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agentnico · 3 years

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The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) Review

This new film warns of the dangers of tech consumption yet it appears on a streaming service that’s entire business model is based upon screen addiction with their endless binge worthy content. As they say the irony is most definitely present!

Plot: A quirky, dysfunctional family's road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity's unlikeliest last hope.

A new animated film produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller who are yet to make a miss, having made a career out of taking familiar formulas and turning them upside down on their heads, whether it be 21 Jump Street that took the idea of the original TV show and gave it more energy and modernistic humour, to The Lego Movie that took the excuse of squeezing more money out of a popular children’s brand and actually made a well made movie and then there is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which basically went and created its own animation style inspired by graphic novels. These guys have a very original voice in Hollywood and they prove it time and time again. Their new Netflix animated venture The Mitchells vs. The Machines is no exception.

I watched this film with my girlfriend and the most recent animated feature we watched together was Soul, which was one of my favourite films last year for its emotional heft and good hearted message, and I am not at all sorry to embarrass her and report that my girlfriend balled her eyes out at that movie. Well wouldn’t you know the same thing happened here with The Mitchells vs The Machines. And honestly it caught me off guard, as this movie is really funny and has that fast paced high-energy load of constant jokes being thrown at you right from the get-go similarly to The Lego Movie that when the dramatic scenes do strike they surprise you and so one moment I’m chuckling away and the next I’m staring at my girlfriend who’s eyes have turned into Niagara Falls. Would have taken me nothing to get a canoe and go down that stream whacking her cheeks with my paddles! However her tears were well founded as behind the comedy and the central plot revolving around this alien invasion is a tale about a father and his daughter and them reconnecting and it reminded my girlfriend of her with her dad but even in itself this is a plot point that many audiences can connect with and this element is handled super well in the film. Also helps that the voice actors for these two characters - Danny McBride and Abbi Jacobson - share great chemistry, or do I call it VOCAL chemistry?... Is that a thing? Can I say that? Do I make sense or am I a fool? The likelihood is the latter, but I digress. Nevertheless with this emotional thread I bet Disney is gutted they didn’t acquire the rights to this movie as it would have fit perfectly in their Pixar catalogue.

Typical to other Phil Lord and Chris Miller produced animated projects, the animation in this film looks super unique. The blend of CGI with 2D motion drawings scribbled over many shots make it look as if the lead character Katie, a tech-heavy arts college student is literally doodling on each frame, just like with filters and captions that appear on our phone screens in real life. Overall the film is directed really well and the comedic timing is spot on with so many highlight sequences, whether its the goofy short films that Katie makes from documenting her family’s disastrous road trip that includes traffic jam road rage and a seven hour mule tour gone wrong where we unfortunately lose the unsung hero that is Prancer to the canyon, to then the weirdly intense scene where the classic childrens toys Furbies are turned into monsters that act like gremlins, or Olivia Colman’s villainous Siri-type phone AI passive-aggressively being furious and cranky in her evil robot lair that looks like it was designed by Pink Floyd or Daft Punk. There’s so much attention to detail packed into this film and a lot of it is just random additions that are added for the sake of fun, and the entire thing reminded me of the new co-op video game that me and my girlfriend have been playing recently called It Takes Two (which I highly recommend!!) which to be honest shares a lot in common with the spirit of this film. It’s all so CONNECTED!! Honestly the only reason I referenced It Takes Two is cause me and my girlfriend have been enjoying it immensely and I needed to find a pointless excuse to share some non-paid unnecessary advertising for this game.

The Mitchells vs The Machines is an exciting and hilarious family adventure that has something for everyone, and to be honest is a welcome treat for our current pandemic times. I loike it a lot, it’s noice!

Overall score: 8/10

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katehuntington · 4 years

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Title: In Bad Waters - part four Word count: ±2800 words Episode summary: Still in possession of the Winchesters’ belongings, Zoë meets up with the hunters on her next case. When it turns out to be a little more complicated than anticipated, she accepts their help in order to make an important deadline. Part four summary: After Dean takes a girl home, Sam goes to look for the huntress who is keeping the brothers’ belongings hostage. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Descriptions of domestic violence/child abuse. Drug use/addiction. Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures/resuscitation. Swearing, alcoholism. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Descriptions of torture and murder, drowning. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Music: Shine On You Crazy Diamond - Pink Floyd Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09 and @deanwanddamons. Thanks, girls!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E02 “In Bad Waters” Masterlist

The nights are mild this November. The moon is almost full and stands high in the dark blue sky. This time it’s not the sun which shines a light on the hundreds of tombstones, neither does the cemetery have a peaceful feel like it did this morning. Trees create long shadows, so black that one would be afraid to walk through its darkness. At this hour the statues of angels and other Biblical figures don’t seem sacred, the figures looming over those who dare to disturb the dead.

Anyone who would walk around the stretched out lands of Linwood Cemetery, would be rather sure the place is deserted. Nevertheless, someone is present. Not a grieving widow or a relative who got left behind, but a person who is, quite literally, digging up some dirt. In a steady rhythm, scoops of soil fly through the air and land on a pile next to a hole in the ground. Down in the grave, Zoë is working like a miner. Even though it’s night, all she’s wearing is a thin Lakers basketball shirt, sweat shimmering on her body as her muscles move under her skin.

For a moment she pauses; she reckons she’s almost there. Out of breath, she listens to her surroundings and scans the area like a periscope of a submarine, popping her head just above ground level. Not a sound, nothing to see, yet she senses something. She can’t really put a finger on it, but glances at the loaded shotgun next to her in the grave nonetheless. She picks up the shovel instead, continuing to dig. Her senses grow stronger and the huntress freezes, picking up the smallest sound. Making a split second decision, Zoë goes for her shotgun, aims on pure gut instinct and fires. The slug demolishes half a gravestone and barely misses the person hiding behind it. “Jesus Christ!” a startled voice cries out. “Friends call me Zoë,” she responds, skillfully discharging the empty shell and reloading her rifle.

She stays low to the ground and focuses on the tombstone from the hole, prepared for a possible counter attack, but nothing comes. “Show yourself,” she commands. A tall figure rises from behind the tombstone, his hands up. “It’s me,” he says. The man steps into the moonlight and Zoë instantly recognizes him. “Sam...” She scoffs, actually not that surprised to see him. “Seriously man, there will come a day that I will kill one of you fucking Winchesters if you keep sneaking up on me like this.”

“How the hell did you even notice me?” Sam questions, disappointed with his own ambushing skills. “Are you kidding me? I can smell you from a mile away after your dive in that septic tank,” she nags. Sam stares at her for a moment and smells himself. “I showered!” he exclaims. Zoë smirks; she can’t believe he actually fell for that. Sam also realizes she is deliberately messing with him and shoots her a deadly glare. “What if I was the night guard?” he tests. “If the night guard enters, I’ll notice it the minute he sets foot in the cemetery.” Zoë puts away her shotgun and picks up the shovel again. Before she continues digging, she looks back up. “What the fuck are you doing here anyway?” Sam approaches the grave. “Looking for you.” “Well, you found me. Now get lost,” the huntress scoffs. “I’m not going anywhere without our stuff, Zo,” Sam states. She stops what she was doing, leaning on the handle of the shovel. “Sure. Just a sec. I’ll just pull your laptop case out of my back pocket and I think I stuffed the two duffel bags in my bra,” she responds, smartly. He glares at her. “Ha-ha.” Zoë continues shoveling dirt, while Sam halts on the edge of the hole in the ground. It’s not the first open grave he has seen, but that’s not what he’s looking at. Zoë has captured his attention, and Sam can’t stop watching. The fabric of her shirt is drenched in sweat, a darker tone between her shoulder blades and down her chest. The moonlight distinguishes hardened arms and shoulders. She might be a lean built woman of no more than 5’8, yet clearly she is well trained. Even though Zoë has been working the soil for some time now, there is no sign of fatigue and every scoop is powerful. Just like that moment in Rochester, yesterday morning, she captivates him in such a way that it seems impossible to keep his eyes off her. When she walked by naked to turn up the radio she meant to get his attention, but apparently this time she feels uncomfortable.

“What do you think this is? BustyAsianBeauties.com?” she remarks, glancing up at the hunter annoyed. “Excuse me?” Sam returns, puzzled. “Don’t get all innocent with me, perv. I happened to stumble on some browser internet history on your laptop, which is full of viruses because of that shit by the way,” she notifies. Sam stares at her staggered, then the light bulb switches on. Rolling his eyes skyward, he huffs. “Dean.” Zoë shrugs, continuing her job at hand. “I don’t really care which of you two can’t get laid enough. Your harddrive was a fucking mess.” “You’ve been on my computer?” It’s not so much a question. The tall Winchester eyes her from under his brown bangs, clearly not happy with her snooping around through his stuff. Zoë has the feeling that this would be a good time to lie, but just to rile him up a bit more, she doesn’t. “I did, actually,” she comments. “Got a problem with that, college boy?” Sam averts his gaze and grinds his teeth, which draws a reaction from Zoë. “Hey, don’t be mad at me. I didn’t fuck up your computer with a dozen porn sites, videos, pi--” “- I’m gonna kill him,” Sam growls. “Oh, don’t wanna miss that.” Zoë turns up the speed, now that she has some extra motivation to hurry up.

The youngest of the Winchester brothers glances down at her again. “So, this is your case?” “I’m not digging up dead people for fun,” she retorts, without pausing. “What’s the story?” Zoë peers at him for a moment, but doesn’t stop with what she’s doing. Not seeing any harm in it, she gives him a brief summary. “Young girl got beat up by her father. One strike killed her.” “Let me guess, what goes around comes around for the dad?” Sam assumes. “Yep. Died yesterday,” she confirms.

Whoa, she’s quick, Sam realizes. It’s not often that he has run a case that fast. “How did you figure it all out in that short period of time?” Sam asks, genuinely interested. “You guys have your methods to pick out cases. I have mine,” Zoë responds curtly. The younger Winchester brother knows better than to continue the interrogation. A silence follows and Sam glances over at the gravestone.

Laura Emily Shire Beloved daughter and sister 01.22.1995 – 09.21.2005 Rest in Peace

“Apparently not,” Sam comments on the last sentence, before he redirects his attention to the huntress. “Need help?” “Do I look like I need help?” she counters. He shakes his head and goes quiet, not daring to contradict her. He should have known Zoë wouldn’t accept a helping hand. So he watches, awkwardly, not sure what to do with his hands. Not for long, though, because three swings later, Zoë hits the coffin.

The sudden difference in sound when the steel shovel collides with the wood draws Sam’s attention. He glances over the edge as Zoë wipes the dirt away. A hardwood beech coffin is exposed once again. Zoë busts the hinges with her shovel and opens the coffin, after which she quickly backs out. It’s one thing to burn just bones, but this little girl is still in the process of decomposition. “Argh… man, that’s bad.” Zoë covers her mouth and nose with her hand and turns at Sam, who hands over her backpack.

Trying not to inhale as she takes out a bag of salt and a small jerry can filled with gasoline, she continues to cover the remains with both. She climbs out of the grave and takes a matchbox out of her pocket. With a smooth strike, Zoë lights a couple of matches and drops them down the hole. Almost immediately the fire spreads out and shines an orange light on their faces as the heat reaches for them. The body burns for a while and when the fire almost dies out, she shovels the dirt back in the hole. Sam wants to help, but she only brought one shovel, so there’s not much he can do.

“How did you find me by the way?” Zoë wonders, as they saunter back to the main gates of Linwood Cemetery twenty minutes later. “I drove by and saw your Harley in the parking lot of the Hampton, asked for you at the desk. They called up to your room, but you didn’t answer. Since your bike was still there, I just figured you were at the cemetery across the street,” he explains. “I could have been having a bite and a drink somewhere,” she suggests. “Could have, yeah,” Sam admits, a small smile on his lips. “Lucky guess, huh?” Zoë grins as they amble through the gate. “More like a coincidence,” he expresses. “Let me tell you one thing, Sam.” Zoë looks over her shoulder, an all knowing grin on her lips. “There’s no such thing as coincidence.”

They halt in front of the Hampton Inn as Zoë shakes off the cold and shrugs on her jacket. Grave digging can be quite intense, but now that she’s not busting her ass, she’s freezing. Before the huntress moves inside, she throws her backpack over her shoulder and turns around at Sam. “What are you doing tonight?” “Not much, actually. Dean has a girl over at the motel,” he sighs. “Ah, I was wondering where the fucker was. Another one, huh? Not a shifter this time?” The huntress winks, remembering the joke she pulled on him. Sam laughs too. “Not this time.” “You didn’t tell him that we don’t know what sex that thing was, right?” Zoë checks. “Nope.” Sam’s eyes sparkle for a moment, in the same way Dean’s eyes do so often. It’s probably a Winchester thing. “I bet he has nightmares about it,” Zoë grins, enjoying the idea, but then turns to Sam as her amused facial expression changes into something more serious. “You have any last night?”

Sam looks her in the eye and the sparkle disappears. He forgot about the fact that he opened up to the huntress about the strange dreams he’s been having and for a second he feels uncomfortable. He’s happy to shake his head. “No, I slept quite well, actually. First time in three weeks,” he returns. “Well, I didn’t.” She yawns and quickly covers her mouth with her hand. “I’m gonna catch some sleep. Night, Sam.”

Zoë intends to stroll inside and leave the hunter at the entrance, but he clears his throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Sleepy and confused, Zoë halts and looks at the younger Winchester. “You’re not getting a kiss, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” Sam eyes her. “Our stuff.” “Oh right,” she remembers, entering the Hampton Inn, Sam in tow.

They take the elevator up to the second floor, where the huntress turns left, expecting Sam to follow. The younger Winchester seems impressed with the luxury of the hotel; he’s used to hunters settling for a much cheaper accommodation. As she slips her keycard through the lock, she yawns again.

“That bad, huh?” Sam chuckles. “I haven't had much sleep lately. Too many cases,” she replies and walks directly to the bathroom. “Let me freshen up, one sec.”

One sec turns out to be five minutes, because after that amount of time she walks out of the bathroom, fresh and showered. She’s wearing a Nirvana shirt and pajama shorts, not even bothered to put on a bra, even though she has company. She’s going to turn in for bed soon anyway, the aftermath of her high this morning seriously kicking in. She carelessly beckons at Sam, pointing at the other end of the room. “You can find your shit in the closet.”

Sam crosses the space and opens the double doors. He lets out a sigh of relief when he sees the duffel bags, but he can’t spot his laptop. “It’s on the table, still hooked up to the server,” she answers before he can ask. He walks over and notices the USB cable. “Why is it hooked up?” “Don’t get all emotional about it, but I’m copying my supernatural database to yours,” she tells him. “Since you guys are still going on what’s in that old book.” Sam’s eyebrows perk up, surprised. She actually did that, something nice without him asking? Maybe she’s not so bad as his brother would have him believe after all. “Thanks,” he expresses.

She looks aside, able to tell that his gratitude is sincere. Touching the mouse pad, she triggers the screen to light up; it’s still copying. To pass the time she opens ITunes, starts one of her favorite playlists and the first tunes of Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd come from the speakers. “Don’t mention it, but I'll tell you what.” She straightens her back and walks over to her bed. “It’s still transferring files, which might take another hour or so. If you don’t have a place to stay anyway, why don’t you hang out here? You can crash on the sofa if you want.”

Another unexpected act of kindness; she just invited him in. Not that she would want anything from him, though, or does she? For a second the Winchester wonders why she’s so interested in him all of a sudden. She’s being nice, and that’s just off. “Sure, if you don’t mind,” Sam accepts, masking his suspicion. “As long as you shut your piehole, I don’t mind. I really need to sleep,” she clears up as she crawls into bed and pulls the covers up till her nose. “Remote is on the TV if you want to watch anything, as long as it isn’t porn,” she mumbles, fitting her eye mask over her face. “Thanks, I’m good,” he assures, sitting down behind the table and glancing at the screen. He watches the bar move slowly, the percentage going up with each passing minute. “Hey Zo, is it alright if I--” But he doesn’t finish his sentence. Zoë is already far away, curled up in fetus-position, wrapped in her covers. She seems so peaceful and vulnerable, so unlike the Zoë Sullivan he got to know these past couple of days. He smiles at the endearing sight. She’s quite a peculiar woman.

It only takes a moment, though, before guilt settles on his chest and memories cloud his mind. Because every time when he thinks of Zoë, his thoughts wander off to Jessica as well. As if a voice in the back of his mind is mocking him for taking an interest in the new huntress. That it’s ‘not done’ since he’s in a relationship. But he isn’t. Jess is gone forever.

Sam swallows apprehensively and glances at his laptop again. He sees images transferring, of ghouls and werewolves, wendigos and demons. Honestly, he can’t wait to get his hands on that thing that killed his former girlfriend and his mom. Never has he felt the urge to kill something so strongly, never has he felt so much anger and hatred towards anything. Of course, he has ended the lives of creatures and burned the bones of the souls that stayed behind, but never out of hate. He did those things for opposite reasons; to save people and help spirits to move on.

The frustrating part about his attempt to find the creature that was responsible for the death of his loved ones? He has no idea where to start. Their dad has disappeared from the face of the earth and he and his brother have no leads whatsoever. They need to get back on the road, find their father and make progress fast, before that thing disappears off the radar again. Sam is going to make sure that he and Dean leave this town tomorrow first thing in the morning.

When the time comes, when they finally find their father, the next step is making the bastard pay that murdered Mom and Jess. That thought right there is what drives him, disturbing yet thrilling, but that’s what everyone is after. The death of that monster, the ultimate revenge.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

Read part five here

#Supernatural: the Sullivan Series #Supernatural series #Dean Winchester x OFC #Sam Winchester x OFC #supernatural rewrite #Supernatural fanfiction #Dean Winchester fanfiction #Sam Winchester fanfiction #SPN fanfiction #SPN #Supernatural #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #Zoë Sullivan STSS #In Bad Waters #1x02 In Bad Waters #Kate Huntington

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melyaliz · 5 years

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Chapter 1: Ride the Lightning

Masterlist

Fandom: Marvel / X-Men

Summary: Peter had seen a lot of weird things being an X-men but this woman was one of the weirder ones.

Pairing: Peter Maximoff x OC

Notes: Trying to figure out timelines for this is a pain. One of the reasons I HATE the X-Men. We are just going to say this is right after Apocalypse and Peter is around 25. I know I’m going to get hate for it because of time but oh well.

ALSO: I promise requests are getting written. I just had to clean the 12 chapters of my novel so I could send them to my editors. (I’m so close to being done with the first draft I can taste it)

All Masterlists @melyalizarchive

Connect with me! AO3 / Instagram / Pinterest

DONATE or REQUEST

-------------------------------

He was never sure what had drawn him to her. It was like this magnetic pull. No matter what he did he found himself back to her. Racing toward her, unable to go anywhere else.

Lighting striking the highest point.

Whoever said lightning never strikes the same place twice was wrong.

Lighting always struck whatever was closest. The highest point in the sky. So if that point was still the highest point it would still strike it.

And that was her, she was so high up he couldn’t see anyone else but her.

She was his angel in the clouds.

----

“Cyclops look out!” Jean screamed as she blocked the large bone spikes that were shot out at her boyfriend. Peter looked around the room assessing the problem. It was 6 of them against 4 of the bad guys.

And they were kind of getting their asses handed to them.

Only kind of though.

Cyclops and Jean were fighting that weird bone shooty guy while Nightcrawler was dodging the mini earthquakes from the other guy while Peter was racing around the blonde chick shooting weird little light bombs at him while Jubilee tried to combat the bursts with her own pyrotechnics.

While Storm, Strom was fighting a chick with hair that was almost as white as hers.

A gust of wind and the chick crashed into a bus.

But instead of seeming to get hurt the shock from the force between the chick and the bus seemed to get absorbed. Dropping down the chick shook her head eyes glowing bright blue sparks with energy.

No one else noticed it, probably because of his speed, but the girl's hands started to flicker with some weird blue light her eyes matching.

Slowly she stood and as Ororo sent another wave of wind the girl raised her hand the wind dying down and her hands glowing visibility now.

Dashing toward his teammate Peter quickly moved the weather goddess away as the girl let out a blast of pure energy. He glanced back at the chick, her face completely stoic no expression, completely blank.

It was kind of creepy.

Once Strom was away from the blast Peter raced toward the girl. It was time to end this.

Grabbing her from behind he pulled her hands behind her back against his chest trying to decide what his next move should be.

“Time to chill out,” he said.

Slowly she turned to look at him, her eyes glowing with energy, “We do not take orders from you.” she said before leaning back so her fingertips touched his wrist.

And suddenly Peter felt… exhausted.

It was as if someone was sucking the life out of him. Or his energy. Or his speed.

The world seemed to slow, drain.

He pulled away from her clutching his wrist eyes focusing on her face. Shock, as he realized the world around him, seemed to speed up, meet him.

Her face looked blank, unmoving in that creepy child of the corn look. But her eyes, her eyes were alight with blue fire. Hair bright as she let the blue energy flow through her body. Rising her hands like a prayer she closed her eyes then spread her arms out letting a wave of energy flow sending everyone flying.

In the dust of it, they were gone.

Peter blinked looking around.

What had just happened?

-------------

“Late at night, all systems go, you've come to see the show

We do our best, you're the rest, you make it real, you know”

Metallica pulsed through Gemma’s headphones from her walkman as she moved from the bus stop of her job at the post office.

“Adrenaline starts to flow

You're thrashing all around

Acting like a maniac

Whiplash”

Her hand tapped against the door letting the residual reaction flow through her hand. Small sparks of energy pulsing through her veins. Who needs coffee when they have an amazing song?

“Morning!” Her coworker Sandra said waving to her from behind the table where she was organizing letters. Gemma waved back adding a little skip in her step as she made her way back to the packages department.

Gemma liked the post office. It offered some sort of repetition, moving boxes around getting them where they needed to go. It was a lot of mental work but it was consistent and she liked that. They also didn’t mind if she played music while she did it which was a plus.

And when she was done she was done. And she could go home and be home.

And rest.

Gemma had always had problems sleeping. When her mutant abilities had emerged she had just assumed it had something to do with that. Her ability to absorb energy. It was as if every little thing charged her up and sent her into a spiral of energy that she couldn’t quite calm down from. It had taken years worth of therapy and mediation to get it under control.

So when the restlessness had come back she wasn’t really sure why.

It was as if even when she slept she felt even worse the next morning. No matter how early she went to bed or how long she slept in.

“Have a good night last night?” Gemma was broken from her internal whining about wanting a nap by her co-worker Paul who nodded toward the large bruise on her lower arm. She glanced down at it. Yeah, it kind of looked like a handprint.

“Honestly, I don’t even know where I got that.” Gemma laughed pulling at her sleeve trying to cover it and wishing she had worn longer sleeves.

“Man I need the drugs your on” he laughed as he handed her another box.

“Yeah Metallica is one hell of a drug”

“Oh have you checked out Twisted Sister yet?”

“Yeah, I loved it,”

“You should come over tonight, ya know, listen to it. I just got a new kickass stereo”

Gemma bit her lip nervously glancing at Paul. She knew what “hang out and listen to music” meant and… honestly, all she really wanted to do tonight was sleep. Like for real.

“Sorry I promised my parents I would… do this thing.”

“Oh that’s right christen girl.” Paul laughed shaking his head, “Well if you ever want to see how us pagans live let me know.”

“I’ll keep it in mind thanks.”

After several more long hours even her powers couldn’t help her charge enough. Gemma felt like she was going to pass out on the shipping floor. The end of the day couldn’t come soon enough.

Slowly she dragged herself back to the bus stop before putting in her headphones and resting as the bus drove her home.

-------------

No matter how fast he ran Peter could not get that feeling out of his head.

His literal speed being drained from his body.

It was back now, the energy within him quickly recharging after they had regrouped at a team but he still felt like he needed to run out that bad taste that was in his mouth.

That feeling. Like slowly getting tired. As if something was draining you. Sucking the very lifeforce out of your body.

He hated it.

Shaking his head he was about to do another lap around the coast when it caught his eye.

She caught his eye.

Maybe it was because he was thinking about last night but… there was no way.

Yet he could have sworn…

No, it wasn’t possible.

Doubling back he ran toward the bus again.

There was no way.

------

The bus stopped to let more people on. Gemma ignored them as she pulled her bag onto her lap to give a newcomer a seat. Settling back in she adjusted her headset as her eyes flickered up for a moment to see a silver-haired boy walking purposefully up to her.

Shit

Please leave me alone. I'm tired.

“It’s you”

Silence stretched between them both. “Oh sorry” she finally said, “I thought there was more to that pickup line.”

Peter felt himself confused, “No I… you know” he sat down next to her making sure he kept enough of a distance from her that he could get away quickly, especially her hands, “The one from the energy plant. Look if you come quietly…”

Was this guy insane? Possibly, I mean this was public transportation.

“Trust me, I’m not...”

“Wait are you listening to Pink Floyd?” he asked quickly pulling off her headphones putting one side to his ear.

“Ohhhh ok.” So this guy was insane, fun. “It’s ok never really been that big of a fan.”

“What?” his large brown eyes looked at you in pure shock as if you had just told him the world was flat and that stars are just fireflies stuck in the sky. You shrugged.

“I’m just more of a Metal fan”

“Like what?”

“Like this” you pulled out the tape and placed Iron Maiden in pressing play as Trooper blasted through the speakers. Gently she put the headphones on his head.

He nodded as the music blasted through the speakers. The energy around it is loud and addicting. He was familiar with the band and while his tastes leaned more for contemporary and experimental rock.

So here’s the thing about talking to strangers on a bus. Don’t do it, especially if they think you are someone you are not.

But there is also the other thing.

Gemma could basically blast this guys head off if she wanted. Maybe not at this moment considering that she felt like she was about to fall asleep at any moment, but if she really needed to he could drain his energy and get away no problem.

So why not talk about music with someone on a long bus ride home.

Also, she had other headphones so if he had some weird ear fungus whatever.

Call it loneliness. Call it boredom. Call it sleep-deprived.

Call it whatever you want but today she decided to just hang with a crazy stranger and listen to music.

So they sat a half a foot apart the headphones stretched between them as she showed him different songs she liked.

“This is me” she finally said a few songs later. Peter blinked in confusion at her comment. Turning to her as the song paused. The girl nodded toward the stop that their bus was slowing down toward. “So yeah…” unplugging the headphones leaving them on his hand she got up grabbing her bag before moving around him to get out. “See ya never”

Peter sat in shock for a moment, what had just happened? How had the time flown by so fast? Normally it was him flying through as the world stood and waited. Blinking a few times he realized the girl was already walking off the bus.

“Hey!”

She paused turning looking over her shoulder at the weird man sitting there with her headphones still in his hand looking at her as if he hadn’t quite caught up with what was going on. It’s ok not all of us are quick on the uptake.

Her bright blue eyes sparkled with the evening sun outside the window and a private joke she was enjoying. That’s when he saw it. The way her fingers tapped the metal handrail in time with the music still echoing in her brain.

Blue sparks.

“I… What’s your name?”

“Gemma”

Two more steps and she was gone, the door closing behind her. Bus pulling away.

What the hell?

---------

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babayagatestblog · 4 years

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Ivory snuffbox showing the Abduction of Io, 1825. V&A Museum, London.

Over the last few weeks, during my lockdown drift, I’ve been browsing through a collection of pocket snuffboxes held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Snuffboxes were lavishly decorated containers used to store pulverized tobacco, a popular stimulant and panacea for the aches and pains of the European aristocracy during the colonial period. The boxes at the V&A – available to view in intricate detail online – are glitzy, ostentatious combinations of gold, silver, tortoise shell, fine wood, diamonds, and semi-precious stones. Many include tiny porcelain paintings of lovers or tales from antiquity. This one, made in London in 1825, features an elaborately carved ivory depicting the rape of Io, a priestess of the goddess Hera, seduced by Zeus in the form of a cloud. Another box from Germany in 1765, made of a lawn-green chrysoprase and diamonds laid over pink, orange, and yellow tinsel, slightly resembles a rose garden, or a really gaudy Claire’s compact.

Before the French revolution, the most sought-after architects, designers and craftsmen in Paris had workshops for the production of little boxes and trinkets. At the height of the craze for courtly elegance, these ‘toys’ could be found all over Europe and Russia, in pockets newly sewn into trousers and skirts. King Frederick of Prussia, a huge collector of little boxes, carried one around with him at all times. It was even said that his snuffbox stopped a bullet from killing him during the Seven Years War. Later, before he died, he had them all laid out in his room, surrounding him like reliquaries, or miniature tombs.

I don’t know what got me thinking about this object, but now it won’t leave me alone. It keeps coming into my mind, troubling me during moments I least expect it. Maybe it has something to do with the word. ‘Snuffbox’ conjures up all sorts of unsettling associations. ‘Snuff out,’ ‘snuff film,’ putting something in a box, a casket. In addition to keeping someone’s hands busy, offering snuff evolved into a secret social code of wordless gestures, the ‘Language of the Tabatière.’ I can’t help but imagine that these boxes were somehow a precursor to the iPhone, their role as addictive distraction well outliving the form.

Chrysoprase & diamond snuffbox owned by Frederick II, 1765. V&A Museum.

Although hugely popular in Europe, snuff was originally used by indigenous populations across Brazil and the West Indies. While traveling the New World as part of Columbus’ second voyage, a Franciscan monk came upon a priest in Haiti snorting pulverized tobacco. The still mysterious herb was then introduced to the Spanish court and promoted as a cure for headaches. Under the reign of Queen Anne, snuff was called the “final reason for the human nose,” while Catherine de Medici proclaimed it the “Herba Regina.” By the 17th century, England, Portugal, and Spain all had colonies in the Americas in order to satisfy a growing demand in Europe. Having exhausted the labor of native populations, roughly 10.5 million Africans were transported to work on tobacco, rice, and sugar plantations in South America and the Caribbean. (For comparison, only about 6% of people enslaved as part of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were shipped to North America). In retrospect, the winsome décor of the snuffbox seems to contradict, obscure, or deny this wider history of cultural robbery and enslavement.

“Jack and the Golden Snuffbox” is an English fairy tale recorded by folklorist Joseph Jacobs in an 1890 anthology of English children's stories. In the story, Jack, a young boy, decides to leave his provincial home in order to explore the world and discover a new life for himself. To help him along his journey, his father gives him a magical snuffbox. After wandering for some time, Jack is taken in by a maid and her father. Jack falls in love with the maid, but her father won’t let him marry unless the boy satisfies an impossible demand. “At eight o’clock in the morning,” he says, “I must have a great lake and some of the largest man-of-war vessels sailing before my mansions, and one of the largest vessels must fire a royal salute, and the last round must break the leg of the bed before where my young daughter is sleeping. And if you don’t do that, you will have to forfeit your life.” Without any recourse, Jack decides to open up the golden snuffbox. Out come three little red men, who build him a large, supernaturally endowed war vessel floating on a lake.

Rococo engraving by Jean Mondon, 1740.

I’m no authority on folklore, and this is just the beginning of the tale. But the imagery is striking. It isn’t surprising that the snuffbox would be considered an enchanted object. The powder, originating from the Haitian ritual, was thought to have mysterious healing properties. The box could also be considered a protection from death, as the legend of King Frederick shows. But what about the psychological drama behind Jack and his future father-in-law? I’m reminded of a passage from Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, in which she investigates the allure of the New World as an opening for Englishmen looking to escape the “powerlessness felt before the gates of class, caste, and cunning persecution.” One could move from “discipline and punishment to disciplining and punishing; from social ostracism to social rank.” We are told that the pressures Jack faces are inordinately difficult, blown out of realistic proportion. Essentially a penniless boy, he builds himself a war vessel, clears a piece of land, travels the world, but only through the help of the red men, imagined to be otherworldly, mute, exploitable.

When I started investigating the snuffbox, an object I came across more or less at random, I did not expect to discover such a layered history. It’s colonial background, magical suggestion, and excessive decoration are rooted in a historical time and place, but it isn’t disconnected from the here and now. “Sometimes first impressions gather up some of the residue of centuries,” says John Berger. Maybe it isn’t so strange I would have thought about this object when white Europe and America are again realizing how far off the mark they are in attempting to right the wrongs of the colonial past. This highly crafted, dazzling, revealing little object makes me consider the difference between a beauty that seeks to conceal or compensate for brutality, versus the kind of beauty in art that challenges violence, rejects it, and ultimately enables us to see more clearly our own tendencies for both violence and compassion. These are questions I am thinking about in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, when the virality surrounding his death – as well as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain – has been such a prominent part of current visual culture.

Death has never had a mimetic afterlife quite like this. It is there in our hand-held devices, flattened to fit into a stream of other images. Names of people who have lost lives to police brutality have occasionally been aestheticized with the help of colorful graphics for wider sharing. Are there conflicting desires behind these pictures – to both reveal and obscure? Many writers have recently challenged us to think harder about sharing on social media, including Allissa V. Richardson in her new book, Bearing Witness While Black. In her brilliant film essay and lecture, “The Black Meme,” Legacy Russell points out that there has been a certain amount of ‘gamifying’ in attempts to fit Breonna Taylor’s name into clever tweets, grocery lists, and crossword puzzles. We do not yet have the ability to look back and see what the real-life outcome of widespread sharing on social media will be. But I wondered, when scrolling through the images of the boxes on the V&A’s website, whether it wasn’t possible for people to give more consideration to what it was they are holding in their hands, and the meanings behind their own rituals of sharing. Do trends on social media somehow anesthetize us to the pain of the story? Are they themselves a form of distraction? Could I be involved in more pro-active forms of justice, and working on a more transformative form of art? The past filters into the present in ways we least expect it. It is there to help, if only we can tune in and listen.

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adelineadkin · 4 years

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Examining the Future of Policing in Edmonton: Reflections on Reform & Accountability – Part II

By: Asad Kiyani

PDF Version: Examining the Future of Policing in Edmonton: Reflections on Reform & Accountability – Part II

This is Part Two of a series detailing my comments made to Edmonton City Council in the context of a motion to thoroughly examine policing (available here). In Part One, I focused on the need for collection of data about policing, pointing out that this information can be of use not only to citizens who are wary of police, but to police forces looking to build positive relationships with local communities and to improve their service, as well as to City Council as it tries to understand how its massive investment of hundreds of millions of dollars into policing is spent.

In this post, I offer some brief thoughts on independent oversight of police. This review is not intended to be comprehensive. I then consider why Edmonton needs to think about police reform even though George Floyd was killed by American police in Minnesota, and some reflections on questions I was asked by members of Council after my presentation about the broader themes of policing, poverty, and community relationships.

Independent Oversight of Police

In addition to data collection, another key element of policing going forward is changing the way in which police misconduct is treated. In Ontario, a recently completed review of police oversight mechanisms offers valuable insights. In short, the theme is greater strengthening and independence of police oversight bodies. According to Justice Michael Tulloch of the Ontario Court of Appeal, this means, in part:

constituting police oversight mechanisms as independent bodies, and under legislation separate from that which establishes the police;

less reliance on former police investigators in criminal investigations of police officers;

no reliance on police forces to conduct investigations of their own members;

granting oversight agencies the ability to investigate all offences apparently committed by police;

placing an obligation on police officers to cooperate with these investigative bodies;

levying sanctions on police officers who fail to cooperate;

independent decision-making about the laying of criminal and disciplinary charges (i.e. decisions not by the police force itself);

the appointment of independent prosecutors and independent adjudicators in police discipline cases (criminal cases will be dealt with by the criminal justice system); and

ensuring oversight of these mechanisms by an Ombudsperson.

All of these recommendations are of relevance to policing in Edmonton and indeed Alberta. As an example, concerns can be raised about the role of police chiefs in acting as screening mechanisms for many forms of complaints against police officers, and their ability to act as the chairs of hearings into complaints they have already assessed (see Part 6 of the Police Act, RSA 2000, c P-17). From the point of view of the officers implicated, this can raise due process concerns and workplace power imbalances. From the point of view of the public, this raises concerns about apparent bias, favoritism or special treatment.

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) is charged with investigating the more serious allegations raised against police officers in Alberta. While it is formally independent of police forces, its powers are derived from the Police Act rather than independent legislation that governs it specifically. Under the Act, ASIRT can investigate further incidents it uncovers during the course of an investigation, but the Police Act permits the Minister to appoint other investigators who lack that authority. Moreover, ASIRT relies heavily on current police officers seconded from their forces to act as investigators. This again raises questions of public perception on impartiality. It is important to note that even police officers recognize this risk (at 411), and may not want to investigate other officers partly to reduce public skepticism.

Empowering police oversight bodies is one aspect of enhancing accountability. Transparency in police oversight of the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) can also be improved. ASIRT, for example, should release the full investigative report into an incident at the conclusion of an investigation. As well, ASIRT should collect demographic data about complainants/victims of police misconduct. While the Executive Director stated she sees no value in collecting such information, my previous post outlines the clear benefits. In the oversight context, this information can also help identify if certain demographics are not turning to police oversight mechanisms, allowing those bodies to reassess their outreach, effectiveness, and public perception of their work and accessibility. Perhaps most obviously, it can help identify trends in whether police are not just overpolicing certain communities, but disproportionately inflicting serious harm or killing them. To deny the relevance of this information, particularly in the current climate, is frankly unfathomable.

Modifying ASIRT and its governing legislation is of course outside the mandate of Edmonton City Council, but to the extent ASIRT oversees EPS officers, City Council should offer its advice to the Minister of Justice on ASIRT reform.

Finally, it should be noted that much of the debate is currently about legal control of policing and the appropriate legal mechanisms for ensuring proper police conduct. As Kent Roach notes, the emphasis on legal control can be seen as a substitute for effective democratic control of policing by different levels of government – including municipalities and police commissions. The risks include heightening the adversarial relationship between police, oversight bodies and the public, and, as noted in the review into the extensive allegations of police misconduct during the 2012 G-20 Summit in Toronto, conceding police oversight and governance to the police force itself. It is thus essential that the city and police commission assume their democratic obligations and exercise their legitimate governance powers over EPS.

Many more recommendations can be found in Justice Tulloch’s report, as well as reviews of police oversight agencies in Ontario by the then-provincial Ombudsman André Marin: Oversight Unseen: Investigation into the Special Investigations Unit’s operational effectiveness and credibility (September 2008), and Oversight Undermined: Investigation into the Ministry of the Attorney General’s implementation of recommendations concerning reform of the Special Investigations Unit (December 2011). All of these reports point to the need for greater independence, transparency, and disciplinary power, or ‘teeth’, for police oversight mechanisms.

The Edmonton Context

Some will say that those advocating for police reform are wrongly conflating American police violence with Canadian and Edmonton-based policing. While we should be wary of simplistically transposing from one context to another, the reality is that public mistrust of policing in Canada and Edmonton predates the killing of George Floyd. That killing has catalyzed a movement that, to my understanding, has long been active in Edmonton, just as it has in most major Canadian cities. I note in particular that the Black Lives Matter group in Edmonton began collecting and publishing data about police checks several years ago.

Three anecdotes illustrate continuing concerns about police use of force and bias in Edmonton.

In June 2019, Kyle Parkhurst, a Caucasian man with addiction issues, was arrested by members of the EPS. According to a news report:

[W]itness cellphone videos posted on social media showed an officer repeatedly kicking a prone Parkhurst, slamming him head first into a brick wall, then shoving him against a cruiser while he was handcuffed.

But security video — never before made public — shows an officer struck Parkhurst in the head with either a handgun or a Taser, and another officer delivered an elbow smash to the handcuffed prisoner’s head.

…

Both [Mount Royal University criminologist Kelly] Sundberg and [criminal defence lawyer Amanda] Hart-Dowhun independently noticed an officer, who appeared to be a sergeant, turn and walk away from the scene of the arrest as officers began to strike Parkhurst.

In August 2019, a homeless Indigenous man named Elliot McLeod was arrested by EPS members. A news report describes the video of his arrest as follows: “In the video from August 2019, Elliot McLeod is lying still, face down, and it appears his arms are being held behind his back by an officer who is kneeling beside him. A second officer approaches and suddenly drops, driving his knee into the man’s upper back.”

In July 2018, Jean-Claude Rukundo’s wife was in a traffic accident and asked him to come. While on the phone with their insurance company, Rukundo was arrested by EPS. An EPS officer knelt on Rukundo’s neck for 40 seconds, and Rukundo was charged with resisting arrest and obstructing justice. A news report noted the following: “I couldn’t even breathe”, Rukundo told CBC News on Wednesday. “That day, I feared for my life. I was worried for my kids. I’m the only one bringing in the money for them.” Charges against Rukundo – who is Black – were dropped in February 2019.

These incidents, over time, against men of differing backgrounds, show why there is generalized concern about policing in Edmonton, as well as specifically from communities of colour. The Rukundo situation in particular draws uncomfortable parallels to today’s newspaper headlines: a Black man, engaged in a perfectly innocent activity, found himself with two officers on him and one man’s knee pressed into his neck for an extended period of time. That should give every Edmontonian pause, and point to the need for each of the specific recommendations made above, and the overall need to enhance accountability for policing in Edmonton.

Addendum: Responses to Questions

After all presenters had given their initial remarks, members of City Council posed questions. As noted above, this Addendum was not the basis for my presentation to Council. These questions were largely about the broader context of policing and the defunding debate.

The Bias of Professional Alternatives to Police

One of the first points I made was to clarify that to the extent the motion for defunding is based on the principle of the reallocation of resources from policing to investment in a variety of other social programs, Council should recognize the potential for bias that manifests in other aspects of public life.

Many in favour of defunding and/or abolition of the police point to Alex Vitale’s book The End of Policing as essential reading (available for free download now). Part of his argument is that police are tasked with doing too many things that police ought not to be doing. Comments given at City Council’s police meeting suggest that police officers and City Council members agree on that basic point. I agree with police officers on this point, and when they note that systemic racism is a societal problem (although perhaps police forces should be more open to recognizing it within the police service itself). One of Vitale’s recommendations is that a good deal of policing work should instead be done by different state agencies and professionals.

This sounds like a reasonable proposition: if you send people armed with guns and trained to identify and respond to threats to a mental health emergency, the likelihood of escalation to violence seems to increase. Yet as noted here (in a critical review co-authored by Meenakshi Mannoe and my former student Vyas Saran and endorsed by Vitale), bias has the potential to (and frequently does) manifest in a variety of state agencies. We should think carefully about racial and other disparities that manifest when child welfare agents decide whether to remove children from their families; when school officials mete out discipline, stream students into different academic programs, or assess students’ aptitude; and when medical or mental health professionals encounter their patients. Oversight of these interactions is also necessary; unarmed professionals can be dangerous as well.

The Criminalization of Poverty

I was asked about the core functions of policing, including whether part of the problem is that poverty has essentially been criminalized in Canada. The starting point is that poverty has always been racialized in Canada. We see the presence of police in generating and then policing this nexus of racialization and criminalization. Tasks of police have included the historical and contemporary ‘pacification’ of Indigenous resistance (see here, here, here and here); prosecuting Indigenous persons for trespass or vagrancy when they violated the off-reserve pass system for Indigenous peoples (see here at page 35); and the issuance of slave passes. All of this entrenched criminalization of these communities has supported (and does support) their impoverishment. Broader societal discrimination has helped inscribe poverty onto racialized communities, which has present-day ramifications for who is policed. As well, as noted above, street check databases may be accessed when employers request police checks of potential employees. Names of individuals can be flagged even if no charges were laid or convictions entered, making it harder to obtain and keep employment. To the extent that police are further tasked with enforcing crimes of poverty or laws that disproportionately impact the poor (such as tickets issued for bylaw offences), then it can be said that policing includes enforcing the criminalization of poverty.

Rebuilding Trust and Acting with Humility

If the current moment calls for questions about what constitutes the core functions of policing, it would seem to be useful to ask the communities directly affected. I was asked specifically how police could rebuild trust in various communities. As I said to Council, it is not for me to speak for these communities. Rather, Council should approach those communities to find out what they need. Increasing accountability in the ways outlined above may be ways of repairing broken relationships.

On reflection, my further thoughts are that there were members of the public who presented to Council at the same time that I did, who were also members of communities of colour, and who worked with others communities (such as sexual assault complainants) who had been given reason to mistrust police. Their strong and principled explanations of why Council should defund and/or abolish EPS were evidence of the degree of mistrust that exists. These advocates, who were there in the meeting, presumably have much more to say on if and how trust can be rebuilt, and I urge Council to ask them directly. I regret not making this request in the public hearing.

If Council wants to maintain some form of policing, then it would be wise to approach those communities in the way that members of those communities are often taught to interact with police: with humility. This humility is conditioned by the knowledge of the stakes of the encounter. Many members of communities of colour recognize police encounters as existential threats and thus know the risks of overconfidence when interacting with police. Nothing can be taken for granted, including that police will respond with equanimity if you assert your right to leave or not answer questions when randomly stopped by police.

Council and EPS ought to similarly recognize that public support for the continuation of policing is not guaranteed. Humility ought to therefore be a guiding principle in attempting to repair trust and build public confidence. Humility in this context means three things. First, an openness to engage in dialogue, and in particular a dialogue that will often lead to criticism and sometimes condemnation of the police. Second, a willingness to prioritize the concerns of community members in determining community needs and in reshaping interactions with those communities. Third, an understanding that the wrongs inflicted upon these communities have made serious and lasting impacts, and that it may not be possible to repair that damage in the short-term (and perhaps long-term).

In other words, Council and EPS must be open to the possibility of having their interactions with particular communities fundamentally reshaped, and be willing to participate in that fundamental reshaping. If the approach is one of insisting on continuing or restoring “normalcy”, both Council and EPS must understand that for many members of communities of colour, “normalcy” means continual surveillance, regular harassment, and threats or acts of violence. That notion of normal is untenable to many, and it will likely lead to a continued insistence on significant, meaningful, community-led changes.

This post may be cited as: Asad Kiyani, “Examining the Future of Policing in Edmonton: Reflections on Reform & Accountability – Part II” (June 19, 2020), online: ABlawg, http://ablawg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Blog_AK_EdmontonPolicePart2.pdf

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flaggerx · 4 years

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The Not-So-Great Society

Hey my Fellow White People. Have you seen the TV lately, the huge crowds around the White House, the site of Congressmen maced for no reason, reporters arrested for no reason, old men shoved to the ground and abandoned with skull fractures. Noticed that the demonstrations are taking place in almost every towns and in fact, have touched off demonstrations in Europe, in part because racism is not an exclusive to Americans.

But racism is real. No denying that now that we saw George Floyd murdered on that street by cops who saw him die and just didn't care. Or about EMT Brianna Taylor, shot to death in her own bed by cops making a no-knock arrest. We've been watching this movie since we watched Rodney King take a major beat-down in 1992. That's almost thirty years ago, with story after story of some unarmed black guy killed by the police. He ever heard of Amadur Diallo sodomized with broomstick in a New York City police station. Black men been killed for selling cigarettes. They've been shot for reaching for their wallet. Really, they've been shot for being black.

That's right, shot for being black. I mean, have you ever had to tell your kids what to do if they are pulled over or searched by the police? Have you ever had to have that 'talk'. We teach our kids that if they need help to Call the police. We trust they'll treat us fairly. And usually they do. Black parents can't do that.

That, my friends, is white privilege. We don't get pulled over for driving a nice car because someone who looks like us is supposed to drive a nice car. But if your LeVar Burton from Star Trek you get used to getting pulled over for driving a Bimmer then asked for your autograph when the cop turns out to be Trek fan. You have to learn to laugh it off. And you have to give your kids the talk.

Racism is real. If we've learned anything over the past few weeks we ought to have learned that our dreams of a “post-racial America” were as big a fantasy as anything Tolkien ever wrote. We are not a post-racial society, we are racist society. And that means you and me.

Yes, I know. You (hopefully) never joined the Ku Klux Klan or burned a cross. You don't hate black people. You hope they do well, really. But that's up to them. And that's where your thinking stops. But you may not actually know any, and you may never have listened to any. You may know a couple, but have you ever invited them over. Have you ever talked about race?

Because it's real. I mean, there are people who can pass as something else, but for the most part it's more obvious than gender. And most of us have some sot of prejudice. Maybe all of us, which means that being racist doesn't mean you're evil. (unless you are a cross burner). It means your human, full of foibles and weaknesses like the rest of us. And we can work on our weaknesses, but as any shrink'll tell you first, you must acknowledge they exist

And here's another thing, we have the policing we want! That's right, we wanted this. Oh, maybe we didn't want to watch George Floyd unable to breathe, but for the paste forty years our political system has been calling for exactly the kind of cops that killed him. We declared “war on crime” and “war on drugs” and we wanted aggressive warrior police, whose idea of a good day at work is to rack up a bunch of arrests, write more tickets and be a go getter who will get the bad guys. Really, America has been hoping for T.J. Hooker.

The intellectual backing for all of this what Criminologists call Deterrence Theory. The idea is that crimes have a certain benefit, therefore punishment must be stern enough to keep people from committing them. It fits well with the fundamental idea that only the Fear of God keeps people moral. Deterrence Theory has some advantages, it's simple, easily understood and makes intuitive sense. It really does a good job of explaining why honest people stay honest. The reason I don't drive ninety five-- deterrence theory. It works really well for people who have something to lose, which is most of us. I have a house, a good job, a cat, I mean why in the world would I want to put that at risk? I'm not twenty-two and feeling any need to impress any hot chicks, so deterrence theory works pretty well for me, and probably for you. But the problem with deterrence theory is if a little of it is good, more is not necessarily better.

And that's the theory that has dominated American political thinking for the past forty years. We wanted a “war on crime”. We wanted politicians who were “tough on crime”. Judicial races at the state and local level well all about 'toughness” and having a judge with “the strength to apply the death penalty”. Try being a politician who argues that maybe we should try another way and they are and were, labled “weak on crime” and very often lost the next election. And that's the idea behind laws with a mandatory minimum sentence. That's the idea behind “three strikes and your out” laws. The old maxim “don't do the crime if you can't afford to do the time” was all over the place, with the idea that if only we made the laws tough enough criminals would choose to go straight.

Problem is that really didn't work, because if a little deterrence is good more really doesn't make a bit of difference. It just locks people up for a lot longer. The reasons for this are complex, but let me list a few. First of all, crime isn't exactly characterized by a lot of thought. Many crimes, those we deem “crimes of passion” are characterized by no thinking at all. Yet Deterrence theory would have you think that criminals performed some sort of mental calculus of the expected profit of the crime divided by the probability of being caught times the sentence multiplier. Criminals are rarely mathematicians. And when you think about it the difference between a four and a twenty year sentence is sort of abstract. Yes we can all say the sentence is five times longer. But does it really look that way in an act of criminal calculus? One year is a really long time. And no matter what you're likely beaten up and/or raped along the way. Prison is a thing to be avoided, so if you get that you probably won't commit crimes.

Unless you're Ted Bundy or Roger Stone and think you can get away with anything.

And the thing is when you're a criminal sometimes the term “sentence” is the LAST thing on a criminal's mind even when the sentence might include “death”. Any objective reading of the statistics between death penalty and non-death penalty states is that death deters no one at all. People are just as likely to murder when they can be killed for it and that was true before finding a humane way to off someone became very difficult to do. The Utah State Rifleers who executed Gay Gilmore didn't deter him. He did what he did because he had to do it.

Like drug addicts. Any medical professional will tell you that addiction is a chronic long-term condition not a sign of weak character. Take a heroin addict, and I've known a couple. They're nice most of the time until dope sick begins and then they will rob and steal because the only thing that matters in the whole wide world is not being dope sick any more. Addicts prostitute themselves, rob and steal, and deal in order to support their habit. They don't do it because they're bad people, they do it because they're addicts.

And that leads us to the second part of the traditional American approach to crime. There are Good People, who obey the Law, and Bad People who Don't.

The problem with this is it isn't effing true. True there are people who would leave a $100 bill lying on a sidewalk because it isn't theres. Not many, but they exist. As do sociopaths for whom the only thing that actually matters is their own personal gratification. But the rest of us are Somewhere in the Middle, and you know what makes the difference? How much money you have.

Yeah, it's true. Why steal if your wallet's full of money? Oh a few people do it for thrill-seeking, but again people with money don't steal. They spend. It's when you don't have money to spend that that $100 bill slips to picking any coins you find. And a lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. For a lot of Americans the car breaking down is a disaster, while for some it is an inconvenience. And they're usually the people driving the cars most likely to break down.

Employee theft is the biggest single problem in retail, for the simple reason that retail pays like crap. Many are near minimum wage workers who may have to hold multiple jobs to pay their bills. So think about working sixty or seventy hours a week and every time you put a little bit of money ahead you need glasses or the car breaks down, or if you have kids, they need something, and you can't really supervise them because you're working seventy hours a week and can't afford good day care.

That's how almost half of America lives. Don't think so? Read Barbara Eherenreich's Nickle and Dimed. Learn how the Lunch Counter Lady struggles to get by every single day of her life. Now look at her seventeen year old kid, who has had hand-me-down clothing most of his life except for a couple items, (say sneakers), who is a bit angry and has never met anyone but authority figures with a real stake in society.

Now lets make him that kid black. If we have learned one thing from the heavy black body count is that black people scare white Americans. If a politician wants to scare you on crime, he will always put up a picture of a mean looking black male. Always, like Ronald Reagan did with Willie Horton. Learn your campaign history, in American politics nobody is scarier than a black man.

We have learned that you can get pulled over for Driving While Black. Brianna Taylor was killed for Sleeping While Black. Or you can die for Jogging while Black as we have seen. Or get threatened for Birding while Black. Note I haven't had to go very far back for examples of all this. And the truth is Law Enforcement treats Black kids differently than they do white kids. White kids don't get racially profiled.

And how would you feel if some cop pulled you over for no reason whatsoever, just to question you and to remind you that he has Power and you do not. Please don't tell me you won't bitch about. Now make it the fourth time and you have a young man who is just plain sick of it. Can you see the problems there?

Cops think that black people are more likely to commit crimes. Of course poor people are more likely to commit crimes and that's because they're poor. A rich white kid is likely to get off because his parents can afford good legal representation that the poor black kid can't and because they'll assume it's youthful folly, which all of us have engaged in to one extent or another. But if it's a black kid the very same cop is likely to assume that this is the beginning of a long career and he had better come down hard now so the kid knows he's in for a world of hurt.

And now our somewhat pissed off poor black kid has a criminal record. Now he is a Bad Guy. And if it was serious, he has a felony and a whole lot of career paths were just cut off. Now he's likely to stay poor because he lost his temper in the face of what was real bullshit.

Or maybe, because he's poor and because when he looks around the only homeboys who have any money are dealers. Ever seen Boys in the Hood? Yeah, it's fiction, but sometimes fiction can tell the truth more clearly and faithfully than dry statistics. Who has the money? Not Mom and Dad because if they did you wouldn't be living in the Hood. It's the dealers, the bangers and they come around looking for you, trying to make sure if You're In, or mess you up If you're Not.

And that takes us to the next part of American Jurisprudence. The Drug Laws are racist. If you want to argue otherwise then please explain why the penalties for crack cocaine, which affects primarily colored neighborhoods are so much more severe than for powdered cocaine, the drug of choice for rich white folks like Robin Williams (Cocaine addiction is a sign you're making too much money). To be fair, I don't think they were intended that way by many of the people who voted for them, but at the end of the day if they act in a racist way the question is entirely academic. Cops bust everyone for drugs, but the street dealers can be white, but often are not, and they get long mandatory sentences that takes them out of circulation for years. Which is perfect if you think they are Bad People, incapable of functioning in society.

I see them as functioning well, given where they started. Not every kid has professional parents like I did. Not every kid is born with a house full of books, ate a balanced diet for their entire life. Not every boy grows up surrounded by people who live in nice houses, eat steak regularly, have parents who always give them a straight answer or had a Mom who could be home for them when they were little. I always knew a kid could make it because my life is full of people who live good lives. Kids who grow up poor often don't have those role models, and maybe even don't have a Dad because Dad is in jail for dealing. And when the people who have money all operate outside the Law it makes sense to do that yourself.

So really, we as white Americans, the most privileged people on the face of the Earth, are screwing ti up for others. Black Americans didn't come her out of free will, like our ancestors did. They were taken here in chains by our ancestors, and so we are responsible for them being here. They are our fellow citizens with the same right to America's bounty and opportunity as anyone. But our theory of justice, our assumptions as a society have led to them being more likely to die for the color of our skin. And that is simply unacceptable. It violates every precept of the Declaration of Independence, every bit of what we say America stands for. We cannot paper this over or just tweak the system.

We need a different type of cop. We don't need to count busts or seek out men eager to jump into the “battlespace”. We need conciliators, listeners because we ask cops to be social workers far to often.

We need social workers and we need to value them, not look at the people who need them as being 'weak” or lazy. We are often contemptuous of those who are addicts or have other issues. Instead we need to see them as partners in creating a just society. We ask cops to do everything from write tickets to talk people out of jumping off buildings. They see is when we're bleeding from car accidents and console people whose children have been gunned down. They chase down and catch murderers. We need to stop idolizing the “hero cop” who charges into the building and honor more the guy who can calm the angry drunk. I'n not sure how to get from here to there, but where we are has failed. We need to realize that real economic opportunity must exist at the bottom for it to exist anywhere. We need to change at a fundamental level. We need to hold police accountable for their actions and we need police who will hold each other accountable. We cannot go on as we are. There are too many dead bodies, too many brown bodies locked away, to many struggling just to live for America to be a just society.

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dystopyx-blog · 15 days

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Oops! Another yandere floyd post 🤷‍♀️

Everyone knows about Floyd’s infamous mood swings. He's in the mood or he isn't. If he's in the mood to do something, he will, if he isn't, he won't. There’s no real rhyme or reason to em, and they can be extremely inconvenient.

But it’s not until Azul’s complaining about it to you that you realize… you don’t really experience any issues with it. He still has em, of course, but with you it’s different. Out of every time the two of you have hung out, not a single time has he left you out of sudden boredom. It’s not that he’s just so interested in every single activity you two do together, or that he didn’t experience any mood swings during them, because he has absolutely had instances of them while doing something with you. But even when he becomes didinterested in whatever you’re doing, he could never be disinterested in you. So whatever you wanna do, he’s happy to tag along. And no matter how bored he gets with the activity, he remains a good sport for you throughout the whole thing.

With some exceptions.

Y’see, Floyd doesn’t really like sharing his Shrimpy Time (trademark pending) with others. Not even his brother.

You ask Floyd if he wants to join you on a hike and he’s like ‘??? Why???’ He gets Jade’s thing with hiking: it’s an experience they can’t get back home, like basketball and other leg-related activities. But you??? Are from land??? Why would you care about hiking?????? But Floyd isn’t really in the mood to interrogate you, so he’s like, “uh, nah, not really.”

Then Jade shows his smarmy face.

“So just us, then?”

Uh, nuh uh. Ain’t NO WAY he’s gonna let you wander off to the middle of nowhere alone with Jade. And like that, he’s up, and he’s joining. Even if you hadn’t invited him, as soon as he realized you were going out with Jade he would have insisted on tagging along. And since he’s Floyd, you wouldn’t have been able to refuse him, cuz he’d just follow you anyway.

So that’s how you ended up on a hike with Jade and Floyd.

Floyd is boredly trailing behind you and Jade, who has all sorts of interesting facts for you. Floyd couldn’t give less of a fuck. But he’s a good sport, for the most part. Or, at least a decent sport.

The three of you stop at an old tree with mushrooms growing from it so Jade can tell you all about them.

During the actual walking part of the hike, even if Floyd wasn’t interested in whatever Jade had to say, he at least got some satisfaction watching you walk ahead of him. It was obvious that even when Jade purposely lessened his pace, you struggled to keep up with him. And that, at least, offered something. But now you’re just standing there, watching Jade drone on and on about who fucking cares and he swears he’s never been so bored in his life. His mind wanders, his gaze drifts, until he sees some pine cones and decides he wants to try juggling. You can’t really do that in the coral sea, gravity is funky underwater.

He calls your name excitedly, and you turn to see him holding a bunch of pine cones in his arms. Then he just kinda—throws them all into the air. Floyd looks at the pine ones, disappointed. “Juggling’s harder than I thought.” He says. You laugh and join him where he stands, now surrounded by pine cones.

From then on, Floyd is able to keep your attention on him instead of his brother. And to his surprise, he finds himself having fun! He even offers to join the two of you again—though Jade turns that idea down real quick by saying that to go anymore hikes, you have to join the Mountain Lovers Club.

And this is the pattern for basically any activity you try. You tried out Gargoyles Study Club, wanting to support your friend Hornton. But Floyd tagged along. Just like on the hike, he mostly just trailed along in the back. You’d tried to get him involved in conversation a few times, but he’d loudly announce his disinterest in gargoyles, so you stopped. When the three of you stopped in front of an actual gargoyles, you expected Floyd to, y’know, just stick to the back. You were certainly not expecting him to start climbing it. You managed to get him down before he nearly broke the structure’s horns off. You swear to god Malleus was about to strike him down with lightning.

The only times Floyd would be a good sport is if he happened to be in the mood, or if it was just the two of you. At the end of it all, Floyd asks you what club you’re interested in. You tell him you don’t know. “Aw, that’s okay.” He says with a big grin. “You don’t need a club, anyway. You got me!”

#yandere #yandere rambles #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #my floyd addiction strikes again #yandere floyd leech #twst floyd #floyd leech x reader #yandere Floyd leech x reader

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sgtxpreacher · 7 years

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write abt the music that reminds you of jake !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR THIS THREE-PART ANALYSIS

warning: it’s super long. i hope read mores work on mobile. if not, i am so sorry if you are reading this on mobile.

part i: i guess i should start with the things on my playlist (with the exception of green day, because green day gets a whole section)

i’m just gonna go song-by-song (well, artist-by-artist) on this and try to explain my reasoning for each song pretty succinctly (though again, i’m saving all the green day ones for the end.) so, starting from the beginning!

prelude/angry young man, no man’s land, and shades of grey – billy joel

i’ll be honest, i was debating whether or not to add “prelude/angry young man,” just because the musical vibes itself don’t quite fit fit jake – but the lyrics fit him so well that i had to include it. ( and he’s never been able to learn from mistakes / so he can’t understand why his heart always breaks ) while “no man’s land” doesn’t remind me of jake specifically, it seems relevant to the class issues, media monopolies, and media addictions that plague pete’s world and that jake feels particularly concerned with ( i see the children with their boredom and their vacant stares / … / thanks to the condo kings, there’s cable now in zombietown ). and “shades of grey,” for me, fits the ideological growth jake goes through over the course of the war and getting to know mickey, and that continues on as he gets older and deals with more morally gray situations in torchwood. while i typically write him still more radical and self-righteous than the speaker in the song, it fits one of his major character arcs: these days it’s harder to say / i know what i’m fighting for / my faith is falling away / i’m not that sure anymore.

anarchy in the UK – the sex pistols

honestly. classic british anarchist song. it’s gotta be included. though it pains my heart to remember that pete’s world has the people’s republic of great britain and isn’t a monarchy, so the sex pistols never released “god save the queen” (and if they did, it would have been vastly different.) so jake simmonds, who went through an anarchist phase in university and continues to be very into anarchist punk, has never heard “anarchy in the UK.” please hold him in your heart the next time you hear the sex pistols.

runnin’ riot – cock sparrer

violence? self-destructive behavior? anger at the rich? constant desire to start fights? what about this song doesn’t scream jake simmonds? (other than the fact that the band is from the south, of course. jake would hate to be mistaken for a southerner.)

viva la revolution – the adicts

celebrating revolutions? emphasizing freedom of thought? enough said

london’s burning and london calling – the clash

okay honestly half the reason i included “london calling” is just because it was the soundtrack for the scene in billy elliot where tony is chased + arrested by the police, and jake relates to tony just about as much as he relates to billy. but it does also seem like the kind of marching, rhythmic song that would fit scenes of marching cybermen ( london calling to the zombies of death / quit holding out and draw another breath. ) “london’s burning” just seems to fit jake’s general london aesthetic – watching people zone out to media while he sits around and bides his time.

random number generation – hedwig and the angry inch

i’m going to talk some more about hedwig later on, but “random number generation” in particular reminds me of jake and the cybermen, with the combination of punk rock and programming the human brain ( all of our feelings and thoughts / expressed in ones and in aughts )

sucker punch – jonathan coulton

this song makes me think a lot of jake and the preachers ( third location and a second-string team and one awful plan ). but honestly, the whole song is about getting into fights, breaking things to relieve stress, and fully embracing self-destructive behaviors ( i don’t wanna straighten up / i don’t wanna fly right / i just wanna drive around a while and / bust a couple things up with the bad kids / / and i feel better already, and i feel better already ). it’s jake in a nutshell.

sheep – pink floyd

i remember reading on tvtropes once that age of steel actually references pink floyd’s animals, which is the album this song comes from; there’s a shot of battersea power station in the episode that’s really similar to the album cover. “sheep” in particular fits the cybermen to a T. it produced the description for my blog until i changed it today. ( what do you get for pretending the danger’s not real? / meek and obedient, you follow the leader / down well-trodden corridors into the valley of steel. )

part ii: the musical soundtrack to jake’s life, because i’m theatre trash

billy elliot

so if you’ve spoken to me for 5 minutes about billy elliot, you’ve probably realized that a) i love billy elliot b) jake loves billy elliot. now, jake probably hasn’t seen the musical (though i can imagine, if pete tyler bought a bunch of tickets as part of a “look at me i’m cultured” thing, jake wouldn’t mind going along just to see what it was like.) but there are a couple of songs that just really remind me of jake – “solidarity,” given that half of it is literally striking miners clashing with the police; “he could be a star” makes jake a little embarrassedly emotional whenever i listened to it, just because of how much he relates to tony and how strongly he believes in communities coming together.

hedwig and the angry inch

hedwig is the one musical that i feel that jake would actually really like (that and american idiot, maybe, bc green day.) but a couple of songs in particular remind me a lot of him. jake is sort of unreasonably attached to the idea of soulmates, though he would never say as much, and he finds most portrayals of the soulmates concept cheesy. but he does think that sometimes, two people click in a way where it’s clear that some kind of fate brought them together, and it’s not just that they bring out the best in each other – they bring out the essence of each other, for good or bad. (cough no i’m not talking about mickey cough.) so “the origin of love” gets him pretty emotional; i’ve been toying around with the headcanon that jake’s got a sun tattooed on his wrist, in reference for aristophanes’ children of the sun.

but!! the song that i really associate with jake, the one that basically sums up my eventual goals for his future happiness, is the reprise of “wicked little town” (+ “midnight radio,” since they more or less go together.) coming to terms with being left by the person you consider (openly or not) your other half, and with the idea that “there’s no mystical design / no cosmic lover preassigned.” in “midnight radio,” coming to terms with being whole on your own, not needing someone else to convince you of it.

part iii: did you know i never used to be into green day until college?? who would have thought, looking at me now

okay, so if you’ve spoken to me for five minutes or looked at my blog playlist for five seconds, you’ve probably also realized that i really strongly associate jake with green day. now, originally i associated him most with american idiot, in part because it was the only green day album i knew for a long time – and let’s be real, one nation controlled by the media is like.... literally pete’s world. the songs from american idiot i still associate with jake are “st. jimmy” because of – like many of the songs on the list! – the self-destructive behavior (and hence why i took the URL for my second blog from the line i’m the resident leader of the lost and found,) and a section of “homecoming” (mostly because of how it’s staged in the musical, with the one major character who’s been left out of all the action sitting on his couch, getting drunk, and snarling at himself nobody likes you / everyone’s left you / they’re all out without you / having fun.) oh, and “give me novocaine” – escapism and addiction, what what.

the second green day album i associate with jake is revolution radio. i mean, with so many songs about sticking it to the Man, is it much of a surprise? the title song is apropos for the preachers: compare a group named because they preach “the gospel truth” to give me ... the headline ‘legalize the truth’. if i had any kind of animation skills or the dedication to follow through with an animation project, i’ve had a vague idea for an animation set to “say goodbye” ft. traveling the world, fighting cybermen, and mourning the preachers. say goodbye to the ones you love cuts to a photo of ricky, and mickey saying goodbye to rita-anne; violence on the rise / like a bullet in the skies has the boys trying not to be, y’know, killed by cybermen or anything.

but again, there’s one song in particular that makes me think of jake, and that’s “bang bang!” i saw an interview with andrew hayden-smith once for a behind-the-scenes doctor who thing, and he said something along the lines of jake joining the preachers and getting so into fighting lumic because he thinks it’s a bit of a laugh. now, i don’t totally agree with this – jake seemed pretty into the idea of executing pete tyler for working with lumic, and killing the guards who were guarding the zeppelin, and i think there’s some motivation for that other than just “lol murder is fun” – but jake does definitely enjoy the fighting, the conflict, more than he should. he grew up idolizing fighters, idolizing soldiers, idolizing people who use violent means for political ends. ( i wanna be a celebrity martyr / ... / i wanna be like the soldiers on the screen ) jake would make himself a martyr for the sake of the preachers’ cause; as much as he grieves ricky and mrs. moore’s deaths, he admires how they died. it’s how he wants to die: fighting, making a statement, going out in a blaze of glory. ( literally, in ricky’s case. haha. i’m terrible. )

finally, there’s one album that as a whole makes me think of jake, and that’s 21st century breakdown. its aesthetic, the styles of music, the themes intertwined throughout the album – media control (”the static age,”) religion & doubt (”east jesus nowhere,”) war and patriotism (”peacemaker,” “21 guns,”) abandonment and self-loathing (”restless heart syndrome”) – all resonate strongly with jake. (also, the kind of wistful loyalty in “last night on earth” makes it very much the kind of love song jake would listen to while lying face-first on his bed and having Feelings about the person he’s in love with. just sayin’.)

finally, “know your enemy” is such a jake song. he’d play it to motivate people before going up against cybermen. he’d play it to pump himself up before a fight. he’d listen to it during training. he’d play it while getting ready in the morning and headbang so hard he accidentally headbutts the sink. that punk rock marching anthem, that call to violence, the stamp-your-boots-on-the-floor rhythm – they all work together to make me instantly think of jake whenever this song comes on.

IN SUMMARY:

hell yeah punk rock!! revolution!! self-destruction!! (don’t follow jake’s example kids!!) if you’ve read all the way to the end, i admire your dedication. i don’t know how interesting it is or how much sense it makes, since i’ve also been half-watching death note while writing most of this, but i really enjoyed writing it. jake is a punk mess. i love him.

#fromshore #; headcanons #; mun things #THIS BECAME REALLY LONG I APOLOGIZE #i hope at least some of this is interesting lol

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doomedandstoned · 8 years

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Doomed Discoveries: An Interview with Italian Doomers HAUNTED

~By Mari Knox Knox~

(Doomed & Stoned Italy)

We've been wanting to get to know Italian doomers HAUNTED since they emerged from relative obscurity to release an excellent eponymous debut on Twin Earth Records last fall. Today, we present Mari's interview with the members of Haunted (Mari put together our recent compilation 'Italy Strikes Back!' available here). Coming from various bands and varying backgrounds, and drawing upon a rich heritage of epic Italian doom, Haunted demonstrate a passion for downtuned dirges and the esoteric world of magick. (Billy)

Haunted are a newly formed band. Would you tell us how you met and how the project was born? Introduce yourself to the Doomed & Stoned readers, if you will.

Cristina Chimirri: We only joined a year ago, but were always interconnected before then. A fortuitous series of meetings, a flame and a flare sparked in Frank and Bauso, then spread to me and Orlando. We are all made of that self-same fire. We have found ourselves all wired in a tight knot -- a knot made of heavy sounds and low frequencies, of underwater worlds and psychedelic spirals.

Francesco Bauso: I knew just Frank at the time, as we played together with our previous band Pestem. Ever since we first met we both nourished a passion for a certain kind of sound, both past and present. It wasn’t too hard to see immediately what stylistic direction to take. We wanted a slow and heavy sound and so we contacted Valerio for the drums, already addicted to this kind of sound with his sludge band Torpore. What we wanted strongly from the beginning was a singer in a position to know how to give that magic touch and guide our heavier “sound carpet.” Then Cristina came out of nowhere. She wasn’t overshadowed by the intention of having another guitar, and consequently a fuller sound and dynamic. After some auditions, we found ourselves with Francesco Orlando, an old friend and companion of Frank in their previous grunge band, Hog Truck.. Thus was born Haunted.

Haunted by Haunted

Your debut received great reviews from a panorama of international blogs, magazines, and music sites. Are you satisfied by the feedback obtained? Also, how do you feel about working with Twin Earth Records?

Francesco Bauso: We had put a few clips of our songs online, recorded live in the rehearsal room and we were contacted by Ric Bennett, who proved quite interested in our project. We are extremely pleased by the work done by Ric with his Twin Earth Records, which apart from the release of the album, has managed to usher us into the world of doom by supporting our music very well.

Cristina Chimirri: Twin Earth Records is essentially Mr. Ric Bennett. We are proud to have met a person and a professional of such capabilities. It gave us confidence to work with someone who cares about our music, we couldn’t have wished for better. We are excited and amazed by the rogue waves of positive feedbacks. We got what we wanted: to communicate who we are with the world and share the music we love so dearly with fans of heavy music.

Francesco Orlando: It was really a nice surprise for us, we were not expecting much and we are happy. Working with Twin Earth Records proved to be a good thing, we found in Ric the one who fit the bill -- a reliable, serious, professional person -- and we also found in him a good friend.

Your music has many influences, but you able to keep a distinct personality as a band. Are all the members involved in the writing of your compositions and the birth of new songs?

Cristina Chimirri: A composition is the combination of all our suggestions, a kind of osmotic process. Usually, it finds its roots in the guitar riffs, then the trunk forms from bass and drums, and finally the fronds are the vocal lines. Our songs are the product of insights and improvisation in a semiconscious state, which manifest in structure and dynamics, standing over a free atmosphere of pure air.

Francesco Orlando: Naturally, everyone has his influences that determine the way he plays his instrument. The best thing is that each one of us affects the other in some way, with a riff, a rhythmic pattern, a vocal line, and so forth. In that way, each band member is involved in the composition. We always start from an initial idea and develop it together over and over again. Finally, Cristina enriches everything with her melodies. We always enter the creative process in a state of openness and empathy, and all flows quite naturally from there.

Francesco Bauso: We all come from other bands, listen to different genres, and have different tastes and influences. Having right now clear ideas about what to do, it wasn’t too complicated. We just scramble and merge all of these diverse influences through heavy and monolithic riffs. The creation of our songs takes place in the most obvious and simple way: it always starts from the riffs then begins to form into a song. Each of us plays a vital role in adding a personal ingredient to the soup, so we are all involved 100% in the creative process.

Is this a concept album? What are the lyrics talking about and what do you want communicate through your songs?

Cristina Chimirri: It’s not properly a concept album, but throughout the record there is an epiphany that a spirit haunted us during the creation of the album. The lyrics reflect the idea of a man immersed in Nature, because he is Nature himself -- part of a cosmic order. Lyrics are the synthesis of dichotomies: sleep/wake, life/death, night/day. The lyrics are everything and are one.

Francesco Bauso: We're not going to touch one particular theme, though there is a strong magical component to Haunted. Esotericism and occultism have found a place in the song "Watchtower," for example. We are inspired by everything that can be described as aberrant, claustrophobic, and whatever takes your breath away. All this is filtered from the soul poetry of Cristina, who can be vague, mysterious, and sometimes not so easy to understand. This is my idea of magick. She’s very protective of her lyrics. In fact, at this time we decided not to publish them within the LP.

Francesco Orlando: There is not a main theme in the album, at least not intentionally. Our songs talk about the human condition and our fears, all surrounded by the fairly perceptible veil of occultism. I think that everything is meant to be interpreted very personally by our listeners.

The album was recorded in your hometown of Catania, at the NuevArte Studio, while for the mastering you have chosen a super professional, James Plotkin. How did you get in contact with him and how was it was working with such talent? And, speaking about the artwork by Sadro Di Girolamo, did you give him the initiative to create the concept or develop it collaboratively with the artist?

Frank Tudisco: Our idea is that everyone should take care of what he does best. We chose Carlo Longo because he was and currently is the best sound engineer I've worked with so far. We had the pleasure and good fortune to be assisted by Davide Oliveri of Uzeda as a drum technician, as well. And then as far as the mastering, we rely upon another great expert. We've kept an eye on James Plotkin for quite some time, as he's worked with like-minded bands such as Conan and Electric Wizard, to name a few. At first, we left him free to work as he knew now, then with some more information dictated by our feelings we gave input on the final master. We believe he has done a magnificent job and also we found him incredibly easy to work with and very personable.

Francesco Bauso: As for the artwork, we entrusted Sandro Di Girolamo to create the kind of cover evoked by the sound of the album. The image depicts a coven of witches who rule over a helpless body, intent to perform a ritual. The skull that emerges from nothing lends itself to interpretations of all kinds, as indeed the larger image in general. In addition, a more careful eye can find a small gem that could give pleasure to many fans of the genre.

Cristina, your vocals play a very important role in the band's sound. It's central to all five songs. How did you develop your singing skills? Had you other projects before Haunted?

Cristina Chimirri: Actually, I never took singing lessons. All that I have is the result of years of listening. For year, my voice was confined within the four walls of my room, and then about a decade ago came the invitation to join a cover band, and it all began.

In recent years, the Italian scene has grown exponentially. Are there other bands from Italy that you like? What are your musical tastes, overall?

Francesco Orlando: Uzeda in the first place. Besides being our fellow citizens, Uzeda have been for me a keystone. Through them I realized the importance of carefully crafting one's sound as a band. As a child, I used to listen to Morricone and Pink Floyd records. I think these have affected my musical preferences, leading me to this day to appreciate genres such as drone, ambient, noise, and of course doom.

Frank Tudisco: I really like a lot of stuff and I’m always looking for new music to discover. In recent years especially, several things sparked my curiosity and finally in Italy things seem to have changed for the better. Apart from the already established trio Ufomammut, that deserve due attention, I really dig Calibro 35, Naga, and the debut album by Messa -- who we’ll have the pleasure to share the stage soon.

Are you planning some gigs soon to perform your new songs live?

Frank Tudisco: We are doing our best to bring Haunted's music to the public. We've made some lifestyle choices that will enable us to stay away from home for long periods, so we're trying to do it in the safest possible way. Fortunately, in recent months we have received the support of some promoters and organizers interested in working with us. So to properly answer your question I would say, yes we are!

Cristina Chimirri: One date that can be announced regards our participation at Into The Void Fest in The Netherlands in October.

Finally, one last question: what are your plans for the future? Another album in the works, perhaps?

Cristina Chimirri: Tour and promotion, first. A split album with Witchhelm from Ohio is in the works, then a second full-length album. We don't even know if the future holds enough time for all we have planned! Lastly, we would like to thank you Mari, and all the Doomed & Stoned staff, for the attention and support. This has been one crazy ride and we consider it a privilege.

Follow The Band.

Get Their Music

#D&S Interviews #Haunted #Catania #Italy #Doom #Metal #Occult #Twin Earth Records #Doomed & Stoned

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a-travels · 4 years

Photo

taken: 15 july, 2017 Kishkindha Moolika Bonsai Garden, Mysore, India

air

This entire year has felt like one of those magician tricks where they keep putting swords in a box one at a time, month by month, except in this case, you don’t really know whether you’ll walk out of the box in one piece.

I actually started writing this post around the time the George Floyd protests broke out, but I think I was a bit too overwhelmed to write anything at the time, and honestly my thoughts seemed a bit superfluous to the far more informed sea of voices out there offering far more cogent and insightful takes than I ever could.

While perhaps the publicity-drawing aspect of these protests is perhaps died down, it doesn’t mean “newsworthy” demonstrations aren’t around anymore. It speaks broadly to the news cycle at large, and somehow now seems like another landmark event in this seemingly-dystopian timeline of 2020. That’s honestly what has been weighing on my mind these past few months more than anything, the relentless news cycle.

I’ve always had an interest in the news. I think beyond just the interest in knowing what’s going on in the world around us, I’ve always liked having a sense of awareness about me, knowing things, trying to be able to talk to anyone about anything. That’s perhaps the real dream, just having situational, base knowledge so you can strike a conversation with anyone (though, not the point). Whether it was for Model UN or due to my own curiosity, news seemed to be that sort of thing where there was that divide between myself and the story. Between the actual events listed in the often painstaking and meticulous journalism that underpins these stories and the guy reading them always seemed like a barrier of glass or paper. I don’t think our family claims to be rich by any means, but we are quite well off and, I would say, lead a fairly sheltered life. We’ve never experienced any profound hardships (that I know of) growing up and we’ve always lived in cushy neighborhoods, comfortable homes with fairly supportive family and friends around us. My sister and I weren’t particularly exposed to protests in the streets of Egypt or floods in Bangladesh or bill discussions at Congress. I think in that sense, the news was always appealing to me as a kid because it read more like a story than something in real life, even though I acknowledged that these were real people doing these things. This wasn’t some epic fantasy or struggle like in a Percy Jackson book or a Justice League cartoon, but something real with real stakes; just stakes that I never experienced on a day to day basis.

In many ways, I think that detachment from the news cycle is what has made these past four years, and this past year in particular, all the more enervating, specifically because the news hits home now more than ever. You can’t open the news without at least hearing or seeing the word Covid-19 or coronavirus or pandemic, usually in some pairing of those three words. On top of that, protests were everywhere for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all the countless black lives taken by senseless police brutality and racism in this country. And don’t forget the murder hornets sprinkled in, the earthquakes, hurricanes, power outages, seemingly growing ignorance surrounding the pandemic in the USA, increased politicization of seemingly basic facts, science, and rights, threat of nuclear war with Iran, and probably other stories I’ve just tried to erase from my memory at this point. More and more the news feels like it has pervaded every fiber, every brain cell, every breath, sound, and sight of every day.

Maybe it seems selfish of me to be craving that feeling of separation from the news cycle, but it isn’t. Perhaps more draining is the fact this news seems relentless, one day after another, one story after another, just more and more strife and anger and confusion and hurt. Just as you think one story has resolved and we’re past it, another breaking story rears its ugly head at you, constantly ballooning more and more like a hydra of human suffering. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place. After a point, you wonder if there’s ever a point where we as a human race will get a chance this year to just catch our breaths.

I say this, again, aware this perhaps seems particularly elite of me. I’m complaining about news that still isn’t affecting me particularly directly still. I myself have not caught coronavirus, nor has my family. My parents haven’t lost a job (knock on wood) or been forced to be exposed to the virus in any consequential manner. We’ve not been the victims of the kind of systemic racism black people have endured for centuries in this country (though I guess recipients of our own microaggressions, though not as relevant to this discussion). We didn’t lose power from the hurricane, or experience an earthquake. We don’t live in a state where it’s difficult to vote-by-mail or where people don’t wear masks. By all accounts, the year has provided inconvenience more than any particular hardship, for which I and my family are fortunate and indeed, privileged. And yet, I wake up everyday with a heavy heart knowing the news of today is affecting someone else. It genuinely invoked a sense of sorrow and hopelessness seeing a collective anguish and anger pour out on every major city block across the country. It hurts seeing uninformed “Karens” yell at their local government why making them wear a mask will send them to hell. It hurts to read the news because the news reads differently now than it ever has before.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just mute the news apps on my phone. Not check facebook or twitter or reddit for a few days to detoxify from the news cycle. Maybe, it’s worth not reading the news at all. There is more and more evidence that there is benefit to stepping away from the news for mental health’s sake. And as soon as the thought passes every time, immediately I feel the urge to kick myself for the immense amount of privilege behind the notion I could avoid the news. Whether I read it or not, life goes on, news will be made and it continues to affect people every day. Who am I to hide in my house burying my phone in the sand of muted notifications just to make me feel better. In some ways, I feel this sense of duty (misplaced or not) to stay informed now more than ever. It feels more important than ever to stay informed with good, unbiased facts and logic, in a country where both seem to be losing their value. It feels more urgent than ever to know what is going on around us so we as a species don’t repeat these repeated mistakes.

Maybe I should take a break from the news. I don’t know. It’s one of my many flaws - I hate being out of the loop. I like knowing things and I like being in the know. It can manifest in positive ways like reading the news, keeping up with current events, etc., as well as negative ways like exchanging gossip, inadvertently prodding and peeking and listening for information, and in this case also, reading the news (perhaps to an unhealthy degree). But on the other hand, my mental health has perhaps not been as healthy for the past few months now because of my seeming addiction to the news. I’ll have to figure it out. But until then, so it goes.

tl;dr - Who knew new news could be a nuisance?

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seismicmeowmeow-blog · 8 years

Text

Blind Life: an adaptation of The Great Gig in the Sky by Pink Floyd

Part 1

My father and his father and the father before him all died cowards. Whether it be curled in the fetal position before a cohort of Germans with shiny rifles and ear to ear grins or in the bathroom of a brothel with a needle stuck up his sleeve, those men were cowards. They abandoned women and children and dogs and cats and even little, innocent fish. We were just waves washing against their lives, receding into the ocean to never be seen again. The sand would mold and stay, but after enough washing each castle, each unique empire, would fall tragically before the power of the waves. An entire feudal system, concocted by geniuses broken down and recycled to fish litter.

I’ve been a magnificently defiant sand castle.

I was born on a Tuesday. If you asked my mother or father or neighbor or doctor what kind of Tuesday it was they would all recall it was a spectacularly uneventful Tuesday. I was one of eight in four years. Each one the heir to a disparate throne. Except Milo and Winslet, they were twins.

Mind you, my mother was no prostitute, just a splendid fool, hoping that each truck driver and vacuum cleaner salesman after the last would be an upstanding, classy fellow, ecstatic for the opportunity to wed and settle down with a wonderful woman like my mother. Supporting the likes of eight children, a microcosm of our lovely mother earth.

You see, before me there was nothing. Tedium molecularly crafted. Besides the click of empty revolvers in my mother’s bathroom, the house was silent. My future brothers and sisters knew not to speak. Not even a word. The man my mother was laying with, my very own pa, was a wildhack. The men before him had beaten her and beaten them and stolen from them and even kidnapped Milo thinking it was his own child, only to return the following evening, defeated, mother never the wiser.

But this man, my father, was especially boring. Not the boring that one may suffer through a math class or at work, or even in the war at times, but a crippling boring, a lull of words that bounce off the ear and echo around the room until the frequencies of it all burst the listener's ear drums and prod them towards insanity. That is not to say he was loud - this man was, in fact, extraordinarily quiet - that was part of his boring charm, wasn’t it.

All of the children - seven of them at the time - gave their hundred and ten percent effort to keep clear of his incessant dreariness. Even the youngest of the bunch, Hector, only four years of age, at the time, knew to shut his yapper the minute this king of apathy walked through the unhinged door. He had been fired from his last job for bringing down office morale and was now working as an energetic UPS driver, full of stories from the day, eager to spew them out in a semiautomatic fire of doldrums.

He was gone by Friday. The three days of whining and shitting and crying that I besieged upon him was enough to send this emperor of drab back to his lock up in Bermackeron, Wyoming. I went head to head with this spineless, humdrum asshole and defeated him effortlessly. For most of my siblings it took them weeks, some even months, one in fact had a father for a year until the little schmuck got pinkeye and ma queried the father to foot the bill. He was gone by sunrise, but a year nonetheless. I was triumphant in a matter of days. My mother never hesitated to remind me of this as I aged, each time bolstering my already bloated self-esteem a little more.

I was special. For an instant there I was really special, wasn’t I.

Out of that treacherous cloud of smoke, out of the ashes, I arose. Grander and more cunning than any man before me. Out of the blindness monotony of everyday life, I came, the savior of a generation, the maker of men.

Why should I be frightened to die.

Part 2

I lost my virginity at age twelve, to no one other than my very own sister, Clarissa. It was not meant to happen that way, that wasn’t how I planned it, it just occurred, simply and unapologetically.

She was fourteen at the time and just as interested in me as I was in her. Mother had never explained to us what sex was, she was too drugged up and busy with the three other pregnancies to deal with the babies she already had. Some of those babies were as old as seventeen, but babies nevertheless. Still stuck in prepubescence, trying, unsuccessfully to tear pieces off the cocoon, hoping that opioids and amphetamines may assist in their escape.

She cried when we did it. I don’t think I did it right. Looking back on it, I am sure that I did not.

Afterwards we sat there for a minute, indecisively. Do I punch her now? Scream at her? Steal her emerald necklace and run away? Do I tell her a story about the interesting conversation I had with Jerry just before heading out to deliver dildos to middle-aged wives?

I decided to tell Milo. He bashed me in the head with a lava lamp.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you little sister fucking prick.”

He was coked up at the time. Found a little of the dust laying on mother’s nightstand.

I shook my head around, trying fruitlessly to find my eyesight in the muddled room, full of cartoons and porno mags, the battered bits of a cocoon.

I think he was jealous.

Part 3

The second time I had sex was with Oksana. This is the time I tell people about when they ask me regarding my virginity.

“It was exquisite” I tell them “We waited until we knew we loved each other.” I’ll say.

They’ll “awww” and smile and I’ll smile and that’ll be it, just another endearing virginity story in a sea of white noise. I should make a machine that plays people telling their virginity stories, maybe a writer could sit in solitude and just write and write and write with no distractions around her, a painter could decorate his masterpiece, a poet could cry on paper, all because of me with my million dollar idea. But somewhere in that homogenous tune a voice would scream out. I fucked my sister. The painter perks up, stares at the machine, examines it for cracks and bumps, veers out the window, wondering what hooligan, what deviant would utter such words.

You see, I was special.

Oksana was my everything for a minute there, wasn’t she. After all these years of corrosive juice I’ve been pouring into my skull, I still remember her. Not her face - no - that has faded, but her essence, her being, has imprinted itself in the foam of my consciousness. No matter how many acid waves come and go, her castle will not wash away.

Atop that acropolis is a desolate tree, her and I tragically below it. That tree is everything to me. The existence that is humanity. The momentary lapses of reason and divisiveness, the unwavering feeling of loneliness in a sea of bourgeois, that rests upon the words on a tongue on an autumn day in November, leaves falling about the tree. There is a hollowness in her eyes, a fatigue, a yawn. But to me, this is the pinnacle. The reason death brought me fright during the war, the reason Clarissa cried, the reason I will be drowned out by the screams of a million souls, writhing in their graves, waiting for their time to be alive again.

Out of nowhere emerges life, it ages, it misbehaves, it screams, it lies, it laughs. It lays in bed at night when it is thirteen years old, crying because one day it will be erased. Because there will be a point in time when everything is forgotten about its little, old existence, every memory of a memory - euthanized.

Part 4

All I remember is the screams of my comrades with shrapnel up their urethras.

Who gives a fuck about war, anyways.

Part 5

I wasn’t special.

I fucked and abandoned as many pregnant women as my own father and his father and the father before him.

I was just as cowardly and tripped out as all those lousy schmucks. I used the war as an excuse for all my dickery, for all my addictions and habits and dependencies and what have you. But so did they, didn’t they. It’s a generational rhythm, I guess, send off the coked up young broots to kill some commies in the war and have them return just as adolescent as they were sent, with blood on their hands and rape and murder in their hearts, grabbing at whatever potential victims they can.

I was no different.

In the end it all evened out. I killed as many men as I made. I was the maker and destroyer of man.

I was god, wasn’t I.

Part 6

I died on a Thursday, a spectacularly uneventful Thursday if you asked my mortician, or my sons or my daughters. I was the 14th strike of the clock in a science museum, measuring each of the world’s deaths, second after second. I was that one, right there. Reduced to nothing more than a statistic.

It was a brutishly slow death.

I needed the medicine. I needed the drugs. I needed to see that time was malleable, that one instance I would be in the operating room and the next I’d be killing commies in the war.

Part 7

I have returned from the dead to claim my spirit, I believe I left it here, somewhere around this room, with all the cartoons and porno mags. It only exists in a picture frame now. A single picture. It sits on my great grand daughters bedside table. Gets boxed up in a hurry, moves from house to house, from nightstand to nightstand until one day. When a Klan member burns her house down. My only granddaughter.

All of those god forsaken children churned out like frozen yogurt on a summer day, only to perish one after the other, fruitless, little savages. My sperm could have kept children in Africa from starving, but instead it was wasted on those egregious imbeciles.

Didn’t I deserve more than one grandchild. More than one memory of a memory of a man.

The photo was of that Autumn day, under the tree, atop the hill, on that beach, beneath those acid waves of mine. That was the day I got drafted for the war. That was the day, I believe, I began dying. My death was an insignificant day for me, now that I think of it, no more special or mundane than any other. Just a day like all days, a day for the ages.

It was that spring evening with my grand daughter, with the yellow house with maroon window panes, with the klansmen. That was the day I ceased to exist. And within the monotony and peculiarity of that day was my photo, Oksana and I, Clarissa and I, our love.

I never said I was frightened of dying.

I mean, I was god, wasn’t I?

By Paul Miller-Schmidt

#war #postmodern #Paul

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dystopyx-blog · 7 days

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Bro I think so hard about being in TWST without meds but specifically with Floyd. The way he just, doesn't care. You're tired? Awww how sad, he wants to play with his favorite shrimpy. You think he doesn't care at all until you hurt yourself and suddenly he's shackled to your side.

I just got like brain blasted by the SH post due to my own spiraling and like tjis idea alone has given me so much comfort

bro Floyd comfort…. I mean he is literally a comfort character for me, if it isn’t obvious lol. I’m really really glad I could give you some comfort! Genuinely, that gives ME comfort. Especially since my yandere twst posts are also meant to give me comfort, so the fact they do the same for others warms my heart.

It’s so surprising the first time Floyd comforts you. He approaches you, going “hey hey hey, what’s the matter with shrimpy? :(“ and you try to tell him it’s nothing. “Ain’t nothin’ if it got shrimpy sad. Tell me what’s wrong.” And to your surprise he sits and listens. And he’s a good listener, at least for you in that specific moment. He doesn’t interrupt, he doesn’t make fun of you, he sits there and hums to let you know he’s listening. You find yourself spilling everything to him, it’s surprisingly easy to. Maybe you shouldn’t have, maybe he’ll just use it all against you in the future, who fucking cares, this is what you need right now. For a second you wonder if this is actually Jade using Shock the Heart on you somehow. But no, it’s Floyd. A seemingly very out of character Floyd? After pouring your heart out to him, he hits you with a sympathetic stare. “Damn, shrimpy,” he says, “that really sucks…”

Then he gets up and you assume, that’s it, he’s gonna leave me here now. But he offers you a hand and a grin. “C’mon Shrimpy, I’m gonna cheer you up.” ‘And he will try his damndest to do just that, taking you all over campus to find something to lift your spirits. But really, the very process of hanging out with him and watching him try to find something to do with you is enough to have you smiling. You end up in the Mostro Lounge, Floyd promising to get ya whatever you want. Unfortunately, Jade is the one to take your order, which means, of course, you’re subject to his needling. But then Floyd shoos him away. And later, when Azul himself appears at your table, hoping to get his suckers on useful information, Floyd glares at him and tells him to leave you alone. “Great Seven, why can’t anyone just leave us alone? Cant they see I’m tryna spend time with my shrimpy?” And maybe you don’t realize it at the time, still so caught off guard from what seemed to be a total flip in personality, but he meant it when he called you his shrimpy. If you were anyone else, he wouldn’t have given a fuck, it’s only because you were you that Floyd was at all invested in your feelings. Cuz everything about his shrimpy is interesting and entertaining. That’s why they’re his. You notice Floyd hangs out with you a lot more after that, stuck to your side like glue. He’s awful for ADD considering his sudden swings in mood. You get distracted, but it’s even worse with him because once he’s in the mood to do something he just does it. So you’ll be trying to focus on work, and he’ll be there because he’s basically always with you at this point, and he suddenly decides you two have to go do this random thing right now. It’s the same when you’re in depressions, too, he’ll drag you along. It’s surprisingly helpful, though. It’s hard to be bored with Floyd, which makes sense considering how much he hates being bored. So even without your antidepressants… well, at least you have Floyd Leech??

#yandere #yandere rambles #yandere twst #yandere twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #twst #floyd leech #yandere asks #yandere twst asks #yandere floyd leech x reader #yandere floyd leech #my floyd addiction strikes again

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