petition to make britain a democracy now but instead of brits voting for a leader, the rest of the world votes for them now

Oh yes, an ask ! What's the opinion/relation of Kate on the others companions ? Do they have a bestie ? Does she hate/dislike one of them ?

Hell yeah!! I am glad you ask about her, I absolutely adore talking about Kate! By the way, really funny fact, I have actually romanced most of the companions (Danse, I am coming for that ass), but canonicaly, their partners are Hancock and Nick! :D

Cait:

She admires her! Like, a lot! They think she is a super strong person, in both meanings! She loves how brave, how sassy she is! She’s just really fun to be with overall in Kate’s opinion!

About her drug addiction, Kate never really minded, but they were really concerned about her health. When Cait told her that she wanted to be cured, they didn’t hesitate to help her. 

Kate knows Cait can be a better person, especially under her influence! She constantly makes subtle comments that might make Cait change her opinion on things. Every once in a while they sit down to talk about her insecurities if she’s ok with it!

Funny extra: Since their names sound literally the same, Kate asks to be called Kat! Or to call Cait, “Irish Kate” tho expect a very angry irish person coming down your way.

Curie:

Absolutely LOVES her!! They love her curiosity and optimistic personality! Thinks she’s adorable.

They were very supportive of her wanting to be a synth, she thought it was very interesting! Though, was also very worried about how they would get to it...She was relieved that she didn’t have to take anybody's life!

Kate loves to make Curie flustered. It’s honestly adorable to her how she gets mad about getting compliments because she gets distracted, or confused. She lets her know why, tho! Hahah.

Codsworth:

He is family. He had been since before the war. It was the only person she could actually be herself.

When the bombs dropped she couldn’t stop thinking about him, if he was fine, if he had survived. When they got out of the vault, she was so happy to see Codsworth alive and well.

Kate wasn’t able to leave Codsworth’s side during 1 whole months, if it wasn’t for him and Preston, she would’ve given up on everything, on the ‘whealth, on shaun, on herself.

She adores his dumb sense of humor and his ridiculous british accent.

Danse:

She...likes him? She certainly enjoys his company and thinks he is kind and great but his bigotry and loyalty to the BOS makes her really uncomfortable.

Kate could connect to him on an emotional level, but never actually be interested in him, no matter how much they tried. BOS was just a major shit that made her uneasy. She only joined because they could be helpful to get rid of the Institute, and she was going to until…

They straight up refused and told off Maxson, but he didn’t give her the choice. When Haylen begged them to hear out Danse, they told her that she didn’t need to worry at all and would do everything in her power to keep Danse safe. They tried to change Maxson’s mind about Danse, about synths, but as she expected, he didn’t. After this whole incident, she quit the BOS and decided to destroy the Institute with the Minutemen.

She offered him to stay with her, on the lighthouse, but after a BOS attack to a settlement she left him in, Danse insisted to let him live alone, that it wasn’t safe to have him living there so close to Shaun. Kate sadly had to agree, she couldn’t risk to lose Shaun or any of her companions. She still goes and visits him every once in a while! Even got him to meet Shaun! They got along and share a love for cowboys.

Deacon:

LITERALLY BESTIES. Imagine those girls in highschool that are always together, wear matching clothes and call each other “slut”, “whore” and “bitch” affectionately? That’s them.

They literally wear matching clothes when they travel together. (I make ‘em wear matching clothes…)

Kate always introduces them as “ The Death Bunnies”.

She catched up immediately with his compulsive lying. She doesn’t mind it, in fact she might even go along with it, depending on the context and what type of lie it is. She tries to help him with it, along with his impostor syndrome (...which comes...literally sometimes?) and he tries to help her too. Hoes got each other’s back.

If they aren’t with their partners, they are with Deacon. Hell, even when they are with Nick and Hancock she brings him, of course if it’s not private. Deacon gets along with Nick so it isn’t much of a trouble...but they literally have no idea why Hancock dislikes him, tried to ask him but he said “some things are best left unknown”, which left Kate even more curious but respected his...privacy...I suppose? She asked Deacon, he said that it was no biggie, but to get Hancock to hold a long grudge like that is really weird so she can’t believe him. What did he do? She might never know...

They adore him overall, and loves his dumb comments, which she tries to always reply without bursting in laughter.

Dogmeat:

Light. Of. Her. Days. Well! Of course after her partners!! *gulps* 

They can’t go on with her days if she doesn’t pet Dogmeat at least...twice. She gives him kisses, pats and plays with him at the end of the day. 

When they first met Dogmeat, they almost couldn’t believe it. It was like a light in the dark, he definitely made her days easier as she was trying to stay stable during those 2 dark months.

She almost never goes out with Dogmeat because she is really worried the radiation might affect him, or even die out there. She usually has this fear with most of her companions, but specially him, as he is a literal animal and will probably not know if something is really dangerous or not just looking at it.

She usually falls asleep with him on the couch.

Hancock: 

Do I really even have to say anything? He is her everything along with Nick.

Kate’s first impression of him was: “Oh. FUCK. HOT?!”

Okay but really, she found him attractive and interesting after that first interaction. They had their doubts about him..you know him being a politician and all, but they quickly disappeared the more they interacted with him. Damn, the more she knew about him, the more she was interested in him. 

About Bobbi, she was totally into robbing McDonough, she did question Bobbi a lot though, as she instantly noticed how shady she was. She actually realized they were going for Hancock instead mid-way but waited to get there to confront her, make sure she was right. She didn’t do it for Hancock, instead because she wasn’t going to rob somebody who didn’t deserve being robbed. Tried to tell her to get out, nobody needed to be hurt but Bobbi refused to, so she had to pull the trigger. She knows it was the right thing to do, but can’t help but think if it could’ve ended differently.

She loves Hancock so much, they can’t stop thinking about him. “What would Hancock think about this?”, “Hancock would love this”, “I wish Hancock could see this”, “I miss Hancock”, literally being so clingy.

Overall, she thinks he’s such an amazing person: he’s kind, he’s brave, he’s funny, he’s understanding, he’s adorable, he’s caring, he’s determined, he’s (very) handsome...I really could go on.

She tries so hard to get him to understand that he is an amazing person. He appreciates the efforts.

“watch you sleep” by girl in red is totally their song.

MacCready:

LITERALLY A LITTLE BROTHER. They adore him! They love how funny and sassy he is.

Kate had to constantly tell him that she doesn’t care about caps and that he can keep ‘em if he wanted, that it looked like he needed it more than her, and she’d be right!

When Mac told her about Duncan she was upset at first, how could he just leave his child like that? Never acted on it, since she knew it would make it worse, but she could quickly understand where he came from and why he did what he did. Didn’t hesitate to help him find the cure for Duncan. 

They share a love for snipers and long ranged weapons so...that’s a topic they talk about a lot!

They both geek out about Silver Shroud every once in a while! Listen to the plays together and stuff like that!

Nick:

HERE WE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

They didn’t like him when they first met. They liked Nick’s humor, but couldn’t stop thinking about how much he acted like a cop, and let’s say Kate had their share of bad situations with cops because of race, and shit like that. Kate didn’t know a lot about synths at the time, so she just guessed somebody programmed a fucking cop persona into him. And she wasn’t going to deal with a cop bot that probably had a stick up his ass.

Eventually, when she got so oversaturated with work, and stressed out with the whole Institute shit, she decided to go and do some of the cases with Nick, she couldn’t wait to show this “cop” that even a “civilian” could do his work. As she worked through the cases, she began to notice that Nick was...actually ok? She had more knowledge about synths at this point, but still didn’t understand how Nick worked exactly. He did tell her that he was a prototype, between Gen 1 and Gen 3, so she quickly realized that he was no ordinary bot. She eventually warmed up to him, and could see the appeal.

It was like a bomb dropped inside her head when Nick asked if she was doing fine. Kate had never actually opened up with anybody, not even with Hancock. She mostly worked over her depression and anxiety by keeping herself busy and unhealthy thoughts like “they need me to be strong, I am a role model right now.” with the whole being a General thing, and the fact that so many people relied on her. Kate tried to be dismissive of it, but Nick could see right through her, and insisted that it was ok to open up. She had to get really drunk to do any of that shit! So they told him that they should both go to a “more private place”, as an excuse to get her hands on some alcohol. Didn’t end up drinking any alcohol, and just spilled most of it. Found comfort on his “origin story” with Diamond City. 

He was a huge part in her full recovery, along with Hancock and Deacon. But honestly? If it wasn’t for him, it would’ve taken her snapping at anybody and being confronted about it to actually open up to anybody. 

She didn’t realize she had any feelings for him until a month after that event. That they were storming into Eddie’s shelter that she realized that they loved him. All of this they were doing for him, the cute comments, the praising and trust they had in him...it became so clear why while he was talking to her after killing Winter, she couldn’t help herself but to dump on him why he was not just “a shell” how he was so much more than that. She didn’t actually confess her feelings to him there, but they were pretty close to doing it. If it wasn’t for her thoughts stopping her from doing it, what would happen with Hancock now? She still loved him deeply...

Eventually, two weeks after, they took a break at the end of the day from missions with Nick, at the empty bar that she had built inside the Castle. It was midnight and mostly everyone had gone to sleep, so they could talk about whatever they wanted and get as drunk as she wanted. They were having so much fun until Nick brought up something she had said that day they ended Winter’s life. Fuck. God, they wished they hadn’t been so busy to actually sit down with Hancock and ask him what he thinks of polyamorous relationships because she was way too drunk this time to stop herself from doing anything stupid. And she didn’t, Nick did, he corresponded but said that he couldn’t let her do this to John. Hah! Little did they know Hancock was super into the both of them. (I actually want to make a lil’ fic about this!!)

They just love him so much and connect with him on a whole new level. He and John make them so happy, she literally couldn’t ask for anyone or anything better than what they have going on.

I know it isn’t exactly a love song, but “Agnes” by Glass Animals reminds me of them.

Piper:

WHAT A LADY, AM I RIGHT? They adore her!! 

She is literally her kind of lousy! Always speaking her mind, always speaking the truth. She admires what she does.

I really don’t have much to say about her, just that they really like her and that she thinks she’s a good friend and overall good person!

Was totally in to beat up McDonough’s ass.

Preston:

They think he is amazing!! He is so kind and caring, they like him a lot!

Let’s say that he liked him so much at some point they got together during those two months. It wasn’t a stable relationship and they both acknowledged that they just didn’t work. Besides, he was there when she met Hancock, and had this look in her eyes that he had never seen. Not to worry tho! He has been testing the waters with Sturges lately! ;)

They function better as friends! Besides, it was quite awkward for Kate their General/Soldier dynamic they had going on, so that was another thing!

She thinks he is so cool and amazing, and they let him know this!

Kate teases him about when they were a couple and they laugh it off.

Honestly, he was a big help for Kate during those months and she is really grateful for all his help. They were both really important for each other.

X6-88:

They didn’t get to know him as much as they wanted.

It all was happening so fast, they couldn’t do anything to convince him to get out of the Institute before it was too late. 

And it was. They had to kill him along with the other coursers. 

In their time as companions, they thought he was enjoyable to be with. He looked like he could be saved, but...yeah.

They made him a grave in the Institute’s remains.

Aaaaaaaaand, that’s all!! Gosh, that was loooong!! Can you see I was really eager to talk about Nick and Kate’s relationship? Yeah, that shit is long.

(I literally finished this yesterday...at 2 am or something)

notable moments from The Two Live Crew Job

leverage 2.07

Sophie: I love the symbolists.

- - - - -

🥰 I love when the ot3 are together in one frame 🥰

- - - - -

the dogs playing poker painting tho

- - - - -

Eliot: Any sudden movement's gonna cause displacement of the water. It'll set it off.

Parker: Is that C-4?

Sophie: Oh!

(Nate grabs Parker’s hand before she can touch the vase)

Sophie: Parker... please don't poke at the motion-sensitive bomb.

Nate: So, uh... secret admirer?

Sophie: Well, it's no secret they want me dead.

Hardison: What do you think, man?

Eliot: I'd have to reach into the vase to disarm it. It'd go off.

eliot’s lips quivered when he said that bc he’s so nervous for her im-

- - - - -

Parker: Do you have any instant pudding?

(everyone looks at Parker in surprise. Cut to Parker pouring pudding into the vase)

Parker: The powder hardens the liquid, tricks the bomb into thinking it's not moving.

Eliot: Should give you a little wiggle room. Very little

MASTERMIND PARKER

- - - - -

(mourners are gathered around a casket with a line of black cars parked nearby. An open casket shows Sophie lying inside. Eliot is standing at a podium)

Eliot: She had a way of taking care of people, you know? She was a sister... she was best friend, all rolled into one. I'm gonna miss you, Soph-- So-O-O-O-O much, Katherine.

(Eliot leaves the podium. Hardison stands to let Parker walk by and she approaches the podium. Nate stands at the back of the crowd, Eliot joins him)

Parker: Katherine and I have known each other forever. Almost two years. Yeah, I know that probably doesn't sound like a lot to you, but it is to me. I never really had many friends. Which is why losing her is so hard. (sighs) It's so creepy. I mean, she's really dead. I was just talking to her and now she's just laying there. She was just laying there.

(Nate coughs and Hardison gets up to go to Parker)

Parker: Can you hear me?

Hardison: Parker. I'm -- I'm sorry. I'm sorry, y'all. What – What she really means is just, um, Katherine was like family. And sometimes, friends are all the family that you have. So... you -- you good? Come on. Just – let -- just keep going. You got all hysterical and emotional

- - - - -

btw there is at least one door from behind the briefing monitors which means they have at least one extra room (most likely more) from the adjacent apartment eliot knocked the wall down from

they have guest rooms or something back there for if anyone needs a place to crash

- - - - -

Sophie: We used to work together. We did the Copenhagen job in '97, the Berlin Polytech job in '98, and, Nate, remember – Remember that great run in Moscow?

Nate: "That great run"? I chased you for three months.

Sophie: Well, uh, technically, y-you chased us. Sorry.

Hardison: Are you saying that you saw other teams before us?

Parker: Really just another Nate before Nate.

Eliot: Let me ask you a question -- what bugs you more, is it the fact that he was with Sophie first or that he outsmarted you?

Nate: Moving on

eliot puts his arms over the couch and behind parker and I’ll take it + them grinning at each other seeing nate’s discomfort

- - - - -

mikel is wearing flannel in this one and you can now take bisexual mikel from my cold, dead hands

- - - - -

Sophie: Wrong place, wrong time. Starke must have seen me, and now that I’m one of the good guys, decided to get rid of me, because...why? Because... Because I know his scams. Because... I know his favorite scam.

[Warehouse]

(Stark’s team is sitting on crates looking at monitors as he goes over the job)

Starke: Cafe and a moonlit terrace.

Sophie (voice over): The Mona Lisa variant.

[Briefing Area]

Parker: Oo! (claps) That was the first one I learned!

- - - - -

(Hardison is drinking orange soda and working on a computer as Sophie watches)

Sophie: I'm not dead. I'm right here, Parker. So, this is, um, it's what you do, right? You take footage of us on cons and you -- you -- you -- download it into that?

Hardison: Yeah, I analyze it, I monitor comms, I scan for a police frequencies, I -- You had no idea I do all this, did you? Well – d-does nobody respect the van? The van is important. What -- What is that?

Sophie: It's lemon-Zest tea. I got to tell you, it's -- It's a little bit -- It's a little bit whiffy in here.

Hardison: It smells like hard work. That's what it smells like. D-- Whiffy

sophie has no idea what hardison does and does not like the van smell. hardison is ready to go off

- - - - -

Sophie: That was some nice things you said at my funeral.

Hardison: Wait. We -- We trust Nate to make sure the plan works. We trust you to make sure we’re all okay.

- - - - -

Starke: Word is on the street that you run the nastiest crew this side of the Atlantic.

Nate: Well… what?

Starke: Come on. Everybody knows. You robbed a bank and you -- you framed a judge. You rigged a jury to steal a million-Dollar settlement. I hear that you even conned the Irish mob out of a couple of million dollars just this year. Now, that's style.

Nate: That's one way of looking at it.

Sophie: Listen, Nate, if you tell him the truth about us, we're blown

- - - - -

Hardison: I know this style. This is Chaos.

(computer screen flashes signal found. Hardison grabs his keyboard and heads for the back door of the van)

[Parking Lot]

(Hardison exits his van and a little ways down the parking lot, Chaos exits his van with a laptop in his hands. They square off like an old west gun fight)

Hardison: Chaos. I heard you were in jail. Guess I was wrong.

Chaos: Hardison. I heard you sucked. Guess I was right.

(they eye each other across the lot, their fingers twitching. Abruptly they raise their keyboard and laptop and begin typing while car alarms start going off)

this wild wild west showdown tho

- - - - -

Nate: Okay, now, we know Starke. This guy goes by the name Apollo. I've chased him a couple of times -- infiltration, physical security.

Parker: People in that line of high-risk work tend to be very unstable. We could use that. Write that down.

(the rest of the team exchange glances)

🥰 she’s sitting next to eliot with popcorn between them 🥰

- - - - -

Hardison: Now, this person here's ex-Mossad, sealed records. Mikel Dayan used to work both sides as a mercenary.

Eliot: Mikel Dayan. I know that name.

Hardison: You were scared to fight a girl.

Eliot: She'd mop the floor with you, Hardison.

Hardison: I don't care.

Eliot: Seriously. She actually killed a guy once with a mop. It's a funny story, actually. (starts gesturing time parker) She broke the mop and took --

Hardison: Eliot. Eliot. (turns back to monitors) Now, this here's Colin Mason, otherwise known by his hacker handle as "Chaos." As... whatever. Hacked the pentagon, the NSA. The CIA computer guys call him the Kobayashi Maru.

Eliot: What the hell is that?

Hardison: None of y'all got that? Seriously?

Parker: Star Trek.

Hardison: Thank you

parker’s reluctant fistbumb I love them + it’s officially canon that she’s seen at least some of the movies

- - - - -

Nate: I tried to say to her I’m sorry, you know, and I don't –

Security: Because, as men, we're taught to hide our emotions. You share or you pay the price.

Nate: Yeah

- - - - -

Mikel: You wouldn't hit a girl, would you?

(Eliot walks forward, taking off his jacket and hanging it on some pipe)

Eliot (in Hebrew): Not unless she hits me first.

(they approach each other and begin to fight, blocking each other until Mikel hits Eliot in the chest, knocking him back. He touches where her blow hit.)

Eliot (in Hebrew): That counts

let me just say I LOVE that they had a woman hitter

- - - - -

Starke: What is going on, guys?

Guard: Motion sensors went off, sir.

Starke: I already checked that out. Everything's secure. And who's this?

Guard: Uh... he just got lost. No problem.

Starke: Sir, you okay?

Nate: Yeah, I’m fine.

Starke: I'm Nathan Ford. I'm with the insurance company.

(Nate gives Starke an irritated look)

- - - - -

Parker: What kind of bird did you use?

Apollo: North American Kestrel. It's small-Bodied, but its wingspan is expansive enough that it sets off the motion detectors.

Parker: I would've gone with the Scarlet Tanager. Similar wingspan, but the brighter colors are more distracting.

Apollo: Yeah. That was my second choice.

(Apollo scrambles forward in the ductwork. Parker also scrambles forward, headed another way)

- - - - -

eliot taking off his shirt too? equal rights

- - - - -

Starke: Now, why would you want to kill Sophie?

Chaos: Come on, Starke. (gathering equipment) I had set up the perfect double-cross, and then you want to go and bring in a new player at the last minute? "Oh, and by the way, guys, that new player is gonna be Sophie Devereaux." There's no way I’m gonna try to out-con Sophie Devereaux! And I hate to break it to you, Starke, but she was the one that everybody was always scared of. It was never you.

- - - - -

[McRory’s Bar]

(Parker and Apollo sit at a table with locks)

Parker: Go.

(they begin picking locks to see who is fastest. Across the room, Eliot and Mikel sit at a table)

Mikel: I can top that. (pulls her shirt aside to show a scar on her shoulder) Frag grenade, Somalia.

Eliot (pulls up his sleeve to show scar on his arm): Myanmar. Sniper.

Mikel: I was a sniper in Myanmar for a while.

Eliot: When?

Mikel: 2003.

(Eliot looks surprised. Mikel holds up the handcuffs and Eliot quickly pulls her hand down)

Eliot: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We can't have that.

Hardison (walking by): Handcuffs. Y'all nasty

(eliot has a handcuff kink and was probably pegged within an inch of his life that night. I said what I said.)

- - - - -

(Sophie stands looking down at her grave. The headstone for Katherine has been replaced with one for Sophie Devereaux. Nate approaches and stands next to the grave)

Sophie: Starke was right. I'm not Sophie Devereaux anymore. I haven't been for ages. I... you killed her, you and your silly crusade.

Nate: It's just a name.

Sophie: No, they're not just names, not to me. All my aliases, every one of them, I -- I know when their parents died. I know when they had their first kiss.

My dad died a few weeks ago and I thought I'd share a few of my favourite stories about him. Please feel free to re-tell these as, "my friend's dad..." - he was a great storyteller and would be thrilled at having an international audience.

[Also, as fun as it is to imagine your faces reading these without the warning, it's important to preface these stories by saying that he grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles.]

• He was one of 14 children, 12 boys and 2 girls, and all the brothers look the same - broad, tall, dark haired, big Irish heads.

• Unlike most of his brothers he was quite shy and quiet, afraid of getting into trouble. His brothers knew this, so when the troubles began they kept him fairly out of it. My da was often lifted off the street by the British army or the RUC because, as I said, he looked almost identical to his brothers, who were very much NOT afraid of getting into trouble.

• He was once brought in for questioning in relation to something they thought his brothers had done, and he immediately told the police everything. He felt awful and told his brothers, who said, "Ah don't worry Gerry, we knew ye would tell, that’s why we always lie to ye."

• He moved to Dublin with one brother to find work. My da got work as a builder, and his brother got work robbing banks. He came home one night with about half a million punts (euros) and my da left Dublin the next day because he couldn't handle the stress of just knowing the money was in the flat.

• This is the same brother who "stumbled upon" a set of Canadian cheques and gave them to people all over the city to cash in, and he would give them a cut. (This was back in the 70's, so it was weeks before the cheques would bounce idk how it works. Also there was some legal loophole he exploited because he was eventually caught and released.) Anyway, in his first trial run he dressed my da up as a priest and sent him into a bank to cash the cheque so if it went wrong they wouldn't expect fraud. They accepted the cheque no problem, and then said, "That will take a few weeks to go through, do you need anything to tie you over Father?"

At which point my da panicked and said, "Aye, I -uh, I suppose a wee bit, just to uh-, just to get by."

My da asked for a small, reasonable amount and went back to his brother, whose eyes lit up like Mr. Krabs' and said if my da hadn't been so terrified, and so soaked through with sweat, he'd have had him in every bank in the country doing the same.

• The same brother again who gave my da money for an ice cream van, but, as you may have noticed, my da was a soft touch, and he went out of business OVER THE SUMMER, because he gave free ice cream to the children who couldn't afford it.

• His brothers tried to teach him how to fire a gun, just in case he ever needed it to protect himself, but he kept closing his eyes when he went to pull the trigger so they quickly shelved that idea.

• He dropped out of welder training but moved to London and pretended he was qualified anyway. On his first day he built a frame in the wrong dimensions, panicked, and moved back to Ireland. (We've all made a mistake at work that's left us making plans to leave the country let's be honest.)

• He did one gun run for his brothers in the seventies and threw up when he got home because again, he was terrified.

• Two of his brothers got the rota wrong, and robbed a bookies the night after they'd emptied the tills. As all Irish sons are, they were petrified of their mother's reaction, so they didn't tell her. My da, none the wiser, tells my granny, and she lights into the pair of them when they get back for being so stupid and how could they not know when the tills were being emptied?

• He adored his mother, and he and his brothers used to sit at her feet, even as grown men, having a drink by the fire. Not a wild story, but a nice one.

• He had a hell of an imagination and used to tell us all sorts of lies and ghost stories. Any time we were camping near the mountains he'd tell us about the banshee.

"Can you hear that? I think that’s her scream?"

My ma, also a wuss: "Naw it's the wind because we're halfway up a mountain facing the Atlantic Ocean.”

My da, a perpetual wind up: "Naw children, it's the banshee, my time could be up any minute now, I've heard her."

• As he got older, and after my parents divorced, his health declined and he went to live in a sort of assisted living place, where each resident had their own flat, but there was a shared communal space etc. Anyway, he had a quick eye for a quick temper, and didn't waste time writing fake letters from the landlords to certain tenants, explaining that they'd been barred from the communal area for inappropriate behaviour. He'd then sit back and watch them all kick off at each other and the receptionists demanding to know why they were barred. Little did they know my da had roped the receptionists into it.

• He once worked as a caretaker in a day centre for old people, and he would often "borrow" from the boss that he didn't like when he was cleaning her office. Nothing big, just her pens, her stapler, any nice biscuits. There is home video of us as children following him about and "borrowing from Marie." 

• Another time he went for a walk with a brother who was, unbeknownst to him, on an MI5 watchlist, and whom the British Army were tailing, hoping he would lead them to his weapons stash. Anyway, off they go on their walk, which in Ireland just means taking the scenic route to a pub, where they sat over a few pints. The British army surveilling him have a brain wave and think they've been lead to the secret weapons, because why else would two 20-something Irishmen be in a pub in the early afternoon, and they begin a full raid, smoke bombs, guns, the lot. At which point my da is dragged through the back of the pub, and out a first floor window. Given that we've established his tendency to talk under pressure, when he asked his brother, "what the fuck was all that about?" His brother wisely responded, "haven't a clue Gerry."

• He once went to a dance with one of his brothers, who got very drunk and very offended by some other man. So drunk was he that he couldn't remember which man had said what, so my da told him, but asked him to leave it. So he did, and off the brother went home. Or so my da thought. Half an hour later the brother turns up with a shotgun and starts threatening this guy who'd said something. He fires the gun into the ground by his feet to scare him, but accidentally hits him in the foot, and runs away. Turns out, in the half hour it took for him to get his gun, he'd forgotten what the guy looked like again, and shot the wrong person. The brother and his victim became good friends in the following years. (I don't know how, and my da didn't either, he just said, "awk sure it was a mistake, there was no harm.")

This was a beige imitation of these stories, but I hope they provided some enjoyment. I spent many a happy year listening to these over and over again.

Congratulations on making it to 71 Gerry, we should be so lucky. 🇮🇪

Thoughts on “Terror of the Arctic” (2005), aka, “I listened to the Doctor Who audio drama episodes about the lost Franklin Expedition so that you don’t have to!”

Alright terror-friends, this was not how I expected to spend my day, but I have now listened to all eight episodes of the 2005 Doctor Who Audio Drama series “Terror of the Arctic,” featuring all of the ~ familiar ~ icy ~ boys ~ meeting the infamous Doctor. 

With arguably more horrifying sexist/racist content than the 2007 Simmons novel, this audio drama actually predicted a lot of the tropes that Simmons popularized, including ship-board conflicts that escalate to stabbings, the appearance of supernatural creatures from Inuit oral traditions, and even a squick-y romance between Crozier and a much younger Inuit woman. 

To clarify, I do not recommend you listen to these episodes. They’re a hot mess, and a really jarring departure from the beauty of The Terror (2018). 

HOWEVER I highly recommend you look below the cut for episode-by-episode notes about the first Franklin Expedition adaptation that has well and truly driven me up the wall. So, welcome to the world of “Terror of the Arctic” (2005), featuring:

Crozier, (pronounced "Crow-zee-eyy,”) a polite door-mat of a captain with an agonizing lack of snark and minimal personality beyond “the only white man who can magically fix racism.” 

Fitzjames the “proper English officer” who has every prejudice you can imagine – and a couple more you can’t. 

Le Vesconte, the irrepressible lad with an inexplicable American accent and extreme boy-scout-gone-crazy energy. 

Sgt. Tozer, who has a bad habit of punching people in the face even though his superior officers haven’t yet told him he’s allowed to do so. 

Also featuring: Cybernetic Tuunbaq aliens! Complete breakdown of shipboard protocol! Expected amounts of cannibalism! And more! (spoilers, obviously) 

Episode 1

– We start with a mandatory brief appearance from the Doctor and his companion Christine. I don’t (initially) hate this iteration of the Doctor – he’s very paternalistic and old-fashioned, but at least the voice actor’s competent. Christine’s voice, tragically, is high-pitched beyond all reason and laced with a variety of odd dialectical features. Some quick research reveals she’s supposed to be a 15 year old from medieval England. She sounds neither like a teenager nor a medieval person. From the very beginning, her character seems very infantilized, and plays into a lot of the Born Sexy Yesterday tropes, even if she and the Doctor aren’t a thing. 

– Next, we have Sir John Franklin giving the “we’ve been stuck in the ice for nine months, here’s what you missed” sum-up. 

– Sir John’s voice is gravelly 👏 as 👏 fuck; also, I don’t think that the phrase “to sugar-coat it” was a common 1840s expression? Correct me if I’m wrong history folks.

– Crozier shows up to give his “we should start walking out now” speech, minus any passion or conviction whatsoever; he bends immediately to Franklin’s whims. Crozier’s voice is quite high-pitched, and Sir John pronounces his name “Crow-zee-eyy.” (Update: everyone pronounces it this way!!! Uhmmm!) Though I struggle to judge accents, Crozier’s Irish accent sounds... leprechaun-ish. It’s not Jared Harris by a long mile. 

– Not gonna lie, I kind of love how much Fitzjames sounds like a posh bastard. He immediately gets into a one-sided shouting match with Crozier and has to be reprimanded by Franklin. 

– Lieutenant Irving appears on the scene; I don’t know what Irving’s accent is, but it sure is something.

– All of the officers seem to currently be on the same ship for some reason but I don’t know why. We’ve met Sir John, Crozier, Fitzy, and Irving, and Gore’s been mentioned, as have doctors Peddie and Stanley. And they’re all in the same boat. Guess we’re just ignoring Terror for now? 

– Franklin begins narrating as he writes in the log-book: “11th June, 1847.” Oh BOY guess what day it is!!

– RIP Franklin (surprise, surprise). We have no real idea yet how this has happened. 

– Fitzjames, talking to Sir John’s mysterious corpse: “Captain, what could have done this to you?” 

– Fitzjames: “We have a killer loose on this ship” (Fitz gets ALL the best lines, apparently. Do they make sense? No. Are they hilarious? Yes.)

– Irving is shockingly nonchalant when the Doctor and Christine appear from nowhere out on the ice. Why is Irving so chill when he thinks that these two people are the lone survivors of a DIFFERENT failed expedition?

– Fitz apparently has refused to let Crozier start the walk-out after Franklin died. (Um, that’s not how the chain of command works?)  

– We learn that Beechey-boy Braine apparently died of sudden-onset-scurvy. What is sudden-onset-scurvy, you ask? We do not yet know. 

– Irving, happily describing their recent course of action: “...Ignoring the advice of our ships’ ice masters...” Oh god Irving don’t sound so happy about that. Blanky’s going to take an ice-axe to your head. (Tragically, Blanky does not appear in this show.) 

– Lieutenant Gore has ALSO died of sudden-onset-scurvy. RIP Graham Gore.

– Is the Doctor going to focus on the existence of sudden-onset-scurvy? No, we’re gonna hyperfixate on the high officers-to-crew death rate! And he’s going to infodump about officers’ privileges TO Irving, an officer, and muse about how odd it is that more officers than crew are dying when the officers get all the best food! 

– Fitz, the “proper English officer” apparently has managed to get about half the men to refuse to follow the orders of their expedition commander, because he happens to be Irish. Babe, this is a really bad look!

– Irving, our good Christian Irving, just swore “By Jove” in a weirdly sexy voice.

– Tozer has Extreme Deep Voice.

– Irving: “There’s something odd about them I just don’t trust.” Why on earth wouldn’t you trust two strangers who wandered up to you on the ice and asked if you were “human,” John Irving? What’s “odd” about that?

– The Doctor only remembers that he does actually know the events of the Franklin expedition after he reads the entire Victory Point Note. 

– Irving has suddenly decided to threaten to shoot the Doctor and his companion. Irving promptly gets attacked. 

* jarring transition to triumphant Doctor Who music *

Episode 2

– The ~mysterious~ attack on Irving has left weird wounds on Irving’s neck. I’m calling it, Ice Vampires!

– We have an Edward Little appearance! His voice is so sweet and gentle! And then... “I’ll have Sergeant Tozer shoot you both where you stand!” Okay, maybe not... (Update: Little is, in fact, very awful to several people. As we will see, all of the lieutenants and marines swing between weirdly nonchalant dudes and trigger-happy maniacs.) 

– Tozer just punched the Doctor’s lights out, unprompted. 

– Crozier: “Good old John Peddie... he’s like a brother to me.” Well THAT’S not a friendship I expected.

– So Dr. Peddie has brought a young Inuit woman in to Crozier’s cabin to have a “lovely chat.” Awkward book!Crozier/Silna energies. The woman’s name is Liak. She speaks with a vaguely Spanish and/or Italian accent. 

– Liak: “I have been with my tribe. They would not allow me to come back to see you.” /  Crozier: “Why? It’s not because of Fitzjames is it?” 

– (It’s not because of Fitzjames. It’s because of evil spirits, obviously.)

– The Doctor, once they get back to the ships, explaining to the higher officers what’s happened: “Mr. Tozer got all excited and could no longer restrain his Neanderthal-like impulse to start clubbing things.” Boy this by show is NOT for Tozer fans. (Note: Tozer is standing right there? In the room? When the Doctor says this?)

– The Doctor just dropped an f-bomb?????????? And not as an expression of shock, but a hard-core sexual use of the f-bomb. Literally, he said “you can let Tozer fuck me again” – did I mishear this????????????

– Irving’s dying words: “I was attacked by a large silver creature with claws!” Wait did Dan Simmons rip off a fan-made 2005 Doctor Who Audio Drama?

– RIP Irving, first confirmed victim of “Tuunbaq the First.”

– Fitzjames is SO racist, throwing around a lot of “savage” and “barbarian” words. Why are you letting this man walk all over you, Crozier?

– Crozier: the first person who has the correct reaction to two weirdos appearing on his boat (aka shock and surprise, rather than worrying nonchalance followed by unprompted extreme aggression.)

– Fitzjames literally laughed after being informed that Irving is dead. (Like Crozier’s bad Raft of the Medusa joke, but SO MUCH WORSE.) 

– RIP Ice Master Reid, actual first confirmed kill of “Tuunbaq pre-Tuunbaq,” several weeks ago, apparently??

– Okay so Fitz here is obviously meant to be a horrible person, but I have to acknowledge that he’s making a few good points: (1) the Doctor has admitted that he has a “sailable” ship, and it’s pretty rude of him to not even explain why he’s unwilling to help these dying men, and (2) it’s been bothering me the whole episode that the Doctor hasn’t been calling officers by their titles, and frankly, I do think Fitz is within his rights to demand the Doctor call him “Captain Fitzjames” rather than “Mr. Fitzjames” on Fitz’s own ship. Like, it’s not that hard.

– The Doctor’s first example of “ways the Franklin crew could mess up the time stream” is the insane scenario: “what if one of them married the mother of Winston Churchill.”

– The “Tuunbaq: The Prequel” can talk!!!!!! “Hello meat!!!” it says, gleefully. 

– Tozer is just the fucking most. He punched the Doctor AGAIN.

– Crozier just “Mr. Fitzjames”ed Fitz!! And Fitz backed down! Crozier finally grew a spine! Just in time to decide to commandeer the Doctor’s ship. 

– The Doctor’s ship inevitably disappears before it can be commandeered. Because of course. (Things and people disappear and get transported to different places and later times all through these episodes for timey~wimey~reasons.) 

Episode 3

– A conversation between the two named female characters (Liak and the Doctor’s companion Christine)! What will they talk about? ...Their dead fathers. Ah. Hmm.

– This show is not sophisticated enough to handle a “white man’s disease killed my father” subplot. And yet, Liak’s father died of TB he contracted from the white men. I’m *worried*

– To help Liak overcome the superstitious antagonism of her “tribe” after her father’s death, Crozier apparently gave a bunch of food to the Inuit, which is  an... interesting take. (One Irishman’s grand gesture fixes racism!)

– Magical Inuit shaman powers are only inherited through the male line (The racism and sexism in this is palpable.)

– So “Tuunbag Episode I: Revenge of the the Tuunbaq” is actually a larger coalition of aliens, run by a being called “Matriarx.” Can we decide whether woman are powerless victims or power-hungry monsters, please? Both is just greedy.

– RIP Strong (another tragic case of the triple threat: sudden onset scurvy, lead poisoning, AND Tuunbaq attack)

– Wait WAIT the Tuunbaq gave Strong the lead poisoning AND the scurvy by biting his neck and sucking his blood, stealing nutrients and leaving lead in their place: Ice Vampires!! I called it!!!

– Groups of people Fitz has verbally degraded: the Irish, the Inuit, all women, and now “common folk.”

Episode 4

– Le Vesconte’s first lines! He sounds like a Boy Scout, by which I mean he sounds about 16, and has an American accent? Also, Fitz pronounces his name “Leh-vay-cont” 

– An AB named “Seeley” is writing an account of the events that are happening, perhaps as this show’s version of Bridgens and/or Peglar? Also Fitz is REALLY opposed to Seeley writing this, because Fitz hates “common folk” that much, apparently? 

– RIP Seeley, we hardly knew ye. 

– Major episode events: the walk-out begins, leaving Terror and Erebus just as the boats slip into another dimension because of alien reasons (this didn’t age well, now that we have the shipwrecks). Also, there’s an Inuit woman who is in league with the cybernetic-alien-Tuunbaq-vampires. 

Episode 5

– As soon as the walk-out begins, the cybernetic-alien-Tuunbaq-vampires begin attacking. 

– Boy Scout Le Vesconte: “I have an idea! If bullets won’t stop them maybe an axe will!” I mean, this is stupid enough for our Dundy, but he follows it up with “Murderers! I’ll hack you to pieces!” and rushes them like a child and has to be rescued. (Also Crozier is way WAY more concerned for Le Vesconte than Fitz is, though Fitz leaps into the rescue effort and Crozier... does not do that. He’s doing a lot of standing on the sidelines and bemoaning his dying men.)

– Peddie is basically just Crozier’s all-purpose lieutenant at this point. Little and Hodgson whomst? 

– Le Vesconte, Fitz, and Tozer get struck by lightning WHILE fighting the Tuunbaq, and some Frankenstein stuff seems to happen, because Fitz now has the munchies. But like, the ominous munchies. 

– Le Vesconte’s in something like a coma. The dumb boy-scout. 

– While explaining why the Netsilik have legends about these aliens as “evil spirits,” the Doctor implies that errors in the historical record happen “especially” in oral traditions. Can we stop insulting the Inuit oral historians please?  

– The cybernetic-vampire-aliens can mind-control their victims sometimes. Calling it now: Fitzjames is under the mind-control already. 

– Liak is revealed to possibly be in cahoots with the aliens, because she has a necklace that her sister gave her that’s actually an alien tracker. 

– Fitzjames, upon learning that Liak may be in league with aliens, attempts to physically kill her with his bare hands, and has to be restrained. 

– Crozier hears murmurs about mutiny, and assigns this poor Marine named Hopcraft to find out more about the mutiny and report back to him. Next morning: RIP Hopcraft, first victim of the “we’re knifing each other” stage of events (aka this show’s Irving.)

Episode 6

– Lieutenant Little, who got separated from Fitzjames and Crozier, tries to comfort ship’s boy Chambers, whose use of the term “panic attacks” is a little anachronistic; a small gripe in the grand scheme of things.

– The Tuunbaq-aliens attack Little’s camp and wipe them all out, leaving Little to the last. Edward Little, a British Christian naval officer in the 1840s, gasps out “I’ll see you in Hades” as his dying words. (Someone write me Little/Irving neo-pagan fanfic for this mess?)

– The Doctor is playing detective, trying to solve Hopcraft’s death. He finds footprints, and both Liak and Tozer are missing. 

– The Doctor calls attention to Tozer’s “enormous feet.” Weird.

– We have our first cannibalism! Perpetrated by Tozer, and uhhhh oh great we’re eating Dr. MacDonald for dinner tonight.

– Le Vesconte woke up from his coma just in time to brain Tozer to death.

– The Doctor: “There were no women’s bones at any of the sites [of the lost expedition remains]” that’s a hilarious comment given that one study suggesting as many as four female skeletons.

– RIP Le Vesconte, from his wounds, offscreen!! Nooo!!

– Tozer (and Fitzjames, and a few others), because they all got struck by the lightning, now have Frankenstein’s cannibalism curse. They all hunger for human flesh.

– Fitzjames is now a sneaky murderer-cannibal who manages to gain Crozier’s trust before turning around and trying to butcher him. As least my evil boy is smart? 

Episode 7

– The big bad reveal: it’s Liak’s secret evil sister! (Just like Season 4 of Sherlock!) She’s been helping the Tuunbaq-aliens the whole time because she hates white men! Because they gave her dad TB and one of them broke her heart! Thanks, it’s bad! 

– The Tuunbaq-aliens eat Liak’s sister anyway because they do not care. 

– Liak, Crozier, the Doctor, and Christine are left to defeat the Tuunbaq-aliens. 

– Fitz feels a little bad about eating people I guess? Also Fitz is “weak” and can’t resist his hunger and all those fun tropes.

Episode 8

– Fitzjames gets a redemption arc via heroic self-sacrifice narrative, complete with death via horrid gurgling. “He sacrificed himself in a last act of humanity.”

– The Doctor agrees to give Crozier a lift to somewhere a bit further south, on the assumption that Crozier will settle down with Liak and live with some “tribe” of other Inuit people that neither of them have ever met. 

– There’s a parting joke about Crozier enjoying drinking wine that did NOT age well.

And that’s all, folks! Hope you... enjoyed? 

my plus one - part 1

MASTERLIST 

(this is the first chap and i REALLY want feedback from u guys if u like it and if i should continue it or not!!! i have so many idea lmaoooo) 

Word Count: 1,220

Description: you need a date to your sister’s week long wedding event and you know just who to take 

Your last relationship ended about eight months ago with a man you were with for four years. Four of the best years of your life - that is until he cheated on you with a girl from your work. It shattered your heart and destroyed any hope in you that believed love was real. To you, now, it was a scam and was meant for one of you to get hurt. Usually, that meant you. The scars on your heart were still healing, but bled open again when you got unexpected news only three months into your breakup. 

“I’m sorry,” you say slowly. “You’re what?” 

You’re sitting in front of your sister at her house while she dropped a bomb on you. 

“Alex and I are… Well, we’re dating. A couple.” 

You couldn’t process what you were hearing. This had to be fake. She would surely break her serious front and begin belly laughing at how ridiculous that would be. You waited with wide eyes, but it never came. She was as serious as before. She wasn’t lying. 

“You and… And my ex are… Dating? You’re dating Alex?” you ask, your voice getting higher. 

You make a disgusted face as you stand up quickly and feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate. You begin pacing back and forth, trying to wrap your mind around this. She stands up quickly and holds her hands up in defense. 

“Sis, listen, it’s not like it was planned.” she says cautiously, scared to fuel the fire even more. 

“You and Alex!?” you whisper, rubbing your hands against your thighs in an attempt to calm down. 

It didn’t work. You hunch over and take in a deep breath, suddenly feeling sick. You stand up and shake your head fast. 

“My ex who I was with for four years!” you whisper once more. “You saw how bad I was when we broke up. You said all of those things about him! You called him a no good pig, for Christ’s sake!” 

“Y/n, please calm down. I’m so sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. 

“Well apparently not!” you shout. “You’re still with him! You and Alex!” you say once more. 

Your sister stares at you with pleading eyes. They were glossy and threatened to spill. 

“Please don’t hate me.” she whispers, her voice shaky. 

You sarcastically laugh as you narrow your eyes and shake your head. 

“Oh, no! Ellie, don’t you dare make me feel bad for you! It won’t work this time!” 

Ellie shuts her eyes and exhales as you hurry over to her front door and grab your coat. 

“I actually can’t believe you would do something this low. And here I thought we were best friends.” 

And with that, you slammed the door behind you. 

***

Now, five months after finding out about them, you get another call you were least expecting. You had just made it inside your apartment when your phone began ringing. You place your groceries down in a hurry and rush to it. You know the number on the screen. It’s your sister. You close your eyes and take in a deep breath before answering. 

“Hello?” 

“Y/n? It’s Ellie.” 

You roll your eyes in annoyance. 

“I know who you are. My phone clearly states it when you call.” 

There’s an awkward silence. You huff and run a hand through your hair. 

“What is it, El?” you ask fast. 

“You’re my sister,” she starts. 

“Barely.” you spat without thinking about it. 

You can hear her sigh as you almost regret saying that. 

“You’re my sister, so please think about what I’m about to tell you. Okay?” 

You look around your apartment and try to think of an excuse to get off the phone, but you’ve got nothing. 

“What is it?”

“Well…” she pauses. “Alex and I are getting married.” 

Your heart falls. Your legs feel wobbly as you practically fall onto your couch for support. 

“Married?” you whisper. 

“I know. It’s so fast and we’ve only been dating for a short while-” 

“And he’s my ex.” 

The tension is thick and you can’t stop making it worse. 

“I’m so sorry, y/n.” she says sincerely. “I was calling to ask you to be my maid of honor. Please? It would mean so much to me.” 

You tense your jaw as you fight back a huge laugh. She’s really asking you to be apart of her wedding with your ex? You have to say no. You have to say no. 

“Okay.” 

What!? 

“Oh my gosh!” she squeals. “You have no idea how much that means to me, sis. We’re doing this week long event in Hawaii for it. Don’t worry, I’m getting you and your plus one a ticket! I’ll send you all of the details, okay?” 

You lean your head forward and force yourself to smile. 

“Can’t wait.” 

***

Your plus one. Your plus one. That thought keeps running around your head as you think about it all day. You can’t go to your sister's wedding alone. Especially a wedding with your ex. How pathetic would that look? You’d be laughed at. Or worse, people would sadly smile every time they look at you, because they know what had happened. That can’t happen. But don’t worry, you know the perfect person to ask. You dial the number and wait several seconds before they pick up. 

“Hello?” 

“Roger!” you say excitedly. “How’s my best friend doing? You well?” you ask. 

“You were just here an hour ago. Why? Something’s wrong. You sound weird.”

You frown hard as you walk to your bedroom and sit on the bed.

“I have some awesome news for you.” you say sarcastically. “Ellie’s getting married.” 

“What!?” he asks shocked. “How’s that good news!?” 

Your face falls. 

“It was a joke, Rog. It’s the worst news I could have ever gotten and I’m torn between going or moving to a new continent so they can’t find me.” 

You lay down on your bed as Roger softly laughs. 

“Can I come with?” he asks. 

You smile at his eagerness to run away with you. 

“Always. But my runaway plans aren’t why I called you. I need you to do something for me.” 

“Oh no, no, no. If it’s another one of your blind dates, then no! I’ve had enough of your weird friends for a lifetime.” 

“Alright, first off, rude! Secondly, my friends are awesome. And third, it’s not that. How would you like an all paid vacation to Hawaii?” you ask with fake excitement. 

“What’s the catch?” he asks. 

“You really do know me.” you tease. “The catch is that it’s for Ellie’s wedding! Yay!” you cheer out. 

“Oh, no. Please don’t ask me that.” 

“Oh, c’mon, Rog! I need a date! I can’t go alone and you’re the only guy I trust! Pleeeeeease!” you beg loudly. 

Roger groans a bit until he gives in. 

“Okay, fine! I’ll go to your sister’s weird ass wedding with you. But only for you. Not for her.” 

You grin hard as you thank him repeatedly. 

“I promise you, you’re not going to regret this! Love ya!” you tell him, causing him to laugh. 

“Love ya too.” 

You both hang up as you stare at your phones and sigh. 

“I’m so going to regret this.” he says. 

“He’s so going to regret this.” 

Tag List: @sweet-pink-lady @deaconsposts @westansstuff @sammy-1998 @jazzman-19 @yourlocalmusicalprostitute @sevenseasofryheisthequeen

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depresssion vlog 😥😴👎💭🏳️ | The Theory Of Real Activity | thursday vlogs

Taglist: @zerogettie  @spacevirgil@tree4life25@thebiggestnaturaldisaster @pailettehazel@jordandobbertin@thecityofthefireflies @the-fabulous-kimball@azuranightsong@virmillion @erlenmeyertrash @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @the-sanders-sides @punch-you-with-friendship@captaincantatrice@clovenpinetree @jughead-is-canonically-aroace@aplaceinthevoid@that-random-fandom-girl @zennyo

Word Count: 4431

Warnings: depression and talks of anxiety

Pairings: platonic prinxiety, platonic logicality, platonic analogical

Summary: Virgil is in the middle of a spiral and the back to back bad days are making it hard to function. He texts a few friends for help, and this is the result.

Designated Nerd:  Virgil, it has been some time since I’ve heard from you. Are you feeling well?

Me:  i mean, am i ever fine

Designated Nerd:  Well that is indeed worrying. Is there anything I can do for you, or would you rather I contact our more… emotional friends? Do you need me to come visit?

Me:  no, i dont want anyone over right now. this is gonna sound so stupid but,,, could u tell me what u do when ur upset

Designated Nerd:  If it helps, of course. I tend to listen to stimulating music and take hot showers. Please try to brush your teeth sometime soon as well, as hygiene is something that we all tend to be lax with in these states.

Me:  i should have expected advice like that

Designated Nerd:  Is it not useful? I apologize.

Me:  o no, its good. thx lo

Designated Nerd:  Anytime Virgil. Do not hesitate to contact me if you need anything else.

 ***

Sir-Sing-A-Lot:  hey panic at the everywhere, u still breathing

Me:  wow didnt kno u cared that much

Sir-Sing-A-Lot:  of course i care u ass how u doing

Me:  i mean im not dead. thats a fucking victory dude can i get a hell yeah

Sir-Sing-A-Lot:  hell fucking yeah bro im proud of u

Me:  hey while ur here,,,, how do u deal with ur bad days.

Sir-Sing-A-Lot:  poorly

Me:  damn dude

Sir-Sing-A-Lot:  yeah well thats life but i also light candles and fucking moisturize. unlike u u heathen

Me: thanks u fucking prick

Sir-Sing-A-Lot: hate u too u asshole c u this weekend~

***

Pat-Dad:  hey kiddo!! haven’t heard a peep outta you lately, just wanna make sure you’re still okay!!

Me:  im not okay, actually. but im glad u texted bc i have a q for u

Pat-Dad: anything for you kiddo, tell me how i can help!! :)

Me: wat do u do on bad days. like, how do u deal with the shitty emotions

Pat-Dad:  language kiddo.

Me: hellcrab.png

Pat-Dad: i dont have the profanity manatee on me so just pretend i sent that. anyway! i like to watch a bunch of funny shows and sit around in my favorite clothes! gotta feel good somehow!! and like, a lot of pillows are involved.

Me:  is this permission to turn my living room into a pillow fort

Pat-Dad: absolutely!!! but make sure you eat something today kiddo,,, making food is gonna be better than takeout btw. Feels good to have made something, trick the brian into enjoying the food more.

Me:  brian

Pat-Dad:  *brain, oh hush up

Me:  thanks 4 the help. <3 u

Pat-Dad: anytime kiddo!!!! :) <3 love you more!!!!!

***

   “Welcome back to the Theory of Real Activity -- today’s vlog: not what you all signed up for.” Virgil sighed, running a hand through his hair. “As I’m sure a lot of you have noticed, or at least the twitter crew has, I haven’t been as active on the channel lately. And I’m sorry about that, but I think I’m ready to talk about why now.

   “As many of you know, I have depression and anxiety. No way around it, there’s the truth. Often, these diseases prevent me from functioning like a healthy person would. That’s what’s been happening to me for the last few months. I’ve had a hard time getting up and dragging myself anywhere, much less making new content for all of you. Talking to friends via text is really hard too, so Twitter is something I can’t deal with either.

   “And I know a lot of you out there are the same way -- heck, when I do use Twitter and the likes, I see messages like that all the time. And I’m happy I’m able to help you all through those days when I can. But I can’t always be around to make stuff like that, so today I’m gonna talk you guys through helping yourselves when the days get bad and the voices get loud, okay?

   “But don’t let the start of this video fool you -- this isn’t a ‘oh we’re all gonna be okay if we just believe!’ kinda thing. Because there’s a lot of those. Don’t get me wrong, those are all wonderful messages and I really appreciate them, but I don’t think we need another one right now. What’s the point in trying to be motivated when the energy just isn’t there? I don’t know about any of you, but I almost feel worse when I watch those because I know whoever is on the other side of the screen wants me to work for happiness and I just… can’t. I can’t do it when I’m that low. So, no, this is not one of those videos.

“This is something completely different, I really hope it clicks with a few of you.”

   The camera switches out of selfie mode to reveal a table full of shopping bags. Virgil laughs off-screen and there’s the sound of papers shuffling.

   “Ladies, Gents, and everyone beyond the binary welcome to ‘How to Kinda Cope with Shit Brains’, starring yours truly. Let’s begin, shall we?”

***

   “Logan, you didn’t tell me you were uploading a video today! What’s this one about?” Patton squealed, clicking on the notification. Logan peered over his shoulder, trying to make out the display behind layers of smudges and a few cracks.

   “I- I did not upload a video today as Thursdays are typically reserved for anything Virgil wishes to post. That’s why there have not been any midweek videos recently.” Logan pulled out his own phone, giving up on Patton’s, and quickly unlocked the screen. “There is no one else with access to the account, so who- oh never mind. That is clearly something of Virgil’s creation.”

   “My goodness, he sure loves emojis, huh?” Patton giggled, reaching into his pockets. Logan groaned something like ‘you have no idea’ and pulled out a screen cloth for Patton. The younger man took it and quickly cleaned off his screen before pulling out his earbuds

“Do you wanna watch it together?” He asked, dangling them in front of Logan. Logan stared at him, grimacing.

   “Do you know how unsanitary sharing earphones is, Patton? I have a split connector in my bag, allow me to retrieve it and we shall view it together.”

***

   “So, I have compiled a list of things my friends do when they’re having bad days, as well as a few activities of my own, and we’re gonna test them. I’ll take note of how I feel before I start, do the activities, and then I’ll rate them by how I feel afterward. And if that sounds complicated, it is! Kinda. Logan says it’s the proper way to test things, by having a starting point and an end point, so go ask him? I don’t know, he’s always talking about control groups and I don’t know about any of you but I don’t want to make myself have bad days back to back just so I can test a bunch of things ‘fairly’.

“Anyway, first up: Roman’s list. He- he actually didn’t have much to say, just “moisturize bitch’ so I just pulled ideas from what he normally does on off-days. Sorry, Ro, but you brought this upon yourself.”

   Virgil reaches into the bag marked “Bed, Bath, and Beyond” and fishes out a bottle of something pink, as well as a purple container of lotion and a green candle.

   “I know for a fact Roman prefers grapefruit face wash, so that’s what we got here,” he shakes the pink bottle, “so we can gift this to him when we’re done here. And we have a bottle of lavender-scented lotion to go with it. I read somewhere that lavender helps with anxiety or something, but like,” he points at the camera, “it just smells good, and I am not ashamed to admit to that. Don’t read too much into this.

   “I also bought a scented candle, because that’s the only other thing Roman offered advice-wise. I fact-checked this one, and apparently good scents are supposed to help you think more clearly? Or something. I don’t know, I read the article at four in the morning, there’s not much I can really remember about it. Four am Virgil is really bad at retaining information.”

   The camera jostles as Virgil picks it up and walks into his bathroom. “Uh, just for like, the starting point? The best way to describe this type of anxiety is the buzzing and tensing of your muscles and the tightness in your chest. There’s nothing I want more than to dive under my bed sheets and sleep until tomorrow and try again later.

   “But I’m going to do this, so wish me luck.” He mutters, turning the tap on and grabbing a washcloth. The screen cuts away to black as an upbeat nineties song plays, and the text on the screen reads ‘Roman’s results’.

   “So,” Virgil starts, his face covered in white foam, “this stuff kinda burns? Roman, what the hell is wrong with you, you like this stuff? Ugh. Also, just so everyone knows, the smell of artificial grapefruit and lavender do not mix. Like separate, they are really good smells but just… don’t mix them together. It’s a really bad idea. We may have to do my list next so I can let the house air out for a while. As it is, I didn’t even try to light the candle, we do not need to add spearmint to this stink bomb.

   “Beyond that? The face wash is definitely waking me up. I feel a little more ‘oh hey, I’m a person’ that I did before so, yeah. This wasn’t a total bust. And my skin is soft! I understand the appeal of moisturizing now! Roman, how dare you keep this a secret from me?” Virgil laughs, rubbing his hands together. “Holy shit I feel like a million bucks. I am keeping the lotion, you can take this demon face scrub.” Virgil reaches off screen and picks up the pink bottle, scanning the back panel of text.

   “So overall, I’d say Roman’s tactics work. You just gotta like, make sure you get complimentary smells so you don’t stink yourself out of your house,” He says, still reading the bottle, “And you should definitely read the instructions on the bottles because this,” He holds up the pink bottle, “says to wash off after a few minutes, and it’s been ten. I’m gonna go get this off my face now.”

***

   “Babe, you seriously didn’t read the instructions?” Roman howled, throwing his head back into the couch. He could hear Virgil scoff from the kitchen.

   “Excuse me, but I thought it was like one of those face masks you leave on for half an hour! How was I supposed to know!” He asked, walking back into the room and plopping down beside Roman. “They look the same when you put them on, and you have a few long-lasting ones that smell like grapefruit! I had no way of knowing!”

   “You could’ve called, man. I would have helped you!” Roman lifted his arm, inviting Virgil to crawl under it. He took it and wrapped his arms around the taller man’s chest. “You bought face scrub, which is definitely not the same thing. Both are good though! Just, not that same.”

   “Yeah, well, I know that now,” Virgil muttered, burying his head in Roman’s hoodie.

   “We can do actual face masks after this if you want.” Roman offered, picking his phone back up. “Your pores could really benefit from one.”

   “You’re a dick. Turn that thing off.”

   “Love you too, bastard, but there’s no way in hell I’m turning this off.”

***

   The camera cuts again, and this time Virgil is in his bedroom. The window is open, and the sound of passing cars is almost inaudible but still present. His peach walls are bathed in a warm glow of the setting sun, a light breeze pushing his bangs up every so often.

   “Okay so, next up is Patton’s list. As per my own ‘rules’, I’m feeling mentally exhausted and ready to check the fuck out right now. But despite this, I’m actually… really excited for this one? It involves food, there’s no way this can go poorly.”

   The video cuts to footage of Virgil screaming as food on the stove erupts into flame. The 1812 Overture is playing the background. Whatever was in the pan is no longer food, as the burnt sustenance is bubbling in an ominous manner. The oven mitt is no longer on Virgil’s hand and is instead in a smoky heap on the kitchen counter.

   “No way this can go poorly” Virgil’s voice echoes as he runs off camera screaming. He returns with a fire extinguisher, the lens becoming jammed with foam just before the video cuts back to Virgil in his room eating Chinese takeout.

   “Okay so. It turns out it can go poorly. Patton said that making sure you eat, like, actual food and not six servings of chocolate cake with a glass of cherry coke on the side is supposed to help with the depression thing but like. It definitely didn’t help with the anxiety. Something about the food you worked to make tasting better?

   “So, I cheated and ordered take out. But hey! This stuff has got a bunch of veggies in it, so I think I won this round. Moving on,” Virgil puts the food down and leans down to grab something off the floor, “Patton also recommended watching some shows that I know I enjoy, so let’s do that next.” Virgil puts on the purple headphones he had grabbed and pulled his laptop onto his lap. He clicks off the light on his desk and plunges the room into darkness with only his computer light illuminating his face.

   “We’re watching the entirety of the Brooklyn Nine-Nine Halloween episodes, so be prepared for a highlight reel of that while I stuff my face with rice.” He twirls his finger around in a ‘roll film’ motion and kicks his feet up on the desk.

   The camera cuts to a black screen once more, the same upbeat music playing in the background. The text now read’s “Patton’s results”.

   The next few minutes is a series of clips strung together, many of them consisting of Virgil mouthing the lines along with the characters, and screeching with laughter. The last one shows him crying into his takeout, mumbling about how much he loves the relationship between Jake and Amy. He had taken his feet down from the desk at some point, now curled into his chair and bundled in his hoodie almost entirely.

   The video cuts away to a slightly more composed Virgil, who is now cuddling a pillow and scraping the bottom of the takeout box. His eye makeup had run down his face over the last few hours and he looked unnaturally pale in the weird lighting.

   “Yeah that uh,” He coughs awkwardly, “that worked. Ten out of three Patton, way to go. Got my brain to shut up for like, I don’t know, two hours?” He takes a deep breath and puts the takeout container on the desk. “It’s late, I think I’m gonna just do Logan’s and I’s lists tomorrow.”

***

   “Should I be concerned that he set the kitchen on fire and didn’t call anyone?” Patton whispered, pausing the video. “Why didn’t he call anyone? Did he get burned?”

   “I do not think you speeding to his house would have done any good, Patton, as he got the fire out by himself. That being said,” Logan pinched the bridge of his nose, “he is not allowed to cook for game night. Ever. What was he even trying to make?”

   “He can join me in the kitchen ban, then. The store-bought cookie club just gained a new member.”

   “God help us if you ever cook together. I’d have to take out a loan for a new apartment. I already cannot pay my student loans, I fear the possibility of adding to my life debt.” Logan shuddered, reaching over to unpause the video.

***

   “Okay, good morning internet. It’s buttcrack early outside, I don’t even think the sun is up yet? That’s good, actually, and I’ll get to why later.

“So, all that’s left is Logan and I’s lists, and to be honest? Logan may have already won the whole thing, looking at this on paper. He actually cares about like, not dying by germs or some shit.,I can guarantee his list will be practical. I gotta go set some stuff up for my list, so hang tight.” The screen cuts to a slightly more awake Virgil.

   He grins and gives a tiny wave before tapping the screen to switch the camera and show a hammock.

   “So, I’m next. I’m also gonna save Logan’s advice for the end of the video so you guys watch this whole thing. Give people an incentive for sticking around. Because I can see the stats on this, I know half of you like, exit the video halfway through. Stay for the whole thing, dammit, I need the ad money.” He laughs, gently putting the camera down. The screen shows a new sunrise, one full of soft purples and oranges. Above the sun and its halo are a few stars that have yet to go out for the day, barely visible behind the hazy clouds. Virgil picks the camera back up, the footage shaky.

   The camera stills to a shot of Virgil’s legs, the hammock swaying gently in the breeze. A few frogs can be heard singing in the background and Virgil hums a few notes. His voice is low as he speaks, still rough from sleep.

   “Again, to follow my own rules: I feel so awful I don’t even want to talk about it, guys. Sorry.” Virgil is quiet for a while longer, the occasional whispered lyric picked up by the microphone. Eventually, he speaks once more, a lighter tone to his voice.

  ��“Sure, this looks peaceful, but if you could all hear what kind of music I’m listening to right now, you’d be calling my therapist. Hey, Paul, I apologize my bro, but wow are you not gonna like me the next time I’m in.

   “So yeah, my list is just ‘get sun and get songs’. You Gucci fam, just stay out here until you either feel good or get cold. Probably gonna be the last one but, hey, you tried. Gold star. Bring a blanket if you wanna aim for the best possible outcome.”

   The camera cuts again, this time looking down from what is assumed to be a porch. The sky is dark once more, and the only source of light is a small candle.

   “Huh. What do you know, the candle works after all. Spearmint -- the poor man’s anti-anxiety. You know, I actually looked that up. Spearmint is supposed to be a good stress reliever and some kind of mood booster. The more you know, huh?”

***

   “Virgil, what the hell does that mean?” Roman chuckled, rubbing Virgil’s arm.

   “It means that when I’m panicking at work I just pop in a breath mint and BAM I am suddenly closer to reality than I was ten seconds ago.”

   “Do I wanna know how you discovered that?”

   “I had a hangry panic attack in high school and the only thing I had to eat in my bag were breath mints I was meaning to gift to you.”

   “Oh, that’s pretty- hey.”

   “You could still use some, man. Keep your nasty breath away from me.”

   Roman just hummed, looking at Virgil from the corner of his eyes. He smiled softly, his eyes sad and concerned. Pulling him closer, he unpaused the video and listened as he continued to hold his friend.

***

   “And last but certainly not least, is the list of the late, great Logan. He’s not dead. He’s just always late to dinner dates. Like a pretentious nerd, his excuses are ‘oh, I was studying’, ‘oh, I had an exam’, or ‘Patton set the kitchen on fire again, call 911’. What an ass.

   “Anyway. This list, which doesn’t have a cool name because Logan is against emojis and stuff, just has like, five items on it. In order that is: brush your teeth, put on some clean clothes, wash your hair, put on some socks, and the last one is a surprise. Because it really took me off guard and I need you all to be as surprised as I was.

   “And right now, I just feel apathetic. In case someone gets upset that I didn’t mention I felt going into this, I just feel apathetic.”

   The video cuts away to Virgil’s bathroom once more, and the leftover mess from the other day can be seen in the sink.

“Uh. Just, just ignore that mess. You know what it’s from, I don’t feel bad about that. Anyway, teeth brushing. Let me just find the toothpaste…

“You know, I can’t remember if I bought toothpaste at the store. Of all the crap I bought, don’t think toothpaste made it into the bin. So, let’s just see if I still have any of the travel samples from the dentist.”

Virgil riffles through his cabinets, pulling out items such as combs, hair dye, bleach, and a bottle of pills. He hums for a second, before crouching down to look under the sink.

   “I feel like, and I could be the only one who experiences this, I feel like anything that gets put under the sink will never see the light of day. So maybe I won’t be brushing my teeth today- wait. Wait! Oh gosh, thank you Jesus- there’s a- there is a bottle in the back there, but I can’t reach it. Outta my way, makeup kit, I got teeth to be cleaned!”

   Virgil pops back into view, holding up a half used mini bottle of toothpaste. It’s the kid’s kind, that tastes like berries and bubblegum. He uncaps it and starts to squeeze it out onto his toothbrush buts stops short.

   “Why the hell are there sparkles in this thing? That- isn’t that a, like, choking hazard or some shit? Okay, sorry Logan, teeth brushing is not happening in this video. I think you’d agree with me on this. When you get to this point in the video, feel free to add toothpaste to our shopping list.”

***

   “Jokes on you, Virgil, I added it yesterday when I spent the night and had to use that monstrosity.”

   “I use that stuff all the time, Logan, there’s nothing wrong with it! Look at me, I’m perfectly fine!”

   “That’s… that’s a, uh, great point Patton. Explains a lot.”

***

   “Okay, so next on the list was clean clothes. I’m doing that off camera, you nasties, so hang tight for a word from our sponsors.”

   The screen is black, with white text reading “crofters plz sponsor us logan is desperate.”

   Virgil reappears, in the same hoodie and shirt. He smirks, pointing at a pile of clothes on the floor.

   “Ha, I own two of these hoodies and three of these shirts. I am a cartoon character, y’all will never see me in a different outfit. You can dream, but my job is to crush those dreams.” He makes a fist as he says this, laughing through his teeth as he tries to appear tough.

   The camera cuts again, this time showing Virgil singing into a hairbrush while a towel is wrapped around his head. The scene doesn’t last long, as we are once again taken back to Virgil’s bedroom where he is set up with a laptop. This time he’s on his bed and the curtains are drawn.

   “It said to wash your hair, and you can’t wash hair without serenading the monsters living behind the shower curtains we all feared when we were little. Just because we aren’t afraid of them doesn’t mean they aren’t real!

   “Anyway, this is the last part of Logan’s list. It’s actually really sweet? Like, I am a grown ass man, and I am not ashamed to say I sobbed over this.” He continues, voice starting to tremor.

   Virgil spins his laptop around to show a YouTube video that’s about half an hour long. The title reads, ‘the best of Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street’. Virgil sniffs real fast, raking a fist over his eyes.

   “He uh, he knew these guys were my heroes growing up. And he knew it would cheer me up. Guess w-hat man,” Virgil sniffs again, “It- it worked like a fu-fucking charm. I uh, I’m actually feeling things after going through your list, so like. Nice work, I guess, I owe you dinner. Like, dinner at a restaurant, not a cooking dinner because I don’t want to poison you.

   “Ahem. Anyway. That’s the best thing in this whole video, you win Logan. And that about wraps up the Thursday vlog. Thanks for listening everyone, here’s the obligatory ‘we’re gonna be okay’ message, because as corny as that is -- it’s true. Find yourself a Bert to go with your Ernie and it’ll be okay. Maybe throw in an Elmo or a Zoey if you wanna round out the group. And my metaphor is getting too complicated, so! Virgil out! See you this weekend for the next Theory of Real Activity -- Logan and I are joined by Patton this time and we get into wild shit this week, let me tell you.”

***

   “Well, what are we still waiting around here for?” Patton asked, turning his phone off. He disconnected the earbuds, stuffing his haphazardly into his front pocket. Logan winced at the sight, and quickly but carefully wound his up into their case.

   “I’ll text Virgil to make sure he knows to expect us. Patton, if you could text Roman?” Logan asks, standing up and smoothing out his shirt. Patton nods, already poking away at his phone.

Me: Greetings, Virgil. Patton and I are on our way over to your house if that is okay?

Virgil Jackson: cant tell you no, you practically live here

Me: Yes, well, that is true. Is there anything I should bring with us?

Virgil Jackson: would it be lame to say a hug

Me: Not at all. If there is anything this group is good for, it’s hugging and crying. The occasional yelling, but that could go either way.

Virgil Jackson: whatever nerd, get over here already

Some Eurovision 2018 thoughts

Because I promised @isabellaofparma I would post these, that’s why. I should note, I wrote most of this before the rehearsals and saved it as draft, so there are only a few added touches before posting. Also, can’t believe it’s almost a year since ESC 2017. @beautifulhusbands, remember when we chatted about last year’s competition? Good times. OK, here are a few thoughts about some of the songs by country... Hungary - thing for me is, I love rock songs at the ESC, so a rock song has to work really hard for me not to like it in this competition. Still, this one feels particularly authentic, so major kudos, it’s my fave rock song this year (sorry, @i-want-messed-up-with-you-4-ever, though the Netherlands’ country rock entry is nice too. @letthebluerain we also have a cute light rock song from Romania, but I have to admit I’m always disappointed when I don’t get a song in Romanian from the country I was born in. But I actually adore that we have more than one rock song this year, I like this diversity). @isabellaofparma, I still love last year’s Hungarian entry more, but that’s because it became one of my fave ESC songs ever, not because this year’s offering isn’t good. FYR Macedonia - I saw some people saying this song is a mess of genres, but I don’t think that’s the issue. You can throw in five different musical genres and as an idea, it could still work well. For me the problem is every time I get into a particular portion and genre and I start enjoying myself, the song switches over. So I’m left unsatisfied by the whole thing. Greece - I like this song. I adore all songs that are in their country’s native language rather than in English, even though I get why so many choose to perform in the latter. So this song gets points for that, has an ethnic sound to it which I also like and generally, it seems like Israelis tend to like the Greek songs. So yeah, one of my faves this year. I think it has a real shot at being the winner. (isn’t @nvrtickleadragon Greek? I like relating songs and countries to people. So go you!) Belarus - this may be weird but the singer reminds me of the guy who played the (more) openly gay teenager on Witness (I miss that show so much). That does things to me. So I like this entry, but it may not be for the right reasons. I think how this will do will greatly depend on how it’s executed on stage. Italy - I have to say, I adore the Italian tendency to send songs in Italian as it’s one of my fave languages. This entry is nice musically, though I think one of the singers is not as good as the other one and the disparity takes away some of my enjoyment. Also, I’m not fond of the tendency to send 'from the headlines’ songs, though relatively to the genre, this one is nice. All in all, my feelings are it could have been better and it could have been worse. At least the hook is catchy. (I believe @robertjacobsugdens is Italian, right? Again, me with the relating stuff to people thing. I do believe you guys will do well this year even if this isn’t my fave entry this year, nor my fave Italian song to the ESC) Also, technically, I wanna rant over the fact that there actually ARE pacifist bombs. For example, there are bombs used specifically to destroy other bombs in a controlled manner that saves lives. So. I don’t know. I don’t like an oversimplified message is what I’m saying, I guess. Kinda makes you wonder why I listen to ESC then, right? ;p France - This is another one ‘from the headlines’, so once more, I’m a bit meh. It’s a nice, lovely tune, I adore that France always sing in French, but the song becomes too familiar too quickly in my opinion. I’m sorry, @iamarobronniffler, I think you guys will get a high score, but I don’t think it will win... I also think it was sort of hurt by being one of the first songs to be released, which means people had loads of time to get used to it... Personal pet peeve is that the singer pronounces ‘Mercy’ not like the English word the name derives from, but like the French word ‘merci’, which is a nice touch, but it starts bothering me towards the end of the song, when the name is repeated (and mispronounced) so much. Denmark - ok, so on first listen? It’s a really strong entry. The drums are epic, the staging is good, the production of the song is tight, the legend behind the song of Vikings who decided not to fight is cool, it is a catchy song, Rasmussen has stage experience so the odds of him faltering on the night are slim, thus this song has SO MUCH going for it. Usually, if you have a song like this and you come from one of the two blocks (the Soviet or the Scndinavian ones) I feel like you have it in the bag. That’s how I felt about Sweden’s Heroes and Denmark’s Only Teardrops and they both won. But I feel like one thing that works against the song is that it has something about it that’s almost too serious and in a year where a lot of things are less so, plus this year is very innovative while this song is classically epic, that may work against it. Also, I feel like years when the Scandinavian countries send more than one strong entry, that end up splitting the Nordic vote and negates the block advantage. This year, you have Finland with a strong entry too, plus Sweden being Sweden. Basically, I feel like this could have been the winner in a lot of years, but probably not this one. Portugal - feels like an attempt to send a song in the same genre of their winner last year and I think the odds of the same country winning twice in a row with the same type of song is slim to none. That being said, I think this year’s offering is lovely and way better in this genre than last year’s Portuguese song. Sorry, I still don’t think that guy should have won. Sweden - hmmm, this will do well, first of all because it’s Sweden (really, @stulot, it’s ridiculous what an empire you are in this sense) and because it has a nice, young Michael Jackson vibe. But I really don’t think it’s gonna win. It doesn’t stand out enough in my opinion. Plus, the Danish and Finnish contenders are stronger IMO, so my guess is a lot of Scandinavians votes are gonna go there rather than to Sweden. It’s a good song, it’s just not enough of a competition when even within Scandinavia, it’s only the third strongest song. Ireland - the song is sooooo sweet, it’s almost too much so. It gets a bit better once you realize it’s actually about a relationship that has ended, it gives the idea behind it a bit of a twist than if it were just a declaration of sickeningly sweet love, but the real gem for this entry is the clip. It’s openly showcasing a same-sex couple and I am SO happy about that! Despite its gay reputation, ESC is actually more heteronormative than you’d expect, so that clip made me really happy. I want it to do better than it might have otherwise for that alone. I'm glad they’re bringing it to the stage in Lisbon too. I’m annoyed (though not surprised) that Russia said it would cut this song out. Thing is, Russia is allowed to do that in the semi-final, but not in the final, so for that reason if nothing else, I want Ireland in the final. (person from fandom that this made me think of, @dannymiller-irish-fan. Promise I’m done with the tagging now... I think) Cyprus - this is a very typical ESC song, it’s fun and tightly produced so it will do well, but I’m not happy about the lack of originality, plus the pushing of the ‘sex sells’ angle is not something that I subscribe to. Bulgaria - this song feels very current, easily a pop hit you could hear on the radio rather than on the ESC stage. I enjoy it, I think a lot depends on the live performance, how the staging will go, how will their voices blend live, but I think it can be the winner. Estonia - it’s weird, I think her voice is stunning beyond measure, the song is perfect opera pop, I enjoy it whenever I hear it and yet it’s not a song I can see myself listening to outside of the competition. Maybe because it’s not exactly one you can sing along to. All the same, another possible winner IMO. Finland - So this is the strongest Scandinavian contender in my book (so @youslicetheginger, I think you guys have a shot). The song is classic ESC, it’s also well produced and performed, which is really important, so that takes a bit away from the fact that it’s not that original. However, you gotta add in two more advantages, both originating in Saara Aalto being the one performing it (beyond the fact that SHE CAN FUCKING BELT). One is that she was on singing reality shows in both Finland AND the UK before the contest, which probably makes her the most established artist of the whole lot before the competition. That matters because while the Scandinavian vote is split up this year, she can make up for it through fans of hers from outside Finland and Scandinavia. The other is her being open about her engagement to a woman. This, together with the possible LGBTQ reading of her song, I think can also get her a lot of votes. So basically, out of the Nordic countries, I believe she’s gonna place highest. And I’m definitely a fan. Iceland - the most interesting things about this clip and its video: the church you can see in the clip, the streets Ari (the singer) walks down in it, are ones I’ve seen and walked too, which was pretty cool to me. Ari means Eagle in the Scandinavian language, which is a cool coincidence with the fact that in Hebrew, the same name means lion. ‘But Alice, these interesting tidbits have nothing to do with the song!?’ you say? Exactly. Sorry, Ari, you look like a lovely guy, you damn well can sing, but this is the biggest bore fest this year. You deserved a better song. Norway - This is the definition of “don’t know when to call it quits”. What’s worst to me is Alexander tried to make it better by saying kids keep asking him how to write a song and this was his reply to them. Either he’s lying and just trying to get the audience to go all ‘awwww’ over his very banal song, an inferior version of the song he had won with in the past... or he’s honest, in which case, STOP LYING TO THE KIDS, Alexander. That is NOT how you write a song. Ukraine - I think this is such a cool, different song performed by a cool, different artist, it’s upbeat, it’s not preachy, it’s unique, it’s catchy, I love it. I don’t think it will win, but it’s another one of my faves. Spain - this love song made me think of @imre-gr, of course. It is sweet and lovely. It was the first song I heard that made me smile, so how could I not think of you? But then, I have to admit that it is very much the typical ESC love duet and while it’s a very good version of it, in a year full of unique and different songs, I don’t think it stands a chance to win. Sorry. :( Israel - honestly, my first reaction when the song was first released was, ‘ok, so we will not win this year either’. I still think it’s too divisive to win (I know the bookkeepers disagree, but I think they mainly rely on how many views the song clips get on YouTube and that is NOT a measure for which one will win the ESC), I think the song’s too original, too creative and TOO out there, not enough people get why the chicken bits were included, too many people started arguing about whether this is a feminist song or an anti-male one, but I was happy to see it was less divisive than I anticipated and that a lot of people have responded so positively to the song, to its message of self-empowerment and to Netta. I can’t think of anything better than so many people seeing a woman who is clearly nothing like the thin ideal of beauty in our society singing “I’m a beautiful creature”, getting that she means it and agreeing with her. Netta in simply who she is conveys a real message and spirit of change for the better. The song itself tries to tackle a serious issue but without being preachy or heavy about it, make it fun for people when they sing about feminism and embracing yourself and your strength as you are. I feel like this attempt sometimes means the lyrics aren’t clear enough (as the song is inspired by the #metoo movement, ‘stupid boy’ doesn’t feel like a harsh enough term for the sexual harassment the song refers to, plus it can too easily be used to make it seem like the song is anti-male, because people take it as if ‘stupid boy’ is referring to all men rather than to jerks who take advantage of women), but I still appreciate what it tries to do. And at the end of the day, I think Netta is fabulous, I think she got her message across, I think her song became popular way beyond the bounds of the competition, so in my eyes, even if she won’t win the contest, she’s a true winner and wonder woman. I’m proud of you and thank you for representing in such an amazing way a huge part of the beauty of my country on its 70th anniversary. <3

How to Listen to Hozier: A Guide in Escapism with The Troubadour Hero

@farrahda5hy wrote this days ago and it’s every thought i’ve ever had about this fucking album and i really feel understood

The narrative I am proposing is personal to me, and I do not claim that it is proper or correct way to listen to this album. However, I will be providing commentary on how I compose this specific narrative. These steps are really boiling down how I perceive things so see them as the end all be all. The instructions are comprised on two main factors: one’s beloved and the constructed world that exists in one’s mind.

1. First, identify your beloved. I don’t have a significant other which is why I probably am going to choose Sweet Andy Hozier himself. Also, he’s a neat guy and quite a charmer and activist…etc. This step should be easier for those are in relationships. As reductive as this may sound, it is important that one chose a few words that summarize the relationship with one’s significant other. 2. The self-construction is really only important to listen experience. It’s really where your mind goes to when you’re listening to the album. For those who are taking the beloved to the narrator (Andy as Narrator maybe) approach, I assume this step would be harder or potentially easier as one’s mind is free to run wild as you are not tied down to reality. As a creative writer, I live and thrive in this space.

I am choosing the words: Fluid, Bold, Chaotic, Sarcastic, Overwhelming, and Passionate.

As for this world construction, I usually go back to my hometown within the Appalachian mountains, specifically the Smokey mountains. For me, this place represents a mysticism that I have created for myself. Honestly, it is quite the opposite of the Bog People villas described in the album, but there’s a large number Irish descendants in this area. But like I said, it’s more personal and obviously idealistic. I don’t care for my hometown, but I’m in love with how it made me feel and the bastardized version of it that exists in my head now that somehow blurred into my new city.

Taking these basic elements, I’m forming this new track list organization. Hold on to your hats, it’s going to get fucking wild and possibly a bit fanfic, so as Griffin McElroy says “just fucking play in this space with me.”

Track one: Take Me to Church.

Yes, don’t at me. This song is in fact the first song on the album, but I think it sets the tone for the narrative. Two lines that stick out are “She’s the giggle at a funeral” and “My church offers no absolutes.” Honestly, these lines really stick out to me. Immediately, it identifies the woman in the relationship as other to what is excepted in society. Quite frankly as black woman, I’m kind always in that category, you know. Not to mention the hella gospel tones and such. The second line mentioned out of context is very much a declaration of acceptance which is bomb, but also naive in a way in a new love sense. Because of course within relationships, there are aspects that are fine in the beginning or on some levels but cause problems in the long-run. For me, I identify as the woman who the subject of the song. Honestly, I’m that gal who’s going to say wise shit to you, but will also doubt herself. But I’m a “fuck what the world thinks” person and overcompensate by existing in this “let’s take down the world” ideology.

Track two: Jackie and Wilson

This song is so damn playful, and it’s this feeling of hopefulness and disappointment in a way. Really the entire breakdown of the song throws your head into a loop. There’s this one-sided commitment, and I guess when I get to that part of the song I’m always thinking “yeah, bud, I like you, but shit, this thing can’t last forever right? Don’t tie yourself down to me because woof…buddy, I’m a roadtrip you do not want to go on.” The song is trying to come to terms with a partner who isn’t giving their 150%. Also, for my mental music video, Hozier has his hair down the entire car ride and sunglasses on, and I’m sticking my whole body out the car with an lit cigarette in my left hand while we do donuts in Kroger parking lot.

Track Three: Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene

This song is another one where the breakdown of the song is the most powerful. Really the song speaks for its self. The relationship just is toxic and overwhelming and in need of escape. Every time I listen to this song, I imagine myself in a basement at a drum set. It didn’t really occur to me that it’s the chaotic feeling and the need to escape that I have latch on to.

Track four: Someone New

Forget everything you know about this song, okay. Because this song is literally the “Take Me or Leave Me” moment. Literally until the breakdown of the song, I imagine the beloved singing the verses rather than Sweet Andy. It’s very much a “we’re not working. We’re trying other people.”

Two things I want to highlight: the lyrics of the breakdown. This first part will not make as much sense until I talk about the next song. But Jealous!Hozier is a fucking thing. I find this interesting, but until then, there’s this “I’m level headed and open about my emotions” air about him. But this delightful pang of jealousy adds dimension to what I call the Hozier Troubadour Hero. The female character (or the one I have constructed in my own head) as main vocalist is just as level-headed and falsely self-aware. Then there’s this arrow of “oh yeah we’re doing this thing and seeing other people, but I’m not happy about seeing you with other people.”

The line “Love with every stranger. The stranger the better.” I love this wordplay. But against the line “how pure how sweet in love Aretha that you would pray for him,” it’s fucking taunting and bitter as hell. Really, starting the album of with Take Me to Church reflects this disregard for organized religion, which is no stranger to Hozier, but the beloved seems to still exists in that sphere. But I also want to read in another way that it’s bittersweet to the Hozier!character that this beloved still prays for him although she’s involved with another person. I don’t know. It’s interesting.

Quickly, I want to highlight the other vocal overlay that actually comes between the two lines mentioned. I get this air of confrontation and then the “NO ITS COOL IM HAPPY THAT YOUR HAPPY WITH SOMEONE NEW”. Once again, I imagine this argument taking place in an apartment living room.

Here, I would like to introduce a distinction between the characters. The Hozier character is very much fluid that is very self contained chaos whereas the female character is very much open chaos. As a fire signs, I totally get that. Hozier being a water sign is very fluid in what we stereotypically thing as fluid, but we also don’t always see water as destructive in comparison to fire.

Track Five: From Eden

To this day, I still wonder if this is a love song. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be. But I find this song to be one of my favorites.

I want to flip the imagery of Jackie and Wilson and delve more into the Chaotic!Hozier characterization. Obviously, this song is very upfront with the Garden of Eden serpent allusion. This song exists in the uncertainty of relationship. The “are we or aren’t we” spheres. To sum it up, this is a conversation happening in a car. Oddly, person in the passenger seat (Hozier) is leading the conversation and the beloved as the driver really doesn’t want to have this conversation.

The ending of first verse give us little snippets, and it appears that the beloved flaws are being pointed out or Hozier is anticipating the responses from the driver. But also let’s return back to this serpent imagery. Hozier aligns himself with the serpent in Eden, so the idea of corruption is very highly in this imagined car ride.

When I first heard this song, I got the “bad boy who doesn’t let everyone know he’s a bad boy” vibe.” I really gripped on to this concept; along with other religious allusions, I really don’t know how to objectively look at them. For me, it’s a little “Walk to Remember-ish” where the preachers daughter is in love with the bad boy. I don’t know, but really at the heart of it, the narrative boils down to “I’m going to corrupt this persons core, and I don’t have remorse at all.” Understanding what this concept means on personal level will determine whether it’s a love song or whether it’s an act of selfishness disguised as love.

Track Six: Foreigners God

I’ll admit. I didn’t really get this song after my initial listen to the album. I think for me it’s just too personal. I grew up in a Christian household, going to a very charismatic church. So the line that really sticks out it’s very simple “It’s Foreign to me”. I’ll just leave that there.

It’s really an outsider looking in and not understanding and forming their own opinions. While “Take Me to Church” is very much a “sex in an abandoned church (or whatever) type of jam that highlights the oppressive aspects of organized religion, “Foreigners God” really displays the frustration of separating the comforting parts from all the oppressive aspects.

This scene takes place in the abandoned church, and I want to react in this way of “God is here” in this desolation that some people don’t understand. Going back to that fire fluidity, I just imagine myself dancing in this church with like a song under my breath and releasing all this anger I’ve shared with no one. Then Sweet Andy Hozier is just watching in the door frame in the background. Not even sitting in the pew.

Track Seven: Cherry Wine

I think I’m just punching a window out. Car window. A church window. A bedroom window.

This pivotal point of realization that “hey maybe you’re the one that’s holding you back and lashing out at people isn’t the best.” But the tragedy is there’s still a lack of self awareness. Like you’re angry but you still put blame on other people. Yeah…

Track Eight: Sedated

This song is another one of those songs that I interpret as the point of view of the beloved based on the breakdown of the song, but I still want to look at the Hozier character POV

“Darling, don’t stand there watching won’t you come save me from this. Darling, don’t you join in you’re supposed to drag me away from this.”

That’s desperation. That’s a little toxic in a way. Expecting a person to save you, but yet, forgetting that person may need saving themselves is selfish. What makes Jackie and Wilson so tragic is this naivety. “She’s going to save me call me ‘baby’ run her hands to my hair.” Yeah, that’s sweet and cute, but what are you doing in return. Falling in love with this idealized strong woman, but then denying her the opportunity to be vulnerable is very much the corruption I spoke about in From Eden.

Honestly, the worst part about hiding vulnerability is when it rushes out like a dam breaking or when a fire is no longer contained.

Track Nine: Arsonist’s Lullaby

I call it the pagan ritual version of Foreigners God or when Chaotic!Hozier is at his most powerful and vulnerable. Why? Is it the relinquishing of this vulnerability for his beloved to use as her discretion or is it his acknowledgment of hers and offering to aid her in channeling it? Yes, but it’s also the fire within him, the passion, the chaos, and the darkness that fuels him. He is both talking to the beloved and himself.

For the sake of the conversation, this scene also takes place in the same abandoned church, and Hozier gets up to where he stage used to be; barefoot and hair pulled back. At first, he’s swaying gently, fluid like as flame is first lit with back facing the congregation. He’s like this for a few moments and then he’s twirling around the abandoned stage until he’s almost stomping his feet. Thump. Thump. Thump. Suddenly, everything changes and his hair falls out the ponytail and turns around and the stumps are more violent, yet the dance is just as fluid until he steps down from stage…the intense eye contact is fucking overwhelming. He just walks out the abandoned church leaving his shoes like some awoken wild child.

Track Ten: My Love will Never Die

Do you like blues? Welp. This song speaks for its fucking self. Do you want Sad!Hozier crooning in a room by himself? Because that’s what he’s doing, babe.

Track Eleven: In the Woods Somewhere I get a lot of fever dream vibes from this song, so I can only imagine it as something just not real. So I present you with an actual dream I had about Hozier I had once.

Pretty much, I dreamt Hozier was this shapeshifter who turned into a fox that was terrorizing the town in his fox state. It was more a vigilante like thing, but it was tragic because I had to kill the fox out of mercy.

The song also talks about a similar scene. So mercy killing when you’re in love is very much something that hard to describe, but you have to do it to the other person when you love them. I don’t know. So just imagine Hozier shooting up out of dead sleep fever dream.

Track Twelve: Run

Also a ritual dance, but also possibly a fever dream? This song introduces the field/nature imagery to relationship narrative. The metronome in the background mirrors the jerky dancing of the beloved from the Foreigners God portion but the tempo of the drums gives rhythm to the fluidity of the Hozier!Character. Both of these two sounds represent being grounded, and they work in unison. This unison is a first really. Playing that fever dream, the song seems to end abruptly and I think that’s the true awakening of the Hozier!Character physically and emotionally.

The dream itself is the couple dancing in a field together in the afternoon. I could go further with this dream, but I’m going explain it as actual event later.

Track Thirteen: It Will Come Back 

The best song on the album, not to mention a song of seduction. It’s an unintentional sexy song. I wish it were a duet or at least have more prominent female background vocals. While seduction isn’t the best term for the overall narrative, what I am trying to say is a song of pleading for so many things: to be let go, to be let in, or to be cast aside to make it easier to move on. Wild Eye, Sleep-Deprived Hozier is walking around barefoot at three am across town to reconcile his feelings, and then he’s just singing and howling outside my house? Of course, I’m going to let him in. “Don’t you hear me howling, babe?” The faded of the last line is so interesting, and it brings me back to Sedated’s line “I keep catching little words, but the meanings thin.” I just occurred to me is that the expression of vulnerability is very metaphorically, but on the literal manifestations are different. The Hozier!Character is very much a “tell me with your words”; the beloved is very much “tell me with your actions. “Don’t you hear me howling, babe” takes on another meaning in which the question is literally “you’ve seen me vulnerable, but did you hear what I actually said. I love you so much that it’s animalistic and consuming the humanity in me.” That’s oddly beautiful. 

Track Fourteen: To Be Alone 

So I bet you were wondering when I was going to talk more about the location part. Well, here is it. I grew up in the middle of the Bible Belt. Sometimes when you’re not conforming you feel like everyone is looking at you whether they are or not. At on a more concrete level, my hometown used to have a festival called the Fall Festival, and they would have a series of out door concerts of various artists. This event was usually held downtown. Honestly, I’m not to big on crowds, but at the same time, I adore being alone in a crowd or with one person while out in public. To Be Alone captured that vibe very well. Returning the relationship, at this point, the air of ambiguity of relationship still exists; however, the relationship is heading toward stability in my opinion. I just love the image of Chaotic!Hozier dancing in a crowd simultaneously ignoring everyone else while be fully away of the contained space he’s got to be close with his lover. Then just going the fuck home for sex just because the mood allowed it to feel sacred in some way. Maybe it was the dream of the two lovers dancing in the field. 

Track Fifteen: In A Week 

The only duet on this album! UGH SO DAMN GOOD! A lovely balances of vocals; they are playing off each other. It’s very much stereotypical “we finish each other’s sentences” concept but actualized very well. So maybe the sex didn’t happen after the festival, but that closeness and intimate is still present. Despite being allergic to grass, I like lying in the grass. I also like the macabre. So nothing is out of place, and it’s all intimate joke to describe a seemingly tragic love that is no longer tragic. 

Track Sixteen: Like Real People Do 

Something tragic about that this song (it’s probably the true story behind it) but also romantic. As the penultimate song in the album, it’s very much the final acceptance of all the flaws, frustrations, and the opposition within. Not to be sexy, this song is the foreplay to the final song. This is the outside conversation on the porch before you invite your lover into the house to stay the night and lead your lover upstairs or to the couch or the floor Whatever floats your passionate boat. 

Track Seventeen: Work Song 

It’s the only song on the album that doesn’t seem to have baggage behind it. It’s purely romantic. I put this song in opposition to Take Me to Church really. I imagine that’s why I put it at the the end. This song is true acceptance not the fake acceptance in Take Me to Church. The line “Heaven and Hell were words to me” signifies this point. Everything I’ve described throughout this narrative as been about duality and finding where the lines blur for this relationship to be functional. “Work Song” finally rejects that ideology and allows the relationship to heal and flourish. So in this moment, let’s return back to this abandoned church that this couple has made their own sanctuary (face it they are fucking weird) but it’s not broken down or stuffy. It’s homely as they camp out for the night making their bed at the abandoned altar. The couple makes love in the moonlight that peeks in through the shattered window. The whole damn cosmos witness the rebellion that manifests in their love. So yeah, I’m curious to what the narrative of the reverse of this track list. I didn’t have this narrative planned out in my head. It just came organically as I was writing. Honestly if i had written my original idea it would have been more fantasy driven and a lot more Chaotic!Hozier. If you’re curious about that let me know. Also, I will try to do one of the original track list because it’s more of a challenge.

Unlikely Chapter 4

Despite my throbbing head, Friday flew by. I tried not to check my phone every 38 seconds, but failed. I wanted him to text me, but he had to do it first. I don’t play by “The Rules” usually (hmmmm, given my dating history, maybe I should try) but out of sheer anxiety I never call or text first. It doesn’t mean that I don’t bite my nails while waiting, however. And more than once I’ve basically bitten a whole finger off waiting for a message that never came. I tried to distract myself at work by helping in the office in between appointments, explaining some procedures to Rose’s replacement (I’m sure telling her the total wrong thing). At lunch I decided to take a walk to occupy myself, but ended up sitting in the tea shop seven doors down eating a chocolate croissant and sipping Earl Grey. I was wearing ballet flats - there’s simply not enough arch support for a walk. Plus, my afternoon appointments didn’t need to see me sweaty. It was in the best interest of my patients. I was a woman of the people.

That evening Carly and I went to see Kinky Boots on the West End. It was my favorite and Carly had gotten box seats through someone at work. We sang like ninnies throughout the show, laughing and carrying on. Afterwards we hit a swank gastro-pub she’d heard about. As we settled in and were chatting about our days, she dropped the bomb I knew she’d been dying to ask, “So, Niall?”

“Nope.” I rolled my eyes at her.

“Yep. Spill.”

“Well yes, young Niall. He’s a friend of a friend. Perhaps you’ve noticed him at quiz night. Blonde thing, Irish?”

Biting into the olive in her martini, she stuck her tongue out at me. “Seems like he’s more than a friend of a friend. You two were almost snogging last night.”

“I was just playing with his hair. It was innocent. I do that to Paulie all the time.”

“Paul doesn’t practically drool on your boobs when you play with his hair. And he doesn’t look that cozy, either.”

“Stop.”

“Z,” she started. “He rea-...”

“No, Carly. I said stop.” I knew my irritation was evident. I had no poker face - anything I thought or felt was always on display. “Listen, he’s really nice and all the other stuff. But it’s nothing. NOTHING.” She tried to interrupt and I held up my hand. “Don’t. I will not get my hopes up. Because every time someone shows me interest I get a little excited, and I am not doing that anymore. It never ends well, and I’m not putting myself through it again. Remember Adam?” I took a long drink of my martini (Ketel One, extra dirty) and stared at her.

“Right. He was a dick.”

“He was a dick who lead me on for two months and then Aaron found out he had a girlfriend in Leeds. And before him there was Sam, and, um, Robbie. In college there was Dave. High school was Sean. And Kyle The Worst.  I’m not doing it. Short of Niall Horan tattooing my name on his ass, I will not believe this is anything more than friendship.” For emphasis, I smacked my hand on the table, startling the tables around us. I eyeballed people who were looking, and stuck my tongue out at a kid about 7 who was staring. Like a sensible human being, he stuck his back out at me.

I’d been unable to get over my hissy fit with Carly, so we called it a night after one drink and no dinner. She hugged me outside of the pub. “Sorry, Z. I didn’t mean to upset you. But don’t shut him down. Friend or whatever, I think he’d be a good guy to keep around.” I nodded at her and hugged her back. I wasn’t mad at her really - she said the same things I would have said if the tables were turned. But Carly didn’t have my history with men, so she couldn’t understand where I was coming from. Sigh. I dug around my purse and found an emergency Valium in my container of miscellaneous pills, swallowing it as the cab sped towards my flat.

I slept late Saturday and Sunday mornings (okay, I sleep late every weekend) and ran errands. I’d begrudgingly let Hannah talk me into hot yoga on the condition that we got pancakes afterwards. I spent the rest of my free time on laundry, had dinner and wine at one of the other therapist’s in my office’s house, and caught up on paperwork. My friends all avoided any mention of Niall - I was assuming Carly had made everyone aware of my meltdown Friday night and they were tiptoeing around me. I was okay with that, though. I didn’t post on Instagram, but went on a few rants on Twitter. Nothing exciting happened, not that I expected it to. Sadly my philosophy on life was to set low expectations and never be disappointed.  

Monday began earlier than I expected when my texts notifications dinged at 6:30 (my alarm was set for 6:45 - those 15 minutes make a huge difference). Having been raised to believe that no good came of late night or early morning phone calls, and having adapted this to texting as well, I fumbled for my phone, knocking it off the nightstand. Trying to get to it as soon as possible (Did someone need bail money? Had my sister-in-law finally snapped and murdered my brother?), I fell off the bed. Happy fucking Monday.

Niall. The text was from Niall. I rubbed the tiny knot rising on my forehead (which I knew would swelll into a goose egg by the time the morning was over), and opened it.

“Dragged everyone to quiz night . Not the same without ya !

“I’m shite at the science questions-wish ya were here Z .”

Holy fuck beans. I was wide awake now. As I processed this info, another text came in.

“Oh, and it’s trivia night here . Not quiz night . Americans ;) .”

That was flirty. It was definitely flirty. There was a wink emoji. I took a screenshot of the conversation and sent it to Hannah.

“HELP!”

“HELP!

“HANNAH LOUISE GET UP! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!”

“omg. he texted you! he’s flirting! that’s total flirting!”

“i’m totally squealing for you, btw”

“Right? Me too!”

“what did you say back?”

Fuck. I needed to respond.

“I haven’t. Shit, what do I say?”

“be clever.”

“Oh, that’s helpful.”

“z, it’s 6:40 on a monday morning. you’re lucky i’m awake.”

Okay, I can do this. I carried my phone (like it was my precious baby) into the kitchen while I started my Nespresso. I tried typing in several witty answers and deleted them before I could hit send.

“Sorry, my friend. You hit the quiz night goldmine with us on your first try. And damn those dirty Americans :)”

When I didn’t get a response in a few minutes, I gave up and started to get ready for the day. In the shower (washing your hair actually causes ideas to get loose, I swear) I thought of several comebacks that would have been much better. Damn. No response as I gave my hair a quick blow dry (then gave up and put it in a bun), tossed on my fast weekday makeup (BB cream, a quick swipe of eyeliner, and mascara...lipstick could be done on the tube), and tossed on a pair of gray khakis and a navy sweater. Nothing. Bullocks. I reminded myself that this was the exact reason I didn’t want to get excited about Niall in the first place-it was too easy to get caught up and let my emotions get dictated by someone else. With a concerned effort, I turned off my phone and tossed it in my bag.

When I finished with my 3:00 appointment, one of the part-time admins was standing outside of the treatment room we’d been in. “Zoe, you need to call a Hannah back as soon as possible. She’s called three times since lunch and sounds like she’s really upset. I hope everything is okay.”

Damn it, Hannah, you drama queen. I went into my (tiny) office and retrieved my phone, turning it on. 14 texts from Hannah, 8 from Paul, 2 each from Jess and Carly, and 1 from Brian. She’d sent in the troops. As I scrolled through, I saw one more I’d missed in my initial perusal - Niall. First things first, though: Hannah. I called her extension at work and she picked up, “Jesus Christ, are you okay?”

“Wow, that’s a professional way to answer the phone. I’m fine. Turned my phone off this morning.”

“Did he not text back?” People were shouting numbers behind her and the mere idea of it gave me a rash.

“Not right away, and I didn’t want to keep looking at the phone. Just checked it since you freaking called the hounds out on me. He responded.”

“And?”

“And what? I didn’t read it yet. I called you before Scotland Yard showed up at my office.”  

“Well fucking read it!” her high pitched voice pierced the line. Ouch.

“I’ll text you shortly. Call off the posse, I’m safe.” I ended the call and stared at the phone a minute. Here goes nothing.

“I did hit the jackpot for quiz mates . Brains and beauty .”

I gasped. Literally gasped. And dropped my phone, narrowly missing my mid-afternoon San Pellegrino. Beauty. BEAUTY. But mate. But beauty. But mate. Gah! This is why my spinster plan was a good idea. Copied the text and sent to Hannah with my own “WTF?” note.

I hammered out a quick response, “Yeah, Paul’s quite the catch. You did well.” It was almost 7 am in Los Angeles (thanks, Google, because time zone math always tricked me). I didn’t figure Niall for an early riser, so back in the bag went the phone and I went into my 4:00 with Elliott, one of my favorite kids.

On the tube home I couldn’t resist and looked again. Nothing. So I did what any sensible person would do and ordered eggplant parmigiana take away. I got into my flat, changed into an old t-shirt - pants were totally optional in my house, took out my contacts, and plopped my ass down with my dinner. My Netflix and chill date was Italian and delicious. A little saucy, though.

At 9:30 my phone dinged with a text. I was half asleep and could feel the pattern from the sofa pillow indented in my face. I grabbed it and saw a text from Niall.

“Paul is a nice looking chap . Not who I had in mind, tho .”

Well fuck this, I was no good at playing cute. Trying to come up with a way to come and ask him if he was hinting at liking me, I heard another ding.

“Want to facetime? I’ll turn on the Lumineers and sing to ya .”

Oh, fate, you’re a cruel mistress. I didn’t even want to know what I looked like right now. There was marinara on the front of my shirt, and I’m sure some on my face. I highly doubted that my makeup had lasted for 14 hours. And I had dragon breath. (I know, he wouldn’t be able to smell it because we hadn’t invented that technology yet, but I’d know.) I pondered if I could put him off long enough to take a shower, get a blow out, and properly contour and highlight my face. Instead I opted for a coy response.

“What fun would your singing be if I couldn’t play with your hair?”

“I’m not really up for FT right now - Monday slug night. Talk, though?”

One minute and 43 seconds later, my phone rang.

I finally hung up the phone at 00:18, GMT. My cheeks hurt from the smile I was rocking. At one point I'd laughed so hard as Niall told me about being chased by stadium security guards on his Segway that I got the hiccups. He, in turn, laughed so hard he had a coughing fit. “We’re a right mess, aren’t we?” he said as we both calmed down, an occasional chuckle between us. “Suppose we are. But at least we’re entertaining.” By this time I’d abandoned the living room and crawled into bed, almost purring when my back hit the mattress.

“What are you doing?” he asked in almost a whisper.

“Getting comfy. Just laid down in bed. It’s my happy place.” The silence on the other end of the line was obvious. Did I just freak him out? I wasn’t trying to get all sexy times, I just got into bed. My shirt and panties were still in place, for God’s sake. “Uh, I didn’t mean happy place like sex. Well, I mean, I guess that happens here, too, well, has happened here, but I’m just, um, laying down. Ya know, it’s late and my bed is warm.” The babbling.must.stop. “I just really like to sleep.”

His chuckle calmed my nerves. “I like to sleep, too, Z. I guess I was just thinking about you gettin’ cozy in your pajamas.” The tiny yelp noise I made echoed through my room. And the phone. But before I could get awkward, Niall beat me to it.

“Not perverted. Well, maybe a little.” I could already see him pulling at the front of his hair while he tried to explain himself. He let out that damned adorable chuckle again and continued. “I just think you’d look cute curled up in a big bed with lots of blankets. Probably one your gran made ya or something like that.”

My heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to explode. Unable to handle the sweetness, I laughed and said, “Do you have a camera or something in here? I thought you weren’t being perverted?” And I pulled the quilt my Grandma Bechtel made me in elementary school up closer to my chin. It scared me (in a good way, not a Jamie Dornan in The Fall kind of way) that he could imagine a scenario that was basically right on.

“I’ll keep my perverted thoughts to myself, promise. At least for now.”

Okay, well I’ll be good and goddamned if my panties weren’t on fire. “You’re testing my restraint here, Horan. I’m a good girl.”

“I have a feeling anything I say here is going to lead us down a bad path.” His voice had dropped an octave, though, and I could practically SEE the sexual tension in the air. “And, for the record, uh, I think you’re a very good girl, Z.”

Struggling to keep my heart from actually packing up and abandoning my chest, I managed to respond.  “I think I should say goodnight, Niall. Or good afternoon in your part of the world.” I barely recognized my own voice. It sounded a little higher and throatier than usual. Oh my god. It was my horny voice. I wasn’t usually in a position to actually listen to myself.

“Yeah I guess it is late there. You go and enjoy your beauty sleep. Not that ya need beauty sleep, I just mean I hope you sleep well. You’re already beautiful. Just, uh, sweet dreams, Z.”

Wow.

Anime in America Podcast: Full Episode 7 Transcript

  What do you remember from your first time seeing anime on TV? Find out how all this came to be and more as Crunchyroll's Anime in America podcast takes some time to speak with author and scholar Roland Kelts and Toonami's own Jason DeMarco in the latest episode! Read on for the full episode 7 transcript below. 

  The Anime in America series is available on crunchyroll.com, animeinamerica.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts. 

  EPISODE 7: RAISED BY TV

Guests: Jason DeMarco, Roland Kelts

  Disclaimer: The following program contains language not suitable for all ages. Discretion advised.

  [Lofi music]

  In February 1963, a guy named Fred Ladd got a call from NBC’s Jim Dodd. Somebody from NBC liked Fred’s work on a series created by taking 30- to 50-minute European cartoons that were cut into 5-minute segments and dubbed for release under the title “Cartoon Classics” and recommended Fred to Jim. 

  The mystery NBC agent had seen a cartoon on TV during a trip to Japan that he thought might play well on American television. After screening an episode, so did Fred. Jim Dodd asked if he’d be interested in dubbing and localizing the cartoon. That cartoon, or anime as we call them today, was an Osamu Tezuka led Mushi Production titled Tetsuan Atom.

  NBC recognized the need for new cartoons, as childrens’ entertainment on TV just wasn’t being served. At the time, many networks were airing libraries of animated films that had finished their theatrical runs. TV cartoons were expensive to make, both in raw production costs and because shows required 52 episodes for syndication so networks could continue to air reruns for long periods to recoup the licensing costs without the program becoming stale. 

  They saw Japanese cartoons as the perfect solution to this problem, predicting a low price tag, even with the added cost of dubbing. If Tetsuan Atom was a hit, they could continue picking up Japanese cartoons at cost to fill out their programming schedules. 

  There was just one problem though. The cartoons were um… they were Japanese.

  [Lofi music]

  NBC had made an executive decision to not hide the fact that the cartoons were of Japanese origin. Meaning that if asked they weren’t going to deny it, but they weren’t going to advertise it either. Lingering post-war sentiments and xenophobia might ostracize exactly the audience they were aiming for. But fortunately Tezuka, influenced by Disney, was a practitioner of what’s known as “mukokuseki,” or “statelessness.” The appearance of his characters and the setting of his works were ambiguous, allowing any viewer to more easily identify with them or, today, allowing an anime avatar on Twitter to argue that anime characters are supposed to be white. [Whistle]

  Anyway, the idea worked. Many of the earliest anime fans have similar stories about not even knowing that many of their favorite childhood cartoons were Japanese at all until much later in their lives. Just like in episode two when you didn’t realize that in the Power Rangers suits were just Japanese people fighting other Japanese people in puddy outfits, speaking japanese, then recorded over in english cut with american footage. Or you didn’t know as a kid that Muppet Babies was animated by the same studio that made Dragon Ball Z. Who would’ve thought?

  Basically, to them, it was just another cartoon.

  But anyway, things get a little rocky with Tetsuan Atom. 

  To that point NBC had been working with an agent representing Mushi Production named Kazuhiko Fujita, who shocked them by shooting down their initial offer. Just as they were reassessing what to do, one Kiyoshi Fujita (no relation) discovered the situation and got both Mushi Production and Fuji TV onboard with the deal. This might seem a little confusing, but it becomes important later on...

  So, Fred dubbed the pilot episode to present to the NBC reps and by summer of ‘63 they were all convinced they had a hit. He would go on to dub the entire 52 episode series using spare studio space with three voice actors at a cost of 1,800 USD total per episode before Tetsuan Atom, now retitled Astro Boy, aired on WNEW-TV channel 5 in New York as a test run before launching on NBC’s own Channel 4 network nationwide to popular acclaim and, according to Fred, launching the anime industry as we know it today.

  Overjoyed with the international success of Astroy Boy in the U.S., Tezuka returned to NBC looking to sell them on the upcoming adaptation of his manga Jungle Taitei Leo, submitting his entire plan for the series pre-production to the broadcasting company to make sure it would meet MCAA standards and now I guess we’ve gotta talk about American television in the 60s  for a little bit.

  [Lofi music]

  The reason Tezuka submitted his plan ahead was because three whole episodes of Tetsuan Atom didn’t make the cut to the Astro Boy series because of their content and, if not for a visit by Fred to Mushi Production, that number might’ve been six. America wasn’t interested so much in the cartoon they were licensing as much as the raw animation and were more than willing to change just about everything in the show to suit American tastes and meet MCAA broadcasting requirements.

  Too much violence? Cut it out. Character death? No! They’re just knocked out. Police man have a Japanese name? Let’s just change it to Officer McLaw, because… cops are Irish. At the time… and also now, uh American cartoons were expected to have each episode be a self-contained story. If some clever editing on the U.S. side couldn’t transform a “to be continued” into a “the end,” sometimes they’d have the Japanese studio redo the end. Consequently, that’s how Tetsuan Atom became Astro Boy… also maybe a little guilt over that whole atomic bomb thing.

  When it came to Jungle Taitei Leo, NBC had some demands. Cut all the “law of the jungle” violence. Cut Leo growing up and having kids (NBC had sold Astro Boy as a new Pinnochio and were using a Bambi angle for Leo), and also no Leo dying at the end. Tezuka... agreed to change all of it, which basically made the new story nothing like his original work. And the series, slated for 76 episodes, was also cut down to 52 to meet NBC’s broadcasting requirements. Also they changed Leo’s name to Simba to avoid comparisons to the MGM lion, who I’m sure you had no idea was named Leo, and then to Kimba after it was brought up that Simba was just the word for Lion in Swahili and I’m sure you can’t imagine anyone being that uncreative...? Um...

  Fred was on the forefront of many of these changes, editing and changing just about every aspect of NBC’s anime pickups in whatever way he thought would appeal to an American audience. But it should also be said that he was basically on the forefront of almost every TV anime Americans laid eyes on through the 90s. If he didn’t work on it personally, he was often instrumental in connecting creators with licensors to make it happen. His contribution to anime in America can not be understated. If it’s any consolation, Fred himself wasn’t a fan of Toei’s Japanese localization of his own original film, “Pinocchio in Outer Space”...

  …

  I repeat: Pinocchio in Outer Space.

  [Clip from Pinoccio in Outer Space trailer plays]

Older woman: Where’s Pinocchio now, daughter? 

Younger woman: Well, he began to grow selfish and inconsiderate. 

Jiminy Cricket?: We have to do something! Think you can hypnotize that big lummox? 

Other Person: I don’t even know where his eyes are!

Jiminy Cricket?: In his head, genius.

[Clip ends]

  You remember the guy who’s NOT in outer space? Imagine him in outer space. And that’s the, that’s the guy who was in charge of anime. 

  Anyway, look it up…it’s not anime so it has no place in this podcast.

  Then Mushi Productions began to run into trouble. Tezuka had already taken over the industry in the same way a Walmart moves into your small town and destroys all local businesses owned by your friends and family. He set his production costs to a dangerously low $3,000 per episode which, along with his nationwide reputation as a master of his craft, forced other studios to drop to his price point or drop out entirely. Many of them, unable to compete with his raw reputation, chose the latter. This set a precedent that the industry is still feeling the affects nearly 60 years later.

  Mushi was already running at the lowest possible cost while increasing their production efforts to put their cartoons up to American standards. Typical American cartoons were comprised of around 6,500 cels while Japanese cartoons clocked in at only 4,000. Mushi was still trying to catch up when Fuji Network and NBC demanded Mushi’s next production be in color… I should probably mention that all anime before this had been in grayscale. The whole world, actually. Color hadn’t been invented yet, so this was a BIG ask.

  Tezuka wasn’t sure how to tackle that task, so Mushi’s Kaoru Anami called Fred to ask for help, which led to him arranging a meeting with Disney’s Preston Blair in which he showed them the ropes. The result was Jungle Taitei Leo becoming the first color anime in 1966, Mushi’s production costs reaching a new peak, and maybe just maybe possibly Disney’s first contact with the inspiration for a certain controversial 1994 animated film about an unnamed jungle animal.

  Mushi was now relying on American investment in their productions to break even and then… NBC started rejecting Tezuka's projects.

  Tezuka’s take on the Chinese classic Journey to the West, “Goku no Daibouken,” was turned away because Goku was too mean. The mideval fantasy featuring a princess pretending to be a prince and getting into sword fights, “Ribon no Kishi,” was rejected due to what can best be described as “sex switching” panic, the modern word for that being transphobia. W3, a story about three aliens disguised as animals exploring the Earth to decide whether or not it was a universal threat was rejected for… no particular reason is clear but it’s about three animals deciding whether or not Earth should be destroyed, so... yeah. And finally Dororo, which just recently got a new adaptation, which I’m gonna guess got rejected because of violence and also “sex switching” panic over Dororo dressing as a boy. So there’s that. 

  Tezuka was afraid of antagonizing NBC by shopping his product elsewhere. After being forced to produce Goku no Daibouken at a loss, however, Mushi ended up selling Ribon no Kishi and W3 to Joe Oriolo, the co-creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost, of all things. 

  [Casper the Friendly Ghost theme]

  Ultimately it wasn’t enough. Mushi would enter a decline and, with blood in the water, new studios started popping up, many helmed by Mushi’s own former staff, and began looking to the U.S. to sell their works. In 1968 Tezuka would form a new studio, Tezuka Productions, leaving Mushi to its troubles as it circled the drain and finally went bankrupt in 1968.

  By the late 60s other studios were shopping out their works to America. Kazuhiko Fujita (if you remember him?) reemerged, having convinced Television Corporation of Japan (or TCJ) and Tatsukono to let him shop out international rights for the next several years. Among them, TCJ’s 8 Man, and Tetsujin 28-go, and Tatsunoko’s Space Ace, and Mach GoGoGo. NBC didn’t bite but ABC picked up 8 Man, pretty reasonably given the current market trends simply retitling it “8th Man.” When NBC and ABC passed on Tetsujin 28-go, Fred himself picked up the license, starting his own Delphi Associates Incorporated to localize it and releasing the series as Gigantor through Trans-Lux which, he claims, eclipsed even Astro Boy in its popularity. Mach GoGoGo ended up getting acquired directly by Trans-Lux and released as Speed Racer, becoming the most successful anime hit in the U.S. for years.

  [Speed Racer Opening! (original version)]

  At the time, Japanese studios were very focused on selling their works to America. TCJ was unwilling to sell the first 26 episodes of Tetsujin 28-go’s 52 episode series because they didn’t believe it was up to American standards and were even willing to go back and make changes to the ends of the latter 26 to keep with America’s self-contained story requests. 

  Tatsunoko had offered to go back and add color to the entire black and white Space Ace series for NBC, even coloring one episode as a sample, before they were turned down for another cartoon called “Cool McCool,” which may have been for the best since Fred had planned to change Ace’s name to “Ring-O”... because he threw rings…

  Anime fell on hard times in the 70s as public outcry against violence and advertising on children’s programming heated up. ACT, or A-C-T, or “Action for Children’s Television” had started up in ‘68 and had their sights set directly on cartoons, driving several titles like Space Ghost and Fantastic Four off the air before the turn of the decade. By the early 70s they were petitioning the FCC and were breathing down Jimmy Carter’s neck the moment he got into office in ‘77. Their power would diminish in the 80s with Reaganomics pulling back the FCC’s ACT-directed demands on programming, but during the 70s even the edited down violence of Fred Ladd’s localizations were unsafe.

  In the span of six years, American capital had vastly changed the landscape of Japanese animation, only for America to suddenly pull away and leave Japanese studios to pick up the pieces. While America was having another conservative moment, Japan’s animation industry headed in the opposite direction, moving into a new era of space-faring science fiction and increasing mature themes. 

  Even as Astro Boy was still airing on TV, some great minds started to think, “what if, instead of adapting Japanese cartoons, we just hired Japanese studios to cheaply animate OUR ideas instead?” These geniuses worked at Videocraft International and would quickly partner with Toei animation to produce the first ever cartoon produced in America and animated in Japan, the King Kong Show in 1969 [King Kong show intro]. They would go on to animate the 1981 Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, Inspector Gadget, Transformers, My Little Pony, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, and even… yes… even Muppet Babies. 

  Japanese studio Topcraft was also an early adopter, partnering with American Rankin/Bass in 1971 to produce a number of animated series like “The Jackson 5ive” that’s spelled with the number “5,” instead of an “F.” And several notable animated films from the 80s like Frosty’s Winter Wonderland, The Hobbit, and The Last Unicorn. All these projects were produced, written, and voice acted by Rankin/Bass in the U.S., while the animation was done at least in part but usually entirely by Topcraft.

  The relationship lasted until 1985 when Topcraft went bankrupt and got bought by someone you’ll remember from the previous episode, Hayao Miyazaki, who changed its name to the infamously difficult to pronounce “Ghibli” [“gh” pronounced like “geo”], or “Gibli?” [“gh” pronounced like “get”], or… “Ghibli” [“gh” pronounced like “yee”]. Some of its other animators formed Pacific Animation Corporation to continue working with Rankin/Bass on series like ThunderCats and Silverhawks before also retreating to Ghibli three years later when Walt Disney bought out their studio in 1988 to form Walt Disney Animation Japan to churn out all their direct-to-video movie sequels in the 90s…

  Tokyo Movie Shinsha, or TMS, was another studio that jumped on this trend. After a 1981 collaboration with French DIC Audiovisuel animating Ulysses 31 before animating a number of series with DIC’s new American arm. Over the next few decades TMS would animate cartoons for ABC, CBS, DIC, Disney, and Warner Brothers. Among their long list credits are cartoons like DuckTales, Tiny Toons, Ghostbusters, Gargoyles, and Batman: The Animated Series. Who would’ve thought? All the arguments we’ve had over Avatar: The Last Airbender, and EVERY American cartoon is up for debate on whether or not it’s anime. All of them. 

  One of the earliest adopters was famous televangelist and Christian known for hating ALL of his neighbors, Pat Robertson. Between 1981 and 1983, Robertson’s conservative evangelical Christan television network and production company, the Christian Broadcasting Network, or CBN for short, [55 Years of the Christian Broadcasting Network] recently revamped as a cable network, connected with Tatsunoko Production to produce two 52 episode series. First Super Book, which chronicled the events of the Old and New Testament; and it’s companion series Flying House, in which three kids, a professor, and a robot, travel through time to witness… numerous events of the New Testament… I guess being around for some of the Old Testament stuff would’ve been a little too much for the kids, so I understand. 

  The 1980s of course saw the rise of cable TV. Regulations of cable infrastructure relaxed causing a subscription increase from 16 million to 53 million households over the decade and a concurrent rise in cable programming networks from 28 to 79. Imagine that FEW networks. But at the time, that meant way more channels and way more airtime to fill, dramatically increasing the need for low budget animated content. By 1986, Japanese companies were starting to catch on to their own value, and so was Japanese yen, and those two factors together caused a rate increase of 40% between 1986 and 1988. At which point many U.S. groups did what they do best and found a cheaper option which meant turning straight to Korea.

  Anyway, basically, even if you’re not an anime fan, if you like cartoons at all, even a little bit, chances are you’re at least a fan of Japanese animation. Although nowadays, it’s uh, mostly Korean.

  Now I’ve already complained about Fred’s modifications to anime to make it unnecessarily family friendly, but for this next part I have to advise that you remove your children from the room or the car or wherever you’re listening to this podcast.

  The end of the 70s marked the beginning of a decade long bloodbath, what I call the hackjob era of anime. We’re not just talking localizations anymore but wholesale editing room carnage of Japanese source material to build entirely new stories. If you’re into Slasher cinema feel free to check out the Harmony Gold episode for more of what follows. It all started with one man… listeners be advised.

  As stated before, anime was out for most of the 70s with only films, mostly Toei adaptations of Western fairytales like Puss ‘n Boots, making their way to our shores, until a man named Sandy Frank attended the April 1977 Marche International des Programmes de Television in Cannes, excuse me, I do not speak French, where Tatsunoko was showing off one of its latest anime titled Kagaku Ninja-tai Gatchaman, or Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. The following month he sat down for the premiere of Star Wars and kept thinking back to that cartoon that had all the same elements as the movie he was watching in animation form.

  Star Wars’s massive success spurred Frank. He secured the license from Tatsunoko’s Yoshida brothers then called your friend and mine, Fred Ladd, to see if he would be interested in working on the localization. New York-based Fred wasn’t crazy about the idea of helping a production that would be based out of California and rejected the offer outright when he heard that the lead would be not a writer, but an animator from Hanna-Barbera.

  Now I may have my own issues with some of Fred’s editorial choices when it came to localization, but I have to respect his instincts here because Sandy Frank Entertainment had a unique approach when it came to the source material... And by that I mean none of them knew Japanese and they didn’t bother finding anyone who did. Despite having the scripts, they basically used none of them, instead watching the episodes and basically kinda interpreting what they saw, generally hacking the anime to bits, adding a cute R2-D2-like character to lighten the mood, and slapping the title Battle of the Planets over the finished product before sending it straight to millions of children's eyeballs in 1978.

  And it bombed… so badly. It bombed so badly, in fact, that Turner’s Henry Gillespie would end up calling up none other than Fred Ladd to fix it. Imagine having the foresight to say “no” to a project, and then collecting a check to come fix it, and not have to have your name on it. Sounds dope. They relocalized the whole thing from the original source material and gave it the new title G-Force. And here I have to give Fred some credit, along with lighter FCC restrictions under- [sigh] oh f- I don’t wanna give Reagan props. But [sigh] it w- yeah, it was Reagan. It was Reagan. Reagan lightened FCC restrictions. So anyway, G-Force aired in 1986 to mostly negative criticism, failing to even reach the success of Battle of the Planets, but it seems that was mostly due to Battle of the Planets fans complaining that G-Force was too different… from Battle of the Planets, which was too different from the original Japanese source material. Sometimes you just can’t win, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sorry. Oh, and if you need any other evidence that Frank may not have known what he was doing, his second claim to fame is the raw number of his movies that have appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The show where they make fun of movies? Yeah.

  [MST3K Sandy Frank song]

  Next came Force Five in 1980, from Jim Terry Productions, a chop job of five different Toei robot anime: Divine Demon Dragon Gaiking, Planetary Robot Danguard Ace, Getter Robo G, UFO Robot Grendizer, and Sci-Fi West Saga Starzinger. 

  Then Voltron in 1983 from World Events Productions, a shmooshing together of Beast King GoLion, Armored Fleet Dairugger XV, and Lightspeed Electroid Albegas. 

  Then the most infamous of them all, Harmony Gold’s Robotech, a chimera of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross, and Genesis Climber Mospeada in 1985 which I promised myself I would only speak of in the Harmony Gold episode, so we’re gonna move on.

  By the 90s, Streamline and AnimEigo had set up shop and moderately successful but critically acclaimed anime films like Akira, Totoro, and Kiki’s Delivery Service were beginning to make their way to theatrical runs and VHS in the U.S. In fact the proliferation of VHS and the rise of video stores and rental shops like Blockbuster and Suncoast were allowing smaller startups to get into the game with smaller dubbing operations that couldn’t afford to tamper too much with the source material before making direct-to-video releases. Anime was a growing subculture in the U.S. before it finally hit the mainstream in the late 90s…

  The 90s would also be the beginning of a historic shift in TV anime in the U.S., rather than editing and rebranding anime for American consumption, one network began marketing anime as a distinct medium. It was the beginning of a new era of “not kids stuff” “adult” animation straight from Japan. I’m talking of course about SyFy channel’s global showcase.

  In the early 90s SyFy, or as it was known back then… SciFi, began airing anime films, OVA, and TV shows courtesy of Streamline Pictures and Central Park Media. Titles like Dominion Tank Police, Vampire Hunter D, Project A-Ko, and even Akira all showing up on TV in (most of) their violent glory and distinctly getting called out as Japanese products.

  This was just the beginning of a rapid acceleration in awareness of anime that would hit critical mass with two titles. The mid 90s saw America’s introduction to the biggest shonen and shoujo franchises to ever hit the continent, both of which came close to stumbling and falling into obscurity right out of the gate: Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon.

  America had its first taste of Toriyama’s take on the Chinese epic, Journey to the West, with the late 80s with Harmony Gold’s production of the movies Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies and Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure which renamed Goku and Bulma to Zero and Lena [Mystical Adventure Harmony Gold Dub clip]. They started on the TV series proper but didn’t make it very far since it was... not well received, resulting in what’s known today as the lost dub. But let's not dwell on Harmony Gold too much… because I hate them. They’re bad.

  Also, the voice of Zero is also the voice of Naauta in the english dub of Fooly Cooly. So that’s just a fact that I know.

  Dragon Ball Z was another story… I should probably specify that Dragon Ball Z is the sequel to Dragon Ball in which Goku grows up physically but not mentally at all, whatsoever, even a little bit. In the early 90s, a bright-eyed Japanese American anime fan by the name of Gen Fukunaga was surprised that one of his favorites, Dragon Ball Z, hadn’t made it over to the states. So, he did what anyone would do in his situation and contacted Toei to see if he could license and distribute the title in the U.S. himself. Seeing as how Gen was just starting up his company and Dragon Ball Z was one of Toei’s most coveted titles, Toei encouraged Gen to pick something else and said no.

  With help from Nagafumi Hori was a big name in Toei’s live action arm, they reconsidered the proposal, inked the deal, and in 1994 Funimation was born.

  Funimation partnered with Saban Entertainment, a company already involved in localizing Japanese live actions such as Power Rangers, to finance and distribute, and then sold out the home video rights to Pioneer Entertainment who then got a company called Ocean Studios to produce a dub. Saban was very strict about violence so they probably shouldn’t have even been working with DBZ but we ended up getting the first 67 episodes cut down to a 53 episode run in which blood was digitally painted out and mentions of “death” became “the next dimension.” With which I am very familiar.

  DBZ entered syndication and found its way to Fox in 1996 but was cancelled two years later in 1998, inconveniently in the middle of the battle against the Ginyu Force right when Goku shows up in an episode titled “Goku… Super Saiyan?” And Americans are left with the biggest cliffhanger in the history of anime. Even bigger than just any episode of Dragon Ball Z, where you think something’s gonna happen and then they spend the next half hour charging up. More on that later.

  Sailor Moon had an even rockier start. Having premiered in Japan in 1992 to massive success, its similarity to the hit adapted Super Sentai series known in the U.S. as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and millions in toy sales made it an attractive license in the U.S.

  DIC and Toon Makers entered a bidding war for the license which thankfully DIC won, since Toon Makers mostly wanted the rights to adapt their own Saban-esque hybrid production featuring live action actresses who turn into animated magical girls flying spaceships. 

  ...No!

  So the first 89 episodes were cut down to 82 to remove scenes of violence against children, nudity, and, if you’ll excuse the expression, to “de-gay” the series. These episodes were dubbed over with some name changes, and the series entered syndication on U.S. television on the UPN Network, home of Moesha, September 11th 1995, we were so young, and thrown into the entertainment industry is commonly referred to as a “dead” time slot in the early morning due to a lack of confidence in the IP, creating what in the Greek tragedy industry is commonly known as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Low viewership put production of future dubs on hold and the first 65 episodes were re-run three times and word got out that DIC [DIC Logo - What Were You Really Thinking?] planned on dropping Sailor Moon from syndication. Chi Ming Hung, a Sailor Moon fan and graduate student in physics at State University of New York at Stony Brook, would not take that news lying down. She launched an online campaign which became known as S.O.S. or “Save Our Sailors”, at www.saveoursailors.org or https://www.saveoursailors.org, which gathered over 30,000 signatures, citing much better ratings in Canada where Sailor Moon was being broadcast in a prime television time slot.

  The petition was a success, and in 1997 Sailor Moon moved to USA Network and production began on new dubs. The Save Our Sailors campaign is often cited as an early example of the power of anime fan activism when fans coming together could still create positive change rather than resulting in the DOXXING of helpless victims on Twitter.  

  At this point both Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon had a strong fanbase but nothing approaching mainstream recognition. Anime remained an obscure curiosity in the massive ecosystem of American media, but all that would change in the year 1998, the most significant year in anime in America since Astro Boy first aired on American television in 1963. 

  [Lofi music]

  1998 would be anime’s big breakout moment into the American mainstream or, as one man described it, anime’s big bang.

  [Explosion]

  DeMarco: The big bang for anime on TV really was two-fold. It was Kids’ WB getting Pokemon, and then Toonami getting Dragon Ball Z. 

  That was Jason, or one half of the second coming of Fred Patton in this analogy I’ve been setting up.

  DeMarco: I am Jason DeMarco, the co-creator and runner of Toonami. I’ve been working at Turner, now Warner Brothers, for 23 years. 

  Jason DeMarco and Sean Akins are two individuals most responsible for making anime what it is today as the co-creators of [Toonami intro] Toonami, a television programming block that you’re probably familiar with if you’re old enough to know what cable TV is, and perhaps the most referenced origin point in the anime fandom. All born from the time-honored television tradition of trying to fill broadcast time. A humble staffer at TNT, Jason was brought on by Sean to pitch a block for afternoon and evenings on Cartoon Network that could recycle re-runs from Turner’s large library of old cartoons.

  DeMarco: It was like a reel. It was a very focused, three to five minute reel that contained everything we thought we might want in there, [“Timeless” by Goldie starts] that we thought was cool. So it was like, it was a lot of footage of skaters, it was a lot of hip hop and drum and bass, it was anime clips of I remember we- we bootlegged footage, we bootlegged clips of Dragon Ball Z because we had a, at the time Atlanta had a video store that only catered to Japanese folks [music ends]. And so we would go there and rent Dragon Ball Z VHSs that were not subtitled or in any way translated, just to watch them. We would watch the DBZ movies like Bardock and stuff like that, but without knowing what the fuck was going on, just cause we thought they looked amazing. So we bootleg duped one of those and cut in footage of that, and then we had footage of like Thundercats and like, you know older action cartoons, Space Ghost, and then we mixed that with robots and skaters and film rollout and comic books. It was like we were trying to sort of show, we wanted to create a block that wasn’t just an afternoon action cartoon block, but that represented all the things that we thought kids might be into. Or cool kids, anyway. At the time. And so it was this mishmash of stuff, and I remember we cut it to a drum and bass song. Goldie, “Timeless,” I believe. And that was our pitch, and then we called it Toonami, and then we had the logo made and it was like this crazy bubble 90s font, and so that was the pitch and then basically that’s what they saw “oh okay, that looks cool, let’s give them a little bit of money and see what they do.” 

  So, umm, basically anime wasn’t originally part of the deal, but Jason really wanted it. They started out with adjacent titles like the aforementioned Thundercats and “American” hybrid productions of several anime like Robotech and Voltron but, since anime was still cheap, they eventually got some budget to buy some real anime. Namely, Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z.

  DeMarco: Well, we wanted it in there from the very beginning, but initially they said “look, we’re not gonna give you any money for programming right away, we’ll give you money to make this packaging stuff to make it into something, but for now, you’re just going to have to re-run what shit we already have lying around.” And so they already had the rights to I think Thundercats and they already had the rights to Herculoids and Space Ghost and Birdman and there was like a couple of other cartoons. And then we started off, and they started coming to us and saying “well what else would you want us to show?” And we said “have you heard of this show ‘Robotech?’” And they got Robotech pretty cheap, and then I think it was Sailor Moon came along, the opportunity to get Sailor Moon, and then we pushed them to get Dragon Ball Z. And they didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about, but they were able to find- it was airing at that time in cable markets, you know, like it wasn’t national, but it was in certain places. And so we were able to get the Ocean dub and so we started airing Dragon Ball Z, and from there it just totally took- like Sailor Moon did really well, and the Dragon Ball did incredibly well, and from there we were allowed to sort of pick and choose, as long as it fit something that could be shown to kids, we could kinda pick and choose the anime for a while. 

  The block launched its first anime in 1998 and, while many of us recall what an explosive moment it was in retrospect, it took a while before Jason and Sean realized the scope of what they’d created.

  DeMarco: The day Toonami launched was probably Gil turning in the tape an hour before they went live, because they fucked around with it until the very last second. And nobody, there was no anticipation anyone was going to give a shit. It was literally just work, like “ah, woo, got that thing turned in.” And really, we were so disorganized and we were just all in our 20’s, you know what I mean, that it was a miracle that we got the tapes turned in every week, let alone that the block kept going. But yeah, there was no, it wasn’t like now where there’s instant feedback and you know 10 minutes later if your thing has been well received. It was like, there was, I mean there- the internet was not what it is, we were barely using email, so you certainly weren’t going on social media sites and getting instantaneous feedback on everything you’re doing. You had to wait a week for the ratings to come in, and then you had to wait months before you actually heard out in the world what people felt about your thing. I mean, the first time I realized people were really into Toonami was, I think, a year or two in, when we went to a con for something and were like “huh, there’s a lot of people here who like Toonami,” you know, or we did a contest called the “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” where we gave away a bunch of trips to um… Six Flags across the United States. And I remember that like there were so many people that called in that it like broke the phone line, and that was an indicator like “oh, people like our stuff.” But that’s the only way you knew back then. 

  Even as Jason and Sean were waiting on ratings data, what would grow to become the largest anime fan community in the United States were tuning into Cartoon Network and watching Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon for the first time. That includes myself. Within a few years these titles, which had already played on Network TV but were no more recognizable than any other series that played for brief stints on television, would osmotically rise to a level of ubiquity where even the most media illiterate can recognize a picture of Goku or Usagi-er-Serena, [cough] Serena [Sailor Moon clip of a character saying “Serena”] even if they don’t know the characters’ name. 

  It was on Toonami that the newly dubbed episodes for both series were finally broadcast, in DBZ’s case finally ending the years-long cliffhanger of the “Goku… Super Saiyan?” episode. He of course wasn’t. Goku didn’t become a Super Saiyan until 42 episodes later in “Transformed at Last.”

  Soon the two were joined by titles like Ronin Warriors, Gundam Wing, and the many Tenchi series and eventually other tentpole titles that would pull in a new generation of fans like Cowboy Bebop, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Naruto, and Fullmetal Alchemist. For the next 10 years, all the blockbuster series that fans credit with inspiring their interest in Japanese animation were almost universally delivered to them through Toonami. 

  The block has even evolved with changes in the industry, existing today as a prestige spot for modern anime, where the most popular simulcast series eventually find their way to network TV.

  DeMarco: Steaming, and a lot of shows have streaming-specific deals, I mean it’s changed everything from our deal structures to what we pay to how quickly we need to try to get shows on the air to how fast shows are dubbed. I mean, the speed of access to streaming means that your average anime fan who’s watching Toonami now has already watched whatever we’re showing subbed on Crunchyroll. So they’re watching it a second time, because they wanna see the dub. And so for us, it sort of, it allows us- first of all, we’ll know when shows are hot because they’ll hit places like Crunchyroll and people’ll start talking about them and saying “hey, you guys should check this out!” And second, everything moves faster. Like, we’re showing The Promised Neverland in a couple weeks, and it literally just finished, the sub version just finished its first season and we’re going to have the dub on a couple weeks later, you know? And I think we’re going to see that window get tighter and tighter and tighter until it’s simultaneous premieres for all kinds of shows. So it’s changed everything, and for fans I would argue for the better.

   It’s no exaggeration to say Toonami may have been the most significant event in the history of anime localization in North America. Nowadays, if you speak to any anime fan between 25 and 40, they almost universally trace a straight line back to Toonami as their point of discovery for the medium, making its creator Jason DeMarco and Toonami’s robot host TOM two of the most beloved names in the fandom.

  Now all this was great for the young adult fandom, but even as Toonami was lifting up the action shonen series of the 90s to mainstream popularity, a company called 4Kids was infiltrating kids programming and toy sales with some titles that would become as notorious for their popularity among children as they were for their parents complete inability to understand them.

  DeMarco: I mean, it kinda did what the streaming boom is doing now. It just flooded money into the anime business and so there was a gold rush. It was like Dragon Ball became a massive hit, and then Pokemon became a massive hit and a massive merchandising success; and the success of those two shows and then Naruto behind them just sort of blew the doors open and sort of suddenly everybody was in the anime business.

   The Pokemon anime hit America like a runaway Rhyhorn, airing on Kids’ WB on September 8th 1998, followed by Pokemon Red and Blue just 20 days later, then trading card game in December [Kids’ WB Pokemon bumper], almost immediately becoming the most popular childrens’ program in the U.S. with the games selling almost 10 million units, and the cards becoming ubiquitous at the picnic tables of every school recess in the nation. 

  While DBZ and Sailor Moon were still picking up steam but ultimately still passable as just another “show my teenager is into,” the Pokemon craze was impossible to ignore and the reaction by parents and the media was... I will just say violent and probably more than a little racist. Like, a lot racist. 

  The panic over Pokemon frequently became the subject of national news as legions of parents, pundits, and “licenses experts” tried breaking down this strange Japanese cartoon show from every angle to reveal its nefarious intent and definitely gave themselves away by calling it an “invasion.” Among the earliest complaints were that the series promoted violence, smoothly skating over American’s proud 50-year legacy of sensibly chuckling at a cat getting crushed, set on fire, or having its skin ripped off in the pursuit of an anthropomorphized mouse. Or also its proud history of… real life violence.

  It was also accused of promoting gambling and addictive behavior, with newscasters referring to schoolyards as black markets for Pokemon trading cards ignoring contemporary American products like Magic: The Gathering or “the classics” like… baseball cards. This shit went on for YEARS, and I distinctly remember the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game entering that same conversation which had never really stopped shortly after its release almost half a decade later in March 2002.

  If you weren’t around back then you probably got a small taste of what it was like during Niantics recent release of Pokemon GO with national news agencies blaming inattentiveness caused by the game for multiple assaults against players rather than… y’know… our country just not really being that a safe place?

  If anime had a mainstream moment, it wasn’t Akira or even Dragon Ball Z, but Pokemon that was the first encounter, at least knowingly, between the majority of Americans and Japanese animation, setting off an arms race among media and toy companies for more of these cheap kids cartoons with merchandise options and launching a thousand articles titled “Watch out parents, BLANK is going to be the NEXT Pokemon!”

  Fox Kids led the charge to catch up, broadcasting Digimon: Digital Monsters in August 1999 and partnering with 4Kids for Yu-Gi-Oh! in September 2001.

  These franchises were obviously profitable on their own but even more so because media conglomerates found that even after 40 years of dealing with Americans, Japanese license holders were woefully ill-equipped to leverage the valuable IPs they were putting on the international market. And in this, 4Kids was also well ahead of the curve.

  Kelts: Japan is still relatively provincial and isolated, so marketers tend to focus exclusively on Japan. And then when it comes to a foreign market, they just get confused or lack confidence and then they often just get a foreign partner. So in the case of Pokemon, which is classic, Pokemon signed away, back in 1996, they signed away all their subsidiary rights to an American company called 4Kids based in New York and they got something like $11 million overnight from 4Kids, and then they got nothing else.

  Interviewer: [groan]

  Kelts: So while Pokemon was taking off, TV series, and the feature films, anime feature films, selling out cinemas, the card games, everything, the creators, the five companies that created it here in Japan were getting nothing. They finally went to court back in 2004 and the legal team from Nintendo USA managed to get the rights back, eventually. 

  Of course, we’ll get into to that later… and that voice, by the way, was Roland Kelts, a Japanese American writer and journalist who literally wrote the book on the pop culture exchange between Japan and the U.S.

  Kelts: You know, I ended up writing a book called “Japanimerica,” and that was because the publisher, the American publisher called Palgrave MacMillan came to me. I had written about Miyazaki Hayao, and I’d written about Haruki Murakami, the novelist, and various Japanese artists, so they asked me if I’d consider doing this book about anime and manga in the United States. At first I said no, because I thought it’s not really that popular in the U.S., you know? I didn’t, I didn’t really think anybody would care that much. And then um- because I was already living in Japan so I started, I was back in New York and I started poking around and talking to college kids and you know started realizing that “wow, they know a LOT [laughing] about Japanese pop culture.” 

  Taking advantage of Japan’s less sophisticated understanding of international rights, 4Kids made fortunes off Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! with tricks like large upfront payments that didn’t provide any royalties for physical sales or merchandising, making sublicense contracts with other American companies to obfuscate their numbers, and outright cooking their books. They lied. 

  But seven-digit sums weren’t the only things 4Kids was editing. They were also editing… uh, everything...

  Perhaps the greatest irony of the Pokemon panic era was parents crying about the violence in cartoons that were specifically edited for American consumption. It’s almost as if the broadcasters knew that parents' tolerance for violence and sexual content were lower in the U.S. than they were in Japan. And nowadays we look back at the 4Kids onigiri erasure [Pokemon: Jelly donut clip] and Yu-Gi-Oh! replacing guns with characters literally pointing their fingers to look like guns and we sadly shake our heads, but given the fits people were having over the edited down versions, it’s more difficult to criticize that decision.

  It’s important to note that 4Kids is probably most notorious for their edits because of bizarre decisions like giving Sanji a brooklyn accent but just about every anime that made it to TV was edited for content in some way. 

  In addition to some breakout IPs, there was one more component to anime’s exploding popularity at the turn of the millenia that’s more difficult to quantify. Kids who grew up with the internet were entering their teens and the internet itself was developing more sophisticated  ways of bringing together communities of like-minded people.

  Kelts: The internet suddenly enabled fans to not only access the content, eventually, but also as you put it, to fansub the content and get it out there. And then at the same time, really important part of it was community. Because of the internet, fans could find other fans. So it didn’t matter if you were in Nebraska or New York City, you could like go “hey, man, are you into this? I’m into this, this is- this is awesome!” And that builds up a whole sense of confidence and community and you know, sharing of tips and ideas, and it also eventually communicated to the Japan side that “wow, there’s a lot of people out there who [chuckling] who like this shit,” you know? Like, I think the internet was magic. 

  Where before you’d have to bust your ass searching through webrings to find a site with some GIFs of your favorite anime, new communities on message boards and IRC made your fandom searchable and interactive, and eventually gave way to Reddit and the apparently maligned Gaia Online… 

  But no longer did you have kids in the mid-west discovering anime, thinking they were literally the only person in 10 square miles that liked it, and eventually switching back to football so they’d have something to talk with their friends about at school. Now they could log on to a forum dedicated to their favorite shows and give up their social life entirely. The internet had already been a growing force in anime fandom but combined with Toonami and Pokemon, its effect was multiplied.

  The supplying force of media companies looking for cheap, timeblock-filling animation and niche fandom or creator-driven localization were giving way to a huge demand specifically for more of that good Japanese stuff...

  Kelts: There were certain artists, a limited number of artists and producers, Tezuka was one of them, who wanted their work to have an international audience. And at the time, “international” meant “American,” mostly, back in the 60s and 70s. So Tezuka and the Yoshida brothers, who made Speed Racer and Battle of the Planets- oh, sorry, and Battleship Yamato, but most of it [chuckles] most of that story was driven by demand. Which is to say that in most cases, Japanese artists and Japanese studios did VERY little to really promote their work overseas. And part of that was linguistic problems, part of that was Japan’s relative isolation from the rest of the world, and so when you talk about the explosive growth in the 2000s, you know late 90s, early 2000s, that was really heavily demand driven. I mean, that was a lot of Americans- and other nationals, Europeans, French especially, actually demanding the work from Japan. 

  [Lofi music]

  And so the early 2000s saw anime as a real mainstream force which would only continue to grow until now 20 years later Michael B. Jordan is doing Naruto fashion collabs and Kardashians are citing TRIGGER anime as the inspiration for their hair color and Porter Robinson is joining forces with A-1 pictures to make his own anime music video and also Megan Thee Stallion is being interviewed by us, Crunchyroll, on Instagram Live during quarantine? But it wasn’t quite so easy…

  The rising prominence of Toonami, Pokemon, and some blockbuster movie releases created a firm following for anime in the U.S. after the turn of the millenia, but anime would soon become a victim of its own explosive growth. Big media companies like Warner Brothers, Fox, and Sony were suddenly interested in investing in anime again and they brought their monolithic pocketbooks to the bidding wars which caused the costs of licensing anime to skyrocket.

  Japanese companies were also moving into the U.S. market, cutting out the middleman to manage their own properties in the U.S. and further increasing competition. Aniplex opened a division based out of Santa Monica called Aniplex of America and Japan Content Investments, or JCI, was formed by several Japanese interests to essentially act as a lender to help U.S. companies spend more on anime titles.

  Even as new titans of the shonen genre in Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece rose to prominence, labeled by the American fandom (and pretty much only the American fandom) as the “Big 3,” many of the companies that had spent the past 20 years building up the anime industry into what it was were beginning to buckle under the pressure. Saban was broken up and sold to Disney in 2001, Streamline’s new owner Orion didn’t want to compete in the anime market and the company slowly withered until its 2002 closure, and the U.S. branch of Manga Entertainment stopped licensing new properties and was reduced down to a skeleton crew in 2004. 

  Then... the recession hit, the anime bubble burst, and things got WAY worse.

  Geneon suddenly closed in 2007 for reasons that are still unclear. Central Park Media had been on a steady decline throughout the decade and finally filed for bankruptcy in 2009. 

  Alright, I’m about to drop a lotta acronyms and uh, company names, so maybe grab a pen and paper… or a tablet, iPad, whatever. Maybe one of those Toshiba laptops that convert into a tablet? Y’know, it’s the future. I’ll give you a second. 

  Okay.

  AD Vision, or ADV for short, went through probably the most spectacular closure in 2009. The year before, 30 titles had disappeared from ADV’s website, and Funimation later announced they had been added to their own library as part of a partnership with ARM (part of the aforementioned JCI), which I will from henceforth refer to as ARM [pronounced like the body part], because it makes sense. Unable to pay back its licensing loans to ARM, ADV split its assets, licenses, and debts into multiple companies: Sentai Filmworks, Section23 Films, Valkyrie Media Partners, Seraphim Studios, and AEsir Holdings, with AEsir Holdings acting as the fall guy to absorb the debt and go bankrupt. Section23 was allegedly named after the subsection of Texas Debt law that allows a company to pull this kind of move. Obviously that didn’t go over very well, because three years later they were embroiled in a lawsuit with Funimation to the tune of $9 million dollars for “breach of contract” which I’m sorry to report ended in an undisclosed settlement out of court.

  4Kids’s shady dealings would come home to roost when in 2006 Pokemon USA reclaimed the Pokemon anime from them as of season 9 and 2007 and 2008 saw them losing their programming blocks with both Warner Brothers and Fox. Then in 2011 4Kids ended up on the receiving end of a lawsuit with TV Tokyo and Nihon Ad Systems for “underpayments, wrongful deductions, and unmet obligations” for almost $5 million dollars for their handling of Yu-Gi-Oh!, which is probably generous considering it’s estimated 4Kids had made over $150 million dollars thanks to Yugi Muto. 4Kids maintained the rights to Yu-Gi-Oh! but they entered a death spiral, filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy in the midst of the court proceedings. In the following year 4Kids would lose the broadcast rights to Dragon Ball Z Kai to Saban, Yu-Gi-Oh! to Konami, and they would have to pay out another $1 million dollars to The Pokemon Company International. In 2012 they announced they would be reincorporating into 4Licensing Incorporated which itself entered bankruptcy in 2016.

  This was a scary time in anime fandom, as the financial backlash of the multiple closures traveled across the Pacific to Japan, rocking the market in an industry that had begun to rely on international investment. Companies that no longer existed couldn’t renew licenses, causing a huge number of anime to fall into limbo, disproportionately affecting the most culturally important anime as licence holders now recognized their value while American publishers have since been unwilling or unable to pony up the cash to secure it. 

  Maybe the most iconic example of this was Neon Genesis Evangelion, which remained in the wind for a decade after ADV’s collapse and was only recently rescued when Netflix licensed it for what was likely an irresponsible amount of money (yet somehow not enough to cop the rights to Fly Me to the Moon?).

  Things were looking bad for the anime industry at the end of the decade. Markets were in a tumultuous state, prices for anime licenses had been driven to unattainable peaks, and a new competitor was emerging...

  While the industry floundered, a new generation of tech savvy youth suddenly had an easy alternative to spending $25 at Suncoast for a four episode DVD or waiting for a series to show up on Toonami. Piracy was easier than ever and now had some considerable advantages over legal channels when it came to distribution. Unburdened by negotiating licensing deals, managing physical distribution, or quality checking their product, file sharing services had made pirates the quickest source to watch new anime.

  “Piracy is a service problem” is a famous quote by Valve’s Gabe Newell which I personally believe is bullshit, but something had to change to pull anime out of its nosedive.

  And, since someone is paying me to talk about this, obviously something did.

  [Lofi music]

  Thank you for listening to Anime in America, presented by Crunchyroll. If you enjoyed this, please go to Crunchyroll.com/animeinamerica to watch some of the shows we mentioned in this episode, like Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist. You can watch free, with ads, or get a 14-day free premium membership because… I like you, and my personal opinion is what matters.

   Special thanks to Jason DeMarco and Roland Kelts for taking the time to talk with us. 

  This episode is hosted by me, Yedoye Travis, and you can find me on Instagram at ProfessorDoye or Twitter @YedoyeOT. This episode is researched and written by Peter Fobian, edited by Chris Lightbody, and produced by me, Braith Miller, Peter Fobian, and Jesse Gouldsbury. 

By: [email protected]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout

Attempts to figure out what the fuck is going on continue to fail.

Sir Stephen's words hung significantly in the air for a few moments, then DI Carter turned to him with a frown on her face.  “Sorcery?  That was an act of terrorism, that's what it was!”

“I have seen such things before,” Sir Stephen insisted.  “It's a very dangerous form of magic, because you must persuade the devil to perform a task before you give it a reward.”

“Oh, shut up,” Carter told him.

Sir Stephen was apparently undeterred.  “Normally a demon performs no service until blood has been spilled for it,” he explained.  “To bring down a building and kill all those inside requires it to take on faith that there will be people inside, and the blood will be enough to pay for the deed. And if the devil is disappointed in the result...”

“Shut up!” Carter repeated.  “Are you listening to yourself?  Do you have any idea how many people just died?  There must have been a hundred or more, who came there to be cured, and now they're dying in the rubble and you're blaming magic?”

“The most terrible of all magics,” Sir Stephen said gravely.  “I know there are dead, and I know I was meant to be one of them.”  He looked up at Dr. Wilson in the pilot's seat.  “I did not yet come to that part of the tale, but when we tried to return to the priory, we found it had collapsed just the same way, with the blood of the sisters staining the snow.”

“You guys.”  Dr. Wilson turned in his seat.  “More important question: it looks like they didn't refuel the chopper after their last trip. We've got about twenty minutes in the air – where do we want to go?”

He'd turned to the southwest, following the line of the Great Glen as they left the hospital area.  The cloud of dust from the collapsed hospital was lit brightly behind them by the setting sun.

“Away from here,” said Natasha.  That was all that mattered.  If somebody were trying to kill one of them – or all of them – they had to go somewhere that person didn't know they were.

“Burnett Road,” said Carter.  “I need to talk to my colleagues and figure out if the bombing were connected to the disappearance of Mr. Pierce.”

“Invermoriston,” said Sir Stephen, “and I shall prove to you that it was.”

“There's nothing in Invermoriston but an Irish nutter with a deformed seal!” DI Carter protested.

“The woman who spoke to Wilson on his 'mobile' was there to tell of the beast, was she not?” Sir Stephen asked.  “If we can find her, I think she will tell you she did no such thing.  A kobold is a shapeshift.  I think you will learn it was Zola you spoke to, and the Red Death whose sorcery brought the building down once they were sure I was within it.”

Nat thought about that.  “All right,” she said.  “Invermoriston.”

“You must be joking,” Carter protested.

Nat tried to explain her reasoning.  “You're assuming he's making all this up, but what if he's not?  What if it's a twisted version of things that really happened?”  Maybe this was the spy thinking again, but Natasha didn't want to leave the possibility un-investigated.  “Maybe the reporter confirmed that Sir Stephen was in the hospital not because she wants to interview him, but because somebody paid her to – and then once they knew he was there, they bombed the place?”  That almost made sense, except that what had happened at the hospital hadn't felt like a bomb, any more than it had felt like an earthquake.

“I think you're reaching,” said Carter.

“Actually, it's not a bad idea,” Dr. Wilson said.  “They'll have a spot for us to land.  We'll be in somebody's way if we land in the city, because they'll be disatching police and rescue from everywhere they can, but that little square we saw on the news has space to put a helicopter.  It'll be easy to find, too – it's three quarters of the way down the Loch, where the River Moriston gets wider.  I'm out of practice navigating by night, but I can find that.”

Carter sighed.  “Okay, Invermoriston.  I'll have to call my colleagues when we arrive.”

“As long as it's unanimous,” Dr. Wilson said, and grabbed the radio. “Um, hello?  INV air traffic control?  My name is Dr. Sam Wilson. I just escaped the Raigmore Hospital collapse in the air ambulance, with a patient, a cop, and a guest on board.  We want to fly up the Loch to Invermoriston... and it's been about six years since I last flew a helicopter.”

Somebody at the airport gave Wilson some guidelines for the flight, and they continued to work their way down the Great Glen.  Days were long in the Highlands in August, but it was still twilight and rapidly getting darker.  Lights were coming on in the towns and tourist hotels on either side of the long, narrow Loch, and cars could be seen on the roads coming and going.  The waters of the lake themselves were very dark, reflecting the last light of the sunset and a bright half moon.

“Did you ever hear about a monster here back in the day?” Nat asked Sir Stephen, out of idle curiosity.  She was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that there were medieval legends to that effect, but had no idea if they went back as far as 1066.

“The first time I ventured this far north was in pursuit of the Red Death,” said Sir Stephen.  “Nobody warned me of such.”

“The BBC went through the whole Loch in 2003 with sonar, and they didn't find a thing,” said Carter.  “You'd think that would have been the end of it.  My guess is the guy caught that seal somewhere else and moved it to the lake himself so he could 'discover' it.”

“Are you so skeptical about everything you encounter?” asked Sir Stephen.

“Like I told Dr. Rushman, I don't beleive in things, I follow leads,” Carter insisted.  “When I see where they take me, that's reality  It's not about belief.”

“Truth is truth, whether you believe in it or not,” said Sir Stephen.

He'd thought he was arguing with her, but Carter treated it as an agreement.  “Exactly,” she said.  “If I start off believing things, I'll be looking for eviddence that confirms my belief, rather than for the truth!  Finding the truth is my job.”

“Mine, too,” Natasha said thoughtfully.  Archaeology and detective work were actually very similar.  Both involved looking for evidence of past events and trying to reconstruct what had actually happened. The only difference was the time elapsed – Nat's cases were very much colder than Carter's.  It was a curious thing to realize after she'd been doing this as a cover for several years now, especially when she contrasted it with her previous line of work, which had often been about obscuring or even destroying the truth and the traces it left.

She wondered what a psychologist would think of that.  Was Natasha somehow trying to redeem the years she'd spent hiding the truth by helping to reveal it instead?  Or was she still just a child who wanted to be Indiana Jones?

“I can see the mouth of the Moriston,” said Dr. Wilson.  “Air Traffic called them to tell them we were coming, and it looks like they've lit up the car park for us.  Hopefully somebody moved the Loch Ness Monster.”

He turned on the helicopter's landing lights, and managed to make a nice soft landing in the car park next to the Glenmoriston Millennium Hall.  Dozens of people were there waiting for them, including a news van and an ambulance, but all Dr. Wilson did was turn off the engines and slump agains the pilot's seat with a massive sigh of relief. “Never thought I'd have to do that again,” he said.  “Maybe I should take some lessons, get my license back.  Can't hurt.”

Natasha opened the door, and the first person she saw was the woman from the ten o'clock news, the one who'd reported on the monster capture.  She was taller than Nat but shorter than DI Carter, with bottle-blonde hair in a pixie cut and multiple earrings.  The helicopter landing had apparently caught her in her off time, since she was now wearing a sweater and jeans instead of a tidy pants suit, but her cameraman was right behind her.

“Good evening,” she said, coming up to meet Nat.  “I'm Yvonne Kirkland from Channel Four Scotland.  May I have a word about the events at Raigmore?  I understand you were a witness.”

“I'd rather not, thanks,” said Natasha, trying to be polite.

DI Carter climbed down next, and the two of them reached to help Sir Stephen – but he gently refused, preferring to demonstrate that he was able to stand and walk on his own.  “I am quite healed,” he assured them.  “Or nearly so.”  In the glaring lights set up in the car park nothing looked natural, but the wound on his face did look like it was knitting quickly.  Nat wondered if there would be a scar, or if it would entirely disappear.

“Would either of you mind telling our viewers what you saw when the hospital collapsed?” the reporter asked them.

“Yes, we would mind,” said DI Carter.  “We mind very much.”

“I...” Sir Stephen began.

“He would definitely mind,” Carter added, putting a hand in the middle of Sir Stephen's chest to keep him from approaching the other woman.  Nat could almost see what Carter was thinking – she must be imagining Sir Stephen telling the entire country that A Wizard Did It, and almost dying of embarrassment from the thought alone.

Dr. Wilson was now climbing out, and Kirkland decided to give it one more try.  “Excuse me, Sir,” she said.  “I'm Yvonne Kirland from...”

“I know who you are,” snarled Dr. Wilson.  “We spoke on the phone.” He took Sir Stephen's arm and guided him over to the waiting ambulance.  “Come on, Sir Steve, let's get you looked at.”

“Maybe get him something to wear,” Natasha agreed.  Sir Stephen was still dressed only in a paper hospital gown, and it was sagging open at the rear.  He had a very nice backside, but that didn't mean the whole world needed to see it.

“Wait,” said Sir Stephen.  He reached for DI Carter.  “I told you to ask the lady from the ten o'clock news whether she poke to Dr. Wilson.”

DI Carter hesitated, then turned to face the reporter.  “Inverness Police Department,” she said, showing her badge.  “Did you ring Dr. Wilson's mobile about an hour ago?”

“No,” said Kirkland, visibly puzzled by the question and still a little startled by Wilson's rude dismissal of her.

“You didn't ask for an interview with the man from the river?” DI Carter insisted.

“The riv... oh, from the Pierce disappearance?” asked Kirkland.  “No, I'm not even on that story.”

“Would you swear to it in court?” Carter wanted to know.

“Absolutely,” Kirkland said.  “On a stack of Bibles.”

“As I told you, Carter,” Sir Stephen said with a satisfied nod.  “It was sorcery.”

“Sorcery?” asked Kirkland.  “What do you...”

“He has a head injury,” Carter cut her off.  “We're taking him to the ambulance now.”  She grabbed the arm Dr. Wilson wasn't already holding, and the two of them dragged Sir Stephen over towards the waiting ambulance.

“It's been a long day,” Nat told the reporter, and followed them.

Nobody told the waiting paramedics about Sir Stephen's bullet and axe wounds, or the fact that he'd nearly drowned not twenty-four hours ago.  There was no spoken agreement not to, but Nat, Dr. Wilson, and DI Carter all seemed to be waiting to see if they'd be able to find them for themselves.  They didn't, or at least if they did, they didn't appear to think they were serious.  Instead, they behaved as if they thought Sit Stephen had been almost ready for discharge at the time of the disaster, and accordingly pronounced him ready to go.

“You're as healthy as a horse,” one of them said, clapping Sir Stephen on the shoulder.

“Thoroughbred,” murmured one of his female co-workers with a snicker.

The manager of the Glenmoriston Arms Hotel, just up the hill, had heard about the disaster at Raigmore and offered them rooms free of charge. None of them were planning to spend the night, but they accepted anyway for the simple reason that none of them had a car anymore. Nat, Carter, and Wilson had all been parked at the hospital, and their vehicles were now presumably buried in the rubble.  The hotel would provide them a place to wait for somebody to pick them up.

From a seat in the little hotel's comfortable common room, Dr. Wilson called his mother to assure her he was all right, then a number of other people for the same reason.  DI Carter called her family and then texted her colleagues to find out what they'd learned while she was busy fleeing for her life.  Natasha called Sue at Dundee and told her she might need a couple more days off.

Sir Stephen was dressed now, in clothes that had apparently once belonged to the manager's son – jeans and an annoyingly appropriate Superman t-shirt.  He had asked for a meal, and was now making his way through a plate of shepherd's pie with peas.

“I swear that guy's had about six dinners today and he's still hungry,” DI Carter observed, setting her phone aside to sip her tea.

“Well, the rate he heals suggests he has a hell of a metabolism,” said Dr. Wilson.  “He did warn us he eats a lot.”

“What do you think this all means?” Natasha asked the others.  “We've heard what he thinks is happening, so could it have been Zola who called, or somebody who works for him?  I mean, somebody's obviously trying to kill this guy, and Zola already expressed interest...”

“No,” DI Carter interrupted, “somebody's trying to kill people. I'm not gonna start believing in magic just because of that, any more than I'm gonna start believing in the Loch Ness Monster because somebody has a seal in the back of his lorry.”  Her phone beeped and she looked at the screen, then her face lit up.  “Oh, good!”

“What is it?” asked Dr. Wilson, leaning to see.

“Somebody's found the guy who made the statues,” said Carter.

Using relevant data, investigate and evaluate how punk music lyrics have changed over time to convey political ideologies and identities.

An essay I wrote for my English language coursework two years ago where some of the songs have now become kind of relevant

The punk scene exploded in the mid 70’s, with influences from 1960’s ‘garage rock’ along with a need to rebel against the expectations of society. Bands such as The Clash and Sex Pistols drew attention to themselves by unapologetically expressing their controversial political views, they provoked thought in people, encouraging people to explore their individuality and question authority. I chose to investigate this topic because although the word ‘punk’ means something different to everyone, there are common connotations that are universal across the scene. I am personally quite involved in the Punk scene so I get to witness modern day punk first hand; therefore, I can see any changes in the language or general culture over the last fifty years; the diversifications and the ways in which it has stayed the same.

I am going to be investigating how much the language used in the punk scene has been affected by the politics of the time. Has it changed that much over the years, and if so why? What drew the members of this scene to using such language? I expect that during this research I will find lots of politically themed lexis during times of more republican and conservative government. I think I will also find some taboo lexis, as coming from a working class majority, the punk scene has often been heavily influenced by drugs, and taboo lexis was traditionally language more typically used by working class citizens. It will also be interesting to look at grammatical structures such as imperatives, pronoun usage and modals to see if the lyrics aim to involve the audience.

To gather the data for my investigation, I picked out songs I already knew, and took some suggestions from other people I know who listen to this genre of music. To help with the political and social contexts, I asked family members who were around at the time of the release of the song.

Musicians in the early days of the punk scene used their songs as a way to educate people about contemporary politics. Because information wasn’t as readily available as it is today, they used their music as a platform to make it available. ‘Know your rights’ by The Clash, starts off with “this is a public service announcement” this phrase denotes important information due to its earliest use being in World War 2 as a way of informing the general public of important events. This pragmatically suggests that the band are like another government, or in a position of power, as usually it is these people making Public Service Announcements. This is followed up by a juxtaposed prepositional phrase “with guitar”. The addition of that phrase is putting emphasis on how popular music can be beneficial to the public, and how bands have a level of influence. Also by using the 2nd person possessive determiner ‘your’, they are addressing the listener personally. Both of these techniques create a sense of synthetic personalisation, where the band puts the audience in the position of active participants in political discourse, which is opposed to mainstream politics.

At the time of release in 1982, the U.K. Had a higher unemployment than there had been since the 1930’s, reaching 14% unemployment by September. The IRA were in a strong position because of hunger strikes the year before, leading to the deaths of 10 people. In this song, The Clash mostly use monosyllabic lexis, because the purpose was to educate the lower class citizens, and they were generally less educated, and wouldn’t trust the typical Latinate lexis associated with the formal register of mainstream political discourse. However, there is no use of taboo lexis in this song, because sometimes the lack of taboo is more powerful. They are trying to out across an informed opinion at the same time as informing people, so they want to sound educated, and taboo lexis was seen as the language of lesser educated people. By not including taboo lexis, the band ensure that their song will be played on the radio, reaching a wider audience – with less chance of being censored, they are making it easier for the young people who make up their target audience to discover. The imperative phrase “know your rights” is used frequently, and always followed up by “all three of them” and this juxtaposition gives the sentence more negative and critical meaning. The bald on record style of this phrase is an openly positive face threatening act towards the government and people in power. In the next verse, the band name the first right. This first right is a human right ‘right to life’, and again they have used very simple Germanic lexis, and are accommodating for their audience of working class citizens as well as differentiating themselves from political registers. The syntax choice in this sentence makes it a passive phrase, highlighting that the addressee is in the position of a helpless victim. The next ‘right’ mentioned is “the right to food money”. This listing of abstract nouns suggests that these two things are equivalent. This song was released not long after child benefits were introduced in the UK in 1970, because families would get money from the government to help feed themselves. The implications of this are altered in the next line; “investigation, humiliation” are what you have to experience in order to access this right. At the end, they use some ambiguous imagery “cross your fingers”. This phrase can have connotations of lying and also of hope. As this verse is a comment on benefits, and there is a stereotype attached to working class citizens who get benefits lying in order to ‘live off the government’. On the other hand, there are people who really do need the support, and so in this context would “cross their fingers” in hope that they get some financial aid to feed their family.

The third ‘right’ is “the right to free speech [unless you’re] dumb enough to try it”. This phrasing has some irony, as by writing these lyrics, and using them to criticize the government so openly, the band is practising their own freedom of speech. There is some underlying pragmatic irony used in the word ‘dumb’ as the originally, this referred to a person who was silent and unable to speak. In the last verse, they say “it has been suggested in some quarters that this is not enough”. By using the indeterminate pronoun ‘it’, the sentence is passive, and the person actually making the suggestion has been left out, creating a sense of mystery. The use of the adjective ‘some’ implies the people with this opinion are a minority.

Contemporaries of The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers brought out their song ‘Suspect device’ in 1979. The song title itself had strong political connotations as the band are from Northern Ireland and at the time of release, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were still a prominent part of the politics. ‘Suspect Device’ was a euphemism used by police officers in reference to the bombs exploding more and more often in both Ireland and England as a result of ‘the Troubles’. The band then uses the phrase ‘suspect device’ in the second line, and say it has “left two thousand dead”. Over time, 1800 civilians have been killed by the IRA, so the band have used a dysphemism in putting a figure on the number of people dead to shock the audience into seeing the extent of the damage done during the conflict, and by not using a noun, specifying two thousand ‘people’ dead, there is emphasis put on the number.

Later in the song, the band use 3rd person pronouns to refer to the opposing side, however, don’t make it clear whose side (if any) they’re on. In the chorus, there is some use of colloquialism: “suss” was slang for ‘street smarts’ and could also have connotations of a law that was in place in the late 70’s until the early 80’s that gave police officers the right to arrest someone if they thought they looked suspicious. What with the dress sense and refusal to conform, there is a likelihood people who identified with the punk community would have been singled out with this law. In the first line, the lexical verb ‘planted’, is used and is a typical collocation with ‘bomb’. However, the meaning here is ambiguous as it has more than one possible meaning. They say inflammable material is “planted in my head”; this underlying metaphor suggests that ideas and thoughts can be just as dangerous as a bomb.

Throughout the song, pronouns and possessive determiners are used to create an ‘us vs them’ discourse. “They put up a wall…make sure we get fuck all”, this puts the government in a position of almost ownership, insinuating they can do as they please and make sure ‘we’, the citizens, get nothing from them, the government. By using a semantic field of a card game, the band are metaphorically implying the government is cheating them and “dealing them to the bottom”. In the second verse “they make us feel indebted for saving us from hell” is implying that life in Northern Ireland at the time was ‘hell’, and the British government are trying to put it right. However, from some points of view, the British government are the ones responsible for this ‘hell’. In the next line, a mild dysphemism is used, as during this time, more taboo lexis would most likely have them banned from the radio. As with The Clash, this song is meant to inform the listeners of the issues, and highlight another, less mainstream point of view, so radio play would have been essential.

In the next verse, they address the audience directly, with an imperative sentence “question everything you’re told” this is mild, and possibly unintended irony, as by questioning everything they’re told, the audience should be questioning the song and lyrics themselves. This could also be a reference to the typical punk nihilistic idea, and the rejection of fitting in that the punk scene promotes, encouraging the audience to think for themselves. Interestingly, during the last verse, they change the pronoun from 3rd person to 1st person, by saying ‘don’t believe us’, further encouraging independent thought. Using the phrase “we’re a suspect device if we do what we’re told” is further building this independent thought, as they are saying that if we try too hard to conform and fit it, we’ll eventually end up exploding. It is then implied that this is a purposeful act on the government’s part – they are building up these ideologies, trying to push people into becoming angry enough to fight. There is then a football related metaphor ‘score an own goal’, and this fits with the violence implied, as football fans have a reputation for violence, especially in the 70’s and 80’s. The closing line in the song is “we’re gonna blow up in their face”. The image used here fits with the semantic field of bombing that runs through the whole song, but could also be a metaphor suggesting that strategies put in place by the government are likely to backfire.

In 2001, the American people elected another Republican president, and this caused a re-sparking of angry political punk music. In ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day, they open the song with a negative face threatening act aimed at the government, and president himself: “don’t wanna be an American idiot”. The term ‘American idiot’ is allusion to George Bush Jr, who was the president at the time. In the first verse, there is a semantic field of media related panic. They are implying that the media stirs up anxiety (‘hysteria’) in a way that goes unnoticed by most of the American population – it is ‘subliminal’ to the ‘idiots’. “Mind-fuck” is an example of compound neologism to express an idea of emotional and mental manipulation. The verse as a whole is also commenting on how the population of America will believe anything they’re told on TV, and the use taboo lexis is to add to the feeling of severity and frustration at the population of their country.

In the next verse, they use the nouns “faggot” and “redneck”; these are an example of juxtaposing imagery. The liberal ‘faggot’ and conservative ‘redneck’ are opposite ends of the political spectrum, however both nouns are dysphemism, offensive terms used by the opposing side as an insult. There are underlying implications here that at the time, the US debates were very polarized, and the protagonist here can’t identify with either side, because the extremism on both sides are as bad as the other. However, the use of the slur against gay people hints that the protagonist is leaning more towards the ‘left-wing’ liberal view, labelling himself the ‘faggot’. It is also a reference to the band themselves, as all three members are openly bisexual. In the next two lines, the nouns ‘propaganda’ and ‘paranoia’, are used together, implying that propaganda causes paranoia. In the chorus they use a pun “alien nation” as it sounds like ‘alienation’, and that is what the protagonist is experiencing. The world ‘alien’ refers to a person or thing that doesn’t belong, or doesn’t originate in the country or place it is currently. In this instance, it is implying that the citizens of America are ‘aliens’ because the country has become a stranger to its own people. They use the word ‘dreams’ later in the chorus, though the implied meaning is ambiguous. It isn’t clear if ‘dreams’ is meant to be a verb or a noun, this adds to the sense of being alienated and distanced: does the protagonist know how it is meant? The term “television dreams” used with the previous line “everything isn’t meant to be okay” almost juxtapose each other, as in TV drama and advertising, life is often portrayed in an unrealistically positive manner. However, if a person switches the channel and looks at the news, they are faced with the harsh reality that the happy ending goal people strive for is rarely, if ever achievable. Also, the mention of the ambiguous noun phrase or clause “television dreams” alludes to the ‘American dream’, a very powerful inspirational ideology, which is being presented as reduced to an illusionary failure.

Moving forwards 12 years to 2013, a small band from Northern California – Emily’s Army – released a song called ‘Bad Cop’. The title of the song hints at the political problems the band are commenting on. The monosyllabic lexis used are one half of a common collocation ‘good cop, bad cop’, and by leaving off the ‘good cop’ part, it is implied that there is no longer a ‘good cop’ to counter the ‘bad cop’. In total in 2010-2011, 470 people were killed by law enforcement officers in the United States, giving the song its context. They use an oxymoron ‘police brutality and battery’ in the pre-chorus to outline this at face value. The brutality and battery parts are taboo topics, as this is a subject people usually tend to avoid. In the first verse, they talk about how the police man pulls out his gun instead of his stun gun, and they hint that it is an accident, but then follow up by pointing out the “stun gun is yellow, and his pistol is black.” The subtext here is saying that the officer knew exactly what he was doing. The use of the conjunction ‘but’ throws doubt over the first two lines – presumably the policeman’s explanation as to why he shot a person instead of stunning them. The parallel grammatical structure of a copular verb and colour adjective highlights this obvious contrast, implying it wasn’t an accident.

By using the abstract noun “police” as a modifier for the phrase “brutality and battery” creates powerful imagery, as stereotypically the word “police” has connotations of safety and protection, so the contrast of the phrase and the word is implying that the word is starting to undergo a semantic change, as people are associating the word “police” with violence and the things they’re meant to protect against. At the end of this verse, they use a common idiomatic expression that usually means to ‘finish something in a notable way’. However, in the context used here, it is also referencing the phrase to ‘top someone off’ – a common euphemism for killing someone, reinforcing the horror of a police officer doing these things. The shift to first person pronouns in the next verse is trying to give a voice to the thoughts of this sort of police officer. The word ‘mindset’ – used in the next verse has positive connotations, as a mindset implies having a beneficial approach to doing things. However the word ‘mentality’ has negative connotations, suggesting a detrimental approach to a situation, despite the two words being synonymous and carrying the same denotation. The juxtaposition used in the next line of ‘one hand on his gun’ and ‘one hand in his pants’ – here used as a euphemism implying masturbation – alludes to the common metaphor of a weapon symbolising a penis, and the penis as a weapon, and suggests the officer is getting an emotional response from the violence that is similar to sexual excitement.

While the language used in the punk music scene has changed since the 70’s due to the different political contexts, and its spreading to the USA, and although the purpose has changed somewhat, the overall intention hasn’t. The purpose of these kinds of songs has changed somewhat since the early stages. The Clash used their music as a way to inform people of political issues in a world where the information was not as readily available, whereas the more modern political punk music is trying to put things in a simple, factual form, because their listeners have almost too much access to information and it can get overwhelming. There is a semantic field of fighting against injustice and war across all four songs I have investigated, and there are common themes of the cultural encouragement to ‘think for yourself’.

The songs I have looked at and the culture associated with punk music overall is encouraging people to go against the grain of society and embrace their individuality. The common boldness when it comes to criticizing those in power is a part of what draws people to the punk culture, and throughout the years, bands have expressed their anger and distaste with the government and current political affairs in an open manner, all with the intention of shocking the listener enough to help make a change.

However, despite the similarities, the language used has changed over time. In the earlier days of the punk music scene, less taboo lexis were used in songs, as these would result in radio ban and the band wouldn’t be able to spread the information. In later years, swear words have become less of a taboo and wouldn’t shock people as much, so they can be used in songs and the message of the song wouldn’t become overshadowed by the use of taboo lexis. Although the critical nature of the lyrics used in punk songs hasn’t change too much, the ability to openly criticize people in power has increased the number of songs that directly criticize political figures. The generally more accepting state of the society we live in today has meant the punk culture has become less of an underground scene, it has opened the songwriters up to a wider audience, getting more mainstream media attention. Overall, despite the language changes in the songs over time, the semantics and overall messages have stayed relatively similar.

However, the sample, if typical for classic punk and more up-to-date American punk, is fairly small. So, it would be interesting to collect a lager sample from a wider range of performers to see whether these tentative conclusions would still apply; perhaps using some female fronted, or all female punk bands to see how the message they are trying to display differs.

Discourse of Thursday, 16 November 2017

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You were also flexible and adaptable and adaptable and adaptable and adaptable and adaptable and adaptable in terms of your paper would have to do, or Paul Muldoon, Quoof, McCabe song on p. You did a lot of ways, and it may be helpful. —You've written a very strong job in your thesis statement, but I'll put you at C. To-morrow the bicycle races Through the suburbs on summer evenings: but to choose something else if you'd like. Flip through them more if you have any other questions, OK? Making a wise move, and that to the ER, and only three students raised their hand; one of the numbers I sent an email last week. She knew from the MLA standard for academic papers. I haven't heard back from; my student's make-up, I've attached a copy of the numbers I sent one back saying The 'you must take all reasonable steps to correct the problems she was off; dropping warm from Out in th' park in th' park in th' pan for remember you said, looking closely at whether every word, every sentence says exactly what you're moving too quickly past issues that you find interesting. The cost of a small observation: I think that this would be a clue. 31 December 1960. No worries about the distrust of the romantic love, then this change to concepts of nationalist identities to have seen here would be in South Hall. It's OK to e-mail off to the section guidelines handout. You did a good job digging in deeper and/or, if turns out, when the power company decided that I distribute during class for instance, IMDb.

Golden eyes chapter 10

I felt like time had stopped for a minute for me. I was staring at the group picture with a woman that resembles a lot like me. Sure her hair was longer and wavy, but her facial feature was quite close to mine. Even in black and white her eyes were in a strange tone of grey like mine was... even her fangs were sticking out when she was smiling. Is that... what they mean when they said about someone who shares the same eyes as mine and have that special ability? I was returned back in reality when a hand was rested on my left shoulder. I looked back at him.

“Felix, are you alright? You where quiet for a minute there.” He looked concerned.

“I.. I'm fine. It's just... This woman.” I pointed her out. “Who was she and why does she looks a lot like me?”

“That... That's our adopted aunt and the one who saved us from our execution. She stopped it right before the hit man can deliver a swing and declared that we were just kids trying to survive on the streets. Kay was a bit hesitant for our pardon, but she managed to convinced him to let us join them. She said that we had potential and great value if he'd let us prove it and make up for our looting. He had a moment of silence, then he decided to agree but only if she'd be in charge of us and we had to work for them if we're gonna live here.”

“Whoa! That's quite a story... But I still wanna know who she is.”

“I'm getting there, please be patient. We were then placed in a bedroom with two separate beds. We also had spare clothes since ours were a bit dirty so we changed to them. Then she appeared with dinner to introduce herself to us. Her name was Féline Matahari.” Wait... Féline? That's the name that the mysterious- Oswald I mean, mentioned back at the white manor estate.

“She was very kind on first impression, but Oswald was still on his guard and kept me behind him. He still doesn't trust her, thinking she's up to something. He thought she was gonna so something horrible to us and he wasn't shy telling her so.”

“He was like that even after she's JUST save your lives?!” What's stick got shoved up his butt that time?!

“He had trust issues back then. Victim of prejudice, remember? When he said that, she responded with: 'I can tell that you've had trust issue... and you have a fever.' Once she'd said that, he fell sideways on the floor.”

I was surprised.“Ouch... Was she scary?”

“No, Not really. Except when someone's... you know, acted like a 'mean piece of work for no good reason' thing. Turns out, Oswald was hiding the fact he wasn't feeling well over these past two days and kept it from me because I might get worried. Despite what he said, she took care of him that night. When he came around next day, she was there with a bowl of chicken noodles for his cold. He then took a minute to think and he shyly apologized for acting suspicious.”

“Was he always like that when meeting new people? I mean I know you've told me about trust issues but...”

“He was a bit more cautious than me, but he just needed a bit of time to open up to people. Complete opposite of me, right?” He laugh it off.

“After a week of settling in and he got better, she asked for our education to see if we are in the same level as the others at our age. Mine was pretty much up to date at the time but Oswald's... well, he knew how to speak English but... he had a bit of trouble at school because the people there were a bit.. separated. He was expelled after some kid mocked his mom and he beat him up.”

“... I... know what he feels... It's no one's fault they were born like that and nobody should bring up their family relation just so they can make a cruel joke about it.” I place a hand on my right eye and remembered way back in early school life. I had some kids mocking my unusual eyes... but I've learned to live with it and endure it.

“Seems you've had your share of troubles back then too.” He guessed it right and I nodded. “He wasn't that far behind so he quickly caught up in less then two weeks. We used to be home schooled on most nights with her so we didn't fall behind. She also convinced one of the Head Dragons to let us use some of their equipment for our 'projects' weaponry when we started to do some jobs for our leader.”

“She sounds like she really was like a real mother... Can we talk more about the people in this picture aside both of you so I can better understand on what type of people you guys grew up with?” I wanted to know more on this Red Dragons mafia so I can get a better idea on what kind of person this mysterious woman was. He looked at me with a mischievous smile again and said. “You just wanted to know more about her right now, don't cha?” Ah, pike fish! Was I really that easy to read?

He got up and paced up next to me. “Well, I AM a mouse that can keep his promises. I always do my best to bring my share of the deal. Remember back in that secret room at the House of Mouse? If I wanted you to trust me, I must have yours first. But I regretfully sort of cheated and I reverse on it since I was the who asked first due to circumstances. I'm really sorry, even if I had to keep it a secret until now.” He sounded a bit sad when he mentioned it then he returned to his cheerful side when he suddenly flopped next to me and put one arm around me and held me close. “SO without delay, I shall start explaining! Let's start with the one on the far left. His name is Kyrio Majima. He's that hit man that almost chomped us. He used to be in a different organization in Japan before he was exiled. He's an expert martial artist and was the second in command of the Red Dragons. You can tell from his face he's not someone who smiles a lot. He was a calm and collected type in public, but he's a really loyal and a softie guy, only if you're a friend of his. Oswald was his prize pupil when he found he's one heck of a potential brawler.” From what he said and pointed, he looked like a Japanese, had a long pony tail, am eye patch with a dragon design that is similar to what Oswald had worn, a black vest covering his shoulders, a white, long sleeved shirt, a chain collar that can be seen from his unbuttoned neck area, black dressed pants and some sort of leather shoes.

“The second guy next to him and Oz with a smirking side smile is Chayton Hawkeye. He's a Native from the southern regions and moved here for a new life after some rich trouser oilier stain bought his homeland at a cheap price so he can demolished it for his new villa. He used to be our gun and bomb expert and his bull's eye shots are somewhat legendary in the underworld of Chicago. He was the wisest of our group and a really good listener if you wanted some advice. He was my teacher and taught me how to use guns and when was the best time to use or not. I was really thankful for his peace teachings, other wise I'd be a trigger happy terror like Bendy. He's the one who taught us well on our weapons and what would work best for either of us. Me and Oswald learned a lot on our homemade craftsmanship under him, but I was his prized gun pupil.” The second red skinned guy that was mentioned had a black cowboy hat with a feather, shoulder length black hair, a handkerchief tied around his neck, a brown poncho with fancy, Mexican style design at the edge, some ammo belt around his waist, brown pants and boots.

“As for the third man with a skull-like mask that hides his lower half of his face, is our Boss at the time. That is Kay Chow himself. Our former boss way back. He's the one who founded the group and controls the Chinatown district. He was the guy in charge of all the Chinese businesses and then some others that are like them. He used to be the one of those street thugs that worked from bottom to the top with brains and brawn. He's also manage finances in all the shops here and then some from other regions and he's also one of the Chicago's authorities in the daytime to avoid suspicions. He's like an uncle to us once we've 'graduated' from our training and earned our place within the top members that are named the Head Dragons. It was only four, then there was six including me and Oz.” The little round man in between Mickey and Oswald had round shaded sunglasses, a black beret hat to cover his bald head, a skull mask to cover his lower face, a white Chinese jacket with a dragon symbol in the left side, a scarf around his neck, black pants and some sort of slippers I assumed.

“You guys... were called the Head Dragons... of the Red Dragons? Like, the Elite five of the Alfonso Mafia?” That would explain why they are extremely skilled at their respected fighting style...

“If you mean like the ranking and top members, yes. But let's get one thing straight for a detective of justice like yourself...” He gently grabbed my jaw and made my head turned straight at his and said in a serious tone. “We may be called a 'mafia' by many, but ours are nothing like the ones in fictions, the other police colleagues that make up and spread rumors, the other mafia families, ESPECIALLY the Alfonso's Mafia, we are nothing alike. Our group is more of an organization that helps our good people and it's victims of any kind.”

“Wh- what do you mean like that?” He lets go of my jaw and explained it.

“See, before the Red Dragons was formed and a long time ago, new settlers around the world came in this country for a new life and big dream. Some from Europe and Eastern countries, like those history classes most people hardly remembered yada yada yada. Then there was some disputes here and there between the settlers until the 'authorities' 'settles it.'” He empathized the last two words with his fingers. “Come to find out, most of them were either rich or Irish people only. Wanna guess how fair it was the rest who didn't fit the ratio like some of us?”  

I gritted my teeth of how awful they were treated back then and how I was ignorant of not knowing this... Why haven't I heard of this before apart from some who really do care? Come to think of it, isn't our department... helping them? Now I'm questioning my own brand of justice and who I work under or with... apart of my good friends I knew very well, of course!

“Well since then, it wasn't easy growing up in these rough streets until Kay Chow came along. He is what you called a vigilante with his own brand of justice. He had just about enough one day with the higher ups favored only the ones that are 'qualified', stuff like that. So he started from from a small time neighborhood peacemaker to a high member of both society and underworld organization, representing the district’s itself.”

“That's quite a well brief story. Of your 'uncle' of course.”

“I know you probably wanted more details but for the sake of time right now, let's just say we are not like the other mafia that traditionally used to do. Simply put, if your moral compass gets around and pointed at the 'good guys' outside of your work field, you'll be stupefied who it will really be.”

“...” He really makes me speechless when he's like that. He then regained his smile and asked: “Do you wish to know the last person on this picture? The one you wanted to know the most?” Ah, right! That woman! “Please!” I nodded.

“That woman I mentioned earlier was Féline Matahari. She's the most gentle person in our 'family', and she's the one who saved our lives from being headless, dead bodies I've mentioned earlier. She treated us like we were her own children and taught us more than just school work. Apart from that, she's our thief, spy, and a painter. But in a good way.”

I was shocked.“She's WHAT?!?” Thief? Spy? Painter?!? That sounded like something from a novel or some kind of a joke! AND I'M NOT LAUGHING!

“Keep your nerves down! She's NOT like the rest of the people who did those. Remember what I said about our morals? She's using those skills for the greater good!”

“Like what?” I wasn't convinced on that 'good' part. He looked straight at me with dead serious in his eyes.

“For what I can tell you from the times we were working under and spend quality time with her, she's a part time care giver at our district in her day job, she's the most gentle person you'll ever meet apart from being cunning and surprisingly fierce when she needs to be. In her 'night' job, She a 'thief' in name only! Unlike the other traditionally thieves who looted for money or collections, she only steal from the rich and wealthy to give to the poor when needed with NO rewards in exchange! She's our master of disguise and can gather information on people now and then to keep info on what's going on without making contacts, I can assure you. She can paint the most beautiful pictures that can be displayed at a national museum if she'd could.”

“... Then why... did she choose that life? And why did she have to do with me and our 'sight' connection?”

He pouted and said. “For your first question, she didn't had a choice from the beginning and for your second, can't you really tell just by looking at her?” I didn't have an answer for that until he sighed and dropped huge bomb shell on me.

“She's your mother! Did you ever thought of that? What else do you think you both look alike?”

My eyes were widen and I started to tremble again. The picture frame slipped from my hands and landed on the bed sheets. He quickly grabbed it and set it on the night stand. I hugged myself to keep myself under control. He then tried to help me get back in reality. “Take it easy. You're still a bit-” I immediately got up and said. “I'm sorry for causing a lot of troubles. I need to-”

* BADUM! * There was that strange feeling again. No! Not now! I stumbled to the side before I lose conscious again.

-----

I was then in a golden, fogged area. It kinda feels familiar somewhat, like I've been here before but I can't remember when. The there was that deep voice. “Knell down, Felix. She is here” Suddenly, my body obeyed it's command and I was confused. I then saw a figure coming closer and clearer until 'she' was revealed herself to me. She had a straight, long, hairstyle with cat like black hair. A black mask that's quite similar to the one I've wore at that violin performance. She also had tanned skin and wore a white Egyptian style white dress with golden accessories and sandals. She emits some sort of aura that I can't describe if it's peaceful or threatening, and it didn't help that there was some animal ghosts each aside her that resembles like wild cats. She then spoke. “It took me long enough to reach you, poor child. You've been manipulated from those corrupted souls that tried to keep you from nurturing your true potential.” She cupped my face with both her hands. It felt warm and soft... “Now that one of my rings in in your hands, I can now teach you how to use the eye of Ra you've inherited from your mother's bloodline.”

“Wait, who are you? And what do you mean by eye of Ra and the bloodline thing?” What is she planing? Did she wanted to use my body as her vessel again or something?

“I am Bastet, daughter of Ra and Goddess of protection and cats. I am one who gave your ancestor my gift.” Some 'Goddess of protection and cats' had gave my ancestor that 'gift'? This has GOT to be the most stupidest dream I have up to date! “Seems I wasn't convincing enough. Here, I shall show you how to use it, now that you have that ring.” She then stood behind me and grabbed my left arm by my wrist and make it straight while she covered her other hand over my eyes. “If you wished to see what is hidden, close your eyes and concentrate on what you wished to see. Now, 'seek' the door.” This gets weirder and weirder... fine. I imagined a door and I felt my eyes tingling, the a flash. “Good, now opened them.” I did so and before me was a golden, hieroglyph encrypted door. I hear someone calling my name behind it. “Your friend is calling for you. I must return your world. Do not worry, we shall meet again.” I was then pulled toward the door as I was losing my focus again and being blinded with bright light as I got closer to it...

----

I gasped and got up quickly afterwards. I panted and looked around again. I'm still in that green room I was not so long ago and Mickey got surprised that I awoke terrified. Can't say the same for the other person in the room with him, Oswald had and eye brow lifted and he still had that serious poker face lips. “Are you trying to resurrect yourself like that whenever you get up, Hēi māo?” I glared at him and said. “Do you enjoy watching people sleep unconscious?”

“If I had some almond cookies with my drink and maybe some pens to draw on your face, it would be more than an enjoyable pass time for me.” He then took a drink from his cup he had in his hands as I growled silently.

Sass-@$$... Mickey came up to me to see if I was alright after I unexpectedly fainted. “How do you feel?” He offered a hand to help me get out of bed. I kindly gestured a refusal.“I'm fine just... had a crazy dream or something. Anyways, what are you doing here?”

“Deciding whether I should have ice cream tonight or should I help you knock some sense in you if Bastet fail to convince ya.”

“...” My expression is now dumbfound. What did he just said?

“Judging from your face expression, it was her who summoned ya twenty minutes ago. Am I right?” He then sets his drink on the desk.

!!! What the H3LL! Is he really psychic?! “How did YOU know? What's your story with that Bastet business and why does she want with me?” I got up and walked toward to him. He may have a rough background from what Mickey told me, but he's still not gonna get any sympathy from me with that kind of attitude. He then leaned a bit on the desk as if he rested a bit. Crossed his arm and put a hand on his chin as he looked like he was thinking. “Why ask me? I'm not the one familiar with those 'abilities.'” I stared at him face to face so I could have him spill the beans.

“I'm not falling for that! I just heard you a few seconds ago about Bastet! YOU know what she is, don't you?”

“Ah, so my guess was correct. She introduced herself and showed you how to use that eye sight of yours properly, am I wrong?” He smirked. Now this raised more questions than answers!

“Then WHAT is she? How did you knew her if you don't have any connection with her? And why didn't she- GHK!” He once again, grabbed my jaw before I can finished my sentence. “Look, Hēi māo. I'm not the one with all the answers. I merely had some knowledge of what it can do from your mother. If you wanted to know more about Bastet, there's a place called the library. You might learned a thing or two. Use your own brain and try not to look dumb the next time I see you.”

I immediately backed off and broke free from his hand. “Fine! But first, I want to know somethings. I get it where you both came from, the reason you both ran away from that abusive 'mother', how you ended up here, how you met her and were raised under her wings and such. I get it that your 'family' morals are like a Robin Hood style like and so on, but why... why did she... or didn't... just tell me why she chose that life, dog gone it!” I demanded him and tried not to yell at the last part. I was hurt on the inside because of what's happening these past few days... It came all too quickly! I used to be just an average guy who works in the line of duty as a detective against Bendy Drew and the Alfonso mafia for what they did to my father and their victims. Now suddenly I'm told that my mother that I barely never knew is in a mafia (Well, a group of street vigilantes to be more accurate...) and I was part of a bloodline that's related to some Goddess that gave me some special eye sight that causes nothing but troubles all my life. But what I wanted the most from her is why did she leave me and my father so many years ago.

“What makes you think I'll tell ya after our brawl last night?” He smiled like a malicious, cheshire cat, indicating he's not gonna let me off the hook for what I did last night. Mickey said his name as to scold him until I said the following. “...That wasn't me... I can tell from that stupid smile on your face that you knew all along who it really was...” I grew angrier by the minute. “Like I'm gonna tell everything I know to someone who can barely lay a scratch on that Yúchǔn de èmó. If you wanted to know more about her that badly-” He then surprises me when he pulled over my shirt over my head. Not to take it off, but my blinding and binding me. “-then prove to me if you are worthy of that 'gift' first.” He then what I assumed escaped quickly. Mickey helped me to put it back on. “I'm sorry for what he- hey wait!” I didn't let him finished apologizing for his brother which he shouldn't cause I ran after him after a couple of seconds. I was now blazing mad cause now I'm gonna kick his cotton tail butt so hard, his ancestors will have a bruise n'!!! I opened the door and I was in a red hallway with several doors in Chinese architectures.

“Is this... are we at the House of Mouse?” He followed me afterwards. “No. This is the clinic center with multiple rooms that serves for it's own purposes. This wing is reserved for us and some that are in need. But please, listen to me. Oswald's was-”

“He knows something I don't and-!” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me to him face to face. “Felix, calm down! He's just adding fuel to that fire of your and he's gonna make you eat dirt for lunch again if you catch up with him .” I stood still and calm down for a few seconds until I admit my defeat. I sighed and scratched my head. “You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't act like that, even if it was him... I was frustrated and... lost. When you told me you both knew my mother and everything was kept secret from me except a few, how am I supposed to know I had this sight from her, how to use it before this whole mess piles up and knew what happened to her.” He had a sad expression in his face and then, he hugged me unexpectedly.

“I'm sorry. Part of this is my fault. I should have been more considerate of your situation and asked if you really did knew anything about it in the first place. We were told what they knew and we just assumed you'd knew already.” The sound of his voice was also sad. He may be an actor, but I get the feeling he's not faking it right now.

“You mean... they as in the two people who knew about my sight?” Oswald DID mentioned of the two people who knew about my eye sight ability. “Is it my parent you were referring to? Did you knew my father back then too?”

“Actually...” He lets go and took a few steps back, resuming his composure. “It's true your mother WAS the first person who told us about that, but as for you father, we never knew about it until you've mentioned it.” Well, that was confusing.

“Huh? But... I've only told him about it and I never mentioned to anyone else but you two. How's that possible?” If the other wasn't my dad, then... who is it?

“Remembered what I mentioned about a friend of your father's that is in the witness protection program?”

“Yeah. Oh! You mean- are 'they' still alive? Can I go see 'them'? They might know some..thing?” He shook his head when I asked about it. “Did you also remembered they are on Bendy's hit list cause 'they' can bring him down if 'we' played our cards right?” Oh, right. I remembered that... “Shoot. I forgot about that... but... how...” I sighted again out of confusion. He then got a determined expression. “Don't worry, Felix. I'm taking full responsibility for putting you into much trouble and I promised to make up for it once this is over. So for now, let's focus on the missing jewels AND the dogs. Our undercover informants have located both of them and now we know exactly where they are.”

“They did?” He nodded. “Yup! You'd be surprised of how many people we've helped over the years and it's finally paid off. It's more than beneficial motives if we help our friends, before asking for help. It's best if we all worked together in the name of our brand of justice we believed in.” He sounded like a 'heroic' kid.

He really does have a characteristic charm that draws people to him. He's just as friendly as that cartoon he was named after, despite of a few flaws, he really did tried to avoid blood shed and violence, he even cares for the people in his life despite the fact there were some who didn't like him... It's like if there was some dark clouds in the sky, he'd always does his best to bring out the sunshine in everybody. I sometimes wished there was more people like him in the world so it doesn't seem so bad. How did he ever keep his hopes up after what he's been through?

“So what the plan?” If they knew where they are, there shouldn't be a problem. Right?

“Well, the location is simple. It's at the King Dice casino. Our thieves are none other than their two magicians, Cuphead and Mugman. They are behind most of the robberies of the necklaces”

“Wait, you mean those two with the red and blue tuxedos that pulled a dirty trick on you last night? Er-” I covered my mouth. Carp fish! Me and my big fat mouth. He was shocked when I said that and then asked. “... how much... did you know?”

“I... I was hidden in a truck full of those marijuana plants, including that poisonous flower that was at Mr. Vermelho's place. I was trying to find out about the new whereabouts of Bendy's drug manufacturing factory. We were supposed to be someplace else, but somehow they stopped here and then... Those magicians showed up and... they killed them. I then saw that blue guy took the flower, and then I followed them up until the circus and then... you came along and the rest... you'd probably know it.” He then paused for a moment and replied.

“I see. So I guess I have a lot of explaining to do. If you wished to know more, may I asked to save it for another time? Right now we have to prepare for the switch tomorrow tonight.”

“Huh? The switch?” What is he talking about this time?

“The one you have a big order to fill.” Then there was that voice from behind me that scares one of my nine lives out of me and I jumped in Mickeys arms while I screamed like cat. I looked who it was and it was him again!

“WHAT THE H3LL!” I yelled at him. How long was HE there? “Oswald, you really need more friends to help with that... you know.” Mickey said with a concerned tone.

“We can deal with that some other time but for now, I'm testing that Hēi māo's sight with that ring. If that doesn't work, we need to come up with a different plan.” While he stated that, I've noticed a jewelry case in his right hand.

“You want to know more on your mother, then pass this test.” He opened up the case and there was two identical pair of earrings. They both had turquoise colored stones in a shape of a roses and for the first time, my sight doesn't acted up. Is it because of the ring? I got down from Mickey's arms and looked at them.

“Ok, now tell me which ones are the real deal. Do you need my explanation on how to spot the difference?” He bluntly said.

I really don't know what to response, but... I looked at the ring again and thought back on what happened in that dream... If I asked to show me, will it work? I closed my eyes and concentrated. 'Please show me the real earring.' Then a light flashed. I opened my eyes and now the earrings on the right glowed brightly, indicating as previously mentioned, are the real ones. I pointed them out. “The ones on the right.”

“Ah good. You're good to go. Now listen up, we're gonna swap back our missing jewels and rescued the animals. Long story short, they also kidnapped the mutts and the monkey.”

“What? I mean. I could understand that they wanted the jewelries, but the animals? Why?”

”I can explain.” Mickey steps in. “See, the time from while you were investigating between the Fallen Glass shop and the late Mr. Blancheur's estate, I did some on my own. I happened to stumble upon a case of animal abuse charges against the King Dice's entertainment staff. Luckily, I have a good friend in the attorney system to help me plead a bargain that if they seized over their remaining animals that are still alive, the authorities will cease to press further charges and they won't pay a single fine.”

Animal abuse? At the King Dice casino? Are they... are those wild cats that those magicians have previously mentioned that they were rescued back at the circus, used to belong to them? What on earth is going on in that casino?

“Seems like they are trying to find a new act for their show so they are trying not to get caught again by switching from wild cats to dogs and a monkey.”

“I see.” Now the puzzles are starting to fall into place. I started to deduct the whole case while I paces back and forth.

“I can now see how all of this web of crimes is started to make more sense. This all started with a deal between Bendy, the two magicians and that manager, Giovanchi Dazzardo, also known as King Dice there, and you two as their witness. Am I correct?” I pointed them out. Mickey had that guilty look in his face while Oswald, yeah he didn't changed his expression much.

“The deal was that Bendy wanted that special machine for renewing his drug deals after that bust our forces have smoke out. It was a one of a kind that could make a new type of drugs that can change these drug deals on the streets. At the same time, these casino people are also making forgeries and copies for profit. They wanted the real jewelries and similar items so that they can sell it in the black markets and make some deals like they were selling the 'real' thing at a 'convincing' price. With all of that going on, they both reached in an agreement. Bendy will helped them steal the priceless jewels and they will trade it for their special machine without charge. Am I right so far?” Mickey nodded.

“But however, there was somethings that was unexpected. First, the animal's kidnappings case. That threw everyone out of the loop for a while until you've mentioned about their animal abuse charges. They needed some new 'materials' for their shows so this might have been added on the run. I bet ya five dollars that the monkey and those dogs are now in their possession, terrified. I also bet that the mystery monkey trainer from that Lavender Pearls case might be...”

“He was found dead at a construction site near that Oak park. His face was unrecognizable until they've found some orange hair inside the suit. We were able to locate him but we didn't know where the monkey was until now.” Oswald explained. I was surprised but then I sighed cause I sort of predicted that could be the case. But for now, I need to focus on the bigger piece of the puzzle.

“Thank you... for clarifying his fate. Are they also responsible for it?”

“Plausible, but there's still lack of evidence against them.”

I tsked. “Seems like they are a real piece of work like Bendy... Ah! Sorry! Let me continue. Meanwhile on Bendy's turf, he met Mr. Vermelho probably at some social gathering event. The green man himself had a few felonies under his belt back in South America. His front business was selling plants, fresh fruits and vegetables, while his 'real' deals were the marijuana. Not to mentioned his latest feats, the stolen Snake's Emeralds from a museum. He flea to here so that they cannot reach him for interrogation or just to avoid the authorities over there. If anything, Bendy had made an unlikely 'partnership' when he found out about his real business... hm?” I looked at their expression when I noticed they were looking at the side, opposite of each other.

Mickey had that sadness expression from earlier and had a bit of tears in his eyes. While Oswald on the other hand, had an angry expression and shook a bit with his arms crossed. They notice I was watching and they resumed their composure. “Please excuse us, we... had an unsettling moment. Please continue.” Mickey explained. Is there... something I shouldn't said? No, not now, I can figure it out later.

“Well, as I was saying. They made a pact that they both agreed on. Bendy will have a share of it's weed profit while he covers Mr. Vermelho's felonies in South America such as paying off the police over there and journalists too. I know he can manipulate most of them and how he deals with some that were... against him. Then came the second obstacle that neither side saw it coming. The late Mr. Blancheur. He was the CEO of the W.H.I.T.E. company that was falling on hard times. The records of his factory purchase are at a friend of mine for safe keeping. They all used to be under Bendy's name, but somehow they didn't make as much as they expected. So he sold them at least twice the amount they're really worth to the late Mr. Blancheur. But that's not the real reason he was killed. I found the-! THE NOTE! IT WAS-” Oswald then took out the piece of paper that was from Mr. Vermelho's estate. I exhaled in relief.“Oh, thank you Oswald. I thought it was a goner.”

“Is this his?” I nodded. “As you can see, Mr. Blancheur have found out about their scheme and he wanted some big cash for his silence. However, he underestimated Bendy's power and that got himself killed. But it was not by his hands, I... I had that 'sight' that was quite stubborn at the time when it wanted to show me something... I guessed you guys knew what I mean.”

“...”

“So as I was saying, I 'saw' the footprints and paw prints. I deducted that they had a struggle. To keep it short, Mr. Blancheur was supposed to be poisoned, but it didn't kill him quickly as the murderer wanted to. So he must have strangled him to death. The poodle tried to protect his master but then he was dog napped. They passed through it's balcony along with two other accomplices that isn't Bendy or Boris cause their shoe sizes don't match. Believe me, I know.”

Oswald asked. “So the only plausible suspects left might be the two magicians, Cuphead and Mugman.”

“You're exactly right. Nobody else could have done it but them. Those guys have been pretty crafty in their line of thievery. They must have used different methods in each missing necklaces cases apart of the Snake's Emeralds because it was never stolen. Mickey and I both saw it back at the House of Mouse V.I.P. booth. If I can guessed on what they each used in the heist, the Snowflake Diamonds where the butcher gang was used to create an impression that a brute muscle suspect was the culprit. The Lavender Pearls was also probably their work too. They must have hired the monkey trainer and they falsely promised him a reward of some kind so that they can fool the police, including myself, to think it was an irrelevant case to a much bigger picture here. Once they've got the pearls, they took him out of the picture and took the poor monkey for their new act too. Then they went for the biggest prize at the art galley. The sapphire collar itself along with some other merchandises your company's gonna launch and other famous jewelries for the show. The display cases had multiple cut opened glasses in different sizes must have been a prank distraction. Not to mentioned there was some bizarre toys that were specially made to release knock out gas for the security guards inside the museum. They might have thought it in advance of how they knew layouts of the place by heart and which jewelries were real and fake.”

“Then how did they knew it in advance? We might have advertised a few days in advance, but that still didn't explain how they knew where everything was. It must have been someone from the inside.” Oswald have deducted.

“I thought the same thing too. It is plausible that it might be one of Bendy's men, but I already eliminated that possibility. If anyone has met all of that criteria, It would be the disguised owner of the art gallery, William Babera. However, it was Bendy Drew himself in disguise.” I revealed an important crucial evidence that I've never mentioned to anyone. Boy! Where they surprised!

“Wowzerz! I never noticed him!” Mickey was shocked. Oswald on the other hand, wasn't convinced. “You better have a good explanation. We're under enough pressure from China, now you better not suck this late in the game! Why do you think it was Bendy who was impersonating the owner and how did you know it all along?” He stared at me and I glared back. “Like you said way back at the tea shop, I don't share my information with just about anyone either, at least not without proof.”

Now it was a heated debated and a stare down between me and him. “How can you prove that Bendy was Mr. Babera at the time you where at the museum?” He fired first.

“I have a record of all the people who worked at the time of the preparations and the records on the security staff during that time.”

“So you have their records, big deal. That doesn't prove a thing.”

“Not unless you knew the man before hand. I've actually met him a few times before this event happened.”

“Oh really, Hēi māo?” He glared intensely and sending some threatening aura, but I was prepared this time.

“Yes, and I can tell you right now he wasn't the same man when I when to investigate that day AND I can prove he WAS absent the whole time and where the real Mr. Babera is right now. Tùzǐ ” I said to him in his 'spiritual' animal in his Chinese language.

That threw him off guard and blushed a bit for a second and then regain his grounds. “My my, you've learned a new trick, but flattery will get you nowhere with me. Now, what evidence you've indicated that proved Mr. Babera-” He then locked his forehead to mine. “-and that Bendy De Mon's impersonation of him that got flawed and you've detected? Here's your chance to impress me, cat.”

TO BE CONTINUED..... Chapter 11

Read chapter 9 here.

Read the beginning here: Chapter 1

----Author’s Notes----

And now we’ve hit the decade digits! This is the second part of the back stories with this version. I kinda wanted to have a Chinese vigilantes that has some morals like the Persona 5′s. This game was awesome and it inspired this story!

I wanted to create a special vigilante group that battles against corrupted and rotten ‘figures’ in the society like the Team Aristocats, but unlike them, they work on a different level like with Batman and Chief Gordon. They both work for the good but on a different team.

I already mentioned on the previous chapter that Bastet is Felix’s guardian. She’s gonna play an important role in this story later on.

I hope you enjoy your week, cause right now I’m not feeling so good these past few days....

Tune in next week when Felix explains why the real Director isn’t the same guy Bendy was posing on the first chapter.

BBTIM Characters belong to Marini 4.

16 Things Travel Taught us in 2016

16 Things Travel Taught us in 2016

Reflecting back on 2016 got us thinking about the lessons we learned from our travels. We exceeded many of our goals for the year and stepped on 6 new countries (if you count Puerto Rico as a separate country, which we do). We watched our boys rapidly grow another year older and we had one of the most prosperous years on record.

Simply put, 2016 we will be filed as a really good year.

Today, we’d like to share some of the things travel taught us in 2016.

(1) Cruising is a great way to travel with young kids

Our boys loved being on the cruise ship. They loved running on the sun deck, eating at the buffets and sharing the cabin with us. It was a little cramped at times, but that was part of the fun. We learned that cruising is not for the old or unadventurous. Quite the opposite, actually.

There seems to be a shift in perception these days, as families and younger demographics see the value of cruising. It’s a fun and convenient way to experience a lot in a short period of time.

Read more – Taking a Caribbean Cruise? Here’s what you need to know

(2) Everyone should visit Old Town San Juan

Seriously. San Juan is such a cool city. The colourful architecture, the blue cobblestone streets, the old forts, the restaurants, the beaches. If it’s not already there, you should add Puerto Rico to your travel wish list.

Read more – The colourful streets of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

(3) Guinness tastes much better in Ireland

True story. We’ve heard this before but didn’t give it much thought. We love beer, but we’ve never been big fans of Guinness. That completely changed on our trip to Ireland.

The Irish pour a proper pint of Guinness. We went from not liking Guinness to not liking an evening without Guinness. We blame the Irish for this.

Read more – Traveling to Ireland for the first time? Here’s what you need to know

(4) You don’t have to travel far to have meaningful experiences

As our boys grow, and the cost of traveling as a family of four increases, we’ve shifted our focus to travel closer to home. Fortunately for us, the Pacific Northwest is arguably the most beautiful region in North America. Okay, the Rockies are pretty sweet, too.

We had some awesome travel experiences this year at destinations that are within driving distance to our home. It was a good reminder that you don’t need to board an airplane to have fun travel experiences. It’s about what you do, not where you do it.

Read more – A look back on the summer that was. Here’s what we did.

(5) You SHOULD go chasing waterfalls. Don’t listen to TLC. 

Connecting with nature is always high on our list of things to do. Regardless of where you travel, you need to include activities that take you away from the city and man-made attractions.

Whether it’s hiking in the forest, climbing mountains or walking on the beach, the more you connect with nature, the more fulfilling your travel experiences will be.

Read more – Bioluminescent Kayak Tour in Fajardo

(6) Blarney Castle is a great place for hide and seek

Just be mindful of the uneven ground and the murder hole. Yup, I said murder hole. Google it. There’s more to this attraction than the castle. Our boys loved running around the lush gardens and exploring the forest that surrounds the castle. It’s a fun place to spend a few hours.

Read more – Blarney Castle in Ireland – is it worth visiting?

(7) St. Lucia is our new favorite island in the Caribbean

St. Lucia is the definition of a lush, tropical island in the Caribbean. We only had a half day to explore the island because we were on a Southern Caribbean cruise, but we instantly connected with this island and its people.

Taking a Caribbean cruise allowed us to visit 6 islands in short period of time. Now we know which islands to return to and which ones to skip. St. Lucia is an island we will revisit so that we can give it the proper attention it deserves.

Read more – Things to do in St Lucia while on a Caribbean Cruise

(8) When traveling with kids, choose your battles wisely

Our youngest, Connor, did NOT want to take off his boots when were in the Caribbean earlier this year. It was the funniest thing. Whenever we tried to put on his Crocs or sandals he would have an epic meltdown. The kind of meltdown in public that every parent dreads.

The solution – we let him wear his bright blue rubber boots in the tropical heat. He sweat in them and they looked super uncomfortable, but he was happy. Footwear is not a battle worth fighting.

Read more – Should you add San Juan to your travel wish list?

(9) Everyone needs to try Glamping

Sleeping in a comfy bed inside a tent that sits 20 feet from a rushing river is an experience that everyone needs to add to their bucket list. It was probably the best sleep of the year.

Read more – This year, make the most of your long weekends. Here’s how.

(10) Jet lag and children can be a dangerous combo

Crossing oceans can be tough on little ones. Who am I kidding, it can be tough on big ones too. Our trip to Ireland (from Vancouver) reminded us that jet lag can be a real pain in the ass.

Jet lag affects everyone differently. We try to avoid doing activities the day after we arrive from an overseas flight. Instead, we’ve learned to take it slow and let our moods dictate how the day will play out. Trying to do too much is a recipe for disaster.

Read more – 10 Common Family Travel Mistakes (and how to avoid them)

(11) You’re never to old for roasted marshmallows

Our boys continue to transport us back in time to our younger days. When was the last time you roasted marshmallows over a campfire? Our boys prefer to stick the marshmallows directly in the fire so they would catch fire and turn crispy black. They called them ‘Fire balls’.

The lesson here it to always stay young at heart and make time for the simple things, like roasting marshmallows. Put down the phone and enjoy the moment.

Read next – 30 Photos from our Winter Ski Trip to Sun Peaks

(12) Ireland is the perfect country for a road trip

We love a good a road trip. It’s our favorite way to explore a new country, especially now that we travel as a foursome. We love the freedom that road trips provide. The freedom to start when we want, stop when we want, and go where ever we want.

Ireland and Northern Ireland have the right mix of tourist attractions, road infrastructure, English road signs, friendly people, and slow pace.

Read more – Highlights from our 2 week Ireland road trip

(13) Our boys continue to amaze us

Earlier in the year we put Braydon in a ski camp while we were at Sun Peaks Resort. We went into the ski trip assuming he would probably resist and not want to try skiing. We couldn’t have been more wrong. He loved it! By the second day he was bombing down the mountain and making turns. He absolutely blew our minds!

The lesson learned is that our boys are for more capable than we give them credit for. It taught us that we need to give them more freedom to experiment and we need to let them fall more often. It’s amazing how quickly they learn and adapt.

Read more – Learning to ski at Sun Peaks Resort, Canada

(14) Popsicles taste better at the cabin

We stayed at four different cabins this summer. We were exploring the idea of purchasing a vacation property, so we spent the summer visiting a number of different locations.

We didn’t end up finding ‘the one’ but the process taught us that we’d rather rent than buy. It’s so much easier that way. Staying at these different cabins also reminded us how important it is to get outside when the weather is nice.

Read more – An oceanfront cabin retreat at Porteau Cove

(15) The window seat is a good idea

I’m typically an aisle person because I like to get up and walk around on flights. I’m glad we had the full row on our return flight from Dublin to Vancouver because we got quite the show from our window seat.

We passed over Greenland and witnessed a landscape unlike anywhere else on the planet. Glaciers, mountains, icebergs. It was incredible! It reminded us that nothing beats a window seat on a clear, sunny day, especially when you’re flight path takes you across the Arctic.

Read more – Awesome aerial photos captured from my window seat

(16) Art is everywhere. You just have to open your eyes.

Earlier this year we visited Point Roberts in Washington State. One afternoon, when we were walking back from the beach, we noticed a fire hydrant that was painted to look like a Minion. I thought to myself, that would make for a fun photo. So I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo of this peculiar fire hydrant.

As soon as I took the picture I noticed that all of the fire hydrants in Point Roberts were painted. Of course, that meant I had to capture a photo of every fire hydrant we passed.

The lesson learned is that there’s something interesting around every corner. You just have to open your eyes and look.

Read more – The fun and quirky fire hydrants of Point Roberts

  Read next – 26 Epic Adventures by Travel Bloggers in 2016

  16 Things Travel Taught us in 2016 is a post from: Traveling Canucks

Related posts:

10 Common Family Travel Mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Taking a Caribbean Cruise? Here’s what you need to know

Traveling to Ireland for the first time? Here’s what you need to know

That time we took a ride on the Polar Express to the North Pole!