If you enjoyed the dark humour and acerbic one-liners from The End of the F***ing World (TEOTFW), then we have some splendid news for you: it’s going to be back for a second season.

The Netflix black comedy, based on Charles Forsman’s graphic novel, ran for eight episodes earlier this year and ended on something of a cliffhanger.

SEE ALSO: 11 times Alyssa from ‘The End of the F***ing World’ was the ultimate DGAF badass

A cliffhanger that’s now — hopefully — going to be resolved.

That tweet was posted by the official TEOTFW Twitter account on Tuesday night. BuzzFeed reports that the announcement of a second season was made at the Edinburgh TV Festival, and that the new episodes will again be based on material written by Forsman.

Netflix posted a tweet confirming that Charlie Covell, who wrote Season 1, will return.

We don’t know much more than that at this stage, but it’s definitely more than enough to justify some early excitement.

“If you say ‘like’ one more time, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

These were the words uttered to me through gritted teeth as I sat in green plastic patio furniture on a humid summer night a few years back. The words dried on my tongue; I lost my train of thought. Moments before, I’d been embroiled in a heated debate about millennials and social media, as was my wont. My opponent was an older male journalist and, though he objected to the central thesis of my argument, he chose not to engage with my salient points. Instead he opted to attack something intensely personal: the way I speak. 

I came away from that interaction feeling a level of anger that I couldn’t quite put into words. I felt ridiculed, undermined, and — worst of all — newly self-conscious about a vocal tick of which I’d been erstwhile blissfully unaware.

I’m not alone. Women are criticised every day for the way they speak. And since terms like upspeak and vocal fry first entered the popular lexicon a few years ago, it’s only gotten worse. The buzzwords — which once described non-gender-specific speech patterns — have become yet another weapon used to silence women who dare to voice opinions. 

SEE ALSO: YouTube’s women of STEM make learning about science fun

They are “easy ways to tell women to shut up,” says Jessica Bennett — gender editor at The New York Times and author of Feminist Fight Club.

Women are constantly being told that their voices sound too high-pitched, too “Valley Girl,” too shrill. Women are told they apologise too much, that they use too many discourse markers — “like,” “ya know,” “I mean”— and that they’re exhibiting vocal fry and upspeak. Vocal fry means dropping your voice to its lowest natural register, which makes your vocal folds vibrate to produce a creaking sound. Upspeak or uptalk denotes ending a sentence with a rising-pitch intonation, which can sound like you’re asking a question. 

Once we had the words to define the perceived problem, critics couldn’t stop using them to belittle women. But the kicker is, in some cases, these behaviours are just as prevalent in men. 

Women in broadcasting frequently find themselves on the receiving end of invective about the way they speak. 

After a recent radio interview, Bennett received a tweet from a man telling her to “stop with the vocal fry.”

Annie Oh, a host of the Who The F**k Is Gossip Girl podcast, which aims to help a guy who’s never seen the drama understand its many scandals years after it went off air, was criticised for her use of the word “like” in an email from a listener. Oh says reading that email for the first time was “shitty,” particularly as half of the “essay-long” missive was dedicated to decrying how she speaks. 

“Considering it’s a free podcast, not advertised, this person went out of their way to find and listen to our podcast,” she says. “Dude, you can just stop listening to it.”

In an episode of This American Life (TAL), host Ira Glass addressed the emails being sent to the show’s female members of staff —  they’re “some of the angriest emails” the show gets. Glass read aloud one email that referred to Chana Joffe-Walt’s purported vocal fry: “The voice of Chana Joffe-Walt is just too much to bear and I turn off any episode she’s on.” Some of the words used to describe the voices of TAL’s female employees: “unbearable,” “annoyingly adolescent,” “beyond annoying,” “excruciating,” “detracts from the credibility of the journalist.” 

When journalist Jessica Grose was co-hosting Slate’s DoubleX Gabfest podcast, she also received emails criticising her for her upspeak. She was told she sounded like “a Valley Girl and a faux socialite,” and one interviewee said she “sounded like his granddaughter.” 

Women face a “double bind” when it comes to their voices, Bennett says. “Because our natural style of speech, which tends to be more flexible, experimental, and higher pitched, is not the style of speech that is typically associated with leadership,” says Bennett. “In fact, research has found that it’s perceived as insecure, less competent, and sometimes even less trustworthy.” 

Because of this, women employ tactics like vocal fry to make their voices sound deeper and more like those traditionally associated with leadership.

“So in effect, we’re combatting the inflection by trying to deepen our voices, but then arriving at a vocal fry register. Can’t win, right?” writes Bennett in Feminist Fight Club. In a nutshell, you’re damned if you do sound like a woman, and, well, you’re damned if you don’t. 

“Men do many of these things just as much (if not more) than women, but it’s women whose voices are constantly being policed.”

The internet is littered with utility posts instructing women how they can ditch these speech patterns to sound more professional, more confident, more capable. 

But the same isn’t true for men.

“Men do many of these things just as much (if not more) than women, but it’s women whose voices are constantly being policed,” Erez Levon, a lecturer in linguistics at Queen Mary University of London, told Mashable. Not only have men been the biggest exhibitors of vocal fry, the speech affect was actually started by men, as linguistics professor Penny Eckert — professor of linguistics at Stanford University — points out. “Vocal fry was actually associated with men’s speech, and particularly posh men (if you listen to upper-class British men speaking, you’ll hear it all over the place).”

So, if men exhibit vocal fry too, why aren’t they getting any stick for it? NYU linguistics professor Lisa Davidson, says because men’s voices tend to be lower in pitch, it’s harder to discern when they’re exhibiting vocal fry. Because women’s voices tend to be higher, “it’s really noticeable when a woman is changing from her normal voice to creaky voice, because of the pitch change.”

Uptalk is no different. A 2013 study busted the myth that this speech trend is exclusive to young women. “Men don’t think they do it, but they do,” said Amanda Ritchart, co-author of the project, said at the time. In a 2016 paper published in the Journal of Sociolinguistics, Levon found that both women and men in London exhibit uptalk, with men using it slightly more than women. He also noted that upspeak is more often employed by young white speakers in London — “older people and black and Asian speakers in London don’t really use uptalk nearly as much.” 

When it comes to filler words, researchers are divided. An analysis of the gender differences in use of discourse markers in televised interviews found that women did not use these words more frequently than men in their speech. But a study of 200 people by the University of Texas found that female speakers were more likely to use the discourse marker “like.” 

Levon says these behaviours aren’t gender specific, but rather “generation specific.” He says the emergence of vocal fry and uptalk over the past two decades can be linked to “changes in the structures of society,” and “women’s greater access to the labour market.” As society has changed over the years, so too have women’s voices. A study by the University of South Australia compared archival recordings of women’s voices taken in 1945 with recordings made in the 1990s. It was found that the “fundamental frequency” of women’s voices “dropped by 23 Hz” over 50 years. Per the BBC, researchers suspect the significant deepening of women’s voices reflects “the rise of women to more prominent roles in society” which has prompted them to “adopt a deeper tone to project authority and dominance in the workplace.”

Women’s voices and positions in society have changed over the years, but this persistent criticism of the female voice suggests that something is lagging behind: our perception of women. 

“I think if women had been in power for all of time, we’d be having this conversation about men’s voices,” says Bennett. 

Sadly, that isn’t the case. So, what can we do to move our perceptions forward? Acknowledging that there are fundamental linguistic differences in the way men, women, and non-binary people speak will help us accept that there isn’t just one homogenous, correct way to speak. Being open-minded and receptive to linguistic trends will serve every one of us well. 

Next time you find yourself feeling irritated by the way a woman speaks: ask yourself whether it’s truly the voice you find annoying — or rather the person it belongs to or the opinions they are expressing. 

What really needs to change isn’t women’s voices, but how we think about women and their voices. 

Music festivals are a double edged sword. Sure they can be a showcase for the best and most progressive in style, but they can also bring out some of the worst trash outfits the fashion industry has to offer. 

From cultural appropriation to just begging for heat stroke, here are nine terrible festival trends that need to be retired. 

1. Feathered clothing

Who among us has not wanted to look like a goth Big Bird? 

Honestly though, can you imagine how badly feathered clothing sheds? Nobody wants to be around a rapidly molting bird of prey while dancing. 

And how do you wash these things? Do you risk tumble drying it and looking like you just murdered a muppet, or do you resign yourself to never washing the grime out? 

2. Literally anything suede 

There’s nothing quite as uncomfortable as being stuck in a crowd of sweaty, dusty festival goers as you wait for the next set to go up. Now imagine that, but while slowly baking in a faux-suede bodysuit. 

Granted, suede is pretty cute so if you’re going to risk heat stroke, you might as well look good doing it. 

3. Latex apparel 

Sure, looking like a fashion forward oil spill is ideal, but why would you ever wear latex to a SUMMER event? The thing will just trap heat and sweat, dooming you to inevitably get stuck in its skintight grasp. 

Alternatives to latex: literally any fabric that lets your skin actually breathe.

4. Headdresses

This is just gross — headdresses hold deep cultural significance in many Native American tribes. Aside from cheapening the significance of the headdress by mass-producing these knock-offs, the trend is also glosses over the violent oppression Native American people have faced.

As activist Adrienne Keene wrote in her viral 2010 blog post about the practice of donning headdresses at festivals, “By dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the U.S. by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.”

5. Let’s just cancel all this cultural appropriation 

First of all, really, Dollskill? It is the year 2018, and you’re still selling something called the “fiery fortune” choker? Not only will you sweat straight through that satiny choker by end of the first set, but you’ll also look like a culturally offensive fool in the process. 

Capitalizing on cultural stereotypes has never been cute, but now that Google exists it’s pretty much inexcusable. 

6. The Matthew McConaghey

Justin Bieber’s 2018 Coachella outfit really was something else. He paired a floral button-down shirt with matching floral pants and topped it off a belt bag slung across his bare chest. Like Matthew McConaughey, who seems to have given up on his public appearance altogether, Bieber has mastered the art of not giving a shit. 

There are few fashion statements more subversive than looking like a hungover dad at a barbecue, so good for Bieber I guess. But if you’re not ultra famous, best of luck pulling it off.

7. Jumpsuits

OK, hear me out. While jumpsuits are the ultimate form of comfort — you’ve got the elegance of a dress, but the security of pants — there is no greater struggle than shimmying out of a jumpsuit in a public porta potty. 

You have to juggle squatting over the nasty seat while simultaneously holding up the jumpsuit’s hem to keep it safe from whatever hell sludge is on the floor. Is the #ootd post really worth the trauma of dipping your jumpsuit in poop water? 

8. Wearing other people 

Look, I get that it’s annoying to be at eye level with the rest of us commoners, but putting someone on your shoulders during a music festival is one of the rudest things you could possibly do. Nobody came here to get kicked in the face while your pal awkwardly sways atop your shoulders!

Please, just stop wearing other people at music festivals. 

9. Absurdly tiny fanny packs

Let me be the first to say that the fanny pack comeback was the best thing to happy to fashion. Finally, women’s apparel could make up for the tragic lack of pockets with a convenient, secure bag to hold your belongings! 

But despite the fact that phones are getting bigger, these “belt bags” started getting smaller. How are you supposed to keep your wallet in one of these things, much less other festival essentials like sunscreen and snacks? 

We still have a few more months of music festivals coming our way — whatever hellish outfits upcoming festivals spawn, they probably can’t be worse than wearing skintight latex in the sweltering summer. 

I had a chance to play Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the new ninja game from the developers of Dark Souls, and wow did that game wipe the floor with me.

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At a hands-on event ahead of Gamescom, I watched Activision’s Miles Winzeler play through a chunk of Sekiro and then got to try it for myself. As someone who’s played a fair amount of Dark Souls games and Bloodbourne, I was pretty confident in myself after seeing Winzeler defeat a handful of enemies and a couple mid-bosses with relative ease. 

Once the controller was in my own hands, I quickly found out I was wrong.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice kind of looks like a Souls game that was transplanted to 16th century Japan and brightened up a bit. But the second I started moving, I noticed that this game felt much different.

First of all, the weight of the character Sekiro feels much lighter than the typical Souls character and his movement feels much more free. He’s so light, in fact, that he can grapple up onto tree limbs, roof tops, and various other advantageous precipices to get the jump on enemies, escape danger, or just enjoy the view.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice forced me out of my Dark Souls comfort zone

As a shinobi (a.k.a. ninja), Sekiro is adept with his blades, so sword arts (special moves that do more damage) pop up pretty frequently, like when he launches down on unsuspecting enemies and pins them to the ground with his sword.

The crux of the game, combat, is where I had the most trouble. My tried and true method of dodging and blocking enemy attacks that I learned from Dark Souls didn’t prove to be as useful in Sekiro.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice forced me out of my Dark Souls comfort zone with its focus on breaking down enemies’ stances with well-time parries and cuts, opening them up finishing moves to take away large chunks of their health. Rolling and hacking wasn’t working.

And so I died to the first mid-boss. But lucky for me, the mechanic that makes Sekiro unique lies in its subtitle: you get to revive once and try again, effectively allowing you to die twice.

Even with that crutch, I was still unable to defeat the first mid-boss and move onto the second section of demo. I tried four times and I just couldn’t do it. With the limited amount of time I had to play, I was more focused on rushing through the fight than taking my time to figure out the nuances of the mechanics, which is clearly what I needed to do in order to succeed.

It reminded me of the first time I played Dark Souls, in which it took me a few hours to really become confident in myself. It also seems to be just as engrossing, and I am excited to sink more time into it and figure out how to beat that mid-boss.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice slices its way onto PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on March 22.

Bob Odenkirk is pretty big these days, thanks to his role on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.

He’s that famous now that he “qualifies for an entourage,” which is something we’re sure famous people don’t really look forward to, but inevitably happens anyway.

Nevertheless, Odenkirk doesn’t really know what to do with them. “Can I ask them to do stuff? We don’t have any shared interests,” he said.

Unfortunately, Conan won’t let Odenkirk dump them. Maybe another late night show will take ’em?

Look, we’re all hoping there’s some truth to the possibility of romance between two main characters in Stranger Things Season 3 — and so is Millie Bobby Brown.

Brown, who plays Eleven in the beloved Netflix series, fully supports co-star David Harbour’s teased idea of characters Chief Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers falling in love, telling Variety she “would love for them to get together.”

SEE ALSO: ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3 will be inspired by an ’80s Chevy Chase movie

Talking to the publisher at an Emmy nomination event for Stranger Things in New York on Tuesday, Brown said she was in full support of a love story between her onscreen counterpart’s guardian, Hopper, and friend Will’s mum, Joyce.  

“Listen, I would love for them to get together. Jopper is like my inspiration in life,” she said.

“Winona Ryder and David Harbour are like my parents. On set, they’re like, ‘Stop running, what are you eating, why are you eating that?’ David is like, ‘Another boy?’ And in the show, if they rekindle, that means Will and Eleven will be step-siblings. I would love that because Noah [Schnapp] is my boy best friend.”

Harbour teased fans about the undeniable chemistry between his character and Winona Ryder’s Joyce during a Q&A at a similar Emmy nomination celebration on Friday.

“It’s the summer of love in Hawkins, Indiana,” he said during the event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

“It’s a really fun season where you’re gonna get to see these characters experience summer in Indiana, and there’s this sense of new relationships. It’s sort of a big celebration of love. That’s all I can say.”

Back in NYC, Brown also offered up a few thoughts on Season 3, confirming Harbour’s assertion that the next chapter will be more serious than the first two seasons. “It’s definitely going to get darker,” she said in a Q&A hosted by MTV’s Josh Horowitz after the screening.

“I think Eleven should sacrifice herself in some way,” she said, according to the publisher. “That’s how I kind of want that situation to go. I want to have her really sacrifice her powers. 

“If Eleven loses her powers, is she as powerful just as a character? I think that would be very cool. I want to build her to be a strong person without her powers…But right now it’s very about her powers and I think taking that away slowly could be cool.”

Stranger Things Season 3 will be dropping on Netflix in summer 2019. Now, back to dreaming about Joyce and Hopper, sittin’ in a tree. 

Additional reporting by Jess Joho.