#Laurentian French

[historia-vitae-magistras]

On Fire and Loss:

As we get a few months from the worst wildfires that swept through Canada this summer, I understand climate grief now.

The words of those untouched are repetitive. Do you miss it? At least no one was hurt. It could have been worse. Trees grow back. Fire is good for growth.

Yes. Sure.

But the thing about grief is not the loss of the past. Memory is dead and gone; we cannot bring it back. It does not pain me. But imagination does. Grief is our hopes gutting us on their light. That land will be as much a part of me as my mother tongue until the day I finally permit my death. It is intertwined into my DNA‌, personality, and view of the world. I‌ have not lost that. But the children I‌ will bear and raise with love that spites a world hostile to new life, they have lost that. Someone has deleted half the DNA I might have passed on. We of the Laurentian Valley will not have lived in 20 places in 3 generations, ever pushing the frontier west. My people cling to the rivers and the sea and always have for four hundred years and a hundred thousand before that. The salt, soil, trees, and tributaries— I‌ was one part of an ecosystem for half my life. And now it is gone. It is not a loss of scenery but the loss of life to come.

My roots are gone, but the loss of the continuity of my future rips my heart from me. My children will not come into this world and rest at my bare breast and watch spring hummingbirds on the unboiled maple filling the feeders. They will never learn to track objects by watching those birds flit from feeder to feeder hanging from the windows. My children will never learn the trick of tapping the same maple trees their ancestors had for centuries. They will never cling to those trees that I have as they run until they may faint. They will never sit in their great grandparent’s living room and watch the other beings with which they share the world pass through the property. They will never sit on a rug in front of the fire, putting together their puzzles and blocks, and look up to see deer, moose, or even the odd bear or wolf through the glass. They will never hear the scream of a bobcat. They will never be scooped up and playfully scolded for eating more blueberries than they put in their basket. They will never roll down those hills chased by cousins and siblings laughing so loud they scare the birds from the branches. They will never see this world through their ancestor's eyes. Not there, not on that land, not where they should have. If we are the universe looking upon itself, I have lost the ability to give both eyes and face.

It took centuries to grow that land, that home, this family. And only a summer to tear it all away. The only part of the world I‌ knew I’d be able to give them, even if only in visits, is gone and with it, any sense of safety I may have been able to pass on.

And by the time I have children, the world will likely have simmered and withered. They may not even imagine what I‌ can no longer give them. The significance of Canadian French’s profanity rings a bit strange for generations without religion. But it is as painful as death knowing that all the words in my mouth, waiting to teach the next generation, may now be the same. Because there is no longer our place amongst the pines to point out and repeat them as I‌ did, as all before me did.

Every bastard who denies extreme climate action has ripped the future from us, from beneath our feet. They have stolen an inheritance, our and our children's language, laughter, song, and joy. They are trying to rip from us the world that makes us human. I don't believe in any God, but I will believe in the devil's hell if it means every cunt responsible knows the cost of fire upon their body and soul for all eternity. The world as I knew it is gone, but so is the future I envisioned. I’ll take hope's blade and carve another, but it will be as bitter and foreign as exile.

#my writing #not hetalia #I had to get this out

[lapetitefleurqc]

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to our blog that is part of the “La Petite Fleur QC” network. We created this blog to share information about things to do in Quebec. So if you are a single person looking for your next adventure or a young family looking for activities to entertain and keep your young kids busy, we have everything that you need… right here!

A LITTLE INFO ABOUT QUEBEC

Quebec, situated in the eastern part of Canada, is the country’s largest province by area and second-largest by population. Renowned for its rich history, vibrant culture, and stunning natural landscapes, Quebec is a captivating blend of old-world charm and modern sophistication.

The province is predominantly French-speaking, making it a unique cultural hub within Canada. Its capital, Quebec City, is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of North America’s oldest cities, characterized by its cobblestone streets, historic architecture, and iconic Château Frontenac overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

Beyond its urban centers, Quebec boasts breathtaking natural beauty, from the rugged landscapes of the Laurentian Mountains to the picturesque villages of the Eastern Townships. Outdoor enthusiasts flock to the province year-round to explore its vast wilderness, which offers opportunities for hiking, skiing, kayaking, and wildlife spotting.

Quebec’s cultural heritage is also evident in its thriving arts and literature scene, with influential figures such as Leonard Cohen and Michel Tremblay hailing from the province. Additionally, Quebec has a long tradition of political activism and social progressivism, often leading the way in areas such as language rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

In summary, Quebec is a captivating province with a rich tapestry of culture, history, and natural beauty, making it a must-visit destination for travelers seeking an immersive and unforgettable experience.

If you are looking for activities and things to do this Spring and Summer, be sure to bookmark this blog as we will have regular updates for you.

À bientôt 🙂

[winterbornebikes]

Mechanic - Velofix -Laurentides (LAVAL, QC area)

Company/Shop: Velofix Outaouais - Laurentides (LAVAL, QC area)

Position: Mobile Bike Mechanic / Operator - Velofix

Job Description: Bike Mechanic (Velofix Mobile Bike Shop) Are you passionate about cycling and customer service? Do you have at least 5 years of bike repair experience and a valid driver’s licence? If so, you might be the perfect fit for Velofix! Velofix is the largest fleet of mobile bike shops in North America, offering convenient and premium bike services to cyclists across Canada and the US. We are looking for a bike mechanic to join our team in the Laval/Laurentians territory and help us deliver on our mission of saving time and riding more. As a bike mechanic, you will be responsible for: • Managing our state-of-the-art mobile bike shop • Visiting riders at their home or work • Servicing their bikes, including e-bikes, electronic shifting, brakes, tires, etc. • Doing bike fits and adjusting saddle height • Making deliveries and attending events • Answering riders’ questions and providing friendly advice To be successful in this role, you will need: • Bilingual – French/English • At least 5 years of bike repair experience • Excellent customer service skills • Initiative and ability to work independently • Experience with e-bikes, electronic shifting and other advanced features • A valid driver’s licence with a clean record • A flexible schedule that can accommodate mornings, afternoons or weekends • Compoments Certifications – Shimano, SRAM, etc would be highly recommended We offer: • Competitive hourly pay ($24-27/hour) plus gratuities • Internal support team to help you solve any issue • Product discounts on all the great brands we work with • Free uniforms and tools provided by Velofix • Robust training plan to help you grow your skills • Flexible hours that suit your preferences If this sounds like you, don’t hesitate to apply! Send your resume to [email protected] We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Wage/Salary: $25

Contact Name: Pedro Ibarra

Contact Email Address: [email protected]

Phone Number: [phone]

Website: https://www.velofix.com/locations/gatineau-tremblant/

Submit Résumé By: April 30, 2024

#bicycle mechanic

[tastytrailstoronto]

Lunch by Chef Shawn Adler of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation

For the inaugural post of this blog, I was very fortunate to have a delicious lunch provided with a dreamcatcher event at work as part of National Day for Truth and Reconciliation celebrations. It was a bit early this year, due to the timing of the official date (Sep 30) falling on a weekend.

The lunch consisted of:

A lovely, mixed greens salad in veggie ribbons, flowers and bean sprouts with an apple-honey vinaigrette

Jumbo Bison, smoked Ontario cheddar meatballs in a sage-cedar jus

Ontario corn succotash with squash and beans (3 sisters)

Wild rice pilaf with mushrooms, kale and pumpkin seeds

Sour cherry cornbread trifle

Wilds Soda Company Sodas in cedar and sweetgrass flavours

The wild rice pilaf was incredible, lots of depth and interesting flavours. The cornbread trifle was also wonderful, the flavour combination was not overly sweet and refreshing.

The chef is also the owner of owner of The Flying Chestnut Kitchen and Pow Wow Café. You can learn more about Anishinaabe chef Shawn Adler at CBC Gem. Follow Anishinaabe chef Shawn Adler into nature as he forages for unique wild foods that grow all around us. From wild ginger to burdock root, Shawn explores — and cooks with — hidden delights that can be found across Canada in each season of the year.

We also had the privilege to attend an interactive session led by William Morin, an educator and cultural consultant with Ojibway/Scottish/French Canadian heritage, introducing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Participants will sit in a circle, forming a dream catcher's hoop as it's woven. Morin will interweave teachings of the TRC, Medicine Wheel, Turtle Island, Moon Time, and their connections. With over 25 years of experience, he's taught Indigenous Studies and Anishinaabe Language Fundamentals at institutions such as the University of Sudbury, Laurentian University, McEwan School of Architecture, and Sudbury Catholic District School Board, enriching this unique experience. The session was powerful and memorable, and taught the importance of empathy, listening and creating healing of trauma.

#truth and reconciliation #national day of truth and reconciliation #orange shirt day

[luxebeat]

A FRENCH HOLIDAY: DINING AND LODGING IN QUÉBEC CITY

Québec City is North America’s oldest French-speaking city. First settled in 1535 (by explorer Jacques Cartier) as a fur-trading settlement, it is perched high on the north bank of the Saint-Lawrence River with sweeping views of the Laurentian Mountains. The gorgeous enclave was formally established in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain. Its early history reflects Europe’s Anglo-French conflicts of the…

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#Auberge Saint-Antoine #Bora Boreal #Circle the Planet #Fromagerie Feme Audet #Hotel Musée Premières Nations #Nick Kontis #Quebec City #Saint-Pierre Le Vignoble #Verre Pickl

[hauntedsharkstrawberry]

From several examples of comparisons, it is true that the Laurentian réductions emulated aspects of the Paraguayan reducciónes. The Jesuits established some degree of political autonomy in the réductions. They were at least partly successful in settling the Innu and Algonquin peoples in réductions. The missionaries gained control of native community administration. They shared the same policies with their predecessors in Paraguay both in their philanthropic spirit for invalids and in their indifference to the prevention of epidemics. Nevertheless, all these approaches have turned out to have been emulations of the Iberian mission in Japan. The fourth chapter has also shown that the réductions resembled more closely the Japanese Christian communities in several other ways. The segregation of réductions was just as incomplete as that of the Christian villages in Hizen. The missionaries both in Japan and in New France tolerated traditional clothing and made little effort to replace it with European-style garments. Both missionary groups were tolerant of indigenous dwellings for converts. More significantly the French Jesuits revived the office of dogiques from the Iberian experiments of Japanese dôjuku, a term never used in Paraguay. Thus, the widely-held scholarly opinion concerning the prototypes for the réductions needs to be reconsidered with regard to the following two aspects. One is that the Jesuits in Paraguay did not create the idea for the reducciónes without precedent. These reducciónes were instead based on models of the Jesuit experiments in Asia, especially in Japan. Likewise, the prototype for réductions in New France has been discovered beyond Paraguay. Another aspect is that the réductions did not completely emulate the Paraguayan models. This study has shown that the design of colonial French réductions originated not only in a Paraguayan model but also directly in the Japanese Christian communities. This international connection has turned out to be more complex. It is to the creation of Japanese Christian villages that most of the fundamental characteristics of the Laurentian réduction scheme can be traced, either directly or indirectly. The distinctive features of those réduction approaches that were obviously alien to the Paraguayan experiment, were not original to the French Jesuits. Rather, they are much more likely to have been the approaches emulated and developed directly from the successful endeavours to establish Christian villages in Japan.

[vocalfriespod]

French (Canadian) Fries Transcript

CARRIE: Hi and welcome to the Vocal Fries Podcast, the podcast about linguistic discrimination.

MEGAN: I'm Megan Figueroa.

CARRIE: And I'm Carrie Gillon and today we have another guest. We're gonna be talking about Canadian French with Dr. Nicole Rosen, who is a Canada Research Chair in Language Interactions at the University of Manitoba. She studies Canadian languages, including English, French and Michif. And full disclosure okay we actually wrote a book together on Michif, which is coming out early January! So welcome to the show!

NICOLE: Thanks for having me!

MEGAN: Hi Nicole!

CARRIE: Thank you for coming.

MEGAN: And also just a side note, this is the first time Carrie and I have recorded in the same room.

NICOLE: Really!

CARRIE: It's true.

MEGAN: Yeah, so, that's exciting.

CARRIE: Alright so we have - I don't know there's so many things we could talk about in French, so… where would you like to begin?

NICOLE: Well, there's the political, there's a linguistic, I'm not sure where we want to start.

MEGAN: As someone who knows absolutely nothing, maybe the political, actually, would be helpful. Cuz even though we're so close to you over here in the US, I have no idea what the political status is of French in Canada.

NICOLE: Alright, well, I guess the question then becomes, how far do you want to go back? Historically.

CARRIE: I think we kind of have to go back, somewhat to the beginning, because I do think a lot of people don't know. Canadians generally speaking know the big picture at least, but most other people don't.

MEGAN: I have no idea why there's French in Canada. Like, why? Why did that happen?

NICOLE: Well actually the French were here first, before the English.

CARRIE: It’s true.

NICOLE: Back in the 1600s, there were settlers that came over from different areas of France. The first came from the west of France and settled in what is now Acadia, and those Acadians actually ended up - well being moved out by the English later on and ended up down in Louisiana, which is why they're called Cajuns, that comes from the word Acadian actually. So there is a US kind of link there. There's also another group that came originally from more northern France and then moved in along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the eastern side and it's now called Quebec of course. And so we have sort of two groups that came over, within the same century, but they ended up settling in different places and they have pretty different histories and different current realities too. I mean they have two different accents. The Acadian accent is different than the Laurentian French accent. And I'm using the word “Laurentian French” because it seems to be the generally accepted term now, regarding the languages spoken in Quebec and from people that moved out of Quebec. So now those peoples live in Ontario and St. Boniface - sorry in Manitoba - and in other provinces as well. But it's just a way of distinguishing between Acadians and Quebecers. Because Quebecers are not only in Quebec, if that makes sense.

MEGAN: Are Acadians only in the US now?

NICOLE: No the Acadians are in Canada, in the Maritimes. So Acadia is an area - it's not really a province or anything. It's just a designated area, that really is part of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, in that area. There was this thing called the Great Upheaval, where the British government decided to just ship them all out. They split up families. People escaped. People got shipped down to Louisiana, shipped back to France, all the way down the coast. But the word Cajun comes from Acadian basically, because of the way it's pronounced. There's a pretty strong link between the Acadians and the Cajuns down in Louisiana.

MEGAN: Okay. So you're in Manitoba, which, is that Eastern Canada?

CARRIE: No. That’s the West.

NICOLE: This is the West, and so what we have here - near where I live is an area called St. Boniface. And that is really the biggest French settlement that still exists in the West. It was settled really - people came out here, the second half of the 18th century, and that's sort of the third group of Francophones that are around here, and that's called the Métis. They were the ones that came out here quite early, much earlier than everyone else, and they ended up intermarrying with the First Nations women that were here, and they ended up with their own dialect, actually the Métis, Métis French, or Michif French, depending on how you want to call it. Throughout the West, I guess you'd say, there’re certain settlements that are more Métis than then other than other French. They also have a distinct accent. There's sort of three historical groups that speak French in Canada: the Laurentian French, Acadian French and Métis French.

MEGAN: And is there gonna be - I'm just assuming that there's probably a dialect that is favored - I mean I say quote unquote favored.

NICOLE: Yes. Definitely. So as you might be able to guess, the group with the most political power is the one that is the one that - it's sort of the “best”, I guess, if you want to call it in prescriptive terms, the one that the people seem to prefer, it would be Québec French. That said, it depends on who you talk to. A lot of Anglophones will still think France French is better, right. They go way, way over that way, and these don't want to learn Quebec French, they want to learn France French, because it's, I don't, know prettier or something, I'm not really sure.

CARRIE: I think it's got to do with the anti-Québécois sentiment in Canada. I mean when I was in school - I was not - okay, so this is getting into the French Immersion facts, anyway - I was not in French immersion, I was just in regular, you know, the French classes that you had to take, and then you could also take later on. I took them all. Most of the time yeah our teachers were teaching European French, as opposed to Quebec French.

MEGAN: Hmm.

NICOLE: Yeah, that doesn't happen in Winnipeg because there's a strong Francophone community here. There really doesn't seem to be any preference for European French. I was taught by Franco-Manitoban nuns in a French immersion school in one of the first immersion schools that sort of arose in the seventies here. But I don't see that so much here, to be honest, which is good. I think that that sentiment is more definitely with the Anglophones. That said, there's also this sort of downward or upward - there's a hierarchy anyway, within Canada - so the Franco-Manitobans that I've talked to that have gone to Quebec, for example, often don't get treated particularly well. Or they might get - people think that they're Anglophone or people, they'll switch to English. I have a friend here who is very much like - she and her husband are very much Francophone. Their kids did not speak any English until they went to school. That's sort of Grade 4, when they learnt French in school, because they're in the French school division, they can take French swimming lessons, French soccer, and everything like that. Because you can actually do that in St. Boniface. And she works in French, and she went out to Montreal and asked for a jus d’orange, and then the person responded back saying, “oh I'll get you an orange juice.” And she got so mad and told them what they could do with their “orange juice” - because they say it in a very accented English. And French is definitely her first language, but there's a different accent, and some of it is just because the people out here are bilingual, so they have different ways of speaking French. Here it's totally normal, and nobody seems to really worry about it, but I hear stories anyway of people going elsewhere, especially in Quebec, and definitely being sort of not treated as well.

CARRIE: Yeah I should say that I'm from British Columbia, which is one of the more Anglo provinces, so that feeling that I might have gotten might have only been because of the province I'm from.

NICOLE: Yeah, it could be. Although I don't think it's necessarily there. I think it could be from other schools and things like that and definitely Alberta. I think that's probably true among Anglophones. I think it's not true about Francophones, but I think Anglophones do prefer, or at least they say they prefer, European French. I'm not convinced that all of them would be able to tell the difference. If they don't actually speak French. But they just have this sort of thing where they think that Quebec French is ugly and European French is nicer. Not that different I don't think than what we think about British English versus American English.

CARRIE: Yeah, exactly.

MEGAN: Ah, okay. How does it intersect with other identities? Because in the US, a Spanish speaker that is actually Anglo is actually more respected in some ways.

CARRIE: Oh what you're saying is, someone who's an English speaker in the United States who can speak Spanish well, gets more respect than a person who speaks Spanish natively.

MEGAN: Natively, and then learns English yeah.

NICOLE: There’s this really interesting - when it comes to that - if we're talking about in Quebec, for example, because things have completely switched. So in the 60s, there were a number of studies that were done, because Quebecers and Francophones in Quebec, specifically, were consistently doing economically more poorly than Anglophones. And they did all sorts of research and found that Anglophones - in fact monolingual Anglophones -earned more money than bilingual Francophones. So if you were a Francophone originally, who learned English, you made less money than a monolingual Anglophone. And a bilingual Anglophone was better. So that's what you're saying about the Spanish I think.

MEGAN: Yes.

NICOLE: If you're an Anglophone, but you speak French, back in the 60s, that was probably - economically you did the best. But what happened - this caused a lot of fury, basically. There was what we call the Quiet Revolution in Quebec in the 60s, where they essentially decided that their language and their way of speaking the language was not actually that bad, and they should be proud of it. That's when they started implementing a lot of different kinds of laws and things like that. But what's happening now is, if you go there, it's actually better to be a Francophone that speaks English than an Anglophone that speaks French. A lot of people are bilingual, but it is it is better for jobs and things like that, if they're looking for a bilingual person, that usually means Francophones that's can speak English, not an Anglophone that speaks French. Because, I think it has something to do it the fact that, if you're a francophone that speaks English, you speak better English than an Anglophone speaks French, if that makes sense. Because the surroundings are all English, in most of Canada - this is this a bit different in Quebec. But in general, if you are Anglophone you learnt French, you learnt it in school, and maybe you're not that great at it, you're kind of functionally bilingual, but you're not comfortable in the same way as your own language. Whereas it is the flipside if you're a Francophone and speak English, you are probably almost perfectly bilingual.

MEGAN: So then French is looked upon positively in Canada, but there are like a hierarchy of dialects.

CARRIE: [sighs]

MEGAN: No, it’s not true?

CARRIE: It's more complicated than that.

MEGAN: Okay okay okay.

NICOLE: Yeah, it really depends on the region. I think if you’re anywhere east, like Ontario, east, I think that's probably true. I think French is not looked down upon. I think things have changed a lot - like in the 60s or TV shows making fun of French people and making fun - this was really common before the seventies, I'd say. Really that's when this whole revolution started. But now in the West, with these official language laws from 1971 - that's when English and French both rose as official languages in Canada. And that caused a lot of controversy. That was basically Pierre Trudeau, our Prime Minister, trying to appease the Quebecers, who were quite upset with all these things that they had found - this is a commission that found all these inequalities basically - educational inequalities too. In Quebec, most kids stopped school at 13, 14 years old. It was still a confessional system, all run by the church and things like that. It was really a very different system than elsewhere. Even within Quebec, the Francophones were consistently more poorly educated, or less well educated than the Anglophones. So there was a very big economic split ane educational split. When this official bilingualism happened after 1971, that made a lot of people in the West pretty mad. Because in the West, yes there were a bunch of Francophones in Manitoba, but there were way more people who spoke German, for example, and even to this day there are more people who speak German in in the West in Saskatchewan and Manitoba anyway than speak French. So all these people who spoke German at home and learned English and worked in English, all of a sudden their language was lowered. By raising these two official languages, you were actually effectively lowering the importance of all the other ones. So that caused a lot of problems in the West for sure.

CARRIE: I definitely had the impression when I was growing up in British Columbia that there was a lot of antipathy towards French - not from my family. My parents put my brother and sister into French immersion - I was too old. It didn't start until I was too old, in the city we were in. And also I got that impression in Ontario, at least in Toronto, as well, that some people really did not like French when I when I was living there. I was only there for a year, but I did I did get that impression.

MEGAN: Were they bilingual in something else?

CARRIE: No. They just they were monolingual. Or partially bilingual in French, like me. I’m not even that anymore, but I used to be a little bit more.

NICOLE: I mean I think everyone hated their French classes, and that's a common thread. You can go across the country and everyone hated their French class. Some people could say they kind of wish they spoke it, but it was such a terrible class and all that kind of thing. So there’s that.

CARRIE: I mean I loved my French classes. I’m a linguist, so that'd be why, I guess. And I was jealous of my brother and sister.

NICOLE: Yeah, I'm really glad I did French immersion. I only did it for elementary school, so Grade 1 to 6, but it was also very new, and they really were all Francophones. I think nowadays it's a bit tougher, and it depends where you go, because they have these French immersion schools, but the teachers are not necessarily completely comfortable in French. I mean, they're supposed to be and a lot of them are, but it depends where you go, right. It's like it's like anywhere else. If you don't have enough teachers, but you have the demand, then you have to kind of try to get someone who's good enough in there.

CARRIE: Yeah I definitely saw that there was a shortage, a couple days ago I saw that on CBC I think, that they're looking for more teachers. And I had no idea. I mean it makes sense, because it's a popular program.

NICOLE: Oh yeah, it's a hugely popular program in Canada. It's partially for the language and it's partially actually the socioeconomic advantages.

CARRIE: Mmm-hmm.

MEGAN: Yup.

NICOLE: So this is often talked about - that the parents who want their kids to advance and do well socioeconomically, if they're upwardly mobile, they put their kids in French immersion programs because it's - you don't get a lot of the kids with learning disabilities, and you don't get a lot of the kids with behavioral issues and things like that. And so it's almost like a private school, but it's free. That's also one of the criticisms of the program is that it's segregating kids already.

MEGAN: Did these French immersion schools come about after French became one of the official languages, is that what happened?

NICOLE: Yeah, exactly. So in the 70s, that's when they started to become popular, sort of mid-seventies.

MEGAN: And is there a waiting list? How does how does one get their child into a French immersion school?

NICOLE: Yeah, often there are waiting lists. I mean technically it's public school, so it's free, and anyone can go, but I don't think they can usually keep up with the demand. So often they're either opening new schools or they're switching schools so that all the English schools end up getting put into smaller schools and then the French immersion school get in the big ones. There's also some schools that are splits, like they're streamed. Within one school, you'll have kids in an English program and kids in a French immersion program, things like that.

CARRIE: Yeah that's that was my school. I was in the regular English programming and my sister was in the French immersion programming. We were at the same elementary school.

NICOLE: When I went to elementary school, it was only French, but then when you went to junior high or high school then it was split into different streams.

MEGAN: And in your opinion, what would what would make someone choose not to put their kid in a French immersion program.

NICOLE: Well, there's a couple of things. One of them is this sort of the negative view of French. There is that. There are people just don't like French or don't think it's important. There's definitely people who decide not to put their kids in that because of that. Some parents decide that it's too hard and they're worried about their kids not being very good at English. There's also people who are worried that they're not going to be able to help their kids with their homework, because it's all gonna be written in French. There's that. Even though, I mean these schools are designed for parents who speak English, but still they want, I guess, to be able to help more or something. And then there's parents who think that their - or their kids may have some kind of language delay or something like that, and they don't want to put them in for that reason, or they put them in and they pull them out. Then there’s also some educational things. So a lot of these - we don't like to talk about them, we don't like to say anything bad about French immersion. It's kind of like this pet project and Canada's supposed to be really great at it, and we are, but I don't think the outcomes are necessarily what everyone is expecting. So you don't get absolutely high-level bilingualism coming out of these schools, you get sort of functional bilingualism. You get kids who are very comfortable in French. It doesn't really matter what they're saying, they're super comfortable. But they certainly - I mean if you imagine - these are all kids - you have a class of 25 or 30 or whatever kids who are all Anglophone, and they're all speaking French amongst themselves, it's not exactly natural, and they aren't getting exposure to the sort of authentic French. You're not getting exposure to actual French speakers, you're getting exposure to other Anglophones who are also trying to speak French. And so there's something sort of called “French immersion French”, which is in a lot of ways, it's like speaking English using French words, if that make sense. You don't learn all - you don't definitely don't learn the colloquialisms, and you don't learn the sociolinguistic differences and things like that - you know, how to be formal and how to be informal, and how to speak to other kids, because the model you hear is a teacher. And you hear one teacher in a class of 25 or something. So it's not exactly - I still think it's great, and I think you should put your kids in that, if you can, only because then at least they get the chance later to go somewhere where they speak French and really learn it like a native, if they want to. And if not, then they can still get by in work or that kind of thing. So I think people just have to have reasonable expectations. Kids are having to write in history and geography and whatever else in a language that they're not super comfortable with, so I don't think a lot of them can actually go for the depth that you could in your native tongue. I do think there's issues with that.

CARRIE: Yeah there are I think at least - well, at the time, I think some of the upper level high school classes were switched to English, because they wanted them to get that depth.

NICOLE: Yeah and that happens a lot in high school, I think very often there's not as many courses available. I mean, you still have an English class course, it’s not like you don't have anything. I think for me I would normally recommend putting kids in that in the early years and then, yeah, like you say, maybe switching them out for high school, because if I do think that they've learned mostly what they're gonna learn in that sort of environment. And then to really learn it, you want to go somewhere where it's actually French. You go to France, you go to Quebec, wherever.

MEGAN: Well that certainly sounds like, I don't know if you want to call it a problem, but a situation you’d run into in any sort of immersion. It doesn't seem like it's specific to-

CARRIE: No. Yeah, it would be the exact same for any immersion. So one of the things that when Megan and I were talking about this, I think we should also mention that there's actually like real French education - obviously in Quebec because it’s supposed to be a bilingual province, but it's more French than English, but even in in Winnipeg where you are there are actual French -

NICOLE: Yes. Yeah. I come across this a lot, as my kids are in the French school system. Then when I people ask me what school my kids go to, I have to say well they're in a French school, and everyone always says, “French Immersion?” No actually it's French. So you have a French immersion stream for Anglophones who want to learn French. Then you have a Francophone system where the schools are actually for people who speak French at home. That's different from the French immersion. So in Winnipeg there are quite a lot of these schools. There are four or five elementary schools and then maybe there's only two junior highs and two high schools - or one high school? I can't remember anymore. So it definitely peters off when you get to the higher levels, but there's also a French University where everything is done in French here. The difference is that if you are from an Anglophone family, you can't put your kids into the Francophone school system, you can only put them into French immersion.

MEGAN: Wow.

NICOLE: And those exists in most provinces, where there's demand. And that actually is part of the language laws that came about as well, is that you are entitled to go to school in your own language, as long as you have enough people to warrant it basically.

MEGAN: That's something I cannot imagine in the US at all.

CARRIE: I know yeah, it’s so different.

NICOLE: But there are two official languages, right, so. If they're official - well the US doesn't actually have an official language, right?

CARRIE: No, it does not.

MEGAN: No, there is a movement.

CARRIE: But functionally, there's only one language that everything works in. For example, in the legal system, it's English. I mean you can get translators but everything's in English.

MEGAN: But that's so problematic.

CARRIE: Yeah I mean translators are better than nothing, but yeah.

MEGAN: Yeah yeah.

CARRIE: But in Canada you have to be able to access it in either French or English, depending on what your language is. So it has all sorts of effects throughout the country.

MEGAN: Yeah.

NICOLE: Yeah, in fact though there was a big - I guess in Manitoba and in the prairies in general, a lot of French sort of ended up falling by the wayside. And although with the Manitoba language - so I should preface this by saying that education is provincial, and so it's kind of like every state is different, every province is different. But talking about Manitoba just because it's a primarily Anglophone province, but has a very strong Francophone population, I think it's just an interesting place. And so the Manitoba Schools Act back in I think 1890 or 1891 dictated that you could have access to French or English education. And this was mostly, of course, related to the church at the time. So this is really about appeasing the Catholic Church, because the French schools were done through the Catholic Church. So there's a very strong tie between religion and language here - and still is actually. There's still religion in the lot of the French schools, which is really strange to think about. I think it was 1916 that they eliminated that access to French education, and so kids weren't able to go to French school anymore. And then, again in the 60s and 70s, really happening after this quiet revolution in Québec, the same kind of thing here happened here in Manitoba, where they started to get access to French education again. When you were talking about having a to all sorts of things in French and English, one thing that made me think of was, in the 70s, it was in 1976 or 1977, this guy, he was very famous here, he refused to pay a parking ticket, because it was only written in English. It was hugely publicized, and I remember this growing up. It was really well publicized. He said, “I am legally - I was parked in St. Boniface, I am legally allowed, from the government - like I'm supposed to be able to access services in English and French, and this was only written in English. I'm not paying it.”

MEGAN: What a hero!

NICOLE: I know, seriously! And they kind of settled it. They didn't make him pay, but they didn't change anything. But then he got another parking ticket, that poor guy. Actually, he took it to court, and it had huge legal repercussions, because he won. What it basically said was that all the laws written in Manitoba were not legal. They were all supposed to be written in English and French. So of course they put things on hold, saying, “for the moment, they're still legally binding, but we have to write them all in French.” And they did. And so everything now is in English and French. It's a huge precedent, here in Manitoba anyway.

CARRIE: Very cool.

MEGAN: Yeah.

CARRIE: Do you wanna start talking about the different varieties of Canadian French?

MEGAN: Yeah. Coming into this, I just assumed that French was being treated better in Canada than Spanish was being treated in the US, but I have been proven wrong.

CARRIE: Well, I would say, yes, that’s true-

MEGAN: Still, though yeah?

NICOLE: Yeah.

CARRIE: -but maybe less than you thought.

MEGAN: Yeah I know I had like beautiful picture. Cuz Canada’s beautiful in my mind, especially right now.

CARRIE: It is beautiful.

MEGAN: Yes. It’s a beacon of hope.

NICOLE: There's still people here. Where are people, things are not perfect.

MEGAN: So yeah: assholes. You have a big group of people, there’s gonna be assholes.

NICOLE: Exactly. It’s inevitable. MEGAN: So there are still people that view French generally as just -

CARRIE: Less than.

MEGAN: less than. So now we're gonna go into - there's a hierarchy of how the dialects are treated.

CARRIE: Well, within French probably, I mean I would say that Anglo Canada doesn't really think about the different varieties at all.

NICOLE: No.

CARRIE: Like there's just like French.

MEGAN: Yeah.

CARRIE: And it's either fine, like it's just another language, or -

MEGAN: Or it’s French, okay. Then within speakers of French in Canada there's gonna be some biases.

CARRIE: Right.

MEGAN: Okay. Got it.

NICOLE: Yes.

CARRIE: Cuz we’re humans.

NICOLE: I think Anglophones will kind of know that there's different dialects, but not really. They wouldn't know any details, and they hear from other people that there's better ones and less good ones, but they don't really have any opinions on them.

CARRIE: Okay, yeah that's kind of what I meant.

MEGAN: Okay.

NICOLE: Other than yeah other than France versus Canada.

CARRIE: Right.

NICOLE: That one they do think is better, in Europe usually. I don’t know.

CARRIE: So one of the one of the varieties that comes up sometimes, the joual. Do you know anything about it? Can you talk about that?

NICOLE: Yeah joual is really just a term - it's a term that’s not really used so much anymore - again it was in the 60s, everything happened in the 60s - but it was just a way of describing the Québec accent, basically. So you ended up getting this - well we had this playwright called Michel Tremblay, who's still around, but he started writing plays actually in joual. So written in the Québecois accent, as opposed to in a standard French accent. He was sort of part of this whole movement to raise Québécois to that level, to a higher level and in art forms too, right. I guess the term as well is really just kind of a short form for the Canadian or Québécois French, and like I said, it's not really - I don't hear it use very much anymore. It's almost a derogatory term really now, I think.

CARRIE: Oh!

NICOLE: Even though I don't think it really was before, but it does seem to be now. Because I think it's sort of thought being when you describe French in not such a nice way.

CARRIE: I did not know that.

NICOLE: Yeah. Anyway. I mean some people might argue with me for that, because I think it sort of depends on where you're coming from, but I always thought it was okay too and then someone said, “no, not really.”

MEGAN: So just to clarify when you said standard French do you mean like European French? Is that what that would be?

NICOLE: Ohhhh, you're gonna call me on that! Yes. Yes I do. It's just a very difficult thing to define, because nobody really speaks that standard French. There's sort of this international French they call it. Yeah, I guess I would call it European French.

MEGAN: Okay. So okay, so that variety is just called Québecois French then, is the best way to describe -

NICOLE: Yeah.

CARRIE: I’ve seen it described as more like a city version of Québécois French, but I don't know if that's accurate, that could be wrong.

NICOLE: Well, I think there's a lot of different dialects even within Québec, and so people know if someone's from Trois-Rivières and things like that, so there's at least certain towns that are kind of known for having different accents. There's obviously some differences. I mean overall Québécois French, which I was calling Laurentian French, really, is I guess characterized by a few things. For example, the t's and d’s before - I don't know how technical I need to go into these -

MEGAN: Not technical.

NICOLE: These sounds like /y/. There's these weird French vowels like /y/ and /œ/ that don't exist in English. You get this word tu [ty] in standard French, you end up sort of adding an s into it and saying [tsy], and du [dy] would be [dzy]. It's called assibilation. You add a little s or z in between there. That's very common. The vowels are different. Certain vowels will change where they don't in European French. So you'd have like vite [vit]. Vite is “fast”. But you'd say vit [vɪt] in Canada. So vite and vit instead of just vite. Things like that. They have a lot more diphthongs too. In the vowels. So something like père - and this is where - I started learning French here in Canada, and I had probably a pretty decent Franco-Manitoban accent, but then I moved to France and it all went away. And so now I have more of a European French accent. So I'm not so good at doing the Canadian accent, which makes me sad actually. So the père [pɛʁ] for father is more like pay-er [paɪəʁ], and they have this sort of diphthong. But the dialect thing is actually interesting. Because I go to my kids schools a lot here, everyone thinks - they don't know what to make of me, because they don't understand why I have the accent that I do. And honestly people come straight out and say, “so, like, tell me about your accent.” And I've been at parent-teacher interviews, and I could see that the teacher wanted to ask me, but didn't really have the courage, and then finally eventually after the third interview with, her she's like, “um, where are you from?” And I have to say I'm from here, because I actually was born in Winnipeg, but I happened to move elsewhere. But I was born as an Anglophone and did French in school, and then went to France for a couple of years, and so I speak French, and I studied French, but now I come back here, and I don't feel local, right. I really feel self-conscious about it. The teacher really didn't understand why if I was born here, why I spoke like this, especially if I was only over there - because no, I was born Winnipeg, but I lived in France for a couple of years, and they go, “okay”. But they know that you know if you were really a Francophone and just spent some time in France, you wouldn't actually change your accent. You would still have your accent from here. But it definitely makes me self-conscious, which is funny because it's supposed to be the better - the more standard accent. But here it really it makes you stand out as not being local, not being from here. Which is not actually a good thing because of the Franco-Manitobans are a very small community, and it's very - everyone knows each other or they know - and they're very protective as well of their language. And so being from somewhere else? Not quite as good as being a Franco-Manitoban. Although things are changing. And I shouldn't say everyone's like that, right.

CARRIE: Right, of course not.

NICOLE: Yeah it's not the case that everyone's like that.

MEGAN: What's the difference between Québécois French and the Franco-Manitoban French?

NICOLE: Alright so there's a couple different Franco-Manitobans, but the main one - so they were actually people that came from Quebec about a century ago. So they share a lot of similarities, but they haven't changed things in the same way as they did in Quebec. So one of the main one of the main differences I guess would be the r. So in the 70s, for some reason, everyone switched the way they pronounce their r in Quebec. And I shouldn't say everyone, but Montreal and the urban areas really did. So instead of doing an apical r [r], which is like a [rə], they ended up doing like a French one, which is [ʁ], where its velar or uvular, in the back, and it's a completely different r. And here in Manitoba you'll hear that apical r a lot more than you would in Quebec. It really makes you stand out as being from a farm, right, or just being not very urban, not very smart. That's kind of the type of r it is. And so here in Winnipeg or St Boniface I guess you do hear it, but you hear - you still hear probably more with people from rural French areas, but you hear it a lot more. And even my kids, when we moved from Alberta, where it was mostly taught by Quebecers, when we moved here, where it's now mostly taught by Franco-Manitobans, my older son did ask about why they were using that r. He didn't get it. He heard the difference, right? And he's like, “everyone pronounces their r’s differently here.” So that's a pretty obvious one. I think there's also a lot of things that just come from being in such close contact with English. So there's loads of monolingual Francophones in Quebec, of course, but there are not loads of monolingual Francophones in Manitoba. You'd be hard-pressed to find any Franco-Manitobans that don't speak English pretty well, other than a lot older people. You’ll people who may not be so comfortable in English. But because they speak English in French on a daily basis, a lot of things, and going back and forth right, so a lot of it is influenced by English. So there's a lot of what we call calques, so they change - they use what would be English words in French. So when I grew up, I learned all these words that that were called faux amis or false friends. I don't know if anyone else has done these language classes where you learn about false friends?

CARRIE/MEGAN: Yup.

NICOLE: So you learn you're not supposed to say this even though it sounds like the same one in English, because it doesn't mean it's the same thing. Well they all use those here. So all those false friends that you're not supposed to use, they all use them. It's really weird. So I'm just trying to think of an example. “Support”, so like supporting a team or whatever. You're always supposed to learn that it's appuyer, not supporter. That's a totally different word. But here everyone uses supporter, which is the calque from English right. They think the English “support” and they switch it over and they use it in French. And there's a lot of examples like that, and all these things that I have a hard time using, because I mean they feel like errors, but that's just the way they speak here right. It's not an error, there's a semantic shift in the word. Of course that comes from English, but whatever. I think as long - I think the big problem is that they may not use these always in Quebec, and they definitely do not use them that way in France. And so it comes down to a language purity question, and if you think that a “pure” language, whatever that means, is the better language, then you're not gonna think that these calques are any good. You're gonna think, “oh they're too influenced by English”, and that kind of thing. But that's not the way I look at things.

CARRIE: That’s not how language works.

MEGAN: No, it’s not.

NICOLE: Right.

CARRIE: These things happen all the time.

NICOLE: Yeah, so all these language laws that they're trying to implement, they only go so far right. They can work at a sort of institutional level, but not on a day-to-day level.

CARRIE: No. tilting at windmills. So one of things that I thought about when you were talking about the vowels is that kind of reminds me of the Southern drawl.

NICOLE: Yeah. It does, sort of. I think what it was is that a lot of those diphthongs - I believe they existed in France at the time, right, and then when they got transplanted here they just didn't evolve in the same way as they did in France. So there are some things that are innovations and are new pronunciations, but a lot of things are actually just from older archaisms from France that they brought over in the 17th century or the 18th century, and they still have that kind of - they have some of the same vocabulary items, and they have some of the same pronunciations - or similar. I mean it's not gonna be exactly the same from the 1700s, but still. Just follow different paths.

CARRIE: Yeah. So what's your favorite Canadian French expression that only exists in Canada?

NICOLE: Oh boy.

CARRIE: Because I found some that I thought were kind of cool, but then I thought maybe you would have better ones.

NICOLE: I don't know which - what did you find?

CARRIE: I'm gonna probably butcher this, but there's accouche qu’on baptise, which means “speak up”, but literally something to do with “birth that is baptized” or something?

NICOLE: Okay.

CARRIE: Avoir les shakes - I don't even how to say “shakes”, cuz I just want to make it English.

NICOLE: Avoir les shakes that probably is English. That's the way they would pronounce it.

CARRIE: But there are so many more that I just -

NICOLE: Well yeah, I mean I think one of the main things that people love is that the way you swear in Quebec is different than the way you swear in France. So it all has to do with religion here. Everything.

MEGAN: Oh! Tabernacle!

NICOLE: Yes, exactly. Hostie, and all these - and it's not native to me. It's funny because I can't swear in Québecois. I can swear in European French, but it just doesn't come out. I love it. I do love hearing it. I think that's what it is: I love it, but I can't do it. That makes me sad.

MEGAN: Yeah.

NICOLE: But yeah, it all comes from religion, and the host, like Hostie and tabernak. That’s tabernacle. I also didn't grow up Catholic, so it's all foreign to me. I don't really know what any of those things are or what they mean.

CARRIE: Yeah I was gonna ask you what at tabernacle was.

MEGAN: We still don't know.

CARRIE: Yeah cause we talked about it in our second episode, the swearing episode, and I was like, “oh, I actually don't even know what that is.” And then I didn't even look it up.

MEGAN: Yes. I meant to.

NICOLE: When I teach it, or when I used to teach French, I always had a swearing class, cuz people like that. I would often use that as a good opportunity to get the students involved, saying, “who knows what this is?” Cuz I didn’t really know it was either. But I guess the host, that’s the thing-

CARRIE: The wafer.

NICOLE: The wafer.

CARRIE: That one I can figure out.

MEGAN: Yeah yeah.

CARRIE: I know enough Catholicism to know what a host is, but not enough to know -

NICOLE: The tabernacle is something up on the, the, I don’t know.

CARRIE: The altar?

NICOLE: The altar.

CARRIE: Maybe.

NICOLE: Or something that’s at the altar. I’m not even sure. That’s very embarrassing.

CARRIE: I'm glad it's not just me.

MEGAN: Someone's gonna tweet at us when we release this episode and tell us what tabernacle is.

CARRIE: They never did last time. But maybe this time.

MEGAN: That’s true. This is a plea. So that I don’t have to google it.

CARRIE: Alright. So I guess we'll ask now: why is it bad to judge Francophones in Canada or anywhere else for that matter?

NICOLE: So there's all these different sort of layers of French in Canada, and everyone ends up kind of being denigrated by somebody else. So the Métis in Manitoba, certainly there's lots of examples of when they went to - they tried to go to regular French schools or French University or college or anything and they get made fun of for the language, and it just made them feel bad about themselves. I heard some really crazy things like - so we didn't talk a lot about the Métis French, but there's some towns in Manitoba that are really Métis towns, and so the French they speak is really Métis French. It's not even a standard Québécois French or anything or standard St. Boniface French or whatever. But there were federal jobs, for example - I met someone who applied for a job, and you need to be bilingual for that job, and she didn't get it, even though she was a native Métis French speaker. Because she couldn't pass that test. That was a written test. But the thing is she would have been dealing with people in person, in her language, in their language. But so economically it’s actually - besides all the sort of social things or making people feel bad which is also something you probably don't want to do, there's also reasons where using a standard as the standard - I actually shouldn't call it a standard - using a different dialect as a standard is problematic, because it's not taking into account the local realities. So locally what's important is that people speak what's local. It shows that there there's a sense of belonging, things like that. It's similar with speech pathology and things like that. So if they're analyzing kids here, there is no norm for the local kids. So they're using norms from Quebec or from elsewhere - and actually I'm doing some research with a colleague who is a linguist and speech pathologist specifically on that. Because we found and he's found that the kids are failing in certain things, like for example the pronunciation of r. They're actually failing that and they're being branded as not being able to pronounce those, and they need to go in for speech path. But they're getting a whole host of different r’s all over, right, so either it's just taking them longer, because they have to absorb them all, and before they can figure out how to pronounce their own r. They're not getting the same consistent input, or maybe the actual r is different here.

MEGAN: And r comes in late anyway.

NICOLE: It does come in late.

MEGAN: If they’re getting so much input.

NICOLE: Yeah, consistently coming in even later. I think there's actual educational ramifications, and economic ones, and people are not going to get a job, or they're going to be labeled as speech delayed, and things like that, when they're not. I think there's real problems that go even past the normal social things, which I think are - socially, I think it's bad to discriminate. But I think it goes further than that.

CARRIE: Yeah. Are there any other questions?

MEGAN: No.

CARRIE: Is there anything else you want to talk about Nicole?

NICOLE: Oh, I could go on forever, so I think you want to cut me off.

CARRIE: Ok.

NICOLE: There’s just so much really. At the provincial level, at those federal level, at different areas, it's just lots.

CARRIE/MEGAN: Yeah.

NICOLE: It's a very interesting topic TO ME.

MEGAN: I learned so much. I always say this. I think this is my new thing is just to say how much I learned.

[Laughter]

CARRIE: Did I learn this much, or this much?

MEGAN: This much. You can’t see what I’m doing. Or if anything. But yes I did, I learned a lot.

CARRIE: Yeah, so thank you so much for coming on again.

MEGAN: Yes thank you.

NICOLE: Thank you.

CARRIE: And: don't be an asshole!

MEGAN: Do not be an asshole.

CARRIE: Alright. Bye!

MEGAN: Bye!

CARRIE: The Vocal Fries Podcast is produced by Chris Ayers for Halftone Audio. Music by Nick Granum. You can find us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @vocalfriespod. You can email us at [email protected].  

#transcript #linguistics #linguistic discrimination #French #Canadian French #Canada #Québec #Manitoba #British Columbia #Alberta #Nova Scotia #New Brunswick #bilingual #Acadia #Cajun #Laurentian French #Acadian French

[frettchanstudios]

I’m honoured and humbled to have been asked to design this mural “Connections”, then painted by JoLean Barkley. The project was put together by the Consulate General of Canada @connect2canada, the Office of New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell @mayorcantrell @cityofnola, and the Arts Council of New Orleans @artsneworleans. Being able to go down to celebrate the unveiling and see it in person was surreal. Mural Description: This mural uses abstract blue and green tones to depict the reliance of both Canadians and New Orleanians connection with water. The left side of the mural showcases Canadian wildlife in contemporary Northwest coast formline designs and as river flows "downstream" towards the right side transitions to Louisiana-based wildlife, depicting the journey and discovery of new creatures on the Acadians' journey South. The opossum (Canada's only marsupial) is also found in Louisiana and its location within the center of the mural proves a connection between both locations. The opossum's traditional Cajun Mardi Gras hat indicates the sharing of culture and traditions between the two communities. The white creature silhouettes in the background give a sense of history and continuity, as echos of the past drive traditions of the present. The river ends and transitions into the Loup Garou, a creature known in Laurentian French communities but also prominently featured in Cajun Folklore as a symbol of the stories and connections our communities share. Thank you, Mayor Latoya Cantrell, Mayor of New Orleans, Consul General of Canada, Dr. Rachel McCormick, @reynoldsjoycelyn, Executive Director – Arts Council New Orleans, @lindsayglatz, Creative Director - Arts Council New Orleans who coordinated the creation of the mural and liaison with artists, @prosybell1 – Director International Relations, City of New Orleans who had a key role in ensuring the proposal was approved, and Noella De Maina – Consul, Foreign Policy and Public Affairs who came up with the idea and spearheaded the project! Thank you @jolean_barkley for taking on the huge role of painting my design, you killed it! Thank you mom @cherielperry for making the trip with me, it was so special to share this with you.

Photo Credits:

Image 1, 8, 9, 10: @cherielperry

Article Screenshot: https://www.audacy.com/wwl/news/local/n-o-partners-with-the-canadian-government-to-create-a-mural

#New Orleans #Connections #Canada #Louisiana #Arts New Orleans #Public Art #Mural #Indigenous #Indigenous Art #FrettchanStudios #French Quarter #NOLA #Canadian Consulate #City of Nola #New Orleans Art #Nola Art #Canadian Art #Indigenous Artist #Mardigras #Northwest Coast Art #Contemporary Art #Wildlife #Fauna #Water #Folklore #History #River #First Nations

[cryptid-quest]

Cryptid of the Day: Rougarou

Description: The Rougarou is a werewolf like creature of Laurentian legend. The word comes from loup-garou, which is French for “werewolf”. It was said to prowl the swamps of Louisiana, and is said to attack Catholics who break the rules of Lent. If one becomes a Rougarou, they shall remain for 101, to which then they must transfer the curse to someone else.

#cryptids #Cryptid #cryptozoology #cryptid of the day #rougarou

[mybeingthere]

Clarence Gagnon, RCA (1881 – 1942) was a French Canadian painter, draughtsman, engraver and illustrator, from the province of Quebec. He is well known for his landscape paintings of the Laurentians and the Charlevoix region of eastern Quebec."

He invented a new kind of winter landscape that consisted of mountains, valleys, sharp contrasts, vivid colours, and sinuous lines." wiki

[historia-vitae-magistras]

Speaking of Vinland, how do you feel about Canada appearing back then?

ehhhh. It's not how I go about it, but I had too many close calls with some seriously fucked up politics to really embrace a nordic origin for my country, but it doesn't automatically have those themes, I guess? I usually go with it when the idea of a country appears. The term America somewhat predates Roanoke or Jamestown so Alfred crops up slightly before the 17th century and Canada appears in the 1610s in writing so that's what Matt does for me.

Somewhat ironically, considering how proudly 'Latin' modern French Canadians are, there are some Scandinavian roots very distantly. We mostly find our origins in Normandy, and some historians, when looking for a starting point with French Canadian cultural history especially look to the medieval history of the Normans, which finds its origin as a part of the medieval Scandinavian maritime world. I don't see a connection myself; my concept of French Canadian history is much more rooted in the indigenous people of the Laurentian valley because I can't see any cultural links to Scandinavia, but eh. And almost every European or Mediterranean country that wasn't completely landlocked had some contact with the medieval norse or their militant form, the Vikings, so its not like Normandy was unique in that sense.

#the ask box || probis pateo #matthew || my country is winter

[my-name-is-dahlia]

Vocabulary (pt.dcccliv)

Words taken from Empire of Wild (2019) by Cherie Dimaline:

rogarou (n.) a legendary creature in Laurentian French communities linked to traditional concepts of the werewolf. The stories of the creature known as a [rogarou] are as diverse as the spelling of its name, though they are all connected to francophone cultures through a common derived belief in the loup-garou ... Loup is French for wolf, and garou (from Frankish garulf, cognate with English werewolf) is a man who transforms into an animal. [x]

Michif (n.) the language of the Métis people of Canada and the United States, who are the descendants of First Nations women (mainly Cree, Nakota, and Ojibwe) and fur trade workers of European ancestry (mainly French and Scottish Canadians). [x]

halfbreed (n.) offensive. a person of mixed race.

wolfssegen (n.) in Bavarian folklore of the Early Modern period, an apotropaic charm against wolves. [x]

Anishnaabe (n.) the preferred name for the Ojibwa, an Algonquian people living in northern Quebec, northern and central Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.

kombucha (n.) a fermented, lightly effervescent, sweetened black or green tea drink commonly consumed for its supposed health benefits. [x]

taxidermy (n.) the art of preparing, stuffing, and mounting the skins of animals or birds etc. in lifelike poses.

euchre (n.) a card game for two to four players in which the highest cards are the joker (if used), the jack of trumps, and the other jack of the same colour in a pack with the lower cards removed, the aim being to win at least three of the five tricks played. 

bootlegger (n.) a person who makes, distributes, or sells goods illegally.

tabernac (n.) one of the worst curse words you can use in French Canada. French Canada has a strong tradition of Roman Catholicism and this sacrilegious word takes the word tabernacle in vain. [x]

#av #avdictionary #Cherie Dimaline #empire of wild #english vocabulary

[sagiow]

Tag game: A LIST OF STUFF

I was tagged by the ever creative & hilarious @tortoisesshells! Thank you!

Nicknames: Aside from the baby one my dad still embarassing uses and a high school one that re-emerges once a year with our annual get-together, surprisingly none. Or actually, my sisters and their kids calls me Gradi (French-sounding, GRA- like “grass”-DEE) because that’s how my name came out of my first niece’s toddler mouth a dozen+ years ago, and everybody thought it was hilarious and adopted it. No Matante title for me!

Zodiac sign: Gemini / Cancer hybrid. Never checked which one it was on my birthyear because that’s how much stock my STEM brain puts in astrology.

Height: 5′7″

Hogwarts House: I’ve gotten both Ravenclaw and Slytherin, which totally tracks and is apparently pretty on par for INTJs.

Last thing I googled:  The right spelling of Slytherin. Hey, it’s been a while.

Before that, “Légende de la Corriveau”, because my son learned about it in school, and my partner and I were arguing about how many husbands she really had, and whether she was hanged first or died in the infamous cage. Confused? Read the original Québec witch story Here, brought to you by the Treaty of Paris and the British takeover of New France.

Song stuck in my head: Toxic, Britney Spears. It’s been everywhere, this week. 

Fav musicians: Sounds blasphemous but... I’m not a big music person? So... whatever’s upbeat and fun and singable on my commute, like... ABBA? Cheesy 90s bands? Barenaked Ladies? Whatever Princess Poppy the Pop Troll is into.  Just nothing country or too experimental jazzy. 

Following: 52. Hmm. I need to branch out. Any fun blog recs?

Followers: 70. Huh. I’m really surprised that number is larger than the previous. You lovely people are quiet; I thought there was only a dozen of you :)

Do you get asks: Rarely, and pretty much only when I ask for prompts. 

Amount of sleep: 6-7hr most nights, 8 on the weekend, and they are FINALLY, after almost a decade of young kids with terrible sleep patterns, mostly uninterrupted. So 6hr straight totally beats 8hr in bits&pieces.

Lucky number: I’ll pick 21 if the options go that high. If not, probably 3.

What are you wearing: Fridays are Blue Checkered Shirt Day at work, and it’s a Team Tradition that I will never break for as long as I work here (and will probably institute wherever I work next). So flannel edition because Winter and jeans, because Friday.

Dream jobs: 1920s egyptologist, forensic anthropologist, The Thirsty Traveler, retired grandma who plays golf, hikes, writes, bakes and spends the worst of winter someplace warmer.

Dream trip: A few weeks with loved ones in a comfortable rented house some place near the sea, old historical cities and natural sites, with a rental car to drive around and visit at our own pace during the day, and nearby shops full of local produce, coffee, drinks, cheese and bread for relaxed evenings talking away on the starlit patio with a home-cooked meal and plenty of good wine.

Instruments you play: Does -badly- teaching myself rudimentary guitar in HS and going through Simply Piano last year count? ... yeah, didn’t think so. So, none. I’m more a Sports & Books type.

Languages you speak: Fluent French (first) and English (since childhood), above tourist level Spanish and German, but for no rational reason because they are the least similar languages ever, the two get mixed up like crazy when I speak either (both must be stored in the “Languages I Suck At” portion of my brain). And I never spoke as good Spanish as when I tried to speak Portuguese, which I can read decently enough, but understand when spoken? Not at all.

Fav song: Again with the music... ugh. I don’t know. Creep by Radiohead? Anything but Helter Skelter from The Beatles? Let’s Groove from Earth, Wind and Fire? Some Bryan Adams power ballad? Hopefully also something from the last 20 years... 

Random fact: My dad got the inspiration for my first name from a guy he met at a disco nightclub... who he later found out to be a male exotic dancer. Yup, I was apparently named after a Magic Mike disco dude. 

My mom found out at the same time I did. She was considerably less amused than I was.

Cats or dogs: Cats, 200%. Black ones all the better, although I relented and we adopted one of our foster babies, a tabby. He’s the devil but he’s also super sweet and cuddly. We named him Fofos, which is Portuguese for sweet / cute/ cuddly / fluffy (it is also wrongly plural but hey, it was always plural on the boxes of buns and cakes we bought in Portugal, and I already mentionned how abysmal my Portuguese is).

Aesthetic: Puzzles, books and movies in a cozy cabin with a fireplace in a snowy Laurentian forest; late summer nights at the ballpark, days by the pool and vegetable patch, the smell of BBQ in the air; flour-dusted vintage aprons, new recipes, planning meals & drink pairings; periodic tables, Erlenmeyer flasks, just being a nerd.

Tagging anyone interested!

#friday ask game

[legendofthefireemblem]

☕️ tell me ur opinion/impressions of Ontario universities (as many or few as you would like) 😳 I know this is cheating as I have not offered an opinion so feel free to ignore, I’m just curious :)

it kind of turned into a gothic style post but I vibe: Laurentian - you are not scared of what lies up North Ottawa - you are here to be better at French and/or you want to live away from your parents Carleton - you passed a vibe check others failed Ryerson - is this even a university /s uh good for arts I guess but not necessarily a standout in anything OCAD - you live ArtTM York - you are slightly more scared of your university than most UofT - you were ambitious and filled with hope McMaster - you are competent in ways that most of us cannot comprehend Waterloo - you worship geese and are smart or was considered smart Laurier - you want to party Western - you also want to party except more exclusively Guelph - you are competent but not ambitious and have a small desire to party Queen’s - reputation is important and you have a spotless one

#ask #ontario #canada

[allbeendonebefore]

I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself. 

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

#hapo rambles #hapo replies #hapo rants #yeah y yeah alberta #projectcanada #iammatthewian #pc: alberta #iamp: alberta #Anonymous #will i actually directly address the survey #maybe later but i have other stuff to do #you can remind me

[xxrainbow-princessxx]

Happy Mother’s Day - Leo x Isabella

A short story for all the mama’s out there! ❤️ A sugary sweet story for a Sunday

@drakewalkerfantasy @lorirwritesfanfic @lorircreates @desireepow-1986 @liam-rhys @rainbowsinthestorm​ 

Quietly creeping into their parents room, Alessandra and Natalia tiptoed across the plush carpets towards their father’s side of the bed, the two four year old princesses were so excited to celebrate Mother’s Day and give Isabella her present from them. Leo had promised that he would help them make her a special Mother’s Day breakfast. “Papa” they whispered to him, as he snored, “Wake up...” The twins looked at each other unimpressed as their father didn’t answer, laying there at the edge of the bed as Isabella starfished out. “Papa!” They said a little louder, Alessandra being brave, shoved him slightly. With a snort, Leo opened his eyes wearily; slightly jumping as he saw his two daughters standing in front of him, both pulling on his muscular arm as hard as they could, “Come on!!”

Leo looked over his shoulder watching as Isabella continued to sleep before returning his attention to the girls placing his index finger across his lips, “Shush...” before he chuckled lowly, “Ok... ok... I’m up... we need to be very quiet though...” both girls nodded excitedly as Leo carefully draped the duvet back across her exposed shoulders as he got out of bed before he fixed the waistband of his pyjama pants that rested on his hips. Groggily, he followed the girls out of the room before picking them both up into his arms to carry them towards the kitchen, “You two never heard of a sleep in?” Leo quickly chuckled as they made their way through the eerily quiet Laurentian Palace. Leo had given everyone the day off to be at home with their families and to give the young Royal family some well deserved space.

“So what should we make mama today?” Leo cooed as his daughters draped their arms around his neck, “Cake!” Natalia exclaimed excitedly, Alessandra following with “Chocolate Cake!” both of their eyes widening in excitement at the thought of eating cake for breakfast. Leo began to laugh heartily, “I don’t think your mama would be too happy with us making chocolate cake for breakfast...” The little Princesses began to pout threatening a meltdown but all Leo could do was smile at their attempt, “But we can make one for mama later, is that ok?” Those two little madams had Leo wrapped around their little fingers; whatever they wanted, he would always find a way to make it happen but for now, he was concentrating on making breakfast. To placate the young Princesses further and his wife for the potential mess that was going to happen, he placed Alessandra and Natalia onto the ground before pointing over to the other side of the kitchen, “Papa will make pancakes if you both go and make mama her Mother’s Day cards over at the table...”

The Princesses happily drew on the pre-folded cards that Leo set out the evening before decorating them with glitter crayons and stickers as he began to mix up the crêpe batter. He chuckled to himself as he watched his girls colour in their cards with such concentration realising how much his life had changed for the better. Never in a million years did the former Crown Prince of Cordonia believe he would become domesticated and here he was washing and chopping up fresh fruit and making french press coffee. “Papa!!” Natalia shouted as they heard a quiet knock to the kitchen entrance, Leo allowed them to go to the door where a woman stood holding two bouquets of long stem red roses. “Good Morning... Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses... as you requested, the bouquets have been dethorned” The woman smiled warmly as she passed one bouquet to Natalia and the other to Alessandra. “Lia and Sasha... what do you say to the nice lady?” They both were a little shy, looking up to the florist with their glittering hazel eyes, “Gracias... thank you...”

With breakfast made and two excitable four year olds, Leo pushed the trolley as quietly as he could whilst Sasha and Lia followed behind him holding their bouquets of roses and each of them had a red leather box with their card that they held on so tightly to. As Leo looked behind him, his heart melted watching the two little Princesses concentrating so hard not to drop anything and he was so proud of them for wanting to make today special for their mama. With a gentle knock on their bedroom door, Leo opened it and allowed the girls to go first smiling as they ran to annoy their mother from her slumber. “Mama!!” They giggled in chorus, “Wake up, wake up Mama!!” Isabella slowly pulled herself up, propping herself against her multiple soft pillows smiling before leaning down and kissing them both “...Hola mis amores...” Isabella’s eyes widened with excitement, “What is all of this?”

As the twins passed Isabella the flowers, present and most importantly their cards, she happily lifted up her daughters into her and Leo’s super king size bed, cuddling them as Alessandra and Natalia were wrapped up underneath the covers as Isabella kissed the crown on the top of their heads before her dark chocolate brown eyes caught a very shirtless, muscle bound Leo which drew her eyes to his defined six pack. “Buenos días mi amor...” Isabella cooed as a coy smile spread across her lips, “Something smells amazing...” Leo dutifully served his three leading ladies their crêpe pancakes with strawberries and blueberries. Leo began to laugh heartily as he sat on top of the covers by Isabella’s legs, “It’s not hard to know where they get their sweet tooth from...” before taking a sip of his long awaited and well deserved cup of strong, black coffee.

Once Isabella and the twins finished their food, the twins began to fight between themselves of whose present Isabella would open first whilst trying to open the other one on her behalf. “Girls...” Leo spoke calmly with a firm tone, “Let mama open her presents... both of them are special... have patience...” Isabella opened both of the red leather Cartier boxes placing them onto the duvet as she smiled, staring at the two identical gold bracelets adorned with diamonds. Her almond shaped eyes narrowed slightly as she grinned, picking up each bracelet and noticing each of them were engraved with each daughters name before placing them onto her right arm. Isabella carefully closed the boxes, setting them on her nightstand before she leaned down to give Leo a gentle kiss to say thank you. Placing her hand delicately at the side of his cheek, the petite brunette placed her lips against his softly.

With a smirk as Isabella sat back, Leo cleared his throat, “I think mama has forgotten something... Sasha... Lia... Where are your cards?” Both of the little Princesses fumbled around, until they found their handmade cards, “Mira mama...” Leo cooed, “The girls got up extra early to make you cards... it was their idea to make today special for you...” Isabella put her arms around her daughters, giving them an extra big squeeze and cuddle, “Thank you my darlings for such a wonderful surprise!” The young Queen felt her eyes becoming hazy, blinking back the tears she felt coming. It always hit Isabella the hardest when she was able to have intimate moments with her family, just like this; it was those strands of normality that she craved which made everything else all so much more worthwhile.

With big yawns after all the excitement of the morning, Leo put the girls back to bed, returning to find his beautiful wife grinning from ear to ear as she smelt the long stemmed roses that she was gifted. With a smirk, Leo climbed into bed beside the gorgeous brunette. “Good morning beautiful...” he cooed into her ear as his lips barely grazed her neck. His hands wandered pulling up the ruby red silk chemise that lay against Isabella’s thigh towards her waist. “The girls are asleep... and we’ve got some time alone...” he whispered, “We should take advantage of that...” peppering Isabella’s neck and shoulder with kisses. With a raised brow, she sighed heavily, her shoulders dropped and began to count backwards, “5....4....3....2....” and right on queue, there the twins were back again running through the room with their dolls. Leo groaned as Isabella began to laugh, “You jinxed it mi amor...” Leo kissed her cheek gently, “Raincheck?” Smiling Isabella cooed, “Always...”

#Choices #The Royal Romance #leo x isabella #happy mothers day #king leo #queen isabella #Royal Romance #royal romance au #choices fanfic #choices fanfiction #choices the royal romance #theroyalromance #playchoices fanfic #playchoices #choices stories you play #choices: stories you play