#anyway if i ever make stuff for the 2012 show i am going to acknowledge some of the issues i have with some of the stuff

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Last week I saw a documentary about the Edinburgh Festival’s Late ‘n’ Live show, which had multiple moments that I turned into gifs and posted on here.

Another angle on Cowgate, featuring John Oliver brutally attacking the thing with a pipe, Daniel Kitson with a hammer, Demitri Martin looking a bit like a mechanic from a movie working on a car with his sleeves rolled up, David O’Doherty appearing to mainly be there as John Oliver’s cheerleader, and Adam Hills narrating the event through freestyle rap:

Adam Hills kissing Johnny Vegas while Daniel Kitson and Ross Noble hold him down, as they try to drag him off stage because he’s overrun by 20 minutes and it’s 3:30 AM and he’s drunk and refusing to leave:

David O’Doherty throwing himself wildly at Daniel Kitson, the floor, and Jason Byrne:

Russell Howard shouting at people:

(I should acknowledge at this point that I’m not an actual gif maker who knows how to do colour correction and all that cool stuff, and all due respect to people who are, when I say I’ve “made gifs” I just mean I cut out a video clip and put it in an online gif converter so I can show people something.)

I enjoyed that, and it made me go through my folder where I’ve saved all the gifs I’ve made for this blog in the last couple of years. Here are a few of my favourites from that folder:

From the first ever episode of The Last Leg (first episode of their actual show, after the London 2012 ones), which is after the watershed, and it has been established that this live show is allowed to say anything but “cunt”. This has been established a few times when guests - notably Miriam Margolyes twice in a couple of minutes one time, and on another occasion, of all people, Richard Osman - have dropped the C Bomb, and every time, it makes Josh and Alex laugh while Adam Hills has to sheepishly look at the camera and say that joking aside, we genuine apologize to anyone offended by that language.

Anyway, that first episode has a sense of tension throughout, like Josh Widdicombe and Adam Hills both couldn’t quite believe they’re been given this show, and were scared of doing anything that could fuck it up. Alex Brooker seemed much more relaxed than the other two, and this gif is of the first swear word that got used on the show. I saved it because I think it’s funny that even without sound, you can tell exactly when Alex Brooker says the word “fuck” just by looking at Josh Widdicombe and seeing the moment when he flinches and winces a bit, clearly for a split second forgetting that they’re allowed to say that one, because he’s so nervous about anyone doing anything that will fuck up this opportunity.

This next one I saved because, comedy aside, everything else aside, genuinely fucking impressive. Seriously. Stephen K. Amos picking up Daniel Kitson and throwing him on the ground at the Late ‘n’ Live show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005 - the fact that that happened is weird and funny and it’s amazing that it’s still on YouTube after all these years. But that alone would not have been worth turning into a gif. I made this one because I have spent 18 years learning and then teaching a sport where that exact thing is one of the more complex and difficult moves to get right, and that is very well done. I’ve coached national-level athletes who’ve practised for years and don’t do that move that well. I could once have done it about that well, back when I was still competing, because it was one of my favourite moves and I spent hours and hours for years learning to get it right. That little hip movement he does halfway through - that looks simple, but it’s fucking hard to do when you’re carrying someone’s body weight. And too easy to feel like you’ve got it right, but someone watching from the outside can see you where nowhere near.

I don’t know why comedian Stephen K. Amos is able to do a wrestling move better than a lot of high-level competitive wrestlers. I looked it up and didn’t find anything about him having experience as a wrestler. Meaning that’s amazing. Forget about the novelty of comedians at a late-night gig taking off their shirts and physically attacking each other on stage - the real story here is that Stephen K. Amos is a great loss to combat sports.

Desiree Burch scoring an own goal while playing the goalkeeper position, in a one-on-one game:

One of the final episodes of Mock the Week, Ed Byrne using one of his last Scenes We’d Like to See to fuck with Dara O’Briain one more time. Some things never changed in 17 years.

Hugh Dennis and Noel Fielding breaking the rule of Taskmaster by being genuinely pretty good at something athletic. Solid golf swings with pool cues. 

Last year when I re-watched Taskmaster season 4, I made a bunch of gifs out of it. Here’s Joe Lycett breaking a bucket:

And here he is calling Alex a fucking prick for making him eat his own sandwich: 

For some reason I always find it really funny when on The Last Leg, a live show where people are always conscious of how they look because if they do something wrong it can’t be fixed in the edit, people use the little TV above the camera that shows what’s being filmed as a mirror. Here are Josh Widdicombe and Joe Thomas using it to fix their hair:

The time Russell Howard said something on an episode of Good News that made my blood run cold for a second, even though I know all it really means is some writer on the show found a meme and added it to the script.

No you fucking didn’t, Russell. You didn’t find anything on Tumblr, you don’t hang out on Tumblr. At least, you’d better fucking not. No one’s supposed to know we’re here.

Sarah Kendall showing off her karate skills on Question Team, which I saved for reasons related entirely to me looking very respectfully and non-objectifyingly with my female gaze. My gay female gaze.

...Here is a gif of Sue Perkins that I made for the exact same reason:

Here is Sean Lock drinking from a massive bottle of whiskey on 8 Out of 10 Cats:

Finally, a few gifs from the greatest video on all of YouTube. I’ve heard Nish Kumar explain that Joel Dommett has a theory that all comedians play football the same way they do comedy. Nish says he believes this theory applies in his own case, because when he plays football, he is “wildly inconsistent and often found on the left wing.”

Let’s see if this holds true for any others. Lee Mack will take any opportunity that comes his way to try something fancy and show-off-y, and it works quite a bit more often than it doesn’t but not every time:

Russell Howard is very enthusiastic but can get ahead of himself in his enthusiasm, and that sometimes trips him up:

Sometimes Alun Cochrane is off doing his own thing, out of step with his peers, and every once in a while you just look over and say, “Wait, what the hell is Alun Cochrane doing over there?”

John Oliver is willing to throw himself into things hard and get knocked around for the sake of his sport/art:

Andy Zaltzman will attack a joke/ball and then stay on it like a fucking terrier, tenaciously coming back to it just when you think he’s letting it go:

[rgbfall]

Ok I am like halfway through s2 of 2012 TMNT and ngl it's kinda growing on me haha

[im-a-mint]

the big gestiona difference i see between rottmnt splinter and 2012 splinter is that rottmnt splinter had his actions justified, called out, and was actually acknowledged he wasn’t a good parent, while 2012 splinter’s weren’t. to not cause that much confusion between the two im going to call rottmnt splinter “splints” and 2012 splinter well, splinter. (whole study under the cut(yes i am writing this on the computer))

lets start with splinter. splinter didn’t exactly act as a father in any way but more like a teacher who really cherished and cared of his students but who didn’t exactly see them as their children. of course, he called them “my sons” because he knew that he was pretty much the only parental figure the turtles had, but in terms of treatment, he did treat karai more like a daughter even though he didn’t raise her and didn’t even know she was alive until leo mentioned her, all while having actual fucking teenagers that he actually fucking raised with no one else other than him to look up to. kind of a jerk move. then theres also the fact that, even while caring for the turtles, he still abused them. yes, someone can love someone else and still treat them like shit have you not heard of toxic lovers. some of the stuff he did that caused a lot of were:

telling leo that, if he wanted to win the battle, he would have to either sacrifice himself or his brothers and that the world depended on him. basically saying “you have to end your life or sacrifice the lives of people you care about to save people who will never even know you exist”. what did this leave leo with? the atlas complex, which then led to the whole…mess he became by season 5.

neglecting donnie of stuff he enjoyed and ignoring what he had to say as seen in the episode where he created metalhead. the way he expected to receive a negative response is an actual leftover from emotional trauma that even i have from being constantly ignored and told no to even the slightest of things, which in the long run can lead to a complaint and toxically non-confrontational nature in the victim.

using humiliation therapy on raph and clearly showing a difference between the way he treated leo and helped him with his issues and the way he treated raph and helped with his issues. humiliation therapy can leave many consequences and leftover trauma on the victim, and can actually worsen complexes the person already had such as inferiority, superiority, or even god complexes. the first is a clear leftover that makes the person believe they are not worth enough like others, a clear sign of emotional damage, while the other two work as a defense mechanism to make the victim protect themselves to ever believe in what they were told. it also worsened raphs anger issues, too. ironic.

keeping mikey hidden up in his own bubble of everything will be fine, nothing is ever wrong type of world but then ignoring how much this ended up hurting him once he was set out into the actual world. the little we see of his personality from before being released to the surface is oddly similar to the personality we see across the show, but still has something off about it. i have a personal theory that once he began suffering from anxiety and night terrors because of all the traumatic things he was exposed to at just the bare age of 16, he began using this happy-go-lucky personality as a defense mechanism against what terrified him alongside his goofy dumb nature, which also explains how quickly he became an expert in dimension X since it was everything but the terrifying world he had been exposed to before.

and guess what? this is never acknowledged by anyone and actually excused by many just because of some clips where hes shown to care for the turtles. repeat after me: you can love someone, but also abuse them. and all that i mentioned that he did that hurt them dearly? yeah, thats just the top of the iceberg.

aNYWAYS, lets head over towards splints that's objectively a better dad in comparison to the absolute jerk of a bitch splinter is because yes i am biased and yes i will always be.

while splinter is...really fucking bad, splints is no saint. it is explicitly said and sometimes even shown that he neglected the turtles full on. no sugar coating. full on neglect. sometimes it is shown in a subtle way such as with the way that mikey's the one who does the cooking of the home while being *drum rolls* 13. 13 years old. hes the youngest and yet the one who has to do the cooking and all of that which is good since he can be pretty independent but concerning since, well, a thirteen yearold shouldn't be doing the cooking for a family of 5.

and then there's the explicit call out to his neglect from donnies part in that race car episode where he even cries after realizing that splints didn't want to spend time with him and mikey because he wanted to make up from the neglect, but just because he needed someone to use for his own selfish motivations.

but he actually shows that he cares for the turtles in the way a father actually cares for his children. he actually worries about them even a little and worries about them in a way a father does, not in the way a mentor does that. it is also understandable his neglect because, like many fathers in the real world, the introduction of children and the new big responsibility ripped him from his glory days, making him constantly ache for a way to get them back. in many cases this leads to substance abuse, and in splints it led to him neglecting his sons and constantly watching the movies of his glory days yet not losing the love and care he had for them.

anyways this is long enough already, love yall. live and let 2012 splinter apologists die

[writing-prompts-for-friends]

Notes from Stephen King’s “On Writing” 03: How to Write

Now that King has laid out the tools before us, he sits down and tells us exactly how he goes about his craft. He acknowledges that everyone writes differently, and that how he writes may not jive with you, and that is okay. He is just walking us through what he does, and you can take what you want and leave what you don’t.

How to Summon Your Muse

“There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you.”

Read a Lot and Write a Lot

“We read to experience the mediocre and the outright rotten; such experience helps us to recognize those things when they begin to creep into our own work, and to steer clear of them. We also read in order to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done. And we read in order to experience different styles.”

Man, I probably can’t even count how many times I’ve seen this piece of advice. But the fact that I’ve seen it this much means that it must be right, I guess. In particular, King advises us to read bad books, as the bad stuff is usually more glaring than the good, and we can learn from that. 

He also says that reading bad things can provide us positive inspiration.

“Most writers can remember the first book he/she put down thinking: I can do better than this. Hell, I am doing better than this! What could be more encouraging to the struggling writer than to realize his/her work is unquestionably better than that of someone who actually got paid for his/her stuff?”

Certainly, I have to agree with him.I remember the first time I was deflowered with bad fiction.

King also advises us to read good books, because we can learn about style, graceful narration, plot development, the creation of believable characters, and truth-telling. 

On Finding Time to Read

It’s not that we don’t want to read, it’s that we just don’t have the time to read when we’re working and have other obligations and also want to write. So how do we find the time to read? King says:

“The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as in long swallows.”

Especially with the advent of e-books, it is easier now than ever to have a book on hand at all times. Read in waiting rooms, in transit, in the checkout line, on the treadmill, and the bathroom. Read when you have an hour to yourself on Sunday. Just read when you can. 

On the Importance of Reading

“The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease  and intimacy with the process of writing. ... Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mindset, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been done and what hasn’t, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen.”

This makes a lot of sense. From personal experience, even though English is my native language and I love reading and writing, I stopped reading English for leisure when I moved to Japan. I poured all of my free time into learning Japanese, and I consumed only written Japanese media for about three years. When I went to pick up a pen again, it felt like a foreign object in my hand. My prose was clunky, the words were stop and start, and I was forgetting words. Especially since I spend a good 90% of my day in Japanese now, I make it a point to come home and read in English every night, and I have seen an improvement. 

How Much to Write?

Okay, so we know that we have to “read a lot” and “write a lot,” but let’s quantify that. (This is the specificity that I really love in this book.) 

King prefaces this section by making it clear that all authors work at different paces. James Joyce sometimes wrote just seven words a day. There was this dude Anthony Trollope who wrote for 2.5 hours every morning before work and stopped even if he was mid-sentence when time was up. If he finished writing a book before the 2.5 hours was finished, he would close that manuscript and start writing the next one. What a machine.

Also, just how many works must a person write to become a Real Writer? Harper Lee only wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. (I know a sequel has been released since King’s book was published, but don’t we all want to forget that sequel exists anyways?) This guy John Creasey wrote five hundred novels under ten different names. 

So how long your works are and how many works you have is your choice. You do you. But if you’re good at it and you love it, don’t put down that pen! 

Writing Schedule

King writes in the morning, takes naps in the afternoon, and spends time with his family in the evenings. That sounds like a dream come true to most of us that are still working a 9-5 and writing on the side. But that’s what he does now. 

To put things more concretely, he says that he has a strict 2,000 minimum that he must write every single day. Even if it’s like pulling teeth, even if it takes longer than he hoped, he does not stop until he has 2,000 new words on the page. 

King also believes that the first draft of a book, even a long one, should take no more than three months to write. (Personally I feel that could be difficult for everyone to do unless they have the ability to commit a certain amount of time everyday to writing no matter what.)

How to Keep Good Writing Habits

King gives us this advice.

Have a “writing room.” For King, this was the cramped laundry room while he wrote Carrie and Salem’s Lot. He isn’t telling you to add a room onto your house. Just have a space that is yours and free of distractions. Have a space that is designated for writing and nothing else, and make sure you can close the door to it. 

Set a daily writing goal for yourself. Even if it’s as low as 100 at first, that’s fine. Just write every day no matter what. He says you can take one day off a week at first. But only at first. 

Eliminate all possible distractions while writing. No phone, no TV, don’t even have the windows open (unless your view is boring). You can have music on if it helps filter out the outside world. 

Have a schedule. Dedicate a certain time before or after work that will be “writing time.” Let’s say mine is 8 pm to 10 pm every day.

Don’t wait for the muse. In King’s words, “Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ‘til noon or seven ‘til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he’ll start showing up, chomping his cigar and making his magic.” Sidenote: King’s muse doesn’t match muse stereotypes lol.

“I think we’re actually talking about creative sleep. Like your bedroom, your writing room should be private, a place where you go to dream. You schedule -in at about the same time everyday, out when your word goal is on paper - exists in order to habituate yourself, to make yourself ready to dream just as you make yourself ready to sleep by going to bed at roughly the same time each night and following the same ritual as you go. In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives. You can train your waking mind to sleep creatively and work out the vividly imagined waking dreams which are successful works of fiction.”

The above quote put a lot of things into perspective for me. I had never thought of writing like dreaming, but really, that is what it is. I have a desk that was meant for writing, but is actually for everything now. Eating, chatting with friends, surfing the web, and writing. It is very far from distraction-free. I also just write “when I feel like it,” which means that sometimes I have months-long or years-long dry spells. And that’s nothing but a shame. 

So now I’m looking at getting another smaller, simpler desk to put in my bedroom, upon which I’ll put a tablet with no internet connection and a wireless keyboard. Maybe a notepad. Maybe. I’m not much of a note-taker. But I’ll put that in my bedroom, which really has just a bed and clothes, not even a clock, and I’ll push myself to write more every day, right there, from 8 pm to 10 pm. 

Source: King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Hodder, 2012.

[seven-oomen]

Hi Ben!  I see you’re still enjoying the absolute insanity that has gripped tumblr the last couple of days XD .  As someone who’s been a tumblr lurker for a number of years, this is hysterical enough from my side.  I can’t imagine the sheer ridiculousness of seeing it firsthand.  Virtually every blog I check, no matter if they’ve ever seen a SPN episode or not, has been posting about it.  It is WILD.

I feel like I’m at least a little lucky that I always skewed more ‘lock’ than anything (mainly because my 'who’ took a hard dive into Torchwood and never really recovered), so there’s less emotional flashbacks/richochets/rollercoastering/etc.  (Yes, I did in fact see the news about Sherlock season 5, but I never saw season 4 because of some of the feedback I heard before I got the chance to watch it, so it’ll take something truly impressive to draw me back now.)  Although in a roundabout way Sherlock is what eventually led me to Teen Wolf because of multi-focus blogs, so I guess I can thank it for that.

Work was one of those super fun days where the manager leaving not long after I got there was all “Yeah, it’s been really calm, and both deliveries so far have been small and should be easy to deal with."  So of course, about an hour after he leaves, four more pallets full of stuff show up, so I spent pretty much my whole shift trying to get everything checked in.  On the one hand, yay, less customers, on the other, hauling that shit around in a mask gets hot.

That dish sounds delicious, and definitely better than my sad lunch/dinner at work.  Ngl, I’m extremely jealous.

And omg, the last line post now has me nervous again because there are multiple options of who is saying whatever it is to whom, and all of them hurt.  XD  Also very here for the idea of a pack of three year-olds trying to pull a Parent Trap on their respective dads.  Is there a treehouse or playhouse they can lock them into to talk?  A moment of Jax and Stiles pointing out that they both agree on this, so they should know that it’s serious?  Trying to make them draw or write down why they’re sad, or whatever similar coping skills the dad usually has the kid use?  Trying to take away a treat of some sort/ground them from doing something/etc until they agree to talk to each other?  So many possibilities.

I cackled at that coffee shop guy post, because the sheer obliviousness demonstrated by the op throughout the story is almost the exact energy being displayed by Peter in my fake dating fic and seeing a story of it happening in RL about took me out.  XD

Also, I’m super curious what kinds of rituals you’re planning for the fic.  Good, bad, druidic, wolfy, pack, wedding, birth, sexy, friendship, binding, warding, ???  Inquiring minds want to know (whenever you are ready to share of course.  Inquiring minds can also be patient. ;D )

Oh, a funny moment at work!  I was picking up one of the pallets after I’d emptied it, and there was a knot in one of the boards that I almost knocked out as I grabbed it, and my brain’s immediate thought was "Whoops, almost just popped the knot on that wood”, immediately followed by the thought “Oh god, no, jesus christ, PHRASING, tonight of all nights, no."  (I am super sad that there is no one I work with that I could scream about this with.)

Anyway, I should wrap up because I need to leave for work soon.  Enjoy the continuing thrill ride that is this site, and best of vibes for any writing attempts today!  Take care!  *Hugs!*

Okay I’m gonna add the preview to your fic from your last message to this one so I have it all in one message here. Because after writing over 3K yesterday my brain is just really tired and I keep wanting to nap today. Haven’t done much and replying to two messages is a bit much. 

On the flip side, I did update Final Masquerade today and that chapter is almost 7K long. So yay!

Also, my fucking feelings while writing that. Jesus christ on a pogo stick.

And in the spirit of “Oh, did you say enemies-to-lovers?  Sorry, I heard idiots-to-lovers”, here is another preview from the fake dating fic, because I love this part, and it features the first appearance of Fashion Consultant Peter:

“Peter, what the hell are you doing in my closet?” Noah’s voice sounded like it was thankfully more bemused than annoyed, but Peter knew that it could be a fine line to walk.

“Trying not to cry in despair, for the most part. Why is everything you own at least a size too big and some shade of brown?” Peter called back over his shoulder, still staring at the somewhat neatly organized rainbow of dull, listless neutrals in growing dismay.

“I’m wearing a green shirt right now, asshole, and not all of us are interested in looking like we got squeezed into our clothing by force. Some of us actually acknowledge our age, and try to dress somewhat appropriately. Some of us also understand the value of blending in.”

“Okay, firstly, age, as they say, is just a number. Secondly, there’s trying not to stand out, and there’s just giving up. Though frankly, I’ve never quite put much stock in either.”

“Color me shocked to hear that from someone I’ve seen wear a cardigan like it was an actual shirt on more than one occasion.”

Peter shrugged as he continued to rifle through hangers and peek into storage containers, though he wasn’t certain that Noah could even see him from within the depths of the walk-in. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.” The sigh that answered him held a level of long-suffering, begrudging patience that Peter was far more used to hearing directed at Stiles than himself.

—–

Why yes, there is indeed a trip suit shopping in the story.  Basically, I am cramming in every random obnoxiously trope-y thing I can remember from the few rom coms I’ve seen.  Also, there is so much food in this story.  Like, it’s ridiculous how often there someone ends up eating something.  I’m not even sure where it came from.

I’ve been reading this multiple times in the last few days, it’s just so cute! 

He’s in the closet huh? Is he gonna come out?

Sorry, sorry, I’ll can it XD 

And honestly, I think Tumblr’s 2012 insanity streak is the only thing keeping me sane right now. Because holy shit what a week.

I never really got into Sherlock myself or Doctor Who. I think I saw one episode of Dr. who (with David Tennant I think) and three episodes of Sherlock because my mom used to watch it.

I saw 12 seasons of Supernatural though, I definitely had an obsession with Destiel and particularly Dean Winchester. Fun fact; Cosplaying Dean made me comfortable enough to come out to my friends as transgender. Because I realized that I couldn't hide my gender even if I tried so hard for over 23 years.

And it was Supernatural that eventually led me to Teen Wolf. Well, that and Grimm, which was also a really fun show and really interesting.

Oh boy, yeah whenever a manager told me that I knew I was gonna be in for a very interesting night. For sure, sucks that you had to do that in a mask though. But on the other hand, no customer interaction does sound like it was a nice break in a way. And OMG I snorted!

It’s a good thing we don’t work together, I feel like the jokes wouldn’t have ended. My god I’m still snickering.

And omg, the last line post now has me nervous again because there are multiple options of who is saying whatever it is to whom, and all of them hurt.  XD  Also very here for the idea of a pack of three year-olds trying to pull a Parent Trap on their respective dads.  Is there a treehouse or playhouse they can lock them into to talk?  A moment of Jax and Stiles pointing out that they both agree on this, so they should know that it’s serious?  Trying to make them draw or write down why they’re sad, or whatever similar coping skills the dad usually has the kid use?  Trying to take away a treat of some sort/ground them from doing something/etc until they agree to talk to each other?  So many possibilities.

I do have a bit of an idea to have them go to the cinema with the kids and make them watch the parent trap, which of course leads to all sorts of shenanigans back at home where Allison and Malia are constantly trying to lock the dads in a room together, aided by Derek and Laura because Malia can’t reach the door handles just yet. Meanwhile Stiles and Jackson are coming up with increasingly elaborate schemes for two three-year-olds that involve their dads being locked in tree houses, sheds, and other places. Not to mention, the kindergarten pact.

And I like to think at some point the wives and Melissa start helping the kids as well. I mean I’d really like to build one giant polyamorous family for this fic.

[cncoh-damn]

Late Night Calls

Summary: As much as you love talking to the guys, late night calls with them isn’t always the best thing, especially when timezones are in the way.

Word count: 4,993

Tags: @richukisbb @quierick @mamacamacho @erickspretend1 @whymyeyeslikethat @zaddydejesus @zabdielsdimples @cncownerxcr7 @streamdecero @cncoxpmxvibes @marveloucnco

Wanna join the taglist? 

Ah, tests. No matter how good you were at school, there would never come a time when you’d look back on them with a smile. Of course, with this being the last year you’d have to take them (at least, until you decide to go to college), you just can’t afford to flunk a single one. Despite several protests from both your own squad and the boys, you promptly locked yourself in your room with nothing but several cans of Red Bull and one too many snacks that definitely didn’t count as dinner. Of course, you couldn’t really ignore the repeated knocking on your door (courtesy of Elodie, the twins, and Alex) nor could you ignore the buzzing of your phone, no doubt caused by the guys trying to convince you to take a break and actually eat something that didn’t come from a vending machine, so with a sigh, you get off your bed and unlock the door.

Unbeknownst to you, Alex stopped banging on the door roughly half an hour ago, and she’d been put on update duty; sending pictures and telling Zabdiel–who would then tell the others–how things were going on their end. Zabdiel did the same, although he still sent you messages every half hour or so. By the end of your five-hour study session, you swear there would be little grooves on your door from where one of the girls’ bracelets or rings hit. Checking your phone for the notifications, you’re mildly impressed to see the number of messages and missed calls you got, most of them from Erick and Chris. Probably something about your unhealthy habits, but really, you’re not about to listen to them; those two were sometimes worse than you after all.

And that’s how, ninety minutes later, you went back to your room after a somewhat excruciating–but delicious–dinner. As she came from a family that put a premium on academic achievement, Alex was the most sympathetic to your wanting to spend the rest of the night studying, though she was quick to tell you to not “study until you pass out” again. Slipping on a stolen hoodie (probably Christopher’s judging by how it wasn’t too baggy on you), you put on your studying playlist and get lost in your textbooks, a feat more difficult than it would seem.

The hours pass in a blur of flash cards, ink smudges, notes scrawled messily in the margins of a page, and several breaks for you to pop the knuckles of your hand when it feels like it’s about to cramp up from writing so much. By the time you finish, it’s already nearing eleven in the evening, and judging by the lack of noise from beyond your door, the others were already asleep or out. (E/c) eyes glance over the mess on your desk, papers and books and pens strewn around your laptop. You then glance over to the vanity-turned-extra-desk-space in front of your bed, brows furrowing at the mess. Not really the most ideal set-up, especially when everything you needed had to be within arm’s reach, but you could fix it later on. Or once your tests are over, something that seems more likely than the former.

Stretching your limbs, you let out a yawn before your eyes fall upon your phone, a notification light blinking to alert you of, well, unseen notifications. Placing your thumb over the home button for it to acknowledge your fingerprint, you rub your eyes with the other hand as your phone unlocks to show everything you’ve missed.

Thirty missed WhatsApp calls from the guys.

Several puns from Erick telling you to stay hydrated and take care of yourself.

Memes from both Chris and Erick that are related to the subjects you currently had.

Khan Academy videos from Zabdiel and Joel.

And finally, a group selfie from Richard, with all of them looking like kicked puppies. You have no idea who came up with the caption, but you were sure the dorks were trying to guilt you into studying and looking after your health. As much as you wanted to deny it, the fact that they all cared enough to spam your phone with messages telling you to take care of yourself warmed your heart. Needless to say, that picture gets saved to your gallery, where you’ll keep it to look at every time you needed a reminder to look after yourself it’ll stagnate and probably end up buried under the copious amount of memes and videos you save from your chats with the guys.

Noticing that your phone’s about to die–you both love and hate them for spamming it, because that meant your battery got drained quicker than it normally did–, you snag one of the many phone chargers on your bedside table, plugging it into the socket behind your table lamp and leaving it there. Next, you stretch some more before you pad over to your bathroom, fully intent on taking a shower before falling asleep. Hey, you might even get the chance to try out that new body wash you and Joel got from Lush the last time you hung out with him.

You step out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, shea butter-scented steam wafting into your room. Mental note to self, (Y/N): thank Joelito next time you see him, because shea butter smells so good. Plus it felt great on your skin, a bonus that usually came with the skincare products you bought. Yes, where most people bought skincare stuff for the sake of making their skin better, you buy the stuff because it smells good. After you wring out the excess water with a towel, you plonk down on the stool in front of the bathroom counter, a hairbrush in one hand and the hair dryer in another. Five minutes is all it takes for your hair to be just a little damp, and you set the dryer down to brush your hair until it’s no longer wet. Once that’s done, you brush your teeth and rush through the five step skin regime that Iana and Joel set up for you. Yeesh.

By the time your head hits the pillow, you don’t bother with anything aside from getting the blanket over your head as sleep claims you. Too bad you’re not getting the uninterrupted eight hours of sleep you wanted.

CYOA: Pick Your Boy

Christopher Velez:

maybe it wasn’t a good idea for you to set one of the most iconic songs in your music library as his ringtone

but really, Sk8r Boi was the song for him

YES IT’S BC HE’S AN ACTUAL SKATER

plus it was the first song you two ever jammed out to, so it’s got a special spot in your friendship

ANYWAY

as much as you love Avril Lavigne, you weren’t fond of waking up to the guitar riff you always played when you got your hands on an electric guitar

honestly you were tempted to let it go to voicemail because DAMN IT BRYANT, YOU WERE SLEEPY

but you figured that Chris wouldn’t call you at fuck knows what time in the morning if there wasn’t a reason

so you pick up, pulling the micro-USB connector from your phone’s charging port before pressing it into your ear, half your face smooshed into your pillow

“Nena!”

now normally the hyper ball known as Christopher Velez wouldn’t annoy you by simply saying one word, but… you were tired

so you grunt before speaking. 

“Hola, Chris.”

bear in mind you were rudely awakened by his ringtone playing, so you’re not in the best mood rn

but he deadass doesn’t pick up on it

so he’s babbling on and on, switching between Spanish and English way too quickly for your still-sleepy mind to comprehend

just as you’re about to yawn, he stops mid-sentence

“(Y/N)? Cuál es tu color favorito?”

you actually yawn while he’s asking, and it takes a second or so for you to realize he asked for your favorite color

“Uhh (f/c),” you say, yawning right after.

he doesn’t say much to you after, and you’re about to let the background noise from his end lull you to sleep

HA SIKE

just as you close your eyes, he makes this triumphant little noise that wakes you up again

and really, you don’t want to rain on his parade (even if he’s keeping you from your precious sleep), so you pull the phone away to let a tiny groan out

(Y/N) wants sleep

pero Christopher, el loco, just had to call you. smh

once you press the phone back to your ear, you barely just get the tail end of what he was saying

and really, you missed the guys (and Chris’ crazy laugh, but shh), but you needed sleep

so you yawn again before interrupting him

“Dude, I miss you and all, pero estoy cansado, chico.”

on one hand, he feels bad. but on the other, your sleepy voice is hella cute so… he has no regrets.

maybe a little guilt bc he knows you needed sleep to help with your test

so he’s all like “Ah, lo siento conejito. Go back to sleep, si? Just call me after your test!”

too bad you fell asleep in the middle of his apology lmao

he was waiting for a verbal response, but then he heard a snore

headass wanted to record it for blackmail purposes but nah

so he just hung up

gracias mucho, Christopher

(Y/N)’s circadian rhythm salutes you

also you called him as soon as school let out so you could tell him you did decent on the test

when you got it back, you sent him a picture. perfect score, hell yes.

lowkey you had to beg him not to post it on his IG. it’d be awkward af, plus it’d fuel some rumors that really wouldn’t be good for anyone

Richard Camacho:

okay, so you really had to set a punk rock song for this somewhat emo lil bish’s ringtone

but rn, you’re regretting it

no, Ronnie Radke, (Y/N) (L/N) doesn’t know why good girls go for bad guys now please shut it

it really suited Richuki tbh, what with him definitely pulling off the bad boy daddy dom look, but goddamnit it was loud

also Good Girls Bad Guys was the first Falling In Reverse song he ever listened to (courtesy of your emo phase that didn’t quite end, just turned lowkey) and he liked it

2012 (Y/N) is thrilled that 2018 (Y/N) has a friend who’s willing to listen to punk rock with her, even if said friend is a bit of a flirt

so he calls you around 4 am your time

you’re still a lil grumpy, but since you were in NREM 1, you woke up pretty easily

doesn’t mean you’re happy about it though

adios eight hours of uninterrupted sleep

but you figure this would happen sooner or later, especially since you and the guys have this sibling-like dynamic now

you pick up ofc, bc you’re already awake and you really don’t like sending any of your friends to voicemail

and he’s just surprised you picked up

there’s a little tremor in his voice and it makes you worry because you’ve never known his voice to not be even because of anything other than anger

or so you thought

now that he sounds upset, you’re a little more awake than before

“Que pasa?”

you usually switch between Spanish and English when talking to them, and it stays that way no matter how sleepy you are

there’s silence on his end for a while, and while it does make you worry more, it makes you a lot sleepier

you swear you’re about to fall asleep before he speaks up again

“No es nada. Just go back to sleep, okay?”

as tempted as you are to do just that, you’re not about to. bitchass had the guts to call you before dawn and make you worry before saying it was nothing? nuh-uh

you love sleep, but you love your friends (and your hobbies) more

“Don’t give me that bullshit Camacho.”

using his last name? he screwed up, and Richard knows it

he’s kinda quiet on the other end though, and you! don’t! like! it!

“Yashel? Richuki? C'mon man, what’s wrong?”

blame it on the fact that it’s like 4 am, that’s the only reason you’re being a softie rn

“It’s nothing. Sorry for waking you.” And then headass fucking hangs up

much to your chagrin

THE AUDACITY

he calls you before the asscrack of dawn, makes you worry, then decides that it’s nothing before hanging up on you? R U D E 

like, screw the fact that you only had four or so hours of sleep, something was up with Richard and you’re determined to find out what

so, against your better judgement, you call him

he picks up bc headass didn’t set a different ringtone for you even if you’re friends hmph

“What happened?” literally no hesitation or beating around the bush here; if something was wrong, then you sure as hell wanted to know about it, especially since he called you

“It’s nothing (Y/N). You have a test tomorrow, just go sleep.” and then he hangs up on you AGAIN

by this point you’re cranky and mildly insulted, so you plug your phone back in to charge before you go back to sleep

you didn’t wake up in the best mood that day, ngl

lil bit snappy, kinda sassier than usual

basically your mood was like Joel’s every time he was on Twitter

the bad mood followed you all the way through your test, and it was pretty obvious from how tightly you were holding onto your pen

after school, though, you call him again and hope he doesn’t hang up on you

“Wanna tell me what’s wrong now?”

“Am I a good dad?”

oof this was not something you were prepared for

“The hell are you talking about? You’re a better dad than most are, man.”

as it turns out, he misses Aaliyah and worries that he’s not doing the best he can as a father

and you’re like “???” because the fact that he and Yocelyn are co-parenting means that he’s doing his best

especially given that he’s away on tours and doing promo stuff a lot

and he’s slowly spiraling into this really dark space and you! refuse! to! let! it! happen!

“Dude, listen to me. Yes you’re not around as much as you want to, and yes you may miss some parts of her life, but look at it this way: you’re making an effort to be part of her life, and that’s way more than I can say for most of the guys who accidentally knock up their girlfriend. So chill, okay?”

soft hours have been extended all bc Richuki doubted himself :((

by the end of the call, he’s feeling a lot better

“Gracias, nena.”

“De nada, dude. Next time though? Don’t call me sounding all upset and shit and then hang up.”

he laughed at that, but then apologized, so you’re not annoyed at him anymore

lowkey you’re considering changing his ringtone but… nah

Zabdiel de Jesus

if there was anyone of the guys you thought would know not to call you when you’re supposed to be asleep, it’d be Zabdiel

but nOPE

he called you probably thirty minutes after you fell asleep

and even if Britney Spears is a guilty pleasure, you don’t want to wake up to Womanizer blaring from your phone

sorry Elodie

but it’s blaring and you’re rudely awakened and now you’re sleepily squinting/glaring at the stupid thing as if it would make it stop. it doesn’t.

so now you’re picking it up because damn it, what the fuck could Zabdiel want?

you yawn as you accept the call, laying on your side so you don’t have to hold the phone to your ear

“Que?”

you didn’t expect to hear loud ass bass and what was probably a party on the other end

but you did

and now you’re trying to keep yourself from cussing at him. you two weren’t that close yet, and no way were you going to risk offending someone because they called you at lord knows what time in the morning.

so you take a page out of his book and take several breaths to calm yourself before repeating the question

“Cometí un error,” he groans, and you’re so tempted to just yeet your phone away because fucking hell, he’s drunk! or somewhat intoxicated.

either way, you are not in the right state of mind to speak to a drunk person

“¿Qué hiciste?“ It’s a struggle to not let the annoyance in your voice show, but you barely even manage to hide it. Thankfully, he’s too drunk to notice.

“I screwed up, (Y/N).” The way he says it is almost too pathetic and you sigh.

“Si, you said that. What happened?” There’s mumbling on his end and all you could make out is a name: Gwen. it takes a while before you piece it together, and you facepalm once the puzzle pieces slot together.

he was upset about his ex

his ex that, according to rumors, he cheated on

and then, for some reason, he figured you were the best person to talk to? okay, not the best person, but one of the first people he should call. 

you were not equipped for this. nuh-uh.

“Zabdi, that was a whole year ago. Hell, maybe even more.” Really, you wanted to ask why the fuck he was thinking about this now

it’s been a Y E A R

“I really liked her,” he continues slurring into the phone, and you muffle a groan with your hand. did befriending an entire boyband mean that you had to listen to them talk about their exes even if it’s been a year? even if they were probably the cause behind the breakup in the first place?

can you resign from being their friend now? (you say this despite knowing you wouldn’t go through with it. you love the dorks too much)

“Zab, you can’t do anything about it now.” You’re trying to be a nice and comforting voice of reason, you really are, but damn it the bass is too loud and you still have a test later in the day

you don’t know what’s happening on his end, but you think you hear something that sounds suspiciously like a sob

cue another eye roll

“Escúchame, Zabdiel. It’s in the past, si? Nothing you can do about it other than learn from your mistake and no lo hagas de nuevo. Lo tengo?”

there’s a bit of scuffling on the other end, and your brows furrow. the hell was happening?

you get an answer when Clara’s voice comes through, and you blink. huh, guess they were bringing him back to the hotel. or his room, who knows.

“Lo siento (Y/N), the rest of the guys thought he went off with a girl,” she explains, and you muffle a yawn.

“It’s okay, Clara. Just–”yawn, “Make sure he doesn’t puke or something. G’night.”

you hang up before she does, plugging your phone back in before you finally conk out again

during dinner that evening, you ask the girls how to deal with a friend who’s an emotional drunk, just so you’re prepared for the next time he calls you when intoxicated.

after that, you send him a few feel-good texts. mostly stuff that siblings would send each other, so you’re really living up to the familial nature your friendship has begun to take on

Joel Pimentel:

just so we’re clear, the only reason you call Joel more than any of the other guys is because he rarely checks his messages, groupchats or otherwise

that said, you’re surprised when, instead of the first of your alarms, The A Team plays from your phone

it’s weird that he’s the one calling you and not the other way around, but you shrug it off

at least he’s calling around the time of your first alarm

“What,” you deadpan into the phone

“When the fuck were you going to tell me you were at the Infinity War premiere.”

whatever it is you were expecting to hear, this ain’t it folks

“Uhh… never?”

and cue a cranky Joelito ranting about you getting to be there and not telling him so he could’ve tried to get tickets 

to which you needed to cut him off

“Bitch, my parents got tickets. Besides, my godfather invited us.”

“Who’s your godfather?”

and cue the silence

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“W H O .”

it goes from this to you deflecting the topic until you decide to bring up your test.

he knows you’re trying to change the topic, but he’s going along with it. he’s been there before.

you start spewing out random facts, both to keep his mind from going back to anything Marvel-related and so you can see how much you remembered from last night’s study session

for the most part, it works.

Joel’s listening to you talk about facts, and every now and then he’d interject with a question, to which you quickly launch into an explanation that spawns even more questions from him

and so you two talk through the next two alarms you set, with you explaining concepts that would probably (hopefully please please please) show up on the test later

“You think I’m going to pass?”

“Hey, if I understood that because you managed to explain it to me, I’m pretty sure you have nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, unless it doesn’t show up on the test.”

“… Don’t jinx yourself.”

you two hang up around the same time, and you’re in a considerably good mood considering he called you to ask how you managed to be at the Infinity War premiere

also it’s shocking how you two didn’t sass each other much during it

come to think of it, what time was it there when he called?

meh, you’ll figure out later. right now, you have to get ready for school, and that uniform tie isn’t going to tie itself.

#privateschoollife

ANYWAY, you get to school and shit, breeze through most of your classes until last period

DUN DUN DUN

test time

you’re shaking with nerves bc the teacher for this one is notorious for giving college-level tests to his AP classes

and even if he’s been your teacher for the past three years, you’re still terrified of failing any of his tests

but one look at the questions had you breathing a sigh of relief.

those were the things you explained to Joelito! you were going to pass!

ngl, you nyoom through the multiple choice questions and double check your math for the ones that need calculations

once school lets out for the day, you find a nice, secluded area near the botanical garden (again, private school feels) so you could call Joel and tell him you’ve got a good chance of passing the test

but when he picks up he sounds groggy af

oh, how the tables have turned

but you’re sympathetic bc he needs to look pretty; his face is one of his main selling points after all

“Hi, sorry I woke you, but I think I’m definitely gonna pass. Thanks for a while ago, bye, love you dude! Get some more sleep!”

how you managed to say that in one breath, no one has any idea.

meanwhile Joel’s just staring at his phone in confusion before realizing you thanked him for helping you recall what you studied

you two didn’t acknowledge the “love you” that got dropped in that quick, minute-long call and you never will

later that night, he calls you again because he saw another picture of you at a Marvel premiere

and this time, you two sass each other until you fall asleep

sass buddies til the end of the line

unlike Steve and Bucky BC THE END OF THE LINE WAS APPARENTLY A CHANCE TO TIME TRAVEL

anyway

it’s back to your regular, sassy program with (Y/N) and Joel. except for when tests come along, especially midterms and finals.

you two have late night calls just for him to help you study

Erick Brian Colon:

after a bit of shifting around in your bed so you can comfortably nestle in your blankets, you finally drift off to sleep, dreaming of getting an Academy Award in the future

as you were about to accept said award, the dream gets shattered when the fucking Guachineo begins to play

along with the shattering of that dream (because damn it, it’s been a near constant goal since you were a kid) comes a rude awakening not even thirty minutes after you fell asleep

as much as you loved Erick (PLATONICALLY), you were going to throttle him, pretty eyes or not

at least, that was the plan until you hear his voice

who knew someone could sound so shaken up over the phone?

okay that was rude and insensitive af but you weren’t expecting this

he literally sounded like he was about to cry, and damn it, this was the baby! this was little bebito Erick on the phone sounding like he’s about to cry and you’re not going to hang up on him.

to be fair, you wouldn’t hang up on any of your friends, but least of all Erick.

so in the sleepy voice you swore never to let anyone but the rest of your squad hear, you yawn out a “Que pasa?”

he’s practically sniffling, and even if he doesn’t quite want you to hear him cry, you’re one of the first people he thought to call, especially since the guys were out at the club 

“Extraño a mi familia,” he admits, voice shaking and you just want to wrap the guy in a blanket and cuddle him.

sure you don’t really get homesick much since you don’t live far from your parents, but it’s a wholly different thing for Erick

for one thing, he has a tight bond with his family. for another, he was what, 14 or 15 when CNCO was formed. it was probably the first time he was away from them for a long period of time, and sometimes, it didn’t get easier to bear with the passage of time

“No llora, bebito.” You’re trying to comfort him and all but you’re not exactly the best person to go to when you need emotional support. Hell, you can barely support yourself emotionally.

which brings you to the question: why me

and why when you had a quiz the next day

but this was Erick. not only was he your fellow group baby, but he was little bebito as well

you’re not about to let him be upset like this, not when you could do something about it

one problem though: you have no idea what to do about it. nice.

thankfully, he keeps talking.

as it turns out, it’s not just homesickness he’s dealing with

it’s also the pressure he puts on himself to be as good as the rest of the guys are

to be as charming as Chris, as good of a dancer as Richard, as intellectual as Joel and Zabdiel

and suddenly, you get where he’s coming from. mostly

it’s like an inferiority complex, but also, not really

as the youngest, you two had the most to prove

you two had the most expectations ahead of you

so it’s natural that you’ll end up pressuring yourselves to meet and exceed those expectations

now you know what to do, BUT you don’t know what to say

“It’s okay to feel like that, bebito,” you start, sitting up and pulling your knees to your chest. “Pero you need to remember that you don’t have to be like them. Dejaste de competir con otros when you guys won La Banda. Now, the only competition you need to worry about is yourself, si?”

you really want to baby him, especially with how soft and watery his voice sounds over the phone, but you know he’s not going to like it

as the youngest, you two end up being babied by those who know you as a member of your respective groups

and it gets annoying after some time because you just want to be treated like an adult

so you’re not going to baby him completely

you kind of stick to a soft voice the whole time you two talk

and when you feel a yawn coming on, you muffle it with your hand bc you don’t want him to feel bad

it takes a while before you ask how he’s feeling

but when he says that he’s feeling better, you immediately feel relieved

not just bc this meant you’ll be able to sleep soon, but bc it meant he wasn’t as upset anymore

a crying and upset friend always made your heart sad, but a crying and upset Erick? you were half-tempted to book a flight to wherever they were and give him a hug, exam be damned

“Gracias mucho, nena.”

“You promise you’re okay now?”

“Si. Good night, (Y/N).”

Yawn. “Good night, bebito.”

so you go back to sleep, then wake up when your alarms go off

the school day passes by in a blur, but you’re hurrying to go home bc you wanted to check in on him via FaceTime

so you do, but he doesn’t pick up

instead you just leave him a message in his voicemail

hopefully he listens to it bc as his fellow group baby, he needed to know that you were gonna be there for him when he can’t share stuff with the other guys

literally though, he’s the only one to always bring out your soft side.

but at least you love the dork.

[yankeeclapdoctor]

That ScreenRant article came out and I’ve decided now is as good a time as any to pour my 7-year-old Loki headcanon analysis gasoline onto the discourse fire

Seriously don’t keep reading this if you don’t want to be bombarded with pieces of what has been in my head for the past 7 years i’m not fucking messing around my friends don’t have a choice to be attacked with this shit when i start talking in person but it’s the internet so you do have a choice. but for the record: I don’t condone his attempts at genocide or other violent actions, and I know it’s bad writing, and i am also aware that it’s 2018 not 2013. But I still love him. Thank you good day

SO I went through and wrote all over the Marvel profile for Loki and here are some things I have to say that can actually be backed up by canon evidence (I have my other headcanons that are just mine that can only be expressed in angsty fanfic but this isn’t the place for that):

In Thor (2011), Loki brings the Frost Giants to infiltrate Asgard on Thor’s coronation day. He tells Laufey that it was “to ruin [his] brother’s big day,” but we also know from his argument with Sif and the Warriors Three that he didn’t believe Thor was ready to rule yet (and he was right! he didn’t go about any of what he did correctly at all but he was right that Thor wasn’t ready and if he hadn’t been right there wouldn’t have been a movie). He doesn’t ruin Thor’s coronation because he wants to be king, he ruins it both because he’s THE GOD OF MISCHIEF and because he thought he was doing what was best for Asgard (which comes from him just being an entitled little pompous bitch but we all knew that already). 

After he finds out that he’s a Frost Giant, he loses his fucking mind and becomes desperate for Odin’s approval and to be “worthy,” especially after having felt overshadowed by Thor throughout his life. Finding out that he was a Frost Giant and that Odin took him hoping to “bring about permanent peace through [him]” made him feel even more used and inferior, driving him to (understandably) lose it and try to prove himself “worthy” of being both Odin’s son and an effective person who can be powerful on his own, not just a pawn as Odin first intended for him. 

As he says to Thor, he “never wanted the throne. [He] only ever wanted to be [Thor’s] equal”—and this is true, both before he knows about his adoption and after: before, Loki felt overshadowed because Thor’s physical strength and status as the heir gave him more positive regard (fuck. look at me using my psychology terms), and afterwards he wants to be Thor’s “equal” just in being deemed “worthy” of Odin’s love and in being seen as a powerful independent person. When Thor asks him why he’s trying to commit genocide he answers, “To prove to father that I am a worthy son.” He thinks that the only way to prove to Odin that he is worthy is to prove that he should be a king, because Thor who has been deemed “worthy” by Odin (and by Mjolnir) is the heir, and therefore kings = “worthy” so Loki should become a king so he can be “worthy”!!! He’s fucked up!!! THIS IS NOT TO EXCUSE HIS ATTEMPT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE AGAINST THE FROST GIANTS. THAT WAS NOT OKAY. I am just deeply psychoanalyzing his motives because Tom Hiddleston played him with this amount of emotional depth and I will prove it by analyzing everything. 

Look at his eyes. what the Fuck. He’s so broken and hurt and out of his fucking mind. He doesn’t know what to do because he’s so angry that he’s a Frost Giant and hates that part of himself and wants to destroy it so he kills his fucking biological father and then tries to kill all the Frost Giants, rejecting them in an attempt to endear himself to Odin and the Asgardians while also believing he’ll never be accepted by them, especially Thor after he saw Thor go berserk on the Frost Giants at the beginning of the movie. and hearing Thor say anything contrary to the fucked up stuff he’s convinced himself of makes him lose it even more. 

ANyway moving on. So Thor stops the genocide from happening which is great (would have been nice if he’d succeeded in stopping it in IW too but oh well bad writing), but after Odin says “no, Loki” instead of you know maybe helping his sons up onto solid ground before trying to have a conversation, Loki lets go and falls into the abyss, definitely believing that he’s gonna die. 

The Marvel profile thing says he “arrives at the Sanctuary” and “meets the Other,” but it was definitely more like he fucking crashed there and got captured by Chitauri, brought to the Other who interrogated him about where he came from, brought him to Thanos, who then tortured him more. 

like...im sorry but this is not the face of a guy who was welcomed into Thanos’s creepy rock lair with open arms and martinis. He was fucking tortured. Not be be 2013 on main analyzing every frame to prove this again but I’m going to: he stumbles when he’s walking with Clint and Selvig to leave the big science room, and he has trouble getting into the truck thing because he’s INJURED from TORTURE see:

ass

[Not to mention all the dialogue in this scene that could be things he was told during his torture and brainwashing/manipulation that he’s repeating back as part of his mindfuckery, but I’m not gonna talk about it bc i know it’s also j*ss’s bad writing not knowing how to write Loki or anyone else and im not getting into that discourse right now. but also for my analytical purposes in my headcanon all of Loki’s dialogue in his first scene in Avengers (2012) is what Thanos told him during his torture]

ANYWAY my point is that Loki was not only influenced by the mind stone; thank you Marvel for finally acknowledging that that happened, but 

Loki was also tortured by Thanos and the Other prior to receiving the scepter

the Other threatens him with being tortured if he “fails” and “if the Tesseract is kept from us” and says “you think you know pain,” which could only refer either to him falling from the Bifrost and landing wherever the fuck he lands (whatever the fuck “The Sanctuary” is. Marvel you can’t just give things stupid cryptic names after the fact what the fuck that’s not fair), or to PREVIOUS TORTURE BY THANOS

the torture was physical as you can see from the everything about him in Avengers (2012), but also psychological as you can tell from his interactions with Thor throughout the movie. let’s take a look

ok well that’s sorta accurate to the feelings he had in Thor (2011). No evidence of brainwashing torture there. carry on.

See but that’s not right. Thor didn’t “toss” him, and while the influence of the mind stone could be warping his memory to make him think that, it would make more sense for Thanos to have used it or other torture to warp his memories to make him think that, to ensure that he would have this thought and this reasoning in his head before encountering his brother again [i know it’s really just bad writing shut up]. Thanos and the Other used Loki’s existing feelings of inferiority, thinking that ruling = worthiness, and resentment towards Thor to manipulate his memories, changing some of them with torture before giving him the scepter which then amplified those feelings and cognitive distortions (ha more psych terms) even more so he could carry out the plan to take over Earth. Playing on Loki’s existing resentment towards Thor made him willing to go after Earth, as he also pretty much says in this scene, so this all doesn’t excuse what he does. He isn’t being completely mind controlled. He’s been manipulated and tortured in a way that uses his existing negative feelings and tendency to create chaos as the GOD OF MISCHIEF to create violent action on behalf of a genocidal alien. Thor notices that when he asks this:

He recognizes Loki’s anger and resentment and twisted ambition from their last fight, but also sees from Loki’s descriptions of the tesseract’s power that his brother’s feelings have been manipulated and amplified by someone’s (and something’s) influence. His later interaction with Loki during the attack on New York when he appeals to him to stop almost works, in that moment people always screenshot to show that Loki’s eyes were blue and therefore he’s controlled by the scepter too oooooOOOOoooOOo (no guys Tom Hiddleston’s eyes are blue and Loki wasn’t controlled by the scepter in the same way as Clint and Selvig). Thor gets Loki to look at the violence around them and asks “do you think this madness will end with your rule?” and this gets through to Loki because he knows he’s not good at establishing order—he creates chaos because he’s THE GOD OF MISCHIEF. His ability to create chaos has been used by Thanos in a ploy to get the Tesseract, the idea that Loki would rule Earth used as vengeful motivation stemming from Loki’s pre-existing feelings of animosity and his earlier need to prove himself “worthy” that have been amplified by both his torture and the influence of the scepter. 

IN CONCLUSION (for now): Loki can create chaos, not control or rule it (see: Thor 2011), but his breakdown in Thor (2011) made him desperate to prove that he can rule, that he can fix problems he creates: he ruins Thor’s coronation and it goes too far, getting Thor banished and nearly starting a war with Jotunheim. He tries to fix it in an attempt to prove himself “worthy” to Odin, but can’t fix it. Thanos uses this need he has to prove himself to make him wreak havoc on Earth to get the Tesseract, but the Avengers defeat him, and Thanos not stepping in to get the Tesseract then 

shows that none of his plan was actually about Earth beyond trying to get the Tesseract and he used Loki’s resentment towards Thor to get to Earth for it

Marvel is bad at setting up long-term villains like Thanos and they should have done Secret Invasion instead because after Avengers (2012) they just fucking forget about him. because they should have introduced the other infinity stones earlier on so that him showing up made more sense. but whatever

So in actual concise response to Marvel updating the thing to say that Loki was influenced by the scepter/mind stone in Avengers (2012): yes thank you for finally fucking saying it and addressing one aspect of your inconsistent writing. We been knew. Loki was influenced by the scepter after being tortured and psychologically manipulated by Thanos and the Other between his fall from the Bifrost and the start of Avengers (2012). This does not mean he was not responsible for his destructive and murderous actions on Earth—that was fucked up—and he still very much did try to commit genocide in Thor (2011). I am not excusing that. However, he is a fictional character and I love him.

[grim-on-the-darkside]

Dave Filoni Quote about how Lucas felt about the Expanded Universe on video.

There is a quote that has been going around for a bit now, that I found the original source of. He said during an interview on “The Star Wars show”. There is a part of the quote that isn’t in it how it has been written, I can see why they left it out because you can’t quite understand it’s significance unless you actually see Filoni say it, his facial expression and his body language. The quote as written now is -

When I saw the video I noticed this small part of the quote that wasn’t included, it doesn’t change the message of it, it actually makes it more meaningful. The entire quote with the previously left out part is -

"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it.*

"So everything else was a world of fun ideas, exciting characters, great possibilities, the EU was created to explore all those things.  And I know and I fully respect peoples opinions about it that some of the material said 'the next canon part of it' <wink,wink>.... But from the filmmaking world I was brought into, the films and TV shows were it". ~ Dave Filoni speaking about working with George Lucas

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

Explanation -

[The 'wink, wink' part of it, you can't fully understand it unless you see the video and see Filoni's face and his body language, what he’s indicating here was essentially saying, yeah, Lucas Licensing did try and fool people and they outright lied at times, they were concerned that if people knew that the EU was literally a separate universe and not canon, that they would be less likely to spend money on it, because 'it didn't count'. ]

This is the actual video of when Dave Filoni said the above quotes during an interview on 'The Star Wars show' [41.40 mark] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcNXPNXOv2A&t=16s

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

Leland Chee and Howard Roffman,they both acknowledge that wasn't true, and have made public quoted statements in that regard. After the fact tho. Leland Chee didn’t get caught lieing to 2012. And most of his ‘atonement’ statements they came years later.

Roffman didn't keep his part of the deal with Lucas, who insisted that the only way he would allow the EU to exist at all was in a completely separate parallel universe to his, which ironically enough was Roffman's suggestion because at first Lucas said "Stop right there, there is no way I am letting anyone else say what is and isn't Star Wars', so that was how Roffman made the deal. Roffman tried to convince in subsequent talks to make it all one universe, but Lucas was adamantly against it and he adamantly refused. He gave them a seperate sandbox to play in and this is exactly why you see the things Lucas was saying and the things Leland Chee were saying were incompatible. - That's also the reason they stopped using the term 'canon' and  only used 'continuity' trying to make it out like they meant the same thing, when they didn't. This was their duplicity, not George Lucas, Lucas was always honest about whenever he was asked in interviews. Separate universes.

Roffman comes totally clean about it in an 2017 interview about the whole thing. Which I have mentioned in two of my previous posts and promosed to share. Now is a good time to do that as it will help make sense of this part of what Filoni said.

Why did Lucas allow to go on than? Fair question. 3 reasons.

One, he told them from the get go he didn’t want to have to get involved all the time, he had his own projects and stories to work on, and he didn’t want to have to keep looking over their shoulders.

Two - He knew he couldn’t keep up with the fans hunger for new Star Wars and he thought this would keep them occupied in between his movies, bare in mind, he didn’t have any clue how big it would actually get. No one was expecting how good it would end up doing in terms of making money.

Which segways very nicely into the Third and final reason.

Money.

Lucas wasn’t about to deal with their duplicity by hurting himself on the process. He was making so much money off it, and he didn’t write a word of it, you can expect anyone to be that ‘upstanding’ so to speak. So he decided he’d handle it the same way they were, by making public statements, and than let them have to deal with the fallout because Lucas was being honest anyways, it was them who were doing wrong.

"And now there have been novels about the events after Episode VI, which isn't at all what I would have done with it. The Star Wars story is really the tragedy of Darth Vader. That is the story. Once Vader dies, he doesn't come back to life, the Emperor doesn't get cloned and Luke doesn't get married..."

~ George Lucas, Flannelled One, 2008

https://ibb.co/dtnYHbx

[Quotes like this were problematic, because if as they were saying “It was one universe” “One canon”, than how the hell could Lucas say The Emperor doesn’t get cloned and doesn’t get married??” heh]

-----------

”The novels and comic books are other authors' interpretations of my creation.  Sometimes, I tell them what they can and cant do, but I just don't have the time to read them all. They're not my vision of what Star Wars is.”

- George Lucas 2004

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

"I like to refer to the Interview with Lucas in the Special Editions.When asked about the novels and what not, he simply says:

”Those are another author's interpretation of what I've created, and not to be taken seriously, as far as what is really going on in the Star Wars world.”

~ George Lucas

[These are statements being made in response to live interviewers questions, so as you can see, this is how he dealt with it and let them deal with the fall out.]

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

Back to the Filoni quote discussion -

Roffman admits later on that it was separate universes, Lucas did not consider the EU canon ever. Lucas just wasn't interested in it, he was only interested in his Star Wars. That's why there was so many retcons. It was all Lucas.

[I’ll be sharing the quotes from Roffman’s 2017 interview following this. This just helps set it up and bring it all together]

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

Not suggesting Lucas did anything wrong, he didn’t, he made it clear from the get go that was the only way he would allow it. It also makes some of the other Quotes from Lucas even more understandable than they already were.

Just for context and reminders -

STARLOG: "The Star Wars Universe is so large and diverse. Do you ever find yourself confused by the subsidiary material that's in the novels, comics, and other offshoots?"

"I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world.... When I said [other people] could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.

“There are two worlds here,” explained Lucas. “There’s my world, which is the movies, and there’s this other world that has been created, which I say is the parallel universe – the licensing world of the books, games and comics.”

[The things that happened in the Expanded Universe happened in the Expanded Universe universe, but they didn't happen in George Lucas' universe.The things that happened in George Lucas universe, They all happened in the Expanded Universe' universe. That was part of the deal, they had to have all of his stuff happen there exactly the same. If that conflicted with things they did before or after, didn't matter, they had to change anything that contradicted anything he did. [Retcons].]

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

"Q: What do you think of the Expanded Universe of books?

A: "The books are in a different universe. I've not read any of them, and I told them when they started writing I wouldn't read any of them and I blocked out certain periods [they couldn't touch where the real story happens]."

- George Lucas 2003

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

"The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?

As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me “Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write Expanded Universe books, he had said “I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” and that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU.He later commented that the future of Star Wars may lie in other venues outside of feature film."

- "Marc Xavier", November 2003, "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy"

 (report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)

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

"Howard Roffman [President of Lucas Licensing], He once said to me that there are two Star Trek universes: there's the TV show and then there's all the spin-offs. He said that these were completely different and didn't have anything to do with each other. So I said, "OK, go ahead."

- George Lucas 2008

-----

When Lucas use the term “We decided”, “we would have two universes”, he was referring to himself and Roffman and the deal with Roffman mentioned here in this above quote.

The Expanded Universe was Howard Roffman’s idea, he brought the idea to Lucas. He was in charge of it the entire time Lucas owned Star Wars.

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

Now it makes why Lucas hated Mara Jade so much understandable. Lucas wasn’t involved in their stories. He didn’t approve concepts, he didn’t read the books, he didn’t deal with the book people personally, he had a liaison group.

“Well in George, George couldn’t stand Mara Jade, well he just couldn’t stand, couldn’t deal and they went out and got some sort of person who looked like she’d stepped out of a Cosmopolitan to be the model Mara and he just thought the whole thing was so not Star Wars and not his vision of Star Wars and once, I forget, I think Sue Rostoni between the novels told me or anyway told me they were killing off Mara Jade and I said ‘Do I get to tell George?'”

– J.W. Rinzler, Lucas Licensing and Author

http://starwarshub.net/2019/02/01/according-to-author-j-w-rinzler-george-lucas-couldnt-stand-the-character-of-mara-jade/

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

As far as I know, George Lucas himself is not involved. He has a liaison group that deals with the book people, the game people, etc. They do the day-to-day work. Occasionally, he will be asked a question and will give an answer."

~ Timothy Zahn

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

"George knows more about Star Wars than we do. He doesn't see the Expanded Universe as ”his” Star Wars, but as ”ours.” I think this has been mentioned previously, maybe in other places, but it's not new info, as far as I remember."

~ Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor),2004

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

[This was when Leland Chee got caught lieing during a live interview from an Audience member question in 2012 ]

But just to give the context of how widespread this deceit and outright lieing had gotten to let’s look at the kinds of things Leland Chee had been saying for years first, and this is just the tip of the iceberg -

"The thing about Star Wars is that there's One universe..." ~ Leland Chee 2008

--

"Holocronkeeper does not support the notion of SW parallel universes."

~ Leland Chee 2009

--

"Everything outside the films was collectively known as the Expanded Universe, serving as an extension of the same universe in the films."

~ Leland Chee 2012

[Even though Lucas had said in 2011, that he makes no distinction between the movies and the Clone Wars series.]

"This is Star Wars, and I don't make a distinction between [The Clone Wars] series and the films."~ George Lucas, SciFiNow, October 2011

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

"Unlike other franchises that reboot with almost every incarnation, Star Wars has proven itself to be a singular universe."

~ Leland Chee 2012

[Bare in mind that Lucas ruled by decree and anything he said was instantly canonical anything that might contradict it, was nulled and voided on the spot, also, note the year on these last two quotes, 2012]

Now watch this...

Q “Hi Mr Chee! I’ve got a question about continuity – are all the various different media of Star Wars (the films, TCW, the video games, the EU) intended to form a single universe, or is the EU intended as a parallel, alternate universe (like, for example, the different continuities between the various Batman comics and films)? I realise that fans tend to each have their own personal preferences, but I was wondering what the official Lucasfilm company policy regarding this was? Many thanks!”

"The dual universe question comes up often. I know George Lucas has mentioned it being two universes , but that’s not how I see it. His vision is definitely not beholden to ours, but ours is definitely beholden to his."

~ Leland Chee 2012

Same year, 2012. The last quote above he made one month before getting caught and admitting that Lucas said it was two universes.

It gets worse.

Knowing full well that Lucas had said it was two universes, Leland Chee had said this -

"And then there's the very top level of canon, the inviolable, infallible level of Truth, marked GWL—George Walton Lucas. It's the divine word of the Creator who stands outside his universe and is not subject to the rules that govern it."

~ Leland Chee, 2008

[Actually, Leland was standing outside of his Universe.]

and this

"George's view of the universe is his view," Chee says with a slightly grudging tone. "He's not beholden to what's gone before."

~ Leland Chee 2008

grudging means he was pissed and he resented it.

[Lucas said in 2005 it was two universes in a magazine interview. Wasn’t the only time he said it either]

You wanna see this get even worse?

*"The G/C/S-level canon stuff is a construct specifically for the Holocron. Non-Holocron users would have no idea what this stuff even means* and I would say most of the people who use the Holocron don't use the field, instead looking specifically to the source of the material. Individual entries are not broken down by canon level."

~ Leland Chee 2005

"...applies only to the Holocron, but is not the same as their standing in LFL's canon hierarchy.“

---

“Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing, and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only rarely used for production purposes.“

~ Leland Chee

[What this means is that whole 'canon tier' he made up, that wasn't policy that was a filing system protocol for the Holocron like the Dewy Decimal system. It had no baring on actual canon or anything outside of his office.]

~ Leland Chee

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

Wanna see it get even worse?

"Star Wars continuity, even EU continuity, does not rest on my shoulders.  Our licensees submit product directly to either our editors or our product development managers. The Holocron serves as a tool for them to check any issues regarding continuity,  and after that, if the editors or developers have any questions, they pass it along to me to check for continuity. At the same time, I am constantly on the lookout to make sure that any new continuity being created gets entered in the Holocron. With regard to the the films and The Clone Wars, I am not involved in continuity approvals* though I have often been asked to provide reference material."

~ Leland Chee

[And they would have us believe that George Lucas let them do all of this on their own, and he had no say in any of it. He’s letting them say what is canon carte’ blanche’ They did say that, wanna see what Leland also said about declaring things canon?

Lucas is quoted as saying they don’t follow his guidelines.

-

This one’s the dozy.

As far as LucasBooks and Lucas Licensing are concerned, of course it is. LucasBooks and Lucas Licensing hold sway over the content and storylines of the Expanded Universe, and thus have every right to declare a canon of those materials. Whether this internal declaration is subscribed to by parent company LFL or Lucas himself is another matter, one which, though interesting, is outside the scope of this Holocron-oriented thread.

~ Leland Chee 2004

----

This is exactly what Dave Filoni is referring to. Them declaring certain things canon and writting on some [it wasn’t all, just to be fair, just some] EU products that their story is a canon continuation, and they were doing so without permission from parent company and George Lucas.

It get’s worse. heh

Turns out, Mr. Leland Chee, he never met George Lucas, he never spoke to George Lucas, not even on the telephone, not even by mail. Complete and total strangers.

"I didn't have any direct contact with George about Star Wars. - I would see some notes based on the interviews or the meetings. But I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity."

~  Leland Chee 2018

“I did not have direct contact with George about Star Wars continuity. Dave Filoni, who worked on Clone Wars, definitely did. So for me, the spirit of George’s work is what’s in the films, and it doesn’t go too far beyond that.” ~ Leland Chee 2018

---

Only took him about 4 or 5 years to fully come clean

"What George did with the films and The Clone Wars was pretty much *his universe ,” Chee said. “He didn’t really have that much concern for what we were doing in the books and games. So the Expanded Universe was very much separate."

~ Leland Chee, 2017 - SYFY WIRE

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

“Lucas’ canon – and when I say ‘his canon’, I’m talking about what he was doing in the films and what he was doing inThe Clone Wars* – was hugely important. But what we were doing in *the books really wasn’t on his radar.”

~ Leland Chee, 2018

-----------

And to top it all off, he said

"Dave Filoni is better equipped to relay Lucas’ true feelings about the EU." ~ Leland Chee

So every single on of those things he said about it being ‘One Universe’, One Continuity’, ‘A singular universe’, ‘same universe as the films’, ‘what is canon’, what’s continuity’, all of it, he did so without having a clue with how George Lucas felt.

But wait....there’s even a problem with that.....when he said Dave Filoni is the one to relay about Lucas’ true feelings, which is is in part true, it doesn’t take into account the fact that he did know Lucas said it was two universes.

He says G-Canon -

G-canon was George Lucas Canon; the six Episodes and any statements by George Lucas (including unpublished production notes from him or his production department that are never seen by the public).

Given the fact that he is the only who made that Tier thingy  for the Holocron, I’m kinda guessing he knew that statements from Lucas were canonical.

He heard Lucas say it was two universes, should we really assume all the other quotes from Lucas he never heard them?

Not only did Leland Chee lie, he knew full well what George Lucas was saying and it’s significance and it’s canonicity.

He’s not only a liar, he’s literally a canon breaker.

Leland Chee said Dave Filoni could tell us Lucas true feelings on the EU.

Which brings us right back to where this post started.

"There's this notion that everything changed when everything became Legends. And I can see why people think that. But, you know, having worked with George I can tell you that it was always very clear -- and he made it very clear -- that the films and the TV shows were the only things that he considered Canon. That was it.*"So everything else was a world of fun ideas, exciting characters, great possibilities, the EU was created to explore all those things.And I know and I fully respect peoples opinions about it that some of the material said 'the next canon part of it' <wink,wink>.... But from the filmmaking world I was brought into, *the films and TV shows were it".* ~ Dave Filoni speaking about working with George Lucas

He was talking about Leland Chee and Howard Roffman, They both knew the truth of it. They had co-workers who wouldn’t agree with them on what they were saying because they refused to lie about George Lucas.

"Within the issue of Starlog magazine with the War of the Worlds cover is an interview article with George Lucas. He stated something which he had said before, which is that he doesn't follow the SW EU, he doesn't read the books or comics. He also said that when they started doing all this (which is allowing other storytellers to tell their own SW tales), he had decreed that the Star Wars Universe would be split into two just like Star Trek (I don't know nuts about Star Trek, so don't ask me about that), one would be his own universe (the six episode movie saga), the other would be a whole other universe (the Expanded Universe). He continued to say that the EU tries as much as possible to tie in to his own universe, but sometimes they move into a whole other line of their own."

~ Confirmed by Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing Publishing, 2005

--

"Does the main storyline for books and comics go through Lucas to make sure it isn't going to conflict with future movies?

No. George doesn't give us much information about his future movies until he's making them. In general, George does not take the EU into account when he's making his movies.”

~ Sue Rostoni, LucasBooks/LL Managing Editor, 2003

--

"I know that GL doens't create the storys and concepts for the SW novels, but does anyone know if he approves overall story ideas?

"George doesn't see the overall story ideas or concepts. If there is a sensitive area, or if we are developing backstory for a character he's created or mentioned in an interview, we can query him to get more information, his approval, or whatever. And yes, we always query him if we're doing something drastic to a film character. I believe he does read the concepts for the games though."

- Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), Jun 2004

---

"The books have to follow the same continuity the films do, as they are an integral part of the overall story of Star Wars that Lucasfilm LTD. recognizes as a legitimate continuation of the films, right?

Yes, the books follow the continuity of the films as best we can taking into account that George follows his own continuity, and rightly so. He's the filmmaker.

As far as ”legitimate continuation of the films” -- If George had continued making SW films past Return of the Jedi, I don't think they would have reflected what the SW authors have written.

[This proved to be true. Lucas wrote his own Sequel Trilogy in 2011. The EU did not exist in his sequel trilogy. He was already in pre-production for the movies himself before he sold to Disney.

"Fast forward to 2012, when we hear George is looking to make SW movies again, I thought 'I wonder what next Mon Calamari's gonna be.' And it turns out, the Mon Calamari this time was huge swaths of the EU. There was no Jacen, no Jaina. No new Jedi Order. Chewie lived. Not suprising, but there it was.    

~ Pablo Hidalgo, 2016, speaking on Lucas' ST treatments he wrote in 2011 https://ibb.co/nmjWcBM

He said it was not suprising because he had know forever already that it was two seperate universes and Lucas did not consider the EU canon ever.

"In the old days, George Lucas saw his universe as separate from publishing [EU]. He wasn't at all interested in connecting."

~ Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group] 2016 http://i.imgur.com/6ZOkAau.png

"He [Lucas] only considers his movies and TV projects as his universe, and told the Clone Wars writers to only worry about those."

-Pablo Hidalgo [Lucasfilm Story Group]

https://i.redd.it/3fpbkocr43q01.png

[We know a lot about Lucas Sequel Trilogynow. Links to that at bottom.]

Sue R Quote continued...

The books, comics, etc., are a ”legitimate continuation” of the Star Wars saga as we [Lucas Licensing] define it. I'm not certain of the context of your question -- somehow I feel like I'm walking into something here...."

- Sue Rostoni, Lucas Licensing (LLP Managing Editor), Jan 2005

----

[At first Sue Rostoni was lead to believe what Chee and Roffman were saying was the case, but she found out that that wasn’t true, and she had met Lucas and she had been working at Lucas Licensing longer than anyone, and she refused to take part in any duplicity especially when it came to Lucas himself. She was a real class act and I have a ton of respect her. That couldn’t have been easy for her. She retired in 2011]

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

So there we have it. So many things going on behind the scenes, so much misinformation on the internet, so many people lieing as it suits their personal wants and narratives.

This is about one thing for me and one thing only. Honoring the gift George Lucas gave us all, Star Wars.

I want his legend and legacy remembered truthfully and for what it really was.

His words matter. When it comes to Star Wars Lucas is God.

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

George Lucas’ Episode VII - https://medium.com/@Oozer3993/george-lucas-episode-vii-c272563cc3ba

George Lucas' Ideas for His Own Star Wars Sequel Trilogy - https://io9.gizmodo.com/george-lucas-ideas-for-his-own-star-wars-sequel-trilogy-1826798496

STAR WARS: The Original Plans for the Sequel Trilogy - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dM9qFe4p0

https://ibb.co/jvph85c

[poeplepound]

!!! i !!!! love these guys so much!! theyre so spectacular omfg !

also i tried to do this once already ! and i was very far into a very long info dump about these guys and i was ALmost done ,,, and my browser crashed, but im doing it again anyway because i need it (i might make typos and sound like a bum jus btw)

sean bonnette and benjamin gallaty started releasing musci together in 2005 after having worked together in a coffeeshop in pheonix arizona - sean was 18, and the buds released their debut album “candy cigarettes and cap guns” and have since released four other full albums, a handful of singles, two eps, and a compilation

sean has a bachelors degree in social work, and has always been working in homeless shelters, volunteering with youth programs, and trying to give a voice to one of the largest groups of stigmatized humans on our planet

candy cigarettes and cap guns was released when sean (30 y/o) was only 18 - and he has since recieved lots of negative feedback on offensive content in ajj’s older songs - to this, sean apologizes but says , quite frankly , that he was a yung edgy boi at that time in his life, and even if his music was offensive then , it represents a time in his life and hes not going to let its content discount that relevance

this is similar to how ajj changed their name from “Andrew jackson jihad”, sean and ben publicly decided to stop using the old band name because they aren’t muslim and have to right to use the term jihad as a part of an aesthetic - neither of the guys expected ajj to get so big, and andrew jackson jihad was adequate for a yung edgy boi garage band

ajjs vast discography centers around themes of social anxiety, privilege, depression, mania, loving how horrible life is, making the most of nothing, being nothing, and how wonderful our shitty planet is

ajj is considered folk-punk, and to a certain degree i agree with that, but to me music genres are irrelevant, and often times musicians fail to fit a category

the idea of organizing music by genres is restricting to a musician and songs and music grow as people do.  in an interview with verbicide, sean said that he acknowledges ajj’s influence on “folk punk” but how the identification of what folk-punk actually is is very vague and unclear, what really Is folk-punk?

ajj has albums that are way more based in folk music, and some that are way more based in punk - some songs are very poppy, some kind of choral in nature - but somehow, ajj has a very cohesive, recognizable sound that never fails to impress and comfort me

this is in part to sean’s wonderful lyrics, they are so very very raw and uncut - he is incredibly relatable while staying poetic, and i admire that So Much.  his use of metaphor in his lyrics has alwasy been apparent, but even more so in his more recent albums, and his political commentary songs are more prevalent in older songs - but they stay SO RE l AT a b LE !! every time i listen to ajj, i feel so whole and accepted and like im listening to my deepest internal thoughts and feelings in the form of beautiful lyrics and entrancing music

when asked if sean’s lyrics are a reflection of a darkness inside of him, he usualyl replies by saying that hes no darker than anyone else is - he just has a way to express and expel that darkness.  after the release of knife man, sean was asked if his emotional songs were about his past and what he’s been through as a person, and hes replied by saying that a lot of what he sings about is stuff that hes seen through his job, and learned about through people he’s met and interacted with.

shortly before christmas island was recorded, sean’s grandfather passed away.  his grandpa had lived with him from the time he was 13 tot he time he was 18, and he was a very major male role model in his life.  christmas island has lots of imagery around death, and a lot of the songs on the album personify grief and death.  sean has said that christmas island is an album about “pre-grief” meaning the way that people feel bad about death and grieve loses before theyve even happen, just beause they know theyre coming.  sean’s grandfather’s death was not unexpected or sudden, and he died very happily - surrounded by all of his grandchildren, and the feeling of knowing someone you love will die shortly is what fueled a lot of the tone of christmas island.

sean is a big big fan of 90′s hip hop, and a lot of his lyrics and writing style is heavily influenced by his favorites - aesop rock, brother lynch hung, biggie, and ol dirty bastard (seriously sean is SO Iconic)

i’ve been listening to ajj since their release of “knife man” in 2011, i could never pick a favorite album of theirs  - i love each of them and theyre each incredibly important to me

their 2007 album “people who can eat people are the luckiest people in the world” gave me a completely new worldview , and showed me that the world is incredibly imperfect, and humans are incredibly imperfect, but life is so worth living, and there is still so much good amazing stuff in the world

in 2008 they released the ep “plant your roots” and in 2009 “cant maintain” - both of theses eps were the first time i had found relatable emotional music that felt so accurate to myself - it was raw, it was unapologetic, it was beautiful, and it was sad.  these eps have an incredible tone, and theyre both so different (cant maintain being more light and - dare i say - playful) but still so connected and deeply rooted (pun intended ;) ) in my head as near perfect expressions of my feelings

“knife man” was released in 2011 and it came into my life at a time where i was trying to learn about myself and discover who i was, and this album guided me in such a strong positive direction - it introduced me to white privilege, taught me about forgiveness, how to be unapologetically me, but still let me stay in touch with my dark, cynical, pessimistic side of myself - knife man is somehow so negative but still so positive and i think thats how a lot of real life is, and ajj captures that incredibly well 

knife man was the first ajj show i ever saw, and i will never forget how captivating sean is when he preforms, his body language and his expressions reflect so much of what he’s singing, theyre so true

in 2014 they released “christmas island” and im not gonna lie when i first heard it i really didnt like it - i thought it was too poppy, and not raw enough like how ajj usually is - it felt wrong to me.  but alas, i kept listening, and i soon fell in love with this album.  it is indeed poppier than their other stuff, and when it came out in may of that year, i didnt really want to like it that much - and so i avoided it, and once Taylor Swift’s super poppy 1989 came out that october, i avoided it Even Harder because i felt like 2014 would be the year of great musicians selling out to labels to gain hits.  eventually, i let myself sink into christmas island - i allowed myself to like it, and boy o boy did i fall in love. i saw the show and i cried. the album seamlessly ties together themes from older albums - optimism, death, unrest, self-loathing - but it introduces a new style to seans words - theyre less direct, less blunt, less in-your-face , he starts using metaphors that dont make sense the first time you listen, his lyrics take on a new type of poetry on this album - and its beautiful

christmas island is softer, its more about introspection and knowing why youre the way you are - its about emotional intelligence - this album taught me how to know whats happening, and how to accept it and learn form it and let myself dream and live, despite how shitty stuff is, and i love it.

in 2016 “the bible 2″ was released, and i waited to listen to any of it until i went to see the show - i binged the album twice through right before i went to see them, and i had really really mixed feelings about it - some of the songs i didnt understand, i didnt like the sound of some of them, and i felt like they got very preachy.  once i saw them play the song “small red boy” though, i was 110% hooked - it suddenly made sense to me as an album.  the sound is so personal to me, and i connect with the radio static and the messy raw noise, and the lyrics take on such a poetic, innocent tone, and all the songs are equal parts inspiring, funny, and dark.  i really really really truly love this album.

this is kind of just a silly extra, but in 2015 they released a single called “keep on chooglin” and i honeslty dont understand what most of the song means, but its really a bop and its poppy and upbeat and positive, and i can gather that basically to “choogle” is to be yourself unapologetically and just do your own thing and basically fucc the haters, and its a nice song to listen to if youre feeling down because the lyrics are funny and the message is bright

ajj’s discography has gotten me through some of the hardest years of my life, and have seriously, literally, kept me from killing myself on so many occasions and i am forever grateful - if i had not stayed alive until now, i would miss so much and i would throw away my life, just because i didnt feel like making it, and now i can say in full confidence that this band has ridded me of all my suicidal ideation , and if anyone is down here reading this, im gonna make an ajj “dont die” playlist that i Will post here

in 2012, ben gallaty recorded a couple songs under the name wiccan babysitter, adn then a few years later (2016) he recorded a few more under the name benjamin galaxy - he compiled these songs in 2016 onto an lp, one side being the wiccan babysitter ep and the other being the ben galaxy ep.  i didnt know this was a thing until recently? which is weird? but i have listened through the lp many times - i still dont have a strong grip on what the songs mean, but i can say that the wiccan babysitter/benjamin galaxy lp is super comforting to me as well.  the sound is unique and different from ajj, but it is still warm and whole feeling, and the lyrics are still relatable to me, and i want to read more about what ben wrote about and why, but im having trouble finding info on this project

im mostly done for now, it’s very late at night, and i have work tomorrow morning, but i’ll leave u with this - youre an irreplaceable human soul with your own understanding of what it means to suffer, and thats a huge bummer

[gregwhite]

GRATITUDE IN WRITING

Please pardon me for being the millionth person to bring up gratitude in LA this year. Gratitude is having something of a moment you might say. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but by the 10th time you see it used to sell green juice in Venice you start to get a little white person wary. But it makes me think about something crucial to sustaining a career in this or any industry.

Last night I was delighted to do a talk with a class of BU students* who are here doing a semester in various entertainment industry jobs while learning about how this town works and etc etc and I brought something up to them that I’d like to share here.

I finished college in 2006 and decided, being from Jersey, that I would get my start in New York before riding triumphant to LA. I had always been told, “if you want to work in TV, move to LA,” but that was too frightening to contemplate and so HA I thought. HA IN YOUR FACE. So NYC it was**. I got a job as a page at Letterman, and when that ended I was a temp at HBO, and when that ended (after a day) I got a job as a prep cook/PA on a PBS cooking show (which was pretty outstanding) and when that ended I got a job in my friend’s wine store in Tappan, NY, the Grape d’Vine (currently relocated to Sparkill, NY). Also I was unemployed a lot. 

And when you’re ambitious and also uncertain about the path forward, the only boot in the ass you need is the one that comes with being unemployed a year out of college, living in your childhood bedroom (it’s a great bedroom actually), while your little sister finishes college up in Boston and your other friends move into the city. (It also compels you to write a lot.) So it was with that in mind that I moved here in January of 2008. 

So back to gratitude. I won’t go into the whole thing now, but basically, during the year and change I was living at home in NJ before I moved here, my rule was (I like rules) that I had to email 10 BU alumni every day asking them if I could buy them a coffee (if they were in NY) to talk to them about how they got their start and if they were in LA, if I could just give them a call and talk to them. So people are generally really nice and open and happy to share their experiences (aka talk about themselves) and by the time I made the very scary move to LA, I had actually amassed a nice little group of contacts who said that if I ever moved to LA, they would be happy to meet with me. 

And in this way, I ended up meeting with fancy writers, and network execs, and studio heads and all kinds of people. And one of them was a BU alum named Debbie Liebling, and she was very encouraging and sweet (and even let me pitch a feature to her, which was a DISASTER because I figured I could just wing it in the room...it still makes me nauseous to think of that) and at the end of our meeting, she mentioned another friend of hers from her time at Comedy Central named Zoe Friedman. I met up with Zoe at her office at Comedy Central and we had a memorably enjoyable conversation about what I hoped to do, and our time on the east coast (she was a New Yorker), and before long a friendship developed, one that I was and still am very grateful for in its openness and kindness. 

At the same time I was doing a bunch of random jobs as one does in their early days of LA. I was a PA on a Comedy Central show called Lil Bush, run by a very nice man (and BU alum) named Donick Cary, and I was, most depressingly, a temp at Sony filing legal affairs paperwork, which meant that I would spend by mornings writing scripts I wasn’t sure anyone would ever read, go to work filing PILOT DEAL PAPERWORK FROM FANCY WRITERS, and then go home and continue writing. It was frustrating in one sense, but also highly motivating, and I think in that first year in LA, I must have written 10 pilots.

Anyway, this is getting long, which was not my intention. 

Long story short, I end up working for Zoe’s dad Budd, legendary founder of the Improv, and thank god for that job because I needed one (again, thank you Zoe). The job was basically helping Budd book acts for the Improv’s casino sites, and while booking comics wasn’t my goal in moving to LA, it was fun, put me in touch with some very lively characters, and also allowed me time to write during quiet spells throughout the day. It was during my time working for Budd that I received an email from someone at Comedy Central informing me that a showrunner for a new show had read something of mine and wanted to meet and would I like to set up a time?

I had to read the email a few times, because (a) the words seemed Nigerian Prince levels of too good to be true, and (b) because these kinds of emails often have a weird subject format which looks like MTG TO SET: GREG WHITE WITH _____ and I assumed it was a spambot trying to get me to sign up for a credit card. I emailed back informing them that yes I would love to meet with the showrunner but um, let me just check my sched--okay, checked it, yeah anytime is fine. But I also asked how this guy had even gotten a script of mine, and the response was that Zoe had submitted a script on my behalf. One of those scripts I was writing at home in NJ after college.

So very long story short, I met with the showrunner, a fellow named David M Stern, and within a week I was writing on my first show as a real life TV writer. (Thanks, David.)

But the point of this is gratitude. Nobody anywhere is self-made. Sure, you work hard and you hope to get a shot, but like Obama said during the debates in 2012, “you didn’t build that.” If you have a trucking company, guess what, you benefit from the public works programs that built the highways that allow you to run your company. And if you’re a writer, there are a million gatekeepers and the walls are way too high to jump over on your own. You need help. That isn’t to say this isn’t a meritocratic town, because to an extent it is, and so if you keep working and writing and trying to get your stuff in front of people, eventually something will fall your way because you refuse to stop until that something does, but...you’re not self-made. And realizing this is the key to sustaining a happy and healthy and productive career (and life) in the arts. You are a product of everyone who has ever said something encouraging, or given you an idea, or played you a song, or made a phone call on your behalf. Your career is a balance sheet on the amount of kindness you’ve received, whether it was deserved or not. And the way you can try and deserve that kindness, is by not being a dick about it. Acknowledge that, and you’ll be very glad you did.  

Let’s just consider this for a second. David had gotten a show to series, itself a small miracle. And he had read probably hundreds of scripts and certainly wasn’t asking for Zoe to send him one from some random guy from New Jersey. And it’s not like Zoe needed to submit me. And it wasn’t like David needed to even bother reading me. And that he liked it? And wanted to meet with me? And hire me? Consider all of the things that had to happen for me to get my first job, a foot in the door. Such tiny odds. Now, if you’re an insane person you go, YES THE ODDS WERE SMALL AND I VANQUISHED THEM! But if you’re a normal functioning human, you go, Jesus God, that almost didn’t happen, and hug the things you’re grateful for a little tighter and whisper THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU (just don’t do this on a bus or in public). Seriously, consider that. The good things in your life almost didn’t happen, and it is basically just weird luck that it did. Be grateful for the random accounting error that is your life. In fact, consider anything you love in life...and now consider that thing removed from your life. Kinda sucks, right? Exactly. You fall into a routine and you complain about something dumb and you forget about the fact that your entire life is pretty much full of glorious things that, taken on their own in a vacuum, appear to be miracles. But taken collectively they become the things most people don’t even look at. (Not to get all Pete Holmes-meets-Eliza here, but seriously. Don’t forget how lucky you are to be alive right now.)

I called Zoe to thank her the day I got that email, and I called her to thank her when I met with David, and I called her to thank her when I got the job, and I called her to thank her when I got my second job, and to this day, I still email her when something goes my way. Sold a pilot? Thank Zoe. Wrapped season 2 on a show? Thank Zoe. And not only Zoe, but my high school film teacher for showing me this was a thing I could do and was good at. And my mom and dad. And the friend who invited me to join the writers workshop when I first moved out here. And so on. And more than just this being the right way to live, it also feels really good. Your gratitude connects you to these people and reminds you that you’re never alone, that you carry in your body all the good things that ever happened to you and the more you acknowledge those good things, the more they stay alive. And of course, if ever you see yourself ten years ago in a newly-arrived LA human, you do what you can do show them kindness because in the end, nobody wins unless everybody wins.

So I guess my point is, whether you’re just starting out or many years into a career, you’ve got someone to be grateful for, and I hope you let them know it. It’ll make you a better person, and that will make you a better writer. 

*I also went to BU, class of 06, but did not do this LA program as (a) it seemed insane to pay a semester of college tuition to come intern and (b) I REALLY love Boston and (b) I REALLY liked being in college and taking classes. They told me I couldn’t take more than 5 per semester, so I just started showing up to classes I wasn’t enrolled in and waited for someone to kick me out. They never did. Goddamn, I loved being a full-time student. I always say that if I ever become grossly wealthy I’m going to grad school to get a masters degree in something useless. Basically for me college was going to lectures and talks and film screenings and making our late night talk show with my friends. Actually, it’s not very different from my life now, only I own more kettlebells. 

**It was not glamorous per se. I would take the bus from Harrington Park NJ to the Port Authority daily and then back. Gross. But NYC is lovely in the fall and spring and a nightmare in the winter and summer and I loved working there, even if it was as a page for $270 a week. 

[preezypop]

It took me a while to put words on what I feel. I formerly planned to write something when the disbandment news came out. But I backed out because I didn’t want to open my scars. That news hurt me in thousands ways for obvious reason, but the irony was that I discovered about it on the bus on my way to the airport because...I was about to fly to Japan to see Big Bang...Whatever. I must have looked pretty silly to the other passengers but a girl crying while going to the airport is not that strange after all. Anyway. How do I start? Where do I start? Well it should be easy. Because it all started with them. Those 4 amazing and fierce girls. One random summer night 6 years ago, I was chatting with my cousin on the internet (for the older ones, it was on MSN, feel old yet?) and back in that time I knew literally nothing about South Korea. Nothing. I was a J-Pop/J-rock enthusiast. She told me she wanted me to check out a music video. “It’s not Japanese though, it’s Korean, but I’m sure you will like it, it’s totally your style! And it sounds a lot like English when you’re not paying attention.” Ok, shoot. I must admit I was a bit jaded because Korea? But okay, I told her to send me the link and I gave it a try. “I go by the name of CL of 2NE1”, oh okay wow. Totally not what I expected! I mean I was kinda into J-Pop so I lowkey expected cute schoolgirls and stuff but no. Not at all. I had the Street ver. of the Fire MV playing in front of my eyes and W-O-W. Snatched. Blown away. Shookt. You name it. I was hooked. The clothes, the attitude, the choreo, THE SONG. (I mean c’mon, I’m a West-Indian and those girls just delivered a dance-hall-ish song!) Oh-my-God!!!!! I replayed it immediately! I couldn’t believe what I just saw! I let my cousin know how AMAZED I was and she was like “ikr?!!!! I knew you would like it”. Liked it? Little did my cousin and I knew but she has just launched the biggest change in my life. This night I listened to Fire for hours!!! I felt like there was a whole new world I had to discover. The J-Pop and J-Rock worlds were full of codes so I was sure K-Pop had its own too. And judging by the comments under the video there were A LOT. I was confused about everyone making a fuss over that weird guy dancing behind Minzy for like 2 seconds (little did I know that later I’d sell my soul to that weird dude and turn him into my husband ultimate bias). So there I went, because I wanted to know more about 2NE1, who were they? What were their names? Where did they come from? Why are they called the female Big Bang? Who even is Big Bang (LOL)? Who is papa YG? What? I downloaded the mini-album (why mini? why were the Korean codes so different from what I’ve known up until now?) and lost my hair for the 2nd time because of them. Perfect. That album was perfect. A bit of pop, a bit of r’n’b, everything I like!!!!! Those girls were winning my heart at a fast rate! And soon enough I was a 2NE1 fan, a Blackjack, a future YG stan and a full kpop fan in the making. The rest is history. If someone asks what is 2NE1 to me I will ask them if they know about the concept of the butterfly effect. How a small event can lead by some domino reaction to HUGE consequences. Because this is exactly what 2NE1 is to me. Because of them my life made a 180. And the person that I am today, the things that I do, the music I listen to, the food I enjoy, the people who are my friends, the countries that I visit, everything is because of them. Being a kpop fan has changed me and allowed me to do amazing things that I would never have allowed myself to imagine. I met people who lifted me up and allowed me to be a new me, a better me if I may say. And I would not be a kpop fan if I had not discovered 2NE1. They are and will stay my #1 girlsband. Each of them shows me that you gotta do what you gotta do. People will always say something, people will always judge. At the end of the day, what matters is that you feel good with what you decided for yourself. And often, too often, the ones who badmouth you the most are the ones who wish they’d be like you. So just go and chase your dreams. Make mistakes, learn, take some time for yourself and go at it again. One of the thing I’ll be the most bitter (and sad) about is that I will never know what it feels like to attend a 2NE1 concert. It hurts but that’s just how it is. I used the word irony twice already I think, but really that’s just the adjective which would describe a lot of my situations with 2NE1. And I have 2 big examples: They came to France once (in 2012 or 2011), for an annual event about media. They were invited and a French Kpop magazine posted 2 days ago that they would do a fanmeeting for those who can attend. It was sudden, they announced this 2 days before the d-day. It was in the middle of the week, at the opposite side of the country, bad mix. But impossible is nothing. I booked a train ticket and jumped into a night train and travel alone for 8h to a city I’ve never been too. But my girls were there, so I had to be too. I remembered arriving around 9am or something and I waited into a McDonald’s. I was seeing people with their badge for the festival and was envying them so bad. It had nothing to do with kpop itself. It was about media and communication. So most of the people were 30 years old tech guys. It was so unfair. Why would they’d be able to see the girls and not me? Do 2NE1 mean the world to them like they do to me? Did 2NE1 changed their life for the better? I don’t think so. I should get an access badge, not them. Whatever. Around 10am or so I called my part-time job to tell them I misread my schedule and that I actually had a big test that day so I couldn’t come and that I was sooooo sorry. I’m usually a trustable person, so they trusted me and told me it was okay. I felt a little bad for lying when they told me “good luck for your exam” when really I was just at the opposite side of the country to try see 4 girls who had succeeded to have one of the biggest impact on my life. Anyway, the day went by and my heart was beating so fast inside. I tried going around the city, hoping that maybe I would run into them but it never happened (but I discovered later that they did a photoshoot in the streets so :’) ) Time went by and I came outside the venue, saw a few fans and the fan meeting organizer. It was not that bad and I had a little fun. At some point we (the fans) were given bracelets, “you will be attending their showcase”. I thought I was about to die. I was thinking about seeing them, waving at them but seeing an actual showcase?!!!! I tried to calm down but really my mind was in a frenzy. At some point, people started running and screaming. They arrived at the venue. A few girls were crying. I wasn’t fast enough so I didn’t see anyone. 1st disappointment of the day but it was okay, I got the bracelet for the showcase anyway so really it was okay. But now that I was sure that they were inside the venue I couldn’t believe that 2NE1 and I were breathing the same air and that we just had a few walls separating us. How I wanted to run, kicked the guard and go inside the venue. But I had the bracelet for the showcase, it was okay. With the other fans, we waited and sang and danced to 2NE1 songs while waiting. But the official time of the showcase start was getting closer and yet no one was making us go in. Finally one of the “organizer” came to us and dropped the bomb “Sorry, there are too many of you, the security thinks it will be too complicated to handle you so you can’t go attend the showcase anymore”. Honestly I can’t remember how I felt at this moment, but it was like everything was slowing down brutally. I wasn’t expecting the showcase in the 1st place but I was given a fucking bracelet, I got my hopes up for nothing. Not even a compensation. People were screaming and crying, it was chaos. I just wanted to disappear. I hate broken promises. Don’t hype me up. If you’re not sure about something just shut up and wait for when you’re sure. That was the 2nd disappointment of the day. Finally when the showcase ended, we were told that the girls got the news about us being there all day and getting the entry denied so they would improvise some kind of fan event for us. I didn’t want to expect too much but who was I kidding just knowing that the girls were so thoughtful was making me want to cry out of happiness. Ofc they would. We were asked to gather in front of a building and wait for the girls so they would come and wave at us. We were asked to sing, dance and cheer for them. And we did. Cameras were filming us, random by-passers were asking us who we were praising like this. Everytime a representant would come and say that “they’re on their way, just 5 more minutes”. This lasted for like 1h if I remember correctly. “Sing louder, clap your hands, do this, do that”. We did everything wholeheartedly. Only for the same fucking representant to come and tell us after 1h that they wouldn’t come. No explanation. We were asked to leave the area. This was the 3rd disappointment and the last stroke. I was tired and disappointed. And for the 1st time I was mad at the girls. I didn’t know who were responsible but I was mad at the girls because as a fan, a very dedicated fan I felt like my love was looked down upon. I felt disrespected and unloved. And I swear this was the worst feeling ever. Finally we were said that their car would go down the road and that they would wave to us. Not expecting much for the 4th time, I still ran to the barrier and saw the car approaching but it didn’t seem like it was slowing down. But in like 0.02 seconds, the Double Park sisters iconic duo aka Dara & Bom appeared through the car rooftop and smiled and waved at us. It was quick but I screamed as loud as I could. I was thankful, so so so so so so so thankful for the gesture! Thank you my dear unnies for at least acknowledging us peasant i-fans. The car did a u-turn, and I was hoping to see CL (my ult female bias) and Minzy but they didn’t show up. This disappointed me to no end. If 2 out of the 4 did it why not the other 2? Weren’t we good enough for them? Don’t they care about us? Did they realize all the things, all of the sacrifices that some of us did just with the hope to take a glance at them? Later that day I took a train back to my city (yay 8h new hours of night train ride) with confused feelings. But mostly it was pain and disappointment. I was mad at CL the most but I was also mad at myself for being mad at CL. I ranted so much on Twitter! Ah, just thinking about it...I now realized how much I remember from that day and it feels so weird! But well, time heals everything and I calmed down about it. End of the 1st example. 2nd example, it will be shorter loool. Time skip, we’re in 2015 now. 2NE1 is missing from the radar because of the Park Bom situation. And I’m starting to register that I won’t be able to see my OT4 before a while. Anyway, now I’m mainly focusing on Big Bang and EXO. And here come my chance to see both bands at the same event: MAMA 2015. Fun fact, I bought my ticket for MAMA based on my guess because none of BB or EXO had confirmed their attendance. But I had that feeling. 2015 was the MADE era launching, it was impossible for BB to not attend MAMA, I mean they own it!! And SM would never not send EXO to MAMA like please. So I did it, at 4AM, I bought a ticket for the MAMA and went back to sleep like nothing happened because I was in denial. Anyway, that’s not the main point. Later I got the news that CL was attending too so really it was perfect. D-day, here I am enjoying the MAMA 2015 in Hong-Kong, CL just KILLED it with her Hello Bitches! perf and she disappeared. And at this moment for like 0.00002 second I thought “what if?” but before I calm my delulu ass down, Dara unnie appeared...then Minzy...and then...yes, our beloved Bom unnie! Even her was there! Right at this moment I had the very 1st kpop band I knew, loved and stanned, performing the very 1st kpop song I heard. And I lost it, I started crying like a heartbroken girl. It was like all of the frustration, all the longing, all the love, all the resentment, everything was coming crashing down on me. The poor girl who was sitting next to me was so confused, she was looking at me frequently and I know she was hesitating about helping me or not because really I was a mess. You know when you ugly cry and it’s so hard that you have to hold your stomach? Yeah, just like this. The 1st part of Fire was like in a blur but I couldn’t miss this, so I did my best to calm down and enjoyed the show. I don’t know which ancestor I should thank for this amazing gift but being able to see 2NE1 perform at 4...my very first OT4… this was one of the best surprise ever. The highlight of the night. My best HK memory. But it hurts too because there is something very bittersweet in the fact the 1st time I had the chance to see 2NE1 perform was also the last time they would perform as 2NE1 the OT4 at all… And to finish, the little bonus. In March 2016 I went for the 1st time in Korea (to attend EXO’s concert but then again, that’s details here). Only a few hours after I landed, I “ran” to the YG building. This was the 1st place I wanted to go, and that’s what I did. When I arrived in front of the building there like 2 girls only and that’s it. After maybe 10 minutes, a taxi arrived and came to pick someone up. That someone was the one and only Goddess Park Bom unnie. We got closer to the gate and started waving at the taxi and to our surprise, the taxi stopped in front of us and the back window rolled down. Bommie unnie asked the driver to stop to greet us. We didn’t ask for it, and didn’t even try to block the gate or anything, it was her decision. She wanted to greet us, she accepted the gift of one of the girls. I managed to tell her that I wanted her to come back. It only lasted a few seconds but it was intense enough. She might never know the impact of that. But I will never forget this. This really meant a lot. She was the one who asked the driver to stop the car. She saw us and and wanted to greet us. Not many idols would do that (I’m not blaming them), but that’s important, so so important. Unnie, thank you so much. I wish I could protect you from everything, you deserve the world and so much more. What happened to you is so unfair. But it’s about time. You can still make your dream come true not matter how long it takes you. You’re talented. You can achieve anything. Believe in yourself and most of all don’t blame yourself. Minzy, our talented, sweet maknae and dance machine. You hurt me. But I respect your decision. I will still have resentment because that’s just how I am. But I honestly respect and understand your decision. I wish you the best as well. You were the youngest and you’re the one with the most time ahead of her. I wish you success and I hope to hear your new music soon. Dara unnie, our adorable Ssantokki queen. You’ve been through so much already, before 2NE1, during 2NE1 and probably after. I really wish you’d stop thinking you’re untalented because that’s not true. No matter what we do, we will always find people better at doing something than us. What is important is to improve and compare ourselves to ourselves. Tomorrow you will be even better than today. That’s all that counts. Look at you doing great in dramas and TV shows! Thank you for being 2NE1’s most supportive fan and the only real 2NE1 manager haha! CL, my queen, our leader. I hope none of the bullshit people throw at you every single day will reach you. It disgusts me how jealousy can make people ugly. People are mad at you for showing a confident image, fuck’em all. Most of them are just insecure people who wish they were at least 50% of what you are. Since when being confident makes you a bad person? Foh. What’s worst is that that deep down we know that you’re not that confident. You’re strong, so strong though. Thank you for leading 2NE1 with such greatness. No matter what you choose to do, be sure it’s something you enjoy. Screw what people say. Enjoy yourself! 2NE1, thank you. Those words seem so simple but they mean A LOT. A lot. I just don’t know how to sum up those last 6-7 years. You turned my life upside down for the better and the woman that I am today will forever be grateful for that. If I had to do it again, I would like to start this journey with you again. I wouldn’t change anything. I was, I am and I will always be a Blackjack. I will love you forever. Goodbye queens ♥ (It hurts so much)

[perfectzablog]

How Schools Can Help Teachers Understand and Address Racial Bias

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As first period gets underway at Cambridge Street Upper School, veteran math teacher Stephen Abreu leads a small-group discussion. But the conversation isn’t about middle school algebra, and Abreu isn’t talking to students. Seven of his fellow teachers, nearly all of them white women, are sitting across from each other talking about race, white privilege and how their own biases affect their relationships with students.

“Am I just always going to be wrong?” one teacher wonders about her interactions with students of color.

“Black kids need to know they’re not being singled out,” says another, during a conversation about making sure that her students see she isn’t playing favorites when it comes to classroom discipline.

Another colleague confesses her surprise at how often teachers of color have reported experiencing racial bias in their own interactions in the building.

Each of Cambridge Street’s staff members participate in meetings just like this one every week. They’re known as cultural proficiency seminars and attendance is mandatory. Teachers describe these 45-minute sessions as candid and, more often than not, uncomfortable. But they say the discussions are helping them to become better educators within a system in which predominantly white staff teach in schools with significant numbers of black and Latino students.

The move toward cultural proficiency, also known as culturally relevant education or culturally responsive teaching, has been gaining momentum in urban school districts throughout the country. The goal is to better serve low-income students of color by acknowledging and addressing inequities built into aspects of curriculum design, classroom discipline and even student-teacher relationships. Many educators cite these as contributing factors in the long-standing academic achievement gap between low-income students of color and their more affluent white peers. The first step, cultural proficiency proponents say, is for white teachers simply to acknowledge the role that racial and cultural bias plays inside the building and classrooms. It’s a step that doesn’t come easily.

Cambridge Street Upper school math teacher Stephen Abreu is also a trained facilitator for weekly discussions among teachers about race and bias. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report)

In New York City, the nation’s largest public school system, a $23 million initiative is underway to combat implicit bias, the unconscious attitudes formed about racial and cultural groups different from one’s own. The centerpiece of the effort, as it has been outlined by the department to date, is a mandatory daylong implicit bias training for every teacher and administrator. But even advocates for such trainings caution that all they can really do is raise awareness of educators’ personal biases. Mitigating the effects of implicit bias on student behavior and performance requires teachers working closely with their peers, and school leaders making those efforts a priority. This isn’t a quick fix. The effort must be ongoing.

“There’s no evidence to show that a one-day training for teachers and staff will foster change,” says Circe Stumbo, president of West Wind Education Policy, an Iowa-based group that provides analysis of school equity policies. What’s needed, she says, is a schoolwide commitment to making cultural proficiency a priority, with systems in place for continual personal reflection and accountability.

That’s precisely what’s taking place at Cambridge Street, a diverse neighborhood school in which nearly 60 percent of its roughly 250 students identify as black, Latino or multiracial and more than half of all students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch, a national measure of poverty. Attendance is nearly 95 percent, the number of students meeting or exceeding academic standards in English is on par with statewide levels and the school reported zero suspensions in 2018.

These successes are happening largely due, teachers say, to the persistent efforts of school principal Manuel Fernandez, who draws from his own experiences as a student of color in all-white schools.

“Being the only black kid in school … nobody saw my intellectual potential,” says Fernandez of his childhood in Brockton, a Boston suburb. “Everything I had ever been told about myself was that I was intellectually inferior to white folk.”

Cambridge Street Upper School principal Manuel J. Fernandez talks with students between classes, March 29, 2019, in Cambridge, MA.f (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

In a career that spanned both community organizing and stints in the corporate world before becoming a school administrator, Fernandez always looked to make racial and social equity a priority. And when the chance presented itself to lead Cambridge Street in 2012, he made his intentions clear.

“I told the superintendent we’re going to deal with issues of race and culture. We’re going to deal with it every day. We’re going to deal with it in every way possible,” he says.

From the start of his tenure, Cambridge Street’s professional development sessions were peppered with cultural proficiency topics and activities. Teachers were reading books on race and education, listening to guest speakers and meeting regularly in sessions led by Fernandez. While some teachers embraced the approach, results at the school were limited, Fernandez says. He came to realize that his role in facilitating those meetings, not just as the principal but as a black man addressing a largely white staff about a topic as fraught as race, was inhibiting the type of honest and fruitful discussion necessary for meaningful change. The solution, he realized, was for teachers to be guided by their peers. Today, Fernandez says that 14 members of the school’s staff serve as facilitators in the weekly cultural proficiency meetings.

That has made the discussions more productive, teachers say, and often more difficult. Voices crack, faces flush with emotion and tears are not uncommon.

“Acknowledging as a white person that you have caused harm at some point and that you also remind a lot of our scholars of everyone who has caused harm to them up until this point, it’s hard,” says Karolyn Maws, a 20-year teaching veteran who took a job at Cambridge Street precisely because of its work around cultural proficiency.

“What we’re trying to have teachers see here,” says school counselor and cultural proficiency facilitator Kini Udovicki, “is that white people have benefited their whole lives from white supremacy and now they’re in a position of power in a classroom setting and so you have to recognize what that dynamic looks like.”

While these conversations can be awkward, teachers say they play an essential role in helping them become better at their jobs.

“In our meetings we talk about real stuff that happens around race because it happens all the time in the classroom,” says math teacher Kendal Schwarz. “Teachers want and need a space to talk about this. It feels useful. You feel the practicality of it.” This kind of dialogue, she said, was largely absent from her graduate school teacher-training program, where issues of race and bias were rarely mentioned.

Henderson Inclusion School statistics teacher Russell Thompson works with students Keran Torres (l) and Briana Manning, March 29, 2019 in Boston, MA. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

The discussions have prompted teachers to change the way they plan classes and how they interact with students. Autism specialist Rebecca Flanagan says she makes sure that the images and photographs she uses as teaching aids reflect the diversity of her students. School librarian Norah Connolly recalls learning from a group of students about their interest in Japanese manga. Recognizing the dearth of literature written from a nonwhite perspective, Connolly was quick to add dozens of titles to the library.

When science teacher Donna Peruzzi has the opportunity to bring in guest speakers, she makes a conscious choice to seek out people from a range of different backgrounds, “so the kids can see that science is not just a white male thing.”

The payoffs are perhaps most evident in how students feel and talk about their school.

“Just walking around the halls, the energy you feel here is that no matter your background, religion, skin tone, sexuality, it doesn’t matter because we’ll love and accept you anyways,” says eighth-grader Clio Bildman. She recalls a much different experience at a previous middle school she attended that was nearly all white. “One of the boys I was friends with, he was African-American. I would see him walk into school and his facial expression would change. That’s how toxic the environment was.”

Students also say they’ve been able to build strong relationships with teachers based on trust, not simply whether they share the same background or culture.

“Kids at other schools talk about how their teachers are a little bit racist, or they don’t get help from their teachers,” says eighth-grader Mariam Ziro, who is originally from Kenya. “We get the same amount of help as a white student.”

That isn’t to say that the school has magically bridged what can be significant gaps in cultural and life experiences. Teachers recall recent incidents when their comments or actions made students feel they were being singled out, often because of race. But now when these incidents occur, teachers say they feel better equipped to respond.

“Before we really focused on this, I think when students would say ‘That’s racist’ or ‘You’re saying that because I’m black,’ I would have jumped to defensive mode,” says Peruzzi. “These [cultural proficiency] conversations have helped us really reflect on what our biases are.”

Viewing education through a racial and cultural lens is not new. Carter G. Woodson’s 1933 work, “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” was an early critique of the education system’s exclusive reliance on dominant white culture to design curriculum and set standards. Afrocentric schools that began to form in the decades that followed were built on the idea that black children are best served by black educators.

Yet, urban districts serving primarily black and Latino children still face a lack of diversity in their teacher force. A growing number of schools are looking for ways to build stronger student-teacher relationships, a prerequisite, they assert, to narrowing achievement gaps in academic performance. A push is underway that draws on growing, if contested, research around implicit bias. Studies have examined the role of racial bias in everything from higher incidents of lethal force by police officers, to disparities in health care spending, to home valuations in black neighborhoods.

Across the Charles River from Cambridge Street, Boston Public Schools is now at the forefront of efforts to take a districtwide approach to fighting cultural insensitivity and bias. Three years ago, the school system’s Office of Opportunity Gaps — created to boost the academic performance of low-income students of color — began to ramp up its work around cultural proficiency. Today, with a nine-person staff and a budget of more than $4 million, it offers cultural proficiency training to every school principal and a small but growing share of the city’s teachers. Beginning in 2017, the office’s leader, Colin Rose, made cultural proficiency a component of every school’s annual accountability reports — essentially forcing schools to address bias and inequity.

Maureen Costello, director at Teaching Tolerance, an Alabama-based nonprofit that provides anti-bias training for schools, says the district’s approach to equity is “one of the most systematic” in the country. She says by making cultural proficiency mandatory, “leadership is signaling that this work is important. You can’t have it only be voluntary or else you’re only preaching to the choir.”

But the district leaves it up to individual schools to figure out how they’ll achieve cultural proficiency. School leaders say they appreciate that flexibility, but it can also translate into extra work.

“I was really unhappy with Colin when he did not give us the ‘how,’ ” says Patricia Lampron, principal of Boston Public Schools’ Henderson K-12 Inclusion School. “But what it forced us as a school to do is to think. It’s the process that’s the real important part of this work as opposed to just checking off boxes. It’s the thinking, it’s the ownership of cultural proficiency work that really forced the change.”

But she says progress hasn’t always come easily in her school, where two-thirds of students are black or Latino and the majority of its teachers are white.

There are teachers who just aren’t ready to challenge their assumptions about race, privilege and culture, Lampron says. But she doesn’t let that stop the work: “I didn’t ask anyone if they were on board. I said you’re either on the bus or you’re under the bus.”

History teacher Samuel Texeira has been a mentor for young black students at Henderson K-12 Inclusion School. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

As at Cambridge Street, Henderson K-12 began its cultural proficiency work with teacher discussions on race and privilege. One immediate result was that teachers began going through titles in their classroom libraries, adding books they felt were more reflective of their students’ experiences and interests. A mentoring program for young men of color, spearheaded by history teacher Samuel Texeira, has become a source of pride for school leaders. The school has adopted a curriculum framework designed by author and educator Zaretta Hammond, a pioneer of culturally responsive teaching practices.

“Cultural proficiency is no longer a separate thing we do once a month. It’s at the center of what we do,” Lampron says.

With the emphasis on creating awareness of racial bias and privilege among white teachers, a big challenge for Cambridge Street and Henderson K-12 is not to neglect the needs of their nonwhite teachers.

“I’m a woman of color so I feel like intuitively, culturally I already understood a lot of those things,” says Stephanie Okwudi, who teaches math at Henderson.

It’s a sentiment shared by other teachers of color.

“Do I think that diversity discussions are geared and targeted towards white people? Absolutely,” says Ariel Carmichael, a music teacher at Cambridge Street. “Do they help black people? For me they have not because I already know what it’s like,” she says of a childhood often spent as the only black kid in all-white classrooms.

But teachers at both schools say that the focus on implicit bias has made it easier for them to speak candidly with colleagues when they witness or experience racist incidents in their buildings. And at Cambridge Street, in addition to their weekly cultural proficiency meetings, teachers also meet monthly in affinity groups, organized by race. While that may seem antithetical to the whole idea of cultural proficiency, teachers of color say this gives them the opportunity to focus on their needs and concerns, which are less about building awareness of privilege and more about navigating a system that is still overwhelmingly white.

“It is an uphill battle,” says Carmichael. “Sometimes you move back five steps to move forward one. But there’s been tremendous growth. I love this school.”

This story about culturally responsive teaching was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

How Schools Can Help Teachers Understand and Address Racial Bias published first on https://greatpricecourse.tumblr.com/

[bisoroblog]

How Schools Can Help Teachers Understand and Address Racial Bias

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As first period gets underway at Cambridge Street Upper School, veteran math teacher Stephen Abreu leads a small-group discussion. But the conversation isn’t about middle school algebra, and Abreu isn’t talking to students. Seven of his fellow teachers, nearly all of them white women, are sitting across from each other talking about race, white privilege and how their own biases affect their relationships with students.

“Am I just always going to be wrong?” one teacher wonders about her interactions with students of color.

“Black kids need to know they’re not being singled out,” says another, during a conversation about making sure that her students see she isn’t playing favorites when it comes to classroom discipline.

Another colleague confesses her surprise at how often teachers of color have reported experiencing racial bias in their own interactions in the building.

Each of Cambridge Street’s staff members participate in meetings just like this one every week. They’re known as cultural proficiency seminars and attendance is mandatory. Teachers describe these 45-minute sessions as candid and, more often than not, uncomfortable. But they say the discussions are helping them to become better educators within a system in which predominantly white staff teach in schools with significant numbers of black and Latino students.

The move toward cultural proficiency, also known as culturally relevant education or culturally responsive teaching, has been gaining momentum in urban school districts throughout the country. The goal is to better serve low-income students of color by acknowledging and addressing inequities built into aspects of curriculum design, classroom discipline and even student-teacher relationships. Many educators cite these as contributing factors in the long-standing academic achievement gap between low-income students of color and their more affluent white peers. The first step, cultural proficiency proponents say, is for white teachers simply to acknowledge the role that racial and cultural bias plays inside the building and classrooms. It’s a step that doesn’t come easily.

Cambridge Street Upper school math teacher Stephen Abreu is also a trained facilitator for weekly discussions among teachers about race and bias. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report)

In New York City, the nation’s largest public school system, a $23 million initiative is underway to combat implicit bias, the unconscious attitudes formed about racial and cultural groups different from one’s own. The centerpiece of the effort, as it has been outlined by the department to date, is a mandatory daylong implicit bias training for every teacher and administrator. But even advocates for such trainings caution that all they can really do is raise awareness of educators’ personal biases. Mitigating the effects of implicit bias on student behavior and performance requires teachers working closely with their peers, and school leaders making those efforts a priority. This isn’t a quick fix. The effort must be ongoing.

“There’s no evidence to show that a one-day training for teachers and staff will foster change,” says Circe Stumbo, president of West Wind Education Policy, an Iowa-based group that provides analysis of school equity policies. What’s needed, she says, is a schoolwide commitment to making cultural proficiency a priority, with systems in place for continual personal reflection and accountability.

That’s precisely what’s taking place at Cambridge Street, a diverse neighborhood school in which nearly 60 percent of its roughly 250 students identify as black, Latino or multiracial and more than half of all students qualify for free or reduced-priced lunch, a national measure of poverty. Attendance is nearly 95 percent, the number of students meeting or exceeding academic standards in English is on par with statewide levels and the school reported zero suspensions in 2018.

These successes are happening largely due, teachers say, to the persistent efforts of school principal Manuel Fernandez, who draws from his own experiences as a student of color in all-white schools.

“Being the only black kid in school … nobody saw my intellectual potential,” says Fernandez of his childhood in Brockton, a Boston suburb. “Everything I had ever been told about myself was that I was intellectually inferior to white folk.”

Cambridge Street Upper School principal Manuel J. Fernandez talks with students between classes, March 29, 2019, in Cambridge, MA.f (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

In a career that spanned both community organizing and stints in the corporate world before becoming a school administrator, Fernandez always looked to make racial and social equity a priority. And when the chance presented itself to lead Cambridge Street in 2012, he made his intentions clear.

“I told the superintendent we’re going to deal with issues of race and culture. We’re going to deal with it every day. We’re going to deal with it in every way possible,” he says.

From the start of his tenure, Cambridge Street’s professional development sessions were peppered with cultural proficiency topics and activities. Teachers were reading books on race and education, listening to guest speakers and meeting regularly in sessions led by Fernandez. While some teachers embraced the approach, results at the school were limited, Fernandez says. He came to realize that his role in facilitating those meetings, not just as the principal but as a black man addressing a largely white staff about a topic as fraught as race, was inhibiting the type of honest and fruitful discussion necessary for meaningful change. The solution, he realized, was for teachers to be guided by their peers. Today, Fernandez says that 14 members of the school’s staff serve as facilitators in the weekly cultural proficiency meetings.

That has made the discussions more productive, teachers say, and often more difficult. Voices crack, faces flush with emotion and tears are not uncommon.

“Acknowledging as a white person that you have caused harm at some point and that you also remind a lot of our scholars of everyone who has caused harm to them up until this point, it’s hard,” says Karolyn Maws, a 20-year teaching veteran who took a job at Cambridge Street precisely because of its work around cultural proficiency.

“What we’re trying to have teachers see here,” says school counselor and cultural proficiency facilitator Kini Udovicki, “is that white people have benefited their whole lives from white supremacy and now they’re in a position of power in a classroom setting and so you have to recognize what that dynamic looks like.”

While these conversations can be awkward, teachers say they play an essential role in helping them become better at their jobs.

“In our meetings we talk about real stuff that happens around race because it happens all the time in the classroom,” says math teacher Kendal Schwarz. “Teachers want and need a space to talk about this. It feels useful. You feel the practicality of it.” This kind of dialogue, she said, was largely absent from her graduate school teacher-training program, where issues of race and bias were rarely mentioned.

Henderson Inclusion School statistics teacher Russell Thompson works with students Keran Torres (l) and Briana Manning, March 29, 2019 in Boston, MA. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

The discussions have prompted teachers to change the way they plan classes and how they interact with students. Autism specialist Rebecca Flanagan says she makes sure that the images and photographs she uses as teaching aids reflect the diversity of her students. School librarian Norah Connolly recalls learning from a group of students about their interest in Japanese manga. Recognizing the dearth of literature written from a nonwhite perspective, Connolly was quick to add dozens of titles to the library.

When science teacher Donna Peruzzi has the opportunity to bring in guest speakers, she makes a conscious choice to seek out people from a range of different backgrounds, “so the kids can see that science is not just a white male thing.”

The payoffs are perhaps most evident in how students feel and talk about their school.

“Just walking around the halls, the energy you feel here is that no matter your background, religion, skin tone, sexuality, it doesn’t matter because we’ll love and accept you anyways,” says eighth-grader Clio Bildman. She recalls a much different experience at a previous middle school she attended that was nearly all white. “One of the boys I was friends with, he was African-American. I would see him walk into school and his facial expression would change. That’s how toxic the environment was.”

Students also say they’ve been able to build strong relationships with teachers based on trust, not simply whether they share the same background or culture.

“Kids at other schools talk about how their teachers are a little bit racist, or they don’t get help from their teachers,” says eighth-grader Mariam Ziro, who is originally from Kenya. “We get the same amount of help as a white student.”

That isn’t to say that the school has magically bridged what can be significant gaps in cultural and life experiences. Teachers recall recent incidents when their comments or actions made students feel they were being singled out, often because of race. But now when these incidents occur, teachers say they feel better equipped to respond.

“Before we really focused on this, I think when students would say ‘That’s racist’ or ‘You’re saying that because I’m black,’ I would have jumped to defensive mode,” says Peruzzi. “These [cultural proficiency] conversations have helped us really reflect on what our biases are.”

Viewing education through a racial and cultural lens is not new. Carter G. Woodson’s 1933 work, “The Mis-Education of the Negro,” was an early critique of the education system’s exclusive reliance on dominant white culture to design curriculum and set standards. Afrocentric schools that began to form in the decades that followed were built on the idea that black children are best served by black educators.

Yet, urban districts serving primarily black and Latino children still face a lack of diversity in their teacher force. A growing number of schools are looking for ways to build stronger student-teacher relationships, a prerequisite, they assert, to narrowing achievement gaps in academic performance. A push is underway that draws on growing, if contested, research around implicit bias. Studies have examined the role of racial bias in everything from higher incidents of lethal force by police officers, to disparities in health care spending, to home valuations in black neighborhoods.

Across the Charles River from Cambridge Street, Boston Public Schools is now at the forefront of efforts to take a districtwide approach to fighting cultural insensitivity and bias. Three years ago, the school system’s Office of Opportunity Gaps — created to boost the academic performance of low-income students of color — began to ramp up its work around cultural proficiency. Today, with a nine-person staff and a budget of more than $4 million, it offers cultural proficiency training to every school principal and a small but growing share of the city’s teachers. Beginning in 2017, the office’s leader, Colin Rose, made cultural proficiency a component of every school’s annual accountability reports — essentially forcing schools to address bias and inequity.

Maureen Costello, director at Teaching Tolerance, an Alabama-based nonprofit that provides anti-bias training for schools, says the district’s approach to equity is “one of the most systematic” in the country. She says by making cultural proficiency mandatory, “leadership is signaling that this work is important. You can’t have it only be voluntary or else you’re only preaching to the choir.”

But the district leaves it up to individual schools to figure out how they’ll achieve cultural proficiency. School leaders say they appreciate that flexibility, but it can also translate into extra work.

“I was really unhappy with Colin when he did not give us the ‘how,’ ” says Patricia Lampron, principal of Boston Public Schools’ Henderson K-12 Inclusion School. “But what it forced us as a school to do is to think. It’s the process that’s the real important part of this work as opposed to just checking off boxes. It’s the thinking, it’s the ownership of cultural proficiency work that really forced the change.”

But she says progress hasn’t always come easily in her school, where two-thirds of students are black or Latino and the majority of its teachers are white.

There are teachers who just aren’t ready to challenge their assumptions about race, privilege and culture, Lampron says. But she doesn’t let that stop the work: “I didn’t ask anyone if they were on board. I said you’re either on the bus or you’re under the bus.”

History teacher Samuel Texeira has been a mentor for young black students at Henderson K-12 Inclusion School. (Kate Flock for The Hechinger Report )

As at Cambridge Street, Henderson K-12 began its cultural proficiency work with teacher discussions on race and privilege. One immediate result was that teachers began going through titles in their classroom libraries, adding books they felt were more reflective of their students’ experiences and interests. A mentoring program for young men of color, spearheaded by history teacher Samuel Texeira, has become a source of pride for school leaders. The school has adopted a curriculum framework designed by author and educator Zaretta Hammond, a pioneer of culturally responsive teaching practices.

“Cultural proficiency is no longer a separate thing we do once a month. It’s at the center of what we do,” Lampron says.

With the emphasis on creating awareness of racial bias and privilege among white teachers, a big challenge for Cambridge Street and Henderson K-12 is not to neglect the needs of their nonwhite teachers.

“I’m a woman of color so I feel like intuitively, culturally I already understood a lot of those things,” says Stephanie Okwudi, who teaches math at Henderson.

It’s a sentiment shared by other teachers of color.

“Do I think that diversity discussions are geared and targeted towards white people? Absolutely,” says Ariel Carmichael, a music teacher at Cambridge Street. “Do they help black people? For me they have not because I already know what it’s like,” she says of a childhood often spent as the only black kid in all-white classrooms.

But teachers at both schools say that the focus on implicit bias has made it easier for them to speak candidly with colleagues when they witness or experience racist incidents in their buildings. And at Cambridge Street, in addition to their weekly cultural proficiency meetings, teachers also meet monthly in affinity groups, organized by race. While that may seem antithetical to the whole idea of cultural proficiency, teachers of color say this gives them the opportunity to focus on their needs and concerns, which are less about building awareness of privilege and more about navigating a system that is still overwhelmingly white.

“It is an uphill battle,” says Carmichael. “Sometimes you move back five steps to move forward one. But there’s been tremendous growth. I love this school.”

This story about culturally responsive teaching was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

How Schools Can Help Teachers Understand and Address Racial Bias published first on https://dlbusinessnow.tumblr.com/