#Please for the love of God people need lessons in analysis and critical thinking

[batfamfucker]

What About The Kens?

I'm already seeing guys complain about the Barbie movie end, how they wanted Kens to be equal in Barbieland but were only given a small part on the Cabinet.

That's the point.

You're meant to feel bad for the Kens. Believe me, women aren't partying over the 'Returns to Matriarch' ending. Some will be, but the ones who also clocked the meaning behind it won't. Most women will also feel bad for Kens. Because it's an exact parallel to how women are treated in reality.

Men, you're meant to be upset. You're meant to question it. Because you're meant to feel it, and feel what that is like, so you can finally understand women. You're upset at seeing it in a movie, now imagine living it in reality. That's being a woman.

Kens were shit on so you could feel what it was like for women this entire time. Kens were being used as a placement so you could see yourself in a woman's shoes. A world dominated by the opposite sex. When Ken leaves, and sees male presidents (All men) for the first time, men being doctors and lawyers, etc, realising he is more than just a prop for Barbie, that was on purpose. Because that is the feeling that Barbie gave to women. It's why you cheer for him at first before he goes a little overboard.

It's exactly why the real world was an exaggerated Partriarchy and Barbieland an exaggerated Matriarchy. Neither wins. Neither is equal. None of them change for the better. It's why you should want women in the real world to be respected, and Kens in Barbieland to be respected.

The thing is, women also didn't win. Not in the real world. In Barbieland, yes, but not anywhere else. The real world didn't change. But you didn't notice, did you? That Gloria (The mother that helped Barbie) also didn't get a position on the Mattel board? It was still all men? Her idea was ignored until it made a profit, and the men will likely get the credit? She'll still just be the receptionist? The women representing the real world didn't get anymore opportunities, neither did the men in Barbieland.

I was hoping that Gloria would be offered a position on the board, and that the Barbie Cabinet would introduce another entire Cabinet to represent the Kens, but neither happened. They're complete mirrors.

But which one did you actually notice? Which did you actually care about? Now tell me again the ending was unfair. Because it was. For both parties. That's the point.

The difference is, Barbieland is fictional. You will walk out of the theatre with the reassurance that at least it's not real. Women won't. Women can't. Companies not giving women equal opportunities or voices isn't fictional, and that was just one example. There are no women presidents (USA at least) for us to go look at in the real world. We don't have somewhere to go to realise it could be different for us like Ken did. Barbie and make believe is all we had when we were kids, or even now.

You're supposed to be mad, just not at the movie.

#It's going right over people's heads #I've seen men complaining about the inequality. That's the point. Now you know how it feels. Apply that same frustration #And turn it into empathy for women in reality. Because it's not nice is it? #Please for the love of God people need lessons in analysis and critical thinking #It's not a 'women just hate men and this is a women only movie' #It's please realise that you've seen what it's like to be in women's shoes. Now be the change for women that you wanted for Kens. #Barbie #Barbie Spoilers

[coloricioso]

Replying to this post @alatismeni-theitsa

Sorry I don't reblog from the actual one, but it is getting too long :(

I will reiterate which is the most important thing to me: Greek gods do not eat food.

1) There is no single myth where a Greek god eats food. The ooonly one could be the story of Tantalus cutting his son Pelops into pieces and serving it in a feast to the gods, supposedly Demeter was so distracted by her mourning for Persephone she that she ate a piece of meat, the shoulder. But that is not told by Hesiod, Homer o similar authors, but a later retelling, and it's still an abnormal context since Demeter's grief. Also that story does contradict Demeter's fasting, so this does not count for me.

Eating and needing food is what distinguishes mortals from the gods. That is one of the deep lessons from Prometheus' myth when he tries to trick Zeus. He takes the bones and wraps them in fat and gives them to Zeus, while keeping the meat for himself and humans, but that action seals Zeus' victory because it reveals humans true nature VS the divine nature which needs no food to live eternally.

What would be the logical explanation for that? Persephone is not a human. The fact she eats food contradicts entire Greek myth logic. Why does that happen in this myth only? Did Ancient Greeks copy this myth from another culture where gods do eat food and forgot their gods only eat ambrosia?

2) Second, Persephone is not a human. So despite of human suffering and real experiences, she is not a human. She is a goddess, as mighty and as powerful as any other god in the pantheon. And she is daughter to Zeus, king of the gods, and Demeter, great goddess herself. Why would Persephone be portrayed in such a poor way? Weak, careless, abscent minded and too ignorant of divine rules? If you take the abduction and the pomegranate feeding literally and ignore its symbolic religious context, then it translates into Persephone being weak enough to be carried away, weak enough to be forced to eat, ignorant enough to ignore what non-god food means (so suiting for a goddess related to earth ferility???).

To think of her like that would be disrespectful to her divine nature. If Ancient Greek philosophers spoke of her as wise and she, herself, and her marriage, was worshipped, why am I supposed to stick to an interpretation where she is shown as nothing but a human (not a goddess in any sense) and not only a human, but a defenseless and ignorant one?

3) Then, again, because of aidos women are asked to be modest. Pausanias tells a story where Icarius complains that Penelope can't leave him and then Odysseus asks Penelope what does she want, if to stay with her father or to go with him as his wife. Penelope's answer is to cover her face with her veil. She does not speak (it would be shameful for her to do so, to say out loud that she prefers her husband rather than her father, pretty much like Persephone can't tell Demeter she doesn't want to stay all the time with her). In many of vase paintings where Hades is abducting Persephone, she covers is doing the veil gesture.

4) Also, most of the scholar comments go in this way: In 372 (“ἔδωκε φαγεῖν”) nothing is said of the compulsion on which Persephone here insists. Plainly Hades did not use actual force or compulsion of any kind, especially as Hermes was present.

I know bia involves violence, but here are examples of unreliable narrators: Demeter herself in the Hymn, she tells Eleusinian people an entire made up story of how she was abducted by pirates (and if I don't recall wrong she uses same expression as Persephone, speaking of bia). Another unreliable narrator is Odysseus, he lies and makes up stories a lot (he even does that to Athena who laughes for that). I've read scholars who compare Persephone to Odysseus for the made up speeches. So again, the fact Persephone contradicts the narrator either means, 1) she did not want to eat (does not makes sense for all what I said before), 2) she did not know the consequence of eating (meaning she is basically a thoughtless goddess, why do we even praise her???), 3) she did want but she can't admit it because it would be shameful or it would upset her mother (and this is what most of scholars agree).

5) So, sorry, I have a big trouble trying to understand why Persephone would have been depicted as a goddess who is so weak and ignorant, when the religious cult is the opposite. And please, I am not victim blaming because again, Persephone is a goddess, not a human. In no way this analysis can be applied to actual victims of violence, please.

If the hymn is supossed to be readen this way, then I will agree with the Ancient Greek philosophers who criticized myths for being disrespectful to deities nature.

And even if she was tricked and forced to go back to the underworld every year, which would represent most of non wanted ancient marriages, then I fail to see why only Persephone's marriage is an issue meanwhile all the other couples in Greek mythology are ok.

If in the Hymn to Demeter, Persephone is supposed to have a complete "human nature" all the time, first symbolizing the human soul journey (abduction) and then human reality (arranged or forced marriage) the thing is that the other myths or religious cult do not speak of bad fate, hostility or an awful marriage. Even if Persephone was tricked, the Hymn basically says "mothers, don't worry, your daughter will still be happy; you woman, don't worry, you'll still get honros and have a good husband". In no way the Hymn implies "be sad because you're spending the rest of your life in disgrace". Unlike Medea's speech where she complains on women's bad fate.

Zeus and Hera are an odd example of a willingly married couple (Hera was not given away by her father) and mythology portrays their marriage terribly (unlike religious cult where it was a sacred union). Not even Odysseus and Penelope were willingly married (it was an arranged marriage, pretty much a prize for Odysseus) and yet they are one of the greatest loving marriages from Ancient Greek mythology. So in any way, I don't understand what is the whole issue with Persephone. People make such a big fuss about a 2000 year old (or even older) myth -that was part of an ancient religion- but they seem fine with MODERN FICTION (having no religious or symbolic background) like LO that has real moral issues we should be addressing.

#long post #persephone #hades and persephone

[sketching-shark]

I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

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PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure. 

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work. 

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst. 

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. 

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).   

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Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity. 

----

 As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

#journey to the west #jttw #guanyin #sun wukong #monkey king #monkie kid #fandom #fandom critical

[marvelandponder]

M.A. Larson Roasts the Fandom

Well, originally it was his, at least. From what we can gather, it seems this was an old script they had lying around from when Larson worked on the show, and they’ve retooled it to work for the current season.

Who exactly did the rearranging is still a mystery, although if I had to throw a guess out there, it would make sense that this season’s story editors Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco (otherwise known as the Lady Writers) were the ones giving the script its updates.

If so, that explains why it came out so fantastically despite Larson saying he wasn’t happy with the final product.

From what very little I know about the industry, it’s not uncommon for writers to watch their scripts be turned into something totally, soul-crushingly different from their original vision. So, I’m hoping that behind-the-scenes communication issue is fixed. Even if it doesn’t always affect episode quality, we ended up losing a good writer over it, and I can’t imagine it feels good to put your heart and soul into something only for it to be changed before it airs.

That being said, it’s almost ironic that it happened with such a meta episode. Larson usually gets blamed for the Twilicorn fiasco despite his original script being totally different. So it’s kinda funny that Magical Mystery Cure got him flak for years and this episode — which ended up being sort of an encore after his grand finale with Amending Fences — is yet another episode that was changed without his consent but this time it ended up being pretty well loved (on the whole).

Life has a weird sense of humour like that.

I had to start with that behind-the-scenes stuff because I’m shocked—shocked—that they managed to make an episode that’s somehow even more meta than Slice of Life.

Not only that, but because of its weird production history it’s an episode that perfectly blends the old feel of MLP with the new. I really can’t tell you how much of Larson’s script they kept intact (he seemed to imply not a lot, but it feels so much like classic MLP that I almost refuse to believe some of this stuff wasn’t from him), but this is such a weirdly perfect episode because it brings that Return of Harmony feel to the season 7 version of these characters and this world.

And to top it all off, as a long-time fan of the show whose been in the fandom since season 2, the ponifed mirror it holds up to the fans is just hilarious. 

Pictured above: us rn

Like, actually the best thing. It’s a funny episode for causal fans, but for hardcore fans, it’s amazing—and any commentary that can add a layer for those in the know, but not detract anything for the little fans or casual viewers, is just golden.

It also sort of exemplifies what there is to love about Larson. Even if nothing but his original concept ended up being used (still don’t believe that), it makes perfect sense that this came from him. The smart edge he was willing bring to Pony will forever be missed.

But, at least we have one last hurrah! Sort of. So without further introduction, allow me to fangirl over and pretend to analyze an episode about the dangers of missing the point by over-analyzing!

… wait.

Not Just a “It’s Just a Kids Show” Argument

Okay, so when you’re a huge fan of cartoons made for children, you tend to come across this argument a fair bit: it’s just a kids show. Why are you looking so deep into it? Don’t over-analyze it, it’s made for kids.

At glance you might think that’s what this episode is arguing, too, that if adult fans want to watch, they should keep in mind that it’s just for kids and not overthink it.

But that argument tends to come with the connotation that kids shows aren’t deep at all and can’t be meaningful because they’re made for kids. And it doesn’t take me to tell you, a cartoon fan, that that’s just not the case.

This episode isn’t devaluing what kids enjoy, or even saying all deep thought over what was intended to be fun, silly, and heartfelt is bad. But it is a reminder not to get so lost in that overthinking that you miss out on what the show’s really about: the fun, silly, cute horses learning cheesy, but still incredibly earnest lessons on life, love, and (of course) friendship.

And this isn’t exactly a middle finger to the fandom, either---I’ve seen it taken that way a few times, too. If you remember Slice of Life and even the convention scenes of Stranger than Fanfiction at all, you’ll remember M.A. Larson (who wrote Slice of Life) and the rest of the staff actually love our creativity and world-building. They dedicated an entire episode, the show’s 100th, to characters the fans created themselves. 

And yes, even our analysis community is well-loved by the staff if Quibble Pants is anything to go by (his character may grate on Dash’s nerves from time to time, but he’s also portrayed as incredibly smart, inventive, and learns a lesson in the end to become a better pony).

So, please don’t misunderstand: they do still love our passion and even our crazy, overly-deep ideas, and you can even make criticisms if you want (I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s an anti-criticism thing, either), but the point is that we need just need to keep things in perspective, or else miss out on the fun of it all.

And, that this show is meant for kids. Not “just for kids,” like that’s a bad thing, but that kids are, have been, and will forever be the target audience, and that’s something we should always have a respect for.

I’ve always loved that about the staff. That they have a great love for the young fans of the show, and they’ll always put them first. It’s the way it should be, even with a an older fanbase that they also love dearly (despite our many, many flaws; which come to think of it mirrors the lesson the mane 6 are trying to teach).

So, yeah, this is one of the funniest lessons the show has had to date, and but also one that carries a lot of meaning, for fans young and old.

I warned you that this would be a lot of fangirling.

Character Growth, Comedy, and Criticisms

God, this episode has so much going for it… I’m just sitting here trying to think of where to start and remembering just how much there is to enjoy here.

Okay, for starters, he nailed the fanbase’s biggest hangups over the years:

Fluttershy: Learning the same lesson over and over Pinkie Pie: Considered flanderized when she seems too silly/not grounded in the moment (think Filli Vanilli, the colouring book in Princess Twilight Part 1, or the balloon distracting her in Three’s a Crowd) Rainbow Dash: Hardcore fans claim she’s perfect, is best pony Twilight: Was better before the wings, or would’ve been better if ____ had happened Applejack and Rarity are hilariously switched. Rarity is the background pony getting all the criticism every time she does anything (has an episode), and Applejack is the one that’s praised to the point of obsession.

Spike, ironically, doesn’t have a role in this episode, and you can tell just based on some of her lines that Starlight took his spot in the rewrites (Spike totally would’ve stayed behind with Rarity in the exact same way). I’m a bit bummed they didn’t put in a joke or two for him, because he did write in that journal, too. They could’ve even commented on whether or not he’s considered part of the friend group (a major character or a supporting character), but there’s only so much running time.

I love that the CMC just got popular on the playground for their entries. Like, no drama there, they’re just loved because they’re adorable and sweet, and isn’t that accurate though?

Also: they actually are going to have an episode later this season about that summer camp idea they had, called Marks and Recreation. And some people wonder why I love the later seasons.

And I like that by calling some things out in-episode, like Fluttershy’s baby steps or Pinkie’s silliness, they actually get a chance to say, yeah, you might be legitimately right, but here’s how they’ve grown as characters.

Even just listening to some of the lyrics of the song: Rainbow Dash’s ego is huge, but it gives her the courage to fail, Pinkie might seem overly excited on the outside, but it’s just because she’s so excited to be with her friends. Twilight’s was a bit rushed to get to the chorus, but aside from hers, they each get at the heart of why these characters are so compelling and endearing and I just?

I just really love that.

Oh and I want to take a moment to appreciate the design of the song, because Daniel Ingram puts in so much freakin’ thought to these sometimes. The point of the song is that their flaws are what make them who they are, and by extension make them friends, so what does Ingram do?

Not only gives them each a verse to detail one of their biggest flaws, but lets them come together in perfect harmony for the chorus. That perfectly matches the meaning of the song.

If it sounds similar to another season 7 song because of that harmony, you’re not wrong: it’s similar in structure to Until the End of Time (or was it When We’re with Our Team?), only that was half a joke song: the point was that in comparison to Starlight and Trixie, the girls have a ridiculously easy time getting along. Super catchy and upbeat, but also a lot more vague than Flawless because it’s focusing on just how well they get along after all this time of being friends. So, this episode’s song ends up being the more meaningful of the two.

Oh, and then there’s Starlight Glimmer in a supporting role! See, this season has been letting her play the supporting role instead of always being the star or costar in her appearances, which really helps integrate her more and more into the cast. Even though she comes up with the idea of showing the girls they’re appreciated, she doesn’t overshadow their efforts to solve the problem.

A part of me doesn’t like that she had to take Spike’s role in the episode to do it, and again, that would’ve been remedied if Spike had a small joke about being on the run from crazy fans asking how close he is to Twilight and the girls really. It’s not like whoever revised this episode didn’t have a great sense of humour too---if nothing else, our Mystery Editor(s) definitely must’ve put in Starlight’s line about needing to copy the Communist Manifesto, so I’m sure they also could’ve reworked something funny for Spike quickly.

But at least we have a Spike episode this coming week to help make up for it.

Back to this episode, can we just. 

Can we JUST appreciate the comedy?

Not even ‘oh this episode made the giggles’ but just like... the sheer variety of kinds of jokes? We had slapstick, we had sight gags, we had things floating into frame, we had the frame moving over to the punchline, we had ridiculously hilarious expressions, character humour, smartly written lines, and to put the cherry on the cake of course, we had meta humour.

Like, this episode is a comedic gold mine.

It makes me appreciate the different kinds of humour the show has to offer. Dr. Wolf just recently made a video on the lack of slapstick in MLP in recent seasons, and as a fan of director Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, At World’s End, Baby Driver, etc), I recently watched a video on how he does visual comedy like no other director. Give it a watch if you’re interested.

So, yeah, since most episodes have one or two styles of comedy they rely more heavily on, it’s just refreshing to get a full buffet.

Oh, but even after the lesson, I should probably still say something critical in this this critical analysis, shouldn’t I?

Well, fine. 

For one, the townsponies viewing the mane 6 differently once they know their personal thoughts is somewhat reasonable, but if you take a step back from the meta of the episode, it does put this episode in the category of: the town acts like jerks for an episode... episode

I find it hilarious and don’t have much of a problem with it, but I realize that for some, this is an actual problem because this is supposed to be such a loving, kind world.

At least this time there’s a reason for them to go total Jerk---unlike, say the marketplace in Putting Your Hoof Down or the squabbling delegates of Princess Spike---but for some this is going to be an issue.

Also, you have to wonder if they censored some things in the journal, because otherwise, everyone now knows Daring Do is A.K. Yearling...

... unless that’s what upcoming episode Daring Done is about. Have I mentioned I love the continuity in this show?

Oh, and I think I might make the details section its own post this time. Normally save a space at the bottom to highlight small details I liked in an episode, but this post has already become a huge love-letter, so I should probably spare your dash from being eaten alive.

So, overall, to me, this episode is kind of masterful. Larson was definitely the man for the job: I can’t think of anyone else who could so eloquently put the fandom in their place without straight up insulting them---or have the cojones to try! All while reminding the fandom of all the reasons there are to like the show in the first place!

Brilliant in concept, and in execution, so even though I spent this post praising Larson himself, I’ve also gotta give some love to the current staff members for this one. Like I said, it blends classic MLP sensibilities with all the polish, development, and emphasis on continuity of the current seasons, and for that, it’s a truly unique, wonderfully insightful episode.

And right off the heels of The Perfect Pear, which was an emotional masterpiece in my eyes, too! Right now, I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be an MLP fan.

Need more pony? I always do. That’s why I have all these episode reviews and editorials for you! And to make it easier, have the last three things I’ve done:

Hard to Say Anything Review, Honest Apple Review, and SciTwi v.s. Twilight

Year of the Pony

Special Thanks to Millennial Dan on Deviantart, who made the Microphone vector for the logo! And Kishmond for the book vector!

Is MLP Officially the Most Meta Cartoon Yet or What? 

#year of the pony #fame and misfortune #mlp #yearofthepony #mlp reviews #my little pony #friendship is magic #mlp:fim #mlp: fim #twilight sparkle #fluttershy #pinkie pie #rarity #applejack #rainbow dash #starlight glimmer #the cutie mark cursaders #mlp season 7 #mlp s7 #mlp analysis #cartoons #animation

[nathandgibsca]

Stop All Social Media Activity (Organic) | Solve For A Profitable Reality

Life is short.

It is time to point out an ugly truth, and to be the brave person that you are, the intelligent rational assessor of reality that you are, and kill all the organic social media activity by your company.

All of it.

Seems radical, but let’s take it one step at a time.

To give you a sense of the depth and breadth of ideas I’ll cover today, here are the sections in this post:

+ The Promise of Marketing Utopia. + The Broken Promise of Marketing Utopia, Implications. + The Broken Promise of Marketing Utopia: Examples. + Win Big: Stop Posting Content for Organic Reach On Social Channels. + Is the Huge Audience on Social Media Platforms Completely Useless? + Is the Idea of Marketing Utopia Permanently Dead? + Bottom-line.

I urge you to have an open mind. My plan is to challenge your critical thinking skills, and share lessons that will apply broadly across the professional effort you put day in and day out. Most of all, I’m excited to frame an important problem, and present solutions that will transform an important part of your marketing strategy.

Let’s go!

The Promise of Marketing Utopia. 

I hate pimping (what marketing has come to be). I adore building meaningful relationships – the kind of long-term connections where a brand truly gives a f about their customers, and gives something of value in exchange for their attention. I LOVE brands that can pull this off, and support them with my un-asked-for evangelism and precious $$$s.

Hence, you can imagine how gosh darn excited I was at the advent of Facebook and Twitter (first real social networks). There were a billion people there, spending a meaningful amount of time on these wonderful platforms. Excitedly, brands could have a presence (a "page") where they could contribute meaningful updates (info-snacks) in order to be a part of the organic conversations people were already having by the tens of millions.

Daily meaningful brand connections would be converted into brand familiarity, shifts in brand perception, feeding brand loyalty. #orgasmic

If you were a travel company, meaningful would now translate into helping feed wanderlust. The company could contribute info-snacks about where people should go, exposing the coolest places in the world, helping people travel better via tips, pictures, videos… you know… communicating travel love. The one thing a travel company would have in common with travel customers. The most imaginative travel marketers could even extend this opportunity to helping connect the purpose of their existence, selling tickets and hotel rooms, to helping people create moments of happy by crafting day/s of escape from the rough and tumble of life.

Glorious, right? If you work at Expedia or Cathay Pacific, does that not make you want to come to work and, for at least a part of your employment, create meaning? How rare is that!

If you were Cisco, meaningful would mean sharing info-snacks whose entire purpose could be to get Engineers promoted. Share tips, ideas, schematics, usage shortcuts, creative implementations, solutions to top problems that hold Engineers back… you know… understanding your audience deeply and give them something of value in exchange for their attention. The most imaginative B2B marketers could even figure out how to be a part of solving some of the deepest entrenched problems in the industry (STEM education, equal opportunity, + +) and in turn add an entire value-system to their brands.

Amazing, right?

Marketing based on something real, rather than a coupon or company brochure.

The Broken Promise of Marketing Utopia, Implications. 

None of the above transpired on Social platforms.

Businesses of all types, including Google (SMB, Main), got on amazing platforms like Facebook (and Weibo, Instagram, Pintrest etc.) and started pimping. All that their collective imagination could manifest in a Utopia-possible environment was: LOOK ME I AM SO PRETTY!! BUY NOW!!!

Stuff that is a turn off.

Consider the Google’s first FB page above, it is a complete disaster with not a single post in the last six months being of even five seconds of value to any small business. That page, or the main one, is not an overt Buy Now, but if you think critically like the tough Marketer I want you to be you’ll have a hard time finding a single post that’s solving for Google’s human customers. Almost every single one is pimping Google (or pimping random research Google has commissioned – to pimp Google!). The non-value is so transparent, yet they post every single day something that basically is solving for Google (although only God knows what that is). If someone bothers to interact with the post, the posted comment is a spam or totally useless. Yet. They keep posting. Polluting utopia.

Google is not unique in not understanding the promise, checkout your company’s FB page.

This strategy by businesses lead to what I now call the Zuck Death Spiral. ZDS.

Real humans on Social platforms quickly got turned off by these low-grade Social contributions/posts by companies. That meant humans (us!) refused to engage with them. This was noticed by Team Zuck, who started to slowly turn down the presence of company posts in User feeds. This lead to less Reach for brands. Which in turn lead to even fewer customer interactions for content posted by brands. Which was duly noted once more by Team Zuck. Which… you know where this is going, tightened the screws on organic Reach even more. And, here we are in a barren desert for brands on FB.

Most brands get less than 1% Reach via their organic contributions on social platforms. And, less than 1% engagement of any kind from that less than 1% reached (identified using the best social media metrics: Conversation Rate, Amplification Rate, Applause Rate).

ZDS is solving for FB, as FB should, and it is an attempt to solve for FB’s users.

So… If all you can do is overtly or covertly pimp… And, pimping is not cheap (that Google page, and your company’s page, has pictures, videos, an agency deployed, internal company employees with a “social media execution checklist”, senior leadership time committed, and more)… And, all it does is get you 1% Reach, max, with almost no engagement… Why do you still have an active (organic) social media effort?

Why is this reality not smacking some sense into your marketing strategy?

The Broken Promise of Marketing Utopia: Examples. 

Is it difficult to check if your brand is caught up in the Zuck Death Spiral? No.

Do you have access to any data to measure how deeply non-impactful your organic Social Media efforts are? OMG, yes.

Everything you need, data and information, to do an audit is public.

All you have to do is visit your company’s Facebook page (or Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. presence).

Let me show you what to look for. Let’s start with Expedia. They have 6.4 million Likes as of today. Go look at any post on the page if you are an Expedia employee.

First thing you’ll look at is the Applause Rate (likes, other emotions, you’ll see it right under the photo). That number is 75. Divide that by 6,462,977 (potential audience size today).

0.00113%. That’s a painful stab in your heart.

Next Conversation Rate (comments, you’ll see a total at the end of your posts). 7. Divide that by 6,462,977. A sad 0.00011%.

Finally, my favorite sign that you truly added value to a human rather than pimp, Amplification Rate (shares). 3/6,462,977. At this point you are weeping with me: 0.00005%.

To give you some context as to how insanely lame these numbers are, Expedia.com received 59,400,000 Visits in May 2017. This post accomplished 75+7+3. More people walk into the Expedia lobby in Bellevue, WA, every second of every minute.

You might be screaming that is not fair Avinash, the Zuck Death Spiral ensures that a tiny fraction of 6,462,977 are seeing Expedia’s posts! Very fair point. But, is the Social Media Budget at Expedia not justified based on the potential from 6,462,977? Would Expedia commit it’s multi-million-dollar budget to Social Media based on the potential to engage 75+7+3 people on Planet Earth?

One final point. Brand destruction.

Pretty much every single comment on pretty much every single Expedia post is a complaint about how horrible Expedia is (from personal experience I know this is not true). If your Facebook presence is solely to inspire people (see Trish Sayler above) to create clever rhymes about how bad you are… Why are you on Social Media?

Ignore the active smearing of the Expedia brand, let’s go back to data: Is it worth have 75 | 7 | 3 as the value delivered from an organic Social Media strategy for a company with 54,900,000 Visits?

My answer is an emphatic no. Expedia should immediately cease 100% of its organic Social activity.

1/100th of the Social Media budget could be spent on any other random digital strategy to get 75+7+3, and have zero brand destruction!

Oh. And while I’m focusing on Facebook for the sake of simplicity, everything in this post applies to all other Social Media channels. The Utopia failures. The lack of imagination. The small numbers. The uselessness.

Here for example is a post on Twitter by Expedia:

The numbers: 9 | 2 | 2. Divided by 391,000 (followers).

You can do the math and assess dent in the universe this content contribution from Expedia is making.

Almost nothing. Technically, perhaps less than nothing.

I hate making recommendations based on outliers, please know that Expedia is the norm. Hence, the title of this blog post.

Here’s a B2B example, a company I think well of… Cisco.

Go through the same analysis.

Your numbers are 31 | 1 | 3. Divided by 845,921.

Would you spend a single hard-earned Cisco router and switches dollar to get this as the return from a multi-million dollar Social Media budget?

Like my company, your company, and Expedia, Cisco gets no value from their organic Social Media efforts. Technically, Cisco is getting negative returns once you account for the people, process, tools, agency, leadership investments.

Let’s switch gears and look at a B2C company with a massively positive opportunity to leverage the word Social in every way on these platforms… Chick-fil-A.

Better numbers, as you might expect.

1k | 89 | 73. Divided by 7,775,155.

Consider it. Chick-fil-A could buy the most remnant TV inventory on a channel least watched by humans during the middle of the night and get better Reach. And they can also measure how many of them walked into a Chick-fil-A in the next 12 hours.

Does the above number justify custom videos, images, active posting by Click-fil-A on Facebook?

One final example to bring this home.

ProjectManager.com is a lovely tool. It is wonderful that they use folks like Jennifer Bridges, Susanne Madsen and others to create very helpful Project Management videos on YouTube. It seems they are a medium-sized business.

Here’s their Facebook page:

69 | 0 | 25. Divided by 62,951.

Pound for pound, better performance than all three (four including Google) companies above. Shame on them.

Still. Are the resulting Applause Rate, Conversation Rate and Amplification Rate enough for a smaller business to use it’s precious marketing dollars on this Social Media strategy/impact?

Consider this as well for all brands… There is no native discovery model on these Social channels. Your content will live for 20 minutes and then it is dead. Not just because of ZDS, but also because there is no Search behavior by users or a method that would deliver Serendipitous Discovery of content you post.

Unlike say on YouTube, or your Blog, where your Subscribers will see the content right away, and then through Bing and Yandex and YouTube itself people will find your content when relevant and keep viewing it. Your content there has a live beyond 20 minutes.

Win Big: Stop Posting Content for Organic Reach On Social Channels. 

Given the numbers above, and be sure to check any other Social Media channel your company is actively investing in, I hope you have the input you need to apply your critical thinking skills.

Let me give you one final push: You have better alternatives to drive short and long-term Profitability for your company (rather than investing in organic Social Media).

Here’s an example.

I write an insightful newsletter with the singular aim of improving your salary. The Marketing < > Analytics Intersect. You should sign up. It is a companion to this blog, I write once a week there and once a month here.

One year into it’s existence, TMAI has 21,246 Subscribers.

Measuring Open Rates for email is difficult (the tiny pixel ESPs use to track opens are not executed by default for most email programs). Even with that flaw in reporting, TMAI has Open Rates of around 9,000 (9,895 precisely for the last one).  Around 1,000 people (912 for the last one) take an action that is of value to me.

A random person, me, can get 9,000 opens of my content, at least a thousand active engagements with my brand whenever I want. I have over 1,000,000 Social Media followers across the five platforms (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram). I can’t even get 1/100th the impact.

My simple unsexy email newsletter strategy crushes the on paper potential of one million Social Media followers.

And, beyond the impact… I also directly own the relationships with my 21,246 Subscribers, I own the data, the relationship exists on my platform, and I can use it as creatively I want to use it with no limitation on type of content (text or video or dancing penguin gifs).

Why should your company be on Social Media 5x per day to get a lousy 20 interactions with your brand? How is that acceptable ROI from your investment in a 5 person Social Media team, a Social Media Agency, a Social Media analytics tool, a Social Media auto-posting tool and more?

Could you not get 100x ROI from the 0.25 person that's running your email newsletter?

Could you not just take all that Team, Agency, Tool, money, throw it into AdWords or AOL Display Ads and not get massively higher ROI, of any kind, in 10 minutes?

Could you not get better ROI taking all that money and buying remnant inventory on your local Television channel?

Could you not get better ROI if you just took that money and bought free lunch for the employees in your building every other day?

OMG, you most definitely can.

So. Why are you on Social Media?

Is it fun to shout in a vacuum?

Why does it not feel dirty to go waste your shareholder's money?

Stop it then.

Welcome to the world of higher standards for impact delivered. Feel cleaner and prouder coming to work every day as a Marketer/CMO.

Is the Huge Audience on Social Media Platforms Completely Useless? 

NO!

There are a couple of billion people on Facebook (and billions or hundreds of millions on other Social channels). From an advertising perspective, that’s still an audience that might be of value to your business.

Kill your organic Social strategy completely, switch to a paid Social Media strategy.

Buy advertising from Facebook. I’ll make it easy, click this link!

Buy advertising from Twitter. From Snapchat. LinkedIn. Oh and WeChat and Line.

This simple switch from the fuzzy Organic goals to concrete Paid goals will give the one thing your Social Media Marketing strategy was missing: Purpose.

It is now easy to define why the heck are you spending money on Social Media? To drive short and medium-term brand and performance outcomes.

Fabulous.

Set aside the useless metrics like Impressions and 3-second Video Views. Set aside hard to judge and equally useless Like and Follow counts. Measure the hard stuff that you can show a direct line to company profit.

Define a purpose for the money you are spending.

For the clients I’ve worked with across the world, expressed behavior of the users suggests that the largest cluster of intent is See. There is a little bit of Think and a little bit of Care. (This is why Social marketing strategies that target Do intent yield extremely poor results.)

[Bonus Read: See-Think-Do-Care Business Framework]

If the purpose is to execute See and Care intent marketing strategies (in the old world sometimes incompletely referred to as brand marketing), you can use the following amongst my favorite metrics to deliver accountability:

1. Unaided Brand Recall 2. Likelihood to Recommend 3. Lift in Purchase Intent 4. Shift in Brand Perception (negative to neutral, neutral to positive, positive to proactive evangelism) 5. Lifetime Value

Humans have measured these using primary and secondary research methods for 3,500 years. Quite easy to do the same for your newly focused paid Social advertising efforts.

[Bonus Read: Brand Measurement: Analytics & Metrics for Branding Campaigns]

If on the other hand the purpose of your paid Social advertising is to target Think and/or Do intent, you should measure the impact using the following across your digital – and pan-digital presence:

1. Recency & Frequency 2. Loyalty 3. Task Completion Rate 4. Assisted Conversions 5. Macro-Outcomes Rate 6. Economic Value

We have measured these for a long time on the web. You can use your quantitative tools to measure most of these (Google Analytics, Adobe, True Social Metrics). And. You can measure these for your ecommerce, non-ecommerce, B2B, B2C, pure content, non-profit, or whatever else kind of delicious business you are running.

Now, you’ll hold your agency and employees accountable for delivering business profitability for your Social efforts just as you do for any other advertising effort – Search or TV or Email.

Just as you would do in all those other cases, do more paid Social advertising if the metrics show a business impact and improve/eliminate your paid Social efforts if they don’t.

It will mean a different Social content strategy, different targeting strategy (leveraging rich Social signals), and a different landing page/app strategy. Proper end-to-end user and business optimization. Nirvana, delivered by that magical word… Purpose.

The path to your salary and job promotion is also now crystal-clear. Right?

Is the Idea of Marketing Utopia Permanently Dead? 

I’ve seen the near-future, and I believe we’ll get to Utopia Marketing.

The fact that companies don’t know how to be human, how to take even 20% of their people plus budget and invest optimally in understanding humans and deliver something of value to those humans is deeply heartbreaking.

Yes, I can blame the short-term quarterly focus of the CMOs and the SELL, SELL, SELL MORE incentives they create for you to earn your bonus. But still, how heartbreaking is it that not even 1% of us could convince our CMOs to allow us to do what Social was actually good at? How sad is it that we have such little influence? I blame us.

Still. I am optimistic that Marketing Utopia, as I’ve imagined it at the top of this post, is not dead. I think the solution will be to get rid of the humans from the process!

What? Human marketing by getting rid of humans?

Yes. Hear me out.

I think AI/Machine Learning will solve this problem.

Today, humans and their limited ability to process data, and the finite incentives in place, are the reason we burned Utopia to the ground. We simply can’t process billions of signals across tens of millions of touch points across millions of people, and figure out the best message at every moment and its short, medium, and long-term business value.

Current advances in ML already give me hope that algorithms will understand intent a billion trillion times better than your current employees AND these algorithms will have the inherent capabilities to process billions of data points to truly understand complex patterns of user behavior and a robust understanding across all that to know exactly what delivers business profit.

Companies can then take the equivalent of their Brand and Social budgets and allow smarter algorithms to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time across all clusters of intent. All the while, optimizing for long-term business profitability.

It will help that Machine Learning is not embolden to trivial company politics. :)

[Bonus Read: Artificial Intelligence: Implications On Marketing, Analytics, And You]

Bottom-line.

While I’m recommending you stop doing something, hearing no is not super-inspiring, I hope you’ll see that my goal is help you think more critically about where you spend your personal time and your company’s money.

I also hope you’ll see how the shift in strategy I’m recommending brings Social in line with your other advertising efforts, allowing for a ton more focus on your Social efforts and a billion times more accountability.

Finally, I hope you feel optimistic that around the horizon lurk technological solutions that will allow for the manifestation of the beautiful humanity that exists in your company (even if we have to take human employees out of the equation to get there – don’t worry, they’ll still, for now, be responsible for the novel elements required).

Demand more from Social, because Social can deliver more.

As always, it is your turn now.

If you’ve achieved sustained success from your organic Social Media content strategy, would you please share your example? If you disagree and believe Marketers should invest in organic Social despite poor Reach, ApR, CoR, and AmR, would you please share how you see value/impact? If you’ve successfully dumped organic and pivoted to paid Social, please share stories of your victory. Are you as optimistic as I am that Machine Learning based intelligence will solve optimally for the Utopia opportunity?

I look forward to hearing your smart perspectives and cogent challenges.

Thank you.

Stop All Social Media Activity (Organic) | Solve For A Profitable Reality is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

from SEO Tips https://www.kaushik.net/avinash/stop-organic-social-media-marketing-solve-for-profit/

[fanfictionreviews-blog1]

Fan Fiction Review - Dan Howell x Reader ~ It Doesn’t Have A Title What  A Great Way To Start This Off ~

Before I start this off I’d like to issue a disclaimer:

If you wrote this fanfiction, or you know who did or whatever, I don’t hate you, and this isn’t made to bully people who write fanfiction, I’m just having some fun, you know? Don’t get butt hurt, essentially. Also, I’m no grammar-Stephan Hawking, so don’t be surprised if I make a few mistakes myself, I am human after all, but as I say - this is just for fun.

This fanfiction can be found here.

Right then, let’s get started. *Purposely avoids making a Keemstar joke.*

~Analysis:

I walk around he cold streets of London. I am wearing my leather jacket a llama shirt and skinny jeans. I walk down the streets listening to alphabet boy.

So we’re four words in and we can already see that this author evidently doesn’t proof-read their work. Also, just in case you didn’t pick it up, they’re walking down the streets, alright?

I mumble the song. “My alphabet boy..Alphabet boy..” I then walk into a anime store where I see a tall man looking at the death note things.

Aside from the speech, every sentence has started with ‘I’. How captivating. We can also see that the author doesn’t like to capitalize names, apart from one occasion, but that was almost definitely due to the two full-stops placed directly before the letter A. That’s another thing. An ellipsis has three full stops in it, like this:

...

No more, no less. Three. So when you use two, it just looks like you had a second long stroke when you were pressing the period key and only managed two full stops before passing out.

~~~~ This means I skipped a paragraph or two by the way. 

I saw him on a book. The Amazing book is not on fire. I looked at one page of the book. (And only one.) His name is Daniel. He likes the color black and also llamas are his animal of choice.

Back at it again with the lack of capitalization! Is that a stale meme yet? Anyway, on this occasion, we got the first word of the sentence AND the next word capitalized in ‘The Amazing book is not on fire’. This is, truly, random capitalization. Author, do you know what sentence variation is? Please use it, because, correct me if I'm wrong but, I haven’t seen one comma so far.

~~~~

“Yeah me and my best friend are sorta like the people who made ‘PROTIP’ and ‘don’t cry.. Craft’ I’m the comments on every YouTube video..” He laughed.

 So they’re ‘sorta like’ the people who made ‘PROTIP’ and ‘don’t cry... Craft.’ Some say that Pyrocynical is ‘sorta like’ leafyishere. See what I mean?

It seems to be a reoccurring theme in Dan Howell fanfictions to often refer to Phil as his ‘best friend’ and not just Phil and vice versa... Why? And I’m pretty sure Dan isn’t the comments on every YouTube video, as he probably would have killed himself by now.

“So that’s why ok pewdiepies beard video people commented PROTIP.. Thank god you told me! I was worried a tip was taking over the world!” (Woah you’re so funny.) I say in a sarcastic voice. “to be honest it sorta has” he puts down something he picked up.

Guys, today we don’t even get capital letters at the beginning of a sentence. 

Thanks for more evidence to support the fact that you don’t proof-read your work.

You know, the rule ‘new speaker, new line’ is a very useful one, as it allows the reader to distinguish which character is talking without having to read the passage seventeen times, but it is also a rule that many fanfiction writers don’t use. Shame. 

“Want to go get some coffee or something?” He asked. “If not I can give-” I cut him off. “Sure we can get some coffee. Do you want to buy anything first?” I asked him. He nodded and grabbed a L plush. I went with him when he got it and we walked out together.

I don’t know Dan aside from watching a few of his videos, but I’m pretty sure if he just met a fan, he wouldn’t ask them on a date straight away. Have you ever seen Evan Edinger’s video on dating a YouTuber with Ash Hardell? Watch it. 

Grammar lesson time! When addressing an object that begins with a vowel, (in this case, the name ‘L’.)  you would USUALLY use ‘an’ instead of ‘a’, if you don’t it just kind of sounds bad.

As we walked down the side walk we talked about movies, songs, bands.. At coffee we honestly most likely won’t have anything to talk about.

I had to include this because, guys, WE GOT OUR FIRST FUCKING COMMA. Hell yeah, it’s not like we’re halfway through the narrative or anything! They don’t even use the commas in a correct way to form a list, like you’re meant to have ‘and’ before the last item in the list.

Who refers to a coffee shop/cafe as just ‘coffee’? Actually, that whole sentence sounds like a seven-year-old wrote it - I think it’s descriptive enough to use one adverb. Look:

‘we honestly most likely won’t have anything to talk about.’

Or

‘we honestly won’t have anything to talk about.’

Which sounds better? I think the only time you would use more than one adverb in this particular context would be to add emphasis, but there is no evidence in this passage to suggest that that’s what the author was trying to do.

We walk into scooter (no Starbucks) and get our drinks. (Damn you’re so original and unique, yeah, Starbucks is for trashy white girls and basic bitches.) Once we sit down Dan puts his phone on the table. “Wanna like.. Swap numbers?” He asked in a shy tone. “Yeah! Sure.” I handed him my phone and he handed me his. I went to the contacts and added a new one. I put my number and the name as ‘weird anime girl’ (weeaboo) and handed it back in him.

What, you just put his phone in his mouth or something? At least I hope that’s what you meant by ‘in him’. God, I’ve got no one to blame but myself for that one.

The fact that you felt the need to clarify that you’re not going to Starbucks made me laugh and cringe at the same time. Thanks.

This would be the perfect moment for a crazy-stalker-fangirl to steal Dan’s phone and make a run for it, so I think the chances of this happening in real life is slim to none. Sorry guys.

~~~~

A bunch of basic white girls look at us like we are crazy. (Most likely cause we are) and we but out lip trying not to laugh.

I’m full on fucking cringing now.

Damn, those pesky basic white girls we so much better than them because we’re crazy!

I guess the basic white girls found your even-more-hipster coffee shop, better go to the strange man in the dark alleyway who sells ‘human poop’ coffee beans, I’m sure they won’t find you there.

What the hell does ‘but out lip’ mean? I honestly don’t know what they were trying to say either. I have no fucking idea.

~~~~ Dan invites Reader to go to Dan’s flat. Reader accepts the invite.

I looked at Dan again. (Why did we just switch tenses?) His eyes where (ugh) on phils computer. Looking at what Phil was scrolling though. I bit my lip. Not on purpose I just.. Did it.

I was thinking about what I could compliment about this fanfiction, and I thought that I should mention the author’s ability to stay in the same tense. But no, you blew it. Sorry.

This is where Reader gets really dreamy about Dan, by the way.

Dans perfect his hair.. (Makes perfect sense.) His eyes. His eyes are not even blue they are just so beautiful. His everything. Then his personality. It’s perfect. It’s a mix of so many wonderful things. He is just so..

Great.

Perfect.

I can relate to him too.

I feel in love at first site.

Oh, fuck, just that last line with the janky English and the wrong use of ‘site.’ That’s it, this can’t get any worse from now on. 

No, it can. It definitely can.

When I read this, all I can hear is James Veitch reading it to me, like he does with the scam emails and the broken English. If you have no idea what I am talking about, click here.

There’s a three years time skip into the future from now on by the way.

Mentally prepare yourself for this next part. 

I think. That’s how I met my boyfriend. “You know.. I feel in love with you at first sight.” I turned over to him. “I did too. And that’s why” he got down on a knee and took something out.

“Will you merry me?” He asked opening the box up to showed a wonderful ring. “Y-yes!” I managed to say and he stood up and kissed me. I kissed him back.

I can’t believe it.

WILL YOU MERRY ME? FUCK. The ‘a’ key isn’t really near the ‘e’ key on a keyboard so I have no idea how you fucked that one up. 

The sentence ��I feel in love with you at first sight.’ makes you sound like English isn’t your mother tongue. And to be honest, it’s fucking hilarious.

That’s the end of it by the way.

~Conclusion:

That was painful.

I'll give credit when it’s due, at least this isn’t the Hat Fic. Who the fuck actually wrote that anyway?  

Right.

I suppose it wasn’t the worst, but it was also nowhere near the best. Author, you still need to make some improvements. I give this one shot three Casey Neistat Okay-Hand-Signals out of ten.

On a serious note, I think it’s definitely worth proof-reading, as when you make grammar mistakes it just makes your work look half-arsed.

Try not to use scenarios that wouldn’t happen in real life, otherwise, you might just become the early Review Movie World of fanfiction. (Can you tell I watch Pyro?) I suppose this includes writing about dating and sex if you’ve never dated or had sex before because that can definitely lead to some inaccurate scenes. Not all sex is like porn, horny fourteen-year-olds.

Thanks for reading guys, do feel free to leave me some constructive criticism. (That’s not gonna fucking happen, is it?) 

One like = One kid who identifies as an attack helicopter, sent straight to your door.

And yeah, I’ll see you in the next review!

-Pluto

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