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lulullia · 10 months

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Lyphuriaa Progress Report #1

Well, it's been a long while since my last post, because since then I've been in input – or learning – mode and spent my days absorbing information on my favorite topic: storytelling.

Before that, I was really creatively blocked, unable to do anything but stare at the screen trying to get my body to f-ing move and start drawing, writing, or coding – with little success. And so, in the process of searching for stuff to consume and kill time with, I remembered a favorite, huge resource I had already started reading but needed to finish, and that's how I ended up switching to input mode.

Lesson learnt: sometimes, if you're blocked and taking breaks doesn't help, it may just be because you're trying to output when you're really in need of input. That can take the form of inspiration (like browsing Pinterest or going back to a favorite book/movie/game…) but also actual education (like an online course or book, articles and videos on the topic, etc).

And sure enough, as I was expanding my knowledge on storytelling, I couldn't help but go and apply that to my current projects. I'll summarize the progress made on Lyphuriaa (or more like massive problem-fixing), and also share the two amazing resources I've been binging at the end, if you're making stories too!

Bird's eye view on the plot

For the longest time, Lyphuriaa was mostly in my head, and the plot was nothing more than "Lulu's life". That's because I started imagining it when I was a kid, and so it was never properly structured the way a story ought to be. Almost exactly a year ago, I realized the problem and started fixing it, cutting the boring parts, beginning the story at a more exciting point, changing up variables…

The result was already something that felt way more like I'd enjoy reading it myself, more mature and cohesive, but it still very broken structurally. It's only these past few weeks/months that I really started digging deeper and fix the core.

The core being, of course, the three basic components of a story – the Story Goal, the Protagonist (person pursuing the goal), and the Antagonist (person in opposition to the goal being achieved). Yeah, Lyphuriaa was that broken. Let's see how exactly, and then show the current fix.

The problems

The story goal was super fuzzy. I knew it was something along the lines of "taking back Lyphuriaa to rebuild it" but NONE of the characters, or events actually worked towards it. I also had no idea on the actual steps to fulfill it. Something fuzzy like "board airship or ship, fly/sail to the place, remove any stupid goons tryna stop you, plant flag, done! then epilogue showing the place rebuilt!" Plus, I didn't have enough details on the situation on Lyphuriaa (the place), like Why did it get abandoned if its people were literally genocided to take over the land? What's the situation outside Lyphuriaa – do the winners still have their eyes on it, don't care about it anymore, still claim ownership of the land? What about other countries? etc, etc.

The protagonists – Lulu and Vlad – are completely fleshed out as characters, but the problem was within their personal goals and motivations. If I just let them do whatever they wanted, they'd go live on a boat and sail the world, not "take back Lyphuriaa to rebuild it". I just struggled immensely to tie them to the "goal" somehow. That's part of the reason why none of the plot points worked towards the goal – the main characters don't even care about it. At some point I even considered the fact that maybe, they're not meant to tell this story, and that I should change either the goal or the protagonists.

That antagonists, well, they were almost non-existent. They're the least developed element. I just knew there was one group trying to get Lulu to use her unique power to open portals so that they could invade (a plotline that's now scrapped, because I figured a threat coming from inside the world is more interesting than one coming from outside, plus, I want Lulu to be special because of what she does, not what she's born with). And another group, the ones instigating the Lyphurian war, who don't want Lyphuriaa to be rebuilt again. And that's all I knew about the people who are supposed to bring as much conflict to the story as possible. Needless to say, they really did nothing throughout the story, it's as if they only woke up at the end when the cast finally set foot on Lyphuriaa, or something.

The glaring, glaring problem that took me a lot of time to spot, is the absolute lack of conflict. I had a 2k words outline of the story, but it was just about Lulu, Vlad and a few others going on about their life, smoothly. Then there were a few events that really had nothing to do with that, aka the "main plot".

Nothing is connected

I literally have a line saying, "somehow they find her father". Like, is it something that happens randomly (in which case it's lazy), or is it unimportant enough that we don't even need to show how it happens (in which case why keep it at all?), or it's supposed to be part of the plot (in which case why have the protagonists never even show a sign of wanting to do that)…?

"Somehow" is a red flag practically all of the time in storytelling, as it breaks consistency and believability. I know that in the outline, I wrote "somehow" as a shorthand for "this needs to happen and I have no idea how to connect it so I'm leaving it to you, future self :D" but even so it's a symptom of a larger problem underneath.

Literally the last bullet point of the whole outline: "I almost forgot that the story isn't Vladleen but Lyphuriaa. So I guess here be adventures to take back Lyphuriaa! yay!"

Random fluff adding dead weight

Another easier to fix problem was scenes or entire plotlines that were completely unnecessary to the story. As I said Lyphuriaa exists since my childhood and so, there were a lot of random stuff I added because I thought it was cool and I had no idea how to make a properly structured story, but that I never questioned when overhauling it. It's only when I realized that nothing is set in stone until I say so, and that I'm not bound by these boundaries just because they've been here a long time, sometimes even since the very beginning, that I started cutting stuff and, most importantly, change key parts to make them infinitely more interesting.

The scrapped plotline. The stuff about a virus, and Lyphurians having a special purpose, is scrapped too. Cutting such a huge part of the story led to literally no consequences, and felt so relieving.

Playing around with key variables

For example, I was under the assumption that Vlad can only come in later in the story and not the beginning, and that the Liance between him and Lulu can only happen waaay later when they start having feelings for each other. But one day I had this idea: what if we start the story at the point of their meeting, and have them be lianced right then and there, maybe even against their will?

And that's how one of the key moments in Lyphuriaa was born, bringing a ton of conflict and interesting situations and characterization with it to the table that could never have happened otherwise. Now both protagonists are on-screen right away (especially since Vlad is the most interesting out of the two at first), the Liance functions like a character arc for both of them because it's a problem they have to overcome, that results in a much more interesting relationship than just lovers, and is also an interesting concept to explore right off the bat that can play a part in hooking the reader, and on and on. All of that just from changing two variables.

Yeah, I write a lot in my notes. It's helpful to order my thoughts in the present, and leave a trace of the past for when I find it again in the future.

The fixes

This is getting very long, I wonder if you'd prefer if I split posts like these in parts…

The story goal – thanks to some adjustments and lots of inspirations from the resources below, I could finally find a goal that is similar to what I had in mind, but also agrees with the protagonists and antagonists. Even though I'm presenting this as three bullet points, the truth is, it's all interconnected and should be worked on as a whole, not just one at a time. So, now the main goal of Lyphuriaa is, "to (re)build a place where all Lyphurians can call home". It's not only clearer, but also more personal, and ties in perfectly with the theme of the story (finding the people you belong with – whose side you can call home).

The protagonists now have proper motivations and goals that align with the story goal! They became tied to it way more naturally, plus it connects with the theme again and provides conflict: Lulu is a Lyphurian, and because of her species' defining traits simply cannot feel like she belongs amongst Vampires and other people. Even better, she doesn't feel safe. Lyphurian blood is a luxury for Vampires, their horns valued products, and their glowing skin scare people away (especially since most people aren't aware of the existence of Lyphurians; they may be ghosts for all they know). And thus, coupled to something else that is spoilers, she sees Vlad as the perfect opportunity to stand up for her people and make a place where they can feel at home, together (Vlad has money and means). And what better place for this if not their original homeland? (The only issue still left is to tie Vlad into this as well, I already have an idea for this that also ties into the theme of finding home that needs tweaking, but it's spoilers too so I'll leave it at that.)

The antagonists… are still the least developed, but at least now I'm clear on who are the antagonizing groups, and what's their goal so I can build what they'll do on top of that. I still need to go closer and build them as individuals and give them a personal stake. What's certain is that I want them to be smart and unpredictable, playing an intense game of "who is actually one step ahead the other?" with the protagonists. They are active, just as active as their enemy. There are also a couple other surprise major characters that don't fit in either category, but will stir trouble in trying to achieve their own personal goals – aka pushing the story forward.

You can see the difference, now the story is packed with conflict and potential for conflict everywhere. It's starting to take the shape of one intense ride! There are a ton of little tweaks that improve the story overall, here's a few…

Everything is interconnected

Sharp contrast to how it was before, now every event serves a purpose in either the main plot or in major subplots (I took the time to clearly lay out the different plotlines, that's what the very first image is about; each "row" is one plotline). Not only that, but each character has a link to the main plot, or at least thematic relevance.

The side-character I'm most excited about is Ava, Lulu's bestie. It's through her that a lot of Vladleen's relationship is brought out, because these two mostly don't need to actually talk, they can just send brain signals. Ava is the kind of person who has no filter, can't read the room, but can easily spot subtle differences around her. Kinda hard to explain, but she does a good job of getting Vladleen to show themselves to the reader. Plus, she's gonna be the center of a very big choice (aka conflict) both Vlad and Lulu will have to make, you could say the ultimate choice that will show who they truly are, what they care about more than anything else (and thus ties into the theme as well).

Little preview of this energetic and fun character~

More playing around with variables

As I was reading up on the resources mentioned before, key points of the story kept getting challenged. Long-lost heir to a throne as a plot twist? Check. Heir characterized only by their blood? Check. Mentor who comes take said heir and push them forward themselves instead of letting her walk by herself? Check. Protagonists only acting after antagonist strikes, and never before? Check. Mentor keeping key info secret for no reason? Check.

That's a lot of hidden clichés I was aware of but thought I had added enough uniqueness to them, and I'm glad the articles made me see them in their true form and their bad consequences. So I took all of those and more and switched variables around.

The most important change was a set of tweaks to Lulu and her "heritage". She not only isn't a good fit to be a ruler, but also doesn't want to rule (remember when I said the MCs didn't care about the goal?). I didn't have any specific reason as to why her bloodline was special and why it had to be the ruling one. All of this made her into something I really didn't like: a person defined by what she was born with, not by her actions. She would have never been on this path if she didn't have this blood and powers. I don't know if you can see it but, it all feels like her actions are determined by her blood; she would have always made the same choices even if circumstances were different; she doesn't have free will. And when you know that protagonists' most important role is to make choices… Well.

So the first thing I did was dig into the bloodline's origin, which made me realize that if that's how it originated, then there should be more than one family with the same special characteristics, not just one. Just this change implies so much: the bloodline alone doesn't give you a right to the throne anymore, and Lulu can just rally her people and lead them to the goal, and step down then; Lulu is no longer the only one who can unseal Lyphuriaa, if there are other families, and thus her decision to do so anyway comes from inside her and not outside; imagine the amount of exciting stuff (aka conflict) that can happen with having other bloodline members around!!! and so much more.

Lulu getting back her agency to do what she wants is the highlight, though. I remember reading/watching a pretty long manga/anime (won't say the name to not spoil) where at the end it's revealed that everything that happened, only happened because a higher entity kept resetting time until they got the course of events that they wanted to see. It truly made the whole thing meaningless, just like "it was all a dream!" endings, it means the characters never earned anything by themselves, they're just puppets; I want to avoid that at all cost.

As much as I'd like to keep writing, I think I've covered the most important parts; this is long enough as it is.

Zeroth draft

Alright, I'm done talking about the plot changes, here's something more concrete: I think I'll participate in Camp NaNo this july to get a "zeroth draft" started.

Basically, that's a draft before the first draft. It's not meant to be the first stage of the final product, but something more meta before it. I have no pressure to make it make sense; I just write with what I currently have and improvise to fill in the gaps. What I actually write can range from detailed description of the action, to one-line scenes such as "here they fight". A barebones text that I can then use to make the actual first draft, later.

This is all because, for the longest time I thought I was a planner, but it turns out I may actually be a pantser, discovering the story as I write it. So I want to put that theory to the test and write like a pantser during Camp NaNo. I really, really want to write this story.

Here's a link to my NaNoWriMo profile, where I set myself a goal of 20k words for this month. I have no idea whether it's big or small, we'll see. (feel free to add me if you write too.)

This post took me a whole day to write, but I had fun summarizing these past months' progress. I also really want to try out animating a scene, and coding a prototype with it, but I'll make a post about that when I have something to show.

If you made it this far, I thank you sincerely. I know that people who enjoy long-form content aren't extinct, but it's getting harder to find them. Reblogging and sharing helps, but a simple like can let me know it's reaching some people at least c:

Storytelling resources

Two big resources that pack a ton of valuable advice and storytelling principles.

Limyaael literary rants – about 400 individual essays, mostly geared towards fantasy. Helped me improve my story in so many ways, and I'm still halfway through it. Start from the beginning, everything is useful.

Filmento – an absolutely incredible channel, each of his videos feel like a university-level lecture on storytelling and sometimes cinematography. The video is separated into clear points, always taking example from a movie, so you can see it in action, and it's super engaging and funny to boot. Most of the stuff applies to stories in general, don't let the word "movie" scare you! See his "Film Perfection" and "Anatomy of a Failure" playlists especially.

Taking notes is a must, if I had read/watched through all of these without taking notes it'd have been a monumental waste of time since I'd have forgotten all of it. Also, it's not enough to take them, if you can't find them later, be it tomorrow or in a year (looking at you, people who take notes in Youtube comments).

My Obsidian vault has close to 1,000 individual notes, and in 99% of the time I can find any note I need in less than 5s, even if I don't remember the note's title, because I have so many different ways to search for it. So find yourself a tool that helps you use your notes, not just create and forget them.

After only a few days of reading/watching, when I came back to my story's beginning that I previously thought was perfectly fine, I could 1) immediately spot problems and 2) immediately know how to fix them. Literally, I'm tempted to say that's all you need to learn storytelling in-depth.

Enjoy!

#lulullia #progress report #lyphuriaa #storytelling #storytelling techniques #writing resources #camp nano 2023 #camp nano july 2023 #writing

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malonegissel75 · 2 days

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2022bettermebetterworld2022 · 2 years

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I am part of the NSLS. For my Executive Leadership Certification, our assignment was to create a better world project. I chose to focus on Better Me, Better World. My project is about bettering who I am from the inside out. The most important person is yourself, and as humans we often overlook ourselves. I want to start my healing journey to become the best possible version of myself. Personal growth will also reflect in my career thus helping me go further.

I chose this project because in my personal life and career there are things I need to work on to become a better person. When I become a better person it will help positively affect the people around me and my career.

Below is the outline for my project

Intellectual Pursuits - Start learning French The company I work for is a global management consulting firm. Their headquarters is in France. Many emails come in French and many meetings are held in French. Since I was recently promoted, I will work with the global team more closely. By learning French I feel it will help build a closer relationship with the global team. Goal: Have basic words down in 12 weeks Resources Needed: YouTube has many great videos to help learn French Key stakeholders: I can have my colleagues who are from France help me practice my french. Emotional Care - Read one self help book and one book on grief. ( I change this to one self help book and attending counseling for grief) Last year I lost four people and three of them were back to back. I did not let myself grieve and sorta of just kept it moving. I feel that reading a book on grief will let me open up and start my healing journey. I also want to read a self help book that will help me break out of my shell and become more outgoing. At work a goal of mine is to build relationships with my colleagues but I find it hard to step out of my comfort zone. Goal: Both books completed in 8 weeks Resources Needed: Two books. Key stakeholders: N/A

Ethics - Reading 2 articles on ethics in the Human Resources industry I work in the HR department. I want to learn as much as I can about ethics in the HR industry. Since I just was put into the HR department, learning all about ethics will help me get a better understanding of HR and become a better leader. Goal: Both articles completed in 4 weeks Resources Needed: Two articles Key Stakeholders: My career development manager can help me pick which articles I should read. I can report back to her what I learned and how it applies to my position.

Physical Development - Do one hour of hot yoga 4 times a week For months now I have told myself that I need to get back into yoga. I went to hot yoga five times a week. I stopped because I felt I did not have the time between work, school and other commitments. It is time to put my health as a priority and do hot yoga four times a week. Since I find it hard to make class times, I will use a space heater in a room with the door shut. I will follow a Yoga video from YouTube. Goal: 4 times a week for 12 weeks. Resources Needed: Space heater, Yoga mat. Key Stakeholders: I can ask one of my friends who is a yoga teacher to help me.

Community Service - Mentor one other person who is struggling with grief As mentioned above I lost four people last year. I want to help one person who is also struggling with grief. I plan to do this online. There are many websites that have forums for people to talk and post about how they are feeling. I feel that I will positively impact not only the person I help but also myself by doing this. Goal: 8 weeks of mentoring - it might take time for someone to warm up before I am able to mentor and help them. Resources Needed: Online platform Key Stakeholders: Other people who are grieving

#better world project #better me better world #project #NSLS

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Leaked NYPD "goon squad" manual

In New York City, the summer 2020 #BLM uprising became a grotesque spectacle, as legions of ultraviolent cops committed mass-scale, criminal human rights violations, spawning a new subgenre of viral video: the NYPD BLM violence video.

During and after this period, public attention focused on the systemic nature of the NYPD's lawlessness, like the fact that the cops' disciplinary records were held secret, obscuring the repeat offenders.

Indeed, Propublica's brave publication of these records demonstrated that the force is riddled with violent, habitual sadists.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/27/ip/#nypd-who

Propublica did incredible work, showing that cops who commits a strings of violent human rights abuses and cost the taxpayer vast fortunes in legal settlements aren't disqualified from promotions - these monsters constitute the NYPD's top brass.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/10/booksellers-vs-big-tech/#50a

Propublica also delved deep into the NYPD's sham of a disciplinary process, for example, documenting the continued use of illegal choke-holds by officers, primarily against Black men, and how police officials did nothing to enforce their own policies.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/21/i-cant-breathe/#chokeholds

All of this leads up to impunity. As Propublica went on to report, out of the hundreds the NYPD officers caught on video committing crimes against protesters, only *two* were brought up for discipline, despite video evidence and eyewitness reports.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/18/news-worthy/#nypd-black-and-blue

The cherry on the cake: last month, Propublica revealed the existence of a secretive, tax-funded slushfund that pays out millions to hire white-shoe lawyers to defend the cops who are so dirty the city refuses to defend them:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/26/overfitness-factor/#heads-you-lose-tails-they-win

Latent in all of this discussion is the assumption - on the part of NYPD critics *and* apologists - that the cops who commit these crimes are breaking their own rules. But as it turns out, that's not true.

Today, The Intercept published the leaked, secret, destroy-after-reading procedural manuals for the NYPD's Strategic Response Group, an ultra-secretive good squad formed by former chief Bill Bratton in 2015.

https://theintercept.com/2021/04/07/nypd-strategic-response-unit-george-floyd-protests/

We don't know how big the SRG is - it's a secret - but we know that its inaugural budget was $13m in 2015 and today, it's nearly $90m. As Alice Speri and John Bolger write, the crimes we witnessed last summer are literally straight out of the SRG's playbook.

That thing where bike cops kettle a group of protesters, hoist their bikes up to their chest, forming a moving fence, and then beat the shit out of protesters as they advance? That's not the result of undertraining - it's a maneuver they regularly drill.

When the BLM uprising began, the NYPD's chief and commissioner both pledged that the SRG - theoretically designed to maintain order during mass riots, not political protests - wouldn't be involved.

They lied.

"Investigators found a disproportionate number of SRG officers accused of wrongdoing to have exceeded their legal authority, when compared with the wider department."

Despite its $90m budget and estimated 700 cops, it's not clear why SRG exists at all. The NY AG's office said SRG shouldn't be used on protesters because they're supposed to fight terrorism, but the NYPD already has an expensive, heavily resourced Counterterrorism Bureau.

One thing we do know about the SRG: they have a huge intelligence wing. Before deployments, SRG officers are briefed on "group size, planned arrests, key members of the protest group, and the group’s hierarchy," and other intel. They go in with a plan.

That's the point: the violence isn't the result of rogue cops ignoring their training. It's the result of cops doing *exactly* what they're trained to do.

If you doubt it, read the manuals.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584527-strategic_response_group_guide

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584526-srg_field_force_modules

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20584525-srg_bike_squad_modules

Learn about the Bike Line Arrest Manuever, or BLAM, in which officers "shout 'BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!' as they advance," and "[take] control of subjects head by clinching your hands and arms behind the head of subject and bringing head against your chest."

This is exactly what Human Rights Watch documented in their report on a Jun 4, 2020 "planned assault" in the Bronx. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea called the chaotic violence of that assault as "a plan which was executed nearly flawlessly." He wasn't lying.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/30/us-new-york-police-planned-assault-bronx-protesters

The authors warn that any reform that results in disbanding the SRG won't be enough: the NYPD has a long history of dissolving its most criminal units and then reforming them with a new name, new insignia and even bigger budgets.

They give the final word to Joo-Hyun Kang of Communities United for Police Reform, who says that the real problem isn't the SRG, it's "the hyper-militarization, the hyper-aggressive policing tactics. That’s not an SRG problem only, that’s an NYPD problem"

#pluralistic

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moonawrites · 3 years

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What’s happening in Palestine?

Seeing what's happening in Palestine right now is absolutely devastating. If you're not familiar with the situation, this post is meant to be a quick run down of information and a compilation of further resources to get you started.

To start, take a look at a couple of quick illustrations. This post is a brief summary of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. This post is a concise little run down on how you can be an ally to Palestinians and actions you can take right now to help.

For a brief summary on the situation in Sheikh Jarrah:

-You may be seeing posts saying "Save Sheikh Jarrah" - Sheikh Jarrah is a neighbourhood in Occupied East Jerusalem

-We call it Occupied East Jerusalem because by international law, East Jerusalem belongs to the Palestinian Territories. But of course Israel does not care about that, and have been illegally occupying it for decades

-To put it briefly, Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are being forcefully expelled from and dispossessed of their homes that they have lived in for decades by Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli government, courts and military

-The settler organizations behind these expulsions (some of which are based in the USA) are intent on erasing all Palestinian presence from Sheikh Jarrah, and this is not the first time Palestinians are being forcefully expelled (read: ethnically cleansed) from this neighbourhood and their homes despite their historical ties to and presence in Sheikh Jarrah

-The Palestinian families are trying to appeal the "evictions" through the Israeli supreme court but the Israeli courts always immediately support Israeli settlers, Palestinians have no rights or humanity in their eyes

-Six Sheikh Jarrah families are being expelled this month. Because of this, Palestinians had been (peacefully!!) protesting. And as we know, under the Israeli occupation, Palestinians have no rights. So in response to their protests, settlers have been violent towards them.... which of course lead to further violence from Israeli police towards the Palestinians. Israeli police will always protect violent Israeli settlers over peaceful Palestinians defending themselves

-Historically, every time Palestinians protest Israel's gross violations of their human rights (and international law), Israel attempts to suppress them with violence. That's what's happening now.

-In response to the Sheikh Jarrah protests, Israeli forces have attacked Palestinian protestors and attacked Al-Aqsa Mosque. Most recently the violence has escalated even further as Israel launched air strikes in Gaza. Again.

-Israeli forces have been using skunk spray, stun grenades, rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas on Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque. Let this sink in. It's abhorrent to attack worshippers in a place of worship in any circumstance, but this is Al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's 3rd holiest site. It's extremely sacred to Muslims. And in the last 10 nights of Ramadan, the most important 10 nights of the year for Muslims.

-In response to Palestinians protesting this violence (Israel’s war crimes!) Israel hiked up the violence - AGAIN. With air strikes in Gaza on civilian populations.

-Hundreds of Palestinians have been injured, hundreds have been hospitalized, and dozens more have been killed in the air strikes - including 9 children. The number is likely higher. You’ll start seeing articles saying “hundreds injured in Palestine - Israel clash” in an attempt to paint this as a two sided conflict - it’s not. Do not be manipulated into thinking it is. The facts are clear. Israeli violence has injured hundreds of Palestinians and killed dozens more.

-During the violence at Al-Aqsa and East Jerusalem, Israeli forces not only attacked Palestinians in the market place and while they were breaking their fasts (including women and children), they not only attacked worshippers in a sacred place of worship in Ramadan, they not only desecrated a holy site with enormous religious and historical significance... they also targeted journalists and paramedics, attacked clinics treating the wounded, and refused to allow ambulances through. Worshippers had to carry the injured on their prayer mats. Reprehensible war crimes against Palestinians is just routine for Israel.

-Al-Aqsa is a soft spot for Muslim Palestinians (and Muslims around the world) because as I said, it's one of Islam's holiest and most sacred sites. In fact, before it changed to Mecca, the qiblah (the directions Muslims pray in) was Al-Aqsa. Because of this, Israel uses it to control Palestinians.

-Historically, every time Palestinians protest Israel’s violence and opression, Israel threatens them with Al-Aqsa. Threatening it with violence, threatening to refuse them access. Keep in mind again that Al-Aqsa is located in the Muslim quarter of East Jerusalem, which by international law belongs to Palestine - but Israel is illegally occupying Palestine and has control.

-Palestinians are a people with strong spirit - they continue to protest for their rights in the face of this despicable violence. But they need help.

-This is not new. This has been the reality for Palestinians since 1948 when the settler colonial state of Israel was established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from THEIR OWN LAND. Israel’s goal is not a two state solution - clearly, since they continue to expand their annexation of Palestinian land beyond what they have already stolen and in violation of international law. The are intent on ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in their own home, their own land.

-The US government is funding all this - $3.8 BILLION in aid goes to the Israeli occupation every year. (Americans - fight your leaders on this)

-Now knowing all this, STOP calling this situation the Israel-Palestine Conflict. This is NOT a “conflict”, because both sides do not have power in this situation. And this is not a religious issue, so stop using that as a cop out to not care. There are Christian Palestinians that are also opressed by Israel. It’s not about religion, that is part of the propaganda that gets pushed on you so you don’t see what’s actually going on.

-This is the illegal occupation of Palestine by the settler colonial state Israel

-This is apartheid, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, systemic racism. This is routine war crimes by Israel against Palestine, without consequences. This is repeated violations of international law and human rights - Human Rights Watch has concluded that Israel is guilty of apartheid and human rights abuses. But of course international leaders (who otherwise cite HRW to condemn other countries) are silent.

-So what can we do? First and foremost, get educated. Stay informed and stay aware. Spread the news Palestinians are sharing. Because the mainstream media will not, they are a propaganda machine for Israel.

-It's routine for Israel to 1. abuse Palestinian human rights, then 2. respond to their protests with extreme violence, and then 3. attempt to paint it as a two sided conflict in which Israelis are in equal danger when there is the slightest response from Palestine. They and the media continuously try to paint Palestinians as terrorists. At this point, you should understand that is not the case. (Keep in mind that Palestine is an occupied territory that does not have an army. Israel is a nuclear power with one of the largest, most heavily funded, and technologically advanced armies in the world, backed by every major western nation, and receives billions of dollars in aid from America)

-You'll notice that mainstream media only starts reporting on these incidents when they can call it a "clash" or a "conflict". They constantly try to paint Palestinians as the terrorists in a situation where they are clearly the opressed. STOP letting them manipulate you into thinking this is two sided or about religion. This is an illegal occupation, this is apartheid, this is ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Israel. Israel is terrorizing Palestinians with the (clearly stated! they’re not trying to keep it a secret! Israeli politicians are very open about it!) intention to wipe out Palestine entirely. The first thing you can do is stop letting western media blind you and see this for what it is.

-BOYCOTT. DIVEST. SANCTION. Please learn about the BDS movement. Targeted boycotts are effective. The larger this gets, the more effective it will be. Again, this post is a good intro summary on how to help. Below, I’ll link another resource with more information.

-Here are some accounts you can follow to stay updated:

@/theimeu on instagram (same handle on twitter and tiktok) is a reliable source posting updates on the current situation as well as concise and informative videos on the Israeli occupation

@/itsmesubhi on instagram has posted some really excellent videos (here and here) summarizing the situation that I urge you to watch and share. His page also has information and resources (such as petitions to sign) in his highlights

Follow @/mohammedelkurd (he’s on twitter too) and @/muna.kurd15 on instagram. They are Palestinian journalists in Sheikh Jurrah and theirs is one of the 6 families being evicted from their homes this month. They are posting live updates from the ground and are the most reliable source for what is going on, and what is or isn't actually helpful right now. Their highlights and profiles are a wealth of information. Here’s a linktree of important links from Mohammed’s profile.

There are places you can donate to if you would like, it’s always needed. This twitter thread has a brief list. But I urge you to do your research to ensure your money is actually going to Palestinians. Listen to actual Palestinians on what they need right now and donate to places they ask you to - Muna and Mohammed (linked above) are a good starting point.

Right now this is first and foremost a political movement, so your voice is most important. Educate yourself and others, share information. Palestinians have said that the international outcry and spreading what is happening to them is helpful. Please listen to them.

Lastly, wherever you are, I urge you to make noise about this. See if there are local organizations organizing protests and go. Get involved in the BDS movement. Write/email/call your MPs or whatever government representative you have in your country as well as your country's leader and let them know this matters to you, demand that they unequivocally condemn Israel's violence against Palestinians and Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights and international law. Templates for emails can be found here if you are in the UK, and Canada. It only takes a second, so please do it. Please email your politicians wherever you are in the world, their contact information is public. This linktree has a collection of templates and petitions if you’re in the US, UK and Canada. It also has templates and information for you regardless of where in the world you are.

Visit https://decolonizepalestine.com/ to learn more about Palestine, the history of the occupation, how to help, the BDS movement etc. This twitter thread has a list of books you can read.

This is not comprehensive. This is just a starting point, a little compilation of information and resources to guide you if you would like to learn about what’s going on and are overwhelmed with the scattered posts everywhere. But it’s a starting point. You cannot learn about a crisis that has spanned decades from one tumblr post. Please click the links I’ve included, look at the graphics, watch the videos, read the posts, sign the petitions, email your politicians. And use all of it as a starting point from which you can then access further resources to educate yourself and others, and help Palestine. They need us.

Edit: I urge you to follow all of the accounts I linked above and stay updated, the situation is constantly evolving. Already the airstrikes in Gaza have been increased to devastating levels, possibly the worst its ever been (there have been many wars in Gaza). The death toll keeps rising. Israel is targeting densely populated civilian areas and using phosphorus bombs (which are illegal). Israel is looking to squash any resistance, it's genocidal at this point and it will only get worse. They also want the world to move on and stop watching, so don't. Do not look away. Keep the pressure on your politicians, stay plugged in, keep talking and spreading awareness. Stay vigilant of the language media uses to try to manipulate you. Colonizers and oppressors and their supporters have never been honest about themselves, so go to Palestinians for news. If you're getting tired, imagine how the Palestinians living this reality feel.

#Palestine #Sheikh Jarrah #Al Aqsa Mosque #Gaza #Free Palestine #mostly using this as a compilation of info and resources for twt but i hope it's helpful here too #edit: added a link to a reading list and an update that the situation is getting worse

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purrincess-chat · 3 years

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Marinette Dupain-Cheng’s Spite Playlist: Remix CH8

You guys have made it! Starting next chapter this story is going to look much different. This chapter also includes a couple never-read-before scenes, and the end of this one changes the course of this story quite a bit. I hope you’re all ...ready for it?

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Previous First Next AO3

Chapter 8: Say Amen (Saturday Night)

“I’m impressed, Adrikins.” Chloe crossed one leg over the other. “It’s not like you to go on the offensive.”

“I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt,” he said while Jean Luke poured their tea. “Lila has gone too far.”

“I’m so glad you’re seeing things my way. With you on my side, I think we can have her running back to Italy in tears by next Tuesday,” Chloe said with a crooked grin.

“Well,” Adrien drawled in his token wishy-washy tone that Chloe hated. “I want to stop her, but I don’t want to humiliate or hurt her.”

She should have known.

“Adrikins, we have got to do something about that moral compass of yours.” Chloe rolled her eyes and took a sip of her tea.

“Just because she’s mean and selfish doesn’t mean she deserves to be completely mortified. There has to be another way.” Adrien chided.

“What if we send her a fake letter saying she won an all-expense-paid trip to Jamaica for two years?” Chloe suggested. “Then we have our pilot strand her in the middle of the jungle.”

Adrien gave her a disapproving frown.

“What? I’m just brainstorming,” she said. “All I’m saying is that I will spare no expense to make her disappear.”

“No harm, Chloe.”

“I liked you better when you were spineless,” she grumbled. “Where has all this new-found courage come from anyway?”

“I just thought about what you said.” He reached for a madeleine. “…And Lila confronted me.”

“I suppose I give you an A for effort.” She applauded him slowly. “If you could convince that bakery brat to join us, then we might get somewhere.” Chloe’s eyes narrowed when Adrien averted his gaze. “I can smell your guilt from here.”

“I don’t want Marinette to know about this,” he said. “I want her to continue to move on and be happy.”

“Why do you care so much about Dupain-Cheng? I’ve known you two were friends, but I didn’t think you were that close.” Chloe eyed him.

“Lila has caused her enough grief, and she’s my friend.” He shrugged. “She’s important to me.”

His newfound protectiveness didn’t sit well with Chloe. She turned her back for a few days, and now Dupain-Cheng had Adrien eating out of her hands. She would have to keep an eye on them.

“So, that’s why you want to do something about Lila now? To help Dupain-Cheng?” She asked, doing her best not to sound offended. “And here I’d thought you couldn’t stand to see me being unjustly ignored.”

“You’ve known Marinette longer than I have. Do you think she deserved to be treated that way by her friends?” Adrien asked.

Chloe shifted her gaze to her cup, taking a long, thoughtful sip. “No,” she said, “as much as I hate her, she didn’t deserve that.”

Adrien’s eyebrows raised in surprise, but a smile curled on his lips. “You’ve changed.”

“Don’t think for a second that I care about her,” she scoffed. Her cheeks burned when Adrien leaned against his fist with a smug grin.

“I like it. It suits you,” he said. She puffed her cheeks out stubbornly, prompting a laugh from Adrien.

“Well, if you’re not going to let me do things my way, and you don’t want Dupain-Cheng to know about this, then I’m going to need some time to think and pull resources together,” she said, getting back to the matter at hand.

“Thanks, Chlo.” He leaned back and took a deep breath. “Although…”

“Don’t ‘although.’” Chloe groaned.

“I just feel kind of bad for yelling at her like that,” Adrien said.

“Why? She deserved it.” She snatched a bonbon from the tray and popped it into her mouth.

“I know, but…” He clasped his hands together between his knees. “It still feels mean.”

“Your passion was short-lived, Adrikins.” Chloe rolled her eyes.

Adrien pursed his lips, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I’ll talk to her again tomorrow and give her one last chance.” When Chloe shook her head, he added, “If she says no, then we can figure something out. Something safe and not needlessly cruel.”

“You’re such a goody-two-shoes. Always thinking everyone can change and be nice.” She stuck her tongue out with a gag.

“Well, I never gave up on you, and now you’re a superhero,” he said pointedly.

Chloe flipped her ponytail over one shoulder to hide her smile. “Fine. Do whatever you want, but I’m still going to think up plans for revenge for when you inevitably fail.” She waved him away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He crossed the room to kiss her cheeks in farewell before taking his leave.

Chloe clapped for her butler the moment the door shut behind him. “Jean Rousseau, how quickly can we have a case of live lobsters delivered?”

♪♫♪ Kaleidoscope Eyes ♪♫♪

“Wait, what happened?” Adrien asked that night over video chat. His Chinese notecards were scattered across his desk, abandoned the moment Marinette’s picture flashed on his screen.

“Clara Nightingale wants me to design for her! She came by in person and everything,” Marinette said. She laid prone on her chaise, legs kicking as she chewed her nails. “I’m so nervous, but she thinks I’ve got what it takes.”

“Of course, you do. You’re awesome.” Adrien assured her.

“Thanks.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “So, how was school for you today? Anything exciting happen?”

“Uh, just same old, same old. Lila being Lila.” He averted his gaze. “Nothing noteworthy to report.”

“That’s good, I guess,” Marinette said. “I take it Chloe hasn’t made a move?”

“Nope.”

“Give her time.” Marinette rolled her eyes. “By the way, my new friends still want to meet you.”

“I’d be happy to,” he said, thankful for the change in subject.

“Macy invited me to hang out at her house on Friday. Maybe you could come along if you aren’t busy,” she suggested.

“I’ll beg my father.”

“Awesome!” Her blue eyes sparkled when she smiled. She seemed so relaxed and carefree. Just as she should be.

He tapped his fingers on his desk, his conscience loud in his ears. “You know I’d do anything to help you, right?”

“What? I, uh, yeah I mean, we’re friends, so I’d do anything to help you too,” she stammered, cheeks pink. “Why?”

“No reason, just if you need anyone to bounce ideas off of for Clara, that’s all…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I should get back to studying.”

“Right, I’m sorry for calling and distracting you!” She scrambled to sit up.

“It’s fine. I’m glad you did,” he said. “Talk to you soon.”

“I’ll let you know how designing goes,” she said. “Good night, Adrien.”

“Yeah, good night…”

♪♫♪ Dancing With a Wolf ♪♫♪

“Did you finish filing those papers Mme. Mendeleiev asked you to do?” Alya asked after school the next day.

Lila suppressed an eye roll, cupping her hands to her cheeks. “Oh no, I didn’t, and I totally forgot that my mom set up a meeting for me with some ambassadors about a new idea I have to help special needs kids in third world countries!” She clasped her hands together. “I know you’re busy, but would you mind finishing that up for me? I will totally make it up to you!”

“No worries, girl,” Alya said. “Go save the world.”

Lila smiled triumphantly as she sauntered toward the locker room, looking forward to her afternoon off. The students here were so gullible. She’d never had such an easy time pushing her work off on others, and now that Marinette was gone, she could do whatever she wanted. Rounding the corner, she found Adrien standing by her locker with a solemn expression.

“Hey, Lila,” he said. “Can we talk?”

“Are you going to apologize for how you spoke to me yesterday?” She crossed her arms over her chest with a humph.

“I am.” He nodded.

“Well, go on then,” she said.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” he said.

Her shoulders relaxed, and the smug grin returned to her lips. “Apology accepted. I’m so happy that you see things my w-”

“I’m not finished.” He cut her off. “I’m sorry for yelling at you, but I’m not sorry for what I said.” Her eyes narrowed, so he continued, “If you continue lying to everyone and using them, you’re only going to hurt yourself in the end. People are going to figure it out eventually, and they’re going to be angry with you.”

“These people are blind. I’ll get away with it for as long as I want.” She brushed past him to open her locker.

“I know you think that, but you’re wrong,” he said, and Lila could see where this speech was going. “I’m going to give you one last chance, Lila. Tell everyone the truth.”

She rolled her eyes as she shifted her books. “Or what, Adrien?” She turned to him and cocked a brow. “What are you going to do? Tell everyone that I’m lying? Good luck. You see how well that went for Marinette.”

Her name sparked something in his eyes, and Lila smirked when his jaw clenched.

“I’m not going to expose you.” Adrien shook his head. “You’re going to expose yourself, and I won’t help you when you face the consequences.”

“We’ll see about that.” She reapplied her lip gloss before shutting her locker. “Sooner or later, you’ll see things my way, and when you do, I’ll be waiting.” She strutted past him with a wink, hips swaying.

“Is that your choice?”

She turned over her shoulder with an amused grin. “Oh, Adrien. One day you’re going to learn that not everyone in the world wants to be nice,” she cooed.

He nodded thoughtfully. “Suit yourself.”

At that she rolled her eyes and paced from the locker room. Adrien didn’t scare her because he was all talk and no bite—just one thing that she loved about him. Boys like him were easy to manipulate, and it was only a matter of time before she had him under her spell just like everyone else. All she had to do was wait.

♪♫♪ Cinderblock Garden ♪♫♪

Come to my garden.

When Marinette received the invite from Adrien, she swore she was dreaming, but the gates opening before her were the pinch in the side she needed. This wasn’t a dream. Adrien really invited her to his house! She should have changed schools ages ago.

“Marinette! This way,” Adrien called from the front door, a bright smile warming his face.

“This is the first time I’ve been invited to your house. I’m a little nervous…” Marinette admitted as Adrien’s bodyguard shut the door behind them.

“I had to beg Nathalie, but I think I have something that can help you with your designs for Clara.”

Adrien led the way through the large house, and Marinette soaked in as much of it as possible. It was the first opportunity she had to peek into Adrien’s life, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

Colorless walls and floors were sparsely decorated with lavish couches, untouched from the moment they were placed. Towering portraits spanned the walls, watching over each room with their solemn expressions. Goosebumps trailed up Marinette’s arms. Every object was meticulously placed, and each room resembled a museum display more than a home. She half expected an alarm to go off if she touched anything.

They passed enough tall doors to make anyone dizzy, though all of them were closed, barring Marinette off from what lied beyond. The Agreste mansion hid many secrets, some that even Adrien probably didn’t know. Adrien’s house felt more like a fortress than a home, designed not only to keep the rest of the world out, but to keep the family locked in. It was hard to tell from the outside, but moving through one gray room after another, Marinette started to see the house for what it was: a cozy prison built for a boy. No wonder Adrien was always eager to leave—it was easy to feel alone in a house like this.

She’d never considered what other barriers stood between her and Adrien. How many doors were between them? She liked to think she’d made it through a few, but the tall walls of the mansion with its many locked doors reminded her just how little she knew the boy in front of her. Would those doors ever open for her? And was Adrien even capable of opening them? She didn’t know.

“Your house is very…” Marinette searched for a word.

“Depressing?” He turned to her over his shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say that-”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s true. My father is a brilliant designer… of clothes, but his interior décor makes funeral homes seem cheerful.”

“Lonely,” she said. “I was going to say I can see now how you get lonely.”

“It’s not all bad,” he said as Gorilla opened the brown double doors, and they stepped out into the backyard.

The dreary aura of the house gave way to warm sunlight, and Marinette welcomed the change, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Rose bushes lined the yard, vines trailing up the house in knotted tendrils while dozens of butterflies fluttered between the flowers. Despite the ever-present roar of the city beyond the walls, the garden was a tranquil place.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, dumbstruck.

“My mother loved to spend time out here, and somedays I catch my father sitting on the steps with his tablet. I thought that maybe it could inspire you too.” Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, and when Marinette turned to him with a smile, he gestured to the stairs. “Come on. It’s even better down there.”

Adrien beckoned for her to follow, and she trailed her hand along the smooth stone railing, head leaned back to take in all of the greenery. Sunlight trickled through the trees, casting speckled, glowing patterns on the ground. Birds chirped in the bushes, the occasional tiny head peeking out between the branches. Everything was so lively here, living in perfect harmony—a direct contrast from the dissonance inside the house.

They came to stop in front of the statue at the center—Adrien’s mother immortalized in stone. Much like the rest of the portraits in the house, it was beautiful, but also sad. Marinette couldn’t imagine losing her mom the way Adrien lost his. He put on a cheery face, but Marinette knew that he was still mourning deep down.

“My dad loves having images of my mom around. It’s like she’s still here with us,” he said. “It probably sounds silly, but I like to sit out here and talk to her sometimes. It’s comforting.”

“I don’t think that’s silly.” Marinette shook her head. “You really miss her.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “But I know she’d want me to be happy, so I try to keep my head up every day.”

Marinette hesitated, her fingers twitching toward his. It wouldn’t be out of line to take his hand. She just wanted to comfort him…as a friend. Despite convincing herself it was an innocent gesture, her heart still skipped when she finally mustered the courage to slip her hand into his. He welcomed it, giving her hand a tight squeeze.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said, “and for sticking by me through everything.”

Adrien turned to her, the sunniness returning to his smile as he shot her a wink. “I’ve got your back, Marinette. You’re one of my best friends, and I’ll always be here for you.”

Her cheeks warmed, and she turned back to the statue. It was strange. Normally hearing Adrien say such things would have sent her straight to cloud 9, and she would have spent hours replaying those words in her head. But her heart couldn’t seem to get off the ground. The light fluttery feeling was weighed by a heavy darkness as if it were still trapped in the house, unable to escape into the peace of the garden.

Then I guess we shouldn’t consider ourselves bffs if there’s so much we don’t know about each other.

Maybe we shouldn’t.

“Marinette?”

She blinked, and something hot slid down her cheek. Adrien stepped closer as she batted at it with a shaking hand, a wet sheen glistening on her fingers.

“It’s okay.” He pulled her into his arms.

She clung to him as more tears spilled over, burying her face in his shoulder. She hadn’t intended to make a habit of crying in the arms of the boy she loved, but given the circumstances, she couldn’t help it. Her tears came when they wanted and refused to surrender once they started. Luckily, Adrien was so perfect and understanding that he always held her close, whispering soft encouragement until her sobs quieted.

Marinette loved him with all of her heart.

“How can anyone live with themselves when they inflict this kind of pain on others?” Adrien murmured into her hair. “Lila Rossi really is evil.”

♪♫♪ …Ready for It? ♪♫♪

Chloe wasn’t surprised to see him that evening—she didn’t even pause her yoga when he entered. It should have bothered him more that she predicted he would cave, but Chloe had known him a long time. She knew better than anyone what his limits were.

“Have you thought about my request?” she asked, shifting into downward facing dog.

Adrien chewed his cheek, Marinette’s tears now dried on his shirt, and steeled his resolve. “If you and I were to plot revenge against Lila…what do you have in mind?”

#mdcsp #mdcspr #marinette dupain-cheng's spite playlist #marinette dupain-cheng's spite playlist remix #my writing

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eunoiamaybe · 4 years

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my “sort-of-complete” online classes and exams tips

This is a longer-than-usual post with tips for the 3 stages of online classes: focusing during an online class session, reviewing/studying for online classes, and preparing for online exams/ quizzes. So I decided to insert the “Read More” link to (a) not take up too much space on your dash, and (b) feel more confident in adding more tips as time goes on.

These are tips that I’ve compiled from my experience of taking online classes during my last 1.5 years at university. But having all of your courses moved online is so much more complicated. Since I’m currently doing an internship, I have tried my best to produce this post based on the comments of my friends IRL and on Tumblr (hence the “my”). However, I hope it can still be useful for you and many who were all abruptly put in this same situation.

So feel free to share your own tips and experience! I will probably go back to this once in a while to make some changes to it and add your tips. Good luck to everyone who is currently/ about to take online classes. You are almost there! 🍀 I believe in every single one of you!

~ Click away for them tips ~

💻 DURING ONLINE CLASS SESSIONS:

- try to treat online classes the same as an in-person class, especially time-wise (set a specific time for each class and plan your own class schedule. even better, study for your classes at the same time they used to be held. this will create a sense of routine and trigger the brain's normal reactions to your usual class - which is to study)

- don’t be afraid to fix your plan/ schedule (aka don’t force yourself into one if it doesn’t work for you) (trials and errors, my friend. this applies to plans too. there’s no shame in not being able to keep up with the schedule you’ve made. if you’ve tried or if it hurts you mentally or physically, then that schedule is just not the one for you. everybody has their unique strengths and weaknesses. one’s perfect system might not suit another. finding a system that works for you takes time, patience, and courage. but it will be absolutely worth it)

- find a good spot with enough light and stable wifi (if you have multiple options, select the one that would make you most comfortable, most focused, and confident enough to take online tests/quizzes/exams at - create your “exam space” in advance to reduce the anxiety of tests and unfamiliarity)

- study at a desk, if possible (studying at a desk, with good posture, mimics the feeling of being in a classroom or the library. thus, it will create a sense of routine and help you focus better)

- accommodate yourself (I’m all about making the best out of a bad situation, and this is one way to do it. accommodate yourself, not just with comfort, but also with actual necessities that you cannot usually get in your usual classroom/library due to whatever reason. stress balls, stim toys, positivity cards, calming music/candles. comforting plushies. chewing gum. as long as it helps you focus better, it's on the table)

- get dressed (this will bring out that sense of structure and routine that you need. put on your normal outfits, uniforms and even perfume. trick your mind into being focused)

- minimize distractions (declutter your study space. put your phone out of reach. turn off notifications. close all other tabs on your browser. select non-distracting music/ sounds. don’t spam or pay attention to spams in your classes’ chatboxes. only bring along items that are absolutely vital to your focus)

- take notes, even if you can record your lessons and/or access the lessons later (it can either be digital notes or handwritten notes on paper - your call. this will force you to focus and prevent you from zoning out/ being distracted)

- be actively engaged in the lecture (if there are technical problems or if you have questions, chatbox away. this is also good practice for people with social anxiety too: the fact that you are in your home and behind the screen can make it easier for you to ask for help)

- if possible, put your teachers/profs on the big screen to create the illusion of being in a lecture (if your study spot has a TV/projector that can connect to your laptop and quality speakers, do it. it's more fun than you'd think. also super stimulating and kicks the boredom out of you too)

- if not, use headphones/ earphones (speakers can create a feeling of distance between the lecture and yourself. combined with unstable internet and/or monotonous voices of some instructors, this may result in your brain classifying your lecture as background noises and zone out. so use headphones or earphones with the appropriate volume for that optimal focus mode)

- give yourself breaks between classes (don't cram all your classes in one morning. but don't procrastinate either. time your breaks. look at something else besides a computer or phone screen while you’re on break too. maybe brew some tea/coffee for your next class or rearrange your notes from the previous one)

💻 REVIEWING FOR ONLINE CLASSES:

- make a schedule/ system - and be ready to change them (this is an elaboration of an earlier tip. your system doesn’t have to work perfectly right away. most of the time, you will have to make some kind of adjustments to it anyway. so take it easy. pay attention to how well you react/ adapt to the new schedule so that you can make necessary changes. and give yourself - especially your mind - some time to adapt to the schedule. don’t rush yourself or put too much pressure on being productive. remember to take care of your well-being too)

- it’s okay to give yourself some off-days (that’s the beauty of not having any physical or even abstract structure that forces you into an inescapable routine. Yes, I know this lack of structure sucks for a lot of us, especially for those who rely on external forces to keep themselves focused. But look on the bright side: now you don’t have to worry about missing classes or losing participation marks when you are unwell physically and mentally anymore)

- textbooks are your friends now (especially when your classes’ live-streams are just chaotic and hard to follow. or when the pre-recorded lectures aren’t loading properly and keeps lagging. practice speed reading. look for keywords and crucial information. take notes rather than highlighting everything. compare them to your lecture notes, your syllabus, or your friends’)

- take advantage of the online format’s availability + other resources (availability is here, baby! revisit lecture videos and podcasts as many times as you need to. check your email classes’ forums regularly for questions or announcements. re-listen to your lecture when you're cleaning or exercising. watch videos of Khan Academy or CrashCourse. look for online tutors. study at your own pace and in your own style. basically anything you wish you could do when your class was in-person)

- there’s no need to submit assignments early if it’s anxiety-inducing. but make a schedule/ tracking system/ set alarms to avoid forgetting to turn them in (take your time to double-check or edit your work - as long as the submission box is still open, of course. set aside about an hour or two before the deadline for submission to avoid any technical difficulties. and remember to start working on them early so that you don’t have to shorten that window of time and have more time for double-checking)

- don't be afraid to email the profs/teachers (if possible, compile your questions into a list. be as specific as you can about your concerns. put a subject for your email to reduces the chance of your email getting lost in your instructors' inbox.)

- reward yourself (don't stress yourself out by rewarding big accomplishments. reward small victories. reward baby steps. reward effort. you'll get things done eventually)

- take time to know your learning style (when are you most focused? do you like taking digital notes or do you prefer pen and paper? are you a visual or an auditory learner? do you like moving around while studying? what drinks or scents or sounds keep you going? you don't have to stick to your usual study methods or an online/paperless one now that you are studying in your own room)

- listen to your mind and body (it’s okay to feel a bit lost) (from my own experience, times that are without structure like nowadays is when most of us fall into this spiraling downfall of unhealthy sleep schedules, lethargy, and loss of purpose. so please take care of your mental and physical well-being during this very, very weird time. keep yourself active. re-ignite old interests/ hobbies. connect with people you love. give yourself some love)

- and more tips on productivity at home in my last post right here

💻 PREPARING FOR ONLINE EXAMS / QUIZZES:

- make a list of all the online exams and final assignment due dates (this will help you keep track of and stay on top of them due dates. from that list, trace backward to make a review or study plan to prepare for the tests and work on the assignments. if there are any time conflicts, especially for those who are now living in a different timezone from their schools or colleges, email the instructors to seek solutions or alternative options)

- again, find a good spot with good wifi, good lighting, and a desk (if possible, try to recreate your ideal exam environment as closely as you can while studying and reviewing for the exams. this can reduce the anxiety of tests and/or unfamiliarity)

- be prepared for technical difficulties (especially mentally, so that you don’t plan out a course of action to take if they ever arise. draft an email template. research in advance the contacts of people whom you can report to - IT personnel, your instructors, student office, etc.)

- bring everything you need to the exams - but no distractions (like mentioned earlier, if you need any special accommodations that are considered "unacceptable" in an in-person exam/quiz, now it's the time to bring them along - you’re in charge of your test space now, so make it as comfortable and accomodating as you want)

- plan your desk set-up prior to your exams (so many extra items. still so little desk space. therefore, plan ahead so your desk does not turn into a mess when you take your exams. plan where you want to put your notes, textbooks, calculators or scrap paper. think about how much use you’re gonna get out of each item and place them within or slightly-out-of reach accordingly. charge your laptop. sharpen your pencils. have your backup stationery handy. lay out everything you need onto your desk the night before your tests. this can create a feeling of preparedness and thus, reduce anxiety as well)

- make cheatsheets (the goals when making them are simple: (1) get you to rewrite your notes for that good memorization; (2) condense your information and find a connection between them for a thorough understanding of the materials; (3) reduce the time you use to flip through your notebooks or textbooks or google for information during the actual tests)

- time yourself with mock exams (if you are given mock exams to practice with, do them, with a timer. this will help you familiarize yourself with the stress of being timed, thus reducing your anxiety during the actual tests)

- get enough sleep and eat properly (even if the exams or quizzes are online, they are still, at their core, tests. and tests are always stressful and energy-consuming. so take care of both your physical and mental health, especially during the week leading up to your exams)

1K notes · View notes

unmaskedagain · 4 years

Text

Ladybug (Not) in Paris

So this is the follow up fic to my Series Ladybug in Smallville and it’s sequel Ladybug in Gotham (And Space). When i opened my asks a few days ago, i recieved multiple prompts asking for part 3. A lot people also asked for a reaction from people in Paris after Lila was exposed. I don’t think I did a fic just focused on the fallout before so I decided to try my hand at it. Warning: i’m not kind to the characters. Even the ones i usually like. Sorry.

Ladybug (Not) in Paris

Ladybug’s interview with Nadja didn’t just sent shock waves through Paris. It was a hurricane, a tornado; throwing everyone off their feet and destroying everything in its wake. Yet somehow, it was the aftermath, when everything settled down, that hurt the most…

Tom and Sabine

Four months ago, they had thought they had done right thing. Marinette, as far as Sabine and Tom were concerned, had changed too much. They hardly recognized her anymore. First the accusations of her bullying some poor girl; of being a thief and a liar. Then expulsion! But no matter how much evidence was presented against the young girl, Marinette refused to budge on her claim of innocence. Their daughter’s actions had weeks of silent treatments and disappointed looks from them. They longed to see the daughter they remembered. The one with the smiling face, looking up at them with love and trust as if they were her entire world; always believing that they had the power to make everything better. The one who they recognized. One they trusted.

Nadja had sided with Marinette and tried to convince the two parents to hear their daughter out. A furious Sabine all but threw her out the house; she didn’t need to hear anymore lies or tall tales from her offspring. Even if her friend was foolish enough to buy them.

It was all too much.

And when Gina, Tom’s mother, suggested they send Marinette to her friend. They leaped at the chance. Tom and Sabine truly believed their daughter had become toxic to their way of life, to her friends way of life.

Nadja had found out Marinette had been sent away three days after the girl was gone. She ended her friendship with Sabine right there and then.

After Marinette was gone, they waited for her to call them. Either to beg for her to allowed back; promising to change. Or just to let them know she was alright. Or just call as an olive branch, like she always did. She never called. Gina did. She told them Marinette had gotten to Smallville safely, and that was it.

It would be a month before they’d hear from Marinette; and it was only because Gina had conferenced her in. Only Tom was willing to speak with her, though he had nothing positive to say. Sabine refused to give up on her silent treatment. She would continue to refuse to speak to her daughter for months.

Sabine and Tom settled into relative peace without the chaotic presence of their daughter. Each ignoring the gaping hole she left behind. They only updates came from Gina.

Then Ladybug’s interview aired.

They had been working in the bakery at the time. A customer was watching it on his phone.

As the interview went on, and Ladybug denounced the school, the teachers, the students, and the wrongful expulsion of Marinette Dupain-Cheng; but most of all how much a liar Lila Rossi was; it was like their world crashed.

They quickly closed up shop and rewatched the interview.

Sabine had turned paler than she ever had before. Tom lost all feeling in his legs.

What had they done?

They sat in silence as the memories of the last few months their daughter had lived with them filled their heads; her desperate pleas of her innocence, her tearstained face begging them to listen. But they hadn’t. They sent her away.

They sat in silence, just watching and rewatching the video. Tears slowly slipped down Sabine’s face. A very small part of Sabine wished it would change. That suddenly Nadja would be confirming Marinette misdeeds instead. Anything! So it wouldn’t mean that Sabine had been a terrible mother, like Nadja had claimed she was when she found out Marinette had been sent away.

But no the vindictive look and overly pleased smile on her former best friend’s face didn’t change.

It was Tom that called Marinette, putting the phone on speak. She didn’t pick up the first call. Or the second. When she finally answered, Tom immediately launched into apologies. He promised his daughter the world to make it up to her as soon as she came home. Sabine just cried in the background.

Silence came from the other line. And for moment Tom thought the call had disconnected.

“I understand,” Marinette’s voice rang out through the living room. “Thank you for apologizing.” That was it. That was all said. There was no forgiveness in her voice. No love in her tone. “I love you. I do. But I will not be returning to Paris.”

Tom burst into tears right then and there.

When the call ended, neither parent knew what to say; just wondered how much of their relationship with their daughter was left to salvage.

For the next month, both parents would try to call their daughter every day. Most days she wouldn’t answer. They understood why but that didn’t stop the dreadful feeling they had for every call that went to voice mail. The only she called them was to tell them the farm needed to be repaired and that she would be living with Clark and his husband.

They longed to see their daughter’s smiling face, looking up at them with love and trust as if they were her entire world.

It would a few months later that they did see it. Sabine and Tom were watching on of Sabine’s favorite red carpet events: the Wayne’s Annual Gala. It was a charity event that all the celebrities went to. A show Tom barely paid attention to.

However, his wife’s gasp got his attention. She pointed to the screen, and then it was Tom’s turn to gasp.

Their daughter was on TV, on the red carpet with Bruce Wayne, Clark, and the rest of the Wayne family; fitting in seamlessly with her dark hair and her blue eyes, in the most gorgeous pink dress they’d ever seen. Marinette easily passed as Bruce and Clark’s daughter. The press there screamed questioned about adoption or another love child.

Bruce seemed to take great pride in showing off his new ward; bragging about her accomplishments and that she made all of their outfits of the night. Clark, while didn’t brag, didn’t hesitate to tell everyone how amazing his niece was. Marinette just laughed; looking happier than Sabine or Tom could remember her being for a long time, even before she left.

The part that broke their hearts? Was their daughter’s smiling face, looking up at them, Bruce and Clark, with love and trust as if they were her entire world; like she believed that they had the power to make everything better.

From how wonderful their daughter looked, and how much better off she seemed to be. The two men had.

Clark and Bruce did the one thing Sabine and Tom forgot how to do.

Be there for their daughter.

Alya and the rest of the Students

Four months ago, Alya had partied with her entire class over the fact that they had gotten the biggest bully kicked out of school. All the kids enjoyed the peace that had filled the classroom after her departure. They had another party when they learned Marinette had been sent out of the country. No one in class spared too much mind toward theirs ex-friend, apart from a few scathing remarks about her.

Alya was glad the dark presence in their life was gone. Happy that her bestie Lila didn’t have to worry about the awful bully anymore. Everything was good again. Everyone was happy. Everything was peaceful.

Then Ladybug’s interview aired.

They had been at school, in class. The bell had just rang for lunch when Alya got the Ladybug alert on her phone. She was sitting next to Nino, texting Lila to hurry up and make a move on Adrien. She was surprised to see the hero giving an interview as she hadn’t had much time to so much as glance in Alya’s direction. With Bustier’s permission, Alya played the interview on the white screen of their room; with a little help from Markov.

The entire class cheered when the interview started as they all ate their lunches in class.

The interview had started off great. Ladybug had a new costume and Nadja asked about it. The hero showed it off a little. Then it got serious.

Ladybug said Chat Noir was never returning; confirming something Alya had suspected for months.

Then she mentioned the Ladyblog…

“Bad journalism,” Ladybug said. “That’s all that blog is. It’s poorly researched and full of lies. I’ve seen better research from the magazine that said Bigfoot’s having an affair with the Lochness Monster.”

“What Lies?” Nadja asked.

Alya nodded. “This had to be a mistake. Everything I write is true!”

Nadja pulled up the Ladyblog on the screen behind them.

“Well, for example, who the hell is Lila Rossi?”

Silence filled the classroom. Everyone’s eyes on the screen. Lila froze in her seat.

“That girl is not my best friend,” Ladybug stated. “I saved her from her own akuma save five times now. That’s it. I don’t know the girl. I don’t like the girl. What was written would only serve to put Lila in danger. And what’s this about Lila saving Jagged Stone’s cat? From a plane? Which airline was this? Who could be so careless?”

After that the reporter and the hero ripped the Ladyblog to shreds; dismantling each and every lie on the blog.

“Every reporter should know one cardinal rule,” Nadja said seriously to the audience. “Check your resources. Don’t be like the writer of the Ladyblog.”

Alya seethed in her seat, throwing furious glares at Lila who had paled and looked read to flee the classroom. No one else in class knew what to say or do. Lila was lying? How could Lila be Lila? It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be true.

As the interview went on, and Ladybug denounced the school, Bustier and a few other teachers, the students, for the wrongful expulsion of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

“I heard one poor girl even got expelled,” Ladybug shook her head. “From what I’ve heard, there was no investigation, just word of mouth, easily planted evidence, and then expulsion. I’m surprised I didn’t have to deal with her Akuma.” Ladybug’s sad tone was clear to hear. “I looked into the incident a bit. A rather brilliant Robot name Markov had been recording the room at the time.” Marinette nodded to the screen. “I had them blur the students’ faces for security reasons. The girl with the short hair is the victim in question.”

The video played. And it was clear that a long haired girl had stolen the answer key from the teacher and planted them on the victim. Another video played of Lila taking the necklace she said Marinette stole and planting it in the bluenette’s locker. It was a damning video.

After the videos, the students and teacher were stunned. Too stunned to move. Too stunned to speak.

“From what I understand only a teacher named Mendeleiev actually tried to do something about the whole mess,” Ladybug praised. “She had been filing complaints with the school board for months. She and a majority of the staff, actively protested the expulsion of the victim before and after it happened. They stood strong against bullying. Even of the threat of being fired hasn’t stop Mendeleiev. That is the type of teacher, the type of person everyone should aim to be like. She should be the principle.”

Ladybug went on to full tirade against school. She ripped the principle and teacher Bustier to shreds. For allowing bullying of students, victim blaming, and sheer negligence. Reciting how many times Ladybug had to deal with akuma from that school, particularly from Bustier’s class.

“I just wish I could’ve helped her,” Ladybug sighed. “The victim. She lost everything; all her friends, her family, because of this and the actions of a seriously disturbed girl who was nothing more than a liar. I can’t help but wonder what happened if I had found out sooner. If Lila Rossi had never lied. Or if the Ladyblog had fed into them. After this, I will never work with Alya Césaire, author of the Ladyblog, again. She is terrible journalist and from what I understand, and equally terrible friend. Everyone at that school should be ashamed of themselves.”

“I know the girl you’re speaking about,” Nadja frowned. “She’s stronger than she looks. Still, she deserved better. I swear to you that I’ll be leading the charge in investigating the wrongful expulsion. Justice will be had.”

The fallout was epic. And started seconds after the interview ended with Alya launching herself at Lila, ready to strangle the girl, tackling her as rage and misery filled her.

It took Nino and Kim to pull her back.

“How could you!” Alya screamed, tears building in her eyes. “I trusted you! We all trusted you. You! You! You Monster!”

No bother to help Lila off the floor. Her hair was a mess and her nose was bleeding. She looked around her help, as she struggled to come up with a lie to spin everything in her favor. But video proof and a national icon denouncing you on public TV was a hard thing to spin. The class looked at her with cold hatred, already laying all the blame at Lila’s feet.

Lila didn’t get the chance to come up with a lie.

Mendeleiev along with two other teachers and the gym coach arrived before she could.

“Rossi,” Mendeleiev growled, fury in her eyes. She had warned Bustier and Damocles about the girl, had filed complaint and complaint with the school boarding regarding Marinette. The fool Damocles had threatened to fire her if she didn’t stop but she hadn’t. Mostly because it was the right thing to do. Partly because she knew he didn’t have the balls to do it. “You’ll be leaving with me now to the Principal’s office. Your mother is on the way.”

Lila paled. Suddenly remembering that Ladybug had said her name on live TV. Her mother probably saw everything. She’d kill Lila for this. Her mother had to move to France after Lila had gotten in trouble at her last school for lying. Yet the trouble she was in now was far worse than she’d ever been in.

She cursed the fact that Hawkmoth had already sent so many strong akuma. He’d be too weak to send anymore.

Mendeleiev turned her attention to the class with cold eyes. They were just kids so the teacher didn’t blame them too much. Kids made mistakes. She hoped they would learn from this. Grow from this. “Class, Miss Ashton will be your teacher for the rest of the day.” The English teacher stepped forward. “Miss Bustier will be coming with me.”

Caline Bustier nodded, not even bothering to argue. She knew her career was over. Her teaching license would be revoked. Her name smeared across the papers. Still a part of her wanted to cry that she thought she had done the right thing. Everything had be so obvious, all the evidence there. However, the more she thought about it, the more she realized she should’ve been suspicious to how easily the so called evidence was found.

The students watched as Mendeleiev marched Lila and Bustier out of the classroom, the teachers besides Ashton joining her.

The bell rang. Ashton gave the class a kind smile, “I think me maybe your teacher for quite a while.” She told them. “So today, I would like to discuss Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR and the book the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.”

“The Ides of March. Wrong imprisonment,” Max answered his face forlorn. He knew what the teacher was getting at. “Both are famous for the betrayals in them. Each main character were betrayed by their friends.”

Ashton’s smile suddenly looked a lot colder. She turned around and write on the white board in Giant Black Letter. “Et tu, Brute.” She read off the board. “Et tu, Brute is one of the Shakespeare’s most famous lines. Historically inaccurate but still used very much today. It’s usually said to one friend from another when a harmless betrayal happens. I, myself, said it just last week when my boyfriend stole last piece of pecan pie. I deserved it once when I erased his futball game off the DVR to make room for the newest episode of the Flash. What about you? Have you ever done anything to deserve it?”

No one in class said anything. They all knew they had.

When class let out, they flood the bluenette’s cellphone with apology texts begging her to answer. Alya had called her bestie a dozen times but not one call got answered.

When Alya got home, she was met with the disappointed faces of her parents and sister. She had tried to explain her side of things but they wouldn’t listen.

Then her sister said, “We need to get a lawyer.”

Her parents nodded, resignation in on their faces. Alya balked, “Why? We didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything.”

“Your website told lies about famous and powerful people,” Her mother explained, with a slight fear in her voice. “They could sue us for defamation of character.”

And they did. In the weeks after Ladybug’s interview celebrity after celebrity, or at least their lawyer contacted their family lawyer. They were all pretty lenient as no one wanted to be seen suing a teenager girl over a fanblog but the terms were clear. The Ladyblog had to go.

Her life’s work was deleted on a raining Tuesday. Alya stilled blamed Lila for her sorrows. The Italian girl had been expelled and sent far away by her mother.

Everyone in class blamed Lila for what happened. For getting poor Marinette expelled. Marinette who still didn’t return their calls or texts.

Alya knew she had done wrong to Marinette but it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know Lila was lying. She made a mistake. Everyone should just move on.

Unfortunately for her, they did move on. Damocles and Bustier were fired. All of the students in Bustier’s class was put on probation for their bullying of Marinette. (One toe out of line and they would be expelled.) Most of the student body avoided the lot, fearing they’d be tarred with the same brush. They were persona non-grata.

Alya parents took away her laptop and forbid her from creating another website. She was forced to attend mandatory therapy session; something about owning up to her own mistakes.

Alya wished that everything would go back to normal. She wished her bestie was back in Paris already. So Marinette and her could go back to giggling over boys and dreaming of their futures. Planning to rule the world as the dynamic professional and extremely successful women they were sure they’d become. Her bestie who was always there for her, always willing to listen, always on Alya’s side, unlike everyone else in the world at the moment.

Weeks passed and no one heard or seen a hair from Marinette. Most of the class just knew if they could just apologize to the girl everything would be alright again. They’d be friends again. Alya was certain of it.

Still more time passed, and nothing.

Finally, one girls’ night, after they all finally finishing being ground, they all met up at Rose’s for a sleepover. They laughed and did each other’s make up, ate greasy food, watched trash TV and felt at peace for the first time in a while.

Rose shushed her friends at the Wayne Gala started. “Doesn’t Gigi Hadid look amazing!” She exclaimed.

“Please, look at Beyoncé,” Alya said. “Now that’s a queen.”

All the girls pointed out their favorite celebrity and gushed over their outfits.

“Oh it’s the Waynes,” Rose chirped excited. “They always look amazing. Is that… that’s Marinette!”

All the girls’ eyes were glued to the screen because sure enough Marinette Dupain-Cheng was on the screen being escorted by Bruce Wayne.

“She’s in Gotham?” Alix pointed out. “I didn’t know she was in Gotham.”

Mylene’s eyes were wide. “I wonder how she likes it. I heard Gotham was pretty scary.”

“Screw Gotham,” Alya yelled a giant smile on her face. “She knows Bruce Wayne. She knows the Waynes!”

Bruce Wayne introduced Marinette as the newest addition to his family and went on to rave about her in a proud fatherly tone. His husband Clark Kent doing the same.

Rose awed, “She designed that dress. It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen.”

Alya wanted to high five someone. Her bestie was Bruce Wayne’s newest kid. She had to text. She needed all the details. What was it like? How rich were they? How rich was she now? Could Alya come visit?

The glasses-wearing girl was filled with hope. Maybe Marinette would give her an interview, the exclusive. Maybe one with her new family too. An interview with Bruce Wayne would be amazing. Maybe Alya would get to meet Clark Kent, he was a famous reporter. He worked with Lois Lane.

Alya gasped. What if she got to meet Lois Lane? Marinette had to know her. Clark and Lois were best friends, everyone knew that. She was even the surrogate for Clark’s son Jon. She was practically Marinette’s aunt now. Maybe Marinette could get her an internship at the Daily Planet. That would show everyone. They’d all see that Alya was some stupid kid pretending to be a journalist. She was the real deal. They’d see.

…If only she could get Marinette on the phone.

A month and then two went by and still no answer from Marinette. Alya figured the girl had lost her phone. Marinette could be pretty careless sometimes. And forgetful. Alya thought that until she got to class one day, and Juleka was telling everyone that Luka was going to Gotham.

“Marinette invited him,” Juleka said, her eyes a bit sad, but she was otherwise happy for her brother. Luka had been the first to make it clear that Juleka, and the others, were in the wrong and it was up to Marinette to forgive them if she wanted. “Her new guardians are paying for him to come. Her Birthday’s coming up. It’s going to be this huge event for the Princess of Gotham,” She giggled at the name the media had given the bluenette who had earned their love quickly and easily. “She really loves it Gotham.”

“Girl, have you been talking to my bestie?” Alya accused. “Behind my back. Seriously!”

To her credit, Juleka didn’t bat an eye in the face of the girl’s anger. “I haven’t spoken a word to Marinette. Luka talks to her almost every day. They’re friends.”

“Does she get a new phone?” Alya asked quickly. “Or maybe she had a new number! Can I have it? Call Luka and get it!”

“She did get a new phone,” Juleka confirmed. “But she has the same number as before.”

Alya huffed, “Then why isn’t she answering! Why is she talking to Luka and not me?” She was Marinette’s bestie. Alya was the one who should be talking to her every day, not some random guy. She was one who should be flying off to Gotham to attend Marinette’s extravagant birthday party. HER!

“Luka and Marinette are friends,” Juleka repeated. “Last time we talked to Marinette, we all made it clear we weren’t her friends anymore. Why would she talk to us? After what we did?”

Alya gaped. “I’m not the one who lied.”

“No. You just helped bully her.” Juleka shrugged. “We all did. Or at least didn’t stop it. We hurt her. And that’s not something we can blame on anyone else. It was our actions helped Marinette get kicked out of school. That’s not just one Alya. That’s on us.”

“We really hurt her,” Rose whispered. “We made her cry a lot.”

“We shoved her,” Alix looked down.

“Destroyed her homework,” Kim said, regret clear in his eyes.

“Ruined her designs,” Mylene added as she teared up.

“Sent horrible texts,” Sabrina said looking anywhere but at the white board.

“We left her all alone and told her she deserved it,” Juleka clenched her fists.

“We sent viruses to her computer,” Max winced. “Made it more useful as a paperweight.”

“Or we did nothing at all and just let it happened,” Ivan swallowed hard. “And that was just as bad.”

“Because we were scared,” Nathanial said between clenched teeth. “We were cowards who didn’t want the same thing to happen to us.”

“We betrayed her,” Nino admitted. “Every last one of us. That wasn’t Lila. Because Lila was never her friend. Betrayal doesn’t come from your enemies. It comes from your friends.”

The weight of the world seemed to hit her, as Alya plummeted back down in her seat, feeling numb. Her eyes on the white board. The giant bold words screamed at her. She could hear them in her head, repeating over and over again, all in a familiar voice.

“Et tu Brute,” The ghost of Marinette whispered, seemingly more alive in the classroom, than ever before. “Et tu Brute.”

Alya wanted to protest, scream that it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t fair. But she couldn’t find the words for once. The memories of all the harm she had caused her bestie, her former friend filled her head. Everything her other classmates had done, Alya did twice over. She even convinced Marinette’s parents of the girl’s wrongdoings, turning them against her. Lila wasn’t to blame for that, not entirely. It was all of them.

It was Alya. She betrayed her best friend. Everyone in class betrayed the Bluenette.

And much like the Ides of March, they had all taken turns at stabbing the girl. Even when Marinette had tried appealing to Alya, her best friend, but Alya stabbed her. She could still remember the disbelief on Marinette’s face as she left.

Alya swallowed hard. Tears prickled her eyes.

Et tu Brute, indeed.

Adrien

Four months ago, the kindest girl Adrien had ever known was expelled from school. He had only given a weak protest when it happened. Tried to get Lila to reverse it. But nothing worked. And when he heard Marinette had been sent away. He decided to move on, not make a big deal out of it.

The whole ordeal had been terrible. Before she left, Marinette kept calling him and texting him to get him to help her; reveal that Lila was lying. Adrien refused. Everyone in class liked having Lila there and she wasn’t hurting anyone.

It got to the point where Adrien just ignored her calls and texts. He even had Nathalie tell her that he wouldn’t be getting involved, and that maybe they should take a break from each other for a while.

To make matter worse it had come after Fu had taken back the ring; declared Chat Noir and unfit superhero. It was all too much.

Yes, it was better to just move on. Everything would go back to the way it was soon enough. Marinette would come back. Lila would be better and not lying so much. They’d all be friends again.

For now, Marinette was probably happier where she was. She’d move on. The class was happier with her gone. Everyone should just move on.

And they did.

The class went back to being a happy and friendly place. They all went back to being the amazing friends they were. It was a little strange without Marinette but it wasn’t like the girl had been active in his or any of their other friends’ lives. Her accusations against Lila had gotten her the cold shoulder from the class.

Adrien had warned her to stop. If only, the bluenette had listened. But girls always seemed to have trouble listening to him.

Like Ladybug.

If Ladybug had just gone out with him, he’d still be Chat Noir. They were soul mates, why didn’t she see that?

It took the blond a while to get used to not being a hero anymore, a while before he’d stopped unconsciously complaining to Plagg whenever they were alone.

It was fine though. Adrien moved. He and Nino hung out more. It was easier now that he didn’t have to worry about getting so much cheese or coming up with excuses to fight Akuma. Ladybug come back soon enough, he knew. She needed him. They were a team. He was sure of it. Just like he was sure Marinette would come back to class and everyone would be friends again; everything would go back to the way it was.

For now, he would just enjoy the break.

Then Ladybug’s interview aired.

And once again, Adrien’s world was thrown up balance.

Ladybug’s interview had been cruel. She had depicted a coldness Adrien had never seen from her before. She tore everyone to shreds. She tore the school to shreds. It was like she didn’t care who she hurt. Or how many people would be hurt by the truth being out there like that.

He had thought she was the type of person to take the high road. It wasn’t like Lila had been hurting anyone. And Alya had made a simple mistake. Nothing that could be fixed, right? Everyone would get over it. They’d move on.

And they’d be better off for it.

All of Lila’s lies were revealed like Adrien always told Marinette they would be.

The Italian girl got expelled that same day; which Adrien thought was a bit harsh. Bustier and Damocles were fired, again harsh. The class turned again the liar and laid the blame entirely at her feet; that Adrien found was fair.

Then he waited with a big smile in his class the following Monday after Lila’s expulsion. Waiting for Marinette to walk through the door with a happy smile on her, excited to be back. They’d all apologize and everything would be alright again.

However, Marinette didn’t come back on Monday. Or the next day. Or the day after that. She never came back.

No one in class could get a hold of her. The Bluenette didn’t reply to their texts and never answered a call.

It was so unlike their everyday Ladybug. She couldn’t still be mad, right? Even if she was, they were friends. You have to forgive your friends right. No one could be angry forever.

Mariette would get over it. She’d come home soon. Adrien just knew.

Adrien didn’t call her or text. He knew it was best to wait. Marinette always was the one to make peace. It was just the way she was.

So he waited.

And he waited.

And waited.

Weeks turned into months. But there was no sign of Marinette anywhere. His phone making it glaringly obvious that the girl never called.

How were they supposed to go back to being friends if she never called? Didn’t she care?

Adrien wondered where Marinette was.

He found out during guys’ night when Alya texted Nino to turn the TV channel. And then they all saw her. Marinette smiling brightly on the red carpet, looking more beautiful then he’d ever seen her before. She was in Gotham, living with the Waynes’. She was Bruce Wayne’s new ward. Everyone knew that every time Bruce Wayne got a new ward, they always got adopted. Always.

By the time, Adrien got home that night the news was filled with articles like:

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the newest Wayne?

Who is Marinette Wayne, and why you should love her!

Marinette: Secret love child of Bruce Wayne!

Marinette’s name was in lights. All world was talking about her. She was famous.

Which was why Adrien became even surer that Marinette would call. He was the only other famous kid she knew. He could help, be there for her to talk to. It’s what friends did. Marinette would call soon.

The next morning his father joined in for breakfast for the first time in weeks. He only ever did it when he wanted something from Adrien.

“Did you know Miss Dupain-Cheng was in Gotham?” His father asked.

Adrien shook his head, “No. I didn’t know what happened to her when she left school.”

Gabriel nodded. “You were friends, yes?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He had always counted the Dupain-Cheng girl as one of Adrien’s few likeable friends. “Nathalie told me you two had a falling out.”

“We took a break,” Adrien corrected. “We need a breather from each other. Things had gotten pretty bad because of Lila.”

Gabriel frowned. What happened with Lila Rossi had been a blow to the stock prices of the company. They had endorsed the girl whose name made headlines after Ladybug denounced her and publically revealed her lies, and that she had been willingly working with Hawkmoth. Shareholders didn’t like that. “Miss Dupain-Cheng lives with her Uncles, Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent; two notable figures in society. Reach out to her, end your ‘breather’, reconfirm your friendship. A connection with the Wayne family will take us far.”

“Yes, dad.”

Adrien was still reluctant to reach out first. Marinette just needed a bit more time. When she was ready, she’d call him. She always did. She was their everyday ladybug, and that meant something.

However, Nathalie made sure he did. She made sure Adrien sent every text his father wanted him to.

His first text was simple: hey, how’s it going.

There was no reply.

He asked when she was coming back to school. Told her they all missed her.

No reply.

At Nathalie behest, he asked about Bruce Wayne and the other Waynes. What they were like? If all their suits were custom made.

No reply.

He asked if she wanted to get lunch when she got back to Paris.

Nothing.

He never received a single reply. His father was disappointed. Until Adrien suggested that maybe Marinette changed her number. That wasn’t something either them could control. His dad backed off, and Adrien breathed a sigh of relief.

Adrien found out that wasn’t the case when he heard Juleka telling Rose that Luka was going to Gotham. Then Alya started in on the quiet girl about going behind her back.

Then Juleka had said something that shook Adrien a bit.

“She did get a new phone,” Juleka confirmed. “But she has the same number as before.”

Adrien first thought was that he hoped his dad didn’t find out. That would be bad. And ugly.

“Luka and Marinette are friends,” Juleka repeated. “Last time we talked to Marinette, we all made it clear we weren’t her friends anymore. Why would she talk to us? After what we did?”

Then the happy vibe that the classroom had started with went away. Each student admitted their wrongdoing, telling how they hurt Marinette. How they betrayed their once friend. It was awful.

Adrien nearly interrupted to tell them it would be alright. Marinette would forgive them. They’d all be friends again. It wasn’t that bad. They’d move on like none of this had ever happened.

But Ivan spoke before he could, “Or we did nothing at all and just let it happened,” The bigger boy said. “And that was just as bad.”

No it wasn’t. All they did was stay out of it. All Adrien did was stay out of it. It was the right thing to do. Everyone was arguing and fighting. Adrien getting involved would only make it worse. Right?

Right, Adrien thought firmly. He ignored the pit that seemed to appear in his stomach.

Adrien spent the rest day re-convince himself that everything would be alright. Everyone just needed to calm. Marinette also needed to come back. Or at least answer their calls. Then they could tell her everything was good again. Lila was gone. Time to celebrate.

However, while Adrien was getting ready that night, he got a text from Nino. It was of a video of Marinette at her new school. Luka had gotten it from her, with the blessing to spread it around; show everyone that she was fine.

And she was.

Marinette looked happy in her new school uniform. She was surrounded by friends and seemed be having a ball.

She had moved on.

It was what Adrien had hoped would happened, he remembered, so many months ago.

He had hoped Marinette would move on. That everyone would move on.

And she did. And everyone was starting to.

So why did he feel so bad?

Maybe because he was having a hard time moving on to?

Maybe it was because a part of him finally realized that nothing was going to back to the way it was?

Why didn’t everything go the way he thought it would?

“It should have,” Adrien frowned, turning to speak to Plagg. “Right?”

There was only silence to answer him.

“Oh… yeah.” Adrien said remembering, again, that Plagg was gone. Just like Chat Noir. “That’s right.” He’ll get used to it. He was used to it.

It wasn’t like it was a big deal.

Right?

Marinette

Marinette didn’t want a birthday party. She told Bruce she didn’t want a birthday party. She told Clark she didn’t want a birthday party. Yet somehow she was getting a birthday party! She knew the accidently slip to Kara that she spent her last birthday alone had been a mistake. Marinette’s got sad eyes from her new family for a week.

When it became clear that the birthday party was happening to matter how much Marinette protested, she decided to try a different. She made it clear that she didn’t want a big birthday party. She wanted something small with just her new family and friends. However, the more she said it, the bigger the party plans got. First the justice league got invited. Then the Teen Titans, and then young justice. Then all her school friends. Then all the friends she made while on the Kent farm. She was fine with that. She had invited Nadja, Luka, Kagami and even Chloe to her birthday; the only friends she had left in Paris. She invited Jagged and Penny and Clara.

And yet the party just kept getting Bigger and bigger…

Until it was some extravagant event all press talked about. Her birthday was trending on social media. But did that stop Bruce? Nooo?

Then it just got bigger and bigger.

Until celebrities were tweeting that they RSVP’d already. It was as big as any red carpet event.

Marinette glared at her guardian from the across the breakfast table.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Bruce said. “The party will be fun. You’ll love it.”

“She did want something simple, Bruce,” Clark shrugged.

“Said the guy who invited the Justice League.”

Clark narrowed his eyes, “Said the man who paying One Direction over three million dollars to get the band back together for one night.”

“One Direction was her favorite band!”

“Then why did you invite Shawn Mendes,” Clark asked smugly. “And Taylor Swift. And Maroon 5. And BTS. And Ed Sheeran. And Billie Eilish. And Lizzo. And who knows who else you got! Not to mentioned the cast of Riverdale, supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Teen wolf, and the new Spider Man movie. Bruce, you’re throwing your own Teen Choice Awards.”

Marinette blinked. And then blinked again.

Then she got up and walked away from the table.

She needed to find Alfred. She needed to find someone remotely sane to talk to. Which was a hard thing to come by at Wayne Manor.

Marinette loved Gotham as much as she had loved Smallville. She loved working with the Justice league. She loved her new brothers and sisters. She loved them she really did.

But she’d be the first to them to take a chill pill.

Starting with Bruce, then Clark, the Dick.

Followed up Oliver Queen and Arthur Curry; otherwise known as the Green Arrow and Aquaman.

Every time Marinette visited the watch tower, Oliver would shove his son Roy at her. Once literally. Then Arthur started doing the same his kid Kaldur.

This displeased her guardians. Both had taken to glaring at Green Arrow and Aqauman during meeting. Arthur backed off a little. Oliver not even a bit. The man had plans.

Marinette didn’t find Alfred, as he had left on errands. Instead she found Tim on the coach. “You’re the third sanest person in this house… when Luke’s not here.”

“Alfred, you, me, Adds up,” Tim cracked a smile at his little sister. “What’s up?”

Marinette plopped down next to him, “Make them stoooppp!” She whined.

Tim gave her a look, “You want me to stop Batman and Superman.”

“Well, when you say it like that its sounds dumb.”

“And impossible.”

She pouted, “What should I do?”

“You willing walk aboard this crazy train,” Tim shrugged. “Now you just have to enjoy the ride. It’s the only thing you can do.”

“And try not lose my sanity too in the process.”

“That’s a good princess.”

Marinette sighed. She hated her new nickname but the press ate it up. The party was just making it official.

But what could she do? She loved her new home, her friends, and her family. Marinette was finally getting everything she ever wanted.

Her birthday would be one of the biggest events of the year. She was having a party fit for a princess.

The princess of Gotham that was.

Because that was who Marinette was now.

She wasn’t just Marinette Dupain-Cheng. She was just Ladybug.

She was Marinette: Princess of Gotham.

#ml salt #ml fic #Marienette Dupain Cheng #Marinette deserves better #adrien salt #alya salt

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lacetulle · 4 years

Note

Hey there! Aspiring fashion designer here! I'm getting more and more into fashion and designing/ planning more and more outfits and I was wondering if you have any tips to get more into haute contour and fashion in general. Your blog has really helped me get a grasp of what I like and I all around love it!

I’m happy this blog could help in figuring out what styles you like! There are a ton of different mediums to get into fashion! I’ve compiled a list of options via videos, websites, and books. So strap in, this is a long post.

Since you already have an idea of who you like, I always suggest reading up on that brand/label/designer and going through their archives. For me, when I realized how much I loved Dior and knew I wanted to learn more, it was overwhelming at times because the label has such a long history. If you really like newer labels, like Zuhair Murad, Elie Saab, Iris van Herpen, etc., it’s a little more manageable to read up on the history and designers just because they were founded in the ‘90s/‘00s.

In terms of websites, I have a few to talk about.

Vogue. This is the easiest avenue to get into fashion. I’m not knocking it, because I use it the most for photos, but as far as websites go, it’s the most dumbed-down. But I mean that in the best way! The features, trend reports, and runway news appeals to even the most casual fashion fan. Vogue focuses mainly on big name/commercialized brands (Dior, Valentino, Gucci, etc.) rather than smaller ones (like Guo Pei and Ralph & Russo, two big couture names these days, get minimal coverage with Vogue). Vogue is a great resource for runway looks...it was my gateway into studying older runway collections. All in all, in terms of websites, Vogue is the tip of the fashion media iceberg. If you want to get into the more meatier parts of fashion, there are better sites.

Harper’s Bazaar. Like Vogue, it’s easy to navigate and leans more towards the more well-known fashion brands. Pre-covid, they always had a weekly street style recap as well. They have great lists but stay away from the business side of fashion. I typically use Harper’s Bazaar for the street style/every day fashion inspiration and news.

Who What Wear. A great site for following trends. They don’t focus so much on brands, but it’s a great resource for seeing what’s trending and options to buy said trends. For example, Who What Wear is the first place I went when I wanted to find a list of brands who were starting to sell masks.

WWD. Supposedly most designers prefer WWD to Vogue coverage. And it shows, since parts of the site require a subscription. WWD is one of the more technical sites and could be overwhelming for someone who doesn’t really understand the industry. They talk about the comings-and-goings of creative directors, financial news, and general fashion trends/news. It also has runway recaps and photos, which is typically what I use it for. If you’re really want to be in the know with breaking fashion news, they do offer email newsletters as well for a more condensed version of the site. Also, a super helpful page I’ve had bookmarked, their fashion dictionary.

Business of Fashion. The name is pretty self-explanatory. BoF is another one of those meatier sites that could be overwhelming at first. It’s also one that has a subscription service. BoF has great profiles of designers, so I’ve used the site as my starting point when learning about someone new. The BoF500 also showcases anyone and everyone who has a hand in shaping the industry.

The Impression. The cheapest of the subscription sites and the one I had until I cancelled a few months ago (not because it sucked, but, you know…corona). I mainly used them for their runway pictures. They were so fast to upload them, with details and backstage footage. The big draw is the fashion week/runway photography, but the talk about street style, short films and ads from brands, as well as fashion trends. At the end of every fashion week (New York, Milan, Paris, etc.) the put together a recap list of biggest trends, top shows, top models, and break down the numbers. I love the site for its minimalism and whenever the industry decides to have fashion weeks again, I’ll renew my subscription.

Magazines: Most people would say Vogue is the holy grail for fashion magazines, but I don’t think it’s that great (at least the US version). Vogue Paris, Italia, and UK are better in my opinion. And just because I don’t think the print version of US Vogue is the holy grail, doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I have a subscription and read it every month. Other options I really like are Harper’s Bazaar (any country’s version), Elle, InStyle, and W.

Videos: Other than the first one listed (which can be found on Netflix or Hulu, depending where you live), everything can be found on youtube. And now i’m constantly getting fashion recommendations on youtube, so it’s an easy rabbit hole to fall into.

First Monday in May. I’ve talked about this documentary before, but it bears repeating. It’s a gorgeous journey of how the Met Gala and Costume Institute Exhibit was put together. It’s about the ‘China: Through the Looking Glass’ exhibit in 2015. They interview big designers about how China has influenced some of their collections, and takes on the debate of whether fashion should even be in a museum. It was the first fashion documentary I ever watched and only made me fall more in love with fashion (and want to see every fashion exhibition).

The September Issue. Vogue’s September issues are always the biggest of the year. This documentary follows the process of designing the famous September issue of Vogue. I believe it was filmed in 2007 or 2008 so it’s dated, and digital media has changed the game, but it’s a good watch to see just how influential and important the September issue is in terms of forecasting fashion trends for the following year.

Savoir Faire: Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2011. A 50 minute video on how one, just one, piece from the couture collection was designed. It’s a great insight on just how much work goes in to creating a couture collection.

7 Days Out with Karl Lagerfeld. Another great showcase of the week leading up to a couture show, this time with Chanel. The documentary follows the 2018 show, which is one of Lagerfeld’s last few couture shows before his death.

Battle At Versailles: The Competition that Shook the Fashion Industry. It’s no secret that Paris is the epicenter of fashion. The couture houses are all based there, so France is typically where you needed to be to be a world renowned designer. In 1973 French and American designers competed against each other and brought American designers into the spotlight. There’s an hour long documentary on youtube and there’s a book that I’ve linked below. I’ve seen the video and I’m currently reading the book, so you have options here.

Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams. A good look at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibit for the 70th anniversary of Dior. This documentary gives a nice, condensed look at each of the artistic directors of Dior and showcases some of the most iconic Dior looks. I knew about it, but didn’t go see it. I only saw pictures, which were beautiful…but to see it all come together on video was a dream. They talk to Celine Dion for a minute at the end, and her words sum up my feelings best about Dior, “I would love to wear one of these dresses one day, maybe in one of my lifetimes, or every night in my dreams.”

Books:

Inside Haute Couture: Behinds the Scenes at the Paris Ateliers. A gorgeous book with tons of photos about the intricacies that go in to a couture collection.

Kate Spade New York: All in Good Taste. I originally bought it for my coffee table collection, but it has some great style tips.

The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History. Just in case you’d rather read about this legendary fashion show than watch. I’m currently reading it, so I can’t give you my final take on it. But I’m loving it so far.

Dior by Dior: Christian Dior’s autobiography. Who better to tell you about the history of Christian Dior, than Dior himself.

Elsa Schiaparelli: A Biography. I’m a big fan of Schiaparelli and would love for her legacy to be more widely known. She was a very private person, so when this biography dropped I was excited to read more about her. Elsa Schiaparelli was Coco Chanel’s biggest rival and was a household name in her time, but most people know Coco’s name over Elsa’s today. This is a nice dive into Schiaparelli’s life, since most people focus on Chanel’s legacy (and let’s be honest, Chanel is very idolized, which is so unfortunate, given her Nazi ties, but I digress.)

Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. I tend to rave about the designs by these two, so it’s a good look into their journey in fashion.

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genuis, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris. If you’re interested in Lagerfeld (pre-Chanel days) or Yves Saint Laurent, it’s a great retrospective look at their rivalry.

Champagne Supernovas. If ‘90s fashion is something of interest, this book is a great read on how some big name rebels (McQueen, Marc Jacobs, Kate Moss, etc.) in the industry remade fashion as we know it.

Any of the Met Gala books: Camp: Notes on Fashion, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, Manus x Machina, Heavenly Bodies, etc. My first one was the McQueen book, and at the time I didn’t know it was the official book from the Costume Institute Exhibit. They’re not all hardcover coffee table-esque books, but if you can’t attend an exhibit it’s the next best thing. They’re all great in-depth resources for learning about a certain area of fashion. They can be expensive, so I wouldn’t suggest investing in them unless you’re truly interested in that specific aspect of the industry. This year’s exhibit - whenever it opens - is About Time: Fashion and Duration. The exhibition book is already available and I think it’ll be an incredible exhibit of how current designers pull from older designers and trends.

The Fashion Book. It’s expensive. It’s massive. And it gives you a wealth of information. It’s essentially an encyclopedia for fashion. It’s not just designers; it highlights models, high profile photographers, style icons, and all those who influenced fashion.

I know this was long, but these have been the resources I’ve used over the years. I hope this can help you along your journey and if anyone has other things to add, please do!

#ask me anything

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retronator · 4 years

Text

The last 10 years of pixel art

Retronator the blog is exactly 10 years old right now (+ an hour or so more since I can’t seem to stop editing this post)!

I want to take this opportunity to look back at the teenage years of the 21st century and reflect on how the pixel art scene has grown over the years. I only promise a personal perspective, pieced together from my faulty memory and a bit more reliable archive of 1,700 posts on this blog.

2010

Social media sites emerged already in the late 2000s (Facebook launched in 2004, Twitter in 2006, Tumblr in 2007), but it took quite some time before they caught on, especially outside the US. I joined Tumblr in July 2010 and there were relatively few pixel artists active on the site. @jinndevil and @unomoralez go the farthest of those that I followed. The first post I reblogged was a Back to the Future piece from @megapont (via some blogpost share, since Megapont duo didn't join till 2013).

What was huge on the network however was sharing retro-gaming artworks by blogs like @it8bit and @gameandgraphics. This included many pixel art pieces and it helped grow a community of fans that adored both old games and pixels.

2011

I'd put 2011 down as the start of the hi-bit era of pixel art games, championed by the release of the iconic adventure game Sword & Sworcery. Pixel purism of the initial pixel art movement was left behind by mixing pixels with high-res special effects like soft shadows and vignetting. Also, spaghetti legs started their fad period.

Artists such as @probertson, @drewpixel, and @merrigo started their days on Tumblr, gathering huge audiences over the years. Meanwhile, Retronator grew to a whooping 100 followers by the end of the year.

2012

Tumblr's fan spirits were going stronger and stronger, to which I threw my own logs on the fire by releasing Tribute, my biggest and most popular piece of fan art I created so far.

The highly anticipated FEZ got released (to critical acclaim and other more controversial consequences), further bringing pixel art in front of the mainstream gaming audience.

From newly-followed artists, @johanvinet was damn inspiring with his smooth animations. Anything GIF did immensely good on the Tumblr dashboard.

2013

This was THE year for Tumblr. So many new artists joined, it was hard to keep track. Anyone from established names like Mojang's art director @jnkboy and @konjakonjak of Noitu Love 2 fame (later Iconoclasts) to pixel art beginners such as @waneella, now one of the most well-known illustrators in the scene.

The push for modern art direction with pixel art games wasn't stopping either. Not that amazing, more traditionally styled titles (with fresh color palettes) weren't present, as Chasm's debut on Kickstarter showed, but it was Hyper Light Drifter that really stole everyone's heart (machine) on the same crowdfunding platform. Gradients and smooth dynamic shading became unapologetically part of the pixel art (gaming) vocabulary from then on.

When Papers, Please got released at the end of the year to universal appraisal, a new example was set for showing that pixel visuals don't necessarily need to be the most polished, technically-impressive pieces of artistic expression, they can also be simple—the majority of detail-filling can be offloaded to the player's imagination.

2014

Pixel purist ideology was a highly debated topic. Dan Fessler, the background artist on Chasm, did a strong push against the tighter set of constraints which said you should only use 'clean' tools such as the pencil and color fill to complete your artworks. Dan instead only cared about clean results, pioneering in the process the technique of HD Index Painting that used the depths of Photoshop layer magic to get otherwise identical results. And there were plenty of others right around the corner that wouldn't even care about keeping the results married to traditional pixel art ideals.

Still, the majority of pixel art at this point was very orthodox. I started the Artist Feature series that showcased my favorite artists and none of them did anything controversial (nor they needed to). The biggest break from the old days was mainly highly increased color counts that allowed for subtle transitions without dithering, and free color picking without creating predefined color palettes. Octavi Navarro started his highly iconic @pixelshuh scenes, and the completely unknown @8pxl started her journey towards experimentation with pink sky gradients.

Even more importantly, Pixel Dailies were born on Twitter, following Ben Porter's 365 days of doing pixel art daily.

2015

I called 2015 The Year of Pixel Dailies in the end-of-the-year article in my newly started Retronator Magazine. The Twitter community really exploded this year, bringing in many new artists to the medium, with Pixel Dailies serving as a platform to raise visibility to everyone, old and new. I found out about @weilarddrake and @orange-magik this way, Slynyrd, @iceztiqarts, @igorsandman … Other freshly-discovered people on tumblr were @kirokazepixel (one of the most prolific artists on the scene), @faxdoc (his learning journey was inspiring enough for its own article), and Talecrafter with @deathtrashgame (starting a whole new style of aliased, low-res painting without caring about individual pixels).

The discussion whether pixel art could survive past its nostalgic roots was still in the air, stirred by opinions such as A Pixel Artist Renounces Pixel Art. History is proving them wrong however, with pixel art stronger than ever in 2020. It's not a visual language people born after the 80s couldn't understand.

New-school voxel art pieces started trending with the advent of Magicavoxel, pioneering the development of pixel art's sibling in 3D. The first pixel art convention Pixel Art Park was held in Tokyo. And (important for me personally), I came up with Pixel Art Academy, an adventure game that would take my ambitions in pixel art education into the future.

2016

After 9 years in development, Owlboy released! Also Hyper Light Drifter! And Stardew Valley! And Kingdom! Pixel art games were not dying, they were on the rise.

Edge (the popular British video game magazine) published a special 200+ page issue called Art of the Pixel. It featured contemporary artists outside the gaming context, championing the aesthetic's transition from its video game roots into its own art form.

Pedro Medeiros of @studiominiboss started his famous series of GIF tutorials, subsequently encouraging many others to share their knowledge in the popular square format. Tumblr still saw new artists joining the platform, such as @motocross-arts and @apolism (two thirds of the Japanese trio The Ultimate Pixel Crew), while others like @6vcr started their first pixel explorations that year. @brunopixels, an old-schooler on the platform like me, sparked the Octobit movement, a pixel art alternative to Inktober.

2017

Further new names on Tumblr included @guttykreum (outdoorsy perspective pieces) and @scrixels (one of the most consistent daily posters with over 1,000 artworks by now).

The annual Shibuya Pixel Art Contest joined Pixel Art Park at promoting the art form in Tokyo, Japan (and worldwide really). Lospec became the new go-to resource site for pixel art, picking up the mantle from PixelJoint and Pixelation that—while still active—stagnated technologically and feature-wise.

More than anything, pixel art games were everywhere. Maybe it only seemed to me this way since I was able to go to the Game Developer's Conference as press and had the chance to interview many many people in the scene, leading to over half a year of daily content on this blog. Indie games felt stronger than ever with so many of us full-on realizing our dreams of creating our own games professionally. The one that left the biggest splash on the scenes was no doubt The Last Night, announced front and center in-between AAA titles during Microsoft's E3 conference. The brothers Soret pushed the art direction even beyond the hi-bit era moniker, fusing 3D, shaders, and modern cinematography with pixels in an iconic combination that, like Sword & Sworcery's spaghetti legs, was so atmospheric that it couldn't be resisted by future imitators.

2018

Another game that pushed technological boundaries was Pathway, finally stepping into full light in 2018 and releasing one year later. I still think it has the most advanced pixel art graphics engine to date, using voxels and other tricks under the hood to deliver a completely dynamically lit environment while retaining the pixel-perfect 3/4 view aesthetic. Pixel art games were firmly part of mainstream gaming by now, with Celeste winning many awards alongisde pixelish Return of the Obra Dinn, further cementing the presence of pixels as an ever-evolving medium capable of expressing very different art styles.

I decided to focus solely on developing Pixel Art Academy in 2018, putting this blog on relative hiatus with very sporadic updates towards the end of the year. But I never let it die. I thoroughly enjoy writing about the scene and my interest in the art form only grows with time.

2019–2020

Ironically, the closer the years are to the present, the less I remember what things stood out most. Maybe it's because my brain hasn't had the chance to automatically prune my memories yet from the overload of information that is the interwebs these days. Pixel art seems so out there, so much of my everyday life, encompassing me on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, DeviantArt … Even on TikTok you see kids zooming out of their freshly pixelized Minecraft photographs they call pixel art. The medium is alive, and more than ever.

As for the Retronator blog, from its zero followers exactly 10 years ago, it grew to 100 after a year and a half, 1000 the year after, 10k when it was 5 years old, and 30k just last month. Tumblr is still the platform where most of you follow my pixel art reports and I don't intend to stop anytime soon.

Here's to the next decade! Thank you all for reading. <3

#Retronator #Pixel Art

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lunarr-rrose · 3 years

Video

Advantages Of Joining A Mastermind - Fernando Angelucci

https://u109893.h.reiblackbook.com/generic11/the-storage-stud/advantages-of-joining-a-mastermind/

For Fernando, one of the reasons why he is finding a lot of success and starting to exponentially grow his different business is because of his ability to stand on the shoulders of giants, to leverage other people, and the network.

For him, one of the most important things is joining the Mastermind group. Specifically, a Mastermind group that is not geographically tied to your little market.

What is a Mastermind group?

This is a collective of individuals in the same industry and in Fernando’s case, it’s the real estate business. They get together quarterly and between those 3 to five meetings each quarter they also communicate through zoom or phone calls.

The great thing about these Mastermind Groups is you can leverage the expertise of the other experienced and smart investors.

And, the Mastermind Groups always bring in the greatest keynote speakers.

If you are interested to know more about Fernando’s experience in joining Mastermind groups just keep watching this video.

Fernando O. Angelucci is Founder and President of Titan Wealth Group. He also leads the firm’s finance and acquisitions departments. Fernando Angelucci and Steven Wear founded Titan Wealth Group in 2015, and under his leadership, the firm’s revenue has grown over 100% year over year. Today,

Find out more at

https://www.TheStorageStud.com

https://titanwealthgroup.com/

Listen to our Podcast:

https://thestoragestud.podbean.com/e/advantages-of-joining-a-mastermind-fernando-angelucci/

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

So, one of the reasons why I've been finding a lot of success and, you know, really starting to exponentially grow my different businesses is because of my ability to, stand on the shoulders of giants and to leverage other people and the networks. So, one of the things that I think is super important is joining mastermind groups, specifically mastermind groups that are not, let's say geographically tied to like your little market. And one of the reasons for that is because, you know, then people are less willing to share. So, what is a mastermind group? A mastermind group is, a collective of individuals in the same industry or similar industry. So for me, it's real estate. We get together in person once a quarter. And then, throughout in between those three to five day meetings each quarter, we also do zoom calls, phone calls.

We run through, you know, best practices. And the nice thing about these mastermind groups is a, you can leverage the expertise of other super smart investors. With these investors, you know, you have people, you know, multiple minds, will always help bring up the collective, a rising tide raises all ships. And not only can I leverage these guys for tips and tricks that I see them presenting on, but another thing that's really cool is these masterminds will also usually bring in some really cool keynote speakers. So the way that the mastermind format is for most of the masterminds of my part of, is you come to the mastermind and then you'll have 30 minutes to an hour to present on a topic that is a gift. So, here is my gift to the group. Here's something I think will benefit you not only from a business standpoint, but it can be personal.

It could be from health, you know, a health angle. Half of the presentations we found are about business. The other half are about life and how to go through life as an investor or as an entrepreneur. Then, at the end of that ask, or the end of that 30 to 60 minute presentation, you'll usually have a slide or two saying, here's what I'm struggling with. Here's what I'm stuck on. Here's what I need help with. And then, everyone in the group will say, Hey, I can help you out with that. I've done X, Y, Z, or, Hey, I can't help you out, but I know this gentleman he's done this six, seven times, let me connect you with him and maybe he can help you solve your problem. So, it's all about this abundance mentality. This Go-Giver mentality, how when you give to others, it usually comes back tenfold.

The cool thing thing about this mastermind too, is because of the high caliber of investors that are in there. Usually you need to be doing 50 plus deals a year, just to get nominated, to get in. And once you get nominated, then you need to have people vouch for you. You need to go through a series of interviews. They look through your financials, they look through your transaction volume to just, you know, prove that you're actually doing what you're saying you're doing. So, once you get in there, because it's a high caliber group, because it's usually got a pretty high cost to attend these meetings they can bring in these heavy hitter, third party consultants, experts in each have their own fields. So recently, one of the things, one of the investors they brought in, or one of the consultants they brought in his name was John Burns.

And he is this research kind of economist, and he specifically focuses on single family homes, multi-family homes, build the suit, build to rent. And a lot of the large hedge funds and private equity funds will actually pay him for his services to get his reports and to get kind of what he sees in his crystal ball. So, one of the things that John was seeing as far as this crazy market that we're in. So, for those that haven't been kind of living under a rock in the real estate world, we're in the very interesting time, where one we're in the middle of it pandemic. So, just logically you think, okay, we're in the middle of the pandemic, that's going to trigger a recession. That's going to trigger home sales to drop and prices to drop.

But, what has actually happened is the exact opposite, because of this pandemic, people are deciding not to sell, not to trade up in their properties, causing a very artificially low inventory, because there's artificially low inventory. There's less number of sellers, but there's still the same amount of buyers, or if not more buyers, and this is causing artificial price increase. So, over time, what we've seen in the last six months is, properties are selling off. I mean, off the shelves quickly for way above what typically say 18 months ago, I thought they would sell for what they would be worth. You know, we're seeing 10, 15% increases on these ARV's. Not because of extra work was done to the house, but just because there's no inventory and people are really desperate to find a home that say has a home office or an extra room so that, you know, they're separated from the kids or they have a separate space that they can go work from, as opposed to, you know, working from the kitchen countertop or the living room, you know, coffee table, they want an actual place because they can't go into work right now.

They're working virtually. One of the things that John was saying is that, you know, we see this price pressure is going to continue for quite some time here. You know, he's still seeing rising prices in Q1, Q2 and Q3 of 2021, with maybe some starting to fall off in Q4 of 2021 or Q1 of 2022. So, very interesting to have these, you know, these experts that, if I were to try to go pay for John Burns services on my own, I'm sure it would cost an arm and a leg, but because we have a group of, you know, 140 investors from around the country. And I guess now, even around the world, because we have some international members as well, we can all pool our resources to bring in these heavy hitters, these huge experts to come teach us or to enlighten us on what's going on in the market.

Some other keynote speakers that I've seen recently in some of these groups are Chris Voss, which is a master negotiator. He worked for the FBI as a lead hostage negotiator for 10 years and created a system on how to negotiate with hostages, but which is also applicable when it comes to any type of negotiation, you know, your entire life is a negotiation. So, that was super cool. They brought in Mike Michalowicz, the guy that wrote the book, Profit First on how to get businesses to manage their money appropriately and how to take chips off the table and stash up an emergency reserve. So, really cool, really grateful that I'm a part of these groups. I've learned so much from them, every time I joined one of these groups. It's a little bit overwhelming, but very quickly you start seeing your trajectory of growth, just exponentially increasing because, you know, you're, you never want to be the smartest person in the room.

I actually prefer to be the dumbest person in the room, because that means everybody around me has a ton of information, a ton of value and knowledge to offer me. So, I really recommend if you're just getting started in real estate, or if you're just getting started as an entrepreneur, you know, make sure that you're spending a lot of time and networking with these individuals that are at the next level. You know, if you're here and everybody that you hang out with is down here, you're going to become, you know, the average of the five or six people that you hang out with the most. But if you're here and everybody that you're hanging out with and working with is up here, then just naturally over time, that's going to bring you up to these levels. The nice, another thing about these masterminds that are really cool is, the level of trust that gets created from being a part of these groups, these communities, because this trust is there and we're being vulnerable and we're telling people what our issues are.

And instead of just trying to beat our chest and say, Hey, look how cool I am. But just being very honest and straightforward with everybody, with what your issues are and how, you know, if anybody has ways to help you solve them, is this innate level of trust that gets formed, which allows you to do deals on handshake agreements. And I know that's super crazy to say, especially in this day and age, when everybody wants to sue and there's, you know, 40 pages of paperwork just to buy a pen from somebody it's ridiculous, but that has helped foster these huge relationships. I've raised a bunch of money in these groups. I've helped other people raise money in these groups. I found deals in these groups. I've sold deals to these groups. Just really awesome things. I really recommend that you get involved in some of these, that the two masterminds that I'm a part of right now.

The first one is called, Collective Genius, and it's a cross investment mastermind. So, there's a single family home guys. There's multifamily home guys. There's self storage. There is assisted living, there's notes, there's seller finance guys. It just land flippers, anything having to do with real estate, you name it, it's there. And the cool thing about that is, when you can look outside of your lane, you can start learning things from other industries or other asset classes that you can maybe apply to your asset class that may be novel in your industry. So, that was super cool, really love those guys. Absolutely wonderful group. The next group that I joined as well is, The Self Storage Mastermind. So, this is an asset specific mastermind. We only talk about self storage, not really any other asset classes. But it's kind of the same format where, you know, it's not only about business, it's also about life.

You know, we're in this together. If all you do is work, work, work, you know, on your deathbed, I've never heard of somebody saying on their deathbed that they wish they worked more, right? Usually it's a, I wish I had learned how to operate life, how to spend time with my family and friends, how to really be super efficient with my time. So, that I can spend my off time or my downtime with my family and friends with people that matter. So, I really loved that mastermind as well, bunch of trust. The guy that runs it actually mentored me. Taught me how to get into self storage. And he's actually partnered with me on a deal already in the past, pretty large deal. So, really excited to be a part of those, and excited to see what's what's coming in the future.

So, that'd be my recommendation to you. If you're looking to scale quickly, if you're looking to get better at your business, if you're looking to network with high level individuals, you know, you're going to have to pay for that, right? Because that's how you keep all the people that shouldn't be in the room away. You have to price it to a level that only people that are successful enough to take one of these big checks and write them each year to be a part of these masterminds are allowed in the room. So, you know, be prepared for that. But what our businesses do is we have a separate bank account, where that bank account is funded each month with a portion of our profits. And that bank account is specifically for mastermind, for travel, for basically that learning and knowledge and helping to continue the growth cycle of our companies as well as individually, as investors or as owners of those companies. So, stay tuned. I'll come back with some more tips for real estate investors and entrepreneurs in general. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to drop it in the comments, or shoot me an email or come to our website and connect with us that way.

#Real estate #Real Estate Investing #the storage stud #storage stud #Fernando Angelucci #self storage #alternative funds

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acsisoftpull · 3 years

Text

Soft Pull Training: How Soft Pulls Can Help Transform Your Business

Would you like to know how to pull your customer’s credit using their name and their address only?

Learn how iSoftpull enables you to check your customers’ credit using their name and address only. Keep reading to learn more, or enjoy our complimentary soft pull training video that outlines everything you need to know.

Introduction

So, you want to learn more about soft credit checks. You’re probably a lender or a broker, or work in some type of industry that requires financing for your customers. And, because of that, you want to know your customer’s credit score at the beginning of the sales cycle, that way you know whether or not they would be approved if they applied. Our software delivers you just that, your customer’s credit score and their full credit report using their name and address only — keep reading to learn more.

The Problem

When we first started developing the technology for soft pulls back in 2017 we primarily served the auto industry. And, if you’ve ever financed a car through a dealership, you know that it takes a long time to get a deal done.

When you get to the dealership, you’re most interested in knowing what the potential payments would be for a particular financing plan. Generally, the salesperson will require you to do a hard pull where you’ll fill out a formal credit application just so you can know how much your payments will be. And then there’s this back and forth on the dealership side. You have to sit down with the sales manager, and then he has to talk to the financing guy, and you go back and forth for hours. Only to find out that the payment is not right. Or, you know you have good credit, but you don’t want to do a hard pull, you just want to know what the payments are.

Well, YOUR customers are probably thinking the same thing. They simply want to know how much their payments are going to be but, like the auto dealer, you probably have to have them apply first. It shouldn’t have to be that complicated, right? That’s how we got our start, we needed to help solve this problem for auto dealers on how they could speed up their sales cycle. To help solve this problem, we’ve introduced soft pulls for businesses.

Our Solution

Soft pulls help to bridge the gap in the sales cycle. Now, the customer simply gives the dealer their name, their home address, and the permission to do a soft pull. With that simple information, the dealer can then offer terms based on their credit report and their FICO score but without harming the credit score, or putting a hard inquiry on their credit report, AND without needing their sensitive information.

It not only helps the customer know their payment plan, but also helps the auto dealer. Now, the salesperson won’t have to spend three to four hours on somebody that in the end, won’t even qualify. Soft pulls help you find out at the beginning of the sales cycle, whether or not someone will be approved.

Industries We Serve

Back in 2017, when we were only serving the auto industry and we were doing a lot of cold calling. We were trying to get more deals, and were doing okay but knew that there had to be more people out there needing this type of software. Then, we heard about digital advertising and that changed everything. After posting a Google ad targeted towards auto dealers, we started getting a lot of calls from random companies across many industries — from solar, to business loans, even dentists. They’d call us and we’d ask why they needed soft pulls, and they would start telling us their story.

There was a guy who worked in solar, for instance, who explained that he had a whole team of door knockers in the field and they’d spend a lot of time and resources working on a deal. They’d spend weeks, even months, driving back and forth from a potential job site talking to the customer, only to find out that the client isn’t even qualified. Imagine doing all that work and having it be a total waste?!? Unfortunately, some of you might know this feeling all too well. And with that, we realized the home improvement industry needs soft pulls so they can know their customers’ credit at the beginning of the sales cycle, to help know which customers to pursue.

Or, people who do business loans, they used to have the customer submit a credit report so they could review it and know where to send the deal. But sometimes, the customer would never submit the credit report, so then the business loan people would shotgun the deal out to four or five lenders, and the customer would end up getting five different hard pulls on their credit report. So, this business loan company definitely needs to know the customer’s credit score so they know where to send the loan.

And the list goes on. We’ve found that there are so many different industries that need soft pulls. And they all have one thing in common, they need to know the customer’s credit at the beginning of the sales cycles, to know if they should spend time on this customer or not.

Today, we serve mortgage brokers, contractors, real estate agents, companies that do personal loans and business loans, auto dealers, we can serve most businesses who are lending money or administering services upfront who need to ensure that their client is able to adhere to lending terms.

Soft Pull vs. Hard Pull Difference

You might be wondering, what’s the difference between a soft pull and a hard pull? Well, let’s start by saying, it isn’t the data — hard pulls and soft pulls both show the full, up-to-date credit report and score. The difference is the borrower’s intent. See, with a soft pull the borrower is saying, “if I did apply, would I be approved?” They’re not actually asking for the loan right now, they’re checking to see if in the case they did want to submit a formal application, if they’d be approved or what they’d be approved for. So, by doing a soft pull, you can find out the terms and the exact credit score, so you can get the deal done.

You’ve seen this a lot, if you’ve ever shopped for a credit card online, like on a Capital One or American Express, it says, “get prequalified, will not impact your credit score” and then you put in your information and they say you’d be best suitable for the gold offer or the silver offer or the double points offer etc. In the past, this technology was exclusively used by the big players like Capital One and American Express but what we did was develop this technology and package it to bring to the middle market, to the small businesses and medium sized businesses. Now, companies of all sizes have access to the same exact technology as some of the largest lenders.

How it Works

The credit bureaus create data, and that’s all they really do, they’re data aggregators, but they rely on resellers like us to make technology to serve different niches and deliver credit reports. So that’s where we come in, we provide the software. We buy the data from Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, and we enable you to run soft credit checks through our platform.

We help you to overcome the burden of not knowing your customer’s credit, we deliver you your customer’s full credit report and FICO score using their name and address only. Now, you might be wondering, how can you do that with just a name and address only? It’s simple really, the name AND address serves as a unique identifier, just like a social security number but without having to worry about the sensitive nature associated with that information.

We have an application programming interface (API) with the credit bureaus that enable us to pull credit using name and address only. This operates on a couple of assumptions:

The first being that the name and the address are only associated with one person. So if there’s a John Doe Jr. and a John Doe Sr. living in the same house, then we would need the date of birth or the social security number to access the credit report of the John Doe in question.

Or, if someone had gotten married and they gave you their new last name, we’d need their date of birth or their social security number.

Or, let’s say someone had moved and they gave you their name and new home address, but the new address wasn’t associated with any accounts on their credit report, then you’d need the DOB or ssn.

While there are rare instances (like those outlined above) that would require you to obtain additional information to pull someone’s credit report, the overwhelming majority of the time you’ll be able to successfully access the report using name and address only. The reason this is so important is because people have been trained not to give up their social security number, especially with the rise in identity theft and compromised data.

Benefit of Soft Pulls

Imagine if you’re cold calling, selling home refinances, or whatever it is, but you haven’t built up a rapport with the customer. Before, if you wanted to qualify a customer, you’d need to do a hard credit pull using their social security number but chances are they wouldn’t be willing to give that information because you’re a stranger, right? Makes sense. But imagine it now, with soft credit checks, that customer is going to be a lot more willing to share their name and address to see if they qualify, knowing that there won’t be any negative impacts to them in doing so.

This is HUGE! If the majority of people would’ve walked away because they didn’t want to give their social security number or apply with a hard pull, you can now overcome these barriers and turn them into ACTUALborrowers and ACTUAL prospects. You’re going to convert more leads, plain and simple. Try and envision what your business would look like if you were able to transform all of your no’s into yeses?

We’ve found that by only asking for a name and a home address increases the conversion rate by 300% online. If you’re shopping online for a loan, you have two options, one is fill out just your name and your home address, the other is put in your name, home address, date of birth, social security number, occupation, employment history, and this whole litany of information. Between those two choices, you’re going to chose the name and address application over the other one, right?

You’re not alone, the name and address soft pull inquiry converts over 300% more than the traditional hard pull application. That’s 300% more viable leads and and I’m sure you can infer what that would mean for your bottom line. At the end of the day, the opportunity cost of not having soft pulls apart of your sales process is something that none of us can afford to bear.

How Soft Pulls Transform Business

Let’s discuss how businesses from different industries are using soft pulls. It all starts with consent, you have to get the customer’s consent, you can do that over the phone on a recorded line, online on your website, or you can even use a paper application if you’re in-person with the customer.

Over the phone works really well when you do an appointment setting, so let’s say a company that’s in the home improvement industry is going to send somebody out to a potential job where the client will require financing. With soft pulls. the company can run the client’s credit report, with consent, using name and address to find out whether or not they would be approved. Companies can phrase this by asking if they can run a soft credit check on the customer so they can give them the exact terms and an exact quote.

Now, in order to get consent over the phone, you need a recorded line, that’s why a lot of companies will have the consent clause on a written paper application or digital consent form that can be stored. Capturing consent can be easily incorporated into normal business practices, you can do it on appointment confirmations before you send them out or apart of your inquiry forms or onboarding process.

Businesses that provide refinancing for Home loans, for example, can utilize soft pulls as a lead generation and pre-qualify tool in their email marketing campaigns. They probably want to run a credit check that’s going to show a potential borrower’s mortgage and how much they owe on their home. Well, the company likely already has the customer’s name and home address, so they can send them an email with a “get prequalified” call-to-action button with an embeded pre-qual and consent form. You can simply include the consent form at the bottom of the application and when they click I agree, you’re able to run the soft credit check on them. This is great for doing lead generation. Instead of simply getting a lead from Facebook or Google, you can now generate a new lead and also get their full credit report and FICO score.

What Our Customers are Saying

There are a lot of different ways that companies can use soft pulls depending on their industry or business model. Take one of our best clients, Jason from Capwell Funding, a business loan company. He’s been using our product for years and has been able to scale his business because of it. Before he used soft pulls he had to rely on his client to provide a PDF of their credit report. These reports would come from various credit monitoring sites and could take up to two weeks to obtain from the client.

With soft pulls, Jason and his team at Capwell Funding are able to acquire the client’s credit report right away. They simply collect a few data points from the client and are good to go. Furthermore, Jason has found that the soft pull data is more detailed and comprehensive than most credit monitoring platforms. By checking credit internally, he’s been able to provide an accurate pre-qual and doesn’t have to rely on the client to provide their credit.

“I almost didn’t believe it. Even after using it for a little bit, I still wondered, how long is this gonna last? How long am I gonna be able to do this? ’cause this is amazing, this is… I keep using the term, but it’s game-changing! We’ve been able to do a lot more deals with soft pulls because of the scalability. I really couldn’t imagine anyone that needs to review credit not having it. I don’t know how you would really be effective, how you would compete in the marketplace without soft pull. If you’re a business that needs to review your customer’s credit, I highly recommend iSoftpull.”

Jason, iSoftpull Customer

Check out this video to hear from Jason and learn how he’s transformed his business using iSoftpull.

Conclusion

We serve all types of businesses, from solar to business loans, auto, mortgage, the list goes on, but what all these people have in common is that they all want to pull their customer’s credit for financing purposes. Now, there are a lot of other industries that also have a reason to pull credit, like bankruptcy attorneys or credit repair or tenant screening but we are unable to provide our service to them at the moment. We specialize in financing and loans, net 30, and in-house funding. So, if you want to pull your customer’s credit for the purpose of checking to see if they can pay back a loan, we can totally work with you!

Hopefully, you got a lot out of this training! Now you should know what soft credit checks are, how different industries are using them, and how they will transform your business.

Want more information?

Click here to schedule an appointment with one of our sales reps.

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

Text

Facebook algorithm boosts pro-Facebook news

Facebook is a rotten company, rotten from the top down, its founder, board and top execs are sociopaths and monsters, committers of non-hyperbolic, no-fooling crimes against humanity. They lie, they cheat, they steal. They are some of history’s greatest villains. Because Facebook is a terrible company run by terrible people, it periodically erupts in ghastly scandal. Sometimes whistleblowers or reporters reveal historic crimes, including (but not limited to) deliberately helping to foment genocide.

Sometimes, the scandals are contemporary: either Facebook blithely announces it’s going to do something terrible, or we learn of some terrible thing underway from leaks or investigations.

Thanks to a history of anticompetitive mergers — Whatsapp, Instagram, Onavo and more — based on fraudulent promises to antitrust regulators, Facebook has grown to nearly three billion users — except FB doesn’t have users, really — it has hostages.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/dont-believe-proven-liars-absolute-minimum-standard-prudence-merger-scrutiny

As Facebook’s own internal memos show, the company doesn’t just buy up competitors so users have nowhere to flee to, it also engineers in high “switching costs” to make it more painful to leave the system.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

For example, Facebook’s internal memos show that the manager for its photo products set out to seduce users into entrusting FB with their family photos, because that way quitting Facebook would mean abandoning your memories of your kids, departed grandparents, etc.

Everybody hates Facebook, especially FB users. The point of high switching costs, after all, is to increase the pain of leaving so that FB can dole out more abuse to its users without fearing that they’ll quit the whole enterprise.

FB’s mission is to increase the size of the shit-sandwich they can force you to eat before you walk away. But they’re not mere sadists: shit-sandwiches have a business model: the more hostages they take, the more they can extract from advertisers — their true customers.

The polite term for what FB has is a “two-sided market” (selling advertisers to users and users to advertisers). The technical term is “a monopoly and a monoposony” (a monopsony is a market with a single buyer).

The colloquial term?

“A racket.”

A scam. A bezzle. A blight.

Facebook gouges advertisers on rate cards, then lies about the reach of its ads (like when it lied about the popularity of video, evincing a media-wide “pivot to video” that bankrupted dozens of news- and entertainment-sites).

Facebook didn’t set out to destroy journalism by price-fixing ads, lying to advertisers and media outlets.

FB set out to acquire a monopoly and extract monopoly rents from advertisers and publishers, with a pathological indifference to how these frauds would harm others.

Having shown a willingness to destroy journalists and media outlets to extract a few more billions for its shareholders, Facebook has attracted a lot of enemies in the media.

If you’re a whistleblower with a story to tell, there’s a journalist whose editor will allocate the resources to report your story out in depth. The combination of a rotten company and a lot of pissed off journalists produces a lot of bad ink for the company.

But the fact remains that FB has a vast pool of hostages, billions of them, and it gets to decide what they see, when and how. I used to joke with my human rights activist friends that the best use for Facebook was showing people why and how to leave Facebook.

FB’s response was predictable. As Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel write in the New York Times, FB’s Project Amplify is a Zuckerberg-led initiative to systematically promote positive coverage of FB and its founder — including articles that originate with FB itself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/technology/zuckerberg-facebook-project-amplify.html

That is, FB staffers are charged with writing puff pieces about how great the company is, and FB’s algorithm will push these ahead of reporting by actual journalists who present detailed, factual, multi-sourced accounts of the company’s fraudulent and depraved conduct.

Project Amplify marks a pivot from FB’s longstanding policy of issuing insincere apologies for its scandals. Company sources told the reporters that everyone figured out these don’t convince anyone, so the company turned to pushing happy-talk quackspeak instead.

One of the leaders of this project is Alex Schultz, “a 14-year company veteran who was named chief marketing officer last year,” but the major impetus comes from Zuck himself, one of the most hated men on the planet.

Amplify is just one of FB’s strategies for distorting the discourse about itself. In July, it neutered Crowdtangle, an widely used analytics tool that showed that FB’s top posts were unhinged far-right disinformation and conspiracies.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/15/three-wise-zucks-in-a-trenchcoat/#inconvenient-truth

And Facebook has declared all-out legal warfare (accompanied by a disinformation campaign) to kill Adobserver, an NYU project that tracks paid political disinformation on the platform.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#quis-custodiet-ipsos-zuck

By shutting down Crowdtangle and Adobserver, FB hopes to control the academic findings about the company’s role in disinformation, hate, and harassment. The company runs its own research portal where academics are expected to access data about the platform.

But as with the journalists who report on it, FB has heaped abuse on the academics who research it.

Its portal data was bad, leaving PhD and masters’ theses are at risk of retraction. Mid-dissertation researchers have been set back to square one.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/2020-election-misinformation-distortions#facebook-sent-flawed-data-to-misinformation-researchers

In retrospect, Facebook’s decision to game its own algorithm to push pro-company quackspeak seems inevitable. It’s not just that no one believes the company’s apologies anymore (if they ever did) — it’s that the company seems incapable of hiring competent spin doctors.

Take the WSJ’s blockbuster “Facebook Files,” a series of reports detailing the company’s willingness to harm children, commit fraud, and allow millions of favored, powerful people to violate its rules with impunity.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-09-16/facebook-s-promised-to-gain-the-public-s-trust

FB’s response was genuinely pathetic. In a perfunctory blog post, its top flack — the widely despised British politician Nick Clegg, paid millions to front FB on the global stage — vilified the WSJ’s reporting without producing any factual rebuttals.

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/09/what-the-wall-street-journal-got-wrong/

It’s the kind of ham-fisted policy advocacy that Facebook is (in)famous for. Who can forget the absolute shitshow in India over its Internet Basics program, when it bribed telcos to exempt FB and the services it hand-picked from their data-caps?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-free-basics-india-zuckerberg

This Net-Neutracidal maneuver, falsely billed as a way to bring the internet to poor people (something is absolutely does not do), was the subject of a consultation by India’s telco regulators.

FB pushed deceptive alerts to millions of its Indian users, tricking them into sending a flood of form-letters to the regulator urging it to leave Internet Basics intact.

But whoever drafted the form letter didn’t bother to check whether it addressed any of the questions the regulator was consulting on. That made these millions of letters non-responsive to the consultation, so the regulator ignored them.

FB lost! It’s almost as though people who are good at fighting policy battles don’t want to work for Facebook, and the only talent they can attract are the kinds of opportunistic blunderers that no one takes seriously and everyone hates.

Weird, that.

#pluralistic

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Best Movies Coming to Netflix in May 2021

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Movies are slowly coming back to life at the cinemas. You can see it with each glowing report about a Godzilla vs. Kong or Mortal Kombat doing solid business. And for those with more discerning tastes, films like In the Heights and Those Who Wish Me Dead are definitely going to make their release dates.

Nonetheless, there are many who are understandably not ready to go back to theaters (or have yet to get an HBO Max subscription). Thus Netflix remains an old reliable option. While the Netflix movie selection can be narrow, each month offers some worthwhile gems to revisit or even discover. And May has a surprisingly robust group of Hollywood films from the last 40 years coming to the streaming service on May 1. Here are the best ones.

Back to the Future (1985)

Great Scott! Back to the Future is coming to Netflix. As one of the most beloved films of the 1980s—if not ever—it’s doubtful we need to explain in great detail why this is exciting news. From its star-making turn by Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly to the grand musical score by Alan Silvestri, everything about this movie justworks. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s script is like a Swiss watch in precision, paying off every single setup in the film’s first act when Marty commandeers a time machine made by Doc Brown (a lovable Christopher Lloyd) and accidentally travels from 1985 to 1955… to meet his parents as teenagers!

More time has passed since the movie’s release than the once massive generational gap between the film’s primarily ‘50s setting and 1985. Yet it still plays as a timeless story about family, time travel, and manure. Large piles of manure. By the way, the rest of the Back to the Future trilogy is coming to Netflix, too.

Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)

Forget about all the “sad” dog movies of the last decade where canines have funny voiceover narrations and then die on repeat. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is a very bitter, bittersweet dog’s journey based on a harder truth. A remake of the 1980s Japanese film, Hachikō Monogatari, this American movie is based on the real events surrounding Hachikō, an Akita dog who lived in 1920s Japan. Every day Hachikō would run to the train station, awaiting his master’s return from work. One day, after a fatal stroke, his master never returned. Yet for another 10 years, the dog would escape its various new owners and spend the afternoon waiting at the station.

Directed by The Cider House Rules’ Lasse Hallström, Hachi captures this anecdote about a dog’s loyalty with grace and genuine sweetness. But you’re not going to get through it dry-eyed.

The Land Before Time (1988)

Before it birthed a string of straight-to-video movies meant to babysit pint-sized millennials, the original Land Before Time was a generational touchstone for childhoods in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Overseen by Don Bluth at the height of his talent, and in partnership with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment, The Land Before Time is a marvel in animation from the period before Disney Animation’s renaissance. It follows an assortment of baby dinosaurs, including a recently orphaned “longneck” named Littlefoot, after a horrible earthquake has rained devastation on all the isolated herbivores. But together they may just find salvation in a land called the Great Valley.

Essentially a dinosaur road movie for children, to the modern eye it’s told with a surprisingly delicate sensitivity. There is no fourth-wall breaking humor and sideways smirks here. It’s a very earnest fairytale captured in the lost art of hand-drawn animation.

The Lovely Bones (2009)

Based on Alice Sebold’s 2002 bestselling book of the same name, The Lovely Bones has a tough premise: a teen girl is raped and murdered, and goes to heaven where she watches her loved ones attempt to process and move on after her disappearance. The debut novel was not only very popular, but generally well-received for its treatment of trauma, sexual assault, and grief.

The movie, directed by Peter Jackson and starring Saoirse Ronan, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, and Stanley Tucci, among others… was not as well received, fairly criticized for its prioritization of CGI heavenly visuals over a nuanced, character-driven story. You may wonder, then, why we’re recommending a movie that wasn’t great? Because The Lovely Bones is a fascinating watch for those interested in the limits of adaptation and, in particular, how a great filmmaker with expansive resources (including a very talented cast) can fail if they’re not the right person for the job.

Mystic River (2003)

As one of Clint Eastwood’s best films as director, Mystic River was the first cinematic adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel, and the author’s hardboiled vision of Boston’s tragically seedy underbelly is well realized here. As much about the hard luck community on the South Side as the story of three men, it nonetheless tracks how neighborhood lives intersect.

We meet three boyhood friends in the movie’s unnerving opening and then jump to their bitter middle age. Oe of them, reformed gangster Jimmy (Sean Penn), has a daughter who’s been found murdered in a gutter. His onetime pal Sean (Kevin Bacon), now a detective, swears he’ll figure out who the killer is, and both men’s estranged acquaintance Dave (Tim Robbins) knows more than he’s letting on. All three’s fates are interlinked in this operatic passion play about the traumas we keep hidden until we’re drowning in regret.

Notting Hill (1999)

Though Four Weddings and a Funeral might have put writer Richard Curtis and star Hugh Grant on the map as the kings of ‘90s British romance, Notting Hill is arguably their true pinnacle. Grant plays a foppish bookshop owner who happens to meet the most famous actress in the world, Anna Scott (played by Julia Roberts who might just have been the most famous actress in the world at that time) when she stumbles into his shop.

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From the sympathy brownie competition, the junket where Grant’s William Thacker has to pretend to be a journalist from Horse & Hound, and Rhys Ifans in his pants, there are plenty of funny, moving moments. But it’s the two montage scenes—a walk through Notting Hill as seasons change to Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine,” and the final montage to Elvis Costello’s “She”—that would melt the hardest of hearts. Rom-com perfection.

Scarface (1983)

Reviews were not initially kind to Scarface, director Brian de Palma’s explosive three-hour remake of the 1932 gangster classic starring Paul Muni (that in turn was based on a novel which loosely chronicled the rise of Al Capone). Written by Oliver Stone and starring Al Pacino as psychopathic Cuban refugee-turned-drug-kingpin Tony Montana, the 1983 film was excoriated by critics for its relentlessly graphic violence, excessive foul language, and over-the-top performances, especially by its leading man. But critics at the time missed the point: Scarface was a reflection of its time—the hedonistic, greed-driven, cocaine-fueled ‘80s—and was appropriately and utterly crazed as a result.

The film did mark the moment when Pacino transitioned from intense, thoughtful character actor to (mostly) histrionic circus barker, but he leaves it all on the field and his mania drives the fast-paced film to its epic, bloodsoaked, and unbelievable (in all aspects of the word) conclusion. As a metaphor for the insane decade of excess that birthed it, Scarface is riveting, breathless, occasionally shocking and often unintentionally hilarious. It’s the gangster movie on coke.

State of Play (2009)

Kevin Macdonald’s remake of a British miniseries by the same name turned out to be a strong thriller in its own right. With a whip smart script by Tony Gilroy and Billy Ray, this movie doubles as both an enjoyable investigative procedural and a love letter to journalism just as newspapers were beginning to die out in the 2000s. Russell Crowe plays Cal McAffrey in the film, the last of the old school guard of reporters, but his ethics will be challenged when the congressman with a dead young woman on his staff turns out to be his old college buddy (Ben Affleck). Rachel McAdams also stars as a young blogger who learns the thrill of chasing a story that takes more than an afternoon to research. Helen Mirren, Robin Wright, and Jeff Daniels also star.

The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

Remember when they made comedies for adults? The Whole Nine Yards is one such anomaly. Really a buddy film about a suicidal dentist (Matthew Perry) and a gangster living under a phony alias who moves in next door (Bruce Willis in one of his last truly charming performances), this giggles and gangsters laugher is a secretly delightful ensemble movie with a deep bench of talent. Indeed, Kevin Pollack, Amanda Peet, Nastsha Henstridge, and Michael Clarke Duncan, as the cuddliest gangster you’ll ever see punch your protagonist in the balls until he’s pissing blood, all get to shine. With a twisty plot, it’s an R-rated throwback to the type of screwball shenanigans that were once Hollywood’s bread and butter.

Zombieland (2009)

It’s rare when calling something the second best zombie comedy ever made is high praise, but in a horror subgenre that also includes Shaun of the Dead, this is high praise for Zombieland. As an R-rated teen comedy, one suspects the filmmakers almost lucked into the absurdly talented cast they assembled with Emma Stone, Jessie Eisenberg, and Woody Harrelson. In the years since this movie’s release, all three were nominated for Oscars (Stone even won one), but in ’09 they’re just having a blast with this goofy stoner hybrid about a dysfunctional makeshift family having fun during the zombie apocalypse.

Also, it features arguably the greatest comedy cameo ever conceived. If you haven’t seen it, I’m not going to spoil it for you here either…

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silver-kitsuneneko · 4 years

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How to Deal with Cyberbullying as an Adult

I’m writing this because sadly, I hadn’t seen any posts or guides to help people with being bullied online, which is a shame because it’s a very important thing to know, especially when it’s no longer in the realm of teenagers but when adults are being cyberbullied. This guide is for those who are eighteen and over. Cyberbullying has become a growing problem over the years and with the whole cancel culture movement it’s gotten even worst. People are going after creators who did something someone didn’t like twenty years ago, someone was accused of something without proper evidence and of course that can’t fly and more often than not, someone disagreeing with someone over a show/media/fandom etc. and will of course make that person’s life a living hell just because. As someone was on the receiving end of cyberbullying for three years, I think I can give some insight on what to do and not do as a final chapter of this horrible incident and I can finally move on.

Rule One: DO NOT RETALIATE. I know this is HARD like very hard but it’ll only make things worse. Seriously, don’t take this as an “I’m not going to back down!” or “How dare they?! I’m going to give them a piece of my mind!” moment, just Ignore, delete and BLOCK. Seriously, if not, you’re going to get a lot more than you bargained for:

So yeah, just IGNORE.

Rule Two: DeviantART is NEVER going to help you. Many of you use DA as your place to post art, especially teenagers. If you think DA is going to magically help you by banning them because let’s face it, DA is good for banning and suspending accounts but they really don’t care about the personal safety of their users. They don’t care if someone steals art, they don’t care if someone is harassing you, they don’t care if you’re being threatened. Their only “solution” is to block the person, knowing that people make multiple accounts just to harass a user. But as long as they get their money from their core users, they don’t care. However, this doesn’t mean that all sites are like this: Tumblr, Wattpad, FF.net, and a few others have excellent and better ways to deal with Cyberbullies and harassment, though with the user being anon things can be tricky.

Rule three: Document everything! And I do mean everything! every single message geared towards you, anything that you know for a fact is suppose to be about you, anything that harassment and does not make you feel safe, DOCUMENT IT. Make sure you get the time and date stamp and make sure you get the website they posted it on. If you don’t know how to screen shot via desktop, there’s a Snipping tool that will do the dirty work for you better! Here are some examples on what I did. Please note that the following is very disturbing.

As you can see, these edgelord postings are in fact a death threat and needed to be reported. I’m glad I got it and sent it through proper channels. Which brings me to my next point.

Rule Four: Local law enforcement cannot help you, especially if your cyberbully is in another country. You can’t contact their police equivalent either because it’s a cybercrime not a “domestic” crime. They can’t do anything to help you.

Rule Five: Contact the FBI cyber unit. Yes, there’s a FBI unit for cybercrimes. Harassment, death threats, cyberstalking, and cyberbullying are crimes. Get as much information as you can on your harasser. This could mean usernames, locations, and if you can, names. My cyberstalker posted her real name and location because she was an artist so things like her name, location, and email were posted everywhere and it was just easy to get what I needed to file a report. Don’t be ashamed and don’t be scared to do so. The form is simple and you can use that evidence you collected to show that you are indeed being harassed. The website can be found here: https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Rule Six: Don’t post your plight to your fans, on your page, or anything like that. As much as you want to vent to your Readers and Fans online, don’t. This will give your cyberbully exactly what they want, a reaction out of you. Also, many of your fans may take it upon themselves to defend you, which is honorable and an awesome thing but at the same time it’ll give them a “Reason” to send their own personal hate army after your or in my cyberbully’s case, even after I apologized, still sent her batshit crazy friends after me for days at a time. If that’s the case then shut down your page temporarily. I know it seems like you’re running but damage control at this point is the best thing you can do especially since they’re making new accounts faster than you can block and delete. If you do what to vent to your readers, use a secret language or something like that to keep everything hushed and secret so only you and your fans would know or set things to private.

Rule Seven: Don’t post anything too personal about yourself. To many, their page or accounts are their safe places. No I don’t mean this is a SJW, special snowflake, PC culture thing but your personal spot where you can share your thoughts and feelings and post your creations. Sometimes you forget that someone with ill intentions may be using your page to get cannon fodder for later or something of that nature. My bully decided to use my relationship with my parents as a way to bash me and things of that nature and found a post several years before the fact where I told a Reader/ Fan that I didn’t like my name and went by my initials (K.C.) that I realized that she was stalking my page. She even made a journal stating that I was going after her husband, the reason why she didn’t have a job, and that if she killed herself it was my fault because I “drove her to it”. The link to that is here.

https://www.deviantart.com/justwaitforit/journal/The-Cyberbully-Incident-by-Artist-Holly-Rorke-817668170

As you can see, most of it is a very unhinged rambling of someone who really need some help. This is why you should NEVER engage a cyberbully. You don’t know if they’re right in the head or not.

Rule Eight: take all the time you need to take care of your mental health. When you’re being harassed at the level I was, it’s weighs on your self-worth, self esteem, mental health, and even your physical health. I felt alone in this fight, I felt like no one was listening to me, and I felt like she was never going to stop. Thanks to @pizzapupperroni, @ mischief-soul-lover, and @incubeebirb, I slowly got through it. In fact, PizzaPupper got me on One Piece as an attempt to do something new and it really helped me. I can’t thank her enough for that. Do things that’ll take your mind off of things, play your favorite video game series, take a break from your page for a little while, engage in a new hobby, block and made sure your bully cannot contact you again if you can. Meditate, take a hot bath/ shower, and just take a few days to yourself before going back to business as usual. Remember your mental health and self worth is more important than your page. Your followers will understand.

Rule Nine: If all else fails, start over. I know this is VERY hard for those who’ve been on platforms for five plus years and built you following or things like that but if the harassment continues, you may have to switch platforms and start over. This is usually a last resort. Usually by the cyber crime report happens, everything is okay again. But sometimes that may not be the case. Think of this as a last resort if this person is really bothering to the point that you can’t take it.

Whew, I was finally able to get all of this off my chest. Hopefully my experience with this cyberbully incident will help many of you approach it better with more and better resources than I did. No one deserves this type of torture and that’s exactly what it is, torture. It’s something that will weigh on your body mind until you feel like there’s nothing left for you to do and it overall makes you feel just unsafe and shitty. Please be safe out there, use you best judgment and learn to not engage.

#cyberbullying #cyber stalking #cyber bully #writing #harassment #cancel culture #writing and writers #silver-kitsuneneko #mental help #self care

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