talesfromasnarkylisa

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 50

James: October 26, 2023

I got my results back for an English assignment - a measly 89 percent in all categories. This was my lowest grade ever. I started to worry about the prospects of me being able to actually stay in Yale. Grades in the 80s were practically foreign to me, after all. Sure, it was just one assignment. But my grades had been trending downwards for a while already, and this didn’t exactly help matters.

I finally decided to go to the university guidance counselor - Mrs. Anderson. I had only seen her once before, back when I was a second year and the COVID restrictions had just loosened up enough for Yale’s buildings to reopen. There was a timetable mix-up that mistakenly listed psychology as one of my minors despite me not having ever been enrolled in it. Mrs. Anderson, thankfully, managed to help clear it up. 

I had thought about opening up to her about what went on between me and my parents. But while she seemed nice, she also had several other students to deal with. Besides, I figured that I wasn’t exactly in need of therapy anyways. And even if I was - would some university document handler really be the best person for the job?

As I tried to find my way to Mrs. Anderson’s room, I realized that I had accidentally dropped one of my test results that I had planned to bring to her. Thus, I proceeded to turn back and recollect my lost papers. In doing so, though, I stumbled on a secret society meeting that I definitely wasn’t supposed to see - whether it was Skull and Bones or Scroll and Key.

“Derek?” one of the members wondered.

“Sorry for the confusion,” I responded, “but I don’t know a Derek. Is this some sort of secret society meeting?”

The member rolled his eyes for a moment.

“Yes,” he sternly answered. “Would you please get out of here?”

“Alright,” I said. “But before I do - have any of you seen a lost set of test papers lying around, perhaps with the name James H. written as well?”

Everyone in the room looked around for a bit.

“No,” another one of the members spoke up. “Now get out.”

I left and shut the door. Fortunately, my papers had dropped outside not far from the meeting room, so I was still able to bring them to Mrs. Anderson.

“Hello, Mrs. Anderson,” I greeted her upon arrival. “Sorry for being a little late. I stumbled into a secret society meeting by mistake on the way.”

She turned around.

“Don’t worry about it,” she reassured me. “You contacted me about your transcript, correct?”

“Yes,” I told her. “I’ve been getting kind of worried about my GPA recently.”

“It’s understandable,” she warmly responded, “for a student like you on a tough scholarship to be concerned about that. Could I see your marks, if you have any access to them right now?”

I handed some of my assignment papers to Mrs. Anderson and showed her some grades for documents I made as well.

“Well, you still have time,” Mrs. Anderson told me, “to bring your marks up. Has there been anything bothering you lately?”

Of course, I thought to myself. My friendship with Darian has gotten colder ever since he saw me kiss Inez in front of him. Corianna seemed too wrapped up in her own worries about running her publication to really talk to me at this point, not to mention Eleanor managing to somehow gain followers after coming back. And Lacey was still running amok, her online writing prospects not fully damned yet despite the progress I had made with the Maryam and Nora stuff. 

Obviously, these weren’t things I was going to confess to a random university guidance counselor who I needed to have a cordial relationship with in case anything went seriously wrong academics-wise on the technical side. So I just told her my average workload felt more than usual.

“Maybe talk to your professors if you haven’t already,” Mrs. Anderson stated. “They might be able to help you a little bit.”

“I’ve tried,” I responded. “It hasn’t really done much. I’ve also gone to a few deans, but they say it’s normal.”

Mrs. Anderson sighed in sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, “but there’s not much I can do about it. My best advice would be for you to maybe try identifying potential distractions in your life and removing them if possible. But otherwise, just try your best to pull up your marks, graduate and get your bachelor’s so you don’t have to come back. You only have a year left, unless you want to pursue a master’s or doctorate.”

“Alright then,” I told her. “Thanks.”

I didn’t feel much better walking out of the office - not that it was really Mrs. Anderson’s fault. The fact of the matter was that all of my online endeavors and the stress of maintaining my relationships were weighing on me enough to keep me from completing my university work to my usual high standards. 

Stepping back entirely from my Internet activities wasn’t exactly an option, as I still had a publication to edit for and a presence to keep up in case the surge of hate comments against me started back up again. They still popped up from time to time, after all. 

But I did need to take somewhat of a break to ensure I actually had a chance to graduate from the Ivy League tough shit that was Yale. Since video editing was probably the most tedious activity that I could easily unplug from without affecting my reputation too much now that I had Maryam’s video to ride on, I decided to announce a brief hiatus for my YouTube video creation. 

In the meantime, I finally opened up my DMs with Nora Sixty more. We had been texting for a bit, but it was mostly just about publication stuff at Music Refined. Our relationship probably wasn’t going to get much closer than that. But I had to try something - anything - to get more info on Nora to use against her before I could confidently reveal what Lacey “thought” of her relationship with Maryam.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1567878203-lacey-chapter-50)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 49

Lacy’s Diaries: October 22, 2023

University can be a strange thing. Beyond the standard assignments piling up and the dull lectures where you’re surrounded by at least a hundred other people, there’s also what happens when your friends don’t choose the exact same classes or have the exact same time slots as you. And that’s not even getting into the friends that choose to go off to a different country entirely.

In my case, I feel like the days of me, Otto, and Dina being the perfect trio are over. 

Dina doesn’t seem to really want to hang around with me nowadays, with every accomplishment of mine I mention to her being replied to with an “okay” or “yep.” It’s not even that she’s prioritizing her boyfriend either. She only goes out with him every once in a while, according to her, and I never see her with him. While she hasn’t said the quiet part out loud regarding our friendship…the subtext is pretty clear to me. 

I feel like I'm faring a bit better with Otto, but that’s not saying much. He hasn’t responded to any of my texts for almost two weeks at this point, only sending me a Yale selfie a few days ago. I was hoping he’d at least be a little excited to share some of his art with me, but I guess he hadn’t really thought of it. At least he seems happy at Yale, though, going off that relaxed smile in his photo.

After studying a little bit and doing some apartment cleaning, I decided this afternoon to log into my social media accounts out of boredom. I honestly hadn’t made any close friends at university, so I figured I could at least try and strengthen my online ones if Music Refined wasn’t busy dumping drafts on me. Carol and Betty have been acting...somewhat off around me, to say the least, lately.

Luckily for me, I only had a couple of old pieces left to finish skimming. I proceeded to text Nora since she was my only main mutual that was online.

Lacey Hannah (10/22/23, 5:00 PM): Hello!

Nora Sixty (10/22/23, 5:01 PM): Hey there.

Lacey Hannah (10/22/23, 5:02 PM): How’s life been?

Nora Sixty (10/22/23, 5:03 PM): Honestly? I feel like absolute garbage right now.

Lacey Hannah (10/22/23, 5:04 PM): I’m sure you aren’t.

Nora didn’t respond for a while, so I started working on another article again. I made sure to leave my notifications on this time in case she responded - which she did.

Nora Sixty (10/22/23, 5:15 PM): Can we get into a call?

I had enough free time to myself, so I answered yes.

“What’s up?” I greeted, with an air of worry.

“You know Maryam, right?” Nora stated.

“Not personally,” I responded, “but I’ve definitely heard of her through you, some other mutuals, and her profile showing up on my feed.”

Nora unmuted herself.

“Ok,” she said. “Cause the truth is: we’ve been dating for a while based on a fucking lie.”

Oh no, I thought to myself, is this going to be a confession of being affiliated with Eleanor like the rumours going around are saying?

“Where do you think I’m from?” Nora asked.

“America…” I muttered. “Why?”

“Because that’s only where I live right now,” Nora retorted. “I’m part Israeli. Born and raised for 8 years there.”

Wait? I wondered. That’s all? Like, don’t get me wrong, Israel’s done some pretty horrific things against Palestine and basically everyone in the circles of Nora and I are pro-Palestine, but just having Israeli blood in you isn’t a bad thing, right?

“My mom was born to a teen mom and dad there. They never wanted kids, but their parents wouldn’t let them abort either. Adoption was too much paperwork for them to process. So once my mom was old enough to form proper memories, they made sure to let her know that she would receive no love whatsoever from them. Instead of letting her go to a regular school or heaven forbid, homeschooling her, her mother hired a private tutor whose main job was to beat her up if she made even the smallest of mistakes on her work. Once those sessions were done for the day, she’d have to make sure not to tip her alcoholic dad off lest she get beaten or screamed at more.”

Nora cleared her throat.

“Her parents only gave her one opportunity to really socialize with people: a girls’ soccer team. They were confident that the competitiveness would keep her from making any true friends there, let alone find someone to date since it was all girls. For the most part, they were right. My mom’s teammates spent much of their free time either ignoring or playing cruel pranks on her for being quote-unquote weird. She only made one friend there, and they drifted apart. One of the girls even slammed a soccer ball into her face so badly, she was left with a concussion for weeks and she needed some serious dental care.”

“Jesus…” I tried to console Nora. “Are you sure you’re comfortable sharing all of this, though?”

“Yes,” Nora hastily stated. “Anyways, my mom still found a guy: one of the rival team’s girls’ older brothers. Despite being on opposite sides, she still fell in love with him all the same. They got married, and my mom gave birth to me. I never saw my father that often - even back in Israel. According to my mom, that’s a damn good thing. Because it turned out that in between yelling at her and sneaking out…he was cheating on her all along with some up-and-coming model. Once my mother discovered that, he decided to throw objects at her on the daily during fights. Books, piggy banks, an old laptop, you name it. In the meantime, I was homeschooled by a very incompetent tutor - which barely anyone does in Israel anyways.”

Nora took a pause before unmuting herself again.

“One day,” Nora sighed, slipping into a slight accent, “my dad threw a knife at my mom which she barely dodged. And that’s when my mom decided to leave with me to America. We changed our names, our identities, and most importantly of all - no one was to know of our Jewish or Middle Eastern descent - let alone Israeli. Not friends, not teachers, not even my girlfriend. If the tan makes someone curious, we tell them we’re from Cyprus. Even though…”

“Did you wanna say something?” I asked.

“I can’t,” Nora responded. “It’s a secret.”

I adjusted my microphone, which felt somewhat dusty.

“Alright then,” I said. “Whatever you say to me, it stays between us unless you don’t want to or someone’s about to get hurt. Ok?”

“Thanks,” Nora answered in relief. 

She hung up shortly afterwards.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1566488972-lacey-chapter-49)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 48

James: October 1X, 2023

The interview video with me Maryam had released on her channel was a hit. She was raking in the views, the funny comments, and the likes at the same time. Despite this, she was still rather anxious about her financial situation - as YouTube refused to pay her properly no matter how much she censored out. Nonetheless, she was happy about whatever she did manage to earn.

My channel was also (somewhat) reaping the rewards. While the hate comments didn’t stop coming, I did manage to gain the most subscribers I had gained in months. 

Guess staying at Music Refined was worth it after all, I thought to myself.

I offered Maryam free Discord Nitro and an opportunity to watch 8 Mile by Eminem with me. She declined the movie, saying she had other things to sort out, but appreciated the Nitro offer. 

As a result, I decided to go out with Inez to treat myself. She had been asking me to go out for a few days with her. But I kept declining because I was busy trying to study, clear out my backlog for Music Refined, and complain to others about Lacey being overly defensive when I brought up the topic of Nora and Maryam dating. Thanks to me making sure not to mention either Nora or Maryam when I talked about my DMs with Lacey, I managed to slightly unnerve both Darian and Corianna - as well as perhaps Vivian. I wasn’t sure what happened after that between the girls and Lacey, but it was enough to keep Darian and Corianna from not trusting me after the whole Eleanor call debacle from a few days ago. With that (mostly) all out of the way, I was free to go out with Inez as I pleased.

This time, Inez and I took a walk in a public park. She had been to it once as a teenager, but I was more familiar with it than her.

“How’s life been?” Inez asked, upon greeting me.

“Doing fine,” I answered, “I guess.”

Inez adjusted her luscious black hair.

“Oh,” Inez responded. “Well, maybe I can help turn that “I guess” into a “hell yes!””

“Heh,” I chuckled. “Where do you wanna go?”

Inez smirked. 

“Wherever you want,” she coyly replied. “Although…those bushes look pretty nice.”

“Alright then,” I responded. “But I feel like a tour of the park would be a better start. The bushes are kinda boring, to be honest. People mostly just use them to hide their, um, intimate moments.”

“You have a pretty good point!” Inez agreed. “Besides, I haven’t really been here in a while. I’m sure a lot of things have changed.”

I proceeded to take Inez on a tour of the park - from the paved pathways to the grassy fields covered in leaves of warm colors like orange and gold. Surprisingly, there was also live entertainment as well. 

Once Inez and I got tired, we decided to sit down and watch a live singing contest. We left pretty quickly, though, as neither of us could stand the horrible vocal abilities of most of the performers and the only good singer’s voice also reminded me too much of Lacey for me to bear. Not that I told Inez about the second part, of course.

Afterwards, Inez and I went behind a set of nearby bushes as the former had wanted earlier.

“It’s so warm in here,” Inez stated.

“Really?” I wondered.

“Dude,” Inez snarked, “you are wearing nothing but a shirt and pants right now.”

I adjusted my collar.

“True,” I admitted. 

Inez cleared her throat.

“Anyways,” Inez started, “I don’t want to make things awkward between us. But can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure,” I answered. 

“Since Darian and I have been separated for a while now,” Inez said, “I’m thinking of maybe putting myself out there for dating again. But first, I want to make sure I still have the props for it. I don’t want to sound weird and all, but…can we kiss? For practice?”

Kiss? I blushed. I did feel strangely euphoric at times when I hung out with Inez or got texts from her. But I didn’t think she’d even entertain the thought of intimacy with me, especially since she had still dated Darian fairly recently. Regardless of what she wanted, though, the thought of kissing her seemed nice.

Inez and I locked hands before bringing our faces closer together. Just as we were about to lock lips, I heard a familiar voice.

“Hello?” said Darian.

“Uh, hey,” I responded.

I immediately pulled back from Inez. However, it was too late.

“I wanted to talk to you about the you-know-what stuff with our keyboards,” Darian stated. “But…y’all do what you want.”

“Ok then,” I told him.

After a few seconds, I realized Darian wanted to discuss something relating to our online endeavors. He couldn’t outright say it, with Inez there, but the vagueness of the subtext made it pretty obvious to me. 

For a moment, I was worried that something bad might have popped up - whether that was something Eleanor related, my reputation being floundered, perhaps even a Lacey matter, or some mix of the three. I ultimately tried to suppress my worries, though. I didn’t want to ruin my meetup with Inez, especially when there was no way I could really explain what was going on without giving away my online identity.

“Let’s try again,” said Inez. “Now that Darian’s gone.”

“Alright,” I answered.

We managed to kiss this time. 

Did we really just do that? I thought.

Once our bodies gently parted, I caught another look of Darian. He didn’t seem too happy.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1563470001-lacey-chapter-48)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 47

Lacy’s Diaries: October 16, 2023

Five days ago, I suspected that Carol was worried about Eleanor weaseling her way into yet another publication like Folkin’ in spite of being rightfully disgraced from the Internet for behaviours such as romance scamming underage participants like D. Noir. Carol had discussed the possibility before with Betty in our group chat about such a thing potentially happening. But I couldn’t be absolutely sure of what she was referencing in her official Folkin’ automated message from October 11th when she didn’t name an exact user or person until today.

While I was busy trying to edit a video for my YouTube channel, Carol and Betty were talking about some battle shonen anime that both of them decided to watch after reading through some pretty disturbing articles on the Gaza situation. As it turned out, the show was pretty terrible - albeit in a morbidly fun way. I ignored much of the conversation until I finished downloading the file for my video. Once I did, they had already changed topics to something more serious.

Lovergirl (10/16/23, 7:59 PM): I found some auto-hidden comments under my latest TikTok posts that you might wanna have a look at. @/Artsy Carolina

Artsy Carolina (10/16/23, 8:00 PM): If it’s not just random no-name trolls calling you ugly, send them.

Lovergirl (10/16/23, 8:02 PM): Alright, here: https://drive.google.com/iqiqiakakaiaioawowowoowoqiakaiai

I decided to check the folder. As it turned out, the screenshotted comments only had more Google Drive links in them - which meant that I had to manually type in the URLs into my computer’s web browser. Fun. 

It was definitely worth the effort, though. Because the linked Google Drive folders in the screenshotted comments led to some pretty damning evidence of Eleanor making new accounts on both Vocal Media and Newsbreak. In the DMs where she confessed to also actively sneaking into Folkin’, she also offered small bribes to whoever gave her likes and plausible-looking comments. The main thing linking her and her old profile was a photo of an activity dashboard only Eleanor could possibly have access to showing up in the user’s messages.

Carol was rather dismayed by the news. I tried to comfort her - though whether or not it worked was definitely another story.

Artsy Carolina (10/16/23, 8:03 PM): That fucking bitch. I suspected it was her trying to sneak into getting an article published at Folkin’, but I didn’t think she’d go this far. Jesus…

Lacey Hannah (10/16/23, 8:04 PM): Yeah, that sounds pretty awful. Maybe try to expose these messages?

Artsy Carolina (10/16/23, 8:05 PM): And risk getting some of my editors hurt? Lacey, half these people in the DMs are also part of my publication’s team as well. Another third have so much potential blackmail material on them that revealing their involvement would just get the attention of all the wrong people. 

She has a point, I thought.

Once Betty was done calming Carol down, I decided to get into a Discord call with the former.

“Hey Lacey!” Betty whispered. Background static obscured her voice slightly.

“Hello,” I responded. “Your mic’s a little…”

“Staticky?” she finished. “Yeah, I know. It sorta broke yesterday. I’m gonna get it replaced soon, but I can’t be too loud in here or my aunt three floors down might hear me.”

I unmuted myself.

“Ah,” I understood. “You haven’t told your family?”

“God no,” Betty snarked. “They’d kill me if they knew just how much of a slut I look online.”

I sighed.

“I’m sure you aren’t, babe,” I tried to reassure her. “Unless you wanna jokingly call yourself that, of course.”

Otto pinged my phone with a text showing him taking a selfie at one of the Yale campuses.

“I know,” Betty stated. “Anyways, wanna talk to Nora?”

“Sure!” I exclaimed. “Nora Sixty?”

“Yes,” Betty said.

Nora then joined the call.

“Hello y’all!” she greeted with a faux Southern tinge.

“Hi,” I greeted back. “How’s life been?”

“Okay for the most part,” Nora answered, “I guess.”

I adjusted my microphone.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you in DMs,” Nora responded. “For now, I just want to have fun with you two.”

“Alright then,” Betty stated. 

After discussing some of the worst paranormal romance book recommendations Betty found on TikTok and ranking a few of Avril Lavigne’s live performances (if admittedly a bit reluctantly on Nora’s part), I decided to hang up and go back to finishing some leftover assignments from university. Nora seemed to leave the call not long after that as well, sending me a vent soon afterwards.

Nora Sixty (10/16/23, 8:30 PM): Honestly it’s starting to get annoying that some randos online are claiming I’m either one of Eleanor’s new associates helping her sneak back or Eleanor herself. Like, I get that my article on one of D. Noir’s old documents was pretty bad. But at the same time, they really have nothing beyond that to back their claims up. I’m way younger than her, my voice and accent are different from hers, and most importantly of all? I already recanted that article’s views, which Elea-fucking-nor would probably never do if she wanted to come back to the Internet publicly in case she got caught. Do you have any advice?

As frustrating as Nora’s situation was, I couldn’t really think of any tips to give her. I didn’t feel like I was in the limelight enough to advise her properly. So I wished her well and encouraged her to talk to someone higher up.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1561467588-lacey-chapter-47)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 46 

James: October 15, 2023

I woke up tired as all hell the morning of the 15th. It was pretty strange, as I had a fairly decent sleep the night before and I hadn’t done anything particularly vigorous - at least, physically. But usually, my mental woes were more likely to keep me up than to help me rest my body at night. 

Anyways, both Corianna and Darian acted somewhat more distant around me for the past couple of days beforehand. While neither of them verbalized it out loud, I had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with that call I had with them regarding Eleanor. 

Beyond me not bothering to tell Darian that Cori wanted to talk to him about it and zoning out during his call with me, there was also the fact that I couldn’t properly answer their questions because I was in the middle of trying to subtly goad Lacey into saying something out of pocket after I looked at the fanart of a character from The Goldbergs carrying a “Free Palestine” sign that a mutual of hers asked her to share to get some feedback on the anatomy and angles. Lacey ended up changing the topic pretty quickly once I gave a couple of comments on the rather well-drawn teenager, though, so I couldn’t really get anything from there.

That being said, my hope wasn’t completely lost. 

I managed to find out from the call I had with Corianna and Darian about Eleanor that she had potentially gotten a few people, some underage, to help her scout some potential new victims to scam out of their hard-earned money. One of the screenshots Corianna sent in our group chat showed a Discord profile of a user claiming to be Eleanor asking for advice on a comeback video which had a link to Nora Sixty’s Medium blog. 

Later on, Maryam told me that she and Nora were dating and that they were going to announce it within the next few days. I didn’t want to ruin her fun, so I congratulated her. But I did warn her to watch out in case something happened.

Once Maryam and Nora went live with a post showcasing their main online personas kissing, I decided that it was safe to tell Lacey that the two were dating. Lacey seemed much closer with Nora than either me or anyone I knew, so I asked Lacey to keep an eye on Nora saying anything out of pocket - especially if it sounded too comfy with defending Eleanor like before. Lacey texted me rather confused, wondering why she’d have to watch out for Nora in particular just because she happened to be dating Maryam when A: there was proof that Eleanor wasn’t her, B: there was no evidence she was even connected to Eleanor beyond a disowned article and C: teenagers around the same age dating was really none of her business. The trick is that I never directly stated that Lacey should have watched out for Nora just because she happened to be dating Maryam - even though I did voice some mild discontent towards their relationship earlier. I gave plenty of other reasons as well. As is, Lacey just ended up looking rather disoriented at best and woefully ignorant at worst.

Once I finished my ham and eggs for breakfast, I took a few screenshots of our DMs at the end of both my conversation with Lacey about the Goldbergs fanart and the more recent Nora Sixty discussion. I wasn’t planning on keeping our DMs open forever, after all, once I’d successfully be able to find an opportunity to implode Lacey’s online presence in the world of writing. That would just give her some more potential ammunition if she ever had a chance to find any. However, I needed some messages to use against her in case Nora either went haywire or the topic of the Free Palestine fanart ever came up again in public.

I then logged into my social media accounts to see if anything important or notable about my Internet persona came up. Asides from the usual hate comments - albeit mostly easy ones to hide on my YouTube channel this time around - there was really nothing noteworthy. As such, I decided to work on editing some drafts from Music Refined. 

While I edited the surprisingly poorly written pieces that came into the upper ranks of the music publication on Medium, I got increasingly more frustrated with the lack of quality control from the beta readers that led to this. After seeing a particularly egregious article having typos in every second paragraph and promoting cryptocurrency, I called it quits until the afternoon. Whatever it was, I could only hope that Lacey wasn’t behind any of this - even as I desperately wanted to find material to use against the shallow woman.

I checked the group chat between Darian, Corianna, and I. Corianna was venting to Darian about the number of drafts that kept coming into her publication. Darian suggested she take a break like she sort of did back in the summer, but she retorted that her previous one was only partial and she didn’t want her publication falling into the wrong hands again. After some back and forth, Corianna agreed to maybe hand the publication over to one of her top editors while she focused on university.

I was seriously thinking of taking a break from Music Refined as well. While the actual articles that got published there were still pretty upstanding, I felt rather unmotivated to go through all the chicken scratch to get there despite the respect it earned me. Sure, I still was getting hate comments, but it got easier to deal with those when most of them were generic and on a platform where I could easily block them from reaching the public. Besides, I had the seeds of a pretty decent plan against Lacey planted anyways, with her accusing me of trying to control her friendship with Nora Sixty due to her relationship with Maryam despite me not condemning it much.

After finishing up the editing for one of my videos, I drafted an email to Micah and Theodore about my potential departure from Music Refined. To double check that it looked good, I decided to send it to my group chat with Darian and Corianna and asked them if it was okay to send before noon while they were in the middle of a call. Neither was pleased, to say the least.

Artsy Carolina (10/15/23, 9:02 AM): Do you not see we’re in the middle of a call right now?

D. Noir (10/15/23, 9:03 PM): Sorry buddy, but I’m seconding Corianna here. I’ll have to check later.

Archer J (10/15/23, 9:04 PM): Ok then. Apologies.

I then sent the email draft to Maryam and Oscar, since they were both online and didn’t seem to have any fractures in their relationships with me yet. I would have messaged Vivian, but she had set her status to “Do Not Disturb” due to being busy with editing drafts for Writer’s Delight. Oscar responded to me first.

oscar winters (10/15/23, 9:08 AM): It looks nice and all, but…are you sure you really wanna quit?

Archer J (10/15/23, 9:10 AM): Well, I’ve been feeling pretty demotivated to edit stuff recently. And there doesn’t seem to be much hope in sight with Micah repeatedly denying on multiple Twitter posts that anyone’s being coerced into overworking at the publication.

oscar winters (10/15/23, 9:11 AM): I see. Do whatever you want idk

Maryam then messaged me to encourage me to stay at the publication. All publications had rough patches, after all, and Music Refined was typically known for its good quality. Despite her not really being that involved in Medium-related spaces, I somehow managed to feel more encouraged to stay at Music Refined in spite of the increasing insanity there. Besides, it provided an opportunity to get into contact with Nora more easily should I be required to extract evidence from her.

Afterwards, Maryam offered to interview me for a video she was making. Seeing this as an opportunity to get closer to her, I agreed. Who knew if things would one day get out of control at Music Refined enough for them to cut me out?

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1558989027-lacey-chapter-46)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 45

Lacy’s Diaries: October 13, 2023

It’s Friday the 13th today. This would be considered a very unlucky day by the superstitious. To be perfectly clear, I am not particularly spiritual. I mean, I was raised Christian like most Armenians and Assyrians and those descended from those two ethnicities are, but I’m not counting on Jesus to save me anymore. However, I can somewhat understand why certain people still believe in Friday the 13th’s significance.

In French class today, my professor went on a rant about politics as usual instead of teaching us anything useful - let alone French. This time, it was about how she believes the prime minister has a secret cabal which kidnaps children and brainwashes them into hating family values. While I don’t exactly like my country’s federal leader as a person, it should hopefully be clear that he neither has the energy nor the desire to run a creepy cult in tandem with running a whole nation. Unfortunately, it seems like Dr. Monet cannot grasp that. 

After class, I went out with Dina for what felt like the first time in ages. To my surprise, Dina decided to take me out to an escape room. She normally doesn't like escape rooms because of how difficult she finds them in general. However, she said she was okay with the one close to Malton, so we went there.

Once Dina paid the fee for us to get in, the two of us got to work trying to find our way out of the gothic themed space that surrounded us. At least, I did.

Dina spent a lot of time smiling at her phone while her fingers clicked and clacked. I was fine with this at first. I couldn’t really judge, after all, being one to occasionally have to spend time secretly catching up on my online activities in between classes at university. Eventually, though, it started to get more irritating as the clues became harder to catch.

We were at about the halfway point timewise when I spoke up.

“Dina?” I called for my friend.

“Yeah?” she looked up from her phone.

“Would you be fine trying to help me solve this?” I showed her the crossword in my hand. “We are around thirty minutes in already, and we haven’t even gotten out of this section of our assigned room yet.”

Dina gazed at the electronic device in her hands again.

“Alright then,” she responded. “Just let me finish this one thing first.”

Five minutes passed, and she was still not done yet. As much as I hate to say it, I was finally at my breaking point with Dina’s actions throughout the hour.

“What is taking you so long?” I asked.

“Sorry,” Dina apologized, “I was texting my boyfriend.”

“Seriously?” I sighed.

Dina rubbed the edge of her smartphone case.

“Well,” Dina stated, “it’s not like you haven’t texted other people before while we were hanging out together recently.”

“That was different,” I defended myself. “We were just eating out together. Not trying to solve a set of difficult puzzles like we are now. Besides…I had some important stuff to do.”

“Like what?” Dina argued. “Some stupid online drama that could easily be solved if everyone involved touched grass?”

I nervously adjusted my hair. It had been a long time since I saw Dina this angry at me. So long, in fact, that I couldn’t remember if it was two years or three or even longer than that. I wasn’t exactly in a position to explain everything that was going on with my colleagues and Archer and Eleanor and the controversies that were slowly engulfing all of us there. Asides from much of it being possibly semi-private information, how could Dina understand it anyways? 

The best thing I’d be able to do was just apologize and move on with our day.

“Listen,” I said to Dina. “I’m sorry about prioritizing my online stuff the other day.”

Dina straightened herself.

“Thanks,” she responded. “It’s just that I was actually into eating that day for once, and…I wanted to enjoy my time with you.”

“Do you still want to solve this puzzle?” I asked.

“Hell yes!” Dina exclaimed. “I guess…”

Once I got back home and had dinner, I finished up both some assignments from university and going over a bunch of drafts for Music Refined. I was in the middle of DMing Betty and Carol when Archer texted me. Me being the absolute people pleaser I sometimes am, I texted him back.

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:00 PM): Hey Lacey. Remember the girl that submitted the “Viva La Vida” article to Music Refined around a week ago?

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:00 PM): Nora Sixty? 

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:01 PM): Yes.

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:02 PM): What about her?

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:03 PM): I found out who she’s dating.

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:04 PM): Uhhh…okay?

Why would this be of any interest to me? I wondered to myself.

I was responding to a message Carol sent showing some vile conspiracy drafts she found in her submission list for Folkin’ in the group chat between her, Betty, and I, when Archer messaged me again.

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:07 PM): My friend Maryam told me that she was dating her.

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:08 PM): Is this public information, though?

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:09 PM): It is now. Here’s Maryam’s community post confirming it: https://youtube.com/post/siwkqoijqiunaiina

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:10 PM): Good for them, I guess.

Archer J (10/13/23, 8:11 PM): Yeahhh…I’m not sure about that.

Lacey Hannah (10/13/23, 8:12 PM): Why?

Before I could find out, though, Discord crashed.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1556635025-lacey-chapter-45)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 44

James: October 12, 2023

Darian had recovered just in time for him to do a literature test. This also meant he was well enough to record his final takes for season 1 of the show he was working on - tapes of which he sent to Cori and I.

In the meantime, I was busy studying for a calculus quiz of my own. The work had gotten harder. While it meant I had to put additional effort in, I did enjoy having more of a challenge after a recent set of assignments were practically at high school level. The only downside of that was that it also gave me less time to keep my online reputation afloat. Needless to say, the effects were rather potent.

After I decided I had made enough proofs and completed enough questions for the day, I logged into my Medium account. To my surprise, I was getting several hundred notifications. 

At first, I was happy to see the little number on my notification bell. I briefly thought it signified my articles being lavished with the attention they deserved. Upon clicking on the button, though, I immediately realized I was only half correct. I was getting plenty of attention…in the form of hate comments, that is.

Surprisingly, none of them were from Maria this time - at least, as far as I knew. Because of this, I didn’t really bother to read through all of them. It was all just generic slop about things that were already resolved. As Inez said, it was best to not let it get to my head. Right?

That being said, I did hide all the hate responses en masse regardless of if I read them fully or not. All I had to do for each comment was skim to see if the tone was positive, neutral, or negative. If it was negative, down the gutter it went.

I was in the middle of editing a video for my channel when I got a DM request from Maryam. Finding her fairly trustworthy - or at least, not awful like Lacey or Augusta or worse yet, Eleanor - due to my interactions with her in her own server, I decided to accept the request she sent, which led to a brief conversation between us.

Maryam123 (10/12/23, 8:01 PM): Heya Archer.

Archer J (10/12/23, 8:02 PM): Hello.

Maryam123 (10/12/23, 8:04 PM): I got into your videos recently, and I’ve found that I actually prefer them over your articles. Don’t get me wrong, your articles are great. But there’s just a certain laid backness that comes out in your vids which doesn’t really show up in your articles.

Oh, really? I thought. She prefers the light and fun stuff? Well, at least she likes a good chunk of what I make.

She then wondered if I ever thought of writing anywhere else besides Medium and Vocal Media. I answered no, unless one counted Carol’s Folkin mirror site. While I was initially anxious this was some attempt to lure me into a writing mentorship scam, it quickly became obvious Maryam was just a new fan of mine that wanted to talk.

Marayam123 (10/12/23, 8:07 PM): Honestly, same. I can’t even really bring myself to start an account on Vocal. For a website with actual editors to control quality, there sure is a ton of poorly written slop there.

Archer J (10/12/23, 8:08 PM): Yeah, I see where you’re coming from. I do get paid well there, though.

Maryam123 (10/12/23, 8:09 PM): Good for you. I’m pretty desperate for money myself, but I normally just use those link monetizers to get some basic funds for my family. 

Archer J (10/12/23, 8:10 PM): You don’t…entirely rely on them, right? I’ve seen a lot of those quickly go bankrupt or forget to transfer earnings for months.

Maryam123 (10/12/23, 8:12 PM): I’d rather not. And my parents do have jobs. But none of us are in a good position to actually earn any cash right now.

Archer J (10/12/23, 8:14 PM): What happened?

Maryam123 (10/12/23, 8:15 PM): Long story. I might explain it one day, if we get completely desperate and have absolutely nowhere else to turn. Which I have a bad feeling is going to happen very soon.

Archer J (10/12/23, 8:16 PM): Damn.

I was in the middle of texting Lacey about some of the dumber drafts we’ve both seen from Music Refined thanks to people repeatedly submitting drafts that got passed over at first by Lacey and then accepted by another nondescript beta reader when my phone rang. I had been getting a recent set of spammers calling me, so I ignored the vibrations at first. However, I immediately called back once Darian sent me a DM revealing he was the one that tried to call me.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hey James,” he responded. “We need to talk about something.”

“What’s up?” I wondered.

Before he could tell me, I saw Corianna message me about getting into a call with her as well about something important. 

Artsy Carolina (10/12/23, 8:30 PM): James, there’s something I want to discuss with you and maybe Darian about Eleanor ASAP.

Darian and I are busy, sorry, I thought and answered.

I wasn’t able to fully understand what Darian was talking to me about on the phone in the meantime, so I had to ask again for clarification.

“You know how I had some car troubles last month?” Darian started. “Well, the guy that crashed into me is trying to get some charges levied against me now for damaging his car.”

“But…he crashed into you from behind your car,” I stated. “Wouldn’t it just be stupid for him to claim that?”

“I don’t know,” Darian worried.

He muttered something I couldn’t hear.

“What?” I asked again.

“I said I was driving pretty slowly that day,” Darian sighed. “Might give him some leverage to state I was being disruptive - as well as maybe for claiming you were enabling my driving. Have you not been paying attention?”

“Listen,” I told Darian, “Cori really wants to get into a call with me as well. And maybe you.”

Darian unmuted himself. 

“Jesus,” said Darian, “why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“I thought you needed to talk to me about something first!” I responded in frustration. 

I turned up the volume on my phone to make sure I could hear the rest of what Darian was saying.

“What is it about?” Darian demanded.

“Something to do with Eleanor,” I answered. “Not entirely sure what.”

“Then we need to end this call and talk with Corianna right now,” Darian stated. “The car shit can wait.”

Lacey had just sent me an image. It might have been important, but I had no time to look at it.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1554961477-lacey-chapter-44)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 43

Lacy’s Diaries: October 11, 2023

Not only is Dina drifting away more from me; I feel like Otto is too. He hasn’t responded to any of my texts recently or sent anything of his own. He definitely hasn’t bothered to try to call me, either. Granted, it’s not like I’ve found time to call him, either. But the point still stands that we aren’t as close as we were back in high school.

Anyways, I studied for an upcoming literature test. It was pretty boring, honestly. But hey, I gotta make sure I pass university if I want to get a degree. 

After that, I decided to log into my social media profiles. Music Refined had finally let up on me as a reward for me painstakingly getting a ton of drafts covered a few days ago, which was great since I heard from Archer that the draft backlogs were getting worse at the publication. While he isn’t the most reliable of sources, I did trust him on that one because Tate had been telling me about it as well. 

In the meantime, my YouTube song covers were getting more views than usual. By that, I mean a few extra two digit numbers. Still, it was nice to have a little more attention directed towards my work. 

Betty was online, so I talked with her a bit.

“Hey Betty,” I greeted her.

“Hello hun!” she chimed. “How’s it been?”

“Doing fine, babe,” I answered. “And you?”

Betty unmuted herself.

“Ignoring my mother getting on my ass lately to force me to go out to some preppy debutante ball even though I’m well past the age to be presented at one, I’m doing ok.”

“What’s a debutante ball?” I wondered.

“Rich people shit,” she snarked. “Trust me, you don’t ever want to be at one.”

I checked for messages from other people. Carol sent a few memes with a guy dancing in her shared group chat with Betty and I. In the meantime, Nora had finally accepted my friend request from a few days ago.

“Well,” Betty sighed, “I have to go now. I don’t wanna be late for that dumb party, as much as I hate it. My family would riot if I was.”

“Why do you care so much about what they want if they won’t accept you for who you are?” I asked Betty, referencing both her romantic preferences and her dislike of overly extravagant parties. “Don’t you have a lot of money on your own as an adult?”

Betty paused for a bit before coming up with an answer.

“They have blackmail material on me,” she solemnly stated. “High society people. When you’ve been raised in the sort of environment where almost everyone has so few practical troubles that they complain about the most trivial of things, you end up having to watch out for what’s going to be said about you. Otherwise, you might end up dead.”

“Damn,” I responded. “You will eventually get out, right?”

“I hope so,” Betty told me. “One day, I want to get away as far away as possible from there. I’ll change my name. My hair. Anything but who I am at heart.”

Not long after, Betty hung up.

I texted Nora for a bit afterwards.

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:31 PM): Hey there.

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:33 PM): Hello! I got your message the other day. Thanks for passing my article onto the Music Refined editors, by the way.

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:34 PM): No problem. Anyways, how did you come up with your username?

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:36 PM): Well…part of it is from my real name. The other, I just vibe with it.

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:37 PM): I see. 

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:39 PM): Do you like Lana Del Rey’s music?

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:41 PM): Some of it. I find many of her songs kinda sleepy, though. No offense.

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:42 PM): None taken lol

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:44 PM): So, what kind of writing do you like to do?

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:45 PM): Still trying to figure that out right now. I’ve tried covering online controversy before and self-help advice as well, but neither have been going particularly well compared to my pieces about music. 

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:46 PM): Where else do you write?

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:48 PM): Substack. Oh yeah, I just remembered I forgot to link my profile there on my Medium and Twitter accounts! XD

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:49 PM): I’ve heard about the platform before from people at publications I’m in. Do you like it?

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:51 PM): I don’t hate it, and I do like blogging there. But Medium’s easier to have engagement on, on top of having publications to make me look more fancy. At least, that’s what my girlfriend says.

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:54 PM): From what people I know have said, I think your girlfriend’s right. Still pretty hard to get popular here, though.

Nora Sixty (10/11/23, 8:55 PM): Is it ever easy?

Lacey Hannah (10/11/23, 8:57 PM): I wouldn’t know. But some of my friends might.

Nora went offline after that. 

Just before I started writing this, I submitted an article to Folkin’. It was a rather short piece when compared to my other submissions, so I wasn’t sure if Carol or the other editors were going to accept it - even though it was technically within the minimum word count of 600 words. The automated message didn’t help matters, either:

Artsy Carolina (Oct 11, 2023): Heya! This is just an automated message to let y’all know that it may take longer than usual for us to get to your articles. There’s been a situation recently with a certain…sex offender potentially trying to weasel her way back into the public eye, and I’ve been contacted by some people about her eyeing Folkin’ as well. Now, I know better than to jump to conclusions and falsely accuse someone of either being or having ties to her. As such, my editors and I will be spending more time to scrutinize profiles that submit to us on top of their main submissions. I apologize for any potential inconveniences. But sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do. Take care, everyone. Unless you’re Ms. Sex Offender, that is. -AC

Uh oh, I thought to myself.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1552657322-lacey-chapter-43)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 42

James: October 8th, 2023

Eleanor was back, somewhere. I had no idea where exactly she was beyond whatever Corianna showed me, but I knew she was scheming once again.

Despite this, though, Darian didn’t seem to be awfully worried for himself. According to him, Eleanor was likely scared of trying to hurt him again due to his effectiveness at exposing her last time she was known to be around - a stark contrast with his previous fears. 

Cori, on the other hand, was more fearful. She had just found out a few days back that her younger brother had been victimized by Eleanor, so it only made sense that she’d be left on edge. It was her family, after all, even though she stated that her little brother was making some baby steps in recovery.

My feelings on the matter were in the middle. I wasn’t worried sick like Cori was - although I did sympathize with her struggles. But I couldn’t help but fear for God knows what other boy could be hurt by Eleanor in the future if she continued to lurk around. 

Still, I couldn’t let it consume me forever. I decided to go out with Darian to the mall to take my mind off the Eleanor stuff.

I was driving my car to Darian’s place when I saw Inez walk by.

“Hi!” Inez seemed to mouth, waving to me.

I pulled my car over to the side of the road and rolled down my window.

“Hey Inez,” I greeted her back.

“Going somewhere today?” she asked me.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’m going to the mall with Darian.”

Inez puckered her cherry red lips.

“Oh..” Inez muttered. “Well, have fun I guess. I gotta do some studying for university anyways.”

“Alright,” I said. “Good luck.”

I continued driving to Darian’s dorm. Once I went up the SCSU elevator and rang the doorbell, a voice greeted me that wasn’t Darian’s.

“Who is this?” he asked.

The man had light brown hair in a wolf cut, pale pink skin, and eyes that looked somewhere in between hazel and amber.

“I’m a friend of someone who lives here,” I carefully responded, not wanting to give away too many personal details in case the guy had poor intentions.

He narrowed his eyes for a few seconds before smiling.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “you must be James, right?”

“Uh…yes,” I responded. “Why?”

“Darian’s told me all about you!” he stated. “I’m Adam, by the way. I used to be his roommate until I sold off my part of the dorm room to him. He always seemed to vibe better with the place than I did.”

I adjusted my shirt collar.

“What happened to Darian?” I wondered.

Adam sighed.

“He came down with something nasty,” he told me. “He refused to tell me what it was, but he did ask to be left alone for the day. On top of that, his phone and computer also died.”

So that’s why I didn’t get a text or call about this, I realized.

“Is he going to be better soon?” I asked Adam.

“I don’t know,” he stated. “Maybe check back in a day or two when his devices aren’t busted.”

“I will,” I responded. “I mean, he’s my best friend.”

Once I got back to my apartment, I logged into my social media accounts to check how my reputation was doing. While my sub count on YouTube was going down once again and a comment from Maria did show up in the “pending approval” section of a recent video I made, said comment wasn’t particularly noteworthy. Besides, my Tweets were still getting plenty of likes and replies. 

On the other hand, I still had a ton of drafts from Music Refined to edit. 

One of them was a thinkpiece about Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” from Nora Sixty. According to Tate, this piece was approved by none other than Lacey. Content wise, Lacey made a pretty good choice to send this draft over to me. It was already pretty well written, which meant that the few edits I had to make were mostly technical formatting related like adding an extra drop quote in. 

After finishing editing all the drafts I got from Music Refined, I texted Corianna and Darian.

D. Noir (10/08/23, 7:56 PM): Hello chat

Artsy Carolina (10/08/23, 7:57 PM): Hi!

Archer J (10/08/23, 7:59 PM): Got your electronics up and running again, D?

D. Noir (10/08/23, 8:01 PM): Just my phone right now.

Artsy Carolina (08/10/23, 8:02 PM): What happened?

D. Noir (10/08/23, 8:03 PM): First, I woke up with an agonizing wet cough. Then my phone battery died. Then, while I was trying to get a game of Guilty Gear done, my laptop crashed. Archer J (10/08/23, 8:05 PM): Damn, that sucks.

Artsy Carolina (10/08/23, 8:06 PM): Would a funny GIF a new mutual of mine sent me cheer you up?

D. Noir (10/08/23, 8:07 PM): Perhaps.

Corianna sent a GIF of a man dabbing and then doing the floss. It was a rather outdated reference, but it was still the kind of content Darian found funny sometimes.

D. Noir (10/08/23, 8:10 PM): Bruh. XD. Who did you get this from, if I may ask?

Artsy Carolina (10/08/23, 8:11 PM): Her name’s Maryam. Here’s her Medium account: https://medium.com/maryam123.

I decided to check Maryam’s Medium profile out. She mostly wrote about hip hop and RnB music on top of a few articles about social justice issues here and there. While her output wasn’t perfect by any means, I was pretty impressed by her writing given her age of only 17 years old.

After checking out her YouTube channel - which had more of a tech focus like mine - I started to want to collaborate with her on something. First, though, I’d have to build some sort of relationship. Right before I went to bed, I joined Maryam’s Discord server. 

Could this be the perfect opportunity to keep my follower base stable? I wondered.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1550365165-lacey-chapter-42)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 41

Lacy’s Diaries: October 7, 2023

Dina hasn’t been the same towards me recently. We still text each other from time to time, but it feels more and more like I’m texting a stranger now. Before, her messages would often be pretty long and exciting - even as we both got busier and my own texts became shorter. Now, Dina’s messages are short as well. 

It’s not just the brevity, either. Individual texts are supposed to be quick and sweet by design, which Dina would frequently excel at as well in the past. Now? It’s like we’re business colleagues instead of best friends. She doesn’t seem to really want to continue any conversations when either of us start them - though to be fair, I’ve struggled with that a lot too. Do we have anything in common at this point?

I don’t think it’s just her dieting or whatever beauty standards her cheerleading team have arbitrarily imposed on her. As much as I hate to say it, I’ve slowly become more invested in my activities as a writer and online content creator than my actual real offline social life. On top of studying….yeah, it’s quite a lot to deal with. 

At least Otto’s still fairly normal with me. Mostly.

I went to see Dr. Green today for a therapy appointment. I brought up the stuff going on with Dina and Otto recently as well as my studies, but didn’t really bother to talk much at all about whatever I’ve been involved in online, as usual. After all, he’s over twice my age and his only real online posts that I know of are to promote his clinic and then bring up his lack of social media posting. How would he understand that half of my life, anyway?

Nonetheless, I got the feeling that he sensed something was up with me. When he questioned me on what got in the way of me being able to find time to talk to my friends properly, I could only vaguely mention their lives in addition to my own studies. I couldn’t bring up the fact that I had to go over drafts for Music Refined or deal with the machinations of Archer while managing my own online PR as well and posting articles on top of videos of my own. He briefly mused that he knew a lot of clients that still managed to talk to their friends in spite of what I mentioned to him, but dropped the subject after that.

Anyways, I was in the middle of recording a song cover for my YouTube channel when I got a message from Tate.

Tate Sinclair (10/07/23, 7:39 PM): Lacey, I have some great news for you! :.)

I stopped the soundtrack I was singing to.

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:40 PM): What?

Tate then proceeded to tell me that I had more drafts to go over. Given that I was already several days late on a video that I promised to the few subscribers I have, I was more than a tad disappointed to find that out. That being said, I tried not to show it.

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:43 PM): Alright. I’ll get to it when I have time.

Tate Sinclair (10/07/23, 7:45 PM): Good luck, then, because the other editors are really busy right now.

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:46 PM): Is there a deadline?

Tate Sinclair (10/07/23, 7:48 PM): Ideally by midnight tonight.

Midnight? I thought as I was texting. What the actual hell?

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:49 PM): And if I can’t?

Tate Sinclair (10/07/23, 7:50 PM): Well, then, I don’t know. I wouldn’t imagine it being great. But hey, that’s up to Micah and maybe Theodore. Not me.

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:52 PM): Guess I better start working then.

Tate Sinclair (10/07/23, 7:53 PM): Yeah, that’s a good idea. If it makes you feel any better, I would do more of the new work if they allowed me to. But I already got assigned some 34 minute pieces before this influx happened, so I have to work on those instead.

Lacey Hannah (10/07/23, 7:54 PM): It doesn’t make me feel too much better, but I appreciate your kindness.

After I restarted my singing of “The Wizard And I,” I commenced going over all the drafts that Music Refined had provided to me. 

Time to suffer for a while, I sighed.

The drafts were varied in both content and quality. Some talked about radio pop singer celebrity gossip, whereas others were deep dives into throwback rock albums from the 70s and 80s. There was even a comprehensive review of Beethoven’s symphonies thrown in for good measure as well.

One piece, though, stood out to me in particular. It was an analysis of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” written by none other than Nora Sixty. Here’s a little excerpt of it:

Art And The Artist; Must “Viva La Vida” Symbolize The French Revolution?

If you’ve ever listened to more than just a few songs by the British band Coldplay, you’ve probably heard of the song “Viva La Vida.” Centering around a fallen king lamenting the fall of his royal family from the ruling class, it has grown to be one of Coldplay’s most beloved songs. 

With lyrics having bold and grandiose themes such as ethics and power dynamics, the song has often been subject to analysis by several people over the years. A common interpretation of “Viva La Vida” is that its lyrics revolve around the French Revolution. While supported by many journalistic sources close to the song’s production crew, must this be the only possible interpretation?

The article then did a surprisingly well written dive into just about every single line of the song - from the verses to the chorus. Nora ultimately concluded that despite the French Revolution interpretation being a common and perhaps intended one, it was not the only valid one due to the vagueness of the lyrics. She also provided some other examples of stories the lyrics match up with, such as Biblical tales and the crumblings of various ancient empires.

I never knew Eleanor that well. I wasn’t really around her circles before she finally got outed for creeping on D. Noir and mostly deleted herself from the Internet. However, from what few scraps I had of her content, it didn’t seem much at all like what Nora Sixty had just written here - despite the suspicions of someone in Carol’s circle.

Besides, Nora seemed legitimately confused when a few comments came critiquing her on her article about D. Noir’s first exposé document on Eleanor. She asked a ton of questions which made her seem more baffled than malicious.

I saw potential in Nora. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. So after I finished covering all the drafts I had for the night, I sent her a quick message asking if we could be Discord mutuals.

Too soon? Perhaps. But she seems like a pretty approachable person. I have faith in her to be good.

(Wattpad version: ​​https://www.wattpad.com/1548308523-lacey-chapter-41)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 40

TW: Allusions to sexual abuse.

.

.

James: October 3, 2023

I did another calculus quiz on Monday, on top of having one for my English course. Both were okay - though I had a feeling that I didn’t get any higher than a 95 percent for the latter one.

Anyways, Corianna seemed fairly convinced - like me - that there was no real way that Eleanor could possibly be Maria. Darian was more suspicious, but he was more open than before to the suggestion of Eleanor not being her. Of course, that begged the question as to who Maria was anyway, but her more recent comments made her seem like an overall harmless troll at this point who just knew an unusual amount of information by troll standards. Still, who of our former friends would pass on private details to a troll?

In other news, Tate warned me and just about everyone they and I knew that there was a recently deleted account which had a good chance of being Eleanor’s. The submission from said profile had a link in its citations list to a Google Drive folder full of Dust message screenshots between Eleanor and Darian from back when they were dating - many of which only they’d have access to. If anything, this mysteriously deleted account was probably the most likely candidate when it came to Eleanor suspects.

Regardless, said account was deleted, which meant that Darian, Corianna, and I had less to worry about when it came to Eleanor for the moment. This certainly lightened the mood when it came to the otherwise somewhat heated conversation I had with Darian after both of our classes.

“Wanna hear a sneak peek of my role in the show I’m voice acting for?” Darian handed me a pair of earbuds.

“Sure,” I responded.

I was hoping that it wasn’t singing, as I couldn’t stand the sound of that horrible noise coming from Darian’s vocals whenever he tried to sing. Unfortunately, it was.

“It’s great!” I forced myself to say.

Darian became suspicious, his eyelids slowly narrowing.

“You honestly think that?” Darian wondered.

“Well…” I started off, “Ok, I honestly think your tone could use some work. It’s fine with the autotune, but when that comes off even a little I lowkey start to wonder if it’s the same person singing.”

“Alright,” Darian answered. “I did try the warmups you got from Lacey that you suggested to me the other day, but they aren’t really helping.”

I suddenly remembered. Lacey! I had a girl I needed to ruin the online endeavors of - and I had just the perfect opportunity to do so. The probable Eleanor draft sent to Tate must have come from one of the beta readers. What if it was Lacey? Or what if it wasn’t, but I could convincingly make people think it was her anyway?

The plan was coming into place. All I had to do after my little meetup with Darian was to go home, ask Lacey to hand over whatever she passed on to any Music Refined editors to me, and check to see if there was anything that resembled the alleged Eleanor draft. If there was, I could tell all the top editors that Lacey was grossly negligent. If not, all I had to do was try to create a PDF or Medium draft link with the same basic URL of the supposed Eleanor one. My mind was buzzing with all these wonderful ideas, and I just knew how to put them into practice.

“You there?” Darian asked.

“Yeah,” I told him. “Don’t worry.”

“I don’t know about that,” Darian responded. “All this time, I’ve seen you act like you were pretty okay with my singing. Were you, really?”

I took a deep breath.

“Yes and no,” I carefully worded myself. “You’re my best friend, so your vocal abilities can never be bad to me. But I think you’re capable of so much more than what you've shown so far.”

“Thanks,” Darian hesitated. “I hope you’re telling the truth, though. Because I’d rather not be in a friendship based on lies.”

“You can trust me,” I fibbed.

Once I got back to my apartment, Corianna asked to get into a call with me to discuss something important. Since Lacey was offline, I agreed.

“What’s up?” I asked Corianna.

“It’s about someone from a publication I wrote for. Someone we both know.”

“Let me guess,” I said, “some nonsense happened at Folkin’?”

Corianna sighed.

“No,” Corianna answered, “although there has been a recent surge in complaints regarding one of the editors I recently accepted there.”

“Then what is it?” I worried.

“It’s Eleanor,” Corianna stated. “She went for my brother.”

Corianna nearly broke into tears.

“Jesus…” I muttered. “How did you find out?”

Cori then sent me a set of screenshots involving her younger brother and Eleanor’s new account. The linked Medium draft on Eleanor’s end was the primary thing linking the Discord profile with an owner that obviously knew the age of Cori’s brother to Eleanor. The messages Eleanor sent were disgustingly sensual, with explicit comments half-jokingly disparaging the young boy’s reproductive capabilities. Some of them even encouraged him to send lewd photos to her for deranged and lurid roleplays lest she leak his IP address - not that I saw the images, of course.

I was stunned. I wasn’t surprised that Eleanor would try to return to the Internet - especially after the draft that showed up in Tate’s inbox came up. But I couldn’t help but feel a flurry of emotions at the thought that she’d truly come back.

“I feel - like a failure,” Corianna stuttered.

“I’m sure you aren’t,” I reassured her.

“All this time,” Corianna lamented, “I thought that my little brother was just going through a phase when it came to the cartoon reviewer. Maybe he just thought it was funny to act like he was going gaga over an aromantic online celebrity over twice his age who could never really love him. And those pranks he claimed he did in the school bathroom…they all just seemed like the average kinds of shit that 13 year old boys pull to me. How could I have not noticed?”

I adjusted my headset.

“You did the best you could,” I told my friend. “Sometimes, we just don’t notice things are up until it’s too late.”

“I guess,” Corianna said.

I definitely wasn’t up for using Eleanor against Lacey now that she had just preyed on Corianna’s brother. It felt morally wrong at best and potentially capable of completely wrecking every single major online friendship I had at worst.

There had to be something else.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1546454086-lacey-chapter-40)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 39

Lacy’s Diaries: October 2, 2023

Vivian confronted me yesterday about me leaking her DMs with me to a bunch of people. She was surprisingly nice to me in spite of all the fallout that resulted from my vague allusions. That being said, she wasn’t going to completely let me off. I got two more strikes out of three to go before I get kicked out of Writer’s Delight.

Enough about my online activities for now, though. I received a set of nicely polished pens and pencils from Otto yesterday in the mail. He even gave me some 3D ones as well! We still haven’t talked for some time. But Dina says he’s doing okay, which is good.

I actually had rather little to do when it came to beta reading for Music Refined today. Thanks to that, I managed to spend some quality time with Dina today after class. We went out to Queens’ Park so Dina could walk the dog of one of her other university friends who’s sick today.

“How’s life been?” Dina asked me.

“I’m doing okay,” I responded. “You?”

“Oh,” Dina squealed, “the cheerleading squad is going great! We had our first group photo today.”

Dina then showed me the selfie she took right before she went in for the squad picture. She was wearing a form fitting white blouse with the U of T’s logo emblazoned in navy blue. I couldn’t make out anything below the logo on the blouse, but she was presumably wearing either a matching short skirt or hidden shorts underneath.

“You look gorgeous!” I told my best friend.

“Really?” she wondered. “I mean…I’m sure the other girls on the squad are prettier.”

“Come on, now,” I reassured Dina, “it doesn’t matter whether they are or not. What matters is that you, Dina, feel happy about how you look without hurting yourself. True beauty is on the inside.”

Dina sighed.

“Are you just saying this to be nice?” she asked me.

“Of course not,” I answered. “I promise.”

I spotted a snack vendor around the corner. It had just about everything from ice cream to hot dogs and fruit salads.

“Look!” I exclaimed. “There’s some cheap snacks over there.”

“Ehhh…” Dina hesitated, sounding fatigued. “They look tasty and all, but I’m trying to cut down on my food cravings. I just ate a mini-croissant 12 hours ago.”

“Your choice,” I pointed to the long lineup. “I’ll get a hot dog myself. Would you mind waiting around here?”

Dina tossed her hair.

“Sure,” she told me.

I speedwalked towards the poorly formed line for the vendor when Dina ran up to me.

“Hey, wait!” Dina pleaded. “I’m changing my mind! These fruit salads look way too enticing.”

I just smirked.

…

Once Dina got her assorted mix of fruits and I got my hot-dog, we settled down at an ivy green picnic table that blended with the ground. I decided to spend some time looking myself up online and logging into my Lacey Hannah accounts in case any online situations I was involved in were getting out of hand.

Upon logging into my Discord account, I discovered that Carol and Betty were talking about this mysterious Maria girl again.

Artsy Carolina (10/02/23, 7:23 PM): Archer just messaged me last night about the whole Maria situation. He says that Eleanor’s not her.

Lovergirl (10/02/23, 7:24 PM): Well, that’s good. Assuming he’s correct, of course.

Artsy Carolina (10/02/23, 7:26 PM): I get the feeling he is. Like he said, there’s stuff in those comments that Eleanor would have no way of knowing unless she somehow had access to the most private of messages.

Lovergirl (10/02/23, 7:28 PM): True. But I wouldn’t be surprised if she planted a spy. 

Artsy Carolina (10/02/23, 7:30 PM): God, I hope not!

I was going to join the conversation when Dina tapped my shoulder.

“Texting your online buddies again?” Dina suspected.

“Sorta,” I bluntly answered.

“Sure you are,” Dina snarked. “What happened to us enjoying food together?”

I turned off my phone for a moment.

“Listen,” I told Dina, “I’m busy right now.”

“Alright then,” Dina stated. “Do whatever you want.”

I wasn’t able to join Betty and Carol’s chat about Eleanor at that point because they had already changed the topic to talking about the Symphogear anime and making fun of Carol’s little brother’s latest pranks. But I did get a message from Tate - which I responded to.

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:34 PM): There’s something I need to tell you regarding Eleanor.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:35 PM): Which one? It’s a fairly common female name.

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:37 PM): The one that groomed D. Noir.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:38 PM): Ah, okay. I’ve heard of her.

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:40 PM): Listen, normally I don’t like to talk trash about fellow writers. I’m an editor for a fancy Medium publication, after all. But I do have my suspicions regarding one of them. I get the feeling that one of the drafts I just got is from her.

Oh no, I thought, did I accidentally pass on a draft for Music Refined to the editors?

Fearing the worst, I asked for clarification.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:43 PM): What account was the draft from?

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:46 PM): I don’t know. The account that drafted the piece was deleted by the time I got around to checking it over, and the beta reader who sent it over forgot to attach their username to it. The only clue when it comes to the person’s identity is that a link mistakenly used as a citation was linked to a folder with a bunch of photos of old Dust messages between Eleanor and D. Noir.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:47 PM): What’s Dust?

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:48 PM): An extremely encrypted messaging service which can even detect if messages are being directly screenshotted. Noir used the screenshot feature sparingly.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:49 PM): Can I see it?

Tate Sinclair (10/02/23, 7:51 PM): I’m afraid not. I’m not entirely sure if all of the information’s private or not, but some of it does identify D. Besides, I’d rather not lose my publication career over this.

Lacey Hannah (10/02/23, 7:52 PM): No worries. I understand.

Do I really understand, though, when there’s secrets lurking everywhere I go now? Offline, online, in the very publications I’m in? 

I don’t know, honestly.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1544446750-lacey-chapter-39)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 38

James: October 1, 2023

Well, well, well. Lacey got in trouble again - this time, with Writer’s Delight.

Vivian emailed me about Lacey’s DMs with her from about a week earlier at this point a day back. She wanted to know if Lacey told anyone about the aforementioned DMs; particularly, me. As a result, I decided to try to get Lacey to tell me who the vaguely referenced writer was from Writer's Delight all the while insinuating I already knew. Once I successfully extracted her confession that it was Vivian, I messaged the latter back.

Archer J (10/01/23, 7:59 PM): Hey Vivian. As it turns out, Lacey really did sort of leak your DMs with her to me in an odd, roundabout way.

I then sent her my screenshotted DMs with Lacey. She didn’t react well, to say the least.

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:06 PM): Seriously? After I explicitly told her to keep quiet?

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:07 PM): I guess so. 

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:09 PM): I have to be in some sort of fever dream right now, man.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:10 PM): Well, have you taken any drugs or drank any alcohol in the past few hours?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:12 PM): No.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:14 PM): Have you tried slapping yourself hard?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:15 PM): Yes, and I’m still here.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:17 PM): Then this is your unfortunate reality.

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:19 PM): Don’t worry, Archer, I’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time a writer from a publication I edit for has tried leaking private conversations I had with them. It could be worse; I mean, Lacey didn’t even leak that much compared to some people I’ve seen. I’m just..surprised that someone with a small following like her would try and pull this shit.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:20 PM): Are you going to talk to her?

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:22 PM): Ehhh, I don’t know. Assuming the screenshots Alfred sent me are accurate, I think he and Jonathan beat the point enough into Lacey to scare her off from really ever trying this with us again. Me humiliating her about it feels a bit like overkill at this point. But on the other hand, I gotta do what I gotta do. I’ll talk to her later.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:23 PM): That’s the Vivian I know!

Vivian Lawrence (10/01/23, 8:25 PM): I never went away, did I?

I spent a few moments basking in my little victory. After all, I was one step closer to potentially getting Lacey removed from Writer’s Delight, with Vivian hesitating to side with her. 

However, I couldn’t fully relax just yet. Maria was still lurking in the shadows somewhere with her cryptic comments - one of which I hadn’t fully opened yet. Asides from the one Oscar sent a few days earlier which ranted about some more private stuff from the old Code Javelin group chat (much to Oscar’s confusion), Maria sent another multi-part screed about my supposed inherent malice. 

Part one, which I had already read, was about how everything I had ever done during my online presence has been out of pure selfishness. It was honestly rather unusual for a Maria comment, as she was typically more composed and at least tried to sound somewhat sane. On the other hand, part two was more on par with her usual comments. With that, though, came more worrying information.

AveMaria69 (3 hours ago): Look who it is! Me again! Anyways, this is part two of the other comment I wrote earlier on your video about AI generated code. Of course, my comment there had nothing to do with said video - and neither will this one. Anyways, I know a lot more about what Cori and Sanjay were up to last year than you ever will. I’ve seen their passion, their chemistry, and most importantly of all: what they really thought of you during that time. At this point, it’s no secret that they hated you then. But what you don’t know is just how much time and effort they put into hating you. Did you know that Sanjay actually wanted to find out where you worked IRL and reveal your online nonsense to them? You probably didn’t - and neither did Cori. I’m not going to reveal to you what Cori had said about you last year which you don’t know just yet. But you better watch out.

All of this, from Sanjay’s attempted plan to Corianna’s real name, was actually stuff that I already knew but didn’t tell the public I knew. Things that no one other than my close friends, recent past and present, and I are supposed to know. Given Eleanor’s lack of ties to us for the past few years, it was highly unlikely she’d know any of this. It wasn’t discussed in either public documents regarding my drama or the Code Javelin group chat, after all.

I was about to tell Darian and Corianna the news about what I had just found. However, a sudden text from Lacey put those plans to a halt.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:48 PM): What did you just do?

Ugh, I thought, not this now.

I had to settle things first with Lacey before going to my actual friends with my new discoveries about Maria.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:50 PM): I gave some DMs of ours to Vivian. She was concerned about your messages with her being leaked when I realized you were talking to me about her all along.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:52 PM): For the record, I never told anyone about Vivian being the other party in that infamous conversation about the Writer’s Delight changes. No one was ever supposed to put two and two together.

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:54 PM): You sure did a bad job at anonymizing her identity, then.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:56 PM): How was I supposed to respond to your statement that you already knew it was Vivian that I talked to you about?

Archer J (10/01/23, 8:57 PM): You could have just…ignored my DM.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 8:58 PM): That definitely wouldn’t make me look suspicious! Of course!

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:00 PM): Alright, I get that you’re mad at me. But I promise you it’s nothing. I’m sure if you apologize to Vivian, she’ll let you stay in Writer’s Delight and make sure the others do too. I’ve been friends with her long enough to know that she gives a lot of second chances. 

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:01 PM): Oh yeah, she’s still in contact with me. We talked it out and she understands. I could just show her our conversation.

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:03 PM): I really wouldn’t do that if I were you. What do our DMs prove? That you gave a response to a message you could have technically ignored? Besides, I am an official editor in Music Refined.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:06 PM): You have a good point. I won’t reveal anything between the two of us in the foreseeable future, on one condition. Will you promise not to lie about or take me wildly out of context?

Archer J (10/01/23, 9:07 PM): On my life.

Lacey Hannah (10/01/23, 9:09 PM): Thank you.

That was a doozy, I thought.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1542716473-lacey-chapter-38)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 37

Lacy’s Diaries: September 30, 2023

Today is the last day of September - or as my old school would call it, Orange Shirt Day. Hardly anyone really wore anything orange, though, let alone orange shirts. I honestly always find it kind of surprising, given the end of September is literally just a month away from Halloween. It’s not like Pink Day, where much of the male population likely doesn’t own any fully pink clothes for obvious reasons. But hey - not everyone celebrates Halloween either.

The prime minister made it a federal holiday recently, which means that the delivery of Otto’s packages for Dina and I is set to be delayed by a day. None of us mind, as we all know we’re eventually getting them. But Dina’s pretty excited to receive hers - a box of cheerleading pom-poms for the squad she’s in. On the other hand…I’m not as enthusiastic. 

The last time I talked to Otto, he was wondering why I was absorbed in taking a call from my online mutuals while he was dealing with being the mediator between two Yale colleagues of his who were feuding with each other and trying to drag him into it. Otto and I talked things out, and he seemed to get the memo that I needed to make sure some online gossip I became the subject of didn’t spiral into a full on smear campaign. The feud also seems to have ended, with both of them now about to transfer to different universities. Still, I can’t help but feel a little guilty that I couldn’t be there when Otto needed help.

Anyways, I ended up getting into a Google Chat with Jonathan and Alfred about the emails I sent to them regarding the Writer’s Delight changes. They were unsurprisingly not too impressed with me. Needless to say, it was a pretty uncomfortable conversation.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:30 PM): What’s going on?

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:31 PM): I’m fairly sure you know exactly what’s going on.

No I don’t, I thought to myself, but ok.

Jonathan continued going on tangents as I exhaustedly tried to keep up.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:34 PM): You know, it’s funny. So many people have complained to us about our streamlining changes. Yet no one has been able to give a good reason as to why speeding up publishing is a bad idea. It’s what every publication writer dreams of, right? Being able to get their work out as soon as possible instead of having to be stuck on a neverending waitlist. I really don’t get it.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:36 PM): Maybe writers also care about the quality of where they’re writing as well. I mean, they wouldn’t want their output to be surrounded by creepy rants romanticizing unhealthy relationship dynamics and toxic positivity.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:38 PM): And why would they care? It’s not their work. Unless it is, in which case it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal most of the time.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:40 PM): Well, I can’t imagine everyone would be a-okay having their articles platform a publication where problematic content runs about.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:41 PM): …Are you saying we’re racist?

Of course not, I thought and told the two editors. Although, I felt privately, y’all are starting to sound real obnoxious.

I continued texting the two popular admins - in spite of how much it drained me. Alas, I had little choice but to have the patience of Maryam123’s self-doodle poker-facing while secretly stressed and thinking of more offline matters.

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:45 PM): Alright Lacey, let’s say for a moment that we have published problematic articles by others in the past. Can you give some examples?

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:48 PM): Oh, plenty. I could go into the forgiveness one which is just 1000 words of “forgive your abuser or die of loneliness!” (https://medium.com/jjiaikaka). Or the one about how women need to learn to cook, but men don’t (https://medium.com/qiaocnnfeuisisk). But honestly, I think this one about how cutting off friends in need if they’re queer and your religion is against it is okay really takes the cake: (https://medium.com/qjajsjsjsiowowowow). 

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:49 PM): We at Writer’s Delight are all busy with hundreds of submissions per day. I understand your frustration, but it’s not like we actually condone what we skim through. 

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:50 PM): I do get that. That’s why I think getting more editors is probably a better solution than whatever automated checkers you’re primarily planning on using. 

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:51 PM): You know I am the owner and chief editor at Writer’s Delight, right? I’d much rather not have to lose a writer, but I will do what I have to do if worse comes to worst.

Lacey Hannah (Sep 30, 7:52 PM): Am I being kicked out?

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:53 PM): Not for now. But you better be careful with pulling nonsense.

Alfred Francois (Sep 30, 7:54 PM): Jonathan, please don’t do anything rash. Our publication really doesn’t need more complaints rolling in because another writer thought poorly of our hard decisions.

Jonathan Redstone (Sep 30, 7:56 PM): We’re going to discuss this someplace else, Alfred.

To lighten up my mood a bit, I texted Betty and Carol. Carol spent some time discussing her mix of mild frustration and amusement at her little brother’s antics at school recently where his drawing of a ball was mistaken for a bomb. Betty showed us an abstract painting she was working on for her art class - which she otherwise increasingly started to find boring. I then vented some of my frustrations about my experiences with Jonathan and Alfred without revealing their names.

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:04 PM): Have y’all ever had bad experiences with editors at Medium publications where they’re really condescending and take you so out of context that whatever context was there is practically gone from their own twisted narrative of you?

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:05 PM): Lemme guess, this is about another Charlie situation?

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:06 PM): It doesn’t involve him, but it’s kinda like that.

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:08 PM): You’re going to meet a lot of people like him as you grow on Medium. Not great, but it could be worse. If you can’t handle that, be grateful that you’re not a publication admin like I am. God, are some of the people I’ve brought in over the years obnoxious. 

Lacey Hannah (09/30/23, 8:10 PM): True, I guess. 

Lovergirl (09/30/23, 8:12 PM): Carol, just because your job sucks sometimes doesn’t mean that Lacey can’t express her thoughts and feelings.

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:13 PM): I’m not saying she can’t. But she has to understand that trying to become a popular writer in large publications has drawbacks she can’t avoid. And the more power she has, the more responsibilities as well. She might as well choose another online community if she can’t tolerate the more unsavory people around here.

Lovergirl (09/30/23, 8:14 PM): Is that a Spider-Man reference?

Artsy Carolina (09/30/23, 8:15 PM): Sort of.

Does Carol really not think I’m suited for this? I wondered to myself. 

I was about to log out of my Discord account when I got a message from Archer.

Archer J (09/30/23, 8:20 PM): Did you say anything about Vivian?

Uh oh, I feared. He might have put two and two together somewhere.

I sent him a quick reply explaining that I didn’t reveal her name anywhere - just a vague account of events to some people that was never even supposed to spread as much as it did. He didn’t respond for a while, so I eventually logged out for real. Needless to say, I am not looking forward to what happens next when it comes to Writer’s Delight and me.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1540569093-lacey-chapter-37)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 36

James: September 29, 2023

96 percent. That’s what I got for my calculus quiz on Monday. I’ve done better before, with ninety eights, nines, and one hundreds. But hey, it could have been worse. At least it still qualifies for the scholarship I’d practically need to afford going to Yale. 

Anyways, I figured that my grade decrease was probably at least partially due to my increased focus on my online activities as Archer J. I decided to take a small break from screwing around with Lacey, as that did take out a good chunk of what would otherwise have been for studying. The hate comments targeted towards me were calming down slightly - albeit likely temporarily.

Still, I couldn’t entirely resist the urge to leave my phone logged in to my Archer accounts, just in case something came up that I had to address. While I was studying for my university classes, several notifications came up. One of them happened to be from Lacey.

Lacey Hannah (09/29/23, 8:00 PM): I need to ask you something.

Ugh, not now, I thought.

Nonetheless, I continued her conversation.

Archer J (09/29/23, 8:01 PM): Sure.

Lacey Hannah (09/29/23, 8:03 PM): Did you tell anyone about our DMs regarding those stupid publication changes the other day?

Archer J (09/29/23, 8:04 PM): Yeah. I mean, you did say it was fine for me to go to others with anonymized DMs between us regarding this. I just revealed my end of the conversation.

I realized that Lacey was side eyeing me hard after she became the subject of gossip regarding the Writer’s Delight shit. 

Perhaps she was referring to Writer’s Delight when she talked to me, I suspected.

Lacey kept typing for a while, so I decided to continue my studying again. I was just about to finish up writing an algebraic proof when she messaged me.

Lacey Hannah (09/29/23, 8:11 PM): What did you say?

I admitted to her that I did reveal both of our names. However, what I didn’t say was where I revealed tidbits of our conversations to or the extent of it. I did ask all of the group chats I talked to (and Oscar) to not leak the specific screenshots I sent them, after all, so hopefully Lacey wouldn’t find out. She’d be furious if she did.

Afterwards, Lacey seemed to let off on me. I wasn’t entirely sure whether she trusted my fractured account of events, but it was probably enough at that point to keep her from confronting me further. 

I then checked my DMs with Oscar. He apparently had some information on Maria, so we chatted a bit.

oscar winters (09/29/23, 8:16 PM): AveMaria69 commented some crazy shit about on my Medium profile.

Archer J (09/29/23, 8:17 PM): She’s on Medium now?

oscar winters (09/29/23, 8:18 PM): Yep.

Archer J (09/29/23, 8:20 PM): What did she say?

oscar winters (09/29/23, 8:21 PM): Well, I couldn’t get a full screenshot of that long ass essay she wrote before she deleted it. But I can send you some snippets of it later if I find it in my drive.

Archer J (09/29/23, 8:23 PM): Alright then. I’m pretty busy right now anyway so I’ll check it later.

I continued studying until 9:30 PM, then worked on a few Music Refined drafts. It didn’t take long after that for me to fall asleep.

…

Late Summer/Early Autumn 2021

Augusta and I are in a call with each other. We’re reacting to a trashy romance movie Augusta found on Freeflix. Augusta’s finding the plot completely nonsensical, whereas I loathe virtually every character save for an extra with one line. Eventually, neither of us can bear it enough to continue watching.

Augusta and I then spend some time discussing her attempts to program a face paint filter. She wants to venture out of simple makeup videos, as she finds them rather dull and only really does them for the attention it garners her at this point. When she asks for feedback, I tell her it’s great by my utterly fashion uninitiated standards. I suggest to her to maybe look for feedback from people who actually know how to use makeup, but she insists I’m the only person she can truly trust online after the Lovergirl situation.

I’m about to hang up when Augusta begs me to stay. I promised to help Darian study for his upcoming quiz at around the time I’m calling Augusta, so I tell her that I have some important errands to run. She tries to guilt me into continuing the call by going on a rant about how no one asides from an offline friend has truly given her the time of day until I came along and that I’d remind her of her father’s family if I just hung up now. I get left with no choice but to promise her to talk later after I’m done.

After helping Darian study and a brief conversation with Augusta, I text Betty for a bit. We had just learnt each other's real names, which neither of us have revealed to the public yet. I ultimately never will, although someone eventually does mockingly call me “James” when my convoluted love triangle with Betty and Augusta unveils itself about a year from now. But at this point, Betty and I are just friends. 

Unlike Augusta and I, Betty doesn’t seem particularly invested in the world of tech. But we have other common interests such as complex music compositions and old literature despite her obsession with cosmetics. Plus, we both play the piano pretty well. 

It’s our first call together when I start to fall for her. Despite her public approval of various pop singers, she’s not afraid to be brutal about the songs from them she doesn’t like when she talks with me. She tears into the instrumentation, the lyrics, even the vocal tones. I don’t necessarily agree with her takes, but I do appreciate her honesty. She seems to appreciate my…spirited debate with her too.

My feelings for Betty will never be fully reciprocated, though. At least, not romantically.

…

I woke up from the dream at about 5 am. After taking a brief moment to readjust to my present reality, I checked my Discord account to see if Oscar texted back with anything useful. He did.

oscar winters (09/29/23, 10:00 PM): Alright, here it is.

But before I could load it, my phone crashed.

Goddamnit, I sighed. 

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1538748629-lacey-chapter-36)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 35

Lacy’s Diaries: September 27, 2023

Wednesdays are just the worst, are they not? 

In university, that’s when my professors love to pile up work on me - especially my math and French professors. And instead of taking notes as I should in my other classes, I end up having to secretly record the lectures as well as ask the professors one question each so one party consent recording laws can still apply so I can use that time to do work I’d have no way of properly completing if I used class time to take a lot of notes.

In the meantime, someone in the Music Refined team has decided to make me into a punching bag when it comes to assigning drafts. They were quiet for a while, then they piled on some stuff, but I never had to do this much work until now. I eventually gave up for the day from burnout. After reading a few posts from someone named Maryam123 that showed up in my feed to meme a bit with photos of burned out office workers being pointed to, I decided to text my friends and mutuals.

Dina’s behaviour when it came to her eating patterns were getting increasingly concerning to me. While she didn’t eat as much as usual before, she hasn’t decided to actively skip meals until now no matter how tired it made her outside of that one required medical fast she had to do before a doping test prior to COVID. This isn’t some religious thing, either, where you’re supposed to binge at the end of the day. On top of that, she was still on the university cheerleading squad. I might not know much about cheerleading, but I think it’s safe to say that the fatigue she’d get more and more would not be great for that.

Otto seemed to be having the time of his life at Yale - well, mostly. His main complaint now was that he had a hard time keeping friends. According to him, the friends he found through his roommate were super nice and fun for a few days before they decided to suddenly ghost him. When I asked him if he knew whether there was a common factor which might have turned them off him, he had a hard time figuring one out.

I texted Tate a bit before I went to bed. We were discussing the recent situation between Writer’s Delight and me.

Tate Sinclair (09/27/23, 9:09 PM): Did you really just go to the Writer’s Delight admins about their automated editing streamlining?

Lacey Hannah (09/2723, 9:12 PM): Yeah, why?

Tate Sinclair (09/27/23, 9:14 PM): It’s been the talk of the damn town lately. 

Lacey Hannah (09/27/23, 9:15 PM): …It has?

Tate Sinclair (09/27/23, 9:17 PM): Just about every Medium related group chat I’m in has someone talking about either you or another person complaining about the publication. I probably shouldn’t comment on this too much, but I think you have some pretty strong guts.

Lacey Hannah (09/27/23, 9:19 PM): Thanks, I’m glad you think that. If you don’t mind me asking, who first told you about this?

Tate Sinclair (09/27/23, 9:21 PM): Again, can’t say. But anyways, good luck with the drafts at Music Refined. Those must be a doozy to go through.

Duh, I thought, why else would I be up this late?

Anyways, I had a call with Betty and Carol just prior to falling asleep.

“Hey Betty!” I greeted Betty.

“Helloooo, Lacey!” Betty greeted back.

“Wait,” Carol asked, “you know each other’s real names now?”

I adjusted my headphones.

“Well, Lacey knows my real name!” Betty exclaimed. “I’m not sure if I know hers.”

I smirked.

Maybe I’ll tell her someday, I thought to myself.

“I got an Arctic Monkeys vinyl today,” Carol stated.

“Good for you,” I responded. “I’ve only ever heard one song from them.”

“Which one?” Carol asked.

I was about to tell Carol it was 505 when a voice suddenly interrupted from her end.

“Talking to your e-girls again?” the boyish voice asked.

“I’m in a call with my online friends,” Carol sighed. “They’re not e-girls, for Christ’s sake.”

“Whatever,” he answered. “Anyways, wanna watch a cartoon review video with me?”

“No,” Carol told him. “Would you please mind your own business and not dox yourself?”

Carol muted herself for a bit.

“What was that?” Betty wondered.

“That was my little brother,” Carol responded. “He used a fake voice. He wanted to watch that fucking angry cartoon reviewer with me again.”

I unmuted myself.

“Just out of curiosity,” I started, “did any of you tell other people about the situation I had with Writer’s Delight I alluded to during our conversations?”

“Not me,” Betty reassured me. “I’d never snitch on you unless you gave me permission.”

All of a sudden, I was interrupted by a text from Otto.

Otto Singh (Wed, Sep 27 at 9:50 PM): You there? I really need some advice.

I’m busy right now, sorry, I thought and answered.

“Carol?” I prompted Carol.

“Me neither,” Carol added. “Though, I did tell some people close to the Writer’s Delight team from my publication about there being complaints from an unnamed girl.”

“Maybe that’s part of it,” I stated.

Nonetheless, a vague description of an anonymous woman didn’t seem like enough on its own to trace people back to me. I pondered for a bit when all of the sudden, I realized something.

Archer, my thoughts went. Maybe he didn’t say everything: after all, I didn’t tell him everything. But whatever I told him about a vaguely categorized group combined with Carol’s description might have been enough for people to put two and two together. 

And with that, I had some potential people to confront. 

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1536943448-lacey-chapter-35)

[talesfromasnarkylisa]

Lacey: Chapter 34

James: September 25, 2023

I took a quiz in calculus on Monday. Despite everything that had transpired with my editor responsibilities, online PR management, other courses, and Lacey, I was still fairly confident I passed this quiz well enough to keep my marks acceptable for my scholarship. Whether those grades would deteriorate further throughout the semester was another story entirely, but I was pretty safe for now.

Anyways, studying did keep my mind off whatever crazy things were going in the online writing world I lived in as Archer J. Likewise, editing the loonier drafts coming in from the aspiring writers that somehow slipped through the cracks of Music Refined’s beta readers was a good distraction from both offline stress and the insanity of the rest of my Internet dealings.

Distractions couldn’t last forever, though. I knew that I still had to get rid of Lacey - somehow. There were rumors she went to Vivian about the recent Writer’s Delight changes. I actually felt a lot of Lacey’s alleged complaints were valid. But that didn’t change the fact that she was an absolute grifter attempting to exploit the anti-intellectualism of certain crowds to climb up the writing world’s social hierarchy.

That’s not even getting into that Maria bitch. I had no definite idea who she was. However, the hints in her increasingly frequent hate comments pointed more and more towards her being Eleanor. 

On Sunday, Maria tried to send a grand total of three comments to the comment section of my video on Facebook’s Twitter ripoff. Then, they commented twice on Monday again. The five comments were part of a single diatribe Maria decided to split off because it was so long. I managed to gather a few new tidbits of info about her from the batshit creepy tangents the comments went on.

Firstly, I learned she was a woman. This was no surprise, as she literally had “Maria” as part of her username and used she/her pronouns. But given I’d met many people over the years with branding seemingly suggesting their opposite gender, this was pretty important information to lend credence to her potentially being Eleanor.

Second of all, Maria knew way too much about the call I had with Darian when he vented to me about Eleanor’s repeated attempts to continue her old relationship with him back in 2021. She quoted some exact lines in a way that no one could unless they had direct access to the call footage. Given that it was a private conversation involving no one else other than Darian and I, and Darian only ever sent her a recording of the call to get her to fuck off, there was definitely something really fishy going on with Maria when it came to that.

What tipped me off the most, though, was what she knew about Corianna and I. 

Back in late 2020, there were rumors that I was dating Corianna which were based on faked DMs purporting to be between the two of us. Fortunately, we both managed to shoot down the gossip pretty quick. That being said, neither of us ultimately wanted to expose the screenshot faker’s true online identity once we got him to confess it. As it turned out, he was just an edgy teenage boy who apparently had a psychotic episode at the time. Not being entirely out of it yet, he even sent us the medical records to prove it. Corianna and I somewhat pitied him despite his actions, so we let him go on the condition that he never speak of us again publicly. He never did.

I showed my online mutuals the evidence of Maria potentially being Eleanor. Darian seemed open to the theory, although he didn’t entirely let his suspicions of Nora Sixty go. Corianna was fairly onboard with it from the get-go, albeit not wanting to fully condemn Maria unless further proof came up. Oscar was pretty wary of both Nora and Maria, whereas Vivian thought we were all being paranoid and that we should just ignore them if they seemed that worrying.

In the meantime, I had heard from Oscar and Theodore that Lacey confronted the top Writer’s Delight editors about their editing policy and process changes. I wasn’t surprised one bit, as that sounded like exactly what Lacey would do. It would also provide a good opening for me to turn people against her, as Writer’s Delight was the popular free publication of Medium. But I wanted to make sure the claims were true, as the screenshots both provided didn’t show an exact email address from Lacey.

I DM’d Lacey asking her about the things that transpired between her and Writer’s Delight’s editors. 

Archer J (09/25/23, 7:09 PM): Hey Lacey.

Lacey Hannah (09/25/23, 7:10 PM): Hi.

Archer J (09/25/23, 7:12 PM): I heard that there was something going on between you and the Writer’s Delight people.

Lacey Hannah (09/25/23, 7:13 PM): …What something?

I then explained to Lacey the rumors I heard from my mutuals about her. After a good 10 minutes, Lacey responded with an air of hesitance. 

Lacey Hannah (09/25/23, 7:25 PM): Well, I didn’t spam the editors with threats to try and get them to change their minds. But yes, I did contact them regarding their overall decisions to be more hands-off. Archer J (09/25/23, 7:26 PM): What happened afterwards?

Lacey Hannah (09/25/23, 7:30 PM): Can’t say. Some stuff happened, but I promised not to say anything about it.

Of course she doesn’t trust me, I figured. This is gonna be a dead end unless I can pressure her into doing it.

I then realized that I didn’t need to get info about the Writer’s Delight situation by talking directly to Lacey. I could just ask someone else. Perhaps not the Writer’s Delight editors themselves (except for maybe Vivian), as my reputation among them still wasn’t particularly amazing. But they and the Music Refined people are pretty well-connected, and the latter seemed to like me more.

I decided to send an email to Micah. He and I had more exchanges with each other than I did with Tate, and I had already talked to Theordore. 

I was careful not to immediately start off demanding information on what happened to Lacey with Writer’s Delight, but instead made a vague recommendation for potentially getting her promoted to formal editor of Music Refined as well as asking for any potential mitigating factors so I could “help” her. This would hopefully require Micah to explain what went on between either Lacey and Writer’s Delight or at the very least, an unnamed publication with enough details about her behavior. Either way, the goal was to have something - anything - to turn against the young woman and burn her in-publication reputation to the fucking ground.

Afterwards, I answered a couple of Inez’s texts. I thought a bit about talking to Darian and Corianna about Lacey, but I didn’t want to make things awkward between the four of us. Humiliating her in front of them would require a much stronger case than what I had at this point. And after what happened the year before…I really didn’t want to go back to square one again.

(Wattpad version: https://www.wattpad.com/1534733310-lacey-chapter-34)