#some haven’t even been re-added in general yet

[theswedishpajas]

Getting back into the hang of things with a garfield comic redraw

OG under cut

[purecommemasolitude]

Okay so re: Darry as the captain in a sound of music AU. This is just one possible route that I thought up last night and typed out while I couldn’t sleep

It’s the type of AU where we steal beats and plot points from TSOM and transfer them into the outsiders, because not being rich is very important to why Darry is the way he is (also for reasons I outline below I made Two-Bit Maria and that man is never even going to think about becoming a religious career man)

And also I don’t actually know when he and Two-Bit would end up together because with some of the changes I made I couldn't make it work within the main plot, so it would have to be in an event bit taken from TSOM. So it’s not in the bullet points

anyway I'll put the bullet points I typed up in an hour at midnight yesterday below the cut because it’s long but I will admit. this one kind of got away from me

- okay so Darry is the captain. Obv

- High school & football take the place of the navy

- Racked my brain for a bit and I think Two-Bit is Maria?? Like I said I don’t really go in for outsiders ships anyway so I cross-referenced usual Darry LIs and general characters and he was the only one who was age-appropriate and also could have a Maria vibe (is able to find the light in life, willing to poke at a cold figure until it shows emotion, gets along with the brothers in canon)

- Soda & Pony are aged down because otherwise this wouldn’t make any sense — Soda is 14 going on 15 and Pony’s 12

- (Steve and Johnny are also aged down to match their respective buddies so the boys can still have friends I think. I haven’t decided what to do with Dally yet in this AU — I would put him as Max with a personality transplant but I don’t know if I can see Dally being chill with Darry’s attempt to. Play into respectability politics essentially)

- Darry’s infinitely more stressed supporting two more needy kids on his meagre income alone. Soda does odd jobs but nothing full time

- This manifests in him being colder / less outwardly affectionate than in the book to Soda as well as Pony

- Furthermore he’s desperately trying to ensure their futures, which means he disapproves of them being too outwardly greaser, both for separation reasons and for respectability reasons down the line

- However being 12 and 14 means they’re less able to control their emotions and understand Darry. So the guy from the state comes down and sees them and says you need to spend more time with these kids man. They’re not loved

- Shit.

- Two-Bit, meanwhile, is living an unluckier life than the book

- After his father left his mother was only able to choose one kid to be able to support, and because he was older and more self sufficient, Two-Bit had to go

- He grows up bouncing around from orphanage to foster home to foster home to orphanage etc, erasing his family out of his mind because it hurts too much and Two-Bit Mathews does not like to dwell on things that hurt him

- Upon turning 18, he’s out of the system and despite his nature is forced to get a job to survive

- He does odd jobs around and scrounges enough money to pay for a shitty shitty motel

- Meets Marcia through these jobs, and they strike up a friendship

- However most of these odd jobs are a lot of labour and very unstable so he’s looking for better & easier work

- He starts thinking and he thinks of his own childhood. If there had been someone else around to watch him, maybe his mother wouldn’t have had to give him away

- And then he has one too many encounters with the bugs in his motel and decides fuck it. I’m putting an ad in the paper

- Darry’s reading the news as he does one night when he sees what may very well be God’s gift to the Curtis family

- There’s someone willing to work for — well, he can’t afford that, just like he can’t afford any of the other prices he’s seen on nannies and babysitters and watchers — but he’s also willing to work for pretty much nothing if he gets lodging

- Soda & Pony are still bunking together for nightmare reasons, and Darry’s sleeping in his own room, so he sits Soda down and asks him if he’s okay with someone else using his old room

- If he’s not, Darry will have to move into their parents’ room, but thank God he is

- So Darry contacts Two-Bit who is surprised that he’s a man and not a single mom but agrees readily

- Darry’s wary of Two-Bit’s manner but monetarily he’s desperate

- Two-Bit meanwhile takes one look at the Curtis house and is like damn no one ever has any fun within these walls. I’ve gotta change that

- Instead of making new clothes for them, Two-Bit teaches them how to grease their hair

- (Darry was away working on a house a little out of the city — it’s a placing he’d normally have had to decline because of the kids, but because of Two-Bit he’s able to accept and get a slightly higher pay)

- Darry is of course furious but Two-Bit argues back, saying that kids need self-expression and haven’t you noticed how happy they are about their hair, and besides, you know damn well grease is more than just what you put in your hair, Curtis. You think Socs can’t take one look at those boys and see exactly what they came from? Exactly what they are? You’re out of your mind.

- We probably tie Maria’s impassioned “please, love all of them” speech to here — then again it’s been a while so maybe somewhere else is better we’ll have to see

- Two-Bit especially throws accusations at him about how Ponyboy thinks his brother doesn’t even love him, and if he’s not going to prove he cares about them then maybe they all would be better off without each other

- He thinks Darry might punch him for that but instead he staggers back like he’s been hit

- Darry remembers what this whole thing was for and resolves to be better

- In showing more of his love for his brothers he also shows more of his personality to Two-Bit, who wasn’t expecting to like this guy as much as he does

- He looks at how hard he fights to keep his family together when his own fell apart for very similar reasons and his heart hurts

- Also Sandy is Rolf (Ralf?? Whatever Liesl’s nazi boytoy’s name is)

- Except we are cutting the nazis because there is no not-grossly insensitive way to do the nazis

- We might have to cut the music theme too? Which is a SHAME, but none of Darry’s hobbies work. So we may just make him dig out his dad’s old guitar or we’ll just ignore that because the music theme, as far as characters go, isn’t as important in this AU. Or maybe music = the greaser lifestyle

- Anyway, life continues and it’s as good as can be, bla bla, somehow Dally is there, without realizing Two-Bit and Darry are catching feelings for each other

- One day, Ponyboy and Soda make some innocent remark about Two-Bit being in love with their brother, and he bluescreens

- Because. Oh shit. He’s in love with their brother.

- And the class difference & pre-existing engagement as reasons they can’t be together in the original is replaced with good old fashioned homophobia in this one, and Two-Bit denies and gets the hell out of there before anyone, let alone Darry notices

- He uses his meagre savings to return to the shitty motel, until finally he talks with Marcia and she’s like what the heck. Why did you leave a dream job to go back to the crummiest motel imaginable

- He dodges and denies but one of the things that drew him to her in the first place is that she’s sharp

- Marcia figures it out, or at least something very close to the truth, and while she’s too aware of 60s homophobia to actually urge him back, she does half-convince him through sneaky means like calling him a scaredy-cat who can’t even tell a few lies until the situation passes

- He goes back to the motel and thinks hard about the situation and remembers how much happier the kids were with someone to keep them company when they were done running around before Darry got home

- He thinks about how Darry was able to get better pay with him there and how much that helped give the family breathing space

- He thinks about how it really didn’t even feel like a job, which is a big draw to someone as disinclined to work as Two-Bit

- And he also thinks about how truly shitty the motel is. And decides to go back

- It’s for the good of the family, he convinces himself, telling himself he does not miss them at all

- He returns, no one says anything about him being in love with anyone, because the boys have learned that when they point it out their new brother leaves, and they’re not about to risk that again

- Darry & Two-Bit have a reunion with a lot of unspoken feelings and they do NOT get together because neither of them are willing to risk outing themselves for the sake of a one in a million chance

- Instead they do a lot of prolonged longing eye contact and are too busy looking at each other to notice Soda and Ponyboy sharing confirming glanced themselves

- So things continue kind of like they were before but with more pining, and also Austria is replaced by the Curtis house, which they’re in danger of losing

- Both Darry and Two-Bit are terrified the boys are going to end up following their respective paths, and they end up having a lot of talks about their futures that turn into co-parenting discussions that turn into heart-to-hearts about themselves

- Darry learns that Two-Bit never found his family again, and does some digging and asks some old school friends and lo and behold, they’re still in town, and here’s their address.

- Two-Bit, who has managed to convince himself that he made up being in love with Darry, sees this man who has every right to drop all three of the people in the house like a hot potato and chase the dreams he’s determined and ambitious and intelligent enough to get, pouring every ounce of his being into care for others, who takes hard times and instead of drinking them away or giving up pushes himself past the edge and comes out swinging, and realizes that he is still in love with Darry. And maybe he will never not be in love with Darry.

- Unfortunate!

- He came back determined to never run away again, and he’s sticking by that, even though it’s never been harder to live under the same roof as Darry and not Do something about his feelings

- (Also, at some point Soda gets jumped, and together with Two-Bit he fights them off. When they all talk about it later at some point in the Curtis home, someone makes an offhand comment about how Two-Bit is basically family and then he really resolves to not leave unless Darry chases him out with a broom)

- Maria and Liesl’s Sixteen Going On Seventeen Reprise is replaced with Two-Bit and Soda having a talk about Sandy, during which Two-Bit talks about being in love like he’s experienced it, which of course he has, but Darry overhears and it puts a lot of stupid hope into his heart because to his knowledge Two-Bit’s never gone steady with someone, and some of his descriptions sound awful familiar…..

- But he crushes those thoughts because he’s learned by now that Darry Curtis does not get lucky breaks

- And if he does confess and it goes wrong, which it will, it could mean his brothers getting taken away

- But he watches Two-Bit joke around with his brothers and sees someone who takes everything life throws at him and inexplicably grins back at it, who is just as intelligent as Darry is but in a way that takes its time to make itself understood, and who cares about his brothers as much as he does, and it’s stupid and hopeless, but he wants. Heaven help him, he wants so badly

- Meanwhile, he’s gotten a job offer. It’s a good job offer too, it means they could maybe afford to spend extra money on new clothes or nicer groceries

- And it’s an office job, someone who heard of him through the bookkeeping he does as his second job for his roofing company, which means fewer hours and more time with the people he cares about

- There’s a recreational football league in the area he’s never had time to join, or Two-Bit’s suggested coaching a younger team too, so he can return to workouts he likes rather than workouts that make his body ache like a man of 40 instead of 20

- It’s pretty much perfect. But it’s halfway across the city and it means they’d have to move out of their parents’ home

- (Yes this is Switzerland. It’s a lot harder to replicate without pre-WW2 Europe)

- He’s conflicted, Two-Bit thinks he should go for it but is also convinced he’s going to be left behind in the move

- Soda & Pony don’t want to leave but they do want Darry to work less so they’re also conflicted

- Two-Bit is listing out reasons for the move and one of them is that they’d be able to cut his cost since Darry’d be home more

- Darry looks at him and carefully says, “you wouldn’t be coming with us?”

- Two-Bit, with a raised eyebrow masking his heart starting to hope, says “well, do you want me there?”

- Darry is too stressed and tired and conflicted to mince his words when he replies, “of course.” like it’s a given, like they’re maybe something more than what they pretend

- But he still doesn’t want to move, until one day they have no choice: if they don’t get out of there, they’re going to lose the house. It’s just not in suitable shape for growing boys, says the state. They don’t have enough money to pay for renovations but Darry is going to rebuild the entire thing himself if he has to, damn it all, until Two-Bit asks him to talk and convinces him to move on

- “Your parents live on in your brothers more than in this house. Your parents live on in you more than in this house. You want to keep their memory alive? Start by doing what they would want you to do, and let yourself have an easy break for once.”

- And so they pack up and Darry takes the offer, but before they leave, Two-Bit visits his family

- It goes… well. Sort of. After seeing Darry run himself into the ground he’s forgiven his mother, and his sister is open to the idea of having a brother

- Their lives were better off than they would’ve been if he’d stayed but his was not and that hurts

- But he remembers the three people who now view him as their own like he was always there, and somehow the pain eases, and when his mother makes him promise to visit again, he actually means it when he agrees

- They gather to say one last good bye to the Curtis home, and despite facing the most unknowns since any of them can remember, they’re together, and that’s enough

The end <3 this is just one possible route that I thought of, I truly have no idea if this is cooking or if the kitchen is burning down

[bcofl0ve]

hey, what do you think of austin in elvis? i know it's one of his biggest projects and i confess i haven't had the courage to watch it yet because i feel that maybe the film glamorizes elvin's story too much when we know he wasn't that glamorous, right? always abusive and problematic with women, especially priscilla, involvement with minors, drugs and all that. idk about the movie's approach, but it annoys me a lot of people (or even austin) think elvis is some kind of inspiration because ok, he was talented, but come on…its not hate yk, but i see so many people deifying the movie and if it's only because of austin's performance i really believe it because he's a PERFECT actor…i wanted to hear from you :)

hiii! assuming you’re a newer fan if you haven’t seen it since i feel like that’s how most of us (at least generally speaking) got here.

i saw elvis 10 times in theaters, once 3 times in 48 hours when it was doing a $5 ticket run during 2023 awards season LOL. soooo i think that tells you how i feel about it! it’s one of my favorite films of all time. i think austin absolutely knocked it out of the park and baz’s directing style is *my* style so. it was all around perfect, to me personally.

i also feel the need to clarify that i am an elvis presley fan. i have a tattoo for the man 😅. i understand he had some very deep seeded issues (i also adore priscilla to bits. not one of those elvis fan who thinks she’s an evil incarnate for daring to love him while also being honest about his short comings! i gen really liked the priscilla movie as well!) while 1+1=2 a movie endorsed by the estate isn’t going to show every waking bad thing he ever did, i think it did a good job of showing that he was very infallible. it shows him cheating on priscilla, and his anger issues. (one of priscilla compliments to austin was that he nailed elvis’s temper…🫣) the movie as a whole is very ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ themed in that it’s centered around the ups and severe downs of the massive fame he got, at a time where he was really the first artist to achieve that level of super stardom. i love it for that.

but in terms of reservations about watching it for the first time- i think it may help you (and anyone else with similar qualms about it) to check out some of the interview lisa marie (elvis and priscilla’s daughter) did with austin? she is very *very* protective of her father’s legacy, understandably. but she adored the movie, spoke very highly of it and loved austin to bits. it makes me emotional to know she got the biopic of her father that she deserved in this lifetime.

she unfortunately passed away suddenly in january 2023 just a few days after watching austin win his golden globe and i have never been crushed by a celebrity death like that. ever. the love she shared with/for austin was so so beautiful and i was heartbroken that such a happy time for her with all the movies success, especially after losing her son to suicide in 2020 got cut short how it did. (if this feels like i’m being OTT, i’m not. lisa herself captioned a photo with austin during press ‘i do believe this might be my first smile in 2 years’)

just for some added context re: lisa marie and austin. during press she took him upstairs at graceland for *3 hours*, something that’s outright unheard of for non family members. even baz only got 20 minutes up there for pre production, and he wasn’t allowed to take photos/had to quick sketch and memorize as much as he could.

i know her adoration of austin meant the world to him, and to me that says so much more about his portrayal of elvis then i’ll ever be able to as just a fan. i hope this helps, but feel free to circle back and follow up!!! ❤️

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Okay, okay, so–

My novel requires a re-write of the 24 chapters I already have done-ish (which aren’t even covering all the plot I have planned)

The final 6-10 chapters (not yet written, just loads of notes) are supposed to be a complete genre-swap

And I have been really into RPG-Maker type games recently

I was thinking… what I have planned as the final arc of my novel would make a fine story to be put into an RPG-Maker style basic RPG

I’m hoping RPG Maker MZ goes on sale sometime soon (maybe when Steam has its next huge sale in general)

Story summarised without spoiling too much:

Player Character (PC) & Player’s Partner (PP) are a happy couple

Evil Mother (EM) kidnaps PP

PP’s Best Friend (BF) accuses PC

PP sends a covert message to forget about them

PC and BF get into fights with each other

PC and BF stake out EM’s house

It looks like EM is brainwashing PP

PC wants to involve police

BF want to break PP out themself

Observation looks like PP is barely hanging on

PC and BF team up

Over-dramatised breakout and subsequent escaping the city

BF concedes that maybe PC is right for PP after all

The three live happily ever after

In the novel writing-notes this includes a non-amorous/ aromantic polycule and obviously none of the characters is straight (I’m a tumblr user after all)

But I figure with the drama, the fighting, the “quest” to rescue PP and everything, it would maybe make a nice little RPG and the way the story is planned for the novel, PP would be bigender (which in a game would mean the player gets to choose whether their Love Interest used “he/him” or “she/her”) and overall it’s just very queer, which could all translate into simple variations being all up to the player (like Player Character’s pronouns, Love Interest’s pronouns, type of relationship, etc.)

And I figure the sprite of the PP would get a drastic change as EM is forcing them to adapt to what she demands rather than allowing PP to be themself

Initially PP looks more androgynous (hence up to the player which pronouns are used) and after the abduction, PP would have hair cut short and forced to conform to the gender binary – I just realised, this is basically a “forced detransition” storyline, because in my OG version PP is she/he nonbinary. oof. yikes.

I’m a writer, not a game-maker or artist, though

I haven’t looked into what a basic RPG Maker game takes but would a storyline like this be of interest for anyone?

I know a few people I could ask to help with GIs and character sprites;

And I think I can figure the rest out, depending on RPG Maker’s UI

As I said, I hope RPG Maker MZ goes on sale sometime soon and that I can figure it out pretty intuitively

I know my storyboard, as a writer I tend to focus on dialogue (aka script), and I already made some notes

I want high customisation at the beginning, like, as a feature, that there are default names but the player can also choose to name the PC and PP, like how the player can pick the characters’ pronouns, because I assume that’d create some more emotional attachement

Default names I intend so far are Aleks and Emory (not related to the novel draft I pull this whole plotline from)

The first few minutes are going to be a “week” of PC interacting with PP and their shared home to also further attachment/ make the player care about the love interest; as well as adding some context on the relationship, giving the player time to figure out controls, etc.

That “first week” is supposed to include some simple choices about interacting with the love interest, emphasising the affection between PC and PP (like “cuddle on the couch”, “share food”, “join for shower”)

And I want to utilise a color filter/ overlay because the ‘secondary perspective’ relevant character is colorblind, which would be signified through that color overlay (also to make POV changes easily recognisable)

[daryascurse]

Hehe I saw your ask, so I wanted to give it a go :D

1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 17, 19, & 20

I would've added more, but I didn't want to stress you out over answer more questions. 😭

:,,)) it is so kind of you to ask i am soo honored!!

1. do you know how you want the story to end when you start, or are you just stumbling through the figurative wilderness hoping to find a road?

more often than not it's just as much a journey for me as it is the reader! though i do sometimes think of later scenes, and i will immediately pause wherever i am and write out as much as i feel necessary to flesh out; then thread them back in later.

3. on a scale of 1-10 how much do you enjoy incorporating romance into the average story?

(◍•ᴗ•◍) honestly it's an even 50-50 split if I feel like writing an angsty smut or sweet romantic smut. i love either way. (since my average story these days are all smutty fics hehe!)

4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

OH Man OkAY. it's what i would like to eventually be the final piece in the 10 Commandments x JJK series, with the First Commandment (Thou Shalt Not Have Any Other Gods Before Me) and it be Sukuna and a Reader with a god complex. this would be extremely different from my normal, more-submissive Reader roles, but i have actually thought of it and had flashes of it for two years. it's kind of a chicken-and-egg situation with why I haven't done it yet; i still have one more Commandment to go before that one, which i don't really have motivation/ a strong narrative inspiration for, and then, once i do that, i'll have to write the Sukuna one...

7. tell us about the plot of the first fanfic you ever wrote

honestly... it would probably be in junior high, "rewriting" Sweeney Todd but with the main character "Sweetey" who was his niece and basically just the same but she was looking for her little brother.. afsdjgdfhgjksf 💀

8. what’s your relationship with constructive criticism and feedback like? do you seek it out? how well do you take it?

hmm. i don't mind it as a whole, but i think with fic writing / ao3, there's a weird line that can be toed between constructive criticism and outright re-writing. i remember on my original account when Unholy Land was first posted, there were a lot of comments about what "should have happened" with various ideas of that. some of those endings / continuances were good suggestions, sure, but.. it's my fic to write? it kind of made me uncomfortable. not sure what to do with that.

11. what’s something neat you’ve learned while doing research for something you were writing? also, how much do you worry about doing research in general?

this is a SUPER interesting question to me; i personally really value research / work being put into fics to make them realistic in the sense of immersion. (fics can be FICTION, of course, but if there's something that's insanely unrealistic that stands out, it gnaws at me as both a reader and writer.) so - if i am writing about something i don't know with confident familiarity, or, i even want to brush up on an accurate detail, i'll do so.

but this is a fun blessing and a terrible curse. i've had a floating wip idea for a victorian-au story that i actually have all skeleton-ed out, but, i am currently tethered by my research demands. currently learning about business incorporation laws and customs of victorian london; which i am sure that the accuracies of NO ONE would care about in a story about the jaeger brothers and a husband and an affair. !! it is what it is.

17. what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

ohhh ohh I'm not sure. hmmm!! i know i used to have an answer. ! i think across the board my prose / imagery in Matcha is perhaps my favorite fic writing-wise as a whole; but a favorite line might come from an early chapter in Chainsmoking His Love.

19. what are some books or authors that influenced your style the most?

i'm so sure that lemony snicket / daniel handler's style is a huge influence; i loved the series of unfortunate events books in a ravenous way as a child.

& i just answered 20! :)

[mailwelcomeletter]

What Is a ‘We Want You Back’ Campaign?

In the world of marketing, retaining existing customers is often more cost-effective than acquiring new ones. Yet, many businesses experience customer churn, where previous customers cease to engage or make purchases. This is where the ‘We Want You Back’ campaign comes into play. A ‘We Want You Back’ campaign is a targeted marketing strategy designed to re-engage lapsed customers and entice them to return. These campaigns are often deployed through various communication channels, such as email, direct mail, SMS, or even social media ads, to rekindle the relationship with dormant customers.

Why Are ‘We Want You Back’ Campaigns Important?

Customer retention is a key factor in sustainable business growth. According to studies, acquiring new customers can be five times more expensive than retaining existing ones. Loyal customers not only spend more but also promote your brand through word-of-mouth referrals. However, even the most loyal customers may become disengaged over time due to various reasons such as evolving preferences, competing offers, or simply forgetting about your brand.

A ‘We Want You Back’ campaign offers a focused approach to re-establish the relationship with these lapsed customers, helping you reignite their interest and loyalty. When done correctly, this type of campaign can significantly boost customer retention rates, increase revenue, and strengthen brand loyalty.

Key Elements of a ‘We Want You Back’ Campaign

To create an effective ‘We Want You Back’ campaign, it’s essential to focus on several key components:

1. Segmentation

The first step is identifying the right audience. A ‘We Want You Back’ campaign typically targets customers who have made purchases in the past but haven’t engaged with the brand for a specific period. Segment your customer list based on inactivity duration, previous purchase behavior, and engagement history. By narrowing down your audience, you can create personalized and relevant messaging that resonates more with each group.

2. Personalized Messaging

Generic messaging rarely works when trying to win back customers. Personalization is key to making the customer feel valued. Acknowledge their past loyalty by referencing their previous interactions or purchases. Craft the message to sound personal and friendly rather than purely transactional. Phrases like “We’ve missed you!” or “It’s been a while” can strike the right emotional chord, making the campaign feel like a genuine attempt to rekindle the relationship.

3. Enticing Offers

A ‘We Want You Back’ campaign often includes special offers or incentives designed to lure customers back. These could be exclusive discounts, free shipping, early access to new products, or even personalized recommendations based on their past purchase history. The idea is to provide a compelling reason for them to return and re-engage with your brand.

4. Multiple Communication Channels

Using multiple communication channels increases the chances of re-engaging your customers. Some customers may respond better to email, while others might engage more with SMS or direct mail. Consider using a multi-channel approach to ensure that your message reaches as many lapsed customers as possible. Emails are particularly effective, especially when combined with retargeting ads and follow-up offers through social media.

5. Timing

The timing of your campaign is crucial. Wait too long, and your customers may have moved on permanently. However, launching the campaign too soon might come across as overly aggressive. It’s important to analyze customer data to find the sweet spot—typically a few months after their last interaction with your brand. Additionally, time-sensitive offers can create a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to act sooner rather than later.

6. Follow-Up

Not all customers will respond to the first message, and that’s okay. A well-structured follow-up strategy can help you capture more return customers. Set up automated emails or ads that serve as gentle reminders for those who didn’t engage with the initial outreach. The follow-up messages should reinforce the value of coming back and could include additional incentives for those still on the fence.

Best Practices for Running a ‘We Want You Back’ Campaign

1. Analyze Customer Data

The success of a ‘We Want You Back’ campaign heavily depends on the quality of the data you’re using. Dive deep into your CRM to analyze when and why customers stopped engaging. This data will help you craft a more targeted and relevant campaign. Look for patterns in customer behavior to better understand the churn triggers and tailor your messaging accordingly.

2. Leverage Customer Feedback

Sometimes, understanding why a customer stopped engaging requires going directly to the source. Encourage feedback by sending out short surveys or directly asking lapsed customers about their experience with your brand. Use this feedback to improve not just the ‘We Want You Back’ campaign but also your overall customer experience.

3. A/B Testing

To optimize your ‘We Want You Back’ campaign, consider running A/B tests to compare different versions of your messaging, subject lines, and offers. This will allow you to identify which tactics resonate best with your audience. Continuously refine your approach based on performance metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.

4. Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Every ‘We Want You Back’ campaign should have a clear and compelling call-to-action. Whether it’s “Redeem Your Offer” or “Shop Now,” your CTA should be prominent and easy to follow. Make sure that your landing page or offer page is equally optimized for conversions.

5. Keep It Short and Sweet

Attention spans are short, and a lengthy email or message may deter engagement. Keep your messaging concise, focusing on what the customer stands to gain by returning to your brand. Highlight the benefits in a clear, easy-to-read format.

How to Measure the Success of a ‘We Want You Back’ Campaign

The effectiveness of a ‘We Want You Back’ campaign can be measured through various performance indicators:

Customer Re-Engagement Rate: This metric tracks the percentage of lapsed customers who responded to your campaign by making a purchase, signing in, or otherwise interacting with your brand.

Return on Investment (ROI): Calculate the revenue generated from the campaign relative to the costs. A high ROI indicates that the campaign successfully re-engaged customers.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): This metric shows how many recipients clicked on your CTA. A high CTR suggests that your messaging and offer are resonating with the audience.

Conversion Rate: Track how many recipients actually completed the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a service.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): The long-term success of a ‘We Want You Back’ campaign isn’t just about immediate conversions. Track the lifetime value of the customers who returned to gauge the long-term impact on your business.

Conclusion

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Mail Welcome Letter – ​​​Wix

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 17: Latest Writing Thoughts

Sigh. Okay. So. I don’t really want to look around at the ruined wreckage of this weekend because I’m tired of that and also it’s depressing and I feel guilty. Also the next couple of days are going to be really hard and I just am nervous and overwhelmed about them. I just don’t want to deal with literally anything!

Instead I will look at the ruined wreckage of me trying to write! This longfic is getting really tough and I’m judging myself for thinking I could write this ‘fast’ and ‘it won’t be that hard.’ I sort of want to take a break but I also think that would be a horrible idea because then I’d have to get back into it later. Also I’ve already taken/been taking a break and it’s definitely making it harder and not easier. It’s just tough to keep everything straight now that it’s getting so long and it’s tough to do the repeat-scenes that are part of the time loop and I’m also, not gonna lie, just getting tired of it. Like I want to write something totally different, different setting, mood, etc.

I did write a scene today. It took me a long time to work up the courage to do it and it was only the one and I’m not sure how I feel about it (the desire to post the beginning just to maybe get feedback is so strong but I’m resisting! I’m resisting!!). It felt like a struggle. A part of me… sort of wants to re-write it but it also doesn’t feel worth it. I would rather say good enough and move on than get bogged down in retreading something I’ve already done. I’m also way too close to it at this exact moment to make that call but like that’s where I am emotionally. I don’t hate all of it but I don’t like the pacing. It feels forced, slow, choppy, and OOC.

…Okay, I’ve read it again and there’s only one sub-section of the scene, actually pretty small, while I faltered and slowed it down too much. I think I can fix this in editing. I still don’t love the scene but like… this fic is really long, friends. It’s long. I’m serious about how long it is. So, it’s not all going to be flawless.

In terms of other ideas, other stuff I’ve been thinking about. I definitely want to do Troped Halloween but I haven’t thought too much about that yet (a problem). Same for my Halloween ficlets. I am INSISTENT I do them again this year after a break of several years. And honestly… the time to start brainstorming seriously is now. But I haven’t done that either.

That pic of Jarod Joseph and Jon Whitesell from a week or two ago like burned itself into my brain and I’ve been thinking about Miller projects. He’s not in the current fic, he’s only mentioned in SGAU, and it’s just generally been a while since I really used him in anything. I was re-reading some old ficlets, thinking about favorite headcanons and the particular ideas I kept coming back to… won’t lie they all still intrigue and interest me, even now. I’ve been thinking about adding to Press Play (not even something on the WIP list!!! What is wrong with me???), thinking a very little about the Ark AU and about the old Chopped/Troped time loop fic that I want to reconfigure as not a time loop but don’t know how, and, as I mentioned yesterday, the Miller/Bellamy road trip fic that just grows in scope every time I look at it. Even though I’m so notoriously bad at actually writing chapter fics or longfics! I mean hell one-shots take me long enough!

So, that’s what’s on my mind. I am trying to be optimistic. I know I say that every week and they all just pummel me and nothing ever gets better. But I will keep trying. I have some vacation days I need to use up so I’ll be taking some long weekends in the near future. I hope that, plus maybe some cooler temperatures (please for the love of God let it get cooler), will maybe help me get myself together, personally and creatively.

[shaymcsudonim]

Crack Theory Theater:

Hiatus Edition

In light of recent events, I think the only thing logical to do is go back and re-read/re-watch arcs 1 and 2 of Black Clover.

Am I going to do that in the next three months?

Maybe.

But not right now.

Now is not the time for logic. Now is the time for the most off-the-wall crack theories we can come up with. We won’t be getting any answers for the next few months, so we might as well make our own.

The most intriguing ones I’ve seen in the fandom so far are: that the ‘Julius’ persona is actually an amnesiac Astaroth, that the Zogratis siblings are much older than they look (since their ages weren’t given on their profile pages), and that Lucius Zogratis has Soul Magic.

Whether or not any of them are true, none of us can yet say, so all I’m left with is speculation on how this might affect the narrative framework, and what we can predict from the structure of arcs 1 and 2: aka, the Elf Reincarnation Arc, and the Spade Arc.

And that structure is something that I actually do remember fairly well.

Arc 1 could have stood completely on its own, and I would have been satisfied if Black Clover had ended there.

And that makes sense. Like a novel or a TV series, the writers can never be certain how long their series will last. For book series in particular, it’s extremely common for a standalone novel to get turned into a trilogy. Essentially, Book 1 stands on its own, and books 2 and 3 are added later, knowing that they have at least 2 books to tie up loose ends/round out the series.

This makes sense, with the elf arc standing on its own, the spade arc ending on a cliffhanger, and the unnamed 3rd arc set up to continue and then finish the story.

Now, one thing I’ve noticed about Black Clover is that it seems to be a reconstruction of Shonen Anime.

That is, older shonen series were largely optimistic (haven’t seen a lot of these, but in my mind, it’s very early anime like Speed Racer, Voltron, or Astroboy. [Or He Man in the west.] “If it weren’t for Limited Animation, we wouldn’t have any animation at all,” sure, but I also like seeing people move more than their lips).

Shonen series being more bittersweet seems more ‘modern,’ with examples like Yu Yu Hakusho, Trigun, Bleach, and Naruto, (and One Piece, but the characters look like puppets to me, so I haven’t read that one. [I haven’t seen Bleach either, but I’ve heard people complain about the parts they didn’t like]). For western examples, a lot of fantasy follows this framework. (I’d include The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper in this category. That fucked up High School Me real bad).

In these modern series, it’s common for there to be some sort of conspiracy spanning a generation, or even centuries, with older characters acting as foils for the younger. In the story as experienced by the reader, it allows the themes of the story to ‘resonate’ across time and adds depth to the world.

But from the point of view of meta-analysis, it presents a single point of failure in the past that caused all the suffering the characters are now experiencing. And, a lot of the time, since the tragic backstory had to be written after the fact, it doesn’t gel well with having the characters act like human beings (cough-Anakin-Skywalker-cough).

Black Clover follows this pattern as well, in multiple layers, with the previous generation of Magic Knights (including the tragic deaths of Zara Ideale and Morgen Faust), and with the centuries-long conspiracy (with Zagred and his master plan to get himself a five-leaf grimoire).

You could even argue that the three time periods represent these three trends in storytelling:

Lumiere and Licht were meant to live in an idyllic episodic world where no one dealt with any villains more complex than Skeletor.

As has been pointed out by the fandom, Yami is a grown up Isekai protagonist. And, as the narrative has mentioned, he’s certainly not always a nice person, and some of his choices are questionable, but--for all of his drinking/gambling/casual violence--his heart is in the right place.

And then there’s the current generation, some of whom could stand to be better developed/fleshed out, but in general, and especially with the trio of Asta, Yuno, and Noelle, we see a reconstruction. A rejection of cynicism and inevitable tragedy, and an aspiration to ‘Here and now, surpass their limits,’ in a way that the previous generations were ultimately unable to do.

Now, looking at the themes of arcs 1 and 2, and what they can tell us about what we might see in arc 3, I see several patterns emerging:

1. The Man Behind the Man.

In arc 1, this was Zagred, who manipulated events to serve his own purposes over the course of 500 years. He was the true mastermind, with the apparent mastermind being Patri.

In arc 3, this will probably be Lucius Zogratis, probably with Morris, Adramalech, or any surviving Zogratis siblings as the apparent masterminds. (Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if it somehow worked out that Lucius was behind Zagred, due to some sort of Time Magic Bullshit.) [Even more convoluted would be if Astaroth were somehow behind everything through Time Magic Bullshit]

2. The Traitor.

In arc 1, this was William Vangeance, who couldn’t resolve his divided loyalty between Julius Novachrono and Patri.

In arc 3, this will likely be Julius, who is possibly unaware that his body is under the control of Lucius Zogratis. (Although my own money is on Yuno’s Mom somehow being the traitor. Yuno’s always struck me as having escaped being evil by the skin of his teeth. I don’t hold out much hope for his parents’ moral character. Also, she would likely have a divided loyalty, between Yuno and ‘loyalty’ to the Spade Kingdom which might require morally dubious actions.)

I could also see Sekke being pressured into betraying everyone, but I’m hoping he gets some positive character development in arc 3. For all that his function thus far seems to be comic relief, he’s gotten a lot of screentime for a minor character. I’d guess it’ll eventually go somewhere.

3. The Seemingly Sinister Ally

In Arc 1, Liebe was present, but largely silent, showing up only to make cryptic statements, or to emphasize that Asta’s power was demonic in nature.

In Arc 2, we learn not that he’s a manipulator or a deal-maker, but that he is Asta’s peer, his brother, and as he said earlier, ‘the person closest to Asta.’

This also occurred to some extent with Licht. The person that we thought was Licht was actually Patri. Licht was benign. 

And also, same deal with Zora in the tournament arc.

In arc 3, maybe this is Astaroth? If not him, then maybe Adramalech.

The only truly batshit outta-the-left-field character would be if Lucius was somehow good. He’s definitely one of the most sinister character introductions we’ve seen. Unless Tabata really goes hard on the Spade Royals being evil, I don’t think it would work, and even then, maybe not.

4. Not Today, Grim Reaper.

In arcs 1 and 2, we see the constant rejection of the idea of a sacrifice being necessary to achieve the greater good (or greater evil, in the case of Patri).

After playing things straight with that first arc villain and his henchmen sacrificing themselves to protect Patri’s secrets, the sacrifice trope gets avoided more and more often as the story progresses.

First instance that comes to mind is Sally Valtos and Rades resurrecting themselves out of a bad ending. (actually, now that I think about it, the first true instance might have been Kiato and Kahono losing their leg and voice, and then getting them back when Asta shared the panacea he used to fix his arms.)

Then, there were probably more, but the next one I can think of is Mereoleona staying behind to fight by herself, only for Asta and Zora to come back to help.

Then, there was Nacht trying to sacrifice himself to buy Asta and Liebe time, which didn’t help at all, since they burned a union mode to save him.

And then, there were the magic knight captains who tried to sacrifice themselves against the dark triad, only for Mimosa to show up and be like, “nobody is allowed to die today.”

For Arc 3, I can only hope the trend continues, although I think it might scale up to view sacrifice on a grander scale.

Here, we’re out into the fringes of speculation, but the most buck-wild guess I have for how arc 3 might incorporate this resurrection/denial of death theme would be to bring the elves, Tetia, and the Lumiere back. Whether this would be accomplished through some purified version of the reincarnation spell, or by literally going back in time to stop the tragedy in the first place, I have absolutely no clue.

Mainly though, I’m just hoping Julius doesn’t die again. Hasn’t the guy died enough times already?

Anyway, there are probably more patterns I’m missing, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

[it-was-all-a-beautiful-dream]

Romeo and Juliet (2) - Max Minghella x reader

Warnings: Under age/age gap student x teacher

Your phone had remained off the rest of the day. You couldn’t handle the truth; it came with too much hurt.

You felt hopeless, you should have known, your moto after all was “If it’s too good to be true it probably is.”

You’d spent the rest of the school day keeping your head down and your stupid feelings in check. How could you have gotten it so wrong? Christ, how had the topic of what he does not come up in your routinely back and forth messages?

He couldn’t be any older than 24? You were a senior, you were almost 18, your birthday a few weeks away.

The end of the day came fast, and you couldn’t have been more grateful, being in the same building as him made you nervous. Stupidly nervous that you’d bump into him and have nothing to say, or only stupid things to say.

The moment you realised the shocking truth, was the moment you decided not to tell your friends, not yet. You didn’t know how they would react; would they laugh at you for being your usual naive self? The worst thing they could do was pity you.

They all had boyfriends or at least were seeing people; you were sure you were the only senior who’d never even kissed a guy properly.

Thoughts of Max filled your head as you made your way to your part time job. Maybe stacking shelves with romance novels will keep your mind off your dreamy ass TEACHER. Not.

The old, quaint bookstore was in sight as you rounded the corner. After the coffee shop this was your second favourite place to spend your time. Surrounded by new books, old books, re-loved books. Books in general had been one of your first loves, that and Ben and Jerrys ice cream.

You had a strong inkling that’s how your evening would be spent, pouring over a new book with a tub of Ben and Jerrys by your side. Two men you knew you could always count on.

Your love for books had started young, and so did your job. The owner, a family friend. You’d been working there at weekends and the odd weekday since you were 13, in the beginning it was to make a little pocket money, but now the place was a second home and you liked to help.

Miss Ridley smiled as you walked through the door. She’d never had any children, she thought of you as her own daughter, constantly supplying you with things you didn’t need, adding to your ever-growing pile of books and slipping extra money in your pay envelope when she didn’t think you were looking.

She was in high spirits today; a large delivery of new YA fiction had come in and she knew it would bring more ‘youngsters’ into the overlooked store. She’d gone so far as to keep a set aside for you, some series about shifters which you knew you’d have to start tonight, you almost couldn’t wait to get home.

On weekdays you only worked a couple of hours, coming straight from school then working sometimes took its toll and you were starting to tire, the monotonous task making your arms ache and your eyelids flutter.

Luckily not a few minutes later, the door chimed, and it woke you from your standing slumber. You heard Miss Ridley shout letting you know to serve as she was in the back sorting some paperwork. You were happy to, but not so happy when you saw who the customer was.

It’s not like you could run away and ignore him. One, this was your job, you had to act professional, two, you didn’t want him to think you were a coward. The surprised look on his face mirrored yours. He hadn’t expected to see you here, but you were sure the book shop had come up in topic once or twice in your late-night text messages.

You cleared your throat. “Ma- Mr Minghella, what can I do for you?” He frowned then seemed to snap out of whatever he was thinking.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, I just came to look around.” You thought he was going to leave but he didn’t, instead he turned back and looked right at you.

“You haven’t answered any of my texts.” Was her serious? He’d still messaged you, after everything that came to light.

“My phones been off…” You trailed off, sighing you grabbed another pile of books and went about finishing your task, you didn’t really know what to say to the man standing in front of you and thought it best to leave him to look about.

He followed you instead, down the narrow isles piled high to the ceiling with rows and rows of books.

“Y/N, I know we weren’t expecting this.” You turned suddenly. You were mad. He was so close to you, in such a confined space.

“I don’t know what you want me to suggest Mr Minghella, we can’t… we can’t continue...” You looked at the floor then turned, stacking books in their respective places, a low rumble echoed behind you. Did he just make a growling noise?

Hands came around you and you were surprised to come face to face with Max who’d turned you about to face him.

His arms were on either side of you, hi face so close to your own as he leaned in.

“Stop calling me that, that’s my father’s name, you know my name. Call me it in class, but not here, no where but there.”

You gulped; he was intimidating suddenly, but why were your panties absolutely soaked?

“You’d get into trouble Max, and I’m not worth it, tell you what, let’s just pretend it never happened, the whole texting, coffee dates. Let’s start over, for your sake, you’re my teacher, and I’m the naïve stupid student.” You huffed past him, but once again his arms caged you.

“Fine, let’s pretend it never happened.” There was fire in his eyes, you were sure they had gotten darker. You couldn’t help the lump that rose in your throat. You didn’t really mean it, but why carry on with something if you already knew the outcome, it would only end in heartbreak and disaster.

“See you in class.” With one last look, he pushed off the shelves and spun around, walking out of the small bookstore, maybe out of your life.

@neha200021

@mysterious-calucci

[sourholland]

Ooooh angst “what about us?” “there is no us, there never was.” with tom plssss! Really love ur work 🌸

Last Kiss || Tom Holland

Summary → After a fling you and Tom had started while filming a movie together, he tells you that you two can’t be together anymore. Once you get home, Tom let’s you know that he made a mistake.

AN → This was supposed to come out yesterday, I just got lazy and waited to edit it. I can’t tell if I like how this came out or hate it, either way, I hope you guys like this. Also in honor of the Fearless re-record!!

Pairing(s) → Tom Holland x Fem!Reader

Warnings → Strong Language, Suggestive, Alcohol Use

Prompt(s) → 38

Word Count → 1.9k

The ringing of your phone sounded through your apartment loudly, the sound of the rain pattering loudly against the windows out-looking New York City. You set down the remote, feet padding against the cold hardwood while you looked for your buzzing cellphone.

You didn’t bother glancing at the caller ID, picking it up bringing it to your ear all in one quick motion.

“Hello?” You said, pulling a wine glass down from the cabinet.

“Y/N?” Tom’s voice came through the phone.

Your heart dropped, a breath catching in your throat while you stood in your kitchen. He was across the country, wanting nothing to do with you. He repeated your name through the phone, asking if you were there.

“Yeah, I’m here,” you answered, pouring more wine than you’d originally intended into the glass.

“Isn’t it like one in the morning in England?” You asked, listening to the muffles coming through the speaker.

“Yeah—yeah, it’s late here. I just couldn’t sleep, and I started to think of you. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have called.”

You sat at one of the barstools, swirling the red contents of the glass around. You wanted to yell at him, or maybe you wanted to tell him how much you loved him. You sat silently for a few moments, bare legs cold from the draft.

“Tom,” you started. “I just don’t get why we have to rehash the past, you know? I came back to New York, just like you told me I should. You’re working on whatever new movie, I’m doing the same. I don’t know—I just think we should leave whatever happened between us alone. You made it very clear that it was me that you didn’t want,” you mumbled, pulling at the sleeves of your sweater.

He audibly sighed, the ruffling of sheets coming through the phone. He was probably in bed, if he wasn’t so far away you’d have asked him if this was a sad attempt at getting you to sleep with him.

“I was fucking stupid, and I’m sorry, Y/N. I’m so fucking sorry, I’ve said that a million times,” his voice was hoarse and tired.

“I’ve already forgiven you, Tom. I just can’t keep doing this—this thing with you.”

You both went quiet for a minute, the only sound being the noise from outside in the bustling streets of the city and the rain. You knew you should hang up, block his number and forget about anything you two ever had. You’d tried a few times, unable to bring yourself to doing it.

“What about us?” He asked lowly, a twinge of hurt in his tired voice.

“There is no us, Tom,” you replied. “I’m not even sure there ever was.”

He didn’t say anything, you wanted to let out the repressed cry and tell him you didn’t mean it. That you were sorry and that you thought about him more than you’d like to admit. Something in you knew if you didn’t do your best to cut it off, you two would continue down the same everlasting cycle.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay.”

The line went silent for a moment, and then your home screen lit up. The call had been ended. You downed the remainder of your wine, ditching the cup and just going for the bottle. You thought about calling him back, about apologizing and booking a plane ticket like some lovesick teenager.

You opened Instagram and began scrolling through your feed of posts, liking and commenting occasionally. You weren’t anywhere near drunk, merely tipsy and heartbroken. Your finger lingered on the button to go live, wondering if you really wanted thousands of people to see you in this state.

You left the kitchen and instead propped your phone against the couch, taking a seat on the white rug of your living room. You wearily pressed the go live button, raising the bottle to your chapped lips once more. You are pathetic, you thought.

“Hey guys!” You smiled at the camera and outpouring of greetings in the comments. Within a few minutes you’d racked in a few thousand viewers. You grabbed the guitar sitting against your wall and strummed the cords lightly while it sat in your lap.

userone: you are so adorable

usertwo: can you please say hi?!!!??

userthree: it’s my birthday y/n!

“I’m sorry I haven’t been very active on social media, guys. It’s been super crazy traveling back and forth from London to New York and then having to leave again in a few weeks. And now I’m sitting on my living room floor with a bottle of wine,” you laughed. A few familiar people popped into the comments of the live, some you’ve worked with and some you’ve yet to meet in person.

florencepugh: y/n!!!

gracieabrams: might just bust out the wine just for u

“Florence, I can’t wait to see you soon!” You smiled, “Gracie, I swear it’s making everything like a hundred times better.”

userfour: i’m in love with her

userfive: y/n saving 2021???!!!

“I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to be singing,” you flushed. You did sing, before getting into acting you’d post a lot on Instagram and TikTok. It’d always been more of a hobby, something you loved to do, but weren’t good enough to pursue.

“I’ve had a little too much to drink,” you added. “So don’t get upset if I’m a little pitchy, guys.”

usersix: if she’s pitchy i’m not sure what i am

userseven: sing taylor swift!!!

“Okay, okay!” You chuckled, scrolling through the hundreds of comments saying to play Taylor Swift. You’d only just been crying to like three of her albums a few hours before.

“How about the chorus—and maybe the bridge too, yeah, that’ll work,” you mumbled to yourself, fiddling with the strings. “Alright, guys, Last Kiss it is. I won’t bore you all with the whole thing, though. I could never do Taylor justice.”

“And I’ll go sit on the floor, wearing your clothes”

Getting involved with him was singlehandedly the most stupid decision you’ve ever made, you thought. Late nights in his flat after long nights on set, ordering in and just talking, you two would talk as if you’d known each other your whole lives. It was something about the way he’d let you wear his clothes, or the way he’d tuck your hair behind your ear while you told him about whatever insignificant thing that had happened that day.

“All that I know,

I don’t know how to be something you miss”

The car ride to the airport was the worst, it was grey and cold outside. There was makeup running down your face, mascara covering your eyes generously. You’d wrapped filming a week earlier, unable to bring yourself to walk away from him.

You couldn’t tell the driver to turn you around, or could you? Tom had already made it clear that you were both in different places in your career. This wasn’t what he wanted. You weren’t what he wanted.

“I never thought we’d have our last kiss”

He had held you just a little tighter, you ran your fingers through his hair for just a second longer. The taste of each other lingering on the both of your lips. Like you knew it would be the last time he’d hold you without knowing.

His stupid smiled, the way he pulled away and ran his thumb over your swollen bottom lip. You were almost wrapped around his finger, absolutely sickened with desire and infatuation for him.

“I never imagined we’d end like this,

Your name, forever the name on my lips”

The day you’d left to come home to New York started with a huge argument between the two of you. He’d basically just told you that you’d both known from the beginning you wouldn’t last together. It wasn’t a matter of how much you cared for one another, but that it was impossible, as he put it.

His eyes glossed over and bloodshot, you a complete and utter mess. Slamming the door behind you as you left was one of the most painful things you’d ever endured. Even more painful, the fact that he never came after you.

“So I’ll watch your life in pictures like I used to watch you sleep”

“I can feel you staring at me, love,” he murmured against the pillow.

Your face heated, eyes averting to the stream of light through the sheerness of the curtains. He leaned into you a moment later, his lips soft on your own. He was warm, he was always so warm. You cupped the side of his face gently, pulling him in a bit harder.

“And I feel you forget me like I used to feel you breathe”

You dropped your bags, stepping into your apartment after months of being away. It felt quieter than usual, desolate and empty from your being away. It was dark out, the illumination of the bright city lights from your windows.

You glanced down at your phone for a moment, not a missed call, not a text, not even a fucking notification. He’d simply told you to go home, nothing more nothing less.

“I keep up with our old friends just to ask them how you are,

Hope it’s nice where you are”

You’d texted Harrison a few times, regretting it almost immediately after. He was sweet, telling you that Tom would come around eventually and to just be patient. You’d relied on those kind words for some time, eventually deleting them all together.

After Tom’s first text, you’d realized he wasn’t coming around or regretting what he’d said to you. He was lonely, maybe even a bit desperate. For months you had been there to listen to him and hold him, and now you were gone.

You’d fed into it the first few times, sitting on the phone with him for hours at a time. Then you started to feel worse hearing his voice, silent sobs escaping as you’d listen to him ramble. Then your finger would linger over the decline button a little longer than usual when he’d call, until eventually you started to use it.

“And I hope the sun shines and it’s a beautiful day,

And something reminds you,

You wish you had stayed”

Once you started to go out with other guys, Tom’s ‘I miss you’ texts became more infrequent. Paparazzi would snap pictures, and the next morning they’d be plastered all over the internet.

There was no doubt he was seeing you going out with other people, watching article after article about who you were dating surface. Would he be jealous? No, you thought. Tom was probably doing the same thing as you. Hopeless hookups, meaningless blind dates.

“You can plan for a change in the weather and time”

One early morning, you found yourself in a sweatshirt you’d stolen from one of his drawers and forgotten to return. Listening to the morning rush of traffic and hugging yourself, noticing the lingering smell of his cologne.

You wondered if he knew you’d taken it, if he would think you were pathetic wearing it months after you two had broken things off. This only made you clutch yourself a little tighter, closing your eyes and trying to remember.

“But I never planned on you changing your mind”

[harryhandstan]

or the one where you forget harry’s birthday and try desperately to make it up to him

just wanted to write something small to try to get back into writing after my break! thank you all for your encouragement, excitement, and patience and I apologize for it being a few days later than I wanted it to be! this is probably the closest to angst that you’ll ever get from me :)

thank you to @1980holland, @summertimestyles, @tbslenthusiast, @bigspoonstyles​, @angryinternetduck, and @iconicharry for letting me run my ideas by you and being so kind in general. more thanks to @tbslenthusiast and @bigspoonstyles for being the most wonderful beta readers and just lovely friends overall!

this is another part of my dad!harry series so as always they are linked in order if you want to re-visit them or read from the beginning if you choose to!

⭐ I Want Your Belly ⭐ Wonderful and Warm ⭐ Washed Away in You ⭐ Do You Want to Build a Snowman? ⭐ A Styles Family Christmas ⭐

word count: 3.6k

“Harry, I’m running late do you think you could drop Sterling off at the sitter’s on your way to set?”

You’re already dressed, pulling on your shoes and grabbing your bag and keys from where they were tossed next to the dresser from the evening before. You dart into the bathroom to quickly brush your teeth.

Harry pokes his head around the doorframe, a wrinkled shirt in his hand, rushing through his own morning routine, “Thought she was coming here?”

“She can’t today, remember? Today’s our day to drop him off.” You put your toothbrush away just as he joins you, taking the toothpaste from your hand to use for himself.

“Alright, yeah. Y’ll have to pick him up later though, think it’ll be a late one for me today.” 

“That’s fine. I’ll throw his bag together and leave it by the door for you to grab on the way out. He’s already been fed and changed so he should be all set. I’ll transfer his car seat to your car too, so you won’t have to worry about that.”

He still has the toothbrush in his mouth, so you stand on your tiptoes to give him a peck to the cheek, adding a “bye, love you!” on your way out the bathroom door.

“Wait..y’don’t have anything else to say to me before you leave?” His mouth now rinsed, he crosses his arms and leans against the doorway, a tired smile working its way across his lips.

“Um..be careful? Don’t drive too fast with Sterling in the car.” 

“I never drive fast,” He takes a quick peek in the mirror, running his hands through his messy curls before turning back to you, “S’that all? Nothing else to say?”

You search your brain, trying to remember anything else you may have forgotten, “Oh! Right..”

His face lights up then, thinking maybe he was gonna finally hear the words he’d been waiting all morning to hear from you.  

“Make sure you tell the sitter there’s an extra pacifier in the right side of his bag that she can leave there in his cubby in case we ever forget one..and that I’ll drop a pack of diapers and wipes off when I pick him up cause I know he’s running low.”

His brow furrows slightly with disappointment, but you’re too busy to notice, blowing him another kiss before rushing out the door of your shared bedroom and down the hall to get Sterling’s bag ready.

He’s still pouting as he opens his top drawer to select a pair of socks for the day.

He couldn’t believe you forgot it was his birthday.

In your opinion, 6 weeks was not long enough for maternity leave. You’re sure no amount of time in your happy bubble with Harry and Sterling would’ve been enough. 

You were somehow able to push those 6 weeks to 12, your boss kindly agreeing to let you do what work you could from home. Eventually, that extension had to come to an end though and there was no other way you could avoid returning to ‘normal’ life.

You’re an hour into your work day but you still can’t shake the feeling that you had truly forgotten something. Harry’s words from the morning ring through your head again and again but you still couldn’t pinpoint what was special about this particular day. It was a Monday..was there some sort of significant anniversary from your relationship over the years, something small but important to him? 

You grab your phone when you have a chance, a quick lull in your morning that allows you to scroll through your phone’s calendar to double check anything your phone may have not yet notified you about. There’s nothing saved, and it does nothing to jog your memory of what importance today’s date holds. 

A text from Anne comes through and your heart stops when you read the message: Tell the birthday boy his present from me is on the way! I was a day later than I should’ve been sending it out so hope he won’t be too upset with me. All my love to you and Sterling as well!

No. Oh no. Guilt bubbles up through your chest and you cover your mouth to stop from cursing too loudly and scaring your nearby coworkers. You have to steady your hand so you can navigate your way through your contacts to Harry’s number, trying to calculate where in his schedule for the day he may be now. It was too early for him to be taking a lunch break, but you silently prayed he would be on a break in between filming scenes that would allow him to answer.

He had told you in the past that even if he wasn’t able to have his phone with him, it was always nearby. Especially now that you had Sterling, he tried to make himself available no matter how busy his schedule would be for the day. Even if he wasn’t able to answer, he would always make time to call back. 

So when you try 2 times with no success of getting through, you stop. You had both agreed before that 3 calls was your distress signal, and you didn’t want his mind to think the worst when he did see you’d tried to get through to him. A text seems too informal, too little for the man you love and adore. He deserved better than that, better than you, a partner who forgot one of the most important days where he should be made to feel special and loved every second.

It wasn’t like you didn’t know this day was coming, you did, of course you did. Being a new parent had well and truly ruined your memory. Turns out birthing a tiny human requires learning a ton of new information to keep your little one alive, meaning that even almost 3 months later your brain hadn’t been fully restored and you weren’t sure if it ever would be. 

How could you make up for something like this? You suppose you could pretend that it was all a joke; that you’d had this elaborate plan all along to surprise him and make him think that you had forgotten his birthday. But you couldn’t lie to him like that, it would only cause you to hate yourself even more later for covering it up. Plus, Harry knew you too well and would see right through that, and then whatever hurt you’re sure he was feeling now would only grow. 

You know he would eventually forgive you, if he hadn’t already, but that didn’t stop guilt from overriding your thoughts. If anything it made you feel almost worse knowing that he would be so incredibly forgiving.

God, you could only imagine the reaction of the fans if they found out. Some of them already had some questionable opinions about you, a few even going so far as to speculate if Sterling was truly Harry’s child, claiming that you had somehow “trapped” Harry into a relationship with you and that it would eventually fail. Harry had tried to ban you from going too deep, but sometimes your curiosity got the best of you, prompting you to scroll through Twitter or Instagram occasionally. It usually ended with you getting your feelings hurt and Harry having to remind you once again to stay away.

You try to find something in your memory, anything that he may have mentioned wanting (or at this point even needing) over the past few months. Aside from the mundane, everyday things like laundry detergent and shampoo to add to the shopping list, you couldn’t recall a thing. You only had 6 hours before you had to pick up Sterling, so you had to come up with something fast, something amazing.

What do you get for the golden boy who has everything?

You couldn’t believe you didn’t think of it before. It was something you had discovered not long after Sterling’s birth, but like many other things it had gotten easily dismissed and pushed down to the bottom of your list. 

Today, it only takes a few clicks through the website, a double checking of the spelling of the name that will be on the certificate, and a quick selection of a location for where you want it to be for Harry to now be the (hopefully) proud owner of his very own star in the sky.

After all it was Harry who found the name Sterling for your child, it was him who whispered “buonanotte nostra piccola stella” each night as he helped you put Sterling to bed; a phrase he had been most pleased with himself for learning, the Italian to English translation being “goodnight our little star”. If he couldn’t be there to say it, he made sure you knew the proper enunciation of the expression so that you could pass it along from him. It was always followed by 3 kisses to the top of his son’s head.

Thankfully, you were able to use the printer at work to print out the certificate and the map, slipping them both into a manilla envelope and tucking it away in your bag before you clock out for the day. Though you wished you had time to stop and select a nice frame, you only have 30 minutes before having to pick up Sterling, so you opt for a speedy trip to the nearest bakery and grocery store to gather what other supplies you’ll need for the rest of the evening.

By the time you and Sterling make it home, you still haven’t heard anything from Harry. You send up another silent prayer, more for his safety than anything, but also selfishly for yourself and his forgiveness towards you. It wasn’t unusual for you to not hear from him most days, and you remind yourself of his words from that morning about most likely having to work late. 

You push away the guilt that threatens to invade your thoughts again, doing what you need to do for Sterling to keep him content while you start preparations for dinner. Once you have him settled in his swing nearby, you take a moment to scroll through your music selection on your phone, deciding that having something playing in the background would be better than being alone with your thoughts while you work. 

You’ve just washed the veggies to chop for the salad when your phone dings, indicating a new message. You know it’s from Harry, and you’re almost scared to look. Instant relief floods your body when you do have the courage to take a peek: Home in an hour. Love you! Give bub kisses from me xx

The “love you” fills you with overwhelming comfort; takes you back to the day you first met him and how your heart skipped a beat when you realized it was you he was trailing through the crowd of people to approach, a cozy smile plastered on his face. You’ll never forget the gentle way he had spoken and how even though you were surrounded by at least a hundred other people at the party, he didn’t take his eyes off you the whole night. You let out a huge sigh of breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding in and contemplate the best way to respond, finally concluding that simple was better.

Be careful, baby. Love you more!! Bubs and I miss you

His text gives you more motivation than you already had to power through making his favorite meal for him. An hour is plenty of time to get everything done, so when Sterling gets fussy and wants to be held, you tuck him against your side, doing what you can with one hand while keeping a tight grip on your son. You know he had missed you when he almost instantly relaxes at being close to you, and your heart hurts at the thought of ever being away from him again, even for something important like your job.

It still takes you a minute to get him calm enough to rest his head on your shoulder, so you don’t hear the sound of the door, or the clink of Harry’s keys or the sound of his footsteps falling down the hallway.

“Need some help, lovie?”

His voice, which normally calms you, nearly makes you jump out of your skin. So when you turn and say, “I thought you said an hour!” it comes out more like an attack than grateful to see him again.

“S’what I thought but we rushed through so I could leave earlier. Is that a problem?” His face is unreadable, somewhere between confused and disappointed with your tone.

“No! Of course not, Harry, I just..” That’s when your voice breaks, your guilt and emotions of forgetting his birthday finally being too much to hold back.

“Hey, don’t do that,” He’s moving the rest of the way through the kitchen to you, a hand smoothing a small circle over your back as you try to wipe your tears, “Please don’t cry.”

“I just wanted to have everything ready by the time you got home, to make up for this morning. For forgetting it was your birthday in the first place. I’m so sorry, H.” 

“You’ve got nothin’ to apologize for, angel. You don’t have to make anything up to me. We’ve both been crazy busy lately, I’m surprised I even remembered what day it was. Here, why don’t I put Sterling in his swing and help you finish dinner?”

“No, absolutely not. It’s your birthday and I know you’re tired. Plus, I think he missed us today. You know how much he loves his swing but I didn’t get very much done before he got upset.”

“Alright, well, I’ll take him while you get everything else done. How’s that sound?”

You nod an agreement at his plan, transferring Sterling from your shoulder to his. There’s a few whimpers of disapproval, but he lets out a small sigh of contentment once he realizes it’s Harry who holds him now. Harry turns his head to smack a few kisses to the baby’s cheek to further pacify him. Sterling’s eyes open briefly, gazing sleepily up at his father. 

“Hi, bub, missed you. Let’s go see what kind of trouble we can get into while Mummy makes dinner, huh?” 

“Not too much trouble, boys. It’s almost bedtime,” He winks at you as he turns to leave and you stop him, “Hey, wait, try this. Tell me if it needs anything.”

You stir a spoon through the pasta sauce you’ve had simmering away on the stove, bringing it to his lips with a hand underneath, careful not to drip it down the front of his white button-up or the top of Sterling’s head. He lets you feed him the spoonful, but doesn’t take his eyes off your lips.  Before you even have time to ask him how it is, he’s trapping his mouth against yours, a satisfied hum at the sauce mixing with the taste of you.

“Delicious.” He runs his tongue along his bottom lip, catching a bit of sauce that ended up smudged at the corner of his mouth.

“Really?”

“Really, darling, it’s perfect.” 

At this point it’s obvious he’s not talking about the sauce, and you push yourself up to plant another kiss on his lips.

“Another,” He gently demands, and you oblige, but he doesn’t pull away yet, “C’mon, few more.”

“Looks like Sterling’s not the only needy baby in this house tonight. How many more kisses do you need?”

He smirks down at you, “It’s my 27th birthday, innit? Think I deserve 27 kisses, don’t you?”

You send him away with the promise of fulfilling his request for the rest of his kisses later, finally able to rush through finishing the last of what was needed to complete the meal and call him back to see the table full of everything you’ve prepared. 

Sterling is bright eyed in Harry’s arms again, and you hope that feeding him will lull him back to sleep for the night. With him having to stay with a sitter on the days that you and Harry were both working, you’d recently had to switch to using bottles for some of his meals. The sitter had assured you that he was adjusting to the bottle well when he was with her, but it had been a frustrating transition for you. 

“You’ve just spoiled him to the usual way, love. It’ll get easier. Want me to try?” He holds out his hand, offering to take the bottle and Sterling back, but you refuse. You know Harry’s right, it will get easier eventually, but right now you know he’s just still tired and hungry. So you give in, lifting your shirt and tossing a blanket over him while he eats. 

“Eat so you can blow out your candles and then open your present.”

He sets a plate of food in front of you and passes you a fork so you can eat with your free hand.

His mouth is full of food but his green eyes light up when he looks at you, “I have a present?” 

“Of course you do. It’s your birthday, isn’t it?” 

“Can we skip cake and do the present first?”

You giggle at his excitement, but the truth is you’re nervous. You know he will be nice enough to tell you he loves it, but you also know him well enough to read the truth on his face. 

“Sure, birthday boy, whatever you want.” Sterling’s finished eating by now so you rest him on your shoulder, tapping his back a few times until you hear a small burp. Harry’s plate is mostly empty now, as is yours, so you tuck Sterling into his swing while you go to retrieve the envelope from earlier in the day. Your heart races as you may your way back to where he sits at the table, his eyes covered dramatically as he waits.

“You can open,” You slide the envelope in front of him and prop your chin up on one of your hands as you watch his fingers work to open the clasp. The papers sit upside down on the table and you inhale a deep breath as he flips them over. His face is full of curiosity as his eyes scan the page. 

“Did you..is this real?”

“Well I’m not sure how official it is but, yes, it’s real.” You take the map from behind the certificate and point out the location, “According to this it’s..”

“Is my star right over our house?” His eyes are wide as he studies the coordinates, “Can we go see if we can see it now?”

How can you say no to that? You let him lead you out the back door of your home and out into the cool air of the night. He only lets go of your hand when he reaches the edge of the yard, pointing straight upwards.

“It’s gotta be that big one, right? That mine, right?” You look over his shoulder down at the map and then back up to where he’s pointing.

“Yep, I think that’s the one. Unless..do you have the map upside down?”

“No! Do I?” He squints his eyes, bringing it closer to his face in an attempt to read it in the dark. 

“You definitely did. It’s that one there..to the left of the big one we thought was yours.”

“S’gorgeous, baby,” He tugs your hand until your smushed against his side and he tosses his arm around you, letting out a deep sigh as he continues to stare up at the sky, “Thank you so much.”

“You really like it?” You’ve got both arms wrapped around his middle now, enjoying the feeling of his chest rising and falling.

“I really do, angel. Can’t believe you named a star after me twice.” 

“Twice?” You tilt your head upwards to look at his face.

“Yeah. Twice. That one,” He points up again, “My favorite one though, the greatest gift you will probably ever give me, is probably snoring in his swing right about now.”

As sweet as the moment is, you can’t help but snort out a laugh at that, “If he’s anything like you, he’s definitely snoring right now.”

“Hey, I don’t snore!”

“Oh yes, you do. Feel like I’m sleeping in a cave with a bear sometimes.”

That earns you a big, booming laugh from him, and he pulls you even closer to kiss the top of your head. You turn your body to face him, squeezing him once and kissing his chest through his shirt.

“Happy birthday, Harry.”

“Thank you,” He places his hands on either side of your face, thumbs rubbing along your cheeks, a slow smile sneaking its way across his face, “Can I have the rest of my kisses now?”

The next time Anne and Gemma come to visit, he’s sweeping them down to the end of the hallway leading into your living room, to where he now proudly shows them the framed certificate and map sitting side by side on the wall. Of course they had both already heard about it before. The day after his birthday he had spent 10 minutes on the phone with each of them bragging about it. He’s got Sterling in his arms as he shows it off now. He holds him up next to the two frames.

“How lucky am I, huh? Not every man can say they have two stars named after them, can they?”

thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!

as always likes, reblogs, replies, and feedback are welcome!

tag list: @1980holland, @summertimestyles, @la-cey, @tbslenthusiast​

[heliossecretdeskdrawer]

So while I haven’t been working much on requests this week due to IRL work, I have been managing to type out a giant chunk (3.3k words atm) of a draft with my thumbs on Scrivener mobile of some IDW1!MegaRatch, prompted on a Discord server I hang out on.

The premise boils down to Megatron and Ratchet attempting to get closure re: their weird relationships w/Optimus, so I’ve decided to share a smaller chunk (~500 words) of it for WIP Wednesday.

The chunk is technically not valveplug, yet, but I’ll tag it that way just for GP. This is not going in the maintags though.

Warnings: Sexual Roleplaying, Swinging (and background relationships), Awkward Idiots

Ratchet thought he knew when he was in too deep. Thought. He liked to consider himself a reasonable mech, not generally given to emotional decision-making. Never mind the numerous examples that pointed to the opposite conclusion, such as running after Drift to convince him to return to the Lost Light, operating a quasi-legal free clinic in the Dead End out of compassion, or any of the other evidence he'd prefer to not acknowledge.

Now, lying on his back on the floor of a borrowed habsuite, covered in red and blue paint in the dimmed light and being straddled about the waist by a retired walking nightmare, Ratchet was doubting his long-held opinion of himself as rational.

At least, Megatron seemed to be taking care to not crush him with his greater weight. Oddly considerate. Well, maybe not that odd. Rodimus had yet to visit the medical bay for interfacing-related injuries since the captains had decided to "share quarters to save space and resources." Plenty of practice, presumably, at handling smaller frames, not that Ratchet was delicate by any means. Drift could attest to that, though it had taken him some time to stop treating him like glass. Not even his literal glass windshield was that easy to shatter. It was safety glass, after all.

"Are you comfortable?"

Ratchet blinked up at the words, optical shutters clicking behind the glass. He was unsure what he ought to make of two red optics burning down at him after all those years of seeing the damage their owner could do on a whim, all those hurt and dead mechs who had crossed his exam table. Despite that, despite knowing all too intimately what could be done to him, Ratchet didn't find himself feeling particularly threatened. Maybe it was all those years of disregarding his own well-being as a medic. A risk to a patient was worth considering, a risk to himself was negligible.

Of course, nowadays Megatron was practically tame, not that Ratchet felt like saying it to his face, not at the moment. Perhaps later. A good insult to keep in his back pocket.

As for comfort, the floor had been cleared of dust and any stray items. A few quilted tarpaulins with thick padding had been laid down, nominally to minimize plating scraping on the floor, but Ratchet knew it was also for Megatron's aching knees. All in all, Ratchet supposed he was as comfortable as he could be without being in a berth, something which had been out of the question. A berth would have been… too intimate for their goals and it would have broken the illusion.

"Aside from the battle mask, yes." It was awkward to talk through and outside of the occasional surgical procedure needing such a precaution, Ratchet was unused to covering his face.

"I'll be fine," he added when Megatron reached down with a hand, probably about to say that Ratchet didn't need to wear it.

"If you're sure…."

[catboydogma]

4, 25, 54 ohohoho

ASDFKEKD THANK U FOR THE ASK CHEL ❣❣ i hope u are doing well on this fine evening :)

writing asks!

4: what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?

gjkdfkdkd ok if we're talking longest unrealized overall i think it would be otter-wan bc i keep mentioning it but i have NEVER done anything with it not even so much as THOUGHT abt a plot or outline. if we're talking smth i HAVE done with ... god help me the bobadin coffee shop au has been un-updated for nearly a year now. im so sorry. both of these bc if im writing fic it has to b something that im like . i WANT to do it. and i've got the vibe for it down. and as it stands rn im just kind of going where the wind takes me and it ... has not taken me down either of these avenues lol

25: what’s your revision or rewriting process like?

i do not ❣ MORE SERIOUSLY ... if it's fic then i just do a quick beta read (if that) or toss it to a beta reader (if available) and then i'm done. i revise as i write so any scenes that get cut or added or developments get added as i write the story. once i write the last line it is Out of My Hands and Someone Else's Problem. for original work, i also revise as i write but generally once im done w the first draft i let it sit for a month or two before going back in and re-writing the entire thing, and then THAT'S the one that goes through future revision rounds

54: what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

adverbs! kill them with extreme prejudice! simple dialogue tags as well. i've found that at some point it turns from something u correct in ur writing to just the way u write, and thankfully my creative writing these days tends to be adverb-averse (not so much for my conversational writing tho ... )

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Part 2, Chapter 17

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

“We should get champagne or something, to celebrate,” Scully says, her eyes roving over the menu.

After three weeks of rehab, Teena Mulder has finally been able to move home, though she’s under the constant care of an in-home nurse. Knowing that she’s back in her own space, no longer the medical setting that made her miserable, is a huge weight off Mulder’s shoulders. This is why they’re out to dinner, celebrating a hopeful return to what feels like normal.

“Only if you’re driving home,” Mulder replies playfully, “you know what bubbly does to me.”

She gives him a flirtatious smirk. “Yes, I do.”

“Dana?” someone calls out, and they look over to see two women. One is tall and slim with light olive-toned skin and brunette shoulder-length hair. The other is significantly shorter, Latina, with thick hips and an ample bustline, her dark hair cascading down her back.

“Monica, hi,” Scully replies warmly to the tall woman. She turns to the shorter one, “you must be Dahlia.”

“Guilty as charged,” the short woman answers jovially with a heavy Spanish accent.

“This is my boyfriend, Fox Mulder,” Scully continues, gesturing to him, “Mulder, this is Monica, I’ve told you about her.”

Mulder nods in understanding. Scully has often mentioned a woman she regularly has coffee and lunch with who works in VICAP.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Mulder says, offering his hand to Monica.

She takes his hand with a firm grip, then gestures to the short woman, “this is my partner, Dahlia.”

Mulder and Scully both greet Dahlia with handshakes.

“Well, we’ll leave you to your meal, it was nice to run into you,” Monica says.

“Would you like to join us? We haven’t even ordered yet,” Scully offers, giving Mulder a quick glance to confirm that this is okay. He nods almost imperceptibly.

“Oh, we don’t want to impose,” Monica answers.

“Not at all,” Mulder jumps in, correctly picking up that Monica is worried about imposing on him, not Scully, “I’d love to finally get to know this mysterious VICAP woman Scully is always talking about.”

Monica smiles and he moves to the chair beside Scully so she and Dahlia can occupy the other two. They order champagne and appetizers, and he finds the two women to be very pleasant company.

“So, you work in VICAP too, then?” he asks Dahlia, and she gives him a confused look.

“No, I work at a little flower shop in Alexandria,” she answers.

“Oh, sorry, I thought Monica said you were partners.”

Scully shoots him an embarrassed glare, but Dahlia laughs.

“You know, I always tell Monica she should just call me her girlfriend, but she insists on ‘partner,’” she says, looking at Monica affectionately. He can’t help but smile, realizing he’d missed the very obvious fact that they are lovers.

“Girlfriend sounds so juvenile to me,” Monica explains, “partner feels a bit more serious, and permanent.”

“It’s okay, mija,” Dahlia continues, “you can call me your partner, hasta el día en que puedas ser mi esposa.”

Monica beams at her, and while he didn’t understand a word of that, it’s plainly clear that they are very much in love.

Appetizers come and go, flutes of champagne are emptied and refilled and a second bottle is ordered. Scully brings up Monica’s education and her experiences working at the New Orleans field office, and she and Mulder carry on a conversation about the change in VooDoo practices over the course of generations while Scully and Dahlia discover that they have similar taste in literature. Dahlia is telling a story about reading a Spanish translation of Jane Eyre as a teenager and how she still, to this day, has a hard time not calling him “Señor Rochester,” when the waiter brings by the check and Mulder snatches it away just as Dahlia was reaching for it.

“My treat,” Mulder says, pulling out his wallet.

Dahlia gives Monica a look, saying “me gusta este chico,” and Mulder chuckles.

“That I understood,” he quips, and they all laugh.

Back at the apartment, they get ready for bed. Scully is standing at the sink brushing her teeth when Mulder slinks up behind her, slipping his hands onto her hips and dipping his head down to kiss her neck.

“Mmm, there’s that champagne,” she says, the words garbled around her toothbrush.

“It’s not that champagne makes me want you, Scully. I always want you. It just makes me a little more bold,” he explains, trailing his fingers down to the hem of her night shirt and lifting it enough to get a look at her panties.

She swats his hand away. “Let me finish brushing my teeth,” she chastises, and he retreats to the bedroom.

She joins him a few minutes later, slipping under the sheets and draping her bare leg over his. He lifts his arm so she can burrow against his torso, her head on his chest. He rubs his hand across her back, eliciting a contented sigh.

“So, what did you think of Monica?” she asks, her fingertips on his ribcage moving in small circles.

“I really like her, I can see why you two hit it off,” he answers.

“She reminds me a little of you, actually,” she says, and he can feel her smile against his skin. “She has some...out there ideas.”

“Am I not talking enough about cryptids at home, Scully? You had to go find a friend to supplement?” he asks playfully, dipping his fingers into her armpit briefly in a threat to tickle her.

She clamps her arms against her sides and giggles. “We don’t talk much about that, but when I first met her she told me about my aura, so I figured you two would have some things in common.”

“That sounds more like Missy’s purview,” he comments, and then they fall silent for a moment.

“I’m actually really glad we ran into her,” Scully begins, running her hand down his abdomen to rest just beneath his belly button. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about and I wasn’t sure how to bring it up without you having some context.”

“Scully, if you’re about to suggest we have a foursome with Monica and Dahlia, I’m going to owe Frohike five hundred bucks,” he interjects.

She scoffs, “in your dreams, Mulder.”

“I think you mean Melvin.”

“Well, sorry Melvin, but that’s not what I was thinking about.” Her thumb hooks just beneath the elastic of his boxers, his happy trail tickling her skin.

“Okay, sorry, what were you thinking about?”

“What if,” she begins, dragging her finger back and forth under the fabric, “Monica was your partner. On the X files.”

He puts his hand over hers to still the movement, pulling away a bit so she’ll look at him.

“What do you mean, Scully?” He feels a rush of adrenaline, though he’s not yet sure if it’s from excitement or fear.

“I mean, she’s open to...unexplainable phenomena. The two of you get along quite well, and she wouldn't try to debunk your work or scoff at your theories. You said they might let you reopen them if you had a partner you could work with, and I think Monica might be that person.”

He considers this for a moment. “Who’s to say she’d even want to, she’s assigned to VICAP-”

“She hates VICAP,” Scully interjects, “it’s a bunch of macho men trying to one-up each other. I know she’d be happy to be reassigned, and to work out of the Hoover building. She and Dahlia live in Palisades; her commute sucks.”

His mind is reeling, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. “I don’t even know where we’d start, Scully. It seems so unlikely.”

“Just ask for a meeting with AD Skinner. If you think it would help for Monica to be a part of that meeting, I know she’d be happy to attend. I’ve told her a bit about The X files and I wouldn’t even bring this up with you unless I was sure she’d be interested. I can talk to her about it on Monday, if you want to give it a shot.”

He looks up at the ceiling, eyebrows stitched in thought. Hope pricks at the corners of his mind, but he knows well enough not to let it take root; he’s been disappointed too many times before. He looks over at Scully, her expression holding all the hope that he won’t allow himself to feel.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks gently.

“Because I want you to be happy,” she says earnestly, pulling her hand from beneath his and bringing it to his cheek, “from the moment I met you, I saw how you light up when you talk about The X Files. If there’s a chance you can investigate them again, I want to pursue it.”

He sighs, a tender smile tugging at his lips. He turns on his side, pushing his palms under her ass and pulling her on top of him as she giggles.

“Okay, talk to Monica,” he says, sliding his hands under her sleep shirt and up her bare back, “I’ll email Skinner on Monday.”

She smiles at him, self-satisfied and victorious.

“Now, about that champagne,” he says, pulling her down for a kiss.

———

She nervously checks her email every two minutes, aggressively clicking the send/receive button. Monica and Mulder were meeting with AD Skinner at 11:00am and it’s now almost 1:00pm and she hasn’t heard anything. That could either be a very good sign, or a very bad one. She has class in ten minutes and needs to head over to the lecture hall to prepare. She refreshes it one more time, and an email pops up.

From: fmulder@fbi.gov

Sent: September 18, 1997 12:51pm

To: dscully@fbi.gov

Subject: Maybe good news?

He didn’t say no, but he didn’t say yes, either. He asked us about 800 questions and then said he had to run it by the section chief. My impression is that he wants to make it work, but obviously it’s not totally within his control.

Fingers crossed. Hopefully we’ll know by Friday.

She heaves a big sigh, a cautious smile playing on her lips. She shoots him a quick response and then makes her way to class, praying all the way that the answer will be yes.

———

She’d taken that Friday off, for no reason in particular. Ever since Mulder had effectively moved in with her, she liked to take random weekdays off here and there just to have some time to herself. She’d spent the afternoon reading, re-arranging her spice cupboard, and making space for Mulder to have half her dresser instead of just one drawer. She’s sitting on the floor of the bedroom, surrounded by neatly folded stacks of T-shirts and pajama pants, when she hears the front door open. She checks her watch; it’s only 3:00 pm, too early for Mulder to be home.

“Hello?” she calls out nervously.

The bedroom door swings open and Mulder is there, his chest heaving and a dopey smile on his face.

“Is everything okay?” she asks, “what are you doing home?”

“It was approved,” he says breathlessly, apparently having run from wherever he parked the car.

“What was approved?” she asks, standing.

“The X Files, Scully. They’re reopened, effective Monday, with me and Reyes as the assigned agents,” he says, his smile broadening even further.

Her mouth drops open in disbelief, a surprised smile forming on her lips. She had held out hope, but she was also very aware that the chances were slim. He crosses the room, scooping her up in his arms, her legs wrapping around his hips.

“It never would have happened if it wasn’t for you,” he says, adoration in his eyes.

She kisses him, and he turns to lay her on the bed, shedding his suit jacket and tossing it on the floor. Moving quickly, desperately, he tugs at the waistband of her pants, stripping them off along with her panties, and pushes her shirt up to expose her breasts. He begins kissing her neck, down to her chest and belly, pausing intermittently to speak words of affirmation and gratitude until he reaches the apex of her thighs and is quiet.

He laps at her tenderly, humming and sighing as her body catches up and she feels the flush of desire form in her belly. She pushes her fingers into his hair, scraping gently at his scalp in encouragement as he flicks his tongue against her opening and she bucks her hips in response. His thumb swipes gently over her clit as he pushes his tongue inside her, licking at her increasingly slick walls and making her whimper. After a few minutes, he switches to his fingers inside her and his tongue at her clit. Swirling and sucking until she commands him not to stop, he holds steady as she falls apart against his lips, flexing his fingers deep inside to draw it out. Finally she taps on his head, and he crawls back up to plant soft kisses along her jaw.

“Consider us even,” she breathes out, eyes still closed in bliss.

“I think I might like to continue making it up to you,” he says with a nip to her earlobe, and she laughs.

“Okay, if you insist.”

[vanquishedvaliant]

So there’s this trend I’m seeing on social media about people boycotting / encouraging people not to buy the upcoming Mass Effect remasters.

The reasonings being somewhat varied, some valid, others not, but mostly centering around one thing in specific; cut content relating to same sex relationships that didn’t make it into the games.

Now, I understand not being interested in the product being offered; I’m probably not going to buy it myself for a lack of specific features like multiplayer and... just not needing the buy the game for my fifth or sixth time. It’s completely valid to think the remasters are just not doing enough for you to justify a purchase, or that their faith in the company doing it properly in their current state isn’t there. I get that.

But the mood that’s come up lately isn’t just disinterest; it’s downright outrage. Violent, ideologically charged opposition to even the concept of the remasters because of a perceived failure to meet their extremely specific and often high standards and notions of progressiveness.

Now it’s not exactly news that Bioware has had a rocky relationship with inclusivity over the years, with queer characters flitting in and out of recognition and prominence, appropriation of queer archetypes, and less than stellar execution of what characters they do include. I’ve had my complaints with these myself from time to time, though it’s still always struck me historically as a generally positive, if clumsy attempt at progress that I appreciated despite the flaws; remember that the original Mass Effect 1 came out in 2007, and was the focus of a major media scandal about even including romantic relationships at all in the game, nevermind same sex ones. That’s 14 years ago! The most recent game in the series is 9 years old!

We can talk about the social standards of the times and the progress we’ve made, and we can also talk about the merits of restoring and improving media as it was, or recreating it to more closely reflect the values of today and which or both of them is a worthwhile pursuit, but I don’t think that’s what’s being sincerely argued here.

What we see instead is some protestation that failure to make the exacting changes that they see fit according to their personal ideology is some kind of radically regressive statement, as if it’s a conscious, malicious decision and not either one made in good faith or not at all. This movement has collectively decided that the remaster needs to contain exactly the changes that fit their fleeting whims or the entire thing’s at best a wash and a wasted effort, and in some cases a ‘homophobic’ statement of hatred, or cynically callous laziness. 

Let’s remember; the focus of this argument is the presence of available simulated dating options in a 14 year old game. The arguments posits that some of these alternative options are ones that were cut from the release of the games, notably the first one, and have some or numerous assets that exist in various forms within the game files that with some work can be accessed in the game with user-made modifications. Some of this is true; though much of it is exaggerated or misconstrued in terms of its scope or viability.

Many of these people just assume that this cut content that someone else has restored in a mod somewhere is just some sort of simple toggle done in moments without effort, ignoring the work those modders did on their own time and money to introduce those features. 

Even if we just hand wave any standards of quality or continuity or polish and integration these mods have, you have to consider the dozens to hundreds of volunteer man hours of labor these fans put into many of those mods to make them viable that a company paying it’s employees a fair wage and time to do without overworking has to budget. Which I should mind to you is something also incredibly topically relevant in game dev these days. Adding new content costs money. Restoring old content, still costs money.

Even then, the viability of many of those original assets is at question in itself; the 'ingredients’ used to create the content are not equivalent to the ‘cooked’ content found in the game files, so some of them are difficult to work with or lacking in features or quality. Hell, we know for a fact that half of the god damn development data for ME1 is just fucking gone, which is why the DLC isn’t making an appearance in the remaster at all; it just doesn’t exist anymore and would need to be remade from utter scratch.

Now there’s a dozen reasons undertakings like these would or wouldn’t make their list of priorities for remaster given the other work they are doing re; texture and model uprezzing, gameplay updates, etc. It’s not exactly strange for them to recreate the game largely as it was with a more limited scope of changes. Perhaps the decision was made to preserve some parts of the game largely as it was; with mostly minor cosmetic changes to things like Miranda’s camera angles; things that don’t have much overhead or ripple effect. Perhaps restoring the content was considered, but didn’t make the cut- maybe for the same reasons it didn’t make it into the game in 2007. Maybe for different ones.

Only the people involved know.

Now, would I like to see some of that content restored and improved? Sure! I think it’d have been a great thing if they’d promoted the series as having new or restored content; if they’d promised us such things. But they haven’t, and while it’s one thing to praise taking an initiative like that if they had, I think it’s completely unreasonable to be outraged that they didn’t.

We can celebrate that kind of outstanding and excellent steps forward in inclusivity, but we have to understand that while someone not being ahead of the curve may not be exciting or even disappointing; it is not in itself an act of directed aggression. And treating it like one is a waste of time and energy that we can direct to protesting actual aggression, or celebrating those outstanding steps.

But here’s the major thing that kills me; all those mods they love and praise aren’t going anywhere.

The remaster will come out and unless Bioware is so completely tone deaf and media blind from the past year they pull a WC3, the old versions of the game will all still be available. All those user made mods they cite in these arguments about “how easy” it is to add content to the game will still be there, ready to play as they always were. Some of them might even work or be easily made to work with the new versions!

All of that will still be there! And we’ll have access to a new version of the trilogy that is far more accessible to new players who haven’t yet been exposed to so much of the games content that they are desperate for more of it.

Just look at Mass Effect 1; that game has not aged well, and it was kind of a sloppy mess even when it came out! How many new players can we get to enjoy all the good things the series has to offer with an easily accessed, more enjoyable package to play through the entire series without issue? I’ve done numerous replays of the trilogy through the years, and Mass Effect 1 is always a huge stumbling block. It’s just a pain in the ass, straight out. Don’t you want at least the option to fix that?

And if not, you don’t have to buy it and no harm is done to you! Enjoy your existing version with your mods and familiar features and flaws.

And if you truly, genuinely care so passionately about Bioware improving their record of inclusivity; look instead to the new game that’s coming out and look forward to that instead. Every game in the franchise has been better than the last at this; ME1 cut the same sex relationships, but ME2 had some. ME3 had even more, and then Andromeda had yet even further than that after patching!

How many will the new game have?

Look forward to that and make it clear to bioware you’re looking for that in their games; just.... ease off this ridiculous vitriol in trying to get people to avoid the remaster because it’s not good enough for you. No one needs to have this bullying done to either the developers themselves or the players looking to buy the game for themselves or others. It’s simply not productive.

Especially with this franchise’s sordid history with excessive media outrage and entitlement that’s been absolutely exhausted.

Just... relax. And have some perspective.

[potteresque-ire]

This post is Part 3 of the five-part meta series on the Zhang Zhehan (張哲瀚) Incident, based on what has transpired up to 2021/08/22.

1) The 2nd Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) & the Yasukuni Shrine 2) Post-War Sino-Japanese Relations; “Every Chinese should visit the Yasukuni Shrine” 3) The Summer of 2021: The Brewing Storms for One 4) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part A 5) My Thoughts on Zhang’s Incident, Part B

3) The Summer of 2021: The Brewing Storms for One

Parts 1 and 2 are my very rough, … kindergartenish introduction to the historical background of Zhang’s incident. For the sake of brevity (please don’t laugh), there are so many things I haven’t touched on (such as the role of the U.S., the geopolitics). There are even more things I’ve likely missed from my admitted ignorance (Sorry).

I think a fair summary of what I’ve written so far would be as follows, before we move on to other sociopolitical factors related to Zhang’s incident?

It is true that the Japanese government, while having shown signs of repentance, has yet to truly face its own past. 

It is also true that the Chinese government has been taking advantage of its national tragedy to fuel nationalistic sentiments, to spread hatred for the purpose of propaganda ...

... Propaganda that is highly sensitive to timing, the message the regime wants to send at the moment. 

In August, 2021, Sino-Japanese relations is at a nadir. The brief thaw in early 2020, initiated by the Japanese government donating masks to Wuhan when COVID first broke out, seemed to be as old as the Chinese poem printed on the shipping boxes:  山川異域 風月同天 (“Our mountains and rivers are on different lands, but our winds and moon share the same sky”)—from the 779 BCE work of a Tang dynasty monk who had sailed to Japan as a missionary, affirming the long cultural bond between the two nations. China would give masks back to Japan.

Fast forward eighteen months later, this good will is all but gone in Chinese news, on Chinese social media. The Japanese government had just vowed to join the United States to protect Taiwan, should the Chinese government furthers its military threat towards the island — the People’s Liberation Air Forces had already intruded Taiwan’s air defence zone 393 times between January 1st and August 17th of 2021 — or should the Chinese government attempts to take over the democratic island nation by force. 

Late July came, and the Tokyo Olympics presented the opportunity for the Chinese state to broadcast anti-Japanese sentiments among the general populace. 

Like USSR and the Eastern Bloc before, the Communists-ruled China saw the Olympics medal count as a matter of national pride. After the Games began, the hot search turned immediately from the Henan flood to stories of the Tokyo Games’ subjectively awful organisation, alleged cheatings by the Japanese athletes, and the perceived unfairness of, in particular, Japanese judges towards the Chinese team that cost the latter more and better medals. This fervour cumulated to the cyberbullying of Japanese athletes by high-on-nationalism Chinese netizens, who brought back Japan’s past as a reason why Japan and its people should be universally hated. Reminders of the horrific brutality of the Imperial Japanese Army eighty years before the Games surfaced in Chinese social media posts. The derogatory slangs 小日本 (“Little Japan”), and 鬼子 (Guizi “demons”), the latter harking back to the nickname of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, populated online Olympics discussions.

Japanese netizens are aware of the derogatory terms Chinese nationalistic netizens use against them. In 2010, they fought back the 小日本 and 鬼子 insults by designing cute anime characters for these names. (Source1, Source2). 

August, 2021 is not a good time to be accused of liking the Japanese.

August, 2021 is not a good time to be accused of liking the Japanese, especially if the accused is a celebrity in the c-ent industry. The ongoing Clear and Bright Campaign (清朗行動) includes, as its 8th aim, the “regulation of stars and the organisations behind them, internet behaviour of their official fan clubs”. Possibly as a welcome to the summer vacation for the country’s youth, on June 15th, 2021, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) had announced it would spend the next two months focused on rectifying the “chaos caused by fan circles” (‘飯圈’亂象). 

The Kris Wu (吳亦凡) case that had exploded in July then turned the public’s attention (and imagination) squarely on c-ent and the alleged “insanity” of c-ent fandoms, particularly those of idols. Wu’s fans had been met with ridicule and cyberbullying, especially those who had tried to “save” their idol by attempting to perform, when the incident had first broken out, what is customary per Chinese fan circle culture—to drown the criticisms with their supportive messages, their defences of their favourite stars; with their offences towards the accusers and in some cases, who the fans point to as the true culprits accompanied by the necessary “evidences”. Widespread reports of Wu’s fans planning a prison break after Wu’s arrest, propagated by the state media despite the number of such fans could’ve numbered to no more than a handful, further fuelled the narrative that c-ent idol worship has become cult-like, with the fans being so brainwashed that they can no longer distinguish right or wrong. 

This narrative of “fans would say or do anything to defend an idol” means that if or when accusations fall on the latter, little can be said in their defence even if the defence has its merits. Fans who make the defence are accused of being “brain-disabled” (腦殘); non-fans, of being brain-disabled fans in disguise.

Political cartoon from People’s Daily, 2021/08/02, 2 days after Kris Wu’s arrest (English translations by me). The slogan at the bottom says “The Deformed “Fan Circle Culture” has turned cold”. “Turning cold” (涼了) means to lose popularity. (Source) 

Last but not least, in August 2021, the online platforms that host the content of state propaganda, of fandom talk, of c-idols’ works are also in quicksand themselves. Without getting into too much details, since earlier this year, the Chinese government has been targeting the tech giants, once considered untouchable with their significant contributions to the economy. Most international fans of c-ent are likely familiar with Tencent. Alibaba is also a major player in c-ent: it’s the owner of Youku, for example; it is also a major investor of Sina (the company in control of Weibo) and also—a piece of trivia for turtles—of Yuehua (Dd’s management company). These tech companies have been charged with antitrust violations, been the target of cybersecurity probes, accused by the state media of hurting China’s youth with “spiritual opium” in the form of video games etc, and their stock prices have been tumbling as a result. 

The tech giants, and the online platforms under their ownership, have therefore been extra vigilant, extra compliant to messages from the state, in attempts to gain the government’s favour. Just a few days ago (2021/08/21), Tencent vowed to donate 7.7 billion USD to the government, heeding Xi’s call for “common prosperity” (re-distribution of wealth), adding to the 7.7 billion USD it already donated in April for the government’s “sustainable social values” program. While both donations are officially philanthropic, most political and market watchers interpret the donations as Tencent trying to achieve a less-than-philanthropic goal—to get the state regulators off its back.

Following this line of logic then, these tech giants, and their online platforms, have got to be extra quick on their feet in August 2021 to sever ties with anyone perceived to have drawn the displeasure of the government. If that anyone is a c-ent idol, the loss for removing their works and fandom content is nothing compared to the price these companies may pay if the eyes of the state regulators train upon them: the latest fine Alibaba paid for breaking the anti-monopoly law, in April, amounted to 2.8 billion USD.  

All these factors considered, there are better days … far better days than the ones in August 2021, for a c-ent idol to have his Yasukuni Shrine visit become an item on Weibo’s hot search.

===

The Zhang Zhehan Incident Meta Series:

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3  <- YOU ARE HERE PART 4 PART 5