#i do wanna keep it in the vocal category but others would be fine

[badendinggamer]

Ok fine I'll post them

Darkcult(Jevin x Black) Fankid: Echo

This is concept art and a slight redesign of these:

Some of his old characteristics went to his brother who i wanted to draw but I spend so much time on echo I'll probably just draw him later.

Also now Echo isn't actually navy colored that would be his brother (tbh I don't know what color i chose for them but it has black as well lol)

Anyways uhhh i should probably explain the main fact aka echo being dead cause that probably caught some off guard

Well yes he is dead technically, he eventually got sick one day and they first thought it was some normal cold till Echo's mission start to go blurry with his eyes going pale. Tbh no one really knows what the hell he got sit from but it haunts his family (especially his brother) a lot . . . .

Literally.

His coffin was never buried.

Vibrato (Echo's brother) sheet here

[thebeeduo]

(Safe to watch - A genuine discussion about stan culture and Twitter)

Austin: Tubbo, I want to talk about the stans real quick

Tubbo: The stans?

Austin: The stans. Just stan culture in general

Tubbo: Ok

Austin: My question to you is everybody knows about the stans, right chat? Um- Everybody is monkaW-ing. My question is to you Tubbo, is.. What do you love about them? Because I'm sure there's many things to love about them

Tubbo: What do I love about them? Well.. they're that-

Austin: What do you think- How about we start with this. What do you think about them in general?

Tubbo: In general? Well, they're overwhelmingly positive towards me if they're stans of me. But then you see stans of other communities which are overwhelmingly negative. Like, stan as a word has quite a "pre-vision" of what the person is like when you think of what a stan is. But as stans, as the people themselves, they are just that core audience that- of a thing that they absolutely love, if you know what I mean. So I'm sure there are stans of the Austin Show, in the sense that people absolutely love the Austin Show and can't wait to watch the Austin Show, when they're next live, you know?

Austin: There's two

Tubbo: There's two?

Austin: There's literally two. Cole and Maddie, and they're in here right now. I guarantee you there's two of them, their names are Cole and Maddie. They're the only fans that I ha- I mean, look, @ me on twitter @ MrAustinShow on my alt account and let me know if you're a stan of me, ok? Because as far as I am aware we have Cole and Maddie and those are the only two stans that I have. So what you are saying Tubbo is that you can't generalise stans as just being all one thing. It depends on the community

Tubbo: Yeah, like, there are.. there are- like I said, every community has its bad apples. Uh, stans has quite a negative rap. The word "stan" is, like, um.. It's used more to describe the crappier part of the community more than the- Because stans aren't just negative, ok? Stans are that- How do I best describe it? It's that core audience which is gonna support you and watch you basically no matter what, unless.. it turns out you're a terrible person

Austin: Yeah, right

Tubbo: If you know what I mean

Austin: Yeah

Tubbo: So, like, it is that amazing core audience which is overwhelmingly supportive and want to show their support. And um.. and the reason why the negativity [?], because, like, people can- Ahh.. I don't understand. It's difficult because I feel like I don't want to say the one thing and give the wrong impression, if you know what I mean

Austin: No, I got you. No, it's ok we-

Tubbo: Like-

Austin: It's fine. You can think about what you're going to say

Tubbo: Before stans, people who would be considered stans now still existed, if you know what I mean

Austin: Right

Tubbo: But now because there's all of this spotlight on this group of people who are obsessed with these little things

Austin: I see

Tubbo: It makes negatives, like-

Austin: Makes sense

Tubbo: They are.. also the loud, like, minority. Like, so, they are less of the entire audience, but they are the loudest as well

Austin: Yeah, that makes sense

Tubbo: Because I, like, attribute that to the fact that they care the most [?]

Austin: I get what you mean. I get what you mean. Basically, you can't generalise all the stans under one category

Tubbo: Yeah!

Austin: And the thing- the negativity we hear about the stans are a vocal minority that you say that- it's not fair to associate them with everybody

Tubbo: Yeah, and when you think of stans, like, Twitter comes to mind as well, doesn't it?

Austin: Yeah, it does

Tubbo: And the reason why you see negativity is because Twitter's platform is entirely designed off promoting interactions, and your people are way more likely to interact with something that they- that's, like, a negative thing. Aren't they?

Austin: Yeah

Tubbo: Like, outrage spurs so much more of a reaction than a happy dog photo

Austin: That is true

Tubbo: Which is why Twitter is so negative because Twitter just wants to keep you on their website for as long as possible, have you on there as long as possible, have you interact with the most stuff and make them the most money. And that's gonna happen if they promote more of these tweets into your community, which is gonna outrage your community and have this spiral [?] effect of outrage

Austin: It's- yeah

Tubbo: 'Cause they get more time on their platform and more interactions

Austin: It's an echo chamber

Tubbo: Yeah!

Austin: Truly, no matter where you exist, it's an echo chamber for whatever philosophies and things that you- the algorithm is- I think it's important for people to understand this. The algorithm is designed to lock people into these echo chambers and allow them to perpetuate the ideas that they think are much more widely accepted and agreed upon, than it may be within reality. They might just be stuck within this.. So it makes it seem like larger than it is

Tubbo: Yeah!

Austin: Look, there are good things, right. There are good things that are widely- Not all things that are trending are bad

Tubbo: Yeah!

Austin: I don't wanna say that, but there are certain things that are bad that perhaps are exacerbated by the

Tubbo: Well, it's not even the trending tab. The trending tab is not really it. It's like people who pick arguments and get that reaction they want then, like, makes these two sides. I watched this really clever video that I was shown by someone, I can't remember who. It was by this YouTube channel called "[maybe 'Graze' or 'Grays'?]" and it was explaining Twitter about how- If there's two people with opposing views and they're arguing, then they're going to have the people who have come to defend them and the people who attack us. Normally very 50/50. But then, the people who are defending and attacking, instead of going for each other which is how arguments tend to fizzle out, when everyone's exhausted and can't give a shit anymore, they then go to attack people who are defending the same thing, which sparks arguments inside these two halves. And then, it's a domino effect, it's exponential. It keeps going and going. So then, it, like, splits into 4 and then into 8 and then 16, like, different arguments of people kicking the shit out of each other online

Austin: You're absolutely- It's absolutely. You couldn't have described it better

Tubbo: I'm pretty sure there's a mathematical theory about it actually

[morceid]

I Hate The Color Orange

SPENCER REID X FEM!READER

Summary: Spencer goes into work sick, and Y/N takes him home to rest.

Category: FLUFF. THE FLUFFIEST FLUFF IMAGINABLE.

Warnings: vomiting, general gross sickness, delirium, some swearing

Word Count: 2094

A/N: this is my first sickfic! i loved writing it so much! this is also my entry into @veraiconcos​ ‘s writer challenge. her fics are wonderful and you should check her out!

The first thing Spencer noticed when he woke up was how slow his brain was moving. It wasn’t like he couldn’t notice, especially considering how fast his mind usually worked. The second thing he noticed was the chills all over his skin even though he had multiple blankets covering his lanky body. 

Despite this, he pulled the covers up and got out of bed. He began to get dizzy as his brain caught up with his body. He pushed through as much as he could. He wouldn’t skip work even if he had a concussion.

As you walked into your place of work you noticed Spencer by the coffee machine. You had been pining after the young agent for quite a while now, and no one knew. Not even the beloved tech goddess Penelope Garcia, who was also your best friend. As you looked the genius upland down you noticed the discoloration in his face. He looked like he was on the verge of becoming a zombie.

You remembered an article you read about gum helping take your mind off of throwing up because your mouth was too preoccupied with another task at hand.. Your mind was wandering to what Spencer’s mouth could do…

“Hey, do you want some gum?” The words you spoke came from your vocal cords and your mind detached them from yourself. The orange package was flipped open and your hand was reaching towards Spencer.

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” he was surprised by your gesture.

“Really? Are you? I read an article about how gum takes the idea of throwing up off of your mind because your mouth is already preoccupied.”

“How did you-”

“The orange might balance out the green tint on your face.” You explained.

“Oh, yeah I probably should take some.” He took a stick from the small box in your hands.

“Take it easy today, okay?” You hoped the concern in your voice wasn’t too obvious.

About an hour or two later you were working at your desk and felt a tap on your shoulder.

“Hey, Y/N?” Spencer was behind you when you turned around, “Do you happen to have more gum?”

“Sorry, Spence, you took the last stick.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Yeah. Yeah that’s fine.” It was not fine.

Spencer walked over to the coffee machine. His hands trembled and his eyes looked more panicked than normal as he picked up the pot of coffee. He tried pouring it and spilled it onto the counter. He put the coffee pot down and rubbed his hands over his eyes. If you were close enough, his breathing would be deep and you would see his eyes closed. He slammed his hand on the counter and ran towards the bathroom, earning a head turn from everyone in the bullpen.

“You should go check on him,” Prentiss was looking at Morgan.

“Uh uh, I do not wanna deal with a sick Reid. It’s not like he would accept care from me.” He retorted.

Before the other agents around you knew it, you were out of your seat and halfway to the gender neutral bathroom Spencer ran to.

“Spencer?” Instead of an answer you were greeted with a retching sound, “I’m coming in.”

You found Spencer hugging the porcelain toilet, which was now filled with an orange tinted vomit.

“Spencer, did you swallow the gum?”

He nodded.

“Do you need to go home?”

He moaned and nodded in response before throwing up again.

“Not yet, I guess. Are you gonna need anything to eat considering its all coming out? I can get something from Garcia’s office.”

He shook his head.

“I’ll go pack up your stuff and let Hotch know I’m taking you home.”

Normally he would begin protesting at this, but his body was shaking against the toilet and he could feel bile coming up his throat.

You walked out and told Anderson to make sure no one went into the bathroom before heading to Spencer’s desk. You picked up all the files that were laid out and evenly separated them between Emily and Morgan.

“Hey!” They exclaimed in unison.

“Sorry, guys. Spencer is sick as shit. I’m taking him home.”

“That damn pretty boy. Tell him I hope he feels better,” Morgan said, somberly taking a case file.

You hopped up the stairs two at a time going towards Hotch’s office and popped your head in.

“Hey! Spencer isn’t feeling too hot, so I’m taking him home. See you tomorrow.”

He was on the phone but he waved goodbye and mouthed to take care of him.

Next stop was Garcia’s office.

“Hey, Pen,” you said, walking in.

“Oh my god, you scared me! Anyways, what's going on?” She turned around from what looked like a horror gameplay livestream.

“Spence is sick. Like really fucked up. Do you have any ginger ale in your stash?”

She turned back to her desk and dug into her secret drawer compartment.

“Spencer should really stop working himself over. I mean, I get that all he wants is validation and praise, but c’mon, boy wonder! Your brain isn’t all that you are, you still have a human body! Gosh, he’s so pretty, but honestly- What’s that look in your eyes?” She cut off herself as she stood up from her chair.

“What? What’s what look in my eyes?”

“Oh my god, you LIKE him! Oh my god, oh my god. Give him all of the kisses in the world for me and remember to use protection-”

“Penelope Garcia!”

You tried to retaliate but she was already pushing you out of your office and telling you to “get your mans!”

You walked back to the bathroom with Spencer’s bag on one arm and yours on the other. You thanked Anderson for guarding the door and opened the door.

“Spencer I got your things, and Garcia had some ginger ale in her office if that- Spencer?”

He was passed out on the ground, clutching his stomach.

“I knew something was wrong when i stopped hearing him throw up!”

“No, Anderson, it’s not your fault. He’s probably fine, just sick. Could you help me carry him to my car? I think he took the metro today.” It would be pretty hard to carry the gangly man when you were already carrying two bags.

The journey to your car was a hassle, but that was fine. After you turned on the air conditioning Spencer woke up fairly quickly. He was confused as to why he was in your car, and you told him you were taking him home. He was too sick to be awake and too tired to care, so he fell back asleep shortly after that.

When you pulled up to his apartment he was still asleep so you gently shook him awake.

“We’re home, Spence. You need to wake up.”

“Our home?” He mumbled.

“No, silly. Your apartment.” You said, chalking it up to his sick delirium. Spencer doesn’t like you like that. Right?

He stumbled out of your car and into your arms. You held him up with your hand against his back as you walked up the stairs of his building. He leaned against a wall as you dug into his bag for the keys to his apartment.

He fell onto the couch immediately and buried his face in the pillows.

“It’s too hot! Everything is uncomfortable!” he grumbled as he started loosening his tie. He took off his button-up dress shirt to reveal a regular t-shirt he wore as an undershirt. Before he took off his pants you stopped him.

“Hey, hey, hey! Keep those on!” you said as you sat on the arm of his couch. “Drink this.” You gave him the ginger ale Penelope gave you, remembering the conversation before you left the office building.

He reluctantly turned over onto his back and took the can you left on the table.

“Thanks for the straw,” His lips puckered around the plastic tube. It made you think.

“No problem.” You pat his calf, hoping he wouldn’t pull away. He didn’t. “Is it too hot for me to lay next to you?”

“Nope,” He continued drinking the bubbly soda, pressing against the back of the sofa.

You laid in front of him but towards his face.

“Is it your tummy that’s bothering you?” You asked.

“It’s everything. I’ve had a headache all day and I keep getting flashes of hot and cold. I think that’s the first full sentence I’ve been able to get out all day,” He laughed

You reached your hand down to his stomach and pressed down.

“Is this okay?”

“It’s perfect.”

You continued to rub his stomach through his shirt. Every once in a while he let out a satisfied whimper. He asked you to put your hands under his shirt and you complied. You tried to keep the blush off of your cheeks when he asked you, but some things you just can’t help.

Spencer was asleep by the time you had realized how long you two had been sitting there. You left work at around noon and now it was four. You started to pull away from him and got up from the couch. He pulled in closer to where you were previously laying as you called Penelope.

“Hey Y/N! Since it’s been a pretty long day at work and there’s no case me and the girls are going out tonight. Wanna join?” Garcia spoke as soon as she answered your call.

“Uh, I’m not sure I'll be able to,” you whispered.

“OH MY GOD ARE YOU AT HIS APARTMENT STILL?!” Penelope yelled through the phone.

“Shh! He’s asleep on the couch.” Spencer mumbled something. 

“I think you just woke him up. Gotta go.” You hung up. “Did you say something?” You moved over to the couch and rested your head in front of where his laid.

“If I asked you to stay, would you?” His eyes were still closed as he spoke.

You didn’t respond for a while and he opened his eyes, trying to gauge your reaction.

“Yes, of course, Spencer. I just canceled with the girls.” You said. There’s no way Spencer felt the way that you had for so long.

“No, no! Its not like that! I- I- Y/N!” he groaned in frustration.

“Then what is it, Spencer?” you moved his hair away from his eyes, thinking it might help him get the words out.

Instead of words Spencer leaned forward and took your face in his hands, kissing you roughly. It took you by surprise at first but after a couple seconds you leaned into it. His lips were soft and his mouth tasted like a sweet nothing. He reluctantly pulled away from you and his eyes looked watery like he was gonna cry.

“Hey. hey, hey, Spencer. It’s okay.” you ran your hands through his soft curls, “I like you too.”

“I like you so much. I just wanna cuddle with you forever.” A single tear streamed down his face.

“Oh my god, don’t cry!” you laughed out, “I’ll cuddle with you if you really want.” You climbed back onto the couch and pressed kisses onto his forehead.

You fell asleep in one another’s arms, feeling content with the world. You were no longer hiding from your feelings and instead facing each other. Everything was finally okay. You were the only two people in the world at that exact moment, and you would be until you woke up in the morning.

Spencer woke up first. His hands were on your waist and he remembered the dizzy words he spoke to you the near-evening. His mind swam as he tried to remember your response, but he was so sick he just couldn’t. But Spencer didn’t forget, did he?

There wasn’t much Spencer could do without waking you, so he tried his best to do so gently.

“Hey, Y/N. It’s morning.” He whispered.

You woke up and jolted your eyes open. You thought of the night before and instantly calmed down. You looked into Spencer’s deep, honey-colored eyes and kissed his still soft lips. He leaned into you and kissed back.

“So I guess last night went well.” He said as he pulled back, the kiss remembering him of the memories you created in his arms.

“Very. Are you still feeling sick? I can run to the store before we get to work if you need gum.”

“No, I’m okay,” he kissed your nose, “I hate the color orange, and that's all the drugstore has in stock.”

[ambitionsource]

hi can we get some zaley friendship headcanons whenever you're free? ☺️

im not the best at headcanons just bc of the way my brain functions but im gonna do my best for you, sunny my friend. let’s go zay and riley let’s go!

thrift shop buddies!! one of the most common ways that they hang out is definitely going thrifting. considering they arguably have the two most eclectic wardrobes on the show, this makes sense. esp i fully believe they’re the perfect people to thrift shop with where they encourage each other to try on everything, even if it seems outlandish (and sometimes even more in those moments). that’s the only way to really get some good finds! and i feel like, beyond S1, when they wear items for performances in the show that are clearly unique / seem thrifted, it’s more than 50% likely the other helped them pick it out at some point

on this note, i think that they both have really good senses of what looks good on the other bc they spend this time together, probably better than anyone else (yes, including their significant others. not that that’s hard, since both of their significant others have notoriously bland fashion). like even when theyre not out together i can totally imagine them seeing something and being like “oh this is so riley / zay” and getting it for each other. they know each other’s sizes and have like an ongoing swap credit system gfJSKHJDLFH

riley and zay usually run performance by the other person before they perform them for the class / at an audition. like they find a specific time (usually during breakout sessions during class) to get in front of the other person and run them through their concept + do a run-through for them. they just really appreciate the other’s perspective, especially since they tend to complement each other -- zay is able to identify places where riley could heighten things or add some flair or just like... assert her talent more lmao, whereas riley helps zay pull back on some of his more overwhelming instincts when necessary or find the moments to truly lean in emotionally rather than blowing us out of the water the whole time

if we could actually Watch the show, i guarantee 9/10 times when riley or zay is performing, we would cut to the other enjoying the performance. like theyre always bobbing their head along and truly feelin the other’s performances. excellent vibes luv!

i also think they harmonize well with each other, which is why its kind of a shame they dont do more performances together within the context of assignments (as for why, couldn’t tell you... it might just be a weird psychological thing of like i have These people i perform with when it matters and these who are just for fun... like maybe zay and riley tend to see each other as easygoing comfortable duet partners and thats why they try not to overdo putting pressure on it). but yeah they absolutely have days where they just hang out in one of the rehearsal studios and play around on the piano and try to find ways to harmonize on their favorite songs. this is some of the best singing riley ever does, bc its so low stakes and fun

i also think that honestly, zay really helps strengthen riley’s vocals over the time they’re friends -- especially early on. riley is someone with good raw talent but she’s never thought about honing it seriously prior to joining aaa, whereas zay has been on a career mindset since he was little. so he is good at teaching her like small technique things or helping her expand her range and she really values that esp bc hes so selfless about giving it, but it doesnt come off naggy or unnecessary like maya’s advice often does

sometimes it can be hard for them to find songs they both wanna sing though bc their music taste is so different. i think they have like three small categories where their favorites overlap -- select big names (sza, chloe x halle), jazz / old-time crooners (frank sinatra, nina simone, and the like), and select musical theater. but i think this is mainly on zay, bc he’s much more picky about music than riley who will give anything a listen without much nudging. as we know zay likes to pick on his friends’ music taste (like charlie and harry styles / 1d) and i don’t think riley would escape this affectionate teasing. they exchange song recs and riley gives him like her usual piano ballad-y sara bareilles tswift rachael yamagata energy and shes like oh yes, another piano ballad and hes like STOP!!! JUST LISTEEEENNNN GFSJKLHJFDSKLHKDLFH

that said though, they’re definitely go-to friends when it comes to like checking out a new local artist or coffeeshop open mic nights. this is probably a typical zay / riley / yindra outing

zay doesn’t spend a ton of time watching tv bc “he has better things to do with his time,” but riley and zay are definitely the type to watch a show together. like not always Together, but they’ll try to keep up with each other so that they can talk about it (and riley has to try really hard not to keep binging and get way ahead of zay). theyre good at this bc they can have really intense and opinionated conversations about it but in a way where its like safe and neither of them feel like theyre actually being judged / are stupid if they disagree (something thats not common for riley, and zay usually is trying to discuss media with super strong personalities who aren’t great at Debating).

in general, though, they tend to agree on favorite characters / relationships. for example, they both hate rachel berry -- which always gets maya and farkle extremely heated if they’re around. i can only imagine why...

they’re also definitely safe-space vent people for each other. they don’t use the privilege all that often bc i think both of them try to like keep their cool and not get hung up about things, but if they really just have to pop off about something they know they can go to the other person and they’ll actually Listen and keep it under wraps rather than either spilling it to everyone else and/or immediately trying to problem solve rather than just listening to the Emotions. and it’s helpful bc for the most part, their friends don’t actually really overlap that much, so they don’t really like harbor the emotions the other person unloads on them or let it affect their dynamics with other people? like riley can talk about dasher and zay can talk about yingel without it having any ripple consequences bc theyre different circles.

for example, i can totally see riley talking to zay about how she feels like -- at first -- asher doesn’t really like her and won’t really let her in and like he doesn’t want her to join the friend group (even tho that isn’t really true). like she can’t talk to dylan about it bc she’s not going to put him in that position and she’s not foolish enough to think that’s a good idea, she can’t talk to lucas about it bc he like doesn’t get stuff like that gFJKHGLFJSDLH and also he has such a set impression of asher it would be hard for him to understand it from her perspective. zay has none of that, so hes a good person to listen to her nerves about it.

the only times this gets kind of complicated / janky is in the midst of zay x charlie stuff where riley is kind of unintentionally (or, sometimes, intentionally) in the middle. like, zay trusts her not to go telling charlie what he says about him, but he knows they’re good friends too, and its an awkward position to put her in. but still, i think when zay is really hurt or frustrated he’ll snap sometimes and just vent out all his anger about charlie to riley in one foul swoop, and she’ll just absorb it like a sponge without judgment and then not bring it up again. but you can also see little ways where this puts pressure on their friendship, like how when he was drunk in 304 zay expressed resentment towards the fact that riley also talks to charlie and sometimes he feels like she puts him first, even though that isn’t true. it’s just..... a very very complicated (and interesting, if emotional) situation with that trio.

that being said, when things are Good, i think that zay feels comfortable talking about his significant others (including charlie) with riley. he doesn’t really get too Detailed about anything personal or anything, but they definitely discussed charlie in s2 in the small window of time where riley knew and zc wasn’t actively imploding LMAO. on the flip side, riley doesn’t really talk to zay about her relationships, but only bc her relationship is lucas GJFSKLJHLKDJHFLDSH. like anyone else she’d be like okay sure this is fine but she knows zay finds lucas annoying 65% of the time and talking about him in a romantic context grosses him out so she respects that LMAOOOO. hysterical

in general, if they’re gonna hang out, they usually go to either a local coffee shop they like (like svorskis) or each other’s houses. its kind of a relief to have a person they can just take anywhere and have around their parents with no trouble at all, considering both of them are used to having a boyfriend who cant be seen in their house (for different reasons). and theyre comfortable enough that like i think when they hang out at their houses, they just spread out in the living area of both bc theyre not hiding anything, its like very lowkey and comfortable

that being said, riley doesnt spend much time in zay’s usual studio at school. most people don’t, its a place zay now likes to be alone (and it feels weird with someone else being there who isnt charlie)

as for how they come off to their families, the babineauxs love riley. jada has met her a couple of times and thinks she’s super sweet + zay could afford to learn a thing or two from her like how to chill the fuck out (cue zay going shut the fuck up). donna is excited that zay has another friend who isn’t batshit intense about stuff like maya / farkle, she figures yindra has the diva best friend role covered and zay needs more friends like nigel and riley to ground him. she’s right about this.

cory likes zay, but he also does have some prejudices from the teaching perspective about how zay doesn’t pay attention in class half the time and blows off his assignments -- but this isn’t partially because cory isn’t a great teacher and his assignments suck. so the feeling is mutual, tho zay gets along better with cory in a neutral, polite sense than say, asher and dylan, where it’s like guerilla psychological warfare. topanga has no opinion about zay bc riley doesn’t introduce her friends to her (wisely).

they’re still very common lunch buddies. essentially when riley isn’t eating with the techies (which is only when lucas is there usually) or bothering lucas in the booth once a week, she’s with zay (which usually also means nigel, yindra, and farkle, though not always)

ultimately, i think that when someone asks riley who her best friend is, her mind will always jump to zay first. not even because theyre necessarily the closest at any given time, but because he really was her first life raft at aaa and he extended that kindness to her in a moment where she was so used to being brushed aside, talked over, ridiculed -- and you don’t forget that. it stays with you. so when she thinks about her Best Friend, speed round answer, he will always come to mind first. i think she greatly admires his skillful balance of confidence and compassion, his sarcastic sense of humor, the way he gets so passionate about dance and music and how these elements come together, and his inarguable kindness that is at his core and so fundamental to everything he does (even when his more known reputation is a bit more barbed and witty).

on the flip side, i think riley came into zay’s life at the exact moment he needed it. we know he felt isolated in s1, and even though i think he thinks of nigel and yindra as his first-to-mind best friends, riley was a breath of fresh air who allowed him to be himself with someone who wasnt going to judge him on past decisions or impressions. just like he gave her the chance to define herself in his eyes with his extension of company on that first day, she does the same for him by not making assumptions about him and learning who he is on their terms. i think she’s also just a really great, measured system of support -- she’s not busting his balls or keeping him in check like yindra and nigel do (except when its really needed, like 304), but she isn’t as in awe / romanticized with him like charlie. i think he appreciates that he can go to her for an honest perspective, but she’ll take the care to deliver that honesty in a gentle way. it’s like, he’s tough enough to take a hit, but sometimes its nice to know you have someone who will be kind with you even then.

that’s what is at the core of their friendship overall. kindness.

-- Maggie

[unibrowzz]

Mod (finally) reviews all 67 winners of the Eurovision Song Contest Part II: The 1960s

Welcome back! To this...

Whatever you wanna call it, I can barely call half of these “reviews” but ANYWAYS.

The 60s are. Mid-table. Not a tremendously bad decade by all means, but they’re also the only decade to have three songs in my “would refuse to listen to” category, which is an achievement. 

I’m sure you can all guess at least two of those songs by now!

Without further ado, let’s move on to what I think of the winning entries from the 60s.

1960: Tom Pillibi

Country: France 

Artist: Jacqueline Boyer

Language: French

Thoughts: Whenever I was younger and enjoyed singing, I was frequently told that I had a "nasally" voice. I never knew what this meant, and I rarely heard my own voice to hear what it meant. Since people told me I had a nice voice, I continued to sing without fixing it. But now I'm older and know a tiny bit more about music, I can finally hear what they meant. Jaqueline here had a very nasally voice and a very high song to go with it. You can hear the notes being directed through her nose and sinuses rather than up from her diaphragm and mouth, resulting in a voice which sounds impressively high… but also very thin and flimsy. There's no resonance or depth to these notes, she sounds like a kid half her age trying to sing. Maybe that's what she was told to do, but given how this song is about a girl telling us about the shit her cheeky boyfriend tells her, I'd like to think not. Then again, this IS the 60s.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? United Kingdom- Bryan Johnson- “Looking High, high, high”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 54th

1961: Nous les Amoureux

Country: Luxembourg

Artist: Jean-Claude Pascale

Language: French

Thoughts: I know this song didn’t compete for France, but have you ever heard a more aggressively French song than this? This is one of the most sultry, seductive songs in this lineup; like it just feels like the song itself is trying to seduce me and is going to offer me a glass of fine red wine before leading me to a candlelit bedroom and a four-post bed with rose petals scattered across it or some shit. That or it's gonna blow a long stream of cigarette smoke right into my face. One or the other. Going back on track, I like this song. Granted I wouldn’t call it a favourite or anything, but it’s still a Hell of a lot more likeable than most of the other 60s winners, and Hell, you could even argue this one is a lot more admirable given how the lyrics of the song are intended for a male lover of the singer’s. Which, for the early 60s, makes this a bigger deal than it would be nowadays. The singing is buttery smooth, and the song itself has a bit of a skip to it. It’s a very appealing song, and one I appreciate just a little bit more than the other songs from the 60s.

Is this my personal winner for this year? 50/50

If no, what is? France- Jean-Paul Mauric- “Printemps, avril carillon”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 26th

1962: Un Premier Amour 

Country: France

Artist: Isabelle Aubret

Language: French (Translation: “A First Love”)

Thoughts: You know whenever you play a CD too much and it eventually becomes all scratched and worn down so whenever you play it it skips back to the same part over and over again before unsticking to play a bit more of the song, but keeps getting stuck over and over? Yeah, imagine a whole song like that. This song just drones on, with no charisma or vocal animation to break up the monotony. I don’t even think the rule “well it was the 60s” applies, since this isn’t really a song that needs flashy setpieces, costuming, dancing or anything; it just needs a charismatic singer. And, unfortunately, Aubret just isn’t one, in my opinion.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? United Kingdom- Ronnie Carroll- "Ring-a-Ding Girl"

Personal ranking (out of 67):  62nd

1963: Dansevise

Country: Denmark

Artist: Grete and Jørgen Ingmann

Language: Danish

Thoughts: Oh fucking finally, something unique for once. Which is very surprising because, from what I've seen and heard, the early contests weren't all that kind to songs which didn’t fit a certain criteria. If anything, most songs which came off as being unique with different sounds, instruments, and moods compared to the rest of their years ended up pulling up the rear in last place, more often than not with nil points. So it's nice to see a song which not only has unique elements to it (ie, a brooding sultry guitar accompaniment and a steady sweeping tempo), but is also in a stereotypically "ugly" language do well this early on.  Getting back on track, this is one of those songs I find tends to be a cult favourite, especially amongst vintage and retro fans. And why wouldn't it be? It's a breath of fresh air in an era where so many songs sounded exactly the same, just in a different language. This is one of the few fan favourite winners where I can see the appeal myself.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Yes

If no, what is? N/A

Personal ranking (out of 67): 27th

1964: Non ho l’Eta

Country: Italy

Artist: Gigliola Cinquetti

Italian: (Translation: “I’m not old enough”)

Thoughts: If that title isn’t off-putting enough, then I don’t know what is. You’re all probably well aware of this right now, but I don’t like this song. At all. Everything about it just makes me feel creeped out and kinda dirty every time I hear it, which is a shame because the melody on its own is very pretty. It’s the song equivalent of flicking through re-runs of Top of the Pops and landing on a segment where Jimmy Saville is hosting; it just sends a disgusted shiver down my spine and I have to turn it off as quickly as possible.  Which, given the lyrics of this song, is understandable. Think about it; you’ve got this visibly nervous, very young, still-legally-a-child-in-most-countries teenager, singing about how she “isn’t old enough” to be in a relationship with someone who seems to be older than she is. Maybe it’s just because I don’t speak any Italian, and the meaning is all semantic and context based, but this is my personal opinion at the end of the day, and, unfortunately, these lyrics just come off as really creepy to me. This song reminds me a lot of the song “Baby, it’s Cold Outside”, in that the lyrics used to be totally innocent and sweet, but to a modern listener come off as shockingly creepy and off-putting, and you’re not sure if it’s down to a change in slang and colloquialisms or if the past really was that messed up. Just like how in "Baby it's Cold Outside", a line asking "does this contain alcohol" now sounds like "have you spiked this with something", what was once “I’m too young and naïve to be in a serious committed relationship” now comes off as “I’m underaged, please leave me alone”. Doesn’t help that Cinquetti was underaged, hated the song, didn’t want to perform, and only showed up because she was forced to by a pushy manager. Which, for the 60s, was par for the course.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Germany- Nora Nova- "Man Gewöhnt sich zu Schnell an das Schöne"

Personal ranking (out of 67):  66th

1965: Poupée du Cire, Poupée du Son

Country: Luxembourg

Artist: France Gall

Language: French (Translation: “Wax doll, stuffed doll”)

Thoughts: And now we come to Non ho L’eta’s ugly little sister in that, just like with that song, there’s a weirdly sinister edge to this one that I just can’t shake off. My French isn’t fantastic, admittedly, but every line of this song seems like it has another, less innocent meaning. Like the whole song is one big double entendre. Which, given how this was written by Serge “I made a 16 year old sing about blowing dicks when she thought she was singing about lollipops” Gainsborg, wouldn’t surprise me. Dodgy lyrics aside, this song is just… terrible. Songs which repeat the same motif over and over are a dime a dozen in older Eurovision, though most of them at least spice it up with a key change, adding more instruments to the instrumental, or even just having a nice melody. This? Is just an uncharismatic, uninterested teenager barking the same few notes over and over again ad nauseum. I know it was the 60s and that the contest was way more restrictive in how songs could be performed, but there’s just… no enthusiasm or animation or anything to make this charming or remotely enjoyable. It’s just shouty, unpleasant, and lacking any semblance of charisma. And I don't care if it's "important", it fucking sucks and we deserved a better song as our “first uptempo winner” of the contest.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? The Netherlands- Conny Vandenbos- “‘t is Genoeg”

Personal ranking (out of 67):  67th

1966- Merci, Chérie

Country:  Austria

Artist: Udo Jurgens

Language: German (Translation: “Thank you, my dear”)

Thoughts: I’m so conflicted on this song. It’s very beautiful, emotional, dramatic... BUT. I just find it so forgettable, I’m sorry. I’m struggling to even talk about it right now. Do you know how long it took me to even finish this mini review? Too damn long. I forgot all about this song mid way through it. So at the recommendation of a friend I put this one on so I could review it whilst it plays and… it’s just a very sleepy song. Udo Jurgens is a good singer, I won’t deny that, but, God, he sounds like he’s nodding off as he sings. The first minute and a half of this song sounds like one big yawn. And that’s over half the song wasted just building to a climax, since I don’t think this song has a chorus, and for a song this short and slow I just don’t think it’s wise to put your climax right in the middle. I feel it would be better if it had two climactic parts or just put the climax right at the end of the song so the whole song is spent building that suspense. Shoving it smack in the middle of the song just makes it feel shorter. Also the fact it’s a piano song reminds me of Non ho l’eta and I don’t need to repeat myself to remind you that’s a bad thing, so, moving on.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Italy- Domenico Modugno- “Dio, come ti amo”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 45th

1967: Puppet on a String

Country: United Kingdom

Artist: Sandie Shaw

Language: English

Thoughts: You know, I was pretty shocked to find out this song is a Eurovision song. Partially because I didn’t realise just how old Eurovision actually is, and partially because as somebody who grew up in Britain in the 2000s, I was just bred to believe the UK is inherently shit, has never won ever, and is incapable of sending songs people actually cherish and remember. But that’s a rant for another day. Anyways, this is the song Poupée du Cire wishes it was. It’s charming, it’s bouncy, it skips along so merrily you forget how the lyrics have aged about as well as a pint of milk left out in the sun for too long.  Then again, I think the lyrics were outdated even back then. I suppose what sets this song aside from the other “60s entries with sexist lyrics sung by young women who didn’t want to be there” is that Shaw is a damn good performer, and hides her disdain expertly. If she wasn’t so vocal about how much she hates this song, you’d swear she loves it, her performance is that charming.

Is this my personal winner for this year? Eh

If no, what is? Portugal- Eduardo Nascimento- “O vento mudou”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 24th

1968: La la la

Country: Spain

Artist: Massiel

Language: Spanish

Thoughts: And the award for most creatively bankrupt name goes to…  Granted, 1968 was one of the dreariest years I’ve watched, so it’s pretty easy to see why a song like this would have done well. That said, this is a really bland song, and even in a year as dull as 1968, I still don’t think this should have won. It’s the kind of song which relies on repeating itself ad nauseum in order to get stuck in your head, and let’s be honest here, that makes it more annoying than anything else. There’s only so many rounds of “la la la” you can take before you feel like rupturing your own eardrums with a knitting needle after all. I don’t really have anything else to say about it, it’s just mildly annoying and not that good.

Is this my personal winner for this year? No

If no, what is? Norway- Odd Børre- “Stress”

Personal ranking (out of 67): 55th

1969- Four Winners, One Contest

France: Un jour, un enfant

Artist: Frida Boccara

Language: French

Thoughts: Well this is objectively the best of the four songs we have here, and it’s also my favourite winner from France, so at least it has that going for it. Though, let’s be real, I’m hardly a big fan of France’s winners, or French ballads in general. So this is… a big emotional ballad. What more is there to say? It’s big. It’s emotional. The lyrics are nonsense because God help us if we have songs with strong emotions this early on in the contest. Summary: Very nice, but lacking substance. Personal ranking (out of 67):  21st

Spain: Vivo Cantando

Artist: Salome

Language: Spanish

Thoughts: I’m not really what you’d call an advocate for bringing back a live orchestra, but, man, songs like this sure turn me into one. The live version of this song is in a whole other league compared to the studio version; like it is just pure, infectious, Spanish cheer. It’s an absolute blast to listen to, and I strongly recommend checking out the live version before going anywhere near the studio. Summary: Infections, but choose live over studio because it’s better okay. Personal ranking (out of 67):  20th

The Netherlands: Der Troubadour

Artist: Lenny Kuhr

Language: Dutch

Thoughts: I mean.... The guitar solo is impressive at least. I’m sorry, I don’t see the appeal in this one. And I feel so weirdly alone in that stance. So many people I know have this song in their top ten best winners list and I just don’t understand it. I just find it very dull and repetitive, and the singer’s voice is definitely an acquired taste. To me she just sounds like she’s forcing her voice lower, like a reverse falsetto or something. And that’s all I really have to say about this one. I just… don’t  like it that much, or at least not as much as everyone else I know seems to. Summary: I don’t “get” it. Personal ranking (out of 67): 53rd

United Kingdom: Boom-Bang-a-Bang

Artist: Lulu

Language: English

Thoughts: Ah yes, the forgotten UK winner. Everybody knows Lulu did this contest once, and everybody knows Boom-bang-a-bang was a British entry, but I swear nobody knows she actually won. Probably because she had the audacity to tie with other countries, the horror. And that’s the most interesting part of this song because it’s otherwise  just kind of alright. It’s very twee and sweet, and if I didn’t know that “bubblegum pop” was a genre reserved for one-hit-wonder nobodies and not decade-defining names then I’d say this is a perfect example of it. It’s just a decent-ish fluffy pop song with very saccharine fluffy lyrics. Standard British Eurovision pap, if you ask me. Summary: Cute, but lacking substance. Personal ranking (out of 67): 25th

So who really should have won in 1969? Either Spain or Monaco if you ask me. That kid had charm.

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1987

Under the cut.

"Shake You Down" -- Gregory Abbot -- January 17, 1987

The only reason I've heard this song before is because of Todd in the Shadows' worst hit songs of 1987 video. I do not entirely agree with his list, but this one definitely belongs on it. I don't think the song's writer knew what "shake down" actually means. This is supposed to be a love song about how the narrator is missing the woman he's staring at (um) and wants her back so he can "shake you down." It sounds creepy, and yet the music is so painfully bland it can't even rise to that. It's no surprise it hasn't gotten radio play since it was a hit. That it was a hit in the first place is mystifying.

"At This Moment" -- Billy Vera and the Beaters -- January 24, 1987

A rather good blue-eyed soul song. The narrator is singing to a woman who just told him she's in love with someone else. It sounds like she's acting scared, and he's upset by that as well as by her leaving him, because "I'd never, never hurt you." And he'd give up twenty years of his life if she'd stay. There are some massive blues horns, Billy Vera sings it well, and it's cathartically sad. The song became a hit years after it was first released because it was on Family Ties. Billy Vera keeps on chugging, and he's also a music historian. He won a Grammy for "best album notes" in 2013 for a Ray Charles boxed set. I had no idea that was an award category.

"Open Your Heart" -- Madonna -- February 7, 1987

Watch out. When Madonna says "I've had to work much harder than this/ For something I want, don't try to resist me," it's absolutely believable. She worked incredibly hard to get where she was. I guess the song is stalkery when looked at from a certain angle, but that is not the angle I choose. I hear it as I did as a teenager -- as something aspirational, because I got huge and powerful crushes on guys (mostly friends) and then did absolutely nothing about it, both because I had no idea what to do and because I didn't actually want a boyfriend yet. (That changed in college.) Musically and lyrically, the song is Motown mixed with disco and updated, as most of the True Blue album is. It's a lot of fun.

"Livin on a Prayer" -- Bon Jovi -- February 14, 1987

I wonder what I'd feel about this song if it hadn't been overplayed for years and years. I don't think it was/is played more than "You Give Love a Bad Name," but I have never been sick of "You Give Love a Bad Name." This one... meh. I don't want to run screaming from it, even after hearing it a zillion times, so that's something. It's about a working class couple who's having serious money troubles. It's just a snapshot of this difficult time in their life, and how they're holding on to each other. I'd be happier with it if the story were rounded out, and especially if they got a happy ending. The music is fine, acceptable rock, but nothing special.

"Jacob's Ladder" -- Huey Lewis and the News -- March 14, 1987

This song is a "fuck off" to televangelists, though if you only listen to the chorus you might not know that. I always appreciate anyone telling televangelists to fuck off. I could use it being nastier, but you can't expect real nastiness from Huey Lewis and the News. Genesis would go there a few years later, and I like that song much better. "Jesus He Knows Me" is also more interesting musically. This one's fine, but not memorable.

"Lean on Me" -- Club Nouveau -- March 21, 1987

The original "Lean on Me" is one of the great songs. This version is annoying. A go-go beat and a faux-reggae break. The original of this song is deeply emotional and touching. This one is not even a good dance song. I liked it when I was a kid, but that makes sense, because it's a very kiddie song.

"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" -- Starship -- April 4, 1987

This song is actually not bad. It's pretty good, even. It's a very slick synth-heavy drum machine love song, but I really like the way Grace Slick sings on it. Mickey Thomas, well, he hits the notes. Could be worse. If they'd gotten a male vocalist who could match Grace Slick on his part of the duet, this might be a great song. They didn't, so it's just pretty good.

"I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)" -- Aretha Franklin and George Michael -- April 18, 1987

George Michael is an excellent singer, but he's no Aretha Franklin. But who is? He holds his own pretty well here. As both Franklin and Michael know how to push emotion in a song, they end up with good chemistry on this one. Unfortunately, though the vocal performances are great, the music itself is dull. The melody slips out of my head while I'm listening to it.

"(I Just) Died in Your Arms" -- Cutting Crew -- May 2, 1987

*silent scream of anguish* I wish this song would slip out of my head permanently. It is my personal most overplayed song in existence. My hate for it could end worlds. I have no idea about what qualities it might or might not have. I just want it to shut the fuck up.

"With or Without You" -- U2 -- May 16, 1987

I don't think U2 actually counts as "alternative," but the alternative stations were the only ones who played them where I lived. The song is extremely structured and carefully designed, but it feels somehow raw at the same time. It doesn't have the layers upon layers of synth that most of the songs on the charts did. It has a beautiful melody. The lyrics are thoughtful, heartrending poetry. I'm not sure what I thought of the song at the time -- I associate it more with a couple years later, when my family moved to a town near a huge state college and I started listening to the college station. It hasn't aged a bit. An amazing song.

Also Bono’s personality is somewhat insufferable if one is silly enough to look into it. But his voice is incredibly hot, and I very much appreciate that.

"You Keep Me Hangin' On" -- Kim Wilde -- June 6, 1987

Back to the layers of synth. This is the Supremes song updated as a 1987 dance song, and it sounds exactly like you'd think it would. It's okay.

"Always" -- Atlantic Starr -- June 13, 1987

This is the kind of song I made gagging noises about at age 10, when it came out. I'm tempted to now too. It's like corn syrup, both lyrically and musically. It sounds like it was written for weddings.

"Head to Toe" -- Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam -- June 20, 1987

I liked this song a lot when I was a kid. I had a lot of fun dancing to it. Now I hear Lisa Lisa's vocals in the opening and chorus, which are kind of like a police siren, and want to cover my ears. I can't listen to it without getting a headache nowadays.

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" -- Whitney Houston -- June 27, 1987

This is a Whitney Houston song I like. She doesn't oversing as much as usual -- she mostly, though not entirely, saves it for the chorus. She wants to dance with "a man who'll take a chance/ On a love that burns hot enough to last." It's a simple dance song that speaks to real emotion.

"Alone" -- Heart -- July 11, 1987

In the 80s, Heart did hair metal ballads. All the men who did the same were copying them. Including the hair itself. Heart did it first, and Heart did it best. So lyrically, why can't she get this person alone? Not even on the phone? Whatever, it doesn't matter. What matters is the emotion, the music, and that this is a great song to sing along with.

"Shakedown" -- Bob Seger -- August 1, 1987

Unlike Gregory Abbott, Bob Seger knew what "shakedown" meant. The song was written for Beverly Hills Cop II, and that's exactly what it sounds like. It's a good movie song, but doesn't transcend that box. Still fun though.

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" -- U2 -- August 8, 1987

This is a spiritual pop song. But it's very far from the sanitized happy clappy Christian-brand pop that's so foul. It's about a search for transcendence that's ongoing -- eternal, really. And while this song is explicitly Christian, it speaks to a universality that doesn't require religion of any kind. Also it's beautiful musically.

"Who's That Girl" -- Madonna -- August 22, 1987

I'm surprised this was a number one. Or even charted in the top 20. I'd have predicted #46 or something. The movie it was written for was terrible, and Madonna was particularly terrible in it. Like, aggressively terrible, when in most movies she was just kinda blah. I've never liked the song. I don't hate it either; I don't feel much of anything about it. That is very strange for a Madonna song -- "American Life" is awful, but it makes me feel things. (Mostly embarrassment.) But "Who's That Girl" is bland, which a Madonna song should never be.

"La Bamba" -- Los Lobos -- August 29, 1987

This is a nearly faithful rendition of Richie Valens' original hit, which was based on a Veracruz folk song. But where are the castanets? The original is better, a true classic, but this one isn't bad. It's simply... unnecessary. It was done for a movie about Valens, so I guess it was sort of "necessary" in that way. Skip this one and go for Valens' version.

"I Just Can't Stop Loving You" -- Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett -- September 19, 1987

This is from the Bad album, which I did not like in 1987 and continue to not like now. I find this song extraordinarily dull. Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand both turned it down, and I'm not surprised. This song weirdly makes me think of The Love Boat. Like it belongs in a television series. It's legitimately bad. When do we get to Janet again?

"Didn't We Almost Have It All" -- Whitney Houston -- September 26, 1987

I think the narrator in this song is trying to get an old flame back. It's a pretty melody, and the lyrics are wildly repetitive but not bad, but I can't get past Houston's oversinging. Anyone who doesn't mind that will probably enjoy this song.

"Here I Go Again" -- Whitesnake -- October 10, 1987

I wonder what makes one feel a song is "horribly overplayed" vs. just "played probably too much but I'm fine with it." This song is the latter for me. It's a really good song, so obviously that's part of it. The beginning is thoughtful and searching, with an organ and everything (or probably a synth on the organ setting), and has that same spiritual feel as "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." Then in come the guitars, which are awesome. It absolutely rocks, and the emotion is of "like a drifter I was born to walk alone" is amplified by the rock, rather than buried under it.

"Lost in Emotion" -- Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam -- October 17, 1987

Lisa Lisa does not sound like a police siren in this, thankfully. And I got frozen on this song because I listened to it over and over and managed to feel absolutely nothing about it. I guess she's falling in love with a friend and worried she's telling him too much, and I should identify with this because it's happened to me more than once. But I don't. I like the bass line, and it's updated Motown, so I should like that. But again, I feel nothing. Maybe it's the way Lisa Lisa sings it. I don't know, and I've wasted far too much time on something I cannot make myself care about in any way.

"Bad" -- Michael Jackson -- October 24, 1987

I think the Bad album is bad. Actually bad, as in not good. I was 11 when this hit #1, so everything in the universe embarrassed me, but this stood out. I no longer knew anyone who liked Michael Jackson. I certainly didn't. In my opinion, Jackson had exactly one good album in him, and that album was Thriller. Thriller is one of the greats. Bad is blah.

"I Think We're Alone Now" -- Tiffany -- November 7, 1987

I wonder what makes stations decide to play #1 hits and what makes them decide not to. I don't remember hearing this much at the time, and never after. It's a cover of a 1960s song that was never that great, and it's worse here. In 1967, the "ooh we're alone gonna do something naughty" idea was still edgy. In 1987 -- are you kidding? Madonna's tearing up the charts in 1987; what on earth is this thing doing on it? It's an annoying song, annoyingly sung.

"Mony Mony" -- Billy Idol -- November 21, 1987

I had to do aerobics to this in middle school. Next!

"(I've Had) The Time of My Life" -- Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes -- November 28, 1987

This is one of those songs I can't really evaluate because it feels like background music to my life. Not that it was ever particularly important to me -- it's not. But it's sort of like "Eye of the Tiger", movie song and all. Medley and Warnes are well-matched on the song, and they do a great job. I wish the music were more interesting, but well, movie ballad. It's a good one for what it is. By the way, Dirty Dancing is another movie I've managed to never see. For no reason -- I might even like it. But somehow, it's never come up.

"Heaven Is a Place on Earth" -- Belinda Carlisle -- December 5, 1987

Ooh baby, do you know what that's worth? Yes. I love everything about this song. It's a big and unashamed dance power ballad about how great love is, and the lyrics are simple but powerful. But I have  a question: What the heck is up with the video? It looks like she's being inducted into a cult, not like she's in ecstasy over great romantic love. Well, it was the 80s, the videos usually didn't have anything to do with the songs. Still, weird.

"Faith" -- George Michael -- December 12, 1987

I've known the lyrics to this song since it came out, but I never registered them before. Only "I gotta have faith, faith, faith." I remember the video, though, with its prominent focus on George Michael's butt. I'm watching the video now, and huh, there's a basically naked woman in it too. That, I didn't remember, because it wasn't relevant to my interests. Anyway, the lyrics are about how the narrator needs a break from relationships so is not gonna have sex with this hot woman. Sure, George, that's why. Ahem. Sorry, we didn't know then, and it doesn't matter one bit anyway, because the singer is playing a role. It's a fun song for which the lyrics don't matter at all.

BEST OF 1987 -- "With or Without You" by U2  WORST OF 1987 -- "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" by Michael Jackson with Siedah Garrett

[vocalfriespod]

Cheaper than Therapy Transcript

[Music]

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

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: That is good to say that.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: But not won. Certainly not won.

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Oh, yeah.

Carrie Gillon: Anyway.

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: Get thee to a theater!

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that’s right.

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Well, anyway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Anyway, back to the email.

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

Megan Figueroa: That’s really interesting, yeah.

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

Megan Figueroa: Yeah!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Me too. What a good sport.

Carrie Gillon: Yes.

[Music]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: Anna Marie.

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: Oh, yeah! [Laughter]

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: 30 years later.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Sure.

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Yep. We sure did. 

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Instead of algorithms and stuff?

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

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: This one, yes!

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. That’s good.

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah! They’re aware.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: Absolutely.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Aw, that’s awesome!

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: It starts there.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly, right? Yeah!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Right. Plus vocal fry.

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Ooo!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: Nice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: Someone from improv started that. 

Megan Figueroa: The facilitator of what workshop or whatever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

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

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

Megan Figueroa: Okay. That was you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: She did that.

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

Anna Marie Trester: Yeah.

Megan Figueroa: That’s awesome.

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

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

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

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

You collect stories for your books?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: That’s amazing.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. I wanna work for NASA!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Megan Figueroa: That’s just nerdy. 

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

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

Carrie Gillon: That sounds amazing.

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

Megan Figueroa: I would totally go to that breakfast.

Carrie Gillon: Me too.

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: Which we all do.

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

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

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

Carrie Gillon: A.) we can edit.

Megan Figueroa: It was very scary. 

Carrie Gillon: B.) we can learn!

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

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

Megan Figueroa: It is, yeah. Absolutely. 

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

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: What a life-affirming conversation. 

Carrie Gillon: I know! This has been great.

Anna Marie Trester: Go be awesome.

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

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

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

Anna Marie Trester: Thank you guys.

Carrie Gillon: It was so great.

Megan Figueroa: It’s been so lovely.

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

Megan Figueroa: Don’t be an Asshole.

Anna Marie Trester: Yes, and…

[Music]

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

[bangtan-madi]

Hi! Is it okay if I make another request? I think it would be a reaction.. or scenario...? I'm still unsure about the categories. What would be Zen's reaction after finding fanfics his fans have wrote about him? Like, he was checking tripter to see what photos Seven's bot have posted recently and ended up seeing a link to said fanfics... Or something like that. Please?

Sooo, I went a little overboard with this one, but I just had way too much fun xD Hope you enjoy, lovely!!

The camera clicks on, black screen illuminating to life. Though the picture is shaky at first, MC comes into view within the first few seconds. Once her hand steadies enough, she holds the camera up high so the frame focuses properly on her face. 

“Hell, I hope you’re focusing, you piece of s–”

MC’s hand slips, and a curse emanates from her mouth. “Shit! Don’t fall, don’t fall.” Both hands grasp the device, and her wide grin returns once again. “There  we go.”

MC turns to glance behind her, silently listening for the other person wandering somewhere in the house. When she hears his laugh from the other room, she turns back to the camera and giggles.

“Zen is in his bedroom doing some work on his laptop, I think. Or…something like that.” She waves her hand nonchalantly at the end of the sentence. “Point is…I have a really great idea on how to get him back for scaring the living hell out of me the other day. He caught that on camera, and somehow, it ended up on Instagram…and now it’s viral.”

Zen laughs again, and a huge, evil grin spreads across MC’s face. “But this is gonna be sweet revenge. Here I come, babe. Get ready to be scared shitless.”

MC gives a quiet–yet animated–evil laugh as she disappears from the frame. 

She carries the camera in front of her, the door to the next room now visible. Her hand pushes the surface, and she continues to walk down the hallway, towards the bedroom.

Zen sits on a floor cushion in front of the tiny coffee table, a place that acts as a desk space when he needs it. His back it turned to MC, and both the camera and it’s owner creep closer. On eerily silent feet, the stagnant space between MC and her boyfriend closes.

As MC closes the distance to less than a foot, she takes a deep breath in, preparing to let out the loudest scream she can muster. 

Just as the sound collects in her vocal cords, Zen throws his hands up excitedly and shouts, at an extraordinarily high volume, “HEY, MC! Come check this out!”

The camera slips from her fingers and falls to the floor with a loud thud, in tandem with the loudest screech Zen has ever heard. 

Both he and MC, still in the frame, jump away from each other in surprise. Zen tumbles over, foot catching on the low coffee table. He hits the ground with a groan of pain. As she screams, MC falls backward into the basket of clean laundry, spilling the contents all over her and the floor. 

A beat of silence follows the screams, groans, and crashes as both people clutch their chests in fear and confusion. MC breathes heavily, and Zen stares at her with wide eyes.

“MC! What the fuck!”

Though MC is still startled and petrified, a small laugh starts to slip from her lips. The look on Zen’s face is priceless. His hair is askew, scarlet eyes are wider than she’s ever seen, and a hand is still clutching tightly to the white t-shirt covering his chest.

Eventually, as the shock passes, MC bursts out into louder laughter, a sound that fills the room and echos down the hall. 

“Oh my gosh, you should see your face!” she cackles, unable to control herself. 

Zen gives her a scowl, though it’s an expression to hide his own amusement. “This isn’t funny! I could’ve broken my ankle again!”

MC falls backward onto the pile of laundry, the garments covering her head and shoulders slipping to the floor. She curls up on herself, laughter shaking her entire body.

Zen stands on shaky feet and snatches the laptop from the table, an object that luckily did not fall with him.

“Fine, keep laughing! I won’t tell you what I found through Seven’s tripter bot.”

Instantly, MC recovers enough to pull herself into a sitting position. “Whaaat, nooo! Show meee.”

Zen shakes his head, and like a spoiled brat, sits on the mattress with his back to her. “Nope. Sorry, babe. You lost your chance.”

MC crawls over to the camera, picks it up, and holds it as she wanders over to the mattress. She places the device on the dresser, still aiming the lens at the bed. Despite Zen’s grumpy attitude towards her scaring him, MC wraps her arms around his shoulders and rests her chin against the curve of his neck.

“I’ll be honest, I totally came in here to scare you.”

Zen scoffs and nods his head towards the camera. “Is that why you brought that thing along?”

“Hey, it was payback for scaring me the other day! And posting it!”

The white-haired male grins at the memory. “Yeah, that was pretty damn funny.”

MC pinches his arm, earning a slight, “Ow!” from him.

“But, if it makes you feel better, I’m still shaking…so we both got scared.”

Zen pushes the laptop aside and turns to glance at MC over his shoulder. The smirk is back, and he turns enough to wrap an arm around her waist. 

“Fine, I’ll show you what I found. Get the camera, though. You’re gonna want to see this up close. It’s freaking hilarious.”

MC jumps up with a giggle, then grabs the camera and returns to her spot behind Zen. “Whatcha got there, Zenny?”

Zen, instantly in I’m-on-camera mode, gestures to the images on the screen. “Seven’s tripter bot has been scouring the internet all day, and I had no idea why. When it finished running the search, this is what it pulled up." 

He gestures to each site and link on the screen. Titles such as "Dating Zen Would Include…” and “Zen Relationship Headcanons” fill the screen. When he scrolls down a bit, more links appear. “Zen Smut,” “Fifty Shades of Zen,” and “Zen’s Kinks” are among the many, many listed.

This sends both MC and Zen into another fit of laughter. “This is great!” he exclaims. “Look at it! It just keeps going, and going, and…oh! There’s stuff with the other members of the RFA!”

Sure enough, MC starts to see things like, “Seven x Zen” and “Jumin x Zen,” along with basically every other pairing with the others in the RFA. Even “Jaehee x Zen” makes an entrance, as well as “Human!Elizabeth the 3rd x Zen.”

MC groans and covers her face with her hand, trying to decide whether to laugh or cry. “Your fans are the worst,” she mutters behind her palm. “The absolute worst!”

Zen chortles at her comment and shows a different page of fan fiction results. “Hey, they’re not all that bad!”

“You’ve read some!”

“What’s your definition of ‘some,’ MC?”

“Zen!”

He points to a result in the queue as a defense. “Look! They’ve written some pretty sweet stuff about us!”

Rolling her eyes, MC takes a closer look. As he scrolls through the synopsis, she finds herself intrigued by the alternative universe setting, interesting plot, and near-perfect grammar. 

“Hmmm, maybe not all of them are that bad.”

Zen grins over his shoulder. “This one’s actually great! We fight human-eating monsters and make out a lot.”

MC plops onto the bed beside him with a scoff. “I thought that was our regular lives?”

The pale-haired man smirks at her and cocks an eyebrow suggestively. “Wanna read it together?”

MC’s smile widens. “Hell yes." 

As MC gets settled on the bed, Zen leaps up and crosses the distance between him and the camera. After his signature wink and wave, he shuts the camera off, and the picture fades to black.

[justgenlockthings]

gen:VIEW Episode 2, “There’s Always Tomorrow”

Rooster Teeth knows how to make a premiere that packs a punch when it comes to their serialized dramas (yes, I’m including Red vs. Blue in that category). But it’s the non-premiere episodes that generally give you a better idea of if the show’s gonna be good or not.

Or maybe you’re someone like TheFloofArtist and you were predisposed to hate the show long before you even saw it and so found literally every possible reason to hate it from the 2nd episode and dramatically “dropped it” despite the fact that if you hated the show so much you were shitting on it without having seen a single episode your opinion was never gonna be considered valid.

(Why do grown men throw hissy fits about TV shows?)

Ahem...so. Episode 2 of gen:LOCK...

Let’s Get Down To Business

Where episode 1 was about establishing the relationship between Chase and Miranda, this episode seems to be about establishing the gen:LOCK program itself: how it works and who’s gonna be in it. For that reason, at least for the first half, it’s very expository, but not in a way that ever feels boring. Honestly, the longer episode lengths means the amount of time they spend standing around and talking doesn’t feel like vital time wasted, unlike RWBY which has often made that terrible mistake. This is information we need to get a basic understanding of how this program works, and we also get a chance to hear Dr. Weller passionately talking about his life’s work. Jesus christ, David Tennant gives such a good performance. He really sells the good guy mad scientist voice you expect from Dr. Weller.

I wasn’t entirely sold on Michael B. Jordan as a voice actor the previous episode, but even if at certain points it was clear we were watching a scene that hadn’t been initially animated to his voice, this episode convinced me things were gonna be fine. I loved his performance in the scene of Julian in the tank chatting with Migas: the sort of bittersweetness of the reunion between the two after all that had happened to them, but they were still glad to finally see each other again. Miles Luna deserves some praise too for helping sell the fact that this is a reunion. After all, even though we caught a brief moment of them interacting and joking around in Episode 1, we didn’t really have a chance to establish they were close friends. This scene does well to convince us that yes, they were friends, and they are relieved to see each other again.

Chase and Miranda’s situation was very well-handled in this episode. It was always going to be painful for Miranda to find out Chase was still alive, and even though it’s perfectly logical that Chase wasn’t able to reach out to her in the intervening years, it still isn’t something she can just brush over. She didn’t immediately jump at the chance to see him in-person, and actively avoided him for a day. It would have been a major mistake for her to be the first one who went to visit him. I love this whole situation with Miranda: the way the marketing was going you kind of expected just a bland character defined by her relationship with Chase, and, well, I guess what she does in this episode is sort of defined by the relationship, but it’s done in a way that’s actually interesting, where you actually care about how she feels about all this. Dakota Fanning does a great job conveying the hurt Miranda feels seeing someone she loved after so long who she’d given up for dead. I think she might easily be the third best voice actor we’ve heard so far, behind Monica Rial and David Tennant.

Here’s another case where one of my few pre-show expectations got subverted. From the character teasers I’d sort of expected us to get a depiction of the formation of the gen:LOCK program from the start: presumably that path would have followed Chase and Yasamin’s initial training and the early mech designs we saw in the early posters and the first two teasers. Of course, this was before I had known what they were planning with Chase’s crash, a path in the story that I could not have possibly predicted. And now I’m realizing why they didn’t do that: 1) it would have been too similar to RWBY and probably have made for a very slow show otherwise, and 2) they wanted to get right into the giant mechs fighting things. Sure, it sort of robs us of seeing some cool stuff about what it was like for Chase to join the program, but I figure we’ll get that depicted in flashbacks or in the comics.

One of the accusations regarding Kazu Iida was that having him speak Japanese while everyone else was speaking English would create “The Lopez Effect.” For those unaware, Lopez is a robot on Rooster Teeth’s show Red vs. Blue who speaks “Spanish” (really sentences run through Google Translate) that is translated for the audience via subtitles but no one else can understand. Now, for what the complain actually entails, I think “Lopez effect” is a bad term for it because Lopez’s situation is played for laughs while in gen:LOCK everyone understands Iida and doesn’t bat an eye. The complaint is more that it creates a tonal dissonance in what’s designed as a dramatic show: while everyone’s speaking English Kazu’s saying all his lines in Japanese with subtitles. Now, I can understand why that could all sound a little weird, but the thing is the way they set things up in the episode I really don’t think Iida speaking English is gonna be as distracting as one might think: they set it up where the characters can understand what he’s saying thanks to the augmented reality gear everyone seems equipped with, so that already established a method of communication, and I just didn’t give any thought to the fact he’s speaking Japanese for the rest of the episode. I would honestly be more bothered if he just spoke English all the time.

The other accusation is that the fact that he is the only character who speaks a foreign language was they’d have an excuse to get the voice of Spike Spiegel, which apparently is bad because it’s “weeb-baiting.” I’m sorry, I didn’t realize they were trying to draw audiences in with who they were casting...

As far as the new gen:LOCK recruits go, we didn’t get too much information about them, and this is probably the only issue I have with this episode. Still, there was a lot going on here, so I can forgive not learning everything about them in their first appearance. And the thing is, the sequence with the imposter Sinclair (bravo to Blaine Gibson for being able to flip a coin––heheh––from friendly recruit Sinclair to Evil!Sinclair) offered us a good glimpse into who they are as fighters. Especially in recent years, Rooster Teeth fights are a chance to really get an idea for the character (and for that I wholeheartedly thank Monty Oum) and how they handle dangerous situations. Yasamin is clearly someone who can jump into a fight and hold her own without hesitation, Iida is someone who will jump right into a fight, Valentina will keep her distance but can still be quite deadly, and Cammie is a scared little bean...who with a little encouragement can still be helpful.

Now, the Sinclair reveal was a slight bit predictable if you picked up the hints in Character Reveal Teaser 4 (which I hadn’t, and in retrospect was blatantly obvious). The fact that it was predictable was the source of derision by some of the more gen:CRIT crowd, but honestly? I don’t see predictability as a sign of whether something’s good or not. Things can be predictable and still be fun to watch, so long as it’s delivered in an entertaining manner. And we got a pretty awesome fight sequence out of it.

I’ve seen a few people say that the jokes in this show feel forced. I’m inclined to disagree. The type of humor Gray and Evan are employing in the writing is more grounded than the kind you see in RWBY or Red vs. Blue or Camp Camp: it’s designed to feel more natural to the conversations these characters are having, while also not taking attention away from the more serious aspects of the story. Most of Rooster Teeth’s core group (more recent additions less-so) know how to create an engaging story based in serious tones, but they never really stray from their comedy roots––Day 5, their most dramatic venture to date, was a lot funnier than the concept would’ve implied because Josh and Chris knew where to inject humor when it would be desperately needed. This episode isn’t very different: the drama of Chase basically coming back from the dead gets natural moments of levity from his and Migas brief Siege mention and Dr. Weller being disappointed that he couldn’t participate in the reveal; the tension between Chase and Miranda gets a moment where Miranda refuses to hear out Migas on visiting Chase, a moment that can draw laughs while also being realistic to her and Chase’s actual situation; Chase popping up behind Fake!Sinclair and saying “Boo,” which...actually that was more a legit joke, but I laughed really hard. What I mean to say is gen:LOCK is not trying to be a comedy, but Rooster Teeth knows how and when to make its audience laugh.

(save for Red vs. Blue Season 16 of course...)

Conclusions

Another solid episode of gen:LOCK, and a little more interesting one than “The Pilot” because it delves into the meatier stuff that this series is going to follow. Stellar vocal performances by the cast give us a sense of the relationships that need to be picked up in the four years since the war began, and some amazing fighting shows us gen:LOCK means business as an action series.

My only concern is that the way this episode is formatted it doesn’t quite stand on its own in the way “The Pilot” did, but the fact that it was released alongside “The Pilot” worked in its favor, since both episodes give us a good ground to establish what this show is looking to do, and hopefully further episodes will follow on that.

I’ve said enough about people who were predisposed to hate the show commenting on this episode, but I wanna say this also: people. We are two episodes in. The show premiered less than a week ago. There isn’t a whole lot of content to draw from to know where it’s going. Be a little more patient.

[astroshad]

3, 10, 14, 18.

3. What are your favorite stims?Ok, so I have quite a few. I’ll break them down into different categories.Sound: Most of my stims are sound based. I tend to hum/sing pretty much 24/7. My current fave vocal stim is this bit of Cool Patrol by NSP (https://youtu.be/-tW0G9XWaj0?t=2m20s) . Also Hamilton songs (as well as anything else by Lin-Manuel Miranda) are very stimmy for me to listen to or sing to. For the past few days I’ve also been stimming to the main song from The Song of the Sea ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6wVijh2n9g ) and an Irish folk song called Dulaman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukjpUD5fZA ). I also have some sort of background noise set up on my laptop when I’m on it. I love the sound of rain (Usually I use rainymood) and foresty sounds(https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/meadowCreekSoundscapeGenerator.php).

Taste: I’ve noticed that candy canes seem to be a stim for me. The mint is soo good. Also hot chocolate and tea is awesome too.

Touch: Anything soft. I have this medium-sized Belle tsum tsum I got when I was in New York that’s perfect for cuddling and stuff. I really wanna get some kinetic sand cause it looks really cool but yea…

Sight: GLITTER! NEON LIGHTS! VAPORWAVE-Y THINGS! RAIN! GLOWY THINGS! I’m probably missing a few, but you get the idea. XD

Smell: I’ve been collecting candles over the past few months and now my desk is 25% candles….My faves are pumpkin, lavender, and pine.

10. What is one thing that you wished everyone knew about autism?The spectrum isn’t a line. Everyone experiences their autism differently. For example, me and @kikikid1412 are both autistic. She has issues with some foods and their textures, whereas I’m perfectly ok with them.

14. Describe a place/room/situation that would be sensory heaven to you.A place where I can freely sing/hum as loud as I want for as long as I want, listen to the same songs on repeat without the use of headphones and not feel self conscious about my music choices. The place would also have an infinitely burning pumpin scented candle, fairy lights/neon lights on the walls, and tons of glitter jars. I would look out the window and see that the rain is never ending.

18. What are your autistic headcanons?YOU’VE DONE IT NOW. SIT DOWN CAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A FUCKIN RIDE.I have a bunch of characters that I headcanon to be autistic (which are on my about page), but the headcanons I ABSOLUTELY LOVE/ ARE EXTREMELY SPECIAL TO ME are as follows…

Peridot (from Steven Universe): I developed this headcanon back when the “Peridot redemption arc” was first starting. This was also around the time when I was starting to learn more about Autism and who I was. This was basically my gateway to headcanons as a whole. The headcanon clicked into place when I saw that Peridot really didn’t understand how things worked and how hard it was for her to grasp the set of social rules that she was presented with. She wanted to fit in with the gems and tried her hardest to understand things. Especially when she unintentionally hurt Amethyst. The tape recorder also played a big part in this headcanon. Peridot was so used to her screens and homeworld tech in order to communicate and process the world around her. When Steven gave her the tape recorder, it allowed her to continue her routine of keeping logs and also communicate her feelings to the gems. The main examples being her rewinding and repeating bits of the tape (“CLOD! CLOD! CLOD!”) and when she apologized to Amethyst in recording form. There are many other reasons why I headcanon Peridot as autistic, but there are the two main reasons that started this whole thing.

Papyrus (from Undertale): I’ve talked about this in the past, but I’ll say it again. I see a lot of myself in Papyrus. And I didn’t even mean to make this headcanon at first, but just like the last headcanon, it clicked into place. The only difference is that with this one, it happened in more of a “oh my god i see the light” sort of way. It was late 2015, and I was in a public speaking class at my college. For the final project, we had to give a persuasive speech. I chose to do mine on Autism Speaks and why they are pretty much the spawn of satan. So I was sitting in the library doing research and one of the articles talked a bit about the symptoms of autism. As I was reading them, my thoughts drifted to Undertale, since at the time that was one of my main special interests. And for some reason, my thoughts drifted to Papyrus specifically. Then, time pretty much almost literally froze for me. “Papyrus is autistic…” The thought popped up. “Papyrus…..is AUTISTIC!!” the thought echoed again. A smile grew on my face and I jut felt so happy. There was a character that was clearly autistic…and the other characters loved him and cared for him greatly and didn’t think he was dumb/a burden/other bad words!!!! They accepted him for who he was and he accepted himself too!!! Papyrus was and still is the character I needed in that time. I’m still learning to accept myself and I know that even if it doesn’t feel like I’m making huge leaps, Papyrus would be proud of me and be like “HUMAN! LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!”

Alexander Hamilton (from the musical, Hamilton):  This one is kind of hard to explain. even I don’t have the full explanation figured out ( @kikikid1412 ya might have to help me out with this). The best explanation I can give is that, for some reason, the musicial has just kind of…attached itself deep into my soul? I love it. It’s just so important to me. Maybe the reason I have the “Alexander is autistic” headcanon is because he’s kind of what I want to be. He’s loud, he lets his thoughts be known, he is completely himself. And as someone who is kind of shy and quiet and self concious, why wouldn’t I want to be more like that? I’ve talked about this in my New Years post, but I want to speak up more. I want to grab the things I want, not let them slide by. I want to be in the room where it happens. Like I said, I’m still trying to truly figure out the reason I love this headcanon so much.

Rapunzel (from Tangled) and Belle (from Beauty and the Beast): These two princesses have always been special to me, even before I started this whole headcanoning thing. Beauty and the Beast is basically the movie my father and I share. It’s our movie. As a kid and even now, Belle was my favorite Disney Princess. Then, when I saw Tangled in 2012, the movie just instantly became one of my faves. When I showed the movie to my friends, they even said “Rapunzel is basically you.” So when I got into headcanoning and reading other people’s headcanons for them, I guess it started to make more sense WHY I loved them and WHY I saw bits of myself in them. Rapunzel is this energetic and loud princess with a thousand special interests. Belle is the odd one out in her village and nobody understands her. And for the most part, she’s fine with her books, but she wishes someone would understand her. And she even has doubts about herself because of the way the villagers are towards her (“Papa…do you think I’m…odd?” ). AND BOTH PRINCESSES WANT ADVENTURE! That’s something I want too!! I could go on and on about why I love these princesses so much..

Link (from The Legend of Zelda): This headcanon is kind of new for me, but my love for Zelda is something I’ve had for a looooong time. Zelda has been one of my special interests since I played Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games way back in the day. And even though I love the Zelda series, its the classic games (First game, up until Ocarina/Majora. Also any game attached to the LTTP story) that are closest to my heart and are pretty much a part of me now. So why wouldn’t I love a headcanon that claims THE MAIN CHARACTER AND HERO is autistic? It makes so much sense to me and the headcanon makes me really happy.

Graham (from King’s Quest) and Guybrush Threepwood (from Monkey Island): THESE GAMES ARE REALLY GOOD AND YOU SHOULD PLAY THEM!!! Anyway, these games are pretty much my special interests now, as is point and click games in general. I love these two characters sooo soo much. Both are socially awkward, dorky adventurers. They think outside of the box frequently and come up with solutions that an average person wouldn’t think of. Guybrush has a special interest in pirates. Graham has a special interest in adventuring and puzzles. I will say, my headcanon for Graham is a bit more developed than the one for Guybrush. Graham has the tendency to ramble when excited (when he asks Manny to be friends, when he meets the potion shop owners, when encountering that big puzzle in chapter 4). He also is hyperempathetic (one word: Achaka). Also I headcanon Neese/Vee as autistic and the rest of the family too!

Dawn (from the musical, Waitress): Waitress..oh my god I love Waitress! It’s the first musical I saw LIVE ON BROADWAY!! As I was watching it i was like “Yes…Dawn is autistic as fuuuck : D   ;-; ” Like, in the first song she’s in (Opening Up) she flat out states she likes the way the diner has its own daily routine. She then continues to show that she loves routines (going home and eating a specific tv dinner and watching the history channel). She also is anxious and socially awkward. She has a special interest in history, especially the American Revolution.

Marty Mcfly and Doc Brown (from Back to the Future): I’m gonna start this by saying I love this headcanon, because Marty and Doc are basically me and @kikikid1412 !! Like our sistership is very similar to Doc and Marty’s friendship. Marty is anxious and often times worries about what people will think of him, while Doc is always encouraging Marty to just do it!!! I’ve reblogged a few posts about autistic Marty recently and you can go check out @kikikid1412 for her Doc headcanons. But basically this headcanon is special because I’m like Marty and sis is like Doc! And I see so many similarities between us and the characters!!

Amalthea, Prince Lir, Molly Grue, and Schmendrick (from The Last Unicorn): I’m still trying to develop this headcanon but here’s what I got so far.Schmendrick: Has a special interest in magic and mythological creatures. Stims by juggling.Molly Grue: Goes without shoes due to sensory issues. Special interests are legends and mythological creatures (mainly Robin Hood and unicorns). Very blunt and to the point, can be seen as rude (especially in the scenes where she’s talking to King Haggard)Prince Lir: Doesn’t know how to express his feelings properly/can’t put them into words. Had no clue how to approach the whole “I love Amalthea” thing and stuck to the script of “a daring hero slaying monsters” in hopes it would impress her. He also couldn’t read Amalthea and kept at the whole hero thing until he finally realized it wasn’t working.