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ronance4everbrainrot · 2 years ago

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Stranger Things incorrect quote generator (feat. The Russian Squad, The Sinclairs + Robin and Max, The Party - Adults)

Pt 13

The Russian Squad

Yuri: Hey.

Murray: Hey?

Yuri: I can't sleep. :/

Murray: I can. Goodnight.

(such a king)

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Hairdresser: How would you like your hair cut?

Murray: Preferably with scissors, but a sword could be badass.

(Dangerous and weird but Badass indeed)

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Hopper: Just be careful, Joyce!

Joyce: *heading out the door* I'm always careful, Hopper!

Joyce: It's everything around me that's careless.

(I know right, they should be more careful)

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Joyce: Protip is you do not feel good about yourself after eating tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce.

Murray: What's wrong with you??

Joyce: I literally JUST said I ate tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce?? Pay attention.

Hopper: No, they mean other than that.

Joyce: Ohhhhhh.

Joyce: I haven't slept in 4 days.

(Let Joyce rest 😪)

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Dimitri: Though I admit I don’t know much about you, I am feeling pretty confident in my assessment that you are probably some sort of sick deadly fuck.

Yuri: Who told you my secret?

(it's not really a secret)

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Dimitri: Look guys, I need help.

Hopper: Love help?

Yuri: Financial help?

Joyce: Emotional help?

Murray: Help moving a body?

*Everybody looks at Murray*

Murray: What?

(He's just asking a question? Why you being weird?)

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Murray: What are you two arguing about this time?

Joyce: They’re always using common phrases incorrectly!

Hopper: Cry me a table, Joyce.

(It's "how the river has turned" smh Hopper)

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Joyce: Do you want some tea?

Murray: What are the options?

Joyce: Yes or no.

(She's not in one of he best moods rn)

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Murray: Life is like Joyce. It's short.

(luckily it's not as short as me, or life would be over already 😪)

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Hopper: Trouble at 2 o'clock!

Yuri: *looks down at their watch*

Yuri: Now, how do you know that?

(he can see in into the future, obviously)

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Yuri: I’m proud to say I’ve come over my fear of ghosts!

Murray: Eyy, that’s the spirit!

Yuri: *gasps* whErE???!!!??

(i feel like he definitely believes in ghost but I'm not sure if he'd be scared or not)

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Hopper: Hey, are you okay?

Murray: Yeah.

Hopper: You don't look okay...

Murray: Then stop looking.

(him after Alexei 😪)

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Hopper: Why would you think any of this was a good idea?

Yuri: Probably because I’m a dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence.

Hopper:

Yuri: I don’t know how you keep forgetting this.

(Well he wasn't there when the other two met you)

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Dimitri: *is hugging Joyce*

Hopper: Hey! It's my turn to hug Joyce!

Hopper: *grabs Joyce*

Murray: *kicking down the door* What do you mean, "yOuR tUrN"? We agreed now is my time slot!

Dimitri: No, It's still my turn!

Joyce: *suffocating* Guys, I love you, but just because I'm the smallest doesn't mean you can be hugging me constantly!

Dimitri: But we need the moral support!

Hopper: And you're small! Which is cute!

Murray: If I don't hug you right now I think the depression will kick in and my body will stop functioning.

Joyce: *close to tears* Well- I, I guess.

(I also want hugs 😪)

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Murray: That's not funny.

Yuri: I thought it was funny.

Murray: You don't count. You started laughing in the middle of a funeral because you started thinking of a meme you saw on Facebook.

(He would laugh at a funeral tho)

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Yuri: I know one person who finds me funny!

Murray: Okay, who?... and you can't say yourself!

Yuri: Okay then I'm out.

(love that this came right after)

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Murray: I’m afraid of clowns. There, I said it.

Joyce: Murray, if you don't like clowns, why are you hanging with Yuri?

(these 3 basically are one story)

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Yuri: *Kicks the door open, looking panicked*

Dimitri: What did you do?!

Yuri: NOBODY DIED!

Dimitri: WHAT KIND OF ANSWER IS THAT?!

(what did Yuri do 😪)

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Murray: Yuri! I thought you were dead!

Yuri: No, just in deep cover.

Murray: ...But it was an open casket.

Yuri: It was very deep.

(this probably also fits into that story lol)

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Yuri: I think it’s time I get my life in order.

Hopper, narrating: But they did not get their life in order. In fact, they got drunk last night and fought a raccoon.

(oh wow, did he win?)

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Joyce: Who do we know that has handcuffs?

Yuri: Well Dimitri and I-

Dimitri: *elbows Yuri*

Yuri: ...wouldn't know.

(what- 👁️👄👁️ I know what you are 👀)

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Hopper: What’s up with Yuri? They’ve been laying on the floor for like….an hour now?

Joyce: They're just a little overwhelmed.

Hopper: Why?

Joyce: Dimitri smiled at them.

(I feel you, Yuri. I feel you)

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Murray: What do you do when someone offers you drugs?

Dimitri: Take them!

Hopper: Punch them in the neck!

Joyce: Say thank you!

Yuri: Offer them more drugs to assert dominance!

Murray: …

Murray: No.

(Joyce, always showing manners 🤗)

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Joyce I got us matching friendship bracelets, and you say I don't care about our relationship.

Hopper: These are handcuffs.

Joyce: Yeah, 'cause we're partners in crime!

(Joyce, I love you, but....but nothing, you are perfect)

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Dimitri, singing to the tune of I Kissed a Girl: I killed a guy, and I liked it-

Murray, whispering: Should we call the exorcist?

Yuri, also singing: The taste of his cherry chapstick.

Hopper, appalled: Call the exorcist

(Basically )

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Dimitri, in a horrible German accent: Bill Nye is on break, I'm Bill Nein.

Joyce: Can I go to the bathroom?

Dimitri, in the same horrible German accent: Nein!

(I just had to but this in because the actor is German 💪🇩🇪✨)

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Dimitri: You are irrationally angry 365 days a year.

Hopper: Well, that’s just your personal opinion, I don’t have anger issues. Do you guys think I have anger issues?

Murray: Well, I wouldn’t really call it an issue. An issue is something you can fix.

(Murray ate ✨💪✨)

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Dimitri: Uh, Hopper? Joyce is in the pool and I don't think they're waterproof.

Hopper: What?

Murray: I think they meant, Joyce is drowning.

Hopper: WHAT?!

*Meanwhile*

Joyce: *is drowning*

Yuri: OH MY GOD, JOYCE! KEEP SWIMMING!

Joyce: I can't swim, dumbass— *sinks*

Yuri: JOYCE!

(What is happening here.....the dialog seems accurate tho)

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Yuri: Don't joke about murder. I was murdered once and it offends me.

(stfu, you joke about it yourself)

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Joyce: Do you even know what an amulet is?

Dimitri: Of course I do! I eat amulets sometimes. I like the ones with cheese and onions!

Joyce: Dimitri, those are omelettes.

Dimitri: Oh. Then I’ve got nothing.

(I'm hungry now....Ooh it's 7:11 am lol)

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Joyce: Goddamn it, the printer broke while printing out Hopper's birthday invitations.

Murray: Well, what are they supposed to say?

Joyce: "Hopper's birthday".

Murray: So, what do they say instead?

Joyce: "Hopper’s bi".

Murray:

Murray: Works out either way.

(How-....how would you know 👀🤔.......sus 😑)

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Murray: I am the left brain, I am the left brain. "I work really hard until my inevitable death" brain. You've got a job to do, you better do it right and the right way is with the left brain's might.

Yuri: I LIKE OREOS AND PUSSY-

(well, what can I say....accurate👍 and I finally got that again 😪 the first time I had this, it wasn't fitting and I skipped it)

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[Murray adopting Robin AU: The Sinclairs + Robin and Max]

Lucas: I'm sorry. Please talk to me.

Robin:

Lucas: Hello? World's most amazing person?? Sweet pea? Precious cinnamon roll that's too good for this world, too pure?

Robin: 'Sorry' doesn't bring back my fucking M&Ms.

(I don't know if it's accurate, but I just love Lucas saying that ✨)

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Lucas: Can I have some?

Erica, mouth full of cheesecake: It's really spicy, you wouldn't like it.

(Why do you even try, Lucas?)

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Erica: Where did you get that tomato soup?

Charles: It’s actually a bowl of ketchup I just microwaved.

(Honestly the only thing I can remember about him is from S4 and still not much lol)

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Sue: Which country has the most birds?

Sue: Portu-geese!

Robin: That's a language.

Sue: Portu-gull?

Robin: Good recovery.

Max: I think you mean good re-dovery.

Charles: TURKEY. HOW DID WE MISS TURKEY?

(it's game night and they had to come up with bird puns....?... Well I like this)

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Robin: I’m sad.

Lucas: Don’t be sad, because sad backwards is das.

Lucas: And das not good.

(he tried, but maybe it worked!)

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Sue: I’m genuinely surprised you haven’t gotten arrested, let alone gotten a felony yet.

Lucas: Nat 20 Charisma.

Sue: That is NOT how that works-

(Idk if it's accurate but the DnD reference is fitting)

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Erica: Is stabbing someone immoral?

Lucas: Not if they consent to it.

Sue: Depends on who your stabbing.

Charles: YES??!!?

(..Just a normal conversation between their family...👍)

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Robin: Look, Erica! It's the good Kush!

Erica: It's the dollar store, how good can it be?

(Robin "I'm poor" Buckley taking Erica "You can't spell America without Erica" Sinclair shopping)

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Lucas: I'm bored.

Max: Wanna commit first degree murder?

Lucas: Sure!

Charles, hearing them: No- Stop, don't do that! Put that knife down! Put Robin down!!

(He'd do anything for Max, I love him 🥺...but what were they going to do with Robin😑)

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Sue: Charles, I need some advice.

Charles: You need advice from ME?

Sue: Yeah, frightening, isn't it?

(Something never been seen before 😱)

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Sue: What is the one thing I told you not to do?

Erica: Burn the house down.

Sue: And what did you do?

Erica: I made dinner.

Sue:

Erica:

Sue:

Erica: And burnt the house down.

(Erica can't cook confirmed)

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Max: Do you cook?

Lucas: I made a cake once.

Sue: Yeah, it was good.

Lucas: Really?

Sue: Don’t make me lie twice, Lucas.

(she's such a good Mom, lying for him to impress Max🥺)

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Sue: I give up. I am so tired.

Charles: Get the emergency supply!

Lucas: *carries Robin and places them in front of Sue*

Robin: *smiles*

Sue: AND I AM BACK BABY, LET’S GOOO

(All the Moms adore Robin... Besides her own...👍...)

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Erica: Who the fuck-

Lucas: Language!

Erica: Whom the fuck-

Lucas: No.

(Basically when Erica and Murray met in S3)

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Erica: Lucas, I don't like you.

Lucas: What did you say?

Erica: You heard me!

Lucas, internally: And it turns out I actually didn't hear what the fuck you just said.

(that definitely happend often)

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Robin: I have a new hoodie.

Erica: Wrong.

Erica: We have a new hoodie.

(new addition to the AU, the protection Squad loves wearing Robin's clothes, even tho Erica literally just disappears in them. She's uses them as pajamas)

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Charles: Lol. Heads up if you try to make a candle with food coloring, the food coloring will just sink to the bottom of the glass, and when the flame eventually reaches the bottom all the food coloring will catch fire and become one giant tall flame that you cannot possibly blow out and the glass will start to crack and then you’ll throw your tea on it in a panic and then the extremely hot food coloring will boil and sizzle horribly and then the glass will shatter. Please take my word on this.

Erica: What did you do Dad?

Charles: a Mistake.

(...Is the house burning down again?)

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Sue: YOU CHEATED!

Erica: So did dad, but hey, Lucas knew it all and even sorted out your wedding, so what’s the problem?

Charles: I… can confirm that that actually happened.

Sue: …What.

(I just found it funny how fitting the lines were originally it's "so did my dad, but hey my mom knew" but then Sue's reaction wouldn't be fitting if she knew, so I added Lucas)

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Sue: WHOEVER CAUSED THIS MESS IS GOING TO-

Robin: It was me...

Sue: ...Is going to be forgiven because everyone deserves a second chance.

(Like I said, moms adore Robin, understandably so.)

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Sue, knocking on the door: Max, open up!

Max: It all started when I was a kid.

Sue: That’s not what I-

Lucas: Let them finish!

(Omg 👀 Lucas cut his mom off for Max 😱 that's love, bitch 🙏)

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Erica: What is love?

Sue: An emotional minefield.

Charles: A neurochemical reaction.

Robin: Baby don't hurt me.

(I don't know the context, but Robin was there as support for Erica..?.. and sang that quietly to herself)

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Kidnapper: We have your child

Robin: I don’t have a child?

Kidnapper: Then who just asked for warm milk and made us cut the crusts off their sandwich?

Robin: Oh god, you have Erica

(Even the kidnapper knows Robin basically adopted Erica ✨ or maybe they called the sinclair house and Robin picked up the phone)

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Charles: You know guys, sometimes I feel like Erica doesn't take me seriously enough.

Max: "Sometimes"?

Lucas: "Enough"?

Charles:

Lucas: Change that to 'at all' and we'll talk.

(Oh Damn, but she doesn't take anyone serious tho, unless the situation is serious)

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Max: Are you sure this is safe?

Charles: Safer than Flintstone vitamin gummies in a bottle.

Charles: Keep twisting, junior! All you’re gonna get is clicks.

(I love the clicking sound from these child proof cap things)

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Max: I won a new phone in a race.

Charles: Huh? What kind of race lets you win a phone, Max?

Max: A race between the store owner, the cop, and me.

(Max "The Zoomer" Mayfield, everyone! 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏)

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Lucas: Guys, I have a question.

Erica: kys <3

Lucas: I love you too.

Robin: Ah, yes. Siblings.

(that's basically how the chatfics go)

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Sue: Robin, can I ask you a question?

Robin: Sure, anything.

Sue: Why don't you go back to your own house and leave us alone?

(Oop-...ok no! She loves Robin, so this is fake, but it's fitting because Robin is over at their house a lot so I find it funny)

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*Charles and Robin looking at a locked gate into a park*

Both: Aw. :(

Robin: You know what they say.

Charles: Please don’t-

Robin: BE GAY DO CRIME! *hops gate*

Charles: Frick-

(well you let her into your house, you gotta live with the consequences)

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Erica: Dammit, you ruin everything!

Charles: You're welcome.

(Erica in her teenage phase ig)

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*Sue teaching Erica to drive and taking Lucas along for the ride*

Sue: That's a pothole. To the left!

Erica: Take it back now y'all *Drives into pothole*

Lucas, sticking their face into the front over the center console: Cha Cha real smooth.

Erica: I don't think that's how the song goes.

Sue, crying and gripping the handle: Please just take me home.

Erica: Country Roads.

Lucas: To the place.

Erica and Lucas in unison: I Belong!

Sue, crying harder: What the fuck?

(I love this a lot. Just a mother trying to teach her daughter how to drive. (set in the future ofc))

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Lucas: I'm a nice person, but I'm about to start throwing rocks at people.

(more like shooting with your slingshot. And the people are Jason)

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Lucas: Are you drunk?

Charles: Only on the spirit of Christmas!

Max: And the spirit of whisky.

(Christmas at the Sinclairs including Max..Erica be "They seem drunk" talking about her parents)

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Sue: I hate to to tell you this, but one of you was adopted.

Erica & Max:

Erica: Was it Max?

(Omg how rude of you Erica, just because she is white? Smh 😔/j)

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Lucas: Goddamn it, the printer broke while printing out Dad's birthday invitations.

Sue: Well, what are they supposed to say?

Lucas: "Charles's birthday".

Sue: So, what do they say instead?

Lucas: "Charles’s bi".

Sue:

Sue: Works out either way.

(She knows something we don’t 👀)

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Lucas: Good morning.

Robin: Good morning.

Sue: Good morning.

Erica: You all sound like robots, try spicing it up a bit.

Max: MORNING MOTHERFUCKERS!

Charles: ERICA!-

Erica: What? I didn't curse!

Charles: Sorry, force of habit..

(just thought this would be funny to add)

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Charles You’re drunk.

Sue:Correction: drinking. Present tense. Grammar, Charles.

(Smh Charles, go use grammarly or smth)

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Sue: HYDRATE OR DIE-DRATE!

Sue: *aggressively throws water bottles*

Max: Uh... what's up with them?

Erica: They're trying to yell mental health and wellbeing into us.

Sue: I APPRECIATE ALL OF YOU!

Robin, crying: It's working.

(This should have happened after the fight with Steve)

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Sue: What do you call disobeying the law?

The Squad: A hobby.

Sue: *crosses their arms*

The Squad: That we do not engage in.

(after Max 'won' a phone in a 'race', Sue gave a lecture)

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Charles: Lucas likes to win. When they were 8, a little Club Scout friend of theirs bragged they could sell the most cookies.

Charles: Damned if Lucas didn't walk the neighborhood till they got blisters on their feet, and won by 10 boxes.

Charles: Best part is, Lucas wasn't even a Club Scout.

(Omg, yes, I want this 🤲 let this be canon)

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Lucas: When I was a kid, Robin told me that the paper strip that’s in the chocolate kisses were edible and I ate them with the chocolate for a year.

Erica: They are!

Lucas: FOR REAL?

Erica: No! Why did you fall for it again?

(Robin probably also ate the paper and actually thought they were edible too, as a kid)

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[The Party - Adults]

Jonathan: I fell—

Argyle: From heaven?

Jonathan: No, I literally fell—

Argyle: In love with me the moment you saw me?

Jonathan: MY ARM IS BROKEN!

Argyle: Okay, but do you think I'm pretty? Be honest.

(Jargyle, my love 🎶)

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Argyle: Knock, knock.

Will: Who's there?

Argyle: Boo!

Will: Boo who?

Argyle: Why are you crying?

Will: I'm not crying.

Argyle: Hello notcrying, I'm Will.

(best Jokester ever 👏✨)

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Erica: Do you want to know your gay name?

Will: My... my gay name?

Erica: Yeah, it's your first name

Will: Haha. Very funny Erica

(You know there should be the proposal thing but I just deleted that part because this more accurate)

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Robin: Do you want to know your gay name?

Will: My... my gay name?

Robin: Yeah, it's your first name-

Will: Haha. Very funny Robin-

Robin: *gets down on one knee* And my last name.

Will: Oh- oh my god.

(Well both are the first canon gays in stranger things so they're name together would be the gayest name ever. ✨Will Buckley✨ or ✨Wobin Byley✨ also they were probably drunk)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Will: I’m proud to identify as morosexual. I’m attracted to dumbasses and dumbasses exclusively. Someone asked me what the Spanish word for "tortilla" was once, and now I dream of kissing them under the moonlight.

Mike: What kind of animal is the Pink Panther?

Will, already taking off their clothes: God, Mike, you’re so fucking stupid.

(it was probably Mike in the Spanish class, with his C grade)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Jonathan: How do you want your coffee?

Will: Black, like my soul.

Jonathan:

Jonathan: Will, your soul is a latte.

(but spicy with trauma ✨)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: Okay, if we can't do it by sheer force, we'll do it my way.

Will: But your way is sheer force!

(no no, you misunderstood, her way is the queer force)

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Max: How many vampires do you think have been hit by a car backing up in a parking lot because the driver couldn’t see their reflection?

Robin: I’ve never considered it but you’re really shining light on what’s probably a very serious issue.

(Werewolf Robin concerned for Vampire Nancy 👀)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Max: Didn't you die?!

Robin: That was weeks ago, dude. Things change.

(um...ok..?)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: No, this is not a mess. You know what I consider a mess?

Max: Your life?

Nancy: I- well yes, but-

(her life is a mess tho 😪)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Argyle: Why don't I like this person?

Max: I don't know. Maybe it's because they keep stealing your thunder.

Argyle: Maybe it's because their name is "Eddie". Don't you find that utterly ridiculous?

Max: No.

Argyle: That's because your name is "Max".

(I don't think he would dislike Eddie, I just find the name thing funny)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Argyle: If the thought of something makes any of you giggle for longer than 15 seconds, you are to assume you’re not allowed to do it.

(well then I shouldn't have been allowed to write that one thing I wrote in that "Nancy and Robin in the bathroom" don't want to spoil it lol. You can read it here, if you want but if you want to finish the quotes first I'll also put it at the end)

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Argyle: Just a minute. I need to go take out the trash.

Jonathan: Oh. We're going out?

Argyle: Wh...

(Jonathan no 🥺)

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Lucas: Yesterday, I overheard Argyle saying “Are you sure this is a good idea?” and Jonathan replying “Trust me,” and I have never moved from one room to another so quickly in my life.

(I mean if Argyle even questions it, then what the hell is Jonathan's idea)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

El: It’s nice to be wanted, you know?

Lucas: Not by the military!

(He'd also say something like "and we want you here El" which would be like a total contrast from S1)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

El: Can I have a private talk with you?

Lucas: Okay, as long as it’s not about tampons because I just don’t understand them.

(I-.. Lucas no, why did you say that... Also the private talk is about Eleven's feelings for max ✨Elumax✨... Honestly max should be in the middle of that ship name because she's the one dating both, but Elumax sounds so cute.)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Eddie: Anyone d-

Robin: Depressed?

Nancy: Drained?

Steve: Dumb?

Jonathan: Disliked?

Eddie: -done with their character sheet... what is wrong with you people...

(Eddie just wanted to play DnD)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Eddie: Can I bother you for a second?

Steve: You're always bothering me, but go ahead.

(Steve would definitely say that to Eddie)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Steve: We’ve been conducting an ongoing study to see what Dustin will and will not eat.

Eddie: Grass? Yes!

Steve: Moss? Yes!!

Eddie: Leaves? Ohh, yes!

Steve: Shoelaces? Strange but true!

Eddie: Worms? Sometimes!

Steve: Rocks? Usually nah.

Eddie: Twigs? Usually!

Steve: Mike's cooking? Inconclusive!

Lucas: How did you… test this?

Steve: You just hand them stuff and say ‘eat this’ and if they eat it, they eat it.

Lucas: ... I don’t know how to feel about this.

Mike: IS THAT WHERE ALL MY SPARE SHOELACES WENT?

(that's a normal day with the Hellfire club...Also Steve and Eddie obviously being the best dads to Dustin 😃👍)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: Are you coming to bed?

Dustin: I can't. This is important.

Robin: What?

Dustin: Someone is wrong on the internet.

(They are saying Gays didn't exsist in the 80s)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Jonathan: I owe you one.

Robin: That’s ok. You can just let me date your girlfriend and we’ll call it even.

(Well you owe her one, so let her date Nancy 👀)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: I’m serious! They’re watching me! They’ve even got an agent following me! Don’t you believe me?

Will: Look, it’s not that I don’t believe you… It’s that I don’t believe you and I don’t care.

(Oof-... But it's true.... I'm the agent 🕴️)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Jonathan: *is hugging Nancy*

Steve: Hey! It's my turn to hug Nancy!

Steve: *grabs Nancy*

Robin: *kicking down the door* What do you mean, "yOuR tUrN"? We agreed now is my time slot!

Jonathan: No, It's still my turn!

Nancy: *suffocating* Guys, I love you, but just because I'm the smallest doesn't mean you can be hugging me constantly!

Steve: But we need the moral support!

Jonathan: And you're small! Which is cute!

Robin: If I don't hug you right now I think the depression will kick in and my body will stop functioning.

Nancy: *close to tears* Well- I, I guess.

(I also want to hug Nancy 😭 or want to be Nancy, I'm even smaller 👍)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Will: Okay happy campers! If you were a fruit what would you be and why?

Dustin: I'd be a tomato because no one accepts me as part of the group.

Will: ...

Dustin: ...

Will: OKAY HAPPY CAMPERS-

(S3 when they left Dustin on weathertop vibes or season 2 with the dance...i want you in my group 🙋‍♀️ you can join me!... Also Will asking what kind of fruits people are... I know what you are trying to do 👀)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: You are the love of my life and I would do anything within reason to make you happy.

Robin: I would be happy if you ate, stayed hydrated and got a reasonable amount of sleep.

Nancy: I said within reason, Robin. How about I murder that guy?

Robin: So murder is in reason but proper self care isn't?

Nancy: Well, duh. What kind of question is that?

(I agree with Nancy. I thought you were smart, Robin.)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Mike, looking at their reflection: Now, that's rubbish. Who's that supposed to be?

Jonathan: Well, that's you.

Mike: Me?! Is that what I look like?

Jonathan: You don't know?

Mike: Busy day.

(that's probably him when he saw how he looked like at the airport)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: Robin likes to win. When they were 8, a little Club Scout friend of theirs bragged they could sell the most cookies.

Nancy: Damned if Robin didn't walk the neighborhood till they got blisters on their feet, and won by 10 boxes.

Nancy: Best part is, Robin wasn't even a Club Scout.

(Omg, her and Lucas shall bond over that)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: *visiting the squad* Hello, I just came to-

Robin: *sees Jonathan shoving Will into the washing machine while Nancy records and Argyle watches*

Robin: *retreating* Something suddenly came up.

(Ye no, I'm not even gonna asks...)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy and Robin are in Paris.*

Nancy: I'm...moved. I...I don't know what it is I'm feeling right now. I feel...destiny?

Robin: But...

Nancy: I don't know what it is. I feel like... I just never thought I'd see it with my own two eyes. And here it is. It's just there. It's right in front of me, and...

Robin: This is what you wanted to see? The bridge from Inception?

Nancy: Yeah.

Robin: But the Eiffel Tower is behind us, babe.

Nancy: Yeah, but this is the bridge FROM INCEPTION.

Robin: Okay, alright.

(you see I've never seen inception, would Nancy like it? Also operation Croissant)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Will: I can't believe you've done this.....

Robin: I'm sorry I didn't know-!

Will, on the verge of tears: YOU CAN'T JUST BUY ME A GIFT OUT OF NOWHERE NOW I FEEL LIKE A HUGE ASSHOLE!

(Robin gifting Will something on their first time at the pride parade 🥺 I want them to interacted! I want them to know that they're both friends of Dorothy)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: Two brooooos!

Robin: Chillin' in a hot tub!

Nancy: Five feet apart 'cause we're not gay!

Robin:

Nancy:

Robin: *tearing up*

Nancy: Babe, c'mon...

Robin: AND HERE YOU REALLY HAD ME THINKING WE HAD SOMETHING.

Nancy: Babe...

(Nancy, how could you! 😭)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Will: We’re kind of missing something guys.

El: Cohesion?

Robin: Teamwork?

Max: A general sense of what we’re doing?

Nancy: And Mike is not here.

El: Oh, and that, yeah.

(ofc Will and Nancy notice but El doesn't and is the one saying "oh, and that, yeah." it's so funny)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: I know you love them.

Mike: I am not in love with Will!

Robin, staring at Mike: I never said who...

Mike: *realizes*

Mike: Shit. Well, anyways-

(✨🥺Robin helping Mike with his feelings🥺✨)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: Are you ready to commit?

Robin: Like, a crime or a relationship?

(Nancy: Yes)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Robin: I truly go into housewife mode when I'm someone's soulmate- like, I'll make you pancakes and bacon every morning.

Nancy: This is a lie.

Nancy: I'm literally dating them. This is a lie.

Nancy: THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO COOK A PANCAKE, WHAT IS THIS.

(I say that too (never been in a relationship) and I actually believe I would do that lol, but well never had the opportunity to find out)

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Argyle: Well, needless to say. Uh-oh Spaghetti-os.

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Nancy: Do you take constructive criticism?

Robin: No, only cash or credit.

(this made me think of the tik tok sound of Glimpse of us but the lyrics being "Insert cash or select payment type")

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Jonathan: Guys, my friend here is bilingual.

Argyle: Yes.

Jonathan: Which means they like both boys and girls.

Arygel: Ye- wait, what-

Will: Jonathan, that's not what bilingual means-

Jonathan: Shhh, it's okay Argyle. I still love you, man.

Argyle & Will: ...

Jonathan: bUT NOT LIKE THAT-

(but like that tho 👀 also Jonathan is very high)

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Well that's it.

Hope you liked it!

Also click here, if want to read that "Nancy and Robin in the bathroom" thing, it's for the 'Murray adopting Robin' AU, which you can also check out if you want.

Lots of Love ✨💪🇩🇪😜✨

#very long post #long post #murry bauman #joyce byers #jim hopper #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #robin buckley #max mayfield #nancy wheeler #ronance #jopper #lumax #elumax #jonathan byers #stranger things #stranger things incorrect quotes #idk what else to tag #Murray adopting Robin

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transmalewife · 3 years ago

Text

I've always found it extremely weird when there's a post like 'society has evolved past the need for england', or 'let's sink britain into the sea' in the context of transphobia and then theres a million comments like um actually british trans people are the most affected by transphobia in britain how dare you suggest that bc like. ok.

1. I live in poland. I'm trans. poland is extremely transphobic. I make jokes about getting rid of this entire country every day of my life, and so do many trans people i know. I've never seen someone go but uwu I'm polish and trans how dare you say that

2. there are british trans people who do the same

3. if someone is saying we should get rid of england because it's transphobic they're like... pretty fucking obviously not advocating getting rid of trans people

4. It is in fact, a joke. like try as we might tumblr gays are not actually capable of sinking an entire country into the sea

5. Why the fuck is your attachment to the label of "british" strong enough to overlook all of that and jump into defensiveness?

Idk i feel like it ties into the whole "british people say yewchewb- YEAH AND AMERICANS MURDER CHILDREN WITH GUNS" thing. apparently there's now discourse about english breakfasts now, of which ive thankfully only seen the tip of the iceberg, where people went HOW DARE YOU INSULT WORKING CLASS FOOD, for something that turned out to be 100% aristocratic in origin.

I just think it's interesting how joking about getting rid of the us, hungary, poland, canada etc are all acceptable, but not britain, especially since a lot of discourse online focuses on how blatant the nationalistic propaganda is in the us, and how We Europeans would never recite a pledge. But maybe because it's so obvious in the us, people actually see it for what it is. If you're british, and trans/an ally, and your first reaction to someone saying "we should destroy britain because it's transphobic" is "how dare you say someone should destroy me" maybe you should reavaluate why your gut reaction is to think of yourself as british first and trans second. How you're willing to argue with people calling out transphobia just to defend your identity as part of a nation that colonized half the world and is currently actively harming you.

I think a lot of how people have been reacting to transphobia in england stems from this idea that the uk is a First World Country after all, of course those barbaric eastern europeans would have their draconian catholic abortion and lgbt laws, but we the woke, we the civilized would never, so they just react surprised pikachu meme to any reactionary politics in their home country. (relevant anecdote: when I was 11 I went on a school trip to the uk and the british girls there were shocked to see we had our little flip phones. Like they genuinely thought poland was just overgrown with woods and we had bears roaming the dirt roads). Well, I hate to break it to you but poland gave women the right to vote at the same time the uk did. we had legal abortion earlier. the age of consent has been the same for all sexualities since 1948 (compared to... 2000 in the uk. that's insane. like i'm literally older than the most basic aspect of gay rights in the uk) I'm not saying that just because we didn't have laws against it poland was a gay heaven or anything, far from it, but british people need to reexamine the way they have been indoctrinated into believing themselves better than everyone else by virtue of being british if they ever want to contribute something valuable to progressive politics

#uk #great britain #terf island #transphobia.#mine.

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eleanorbloom · 4 years ago

Text

When You’re Ready Ch. 11

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 4.5k

Warning: Angst and cursing.

A/N: We are already halfway through this journey and things are finally getting interesting, so thank you all so much for all the support I’ve received and for stuck with me till this point. ❤

Taglist: @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 @shanzay44 @choicesficwriterscreations @laiba-the-person @starrystarrytrouble @lahellacute @lucy-268 @aylamreads @cinnamonspongecake @romewritingshop @angela8756 @bratzlahela

Let me know if you wanna me added or removed from the taglist!

Enjoy!

_______

Chapter 11. Don’t Start Now

Don’t show up, don’t come out

Don’t start caring about me now,

The following weeks were calmer than previous. The conversation Eleanor had with Ethan seemed to work because, since that day, he stopped directing his anger toward her, and instead, he did what he was good at in second place: ignore her.

Eleanor didn’t mind, obviously. If she confronted him in the first place, was because she was tired of his childish attitude and knew very well that his next obvious reaction would be ignoring her like he did the past months. She needed peace and that was the only way to get it.

Still, she couldn’t deny that the situation was painful. She never expected to spend the first months in the Diagnostics Team in such a bad position with Ethan, when it had to be the best time to learn from him, learn from his mentor, the person she had idolized since she was in high school. And all because he was jealous.

The silver lining in all this was that it soothed things with Bryce. As she didn’t rant about Ethan with him, the next weeks were very sweet and calm in the company of Keiki. For some reason, Eleanor clicked very well with her. Perhaps it was the fact that she had many similitudes with Bryce, even if they hadn’t lived together for ten years, and Eleanor thought she was undeniably attracted to that, so it couldn’t be any different with Keiki.

Some nights a week, she would stay with the Lahelas and have sleepovers in the living room to talk and watch movies until they would fall asleep on the mattress of the new bed Bryce had bought for Keiki. Some other nights they would play cards, or just talk about the day and about life.

Eleanor would even chat throughout the day with her too.

“Wait, my sister is sending you memes?”—Bryce asked, really offended while they were taking a break in the cafeteria—"Why she doesn’t do that with me?”

“Because she likes me more than you.”

“But I’m his brother!”

“Hey, take it as she has the same good taste as you do. Another thing you two have in common.”—She winked at him and Bryce couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Mmh you’re right. Spending so much time with me it’s getting on you, uh?”—He whispered proudly, leaning to her to kiss her in the cheek.

“Couldn’t be any other way”

“She’s really disappointed when I get home and you don’t show up. It hurts my feelings.”

Eleanor released a hard laugh at his pouting lips and his puppy eyes just like a Golden Retriever.

“Ohmygod, finally I’m seeing your Golden Retriever side. Are you jealous of attention?”

“What do you think? Keiki came for me but only wants to see you.”

“She just enjoys my company, a female presence, that’s all. But what she really needs it’s her brother. You have nothing to worry about, Goldie.”

She stroked his cheek and a second later, he furrowed his brows.

“Goldie?”

“That’s my new nickname to you when you’re behaving like a Golden Retriever, just like now.”

“Excuse me? You still have no pet names for me, but I got a freaking dog nickname? Seriously, Bloom?”

“Bloom? You think you can offend me by calling me like that?”—She grinned—"We talked about this. I’m not comfortable enough to use pet names yet, Bryce. But it’s a step, don’t you think?”

“It is a pet name after all”

“God, you’re impossible.”—Eleanor sighed, getting up from the seat with the empty paper cup in her hand.—“I gotta go”

“Don’t ignore me.”

“See? You’re such a Goldie.—She laughed again.—"Gosh, you’re sooo cuteee”

Eleanor placed a hand over his hair and patted him softly, just like she would do with a real puppy. Bryce scowled her, feigning to be offended.

A moment later, she leaned close to his face and looked at him tenderly.

“I love you, Goldie.”

Then she kissed him, a soft brush against his lips that made him cackle before she parted her lips from him.

“Goddamn, you know how to manipulate me, don’t you?”—He stood up from the chair and pulled her in a tight embrace—"Love you too, princess.”

“Good boy.”—She praised, hugging him back before untangling herself from his arms and dragged him outside the cafeteria so both could get back to work.

Eleanor was snuggled to Bryce, deeply asleep when she heard a knock in her bedroom door. It took her a while to wake up and go to see what it was. She didn’t even think about how poorly dressed she was. Just a rose satin tank top and her panties.

“This better be important”—She murmured opening the door mid-third knock, only to find a tall figure with deep blue eyes in front of her—"Oh!”

Ethan was standing on the other side his face impassive. He tried to focus on her face, but he couldn’t resist roaming his eyes over her body for a few moments.

“Oh, uh good morning.”—He greeted, returning his eyes to her face, only to notice someone behind her, under the sheets of her bed.

“What is it, babe?”—He heard a husky voice and then he saw Bryce stirring under the sheets and looking in their direction with a drowsy expression.

Babe.

Eleanor saw how his face disfigured hearing that single word. And obviously, the fact that Bryce was in her bed, sleeping. Ethan glanced at her stoically, but she could decipher the disappointment when his eyes betrayed him for a split second.

“It’s Dr. Ramsey”—She murmured looking back at Bryce, her cheeks flushed.

“Ramsey?”—Bryce sat up, startled, waking up in an instant.

Ethan followed his gaze.

“Good morning to you too, Dr. Lahela.”—He scowled at him briefly, evidencing how much he was hating that he was there.—"I’m sorry Dr. Bloom, I didn’t know you had company.”

His words sounded like an iceberg that made her shiver even if the room was warm with the morning sunlight filtering through the curtains.

“What are you doing here?”

“We have a case, I need you to dress up and go with me.”

“But is my day off!”

“The Team doesn’t have days off, Bloom. Wear something nice, the board is desperate to impress this patient”

“Okay.”

“Hurry up, I’ll wait outside.”

Eleanor closed the door and looked at Bryce biting her bottom lip, guilty.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry. You better finish this case soon, so you can come back to me.”

“We planned this for weeks. It’s your birthday.”—She pouted, sitting over the edge of the bed, beside him.

“Baby, we celebrated last night.—He took her hands and caressed her palm softly—"I slept with you, I woke up with you, and I have my sister here in Boston, what else can I ask?”

“Well, if you put it that way…”

“Just hurry up and go to my place once you’re done, okay?”

“Okay, promise.”—She leaned to kiss him and then got up to look for a formal dress in her wardrobe until she found a navy-blue corporate dress that had been saving for that kind of occasion.

Bryce chuckled suddenly.

“You saw his face? Oh, man. I know this is cruel, but it was some kind of birthday present to me.”

Bryce crossed his arms behind his head with a satisfied smirk over his face, while he was staring at Eleanor stripping from her clothes and putting on clean underwear.

“What do you mean?”

“His face when he realized I was sleeping in your bed. It was like his eyes were just about to jump out of his face and strangle me.”

“I want to know who thought it was a great idea to let him pass knowing you were here.”

Eleanor unfastened the dress, stepping into him one leg at a time.

“Maybe that person did it on purpose.”—Bryce speculated, standing up from the bed—“C’ mere”

Eleanor took a few steps and turned her back to him so he could zip her dress up.

“I bet was Jackie. She is such a troll and would totally do that.”—She turned to him—“Thank you.”

“If it was her, I have to thank her.”

Eleanor scowled him.

“What? She did you a favor. You didn’t want to tell him, fine. He just found us.”

She stood in silence for a couple of seconds, thinking.

“Yeah, it’s kinda relieving, actually.”

Eleanor conceded, before going to brush her teeth in the bathroom. Even if he had had his suspicions and this was nothing surprising, still she didn’t know how Ethan would react from now on. And what could unleash in her.

When she returned to the room, Bryce was already dressed up.

“Hey, you don’t need to leave. Sleep for a couple of hours more.”

“Nah, I prefer to go home, Keiki has been too much time alone.”

“Well, that’s true.”

Eleanor collected her things, cellphone, keys, and purse, and both left the room.

Once they opened the building door, they found Ethan leaned against a red mini cooper. The moment Ethan exchanged glances with them, he turned around to get in the car. Eleanor stopped a few feet away from the vehicle and smiled at Bryce, her cheeks blushed.

“Well, that’s me. I hope this ends soon.”

“I hope so too. Have a great day, babe.”

“You too, birthday boy.”

She kissed chastely in the lips and then turned to get in the vehicle.

The first consequences of what had happened were seen a few blocks away for her apartment. Ethan started to call her out because if they were doing home service to patients now was only because of her and her decision to pursue wealthy patients to save the Team. But she didn’t waste energy in replying. Instead, she decided to simply turn a deaf ear to any of his outbursts and ignore him the whole ride.

However, when his anger risked the possibility to compete with Mass Kenmore to cure Leland Bloom, one of the wealthiest men in the country, Eleanor decided to speak up. She didn’t brook up for weeks his hurtful words just to let go of a wealthy patient that could probably help to solve two and maybe more patients that don’t have the resources to be treated in any other hospital.

As Ethan left the house after declining the competition Leland Bloom had offered, without consulting with his colleagues, Baz, June, and her followed him outside to talk some sense into him.

“Ethan”—Spurted Baz—“Please, we need this. You know we need this.”

“No, I’m not going-”

“Could you please surgically remove your head from your ass for one second and consider that this is for the Team?—Eleanor interrupted, employing the same words he had used last year when Declan Nash was denying to even have a conversation with him about a possible treatment for sepsis. She wanted him to know how stupid and irrational was being at that moment.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re behaving like a goddamn diva, a freaking a spoiled child, you know? Do you think your ego is bigger than the needs of the Diagnostics Team? How unprofessional of you, seriously.”

Ethan’s face disfigured at words, exposing his embarrassment and mortification. After a few moments, he glanced at his colleagues apologetically.

“I, uh… Spoiled child seems to suit the occasion. And unprofessional. I owe you all an apology.”

Baz and June seemed clearly surprised by the bold words Eleanor had used on him and how she got to tame his anger in just a few seconds when Ethan had been punishing her for weeks after what happened with Gwyneth. When Ethan wasn’t looking at them, Baz raised his thumb, nodding amazed.

After the meeting with Leland Bloom, the team returned to Edenbrook to discuss the possible diagnosis with the information provided by the patient.

“The results will be ready this afternoon, so I’ll be doing rounds while I wait for them”—Eleanor informed after ordering the exams in the Nurses’ Station.

Ethan nodded imperceptibly but didn’t say anything, making Eleanor sigh.

She needed to talk about this. Her colon couldn’t support another day or another week avoiding the topic and hearing his outbursts just like that day. Now that the truth was out, there was no point in avoiding facing it. She looked around to check if there was any sight of June or Baz near, but the hallway was absolutely deserted.

“So, you stopped acting like a spoiled child, but you’re keeping the unprofessional act?”—She asked, standing in front of his desk, arms crossed and serious glare.

“Excuse me?”—Ethan took off his glasses, visibly offended.

“You are clearly pissed off with me because you saw me this morning with Bryce, and if you are bringing personal stuff to our working relationship, let me tell you that you’re being pathetically unprofessional, Ethan.”

“Watch out your tone, Bloom.”

“Watch out your reactions, Ramsey.”—Snaped her, instantly—"You have scolded and snubbed me for weeks just because I’ve ignored all your insinuations, and you can’t keep being like that.”

“Insinuations, what are you talking about?”

“Oh, please. Don’t act like you don’t know it. Since you came back from the Amazon you have waited for me to make a move on you, even if you said we were over for good. And when you realized that I wasn’t gonna play that game, you started to act like an ass just like before you left.”

“Clearly ego issues are contagious, and the scalpel jockey infected you badly.”

“Oh. So why the hell you’ve been acting this way with me, then?”

“Because you went behind my back in contacting Gwyneth Monroe.”

“No, it started before her. When we visited Evelyn Vega’s art exposition you were already acting weird. The fool’s act doesn’t work with me, Ethan.”

He stared thoughtfully, trying to suppress the words that were about to come out of his mouth. He didn’t want to say it. It was against his nature and against the decision he had made. But like everything that involved Eleanor, he was about to act against all his self-control.

“Four months ago you were so… persistent about us being together, and now you’re dating him?”

“A lot of things can happen in four months, you’re smarter than that, Ethan. And should I remind you that you were the one who ended things and only wanted a professional relationship?”

“No, I know that.”

“Then tell me, why is all this fuss really for? We broke up whatever we had four months ago, so clearly my personal life it’s not your concern, and yet it’s messing with our working relationship.”

“I just don’t understand why you’re with him.”

“What do you mean by him?”

“He’s shallow, annoying, egocentric, a scalpel jockey, and you deserve more than that.”

“Don’t you dare to talk about Bryce like that, Ethan.”

Ethan stopped, eyes wide opened, surprised with the almost visceral reaction she had had at hearing his words.

“I’m wrong? Do you know what’s behind all that skin-deep beauty and ego?”

Ethan knew he was more than that, but still, he wasn’t enough for Eleanor. He needed a sharp mind, someone, that challenges her. Someone like him.

“Of course I know him, why the fuck do you think I’ve been with him for three months?”

Since the first moment her intention wasn’t to hurt him, but god, he was being so mean that somehow now she wanted to throw all over his face how much time she had been with Bryce, so he knew this wasn’t an insignificant relationship and that she didn’t spend two whole months crying for his absence. At least not physically, but emotionally, she did.

“D…”—Her words were like a punch in the face. Three months.—“Don’t you see he’s not for you? You deserve better than that, Eleanor.”

Eleanor took a deep breath, containing all her anger. She didn’t want to make a scene. She had to be an adult, but it was difficult when Ethan was acting this irrational and stupid.

“I don’t know who you think you are to talk about someone you clearly don’t know. Not even your status as a second-best diagnostician in the country gives you the superpowers to know a person without really talk or spend time with them.—She took another breath—"That said, I’ll inform you that Bryce has been all the transparent you never were with me in all this time. When I was about to be suspended by the Committee, he was there to give me moral support. When you left for the Amazon, he started inviting me out because he couldn’t stand to see me sad. He saw my pain and did something to relieve me, not like you, that every time you saw me drowning, you preferred to ignore me because it’s easier than to deal with my emotions and yours. When I’m sad, when I can’t deal with this whole situation with you, he is there for me, to supporting and listening to me. So, do you really think I don’t deserve someone like him?”

Ethan felt how his ego was taking hostage of his body, he hated to be this way, but that question had been wandering her mind since the moment he saw Bryce in her bed.

“Do you still love me?”

That question took her by surprise. She knew he would ask her at some point, but not now. Still, she didn’t have intentions to deny it.

“Unfortunately, yes. But it isn’t important, actually.”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“Eleanor…”

“Why do you care now?”—She interrupted before he could say anything that could trick her mind.—"You were very clear to me that nothing can happen between us, you ignored me for two months when you left for the Amazon, and now that I’m doing my life you suddenly care? The bollocks, Ethan.”

“I never thought you…”—He stopped mid-sentence.

“That I would move on? That my life would keep going after you? I can’t believe you’re this selfish Ethan. And this egocentric.”

“I don’t mean it like that…”

“I don’t care. Whatever you have to say, save it. You had your chances, and you preferred the easiest path. Punish me and ignore me, and I don’t deserve that.”

Eleanor left the room, her heart racing really fast. She was angry, scared, sad, anxious, guilty. All the stupid feelings Ethan always managed to make her feel, now were invading her mind and heart, threatening to explode inside her. She ran to the nearest restroom she found and once there she locked herself in the cubicle, releasing a sob.

All that had been holding up these weeks since Ethan was back in Boston, was now free. All that had been holding up because of Bryce, because she wanted things to work, but she wasn’t going to make Ethan a regular topic in their relationship. She had shared with Bryce the whole fight and how of an ass he was acting but never told him how she really felt. How devastated she was with the fact that he was ignoring her and scolding her because she had moved on. Never told him how difficult it was not even looking at him in the eyes because she was afraid that she would surrender to her most deep desires. Never told him that this whole situation was unfair because that was a moment to be learning from him, not avoiding him. Instead, she was receiving the worst of him as a person and as a doctor as he was throwing all outside the window because he was jealous.

And now she was feeling angry and more disappointed than ever. She never expected that Ethan would question her choices, especially the person with whom she had to move on. And never expected him to be this prejudicious. That he would suggest that Bryce as her partner was synonymous with insult and indignity.

She felt sick at realizing how blindly selfish he was. And for a person like that, Eleanor couldn’t spend another tear, so after a few deep breaths, she wiped the tears from her face and started to wander around the hospital to find something useful to do.

Half an hour later, she was informed that the results couldn’t be ready that day, so she went back to the office to inform Ethan, in the hopes that she could leave early to spend the rest of the afternoon with Bryce and Keiki.

��Dr. Ramsey, the lab has informed me that the results couldn’t be ready today, there was a problem with previous analysis that had to be made again and that is on top priority, but they’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”

“Alright. You’re discharged, then.”

“Thank you.”

She was about to grab her purse when Ethan stood up from his chair.

“Eleanor, wait.”

She turned to him, her face emotionless.

“I need to understand why.”

“Why what?”

“Why you… moved on so fast when you… you said you love me. How could you leave what we had in the past just after a month? Was all you said a lie?”

Eleanor felt heartbroken. She sensed his pain and how subtly he was acknowledging that after all this time he still couldn’t move on, but at the same time, she couldn’t believe he was questioning her feelings when he had been the one who broke everything they had.

“How… How can you doubt my feelings, Ethan? How?—She said as her voice was breaking—"I was honest with you the whole time. The whole time you were ignoring me I opened up my heart to you, I ridiculed myself in front of you every time I tried to make to your senses. You really think that all that was a trap?”

“No, but…”—Ethan walked towards her and stopped a few inches away as he sensed her discomfort.—"How could you do it so fast and…. with someone so shallow, you deserve better than that. You’re brilliant, you need someone who comprehends your sharp mind…”

“Shut up!”—She roared—"I’m tired of this shit, Ethan. Don’t ever talk about Bryce like that, you hear me? You have no idea…”—A sob escaped from her throat. It really affected her how bad he was treating Bryce—“…how wonderful he is and all the things he had done for me. If you knew, you wouldn’t be saying this bullshit. You should be grateful to him instead.”

“Why you say that?”

“Because he cleaned the mess you made. You were the one that broke me into hundred pieces, and not just when you left, but every time you ignored me and pretended that I didn’t exist, every time you didn’t answer my calls or emails, even when you started to punish me for moving on. You have spent months breaking me, Ethan. In million pieces. And you know who took all the broken pieces of me, who is putting them all together? Him. Like the brilliant scalpel jockey he is, he has been stitching every single piece of me with love, dedication, with patience, with a lot of patience. He has shown me how real and selfless love is by being a good friend, inviting me out, making me laugh, putting me on top of his priorities when not even I was putting myself first. And he had never hurt me, you know? So don’t ever say that I don’t deserve him, because he’s precisely what I deserve after all the hell you made me live.”

Ethan couldn’t say anything, and after a few moments, Eleanor turned to leave, but before she could take her belongings, he spoke.

“Do you love him?”

She faced him, bravery in her entire body even if she was still crying.

“Yes”.

Eleanor could see how his life fell apart, how she broke him with just a single word.

“But you said that you…”

“I love him but I’m not in love with him, yet.”

“You’re still in love with me, then?”—He said with a hint of hope.

“Yes, but that doesn’t change anything between us.”

“It does. Eleanor, I wanted to make things right, but I was afraid.”

“Don’t you think I wasn’t afraid too? I exposed myself in front of you a hundred times and I kept doing it even if you rejected me ninety-nine times before.”

“You have always been braver than I am.”

“Yes. That’s why I asking you to please end all this crap for good and let me be happy.”

“I … I don’t know if I can.”

Suddenly, he heard a hiss and before he could direct his eyes to the source of the noise, an imponent and categorically voice filled the air.

“Enough. ”

Ethan and Eleanor turned to the voice, startled, only to find Bryce standing in front of the sliding doors, his face frozen in a cold glare.

“Enough of your stupid game of making her feel guilty for the shit you created, Ramsey.”

“Bryce…"—Eleanor said in a tiny voice, clearly surprised of his attitude, but grateful that he had interrupted that tortuous exchange.

"This is not of your concern, Lahela.”

“If you are making her feel like shit, if you are making her cry like she is now, of course it’s my concern and I won’t let you do this to her anymore, you hear me?”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, I’m asking you to behave like a decent human being and stop torturing her with your mistakes. She has paid more than enough for them, and it’s not fair you keep doing this. So, if you really, really care about her like you’re trying to show, take a step back and leave her alone.”

Ethan was speechless. He never thought he would see Bryce this serious and commanding, and that he would call him out like this. His eyes were now burning with fury and was standing a few inches ahead of Eleanor in a protective way, waiting for anything Ethan could throw at her or him and respond.

When Bryce understood that Ethan wouldn’t say another word, he turned to Eleanor.

“Come on, babe, let’s get outta here.”

“Okay.”—Her voice was barely a murmur.

"You have your purse here?”

“Yeah, it’s…”

“ Got it"—He said when he localized the black leather bag hanging from a chair in the circular table. Once he was standing beside her again, he held her hand and together walked out of the office, while the examining eyes of Ethan followed every movement of them.

The last thing he heard before the doors slid shut was a soft "It’s okay baby, I got you” after a few sobs, while through the windows he could see how Bryce was holding her in his arms, her face deep buried in his chest. Then, total silence. His hammering head full questions and guilt had deafened him.

___

A/N2: So, with this chapter, I officially declare that Bryce is Leo cusp Virgo in my AU, thank you very much.

48 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 4 years ago

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A good description. For my part, I don't like talking about it because of my own experiences. I can, however, see Batman, a story where nearly every memorable villain and even the protagonist himself is a Svengali, could attract a disproportionate number of rape apologists, though fandom is full of them. (Oh, hey, that's the other thing with Jason. Talia.)

Ugh I’m so sorry to hear you can relate, and I totally understand not wanting to talk about it. I have no idea what your particular situation is, obviously, but I also want to reiterate since its been awhile since I’ve mentioned this part.....I don’t feel any like....basically, my choice to talk about this stuff is simply put, MY choice, made for my own reasons, that aren’t a reflection on any other survivor. There are a million and one reasons NOT to come forward, or to struggle with it or not to be open about what happened to us, and none of them are a reflection on any of us, but rather the position it puts us in.

Again, I don’t know your situation or what gender you might be or anything else, and this isn’t at all because your ask made me feel defensive or anything like that. This is just something I’ve wanted to put into words for awhile now seems relevant today, and here’s as good a place as any to put it down:

For myself, being a male survivor....like, there’s never really been any getting around the existence of that kinda, idk, caveat that not many male survivors come forward. Sure, we all see the posts and tweets reminding “remember, men can be raped too!” But that’s not the same thing as men sharing their stories and experiences the way far more women have come forward. And that’s why I ultimately began talking about my own experiences in order to express how I felt about my own positioning in society and how as a survivor I interact and am interacted with by others. Because frankly, there wasn’t anywhere else I could really look to in order to see others talking or sharing about similar things and see myself reflected in what they were saying or the experiences they were describing. So, if I couldn’t find what I felt I needed or could have benefited from, I figured at least I could put it out there in case anyone else who could relate could benefit from mine.

Except, ultimately I’ve come to feel that I honestly don’t believe its that men just flat out don’t come forward with their stories or experiences, its that even when we do, we’re rarely signal boosted - as you can kinda see from the fact that I can post the most inane shit and get it to a thousand notes, but in the five plus years I’ve been making posts about this subject, I’m lucky if I can get a single post on the topic to double digits as far as notes go.

People just flat out are a combination of uncomfortable with the novelty of actual discussions about and around male survivors as well as being not really sure how to talk about it because we’ve never really developed the tools for it.

And to be 100% clear, this has NOTHING to do with female survivors, as a point of comparison or ANYTHING else. It drives me up a fucking WALL when people try and compare and contrast even just how much men being raped is talked about vs women being raped, no matter WHAT their reasons are, because I promise people, I PROMISE - NO survivor, of any gender, has EVER benefitted from being pitted against other survivors to ANY degree. Its not a zero sum game and it doesn’t help male survivors to pull shit like “well at least female survivors are acknowledged” because a) eww, and b) nobody asked anyone to say that on our behalf, and c) hyper-visibility isn’t a privilege (or whatever the best parallel to that might be, I’m not trying to appropriate an anti-blackness specific term so much as its the closest comparison I have at the moment for something that isn’t even a matter of marginalized identities but rather marginalized experiences) and d) its COMPLETELY beside the point and actually misses the point by a WIDE margin.

Because what I’ve come to realize over the years, from my own experiences and talking and sharing with survivors of all genders and demographics and walks of life, is that first off....nobody really needs the reminder that hey, men can be raped too. We see it happen all throughout entertainment and other aspects of society, its not an experience that’s hidden away from the light, its just not ever really CALLED what it is, or followed up on, and talked about.

Like Dick Grayson isn’t a statistical outlier in media. Take Horrible Bosses, a summer blockbuster comedy a few years back with a cast of fairly big name comedians, and whose running B plot throughout the whole movie was Jennifer Aniston’s character wanting to rape her employee, Charlie Day’s character. Not only was this not objectionable to audiences in any sizable way, not only did this never really get called out as wtf by critics and reviews, the movie was successful enough to warrant a sequel with even BIGGER names in its cast, like Christopher Pine, and the continuation of the Aniston’s character trying to rape Charlie Day’s subplot. With zero awareness. And its not like that’s the only movie. There’s plenty more I could name.

Or then you’ve got television, where like, take Riverdale, a well-promoted, well known CW show....whose first few episodes featured the lead character Archie in a sexual relationship with his much older female teacher. Except not really a relationship, because that’s textbook, no debate, literal statutory rape.....that ended with Archie’s character being condemned for it as though he were on equal footing with the teacher, who ultimately left town, and it never really acknowledged that he was literally a victim of statutory rape, that any teacher who does that is not an equal partner but a predator. I stopped watching the show for a lot of reasons by like the fourth episode, but I see enough gifs on tumblr to know that several seasons later, this left little enough impact that some kind of Archie-goes-to-jail plotline has resulted in more memes and jokes about prison rape than I can count, and zero awareness that people are compounding jokes about a character who is literally already an unacknowledged survivor.

That’s one. Or you can take Once Upon A Time, a popular ABC show of multiple seasons, and the running subplot where Robin Hood’s character is raped by the Wicked Witch literally the same way Dick was by Mirage in the comics. She shapeshifts into Maid Marian, who ends up dead, and has ‘sex’ with Robin Hood (no, she rapes him) and ends up pregnant. Not only is this never really called what it is, later on, other characters LITERALLY CHEW HIM OUT for objecting to this baby being left in the care of her mother, aka his rapist, and for ‘not being willing to give her the benefit of the doubt/let her change’ as though him not wanting to co-parent with his rapist is no different from any of the show’s other dubious redemption storylines....except for the fact that this particular part of her redemption arc isn’t ever really one she actually needs redeeming for, because nobody ever fucking points out that she literally raped him and he was her victim. Fast forward to the end of the series, Robin Hood’s been dead for seasons, the Wicked Witch is happily redeemed and has a loving wholesome relationship with her daughter, named after Robin Hood like they were some kind of loving, happy family instead of a rapist, her victim, and the child that was born of it.

Or you can take Grimm, a fairly successful NBC show of multiple seasons WHICH LITERALLY DID THE EXACT SAME THING. The main character Nick was raped in season two by the antagonist of the time, who shape shifted into his wife and had ‘sex’ with him, with him not realizing the truth until later on, by which point she’s pregnant with his child. Fast forward to the end of the show, not only was this never really called what it was, his wife’s character was killed off seasons earlier and he is now, get this, ‘happily’ in a romantic and sexual longterm relationship with his rapist (who he by now knows exactly what she did do and what happened between them and just.....got over it without ever actually like, reacting to it)....and oh yeah, not only are they raising the child born of it together, they’ve had a second child since then.

Anyone ever hear much outcry about the male rapes in these shows? And again, like Horrible Bosses, tip of the iceberg. There’s a LOT more shows I could name, just like there are movies.

Or take comics. Its not even just Dick Grayson that’s a survivor. Or Bruce. Or Jason as you pointed out, which......I know a lot of people ignore both Morrison AND Winick’s take on Talia in order to not write her as the rapist she is in their stories, which I can totally understand as she was a well-established character of color for long before either of them got their hands on her and its perfectly valid for people not to want to have to write her as being tarnished as a rapist because two different writers wrote her that way....without.....either of them ever really acknowledging that was literally how they were writing her. I myself write her as a character of complicated and often dubious morality, but never a rapist, for that reason and many others, but its definitely there. And even in a fandom that has never lacked for acknowledgment of Dick being a survivor whose rapists were women.....a LOT of people still romanticize Jason’s ‘relationship’ with Talia as being something other than a grown woman taking advantage of a minor in an extremely vulnerable and compromised state.....with a TON of other takes out there about the two of them, in posts and fics alike, where its somehow danced around or outright called something other than “that time Talia raped Jason in the comics.”

But its not just the Batbooks. Its like how I’ve mentioned in the past, Garth Ennis wrote into one of his storylines that Kyle Rayner was raped when he went to Gotham one time.....not to make it a plot point, but to use it as a JOKE. Or take Marvel comics, Bobby Drake, one of my other all-time favorite characters....who is also a rape survivor of multiple occasions, without it ever acknowledged as such. Like, he was briefly in a relationship with Mystique, who turned out to have entered the relationship under false pretenses, shocking, and who used having sex with him to depower him and take him out of the upcoming fight between the X-Men and the Marauders, which...we don’t have time to unpack all that right now. But fast forward about a year later, and Bobby has since gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend Opal Tanaka.....who, it turns out, is actually just Mystique in disguise, having sex with him again without it ever being called rape since he was consenting to sex with Opal, not the woman who slept with him that one time just to make sure he was helpless to stop a whole lot of people from getting killed. But hey, forget about Mystique! How about that time Chuck Austen wrote him ‘having sex’ with an empath who was EXPLICITLY noted in the narrative as using her powers to manipulate his emotions to even WANT to have sex with her in the first place, and when an issue later it comes out she’s married and her husband starts beating up Bobby for ‘sleeping with his wife’ all the other characters present, all of them friends and teammates of his, condemn Bobby for this without it ever being acknowledged that he was literally manipulated into it by a superpower and he was the victim.

Again. Tip. Of. The. Iceberg.

But you see what I mean? Male rape isn’t an outlier and it isn’t an unknown....its everywhere! Its just.....never called that, really, and never really talked about, even by people who normally would, except for the fact that I don’t think we as a society have ever really forced ourselves to FIND a way to talk about it, because of the fact that like.....the very notion of it threatens and undermines the essence of the patriarchal beliefs that are hammered into us all from day one. Even when we know the patriarchy is crap, we still have so much ingrained in us from early childhood that stuff like this, which is a blatant symptom of it even if not one aimed primarily at disadvantaging women.....like, it slips under the radar because its never fully called out or spotlighted in loud enough or widely enough ways to keep us from overlooking how much its impacted our POVs.

Blatantly put, the patriarchy and sexism RELIES on the idea that men are somehow more powerful/stronger/whatthefuckever than women. And male victims - of abuse as well as rape, though definitely rape.....like, even just a widespread awareness of our existence is enough to kinda destabilize that belief that is so foundational to the patriarchy its DEPENDENT on it being upheld as unassailable truth.

Because if forced to acknowledge that men are just as vulnerable to even something like rape as anyone else in the ‘right’ situations or dynamics, it forces confrontation with the reality that no matter what the patriarchy has claimed for as long as its existed.....men aren’t inherently any more powerful, or stronger, or resistant to harm/humiliation/VICTIMIZATION as anyone else.

And the patriarchy flat out can’t afford that confrontation, so it can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors.

Again, just want to be beyond clear - nowhere here am I okay with making this about a compare and contrast between the experiences and interactions society has with male survivors and around male rape, and the same with female survivors and rape. Because I mean, we all should be more than aware that society as a whole sucks at the acknowledgment, addressing and handling of rape in any context, in any of the ways it comes up as a topic, in terms of any survivor who comes forward no matter who or when or how.....like. We suck at this topic, and at any and all discussions about this topic. Period. Flat out. So when I say the patriarchy can’t afford to acknowledge male survivors, I am in no way aiming to diminish the reality that it does just as fucking an abyssmal job at acknowledging and responding to female survivors....the point here is not the poor reception any and all survivors receive to disclosing their experiences in our society, but rather the specific why of this when it comes to male survivors just as the particular subject of focus here.

And again, like, my only credentials here are just like. My life experiences, lol. I’m not trying to claim anything more or other than that, make no mistake. I’m a literal college drop out, this is not the result of comprehensive studies or vetted by the scientific method. This is literally just “like, my opinion, man” and makes no pretenses at being other than that. Its just the conclusions I’ve formed over the years and why, completely anecdotal and not aiming to be any kind of authoritative or expert viewpoint with my personal take here. Largely because I haven’t really found anywhere that I feel the conversation has proceeded enough in earnest that its even at a point that would ALLOW for that yet. So this is all more just.....my feel of things, and why, as just kinda idk, hopefully a starting point for further ACTUAL exploration of all this. My attempts at starting the kind of conversation I feel we need to be having in order to be at all productive instead of just constantly spinning around in circles, which is what it so often feels like.

So when I say I think the patriarchy can’t honestly AFFORD to acknowledge male survivors specifically, I’m not positing some grand conspiracy or active cover-up.

Because nothing like that is even necessary.

Its built into the framework of the system itself. Its not that I believe anyone goes out of their way to “hide” male survivors from anyone, I’m saying there’s no need. Because its been so ingrained into us from such a young age and in so many ways, most of us never even think to question whether anything is even being hidden, or if its just as simple as, well men don’t really come forward, because their pride and self-esteem is so impacted by what happened to them, due to the expectations heaped on men by the patriarchy.

Its kinda stunning, actually. Even while ACKNOWLEDGING that the patriarchy does impact male survivors in ways as well, we’re kinda....led away from the ACTUAL ways and ACTUAL reasons why....because despite literally calling the patriarchy out as the bad guy in this way, it still manages to weasel itself out of this confrontation by virtue of the fact that you can’t ever really effectively address a problem when you’re being misdirected to a tangent that’s not really the REAL problem that needs addressing.

So personally, I’m of the belief that its not that men just don’t ever really come forward. Its that even when some do, like myself, we can scream our heads off for years and it just echoes into the void, because its not being heard in the ways we need to be heard in order to effectively....signalboost our stories and experiences and needs. Much like I just mentioned above, its misdirection......everybody’s too focused on addressing an issue that doesn’t actually NEED solving (ie, reminding everyone/promoting awareness that men too, CAN be raped), and thus at least feeling productive, feeling like they’re contributing to tackling the problem.....that meanwhile, the ACTUAL problem (men CAN be raped too, and are, and here are men talking about it only for the signal to get lost and fizzle out rather than get boosted)....it flies right under the radar.

Because in line with what I said earlier about how it does no good to compare our experiences, both in terms of assault and our lives in the aftermath, with women survivors - its because its apples and oranges.

Rape isn’t a gendered issue, because it can happen to anyone of any gender, at any time....its situational. Dependent on context. Rape culture, however, IS a gendered issue.

Because rape culture, how our society INTERACTS with the very idea of abuse and rape and its victims and perpetrators....spills out entirely from that core foundation of the patriarchy and sexism, and thus much like those things themselves, how it affects women survivors is always going to be totally different from how it affects men who are survivors. Our experiences are not interchangeable - that has nothing to do with being better or worse, more publicized or less, etc, etc. They just....manifest different ways. The cause of our trauma-related problems might be the same thing, but the problems it creates for us are not, and none of us can ever really benefit from it being treated as a one size fits all kinda deal, nor is it to our benefit to treat it like there’s only so much conversation about the topic available to go around.

What I mean here is, like I said, the patriarchy at the foundation of our society can’t afford for it to be widely acknowledged that men can be victimized too.

But it can’t actually stop this from happening, given that its basis for saying it never happens is an inherent uneven-ness that only exists because it made it exist, not because like....we’re innately born uneven.

So....it had to come up with a narrative, a response, for when men DID step forward and say hey, I too was abused. I was raped. Etc.

And it did.

As a result, a lot of women don’t come forward because they fear not being believed, with reason. And this is true for a lot of men as well, just as the following is true for a lot of women too....

Which is that IMO the bigger reason/more immediate reason a lot of men don’t come forward, is that our concern isn’t so much that we won’t be believed....

Its that we will be believed, but rather than this getting us the help we need or the justice we ask for, it only ever really creates more problems for us, due to the patriarchy’s go-to fix-it job for this situation:

Paint the male victim as being not so much a victim as a victimizer-in-training.

See, the lie that men are innately more powerful, stronger, more ‘deserving’ of being in charge can’t afford the admittance than men are also vulnerable, can be victimized, taken advantage of.....

But it CAN afford the idea that men can be abused/raped/etc with this going on to eventually result in us becoming abusers/rapists/victimizers ourselves in the future, as long as THIS is kept the clear focus and emphasis of the narrative.

Because after all, there’s nothing in the idea that we all inevitably take out our pain (whatever it may come from) on others that contradicts the idea that we’re stronger, more powerful, etc.

And its not like the patriarchy and its supporters give a shit if this throws even other men under the bus, because the only thing institutions and systems of power actually care about is POWER.

They’re not our friend, even if in a different life, we could have ended up wielding more of that power than we do in this one. Even if we do in other aspects of our lives gain social and other forms of power more easily/with less obstacles than other people.

They only care what we can do for them, to spread that power, perpetuate it, preserve it....so just like white supremacy will happily screw over poor white people and America doesn’t give a shit about its prison population and the LGBTQ+ community so often ignores the issues of its members of color and so on.....the patriarchy is more than willing to make male survivors from any and all groups and communities take the hit it has no intention of taking by letting it be confirmed its built on sand and bullshit.

So just as much as we’re ingrained from early childhood with the idea that men can’t be victimized the way others can, the linked lesson we’re taught is that men who have been hurt badly or in certain ways will almost certainly end up hurting others.....

With the implicit acknowledgment that there was just an admittance that we can be hurt badly/in certain ways ending up just swiftly glossed over. As the focus is instead kept on the harm done to our hypothetical future victims.

Because the easiest way to keep someone from being sympathetic, is to give people someone else to sympathize with MORE. To give people reason to feel a person doesn’t even deserve your sympathy in the first place.

And so now think about not how often we see men victimized by abuse and rape in media, or how often we see men portrayed as survivors and yes, victims of these things.....

Think instead of how often in media we see men who victimize others, who are the antagonists, the villains, the serial killer/rapist/abuser of the week.......and with it offhandedly being dropped into a scene and then never really focused on again, that these men were almost always said to have been abused or raped or victimized in the past....and this is the REASON for why they all ended up doing what they did.

Suddenly, the numbers go up, don’t they? The second you think about it from THAT angle?

Its just....the reason that angle literally exists to the extent it does in society and the messages we’re fed, the entertainment we’re given.....is because that’s the POINT.

Because its natural for us not to think of any of those men as victims when by the time we find that part out, we’ve already internalized our view of them as victimizers, and solidly put our sympathies with their victims in the present. Because what was done to them in the past doesn’t excuse what they do to others in the present. Being hurt doesn’t give you carte blanche to hurt others. We all know this. Hence....WHY IT WORKS.

Except, this isn’t actually a reflection of reality. The myth of the perpetual cycle of abuse is just that, a myth. Oh, it happens, certainly. With men, with women, quite probably more often with men than women, not much doubt about that....

But its not that it happens, we’re told. That’s not the issue here.

Its that we’re pretty much told it ALWAYS happens. Its always GOING to happen. That there’s no real point in sympathizing with a male victim who is most likely going to end up victimizing someone else in the future and thus he’s not really gonna deserve your sympathy at that point, will he? Which makes him not really worth wasting it on him in the first place. Makes it easy to come up with something to focus on more instead of his story or experiences, something just as deserving of your focus or sympathy, but that you’re less likely to end up regretting in the future like you would if a male survivor you sympathized with now ends up in the news five years down the line for having hurt someone else.

Because over centuries and generations the idea of male survivors at all has been cultivated into having this almost mythic quality, there’s just enough subtle feeling of wrongness around the very idea of it, like, that it just doesn’t quite make sense...that it ends up being almost a relief to give our minds a reason, an explanation for why they don’t have to come up with a way to adjust the paradigm there, to make room for that idea, realign a worldview into one where there’s a specific spot for male survivors much like any other subject that needs focusing on or evaluating for whatever reason.

And this point, this conclusion that no matter how tragic what happened to make a male survivor was, it will only ever ultimately end up in the same spot, with him later on passing along the harm, a warped kind of paying it forward....this is hammered home over and over. We see it everywhere, without even often realizing what it is we’re seeing and internalizing, like with the examples I cited of all the times men are raped in entertainment without it being called that. Its the flip side of that....the times that men are raped in entertainment with it being called that, but swiftly moved past that to introduce the reason not to care that that’s what it was we just saw.

And thus throughout several seasons of Law & Order: SVU we’ve had male survivors, usually teens, who at first seemed eminently sympathetic for what had been done to them.....but who by the end of the episodes, ended up becoming school shooters exacting revenge on their bullies. Or ended up killing the coach who raped them in high school and then went on to rape a dozen others. Or in the last scene of the episode is found kneeling over their abusive father’s corpse with blood on their hands and the detectives standing over them in sadness that now they had to take the boy they thought was the victim away to jail as the victimizer he didn’t have to end up becoming.

Except.....he only becomes that because they make the choice to write him becoming it! Every single time!

Like in 13 Reasons Why, where another male survivor ends up....another school shooter. Or in Criminal Minds, where pretty much every single killer throughout the series ended up with a backstory of abuse and rape and victimization as a child, making it ‘all the more tragic’ and with the protagonists often literally using the phrase “almost like the guy never had a chance.”

Well no, they didn’t. Not when it was written to BE that way.

And then we see the idea root and take hold in audiences. And spread and perpetuated. Validated.

Its why I hate the woobification thing in fandoms, where fans of (white) villain characters fill in their backstory for themselves with all the REASONS they are the way they are, and with the reasons never being that they’re just a sadistic entitled asshole, but because they were hurt. They were abused as a child, they were raped offscreen, the heroes said mean things about them in the burn book once and that’s why they just had to kill the hero’s whole family, see.

And everything comes full circle.....not only is it that all male victims are destined to end up victimizers....its equally true that all male victimizers must have once been male victims. Even if we didn’t see it onscreen or on the page.

Except, and why I loathe that fandom tendency.....

THAT NARRATIVE IS NOT AN INEVITABILITY AND NEVER WAS! The end point and point of origin presented there are NOT innately set in stone!

And all that does is just validate and accept as truth the LIE that patriarchal society puts forth in order to play smoke and mirrors with this one specific facet of human experiences that innately possesses the potential to destabilize the lie at the very rock bottom foundation of everything the patriarchy’s ever built at everyone else’s expense. The reason it offers up for why its not only allowable, its for the best that we look elsewhere from any male victims that actually step forward and say hey, can you all listen to me for a second, I want to tell you what happened to me.

And the fun irony of THIS aspect of things is if you think this woobification fandom thing benefits male survivors as a whole in some way or another, like the tendency of fans to find even villainous victimizers sympathetic means that they can and do sympathize just as much with actual male victims.....I’m fairly certain it doesn’t.

See, because with villains in fandom......this retroactive sympathy for imagined past traumas happens to only the characters that fandom has already decided they liked DESPITE the awful things they’ve done. Its made up to be used as an excuse instead of an explanation....

And like we all know damn well, even if we don’t always admit it or like to acknowledge it....

Explanations are not actually excuses. The harm you do can not be wiped away by the harm done to you.

So, because that’s still inside of us, our awareness of that, even if its ignored on the surface while defending hot white villains or whatever.....it doesn’t actually give anyone reason to ignore the narrative our society constructs around actual male survivors who it encourages people to condemn or ignore on the basis of purely hypothetical FUTURE abuses or wrongdoings.

And after all, you can’t actually decide you can look past the harms a person enacts and still view them as sympathetic if....you don’t actually know yet what those harms are going to end up being and thus whether you can make your peace with them, can you?

You just know that harms WILL be done, so....might as well err on the side of caution and assume they won’t be forgivable when deciding here and now to be thrifty with sympathies and spread any actionable effort taken on behalf of survivors in areas where those sympathies are more likely to be put to better use.

And yeah, all of this plays into why I focus so much on certain aspects of Dick’s narratives, and they usually AREN’T the rapes themselves.

Because for me, for many other male survivors I know......

Acknowledging those happened, examining how he felt when those happened....its not the biggest issue. Just like in our own lives, having it acknowledged or known what was done to us, having to face how it made us feel....that’s not really our primary concern.

Its what happens AFTER that.

How people view us and treat us AFTER their initial sympathies, whatever they are, dry up - which, we’re given reason to believe, they always inevitably will.

Because it isn’t all that different from what I frequently complain of happening with Dick in fandom, and hell, its WHY it bothers me so much, because its literally been a recurrent theme throughout my life:

The most widely acknowledged male survivor in comics, just also happens to coincidentally be....

The character most often spun as having a wicked temper, being almost irrationally angry at times, with his temper being likened to things like an eruption, an earthquake, a NATURAL DISASTER....something to be avoided at all costs, something the other characters fear, with good reason, but also impossible to avoid, because its too intrinsic to his nature. Its an inevitability. Dick Grayson WILL erupt or explode again at some point, and its going to be ugly. Like he’s a time bomb.

Even though....as I frequently go in depth on.....Dick’s never actually been shown as having particularly poor self-control either on just its own merits or specifically in comparison to others. He doesn’t really actually HAVE a track record of taking out his own hurts on others. On giving people REASON to be afraid of his temper even while they continue to take no responsibility for giving him reasons to be angry at all.

Its why I so often emphasize the discrepancy between the fact that whatever someone’s own personal character preferences, the FACT remains that Dick Grayson is the character in this family that most often bears the BRUNT of everyone ELSE’S anger.......just as the fact equally remains that Dick Grayson is still ultimately the character most often singled out in posts and headcanons and fanfics as unleashing his temper on others in unjustifable ways and usually without actual provocation.

None of this is a coincidence to me.

Its how we see over and over again that its okay for Dick Grayson to be angry FOR others, ON others’ behalf....its just when he’s angry FOR HIMSELF, for being taken advantage of, ignored, walked all over or mistreated....that’s when his anger is unjustified. Irrational.

Dangerous.

Or you guys know that one fanon about how Dick forces his hugs on his siblings, and his displays of physical affection are often unwanted, and thus violations?

Yeah, that one hits me right in the Issues too, because again, that’s not remotely supported by anything in canon....there has NEVER been an instance of Dick’s family asking him to cut it our or feeling like......IMPOSED upon because he likes to hug his family.

Its not to say people can’t feel that way about even well-meaning displays of physical affection that aren’t cleared with them first....

Its that this is something that people had to DECIDE to make a thing with Dick and his family. To actually craft the narrative that the many-times victim of unwanted touching was effectively violating his family’s wishes and boundaries every time he hugs them without being asked or invited to.

With that number being however many times a writer wants to write him doing when highlighting it as a violation.

And is this a thing we really see with any other character? Is my question there. How often do you see literally any other character being chewed out or resented for....hugging?

Just the one character most known for giving physical affection freely with his FAMILY and close friends.....

Who just so happens to also be the one character most often the guy who has his bodily autonomy violated.

The canon rape survivor has literally had HUGS weaponzed against him.

With the end result being.....every time he does it, every time this pings on a reader’s radar as Bad and Unwelcome....the linked takeaway is its one more reason for that reader to then ask themselves....well if he doesn’t care whether other people want him touching them, why should I care when he doesn’t want people touching him either?

Which ultimately just winds up another form of: why should I feel bad if bad things happened to someone who isn’t really that great of a person?

See what I mean?

Its all connected. Its not me getting frustrated with a bunch of different random things, its all the same thing at the end of the day, all so often traceable back to the same places.

I couldn’t untangle myself from so much of this and how it impacts me and my view of things even if I wanted to, to such an extent that in the end, want really has very little to do with it.

(And uh, you think those bug the shit out of me, let me tell you about just the very SIGHT of all those fics where Dick the widely acknowledged, perhaps best known male rape victim in comics.....is a rapist himself. Because yeah....even if people like to keep their incest light and fluffy or sweet instead of predatory, to someone who is y’know, personally familiar with all of this, Dick and ANY of his younger brothers is never going to appear as anything BUT predatory. As yet one more time where the linear journey of a male survivor all the way to the final evolution into male predator is born out and treated as so matter-of-fact, so inevitable, it hardly warrants noting as anything especially obscene or gross to write about a character famous for his survivor status. And its not like Dick is actually the only character in the franchise I like, so its not like its any better when its Jason painted as the aggressor in a fic, for instance....and while I will always be hugely critical of how Bruce is written as abusive in canon, that’s a wildly different thing from sexually preying on his sons so again, seeing him as his own sons’ rapists is yet again more upsetting than most people would think without connecting Bruce’s own status as a canon rape survivor, whether we like that story or not.....and plugging it into again, this pre-programmed route traveling from survivor to predator, over and over again. Victim to victimizer. Like clockwork.)

Anyway, my point is not to harp on this but rather to just lay it out there in this way. And how it plays into so much of my own personal approach to dealing with all of this when it comes up.......because the simple fact is I have to, there is no opt-out lol, and it comes up a lot, in large part because its so easy t reframe as being something else that most people who don’t have direct experience being directly impacted by all of this in its various myriad expressions are understandably not going to see it pinging on their radar and getting logged into their awareness the way it always does in mine.

*Shrugs* It is what it is. Its there. Avoiding it has never done me any favors, so.......as I so often demonstrate in a variety of degrees of Hmm Probably Coulda Done That Better, lol, I try and deal with things head-on and adjust as needed.

Easier said than done, not always pulled off, never any guarantee that I’m going about things the right way, just that like.....

There’s problems that need addressing that stem from all of this, and I know where mine lie and put a lot, a LOT of effort into addressing them and keeping an eye on them and not letting them get the better of me.

But the flipside of paying that close attention and that much means I’m also keenly aware of when and where I couldn’t take responsibility even if I wanted to, because the responsibility literally just isn’t mine to take....because yeah, I live in a society but guess what, so does everyone else, and its the same damn society, so at the end of the day, no matter HOW well or not I go about handling the matter of my rapes and their overall impact and shaping of my life.....that’s just me handling the rape part of things.

The rape culture? And how THAT affects and informs every survivor’s life in whatever way it does going forward?

That’s kinda.....only ever going to be improved upon or not, on like....a cultural scale. That’s a society thing. Not a survivor thing.

Because we are all shaped by our cultures, every aspect of our cultures, and this one is unfortunately no different. But, its shaped by us too.

But to actually shape it INTO something, or more accurately, to shape it into LESS of what it is, blunt some of its edges, lessen some of its ability to do harm to survivors, to compound the harm already done.....

Something like THAT requires intent. Conscious effort.

And intent requires like....first being able to SEE what problems need addressing.

And that’s kiiiiinda the whole point of survivors coming forward when so rarely, so MINUTELY does it EVER result in actionable justice for that individual survivor.

And I don’t for a second believe a single one ever believes or assumes otherwise.

Cuz its super not fun. It never like......I don’t fucking know how it looks to other people, tbh, because I’ve literally been a survivor since before I even really knew that I was being abused or molested, that there was something I was surviving....but trust me, I’ve thought about it, I’ve wondered, and I don’t know if like, people think a survivor ‘telling their story’ is somehow an equivalent of like, getting a book deal or something, there’s the attention it brings after all, and isn’t there that saying that no publicity is bad publicity.....

LOL. Yeah. Umm. Just saying, if you don’t have personal experience as a survivor having come forward or shared openly about your experiences, let me refer you to another saying as counterpoint: Don’t believe everything you hear.

Cuz that’s definitely not one anyone else ever forgets when ‘listening’ to any of us.

Anyway, wrapping this up by bringing it back to like.....my extremely evident mood and irration of this past week.....this is ALL connected, this is ALL part and parcel of every single time this comes up as an issue for me and its never less of one at one time than it is at another, its never a little easier this time because this reason or that....its always the same damn frustration every single time. Stuff like this doesn’t get doled out in manageable portions, its all or nothing. Its either a problem right this current second or its not, and if its not, that’s only until the next time its a problem again, likely sooner rather than later.

And that’s the part that makes me talk about this as much as I do, and get as frustrated as I do when people just do not seem to get.....

I don’t have an off switch on this matter because there IS no off switch for me. The times I get frustrated and vent about this stuff are actually only at MOST a TENTH of how often it rears its head for me to deal with.....the times my reactions or responses boil over into public view, into something you guys see, or ‘have to deal with’ are literally just the times where there is no keeping a lid on it because the pot was already full to start with.

And so it really. Epically. Beyoooooond doesn’t help matters, when despite being the only male survivor I’m aware of being consistently vocal on the matter in the only fandom I know of where a prominant male character is almost universally acknowledged as a survivor....

I usually only ever hear the response:

“Mmmmmm, I’m not really sure what makes you think there’s a problem here and that it has anything to do with us, when see, I don’t agree, and I don’t really see why you think your opinion on the matter of how this particular character is written about and viewed and depicted interacting with others and how fandom interacts with him, is like.....of any kind of real relevance? This is just like....your opinion, man.”

Me: ........have I ever claimed for a second it wasn’t? Didn’t I use those exact words at least once in all of this already?

fahsklhfaklhflakfhalffha

Cuz for the record, ultimately, that’s what this all boils down to. I’ve wanted to post about this stuff for awhile now, but make no mistake:

It literally is all just my opinion? Formed of my own personal experiences and the conclusions I’ve taken away from them. Laid out as fully and extensively as I can manage, specifically SO people can take all of that into context when deciding for themselves how much weight or not to GIVE my opinion......

In which case, y’know, the experiences I have with this matter and how they correlate to these opinions, like, have contextual relevance and seem necessary to include.

Its NOT because I’m trying to use them to browbeat everyone into agreeing with me because I think I’m the only one whose opinion matters here, lol.

No. Just that like....it DOES matter? And its kinda exhausting when people act like all of this is arbitrary and abstract to me, that its some kind of superiority complex or me moralizing from a pulpit or some shit when I’m literally saying none of it is abstract or arbitrary to me, and the louder I say that, the more people THEN say “oh so basically your opinion is the only one that matters here unless we disclose the same kind of experiences or background huh?”

*headdesk*

I just.....it seems my stance is either born of self-righteousness and nothing personal whatsoever....unless I make enough of a fuss about how that’s NOT true, in which case my stance is that apparently I think I’m the only one who is allowed to have an opinion here because I’ve made such a point about it being personal.

But its definitely not that people are just determined to invalidate anything I have to say on this subject one way or another, right?

Anyway.

So all of that’s like...whatever that was. Make of it what you guys will, but I do hope that at least for some people whom it might be a new perspective or new information to, you’ll consider asking why is it that in a fandom that prominently features a canon male survivor whose survivorhood is so frequently denoted as a key and critical part of his character....someone like me, who is frequently cited as a resource on many, many other kinds of meta about Dick Grayson......seems to have more people interested in discouraging me from ever expounding on my own experiences in this matter and any correlations I see between those and Dick’s experiences and narratives, than there are people interested in like......utilizing me as the freaking resource on male survivor experiences and viewpoints that I’ve literally been out here offering to be from day one....specifically BECAUSE of how rarely men are viewed as coming forward and being open about our shit here.

*Shrugs*

Just food for thought.

#rape cw

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ladyshinobi · 6 years ago

Text

Episode 81: A Really Retroactive Recap

Well Well...

Episode 81...IRONICALLY one of the most Juliantina-less eps in recent memory, there were some interesting revelations (One of which I MISSED, please help lol) let's get to the ones I ACTUALLY got to watch:

Oh shit...Lupe spilled the whole thing just like that, I mean that’s some Galaxy-Brain shit right there, poor Lucia is gonna need a moment to digest all that, also LOL at Lucia pointing out Val & Juls lovely friendship, Gurl ....you're her Suegra and you don't even know it (yet) lol.

OMFG ..that fuckin' Mayela class-shamming Renata? Honestly, when is she going to get bitch-slaped? Also, No Novela OTP is complete without some explicit socio-economical struggle dynamic bullshit lol ...So just like Juliantina, Renata and Guille are in it to win it my friends. Mayela can choke on that wine for all I care, you ain't no Iceberg gurl, you ain't sinking NO ONEs ship on my watch, GO AWAY.

I did feel it was slightly off character for (both usual SWEETHEARTS) Guille and Val not to call her out on her bullshit? Maybe they're used to her being like that and just ignore it at this point? Needless to say, I feel she's just there to create drama between Guille and Renata at this point and honestly can we just Thank U, Next this bitch already!? So done with her ...SO DONE.

Slow Clap for Renata single-handedly shutting that shit DOWN with a smile on her face, YOU GO GURL.

Its hilarious (and kinda sad) that Juls was SURE Jacobo wasn't her dad because of how ignorant and violent he WASN'T ...LOL but also ( T__T).

Lucia CONFIRMED that Jacobo is Leon and her face said it all, holy shit things are gonna get cray cray, Johnny better not pull some shit, Im sure one of the two Dork-Dads is not gonna make it, and so far Im sure its gonna be Beltran, IF something happens to Jacobo... :(.

Val telling Guille to look after himself and Renata... Awwww It was so nice of her, she KNOWS her brother would do anything to make her feel better, even if that meant sacrificing himself and his relationship for a bit, and as the good siblings they are she is telling him he doesn't have to do it anymore, she can take care of herself, I do think that HOT MESS of a dinner(lunch?) helped her put things into perspective quite a bit, now take some of your own advice and go look out for your own happiness Gurl! (...according to next ep's previews ...she will :))

No crying Val (Yay!) = NO Give-Val-A-Break edit, We’ll see about that on tomorrow's ep lol.

_______________________________________________________________________

Also, I’m not saying you should learn spanish just so you can grasp the entirety of Maca's Cultura Colectiva Interview...but I AM saying you should totally learn spanish just so you can fully enjoy that (obviously scripted) Cringefest Extravaganza:

From Maca's initial slight discomfort with the interviewer awkwardly crushin' on her, to her then playfully going along with it until the whole thing goes sour (and her switching FULLY into her argentinian accent) to those HILARIOUSLY awful clips of her past endeavours (the "Maldito Internet/Fuckin' Internet" part got me laughin’ my ass off lol) the 99% bit, the BURNING HAIR XD...I mean I was cracking up till the last second.

You can always count on Maca to give an Excellent-thought-provoking-heartfelt-MEME ABUNDANT- interview lol.

Due to some Technical Difficulties (I'll be without decent Internet until the 4th...PERFECT TIMING lol) I haven't been able to watch the latest full eps...and the recap vids I usually AM able to find are mostly Juliantina centric so I totally missed Guille finding out about Leon/Jacobo....

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKK :( I really wanna know how he took it?, If anyone knows where I can watch (or PLEASE upload it?) that actual scene please lemme know... Val is gonna LOSE HER SHIT when she finds out, Im still deciding if in a good or a bad way? Probably BOTH.

Going by Maca's Mysterious Surprise, Barbs' latest "Tacos de Tripa" twitter comments, them obviously filming something in character on Valentine's day (I thought it was probably a Valentines Day Promo or something like that but NOPE, its was definitely for something else) and the official Amar a Muerte Twitter account latching on to the Juliantina Around the World campaign (originally organized by fans) I'm 90% sure there's some sort of Spin Off/ Season 2 coming.

(IF NOT this is totally gonna become the HALF-LIFE-3 of wlw shows LOL).

So MAYBEEEEEEEEE I'll have more than 6 recaps left to do, huh? ...TIME (and SPACE lol) will tell...K, Thanks, Bye.

#Juliantina #Amar A Muerte #Lucia has some thinking to do #Guille and Renata Forever #Mayela CANCELED CLUB MEMBER N°1 #Val You had enough time and space already?#Juls you're doing amazing sweetie

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geminijackdaw · 5 years ago

Note

Hmm B, C, L, and R?

OK SO I HAD THis ANSWERD and then my computer crapped out, and I lost it all so hopefully this is still coherent second time around

I am now going to write all of this in a google doc and use it for asks forever because it KEEPS HAPPENING

This got really long

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

Literally? Therapy dog is about having too many dogs xD it does not work that well irl. Other than that, just, I think the usual leaning on insecurities that I share with characters I write about and themes that resonate with me popping up everywhere. Kintsugi has this theme of trying to piece together who you are later in life when everyone else seems to have that come naturally to them. Undying Fidelity has like this recurrence of not feeling that you’re enough that I struggle with a lot, as well as, and this comes into the next thing, but sort of working through the discomfort when it would be easier to withdraw.

C: What character do you identify with most?

I struggled with this one a lot, not because there aren’t any, but like trying to find a fun, light, inoffensive answer and honestly like. If that isn’t my whole ass problem. I think Loki’s a big mood for a lot of people, and like besides the crippling self-esteem -> paralyzing envy issues, which I have and am trying to work through (I’d never get angry over it, but I do like… give up and I think that’s where I’ve gotten stuck right now) there’s also the thing touched on above that I can only really sum up as that mortifying ordeal of being known meme. Obviously I’m not as good at it but I do have this tendency to just…. Try and read everyone’s mind, and what comes out is what I think the right answer is, not what I actually feel. Not to lie, or get anything, but just to sort of because I feel it’s what’s expected, and what they want? It’s easier than the crunchy uncertainty that come with sincerity, and I’m afraid. I think it’s why I’m not very close to many people, irl. You try and adapt until you’ve made yourself a nothingburger with a side of undressed iceberg lettuce salad. You get along with everyone but no one likes you because then you’d run the risk of them not liking you. Idk I just feel the facade really hard, and It’s uncomfortable trying to be real with people but I’m trying. And that’s what I feel like we missed with the statesman cutting straight to everyone being murdered that I like to play with in UF, that horrific discomfort that comes from him trying to be genuine. And it would be so easy to just say what he needs to to smooth things along, but then it wouldn’t be real, and he’s trying.

L: What's the weirdest AU you've ever come up with?

Any of the Undying Fidelity ones because they’re already an AU of an AU. Like the prisoner AU. Or the Good Omens AU. Or the Frozen AU I wrote notes for at three in the morning after seeing Frozen 2 in which Thor and Sigyn take a platonic trip up a mountain after his little brother turns blue and loses his shit during his coronation. (“You can’t marry a woman you just met” “Why not? I’m royalty, we do that all the time.” “Why? What could you possibly even know about her after a few hours?” “I…. Look, when Lorelei said it, it just sounded like a really good idea”)

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

Oh gosh, if I start naming fanfic authors I’ll be here all night xD you guys are all amazing, I try to let you know whenever I read something. I have a very bad habit of putting off reading things I really want to because I know they’re going to be amazing and I’m afraid I’ll get intimidated? Also I’m terrified that I’m going to subconsciously lift something from someone else’s work. I’m trying to work on that. IRL I’ve been reading a lot of Terry Prachett recently.

#thelightofthingshopedfor #asks #Thank ypu!!!

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 6 years ago

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Finland to Eurovision with a meme icon and his side-kick

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“heeeeeey what is that song on that video???” Definitely not Darude - Sandstorm. Grow the fuck up.

I mean that they basically threw off the open call for songs from Finnish artists, instead opting for having one artist national final, usually one very known but very gettable-bored-of name so that they could get some more viewership rather when they pick a random nobody from a bunch of other random nobodies. Last year YLE got themselves an artist whose Eurovision ticket was long overdue, but this year they went the extra step and brought us HIM.

No, not that HIM. They can't go anyway as they've already disbanded. I'm talking about HIM.

Yes, THAT HIM. Meet Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, which thankfully has a pseudonym to publish his music with - Darude. Almost 20 years ago he published this beautiful techno single "Sandstorm" with lyrics like "du du du du du du du du du du du du". And now it's become the big-ass target of memery for the past few years on the Internet, with Darude being very well aware of it all - I don't think he has escaped questions about "Sandstorm" now that the Eurovision interviewers media is on horizon and interviews literally every single representative, no matter if they're shy or unpopular with the bookies at all.

And even if "Sandstorm" was the only thing to shake his tiny little Finnish world, it did not break Darude to be just a one-hit wonder (well he still looks like one but yeah) and he's got more music out ever since. And it probably sounds a little too tragic when YLE resorts to just nagging and begging Darude to represent their nation, even kinda secretly hoping that thanks to him Finland can have a qualification just solely for the meme factor. Darude even said so that he at first rejected their calls, but this year became THE year for him to go, and he's not alone obviously - his credited vocalist friend for this ride to Tel Aviv became Sebastian Rejman, a bit washed-up media star who already did some collaborating with Darude.

So the format was basically the same for this year's UMK - artist announced separately, then each of their 3 songs gets published every week on a specific weekday, with single cover art and a music video already, and the Finnish people together with international juries vote for the best track. Simple as that. Unlike with Saara Aalto though, all Darude & Sebastian songs were barely even distinct from one another in sound - just techno songs that have a piece of "Sandstorm" with themselves. Well only 2 do anyway. But still, techno/house songs to listen to on the radio when you're driving and minding your own business. And I had hard time picking favourites but all of them were alright I guess. Yet somehow my least favourite happened to win... and that was "Look Away", very much so inspired by natural disasters and how do we all ignore everything around us. No matter if it's a storm or hurricane or tornado or wind throwing sand at our eyes.

I don't know why the song didn't click with me all that much at first, I suppose it was because it's just a mindless gloomy techno song that raises global awareness (we already have Denmark talking about that, but they're insisting that "love is forever", while Finland is just... getting up more seriously in all this), and besides that, it's just incredibly repetitive. It consists more of the pre-chorus-ish chorus (I mean the line "is it in my head? Am I the only one?" and that other line preceding) and the actual chorus that mostly goes like "look away, look away, look away...". Even to the point when the song ends with some additional “look away”ing but under a different drum beat. What's it with Finns having a passion for the word "away"? We already had seen them sending a "Sing It Away", which was basically a cheer-up tune telling you to sing your problems off... while this year? We're trying to NOT look into the problems dead in the eye. We're looking... erm, uh, away.

But now I do have to say that I somewhat like it. Tell it to ya - the B minor chord is possibly one of my least favourite music keys, so I might as well be a little bit more negative on it if takes the song with itself to sound incredibly dull and painfully meh. So thankfully we'll be hearing it live half a step lower (idk if that's what it is with most EDM singers in Eurovision that shit like this can be possible, as well as idk why are they allowed into Eurovision in the first place. But seriously, why can't you just choose the same key you sang in in studio for Eurovision...), which made the song sound better to me - as a Nightcore junkie, I am passionate about hearing songs in different keys all the darn time, to see in what key would a certain song sound the best. It's usually the song's key that makes me like a song better or worse live rather than a live performance itself (though in some NFs I can see which of my favourite acts are DoA by not even emoting towards them - my emotion has to be evoked, and if I evoke it on purpose, well then, I'd just rather stay motionless completely on anything and only yelp if a song causes me to do this unexplainedly). We'll see how Sebastian will execute his singing live. As for now, he's the captain of this sinking ship that hit a small iceberg (another one of the disasters we usually "look away" from until it's found in our history books). Not Darude. Darude's just merely a musical hold-up of the disaster. It all has to depend on the vocalist and if the staging clicks with the audience. Sure, Darude can put on a red wig and green sunglasses so that he could click with the meme audience, but that won't get the Finns far.

So I like this song, it actually has some cool musical moments thrown in (I like the piano for one), I can enjoy this off my free time. But Estonia does it better at the "Finno-Ugric EDM-ish entry about Mother Nature's tantrums" category and I ain't even sorry for saying this. But I gotta be sorry for Darude. This year's UMK had the lesser care about it because... well, these songs weren't exactly inspiring or anything, and with people wanting something groundbreaking, their hopes kept on vaning away with each and every song release of the UMK entries': "oh so the next 2 two songs will be good right?" "oh so then the last one will be the best one, yeah right?" "...oh, okay then .-." And him, as the Finnish meme king, should have deserved a better year for a better Eurovision stint, so he could have become something à la Epic Sax Guy. Right now I mostly see a middle-aged DJ with 2 kids, not a redhead dude with green sunglasses looking shadily on us. And that's okay sometimes because memes don't necessarily need to be remembered for memes (just like I mostly remember Kanye West for music, and then memes come second), but Finland's gonna take a miracle to get through, and I hardly see any. That's an aina mun pity.

Approval factor: Eh, it's alright, but I would certainly not hold it up to high regards post-contest? lol.

Follow-up factor: it's kiiiiinda bleak knowing that after giving us probably one of the most favourable dark horse efforts for Eurovision they're now going down the dancier route, with one entry after being a banger, the other being a dad banger. Ah well. It doesn't flow so neatly in my eyes, it seems.

Qualification factor: almost dead in the tracks. Finland flows anywhere they can, having a lot of bad luck for 3 years this decade, and I doubt that the juries will be supporting this heavily, considering they are better at rating good vocalists over bad ones, so I don't think this will sail through. But I secretly have hopes in this. It's not that bad, but Estonia is in this semi too, and it's a friendlier EDM track, so I don't quite think that repetitive will out-compell the good formulaic. Plus, Sebastian has a lot to fix vocally, and I doubt that he will carry Finland any further if he doesn't fix anything, so so far the chances of Finland aren't looking up imo. Bottom 5 at the semi is more likely if not already the actual outcome. Maaaaybe 10th in the semi at best, but I doubt it.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

The more this section pops up in my works, the less I wanna recap national finals anymore. I hope there’s more breather moments with me having to review a lot of internal selection songs in between the ones from NFs, because this whole season was an utter disaster, and it’d help if the next one isn’t. So let’s check in on Finland's selection’s best:

• But seriously, did anyone ever see Darude as a Finnish representative coming??? No??? Me neither. I was just sitting there, waiting to see if there's a hope for Mikael Saari (you know, that balladeer guy from previous UMKs - I do believe some audiences love him just as much as Saara Aalto, who only was on one UMK and one Euroviisut) to be announced on this special separate programme. Nope - the trilingual hosting trio of the programme that included Krista Siegfrids in it as the token Swedish speaker just happened to happily proclaim Darude as THE Finnish hopeful... and the world was s h o o k e t h. Just look at him go. His smug grin is still iconic on here.

• During the wait for all the UMK songs to pile up, the excitement for Darude faded away and everyone moved on to support other countries. I can't blame them, because I have found like one decent song this UMK that's still worth listening to twice a year or so - "Superman". Where Darude becomes the everyday hero for ordinary people that have difficulties in live to do mundane stuff. Maybe this song would have made him look like a better meme than his current entry would have? Just watch him go on his DJ booth dressing like a knock-off superhero because EBU doesn't allow blatant advertising. A way better gimmick than Gromee's snakey hands. Alas, no one will have to hear "Superman" anymore. Granted it's just an EDM song just like any other, but somehow I liked it best, end of.

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• There's at least one memorable screenshot from UMK as well, so I'm happy with that. I saw this pop up on my Twitter time line and I could not stop laughing inside. Seriously. Krista and this other guy should host ESC provided Eurovision is ever coming back to Finland. They had a lot of iconic outfit changes during the NF itself (and the NF itself had "Look Away" with some dancer on a cube but they scrapped the tall cube for Tel Aviv entirely), but those floral onesies are my favourite.

Now I kinda hope that there’s something that will alarm YLE in the meantime that Finland needs a better approach for Eurovision and we’ll see another fully-fledged UMK in the works next year, and then Finland can be great again. For now, I’ll just wish “onnea” to Darude and Sebastian, with hopes that people don’t look away from their song at all! (but most likely they will so what’s the point.)

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #finland 2019 #darude ft. sebastian rejman #look away #finland

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gwydionmisha · 6 years ago

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Re: The House Speakership. This is a long Read, but Nuance is actually Important Here.

Look, trust me, I know exactly why people are frustrated, but please take a minute to consider that a lot of the push to oust Nancy Pelosi is coming from conservative media and when your enemies are egging you on and you are taking their political advice, it's generally time to stoop for a minute and think.

Speaker of the House is an incredibly complex and difficult job and most of the time we only see the tip of the iceberg far as what's actually going on. Most of the job is things we never see: the grueling fundraising shedule, the endless work behind the scenes to line up votes in a party in which that resembles herding cats, and a host of other exhausting, unglamorous things that make leadership the connective tissue without which nothing much happens. Would I rather money was ought of politics? Hell yes! But until that happens, we need donations to keep and gain seats in Congress. That's the ugly reality.

Do I agree with Pelosi on everything? Obviously not. I'm a radical progressive. You know what though? I was born during the Nixon administration and have been watching politics in real time since the Ford/Carter Debates. In my opinion she's the most effective Democratic speaker in my lifetime. It's not even a contest. The guy who ran against her last time wasn't even close to qualified to do her job. No way would we have done as well this midterm if he'd taken her leadership position because literally the money wouldn't have been there for the less flashy, less publicized campaigns.

On the Senate side I actually cheered out loud when Harry Reed quit, because he was not good at his job from an obvious political strategy perspective. Chuck Schumer despite his faults is a dramatic improvement, yet I'd support demoting Chuck Schumer on the grounds that he didn't even come close to fighting hard enough or clever enough these last two years, as long as he were replaced by someone better at fighting while still doing all those difficult unglamourous bits that come with leadership I was just talking about. But you you know what? Despite the losses in the Senate this Midterm, no one's really talking about that.

The thing is, I was an adult during the Clinton/Bush Sr. election. (Remember, I'm on record as never having been a fan of Bill and the list of substantive things I objected to in real time over the course of that Presidency is a whole other rant. I hated him; I hate him even more now, so this isn't coming from someone starry eyed about Clintons). I remember that first ugly election and I followed he news closely all through the Clinton Presidency. I remember the gross, relentless sexist attacks against her for being not pretty enough or feminine enough; for being too intelligent and too shrill and too ambitious; for having a mind of her own and for being actually interested in policy and what was going on in the world. I remember the press obsessing about her clothes and her hair cuts and nothing ever pleasing them no matte what she did.

I've been watching the things detractors have said about Ms. Pelosi ever since she became speaker. It's never been quite as intense as it was for Hillary, but I've seen a lot of the same memes, the same language. The mocking of her laugh, the claims that she's too shrill, too ambitious. It's not quite the same melody, but boy, a lot of the lyrics seem familiar.

The thing is, yes, I'd support replacing her with someone more progressive, IF THAT PERSON COULD DO THE REST OF THE JOB AS WELL OR BETTER. Yes, I support the younger, more progressive wing using their votes as LEVERAGE to move her FURTHER LEFT on things I care about like civil and human rights and us not dying for example (Climate change, health care, etc.). I have a list, I'm sure you do. Absent someone who can be the new best Speaker in my life time (and I'm not ruling that out, given how good and tough and smart some of the progressive folks in the house will be in the New Year), I can't support a change, because without someone really good at all the parts of being Speaker, our successes this midterm WON"T BE SUSTAINABLE. I'm not fucking around with this. FIGHTING HARD IS GREAT BUT FIGHTING HARD AND SMART IS BETTER. This is a job about sausage making and deal making and fundraising.

I have huge hopes for the incoming freshman because a lot of absolutely amazing people in there, but they aren't going to be ready for leadership for a while. It's not just the settling in and figuring out how things work process, which takes a while all by itself, it's that the sausage making part is really hard and involves building a hundreds of personal relationships with other Congress Critters. Some of the new Congress Folk know how to fight strong and hard and are rock star fundraisers, but none of them have the relationships or deep knowledge of the personal interest and foibles of that many other congress Folk. Picking someone who hasn't built those things yet would be political suicide. I've no doubt some of the amazing freshman class coming in have eyes on Leadership and will work hard at being ready to do that, but it's not going to happen in the tiny amount of time between now and the Democratic Caucus vote. That's the reality.

I will not trade the future of my country and the world for ideological purity. Oh, I'll fight ass hard as hell for the best candidates in Primaries. I will beg people to turn out to pressure their Congress Critters to fight hard and do the right thing, because those things work. I'll be watching this generation of younger Congress Critters for stand out qualities and I'll root for them when I think they have a shot at being successful at the hard and messy and complicated work that is house Leadership. I can't rule out that some amazing candidate won't turn up as a challenger this time around, but I'll only push for them and harass my Congress Critters for them if I think they will be better better at her job than Nancy Pelosi is.

I bet I could pick a better Chuck Schumer. I have a list (and no Bernie's not on it). I can't off the top of my head pick a better Nancy Pelosi for this particular year, though I can think of some people who might warrant research if their names come out because I don't know enough about their fundraising numbers or backstage skills. I'm persuadable with the right candidate and data to back them up, but i'm not trading bird in hand for two in the bush until those two are captured and examined thoroughly before I make that trade.

I can't afford to take a big risk on an unknown quantity when my life literally depends on it. A lot of Republican policies are designed to strip me of my basic rights and/or kill me. I need us to hold the House in 2020 and preferably win a super majority and take the Senate and the Presidency. I have an expectation that Nancy Pelosi's skill set will set us up well for more House wins in two years. Talk to me then about replacing her. Show me candidates with all the boxes checked and we can have a discussion about who would be best going forward. A Presidential candidate needs to be widely popular; a Speaker needs to be an A+ sausage maker and fund raiser. It's great when a president has both skill sets, and I'd not sneeze at the same in a Speaker, but they really are different jobs.

I for real don't want to die, y'all, and I'd like there to still be a livable planet in twenty years. These are my goals right now. To really start moving forward again on a while library of issues we need to win 2020 and win it big. There's all sorts of useful stuff the House can do by itself, but the big things we all need to not die? That takes one party rule by people who actually care about the greater good. That means kick ass rock start progressive candidates for 2020 to get people out and voting and making real political change for the better, but it also means tooth and nail real politik fighting in the mud and the stink of the political battlefield between now and then.

I'm gong to want experienced people who know how to do that on the big can we survive this issues, even if I don't always agree with them and they don't always fight for the things I want them to fight for. I'm going to dance with them what brung me because I want there to still be a here to fight for in three years.

We can survive this if we stick together and keep the pressure on. Don't give up hope. Keep being loud and angry. It has carried us this far and it can carry us so much further, but don't sacrifice what we've gained this month on the altar of perfection, because then we really are lost.

#Congress #Nancy Pelosi #Speaker of the House #Election 2020 #Poliitics

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theserpentsadvocate · 6 years ago

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Alrighty, pick any combination of these for the meme: Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Percival Graves, Hengist of Woodcroft, and Celeborn (I know you said you're not a big fan of his, so this one's extra optional. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on him, though, even if they're negative.)

Sorry it took so long. In my defense, this is long.

Aaaand in my defense about that… yeah, I’ve got nothing, I’m just like this.

Sorry about the lack of Tolkien ranting, it’s mostly meh-ing instead. There’s some ranting in the Grindelwald section, though. XD

Dumbledore

What I like about them

Okay, I love red hair, and Dumbledore in his younger years (like middle age) with his loooong auburn hair and his loooong auburn beard just does it for me a purely aesthetic way. Like I would sit and stare at him for hours.

What I dislike about them

There’s the ordinary list, manipulation and self-righteousness and the Grindelwald debacle, but honestly the biggest thing is Snape. I don’t care honestly what bullshit excuse there was, YOU DON’T EMPLOY ABUSIVE TEACHERS, like if he really has to be at Hogwarts give him some administrative position or some shit.

Favourite moment

The bit after Umbridge fires Trelawney and is trying to kick her out, and Dumbledore tells her that she can fire whoever she wants but she can’t make them leave the castle.

Least favourite moment

His opening line when he meets Harry in the nebulous train station afterlife place makes me cringe a little bit. It’s probably 100% me, but it feels… trite, and uncomfortable, and honestly like something my mom would say, which is probably the real reason why I hate it.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

I’d really love to see his relationship and/or interactions with Aberforth explored more. (Not by JKR. She needs to drop HP like a hot potato and MOVE BACK.)

An interesting AU for this character

Somewhere on my computer I have half a rantfic about the premise where Regulus became Dumbledore’s spy instead of Snape, and while it’s 500% about my Regulus feels, there’s some interesting stuff in there about Dumbledore, specifically how the dynamic changes when his spy is someone who has

actually renounced

Voldemort and isn’t just out for personal gain/revenge.

A crossover

I’m really not a huge crossover person, honestly, but I guess it would be interesting to see how he’d fare in Discworld?

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

The only person I really ship him with is Grindelwald, and I’m often ambivalent about that.

Other ships?

Nah.

BROTP

With McGonagall, probably.

NOTP

Dumbledore/Harry. Gag me.

An assortment of headcanons!

-He liked Elphias Doge, but never really considered him the kind of friend that Elphias considered him. Elphias was convenient and pleasant and somewhat in awe of him, but he never really considered them to be on the same level.

Grindelwald

What I like about them

I imagine he was incredibly attractive.

What I dislike about them

Well, there was the part where he thought people like me were second-class citizens who needed to be ruled over by people like him for our own good, so.

Also, Johnny Depp. Ugh.

Favourite moment

When he told Voldemort off. That was epic and really poignant.

Least favourite moment

Ariana Dumbledore’s death is painful to think about.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

What did he do in Nuremburg? What exactly led to his… I don’t know, change of heart? Greater self-knowledge? Changed perspective? that he demonstrates when he’s talking to Voldemort? I want to know what kind of introspection happened there.

An interesting AU for this character

Here’s an idea, what if he was played by literally anyone other than Johnny Depp?

A crossover

Yeah, I got nothing.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I ship him with Dumbledore sometimes.

Other ships?

Not really.

BROTP

Erm. He doesn’t really interact with anyone in canon aside from the Dumbledores, Bathilda, and Voldemort, so I guess Dmbledore again? Only not. I’m interested in it; I don’t support it.

NOTP

With Voldemort? I’ve never seen it, but I just generally assume everyone gets shipped with Voldemort. Fandom is strange.

No, wait! Grindelwald/Johnny Depp.

An assortment of headcanons!

-He’s blond.

-When he was younger he had a small trim beard.

Percival Graves

I have not actually seen FBaWtFT. I was already kind of done with the extra material by then and I’m still not at a point where I can watch movies with Johnny Depp in them without feeling sick to my stomach (although it’s improved). I will watch it at some point, though.

Hengist of Woodcroft

What I like about them

There’s a lot of room for fanon interpretations.

What I dislike about them

Even before she started This Shit ™, I was always… dubious about Rowling’s extracanonical material - fourteen-year-old Riley was firmly of the opinion that if you didn’t put it in the books, you couldn’t call it canon. (Although obviously it was optional for fans to use.) I still pretty much think that, and sometimes I feel boxed in by interview/extra material canon, which results in a… complicated relationship with characters who are optionally canon. (Full disclosure, I know who he is and that he found Hogsmeade, and I basically ignore everything else.)

Favourite moment

The founding of Hogsmeade is obviously a highlight.

Least favourite moment

???? Did he… do anything else, canonically?

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

So, how did the founding of Hogwarts and the founding of Hogsmeade coincide? (No, ignore whatever Rowling said.) Did one come first? Was Hogwarts taking advantage of an all-magical town, or did Hogsmeade originate as a sort of wizarding college town? Does one predate the other by a few generations, and how did the development of the latter influence the older institution? If they were at roughly the same time, what were his relationships like with the founders, as a group and individually? If they were more spaced out, how did the founders interact with his legacy, or vice versa?

An interesting AU for this character

Depending on your definition of canon, a bunch of what I mentioned above could be considered an AU. Off the top of my head, erm - oh, I think @iceberg-hootenanny said something about an outer space AU, I could actually go for that. Maybe he’s setting up the first real settlement on Mars or Genesis or Xenon 5 or something.

A crossover

Yeah, I dunno.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I have no ships for him until just now, but totally off-the-wall, what if he’s Rowena’s husband?

Other ships?

I usually ship primarily intra-founders pairings, but what the hell, let’s throw Hengist in the mix.

BROTP

Idk, I feel like he could have a particularly jocular commitment to Creating New Things! and Achieving Your Goals! that I also ascribe to certain versions of Godric, so that might go over well.

NOTP

I think my standard NOTP with HP characters who I’ve never heard of ships for is going to be That Person/Voldemort. :) It’s a good catch-all answer.

An assortment of headcanons!

-He had brown hair and a beard.

-Usually carried a staff or walking stick.

Celeborn

What I like about them

Okay, so I generally focus on the fact that he was kind of snippy to Gimli, but let’s be fair here - he apologizes. Especially given the depths of Elf-Dwarf racism (and don’t get me wrong here, in their long and complicated history it is my firm opinion that the Dwarves got the worst of it and the Elves are more at fault) and his personal unpleasant experiences, that’s not a small thing.

What I dislike about them

Honestly - and I’m fully prepared, if not resigned, to be crucified for this - I almost exclusively find the Sindar really boring.

Favourite moment

Again, probably that apology.

Least favourite moment

I’ve always found the extended goodbye scene with the swan boat kind of unnecessary and boring, tbh. *wince*

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

What the fuck was he doing during the whole Fourth Age after Galadriel left? When did he eventually go to Eressea? He did eventually go to Eressea, right?

An interesting AU for this character

It’s not an AU, per se, but it would be interesting to see his reactions to whatever was going to happen in Return of the Shadow.

A crossover

With Sesame Street. :)

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I’m boring and like canon pairings, insofar as I’m invested.

Other ships?

Are there other ships with Celeborn? I’ve actually never seen any.

BROTP

I’m tempted to say Mablung, but that’s essentially because I will shoehorn Mablung into any fucking content I can manage. I guess Gandalf is the obvious choice? (Can I say Galadriel? I think the non-romantic aspects of their relationship might be interesting, insofar as I’m interested.)

NOTP

Someone inform me what the non-canon Celeborn ships are; I don’t know any.

An assortment of headcanons!

-He used to hang out with Luthien. They weren’t super close, but they were low-key buddies.

#misc elves #tolkien #lord of the rings #harry potter #meme replies yay!#iceberg-hootenanny #silmarillion

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misshorrorotaku · 5 years ago

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Ok, opening by calling something I said “meme shit” and calling me a granpa. Immediately not taking you seriously anymore. :P

Trans women don’t follow the male pattern of violence. The only study that y’all ever quote for that is the 2011 Swedish Study. Who’s author LITERALLY stated that it does not say that, and in fact, says the opposite. And if we weren’t different from cis men, we wouldn’t be classified as two seperate groups and we sure as fuck wouldn’t have the psychology AND neurology field confirming our existence.

And this next shit? Seriously? “Gendertrender.wordpress”? Not even gonna give that biased bullshit the time of day. And since your next links are in support of that, I’m ignoring them too.

And you can use Homestuck reaction pics all you want. I’m still right. :P All you’ve quoted is biased and debunked bullshit to back up your nonsense. And tagging this “trans cult” doesn’t help your case, as you’re misusing the term “cult.”

Trans women are not a danger to cis women. No more than any other woman. You’d need a few million cases of GENUINE trans women hurting cis women to even make our statistics come close to eachother. Because that’s how statistics work between a small group and a large group. Trans women are estimated to be half of 1% of the world’s population. Cis women are said to be 51% of the world’s population (but this is obviously without factoring in transgender people). Like it or not, hun, you could make a list of a thousand confirmed trans women hurting, raping, and murdering cis women and it still wouldn’t make us more of a danger than other cis women.

Edit: oh, and just in case you or one of the posts you linked cited these: the tip of the iceberg post has been debunked by @terfslying and BBC debunked Fair Play For Women’s 41% claim.

Yeah, ok....

I think y’all know the drill by now. Was blocked by OP, but wanted to address this. Here’s a link, here’s a screenshot.

..... Let it never be said that there are not terfs that genuinely want us dead. These people are sick, even the ones who aren’t like this.

#tvp discourse #long post

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sally-mun · 8 years ago

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Knux & Finitevus shipping meme!

As an apology to the folks that’ve been waiting far, far too long for me to answer their Knux/Fini RP asks, I’ve decided to fill in a shipping meme I just saw with all answers about them! Thank you to those that took an interest in my RPing and I’m SO SORRY I’ve had this big gap of answering your questions. Think of this as an Easter treat to those that follow it!

(Also, just a heads up: the second half of the questions are NSFW.)

SFW

Who cooks?

They both do, tho in different ways. Fini’s not exactly a chef but he knows how to make a reasonable range of domestic foods, whereas Knuckles falls back more on survival skills and will occasionally cook things that he’s hunted over an open flame outside. He does try to cook modern dishes sometimes, but he’s had mixed results with that. Half the time they eat out anyway, so I suppose it’s a fair balance.

Who’s the messiest? The cleanest?

Easy to say that Knux is messier and Fini is cleaner, since Knuckles spent so much of his life surviving in the wild (and still spends a hefty amount of time outdoors even now) and Fini has clinical standards for cleanliness. I will say that over the years Knux has made strides in trying to be cleaner for Fini’s comfort, BUUUT there are also times when he gets home from a patrol and hunts down Fini specifically to get him dirty. While doing so he refers to Fini as his “blank canvas.”

Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown?

They don’t actually own any vehicles. They typically warp to the general vicinity of where they need to go and then walk the rest of the way.

Living space has a leak! Who fixes it?

If he can, Fini. If not, they’d probably call Elias.

Who buys the groceries?

Almost exclusively Fini. I imagine Knuckles has too strong of an appetite to be trusted to go shopping alone. To his credit, though, Knux kind of does his own form of ‘shopping’ by occasionally bringing home fruits or other plants he’s gathered while out on a patrol, hunting wild game, or going fishing.

Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert?

They more or less have unlimited funds at their disposal, as Fini just sorta leeches small amounts of money from a loooooot of different people so they won’t notice the discrepancy. (He actually also has a day job, but his salary there versus the money he just freely takes is almost inconsequential.) You can probably assume that Knuckles eats the most since he has a Guardian metabolism, but they both have dessert. Fini just doesn’t have nearly as big of a serving.

Would they go to the beach?

As a matter of fact, they love going to the beach. Fini’s more interested in laying in a chair to listen to the ocean rather than swimming, but he will occasionally swim if Knuckles is persistent in asking. About a year or so ago Knux had Elias help him build a dock that goes pretty deep into the water and has a little cabana-type thing at the end, so they can lounge around and go fishing at their leisure.

Who knows how to swim? Who doesn’t?

We know from Sonic Adventure 2 that Knuckles is an excellent swimmer. Fini swims well enough to get where he’s trying to go, but he’s not especially good at it.

Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go?

Knuckles can read and write ancient echidna text, tho come to think of it I don’t know if it’s spoken any differently. It’s never even crossed my mind. In any case tho he’s able to read the text, and he’s shown a few things here and there to Finitevus, but never with the intention of teaching him any fluency.

Any pets? Or plants?

As a small child (before he was abandoned) Knuckles had a monitor lizard named Chomps, whom he absolutely adored and dragged around with him everywhere. Thankfully Chomps was about as chill as an iceberg and allowed puggle!Knux to do pretty much anything he wanted.

In the present, Knux has a little gecko named Squirt. He likes to perch on Knux’s head, buuut the problem is this lizard’s a bit unpredictable and frequently flings itself into the wild blue yonder, which gives both Knux and Fini a small heart attack each time they just barely catch him. He also makes a peculiar noise that would probably scare the shit out of a burglar if one ever managed to get in their home, as it sounds like a person distantly making a “HEE HEE HEE” laugh.

Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights?

When Knux bathes, it’s really just for the purpose of getting clean, but when Fini does, it’s both to get clean and to relax. When they’re alone, Knux will shower to get to the point and get out while Fini will take a bath with bubbles and salts and the works to unwind. When they bathe together, it’s usually a bath.

Can they stand silence? Who talks the most? Who talks the least?

In terms of silence meaning “no one is speaking,” neither one of them seem to mind it too terribly. They frequently hang out in the same room doing their own things without interacting, I suppose to enjoy each other’s company but not be in each other’s faces. If by “silence” this means “no sound,” Fini handles it much better than Knux. Fini’s used to an extremely quiet lab, whereas Knux is used to something making noise outside. There are a lot of times when Knuckles will sit in front of the TV while doing something unrelated just because he wants the noise.

Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up?

Fini and Knuckles go to bed around the same time, but Fini’s usually the first one up. It actually used to be the other way around in the VERY beginning, but after weeks and months of living in Fini’s original base without a daylight reference, Knux’s body got used to sleeping until he was ready to get up rather than waking at dawn.

Unfortunately, Knuckles does have a few problems with insomnia that he inherited from his father. Whenever something is upsetting him or bothering him, he tends to get stuck on it and can’t go to sleep. In the beginning, Fini didn’t think anything of this until he realized Knux was staying awake for days at a time and recognized him exhibiting Locke’s same symptoms of paranoia. At this point in the relationship, however, managing Knuckles’ occasional insomnia is simple enough for Fini. If he wakes up and realizes that Knux never went to sleep, they talk a bit about what kept him awake, and then Fini makes him a drink that he slips a small dose of sedative into. As a result Knux gets the problem off his chest and then gets some rest, and once he gets back up they address the problem again now that Knuckles has a clear mind.

Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind?

Honestly, I think they’re both high-maintenance in different ways. Knuckles has wrestled with separation anxiety stemming from his abandonment, and he’s extremely sensitive about his intelligence and being perceived as stupid. Fini has some lingering PTSD related to having been a prisoner of war in the West Acorn Republic for a while, and he’s still occasionally haunted by guilt from when he’d attacked Albion in the past (usually when he witnesses how it’s affected people’s lives).

I know managing a high-maintenance person is typically depicted as draining and irritating and time-consuming, but I think in Knux and Fini’s cases it helps strengthen their bond. Given that they each have trauma in their lives that interferes with how they function, it makes them pretty compassionate toward each other’s conditions. I suppose the fact that they take care of each other makes them all the more secure that they’ll be taken care of themselves when they need it.

Vacation ideas: who decides them? Where would they go, if anywhere?

Obviously traveling isn’t exactly difficult for them since they can warp wherever they want, BUT they do still take trips simply for the fun of the experience, or occasionally to learn something new.

NSFW

How often do they have sex, if at all?

I’d say they have a pretty healthy sex life. I’d estimate they go at it at least a couple times a week, tho what it is they’re doing will vary quite a bit because they’re pretty adventurous.

Who brings ideas? Who initiates?

They both initiate at this point and and they both bring up wanting to try new things, although it amuses me how differently they go about finding new things to try. In Fini’s case I just simply imagine him to be well-read on various types of kinks and play and fetishes, whereas Knuckles just sees people doing things in porn and asks if they can give it a shot too.

Any kinks they clash on?

For the most part they have pretty similar boundaries, buuuut there is one serious divide that they’ve had friction on since the beginning: Fini thinks it’s super hot for someone to lick up jizz after giving a blowjob, but Knuckles thinks it’s the most disgusting thing ever and absolutely refuses to do it. Knux has allowed Fini to push him into lots and lots of things he wasn’t completely comfortable trying out, but this is one area where he digs in his feet and WILL NOT budge. Doesn’t stop Fini from trying, tho, so this has been an ongoing argument.

Oddest place they’d have sex?

Oh lord. Provided that they don’t think they’ll be recognized (as they occasionally dye their fur to disguise themselves when they’re trying to infiltrate certain areas or whatnot), Knux and Fini have gotten pretty bold from time to time. I know they’ve done it on the roof of a building that was surrounded by taller buildings, for example.

Favourite positions?

Well there’s one position they’ve come to nickname “the tripod”, aka standing on your knees and putting your chin on the ground, because they use it so often and in so many ways. Another favorite is when one sits face-to-face in the other’s lap because, if the lap-owner is feeling generous, they might give a blowjob at the same time.

I also recall that in the beginning Fini got a kick out of making Knux lay on his side; this is because when IRL echidnas mate, the female lays on her side while the male goes at it, which we’ve translated in-game as being the ‘standard’ position for echidnas (like an equivalent of the missionary position). Fini liked to tease Knuckles about ‘taking it like a woman.’

Dom/top? Sub/bottom? Any switches?

Initially it was exclusively a dom/sub type of relationship, with Fini dominant and Knuckles submissive, but at this point in the relationship the bulk of that has chipped away. Fini is still usually the one in control, but moreso because that’s the way they both prefer it versus Knux not having a choice. Knuckles prefers to be on the bottom but he still tops Fini every now and again.

Favourite erogenous zones?

For Knux it’s the neck and the base of his tail. For Fini it’s the ears and inner thighs.

Quickest turn ons? Immediate turn offs?

Fini can get wound up pretty quickly if he sees Knux lifting something (since he’s extremely turned on by his muscles), or if he sees Knux tangled up in something since they sometimes use bondage. Knuckles can get excited over a nice view of Fini’s ass, and surprisingly enough, he now finds it a turn-on to have his chaos abilities nullified. We’re pretty sure he associates it with sex since he had that collar the first few times he and Fini hooked up, but after all these years it’s now become a kink to him. I guess it boils down to him getting off on feeling helpless, especially since it facilitates Fini being dominant.

First to orgasm? Last to orgasm? Who comes the most? Does someone ever end up unfinished?

When Knux is on top he tends to have a pretty short fuse, which I think is part of why he’s typically on the bottom. Fini has surprisingly good control over when he wants to finish. He’s mentioned before that he doesn’t like to get “primal” about it, so it may just be a skill that arose out of being a control freak.

There have been times when one finished long before the other, but they never leave it at that. Normally they’ll just switch to something one-sided until the other gets there too.

Favourite romantic gestures during sex/orgasm?

Hmm, how to put this delicately... Knux and Fini aren’t terribly into romance while they’re having sex. They may do some sweet things leading up to it, but once the dicks are out, iiiit’s mostly about grunting and drooling and clawing and one of them (read: Knuckles) being made to beg.

How are their afterglows?

Not very exciting. They usually just go to sleep. Half the time they don’t even move to a cleaner part of the bed.

Who’s loud? Who’s quiet? Does one try to make the other louder/quieter?

Fini gets a kick out of trying to make Knuckles scream. He likes it even more if it’s obvious Knux is trying to be quiet. (For example, Fini talked him into going at it once while they had a house guest, and Knux agreed under the condition that they had to keep it down.)

Lights on or off? Do they look at each other? Or is someone embarrassed?

Neither one of them really seems to care about the lighting, so, not much to say here.

Open or closed relationship? Do they sometimes share?

Fini’s never really been interested in hooking up with anyone else, but prior to being married, Knuckles was free to still hook up with women if he wanted to. He’d have an occasional fling with Rouge here and there and sometimes hooked up with a friend of theirs named Candy, but since they’ve tied the knot I’m 98% sure it’s been monogamous. If it hasn’t been I’ve just simply forgotten about it.

#Sallymun RPs

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reputationiseverything · 6 years ago

Text

17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154%

email marketing for restaurants

Facebook engagement is easier and more valuable than you ever imagined.

I found this out the hard way.

At one point, I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook Ads.

Sure, I was getting some huge successes. But I was also wasting a ton of money.

For example, I once spent $400,000 on Facebook fan page likes.

youtube

I still feel dumb for that one…

The engagement just wasn’t there. I had a large number of fans but very little actual engagement.

I had no idea that hidden tools within Facebook’s apps, extensions, insights, tactics, and bots that could have made my Facebook ad spend 80 times more effective.

Facebook marketing is like an iceberg. Most people see the top part — Facebook ads. They spend their entire time optimizing that little bit of potential.

The real power is underneath. It’s hidden.

And that’s why I created this list.

I want you to know exactly what those hidden Facebook marketing tools are and how you can increase your engagement by 154% as I did.

Now before we get started, for the first few hidden tools you need Mobile Monkey to utilize all of the tactics (it’s free). In addition to that, some of the hidden tools that I’ll uncover are within Facebook… you just don’t know about them. 😉

Hidden Tool #1: Facebook Messenger Marketing

Okay, I’m starting out with a big, broad one.

It’s hiding in plain sight: Facebook Messenger marketing.

For some reason, not very many marketers are taking advantage of Messenger marketing, even though it’s the hottest opportunity in digital marketing today.

What does this mean for you? It means that you can gain first mover’s advantage.

Using Facebook Messenger for marketing is as simple as it sounds… you send messages to customers on Facebook Messenger.

What makes this channel different from other marketing methods like email marketing is the results.

Facebook Messenger messages have an open rate of 50-80%.

Facebook Messenger messages have a clickthrough rate of 20%, especially when using chat blasting.

Facebook Messenger messages have a conversion rate of 3-5x higher than Facebook desktop ads.

Facebook Messenger marketing costs 30-50x less than Facebook ad campaigns (when using Facebook Send To Messenger Ads)

Where else can you get engagement results like that?

I don’t know of any, and I’ve done quite a bit of online marketing.

The best way to get started with Facebook Messenger marketing is with MobileMonkey.

MobileMonkey is a powerful chatbot builder that I use personally. Chatbots are essential for scoring sky-high open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates.

And best of all, it’s free.

Hidden Tool #2: Comment Guard (Private Reply via Messenger)

A comment guard is a Facebook Messenger marketing feature that allows you to add new contacts to your contact list when they comment on your Facebook post.

It’s like a magic elixir for engagement.

It works like this.

You post something on Facebook as usual.

People comment on your post.

Anyone who comments on the post gets your automatic private reply in Messenger.

When they engage with this reply, they are added to your Facebook Messenger contact list.

The mobile screenshot below displays exactly what happens.

Someone comments on the post, and they immediately receive a Messenger message.

Imagine this. You post something on your Facebook page that has high engagement potential… a meme, a quiz, a contest, a question, whatever. All the comments that you rack up aren’t just comments anymore, they’re warm leads.

You’ll need to use MobileMonkey in order to pull this off, but it’s really easy.

Just click the “FB comment guard” button using the MobileMonkey app.

Create an autoresponder message.

Point them to your Messenger chat landing page.

Add the comment guard to your selected Facebook post.

Hidden Tool #3: Click to Messenger Ads

A Click-to-Messenger Ad is a normal Facebook ad with a twist. Instead of sending people to a landing page, you send them to a Facebook Messenger bot sequence.

It looks like this:

Once the person starts that Facebook Messenger sequence, they are a lead. And that’s when a chatbot takes over to bring them down the conversion funnel.

For example, you could have your chatbot ask users questions, and send them offers that they’re interested in.

It can be hard to manually respond to thousands of message inquiries. Instead, you can direct those chat sessions derived from your Messenger Ads directly to a MobileMonkey chatbot, which can ask qualifying questions and engage users at scale.

Check out this article, for step by step instructions on leveraging this ad unit

Hidden Tool #4: Chat Blaster

Chat blasting is a powerful method for getting your message in front of your entire Facebook Messenger list in minutes.

I’ve managed chat blasting campaigns that scored a 96.9% open rates in just sixty minutes.

With MobileMonkey you can schedule chat blasts, bulk send, develop interactive Messenger sequences, create special offers, and anything else that helps your marketing.

To start, just click “Chat Blaster” in the app.

One of the things that I like about the Chat Blaster is the ability to segment audiences. Many of the campaigns that I manage involve thousands of contacts, so I want to narrow down my contacts to just the right targets.

Creating segments is simple using MobileMonkey, which allows you to “Create Audience” with a click.

Your audience can perform self-segmentation when the chat blast sends.

Hidden Tool #5: Messenger Scan Codes

Remember QR codes? They didn’t really catch on that big, but the idea is gaining new ground with Facebook Messenger codes.

Anyone who’s on Facebook Messenger has a unique code.

In Messenger, tap on your profile picture in the upper right.

Then tap your profile picture again

The image that appears is your Messenger code.

From this screen, you can also scan a code.

Your Facebook page’s unique scan code is an excellent way to add people to your Messenger contact list. A person simply scans your code and they’re part of your list.

I can see applications for this at conferences, on bulletin board ads, merchandise, or even business cards.

Hidden Tool #6. Warm Engaged Invites

One tactic that I’ve used to build my Facebook audience is by personally inviting people who have engaged with my facebook page, to become a page fan.

From your business Facebook page (desktop), find a post that has engagement.

Using this tool, you view the people who engaged with your post and can invite people to like the page.

The reason why this is valuable is that you’re able to target engaged fans. If you have a lot of Facebook fans, but not a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will punish you.

Instead, identify those people who will be engaged and manually invite them.

Hidden Tool #7: Send Personal Invites in Messenger

A similar hack is inviting your friends to like your business page, and also sending the invite in Messenger.

This is the method that I recommend since you can also personalize the message and give them two touches instead of just one.

Click on the … button on your Facebook page, then click “Invite Friends.”

Here, you can invite friends and create a personalized message. Be sure to check the box at the bottom to send the invite using Messenger.

Hidden Tool #8: Invite People to Your Facebook Group by Email

I love hacks that combine two platforms. I can leverage one of my marketing channels by combining it with another.

You can invite people to join your Facebook group by sending them an email. Obviously, you’ll need an email list to do this.

Here’s how.

From your Facebook Group page, click “members” on the left side.

From the next page, you can add email addresses and personal notes to invitees.

Currently, the only way I know how to do this is manually. If you have a large email list, it could take some time. :/

Hidden Tool #9: Competitor Ad Espionage

I’m a huge fan of ethical espionage.

In the world of SEO, it’s not that hard.

Just plug in a URL to something like RankSignals.

Boom, instantly you have intel.

And some of it is really helpful.

But with so many brands now spending millions on Facebook ads, how do you get a handle on that kind of information?

You will not be able to get your competitor’s targeting info and ad spend but you can find out where, how often, and what the competition is advertising.

Let’s say I’m the competition and you want to spy on me. First, find my Facebook page and tap the “i” button on the right side.

On this page, you can find out if the page has ever changed names, when it was created, and where the page managers are located. This can be handy intel.

Tap on “Active Ads.”

If the page is running ads, you’ll be able to see them here.

Hidden Tool #10: Page Competition Gauge

I like to have a solid understanding of who my competition is and what they’re up to.

But how do I know who my competition is? Thankfully, Facebook’s algorithm has figured it out for me.

To use this feature, go to your Facebook Page Insights. From Insights, scroll down until you see “Pages to Watch.”

By default, Facebook shows you five potential competitors, but you can view more by clicking “See More Suggested Pages.”

When you add a competitor to your watched pages, you’ll be able to keep up with their activity, growth rates, total likes, and the frequency of their posts.

This information will help you understand how you’re doing and what you might need to change.

Hidden Tool #11: Find Where You’re Gaining Followers

It is important for you to figure out where you’re getting your followers so you can know how to get more.

One helpful way to get this information is again through Page Insights. Tap “Followers” and scroll down until you see “Where Your Page Follows Happened.”

Facebook shows you follow quantities according to five locations:

On Your Page

Uncategorized Desktop

Your Posts

Others

If a particular source shows large follow rates, try to reverse engineer what happened, then do it again.

Hidden Tool #12: Identify Audience Signals on Page Insights

One way that I use metrics to leverage my marketing efforts is to view my Facebook page insights, particularly the demographic information.

When viewing this information, I’m looking for strong positives — indications that my audience favors a particular demographic.

For example, this page demonstrates a strong positive for men and women between the ages of 25-44.

If you’re 21, there’s only a small chance you’re going to be interested in my page. By contrast, if you’re a 30-year old male, there is a far stronger likelihood that you will have an interest in this page.

This information helps me know how, where, and upon whom to focus my marketing and advertising efforts.

Hidden Tool #13: Pull Email Addresses

I love this hack.

You know how hard it is to get people’s email address these days, right? No matter how appealing your content upgrade, asking for someone’s email address is tantamount to asking for their social security number.

With Facebook Messenger marketing, that’s no longer the case.

You can create a Facebook Messenger chatbot that asks for an individual’s email address. Then, all they do is click a button to pre-fill their address.

Facebook does all the work for you.

Here’s what the bot looks like in MobileMonkey.

As long as you set the input type as email, Facebook will know to pull the user’s email address exactly as they’ve entered it when creating a Facebook account. No typos, nothing.

This is another case of using two different channels to get information and engage your users. When you use a chatbot, it makes the process automatic and easy.

Hidden Tool #14: Pull Phone Numbers

If there’s one thing harder to get from a customer than their email address, it’s their phone number.

Again, powered by chatbots, it’s a cinch. Using input type “phone” in MobileMonkey means that you’re guaranteed to get the user’s primary phone number as they provided when and if they stored their phone number in Facebook.

It’s understandable that people are hesitant to enter their phone number on an unfamiliar platform — a contact form on your, for instance.

It’s quite a different level of comfort when they are asked for a phone number in a familiar messaging app, and Facebook automatically adds the number.

Literally, all that your contact has to do is tap their phone number.

Hidden Tool #15: Website Chat Widget

This one seems obvious, but again it’s surprising how few websites are putting the power of a website chat widget to work.

Check this out. If you go to MobileMonkey’s website, there is a chat widget on nearly every page.

If you’ve logged into Facebook Messenger on that browser, all you have to do is click and you’re introduced to a Messenger sequence with MobileMonkey.

This sequence powered by a chatbot brings you further down the funnel.

One of the unique and powerful features of this funnel is that it is self-guided. You feel as if you’re in control — making choices and selecting options.

Regardless of your choices, however, you are making deeper connections with the product and the marketing funnel.

Hidden Tool #16: Track Specific Facebook Conversions

The good thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you have access to a ton of information.

The bad thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you also have access to a ton of information.

Take conversions, for example.

If you’re tracking them, good for you. But which conversions are you tracking? Here are the options:

I call this one “hidden” because true conversions are essentially in Ad Manager underneath a lot of other noise.

You have to narrow down your conversion tracking to just the conversions that you need to know about.

For one of my businesses, I only focus on five types of conversions.

Everything else is useless.

I’ve written about this before… when you get clarity on what to track, you’ll do a lot better at making real progress with your Facebook advertising.

Hidden Tool #17: Messenger Drip Campaigns

If you’ve been in Internet marketing for any amount of time, you know how potent a good drip campaign can be.

Imagine increasing this potency by 10x.

That’s exactly what a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can do. Again, the power is in the chatbot builder.

MobileMonkey’s drip campaign feature just takes a click to get started.

Unlike an email drip campaign which can take days or weeks to complete, a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can be completed in a matter of minutes or hours.

Plus, when you use a chatbot, the entire sequence can be interactive. You can create choices and engage the user on a far deeper level.

Conclusion

There’s way more to Facebook than meets the eye.

I have a strong sense that Facebook marketing isn’t going to decline in the next 2-4 years. It’s going to become exponentially more powerful.

There’s a reason why so many of the hidden marketing tools above focus on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger marketing has fundamentally changed the game, and it’s done so in two areas where marketing rises or falls:

Interactivity or dialogue — Messenger marketing, even when powered by a bot, has a personal feel. Instead of bullhorn marketing — telling your audience to do, buy, read, visit, watch. You’re asking for their feedback and opening up a conversation.

Speed of engagement — Unlike the glacial speed of email marketing (like drip campaigns), Messenger marketing has a much swifter cadence. Many people have a pavlovian response to the crisp ding of their Messenger notifications. They want to see who’s sending them a personal message. This means your open rates and click through rates are shooting up.

It’s not going to last forever. Like the banner ads of decades past, Messenger marketing will lose its luster as people become accustomed to it.

By engaging Messenger marketing now, you’ll have a far stronger advantage.

What Messenger marketing tactics does your brand or business currently use?

Youtobe

0 notes

adolphkwinter · 6 years ago

Text

17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154%

Facebook engagement is easier and more valuable than you ever imagined.

I found this out the hard way.

At one point, I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook Ads.

Sure, I was getting some huge successes. But I was also wasting a ton of money.

For example, I once spent $400,000 on Facebook fan page likes.

youtube

I still feel dumb for that one…

The engagement just wasn’t there. I had a large number of fans but very little actual engagement.

I had no idea that hidden tools within Facebook’s apps, extensions, insights, tactics, and bots that could have made my Facebook ad spend 80 times more effective.

Facebook marketing is like an iceberg. Most people see the top part — Facebook ads. They spend their entire time optimizing that little bit of potential.

The real power is underneath. It’s hidden.

And that’s why I created this list.

I want you to know exactly what those hidden Facebook marketing tools are and how you can increase your engagement by 154% as I did.

Hidden Tool #1: Facebook Messenger Marketing

Okay, I’m starting out with a big, broad one.

It’s hiding in plain sight: Facebook Messenger marketing.

For some reason, not very many marketers are taking advantage of Messenger marketing, even though it’s the hottest opportunity in digital marketing today.

What does this mean for you? It means that you can gain first mover’s advantage.

Using Facebook Messenger for marketing is as simple as it sounds… you send messages to customers on Facebook Messenger.

What makes this channel different from other marketing methods like email marketing is the results.

Facebook Messenger messages have an open rate of 50-80%.

Facebook Messenger messages have a clickthrough rate of 20%, especially when using chat blasting.

Facebook Messenger messages have a conversion rate of 3-5x higher than Facebook desktop ads.

Facebook Messenger marketing costs 30-50x less than Facebook ad campaigns (when using Facebook Send To Messenger Ads)

Where else can you get engagement results like that?

I don’t know of any, and I’ve done quite a bit of online marketing.

The best way to get started with Facebook Messenger marketing is with MobileMonkey.

MobileMonkey is a powerful chatbot builder that I use personally. Chatbots are essential for scoring sky-high open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates.

And best of all, it’s free.

Hidden Tool #2: Comment Guard (Private Reply via Messenger)

A comment guard is a Facebook Messenger marketing feature that allows you to add new contacts to your contact list when they comment on your Facebook post.

It’s like a magic elixir for engagement.

It works like this.

You post something on Facebook as usual.

People comment on your post.

Anyone who comments on the post gets your automatic private reply in Messenger.

When they engage with this reply, they are added to your Facebook Messenger contact list.

The mobile screenshot below displays exactly what happens.

Someone comments on the post, and they immediately receive a Messenger message.

You’ll need to use MobileMonkey in order to pull this off, but it’s really easy.

Just click the “FB comment guard” button using the MobileMonkey app.

Create an autoresponder message.

Point them to your Messenger chat landing page.

Add the comment guard to your selected Facebook post.

Hidden Tool #3: Click to Messenger Ads

A Click-to-Messenger Ad is a normal Facebook ad with a twist. Instead of sending people to a landing page, you send them to a Facebook Messenger bot sequence.

It looks like this:

Once the person starts that Facebook Messenger sequence, they are a lead. And that’s when a chatbot takes over to bring them down the conversion funnel.

For example, you could have your chatbot ask users questions, and send them offers that they’re interested in.

Check out this article, for step by step instructions on leveraging this ad unit

Hidden Tool #4: Chat Blaster

Chat blasting is a powerful method for getting your message in front of your entire Facebook Messenger list in minutes.

I’ve managed chat blasting campaigns that scored a 96.9% open rates in just sixty minutes.

With MobileMonkey you can schedule chat blasts, bulk send, develop interactive Messenger sequences, create special offers, and anything else that helps your marketing.

To start, just click “Chat Blaster” in the app.

Creating segments is simple using MobileMonkey, which allows you to “Create Audience” with a click.

Your audience can perform self-segmentation when the chat blast sends.

Hidden Tool #5: Messenger Scan Codes

Remember QR codes? They didn’t really catch on that big, but the idea is gaining new ground with Facebook Messenger codes.

Anyone who’s on Facebook Messenger has a unique code.

In Messenger, tap on your profile picture in the upper right.

Then tap your profile picture again

The image that appears is your Messenger code.

From this screen, you can also scan a code.

Your Facebook page’s unique scan code is an excellent way to add people to your Messenger contact list. A person simply scans your code and they’re part of your list.

I can see applications for this at conferences, on bulletin board ads, merchandise, or even business cards.

Hidden Tool #6. Warm Engaged Invites

One tactic that I’ve used to build my Facebook audience is by personally inviting people who have engaged with my facebook page, to become a page fan.

From your business Facebook page (desktop), find a post that has engagement.

Using this tool, you view the people who engaged with your post and can invite people to like the page.

The reason why this is valuable is that you’re able to target engaged fans. If you have a lot of Facebook fans, but not a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will punish you.

Instead, identify those people who will be engaged and manually invite them.

Hidden Tool #7: Send Personal Invites in Messenger

A similar hack is inviting your friends to like your business page, and also sending the invite in Messenger.

This is the method that I recommend since you can also personalize the message and give them two touches instead of just one.

Click on the … button on your Facebook page, then click “Invite Friends.”

Here, you can invite friends and create a personalized message. Be sure to check the box at the bottom to send the invite using Messenger.

Hidden Tool #8: Invite People to Your Facebook Group by Email

I love hacks that combine two platforms. I can leverage one of my marketing channels by combining it with another.

You can invite people to join your Facebook group by sending them an email. Obviously, you’ll need an email list to do this.

Here’s how.

From your Facebook Group page, click “members” on the left side.

From the next page, you can add email addresses and personal notes to invitees.

Currently, the only way I know how to do this is manually. If you have a large email list, it could take some time. :/

Hidden Tool #9: Competitor Ad Espionage

I’m a huge fan of ethical espionage.

In the world of SEO, it’s not that hard.

Just plug in a URL to something like RankSignals.

Boom, instantly you have intel.

And some of it is really helpful.

But with so many brands now spending millions on Facebook ads, how do you get a handle on that kind of information?

You will not be able to get your competitor’s targeting info and ad spend but you can find out where, how often, and what the competition is advertising.

Let’s say I’m the competition and you want to spy on me. First, find my Facebook page and tap the “i” button on the right side.

On this page, you can find out if the page has ever changed names, when it was created, and where the page managers are located. This can be handy intel.

Tap on “Active Ads.”

If the page is running ads, you’ll be able to see them here.

Hidden Tool #10: Page Competition Gauge

I like to have a solid understanding of who my competition is and what they’re up to.

But how do I know who my competition is? Thankfully, Facebook’s algorithm has figured it out for me.

To use this feature, go to your Facebook Page Insights. From Insights, scroll down until you see “Pages to Watch.”

By default, Facebook shows you five potential competitors, but you can view more by clicking “See More Suggested Pages.”

When you add a competitor to your watched pages, you’ll be able to keep up with their activity, growth rates, total likes, and the frequency of their posts.

This information will help you understand how you’re doing and what you might need to change.

Hidden Tool #11: Find Where You’re Gaining Followers

It is important for you to figure out where you’re getting your followers so you can know how to get more.

One helpful way to get this information is again through Page Insights. Tap “Followers” and scroll down until you see “Where Your Page Follows Happened.”

Facebook shows you follow quantities according to five locations:

On Your Page

Uncategorized Desktop

Your Posts

Others

If a particular source shows large follow rates, try to reverse engineer what happened, then do it again.

Hidden Tool #12: Identify Audience Signals on Page Insights

One way that I use metrics to leverage my marketing efforts is to view my Facebook page insights, particularly the demographic information.

When viewing this information, I’m looking for strong positives — indications that my audience favors a particular demographic.

For example, this page demonstrates a strong positive for men and women between the ages of 25-44.

This information helps me know how, where, and upon whom to focus my marketing and advertising efforts.

Hidden Tool #13: Pull Email Addresses

I love this hack.

With Facebook Messenger marketing, that’s no longer the case.

You can create a Facebook Messenger chatbot that asks for an individual’s email address. Then, all they do is click a button to pre-fill their address.

Facebook does all the work for you.

Here’s what the bot looks like in MobileMonkey.

As long as you set the input type as email, Facebook will know to pull the user’s email address exactly as they’ve entered it when creating a Facebook account. No typos, nothing.

This is another case of using two different channels to get information and engage your users. When you use a chatbot, it makes the process automatic and easy.

Hidden Tool #14: Pull Phone Numbers

If there’s one thing harder to get from a customer than their email address, it’s their phone number.

It’s understandable that people are hesitant to enter their phone number on an unfamiliar platform — a contact form on your, for instance.

It’s quite a different level of comfort when they are asked for a phone number in a familiar messaging app, and Facebook automatically adds the number.

Literally, all that your contact has to do is tap their phone number.

Hidden Tool #15: Website Chat Widget

This one seems obvious, but again it’s surprising how few websites are putting the power of a website chat widget to work.

Check this out. If you go to MobileMonkey’s website, there is a chat widget on nearly every page.

If you’ve logged into Facebook Messenger on that browser, all you have to do is click and you’re introduced to a Messenger sequence with MobileMonkey.

This sequence powered by a chatbot brings you further down the funnel.

One of the unique and powerful features of this funnel is that it is self-guided. You feel as if you’re in control — making choices and selecting options.

Regardless of your choices, however, you are making deeper connections with the product and the marketing funnel.

Hidden Tool #16: Track Specific Facebook Conversions

The good thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you have access to a ton of information.

The bad thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you also have access to a ton of information.

Take conversions, for example.

If you’re tracking them, good for you. But which conversions are you tracking? Here are the options:

I call this one “hidden” because true conversions are essentially in Ad Manager underneath a lot of other noise.

You have to narrow down your conversion tracking to just the conversions that you need to know about.

For one of my businesses, I only focus on five types of conversions.

Everything else is useless.

I’ve written about this before… when you get clarity on what to track, you’ll do a lot better at making real progress with your Facebook advertising.

Hidden Tool #17: Messenger Drip Campaigns

If you’ve been in Internet marketing for any amount of time, you know how potent a good drip campaign can be.

Imagine increasing this potency by 10x.

That’s exactly what a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can do. Again, the power is in the chatbot builder.

MobileMonkey’s drip campaign feature just takes a click to get started.

Unlike an email drip campaign which can take days or weeks to complete, a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can be completed in a matter of minutes or hours.

Plus, when you use a chatbot, the entire sequence can be interactive. You can create choices and engage the user on a far deeper level.

Conclusion

There’s way more to Facebook than meets the eye.

I have a strong sense that Facebook marketing isn’t going to decline in the next 2-4 years. It’s going to become exponentially more powerful.

There’s a reason why so many of the hidden marketing tools above focus on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger marketing has fundamentally changed the game, and it’s done so in two areas where marketing rises or falls:

It’s not going to last forever. Like the banner ads of decades past, Messenger marketing will lose its luster as people become accustomed to it.

By engaging Messenger marketing now, you’ll have a far stronger advantage.

What Messenger marketing tactics does your brand or business currently use?

The post 17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154% appeared first on Neil Patel.

from Online Marketing Tips https://neilpatel.com/blog/facebook-marketing-tools/

0 notes

filipeteimuraz · 6 years ago

Text

17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154%

Facebook engagement is easier and more valuable than you ever imagined.

I found this out the hard way.

At one point, I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on Facebook Ads.

Sure, I was getting some huge successes. But I was also wasting a ton of money.

For example, I once spent $400,000 on Facebook fan page likes.

youtube

I still feel dumb for that one…

The engagement just wasn’t there. I had a large number of fans but very little actual engagement.

I had no idea that hidden tools within Facebook’s apps, extensions, insights, tactics, and bots that could have made my Facebook ad spend 80 times more effective.

Facebook marketing is like an iceberg. Most people see the top part — Facebook ads. They spend their entire time optimizing that little bit of potential.

The real power is underneath. It’s hidden.

And that’s why I created this list.

I want you to know exactly what those hidden Facebook marketing tools are and how you can increase your engagement by 154% as I did.

Hidden Tool #1: Facebook Messenger Marketing

Okay, I’m starting out with a big, broad one.

It’s hiding in plain sight: Facebook Messenger marketing.

For some reason, not very many marketers are taking advantage of Messenger marketing, even though it’s the hottest opportunity in digital marketing today.

What does this mean for you? It means that you can gain first mover’s advantage.

Using Facebook Messenger for marketing is as simple as it sounds… you send messages to customers on Facebook Messenger.

What makes this channel different from other marketing methods like email marketing is the results.

Facebook Messenger messages have an open rate of 50-80%.

Facebook Messenger messages have a clickthrough rate of 20%, especially when using chat blasting.

Facebook Messenger messages have a conversion rate of 3-5x higher than Facebook desktop ads.

Facebook Messenger marketing costs 30-50x less than Facebook ad campaigns (when using Facebook Send To Messenger Ads)

Where else can you get engagement results like that?

I don’t know of any, and I’ve done quite a bit of online marketing.

The best way to get started with Facebook Messenger marketing is with MobileMonkey.

MobileMonkey is a powerful chatbot builder that I use personally. Chatbots are essential for scoring sky-high open rates, CTRs, and conversion rates.

And best of all, it’s free.

Hidden Tool #2: Comment Guard (Private Reply via Messenger)

A comment guard is a Facebook Messenger marketing feature that allows you to add new contacts to your contact list when they comment on your Facebook post.

It’s like a magic elixir for engagement.

It works like this.

You post something on Facebook as usual.

People comment on your post.

Anyone who comments on the post gets your automatic private reply in Messenger.

When they engage with this reply, they are added to your Facebook Messenger contact list.

The mobile screenshot below displays exactly what happens.

Someone comments on the post, and they immediately receive a Messenger message.

You’ll need to use MobileMonkey in order to pull this off, but it’s really easy.

Just click the “FB comment guard” button using the MobileMonkey app.

Create an autoresponder message.

Point them to your Messenger chat landing page.

Add the comment guard to your selected Facebook post.

Hidden Tool #3: Click to Messenger Ads

A Click-to-Messenger Ad is a normal Facebook ad with a twist. Instead of sending people to a landing page, you send them to a Facebook Messenger bot sequence.

It looks like this:

Once the person starts that Facebook Messenger sequence, they are a lead. And that’s when a chatbot takes over to bring them down the conversion funnel.

For example, you could have your chatbot ask users questions, and send them offers that they’re interested in.

Check out this article, for step by step instructions on leveraging this ad unit

Hidden Tool #4: Chat Blaster

Chat blasting is a powerful method for getting your message in front of your entire Facebook Messenger list in minutes.

I’ve managed chat blasting campaigns that scored a 96.9% open rates in just sixty minutes.

With MobileMonkey you can schedule chat blasts, bulk send, develop interactive Messenger sequences, create special offers, and anything else that helps your marketing.

To start, just click “Chat Blaster” in the app.

Creating segments is simple using MobileMonkey, which allows you to “Create Audience” with a click.

Your audience can perform self-segmentation when the chat blast sends.

Hidden Tool #5: Messenger Scan Codes

Remember QR codes? They didn’t really catch on that big, but the idea is gaining new ground with Facebook Messenger codes.

Anyone who’s on Facebook Messenger has a unique code.

In Messenger, tap on your profile picture in the upper right.

Then tap your profile picture again

The image that appears is your Messenger code.

From this screen, you can also scan a code.

Your Facebook page’s unique scan code is an excellent way to add people to your Messenger contact list. A person simply scans your code and they’re part of your list.

I can see applications for this at conferences, on bulletin board ads, merchandise, or even business cards.

Hidden Tool #6. Warm Engaged Invites

One tactic that I’ve used to build my Facebook audience is by personally inviting people who have engaged with my facebook page, to become a page fan.

From your business Facebook page (desktop), find a post that has engagement.

Using this tool, you view the people who engaged with your post and can invite people to like the page.

The reason why this is valuable is that you’re able to target engaged fans. If you have a lot of Facebook fans, but not a lot of engagement, Facebook’s algorithm will punish you.

Instead, identify those people who will be engaged and manually invite them.

Hidden Tool #7: Send Personal Invites in Messenger

A similar hack is inviting your friends to like your business page, and also sending the invite in Messenger.

This is the method that I recommend since you can also personalize the message and give them two touches instead of just one.

Click on the … button on your Facebook page, then click “Invite Friends.”

Here, you can invite friends and create a personalized message. Be sure to check the box at the bottom to send the invite using Messenger.

Hidden Tool #8: Invite People to Your Facebook Group by Email

I love hacks that combine two platforms. I can leverage one of my marketing channels by combining it with another.

You can invite people to join your Facebook group by sending them an email. Obviously, you’ll need an email list to do this.

Here’s how.

From your Facebook Group page, click “members” on the left side.

From the next page, you can add email addresses and personal notes to invitees.

Currently, the only way I know how to do this is manually. If you have a large email list, it could take some time. :/

Hidden Tool #9: Competitor Ad Espionage

I’m a huge fan of ethical espionage.

In the world of SEO, it’s not that hard.

Just plug in a URL to something like RankSignals.

Boom, instantly you have intel.

And some of it is really helpful.

But with so many brands now spending millions on Facebook ads, how do you get a handle on that kind of information?

You will not be able to get your competitor’s targeting info and ad spend but you can find out where, how often, and what the competition is advertising.

Let’s say I’m the competition and you want to spy on me. First, find my Facebook page and tap the “i” button on the right side.

On this page, you can find out if the page has ever changed names, when it was created, and where the page managers are located. This can be handy intel.

Tap on “Active Ads.”

If the page is running ads, you’ll be able to see them here.

Hidden Tool #10: Page Competition Gauge

I like to have a solid understanding of who my competition is and what they’re up to.

But how do I know who my competition is? Thankfully, Facebook’s algorithm has figured it out for me.

To use this feature, go to your Facebook Page Insights. From Insights, scroll down until you see “Pages to Watch.”

By default, Facebook shows you five potential competitors, but you can view more by clicking “See More Suggested Pages.”

When you add a competitor to your watched pages, you’ll be able to keep up with their activity, growth rates, total likes, and the frequency of their posts.

This information will help you understand how you’re doing and what you might need to change.

Hidden Tool #11: Find Where You’re Gaining Followers

It is important for you to figure out where you’re getting your followers so you can know how to get more.

One helpful way to get this information is again through Page Insights. Tap “Followers” and scroll down until you see “Where Your Page Follows Happened.”

Facebook shows you follow quantities according to five locations:

On Your Page

Uncategorized Desktop

Your Posts

Others

If a particular source shows large follow rates, try to reverse engineer what happened, then do it again.

Hidden Tool #12: Identify Audience Signals on Page Insights

One way that I use metrics to leverage my marketing efforts is to view my Facebook page insights, particularly the demographic information.

When viewing this information, I’m looking for strong positives — indications that my audience favors a particular demographic.

For example, this page demonstrates a strong positive for men and women between the ages of 25-44.

This information helps me know how, where, and upon whom to focus my marketing and advertising efforts.

Hidden Tool #13: Pull Email Addresses

I love this hack.

With Facebook Messenger marketing, that’s no longer the case.

You can create a Facebook Messenger chatbot that asks for an individual’s email address. Then, all they do is click a button to pre-fill their address.

Facebook does all the work for you.

Here’s what the bot looks like in MobileMonkey.

As long as you set the input type as email, Facebook will know to pull the user’s email address exactly as they’ve entered it when creating a Facebook account. No typos, nothing.

This is another case of using two different channels to get information and engage your users. When you use a chatbot, it makes the process automatic and easy.

Hidden Tool #14: Pull Phone Numbers

If there’s one thing harder to get from a customer than their email address, it’s their phone number.

It’s understandable that people are hesitant to enter their phone number on an unfamiliar platform — a contact form on your, for instance.

It’s quite a different level of comfort when they are asked for a phone number in a familiar messaging app, and Facebook automatically adds the number.

Literally, all that your contact has to do is tap their phone number.

Hidden Tool #15: Website Chat Widget

This one seems obvious, but again it’s surprising how few websites are putting the power of a website chat widget to work.

Check this out. If you go to MobileMonkey’s website, there is a chat widget on nearly every page.

If you’ve logged into Facebook Messenger on that browser, all you have to do is click and you’re introduced to a Messenger sequence with MobileMonkey.

This sequence powered by a chatbot brings you further down the funnel.

One of the unique and powerful features of this funnel is that it is self-guided. You feel as if you’re in control — making choices and selecting options.

Regardless of your choices, however, you are making deeper connections with the product and the marketing funnel.

Hidden Tool #16: Track Specific Facebook Conversions

The good thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you have access to a ton of information.

The bad thing about Facebook Ads Manager is that you also have access to a ton of information.

Take conversions, for example.

If you’re tracking them, good for you. But which conversions are you tracking? Here are the options:

I call this one “hidden” because true conversions are essentially in Ad Manager underneath a lot of other noise.

You have to narrow down your conversion tracking to just the conversions that you need to know about.

For one of my businesses, I only focus on five types of conversions.

Everything else is useless.

I’ve written about this before… when you get clarity on what to track, you’ll do a lot better at making real progress with your Facebook advertising.

Hidden Tool #17: Messenger Drip Campaigns

If you’ve been in Internet marketing for any amount of time, you know how potent a good drip campaign can be.

Imagine increasing this potency by 10x.

That’s exactly what a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can do. Again, the power is in the chatbot builder.

MobileMonkey’s drip campaign feature just takes a click to get started.

Unlike an email drip campaign which can take days or weeks to complete, a Facebook Messenger drip campaign can be completed in a matter of minutes or hours.

Plus, when you use a chatbot, the entire sequence can be interactive. You can create choices and engage the user on a far deeper level.

Conclusion

There’s way more to Facebook than meets the eye.

I have a strong sense that Facebook marketing isn’t going to decline in the next 2-4 years. It’s going to become exponentially more powerful.

There’s a reason why so many of the hidden marketing tools above focus on Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger marketing has fundamentally changed the game, and it’s done so in two areas where marketing rises or falls:

It’s not going to last forever. Like the banner ads of decades past, Messenger marketing will lose its luster as people become accustomed to it.

By engaging Messenger marketing now, you’ll have a far stronger advantage.

What Messenger marketing tactics does your brand or business currently use?

The post 17 Hidden Facebook Marketing Tools That Will Increase Your Engagement by 154% appeared first on Neil Patel.

Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/02/17-hidden-facebook-marketing-tools-that.html

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