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darshansonar · 2 years

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Darshan Sonar Digital Marketing

Tips For Getting Engagement from Instagram Stories

Instagram describes Stories as something that lets you “share all the moments of your day, not just the ones you want to keep on your profile”. The feature enables you to share multiple photos and videos, and they appear together in a “slideshow format”, which basically means a reel, like Snapchat. In this blog, I am sharing with you Tips For Getting Engagement from Instagram Stories I hope you will enjoy it…..

Table of Contents

Design Beautiful Instagram Stories

Be Creative

Narrate a Story

Use Stickers

Poll Stickers

Use the swipe up feature.

Add captions

Use Hashtags

Post consistently

Write caption

Go live

Use IGTV

Mention others

Ask a question

Conclusion

Design Beautiful Instagram Stories

Creating Instagram Stories that not only look great but reflects your Instagram aesthetic really pays off when it comes to growing your audience. Firstly, having your Instagram Stories, feed posts, and website branding aligned means you can boost brand awareness as your viewers start to recognize your unique style.

Once you have that aesthetic nailed across the board, it can help you stand out from the crowd and gives your followers a sense of familiarity. Your followers will know what to expect when they tune in to your stories and will want to keep watching every time you post something new to Instagram Stories. Making sure that you’ve cohesive look and feel across all of your Instagram posts does take time and effort, but it can really help build a loyal audience.

Be Creative

Instagram is constantly adding new features like font types and shadows, pinning text, background music, GIFs, and more. Have fun and explore the new features. Keep your app consistently updated so you can be among the first to find out about these new features and try them out.

Narrate a Story

First and foremost, the easiest way to improve your Instagram Stories engagement is to actually tell a story, one with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I know it’s easy to just throw a photo up (I’m guilty of this myself), but giving your audience a little context will make the experience all the better for them.

Use Stickers

500 million Instagram accounts use Instagram Stories every day, and we’re expecting to see that number rise in 2020! Because of this, Instagram has been innovating by finding new ways for brands to engage with their followers, in the form of different engagement stickers for stories. Instagram Stories stickers are a great way to encourage your followers to chat and share their opinions and experiences with you, which, in turn, will help create a loyal following that feels connected to your brand.

Here are a few ways you can get started with stickers to increase Instagram engagement:

The Question Sticker

The Quiz Sticker

The Countdown Sticker

Poll Stickers

Nowadays, people are loving to react on poll stickers compared to other stickers because the question will be like your audience’s preferences, and that benefits you to make a choice in your business or it may be helpful like general feedback.

One of the coolest things regarding poll stickers is you have access to view the list of people who’ve given answers to your poll. Also, you can directly DM them up to 24 hrs to take the conversation furthermore.

Use the swipe up feature.

The Swipe Up feature is only available for Instagram accounts that have 10,000 or more followers, so if you’re not quite there yet, it’s a good growth goal to aim for.

When you have this feature, you can include it at the end of your Stories to encourage people to swipe up “to learn more.” It directs people to your website so they can learn more about the products or services used in the story.

Add captions

A simple and clever thing to do to increase your Instagram Stories engagement is to add captions to your video stories. Let’s be honest here – most people don’t have their sound on when their browsing through their phones. Instead of just being a talking head in a video, take a little time to write out what you’re saying.

Use Hashtags

Adding hashtags to your Instagram Stories is a super-easy way to increase your reach and engagement. It allows new audiences to discover your content and start following you. If a hashtag is popular enough, users can actually search for it and view live stories on a curated hashtag page where they may come across your account. This is why it’s so important to use words and phrases you think might be top of mind for your target customers.

Post consistently

According to studies, the sweet spot is a consistent 1-2 posts a day. This way your feed stays fresh and relevant, and you have more opportunities to attract eyeballs to your content. Knowing when the best time to post on Instagram is is also critical especially when dealing with Instagram’s algorithmic timeline.

Recommended post times can vary wildly depending on which expert you listen to. With some advocating 8 AM – 9 AM or 2 PM – 5 PM for your first post to even 5 AM for your second, this inconsistency can create genuine confusion for content planners.

Just look at FashionNova and National Geographic. FashionNova, a global online fashion retailer, posts on average 30 times per day—that’s about one post every 30 minutes! This might sound like overkill, but the brand’s 17.3M followers don’t seem to think so. With this many followers, the engagement rate is 0.07%.

Write caption

Make people spend as much time on your posts as possible.

Since the early age of Instagram, time has changed. People have changed. The trends have changed. The long, compelling caption can get your posts much higher engagement. Think of it as a new blog posts.

Another reason is that people tend to ‘save’ posts with a long caption. They may not have time to read it immediately, so they save it for later reading.

Go live

Live videos are a fantastic way to directly engage your audience. Instagram Live allows users to ask questions, comment on your live video, and provide real-time engagement. Most users will even be notified with a push notification when you start broadcasting live. This is great for boosting engagement. And when you’re finished with the live video, it will appear directly on your Instagram Story. This allows those who might have missed it live to check the video out later. As with any Instagram Story, it will be available for 24 hours before being archived.

Use IGTV

Launched in June 2018, Instagram TV (IGTV) is Instagram’s standalone video app that allows creators to create long-form video channels a la YouTube. Creators can connect their IGTV profiles to their normal Instagram profiles and give their audience a one minute preview of their channel on their Instagram Story feed. This is a great way to share longer-form video content for your audience. As of 2019, unverified users can post videos up to 10 minutes long, while verified users can enjoy videos up to one hour long. These are the tips for getting engagement from Instagram stories.

Mention others

If you are talking about another person or brand or they are in your Instagram Story, mention them! Even better if it’s in an Instagram Story where they can share your post in their own Story. This not only helps increase your engagement but expands your reach because it allows people who follow the person or brand you’ve tagged to see your content as well.

Ask a question

Allow your followers to share their opinions by using Instagram “Question” sticker also know as “Ask me a Question”, it’s a good opportunity for you to understand what your followers want. You can simply ask them what content they would like to see more from you and their responses will help you with your next post. Below is an example where we asked people to share some tips for our new students.

Conclusion

I hope you have satisfied by reading this blog “Tips For Getting Engagement from Instagram Stories”. You can comment in the below comment section if you need any assistance regarding the above post (Tips For Getting Engagement from Instagram Stories). We look forward to helping you.

Ready to start your campaign. Or else want to perform strategy practically with me you can just fill-up the form below so that I can get in touch with you. Darshan Sonar Digital is the 1st Corporate Digital marketing course in Pune.

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imagintheworldaway · 3 years

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Together

Anonymous asked: Hello! Can you do a Harryxfem! Reader where people see how Harry looks at the reader (calorie challenge- rematch (time stamp 27:17)) and the reader is so oblivious to Harry’s feeling for her because he broke up with his long-term ex last fall and she doesn’t want to read deep into it and just keeps telling people that they’re just friends even though everyone can see past the bull crap and keeps shipping them because they’re very similar and meant to be and after months of Harry pinning after her he tries to move on and go on dates (which fails but she doesn’t know that it’s not working out for him ) so she starts seeing someone and magically somehow end up together and become the “it” couple because of how blunt and honest they are. Sorry that was long! Hope you can write it thanks!

A/N Good gosh this is a long one. I hope you enjoy! Requests are open

Sitting on the sofa next to Cal, snuggled in a mountain of blankets in Harrys apartment whilst the boys filmed a video was always fun. They were filming the 100,000 calorie challenge and it was JJ, Vik , Cal and Harrys turn to be eating the calories. We were sat watching JJ as he revealed he had absolutely failed the challenge to everyones surprise. The boys all started to complain as I giggled at the failure which was JJ right now. I felt a slight nudge on my side and Cal not so discreetly nodding towards Harry, I looked over at him and smiled but he averted his gaze from me and buried his head into the massive bear still complaining at JJ as it was revealed he had messed up the challenge even more by starting before the official time.

After JJ’s little mess up they decided to make the fried mars bars, and I feel as though even saying it is cause for disaster. The boys were all crowded around the counter, just making a mess really, not much surprise there. I was happy in my own little world scrolling through instagram with the boys chatter in the background when I started to smell something burning and a mass amount of smoke from the boys. “Oh my god you idiots” I said matter of factly before grabbing the pan and holding it out the window, not wanting the apartment to stink of burnt mars bars as the guys tried to switch off the fire alarm.

Once everything had calmed down I started to clean up as the boys ate the left over chocolates. “ you don’t have to clean up Y/N” Harry said to me as he bought over a plate to the sink. “Its ok I don’t mind, something to do at least” I smiled up at him. “You sure? I feel bad” he said scratching his shoulder and giving me an awkward smile. “I’m sure, go enjoy your food” I giggled pushing the boy away from me slightly. I finished up the washing as the boys chatted over their takeaways trying to figure out how many calories they were up to. I popped the remaining dishes in the dish washer and popped it on for the boys.

Once they had finished Cal and I bid the boys goodbye and hoped in an Uber, we lived in the same apartment complex so it made sense that we shared rides just about everywhere. “Soooo” cal started tapping his his legs to the beat of the song that the Uber driver had popped on for us. i gave him a questioning glance as I sent my text to Harry, informing him I had popped the dish washer on and for him not to forget about it. “When are you two finally going to get together” Cal said peering over my shoulder and trying to take a peek at my texts with Harry. I just scoffed switching off my phone and turning my head to look at Cal. “Look he got out of a long term relationship not even six months ago, he just needs a friend right now, and that’s all I am, a friend, plus even if he hadn’t just gotten out of a relationship, well I don’t think he’d be interested in me anyway, like I said I’m just a friend” I shrugged to Cal giving him a half smile trying to cover the sadness which was evident on my face. “I don’t know Y/N if you ask me, or well any of the lads he looks at you like your a gift here gracing us all with your presence. like your some type of angel, he likes you, he really does, he’s just scared to ruin what you have” Cal stated as we hoped out the uber and made our ways into the lift. “Well I don’t want to sound rude, but I didn’t ask Cal, I don’t need my hopes being brought up just for it all to be speculation.” I stated matter of factly. “This is me, I’ll see you later yh?” I questioned Cal who just pursed his lips and nodded to me giving a small see ya.

I really wasn’t trying to be rude but I had had my heartbroken so many times, and I don’t want to start getting my hopes up about Harry if it is just all speculation and some sort of narrative the lads were making up for themselves. I slumped down on my bed and posted a selfie on instagram asking people what they want to know about me. I wasn’t a huge YouTuber but I did have a large instagram following meaning the questions flooded in within an instant. There was the usual that I answered such as my favourite colour, what am I having for dinner, best place I had ever visited and so on. After a few more generic questions someone asked what my favourite picture was. I scrolled through my camera roll and found one of Harry and I at winter wonderland. we were both wearing Santa hats and he was giving me a piggy bag as I held onto a large teddy he had won me moments before. I captioned it ‘Christmas with my Bestfriend, look at how goofy he looks @wroetoshaw’ I giggled as I posted the pic remembering that day. it was a rare day off for the both of us and with Harrys break up still fresh I decided we should go to Winter Wonderland and just have fun. Which we did, it was one of my most treasured memories with him. He had taken his breakup so hard that I felt it was important that he had a friend around who could take the crying and emotions, someone to just cuddle with and forget about the world. And over the past few months I realised that my feelings for Harry had grown, but he was still hurting and there was no way that I was being any boys re-bound.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up to blaring light through the blinds of my lounge. I groaned to myself before getting up and trudging to my bedroom to sort myself out. i looked at my phone and I had a few texts from Harry. I smiled as I read them.

‘Thank you! Almost forgot, you are honestly the best Xx’

‘You alive???? Xx’

‘Good night Xx’

‘Like the insta pic’

I furrowed my eyebrows at the last text. It was sent only minutes after the goodnight text and it didn’t have any of the kisses we usually put on the end of our texts to each other. I also hadn’t got a good morning text from Harry, that was particularly strange because I have always gotten a Good morning and Good night text from him for the past few months with out fail. I just shrugged it off before replying,

‘Haha no problem! I fell asleep as soon as I got home I’m sorry :( wanna meet up later? Xx’

I smiled at my reply before going to my bedroom and changing to look more presentable. I checked my phone and it was almost lunch meaning Cal was coming over to film a video with me. just as I re adjusted my hair for the a millionth time I heard a knock on the door signalling that cal was here. “Hello stranger” I smiled letting him into my apartment with the array of crisps and snacks he had in his arms. We were filming a British corner shop mukbang whilst answering twitter questions. As Cal settled himself in my studio I helped by opening the array of snacks and cans of drink that he had bought for us. “Hey really weird question but have you heard from Harry today?” I questioned trying not to sound so desperate as to the whereabouts of the boy. “Uh yh messaging me all morning, think he’s got something on tonight. He not told you?” Cal looked up from the array of junk raising his eyebrows at me as I just shook my head in disbelief that he was ignoring me. As we settled in our seats and I turned the camera on I sent Harry a quick text.

‘Hey have I done something wrong?? :( Xx’

The video was going amazing. Cal and I just naturally bounced off of each other and the questions the fans were giving us were quite juicy. “Alright, alright, I’ve got one. Y/N has Harry asked you out yet or is he still being a melt? From @CalFreezy” I giggled at the question and raised my eyebrows at Cal. “These are meant to be from Fans” I retorted to Cal telling him off a little. “Yh Freezy is your biggest fan he’s always nattering on about you and talking about you moving in with them when Harry gets the guts” Cal defended himself causing me to burst out laughing. “Well we all know Harry and I are friends, I love him very much but that’s as deep as it goes” I replied to Cals previous question from Freezy, slight sadness barely evident in my voice. “Is that the only thing that goes deep” Cal stated before bursting out laughing at himself and falling back in his chair ultimately falling off of it causing me to laugh. “Well that’s it for today guys thank you for watching and thanks to this idiot for joining me” I smiled at the camera before shutting it off and helping Cal from the floor.

“You really need to stop that you know? You can’t force anything to happen” I said matter of factly towards cal as he nibbled on some Pringles. “You see Y/N I’m actually Cal from the future and I’m just stating facts” he gave me a cheesy grin as I tutted at him and rolled my eyes. I was taken out of my trance by a text from my phone. “Alright ditch me for lover boy” Cal called after me. I opened my phone to see it was from Harry but it wasn’t what I was expecting.

‘Hey Y/N, we shouldn’t hang out anymore it makes Belle uncomfortable.’

“Cal what the fuck is this” I shouted to my friend. I heard the thudding of his feet and turned around to show him the message I had just received. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Belle Belle Belle Oh Belle, her really?” Cal scrunched his nose up at me. “Ummm elaborate, who’s Belle?” I pressed for him to release more info to me. “Oh Harry went on a date with her like three weeks ago, looks like it worked out, well for them I guess” Cal shrugged piecing the different parts of the puzzle together for me. “Oh, wow, so he is just gonna drop me like that, like I’m, I’m nothing, like i wasn’t the one there for him when he was mourning over his last breakup. Well that’s a kick in the teeth” I said starting to sniffle, tears threatening to break their way out of my eyes and my mood instantly dropping to nothing. “Hey no don’t cry” Cal said engulfing me in a hug, which I gladly melted into. “If he couldn’t see what he had with you then that boy is more blind than we all thought.” Cal reassured me rubbing my back. “Plus your make up looks too nice to cry it off” Cal said catching a stray tear from my face and making me giggle a little. “Oh Cal why can’t we fall in love?” I questioned sniffing and straightening out my clothes. “Because that would be like fucking my sister and that’s weird” Cal stated making me giggle.

I don’t think anyone could quite get their heads wrapped around the fact that Harry was with someone new, especially because that someone was not me. For the next month I got fans tweeting me asking if Harry and I had broken up or if he had gone crazy. I also got sorry looks from my friends. Always being placed in the furthest seat away from Harry, always given excuses as to why I couldn’t come to shoots. It sucked majorly. And the worst part about all of this is everyone felt like they had to tread on eggshells around me, as if I wasn’t a fully grown woman who could handle these situations.

I knocked on Simons apartment door before he opened it replying to someone about something. “Oh Y/N you alright” he said quickly closing the door a little. “Yh Talia said I could pop round and grab my camera that she borrowed.” I said smiling at the lanky man. “Oh yh well um come in, just be careful yh” Simon nodded at me. I furrowed my eyebrows and just nodded at his comment following him through to the living room. And as soon as I saw the tall figure sat next to Harry with an unimpressed look on her face I realised why Simon gave me such a warning. “Heyyyy Y/N Is here” Ethan called standing up giving me a hug making me giggle a little. “Yh Talia knicked my camera again” I stated smiling at the girl who blushed a little realising she still hadn’t returned my device. “Oh so that’s Y/N” a snotty voice said causing everyone to quiet down and all eyes turning in her direction. “Yup, the one and only” I smiled back at her trying to be as nice as possible. “Belle right? Nice to meet you” I smiled back at her trying to make conversation in the silent room. I rocked back and forth on my heels for a while, Belle gave me a good look up and down, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips as if wanting to comment something. Before she could I saw Harry whisper something to her and she scoffed. “If I have an opinion I’m going to say it. And I have many about her” Belle said loud enough for everyone to hear whilst pointing at me. “Here I found it” Talia smiled at me handing me my camera before noticing the mood of the room.

“Ok well, I will be off then, lovely to see you all and to meet you Belle” I stated the last part through gritted teeth before spinning around and making my way to the door. “Even worse from the back” I heard Belle try and whisper to I presume Harry. I stopped in my tracks and raised my eyebrows. The audacity of this girl, how dare she disrespect me in front of all my friends. I turned around to meet her eyes with a sickeningly sweet smile on my face. Before I could say anything though Talia butted in. “You know what, you do not talk to my friend like that, I have barely known you a month and I am so sick of you already, please leave before I do or say something I regret” she smiled at Belle joining me by my side and linking arms with me. Belle just looked around at everyone, with everyone just averting their gaze and waiting for something big to happen. All she did was huff, grabbing Harrys hand and storming out of the apartment with him.

“Jesus Y/N what did you do to make him choose her, she’s like an angry controlling goblin” Ethan huffed as soon as we all heard the door close. “Hey, I got cut off a long time ago, ask him not me” I giggled before thanking Talia and leaving the apartment to go home.

I was lounging around my apartment, Ethans words spiralling around my head. I decided tonight was for me. I popped on my favourite movie and rummaged through my freezer finding some ben and Jerrys and starting to scoff down the tub. This sofa must be super man or something because I had soon fallen asleep, I was only awoken by loud continuous knocking at my door. I regained my focus and gaged my surrounding before wrapping a blanket around myself and making my way to the door. As soon as I opened it I was pulled into a bone crushing hug. “I’m so fucking sorry, its you its always been you, I don’t know what I was thinking, I just needed someone to fill the void and she was ok for a week but I need you. You are all I need, all I want, please forgive me I love you” as much as I just wanted to melt into his arms I pulled my self back so that we were an arm lengths apart. “You best come in” I sighed. I finished the teas and made my way over to Harry, passing him his favourite mug of mine. I crossed my legs as we sat at opposite ends of the sofa in silence.

“What about Belle?” I broke the silence, harry whipped his head up to look at me. “Look I’m so sorry she was a mistake and I should never have even given her shot. She’s so nasty and I could never forgive myself. This past month without you has felt like my heart was ripped in two. I’ve been so miserable and then when I saw you today I felt like I had been given a new chance at life. I get it if you hate me but I need you so bad and I cant live without you.” Harry opened his heart to me for the second time that evening. “You’re such a dummy Harry” I said with a sigh placing my mug on the coffee table. Harry looked at me as if he was broken by the words I just said. I just shook my head at him before leaning over and planting a soft kiss on his lips. The moment seemed to last forever. It was like in the movies when time slowed down and fireworks erupted around the couple who after all their trials and tribulations finally found each other. “I can’t help but love you Harry” I whispered only inches from his face as I pulled back for air, a sly grin on my face. Harrys arms snaked around my wait brining me into him for another soft kiss. i leant my head on his chest listening to his heart, thumping like it was going to break out and slap me in the face. “So what now” harry mumbled into my hair. I leant up so my eyes met his. “Well you will ask me on a date to a nice restaurant where we end up getting a little too drunk. Then we walk along the Thames, watching people walk by when at the perfect moment when the city goes silent you ask me to be your girlfriend and then we come back here and spend the night together. But with a little more physical activity than were used to” I grinned at him causing him to chuckle. “So you forgive me?” He said looking at me with pleading eyes. “God yes I forgive you, I could never be mad at you” I smiled at him. How could I? I did truly love him and it was as simple as that.

After a few months, and the date Harry had promised, we told our friends and announced to our followers that we had finally decided to get together. apparently it was quite obvious as the boys had started taking bets as to when we would tell them about our new relationship. The fans seemed to love it as well, always receiving amazing and supportive comments on all of our posts and videos that we did together. Although we were young I think people saw how care free and happy we made each other. Most importantly how much we loved each other.

#Harry Lewis x reader #Harry Lewis one shot #Harry Lewis imagine #wroetoshaw #harry lewis #w2s #sidemen

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subslut69whoreme · 2 years

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girl shut the fuck up, some people are masochists and love being held underwater and genuinely fucking tortured. it makes us wet and gets us off. we’re lucky enough to find fucked up guys who are willing to do that for us. even BETTER if they get joy from it too. get off your high fucking horse and take bdsm out your bio cause you clearly don’t know the fucking basics of it (sado-maso for SM?? hello?? sadism, masochism?? the drowning vid is a sadist fulfilling a masochists dreams)

you sound so fucking dumb nobody cares what you think is wrong mind your business or get off tumblr

Sorry i will NOT shut up and you sending that is an anonymous ask is a chicken s*!t move. You like that, own it. Honestly i'm pretty sure i'm probably a masochists myself. I'm not judging the women for being into that or even judging the sadists that are into it.

I DO know what BDSM is and stands for, SSC is also part of BDSM. Clearly You are referring to the "bathtub" video so i'll speak only about that, since that is clearly what has you messaging me. My problem with that video is there is no indication that the woman was willing. I looks like a guy sets up camera, walks behind woman (don't even know that they have any relationship he could be doing this to a complete stranger) and then attempts to drown her. No part of that looks like anything she is enjoying or has asked for. Yes I understand there are those that are into that sort of play. However this video as it is makes it appear that this behavior is acceptable/normal to do to anyone at any time. That and the way he looked at the camera as she was fighting is my issue. That didn't at all look consensual. If this was your own video, i am very sorry. If that is the case i wish you (or the original poster if not you) would have added a caption that said "i'm the woman in this video and I consented to this ahead of time." - or something to that affect.

I don't care if i sound dumb. I actually get off on acting like a bimbo so cool.

Nor do I care who DOESN'T or does (ok i do care who does) like my blog. I mean i like when people enjoy my blog. If you don't like my blog or my opinion then don't follow me. No one is making you follow me, if so then take it up with the person making you follow me that is a whole other issue, i won't get into. The whole point of these blogs is for us to put our individual opinions out. That is all I'm doing, well that and trying to protect women in general from the perverts that think its ok to harm/abuse every woman just because of the pair of wholes between legs.

I'm often ashamed of my own feelings, opinions and interests and posting them here for fear that will give across the impression that its ok to treat every woman the way i want or enjoy being treated. That is NOT ok and that is why I objected to the video, once again if it was your video I'm truly sorry.

Whoever's video it was should have listed some sort of consent or way for those concerned to check consent, like porn companies do, that's why they are required to keep such records and why I like sites like kink.com that have before and after interviews with the sub (& the before always shows them showing their verbal and non verbal safe words/actions) and then the after asks them what they liked or didn't like and if they'd come back again.

CONSENT is KEY! No consent is WRONG!

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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

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Here's a shortlist of those who realized that I — a cis woman who'd identified as heterosexual for decades of life — was in fact actually bi, long before I realized it myself recently: my sister, all my friends, my boyfriend, and the TikTok algorithm.

On TikTok, the relationship between user and algorithm is uniquely (even sometimes uncannily) intimate. An app which seemingly contains as many multitudes of life experiences and niche communities as there are people in the world, we all start in the lowest common denominator of TikTok. Straight TikTok (as it's popularly dubbed) initially bombards your For You Page with the silly pet videos and viral teen dances that folks who don't use TikTok like to condescendingly reduce it to.

Quickly, though, TikTok begins reading your soul like some sort of divine digital oracle, prying open layers of your being never before known to your own conscious mind. The more you use it, the more tailored its content becomes to your deepest specificities, to the point where you get stuff that's so relatable that it can feel like a personal attack (in the best way) or (more dangerously) even a harmful trigger from lifelong traumas.

For example: I don't know what dark magic (read: privacy violations) immediately clued TikTok into the fact that I was half-Brazilian, but within days of first using it, Straight TikTok gave way to at first Portuguese-speaking then broader Latin TikTok. Feeling oddly seen (being white-passing and mostly American-raised, my Brazilian identity isn't often validated), I was liberal with the likes, knowing that engagement was the surefire way to go deeper down this identity-affirming corner of the social app.

TikTok made lots of assumptions from there, throwing me right down the boundless, beautiful, and oddest multiplicities of Alt TikTok, a counter to Straight TikTok's milquetoast mainstreamness.

Home to a wide spectrum of marginalized groups, I was giving out likes on my FYP like Oprah, smashing that heart button on every type of video: from TikTokers with disabilities, Black and Indigenous creators, political activists, body-stigma-busting fat women, and every glittering shade of the LGBTQ cornucopia. The faves were genuine, but also a way to support and help offset what I knew about the discriminatory biases in TikTok's algorithm.

My diverse range of likes started to get more specific by the minute, though. I wasn't just on general Black TikTok anymore, but Alt Cottagecore Middle-Class Black Girl TikTok (an actual label one creator gave her page's vibes). Then it was Queer Latina Roller Skating Girl TikTok, Women With Non-Hyperactive ADHD TikTok, and then a double whammy of Women Loving Women (WLW) TikTok alternating between beautiful lesbian couples and baby bisexuals.

Looking back at my history of likes, the transition from queer “ally” to “salivating simp” is almost imperceptible.

There was no one precise "aha" moment. I started getting "put a finger down" challenges that wouldn't reveal what you were putting a finger down for until the end. Then, 9-fingers deep (winkwink), I'd be congratulated for being 100% bisexual. Somewhere along the path of getting served multiple WLW Disney cosplays in a single day and even dom lesbian KinkTok roleplay — or whatever the fuck Bisexual Pirate TikTok is — deductive reasoning kind of spoke for itself.

But I will never forget the one video that was such a heat-seeking missile of a targeted attack that I was moved to finally text it to my group chat of WLW friends with a, "Wait, am I bi?" To which the overwhelming consensus was, "Magic 8 Ball says, 'Highly Likely.'"

Serendipitously posted during Pride Month, the video shows a girl shaking her head at the caption above her head, calling out confused and/or closeted queers who say shit like, "I think everyone is a LITTLE bisexual," to the tune of "Closer" by The Chainsmokers. When the lyrics land on the word "you," she points straight at the screen — at me — her finger and inquisitive look piercing my hopelessly bisexual soul like Cupid's goddamn arrow.

Oh no, the voice inside my head said, I have just been mercilessly perceived.

As someone who had, in fact, done feminist studies at a tiny liberal arts college with a gender gap of about 70 percent women, I'd of course dabbled. I've always been quick to bring up the Kinsey scale, to champion a true spectrum of sexuality, and to even declare (on multiple occasions) that I was, "straight, but would totally fuck that girl!"

Oh no, the voice inside my head returned, I've literally just been using extra words to say I was bi.

After consulting the expertise of my WLW friend group (whose mere existence, in retrospect, also should've clued me in on the flashing neon pink, purple, and blue flag of my raging bisexuality), I ran to my boyfriend to inform him of the "news."

"Yeah, baby, I know. We all know," he said kindly.

"How?!" I demanded.

Well for one, he pointed out, every time we came across a video of a hot girl while scrolling TikTok together, I'd without fail watch the whole way through, often more than once, regardless of content. (Apparently, straight girls do not tend to do this?) For another, I always breathlessly pointed out when we'd pass by a woman I found beautiful, often finding a way to send a compliment her way. ("I'm just a flirt!" I used to rationalize with a hand wave, "Obvs, I'm not actually sexually attracted to them!") Then, I guess, there were the TED Talk-like rants I'd subject him to about the thinly veiled queer relationship in Adventure Time between Princess Bubblegum and Marcelyne the Vampire Queen — which the cowards at Cartoon Network forced creators to keep as subtext!

And, well, when you lay it all out like that...

But my TikTok-fueled bisexual awakening might actually speak less to the omnipotence of the app's algorithm, and more to how heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

Sure, TikTok bombarded me with the thirst traps of my exact type of domineering masc lady queers, who reduced me to a puddle of drool I could no longer deny. But I also recalled a pivotal moment in college when I briefly questioned my heterosexuality, only to have a lesbian friend roll her eyes and chastise me for being one of those straight girls who leads Actual Queer Women on. I figured she must know better. So I never pursued any of my lady crushes in college, which meant I never experimented much sexually, which made me conclude that I couldn't call myself bisexual if I'd never had actual sex with a woman. I also didn't really enjoy lesbian porn much, though the fact that I'd often find myself fixating on the woman during heterosexual porn should've clued me into that probably coming more from how mainstream lesbian porn is designed for straight men.

The ubiquity of heterormativity, even when unwittingly perpetrated by members of the queer community, is such an effective self-sustaining cycle. Aside from being met with queer-gating (something I've since learned bi folks often experience), I had a hard time identifying my attraction to women as genuine attraction, simply because it felt different to how I was attracted to men.

Heteronormativity is truly one helluva drug.

So much of women's sexuality — of my sexuality — can feel defined by that carnivorous kind of validation you get from men. I met no societal resistance in fully embodying and exploring my desire for men, either (which, to be clear, was and is insatiable slut levels of wanting that peen.) But in retrospect, I wonder how many men I slept with not because I was truly attracted to them, but because I got off on how much they wanted me.

My attraction to women comes with a different texture of eroticism. With women (and bare with a baby bi, here), the attraction feels more shared, more mutual, more tender rather than possessive. It's no less raw or hot or all-consuming, don't get me wrong. But for me at least, it comes more from a place of equality rather than just power play. I love the way women seem to see right through me, to know me, without us really needing to say a word.

I am still, as it turns out, a sexual submissive through-and-through, regardless of what gender my would-be partner is. But, ignorantly and unknowingly, I'd been limiting my concept of who could embody dominant sexual personas to cis men. But when TikTok sent me down that glorious rabbit hole of masc women (who know exactly what they're doing, btw), I realized my attraction was not to men, but a certain type of masculinity. It didn't matter which body or genitalia that presentation came with.

There is something about TikTok that feels particularly suited to these journeys of sexual self-discovery and, in the case of women loving women, I don't think it's just the prescient algorithm. The short-form video format lends itself to lightning bolt-like jolts of soul-bearing nakedness, with the POV camera angles bucking conventions of the male gaze, which entrenches the language of film and TV in heterosexual male desire.

In fairness to me, I'm far from the only one who missed their inner gay for a long time — only to have her pop out like a queer jack-in-the-box throughout a near year-long quarantine that led many of us to join TikTok. There was the baby bi mom, and scores of others who no longer had to publicly perform their heterosexuality during lockdown — only to realize that, hey, maybe I'm not heterosexual at all?

Flooded with video after video affirming my suspicions, reflecting my exact experiences as they happened to others, the change in my sexual identity was so normalized on TikTok that I didn't even feel like I needed to formally "come out." I thought this safe home I'd found to foster my baby bisexuality online would extend into the real world.

But I was in for a rude awakening.

Testing out my bisexuality on other platforms, casually referring to it on Twitter, posting pictures of myself decked out in a rainbow skate outfit (which I bought before realizing I was queer), I received nothing but unquestioning support and validation. Eventually, I realized I should probably let some members of my family know before they learned through one of these posts, though.

Daunted by the idea of trying to tell my Latina Catholic mother and Swiss Army veteran father (who's had a crass running joke about me being a "lesbian" ever since I first declared myself a feminist at age 12), I chose the sibling closest to me. Seeing as how gender studies was one of her majors in college too, I thought it was a shoo-in. I sent an off-handed, joke-y but serious, "btw I'm bi now!" text, believing that's all that would be needed to receive the same nonchalant acceptance I found online.

It was not.

I didn't receive a response for two days. Hurt and panicked by what was potentially my first mild experience of homophobia, I called them out. They responded by insisting we need to have a phone call for such "serious" conversations. As I calmly tried to express my hurt on said call, I was told my text had been enough to make this sibling worry about my mental wellbeing. They said I should be more understanding of why it'd be hard for them to (and I'm paraphrasing) "think you were one way for twenty-eight years" before having to contend with me deciding I was now "something else."

But I wasn't "something else," I tried to explain, voice shaking. I hadn't knowingly been deceiving or hiding this part of me. I'd simply discovered a more appropriate label. But it was like we were speaking different languages. Other family members were more accepting, thankfully. There are many ways I'm exceptionally lucky, my IRL environment as supportive as Baby Bi TikTok. Namely, I'm in a loving relationship with a man who never once mistook any of it as a threat, instead giving me all the space in the world to understand this new facet of my sexuality.

I don't have it all figured out yet. But at least when someone asks if I listen to Girl in Red on social media, I know to answer with a resounding, "Yes," even though I've never listened to a single one of her songs. And for now, that's enough.

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mcwriting · 3 years

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The Marriage Project (9)

I’m back with anotha one! Sorry it’s taken so ridiculously long! I’ve been soooo busy that sitting down and writing or even formatting has been such a challenge. Please enjoy this chapter!

*also i watched Cherry and Tom was so good in it I’m- that film messed me up a lil bit but like it was so good. Also I’ve loved Ciara since btr and now I’m just insanely jealous and love her even more ugh

Story Masterlist

Word Count: 2333

Warnings: Some language? I can’t think of anything else

% approximately the 3rd week of October %

Friday evening, the volleyball team arrived at the town regionals were being held at, about an hour away. You were staying in a hotel again, and as before, Julia was your buddy.

After having spent the evening laughing and having fun, your whole hotel room group was about to head up the stairs.

“Hey, y/n. Do you mind staying back for a minute?” Julia asked.

“Oh, sure. We’ll meet you guys upstairs,” you called to the other two, who waved back nonchalantly and continued walking. Julia and you went back to some empty seats near the lobby.

“What’s up?” you asked, smiling.

“Well… Sam told me he caught you and Tom yesterday and I just wanted to ask you about it…”

Your smile faltered.

“What’s there to talk about? I told him that Tom sprayed me with water so I got back at him by soaking the back of his shirt. There’s nothing more to say.”

“Well, yeah, he told me that but he also mentioned that you stayed for dinner? And met Nikki’s parents last weekend? Not trying to imply anything, but I didn’t meet their grandparents until Sam and I had been dating for like 6 months.”

You were getting annoyed, considering this was the second person in two days to ask you about Tom.

“I didn’t just meet them over nothing! Nikki took my senior pictures at the same time as Tom’s and wanted to do them there. I was just tagging along for the ride.”

“You know he’s also coming to state next weekend, right? If we pass through tomorrow?”

He is?

“Uh, no I didn’t. Doesn’t he have football stuff to worry about? It’s also Halloween next weekend, like he’d miss out on the big party.”

“They have a bye next week. Sam is going to come and I guess Tom is taking him, but Nikki might come too? I’m not sure. I guess you’d better ask him. Anyways, I just wanted to clear things up since there were all those rumors today,” she said, starting to get up.

“Wait, wai- Rumors? I never heard anything. Like about me?”

“You haven’t heard? I guess one of the freshman girls who has a massive crush on Tom was stalking Nikki’s website last night and saw some pictures of the two of you. A bunch of people think you’re dating now.”

You felt yourself pale.

“Oh no, and she changed one picture after Tom asked her to. Do you know what the picture was?”

“Something about him carrying you..? I never saw it, why?”

“Great. Now everyone is going to think she changed it because a secret got out or something. Ughhhh I just wish this stupid marriage project had never happened and I would never be in this mess.”

Julia looked at you contemplatively for a moment.

“Think of it this way, you and Tom are friends now, right?” you apprehensively nodded. “If it weren’t for that project, you two would still be fighting all the time and you wouldn’t have had the incredible Nikki Holland taking your pictures. Everyone can just get over themselves, you know?”

You snorted, then grinned.

“Yeah I guess so. You know, you’re annoyingly wise beyond your years,” you stated. “Now let’s get back upstairs. We have a long day ahead of us.”

Placing first at regionals meant two things: you were going to state, and everyone was congratulating you again when Monday came.

They also kinda looked at you funny when Tom high fived you in the hallway as he passed by, but you had decided to follow Julia’s advice and stop caring about the rumors people were spreading.

Once the morning announcements ended, your calculus teacher stood up, a small paper stack in hand.

“Okay, everyone, since I’m your first period teacher and homecoming is next week, today you get to cast your nomination votes. Y’all know the drill: three guys, three girls for king and queen. Try to make it fast, we have a lot to do today.”

She walked around handing out half-sheets of paper with six lines on them. You and Tom immediately looked at each other.

“We nominating each other?” Tom asked before you could.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” you joked, filling out the sheet with both of your names and four others.

In home ec, you sat next to Tom cutting fabric for yet another project you had to do together, thinking about something Julia had mentioned.

“Hey, I gotta ask you something. Is it true you’re going to the capital this weekend for our state tournament?” you asked.

“Oh, yeah. This is our bye week and I promised Sam I’d go with him and mom. Plus, we can work on the project when you’re free.”

“You do realize that’s like a four hour drive, right? I mean it’s Halloween this weekend. Wouldn’t you rather make an appearance at Johnny’s big blowout?”

“Eh, it won’t be that great. I mean his place isn’t even that big and it’s in town. There’s literally no way it won’t get busted within the first half hour. The homecoming party at Tyler’s however… that’s gonna be insane.”

“Okay Johnny’s trash party aside, you really would rather spend your one free weekend of the season four hours away watching girls play volleyball then at home doing… whatever it is you do. And please don’t tell me you watch the ‘hub in your spare time.”

“Come on, y/n I’m not an animal. Even without the tight uniforms volleyball is really cool.”

You backhanded his arm at the comment.

“Plus, I don’t need any videos to get myself off,” he added, smirking.

“You disgust me.”

“You know you love me.”

“Hmm. Debatable,” you shot back dryly, earning a chuckle and shoulder bump from him as you finally cracked.

At lunch, your friends were discussing the Halloween party when you sat down.

“Okay we really need to figure out what to wear this weekend, and we’re not going as playboy bunnies like Daisy and all her group,” said one girl.

“Well I say we dress as frat boys. It’s funny, not super sexual, and we all know half the guys are going to rush next year,” suggested Caroline.

“I like it, but what if we went a step further and dressed as dads. You know, hawaiian shirts, khaki shorts, socks and sandals. That would be hilarious. What do you think, y/n?” said Alexis.

“Sorry ladies, I won’t be there. We have state this weekend at the capital so as always, we’re driving down Friday after school. I will be at Tyler’s homecoming thing next weekend. Also, I do really like the dad thing, but I vote y’all do Guy Fieri.”

“Wait why is that literally genius,” Alexis said as the others agreed. “Of course it would suck to take your idea without you even getting to do it.”

“You guys really think I care? Just credit me in your insta captions. I’ll make the team put ribbons with flames on them in their ponytails Saturday.”

“Okay now we have to do it,” a different friend said.

“Hey, at least you won’t have to worry about Tom. I’m sure he’ll be at the party,” Caroline said. You wrinkled your nose.

“Yeah about that… His brother’s girlfriend is on the team so he’s going, too. I’m the one that’ll be seeing him instead of you guys but whatever. We’ll need to work on our project anyways.”

“Don’t you think that’ll fuel the fires people are already spreading about you? A good portion of the school thinks you’re secretly together now,” added the first friend from before.

“People are going to believe whatever the hell they want. I honestly don’t care anymore. Oh! By the way, did I tell you guys that some freshman was the one spreading shit about me Friday? The nerve those kids have,” you said.

“Wait, what? It was a freshman that was trying to tell everyone y’all are together? Ugh why would anyone believe them?” Alexis asked, incredulous.

“I know, right? Apparently she’s like obsessed with Tom or something. She must have a backwards way of thinking if she believes spreading fake rumors will make him want her. Jokes on her when she has to see us together on homecoming court. He’s just as likely to be voted as I am, maybe even more.”

The group all laughed and continued talking about random things, and you mentally wiped the sweat from your brow now that the conversation was shifted from you and Tom.

You were nervously bouncing your leg before calculus Friday morning. You’d gotten to school early to make certain you would be there for the announcements, which is when they would be releasing the list of nominees.

Tom came in a couple minutes before the bell, hair still wet from his post workout shower. Usually he blow dried it, and he obviously noticed you looking at his curls, your knee bouncing anxiously.

“Got out of the weight room late so I rushed over here. What are you wired up about, princess?”

“Do I really have to tell you? Homecoming noms.”

“You’re actually nervous about that? Everyone knows you’re already at the top of the list.”

“Uh, no, that’s you. After everything that’s happened the past few weeks, there’s no telling how people feel about me.”

“Oh you’ll be fine. I know it,” Tom finished. You wanted to disagree with him further, but then the bell rang and announcements began. After the general daily stuff, they got to the part everyone was waiting for.

You were on the edge of your seat. The disembodied voice began with the underclassmen’s court nominations, eventually working up to the senior king contestants.

“Alright, first up in the running for kings we have… Tuwaine Barrett!”

Tuwaine was a cool dude. He played basketball and was in theatre. You were happy to see him nominated.

“Next up we’ve got Harrison Osterfield!”

Ugh. I’d rather abdicate the throne than end up against him.

“And finally for the boys, Tom Holland!”

A small cheer went up in your classroom as people congratulated Tom and patted him on the back. You gave him a high five.

“And now for the ladies. First on the list is Zendaya Coleman!”

Ah Zendaya. You were never that close, but she was always nice when you’d had classes with her. She was way taller than you, a star player on the basketball and softball teams. Not to mention she was insanely gorgeous. This was already some stiff competition.

“Second, we have Daisy Ridley!”

And of course another likely contender. Daisy, who was planning on going to that evening’s Halloween party as a playboy bunny, was a cheerleader. She didn’t fit every aspect of the cheer stereotype, like the fact that she was actually really smart, but she definitely wasn’t the nicest person either.

“And finally, your last nominee for homecoming queen is… y/n y/l/n!”

It took a second to fully process that it was you they were talking about until there were people cheering you on like they’d done for Tom. He reciprocated the high five.

“What’d I tell you princess? Or shall I say queen.”

Tom was leaving football practice after the bell when a few of his buddies appeared next to him to walk across the parking lot.

They were talking when Tom saw you all loading the bus, and you sent each other a wave.

“Damn, y/n’s not gonna be at the party tonight? That’s rough, she always has the dopest costumes. ‘Least you will. What are you going as?” one guy, Jake, said.

“Did I not tell you? I’m going out of town. Won’t be there. I totally would’ve been Spider-Man though,” Tom explained.

“Wait you won’t be there tonight either?” another, Chris, asked. “You’re gonna miss out on some major exposure for homecoming votes.”

“Oh yeah, right. I’m pretty sure things are in the bag for me. I’ll just be gone tonight and tomorrow. Promised Sam I’d go to the volleyball thing with him.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You. Are going to the capital. Which is four hours away. At the same time as y/n. Am I hearing this right?” Jake asked as they finally reached their cars.

“Oh shut up, man. It’s not like that. Yeah we’ll be at the same place this weekend but whatever. We’re cool with each other now.”

“Cool? Is that code for ‘I want to make out every time I look at her?’” interjected Chris. He and Jake gave each other a look and laughed.

“Ugh, no. I’d kiss a salmon before I kissed y/n. I just meant we’ve come to an understanding and are somewhat friends now.”

They both looked at him funny.

“So you mean to tell me that there’s nothing going on between you two? Yeah right. We’ve all seen the way you look at her at games,” Jake said suggestively.

“What is up with you and everyone else at this school thinking there’s more to the story?! We are fake married for a school project and are nothing more than friends. You’re crazy to think otherwise.”

“Who are you planning on asking to the dance?” Chris asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“What? What do you mean? I haven’t even thought about it.”

“I’m asking who you’ll take to homecoming. It’s y/n, isn’t it?”

“No. No, it’s not, because I haven’t asked anyone.”

“Would you go with her?” Chris continued, pressing in.

“I mean I guess so. If we’re voted king and queen then it’ll basically be an obligation.”

“And if you’re not?”

“Dude why are you asking all these questions! If she isn’t queen then I’ll go with whoever is. If I’m not king, I’ll just go solo and see what happens. Whatever, though, I need to get home. I’ll see you guys Monday,” Tom finished.

He walked off to his car, where his brothers were impatiently waiting.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Again, sorry for my inactivity but I’m hoping that writing will be a little easier as one of my classes was a half semester and I’ll now have a little more buffer room to write!

My asks and messages are always open!

Send a message or ask if you’d like to be added to my permanent or series taglists so I can verify you’ve been added!

Story tag list: @jackiehollanderr, @one-big-fangirl, @l0lmk, @primadonnasdream, @bookworm06, @thenoddingbunny-blog, @agentnataliahofferson, @spider-babe, @stxfxniexreads, @justafangirlduh,

#The Marriage Project #tom holland #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland imagine #tom holland series #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader #sam holland

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abhorrenttheorizer · 3 years

Text

Hey! Welcome to the shitshow!

I am abhorrentTheorizer, but you can call me AT for short :]

I am an artist largely specializing in headcanon art regarding unfortunate video game critters I've chosen to subject to virtual animal testing, as well as mythological creatures from all cultures, as well as species I have created on my own accord.

When I stop being a lazy asshole, I may incorporate animations, sculptures, and 3d modelling into my works as well.

When I am not dragging innocent spectators into the depths of headcanon hell/speculative biology hell, I may also post normal fanart and other concepts.

When I am not posting art in general, I am talking about dumb things that can vary greatly in content.

If you want to follow me for fandom-specific content, my current interests are:

- Journey (the PS3 game to be specific, but the band is fine too hahaha)

- ABZÛ

- Sky: Children of the Light

- Among Us

I will post things for other fandoms as well, but it won't be nearly as often as the topics I have listed above.

SOME THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE FOLLOWING MY ANTICS:

- My sense of humor is very suggestive and vulgar. For the record, this does not mean I'll post explicit or otherwise mature visual auditory content, nor will I crack jokes about fandoms of mine with a younger target audience. But I will warn you that many of my captions will end up being crass and uncouth in nature. I would like to make myself very clear: If naughty humor is something you aren't okay with, please consider blocking or otherwise avoiding my content instead of bitching at me for being inappropriate.

- I do not do commissions. Occasional requests are fine, but I do not have the skill nor the time to capitalize on my art.

- I will not reblog, like, or talk about anything that is political in nature on this account. I already abhor slacktivism, and I would like to have a space for myself that avoids those topics entirely. This account is for speculative fun only.

- I also will not respond to things that are otherwise drama-filled in nature. This account is for speculative fun only.

Anyway, I have gotten all of the important information out of the way, so I guess this is my conclusion. If you are fine with everything present on this account, please feel free to enjoy the ride. It's going to be a bumpy one :]

#blog intro #introduction #warnings #blog info #abhorrentTheorizer #personal

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logically-asexual · 3 years

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okay i'm already procrastinating and i don't plan on sleeping any time soon so here we go.

☆ ✩ my personal ranking for every season 1 Sanders Sides episode. ✩ ☆

i think it's going to be pretty similar to @dukeofonions' but let's see if i find something new to contribute haha. i see you didn't include that one about Patton in the Big Game or whatever, so i'm not including it either xd. also i think i'm going to count Accepting Anxiety as one episode only.

edit: i finished and now i dare you to drink a shot of water every time i say the word spanish or a version of the word comfort and become very well hydrated.

#16 I'm in a Disney Show

(i agree with dukeofonions here) i always forget this episode exists. it was ok in terms of being happy for real life Thomas but as a Sanders Sides episode it didn't do anything. the sides were just giving their opinions but it wasn't very funny or interesting. also i'm bitter because it made me look up the episode he was in and i didn't like it at all. i don't know if i'm too old for those Disney shows now but Thomas was literally the only good part of it, everything else was really dull and boring imo. a waste of time.

however, Logan supporting clickbait is one of the funniest things ever, and i'll never forget it.

#15 Becoming A Cartoon

i didn't hate this episode but it was just .. meh.. you know? several factors contribute to this. one, i couldn't feel much nostalgia for Butch Hartman's shows because i watched them in Spanish, and everything feels really weird when they speak English, i don't like how my old cartoons sound in English. two, it was disappointing to me because we were all desperately waiting for Plot™ and instead they give us this short episode about nothing (oh how the tables have turned now it's the other way around haha). and three, i didn't like the style of the animation :/ their faces and expressions freaked me out, Roman's douchey face still haunts me.

#14 Way Too Adult

here i'm biased because i don't like Patton much, and i didn't back when i watched the series the first time either, so this video was a little disappointingwithout the rest. also it wasn't relatable to me because i am still too young and dependent on my parents haha. but Patton is funny and it's funny to laugh at Thomas' struggling.

#13 The Dark Side of Disney

i've never been a fan of Disney movies. i actually never watched Mulan or the Lion King or Aladdin as a kid, so meh. i liked the ending, though, it was cool to see Virgil have fun and be right for once. it does make me a bit uncomfortable because the way Thomas tries too hard with Virgil's mouth movements and his low voice reminds me of a guy that had made me v uncomfortable not long before watching that video. so an icky feel overall.

#12 A New Year of Lying to Myself

this video was actually kind of fogettable to me. i had a hard time connecting the voices in the song to the characters and idk. i don't love it nor hate it, just .. neutral.

#11 My True Identity

pretty much the same opinion as dukeofonions, again. it's a good introduction and it's good that it was the beginning of it all but on its own it's not very special. i think it's awesome on Thomas to have come up with such a clever idea, like choosing the dad, the teacher and the prince and putting them together and match them with thoughts?? that fit so perfectly?? it really is just very impressive when you think about it, that it was just a random idea he had for a short 5 minute video.

#10 Taking on Anxiety

i liked this video a lot because when i watched it i had recently been a lot on tumblr, and found out through relatable posts that i had anxiety. so watching this video was really fun and it made me happy to feel so seen, specially the intro when Thomas just talks about what it's like to have Anxiety and Virgil is so smug about it.

- ★ -

okay now that those are out of the way things are going to get hard... all the following i love with all my heart so i'm going to rank them based on the smallest things.

#9 Growing Up

once more, Patton isn't my favorite. so that's why i'm putting this here, plus the echo at the end askjhsahg, but i love love this video. i remember we were waiting and oh so ready for the angst of nobody taking Patton seriously. and we received!! i love that though Roman and Logan are antagonists here, they're both so happy about Thomas wanting to have a healthy life. and i just adore the way Logan admits his mistake at the end and asks Patton directly. my heart... also aw.. the nostalgia. i remember none of us knew how to spell Patton's name and were writing it in very funny ways until Thomas and Joan told us lol.

#8 The Mind vs The Heart

when i watched this video the first times i didn't like it much, because i only had eyes for Virgil, but later i came back to it and loved it. so taking that into account i'm putting it here. logicality was the first ship i ever shipped in the show because i saw a gifset on tumblr of Patton screaming "what do you know about love?!" and Logan "apparently more than YOU" and the caption said "MARRIED", and i thought hey yeah... anyway. i love them. they're both my dads since that day.

this video is so so so relatable and i love it. Logan and Patton are so much fun arguing and i love how they compromise at the end and work together. im reconsidering.. i might move it higher? no, fine i'll leave it here.

#7 Making Some Changes

this video was absolutely hilarious. i personally couldn't see it as the Sides still once they were acted by Thomas' friends, i enjoyed it more as that bunch being silly and trying to be the sides but failing in so many ways, while sometimes nailing stuff suddenly. i really don't take this one too seriously as an episode. except Joan!Logan and Valerie!Logan, my beloved... i love how Joan acted as Logan and their voice and that they kept their ace ring on.. there's a reason i had them as my icon for so long. and Valerie looks a bit (a lot) like me with the glasses and dressed in dark colors, plus she spoke Spanish and there's .. no words to describe the joy i felt when seeing/hearing that. wait i'm getting emotional...

#6 My Personality Q&A

when i watched this Virgil was my favorite side and i didn't care much about the rest lol. when i heard his answers i related to him SO much it was scary, and also his voice is so soft and it was all very comforting. it was also when i first starting looking at Logan with more attention, because when he brought up Big Hero 6 and Fall Out Boy and said he didn't sing and would recite it like a poem? it only took a couple seconds but my brain said "me" and never went back.

now this video is a little underwhelming to watch for me, most of the appeal for me was in finding out the answers, and also watching it when we didn't know a lot about the sides. now we know more and want to know more so it's not as fun to me as it was first.

i wish so bad they'd do another one, although i know it would be more difficult with a much bigger audience, i think they can manage and i just need it. the chaos.. the energy.. they all being so savage with each other, learning little random facts about them you didn't expect.. i need it.

- ★ -

oh boy top 5 here we go. the next three are practically a tie. i can't choose.

#5 Alone on Valentines Day

i love Valerie, and the idea of this video was perfect and so perfectly excecuted. every side just giving their crazy opinions on how to woo a random stranger, i laughed SO much. first with Logan speaking simlish out of nowhere? at that point i didn't know practically anything about the sims except that it was some video game and the whiplash of Logan going AYO and the rest killed me. then when Roman whipped out that dialogue in Spanish??? my life was completed. i've never felt more happy than i did in that moment gosh. just the hilarity of Roman's drama, the shock of them speaking Spanish suddenly like that, the absolute JOY of seeing a creator i like speak (may i say) perfect Spanish, the other characters' faces after that.. never been happier.

also the conclusion was so cute. Virgil solving the whole problem without wanting to. i loved it.

#4 Am I Original

i think this video speaks for itself. it was fun to watch them all do the ideas Roman had, plus Logan and Virgil nodding at each other, (i love them so much), plus the angst at the end of Roman's perfectionism, plus Roman's just perfect name. this video has it all.

i think Thomas posted it kind of late at night and i watched it at 7am in the classroom as i waited for my classmates to arrive and the class to start. (i usually was like 40 minutes early to school due to mom’s work). i had to contain my laughter and it wasn’t easy.

#3 Losing My Motivation

i started loving this video after a while, when Logan passed Virgil in the position for my favorite side. but once he did this episode was beautiful. it's so funny and i love Logan and Patton's dynamic so much. and the video also so damn relatable in general. i felt so seen with it because they named all the problems i have when procrastinating, down to Patton's vague explanation of his feelings, it's exactly how i feel every time i want to do stuff. and the plot twist! i can hear the dramatic sound effect and see how they all turn to Logan clearly in my head, and it always makes me smile. plus there's so much Logan angst that can be dug up and overanalized. i love to watch it over and over.

#2 Accepting Anxiety

this video was perfect. everything we wanted. we knew it was coming and it delivered perfectly, better than any fanfic done in the waiting time. the week between the parts was agonizing but in a fun way somehow. i remember precisely when i was watching part 2 in my living room. i screamed. and i cried, a lot. i was feeling terrible at that time in my life and Thomas was such a comforting presence and i can't begin to describe how this episode made me feel.

and later it is always fun to rewatch with all their different reactions to being in Virgil's room, the energy of that was on point. Thomas is such a great actor and the characters where just amazingly performed. plus it gave so much to talk adn think about, the idea of the rooms, lots lots of insight into the characters, foreshadowing, so much. it's just perfect i have nothing else to say.

#1 (for purely emotional reasons, ironically) My Negative Thinking

i think Accepting Anxiety is the best episode of the season objectively but my favorite is My Negative Thinking. because i love Virgil and Logan so much and seeing them argue together was and is great. the comfort.. i can't repeat that word enough throughout this post. it's such a soft video while not being overwhelming with Patton and Roman's outbursts. just quiet (mostly) and clear and with perfectly timed humour.

Logan my beloved.. learning spanish... helping me with my own anxiety.. and their debate was so good. and the fact that they were friends i- i can't. Virgil didn't think Logan liked him and Logan told him explicitly that he did and the casual softness of it i cant even. Logan is happy that he tried.. it's just marvelous. Virgil and Logan as best friends will always be my favorite pair, and their dynamic will always be what i strive for in any relationship i might form, with both sides silently comforting each other within their own limits and realistic perspectives. so nice.

- ★ -

so yeah. that's all. thank you if you read all the way up to here. ♡ ♡ ♡

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #logan sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #roman sanders

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skrltwtch · 3 years

Text

Muse

Prompt 1: Just like some people sleep-walk, you tend to paint or draw while in your transformed state because it calms you down. And apparently, people really like your art.

Prompt 2: A is a popular artist, and B messages them without thinking one day. They didn’t expect to become friends, and they definitely didn’t expect to become more. Person B just felt that connection between the two of them.

Prompt 3: A/Werewolf has a tendency to curl like a dog in front of the fireplace a lot (usually in their werewolf form, but it’s not uncommon for them to do it as a human). (Sources in master list)

Word count: 3,721 words

Genre: Fluff, romance, supernatural

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

I put up with the long commute to and fro between home and work for two reasons, and two reasons alone: the decent rent for a place with a picturesque view and that catered to my monthly needs, and the glut of time to catch up on my reading. And by ‘reading’, I meant ‘scrolling through the handful of social media feeds that survived my latest cull of shit that was taking up my time and storage space unnecessarily, and occasionally attempting (and failing) to pay attention to my Kindle’. Hey, at least I was aware I had a problem …?

Instagram was my first hit of the day. I flicked past images of makeup, friends in situations I wouldn’t be finding myself in anytime soon, and cute animals. The occasional meme and comic draw out an exhalation of air from my nostrils. I marvelled at artwork and photography, half wishing I were half as good as the people I followed and admired, half chiding myself for not practising either enough and losing interest quicker than I’d dropped money on new equipment in the name of my new endeavours. You could say one of my hobbies, the ones I’d been consistent about, was amassing gadgets obtained to indulge my whims and fancies.

My heart skipped a beat — or was it the pothole the bus went over? — when I came across a new post by George. I didn’t know him personally to refer to him by his first name like that, but hadn’t social media broken down boundaries between people, making them seem closer to each other than they really were? He was an illustrator whose work I chanced upon on Reddit a while back. His portfolio was a patchwork of subjects, often portraits, rendered mostly in traditional media like watercolour and oil paint. He sometimes shook things up with abstract, contemplative pieces. He had something for almost everyone. For me, it was his attractive, angular yet distinctive faces and statuesque figures, use of watercolour, and versatility: one piece could be superhero fanart, followed by a collection of moody, atmospheric paintings of the English landscape with some fantastical additions.

It also helped that he seemed to be a nice, chill person, and a handsome one at that, too, based on the smattering of pictures he had of himself on his feed. Please, let me imagine a world in which someone as ideal as him — or what I knew about him — wasn’t beholden to anyone for a moment.

His latest post was a drippy bust of a snarling wolf with full moons for eyes. The caption simply read: ‘Mood.’ I smirked as I hit the like button. Did I mention that he drew wolves a lot as well? Sometimes his wolves were feral; sometimes they were humanoid, but still wild. The latter featured heavily in his conceptual works, albeit as hazy, indistinct forms, like blurry photographs. In any case, I liked that he had a fondness for wolves and werewolves, as the constant presence of the full moon in art of the latter would suggest. Anyone who liked wolves was a-okay in my book. Anyone who liked werewolves was even more so. Because.

An interrupted connection between my brain and my reflexes led me to visit his profile. Instead of returning to my feed, my thumb gravitated toward the message button at the top of the screen. Not a single cell in my body resisted this turn of events despite the restored connection. Oh, what the hell. Why not? Like, what were the chances he’d read my message? He had tens of thousands of followers, a likely considerable chunk of them being bots aside. He must receive DMs every other minute. I’d be another sycophant in his sea of fans. Or he’d see my homely mug and locked profile, and he’d think I was driven to add to his never-ending count of unread messages simply out of misguided thirst.

The beauty of the Internet was that it made ‘out of sight, out of mind’ fairly easy to put into practice.

I got the following out of my system and into his inbox: ’Hi! Hope you’re doing well. I’ve been following your Instagram for a while, and your latest post just made me want to say your art is amazing. (I can totally identify with the sentiment behind it.) I especially love your more abstract pieces. There’s something so … raw about them. And I like that you seem to like wolves a lot, too. They’re beautiful animals, and your art really captures that about them. Anyway, keep up the great work! Take care.’

I exited Instagram, not caring about the rest of my feed anymore and not wanting to feel like I was stalking my notifications for something that’d never come. My phone buzzed with several notifications as I went down my Reddit homepage. I swiped away the banners with green icons that pelted the top of my screen. Those could wait. What couldn’t were the banners stating that I had a new message and a new follower request from —

‘Oh, my God!’ I said, loudly enough for me to hear my own voice above my music (the chorus of Walk the Moon’s ‘Shut Up and Dance’ at half of maximum volume, so … loud). Not one soul on this lightly populated bus acknowledged my exclamation — not even the woman sitting next to me. (Come on, lady, the front was mostly empty.) Thank God for technology making hermits of us all. Or my sudden outburst paled in comparison to the shit that could happen and had happened on public transport. When you took long journeys as I did every day, you’d see some real shit in due time, too.

I launched Instagram for the second time this morning (stop judging, Screen Time) and the first time ever with trembling hands. The notifications were real. I approved his request first. My mind raced to recollect anything on my profile that might make him regret his decision to let my piddling photos of food, myself, my cat, and random junk take up precious space on his feed. Nope, couldn’t think about that now, because I was now staring at an actual, honest-to-God message from George:

’Hey! Thanks for reaching out, and thank you for your kind comments. They mean a lot to me, especially what you said about my experimental stuff and wolves. They are stunning creatures, aren’t they? And yeah, I drew that last picture after a particularly rough night. You could call it a self-portrait of sorts, I suppose.’

I snorted. Change the fur colour and make the eyes normal, and it was a portrait of myself every full moon. Okay, not something I could tell someone I just met, let alone a popular artist on the Internet …

Before I could recover from the shock that my inbox held an actual, honest-to-God message from George Holden (that was his last name — the oxygen made it to my brain for me to remember that he had his last name on his profile), he sent another one: ’Anyway, how are you? I took a look at your profile, and it looks like we have quite a number of things in common.’

What, really? No way. Was it the lashings of sweet treats I subjected my stomach to every weekend? The horror and science fiction titles, celebrity memoirs, and comics, sometimes paired with an iced coffee at either a café I put down roots for the afternoon or the one-bedroom house in Waltham Forest I called home, I showcased to put forth some form of air of intellectualism? The cross-stitch projects featuring memes and popular culture icons? His profile was quite barren of anything that could provide insight into what else he enjoyed doing besides his art. Which, hey, was perfectly fine: no one was obligated to share their personal life online.

I replied, ’I’m fine, thank you. I’m on my way to work. Favourite part of my day, really. And really? Like what?’

Most of my notifications that day were from him.

✦✧✦✧

I was a bustling hub of activity in my seat: A sip of my drink. A shake of my knee. A lift of my phone. A turn of my neck. A shift of my weight from one butt cheek to the other. I was certain I was generating enough electricity to power a lightbulb in five-second intervals. I couldn’t help it. I was so, so excited — and so, so nervous. This was my and George’s first time meeting each other in person. There’d be no screen between us. Actually, what difference would that make? We’d been talking to each other for months, either through text or video calls, the latter more common in the weeks leading up to today. We’d seen each other even on our ‘I’ll put on a clean shirt, brush my hair, and hope for the best’ days. What could either one of us do in person that would irrevocably alter our friendship for the worse? Well …

The sound of someone entering the café stopped me from starting on a list of things that I could do to fuck things up. I looked up, probably the seventh time I did so in the last ten minutes. This was on me. I grossly overestimated the amount of time it’d take me to get somewhere as usual; a natural by-product of living far from the city. Seventh — probably — time was the charm: it was George — and right on the dot, too. His punctuality added to his attractiveness, which had already gone through the roof and was heading straight into the stratosphere. I bit my lip to suppress any unfortunate exclamations. He was a friend, Evelyn … just a friend, and I had no illusions otherwise.

I called out to him. He waved at me and joined me at the table I picked out for us. And the second our eyes met, devoid of any barrier between us, everything about him — and everything about us — clicked.

He was just like me.

And I was just like him.

And he was as astonished about it as I was, going by the long silence that passed between us, a first since we got to know each other.

‘Hi! Oh, my God, it’s so good to finally meet you!’ I said with a grin to break the tension. He broke out into a smile, his posture relaxing. Success. Should I go in for a handshake? No, that’d be too stuffy for a months-old friendship. A hug? No, that’d be too intimate for a months-old friendship, and an online one, too, no less. Was it obvious this was my first time meeting someone I met online?

‘It’s good to meet you, too,’ he said, his expression of cheer unabating. ‘I’m going to get myself a drink first, and then we can shoot the shit.’ His smile turned into a grin. ‘Do you want anything? My treat,’ he added as he spotted me reaching for my wallet.

‘I was thinking a red velvet muffin, please.’ I didn’t know why I didn’t get one earlier. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem. I’ll be right back.’

As he left, my nerves turned into happiness that I met another werewolf. It was rare to meet other werewolves just about anywhere. What were the odds that two werewolves, one of whom was Internet-famous, would become friends because the other one had a brain fart one morning to send a message to the Internet-famous one? You couldn’t make this shit up. In all the years I’d been a werewolf, George was the first one I knew. I didn’t even know the one that turned me. I got bitten one night, and that was my life changed forever. I figured everything out on my own — I had to. And my puny social network of werewolves made sense: this wasn’t exactly the kind of thing anyone would advertise about themselves.

Once George settled down and courtesies were out of the way, the first thing out of his mouth was ‘I never thought I’d meet another one like me’.

I moved my chair closer to him so that we could speak at length about what we were without the fear of being overheard. ‘Me neither.’ Then it hit me, and I quickly said, ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, though.’ Personally, I was okay with what I was. No existential dread here, contrary to what one might expect of a werewolf. It happened. I learnt to manage it in a way that made it not have any kind of significant impact on my life. I refused to let it define me. And honestly, I lived for particularly bad days that coincided with full moons.

‘Are you kidding me?’ His face lit up with boyish glee. ‘I’ve been waiting for this day for so long! As in, us meeting up in person for the first time and me getting to know another werewolf. Two birds, one stone: the only kind of killing I endorse. And I’m so fucking chuffed it’s you. I always felt like I could talk to you about anything, and now that really, really means anything.’ It was his turn to be able to power a light bulb, but in twenty-second intervals this time.

‘Same. How were you turned?’

‘I was bitten during a camping trip with friends a couple of years back. You?’

‘Secondary school. I was walking home from the library.’

‘Shit, that was some time ago, huh?’

‘Almost half my life a werewolf.’

‘Do you know the werewolf that did it?’

‘Nope. How about you?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Kind of sucks, doesn’t it, that you’ll never get to know the person who’s changed your life so … deeply? They won’t remember either that they turned someone. If only having kids was like that, yeah? Absolutely no sense of responsibility whatsoever.’ He gave his teaspoon a lazy twirl, causing a faint plume of milk to rise and sink into the dark, bittersweet depths from whence it came. ‘I struggled with what I’d become the first couple of months. The transformations were one thing.’ Oh, yeah. ‘I felt … grotesque. God, the amount of self-pity, like, why was I the only one who had to go through this every month when there were four other guys ripe for the picking? So, I decided to start incorporating wolves in my art to get to know and reclaim that part of me. I didn’t want to see it as something ugly. I mean, you get to experience a kind of rebirth every month. That’s extraordinary if you think about it. And I told myself that like myself, the wolf didn’t ask to be born. Ha, ha. Millennial humour. Anyway. Then the most miraculous thing happened one full moon: I woke up next to a coherent painting that wasn’t there the night before.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Right? My more artsy stuff? The ones I hate coming up with captions for? Almost all done while I was transformed. I’d started some of my art — bet you can’t guess which one — on full moons, too, and I finished them after I changed back. It’s as if the wolf knew we were now cool with each other.’ He took a big chunk out of his apple crumble and jammed it into his mouth. ‘Sorry if that sounded like spiritual woo-woo. I’ve been wanting to tell someone about this forever.’ Crumbs fell out of his mouth as he spoke. ‘Shit, I’m such an’ — he shot me an impish look as he swallowed — ‘animal, aren’t I? Fuck, I can make stupid references like that now, and someone would get it!’

I laughed. He was such a dork. ‘It’s not “spiritual woo-woo”. It’s amazing. How is that even possible?’

‘I have no idea.’ He held out his hands in front of him. ‘So thankful we get to keep our hands and not have them turn into paws.’ He waggled his thumbs. ‘Fuck, yeah, opposable thumbs. And I want to say it’s like when artists get high and make stuff. I do know artists who do that, and hey, no judgment. To them, I do the same thing, too.’

‘And here I am, feeling accomplished whenever I make it through another full moon without waking up in a trashed place. Seriously, that’s amazing.’

‘I think that’s what’s keeping me from losing it while transformed. I was surprised people liked those pieces when I started posting them, considering they’re such far departures from what I usually post.’

‘That explains why they’re so … visceral.’

‘Yeah? I figure you’d appreciate them even more now.’ He smirked. ‘And you know, no one really talks about my wolf art, and especially my werewolf pieces. Maybe if I didn’t make them blurry and made them more explicit …’ Oh, he’d get a different breed of followers altogether. ‘But that’s fine. I don’t want my lycanthropy to define me and my work. It’s just a part of who I am.’

‘My turn to say something possibly corny: I like your wolf art because … they make me feel seen, because they’re drawn by you.’

He put a hand on his chest. ‘That’s not corny. I’m happy my art makes you feel that way. You know I don’t care about the likes or comments. It just so happens I like drawing things that make me get likes and comments.’ He pushed his plate toward me and motioned at me with his fork to try some of his apple crumble. I obliged him. ‘Did you ever suspect anything? Not that, you know, I purposely drew wolves and werewolves as a kind of signal for other werewolves to pick up on. That’d be giving me way too much credit.’

‘No, I just thought you like wolves a lot.’

‘Same here. What you said about wolves being beautiful creatures when you messaged me the first time … that made me feel something, too.’

‘Then I’m very glad we got to be friends,’ I said. Born from the same blip in brain activity that set us on this path, my hand found itself on top of his. His touch had a pleasant, almost familiar heat to it.

‘Me too.’ He turned his hand over and clasped mine.

‘I have an idea,’ I said, mostly to distract myself from how right this felt. ‘Do you want to meet on the next full moon?’

‘Sure. I can’t wait to see what kind of inspiration will strike with another werewolf around.’

‘Your place, then?’

He nodded. ‘Unless you’re cool with me possibly trashing your place with paint and stuff. That hasn’t happened before, but who knows? What if wolf-me doesn’t like change?’

I stared at him in disbelief.

‘I can’t help it. You have no idea what kind of beast this has unleashed. Oops.’

We sat and talked in the café the entire afternoon; we took turns treating each other to food and drinks to justify our occupancy. Our conversation moved on to other topics besides the one special, biggest thing we had in common. Just like we didn’t want it to define who we were as people, we made a promise to each other, and we did so over a strawberry custard tart, that we wouldn’t let it become the foundation of our friendship from this point on. It’d be unfair to the moments we shared before this. We were friends because we cared about each other, we brought out the best in each other, we could truly be ourselves around each other, and, honestly, I didn’t think anyone else would have the patience for his goofy in-jokes.

✦✧✦✧

I lay in front of the fireplace, rejoicing in the warmth it offered on this cool night, while George was working on his newest painting. Since getting to know each other in these forms, we’d been able to exercise better control. For me, that meant greater peace of mind; for him, that meant a more refined grasp of his artistic sensibilities. As with much about our condition, we didn’t question this. What could possibly be a drawback of us spending more time in each other’s company? I now understood why animals curled up by a fire was a common sight in media and real life, too. Wait, what if this, and not George’s presence, was what I’d been missing all my life?

My tail wagging like a fiend when I felt his breath on my skin begged to differ. I licked his face. He gently parted my lips and slid his tongue onto mine. Our tongues engaged each other in a playful scuffle; the fire crackling in the background could only dream of coming close to causing the rise in temperature in the pit of my stomach. The tussle between our tongues didn’t get to turn into something more: he’d had a long night. I nuzzled him to convey reassurance. He lay down beside me and wrapped his arms around me, his hold firm yet tender. We fell asleep like this, keeping each other warm long even after the fire had died out.

We wished each other a good morning with a kiss — no, two kisses, and we got ourselves ready for the day. As we were having breakfast, George piped up, ‘Do you want to see what I painted last night, love? I’m really proud of it, and I think you’d love it, too.’

I nodded excitedly, my mouth too full of scrambled egg to speak.

He returned as quickly as he’d left the table. His hands held on to a painting … of me curled up by the fire last night. The figure was the clearest, most detailed he’d ever done; the lighting was phenomenal. ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, tearing up a little, frankly. ‘I love it. It’s going to look so good in our new place’, along with the recent paintings he’d made of a similar nature. He’d come so far from the gauzy forms that once populated his attempts at capturing his — our — condition on canvas.

‘Of course, when I have the most stunning model.’ He gave me a peck on the cheek. ‘I love you, my muse, my mate.’

#exophilia #terato #werewolf #monster love #monster romance #mine #fun fact #I wrote this story in early october last year #and it's kind of truth in television for me now

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coppicefics · 3 years

Photo

Masked Omens: Week One

New chapter here, or read from the start here!

(Right click picture and select ‘View Image’ or ‘Open Image In New Tab’ for hi-res version.)

[Image Description: Image 1 - A simple rendition of the Masked Singer UK logo, a golden mask with colourful fragments flying off of it. The mask has a golden halo and a golden devil tail protruding from either side. Below, gold text reads 'Masked Omens'.

Image 2 - A newspaper page from the Capital Herald, dated Saturday, 26th December, 2020. Full image description and transcription below the cut.]

The Capital Herald, Saturday 26th December 2020 News, page 11

GODLEIGH MANOR RESTORATION SET TO BEGIN YouTube Community Comes To The Rescue Of Historic House In Unprecedented Donation Spree Restoration work on Godleigh Manor, Little Dyvyn, is set to proceed at last after years of stagnation – thanks to an unexpected influx of donations from interested members of the public. A house has stood on the site since at least the early 13th century, but most of the current building was constructed in the 18th century by its then owner, Lord Michael Godleigh. It remained a private residence until 1914, when it was commandeered as a military hospital for officers injured in the First World War. When the war was over, the officers went home, but the Godleigh family had suffered severe losses, and those who had been involved in treating the injured officers had many bad memories associated with the place. What was left of the family moved out, and – barring the operation of a second temporary hospital during the Second World War – this once-busy house has remained empty and silent ever since. Left to its own devices, the house began to crumble. Water found its way through the roof, and weeds forced their way up through the floor. By the time the deed to Godleigh Manor was passed on to its current owner, Lucy Godleigh, in the mid-1990s, barely a few rooms were anything close to habitable. “I set up in a mobile home on the grounds,” Godleigh told The Capital Herald, “and basically just started trying to secure the few rooms that hadn't been completely exposed to the elements. Then I contacted a restoration expert to find out what could be done for the rest of it.” The experts' verdict wasn't what she wanted to hear. “There was no chance I could pay for it myself. The rest of the family opposed me moving back here; I was on my own. And to get the whole place back to the way it was, we were looking at anything from fifty million to three hundred million pounds. I was going to need help raising the funds, so I started campaigning. But it was slow going. Nobody's keen to put their hands in their pockets to restore a stranger's old family pile.” And, for over two decades, it seemed that a pile would soon be all that was left. Godleigh moved into Little Dyvyn, and the property was abandoned once more to the tender mercies of the elements and the frequent trespassers who came to explore. “I'd go up a few times a week, but it hardly seemed worth it. I'd all but given up. But then one of those visitors saved the day.” A YouTube personality known as Sergeant Shadwell, famed for his urban exploration videos and the occasional paranormal investigation, contacted Godleigh to ask to film in the house. “I said yeah, whatever, do what you like, it's a mess,” Godleigh recalled, “and he saved it. He saved my home.” Shadwell uploaded a video of Godleigh Manor in the last week of November. In it, he speaks frankly about the challenges and benefits of preserving such old buildings. “I don't know about there being ghosts here,” he tells viewers, “but there's a lot of wasted potential. Stately homes like this can and should be used, and it'd be a real shame for this one to crumble. I'll add a link to the fundraiser in the video description.” The Wytchfynder Army, as Shadwell's fans call themselves, have so far contributed £80m to the Save Godleigh Manor campaign. The fundraising page is filled with messages of encouragement and support, attached to donations ranging from £5 to £1500. Some donors have even explained that they raised the money through sponsored swims, bake sales, and car washes. “It's enough to get started, to make a really good start,” Godleigh explained, “I can't thank him – all of them – enough. They really came together to help me – a complete stranger – and it means so much, it really does.” So what's next for Godleigh Manor? First, says Godleigh, the surviving rooms will need to be stablised. Then the house's ground floor will be restored to its former glory, and Godleigh hopes to work with local historians to ensure that it is both a functional and educational space. “I won't charge people any more to use it than I need to cover the cost of maintaining it,” Godleigh said. “How can I? It's being restored by this huge community; it belongs to the community, and to Little Dyvyn. It's going to be a great space for everyone to enjoy.” Work is now set to begin on the Godleigh Manor restoration project as early as April this year, depending on local planning committee approval of plans first drawn up in 1998. MARY HODGES. To find out more, or to contribute to the renovation costs, visit www.savegodleighmanor.org.uk.

[Image Description: A sepia photograph of a large, grand house. Inset, a colour photograph of a hole in a wall, through which weeds can be seen growing. End ID.] [Caption] NEGLECTED: Godleigh Manor, pictured above in 1980, was once the heart of a thriving community. Inset, weeds grow in what used to be a service corridor to the rear of the main building. (Photo: Annie Spratt on Unsplash. Inset: E. Diop on Unsplash.)

THE NEWS IN NUMBERS 800 years of a house on the site 300 years in its current form 23 generations in the same family 29 bedrooms 40 acres of land £50m lowest estimated renovation costs £300m highest estimated renovation costs 198k subscribers to Wytchfynder 291 Wytchfynder videos 10 years Sgt Shadwell served in the Army £80m raised by the Wytchfynder Army £91m renovation funds raised so far 15 years estimated to complete renovation

[Image Description: a rectangular ad with a picture of Dr. Raven Sable. His name is signed beneath his photograph. Text reads: Don't settle for a balanced diet when you can have a SABLE DIET. End ID.]

Corner Cuppa with Esther James

[ID: Photo of a young woman's face. She has black hair cut into a bob, and slightly gothic makeup. End ID.]

Why do we know you? I'm the captain of the Red Roses, which is the England Women's Rugby Team. What are you passionate about? Rugby! Also, my girlfriend Jane (Adams, also on the squad), and my charitable causes, of course. I support the NSPCC and the Albert Kennedy Trust, in particular - both fantastic charities helping young people who've been let down, in many cases, by the people they should most be able to rely on. I'm really glad to be involved with them. What's your favourite holiday of the year? Pride! I love getting dressed up and going to the parades – most of the time Jane and I get to march, these days, which is great. Last year we even got to ride on a float at one of them, which was really surreal – we got to cover ourselves in rainbow feather boas and just have a laugh waving at people. What a great time! What's been your proudest moment? So far, it's a tie between coming out as bi in a press conference – which was really scary at the time but which led to such good things and such good conversations – and being made captain of the Red Roses. It's an honour just to be selected for the national side, but to be chosen to lead from such a talented group of women is even better. I was walking on air for a week! If you could do anything in the world once, what would it be? Only once? I'd hate to do something and enjoy it and never get to do it again. But, OK, hypotherically... Something completely different and mad, like getting up on a stage and performing a song like I really mean it, or bungee-jumping. What scares you? Bungee-jumping! Which is exactly why I'd like to do it. I think it's good to get out of your own head and your own comfort zone and just do something that scares you, if you can. What's your ideal day? Taking a day off of training and just lying on the sofa watching films with Jane for the whole day. We love what we do, but we don't get a lot of downtime to just relax and snuggle. But then, when we do get a day off, it's usually at the same time, so that's lovely; we're always together and it hasn't started getting on our nerves yet! If you could go anywhere in the world right now, with no complications or restrictions, where would you go? I've always wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower, but somehow whenever I end up in France I don't find the time. Jane's never been to Disneyland, so I think we'd have to combine the two if we got a no-holds-barred trip somewhere. And, obviously, I wouldn't exactly hate getting to meet Mickey again! What's the best advice you've ever been given? My gran was as tough as old boots, and proud of it. She once sat me down, when I was quite young, and she said, “Essie,” which is what she called me, “Essie, you'll do all right in life if you remember this simple rule. Make sure you keep your nose clean, but don't be afraid to get your boots dirty.” I'm not sure she meant me to take it quite so literally! But I think what she meant was, don't get into trouble unnecessarily, but don't be so scared of getting it wrong that you can't do anything right. That's stuck with me, I've held onto it all these years, and I think it's a good motto to live by. What's one thing you wish someone had told you when you were younger? I wish they'd told me it was OK that I fancied girls, that things were getting better. I think we've still got a long way to go, as a community, but I never could have dreamed that a bisexual woman could captain England when I was a little girl. Let alone that it would be me! Finally, what's one thing you'd like to tell younger people now? Be true to yourself, be true to your friends, and be kind. I think the world will turn out fine if we all just try to be kind to one another, above all. Next week's cuppa: Ligur Mortice, head of the Ligur fashion house.

[End of page.]

#masked omens #very much fake news #mo week one #fanart

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plush-anon · 4 years

Text

Happy Halloween Scooby Doo! Review

Muahahhhahahhahahaha! Thanks to the Walmart tradition of stocking movies for sale weeks before the intended release date, I have myself a copy of what claims to be Scooby Doo’s FIRST Halloween adventure!

…in spite of movies like Witch’s Ghost and Goblin King, holiday specials like WNSD’s A Scooby Doo Halloween (which had a haunted Scarecrow too…), BCSD’s EL Bandito (for Dia de los Muertos - obvs not the same, but most companies act like it) and Halloween, The NSDM’s Halloween Hassle at Dracula’s Castle, and the DTV short film Scooby Doo and the Spooky Scarecrow (which, ironically enough, did NOT take the opportunity to feature Dr. Jonathan Crane).

So let us take a look now at Happy Halloween Scooby Doo! and see whether this film will be a graveyard smash of a treat, or a black licorice bomb of disappointment.

Full review (and SPOILERS TO GO WITH IT) are below the cut in my new review format; if all goes smoothly, I’ll go with this for future Scooby films.

WARNING: This review is very long.

One minor note before we begin: the Special Features actually include BCSD’s Halloween, WNSD’s A Scooby Doo Halloween, and PNSD’s Ghost Who’s Coming to Dinner

...so they were AWARE this was not the first Halloween adventure of the Scooby gang, and yet still use that tag line. Hm.

Still, kudos for including them - this’ll help boost the reasons to keep this movie, if it turns out to be a real Milk Dud of a movie *ba-dum tish* :D

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The movie starts off rather abruptly, actually - no slow pan over the setting, just WB Animation credit and BOOM, we’ve cut to a Halloween parade and Elvira is talking.

I’m of a mixed opinion including Elvira on top of having Bill Nye and a Batman Rogue - while she most certainly fits the Scooby aesthetic, it doesn’t feel as grand an impact after her weird little cameo in Return to Zombie Island (ugh) and I’m not sure how well the movie will balance her in wait a minute

wait just a

WAIT A MINUTE

Did - did that parade float skeleton just sing Crystal Cove as the town’s name?

oh no.

Oh No.

....also their song is terrible and they should feel terrible.

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Fred: We got him! Banh Mi Shop, second floor!

me: the heck is a Banh Mi Shop? *mild googling noises*

So I guess Jonathan Crane really had a craving for a Vietnamese sandwich before he enacted his Halloween scheme.

...you think he’s a lemongrass chicken type of guy or a BBQ pork guy? It’s always hard to guess at these things, esp when coffee and pumpkin spice aren’t on the table (as per fanon, of course)

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Velma: We have a flawless track record!

So I guess WB is just gonna ignore the past few DTV retcons established in 13 Ghosts and Return to Zombie Island?

I mean that rather defeats the purpose of them existing at all, but fcuk YEAH I can get behind throwing that retcon garbage out of canon!

And STAY OUT!!

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Shaggy, talking about ghosts being real: I’m like the boy who cried wolf - I keep warning you but like, you won’t believe me until I finally get eaten!

Yet again, Warner Bros makes a wolf reference to Shaggy. Yet again, I am torn asunder between wanting werewolf!Shaggy in a new Scooby property, and fearing for the appearance of werewolf!Shaggy in a new Scooby property.

-------

Velma: Point is, being afraid is a waste of time!

Scarecrow, LITERALLY EXPLODING THROUGH A BRICK WALL three buildings away:

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He’s floating through the air and t-posing to assert his dominance 🤣🤣🤣

Gods bless animation 😁

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Daphne @ Shag and Scoob locking themselves in the van: Are you serial?

Me: wait, SERIAL? *re-reads captions* yup, that says “serial”.

Is this an editing mistake? I don’t think that works here…unless that’s supposed to be a joke on how they always do this. But then why would that be an irritating surprise, they literally do this EVERY episode 🙄

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Oh hey, Red Herring’s Party Screams truck has Red Herring running out of it

Could this be a hint to how the story goes? The villain appearing on a literal Red Herring?

Naaaaaah, WB’s not THAT smart

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So if we take @captainbaddecisions crack theory on Jonathan Crane being Shaggy’s uncle seriously, does this mean that Jonathan is using magic to fly, float fear toxin orbs around himself, and making things explode, a la the family trait of Crack Theory A?

Logically he’s probs using wires or magnets or some shit, but it’s a fun thought to entertain 😁

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Welp, we finally get the opening credits! … with Jonathan Crane smashing through the Mystery Machine’s windshield, set to a slow poppy song straight from the 60s, and spewing the title of the film out in glittery pink mist.

All the while Scooby and Shaggy throw candy at each other, deliberately obtuse to the cloud of fear toxin enveloping their friends and the townsfolk, the steady destruction of the Mystery Machine they’re laying in as multiple cars crash into it and send it spiraling, and the general mayhem and destruction that Scarecrow is causing

Never change, guys, never change

--------

I just choked on my lemonade

There’s an article plastered to the roof of the Mystery Machine titled “Talking Dog Confounds, Ignites Ethics Debate Over Dog Labor”

ahahahahaha

-------

Annnnnnnnd there goes the Mystery Machine, tumbling in the air and over the roads with Shaggy and Scooby still inside without seat belts. Will they perish in this horrible road accident? Will Death finally come to claim them at last?

Of course not. This is Shaggy and Scooby we’re talking about - I’m almost positive they can survive anything up to and including a nuclear bomb. This is child’s play to them.

-------

So they “capture” Scarecrow… by pinning his cape to a tree with crossbow bolts.

And they do not try to at least tie up his arms or his hands in ANY capacity.

JUST the cape.

...you know, Velma, for a team with a “flawless” track record, you guys are making a hecking TON of mistakes in facing against one of Batman’s ROGUES GALLERY, ESPECIALLY with no Batman in sight, good freakin’ grief. 😩

------

Yaaaaaaaaas, this Scarecrow design is LUSH

He’s got the lank, the height, the BTAS costume colors, the elongated face with beaky nose and pointed chin and angular cheekbones, the eyebags like Gucci, the furrowed brow… honestly the only thing missing is the more reddish color hair, and even that isn’t mandatory. I love 😍

Not to mention the HOT DAYUM voice he has - low and velvet rough and so godsdamned particular in a way that could either tie in to obscuring a southern accent as in fanon or just as a stringent academic, oh my yes. He’s voiced by someone called Dwight Schultz, who’s most well known for playing Captain ‘Howling Mad’ Murdock in the OG A-Team show, and someone called Reginald Barclay in Star Trek TNG and Voyager, if any of y’all know that character in particular.

And of course, the first line he says is a delightfully wry “Oh, but I AM getting away with it,” with the sort of smirk that absolutely lends credence to why he’s a threat to Batman, and not some simpering wimp that can be defeated with some crossbow bolts in a tree.

I think I’m going to enjoy this movie at least somewhat, so long as we get to see him 🥰🥰🥰

(tho on a side note: Daphne why on EARTH are you trying to film Crane saying the meddling kids line? Do you have a video compilation of past villains who’ve done that, and you hope to add his to it? Was your phone damaged when you went up against the Riddler a few DTVs ago and you want a second shot at recording a Gotham Rogue saying it? Bc I don’t think a Gotham Rogue would be too pleased with seeing himself as a Mystery Meme on the Youtubes, you get what I’m saying?)

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Okay, so the floating orb things are explained away as fear toxin bomb drones somehow… despite looking nothing like the other drones and being much smaller with no visible propulsion, while also flying unassisted through and around objects to explode against places once flung…

(tho interesting note, none of them are aimed directly at the crowds, just behind them - odd, that)

But how did he heckin’ FLY at the beginning?

Yeah, they show him wearing wrist-mounted grappling hooks at the end of the intro song sequence, but they are NOWHERE IN SIGHT at the beginning - and I do mean in sight, since he emerges against a backdrop of flames. There was nothing there (see the T-pose above for further evidence), and nothing there when he FLEW THROUGH THE MYSTERY MACHINE’S WINDSHIELD AND FLEW BACK OUT AGAIN. And these things are pale silver, which stands out like crazy against the darker backgrounds, so no hand-wavy ‘they were always being used’ bullcrap we’ve seen in other movies.

Hmmm *scribbles in notepad* note to self, add notation concerning Crack Theory A on magic!Shaggy to “Uncle Crane” theory files - evidence denotes that Crane is able to fly (or at least hover in mid-air unassisted) for terrorization purposes. May boost strength of CTA by family association, lending credence to magic inheritance along the bloodline...

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“Avocado Toast Generation”? Crane, I honestly don’t know if you really mean that, or if you understand just how much that phrase gets under any Millennial/Gen Z kid’s skin. Having seen multiple variations of your character, it really could swing either way (tho kudos on the dead switch idea - very nice 👍🏻)

Although this does lead to an interesting stand-off: Fred, upon seeing the town threatened with 3 days worth of fear toxin, immediately moves to let Crane go, while Velma stops him and refuses to consider compromising if it means Crane escapes. They both look legitimately frustrated at the other for taking the stance they do.

Fascinating~

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Hmmm

Crane honey, I don’t know if your drones are made of flash paper and hope, or if Scooby and Shaggy are using the reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally old candy (the stuff made about ~3 years ago most neighborhoods give out to the teenagers that knock around midnight on Halloween) to shoot them down, but either way you may wish to speak with the manufacturer about this

Then again, this IS Shaggy and Scooby - they probably could’ve spat marshmallows at the drones and brought them down with equal success and explosions

(and good on them for shooting those down! Atta boy 👍🏻)

-------

Aw dang it

1. They still have Crane captured and now in handcuffs (despite having… you know… NOT been bound by anything except cross bolts in his curtain cape thing)

2. Dwight Schultz has decided to pitch his voice higher and more nasally than what he has. Hopefully this is more of an incredulous sort of pitch than something that sticks for the rest of the movie, ugh.

Also, I think they’re framing the movie to be more Velma-centric this time around - she’s the one explaining to Crane how they tracked him down, apparently through a piece of fan mail he sent Elvira (is that the only reason she’s there? Also why was Velma examining random pieces of fan mail for toxins, Elvira probs gets hundreds a week irl) and it looks like they’re framing something up on how fear isn’t something you can pretend isn’t there. neat!

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whajit

53rd?

53rd?!?!

ONLY 53rd?!?!?!?!

Boooo, Scarecrow’s WAY more popular than that! I call foul

---

Okay why is Daphne’s schtick so far to spit laaaaaaame slang after every sentence Velma says

I would rather this not be her schtick

Actually could she go back to filming mystery stuff, bc at least I can pretend it’ll build into the OG Zombie Island Daphne

----

Phew, his voice has returned to its low, raspy goodness

also, Crane needs to learn about personal space, good grief

(interesting clue brought up tho - Crane only steals tech that CAN’T leak his toxin, ergo it can’t be tracked until he releases it. Sensible use, given that Batman probs tracks it if it does.)

----

Velma: I’m not afraid of you, Crane. Fear is an illogical reaction to an imagined threat.

Crane:

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Crane: Fearless, then. Intelligent. Proud and stubborn. You remind me very much of the one person in this world I care about.

uhhhhhh

Yourself? Harley? Edward Nygma? Ichabod the raven? Idk, I’m honestly curious as to where this thread will go 🤔🤔🤔

-----

Fred, leaning against the Mystery Machine: Guys, it’s gonna be okay. She told me!

O_o

Fred? Honey? Are you sure you weren’t supposed to join Crane in the transport vehicle back to Arkham?

----

OH SWEET JESUS SHAGGY GREW YAOI HANDS

WHAT THE HECK

THAT’S WAY MORE UNNERVING THEN YOU GUYS NOT BEING AFRAID ANYMORE

(although the fact that they’re both unsettled by NOT constantly shaking or having their heart racing is honestly kind of heartbreaking. Y’all need therapy, good grief)

----

Shaggy and Scooby just chewed up candy (wrapper and all) to make themselves a Halloween costume of… what looks like barfed-up candy (ew)

Before then proceeding to dance so well that everyone around them also starts dancing in a 60s-70s era rainbow light show and giving them candy

I worry for these two sometimes - that kind of power seems to be getting to their head 😬😬😬

---

Oh hey, acid green toxic waste is spilling from an 18-wheeler onto the Fear Toxin drones and emitting a purple pink haze that envelops a pumpkin patch! That won’t do anything suspicious at all I bet!

(wait is Poison Ivy going to come into this at some point)

(also major kudos to the music here - very 80s horror synth, I like)

----

So the Pumpkins have grown faces, limbs, consciousness, the ability to fly and a lust for human flesh

And they appear to be led by the Pumpkin King of the Pumpkin Patch mentioned in the Charlie Brown Halloween special

He’s not as friendly as I pictured him being, sadly 😕

---

Why is this random ass cop coming up to FD&V to say that they’re in over their heads… AFTER the mystery’s been solved?

Like dude, you’re only making yourself suspicious at this point, go home

----

Huh, interesting - the gang are being interviewed for a tv news network while they’re considered the town heroes

Why am I getting bad vibes from this…

Eh, it’s probably nothing

----

Velma: {Shaggy and Scooby} are, um… REALLY into the Halloween spirit.

Shaggy: THIS ISN’T COSPLAY, VELMA!

I’m dying 😂

------

Holy Shit

Velma just snapped and went off on Shaggy and Scooby for acting scared and doing nothing to help wrap up the mystery

(even though these guys are the ONLY reason that the gang didn’t have to choose between setting Scarecrow free and poisoning the entire town for 3 days straight, but hey, what do I know - I’m just writing an in-depth reaction post to this movie and taking note of details like this, clearly I know nothing *eye roll*)

Last time I saw Velma critique the guys’ usual mystery solving shenanigans, it was much more low-key and without knowing they were nearby

But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence

------

What the

Bills?

Bills?!?!

Fred just mentioned that fixing the Mystery Machine was going to leave a hefty bill and that they may need to get dishwashing jobs to earn money

Which is more of a job you might expect a high schooler to get on the go and yet

They actually have to pay bills

How old are they here??!

------

wait a tic

THIS is how they introduce Bill Nye?

He just calls up Velma with no explanation other than Velma saying “Oh hey, it’s Bill Nye!”

I just - what?!?!

How do you know him so well that he can just pull up your number and call you, and then geT YOU A NEW FREAKING CAR LIKE

WHAT?!?!?!?

Was there a Scooby episode with him in the past two years where the fcuk did this come from

------

Also the car is dressed like Bill Nye

And he can talk to the gang directly as the car

So that he can solve mysteries with them whenever he wants

This… this was not what I was expecting to come about from the Bill Nye cameo

(alas, poor predictions of being Crane’s roommate, you will not come to pass this day) 😔

-------

Ooooo, purple haze throbbing on the horizon! That’s always a good sign of things to come! 😀

------

And now Daphne’s… asking Elvira to mentor her fashion wise. And Elvira’s taking her on as her unpaid intern/personal assistant.

Yooo, movie, can you pick a direction and stick with it for Daphne? You’ve gone from her spewing outdated slang to wanting a costume for trick-or-treating, and now this.

-------

Welp, now I can say I saw a giant pumpkin dog vore an old woman

I didn’t WANT to see that mind, but I guess I can say it now 😐

------

OH SHIT NO

IT TURNED HER INTO A FLYING PUMPKIN SHAPED LIKE HER FACE

ABSOLUTELY UNSETTLING, 0/10 WOULD NOT RECOMMEND

-------

At least we get a nice scene of Daphne kicking the pumpkins’ collective butt

Something normal

------

Elvira: WOW! You’re a regular Mary Sue!

*falls over cackling*

------

And now there’s a giant purple fissure opening up in the concrete to swallow the town of Crystal Cove whole

(good, i whisper softly into the darkness of my living room. Let it fall)

--------

Man, I feel so bad for this single father right now

He’s gotten wrapped up in all of this nonsense with his daughter, and he is just Distraught at being chased by Jackal Lanterns, having the town collapsing under his feet, and having to gorge jump in his sedan to get away from the worst of it

It’s okay, Mike Dad - we would feel the same way in your shoes

-------

Hologram Bill Nye is wearing Cat ears and cat whiskers/nose, and is cleaning his hands like a cat cleans its paws

Why was this the movie we found out Bill Nye was a furry

Why Warner Bros

Why would you inflict this upon us in a Scooby Doo-Scarecrow mystery

-------

Hey, can Jonathan Crane return now? The movie needs its dignity back.

------

A clue on the whys here - the town was built on top of a MASSIVE lithium deposit, with the talks to mine it being scrapped due to environmental concerns. That’s actually a decent lead in for why some

-------

Welp

The Jackal Lanterns just went full Mad Max with the Halloween Parade floats and cars

No, I don’t have any idea why either, just roll with it

-------

Nice, they confirmed that Fred’s full name is still Frederick Herman Jones XD

Also a great little action sequence with Daphne - while there’s not much movement, they frame the scene dynamically, with some good quick wordplay. Very nice.

--------

Velma has a mind palace

Aight

--------

Velma: Shaggy, I could kiss you!

Oh, to hear this as a child, when I still hardcore shipped Shelma *sigh*

------

Oh thank gods we’re going back to Scarecrow again

------

Shaggy ate some Scooby Snacks, leapt out of a moving vehicle, and onto the backs of two flying pumpkins that he promptly reined in to fly to Crane’s prison transport

...yet again, I am amazed at the sentences I am led to type for Scooby Doo DTVs

------

Ah, how very Hannibal Lector of you, Jon

Man, he actually looks very meek in normal clothes - red long-sleeved shirt and grey slacks

-----

Hmmm

So Crane ISN’T behind the Jackal Lanterns - in fact he’s outright befuddled by them. This means his whole spiel to Velma earlier about both of them being caught in the same trap was… metaphorical? The breakdown doesn’t actually go into WHY he thinks they’re in the same trap - Crane’s whole schtick is tied to accepting fear, not denying it, so why would they be the same?

Either way, someone is using both him and Mystery Inc to do something to Crystal Cove (please be Red Herring, please be Red Herring, please be Red Herring)

Actually, that reference at the beginning really WAS a red herring - they framed it as being Jon the whole time when it wasn’t. Kudos!

Additional kudos to having Jon be seen more out of mask than in - he is a looker, and I aim to look as much as I can ;)

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Annnnd Daphne’s now trying to convince Elvira to switch clothes with her

I don’t get it - how on earth did we get from Daphne trying to find a good costume for trick-or-treating to asking Elvira to switch oh there it is nevermind.

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There is literally a scene where a giant buzzsaw is slicing towards Crane

and he just

stares at it

going “huh, that’s different”

And I LOVE IT

------

And here we have another fascinating scene: Velma going to free Crane from his cell, as Daphne tells her to just leave him to die by pumpkin

I’m wondering if they meant to draw a parallel between the two here - Velma starts by reciting a nursery rhyme, then overcoming her fears in order to release madness to take control. It’s not done very cleanly - mainly bc we barely have any time with Crane in this movie - but I wonder if they meant to insinuate that Crane was like Velma once, where he refused to acknowledge he was afraid, which caused him to lose focus on his initial goals

Idk, ignore my ramblings

---

Crane, smirking: I’ll need my personal effects - extenuating circumstances.

Me, fanning myself: I’ll need you to remove yours first

(i am not even kidding, Crane is an absolute DILF in this movie and it flusters me. Stupid sexy animation)

---

YAAAAAAAAAAASSSSS

SCARECROW TO THE MOTHERFCUKING RESCUE BABY, SCYTHE AND FCUKING ALL!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

----

FCUK YEAH THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

HE HAS A DANCE LIKE QUALITY WITH SOME OF HIS FIGHTING MOVES

VIOLENT DANCING BRINGS THE GIANT JACKAL LANTERN DOWN BABY

THEN HE BACKFLIPS AND GYMNASTIC SWINGS INTO THE VAN

ROCK IT SCARECROW FCUKING ROCK IT

(minor note here, but the subtitles show Dr. Crane instead of Scarecrow - unsure if that’s more that the movie calls him Dr Crane or if it indicates he’s acting more heroic than villainous)

---

GODDAMNIT

THE GIANT PUMPKIN SNUCK VINES INTO THE VAN AND STOLE HIM BACK

WHEN CRANE WAS... wearing a seatbelt before, but isn’t now.

...

BOOOOO

---

Yet again, we find a Scooby movie that attempts character development, but with Velma

Unlike Shaggy’s Showdown however, I’m mixed on how successful it is.

For starters, Velma hasn’t been this cocksure in other DTVs we’ve seen, so it’s a bit odd to see it now. While not 100% out of place - after all, the gang DID capture one of Batman’s Rogues Gallery on their own - it still feels a touch forced. Compare that to Shaggy’s Showdown, where Shaggy has ALWAYS been a coward (one that, in more recent years, writers have had willing to abandon his friends for safety), so the character development there feels more natural.

The progression of events with Velma actually work somewhat okay - but again, here’s where past DTVs come to bite them in the ass. The past handful have had the gang be wrong, have had them fail, or catch the wrong guy. This makes Velma’s attitude here at odds with the other films, something that sticks more due to a character that’s appeared in the past few films as a minor inconvenience - a Sheriff who keeps telling the gang not to interfere, they’re doing things wrong, etc. If this had been a character who was completely wrong in the past AND SHOWN TO BE WRONG FOR HIS OPINIONS, while the gang never guessed wrong, this would work much better. Unfortunately, it doesn’t, and here we are.

I think it would have flowed better if Velma’s cockiness came solely from catching Crane on their own. Have a random cop character or reporter or whatever (just not the recurring cop), insinuate that the gang is in too deep with Scarecrow, that he should be handled by the adults or professionals or whatever. Velma could bristle, overcompensate, and THEN fall from her pedestal like we see, reach out to the gang and commiserate over feeling scared, and grow. Again, it’s not too far to reach for, but they handle it poorly; as a result, the outcome feels a little more shoehorned in.

It’s an honest shame, bc we haven’t had a Velma centered story since Frankencreepy, and we all remember what a hideous fcuking mess THAT was *shudders*. Still, it somewhat gets its point across, I guess.

---

Fred why did you rip your shirt off

Actually better question why do you not have nipples

---

Awwwwwww

Velma just apologized to Shag and Scoob for snapping at them earlier, and admits how she doesn’t appreciate how much they make Mystery Inc what it is

Also she eats a Scooby Snack with them and admits they taste pretty good

----

Huh

Velma’s mind palace is the Mystery Machine driving through space

Also Shaggy and Scooby are able to telepathically follow her in and communicate with her

Literally, they actually followed her into her head telepathically, and show her their memories of things she hasn’t gotten to see tonight (while also possibly enhancing her ability to remember things, given how much DETAIL she captures perfectly of things that she would maybe have glimpsed in a millisecond AT MOST)

...another tally for Crack Theory A of magic! Shaggy and Scooby *scribbles*

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Fred, be very very thankful that there are no people operating those pumpkins in person cause uhhhh

Those traps would be spraying red instead of orange

------

Another weird music choice - the gang goes up to fight the Jackal Lanterns, but the music is the same 60s bubble we heard earlier

Not terribly atmospheric, really

(wouldn’t a Smashing Pumpkins cover of Scooby Doo be more appropriate, or did you guys spend all your money on hiring Elvira and Bill Nye?)

------

Dang

Velma just admitted her fears and jumped into the mouth of the Mega Pumpkin, before getting Fred to use the app from earlier to shut it down, revealing it to be a giant drone surrounded by smaller pumpkin drones

This feels… counterintuitive, but I’ll try to explain at the end

---

Okay

I’ll admit it

The Whodunnit is actually pretty decent in concept

There was a sprinkling of tidbits that could be assembled for the final conclusion and still make a decent amount of sense, all to find the sheriff doing it

Only he isn’t a sheriff

He’s a former Tech CEO who was also busted by the gang years ago in a case the Sheriff kept bringing up throughout the movie - due to his prison sentence, he lost more than half his wealth and the opportunity to expand it further with the Crystal Cove Lithium deposits

He was also someone who sold tech to Crane for his fear toxin distribution, where he got the idea to frame him for it

(tho on a side note, Crane is an absolute dork and a terrible liar - just look at the email he sent XD and that profile pic, my gods)

He deliberately picked at the gang for the past few DTVs (specifically 2: Return to Zombie Island and Curse of the 13th Ghost) to fracture their confidence, undermine them, etc - all so that in one fell swoop, he could retake his fortune, frighten everyone in town away from the mines so they couldn’t interfere, frighten away the gang (while also ruining their reputation as mystery solvers), and take Crane off the docket so he couldn’t identify the CEO when he pretended to be the sheriff

This… is actually a pretty damn good plan, for a Scooby villain. He was patient, manipulative, and clever, learning how best to tie up loose ends and win back what he lost. A clever revenge story that came so close to coming to fruition, and could have honestly been sold convincingly…

...if it hadn’t been done so much better in Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.

Yeeeaaaah, this movie basically lifts the rough framework up from that one - past mystery villain comes back to attack the gang and ruin their reputation (tho this one decides to also make his fortune back and tie up loose ends with former criminal contacts, a la Crane). Gang is embarrassed in front of the news folk, another villain is framed for it (like Old Man Wickles of the Black Knight fame), and the gang must reconcile to foil the villain for good.

Although it also??? Merges elements of Frankencreepy in it?? The movie is focused on Velma, who is struggling to admit when she’s wrong (which ties into her fear, somehow… I’ll think on that point a little) and things purportedly go haywire when she won’t bend. This… isn’t illustrated as well here, since there’s very little direct cause-and-effect from Velma’s actions that would prove this point - that insisting her way is the right, best, and therefore only way to go ends up making things worse.

As much as I despised Frankencreepy (and I DESPISED IT), it did do that part well - showing that refusing to budge on something can lead to you hurting your friends (literally, in that one), and that admitting you were wrong and need help isn’t the end of the world.

(that movie also had former villains returning to gain vengeance upon the gang using psychological warfare, hm - may need to go over that one again, unfortunately).

It’s a shame, too - the basic elements for this plot are all here, they just need to be polished and reworked a bit to make a really fascinating movie.

------

Anyways, back to the asshat CEO who just… faked being a sheriff. Because white people can get away with that so long as they have the outfit and the car *throws up hands* (the sad part is this is probably something that actually happens)

As he drives away we see a familiar silhouette looming in the cornfields, watching him approach

Velma had Bill Nye on speaker, so he could record the entire confession for the federal officers nearby (who were taking Scarecrow back to Arkham), and track the phone signal to his exact location

And right as his holographic call cuts out, we see the shadow of a Scarecrow looming over him, causing him to scream.

When the feds arrive at his final location, both his body and the money have vanished. The car still sits, engine running, before the crows leering over him from the field vanish into the sky.

-------

Now that he’s dead, the gang walks and finds themselves at a Halloween party, with friendly faces and good food. The mystery is solved, though the culprit may never be found again.

Then Daphne admits to NOT trying to steal Elvira’s costume for Halloween, but instead trying to steal Elvira’s identity and replace her.

Something that she’s apparently nearly gotten away with on past mysteries working with Phillis Diller

*sighs* movie, why couldn’t you just stick to the costume schtick? This is just… so much worse.

-----

From there, Elvira walks off to wrap things up, reveal the monster face on the back of her head sans wig (which was also a monkey), and start the credits, where we see the gang working to bring the Mystery Machine back to its former glory a la Frankenstein pastiche.

This movie… this movie is a hot mess, but at least it’s an OKAY hot mess.

It really does feel like someone started writing a decent Velma-focused movie concerning the Scarecrow and a past Mystery Inc villain interfering, but was bogged down by notes from higher-ups: Wait! Write in Elvira! Also write in Bill Nye! Hey, let’s have a Mad Max car chase with the Jackal Lanterns! And have Daphne obsessed with literally becoming Elvira! Also make reference to things that we’ll insist be explained this way instead of a way that makes sense! Great!

(seriously tho, we never find out who Crane cares about most that reminds him of Velma, what the heck?)

It’s like two or three different scripts were smooshed together without being cleaned up - stuff is said that doesn’t get resolved, the celebrity guests don’t get to breathe much and feel squished together, and the build-up for the villain feels… less impactful, even knowing that he’s been in the past two films.

It might have worked if he’d been in… let’s say like 5 or 6 DTVs in a row, speaking roles for dissing the gang growing in each (ex start with “Good job kids! But maybe next time, leave it to the professionals, okay?” and growing more bitter from there), but only 2 feels kind of meh. Still, I do appreciate the clues we got to collect together, and they all work in the final breakdown of the scheme - some DTVs can feel like they pull stuff completely out of nowhere, so kudos there.

I appreciate what they wanted to do with Velma - give her a character development arc similar to Shaggy’s in Shaggy’s Showdown. Unfortunately, it wasn’t set up quite so neatly: they blended her ‘refusal to admit fear’ with her overconfidence that she was always right, and it led to a weird conclusion. To face her fears, she leapt into the Giant Pumpkin, which… proved that she was right all along about it being fake, and that solves things somehow. It doesn’t address how she can get something wrong sometimes, it doesn’t really address what she’s afraid of (which is honestly quite good: she’s afraid of failing in a way that allows bad guys to escape justice and in a way that hurts her friends), it’s just a bit of a mess. Points for aiming the focus the right way (and in a way that DOESN’T sexualize the underage teenage girl, unlike some DTVs cough cough Frankencreepy cough cough), but it’s very very messy how it goes about it.

The movie actually balanced pretty well for the whole gang - no excessive focus on one leaving the rest in the dust (too much at least - Fred was a touch underdeveloped, but nowhere near as annoying as past iterations have been. Shaggy and Scooby were kind of meh in some places but great in others, while Daphne was just odd. I think they were trying to recapture the BCSD Daphne characterization, but they failed. Still, she did spend some good time kicking ass with the pumpkins, so that was fun.

Now for the Rogue, Jonathan Crane. If you like Crane, this movie gives you: maniacal Scarecrow, calm and creepy Crane, a brief glimpse at fanboy!Crane (he admits in his own awkward way that he’s a fan of Elvira, and later tells her he loves her work - it’s fun), and (best of all for me) a heroic Crane - one who helps the protagonists and ends up kicking ass pretty damn well, brief as it was. And while DILF Crane is always a treat, he feels underutilized in this. In comparison, Scooby Doo/Batman Brave and the Bold really utilized a lot of different aspects of Riddler, to the point he actually does feel pretty menacing by the third act. It’s a shame we don’t quite get that with Crane, but I do love seeing him 1. More out of mask, and 2. Acting as a good guy (in his own way), so he’s enjoyable on the whole.

I kind of wish that the whole movie was spent more with Crane, but again, the script is a bit of a mess on this part - the fact that he’s not completely screwed over is a goddamn miracle.

Elvira was… okay. She didn’t have much of a purpose beyond getting the plot started and giving Daphne some hooks to play off of. Bill Nye (abrupt as his introduction was) did provide some necessary elements to the mystery, as well as the tech; he wasn’t too bad by the end. (still a touch bitter we didn’t get ex roommate Nye, but hey, what can you do)

Humor was… mixed. Some good, some meh, but very few long enough to feel painful. Some bits felt extraneous at times, but they did help to build to the conclusion, so points for effort.

At the end of the day though, I’m probably keeping this more for Jonathan Crane than anyone else. It does have a lot of fanfic potential tho 🤔🤔🤔

That’s all from me tonight, folks! Hope you enjoyed my own little breakdown of the movie.

#happy halloween scooby doo #plush reviews: final thoughts #jonathan crane #scarecrow #spoilers

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years

Text

19. What They Deserve

5336 Words, No triggers detected.

People loved to hear about the trials and tribulations of others. That was the core of half of the entertainment sites. Grace didn’t like to put her hurt on display, but she did want to reintroduce herself, or rather, debut the new Grace to the world and she realized that would entail people bringing up her past and/or intruding on her private life.

For instance, people would ask her how her relationship with her parents is…

Grace’s first day out, her mother was in the car whenever she got in. They were driven, in silence back to the estate, where guards were posted for the occasion, in case someone noticed or tried to get in, as they sometimes did. Her room was still the same, but there was someone there to help her pack up her essentials and her pleasures. She was going to be moved to a secure location that people didn’t know about, because her parents didn’t want the family house to be any more of a sideshow that it had been following her institutionalization.

Her mother still had not said anything to her and it took hours for her to go through her personals and decide what she couldn’t live without and see the things that she could live without go into a donations box or a trash bin. “Where are all of my pictures of me and Simon?” she asked, when she opened the designated box for those.

“Surely, you’re joking,” was the first thing her mother said. She tossed the box into the donations. Her father didn’t even show up during this time frame. By the time she was moved into her new home, she had only gotten one word from her mother and none from her father. So, whenever someone asked about them, she would say, “How is everybody’s relationship with their parents? It’s personal. It’s a relationship between one and one or two more people, and their dynamic and their emotions are fluid. The three of us have very different wavelengths and concerns, so my relationship with them is something between me and them and then, my relationship with you all is what’s between me and you.” She’d laugh a little, but after a few times, people got the message.

People would ask her about her mental health - if she was better, what happened in the first place, does she think it could happen again, etc.

Hazel wound up in another facility after a few months with her new foster family (mere weeks before Grace was released). The charm bracelet was sent back to her and for several days, she didn’t know what that meant for Hazel. If she was okay, if she was hurt or worse. They had only told her that they thought that she should have it back, then failed to communicate anything else about Hazel, for legal purposes. Grace was in shambles, until FINALLY she was told that Hazel was fine, but she had a relapse and was “in turtle form” for several days, making them have to take her to a doctor and seeing her file, they committed her for 72 hours. She was fine and heading back home.

When Grace got out and looked her up, she was no longer at the same home. She had been redirected elsewhere… They couldn’t give Grace that information at the time. She thought she would lose her mind trying to contact someone who would be willing to help her out with this information, but most of them informed her that such information was secure for the safety of the child, and she understood it and couldn’t argue with it or convince them that she was more concerned for the safety of this child than anyone. It remained at the forefront of her thoughts.

“I went somewhere to get help. I got help. A lot of people just get bounced around in life and never truly get the help that they need or deserve. I’ve been very fortunate, so I try to focus on that. Some days, I succeed. Some days, I do not succeed. I feel good today.”

They would ask her about new music, what beauty products she used now that she was no longer associated with her old brands, and if she would be dancing again. All things that she still wasn’t completely certain of yet, but lighthearted enough that she didn’t get too stressed out about that line of questioning.

The questions that brought her the most visible displeasure and clear distress were the ones about Simon. What about your relationship with Simon Laurent? Nobody has heard your side of the story. Have you seen or talked to Simon? Are things well between you? Has he forgiven you?…

“I don’t speak about Simon. The most that I can tell you is that I hope he has what he needs and gets everything that he deserves.” They might try to make jokes to prod about what she thinks he deserves, but she generally redirected the conversation. “He deserves what he deserves, and that’s what I hope he gets.” She would smile and nod, but her eyes would be sad. Eventually, people stopped asking her about him. She began posting dance videos, remixes, and songs again. This time, being confident in herself and away from her parents. It was no longer an escape from her life, because her life was lonely, but she was happy with it. There was freedom in her world that she hadn’t imagined in the past. She had more followers than ever before. Some people still called her Apex, but she never put that into any of her bios or captions, herself.

She had a routine that worked for her wellbeing, from the time that she spent in the center, and she still had very regular sessions with her therapist, not to mention a medication regimen that assisted in her wellness.

Anyone who wanted to contact her did so through someone else who would be the go-between, just in case. She moved out of the house that her parents placed her in and found something more suitable for her style, and closer to Julliard, because she still wanted to try to go, if she could make it in. In the meantime, she enjoyed the music scene in New York, branched out to finding new artists that she hadn’t heard of, made a few new friends in the industry, got hired for music videos and song demos. Some days, she expected to wake up and discover that her life had all been a dream. She would wonder if she actually did spend over a year in a mental facility, if she had gotten into some trouble with Simon, if she ever actually had met Simon… He seemed so far away, so long ago and so unfamiliar sometimes. But, whenever he did come back to her, he came flooding back.

Like if somebody casually asked, “You got kids?” and she remembered that while the answer was no, she had gotten pregnant at 16 and was so stressed out, that she hadn’t noticed for several weeks that her body was behaving differently, and that she spent several more trying to figure out what she would say, what she would do, how she would handle this. “No, no kids. But, I did have to make a decision to terminate a pregnancy when I was younger.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. There’s a stigma about it, but it was something that was best for me and I don’t harbor anger or disgust with myself about it.” Then, she could remember Simon’s eyes, his hands, other parts of him, the way that he held her, the things he had said to her. She would have to try not to cry and if she did, be totally honest, “Sorry. I haven’t really thought about the guy in a while, and I’m just in my feelings, Don’t mind me.” She didn’t like to lie, if she could help it. She tried to be as honest as she could these days, without saying too much. But, she had a pretty good crew in NY. They always were understanding and if someone said something, they’d gather them up pretty quickly. Her therapist told her that friends do things like that. It made her feel bad. She thought that friends shared everything, and since she was still very closed off to these people, she didn’t really consider them to be friends of hers, just associates that she really liked.

“That can be considered friendship, too. You don’t have to tell every friend that you have your life story and every person who you share mutual connection and kindness with isn’t going to be your lifetime bestie. Just enjoy the company of people who make you feel good and let the people who you make feel good enjoy your company.” That’s what she did.

She got into Julliard when she was 20 and she was pretty known in the music scene by the time she was 21. Grateful that she had been able to finish high school in the institution and happy that she hadn’t gotten so comfortable that she was afraid to get better and leave there. Because, she was living a life that she had always wanted, and whether or not she deserved to, she told herself that she did and she was sure to enjoy it.

That bitch was trying to ruin him! Simon could hardly catch his breath as he paced outside of the hearing for his academic integrity. She’s just mad that you’ve done BETTER than she has, with her work!

It was one thing when she was taking her bitterness out on you, telling you that your weapon failed to meet the requirements of the assignment, even though it was theoretically FLAWLESS. The CIA spoke with you about your plans for this weapon! But her? She told you to stick to something that your “childlike little mind” could actually comprehend the endgame of. “How about your little robot figures?” she’d taunted.

Other students had laughed. LAUGHED! His project was miles ahead of everyone in that class, and her tone was disrespectful and condescending! “I haven’t had a childlike thought in my mind since I was 10, you old bitch!” It just stumbled from his lips. She frowned at him and demanded an apology to her and to the rest of the class. He snatched his presentation supplies and stormed off. He’d be damned if he apologized for her antagonizing him! He heard a few more laughs and he knocked the items off of her podium on his way out. He knew that couldn’t work out well… at least in hindsight, he did. In the moment, all he knew was rage.

He even sent her an email apologizing to her and the class and offering to replace anything that he damaged in his outburst. She had only replied to him not to return to her class until further notice. But… he needed her class. It would throw off his entire educational trajectory not to be able to come to her class! Even for a few days!! He was almost ready to grovel. Almost. That would be too much like showing weakness. He apologized, what more could she want.

So, Simon filed a complaint on her, accusing her of being combative, rude, and making her classes toxic environments. Now, the Committee on Discipline was meeting to look over all of the details of her complaint.

“I truly wanted to give young Mr. Laurent a moment to think about his actions in the classroom and to realize the err of his ways. His complaint against me during this time, being both unfounded and untrue, caused me to have to rethink my decision. I don’t think that Simon Laurent is capable of the behavioral status that we require of students here. I don’t think that he has the temperance for all of the criticisms his flights of fancy are sure to get over the course of his career. I gave him the option to try another avenue for the assignment, as his assignment, while a very significant project did. Not. meet. The. requirements. Of. the. Assignment. He needed to be able to give us a small demonstration. His project was a weapon. He could only grant me a simulation and that is not what I asked for. Telling him this incited him to rage in which he disrespected myself and his peers, disrupting the classroom with his antics. Like a child, throwing a tantrum.”

Even then, his face was looking like all he wanted was to murder her right then and there. When the committee allowed him to speak, he changed his tune. He was calm and even voiced. “Professor Hughes made a lot of points about me and my particular struggles when it comes to being disregarded. I did respond angrily and I know that it was wrong of me to react the way that I did. That’s why I sent her an apology after I had the chance to cool down. But, she didn’t decide to turn me into the committee until after I filed a complaint on her for even bringing me to the point that I had such a meltdown in her classroom in the first place!” Amelia frowned and members of the committee shared various facial expressions.

Simon looked directly at her and said, “I’ve been a long time fan of your work and your accomplishments. I specifically fought to be in your classroom because of the way that I regard everything that you’ve done throughout your career and I just wanted the privilege to be able to learn from you. But, you’re very unkind. You make people feel bad. You don’t think about the things that you say to people and how those things might affect them. You didn’t even care about my psychological makeup until you could use it against me in these proceedings. You humiliate people in front of others and you don’t even break a sweat.”

“This is not my hearing, Mr. Laurent.”

“But, it matters to this hearing, because I never would have reacted that way if you weren’t being so abrasive.”

“That is a word that men like to use against me whenever I meet them with the very same energy that they put out. I’ve been called worse. By professors, colleagues, and for over 30 years my own psychological settings came into play whenever a discussion was to be had about me. This isn’t about your mental disposition. It’s about your behavior. Your angry and hostile behavior at any old sign of criticism!”

“Professor Hughes,” one of the committee members said. She went silent.

Simon proceeded, “I know that I’m not good at handling criticism, especially coming from a woman. My mother was… difficult to communicate with and the only other woman I was close to…” His eyes grew damp. “I’m sorry. My education means a lot to me and I’ll do anything to stay here.” He rushed out of the chambers, covering his face as he did. Amelia pulled herself up to go check on him. He was in the waiting section, in a seat in the corner with his back to the wall, still covering his crying face. She took a deep breath, grabbed a seat and sat next to him.

“There’s not a person in that room who isn’t familiar with the hardships you had to face in order to get here. We know about your family. We know about your abuse.” He wiped his face and glared at nothing in particular. “We also know how smart you are. You were able to get into this school based upon your intelligence. Nobody is doubting that you are capable of doing great work. I wasn’t even implying that I hated your work that day. But, it wasn’t the proper assignment, Simon. I needed you to give me one thing, you not only gave me another, but you refused to even consider that what you were trying to give me was impossible to meet my requirements. Then, you got angry because you had refused to listen to me in the first place. Now, I admit… I’m not the most courteous member of staff at this institute. I can be…”

“Bitchy.”

“Unapologetic.” She chuckled. “Let me tell you, I know how it is to be in a room full of people who underestimate you and make you feel like you shouldn’t be in the room. There wasn’t much respect for female engineers in my day and there’s not a proper amount even now if you ask me. Half of this staff is composed of pretentious, pompous, puffed up paragons, and it takes next to nothing for anybody outside of their ideals to be met with disdain. What you did, by reporting me was to make me a target. I disagree with your evaluation of me and I can’t tell if it came from a place of genuine thought or retaliation, but you can’t be trusted to continue your education here unless you are willing to listen to others, especially those of us who are trying to help to teach you!”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeves. “They’re gonna kick me out. It’ll look bad on me, and all of my research and work from the past two years might not even matter anymore…”

“That doesn’t have to happen, Simon. Listen… I think you’re brilliant. I am willing to vouch for you this time, under the circumstances that you see someone about getting professional help for your responses to adversity.”

“You… want me to see a shrink.?”

“I think you could benefit from getting mental healthcare and I don’t want you in any classroom of mine unless you do.”

He shivered. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She went back in to explain this to the committee and he went through the campus counselors, hating most of them whenever he met with them, switching every time he didn’t like something about one of them, making very little progress, but still fulfilling the deal he made with the committee, for a time. He and Professor Hughes bickered a lot, but he had kept his temper in check whenever she aggravated him, and he eventually settled on a counselor that he didn’t completely hate, too.

He’d always come in, not at all wanting to speak to them. He tossed some books on the table and said, “That’s my dream journal, my intrusive thoughts notebook, and the standard journal. Look through them and then tell me whatever you need to tell me for me to get my paperwork signed off on.”

The man pushed the books back to him and said, “I’m not going to read those, but you’re free to talk about anything that you’ve written in them to me. Let’s start there.”

Simon flopped into the seat and rolled his eyes, “There’s nothing in these that I want to talk about. That’s why I wrote them in here. You’re the brain person. The information gets to you whether you read it or I say it.”

“Okay. Well, let’s see what the first entry is in this one…” He picked up the standard journal and read out loud, “I saw that they let the void out into the world again… What’s the void, Simon?”

Simon turned red and didn’t answer. After a while, the man continued reading, “It didn’t look like Grace. It was beautiful like her, but it looked older, which makes sense, because it was gone a while, and now it’s back…”

Simon snatched the book from his hand and stuffed it into his backpack. “This was a bad idea. I’m not here to talk about or hear about the void.”

“I don’t know what the void is, but you wrote about it, so I’m inclined to believe that you think about it.”

“I’ve seen it!” Simon snapped pounding his fist on the desk. He took a deep breath. “I had a vision, at least I thought it was a vision. Whenever I was 16, when I was with my ex… we weren’t together for a long time, not that way. We were friends, first. We were friends for a long time, but I always loved her. I loved her before she even knew herself. I loved her with all of my heart.” He picked at his forearms where his tally marks were. “She just saw me as a friend, even though it was obvious that we should be together. Maybe I pushed too hard. Should’ve just left well enough alone. I had to have her and what I got was something else. She wasn’t the same. That wasn’t the girl I loved and I didn’t know it until I saw this… vision that I call the void. It came out of her, it engulfed her and consumed her and it took her place.”

“In a dream?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I would never use that word to describe anyone.”

“I’m not whatever word you would use for crazy people! I know that it wasn’t real. But, I saw it and I knew that it was what replaced my friend. I hated it for taking her away, and I hated her for letting it. The void was just a way of dealing with the separation. I omitted everything connected to it from my life.”

“You voided her out.”

“Yeah. The person who looks like my friend got out of a mental institution a while back. That’s what that entry was about.”

“Do you honestly feel like the person who you saw is a different person than the one that you used to love? Do you believe that this void that you saw replaced her and that the entity you refer to as the void is now existing in the form of your friend?”

“What? No. I’m not crazy!”

“I’m asking you if when you refer to your ex as The Void, is that because you don’t see them as the human that you knew or because you have purposefully reduced them to something subhuman?”

“What difference does that make?”

“One would be purposeful dehumanization of someone you didn’t like and the other would be out of your control.”

“Nothing is out of my control,” Simon said.

“Some things have to be, Simon. Like the fact that you don’t want to be here, but the school is making you in order for you to remain enrolled. You can’t control everything, not even everything in your life. But, just because you can’t control everything, that doesn’t mean that you don’t control anything. So… Did you force this dehumanized version of this girl into your mind, or was it something out of your control?”

“I… I created it. I didn’t want to see the person that I needed turn away from me, so I imagined her as something else.” The man just nodded. “But, she made me do it! She was going to…” he shook his head. He couldn’t think of what it was that Grace had done that was so wrong. He needed to think back, remember the pain she caused him. Remember the damage she was willing to inflict… but, he felt like he was grasping. There had to be some reason. He couldn’t believe that he spent close to what 4 years now hating her for something that she didn’t actually do… No! She definitely was going to hurt him more than anyone ever had. “You had to know her. You had to know who she was to know what she could do to me.”

“I looked her up. She recently gave an interview about you. I can send you the link, if you haven’t seen it and are interested.”

“Grace did an interview about me?” He shook his head, “Whatever she said, she’s lying! It didn’t happen that way!”

“Simon… why don’t you do this… See if you can handle what she has to say and we can speak about how it made you feel next time."

Simon left pretty upset. An interview? She hadn’t had anything to say all of this time. Why now? Was this some sort of reckoning against him? He waited until he got home, glanced around him at all of the destruction he’d caused in the past but few weeks. He had been enraged so frequently that he couldn’t even see his floor.

But, he couldn’t rush into this. First, he picked up his mess, put things away, discarded what needed to be thrown out thanks to his destructive anger, and washed up for the night. No working on any projects or hobbies. Nothing that he loved or cared about in the event that this interview pissed him off. He let his hair fall and grabbed his phone. They were easier to replace than laptops. You could STOP raging when you get mad… Yeah right. And risk doing it at school again? They’d put me out for sure.

He opened the link and the first thing he saw was Shana’s face. "This is already a bad start."

"Hey Shady Kindred! Welcome to Shady Shana’s Dish, where we partake of both relevant and ratchet news. I’m your host, Shady Shana and today, I have a very special guest. My… frenemy turned… friendly associate?"

Grace laughed. It sounded like music to Simon, even though he glared at her. "Let’s.. just say associate.”

“OOF. Shade. Okay, well… classmates, former classmates, at the very least. This is Grace Monroe. I think my audience would definitely know you. From your videos and songs and stuff. But, let me dish this out, I saw homegirl perform live in NYC, and this bitch had a cello. Okay? A cello! She was singing some opera stuff.”

“I don’t sing opera!”

“She was hitting high notes, this kinda alluring witch noise… you sounded like those tuning things, but like high-pitched… you had to be there. Just… check out her page. I’ll have her links in the description. She’s working on music, putting stuff out all of the time and also attending Julliard. Many talents, very beautiful, sweet, when she wants to be… But, we’re actually here to dish about something that Girlfriend hasn’t talked to anybody about in a long time. Mr. Simon Laurent.” Shana exaggerated how French she said his name and had a look of disgust when she did.

He rewound to see Grace’s reaction. She nodded. She had prepared herself for this. She didn’t look angry or grossed out. Faking. Lies…

“Yes. I agreed to sit down with you in your really nice little studio here and talk about how I feel about Simon.”

“And just to let you messy ones at home know, we will not be speaking about the old school stuff. Grace was nice enough to give me an exclusive about her current day, so if you came to see what she wanted to say about the old stuff, this will not be the place. What he did do, didn’t do, how he done it, naw! None of that! So, I guess, my first question about it is how would you describe your current feelings about Simon Laurent?”

Grace laughed nervously, licked her teeth, sputtered out air (Simon hadn’t heard that sound in so long), and she shook her head, “It’s a loaded question. Ummm… I can’t say that I really have feelings about Simon. I have memories. I know that we were virtually inseparable for a long time. I know in my mind who I thought he was to me when we were younger, but, none of that has had any real bearing on my life in a while.”

“You don’t think about him or nothin?"

"I mean… I’ve thought about him, but no, not like actively. It’s not a part of my day. It’s more like an occasional experience, when something triggers it or… even sometimes, it’ll be put of nowhere, but just not often. I don’t even know what Simon looks like right now. If you were to trick me and have him backstage or whatever and he came out here right now, Girl - it might take me a moment to recognize him.” Simon felt himself trembling. She didn’t even check up on him? She didn’t want to know? Of course she didn’t! She didn’t care about him..

Shana laughed. “Well, not to be messy…” was her trademark line for when she was about to say something really messy, “Sounds like he’s basically become, what did you two used to call those mediocre types? Non-essential!” Grace’s lip dropped and she titled her head and squinched her face, “Well…” she said in a high pitch, “I… he’s not present. He isn’t part of my life. He detached himself from my life, and I had to learn to move on and now, there’s simply no attachments. Like, if I ran into him, no, I might not know him right away, but the moment I realize, I’m sure I’d be overcome with emotions. I couldn’t tell you how I’d react.”

“Would you uppercut his ass?” Grace cackled and covered her face. “I mean.. if anybody deserves it…”

“I don’t think I’d uppercut his ass, as you so eloquently put it. I think… I’d check to see how he’s feeling. How he’s doing. If he’s found his peace now that I’m not there to affect anything. If he’s better off without me, like he figured he’d be.”

“Sooo… if I can get you two in a room, you wouldn’t even lay hands on him?”

“I… remember what happened. I remember how it felt. I remember pain. But, since then, I’ve learned empathy. I’ve learned pacifism. I’ve learned healing. So, it’s not that I’ve forgotten how hard that time was, but I’ve forgiven everything and I’d just be curious if he had forgiven things too.”

“Whooooooooooo,” Shana let our a long deep breath, “You are better than me. Because if I see him, it’s hands on sight. He’d better not have his head turned. I’ll bust him right in his neck vein."

Grace laughed and shook her head, waving her hands, "I do not share in this sentiment. If you are a Simon stan, do NOT message me. I didn’t say anything bad about this man.”

“Which surprises me, because I know YOU won’t say anything about this, but I’ll say this and I’ve said this to him, as well… I still think that a lot of the things said about you were not true and a lot of the things done to you were just something that basically the lowest form of scum would do to someone. Something a… girl, I’m reaching back for this terminology… it was some… null type shit. Somebody less than zero would do that kind of thing, to anyone, much less someone that they cared about.”

“Well… I can’t speak for him, but you know… maybe he didn’t care about me as much as he seemed to… maybe these things are things you do to people you hate and maybe that’s what it was always gonna be with us. That’s why I would ask him how he’s doing. Maybe he was tired of being stuck around somebody he resented. I don’t know. But, I’ll always value any type of growth that I have. And if nothing else, Simon was definitely a harbinger of growth in my life.”

Simon didn’t realize that he was crying. Shana and Grace wrapped up the show and it went off with some music video that they worked on with a little girl. He didn’t watch it… his vision was too blurry. But he heard the song asking “Where would you be, without me?” And he couldn’t help but feel attacked. But, he closed out the video. If she wanted to see him and ask him how he was doing, sure… he could make that happen…

#If They Didn't Get on the Train #AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics

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dreamlikeapsycho · 4 years

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I saw the max facts (pun intended 😂) you did for that question a while ago. So I was wondering if maybe you could tell us some more facts about Max it doesn’t have to be anything too detailed but anything you know would be nice to know, pretty please 😊

Okay... RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MAX - PART 2

I went on deep analysis mode this time to try and say all of Max's little nice and cute moments I know of.. Pls take notice, tho!! I'm not trying to flex or anything, I'm just a simple peasant girl on Maximilian's kingdom for a long time and it happens I have FBI blood in my veins 😭 so It's all gather on my brain and hard drive lol SO! I'm just answering this ask with a lot of thought and care so you can know more about Max and how he is even more awesome than you think!!! (And just in text form, cause Max doesn't need to be tagged on more personal stuff on IG (there’s too much illegal fishing at my tumblr pond already! 👏). It’s probably weird to know certain things, yes, but at least I'm respectful, I'll never bother him with this kind of stuff). Well, enjoy the bible below to end up knowing very little about him, still haha.. Just some more small facts.

- Max was at a barbecue just yesterday. It was someones birthday from the set of his new movie. He drank his beer, like usual, idk about the meat.. there was wurst and chicken.. I'm not sure if he's trying to be a vegetarian or not (after that thoughtful video he posted) 🤔.. maybe he didn't eat it, I don't know!!

- a little while before the start of this shooting, he was at the Baltic Sea filming for the series he's gonna be in (just one episode again! Don't get your hopes too high lol he's gonna be a security guard who disappears mysteriously, so....)

- He helped his friend renovate his house a few weeks ago!! How could I forget that on the first post.. Then, he had to go to Hesse for the movie shooting, and his friend had to call another friend to come help him lmao damn

I think I could describe some videos I have then... at least there's some cool and funny stuff. (Friends himself tagged in the past and cast friends)

- Max's dad went to the same uni as him. Also, he voiced a police officer on the phone in a short film Max wrote and directed all by himself (he didn't act on it, but he was also another police officer over the phone haha). Another thing, his dad made the official music for one of his plays.

- The falafel day.. his friend was taking a piss filming Max at the shop from afar and zooming in, saying "omg, guys! I found Noah from Dark! He's right there buying falafel" lmao, then, Max is just standing there looking all wonderful with his perfect hair and such, moving his hands, scratching his chin, ordering his food, and his friend talks some more, doing like a rough Max voice "yeah yeah, I'll have that one. Good, yeah". 😂

- the day he went to take a walk in nature. His friend asks him for a cigarette, he is denied, he goes to take it anyway, Max slams his cup of tea on the table and tries to take his cigarette back and it's all black and they're just laughing lmao (I love his laugh btw, so giggly!)

There was storys posted by Max himself.. so, maybe you saw it, but it's from before dark s3 came out.

- The pigeon storys. He filmed two pigeons chasing each other at the station, one always running from the other and he captioned "me trying to flirt" haha

- He screen recorded an ad for an app that deletes people from pictures and made some joke too, I can't remember exactly what he wrote, smt like "when you break up, but still wants to keep the picture" lol also, he unfollowed like 5 people that week after posting that... hm 👀

- he posted a video of him walking in the dark with really cold wind.. you can only see his hair flying around. Also, with a mask on, another chasing a cat in a big field, and that one drinking his coffee and eating his yogurt (you most likely saw it already)

- Ohh.. His friend was playing Max's drums the other day!!! Made a lot of jokes, it was obvious he was messing around in Max's room (maybe they live together, maybe he just waters the plants lol idk). Some of the jokes were "I've been playing this drums since 1921" and "the drums and me are a perfect pair, don't ever believe otherwise". I wonder what Max said to him.. he can't do anything about it, he's not in Berlin hahah. He has a little giraffe in his room, and other home decors (you can see it on his drumming video on his own IG)

- he likes to read on longer train rides.

- there's a video of him screaming inside a wardrobe after being jumped by a friend and one of him putting lipstick on with the song "I'm a sexy motherfucker" playing in the background hehe we was tagged, it was easy to find when there wasn't much tagged post.

- There's moments of ppl filming something/themselves and he just comes and photobombs it lol he is just like thiss 👏 showing his tongue and doing a funny face and such. One of those I saw it on the IG of a Das Boot cast member I actually already followed before.

- this group was such a blast. There's a few pictures, one of them he's in a dress, he has white stockings on til his thighs, heels and all haha lovely

- His improv-group.. he was almost in tears singing "I believe I can fly" with the group on their last day.. But he was happy! A mix of emotions. He loves everyone, he expresses his love a lot to people in general, he says it and adds heart emojis to make sure haha you can see his comments going on IG of his cast friends, especially from Das Boot (I followed a lot of the guys). So, about always commenting something funny on people's posts.. I didn't saved those, so I forgot most of it, but one I remember was that someone posted a video of a hailstorm and he was like "what are u doing, free ice!! Go grab them" hahaha

- Max has that Noah picture where he's peaking by a wall (you know that one Baran posted) printed and framed! 👏

- Things he’s pretty much always with: his backpack and his big headphones (it's always on his neck. At almost every picture, from every year, with different people etc. I was confused when he had normal headphones at his farm storys. Maybe he forgot them in Berlin 😭. Besides those, his rings, necklaces and bracelets (always, for years and years! Same ones, even). He uses frequently on premieres, as I saw it. Sometimes they also show up on his characters in his one-episode works!! Hahah is so nice when that happens. You can notice this on my screencaps.

- that pic of him that is everywhere now (with glasses, holding a bottle of champagne), I posted that months ago.. There's 2 more pics and 1 video. One pic, he is pretending the automatic lighter that's on the table is a Harry Potter wand (but I think I cropped the table, right.. I can't remember). This was actually posted by Max himself and he tagged his friend who took it. I went to see if they posted smt and there was a picture where he is literally biting the cork of that bottle off with his teeth Lmaoo, and one video.. he is talking on the phone trying to block the view with his feet.. this man!!

- he really doesn't care about buying too much unnecessary clothes and shoes and stuff. He is mindful of his things and the environment!!

- there's a video of him on the set of Der Zauberlehrling, I need to recall where I got that from (maybe I could share this one. I'm not sure), he is messing with the broom and someone asks him "hey Max, what's that animal?" and points to the fluffy microphone. He says "it's a fucked up coala bear" (in english) 😂

Again.. I can't say names or anything, cause ppl are not mindful! Like.. I know I'm probably weird, but only for myself and my FBI office LOL I don't go over there and follow/reply to all these people’s posts and storys or take their videos and tag Max on them, this is just not.... nah. I'll always be respectful (yeah, some older stuff has gifs, cause he had like 10k followers, and 5 fans on tumblr lol But i never sent/tag him in anything personal directly.. that’s why i only posted on tumblr for the past year, in fact! I never thought things would be the way they are now a year later.. so, newer stuff it's not posted/gif nor ever will). I don't want him to be weirded out and like, disappear from IG!! I think about these things.. when people are being weird and stuff towards him. I don’t know how ppl don’t think about this when tagging him recklessly in random pictures and videos!!!

I wish he had more interviews, so we could know more proper stuff about him. (The few interviews he has are translated on my IG highlight. There's still an 8min interview missing there, cause I'm contemplating about being more of a bother to german speaking people, since I only have basic german..

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emilyplaysotome · 4 years

Text

The Game of Love - Chapter 1

Since I have a bad tendency to obsess over what I write until I give up on it, I’m posting the first chapter of something new I’ve been dabbling with. Think of it like an original Down the Voltage Rabbit Hole, without the characters you know.

Meeting someone special is hard for anyone, but more so when you’re famous.

I can’t tell you when it was that I went from being Hana to being Hana on a billboard, but it happened slowly enough that I went from eating virtually unnoticed at a restaurant to being bombarded with selfie requests during the short time I picked up my food. I suppose that being one of the youngest women to ever win a Grand Slam will force you into the spotlight, but I’ve never thought of myself as a superstar.

The goal had always been to win gold at the Olympics.

Maybe Roland Garros.

And Wimbledon.

The U.S. and Australian Open if I was lucky.

They never told me that if you win the Australian Open and then manage to win the others in the same year, the world goes mad. They never told me that Nike, Adidas, and Reebok fall all over themselves trying to get you to agree to let them put out the “Hana shoe” and you go from being a struggling journeywoman on the tour to being richer than you ever could have imagined, thanks mostly to your team who milks you for every free moment when you’re not on the court.

You learn how to wear dresses and talk on camera and carry the weight of what it means to be a champion, constantly looking over your shoulder at the younger, hungrier crowd behind you that works twice as hard and trains harder because they don’t need to be on Good Morning America when you do. Your identity becomes “Hana the Tennis Champion” and you forget who you were when you were just “Hana, the girl who loves tennis” – hitting balls after dinner with dad on the courts by your house or joking around with the girls on the junior tour.

Those girls become competition, and your friendship is forced to change despite wanting it to be the way it was when things were simpler. They are nice and you love them, but the feelings are complicated and you forget what it means to have friends who see you as you are. There is always a commitment, a show, a movie, a project, a product – even during the off season, and of course, there’s the training.

You’re grateful to be successful doing what you love, but you know it can’t last forever and one day you decide you want to go out on top and announce that you’re done with the game that up until this point has been your entire life.

And you’re only 32.

I’m only 32.

The day after I retired I woke up as Hana, for the first time in 20 years. I suppose it’s out of habit that I still wake up at 7 A.M. and go for a run, but it’s been a few months and not much has changed.

My mom suggested I get a therapist.

That this major transition would be hard on anyone, but even harder on a prodigy who has been used to a regimented training schedule since she was 11.

I laughed it off, but after a couple of weeks I could feel the unease nagging at me, mocking me, asking me, “Who is Hana if there is no tennis?”

My therapist says a lot of high achieving people struggle with their self-worth outside of their profession. She challenged me to reconnect with friends I’d made at all stages of my life and I learned that being great at one thing left little time for love, creativity, music, and hobbies.

I also learned that I didn’t make many friends in my 32 years since I was too focused, too dialed in to waste time on anything outside of the goal. To be the best in the world I had taken on the mentality that everything outside of my goal was superfluous, but now I struggle to make it through the day.

“Who is Hana if there is no tennis?”

“I am…I am…”

“What are you feeling Hana?” my therapist asks.

“Scared. Confused. Angry. Lost.”

I’d had this rosy image of retirement, where I’d leisurely wake up next to a partner and make breakfast for us. Not just any partner if I’m being honest…him.

“I wake up at 7 A.M. and run 5 miles,” I find myself saying. “Then I make a breakfast smoothie. And then I remember that I don’t have anywhere to be and the depression takes over.”

“Have you been doing interviews?”

I shrug, “Not as many. They asked me to do commentary for the U.S. Open this year and I said I’d think about it.”

“What is your hesitation?”

I pause, thinking about what it would be like to live a tournament without participating in it. To see and comment on someone’s legacy that wasn’t my own. To one day have to announce that I’d been dethroned in my achievements and smile as if it didn’t bother me, when I’d probably just wonder if I’d retired too early.

“I never wanted to be on television. And I want to be able to answer the question who Hana is if there is no tennis.”

“It sounds like this time is providing you with a beautiful gift – to explore that question and your interests without limitations.”

She’s right, and I feel guilty for pitying myself when I have the freedom to do and go wherever I want. I let out a caustic chuckle and say, “I want to live in my games.”

“The ones you used to play on the road?”

I nod, wondering how serious she thinks I am and wondering if the statement is a joke at all.

“Why do you think you like them so much?”

“It’s fun to be someone who isn’t Hana. And it’s fun to fall in love.”

“Has Hana ever been in love?”

I think for a minute and nod.

“But you knew that, didn’t you?” I ask.

She shrugs and pushes her glasses up.

“I’m asking Hana the person, not Hana the superstar.”

“But our breakup was all over the tabloids…”

“Our time together is about you, not what’s in a tabloid.”

“Superstars have to date superstars. It’s like a law,” I say laughing. “What would Instagram think if I gave them anything other than aspirational?”

I’m lying but I can’t help myself, even in therapy my pride gets in the way of being honest. Dating him was never about appearances, at least, it wasn’t for me.

“Tell me about him.”

Eight years of memories flash in my mind, 22 to 30.

“We met after I won my first major. His movie premiere had him in Australia and he got tickets to the final. We ended up at an after party together and he gave me his number. It was good until it wasn’t and then he broke up with me.”

“That’s a very condensed version.”

I shrug again, feeling bitter that he seems to have moved on just fine and I haven’t dated anyone despite the rumors that pop up from time to time. I don’t feel like talking about how I kept pushing for us to move forward, with a vision for my retirement and life with him as he kept pushing for me to stay on the road. I don’t feel like talking about how much of our time was spent apart and how I suspected he preferred things that way.

That it was better to have a girlfriend too busy to take up more than an hour of his day on a regular basis than a girlfriend who could be present the way she wanted to be when we were together.

A pleasant chime goes off and she silences the alarm, noting we’re out of time and asking if next week works.

“My schedule is free,” I joke, but I feel annoyed that there’s nothing but endless free time and nothing to do with it.

When I’m home I open the games I referenced in therapy – the ones I jokingly call “choose your anime romance adventure games” with my mom versus their proper designation of “otome” games, as they’re known with the fandom online that I’m a part of. It’s only when I’m online that I feel like I can momentarily answer the question that nags at me, and that’s because no one know I’m me.

HanaLovesOtome the tumblr user is popular because of the screenshots she posts, not because she’s one of the most celebrated athletes of a generation.

She participates in every event and has spent an ungodly amount of money on special date stories and lottery gatcha items that put her consistently in the top ten featured users of Ikemen Inc.

She’s popular because people will ask her to purchase stories and games they can’t afford, and she’ll video record herself playing or twitch live stream the sessions so everyone can get a sense of what it’s like to fall in love with Ikemen Inc.’s most exclusive bachelors.

Even when I was on tour, I loved playing otome games because for a couple of hours I could stop thinking about my life and instead lose myself in a world overseas where I get to make choices for a protagonist whose name I’ve made my own as I decide what eligible bachelor she’ll fall in love with.

I’d found the games a year before we’d broken up, mostly by chance after seeing an ad on twitter that boasted, “The Perfect Boyfriend is in your phone - meet him now!” While normally I would have continued to scroll past, something about the caption had stopped me in my tracks. Looking back it was probably because the idea of the “perfect boyfriend” being in my phone was ironic having had such a drawn out long distance relationship in which it often felt that he only existed in my life virtually.

After entering my name for the main character I would be controlling, “Decoding His Affections” thrust me into a world that consisted of a simple illustrated background, paired with a cartoon character sprite whose various expressions matched the dialogue being said in the text box where the story played out.

While the prologue of “Decoding His Affections” was free, it ended with a prompt asking me who out of the five characters I’d just met, I wanted to get to know as my Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department partner and future perfect boyfriend. For the low price of $3.99, I could purchase one of five options and determine how my protagonist would fall in love. Depending on my dialogue selections, I was either granted a “Love Ending!” or a less desired “Happy Ending!”

Throughout the course of 13 interactive chapters, Sebastian went from being my underling, to my partner, and finally, to my boyfriend. As the protagonist with my name started to fall for Sebastian, I found myself enjoying the escape from my reality with a game “self” who always met with a positive response in love.

I soon found myself lost in a world where I could be transparent with my intentions without any fear of rejection. Sebastian clearly liked my main character back, but was conflicted about falling for a woman whose time in Tokyo had an expiration date. Even though their relationship was in a grey zone for the majority of the game, he was always warm, always loving, and most importantly, had responses that gave me butterflies as I read his poetic musings from a cold hotel room after a long day of training.

Seeing as how these games were a product of Japan, in addition to the subdued romance I also found myself getting a kick out of the cultural differences that were peppered throughout the story. Simple gestures such as the time that Sebastian grabbed her hand in order to protect her from an impending explosion, resulted in a shook inner monologue where my heroine wondered if her heart was racing from the danger, or because of the physical contact. There was something sweet about this world in which men and women shared a shyness around physical touching that was unlike anything I’d ever experienced as a Western woman. Handshakes, hugs, and even kisses on the cheek were something that happened in my life on a daily basis, yet I was suddenly living in a world via my phone where every gesture was laced with romantic subtext.

It was clear that the only thing Ikemen Inc. changed in their games was the names of their clearly Japanese love interests, in order to better appeal to a western audience. Other than that, their games remained true to their point of origin.

Looking back, our relationship was already strained with me hinting towards my expiration date and him pushing me to stay on the tour. The day I’d played my first otome game we were bickering over text about it, him convinced it would be better for both of us if I refocused on my career instead of settling down with him in his Calabasas home. As I achieved Sebastian’s coveted “Love Ending!” thanks to my carefully selected dialogue choices, I surprised myself by tearing up in which I read an ending where Sebastian confessed to me, or moreover the woman I whose life I was intermittently controlling, his undying love.

I’d felt a bit foolish at the time, having fallen prey to simple plot devices and romantic tropes, however Sebastian had done something for me that my relationship could not.

He’d managed to touch that part deep in my heart that still wanted to believe that romance was possible in this world, and more importantly, was possible for me.

In the weeks to come I found myself leaning on these games more and more as it became clear that my vision for the future did not align with his, it felt like every free second I was pouring myself into my fantasy life. By the time he ended things, I’d made way through the entire Ikemen Inc. catalogue of premium games and started to make my way into the exclusives with a higher price point, more beautifully illustrated scenes (CGs), and the Ikemen Inc. community leaderboard.

I play them a lot lately.

Maybe too much.

When I log in to my tumblr I see a message from my friend KittyGirl.

OMG Hana! Did you see they released Tyler Holland?

I saw and I played and I’m posting the full vid on twitch later ;)

…

I wonder who KittyGirl is as she types, and I wonder if she ever wonders who I am. I wonder if she would care if I was Hana the superstar or if she even follows tennis.

A lot of the girls on here don’t.

A lot of the girls on here are much younger than I am.

I wonder if it’s weird I don’t have many friends my age and that the people I feel closest to at the moment are all usernames in my feed.

STOP HANA YOURE THE BEST!

I smile because it gives me a sense of purpose and I haven’t felt that for some time.

It’s really good. He might be in my top 5 boyfriends.

NO. Really!?

Really.

Sometimes I wish that the men in my phone would come to life. That one day I would wake up and Sebastian would be there in human form, not his two-dimensional anime character form. I’ve thought about what he would look like if he were real.

Not just him.

Him and all the others I’ve dated over the years.

I wonder what it’d be like to date someone you know would never leave you.

Who could be that perfect boyfriend, or husband, or father.

It’s just as I’m thinking about this again that my phone chimes, letting me know I’ve received an email. I’m surprised to see it’s from Ikemen Inc. and that HanaLovesOtome has been invited along with the four other top Ikemen community users for an all-expenses paid, one month vacation to Ikemen’s Dream Resort.

My gut reaction is to scream, “Yes!” but then I remember I’m Hana the superstar.

What would people think if they found out?

What would the tabloids write if they saw me?

I pause.

Who is Hana if there is no tennis?

Hana is HanaLovesOtome.

And so I write an email back, deciding not to loop in my management team, and let the team at Ikemen Inc. know that I would be delighted to experience the resort. The response back is immediate and includes additional details and an NDA.

I skim the details of the agreement, relieved that I am not allowed to talk about the experience as that means no one else will and my identity as Hana the superstar will most likely be off limits to the press and send it back.

It all happens quickly and before the hour is up I’ve managed to secure my spot in the Ikemen Fan 5.

In the two weeks leading up to my departure, I no longer feel depressed or as if time stretches out in a way that makes me feel small and insignificant. I have an event to look forward to and arrangements to be made.

My therapist thinks a solo trip will be good for me and encourages me to journal and continue with the homework she’s given me outside of our sessions. My mom agrees that it will be good for me to have a real vacation which is something I haven’t had in years.

I’ve seen the world through touring but I’ve never really had time for tourism.

To that point, when I get on the plane it strikes me that this is my first time on a plane without the purpose of coming from or going to a tournament. I check two large suitcases and still bring a racquet in case I need the release of losing myself in a training session or two, despite the fact my performance no longer matters.

I wear the sunglasses I always wear to obscure my identity in first class and a wig and baseball hat and n95 mask, which always does the trip. At Narita airport, I see a man holding a sign that says “HanaLovesOtome” and I follow him to a town car that takes me two hours outside of Tokyo proper. It’s only when we pull off the main road, down a long skinny isolated one that I take off my disguise and breathe a sigh of relief that I managed not to attract the attention of any photographers or fans.

In my head I always saw Ikemen Inc. as a small developer, tucked away on a floor in a nondescript office building somewhere in Toyko.

The reality of their facilities surprised me, and we drove 15 minutes through dense woodland, past another small road with a sign indicating guest and employee parking - up to a manicured property where at the center was a sleek looking high rise. My driver stopped under the porte-cochere and helped me with my suitcases, triggering the mechanism for the large glass double doors to open which caught the attention of a man inside.

“Please, allow me to be of assistance,” he said, quickly grabbing the roller’s handles and helping me in to a spacious reception area. “I’m Roman and I run the resort division of Ikemen Inc.”

“Hana.”

There was something familiar about the way that Roman talked and the way he dressed that I couldn’t quite put my finger on as he introduced me to the woman at reception and made small talk about my trip. I engaged in the idle banter until the persistent feeling that I knew him from somewhere became so overwhelming that I finally found myself asking, “Have we met before?”

“Yes,” a female voice called out behind me.

I turned to see a girl, no older than 20 approaching us with a suitcase of her own. She wore the same expression that countless fans wore upon recognizing me as they rushed up to me and asked for a selfie except she was not looking at me, but at Roman.

“He’s Roman Hinton, from Ikemen’s Paradise Palace.”

“Ah, you’ve stayed with us in Paradise I assume?” Roman asked the girl smiling.

“Oh you have no idea,” she said dreamily, and it was then that I realized my wish of dating one of the men in my phone might come true.

That’s the end of my rough first chapter. Let me know if you want to know where we go from here and I might post more. Tagging @nitelotus since she asked to see it

#down the voltage rabbit hole #voltage fanfic #voltage games #voltage romance sims #voltage inc #mlqc #ikemen #ikemen sengoku

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nutty1005 · 4 years

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Xiao Zhan: Heart of a Youth – Serenity, Ingenuous and Principled

Translator’s Note: I take a break from the acting analysis articles and bring you something more current... I hope all of us can draw strength from this!

Original Article:https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404480985398902834#_0 Original Author: 雪色烟波里

“He is but a child of 30 years old.”

Quite frequently, the phrase “He is just a child” had been used as an excuse by fans, and I am not sure since when this has changed to become a way of mockery. Even before fans uttered anything on this, “bystanders” would have started going crazy with “although he made a mistake, he is still a child! So we should not let this go!”. I agreed very much with this statement – no one should use the identity of a child to absolve his responsibilities as an adult, an adult should act as one. However, when they started using this phrase on Xiao Zhan, and added his age as a form of mockery, this started to stink…

I felt as though I was personally insulted, since I am a self-claimed young girl nearing the age of 30. Using someone’s age as an insult is very impolite, since no one escapes the fate of becoming a 30 year old.

Always realistic about his age, and his self-deprecating laugh when he speaks of his entry to entertainment business

To me, being of a certain age and yet having a heart of a youth is not conflicting. Some 18 year old could be methodical, sleek and boring, while others could be 80 and still retain their heart of a child, innocent and unblemished. As for Xiao Zhan, he had always positioned himself as an adult, and never used any excuses to shrink from his responsibilities, and therefore when his age was used as a weapon against him, and calling him a “30 year old child”, is definitely inappropriate. However, in the current darkness, I was able to see his heart of youth and his simplicity. And I would put this across with the following phrase.

A poem is always hard to translate, and therefore I give you the caption words instead. Serenity, ingenuous and principled.

SERENITY

“I always reminded myself, for many things, there is no need to openly display that on the screen, but you should just quietly do, and your efforts would always be seen. There is no need to fight for everything, and fighting for screen time would definitely be something not needed.” —- Xiao Zhan

The clip below was shot on 1 Feb 2016, when Xiao Zhan just debuted. Not vying or fighting might sound ridiculous in the world of adult, but this encompassed the entirety of Xiao Zhan’s acting career. No matter whether he was a side character, a supporting character or the lead character, he had always been quiet and low-key.

Moving automatically to the side for ”Joy of Life“ announcement press conference

In his group, he is willing to be on the sides and become part of the background, always all smiles but never speaking much, always wanting to do his personal best, but never looking for any rewards. In most of the concerts, he would be in the corner, running across the stage to get into position, but never skimping on his dance moves.

Xiao Zhan when his group was still active

Xiao Zhan during the Talent Show, as bright as the sun

I liked to watch Xiao Zhan’s stage performances very much. From a technical perspective, his dance skills were way off from that of a professional’s, but you could definitely feel his enthusiasm no matter how far off to the side he was. Instead of admirable skills, he utilized more of his ability to inject emotions into his performances, creating an atmosphere of joy and passion. He enjoyed every single of his performances with passion. No matter whether there were flowers or applause for him, he always gave his 100% to the stage. For one to understand his dancing style, gifs are not enough; I would recommend watching his fan focused videos to understand better.

Enjoying the stage with all of him

That infectious smile

As a group vocal, Xiao Zhan is quite decent – his high notes are clear, his tone clean and warm, and generally very unique. Personally, I enjoy many of his China themed songs, never tiring from songs such as Qu Jin Chen Qing [曲尽陈情] (Wei Wuxian OST from the Untamed) and the cover of A Laugh over the Blue Sea [沧海一声笑] (OST from the The Smiling, Proud Wanderer movie).

Recently, there were many who mocked at him for being an idol vocal but not knowing how to use an in-ear monitor, but they never thought about whether a vocal of a relatively unknown idol group would have the right to his own personal in-ear monitor. He had to borrow for his performances, and if he was not able to adjust in time, he would just have to bear with it, because he had no right to complain. After he attained some fame, he was able to finally get his own in-ear monitor, and he immediately started learning from his mentors, so what is there to mock? I only saw a person who was able to practice patience in adversity, work hard and progress in good times. By watching the entire series of “Our Song”, you would have a better understanding of his vocal skills.

Xiao Zhan during the rehearsal of Our Song

Xiao Zhan singing “My China Heart” on CCTV

After attaining some level of fame, Xiao Zhan did not let that get to his head, but instead clearly understood his current position, and that popularity could be temporary, only his works would be the basis of his career. Many of his colleagues would describe him as “hardworking and down-to-earth”. In terms of his career, he never slacked off any of his jobs, always prepared and went all out. In interpersonal relations, he was always polite and restrained, and treated everyone around him modesty and warmth. His attitude towards his acting was that he always had to do better than what he did previously. His sense of serenity was not limited to just himself or to his future, and this instead created endless possibilities for his future.

Always grateful

He never liked to claim credit, never cared about having commendations – when the host said that the Summer of 2019 belonged to Wei Wuxian, he replied that the Summer of 2019 belonged to The Untamed. When the fans were looking forward to his undubbed performances, he instead pointed out that the voice actors did plenty of value add. When the host asked him about that famous clip of him tearing up during script reading, he instead pointed out Xuan Lu and said that she was also tearing up but it was not captured on screen. You can understand how emotionally intelligent and humble he was just from a few interviews.

Humble, kind and sincere

Detailed and polite

He believed that hard work could change his fate, his faith almost like that of a fresh-faced youth – he did not care about everything else, except that if he did well enough he would be eventually rewarded. However, is the world really like this? He opened a path with his stubborn simplicity, and forced his way out, but now he has tripped and fallen. While everyone else is cheering and trying to add fuel to the flames, looking at this “entertainment business oddity” paying the price for not keeping to the “rules”, there may be just a handful of us reflecting on why it would be so difficult for a normal person to succeed. Does it mean that eking out a path on your own with just courage would only result in failure? This is something I refuse to believe. I will wait, and wait for him to stand again, to prove to the world that a person can create his own path with hard work, and we can follow every of his steps and not be defeated easily!

We will not be easily defeated

INGENUOUS

On why he did not change his Weibo account after joining the entertainment business:

“I did not change because there was no need to. There is nothing to hide from the others. In those times, in 2010, that was exactly how I felt, I’m very open, I feel that there’s really nothing. In fact, this proves that my personality is not what everyone thinks as “super nice”, I’m just a living person, I feel that no one is perfect, and I don’t want to be a perfect doll.” —- Xiao Zhan

Ingenuous

He did not change his Weibo account after 5 years in the entertainment business, he had always been a candid person. However, he overestimated the world’s tolerance and kindness, and all his personal inside jokes from his commoner days had been used to smear his and his friends’ reputation. Now, if you open Weibo, you would can see all the cyber-bullying against him, as though he had done a heinous crime, but the basis of all these were just some vulgarities he said 10 years ago. Is not the world ridiculous? Based on this, I could have been the most evil girl online, if whatever I said in Baidu Forums were ever exposed, since not only I used vulgarities, I also mocked posters who made a fool of themselves, but these history does not stop me from choosing to be a kind and upright person today. A person is ever-changing, and if we had to gauge a person’s current state on what he did 10 years ago, wouldn’t that be narrow minded? In fact, the Weibo environment 10 years ago is different from that of today, and it is ridiculous to impose current rules on something that was done 10 years ago. I respect all who are candid about themselves, and I would want to be such a person as well, and face the world with an open mind.

The cyber-bullying could be seen everywhere

This is overboard… and also something I rather not translate

Xiao Zhan did not deliberately create any persona, and his candid nature in handling himself is very obvious. He did not pretend to be someone he was not, did not shy away from showing his anxiety, and always used his true self to face everything:

During his Milan interview, he said excitedly that this was his first time to Europe.

During his time in X-Fire, on his first high speed rail trip, he was so excited that he recorded a vlog on it.

During one of their group activities, the organizers arranged for them to stay in an luxurious hotel, and he was so excited that he recorded another vlog on it, showing off the hotel as well as the huge bathtub.

When faced with a cat, he would smile in spite of himself. And he would play with random cats, be accidentally scratched by one and had to go for jabs.

His phone wallpaper had always been of “The God of Fortune”

His eyes would brighten up when he speaks or hears of money.

In fact, if you study him long enough, you would know that he is not perfect, but just a vivid, living person like each and everyone of us.

“This is my first time to Europe” “I just felt, wow, this is amazing!”

His excited face on his way to the high speed rail

His excitement introducing his hotel room, and whoever used this to spread rumors is just plain evil

An ingenuous gentleman, his heart pure and clear, he does not need to be secretive about himself, nor does it need to disguise himself. This is the Xiao Zhan I know, and I accept every of his imperfections, and I am willing to work with him to become a better person. I hope that when I am nearing 30 years old, I would still be exuberant when I encounter the first snows of that year.

And I hope that your heart will always remain clear, and your eyes forever starry

PRINCIPLED

“I feel that youth is that strength, just that strength, undaunted, undefeated by fate and fearless.” —- Xiao Zhan

In Everlasting Classics, Xiao Zhan sang “Bamboo in the Rock”. To be a person, one would strive to be a gentleman. To be a gentleman, one would strive to be like bamboo – unwavering against strong winds, and upright between the heaven and earth.

Relentlessly holding onto the mossy hill The roots buried within broken rocks Tough and strong despite endless erosion and assault Firmly against winds from all directions

Xiao Zhan said that his inner self is like bamboo, firm and tenacious. Many would scoff at this, and say that he did not do enough to control his fans. But is this really the issue of him not providing guidance for his fans? In fact, he has always been telling his fans, but this had been hijacked by the racket of public opinion.

“I can see that you say that studying is difficult, or work makes you unhappy, but growth is like climbing a mountain, the bigger it is, the harder it is, leave your grouses in your heart, when you look back at these problems again, you will realize that they were not difficult.” —- Xiao Zhan

“Actually, I want to tell everyone that no matter whether schooling or working, don’t forget to love life, to experience life and notice everything around you, love it!” —- Xiao Zhan

“There are both sides to everything, there are people who likes you and there will definitely be people who doesn’t like you, you don’t have to care too much about it. As long as we have good momentum, there will be more who will like us, and I will fight hard for those who likes us.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone hear those?

“Idol and fans are actually symbiotic, we support each other and move forward together. When we live our respective lives well and continue to become better selves.” —- Xiao Zhan

“Hence I would say that my fans, I feel that you must first live your lives well so that you have spare time to like and follow the idol you like.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone remember those?

“I am actually very careful, because now I represent not just Xiao Zhan, but my team as well, and if not for myself, there is no need to create unnecessary trouble. Frankly speaking, I haven’t met anything I can’t quite solve myself. But for many problems, others could only provide some opinions, give some directions, cheer you on, but they can’t really solve it for you. How to persist, how to endure, still all depends on myself, because only I know what really happened.” —- Xiao Zhan

“I feel that the ideal status is not changed by regrets. What is most important about life is making sure we live in the present and live well, and not regret the past. The present and future are the most important.” —- Xiao Zhan

Did anyone understand these?

He never stopped his guidance, but many were blind to them. Xiao Zhan’s firm attitude comes from being strict with himself, instead of becoming a nagging teacher disciplining his countless fans. A person could choose the person to like, but the person could not choose who would like him. Some people could not even be disciplined by their parents, how could this burden be instead placed on Xiao Zhan, who even has problems finding time to sleep? Is this not being difficult? If he had this ability, he might as well not be an actor, but become a professional educator.

He had always been providing guidance, but he definitely cannot control everyone

When large groups of anti fans overtook the “Secret Garden” in Sept 2019, spamming that post with the bad comments, his fans quickly counter spammed the post in fear that he might discover and read those bad comments. The unnatural spike in comments obviously alerted him, and he posted “I’m here, goodnight”. Those who took this out of context to claim that he was inciting more verbal war obviously did not see the entire comment.

The “shhhhh” emoticon is often left out when pointing this out.

In the storm of cyber-bullying, the only target is Xiao Zhan, because his Weibo account is the only one attached to a real name.

His personality is 100% firm and tenacious. His tenacity is in how he insisted to his doctor that he would continue to practice his dance steps despite inflammation in his knees; when his toenail fell off, he only asked if it would regrow. His tenacity is in how he would wear thick layers of period drama costume in the height of summer, and wear tattered rags in the deep freezing cold of winter. His tenacity is in shooting period dramas for straight 2 years, not knowing if they would actually be allowed to air. His tenacity is in how he would be fighting a lawsuit against his management, saying “Don’t look back, ever!”, while at the same time managing his endorsement deals by himself and plotting his own future. His tenacity is in how he would not give up despite not earning enough to support himself, and having to go to events by himself without any assistants.

He had survived one of the toughest period, so why should he admit defeat this time round? He would not, and his fans also have no reason to abandon him as well. He is faultless in this, and perhaps causing envy is his only fault here. Time will prove his innocence, falsehoods will not withstand the test of time.

Biting his air tickets, so that he has spare hands to carry his own luggage. We will not give up no matter how tough it gets.

We will accompany you through thick and thin

We will become better people together

And I will end this article with another poem from Zheng Ban Qiao (the poet for Bamboo in the Rock):

A bamboo, an orchid and a rock, with integrity, discipline and fortitude

In a room these oozes gentlemanliness, evergreen against the test of time

A bamboo, an orchid and a rock, with integrity, discipline and fortitude

Firmly against gales and snowstorm, they will bring the news of the spring breeze

#xiao zhan #sean xiao #xiaozhan #肖战

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