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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

Note

If you were editor of Nightwing's book ever since at least the start of Rebirth to today and you were given free reign, what would your story mandates?

Oh no, this is dangerous. LOL. Hmm, I have no idea what to shoot for here, so I'll try to keep it to ten. That's reasonable right? Ten is good. Yeah. Is fine.

Okay, so, in no particular order:

1) Let Dick be competent 101. None of this him having to play hype man for every other character to pop up in HIS title bullshit. Nope. That's not what they're there for. He's the lead man, LET HIM BE THE LEADING MAN. Like sure, everyone has their areas of expertise, he doesn't need or have to be the best at everything, blah blah blah.....but its about the nuance. All of that is kinda lip service because the thing is, you don't go into MOST comic books and NEED to be reminded of that because the lead characters of those books are all constantly getting saved or shown up or chastised by every guest star in their books, you know? This is a very weird, very niche phenomenon very specific to Dick's character, and I'm super over it. I'm here to read about the guy who has literally been doing this longer than most superheroes twice his age. The guy who's been doing this since before he hit double digits. The born acrobat. The destined ultimate warrior or whatever of Gotham's Ornithological Society Of Murder and Pretentiousness. Gimme that guy. And that guy doesn't need to be 'humbled' every other page, because the thing is, he's not some egomaniac to begin with so the everpresent need to humble him doesn't actually come off as humbling! It just comes off as pandering and not even to actual fans of the actual character, so its like.....wyd DC.

2) Let other people take responsibility for their own crap with Dick rather than always just expecting a mea culpa from him. I'm so unbelievably tired of the words I'm sorry from Dick. I love personal accountability, so I never thought I'd have to say this about a character, but enoooooough. They have made it completely in character for this dude to apologize to everyone ELSE for being brainwashed, getting amnesia, being KILLED, like.....the amount of things he's groveled for forgiveness for when he didn't actually do a damn thing wrong or worse yet, was the ACTUAL victim of is like....pretty damn staggering. And meanwhile, there's nary a peep of apology from the people who regularly insult or belittle him, get physically violent with him, take advantage of him or take him for granted, etc, etc, etc. Its entirely too one-sided and imbalanced, and the pendulum needs to swing the other direction, like YESTERDAY, and in a fairly big way, IMO.

3) None of this Baby's First Social Justice Awakening 101 crap. I'm sorry, but no. Especially not when you go out of your way to acknowledge that Dick is Romani, only to then turn around and act like he's only JUST had his eyes opened to an awareness of like, classism and poverty and the real struggles people face day to day? Sorry not sorry, but especially for other white writers out there, do not use people of color as self-inserts for dipping a toe into Learning To See Past Privilege. And especially when talking about a character who has a history of being actively abused and hurt by the system and institutions of power, or hell, even leaving out that particular origin story, who has still been out on the streets helping people since he was a literal child. You can not tell me that this is his first face to face experience with social issues, or the first time he's had the inclination to try and address those head on. (And its also particularly egregious that the people second-guessing Dick in his own title and giving him reality checks or acting like they have more of an awareness of all this than he does like, happen to all be white? OPTICS. LEARN ABOUT THEM. COMMON SENSE. GET SOME.)

Know what would actually be a better way to approach this? Flashbacks. Show us Dick running into situations that make him think back to a case when he was still Robin, when he and Batman had started fighting over their approaches to things, actually SHOW us those conflicts and how their viewpoints had started diverging, and how much of that was due to Dick not having the same experiences as Bruce, or the same standing in society, no matter what house he lived in. THEN you can jump BACK to the present, with the reminder/awareness that this is something that isn't NEWS to Dick, but that he in the past felt he was forced to make his peace with as something he wasn't in a position to do that much about....only NOW, he's in a very DIFFERENT position, and suddenly it just hits him how he's still acting like he did when he was limited in resources or in having to be part of a chain in command or having to factor other responsibilities into things....now he ACTUALLY has the power and the resources to make meaningful change in the ways he ALWAYS wanted to, but maybe just needed time to figure out HOW.

Like you know what would have made Shawn Tsang's story arc so much better? If Dick didn't just remember her as the Pigeon's one time teenage sidekick he'd briefly fought as a kid, but like.....if he remembered her as someone he and Bruce had FOUGHT about. Because he didn't agree with sending someone to juvie for defacing public property as a form of political protest, when it was someone's LIFE who was going to be irrevocably damaged by that while the damage to the city could be fixed with a check, and what made Dick any more deserving of Bruce's leniency and faith in his potential or underlying goodness than Shawn?

But he was still a kid himself back then, and when Bruce responded with his usual conviction, talking about the importance about rule of law and etc etc, Dick just didn't have the words to get through to him then, to get him to understand that this wasn't just Dick not getting it because he was too young, it was BRUCE not getting it, that Dick was literally just saying well he wasn't too young to have been in juvie himself, and of the two of them, he's the one who has experience there so why was Bruce's opinion on whether this was the punishment that fit the crime the one that got to hold more weight here? When Dick's the one who knows what that punishment actually LOOKS like beyond the abstract, for whom it was a reality that still haunts him in ways that even defacing a few statues of some rich old fucks doesn't deserve?

Or hell, go back FURTHER than when he was Robin. Idk where any of those posts are, but I've always wanted to see something where Dick maybe runs into someone he remembers from his time in juvie, maybe a guard who is like, the source of the reasons Dick mistrusts figures of authority and is so hung up on independence and not being under anyone's thumb, or maybe someone who was in there with him, another kid who looked out for him when he didn't have to, etc. Gimme Dick tackling head-on his firsthand awareness that there's no rehabilitation to be found in a jail for kids, when most of those kids don't even need rehabilitation in the first place and only did what they did in order to survive or escape from worse situations or like, were there purely because of racist cops, etc. Let him go after THAT system, driven by personal experiences and memories that maybe only hit him in full after recovering his memories from the Ric Grayson arc, like they're things that he put in a box in his mind a long, long time ago because he didn't have the spoons or reserves to deal with them when he was a kid still so traumatized in so many ways, like, something had to give and so he put all those memories away for another day and just....never got back to them because life kept hitting him with new and fresh trauma every week.

But now something has him thinking back to those early days in Gotham, and reminding him that not everyone had a Bruce Wayne willing and able to give them an out from that place or acrobatic skills to escape it on their own, and like. You want to do something about the cycles of violence in Gotham and Bludhaven? Why not start with the places that literally MANUFACTURE cruelty on an institutional level, that teach kids that no matter what they did to get put there, even if that was nothing at all, they're all going to be treated the same way and given no reason NOT to do whatever it took to be top dog in a dog eat dog world by the time they got out.

There's SO many better approaches to social awareness in the Batbooks than what we're seeing, and like. Sheesh. The bar is way too low.

4) On a related note, if I'm editor of the Nightwing book, the FIRST thing I'm doing is making it a priority to find a writer of color for that book, ideally someone of Rom descent. Its waaaaay past time to let a Romani writer take the reins on Dick, Wanda, Pietro or Doom, aka some of the only prominent Romani characters out there? You can't tell me that there aren't talented writers who identify as Roma who would be more than willing to add their perspective to Dick's archive of narratives, and if an editor's gotta go looking for them? Go fucking look. DC and its fans have milked a lot of mileage out of the idea of Dick being Romani with very little in the way of nuanced storytelling to show for it in the past twenty years, and if DC wants to trot out little reminders that Dick is Romani every couple years, like in the form of a freaking line that has no follow up or expansion to any degree and is offset by an internal monologue that otherwise reads as incredibly privileged, the least they can do is TRY to expand on that with the narrative perspective of someone they claim to be representing via that character.

And no, this isn't gatekeeping, this is prioritizing. Its not about preventing other writers from writing this character, like just for the hell of it, its about being proactive about finding a writer who can write specific aspects of this character that have long gone unaddressed or poorly represented. And like. Okay. Its not easy breaking into the comics industry for anyone, but its particularly not easy for marginalized writers. Most every major comic book company just recites 'make your own stuff first and then show us that' but when you're a writer specifically, finding a compatible artist to partner with on creator-owned indie stuff first, when those artists are in the same position as you are and apologetically and understandably tend to have to take paying work over yours if you can't pay except on the back end, like....there are a lot of hurdles to getting your start in comic books, and while there are more and more marginalized writers in comics these days, DC and Marvel kinda fucked up, because you know what?

After being told 'make your own first, then we'll talk,' writers DID do just that....but then found out that well, due to the ease of online distribution and access these days, for any writers who CAN find an artist to partner with, its a hell of a lot easier to get their content out there these days WITHOUT a major publisher behind them.....and for a lot of marginalized writers in particular, its worth it to keep full creative control in exchange for smaller circulation. Especially when they don't have to deal with editors 'softening' their work to make it more palatable for audiences that quite frankly aren't necessarily their primary target. So yeah, marginalized voices are becoming more and more present in comics, but Marvel and DC for the most part are keeping the same voices centered they always have, and what these voices have to say is becoming less and less relevant and outdated. Because much like this arc from Taylor, even when they DO dip their toes into story matter that's of interest to wider audiences, they're doing so to a degree that still puts them years behind the conversations everyone else is having.

5) The same holds true of disability representation. I stopped reading Taylor's run for a lot of reasons but his way of responding to people unhappy with his depiction of Babs was a key one. If I'm editor on a book, and someone tweets at one of my writers that their depiction of a disabled character was hurtful because it feels like they're doubling back on everything Babs has ever said about not being defined by or ashamed of her disability and now its being treated like a dirty little secret, and that writer's response is essentially to just laugh at them and say there's nothing wrong or ableist about their writing of a disabled person, TO a concerned disabled person? That writer's ass is getting fired. Full stop.

Either you give a shit about this stuff or you don't. Don't pay your readers lip service about how important social issues are to you and how much you care about using superhero narratives to inspire people on these matters if you're gonna turn around and show your ass the second you don't feel comfortable and prioritized by the conversation, like it wouldn't exist without your oh so valuable contributions. ESPECIALLY if you don't identify as sharing the same identity of the marginalized character you're writing. You are a guest in someone else's lived experiences at that point, and you think you've got the right to belittle and talk down to the people who LIVE THERE? Fuck off, my dude.

6) Re-center Dick as someone who the superhero community RESPECTS. I love seeing Dick depicted as someone who has an awareness of his own limitations and an appreciation for what others bring to the table, and so I'm not opposed to him calling on others when he needs to.....but I also would like to see more of the opposite. But not in the way we usually see it these days, where he's asked to come help with a crisis and then usually second-guessed the whole way, and then sent back home without so much as a thank you when its done. Yawn. Sorry. I've read that story by now.

You know what story arc I freaking LOVED as a kid, back in the 90s? In Green Lantern, when Kyle Rayner first became the sole GL, one of his very early arcs, before he ever joined the JLA or anything....was him realizing how little he knew about being a superhero. He was like, my predecessors all had a full fledged CORPS to teach them everything they needed to know, but I had a few lines of exposition from a funny little blue guy in a red pillowcase and then I was off to the races. That's not good enough. There's so much I don't know about being a hero, I don't even KNOW what I still need to know.

So he went on kinda a superhero training roadtrip. He went to Metropolis to ask Superman for advice, he went to Batman to learn from Batman and Robin (Tim at the time). He went to Wonder Woman, Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern), etc, etc. And in the end, Kyle very much became his own kind of hero who wasn't just a pastiche of all those other heroes and the advice they gave him, but like....this put him on the road to that.

And I'd love to see something like that happen in Dick's solo title. We've seen him train in a team setting, we've seen him train the other Robins.....I'd love to see like, young superheroes from OTHER books, not ones created by the title, but like names people actually recognize from other franchises, like, guest star in Nightwing's book to learn from HIM, specifically. I wanna see something where Wally looks at the latest speedster and is like, you know what, if you really wanna be the best hero you can possibly be, then Nightwing's who you gotta go to, because there's no one I trust to make a better hero out of someone than him. I want the newest kid on the JLA block to worry that people aren't taking him seriously because of his age or experience, and he's always hearing them talk about Nightwing and how young he was when he started and so if anyone knows something about how to gain the respect of your older superhero peers, that's the guy to talk to.

Gimme Dick's couch being crashed on at various times by a half dozen new or upcoming young superheroes who all heard or figured out that if they really want to up their superhero game, Nightwing's the guy to see.

7) Bring back Bea. There's no long paragraph expansion on this, its really simply. Bring back Bea. She was one of the freshest breaths of air in Dick's supporting cast in ages, most of the current run is based off her character direction in the first place, she's literally the best suited TO help Dick in this venture, and the reasons they gave for writing her out of Dick's life were all bullshit and they just wanted to focus on his previous relationships, which would be fine if they didn't fall into the same two endless cycles of bring back up, go nowhere with, awkwardly avoid each other for years, rinse and repeat. Like. Bring back Bea, please and thank you, the end.

8) Focus on new villains. Heartless is meh, but the idea of new villains is still better IMO than rehashing Blockbuster, Zucco, etc. Like, nostaglia ain't it. If I want to read Blockbuster fucking up Dick's life, I can do that. They're called back issues. The thing is, love it or hate it, the Blockbuster arc WAS iconic. It left its mark. And anything that doesn't leave just as much of a mark, if they're going to bring him up again, is just gonna be a waste of time, you know? It'll just dilute his overall presence when like, what he was - worked fine as is. We don't need Round Two.

The trick to good villains, IMO, is they have to speak to a fight that needs fighting.

What I mean by that is....the best villains are those who resonate on a more instinctive level because they embody something that already exists in a reader's mind as a conflict that needs fighting. Like, if superheroes exist, if the embodiment of larger than life presences and forces devoted to protecting the world from various things are real....then their villains need to embody the kinds of fights or conflicts that NEED larger than life figures to combat them, at least on a one to one level.

Look at Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman at his core embodies the strength of community. He's the ultimate hero of the people, his essence is that he was the last survivor of a doomed race who was raised by two honest, hard working people to see the beauty in just being ONE of them, in using what he had on behalf of all of them and not just himself. In contrast, Lex Luthor is basically the embodiment of capitalist greed, of excess, of the entitlement of being able to have anything with a snap of your fingers and thus assuming that gives you divine mandate to make the kinds of choices that he sees as only his right to make.

He hates Superman, ultimately, because Superman is the WRONG savior of the people. He wants their only savior to be HIM, half the time he honestly believes he's saving the world FROM Superman, but just as often he's perfectly content to be the villain and not shy about it....because Lex Luthor's ultimate motivation is he wants everyone to know when he's dead and gone that LEX LUTHOR WAS HERE. He genuinely doesn't care WHAT his impact or legacy is at the end of the day, just that it exists and it overshadows most everything else...because all that really matters to him is the irrefutable proof that HE mattered. And thus at their cores, Superman and Lex are perfectly opposed. Ideally situated to eternally be in conflict, their own forever war, because their core natures are incompatible. They CAN'T compromise, without compromising themselves and essentially ending up as someone totally other than who and what they are already.

And you can go down the list. The Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, while Mr. Freeze is the stagnancy of that order taken too far, he's what you get when you freeze everything in your grief and refuse to let anything go on, anything new grow, because that would mean having to admit once and for all that what you're mourning is really gone. Two-Face is the ultimate embodiment of Man vs Self, a once good man at war with his own worse nature, and reminding everyone who looks at him how easily they could fall to the same fate.

And so on and so on. What Dick needs, is more of the same. Like, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Talon stories, I maintain that the Court of Owls were a great foil for him - just they tend to be poorly used in canon as well. But I also think how poorly they come off in canon has a lot to do with canon not really touching on WHY they're such a perfect foil for Dick....and that's Dick's history with being outside the system, mistreated and even exploited by the system. Because the Court, their core concept, is they ARE the system. They are entrenched, enfranchised, institutional power, passed down through generations, dynastic control that is a perfect counterpart to the dynastic power of the Wayne family, embodied in its youngest generation in the form of Bruce's FOUND family, the children he adopted regardless of whether or not his peers found them deserving of that honor. The Court, and their entire....thing...about the Gray Son, is the entitled fury of those denied something they deem theirs simply because they WANT it, and who will burn the whole world down rather than admit defeat or let someone else have it instead.

And that resonates. It could resonate a lot MORE if DC would actually lean into those concepts and allow Dick to explore how the Court are nothing he's not used to, they're literally made up of the same people who have looked down on him ever since he came to Gotham, but now they're actually a face and a name put to all those attitudes, something he can literally FIGHT BACK AGAINST. The Court are literally human-sized embodiments of everything and everyone who's tried to confine Dick since his parents' deaths, tried to define him without his permission, tried to make him other or lesser than who and what he is.....and who thus now exist in a form that Dick can literally BATTLE. So that he doesn't HAVE to just take this stuff lying down.

Thanks to the Court, he doesn't HAVE to just passively accept it, that this is just how life is, that some people are going to view him this way and think this about him and there's nothing he can do about it. He CAN do something about it, in superhero stories. He can kick its ASS, in the form of the Court of Owls and everything its members think about him and intend for him. He can refuse to bow down to them, to accept their mark on him. He can say lol, no, and then blow their shit sky high, ideally with a little help from his family. He can BEAT them, in this incarnated form, and in doing so, even though he can't beat everything they stand for and represent, that victory still matters, still means something symbolic to readers it resonates with.

And that's what we need more of. Villains created specifically to embody concepts that are diametrically opposed to Dick and what he represents. The system, yes, but also villains who embody the kind of tyranny and control he fights back against in his constant battles for autonomy and self control. Villains who embody the 'new hopes' of a second generation just like Dick himself is the focal point of the hopes embodied by the second generation of heroes. I'm actually not the hugest fan of multiversal constant Dick Grayson, but I might like it more if he had an opposite number there, someone he was specifically contrasted with. Idk.

But you get it.

9) Dick having a social life. Gimme the Titans and his siblings showing up JUST to show up. We have room enough for at least a couple pages every other issue where we just get to see these characters having some breathing room, taking a beat to stop and be something other than just a superhero, to be human as well. There's more to life than 24/7 fighting, even for them, and that's largely been lost in modern superhero comics, which kinda sucks, because that was what made most of the more iconic and lasting dynamics between various characters like, STAND the test of time. The larger than life battles between good and evil might be what many of us come to superhero comics FOR, but the relatable back-and-forths and ups and downs of their private lives spent with friends and family tends to be what keeps most of us coming BACK. And lately its all just mission, mission, mission, and I'm like blah, blah, blah and its like, meh, meh, meh. Y'know? Give the guy some down time, and let his friends come spend it with him.

10) Boone. This is purely self-indulgent, but if you know anything about me, you know my obsession with Robin: Year One, Dick's brief time at Vengeance Academy, and the hate/hate relationship he has with his brief frenemy from that period, Boone aka Shrike. This character has SOOOOO much potential to be Dick's true archnemesis and rival, and like. *Sobs* I can't get into it all again. Its too much. I can't do it.

Okay, I absolutely can. And will, probably. But like. Later.

BONUS ROUND:

Other thing I would absolutely insist upon if I were Nightwing editor....

GET THAT FUCKING MEME SHIRT ABOUT BRUCE SLAPPING DICK THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.

Like. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. Why would you double down on THAT? Why is Babs STILL wearing it? (Last I checked, like I think I saw it in a scan from last issue? I'm pretty sure its still there? If not, forget this entire rant, and I am very embarrassed. Okay not that embarrassed. I don't really care if I'm wrong here but like, in case I'm not)...

WHY. Who thought that was funny? No, seriously, on behalf of any other abuse survivors who like me are SERIOUSLY not amused, who the FUCK thinks its FUNNY to have one of Dick's best friends sporting a shirt that no matter what it represents IN universe, to readers OUT of universe, is always going to call to mind the fact that this meme only freaking EXISTS because of all the times DC has obliviously and without acknowledgment written Bruce abusing his children, including the BFF that Babs is literally wearing that right in front of.

Like omg do you hate her, DC? What other possible reason could you have for thinking that would be a cute, funny thing for her to wear around the guy getting SLAPPED, by his DAD, in your shirt's iconography.

Okay I'm done.

LOL.

Sorry, that last one was brewing for awhile. Deep breaths. Woo.

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mellometal · 3 years ago

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Here are the last few things I want to say about Dhar Mann. Because he's not a good person to support and I cannot believe people support him unironically.

I was misguided to an extent in my first response to him on the video he made about ASD. The whole complimenting him thing in my comments was only to ensure that my comments would not be deleted and that I wouldn't get blocked. That's why it sounded like I was sucking up to him in some parts of my comments. I actually WANT people to see them. I would hope at least SOMEONE would resonate with them in some way. I want people to see how videos about subjects he knows NOTHING about and probably will NEVER know about can and do affect people. I don't think he's a good person. At all.

Dhar Mann's videos reek of wannabe superiority. There are some things that people have brought up about him having a savior complex on Reddit, but I don't want to go into the entire psychological aspect of him...if such a thing exists. I may find psychology interesting, but he's not worth going into a whole psychological analysis over. I'm not licensed to do any kind of diagnoses on him anyway.

His morals are extremely watered down with quotes that even kids in preschool can understand. It honestly feels like he's talking down to his audience. (Why does he have an audience? The world may never know.) Dude, NOBODY appreciates being talked down to like they're stupid.

While sometimes, it's obvious that he's trying to come from a good place, it still doesn't change the fact that he doesn't go into WHY the events that happen in the videos are bad, what we can do to change it, nothing. I don't recall him putting down any reputable resources for anything he makes. If he has, it must be like finding Atlantis. For example, in his videos that are supposed to be tackling homelessness, he only goes into the whole narrative that we gotta be nice to homeless people. He never goes into the factors that cause homelessness. He never goes into any statistics. He doesn't share any reputable resources for the homeless population. Just goes into, "Be kind to homeless people!" and nothing else.

Another big example would have to be the videos he has made about disabilities. He seemed to KINDA tackle physical disabilities, but here's the thing. Physically disabled people aren't all helpless victims. Yes, some physically disabled people do require full support doing things. There are other physically disabled people who require moderate support, or even minimal support. Treating physically disabled people like they're just all helpless victims who you should feel bad for isn't helping them at all. They're not subhuman. They're human beings.

The video he made about Autism Spectrum Disorder is personally insulting. Treating ASD like it's a superpower harms autistic people and it honestly sounds like autistic people aren't being taken seriously. Calling ASD a "different ability" instead of calling it a disability (which is what ASD is) treats being autistic like it's a bad thing. (For anyone who found me through my first Dhar Mann post about his video on ASD, y'all already know my feelings about this. For anyone who's new here, doesn't know what's going on, and wants to know where I stand on that video in particular, please refer to that post.)

Like an anonymous person mentioned in the ask they sent earlier, Dhar Mann also made a video that was pro-cop. I knew about the video he made about a bunch of cops in training being sexist towards the only woman, which obviously ain't great either. I've seen that one and it made absolutely no sense to me. Dhar Mann, defeating sexism? *GASP!* We did it, feminists! We can go home now! Not.

Anyways, back to the pro-cop video. I didn't know that he made a video like that, so I searched for it. It was a pretty recent video too...and it's gross. The lady protesting in an alley really shouted in eight point font to "fire all cops". It took some guy stealing her purse for her to "change her mind" about cops.

The "cop" in the video really went into his whole life story about how he risks his life every day for people, fighting bad people (they even had a black man as the assailant trying to threaten a white woman, which is a disgusting racist stereotype and does nothing to help stop police brutality), and basically told this lady "Before you judge me, get to know ME!"

MOTHERFUCKER. FIREFIGHTERS, PARAMEDICS, AND THE ENTIRE MEDICAL FIELD, TO NAME A FEW, RISK THEIR LIVES EVERY DAY TOO. But you don't see a song that says "Fuck the fire department!" or "Fuck paramedics!", do you? (I have some choice words for parts of the medical field because of how some think it's okay to refuse to help people for being LGBT, not taking BIPOC seriously when they seek medical attention, refusing to help people for the religion they practice or lack thereof, the fatphobia, etc. I won't dive completely into it, but if you choose to be in the medical field and you refuse to help people for the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their religious beliefs or lack thereof, their weight, or ANYTHING along those lines, FIND A DIFFERENT CAREER.)

Police brutality towards black people is the highest out of every race. Not to mention that black people are the number one target for the police. The amount of black people being killed by the police will only keep increasing unless we all do something to put an end to police brutality towards black people. Black lives matter, and they ALWAYS will.

Can we also talk about how the police aren't equipped to deal with anything related to mental health or disabilities? Because the way they handle people having mental health crises, disabled people, and mentally ill people as a whole is heartless and ableist. AND THEY HAVE THE NERVE TO PUT ON THEIR VEHICLES THAT THEY'RE SAFE FOR DISABLED PEOPLE AND SHIT IN CERTAIN PLACES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Just because there are good cops, it doesn't make ALL cops good. It doesn't change the fact that ACAB. It doesn't change the fact that the police has way too much funding. It doesn't change the fact that the police need to be reformed. Honestly, in this day and age, there are way too many corrupt cops who want to be all superior and treat people like they're subhuman to see any good cops among them.

I did a little research on Dhar Mann's history before he decided to do all these fucking cringe videos. He was sentenced to five years of probation back in 2014 for five felony counts related to a scheme to defraud the City [Oakland, California] by submitting false claims and receipts in order to receive redevelopment grant money. He pleaded no contest to the five felony counts of fraud. Not a good look!

His voice is ear grating and crusty and he has a very punchable face. Every time I hear his voice, it triggers my fight or flight response.

HEEEEYYYY, DHAR MANN FAM! SO YOU SEE, HE MAKES ALL THESE CRINGE ASS VIDEOS WITH WATERED DOWN MORALS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPICS OF ANY OF THE VIDEOS AND REEK OF WANNABE SUPERIORITY! I hope you learned something from this message! He's not telling stories. He's not changing lives. He's a cringe ass nae-nae baby who can't bother to do actual research on topics he knows NOTHING about. He's ruining lives! Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time!

TL;DR: Dhar Mann is a piece of shit human being. Please stop supporting him.

#mello speaks #dhar mann talk #dhar mann will live to regret his decision to make these fucked up cringe videos #tw police brutality #tw murder mention #black lives matter and will always matter #all cops are bastards #tw racial violence mention #please stop supporting dhar mann #dhar mann #dhar mann is a piece of human garbage #tw dhar mann

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siancore · 5 years ago

Text

Go to Your Room

Summary: The one in which people think Bucky has a problem with his roommate Sam’s dates because they’re guys...

A/N: Based on a prompt that this silly tagging feature has lost about Sambucky roommates AU

Word Count: 2,737

Living with Steve and their roommate was a little awkward for Bucky. He felt like a third wheel most of the time. Sure, he and Steve had grown up together, but they weren’t the same kids from Brooklyn that they had been. Bucky was a returned serviceperson and was not the most outgoing guy anymore. Steve, it turned out, was more outgoing in adulthood; he was a social butterfly of sorts, and so was his new best friend, Sam Wilson.

They were a lot alike, Bucky noticed. Both the center of attention. Each had a bunch of other friends and went on dates regularly. Steve did not usually bring girls home, but when he did, he made sure to go to his bedroom where he was afforded privacy. Sam, however, was quite content to be laid up on the sofa, or eating in the kitchen, or sharing the shower with his dates. And it was always some ridiculously good-looking dumbass who was younger than Sam was, and who stared at Sam like the sun rose and set on him.

And Bucky wasn’t a prude or a bigot, no way, but for some reason seeing Sam making out on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon annoyed him to no end.

“You got a room, Wilson,” he would say in passing, while giving his best stern expression.

“So do you, Barnes, so why don’t you go to it,” Sam would reply, and Bucky would roll his eyes and walk off in a huff.

It wasn’t that Bucky didn’t like Sam. He really, truly did. Sam was a great guy. Real sweet and kind and generous. Would give you the shirt off his back. Was so smart and witty. And he was funny, too. Had the best laugh and the biggest, brightest smile. He always went out of his way to make people feel safe and welcome. It was no wonder he was so popular and had guys lining up around the corner to date him.

He and Bucky got on really well. Their playful banter was part of how they related to one another. They could each dish it out and take it, and Bucky was never genuinely annoyed with Sam because of it. Yet, increasingly, he was finding himself growing irritated the more Sam brought dates home. It was always some dumbass who was all hands, muscle, and little substance. Some guy who was always trying to kiss and touch Sam.

Bucky couldn’t blame them, though; Sam was an attractive man. He had the most beautiful brown eyes Bucky had ever seen, framed by lashes so long that they touched his incredible cheeks when he laughed wholeheartedly. His lips looked so soft and inviting, and even the gap in his teeth was beyond adorable. So, yes; Bucky understood the appeal. He just didn’t like to be around when these other men were falling over themselves to get to Sam. It was fuckin’ annoying.

The new guy Sam was seeing was almost too good-looking, and he was all over Sam all the fucking time. One day, upon returning home from the gym, Bucky walked into the living room to find Steve and Sam watching a football game. Steve was on the armchair yelling at the screen, and Sam was on the sofa sprawled out like a fashion model doing a photoshoot: Looking bored and beautiful. Bucky dropped his bag to the floor, and sat next to Sam. He felt the other man’s deep brown eyes on him immediately.

“You’re bulkin’ up there, Barnes,” Sam commented, dragging his gaze over Bucky’s form. “Lookin’ good, dude.”

For some reason, Bucky felt a blush creep up his neck and settle on his face.

“Thanks, man,” Bucky replied as he gave Sam a coy smile, which Sam returned. They sat staring at one another for a beat longer than was necessary.

Just then, the sound of another voice drew them from their reverie as Erik Stevens asked, “What’d I miss?”

“Nothin’, man,” said Steve, annoyed that their team was behind on the scoreboard. “I’m about ready to turn the TV off and toss it out the window.”

“Dramatic ass,” said Erik.

“He really is,” Sam added.

Bucky sat back and said nothing as the aggravation washed over him.

“Want another beer, babe?” Erik asked Sam as he placed his hands to Sam’s shoulders and rubbed them. The small gesture really got on Bucky’s nerves.

Sam turned to him, as if he could feel the irritation radiating from him and said, “Yeah, thanks. You want one, too, Buck?”

“Nah, I’m gonna hit the shower,” said Bucky as he stood and walked away, not offering a greeting to Sam’s beau as he walked by.

“What’s his deal?” asked Erik as he flopped down beside Sam and handed him the beer bottle. “Every time I come over, it’s like dude is in a bad mood.”

“He’s just shy, right Steve?” Sam said in Bucky’s defence.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Steve, not paying too much attention as he was too engrossed in the football game.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he had a problem with the two of us,” said Erik.

“Bucky’s not a racist,” said Sam.

“Not that,” Erik replied. “I meant with us bein’ two dudes.”

“No way,” said Sam, shaking his head. “He’s not a homophobe. He’s a great guy. You just gotta get to know him.”

“I’m tryin’,” Erik proffered. “But whenever I’m here, it’s like he doesn’t want me here.”

“You’re wrong, Erik,” said Sam. “He’s a good guy. You’ll see.”

xXxXx

Later that night, after Erik had gone home and Steve had gone to bed, Sam found Bucky sitting up watching an old movie in the dimly lit living rom. He often did that when he was unable to sleep; plus, it was actually nice to get time to enjoy their living room without Steve yelling at the television and some guy all over Sam.

Sam eyed Bucky a moment, before he sat down beside him and reached over to take some popcorn from his bowl; Bucky held the bowl out so that Sam could take as much as he wanted.

“What’re you watchin’?” asked Sam.

“I dunno,” said Bucky. “Some old romance shit. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl because boy is a dumbass, boy tries to win girl back. Sappy shit. You’d like it.”

Sam nudged Bucky’s shoulder with his before saying, “True, but I’d much rather watch boy meets boy and they live happily ever after.”

Bucky let out a discreet sigh and nodded his head. Sam must have been smitten with Erik. It’s all he ever wanted to talk about even when he wasn’t talking about him. It was exasperating. Bucky didn’t like it.

Sam noticed the lull in their short-lived conversation, and then he began to wonder if Erik wasn’t wrong about his assumptions regarding Bucky.

“Can I ask you somethin’?”

“Sure.”

“What d’ya think about Erik?”

Bucky turned to look at him and said, “I don’t think about him.”

“Okay, but that’s not what I asked,” said Sam. “I’m askin’ your opinion of him. I’ve been seein’ him for almost a month now, and I feel like the two of you haven’t really hung out together or clicked.”

“I don’t need to click with him, Wilson,” Bucky replied flatly. “You’re the one screwin’ him, not me.”

Sam was a little taken aback by his friend’s snappy retort.

“Jesus, Barnes, what the hell is your problem?” asked Sam.

“I don’t have a problem.”

“You sure about that?” Sam accused.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Let’s see: Every damn time Erik is here, you either run off to your room, or ignore him, or be downright rude to him,” said Sam. “So what’s your problem?”

“Do the two of you really need to be here with your hands all over one another like horny fuckin’ teenagers?” asked Bucky, raising his voice a little. “This is a common area, Sam. Can’t you take that shit to the bedroom?”

“That shit?” asked Sam, raising his voice, too. “You mean the gay shit?”

“I mean the dry-humping-on-the-couch-shit,” Bucky replied. “The shit with the dumbass twenty-somethings who’ve always got their hands in your pants. That shit. No one wants to see that.”

“Tell me, if Erik was a woman, would you even care so much?”

“What?”

“If Erik was Erika and was a chick, would this even be an issue right now?”

“You think I’m annoyed with it because you’re gay?”

“What the hell am I supposed to think, uh? You think I didn’t notice that you’re always in a shitty mood when I bring guys home? But when Steve brings girls home, you’re here drinkin’ coffee with them and bein’ extra nice and shit. When it’s one of Steve’s little girlfriends, you remember that you’re actually a charming guy; you remember that you’ve got manners and social skills. Why is that?”

“I’m not gonna sit here and be interrogated,” said Bucky as he placed the popcorn down on the coffee table and tried to walk away.

Sam stood quickly and took hold of Bucky’s arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“Answer me, damn it,” said Sam, as he stared into Bucky’s eyes. “Why don’t you care when Steve has dates over, but you’re in a foul ass mood when I do?”

“Whatever, man.”

“No, tell me why. Why are you always actin’ like someone pissed in your cereal when I have guys here, but you don’t give a good goddamn who Steve has over?”

“Because I don’t care who Steve brings back here,” said Bucky, stridently. “I don’t care about who he fucks. I care about who you fuck.”

“Why?” said Sam, just as loudly. “Why do you care?”

“Because I fuckin’ want you. I want you. And it makes me crazy, Sam, seein’ you with other guys who aren’t fuckin’ good enough for you. It makes me crazy ‘cause it should be me, okay. I should be the one kissin’ on you and makin’ you laugh. I want you, alright. I want you, Wilson, and seein’ you with some guy that ain’t me it just, it –”

Before Bucky could finish his rant-turned-confession, Sam had pulled him close and pressed a passionate kiss to his mouth. Bucky deepened it immediately and pushed Sam up against the wall as their lips, tongues and hands explored one another. Sam let out a small moan as Bucky palmed his ass and then brought their bodies closer. He was just about to hook Sam’s leg and lift him, when the sound of Steve trudging out of his room caused the pair to break the kiss and pull apart.

“Seriously, guys,” said Steve as he rounded the corner and placed his hands on his hips. “Can you argue a little quieter, please? Some of us are tryin’ to sleep.”

“Sorry,” said Sam, as he rushed past Steve, leaving Bucky standing there with his lips, among other things, swollen and pulsing from the kiss. He grabbed his keys and headed in the direction of the front door.

“Sammy, where’re you goin’?” asked a confused Steve.

Sam turned around, but avoided Bucky’s gaze, before saying, “To Erik’s place.”

…..

Bucky lay in his dark bedroom staring up at the barely visible ceiling. He replayed their argument and kiss over and over in his mind. It made sense, now, why he was so irritable whenever he saw Sam with another man: He was jealous because he had feelings for Sam himself. That whole time he had wanted to kiss Sam and be with him, but he didn’t even realize. Not that it mattered now. His ill-timed admission, and subsequent brief make-out session with Sam didn’t matter because Sam had run off to Erik.

“Goddamn it,” said Bucky, as he let out a loud sigh and rolled to his side.

Things were going to be even more awkward the next time Erik came over. Bucky silently chided himself for getting carried away by their kiss; for not realizing sooner that he had feelings for Sam. And then he felt sorry for himself because Sam was with Erik, and there was no way Sam would choose Bucky over a nice, funny, handsome guy like Erik. No. Fucking. Way.

He was so confused and upset that he almost missed the sound of the soft rapping at his door. He let out a sigh, rolled out of bed, and then went to answer it. He was expecting to see Steve, who was now wide awake and finishing off the popcorn, but was surprised to see Sam instead.

“Hey,” said Bucky, gently.

“Hey,” Sam replied. “Can we talk?”

Bucky nodded his head, switched on his light, and then let Sam enter his bedroom. Bucky took up a seat on the bed, and Sam followed suit. He mentally prepared himself for the that-was-all-a-mistake talk. He fidgeted with the hem of his sleep-shirt and avoided Sam’s gaze.

“Look, about before –”

“I’m sorry,” said Bucky, as he looked up at Sam. “I shouldn’t have said or done anything. You’ve got a boyfriend. I was wrong for that.”

“I kissed you first,” said Sam. “I shouldn’t have, but I did. It’s not your fault.”

“I didn’t have to kiss you back,” said Bucky as his gaze fell to Sam’s lips.

Sam mirrored the action and marvelled at just how pink Bucky’s lips actually were.

“We were both wrong,” said Sam as Bucky nodded.

“What did Erik say?” said Bucky. “I assume you went to tell him what happened. Guess he wants to kick my ass now. Let him know I’ve been workin’ out lately.”

He tried to make it sound like he was joking, but his heart was clenching inside of his chest.

“I broke up with Erik,” said Sam.

“What? Why?”

“Because I realized I didn’t want him,” said Sam quietly. “Not really. Not properly. And what happened tonight between us was proof of that. I chose to kiss you, Buck. Not because I got caught up in the moment, but because I wanted to kiss you. I’ve honestly wanted to for a while now. I didn’t’ realize you were into guys, so I never said or did anything.”

“I didn’t even know I was into guys until I met you,” Bucky admitted. “I still don’t know what’s goin’ on with me. Maybe I’m only into you and that’s it.”

Bucky let out a little nervous laugh and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You’re amazing, Sammy,” he added. “You’re the most amazing guy I’ve ever met.”

Sam gave him a sweet smile and said, “So are you.”

They then sat staring at one another for a brief moment before Bucky decided to speak.

“So, what’re we gonna do about this?” said Bucky gesturing between them.

“How about in a few weeks, after you figure some things out, you ask me out on a date?” asked Sam with a coy yet hopeful look on his face.

“Will you say yes?” asked Bucky.

Sam’s smile grew wider before he said, “Yeah, I think I might.”

…..

A few weeks later…

Life with his roommates was better than ever, Bucky realized. Steve was still yelling at the TV and Sam was still making out with a dumbass on the sofa. Only this time, the dumbass was Bucky and he was so completely happy; happier than he had ever been before. Life was great. His new favorite thing to do was to be sprawled out on the couch while Sam slept on top of him. Or to be sitting there with a reclining Sam’s feet in his lap. Or to have Sam, all playful and pretty, straddling him while he peppered kisses to his neck and collarbone; kisses to his lips; kisses down his chest; kisses, kisses, more and more kisses.

“Come on, guys,” Steve would say, when he would find them a tangled, heavy-breathing mess on the sofa. “You’ve got a room and the game’s almost on. So, move your asses and go to your room.”

Bucky would smile at his boyfriend, peck his lips once more, and say, “Oh yeah, we do have a room, don’t we?”

“We do,” Sam would reply, smiling and beautiful. “Let’s go to it.”

#sambucky #sam wilson #bucky barnes #some samerik #steve's there too

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aclosetfan · 4 years ago

Note

For the Salty asks: 1, 3, 5 and 6?

Thanks so much for playing along! Ima be real with you 2 out of the 4 questions you asked really opened up a can of worms for me, and I’m so sorry. I put the less stressful ones first, and the other two are under the cut! Anyway, these were super fun to answer, but plz don’t hate me for it!! 😂😂

for anyone wondering, here’s the ask list: Salty Asks List

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

lmao yeah. It’s petty, but honestly, people’s personal morals really bleed through into their fandom opinions, and I’m not willing to put up with any unnecessary hate, especially in environments that are supposed to be fun. I’ve even blocked a few people. In the ppg fandom specifically, I’ve blocked a person who, I guess, thought it was necessary to try to gate-keep with racist/sexist/etc. terminology and ideologies, and I truly don’t have time for that 🤷‍♀️ (a lot of people probs know who I’m vaguing, but if you don’t, you’re lucky)

I can’t say I’ve ever unfollowed anyone for any innocent/not-in-conflict-with-my-morals fandom opinions. Usually, if I don’t agree with something, I just keep scrolling because lol whatever. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.

but ngl I have unfollowed people who just get annoying 😬😬 lol

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*

I went into this fandom without having too many preferences, so I didn’t have a pairing that I’ve previously hated!

I guess I could say that while I never really hated them, the color-mixing and color-clashing ships weren’t ever on my radar until I came across the fandom content. Now, I really like them! Particularly, Brick and Bubbles!

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

Before anyone gets pissed off at me, before you get into my answer for this question, I’d like to really stress that you’ve got to go into it with absolutely zero fanon context. Like, erase all your headcanons from your mind. I’m dead serious. Because I literally DO NOT get why ANY rrbxppg ship would realistically work ever.

Okay, canonically, these six little funky science experiments were dead set on ending each other. The boys were absolutely horrible to the girls. And the girls literally KILL the boys. I know in fairytale romances, nothing stops love, but bruh, it’s hard to come back from murder 😂 And yeah, I know Clipsville showed the girls and the boys together as older teenagers, and they weren’t trying to kill each other, but that was an obvious gag. In the documentary, it was revealed that that particular “clip” was made because a bunch of people wanted the boys and girls to interact again, and CN gave into the demand. (also, lol I know it super embarrassing, but I did watch the documentary. I just really like Craig McCracken) I just don’t think that realistically a canon pairing between the two sets of triplets would ever be considered a healthy relationship.

Also, ethically, I just—okay listen, I go back and forth with this allllll the time, but the ppgxrrb ships make me confront the “Would I sleep with my clone?” question way too often. Depending on my self-esteem, the answer changes each time. Like sometimes I’m like fuck yeah I would! Other times I’m like, ew, no, I’d have to consider my clone as a twin! I know counterparts aren’t technically clones, BUT the boys really do come across as identical to the girls in the show. The only difference really is their moral alignment (I’m nixing any gender argument). So, I’m like, omg, can I honestly pair these six together in any way??? Are they too close to each other genetically in some sense for this to be morally right??? Like if you ship Brick and Buttercup together, would that just essentially be shipping Brick and Butch/Blossom and Buttercup together in some messed up way??? Is Brick just Blossom, and Blossom just Brick?? Is it better just to ship color-matching instead of mixing???

On top of all of that, wouldn’t the boys and girls be pseudo cousins since Mojo was the Professor’s lab monkey? Technically, in canon, Mojo ends up being both sets of triplets “creator,” so could the rrb and the ppg be considered siblings of some sort? Some of you are probably like, wow, calm down. Stop thinking about it. They’re science experiments. It’s not so deep. Which I get, but I can’t stop, so let me hit you with something ten times worse: should the girls (or the boys) actually be considered biological siblings? Does sugar, spice, and everything nice make you genetically related? Nothing put in the stirring pot was organic—just a bunch of chemicals. If you ship the boys and girls together this could be a good thing! BUT, but, could some sick fuck use this information to somehow justify shipping siblings (ppgxppg or rrbxrrb) together??? This is a literal nightmare to think about!!

All in all, I can’t think about these pairings too much without getting caught up in the logistics of their existence even if they’re fictional lmaoooo! If it wasn’t for the fandom, I wouldn’t ship them together at all. I just think it’s amazing that the ships took off like they did lol, because their literal (fictional) existence is just one giant mind fuck for me. Anyway, I ship them at the end of the day, but tbh I do it with a bit of a guilty conscience. Is it morally correct to ship clone-like counterparts? Or should counterparts be treated like twins? Does it even fucking matter at the end of the day, it’s just fiction? I don’t know the right answer. But I do know the pairings don’t make sense.

Aside from the ppgxrrb, I don’t think there are many other BIG fandom wide pairings. Still, I just want to say that I don’t get why people ship Ace and Buttercup together. The pairing sounds off a few major alarms in my head for obvious reasons. There’s also a bunch of crack ships that involve crossovers with other cartoons. Generally, I don’t mind them, but it seems popular to ship Aku (from Samurai Jack) and Blossom together. And I’m real sorry to those devoted shippers, but again I do NOT get it. I see a lot of romantic fan art depicting romantic situations with Blossom still drawn as a child, and like I get Aku is an immortal demon, so “age is just a number,” but again, BIG ALARMS go off in my head.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

🙃 🙃 Kind of don’t want to answer this, but I will anyway because only a few people actually read my blog lolol, so lol, yep! And it’s the reds. Don’t shoot me lol. When I was in middle school, I got into this fandom, forgot about it, and then came back when I was hit by a round of nostalgia. I’m finishing up college now, and I can confidentially say that the fanon content for the reds hasn’t changed one bit. Or the demand for it.

I tended to find that a lot of red content follows many archetypes that I’m just not into. Their stories can get a real cringey, real fast. Blossom is always written like this “perfect, except she’s not (but she really is)” character. Like she’s the girl you WISH you could be, but she’s also going through a shit ton of stuff that no person IRL would be able to handle without having a mental breakdown. And sometimes, in some stories, Blossom does have a mental breakdown, but in a sexy way, so she’s still perfect. Generally, there’s still something problematic about Blossom that makes it easy for a reader to relate to her on some level, unlike the way people write Bubbles. And then there’s Brick, who’s broody, hyper-possessive or jealous, and hot figuratively and literally (gotta love the fire/ice trope). He’s the only boy—no! Wait!—the only person who could ever possibly outwit Blossom, and he is just so undeniably attracted to Blossom. They’re the smart power couple that should honestly just hook-up in Chapter One to save everybody time, but they don’t. Nah, they’ve got to survive at least two love triangles before they even consider admitting they’re attracted to each other.

And don’t get me wrong, none of that’s bad, but there are a million fanfics that go through the same song and dance with these two. And it’s kind of easy to tell when someone’s hardcore projecting onto Blossom because the type of person they’re personally attracted to is the way they write Brick. And I’m not knocking anyone self-projecting onto characters, sometimes people got to do that to give themselves a fun mental break, but bro, I don’t want to read about it. For one, smart broody assholes aren’t my type. Maybe when I was in middle school, but not anymore. And two, it’s just not interesting to me, which is a real shame since the reds are a majority of the fanon content.

Maybe if I found more red stories where the plot isn’t character-driven but plot-driven, so I see the romance between these two characters in a context where it’s not the main focus of the story, it would solve my issue with the pairing. I haven’t found many fics like that, though.

I can’t really think of any reds fic where I’m like ey, this aint bad unless it has a “major character death” tag attached to it lmao (which are always plot driven stories). However, in all honesty, since I’ve stayed away from red content for a while now, I don’t know the current state of things. Maybe there’s been a load more development for these two, or people have broken away from the same plotlines, but I’m too busy to check. I do browse people’s fic rec lists from time to time, but it sort of feels like everyone just puts the same fics on their lists and moves on.

And before someone’s like, “well, you can say all this about the greens or the blues,” just know I’m fully aware. The greens make me cringe too because there’s a shit ton of possessive and abusive storylines filling their story tags. And what makes me super uncomfortable is how people make Buttercup hit Butch or call him derogatory names, oftentimes unprompted. I don’t know why people make Buttercup such an unlikeable and overly aggressive person. I also don’t get why they make Butch some perverted idiot, but to each their own, I guess? Still, I see these green-character patterns most often in red-focused stories, which is another reason why I avoid them. I’ve found a lot of green-focused content that strays from the abusive tropes I try to avoid. Considerably less than I’d like, but the greens are typically the b-plot pairing, so that’s to be expected. Personally, I’d really like to see more content with the greens finding some kind of inner peace, and recently, I’ve seen a few fics that have tried to tackle this concept.

And lol, if you’ve read some of my posts before, you already know that I think the blues are an underdeveloped fanon pairing. The fandom can’t ruin that pairing for me because it never does anything substantial with it.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I’m just personally not into the way the reds are popularly written, but I get why people are and that’s good with me.

#salty ask game #lisathefan #an ethical debate in MY ppg post??? It's more likely then you think!#long post #ppg pairings #and all my issues with them #also im a firm believer in the block button being your friend!

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go-redgirl · 3 years ago

Text

Eli Steele: De Blasio's shameful racial profiling of Asian students

I was setting up my camera to film a rally on the steps of Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan when a disheveled middle-aged man clutching an odd assortment of papers to his chest stopped and stared at the gathering of parents and community leaders.

They were there to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ongoing attack on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), the sole gateway to one of New York’s nine specialized high schools. Their hand-drawn signs read, "Stop picking on Asian kids!" "Fix failing schools!" and "Keep the test!" The disheveled man began to yell aggressively and I turned, to lipread him: "You Asians take all the spots at these schools! Only eight blacks got into Stuyvesant High, only eight! You gotta give us blacks a chance, that’s all we’re asking for, man!" I turned my camera to capture him but he saw me and fled.

Later, as I reflected on this incident, I thought of that frosty November morning in 2013 when I waited outside a Brooklyn voting center for the de Blasio family to arrive and cast the votes that helped elect the father mayor of New York City. I was filming my documentary on multiracial Americans, "How Jack Became Black." There was an excitement in the air as people around me praised de Blasio’s multiracial family.

They believed such a man was a harbinger of better racial relations and they loved his campaign stance against racial profiling. They could not have predicted that de Blasio would leave office eight years later as one of America’s most egregious racial profilers.

Why had de Blasio and his education administration racially profiled Asian children? Was it because these youths took the American dream seriously and burned the midnight oil? Was it because their parents — many of them immigrants and impoverished — squeezed every penny to see that their children were prepared to take the test? Or was it simply that they were different, Asian and an unpreferred minority?

If 54 percent of the 4,262 eighth graders that passed the SHSAT had been black instead of Asian, there is very little doubt that de Blasio would not have charged the test as "structurally racist." In fact, he likely would have praised the test.

Wai Wah, the charter president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance Greater New York, and her friend, George Lee, showed me the tweet sent by de Blasio’s education chancellor, Meisha Potter, after the students received their test results. Potter found it "unacceptable" that so few blacks were admitted to specialized high schools and said that it was "past time for our students to be fairly represented." The implication was the test was racist. FLORIDA WILL REQUIRE SCHOOLS TO TEACH CIVICS AND ‘EVILS OF COMMUNISM’

Wai Wah and George pointed out that Potter failed to congratulate the students who had studied for years and passed the exam. They also noted that Potter had neglected to pay respect to the other 19,266 students who similarly sacrificed but did not pass the test. The only thing that mattered to Potter was "our students," a label that included only Blacks and Hispanics.

Potter was only following the path forged by de Blasio, who spoke of the need to "redistribute wealth." Like previous educators, she ignored the reality of favoring equity over merit, a reality that cost many black and Hispanic neighborhoods its gifted and talented programs over the past several decades. When blacks and Hispanics had access to these programs, they took the same test that de Blasio disparaged as racist and dominated Brooklyn Tech from the 1970s to the 1990s.

Not one of these bureaucrats from de Blasio and Potter to the previous education chancellor, Richard Carranza, asked the obvious question: why had "too many" Asians passed the test?

Asking such a question would have forced de Blasio to examine what influences and behaviors made certain students successful. He would have quickly discovered that there was nothing "Asian" about their successes — after all, far more Asians failed the test than those who passed. He would have also discovered that it was their steadfast belief in the American Dream that drove them to take chances on their talents, a path followed by countless successful Americans.

Also, to look at the humanity of these Asians would have forced de Blasio to look at the root causes driving the terrible inequities that plague the nation’s largest public school system. Instead, it was easier for him to racially profile and scapegoat Asians for these inequities.

The racial biases of de Blasio and the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) establishment, rarely got much attention in the press. These folks promoted equity to the level of a top societal moral virtue where representation by race trumped merit. Having lowered themselves down to the inhuman level of race, they see race in everything and therein lies their bias, a bias that extended beyond Asians to blacks and Hispanics.

Rather than empower these demographics with the tools of equality by strengthening the schools, de Blasio believed he could racially engineer blacks and Hispanics to parity at the expense of Asians. That is how little faith he had in these demographics to agent their own fates. At the same time, de Blasio derived enormous political capital for appearing to champion the downtrodden while conveniently ignoring the long history of horrific oppression suffered by many Asian communities in America. It was this bias that allowed de Blasio to racially profile an entire class of people for the way they looked.

I thought about how this ugliness was taking place in 2021 as I traveled to the far end of the Brooklyn borough to visit the Ni family. Sam, an immigrant shop owner, welcomed me into a home that married the American Dream with cultural memories of the China that Sam and his wife left behind. I asked their children, Zoe, a seventh-grader studying for the SHSAT, and Leo, a ninth-grader at Hunter College High School, what they thought of all this anti-Asian discrimination — a Brooklyn educator had recently called the people like them "yellow folks."

After several shy answers, Zoe answered with the truth ignored by many educators: "People aren’t numbers. There are real people in these statistics. There are real people who are losing out on opportunities. And it is upsetting to me to know the reason is merely race."

Sam, a reflective and thoughtful man, revealed later that he had heard of Martin Luther King’s dream in China and that is part of why he came to America. Through a translator, he said, "In China’s cultural revolution, students were classified as ‘being of red five category’ or ‘being of Black five category.’ Why? It’s not anything to do with the individual student, but with his family background, with other external factors. In New York, even the entire United States, education, concerning race matters, it’s actually like China’s Cultural Revolution, not looking at the student himself, on who studies well and who doesn’t, but throwing up a mess of race and family background identity, to judge what kind of person you are. I think this is going backward in history."

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Sam also had words for leaders like de Blasio: "What they want is to use their views to remake and control the world as they want, and not let us free people, competing freely, under a system of equal opportunity, create a brilliantly multi-colored world. So what they are doing, to take their ideas to control the world, that's, in a certain sense, actually very much like communism, totalitarian communism."

Sam revealed to me that he had recently thought of immigrating to another country. He left the paralyzing class divisions of China only to find his children on the wrong side of racial divisions in America. But then he seemed to let that thought die down — at least in America he has the unbridled right to fight the injustices affecting his kids and he has fought.

As I rode back into Manhattan, I thought of what George Lee told me on the issue of representation. He blamed the ongoing racial divisions on critical race theory that, for him, was a "political ideology of race war, racial hatred." He wondered out loud how one Asian could represent another Asian, or a black another black, for that matter. He explained that nobody looks like him or thinks like him so how can he represent another Asian? He then continued, "If an Asian gets into Harvard, does that Asian take courses on behalf of an Asian who did not get in?" He looked at me with the twinkle in the eye that one often has when revealing a racial absurdity: "There is no such thing as representation by race. This whole language of representation is basically saying that Asians or whites or blacks are mutually substitutable."

That was the very thing that de Blasio fought against when he campaigned for Mayor of New York. He knew the evil of racial profiling was that people were not seen as individuals but as members of a race. He had heard blacks complain that they should not fall under suspicion because they were black and lived in high crime neighborhoods. They protested that it was unfair and that they were more than their race. Yet de Blasio betrayed this lesson in humanity when he racially profiled the Asians his entire time in office, leaving many black and Hispanic students worse off than when he took office.

In many ways, the disheveled man who yelled at the Asians at the rally was a sad symbol of de Blasio’s education legacy. That man had been poisoned in the mind to believe that Asians somehow had monopolized all the power and that is why he demanded that they give blacks a chance. But there is nothing the Asians can give him. There is nothing a race can give. Only the individual can give or take. That man will sadly never rise above his current station as long as he thinks that way. And that is why de Blasio failed so miserably on his campaign promise to uplift the schools. Eli Steele is a documentary filmmaker and writer. His latest film is "What Killed Michael Brown?" Twitter: @Hebro_Steele

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vocalfriespod · 5 years ago

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Wikitongues Transcript

Megan Figueroa: Hi. Welcome to the Vocal Fries podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

Carrie Gillon: I’m Carrie Gillon.

Megan Figueroa: I’m Megan Figueroa. I’m a wee bit sick.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. But at least you have a voice.

Megan Figueroa: Just in case anyone was wondering.

Carrie Gillon: People were.

Megan Figueroa: It’s the podcasting – it’s the life. Sometimes, you have to go on the air when you’re sick. [Laughs]

Carrie Gillon: We have an email from Jeffrey. “Dear Carrie and Megan, I recently finished listening to ‘Practice Makes Easier’ and I wanted to tell you how it helped me. I’m an attorney specializing in start-up companies in the San Francisco Bay area. “As you know, or at least can imagine, this area attracts immigrants from all over the world with high concentrations from China and India, among other places. Many of my clients are founded by and employ a large number of non-native English speakers. At on onsite presentation I gave today, I think I was one of maybe three native English speakers in the room.

“Thinking of the episode, I made a special effort to remember that many folks were not native English speakers. I usually like to think of my job as translating law speak into English, but now I’ve come to see that maybe there’s a second step of translation involved as well. I’m putting an extra effort into being as clear as I can and also very, very patient. In the words, try not to be an asshole.”

Megan Figueroa: Aww, Jeffrey! [Laughter]

Carrie Gillon: “I just thought that you should know that your podcast is actually changing behavior. I enjoy it very much, although I sorta hope I wasn’t an asshole before I started listening either. Please keep up the good work. Jeff.”

Thank you so much!

Megan Figueroa: Wow! A little sneak peek behind the scenes again. Carrie was like, “I have an email” and I was wondering if it was tooting our own horn. And she kinda hinted that, yes – yes, it is. But I didn’t know it’d be tooting our horn so good.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah, no. This is really nice. It’s exactly what we wanna do in the world, right?

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. That’s fantastic. I doubt that people that listen – I like to think that people that listen to our podcast aren’t huge assholes – raging assholes – in the first place. I’m sure Jeff was not a huge asshole in the first place, but I really appreciate that email. Thank you.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. Me too.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, I, too, learn from our podcast because, I mean, we have people that – we have guests on here for a reason because we don’t know everything. It’s definitely made me more thoughtful as well.

Carrie Gillon: Me too.

Megan Figueroa: I like hearing that. And thank you, Dr. Melissa. There was a little Twitter fiasco around a very racist tweet related to language that we missed that we didn’t get to talk about. Luckily, someone screen shot it because it was deleted.

Carrie Gillon: Well, rightfully so. This was definitely one of those tweets that you should be like, “Oops.”

Megan Figueroa: I think that that’s what happened. Because it’s – I actually don’t know how many people follow this Twitter. So, I’m looking at the screen shot and it’s @HSTeachProbs – “teacher problems,” “high school teacher problems” – and it says, “‘I ain’t trippin’ is probably one of the most annoying phrases a student can say. What are some other annoying phrases your kids say that get under your skin?”

Carrie Gillon: “#Stuffstudentssay" and I'm fixing this: "#teacherproblems.”

Megan Figueroa: Then, you shared with me someone’s lovely tweet. This is @KaiserMoore. “I feel like all the white teachers saying that African American Vernacular English is annoying should be removed from predominantly black schools. They’re clearly holding prejudice against the students they are supposed to be there to help.” Which – absolutely.

Carrie Gillon: The reason why I even saw this was because someone else quote-tweeted it and said something like “All teachers should be removed from all schools” – “Any teacher who has these ideas should be removed from all schools.” And I was like, “Yeah. You’re right.” I mean, yes, it’s more of a problem when you’re in a class with black children, but if you’re infecting children with these ideas regardless of their race, it’s very problematic.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. I mean, that’s gonna be coming through in whatever you do, then. Obviously, when you think that you hold different ways of speaking above each other and, as we’ve learned on the show, that means that you are holding people above each other. I mean, you’re creating a hierarchy here and you’re passing that on if you believe that – if you’re teaching kids from that point of view.

Carrie Gillon: If we wanna fight white supremacy, I mean, the biggest source of it is white people, right? We want the white kids not to pick up on these ideas. Granted, obviously there’s gonna be other places where they can. But at least in the school we should be helping them not pick up these ideas.

Megan Figueroa: It sucks though because that’s still the biggest population of teachers just from the way that things have shaken out is white women.

Carrie Gillon: Yes. There are a variety of reasons for that. Because it used to be, at least, more gender-balanced but then the pay was so bad men won’t do it anymore. And then, yeah, there’s obviously reasons why it’s mostly white women. Obviously, not all white women are gonna have these kinds of racist ideas but many, many do.

Megan Figueroa: Right. Let us hope that there’re some that hold this view that, when told, they’re like, “Oh, shit.”

Carrie Gillon: “That was a bad thing to think” – yes.

Megan Figueroa: Yes.

Carrie Gillon: Well, let’s hope that because they deleted the tweet, they realized how bad it actually was.

Megan Figueroa: And not just because they were like, “I don’t wanna deal” –

Carrie Gillon: “Deal with it.”

Megan Figueroa: Exactly. It’s sad for me because this is a reminder – I don’t think that this is uncommon. That’s the problem that this is –

Carrie Gillon: It’s incredibly common. I mean, we know this. I didn’t get this exact message from my classes but – from my teachers – but something kind of like it that there were “correct” ways of speaking and “correct” ways of writing. And, yeah, there was hidden anti-blackness and anti-indigeneity and anti-everything else in there. It was just more subtle.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Absolutely. No. It’s not an innocuous thing to say, “I ain’t trippin’ isn’t” – “I hate when my students say that.” This is no innocuous. This is part of a much bigger problem. I dunno. I dunno what the message is here. Just the message that we always have, I guess. Don’t be an asshole.

Carrie Gillon: At least, at the very least, keep your bad ideas about language to yourself because it’s not helping you. It’s not helping the kids that you teach, and it’s not helping the communities around you. Stop.

Megan Figueroa: I know. Think about it a little bit – about where this is coming from our why you might think this.

Carrie Gillon: We all have things to unpack. All of us. All of us have grown up with bad ideas about language in particular and other things in general.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely.

Carrie Gillon: You’ve gotta work through it but don’t work through it on Twitter. [Laughter] All right. Yeah. This is episode really fun and uplifting.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. It almost sounds like we never have anything fun or uplifting to say. Like, “Let’s preface this by saying, ‘Hey! This is a fun, uplifting episode today.’”

Carrie Gillon: I guess they’re usually a least somewhat uplifting. It’s just that there’s something even more uplifting about this one because it’s the living languages episode, right? It’s about Wikitongues, which allows people to upload their own language video or audio – although they encourage video – so people can at least record what their language is actually like right now regardless of what it was like in the past, regardless of what it will be like in the future, just a snapshot. It’s just – I love it.

Megan Figueroa: I love it too. It’s a reminder that language is living. And it’s okay that it changes.

Carrie Gillon: Language will always change no matter what you try to do. Colonization had this huge impact on many different languages, and I don’t wanna ignore that, but it is what it is. Languages would’ve changed even if that hadn’t happened.

Megan Figueroa: Right. To have a little place on the internet to celebrate what your language sounds like now is lovely.

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Okay. Today, we have Daniel Bögre Udell who’s the co-founder of Wikitongues, a non-profit organization that aims to document all of the world’s languages. Welcome, Daniel.

Megan Figueroa: Thanks for being here.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Thank you for having me.

Carrie Gillon: Of course!

Megan Figueroa: Excited to talk about this today. I’ve heard of Wikitongues, but I don’t know much about it. I don’t know anything, actually. I don’t know how old or young – you’re gonna tell us all about that, right?

Daniel Bögre Udell: It’s funny. I’ve been following Vocal Fries on Twitter for a while and so, Carrie, when I found out that you and I would be on that show together, I was excited because it was an opportunity to meet you too.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. It was an interesting experience. It was really strange being on a TV show that will be shown soon, I think. It was all very professional. There’s a panel. And I was, like, way far away if you’re in Phoenix. And that was in London, I believe.

Daniel Bögre Udell: It was my first remote talking head experience actually.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. Me too.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, wow. Was it a BBC thing?

Carrie Gillon: No. It was a Turkish news channel. I don’t remember what it was called. Do you remember, Daniel?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Off the top of my head, I do not. Well, the show itself was called “Round Table,” but I don’t remember what the network was.

Megan Figueroa: Okay. Well, very cool. We’ll have to share that when it comes out.

Carrie Gillon: Definitely. So, tell a us a little bit about Wikitongues. How old is it? Why did you start it? Etc.?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Sure. Wikitongues started in 2014 as a non-profit initiative to crowd-source documentation in every language. We started with oral histories because that is a kind of linguistic documentation that is easy to do without a lot of training or advanced equipment. Pretty much anybody with a smartphone or with access to a smartphone can produce them.

We did that for two reasons, 1.) language revitalization is only possible when accessible documentation is available in the language in question and, from a question of representation and inclusion, we thought it would be an interesting online project to try and represent every language in the world, which is in effect representing every culture in the world.

As we grew, we started to get the question, “How do I save my language?” which is an incredibly loaded question and one to which there really isn’t a systemic answer despite all the work on language revitalization over the past few decades. Starting this year, we’re actually teaming up with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages to build a toolkit for people who wanna get started with language activism in their communities.

The idea is giving people a framework to do a health check on their language. So, if you are worried about the future of your language, you can actually assess what it needs because different languages need different things, right? If your language has already been documented and the community has that documentation, maybe what you actually need is a framework for community organizing to keep it relevant for young people. Or maybe your language actually is undocumented or under-documented and you actually need to start from the beginning with oral histories, dictionaries, whatever.

The idea is to give people the framework for doing this health check and then a roadmap to achieving what needs to be achieved. Because over the past 30 years, there has been a ground swell of language activism around the world and there are successful cases of languages being revitalized, or perhaps a better way to put it is there are successful cases of cultures keeping their languages alive – people asserting their cultural sovereignty.

There are universal lessons there, we think, that can be applied because there are cases of languages being revitalized with the help of a government. And there are cases of languages being revitalized in an entirely unfunded and grassroots way with no institutional support. Then, there are cases where people have attempted to keep their languages alive and not succeeded, right? Our hope is to be able to build a very wide and open front door to the process of language activism.

Megan Figueroa: You said, “crowd source,” and I think sometimes – I’m always skeptical when I hear that because it’s so sad in the US how we have to crowd source, like, people’s medical bills and all this stuff. But this is one of those things where I feel like crowd sourcing is the right thing to do, that way the community can be involved. You may hear from groups that we didn’t know that wanted some outside help or whatever – or these frameworks to work with.

I like the idea that the internet can be used for crowd sourcing in this way, especially when we get kind of jaded when we see all the ways where it’s kinda sad that we have to crowd source things.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Yeah. The internet is powerful technology, and all powerful technology has good and bad application. In this case, I think it’s good application. What we’re doing would not be possible without the internet. One really positive thing from the past few years is that increasingly more and more people have access to internet. It’s not always stable. It’s not always good. But, for the first time, they have it.

What’s interesting is every now and then we’ll get contacted by someone who just got internet in their town, and the internet’s not very good yet, but they wanna contribute soon. There was someone who reached out to use from the interior of Papua New Guinea. One of the first things that he wanted to do was see if there are other people around the world that are concerned about this, and he found that there were.

It’s a very, very exciting thing that makes me very optimistic. I really am pretty confident that the internet is going to be a really positive thing for marginalized peoples because it offers a way to organize around your language when your community has been culturally displaced.

Carrie Gillon: It’s been great to see, for example, on Twitter people using their language – just tweeting in their language and not using the dominant language, which has been really fun.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Absolutely. It really creates an opportunity for breathing space for your language because one of the most challenging things for language revitalization movements is, if your community has been culturally displaced, it becomes almost impossible to use your language in the ancestral homeland because it’s been displaced by a more dominant one.

With the internet, you can circumvent that and create Whatsapp groups and Facebook groups and other online forums where you can use the language on a daily basis without the pressure of a locally dominant one. That’s an increasingly common tactic among language activists. And it usually leads to good results.

Carrie Gillon: What has been one of your favorite results that you’ve been a part of?

Daniel Bögre Udell: That’s a really good question. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of support for language activist movement, so I would feel very uncomfortable necessarily giving Wikitongues credit for an actual language revitalization initiative. We have definitely been a platform for people looking to amplify some of their work.

I don’t wanna say I have a favorite, but some of the ones from the past year that have been particularly meaningful to me is the Kihunde language in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It only has about 200,000 thousand speakers. Children are learning it but it’s very under-documented and it has no institutional support. Wikitongues has been a channel for a man named Hangi Bulebe, who is at the center of this effort to keep the language alive, teach it to children, standardize it, and all that.

He said that being able to share the language on a global platform like Wikitongues has helped accelerate work for him because he says when people in the community look at him skeptically, he says, “Well, look, people from other countries care about our language. Why can’t we?” That, he said, has resonated with people. I met him in person for the first time in Rwanda a couple months ago and this was one of the things he said, which was just fabulous.

Another movement that we have been a platform for amplifying is – and, really, that I just feel privileged to get to be close to – is the effort to revitalize the Tunica language of Louisiana, which went dormant in 1948. If you haven’t had any of the members of that community on your show, you should definitely invite them because they’re doing really, really cool work and they love sharing it with the rest of the world.

They’re one of the languages that prompted Ethnologue to add a “reawakening” category to the language vitality scale because they – the language went dormant in 1948. In the 1980s, a woman named Donna Pierite decided that she wanted to revitalize it, and that was partly because her husband is Choctaw. He was learning Choctaw. Choctaw is a language that is still being taught to children and still spoken natively.

She paused and said, “Wait. We don’t actually have our language anymore. But we had one.” So, she would go to Baton Rogue and New Orleans to photocopy old dictionaries and grammars and things that were kinda stored away in university archives, and she brought the language home that way and made it a family activity. She reclaimed Tunica, taught it to her children.

For a long time, they were the movement – their family was the movement to revitalize Tunica. In the 90s, they started sending out newsletters – physical newsletters because the internet mailing lists were still a fresh technology – and other families started to get involved in that way. Something happened in the late – like, 2010 or something around that year – where they got some support, academic support, from linguists in New Orleans and over that next few years they were able to convince the tribal government to actually allocate funding and resources for the program.

Now, I think upwards of 10% of the tribe is enrolled in language immersion. They have 32 new fluent speakers, hence the new “reawakening” category. This is very inspiring to me, personally. One of my more immediate ancestral languages is Yiddish, which means I also have a connection to the Hebrew language, which went dormant in the second century and was revitalized in the 1800s by Jewish activists at that time.

For a long time, that was the only instance of a dormant language being reclaimed by its people. The Tunica are another case of that. In so enthusiastically promoting their work online and around the world, I think it’s a source of inspiration for other people. So, those are two cases that I feel very grateful to have been close to.

Megan Figueroa: I know people are in their communities doing work, but sometimes the help or support they need is really just amplification, which is really great that Wikitongues can do something like that. Those are really good examples of it. Because maybe the framework that they need is just how can I get a bigger audience to hear our oral histories because this is something that we want to share, or we just want people to know what we’re doing.

So, it’s really great that that’s where Wikitongues is coming from. Because linguists have gone into communities and kind of been this savior-type people. They try to be the savior-type people or force things on people. I know, just, linguistics has this terrible history, so it’s really lovely to hear something where it’s like this is about the people and what they need – or what they want – and sometimes that’s just sharing.

Daniel Bögre Udell: There’s one language activist in Scotland – his name’s Àdhamh Ó Broin – and if either of you watch that Showtime show, Outlander, he’s the Gaelic dialect coach for that show. He’s very, very intent on keeping alive his dialect – or his variety of Scottish Gaelic – which is moribund. They’re classified as moribund. Scottish Gaelic, obviously, is not classified as moribund.

He is linguistically trained, right? He is actually a linguist. He just happens to be a dialect coach. He’s very able to do the documentation work. That is not a challenge for him. For him, he said his biggest desire is just to talk to other people who are doing this work because sometimes it can be lonely. There’s a huge community building and solidarity aspect to it.

I do wanna say that at least in my experience over the past several years, there’s been a huge shift in linguistics to be the discipline that supports people in this work, especially the new generation of linguistics who’re doing incredible work. The question is, how can we standardize some of these processes? Like, the Tunica did something correct, right? That can be replicated, not exactly the same way because every community has different needs, but there are universal lessons that everyone can have been there just aren’t enough field linguists in the world to help everybody who needs help.

It needs to be thought of in these systemics terms. I’m excited that we can be part of that conversation and hopefully, actually, behind some producing materials that can be useful to people.

Megan Figueroa: Well, I really like the idea that can be their own community’s field linguist, so that’s something that can facilitate that because you’re right that there aren’t enough PhD field linguists that can go everywhere or have particular skills for a particular community. The idea that you could be your own community’s field linguist is really great.

It’s funny because I’ve been thinking, I dunno, all these think pieces about the new decade and has the internet ruined us and what has the internet done in the last 10 years. It’s nice to hear these stories about how the internet can actually make the world smaller in a good way.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Yeah. I mean, I’m very optimistic. I think the internet obviously has its problems, but I worry that a lot of the critiques of the internet come from jaded people who live in places that have had the internet for a very long time and who just spend too much time on –

Megan Figueroa: Twitter?

Daniel Bögre Udell: – following people on – yeah. And I love Twitter, but you can unfollow people if they’re annoying. So much of this is – nobody who just got the internet last year is mad about it. Right? So, a little global context would be nice beyond “Partisan arguments on twitter are mean-spirited and therefore the internet sucks.” So much of the critique is that. It’s just so limited and is unfortunate.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of bad actors on the internet, but it’s true that in some ways you can make your experience better by blocking the ones that are for sure bad actors and focusing on the ones that are good, which is what I do try to do.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Right. There’ve been bad actors since before the internet.

Carrie Gillon: Of course. Just because the internet’s so powerful, it’s really to easy in a bad way, just like it’s really easy to use in a good way. Let’s focus on the good!

Daniel Bögre Udell: That’s right. It’s like nuclear technology – double-edged sword.

Carrie Gillon: Absolutely. 100%. Why is this work so important?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Why is this work important? I think this work is important because language is the vehicle of expression for communities. When a language disappears, it means that a community has collapsed. I saw this BBC headline the other day that was – it was just a headline. I didn’t actually read the article. But the fact that this is the headline that got written as it did is so indicative of how the discourse around this stuff needs to improve.

It was like, “Yeah. Yiddish used to have ten million speakers in Europe and now those numbers have depleted.” [Groaning] Right? It’s like, “No. There was a genocide that murdered everybody.” What we’re talking about is Ashkenazi Jews in Europe were the victims of a massive genocide. That’s why Yiddish’s number of speaks have depleted.

And that’s how we talk about all these languages. Like, Lakota isn’t a “dying” language, Lakota is a language that is taking work to be kept alive because the community has been at the blunt end of genocide, land theft, ethnic cleansing, and other forms of systemic racism. Language revitalization is a way for communities who have been marginalized to assert themselves on the global stage. It’s about justice. It’s about reparation. That’s why I think it’s most important.

Then, there’s this more intangible question of knowledge. Because, in languages, there’s almost always unique vocabulary, which sometimes have biological applications, which is why there’re fields in biology that work with local language speakers to accelerate conservation. It contains prehistories. We know about the Bantu migration and the Bering Strait migration in part because of how languages change across vast geographies. It’s so important. It intersects with everything.

Megan Figueroa: I’m so glad that you brought up the point about Lakota’s not dying – or to say that a language is “dying” – I’ve heard a lot of people starting to say that they don’t like to hear this kind of language around a language, like saying it’s “dying.”

I think that’s such a good point because I’ve been thinking a lot about intergenerational trauma. Even say the Jewish people that did survive the holocaust and did speak Yiddish, there may be some trauma there that makes you not want to pass on a language. I see that in Spanish in the American Southwest. I’m learning more about this and how that’s happening in Ireland with the Irish language.

To remember that things have been done – horrible atrocities have been done – to people and what happens with language is kind of the consequence –

Carrie Gillon: -knock-on effect.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly. I think that’s so important for people to sit and think about.

Carrie Gillon: The thought I had was – I didn’t realize until really recently because I am not Jewish but, I dunno, like a year or two ago someone posted something about, “Did you know that in 1939 there were more Jewish people on the planet than there are now?” and I just couldn’t even believe it. I mean, I believed it, obviously, but you know what I mean? It was just like, “Oh my god. That’s so true.” Obviously, that’s true as soon as you say that.

The tie-in with Yiddish is also very important and, yeah, we really need to talk about these things differently. I know some of the language has changed towards “sleeping” or “dormant,” but that still doesn’t get at the heart of it, which is what you’re talking about, Daniel, which is like, “This is the result of genocide usually.”

Daniel Bögre Udell: Or, if not genocide, at least forced assimilation. The Occitan people weren’t necessarily victims of physical genocide in France, but there was a concerted effort by the French government to erase Occitan identity, culture, and language, and forcibly make the French. How did they do that? The beat children in school who were speaking Occitan. They forbade the use of Occitan in the public sphere.

And, low and behold, within a generation, the people kinda had their culture squeezed out of them. That’s the nicest case. It’s funny that you bring up the intergenerational trauma because there is this other counter-discourse that I hear sometimes which is that, “Well, if the community doesn’t wanna teach their language to their kids anymore, that’s their choice.”

Going back to the Yiddish case because that’s my personal one, it’s like, there’s a reason that my dad wasn’t taught Yiddish. It’s because Ashkenazi Jews fled Europe and they either went to Israel, or they said we’re gonna speak Hebrew now and reclaim this ancient language, or we’re gonna go somewhere else and assimilate. And if we assimilate, they’ll be nice to us.

It’s sad. Language is about so much more – so much more. I was talking to another person you should get on the show. Her name’s Hali Dardar. I forget home to pronounce her last name. She’s from the Houma community in Louisiana. Their language, when it went dormant – potentially problematic description, but for lack of a better phrasing – it was undocumented.

Unlike Tunica, there were no complete dictionaries and grammars gathering dust in libraries. So, they’re in the middle of reconstructing Houma before they can consider reclaiming it. When I asked her what her end-goal was, it’s like, do you want this to be the mother tongue again of Houma people? And said, “Maybe. But I just want us all to feel Houma and not forget.”

That’s really what the core is. Revitalizing language is about community. It’s about history. It’s about your ancestors, your descendants, your place on earth.

Carrie Gillon: And the stories about who you are.

Megan Figueroa: I mean, I think about it because – I’ve talked about it before – how I feel like Spanish was forcibly removed from my generation. But Spanish is always gonna be there for me when I want to learn it. It won’t be, perhaps, not my family’s Spanish, but it’ll be there for me.

Whereas, these languages, are they gonna be there? That’s the question. We want them to be there. But, again, just this horrible ways that we have treated other human being where we’ve got to the point where we are where there are some languages that are, for lack of a better word, “dormant,” it’s not true for everyone that that language will be there for them, unfortunately.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Right. That’s why the documentation side of things is so important. We have one oral history of a language from Vanuatu called Lemerig. It has two known speakers. From what I understand, there isn’t really any active movement to revitalize the language and the culture.

If in 30 years there is, there emerges that desire, it’s important that the language be there for the community to bring it back. With the Tunica case, the last native speaker was the Chief – Sesostrie Youchigant, I think was his name. You can ask them when you bring either Donna or Jean-Luc or any of them on the show.

He worked with a linguist named Mary Haas to produce dictionaries and grammars because he knew that he had to leave the language behind for the next generation. It took 30 years. He passed away in 1948. It was the 80s when Donna Pierite started this movement again. So, thank goodness it was there. Thank goodness he did that. The documentation is so important and the first step, really.

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. It’s the first step that it’s necessary but not sufficient.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Yeah. I’m convinced that there’s actually been a huge shift in the history of cultural diversity over the past couple years and we’re just starting to realize what that is because I think this statistic that half the languages in the world are gonna disappear in 80 years keeps getting touted and that statistic is from the 90s. Even then, there were different estimations.

But let’s be charitable and say this estimation was correct. That was the 90s. There was no Tunica revitalization – well, I guess they had started, but it was still a couple families. There’re just a lot of cases of languages being in a better – and cultures, really, communities – being in a better position now than they were in the 90s.

I mean, there’re probably cases of others being worse. So, maybe the net is not any better. That’s part of what makes this so hard because it’s so vast a scale.

Carrie Gillon: It’s really hard to estimate how many languages really are under extreme threat or just a little bit of threat. It’s hard to really know for sure because we don’t – and no one person has that amount of information. We can’t possibly know.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Exactly. That’s why I think another thing that needs to happen for an infrastructure to sustain cultural diversity at scale is beyond there being these systems or these frameworks for people to do the work in their communities. There needs to be a better survey method that’s more frequent, more consistent.

Carrie Gillon: Because even census data isn’t that good. I mean, it’s really good but, like, it’s not very frequent and it’s not that deep.

Megan Figueroa: It’s different from each country, right?

Carrie Gillon: Exactly. Each country does it differently.

Daniel Bögre Udell: When you look at Ethnologue or Glottolog – they work with what they have. This is no knock on them. But sometimes you’ll see the last datum about this language is 1980. It’s like, “Cool. That’s where this language was 40 years ago.” A lot can happen in 40 years.

I was having a conversation with a Shanghainese person. That’s her heritage language. She doesn’t really speak it. She’s American, I think. But she was like, “How long until Shanghainese dies?” And I was like, “Well, damn. That’s a question.” I was like, “It’s not even classified as endangered.” Maybe it’s not. Maybe this is just her perception. Or maybe she’s getting news from relatives back home that the language is not spoken anywhere near like it was 10 years ago, and the census isn’t even caught up with that.

Of course, Beijing is not gonna be taking censuses about this stuff because they’re one of the few countries that is still actively working to assimilate minorities. This stuff is really messy. There needs to be a better survey method that would probably rely on some self-reporting, which is its own unreliable can of worms.

Carrie Gillon: But I think it’s the best that we would have in this instance. Because there might only be one speaker, and so who else is gonna report it but that one person?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Exactly. There would also have to be a way to report and track language revitalization that would be okay. There’s a new initiative on the ground – and then also keep track of all the different ones. Because the Tunica case is really interesting. It’s got incredible momentum over the past 10 years. But for the first 20 years, it was just a few really persistent people. There’s a lot of variables to track, I think.

Megan Figueroa: Well, and of course, most of these languages do not have institutional support. With institutional support would come, perhaps, some better numbers on things. But that’s not what’s happening. That’s not the reality.

Carrie Gillon: I’m curious about the Yiddish case. I know there was a revitalization effort. Is that still ongoing? And if so, are you involved in that at all?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Not yet. I’m decided that I’m gonna start with the – I’m learning Hebrew right now. And once I get conversational, I’ll move over to Yiddish. The reason I did that is just because all Jewish languages are Hebrew plus something else, right? So, I was like, “I’ll start with the oldest one.” There’s a certain ancestral quality to it that has drawn me to it. I will learn Yiddish when I get a little more proficient in Hebrew.

There is a lot of Yiddish activism right now because, for a long period, the only community that really kept it alive were the different orthodox communities in North America. There was a secular – what was really depleted, as the BBC said, was the secular Yiddish world, which was lively and had theater and literature and all this stuff.

There is a movement to bring that back. A lot of young, especially diaspora, Jews in North America are starting to rediscover that because it really is the one that we can go back a couple generations and find an ancestor speaking. In fact, another guest you should get on the show is a woman named Sandy Fox. She lives between Tel Aviv and New York. She’s part of that whole movement. She actually runs a feminist podcast in Yiddish.

Carrie Gillon: Cool! Definitely need to have her on.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. Definitely!

Daniel Bögre Udell: She’s great. So, there’s a lot of that. That’s definitely happening. What’s interesting is because the orthodox communities, especially here in New York City, they kept the language alive, it was there for the rest of us – as you put it, Megan – because they had kept the language alive, it was there for the rest of us when we were ready to come back.

Megan Figueroa: As a kid – I’m very millennial-age, and the internet came around for me when I was like 8 or 9. The best part about it is – well, it wasn’t Google then, but whatever kind of search engine I had – I could ask questions like, “Is Yiddish still spoken?” Because I remember watching “Laverne and Shirley” and being like, “What did they say? Like, ‘schlemiel,’ ‘schlimazel’?”

[Excerpt “Laverne and Shirley”]

Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!

[End excerpt]

I was like, “What? What is that?” Being able to finally ask – because I was just this kid in Phoenix, Arizona. I knew Mexican culture and that’s about it. I didn’t know whether Yiddish was spoken or was it fake. This is where I was at 8, based on who was around me. I’m just so happy that kids these days – or anyone, I mean, I’m not saying you have to be a kid to know whether if Yiddish is spoken and where – to be able to go to the internet and be like, “Tell me.” Just how powerful knowledge is about language.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Exactly. It’s history, which is interesting and important. So, your ancestral language is Spanish?

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Well, my dad speaks Spanish and my – I have traced it back five generations to Sonora, Mexico, my family.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Incredible. Do you speak it now?

Megan Figueroa: A little bit. I’m more receptive, so I can understand it. I get really skittish about speaking it because I have this shame of people expecting me to have the knowledge that they expect of me because of my last name or because my dad spoke it. That’s where my baggage is at.

Carrie Gillon: There’s also a lot of shaming from other people like, “Oh, you don’t speak the real Spanish.” Makes it hard.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly.

Daniel Bögre Udell: That stuff is so toxic. We’ll get comments on our YouTube channel a lot in that vein like, “This person is not speaking the language well.” And it’s like, “Well, okay. Of course not because of the history of how this person got access to their language. Calm down.” Celebrate that they speak it. It’s all right if it has some loanwords from the dominant language. Our thing is always like, “Okay. Then you send a video.” Sometimes, people do and, sometimes, they go away.

Carrie Gillon: That’s a really good response.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Because that’s our thing, right? We’re not policing authenticity.

Carrie Gillon: No. Nor should you. How would you?

Daniel Bögre Udell: It’s funny how ubiquitous the desire to police authenticity is though because we get those comments from a wide range of communities on every continent. There’s always that person who says, “This person’s not speaking well.” I get the desire to keep the language alive in its most robust state because it probably has better vocabulary than the loanwords that this person is using – but celebrate that they still speak it.

Carrie Gillon: Well, there’s also dialect differences too that sometimes people either forget about or don’t wanna admit exist. So, you come from the wrong family? Oh, that means you’re not speaking correctly. I’ve definitely encountered that as well.

Megan Figueroa: That’s why I like to use the pronouns like “my Spanish,” “This is what my Spanish is,” or “That’s what your French is.” I think it gets around that because, again, I do have these insecurities but it’s like, “No, this one’s mine.” I try to remember that when people are cruel. But it’s true. The policing comes from inside the community, outside the community. It's everywhere.

So, people send videos to Wikitongues?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Yes.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, that’s so cool. I mean, I’m sure there’s just audio recordings as well, but to see videos, what a great resource to have.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Video’s important because it puts a face to the language. It makes the evidence of language and culture a little more explicit. It’s also necessary if you’re looking at every language because at least 300 of the world’s languages are signed. You cannot have an audio recording for that language.

Megan Figueroa: Exactly. That’s exactly the point I was getting to is, I’m so glad that they’re video because – yes. Myself, I probably made this mistake growing up too, a lot of Americans think that ASL is the signed language, but there’re so many signed languages.

Daniel Bögre Udell: In my travels I found this to be a global misconception.

Megan Figueroa: Oh, really? Okay.

Daniel Bögre Udell: I mean, not ASL exactly, but most people think that there is a sign language that all people who are deaf in the whole world speak somehow. And then when you say, “No, they all have different languages,” people have a hard time processing that until you say, “Well, there’s different spoken languages and it’s the same thing.” And they go, “Oh.”

Carrie Gillon: This is probably the most common misconception about language that I’ve encountered as well is that there’s one sign language. For once, it’s not just Americans.

Megan Figueroa: I always like to drag Americans under the bus – [Laughter]

Daniel Bögre Udell: What’s more American than that?

Megan Figueroa: It’s just a recreational activity. [Laughter] I do it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Well, I just think it’s great because, like I said – I’m obviously a linguist, a trained linguist, now – but the internet’s helped me so much to learn about language. I hope our podcast does that as well because I think there’re a lot of things that people might be too scared to ask.

I like to remind everyone that I am very naïve. I’m still – in my 30-plus years and after a PhD program – I’m still very naïve. And I think that we can’t be ashamed.

Carrie Gillon: We can’t possibly know everything.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. You can’t be ashamed. If you have to go and Google, “Where is Yiddish spoken?” after this, that’s okay.

Carrie Gillon: In fact, I encourage you to do because you will learn something for sure.

Daniel Bögre Udell: It’s totally fine. People always get confused about – because they don’t understand that there’s multiple Jewish languages, and so they’ll confuse Yiddish and Hebrew a lot. And I’m like, “No. Very different.” One’s close to Arabic and one’s close to German. Then, there’s also Ladino and Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Farsi and Judeo-Malayalam, which is one that I just learned about recently and I’d never even known about existing.

It’s like, okay. Because I think that’s the other thing, I think, when people start, they get really intimidated because culture is so vast, and they don’t wanna be perceived as ignorant or they don’t wanna offend people – a lot of eggshell walking. And it’s like, “No. Just ask the questions. As long as you’re being respectful, it’s fine. No one should be expected to know everything.”

Carrie Gillon: It’s impossible.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah. How are you supposed to know it until you learn it?

Carrie Gillon: And it’s impossible to know everything. It’s just impossible. Just learning a little bit every day, that’s good.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Exactly. Learn one new thing every day.

Carrie Gillon: I think that’s a good life lesson.

Megan Figueroa: I think it is too. It’s also a great plug for listening to Vocal Fries.

Daniel Bögre Udell: By the way, I love your name. Because I actually found you through Twitter because I’m not an avid podcast-listener. I remember when I saw that, I was like – follow.

Carrie Gillon: I’m pretty proud of that.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Are your listeners well prompted on the whole vocal fry?

Megan Figueroa: Yes. And we don’t get hate mail about our voices. I think that that is also a really good thing is like, “Okay. We’re coming right out, and our name is the Vocal Fries, and we’re about linguistic discrimination. Don’t shit on how either one of us talk.”

Daniel Bögre Udell: It’s true. You have a built-in defense barrier, which is pretty cool.

Megan Figueroa: I hope it makes our customers – our customers? – our guests –

Carrie Gillon: What? [Laughs]

Megan Figueroa: – our guests feel comfortable too because we’re like, “You’re safe in this space.”

Carrie Gillon: Yeah. No shaming allowed.

Megan Figueroa: There is no language shaming here. That’s for sure.

Daniel Bögre Udell: No language shaming, baby.

Carrie Gillon: Exactly. How can people support Wikitongues?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Oh, there’s a lot. We’ve only worked with about 500 language communities. I’ve kind of been off the grid for the past few days taking long walks and recovering from New Years, so the number’s probably a little higher now – maybe it’s like 504 or something. But that’s only 14% of every known culture.

There is an endless amount of contribution still to be done to this seedbank of linguistic and cultural diversity. Please, send us videos of your language – whatever that language is and however you speak it. We love all dialects, sociolects, idiolects, accents. Then, of course, you can also donate to Wikitongues – wikitongues.org/donate. Or, if you’re a Patreon user, you can make a monthly pledge on Patreon. You can subscribe to us on YouTube, which also helps.

Wikitongues is a non-profit. All contributions are tax-deductible. They go primarily to supporting the documentation work or now, also research on language revitalization as we work with the Living Tongues Institute to build this toolkit.

Finally, we have grown almost entirely organically over the past five years. Word of mouth is also an insanely valuable contribution to building the community that we’ve built. So, talk about us to your friends, help make the name known more around the world.

Megan Figueroa: Again, I feel a little naïve because I didn’t – I mean, you’ve been around for about 5 years now, and I just never pursued you further, and I feel guilty now. But I’m glad to know you know. That helps, right?

Daniel Bögre Udell: Oh, yeah. Hey, I never messaged you guys. I never tried to slide into the Twitter DM because we’re on the same – [laughter].

Carrie Gillon: Which you definitely could have. We encourage people to let us know if they have something interesting to talk about.

Daniel Bögre Udell: DMs are open.

Megan Figueroa: You know what would be a fun way to contribute – now that I’ve just spent time with family that I actually like, I know not everyone likes their family because family – but you could do that with your elders is ask them to contribute, and you can do it yourself. You can help them. You can use your smartphone. It’s a way to preserve some of your family’s culture too.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Absolutely. That’s something that I should have clarified a moment ago. Send us your language, but you can also send us your friend’s language too. You can send us your neighbor’s language. You can help people to participate. There was one volunteer in our very early days named Plator Gashi from Kosovo. He travelled all up and down the Baltics and must have contributed oral histories in up to 30 or 40 different languages.

Megan Figueroa: Wow. That’s very cool.

Daniel Bögre Udell: He is a remarkable individual. But, yeah, it doesn’t have to be you speaking is what I’m saying.

Megan Figueroa: Absolutely. That’s what I was thinking because I know some people might be shy. You don’t have to do a video either, right, it could be audio only?

Daniel Bögre Udell: It could be audio. We won’t publish it on YouTube if it’s just audio, but we will archive it. We’re on the verge of rolling out an accessible archive on our website so you can actually browse every video we’ve ever done, which is a long time in the making. But when you’re a non-profit, resources are limited, and tech is resource intensive.

We also are on the verge of rolling out templates for other kinds of documentation like phrasebooks, wordlists. If you do want to send us videos in the meantime, these templates are not yet out, but if you wanna send us videos, just head over to Wikitongues.org and you will see “Submit a Video” in the toolbar. There’s a form to fill out and a Google form if that doesn’t work.

Megan Figueroa: Awesome. We’ll be happy to update our listeners whenever ya’ll make progress on the new templates or projects.

Daniel Bögre Udell: Thank you. There’s a lot this year. I am grateful to have kicked it off with the Vocal Fries. Thank you for – [excited exclamations]

Carrie Gillon: Thank you so much.

Megan Figueroa: Well, it was so lovely to meet you virtually.

Daniel Bögre Udell: You too.

Megan Figueroa: Do you know how to say, “Don’t be an asshole?”

Daniel Bögre Udell: No. Not yet.

Carrie Gillon: That would be high level.

Megan Figueroa: It’s fine. One day.

Daniel Bögre Udell: That’s a great thing to learn how to say in a language. That should be a core phrasebook – we should add that to our phrasebook template.

Carrie Gillon: You should. Even if you make it slightly nicer and just say, “jerk,” I still think it’s an important thing for people to be able to say.

Megan Figueroa: Or “Be nice.” Something like that.

Carrie Gillon: “Be nice” is probably already in there, I’m guessing.

Megan Figueroa: Yeah.

Daniel Bögre Udell: “Don’t be an asshole”’s more fun though, right?

Carrie Gillon: It is way more fun!

Megan Figueroa: That’s why we always tell our listeners to not be an asshole. They know we mean it with love.

Carrie Gillon: It also feels more boundary-enforcing, which is sometimes really important.

Megan Figueroa: I can see that, yeah. I never thought of it that way.

Daniel Bögre Udell: On that note –

Megan Figueroa: So, don’t be an asshole.

Carrie Gillon: Don’t be an asshole. [Laughter]

[Music]

Carrie Gillon: Okay. We would like to thank our newest patrons for this month. Russell Lee Goldman, Paige Andrews, Jeff Goldman, and Ellen Pearleberg – or “Pearlberg.” It’s probably “Pearlberg.” I went a little French there.

Megan Figueroa: I love seeing names that I recognize from Twitter!

Carrie Gillon: Me too.

Megan Figueroa: Yay! Thank you so much.

Carrie Gillon: Thank you. If anyone still listening would like to support us, we have $2.00, $3.00, and $5.00 levels. The $2.00 level, you get a thank you. The $3.00 level you get a sticker. Actually, you get multiple stickers. You get a sticker every few months. $5.00 level you get the stickers and our bonus episodes.

Megan Figueroa: Yes. Our latest one is about child language, and I get real salty. So does Carrie.

Carrie Gillon: So do I but, yes, you do more so because it is your area.

Megan Figueroa: Yes.

Carrie Gillon: Thank you so much. We’ll –

Megan Figueroa: See you next time.

Carrie Gillon: See you in a couple weeks.

[Music]

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

[End music]

#transcript #language #linguistic discrimination #language documentation #wikitongues

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zm-sc · 6 years ago

Text

On the racism MJ/Zendaya (still) faces

So, it shouldn’t be too long before the new Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer gets released. Therefore I’d like to humbly try to provide help to fight the racism these ladies are victims of, by pointing out what I think are the most reccuring patterns in the commentaries MJ/Zendaya receives. This idea came to me as I remembered I had fun screen shoting messy comments at some point and keeping them in a file just in case I’d need to prove a point, and I guess this time has come

Disclaimer: Sadly, these are in no way edits. Real people, type this stuff online. I'm aware a bunch are just really dying for a redhead, fiery and all that, Mary Jane on big screen, and that a bunch are just jealous fangirls thinking they stand a chance with someone who doesn’t even know they exist, but also none of these are reasons to be borderline, or full on racist. Some usernames are masked because I thought it wasn't that deep but still dumb, some are lucky they didn't appear, and some appear because I think that if one has the nerves to make these kind of statements, probably some exposing can not hurt them

Here we go.

1. Racism:

2. Rationalization of hatred:

NB: A spot on response to this post

I have no screen shots for this, but the reactions to MJ saying “Therefore I have value?” in the first Far From Home trailer. In which the NEXT second she says she is joking, but you know, gotta make this an issue.I read with my own two eyes that it would "put Peter in a bad mood", or "I hate how feminist she is, makes me hate her and the actress". For this latter point, notice, Brie Larson has been getting the stupidest hate for saying she wanted her press tour to not only be white as men interviewers and being a feminist

But still, let us not be delusional, this remains about race.

3. Language: Let’s see: "Gross, "ew", "too black", “woc aren’t attractive”, “sick to my stomach”, “no chemistry”, “ (bonus: letting a single character ruin your whole love for Peter…..) Oh and bad attitude” “rude as fuck”, “basic-ass negative”, “forced”, “NO Chemistry”, “she made fun of him”. I could go on but it’s not in these posts, but you get me. Like what is gross? What is the standard for chemistry? Is calling him a "loser" truly the end of the world or is it all a reach because MJ doesn't cater to hegemonic feminity, so it makes her rudw? (S/O to Brie Larson again, who is having her whole body language analyzed to prove her co stars hate her/is being compared to every actress who has played a super hero to prove that it's ok to dislike her because she is not "nice" compared to the hegemonic standard these x other actresses correspond to.) Btw, “I love Zendaya but” is a classic too, usually prefaces nonsense

4. "I love x character who is a poc/x black character so this take is invalid”. Wrong. Not being racist towards one race is not a stop from being anti black, furthermore in this case, it is not a stop from not falling into mysoginoir. Very simply, “mysoginy directed towards black womenwhere race and gender both play roles in bias.” It’s all systemic. Loving Ned doesn't prevent you from being anti black. Men are privileged over women and then it’s race coming into play, always. Zendaya/MJ is a black woman, so she is less worthy of everything, and so it makes little sense in these people’s minds that Peter would like her, let alone that he’d want to date her. Ned is a man, so he is not a threat to fangirls’ fantasies, in which you’ll also notice they treat Ned/Jacob Batalon better than MJ (well, whatever "better" is when you aren’t a skinny white boy….).

5. "Liz was better". (Very often is the pov of, wait for it, white girls (often male fans would rather not even have Spidey in a relationship all short, so yeah). Because she was a fleshed out character absolutely not solely designed as a plot device to the Toomes reveal, or because she embodied the behavior that is deemed as THE one women should have if they want a man's attention and so it is easier to project yourself into her than it is to do so with MJ? That was rhetorical. Gender socialization. Hegemonic feminity. Be white, nice, docile, so very sweet and ready to please, or you won't find a man/job! But men can be shitty and yet will be called badass or witty. Think here for a sec, how many people who dislike Michelle for being rude, are into TONY STARK/Irondad? And God knows I love Tony, but as if he is a saintl? From his pre cave antics to the way he was with Peter in Homecoming and some other stuff in between. Also, he would fucking love MJ lol? What differentiates them so much at the end of the day, from the constant sarcasm to the obvious need to hide their feelings behind it? And that she clearly loves Peter, as did Tony but it took him until Endgame to show it. What makes it ok for him to not have shown it from the jump but makes MJ undeserving of character developpement and of Peter falling in love with her in Far From Home after an obviously planned character developpement? The fact that Tony is white and male. That's it

Candice Patton/Iris in The Flash, hell, Serena Williams in tennis, are all examples of this

6. Another thing that does not appear here but that exists, related to MJ or not, is attempting to erase Zendaya’s blackness to deny these reactions could possibly be racially motivated. “She is half white”. Or whatever headass take of the likes. But we know those 50% are not the reason why she is “Not the real MJ”. So which is it? Is she too black or not white enough? The answer is: Both. And both are racist statements, period. The people saying “they should have just named her Mary Jane” are also the same who were all up Zendaya and Marvel’s ass when her casting news dropped, bet

In conclusion, racism has many more faces else than explicitly using the n word, exactly like these microgressions above

They are not ok, because they stem from systematic racism and oppression, including negative stereotyping. This idea that black women are aggressive, not desirable, and not beautiful enough etc is nothing new but it still does not make it tolerable. Nobody who is racist or using a microagression, consciously or not, will actually ever admit it when called out on it. So dare to open that can of worms if you can. And for those who have been called out, please actually listen to why this statement is being made, especially if it's by a POC. That way you should technically never face this accusation again because you'd have listened and learned, instead of not listening and learning and finding yourself getting called names every turn, because you refused the lesson you could have gotten at the last turn

Spider-Man: Far From Home comes out on July 2nd and its press tour is starting today. I'd like to encourage everyone to above all, provide Zendaya/MJ the support she is going to need online, as she will this time get more to chew in this movie than in Homecoming, and yet people will still find reasons to complain, but also to not forget to pay attention in the future, to the frequency of use of these patterns when talking about MJ/Zendaya and to not let them stop you from defending these ladies. Let Z (and Marvel too while at it) know you have their back. She is a very attuned to social media lady, she would not miss the memo, nor would Marvel

A cute edit: We love racism and disrespecting drug addicts for no reason. Carry on though, idiots

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mrs-spindelle · 5 years ago

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Never Work at Victoria’s Secret

Since I’m quitting Victoria’s Secret and have found a new job, let me give you girls some wonderful insight on the pile of dog shit company all us ladies have to shop at to hold our breasts in place.

Shopping there and working there are two totally different experiences, and let me tell you why you should never work in Hell- I mean VS.

1. As a customer, you are allowed to steal. Yes, that’s right! You ladies are allowed to take whatever you want if you can get the sensor off. We employees are NEVER allowed to ask for a receipt, accuse you of theft (even as we stand there and watch you rip the tags off), OR call security! That’s right, we would never accuse our beautiful honest angels of something as horrible as shoplifting. Just don’t take more than $1,000 in merchandise to avoid it being a reportable crime, don’t get caught by mall security and you ladies will have yourselves all the panties and bras you want. Oh, we’re also not allowed to go after you. I was once required to remove a sensor from a bra for a lady because she claimed ‘she bought it and we forgot to remove the sensor’ even though we ALL watched her rip it off a hanger. But by company policy, I cannot accuse her of theft or ask for her receipt. So she got a free bra. If you ever think you’re going to be caught, just accuse us employees of racism and threaten to call HR. We’ll back off. The company is terrified of a lawsuit.

2. You as an employee are punished far more harshly than a customer EVER will be. If they so much as think you’re stealing, your hours are cut, and you are the one who is watched on camera - not the group of girls who just walked out of the front door of PINK with $600 worth of leggings.

3. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure many of their cameras do not work. They say the cameras are everywhere and can spin and zoom to see text so small like on an ID, but its a hoax. If they can’t even catch a thief who looks right into the camera, they won’t catch anything period. They couldn’t even catch the man who stole like, $20,000 worth of panties lmao.

4. You are required to be a customer’s punching bag. Dealing with drunken men at a bar is a blessing compared to working for the middle-low class entitled women of society. Victoria’s Secret has created an atmosphere that makes every woman feel special and sexy, but for a lot of women, it gives them a sense of power they don’t actually have, and they abuse that power by abusing the very employees helping them to find a piece of clothing to hold their tits in. I have been mocked for my thin body, tall height, small breasts and pale skin color. I have been called racist, told to get breast implants, or that I was mentally incapable of helping women with bigger breasts find what they need simply because I had B cups. I never once had an issue with a man while I worked there, but I lost count with how many fellow women abused me there. You would be surprised to see how little support you get, because we cannot verbally defend ourselves or others. The customer is always right, even when they are outright degrading you like an animal.

5. No one gives a shit about that panty drawer filled with 150+ thongs you just neatly folded. No one. Walk away from it for 30 seconds and come back, I fucking dare you.

6. You don’t get to go home until all panties on top are folded in order. Gotta fold until 12 at night? Guess what, you’re gonna be folding until 12 at night.

7. Closing late but need to be back in the morning for a 5am floorset? Yeah, you’ll be scheduled to close until 10pm or 11pm and HAVE to come back at 5am. No ifs ands or buts.

8. Every company sets aside money to compensate for theft, but Victoria’s Secret has so much theft due to their shit policy that they raise prices. And you honest hard working women have to pay more so thieves can continue doing what they like. Example. Panties are typically 1 cent to make, and are $10.50 a piece. The lingerie panties are $16.50, and their newest lingerie panty is now $40+ A PIECE. They are made the same way as a $16.50 panty, but tripled in price. And you’re a sucker for buying it. I own one since I got one for free, and guess what? Its shit. Don’t put it in the dryer. Ever.

9. Ever wanted to clean up vaginal discharge and period blood? This is the job for you!

10. If you don’t ask for a break, you will not receive a break.

11. You cannot remind a customer that you’re closing in 5 minutes. They’re allowed to destroy the entire store, unfold everything, go in the fitting rooms for as long as they like, and fuck around until THEY choose to leave. The gates are NOT to be closed, not even half way, until that customer leaves - which makes opportunity for late night shoplifters to come in and loot while you’re busy trying to refold what that customer had just destroyed, so you can go home on time. But now, not only do you have to clean, you also will be staying late to file a long ass report about the theft - which Victoria’s Secret will do absolutely nothing about.

12. Pregnant? Guess what, nobody gives a shit. Reach down at the bottom drawer to shop for a woman who is too lazy to kneel down herself and grab her XL granny panty. Your baby is an inconvenience to certain entitled women.

13. Got this job to avoid baby sitting? Well you’re going to baby sit, and watch as women drag their screaming children into the store meant for adults that’s filled with inappropriate lingerie and open-assed panties with lewd pictures of half-naked women all over the walls. Also get ready to pick up after other people’s children who drop their drinks, food, toys, and destroy store property by playing on shelves, ripping off manniquin arms, chewing on panties (and stealing them, I caught one child stuffing panties into their Else purses), and throwing the biggest demonic hissy fits when they don’t get their way. Think the parents will stoop to OUR level and clean up after their own kids? LOL they’ll go “Sorry” and walk away. You’ll be lucky if they even say sorry. You know they aren’t.

14. You will understand why 50% of marriages end in divorce simply watching how wives boss around their husbands to show off in the store. This goes back to the power the store gives women. When women enter these gates, their true selves show, because the sense of false power makes them act like the bitches that they truly are. I will say that not every woman is like this, but an alarming amount are.

15. The girls who buy boy shorts are the most condescending and judgmental of women - deeming those who wear thongs are sluts, whores and loose and are beneath them. Yet they buy boy shorts with ‘Yummy’ written on the ass. Hmmmmm...

16. If you find a co-worker who is real and takes time out of their day to help train you, stick with them. 9 times out of 10, you won’t get the benefit of training. You’ll be thrown into the chaos like I was and be expected to perform well. Its up to your fellow co-workers to help you. If some help you. Hopefully they’ll help you. I had only 1 help me, and that was during Black Friday.

17. Starting drama is forbidden. Unless you’re a favorite. Then you’re free to shit talk all you want.

18. Women are destructive little shits. They will rip apart anything nice and toss shit around.

19. You are not allowed to carry any weapons on you for protection. You will be terminated for doing so.

20. Despite not being allowed to carry a firearm, policy has made it clear that in the event of a shooting, you must hide. In the event that the shooter FINDS you, you are encouraged to FIGHT BACK. . . With - what exactly? If you’re not allowed to carry protection on you, yet a man with a gun is shooting at you and killing people, then how in the fucking fuck are you supposed to fight back? You are practically set up to die in the worst case scenario. But consider the alarming rate of shootings today. Public shootings are becoming more and more common, its a horrendous tragedy. And we are faced with either being fired, or being fired at.

Your choice.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Now I will say...not everything about it was bad. There were times where I had fun, I miss those times. I had a good handful of nice customers who made my job easier, and a few I could relate to. I suppose the issue is with the company. If the company had a different way of running things, then maybe the women would have a different mindset when walking into the store and treat their fellow women better. Who knows...

#vs #victorias #secret #victoriassecret #hell on earth #rant #my experience #retail #i hate retail

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japanstopbrawler1992 · 5 years ago

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I've already said Masaru's the muse that is least like me (and Bleach's Ichigo is so much like me, in my project I may end up just giving him my career)

But I do get enough to want to play him.

Of course, uh, well, anyone who knows me can tell you all about my difficulty with modern technology. Although I'm really handy with analogue tech, to the point I still mostly use it and can do basic repair on most of it (though, like me, it's all ageing and showing problems it didn't used to, at which point, I seem to become Tim Taylor...)

One of the things I do get is the basic feeling of anger. Mine is related to racism and queerphobia to the point of being an abuse survivor because of it. This is why my triggers are rage triggers, and they're things like "dressing up my human default English in exotic Japanese" and other "racism against certain groups is empowering uwu" kinda stuff.

Masaru's is maybe not as easy to point out, although his seems to be directed towards things that either endanger loved ones (Masaru v. Piyomon), hurt feelings into anger (Masaru v. Touma the second time, after he gave Touma his trust) or things that just violate his ethics code/are cruel (Kurata)

Also, feeling looked down on (Touma at first, ostensibly the motivation for the people he regularly fights with, who mostly look older than him), but I think that's probably most people.

And of course, violence is the first resort and something he regards as a moral imperative rather than something he does only if he must (conversely, Ichigo seems to fight regretfully when feeling forced into it, and Ken, well, the moment he realised he was being violent to living beings, that was horrifying enough to break him of control, and probably scar him for life. Will be upset if he's totally well-adjusted in Kizuna)

But I still get the anger, even if mine's through 23 years of acquiring CPTSD (and my understanding of trauma is why I said the last thing in brackets) and his is more just kinda how he's wired.

Will it ever calm down? I kinda picture there having to be an event to really bring home that he's gotta stop defaulting to violence. The anger, you know, that might even end up getting worse.

I used to solve the problems I could with fighting because I just didn't see another way. In high school, once the Japanese side of my family was all deceased, and it was the racist side and a bunch of racist Southerners, I quickly realised I had no school staff or any authority figures on my side, and all I was left with was my fists.

But when I turned legal age, I didn't wanna end up in prison, and I already knew the law only accepts self-defence if you're white. And you have to be monoracial white to be white. Those both being obvious, I became afraid to fight for myself.

I have even in recent years, rushed headlong into fights to protect others, but I'm trying to get the victim to safety, not take on the attacker. Honestly, joint degradation at this point means the latter wouldn't work, anyway.

One thing I can so easily see Masaru sharing with me is, even after all these years, I never figured out how to protect myself without violence.

I recently got pepper spray. Literally three days ago. I'll see what happens. The problem is I've been taught so hard to fear consequences of protecting myself.

But Masaru would still have two things I do, even if for different reasons.

1. He would not know how to effectively stand up for himself or his loved ones in the absence of violence being a viable route. Being ineffective would further fuel anger.

2. I think he'd be prone to worse buildup of anger once he can't let any of it out in violence. As he ages, things like insomnia, stress-related vomiting, and high blood pressure might be very real problems for him.

When you use your fists to solve problems, but you aren't an abusive person, you eventually submit to that not being a reasonable answer, and you end up with a "what now?"

And even a couple of decades after losing the option of violence, I still don't have an answer. People say "don't let it get to you" or "let it roll of your back," and that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm not that type of person. I'm not capable of that. And I don't think Masaru is, either.

Breathing excersises, walking meditation (you focus on chanting, not emptying your mind), knowing the one kind of person who actually is beneath me (I see all people as just that, people) is a bully, I dunno. I just think it's very hard for someone who once relied on violence to find something else that works. Bottling it all up keeps you from dealing with cops, which dealing with cops is never a good idea in America, but actually getting rid of the anger, if I haven't found that by 2020, someone so much younger than me is unlikely to have.

Sure, he has living family and people that are good fighters themselves, and let's be real, Touma deals with bigoted family hating his guts. He also duelled Masaru early on. He gets the satisfaction of violence.

So he has more possibility to be taught various ways to maybe somewhat mitigate the stress at one point, but his gut reaction will probably always be rage, and frankly, probably Touma is the only one who has a chance of knowing a way to help diffuse the rage after it's there.

That being said, Touma has other failsafes. He does look down on other people. He's got access to an ivory tower of loftiness, if you will. He's the one most likely to understand how Masaru feels, but he has his own background and viewpoint that Masaru doesn't have an equivalent. And let's be honest, Sayuri, and what we know of him, Suguru, don't really have that anger.

A lot of people I work with don't have that anger, either. They can let people calling them monkeys or "joking" about the Holocaust or calling ICE on them roll of their back. And they tell me to, and I just can't. So I don't feel like Sayuri or Suguru have the rage necessary to help Masaru cope once violence is no longer a viable route. I've come to realise that feeling rage is a fundamental type of person, just as Sayuri's apparent lack of an anger drive.

I think Touma comes closest to it. But I think he'd have to have a better answer than "know you're better than them." Masaru doesn't have that kind of high horse. In fact, he seems to at first, readily agree with and be angered by Touma being of upper class and accomplishment as well as his arrogance.

But as much as there's just got to be a solution to deal with the rage, which Masaru has in spades, I am currently unable to even concieve it myself. So as Masaru gets older, yeah, I think he'd have not-insignificant health problems related to just all that anger sitting in him.

#about muse #about mun #digimon savers #digimon rp

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realityhelixcreates · 6 years ago

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Lasabrjotr Chapter 15: Callout Post

Chapters: 15/? Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Teen And Up Warnings: Loki is a bigot, mentions of fear of sexual assault, mentions of past death Relationships: Loki x Reader (But not yet) Characters: Loki (Marvel), Thor (Marvel), OFC, Brunnhilde/Valkyrie(Marvel), Spiderman, Ant-Man Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending, Loki Needs A Chill Pill, Hey Here’s A Thought: How ‘Bout Ya Don’t Be Racist?, Reader’s Pretty Mouthy For Someone On A Sickbed, Thor And Brunnhilde Are Such Gossips Summary: Life is being very blunt to Loki.

Two days passed before the historians came to Loki with information about the dagger. It was a troll weapon, of a kind once prized as war trophies among Asgardian soldiers during the conquest of Nornheim. They were usually passed town as heirlooms, though only a few now survived.

None of the historians could tell him what family this knife might have once belonged to, nor how it came to be in human hands, if it was a human who threw it in the first place. Their best guess was that it had been lost in the last Asgardian visits to this world, roughly a thousand years ago.

They presented the knife to Loki with reverence, emphasizing how precious it was. It had been cleaned and restored, no trace of blood or dirt remaining. He could see his eyes reflected in the blade.

He’d seen items like this, in the palace’s armory display. Rock trolls had been surprisingly proficient crafters; of stone, crystal, and metals at least. They lacked Asgardian sophistication however, and could not even come close to the capabilities of the Dwarves of Nidavellir. Still, as a reminder of Asgards first conquest, such items held great cultural importance. He knew just what to do with this one.

A young secretary contacted him on his way out of the library, to inform him of an incoming call on the computer. When he arrived however, there was no one on-screen, only an empty room presumably in the Tower. An alarm was ringing, and a red light flashing. It seemed something had rather suddenly come up.

Loki wondered for a few moments whether he had time to wait or not, when the alarm and flashing light abruptly ceased.

“Mr. Lang, you’re still here?” A soft voice called. “There’s a call open on the monitor, what should I do?”

“I dunno, who is it?” Someone else called back.

“Umm…” A masked face-red, with cartoonishly huge, almond shaped white eyes-took up the whole screen. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve met him before, but he looks familiar. Oh, shoot. The sound’s on. Uh, hi! Avenger’s Tower, how can we help?”

This person’s voice was altogether too young.

“Please tell me you are an intern.” Loki said.

“I’m Spiderman.”

“Man?” Loki repeated, incredulous.

The boy rolled his eyes. Or, at least, he tilted his head and moved his shoulders in the way that comes with rolling one’s eyes.

“Hey who is that?” Another face- this one thankfully adult-shoved into view. “Oh wow! Kid, that’s Loki! He bashed up New York a while ago, don’t you remember?”

The boy shook his masked head.

“But you live in New York!”

“C’mon, it was forever ago! I was like, ten!”

A heavy feeling settled inside Loki. How many buildings had he damaged that day? How many vehicles did he destroy? And all the while, this child had been there, somewhere, his life barely measuring the double digits.

How many people? He’d never found out.

“I am Loki, Prince of Asgard, and…look, is Barton there? He should have some information for me.”

“Just left.” The adult said. “Looks like he left some notes though. I can read them out for you.” He picked up a notebook from the desk. “Ooh. Looks Like Tony left some notes too. I’m, uh…” His eyes flicked from the notebook to the masked boy. “I’m not going to read those out loud.”

“I can hazard a guess as to their content. I doubt he has added anything important. Read away.”

“Alright well, it says here…’Ex-boyfriend, angry and vocal on Facebook. Toothless; cannot travel. No prize’. Huh. Okay. And then ‘mixed opinion news articles, none seems to know her personally. Sensationalist at best.’ Uh, ‘Security video viral; massive debate in the comments. Conspiracy theories. Over four hundred million people have seen Loki get punched in the face by a girl half his size.’ And here Tony adds ‘nice’. And that’s the only one of his comments that’s safe to read.”

Loki frowned.

“What? You’ve gotta show me that video.” The boy said.

Loki frowned deeper.

“And lastly, ‘Second video uploaded by someone called Sofie Snowfox, currently residing outside New Asgard. Shown alive and well, described as “Devoted to Loki.”

Loki perked up at that. Yes, that sounded rather nice.

“Most long-time subscribers positive and supportive, but recent waves of American commenters overwhelmingly negative. Accusations of treason, death threats, unflattering sexual speculation, more conspiracy theories.”

That sounded far less nice.

“I have no idea what this is about.”

“You don’t need to-“

“He kidnapped some lady, but I guess it was supposed to be a good thing. Maybe?”

“What? You stole a whole person?”

“I didn’t steal her, I saved her-you know, never mind. If you have not already been informed of this, you don’t need to know. I have the research I asked for, and I have no more time to waste here. Goodbye, Spiderchild. And also you.”

He ended the call without another word, and stalked away from the computer.

So. Your people had abandoned you. Typical. Thor was so optimistic about humanity, but Loki had seen the rot underneath. While his brother would praise how strong and helpful human’s natural social bonds were, Loki knew how they used those same social bonds as a weapon; to shun, to manipulate, to control.

Now you were outside of that control, and your country had turned on you. Viciously. Predictably.

No matter. You had him now; he would take care of you. He had sworn it, and he meant to keep his word this time.

But that meant that your assailant had to be found. This couldn’t be let go, not if he didn’t want them to feel empowered to try it again. You required some means of protection. And he had just the thing.

He found his way to the equipment stores, speaking briefly to the quartermaster. She was a formidable, battle-scarred woman, but when he explained that he wanted some of the old, busted up knife sheathes to attempt to fix up, she was happy to let him rummage around.

During the exodus, people had mostly just grabbed whatever they could find to bring with them. Unfortunately, some of it turned out to be trash. The quartermaster had been saddled with far too much unusable equipment, and Loki was able to come up with several sheathes that, between them, should provide enough intact material to put together a new one. Loki thanked her, and left with his prizes.

Prince or not, Loki had always taken care to know how to maintain and repair all of his own equipment, even learning how to make certain things from scratch. With the amount of knives and daggers he used, a simple sheath would take no time at all.

He found a place away from anyone else, where he didn’t have to be a prince, and could concentrate on being an artisan instead. A wave of the hand brought him his tools, and he went right to work.

*****

“So the big mystery about the Jotnar, is that it’s clear from their extensive colonization of multiple worlds, that they used to be a space-faring race. But they aren’t now, and no one knows why or how that knowledge was lost to them.” Brunnhilde explained. The Valkyrie had moved this lesson into your room, where you were still being asked to stay. You had been longing for companionship for what seemed like such a long time, so long in fact, that you were now uncomfortable to have it. You hadn’t gotten out of bed, just sat up with your pillow to lean against. Brunnhilde evidently thought you were injured worse than you actually were, and made no comment about it.

“We’ve encountered them in several galaxies, always slightly different. Thousands, possibly millions of years removed from wherever they originally came from, and an unusually flexible genetic structure allows them to adapt to whatever planet they live on within just a few generations. For instance, here are Aegir and Ran.”

She held up a book, showing you an illustration of two people with deep blue skin, round black eyes, and green hair that was textured like seaweed. They were both adorned with shells, coral, and pearls, and not much else.

“These two rule a world of oceans. They’re pretty friendly with Asgard, and let us build small colonies on their islands. That’s the only land on their planet, and the Jotnar that live there don’t have much use for dry land. They make such exotic alcohol.”

You managed a weak smile. Of course she was impressed with the booze.

“Freyr is married to one of these?” You asked. You still wondered how big they were.

“No, no, these are sea giants. Gerd is a mountain giant. I found a picture of her earlier, give me a second…”

Brunnhilde leafed through the book.

“Are the Jotnar all just named after the terrain they live in?”

“Yeah, basically. They adapt so fully to their environment that they almost seem to become a part of it. So we usually just call them what they look like. Desert giants, and forest giants, and fire giants, and frost giants. All kinds. Ah, here she is!”

She turned the book back to you, showing a picture of a powerfully built woman, whose snowy white skin and hair shimmered with a diamond-like quality. There were long streaks and patches of silver skin on her bare arms that reflected light like a mirror.

“Wow.”

“Yeah, she’s a keeper. We get along with some of the giants; others not so much. Frost giants for one. Our most recent war involved them. We won but relations are still pretty tense. I only fought in the very first battles of that particular war, but it was only about a thousand years ago.”

“Only a thousand?” You were still constantly startled by the massive age differences between you and the Asgardians. It was hard to comprehend a person who was older than most modern countries.

There was a knock at the door, and Loki let himself in without waiting for very long. He looked slightly excited about something, but the expression disappeared the instant he noticed the Valkyrie in the room.

“Oh, we are learning, I see. It’s good to see that kind of determination, but you shouldn’t overdo it.”

“The cut is almost gone, and I’m going crazy in here.” You protested, cursing the edge of a whine that snuck into your voice. “I thought another lesson would be low effort and give me something to think about.”

Something else to think about. Something other than him, and what he might eventually do to you. Why was he waiting so long? The fear and torment was making it harder and harder to think of anything else.

You shouldn’t think about it. Brunnhilde was here. You were safe for now. Think about giants.

“What is today’s subject?”

Brunnhilde turned the book to him.

“Look, it’s Gerd.”

“So it is. Jotnar? What, ah…what about Jotnar?”

“Different kinds. Sea, and mountain, and frost. Friends and enemies.” You said. He fidgeted a bit, rubbing at his palm. “I just kinda wonder how big they are, if we’re calling them giants. Are they really very tall? I’ve never seen one before.”

The Aesir’s eyes flicked back and forth to each other, as if expecting one another to say something.

“Well!” Brunnhilde said brightly, breaking the increasingly uncomfortable silence. “Why don’t you show her a comparison? With Gerd!”

“Oh that’s easy! Here. So this is Freyr…” He gestured and the image of the man with flowers in his hair popped up. Loki caught your wrist as you reached out. “Still not here.”

Heat crept up your neck. Stupid involuntary reaction! You really needed to get a handle on that.

“And here you are…”

A little image of you popped up next to the other, clasping your hands behind you and beaming happiness. It was adorable. Brunnhilde pressed her lips together to swallow a smile.

“And here is Gerd…”

The shining woman appeared next, easily two feet taller than both of the other images, to scale.

“Wow! Okay that’s pretty big.”

“Oh this is nothing.” Loki said, some of his earlier excitement creeping back in. “Here’s Aegir and Ran.”

The sea giants appeared, even bigger than Gerd. “And the tricky mason who owned Svadilfari.”

A pale, rocky giant sprang up next. He would have been taller than a multistoried house.

“I bested him in combat, and took his horse. He was of the same line as Sleipnir, which is what gave the fool away in the first place. My Leynarodd is one of only two survivors of that line.”

“Yes, and we all know you’re very proud of that.” Brunnhilde interrupted. “How about you show us a frost giant?”

“How about I don’t?”

“I’d like to see one.” You interjected. Loki seemed to recede in on himself.

“I’m actually pretty sure you wouldn’t. They are hideous, brutish savages. You wouldn’t like them at all.” He said bitterly.

That was so infuriating. You were growing to hate the way he described other races. He was always so nasty about it.

“You know, your highness.” You said, sitting up a little straighter. “You say that about pretty much every race that isn’t Asgardian. How will you describe me to people in a thousand years, I wonder?”

He lifted his chin, mouth pressed thin.

“As a mouthy twit who thought she knew more than I did about subjects she hadn’t even learned yet. I’ve seen frost giants. I’ve fought and killed frost giants. I know about them, and you do not.”

“Then show me!” You challenged. “Because right now, you just sound like a huge bigot, and like a bigot, you’ve got nothing to back you up!”

Brunnhilde quietly chuckled.

“You insolent little-You think you can just sit in the bed, in the room that I provided you, and say such things to me? I am your prince, and-“

“Not mine!”

“-and your benefactor! Are you fed? Are you clothed? Are your medical needs seen to? Yes! You have me to thank for that, me and no other!”

“Now just a damn-“

“If the Bifrost could handle it, I would drop you on Jotunheim right now, and see how you fared, you little ingrate! Here!”

He tossed a little bundle onto the bed.

“I intended to present this to you properly, but I feel no need to waste any more time here. Figure it out yourself, since you know so much.” He whipped the door open. “But before I go, here is Surtr, the largest giant yet known.”

He slammed the door behind him, just as the illusion of the enormous fire giant filled the room and began knocking things over.

*****

“So then I had to fist fight an illusory giant.” Brunnhilde said, cleaning grime off her favorite sword. “It was pretty cathartic, actually.”

“What did he give to her?” Thor asked, running a whetstone down the blade of his axe. Norns, but his brother was bad at this. Scheming, manipulating, planning, organizing, oh yes, all of that and more. But openly caring about someone? Practically hopeless.

“No idea. She was not in a good mental place by the time I beat Surtr, and then her maid came and saw the state the room was in. Poor girl was beside herself. But at least _____ doesn’t have much to get tossed around. Still, the place was a mess, and she was of no mind to even open the thing up and look.”

“If he keeps on like this he will lose all chance of gaining her respect. He keeps moving forward and then taking a flying leap back.”

“Don’t know if it’s just her respect he wants. But this might not be as bad as it seems. For one thing, his wall is thinner around her. The things he feels he has to prove to her are different than the things he feels he needs to prove to us. He’s more open with her, probably because he thinks she is harmless. Now granted, that openness includes childish tantrums, but at least he isn’t closed off and stagnant anymore. He’s moving forward.”

The Valkyrie examined her sword closely, searching for any leftover dirt. Finding none, she dribbled oil onto a cloth, and began wiping the blade.

“For her part; I haven’t seen that fire in her for some time. Something is going wrong there, but I’m not sure what it is. She seems unusually passive, you know, she hasn’t even been asking questions like she used to. I think she might be afraid of something, or holding something in.”

“Because someone attacked her, and we don’t know who or why? I can see why that would be frightening.” Thor set the weapon aside, and began polishing his armor instead.

“Possibly. Probably. I know you don’t like to think of it, but we really do need some kind of prison facilities built. Criminals still exist, and if you don’t want to execute them…”

“Absolutely not.” Thor asserted.

“Then we need a place to put them. Whenever we catch this person-and I’m sure we will- we’ll need somewhere to stash them. If we get to them before Loki does, anyway.”

“Loki knows better now…” Thor began.

“Oh does he? Well that’s great to hear. How many milliseconds do you think he’ll hold his composure where the safety of his ‘responsibility’ is concerned?”

Thor scrubbed until he could see his eye reflected in the bosses of his chestplate, then began checking the scale and chain portions for any captured bits of debris.

“About sixteen. Which is ten longer than he would have done previously, so things are getting better.”

“If you say so. I’m not completely sure this has to do with the attack though. I saw signs of _____ withdrawing in on herself even before then, and just didn’t notice what was happening at the time. I wonder if there isn’t something around here that is bringing back memories of bad times. It’s easy to forget she lived through that damn ‘snap’ just like we did. We don’t know how she lived during that time, or what she went through. There might be all kinds of triggers hidden inside her, and the only way to find them is to accidentally trip them.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that.” Thor said, inspecting a nick on his helmet. That was unlikely to buff out, but he tried it anyway. “Probably unavoidable though. We’ll just have to be ready, be understanding. Which means Loki will have to get a handle on his temper.”

“We’re just a big bundle of problems each, aren’t we?”

“Part of being alive. Besides, better that we suffer than the alternative.”

“Psh, speak for yourself, your Majesty!”

“I do believe I am.”

Loki stalked into the room, clearly still disgruntled. Noticing what his brother and the Valkyrie were doing, he took a seat of his own, and began seeing to the maintenance of his own weapons. As the minutes ticked by, and more and more daggers piled up, he seemed to grow even more annoyed.

Finally, he slapped one last knife down on the pile. “Thor. Am I a bigot?”

“Oh yeah.” Thor said.

“Absolutely.” Brunnhilde agreed.

Loki made an offended noise.

“You are not unlike a great many Asgardians in that respect.” Thor continued. “I was like that as well, until recently. You remember.”

“I was too.” Brunnhilde added. “The social climate under the previous Allfathers practically guaranteed that. I only unlearned it by spending a thousand years at the ass-end of the universe, surrounded by people of every species, all of us knowing that we lived and died at the whims of a single madman.”

“I had to be stripped of all my power, and then choose to die at the hands of an ancient weapon forged by my own people, while protecting a non-Asgardian species.” Thor said.

“Well, what do I have to do?” Loki demanded. “I’m not going back to Sakkar, and I’ve already died! Where’s my magical personality cure?”

“I mean, it did take me a thousand years.” Brunnhilde reminded him. “And I don’t think ‘depressed, alcoholic, slave-taker’ is really the kind of personality you want to aspire to. “

“Besides, there is little chance of being able to make amends with the Svartalfari, or the Frost Giants, at least, not for quite some time. And I stand by my decision to forbid contact with the Dark Elves. Never again. If any remain, let them be.”

“Agreed.” Loki said. “But that still doesn’t help me. You didn’t see how she looked at me.”

“I did.” Brunnhilde pointed out.

“And you have no doubt regaled my brother on all the details. But that does me no good. I cannot simply stop feeling how I feel.” He paused. “Can I?”

“If you’re thinking about trying any memory or emotion altering spell, I must advise strongly against it.” Thor warned. “I know you can handle dangerous powers, Loki, but even the smallest mistake, and your entire self could be lost.”

“I know that!” Loki snapped. “But if I need to stop, how do I start? To stop?”

“Well, first of all, maybe you could stop describing every other race as ‘uneducated, brutish, savages’ to your only student, who happens to be one of those other races…” Brunnhilde suggested.

“Loki!” Thor scolded.

“Well how would you describe a Frost Giant?” Loki demanded.

“Hm. Fierce warriors with strong ties to an ancient heritage.” Thor said. “I suppose that could be taken to mean the same thing as ‘savage’, but without such negative connotations. It might help you if you just rewrote the propaganda to remove the negativity. That’s all it is, after all. A great many things we were taught about the other races was just propaganda.”

Loki gaped at him.

“Moreover, since the only Frost Giant I personally know is clever, well-learned, and sophisticated, how could I possibly describe them so crudely?”

Loki continued to gape.

“Y-your time among the humans has made you soft.” He whispered.

#loki x reader #loki (marvel)#thor (marvel)#brunnhilde (marvel)#valkyrie (marvel)#peter parker #spiderman #scott lang #antman

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years ago

Text

Druck season 2, episode 3 reaction

Manfred-Wolfgang is gonna haunt my dreams, I’ll never see a tractor the same way again.

Episode 3

Clip 1 - Road trip!

The girls are loading up the car for their trip, and of course Kiki rolls up with a large suitcase rather than the overnight bag or whatever that everyone else has.

We have this exchange where Kiki’s like, “Unlike Amira and Sam, I need all these hair supplies.” Kiki, what the hell? You can chalk it up to ignorance on her part (and I mean, it is ignorance) but she does come out with such racist remarks. I did say I liked Kiki a few episodes ago, and that it wasn’t because I thought she was a great person, but because she felt like a real person, and I want to stress that idea is solidly in effect here, lmao. Because I do think she feels like someone you could plausibly meet in real life, so as a realistic character she works - but when she says stuff like this, it’s whether you would want to meet her.

I think Kiki comes across a lot harsher or more mean-spirited than Vilde because the actress plays her as more assured, less naive in the crap she’s saying. Vilde could say some very ignorant things, but Ulrikke played her as more sheltered and unsure. Sometimes she did come off as more confused rather than judgmental about issues related to Islam. Which is not to let Vilde off the hook, or Kiki either, just why Kiki strikes a lot of people as worse.

Amira asks Kiki whether she thinks she doesn’t groom her hair because she wears hijab. Sam chimes in talking about how expensive her hair care is. I’m glad that they had them respond to Kiki’s comment - her remark was probably there in the first place as an educational moment for the audience. I do think Druck could stand to let their messages affect Kiki more, show her reconsidering or taking it all in, so we see she’s actually learning. Like we don’t see Kiki really reacting to Amira and Sam’s responses, so for all we know they just flew right over her head.

Mia points out that they’re going to a cabin, no one’s going to see them. Kiki says Hanna and Mia don’t get a say in this - I guess because she thinks they have great hair? I get why Sam would say this about Hanna and Mia (which she does) because they have “acceptable” white girl hair and don’t face the same level of scrutiny and judgment, but I’m not sure why Kiki would say that since frankly she also has “acceptable” white girl hair. Although in her eyes, her hair is probably anything but acceptable, so that’s why she said that, I guess.

The girls talk in the car. Kiki starts talking about Alex again. Oh God, I forgot this is the part of the story where Vilde is just like … unbearably hung up on William. More than usual. Kiki starts talking wistfully about Alex’s party, She’s hoping girls from another school aren’t invited to the party, probably jealous and paranoid they’ll steal Alexander away. Oh, the irony, when the real threat to her relationship with Alexander is behind the wheel!

I get the feeling Mia said breast surgery was passé as another attempt to dissuade Kiki, since that seems like something Kiki would care about.

Sam says there’s nobody in the area on Tinder. Amira mentions the Muslim dating app, Minder. Lmao, how much does Amira know about Minder?

Sam got a Tinder match with a 47-year-old farmer looking for love (but no one-night stands). LMAO. I assume Manfred-Wolfgang will be playing the role of Kasper this episode, although I hope that he will NOT show up to creep on the girls or make out with Sam in the season finale.

I wonder if the pic they used for Manfred-Wolfgang is some dude who works on the show or is related to someone, or else he’s some hapless stock image model who doesn’t know he’s been used as a thirsty farmer.

Hanna didn’t know ONS meant “one night stands” so it feels kinda like a departure from party girl Eva of S2 Skam. Though I guess it took a few episodes for her to get on Tinder, lol. In general, I have a hard time seeing that route for her. Unless this is meant to be foreshadowing of a sort, and Hanna is gonna go for those ONS to get over Jonas.

Mia is texting Axel about their deal, asking when he’s going to break up with Kiki. Kinda risky texting when Sam is right next to her in the passenger seat. Also, damn, this is gonna get messy if Alex breaks up with Kiki, and it’s gonna be messy if he doesn’t.

The girls dance in the car to Drake’s “In My Feelings” which contains a direct shout-out to a Kiki. It’s extremely cute, though sometimes you gotta wonder why some of these girls deal with Kiki (like Sam and Amira).

There’s a new scene during the credits. It’s of Mia walking through the halls of the school, texting, a small smile forming on her face. So that could be anything, really, but it’s probably from Alexander.

Clip 2 - Sweet potatoes

We’re at the cabin! Mia is peeling sweet potatoes. Kiki walks in, complaining that Alexander isn’t replying. GOD. If his method of breaking up with her is just to ghost again….

Kiki is excited about the raclette cheese, except, as Mia points out, it’s not vegan. Kiki seems disappointed. Seems like that vegan thing isn’t working so great in practice as it is in theory for Kiki.

Now we have Druck’s take on the famous potato scene. Kiki asks whether sweet potatoes have a lot of sugar, and Mia explains their nutritional benefits. I so approve of Druck’s continued endorsement of sweet potatoes. Maybe Big Sweet Potato is what’s funding the additional promo and production this season.

Kiki gets especially excited about hearing that they help you have a good complexion and fewer wrinkles. That’s always seemed a smart inclusion of Noora/Mia, since Vilde/Kiki cares so much for appearances.

Kiki wants to know how Mia knows all this about sweet potatoes, but before she can reply, Hanna comes in and says the girls are contacting Manfred. DUDE. I kinda don’t approve of that. No good can come of that. You think he’s just a harmless lonely middle-aged farmer and then suddenly this cabin trip becomes a horror film because he’s actually a serial killer.

I think my favorite version of this scene is still the original, because Noora’s slow way of talking really helped, actually - it made it feel like every piece of information was sinking in for Vilde. But I’m really glad they kept in this scene, because clearly Kiki needs to hear this.

Clip 3 - The future is full of dongs

The girls are doing this fortune telling activity where they drop lead into water and read the shapes for their futures. Mia gets some kind of penis looking object which sends the girls into giggles. Kiki says that it looks exactly like Alexander’s penis and OH NO, Mia gets a little less giggly, it seems. Kiki tells us a little too much about the shape of Alex’s dick for my liking.

Amira says it means more sex, please. Mia is like, nah, it’s an eggplant, it means more vegetables, please. Eggplant is maybe not the counter argument to penis you think it is, Mia.

We get a shot of Mia twirling that eggplant/penis between her fingers and girl I hope you’re just really hungry for aubergines. But really, the lead has predicted the probable outcome of S2.

Amira reads the meaning for eggplant - you’re a sensitive person, the world is bad and everyone wants to do you harm. Hmmm. Well, that’s a little extreme, but does fit a little into Mia’s worldview. Or at least we’re supposed to think it fits into Mia’s worldview, and she’s inclined to think poorly of Alex or whatever, except he actually IS a creep and she is right sooooooo.

Kiki says it fits Mia, no doubt thinking about Mia being so unfair to poor Alexander and his eggplant penis.

It’s Kiki’s turn. She gets what she thinks are obviously breasts. Kiki is looking at Mia but Mia does not seem thrilled with Kiki’s prediction, either.

Mia says they’re supposed to be metaphors. Amira’s like, what deep metaphors, penis = sex. LMAO.

Mia reads off Kiki’s meaning: “It’s easier to implement one’s ideas if you really support it. You can make honest promises as well.” Kiki has a revelation: of fucking course this has to do with Alexander! She supports him but has never truly told him! Oh, Kiki, no. Amira shares my reaction.

Sam’s like, I think Alex got the picture by now. Personally I think everyone in the world has the picture by now.

You know, even apart from Alex being Alex, Kiki automatically relating the prediction to ANY dude instead of relating it to herself is pretty sad.

In other sad but expected news, Hanna shows the girls that Jonas has been posting pics with a girl. Okay, we knew this was coming, we gotta get through this separated phase, but damn, this is like the Eva/Jonas remake pairing I most want back together.

Time to break out the vodka! Side note, but I wonder what the idea was to have Mia drink alcohol in this remake? I don’t mind it at all, it’s just a notable difference from the source material, especially in this season when it’s a mild plot point. Are we going to find out later?

Sam’s turn has her getting a mansion. Hanna reads the definition for house: Even though life is exciting the way it is, there’s a wish for more reliability and stability. Your wish will be fulfilled soon. Clearly that means Manfred is coming to sweep Sam off her feet!

OK, seriously though, I kinda do want to see Sam hook up with a Kasper-like figure. I think it’d be fun. Maybe behind her party girl ways, Sam wants something a little more stable. I mean, that would kind of fit! In the first season, she said she’s never slept with the same dude twice.

Clip 4 - Alex ruins everything

It’s almost midnight! The girls head outside, light some sparklers. Mia gives a speech about the year is almost over, the year that they all met each other, and the year they might depart already after they graduate. Awww.

You know, even outside of us as viewers maybe not getting more Druck (FINGERS CROSSED) it’s sad in-universe that these girls didn’t get more time together! I mean, the Norwegian girl squad met toward the beginning of their first year. They had three years, almost their whole high school experience to hang as a squad. German girl squad met last March, basically, so they’re just having a little more than a year together.

Mia’s speech on their different paths: Amira might become federal chancellor, Sam studies fashion design, Kiki will become an influencer? (said with some uncertainty, and the girls kinda laugh about it, so it’s not that serious), Hanna … Mia doesn’t know what to say for Hanna, and Hanna chimes in that she’ll be unemployed. Which fits with her character, and tbh I don’t think it’s terrible for her not to have a game plan for the rest of her life right now. A lot of people don’t have it all figured out at 17 or 18.

When asked about herself, Mia hands off the “mic” to the crew boss. Kiki says all the girls are so important to her and she can count on all of them (lmao, the irony is potent). Group hug time!

With only a few seconds left, the girls count down to midnight and pop open the champagne. They hug and kiss and it’s a beautiful, triumphant moment for the girl squad - not that they really did anything, but that they’re all together and happy. They were losers and alone and they found each other. They light sparklers and celebrate, it’s lovely and joyful. Nothing can ruin this moment!

Hey, you know what could ruin this moment? Alex. He messages Kiki, who goes off to read it. Mia looks after her, concerned.

As the girls head back to the cabin, they hear Kiki crying. Not just crying - outright sobbing and wailing as if in immense pain. They run to her. Kiki gets out, red-faced, that Alex broke up with her. That’s right. On New Year’s Eve, at midnight, he sent her a message saying he was interested in another girl. The girls are appalled and take Kiki inside to get her a drink. Mia stays behind, looking distraught and muttering, “Shit.”

All right. Dudes.

First of all … Mia knew this was going to happen. I’m not letting her off the hook because this was the end game of her actions. BUT I doubt she expected Alex to break up with Kiki in such a bad way. I mean, via a voice message, on New Year’s Eve, at midnight? I’m sure she thought he would at least talk to her in person, and not with such poor timing. Like frankly she expected too much of him.

Second, how the FUCK is Mia supposed to fall for Alex after this? How the fuck are we supposed to like Alex? What the fresh hell is wrong with him? This is cruel. Look, people celebrate on New Year’s Eve, they cheer and drink and party at midnight. It’s meant to be a feel-good time, a moment of hope for the coming year, and Alex knew Kiki would be celebrating with her friends, I’m sure. It was wrong and insensitive of him to send that message when he knew she would be in a celebratory, happy mood. Either he’s dumb as fuck and didn’t realize she’d be upset, or he didn’t care about ruining her fun evening. He should’ve broken up with her BEFORE the trip, when he knew he was supposed to, to give her time to recover with her friends, OR saved it until after she’d come back and the high of the party had faded a little.

Also, what is that mention of the other girl doing for Mia? That’s clearly a nod to her, but does she think Alex just said that as an excuse or is there meant to be more behind it?

Clip 5 - Kiki goes swimming

It’s the morning after and we see the remnants of the party, lots of empty bottles. It’s raining, I’m sure no doubt reflecting the mood of the party - symbolic of the celebration getting rained on by Alexander’s breakup message.

Mia wakes up. The other girls are still in bed - I think that’s Amira with her hoodie pulled over her hair, which is a nice way to respect the actress being a hijabi while showing her asleep with the other girls. However, Kiki’s the only one missing, so Mia gets up to look for her.

She goes outside calling for her, and has a moment of panic when she sees Kiki in the lake. Yeouch? That must be cold as hell? Kiki’s awake and conscious, though. She calls out gleefully to Mia.

Mia’s like, are you crazy? But it’s Kiki’s New Year’s resolution to go ice swimming/swimming in cold water, because the balance of the temperature burns more fat. Mia’s like, what fat, because (as we see Kiki in her swimsuit) Kiki is clearly very thin. Kiki says it’s not about weight, but fitness and strength. New year, new me!

Mia says, here’s your cape, Superwoman, handing Kiki her robe. There is a shot of them that would be perfect if they were gonna kiss, just saying. She tries to warm Kiki up as they go inside. Again. Just saying.

I liked that they used the cover of “Where Is My Mind?” at the start of the scene - besides any deeper meaning, the song was inspired by the writer’s experience with scuba diving, and the lyrics refer to swimming.

Yeah, right now? I feel like the best outcome of this season is that Mia essentially chooses Kiki in the end, not Alexander. I don’t even mean that in a romantic way (although I wouldn’t say no to that). But Alexander has been a major ass to Kiki so far this season in a way that William wasn’t to Vilde in S2. They’re going to have to do such major work to get Mia and Alexander to a place where Mia can be with this dude. I mean, admittedly, I’m not a fan of this pairing in any incarnation, so it’s already an uphill struggle for me. I think we’ll get Mia/Alex endgame but right now it feels like such a jarring outcome. But I’m also aware that we haven’t gotten most of the major scenes with them, such as the More Than This clip, or ... hm, that’s kind of the biggest one until they’re supposed to kiss for the first time, lol. And the one where William decided to give some money to refugees in exchange for Noora’s attendance at his fundraiser, which was supposed to be him showing that he’s a decent person, I guess.

I think we see here too that Kiki’s body issues didn’t go away once Alex broke up with her, although it’s the morning after and he did it in such a hurtful way that I don’t think you can say it didn’t contribute to her doing this. Like it’s too recent, too raw. But I’m aware that Kiki’s going to keep this up with or without Alexander in the picture.

Clip 6 - The party fizzles out

It’s later in the afternoon and the girls are huddled outside. Turns out Jonas didn’t get back to Hanna, either. Disappointing, not surprising. They are broken up so he can do what he wants, I’m just rooting for these kids in the long run. He still has her nose.

Sam says, I’m never drinking again. The girls smirk, but Sam is serious. She sexted with Manfred yesterday. YIKES. She did it while drunk and has now deleted Tinder. Good idea.

Amira gets a text as Mia suggests a hiking trip tomorrow. Amira says she has to leave tomorrow morning, as she forgot about an appointment with her family. When Hanna asks what kind of appointment, Amira doesn’t really answer. Hmmm! So is this like Isak’s “family dinner”? It’s not really a family issue, but something else?

They were supposed to stay the whole week so there’s some disappointment. Kiki says she’s going to exercise one way or another, either it’ll be here hiking or she’ll be at the gym tomorrow. Hanna says they don’t ALL have to leave, clearly bummed. Sam says if they leave, they can go to Carlos’ party. Kiki has a special invite! I bet Hanna didn’t want to go back so she didn’t have to go to Carlos’ party and see Jonas there.

Sam’s like, uhhhh, I have another reason for leaving. She sent Manfred their location and he may be showing up any moment. Tbh if I were those girls my ass would be flying up off the chair and throwing my shit in the van so I didn’t have to deal with the awkwardness of Manfred, or you know, not wanting to find out if he was a murderer, but they’re just like, OK, we’re leaving, and keep chilling and drinking their coffee/tea/whatever. You guys are going to stay in this cabin when Manfred’s on the loose? None of you are surviving that horror movie.

Clip 7 - Amira has a secret

It’s the drive back the next day. The mood is considerably less upbeat than the way there. Hanna looks at the picture of Jonas and his girl on IG again. Sam blocks Manfred. Kiki looks at the message notification from Alex.

Amira gets a call. It’s “Pavel.” Who is that? Pavel wants to talk about something. Amira quickly hangs up. The girls look at each other but don’t say anything or ask Amira who was that. Amira doesn’t seem like she wants to talk about it. Soooo … place your bets. Does Pavel have to do with the Jamilla storyline? What about German Even - it’s around the time he’d be going through heavy stuff, would Amira be aware of that through her brothers? Or is he connected to the German balloon squad somehow? Is it some dude she met on “Minder” (doubtful, but just throwing it out there because who knows)? Something completely different?

Cool that Amira has a subplot this season, though! Hopefully not a replacement for an actual Amira season. Druck is doing well enough that they’d be foolish not to renew the show. Case in point, this scene was trending on YouTube and non-viewers were deeply, deeply confused as to why, since not much happens in this clip, lmao.

I love Hanna and Sam blatantly and immediately texting each other about Amira’s mysterious call when they’re sitting right next to each other.

Clip 8 - Laser tag party

Disappointingly short Friday clip, though I can’t complain too much since Druck has been feeding us so well during the week. I just want more of these squads!

Mia and Hanna suit up for laser tag. More tension with Hanna about Jonas. Hanna mentions that she heard Carlos has a crush on Kiki - which seems obvious to anyone paying attention - and Mia says it’s a good match. She’s probably like THANK GOD, ANYONE BUT ALEXANDER.

Kiki fixes herself up, checking her teeth and hair in the mirror, so you know she probably had seduction in mind.

Where’s Matteo? I realize it probably came down to actor availability, but in-universe what if Matteo is going through some shit now? What if this is when he leaves home?

We see Kiki drinking out of a flask - I hope that doesn’t mean she had to get a little drunk in order to make a move on Carlos, like she wasn’t comfortable doing this otherwise. (Liquid courage was probably a factor.)

Laser tag! Hanna and Jonas knock into each other AND SHE TAGS HIM OUT. She was pretty merciless.

Kiki tags Carlos out and he puts a hand over his heart, lmao. Then Mia tells him where Kiki is and Kiki pulls him into a kiss. She wishes him a happy birthday and then tags him out. Cold! But OK, not the worst thing in itself. It’s in the spirit of competition? IDK.

After the game ends, Carlos calls Kiki over and says they could hang out, and she says no, we couldn’t. She just wanted to make out. Did he think they were a couple now? Oh, Kiki, no.

Look, she’s not obligated to get into a relationship with anyone - she is free to make out with whoever she wants and keep it at that, but it’s a thoughtless move to do that to Carlos on his birthday. She’s doing what Alex did to her, dragging someone down when they’re supposed to be celebrating. I get why she’s doing it. She’s acting out, trying to regain some power over the hurt and helplessness that she feels. She probably feels desirable getting Carlos’ attention like this, after Alex snubbed her.

I think Mia looks at this and thinks, YES, Kiki’s strong, she’s moving on! She doesn’t realize that it’s a symptom of the hurt she’s feeling.

Social Media/General Comments

We got lots of happy, cute NYE pics and videos. Matteo posts something that’s tagged #burn2018totheground which might be a joke and might be an indication that his year sucked. Not much fun considering the latter option, which we all know is accurate.

We do get to hear Alex’s breakup message to Kiki. He said he wanted to tell her so she can start her new year right. Ummm, more like she can start it depressed and miserable, but OK. He said if there was a misunderstanding, they were never together, it was always casual. He likes another girl, it’s something serious. He doesn’t want to see her for a while, but wishes her a happy new year.

HE GAVE HER A MAJORLY EXPENSIVE VOUCHER FOR BREAST SURGERY. DOES THAT NOT INDICATE SERIOUSNESS IN A RELATIONSHIP. WHO GIVES A VOUCHER LIKE THAT TO A FLING. I’m sorry but talk about mixed signals.

And the other girl he’s talking about is obviously Mia, and I mean, if he has real feelings for Mia and not for Kiki, it’s fair of him to break up with Kiki, although that doesn’t mean he should expect anything from Mia.

Lmao, wishing her a happy new year after that. I guess we know Alex thinks it’s best to hurt people to drive them away, and he wanted to make it as bad as possible for Kiki so she couldn’t forgive him or whatever. But … this is selfish as fuck. When he said that before about thinking it’s better if Kiki hates him, it’s about hurting her to make it easier for HIM, not for them. He’s okay with causing them extra pain FOR HIS SAKE. This is not some benevolent gesture on his part to get Kiki to move on, because if he had her best wishes in mind, he would not be going on a date with Mia behind her back.

I mean we have to acknowledge Mia’s role in this but we can’t let Alex off the hook just because Mia was instigating a lot of this drama. He went along with it. He could’ve kept being like, “Fuck off, Mia,” when she told him to stay away. He never had to bring a date with Mia into it even as a suggestion.

Carlos’s invite to Hanna for the laser tag party singles out the blonde with the ponytail aka Kiki. Hanna wanted to know if Jonas would be there. When Carlos asks if there would be a problem, Hanna’s like, nope. Lol. Bullshit.

The Druck team got drunk and gave us Sam’s sexts with Manfred.

Manfred complimented Sam’s “exotic looks” in his chat with her so lol, don’t feel sorry for him for getting ghosted. And he did flirt with an 18-year-old, which may be legal but is still creepy when you’re a middle-aged man.

Sam’s sexting with Manfred consists a lot of her asking about his tractor and if she can drive it, what color it is. He says it’s a green John Deere. They are really into this tractor talk. I’m sorry but LMFAO.

Sam drifts off for a while and OH GOD when she comes back she asks him what he’s wearing. Manfred: Pajamas, but I can change that real quick ;))) I hope he means change into some farmerly overalls.

Ugh, and Manfred talks about how he’s always wanted to hook up with someone dark-skinned, ewwwww. Even as the conversation moves away from the tractor talk, we still get a lot of metaphors as Sam compares her breasts to the humps of a camel (pretty sure she was cuddling up to Carmen as she wrote that) and Manfred compares his dick to a grain silo. I am both entertained and scarred.

Not a fan of how Carlos and Jonas talk about Kiki in their text but OK, as long as it’s all talk and not reflected in their actions, I am going to set that aside for the moment. For now.

There’s a text about the graduation magazine committee, which includes Jonas, Matteo, and Amira. Amira seems to be doing some organizing for the group. That wouldn’t be her big secret, would it? That seems pretty straightforward and not something she needs to hide from the girls. It might have something to do tangentially to that, but not the whole thing.

I continue to be on board with this season. I seriously don’t know where it’s going: I’m sure it’ll end up with Winterberg, but on a clip by clip basis, I don’t know what to expect, and that makes it so much more exciting! Feels like when OG Skam was airing and we had all our predictions on what would happen next; with Druck S2 we do have a general outline of what to expect, but we’re more actively engaged than if this season was more of a close remake. I think it especially helps for the section of the fandom that dislikes Noorhelm, because we’re still waiting to see what happens instead of being like, ugh, that scene again.

It was cool that they managed to center the cabin episode around another holiday. That’s a feature of S2 that kinda just doesn’t work if you’re redoing it, like Skam France did their version and it was cute, but also ... is it necessary in the remakes, really? Here they got in the cabin girl squad bonding while making it relevant in real time, as well as adding their own spin on the events. No Kasper, instead we got Manfred. No Ouija board and spooky happenings, but some plot-related development.

Now I’m curious about how the remaining episodes will proceed. If we go off Noora’s season, we have some big Mia/Alex scenes where they get to know each other. What about the sexual assault aspect? Is that going to be featured or will that be a victim of only getting 10 episodes rather than 12? I think OG S2 is overly long, personally, and you can easily cut some elements for a neater, more focused story (like I think you can cut the whole thing with the Yakuza dudes, and that would reduce some of episodes 7, 8, and 12). I think the sexual assault storyline would be a shame to lose, but I also would want it to get the right amount of focus and not be shoehorned or rushed.

We did not get the slumber party scene this episode! When is that coming?

I’m not German so feel free to correct me or clarify stuff.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#druck reactions

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