later on. We were skating at some spot in Tucson, like the classic block spot or whatever, and he just linked us up with us there. Have you been locked up at all? Nah. Good. It sucks. Yeah I have not gone. I’ve gotten hemmed up by the cops before though, like cuffed and the whole deal. And I was in a weird neighborhood too by this skatepark called Lafayette in L.A., like Carl’s Jr. park. I guess I jaywalked. It was like no cars, but this cop just so happened to not have his lights on and he just flashed his lights on me and the homie and was like, “Get on the pavement!” He put me in handcuffs. I was like, young, and I had a little bit of weed in my pocket. I was scared as fuck. He didn’t even trip about the weed or anything. He let me get my weed back and everything. It was pretty funny. I was like, “Oh shit, it’s pretty mellow out here in L.A.” They’re definitely way more mellow about weed in California than in Arizona. Yeah, Arizona is whack with that. You think Arizona will ever come around or are they just going to be stuck in their ways? I feel like…I don’t know. There’s a lot of weirdos out there. Maybe they don’t want weed to be legal. They probably don’t even though I know a lot of people who smoke weed out there. Maybe they can’t grow it in the desert so they wouldn’t be able to make the good money off it, so they don’t care to make it legal. I mean they could have it shipped in. It wouldn’t be hard. So the cops cuffed you up for jaywalking? That seems really severe. In your experience do you think that cops profile black men specifically more than other people? Maybe. I guess they do target African Americans people sometimes. It just depends on the cop. I don’t want to say all cops are like that, but I can’t front, they do press on a darker skin tone. I’ve always been curious if skateboarding ever helps out with that, like if you’re getting profiled and a cop makes some general assumption about whatever a young black man might be up to, but then sees you with a skateboard if they have to reevaluate their assessment? Uh huh. That is true. Skating does do that. It makes them more chill when they see the board, they’re like, “Oh, skater kid. He not really in the streets like that.” But some cops don’t give a fuck. So did you know in advance, that Hockey III was how they were going to introduce you to the team? Yeah I knew that video was going to be how they’d introduce me. It wasn’t a surprise. It happened fast though. I want to film more. How long did you film for that? Probably like 6 months maybe? 4 months? But I’d only skate with Benny so many times. It wasn’t like I’d be out skating with him every day or something. I feel like it was chill for how everything was going down. I was trying hard to focus. Every time I would go out I would try to get a clip. Nak was saying that you don’t quit until you absolutely have to, that he’s seen you throw up from trying so many times. Where do you get that kind of drive? It was just like…the time, me filming this video part and shit was crazy. It was around a time where I was thinking about my life and what was going on, just home life and everything. I guess that was just my push. I didn’t want to live in Moore Park, California, like dumb far away from everything. I wanted to do something with skating, I guess. That was my push and I was like, “Fuck it, I’ll try anything. I’ll bust my ass.” That’s really what pushed me, just family and thinking about home and whatnot. And not wasting an opportunity. Yeah I was not trying to be some kid who just ends up being flow for F.A. or something, you know? I didn’t want to blow it. It would’ve bummed people out that I knew back home. Yeah, and people have a way of getting comfortable, thinking like, “Oh I made it,” when they haven’t really done anything yet. Exactly and Nake kept me on top of that, because he’s always pushing me. All the time. He’s always like, “Let’s go get a clip, let’s go do this, let’s go do that.” He would let me know that being flow, it’s not like you’re on. It’s just a let’s see what this person can do, how much he wants it. And Nak’s a good example too, because he obviously kills it, but he’s also having a great time and enjoying the ride while not taking shit for granted. Yeah, that’s why I like living here. I feel like that’s helping me out a lot, just being surrounded by Nak. He taught me a lot. What about home was motivating you? Was it something specific or just not wanting to have to come home hat in hand type of thing? Yeah, I guess it was just family shit was making me want to go harder, and just not moving back there. Even if I wasn’t sponsored or whatever in LA, I would still want to live out there regardless of skating. Yeah, LA’s got its faults but it’s all right. So what’s next for you? I’ll be working on some Nike stuff and started filming with Benny again. I just want to film whatever, just film for whatever’s next, whatever they got planned. Well that’s about all I got unless you got anything else you want to say. The 917 video was sick! That’s all I gotta say ‘cause I heard that somebody over at Jenkem was talking shit on 917, but I love 917. Those are the homies. That interview was funny, or whatever they were saying. It was random. Everyone was just confused. I was in New York and somebody, I think it was Logan [Lara], was like, “Look at this,” and it was them talking about Aiden. I don’t know, like was that a joke or was that somebody serious? Was it the article “The World That The 917 Created?” Yeah, something like that, saying like that it was a remake of KIDS or something. I don’t know, the 917 video was sick. That’s all I have to say.