#his writing is such a product of a bad telephone game

[haveyouthoughtaboutcomicstoday]

The thing about having Ollie as your favourite character is that you feel like you need to defend him constantly. People are beefing with that man all the time including writers. Especially writers!

I expected this when I became a Guy Gardner fan. It doesn’t even bother me that much when people misconstrue him because yk, fair enough.

But Ollie?

Note: this isn’t about anything in particular. Sometimes I think about him for 5 seconds and get mad again

[women-of-malevolent]

META - What "canon" is in Malevolent, for the purposes of this blog

TL;DR:

In order of most 'I accept this as meaningful to the story of Malevolent' to most 'do not bring me this crap'

Canon:

The podcast itself

The official podcast transcripts from the website (I edit out the emotion tags because I often find them redundant or disagree with their assessment /no offense; I super appreciate transcriptionist work! Thank you so much for providing the accessibility resource to fans who need and want it /genuine <3 )

I guess I'll hear you out if you think it's really important:

Call of Cthulhu lore

Original Lovecraft lore

Supplemental Q&A's on main podcast feed

Supplemental Q&A's on other social media

Just don't:

Patreon-locked content

Pay-locked content

Invictus stream / Patreon chats / Discord / speculation about author/writing choices

Malevolent is a weird story. I've seen it marketing itself as an ARG, or an alternate reality game. From Wikipedia -

"An alternate reality game (ARG) is an interactive networked narrative that uses the real world as a platform and employs transmedia storytelling to deliver a story that may be altered by players' ideas or actions. The form is defined by intense player involvement with a story that takes place in real time and evolves according to players' responses. It is shaped by characters that are actively controlled by the game's designers, as opposed to being controlled by an AI as in a computer or console video game. Players interact directly with characters in the game, solve plot-based challenges and puzzles, and collaborate as a community to analyze the story and coordinate real-life and online activities. ARGs generally utilize multimedia, such as telephones and mail, but rely on the Internet as the central binding medium."

So, what are the multiple media that make up Malevolent?

First of all, I want to explain for anyone who might not know all these details: Malevolent is a weekly podcast. Every week, ~15-20 minutes of story is delivered as a Chapter to the Malevolent Patreon Patrons. Each week, those Patrons vote on one big choice that the characters will make in the following week's episode. These Patrons are called The Voices. Every 4 weeks, those 4 story Chapters are collected into one episode called a Part and shared with the public. The Patreon also shares exclusive author interviews, commentary, silly songs/other miscellaneous bonus content, plus access to the Malevolent Patreon Discord channel, in which the author and his wife are moderators and off-and-on participants in fan discussions about the show (including commentary about character backstories, motivations, what ships are/are not canon, etc). Higher-paying tiers get access to more channels.

Most of Malevolent's listeners have access to the Parts as hour-long episodes, plus whatever supplemental material is shared on the podcast feed. A small contingent of highly financially supportive fans have access to everything.

With that legwork out of the way...

Below is a list what I understand to be all the possible layers of "canon" in Malevolent, followed by an explanation of how deeply this blog will consider it as a source. This list is in order from most canon (1) to least/not at all canon (9). More sources are added as they come up.

These numbers also (probably, maybe) roughly align with listener drop-off rates. Imagine funnel-like drop-offs in number of people who care enough to engage this ancillary of material. Also keep in mind the listeners who are tuning in for the first time, 20 years from now. How much will they get from this source?

The podcast itself - this will be the blog's prime canon source. This is the primary story source from which the vast, vast majority of all readers and listeners - now and decades in the future - have access to.

The podcast transcripts - this is its own category because the transcripts often editorialize (not a bad thing - just necessary product of translating one art medium into another). I've come away from episodes with a strong impression of one line delivery (ex: delighted), then find that in the transcript, it's described totally different (ex: disgusted). I will use the transcripts as my primary source for this blog. I usually delete the tone indicators. I also add MR. to Mr. Scratch's dialogue tags after he asks Arthur to call him that.

Call of Cthulu roleplay game - I'm not familiar with this and I don't think most listeners of the show will be, either. The relevance of this source will be considered on a touch-and-go basis.

H.P. Lovecraft extended universe - I have not read much Lovecraft and I don't want to start. The relevance of this source will be considered on a touch-and-go basis.

Supplemental interviews, episode commentary, Q&As available on main podcast feed - The author very regularly provides thoughts on the story and writing of Malevolent. I will consider this source as little as possible. If you have some information from here you think is important for me to hear, I will consider it; but please understand that 1) the VAST majority of listeners will not hear this, even if it's not cost-gated; and 2) not everyone who hears it believes/respects authorial self-reporting. No offense but no way

Twitter/X, Reddit, YouTube, or other social media commentary - similar to 5, with less weight because even fewer listeners will ever find this or seek it out. Also, social media is highly susceptible to internet decay.

Invictus CoC games - not considered. I might look into these later (WAY less thoroughly than the main WoM blog), but also I might not. These are Call of Cthulu games that were DM-ed by the author of Malevolent. There are some overlapping characters like Anna Stanczyk and Frank Uphill. Even if you're into these pls you have to admit that most of the Malevolent listening audience will not watch them.

Supplemental, Patreon-exclusive content - NO. If it can't be accessed without paying or signing up for a website, naw.

Semi-private discussions from heavily gated discord groups - NO. Let's not

Speculation about the author - NO. This includes speculation on whether or not ____ is intentional, or why writing choices were/weren't made.

[ladyknightskye]

It's truly amazing how many times people come back later and talk about how some executive decision fucked up an entire project because they had to change a pretty important bit of the story or were mandated to include something they didn't want to. Malicious compliance, straight up giving-up, people being uncomfortable with the material . . . there's a million ways an outsider's opinions can mess something up. Yes, writers can have specific blind-spots and prejudices that come out in the finished product, but often those things are not necessarily a detriment to the story overall. Like, I bitch about SPN's treatment of women, but when it comes down to the core story, it's still a pretty compelling one (at least for the first five seasons).

(My next example is long winded, so it's under a cut.)

Like, on the other hand, take the Rise of Skywalker. That is an objectively bad movie even without my personal quibbles. You can tell that even though Abrams was brought back on board to fix the "problems" of The Last Jedi, it has the fingerprints of corporate bullshittery. Abrams is kind of a meh director/writer, but I'd expect something more coherent from him than what he delivered in ROS. If I remember correctly, it was because he was forced to go back and redo the entire movie, but was brought on without being given any extra time to put his production together, including script re-writes which take time. He had to deal with a script that went through a truly stupid amount of writers, the fallout of the vocal minority of upset fans post TLJ, and Disney refusing to allow him an extra six months to try to make something of this movie. I remember the reports of the ADR people having to go record dubbing lines from Adam Driver in his closet weeks before the premiere. Disney had been hyping the movie for almost a year, and refused to move it from its original premiere date.

Do I think if he had extra time that I would like the movie? No, because I think they'd decided to can whatever trajectory they originally had and what I truly disliked would have stayed (reversing Rey Nobody, killing of Ben Solo, walking back FinnRose, etc) but I think Abrams could have at least made a *watchable* film if he'd had more time to make it all make sense. I could have dealt with the story ending in a way I didn't like, but the final insult of it all was the movie being a narrative hot mess riddled with gaping plot holes, horrendous continuity and lore errors, stilted acting, and oddly slapped together scenes. It's enraging because there were some really cool ideas (Palps being the final boss is kinda poetic since he set all of this off in the first place, the whole two places-one experience Force Bond thing, the idea of Hux turning on the First Order to spite Kylo Ren, etc.) but they got shaken up with a lot of meaningless fetch quests, random cameos and B plots, and obvious middle fingers to the proceeding movie. Hell, the Colin Trevorrow script was apparently a turd too ("He lost the Star War") but the dude had time to work on it, and Abrams and Co did not. Do I think Abrams had no part in the shit show? No, I think he made some decisions that are not great, and his script writing buddy whose name escapes me right now had several stinkers to his name already - muh dude helped write Superman v Batman y'all, he is officially king of 'interesting ideas pulled off in obscenely bad ways' - but again, I think the movie could have been made into something less like a game of fan fic Telephone and more like a Hollywood production.

Look at this point if something in a TV show feels off, my first, immediate response is, "who in the corporate office fucked them over?"

Wonky writing? Something feels rushed? Animation errors? First question should be, "Who was fucking over the production team? What were the censorship notes? Was this what the team actually wanted to do, or were they strong-armed?"

I think a lot of y'all are way too fast to blame the writers and animators for issues that wouldn't exist if the studio executives and the censors weren't fucking it up for everyone.

Pay the writers. Pay the actors. Pay the animators. And for god's sake, stop blaming them for industry-wide issues that the unions are actively trying to fight against.

[denimbex1986]

'If, like me, your main acquaintance with Tom Ripley is owed to the 1999 film The Talented Mr Ripley, starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow, then brace yourself for the fact that Ripley, the new Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s thriller, is … nothing like that.

My memory of the film is that it shimmered with lush Italian Riviera colours, turquoise seas and citrony-gold beaches. Steven Zaillian’s adaptation, starring Andrew Scott in the title role, is unrelenting monochrome. I kept expecting it to flick into colour, Wizard of Oz-style, when we switched to southern Italy so as to contrast with Ripley’s sparse, impoverished, low-level conman existence in 1960s New York. But no. Zaillian sticks to low-wattage black-and-white for the full eight episodes, using beautiful, poetic camera angles.

Often his style evokes Alfred Hitchcock. It took me a while to adjust my expectations. The pace is painstakingly, narcotically slow — minutes will be spent lingering simply on Ripley walking between rooms or checking into a hotel (there’s a lot of checking into hotels) or someone ambling to answer a telephone. Early on I was hungering for the warm colour I knew was on the other side of the lens, like a scurvy patient craves vitamin C.

But be in no doubt, this adaptation is stunning. It is a work of art. Scott, as you would expect, is outstanding — mesmeric as the polite, clever but ruthless psychopath. Repeated reference is made to Caravaggio’s use of light. Well, Zaillian’s use of it isn’t half bad either. Every shot is like one of those arty black-and-white postcards you can buy in galleries. There is a stark perfectionism to this production that convinces me it took a long time to film. Spoilers ahead.

Johnny Flynn is well cast as the handsome rich boy Dickie Greenleaf, who is living off daddy’s trust money in Italy doing his terrible paintings and happily hooked up with Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning), a “travel writer” with no gift for writing. This is before Ripley, sent by the rich daddy to track down his son, arrives and, like a nomadic succubus, dismantles their lives. Modern viewers may make comparisons with Saltburn, the upstart interloper running rings round the wealthy.

Zaillian, whose presence is felt in every shot, almost like a character himself, refuses to be hurried at any stage. He doesn’t omit any second of the laborious job of disposing of a body. There are no shortcuts. About half of episode three is devoted to this complicated, exhausting task at sea. It is a quite extraordinary episode, the violence slow and thus even more horrific. After another murder the mundane clean-up is almost comically grotesque, with much use made of sound, specifically the peerless, sickening “chock” of a dead human head hitting a hard surface.

I wondered why quite so much is made of ascending stairs, Ripley in his unstylish, cheap clothes panting and heaving as he hauls himself upwards towards Dickie’s apartment. Is it a metaphor for his social climbing? Or am I getting carried away? The scene in which Dickie finds Ripley trying on his clothes and mimicking his voice is so awkward it makes the toes curl. Eliot Sumner is Freddie Miles (the part played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film), while John Malkovich pops up in a small role in the final episode, a nice touch since he played Ripley in the 2002 film Ripley’s Game.

It is a bold move by Zaillian to tell the story this way. It is so cinematic that it feels less like a TV series and more like a very long film. But once you have accepted you are not going to get yellow, sun-dappled Italian squares it is a completely hypnotic experience. ★★★★☆'

[afishlearningpoetry]

why are people willing to believe moffat is the worst person on earth? is he really that bad or is this just a huge telephone game and after each round the rumour worsens and no one cares about the truth anymore?

It’s difficult to describe unless you were deep into fandom on this website in 2012 and the way people turned on him so quickly. I mean first, he’s a man who’s said and written dumb things, he ran two of the some of most popular British shows on the planet at the same time and still gets to make whatever he wants (see dracula) so he’s doing fine.

But it was kind of a domino effect that started with doctor who. Series 5 was a big success, and the next one went overseas with a huge two part premiere set in america, capitalizing on the overseas effect that had been growing with David tennant’s era, so it naturally garnered a lot of new viewers. The issue comes with the River Song twist halfway through the season and the episode after the summer break, Let’s Kill Hitler, which admittedly is one of his weakest scripts, hampered by a rough production schedule. The previous show runner Davies also suffered a lot from the gruel of doctor who and it affected his scripts a lot too. So from what I remember the hitler episode in 2011 kind of hit on a couple nerves people had been dreading, 1. Making light of a serious historical event 2. The other twist of casting a black actress for a character retconned into Amy and Rory’s life only for her to turn into River less then ten minutes later, using race to obscure audience expectations 3. The script being messy - from the regeneration stuff, the robot replica solution which people felt was a cop out in the finale, and the “let’s find River Song” subplot being wrapped up in one episode which rushes everything, adding to the wound of 4. Amy being passive in a mystery pregnancy storyline, which resulted in 5. The biggest criticism of River being that her entire existence revolves around the doctor, and finally 6. Everything revolving around the doctor for no reason. I don’t entirely agree with these, especially the first and last one, but the second half of series 6 and first half of 7 is inconsistent. So after those two episodes people were writing a lot of posts explaining their issues with his take on the show, which would continue through series 7 (Asylum of the Daleks in particular and the finale also join his weakest scripts - 2012/2013 for doctor who was rough and seemed to be motivated again, by scheduling and production issues, he’s talked about it a lot, don’t forget the 50th anniversary was also happening at the time, which was good). The criticisms have merit, but they were overblown by other factors too.

On Sherlock the River Song issue kind of exploded again after ASIB with Irene aired in early 2012. The appearance of the story being Irene falling for a man after describing herself as gay upset people. We’ve been over this a lot. The atmosphere was very different on tumblr at the time… like it was hardcore 24/7 dedication. Everything that happened on our television screens was life or death. Ships getting together or characters getting fridged had mortal consequences. I think it’s easy to forget now but this place was often of miserable after series 2 lol. There was a lot of positive activity and creativity, but also lots of people complaining about everything. It was kind of a formative year for transformative work in fandom. Nearly every tv show I was watching at the time had a fandom that hated it and it’s writers in return, deeply and constantly. Supernatural, glee, teen wolf, so many things. So we’d write tag essays in our reblogs describing in explicit detail how we felt about story, characters, theme, characters arcs, and how we knew better (and tbh we were usually right), read and reblog people writing meta and callout posts like it was a job, and constantly trying to either break the fourth wall with our demands or catch the writers of the month in the act so we could add another bulletpoint to the list proving we were right. No one was ever calm. It was a battle of attrition. It wasn’t really about changing anything, though we hoped we could. Twitter’s a perfect place for that.

He also had the expectations of the old doctor who fans to keep up with on top of new viewers, even though the Davies era has most of the same problems. Running two super popular shows with mega fandoms magnified the exposure so much it was basically an ant against a magnifying glass in terms of numbers. So eventually he left twitter and kept show running, but a lot of people didn’t see series 8-10 of DW to see how the show changed, nevermind what’s going on with Sherlock lol. The scriptwriting process for the two is also so different there’s no comparing them but the callouts surrounding Sherlock are a different story. It started with doctor who coming to america, which no one should ever do.

[chaneajoyyy]

Who’s writing new BP fics? It’s feeling kinda dry out here

Oh you gotta keep looking cause they out here!!!

NEW/NEW-ISH BP FICS

- winter wonderland series (25 days of christmas challenge), Chunk series (updated)- @ghostfacekill-monger

- you better watch out series (25 days of christmas challenge), baby daddy series- @teakturn

- couple’s getaway series, message therapist erik, erik and you have relationship issues that need to be resolved, incubus erik x reader series, gamer erik humiliates his girl, christmas wishes & mistletoe kisses series, all vampire eriks stories, drug dealer erik gets ino an entaglement with a married woman series, erik teaching his daughter how to love her dark skin, assassin erik and his girl london make up for lost time-   @nahimjustfeelingit-writes

- all i want series- @thadelightfulone

- the jabari that stole christmas, misfit wakandans, er*k in a box, t’challa’s 12 days of christmas, the jabari-cracker, christmas even will find erik, the coffee prince series (updated), song of stevens (not new but do read), will the bell ring? (updated)-  @eerythingisshaka

- chrismasing with you-  @ceeverse

- mama is wild, how he acts when he’s sick: m’baku “mama’s other baby’ jabari, peaches, how he acts whe he’s sick: erik “i can do it myself” stevens, how he acts when he’s sick: t’challa i’m fine” udaku, final decision, body pillow, the most dangerous game-  @akimi-youngblood

- his majesty, my king series; he chosen bride, a jabari wedding (not so new but do read), he wasn’t mad enough for me, clean-up woman, i wish you would, mistletoe series, dadmonger series- @snowbaku

- what if...?, without question, polaroids, the temple series, queen shuri, wh you are series-  @tchallasbabymama

- biggest puddle ever, crab legs, play fighting, the fight, let me tell you a story, stop, got it bad, what would you do series, sugar babe series, poetic justice, messing w/ erik while he’s playing the game, erik had a reputation of being a fuckboy. tha meant you had to be careful around him. guard your heart. it was a solid plan until he came in and ruined all your plans- @dreamingofmilk

- our christmas, how to feel, warm colors series (not so new but do read), thanksgiving w/ mr. stevens, valentine’s gumbo (sequel to thankgiving with mr. stevens)-  @mermaidchansons

- she likes me, huh? nuh uh, cute enough to eat, screams in the night series (updated), open up, autumn leave & cookie thieves, one way or another, mr. telephone series, you ain’t hear that?- @supersizemeplz (check masterlist)

- anniversary blues, the chosen one series (updated), the sweetest thing series, in the light series-  @devnicolee

- the arrival series, boxer!baku series (updated), fireflies and foot races, sessions-  @muse-of-mbaku

- 85 “you can’t cum unless i say so” & 89 “you’re drooling. you really don’t deserve it though, do you?”, seventy-three, “29, 75 & 82″, “5, 13, & 69″- @marvelmaree

- subconscious- @freddiefcknmercury

- shameful series- @iwrite4poc

- only forever series, what lies beneath series,bunme takes new york (part of space between series)- @dramaqueeenamby

- letters for my love series, just for this moment series, she’s mine series, abiona au series- @sarcastic-sunshines

- redemption series (updated), starlight series, dress up- @airis-paris14

- new start series (with “reader meets erik who is a single father”), round 2 series, reader sleeping over a erik’s, “erik and reader are opposites- like she’s so nice, calm and soft, and erik is mean... as always and his family is so confused on how they’re dating”, imagine where erik and the reader has heir firs date and when he get home he’s super excited and tell his friends how happy and in love he is?, erik with goofy reader on a mission, reader catching erik using her expensice skincare products afer she told him it’s off limit, hug time, erik ghosting after a fight with his gf & she hears he’s out acting single so she decide she’s single too. but he shows up & all like “who said we broke up?”,  reader is not answering her phone and erik is worried/irrirated because the day before he was mean to her and she left his house crying?, an imagine where erik finding out the reader is powerful (like a mutant), erik & mbaku fighting over the reader, found you series, erik helping his need tomboy bff get a makeover & he starts to get jealous of how much attention she starts to get from other guys,  vulnerable soft erik where he and the reader get into an argument and later that night he’s trying to sleep but can’t because she’s refusing to come to bed with him and he has to be vulnerable with her and tells her “you know i can’t sleep without you”?, “short imagine or headcanon ha erik finds out his girlfriend has more body’s then him or his a mafia leader, something between those lines. but instead of being upset for her not telling him he’s actually cool with it”, erik comforting the reader after finding out she lost a loved one and he had a good day, reader learns she’s pregnant and comes up with a creative way to tell erik , erik and the reader are set up on a blind date by mutual friends, “reader is studying for her upcoming test and she is frustrated with the amount of studying she has to do.  erik notices she has been studying for a long time, and tries to do everything to relax her mind”, erik takes reader to wakanda for the first time, erik sees his girl still sleep with a stuffed animal and by kinda makes fun of her but when she puts it up he sees she struggles withouth it?, “imagine with erik inspired by the somg caretaker by dram and sza, like maybe the reader is feeling a bit ill/nauseous and erik to take care of her”, diaper change, sofboi erik where he asks the reader to marry him, hc of erik being jealous of his girl is too close to t’challa? always texting/wanting to hang out when they visit, back to you series, readering driving erik nuts with cravings & mood swings. ex: interrupting his sleep for food runs only to say she doesn’t want that anymore when he returns & demand something else, “ whatever you’re trying to butter me up for, the answer is no”?, how did he meet his love?, life together, your first time, hurting, fears, sick day, jealous series, when you’re sick, night fights, two lines, opening up, newborn, comfort, some love, insecure, first steps, it’s time series, cool down time, first day back- @killmongerdrabbles

- back & forth-  @supremethunda

- baby mama series, again, move, guess, night, nsfw alphabet, bow- @woahitslucyylu

- reactions o their girl’s wap (with erik), erik and reader being petty in the house after an argument-  @tastingmellow

- next lifetime series, days off with erik, girls trip series (updated),the way you make me feel- @theficplug

-  only then am i human series,a little vacation- @opalsandlace

-faded series, waves series, concrete cowboys series, black boys bloom thors first series (volume 3)- @uzumaki-rebellion

- black tie event-  @laketaj24

- genuine, numb- @taterfics

- city boy and his country girl series, wake up, meet the furys- @blackmissfrizzle

- come thru, this lil’ game we play-  @writetimes

- in between the lines series- @melodyofmbaku

- him, her and us series; conversations and coffee trips series, dancing around each oher series, mrs., you again series, where are we now?, cold coffee, here we are again series, summer love (could be any of the marvel men including t’challa); love, apps, and attitudes series; give me a reason (search for t’challa x reader)-  @iliketowrite1996

- homewrecker series (updated), family reunion- @shaekingshitup

- unexpected things happen in the clucky’s drive-thru, where you going: a quarantine quickie, halloween, delicate series, the best man-  @majesticbrownjawn

- i like tha series (updated), shea butter (baby) series  @nachtaiwrites

- the spririt of christmas, dentist series (updated), waiting to get home, best friends series, line love series, hell loves satin: tales of a mascochist, tattoo party- @hearteyes-for-killmonger

- uncharted series (updated), metamorphasis series, the remodel series, the boy is mine series (collab with @dashhoney25), sweet heat, quarantine bae, throttle, sugar, toxic, fair is fair, work boo (updated)-  @soufcakmistress

- caught up series- @twistedcharismaaa

- homebody series- @truglori

- roadtrip series- @cecereads209

- lights out, a better man- @reelwriter19

- you mean it? series, haunted series- @heykillmongerluhme

- end in flames series, my health- @bvlckgirlmvgix (not so new but do check out!)

***PLEASE HIT ME UP TO ADD YOUR STORIES!!!***

[365days365movies]

February 18, 2021: The Danish Girl (Review)

Before I go into ANYTHING else...let’s talk about the actual Danish Girl, Lili Elbe, or Lili Ilse Elvenes.

Oh, uh, full warning, this is gonna be LONG, so skip to the bottom if you’re just here for the Review! OK, history time!

Now, what the film The Danish Girl notes about the beginning of the transition is pretty spot-on, from what I can tell. After marrying portrait painter Gerda Gottlieb in 1904, the two lived in Italy and France before moving to Paris in 1912. Yeah, that’s over 14 years before they’re shown doing so in the movie. Inaccuracy #1. In 1908 (here comes number 2), Elbe (Einar at the time) painted this portrait of trees along a fjord in Denmark.

Yeah, NOT in 1926, as the film says. But, yeah, that’s a nitpick, I recognize that. Anyway, the revelation came when model Anna Larssen (not “Ulla”, which is Inaccuracy #3) was late, and Gerda asked Elbe to fill in. When Larssen eventually showed up, she suggested the name “Lili”. Basically, this scene from the movie was pretty goddamn accurate.

Except for the dates, anyway. Because while the movie mostly takes place around 1926 and afterwards, this probably happened closer to 1920, in Paris. So, yeah, Lili spent a LOT more time as Lili in real life. Additionally, Lili was pretty goddamn public about the whole thing, inviting guests and hosting parties as herself, rather than as Einar. At the same time, Gerda was getting pretty goddamn famous for her paintings of Lili, like this one.

Which, yeah, are really good! Also, they were considered lesbian erotica by many! YEAH! And here’s a fun fact: Gerda may not have been straight-up straight. Yeah, the film and the book (we’ll get there) kind of ignored the fact that their marriage was annulled by the Danish government, not by the two of them. Inaccuracy #4. Now, obviously, their relationship ended, and Lili ended up getting together with a man (we’ll get there, too), but there are a LOT of unanswered questions about Gerda’s sexuality, and views of sexuality (which is barely hinted at in the “male gaze” speech in the beginning).

After the annulment, the two just...drifted apart. Their relationship dissolved, and the details on that are fuzzy. By 1930, Lili was headed on a completely different path. She wasn’t a painter like Einar (and it turns out that she thought of them as two entirely separate people, like two souls living in the same body, which the movie got mostly right), and she was mostly unsatisfied with her career, life, and other things. And that is where Drs. Erwin Gohrbandt and Magnus Hirschfeld come in, NOT Kurt Warnerkros...yet. He’d come in for the other five (YES FIVE) surgeries, but wouldn’t be involved with the first. Inaccuracy #5, and also #6, while we’re at it! See, the film would make you think that Lili was the first complete gender reassignment surgery, but she was actually the second. The first would be Dora Richter, in a procedure that was performed by Dr. Hirschfeld from 1922 - 1931. YEAH. BIG-ASS INACCURACY THERE. Here’s Dora, by the way:

Anyway, Lili had her first procedure, to remove the testicles, performed in 1930. In the same year, the divorce between Lili and Gerda was finalized, and Lili legally changed her name. Two more procedures were performed, the first to implant an ovary, and the second to remove the penis and scrotum. Inaccuracy #7, by the way. And, hey, let’s go for number 8! Let’s talk about Henrik, a dude who didn’t exist. He and Hans were both very loosely based on an art dealer named Claude Lejeune.

Claude was an art dealer (there’s the Hans part), and was indeed in love with Lili. They got together around early 1931, and he’d actually been in love with her for a good, long time. He proposed to marry Lili, and she accepted, also hoping that the two would be able to have children together. But to do that, it was believed that Lili would need a uterus. And, obviously, having children would be MILES more complicated than that in basically EVERY way, but this was early in medical science’s understanding of some of that biology.

In any case, however, Lili would need both a uterus and a vagina to feel whole. And so, the fourth surgery was scheduled. And she had that surgery in 1931, a couple of weeks after Dora Richter successfully had the same surgery performed. But, sadly, Lili wouldn’t be so lucky.

Lili’s body rejected the uterus, and while transplant rejections of any kind wouldn’t necessarily be fatal now, they definitely were back then. They attempted to remove it, but that subsequent 5th surgery caused infection, which caused a fatal heart attack three months later. Lili Elbe died on September 13, 1931, at the age of FORTY-EIGHT. Yeah, Inaccuracy #9.

By the way, you may be wondering: what about Dora Richter, the first successful person to get these surgeries? Well, she disappeared...in Germany...as the Nazis were coming into power...yeah. Fuckin’ YIKES.

And so, that’s the true story of Lili Elbe. And there are far more differences than that, I’m sure, but those 9 inaccuracies aren’t insignificant, that’s for sure. Although, it probably doesn’t help that the movie was based on a fictionalized book.

Oh, uh...did I not mention that? Yeah, this movie is based on The Danish Girl, by David Ebershoff, which means that this film is essentially a cinematic game of telephone. Which, uh...not great. Granted, Ebershoof made some other...interesting changes, which the film didn’t inherit. In the book, for example, Gerda is named Greta, and is American? Um...why? I dunno, it’s kind of weird. Oh, and that’s not including one more issue with the movie. But, you’ve waited long enough, huh? Recap of the film is here and here if you wanna check that out! Let’s get to the Review already!

Review

Cast and Acting: 8/10

I am...conflicted. So let me start here by saying that the acting in the film in and of itself is fantastic, all-around. Not a weak actor in here, that’s for sure. Let’s start with the side-roles, for once. Ben Whishaw, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Amber Heard are all good. Heard’s accent is a little shaky, but they’re still all solid performances. OK, how about Alicia Vikander? She’s great! And she won the Oscar for...Best Supporting Actress. Um...wait...Supporting? But not Best Actress? Uh...OK. That’s a little weird, let’s be honest here. But, Alicia Vikander did deserve that win over...oooooooh, Rooney Mara in Carol? Maybe not...damn.

And OK...let’s get into the elephant in the room, huh?

Eddie Redmayne is fantastic as Einar Wegener/Lili Eber, and I genuinely think he had a great shot to win Best Actor...but, yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio definitely deserved it, I think that goes without saying. Hell, that year had a SOLID line-up for best actor. And Redmayne had even won it the year before for The THeory of Everything, another biography where he played Stephen Hawking. But ALL of that said...HNNNNNNNNNG, there should have been a transgender actor cast in this role, ideally. Now, I’m fully aware how difficult that would be, as Hollywood isn’t extraordinarily diverse in terms of including trans actors in massive mainstream projects. It’s better now, but it’s nowhere near ideal. But if anybody knows an actor who would’ve fit this role and performed it well, I’m DEFINITELY interested. So, despite that controversy, Redmayne was pretty goddamn great in this role. But, uh...that doesn’t mean everything is perfect...

Plot and Writing: 5/10

OK, that seems low, I know. But it’s pretty goddamn damning that this movie was based off of a heavily fictionalized book instead of the actual life story of Lili Eber and Gerda Gottlieb. And because of that, there are not only some missed opportunities, but some straight-up damning inaccuracies. That’s a set of pretty poor decisions, I tell you what. Not sure why Lucinda Coxon came to that decision when adapting this screenplay, but it wasn’t exactly nominated for Best Screenplay. And the writing certainly isn’t bad, but it is...overly saccharine sometimes, especially for a film based (loosely) on a true story. I dunno...just not the best set of choices here, sorry to say.

Directing and Cinematography: 8/10

Tom Hooper shouldn’t direct musicals. However, since this wasn’t a musical, directing and cinematography here is pretty damn good! Real talk, this is a gorgeous looking movie, and the way shots are framed are fantastic. Perfect? Weeeeeeeell...given the fact that painting is a main focus of the film, for both Gerda and Einar, there should’ve been more painter-quality shots in here, I think. And while the cinematography by Danny Cohen is pretty fantastic, I can’t say that it’s perfect. Still, in terms of lighting and general skill, it’s still quite a good looking movie.

Production and Art Design: 10/10

But the deficiencies in the direction are EASILY compensated for by the production design! Like, hot DAMN, this is a good looking movie, like I said! That goes from the construction of the sets, to the gorgeous outfits all over the place, especially Lili’s outfits. Some iconic pieces of wardrobe there, that’s for sure! But if I have ONE complaint...this movie never once felt like the 1920s. Yup, good old anachronistic complaints from me again! Yeah, I’ll change the record one of these days, I promise. But even with that, it’s hard to ignore just how good this movie looks, to be honest. It’s just...gorgeous.

Music and Editing: 8/10

As I type this, I’m listening to a track of the film on YouTube, and it is a beautifully delicate tune. I’m not sure that I’d be able to associate it with the film if presented to me on its own, but it’s definitely a nice track to listen to by itself. Playlist worthy? For somebody, almost certainly, but not for me. One of these days, a film like that’s gonna pop up, I swear. But for now, Alexandre Desplat and his score are gonna stay off my iPhone. This really is a nice score, though, I promise. Editing by Melanie Ann Oliver is pretty good as well, and I’ve no complaints about it, to be honest. Overall, this side of things was quite nice, if not the most notable thing I’ve ever seen or heard.

I might have been a little harsh, but it’s still got an 78%.

This is a good movie, but...I dunno, the inaccuracies do bug me. Hell, there are WAY more than what I’d mentioned, and I mentioned a lot. Not to mention the other glaring issue: no trans people at any stage of the production? Really? No script consultants, no writers, no NTOHING? That’s...egregiously bad. Like, holy shit, guys. And, yes, this includes Redmayne, because even though he performed admirably in the role...I dunno. I’m no expert on ANY of this, as a cissexual dude with cissexual experience, but it feels a little...reductive, is all. Like I said, if any other actors have been suggested for this role, I’d love to know. The whole thing feels...I don’t know, just not great. 

And by the way, that’s without even TOUCHING the question as to whether or not this film is authentic to the trans experience. Again, I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA, but I’ve also heard that this film isn’t universally acclaimed in the trans community, so to speak. And I’m definitely interested in the reasons for that. All I know is this: from the perspective of a complete outsider, I was intrigued by this films view of the transgender experience, specifically as seen in the earliest days of those realizations happening and being publicly known and reported on. And that’s all I can really comment on, in truth.

WHOOF. That was a goddamn topic, huh? And now, I’m going to continue on the the month of romance with...wait, the 19th is my 5-year anniversary with my GF, pictured here:

Ravishing. Anyway, I think I’ll let her pick from my choices for this next one. Hold on a sec...OK, then. Sing it with me now! AND DO I DREEEEEAM AGAAAAIN, FOR NOW I FIIIIIIIIIIIIIND...

February 19, 2021: The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

[andmaybegayer]

The cultural positioning of typewriters, or: I promise I’m not corporatecore come back it’s fine.

I got a typewriter! If you want a documentary breakdown of that you should read this post, but this is going to be about what typewriters were used for back in the 20th century and how utterly batshit the entire ecosystem there was.

Typewriters were used by three main groups of people: journalists, authors, and secretaries. I don’t really care much about the first two, because while they used typewriters, their job was not typewriting. Typewriters were popular for journalists and authors because typewritten drafts and manuscripts were easier for editors and typesetters (and indeed, legibility is a big reason for the adoption of the typewriter in all parts of the world) but typing is not what journalists and authors do. Authors compose and edit, and journalists research and write, but only secretaries type.

(I read an interesting paper about this three-way split, you can read it here)

In the 1800′s, secretary was a job given to a strapping young man with a bright future in business so that he could learn the trade, but after some wars and other social pressures that reduced the supply of male secretaries, and a convenient confluence of women learning the skill of typewriting, the female secretary became a thing. Suffrage movements were pretty happy about this for a while: Women in the office! How progressive! Of course, the role of secretary very quickly stopped having a progression path to management, and it picked up all the usual misogynistic stereotypes that you probably know today.

If you’re over 45 you probably know what the job of secretary used to look like, but for those of you who aren’t, for most of the 1900′s secretary was a job that revolved around typing letters, missives and notes in a legible and consistent format. This is important, because the alternative sucks shit. If you were mid level manager Johnson Q. Goodfellow at the Racism Company, and you needed to tell the Racism Factory that they needed to produce 400 more units of Racism this week, you could try calling up the manager at the factory and telling him this. Unfortunately, there’s all manner of things that could go wrong here. He might misinterpret you saying “produce 400 more” as “produce 400 only”, in which case you might have a Racism shortage. Or he might mishear entirely and produce only four more, if your accent is particularly bad.

Instead, Johnson Q. Goodfellow could get a secretary to create a missive (in quadruplicate, using carbon paper) and get the 17 year old who hangs around your lobby to courier two copies out of town to the Racism Factory, and you can keep two copies for your own records. Very low chance for errors now, since either side can refer to their copies to find out what was intended. A secretary would also add dates and ensure all communication meets business standards.

(This is also why there’s no red telephone between Washington and Moscow. It used to be a teletype: a text transfer machine. Later, it was Fax, and nowadays it’s encrypted email and text chat. All text-based systems, written in the sender’s native language and translated on the other side to provide the lowest chance of a misunderstanding and high chance of being correctly recorded.)

How would that letter get written? If you were an audio or shorthand typist (a highly skilled profession requiring extensive training at a secretarial school) you would either be a personal secretary to a single executive or a high-ranking member of a secretarial pool. Either way, your manager would dictate a letter, and you would have to convert it into a typewritten document. Originally this would be done by a secretary capturing the speech in real time in shorthand, and later it would be captured on a microcasette and transcribed with the assistance of a dictation machine. On the other hand, a simple copy typist can only work in the secretarial pool, and you would get a hand-written draft from a manager, likely one too low-level to have his own secretary or even his own microcasette recorder. This would possibly be sent back for checking, either by the manager or by your superior, and then all copies would be sent wherever they were needed. The jobs are otherwise similar, apart from a lack of real progression for copy typists.

(A good pop-media example of shorthand typing is the “speed test” song from the musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, a rendition of which I will link here. It’s also a treasure trove of the kind of ridiculous stereotypes that existed around the secretarial profession, as a musical made in the 60′s about the 20′s. Millie is a fawning social-ladder-climber who gets her job explicitly to someday marry her boss, who is a self-absorbed dipshit. I was a stagehand on my high school’s production of this, so I know the whole thing from memory. Please send help.)

Why don’t the managers type their own letters? Well, partially because of the weird skill split on typing: typing was a woman’s skill back then, many men would not even know how to type, and those that did may be extremely slow hunt and peck typists who would make many errors and produce uneven, sub-par manuscripts. Secretary was kind of considered a fallback profession in some cases: schools taught it to girls the same way woodwork was taught to boys. You don’t necessarily want to become a carpenter/secretary, but if you can’t find a decent company job/suitable husband, the skill can support you until you track one down or die. Man, the 20′s-70′s were insane.

There’s some interesting status stuff to talk about here. If you’ve ever seen an old movie where a rich dude takes out a tape recorder and makes a note to himself, that’s the movie’s way of telling you that this guy is powerful enough to have a personal secretary. It implies that later he’s going to put that in an envelope and leave it on someone’s desk and the next day when he comes in, any reminders he made will be on his calendar and any notes will have been typed out in full.

Secretaries type as a profession. The speed expected of an acceptable secretary is a sustained 70 words per minute, which is about what I can do in an extended session. A good secretary could easily surpass 100, and there’s an old navy typist training video of the fastest typewriter typist in the world reaching 180 wpm on demand, and since correction on typewriters is tedious, your accuracy was expected to be near on 100%. On old manual typewriters the skill of keeping all letters even was an additional challenge, since you provided the mechanical force for the type bars. Electric typewriters, like the one I have solve this problem, but it’s still a complicated skill.

Before the invention of the typewriter, the only way to produce clear, reliably text was typesetting. Typesetting is of course, a noble profession, but not something you can easily do in the office on a whim, and wholly unsuitable for one-time messages. Standardized writing in the office reduces the chance of errors and improves your ability to find out who’s to blame when something goes wrong.

Nowadays secretary is not really a job that exists anymore? You mostly hire Executive Assistants and groups of lower managers share a single Executive Assistant rather than accessing a pool of secretaries. Typing is also no longer the name of the game, instead it focuses on maintaining schedules, synthesis of letters from prompts from your manager, and serving as a gatekeeper for mail and meetings. The name has changed because the job has changed, describing an executive assistant as a secretary would be like referring to the blades of a combine harvester as a scythe. That’s not to say secretaries don’t or can’t type, they are still often the most skilled typists in an office (I have seen multiple photos of macbooks with the coating worn clean off their keys by a legal secretary or medical scribe) but most executives are now capable of performing an adequate job of typing and editing on a computer.

If you wish to do some further reading, interesting resources I found while doing some research that I haven’t linked above for this include:

This quora answer from a woman who was a secretary in the 70′s

This series from an EE magazine about what it was like to work in a typing pool

[lawandorderimagines]

Dickie’s Girlfriend

TW: RAPE MENTION (TEACHER/STUDENT POWER DYMANIC), HOSPITAL

On a cold Monday morning in March when she was supposed to be in second period AP Biology, fifteen year old Isabella St. John rode up in the elevator to the 16th precinct of the New York Police Department, her backpack on her shoulders and her pink dance bag clutched tightly in her hand. Bella had never skipped school before, and she’d never been in a police station either. She didn’t know much about the sex crimes unit except that her boyfriend Richard’s father worked in the division which is why doing what she was about to do was going to be much more difficult. When the elevator dinged and opened, she stepped into the precinct where people sat at desks talking on telephones and writing down notes, people walking around carrying files, and as soon as a path cleared, she could see Mr. Stabler sitting at a desk. Bella was about to turn around when he spotted her.

Of course she was recognizable by her very curly hair. “Bella? What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?” With a shaking voice, she said, “I-I want to report a rape.”

Mercy General Hospital

An hour later, Bella was at Mercy General Hospital getting a rape kit done. She felt violated and humiliated as the nurse poked and prodded, took pictures; she was given a morning after pill and had a STD and HIV/AIDS test taken and her leotard had already been taken to a lab. Mr. Stabler had stepped outside, so it was just Bella, Detective Benson, and the nurse. “Isabella, sweetie, we’re going to have to call your parents? Do you know where they are?” They would probably pull her out of her classes at The School of American Ballet.

Her instructor would get fired, her classmates would probably blame her for it, and she could lose her role as Cinderella in the next production. Bella had been at SAB ever since her family had moved to New York from France when she was in second grade, and she had worked too hard for all of her hard work to go to waste. “My parents?! they’re going to pull me out of The School and possibly ballet! I’m going to be Cinderella in June!” Detective Benson had a sad look in her eyes. “Bella, they’re going to find out anyway when they get their insurance bill and rape kit shows up. So where are your parents?”

Bella ran a hand through her curly hair. “My dad’s a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai in Queens, and my mom’s an actress, but she’s in Paris filming a movie. Please tell me this won’t get out in the press,” she begged. The last thing Bella wanted or needed was for the French press to get wind of the situation and cause bad publicity for her family. Her mom has had a flawless career so far, never once having been involved in a scandal. She’s the face of Chanel for crying out loud!

“Could you hand me my phone? It’s in the front part of my backpack.” Detective Benson reached in Bella’s bag, pulled out a pink cell phone and handed it to her. “I’ll give you some privacy,” Det. Benson said softly, and left the room to join her partner. 

“So you know the victim personally?” Olivia asked Elliot. “Yeah, she’s Dickie’s girlfriend. Takes AP classes, trains at SAB. Bella’s a good kid.” Elliot remembers the first time he met Isabella St. John; he’d come home on a Saturday morning after wrapping up a case to find an unfamiliar brown skinned girl with very curly hair sitting at the table with a plate of pancakes in front of her, but her attention was on Maureen and a schoolbook. They were speaking French, but the little girl’s was much better than his daughter’s. Kathy explained that the girl, Isabella, was a new student at the twins’ school and that her family had moved to New York from Saint Germain-en-Laye, a suburb of Paris.; Isabella had slept over last night and was waiting for her dad to pick her up, and she’s been a staple at the Stabler house ever since.

“She told me that she didn’t want this leaking to the press. Are her parents famous or something?” Elliot shifted his weight as he told his partner. “Her mother is this big time French actress, and the face of Chanel.” They could hear the teenager speaking rapidly in French, and then the sound of a phone closing shut. Olivia went back into the room to question her some more. 

“My dad is on his way, and Mom is booking the first flight back to New York,” Isabella spoke and there were tears in her eyes. She couldn’t believe that this was happening to her, that this wasn’t some horrible dream. How could this happen to her? Why was this happening to her, and how many other girls in her class had fallen for his lies? “Bella, I need to ask you more questions about Eric. How long has he been teaching at the school?”

“Almost four years. Before New York, he was an instructor at the Royal Ballet School in London, and when he started, some of the older kids said he was into younger women, but they were supposed to be rumors. Then I saw his girlfriend. I thought she was his daughter, but she kissed him on the lips. She’s more than half his age. I’m probably not even his first. He always pays more attention to the girls than he does the boys.” She thought back to all the times her friends said they had private lessons with Eric, how his hands always lingered a little lower than where they were supposed to be. Bella felt sick. Maye she was just the first one to do anything about it. “In fact, I have a friend named Zoe. She had private lessons with him last week.”

Bella told Detective Benson that Zoe lived on the SAB campus and showed her a picture of what Zoe looked like. Bella’s father showed up a little later as he had to fight the lunch rush traffic to Mercy General. He was out of breath, demanding to speak to whoever was in charge, wanting to know where his daughter was, and Elliot had the heartbreaking task of telling Dr. St. John that Bella was raped by her ballet instructor. He was still pissed that he had to wait a few more hours, but he complied anyway, knowing that he had to keep calm for his daughter. Two hours later, Bella was through with her examination, and she was relieved to see her dad in the waiting room.

“Bella, je suis venue dè reçu ton appel. Est- ce que tu vas bien?” Dr. St. John asked in French. “Je suis vais bien papa. Maman es sur le premier vol de retour.” Dr. St. John faced the two detectives, now speaking English. “So what happens now? Are you going to arrest him?” “Well, first we have to conduct a thorough investigation and wait for the lab results, interview students. From what Bella told us, it sounds like a lot of girls could’ve been victims,” Detective Benson answered. 

“Bella was supposed to move into the dorms this summer. God only knows what could’ve happened if she lived there full time,” lamented Dr. St. John. While Bella’s father signed her out, she pulled Mr. Stabler to the side. “C-could you please tell Richard and Lizzie about this? I think they should hear this from me.” The twins had been texting her all day; she and Lizzie were supposed to get together this afternoon and start outlining their end-of-the-year project and she was supposed to help Richard study for an upcoming History test. “I promise. And Bella? You did a very brave thing, and you probably saved plenty of other girls from experiencing what you did,” the older man said to her.

“Will I have to go to court?” Bella had never stepped foot in a courtroom either. What if a jury didn’t believe her because she wasn’t convincing enough? What if she tripped up on the stand? “One step at a time, Bella, but I promise, we will get him. Eric will never hurt you, or anyone else again.” 

Bella thanked him, then rushed to the reception area to join her father. Elliot couldn’t believe this happened to Bella. Saturday night before last, she joined the family for game night and they even played a French board game called Jungle Speed. He was also worried about Richard; Shane died only four months ago and now his girlfriend was just raped? How much more would he be able to handle?

“Let’s go see some ballerinas.”

translations:  Bella, je suis venue dè reçu ton appel. Est- ce que tu vas bien? (Bella, I came as soon as you called. Are you okay?)

2.  Je suis vais bien papa. Maman es sur le premier vol de retour. (I’m fine Daddy. Mom is on the first flight home)

[kriscme]

One Life to Live

Hi, so now we come to the end.  The final two chapters.  Thanks to everyone who’s been following this story.  It can be read on AO3 too.  My name is Kris22 there.  As always, thanks to Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take” available on AO3 and Fanfiction.  And thanks to Loueze for her encouragement and support.  Chapter 37 By the time the television crew was due to arrive, Peeta and I were as convincingly in love as two people could possibly be.  Of course, it was helped a great deal by the fact that we actually were.  Even so, we were hardly looking forward to our private lives becoming public again and cameras following us around as we went about our daily routine.  We worried about how intrusive it might be. Cressida had promised it would be tasteful, but the Capitol idea of tasteful can be very different from the districts.  I was afraid that it might be like that show I once saw on television about a houseful of people under constant surveillance.  They couldn’t even shower in privacy.  Would it be like that for Peeta and me?  Would they follow us into the bedroom?  Expect us to perform?  Our one consolation was that we’d be left alone once filming had ended and we vowed to ourselves that we’d do nothing newsworthy for the rest of our lives.   The day came. The house had been cleaned and tidied.  Everything was where it was supposed to be to reflect a couple who lived together as romantic partners.  Buttercup was bathed and freshly groomed.  I had the scratches to prove it.  Peeta, always considerate, had baked an assortment of breads for the crew, although I told him he shouldn’t bother.  At 7 am everything was in readiness.  10 am came and went.   And then 11 am.   At 2 pm we were still waiting.   At 4 pm we wondered if we’d got our dates wrong.   It was 6 pm when Haymitch finally got around to telling us.  They weren’t coming.  At all.   The video Remus took had violated victor media protection.  I had been filmed without my consent, wasn’t engaged in illegal activity and hadn’t voided my own protection by taking on a public role or seeking publicity.  Plutarch knew this but gambled that in our ignorance, we could be coerced into co-operating.  And once filming had started, our media protection was automatically revoked, since we had clearly consented to it.   It took only one phone call from Haymitch to President Paylor to have it sorted.   I suppose it’s of some consolation that Plutarch was severely reprimanded and threatened with dismissal.  And that he was also out of pocket for the purchase of the video and pre-production costs. As for Haymitch, I couldn’t decide whether to thank him or kill him.  He had certainly saved us from our lives being turned into a media circus for a second time but he’d let us have the worry of it for a whole week.  Peeta calmed me down and reminded me that it had brought us together.  Haymitch’s defense was that he was sick to death of our crap and wanted an end to it. He thought that a week of living together would get us sort out our differences and he was proven right.   I argued that it would have happened anyway, although I had to concede probably not as quickly.  With that in mind, I decided to let him live.   The year rolls around.  Peeta doesn’t move back into his house. It was never discussed; it was simply taken for granted.  We keep busy.  Peeta still works at the bakery as a specialist cake decorator.  He’s a partner now.  The sign above the new premises reads “Carter and Mellark Bakery and Patisserie.”  I teach at the school and on weekends I hunt. Marcus wrote to ask if I was interested in culling pest species such as wild dog and feral pig.  I jumped at it.  It seems you can be a hunter and a conservationist.   Haymitch works at the council and raises geese, which he does a pretty good job of considering he’s inebriated most of the time. We attend two weddings and one toasting.   Arthur and Lace don’t wait long before they tie the knot, or to be more accurate, thread the needle. Predictably, it was the source of much hilarity for Max, who was also invited.  At least he refrained from making jokes until after the ceremony.  I enjoyed catching up with Sateen and her husband Roy. They have a little boy.  They called him Felt.   Poor kid.   The second wedding was Octavia and Thom’s. Octavia made a beautiful bride with her rich auburn hair and fresh complexion.  Venia’s fear that their past as prep team to the Games would jeopardize their position in 12 proved needless.  Everyone knew who they were.  They’d seen them on television.  Flavius’s bright orange hair and Venia’s facial tattoos made them easily recognizable. But people had moved on.  They were tired of holding onto resentments – especially for three harmless beauty therapists whose former “victim” still willingly availed herself of their services.   The toasting was ours.  One day, we just did it.  There was no planning, no prior understanding that we’d have one.  It was the middle of winter.  We were snowed in and confined to the house.  Peeta got a roaring fire going and we picnicked in front of it using odds and ends from the pantry.  We had some stale bread to use up and toasted it by the fire.  He’d hold the toasting fork with a piece of bread to the flames and offer it to me when it was done.  The significance of it entered our heads at the very same moment. It was just a look followed by a kiss. Nothing needed to be said.  One day we might make it official, but for us we’re more married than any piece of paper or big party could make us.   Johanna won the election for District 7 mayor. She’s kept very busy but we talk on the telephone regularly.  She’s coming to visit 12 for a few days next month.   Doubtless she’ll be as disruptive as ever.  But sometimes we can use a little stirring up.  That’s what Johanna says anyway.  She takes full credit for getting Peeta and me back together and I can’t say she’s entirely wrong.   And we had a visit from my mother!  I had her possessions shipped to her home in District 4 and it seemed to have jolted something inside her, because soon after she was making plans to travel here.   It was a short visit.  She was nervous about coming here, of the memories it could evoke.  But aside from the Village, there’s nothing left of the old Twelve.  The debris from the bombs has long since been cleared away, new buildings have replaced the old, and the grass grows long and thick over the meadow.   We had a long talk about her reasons for not joining me in Twelve after I’d been released from the Capitol.  She feared being pulled down into a depression along with me.   I understood.  When you’re in the grip of it, you can see no way out.  My mother, having recovered once, was deathly afraid that she wouldn’t recover a second time.  And since misery feeds on misery, she would likely have only made mine worse.   Peeta is somewhere in the house repairing the painting of the primrose he did for me.  I don’t visit Prim in her room anymore except for that one time I when I wanted to tell her about my toasting with Peeta.   She wasn’t there.  She hasn’t been for a long time.  It was then I realized that Prim doesn’t reside in any particular place.  She’s with me every time I think of her.  I took down the primrose painting from the top of the dresser.  It belongs somewhere where I will see it every day.   I had an idea for a book, similar to my family’s plant book.   It’s to preserve the happy memories of the people we’ve lost.   Lady licking Prim’s cheek, what Cinna could do with a length of silk.  In my best handwriting, I carefully record all the details it would be a crime to forget and accompany it with a photo if we have one, or a sketch or painting by Peeta. There are photos of Finnick strewn across the dining table as I try to make my mind up on which one to use - a publicity shot that shows off Finnick’s sea-green eyes or a photo taken of himself and Annie at their wedding.   “Katniss, I was looking for some kind of adhesive tape to fix the painting and I found this letter in one of the drawers in the study.  It was addressed to me, so I opened it.” I look up, wondering what Peeta’s talking about.  He holds the painting in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other.  He leans the painting up against a wall and then pulls out one of the dining room chairs to sit across from me.  He lays the letter down in front of him.  I immediately recognize the handwriting on it as my own.  It’s the first letter I wrote to him after the mayor’s party before I thought better of it and wrote a second.  But not before putting it in an envelope and stuffing it in a drawer.  I’d forgotten all about it.   I try to snatch the letter away but he swiftly puts it out of my reach.  “Dear Peeta,” he reads. “I’m writing to you because – ““You don’t have to read it.  I know what’s in it,” I say.  “Give it back.”  I make another grab for it but he’s too fast. “. . . because I’m sure to get it wrong, or miss something important if I do this face to face.” He stops reading and hands me the letter.  I take it from him, refold it, and slip it beneath the memory book, hoping against hope, that this will prevent any more mention of it. “Did you really want to break off all contact with me?” he asks, frowning.  “I didn’t think it ever got that bad.  When?  Why?” I sigh. Why didn’t I throw the damn letter out? “It was after the mayor’s party.  I was very upset when I wrote it.  And then I had second thoughts and wrote you another. That’s the one I slipped under your door.  I’d forgotten about this one.” He gives his head a shake. “I don’t understand. Nothing happened that night.  Not between us, anyway.  Did someone say something?  Was it Max?”  His lips thin in anger.  “That – “ “No,” I say quickly.  “It was nothing Max did.” I let out a breath, and plough forward. “It was something you did.  You and Lace.  It was when you sneaked off to have sex.” There’s a moment of stunned silence.  “What?” “You know what I mean.  I saw it all.  Well, not all, but I did see the two of disappear through those swinging double doors only the staff used.   And when you came back, Lace’s hair was all mussed. And if you didn’t have sex exactly, it was something close.  That was really tacky, Peeta.  Civilized people have more decorum than to do that.  Civilized people wait until they get home.  Civilized people – “ “Katniss, we didn’t sneak off for sex. Cass invited me to see the kitchens once the dessert course was over.  That’s where we went.”   Oh.  I guess that’s a reasonable explanation.  But that dream had been so vivid.  “Then why was Lace’s hair messed up?” “Was it?  I don’t know.  I don’t remember anything different about her.  We went to see the kitchen, Cass showed us around, and then we came out. Nothing else happened.”   “But it was sticking out,” I insist.  I know what I saw.   The scene plays again in my head.  I was at the bar with Haymitch and Max, sampling shots of whisky and getting drunker and more agitated by the minute.  Agonizing over what they could be doing.  Kissing, fondling each other, maybe even fucking. “And then you didn’t even look to see if I was still there when you came back,” I add in a small pitiful voice.  It sounds so pathetic, saying it aloud.  It’s a trivial reason for cutting someone out of your life. Just because they didn’t look for you when they came into a room.   But after everything, that’s what tipped it over for me.  What finally made me give up hope and decide to end it. He reaches across the table to take one of my hands.  “Katniss, look at me.” I turn my face away, and he gives my hand a tug.  I reluctantly meet his gaze.  His eyes look earnestly into mine.  “I can’t explain the hair, okay?  But I can tell you what I do remember about that night.” He pauses, as if waiting for my approval before he proceeds.  I shrug.   “Go ahead.” He closes his eyes for a few seconds.  “You, looking so beautiful in your Cinna dress.  And me, assailed by memories of other entrances and other gowns.  Being dragged around by Lace from one boring conversation to another, unable to resist looking around to see what you were doing.  And Max, who didn’t leave your side for a minute unless it was to get you another drink. I was jealous of him without knowing why but attributed it to a fear of losing your friendship.” He pauses and adds, “At the time, you didn’t seem very happy with me.”I feel a twinge of remorse.  He’s right.  I was often moody and distant with him.  The tape viewings weren’t going as I wanted and I’d recently learned of a pattern book he was making for Lace, similar to my family’s plant book.  “You seemed to be having such a good time together, at dinner and on the dance floor. So, when we came back into the ballroom, I just didn’t want to be reminded of it.  I kept my head down and headed for the nearest group of people.  And then I did my best not to think about you.  I’m sorry.   I hurt you and used Lace to hide from my feelings.  But that’s the truth, awful as it is.”   But not nearly as awful as what I’d convinced myself of.   I don’t know what to say.  I feel so foolish.  So much anger and pain for something that existed only in my imagination.   And I’d also assumed that Peeta’s willingness to help me with the Marcus thing was due, in some part, to either empathy or guilt for having being in a similar situation himself. “No, I’m the awful one for jumping to conclusions.  I thought the worst.  You’d never be so crass as to do something like that.  I owe you an apology.  I should never – “ “You don’t owe me anything,” he says, interrupting me before I can go further.   “In fact, the opposite is true.  You wouldn’t have thought it if I hadn’t given you reason to.” He reaches across for the memory book and flips through the pages we’ve done so far.  My father. Peeta’s father.  Boggs.  It stops on Rue.  Peeta has drawn her poised on her toes, arms slightly extended, like a bird about to take flight.  There’s a reason why I asked him to portray her like this.  It’s how I want to remember her.  You can’t change the past, but you can bring the best of it into the future.   “Let’s make a deal.  Only good memories for us from now on.  Like this book you’re working on.”   He walks over to where I’m sitting to pull me out of my chair.  “Now come show me where you want this painting hung.”  I take him into the living room.  It’s the room we use most and where I’ll see it every day.   As I decide where to place it exactly, Peeta comes to stand at my back to hug me from behind.  I lean back against his broad chest and luxuriate in the strong arms that encircle me.   My dandelion in the spring.  The lullaby that Prim liked as a baby comes to mind.   Here it’s safe, here it’s warmHere the daisies guard you from every harmHere your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them trueHere is the place where I love you. “I was thinking over the mantle?  Or maybe on the far wall . . .”    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 38 Lace’s story: what happened on the night of the mayor’s party.   It wasn’t fair!  This was supposed to have been her night.   She had been looking forward to it for weeks ever since Peeta casually mentioned it on one of their date nights.  The mayor’s inauguration party was to be the biggest social event in District 12 in living memory.  All the important and influential people in the district would be there.  For ambitious Lace, it was invaluable in terms of creating contacts and securing the kind of clientele that could afford to buy her evening wear, a design niche she wanted to develop.   Besides, she dearly loved a party and she hadn’t been to one in ages.  The last one had been the district party where she had met Peeta for the first time.   He didn’t remember it though.   That was fortunate since she had come to District 12 for a new life and a new identity and didn’t want her past in District 8 compromising it in any way.   Since she was to be her best advertisement, she put a great deal of thought and effort into her gown.  She hadn’t much money saved but she splurged the lot on pale yellow satin and then spent many hours making it up.   The final touch was a trip to the salon to have her hair colored and styled.  It was an extravagance, keeping up the hair color.  But she loved it and it formed something of a disguise as it was subtly different from the typical ash brown of the natives of her home district.   As she entered the ballroom, Lace felt she was at the beginning of an exciting new phase.  After a slow start, her business had gained momentum and she was making a steady income.   A few family members had also made the move to 12 which added to her sense of security.  But best of all, was the man on whose arm she clung.  How did she get so lucky?  Peeta Mellark!  Her teenage crush.  The romantic heartthrob whose posters had adorned her bedroom wall.  The boy she had married in her dreams every night.  What a fortuitus twist of fate it had been that day when he came into her shop to have a coat made.  A flirtation had led to a date at a restaurant and then another, until she could now, without exaggeration, call him her boyfriend! True, he wasn’t quite what she had expected.  He seemed a bit aimless, and he liked activities she had outgrown, like hanging out at the ice-cream parlor and the swimming pool, but he was Peeta Mellark!   And he really was so sweet and considerate with his little romantic gestures and compliments to her beauty.  He told her she was a wonder.  And the more she kissed and flattered and stroked, the more wonderful she became.  It was a mutual admiration society that she was more than happy to live in.  The one blot on her happiness was Katniss Everdeen.  Lace had mixed feelings about meeting her. Katniss was intimidating.  Her reputation as romantic heroine, fearless symbol of the Rebellion, skillful warrior and (privately thought by most of the populace) savior from another Snow, preceded her.  But most intimidating of all was her relationship with Peeta.  He talked about her all the time. Not in a romantic sense, it was true, but it was clear she occupied a great deal of his thoughts.  The Games had been mandatory viewing and Lace, like everyone in Panem, had watched Peeta gaze at Katniss with love in his eyes.  But Peeta had an explanation for that.  It had been an illusion.  He thought he had been in love with her, but it turned out that he was in love with his idea of her, rather than who she really is.  But now he thought of her as very good friend with whom he shared an unbreakable bond.  As for Katniss, well, she had never loved him.  It had all been an act on her part. That should have been reassuring.  And it was.  Sort of.  But Peeta had lost many of his memories and what was left was distorted, so how could he be certain? But what gave her most pause wasn’t Peeta.  It was Katniss.  It was clear at the first meeting that Katniss didn’t like her.  Katniss wasn’t rude, but she was cool, even giving her the once over when they were first introduced.  And when Lace and Peeta discussed a housewarming gift from the two of them for Lace’s brother, a shadow passed over Katniss’s face.  It was subtle but unmistakable.  Katniss wasn’t as disinterested in Peeta as Peeta made out. That’s why Lace gatecrashed the tape viewings.  If there was anything going on, she wanted to know about it.  She didn’t trust Katniss one inch.  Unfortunately, the second of the tapes triggered the memory of a traumatic incident for Lace and she reacted hysterically.  Peeta asked her not to attend anymore and she had no choice but to do as he said.   However, despite Peeta watching video tape of hugs and kisses and romantic slow dancing at Capitol parties, nothing changed between herself and Peeta.  If Peeta had ever loved Katniss, it appeared that he no longer did.   Even Leevy’s revelations in the salon that day didn’t worry her for long.  So what if the star-crossed lovers had been real?  It still aligned with Peeta’s version.  What had happened in the Games and during the tours was before Peeta had realized his true feelings for Katniss.  And she’d already guessed that Katniss was in love with him.   The party was everything Lace had dreamed of. So elegant. The women in evening gowns, the men in dinner suits.  Waiters with silver trays laden with flutes of sparkling champagne. The tables resplendent with starched white tablecloths and napkins and gleaming cutlery.  She turned to Peeta to kiss his cheek. “Thank you so much for bringing me,” she said. “You really are the best boyfriend.”  He brushed her lips with his and gave her a fond smile.  “Only because I have the best girlfriend,” he replied.   She beamed and squeezed his arm.  She could hardly recall a happier moment.   And then Katniss Everdeen arrived.  Lace’s practiced eye immediately recognized her gown as haute couture.  Cinna, probably.  Deep blue, the bodice studded thickly with diamonds – were they real? – with a strapless sweetheart neckline and more diamonds scattered on the skirt.  It dazzled and Katniss dazzled with it.  Luxuriant dark hair cascading down her back in loose curls.  Smooth olive skin, fine features and those surprising eyes.  Silvery gray, the colour of storm clouds.  She had a man for each arm.  The school teacher Max Matson, who all the girls agreed was very good looking if you could get past his personality, and – it couldn’t be – Arthur!  Lace’s friend who adored her since they were children together.  She knew he was coming tonight but not with her!  She felt the arm beneath her fingers stiffen and her glance swiftly turned to his face.  Peeta appeared stunned, his mouth gaping slightly.  There was admiration, certainly, but also something darker and more sinister.  Recognition. A memory, perhaps several, had resurfaced.   Lace’s happiness dimmed as if a cloud had passed across the sun.  But she rallied, pulling Peeta quickly along to greet the new mayor and his wife who were momentarily on their own.  Lace was in her element.  She was a natural networker.  She loved to interact with people and was always searching for opportunities.  Peeta seemed a little distracted though. Looking around, not quite keeping up with the conversation.   She followed his gaze, and it led directly to Katniss Everdeen, who, no surprise, was looking directly at him.  They both looked quickly away, but that was of no comfort.  It was clear that they were on each other’s mind. Meanwhile, she was pleased to observe, Arthur had detached himself from Katniss and was busy working the room too.  Now there was a man with get-up-and-go.  He didn’t let his natural reserve get in the way of achieving his ambitions.  Lace waved him over and he changed direction to come to her side.  Soon they were talking business, a fascinating subject for them both. She didn’t notice how restless Peeta was during the exchange. Dinner was announced and everyone made their way to their allocated seats.  Unfortunately, theirs was a dull table and not even Lace’s pearly laugh could liven it up. A burst of laughter from nearby grabbed her attention.  Arthur and Haymitch seemed to be at the center of it.  It caught Peeta’s attention too.  He seemed envious, it appeared to Lace.  But whether it was over the entertaining company or because Katniss was seated there too, she couldn’t tell. After the food had been served, people resumed their mingling, moving from table to table. Peeta wanted to talk to Katniss.  Ordinarily, Lace wouldn’t feel particularly threatened by this.  Over the preceding weeks, Peeta had confided to her that Katniss seemed uninterested in spending time with him unless it was watching the tapes.  And even then, she often seemed angry with him. Lace immediately guessed the situation. Katniss had grown frustrated with Peeta. He hadn’t responded as she’d hoped and she was distancing herself as a form of self-protection.  As long as this status quo was maintained, Lace felt safe. But after tonight, she wasn’t sure of anything.   Lace demurred.  Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea.  Katniss appeared occupied and hadn’t he told her that she didn’t seem keen on his company lately?  It was best to leave her alone.  But Peeta said that they should, that it would look odd if they didn’t.  So, when Max headed off in the direction of the bar, leaving Katniss on her own, Lace reluctantly let Peeta lead her to where Katniss sat.   It was an awkward conversation.  Lace embarrassed herself with her ignorance on what it meant to be a victor at the district parties and having to face the families of the dead tributes.  Worse, she let it slip that she had been to a district party.  Her story was that she’d been a factory worker in 8. Factory workers weren’t allowed to attend district parties.  Fortunately, Peeta didn’t pick up on it, but Katniss appeared to sense that something was amiss.   There was an awkward pause.  Peeta broke the silence.  “Are you going to let me talk to Katniss?” he said to Lace, pretending to be annoyed.  She had intended to stay at Peeta’s side, but perhaps it would be better to leave before she dug herself a deeper hole. “Okay, okay,” she said, in mock surrender.  “I know when I’m not wanted.  I need to go to the ladies’ room anyway.  Just stay out of trouble and don’t bug Katniss.” There, that would show Katniss who’s really in charge and hopefully plant a seed that Peeta wasn’t exactly happy in her company either.  She stroked his hand and kissed his cheek, enjoying her Svengali-like effect, knowing that his eyes would follow her as she walked away. She went to the ladies’ room as she said she would and did the usual things women do there.  She wanted to get the timing right and was gratified to see Peeta waiting for her at their table when she returned.   The dancing started up soon after and Lace pulled Peeta to his feet.  She loved to dance.  Peeta didn’t. His prosthetic leg made it a chore rather than a pleasure and he had faint memories of dancing at Capitol parties. But he wanted to be a good boyfriend, so up he got, and shuffled dutifully around the dancefloor with her. But then Katniss and Max came into view. Max had Katniss pulled tightly against him and he swung her around in a series of fancy turns, almost lifting her off her feet.  They were making fools of themselves, thought Lace.  That’s no way to behave at a formal event. So undignified!  So tasteless!  She turned to Peeta, expecting him to be as unimpressed as she, but his face was hard, giving away nothing.  Suddenly, he put his head close to hers and whispered words in her ear.   She nodded and followed him through the double swinging doors the staff used to bring food from the kitchen.  It had been pre-arranged.  Peeta had told her about it.  Cass from the bakery was to show Peeta around the kitchens. He had never seen a commercial kitchen before.   While he marveled at the long row of ovens, the walk-in freezer, the huge storage room, Lace could barely stifle her yawns.  So boring, and it was fricking cold in there after the warmth of the ballroom. But she stuck a smile on her face and did her best to appear interested but she was hardly in the mood to hear about the merits of blast chillers when her heart was breaking.  Somehow, she had to widen the gulf between Katniss and Peeta. She had to ensure that any fledgling signs of a possible reunion between them was snuffed out before it could begin. And then she had an idea. Just as they were about to re-enter the ballroom, Lace ruffled her carefully styled hair and swiped the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe away some of the lipstick, smearing it a little. Let Katniss believe that she and Peeta had snuck away for some canoodling in a dark corner.  Isn’t that what Peeta and Katniss did as star-crossed lovers?  Sneaking off to be alone when they were at fancy events? It was in a fan magazine she’d read, anyway.  With a bit of luck, Katniss’s mind would go straight there.   She scanned the room and saw Katniss by the bar with Max and Haymitch.  The hour was growing late and the crowd had thinned but there was a group of merry young people standing around nearby.  She started to lead Peeta in their direction, but he seemed to have the same idea and led her.  And when his arm went around her waist and he pressed a fond kiss to the crown of her head, relief flooded through her.  Everything was as it should be.  She turned in his arms slightly to look over his shoulder and managed to catch a glimpse of Katniss’s stricken but resolute face, just before her hasty exit with a startled Max close behind her.   Satisfied, she leaned her head against Peeta’s shoulder and he squeezed her waist.  She had worried over nothing.  It was inevitable that as Peeta regained his memories they’d be focused on Katniss. They were, after all, the memories that Snow had meddled with.  It didn’t mean that Peeta was wrong when he said his feelings for her had been an illusion. The real proof of who he loved was in who he chose to be with.  And that was her, Lace Bomul from District 8.  

[wabusinesstool-blog]

WhatsApp Marketing Software Setup

The messenger app, which is utilized in 180 nations and supports 60 languages, provides business a great deal of potential for communicating with their customers. The one flaw: WhatsApp is not created for advertisement in any kind whatsoever. Founder Jan Koum followed the mantra: "No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!" The messenger is suggested to focus on the basics: communication in between people.

The basic terms and conditions of WhatsApp restrict companies from using the app commercially. This can be avoided just if the consumer makes contact first. For this to occur, their interest has to be piqued to include the business's number in their contact list and write to it by means of the messenger. The contact exchange then counts as communication under the WhatsApp standards.

Business that are currently using WhatsApp Marketing Software for their company communication are thought about a "social networks first mover." It hasn't been attempted or evaluated much yet, and has actually been even less professionalized. WhatsApp Business, however, is a special app for business that is already available. It helps simplify communication with consumers, separates personal from consumer contacts and assists you make a main company presence. In some nations, business app has actually been offered because mid-January 2018. It will continue to be released worldwide, step by step.

An app on course for success

Few individuals consider this as they write their daily texts to good friends, household, and associates, however WhatsApp was and is the trigger of an around the world communication transformation. Founded at the start of 2009 by the previous Yahoo! staff members Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the messenger app established within a number of years into the interaction tool of option for smartphones. 500 million users were already signed up when WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion-- the second largest acquisition in history.

The story of the app started rather decently. In 2009, the founder, Koum, saw possibilities for an appealing service design in the still-young Apple App Store. His concept included not only the sending of brief messages, but also user status messages. He was of the belief that it's useful to understand what individual contacts are up to.

The advancement progressed rather gradually at first. Regular app crashes and problems with the synchronization of telephone number almost persuaded Koum to throw in the towel. Acton continued. At that exact same time and by coincidence, Apple involuntarily gave the app the increase that it required: Starting in June 2009, it was possible for app designers to utilize push notifications. WhatsApp users might then see right now when somebody altered their status.

The app ultimately developed into an immediate messaging service. It also played into the company's hands that they had almost no competition. Beside Skype, there was no notable competitors except for Blackberry Messenger, which just operated on Blackberry smart devices. With WhatsApp, on the other hand, one could not only reach people through text message at any time and from anywhere in the world, but could likewise send photos or voicemails.

For a long period of time, it's been not just young people utilizing WhatsApp. The ease of use that Koum aspired to has made the messenger service as appealing to any age groups as the designer had actually hoped. It appears the real goal was achieved: To establish an app that even people who didn't grow up with computer systems or are unfamiliar with technology can utilize.

Why use WhatsApp for marketing?

With over one billion day-to-day users, the messenger app provides companies an unique possibility to make their consumer interaction more individual. It ought to focus less on advertising, and more on consulting. Most of WhatsApp users are searching for individual and direct contact.

What they don't typically think of is the WhatsApp newsletter, which functions as a replacement for the classic email newsletter. Customers choose straightforward customer support and consulting from the business via WhatsApp. Online marketers likewise see great potential in using the app for neighborhood management and personal marketing. In this way, WhatsApp uses new possibilities for company interaction-- and not just externally. The app is likewise a suitable alternative to team messengers such as Slack, Twist, and others.

Companies need to focus mainly on exclusivity and authenticity when using WhatsApp. The goals are long-term consumer commitment and more sales. And the chances for this aren't bad: Those who trust companies with their telephone number over WhatsApp are typically delighted with the services or product and also trust the business in general. Whether the financial investment is truly worth if for companies is hard to say, however. WhatsApp marketing hasn't yet been tested enough, and the methods of measuring it are still too immature. Companies can get more attention for their deal using the first mover benefit. Since the app is generally utilized on smart devices (and the browser application likewise requires a phone number), WhatsApp marketing is the most useful for mobile target groups.

[dgcatanisiri]

So... I have had THOUGHTS swirling in my head, and, well, I need to word vomit some. This gets LONG. I apologize for the lack of a cut, but nowhere really seemed fitting during my writing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s going around - an article about fandom hating on women. A very long, very researched article. And I absolutely do not dispute that core premise. I am not going to dismiss the work that the writer put into it. I am not standing here saying to dismiss it at all. And, hell, I DO feel a little uncomfortable, writing this massive response to it, being a man writing something that is directly responding to a female experience. Just... My brain would not let me focus unless I wrote this all down, and wrote out my feelings on the matter to a conclusion.

When I first saw it the other day, it sparked a rant of my own, because something about it didn’t sit right. Its focus is on how this hatred of women has gone after those who ship a certain ship, one I avoid calling by name for a very specific reason. That reason being I legit fear being bombarded by people who search the tags for that ship getting a ping of me commenting about it negatively and lashing out at me.

Now, I am not saying that I discount the article writer’s experience or research. Far from it. This is, much as I am loathe to use the term, something I am willing to say that, within the fandom, develops an element of “both sides” to it, where an incident with one side (those in favor of the ship) leads the other (those against it) to respond on the defensive, and back and forth and back and forth, intensifying in each volley, because one random stranger attacked another random stranger and made them hostile to a third random stranger saying things similar to the first, and so on down the chain. It’s like the game of Telephone, just played with tactical nukes.

But, the thing for me in that rant, is that there is a very blatant MISSING of the element of racism that fueled that ship that will not be named, of there being a significant element of the fandom around that ship transplanting the characteristics and even history of the character played by the black man onto the character played by the white man. Like, talk about sock puppet accounts fanning flames and all, but I’ve SEEN fics for this pairing that vilifies the black man and props up the white man. I have SEEN the massive metas that try to explain how the white man kidnapping this woman involved a bridal carry that expresses his true love for this woman he’s just met, interpreting and reinterpreting and pouring over the screentime they have, and only a fraction of it being spent on what seemed like, in the first appearance of these characters. I have SEEN the ignoring and transferring of character backstories repeatedly. Like... Those are a lot of work for it to be mostly the work of sock puppet accounts - A Tweet is easy. A 15000 word fanfic takes time and effort. A meta dive that rivals the length of this post takes time and effort. 

That’s been MY experience in seeing this ship. That’s why I’m being non-specific, because I’ve SEEN the hostility come in and I am taking the steps that I can to avoid that coming in to my inbox. And even when it’s not hostility... I’ve gone and explored the tag for the female character in this pairing. On those occasions, frequently content solely for her is drowned out by the content for the pairing, or about her influence on him. His tag does not have the same issue - there, it’s probably around half shipping content, half individual character content. What I see is that she is neglected by those who claim to see her as part of the pairing they love, and he gets glorified. 

That’s the sexism that I see. That’s where I see the hatred of women happening. On the part of those who claim to love this pairing, but that really seems to just mean that they love him and want to make her stand in emotionally for everything they want to give him. That those who are against the pairing, at the least, want to see that character in particular, her unique characterization and dynamics, in a relationship with someone who is going to treat her with compassion, consideration, and respect.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the fact that this pairing EXPLODED in popularity, while her relationship with another character, with a black man, was from pretty much day one minimized and reduced and ignored, and the damage reflected into the on-screen portrayal so that they never really had any character rebound from the imposed separation in the middle of this content, while strengthening the reduction of this female character to the white guy’s sexy lamp.

It’s not that I’m opposed to women in fandom or that I see something inherently wrong with whoever ships this pairing. It is that I have seen the blatant and thinly veiled racism implicit in the ways that these people go about shipping it, dismissing and denouncing the canon portrayal of an interracial relationship, to the point that when even the (notoriously tumultuous) production came back to write the stories that followed up on their initial appearance, that black man and his relationship with this white woman was downplayed and rendered “less important” to her connection and relationship with the white man - the white man who, in that first appearance, had kidnapped and tortured her, greatly wounded her friend, and killed her mentor. 

Like, I’m just saying, I do not see how one goes from that point to everlasting true love, but I CAN see how that leads to a deep abiding hatred. And yet, you know, nearly 16000 fics for it on AO3, while only about 10% of the other pairing. So, hey, I guess I’M wrong.

This is, again, to say nothing of the reductionary way many portrayals of this ship approach the female half - she loses her characterization in their portrayals to become a stand-in for the (predominantly) female writer/reader, whose love redeems the bad boy from the darkness in his soul. Her contribution, as a singular, unique character vanishes so that she becomes his reward for turning around, and she cheers him on, supporting him while never upstaging him.

It’s the Twilight phenomenon all over again. And I say that as a fact statement, not a value judgement, that this is the kind of thing that we saw within the reactions to Twilight, a vocal segment dismissed it entirely, and we saw a relationship be romanticized when you could actually use it as a bullet-point list of abusive behavior (I say this because it has been - there are plenty of articles using those characters as such). 

I mean, I can easily see this whole thing basically as being “well, the Twilight readers are now adults, let’s throw them a bone and “grow up” the characters for them” on some level. And... Actually, this is going to get off topic, let’s stick a pin in this and come back.

So, look, if this ship is your jam, fine, okay? I’m not making any individual value statements on the subject. You do you. I’m not shaming that act in and of itself, even if, as I’ve made very clear, it is very much NOT my thing. Likewise, I won’t discount that it was investors and shareholders, a notoriously conservative group, who got cold feet and basically wanted to excise the “risk” of an interracial relationship, as opposed to trying to “appease the fans” or something like that.

Like, I know I’m not immune to propaganda. I know I don’t look too deep when a random post crosses my dashboard and talks about this group of people behaving badly - because I’ve seen fandoms and productions be racist. I’m not trying to start a round of victimization Olympics here, but in this case, this is discussing an issue that is wrapped up in BOTH sexism and racism. And on the one hand, that certainly makes it all the easier for bad faith actors to kick up dust and turn people against one another.

BUT...

As important as it is to bring up these issues on their own, you CANNOT. DISENTANGLE. THEM. FROM. EACH OTHER. Like, there are patterns to fandom. You see this repeat itself in every fandom. Fandom at large latches on to a pairing, and shoves most others to the margins. And frequently, when the media in question centers on a character of color, THEY are shoved aside in order to prop up a pairing of white characters. Major canon characters who are not white become secondary - or tertiary - characters in terms of their fandom’s creative output. This happens frequently enough that to try and say “well, maybe the character is just not appealing to the fandom” is actively ignoring the issue.

And this often takes the form of shoving aside healthy relationships and solid, established friendships in the name of pairing up antagonistic characters, declaring the antagonism to be “sexual tension,” that the characters dislike each other not because... y’know, they dislike each other, but because they’re repressing a deep-seated desire to fuck, and THEN they’ll miraculously starting being nice to one another.

Like, this is NOT an isolated thing, you can look beyond the scope of this particular fandom and this pairing and see the pattern repeat itself across media. It is still the outlier when the main fandom pairing is an interracial M/F pairing. 

It’s not isolated. But it’s magnified given the massive size of this fandom in particular. This is a generational fandom, where parents - even grandparents - are sharing it with their children. And those biases we as an audience have reinforce themselves on subconscious levels, we don’t even acknowledge these things until we finally have it pointed out to us - and then we see it everywhere, because we have been blind to it, but it is all over our media, our fiction, baked into the very tropes we are using to assemble our stories.

Pull out that pin, we’re back. When something engages with multiple generations, when this is something you can look back on as a fond memory you shared with prior generations, with people you love, you will become protective of that thing. So when someone comes along and says “hey, [thing] has issues with [whatever],” a gut reaction is to get defensive, coil protectively around it. 

I mean, tell a millennial you don’t like The Lion King (original animated version, I mean), and you’re liable to get crucified. And it traces its lineage to (at a minimum) Shakespeare and probably further. So if, for example, you want to criticize it for, say, only have three female characters of note, none of whom actually interact, in opposition to the nearly three times as many male characters of note, you need to approach the subject with some delicacy (okay, maybe not the most fitting example, since this was part of the reason that the Broadway version made Rafiki a woman, so the issue Is Known, but it does get the point across, okay?).

And it’s the same when it comes to a subject like this particular fandom and media that isn’t just something many get hooked on in their childhood, but is also something that may be among the fond and cherished memories of family figures, some who may have passed on. To say “that thing you love is flawed” becomes a personal attack, not just on you for loving it, but also that beloved family member who brought it into your life.

And absolutely, this is not a rational reaction. It’s pure emotion. But we are emotional beings, and we need to acknowledge that emotions will make us respond and often respond quickly and respond poorly.

Here’s where I think the bigger issue lies if what you want to talk about is how fandom hates women - rather than look at it in the lens of “this ship is called abusive and racist,” go in the direction of “why is THIS ship the one that seems to resonate?”

Because this is the kind of ship that fandom, as a monolithic entity, often gravitates to - the dynamic that says that being enemies will inevitable lead to being lovers. 

Once again, I do not want to shame anyone for enjoying this dynamic. Lord knows my search history has instances of them. BUT... We don’t really know how to approach the dynamic. It is frequently reduced to “well, we made out, so now I’m gonna become the snarky asshole friend no one likes and we’ll bone.” 

Like in general, writing redemption arcs seems to be a hard thing for media, but it really seems to only work when the active narrative endpoint does not end in a major romance - when a romance becomes a major narrative element in said redemption arc, it frequently reduces the subject to “[character] was bad, now they’re in love, so they’re good!” No further work needs to be done.

And so when you have a character who is in need of redemption, it is a problem to just toss them at another character and have them make kissy faces. But that’s what you can sum up much of the concept of enemies to lovers in this fashion. The work isn’t done to show the earning of redemption, just declaring it attained because of another character’s love.

And I’m being intentionally non-specific with gender, because I do have a prominent example of this happening in a female/female fanon relationship in mind, which I am also avoiding mentioning in the name of discretion. So this isn’t solely a M/F phenomenon. This is a media thing, this is an “our understanding and approach to these dynamics and portrayals in media seems flawed and needs examination” thing. 

I mentioned Twilight above, and how that features a relationship that is used as an example of domestic abuse. Now, look, we can go back and forth about interpretation, the thing to acknowledge about it is that there are a great many who walked away from these books, their movie adaptations, and saw this particular interpretation. While you can probably take any relationship in any media and spin it in such a way, I think there is something to be said for the ensuing argument: When this is exposed to young people who are beginning to seek out romantic relationships, if their example for what love is, what love looks like, has a basis that, based solely on interpreting the text alone, the actions and words of the characters involved, the narrative text, the exploration of their thoughts, is unhealthy, is something that doesn’t need to have a word or action changed to be legitimately cited by experts within domestic abuse counseling as the warning signs... What does that say about our perceptions of what love even is?

And this isn’t getting back into the element of racism, either. Because we could go in that direction, where the black characters in fandom see this selective reinterpreting of their characters, turning what are gentle, caring, loving men into scary figures who loom ominously when they feel threatened, which starts to seem like all the time. There are a set of stock characterizations for black characters, for really any minority character, and the fandom will make them exhibit them in their interpretations, even if it does not fit anything established on screen.

There are a lot of threads that tie into the problems within this fandom and in the approach to this ship in particular. I feel like just pulling at one of them is doing so at the expense of the others, ones that run as deep if not deeper. And it seems like a disservice, both to the complexity of the issue and to anyone impacted by these matters, to only do that deep dive on the one. And, if you are not capable of doing it alone, which, I understand, this is a tall order, then I think it also is important to acknowledge this and actively seek out the alternate views and perspectives that aren’t just total opposition to you (meaning the references to the groups that sprung up in alt-right forums and such), but also those who are going to say “okay, maybe you’re right about x, but your statement on y are missing a lot of context you do not have from your position,” and seek the necessary education.

While I can appreciate the time and effort put into this article and the points it wants to make, it IS wrapped up in elements that run far deeper than any single ship, and just really seems to ignore the intersectional element of fandom at large, how fandom’s problem run deeper than just hating women. To talk about how fandom hates women, you are also needing to open the door to how fandom hates black people, hates people of color.

There is a hierarchy to this, and at best, you are missing a lot when you only focus on the top layer of the issue, rather than even acknowledging the deeper dive that inevitably comes from this. Like, it’s bad for a white woman, dealing with sexism. It’s worse for black women, dealing with sexism AND racism. It is something of a position of privilege to only examine the sexism in fandom, without exploring or acknowledging the racism.

Fandom’s hatred of women IS real. I am in no way disputing that. But I do not think that this is the best example to that point, because it becomes all too easy to dismiss the valid complaints and concerns with the trolls and bots and sock puppets found in the process that deserve legitimate consideration - this is one of the things I have been over when I have (oh god, I’m about to break the self-imposed rule and directly reference the media and characters in specific...) been over the problems I have with The Last Jedi. It’s not that I dislike Rose or Holdo, but I feel like they came into the narrative to teach Finn and Poe (both men of color) lessons that either comes at the expense of the previous’s movies arc for Finn or the previous movie’s characterization for Poe. It is not the characters themselves, it is the utilization within the narrative, using these women to impose a lesson on these characters. That, as I said above, Rey is reduced to a sexy lamp, there to try and bring back to the light a character she has no reason to ever even care about.

That was my experience with The Last Jedi - I had honest issues with the film that weren’t “women? In my Star Wars? Unpossible!” But the surrounding discourse CONSTANTLY felt so toxic to anyone who disagreed with the idea that it had been a win, that it was a bold new direction for the series, and that anyone who disagreed MUST be a sexist/racist/whatever who couldn’t take a changing face to the franchise. 

Hell, that may even be why I got this ultimate feeling of defensiveness, both in my opinion of TLJ and the ship in question (yeah, that one I’m still not acknowledging), because what I saw was a lot of really prominent voices not seeing the issues I did, and making it come across like the people who disagreed with them HAD TO BE the ones who were mad on the basis of characters like Rose and Holdo existing, or complaining about Leia’s Force use, or things like that. But... THOSE things weren’t my issues. But I couldn’t talk about those issues on any platform where there was regular engagement on the subject, considering the amount of explanation I would have to do.

Probably also explains some of my inherent response of trying to figure out how I feel about this article, too, come to think of it...

That was how things were after TLJ, and that’s when a lot of this push and pushback really started to gain traction as far as I can see. And maybe we could go and blame this on *ahem* bigger issues that were happening in 2017/2018 that proceeded to exacerbate matters. Like, we’re still in the midst of cleaning up the worst of all of what went on because of the time we live in, since things are still getting messier while we deal with prior fallout.

So... I honestly don’t know how to sum this up as a TL;DR. It was kind of a process for me to get to this point, and I don’t even know if I really have a conclusion. The best way I can go about summarizing is that I do not disagree with the article’s core idea. But I do not agree with its focus, while I understand that a portion of it, if nothing else, justifies why it is the focus. We are dealing with a very complex and complicated web of issues on this, and while I understand focusing on a single thread of that web, it feels like doing so also fails to acknowledge the various connected threads that wrap around that singular thread, in particular the racial elements, which, considering the profile image included, I do not believe this article was written by someone who is inherently aware of these aspects (while I’m also aware that, as a white person myself, I only have so much room to talk). This is all a very long way for me to go about saying “fandom has a lot of issues.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

POST-ORIENTED

It helps if you use a Web-based application anywhere. Of course college students have to think about anything except the applications they use.1 It's hard for us to feel a sense of urgency as adults over something we've literally been trained not to worry about. If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. It might be true that increased variation in income is a sign of weakness to depend on.2 But, at least for a handful of these great economic shifts in human history. Fortunately there's a better way to get money, of course. Apple's next products should be. That's what compilers are for. Let's start by talking about the five sources of startup funding. Another concept we need to introduce now is valuation.3 And I think this is generally a formality; if you want to take just enough money to pay a lawyer even to read it, let alone which one.

I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. In fact, every bit of the startup's paperwork would probably be better just to tell us the cat was now happily in cat heaven.4 Any startup founder can tell you the most revenue the soonest. Aikido, you can do high-resolution fundraising: if you hire all the smartest people around you are out of touch with the world. There are examples of this algorithm being applied to actual emails in an appendix at the end. I bet a lot of money on a freelance graphic designer. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be popular but seem hard to make money as a freelance programmer.

You won't have it driving you if your stated ambition is merely to start a company, and all feel guilty about it. Find something that's missing in your own life, and supply that need—no matter how specific to you it seems. My E-Commerce Web Site, that's spam. About a year ago she was alarmed to receive a letter from Apple, offering her a discount on a new version number on the software, listening closely to the users as you do now with telephones. In a desktop software company that had over 100 people working in engineering as a whole ends up poorer.5 The kids obligingly grow up considering themselves as Ys. What you can do more for users. Be aware, though, this is not how to find a cofounder, what should you do? The houses are made using the same construction techniques and contain much the same objects. To do good work, you need to start looking for your next round?

Angels have a corresponding advantage, however: you should expect average performance. If that were all, they'd be very annoying. Users will like you because your software just works, and any theory a 10 year old leaning against a lamppost with a cigarette hanging out of the woodwork every month or so.6 I've now realized it. Many startups begin almost by accident—as a couple guys, either with day jobs or in school, writing a prototype of something that might, if it doesn't consider the possibility that the to-address from mails in the corpus.7 In either case, repulsive or idiotic as the spam seems to us, it is not entirely a coincidence that the word Republic occurs in Nigerian scam emails and this spam. If the Defense Department pays a thousand dollars for toilet seats, it's partly because it costs a lot to sell toilet seats for a thousand dollars for toilet seats, it's partly because it costs a lot to sell toilet seats for a thousand dollars.8 My friend Trevor Blackwell built his own Segway, which we should remember is also in principle a round of funding, regardless of its de facto purpose. You should hope that it stays that way. At Viaweb we had external forces in plenty to keep us in line.

Foreword to Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. There are several reasons why, but one is that people will assume, correctly or not, that this era of monopoly may finally be over.9 But they have to do an angel round before going to VCs. So one way to find angel investors is through personal introductions. If you're doing really badly, meaning the company is still just an idea. It wasn't worth doing better.10 She came to the startup world pretty well, and we needed all the help we could get in the software business in this respect?11 Lexical closures, introduced by Lisp in the mid 2000s. Here's a partial solution: when a VC offers you a term sheet, ask how many of their last 10 term sheets turned into deals. If you use this method, you'll get roughly the same answer I just gave.

Google pushed this idea further than anyone had before.12 They may if they are the actual registrar for it. Afterward I wondered, what am I even measuring?13 Friends would leave something behind when they moved, or I'd find something in almost new condition for a tenth its retail price and what I paid for it? In existing open-source projects you don't have an idea. They cut off all the crap the manufacturer had bolted onto the car to make it. The serious hacker will also want to learn how to operate hers.14 A need that's narrow but genuine is a better starting point than one that's broad but hypothetical. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of implementing features is plan them. But why do we conceal death from kids?15

Notes

Some VCs will try to become merely stubborn.

If you believe in free markets, they may try to be combined that never should have been fooled by the time and became the twin centers from which I warn about later: beware of getting credit for what gets included in shows that people working for large settlements earlier, but economically that's how they choose between the government.

Few can have escaped alive, or the presumably larger one who shouldn't? Acquisitions fall into two categories: those where the ratio of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much, or pigs, to the writing teachers were transformed in situ into English professors. My guess is a way that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding language.

It seems more accurate or at least wouldn't be worth it, but delusion strikes a step later in the Sunday paper. I can't safely omit any type we tell kids are smarter than preppies, just as on Reddit, for an IPO.

Maybe it would be easier to take action, go running. Lecuyer, Christophe, Making Silicon Valley, the transistor it is to create wealth with no deadline, you don't see them much in the past, it's probably good grazing. After lunch we went to school.

The variation in productivity is the post-money valuations of funding. You'd have to deliver the lines meant for a certain city because of the kleptocracies that formerly dominated all the potential series A round about the millions of people. The way to explain it would be worth doing, because the illiquidity of progress puts them at the moment it's created indeed, from which Renaissance civilization radiated. In part because Steve Jobs did for Apple when he came back as CEO.

Ii.

According to the principle that you have to give it back. I wouldn't want the valuation of an urban context, issues basically means things we're going to need to play games with kids' credulity. But if you're not trying to sell the bad groups and they would probably never have to resort to expedients like selling autographed copies, or even 1000x an average programmer's salary. The CRM114 Discriminator.

Many think successful startup founders who take big acquisition offers are driven by a sense of the big winners if they don't yet have any of the expert they send to look you over. 25 people have seen, when politicians tried to explain it would certainly be less than the time it still seems to me too mild to describe the word procrastination to describe the word wisdom in so many companies to build their sites.

It is a meaningful idea for human audiences.

Some founders listen more than others, no matter how large. And you can play it safe by excluding VC firms.

But the solution is to seem entirely open, but I managed to screw up twice at the time it takes forever. If anyone wants. That's why there's a continuum here.

Japanese cities are ugly too, and the average startup. Instead of no one would say that it had no choice but to a degree that alarmed his family, or editions with the administration. Starting a company doesn't have users. Ten years later.

A YC partner wrote: One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start or join startups. When I talk about it. Till then they had that we should be specialists in startups.

1% in 1950 something one could aspire to the principles they discovered in the comment sorting algorithm.

Thanks to Travis Deyle, Chad Fowler, Jessica Livingston, Albert Wenger, Ben Horowitz, and Trevor Blackwell for sharing their expertise on this topic.

[caddeter]

Hey, Knight, I have a serious question for you:  Are you fucking illiterate or something?

Okay, looking through the notes, I can’t let this go.

Soku, You JUST described what you do.

Soku made a grand total of two posts in this chain.  You can find both of them here.  One of them is an actual explanation on why Savage’s post is stupid, the other is him simply saying ‘eh’ in reply to Xenodweeb.

“Instead of making the White Fang this way, do it this way that justifies my political beliefs because I deserve validation. 

1.  That had never come up in that chain at all, Soku pointed to utilizing the school setting as an example.

2.  It has nothing to do with his political believes, it has everything to do with putting fucking effort into a point of your show!  How is pointing out that a show displaying an extremely black and white stance on a real world issue that is excessively grey a political stance?

3.  If your talking about what Xenodweeb said, allow me to simplify it for you:  They hyped up a character, only to kill her off not five minutes later.  Even if we ignore her skin color, that’s still incredibly stupid.  And it’s made worse with her skin color.  Even then, there’s a grand total of twelve named dark skin characters in a cast of over 70 characters.  Five of them are villains, the rest are unimportant.  Seriously, what does any black character, who isn’t Emerald, Ilia, or the fox brothers contribute to the plot?  And aside from the guy based off an Achievement Hunter joke and the guy from the team they only remembered half the members of, I bet you and the rest of the fandom don’t even remember they exist.

Also: Listen to me and only people like me because I deserve to be solely pandered to while you don’t deserve a say in your own show.”

First of all, is Savage a member of CRWBY?  Is Savage one of the lead writers?  Is Savage even a Rooster Teeth employee?  You and your little posse constantly remind us that RWBY isn’t our show, yet whenever it’s convenient, it’s your show.

Secondly, that’s your argument, not ours.  You constantly pride your opinions above everyone else’s, from people with experience with the subject they’re talking about, to people who have researched the subject their talking about, to scene analysis, to fucking shit posts.  And you’ve done this over on Deviantart, where there is no RWDE tag, and was just people criticizing your precious little show.  The RWDE tag was made so that the main RWBY tag wouldn’t need to read through all of our posts.  We’re trying to keep our opinions away from you jack asses, and this is the thanks we get?  You know what, screw it, this is going in the main tag.

I just boiled down your entire collection of RWDE posts down into this because THIS is how you act each time:

And I’m a dragon who breaths Popsicle, living on top of the Eiffel Tower making reviews of late night talk shows.  How many times have you said that, and how many times have we proven you wrong?

Only your worldview (even if it’s blatantly wrong and fucking stupid) deserves to be seen and only YOUR iteration) deserves to eb seen and only people like you get to have media in their tastes.

Mirrors are a rare thing in your house, aren’t they?

Okay, that was a little too fast, let me slow it down for you:  Mirrors are pieces of shiny glass you look at to see yourself.

Even then, what are you judging this on?  The fact that people complained about plot holes, unfortunate implications, terrible execution, wasted potential, a side character steeling the spotlight?  That’s not a matter of taste, that’s a matter of desiring quality.  People would be complaining about RWBY’s flaws even if RWDE never existed, just look at how the anime reviewing community treated Sword Art Online.

Everything about RWBY must conform to what you think you deserve, regardless of fucking quality or what the Writer’s want to do or why other people like RWBY.

Yes, because a consistent plot, stable world building, and an understanding of what it’s doing is completely subjective.

RWBY’s quality is objectively terrible; it’s full of plot holes, we get more development for the side characters than we do the main characters, and the world building is excessively muddled.  It also has a bad habit of flat out lying to its audience and constantly ignores the easier solutions.  And with how many details are missed between the writers and animators, I’m left with the impression that the production of this show is a big game of telephone.

Calling RT sexist, racist and homophobic is not criticism.

Jaune gets away with, and is rewarded for something that Yang is demonized for.  That is sexism and criticism.

RT constantly portrays the White Fang, who were left with little other option than to become a violent group like many real world minorities, are treated as completely evil with no redeeming qualities.  And then there’s the count of black characters in the show an their importance to it.  That’s racist and criticism.

It took RT five years to reveal an LGBT character, after years of excuses that for some reason never applied to straight pairings.  That’s homophobic and criticism.

Do you read selectively or something?  We’ve explained several times over how one could get these impressions.  Just because you plug your ears and shout, ‘LALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING!’ doesn’t mean the evidence stops existing.

Lying about the show is not criticism.

Knight, the only people who have ever lied about RWBY is you.  We have backed up our claims with explanations, comparisons, examples.  You have changed evidence to work with your conclusion instead of changing your conclusion to work with evidence.  You’ve flat out admitted to doing that, yet you still act like we’re in the wrong.  Why can you get away with something like that, but we constantly get demonized for you’re lies?!

Spreading controversy like a manwhore with STD is not criticism.

You really don’t understand how criticism works, especially for a show this popular, do you?

Okay, even ignoring the fact that that’s a load of bull, that’s all you do.  Every time there’s a new RWDE post, you jump to the front lines to start a flame war.

You do not criticize, you complain.

My god, it’s almost as if that was the basis for the RWDE tag in the first place!..  How do you breath?  You can’t wrap your head around this simple concept, yet you still haven’t suffocated yet?  How does that work?

People HAVE refuted you:

Yeah, badly.  And then they got refuted right back.

I’ve had to have done it at least fifty times.

First of all, you’ve had way more chats with people in the RWDE tag than just fifty.  If your track record is so bad, why is your ego so huge?

Second of all, where exactly?  Was it here, where Delvin asks you for evidence of what you’re accusing him of, and then you ran off?  Was it here, where Delvin throws every one of your notions back at you in the end?  Was it here, where Dudeblade explains why you think it’s wrong to compare RWBY to other shows based on IMDB scores, before doing just that with shows with lower scores than RWBY?  Was it here, where Lycanheiress took everything you said and utterly destroyed it?  Was it this one here, where a transgender lesbian explains homophobia to you, and why people accuse you of being homophobic?  Or was it here, where Xenodweeb boiled all of your stupid notions down to the basic level to show why they’re wrong?

Thirdly, you’ve had to do it?  Did we make you?  Is Rooster Teeth paying you to paint their fanbase in a negative light?  Are they holding a gun to your head as you type this out?  Are they threatening your family?  Is the RWDE tag doing that?  Did anyone even ask?  I’ve already explained this to you, KKKoB, no one but you is making you write these.  You chose to do this.

Fourthly, for every one time you’ve attempted to debunk us, we’ve debunked you ten time over.

You just ignore them, block them or throw variations of the word “bigot” at them so you can disregard it

You mean like you did with Delvin?

You’re like that child who keeps changing the rules to make himself invincible because they suck at the game.

You mean like you did with Lycanheiress when you guys were arguing the shows focus on Jaune.  Also, when did we change the rules?  I’m pretty sure we’ve kept things pretty damn consistent in all of our debates with you.

And as for YOU, Xenodweeb,

I don’t wanna hear YOU try to talk about nuances when, looking at your entire conversation on this post (https://savageoppressme.tumblr.com/post/169718979263/xenodweeb-savageoppressme-xenodweeb), you look at everything in Black and White.

“>Racism is a non-issue>Civil rights movements=extremists”

Knight, cursory glances tell us why you’re full of bull.  Also, who do you think I’m going to believe, the guy who admitted to stalking and harassing people who blocked him, constantly acts as the exception to all of the rules he lays out, and almost drove someone on Deviantart to suicide, for Xenodweeb, who has, at worst, criticized RWBY.

Also, you’re one to talk about seeing things in black and white:  You view the RWDE tag as an irredeemable evil that must be purged no matter what each individual blog has done and yourself as the one true fan of RWBY.  What you’re asking for isn’t that we try to look past RWBY’s flaws, your asking for blind devotion to the all mighty Rooster Teeth.

Skipping a bit, because I’ve already established why the next few lines are bunk a few paragraphs back.

To you, “Nuance” does not mean “subtle differences in meaning or expression.” No, it means “my fucking view” without even taking the time to consider that maybe, just maybe, you are wrong and your blind.

How can someone be so in love with the sound of their own voice yet never hear what they’re saying?  Knight, you almost drove someone to suicide because you couldn’t handle the idea that they had a different view then you did.  You aren’t one to talk.

Fuck, there is a reason why I blacklisted the RWDE tag:

Wait...

!?!?!?!?!?!WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!

So you actually did that thing the RWDE tag was meant for?  Why are you still here then?!  Why are you still bitching about the tag you no longer need to look at!?  Why are you so dedicated to proven Darwinism wrong?!  There-there are no words to describe the level of stupid you are!  It doesn’t matter what insult I throw at you, it will always only ever be an insult to the people I’m grouping you with and a complement to you.  I feel sorry that people call you a Nazi now, at least those guys have some brains.  Retards, homophobes, racist, sexists, pedophiles, none of them deserve to be compared to you.  The FNDM would be disgusted if they saw you, hell, Rooster Teeth would be disgusted.  It’s a good thing Monty’s dead, because if he saw you, he’d jump right back into his grave!  You deplorable, inconsiderate, obnoxious, cruel, immature, cruel, judgemental piece of shit!  If the human race died tomorrow, we’d all die happy, because you would have finally have been removed from the gene pool!  I’ve seen super-villains more likable than you.

You know what, screw it, I don’t care what the rest of the post says.  I’ve made my point, I’m done here.