#OR TO ACTUAL CANADIANS. WHICH HAS HAPPENED TO ME MANY TIMES RECENTLY. GOOD GOD. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kathyprior4200 · 4 years ago

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Heavenly Boss Episode Four: D.I.A.B.L.O.

“Welcome the wackiest episode of the season! When Elves and Diablos clash over the fates of a fallen cherub trio, things sure do happen.”

Oh, hello. Docile here, welcome back to Heaven! I know things were a bit wild and confusing last time. Let me try and explain a bit.

Apparently the first Heaven’s blessing company C.H.E.R.U.B. had been under the guidance of one of my previous bosses, Kiva. I don’t know why anyone would approve of her, other than she’s famous for her singing in both Heavens. Instead of spreading faith and love, she wanted more fame and a chance to create her own world on Earth. She briefly used the cherubs’ powers to revive certain people on Earth and kill off others deemed “unworthy” in God’s eyes. There is a good reason why no one should bring back the dead. Even C.H.E.R.U.B. and my company E.L.F. know that would only cause overpopulation, war, and an alteration of history. It broke my heart when we had to reverse the damage Kiva had done. In the process, we freed C.H.E.R.U.B. from Kiva’s influence, Tirred from her influence and sent the dead back to the other side. We also had to erase the memories of the event from the mortals for obvious reasons. Thankfully, Deerie just straight up banished Kiva and her group…I heard they got arrested on Earth, but I have a feeling they may come back.

Tirred’s been experiencing a few struggles with getting over the event. He had given into his desire for more status and like many angels in Heaven, he tends to see demons as “lesser than.” He’s being monitored under supervision for a bit just in case, but I think he can fix up his attitude…mostly.

Recently, I got an update on how C.H.E.R.U.B. is doing. They had failed to save the life of a greedy inventor and were banished to Earth. I have a bad feeling that they’ll get corrupted in Hell and return for revenge against their I.M.P. rivals. I’m all for keeping I.M.P. in line to try and stop their horrible mass murders, but fighting fire with fire usually doesn’t end well. Although I think that indigo sheep, Collin, has the purest heart of the three.

So far, we’ve been doing business in Heaven as usual: record keeping on human life, plus spreading God’s words of good faith (and trying to leave out the bad messages of “ditch your loser friends who you can’t use.”) There’s a difference between leading cooperatively and leading selfishly. True leadership requires lifting others up as well as yourself. I guess our Heavenly Father doesn’t trust anyone else due to Lucifer trying to take His throne all those centuries ago. Paperwork is always tedious but it must be done. I know our business tithers between legal and illegal but we’ll deal with any consequences that may arise. My job is my passion and my employees are like my family.

Right now, my team and I are discussing some ways to meet and collaborate with C.H.E.R.U.B. I think they need some guidance on properly interacting with humans. Plus, I think Sunna and I are tempted to give those cute cherubs some hugs. Truthfully, I hope we can get to them before they “sink further down,” if you catch my drift. Ideally, C.H.E.R.U.B. could stay on Earth and continue protecting humanity. Or we could provide them sanctuary in our Heaven. The first option seems more likely due to both Deerie’s rules and interdimensional complications. It’s very rare for an individual to travel to the parallel universes…and Earth is in the middle of all the Heavens and Hells!

But hey, surely it’s worth a try, right?

Sunna was peacefully sleeping on one of the chairs around the smooth table at E.L.F. headquarters. The elves were seated in their spots with Docile at the head of the table.

“Alright guys,” he said. “This is a very important mission. With Lord Gabriel’s help, I’ve pinpointed C.H.E.R.U.B.’s location to be in a forest near a lake, not too far from that inventor’s old mansion.” He pointed to certain spots on a holographic map in front of them. “It appears they briefly stayed in a church for sanctuary last December and are now trying to stay low. Gabriel said they had been helping other humans in secret but haven’t gotten rid of their desires for acknowledgement, praise and material gains.”

“Hold up,” said Tirred with his usual yawn. “I thought that C.H.E.R.U.B. never asks for any fees.”

“That is true, but I’m talking about what they seek. The three cherubs were raised in a culture that values perfection, reward and the pursuit of happiness…”

Tirred coughed, “Americans,” which earned him a glare from his boss.

Docile continued, “Even Heaven’s citizens have flaws of their own. Selfishness exists in everyone, no matter how altruistic they try to be. C.H.E.R.U.B. knows that if they spread love, they can also feel good about themselves. But they always expect something in return for their work. Money, praise, God’s grace, whatever it is. The point is, they never help others just for the sake of doing so.”

“That actually makes sense,” Timmid added, brushing back her short white hair. “I wonder if they were so quick to collaborate with us because they just wanted us to promote their company.”

“Which is what we’re randomly doing instead of, you know…worrying about ourselves in our reality!" Tirred added, waving his hands for emphasis. “We shouldn’t have to care about some other cheesy company.”

Sunna happily mumbled “cheese” in her sleep.

“You have a good point Tirred, but this is different,” Docile elaborated. “C.H.E.R.U.B. may be from another realm, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try to help them out. Remember that we help humans and angels alike when we can.”

“We can’t help everybody,” Tirred said. “Especially those humans and demons who…”

“We’re not talking about them,” Docile added, holding up a hand. “There’s no need to be a downer when I’m trying to spread light onto a dire situation here, okay?”

Tirred crossed his arms. “I’m helping you see the reality of things. The other angelic orders won’t approve of this. Especially since traveling to the parallel realms is forbidden!”

“And the reality is that we will continue on with this mission because it’s the right thing to do,” Docile argued, standing his ground. “It is our job to help those in need, no matter how bizarre the situation may be. So for your sake, I suggest you keep yourself in line.”

Tirred grumbled and backed away slightly. Docile sighed and straightened up.

“Plus, we aren’t traveling to the other Heaven. We’re going to Earth. That’s where C.H.E.R.U.B. is.” He glanced over at the large leather bound Bible that allowed them to travel to Earth. He didn’t know how much longer Azrael and Samuel would allow him to keep it, but hopefully a bit longer.

“Won’t we need disguises again?” Timmid asked. “Or Sunna?”

“I think we’ll be alright with going in our true forms,” said Docile. “But remember to lay low and stick together. After all, C.H.E.R.U.B. will be in their regular forms…might as well meet angel to angel.”

“Okay,” said Timmid.

There was a knock on the door, which startled Sunna awake. “Guys, do you hear that?”

“That was the door,” called Timmid.

Sunna walked over and opened it. “Hello,” she said as two men entered. One was short and fat, the other was tall and thin.

“Are those…supervillains?” asked Timmid.

“More like superheroes!” called the thin man. He had an elegant white mustache and white-gray skin. He wore a white top hat with a purple brim and old time glasses with purple lens. His suit was white with a large purple cross in the center, the arrow pointing up. His boots were purple and his cape was light blue.

The squat man beside him wore a white suit with thin blue lines on it with a beige collar. He wore a white bowler hat with a blue trim and white rimmed glasses with teal lens. His mustache was black and his skin was white-gray. Both men had halos and white wings.

“I’m Straight Nate!” greeted the thin man. “Craftsman of all things straight and narrow! This is my partner Kyle Kipton!”

“Nice to meet you both!” Docile said, shaking their hands. “How’d you get into Heaven?”

Nate explained. “I wasn’t always a young man. Kyle and I ran Kyle-Nate Tools, a local shop for farmers. Earlier today, we were giving food, eggs and farming equipment to the poor. We could’ve saved so many. We both got involved in our job and felt so much younger than before. It was marvelous! Turns out that Lyle Lipton’s anti-aging machine in his factory was sending out rays that turned us younger and younger by the day. Our customers soon grew suspicious when we suddenly appeared as children. Both of us were almost handed over to police. We raced toward Lyle’s place, hoping to get back to our normal ages. But before we could reach him, the mob had cornered us with torches and pitchforks. We refused to give them what they wanted and they…killed me. It was a miracle that Lyle’s machine secrets didn’t get out. Everyone believed the mobsters to be crazy. Thanks to some angel magic, no one else sought to be young again.”

“I died shortly after Nate,” said Kyle. “Almost thought about taking my life, but Covid 19 did that for me.”

“Sorry,” said Sunna.

“Brother bucking Covid ruins everything!” Docile spat.

“Wait,” Tirred asked. “If you turned into children, why do you look so…”

“Wise?” Kyle finished with a shrug. “Who knows? Age doesn’t matter for saints up here. We stay the same age as when we died on Earth like the sinners do in Hell.”

“Well that story was a load of rubbish,” Tirred scoffed.

“Don’t be rude,” Sunna chided.

“It’s alright,” Nate said. “Kyle and I are trying to figure out what do to next now that we’re in Heaven. I wonder if there are any farms around that could use our help.”

“I’ve never heard of farms in the sky before,” Kyle said.

“Well Heaven has a whole society like Hell does, so schools, farms, houses, pretty much anything from all time periods exist here,” said Docile.

“Have you heard of the Canadians?” asked Sunna. “They are anti-cannibals, against eating meat in all forms. A bunch of French-speaking vegetarian cultured folk. A bit eccentric. They make the best maple syrup and host the best air hockey games. You know, literally in the air…”

Nate rolled his eyes. “People are so quick to judge these days.”

On a nearby television screen, a commercial showed a dark teal skinned elf wearing a black outfit and a black hat, twirling a cane. “Are you looking for work to make solemn stories and formal films? Well call me at Sully Sirius’ Serious Idea Studios, where you can create art and get rich! The one who makes the best creation will receive two free tickets for Woo-Hoo Land! But still…I have standards for heaven’s sake!” A brief clip showed Sully selling holy water bottles at the theme park.

“Wierdo,” muttered Kyle.

“Well, I wish you two the best of luck up here,” said Docile. “Thanks for stopping by.”

“Anytime,” said Nate. Nate and Kyle waved goodbye before exiting out the door.

Docile turned to a winged cherub deer.

“You think we’ll succeed in our mission?”

“Yeah, oh yes, yes, yes!” Doe-Doe trilled genuinely, typing notes on an IPad while wearing yellow overalls. “Go beyond the rules and you do you! Yeah!”

0 0 0

Docile, Tirred and Timmid stood outside in front of their headquarters building, the heavenly sky shining down above them. The white building and the golden wing designs attached to it shone brightly in the light. Tirred briefly glanced enviously beyond a wrought iron golden gate toward the direction of the silver Holy City surrounded by glowing halos. Timmid took a deep breath and flipped through the Bible until coming across a passage to create a portal to Earth. After she chanted and drew a teal blue sigil with chalk, a gap opened up. A fearful Timmid led the way through, while Docile and Tirred followed.

The trio arrived at the vast meadow surrounded by forest trees and the shining lake. The sun shone brightly in the sky while a few white clouds dotted the horizon. Several birds chirped on nearby hanging branches, while brown squirrels and rabbits hopped along the grassy plain.

Docile sniffed the air deeply and sighed. “Nature truly is a wonderful thing. There’s something so genuine about Earth that makes it so…vast and beautiful.”

Tirred rolled his eyes. “Heaven will always be the superior place. It has marvelous light, gold, angels and the Almighty of course.”

“But the living world is unique in its own way. It’s the birthplace of all the saints and sinners. They make up the majority of the afterlife. Without this place, Heaven and Hell alike wouldn’t function the way they do now. No technology, no flare, no diversity. Our current worlds today are what some mortals call a “melting pot.” Different ingredients tossed together into one societal dish.”

“Blast, boss! Enough with your metaphorical mumbo-jumbo,” Tirred sighed, briefly tugging his pointed ears in frustration. “Do you even realize what could happen if we meet with other beings too long? Reality itself…”

He imitated an explosion.

Timmid laughed a bit. “Who’s spewing mumbo-jumbo now?” She playfully elbowed Tirred. “Relax, Tir. Docile knows what he’s doing. It’s risky but it’s for the greater good.”

“Greater good, my ass,” he muttered.

“If you wanna get your good ass kicked, then be my guest,” Timmid wiggled her eyebrows playfully as Tirred turned red in the face.

Docile summoned his golden staff and slowly moved it in the air in front of him. The staff tip briefly glowed when he aimed it at a lower part of the hill. He spotted something small and white flying in the same direction. Docile mentioned for his coworkers to follow. They headed down the hill until they arrived at a white park bench. There were some passerby walking their dogs or chatting on their cell phones. Several women pushed strollers around, while a child tossed bread crumbs for the ducks. The paths were lined with streetlamps and red rose bushes.

Just then, Docile spotted a flying boy and two winged sheep sitting close together on a bench. No one seemed to pay them any mind.

“Bingo!” Docile grinned.

The periwinkle sheep Collin sat and examined the park. The yellow sheep Keenie straightened up her yellow dress and red bow. Cletus sat in the middle in his reddish overalls, looking bored. Several white feathers fell off their wings and their halos flickered.

“I don’t understand,” Cletus said dejectedly. “We’ve done all we can to make amends. We’ve saved people, gave them advice, and lived among the humans. Why can’t we go back?”

Collin sniffed as tears started to trickle down his face. “Why can’t Deerie let us back? We were doing so well in Heaven. Our clients and the humans were always grateful for the work we did.”

Keenie stamped one of her hooves. “It’s so not fair! Deerie didn’t even give us a chance. She just sent us here to suffer and rubbed it in our faces!”

“If only that filthy imp leader didn’t blind me during the battle,” Cletus scowled. “Killing Lyle was just an accident. I was this close to eliminating them on the spot!”

“Killing is a bad thing,” Collin mentioned, straightening up. “Our job is never to kill, but to save and spread love!”

“Like I said before Collin, you still joined us in shooting at our rivals,” said Cletus. “Eliminating the threat is sometimes necessary.”

“We also have Exorcists for a reason,” Keenie added. “To eliminate all those shitty sinners and keep both Earth and Heaven safe from them. Those Hell table scraps are just as bad as them, if not worse!”

“W-w-whatever happened to ‘thou shalt not kill?’ ’Love thy neighbor?’” Collin asked, flying up and staring hard at his companions.

The cherubs hovered in the air.

“Those demons aren’t our neighbors,” Cletus told Collin.

“I know that, but still, we could’ve at least taken the fight outside the opera theater! Oh and maybe saved that singer, too.”

“When the imps were in the way, right there?” Keenie asked. “We had to watch over Lyle, too.”

“We had to save his life at any cost,” Cletus said, leaning in.

“B-b-but we didn’t, didn’t we?” Collin finished. “We all played a part in our fate and now in a few days, we’ll be down below facing our worst nightmares!”

Collin broke down into hysterical sobs, as Keenie wrapped him in a hug. “Oh Collin…”

The cherubs flew off toward the open meadow, leaving the park behind and looking around.

Just then, E.L.F. made their entrance in front of them, floating down gracefully on white wings in their own beams of sparkly light. Docile was in the center, Tirred to his right, Timmid to his left. Spiked white halos hung over their heads. C.H.E.R.U.B. stared quizzically at them.

Keenie glared. “Go away, demons! We’re tired of seeing you in your silly costumes!”

“You here to m-m-mock us some more?” Collin asked in anger.

“We come in peace…” Docile began, but didn’t finish. Cletus let out a combination of mournful cries and yells to the sky, causing the nearby humans to glare at them and scatter away.

“You won’t get away with this, I.M.P.! You’ll pay for what you did to us and the humans you slaughtered!”

Cletus finished his cries when a sudden force knocked everyone backwards. They straightened themselves up in the air. The ground broke apart and a column of red, orange and yellow flames shoot up from the opening.

E.L.F. and C.H.E.R.U.B. looked in wide-eyed terror at three small shadowy figures hovering forward through the flames. Three shadows with glowing yellow eyes.

“You seek revenge and are thirsty for blood?” came a low choir of voices.

The flames vanished, revealing a demonic trio. A pointed tail, sharp yellow teeth, a clawed hand holding a black Satanic book...

“We can help satiate your desires…”

The leader appeared, looking like a twisted version of Cletus. He had teal fluffy hair and pale white skin, his teeth sharp and yellow. His eyes were large and yellow with white sclera. He was chubby like Cletus but instead of angelic wings, he had small black bat wings with long red fingers within the flaps. He wore a dark blue undershirt, a black shirt collar and teal colored overalls, plus brown boots. Two reddish orange horns curved down to meet his chin. He put away his black Satanic book.

The corrupted Collin counterpart took the appearance of a bulky anthropomorphic yellow ram. His furry hooves were tan colored with sickly yellowish tips. He wore a wine colored red suit with a black bow tie under his thick neck. His undershirt was orange with an upside down black cross in the center. Sheathed under a black belt was a gun, a dagger and a few other weapons. His teeth, eyes and face were all a dull yellow, although a few black dots rested under his left eye. Ogre-like ears stuck out around his head of thick black wool. Protruding in curves from his head were two thick crimson-colored ram horns with little lines running down the surface. Little black wings held him in the air.

The last diablo was a blue anthropomorphic ram and Keenie’s dark counterpart. Her hooves were purple with dark green tips. Her dress was dark blue with a green bow around it. Her dress moved from blue to various shades of green and teal, becoming lighter at the ends. The hem of her dress was torn and gave the appearance of blue flames as part of the design. Black gloves covered her hands like an executioner’s. She grinned with yellow sharp teeth against a dark blue face. Her eyes had dark orange pupils, teal irises and white sclera. Her wild hair was a lighter shade of blue, moving like flames in the wind. Like her companions, she had black bat wings and curved red-orange ram horns. All the diablos could also grow pointed tails and retract them.

The leader sneered. “Surely you’ve heard of us. You saw our commercial, didn’t you?”

“What commercial?” Docile asked.

0 0 0

A large Leviathan monster opened its mouth wide, revealing sharp teeth, a long slimy tongue and a dark throat. The camera zoomed into the darkness before a red light appeared at the end of the tunnel. A bleak world with a red sky was revealed. A futuristic city in the distance was tall, black and metal: Sin City. The ground was black as was the grass. There was a pandemonium capital building not too far away along with a variety of shops set in a dystopian world: Tiamat’s Treasure Things, Kali’s Corner, Xenomorph Labs.

No Hazbin Hotel or I.M.P headquarters to be found.

A sign read “Diablo Den” and pointed down. The camera moved to show an underground tunnel with torches on either side. An entire subculture of demons lived down within the sewers and damp tunnels. Metal waterproof houses were situated under fluorescent lights on the ceiling. The leader popped up on the screen.

“Salutations! I’m Erebos! Welcome to Hell! Guess you must have done something evil to get here, and evil people deserve to give enemies special cruses!”

The jingle began, with organs playing.

“Does it make you want to yell?” asked Devvin, the yellow ram as a man was shown getting a promotion over a man dressed in rags.

“When an enemy ends up well?” asked Dammna the blue ram female as a rapist was pardoned from his crime.

“Do you frown from ear to ear?” sang Erebos as a man shot at several anti-LGBTQ protestors.

“When your rivals don’t shed a tear?” they all sang as a bully in a baseball cap laughed as a kid cowered in a corner.

“Locked up in a rut?” sang Devvin with a pose.

“A foe seeking your gut?” Dammna sang and posed.

“We can make them cold and dead!” sang Erebos.

“Even give you their head!” They all did villain poses.

“Cause here at D.I.A.B.L.O.!” they sang as “DIABLO” appeared in bloody letters surrounded by pitchforks and the trademark icon.

“We’re the masters of destruction from down below!” sang Devvin as Cletus shot fireballs at a barbed wire fence, allowing prisoners of war to escape. Devvin led the way as Dammna waved a flag with a pentagram and “B.U.R.E.H.C” on it.

“Cause here at D.I.A.B.L.O.!” they sang as the logo appeared again.

“Just name your price and we’re good to go!” sang Dammna as Erebos gave a greedy grin at a human handing him a bag of gold.

“Spreading sickness, chaos and hate!” Devvin sang as he and Dammna gave each other a high five with their hooves.

“History altered and fate!” sang Dammna as atomic bombs went off in reverse as clocks ran backwards and forwards.

“We do the dirty work for you!” sang Cletus as Devvin concocted a deadly virus and dropped it on coughing humans.

“And stirring up world wars, too!” added Devvin as Dammna whispered something in a soldier’s ear, resulting in two armies fighting on the field.

So sit right back…” sang Erebos before they all sang in discord, “…and let us curse a soul for you!”

“Oh, we are the D.I.A.B.L.O.!”

“How the primal chaos shall flow!”

0 0 0

C.H.E.R.U.B. and E.L.F. just stood there, stunned.

Just then, Blitzo, Moxxie and Millie entered through a portal onto the grass. Moxxie was trying not to fall, while Millie safely put away Stolas’ grimoire in a small black backpack.

“Alright gang,” called Blitzo. “Apparently someone wants us to kill that ginger-ass tour guide we saw last time. Looks like he’s at Lyle’s old house jacking off and snatching Lyle’s old possessions.”

Millie tried not to throw up. “This world is even crazier than ours!” Then she pulled out a dark sword and brightened. “Let’s keep on killin’ then!

“Sir, please don’t tell Lyle any of this,” Moxxie pleaded. “You know he’ll get mad if we fail this mission.”

“Oh I already sent him a text,” Blitzo grinned, holding up his phone. The text read “Off 2 kill tour intruder. Might want 2 sell ur stuff.” Moxxie face-palmed.

“I’m already tired and we haven’t even made it there yet,” Moxxie complained.

“Come on Mox, get your sweet imp ass moving,” Blitzo said. “We’ll be at his house before you can say…”

The three imps came to the clearing and froze in their tracks.

“Holy shit,” Blitzo breathed.

At that very moment, all twelve creatures divided in the four separate groups locked eyes with each other, some on the ground, and some in the air. The sky darkened to an abnormal shade of indigo, the ground suddenly warm to the touch. The air itself shifted from stale, to hot, to cold and back again. A strange energy crackled through the air, like any moment the earth would collapse underneath them. A stag with bloodstained antlers reared up his hind legs and raced across the forest as lightning flashed in the sky.

From inside the mansion, the tour guide and several people gazed out the window in awe through a telescope. The smiling man had the ginger bang over his eyes and wore a green suit and cap with dollar signs on it. He spoke too casually to the group as they took pictures on their phones.

“And now you’ll spot several groups of tacky super-powered cosplayers about to begin an apocalyptic battle! The feuds between famous people and ordinary folk is a sight to behold!”

0 0 0

“Who. The Fuck. Are They?!” Blitzo cried out, his voice echoing.

“Oh no!” groaned Moxxie, pointing ahead. “Those are the…”

“Imps!” Collin cried out, all three cherubs glaring at their rivals.

“Cherubs!” Moxxie finished.

“Diablos?!” Tirred asked.

“Elves!” sneered Devvin.

The intense stare-downs could have turned the universe upside down…which for a few moments, it did.

After several minutes of grueling silence, the first one to speak again was none other than Blitzo.

“Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on here?!”

Cletus crossed his arms. “I’ll tell you what’s going on! Because of you three monsters,” he pointed at the imps, “We’ve been banished to Earth and are this close to meeting our doom down in your filthy world!”

Blitzo just grinned smugly. “Welcome to Hell, baby. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

Cletus turned red in anger. “Shut up! We may have been banished from Heaven all thanks to you, but there is no way we’re going to end up like you!”

Erebos grinned and moved slowly toward the cherubs. “You sure about that?”

He spoke in a bone-chilling whisper that made even Cletus forget his wrath for a moment. “It’s clear that you’ll never be allowed to return to Heaven. Why wish for something you can’t obtain anymore? The only thing you can do now…” he mentioned in the direction of the imps, “…is take back what you’ve lost.”

Cletus glared at him. “I don’t need filthy demons to tell me what to do!”

“Of course you don’t,” Erebos mentioned. “Your company was just trying to do the right thing. Why should you let those monsters stand in your way again?”

“Stop!” called Docile. He flew gracefully in Cletus’ direction. “Don’t listen to that demon.”

“You’re one too!” Cletus seethed, flinching back.

“No, I’m an angel just like you,” Docile said. “That devil is trying to divert you away from your true path. Your company may have been banished, but you can still redeem yourselves and prove the other angels wrong! You’re already great at spreading positivity to those in need!”

“Ha!” Millie called. “Just like how you cherubs failed to save the life of that old man.”

“It was an accident, you emo slutty freak!” Keenie spat.

“The past is then,” Docile continued to Cletus. “This is now. You still have time to prove your innocence. I believe there is goodness in almost everyone.”

Collin flew up to the elf with wide shining eyes. “Y-y-you do?”

Docile wrapped an arm around Collin. “I know it. It’s there, even when all hope seems lost.”

Erebos snickered to Cletus. “You really gonna believe an inverted version of yourself and his subservient goblin fuck toys?”

The cherubs and elves gasped.

“That is so inappropriate!” Timmid called.

“Kiss your ass, sissy,” Dammna taunted as Timmid flinched away.

“Might wanna watch your words, blue bitch,” Millie growled to Dammna. “Just because we’re fellow demons, doesn’t mean I’ll let you pick on others like that.”

“What’re you gonna do about it?” Dammna asked with a sneer. “Sing a murder jingle?”

“My coworkers and I did, actually!”

“I thought your song was very catchy!” Devvin praised.

“Thank you!” beamed Millie. “Now get lost, wannabes!”

But D.I.A.B.L.O. was far from done. Erebos spoke to Cletus. “Anyway…that deer cherub who kicked you out…she knew that you would fall. God doesn’t tolerate mistakes…thus those in Heaven now see you as just that, mistakes. How does it make you feel?”

“Shut it, demon crap!” Keenie shrilled. She flew toward Erebos but Devvin held her back. She freed herself from his grip. Dammna flew beside Collin, who whimpered as she licked her lips.

“Face it…the other cherubs wanted you three kicked out. Because you founded an illegal company that prided itself on saving human lives. You were getting famous for…not following the rules. Jealousy arose.”

“How do you know all this?” Cletus asked.

“We have our ways,” said Erebos. “Angels and demons going to Earth is mostly illegal…you know, changing of history, trauma and all.”

He flew into Cletus’ face and the Cletus flinched back in disgust. Erebos made his way around Collin and Keenie as he talked. “You could’ve been good passive little sheep and stayed in Heaven. But you didn’t.” He ran a hand through Collin’s white wooly hair. “Because you wanted something more. Paradise wasn’t enough for you.”

He grinned sinisterly at Keenie. “You were tired of being looked down upon by the more favorable members of your kind. Always searching for a way so that your…”

He peered underneath her yellow dress, “…divine talents could be brought to light.”

Keenie gave him a hard kick to the face, sending him back a bit. He scoffed in pain and rubbed his eye before straightening up and heading back toward Cletus. “And for a while, they did. But look where you are now. Fallen. Forgotten. Forced away from your home.”

“He’s using you guys!” Tirred warned Cletus. “You can still protect humanity and earn God’s grace once again!”

“No matter what you try to do, you’ll never be able to return. Becoming demons is your destiny!” Devvin said with a dark chuckle.

“Listen to the elf angels,” Collin pleaded to his boss. “The demons are full of sin, but you know we can choose to not stoop down to their level. We can be better cherubs, improve our relations with humans.”

“Right after we get rid of all those stinking demons!” Keenie scoffed, hands on her hips. “If we want C.H.E.R.U.B. to survive…”

“Then I.M.P. must pay, right?” Dammna asked, finishing her sentence. Keenie found herself nodding, mouth agape.

“Hey, we can hear you!” Moxxie yelled, drawing out his gun. He shot it upwards but the bullet was blocked by Tirred’s golden staff. The bullet rebounded away. Moxxie stared at Tirred in disgust. “Man you’re hard to look at.” Tirred just observed him coldly.

“Forget about I.M.P.!” Timmid called to the cherubs. “Focus on redeeming yourselves. It’s the only way you can return home.”

“Help other people for its own sake,” Docile advised. “You don’t need praise or rewards to keep doing the right thing.”

“He’s right, Cletus,” Collin added. “Help humans move away from sin…and we will as well.”

“Ha!” barked Dammna. “Sin and flaws are present in everyone, even in little angels. It’s as natural as sex, eating, drinking and breathing. No one can resist the natural temptations…”

Blitzo grinned. “I’d like to see you try and take us out,” he told Cletus. “Afraid we’ll make you a laughing stock again?” Cletus fumed.

“I hope the Exorcists erase you from existence!” Keenie shrilled.

Devvin appeared beside Keenie. “Why call on them, when you can plan your revenge yourself?”

“Not gonna happen!” she yelled. Just after she said that, her halo flickered again. A small crack appeared on Cletus’ halo. Bits of feathers drifted from Colin’s wings.

“This is not good,” Timmid whispered.

Erebos grinned. “Only a matter of time now, cherubs! It’s time to begin your journey toward justice!”

Back and forth, overlapping words, advice, taunts and threats pounded against Cletus. He felt like his head was being crushed by two opposing hands. Cletus grimaced, looking back and forth and around. He squinted and closed his eyes, curling into a ball.

“The accident wasn’t your fault, boss!”

“Help bring back C.H.E.R.U.B. to its former glory!”

“You’re nothing but a crying baby and a failure. No wonder Heaven doesn’t want you guys.”

“Thy company come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven…”

“Your demonic destiny is here!”

“Give into sin!”

“Spread the love for here and above!”

“ENOUGH!”

Cletus spread out his arms and legs. The force sent many of the individuals back, but they quickly recovered. Lightning flashed in the sky as the battle began.

Although Blitzo, Moxxie and Millie couldn’t fly like everyone else, they made up for it by their array of weapons. Blitzo fired his tan flintlock pistol, the bullets rising in the air. One bullet hit Dammna’s hoof and she hissed in pain. Another grazed Timmid’s shoulder and she cried out.

Docile waved his hand and three golden crossbows appeared in the cherubs’ hands.

“It’s temporary,” he warned.

Wasting no time, Collin, Keenie and Cletus fired sparkly golden arrows from their weapons at the two demonic groups. Cletus and Blitzo fired rounds at each other, both of them expertly dodging the other’s attacks. Erebos laughed as Docile landed punches at him, which he kept blocking.

“Just as planned,” he grinned. “What a joy it is to see C.H.E.R.U.B. and I.M.P. duke it out.” The cherubs’ faces grew more vicious as they chased after the imps.

“Stop fighting, C.H.E.R.U.B.!” Tirred called in concern, but her words fell on ignorant ears.

Erebos landed a punch to Docile’s face and he quickly retaliated via a well-aimed uppercut. “You won’t get away with this,” Docile spat. “I don’t want to fight any of you guys but it appears I have no choice.”

Timmid screamed as Devvin suddenly caught her in a headlock.

“Ha! Surrender or she’s a goner!” called Devvin. Timmid struggled in vain against his grip. Docile glared as he aimed his staff at him, debating on what to do next.

Zing!

An arrow from Collin’s crossbow hit Devvin in the side, sending him screaming and flying off in the distance. He flew back in anger, but Timmid had already recovered. The cherubs’ golden crossbows vanished, the group now defenseless. Moxxie, Dammna, and Millie seized the opportunity to charge in, surrounding the cherubs. Timmid, Docile and Tirred blocked the path of the demons, holding them off with their golden staffs.

“I can’t hold them much longer,” groaned a strained Tirred to the cherubs. “Flee while you still can!”

“We’re not leaving you behind,” Collin said, determined.

Cletus tried to flee, but Dammna grabbed hold of him and tossed him right back with a chuckle.

Erebos arrived and smacked Tirred’s golden staff from his hands…he punched at the diablo’s chest in response. Docile landed several kicks to Moxxie, sending him stumbling to the ground.

“Moxxie!” Millie cried.

“I’m okay!”

Millie took out a black dagger and tossed it toward Timmid. She caught it and tossed it away. Cletus continued to dodge the bullets from Moxxie and Blitzo’s weapons. Keenie charged at full speed toward Millie’s head from behind her. She was just about to land a hard blow when…

A large hand grabbed her by the hair…Erebos, and tossed her hard toward the ground.

Crash!

“Y-y-you monster!” Collin cried.

Keenie growled as she stood up on shaking legs, wiping the dirt from her dress. With a swoop, she lifted herself up in the air before Blitzo could shoot at her. She finally rejoined Collin and Cletus…but the E.L.F. members were almost drained from the battle. The cherubs and elves stood battered and back to back against the surrounding demons.

Lightning flashed as several pairs of the angelic and demonic warriors went head to head. Millie was slashing her sword from underneath Timmid and Keenie, who were punching Dammna and pulling her long blue hair. Keenie slapped Dammna across the face while Timmid yelped as she dodged Millie’s weapon from below. Timmid summoned an angelic harpoon and clashed with Millie. They moved in a dance, metal against metal. The point of the harpoon barely missed Millie’s head. Millie leaped onto the harpoon and raced on it with her sword in her mouth. Timmid’s eyes were wide with surprise. She flipped over Timmid, grabbed her sword and swung it in an arch, knocking Timmid down. The angelic harpoon clattered softly onto the grass. Docile made it vanish with a wave of his hand.

Moxxie fired his gun and hit Devvin several times. He hissed as black blood ran from parts of his legs. “Get the sheep, you idiot!”

“I fight my own battles,” Moxxie retorted, as he dodged Collin’s punches and blasted Devvin’s revolver out of his hand with a well-aimed shot.

Collin and Tirred shared a look, then both swooped on either side of Devvin. With two hard punches to his face, Devvin plummeted to the ground. He glared at them from below as he slowly stood up and shook his head. Tirred tossed Collin out of range of Moxxie’s bullets before he got hit himself. He gasped in pain before landing on the ground to recover. He winced and glared at Devvin. Moxxie rushed at him, but Tirred shoved him back with a force from his golden staff.

Docile, Erebos, Blitzo and Cletus were going head to head as lightning lit up the sky around them.

“Take this, you fucker!” Cletus yelled as he grabbed a nearby rock and threw it toward Blitzo. The rock exploded from Blitzo’s bullet. Another bullet hit one of Cletus’ wing tips, making him stumble in the air. Docile straightened the cherub with one hand as he twirled his staff against Erebos in the other. Erebos flapped his bat wings menacingly. The ground shook below as more cracks appeared. I.M.P. moved to higher ground, gazing at the red lava below in the ground. It created a demonic red glow near the ground. Black blood poured from the demons’ wounds just as white blood flowed from the angels’.

Timmid stood up and flapped her white wings, glanced around in terror. “We have to stop fighting!” she screamed over the yells and the noises of war. “We’re going to destroy the Earth!”

Timmid suddenly screamed as Dammna smacked her on the head from behind. She plummeted to the ground, with Keenie catching the dazed angel and carrying her to a safe spot.

With ear-shattering yells, Cletus and Erebos rammed into each other, as did Blitzo and Docile. The leaders pushed against each other with all their might, as forces from their attacks shook the area. The demons’ horns grew longer and eyes appeared on the angels’ wings. Cletus and Docile glowed blue and white while Erebos and Blitzo glowed red and black. Docile’s harpoon spear pressed against Blitzo’s flintlock pistol. They all seethed and gave each other deadly glares.

Before long, the cracks and forces would spread to the rest of Earth. Heaven and Hell would collapse, the Earth being the final battleground and resting place…

The explosions knocked everyone back, sending all the creatures crashing to the ground. The forest had been burned down to timbers and steam was rising from the lake. Lyle’s mansion had been blasted apart to smithereens…yet the soot covered crowd still took pictures as the tour guide spewed his ever optimistic commentary. His hat was lopsided and he kicked broken glass away.

“One of the Lipton family heirlooms is this golden money bag statue which was gifted to Lyle in the early 1970s. And it’s still standing…”

The tour guide glanced down to see the statue littering the ground in pieces. “…or it was. I call dibs!”

The battle had been an intense stalemate. And all seemed lost as the ground prepared to swallow everyone in the lava and magma.

The dark clouds swirled in a spiral vortex before slowly parting. Sunlight shone from a circular patch of blue sky. The shaking and the yelling stopped. The cracks in the earth fused together and the world slowly got brighter like it did before. The Archangel Michael arrived from the opening, along with the cherub Deerie by his side.

Blitzo helped up his colleagues. “I think we can call this mission a successful failure.”

Millie supported Moxxie. “What about our target?”

“Forget about him,” Blitzo said. “And forget about those cherubs too. They’re done for.”

The imps looked over at the barely stirring cherubs on the ground.

“Well, looks like we won again,” Moxxie said. “Though we really need to tone down all this fighting.”

“Yeah, I’m tired and could really use an iced coffee right now,” Blitzo said. He took out his green “mare-juanna” horse figure and kissed it. “I knew this lucky charm would come in handy. Let’s go gang!”

The imps grinned and high-fived before disappearing through the portal to Hell.

Michael hovered in the air in all his glory, supported by broad white feathery wings. He had pale skin, blushes on his cheeks, and short blonde hair like his fallen brother Lucifer. A sword made of flames was tucked protectively near his belt. A glowing spiked white halo hung over his head with a crystal in the center. He wore a white suit and tailcoat, while several medals and badges shown from the front of his outfit.

He bore a stern expression on his face as the other groups slowly recovered.

“Four interdimensional companies fighting in the one world to cause the most damage to mortal lives. I’m ashamed at all of you. You were lucky that no more humans got hurt.” Michael briefly glared at the cherubs and diablos.

The cherubs and elves bowed their heads in apology, while the diablos looked on.

“I ask that all of you head back to your worlds immediately. If I ever catch you fighting here again, I’ll erase every one of you from existence. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir,” chimed the six angels.

“Lord Michael,” said Cletus, lifting his head. “The demonic imps have already left. And those diablos are the ones who started all this!”

“Please Lord Michael,” said Docile. “My company came here on behalf of the importance of C.H.E.R.U.B.’s protection. I humbly ask that you reconsider their previous errors and allow them a chance to…”

A rumbling sound was heard and cracks appeared in the ground again. Two gaping holes appeared in the ground. One of them shoot fire into the air.

“There’s our cue,” said Devvin to his companions.

Dammna grinned and pointed toward the cherubs. More cracks were forming underneath them, soon creating another hole. Erebos and his gang flew into the cherubs’ faces. “Have fun in the inferno!” cackled Erebos and his crew before they flew into the column of flames and down below. The ground closed over the portal and the flames disappeared.

Deerie laughed nervously at the frightened cherubs. “Yeah, no sorry guys. I’m afraid your test on Earth has come to an end and…well, yeah there’s only one place to go now.”

“Noooo!” the cherubs cried, huddling together.

To the horror of the cherubs and the elves, the fallen trio was starting to change in appearance. Their white wings turned stiff and black, the last of their feathers falling to the ground. Small leathery bat wings grew in their places. Their white halos cracked and fell to pieces in front of them. Keenie frantically tried to piece hers back together. Collin gasped as he held the pieces in his hooves. The halo pieces stopped glowing, fading to a stony dark gray. Keenie buried her pale face in her hooves…hooves that were now morphing into sharp claws. She screamed out loud as she clawed at her face.

“Lord Michael, do something!” begged Docile. But the archangel stood solemnly in the air, shaking his head.

The cherubs’ teeth soon grew sharp and white, cutting into their tongues and making them bleed. Their outfits changed from cheery pastel colors to bold fiery reds, oranges, pinks and yellows. Cletus clutched his head in pain as two small pointed horns protruded from his ginger head. The other cherubs also cried out, clutching at their newly formed horns stained with blood.

The ground collapsed underneath them, giving way to a deep hole with a reddish light and a portal to Hell between the rock walls. Lucifer’s curious grinning face appeared in the opening.

The cherubs felt themselves being pulled back by a powerful force toward the portal.

“No, no, no, no!” Cletus cried. “This can’t be happening!”

Keenie shouted out prayers to God, begging for his forgiveness. Collin wailed and bawled as he hung onto the grass for dear life.

Docile, Tirred and Timmid raced toward the cherubs.

“There’s no point in rescuing them,” Deerie said, flying in front of them. “Unless you troublemakers want to join them.”

Docile promptly punched the doe in the face before making his way toward the struggling trio.

They each placed their right hand on the cherubs’ foreheads as light shone from their teal hands. Tirred placed his hand on Collin, Timmid’s hand was on Keenie and Docile had his hand on Cletus.

Docile chanted in the Enochian angelic language and said: “I bless each of you with a chance to find the light. No matter where you are, it is hope you’ll never lose sight. You will find one person or more, who’ll help you along the way. And after discovering your true righteousness, you’ll return home someday. By the will of the Lord, so may it be.”

E.L.F. removed their hands and the light faded.

“Bye!” Deerie happily waved toward the cherubs before vanishing through the heavenly portal.

Timmid grabbed Keenie’s hands and pulled with all her might. Keenie’s face turned pale, her yellow dress now torn in the appearance of wildfire. The helm of her dress was red and spiked, her horns now black and curved like those of Charlie’s goat bodyguards. She had black bat wings and a pointed tail. Her wooly hair was red and her eyes were pink and yellow…before they gave off a strange red glow.

Keenie sneered at Timmid, only seeing the red face of Millie laughing at her.

“Get away, you disgusting demon!”

Her voice sounded like her own but more distorted.

“I’m not…” Timmid began but Keenie slapped her in the face before falling with a scream into the portal below.

“Keenie!” cried Collin, briefly staring down at her disappearing form. “I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna die!”

Cletus had horns and black wings as well, though his face took on more of a faint reddish tone. His overalls were red with teeth designs on the pocket. His hair was red and black and darker blushes appeared on his cheeks. His pointed tail was short and red. His eyes had red irises and golden sclera.

He looked at Docile, only seeing Blitzo’s face. He revealed his new grin of sharp white teeth and glowing red eyes. “This isn’t over, I.M.P.!”

Timmid and Tirred pulled with all their might, but Cletus was soon sucked in as well.

Collin glanced at the elves with bloody tears running down his face. His eyes were golden and pink, sometimes glowing red. He had curved goat horns, a pointed tail and black bat wings. His face was almost a tan-red shade and his wooly hair was black. His outfit had changed to a red-orange.

The three elves pulled, Tirred being supported by Docile and Timmid behind him, but Collin stayed in the same spot, his hooves dangling over the chasm.

“Sir!” called Tirred, as the elves were dragged inches closer toward the gap, even as they dug their feet in. “We’re being sucked in!”

“L-let go,” Collin whimpered.

“What?!” asked Tirred.

“You can’t let yourself fall!” Docile cried, tears welling up in his eyes. “We were supposed to save you guys…to help give you another chance…” The elves were almost at the edge.

Collin and the elves stared at each other in the eyes.

Collin took a deep breath as he thought of his friends.

“I-I-I’m sorry…”

With one last wide-eyed look, Collin let go of Tirred’s hands and vanished into the darkness. The elves weren’t getting pulled in anymore, rather they were pushed back a bit. The portal to Hell closed, and the ground in front of the elves sealed back together like nothing had happened.

“Why?” Docile asked Michael, turning around.

“C.H.E.R.U.B. set themselves up for their fate. They gave into their anger and were more focused on defeating their rivals instead of properly interacting with the humans. They still disobeyed the rules thus were sent to Earth to test their faiths. Alas, they gave into their selfish desires of revenge and pursuit of glory. One can now only hope that they'll redeem themselves in Hell…if they even survive that long. As for you three, remember my words of warning.”

Michael rose back into Heaven and vanished.

The three somber elf angels slowly rose up into the air and went through another heavenly portal back to their world. Back in paradise, Docile had never felt more alone. He gazed out at the colorful clouds through a window.

Docile didn’t even look at his coworkers. “Welp, the cherubs wanted to redeem themselves and continue their company, and we couldn’t save them. We failed. Thanks to those freaking diablos, they’re down in Hell now, so it’s a shame. All they wanted was to spread love and joy to the living world. And now, they’re separated from Heaven…potentially forever.”

Tirred grumbled. “Don’t say I told you so, but…I told you so.”

Timmid gave her boss a small hug as the three silently gazed at the clouds and sunlight.

From behind the elves, Sully Sirius did a small grin. He whispered, “Now this would make for a spectacular tragic film, don’t you think?”

Docile glumly turned his head all the way around, while his body stayed in place. “Please leave.” Sully looked at him and screamed in fright.

#helluvaboss #2p #heavenlyboss

3 notes · View notes

trashyswitch · 4 years ago

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Pocket’s New Year Reactions: 2020 Edition!

2020...boy oh boy…

I made this channel on January of 2020. And thank god I did! My blogs and participation in the tickle community, were the only thing keeping me going throughout this year! It was a really hard year but with COVID, I got to meet tons of new people, make so many friends and return to writing fanfics!

I’ve made fanfics for a very long time. 5 years, actually! But I have never felt so invested in my writing than I have this year. In 1 single year, I managed to make a total of 122 fanfictions! This year! And it all ended with my first SCP Foundation-only fanfiction: 049 and the ‘unkillable creature’.

Yup: I have really fallen down the rabbit hole this time…

But to celebrate: I wanted to recap the different fandoms I wrote for this year, the amount of fanfictions I wrote for them, the highest amount of notes I got on a fanfiction and lastly:

...Well, I’ll keep that a surprise.

So: Let’s recap all that happened on Pocket’s New Year Reactions: 2020 Edition!

Let’s a-go!

I’m gonna start off with the fandoms I wrote the least fanfictions for: The Tiny Bundles!

For the very first tiny bundle: I wrote 1 single fanfic for Luigi’s Mansion (3, to be specific).

This was a fanfic about Polterpup and Luigi bonding, as well as Mario showing up near the end. I ended up closing this fandom because as much as I liked this fanfic, I wasn’t really as interested in writing more for it.

For the second tiny bundle: The Animal Crossing Series with 1 fanfic! This fanfic was mostly about Jacksepticeye and Gabsmolders’ Animal Crossing avatars hanging out during the Coronavirus epidemic. I really liked writing for Animal Crossing, and I wanna write more for it. But, I have to come up with more ideas.

For bundle #3: 1 single Markiplier TV fanfic! This fanfic was about Wilford Warfstache, Darkiplier and Yandereplier being a family. This specific fanfic was also based on an AU made by a couple of cosplayers: One of which is no longer on TikTok, sadly. I may write more fanfics in this fandom in the future, but no guarantees…

For #4: I wrote an original work upon request from a friend. This fanfic was about a cute couple who were just being playful and bonding. I sense that I may be writing more original works in the future, but again: we’ll just have to see.

For #5: I have 4 Youtuber Fanfics that involve different fandoms. One of them was written about platonic Septiplier, the second two were on Jelix, and the fourth fanfic (and most recent) was on Unus Annus! UNUS ANNUS! I will definitely be considering writing more Unus Annus. As for any other youtubers: Maybe.

For #6: I have 3 (technically 6) fanfictions written under the SCP Foundation! Though 5 of these fanfics were technically fandom collaborations with Sanders Sides, I did make 1 single SCP Foundation-only fanfic. I do plan on continuing to write more SCP Foundation fanfics. I just don’t know if they’ll stand alone, or if they’ll be collaborations again. We’ll see.

And now onto the 3 top fandoms I wrote for this year:

In at #3: is Five Nights at Freddy’s with 25 fanfictions: I swear: 90% of these are based on the Afton Family in some way or another. I have a problem...I will most likely be writing for FNAF in the future. I still love the fandom, and I still love the lore behind it! Sooo: Upcoming FNAF fanfics!

In at #2: is the Jacksepticeye Power Hour Fandom with 31 fanfictions! I love these guys so much! It’s too bad they were kinda thrown by the wayside by a lot of the viewers...But, I’ll still be working on a couple more fanfics. Specifically The Unexpected Roommate! I LOVE THAT SERIES! I look forward to writing more of it all the time!

And #1...for the most fanfictions written: Is Sanders sides with 59 freaking fanfics! If there's a need for proof that I’m obsessed, then THIS is the proof. But, that’s okay! I love writing fanfics on this series! I will 100% continue to write fanfictions on this series. I love this series to bits, and it’s my most popular series on Tumblr as well!

And now it’s fine for: Highest Notes!

This was the part where you could really tell what fanfictions were loved by fans, and what fanfictions were thrown aside. This is all gonna be taken off Tumblr, since almost all of the fans are on it.

First one that I will proudly show: My Unus Annus fanfic with 43 notes! This fanfic was a HIT the moment it came out! I swear! ‘Ethan and Mark Experience Torture Methods (Feat. Jacksepticeye)’ was a HUGE HIT! But I think the reason everyone loved it so much, was because everyone misses Unus Annus and its relativity on YouTube. I miss it too. Memento Mori, Unus Annus.

Now I will show my top Fnaf Fanfic! Now these were very close...So:

At #3 is ‘The Grumpy Ol’ Bunny’ at 28 notes.

At #2 is a tie between ‘The Suspiciously Strange Night’ and ‘Robot Anatomy Vs. Human Anatomy’ at 36 notes.

And the #1 spot goes to: ‘Jeremy and the Mysterious Robots’ at 37 notes! You’ll see what I do with this fanfic sooner than later…

And now we move on to the top Sanders Sides fanfic! This one had a huge variety of numbers! And boy, it was hard! But worth it!

At #3, we have ‘Snakes Need Tickles Too!’ at 91 notes!

At #2 is ‘The Upside of Hoodies’ (The very first one!) at 153 notes! WOW!

And last but not least, at our #1 spot...we have: ‘Voodoo Duke-craft’ at 196 notes! How in the world- I don’t really know why it got so many notes. But: you’ll see what we do with this one as well, veeeery soon!

And now the surprise you’ve all been waiting to hear about: I’m gonna re-read and react to the two #1 spots!

‘Jeremy and the Mysterious Robots’. I’ve actually re-read this one a couple times throughout the months. I liked re-reading about anxious Jeremy! I definitely wanna write more of Jeremy. He’s an underrated character.

Here we go!

[Jeremy has heard all the rumors.]

Well, I assume he probably did some reading about it before starting there. You should know a bit about a place before you start working there...you don’t wanna end up in a dumpster fire.

[He’s heard the urban legends about the child killer in the animatronic suit, and the children’s deaths. He’s heard about the children’s corpses being shoved into the animatronic suits. He’s heard about the ghosts of the children that haunted each and every diner. He’s heard rumors about the animatronics being alive because of these children. He’s heard multiple ideas of-]

Okay, okay, we get it! He heard rumors about the lore behind Five Nights at Freddy’s. He’s heard about the murders and supernatural stuff. Skip!

[Are any of these urban legends true?

If so: why did Jeremy sign up for a job at the one place that gives people the creeps?!]

Gee...I dunno! Why WOULD you choose to take a security guard job in a place that’s still haunted? Besides: instead of hiring a security guard, why not hire an exorcist? Seems cheaper and you’d actually get a problem fixed! (Or not...we’ve all seen Annabelle…)

[It was the second night of working at this nightmarish party place. All Jeremy wanted was the paycheck at the end of the week. He did NOT sign up for this stupidity…]

Teeeechnically he DID sign up for this stupidity. He didn’t have to take this job. He could’ve waited for more job offers to come up! Even if the Phone Guy had romanticized the risky job, he did warn him that ‘the animatronics get a little quirky at night’...Jeremy could’ve just abandoned ship right then and there and quit!

[Should he have reconsidered taking the job? Maybe.]

Um, HUGE YES!

[Is he regretting taking the job? Somewhat.]

Just somewhat, huh?

[Is Jeremy gonna survive the week? God, he hoped so.]

I hope so too! Spoiler alert: he does.

[Jeremy turned on the iPad and flipped through the cameras. It looked like the party rooms were empty. Next, he checked CAM 05 and CAM 06: empty. Thank goodness. Jeremy looked at the other cameras and found out something strange: camera 11 wasn’t working! It was just showing pure static.]

Okay, here’s some behind the scenes: I had to look up two separate maps for the FNAF 2 location. One with the camera locations, and one of the overall building layout. From that, I had to determine everything for this fanfic. I would later refer to these images for future fanfics as well!

[He realized that what he was gonna do was risky. But…what other choice did he have?]

Um...Don’t go??? That’s a choice.

[Jeremy grabbed his flashlight, and walked out of the office through the small hall towards Pasillo Central.]

“WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?!?!?! WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?! THAT YOUR ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES?!?!” ~SammyClassicSonicFan, vine.

[It took a little bit, but Jeremy managed to find the problem: a black wire was unplugged…]

I actually have no idea if this was the actual confirmed problem in the FNAF series. I just made it up as I went.

[Jeremy’s eyes narrowed in curiousity. Now when did that happen? It was working perfectly fine yesterday. Who unplugged it?]

First off: Curiousity. Curio(u)sity. Do you need any more proof that I’m Canadian? XD

Second off: I actually think camera 11 never actually worked during the game. I don’t quite remember though, so don’t quote me on that.

[Jeremy decided to double check for any miswiring.]

This would prove to be a fatal mistake.

[Suddenly…a couple heavy footsteps could be heard behind the stool, in the gaming room. Jeremy froze in place. Oh god…Is that what he thinks it is?]

“It was at this moment he knew...he fucked up.” ~McCulley Quinn, Vine

[Jeremy could feel the presence of a super tall figure behind him…Jeremy, growing extremely intimidated and anxious, slowly turned himself around to look the animatronic in the face.]

[...The first thing he noticed, was that the animatronic was brown. A chocolate-shade of brown with an orange hue on its belly and inner face.]

I wonder...Just WHO COULD IT BE?

Just kidding. It’s Freddy Fazbear.

[The eyes were open wide, staring at Jeremy with its light blue iris’s.]

Hmm...Hold on-

*aggressive typing noises*

Okay. Just had to double check. He does in fact, have blue iris’s.

[Jeremy just stared back at it, looking at the big bear as the visibly shaky flashlight shone onto it.]

Hehehehe...Anxious boi. Shouldn’t have chosen the haunted job, Jeremy!

[“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” Freddy shouted.]

🎶Do you hear that sound?🎶

[Jeremy shouted-]

🎶That beautiful sound?🎶

[-and threw his flashlight up in terror.]

🎶That is the sound, of, clean, white, shorts turning brown!🎶

🎶TORTURE AND PAIN!🎶

Beautiful Sound - Beetlejuice soundtrack (sorry not sorry)

[Jeremy jumped and quickly attempted to take a few steps back…only for his body to fall much more backwards than he wanted!]

“Nice job, dickface!” ~Anthony, Smosh: Pokemon In Real Life

[“WELCOME EVERYBODY, TO FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA!” the animatronic shouted. “I’M FREDDY FAZBEAR, AND I’D LIKE TO WISH YOU, THE BIRTHDAY BOY, A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” the voice declared very loudly.]

HAHA! That’s not creepy at all! *Michael Jackson moonwalks the fuck outta there*

[Everything went silent for a moment or two. “…Kill you?” the same voice said.]

WhAaAaAaAt?! A TwIsT tHaT eVeRyOnE sAw CoMiNg?! X’D

[“He fell off the stool, and I caught him.” Freddy explained.]

Freddy Fazbear nearly saves Jeremy from a concussion, a skull fracture or a brain bleed!

[“Now that I mention it, he hasn’t thanked me yet.” Freddy mentioned.]

Dude!

[“Oh-um…Thank you…for catching me.” Jeremy finally said.]

Good boy. *pats the man’s head, even though he’s technically older than me*

[“Are you gonna kill me? Shove me into a suit? Leave my dead body to rot inside the suit?!” Jeremy asked, still overwhelmed with anxiety.]

This guy’s gonna need some whiskey after this incident.

[“It looks like Mr. Emily hired another 'daredevil’ night guard. Do you really believe those rumors?” Chica asked.]

In case you didn’t get the twist before: the animatronics are NOT gonna kill him. Why? Because my fluffy ass doesn’t like writing about confirmed death. (At least, not yet...I later write ‘Don’t Release the Spirits’...

[“That’s a big child.” Chica commented.

“He’s grown up. He’s a male, grown up child.” Freddy corrected.]

Another reminder of the obvious: Jeremy is an AdULT in this fanfiction! He is not a ChiiiLD! XD

[“Flip him over.” Chica suggested.

“Okay.” Freddy replied.]

Insert long montage of Jeremy getting flipped over by animatronics who don’t know how to handle humans.

[“Let me go!” Jeremy yelled at Freddy, still pushing against Freddy’s fingers.

“He’s wiggling a lot. Is he having a temper tantrum?” Freddy asked curiously. Chica looked at the squirming, frustrated man in Freddy’s grasp.]

Ha ha funny? Get it? Cause he’s an adult? And he’s being treated like a child?

XD I’m just being silly. I actually found this part fun to write.

[“I think so.” Chica replied. “Try throwing him up in the air and catching him. I’ve seen parents do it. Kids love it!” Chica suggested.

Jeremy’s eyes widened in horror. Was he about to be thrown up like a toddler and caught by an animatronic?!]

Spoiler alert: Yes.

Insert long montage of Jeremy nearly shitting his pants while Freddy Fazbear breaks many laws against mishandling of an adult male, and extreme negligence if he were a child. May we advise that these animatronics are NEVER made in the future.

[By the time the sixth throw and catch had happened, Jeremy was visibly shaking in the arms of the animatronic. Jeremy’s face was visibly traumatized.]

HmMmMm...I wOnDeR wHy?!

[Without any warning, Chica fluttered the finger up and down, on Jeremy’s exposed neck. Jeremy’s body jumped and curled inwards to cover up the spot. A squeal left Jeremy’s mouth before he began flailing his hands towards the finger’s direction to stop it.]

Voila! Tickles! They have finally arrived!

[Jeremy’s eyes widened to the side of saucers! He began protesting as much as possible. “No, please! L-look! I’m feeling a lot better! See? I don’t need tickles!” Jeremy pleaded, putting on a fake smile to prove it.]

Probably any other time, this probably would’ve worked.

[But, Chica was persistent!]

But of course, it doesn’t. Because y’all wanted tickles? You’re getting your tickles!

[“Yeah! You were being a naughty little boy with a really bad attitude. I think you deserve some cheer-up tickles for that.” Freddy added, unintentionally teasing him.]

I think those tickles were a little more intentional than ya thought…

[“What- What are you doing?” Jeremy yelled. Freddy removed the slip-on shoe off of Jeremy’s foot, and let it fall to the floor with a loud clap. “Hey! Put my shoe back!” Jeremy yelled.]

But why would they do that, when they clearly wanna tickle your feet?

[“Here: Your turn to hold him.” Freddy said, before throwing Jeremy old-granny style over to Chica.]

UH…

[Jeremy was NOT ready for that. No human should ever be ready for being thrown like that! It’s impossible usually. But if it IS possible, It’s always frowned upon for being inhumane! But, why should animatronics know that?]

It’s kinda nice that Jeremy is making up for the fact that all the animatronics share 2 brain cells. But these animatronics could’ve SHATTERED BONES. When is that EVER considered okay?!

[Freddy tilted his head. “You don’t like my cold fingers?” Freddy clarified.

“IHIHIHIT’S COHOHOHOHOLD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Jeremy reacted.

“Oh. Well I’m sorry, but I can’t help that! You’re gonna have to sit tight and get used to my cold, fat fingers.” Freddy teased.]

Basically what happened:

Jeremy: “KEEP YOUR HANDS FROM ANTARCTIC AWAY FROM MY FEET!”

Freddy: “Not happening! Suffer, you ticklish piece of shit!”

[Somewhere in the room, a quiet music box tune could be heard, twinkling in the background.]

GUESS WHO’S BACK! BACK AGAIN!

[THE MUSIC BOX! MARIONETTE! HE’S ESCAPED THE MUSIC BOX!]

MARIONETTE’S BACK! BACK AGAIN!

[Was he gonna die? Was the marionette gonna kill him? Was the camera going to record is very last moments? Were people gonna watch the camera to figure out how he died?…Would they blame his death on bad decisions? What would happen to his body?! WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?! JEREMY DEMANDED TO KNOW!]

[This is it…he’s gonna die…He’s gonna be found in a few hours, ripped apart on the floor…He could guarantee it.]

Anxiety in a nutshell.

[This animatronic isn’t cold. It’s covered in some kind of fur-like fabric.]

This was actually confirmed on the FNAF wiki fanpage. Marionette’s fingers are covered in fur fabric.

And now Jeremy’s gonna get ultimately tortured by Marionette’s 3 fingers on his feet. May his soul rest in peace.

[Then…Marionette did something only Satan himself would be capable of: Marionette pulled a couple of Jeremy’s toes back, and began scratching the more exposed spaces underneath the deathly ticklish toes.]

*looks at a watch* ...How the fuck is he not dead from asphyxiation? He’s been getting tickled heavily for at least an hour. He should be passing out.

[Jeremy was cackling like a mad man. The poor guy was losing energy rather quickly. His pushing and squirming had began to slow, and tears had started forming in his eyes.]

See? It’s about time.

[Not to be confused with tears of pain, of course.]

Wait, what?

[This wasn’t painful for Jeremy. Though this kind of fighting presents itself with a few cons, It wasn’t torturous either. It was…strangely playful. It sort of reminded Jeremy of the stories his friends would tell him, of the tickle fights they had with their siblings growing up. Some tickle fights were pure playfulness, other tickle fights were slightly torturous. But in the end, they still loved each other.]

...Well, go figure.

[Was Jeremy beginning to like the animatronics? Not intimate of course, but…Was Jeremy beginning to appreciate the animatronics’ tickling? Surely not! That’s absurd!…unless…]

Go figure. Yup. Gotta make sure it’s somewhat enjoyable so the reader can enjoy it without feeling bad! Cause that’s how I write.

[“Oh Cohohohome ohohohon! IHIHIHI THOHOHOHOUGHT YOHOHOHOU WEHEHERE DOHOHONE!” Jeremy yelled as his laughter grew louder. Marionette had reached its fingers into Jeremy’s armpit, and began scratching lightly.

“Your laugh is very fun to hear! I wanna hear more of it!” Freddy explained.]

Of course, you have to add a comment about liking the person’s laughter! Cause that’s always important!

[So, Jeremy gave them a nod to proceed. Then, Jeremy abrupted into brand new fits of laughter! How long was Jeremy gonna be like this? Who know? Jeremy didn’t care. Not one bit…]

Aaaaand that’s the end!

A little predictable, but still fun to read. Jeremy is still my favorite character in this fanfic.

And now, we’re onto the next re-reading!

Voodoo Duke-Craft! I’m proud of this one! I was happy to finally be able to come up with a fanfic idea involving voodoo dolls, and this was the first one! And EVERYONE LOVED IT! I swear, I’m not kidding! 196 notes says a lot!

So, here we go!

[Remus came to the front of the yellow and black room, and knocked on the door. As he patiently waited for the door to open, Remus looked down at the liquid-free blood bag with the doll laying upside down in the bag.]

Hehehehe! I like the idea that Remus holds his things in a blood bag-turned purse. XD

[The door finally opened. As he predicted, it was Deceit.]

This entire fanfiction is gonna involve Janus being called Deceit. Why? Because Deceit’s name hadn’t canonically come out yet! And this fanfiction came out long before the name reveal episode.

[Remus happily comes into the yellow-colored room, lined with snakes, Law and Order posters and Judge Judy posters.]

Because...Selfishness Vs. Selflessness! And law!

[Despite the doll coming from Remus, the doll appeared to be really well made!]

That’s a compliment!

[Deceit looked up from the doll. “And you’re positive this thing actually works?” Deceit asked.

“Yup! Positive. I tried it on myself before giving it to you, as you can see-” Remus said as he pointed at the green heart on the voodoo doll. “You can try it too, if you want.” Remus suggested.]

Remus: “I already tried it on myself, so you don’t need proof to show it works.”

Also Remus: “...But if you don’t believe me, I suppose you could try it on me...just to see…”

[“I suppose this works really well. I will use this voodoo doll to my advantage. Thank you, Remus.” Deceit said with a grin.]

...You SUPPOSE? You just tickled the man till he belly flopped the floor! Of COURSE it works!

[With everything in place, Deceit was ready to start tormenting the other sides. He left his room and closed the door, allowing Remus to process the mistake he’d made in his room.]

I doubt Remus would consider giving Janus a voodoo doll, a ‘mistake’. More like ‘the most evil idea ever’!

[Deceit walked around, looking for potential contenders. While walking down the hall, Deceit gazed his eyes upon a light blue-clothed figure. Recognizing who it was, Deceit his behind a wall and grabbed the light blue heart out of his pocket.]

Oh boy! It’s Patton first!

[Now, if it truly worked, Patton should be bonded with the voodoo doll. Just as a test, Deceit gave Patton’s neck a little flutter with his finger.

From a few feet into the living room, Patton let out a yelp of surprise.]

Huzzah! It works! Turns out putting a fabric heart onto a voodoo doll, will hook Patton up to the doll and make him feel everything that touches the doll’s head. Becaaaause MAGIC!

[Deceit began tickling the sides of the doll’s neck, fluttering his index finger on both sides of the neck one side at a time. Right side, left side. Right side, left side…

Patton squealed as his back fell onto the couch. “EEEEHehehehehehehe!” Patton giggled more, flapping his hands absolutely everywhere around his head.]

Oh NO! I could sense that! Nope nope nope nope NOPE.

[To make things feel a little better, Deceit turned the doll around and gave it a hug.

Patton smiled as he felt physically hugged by an invisible pair of arms. It felt so warm and snug. Like being held by a security blanket.]

Awwww! This part has always been a personal favorite part due to how loving it is. It’s times like these that make me wish I had a voodoo doll…

[Deceit allowed his mouth to morph into a toothy smile as he moved his tickly fingers over to the sides of the doll’s belly.]

You can just TELL he’s enjoying the hell outta this! #Janusisbestler2021

[Deceit’s mischief had just left him at this point. Deceit was actually really enjoying making Patton laugh like this. He was keeping it a mystery, sure, but it was really fun seeing Patton laugh and squirm on the couch.]

...Doesn’t everyone feel that with Patton? Or am I the only one? I probably am. I find that BILLIONS of fans LOVE seeing Virgil’s reactions. And Patton’s been fulfilling all the fans’ needs! So...yeah. I would love to tickle Patton! And I would love to be the tickle monster’s pray. Hehe ^w^

[As he hugged the doll, Deceit watched as Patton practically melted into the touch. It was here, that Deceit discovered something new about Patton: He’s touch-starved. If he were used to touch, Patton would be eventually squirming for him to let go. But, Patton was perfectly comfortable with being cuddled.]

I actually forgot I added that little fact in here! This is the most realistic fact I have ever seen in my life.

[If Deceit didn’t have anything to do, he would’ve definitely stayed to hug Patton for a lot longer.]

It’s sure a shame that Janus had 4 other sides to tickle.

[But, he had things to do.]

See? Poor man’s busy experimenting with the ultimate tickle toy that beats the Tickle Me Elmo by a landslide.

[Deceit hid in the room across from the red-doored room. The room belonged to Roman, who was admiring himself in the mirror. Deceit rolled his eyes, but smiled as he pulled out the red felt heart.]

Would you believe I’ve forgotten the order at this point? Maybe now was a good time to re-read it! I’m losing my memory. XD

[A couple seconds later, the red heart fabric began glowing. This meant that the heart was now fully bonded with Roman!]

Still don’t quite know how fabric glows, but whatever. Screw logic!

[Roman - who had been posing in the mirror with his arm up behind his head - squealed and slammed his arm down as he bursted into laughter.]

Aaah, yes: the classic ‘surprise armpit tickle when the arms are up’ trick. But, with a twist! I’m surprised he didn’t fall!

[Deceit giggled and tried tickling two spots at once: the doll’s left armpit and the doll’s right foot. Roman’s eyes practically bulged out of his skull. Roman fell backwards onto the ground, and rolled around manically.]

Oop- aaaand he’s down.

[Roman was freaking out. Thank god no one was seeing this! How would anyone react to him screaming in laughter at nothing, and rolling around like a wiggle worm?! He would NEVER be able to live that down!]

*sniffles* Here lies Roman’s pride and confidence. It will forever be missed.

[Deceit decided to listen to him and lessen the tickles dramatically. Deceit removed his fingers and decided to try a different tickle spot that Remus shared with Roman: the thighs.]

Remus would definitely do this.

[Deceit covered his mouth to silently giggle, before adding a second finger to the doll’s thigh. Roman let go of his knees and allowed himself to kick his legs as he rolled around and covered his face with his hands.]

Awww! De widdle bean is getting embawwassed! How adowable! OwO

[Deceit soaked up as much of Roman’s giggles as he could, before moving onto the left thigh.]

#Janusisasponge

[Despite one’s belief with soft tickles, Roman’s giggles didn’t die down! In fact, they almost got a little louder! Deceit’s very light fingernail tickles were almost teasy in a way! This made Roman’s face heat up in embarrassment.

“Plehehehehease! Ihihihi cahahahahan’t tahahahahake ihihihit! Ihihihit’s sohohoho ticklyhy, and ihihihit’s wohohohohorse thahahat Ihihihi cahahahan’t seehehehehe whehehehere yohohou’ll strihihihike nehehext!” Roman explained through his never ending giggles.]

Soft tickles can sometimes kill quicker than hard tickles.

[Deceit raised an eyebrow. ‘worse when you can’t see’? Now, Deceit was really intrigued.]

It’s called ‘blindfolded tickles’ with a twist. Aka: ‘you’re worse than SATAN HIMSELF’.

And now Janus is gonna start constantly switching spots, to show Roman’s variety in his voice. As if we don’t hear enough melody variety from his singing. XD

[His laughter would die down into giggles for a while, before growing into even MORE laughter! It was so strange and unpredictable! Whoever this was, was EVIL and should be given PUNISHMENT for such cruel tickle tactics!]

Anyone else agree with this?

*sees a sea of people in and out of the tickle community*

Okay.

Roman is given time to breathe, he’s hugged by Janus and Janus moves onto the next victim.

[After going up the stairs, Deceit came across Virgil’s room.]

We’re literally given the name of who it is this time. No clothing guesses here! Just immediate names.

[Now: Knowing Virgil most of his life, Deceit knew that these tickles needed to be tame and calming all at once. He couldn’t go hard on him at all, or else he will really regret it. Even though he could easily get away with it using the Voodoo doll tactic, he still wanted to make him happy, not make him feel miserable.]

Janus secretly has a soft spot for Virgil because he is a former dark side.

[Virgil gasped and bursted into giggles. “Eehehehehe! Gehehehet ohohout ohohohohof thehehere!” Virgil begged. Virgil zipped off his jacket and lifted up his shirt…Funny…No bugs? Were they invisible? Virgil felt around his belly and found that his belly was as bare as can be!]

I guess the voodoo doll tactic can be quite...deceiving! HA!

Why am I like this…it didn’t even make sense.

[It didn’t take long for his energy to come back thankfully, due to how easy Deceit was on him. Virgil sighed with a smile, and grabbed his headphones to place them on his head. But, just as he put his headphones on, a fluttery feeling started up on Virgil’s ear!]

...I actually completely forgot I chose ear tickles for this part! Talk about a renewed experience!

[Deceit’s smirk got larger as he tickled the different parts of Virgil’s ears. The back of the ears, the front of the ear, the top of the ear flap itself, and even the bit of skull behind the ear was really ticklish! Virgil was giggling madly, shaking his head back and forth and kicking his legs. He was so confused! How were his ears being tickled right now?! Was it some kind of witchcraft?!]

Wow! How did Virgil know?! How did he guess it was witchcraft?!

[Virgil just didn’t understand. And, to make matters worse, he couldn’t properly think with his ears being tickled and teased!

Deceit actually planned it that way. He knew that too many physical distractions would stop his spiraling head. This was for the best.]

Janus is actually very understanding and loving to Virgil, which is very nice to see! I should write more Virgil & Janus moments like this.

[Virgil gasped and suddenly smiled when he felt the feeling of a nice warm hug surrounding him. Virgil didn’t fully understand where the hug-feeling was coming from, but it was enjoyable! Virgil happily snuggled into his bed and cuddled himself into the invisible hug.]

Everyone deserves a nice long hug sometimes. And all the time, depending on the person!

[Oh boy! Deceit was REALLY excited for this session. Logan is known for showing very little emotion, so finding Logan’s ticklish spots and getting him to laugh could be a game-changer!]

Lee Logan be like:

‘shows no emotion. Therefore; laughter is more rewarding when tickled long enough.’

[After a few minutes of quiet looking, Deceit soon found a book on the very subject he was looking for: voodoo magic.]

Because of COURSE Logan has a book on voodoo magic! And this isn’t sarcasm this time! This is genuine! Logan would definitely have a book on voodoo magic in there!

[The Voodoo Doll Spellbook: A Compendium of Ancient Contemporary Spells and Rituals]

This is actually a book I found online! You can buy this book for $32 on Amazon!

[When it was 100% bonded, Deceit started off small. He placed his fingernail onto the shoulder of the doll, and drew a line down to the outside of the elbow and down to the doll’s stump at the bottom, before removing the fingernail.]

[...Logan paused his reading and looked at his arm. Logan examined it, and discovered a potential fear of his had come true: He’s bonded to a voodoo doll! How did- Who in the world has a voodoo doll of HIM?! And WHY?!]

Hahaha! That moment when you’re reading a book about voodoo, then you feel voodoo magic being done on you? That’s not creepy at all! A nOrMaL oCcUrAnCe!

[A large squeak left his mouth as he just collapsed onto the floor in mad giggles. Deceit watched as Logan’s emotionless demeanor just crumbled, and allowed his to fall into such an adorable state only a lean nerd could fall into.]

Presenting, Logan in a nutshell.

[Deceit liked seeing this reaction. It was kinda cute! So, Deceit kicked it up a notch! He placed his pinky finger onto the black button and began drawing circles around the outside of the black button on the doll.]

Janus is just having a jolly ol’ time! He should be a tickle monster more often!

[“Uuh-…Please! That’s my worst spot! I’m begging you!” Logan begged. Deceit lifted an eyebrow. If Deceit wouldn’t have known better, it would’ve sounded like Logan WANTED to be tickled on his hips! So, Deceit did the one thing he 'begged’ for: He squeezed Logan’s hip. “No! NO! NOOHOHOHOHO! HAHAHAHAHAHA! IHIHIHI SAHAHAHAID PLEHEHEHEHEASE! DIHIHIHIDN’T IHIHI?!” Logan asked.]

Janus being a little shit in 5 minutes or less. Also, when does please EVER work?!

[It was here, that Deceit decided to walk out from behind the book shelves and in front of Logan.]

Voila: the big reveal! Janus was behind the voodoo witchcraft all along!

[“Deceit?! What are you do-” Logan started, before pausing his sentence as he noticed the item in his hand. “…You!” Logan reacted, jumping up to confront him. “YOU’RE the one with the voodoo doll!” Logan confronted.]

...Bro...that was so slow. At this rate, Jim Carrey could determine it was Janus before you could!

[“Indeed I am. Are you surprised?” Deceit asked.

Logan put a hand in his pocket. “Yes…I suppose I am. I can see the chances of Remus using this, as much more likely than seeing you with the doll. Then again though…You are capable of manipulation…” Logan explained.

“Manipulation? Don’t you mean…” Deceit started, before lifting up the doll and his finger. “…exposing the truth?” Deceit corrected, ready to tickle Logan when needed.]

oooOOOOH! I can sense the tension! The idea that someone is holding information about your weakness, and is ready to exploit it at any point?! HOLY CRAP!

[Logan’s face visibly morphed into fear. He clenched his teeth nervously.]

See? Even Logan’s unnerved!

[Logan resorted to his usual monotone act. “What…is there to understand? I don’t laugh.” Logan explained.]

Why the fuck you lyin’? Why you always lyin’? MmmmOh ma gahd, stop fuckin’ LYYYIN’!

~Nicholas Fraser, Vine

[“Oh, NOW you cover up your laugh. Let me not remind you that a few seconds ago, you were freely giggling and rolling on the floor.” Deceit reminded. Logan’s eyes widened in fear and shock. He SAW THAT?! OH SHIT!]

Mm hmm, Yes. He did in fact see that. And now you are what the virgins would say: Fucked.

[Logan, growing angry at the dominance Deceit had created over the logical side, Logan ran and attempted to grab the doll right out of his hand. But nope! Deceit dodged it and squeezed Logan’s hip as he ran backwards away from the angry side. Not expecting his hips to be attacked so abruptly, Logan made a whining sound and doubled over desperately.]

..Well that happened. Tried and failed. #1.

[“Not a bad attempt. But, you’re gonna have to try a little harder, in order to get this thing out of my hands.” Deceit warned.

Logan attempted to glare at the evil side, but the glare quickly failed him as the doll’s belly button AND hip was attacked at the same time. Logan let out a muffled yelp and fell onto the ground.

“Interesting: Despite your logical nature, you seemed to believe that 'giving me a glare while I’m using voodoo magic on you’, will help you in any manner. Yet: it doesn’t.” Deceit teased logically...]

...Shit dude! I guess Janus is now the new Logan!

[Logan squeezed his eyes shut and helplessly began to let titters out of his mouth. “See? You’re beginning to break now. It’s probably because I’m using an illogical strategy to get you to laugh. No matter how much you laugh, you will never be able to truly understand: Why does a person laugh when they’re tickled? And, where does it come from?” Deceit proceeded to tease in a logical matter.]

Why are mice ticklish? Why does the world spin round? And one thing I will never know the workings behind: Where do babies come from?

[Logan’s pent up laughter pretty quickly turned into his regular giggles.

“Wow! 2 minutes and 30 seconds! Impressive! Yet, at the same time: unimpressive.” Deceit reacted.]

*crawls under about 10 different blankets and flips off Janus*

[“How, you ask? Well, that’s simple really: You happened to be born with a collection of nerve ending around multiple spots. But, to narrow it down: your hips-” Deceit squeezed his hips. “your belly button-” Deceit booped his belly button with his pinky. “and…” Deceit said with a smirk, before placing his fluttering fingers onto the doll’s inner part of the upper leg. “…Your thighs.” Deceit concluded.]

*screams out of my blanket burrito* “STOP TURNING INTO SHERLOCK HOLMES!”

[Logan couldn’t help his reaction at all! He couldn’t change it either! Logan’s cheeks, against all circumstances, had turned a light red hue! He was blushing! Deceit couldn’t believe his eyes! “Do my eyes deceive me?! Is the logical side…blushing?” Deceit asked.]

*starts slowly going into a lee mood because of JANUS DECEIT SANDERS!*

[Deceit tilted his head as he tried something. Deceit tried fluttering his fingers on the jawline and the back of Logan’s ear…Just to see how he’d react.

Surprisingly, Logan’s giggles heightened slightly as he curled into the strange, but comfortable touch. It was almost a melting spot for Logan. How cute!

“It would seem that Logan has something that everyone lacks according to my knowledge: A melting spot. You, Logan, are capable of melting into a certain ticklish spot…Almost as if you like it. Do you like it?” Logan explained.]

MMMMMMMmmmm why tf is this so CUTE?!

[Logan didn’t want to answer that question. He was NEVER going to answer such an embarrassing question!

Though…Logan’s reputation had been left in tatters minutes before this…so…it wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Fihihihine…Ihihi lihihihike ihihit…” Logan admitted.

Deceit smirked. “I knew it!” he reacted, still giving Logan’s ears ticklish, cute little treatment.]

Awwwwwwwwww!!!!!

[“Hey! Give that back!” Deceit yelled. Logan looked down at it, and smirked. It was a yellow felt heart. Deceit’s bonding heart…]

Oooooh...I forgot about this part! I actually forgot just how long this fanfiction was.

[With the voodoo doll in his hand and the yellow heart in his other hand, Logan could get Deceit back. Only…one problem:

“How does this doll work? Do I have to clip the heart onto the…black square where the heart location appears to be?” Logan asked.]

Congrats! You’ve gotten this far. But now, please let us interrupt your much-wanted tickles with some ‘I don’t know how this works’ kinda humor. Pocket’s fanfictions everybody: A place where filler is expected. XD

[Logan decided to test it. He lifted up his finger, and tried dragging a fingernail down the doll’s right, scaly side. Deceit gasped and hugged his side, showing off a wobbly smile and curling in a little.

“Fascinating…” Logan reacted. Deceit looked up and watched in horror as Logan squeezed up and down the doll’s side. Deceit squealed through his toothy smile and let out a few high-pitched giggles.]

Awwww yeah! REVEEEEENGE!

[“You know: For an intimidating and sneaky side, you have a very high-pitched giggle.” Logan reacted. Deceit only squealed in reply and continued to curl himself further. “How cruel of me…using such a powerful piece of black magic, for such a simple little reason. kinda makes you regret your previous actions…doesn’t it Deceit?” Logan continued to tease.]

*claps proudly*

Ladies and gentlemen: John motherfucking Watson!

[“There we go! That wasn’t so hard. Was it?” Logan asked.

“YOHOHOU’RE SOHOHOHO DEHEHEHEAD!” Deceit yelled through his strong and overpowering laughter.]

Woooow...Revenge seems pretty sweet!

[“Oh, alright. I suppose I can give you a break from the feet.” Logan compromised and removed his fingers. Deceit happily took the break and tried to replace as much oxygen as he could through his body.

But, Logan wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.]

No sir! No sir-ee bob!

[Deceit got stuck in Logan’s ticklish wonders for a good 30 minutes. Deceit was completely warn out from all the tickles. Which, how was that fair! Deceit had treated the others really well! Why did HE get the rough tickles?! Well, that’s simple:

What goes around, always comes around…ESPECIALLY if it’s a snake’s doing…]

Aaaaand that’s all folks!

I gotta admit: I loved that. I can see why the fanfic got so much recognition! It was long, it was SUPER TEASY, it was EVIL, and it was fun! I had fun!

I have to now sign off and spend the next hour with my family. I wish you all a wonder 2021! And may we all leave 2020 behind!

#newyear2020

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kingsten · 4 years ago

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CELINE: So often in my life I’ve been with people and shared beautiful moments like traveling or staying up all night and watching the sunrise, and I knew it was a special moment, but something was always wrong. (...) But I’m happy to be with you. You couldn’t possibly know why a night like this is so important to my life right now, but it is. I think this is a great morning.

JESSE: It is a great morning. Do you think we’d have other mornings like this?

@cir ——— 14.) The timeline in which they took a chance they didn’t in canon.

Brian traces the silver band on Peter’s ring finger.

It’s an unpretentious piece of vintage work with an engraving of a mostly worn away rose. Peter shifts, pouting even in his sleep from the sunlight hitting his face. Brian watches quietly, curious of what Peter’s reaction will be when he wakes up. Brian can hardly remember most of what transpired the night prior but it’s coming back to him in hazy fragments but mainly the crumpled 77$ receipt from a wedding venue with their vows messily scrawled out on the back is the main indicator that last night was not a dream.

Peter, after sleeping in for a few more minutes stirs again. He groans, rubs his eyes with his hands then freezes in that position. Brian holds his breath as Peter pulls his hand away to inspect the cold metal while still half asleep, half hangover. It takes a minute for the significance to register then his eyes cut suddenly to Brian who holds up his own hand to show off the near identical ring on his own hand.

———

“We met at a party” Peter states but Brian shakes his head. “or it was the cafe?”

“I think it was in that one class— remember?” At least that’s when he thinks is the first time he saw Peter. “Business fourteen something. I showed up for three classes but couldn’t understand french so I dipped.” Jae’s eyes roll so hard the wired frames slip down to the bridge of his nose and he slides them back up. “I don’t care about how you met I just want to know why you got married? Who the fuck gets married after knowing each other half a year?”

“Actually, we’ve known each other five months and a half. I know because we met after Peter’s birthday and— ” Jae and Peter both give Brian a hard look and his voice falls but he finishes his thought. “and It’s...uh, now... december.” then sits back in his chair. Jae holds the look longer than Peter before he turns back to his cousin and shakes his head. “RIP to your taxes.... have you even told your mom yet?” It’s a valid question and Brian’s ears perk up though he doesn’t expect that he has given Brian hasn’t mentioned it to his own parents either.

It’s a bridge they’ll cross once they get to it.

Now, regardless of the time and date of their technical first meeting. Brian likes to think that their official meeting was in the metro, while waiting for the last train to come. He remembers this clearly because it was the first time he’d seen Peter outside of the cafe or rather, to be more specific, without a laptop in front of his nose. Sure, even in this case it was tucked safely beneath his arm to be opened on the chance that there’s a free seat available.

“What are you always working on?” Brian asks, sitting down without invitation in the seat across from Peter. The fact Peter is distracted enough by the question to leave his laptop closed is a small victory in Brian’s book.

“Excuse me?”

Brian is used to Peter’s blunt speech. In the cafe he quietly says his order then goes back to being silent unless he’s on a business call. The lonewolf silent type is kinda Peter’s thing even when in the midst of a group of coworkers. But there’s something about him that catches Brian’s attention and he’s been working slowly to chip away at that outer exterior by bringing him extra sweets on the side in an effort to get to that other side of Peter that Brian’s yet to see but knows is there. And tonight he’s got a few minutes to kill. They’re not exactly strangers— at least not by Brian’s definition. They both have a few stops before they part ways. What better time than now? “Are you a business man? My dad is always working on finance stuff on his laptop too.” Peter remains silent. Brian takes it as his sign to continue. “He owns a shop. A cafe bookshop in Jersey.”

“So you are American.” Peter speaks up and it catches Brian by surprise. “I thought you might be Canadian.”

The fact Peter thought about him makes Brian grin a little before he nods.

That’s the subject that breaks the ice and gets them to talk, so much so that Brian misses his stop but pretends that he’s getting off at the same station as Peter where they both get off then talk even more. Brian’s able to draw out interesting thoughts and commentary from Peter and vice versa. Things like what Peter does on his laptop to discussing their biggest fears, observations of their surroundings and their shared experiences of being only children are brought up. They even touch on the topic of love and how it impacted Brian’s recent breakup and Peter’s long past break up.

It’s in the middle of that that his phone vibrates, cutting them both off mid-sentence.

“Oh, I’ve kept you for too long.” Peter says apologetically as he glances around their surroundings, uncertain of what time it is but Brian shakes his head. “Honestly, I could’ve stayed on that subway until...forever. I like talking to you.” He says before taking another glance at his phone. “It’s just. There’s this thing I promised a friend that I’d— “

“It’s ok.” Peter interrupts. “It’s late and we should both head home.”

Brian nods. “Yeah. I’m sorry for interrupting your evening. I know you said that you had work to do and God, It’s so late— I’m sure you haven’t eaten yet.”

“No, no, no it’s alright. I don’t eat after 7.”

“Is that like a french culture thing?” Brian asks, curious. He doesn’t get it but he can begrudgingly respect it. It tells him Peter’s very disciplined or likes schedules which he could’ve guessed. Peter laughs, and it still strikes Brian how much his whole face changes with it even as he shakes his head. “Doesn’t everyone do that?” Peter replies, eyes still warm. Brian almost forgets to answer the question. After a beat he finds his words. “Oh,uh, I sometimes wake up at like 2 AM to make ramyeon. Don’t tell my roommates but it’s the only time i don’t have to share with them.”

“You should get going then. Is it your roommates wanting to know where you are?” Peter comments, nodding to Brian’s hand when the phone goes off repeatedly. “It’s the group chat. Nothing important.”

Just Jae asking where the fuck is Brian. Kate wondering why the hell hasn’t Brian shown up yet. Angelina wondering when more drinks are coming and the inevitable: who is going to kick these people out of the house after their social filters take a nosedive after the clock strikes midnight in, roughly an hour to thirty minutes.

Yet, Brian is still hesitant to say goodbye. Peter doesn’t move either and it’s almost as if he’s waiting for Brian to make the first move to end their time together.

“So there’s this party over at my place tonight. I — I say that like it’s not going on right now but you should come over and we can have a few drinks, talk about uh what did you say you’re reading Fred....?”

“Friedrich Nietzsche.”

“Wait, like, for fun?” Brian has to take a minute to let that information sink in and almost reconsiders his previous invitation because frankly he can’t think of anything more boring than Nietzshe. Peter shifts his weight, waiting for Brian to get back to the point. ”Ok, maybe we won’t talk about that but do you want to go? I’m sure by now you’ve figured out I’m not a psycho.”

"What if I am?” Peter smirks. Brian gives him a once over, standing back like he’s truly considering the possibility then leans in close, too close. “I don’t know what if I’m into that?” Peter grows quiet again, blinking a few times and uncertain of what Brian’s about to do before the other leans away again.

“Come to the party with me.” Brian turns up the charm voice low, warm and inviting. ”It’ll be fun.” Peter knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s clear by now that he’s hinting for him to at least stay the night. He could say no, tell him that he’s not interested in parties but then he gives a small nod and the rest of the night moves in a blur. That tends to happen when Brian is involved. Time seems to blur from one minute to the next in the way that:

One minute they’re in the park, then the vague familiarity of Brian’s place — loud music, flashing lights, pushed closer by a crowd of dancing people. And a few drinks in it’s Peter who breaks the tension between them and throws caution to the wind when he kisses Brian.

Time and everything else moves entirely too fast after that. Some days they both have to take a seat and remind themselves that it’s ok to go slow, but it’s hard when the clock is ticking down and they both know Brian graduates in December and after that? Where do they stand?

Six months after their chat on the subway they wake up in some shit hotel in Vegas. Bed hair, hung over, admiring the vintage silver on their ring fingers together that Brian picked up for cheap in a pawnshop in L.A. Peter, who always finds ways to surprise Brian is more calm than he anticipated. Brian takes advantage of the slowing in time to make Peter laugh just to see his face transform in that way that made him infatuated before they move onto the next chapter.

It is the start of many good mornings.

#cir #i got the idea for this randomly #obv based of before sunrise but i wanted to write you fluff since i haven't written fluff for them in so long #idk why i just love the idea of them getting hitched in vegas during a road trip or something right before brian is supposed to graduate and #go back to margate in the canon timeline #and they just move fast but like fall in love just as fast

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vocalfriespod · 5 years ago

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Bilingualism is. It just is. Transcript

Megan Figueroa: Hi, and welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, a podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa. How you doing there, Carrie?

Carrie Gillon: Better today. Yesterday was rough. I mean, I’m pretty convinced that I have COVID, even though I have not been tested because I’m not sick enough to get tested. I don’t wanna walk around and infect other people unless I absolutely have to go to the hospital.

Megan Figueroa: Right.

Carrie Gillon: It’s been pretty mild. Then, yesterday, you and I had this awesome conversation with two guests – it’s gonna be in six weeks, probably – and it was an amazing conversation. But then afterwards I had lunch and then I just crashed, and I got much sicker, and I’m like, “Ugh!”

Megan Figueroa: You exert yourself and then there you go and get it.

Carrie Gillon: And exerting myself was just conversation. It’s just – oh, man. It just depressed me.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I have heard that a lot of people, they describe not being able to do any sort of task because it’s just too much. I’m like, “Oof.” I mean, that kind of sounds like the flu but in the way that people are describing it, it sounds like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

Carrie Gillon: For me, whatever this is, it is not the flu because all it did at first was just attack my lungs. I felt like they were on fire. Then, it was just more tight and I had some fatigue but not like flu fatigue. It’s just – I dunno. It’s very different.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, in better news, we have an email from, let’s see, I think it’s /silʌm/. So, “Hi. Big fan of the podcast. I was actually planning to send a message just last week to ask if you had any plans to do an episode about names, so I was really excited when I saw the title of the newest episode.” By the way, we got this email a while ago, and I meant to read it on the last episode and just plum forgot. That’s why it’s a little bit delayed.

“They’re something I’ve always been interested in and I wanted to share some things about my name(s) in case you found it interesting. I’m Chinese Canadian, Cantonese and Hakka specifically, and like many others, I grew up with a ‘Western name’ that I used in everyday life and Chinese ones that I use with my family. My name is pronounced super differently in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Hakka.” I’m not even gonna try because it involves tones and I really suck at tones. Anyway, there’s three different pronunciations.

“I’d been thinking about ditching the Western name for a while, especially since coming out as agender, since it’s very gendered and my Chinese name is gender neutral. I was hesitant because I didn’t know which Chinese name to use and I wasn’t really used to hearing non-Chinese speakers pronounce any of them. It’s a bit silly but seeing Hasan Minhaj correct everyone’s pronunciation of his name and seeing people reacting” – I think – “positively to that gave me a confidence boost and I’ve been using my Cantonese name full time for most of the last year. People have been pretty good about pronouncing it, although it took me a while to get used to hearing it without the tones.” Exactly! We’re not good at tones most of us who –

Megan Figueroa: Who didn’t grow up with it.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, especially each tonal language is different too, right, so even if you speak a tonal language, you’re still gonna have to learn a whole new system. However, if you don’t grow up with it at all, it’s just really hard. “I went back and forth on the spelling between S-E-E and S-I for the first syllable and L-A-M and L-U-M for the second, but I think I’ve ultimately settled on S-I-L-U-M, although I’ve only been using this spelling for a couple months so I’ll let you know if I change it.” It’s fun. I love it.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, my gosh. I feel so happy that someone would share that with us. Thank you so much.

Carrie Gillon: There’s a lot more, but I think that’s the gist of it. That’s really great! We need to talk to people who are speakers of any of the Chinese languages. Silum mentions, for example, that people often haven’t heard of Hakka before, which is true. Most people haven’t. I only have because I’m a linguist.

Megan Figueroa: Right. And I haven’t at all and I’m a linguist.

Carrie Gillon: I’m also from an area with a lot more – I don’t know if this person is from Vancouver area, but there’s a lot of people from China in the Vancouver area. You do encounter more things. But they mention a language that I have never heard of before – Teochew? I’m not even sure how to pronounce it. There’s lot of Chinese languages and we’d love to talk with them.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. We wanna talk to everyone.

Carrie Gillon: There’s too many things.

Megan Figueroa: Consider this your invitation if people wanna reach out because there’re so many areas that we have not yet touched at all. Again, another reason why I feel so happy that they would share that with us because, yeah, learned a few things and then I get to hear something very personal about a listener. Awesome. That name episode was fun. It’s good to think back onto to it.

Carrie Gillon: Yes.

Megan Figueroa: Speaking of names –

Carrie Gillon: Ugh! Oh, god.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I mean, I hate to say it out loud to give it any sort of –

Carrie Gillon: I know, but you have to say it out loud to address it, sadly.

Megan Figueroa: So, “Chinese Virus” – [sighs] words matter.

Carrie Gillon: My favorite thing is that he’s like, “Well, we call it ‘Lyme Disease’” – how many people know that Lyme is a place?

Megan Figueroa: Yeah, I didn’t know that. Although, I knew “Lyme” wasn’t spelled like limes that you eat, but I’ve never really looked into why it’s L-Y-M-E.

Carrie Gillon: I’m certain about a decade ago I found out that there was a town called “Lyme,” and then I promptly forgot because that’s how little that matters. “Ebola” also is named after a location. But, note, it’s not an entire country in either of these cases. It’s not “US Disease.” It’s not – I dunno which part of Africa; I don’t remember – “Sierra Leone Disease” or something. It’s not an entire country, it’s just one location, which is maybe still problematic. I don’t know. But we don’t have the same racial associations at least. So, no, Trump, you’re wrong.

Megan Figueroa: And any person that wasn’t just a raging racist would see what was happening. There are literal hate crimes – physical hate crimes, verbal – all of these hate crimes that are being committed against people that others perceive to be Chinese. I’m sure they’re not even very discriminatory on this at all.

Carrie Gillon: No. Basically any East Asian or someone of East Asian descent. That’s all. They don’t know what a Chinese person looks like versus a Japanese person versus Korean.

Megan Figueroa: Any person that actually cared would step it back, but we all know he doesn’t.

Carrie Gillon: He has stopped – shockingly, he did stop call –

Megan Figueroa: Did he?

Carrie Gillon: Yes. He has stopped calling it the “Chinese Virus.” I don’t know why. I think maybe – he said something like, “Oh, it’s not okay to hurt Asian people” or something like that. Ever since then, he hasn’t used it. I’m pretty sure – unless he’s reintroduced it. But he definitely stopped.

Megan Figueroa: Well, who knows why, but the damage has been done because all of his little minions – supporters – are calling it the “Chinese Virus.” That’s not okay. I don’t know why anyone would feel like that’s okay.

Carrie Gillon: Because they’re racist. I mean, it’s not even a question!

Megan Figueroa: I know.

Carrie Gillon: I mean, as bad as that is, there’s actually something that’s even worse, in my opinion. Some people are calling it the “Kung Flu.”

Megan Figueroa: Oh, god.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. It’s so gross, it makes my skin crawl.

Megan Figueroa: I haven’t heard that.

Carrie Gillon: Well, I haven’t actually heard it. I’ve only read it. But it’s definitely on Twitter, although less so recently. Around the time Trump was saying “Chinese Virus” all the time that was coming up a lot.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, my god.

Carrie Gillon: People are gross.

Megan Figueroa: People are gross. Words matter. That’s racist.

Carrie Gillon: We already have a name for it – COVID-19 or SARS-CoV-2, which is such a mouthful. “COVID” is better, in my opinion. Don’t, obviously – who among our listeners are gonna be calling it the “Chinese Virus”? Nobody. I don’t know what we’re –

Megan Figueroa: We’re just rage venting. Make sure to call people out if you do see it. It’s fucking racist. It’s gross. It implies that somehow some people are more susceptible or – there’s so many implications in calling it the “Chinese Virus” that are so –

Carrie Gillon: Blaming. It’s basically blaming all of Chinese people for a virus that comes from bats. Nobody got it on purpose. No one spread it on purpose. It’s just a thing that happens because we live in proximity to animals and sometimes animal viruses jump to humans. Sometimes, they mutate and then go human to human. It’s nobody’s fault.

Megan Figueroa: It’s definitely a blaming thing.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway, please – [Laughter]

Megan Figueroa: Let’s take a break from COVID-19 for a minute. Got a very special episode today. I talk with Drs. Jonathan Rosa and Nelson Flores. It was an amazing chat.

Carrie Gillon: It was pretty fun. And I wasn’t in this conversation because you guys were gonna talk about Latinx, and then you didn’t talk about it!

Megan Figueroa: I know.

Carrie Gillon: I could’ve been part of this conversation.

Megan Figueroa: I know. I’m so sorry! [Laughter] I thought we were gonna get – yeah. But, yes, you would’ve enjoyed being there, I’m sure. So, I’m sorry about that.

Carrie Gillon: It’s all right. It was very long, so I ended up cutting out a significant portion, which we are going to put in our bonus episode this month.

Megan Figueroa: Yes!

Carrie Gillon: If you wanna get access to that, and you don’t already have access, then you can join us at patreon.com/vocalfriespod at the $5.00 level.

Megan Figueroa: We forgot to say it at the end, so don’t be an asshole.

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah! That is true. Definitely. Definitely do not be an asshole.

[Music]

Megan Figueroa: We have Dr. Nelson Flores, who is an associate professor of educational linguistics, and we got a title change over here. We have Dr. Jonathan Rosa, who is now an associate professor because you were an assistant last time we chatted. That’s exciting.

Jonathan Rosa: Yes. I was recently promoted. I mean, now, technically, as to whether the promotion takes place in a couple of months – you know but maybe by the time the episode airs. But, yeah, it’s more or less a for sure –

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Nelson’s at Penn and Jonathan is over at Stanford. But you’re on sabbatical in Chicago right now, right?

Jonathan Rosa: I was in Chicago. Now, I am traveling for conferences and other things, so I’m actually here in the multilingual bastion of Miami – the fraught, let’s say, multilingual space of Miami.

Megan Figueroa: The theme of this almost could be misconceptions because both ya’ll are talking, that means there’s two of you. I think a lot of people didn’t know there were two of you. I feel like a lot of people think that either you’re one person, which is what I’ve seen on the internet, confusing ya’ll. And you said “married” or also “related” you’ve gotten too?

Nelson Flores: Yeah. I don’t think people know what to make of us. I think part of it is that we both have flower last names, and so people get the “Flores” and the “Rosa” confused. I’ve gotten “Nelson Rosa.” I know that Jonathan has gotten “Jonathan Flores.” I don’t think people know what to make of us sometimes because, of course, we’ve very close. We clearly have a lot of love for each other. But we’re also queer, and so I think people are kind of like, “There must be some type of marriage or something.” Just to clarify, we’re not married.

Megan Figueroa: Could it just be a marriage of ideas and love?

Nelson Flores: I mean, we’re academically married, I suppose, but not married in the heteronormative ways that people oftentimes mean it.

Jonathan Rosa: Let me say one thing about Nelson’s and my presumed inter-changeability, or perhaps a couple of things about it. In one sense, I think this is a very common phenomenon that happens with marginalized populations where people who are marked in particular ways based on race, gender, and sexuality, especially, there’s this sense that you’re all the same and you all could be a spokesperson for whatever set of ideas.

I guess, if I’m being generous, then I would say, “Oh, well, maybe because there are so few of us or because we’ve been positioned as the spokespeople for particular kinds of stances or ideas that we get equated with one another.” My much less generous take on this is that it demonstrates the ways that we get recruited to enact or inhabit these tokenized positions where, essentially, the kinds of contributions that we could make are already predetermined and the question is which of us is needed to make that contribution on which day at which time – this sort of thing.

I think it’s a very troublesome situation. It happens with a whole range of colleagues where we get equated with one another and the sense is just that we could all be one another – any distinctive contributions we might make. That has concrete kinds of consequences in one’s professional life but also in terms of broader political struggles. Professionally, when so much of what we’re up to – or the assessment of what we’re up to – is based on whether you’ve made a unique contribution and you’re equated with someone else constantly, then that can be tricky.

But on a much – I don’t wanna frame academics as the most marginalized or something like that or I don’t wanna say that the goal, then, is to secure the individuality of our contributions. It’s more politically that I’m interested in the ways that our contributions to the world or the kinds of struggles in which we could engage are really narrowly defined and constrained and that this equation of us or interchangeability is a reflection of that.

Megan Figueroa: I’m not even in ya’ll’s field and – because I’ve kind of gotten a little bit of a platform now speaking about these things, but I’m speaking about them personally, so I don’t study it in the way that you do – that I’m often included now when people @ you on Twitter. They’ll put me now, too. I love to talk about these things when it’s right for it, and if I’m emotionally available for it, but I noticed that ya’ll might not always be emotionally available for that and you get dragged into it a lot – “dragged.” I say “dragged.” But a lot of times it might feel like that, right?

Nelson Flores: I mean, I think Twitter in particular is an interesting platform. I mean, clearly, I love Twitter. I mean, it’s connected me to people like you, Megan, who I didn’t know before I was on Twitter. It’s connected me to a lot of interesting people, and I’ve learned a lot off of Twitter. At the same time, I think sometimes people take Twitter way more serious than maybe it’s intended to be. There’s this – like, I just write a tweet that’s kind of like an off the cuff tweet, and then people are like, “Send me 10 references to what you just said so that I can read up on it.”

And it’s like, “Well, you know, I’m not in class right now. I’m just writing some tweets.” If you wanna learn more about it, you can certainly google and do some of that work for yourself, but I don’t know if – almost coming from a sense of entitlement in terms of like, “You need to teach me this because your tweet made me uncomfortable. So, you need to further clarify what you mean so that maybe I can feel a little less uncomfortable with what you just said.”

I don’t think that that’s always coming from a bad place. I think people sometimes feel uncomfortable and they wanna know more. I just don’t know if Twitter is actually the best venue for doing that. Maybe they need to do some of the work for themselves rather than expecting people on Twitter to do extra labor and getting them to really understand things that maybe they really need to do the work for on their own.

Megan Figueroa: How does that play out for you in your job as a professor or as an academic that travels to conferences? Are you asked to do a lot of that emotional labor for people when it comes to Latinx issues?

Jonathan Rosa: Well, it’s interesting. I mean, I think that it requires us to do a lot of careful, strategic engagement where you say – yeah, there are invitations that ask you to represent a certain perspective or recruit you to represent a certain perspective. There’re also efforts to invite you to participate in mentoring activities that are based on a presumed shared experience. There’re some of these efforts that feel really substantive and meaningful where you say, “Okay, wait. There’s something that I have to say here that I think contributes to this dialogue or contributes to this bigger project.”

There’re other moments when you say, “Oh, they just want someone else to read the script. They just need another person to read the same script. Am I just gonna be that person today?” I’ll never forget when one of my mentors, Melissa Harris-Perry, who used to have her show on MSNBC, when she was leaving MSNBC based on some fraught relationships there, I’ll never forget when she was very public about saying that she was not going to be anyone’s little brown bobblehead. She was not going to be this ornamental piece and really an object.

I think that that’s the part that’s deeply concerning in some situations where you become an object, and you don’t have anything to say. The on-demand part of it is also tricky because I think we want to make meaningful contributions and we want to engage with publics, but there’s an accessibility issue that could be complex to navigate as well where you’re on the clock or on call or you’re expected to be the go-to person on such and such issue.

I found that has happened to me in certain situations as well where the expectation is that anything related to any language and identity issue I should just speak to casually. I worry. In some situations, some of my ideas about these topics – and this is why I appreciate Nelson’s comments about Twitter. Sometimes, I just wanna be irreverent. Sometimes, I just wanna make a joke about language.

I mean, I said it after the Joe Biden landslide victory on Super Tuesday that one of the things that’s most interesting to me about his success there is it demonstrates how irrelevant language is in some situations because, from many people’s perspectives, he’s been more or less incoherent in a range of situations. Yet, his incoherence has not prevented his political ascendance.

In some cases, I just wanna be flippant about language. And other moments, I’ve done a tremendous amount of research, and I wanna be careful, and I wanna weigh in on a debate in a nuanced way. But I think that the on-call part of things invites people to offer their opinion constantly as though they had carefully developed a serious perspective. In many situations, people haven’t developed that kind of a careful perspective and yet are asked to be the expert on something.

Megan Figueroa: Do you feel like there’s different work going into it when you’re being flippant? Because I feel like, sometimes, I’ll say something on Twitter or even around colleagues and I feel like it takes less emotional toll on me than if I really wanted to get into something. That’s why I feel like I really appreciate Twitter because, when I put something out there, I feel like I’m not actually having to do as much emotional work. I feel like I can get something quick out of there and then maybe someone will learn something.

But it always becomes more emotional. I had a tweet the other day that said – so this gets into the idea of semilingualism, which I wanna talk to ya’ll about. I said that that’s not a thing. You can’t have kids that end up in school and have low skill in both languages. That’s the idea of semilingualism. I wanna get into it with you. And someone retweeted me and was like, “I’d like to know what my language acquisition colleagues think.” And I’m like, “I’m a fucking language acquisition expert.”

I really sometimes wonder, “Oh, are they seeing my last name and all of a sudden I’m not taken as seriously because I’m too emotional about this?” I really, honestly, feel that sometimes. Do you have that happen as well?

Nelson Flores: I have been accused of being a bully.

Megan Figueroa: Which is so funny to me. You’re so kind. But, yes. [Laughs]

Nelson Flores: I think a lot of that stems from precisely my resistance to feel like I need to do the emotional labor of making people feel comfortable about what I’m saying. In particular, as a Latino scholar doing work in bilingual education, I’m particularly resistant to the idea that I need to make white people feel comfortable doing work in bilingual education. I put my work out there. I let it speak for itself. I certainly have never targeted anyone individually and personally insulted them, which is what bullying actually is, right? “Bullying” actually has an actual meaning.

As a gay person, I’ve experienced it personally as a gay person. I know what bullying is and I know that what I’m doing, which is working to dismantle white supremacy in how we think about issues in bilingualism, is not bullying anybody. I do think that there are these strong emotional reactions that people have to my work in both ways. I’ve also had people tell me that it’s given them a vocabulary for making sense of things that they kind of always knew didn’t make any sense and had visceral reactions against but really didn’t have a vocabulary for thinking about.

I mean, in the end, I think what it boils down to is that all researchers have emotional investment in the work that we do. It’s that people who are coming from marginalized positions, oftentimes, that emotional investment is marked in ways that it’s not marked for white researchers, but they also have an emotional investment, oftentimes, in whiteness and the objectivity that oftentimes ascribed to whiteness.

When that’s called into question, and the ways that Jonathan and I have called into question in our work, that oftentimes leads to strong visceral reactions. Oftentimes, people feel personally attacked when it’s really not a personal attack at all.

Megan Figueroa: Let’s ignore my sloppy definition. Will you tell me, Nelson, what semilingualism is?

Nelson Flores: Well, we can trace the discourses of semilingualism back to the origins of European colonialism. That’s something that Jonathan and I wrote about in our 2017 piece, which is essentially one of the primary mechanisms for dehumanizing indigenous populations, African populations, by calling into question their language practices and suggesting that their language practices were somehow illegitimate or subhuman.

Now, the concept of semilingualism itself emerges within the context of the Bilingual Education Act in the United States. It actually emerged originally in Scandinavia, but I’ll focus on the work in the United States. The term itself emerges in Scandinavia. Within the context of the Bilingual Education Act, which was passed in 1968, they were accountability metrics that had to be used to show that these programs were being successful. One of the things that they had to do was assess students to see if they were Spanish dominant or not because if they were not Spanish dominant, then they wouldn’t be eligible for most of these programs.

Some of these students were assessed and their assessment suggested that they were not proficient in either English or Spanish. The discourse that was developed by scholars at the time to make sense of that was to say that they were semilingual, that they didn’t have full competency in any language. That was quickly critiqued by other scholars who said you really can’t describe people that way. That’s not really a thing.

Then, the discourse shifted to the discussion of basic interpersonal communication skills, or social language, and cognitive academic language proficiency, or academic language. The discourse shifted towards they have BICS, or social language, but they don’t have CALP, or academic language. You can trace directly that discourse. I’m not making a leap there. Scholars who originally used the term “semilingualism” shifted towards a discussion of social and academic language.

Whenever we talk about social and academic language today, that’s really the legacy that we’ve inherited – a legacy of semilingualism, of suggesting that there’s something illegitimate about the language practices of racialized bilingual students.

Megan Figueroa: I just had a friend tell me that the latest TESOL conference, a major theme was semilingualism.

Nelson Flores: As a good thing or as a bad thing?

Megan Figueroa: I asked him. I said, “Were they debunking it?” although – even though we still have to debunk it in 2020. But he said, “No. I don’t think so.” He said that his friend was not happy.

Jonathan Rosa: Semilingualism. I think actually my experience with this conversation ties together the previous dialogue that we were just having about the ways that we’re positioned as ideological or overly emotionally invested in certain topics which then is presumed to distort our opinions on these topics. I was writing an article a few years ago that Nelson and I have been in conversation with about ideas related to semilingualism. I was writing about what I called, “ideologies of languagelessness,” that just framed certain populations as deficient in any language that they use. It’s not just certain populations. It’s racialized populations.

I think, for example, Nelson invoked the ways that the discourse of semilingualism emerged in Scandinavia. Part of what’s distinctive about how it gets enacted in the European context versus in the Americas and elsewhere is that it’s framed in the Americas as a highly racialized concept that maps onto a population across generations and is presumed to be somehow inherent to particular populations in ways that really articulate alongside race or in concert in with race.

This notion, for me, of an ideology of languagelessness is reflected in the ways that semilingualism is taken up in the United States, reflected in the ways that particular populations are framed as “non-nons” in the United States, or non-verbal in English and their so-called native language. “Linguistic isolation” is a category that was used by the census for about 30 years to designate certain households as lacking language altogether.

Megan Figueroa: That happens to real populations, too. That’s really offense. There’re deaf children that are actually experiencing language isolation, and yet this is where they’re using that.

Jonathan Rosa: It’s problematic in every direction. There’re people who are really being denied access to language learning and meaningful cultural opportunities that are mislabeled because of these sorts of stereotypes about isolation but also isolation in terms of the ways that it articulates in relation to policy. It’s messed up because it’s intended to serve as a tool for ensuring compliance with the voting rights act – to make sure that you have resources in languages other than English. You need to designate the number of households within a community that require those resources.

In order to access those resources in languages other than English, you have to be designated as “isolated” rather than designated as “using languages in addition to English.” I’ve found that these sorts of stereotypes map across a whole range of institutional contexts. In everyday discourse you hear people say, “So-and-So doesn’t speak English well. They don’t speak Spanish well.” In a school where I was working, the principal, who had a doctorate in education and was a Puerto Rican woman, one teacher said, “She speaks English like one of our ninth graders. From what I understand, her Spanish isn’t that good either.”

When I was writing about this, I said, “These are these ideologies of languagelessness that map onto people regardless of their credentials, regardless of what might seem to be their empirical linguistic practices.” The initial response to that article, when I tried to publish it, from reviewers was that I was ideological, that I was imposing an analysis onto these situations and imposing this idea, this attribution of deficiency that wasn’t really there. But for me, I was observing connections across all of these spaces.

I think that for scholars who are attentive to particular patterns of marginalization – that we’re drawing connections that aren’t observable from other perspectives and so we look like conspiracy theorists, or we look as though we’re over-generalizing, or over-applying, or over-reaching in our analyses when, in fact, I think part of what is so troublesome about normative social-scientific and scientific research more generally is that the kind of empiricism that it embraces recruits you to accept the world as it is and to naturalize that world and then to observe things in such a way that allows us to reproduce that world at the same time that we proport to just be noticing things that are happening within it.

For me, drawing connections across these patterns is essential to my critique of the way that this world has come to be structured. I’ve found that a lot of reviewers are unwilling or not inclined to engage in that kind of a critique.

Megan Figueroa: I had a moment of realization here too that that’s happening to me because I spent a lot of time in psychology because I did study psycholinguistics and do language development. It is fraught with really disgusting views of communities that they’ve marginalized. These are marginalized speakers and they’re always looking for disorder in some way.

I have a background, too, in speech and hearing so there are legitimate concerns to be had about children that do have language disorders, right, but that’s not what’s happening here. These are neurotypical hearing children that people are looking for a disorder at every turn and they’re finding it because it’s easy to find it when you’re looking – you’ll find evidence for anything that you’re looking for.

Every time I say something about this, I do feel like some people think I’m a conspiracy theorist and they’re saying – like, when I say, “Talk to your children however you want and however you feel comfortable with,” people think that that’s – they’re like, “We have all this evidence that suggest that some input is just not as good.” They really want that to live on.

Nelson Flores: Well, I think that connects back to the emotional investment in whiteness’s objectivity. I think that that really throws people off when we refuse to allow whiteness to be framed as objective. If your position is that these ways are better input because they’re more normative and they’re more aligned with whiteness, then say that. I would be okay with you. We would disagree, but at least you’re being honest with what your perspective is, what your ideological position is.

I always say – I own my ideological position. I own where I’m coming from, and I own my locus of annunciation. I just push other scholars to do the same thing. If you’re using discourses that come from the specter of semilingualism, then just own that ideological position and say what you’re essentially saying is that everyone should speak like a normative white person. That’s not progressive and that’s not liberal, so don’t pretend that you’re progressive or liberal if you’re actually promoting an agenda that supports white supremacy. At least don’t be disingenuous and try to proport that what you’re saying is some type of objective representation rather than an ideological one.

Megan Figueroa: Right. Exactly what they’re saying when they say, “No, there is a right way to speak to children,” is there is a white way to speak to children because that’s what we know of all of these studies on language development. I mean, I don’t know the exact number, but it’s in the 90% of – it’s been done on white, middle-class, suburban babies. Yeah. That’s one way of talking to children, but it’s not the only way. We are continually investing in speaking like white, middle-class parents when we say that these studies are basically how it should be for everyone. People don’t really like to hear that. You’re right. I’m realizing this now.

Sometimes, I still feel very naïve because I’m like, “Oh, well, they’ll just hear it once and then that’ll be enough,” like people will stop and reflect. That’s not what’s happening. I’m always a little bit surprised because I’m hoping that it just takes one moment of reflection and then you can start dismantling. We’re really invested in these things, in these ideas.

Nelson Flores: The challenge is that we continue to frame things as empirical questions that are really ideological questions. You can keep trying to disprove an ideology, but if it’s an ideology, it’s kind of, by definition, something that you can’t really disprove because people have really deeply ingrained investment in those beliefs. At this point, we’re not really having an empirical question.

I think, empirically, we have the data that shows that all communities have complex, rich language practices that they engage in, but people don’t believe it because they don’t wanna believe it because they have deep investment in these ideas that certain communities have more rich language practices than other communities. At that point, you can’t disprove white supremacy. If people are invested in white supremacy, then they’re gonna be invested in white supremacy. That’s the challenge that I think we’re trying to highlight in our work is what do we do in that context. How do we intervene in that context?

Jonathan Rosa: Part of, I think, what’s particularly challenging about this ideology is the way that it is associated with a liberal benevolence where the people who are perpetuating it are deeply invested in staking a claim to helping. They see themselves as really participating in projects that are progressive or even projects that are aimed toward social justice, this kind of thing. They really want to understand themselves as addressing the marginalized.

I think when Nelson was talking about having been called a bully in the past or this kind of thing, I think part of why some people are so off put is that even the remote suggestion that linguists – sociolinguists, linguistic anthropologists, applied linguists, psycholinguists – that we have, in fact, contributed to the problem. Many scholars want to understand themselves as the people who are solving problems, but I think one of the things Nelson and I – that brings us together in our work is our deep suspicion that many of the scholarly labels and categories and approaches have in fact emerged from the very systems of power that we’re trying to critique here.

I think we have a long way to go in terms of trying to unsettle some of these assumptions. I encounter this constantly, the sense – Ana Celia Zentella always says – a mentor of mine – always says, “The helping hand strikes again.” In so many of these situations, when we’re talking about bilingualism and multilingualism and standard language and academic language, just educational language learning, it’s the helping hand strikes again. It’s we wanna help the kids. We wanna help their families use more quality language with them. We wanna help them to become proficient users of such and such language.

I think when we keep pushing – and we always push – “What’s your theory of change? What is it that changes?” These families use language in this way, so this school institutionalizes language in this way to change these behaviors. Then, what happens? Then, people have access to a different world? Then, the structure of the economy transforms? Then, stable housing and living wages and political representation – then that emerges from language use? Or are we facing a fundamentally different kind of challenge? Should our critique, should our efforts towards promoting language learning and our engagement with language, be oriented towards those bigger challenges? Or should they be narrowly focused on changing people’s language practices in their homes, in classrooms – really changing the behaviors of the marginalized?

I think this so much of what Nelson and I have been trying to call into question – just fundamentally rethinking the project of educational language learning.

Megan Figueroa: We’re in the epicenter of funding for things like Closing the Word Gap. I’m like, if we spent that money towards universal housing or some sort of universal basic income, it would go way further than spending money on fucking trying to close the so-called word gap. But that’s where people wanna spend the money. That’s where funding agencies are funneling the money because, you’re right, they feel like they’re the helping hand that’s gonna fix the marginalized.

Another buzzword term that I wanted to bring up – “bilingual brain.” Jonathan, what is a bilingual brain?

Jonathan Rosa: It’s interesting. I was mentioning to both of you that I sometimes make flippant comments about these sorts of catchphrases. This notion of the bilingual brain, like the language gap or word gap, I’ve often had a knee-jerk reaction to it where I felt as though it were locating language within a cognitive system rather than within a historical and cultural system. To be clear, I’m really interested in the cognitive dimensions of language, but that’s not the primary focus of my research. It’s something that I’ve certainly studied and something that I respect research in this area.

However, sometimes, when I talk about it, I’m more concerned with the slogans, with the ways that it’s turned into this commodified project. As soon as it becomes a slogan, then very quickly we see which populations will benefit from that kind of a project of turning something into a commodity that you could achieve somehow. If this is a justice project, if part of what we’re up to is trying to address marginalization, then these notions of a bilingual brain, I don’t know how far that will get us.

Now, I was saying to you all that a colleague recently was pushing me on this to say, look, there’re different ways that that kind of notion has been developed within, say, psycholinguistics or within psychology of language versus, say, within neurolinguistics – neurolinguists who understand themselves to be more attuned to some of these cultural and historical issues and are not trying to promote the narrow view of what bilingualism is.

I will say I continue to be concerned, regardless of the meaningful work that people might be doing in these areas. I continue to be concerned abut the ways that “bilingualism” is defined and the ways that languages are separated from one another in order to reproduce this notion of bilingualism. I wonder what languages even count as legitimate in this research. When you’re staking claims to a bilingual brain, which languages are involved? Are they languages like Chatino that my close colleague Emiliana Cruz studies in Oaxaca in Guatemala? Which languages are we staking these claims to cognitive advancement based on?

That’s one piece of – yeah, just this notion of who is a legitimate bilingual such that we could study their brain. It frankly reminds me in my most – perhaps not my most critical take on it – but it reminds me of some of these genetic ancestry tests which proport to find race in your genes but, in fact, have to presume that race already lives in your genes in order to then find it there. If you understand race to be something historically constructed, then it doesn’t live in your genes.

Similarly, you have to presume that bilingualism lives primarily in the brain in order to then measure it – measure what it’s doing there. I think bilingualism lives between people not within people. My neurolinguistics colleagues were saying – the colleague who was pushing me on this – was sort of saying, “No, I understand brains to be across people not just within an individual” and that from the perspective of psychology, often, it's on that individual basis. So, I think that there are interesting debates to have. I continue to be concerned about the slogan though.

Nelson Flores: Of course, I agree with everything Jonathan is saying. This whole idea of a bilingual brain is still, from my opinion, coming from a monolingual perspective in the sense that most of the world is bi- or multilingual. Why are we exceptionalizing the, quote, “bilingual” brain instead of the quote, “monolingual” brain to begin with? Why aren’t we saying, “What are the unique cognitive traits of monolingual people who are the minority of the population?”

Maybe a bilingual brain is just a brain and it’s the monolingual brain that’s actually this weird thing that we need to study. Of course, I don’t actually believe that, but I feel like some of the discourse exceptionalizing bilingualism, when we reverse it and really think about, well, if we describe monolingualism in that way, that would be really strange. Yet, “bilingual” describes more of the world’s population than “monolingual.” What exactly are we doing there?

Of course, connecting to something Jonathan was saying before, the bilingual brain discourse, I would trace its origins to the classic Peal & Lambert study that found cognitive advantages to bilingualism. In that study, they threw out more than half of the sample because they weren’t appropriately monolingual or bilingual. From there on, we already inherited this idea of bilingualism that’s coming from a very normative idea of what bilingualism even is to begin with.

Then, I would add to that whenever we ask the question about whether bilingualism has cognitive advantages, it always opens up the question of whether there are disadvantages. It’s a slippery slope. If we’re willing to ask the question if there are advantages, then it opens up the question of whether there are disadvantages. I think that we shouldn’t do that. We should just say, “bilingualism is,” it just is. Most of the world is bilingual, multilingual, it’s just what human societies are. There are no advantages or disadvantages. It just is. We start from that perspective, and I think that would allow us to ask different questions about cognitive processes of language learning and whatnot.

Megan Figueroa: This is where we got ourselves into trouble because all of a sudden Pete, in all of these polls, people are saying that they think he’s the smartest and I really believe it’s tied to his so-called multilingualism. Then, you’re right that it’s so ideological because Spanish in Pete’s brain is beautiful and amazing, but in my father is somehow a deficit and they beat it out of him when he started school.

It was really frustrating to see that play out on the national stage. I’m like, “That’s what we’re doing” – a lot of academics are doing. We’re perpetuating this by asking these bilingual brain questions or what are the cognitive advantages. It always just seems to steer toward, okay, there’re cognitive advantages for people like Pete but, all of a sudden, it’s a disorder or deficit when it’s someone like my dad.

Nelson Flores: This is why, whenever people ask me to speak on my analysis of multilingualism and politicians, the first question that they wanna ask me is how good their Spanish is. I always say, “That’s actually not the question I’m interested in” because how good someone’s Spanish is is connected to the social status of that person. Whenever we begin to sort people into good Spanish speakers versus bad Spanish speakers, it’s always the most marginalized that are going to be most victimized and receive remediation for it.

I actually never – even though people insist that I do this all the time – I 1.) never evaluate the Spanish of white politicians and 2.) never say that they should never speak Spanish because 1.) I don’t have the power to tell them that they can’t. They can do whatever they want. They’re white. That’s kind of the definition of whiteness in the US. But I don’t think that that type of language policing is productive anyway. I’m more interested in how bilingualism is talked about differently depending on the race and social status position of people. That’s my primary focus in analyzing these things.

Yeah, Mayor Pete, people are like, “Wow! He speaks like a gazillion languages. Isn’t he so smart?” And I’m like, “Well, actually, you could go to many places in the world where people speak those gazillion languages, right, and they’re not positioned as smart in the same way.”

Jonathan Rosa: Part of what’s so striking to me about some of these popular discussions of language – whether we’re talking about Mayor Pete or if you’re talking about Donald Trump – if you’re talking about someone whose speech is seen as more sophisticated or more cognitively advanced and multilingual or you’re talking about someone whose language use from a liberal perspective is often derided as somehow non-grammatical or unintelligent, this kind of thing, that in each of those cases it seems to me again, as Nelson was saying – the discussions of language seem to miss the point in many situations. It’s less about language and more about a whole range of other issues that we’re not paying attention to.

These discussions about a particular politician – non-Latinx politician’s – use of Spanish in the United States often have nothing to do with what they’re actually saying in Spanish or communicating in Spanish. It’s more about the idea of Spanish that positions them somehow as a particular kind of person. As Nelson was saying, we get roped into playing the game when we start assessing how good their Spanish is and suggesting that, no, they should improve their Spanish. That’s not the point. The point is to ask why it is that, based on their position, this ends up being advantageous for them or seems to become framed as a benefit.

Similarly, with Donald Trump, I think a lot of the discussions about his language use miss the point fundamentally when people are saying, “Ugh! We need a more respectable, intelligent person in office.” Well, you’re totally missing the point. Donald Trump is a television show host and a celebrity and he’s very effective at those roles. His performance of being a buffoon in some situations or being a clown in some situations is very politically strategic just like George W. Bush was very politically strategic in his dissimulation in certain ways. He comes from –

Megan Figueroa: In his folksiness, right?

Jonathan Rosa: In his folksiness. He comes from an incredibly wealthy family with access to a range of educational opportunities and then plays off of this persona – an imagined folksy persona. I think we miss the point sometimes when we critique or celebrate language use. We’re not paying attention to the performance that’s happening. We should be thinking about what makes those performances possible, what makes them valuable, and what makes them strategically useful. Perhaps, we should be attacking that system rather than just focusing narrowly on language use.

Nelson Flores: I think that’s something that you were talking about. The idea of Spanish in liberal politicians is an interesting one because, oftentimes, I think Pete did this, and Joe Kennedy and Tim Kaine, where they use Spanish to directly speak to Dreamers, which is interesting because of course the whole narrative around Dreamers is that they grew up in this country and so their English is just fine. Of course, not all dreamers are Latinx and wouldn’t be expected to be Spanish-speaking anyway.

They’re not actually directly addressing Dreamers there. They’re directly addressing white liberals who feel good about themselves because a politician is bilingual. It’s not actually serving what would seem to be the explicit – what they’re saying explicitly is not actually what they’re communicating because they actually don’t need to communicate in Spanish with Dreamers. It actually doesn’t make sense because a lot of Dreamers wouldn’t understand what they were saying anyway. It’s just to show – look at me! I speak Spanish.

That’s where I say, “Well, you don’t get a cookie.” People took my “You don’t get a cookie” as to be like “White people shouldn’t speak Spanish.” It’s like, well, no. If they’re speaking to the Spanish language media and are trying to actually engage a Spanish-speaking audience, that’s great! But to randomly do it in a speech of people who are not Spanish-speaking, to an audience that you’re imaging is an audience of Spanish speakers who most of them probably – or many of them – are probably not Spanish speakers, then that’s disingenuous. That’s more you want the props for being bilingual rather than you’re using your bilingualism to actually communicate with a marginalized community who may actually benefit from knowing more about your policy positions.

Megan Figueroa: Well, I really appreciate both of you being here. I mean, I know it’s hard for you to see each other, I’m sure. I heard that you’ve never skyped together.

Nelson Flores: Yeah! We never skyped together. We text a lot, and I said – on occasion, we’ll talk on the phone if we set it up in advance. We put it on our calendars. But we do audio. I said we’re old millennials. We don’t do the FaceTime stuff. Oh, last thing. Something else that people confuse us. People think I’m an anthropologist because Jonathan is an anthropologist. Just to clear the record, I am not an anthropologist and I don’t really have any particular investment in contributing to the field of anthropology, though I find some of the frameworks helpful.

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Yes. [Laughter]

Nelson Flores: I mean, I get interpolated as an anthropologist a lot now. That’s only because of the collaboration with Jonathan.

Megan Figueroa: Or the fact that they just think you are Jonathan.

Nelson Flores: Right. I think that that’s – I mean, I’m not hating on anthropology. It’s just not my training, it’s not my discipline, and I don’t have any particular vested interest in that disciplinary perspective and its contributions.

Jonathan Rosa: We see you, Nelson. Welcome. [Laughter]

Nelson Flores: I haven’t gone to the dark side of linguistic anthropology.

Jonathan Rosa: We see you Nelson!

Megan Figueroa: Next time we chat in a year from now, you’re gonna be like –

Nelson Flores: I’m gonna be like Boas. Yes, Boas is my godfather.

Megan Figueroa: [Laughter] Well, thank you, again.

[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 [email protected] and our website is vocalfriespod.com.

#linguistics #linguistic discrimination #sociolinguistics #educational linguistics #Spanglish #transcript #anthropological linguistics

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undoundue · 5 years ago

Text

a season in hellsite - chapter 1

chapter 1. in which horatio and bacchus play chess

now the tale tells that darkness gave way to light, or else light filled a space where light had not recently been. the issue is theologically contentious, and at the time no one could be sure.

the light played an important role in the events that were to come. first it hit bacchus’s eyes. then it hit horatio’s eyes. then it hit bacchus’s eyes again, then it hit horatio’s eyes again, and this process repeated several thousand times in the next few seconds, until the light took a break.

the light did not hit the same spot each time, because of angles. it hit a narrow circle very well, and then a wider circle less well, and then an even wider circle far worse than that, because light is by nature a specialist.

now individually, these halos were not exciting, though everyone had his or her preference: but the width of the aureoles varied intriguingly, unlike the areas the light had not touched, which were all the same shade of black. so the boys ascended their subjectivities, refracting the light from their convex lenses as it bustled to describe the scene.

we may morbidly wonder how horatio and bacchus felt in this moment as the red sun dawned and with it their damnation. however, it took them a minute to realize what they were looking at, and in the interim they did not have interiority, so we cannot truthfully comment upon their thoughts or feelings, though we can surmise that in a certain qualialess way they too felt the soul-crushing dread of existential freedom—this being the onus upon all souls who wander the afterlife accurst, unguided by the voice of instinct that, after all, is only borrowed from God.

but what the tale says with confidence is this: one day horatio and bacchus looked up and noticed that they were in hell. neither of them remembered how they had gotten there, but neither of them were surprised.

“—,” horatio said, and he moved as if to speak, but then he saw bacchus starting to speak, so he stopped.

“—,” bacchus said, and then stopped for similar reasons.

“—,” horatio said, starting up again, but then he saw horatio starting up again, so he stopped, and then bacchus stopped as well.

“your move,” bacchus said.

“sorry, i was developing interiority,” horatio said.

“it’s ok,” bacchus said.

“yeah it’s okay,” horatio said: and he played 1. e4.

now when it was bacchus’s turn he did not blithely reach for 1…e5, nor the sicilian. oh no. instead he conjured two quartz goblets and poured in blood-red wine.

horatio said, “where did you get the wine?”

bacchus said, “i can infinitely generate wine, it’s one of my god powers.”

(note at this juncture that bacchus is class DYING-AND-RISING GOD, level 1, while horatio is class GEOMETRICA FRAUDULENTUS, level 1.)

“what the fuck,” horatio said.

“yeah, it owns,” bacchus said. “except it doesn’t really affect me because my blood is like 30% GABA at baseline? but it’s cool at weddings and such.”

so they drank. and bacchus made like he was going to move 1…e5, but instead he just grazed it and said “j’adoube.” horatio gave him a look.

and bacchus said, in a voice of ambiguous irony: “if i did move that piece, we would be much akin to those frozen center pawns: stuck in the zugzwang of existential freedom.”

“and also we can only capture on our diagonals,” horatio said.

“yeah,” bacchus said, “or, i don’t know, man. i suspect it's my history of epub piracy—that, or sometimes i've said something that sounded like it was nice, but by adhering too close to the letter of the law, i was actually deconstructing that niceness, mocking it, and God knew. that, or it was a sin of omission. that, or—and here's what's most likely—every decision i’ve ever made has been five degrees off-course. i trusted my instincts, and my instincts were good, but then i ran into the error margin, and unfortunately, i was too consistent, too kantian, too tragically good, perhaps, which—and i’m not trying to exculpate myself here, because if i did something wrong i would be the first to admit it—which could happen to anyone.”

now bacchus drank. and he stood and dusted the knees of his toga, and looked up at the heavens, and down at the earth, as if the two had been briefly confused.

“look,” horatio said sagely.

“yeah?” bacchus said.

“in the field of anthropology, it has been found that nearly every system of morality prohibits acute angles,” horatio said.

“yeah?” said bacchus.

horatio said: “so i suspect i went wrong in a similar way.”

now horatio took a drink. and from whence he was prone, he rolled supine, and felt the wind move over him: west, then east, then west, then east, a little weaker with each breath, folding in on itself like a blanket.

“also, my only charitable cause was wikipedia,” horatio said.

“same, of course,” bacchus said.

“dude, seriously,” horatio said, “it’s your move.”

but bacchus did not want to move. and so a long time passed in which they were kind of bored and did not know what to do. every few days one of them would feel the urge to eat or sleep, and so they would do

that, though the summoned pad thai got samey after a while and sleep was a time-skip without rest or even a recuperative panel of black, and their ghostly eidolons didn’t have to eat or sleep or perform any other bodily function for that matter, but it was a distraction. even so, now and then they looked up and noticed they were in hell: and neither of them were surprised.

“okay,” horatio finally said, “do you want to play a chess variant?”

so they played:

courier chess (german chess)

fortress chess (russian chess)

xiangqi (chinese)

jangqi (korean)

scottish chess (white moves once, then black moves twice, then white moves three times, and so on)

senterej (ethiopan; both sides start playing at the same time and make as many moves as they like until the first capture)

shatranj (persian)

shatar (mongolian; in which the king cannot castle, and the knight cannot deliver mate),

and then they briefly played connect 4. they thought about but did not play scrabble. they played checkers. and then they played:

turkish checkers

canadian checkers,

and then they dropped canadian checkers like so many rules and played go: go was fun, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi; they switched to blue-red hackenbush. then they played chess. they played:

shogi (japanese chess), including but not limited to: micro-shogi, whale shogi (pieces with variant movesets, named after whales), tori shogi (birds), hasami shogi, trishogi, hexshogi, masonic shogi, space shogi (nine 9x9 shogi boards stacked vertically), and taikyoku shogi (402 pieces of 209 types on a 36x36 board)

atomic chess, kamikaze chess, avalanche chess, dunsany’s chess, and hexagonal chess (variants: brusky’s, de vasa’s, mccooey’s, shafran’s, gliński’s);

meanwhile bacchus kept them amped on high-tannin wine—tossing aside used goblets and summoning new ones—it was a cantrip that cost him not a soul point (SP), the class equivalent to horatio’s knack for summoning abstract games.

"do you think tannins are funny?" bacchus asked shyly. then, hearing his voice and finding it mellifluous, he became bold: “yeah…i'm thinking tannins are funny.”

“tannins are kinda funny, yeah,” horatio said.

name prime numbers (basically, they competed at naming large prime numbers, but eventually horatio named the biggest one and they had to stop)

but they felt like they were running out of steam. so they played all the games listed above, but as drinking games, wherein every time one spotted a pattern one had to take a drink. as a consequence of this behavior they became quite drunk.

“i don't know…….” bacchus said dysarthrically, “i feel like i messed up….…”

“what is this! i thought you didn’t get drunk!” horatio exclaimed.

“no!…i said, wine didn’t affect me,” bacchus countered, “but my ebriety [vocab word] can still be perpetuated by the endogenous, xanax-like molecule that floats in my ichor, i.e. the blood of the gods…!"

bacchus tripped and then caught himself. he smiled at gravity with the warm antagonism one holds for a cartoon villain, then turned his 18 charisma on horatio. but horatio, whose alignment was lawful neutral, was unimpressed.

“well, you did mess up,” horatio said, “you’re in hell.”

“yeah, but i don’t think i should have to feel guilty on top of that,” bacchus said, “guilt is un-dionysian! it’s bluepilled!”

“okay, so then don’t,” horatio said.

“okay,” bacchus said, “then i won’t!”

“okay!” horatio said.

“okay!” bacchus said.

they both felt better after this interaction. soon bacchus was puking into an ink-black river.

"yeah, i'm feeling it," bacchus said.

"you're feeling it?" horatio said.

"yeah, i'm feeling this is dionysian as fuck," bacchus said.

now the river was utterly opaque to light, so one would expect it to have the consistency of tar, but the boys were surprised to observe that to the touch it was thin as water. so they went uphill and upstream to a slow-moving pool and rinsed their hands and splashed their faces and hair. in the pool, dark nymphs with sporty swimsuits swam until they became silly with paresthesias; and the satyrs leapt in chortling menacingly like hoo hoo hoo and ho ho ho and the nymphs would giggle with elusive allusive illusive knowledge, and within a few minutes both had forgotten lifetimes, staring at each other like babies in a warm and curious fog.

by the time the boys had looked up from the river that did not show their image, they had forgotten most of the engrams their souls had contained.

“word,” bacchus said; though this should have come earlier.

“yo,” horatio said, “i’m pretty drunk.”

“yeah,” bacchus started to say, but for some reason he stopped and instead stared blankly.

“yeah,” horatio thought about saying; but he was too tired, so instead he stared blankly too.

the next one hundred years were spent in a hangover.

some of the games they played during the hangover include:

moving their hip flexors

moving their knee extensors

moving the plantar-flexing muscles of the feet

moving their hip extensors (meta-breaking)

moving their knee flexors

moving the dorsi-flexing muscles of their feet

by this point their enthusiasm for the lower extremities had dimmed—horatio bored when he had solved the path to the game’s solution, bacchus discouraged when the flapping of the map recalled to him the territory—and the psoas and quadratus lumborum muscles were given only a cursory trial.

their attention moved superior (we are skipping over the reflex arcs and smooth muscle contractions that took place automatically, such as laughter, sneezing, and vasodilation, though the boys became skilled at those too) as the boys practiced other forms of iterated narrowing choice: the brash trapezius giving way to the stoic biceps, the careful flexors, the presumptuous precision of fingers and thumb closing three pixels away from the yearned-for dimensionless point. they considered past encounters with such discrepancy: ah yes, these were the angles who ached to lose themselves in intersection. three pixels. electricity clenched efference on no choice at all.

“we could play chess,” horatio attempted to say.

but he had forgotten how to speak. horatio gestured with his hand (though not in a way that was interesting or original or which had semantic meaning) and briefly he felt good (due to dopamine) because he had moved (which felt like an accomplishment) but soon he stopped moving (and the dopamine faded) and then he was still.

“uhn,” bacchus said.

to explain these profound deficits is difficult. we must note that, in addition to the known amnestic effects of alcohol and the river lethe, their circadian rhythms were off. managing the boar-driven chariot that drew the sun across the sky was not a highly-sought position: the black sun rose during the day, and the red sun rose at night; but the red sun did not rise every night, and though the black sun was more timely it was directionally impaired: rising in the south and setting in the north, rising in the northwest and setting in the northeast, or rising in the north and taking a strange zig-zag pattern to the south and back—possibly an attempt to draw a “cool S”. we can also say with confidence that the grayish vapors disseminated from the cracked obsidian of the forsaken earth did not have a salubrious effect. finally, we must note that the boys’ amnesia could have resulted from the omnipresent rule of demonic soul magic, in which what is attended to becomes real, and what is not attended to, does not.

now at this time horatio and bacchus girded themselves with determination, even though it caused them sadness, and tried to recall language. it started with a sharp inspiration and then a slow expiration, “ooooooo”; which got a laugh, and with pursed lips they varied the number of oo’s for a while before settling upon 6 to 8 as the optimal (i.e. funniest) range. then they widened the distance between their lateral commissures to make eeeeee, and they dropped their mandibles and flattened their tongues to make aaaaaah, and these too were amusing, if admittedly juvenile in the way of all unperturbed air. hence the consonants: one would lead off with a gggggggg and the other would breathe the metronome of expectation and listen to gggggggggggggggggggggggg continuing past all semantic purpose until with some internal wrenching of sockets this noise would give way to eeeeee, and they would laugh.

various orderings of consonants and vowels were tried as the sophistication of their humor increased. now with words they recalled meanings, and with meanings they became capable of irony, and shortly thereafter they were back to their old ways.

“1…e5,” bacchus said.

“holy shit,” horatio said.

and so the boys continued to game systematically, but not as systematically as they once had; and they continued to drink, but sometimes in moderation.

“do you think there's a psychological typology of chess openings?" bacchus asked, “like, certain types of people prefer certain openings, to clarify?”

“yes,” horatio said.

“yeah, i think so too,” bacchus said.

2. Bc4 Nc6

3. Qh5 Nf6??

4. Qxf7#

now by this time horatio fundamentally understood bacchus, and bacchus fundamentally understood horatio, but not in the way that allowed them to make predictions about individual actions, so they kept being surprised. for it was evident that the light that limned them had exhausted innumerable other options before settling upon this one, because the scene had purpose and harmonious proportion. and even though the light vacillated across moments of perception, in each moment, it seemed that it could be no other way.

“yeah man,” horatio eventually said, “my take is, you can be in a bad place, and still make a good thing of it.”

horatio tilted the white queen and rolled her base across the fatal square.

“in fact, maybe it's better to have a good time in a bad place, on your own terms, than to be in a good place, conditional upon doing what you’re told,” he said.

“well,” bacchus said, spinning the board, “maybe.”

and with a desultory sweep, horatio brought pawns and knights errant to the frontier of their steady-state, while bacchus, kneeling, with three arcs of divine manumission lifted pawn, queen, and bishop directly to their native squares.

chapter 1 - END

#a season in hellsite #ash #horatio #bacchus #chess

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letterboxd · 5 years ago

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Life in Film: Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers & Kathleen Hepburn.

“We didn’t want it to be about the one-take, so we were actually kind of hesitant to speak about it before we released the film, because it wasn’t a gimmick.” The co-writers and directors of Canadian break-out feature The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open (now streaming on Netflix) talk single-take filmmaking, Indigenous representation, and identifying with Edward Scissorhands, as they answer our life-in-film questionnaire.

New Canadian feature film The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open, which landed well at Berlin and TIFF and was picked up by Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing, follows two Indigenous women with very different stories who come into each other’s lives on one fateful afternoon in Vancouver.

When Áila (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers) encounters the pregnant Rosie (Violet Nelson), bruised and barefoot on a damp footpath attempting to evade her abusive boyfriend, Áila whisks her away to her apartment and encourages her to seek help. But Rosie is paralyzed by a dearth of realistic options.

Tailfeathers, who also co-wrote and co-directed the film, is Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation (Blood Reserve) as well as Sámi from northern Norway. Nelson is a member of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nation (Kingcome Inlet, Quatsino).

With cinematographer Norm Li (who filmed Beyond the Black Rainbow) shooting in real time over a series of extra-long takes on Super 16mm, The Body Remembers… is designed to appear mostly as a single-take film. The supposedly hidden cuts are “impossible to spot”, writes Sean Baker. “This is absolutely not ‘just a gimmick’,” agrees Olivier Lemay. “The feature-length shot worked wonders at taking us on this real-time journey with the characters that became uncomfortably immersive.” The result is a grounded and intimate portrait of two unique members of a group vastly under-represented in cinema. “It feels based deeply in character and never exploitative,” writes Milly Gribben.

Sitting down with Tailfeathers (who goes by ‘Máijá’) and her co-writer and co-director Kathleen Hepburn, we wanted to know more about their filmmaking technique, and the films that have inspired them.

Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (Áila) and Violet Nelson (Rosie) in ‘The Body Remembers…’.

What was the impetus for telling this story? Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers: The film is inspired by an experience that I had in East Vancouver, where the film takes place. Like in the film, I encountered a young woman who had just fled her abusive partner and she was literally standing barefoot in the rain and was very pregnant. I spent a few hours with her and it was a transformative experience. Sometimes we are lucky enough to have these encounters with strangers that fundamentally alter us. I carried that experience with me for a number of years wondering what to do with it, wanting to honor her story, and just kind of was left with the question of what happened to her because I never saw her again. Ultimately, I decided I wanted to turn it into a feature film and honor her experience and our experience and what happened in that short time we’d spent together.

Most of my experience with directing has been through documentary, and then my experience with narrative film has been through acting. Knowing that I wanted to make a feature in real time, having never made a narrative feature before, I figured it would be a good opportunity to collaborate with someone with more experience. And the way that I learned as a filmmaker has always been through collaboration. Kathleen has been a friend for a number of years and I so deeply admire her work and just her as a person. Her feature debut Never Steady, Never Still, it’s a phenomenal film. I reached out to Kathleen and proposed the idea of co-writing and co-directing and doing this together and that’s how it happened. Kathleen, how did you respond to Máijá’s proposal? Kathleen Hepburn: It was a very immediate response. She told me what had happened in the real life experience. It just felt like such an important, rich story, very complex and also artistically quite challenging to tell a real-time story. We decided to do it in one continuous take. It felt like a really wonderful honor to be a part of this project and an amazing challenge that I was really excited to participate in.

Co-writer, co-director and actor Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers.

This film is putting characters on screen that haven’t seen a lot of representation. Was that part of the motivation? E-MT: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the two women you see in the film are so familiar to me as an Indigenous woman. I know these women, so in so many ways they’re by no means unconventional. They’re just very real people who exist who, like you said, haven’t been represented on screen very often.

In terms of Indigenous cinema and Indigenous representation, there’s this long history of misrepresentation and people who aren’t Indigenous telling our stories and getting it fundamentally wrong. This was an opportunity to explore a very simple story that embodies all of these larger themes in such a nuanced way. It was an opportunity to speak about issues of class and various forms of privilege that exist within the Indigenous community based on lived experience. It was also an opportunity to, yeah, explore these larger systems of oppression that impact Indigenous in very different ways on a daily basis in Canada. There’s so much richness to both of these characters and so many opportunities to explore these larger themes through their lived experience on screen.

Although this breaks a lot of new ground, were there cinematic precedents that you had in mind? KH: One film we looked at in the writing process was Frozen River. In terms of style and tone, we were also looking at Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank. Wendy and Lucy, Kelly Reichardt’s film. But in terms of representation…

E-MT: I think Frozen River kind of set a precedent in terms of Misty Upham. She’s also Blackfoot. I’m a Blackfoot. She passed away very tragically, but seeing a woman like her on screen in a film that American audiences gravitated towards was pretty transcendent. Knowing that a character like that could hold space on screen in a way that drew American audiences in, I think kind of set maybe a bit of a precedent for this. Because we wanted Rosie’s character to be raw and real and vulnerable. When we found Violet Nelson, she embodied all of that and we wanted to present the world with a complicated individual who you would believe the world has not been kind to. Violet was all those things and she just delivered such an incredible performance and she was kind of like the light of our film. She carried so much of the film.

What precedents did you have in mind when you were thinking about shooting these long, real-time takes? E-MT: There were a lot of things to consider. One thing I think that was obviously most important for the process was supporting Violet’s performance, and coming from an acting background I really appreciate the rehearsal process, especially with theater. You get to sit with the work and be with it for weeks before you go to the stage. There’s a really incredible momentum that builds and being able to do the performance from beginning to end in one go on stage.

And there’s kind of this palpable energy that builds also with the audience because it’s an experience you’re all having. We wanted to bring that energy and that process into the film. We rehearsed for four weeks, and also rehearsed with our crew for five days and carefully choreographed everything. Our cinematographer, Norm Li, and the rest of our crew, were all just fully on board for this wildly experimental challenge.

KH: I mean, obviously we were inspired by films like Victoria, but I think for us, we didn’t want it to be about the one-take, so we were actually kind of hesitant to speak about it before we released the film because it wasn’t a gimmick. It was more to give the audience the same emotional experience as the actors.

We’d like to ask you about your life in film. What movie made you want to become a filmmaker? E-MT: I think for me it was Alanis Obomsawin’s Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. It’s kind of her most seminal work. She’s the grandmother of Indigenous cinema in Canada and also kind of around the world. She’s Abenaki, she’s 85 years old and she’s still making films. She just had a film at TIFF. She’s made over 50 films. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance is about the Oka crisis that happened in the early ’90s in Canada. It’s one of the most important works of cinema in Canada, and just knowing that an Indigenous woman made that film, that still is so incredibly important. I think that was the one that kind of motivated me to make movies.

KH: I think In the Mood for Love was probably the film where I was actually like, “Oh, okay, this is what filmmaking is like and can be like”.

Kathleen Hepburn, the co-writer and co-director of ‘The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open’.

What’s your go to comfort movie? E-MT: I could watch Moonlight over and over and over and over again. I don’t know if it’s a comfort movie, but there’s just something so splendid and beautiful about that experience and I actually crave watching that film. I probably watch it once a month. I’ll just sit down and watch a section of it.

KH: This is a more recent film, but one that I just loved so much is Toni Erdmann. Just everything about it is so inspiring. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking. But I don’t watch it once a month.

What movie, or movie scene, makes you cry the hardest? KH: Oh, I know this one. My Girl. When Macaulay Culkin dies, the funeral scene. “He needs his glasses. He needs his glasses.”

E-MT: God, that’s going to make me cry.

As a teenager, what movie, or movie character did you feel closest to? E-MT: For sure, Now and Then. That was something I connected with, but that’s when it was twelve years old or something.

KH: I was a tomboy growing up, so there was an Elijah Wood film called The War. For some reason, that one always stuck with me. I don’t know. I wanted to be those little boys, I think.

E-MT: Edward Scissorhands. I so connected with Edward. It’s just such a wild, bizarre, beautiful story of this outsider, but no, I’m not a fan of Johnny Depp now.

What film do you have fond memories of watching with your parents? E-MT: Oh man. Growing up we didn’t have a lot of money, but something that my parents always did was take us to the cinema and my dad, especially. On the weekends we would go and see double bills, sometimes not paying for the second movie. My dad was such an action movie guy. I grew up going to action movies with my dad. I remember, actually, my mom is the biggest Jackie Chan fan. Rumble in the Bronx, I think, holds a special place in my heart. It’s set in the Bronx, obviously, but it’s shot in Vancouver.

Then there was this Canadian TV show called North of 60, which was set in the north in Canada in this Indigenous community. It was kind of this show that we tuned into every week. I would say Tina Keeper, she’s an actress and also she’s a producer now, but she played a cop, an Indigenous woman. For me as a young person seeing her on screen was pretty transformative because she was an Indigenous woman who held a position of power and was a real person and was complex and beautiful and not framed within this overwhelming trauma that you often see Indigenous people framed within. That was pretty important just for me as in terms of representation, and then also for our family, we just tuned in every weekend. I don’t know if it’s even a good show. I can hear the theme song in my head. It was a CBC show.

Violet Nelson plays Rosie in ‘The Body Remembers…’.

What filmmaker, living or dead, do you envy or admire the most? E-MT: Right now, Tasha Hubbard. She’s a Cree filmmaker from Saskatchewan and she made a documentary film called nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up. It was about the murder of Colten Boushie, a young Cree man who was murdered by a white farmer named Gerald Stanley. Gerald walked away from all charges and is a free man, and the film is winning all sorts of awards across Canada and it’s so brave.

Tasha grew up with a white family, she was adopted. She grew up in this white farming community and she’s an Indigenous person who has experienced both of those realities. Racism on the prairies in Canada is very prevalent and in-your-face and violent. As a person who comes from the prairies—and I have an intimate knowledge of that reality—just the courage that Tasha took to make that film and to fully invest herself in such a challenging process. Yeah, there’s no words to sort of describe the respect that I have for her and what she’s done.

If you were forced to remake any classic, which one would you choose? E-MT: Well, this isn’t a classic, but one film that I’ve watched recently that just blew my mind is Happy as Lazzaro, the Italian film. It has such a high level of understanding about the world and the complexities of society, but it’s also just this beautiful film that tricks you into coming to an understanding that you don’t realize you’re having as you go through the film. I don’t have that sort of mind that can handle that kind of structural complexity.

‘The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open’ is the fourth acquisition of 2019 for Ava DuVernay’s Array Releasing, after acclaimed Ghanaian gem ‘The Burial of Kojo’, Hepi Mita’s documentary about his trailblazing Māori filmmaker mother, ‘Merata’, and Tribeca Film Festival award-winner ‘Burning Cane’ by nineteen-year-old Phillip Youmans. All are streaming on Netflix. ‘The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open’ is now in select theaters in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit.

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hollenka99 · 5 years ago

Text

The One Where Jackie Takes Each Day As It Comes

Summary: Chapter 1. Jackie may not have a home but he’s meeting some friendly faces.

@bupine @badlypostedeverything

Spotting all the daily newspapers declare it was February 13th 2019 that first morning had been rough. Part of Jackie had wanted to believe it was a really elaborate prank. But the lads wouldn't be able to do something like that. Especially given the state they'd gotten themselves in at Stuart's party. Maybe it hadn't been a bad thing that Jackie decided to go easy on the alcohol. At least he didn't enter the next century completely hammered. Seeing couples out on Valentine's Day causes him to reflect. He spent that day missing Chris, which he had been in two minds about. And Nate. God knows how he'd be able to return home to 1986, if he could at all. Perhaps getting thrown three decades into the future was the thing he needed to sort that mess out internally. The risk of the band going their separate ways because two members broke up sounded more attractive now. Sure beat them disbanding because the drummer disappeared indefinitely or was presumed dead. Yeah, he would split from Chris to be with Nate if he had the chance now. It was the old question niggling in his mind: didn't he deserve to be with the one who made him happier than the other? Not like all that relationship drama mattered much when he had no worldly possessions except for his clothes now. Fuck the shit with those two anyway. He'd rather have Caoimhe in his arms any day. Whatever happens to her with him gone, Jackie hopes she is kept safe and loved. Okay, so maybe he was going to get teary about some things. There was no point exhausting himself with tears regarding all this. How would giving himself a massive headache help matters? It got worse the more he accepted his drastic life change. Dwelling on it all hurt. Bridget, Annette and Spencer must all be adults by now. His friends were in their 50s, like he should be himself. They all must be unrecognisable to him now. Like he said, dwelling on the currently inaccessible past was redundant. Instead, he did his best to find somewhere dry to sleep at night. Days were spent on the lookout for food. At least there was a water fountain near the bus station. It's fine. It's not like this is his first time taking each day as it came. He'll manage, one way or another. It's while Jackie is preoccupied with drinking someone's discarded hot chocolate that a man approaches him. The stranger's curls remind him of how his own hair used to be, prior to its current style. Freckles litter his face too. The smile seems genuine but he's been in this situation before. Jackie decides to cautiously give this stranger the benefit of the doubt. "You know how to play guitar?" American? Canadian? He doesn't know enough about those accents to distinguish them. "...Yes." "Here." The guy holds out his guitar case. "I don't need the change anymore. Got a decent job now and all that." "Thank you but I can't." "You look like you could do with a source of income. Stealing isn't exactly a reliable method of feeding yourself. Which reminds me..." An oat bar is retrieved. Through part of the plastic wrapping, it is visibly crumbling. "I'll admit, not in the best condition. Sorry about that. Still, please take it." Well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that. "Thanks." "No problem. I'm Joel, by the way." He winks, heading a few feet away. "Jackie." The ground crumbles in front of where Joel stood. Straight up vanishes as if it hadn't existed in the first place. It wasn't like Jackie had never met someone with powers before but... it was certainly impressive to see this sort of stuff first hand. The outstretched leg, meant to be taking a step into oblivion, is retracted. There is a pause. Joel turns to face him once more. Still there is continued hesitation. "Listen, I shouldn't be saying this but... things are going to change soon. Just be careful. Anti's about and he likes targeting people who can uh, easily disappear." "Anti?" "There's a killer on the loose and I'd hate to see your face on the news for all the wrong reasons." And like that, Joel hops backwards into the hole. Jackie takes his advice and plays during the day. Playing acoustic guitar simply makes him miss rehearsals with the lads. Guitar wasn't even his instrument. That had been drums. Even so, their type of guitar had been electric. Not much comes from busking. He's rusty, he knows. He continues playing songs he recalls off by heart in the hope of earning a pound here and there. He supposes the public secretly question why he sang nothing but hits from 30 years ago. Days blur. The last time he'd bothered to check the date it had been the 21st. He didn't keep track of how many days ago that was. The wind has been blustery all day. It was for this very reason that Jackie had spent the majority of it as sheltered as he could. He notices a man passing by his spot who seems unaffected by the bad weather. He walks by as if they hadn't been suffering strong winds recently. That's not the only odd thing about the stranger. His choice of fashion is very interesting. His entire outfit is purple apart from the covered half of his face and his gloves. The white mask resembling a cat's face reached the top of his cheeks. To complete the look, the mask extends into triangular ears. Jackie feels the guy hitting his head must hurt even more with those attached. Jackie's presence must have been caught in his peripheral vision. Cat Guy halts and turns to him. Surprise transforms into a warm smile on his face. "Hey, I don't think I've seen you around here before. I'm guessing you haven't been living like this for long?" "About a week or two. Haven't been counting." "Tell me you at least have something to cover yourself with at night." "I try to find somewhere relatively warm. Ish." "Dude, it's February." "Yeah, tell me about it." Cat Guy removes his backpack. From it, he retrieves a water bottle and a blanket. "Good thing I tend to carry some stuff around. Ham or cheese?" "What?" "Sandwich." The stranger presents him with the gifts. Once Jackie takes the blanket and water, the superhero holds out an object encased in tin foil. "I tend to make ham and cheese ones. You're not vegan or a lactose intolerant vegetarian, are you?" "No. I'll uh... take the ham, thanks." "Oh, by the way, what's your name?" He could say John. Or Bartholomew. He doesn't have to say Jackie. Shit, he could say his name was Sean if he wanted, seeing as that was another form of his name. He didn't have to even provide a name that was half true. But eh, fuck it. It's not like this guy will find a Jackie Mann born in Ireland during the late 90s. "Jackie. And what should I call you, Mr Super Cat?" "Super Cat, wow." He laughs. "That's a new one. Well, I'm known as the Magnificent Cat around here. A bunch of people shorten it to Cat." Cat? Yeah, that sounds cool. The superhero carries on with his day a minute or two afterwards. He sees him tossing a sandwich and making brief conversation with the black woman situated on the corner of the street. Mondays and Thursdays rapidly become Jackie's favourite days of the week. Cat always swung by at some point in the day, making sure those living outside had certain necessities like food or some money. He had a habit of apologizing for not being able to give more than £5, as if that was a tiny amount to provide to each homeless person he catered to around the city. They typically talk but it never lasted long before Cat had to carry on with his rounds. Once, the superhero had to excuse himself due to a burglary being reported. Jackie also liked seeing this other guy who kept popping up over the days. They'd first met when Jackie had been performing Billie Jean. Marvin was a really nice, frequently sparing 2 or 3 pounds whenever he passed by Jackie. There were also their conversations. The topic didn't matter. They also varied in length but by far fulfilled his social quota better than Cat's busy schedule could. It was pleasant to have someone to talk to. Either way, he had two people in his corner which was two more than he'd expected. The first week of April is laden with rain. Waking up to a damp blanket sucked but it was hardly like he had anything else to cover himself with. At least it was gradually warming up now. The last thing Jackie wanted was hypothermia, let alone getting sick in general. He must be getting his days mixed up because he thought Cat's last visit was on a Thursday. Yet here he was, walking around as he tended to do. Jackie didn't hear him chatting with anyone else like he'd expected him to. It didn't matter. It was getting fairly late anyway. It wasn't as if Cat was prohibited from strolling around in his costume. Plus, he was under no obligation to be as social as he typically was. Saying hi to him as he passed wouldn't hurt though. "Cat! It's good to have a dry spell in the middle of all this bad weather, huh?" Jackie chuckles. "How are things going?" The superhero halts abruptly at this. It's almost like he didn't expect Jackie to be there. That was a little odd because this was his usual spot. However, he decided to brush it off as Cat having a long day. His theory is further solidified when he doesn't seem as in the mood to talk today. "Hey. Things are good." Cat smiles thoughtfully. "Actually, I've been meaning to show you this new community centre that opened recently. They're letting people sleep there if they want. It's technically within walking distance from here but it's much easier to get there by car. Want me to take you there?" He obliges Cat's generosity. They chat about how foot traffic had significantly dropped in the past few days due to the downpour. Cat points out his black car. He motions to Jackie that he'd be sitting at the back because unfortunately, there was a bunch of clutter in the front. The door is red when he grabs the handle. A couple blinks confirm it is still red. The darkness of the evening must have been confusing his ability to see colours properly. It also may be linked to this headache that's appeared out of nowhere. He really hopes this isn't a sign the rain has negatively affected his health. He'd rather focus on how lovely the interior of Cat's car was. The doors lock internally. He moves his head to direct a remark about it to Cat. Except it's not the superhero at all. There was no costume, only a dark hoodie. The first feature that causes him to stare when Cat faces him were those eyes. Was there even anything other than black in them? The hair too. He's never seen Cat without his mask on but he didn't think it would be dark green. Had Cat looked so pale all those other times? He's not certain. He definitely knows that grin belongs in Hell. "Funny how easily people will follow you if they think you're a friend. Isn't it?"

#jumbled au #my writing #writersofjack #jackie mann #the magnificent cat #antisepticeye #tw kidnapping #but it's more... luring away in this chapter

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battle-of-alberta · 5 years ago

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Chapter 4: Day Job - Easter Eggs

Hello again and welcome, if you read and enjoyed Chapter 4 of Battle of Alberta but wanted a closer look at some of the stuff I referenced or incorporated, links to more information, or just an explanation of my thought processes, you’re in the right place. Feel free to reply to this post or shoot me a message with any questions you have about this chapter I could add.

Page 1

Hello Calgary is a song that was stuck in my head for weeks after I decided to use it as Calvin’s alarm! I linked to the version I had stuck in my head (which is also the version used for the intro to the Alberta Advantage Podcast), but there’s tons of other versions. It’s not only Calgary’s song, it was actually written for hundreds of American cities, but Calgary seemed to take a particular shine to the song that really stuck.

Howdy is one of the two Olympic mascots for the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. Calgary was the first city to use two mascots for the Olympics; Howdy and Hidy welcomed people to the city with good old fashioned Western hospitality... I read a piece from 2007 quoting councilors on the decision to remove them from the city’s welcome signs saying something to the effect of “it’s time Calgary outgrew them!” which is pretty sad... obviously Calvin hates to let go of things.

Page 2

Calvin’s apartment is based on the Keynote Penthouse in downtown Calgary, which is just as ridiculous as i draw it. In fact, it’s MORE ridiculous in the photos.

His socks aren’t real but based on the Calgary flag, which literally has a cowboy hat on it. Because.

Page 3

Bankers Hall on the left side of the first panel is part of two twin towers in downtown Calgary designed to resemble cowboy hats on top. I wish I were making this up.

The Calgary Tower was built in the 70s to be the tallest building in the city by Husk- er, uh, “Malamute” Energy. It was surpassed at almost breakneck speeds by the rest of the skyline. And it shoots fire sometimes because of course it does.

Page 4

I would NEVER put real people in the background of my comics, especially not caricatures of infamous prime ministers. Don’t @ me.

The firm handshake thing is dedicated to an ad for a certain business school in calgary that i saw all over the airport one time when I was there that I can’t recall at the moment.

On that note: the western overlay on his business talk is also real. A few months ago in a class I took, a guest speaker mentioned that a “gentleman’s handshake” was still an acceptable form of contract in Calgary, shivered, and said “no thank you”. I was laughing so hard internally I also choked internally.

Page 7

The Lethbridge viaduct which is symbolic of the city is confusingly also named the High Level Bridge, which as an Edmontonian annoys me, but I begrudgingly admit that Lethbridge’s was first.

Page 8

Lethbridge recently surpassed Red Deer as the third biggest city by population, which is still tiny at about 1/8th-1/10th the size of Edmonton or Calgary. They say “no hard feelings” since they often switch back and forth in this role, although since recent cuts to post secondary on top of a pandemic it is unlikely that RDC will be a fully fledged university anytime soon.

Ed’s weird socialist agenda faces only minor setbacks. He’s allowed to elect people too, you know.

Page 9

For the love of god LEAVE YOUR CLIPPINGS ON THE LAWN!

I just assume Lilith enjoys ikebana for reasons

Page 10

okay ngl Amazing Race Canada 2019 (Season 7) was the best season and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased towards my team. They did ikebana in the Edmonton episode and my heart...

Astounding Trek is what they refer to it as in Kim’s Convenience (S03E11)

Seriously my team is the best team do NOT @ me.

Page 11

I believe the beer in panel one is from Coulee Brew Co. This is more for local colour than for endorsement, I don’t drink so you’ll have to tell me if it’s any good.

For non-Canadians or for Canadians who missed my subtle dragging, I am referencing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (who said the quote) and outgoing Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer (who recently got into a scandal about pretending to be an insurance broker when he was not qualified).

This comic took place before the federal election of October 2019, where Justin Trudeau scraped by with a sobering minority government. Many people across the country are frustrated with Trudeau for different (and evolving) reasons, but he is particularly hated in western Canada and especially Alberta for qualities including his perceived weakness and his poor efforts to ‘compromise’ on such projects as the Keystone XL pipeline.

Personally, I don’t agree with many reasons that people in Alberta hate him, but I still have a lot of reasons to hate him anyway. He’s not the woke bae you think he is, and he is a coward. However, thats not the point of this comic.

Page 12

The cartoon Calvin is watching is an episode of Dudley Do-Right. I made the horrible mistake of re-watching the live action version after drawing this. It was Bad with no redeeming qualities beyond Brendan Fraser’s face.

The 60s were a hip and happening time in Canada on a national level: apart from the threat of nuclear war, we were busy beavers celebrating the country’s centennial and the world expo in Montreal. Provincial leaders started meeting with each other for the first time, bilingualism and multiculturalism were making headlines, and the Socreds (Social Credit Party) were in the middle of their almost dynastic reign in Alberta.

Page 13

Fort McMurray is connected to the rest of the world either by air or by a highway which is so prone to danger and bottle necking that it is nicknamed the Highway of Death. Edmonton is the most major destination at the end of this highway, and thus Mac is quite used to crashing at Ed’s place when things go south (which seems to be an awful lot.) He’s happy for access to cheap beer.

Page 14

This is Patches’ first appearance in the main storyline. He is a rescue slash emotional support dog and a malamute/husky/??? mix. Mac pretends he’s a guard dog but he really only guards Mac’s brain.

Mac picks up a lot of east coast slang, ‘darts’ for cigarettes being one example.

The take-out packages are the kids boxes from Oodle Noodle... many fond memories of getting take out with my friends from there ;u;

Page 17

The nostalgia panel is full of Edmonton memorabilia including: A Klondike Days flag, a photo of young Wayne Gretzky, old and proposed city flags, a flag for the CFL team (which I deliberately drew backwards), a redesigned Oilers logo from the mid aughts, and of course the Alberta flag in the center. Many of these items have colonial/racist baggage associated with them.

Page 22

Panel one is a delicious shot of some green onion cakes, the unofficial civic food of Edmonton.

Vulcan Ale is indeed a real thing you can buy with your money - it’s an American beer from Montana but available in western Canada. See also the Federation of Beer based in Alberta... we are a province of Trekkies (although if you ask Ed, he actually prefers Star Wars)

Page 23

Pizza 73 is just whatever the worst generic pizza chain in your area is but for Alberta (Eastern Canadians, think Pizza Pizza).

That’s all for now folks!

#battle of alberta #boab meta #boab extras #hapo rambles #aph ask blog #hetalia ask blog

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speakinghistorically · 4 years ago

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Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Of course, by the time most people will read this, it won’t be Indigenous Peoples’ Day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it. Before I start, I want to warn you that this post will be longer than usual and will mention American politics. I’m sorry, but I promise it is important.

The second Monday of October is Canadian Thanksgiving, as well as Columbus Day. It is a day to be thankful for friends and family, but it also celebrates a man whose legacy is one of genocide and slavery. For decades Indigenous activists have fought to have critical discussions of Columbus and his legacy enter the public sphere. They have been working for decades to educate the public about the atrocities Columbus committed. For much of the last few centuries, Columbus was portrayed as a brilliant explorer who fought the ignorant belief that the world was flat and sailed across the Atlantic to find the New World. And that is where the story ended; “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue”. But because of the tireless work of activists, we have a much better picture of the real Columbus in our collective minds. The image of the whitewashed explorer is being eroded by a steady stream of actual history. Christopher Columbus, like most educated people in Europe, knew the world was round. He underestimated the size of the globe and thus came to the New World by accident. Once he was here, he began a regime of slavery and genocide that would eventually kill millions, all in the name of finding gold. His actions were seen as atrocities even at the time, as we can see based on the writings of Bartolome de las Casas, who witnessed Columbus’ impact on the New World. De las Casas said of Spain’s impact on Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) “What we committed in the Indies stands out among the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade (being the trade of Indigenous slaves) as one of the most unjust, evil, and cruel among them.” Even at the time, people knew what was happening in the West Indies was wrong. It would be wrong of us as modern historians to dismiss Columbus as “a product of his time”.

But there is hope. As more and more people become educated about the negative effects of colonization, the conversation surrounding Columbus and his contemporaries has changed markedly in the last two decades, moving from educators uncritically teaching children that Columbus discovered America to devoting more time to learning about the millions of people who already lived here and the impact colonization has had on them. Governments changing this day from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a small step, but it is a step in the right direction. I am not saying the way North Americans are taught about Columbus is perfect, or even really good. We have a very long way to go before we can say that. But because of the work of activists and legislators, there has been progress toward fixing this false narrative of Columbus discovering an untouched paradise, rather than a continent inhabited by millions of people. I feel secure in saying that the next few years are going to chip away further at this myth and the real Columbus will no longer be able to hide behind the white-washed version of his actions. The tide of historical facts is turning.

Which it is so strange to me to see people who should know better defending Columbus. I am talking, of course, about the White House Proclamation that was issued on October 9th, 2020. In addition to being incredibly condescending to Italian-Americans and failing to mention the millions of Indigenous people still living in the United States, it is also an absolutely terrifying document to be issued by a standing government. I know everything that comes out of the White House for the last 4 years has been awful, but this one is particularly awful in terms of public history. There is one section that is particularly bone-chilling:

“Sadly, in recent years, radical activists have sought to undermine Christopher Columbus’s legacy. These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions... We must not give in to these tactics or consent to such a bleak view of our history. We must teach future generations about our storied heritage, starting with the protection of monuments to our intrepid heroes like Columbus. This June, I signed an Executive Order to ensure that any person or group destroying or vandalizing a Federal monument, memorial, or statue is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law...I have also taken steps to ensure that we preserve our Nation’s history and promote patriotic education... In September, I announced the creation of the 1776 Commission, which will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and honor (sic) our founding. In addition, last month I signed an Executive Order to root out the teaching of racially divisive concepts from the Federal workplace, many of which are grounded in the same type of revisionist history that is trying to erase Christopher Columbus from our national heritage. Together, we must safeguard our history and stop this new wave of iconoclasm by standing against those who spread hate and division.”

In addition to standing by Columbus as a shining paragon of discovery despite the increasing movement to de-canonize him as a saint of American history, which I personally find incomprehensible, this document also presents a deeply troubling vision of historical thought. In the world view this excerpt describes, there can be no criticism of historical figures. It is as simple as that. Any historical scholarship that threatens the vision of America as “miraculous” is not to be accepted by the government as legitimate. Any movements to question the existing narrative or the monuments that reinforce that narrative will be “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”. Policies like this will not only undo decades, if not centuries, of efforts to create a national history that reflects all of the nation’s past, the good and the ugly. Marginalized voices that have been speaking about injustices for centuries will be silenced. Students will be taught only one version of history. Columbus will remain a hero, his statues will stand over land that was stolen by him and people like him. History that is hard to hear or upsetting will not be told. Worst of all, students will be taught to never question this history. If that doesn’t scare you, I don’t know what will.

#Public History #Columbus Day #History #October 15

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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953

How old are you? 22.

Do you live in North America? No, kinda far from there.

Do you love dogs? I love all dogs, but there are breeds I personally don’t like.

Were you finished childhood and teens when Harry Potter movies came out? Not at all, I was right smack in the middle of it. I wasn’t born when the first book got released and only 13 when Part 2 of HP7 came out.

Did you keep all your VHS tapes? I don’t think my parents did. But this reminds me of a cute story my dad shared recently; he had used his first salary to buy a VCR and the first VHS he bought alongside it was Terminator 2 and then he watched it with my grandma :’) Stories like that make me wish they were better at keeping stuff from their early adulthood. I find it all very interesting.

Do you think Jack Nicholson is a good actor? I’ve only seen him in The Shining and have watched only bits of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it’s enough for me to like him.

Have you ever watched an episode of "The Honeymooners"? No.

Have you ever owned a pair of high-top Converse? Yes, a red pair. I bought it mostly because my favorite girl wrestler (when she still wrestled) wore Chucks as her wrestling boots which was super badass at the time (honestly still is). When she retired, I stopped using the pair because I was personally never into the high-top look hahaha, and I think my mom gave it away a few years later.

Do you have rain boots with a cute pattern on them? I don’t have any rain boots. It rarely floods where I live anyway.

Would you rather eat an apple or an orange right now? Probably the apple. I can’t stand the smell of oranges so I doubt my mind could be changed with how it tastes.

Would you rather do a cartwheel on land or a backflip in water? I’d go with cartwheels as it’s a little easier to move around underwater, and with enough practice I’m sure I could get a backflip down.

Have you ever performed on stage in front of people? Yes.

Were you kinda scared of the goths in high school? No. But I also don’t think we had goths lmao. I wasn’t afraid of anyone except probably for the bitchy seniors who always seemed to hate the idea of younger students existing.

What size is your mattress? (single,twin,double,queen,king) Twin, which I think is synonymous with single lol.

Do you eat foods from all 4 food groups everyday? I eat from all of them everyday except for fruits, but I’m not sure if they’re a group of their own. The charts are always changing and I don’t know what four you’re referring too :/

Would you rather watch a movie in theater or at home? I liked going to the theater, especially for certain movies that I was really excited about and wanted to see. There’s certain ones you definitely have to experience in theaters. Then there’s some where I’m like, “Eh, it looks like it might be kinda good, but I can wait until it’s out of theaters to see it.” < All this.

Do you prefer brown or white rice? White.

Do you like spaghetti? Sure! There are other pastas I like more, though.

What about lasagna? It’s okay. It’s a hit or miss for me. Some lasagna dishes I’ve had have tasted a bit cheap, but when it’s made well it can be really delicious.

Do you celebrate Christmas? Yeah, but I find it more of an escape than a celebration because I tend to get the most depressed around Christmas season. Being with family and getting to eat lots of food and using my new gifts can be distracting enough.

Is your Thanksgiving celebrated in October too? We don’t celebrate that.

Do you like chocolate bars? If it has peanut butter in it, yes.

What about ice cream? Only certain flavors.

Have you ever been stung by anything? What was it? Nothing other than ants and jellyfish.

Do you have GOD-GIVEN (not dyed) natural brown hair too? I have black hair but I think I inherited it from my parents...

Or were you born blonde? See above.

Have you found a gray hair on your head or body before? I remember my mom finding one on me when I was like 11, but it never happened again.

Have you ever had any suspicious moles removed? Nopes.

Have you ever been screened for STDs? No.

Are all your wisdom teeth pulled? They aren’t. I don’t know when it’ll happen to me lol, that area of my mouth has never had any trouble or been in pain.

Did you have your tonsils taken out? No.

Did you have your appendix taken out? No. Other than a tooth, no body parts have been taken out of me.

How many kidneys do you have?(have you donated one?) See above.

Would you (to save someone)? If the person needing one means so so so so so so so much to me. And that narrows down the list very much, so I wouldn’t give a kidney to just anyone.

If you were dying of starvation, would you eat another human? Probably, but only if I was in an extreme situation. Like if a plane I was in crashed in a remote island lol.

Have you ever found a bug or slug in your salad? I don’t think so.

Do you like Harry Potter? No.

What about Twilight? Read all books and watched all movies more times than I can count.

How do you feel about Lord of the rings? Bored me to death. I remember the disappointment I felt when I started The Hobbit and realized I wouldn’t be able to make it past the first page.

Are you going to see 'The Hobbit' when it comes out? I did not.

Do you have a glass that says 'Molson Canadian' on it? No, I’ve never heard of that.

Do you have any collector's glasses or cups or mugs? My mom has Starbucks mugs which I know some people collect.

Would you rather have a white fridge or a black fridge or a stainless steel fridge? Stainless steel.

What size shoe do you wear? My feet can fit anywhere from size 6–7.5.

Do you have a wide foot or a narrow foot or just average? It’s average and small.

Do you bite your nails when you're stressed? Yep. Sometimes I also use my nails themselves to fidget with the other nails.

Do you have to take an allergy pill daily in order to live normally? I don’t. When it comes to food, I’m so glad I don’t have any allergies.

Are you on the birth control pill? Nope.

Or are you trying to get pregnant? Certainly not at this point in my life.

You'd rather wear black sneakers or sneakers in a bright color or pattern? Neither. I like my sneakers white.

Has anyone ever told you they were attracted to you? Yeah.

Are you going to drink alcohol tonight? No. We only have plum soju that just tastes like kid’s medicine.

Have you ever heard of the Canadian kids show called "Mr. Dressup"? Never have.

What about the kids show "Fred Penner's Place"? No.

Did you hate Sesame Street when you were little too? I mean it wasn’t my favorite since I didn’t have access to the show and only saw snippets here and there, but I don’t have anything against it at all. I just liked other kid’s shows more.

Were you born perfectly healthy or with some (or a lot) of health issues? Other than my dehydration issues as a newborn, I was a pretty healthy baby.

What are those 'said' health issues? My parents didn’t know I was lactose intolerant so my body wasn’t actually digesting the milk I was fed for a few weeks, and it eventually became a problem when I got dehydrated and my stomach started deflating like crazy.

Do you collect DVDs? I wouldn’t say I collected them as a kid. I just liked having DVDs of my favorite movies, but I didn’t make it a goal to have hundreds of them.

Do you download music? I did, but I haven’t for a while now.

Or do you still go to stores and buy CDs? I don’t do that anymore. Everything is online.

#survey #surveys

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heck-damn-so-i-draw · 5 years ago

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PART 6!

Meeting inside of the crowded tent, Tyler couldn’t help but feel a little bad. His fear and anxiety got to him and he snapped about the schedule, now he wasn’t sure just how mad Brian was at him. Surely he wasn’t too mad, right? Tyler’s been known to be a bit irritable when the crew veers off schedule, but upon reaching this place, his irritability has been easy to trigger. He’s been able to keep it under his skin for now, his shirt getting ruined, the lack of schedule they’d been performing under, the stress of whatever they’re dealing with. He didn’t mean to snap at Brian like he did.

What was done was done though, and it goes unsaid as Brian, Evan, and David enter the tent. The priest looks tired, green eyes looking over the computers and many things curiously. He.. didn’t understand anything of what these guys did, but he respected why. He’s known about Brian’s gift since before the 4th grade, when Brian was crying all alone behind the school, saying that his grandmother had died, but he could still see her everytime he came home. Passing the dead on from being stuck between life and death, that’s almost always been something Brian was passionate about. David could only figure out that maybe this Evan guy was passionate about it as well, since he’s heard of the canadian’s gift before when brian mentioned it.

“This is Tyler, and Marcel, guys, this is Brian’s friend Father David.” Evan interrupted the priest’s thoughts with an introduction to the rest of the team. He stands up straight, holding his hands behind his back instinctively. “Please, feel free to just call me David. It’s nice to meet you boys.”

Tyler nodded at the introduced, still sitting in the plastic black chair in front of the computer. Marcel stands up and offers his hand, a smile on his face. “Nice to meet you, man. Thanks for coming out so soon. So- What’s the plan? I mean, we’ve got one but, I don’t really know what you’re part of the plan is. You know?” At this, David laughs a bit and shakes his head. “It’s simple really. I’ll bless the equipment ye guys’er gonna use, then do a pray f’er all of ye collectively. I do wanna go in with ya when ye go inside though too.” Evan was still recording, so all of this information was open to their fanbase, and though it wasn’t very big, they would enjoy it.

“Sounds good. We should start with the thermal cameras and motion sensors, then.” Marcel agreed with that plan. It sounds simple and easy, he wants it to be done quick so they can get to work. He isn’t really the most religious person, none of the boys are. Brian knows there’s some kind of truth to what they preach, but his experiences have pointed more towards an ‘astral plane’ than a ‘god’. It’s all about experience.

After individually blessing everything they were using, including the computers after a bit of team thought, finally they were done. It took longer than they expected. By the time all was said and done, cameras were placed outside of the house and inside with little to no activity, it was 6 pm, and the sun was starting to set into deep reds and oranges in the sky. Tyler had one camera rolling on Evan, David, and Brian as they stood in front of the house and introduced David to the camera feed, just as they did to their own friends,

As they continued to speak, the grass was slowly getting darker for one member of the team. Blades of green now dripped with a tar like red. Brian swallowed back his words when he noticed it, finishing his train of thought and letting Evan take over the camera talk again. He was much better at it than Brian ever was.

“It is now about 6:30 pm, we’re all gonna head in here and do a quick walk through with our new priest friend just in case things get nasty. Hopefully we make it all the way into the house this time.” He jokes, prompting brian to chuckle in response emptily. He was too worried about the demon standing behind Tyler, the one that nobody could see. It stared deep into Brian’s eyes and sent a chill down his spine. The air around it was shifting back and forth, in and out of darkness, like a steam coming off of the ‘body’ of this demon. He blinked away from it as its stare started to make him feel sick and lightheaded. That’s when he noticed Evan had been trying to get his attention. “Brian? Earth to Brian? What’s wrong man?” Is what the lad tunes into. He blinks, surprised and obviously shaken up. “Wha-? Oh-.. It…” He looks back to the spot behind Tyler, making Tyler tense. “What is it, man? Spit it out already.” There’s that salt in his voice again, stern and uncalled for. It makes Brian glare at him, returning the salt. “A demon. The one from inside. He’s behind ye Tyler.”

“WHAT THE F-!?” This makes Tyler jump almost out of his skin, and turn around violently to attempt to see it with the camera. “Where are ya you demon bitch! Show yourself!” Brian sighed and rolled his eyes as the demon laughed softly (not that brian can hear it, but Evan can) and then dissolved out of the air around them, and out of sight. “’s gone, fuckass. I think…” He sighs, looking back to the camera when it’s pointed at him. “We need to go inside now. I think it’s time.” He nods to the camera, and then turns around to look back at the house. The demon sat on the roof watching them with it’s sharp one eye, sharp, jagged X over it’s right eye that jutted out over it’s cheek and down it’s neck. Brian swallows and braces himself for the long night ahead as he carefully walks up the creaky wooden steps.

David has never had to be a part of something like this, so of course he was nervous. Though, he was also excited. To be a part of an adventure like something like this, it’s amazing, riveting, terrifying.

As they walk into the old building, David immediately understands why they needed him to be here so bad. The pentagram on the floor was untouched so far, but it seemed like the area around it was… darker. Something was off, angry. For some strange reason, Tyler felt a strange anger deep in his chest, radiating off of him. He tried to ignore it, biting his tongue as he recorded the team heading inside of the building, but felt its slow burn deep down in his lungs. They didn’t want to spend too much time in this main room because of the effects this pentagram had on the living. Tyler had the camera focused on David’s concerned reactions, and the reactions from his team, when brian suddenly stopped the team and pointed to a couch in the corner of the room that they hadn’t investigated in their haste of the previous day.

“There- There’s definitely a spirit there. Gotta be recent.. The fat fock is sittin’ in his tighty-whities…” Brian didn’t want to look at what he saw in front of him. A man seemed to lay asleep on the couch, a bullet wound in his chest just below his collar bone. Evan stepped closer, listening to whatever he could. He could hear that sharp ringing, and a constant whisper, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time, considering he had aid from the holy water he applied to his ears. Thank god for that. Literally.

Suddenly he heard something that sounded closer, something that sounded tired and raspy, older. “You boys… don’t happen to have any beans on you, do ya?”

Evan blinks, then bursts out in laughter. After composing himself, he just says, “This guy is just asking if we got any beans. I don’t think he’s gonna pose much of a problem.”

Brian shakes his head, and looks to the stairs, then to the hallways beside the stairwell that leads to something of a kitchen. He purses his lips for a second as he thinks, then looks at evan. “I think we better split up into two groups for this. It’ll get done faster since we’re behind schedule.”

Evan nods, “Alright Tyler you come with me, Marcel can follow Brian up the stairs.” David watched as they collaborated and discussed splitting up, before he could speak up about who he’d follow, Tyler rolled his eyes and pointed his camera at Evan, looking more at the footage coming through the night vision, which made it easier to see everybody. “So we’re on some scooby-doo shit? Alright, cool. If we get killed Evan, I'm gonna kill you again from the afterlife.”

This made David laugh, then cough and try to act like he didn’t. “Ahem- watch y’er mouth, Tyler.” He teased, not actually caring. “I’ll head up wit’ brian and Marcel then. Brian can see tha ghosts’ and I wanna make sure he isn’t messin’ wit things.” This made the other irishman roll his eyes and cross them over his chest, ignoring the seemingly homeless man’s spirit as it curiously approaches the team, listening in on their conversation. “Ye just wanna pester me. Alright then, c’mon boys, let’s get ta work. We meet back here in an hour, if not sooner, yeah?” The rest of the team nods, Marcel turns his camera on, and then they head off in their separate ways.

~STAY TUNED FOR PART 7~

(◠ω◠✿)

Yeah. I left you guys on a cliff hanger. What of it?

Don't wanna scroll through Tumblr to find all the parts? Here!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BtwQY83MEgIH46KdMA3NPKInBf0i3jiBrdgj3EoJiCo/edit?usp=drivesdk

#bbs ghost adventures au #terroriser #bbs terroriser #basicallyidowrk #bbs basicallyidowrk #bbs iamwildcat #iamwildcat #vanossgaming #daithi de nogla #moosnuckle #bigjigglypanda #bbs squad #bbs crew #bbs au

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interesting-blog-name · 5 years ago

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SLIGHTLY NEW ALBUMS I LIKED (Little Simz - GREY Area; Monsune - Tradition; Backxwash - God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It)

More loose reviews that I write and instantly want to get out of my Word document and into Tumblr without much of an overlaying theme between the albums or any planning as to which ones I’ll be releasing at which point, but it is what it is. This time I’ll be compiling some recent-ish albums I’ve enjoyed, two of which I’ve come to know from TheNeedleDrop (I try not to watch reviews before writing down my opinion btw), and one EP from an artist I like. Here it is.

Little Simz – GREY Area

Little Simz, the 26-year-old British rapper, is an artist I’ve loved the first time I heard her, when I listened to Selfish for the first time and saw her cover of Feel Good Inc. in triple-j’s Like A Version. Today, May 30th, I was planning on listening to White Chalk by PJ Harvey, but from what I read, it’s a pretty depressing album, and I’m not in the mood for that right now, so I picked GREY Area from my future listening list.

It’s really nice to hear a rap album like this once in a while. The instrumentation is organic and well thought out, her flow is amazing, and her lyrics have so much substance and personality to them, ranging from the happier, more reminiscent tone in 101 FM to the much more aggressive tracks Offence, Boss, Venom and Pressure, she’s always giving her take on life, telling the experience of what it’s like being a black person with big dreams in England, seeing friends die while she tries to go somewhere in life through music.

The main tone she picks for her self-narrative is an unapologetic view of the world around her; she tells the listener: “’til now I ain’t ever been the selfish type, ‘till now I ain’t ever told nobody no, don’t get it twisted. This shit ain’t happen overnight” in the biggest song off here, Selfish, featuring the most calming and lavish pianos and violins in this album, and an amazing feature by Cleo Sol on the hook. Pressure features an amazing batch of verses all about. Same thing with the intro, Offence, with its bold, empowering chorus; although the track comes off more playful with its cartoonish sound effects nearing the end than the raw message of the track mentioned previously. A great, high-spirited track to start off the album.

What isn’t as high-spirited is the next track, Boss, or, to be fair, almost all the other tracks in the album. Boss is a big fuck you to anyone you might dedicate the song to: the hook has Simz’s most aggressive delivery in the whole record, and the entire message is about getting over those who hurt you and coming up. The second verse is something else.

Wounds, featuring Jamaican singer Chronixx, deals mostly with the gun/crime problem ever-so-present in marginalized communities all around the world, and she tells the story from the perspective of both herself and as a companion of the “gun man”, repeatedly mentioned in the song (“When a gun man only knows self-hate, them bullets show no love”). I’m not super crazy for Chronixx’s hook, or the much slower tempo of the track, but it fits well with the groovy instrumental. Venom, on the other hand, is a super exciting, menacing song. She goes all out over the violins playing in the background, but unfortunately, the track burns twice as bright to last half as long.

To lighten the mood a bit, 101 FM brings the most electronic instrumental, with cheerful, banging 808s and synths, and lyrics about her come up as a rapper, probably the verses where her British accent and slang dominate the most, giving them a more personal feel somewhat. Pressure doesn’t feature the most compelling instrumental or hooks in here – the Little Dragon refrain is mixed very poorly and the vocalist just doesn’t do a great job -, but the verses compensate for that, especially the first one, probably one of the most heartfelt and important ones in this album. Therapy talks about Simz’s struggles with finding comfort in therapy. The instrumental is average for the project, but still slaps, so that’s nice.

Sherbet Sunset is an ode to a broken relationship, and a theme that could be handled so poorly by other artists is handled masterfully by Little Simz. In three verses, she displays so many sides to what I assume is one relationship, so many emotions and thoughts that she shares, it really feels like she’s transcribing something of a focused, bright mind rush over the track, and it amazes me how she can reveal her feelings so well on a track like this, progressing from the regret of not seeing how it’d go wrong, to the anxiety that comes from spending all that time for seemingly nothing, to coming to terms with it in the last verse (although not quite). It’s a stunning song now that I listen to it again.

To close it all off, we have Flowers, mainly a tribute to various artists from the 27 club, with mentions of Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse in the verses, trying to relate to their struggles with drug addiction and quick fame. It’s incredibly powerful and a great finisher.

I don’t dislike one track in GREY Area. It’s well conceived, a great statement, it really feels like she gives her all to make every track memorable, and even though her delivery is mostly monotone throughout the whole album, that also works to her favor, as she has a very unique and recognizable voice. So the lyrics are extremely well written, and the only reason I don’t give more examples of that is because I got a whole lot of school shit to do, the instrumental work is clean and precise, and I don’t have a whole lot to complain about. Check this shit out if you haven’t.

FAVORITE TRACKS: 101 FM, Venom, Selfish, Offence, Boss, Pressure

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: lol nah

8.7/10

“Why you wanna all dress lies as truth? Have you ever seen what silence do? I don’t wanna see no violent troops putting out fires that haven’t been started”

Monsune – Tradition

Damn I did not expect to like this as much as I did.

Monsune is a Chinese-Canadian singer who has recently been gaining some popularity from his amazing song OUTTA MY MIND, which features a funky bassline and high-pitched guitar playing that some have compared to Childish Gambino, specifically his album “Awaken, My Love!”. I decided to check out this short EP by him to see if he had anything more to offer, and it’s safe to say, he does.

The first track off Tradition already shows what this guy can do with his production. It starts off with the same vibe off of his previously mentioned biggest track, but on steroids: a prominent bassline, pitch-altered backing vocals, sunny guitars, and drowned out drums. His voice is also reaching higher notes in this song than in OUTTA MY MIND, but then in the middle of the song it all slows down for a very welcome beat change that shifts the song from this summer anthem to a very chill R&B tune. It’s amazing stuff, although I don’t understand why he chose to put some very noticeable autotune in this part.

CLOUD is my least favorite from the EP, but it’s still a very solid song, it’s just not amazing. The bass is still very strong, and the bridge later on in the song is addictive as shit. After that track comes OUTTA MY MIND, and then his style completely switches in MOUNTAIN, which starts off with some solo guitar and his low, beautiful singing. It’s actually really moving for some reason lol. It then picks up in the hook, the drums kick in along with what I assume is a keyboard, and his voice reaches the top of his range for the backing vocals, it’s a very well-made song.

JADE finishes Tradition off extremely beautifully, with a smooth acoustic guitar intro over a nice-ass bass, some ethereal, trippy scenes of Monsune floating over the ocean and appearing out of thin air in front of you (probably not you, the listener). And then all of a sudden this madman screams off the top of his lungs in the middle of the track and I fucking love it.

The flaws this EP has are mostly related to the mixing, which I think can be a little too harsh in some sections such as the big breakdowns in JADE and MOUNTAIN. Plus, I know lyrics aren’t a focus on a project like this, but it would be nice to get something more than love songs in the future perhaps. Still, loving this EP, so glad I checked Monsune out. You should too.

WORST TO BEST: CLOUDS, 1998, JADE, OUTTA MY MIND, MOUNTAIN

8/10

“Don’t you wanna come down? Cause I’m so bored of walking on the same old sky”

Backxwash – God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It

God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It is an album by American rapper Backxwash, who received a new wave of attention after Anthony Fantano reviewed this album in his channel and gave it a decent 8. I haven’t watched the review yet, but I was interested in checking it out because of the high score, and especially since when I looked it up on Spotify, the songs only had around 8000 views.

Dark subject themes and the whole dark trap aesthetic are the core of this album. I, personally, have always been a fan of aggressive, heavy rap music, from more underground names like gizmo and Fukkit, to the more mainstream variant of these sounds, like XXXTENTACION. This album, however, operates in somewhat of a separate lane.

Many of the dark, edgy rap I used to listen to religiously back in the day was borderline mindless. Shit about ripping someone open, hollow flexing, except separated from mainstream rap only because the rapper in question is screaming their brains out when talking about designer clothes, instead of mumbling like your average Lil Baby, and, of course, personal problems, depression, being mad about whatever it was. Unlike its other contemporaries, however, it seems Backxwash has much more thought and elaboration into what she wants to yell about. Instead of hiding behind bass-boosted rather formulaic instrumentals, she takes the more scenic route, with still very dark, but more intricate gothic beats, sampling various religious speeches and implementing them into songs about black magic and overall unhappiness. The Black Sabbath sample that opens up this album should be enough for any listener to immediately understand what they’re about to get into, as the title track brings heavy percussion and some of the most graphic lyrics in the album, which it already doesn’t lack. Lines about downing pills and vodka, contemplating suicide, and blank vocalizations of anger (“I want war with these bitches, I want corpses and weapons”).

The track that resembles an average edgy Soundcloud rap song the most is Black Magic right after, with its own interpretation of the “ay” flow, shouted with a tone reminiscent of someone like Craig Xen. The big difference comes with the much grander production, especially the growling guitars that get introduced halfway, reminding the listener of Backxwash’s skill as a producer. From what I could tell, she was responsible for the production of the tracks in here, and considering there are no vocal guests except for Malldate’s quick appearance in Into The Void, I’m assuming the features listed in the tracklist are all producer credits as well, the feature in this track being Ada Rook, providing the amazing guitar work for this song.

Spells is mixed for me. I don’t enjoy the attempted singing in the chorus, and it falls completely flat to my ears; the beat is hard as ever, but the lyrics feel slightly disconnected with each other. At one point, she’s talking about going to Hell to her mom, at the other she mentions doors opening and closing in an office and how there’s no one in some corridor, and it doesn’t go anywhere from that, with lines such as “heart is so dead with tissue” not exactly evoking any sort of emotion or imagery.

Black Sheep is the most effective song out of the first four; it seems to filter all the positive aspects of the other tracks and package them into one quick serving. The beat is chaotic and in a constant state of unrest, the lyrics are centered and aimed at various of Backxwash’s problems in life, such as her father, people who want to bring her down and put her “in line on the X and O’s”, and overall venting. After that comes a brief interlude, the first of two that don’t have much use in the album except as pallet cleansers. It’s followed by Into The Void, a track that mentions her paranoia of being harassed and possibly killed when walking around in the streets and the deli. It’s haunting, and definitely the best song in here; it is laser-focused in the exact way I wished the previous tracks would be. Her vocal delivery is extremely expressive, and she tells the story in a way that gives the listener a brief, but at the same time immense glimpse of the reality that trans people face and have to go through, in a morbid fashion.

Adolescence is very short and eases the pace a bit after the intense emotions of the last. It’s a message to her younger brother that quickly descents into a confession of her inner struggle, mentioning possible overdoses and being too old for the 27 Club and fearing going to therapy. What’s great about this song is the fact that, even in such a short amount of time and with a less explosive instrumental, Backxwash manages to evoke her emotions so well; this is definitely what she does best in this record, and it overcomes the times where her delivery is flawed and her words are slurred and hard to understand. After this comes Amen, and holy fuck is this an angry song. Criticizing the hell out of the church, Backxwash comes at greedy pastors and their irresponsible spending when the churchgoers who support him are in need. My big problem with this song is the fact that the hook, as impassionate as it is, doesn’t do much for the subject, and the verse is way too short to have any impact with its theme. Lines like “these politicians politicking” don’t help much either.

The very distorted second interlude, Heaven’s Interlude, takes us to the last track, Redemption, the least intense song in here, which is appropriate as a sendoff. She expresses her frustrations towards her dad’s frustrations towards her being trans, and while the entire sentiment of the song is great and well formulated, I can’t find a way around the lines “Fuck these fucking boomers, fuck these fucking losers. Fuck theses motherfucking fuckers in their fucking two truck. Fuck these fuck(sic)abusers, and fuck these fucking rumors.”, they just emanate Limp Bizkit energy.

God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It is a very passionate, real, well produced and well-conceived album; it bears themes that are immensely important to be brought to the music scene, and by mixing that message with its explosive and polished production, it amplifies it a ton. However, as powerful as her deliveries are, I believe Backxwash can go much further with her songwriting and song structuring in the future, as well as her intonation, because that was really all that was keeping this album from being legendary. If she can do more of this in songs that are longer and super focused around whichever topic she decides, she can make something legendary. And thank God she got reviewed by Fantano, I hope she can take this opportunity and make something huge out of this.

FAVORITE TRACKS: Into The Void, Black Sheep, God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It, Adolescence, Black Magic

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Spells

7.7/10

“Chosen one, sad bitch, lowest scum. Coldest, huh, black sheep talk to ‘em. If the situation changed I would have said the same shit, exactly the same.”

#little simz #grey area #monsune #tradition #backxwash #god has nothing to do with this leave him out of it #album #review #albume review #ep #ep review #rap #uk rap #dark rap #indie pop

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